My boy Sherman! Let’s step into the Wayback Machine…
The most persuasive argument that AGW-apologists make to the public and the media is to supposedly “correlate” carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere with global temperatures. “Carbon dioxide goes up, temperatures go up. You’d have to be a moron not to understand the relationship! And we’re dumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than ever! Run away! Run away!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
On the verrrrrry long term, geologic scale, it’s pretty damn clear that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and the mean temperature of the planet are unrelated. It’s much the same as the terms “decorum” and “Hollywood starlet”; the two concepts may occasionally overlap, thanks to the law of averages, but they pretty much go their own separate ways.
It’s also telling that, in geologic terms, we’re on the lower end of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. I don’t know what the hell kind of technology the Slate Rock & Gravel Company had access to 150 million years ago, but it’s reasonable to assume that mankind’s predecessors didn’t have the capability to increase carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere by almost an order of magnitude, compared to current times.
If you point out this inconvenient truth to AGW apologists, their response is – typically – a mighty hurumph, followed by a pious, and somewhat patronizing, declaration that the planet’s climate is a complicated thing and there are forces at work here that mere mortals like you and I can’t possibly understand. Which is kind of the point. There are forces at work that we can’t, or rather don’t yet, understand and it’s the very definition of hubris to pretend that we do.
There were, of course, a lot of things going on in the atmosphere and on the surface of the earth millions of years ago that may have – emphasize “MAY HAVE” – played a role in determining planetary climate trends. Methane, for example, is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Was there a lot more methane in the atmosphere millions of year ago? Probably there was. Did that radically influence the planet’s temperature? Possibly, but then the planet also cooled when methane concentrations were higher than today. And God Only Knows how dinosaur flatulence may have warmed the planet. Hell, one rip by a brontosaurus may have caused a heat wave over the entire North American continent.
Still, when you examine this graph, it’s clear that temperature of the planet drifts down from time to time, and then climbs back to a relatively stable norm, for reason or reasons unknown, and for reasons that are clearly unrelated to carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. But that’s the very, very long view. What about recent trends? That’s what AGW apologists focus on. Do those trends tell a radically different story?
We shall see…
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Ok, I liked Part 1, but this one has too many numbers and ‘zoics for me. I’ll just take your word for it.
Man made climate change = foolishness. Thanks
Don’t sweat the numbers, blackhawk. Just look at the black and blue lines. Now, our brains like to find patterns, so you’ll see, in the middle of the graph, the two lines go down together. But like Rich says, that can happen by chance. Check out the left and right ends of the lines, and you’ll see them moving in opposite directions.
No apparent correlation, never mind causation.
“Hubris” is exactly right, Rich.
Call me crazy, but I’m betting that our main climate driver is the big bright burning fireball in the sky — that warms our planet so much that without it, we would all die. Yet, I’M the radical. OK.
Who said “that’s so stupid, only an intellectual could believe it”? So true.
It stuns and depresses me almost daily how some of us are so easily convinced by b.s. arguments and weak evidence. Because of ignorance, basically. And therefore completely unprepared to judge … just about anything.
Jeff, I believe it was Orwell who said that.
And speaking of Orwell, is it too late to award him the title of “Prophet”?
“Correlation doesn’t mean causation.” It’s one of the first things I learned in high school science class, yet man-made global warming proponents still haven’t figured it out.
Even the proponents have begun calling the phenomenon “climate change” rather than “global warming.” First step toward forgetting the whole thing? One might hope so.
Welcome to Threedonia Delores!
If you click the Google Ad to the right for National Geographic… they tell you that Rich is wrong. Don’t cross Nat’l Geographic Rich! I’m kidding of course… but do click the ads.
As I’ve pointed out – repeatedly – on my site and elsewhere, global temperatures have been lower in the last 3 million years than they’ve been for 90% of earth’s history. Also, there’s an obvious correlation between low temperatures and massive extinctions. Conversely, higher temperatures tend to correspond with massive explosions of life. This is something else the hippies haven’t figured out: A warmer, wetter world is better for everyone, but, of course, what they’re really concerned about is frizzy hair.
A warmer, wetter world is better for everyone, but, of course, what they’re really concerned about is frizzy hair.
Close, Bot. What they’re really worried about is losing their Malibu beach houses and having to move further inland and live with the rest of us rubes.
Correlation is causation has been mocked for all of time I suspect. The best one I ever heard was that a researcher tracked the birth rates in West Germany (This was in the 80s) and the annual rate of stork migration over West Germany. Seems like the trends lined up, positive correlation. Conclusion! Well, of course, storks do indeed deliver babies!
And it gets better – a recent, peer-reviewed study tried to find the correlation efficient between CO2 and temperature in the last 50 years and finding none, concluded that the warming ‘signal’ has been obscured by other, well, inconvenient things like natural processes and we might not get significant warming until after 2020! However, since the authors were ‘warmists’ they pleaded that their conclusion should not be taken as a call to inaction because when the warming signal re-emerges after 2020 (with no explanation of why it would), the Earth’s gonna heat up pretty damn fast! So, Cap and Trade! Now!
And check out this press release on a study recently published in the journal Nature:
“To date, however, it has not been possible to quantify the influence of the cloud lifetime effect on climate. The estimates vary hugely and range from no influence whatsoever to a cooling effect that is sufficient to more than compensate for the heating effect of carbon dioxide.”
http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/documentation/pressReleases/2009/pressRelease20091006/index.html
That should have read ‘correlation coefficient’, of course.
I love this series! Thanks, Rich!
Regarding methane, as long as Kriskey is around I don’t think we have anything to fear about reaching critically low atmospheric levels.
Well, you know what they say about guys with enormous carbon footprints, Rufus…