Climate science arrogance

Me: If anything over 350 is "unsafe" and we've been higher than that level for 25 years, exactly what examples are there that this has been unsafe? What have been the dire consequences of such "high" levels of CO2?

Bowerbird: Oh! Judging by past climate - mass extinction

Me: Could you provide a source for that connection - one that shows CO2 levels above 350 ppm caused mass extinction?

Bowerbird: Ooooh! Strawman - not what I said.

(This was followed by a chart showing the CO2 levels at the time of mass extinctions.)

1. My question was about the dire consequences of CO2 levels above 350 ppm. Bowerbird's response was "mass extinction". Thus the implication that one caused the other, i.e., higher CO2 levels caused mass extinction. If higher CO2 levels did NOT cause the mass extinctions, then why respond with "mass extinction" when questioned about the dire consequences of higher CO2? So my second response was hardly a "strawman". It was a direct consequence of Bowerbird's initial response.

2. And the chart does not support the conclusion Bowerbird wished to imply. Not one of the extinctions shown occured with CO2 levels below 2000 ppm - more than 5 times the 350 ppm under discussion. And only two extinctions ocurred with CO2 as much as 6 times more than the level under discussion.

3. It should be noted that most scientists recognize "only" five mass extinctions - not eight as the chart showed. The five extinctions listed in the chart Bowerbird provided occured at the approximate times below and with the indicated CO2 concentrations.

a. End of Ordovician - 435 MYA (million years ago) - CO2 5600 ppm
b. Late Devonian - 360 million years ago - CO2 3200 ppm
c. Late Permian - 250 MYA - CO2 2000 ppm
d. Late Triassic - 205 MYA - CO2 3000 ppm
e. KT - 65 MYA - CO2 2400 ppm

This means that of the five mass extinctions, only two had CO2 concentrations below 3000 ppm - almost 9 times the 350 ppm under discussion. In each example, CO2 levels remained well elevated for millions of years at levels as much as 15 times the 350 ppm being discussed prior to each mass extinction. Thus the chart shows absolutely nothing about the causal relationship between CO2 and mass extinctions. And that was the implication of the "mass extinction" response.

It's clear then that 350 ppm and "mass extinction" are not related. And even if CO2 and mass extinctions were related, it would apparently take millions of years of much higher concentrations than any number being talked about in relation to AGW.

So I repeat the question: What dire consequences can we expect from "elevated" CO2 levls over 350 ppm?

Left unanswered is the question of where the 350 ppm "safe limit" number came from.

P.S. There is another chart available that purports to show historic CO2 concentartions that does not agree with the chart Bowerbird provided. I have no idea if either chart is correct.

http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c017c37fa9895970b-pi

Recognize that charts such as these are not very accurate below time periods of 10 million years or so for CO2, temperatures, and the dates of extinctions. In fact, extinction events may have taken tens or hundreds of thousands of years to play out.

 

Species extinction has been a constant fact of life on the planet. I am unaware of any study that shows current extinction rates are in excess of historic rates. If you are aware of such studies, could you provide links?

Would you be so kind as to provide a source for the "hundreds, thousands of species that have gone extinct in the last 100 years."? And because you added your comment to the "CO2 levels" post, it implies that you believe the current "mass extinction event" is related to CO2 concentration levels. Would you show that relationship as well? In other words, what percentage of the "hundreds, thousands" were related to CO2 concentrations?

It is doubtful that any scientist can tell us how many species of plants or animals there are today and get within 25%. We simply do not know. And it's even less sure how many there were at any time in the past. Therefore, extinction rates are a very large guesstimate. And if that's true, then ascribing a cause for specific species extinction would be highly questionable.

 

And that's your error right there: it was the wrong inference to draw. Mass extinction is caused by rapid climate change. Rapid climate change can be caused by a rapid buildup of atmospheric CO2, but that's not the only possible cause.

Here's a hint: anything coming from c3headlines is likely to be a pile of crap. The chart you posted has no error bars (in either x or y), and no vertical scales (in either temp or CO2). Also missing is any indication of the gradual increase in solar activity during the Phanerozoic, and the massive effect it would have had on Phanerozoic temperature. Scientifically it's useless -- in fact, worse than useless since it gives a misleading impression.

