Mega new climate science: 'Runaway' effect exaggerated

Cue loads of people saying "Told you so..."

That is all.

there's feedback for sure

It doesn't take much time examining temperature reconstructions to see that the earth has repeatedly been both a bit hotter than now and cooler than now. Given that there hasn't been runaway heating (or freezing) in the past it would seem that the obvious way to bet is that there are strong *negative* feedback forces at work.

A global thermostat, if you like.

I guess that doesn't attract as much research funding.

DENIALIST PROPAGANDA!!

Any any fool can see, a temperature rise of 2 degrees will lead to a runaway heating cycle which will utterly destroy the biosphere and turn the Earth into a fiery Venusian hell JUST LIKE IT DID EVERY TIME TEMPERATURES ROSE IN THE PAST.

DENIALISTS can't be allowed to use so called "facts" or "evidence" or "basic common sense" to keep this information secret any longer!!!!11!!

Wishful thinking

"Together the two studies are expected to have a major impact on climate science and modeling, quite possibly to the extent that international agreements and government policies may change noticeably"

Wanna bet?

There are too many global-warming partisans too heavily invested both professionally intellectually (I use the word advisedly), and additionally, and very importantly, invested emotionally for them to publicly recant their position.

Regarding politicians, I have to disagree with a few opinions expressed here: I think politicians for the most part could change their position on the imminence of planetary death by carbon fairly easily. "Changing positions" is, after all, what politicians pretty much do for a living, right? And I think that most people realize that politicians are not scientists. If "lapsed scientists" such as the cabal of propagandists from East Anglia or the statistically-mercurial James Hansen decide that their real vocation is "influencing public policy by lying" it is not really fair to expect politicians to easily see through their ruse. So for politicians to change their position because of, let's say, new research showing that their previous positions were based on "erroneous" (though actually fraudulent) research and to do so for the sake of economic growth, would not be a difficult maneuver for them.

@Bruce Hoult - actually there's been plenty of runaway freezing

Whilst you're quite correct that the runaway heating panic was a very obvious bunch of rubbish, due to the historical periods that have been much warmer than we are currently, runaway cooling is very well estabished as an actual problem. They're called ice ages. And they're very scary indeed.

Recent research into growth patterns suggests that the onset of an ice age is very fast indeed, going from a slight bobble downwards in temperature to ice sheets covering Europe in well under a decade. Drivers for it are not well understood, but people are looking at the very, very long period of low sunspot activity in the sun that we are currently going through, indicative of low solar output, and getting rather nervous. Ice ages have been fairly regular occurances throughout history, and we're rather overdue for another.

Still, should be good for a laugh watching the politicians all reversing themseves and screaming for more co2 to be put into the atmosphere asap, as the glaciers bear down on whitehall...

Vested interests.

If for example, a naturalist wants funding to study the mating rituals of the Aardvark he’s told to go take a running jump.

If the same naturalist asks for funding to study the effects of global warming on the mating rituals of the Aardvark he's asked, how much do you need?

With attitudes like this so common, can we really trust all these doom merchants impartiality?

Out of date - and wrong - before it was published

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627661.200-climate-control-is-co2-really-in-charge.html

I think people have got the politicians wrong

This new evidence doesn't demolish the argument for or against runaway climate change, it just adds to the data. What effect it has on the scientific consensus (such as there is) is a matter on which I'm not qualified to judge. There are almost certainly scientists with emotional investments in their positions who will find it hard to change if the data shows that their models turn out to have been wrong. Sadly it's only in a fantasy world where scientists can look at the data, and instantly change their positions accordingly, without any interference from career, funding and emotion.

However for politicians to change their minds can be much quicker. Firstly they keep losing elections, so there are always new ones along with no face to save. Secondly, no politician wants to say to voters, "what this economy needs is 10% less growth over the next decade or two!" This being even more true now the worldwide boom is over, and everyone is counting the cost and paying off the debt.

Anyway, the politicians have mostly talked a good game, but we've hardly seen much in the way of major policy change yet. Lots of targets have been set, and mostly missed, or set far in the future with none of the policy to back them up yet formulated.

Whatever the science says, I'm not sure there are many current governments in a strong enough position to tell their voters that now is the time for green economic cuts to save the world, they've all too busy with debt and banking crises. I'll be amazed if anything major gets done in the next few years - whatever the science says.

CH4?

I thought the scary feedback was supposed to be Arctic CH4.

Note

@Marcus Dubious (and his critics)

We have red squirrels here on the Isle of Wight, and a research project a few years ago was having difficulty making ends meet. Then someone found a Global Warming (as it was then called) angle and redefined the project’s aims, and funding wasn’t a problem after that...

BTW, the Arctic is melting right now because it's summer there. This is nicely balanced by Winter in the South - until half-time, when they change ends.

But..

"This in itself wouldn't be the end of the world: but a lot of people believe that such a temperature rise, if allowed to happen, could trigger some kind of runaway process in which the temperature would then begin to climb unstoppably with truly devastating results."

