Does this image explain global warming?

[Sleeper]

I've recently found a few graphs that look fairly similar, though they map different things.

I knew that atmospheric carbon dioxide had increased significantly since the industrial revolution, but I didn't know until recently that methane, sulphates, and nitrous oxide had all also followed the same pattern. The increase in greenhouse gases has followed a similar path as the increase in human population. It's startling how similar they all look.

A population explosion (and technological explosion) has led to an explosion of greenhouse gases, which has already heated the whole world slightly. If we keep it up, it will probably heat the world a lot.

Is this accurate? Is this a good, simple way to explain global warming in a single image?

[BattleMoose]

Using these charts is certainly an effective means of communicating global warming and indeed any communication about global warming would be remiss without them. Classically the opposition you may run into is the objection that this is just correlation and on the face of it its a fair objection, having two things correlated does not mean there is any causation. Any random unrelated things may be correlated beautifully.

There also needs to be a hypothesis/theory that explains the correlation and of course there is with global warming a very good one and these charts are a very important aspect of our understanding of global warming.

So yes, I would say these charts are an effective means of communication global warming but be prepared to run into the correlation objection, it will be raised.

Of course how one presents science, indeed anything, depends heavily on the audience you are pitching too.

[Mambo4]

There is also the "Those charts were made by greedy scientists trying to nab another round of government handouts" argument.
It's an ad homonym logical fallacy , but it gets used.

[Charlie!]

My favorite image is this one, though it's a bit out of date:

[Weeks]

There is also the "Those charts were made by greedy scientists trying to nab another round of government handouts" argument.
It's an ad homonym logical fallacy , but it gets used.

Ha! It's funny because you said homonym but meant homophone.



By the way, you didn't link to the image. I can't read the last chart, but I've seen those charts before. I don't know if you can get more accurate than the IPCC.

[Proginoskes]

There is also the "Those charts were made by greedy scientists trying to nab another round of government handouts" argument.
It's an ad homonym logical fallacy , but it gets used.

Of course, the rebuttal for that is "Priests are only in it for the free wafers and wine."

[Azrael]

It's an ad homonym logical fallacy , but it gets used.

Ha! It's funny because you said homonym but meant homophone.

Hominem. He meant ad hominem.

[Whimsical Eloquence]

It's an ad homonym logical fallacy , but it gets used.

Ha! It's funny because you said homonym but meant homophone.

Hominem. He meant ad hominem.

Joke. Weeks meant to make a brilliant joke.

[Azrael]

Well, even if I hadn't spoiled it, "brilliant" might have been a stretch.

[mattshark100]

Yeah the graphs are great.

As for pitching to an audience, a good denier pitch has always been, the beer-lambert law, you get x amount of CO2 then the law of diminishing returns begins to apply and any additional CO2 has no effect, this might be true in a 2d world but in a 3d atmosphere the depth of absorbtion is important so the effective heat ceiling is lowered with every addition. uh i just ranted,,, yes those graphs are pretty much the best there is.

[Sleeper]

Orson Scott Card is a great author, but somebody recommended that I don't read his books because he's crazily anti-gay. I don't see what his bigotry has to do with the quality of his science fiction, though.

I'd call that an ad homophobe argument.

...

...Wait a minute, this is "serious business." OK, back to the point: Could you criticize the column of graphs I posted for not using zero as the base point for the graph? When the Y-axis doesn't start at zero, your graph can make any jump look like a huge jump.

[jestingrabbit]

...Wait a minute, this is "serious business." OK, back to the point: Could you criticize the column of graphs I posted for not using zero as the base point for the graph? When the Y-axis doesn't start at zero, your graph can make any jump look like a huge jump.

The starting points of the graphs is the world in a natural state, so to speak. Its natural that there's some CO2 in the air, and levels now should be compared to the prehistoric/prehuman past. Comparing to a zero CO2 atmosphere makes little sense, which is what a graph which had a CO2 axis starting at 0 would be doing.

One problem that is worth mentioning is that the time axes are all different, and another is that correlation isn't causation. You could graph atmospheric CO2 vs global length of underground sewage pipes and see a pretty good correlation. Your diagrams at least make it clear that there could reasonably be some causal link. Without that causal link demonstrated, I wouldn't say that you are explaining global warming, but that's a much more involved thing to talk about and it might not be your goal.

If you want to convince people that there might be something to this anthropogenic climate change thing, then what you've got is fine. If you want to explain how the change in the composition of the atmosphere leads to a change in climate and what the effects of an increase in temperature would be, you need a lot more, but what you've got might initiate that more detailed conversation.

[Sleeper]

One problem that is worth mentioning is that the time axes are all different

How are they all different? They all start at 1000 AD and go on to 2000 AD. Except for the Sulphur graph, which begins at 1800 at the same point that all the other graphs have 1800.

