Global Warming: the sky is falling!

[Canada Mints]

It's becoming less and less arguable especially considering what has been learned over the past 5 years.

OK, I don't really dispute it, I'm just saying I've seen a lot of reasonable critique of the temperature measurement and correction methods.

What do you suggest as an alternative? Those 'people' are eminent scientists incidentally

I suggest we use models lightly until they have shown some validity. They are only as good as their creators. We don't sign up to something like Kyoto
which would be very expensive when the basis is models.

I certainly give a lot of credence to work done by "eminent" scientists, but they are just people too. One scientist will publish results only to have another scientist publish conflicting results at some later date.

Heck, some scientists believe in remote viewing, ESP, and dare I say it? God.

(and welcome to the forum!)

Thank You!

 

[varwoche]

Your right. Its just a puppet site for the big corporate polluters. Its in the same league as newsmax or Larouche. You can try harder to ignore dissenting opinions by equipping a tinfoil hat to keep out airwaves that might have charts, graphs, logic, and evidence like the article I linked.

Wow, charts and graphs! Sounds sciencey.

Too bad the charts and graphs are published by agenda-driven lobbyists. And too bad the charts and graphs haven't undergone peer review. Otherwise the analysis might be published, you know, in a scientific journal rather than a trash, political website that shills for Exxon for $$$. What a joke.

Incidentally the Exxon shill who wrote the article is one of the doofuses who committed the radians/degrees gaffe documented here.

 

[varwoche]

I suggest we use models lightly until they have shown some validity.

Validity according to you? At what point is that?

They are only as good as their creators.

This statement has no meaning -- it could be said about most anything.

One scientist will publish results only to have another scientist publish conflicting results at some later date.

This mischaracterises the general consensus (no, not unanimous) that exists today amongst experts. Here's a starting point.

And I note that you have not cited any of these conflicting results.

Heck, some scientists believe in remote viewing, ESP, and dare I say it? God.

Disjointed strawman.

 

[a_unique_person]

OK, I don't really dispute it, I'm just saying I've seen a lot of reasonable critique of the temperature measurement and correction methods.



I suggest we use models lightly until they have shown some validity. They are only as good as their creators. We don't sign up to something like Kyoto
which would be very expensive when the basis is models.

I certainly give a lot of credence to work done by "eminent" scientists, but they are just people too. One scientist will publish results only to have another scientist publish conflicting results at some later date.

Heck, some scientists believe in remote viewing, ESP, and dare I say it? God.


Thank You!

The models are run against known records, to validate them.

 

[CapelDodger]

My pre-conceived notion is "prove it", I am skeptical that man is causing global warming due to CO2 addition to the atmosphere.

What would constitute proof to you? Global warming due to increased CO2 concentration was predicted from the basic physics, obderved spectrums and quantum physics, stuff like that. The world has got warmer in exactly the way predicted - not just the increased average temperature but its distribution across the daily and annual cycles. No other influence has even been posited that can explain the observed data. All that's put forward is a vague "something" that's too complicated for anybody to see, despite the fact that the planet is under intensive scrutiny and the subject is sexy.

For some, there's an unexplained "cycle" (it has a scientific ring, like "vibration" or "energy") that will hopefully turn down sometime soon to justify their scepticism. It isn't going to happen.

 

[jj]

I suggest we use models lightly until they have shown some validity.

Well, most models have some kind of real data to support them. The fact that some of them contradict each other is not surprising at this point, since the field is quite new, initial conditions are hard to determine, and the degree of initial accuracy required to have a stable model is rather high.

But please don't discount models, models can be very useful even when they are wrong, by teaching us what we don't understand as well as what we do.

This is, of course, all really not an issue.

I think it's clear that warming is happening. I think it's just as clear that it is going to affect the way that the human race has to live on the planet. It does not matter if it's GW, AGW, CGW (cow-global-warming) or what, we really need to understand what's going on, what the short and long term implications and considerations are, what we might want to do, or not do, about it, and we need to know that as soon as possible.

The dragging-feet behavior we see formally as part of the US government policy, that atttempts to outright hide measurements and the analysis of measurements, the denial, the refusal to even look into the subject in an unbiased fashion, these are not the tools of UNDERSTANDING.

They are, however, the tools of denial and the epitomy of what causes a dark age.

 

[casebro]

heres a link to some geologist/ paleoclimatologist: http://www.consumersvoice.org/1051/defensewrapper.jsp?PID=1051-350&CID=1051-010405M

wherein he mentions some cycles: "the 75-90 year Gleissberg Solar Cycle, the 200-500 year Suess Solar Cycle, and the 1,100 year Bond Solar Cycle"

The basic solar cycle is about 11 years. This is what causes El Nino- La Nina years. But it varies, from 8 to 12. More 8 years spacing results in more heat on earth, more 12 year spacing causes cooling. Lots of differnt cycles have been noted, basically clumps of eight year cycles, vs clumps of 12 year cycles.

I suspect the aforementioned scientist is reputed to be tooo skeptical. but his research seems to be based on reality, NOT computer models.

