EXXON Contradicts its Own Scientists

[_Brackite]

2015 is now officially the hottest year on record.

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa- ... es-in-2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/scien ... rming.html

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ ... d-noaa-say

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/20/us/noaa-2 ... mest-year/

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/noaa-2015-w ... on-record/

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/2015 ... pass-19929

[_Brackite]

Well-done video on satellite temperature measurements. http://youtu.be/UVMsYXzmUYk

Thanks! It is a well-done video on satellite temperature data. And we have been having a few people out there who have been claiming that 2015 is not really the hottest year on record due to satellite temperature data.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor ... c58ea723c6

[_Tobin]

Science isn't about following the facts.

And you call faqs an idiot?!?

[_Tobin]

2015 is now officially the hottest year on record.

Which record? As we've already discussed in this thread, the Earth has been far warmer in the past and life went on just fine.

[_MeDotOrg]

2015 is now officially the hottest year on record.

Which record? As we've already discussed in this thread, the Earth has been far warmer in the past and life went on just fine.

No one ever said the world hasn't been warmer. But there is absolutely no other scientific consensus about what could cause the rapid rise in temperature we've seen since the beginning of the industrial revolution.

And yes, life can and will go on just fine. We can go back to the Mesozoic Era when Utah was a warm puddle for dinosaurs. But people generally don't like living in a warm inland sea, and 44% of the world's population live within 100 miles of an ocean.

Mankind, as a unit, will almost certainly survive global warming. But it will bring unimaginable human suffering. You think there are a lot of refugees from the Middle East right now? Wait 100 years, when large areas could be to be hot for human habitation.

Imagine the pilgrimage to Mecca when the temperature is 130℃.


There is a large degree of scientific consensus about a potential problem that could significantly alter humanity's future on this planet for the worse. Some people disagree with both the methodology and interpretation of the data.

But again: NO theory unites the skeptics.

Certainly no one knows the future with absolute mathematical certainty. But it certainly seems prudent to listen, when a significant majority of scientists are predicting that our actions in the next 20 years could significantly impact the planet for the next several centuries.

[_Res Ipsa]

I'll admit that .4/100ths isn't correct and it should be 4/100ths.

Thanks!

With that out of the way, at 4 or 5% water vapor in the atmosphere, that is over 100 times the amount of CO2.

You've already admitted that the relative quantities of greenhouse gases is not the sole factor in determining how significant they are in contribution to the greenhouse effect.

Now, to deal with the silliness of Brad's argument here:

1) Most climatologists recognize that water vapor is the chief greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. And while residency has applicability to CH4, it really isn't meaningful as a criticism of the existence of water vapor in the atmosphere since water is so prevalent that water vapor is usually always present in the atmosphere except the driest desert locations.

What do you mean by "chief?" " Most climatologists" agree that most of the greenhouse effect that earth experiences is caused by water vapor. "Most climatologists" also agree that the recent global warming is caused by (1) increased emission of CO2 that heats the atmosphere; (2) the warmer atmosphere increases the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere (3) which then further heats the atmosphere. This is known as the "water vapor feedback." So, when you say "chief," context is everything.

And I agree that residency applies when we talk about how much the climate will change when we add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. If you'll read what I actually wrote upthread, you'll see that's exactly what I said.

2) Brad relies on global averages. However, one has to ask why he's doing that? After all, global averages include winter months in which global warming isn't really a factor since direct sun light isn't very prevalent to cause much warming in most northerly and southerly locations. Also, these averages wouldn't apply to intertropical and tropical convergence zones where high temperatures and high humidity are prevalent. Since this area represents over half of the world's surface, it is hard to imagine that theses zones wouldn't be a significant contributor to global warming all year long.

I rely on whatever data I can find. Now, note what Tobin is doing here. The part of my argument he's responding to is "Tobin's 4% number is absurdly high." But does the try and defend that number? No! He's now talking about global warming instead of what the atmosphere is made up of. Tobin does this continually throughout the thread, hopping back and forth between what the present atmosphere is made up of and what the effect of adding more of a greenhouse gas will be. I haven't addressed the warming process because I've been busy carefully and methodically showing why Tobin's 4% number is absurd. Tobin's paragraph here is simply irrelevant to the point we've been discussing.

Second Amendment) Also, as I've pointed out, winter doesn't contribute much to global warming. However, summer months in northerly and southerly locations would contribute the most to it. Since these months have much higher temperatures and humidity, it would seem that the high range of water vapor in the air being a major contributor to that warming is appropriate.

This paragraph is also irrelevant to Tobin's claim that 4% of the atmosphere is composed of water vapor. We're not talking about what is causing the atmosphere to warm, we are talking at this point about what the atmosphere is made up of.

