Evidence of "Global Warming"

[JN01]

Or not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter

The effects of volcanic eruptions on recent winters are modest in scale, but historically have been significant.

Most recently, the 1991 explosion of Mount Pinatubo, a stratovolcano in the Philippines, cooled global temperatures for about 2–3 years.[3]

In 1883, the explosion of Krakatoa (Krakatau) created volcanic winter-like conditions. The four years following the explosion were unusually cold, and the winter of 1887–1888 included powerful blizzards.[4] Record snowfalls were recorded worldwide.

The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora, a stratovolcano in Indonesia, occasioned mid-summer frosts in New York State and June snowfalls in New England and Newfoundland and Labrador in what came to be known as the "Year Without a Summer" of 1816.

A paper written by Benjamin Franklin in 1783[5] blamed the unusually cool summer of 1783 on volcanic dust coming from Iceland, where the eruption of Laki volcano had released enormous amounts of sulfur dioxide, resulting in the death of much of the island's livestock and a catastrophic famine which killed a quarter of the Icelandic population. Northern hemisphere temperatures dropped by about 1 °C in the year following the Laki eruption. However Franklin's proposal has been questioned.[6]

In 1600, the Huaynaputina in Peru erupted. Tree ring studies show that 1601 was cold. Russia had its worst famine in 1601–1603. From 1600 to 1602, Switzerland, Latvia and Estonia had exceptionally cold winters. The wine harvest was late in 1601 in France, and in Peru and Germany, wine production collapsed. Peach trees bloomed late in China, and Lake Suwa in Japan froze early.[7]

In 1452 or 1453, a cataclysmic eruption of the submarine volcano Kuwae caused worldwide disruptions.

The Great Famine of 1315–1317 in Europe may have been precipitated by a volcanic event,[8] perhaps that of Mount Tarawera, New Zealand, lasting about five years.[9]

The extreme weather events of 535–536 are most likely linked to a volcanic eruption. The latest theorised explanation is the Tierra Blanca Joven (TBJ) eruption of the Ilopango caldera in central El Salvador.[10]

[Ben]

Or not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter

Those are even puny. Humans may be injecting more carbon yearly over the last 50 or so years, but again, tiny, tiny timescales. Volcanoes are all about blowing their loads spectacularly and causing cataclysmic events every few million or few hundred million years.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090528142827.htm

Also, nearly a billion years ago, a cascade volcanic eruption turned the Earth into a giant snowball, as in completely glaciated, for a couple hundred million years.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-new-idea-on-how-earth-became-a-giant-snowball/

Even the current minimal volcanic we're experiencing (pretty much everything since humans have been around is minimal, volcano-wise) is being upped quite a bit as we learn all the ways that volcanoes offgas.
https://www.livescience.com/40451-volcanic-co2-levels-are-staggering.html

[De Selby]

Or not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter

Wait, how does that refute the point? Volcanoes absolutely do change weather by injecting tons of material into the atmosphere.

That activity, which we know causes weather changes, is puny compared to the multiple gigatonnes of carbon that get pumped out by humans every year.

[De Selby]

Those are even puny. Humans may be injecting more carbon yearly over the last 50 or so years, but again, tiny, tiny timescales. Volcanoes are all about blowing their loads spectacularly and causing cataclysmic events every few million or few hundred million years.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090528142827.htm

Also, nearly a billion years ago, a cascade volcanic eruption turned the Earth into a giant snowball, as in completely glaciated, for a couple hundred million years.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-new-idea-on-how-earth-became-a-giant-snowball/

Even the current minimal volcanic we're experiencing (pretty much everything since humans have been around is minimal, volcano-wise) is being upped quite a bit as we learn all the ways that volcanoes offgas.
https://www.livescience.com/40451-volcanic-co2-levels-are-staggering.html

From your last link, the mighty volcano puts out:

In 1992, it was thought that volcanic degassing released something like 100 million tons of CO2 each year. Around the turn of the millennium, this figure was getting closer to 200. The most recent estimate, released this February, comes from a team led by Mike Burton, of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology – and it’s just shy of 600 million tons.

Meanwhile those puny humans put out:

LONDON (Reuters) - Global energy-related carbon emissions rose to a historic high of 32.5 gigatons last year, after three years of being flat, due to higher energy demand and the slowing of energy efficiency improvements, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-carbon-iea/global-carbon-emissions-hit-record-high-in-2017-idUSKBN1GY0RB

Human impact on the planet is demonstrably not minuscule, whether you believe the scientists who work on climate or not.

[JN01]

Assuming that the IEA isn't part of the Chicken Little global warming religion and hasn't altered the data, why haven't these massive amounts of emissions caused immediate catastrophic changes, dwarfing the earlier volcanic events?  Climate alarmists have been making gloom and doom predictions for decades, but they never seem to pan out.

[TommyGunn]

Back to the caves all us upper paleolithic hunter-gatherers!  Save the planet!

(Geeeesh.  Deselby even ruins perfectly good volcanic eruptions!   )

[wuluf]

On the plus side of Pele reminding Hawaiians who's in charge, we were planning on eloping to Maui in September. Hopefully this'll drive down prices of flights and the hotel.

