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From today's news, another example of positive feedback:


On the subject of people having a financial interest in promoting AGW, I've always been rather mystified by people thinking that. Surely the financial interests in promoting the view that AGW doesn't exist are far greater?

You misunderstood. It's not about the absorbtivity of the gas, but that the amount of IR being emitted at that wavelength is already being almost completely absorbed.

Cheers
Peter

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Big research grants, lots of "freebies" to "conferences" in exotic locations, visiting lecturerships, promotion in situ, tenure, "the Pundit Circuit", TV appearances, expert pieces for newspapers, etc etc etc..

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

In a nutshell. There's so much money involved that it's as much an industry as oil. Or perhaps a business would be a better word. IMO the financial incentives for proponets to promote AGW are if anything greater than those of the sceptics for opposing it. If it turns out to be real people the oil industry will be damaged, but will continue to make money while there are no alternatives. But on the other hand, if AGW turns out to be pure bunkum those working in the field will lose everything - jobs,income, prestige. If I was one of them I'd be on my knees every night praying desperately that it won't be proved wrong. Of course, none of that makes the theories any less valid, but it should be borne in mind whenever an AGW supporter calls an opponent "motor industry mouthpiece" or "oil industry shill", or otherwise suggests that money is talking. Takes one to know one, that's all I'm saying.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Yes, I don't disagree, but you removed part of my statement when you quoted it, thus completely changing it and hence you're disagreeing with something I didn't say!

The part that you removed showed that it is the relative financial interest that was my point, with the financial interest for the anti-AGW message being greater than that for the AGW message.

Apologies.. I deleted the second part of your statement because I didn't think that you needed any elucidation why the anti-AGW "group" would have any finacial interest in their case - obviously those who work for oil companies and the like have their jobs to think of.

However, I think that it's highly disingenuous to assume that those who work for energy companies have any more to lose than those who "work" for the big pressure groups, universities etc. It's more-or-less de rigeur in the AGW lobby to rubbish any scientists who aren't on "their side" as being tainted by working for "big oil" - but that's a scruffy ad-hominem attack at best. They conveniently forget that the pro-AGW lobby have every bit as much at stake as "the opposition" and the whole debate has taken on a truly religious fervour... Those who dare gainsay the fashionable views are decried as heretics - and would be burned at the stake if they didn't generate CO2 thereby..

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

IMO many of the AGW proponents have far more to lose by being wrong than the anti-AGWs do. If it all turns out to be a baseless scare how long would you give someone like the Carbon Trust? Unlike Greenpeace or other groups who have their fingers in many different pies some of these very narrow agenda groups are built solely on CO2 induced warming, and in its absence would simply have no raison d'etre. What about companies who manufacture wind turbines? Make no mistake about it, they have effectively bet the house and as such have far, far more to lose in relative terms. That said, it will still damage Greenpeace rather badly. They've well and truly nailed their colours to the AGW mast, and who can blame them? CO2 induced warming is a hell of a poster boy for environmentalism, and one that I expect they would be extremely reluctant to lose if it turns out to have been a baseless scare. The trouble is they don't have another waiting in the wings. When I started sending 'em money they had the whales and the missiles, and broadly speaking most people thought whales were nice and no one wanted a nuclear war, so Greenpeace were laughing. Now it's CO2 emissions and Iraq, the first of which I think is likely to turn out a dud and the second of which is a bit shaky long term.

And if AGW turns out to be wrong the billions in subsidies and tax breaks will dry up virtually overnight and the world market for wind energy will very quickly drop to more or less feck all. Employees of those that are subsidiaries of larger corporations (General Electric springs to mind) may be able to move sideways, but let's face it, if it happens a very large axe will swing across the whole industry. Not just wind turbine companies, but all of those reliant on markets for renewables will suffer and most will probably not survive. How does a company carry on when it's reputation and products are constructed on a market that no longer exists? Oh yes, there's financial incentives aplenty there. Incidentally, on the subject of renewables, if you ever wanted evidence that Greenhouse is an industry in istelf, look at the money involved in renewable energy. Then look at the finances of some of the large charities. And something like a wind farm is simply an extremely visible form of power station (usually built in a location that no-one would ever get permission to construct a more conventional power station). I call that evidence of industry, and industries traditionally want to protect their markets, right? Why would that desire be any less than that of 'Big Oil' or the other usual suspects?