This has long been my biggest bugbear with climate "science". The doommongers have a pet theory which remains completely unproven but it the linch pin of their whole projection. The biggest problem I have with this is that the world has been hotter in the past than it is now and yet the temperature did not keep on rising then, it came back down. I still suspect that there will actually be some sort of negative feedback built into the whole system that will actually damp temperature rises beyond a certain level.

However I suspect that most climate scientists who make their living from doom mongering will make sure this new theory is either discredited or at least buried. These are, after all, the same people who selected 12 trees out of every tree on the planet because those trees gave the historic data they wanted. The phrase "scientific method" is just a random accreation of syllables to these people.

Rainforest destruction...

So, the worlds rainforests suck up 33% of Co2.

And we have so far destroyed 60-70% of the Amazon rainforests, 90% of West Africa's rainforests and so on. And continue to destroy an area the size of Florida every year.

And I'm being forced to change my sodding light bulbs and drive a shit car?!?!?!?

Carbon is not being generated, its being released - which is an important distinction. Us reducing our planets ability to soak up carbon is of equal importance as our increasing ability to release it.

It's good to see that actually touched upon in an article of this nature, albeit in a single small paragraph.

re: science funding

"So you've made up a story (unless you're an aardvark specialist?) and then claimed its a common event?"

Of course it's a common event throughout every branch of science! How do you think scientists get funding to do science? They have to compete for a limited pot of money against every other scientist! Only the projects considered "important" or "beneficial" will get the money. This requires that scientists *make* their work "important" or "beneficial" by shoehorning it into whatever is considered "important" or "beneficial" by the people handing out the money. In medical research, key words are things like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis etc. Whatever you do, you have to find a way to link it to topics like these if you want money.

"Climate change" is the subject of a huge amount of money at the moment. That means people who want a slice of the cake have to find a way to angle their research to put it in context in relation to "climate change". This is why we've seen news stories claiming that everything and anything is linked to "climate change", from increasing wars in Africa, prehistoric man killing mammoths, whale poo and huge fossil snakes. The more sensational the story, the more coverage, the more prestige and the greater chance of getting more money. Positive feedback in action.

A Scientist.

Bunkum

Any discussion on climate science that restricts itself to the discussion of carbon dioxide is doomed to fail. Any journalist or politician who can't tell the difference between carbon and carbon dioxide should not be admitted to the discussion. There are plenty of greenhouse gasses other than CO2 but so many people involved in the discussion think that CO2 is the only greenhouse gas, or worse that carbon is the only greenhouse gas. As has been mention CH4 is a greenhouse gas and a much more potent one than CO2. The positive feedback effect of that relies on some largely speculative figures for the amount of CH4 trapped in arctic ice which will be released as the ice melts.

Recently I heard a scientists on the radio claiming that the erruption of the icelandic volcano could contribute to global warming due to all the ash in the atmosphere acting as a greenhouse gas. Strange then that it's not so long since I was reading that the fall in global temperatures a couple of hundred years ago was down to the ash from a couple of massive erruptions. Were I a climate scientist I would be hedging my bets by saying that the Icelandic volcano could lead to a period of cooling. That way they've got a ready made excuse if global temperatures fall or are static for a few years.

However most climate scientists probably don't want us reminding of that fact that volcanic ash is to blame for the very low temperatures back in the days of Turner and Dickens. If we remember that then it makes the impact of man made global warming seem much smaller. If you can say that back in the 19th century the Thames used to freeze over in winter, but it doesn't now due to global warming then that's convincing. If, however, you have to admit that volcanic ash in the early 19th century was at least partly to blame for the difference between temperatures then and now then your argument will be less convincing.

Then there are the interesting effects of water and water vapour. That is a discussion in itself, but water vapour works partly to increase global temperatures and partly to reduce them. What happens if the ice melts and sea levels rise. We have more surface area of water on the planet with higher temperatures, so we will have more evapouration and therefore more water vapour in the atmosphere. What effect will that have on global temperatures? It will also mean more rain. Will the cooling effect of all that rain on the planet's surface have any effects on global temperatures. Landmass heats up in the sun and pumps a lot of that heat back into the atmosphere. Water not so much. So with more water in the oceans and therefore less land mass area and more ocean area what effect will this have on global temperatures? Is anybody bothering to factor all this into their models or are they sticking with carbon dioxide being their only concern, with perhaps a little speculation about the CH4 released from arctic ice as it melts?

Find the facts on CO2

I am sceptic of all scientists because they all select their facts, and thus their conclusions, to suit their paymasters. No exception here unless proved otherwise. Preconceptions rule.

The theory is that our CO2 raises earth temperature a bit which releases stored CO2 from the oceans, providing runaway.

So why is the increased sea acidity from CO2 absorption threatening the survival of some corals ? The gas concentration in the sea cannot increase and decrease.

plant respiration

Was plant respiration taken into account in the original paper? The article doesn't say if the rainforests were absorbing overall, or that was just the amount of CO2 they took in due to photosynthesis. Plants still give off CO2 when there's no light.