Re: increased CO2 levels, perhaps the electricity generation industry should switch to nulcear power

Jennifer maybe a start would be those scientists who appeared on late Nite Live that talked about the Murray river. Why not google their names contact them and see if they would debate you over your claims on this forum.

BTW as a lay person I don't enter debates about GW as anyone who has been in debates with Creation Scientists know it is so easy to misrepresent facts/data references and make claims that have no scientific foundation look plausable. It often gets down to a he said, she said debate.

I would rather leave it up to the experts.

The thing I'm interested in is how confirmation bias effects our reasoning especially without us knowing it. Also what happens when it approaches massive group think proportions in academic institutions and what current academia does to avoid what happened with eugenics and Victorian women. My guess is that nothing is done and if thought about it is only something that happened in the past and couldn't happen now. But that is not to say that indeed it is happening now!

That is why i think this debate will need input from cognitive/social psychologists for their viewpoints on cognitive and social bias. But having said that I know of one far right wing psychologist who thinks that the mainstream psychologists are biased left wingers and that homosexuality is indeed a mental disease

Neohuman,

I understand that confirmation bias occurs when we selectively notice or focus upon bits of information which tends to support the things we already believe. Confirmation bias is important when it comes to issues of faith, or tradition – but should be very susceptible to empirical evidence.

By this I mean that knowledge as opposed to faith can be tested through an evaluation of the evidence. This distinguishes science from religious belief. To quote Thomas Huxley writing in about 1860 “a religious idea can not be subject to scientific proof … (in contrast) science and her methods are independent of authority and tradition.”

I often pondered the extent to which Australians seem to expect facts and figures in commodity report, from super fund managers, from economists, but not, it seems from leading environmentalists. For example, when celebrity scientists write that water quality is deteriorating or local temperatures increasing, basic data/graphs/figures are never/rarely presented. There is a tendency to completely believe what is said, believe the testimonial without asking for basic supporting information.

cheers,

Well done Jennifer.I think your article was soundly based and well written. Concise and logical as usual. But I have 2 questions for you, and anyone else who cares to respond.
1.Can someone point me to the actual validated research that has been done,or calculated,to establish that 380ppmv of C02 (0.038% of the atmosphere)can be heated by reflected radiation to the extent that it will heat the troposphere and thence the ground level.

2 If the sun is partially responsible as many now believe, how can such small variations in energy of w/sqmetre falling on the earth cause such temperature variations.

bigmal

This thread encapsulates a number of recurrent themes in environmental debate that seems to warrant recognition and comment.

1.The strong resistance of advocates of purported environmental problems to any evidence or suggestion that a problem may not be as bad as is being claimed. Possible good news is greeted with anger and denial but never with hopeful interest.

2.Throughout recorded history doomscryers have perennially prophesied immanent disaster with an almost perfect record of failure. Bad things do happen but rarely is it anything foreseen. Despite the power and prestige of science the track record of scientists in prophesy has been equally abysmal. The Club of Rome Report, Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb, and the Y2K problem are but a few of the better known failed prophesies that in recent decades were accorded wide credibility by both the public and many scientists.

3.The claim of authority where none exists. In this instance it’s a proclaimed science of climatology with purported expertise in predicting future climate changes. Climatology is in fact only a recently coined label applied to a disparate group of researcher attempting to understand and predict the very poorly understood possibilities of anthropogenic effects on global climate.

4.The demonstrably false claim of scientific consensus with an implication that all or nearly all credible scientists are in agreement. The claimed consensus is predominantly a relatively small group of researchers actively studying the possible effects of anthropogenic climate change and a very large number of biologists who have subscribed wholesale to something about which they are poorly informed but which lends some sense of urgency and importance to their own studies. Among meteorologists and geologists, who are the scientists best equipped to understand and have insight into climate change the support for global warming is nowhere near consensus.

