"Human civilization has flourished for the last 8000 years precisely because of a benign and stable climate in many parts of the world, a climate which was the result (if Ruddman's hypothesis is correct) of human activity (warming) balanced against the natural cycles of the earth in its orbit around the sun (at present, cooling)."

Huh? Ok, in the sense that the Earth didnt boil up like Venus, mankind can be said to have benefitted from a stable climate- but I think its a pretty speculative assumption to claim that either the Earth has been particularly stable over that period or that that had much to do with the success of our various civiliations.

If a stable or mild climate was the key to human success, why then did tempestuos Europe lead the way in the advent of modern civilization? Why didnt the Aztecs enjoying the beautiful Pacific coast thrive and the Germanic tribes freeze? It seems to me that if climate is incredibly complex, mankinds relationship to it is even moreso. Humans seem to thrive in all sorts of radical climate variations.

The only way to make this argument is to assume it is likely that the earth could be radically different in global climate on the time frames in question, and that has always been the sticking point between the pragmatic investigators of global warming and the alarmist activists. The only way AGW is a danger worthy of massive resource reallocation is if climate change will be abrupt, radical, and destructive beyond our ability to manage it- and magically all the activists scenarios manage to migrate to that outcome. But that doesnt mean its realistic, much less that humans have been particularly 'lucky' over the last 10,000 or so years (aside from a catastrophic asteroid impact etc of course).

Mark, read Ruddiman's paper for the argument on what the climate would have been like without agriculture. Ruddiman qualifes as a careful investigator.

While there has been variability, obviously, on a smaller scale (such as the cooler/drier period that probably pushed humans to begin agriculture in the first place as hunting became harder), we've had nothing like the rapid changes that could be expected. To quote Ruddiman, "humans stopped a glaciation". Another ice age would have made civilization as we know it impossible.

Yes, alignment of current with past cycles is a critical part of doing this science correctly. Fortunately, as Lovett notes, the lowest couple feet of the Vostok ice cores give data from the last period in Earth's history that most closely aligns with our current place in the 3 cycles (axis tilt, precession and ellipticality of orbit) that determine cooling and heating at a macro level. Those samples confirm Ruddiman's analysis.

I linked to realclimate.com to illustrate that even those who have held the "it all started 200 years ago" theory are taking Ruddiman's analysis seriously. It's not my field of expertise, but judging from the impact his recent analyses have had, he's on sound footing.

Molone,

When you use the phrase "politically correct" to modify climate theories at the beginning and end of your post, you raise suspicions that you are on a hunt for theories that are not "politically correct." Good science requires you to follow the facts, not search for facts that will support or refute a theory that you like or don't like because of its political implications. Such a search inevitably leads to a selective use of facts...or an outright selection of facts.

Your search reminds me of those who oppose the theory of natural selection and are out on a scavanger hunt for odds and ends that will support some alternate theory that they are more comfortable with. It's an odd way to approach the inquiry.

Either you missed my point or I wrote in a less than clear way. Heidi Cullen wishes to enforce a politically correct view with regard to climate change on meteorologists who do weather broadcasgts. Fumento appears to relish being politically incorrect for its own sake. In contrast to both of them I put forward an example of a much more responsible and effective way to critique a currently popular theory while advancing our understanding in useful ways.

I'm on no mission to find theories that are either politically correct or politically incorrect. I'm on a mission to find out about the best science being done so that I can base my opinions regarding important policy issues as much as possible on well-founded theories and carefully documented and analyzed facts.

Unfortunately, it's not obvious that the same thing can be said for some who are advocating major policy action with regard to global warming -- or for some who have what appears to be a knee jerk reaction against the same.

The world of meteorology / climate studies does have an unfortunate political element. Consider this news article:

Millions of Swiss francs have been embezzled from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), according to an internal audit quoted by the Swiss press Monday. Maria Veiga, the official who probed the scandal from 2003 to 2005, before being fired by the WMO in November, told Le Matin newspaper at least part of the missing 4.3 million Swiss francs (2.65 million euros) went to buy countries' votes.

"Part of the 4.3 million francs embezzled was designed to finance the election campaigns for the post of secretary general," Veiga told the newspaper.

The Geneva-based WMO is a specialized agency of the United Nations, and an authoritative voice on the state and behaviour of the Earth's atmosphere.

It's the last clause that matters here. The UN body that claims to speak authoritatively on climate change may well be - and based on other scandals about UN corruption, this seems credible -- corrupt at the top. In such an organization, it's not hard to suspect that corruption also might influence climate analyses, given their major economic implications for various countries and industries.

Add in the Oscar nominations for Al Gore's film and the politicized nature of the climate change debate seems pretty evident to me. All the more important that we have mature, well-grounded and well-reasoned hypotheses such as Ruddiman's as an alternative basis for policy discussion.

Ruddiman's critique may embody the points you claim- but that is not supported by anything provided in the post.

Frankly, it looks like you're knocking down a "popular theory" in the same way that I might point out that, while the popular theory suggests the Industrial Revolution began with the steam engine, historians in fact date the beginning to the increased sophistication of cloth manufacture and trading in England c. 1150.

I suspect this will all sort itself out in the not-too-distant future as the size of what is at stake becomes apparent to more people.

Molon,

I'm sorry, but I am just not buying your claimed stance of objectivity here.

You are confusing science with advocacy. You seem to dislike the advocates, those you call knee-jerks, those named Al Gore, those who think policy should be adjusted to try to reduce the factors believed to cause global warming.

You are using that dislike to claim that the science behind their advocacy is in need of review--or is itself politicized. I don't believe that is the case.

There is a mountain of good science that says 3 things:

1. the earth has warmed over the last 100 years.
2. the warming has accelerated over the last 13 years.
3. burning of fossil fuel contributes to both 1 & 2.

There's nothing murky about that.

Predictions about the future are murkier and there is less agreement among scientists about what might or might not happen, the range of possibilities and the liklihood of occurence.

After that comes all the advocates and politics. This seems to be your concern. How others use the science. Better science won't help. There will always be alarmists and there will always be those in denial. But the science will keep plugging away.

As the latest IPCC report will be out soon we will no doubt see some very heated debate about anthropogenic climate change.

While the theory you describe is interesting for those of us scientifically inclined, the general population will likely overlook it and policy makers are not helped by it.

The struggle before us is how to balance the claims of: (1) those wanting to tax the 'sin' of carbon in an attempt to reduce carbon emissions, (2) those who will want to use law or force to physically reduce the use of carbon fuels, and (3) those who think #1 and #2 are on a wrong track (for a myriad of reasons).

The #3 group above could conceivably use your referenced work to show that man has indeed been helping himself so far... so mankind should not be cast into purely evil terms (as is commonly practiced by certain groups.)

If oil and natural gas production is indeed peaking globally (say in a decade long window in which we currently find ourselves), that will mean even stronger growth for coal, the use of which has been growing strongly anyway. Thus the CO2 problem is likely to accelerate.

The potential exists for local, national, and international politics to change significantly, with lots of new bedfellows.

I'm waiting until after the SOU address, and the IPCC release a couple of weeks later, to go into more detail... and to see how blog-spheres-of-influence (such as W.O.C.) react to all of this. Will our policies and practices change?

sc and mark-

I'll point out that your responses to Molon are essentially religious in form, rather than scientific in any sense that I know it (and I speak as someone who, while unconvinced that the global warming we're seeing is as significantly anthropogenic as claimed, thinks we need to act as if it is because the risk of being wrong is just too great). There's a serious question in front of us, and it isn't as well established as, say, quantum mechanics. And in response to Molon's post,instead of making arguments, pointing at data or at others who have summarized arguments or data , you sure sound like you're looking for protestations of faith instead.

A.L.

But that's exactly the point mark, a 'mountain of good science' can and should be destroyed in an instant by one scientist who get's it right.

Good science routinely gets made obsolete by even better science. It's an essential part of the process. What's going on in the more politicized arenas however is that people are advocating revoking the credentials (i.e. stop listening) to people questioning the good science. When that happens you've thrown the whole scientific method out the window and changed over to orthodoxy.

