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The mechanism is not confimed because there has been no evidence of any nucleation of sufficient size or sufficient quanity connected to cosmic rays to create any change in cloud cover. The addition of the two most common and most expected multipliers did not alter the insufficiency of the proposed mechanism.



Yes, but no effect on the cloud level formation which is the mechanism that must be shown. There is no mechanism shown that can impact the formation of clouds, so unless and until there is such a mechanism evidenced there is no mechanism outside of an hypothesis, which has evidence to show it is less likely than first thought.

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“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
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So, this also means the petition/letter documentation is also worthless for the same reasons. Fair enough, that leaves us with the documentation of concensus via numbers and conclusions of published papers, which supports the 97% agreement determination.

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“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
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"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

Nucleation mechanisms without the requirement of cosmic ray influence are well known. The mechanism for cloud formation relies on aerosols, which relies on nucleation, which is shown to be separate from the impact of cosmic rays. The cosmic rays are less of a potential mechanism for cloud formation than concentrations of various nitrates, sulfurs, and VOCs

http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/10/10733 ... 3-2010.pdf

Abstract. Nucleation from the gas phase is an important source of aerosol particles in the Earth's atmosphere, contributing to the number of cloud condensation nuclei, which form cloud droplets. We have implemented in the aerosol-climate model ECHAM5-HAM a new scheme for neutral and charged nucleation of sulfuric acid and water based on laboratory data, and nucleation of an organic compound and sulfuric acid using a parametrization of cluster activation based on field measurements. We give details of the implementation, compare results with observations, and investigate the role of the individual aerosol nucleation mechanisms for clouds and the Earth's radiative budget. The results of our simulations are most consistent with observations when neutral and charged nucleation of sulfuric acid proceed throughout the troposphere and nucleation due to cluster activation is limited to the forested boundary layer. The globally averaged annual mean contributions of the individual nucleation processes to total absorbed solar short-wave radiation via the direct, semi-direct, indirect cloud-albedo and cloud-lifetime effects in our simulations are −1.15 W/m2 for charged H2SO4/H2O nucleation, −0.235 W/m2 for cluster activation, and −0.05 W/m2 for neutral H2SO4/H2O nucleation. The overall effect of nucleation is −2.55 W/m2, which exceeds the sum of the individual terms due to feedbacks and interactions in the model. Aerosol nucleation contributes over the oceans with −2.18 W/m2 to total absorbed solar short-wave radiation, compared to −0.37 W/m2 over land. We explain the higher effect of aerosol nucleation on Earth's radiative budget over the oceans with the larger area covered by ocean clouds, due to the larger contrast in albedo between clouds and the ocean surface compared to continents, and the larger susceptibility of pristine clouds owing to the saturation of effects. The large effect of charged nucleation in our simulations is not in contradiction with small effects seen in local measurements: over southern Finland, where cluster activation proceeds efficiently, we find that charged nucleation of sulfuric acid and water contributes on average less than 10% to ultrafine aerosol concentrations, in good agreement with observations.

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With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

None of these positive feedbacks have actually been proven or observed, actually. If the net atmospheric feedbacks are negative, then the positive snow-albedo feedback would not be quite as great. With sea ice declines over the Arctic, you get more cloud cover, resulting in a negative feedback over the Arctic.

It has been observed that the climate system emits more OLR at a rate that is greater than a black body and is greater than the climate models, suggesting negative cloud feedback and neutral water vapor feedback.

The models had the greatest warming at 200-300 hPa, which is associated with a negative lapse rate feedback, as the upper troposphere in the models is warming faster than the surface.Once again, according to observations, we can see that there is a serious discrepency between the models and the observations at various locations in the upper troposphere.



If you think that Climate4you.com is cherry picking by selecting the HatAT dataset, look at Douglass et. al 2007, which has 3 MORE datasets that show that there is a serious discrepency between modeled and observational temperatures in the Tropical Troposphere.



The figure, from Douglass et. al 2007 (Source: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/image ... _wrong.pdf) shows that the models were predicting a negative lapse rate feedback, which is seen with the higher temperature trend in the middle to upper troposphere than at the surface. Observations do not show any of this. They show that the lapse rate is positive, and that the surface is warming faster than the upper troposphere, consistent with a positive lapse rate feedback. The strongest negative lapse rate feedbacks in the IPCC GCMs were constantly associated with a the strongest positive water vapor feedbacks. The relationship between the two appears to be robust, so the lack of a negative lapse rate indicates that the water vapor feedback might not be positive, and even negative.




Or the fact that humidity levels are remaining constant as temperatures increase, as seen with Wang et. al 2008



And Sun et. al 2008 which finds that the negative cloud albedo feedback during ENSO events has been underestimated in climate models, and that the positive water vapor feedback in models ha been overestiamted.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10. ... HistoryKey

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Meteorology Undergraduate

The climate is highly sensitive to water vapor changes in the upper troposphere where there is not such a high concentration of water vapor, and is relatively insensitive to changes in tropospheric water vapor in the boundary layer where there are high concentrations of water vapor, which can be seen in Spencer and Braswell 1997.

