Sell me on global warming

[Surgo]

Premise 1: There are record levels of CO2, CH4, and N2O in the atmosphere that have never, ever been seen at any recordable point in history.
Premise 2: Premise 1 is caused by humans.
Premise 3: Because of Premise 1, the earth is going to warm up.
Premise 4: Because of Premise 2, we can stop Premise 3.

That is, as far as I understand, the global warming argument in its entirety. Premise 1 is not up for debate because it is a fact (in fact I just saw a seminar on this at my university, Dartmouth College, where this data (taken from ice cores drilled in the Antarctic; if you want to know how they get that I'll be happy to explain) was presented. Premise 2 is both literally unprovable (logically) and practically unprovable (scientifically), but is such an extremely safe bet that I'm willing to operate under that assumption.

The disconnect I have is at premise 3. While one would think that this is exactly what would happen, I have never had the mathematics behind the transformation (speaking non-mathematically there) of the atmospheric gas numbers to temperature numbers spelled out or even enumerated at all. So that's where I'm having a bit of trouble: I can't see how exactly we go from Premise 1 to Premise 3.

I don't need to know the why of the mathematics (I was a math major after all and am quite capable of figuring that out on my own), I just...can't seem to find out the what. Can anyone help here?

Premise 4 appears shaky, but is outside the scope of this discussion.

 

[cantab]

Your Premise 1 is incorrect. CO2 levels have been higher than at present. The last time this happened was about 15 million years ago mind. It should be borne in mind that the climate then was warmer than today. Going further back, we see very high levels of CO2 - but at a time when the solar output was less.

As for premise 3, your question is a little unclear. So I apologise if the following is what you already know.

We must consider what happens to solar energy that reaches the Earth.

It hits the atmosphere.
Some (notably ultraviolet) gets absorbed in the upper atmosphere.
Some gets reflected by clouds.
Some gets reflected by the ground. Ice and snow are shinier than rock, soil, and vegetation.
The rest gets absorbed by the ground.
The ground then RADIATES thermal energy, at much longer wavelengths. The amount of radiation will depend on the temperature of the ground surface. (And on its albedo)
Some of this radiation is absorbed by water vapour, carbon dioxide, and other gases. The heat gets transported by convection, and can go back into the ground.
The rest escapes to space.

So what we have is essentially an equilibrium. Incoming solar energy matches outgoing thermal radiation.

Now, if we increase the concentration of greenhouse gases, we decrease the amount of heat the Earth can radiate to space. We have an imbalance, and the Earth warms up.

Give me a little more time and I'll work out a simple 1-dimensional model. If I get my basic assumptions right, a pen-and-paper calculation should give an answer roughly in accordance with sophisticated computer models.

 

[Surgo]

Your Premise 1 is incorrect. CO2 levels have been higher than at present. The last time this happened was about 15 million years ago mind. It should be borne in mind that the climate then was warmer than today. Going further back, we see very high levels of CO2 - but at a time when the solar output was less.

It appears that my memory was slightly incorrect. The figure I was referring to can be found here at 11:03. (Which shows what you said, not what I said.)

 

[cookie]

I don't know/haven't read enough on global warming to understand fully the data and any correlations, but I bypass those uncertainties using the logic that we have to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, the cause of increased CO2 emissions, because our economy is frighteningly dependent on them and once they run out we're in a world of shit (an example: all the food and services we use are transported using trucks which run on diesel).

Put simply: society needs energy to meet its needs and modern societies have developed in such a way that they utilise energy abundance in fossil fuels. Once we run out of them and have no other way to meet out energy needs, we will need to drastically change our way of life.

So I see reducing our fossil fuel dependence having the side-effect of reducing CO2 emissions regardless of their effect on our climate.

Regarding global warming, there are several factors beyond simply more CO2 absorbing more heat: melting ice meaning an overall lower reflectivity of earth, ice age cycles, solar activity variations, atmospheric dust blocking radiation and the oceans' ability to absorb and sequester CO2.