Isn't planning to elope an oxymoron?

[Calumus]

Isn't planning to elope an oxymoron?

Lol, not if you don't tell anyone who was expecting an invite to a wedding until you get back...

[cordex]

Lol, not if you don't tell anyone who was expecting an invite to a wedding until you get back...

Thankfully we will all be there.

[Calumus]

Thankfully we will all be there.

  As someone born and raised in NJ, my fiancee was already surprised enough when I told her that Jocasse was likely carrying each time we've had dinner with him. I don't know how she'd react to being surrounded by this bunch of yahoos.. let alone on our honeymoon.

[cordex]

As someone born and raised in NJ, my fiancee was already surprised enough when I told her that Jocasse was likely carrying each time we've had dinner with him. I don't know how she'd react to being surrounded by this bunch of yahoos.. let alone on our honeymoon.

Yeah, it probably won't start things off on the right foot.

Especially when she learns we are expecting you to put us up in your hotel room.

[Hawkmoon]

As someone born and raised in NJ, my fiancee was already surprised enough when I told her that Jocasse was likely carrying each time we've had dinner with him. I don't know how she'd react to being surrounded by this bunch of yahoos.. let alone on our honeymoon.

Shivaree?

[MechAg94]

Assuming that the IEA isn't part of the Chicken Little global warming religion and hasn't altered the data, why haven't these massive amounts of emissions caused immediate catastrophic changes, dwarfing the earlier volcanic events?  Climate alarmists have been making gloom and doom predictions for decades, but they never seem to pan out.

Maybe it is because carbon is not the driver for the effects that have been seen from large volcanic eruptions.  Volcanoes put all sorts of stuff into the atmosphere. 

[De Selby]

Assuming that the IEA isn't part of the Chicken Little global warming religion and hasn't altered the data, why haven't these massive amounts of emissions caused immediate catastrophic changes, dwarfing the earlier volcanic events?  Climate alarmists have been making gloom and doom predictions for decades, but they never seem to pan out.

Because the “immediate” effects of volcanic activity you’re talking about weren’t over night either. It’s not surprising that we don’t have “the day after tomorrow” in real life.

There’s barely a hundred years of this much carbon in the air. The incremental effects like sea level rise and melting ice seem significant when compared against changes that took millennia.

My point is that if you believe in the night power of volcanoes to change weather, it stands to reason that pumping several gigatonnes more crap into the air than all the volcanoes on earth could have an effect. T

The scale of carbon pumped into the atmosphere is not minuscule, not even compared to the most powerful forces in nature. Yet you’re writing off the scientists who study its effects as quacks because “the earth is huge”.

[De Selby]

Maybe it is because carbon is not the driver for the effects that have been seen from large volcanic eruptions.  Volcanoes put all sorts of stuff into the atmosphere. 

What effect do you think all that human produced carbon has? If none...what about the earth negates the experimentally proven greenhouse effects of the gas?

[Hawkmoon]

What effect do you think all that human produced carbon has? If none...what about the earth negates the experimentally proven greenhouse effects of the gas?

Trees. They breathe CO2.

Aside from that, there is scientific dispute as to just how "proven" the alleged effects of so-called "greenhouse gases" are.

[De Selby]

Trees. They breathe CO2.

Aside from that, there is scientific dispute as to just how "proven" the alleged effects of so-called "greenhouse gases" are.

CO2 absorbs light and emits heat. That’s certainly not in dispute and can be measured in a lab. I’d be interested to hear any theories about why CO2 in the atmosphere wouldn’t do that or why it’d make no difference.

You’d think if trees were soaking up all that human made co2, it wouldn’t have shot up 40 percent as a component of the atmosphere since the industrial revolution.

[Calumus]

Shivaree?

Lol, now that's an unpleasant sounding tradition I'd never heard of before. Though, I suppose that how much fun it is depends on which end of the shivaree you're on.

[makattak]

CO2 absorbs light and emits heat. That’s certainly not in dispute and can be measured in a lab. I’d be interested to hear any theories about why CO2 in the atmosphere wouldn’t do that or why it’d make no difference.

You’d think if trees were soaking up all that human made co2, it wouldn’t have shot up 40 percent as a component of the atmosphere since the industrial revolution.

HOLY CRAP! it shot up 40%!?!?!? WOW! With it that high, how are we getting enough oxygen to breathe?

After all, what percent of the atmosphere is CO2 now?

[Ben]

It's not "the Earth is huge". Time is "huge". We're in an essentially dormant era of volcanic activity. All the volcanic activity since humans have been around is the butterfly flapping its wings. Real volcanic activity is the examples in my first two links, which are the hurricane.

Over the last half century, humans input more carbon than volcanic activity (not counting other volcanic outputs). At least that we know of. As my third link indicated, we may only be discovering the tip of the iceberg of current volcanic output as we begin to understand it better.

In the end, it goes back to anthropogenic activity being nothing more than statistical noise over half a billion years. If you want to worry about "global warming" flooding Los Angeles, that's fine, but that's a human problem. That doesn't affect the Earth at all, only puny humans. When you consider that 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth are extinct, maybe it will help put it in perspective. Humans would need to be around for millions of years to equal catastrophic volcanic output, which happened over millions to hundreds of millions of years.

