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Post by socold on May 1, 2009 18:32:36 GMT
What is, specifically, the "AGW hypothesis"?
Some possibilities, but by no means are you restricted to them:
- that human activity has a net warming effect on climate
- that human co2 emissions have a net warming effect on climate
- that there will be (insert your figure here) warming by (insert your year here)
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Post by nautonnier on May 1, 2009 18:39:53 GMT
What is, specifically, the "AGW hypothesis"? Some possibilities, but by no means are you restricted to them: - that human activity has a net warming effect on climate - that human co2 emissions have a net warming effect on climate - that there will be (insert your figure here) warming by (insert your year here) Socold - its your hypothesis. If you don't know why ask people to tell you what it is? Strange that you have been arguing in favor of something even though you don't know what it is ....
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Post by socold on May 1, 2009 19:37:53 GMT
Ooh hijack, why don't you address the questions?
only joking. I'll tell you what I think AGW is - simply that human activity has a significant net warming effect on the climate - a significant one so that it will be one of the main (if not the main) players in forcing decadal temperature trends. I think that's pretty much the literal meaning of the acronym. Anthropogenic Global Warming.
What I want to know is what skeptics think AGW is when they use the term "AGW hypothesis", because I suspect we are talking at cross purposes. Perhaps you disagree with my definition for example.
For example if you think AGW says there will be more intense storms, we will have to agree to disagree. To me the validity of the hypothesis that a warmer world has more intense storms is independant from the validity of whether humans have a strong warming impact on the climate. Ie if someone thought human activity will cause 3C warming by 2100, but thought the effect of such warming would be a reduction in storm intensity, I would absolutely say they accept AGW.
Same goes for any other effect of warming. As long as you think human activity has a significant warming effect, you accept AGW. It doesn't matter what you think the impact will be.
Along those lines I do not believe AGW is a strict 'X amount of warming by (insert year here)' prediction. Why not? Because I think AGW is simply that human activity has a significant warming effect on climate. This can be true even if 'X amount of warming by (insert year here)' doesn't pan out. For example (an extreme one) humanity might be wiped out by 2020. But that wouldn't disprove AGW in my mind.
In fact I have issues with the acronym 'AGW' istelf. Really the theory I subscribe to is that doubling of certain greenhouse gases in our atmosphere cause significant warming. This doesn't have to be done by humans, this theory is simply about a gas in the atmosphere having a strong warming effect. The predictions of how much gases will rise and the effects it will have are not central to the validity of the gases causing warming.
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Post by jimcripwell on May 1, 2009 20:11:43 GMT
socold writes "What I want to know is what skeptics think AGW is when they use the term "AGW hypothesis", because I suspect we are talking at cross purposes. Perhaps you disagree with my definition for example."
So far as I am concerned AGW means that then you add CO2 to the atmosphere, world temperatures rise.
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Post by gettingchilly on May 1, 2009 20:29:01 GMT
"As long as you think human activity has a significant warming effect, you accept AGW."
I think the cooling 'consensus' would say that the word 'significant' is where we diverge. If you double CO2 then you will theoretically get a mild warming effect. The fact that the apocalyptic predictions require massive unproven positive feedback makes it a non starter for most non AGW people. If you told just the facts that CO2 doubling might cause a rise of 0.5C or so over a century, no one would care.
Now we are in a similar situation with the solar forcing. The recent temperature falls are in excess of what would be expected from the reduction in TSI (and of course totally at odds with the CO2 increases), so now the quest is on to explain the amplification via cosmic rays etc. I think the main difference between AGW followers and Solar followers is that we can honestly say that we really do not yet know the magnitude and mechanisms of the amplification but are open to ideas. AGW on the other hand is closed to any new ideas in case it upsets the apple cart.
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wylie
Level 3 Rank
Posts: 129
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Post by wylie on May 1, 2009 20:32:19 GMT
The problem with these definitions (AGW) is that water vapor is a terrific greenhouse gas and humans are definitely putting a lot of it in the atmosphere. Now, you would be correct in saying that it is a miniscule amount compared to the water that is evaporated constantly from the oceans but is almost certainly orders of magnitude greater than the release of CO2 into the atmosphere by humans. HOWEVER, over the desert regions, irrigation could very well have a significant impact (i.e. localized warming, especially at night). I think the jury is out on whether that is occurring but such a definition of AGW, i.e. that water vapor released by human activities over previous very dry regions contributes to localized warming.
Such water-induced water could indeed be a real effect (not sure). HOWEVER, this would certainly not imply a need to regulate CO2. It is the regulation of CO2 that I object to. I believe that on balance CO2 is a positive for humanity (and certainly the use of high intensity energy).
Of course, all of the above is without references, but I thought it might help anyway.
