Is there a good analogy or simplified explanation for this aspect of AGW?

Question

Certain parties seem to think that there is a single cause for a given weather event or short-term trend, and if you can find that single cause, nothing else has any explanatory power. For example, that the warming between '76 and '98 was caused by the PDO, and therefore was not caused by CO2.

But, anyone actually familiar with the subject will be able to tell you that climate is complex, and there will be a lot of factors that will contribute to any weather event or short-term trend.

So, is there any commonly understood event or phenomenon that demonstrates similar properties? Can you come up with a third-grade level, for-dummies explanation? Any other thoughts?

Answer 1

I will start by asking those that believe the PDO is responsible for any global warming or cooling trends to please explain to us how the PDO is capable of either destroying or creating heat. This is what would have to happen in order for the PDO to be able to determine the long term, global climate trend line.



Yes this PDO is capable of transferring heat from one region to another based on which phase it is in. The PDO is not a climate driver. The PDO sets up weather patterns. Some seem to think that the PDO is also capable of controlling weather patterns on its own without regards as to what any of the other oscillations are doing. A strong El Nino or a strong La Nina event also impacts the weather patterns over certain regions.



A third grade level example of how the PDO can influence weather patterns is to imagine a clear, hot summer day. Anyone standing out in the sun will feel the full impact of the sun's rays on their skin. Now a large cloud begins to move over you and you feel a cooling sensation on your skin. As the cloud moves past you begin to feel the full impact of the sun's rays again. Now, to bring in another "oscillation" the wind could increase as the cloud passes over and you will feel an even greater cooling effect on your skin. Did the cloud or the wind destroy heat? Did the cloud or the wind create heat after they passed?

Answer 2

For some time we have been seeing graphs like the one in this article:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/lessons-from-past-climate-predictions-akasofu.html



It shows a steady rise added to an oscillating variation. The steady rise requires the addition of energy. The oscillation does not. Akasofu claimed that the steady rise was due to the "recovery" from the Little Ice Age. That is somewhat speculative but it does not detract from the idea that two influences are at play. One a steady rise and one an oscillation.



When you compare the oscillation of temperatures with the cusum of the PDO Index it is an exceptional match using the Mark 1 Eyeball. (Correlation is not causation. Possibilities are: A causes B, B causes A, both A and B are caused by something else or coincidence.) This could be the cause of the pause though. Note: A pause is not a permanent halt, it is only temporary.



We still need to determine how much of the sloping line is caused by man-made CO2 and how much by something else. We also need to know how the PDO is caused. That may be due to man-made CO2 as well, or not.



More details here: https://answersrip.com/question/index?qid=20140207234604AAOuRVu

Answer 3

Of course, that is nonsense. Weather and climate are functions of a number of factors. A good question for an exam in an undergraduate course that includes climatology would be



What factors effect climate

1. The Sun

2. Volcanoes

3. PDO

4. AMO

5. Earth's orbital variations

6. Carbon dioxide

7. All of the above.



7 is the correct answer.

Answer 4

The basic cause seems to be a rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, as predicted by Svante Arrhenius a hundred years ago. When people use fossil fuels like coal and oil, this adds carbon dioxide to the air. When people cut down the Earth's forests (deforestation), this means less carbon dioxide is taken out of the atmosphere by plants.



If the Earth's temperature becomes hotter the sea level will also become higher. This is partly because water expands when it gets warmer. It is also partly because warm temperatures make glaciers melt. The sea level rise may cause coastal areas to flood. Weather patterns, including where and how much rain or snow there is, will change. Deserts will probably increase in size. Colder areas will warm up faster than warm areas. Strong storms may become more likely and farming may not make as much food. These effects will not be the same everywhere. The changes from one area to another are not well known.

Answer 5

Sure.

