Morano List Top Bloopers

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2674e64f-802a-23ad-490b-bd9faf4dcdb7

Michael Myers:
"Carbon dioxide emissions worldwide each year total 3.2 billion tons. That equals about 0.0168 percent of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration of about 19 trillion tons"
First: Fossil CO2 emissions are closer to 29 billion tons. Second: The atmosphere has about 3 trillion tons of CO2. So Mr Myers is only off by a factor of 50. Oops!

Geologists Dr. George Chilingar, and L.F. Khilyuk of the University of Southern California:
"Recalculating this amount into the total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emission in grams of CO2, one obtains the estimate 1.003×1018 g, which constitutes less than 0.00022% of the total CO2 amount naturally degassed from the mantle during geologic history."
Er. Yes. Humans have emitted in a couple hundred years a lot less than the mantle has emitted in the past 5 billion. Perhaps comparing apples and apples would be more instructive than comparing apples and star-nosed moles. These are also the same pair who claimed there was no anthropogenic warming based on comparing the number of ergs of heat that we produce directly from combustion to solar insolation (no greenhouse effect needed, apparently). They apparently don't even understand the basic mechanisms they are trying to refute.

Dr. Philip Lloyd
"The quantity of CO2 we produce is insignificant in terms of the natural circulation between air, water and soil. I have tried numerous tests for radiative effects, and all have failed."
Er. Right. Just because the 27 billion tons we produce happen to be twice the 13 billion tons of atmospheric increase? this is a question of basic stocks and flows! And Tyndall measured the radiative effects of CO2 in the 19th century!

Dr. Paul Berenson:
"However, the amount of CO2 man has added to the atmosphere is less than 1% of the CO2 that is there from natural causes,"
Hmm. 100 ppm out of 385 ppm? I calculate that as 26%. 26 is not less than 1 in my world.

Walter Cunningham:
"Water vapor is responsible for 95 percent of the greenhouse effect. CO2 contributes just 3.6 percent, with human activity responsible for only 3.2 percent of that. That is why some studies claim CO2 levels are largely irrelevant to global warming."
Actually, water vapor + clouds are responsible for 66 to 85% of the greenhouse effect depending on how you calculate it. CO2 is 9 to 26% of total forcing. And human activity is responsible for 100 out of 385 ppm of CO2, so 1.7 W/m2, so maybe 4 to 10% of total CO2 forcing.
(Karl Bohnak also repeated this 95% fallacy)


James Cripwell:
?Throughout the discussion of doubling the concentration of CO2, there is absolutely no reference to the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere over which the increased amount of radiative forcing is supposed to increase linearly when the concentration of CO2 doubles. Presumably if you halved the concentration of CO2, you would decrease the radiative forcing by some linear amount. If you go on halving the CO2 concentration, then as the concentration of CO2 approached zero, it would appear that the CO2 was rapidly cooling the earth!! Clearly any claim that the doubling of the CO2 concentration results in
a linear increase in the level of radiative forcing can have no credibility unless the range of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, over which the relationship is claimed to exist, is clearly established from sound scientific principles."
No scientist (that I know of) has ever claimed that the logarithmic relationship of CO2 forcing holds over the entire possible range of CO2 concentrations. The logarithmic relationship is true over a limited range, where the major CO2 bands are saturated but the minor ones are insignificant. When CO2 is very diffuse, there is a linear relationship between concentration and forcing. This is well known.

Geoffrey Duffy:
"Carbon dioxide CO2 is a trace. It is less than 400ppm (parts per million) or 0.04% of all the atmosphere (on a dry basis). Surprisingly, less than a fifth of that is man-made CO2 (0.008% of the total)"
A large number of people on this list seem to have problems with basic math. 105 ppm/385 ppm is more than a quarter, not less than a fifth. Also, you don't need a large percentage of a GHG to have a large effect (the effects of 400 ppm of SF6, for example, would be almost inarguably fairly dramatic)

Dr. G LeBlanc Smith:
"Human generated carbon dioxide is arguably around 3% of the total carbon dioxide budget,"
Where does Morano _find_ these people? Does anyone on this list understand the difference between gross emissions and net emissions???

