Global warming

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Again AUP, you made my day

It's not that simple, so there won't ever be a simple answer.

 

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by Safe-Keeper
'How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic' answers all the questions one could possibly have. I can't post links yet, so you'll have to Google it. Have a good read!
​

Well it really doesn't answer any questions except as an appeal to authority (a fallacious argiument form). It's more a list of quips than a argument to reason. Listing some census of scientists has nothing to do with a rational argument.

Quote:
Actually, instead of reading "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic" one could of course just read this thread
​

Right, especially when before my link to the site there were a grand total of... how many posts in the thread? Nearly none? Right.

That's true, you mentioned it quite early.

But it make no sense to have someone reading and quoting the "How to talk to a climate skeptic" document written in 2005 when the skeptics are quoting 2007 published peer reviewed literature.

 

[robinson]

If you accept the theory that humans burning fuel, increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere, leads to a warmer planet, if you accept that theory, then it means we can modify the climate. Not just the weather, the entire planets climate.

We can warm the earth up.

While I see either alarm or denial about this happening, if you accept that it is a valid theory, then there is no escaping the facts. We can modify the heat loss from the earth. We can make it warmer.

It is theorized we can also make it colder, (Nuclear Winter), by creating dust and clouds to block out sunlight. If you accept that theory, we can cool the planet, (obviously with serious other side effects, nuclear fallout and such).

So according to scientific theories, we can modify the earth.

I find that amazing. All the issues over GW seem to be focused ob what to do to stop this, or that it isn't happening, or that it is happening but not because of people. Those are all great subjects. I find the very concept that it can be done far more interesting.

If we have a catastrophic volcanic event, which usually leads to almost immediate cooling, we have the ability to speed up the rebound of the climate, avoiding an extended mini ice age. According to the theory that we can influence the global climate, we are not at the mercy of nature.

I find it far more likely that long before the feared ocean rise and global warming, there will be a volcanic event that will cool the world. (This happened in June 1991). Global temperature fell by .5 degrees Celsius. Due to Global Warming the climate rebounded, rather than the earth cooling, after two years the climate started warming again.

It wasn't as bad as Krakatoa in 1883. In the year following that eruption, average global temperatures fell by as much as 1.2 degrees Celsius. Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years, and temperatures did not return to normal until 1888. It was bad in some areas.

A similar episode of climatic aberration was also observed in 1816, popularly known as the "Year Without a Summer", which has been connected to the explosion of the volcano Tambora in Sumbawa, Indonesia. Lots of people starved to death.

And then there was the really bad times, the Climate changes of 535–536. Theories range from the volcano Rabaul to yet again, Krakatoa exploding. In most cases in the past, large volcanoes have caused mass suffering, and climate change. Something happened, and it was a bad thing.

It might be that without the mass CO2 we are producing, the planet would be heading towards an ice age, or just way colder than it is now.

Those contrails we keep laying over the North Pole are also holding in heat. While many accept CO2 as a cause, the stiff resistance to what contrails are doing to the climate is pretty much the same as the minority resistance to CO2 being a problem.

So while I see most "scientist" saying CO2 emissions are causing GW, they are pretty quiet about the massive heat blanket that aircraft lay down everyday, especially over the arctic. Though Europe and the Americas also are influenced daily by contrails. In the daytime, the cloud cover cools the area, (decreased sunlight), but at night it keeps it far warmer. Just a simple fact of laying high level CO2 and water vapor into the atmosphere.

With little effort we can change the immediate temperature of large areas of the planet, just by flying aircraft overhead. This is just a fact. What the flights are doing, adding upper atmosphere pollutants, CO2, and water vapor to the atmosphere, besides changing the amount of sunlight and heat loss, is pretty sketchy.

But some scientist suspect it is a cause of GW.
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0409/feature1/

How bout them apples? Lots of flights over the Arctic, very very few over the Antarctic. Global Coincidence?



Of course.

 

[David Rodale]

Seriously, though, read up on Viking settlements and why they failed. It was not because Greenland had been warm and suddenly cooled. It was because the Vikings flat out refused to adapt to the harsh climate of Greenland. They tried to farm and keep livestock, which failed miserably, and flat out refused to fish with kayaks (or without them) like the Inuits, for unknown reasons.

