Scientists have inconvenient news for Gore

I like that idea, though... acknowledge the problem, calm the extremists that are screaming "OMG t3h global warming!!!!!!1111!!! I better get stilts for my house this weekend!"
 
Instead of stilts, can I get mechanical walker legs for my house so that it can stomp around the neighborhood? That would be so cool!
 
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It would be hard to write an article with less information content....

Practically every climate change denial article written in Oz quotes Bob Carter. Take a look at SourceWatch for more info www(dot)sourcewatch(dot)org/index.php?title=Bob_Carter.

Rehashing the thoroughly discredited "medieval warming period" does the author no favours either. Ho hum.
 
Hatchet said:
It would be hard to write an article with less information content....

Practically every climate change denial article written in Oz quotes Bob Carter. Take a look at SourceWatch for more info www(dot)sourcewatch(dot)org/index.php?title=Bob_Carter.

Rehashing the thoroughly discredited "medieval warming period" does the author no favours either. Ho hum.
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Unfortunately I've not been keeping up much with GW threads... can i read something about the "medieval warming period"? There was Glenn Beck reporting it as fact on his show (unsurprisingly), but I didn't know it was controversial.
 
Everything to do with AGW is controversial.

I haven't even seen "An Inconvenient Truth". I prefer to read my information, than rely on documentaries, if I can. When you look at the transcript of a TV show or film, it's amazing how few words there are, and how it can only give a very shallow appraisal of a topic.

Gore has relied on scientists to advise him, but it's his own spin. If you want the science, go to the scientists. Unfortunately for this day and age, many people don't really read much, and video is their main form of education. In that sense, Gore is important. It's a shame, really.
 
Why the controversy remains;

First graph in thousands of years good overall read:
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/ice_ages.html

Last 1 million years:
http://vathena.arc.nasa.gov/curric/land/global/climchng.html#past

The graph that has gotten the most attention. ~0.45 celsius increase since 1980:
http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/watch/climate_change/change.htm

5 million year chart:
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Five_Myr_Climate_Change_Rev_png

65 million year chart;
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:65_Myr_Climate_Change_Rev_png

Ice ages chart 450,000 years;
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Ice_Age_Temperature_Rev_png

Issues with CO2;
It is well established that global temperature and CO2 levels correlate very well. It also correlates very well with solar activity etc. The big question is does CO2 raise temperature or does temperature raise CO2 or is it a historical coincidence? Likely the interplay is a bit more convoluted.

600 million year CO2 chart;
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html#anchor147264

Obviously we should keep studying and show some restraint in the meantime.
 
Here's the scare part; Carbon dioxide level highest in 650,000 years
http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1124-climate.html

The skeptic part; Late Carboniferous to Early Permian time (315 mya -- 270 mya) is the only time period in the last 600 million years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html#anchor147264

Each point of view is statistically just as valid :rolleyes:

In fact our 380 parts per million is puny compared to the highest recorded level in geologic history at 7000 parts per million, or the more modest mean CO2 levels at around 1000 to 2000 parts per million seen in the record.
 
my_wan said:
Why the controversy remains;

First graph in thousands of years good overall read:
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
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What it does not say is why the changes have occurred. The AGW argument is not that we are now back to the MWP, but that the climate will keep warming. That is, the 'paradise' of the MWP will be left in the past as the temperature rises past that point.

Issues with CO2;
It is well established that global temperature and CO2 levels correlate very well. It also correlates very well with solar activity etc. The big question is does CO2 raise temperature or does temperature raise CO2 or is it a historical coincidence? Likely the interplay is a bit more convoluted.

600 million year CO2 chart;
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html#anchor147264

Obviously we should keep studying and show some restraint in the meantime.
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That is why the studies have been going on in earnest for 20 years now. AGW science stacks up. No other explanation has been found for the rise. Certainly not solar activity, which dropped while the temperature kept rising.
 
The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were theonly geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming.
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http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html#anchor147264

Who ever said otherwise?
 
a_unique_person said:
Gore has relied on scientists to advise him, but it's his own spin. If you want the science, go to the scientists. Unfortunately for this day and age, many people don't really read much, and video is their main form of education. In that sense, Gore is important. It's a shame, really.
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Well stated, AUP. I am in that camp as well.

I am no fan of Gore. Far from it. He does at least have an important message but he may not realize that, given the uncertainties of GW science, his scare tactics may backfire. For example, if this planet incorporates a GW-counteractive mechanism not foreseen by the predictions, all Gore will have done is given the populace in general less confidence in any effort to curtail pollution.

I sure wish the politicians and NGOs had stayed out of it and let the science community hash it out. It's difficult to tell heat from light right now.

BTW I'm not comfortable with Hansen, on the gov't (NASA) payroll, being an "adviser" to a possible US presidential candidate and one that hold no public office right now. Maybe it's just me but I perceive a conflict of interest issue here.
 