And then of course there's the climatologists themselves. If AGW is wrong that will be the second time in living memory (for anyone over about 30 or so) that they've predicted global catastrophe and got it spectacularly wrong. Tenure, prestige, the whole shooting match will go down the toilet. I imagine that's a real nightmare scenario for some of them. A lot of promising careers, and the associated incomes, could go down the drain. Again, we're talking about people who are betting their entire livelihoods on being right, and you can't tell me they don't know damn well that the grants and government funding that keeps them going won't all disappear if AGW is disproved. And it's not just livelihoods that have been bet - reputations are effectively at stake as well, and for some that could even be more important to them. Losing tenure is obviously going to be bad, but to lose a reputation constructed over years? To have once held the attention of governments and presidents and whole sections of the general public, and now to have become someone who's no longer taken seriously? For some that might be too awful to contemplate. And in fact I believe it would indeed be a tragedy, as the next time they pipe up they might be right. But by then a sceptical world could well be treating them as the boy who cried wolf, and we really could end up in the warm and smelly.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Perhaps on average, but not for the individual people concerned - many of who would not be nearly as well off if it wasn't for the AGW message. And many would also rather be big fishes in small ponds.
Besides, when you come to think, the AGW message is really not much skin off the noses of the oil bosses - if anything it helps them. For example, it allows them to manipulate prices by restricting supply - something which would never be publically acceptable if not for AGW.
And it allows the US to keep their massive oil reserves untapped until Arab oil starts running out.

Cheers
Peter

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

And the media are the biggest culprits, by far. They use every trick in the book to appear to be even-handed, whilst bolstering their chosen side.

For example, last week this article appeared on the BBC website. But the next day the link had been removed. Links to pro-AGW articles, however, tend to remain in place for weeks.

Cheers
Peter

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

It might be interesting to produce a cumulative graph of emissions. After all, as Steve points out, CO2 emissions are supposed to remain in the atmosphere for something like 80 years.

Which is another thing I can't quite get my head around. CO2 from fossil fuels remains in the atmosphere for 80 years, but CO2 from natural sources (breathing, soil microbes, plant decomposition etc etc), if certain people are to believed, only stays in the atmosphere for 8 years.

Intelligent molecules?

Cheers
Peter

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Oops, cropped out the legend. Yellow is cumulative increase in atmospheric CO2 from Mauna Loa (Keeling et al) and red is cumulative increase in emissions (Marland et al). This still only goes back to 1959 of course, and could be used to support either. On the one hand it shows that in forty years less than half the observed rise can be attributed to emissions. On the other AGW believers could take it as evidence of feedback. Now I've found the ice core figures I'll do a longer one sometime.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

I've been struggling to understand what you're trying to say here, but I think I now see your reasoning (partly due to your clarification in a later post of what you meant by "saturation"). You're saying that as all the sun's radiation that can be absorbed by CO2 is already absorbed by current atmospheric CO2 levels, the only way that absorbed radiation can warm the oceans is by conduction of heat from the atmosphere. This is correct, of course, but misleading, because the CO2 has an impact over and above that of absorbing incoming radiation, and this is the whole point of the greenhouse effect:
http://www.crystalinks.com/greenhouseffect.html
Your argument is a bit like saying that a glass greenhouse can only heat the air inside by conduction of heat from the glass to the air. But glass that absorbs all the incoming IR will still produce a greenhouse effect, what you're saying would only be true if the glass absorbed all incoming radiation. Presumably you agree that a glass greenhouse manages to achieve a higher temperature inside than that of the surrounding air?