How about this: It was warm when Erik the Red settled in 985, then later 3000-5000 inhabited Greenland. Over 400 building foundations have been discovered amongst countless artifacts, but no evidence of fish hooks, fishing boats or seal traps. The climate became inhospitable (cold) to the Viking’s way of living as they were not geared for cold harsh living conditions

They were farmers, and the reason for miserable failure was because they did not adapt when the climate did change to unfavorable conditions. Their yearly shipment(s) of tools and such dwindled, then stopped completely for the same reasons. There’s a reason why the Inuit survived and the Vikings did not, but they did for at least 300 years before their demise began. How could they have survived for that long if the climate was the same throughout that period, i.e cold? The winters became longer, Spring and Summer shorter.

Archeological records, including skeletal remains and temperature reconstructions confirm this. It wasn’t a tropical paradise, but the climate changed from a warmer inhabitable environment to bitter cold sometime in the ~14th century. Your revisionist history is incorrect. Believe it or not, there really was a MWP and LIA.

Of course it was named Greenland. Would a name like Wasteland have attracted new settlers?

 

[mhaze]

How about this: It was warm when Erik the Red settled in 985, then later 3000-5000 inhabited Greenland. .... The winters became longer, Spring and Summer shorter.

Archeological records, including skeletal remains and temperature reconstructions confirm this. It wasn’t a tropical paradise, but the climate changed from a warmer inhabitable environment to bitter cold sometime in the ~14th century. Your revisionist history is incorrect. Believe it or not, there really was a MWP and LIA.

Of course it was named Greenland. Would a name like Wasteland have attracted new settlers?

On Greenland, the University of Michigan’s Henry Fricke tested the
tooth enamel of dead Vikings for O-18 to O-16 ratios. Comparing the tooth
enamel of skeletons buried in 1100 with those buried in 1400, he documented a 1.5° C drop in temperatures.

R. Monastersky, “Viking Teeth Recount Sad Greenland Tale,” Science News, vol. 19, 1994. from Singer 2007. "Physical Evidence of Earth's Unstoppable 1,500 Year Climate Cycle"

May we stop the rather silly but continuing discussion of "whether there was a little ice age" and "whether there was a medieval warming period"? These are well established historical facts. One may of course debate how much colder or hotter they were, but to suggest they did not exist is moving not in the direction of science.

 

[mhaze]

With little effort we can change the immediate temperature of large areas of the planet, just by flying aircraft overhead. This is just a fact. What the flights are doing, adding upper atmosphere pollutants, CO2, and water vapor to the atmosphere, besides changing the amount of sunlight and heat loss, is pretty sketchy.

But some scientist suspect it is a cause of GW.
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0409/feature1/

How bout them apples? Lots of flights over the Arctic, very very few over the Antarctic. Global Coincidence?

Interesting theory.

Note also that in Varoche's recent post, providing four references that support the AGW theory of the recent events of Arctic ice melting, 2 of the 4 were looking at pollution, not CO2, as causative - also, there is the well known issue of the Asian Brown Clouds.

Now you mention Arctic cirrus and contrail by jets as another possible factor...

 

[mhaze]

Online video commentaries on Global Warming

Global Warming: An Unsettled Science
Television interview (and transcript) 10 minute video of Singer and Avery "Physical evidence of Earth's Unstoppable 1,500 Year Climate Cycles"
the myth of global warming
scare tactics in Incon Truth - laugh - ignore - repeat
traveling global warming show
great global warming swindle
globale warming opportunities
canadians for global warming
doomsday called off
data from the great global warming swindle
Glenn Beck w. Durbin (Producer of GGWS)
1958 - Global Warming - It's NOT newly Known
Myron Ebell Discusses Global Cooling
Newsnight: CO2, they call it life, we call it a greenhouse gas
Freeman Dyson 2of2 Global Warming / Stratospheric Cooling
1of2 Bogus Climate Models
Global Warming Myth Exposed: The Video Al Gore Fears Most
Global Warming The Funded Popular Lie (Alan Combs)
MIchael Crichton on Global Warming Part 1 of 3
State of Fear: Science or Politics with Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton on Environmentalism as a Religion

 

[a_unique_person]

Michael Crichton? He makes up what people think and why. Fiction is not evidence. Heavy on evidence from earnest amateurs, very light on peer reviewed scientific research.