There are credibility issues of course in who you listen to (how to seperate the crackpots from the real scientists) but solutions for that have existed for a long time now, the problem is those solutions are breaking down, or more accurately, aren't being applied properly when the issues are discussed in the general populace.

This really is an excellent, and thought provoking, example of proposed 'better science'. Whether it will replace the 'good science' depends on how the peer review and follow up work goes.

After observing this controversy for a few years now, I think the global warming debate as we know it has just about run its course, and will end not with a bang but with a slow, drawn-out whimper. The new Democrats in congress will romp with it for a while, which will only hasten its demise.

The huge grants will dry up, the activists will take their agendas elsewhere, and the field will shrink to natural proportions. Only then will we have a full assessment of all the honest science that has been done on this issue, minus the doomsday scenarios and the Lysenkoism.

At that point we will either have a good assessment of how human civilization has effected climate change, or we will have a new consensus, possibly one that says such change is incalculable or insignificant compared to natural mechanisms. Science, after all, has to be prepared for such reversals. Politics can't accept such things, it has to perpetuate its mistakes, or adopt new fantasies to justify old ones.

In pushing this into a policy debate, science runs right out of its area of expertise. International agreements will not stop global warming any more than they have stopped war, especially not agreements that place radical and inequitable burdens on nations. Such agreements will instead lead to increased hostility and finger-pointing.

The world would need a mighty compelling reason to conclude that climate change is a bigger threat than underdevelopment and poverty (and the wars that follow them) and they would need assurance that draconian policies will make things better, not worse. Hence Gore and his Doomsday scenarios, which have as their moral the idea that the choice is between privation (and rule by "international" fiat, politically congenial to the meddling class) and death. In a few short years such things will be looked on with derision, as we look back on the jeremiads of the 60s and 70s. Thanks to them, the debate will always carry that taint.

We're not going back to Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish, Short, and Cold.

A.L.

Your claim that my response was religious in form, while interesting, wasn't followed up by an explanation of how or why anyone else should see it as such. Obviously, my response was not scientific--it was not meant to be as I wasn't making a scientific point. I was and am arguing that Molon's post and subsequent defenses of the post are filled with transparent political motivations and, thus, deeply suspicious. Further, that his claims of objectivity are undermined by his own presentation.

There's a lot of doctor shopping goining on here. And it seems to be based not on a disastisfaction with the diagnosis, but a disastisfaction with the types of people who use the diagnosis to recommend distatesful remedies. To me, this seems plain silly.

A side question: why would anyone use anthropogenic instead of man-made. To me, this seems plain silly.

There is a mountain of good science that says 3 things:

1. the earth has warmed over the last 100 years.
2. the warming has accelerated over the last 13 years.
3. burning of fossil fuel contributes to both 1 & 2.

There's nothing murky about that.

Nothing I posted or linked to disagrees with that, mark. But neither is that adequate as a basis for making policy decisions -- and in particular, for detailed policy tradeoffs. Because there ARE tradeoffs inherent in any action (or inaction) we take with regard to fossil fuel use. The only question has to do with the nature and extent of those tradeoffs.

By refining in a significant way the previous models of climate fluctuation, one of the world's most respected paleoclimatologists has moved us closer to being able to identify and quantify those tradeoffs. Sounds like good science to me.

Nor am I against serious policy decisions on matters that affect climate change. I do, however, want them based on the BEST science we can muster.

why would anyone use anthropogenic instead of man-made.

Ruddiman uses 'anthropogenic' because it is the standard term in the research literature on this topic. That it seems "silly" to you says something about your familiarity with research in climatology, but not about the term itself or about its use by Ruddiman.

Google Scholar (not a full citation database of all the scholarly literature, but representative) lists these papers by Ruddiman. For those not familiar with scholarly research literature, one of the impressive things about his publications is how often they are cited in other works. And not just one paper, but paper after paper of his have been cited many times in the literature.

Ruddiman is no johnny-come-lately with a political ax to grind. He is a seminal scholar with a very distinguished research and publication career, now retired and in no need of research funding or other patronage. The care with which he analyzed the data and previous models, and the solid foundation for his new model, illustrate why he and his work are so respected.

Treefrog,

I think you missed my point, probably on account of my mediocre presentation of it.

I'm not suggesting that "settled" questions shouldn't be examined. Obviously, by its very nature, the scientific endeavor continually improves itself and that new theories--and improved theories--result from new information. That is the very essence of science.

I have absolutely no informed opinion of Ruddiman's theoy. From Molon's account it seems to have no direct bearing on the so-called debate about global warming. My compaint is that Molon's advocacy of this theory seems to be based only upon Molon's desire to debunk Al Gore's followers. This is not a good reason to take sides in a scientific enquiry.

To me, this is Intellegent Design all over again. "I don't like the implications of natural selection, so I shall declare the question open and anyone who challenges alternate theories I shall accuse of orthodoxy and intent to stiffle scientific debate."

If the science is bad, attact the science. But don't attack it because you don't like the conclusions or the purposes that other put it to.

When the science is a complicated and as full of variables as climatology it is easier to fact select to make arguments. I am very distrustful of those who promote or advance a theory when they are obviously motivate by political factors or forces.

Molon,

Read my post above to Treefrog. I have no complaints about Ruddiman's theories, if for no other reason, than I have no knowledge about his positions. I am not attacking him. My complaints have all been about your presentation, which I found to be politically-motivated and thus suspect.

I'm aware of the sadly frequent subsitution of anthropogenic for man-made. It's another example of how scientists are only human---oooops, I mean members a branch of the anthropodea.

mark, the desire to debunk Gore is something you are projecting onto me, not something I actually feel. I think Gore is a pompous ass who is obviously embittered by his election loss, but that doesn't make his advocacy re: global warming wrong.

Neither, however, does his fervor make it right.

What is missing in this whole back and forth is science that accounts for all of the data we have to hand so far about the various contributing causes of climate change over time. Ruddiman provides an important addition to that science. It remains to be seen how additional analysis and data reinforce or modify his conclusions about those forces.

Please refer back, again, to the place where I quote Ruddiman as saying that recent human activities are moving us into terra incognita with regard to the balance between the natural cycles of the earth's climate and human warming activities. That sure as hell doesn't sound like sniping at Gore to me.

If I may clear up what appears to be a misunderstanding, I made reference to 'politically correct' theories at the start of this post as a segue from the Fumento furor. Fumento prides himself in being politically incorrect, but he fails to persuade any but the already-fervently-converted precisely because he has nothing to offer beyond his vitriol.

On the other hand Ruddiman, a respected scientist, critiques a widely-held hypothesis about human contributions to climate change, but he does it by doing responsible, persuasive science. The point of my post is to contrast the two approaches.

I have absolutely no informed opinion of Ruddiman's theoy. From Molon's account it seems to have no direct bearing on the so-called debate about global warming.

Ruddiman's work significantly refines previous models for the causes of climate change, including the speed with which it has happened -- and therefore is likely to happen in the immediate future. Its direct bearing is two-fold.

First, it cautions that we should not be too quick to draw detailed conclusions about the benefits of policy decisions on the climate - either decisions to try to slow warming or the implicit decision to do nothing - based on older models. They are demonstrably inadequate insofar as they appear to leave out significant forces cooling the earth and also significant human-caused warming prior to the recent past.

And second, by refining the previous models, it offers a way to make better predictions about climate trends and the potential impact of policy proposals. If you read the 2003 paper I linked, you'll see that Ruddiman provides detailed calculations from which he drew his conclusions. Those calculations and the data they apply to are being examined right now and in many cases supporting and refining data are being integrated. Better science means better input into global warming policy decisions -- if it is recognized and heard.

Mark's comments #14 & 15 actually clinch the religious nature of his response. Let's start with:

"I have no complaints about Ruddiman's theories, if for no other reason, than I have no knowledge about his positions. I am not attacking him. My complaints have all been about your presentation, which I found to be politically-motivated and thus suspect."