This is exactly why anyone who is serious about this discussion -- which excludes nearly everyone in the denier camp -- relies on peer-reviewed data only.

Well then let's do the math. The largest mass extinction event was the end-Permian event. That event took at least 10,000 years (Twitchett et. al. 2001), but may have lasted several hundred thousand years. And that event was associated with a rise in global temperatures of 8°C (McElwain & Punyasena 2007). So let's go with the worst-case scenario: 8° in 10,000 years is an increase of 0.08° per century -- although it could have been much slower than that. That's what caused the extinction of 95% of the species on Earth.

The current rate of temperature rise is twenty times higher than that. And we're causing it.

 

We are responsible for 3% of .03%. Nothing alarming about that. The propoganda from the alarmists is just that.

 

Barnovsky et. al. 2011.
McCallum 2007.

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And you're flat-out wrong. Which is why you make a bare assertion devoid of facts or evidence. In fact, you have made no reply at all to my evidence.

 

Is that where you left them, eh?

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Evidence? hahaaahahahahahaahaha

 

That's a lie!

 

Well don't fall off!

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So let's use your graph, why did the temperatures rise from 190x to 194x and then cool off until 198x on your graph?

 

I have to laugh, one of the hiatus deniers posted a link to this to prove his point. A graph that clearly shows the lack of warming.

 

now that makes me laugh....coming from you who has repeatedly stated a single data point on a graph can indicate a trend...you've confirmed many times you are incapable of interpreting graphs...

 

If that were a graph of a particular stock or a particular market would you say you were losing money? And would you buy at this hiatus or sell everything because you are afraid you are going to go bankrupt?

 

Of course I never said that. What I have said is that there are a few hiatus deniars and that you post proof of it I find hilarious.

 

It is not I that is invested in catastrophic global warming so the question is meaningless. You need to ask that of those invested in that particular dogma.

 

It doesn't takemuch of an increase in average temperatures to have drastic effects.

 

You mean like more arable land and longer growing seasons? Try the opposite and see what happens.

 

I am just saying that most graphs do not usually go directly up or down. Just like stock graphs, business graphs,and even science graphs. As you can see clearly in the graph temperatures on average are rising and a little blip is just that....a little blip.

Run a graph on practically anything and you will see ups and downs even if the graph is heading up or down. They usually appear as mountain peaks and valleys rather than straight up or down.

 

You mean in the short time that man has been keeping records. That and you cannot directly compare temperature measurements to proxy records because proxy records may not record swings but only general temperatures which, of course, are also open to interpretation. What you have is approximately 100 year record, with little understanding of what really happened in the past and what is happening now dictating political action.

 

Of course you're invested in it. After all, only the denialist cult even uses that term, usually abbreviating it as CAGW. Once you see that phrase or abbreviation being used, it instantly identifies the speaker as a denialist, since nobody on the rational side speaks in such hysterical terms.

The denialists, of course, absolutely refuse to ever quantify what "catastrophic" is referring to. They prefer to keep their handwaving deliberately vague.

 

your post!

 

LOLOLOLOL.....so because you're ignorant, confused, scientifically illiterate, and can't understand how scientists know what they know, everybody else must be similarly clueless too??? LOLOLOLOL. You denier cultists are hilarious.

 

Skeptics use the term which represents the global warming meme and the hysterical approach to it.

 

Evidently not nearly as much as you are. You still need to do reading.

 

LOLOL. You've demonstrated almost complete ignorance of the science supporting AGW and you obviously only read denier cult blogs and similar propaganda, so you should really take your own advice and read some of the actual science from the actual climate scientists for a change. You are far more ignorant and misinformed than you are capable of realizing, but, due to the Dunning-Kruger Effect, you are afflicted by 'climate change denier arrogance' and you imagine that you are smarter and know more about this than the scientific professionals who have been studying these topics for decades.

 

You are the one leaving links to blogs and cult websites like the very un Skeptical Science. Try doing some reading for a change.

 

LOLOL. Deniers hate the Skeptical Science website because it debunks their pseudo-science and lies with the actual scientific information from the world's premier science journals.

Deniers love to read the fallacious drivel on their cult's blogs because it reinforces their own foolish denial of reality and besides, they can't comprehend the actual science.

Try reading this material, courtesy of the American Institute of Physics, and improve your mind....

The Discovery of Global Warming