Global warming predictions
Global warming are the new public policy buzz words. Apparently, we’re all doomed and so every politicians and well-meaning statist wants to save us.
Debate goes on as to what exactly happened in the past, what is going to happen in the future & what the government can and should do about it. Estimates for future warming vary considerably, with some people predicting dire consequences in the next 5 or 10 years while others suggesting that we have little to fear. The IPCC has a range of estimates from 1.1 to 6.4 degrees in this century.
These disagreements have lead some people to make the great Australia challenge “you wanna bet?” David Evans has a bet with Brian Schmidt for $3000 that temperatures will increase by less than 0.1 degrees/deacade and another $3000 that temperatures will increase by less than 0.15 degrees/deacade. Brian wants more bets, but few skeptics have accepted his odds.
James Annan also has a bet running with Russian solar physicists Bashkirtsev and Mashnich for $10,000 that temperatures will be higher/lower in 2012-17 (average) compared with 1998-2003 (average).
But what do you think dear reader? The new ALS poll asks how global temperatures will change over the next 10 years, with possible answers in increments of 0.1 degree. If you pick “increase by 0.3 degrees” then your range is +0.26 to +0.34. The base year will be 2006 (+0.28 degrees above a recent historical average) as measured by John Christy’s Satellite temperatures.
For some perspective, the IPCC estimates a +0.2 degrees increase in the next decade. Some alarmists expect more… some skeptics expect less. Satellite temperatures by John Christy indicate an upward trend of +0.14 degrees per decade (+0.22 in the northern hemisphere and +0.07 in the southern hemisphere) over the past 30 years in the lower troposphere. Other measures indicate a recent warming trend of between +0.05 and +0.26 degrees/decade and surface temperatures have increased by 0.17 degrees/decade since 1979. Temperatures increased notably in the 1990s, but have stayed roughly constant since 2002.
Voting in the poll is free & I look forward to discussion about why people picked the range they picked. If anybody wants to put their money where their mouth is then the ALS is happy to coordinate any bets. To keep it friendly, the terms could be a simple $100 on your preferred temperature range with the money being distributed evenly among people who pick the correct temperature change. Of course, people are also free to coordinate their own one-on-one bets with anybody on their own terms.
P.S. The results of the last ALS poll on voting intentions were as expected, with 46% of people preferring the LDP. Strangely, 25% still support the national socialist Liberal party, followed by Labor (8%), Greens (6%) and Family First (5%) with 6% claiming they don’t vote.
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I voted for an increase of 0.1 degrees, though I would not be surprised with an increase of 0.2 degrees or with no change.
I find the global warming story somewhat convincing. We are emitting more greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases contribute to warming the planet. Ergo, all other things being equal, there should be some warming. Recent history conforms to this expectation. However, I am less sure about the size of the impact and the interplay with other climate issues.
I don’t think the mainstream position is beyond question and I certainly have an ear for skeptics who see co2 as a minor contributor. However, on balance I think the mainstream position is more likely than either the skeptical or alarmist positions and I think the IPCC has been relatively fair in their assessment.
We often have to make a judgement based on imperfect information and I am not claiming a high degree of confidence in my prediction.
So come on people. Don’t just vote — tell me your reasons.
Voted for 0.1 increase, but I did so with no authority or conviction. I am not really interested in whether global warming is real or what its affects will be. Even with a 0.5 degree rise, life on earth will simply be marginally different. If anything shows that the world should be able to continue to prosper in a warm world, we need look no further than Australian and American experiences in settling and cultivating vast areas of semi-arid and generally difficult land.
i put in 0.1 degrees but i think 0.05 will be the expected increase. i estimate around 0.5 degree by the end of the century.
John
It is a scientific fact that increased CO2 in the atmosphere raises temperatures. However, anthropogenic CO2 is tiny compared to other gases that contribute to climate change ( i believe it’s less than 1% if you include water vapour).
That said, this is one tide you cannot swim against. Better to be agnostic, wait for better research data, and impose measures that harm the economy the least.
