The Obama administration tells us that an increase of 200 ppm CO2 will increase temperatures by 11F. CO2 during the Ordovician was about 4,000 ppm higher, so we can infer that temperatures at the time were well above the boiling point of water.
(4,000 / 200) * 11 = 220 degrees.
As John Cook points out, there was an ice age during the late Ordovician – which seems a bit mysterious given that temperatures must have been about 230 degrees.
OK, I’m not being fair. John thinks that solar output was 30% lower back then, so temperatures during the Ordovician ice age were only 150 degrees warmer than today, not 220 degrees warmer. CO2 is the most powerful force in the Universe. It controls physical law and even makes the gods jealous.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive”
Too funny! Too much fun! Thanks Steven.
Such a weapon of destruction CO2 could be! It boggles the mind.
Arrhenius thought doubling CO2 would result in about 5 degrees, the IPCC about 3.2 degrees, and CO2Science.org 0.4 degrees…
The white house says 11F
IPCC says 3-6 degrees, so if we pick a base of 3 then temps during that period were 9-12 degrees higher than today. Clearly reports indicating that there was an ice age are lies. If we take the high end, then temps were 18 to 24 degrees higher.
Clearly this is an indication that certain groups of creationists are correct in the estimations of when life began, because at +20 there would be no possibility of life on Earth, since, as we know, people will fry with a 4 degree increase. Therefore life started far more recently, only after CO2 came down to “reasonable” levels. Clearly an act of a benevolent God. This also means that various theories about “ancient” fossil dates are wrong.
So this leaves us with only a few choices.
1) Either the IPCC and Alarm Inc ™ are lying/wrong about climate sensitivity, and/or…
2) The reports about an ice age under high CO2 are lying/wrong and/or …
3) The reports about how high CO2 was “way back when” are lying/wrong and/or …
4) the scare-mongers who say we’ll fry at +4C are lying/wrong.
Hmmm….
Need I say it?
/sarc_off
Hmmmmm….
You forgot #5.
Skeptics never, ever take the sun’s weaker luminosity into account. The weaker the sun’s luminosity is, the more Carbon Dioxide is needed to give that period in time the same temperature as we have nowadays.
Temperatures during the Ordovician varied by 15C while CO2 remained steady. Think about that.
“Skeptics never, ever take the sun’s weaker luminosity into account” Neither does Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordovician#cite_note-10. Could be one of those “little-known facts of science”. Do you have a citation?
Yes, we never do take begging the question into account, do we?
Greg2213:
As far as your link to a hostile and non-scientific site is concerned, it is typical of skeptics to quote what other skeptics are saying. The ridiculous quoting the absurd.
I read that article and it was absurd to claim that scientists (plural) say that 20C (68F) will fry most people. That’s room temperature! So go ahead and do what you never do and provide a direct link to what those scientists actually said instead of just throwing somebody elses garbage through the monitor.
Dear Ill Wind Bowling,
Luboš Motl is a published physicist. There is no possible way his site could be unscientific. You, not being a published scientist in any field, wouldn’t be able to judge one way or the other, in any case.
Have a nice day being a non-scientist. 🙂
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive”
Actually, the cobwebs are in your minds.
It is stupendously ridiculous to claim that temperature rise per any given amount of Carbon Dioxide is additive! It is logarithmic. You obviously don’t know the first thing about the subject.
Second, as you have been repeatedly told, but like all propagandists repeatedly ignore, the sun’s luminosity during the Ordovician was less to the point where you needed far greater amounts of CO2 to give a temperature equal to ours.
Furthermore, you need a lesson in Geology. The Ordovician began extremely hot to the point that complex micro-organisms could not form. That means that the 4,000 ppm not just compensated for the weaker sun but overcompensated compared to our current temperatures.
The Ordovician gradually got cooler. It was only at the terminus, which took up about 3% of its entire period, that an ice age came about. At that point the CO2 levels had dropped to below 3,000 ppm. That was the equivalent, when taking the weaker sun into account, of our 180 ppm during our recent ice ages.
It has become obvious, Steve, that you are getting more desperate with every week that passes.
It is logarithmic, but we are way past the knee of the curve into the almost linear section. You might want to study your maths.
Yeah he should, but what an entertaining fellow. He has a warmist narrative for everything and yet never questions the weak hypothesis of AGW. This is someone who is indeed a fanatic.
Weave away bad wind!
“You might want to study your maths.”
You mean study your math.
Like your recent calculations? That ridiculous claim that Arctic scientists goofed because their measurement of daily ice loss would give us an ice free arctic within this year?
“It is logarithmic, but we are way past the knee of the curve into the almost linear section.”
Since you acknowledge that it’s logarithmic why did you make a statement about additive calculations in the first place? You know that Climatologists don’t believe that, so your joke is meaningless.
As far as your claim that we’ve gone over the curve that is typical of the alternative universe mentality that thinks it can reinvent the laws of physics. Bottom line, Steve, your “Calculatus Eliminatus” only works for Doctor Seuss’ “Cat in the Hat”.
.
In Europe, you study your maths. That is always a good test of people’s insularity and you failed.