 

[Brain]

Look, I don't mean to be rude, but why the hell would you ask this here? Just go on Wikipedia, read up and follow links until you think you have a good picture, that's what I did when I was in your situation. It will be heaps better than anything you'll get here and it will waste less time. If you still have questions then you can ask the right ones directly to the people you believe can give you the best answers.

 

[MrIndigo]

I might point out, the reason the terminology has generally changed from 'global warming' to 'climate change' is because Premise 3 is not clear; there are areas on the globe that have actually cooled down over the same period. The average temperature of the planet is not really the problem, so much as the stability of the climate. The concern (i.e. the 'true' Premise 3) is that the potential instabilities to the climate will cause irreparable damage to various global ecosystems and make life difficult in the future.

 

[Quaily]

All I can really say about global warming is this:

clean air is good

 

[Eraddd]

Premise 2: Premise 1 is caused by humans.

Emission of CO2 Gas. However, this problem could also be attributed to the heating up of the Earth, releasing CO2 gas from the oceans.

Premise 3: Because of Premise 1, the earth is going to warm up.

Yes, but it might not be attributed to it. Solar Output, the "New Ice Age", and the natural shift in climate could also be attributed. (Keep in mind that the scientists the UN commissioned (and they're not the run of the mill scientists either) believe there's a 90% chance that it is caused by humans).

 

[matty]

Look, I don't mean to be rude, but why the hell would you ask this here? Just go on Wikipedia, read up and follow links until you think you have a good picture, that's what I did when I was in your situation. It will be heaps better than anything you'll get here and it will waste less time. If you still have questions then you can ask the right ones directly to the people you believe can give you the best answers.

Please God. I'm a Biologist and even though everyone bashes the shit out of Wikipedia, if you follow the papers at the bottom, you can inform yourself better than anyone else.


I'm currently writing a term paper about this subject and despite the "Global Warming-Gate" shit, it is very present. The only thing I want to add is that there is a different between Global Warming and Climate Change. Global Warming is overall changes in Temperature. Climate Change is changes in local weather which is basically changes in temp, atmospheric pressure, humidity, precipitation. All of these factors have seen significant changes. But brain hit the head on the nail, don't ask her, read papers!

 

[Surgo]

Look, I don't mean to be rude, but why the hell would you ask this here? Just go on Wikipedia, read up and follow links until you think you have a good picture, that's what I did when I was in your situation. It will be heaps better than anything you'll get here and it will waste less time. If you still have questions then you can ask the right ones directly to the people you believe can give you the best answers.

Mostly to start good discussion, but there's also how for most hours of the day I can't even read the papers cited on Wikipedia because they're behind pay-walls.

 

[cantab]

Alright, I admit climate modelling is a bit harder than I thought, and my own efforts stalled. (Mainly because the different behaviour of different frequencies of radiation really needs to be considered.)

However, I turned up a paper,
http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/spring04/atmo451b/pdf/RadiationBudget.pdf

I haven't read it all yet myself, but certain statements stand out:

"For the clear sky, water vapour contributes to 60% of the total radiative forcing, while carbon dioxide contributes 26% to the clear sky radiative forcing."

"The second most important greenhouse gas is CO2"

'Radiative forcing' is a scientific term related to the greenhouse effect.

Of course, the climate change ??? (I can't choose a suitable word here. 'sceptics' is wrong, but 'deniers' is too pejorative. Maybe 'dissenters' works) will just deride it as the work of government-payrolled conspirators. Or they'd take a quote like this

"For cloudy conditions...the contribution by carbon dioxide is small."

The paper does indeed say that, however, in the context of shortwave radiation only. That is the radiation that is scattered or reflected by the atmosphere, clouds, and the ground. Carbon dioxide absorbs primarily longwave radiation - which is emitted by the ground. By selectively quoting, one makes it appear the paper says something it does not. Thus, you should read the whole paper.

 

[Deck Knight]

Glad I'm in your mind cantab. I certainly can't compare to the likes of you, who bring up other posters to malign them for no apparent reason except your own misconceptions.