 

[bobdroege7]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-058

NASA Finds Vast Regions of West Antarctica Melted in Recent Past

Ice melting everywhere

 

[David Rodale]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-058

NASA Finds Vast Regions of West Antarctica Melted in Recent Past

Ice melting everywhere

Ice increasing everywhere!

Antarctic temperatures disagree with climate model predictions
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/osu-atd021207.php

A NEW RECORD FOR ANTARCTIC ICE EXTENT?
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/A_NEW_RECORD_FOR_ANTARCTIC_ICE_EXTENT.doc

 

[a_unique_person]

Ice increasing everywhere! http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_1032346ea73c241686.jpg

I may be missing something here, but since when was the Antarctic everywhere?

 

[mhaze]

I may be missing something here, but since when was the Antarctic everywhere?

Since clearly it is growing, we need to be alarmed about the changes in albedo that will occur, the increased cold, and the possibility that ice growth it will spread exponentially as the Cold Tipping Points kick in. Covering all of Australia, New Zealand and Africa with a two mile thick slab of ice is not outside the realm of possibliity. Lowered sea levels will drydock all bays and shipping channels, rendering those which are not already icebound useless.

The process is likely to be irreversible once started.

Don't you think we need urgent action now?

 

[mhaze]

Michael Crichton? He makes up what people think and why. Fiction is not evidence. Heavy on evidence from earnest amateurs, very light on peer reviewed scientific research.

Add this and it's cited articles to the argumento ad youtube list, some of which is of course light on peer reviewed research. Not all, though. Not Crichton, by the way, he loves handing people pages of references to back up what he says.

Global Warming: An Unsettled Science
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMQH5aa5Q0s
Moberg 2005
Esper et all 2005 "Climate: past ranges and future changes"
2004 Storch
2006 de Matt and Maurellis "Evidence for influence of anthropogenic surface processes on lower tropospheric and surface temperature trends"
2006 NOAA "Temperature trends in the lower atmosphere"
2003 Stott et al
Sept 2005 Scafetta & West
March 2006 Scafetta & West
Sept 2006 Scafetta & West

 

[David Rodale]

I may be missing something here, but since when was the Antarctic everywhere?

Ice melting everywhere
Ice increasing everywhere

Get the point? It isn't a static system.

Incidentally, Antarctica comprises ~89.5% of total global ice.

AGW states Antarctica should be warming. Observations of course refute that.

Since the Arctic is "regional", isn't it then customary to say it isn't global therefore irrelevant?

 

[mhaze]

Lomberg, the "Skeptical Environmentalist" is back with a new book. Now watch the True AGW Believers start -

He's a nutter
He's the no-go to guy.
Just more fiction.
​

.... Take it from there....

Also, Believers, you'll find gobs of Anti-Lomberg stuff at your favorite "How to Debate a Climate Skeptic" talking-points-sites.

Keep in mind that none of these issues matter unless someone comes up with some actual evidence that CO2 in the atmosphere does anything detrimental - no one around here seems ready to step up to that plate.

Article quoted is from the NY Times -

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/science/earth/11tiern.html

But the best strategy, he (Lomberg) says, is to make the rest of the world as rich as New York, so that people elsewhere can afford to do things like shore up their coastlines and buy air conditioners. He calls Kyoto-style treaties to cut greenhouse-gas emissions a mistake because they cost too much and do too little too late. Even if the United States were to join in the Kyoto treaty, he notes, the cuts in emissions would merely postpone the projected rise in sea level by four years: from 2100 to 2104.

“We could spend all that money to cut emissions and end up with more land flooded next century because people would be poorer,” Dr. Lomborg said as we surveyed Manhattan’s expanded shoreline. “Wealth is a more important factor than sea-level rise in protecting you from the sea. You can draw maps showing 100 million people flooded out of their homes from global warming, but look at what’s happened here in New York. It’s the same story in Denmark and Holland — we’ve been gaining land as the sea rises.”​

 

[mhaze]

Julian Simons, the recently deceased economist who had released numerous of his books and articles to the web - this is the guy that won the famous bet with Paul Erlich (Population Bomb infamy)

http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Norton/

Quoting from Simon's book

"Scarcity or Abundance? A debate on the Environment"

Faced with the data, these persons often say to people like me, "You don't understand. You're not a biologist" or "ecologist" or whatever.