Dr. Francis Manns:
Manns also disputed the CO2 caused ocean acidification fears. "Ocean pH is not governed by physicochemical rules."
Is Manns suggesting that ocean pH is governed by magic rules? He also repeats the Beck junk science claim that there was 400 ppm CO2 globally 100 years ago. As does Larry Bell (who thinks that CO2 was at 440 ppm in 1940). Funny how CO2 used to swing wildly up and down in the days before we got reliable measurements, and since then it has moved fairly steadily up year after year? (just coincidence, I guess)

Topper Shutt:
"Some of the effects of global warming have been greatly exaggerated (when the ice cubes in your drink melt does you glass overflow?)"
But sea level rise is predicted to come from thermal expansion, and melting of _land based_ glaciers and ice sheets. Morano's scientists should study up on some basic science before they try to critique it!

Sherwood Thoele:
"Because CO2 is slightly soluble in water and will come back to the Earth with precipitation, nature corrects for any excess"
Good to know that CO2 in the atmosphere is still 280 ppm like it was in the preindustrial days, and all our measurements are just wrong.
"Some say excess CO2 combined with the moisture in the atmosphere absorbs infrared radiation from the Earth to create a greenhouse effect by not letting it pass through it. But how then does the infrared radiation from the sun get through the CO2/moisture, and wouldn't it already have absorbed as much infrared radiation as it could handle from the sun?"
I've heard of not believing anthropogenic greenhouse warming is significant, but to not believe that there is _any_ greenhouse effect takes a special kind of idiocy.

Dennis Hollars:
"Mars' atmosphere is about 95 percent CO2 and has no global warming," Hollars stated
Yes, and Mars is also a lot further from the sun and has a much thinner atmosphere, but more importantly a fairly key point is that the concentration of CO2 on Mars is not changing, which would be a prerequisite for being the cause of warming! (though don't some skeptics claim that Mars is warming too, anyway?)

Dr. Theodore G. Pavlopoulos
"The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is considerable lower than that of water vapor; it is just a few percent. Consequently, doubling the CO2 concentration would not significantly increase the combined absorption of the
two green house gases of water vapor and CO2,"
Except for the fact that they have some absorption peaks in non-overlapping wavelengths as well.

Dr. Kenneth Rundt
According to Rundt, even a doubling of CO2 levels from 317 ppm to 714 ppm "would increase absorption approximately 0.17%. This corresponds to an additional radiative forcing of 0.054 W/m2, substantially below IPCC's figure of 4 W/m2."
I doubt that many of his fellow skeptics would agree with this statement, it is so far gone from reality.

Quick Set of Predictions

Arctic Summer Sea Ice:

I predict that the minimum Arctic Sea Ice extent in 2009 will be somewhere between a continuation of the long-term trend and somewhat worse than 2007.  I think the likeliest possibility is somewhere between the 2008 and 2009 levels.  

Reasoning:  I think 2007 and 2008 may indicate a real departure from the long-term trend, but I don't think that is in any way confirmed yet.  Current sea ice levels are about where 2007 was before the 2007 record low sea ice extent, and the ice is "younger" than it was then.  However, 2007 required some "favorable" atmospheric conditions for pushing ice out of the Arctic which may not reappear this year.  

I predict that the 2007 record will almost certainly be broken by 2012.