I'd appreciate it if you didn't use my name in your posts in the future. I don't want to be associated with such pettyness.

cantab is however correct that they are not the highest levels of those substances of all time, though they are the highest in history we could actually record.

Which doesn't say much because recorded history of data like this is remarkably short compared to the planet's age. I don't really worry about whether there is actual warming or cooling. The planet's climate is a dynamic system and trying to force stability on it does nothing for anyone. We don't even have a suitable definition of "stable," and we're already complaining this climate is bad and has worsened too much already. "Stability" is a false good, how can we presume that slowing change is any less damaging then letting it go apace, even if we somehow gains godlike control over all the planet's resources and populations to direct them?

The climate will change, and every living creature will either adapt or die, just like they have over the last hundred million years.

 

[St Dionysius]

just like they have over the last hundred million years.

HUH? What? I was expecting the world to be only 5,000 years old.


To put it succinctly for the OP: At the current rate of increasing temperature it's not going to matter whether or not the economy goes to shit. The world won't be able to properly support a society as we know it and the war and famine will fuck over all existing monetary systems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ

 

[cantab]

Edited my previous post. You are correct that I should not have named you.

"Stability" is a false good, how can we presume that slowing change is any less damaging then letting it go apace

There is plenty of reason to believe stability is a good thing. Life generally does best in stable climates. As I have previously mentioned, many mass extinctions are related to climate change. There is also the inverse relationship between speciation and environmental change. When the environment is more stable, species diversify to occupy niches. When the environment is more variable, the only species that can succeed are generalists capable of dealing with all conditions. Humans are probably the ultimate generalists, and indeed there is no reason to expect any climate change would actually result in our extinction. But a thermonuclear war between the USA and Russia probably wouldn't make us extinct either, so that's not saying much - humanity is capable of experience many catastrophes short of extinction, including the irreversible collapse (irreversible because we have mined out all the coal and minerals that can be readily got with hand tools) of our civilisation - not that I expect consequences of climate change will be that severe.

 

[Lockeness]

I am interested in the first premise. How can we possibly know the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. There are billions of cubic feet of gas in the atmosphere how can we calculate even closely the amount of Carbon? Scientific models can barely tell us the 100% chance of weather much less the trends of our entire climate over 10 years. Is more CO2 even bad for the enviroment and is our enviroment really as fragile as global warming advocates imply. Also is all of our data acurate? Is the ability to calculate the effect of global warming even possible? We are not talking about a static set in stone system we are talking about a very powerful, very devestating, constantly changing system that is VERY unpredictable. As for weather warming because of carbon is possible lets look at the atmosphere in metaphor. Imagine a football field, now lets see how much carbon is in the atmosphere- If the atmosphere is a football field then the amount of Carbon is one fifth of the goal line. I am also confused about how a chemical that is constantly being cleaned out of the atmosphere can cause the apocalyptic damage that Global warming advocates imply.

Also how is everyone in the midwestern US enjoying their Blizzards? I am sure it is all the fault of America burning fuel and because of capitalism.

 

[cantab]

I am interested in the first premise. How can we possibly know the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. There are billions of cubic feet of gas in the atmosphere how can we calculate even closely the amount of Carbon?

Pretty easily. Well, what we measure is the concentration. Around 384 parts per million and present, and rising. Devices have been made to detect certain gases in quantities of parts per TRILLION - CO2 concentrations are easy by comparison.
Of course the actual amount also depends on the mass of the atmosphere. That cannot be measured directly, but it's simple to calculate: you need the air pressure, air temperature, air composition, and strength of gravity at the surface, and then it's basic physics. In any case, since the atmospheric mass is virtually constant, it doesn't really matter unless you're interested in balancing the carbon cycle (and we can get it to sufficient accuracy for that purpose in any case).

Scientific models can barely tell us the 100% chance of weather much less the trends of our entire climate over 10 years. Is more CO2 even bad for the enviroment and is our enviroment really as fragile as global warming advocates imply. Also is all of our data acurate? Is the ability to calculate the effect of global warming even possible? We are not talking about a static set in stone system we are talking about a very powerful, very devestating, constantly changing system that is VERY unpredictable.