 

[a_unique_person]

heres a link to some geologist/ paleoclimatologist: http://www.consumersvoice.org/1051/defensewrapper.jsp?PID=1051-350&CID=1051-010405M

wherein he mentions some cycles: "the 75-90 year Gleissberg Solar Cycle, the 200-500 year Suess Solar Cycle, and the 1,100 year Bond Solar Cycle"

The basic solar cycle is about 11 years. This is what causes El Nino- La Nina years. But it varies, from 8 to 12. More 8 years spacing results in more heat on earth, more 12 year spacing causes cooling. Lots of differnt cycles have been noted, basically clumps of eight year cycles, vs clumps of 12 year cycles.

I suspect the aforementioned scientist is reputed to be tooo skeptical. but his research seems to be based on reality, NOT computer models.

Once again, the idea that literally hundreds of very intelligent scientists around the world being ignorant of the basic cycles of the sun and the earth as it revolves on it's axis around the sun is mind boggling. The simple answer is that, yes, they know all about all this already, and have been researching it for years. The models incorporate all the 'forcings' of the system, if you leave out AGW, then there would be no change, according to the models, if you incorporate AGW, then there is the measured change.

 

[jj]

heres a link to some geologist/ paleoclimatologist: http://www.consumersvoice.org/1051/defensewrapper.jsp?PID=1051-350&CID=1051-010405M

wherein he mentions some cycles: "the 75-90 year Gleissberg Solar Cycle, the 200-500 year Suess Solar Cycle, and the 1,100 year Bond Solar Cycle"

The basic solar cycle is about 11 years. This is what causes El Nino- La Nina years. But it varies, from 8 to 12. More 8 years spacing results in more heat on earth, more 12 year spacing causes cooling. Lots of differnt cycles have been noted, basically clumps of eight year cycles, vs clumps of 12 year cycles.

I suspect the aforementioned scientist is reputed to be tooo skeptical. but his research seems to be based on reality, NOT computer models.

You are, of course, acquainted with the idea of attractors in chaotic systems, things that create quasi-periodicities, but that can suddenly change when a threshold is passed.

Is that happening? I didn't say that. But your "cycles" is not as reassuring as it might be.

 

[a_unique_person]

Your right. Its just a puppet site for the big corporate polluters. Its in the same league as newsmax or Larouche. You can try harder to ignore dissenting opinions by equipping a tinfoil hat to keep out airwaves that might have charts, graphs, logic, and evidence like the article I linked.

The article I linked doesnt debunk GW or AGW. The article critiques the recent paper published in Science claiming more melting that their last study from this year. Don't be afraid.

Here is a thirty year study.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/antartica-warming-speeds-up/2006/03/31/1143441315718.html
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=0009B968-6067-142C-A06783414B7F0000

"The rapid surface warming of the Antarctic Peninsula and the enhanced global warming signal over the whole continent shows the complexity of climate change," Turner says. "Greenhouse gases could be having a bigger impact in Antarctica than across the rest of the world and we don't understand why." This warming has implications for snowfall on the continent as well as the melting of land-based ice reserves, potentially leading to global sea-level rise, the researchers warn. Although they cannot ascribe a particular cause to the warming, they ruled out several other potential explanations, including heat transfer from other regions (there was no observed change in wind patterns) and solar radiation changes (the sun is either at or below the horizon throughout the winter months in question). And although current computer models fail to predict this warming trend, the scientists argue that the data is consistent with what would be expected as a result of increasing greenhouse gases. "Our next step," Turner says, "is to try to improve the models." --David Biello

Note the problem with the computer models, they underestimate the level of warming.

 

[varwoche]

TCSDaily, formerly Tech Central, is an arm of the DCI Group, a right wing political lobbying organization funded in part by Exxon and is not a credible source for scientific information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tech_Central_Station

I became aware of TCS during previous GW debates because they so often appeared at the top of google's results. I may start a thread about them (and the George Marshall Institute, also Exxon shills). In the meantime...

But TCS doesn't just act like a lobbying shop. It's actually published by one--the DCI Group, a prominent Washington "public affairs" firm specializing in P.R., lobbying, and so-called "Astroturf" organizing, generally on behalf of corporations, GOP politicians, and the occasional Third-World despot. The two organizations share most of the same owners, some staff, and even the same suite of offices
...
James Glassman and TCS have given birth to something quite new in Washington: journo-lobbying. It's an innovation driven primarily by the influence industry. Lobbying firms that once specialized in gaining person-to-person access to key decision-makers have branched out. The new game is to dominate the entire intellectual environment in which officials make policy decisions, which means funding everything from think tanks to issue ads to phony grassroots pressure groups.
...
Like its publishing arm, DCI's business is to influence elite opinion in Washington. But instead of publishing articles, DCI specializes in what's known as "corporate-financed grass-roots organizing," such as setting up front groups to agitate for a client's position
...
After ExxonMobil became a sponsor, for instance, the site published a flurry of content attacking both the Kyoto accord to limit greenhouse gasses and the science of global warming--which happen to be among Exxon-Mobil's chief policy concerns in Washington.