3) Brad brings up that higher altitudes have less water vapor and so heating would primarily be due to CO2. While this may be true, the problem is there is nothing to retain the heat and it would be radiated back into space at night. Higher temperatures near the surface is a concern for global warming since land masses and water retain that heat at night contributing to the problem.

You'll notice that Tobin has a problem with admitting to even the most established and non-controversial facts. There is no controversy over the fact that 95% of the atmosphere's water vapor is concentrated in the troposphere. There is no controversy over the fact that CO2 predominates over water vapor in the upper portion of the troposphere. We measure water vapor in the atmosphere through balloon soundings. You can go on line and look at them. Here's one example: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/dv/iadv/gr ... ap&type=vp The scale is logarithmic, so it's a little tricky to get used to. But find 400 on the X axis. Then go up and see what altitude the graph crosses that point. That's the point where water vapor predominates over CO2. But Tobin can't bring himself to simply admit to those simple, noncontroversial facts. Instead, he says "While this may be true..."

The rest is simply more of Tobin making up stuff about how he thinks the atmosphere should work. But the atmosphere doesn't care about what Tobin thinks. Tobin could learn about how the atmosphere works by doing some reading. But he appears to think his own "common sense," which is based on intentional ignorance, is a better source of how the atmosphere works than people who actually, you know, educate themselves and study the atmosphere.

Now there is one thing that I do want to change in my analysis. I was bothered by the discrepancy between the 2-3% that Themis referred to above for water vapor and the 1% I used based on the average temperature. So, I did some more looking. The most helpful thing I found was this: http://www.goes-r.gov/users/comet/tropi ... page_5.3.0 If you go to the page and click on the link for section 1.5.3, which is on Atmospheric Humidity. It lists the water vapor content at the surface of the earth by region: 2-4% in the tropics, 1-3% at mid latitudes, and 0-1% at the poles. That would seem to be consistent with a 2-3% range overall. When I thought back through my logic, I realized that I had forgotten about the effect of the exponential shape of the saturation curve: a one degree warming would increase water vapor capacity more than a one degree cooling would decrease the capacity. TL/DR: I accept the common 2-3% value for the atmospheric percentage of water vapor at the earth's surface.

But that, again, is only at the surface. The link also shows a graph of how specific humidity (which measures the absolute amount of water vapor) changes as we go up through the atmosphere, split out into the three different regions. The X axis is in g/kg, which means that Tobin's 4% would be 40 on the X axis. Note that even on the surface in the tropics the average is nowhere near 40. Note also the fall off as the altitude increases.

Finally, a point Tobin is completely silent on: the figures given for the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere by mass are at most .3%. I gave one source. Here's another: http://eu.wiley.com/legacy/wileychi/ege ... B085-W.PDF That's two more sources that Tobin has ever given for his 4% number.

I hope anyone with a modicum of common sense can see that Brad is being disingenuous with his supposed facts in the extreme. I believe it reflects a nutty religious agenda and a highly biased view of the facts with almost no correlation with reality to promote the supposed harm caused by CO2 while ignoring the significant contribution of water vapor to global warming. The reason for this religious agenda should be clear since it is absurd to believe humans at this point in our technological development can control how much water vapor is present and so it is absurd to believe we can have a meaningful impact on controlling how much global warming there is in general. And he is doing this only to promote his nutty view that we should stop using carbon emitting energy sources to control global warming. However, it should be clear that at the levels of CO2 currently in the atmosphere (or the amount that could ever be produced in hundreds of years of continual use of carbon emitting sources) that doing so won't have any significant impact on global warming at all.

Tobin has done here what we call a Gish Gallop: when faced with evidence that his 4% figure for water vapor in the atmosphere is total BS, he doesn't defend that point. Instead, he throws out a whole bunch of other stuff. 99% of that is also nonsense, but each point will take a similar amount of time and effort to explain with actual facts and evidence. What Tobin has failed to do is provide a single piece of evidence for his original claim: that there is 100X more water vapor in the atmosphere than there is CO2. In the face of actual evidence that the correct figure is around 5X, Tobin offers only his "common sense." That's the Dunning-Kruger effect in spades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect]Dunning-Kruger effect

In fact, though he doesn't seem to recognize it, in his latest post he completely undercuts his original argument! Tobin started out arguing that we could simply dismiss CO2 as a cause of global warming on the sole basis that there was so much less CO2 than there was water vapor. In this post, Tobin doesn't present any evidence or source to defend the 4% number. He spends all of his time talking about things other than the amount of the gases in the atmosphere. Now, he wants to emphasize things like the distribution of the gases in the air, the effect of seasonality, the effect of daily temperature change. Each time he defends his 4% number by talking about something other than the 4% number, he's arguing against his own position.