Weather is different to climate.It may be hard to predict the weather tomorrow, but any fool knows that it will be warmer in six months time than it is today.
Calculating the exact effects of increasing atmospheric CO2 is not easy, and estimates range somewhat. But I am aware of no climate model that predicts increasing CO2 will have no effect on climate. Variation in predicted warming amounts also depends on varying predictions of future CO2 emissions - and THOSE relate to different economic and political futures.

As for weather warming because of carbon is possible lets look at the atmosphere in metaphor. Imagine a football field, now lets see how much carbon is in the atmosphere- If the atmosphere is a football field then the amount of Carbon is one fifth of the goal line.

Ask the German 1966 world cup team how important a fifth of the goal line should have been.

I am also confused about how a chemical that is constantly being cleaned out of the atmosphere can cause the apocalyptic damage that Global warming advocates imply.

Leave the plug out of a sink and turn the tap on somewhat. The water will find a level. Then increase the tap flow, and the water level will rise, even though any molecule of water still spends very little time in the sink. Humanity is turning up the tap.

 

[Altmer]

flow rate of carbon into atmosphere is higher than flow rate out of it

any genius can point out that carbon levels rise then

 

[Deck Knight]

Too bad the atmosphere is not the only place where carbon is disposed of. All sorts of cuddly critters (and plants as a category) have devised means of pulling carbon from the atmosphere and ocean. The politics of global warming are entirely bullshit, and every day since Climategate broke more and more of the data underlying the nonexistent consensus is proven to be manufactured nonsense at best, deliberate fraud at worse, a Hardcore Gorenography created to titillate the converted.

It is true that any fool will know it will be warmer in six months. Most people in the Northern Hemisphere call this natural phenomenon summer (whereas people in the Southern Hemisphere disagree with that premise entirely). It takes a true level of foolishness to believe that the next ten summers after that will each be progressively warmer in the aggregate, and furthermore it will be all mankind's fault, which is the crux of the political aspect of global warming. The bullshit aspect. Never is it considered the prospect that all existing climate models are wrong, one of them must be right, correct? If someone gives me a thousand pieces of different data, someone must have gotten it right, correct? No. This is fallacious reasoning.

It is possible for any set of limited n data setting a value for a statement x to all be incorrect. The only time this is not true is for infinite data, where by definition at least one must be correct because all possible combinations are included in an infinite set of data. And in this particular case, the data itself has been corrupted. No wonder that no climate model predicts cooling, the data has been "value-added" to describe the conclusion.

The EPA (a political outfit, so no one misunderstands my focus on political aspects of global warming) just declared carbon dioxide a pollutant. I wait with baited breath for the consequences, because apparently exhalation is now a source of pollution. Gorenography is indeed a hard sell.

The problem with approaching this from a scientific aspect is that the scientific facts have been tampered with (again, for political purposes). I do wish we could see earth in 100,000 years, so that we can look back at 2009 and say "Why! Why didn't we forsee Boston and London (or whatever is there then, probably nothing) buried under mile thick glaciers! If only we had consulted the geological record :(." Then again, planetary glaciation can be blamed on mankind too I guess. It's a conclusion that doesn't require evidence because it will always be at least partly true. Any single element of a system effects that system.

Premise 2 is a "safe bet," says the OP? Why? It certainly isn't because the climate never changed when humans weren't using internal combustion engines and coal-fired power plants. Both of these things are jokes compared to the potential climate change wrought from say, a supervolcano going off or a large meteor strike, things that previously shaped global climate patterns. The world also fluctuated between warm periods and glaciations naturally, without massive super-events (unless you count various quirks of solar activity a super-event). New England's very soil is rocky because it used to be crushed under miles of ice.