Minus 0.06 degrees. Climate fluctuates and my guess is as good as yours.
I voted with the IPCC (+0.2), since I think that is the most likely scenario. However, given the nature of the problem, my confidence ranges (arrived at somewhat arbitrarily) are as follows:
> 0.3 extremely unlikely ( <5%)
0.3 very unlikely ( < 10%)
0.2 likely ( >70%)
0.1 very unlikely ( <10%)
< 0.1 extremely unlikely ( <5%)
I voted for a slight decrease (0.1) because temperatures have been above average over the last decade (although not above trend). I’d expect temperatures to rise slightly by 2100 however.
Pommygranate- I don’t think it is a scientific fact! I’ve been reading people who say that FIRST you need a hotter climate, and THEN you get more CO2 in the atmosphere!
No change. If we do face dire climate change by 2100 from a newly industrialised China and India, I am led to believe there will be some lag any way, as we experienced last century.
I think we have to back AGW, even though new competing theories are coming up, such as galactic solar radiation affecting cloud formation by heavy lepton interaction.
Although I think microeconomic reform and liberalisation can actually reduce CO2 output. We should aim to do this.
Lets not forget the risk of Ocean acidification.
I think that the risks of AGW warrant the removal of perverse incentives that favour fossil fuels. Until those are removed any other action just overlays further complexity, distortion and waste.
Q. How many Greenies does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Don’t even bother asking them- they LOVE living in the dark!
Terje,
We are on the exact same wavelength on this issue…so far.
What about the privatisation and creation of a profit motive in renewable energy? How many dams in the eastern seaboard have hydro power producing capacity? Why not?
If they were privatised, why wouldn’t this happen?
Why wouldn’t privatising power lines result in more efficient power transmission?
What about the regulatory bias against wind, nuclear and hydro.
As the carbon tax advocates say, there needs to be a market mechanism. You can only advocate an artificial mechanism only after such imperfections have been removed, and the tax or trading system has been shown to have a net benefit.
I voted 0.2 degrees but the margin of error is 0.1.
There’s no doubt the world is getting warmer. It’s done it before. The better questions are whether humans are contributing and whether action by humans is warranted. I’d vote no to both those.
I caught The Great Global Warming Swindle on Google video before they pulled it down. It’s very well done and will really set the cat amongst the pigeons. Sceptics unite!
My vote was no change in average global temp, but it’s a bit of a guess.
Hydro power is a good idea but only for existing dams (If you’re worried about CO2 emissions). Building more dams (something I would probably support) will create more CO2 emissions. Any open body of water has vegetation rotting underneath it and this leads to releasing CO2 as part of the decomposition process.
“The green image of hydro power as a benign alternative to fossil fuels is false, says Éric Duchemin, a consultant for the IPCC. “Everyone thinks hydro is very clean, but this is not the case,” he says.
Hydroelectric dams produce significant amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, and in some cases produce more of these greenhouse gases than power plants running on fossil fuels”
I like Brendan’s and Mark’s comments.
The thing that really concerns libertarians is that environmentalism = socialism.
Environmentalists are traditionally anti-technology, anti business and anti-human life in general.
Here’s some great quotes I found on the web from environmentalists:
Excerpt from philosopher Paul Taylor:
“Given the total, absolute, and final disappearance of Homo Sapiens, not only would the Earth’s community of life continue to exist, but in all probability, its well-being would be enhanced. Our presence, in short, is not needed. And if we were to take the standpoint of that Life Community and give voice to its true interests, the ending of the human epoch on Earth would most likely be greeted with a hearty “Good riddance!” (Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics, p. 115)
Excerpt from review of Bill McKibben’s The End of Nature, biologist David Graber writes:
“Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet….[The ecosystem has] intrinsic value, more value to me than another human body or a billion of them….Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along. (Los Angeles Times, October 29, 1989, p. 9)”
These authors forget that its natural that humans modify their environment. We’ve been doing it for ages and wouldn’t survive if we didn’t. eg/ the invention of fire.