Iwylie
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Post by nautonnier on May 1, 2009 22:25:11 GMT
The problem with these definitions (AGW) is that water vapor is a terrific greenhouse gas and humans are definitely putting a lot of it in the atmosphere. Now, you would be correct in saying that it is a miniscule amount compared to the water that is evaporated constantly from the oceans but is almost certainly orders of magnitude greater than the release of CO2 into the atmosphere by humans. HOWEVER, over the desert regions, irrigation could very well have a significant impact (i.e. localized warming, especially at night). I think the jury is out on whether that is occurring but such a definition of AGW, i.e. that water vapor released by human activities over previous very dry regions contributes to localized warming. Such water-induced water could indeed be a real effect (not sure). HOWEVER, this would certainly not imply a need to regulate CO2. It is the regulation of CO2 that I object to. I believe that on balance CO2 is a positive for humanity (and certainly the use of high intensity energy). Of course, all of the above is without references, but I thought it might help anyway. Iwylie Absolutely Since the Paul Ehrlich 'Population Bomb' the 'deserts have been turned green' by irrigation. To such a degree that the fossil water from deep aquifers is being used in cubic kilometers (google: "cubic kilometers" "Fossil water" irrigation ) If you want anthropogenic global warming effect look at that as water vapor has far more effect than CO 2 and remember that twice as much water vapor is emitted by burning fossil fuels than CO 2
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Post by sigurdur on May 1, 2009 22:25:44 GMT
IMHO Getting chilly hit the nail on the head. The amount of change in temp ascribed to co2 increase does not bear fruit under careful examination.
The more we learn, for those of us who still strive to learn, the more we realize how much there is to know.
The problem with the ardent AGW believers is they think they have all the answers, and refuse to accept how dumb they really are. Empirical evidence seems to be useless to them. What a hoot really.
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jtom
Level 3 Rank
Posts: 248
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Post by jtom on May 2, 2009 4:06:41 GMT
I interpret the "AGW hypothesis" to be"
Human activity is having a SIGNIFICANT and IRREVERSIBLE, net warming effect on the climate, primarily via CO2 emissions, and the warming will have a devastating effect on man and the environment.
Not only do I reject the entirety of that statement as unproven, and at our current level of understanding of the climate, unprovable, I hold that if man is warming the environment, GOOD. We can deal with it and it beats the heck out of the alternative. Earth has a bad habit of slipping into ice ages which could wipe us out completely.
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Post by rbateman on May 2, 2009 4:17:44 GMT
CO2 warming is no more measurable above the background noise than is TSI cooling. Neither one is significant. If you don't know what noise is, go out, blow $20k on a imaging scope, $10k on a camera, and try your hand at making Hubble-like pics on your 1st night out. 5 years later, when you've gotten your degree in real live sampling and data reduction, come on back and tell me what you think of C02 warming and TSI cooling in light of your experience and the data you see before you. You'll be hmppffing too. Now that you can actually read data without someone holding your hand, look around and see what's left out there to explain a cooling globe. As always, should any of your IMF efforts land face down in the mud of insignificance, pull yourself up, get back out there, and do your duty.
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Post by rbateman on May 2, 2009 4:30:22 GMT
You got it, jtom. In the meantime, there's plenty of Superfund work to keep them out of trouble. I don't know what got into them abandoning that worthwhile cause. Now they want porkbarrel money to study baked biosphere theories. Jeez. Most of us are worried about our jobs. These lazy AGW loafers upped and quit.
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Post by steve on May 2, 2009 12:13:06 GMT
Discussions here are becoming ideological battles.
I don't think any of the "AGW proponents" here claim, as cores to our arguments, that large or catastrophic impacts of warming are likely in the short term. Nor are we strong advocates for mitigation activities.
Yet we are painted as being in the exact same camp of people that believe that hurricanes will grow stronger, arctic ice will melt by 2013, sea levels will rise 7 metres by 2100, unless we shut down world industry and kill the poor by 2020. This camp is mostly only occupied by the more extremist or less knowledgable member of the environmentalist movement.
Since some "sceptics" here feel they are engaged in some sort of war to save civilisation, any sort of measured discussion of even the most innocuous of "pro-AGW" findings appears to be impossible, while any bit of barking nonsense such as Miskolczi and G&T is defended at all costs despite the fact that they are in direct contravention with the views of the relevant sceptic scientists.
I've done my fair share of investigating both sides of the arguments as I've gone on, and have modified and improved my understanding as a result. I am beginning to feel though that there are a number of outspoken people here though who will probably benefit from accepting that both sides in the wider debate are adept at producing propaganda - not just the "AGW" side.
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van
Level 2 Rank
Posts: 59
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Post by van on May 2, 2009 12:51:58 GMT
AGW is not what I think it is, Its what I know it is , "ITS WRONG PERIOD"
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Post by sigurdur on May 2, 2009 13:31:20 GMT
SoCold: You have a valid point that both AGWers and people with a brain take climate variations to extremes. The diff between the two tho, is that AGWers want to tax carbon and keep telling us that co2 is the ONLY reason that temps have increased in the past 100 years. The people with brains that can reason see the small temp changes as natural variability in the climate, which upon examination is so plain it is beyond comprehension that anyone can't see it. We also are not excited about taxing carbon as the reasons for doing so are so stupid.
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van
Level 2 Rank
Posts: 59
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Post by van on May 2, 2009 13:37:06 GMT
I tried to post a simple 3000 year temp graph to prove the point ( I haven't figured out how yet). But as any true believer, you will deny any data that disproves the theory of AGW. To you or any believer - just deny the facts in the geologic and historic data.
But besides that point explain to me in simple terms how one component (CO2) that is only about 1/70th the amount of the major GHG (H2O) and only has a tiny fraction of the absorption freq range of H2O and re emits at a diff freq than it absorbs at - then has such an overwhelming effect on atmospheric temperatures?
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