Here would be a better set of premises:

Premise 1: The climate is a dynamic system.
Premise 2: Man is part of that dynamic system.
Premise 3: Whatever the implications of Premise 2, Premise 1 is neither entirely unaffected by nor entirely controlled by actors specified in Premise 2.
Premise 4: Because of Premise 3, proceed with caution and prudence.

Which would mean not doing things like declaring an essential nutrient for plants and the natural product of animal exhalation a pollutant... for example. The air we breathe is now a danger to the air we breathe under that standard.

If we go back to our initial list or premises, this basically means that Original Premise 1 is unaltered (considering only recordable history, not recorded, as current levels of component parts are assumed in a dynamic system), Original Premise 2 is weakened severely (dynamic systems have multiple causes), Original Premise 3 is suspect (dynamic systems fluctuate in direction), and Original Premise 4 is thrown out entirely (dynamic systems are no longer dynamic if they can be controlled).

This doesn't even get into the entirely separate debate of whether any given change in the dynamic system is good, bad, indifferent, or just different.

 

[cantab]

Too bad the atmosphere is not the only place where carbon is disposed of. All sorts of cuddly critters (and plants as a category) have devised means of pulling carbon from the atmosphere and ocean.

Indeed. But it's pretty clear that the CO2 'sinks' aren't absorbing the excess fast enough - because the atmospheric levels are RISING.

Never is it considered the prospect that all existing climate models are wrong, one of them must be right, correct? If someone gives me a thousand pieces of different data, someone must have gotten it right, correct? No. This is fallacious reasoning.

Given that
1) The basic physics underlying climate is perfectly known
2) Climate models generally agree broadly - the differences are in details
3) The models are able to broadly replicate the past record
it seems highly unlikely that all climate models are fundamentally wrong

The only time this is not true is for infinite data, where by definition at least one must be correct because all possible combinations are included in an infinite set of data.

Untrue. Read up on infinite set theory. (Not that it has any relevance to discussion of climate change)

Here would be a better set of premises:

Premise 1: The climate is a dynamic system.
Premise 2: Man is part of that dynamic system.
Premise 3: Whatever the implications of Premise 2, Premise 1 is neither entirely unaffected by nor entirely controlled by actors specified in Premise 2.
Premise 4: Because of Premise 3, proceed with caution and prudence.

Personally I wouldn't call digging up and burning over 16 million tonnes of coal, 2.9 trillion cubic metres of natural gas, and 3.5 billion US gallons of oil per day 'caution and prudence'.

 

[Lockeness]

I understand that weather and climate are different but Climate goes beyond seasons it is the total effect of weather everywhere. How we can even calulate a warming trend on highly inaccurate simulators is preposterous. If we wanted to see if the earth is warming we would need to cover it in sensors for thousands of years to see if the earth is warming because of humanity or nature. There is no way they can accurately know what the climate was like a thousand years ago based on tree rings. There is so much evidence that was never even taken into consideration. Plus if these e-mails from East Anglia University are any proof it seems that global warming is a political tool to pass certain legislation and center power with governing bodies. I frankly do not trust the leaders of the world with the power that would be given them if massive climate change legislation was passed.

 

[metalrush]

I think global warming is something almost impossible to stop. First of all, to stop global warming, we have to cut back on the emission of greenhouse gases (burning of fossil fuels in factories, cars, etc). Some of those stuff are deeply entrenced in modern society, just saying something like global warming is destroying the world will not stop the use of it. Even if the leaders somehow gets rid of all that stuff, we don't know if that will even stop global warming, for all we know, the Earth could still keep warming anyways. I'm also one of those people who think the governments are overexaggerating on global warming. Cutting back our dependency on fossil fuels, therefore cutting greenhouse gases, is good, but I still think it's wrong to lie to people.

 

[cantab]

I understand that weather and climate are different but Climate goes beyond seasons it is the total effect of weather everywhere. How we can even calulate a warming trend on highly inaccurate simulators is preposterous. If we wanted to see if the earth is warming we would need to cover it in sensors for thousands of years to see if the earth is warming because of humanity or nature. There is no way they can accurately know what the climate was like a thousand years ago based on tree rings. There is so much evidence that was never even taken into consideration.

