Not really. With a vehicle you choose your setpoint speed and it can be achieved within a few seconds with near 100% reliability. With the global mean temperature any action we take to either raise or lower it to a specific value could take 100 years or more and it certainly could not be achieved with near 100% reliability. Remember, there are still natural mechanisms in play that could work against us in unpredictable ways (like volcanism and grand solar cycles).
Either man controls climate as the alarmists insist or he does not. The element is not time, it is that it can happen at all.
More from Judith Curry. https://judithcurry.com/2018/05/16/hearing-on-using-technology-to-address-climate-change/#more-24111 If we look at sea level rise only as a climate change problem, then we are missing key components of sea level rise that are important to decision makers. Confronting our regional and local vulnerabilities to climate variability and change has many potential advantages, allowing for a range of bottom-up strategies to be integrated with other societal challenges. These include growing population, environmental degradation, poorly planned land-use and over-exploitation of natural resources. Even if the threat from global warming turns out to be small, near-term benefits to the region can be realized in terms of reduced vulnerability to a broad range of threats, improved resource management, and improved environmental quality. As a climate scientist, I am concerned that climate science has focused only mitigation relevant research such as attribution of global climate change and determining the climate sensitivity of climate to carbon dioxide. As a result, there has been little focus on understanding natural internal climate variability and regional climate dynamics, which is needed to inform adaptation. A new emphasis of climate science on understanding natural climate variability and its regional impacts is needed to better understand our vulnerabilities to climate variability and change in the 21stcentury. JC reflections: This looks like a very interesting Hearing, with witnesses that are not the ‘usual suspects.’ I may do a follow on post on any interesting topics raised by the other witnesses.
Then by your definition we control the climate. It's just that no one else has the same definition you do. That will make for some confusing lines of conversation going forward.
Why bother if we can't control climate? What is the huge fuss all about if we can't change climate, ergo control climate? I have said from day one that man does not and can't control climate. We can however tone down the alarmism.
If by "control" you mean change of any kind and magnitude within any time period then we definitely control/change the climate. We are doing so now with our various activities. In other words, by staying the course with our pumping of huge quantities of carbon dioxide (and other GHGs) and aerosols we are already controlling/changing the climate. Not doing anything in terms of mitigation is still controlling/changing the climate. I'm not sure what you mean when you say man does not and can't control climate.
Well, to warm the climate a man could pump in the controlling factor. i am not persuaded as of today it happens to be the extremely dense gas we know of as carbon dioxide. There are so many carbon sinks all over earth. If man removes those, that is a way to control climate. But I have an alert. Man can add trees, stop removing peat bogs and other things and then the carbon will settle there. But for me to make changes, i would need control. Do you believe you have control?
Was there any wind on that day? What was the geography of the landscape? This was a very unusual event. If co2 is as dense as you seem to believe why is this not more common
Well, apparently you also refused to bother to read that link. If you read it, you would know the answers. Gee.
The I didn't bother because I am very familiar with the story and have read it in far far less sensational journalistic crap sites like the one you linked to. Even Wiki has a better explanation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos Now the point you appear to be missing is that the valleys below the lake were and are sealed which contained the gas allowing displacement to occur. There was no wind which would have dispersed the gas and even under these unusual circumstances the gas did not remain in the valleys for long.
It was there long enough to kill thousands of animals and a large number of humans. As I kept telling you over and over, carbon dioxide is a heavy gas that sinks.
We are mining ancient carbon by the huge numbers of tons and then emptying it into the atmosphere. Do I control that? No. I'm not the czar of carbon mining. We have giant coal, gas and oil corporations for that. We as a nation CAN make a difference, so pretending solutions are impossible is just plain idiotic.
And I keep telling you that wind mixes gases I have linked before to dispersion Why is the gas no longer there - hint DISPERSION
I'm not following your point here. Why would carbon dioxide being dispersed conflict with it being a greenhouse gas?
OK,. for the sake of peace on Earth, let's all go along with it being one of the many greenhouse gasses? What happened to methane?
Dispersed means spread around. I agree it's spread around. There are videos showing CO2 dispersal. They show CO2 production from the various areas of US, China, etc. with the paths it takes toward the southern hemisphere and other places where there is less production. If we weren't mining carbon and releasing it in the atmosphere, there would be a natural cycle of absorbing it through growth of vegetation and releasing it through oxidation by rot (oxidation), farts, burning (more oxidation), etc. But, the current rate of mining of carbon (as coal, gas, oil) overloads that cycle with giant amounts of additional carbon. So, there is an increasing amount of carbon in our atmosphere.
Methane is worse than co2 from a greenhouse perspective. However, humans are producing far more co2 than methane. So, co2 is a bigger deal right now. If/when we allow warming enough to melt the northern tundra, we'll face the additional warming caused by giant amounts of methane as thawed tundra decomposes. That is something we should be working to avoid.
One nice thing about these chats with both you and Bowerbird is I never fear you will actually show the science and math to back you up. It is chat chat and more chat
Let's operate like real scientists. Energy budgets, climate system domains and internal variability https://judithcurry.com/2018/05/22/...-domains-and-internal-variability/#more-24119 Introduction The objectives of these notes include a look into how natural internal variations within Earth’s climate system affect the radiative energy budget at the Top of the Atmosphere (ToA). The initial focus is on energy exchanges between sub-systems that make up Earth’s climate system. To this end, the local-instantaneous energy conservations equations, and averages of these, are examined in a little detail. Unfortunately, no quantitative results are obtained or presented. The analysis is basically a general over-view of the energy-budget of the climate system with a focus on the significant potential for variations on a wide range of time and spatial scales. Maybe notes will provide food for thought and discussions. Background Earth’s climate system is made up of several sub-systems, including: humans other inhabitants atmosphere, with condensing and non-condensing gases, liquid and solid particles, water vapor in the atmosphere non-condensing gases in the atmosphere solid particulate aerosols in the atmosphere oceans and other large bodies of liquid water, land, trees, plants, and other flora, on land and in water bodies, snow and ice solid phases of water, on both land and liquid water, organic materials that experience chemical interactions with adjacent materials, inorganic materials that experience chemical interactions with adjacent materials, and maybe a couple of others. Please use link to be educated.
Snark won't save your tail, Robert. If you want a cite, just ask. See the CO2 dispersal video from NASA:
https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/features/200105_senate/page2.html Anyone who knows climatology knows that asking for math is just plain silly - there is FAR too much math for a post, and if you had a clue as to how to use it, you would know how to find it.