Translation:

"I have no idea what I'm talking about here, and haven't bothered to check either the scientists' bona fides or his work. Nor do I have reason to suspect Molon Labe's credibility in this area based on past conduct or posts. I do, however, object to your post because it may come from a rival religion."

Then there's:

"I have absolutely no informed opinion of Ruddiman's theoy. From Molon's account it seems to have no direct bearing on the so-called debate about global warming. My compaint is that Molon's advocacy of this theory seems to be based only upon Molon's desire to debunk Al Gore's followers. This is not a good reason to take sides in a scientific enquiry."

Translation:

"Did I mention that I have no idea what I'm talking about here? Oh, good. I just wanted to add that I don't understand how the work I haven't read might have a bearing on the global warming debate. I also object to presentations of new scientific theories by people who might not like Al Gore (peace be upon him), based on my imagined reading of the motives behind their articles. I won't follow-up and read science that might be presented to me by such people."

No, can't understand why anyone might describe this as "religious...."

Molon,

I very much appreciate your latest post as it does indeed help to clear up some misunderstandings on my part. However, only to a certain point.

Let me go back and repeat something I wrote earlier. By contrasting the positions of Ruddiman with Fumento, you are confusing science with advocacy. By confusing, I don't mean to imply that you are confused, only that your argument confuses as a kind of rhetorical trick.

My very limited understanding of Ruddiman's work is based entitely upon your synopsis. That said, it is hard to understand from your synopsis how information regarding the speed with with pre-industrial agricultural practices affected climate change could have much impact upon our knowledge of the speed with which post-industrial industrial practices might affect climate change since the two practices in questions have little in common other than they are man-made, or for those who prefer their words all greeked up, anthropogenic.

You write that Ruddiman's work "cautions that we should not be too quick to draw detailed conclusions about the benefits of policy decisions on the climate -- either decisions to try to slow warming or the implicit decision to do nothing"

okay. how do we act upon this caution since we can't a) do nothing or b) take action? What's option c? Wait? Wait for more detailed information to draw more detailed conclusions. Isn't that "doing nothing?" But how long do we wait? Till we know absolutely everything there is to know?

Finally, your remarks about Al Gore only serve to further my belief that you do actually feel a need to debunk him and that a pre-existing political stance determines your choice of which scientists to listen to and which scientists to dismiss. As I said in an earlier post, I believe you are conclusion shopping, looking for the right one to suit your needs.

I hope I am wrong.

okay. how do we act upon this caution since we can't a) do nothing or b) take action? What's option c? Wait? Wait for more detailed information to draw more detailed conclusions. Isn't that "doing nothing?" But how long do we wait? Till we know absolutely everything there is to know?

We can do several things.

The scientists can go back and review their research and data in light of Ruddiman's analysis and see where his new insights make a difference in their predictions. Note that his analysis is NOT limited to the human contribution via agriculture. He ALSO modifies erroneous models of the natural cooling cycle the earth is in.

They are doing that right now, in increasing numbers.

The policy influencers can publicly admit that there is a lot more uncertainty about the trends than has been suggested by various media accounts about global warming.

We all can re-frame the policy discussion (about what to do right now) around the theme of uncertainty and risk management. AL nails it when he says that, while he has reservations regarding many claims about human impact on the climate, he also thinks it's prudent to act AS IF those claims are true, until such time as the science allows us to calibrate our actions better.

I agree, with this caveat: stressing our uncertainty should bring humility to our policy decisions too. That is, I am strongly in favor of incremental policy actions that appear to have a lot of "bang for the buck" because that's like buying insurance. If we turn out to need it, we'll need it badly and it will be too late to put it in place.

On the other hand, I am leery of putting into place hugely bureaucratic mechanisms that are open to political and economic gaming, at this point. We've seen the massive failures and corruption at UN agencies. Kyoto as written was (in my opinion and in the opinion of many Europeans I've talked with) an attempt by the EU to make itself more economically competitive by manipulating the ground rules for international trade ... as WELL AS being at least in part a sincere concern for future climate conditions.

But that is exactly the sort of thing we should be debating: how much risk to take vs. how much cost to incur in the face of uncertainty.

I have a question I've never seen anyone actually tackle, I'm wondering if anyone else here has bumped into this...and that is:

What, exactly, is wrong with global warming that it must be prevented at all costs?

Usually I just hear bad stuff about what it will do to humanity (rising sea levels, disrupted agriculture, etc). In that case, I'd think you'd just want to add up the economic cost of prevention and compare it to the economic cost of treatment and see which is lower?

However, what I can't seem to find is an analysis of the effects on the non-human ecosystem. I would think that the effect (except for a few very cold adapted species) would be a positive: more warm, shallow, continental shelf ocean area in particular. Striking is that fact that the planet has tended to be warmer than it currently is during most of the phases of history where lot's of new species showed up, just by my unscientific scan the timeline survey. I'd love to read a professional take on the subject.

I think us primates can take care of ourselves just fine if the planet warms up a nice, say 5 degrees C. I'm curious about the rest of the planet: good? bad? just different? Anyone actually looking at this seriously out there?

Treefrog, if no one else answers that question, I'll take a stab at finding relevant literature on it. But anyone else with expertise in this area, please chime in!!

For those interested, the Sturm paper which gives credence to Ruddiman's analysis is, I believe, this one. It's available online but not for free, I'm afraid; however the abstract and the papers that have already cited it may be of interest to those who don't have a university or lab license to get at the whole text of the article.

Role of Land-Surface Changes in Arctic Summer Warming

A major challenge in predicting Earth's future climate state is to understand feedbacks that alter greenhouse-gas forcing. Here we synthesize field data from arctic Alaska, showing that terrestrial changes in summer albedo contribute substantially to recent high-latitude warming trends. Pronounced terrestrial summer warming in arctic Alaska correlates with a lengthening of the snow-free season that has increased atmospheric heating locally by about 3 watts per square meter per decade (similar in magnitude to the regional heating expected over multiple decades from a doubling of atmospheric CO2). The continuation of current trends in shrub and tree expansion could further amplify this atmospheric heating by two to seven times.

The article reinforces Ruddiman's analysis because it verifies the impact of vegetation changes in warming the atmosphere. And Treefrog, the following paper from 2006 which cites Sturm's 2005 paper may be relevant to your question:

A Major Ecosystem Shift in the Northern Bering Sea

Until recently, northern Bering Sea ecosystems were characterized by extensive seasonal sea ice cover, high water column and sediment carbon production, and tight pelagic - benthic coupling of organic production. Here, we show that these ecosystems are shifting away from these characteristics. Changes in biological communities are contemporaneous with shifts in regional atmospheric and hydrographic forcing. In the past decade, geographic displacement of marine mammal population distributions has coincided with a reduction of benthic prey populations, an increase in pelagic fish, a reduction in sea ice, and an increase in air and ocean temperatures. These changes now observed on the shallow shelf of the northern Bering Sea should be expected to affect a much broader portion of the Pacific-influenced sector of the Arctic Ocean.

treefrog - good question.

Indeed, the weight of the "goodness" vs the "badness" of a warmer planet ought to be an input into policy decisions.

Occasionally I check out http://www.realclimate.org/ to see if anything interesting is there... and on occasion they report on the output of models showing temperature changes and precipitation changes.

I believe your question is simply to complex to answer with simple ups and downs. Rather, probabilities could be assigned to possible outcomes. But even that will likely leave you dissatisfied.

Thus the problem of policy. Whatever the state of the science of climate change, policies will be implemented. Thus decisions are being made, and will continue to be made, from ignorance.

In light of this, prudence would dictate a conservative approach, to protect the current state of the climate if at all possible, or as close to it as we can do. To proactively seek change without knowing the outcome is akin to gambling.

Joe,

I've heard of straw men before, but never before seen anyone go to such extremes to build one.

There's nothing "religious" about pointing out the political bias behind Molon's choice of theories to offer us. Now, if I had attacked Ruddiman's work itself because of Molon's choice, you might have a case--and your attack against me for admitting my ignorance of Ruddiman's work might have had a little teeth--but I didn't.