Not just tree rings. There are many climate 'proxies' - things we can measure that are correlated with aspects of climate (usually temperature, but some other things too), and thus infer past temperatures from. Oxygen isotopic ratios and gas bubbles in ice cores, temperature measurements in boreholes (surface warm or cold periods result in 'waves' of heat travelling down in to the rock), isotopes ratios in corals and in sediments, as well as the tree rings. We can check these proxies against recent temperature records, and against each other. Thus, we can be reasonably confident of their precision and accuracy. We can also add historical records of major events - a severe cooling in 535-536 AD (presumably due to a volcanic eruption) is known both from scientific evidence (tree rings and ice cores) and from Byzantine, Irish, Chinese, and Peruvian historical records. All this indicates that we can have good confidence in our knowledge of the climate of the last few hundred thousand years. The oldest reliable records are in ocean sediments, and they go back around two hundred million years. Plenty long enough to know what the natural behaviour of Earth's climate is.

Your attitude just seems to be throwing your hands up in the air and claiming we can't know anything. That kind of attitude doesn't get us anywhere. Once people thought we could never know what the stars were made of. They were wrong - thanks to spectroscopy, we now know the compositions of stars very well indeed. Scientific measurements need not be direct.

What evidence relating to past climatic variability "was never even taken into account"? Name a climate proxy that has a sound theoretical basis but disagrees with the commonly used proxies.

Plus if these e-mails from East Anglia University are any proof it seems that global warming is a political tool to pass certain legislation and center power with governing bodies. I frankly do not trust the leaders of the world with the power that would be given them if massive climate change legislation was passed.

Actually the emails don't show any evidence of the kind of giant conspiracy some people seem to be suggesting. There's been some 'dirty tricks' by a number of scientists, but no evidence of overarching political plots, nor of outright scientific fraud. (Cases of fraud in science have been discovered before, and they've been very different to this email controversy.)

And if you "do not trust the leaders of the world" then get rid of them. Run for election to a public position yourself. Who knows, if the electorate agree with what you say, you might make it big.

Then again, tens of thousands of people have been on marches to demand their governments take action against climate change. The advocates of reduced or no action are primarily business interests.Citizens want action taken - and in a democracy, governments are supposed to do what their citizens want.

I think global warming is something almost impossible to stop. First of all, to stop global warming, we have to cut back on the emission of greenhouse gases (burning of fossil fuels in factories, cars, etc). Some of those stuff are deeply entrenced in modern society, just saying something like global warming is destroying the world will not stop the use of it. Even if the leaders somehow gets rid of all that stuff, we don't know if that will even stop global warming, for all we know, the Earth could still keep warming anyways. I'm also one of those people who think the governments are overexaggerating on global warming. Cutting back our dependency on fossil fuels, therefore cutting greenhouse gases, is good, but I still think it's wrong to lie to people.

Global warming is impossible to stop completely. That doesn't, however, mean we should let it run away. The greater the warming, the greater the damage (in general).
And burning fossil fuels in power stations isn't "deeply entrenced in modern society". Using a lot of electricity is, but users of electricity don't care how it's generated (ignoring environmental conscience, which acts against fossil fuels anyway). All that matters is how reliable the supply is, and how much it costs. Governments have the power to influence the cost of different forms of generation by taxation and subsidy (and also planning permission) - a migration of electricity generation away from fossil fuels onto renewables can be accomplished without really impacting any industries outside electricity generation itself.
Vehicle fuel is harder to change, but we're still waiting on the technology anyway.

 

[Staraptor Call]

I think global warming is something almost impossible to stop. First of all, to stop global warming, we have to cut back on the emission of greenhouse gases (burning of fossil fuels in factories, cars, etc). Some of those stuff are deeply entrenced in modern society, just saying something like global warming is destroying the world will not stop the use of it. Even if the leaders somehow gets rid of all that stuff, we don't know if that will even stop global warming, for all we know, the Earth could still keep warming anyways. I'm also one of those people who think the governments are overexaggerating on global warming. Cutting back our dependency on fossil fuels, therefore cutting greenhouse gases, is good, but I still think it's wrong to lie to people.