As for "climate scientists". If you're using them to prove a point, it's "some climate scientists", since other climate scientists, especially planetary climatologists and physicists, would argue a different thesis. Ref: Freeman Dyson, who knows closed systems better than anyone else on the planet.

[De Selby]

HOLY CRAP! it shot up 40%!?!?!? WOW! With it that high, how are we getting enough oxygen to breathe?

After all, what percent of the atmosphere is CO2 now?

Small. But in 20 million years apparently it hasn’t been this high.

Why is it unreasonable to suppose that activities which outstrip natural forces by several orders of magnitude are causing changes to the weather?  Especially when one of two greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere is the thing being driven up?

CO2 absorbs light and emits heat. This is one the main reasons the earth isn’t freezing. Now there’s all of a sudden a huge increase in it compared to the past few million years and you’re claiming it’s ridiculous to make the argument that it’s causing global warming.

The amounts aren’t insignificant compared to any natural measure. The substance has a proven hearing effect. But claims that it causes more heat on earth are silly because the numbers in ppm look small.

Not sure that stands to reason man.

[De Selby]

It's not "the Earth is huge". Time is "huge". We're in an essentially dormant era of volcanic activity. All the volcanic activity since humans have been around is the butterfly flapping its wings. Real volcanic activity is the examples in my first two links, which are the hurricane.

Over the last half century, humans input more carbon than volcanic activity (not counting other volcanic outputs). At least that we know of. As my third link indicated, we may only be discovering the tip of the iceberg of current volcanic output as we begin to understand it better.

In the end, it goes back to anthropogenic activity being nothing more than statistical noise over half a billion years. If you want to worry about "global warming" flooding Los Angeles, that's fine, but that's a human problem. That doesn't affect the Earth at all, only puny humans. When you consider that 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth are extinct, maybe it will help put it in perspective. Humans would need to be around for millions of years to equal catastrophic volcanic output, which happened over millions to hundreds of millions of years.

As for "climate scientists". If you're using them to prove a point, it's "some climate scientists", since other climate scientists, especially planetary climatologists and physicists, would argue a different thesis. Ref: Freeman Dyson, who knows closed systems better than anyone else on the planet.

Worrying about whether the fuels we burn today will flood Los Angeles or cause human extinction is reasonable in my eyes.  The fact that both might happen anyway over the next few million years isn’t an argument for knowingly causing them.

I get where you’re coming from. Changes do happen that will make all our best efforts moot, and it looks like Freeman Dyson has (while accepting that CO2 causes warming) argues that the models climate scientists use can’t be accurate, and at the same time that global warming might be positive. Those are reasonable speculations but it’s nice to see other scientists actually running numbers.

[Ben]

Worrying about whether the fuels we burn today will flood Los Angeles or cause human extinction is reasonable in my eyes.  The fact that both might happen anyway over the next few million years isn’t an argument for knowingly causing them.

Sure, it's reasonable to discuss, and I'm all for "climate planning" to the extent we look at how placing future infrastructure to account for potential future changes. We have been pretty crappy at that over the last few hundred years, again, because humans have a problem seeing past a few generations or that there was a time when humans  couldn't have even breathed the Earth's atmosphere. We were crappy at it for thousands of years beforehand as well, but older infrastructure was (mostly) easier to move or rebuild. When Death Valley turned from temperate paradise to blazing desert, the native inhabitants there just packed up and moved over time. That would be a bit harder to do for NYC. And certainly I'm not in favor of tire fires as a power source. I'm all for exploring alternative energy reasonably without the ZOMG!.

I get where you’re coming from. Changes do happen that will make all our best efforts moot, and it looks like Freeman Dyson has (while accepting that CO2 causes warming) argues that the models climate scientists use can’t be accurate, and at the same time that global warming might be positive. Those are reasonable speculations but it’s nice to see other scientists actually running numbers.

Dyson's (and other scientists in the appropriate disciplines) speculations are that the models favored by one side of the argument use faulty data and need work. The creators of those models would argue that the models that refute them use faulty data. That's one of the points. People are just as sure of their models now (across the spectrum) as people were about their models in the '70s. In the end though (IMO) it's all a "human" argument versus a "planet" argument.

[Hawkmoon]

People are just as sure of their models now (across the spectrum) as people were about their models in the '70s.

Do you mean back when the problem du jour was ZOMG! forecasts of an impending ice age, rather than global warming? THOSE '70s?

[Ben]

Do you mean back when the problem du jour was ZOMG! forecasts of an impending ice age, rather than global warming? THOSE '70s?

In fairness, those models were crude compared to what we have now. These will be crude to whatever the models are in 2050. The biggest problems are attempting to integrate millions of years of data into any model when we only have under 200 years of instrument measured data. The farther back we go - tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of years, we introduce exponential error propagation in how those temps are estimated. It can turn 1/10th of a degree into a growing variable.

And then of course, whatever the result, you have to interpret it. That leads to things like the Freeman Dyson argument, where in the "global warming scenario", the thesis is positive impacts outweighing negative impacts.