Molon slipped in a number of comments that make me suspect he's out shopping for that just right little scientific conclusion that will go well with the rest of his wardrobe. I thought it worth pointing that out because it has become a common trick. "Let's wait and see till ALL the facts are in before we make a conclusion since I don't like this conclusion." To me this is the wrong approach.

I grant you that it has no bearing on the merits of any one particular theory. But then I never said it did. You just said that I said it did. & that just ain't true, Joe. So try again.

This approach does, however, have a cumulative detrimental effect. Intellegent Design is not a bad theory BECAUSE people who advance it are politically motivated. It is a bad theory all on its own. (&, again, Joe, please listen carefully here: I'm nost saying Ruddiman's is or is not a bad theory.) But it is fair to point out when you suspect someone is looking for a particular conclusion as that is an intellectually delplorable habit to get into. And let's remember, we are talking about Molon here, not Ruddiman. Molon, I believe, is conclusion shoping. Not Ruddiman.

I mistrust Molon's claim that he has chosen Ruddiman to advance because Ruddiman's work is "objective." I think Molon likes the conclusions. And, AS A GENERAL RULE, that's not a good reason for chosing among competing theories.

If that is too religious a stance for you, then may God bless you and have mercy upon your soul.

Oh, mark, you really really do not want to read and respond to what I've actually written, do you?

You think I'm conclusion shopping, but do not acknowledge that I deliberately linked to a discussion of Ruddiman's thesis on a site that tends to promote the earlier hypothesis.

You continue to argue from your impressions of motives that you think might lie behind my post, without once acknowledging the range of data I present or my repeated insistence that I am interested in good science, not a pre-determined conclusion.

If that's not a (metaphorically) 'religious' belief, I'm hard put to know what is.

And the deep irony here is that Ruddiman's work, while it challenges aspects of the previous models (and hence conclusions drawn from them) does NOT encourage us to laugh off the potential problems with warming trends happening today. It DOES, however, raise some questions that should be considered by scientists and policymakers alike. If raising those questions, based on solid data and analysys, is troublesome to you, then that's another sign that you are coming from an emotional commitment of your own and not from an open mind based on science.

And for what it's worth, I'm not an Intelligent Design kind of person. Speaking of strawmen!!

mark #18 wrote:

it is hard to understand from [Molon's] synopsis how information regarding the speed with with pre-industrial agricultural practices affected climate change could have much impact upon our knowledge of the speed with which post-industrial industrial practices might affect climate change since the two practices in questions have little in common other than they are man-made...

mark, I think you bring up an excellent point; I will attempt to argue the opposite. Many years ago, I took an upper level undergrad class in "Systems Dynamics" with Prof. Dennis Meadows, co-author of the influential 1972 Limits to Growth.

Systems Dynamics was an early and influential attempt to use computers to model complex systems. The language in use at the time (late '70s) was DYNAMO. The process we used was the same as that employed for the "Limits" Club of Rome study, and it was driven by the same philosophy that undergirds the exponentially more complex global climate models used today.

To model a system (from memory, I'm probably skipping steps):

• Define it
• Propose the most important 'things'. They should be quantifiable; e.g. to model a cod fishery, "# of cod" and "# of fishing boats" would be a good starting point.
• Propose the most important causes of changes to 'things.' They should be expressed as quantified rates, e.g. "number of cod taken by fisherman per year" and "number of mature females that spawn per year" would be solid choices.
• Build a representation of the system under study, connecting the variable "reservoirs" and "rates" by equations.
• To the extent possible, compile historical data to provide a basis in reality for the model, e.g. "Annual cod catch 1925-1975" and "Number of fishing boats put to sea 1925-1975".

DYNAMO, like modern languages used to model GCMs today, is iterative. You set up equations, reservoir numbers, and starting conditions, then let the model roll forward, one calculation per time period (in this case, 1x/year).

• Almost always, early generations of the model will lead to results that look nothing like the historical data. For a lot of reasons. So the programmer looks at the printouts and figures out where estimates are wrong, or assumptions about reservoirs or rates need changes, or where additional complexity is needed to conform with reality. E.g., as cod get scarce, yield per fishing trip goes down, but boats spend more time on the water--except at some point fishermen go bankrupt and boats leave the reservoir... you get the point.
• Models get complicated fast, becasue reality is complicated.
• The programmer has to make a lot of estimates and a lot of guesses as to "actual" data (how many cod were really in the North Atlantic fishery in 1957?)
• Sometimes modelers need to put in workarounds, because otherwise the results can't be made to conform with the historical data. DYNAMO used "table calls" (e.g. you might use one to reflect the outside influence of WW2 on the fishing data).

You can see where this is going. For 2007 GCMs as well as for seventies DYNAMO fisheries, a "valid" model has to be able to "forecast" the historical record. In practice, the model gets to its current state by being tweaked in hundreds (fisheries) or thousands (GCM) of ways. But if unknown things were having large effects on the past record, then obviously the modeler did not include them in the model.

So in that case, you have a model that is better than the concepts that it is built on! But that's impossible...

How will the faults of such a model translate into its ability to predict future trends and events? That is, after all, the point of the exercise. These sorts of systematic errors might be very small, or large. In terms of using the model to make policy decisions--how do you know which?

This is why it's crucially important to get the relevant data from the past right. Raw data, in terms of temperatures, atmospheric C02, orbital precession, solar intensity, cloud cover... If there is an important factor that had a strong influence on a critical variable, as Ruddiman is saying, do the current GCMs already have this built-in, directly or indirectly? What does it mean if a model's retrospective 'predictions' conform beautifully to historical data even in the absence of critical moving pieces?

This is a feature of GCMs that, as a climatological ignoramus, I find worrisome. Given the way they are built and revised, if they had little predictive value, how would you know that they had little predictive value?

...now I will post without benefit of Preview and hope for the best...

AMac, systems dynamics modeling is alive and well, but as you note its use in many cases is hit or miss unless the relevant feedback loops are correctly defined and characterized mathematically.

In the case of modeling the various factors that affect climate change (hotter or colder), Ruddiman has pointed out specific ways in which the previous models did not correctly "predict" (i.e. account for) the undisputed data. That factor wasn't built into global climate models for future climate change because previously climatologists were assuming (in many cases) that the anomalies were due to non-repeating causes. Ruddiman argues that the mechanisms they were assuming couldn't produce those measured data and he proposes an alternative mechanism which he grounds in both the old data and newer data (such as information on the extent and rate of deforestation at various times).

His resulting model seems to fit all the data we currently have better than the previous model and on that basis I would say it's better. Lovett and others read Sturm's paper (published after Ruddiman's 2003 talk and paper) as subsequently validating one key assertion in Ruddiman's hypothesis. That too lends confidence in his model.

But that doesn't mean it's the last word on the topic. It can and should be examined critically and compared against new data that emerges.

Lest I be charged as an anti-warm-monger, here is a comment on global warming from 2002. I think this overall perspective is consistent with what Molon Labe has written here, and is not "conclusion shopping."

• For hundreds of millions of years ('Age of Dinosaurs'), the Earth's climate was stable and quite warm. This has been punctuated by a few million-year eras (Ice Ages), where the climate fluctuates between glacial intervals (ice covering much of North America and Europe and most mountain ranges) and inter-glacials (our current kind of climate). The last glaciation (Wisconsin) ended abruptly, 18,000-16,000 years ago.

• Ice Age climate is unstable. It's not clear why they start, and there are no powerful explanations of what triggers the end of glacial intervals, or the end of inter-glacials. Shifts in temperature can be abrupt during transitions, taking place over centuries or even possibly decades.

• The Earth's orbit is slowly moving into a phase, hundreds of centuries long, in which the climate is very likely to be warmer than it has been in the recent past (Oct. 02 Science article).

• Global warming in the last century is a real phenomenon, as judged by tree ring, ice core, lake-sediment pollen, ocean-floor sediment, and other studies. There are huge local variations and exceptions to the trend, which accords with our anecdotal experience of weather.