It’s like trying to stop a beaver from building dams.
I don’t think people realise humans naturally produce and manufacture for survival and increasing properity. This will always involve a modification of the environment.
In my ideal world, people would approach the CO2 issue like this: Have you damaged through pollution someone else’s land/property? How much have you polluted/damaged their land/property? Then a ruling on adequate compensation could be determined in the courts.
But currently, the scientific world and legal world are not up to the task of implementing this ideal in regards to CO2 production.
So back to reality, I think Pommy’s comment is the line to take in terms of formulating LDP policy.
[...] Beck is concerned that children are getting too concerned about global warming while the ALS blog starts a new poll asking readers for their predictions about global temperature changes over the next 10 years. [...]
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Nicholas
I was referring to the physics of CO2’s ability to trap more heat on earth. Given that the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere is increasing, there is obviously a link. The question is how significant (if at all) that link is.
Anyway, the Climate Change Sceptic position is only realistic for bloggers. Anyone seeking power would have to have a death-wish to be put forward a sceptic agenda.
Stay agnostic, open up the energy market, and get the nuclear program started.
Pommy, there is an observed correlation between CO2 and global warming. But as I’m sure you know, correlation is not causation. The Great Global Warming Swindle program argues CO2 is increasing because of global warming and suggests the warming is due to sunspots. It’s plausible at least.
I also wonder whether it’s correct to assume the skeptic approach is politically out of the question. I hear plenty of skepticism in my circles, not least because of opposition to green orthodoxy.
I voted for 0.1 decrease – basically because I think that there will be little or no change. I’m a firm believer that the sun’s effect is severely underestimated in the IPCC / GCM projections. The next solar cycle is predicted to be about the same as the last (at the moment). So about the same…
If you would ask what the temp would be in 25 years – I would say over 0.5 decrease to current. The following solar cycle is predicted to be really cool.
cheers
Arnost
I just notice that the “no change” option is at the top of the options list. I was looking for it in the middle. Talk about myopia.
18. That would be my best be also Arnost. But I was in an ambit claim mood and so I voted for a decrease of .3 degrees.
We really ought to specify a period average. Its a bit difficult since if what John meant was the average over the next ten years that won’t fully capture the extent of the likely cooling towards the end of that time.
However if we were talking about the temperatures in the late 2020’s I would be quite sure that they will drop more than .3 degrees.
In any case we ought not be so focused on air temperature. Only the oceans can hold enough heat for cumulative warming and so we ought to have an oceanic heat content focus.
And we would be hoping like anything that the current downward drift (since late 2003) in the oceanic heat content reverses.
Its a perverse debate because I’m hoping I’m wrong. I hope that CO2 has more power in practice than the evidence suggests. It would be good if the alarmists were right about the power of CO2 because then we wouldn’t have to worry about a thing.
Our own thermostat! How cool would that be? What it would mean is we could get CO2 up to 1500ppm with massively expanded coal, shale oil and methyl cathrates or whatever that frozen methane on the bottom of the ocean is exactly…… We could have this paradise of robust nature and avoid the established longer-term trend to glaciation.
Then when we knew that Antarctic ice was finally warm enough to be a lot closer than it is now to melting range and we had all the hot rocks and nuclear in place we could whack the carbon tax on.
But this is a fantasy. A good fantasy tricked out to be some ludicrous nightmare.
Its just bizzare how its panned out that the alarmists are wrong in every single constituent part of their argument.
David
The theory that CO2 is increasing because of global warming has merit due to the lagged warming of the earth’s oceans.
However, my point is purely one of physics. If you add CO2 to the atmosphere, more heat from the sun is trapped within the atmosphere, hence warming the Earth. This is a scientific fact. You can observe it in action in any physics lab.
It is also a fact that we are adding more CO2 to the atmosphere. Hence this must be warming the planet. The question is by how much.