Certain parties seem to think that there is a single cause for a given weather event or short-term trend, and if you can find that single cause, nothing else has any explanatory power. For example, CO2 causes everything. So they make their models with very little understanding of the actual climate. When things go wrong with their models and they are "missing heat", only then do they look to otehr factors. then instead of fixing their model,s they explain away the problem with something like the PDO.



In the meantime, they pretend like we should be making trillion dollar multi-national decisions based upon the models that they have created that have never accurately predicted anything.



They say words, like the "climate is very complex" but they treat the climate as if it is not chaotic and as if they can accurately predict 100 years in the future, even though they even admit that there are many aspects of the climate that they do not fully understand.



Edit:

Dook. LOL, too funny. I realize that you do not see the disconnect between saying we can accurately model out 100 years and saying that their are many aspects of the climate, including the role of the oceans, that we do not understand. BOTH of which are stated by the "scientists".



Therein lies your problem. You think there are these geniouses at work who know so much more than everyone else and have this amazingly intricate grasp on both the climate and modeling that climate.



That is simply not the case. They are giving their best educated guess. And that is what this is, a guess. I have a PhD in statistics and work in the pharma industry. I know the type of people that you so passionately trust. I am their sanity check. And I are not so good that me no make mistakes.



If you truly think that the climate change industry is able to employ vastly superior talent to the pharma industry, you sir, are mistaken.\



Graphicc,

Looking at Dana's analysis is kind of funny. He is claiming an exponential curve is appropriate using the data from 1880 to now. BUT, if you look at when the CO2 concentration started to increase, you would drop off all of that information prior to 1920. You drop those points and a exponential rise makes no sense at all and it looks linear. So why would he add those points, when they clearly were NOT influenced by CO2? I knw the answer to this. You have to cherry-pick the data to make exponential look reasonable.

Answer 6

I can't speak for other but I have certainly mentioned the PDO as one of a number of issues that affect Earths climate, certainly any even basic research into real science (rather than deniers blogs) will show scientists are and have been looking at many aspects

Like wind pattern change

Albedo

Solar activity

Changes in atmospheric particulates

Ocean currents

ENSO (El Niño / La Niña)

And many others



I try to dumb down my comment here for deniers but clearly not far enough, I have certainly over many comments mentioned all of the above, nobody denies that climate is not complex but it is becoming painfully obvious that TV weather men and mad English lords have little real information to add to this and real scientists do, they don't claim to know everything but that's a long way from the straight out lies of watts and mockingtone.



The list above is all playing a part in the global climate and in regional weather as well, but so is human activity, the climate record makes that now pretty clear, events like the PDO played a larger part 60-70 years ago but the current PDO seems much reduced in it's influence. We have had the two warmest years on record while in a PDO cooling event.

When cycles combine like a PDO and a La Niña we get cooler years like 2008 or 2011 but even these are warmer than the record warmer years of the mid 1990's and before. Deniers may huff and puff but that have no real answer to this point as they pretend we have been cooling for 17 years (or whatever this weeks number is)

Answer 7

Magical / mystical / supernatural religious beliefs. Saying that it is PDO or a Cycle or Normal Variability or the Sun - or any "name" that is used without also providing its physical definition, physical realtionship, and physical explanation to the thing being explained - is the same as saying it is caused by God or Thor or Magic or Spirits.



They are the same simplistic explanations of the world that have always existed in primitive belief systems.

Answer 8

No No No, you got it wrong again it is the warmers who cannot accept it could be something other than CO2, we skeptics point out that while CO2 might be causing a small amount of warming it is the natural processes that are causing the biggest changes.

We know and accept that a doubling of CO2 will cause 3.7wm2 increase in warmth that's approx 1C, it's the magical unproven positive feedbacks we object to, the increase in water vapor, the tropical hotspot which are just not happening.

And we are being proven right, because even the climate scientist's are now backpedaling admitting to solar and ocean cycles having an effect, whereas before this was treated as nonsensical.