• Human activities have led to effects that are likely to be pronounced in causing warming, especially the release of CO2 from immobilized (fossil) sources. It isn't possible to clearly partition effects between human and natural factors.

Molon,

As I said, I could very well be entirely wrong in my belief about you. I have been very upfront that my impressions--as you rightly call them--are based only upon what you have written in this thread.

I am skeptical by nature. I've had very little experience on/of this site. Such as it has been, however, has led me to suspect "conclusion-shopping" around every corner. Perhaps my skepticism has grown toward paranoia in this regard. I am willing to be wrong and to stand corrected.

Fair enough!

Indeed, fair enough. For instance, I, myself am suspicious ranging toward paranoia when it comes to folks who object to scientific work without reading it or performing other examinations toward credibility. But such paranoia is not always justified.

I'll add that I was just at the NAMM music industry conference, and having a chat with a Scot and an Englishman, both in their 50s. The Scot was talking about how if he was 10 these days he'd slit his wrists, what with global warming and all.

To which I replied:

"Now I've heard everything. A Scot is telling me that large parts of England will be underwater soon, and the Highlands will be warmer in the bargain, and this DEPRESSES him?"

Molon

Thanks, that's the kind of data and questions I'd like to see being gathered/asked, and that no one really seems to be asking.

My current read on it, based on what little I've found so far, is that the most likely global warming scenario is that current cold zones will heat up, displacing species adapted to them with ones that are more competitive in warmer zones. Long term, we're likely to see more speciation to take advantage of the new striations of the climate map.

I'm having trouble seeing the point of the panic button here, if life were that fragile I don't think we'd be here now.

Even the worse alarmist aren't suggesting we're going to be boiling the oceans anytime soon. And if it is man-made in nature, well, that's actually kind of reassuring in a way, as that means it can be man-unmade by one method or another. (If it's natural on the other hand...)

Freeto

I understand the point of being conservative on these things. But if you/we/us/whoever is going to ask the world to spend countless billions of dollars to attempt to solve a problem without being sure of what's causing it, if the 'solution' will even affect it, and even if it actually IS a problem...it's going to be kind of a tough sell. Which is probably why nobody is actually doing anything about it.

It's like someone decided 1969 was the year the universe hit perfection and any changes from that are downhill.

Here's the question (and follow ups) I want to see answered...

Is there an optimal temperature (or range of) for the planet?

If so, what is it and why?

If not, why do global temperature variations (natural or manmade) matter? Is it the rate of change, or the change itself that is a problem?

I asked the first question to some guy who was giving a lecture and answering questions at an earth environmental display at the London Natural History Museum over the summer. Well, to be more precise, I asked 'Since global warming is a bad thing, that would imply we're moving away from an optimal temperature point, what is that point? 1950? 1850? 0? 10,000 BC? 100,000,000 BC?'

He didn't even begin to know how to answer. He'd obviously never even thought about it. Which is really sad, as am I way off base in assuming this ought to be the second question (behind is it actually happening)?

So far the only answer I ever get is the same as Freeto gave 'It's complex'.

My answer: So is putting a man on the moon. Is this, or is this not important? Why does no one seem to be working on this?

Joe,

we scots are hard to please. in fact, we don't much care for being pleased at all.

Treefrog, an initial search through some citation databases identified these as books and articles you might want to read:

Biogeochemistry : An Analysis of Global Change by Schlesinger. 1999, heavily cited, available in paperback. Very influential, used as a text in many courses but might take some long careful reading to be useful to you. I haven't read it so I'm not sure ...

The article Ecological Consequences of Recent Climate Change is available online from the British Library. Cited heavily, 2001.

Even more heavily cited is the 2002 article Ecological Responses to Recent Climate Change .

The 1999 article The ecological consequences of changes in biodiversity: a search for general principles" lays out, as the title suggests, some general principles for thinking about the impact of ecological changes brought about by changes in the climate. Again, a very heavily cited article available for purchase from the BL.

The article Assessing effects of forecasted climate change on the diversity and distribution of European higher plants for 2050 can be purchased electronically from the British Library and addresses a different area of the ecosystem than the arctic/marine biology of paper I cited earlier.

The 1999 article Effects of climate change on biodiversity: a review and identification of key research issues is also available from the BL and can give you authors, key words and a sense of the issues that you can then do more searches on.

Hope this helps. The issues you've raise are being addressed, but sometimes it's in fragmented bits of scholarship rather than high-level overviews. But in and among those studies are broader analyses such as the ones I've listed here. (But I gather the book is pretty detailed and technical.) If you purchase and read any of these, I hope you'll come back and do a guest post or a comment with your take on them.

Molon Labe: Very well written piece. There was nothing confusing about it, but I read the printed words and not all of the secret inferences in the spaces between.

TreeFrog Question (#20): I am generaly of like mind about weighing costs and benefits, which is a problem in the global warming debate where there are uncertain risks of potentially, albeit possibly remote, catastrophe. But your specific question about the relative winners and losers of global warming is not particularly helpful to me unless someone is prepared to answer this question first:

Who decides?

If the polar bear wins and the horned toad loses, who decides? If Canada wins and the U.S. loses, who decides? If the coastal areas lose and the interior wins, who decides? The U.N.? A plebocide? A council of scientists? War?

PD: Cynically and pragmatically, unless someone is willing to take it to war, the answer will be decided by China and India, and their pace of development and energy consumption. The developed nations' energy usage per head and unit of economic output has been trending downward for some time, and IIRC (too late and lazy to chase link) it has also turned downward on an absolute scale.

The only 'someone' with the resources to apply coercion of the required magnitude to change the development trajectory of the LDCs is the US. We are otherwise occupied, and I have yet to detect one scintilla of evidence that even the most enthusiastic followers of the millenarian view of warming have an intent in that direction.

The fate of the polar bears and the horny toads will be decided in Beijing and Delhi. Get used to it.

Not to say that we shouldn't be making efforts unilaterally, for many reasons. (Greater) energy independence has a merit all its own, as does ceasing to fund our enemies. As a techie, I see wisdom in the notions of buying our way out the learning curves on (solar, hybrid...) as a competitive measure and as an end of its own. So much the better if these goals evoke common cause with those whose rationales are more, um, religious - I can't say I'm devoid of that motivation myself, and common causes have been thin on the ground lately.

But we're going to have to get over the notion that warming is going to happen or not based on our actions. We'd better start figuring out how we're going to adapt, and perhaps help the biosphere adapt, and that requires exactly the kind of critical modeling being discussed here.

(And Mark, re the Scots: Be as grumpy as you like, just keep making that whiskey...)

Joe,

Watcha doin' at NAMM? I don't suppose Defense Industry Daily sent you!

And regarding the Scottish outlook: haven't you heard the explanation of golf that goes, "The Scots believe that man was meant to suffer, and never more than when he set out to have fun"???

I highly recommend "The Skeptical Environmentalist" by Bjorn Lomborg to help understand the global warming discussion. There seems to be an abnormal amount of politics and hype injected into this topic.

Amazon.com link

The book is a well-vetted and easy-to-understand analysis of environmental topics, drawing conclusions by referencing numerous studies. It repudiates most of "the sky is falling" concerns.

If global warming turns out to be good for anything, then it was surely invented by the Scots-Irish, and there's bugger-all you can do to stop it.

Kirk, I've noted before that defense and the music industry sometimes go together:

• RG's Military-Industrial Electric Guitars
• The Axis of Elvis

Still, that isn't what I was there for. I was accompanying my wife, and wearing an employee badge from the company she works for. Deserved one, too, but that's another story. Interesting experience, anyway. Thought about taking a day to stroll around Disneyland while I was there, but would rather do it when she can come too.

Our Scottish and Welsh/British friend were both company employees as well, from the European group. They both laughed, and observed that I must have been paying attention in the bars.

Current thinking is that solar output has been a significant if not the major input to the current episode of global warming.

Scientist have measured global warming on Mars and another planet (Neptune I think).

Does Ruddiman account for solar variability?

A Geologist Looks At Global Warming

Which links to a site with NASA charts.