Total disappearance of summer sea ice:  My WAG is that we'll see this in the 2nd half of the century.  Some scientists have indicated that it may happen as early as 5 years from now (based on new models post-2007):  this seems unlikely to me, but, *shrug*, there are positive feedbacks at work here, and a "perfect storm" of currents, warm year, and weak ice could lead to surprises...

http://www.nsidc.org/acticseaicenews

Global Mean Temperature in 2009:

Almost certainly higher than 2008.  2008 started as a strong la nina year, and the coldest year in 8 years.  Absent a volcano, a 2nd strong la nina, or a meteor collision, all of which are unlikely, I don't think that the "PDO shift" or the "weak sunspots" will be enough to keep temperatures below 2008 levels.  (Any data set, GISS, HADCRUT, UAH, or RSS)

However, the sunspot and PDO issues will, I think, keep it from being a record warm year, absent a strong el nino.  (though higher likelihood of this than a lower than 2008 year)

Next Global Mean Temperature Record:

I would guess sometime in 2011-2012.  2009 or 2010 is possible, with a strong el nino.  If we don't see a new record in at least one dataset by 2015, I'll eat my hat.  

Atlantic Hurricane Frequency:

I'm going to go with Kerry Emmanuel, and predict more Cat 3 and above Atlantic hurricanes than the long term average over the next 3 years.  This is a lower confidence prediction:  too much goes into hurricane formation other than just surface temperature of the oceans.  I doubt we'll see 2005 exceeded for a while.

Long term sea level rise:  (as measured by satellites)

I'll guess continued 3 mm/year (range of 2 to 4).  

Greenland and Antarctic Melt:  (as measured by gravity satellites)

I'll guess that they will slow down temporarily.

Introductions

Greetings!  My name is Marcus, and I'm a climate researcher with a PhD in Technology, Management, and Policy in the Engineering System Division of MIT and a Master's in Chemistry from Caltech.  I do not, however, in any way represent MIT, or my current fellowship sponsor, or the organization with which I have been placed for my fellowship.  Because I am still fairly young in my chosen career, I am not including my full name in this blog, though it would be easy enough to find given the above data.

This blog is meant as a place for me to place various musings on climate change, to complement various other blogs out there (RealClimate and Open Mind by Tamino are two obvious ones).  I have three goals which I'd like to use this blog for:

Goal #1)  Write up rebuttals to skeptic arguments, or link to rebuttals elsewhere.  One of the arguments I was going to address was Roy Spencer's surprisingly naive argument that a major portion of the CO2 increase over the last 50 years was natural.  However,  Tamino has already addressed this.  I will note, however, that skeptics like Spencer and Stephen Schwartz might want to consider a new test when coming up with theories outside the "consensus":  applying their test to a simple, understood system.  For example, take a climate or carbon cycle model.  Then apply their fancy statistical analysis that they claim proves that CO2 increase is natural, or that climate sensitivity must be small because the time constant of the system is short.  If that statistical method does not work well for the simple model system (and in both cases I believe that it would not) then they should reconsider trying to use it on the real, much more complex system of the Earth.

I still plan on writing up a rebuttal of the more egregious statements recorded in Marc Morano's list of 650 climate scientist skeptics.  

My criteria for choosing skeptics to rebut will include:  scientific prominence (Roy Spencer is one of the major scientists involved with the UAH climate satellite dataset, which is why his confusion about basics of the carbon cycle is surprising, and perhaps telling), political prominence (Marc Morano's list is on the Senate Minority EPW website, which is especially galling), personal interest, and the clarity with which I think I can compose a rebuttal.  

Goal #2)  Codify my thinking about climate policy by writing about it.  Carbon tax vs. cap-and-trade, long term stabilization goals, international negotations, etc. etc.  

Goal #3)  Make some predictions about near-term future climate, so that five years from now when I claim "this is well within my expectations" I have some proof.  Not only for outsiders, but also for myself - in my experience humans are very good at rewriting their mental history to place themselves in a good light.  eg, what will we see in terms of global mean temperatures?  Ocean temperature data sets?  Mid-tropospheric tropical datasets?  Arctic summer ice retreat?  etc.

Goal #4)  Post other interesting climate tidbits as I come across them.  

In any case, I won't make this blog public for a little while, but eventually I would like my better posts to be references that will be suitable for linking from the RealClimate wiki. 

-Marcus, 1/25/09