Methane is 20 times more potent than CO2 on a per molecule basis. That is in part because there is so much more CO2 in the atmosphere that it has already saturated the absorption bands, and its influence is in the wings. Further, that number of 20 depends on the time scale because methane does not remain in the atmosphere as long, and the number 20 is based on an average effect over the CO2 lifetime, about a century. On decade time scale, methane is even more potent.

As far as how significant, there is geologic evidence that in the past, methane hydrates decomposed and changed the atmosphere, and shifted climate. The problem is that if one looks at single bubbles from the hydrate, it would never make it to the atmosphere. never. Just dissolve and be eaten by bugs. So scientists discounted the evidence and theory that hydrates can change the atmosphere. And if the evidence is being discounted, there is no funding, and no one is looking to find out if it is / will happen

The study showed that the mistake is assuming it arises in single bubbles, rather than catastrophic releases (blow outs). It explains why the evidence cannot be discounted by arguing the methane dissolves. It doesn’t have to. it might be released explosively. And we need to look and see if it is happening.

Particularly, if warmer oceans are caused by humans, there would be a potential for a horrible positive feedback cycle.

(1) Berate scientists for lack of consensus on whether smoking causes lung cancer (hey, there are probably a few scientists on Phillip Morris’s payroll who are on the other side of the “controversy”).

(2) Obliquely suggest (a la “global cooling” canard) that smoking might even be healthful, as some people believed long ago, nevermind that this has long since been discredited.

(3) Simultaneously, she will blame scientists for the poor track record in curing lung cancer caused by smoking and for not being able to offer anything better than, well, telling us to stop smoking. Even though, ah, she’s not conviced that smoking actually causes lung cancer……

I wanted to add:

I don’t know what sort of “regression analysis” Crichton did on his data, but (1) that by itself doesn’t mean squat about whether his ideas have any validity (2) basic linear regression (if that’s what he did) is a ridiculously basic skill and doesn’t show any particular mastery of statistics, frankly.

I read Jurrasic Park in 1993 and I remember distinctly thinking to myself that Crichton didn’t know jack about statistics. He’s got some plot in there of a bell curve with data on a bar chart lining right up with the curve.

Even a two-bit scientst knows that NEVER happens. All data has noise in it, and the noise itself follows statistics. Typically the bar heights in a bell curve from real data have a variation on the order of sqrt(N) where N is the number of samples in a particular bin (ie bar).

This is so basic that any grad student in the hard sciences who made a plot of hypothetical data that looked like Crichton’s should be embarrassed.

He’s a fantastic science fiction writer. Absolutely fantastic. But he ain’t no friggin scientist, ok?

Peter Williams

As a scientist myself, what strikes me as odd is that Jason keeps stating that,
“You LOSE supporters when you OVERSTATE man’s impact on the environment” (e.g. #78).

Who is “You” in this assertion?

The public (unlikely)? The environmentalists concerned about global warming? Or does Jason mean the scientists themselves? If he means the scientists, this shows a complete misunderstanding about how science works. Jason?

A few comments.
(1) I teach physics and astronomy. Students sometimes ask, “Well, have you scientists considered X” where X is either (a) something that is well-known, or (b) something that is flatly absurd. Now, this is a good thing, no doubt about it – we like to encourage independent thinking – but you have to do your homework. The obvious questions have all been asked long ago. It takes years to get to the level of sophistication and understanding where you really start asking questions that haven’t been addressed already, and are ready to contribute to the scientific enterprise. Reading ANYTHING at the pop level (eg Crichton) and thinking that makes you an expert is like, oh, reading Hawking’s books and thinking you can suddenly go mano-a-mano with top cosmologists. It’s unfortunate that this makes science come across as elitist, but that’s the way it goes, and it’s no different for other professions (doctors, lawyers, etc). If you want to see actual research, go check out the Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres, where scientists publish peer-reviewed literature on GW (among other things).

(2) Crichton’s notions (and here I am speaking as a non-expert, but one who has gone to many scientific talks on GW) about heat from asphalt etc in dense urban settings falls into category (a) above. Scientists are quite aware of the phenomenon and it’s not exactly news. His idea that this fully accounts for the observed warming falls into category (b).