The earth has been much hotter. More CO2.

In addition it was warmer when ocean circulation was freeer. i.e. one continent.

Models with chunks 150 miles on a side do not do transport equations or mountains well.

We have no certainty if water vapor feedback is positive, negative, or neutral. Water vapor is probably the most significant greenhouse gas.

A model not derrived from fundamental factors but is tweaked so that the model matches history has limited predictive value. Suppose the wrong equations were tweaked? Suppose the equations are wrong.

The fact that models require so much tweaking says that climate is complex. Models are poor. Also with such big chunks the models are very subject to initial conditions. i.e. starting the model in 1860 vs 1861 makes a significant difference. If the model was good it wouldn't matter which year you chose for initial conditions.

The right filters can turn white noise into a symphony.

GIGO.

Did I mention that we do not have a significant amount of good data to work with?

Temperatures of air, water, upper atmosphere etc. Air circulation patterns. Jet streams. Ocean currents. etc.

Since the models are sensitive to initial conditions bad data or missing data (fill in the blanks) is a killer.

LGILGO - L = lots

And it won't be billions spent it will be 10s of trillions.

And the best question (already asked) is: what is the optimum climate? Do we optimize for polar bears or plant growth?

mark must be postmodernist. He is most comfortable considering motivations and relationships then he is actually understanding logic, facts, and science of an argument.

You see, logic, facts, and science are only social constructs and tools of patriarchal suppressors. mark only needs to understand your politics so he can figure out if you're "correct" or not. Your argument doesn't matter.

For #42 "And the best question (already asked) is: what is the optimum climate?" --- I think it is not that simple.

The problem for us, modern humans, isn't just what is "optimum" (whatever that is decided to be...), but how fast and through what methods will we get there?

Let's say Earth, as a life bearing system, is better (e.g., more living things) when the Earth is 5C warmer than it was in 1920. But if the changes happen in only a few decades, the side effects (raises in sea level and food supply shortages) will be disasters leading to mass human deaths.

It is a tough sell to any electorate, to ask them to think about someone else on another part of the globe. Perhaps it is too much to ask. So activists/alarmists try to come up with scenarios that will hit home. E.g., if the sea rises 1 more meter then New Orleans really should be abandoned. However, if simultaneously grain product increases in the upper Midwest, was that 1 meter rise worth it?

These are only hypothetical questions - I do not believe we who are living in a modern high energy-use society will be able to give up our lifestyle through our own choice. Nor do I believe the 2.5 billion people in China and India will give up their quest for a better life. Thus, investment opportunities in Coal (and associated rail companies) exist and are recommended.

Here is my challenge to the W.o.C. community : find alternative paths (policies, theories, talking points, and actual implementations) to deal with energy and climate problems, that will be reasonable and winning against the extremist/marxist/statist positions that opportunists are taking. Currently the web is dominated by extreme leftists and nihilists in these matters, and I am hoping that liberty-minded folk will band together to bring common sense into the discussion.

M. Simon asks:

Does Ruddiman account for solar variability?

Yes. It's central in his analysis. The glaciation that would have happened were it not for the unintended side-effects of agriculture is predicted precisely as a consequence of the 3 cycles of variation that affect how much solar radiation reaches the earth. Those cycles are: variability in the tilt of the earth on its axis, precession and variability in the elliptical orbit of the earth. The last glaciation melted due to those 3 factors being at a temporary high; however, what would have followed is predicted to have been another glaciation in a couple thousand years (a continuation of the cooler period the earth would have been in), were it not for the carbon dioxide and metthane released by human agriculture, coupled with deforestation.

ET #17, Lomborg's book is reportedly well-written. He is not, however, a climatologist. His PhD is in political science. Relying on him to trace political issues associated with the climate makes sense. Relying on him to critique scientific research is a lot more iffy IMO.

Challenge met and answered:

Easy Low Cost No Radiation Fusion

#45,

Those are the corrections I would expect. What I'm talking about is the fact that the sun is a variable star whose output fluctuates in UNKNOWN cycles of UNKNOWN magnitude.

Maunder Minimum type stuff which lead to the Little Ice Age.

Lomborg does statistics and other math very well.

Lomborg does do stats well. What he doesn't bring is expertise in which stats are predictive, and where the limitations are in data collection and interpretation.

I'd invite you to read Ruddiman for yourself and report back on the answers to your questions. There's a link in my comment #13 above to many of his most influential articles, so there's lots of info for you to track down if you're interested. I also plan to review his latest book once it arrives, as well.

> 1. the earth has warmed over the last 100 years.
> 2. the warming has accelerated over the last 13 years.
> 3. burning of fossil fuel contributes to both 1 & 2.

> There's nothing murky about that.

> After that comes all the advocates and politics.

Not so fast. That list is missing so many facts that it's useless.

For example,
(1) How much of 2 is due to 3?
(2) What is the effect of 2?
(3) What are the plausible consequences of 1? (It's not unprecedented - I'd like to see greenland green.)

mark,

I hope your objections have been addressed.

It seemed to me rather strange that someone who would ACCEPT the argument that

global warming can be linked to greenhouse gases released by increasingly greater amounts of human-originated INDUSTRIAL activities over an extended time period

would REJECT the argument that

global warming can be linked to greenhouse gases released by increasingly greater amounts of human-originated NONINDUSTRIAL activities over an extended time period

WITHOUT first reviewing the analysis and the data.

Perhaps :-) it's a Scottish thing?

bfartan, luker,

I NEVER rejected the arguments. Do you guys actually read the posts?

None of my posts had anything to do with the merits of Ruddiman's theories--or even with the relative merits of any of the thousands of theories about global warming.

My posts were merely questioning the motives behind Molon's choice of theories to advocate. My questions were based on some of the words and phrases he used in his presentation. I suspected he favored the conclusion. He's says not. I accept that. I'm not a mind-reader so I'll trust him. But, sheesh, is it a crime around here to suspect someone is looking at the politics rather than the science of the issue? Apparently, it is.

I explicitly stated that Molon's motives had no bearing on the merits of Ruddiman's theories. But apparently you two chose to skip over that, I guess because your posts wouldn't have been as much fun to write.

Andy Freeman,

I cannot believe you did that. In your quote of an ealier post of mine you took out a sizable piece of it and then tried to make the very point the missing piece addressed.

Not only that, you left in a portion that referred to the missing piece and tried to make it look as if I had been referring to something else.

That is low, man. Very, very, very low.

Here's what you conveniently removed.

"Predictions about the future are murkier and there is less agreement among scientists about what might or might not happen, the range of possibilities and the liklihood of occurence."

I then went on to say "After THAT", the THAT referring to the above, comes the advocacy and politics.

You then make the very points that were made in the portion you removed.

Wouldn't it have been easier to just have said, "I agree with mark?"

One other question: do you sleep well?

mark,
It is you that do not understand. Everyone may or may not have motives for advancing particular arguments. Being human, we all have our motives. The arguments should stand or fall on their own merits. Motive is not a factor except for postmodern deconstruction, which makes it the overriding target of any analysis.

If you do not wish to be lumped with deconstructionist ducks, might I suggest that you cease quacking?

But, sheesh, is it a crime around here to suspect someone is looking at the politics rather than the science of the issue?

It's not a crime, but if you want to be taken seriously your assertions should match the visible evidence to the contrary, including:

(1) a link to a major site on which arguments for the prior model are made extensively

(2) repeated statements, backed by specific quotes, that make it very clear that Ruddiman's work does not suggest we become complacent about climate change linked to human activity -- quite the opposite

(3) links to Ruddiman's work available for free, so that you can judge it yourself (I'm not looking for converts, just reporting research activity)

(4) links to influential papers regarding the effect of climate change on our ecologies, not one of which appears to debunk or downplay the impact of global warming -- quite the opposite

Not ONE of these offers a politicized rejection of the importance of climate change linked to human activity. Not one. And yet you repeatedly refuse to engage all that material I've posted, preferring again and again to worry that I might be anti-Gore.

