Comments on: Convenient Untruths

By: Is It Getting Warmer? » Climatologist slams RealClimate.org for ‘erroneously communicating the reality of the how climate system is actually behaving’ - Rebuts Myths On Sea Level, Oceans and Arctic Ice

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:16:48 +0000

[...] lashed out at the UK judge that said that “An Inconvenient Truth” was not 100% factual. They didn’t like me calling them out on that. They then spiked some of my comments on their site when degraded scientific discussion to a [...]

By: Is It Getting Warmer? » The Conveyor Belt is broken!?!?

Is It Getting Warmer? » The Conveyor Belt is broken!?!? — Tue, 19 May 2009 19:02:09 +0000

[...] United States and winner of the Nobel Peace Price, even described this huge current in his movie An Inconvenient Truth. He discussed what would happen if the this conveyor belt would stop and then [...]

By: Is It Getting Warmer? » 35 Inconvenient Truths: The errors in Al Gore’s movie - Part 1 of 5

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 17:51:03 +0000

[...] ‘mistakes’ that a British court found in "An Inconvenient Truth" (AIT). My review was not well regarded by many at RealClimate as they defended their defense. My point at the time [...]

By: Alan D. McIntire

Alan D. McIntire — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 00:08:31 +0000

I actually got the information on CO2 lagging temperature from this paper

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/taylor/indermuehle00grl.pdf

and this graph.

http://home.scarlet.be/~ping5859/co2_temp_ice.html

If there’s a change in solar output due to changes in
the sun’s output in various frequencies, or orbital
changes, and it take time T for temperatures to peak,
and later takes time 2T for them to drop from the peak back to the ice age low again, the
forcing of the sun, Fsun + Fco2 = 2 times the
forcing of the sun, -Fsun + Fco2= -1 on the decrease.

Plugging in those figures, the effect of the sun would
have 3 times the effect of co2. The longer it takes
temperatures to drop again relative to the time it takes them to rise, the greater would be the relative effect of CO2.
The effect of CO2 could never be as great as the effect
the sun has, else you’d get a permanent runaway
effect. With that scenario, Fsun + Fco2 =2,
and -Fsun +Fco2 = 0 so there’d be no subsequent
cooling back to ice age conditions- A. McIntire

By: Tom Adams

Tom Adams — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 12:21:56 +0000

re Alan D. McIntire, on October 16th, 2007 at 8:20 pm

I guess you got the idea the that CO2 drops lag the temperature drops from various denier site misreadings of Petit’s work, for instance:

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V2/N12/C1.jsp

Actually the two drops are pretty much simultaneous. Petit did claim that CO2 was not the initial forcer, that is that CO2 forcing lagged orbital forcing. No problem there: again, nobody claims that CO2 is the only forcer.

By: richard

richard — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 14:17:05 +0000

“I just wish that RC, which has such a great reputation as a scientific site, would have clearly said that Gore was 100% correct or 100% wrong on each issue – ”

That’s a quote from your post at RC. Mind explaining it, cause it makes no sense to me. I think RC posters and commenters have made it very clear what they think about Gore’s claims. Your silly idea that something is 100% right or 100% wrong does you no credit.

By: Alan D. McIntire

Alan D. McIntire — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 01:20:27 +0000

RE: Tom Adams’ 10/16/2007 post.

Your argument is like me pushing a stalled car down a hill (initial forcing), the CO2 is like the hill, acting as a forcing factor, increasing the speed of the car, which accelerates downhill, and my
wife at the bottom of the hill gets in front of the speeding car, and
stops it with her low mass and weak strength,
as do the factors which push temperatures downward again. Remember, CO2 drops also lag temperature drops. Do you now
see why I don’t find the CO2 forcing argument plausible?- A. McIntire

By: admin

admin — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 17:54:22 +0000

John – Thank you for your comment. I had seen the report about the bears that Deltoid is referring to as well but what doesn’t get answered (at least in my opinion) was if this was typical. In other words in 1982 when a bad storm rolled through, how many drown bears were there? Without a solid baseline, it is only a hypothesis that needs to be tested. One of my problems with the entire global warming discussion is that too many conclusions are made without proper hypothesis testing.

By: David

David — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 17:27:38 +0000

AIT and the guidance notes teachers are supposed to follow describe global warming only in radiative terms. The word convection appears in neither. This is a bit like trying to explain heavier than air flight without mentioning laminar flow. But hey, this is climate science.

By: John Nielsen-Gammon

John Nielsen-Gammon — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:46:29 +0000

Sean - Nice contribution. I've submitted my two cents worth at RC. For what it's worth, I think you've got it almost exactly right. Except see deltoid for a more nuanced take on the polar bear issue.

By: sailor

sailor — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:05:16 +0000

As I understand it there is considerable evidence linking glabal warming to increasing strength (though not frequency) of hurricanes. It will never be possible to look at a single hurricane say this was or was not to do with global warming, but if you are showing a movie and talking about hurricanes you pretty much have to show one, and he did not make the direct link, so I think this is fair.
Studies on Coral reefs tend to be limited to small areas. There is no question that in recent years a significant proportion of hard corals have died n the Caribbean (soft corals do not see to be affected). I don’t think ayone knows for sure what the reason is, but many corals live within a very small temperature range, so even if their death is due to disease it seems highly likely that water temperature is stressing a factor. Overfishing may also be a factor, but the damage is widespread enough to be able to say that most of it not due to land run-off.

By: admin

admin — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:48:14 +0000

Tom – Thank you for your comment but I am not sure I understand your point. There are many places that you can read that in ancient times temperature increased prior to CO2 increasing. Check out http://globalwarming-factorfiction.com/2007/04/28/how-to-talk-to-a-climate-skeptic-co2-doesnt-lead-it-lags/ on this site.

One of the current climate THEORIES is that something caused temperatures to increase which caused methane and CO2 to increase in the atmosphere which caused the warming to increase. This is a pretty popular theory and it seems to cover most of the known facts. However, Mr. Gore did not say that. He said that they fit together just like South America at one time fit together with Africa. While Mr. Gore did not lie, he definitely made people think that the CO2 caused the increase in temperature.

As I have said, AIT was not a scientific film. It was a film that was designed to influence thinking. As such, concerned individuals in the UK absolutely had the right to request that appropriate background and teaching be done in concert with showing the film so that children didn’t believe that AIT was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I really don’t know why sites such as RealClimate are defending the film in this manner since surely the scientists on that site know that you shouldn’t teach children half-truths. As scientists, they should be helping to point out these errors so that people have the correct data. Were talking about children and they can be easily swayed by authorative figures that speak convincingly.

By: Tom Adams

Tom Adams — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:19:27 +0000

The CO2/Temp record in the ice core is largely explained by greenhouse gas theory. There are other factors involved in the temp. rise, nobody said otherwise.

Suppose a have a car setting on top of a hill. I give it a little push and gravity takes over accelerating it down the hill. Now are you going to make a big deal about how the movement came first before the effects of gravity in an attempt to convince people that gravity does not exists?