Finally some recent studies have shown that adding increasing concentrates of CO2 to the atmosphere does not have a linear effect on warming but a reverse logarithmic effect i.e. as more CO2 is added, the warming effect diminishes to a point whereby the increase in temperature becomes minimal.
Net net – no one has a fucking clue. Best to remain agnostic until we do.
Finally – AGW scepticism is intensely unpopular. If a particular party platformed such a view, i believe it would tarnish the electorate’s view of every other issue they offered.
For anybody interested, the most recent Christy satallite global temp (May 2007) was +0.18 degrees.
This is 0.1 below the 2006 average. However it is wrong to draw any conclusions from this as the monthly temperatures regularly fluctuate +/- 0.2 degrees. For example — Jan, Feb & March were all warmer than the 2006 average. The current 2007 average is +0.35, which is 0.7 degrees higher than the 2006 average.
What do you mean plus .18 degrees?
Whats your reference temperature.
What are you saying here?
Here’s an idea that is radical, innovative, green, sceptical and libertarian.
Propose a carbon tax linked to changes in the tropical troposphere temperatures – the fingerprint of the CO2 contribution to warming.
Earth warms, carbon tax goes up; earth cools and it reduces. Calls everyone’s bluff.
Idea found on the Climate Audit blog.
More details on my blog.
The more i think about this, the better the idea becomes.
It also gets around the issue of what if the earth warms but not down to CO2 (e.g. due to solar activity). By measuring changes in the tropical troposphere temperature you eliminate effects from solar activity and other natural effects; only sustained greenhouse warming will do it.
Hence the tax will be specifically on global warming caused by greenhouse gases.
Call the alarmists bluff.
LDP policy?
You beat me to it pommy. I saw this idea this morning and I like it.
It doesn’t just call the alarmists bluff… it calls everybody’s bluff by also tying skeptics to supporting a tax if the tropical troposphere temps do increase. The only reason to oppose this idea is if you think your own predictions are wrong and you are supporting your policy for other reasons.
It’s a good idea to have a results based tax. This is something missing from most regulatory schemes. The efficacy of the regulations themsleves are never a major focus.
But won’t you be almost be back to square one when it comes to determining tax amounts/percentages per unit of troposphere temperature increase/decrease? I doubt Libertarians and greenies or right and left are going to agree on the amount of tax required.
Also, does anyone know off the top of their heads what global air circulation is like at tropospheric levels? I’ll look it up.
Tim
I’m sure they won’t. But it is only the principle that would need to be detailed in a policy document not the exact specifics.
I think it’s a very smart idea and one that would generate tons of positive publicity.
[...] the movie and displaying the seriousness of it. While on the other hand Thoughts on Freedom’s Global warming predictions is making light of the situation making bets on how much the temperature is going to rise. “David [...]
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This idea can be further improved upon by adding a futures market tied to the troposphere temperature. This would then allow energy companies to forward plan and to hedge tax considerations related to energy construction costs.
Author, Ross McKitrick, is fielding questions here
I like where this is heading, for a potential policy for the LDP.
1. Liberalise to remove Government imposed pollution and AGW.
2. Impose a “negative global warming tax” linked to a futures market much like the unpopular policy analysis market.
Brilliant.
2. should be linked to 1. Australians should not have to pay for Chinese pollution.
I am not a climate scientist but it seems to me that an easy way to shut down all the discussion by skeptics. Dr. Mann and Dr. Schmidt may be completely correct or completely wrong, but if they are right, then why not just force the deniers to admit that they are by doing two things?
First, publicly post all the raw data, processes, procedures, and algorithms used to reach their conclusions? Once everyone can check the data and math, there will be nothing to argue over.
Second, do additional testing to show that the long term proxies actually capture the temperature record. Pretty much this is easy to do too. Go back to the tree ring site originally used and collect the core samples for the last 30-40 years. Then show that the proxies match the instrumented readings.
Once these two things are done, there should not be much to argue over and we can get down to determining the impact of our actions and the appropriate actions we need to take.