Climate change is completely possible to stop. If someone set up a sulfur dioxide generator that put large amounts of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, then the earth would cool almost instantly because more sunlight would be reflected back into space.

Such a setup, though it sounds complicated, would actually be very cheap compared to carbon taxes and cap and trade systems. The whole system would only cost about ten million dollars a year. Getting sulfur dioxide up to the stratosphere would only require a fire hose with large helium balloons attached to it. Sulfur, a byproduct of oil mining, is very inexpensive as well.

And this strategy isn't nearly as risky as it sounds, either. In the 1990s, Mount Pinatubo erupted and produced almost exactly the same effect as a sulfur dioxide generator would have. The global temperature dropped about one degree Farenheit that year, making it much closer to the pre-industrial level.

So global warming could easily be fixed if our politicians got over their paralyzing fear of geoengineering. A sulfur dioxide pump carries some small risks, but it is far more dangerous to hurt the economy with carbon taxes or let climate change continue unchecked.

 

[cantab]

Geoengineering's an idea that's being researched, and it might even work. The trouble is any approach won't produce results the same as just dropping atmospheric CO2 levels. You may be able to stop the overall warming, but still be left with subtler negative effects. In the example of a sulphur dioxide aerosol, this includes acid rain (even if aerosols are pumped directly into the stratosphere, there will be some mixing down into lower layers), and affects on rainfall patterns.

There is also the danger that if we geoengineer in order to counteract rising atmospheric CO2, and continue emitting, we end up requiring more and more geoengineering, with more and more expense.

Geoengineering is something that could be done unilaterally. It doesn't require agreement of all nations. That's a double-edged sword - it means action should be easier, but it also means action with negative consequences is more likely to happen. I expect once it gets technologically feasible, there may have to be international treaties regulating geoengineering. We can't have a situation where for example the USA pumps aerosols into the stratosphere to save its grain belt, without regard for the droughts that causes in Africa. (This is just an example - I'm not saying aerosols will in reality cause such droughts)

 

[Brain]

I understand that weather and climate are different but Climate goes beyond seasons it is the total effect of weather everywhere. How we can even calulate a warming trend on highly inaccurate simulators is preposterous.

Hey I can do this too! How we can even calculate the temperature of a cup of coffee on highly inaccurate simulators of individual molecule energies and trajectories is preposterous. After all, if we are incapable of modelizing the intricate properties of microscopic systems, it is ridiculous to think we could modelize macroscopic properties such as their global temperature. Right? That's what you are saying, right? That the evolution of the global temperature of a cup of coffee is unknowable because it is the total of an incredible number of interactions that we can't simulate precisely?

Obviously, you are wrong. The fact is that aggregate statistics of highly complex dynamical systems are usually much simpler than that system. Global climate is a lot simpler to analyze than local climate, which is itself much simpler to analyze than local weather. Pick a thousand numbers randomly between -1000 and 1000. I don't need to figure out what the exact sequence is to tell you its total sure as fuck won't add up to a million. Same goes for climate - we can figure out the big picture just fine.

If we wanted to see if the earth is warming we would need to cover it in sensors for thousands of years to see if the earth is warming because of humanity or nature. There is no way they can accurately know what the climate was like a thousand years ago based on tree rings. There is so much evidence that was never even taken into consideration.

Really. What are your credentials, kiddo? You already fucked up thermodynamics.

Plus if these e-mails from East Anglia University are any proof it seems that global warming is a political tool to pass certain legislation and center power with governing bodies. I frankly do not trust the leaders of the world with the power that would be given them if massive climate change legislation was passed.

Where did any of these emails even refer to anything pertaining to politics? Where do they contradict the idea of anthropogenic global warming or anything in the literature for that matter? I mean, have you even read them? I have, and there's nothing particularly interesting in them.