Why is a graph that clearly shows that global warming is not caused by CO2, being posted?

Question

Recently an advocate of AGW posted a graph from Wikipedia that was intended to prove that the surface record was not contaminated by urbanization. Climate models indicate that the troposphere should have warmed 1.3 times faster than the earths surface. The graph shows trends from 1982 - 2004, as listed below.

Surface : +0.187˚C/Decade (BLUE)
UAH : +0.163˚C/Decade (RED)
RSS : +0.239˚C/Decade (GREEN)

The UAH indicates that the surface warmed at a faster rate than the atmosphere, which disproves the CO2 theory. RSS indicates that the atmosphere warmed at 1.278 times faster than the surface which supports the theory, but the RSS correction involves utilizing a climate model to make it's corrections which seems suspicious. And the graph computes the slopes starting at 1982, which also is very suspicious. It seems that if the slopes were computed from 1979 neither would support AGW.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurements

Thoughts?

gcnp58: Most people do not doubt the planet is warming, and nothing has been put to bed yest. Do a little research on diurnal corrections before you open that trap of yours about this subject.

EDIT:

Keith P

Everyone has been trying to solve this problem. The satellite data originally showed a cooling trend, so all parties involved have worked very hard trying to de trend this very expensive dataset. As far as the Stratosphere, Dana and I went round and round about this very subject, if you are interested.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AmG2x1D5V2CiYxfeZPSjdQMS.Rd.;_ylv=3?qid=20070920110335AAQQ5O0

EDIT

Cosmo

Thats pretty lame, if you had 20 blankets on the bed already, do you think adding another one would make any difference? Thats been demonstrated in the lab as well.

EDIT:

Bob

I know your position, but you make my point, If you believe in AGW, you are trusting in computer simulations. I have written hundreds of thousands of lines of source code for the purpose of computer simulations, I know of their limitations, and I don't trust their ability to predict the future, utilizing finite differencing schemes and differential equations.

Sorry..

Answer 1

Very likely this is contamination of the data from the cooling stratosphere. Christy and Spence (UAH data authors) have tied themselves in knots trying to correct for it, finally arriving at a Rube Goldberg algorithm that degrades overall accuracy and increases contamination from the surface.

I should also point out that stratospheric cooling is (a) unchallenged; and (b) strong evidence of increased greenhouse effect.

Answer 2

This is "clear"? You gotta be kidding.

Look at the raw data and the lines. What this graph shows is that the data is not good enough to say anything one way or another. Either the UAH or the RSS could be correct.

Because of the massive amount of other proof that CO2 is causing global warming, I'd say the RSS data is probably right. There's no real problem here.

There is a concept in science called "the weight of the evidence". The weight of the evidence is that CO2 is causing global warming.

My personal favorite piece of the evidence is this. If you model global warming, you CANNOT reproduce recent temperatures without making the main cause anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Include them and you can.

Go to the library and read this paper:

Meehl, G.A., W.M. Washington, C.A. Ammann, J.M. Arblaster, T.M.L. Wigleym and C. Tebaldi (2004). "Combinations of Natural and Anthropogenic Forcings in Twentieth-Century Climate". Journal of Climate 17: 3721-3727

There are many other arguments, as others have listed here. And NOTHING on the other side that works numerically.

Scientists believe in numbers, not "logic". Many scientific theories seem illogical, but are accepted because of the data. Quantum mechanics, relativity, etc.

I love the guys saying (falsely) that scientist believed in a flat Earth. Scientists haven't believed in a flat Earth for over 2000 years, since Eratosthenes provided data on its' diameter. Only ignorant "skeptics" who ignored the data believed that.

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know... Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point. You really can't find intelligent, QUANTITATIVE arguments to make it go away."

Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

Good websites for more info:

http://profend.com/global-warming/
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11462
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/
http://www.realclimate.org
"climate science from climate scientists"

Answer 3

this is comparing the exact same thing by three different methods

edit
nm, i see your point

i wouldn't say this clearly shows global warming is not caused by CO2
it really doesn't show anything except that two studies using the same data showed the earth is warming. One points strongly to CO2 and one points less strongly to CO2. One was conducted by a known skeptic who is closely associated w/ right wing think tanks and the other wasn't

The 1982 start is a little suspicious, but I would need more detail on the reasoning for it than this link provides. It looks like this was due to a "NASA issue" regarding the satellite.

Answer 4

Just read the legend of the graph. They tell you why they compute the slopes from 1982-2005. If that isn't enough for you, the NAS report from 2000 on temperature reconciliations explains in thorough detail why this is done with the satellite data.

The National Academy of Science report on global temperature measurements published in 2006 put to bed all objections to the idea that the planet is warming. One of the more outspoken critics of Hansen, Christy, was a co-author of that report and agrees with its executive summary. For chrissakes, even Lindzen admits the planet is warming.

Continually raising these silly objections is dumb. Read the reports from the NAS and move on. Both are available free of charge online.

Answer 5

cosmo, there's plenty of doubt that adding CO2 to the atmosphere warms the surface. All there is to link the two is "connection". It's possible that a warming of the surface adds CO2 to the atmosphere.

There's a lot science doesn't know yet, and the GW alarmists claiming that there is no doubt of something reveals them to not be scientists at all.

Just over 600 years ago, there was no doubt that the Earth was flat. That was the consensus, and no "credible" scientist challeged it. It wasn't really a scientific certainty, more of a political certainty.

That wasn't that long ago. I have books in my library that were originally written before then, and there are still plenty of man-made structures from even farther back.

It may be a political certainty that man is causing the CO2 rise which is causing global warming, but it's far from a scientific certainty.

Answer 6

There is absolutely no doubt that adding CO2 to the atmosphere results in warming at the surface. It's a matter of laboratory measurement of the spectrum of CO2, some straightforward thermodynamics, and calculation. It's no more complex than the proposition that if you put an extra blanket on your bed, you'll be warmer.

Answer 7

"the RSS correction involves utilizing a climate model to make it's corrections which seems suspicious. "

Meaningless. It doesn't seem suspicious at all.

"And the graph computes the slopes starting at 1982, which also is very suspicious."

More meaningless stuff. If you think it's so suspicious, go ahead and compute the slopes yourself.

My thoughts are that your argument is astoundingly weak.

Answer 8

its called miss information propaganda
ask why we got mosquito's
that is easier to answer

Answer 9

they do that to confuse us normal folks
what is a graph???
does that play music???

Answer 10

i don't know what to say.