On Feb 17, 1:02 pm, "boonz" wrote:
"Fran" wrote in message

...
On Feb 17, 3:46 am, Peter Franks wrote:



Fran wrote:
On Feb 16, 8:06 pm, JohnM wrote:
On Feb 16, 9:22 am, Fran wrote:

On Feb 16, 5:34 pm, Peter Franks wrote:
Earl Evleth wrote:
Scientists: Pace of Climate Change Exceeds Estimates
By Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 15, 2009; A03
CHICAGO, Feb. 14 -- The pace of global warming is likely to be much
faster
than recent predictions, because industrial greenhouse gas emissions
have
increased more quickly than expected and higher temperatures are
triggering
self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms in global ecosystems,
scientists said
Saturday.
"We are basically looking now at a future climate that's beyond
anything
we've considered seriously in climate model simulations,"
Christopher Field,
founding director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global
Ecology
at Stanford University, said at the annual meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science.
Field, a member of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate
Change, said emissions from burning fossil fuels since 2000 have
largely
outpaced the estimates used in the U.N. panel's 2007 reports. The
higher
emissions are largely the result of the increased burning of coal in
developing countries, he said.
Unexpectedly large amounts of carbon dioxide are being released into
the
atmosphere as the result of "feedback loops" that are speeding up
natural
processes. Prominent among these, evidence indicates, is a cycle in
which
higher temperatures are beginning to melt the arctic permafrost,
which could
release hundreds of billions of tons of carbon and methane into the
atmosphere, said several scientists on a panel at the meeting.
The permafrost holds 1 trillion tons of carbon, and as much as 10
percent of
that could be released this century, Field said. Melting permafrost
also
releases methane, which is 25 times more potent a greenhouse gas
than carbon
dioxide.
"It's a vicious cycle of feedback where warming causes the release
of carbon
from permafrost, which causes more warming, which causes more
release from
permafrost," Field said.
Evidence is also accumulating that terrestrial and marine ecosystems
cannot
remove as much carbon from the atmosphere as earlier estimates
suggested,
Field said.
In the oceans, warmer weather is driving stronger winds that are
exposing
deeper layers of water, which are already saturated with carbon and
not as
able to absorb as much from the atmosphere. The carbon is making the
oceans
more acidic, which also reduces their ability to absorb carbon.
On land, rising carbon dioxide levels had been expected to boost
plant
growth and result in greater sequestration of carbon dioxide. As
plants
undergo photosynthesis to draw energy from the sun, carbon is drawn
out of
the atmosphere and trapped in the plant matter. But especially in
northern
latitudes, this effect may be offset significantly by the fact that
vegetation-covered land absorbs much more of the sun's heat than
snow-covered terrain, said scientists on the panel.
Earlier snowmelt, the shrinking arctic ice cover and the northward
spread of
vegetation are causing the Northern Hemisphere to absorb, rather
than
reflect, more of the sun's energy and reinforce the warming trend.
While it takes a relatively long time for plants to take carbon out
of the
atmosphere, that carbon can be released rapidly by wildfires, which
contribute about a third as much carbon to the atmosphere as burning
fossil
fuels, according to a paper Field co-authored.
Fires such as the recent deadly blazes in southern Australia have
increased
in recent years, and that trend is expected to continue, Field said.
Warmer
weather, earlier snowmelt, drought and beetle infestations
facilitated by
warmer climates are all contributing to the rising number of fires
linked to
climate change. Across large swaths of the United States and Canada,
bark
beetles have killed many mature trees, making forests more
flammable. And
tropical rain forests that were not susceptible to forest fires in
the past
are likely to become drier as temperatures rise, growing more
vulnerable.
Preventing deforestation in the tropics is more important than in
northern
latitudes, the panel agreed, since lush tropical forests sequester
more
carbon than sparser northern forests. And deforestation in northern
areas
has benefits, since larger areas end up covered in exposed,
heat-reflecting
snow.
Many scientists and policymakers are advocating increased incentives
for
preserving tropical forests, especially in the face of demand for
clearing
forest to grow biofuel crops such as soy. Promoting biofuels without
also
creating forest-preservation incentives would be "like weatherizing
your
house and deliberately keeping your windows open," said Peter
Frumhoff,
chief of the Union of Concerned Scientists' climate program. "It's
just not
a smart policy."
Field said the U.N. panel's next assessment of Earth's climate
trends,
scheduled for release in 2014, will for the first time incorporate
policy
proposals. It will also include complicated models of interconnected
ecosystem feedbacks.
The panel's last report noted that preliminary knowledge of such
feedbacks
suggested that an additional 100 billion to 500 billion tons of
greenhouse
gas emissions would have to be prevented in the next century to
avoid
dangerous global warming. Currently, about 10 billion tons of carbon
are
emitted each year.
What is the point of these models if they are never right?
They are a better indication than alternative models in that they get
the overall direction right. Had the original models argued this, the
squeals from the naysayers about unsupported alarmism would have been
even llouder than now. The IPCC is perforce cautious in making claims.
No point in presenting this particular poster with a commonsense
answer, Fran. He doesn't understand that kind of talk

It is bizarre. Let's say I do some financial projections and conclude
that I a given portfolio managed in a certain way can produce a real
return post-tax of 2% pa. There's a plausible chance that it might be
more but I don't want "irrational exuberance" so I merely make the
lesser claim.

An investor relies on my analysis and achieves 4%. He then complains
"what's the use of your model when it got it so badly wrong?"

Is the stock market science?

Of a kind ... data is used, models are created and projections made.
************************************************** *************

And wrong 99.999999% of the time!!



OK ... this is where I ask you to show me the sets of predictions made
by models and the extent of their correspondence with the real world.
Are you confident about all those 9s?



Are the global warming models science?

Of course ...
************************************************** *************

Junk science that is.


An odd way to describe a process that has so far proved largely
correct, albeit conservative. The IPCC gave ranges and what is
happening now is at the most pessimistic end of the predictions

Fran