You know, I can put reasoned argument out there, backed up by extensive links to quality data and analyses worthy of being taken seriously. But if you don't read it, or don't read and acknowledge the overwhelming thrust of what I personally write, well .....

it's not a crime, but it does make you less than persuasive, to put it mildly.

Persuasive commenters go beyond having suspicions -- they actually investigate whether or not those suspicions are well-founded. Just as persuasive science begins with an hypothesis, and then collects and objectively analyzes data to see if it support s or disproves that hypothesis.

luker,

I disagree. I disagree strongly. People in this country--and presumably in other countries, as well--too often pick the conclusion they want and then go search for the science that will support it.

As I said earlier, I think that's a bad habit to get into. I think the reasons are obvious. You end up with Intellegent Design theories being taught in science classes, e.g.

I do agree with you--and have said many times--that the merits of any particular theory can not be judged by the motives of any one supporter.

But if you cannot separate the two issues in your mind and see the clear distinctions, we probably don't need to talk about this anymore.

Generalizations, mark. All you offer are unsupported generalizations.

They are unpersuasive, repetitive and at this point boring.

mark,

I hope you wrote #56 before reading #55 (the timestamps suggest as much).

Molon,

I do not disupte Ruddiman's work. Let me say that again: I do not disupte Ruddiman's work. I have never claimed it was politically biased or based. Can I be any more clear about that?

All I ever said was that based on your use of terms like "politically correct theories" and YOUR mention of Al Gore, that it seemed to me that you, you Molon, were promoting Ruddiman's work because his conclusions were useful to your previously-held beliefs. You have said that is not true. I have said I accept that.

People in this country--and presumably in other countries, as well--too often pick the conclusion they want and then go search for the science that will support it. As I said earlier, I think that's a bad habit to get into. I think the reasons are obvious.

Motivations and biases are irrelevant unless you can show that the argument is biased and irrelevant. You problem is that you engaged the biases and motivations first and continue to do so, without any care about the actual case presented.

If Molon Labe were to stipulate that he hates Al Gore and wished to see him converted into organic fertilizer (not that he does and not that he wishes), what would have been you gain for having engaged him and extracted such concessions?

The factual case stands on it's own. So, it's not affected logically, except that the deconstructionist would believe it to carry less or zero weight because of it's advocates demonstrated motivations.

Again, quacking like a duck.

You're missing the point, mark.

Your assertion ABOUT ME was off base, demonstrably so based on visible evidence. You don't need my claim on that -- read what I actually wrote to see it, if you're willing to actually engage the evidence here on the site.

THAT is what makes you unpersuasive and at this point boring. You insist on making this an issue of opinion and counter-claim, without acknowledging the evidence in front of you that your first impression was very likely to have been, upon reflection, wrong.

Molon,

Well, we know seem to have moved from the issue of whether or not you were "conclusion shopping" -- and I respectfully accept your claim that you were not...

to the new issue of whether or not "conclusion shopping" is an acceptable way of approaching science.

Everyone but me seems to think it's fine, that it's simply human and that we should never look into the motives of why someone would support one theory over a competing theory.

Nope. You're not getting it.

Conclusion-shopping is irrelevant, if everyone focuses on critical examination of data and how that data was analyzed.

If someone is conclusion-shopping, those conclusions will soon enough be brought under the microscope of good science, where they either stand or fall on their merits.

But that process depends on a willingness to actually examine data and chains of reasoning with objective care -- an activity you seem not to be very experienced in or willing to attempt, at least here in this discussion thread.

By the way, it may (or may not) be relevant at this point to say that my own area of research expertise is cognitive and information science.

In other words, I know a fair amount about how people form concepts, come to hold opinions and validate opinions (or not) in the face of evidence. I could in fact link to reams of research literature on the topic.

It's not news to me that people often pretend to be examining theories when in fact they are seeking to justify already-held beliefs. We could, on another thread, look at the neuroscience that explains how and why that happens, why the brain is wired that way and how that does or doesn't suggest strategies for the design of e.g. artificial intelligence software -- or educational curricula.

But the point here is that you have amply evidence in front of you that suggests I was not and am not conclusion shopping with regard to climate issues. And you repeatedly fail to recognize and acknowledge that evidence.

THAT looks a lot like "conclusion shopping" on YOUR part.

You're not alone in this. There's a whole lot of evidence-blindness on both sides of the global warming issue. Those who simplistically reduce the issue to catastophe brought on by SUVs etc. do it. So do the people who point triumphantly to a cold snap in this or that location as proof that warming isn't happening (when the thermodynamics of fluid systems actually predicts weather extremes of hot AND cold as a result of warming, as temperatures try to equalize across the atmosphere as a whole).

So what can we do to avoid this sort of blindness? We can do what Ruddiman does -- gather all the data, analyze it as objectively as possible, look for analyses that account for all the data and make follow-on hypotheses that can be tested for more insight.

lurker,

your argument would make sense if I were making the claims you say I am making. If I were trying to discredit or contradict Ruddiman's theory by questioning the motives of a 3rd party who referred to it, you would have a point...a good point. But since I wasn't, you don't.

Look lurker, if you think it's okay to reach a conclusion first and then go look for the data to support the conclusion, well, bon voyage, my friend. Go & live in peace.

Molon,

Ruddiman talks about solar forcing which I assume he means various orbital factors and precession. Those are the solar cycles he mentions. They have been well understood for some time.

Zero about the Maunder minimum. Zero about the sun as a variable star.

For instance a paper that was to be relesed in Feb (haven't checked to see if it has been released) shows the solar output to have increased .5% over the last 100 years. That is a pretty significant increase.

The sun as a variable star is well known. At least since the correlation of sun spots with the Little Ice Age was found. What is not known (very well) is how that affects solar output. And what the cycle periods are. We know of the 11/22 year period but larger oscillations (including the Maunder minimum) are not well understood.

If you don't understand solar output cycles then any attempt to calculate anything is useless except as a way to get government grants.

BTW I have never heard of any climate models (I am only a dabbler in the field so I could be in error) that even take into account the known current 11/22 year sunspot cycle - whose period fluctuates some.

I'm disputing Ruddiman's work.

Excellent discussion, mature tones and intelligent exchanges. How can this be happening on the Internet?

My thoughts on the issue are based on my engineering operational experience which warns me that any 'control mechanism' (control global temperatures via modulation of atmospheric composition) with a century-scale feed-back loop (we won't even get indications the technique is working or not for decades, and take decades more to develop technique alterations before implementation begins, and decades more to shift political decisions) is a classic "unstable" system, like trying to drive a car down the road with a one-minute time lag in all control inputs.

A better approach would add more short-term modulation techniques, and the control point is atmospheric opacity -- where we are already making massive inputs via cleaner air from large-scale anti-pollution actions. No, don't re-instate smog -- but find other ways to enhance planetary albedo -- from artificially building up cloud cover 1 to 2%, to the dreams of space-based reflectors, to other technological approaches that can be prototyped, implemented, observed in action, and modified within a period of years, not decades (or even centuries).

Such a response time is also better adapted to natural events such as volcanism or external variabilities, and mechanisms can be adjusted to accommodate them.

I see the objections to this approach as primarily 'pseudo-religious' -- the faith that without ANY human interference Earth's climate would naturally seek a benign balance -- and political, where the advocated solution -- massive de-industrialization and centralized economic control -- had already been on the agenda of groups who now have just found a NEW excuse for their old, favorite policy recommendations.

My $0.02, in respect...

jameseoberg@houston.rr.com
www.jamesoberg.com

I just checked. When Ruddiman says solar forcing he means orbital and other similar mechanical effects.

He says nothing about the sun as a variable star.

BIG HOLE

Another interesting 'solar forcing' factor is solar magnetic field strength and its role in fending off galactic cosmic rays whose varying flux in the atmosphere creates different levels of ionization, which in turn lead to varying levels of condensation nuclei for raindrop (and hence high-altitude cloud) formation.

In general, 'solar forcing' refers to any impact of solar radiation on the levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.

