Responding to Bishop Hill re the Great Global Warming Swindle
March 11, 2007 | 4:54 pmI tried to respond to Bishop Hill on this question over at his blog, but squarespace ate my comment (a frequent problem on squarespace blogs that I think is caused by a bad interaction with my Flock browser). It was also around then that I discovered that copying the text I wrote in Flock doesn’t actually save it if I exit the browser when I’m running it on Linux. Grrr. So I’m posting it here instead. :-)
Frank,
I don’t know anything about the volcanos argument. Can you give me some links to support what you are saying? Which contributors are you saying have been repeatedly found to be unreliable? All of them?
For me, Lindzen and the maker of the documentary in particular. There aren’t actually a lot of contributors to the documentary with authority to challenge. At least two that I saw were weather forecasters and not climatologists. Some of the others do have authority but not in this field. At least one scientist that appeared claims they were misled and misrepresented, and they do in fact believe in man made global warming.
As far as the volcanos argument goes, I understand that the ‘documentary’ claims somewhere that volcanos emit more CO2 than humans. I don’t recall seeing this claim made personally, but I have only watched the first hour of the documentary so far. However, I have seen this claim relayed by two people who have seen it (one pro- and one anti- the documentary) so I have no reason to doubt it. It is also a very common argument of the type offered by AGW deniers (as were some of the others offered by the documentary).
The problem is (assuming they said this) it’s not true. According to the US geological survey, human activities result in more than 150 times as much CO2 emissions as volcanoes each year:
Scientists have calculated that volcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year (Gerlach, 1999, 1992). This estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes, about in equal amounts. Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 22 billion tonnes per year (24 billion tons) [ ( Marland, et al., 1998) - The reference gives the amount of released carbon (C), rather than CO2.]. Human activities release more than 150 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes–the equivalent of nearly 17,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 13.2 million tonnes/year)!
Volcanic Hazards: Gases (sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, hyrdogen chloride, and hydrogen fluoride)
And of course, if someone claimed that 17,000 additional volcanoes might change the climate, it would not seem like hubris.
Another error in the documentary is in relation to the 800 year lag between temperature rise and CO2 rise:
There is some evidence to suggest that the rise in carbon dioxide lags behind the temperature rise by 800 years and therefore can’t be the cause of it.
The Great Global Warming Swindle from Channel4.com
This (”therefore can’t be the cause of it”) is not a scientific error but a logical one. If I have to push a car 800 metres to get its engine started and it is later found doing 70mph on the motorway, that doesn’t mean that the engine is not responsible for its speed, even though it could not have been responsible for the first 800m of acceleration. And in fact CO2 is thought to be an amplifier of warming and not a cause of it, so it is also a strawman.
technorati tags:globalwarming, channel4
First of all, as for the Volcanoes...Those measurements taken by
Tyler Person | March 22, 2007 | 6:39 pmFirst of all, as for the Volcanoes…Those measurements taken by the US survey thingy only sampled one volcanoe. That volcanoe also happens to be a dormant one. Of Coarse, an active volcanoe will emit much more CO2 and other gases. In addition, the survey did not consider erruptions, which emit HUGE amounts of CO2. So, actually the claim made by the video is correct, the survey has major flaws.
Second, in response to your lag arguement: FALSE ANALOGY! That’s really all I have to say to counter your rather weak arguement. If you’d like though, I could give lots of other false analogies to tear the theory of human caused global warming apart…either way, just so we are playing by the same rules.
Tyler, "First of all, as for the Volcanoes…Those measurements taken by
Frank | March 22, 2007 | 8:08 pmTyler,
“First of all, as for the Volcanoes…Those measurements taken by the US survey thingy only sampled one volcanoe. That volcanoe also happens to be a dormant one.”
Because you say so? Where’s the evidence?
“Second, in response to your lag arguement: FALSE ANALOGY! That’s really all I have to say”
Well no, you also need to say why. It’s pretty easy to say ‘false analogy’, demonstrating it is another matter.
But I think you may find it a little difficult in this case as I was giving a counterexample, and not making an analogy.
Frank: I am skeptical toward AGW due to the complexities of
Tim Ehrich | April 15, 2007 | 2:14 pmFrank:
I am skeptical toward AGW due to the complexities of global climate. It appears a great deal of certainty has been attached to a great many uncertainties. I watched The Great Global Warming Swindle and found many of the arguments worthy of discussion. In particular, the T driving CO2 argument is compelling.
The first question I had was how accurate are the records/samples upon which this T driving CO2 theory is based. It seems that 800-years is small in the time scale and I am not certain of the margin of error of the CO2 and the temperature records and the method of correlating them. The Vostok core samples are readily available on the web but I am having difficulty finding the corresponding temperature data. Any suggestions?
I believe the scientific method has taken a back seat to ideology. Credibility seems to have become more important than the science. Admittedly I possess a wide streak of idealism and believe the science should speak for itself. Of all the points made in TGGWS the linkage between funding and ideology was the most disturbing.
We are proposing to expend tens if not hundreds of trillions of dollars on the theoretical solutions of a theoretical AGW. I am willing to be convinced but not based on a concatenated version of the scientific method.