(3) Re #110: Past climate change, past extinctions, etc: This is not news, Jason. You think that people who have spent 6-8 years of their lives post-bacc just to get the PhD and be baby scientists – not to mention the time it takes to be an expert – don’t know this stuff? Come on. These are specious arguments. You are making the classic logical error of inverting the syllogism, related to the error of negative premises, used all the time to confuse people in politics. Learn some logic.

(4) Jason may or may not be in this camp, but the anthropogenic warming deniers show a deep-rooted, FUNDAMENTAL misunderstanding of how science works and what motivates scientists. Unlike politics, IN SCIENCE THE TRUTH EVENTUALLY COMES OUT, and scientists are motivated by uncovering the truth. This is what gives us the respect of our peers (and gives some scientists very big egos). It is a fundamentally different mindset from, say, policy debate. If any scientist thought he/she had discovered some huge mistake and that showed anthropogenic warming wasn’t real, you can be SURE that they would publish in a heartbeat, because they would be very famous for uncovering some new, big, important truth, and the scientific community would glom onto it. That hasn’t happened. You may have a few fringe players here and there in the literature, mostly crackpots and old stubborn codgers, but that’s it. Their science is junk, and so the other scientists justifiably ignore it.

Jason, try learning a bit more about the subject, why don’t you? There is an absolutely ENORMOUS literature on the subject by actual scientists, with lots and lots of fancy plots with as much statistical analysis as you care to digest.

Peter Williams

There are really only two reasons why nothing even close to solving the problem is being attempted.

First is ignorance. The majority of the people on the planet are totally clueless when it comes to science. If you don’t understand calculus, statisics or the scientific method
you should really just shut up.

The second reason is erroneous beliefs. People just go into denial when reality conflicts with their belief systems.

Here in the United States the religous nut balls, many of them scientists, just don’t believe that god will let all this bad stuff happen to us.

Scientist publish papers! We can see which scientists are belief driven rather than evidence driven by their published papers. Scientist need to identify publicly those scientist who for decades denied global warming was even happining. Just because these particular scientist have recently changed their tune that’s no reason to accept their research which now says it’s a natural cycle.

Another belief is in the Organize & Educate philosophy of social change. The Serria Club has been doing this for the last hundred years, proud of it and will raise funds to do it for a hundred more. This strategy has worked in winning local battles but it’s too slow to win the global struggle.

A real solution is rather simple. Have the UN tax every barrel of oil produced. How much? Nobody knows. Start of with a 5$USD and increase it every month by another $5 until we reduce the green house gases by 60%. No wimpy polictially correct solution is going to suceed.

We’re too stupid, too short sighted, and the natural response to higher temperatures is to turn up your AC…which helps create CO2 that raises the temperature further.

Maybe when about 3-4 billion of us either drown or die from drought, the remainder of us can put the brakes on. We’re just like every other petri dish population…expand & expand, until a plateau, and a crash.

THIS LINE WAS NOT drafted by the scientists, but rather by self-interested policy wonks in the “Executive Summary” of the IPCCs TAR (2001). The actual body of report contains many caveats, and does not support this hyperbolic attribution.

In fact, this by-passing of the scientists involved evoked a storm of protest (if not resignations) against the corrupt politics involved with the UN. After all, doesn’t the UN stand to gain bureaucratic power and money if Kyoto is widely implimented? Of course.

So much for “scientific authority.”

Specifically, over about a century, the Imperial Valley did experience temperature rises; the fooothills and the Sierra’s did not.
http://reform.house.gov/UploadedFiles/UA%20-%20Christy%20Testimony.pdf
The net result was too weak for us to know whether or not humans are affecting the broader climate.

Looks like a mere fiction writer can be prescient to me.

Jason, Michael Crichton’s latest book evidently uses urban heat masses, or the term I prefer, urban heat island effects, to debunk the theory of global climate change.

I did a little reading on urban heat island effects, and it appears from what I read (I haven’t studied this exhaustively) that urban heat island effects are not considered to contribute significantly AT THIS POINT IN TIME to the overall phenomenon of warming planetwide. But that hardly is the same as saying that they disprove it. In fact, if anything, they would CONTRIBUTE to it. In other words, those localized warming phenomena would have to be balanced off by cooling elsewhere for them to make no contribution to global warming. Do you have any data from peer-reviewed studies showing that urban heat island effects are being counterbalanced elsewhere?

What is this alternative path? Drop the whole thing? Stop relying on science to make decisions? Ask science fiction writers for advice?