But if you're right, M. Simon, I rather expect climatologists to point that out in their critiques. Whether that omission -- if it IS an omission -- in Ruddiman's model matters much is an important question but not one you've answered at all. So your assertion that this is a BIG HOLE is just an assertion and little more.

The effects of sunspot activity aren't a secret but neither are they well-modeled in terms of their potential impact on climate. But again, just quoting numbers isn't enough.

For instance, you assert that an increase in solar radiation of .5% over a century is large amount. What matters, however, is how much of that increased radiation is transferred to the atmosphere in the form of heat. I don't have an answer to that, but look at the first paper whose abstract I quoted in #20 above. That 2005 paper establishes that vegetation coverage has a significant influence on how much sunshine gets reflected back into space vs. how much gets absorbed as heat. But the type and extent of vegetative cover in some region is a function of many factors, including human activity and the current climate at a given time. There are complex feedback loops involved here. Just quoting .5% doesn't tell us very much.

This illustrates why it can be very misleading to go cherrypicking facts/assertions without grounding in the science in question. I'm not a climatologist and neither are you. Ruddiman, on the other hand, is one of the top paleoclimatologists in his field with over 50 years of highly regarded research and analysis of long term climate mechanisms. He may have missed something, but I'm pretty sure it won't be something you or I can just look at and say "AHA! There's a BIG HOLE in his theory."

Sometimes a little humility is called for on our part. ;-)

Excuse me, that paper abstract is quoted in #21 above, not #20.

Ruddiman does mention Milankovitch cycles which are functions of orbital mechanics and earth wobble.

#70 Jim O.,

Thanks! I had forgotten that one.

BTW water vapor is the #1 greenhouse gas. No one is certain (within the error limits of the data or models) whether its feedback to the system is positive, negative, or neutral. Let alone the magnitude.

How is prediction possible?

The climate modelers have that one covered. They assume positive feed back adjust the factor to some "reasonable" factor and then assume that added CO2 will have its effect multiplied by positive water vapor feedback.

Piling up the assumptions are we?

Yes, there are a lot of assumptions in climate models, if I understand correctly.

That's why work like Ruddiman's, which analyzes data and proposes mechanisms and rates of change that better fit all known data, is so valuable. By highlighting the role of vegetation cover as part of the atmospheric warming mechanism, he has triggered a lot of new data gathering and mechanism investigation.

You really ought to see, M. Simon, that he appears to share your and my dislike of facile assumptions.

M. Simon, if I understand the Ruddiman study correctly, you are not disputing his finding that CO2 and CH4 increases are 5,000 / 8,000 year trends. Am I correct? You appear to be disputing his profered explanation of man-made agricultural activities as being the explanation, given that he appears to have ignored a significant variable (solar cycles). But would solar variability explain his first finding, an "anomalous increase" in CO2 8000 years ago and CH4 5000 years ago? Do those time periods have any significance to solar phenomena?

mark, how many times do you have to get your ass kicked before you figure out that you're not Bruce Lee?

Molon,

You and I are in agreement:

The effects of sunspot activity aren't a secret but neither are they well-modeled in terms of their potential impact on climate. But again, just quoting numbers isn't enough.

The trouble here is that we have about 500 or 1,000 years of semi-reliable sunspot data.

And yes the biological feed backs are uncertain.

The error range as I understand it for climate models is larger that the known "normal" fluctuations. The climate modelers have that figured out. They do multiple runs and "average" them. Now if you are filtering signal from noise averaging the data does improve the signal to noise by 1/sqrt n (where n is the number of samples) where the noise is gaussian. However, doing that with a model is smoke an mirrors.

Then there is the noise in the input data.

Then all the unknowns. All the factors fudged to make the numbers come out "right". You might as well be doing psychology with a sledge hammer.

We do not know enough about climate to be betting anything but small amounts into further research. And much faster computers with a lot more memory.

The models are uncertain.
The data series is uncertain.
The computers are too small.

Did I mention that the recent historical record tends to show an increase in atmospheric CO2 after a warming trend starts? And if we go back far enough we see that CO2 may not be correlated with global temperatures at all.

"Climate science" is witchcraft with numbers. Not a bad thing. It will get better. At this point in time however, it is not very good.

Climate effects of CO2
CO2 Science
CO2 in Geologic Time

#75 from PD Shaw,

Good question PD. The answer is that variations in solar activity can't be ruled out because we don't know.

Did I mention that the recent historical record tends to show an increase in atmospheric CO2 after a warming trend starts? And if we go back far enough we see that CO2 may not be correlated with global temperatures at all.

M. Simon, I like your willingness to jump into topics for which you have no background and try to make sense of them. There comes a time when it's important to acknowledge the limitations of that approach, however.

The portion of your comment I've quoted above shows your unfamiliarity with how dynamic systems work and in particular with the way in which 2nd and 3rd order feedback loops behave in response to 1st order input changes. Simple correlation misses the point.

There is nothing mysterious or debunking about the fact that atmospheric CO2 might contingue to increase after a warming trend starts. What is open to investigation are the precise mechanisms and dampening factors that might be at work. It is precisely on this point that Ruddiman's hypothesis sheds light.

If you really want to dig into this on your own, it would help to have the right tools for analysis. I'm not, as I've said, a climatologist. I do however know something about model building, including models of dynamical systems in action.

AMac mentioned systems dynamics modelling, which is an attempt to apply the insights of control theory to systems like ecologies, human choices in urban settings etc. I have my concerns about some of the ways in which this has been applied to policy issues, but the underlying mathematics are sound and insightful.

A good place for any WOC reader to learn the basics about dynamical systems and feedback loops is one of the free online courses such as this one from MIT. You can use the Vensim PLE student sofware package, available free, to work through the exercises. They might seem elementary to you at first, but I encourage you to stick with it. If you do, you'll get a better intuitive understanding of dynamic systems that will allow you to see why the quote above is off-base.

Let us assume the models are perfect.

It ought to be possible then to go back 2,000 years and find some arbitrary but reasonable set of inputs at that point in model time that will give the climate for the 1900 to 1940.

No can do.

If you can't predict the past, how can any estimate by the models of the future be worth anything?

Nice of Ruddiman to have a shot at reducing the uncertainty in one small area of the models. The models are still of very low value.

You are confusing micro-prediction with macro trend identification and macro climate modeling. I'm sorry, M. Simon -- but you are really out of your depth on this issue.

That doesn't mean that I think existing models are perfect or even highly accurate. It does mean that I think you are taking potshots at them without understanding their nature or the basic disciplines associated with modeling complex systms, which is unpersuasive in the extreme as far as I'm concerned.

Molon,

You characterization of my understanding of models and systems is inadequate.

I'm considered an expert in servo system design including auto tuning (i.e. getting the system to find the value of its own "constants"). Real wold stuff. For which I got paid rather well (until I retired).

Second and third order effects are not unknown to me. Servoing chemical plants is a good example.

My job was to find every thing that could go wrong (within non-catastrophic limits) and design the system to maitain control within an error band. Murphy was my friend.

I must admit though that climate is much more difficult. Inputs are uncertain. Lag values unknown. Feedback unclear.

Fair enough.

But if that's true then you should know better than to talk as if CO2 should be directly and simply correlated with atmospheric temperature. Not to mention acknowledging that methane has a much higher impact on temperature than CO2.

You admit you aren't familiar enough with the specific control mechanisms or the climate data to say anything other than to express deep skepticsm about existing climate models. Yet you feel free to dismiss the careful and masterly work of someone who has demonstrated a significant expertise in those areas. You are eager to assert BIG HOLES that allegedly vitiate that work, without in fact having a basis for judging whether the allegedly omitted factor has a significant impact on the model's conclusions.

It's one thing to bring a skeptical mind to a topic. It's another thing to pass judgements based soley on your skepticism and unfamiliarity with a field.

OK we can do macro trend identification given enough data. I grant that.

That is useless.

Why? Because we have no idea (as in close to zero) of the cause.

In a chemical plant I can write the equations based on experimentally derrived reaction rates. Flows. Temperatures. Concentration of reactants. etc.

Not dissimilar to what