Answer 9

You can try to pin Sandy and make it Climate change fault

but no proof 84 Hurricanes and storms hit NYC since the 1700s .

Or the Polar Vortex it hit in 1977 and in the Revolutionary War British Solders were going to ambush . A storm hit and they froze .

Answer 10

Simply saying climate is complex and ignoring strong correlations such as the PDO to global temperature trend is foolish. Global temperatures were predicted to cool by people who have used the PDO index as a metric, which came true. Which others have used climate models that are based on AGW which failed. What good are a bunch of predictions that do not come true? And instead of fixing the models, it appears that there is nothing more than WAG's used to explain the pause / cooling, such as Asian brown cloud. That aspect of AGW is no more goofy than saying winter is cold therefore AGW is false. If the next 10 winters are severe and continue to break records set decades ago, that is climate, the summation of weather.

Answer 11

Global Warming 101 - http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-101/



http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/global-warming-as-a-natural-response/



"A simple climate model forced by satellite-observed changes in the Earth’s radiative budget associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is shown to mimic the major features of global average temperature change during the 20th Century – including three-quarters of the warming trend. ... "



A 3rd grader could be taught this but your "liberal, pro-AGW education system" won't allow it.

Answer 12

As you say, it is complex. No man has yet to solve the complexities of women, let alone Mother Nature.



If you could explain it in third grade terms, don't you think the top scientists could concoct an accurate climate model? We don't understand 1000th of what we should know.

Answer 13

In my opinion, certain parties try to find simplified explanations of climate that involve CO2. For example, when it is demonstrated that CO2 lagged temperature in ice core proxies, this is explained away with a theory that first temps rise, CO2 rises, and then H2O. In fact, I agree that there are lots of factors but I don't feel any need to exaggerate the role of CO2. There are so many factors that aren't well understood that it isn't possible IMO to come up with a third grade explanation for dummies.

Answer 14

The awesome insight of 1,315 Best Answers poster JimZ, in his amazingly original comment here:

1. I don't like the implications of climate science

2. Therefore, I don't want to understand climate science

3. Therefore, nobody else can understand the science of climate, even if they want to.

A typical third grader could not reasonably be expected to grasp at once so many layers of brilliant logic. It takes years of study in a cutting edge field such as Abiotic Oil "Geology."



Try this instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApVAqfKCUsI

3rd grade version:

How many people did it take to raise up that big long heavy flag pole?



5th grade version:

Suppose one of those US marines was a really worked out hulky He-Man (or She-Woman like Rosie the Riveter), capable of lifting the flag all politically correctly alone. Does that mean it is impossible for others to have helped?



9th grade version:

The Iwo Jima flag-raising was restaged for the camera, after it actually happened.

Does this mean that World War II was a hoax, concocted so the scientists could get funding to study such ridiculous leftwing topics as aeronautics, ballistics, photography, radar, and nuclear fission?



YA version:

100+ Nobel Prize winning scientists say one thing about climate science.

10-20 Non-Nobel Prize winning scientists, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and JimZ say the direct opposite.

Which is more likely telling the truth?



U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 2010:

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12782&page=1

“Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems.”

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12877

“Choices made now about carbon dioxide emissions reductions will affect climate change impacts experienced not just over the next few decades but also in coming centuries and millennia…Because CO2 in the atmosphere is long lived, it can effectively lock the Earth and future generations into a range of impacts, some of which could become very severe.”

http://www.physics.fsu.edu/awards/NAS/

“The Academy membership is composed of approximately 2,100 members and 380 foreign associates, of whom nearly 200 have won Nobel Prizes. Members and foreign associates of the Academy are elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research; election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a scientist or engineer.”

Answer 15

A good example would be Obama blaming Bush on his career of failures.

Answer 16

I have no idea but this graphic of the polar vortex is pretty cool: http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/02/17/1200Z/wind/isobaric/70hPa/orthographic=-89.63,92.89,318