5.The false claim that recent warming is unprecedented. Here we are talking about a half a degree global warming over the period of a century. This is a figure derived from averaging millions of measurements adjusted by guesstimate for the urban heat island effect that has greatly increased over the century. Then this is compared with a relative handful of proxy records from the past. Could anyone seriously believe that all this is accurate to within a half a degree Celsius?

What is apparent from proxy records from all continents is that there has been a millennial scale cycle of warming and cooling that coincides with a Roman warm period followed by a cooler dark ages, then a medieval warm period succeeded by the little ice age and that we are now entering another warm period. Both proxy data and historical records indicate a medieval warm period that was somewhat warmer than at present.

6.The focus on CO2 to the exclusion of other climatic modulators and the assumption that any increased CO2 must result in increased temperature. Water vapor has two to three times the greenhouse effect of CO2 and is much more variable but is rarely mentioned. Clouds, vegetation, aerosols, snow and ice cover and other factors all have important climatic effects. We not only don’t know the effect of increased CO2 we don’t even know if its level in the atmosphere is the cause or the effect of accompanying temperature changes in past climatic records. The atmosphere of Mars contains almost 30 times the concentration of CO2 as does Earth yet it has an average temperature nearly 90 degrees lower than Earth.

7.The total focus on possible negative consequences with no consideration of any of the likely benefits.

8.The treatment of computer models as proof. The current penchant for computer modeling is remarkable. It appears that making some greatly simplified assumptions about complex phenomena and running a mass of guesstimates through such a model is believed to confer some kind of reality to the result. Moreover, the more dramatic (albeit unlikely) the result the more attention it receives. Typically in such models minor tweaks to inputs can have dramatic effects on outcome and considerable tweaking is required before they begin to produce outcomes one might consider as even possible. Although such models can be useful to gaining insight into the possible dynamics of complex systems they are very poor predictors of real world events.

In the end all the arguing will be for naught as the only way we can avoid the possibility of adverse effects from greenhouse warming would be to voluntarily engage in the certainty of massive economic hardship by drastically curtailing the burning of fossil fuel. Such would have to include curtailment of further economic development in lesser developed countries. Quite obviously this isn’t going happen and the predictions are going to be tested against reality.

What seems most likely is that some warming will occur but that it will neither be as severe nor as detrimental as predicted and that economics and advancing technology will impel the replacement of fossil fuels with a mix of renewable and nuclear energy.

bigmal,

I don't know of any references which will provide the information that you seek but I think I can give you some background. (I've omitted your questions in order to meet the word limit!)

Response to Q1: Warming of the greenhouse gases in the troposphere will cause them to emit long-wave radiation both upwards and downwards. (LW radiation is the process by which the earth cools at night.) The amount of LW radiation depends on the difference in temperature between two bodies, so given that the surface of the earth is warm(ish) most of the LW radiation heads off into space where temperatures are close to 0 Kelvin (ie. -273 C).

I've been told by a retired meteorologist that the net effect is that the troposphere emits more LW radiation than the greenhouse gases absorb. The troposphere would actually cool if it was not for heat energy coming up from the earth's surface via Hadley Cells and via the evaporation of water (particular tropical sea water).

Can the troposphere heat the earth? Not to much extent it would seem and the little bit of extra energy comes back up to the troposphere via the circulation mentioned above.

Response to Q2: If the sun is partially responsible as many now believe, how can such small variations in energy of w/sqmetre falling on the earth cause such temperature variations.

I believe that the W/sq metre varies with the seasons and it is this, combined with the change in the amount of daylight (ie. period of solar radiation), that gives us the difference in temperature.

Some researchers now consider that other solar emissions also play a part in earth's climate. One company in the UK makes good money from predictions based on solar particle emissions (see http://www.weatheraction.com/). Other researchers suggest that the 22-year cycling of the sun's magnetic field may also play a part. (Sorry but I can't think of a good reference at the moment. Try searching the web.)

I don't think I've answered your questions but hopefully I've provided some useful information.

cheers