Hal actually quoted somebody in his Skepticality interview using a very nice analogy.

(paraphrasing) If you went to the doctor with a headache, and he said 'tumour, we need to operate', and the next eight said 'tumour, we need to operate', and the tenth one said 'it's nothing, you'll be fine', what would you do? Sure, doctors can be wrong, and the evidence might have arguable points...but Christ!

In this case I think changes need to be made. I know of no good argument why we shouldn't be concerned enough to strongly promote the use renewable resources while putting measures into place which will increase the adaptability of our society to climate change.

Athon
 
gnome said:
Unfortunately I've not been keeping up much with GW threads... can i read something about the "medieval warming period"? There was Glenn Beck reporting it as fact on his show (unsurprisingly), but I didn't know it was controversial.
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Some quick references are the IPCC report from 2001
www(dot)grida(dot)no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/070.htm
and a summary on real climate from 2004. www(dot)realclimate(dot)org/index.php/archives/2004/12/werent-temperatures-warmer-during-the-medieval-warm-period-than-they-are-today/

The basic problem is when regional temperature fluctuations are extrapolated to the global climate.

P.S. I hate this "you have to make 15 posts before you can use a URL" limit so so very much.
 
The Great Global Warming Debate.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/adventures-on-the-east-side/#more-420

Crichton went with the crowd-pleasing condemnation of private jet-flying liberals - very popular, even among the private jet-flying Eastsiders present) and the apparent hypocrisy of people who think that global warming is a problem using any energy at all. Lindzen used his standard presentation - CO2 will be trivial effect, no one knows anything about aerosols, sensitivity from the 20th Century is tiny, and by the way global warming stopped in 1998. Stott is a bit of a force of nature and essentially accused anyone who thinks global warming is a problem of explicitly rooting for misery and poverty in the third world. He also brought up the whole cosmic ray issue as the next big thing in climate science.
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Three scientists vs one and a half scientists. The scientists should have gone for Gore on their team, by the sound of it, and a retired scientist, not specialist in that area pundit who is concerned more with how to say it than what to say.
 
Realclimate on the topic.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/broad-irony/#more-419

Among the worst, is this one
Mr. Gore, who highlights the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and cites research suggesting that global warming will cause both storm frequency and deadliness to rise. Yet this past Atlantic season produced fewer hurricanes than forecasters predicted (five versus nine), and none that hit the United States.
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This is dishonest in at least two different ways. First of all, Broad conveniently forgets to mention that the 2006 Hurricane season was accompanied by a moderate El Nino event. It is well known that El Nino events, such as the 2006 El Nino, tend to be associated with stronger westerly winds aloft in the tropical Atlantic, which is unfavorable for tropical cyclone development. The season nonetheless produced a greater than average number of named storms in the tropical Atlantic (10), 3 more than the typical El Nino year. But El Ninos come and go--more or less randomly--from year to year. The overall trend in named tropical Atlantic storms in recent decades is undeniably positive. We can have honest debates about the long-term data quality, but not if we start out by misrepresenting the data we do have, as Broad chooses to. Additionally, this is a clear misrepresentation of what Gore actually stated in his book. Gore indicated that it is primarily Hurricane intensities which scientists largely agree should be expected to increase in association with warming surface temperatures, and specifically notes that
There is less agreement among scientists about the relationship between the total number of hurricanes each year and global warming.




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I read this today and thought it a useful addition to this thread regarding "An Invconvenient Truth".

Prometheus

A very interesting article. I would suggest anyone contribubuting here should read it. Some excepts:

I think Gore plays a very important and valuable role in public knowledge on climate change risk.
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But in respect of some of the content of the movie:

I have no problem with the state of consensus on past and present climate and our imprint on it. I do have a problem with giving the non-technician public the impression that climate models give us some crystal ball into the future that warns with some degree of certainty about coming catastrophes.
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and

Clearly this is not science, this is agenda. But it is agenda sold on science, and if/when it doesn't come true, you have diminished the credibility of those producing the science. It's a big gamble to take. I think perhaps what is neatly illustrated by Mr. Broad in this article is that many big-name climate scientists are willing to take this risk by hitching their wagons to a non-scientist who is doing the selling for them.
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You really need to read the whole thing get any benefit from it.
 
Has anyone seen "The Great Global Warming Swindle" (BitTorrent)

It's an interesting view. The basic premise (as far as I understood it) is that cosmic rays form clouds which cool the earth by reflecting sunlight. Sun-spots cause magnetic fields that divert the cosmic rays, reducing cloud coverage and heating the earth. So, more sun-spots, hotter earth. They give a lot of charts to show that CO2 level drag about 800 years behind the heat level and that basically everything revolves around the sun activity.

The sad thing about these documentaries is that quite a few of them are well made and without doing the research yourself, it's impossible these days to know what's really true.
 
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