If all the warmist ice BS were true, we would be ice free this summer. Several times over.
Well, it’s asymptotic, in any case, unless the CO2 is radioactive.
Even uneducated rednecks from rural America* aren’t as insular and xenophobic as IWB.
* clearly the author of this statement wouldn’t be engaging in a bit of persiflage.
IWB said “The Ordovician began extremely hot to the point that complex micro-organisms could not form.”
You just made that shit up, didn’t you.
This chart shows temperature and CO2 at 3.0C per doubling using the highest resolution data one can use going back 600 million years or so.
There was a brief spike down to about -7.0C at 443.4 Mya but the glaciation lasted for about 30 million years (CO2 was at 4400 ppm or +12.0C with 3.0C per doubling and solar irradiance was about 3.0% lower or let’s say about -2.0C with Earth having the same Albedo as today). So temps were off 3.0C per doubling by about 17.0C.
http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/9508/tempco2570mlefttoright.png
But Albedo was not the same as today, because all of North Africa and parts of northern South America were under 2 miles of ice at the time (since they were right over the South Pole – climate scientists do not seem to understand continental drift).
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/images/figure05_10.jpg
“But Albedo was not the same as today, because all of North Africa and parts of northern South America were under 2 miles of ice at the time(since they were right over the South Pole – climate scientists do not seem to understand continental drift).”
Another arrogant Dunning Kruger remark. Yes they do understand it and better than you.
First, what is the source of that chart?
Second, how can you figure out CO2 levels for the past 550 million years on the basis of ice cores? Unless I’ve done a Rip Van Winkle thing, my understanding is that ice cores go back to 800,000 years ago.
“OK, I’m not being fair. John thinks that solar output was 30% lower back then, so temperatures during the Ordovician ice age were only 150 degrees warmer than today, not 220 degrees warmer.”
You’re sinking deeper into the twilight zone with each post.
To begin with, you have returned to your previous additive assumptions as the basis of your mock correction.
Second, John Cook never said that the sun’s luminosity was 30% during the Ordovician. The figure is very different.
It also appears that you “think” there has been no lower luminosity of any degree throughout the geological past. There has been, throughout the geologic past, and it is Astrophysicists who have figured that out. Or perhaps Astrophysicists have
You ridiculous pseudo math rears it ugly head once more. You are not taking the obvious into account, namely that you are making your calculations assume that 0 degrees Fahrenheit is a reference point. What’s wrong with that picture, Steve?
And to add insult to injury you, who arrogantly tells me to do my math, seems to know nothing about the fact that you have to compensate for the sharp drop off in energy received on Earth. For example, if the sun were to decrease in luminosity by 10% the actual energy received on Earth would be even lower.
In conclusion, Mr Know It All:
1. You’re dead wrong on how to measure temperature changes correctly.
2. You’re clueless about the application of the Inverse Square Law to this situation.
By the way, you might want to check out the PETM and see how a leap to 1,000+ ppm jacked the temperature up to 10F+. In case you haven’t heard, there were massive extinctions back then.
If you actually cared about math, you would realize that 11F for 200ppm CO2 is an order of magnitude too high. But you just like to argue.
You’re changing the Subject that I addressed and have given no answers to the points that I’ve made.
Your statement about the Obama administration saying such and such is totally irrelevant for two reasons.
1. Assuming that the Obama administration said that, it would be nothing more than a goof on their part not that of Climatologists. Climatologists have said that a rise up to 1,000 ppm would produce that amount of temperature rise.
2. Whether or not the Obama administration said that, you failed to provide a link to the statement. You also have failed to show that an authentic Climatologist actually made that statement without it’s being distorted.
Nothing that I have brought up has been answered.
I’ve linked to that statement numerous times including the last few days. Does a book repeat all the details of chapter 1 in each following chapter?
Does this conversation sound like your last telephone “date”? Is that eerie, or what?
Mr. Ill Regarding “Nothing that I have brought up has been answered” You haven’t answered my question . . . You seem to be very sure of the sun’s weaker luminosity in the Ordovician period. What is your factual basis for this?
J Calvert; sorry I did not respond to your post. I was a bit caught up with other responses.
The answer to your question is Astrophysics.
Stars, including our sun, increase in luminosity from the moment of their birth. The luminosity of virtually every star increases until they blow up as Novas and Supernovas. Our sun doesn’t have the mass to explode but it will swell up into a red giant. See the illustration below.
http://tinkr.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/500px-Solar_Life_Cycle.svg_.png
If luminosity increases in time it obviously means that it’s lower as you go into the past.
Ever since I was a child, it was known and illustrated in children’s science textbooks that 5 billion years from now, the sun was going to get so hot it would swell up and incinerate the inner planets. Carl Sagan even mentioned it in his series Cosmos.
If it weren’t for the increase in stellar luminosity throughout the universe, stars would not explode. As stars get hotter, they synthesize elements higher than Hydrogen and Helium into other elements all the way to iron. When the star explodes, as a nova, those elements are then expelled through the galaxy. Later they recondense creating other stars and planets (Second and third generation stars).