Glassman: We're an advocacy group. There's no doubt about that. I don't think we ever had pretenses of being an academic think tank.

article

 

[varwoche]

heres a link to some geologist/ paleoclimatologist: http://www.consumersvoice.org/1051/defensewrapper.jsp?PID=1051-350&CID=1051-010405M

And what do you know? TCS again.

"where free market meets technology" LOL!

 

[bigred]

There was no similar scare in the 70's.

The global cooling myth

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94

You should, perhaps, be a tad more skeptical about denialist talking-points.

I hate to break it to realclimate.org and you, but yes, there was. Whether it was by "leading scientists" or hype by the press or both or neither or whatever, it was in the news, media, whatever more than a little. PS I don't mean "scare" as in "mass hysteria," but it was an issue brought to the forefront.

 

[a_unique_person]

I hate to break it to realclimate.org and you, but yes, there was. Whether it was by "leading scientists" or hype by the press or both or neither or whatever, it was in the news, media, whatever more than a little. PS I don't mean "scare" as in "mass hysteria," but it was an issue brought to the forefront.

I think it is important. If an issue is backed by science or not is important, as it determines how seriously it should be taken.

As it is, 'global dimming' has caused a lot of confusion, as it is a short term cooling effect, brought about, ironically, by us as well, as we create the long term warming effect. That is, the earth is warming, as it is simultaneously being cooled by particles in the atmosphere. The effect of these particles is not long term, but the warming is. It's a real worry, because while CO2 persists for a long time, and is being made by us burning fossil fuels, the particles create by fossil fuels that cause cooling will be soon gone once the petrol starts to run dry.

 

[a_unique_person]

In what way is Global Warming theory not falsifiable?

 

[CapelDodger]

I hate to break it to realclimate.org and you, but yes, there was. Whether it was by "leading scientists" or hype by the press or both or neither or whatever, it was in the news, media, whatever more than a little. PS I don't mean "scare" as in "mass hysteria," but it was an issue brought to the forefront.

I've covered this already. A 9-day wonder in the mid-70's is not similar to the issue of greenhouse warming, which has been gaining increasing prominence for decades. Greenhouse warming may have terrifying implications, but it isn't a scare.

 

[varwoche]

Wow, charts and graphs! Sounds sciencey.

Too bad the charts and graphs are published by agenda-driven lobbyists. And too bad the charts and graphs haven't undergone peer review. Otherwise the analysis might be published, you know, in a scientific journal rather than a trash, political website that shills for Exxon for $$$. What a joke.

Incidentally the Exxon shill who wrote the article is one of the doofuses who committed the radians/degrees gaffe documented here.

Corplinx, I thought you might be interested in this (ongoing) shilling on behalf of the energy industry by Michaels, the author of the opinion piece you linked to:

U.S. power group promoting global warming skeptic

A Colorado electricity cooperative is urging other power groups to support global warming skeptics and has donated $100,000 to a climatologist who has labeled some of his colleagues "alarmists."

The Intermountain Rural Electric Association's general manager wrote in a letter to other energy cooperatives that it also helped raise contributions from others for Dr. Patrick Michaels, a climatologist at the University of Virginia and a fellow at the CATO Institute

 

[Elizabeth I]

My mother taught at a community college where a large proportion of the students belonged to a fundamentalist religious denomination. She kept having arguments with them when they insisted that extreme weather was a sign of the "end times," pointing out that there is NO way to know that this is the "worst weather ever in the history of the world." We just don't have the records.

Given that accurate weather records have been kept for only a couple hundred years, and true climate change occurs over geologic time, how can we be sure that the current data are not just a blip on the gigantic climate screen? I remember the drought of the 1950s, followed by the "global cooling" scare of the 1970s, not to mention the side issue of "atomic winter."

Not saying that all the occurences reported by global warming adherents aren't happening, just that maybe it's arrogant for us to assume that what we see in our short lifetimes, versus the history of the planet and its environment, equals permanent climatic alteration. <shrug>

 

[Elind]

Given that accurate weather records have been kept for only a couple hundred years, and true climate change occurs over geologic time, how can we be sure that the current data are not just a blip on the gigantic climate screen?

We have quite accurate records from several tens of thousand of years, and less accurate ones from earlier than that.

If you don't know how, I suggest a little research.

 

[Elizabeth I]

We have quite accurate records from several tens of thousand of years, and less accurate ones from earlier than that.

If you don't know how, I suggest a little research.
QUOTE]

Do you know the difference between weather and climate? If not, I suggest you do a little research in a dictionary or a 7th-grade general science book. The weather changes all the time. We have records about climate (plant fossils, glacier ice core samples, etc. - yes, I do know how.) We do not have any records about a temperature variation of a few degrees over a few years from 10,000 years ago, and not any accurate ones from 1,000, 500, or even 300 years ago.

While the data currently being collected may be accurate, until we have seen a consistent trend over more than a few decades, I submit that we cannot possibly know if they actually signal a climate change. I'm not saying they don't, I'm just saying that observations over our pitiful 70-odd years of life are pretty insignificant compared to the history of the global climate.