To say CO2 can't cause temperature to rise because it is seen to lag temperature, is to say chickens can't lay eggs because they are seen hatch from them. I think that explanation is given and expanded upon fully at skeptical science.
al gores skeptical science says: "To claim that the CO2 lag disproves the warming effect of CO2 displays a lack of understanding of the processes that drive Milankovitch cycles. A review of the peer reviewed research into past periods of deglaciation tells us several things:" response... Milankovitch cycles probably are a significant part of warming and cooling cycles. If you read... you will see that the cycles impact warming and cooling because of the Sun. If the sun is the reason why we warm and cool in correlation to milankovitch cycles does it not seem obvious the sun could be impacting us in shorter cycles as well. How is it possible so many agw nutters were until recently saying it was only co2 causing warming and cooling? So in summary the sun and the tides and other natural non co2 factors cause at least some to all of our warming. b. Next we see the claim that 90 percent of the warming occurs after the co2 is released. To which I say... yes... of course. As the sun warms the earth and co2 follows... some co2 will be out before the next round of warming. c. Shakun discusses the long term cycle. The sun warms us up. Antartica heats up... the tides exchange the warmth north. Co2 gets released from the oceans. So the sun leads and Co2 follows. Shakun then speculates the co2 then causes warming using models and statistics. d... Humlum paper here... http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818112001658 informs us what has been happening in the short run. In the short run. change in ocean temps leads change in co2 levels by 11 months. --- for the sake of argument lets accept that speculation and carry it to its full understanding. Just as co2, water vapor, methane and other greenhouses gases could combine to help with warming on the way up. As they get too "thick" the probably trigger the end of the warming cycle and trigger the start of the cooling cycle. This warm air holds more water vapor and more co2. This increase in greenhouse gases begin blocking the suns warming rays the whole cycle swings back into to cooling. Finally, with respect to man made co2... there is no reason to assume that the earth does not off gas or digest the excess co2. Salby and others have put up great graphs showing the rise in co2 does not correspond to mans production of co2.
why is you always have to misframe the other sides arguments. We are not saying co2 follows therefore it can not warm. We are saying it will be very hard for science to show man made co2 is doing the warming. in the last 10 years... you see the scientists trying their best to support the theory that co2 amplifies warming... although they are still searching for science to show it. As I have discussed here in the past... Shakun is the best peer reviewed agw nutter paper. That paper shows co2 levels followed the warming in antartica. That paper then using some statistics and models speculates that co2 amplifies the warming. Why don't they just show it? As we have said its going to be very hard to show the laggard is causing the leader. Not impossible... but very hard. Its gets even harder when in real life the systems are very complex and there are negative feedbacks. It gets even harder when NASA shows co2 is not just a warming agent but a cooling agent.
I just reread to posts above... i need to summarize. in short the skeptical science site gives us no science supporting the agw nutters. It does give us some speculation that co2 amplifies the warming via shakuns model. The science it gives us is that even shakuns paper admits co2 trails warming.
I don't know who you mean by "we" but certainly there are claims that say "co2 follows therefore it can not warm" and it was raised in a preceding post. And tell me, if "we are not saying co2 follows therefore it can not warm." why are "we" , that is you, saying it now, in your latest couple of posts! ** Yes I know "we" are saying that too, but it is untrue. It is a false claim. Man made CO2 is doing the warming if only for one fact. There is nothing else that can account for the scale of the warming. Not in physics or scientific terms anyway. You have to deny actual physics not just scientists to believe that. **Look, you've just tried to make the argument you deny you are making !!.... Quote: "its going to be very hard to show the laggard is causing the leader." Climate change denial 101. Say it, deny you say it, then say it again. It works both ways like chickens and eggs do. Temperature determines CO2 (natural) as well as CO2 determines temperature (man made). It's basic physics. It is also basic physics that confirms how man made CO2 is a greenhouse gas and how the recent dramatic rise in temperature can only be explained by the strong increase in CO2 levels from man made emissions. No natural events can account for it. It really doesn't get hard or difficult until you misunderstand. Real life systems and NASA are only showing why Earth hasn't turned into Venus yet. Natural limiting factors can only work to a certain point. But then it seems there are some folk who like nothing better than to play chicken with the planet and its atmosphere.
1. once again stu bullshits instead of admitting he overstated the argument. "co2 follows therefore it can not warm" is not he same as saying "its going to be very hard to show the laggard is causing the leader." Conclusion... stu misrepersents my argument then starts misrepresenting the English language to cover it up. 2.stu said "Yes I know "we" are saying that too, but it is untrue. It is a false claim. Man made CO2 is doing the warming if only for one fact. There is nothing else that can account for the scale of the warming. Not in physics or scientific terms anyway." That is the most ridiculous claim of "science" one could make. it could be myraid things from ocean warming due to underground volcanoes to the things science does not completely understand to things it does not even know about. There is no peer reviewed science stating man made co2 is causing warming not based on failed models. 3. Co2 follows warming in the long term and short term cycles. That is what the science shows us. Every claim about co2 causing net warming in our system is based on failed models or speculation because there is no peer reviewed science showing it. We may be playing chicken but there is no science stating its co2. Remember correlation does not show causation. Particularly when its the laggard.