It is supernovas whose explosions create elements past Iron all the way to Uranium.
Without that chain of events, there would be no ‘rocky’ planets or life of any kind anywhere. Life’s complexity requires a mix of elements past Hydrogen and Helium on the table of elements.
So for those (I’m not necessarily addressing you) who ridicule the idea of increased luminosity, be advised: You would not exist without it and it’s after effects.
“For example, if the sun were to decrease in luminosity by 10% the actual energy received on Earth would be even lower.” and “You’re clueless about the application of the Inverse Square Law to this situation.” Constant radius? Absolutely fantastic! (LOL)
The Sun reached main sequence about 4.55 billion years ago.
At the time, it was about 11% smaller, its surface temperature was about 4.3% lower and it actually had about 0.03% more mass.
When you run through all these numbers, we find that its luminosity was about 30.7% less strong at 4.55 billion years ago.
The luminosity has increased over time at very close to a straight line (not exactly but close enough).
When you run through all the numbers again, it turns out that the 30.7% increase over time in luminosity is very close to the change in total solar irradiance at Earth distance (assuming the orbit of the Earth has not changed since the Earth evolved).
So the solar change becomes a very simple formula: 1366 w/m2 * (1-0.307*443/4550) = 1325 W/m2 = 97% of today’s value.
Climate science likes to exaggerate this change over time and have used numbers as high as 4.5% less solar irradiance at the time but it is just 3.0% less.
Surface Temp = ((1325 * (1-0.298) / 4) / 5.67e-8) ^ 0.25 = 253K = -2.0K from today
According to Ill Wind Bowling, not only do physicists have a complete and faultless understanding of the sun, but they are also all 100% certain of the precise behaviour of the sun 450,000,000 years ago. Weirdly enough, that behaviour turned out to be exactly the way that a bunch of non-physicists whose tenuous hypothesis was entirely riding on the outcome said it had to have behaved. Not even the slightest variation. Wow. I mean, just wow.
I’m also floored by the fact that they accurately predicted the current solar cycle based on exactly the same hypotheses. Double wow.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/28mar_oldcycle/
“Solar Max in 2012 or… not ?
If you go back to 2006, they thought solar max was going to be around mid-to-late 2010. Odd that they couldn’t predict even four years out. It’s almost like they don’t understand the mechanism underlying the sunspot cycle.
This is more anti-science arrogance mixed in with historical revisionism.
Your statement about perfection is irrelevant since perfection is not needed for the information that was given.
Then there is your absurd claim about collusion between Astrophysicists and “non-Physicists” (I presume you’re referring to Climatologists). Why would Astrophysicists and Climatologists be in collusion?
Whether you like it or not, Astrophysicists figured out how the sun’s luminosity increases well before this issue came about. It is Climatologists that took the information from Astrophysicists not the other way around.
But then your “Socialist conspiracy” theory knows no limits. One can thus conclude, on the basis of your disparagement of Astrophysicists, that they too are part of your imaginary plot. And why not throw in to your demonic stew Geologists, Geochemists and any other scientific professionals whose discoveries are used by climate scientists?
You have made it clear that you believe that ANY scientific profession is wrong just because it says something that disturbs you.
Your world is full of demons (scientists) and magic (pseudo-science).
Let’s see if you recognize this quote:
“In case you haven’t heard, there were massive extinctions back then.”
Not really…..mostly foraminifera that were almost immediately replaced with dinoflagellates that along with their symbiot cyano were the first to fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. That gave them a huge advantage, and more than likely they were responsible for the drop in CO2 levels after that.
Without exception, every drop in CO2 levels has been preceded by a different plant, grasses, zoox, etc Plants are responsible for keeping atmospheric CO2 levels so low. Their growth slows down as CO2 becomes limiting for them.
It’s biology……how can people be worried about the “life” on the planet, and try to explain it the easy way with formulas…..
….trying to explain it biologically is just too hard for them
This is more anti-science arrogance mixed in with historical revisionism.
Thank you!
I copied this on to paper and put it on my cork bulletin board. This is the answer to everything my wife bitches at me about
Frankly, I’m confused that she follows up calling a published physicist* “anti-science” with this kind of statement. It’s almost like she has no idea what she’s talking about.
* http://bit.ly/mQWgRq
Ano! Deukuije
P?ivedl gestapák ob?ana do Pe?kova paláce.
“Tohohle jsem zatkl!’ pravil a hodil ob?ana p?ed zapisujícího.
“Pro??”
“?val: Židé ven a N?mci na jejich místa!”
“Ú?edník se zarazil a zeptal se: “Poslyš a neud?lal jsi chybu? Tohle, co ten ob?an k?i?el, je vlastn? naprosto správné – to je naše zásada …”
“Když on to ?val na židovském h?bitov?!”
You think that’s funny?
It isn’t!
: )
How do you say, “Gimme a break,” in Czech?
I couldn’t do it.
Not in the vernacular
G’night .
Give me three (five) years in Prague, not communist Cambridge and I could do it.
No fewer
Shades of Unabomb
Exposed by his brother by his own manifesto