Thus, it is possible to have an increase in water vapor in the boundary layer, but still get a negative water vapor feedback, as Paltridge et. al 2009 shows.

A bunch of papers by Pielke, Douglass, Lindzen, Christy, Spencer etc. also show net negative feedback in the climate system.

For example, on average, the climate system radiates much more heat due to a radiative forcing than do models, suggesting a net-negative feedback, possibly confirming Lindzen's iris hypothesis:





Also see Spencer et. al 2007 for such a diagnosis of negative climate feedback.

We explore the daily evolution of tropical intraseasonal
oscillations in satellite-observed tropospheric temperature,
precipitation, radiative fluxes, and cloud properties. The
warm/rainy phase of a composited average of fifteen
oscillations is accompanied by a net reduction in radiative
input into the ocean-atmosphere system, with longwave
heating anomalies transitioning to longwave cooling during
the rainy phase. The increase in longwave cooling is traced
to decreasing coverage by ice clouds, potentially supporting
Lindzen’s ‘‘infrared iris’’ hypothesis of climate stabilization.
These observations should be considered in the testing of
cloud parameterizations in climate models, which remain
sources of substantial uncertainty in global warming
prediction.

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Meteorology Undergraduate

I am not saying that just because CO2 makes up a small portion of the atmosphere does not mean that it would not have a large impact.


The point is that you can not use the empirical proof of CO2 being a GHG whose concentrations have increased as proof for causation.

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Meteorology Undergraduate

Of course you can. Moreso than you can use the correlation you like to use as an implied causation to refute the empirical evidence.

Compound A is a greenhouse gas.

Greenhouse gases have measured prevention of energy loss.

Prevention of energy loss causes the energy to be retained as heat, which can be quantified.

Thus, the increase in concentration of Compound A is empirical evidence of the increase in temperature due to retention of energy. This does not mean the global temperature will rise that specific amount as there are other variables which can have an effect on the final temperature, but the causation can be easily shown.

_________________
With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

The only problem is that a recent paper by Levitus et. al that found that over the last 55 years the oceans have warmed by only 0.09 Degrees C.

That kind of puts a dent in your high sensitivity hypothesis, especially when considering that at least some of that increase could be due to natural causes, doesn't it?

As for your last paragraph, it requires an answer of two words: Cosmic Rays.

http://friendsofscience.org/assets/docu ... 0Drive.pdf

The CRF alone
can explain ~66% of the total variance in
the temperature data.



Once again, if aerosoles were creating this enormous cooling that you speak of, we would see the greatest cooling effects in the cities and the northern hemisphere. We don't observe any of those things happening.



Do you have a source for the first sentence?



The impacts of aerosoles are short lived and VERY local as you can see in the image above.

Warren Meyer had some interesting calculations with the cooling impact of aerosols. Assuming that aerosoles cover about 40% of the land area (which is about 10% of the Earth's Surface) then it would take 10 Degrees C of local cooling to equate to 1 Degree C of global cooling.

So in order to prove that aerosoles have created a 0.2 Degree C Global Cooling, you need to provethat they have created a 2 Degree C local cooling, which no one has done so far, therefore your claim of aerosoles masking warming is unsubstantiated.

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Meteorology Undergraduate

Yes there is.

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Meteorology Undergraduate

I don't understand what you are trying to argue here.

So you agree with the Oregon petition that Greenhouse Gases would not cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's Climate in the near future?

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Meteorology Undergraduate

Really? Where is there any data on the actual mechanism that Cosmic rays BY THEMSELVES have ANY impact on cloud formation? There is a mechanism that shows a small amount of nucleation with cosmic ray exposure, but not of sufficient size to impact formation of clouds and especially not to impact them as much as you wish to imply.

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With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

Just pointing out that you must also agree that there is no concensus against Global warming based on polls or poll type documents. Thus, the only remaining method of determination of concensus in the scientific support is in the number of papers published and the conclusions drawn from them. That just also happens to support the 97% concensus view of climate experts in favor of the climate impacts by humanity.



No, there is no specification of the subjective variables "catastrophic" nor "near future" to base any such determination.

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With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

Note there is no reference to global warming or climate change, just catastrophic heating and climate disruption, so the the "concensus" is what?

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With friends like Guido, you will not have enemies for long.

“Intellect is invisible to the man who has none”
Arthur Schopenhauer

"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
Albert Einstein

Saying that someone questions CAGW, makes them a skeptic.

I would have to agree that the phrase "near-term" in the sentence is quite ambiguous.

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Meteorology Undergraduate

Good grief, here we go again.

The small particles formed could grow into Clouds, it is not certain how many can grow, as stated in the paper.

And the fact that H2SO4 is not the main nucleating substance does NOT mean that Cosmic Rays have a small impact on climate change.

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Meteorology Undergraduate