[jestingrabbit]

One problem that is worth mentioning is that the time axes are all different

How are they all different? They all start at 1000 AD and go on to 2000 AD. Except for the Sulphur graph, which begins at 1800 at the same point that all the other graphs have 1800.

Sorry, you're right there, its just too fuzzy and small for my eyes, and it doesn't link through to a larger image.

[Sleeper]

Yep. By the way, is there a free image host out there that doesn't shrink an image that's bigger than a certain size? The original is big enough that you can actually read it, but Photobucket doesn't like it.

[jestingrabbit]

You can just attach it to your post (look below the text box, there is an attachment diaglogue there).

[Arrian]

... Classically the opposition you may run into is the objection that this is just correlation and on the face of it its a fair objection, having two things correlated does not mean there is any causation. Any random unrelated things may be correlated beautifully.

There also needs to be a hypothesis/theory that explains the correlation and of course there is with global warming a very good one and these charts are a very important aspect of our understanding of global warming.

Actually, understanding why the population and GHG charts are correlated goes a very long way to understanding the skepticism of aggressive carbon/GHG targeting. The root cause for both is increased industrialization due to improved technology. That technology has led to (among other things) improved farming and transportation methods that allow us to support 7 billion people where a couple centuries ago we had problems supporting 1 billion. (It took 90% of the population farming to feed ourselves in 1790, in 2010 it takes less than 3%.) However, greenhouse gasses are some of the byproducts of that production technology, so as technology advances, we can support more people in better conditions than ever before, but we also produce more GHGs (and other pollutants.) Note, however, that as technology progresses, the amount of pollutants decreases per unit of stuff produced (carbon intensity is one measure of that,) since waste products often represent inefficiencies in the manufacturing process.

Now to the skepticism: Current technological trends will not push carbon intensity down fast enough to meet emissions goals like those of the Kyoto protocol. Therefore, you need to produce less if you want to lower GHG output. But lowering output reduces our ability to support the population and improve living conditions. Remember, the poorest will always be the hardest hit. So, if lowering GHG output drives the US average standard of living down to that of, say, Slovakia, American poor might end up on the level of Sub Saharan Africa, and how will the poor in Asia and Africa who depend largely on the West for income growth fare?

It's pretty straightforward: To lower GHG emissions, you have to lower output. If you lower output, you'll negatively impact a lot of people. The policy difference between anti- and pro- climate change people is based on which they think will have a greater impact.

[Zamfir]

Huh? Slovakia has fairly typical CO2 exhausts per capita for industrialized countries, though a lot less than the US of course. Many countries are richer than Slovakia with a similar exhaust. And being poor in Slovakia is nothing like being poor in Africa. Why in heaven's sake should a lower CO2 exhaust change the US in Slovakia, let alone into poor parts of Africa?

[Yakk]

As an aside, CO2 emissions per capita is a pretty stupid way to measure GHG damage allotment.

That means a nation that increases its population by a factor of 10 should get 10 times as much GHG. Really, the amount of GHG the world can take isn't a per-capita value -- it is a per-world value. So we should tie the share to something that a nation's share of the planet and it's atmosphere -- land area.

This places China and the USA at about the same level (their GHG and land area are about equal), still ends up with the non-West having the best GHG profile, but doesn't reward nations that have crammed unsustainably high populations into tiny patches of land: their territory does not nearly absorb the GHG that they produce, and as a nation they should live within the resources of their territory or export their surplus population somewhere that can handle it, or have other people willingly and freely export resources or quota to them.

Other city states will have similar issues.

[Arrian]

Huh? Slovakia has fairly typical CO2 exhausts per capita for industrialized countries, though a lot less than the US of course. Many countries are richer than Slovakia with a similar exhaust. And being poor in Slovakia is nothing like being poor in Africa. Why in heaven's sake should a lower CO2 exhaust change the US in Slovakia, let alone into poor parts of Africa?

I was thinking GDP/Capita not CO2/GDP, and picked Slovakia because I like the name. It's not a specific example, just an illustration (not even an estimate) of a fall in living standards that would be necessitated by serious GHG reductions. (And hey, with US income inequality, if you move the middle class down to Slovakian income levels, the bottom is going to be very low indeed. Maybe not Sub-Saharan Africa levels, but far lower than we're willing to accept right now.)

The ONLY way to reduce GHG emissions significantly is to lower output, we don't have the technology to produce everything we do now without something close to the GHG emissions levels we have now. Going nuclear might make a big dent in emissions without taking a huge productivity hit, but that isn't politically feasible. Going renewable would require a significant redistribution of resources from their current uses to build and support the renewable infrastructure.

Again, the policy differences between pro- and anti- climate change policies are largely driven by the different estimations of the cost of warming verses the cost of GHG reduction. (With, naturally, True Believers on both sides that want to drive their own agenda regardless of the costs.)