Unless Tobin produces some actual evidence to substantiate his 4% number, I'm satisfied that I've shown it's nonsense. The next step is to talk about what happens when we add greenhouse gases to our existing atmosphere. As Tobin has agreed, we have to talk about absorption spectra, the distribution of the gases, and residency in the atmosphere. He also wants to talk about lots of other stuff, it seems. But all of it has to be grounded in what the science tells us about how the atmosphere works -- not in how Tobin imagines it works.

[_Tobin]

First, I seriously doubt there will be any location that will be too hot for human habitation. If large dinosaurs lived all over the world at much higher average temperatures, it is unlikely that humans won't be able to. But let's for fun suppose that is a reality. It won't be a hundred years, but 300 or more years of global warming for that to occur and humans will be able to safely move in that amount of time. Also, the world's oceans aren't likely to expand much beyond the few centimeters they are currently expanding at. But again, we can assume the worst and let's suppose in over 300 years the oceans are several feet higher than they are now. Humans are more than capable of adapting to changing situations like that in that kind of time frame. Bear in mind that much of the infrastructure that exists now didn't exist 300 years ago.

The fact of the matter is there is global warming, but it isn't a major threat to human survival or even human civilization. The time frames involved (hundreds of years) are so large that any challenge can be easily overcome by human beings. There is certainly no reason to switch to much more expensive sources of energy without economic reasons to do so and there aren't any right now. The world is experiencing a glut in oil and natural gas and it is very inexpensive. We can continue to use these sources of energy for at least the next 100 years economically. After that, as oil reserves are depleted, then switching to more expensive energy sources may be warranted.

[_The CCC]

First, I seriously doubt there will be any location that will be too hot for human habitation. If large dinosaurs lived all over the world at much higher average temperatures, it is unlikely that humans won't be able to. But let's for fun suppose that is a reality. It won't be a hundred years, but 300 or more years of global warming for that to occur and humans will be able to safely move in that amount of time. Also, the world's oceans aren't likely to expand much beyond the few centimeters they are currently expanding at. But again, we can assume the worst and let's suppose in over 300 years the oceans are several feet higher than they are now. Humans are more than capable of adapting to changing situations like that in that kind of time frame. Bear in mind that much of the infrastructure that exists now didn't exist 300 years ago.

The fact of the matter is there is global warming, but it isn't a major threat to human survival or even human civilization. The time frames involved (hundreds of years) are so large that any challenge can be easily overcome by human beings. There is certainly no reason to switch to much more expensive sources of energy without economic reasons to do so and there aren't any right now. The world is experiencing a glut in oil and natural gas and it is very inexpensive. We can continue to use these sources of energy for at least the next 100 years economically. After that, as oil reserves are depleted, then switching to more expensive energy sources may be warranted.

Too hot for human habitation by turn of century.
SEE http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/27/world/per ... te-change/

The US Military disagrees with you.
SEE http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/1 ... -security/

Solar electric is on a par with Coal, and oil.
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/graniteg ... l-oil.html

Wind electric cheaper than coal.
http://www.wvhighlands.org/VoicePast/Vo ... 1Voice.htm

In order to keep within a 2 degree C temperature rise. We need to cut our CO2 emissions not raise them.

[_Themis]

First, I seriously doubt there will be any location that will be too hot for human habitation. If large dinosaurs lived all over the world at much higher average temperatures, it is unlikely that humans won't be able to. But let's for fun suppose that is a reality. It won't be a hundred years, but 300 or more years of global warming for that to occur and humans will be able to safely move in that amount of time. Also, the world's oceans aren't likely to expand much beyond the few centimeters they are currently expanding at. But again, we can assume the worst and let's suppose in over 300 years the oceans are several feet higher than they are now. Humans are more than capable of adapting to changing situations like that in that kind of time frame. Bear in mind that much of the infrastructure that exists now didn't exist 300 years ago.

The fact of the matter is there is global warming, but it isn't a major threat to human survival or even human civilization. The time frames involved (hundreds of years) are so large that any challenge can be easily overcome by human beings. There is certainly no reason to switch to much more expensive sources of energy without economic reasons to do so and there aren't any right now. The world is experiencing a glut in oil and natural gas and it is very inexpensive. We can continue to use these sources of energy for at least the next 100 years economically. After that, as oil reserves are depleted, then switching to more expensive energy sources may be warranted.

And we see him double down on a bunch of assertions without any facts. Just after Res goes into some detail with a number of sources. Tobin certainly gives a great example of intentional ignorance, but then the thread is more for those who want to learn something.

[Guest]

In order to keep within a 2 degree C temperature rise. We need to cut our CO2 emissions not raise them.

The main problem with tobin and many others is their willful ignorance of the importance of CO2 as a greenhouse gas. He won't even look at the sources people have provided that go into detail about how it works.