This is patently the way of thinking of the true believer with whom it is hopeless to discuss, because there is no conceivable data which would overturn that belief. This is the sort of thinking that, when the predicted doomsday does not happen, the true believer comes down off the mountain and says,

"The prediction that the world would end was simply off by the date".

This is not the way of thinking of science, which only accords respect to theories when they fit facts, and relinquishes the theories when they fail to be proven empirically. Everything is "yes but"....

Impossible to pin them down for a test. What data would they consider?


​

 

[Safe-Keeper]

AGW states Antarctica should be warming. Observations of course refute that.

We've been over this already, in the North Pole thread. First of all, as I'm sure you well understand, global warming is the average increase in global temperature, which means you certainly can have certain areas cooling.

As for Antarctica, the inner reaches have ice growing more plentiful not despite AGW but due to it. It goes without saying that temperatures are not going to increase the 50 degrees it takes the inner reaches to reach melting temperature, even if parts of them are heating. Increases in heat, however, increases precipitation, and since the temperature of inner Antarctica is, again, half a hundred degrees below, this precipitation will fall as snow. Snow in a very cold environment turns into ice (let me follow up on Mhaze's cute ice cream experiment by asking you if you've ever put a snowball in the freezer. It turns into solid ice almost overnight).

Since the Arctic is "regional", isn't it then customary to say it isn't global therefore irrelevant?

How do you reach the conclusion that it's irrelevant because it's just one part of the world? Most consequences of global warming would be irrelevant if this was the case, as every part of the Earth is but a region.

Landslides in Norway due to AGW? Not global. Irrelevant.
Droughts in Australia due to AGW? Not global. Irrelevant.
Floods in England due to AGW? Not global. Irrelevant.
Heat waves killing 30 000 in Europe due to AGW? Not global. Irrelevant.

And so on? Or did I misunderstand you?

 

[varwoche]

Lomberg, the "Skeptical Environmentalist" is back with a new book. Now watch the True AGW Believers start -

He's a nutter
He's the no-go to guy.
Just more fiction.
​

This is one flimsy attempt at preemption mhaze. That's because you left out the key facts: Not a climate scientist. Not even a scientist. In other words, this is yet another of your appeals to false authority.

Julian Simons, the recently deceased economist...

And yet another.

Along with the marketing professor. And some guy who wrote an article about basketball. And various bags of free market hot air. You are rapidly ascending to the dubious position as grand master of the goofy cites in my recurring list of goofy cites by A/GW pseudo skeptics.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

.....

Heat waves killing 30 000 in Europe due to AGW? Not global. Irrelevant.

And so on? Or did I misunderstand you?

Where is the outcry against Global cooling ?

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/sep/global-warming-the-great-lifesaver

For Europe as a whole, about 200,000 people die from excess heat each year. However, about 1.5 million Europeans die annually from excess cold.

I say yes ! Lets get global warming under control now, so those winter deaths can get back up there where they belong..

 

[a_unique_person]

Since clearly it is growing, we need to be alarmed about the changes in albedo that will occur, the increased cold, and the possibility that ice growth it will spread exponentially as the Cold Tipping Points kick in. Covering all of Australia, New Zealand and Africa with a two mile thick slab of ice is not outside the realm of possibliity. Lowered sea levels will drydock all bays and shipping channels, rendering those which are not already icebound useless.

The process is likely to be irreversible once started.

Don't you think we need urgent action now?

Some glaciers are advancing, the majority are not. The global temperature is rising, some localalised temperatures are not. The Anarctic has it's own specialised circumstances, for it's own peculiar reasons.

As was already linked, the mass of ice is falling, even as it is spreading. The Ozone layer, that is necessary for human life, is very thin at the Antarctic and is also a greenhouse gas, for example. The models predicted that the Antarctic would not warm as quickly as the rest of the planet.

The scientists were on to this years ago. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/antarctic-cooling-global-warming/

It's nothing new.