What are you trying to say? co2 follows therefore it cannot warm co2 follows therefore it can warm Which is it You can't have it both ways "hard to show the laggard is causing the leader"... is false . There is nothing very hard in showing how the laggard affects the leader. What's ridiculous is your suggestion that things science doesn't know is reason for denying things it does know. There are a myriad of things science does know , like those "underground volcanoes" and every other natural event on Earth that taken in total do not account for the level of increase in global warming, while man made CO2 does. I know, and the Earth doesn't orbit the sun, there is no such thing as an ex-president's birth certificate and men did not walk on the moon "We may be playing chicken" is some admission from you. Temperature determines CO2 (natural) as well as CO2(man made) determines temperature. It's basic physics. Predicted in the 1800's. Understood in the 1900's. Predictions and understanding scientifically observed measured and confirmed to date. Remember correlation can show causation. Chickens are laggards to eggs, but they still cause eggs.
Technically, it is the amount of global temperature rise as a function of atmospheric CO2 concentration; not the green house effect per se, which is a photophysical phenomenon with no specific number attached to it. . Remember water is the most important green house gas, but water, unlike CO2, affects temperature by other mechanisms besides the greenhouse effect. The "climate sensitivity" is an estimate, and it varies a great deal depending on who is doing the estimating.
I just now realized I made a minor error in my post above. I implied that the the greenhouse mechanism was the only mechanism by which CO2 affected Earths surface temperature. Carbon dioxide, according to NASA, is net cooling in the outer atmosphere by a different mechanism. "Global Warming," is a more useful term than "climate change," because the climate is always cycling between warmer and cooler periods. With all the talk of global warming, the general public has got the idea that CO2 is the only important component of our planet's atmosphere that moderates surface temperature. Even more distorting is the idea that the greenhouse effect is the only important mechanism for moderating the temperature. In truth, the trace levels of CO2 in our atmosphere are critical to both plant life directly and animal life indirectly, but CO2 is a minor player when it comes to moderating the Earth's surface temperature. Just how minor, is an area of disagreement among atmospheric physicists. Prior to the period of intense research into the role of CO2, we did not have enough data and observations to understand surface temperature moderation very well. James Hansen is credited with getting the CO2 question into the national, and now, international spotlight. He deserves credit for rousing enough interest in atmospheric physics to facilitate an increase in funding for global warming studies. Those studies are why our knowledge of the mechanisms that moderate our planets surface temperature has been greatly advanced from what it was thirty years ago. Sadly, Hansen , and others too, became emotionally involved in their own work and the conclusions they drew -- quite prematurely as it turns out! Hansen, and others who have fallen into the same trap, are no longer capable of dispassionate science. This is not as bad as it sounds. Scientists are human, and it is impossible to divorce the human element from scientific pursuits. The debate however should not involve the lay public, nor politicians, nor the media. The debate should be strictly between the science protagonists. Hansen, Salby, Shaviv, Miskolczi and other qualified scientists. It should not include politicians and the media. I am sorry to have to say this, but the fault lies mainly with Hansen. He is like the a warring spouse who looks to the children for support. Degeneration of a scientific discussion into ad hominem attacks and attempts to discredit scientists whose opinions are out of favor with the public by questionable attacks on their professional competence is regrettable and does nothing to advance science. Strong disagreement, even to the point of adamantcy, when kept within the bounds of disagreeing scientists , with the public and the politicians being kept out, can be helpful in pushing the warring scientists to a correct conclusion. The Winstein-Brown argument* over the structure of non-classical carbocations is a fine example of how debate, no matter how heated, can lead to the correct answer. Winstein was finally shown to be correct, but who knows how much longer would it have taken to settle the argument if The United Nations, and the media, and the politicians had all been involved? There are numerous papers** in the peer reviewed literature which report both observations and theoretical studies that are inconsistent with Hansen's Hypothesis. As soon as these papers receive any attention beyond a small group of atmospheric science insiders, their authors are subjected to ad hominem attacks, and unbelievable vendettas such as demands that the protagonist's name be stricken from Wikipedia! This is less violent than what was done to those out of favor in the Spanish Inquisition, but otherwise it is little different than was the treatment afforded religious heretics of prior centuries: How dare you suggest the Earth orbits the Sun! Ninety-seven percent of everyone agrees the Sun orbits the Earth. And to prove it, I'll show you one more time my diagram of the Sun Orbiting the Earth. ________________________________ *https://www.chemistryworld.com/opin...ation-a-classic-case-of-conflict/6368.article **I notice that most of the authors of these papers studiously avoid taking on Hansen's hypothesis directly whenever they can avoid it. The authors want to stick to the science and leave the politics to others. They certainly do not want to become targets of the "Inquisition." Yet some whose data and arguments are unavoidably damaging to climate change religion will have no choice other than to become a target of the Inquisition. Hundreds of Bloggers will pounce, inventing arguments on the fly as to how the published work can not possibly be correct, and is the work of someone already thoroughly discredited by 97% of climate scientists.
I am saying the data and the science show that changes in atmospheric levels of co2 follow changes in ocean temperature and changes in air temperature. We see this lag in both in the proxy data and the instrument data. (this is peer reviewed) I have also stated it will be hard to prove man made co2 is causing warming in part because it is the laggard and in part because our system is complex and in part because co2 is also a cooling agent. And it is hard to show the laggard causes the leader. if you want to reduce the argument to childish bullshit the way you just did. go ahead show lung cancer causes smoking. (mind you I am not equating this to co2... just showing how stupidly childish your response was.) by the I am busy this week so I may choose not to respond unless you provide science showing man made co2 causes warming.