Global Cooling

Blog brother AlexC sends me a link to a Q and O blog post on global warming.

Written by Dale Franks (neither a Q nor and O), the post captures my position very well. Silence and I have talked past each other on these pages about whether global warming exists. While I remain skeptical, I am going to change my pattern. The point is not to argue against its existence, the point is to argue that we don't know enough to make policy decisions.

Franks nails this:

The Argo data on ocean cooling over the past few years merely highlights that problem. Over the past few years, about 20% of the warming of the past 50 years has simply disappeared. Apparently, it just radiated away back into space, since we can't seem to find any of that heat down here.

Why did the cooling occur?

By what mechanism was the heat transported away?

Will this current cooling trend continue, or reverse itself?

What are the global climate implications if the cooling continues, or conversely, the implications if it reverses itself, and begins warming again?

Aren't these questions important? Or should we dismiss them because they don't conform to the orthodoxy?

Franks, as it happens, does indeed believe in global warming and he believes that it is to some extent man-made.

I'm skeptical of both those assertions but agree with Franks that until we can codify and quantify what is happening and what causes it, we cannot "fix" it. If we are causing global warming by using so much battery power, those damn hybrid drivers will have to answer up.

I'm a big fan (I know I've bored you before) on the epistemology of Dr. Karl Popper. I don't know how much he created and how much he documented, but he defines the procedures where scientific theory progresses to acceptance or is discarded.

The first step is predictive power. Einstein’s Special Relativity made several predictions that were not testable at the time of its creation. Over time, experiments have been done, and they all support the predictions of Special Relativity. Ergo, it is commonly accepted (though Popper points out theories can only be disproven, never really proven).

The original global warming theorists made predictions based on computer modeling. It would start at the poles, reduce the length of the cold season in the cold climes, and proceed at a steady rate. Facts have not supported this prediction at all. warming has started at higher elevations, warmer climes, and has not been steady: CSU climate scientists point out two years of ocean cooling.

This is a very important observational study of changes in climate system heat content. While the models predict a general montonic increase in ocean heat content (e.g. see (Figure 1) ), the new observations in Lyman et al 2006 show an important decrease. The explanation of this temporal change in the radiative imbalance of the Earth’s climate system is a challenge to the climate science community. It does indicate that we know less about natural- and human-climate forcings and feedbacks than concluded in the IPCC Reports.

More research. We are all in agreement.

Environment Posted by jk at August 26, 2006 11:05 AM