Anthopogenic Global Warming Myth or Real ?

[Diamond]

He/she did no such thing. He/she said "Adaptation is going to be very tough."

Please tell me when it has ever been otherwise on Planet Earth.

Ok. So what degree of extinction is it Ok for humans to be responsible for. 0.00000001%? 1%? 50% 99% Everything but ourselves?

Please tell us all that extinctions, mass extinctions have never happened before. Extinction is the flipside of adaptation, a key part of the environmental drivers of natural selection.

The prediction of extinction has been one of the most ridiculous scare stories surrounding the AGW scare. How many extinctions have happened in the 20th Century due to climate change? I don't know of any.

Even the golden frog of Costa Rica which was supposedly extinct because of climate change, has been recently re-discovered right where it was supposed to be.

 

[a_unique_person]

Nope. He uses Greece as an example of why climate models fail on regional projections of precipitation.

Climate models to date have not been claimed to be useful at regional change, because the grids they use are so large. They have been useful at saying that if you have this much land, this much ocean, this much CO2, in roughly these locations, and other inputs, what can I expect the overall temperature to be for the earth. It's going to get warmer. Regional changes would be nice to know, and the next generation of hardware may be able to tell us that, but it really doesn't change the temperature of the earth.

 

[Tubbythin]

Rubbish. Climate changes on all timescales not just geological timescales.

For example, here in Australia, the plants and animals are clearly evolved to deal with the multi-year periodic droughts that have been occurring for the last several million years.

They don't simply adapt to geological timescales, they have adapted to to changes that happen from one year to the next.

And are these plants also adapted for... say... meteor impact?

 

[lomiller]

Nope. He uses Greece as an example of why climate models fail on regional projections of precipitation.

It’s well understood that regional estimate of any kind are difficult, and precipitation is far from the easiest thing to predict. When it’s widely understood that models struggle below continental scale is it any wonder long term rainfall in a tiny country like Greece is difficult to predict?

Global temperature trends are infinitely easier to predict because all that requires is top of atmosphere radiation balance.

The current melting of the Arctic has happened many times before. Even in the 1920s newspapers reported big ice melts and a reduction in the ice pack with ships going to latitudes comparable with today.

You have some proof to back up the claim that the melting reported in the 20's was comparable to today? Do you even have proof that their "melting" was any lower at all then our "normal"?

Climate models have not predicted the expansion of the Antarctic ice pack

Conveniently, the Antarctic ice pack hasn’t grown so it seems like the models are doing fine there. There have been 5000 year old ice shelves breaking up left and right though, so maybe the models are underestimating the warming.

 

[CapelDodger]

Name me a country where hydrology does not matter.

The UK. And there are, of course, degrees of importance. There's a clue in the "olive trees and goats" reference.

Nope. He uses Greece as an example of why climate models fail on regional projections of precipitation.

Climate models don't claim to make specific projections, and Greece is very specific. The Arctic is far less so - the last I heard Greek seasons don't involve the Sun setting for months at a time, and then rising for months at a time.

love this. A religious belief couched in pseudo-scientific language. I can predict a warming or cooling of a particular area at a specific time and then when it happens claim that "the timescale was off".

Go ahead. Predict a warming or cooling at a specific place and time. Base it on religion if you like.

The Arctic is a very peculiar place that cannot be compared to Greece. Amplified warming in the Arctic was predicted, and has happened. The timescale was off regarding the physical effects of warming - the melt-rate - but that is not what climate models involve, any more than they involve precipitation in Greece in a warmer world.

The current melting of the Arctic has happened many times before. Even in the 1920s newspapers reported big ice melts and a reduction in the ice pack with ships going to latitudes comparable with today.

The NW and NE passages weren't open at the same time in those days. There is no precedent for what's happened in the Arctic short of the last inter-glacial, and what's more there's no sign of it stopping.

Climate models have not predicted the expansion of the Antarctic ice pack, which continues to grow.

That is so last year.

Ignoring the failures of climate models and excusing their clear problems is rather like watching believers in Sylvia Browne or John Edward counting the hits and failing to register their misses.

Failed on Greek rainfall, got it right on Arctic warming (and warming generally, it just shows up more in the Arctic). If I was to cite last year's summer forest-fires in Greece as evidence of global warming I would be at fault. So I don't.

All you have is one big miss : "It Won't Happen".

Well with 3000 years of experience of climate change, I think the Greeks are better placed than many idiots would think, especially serial idiots who are pre-disposed to believe climate scare stories concocted in a computer.

The Arctic and sub-Arctic don't exist in a computer. They exist in the real-world, aka the big bad analogue model.

So now you're basing your argument on Greek experience. Climate change has been the least of their worries. Philosophy they're good on, olive trees and goats they're good on, but keeping people at bay after the Persians? Not so much. First the Macedonians, then the Romans, and then the Turks. Meanwhile it was olive-trees and goats all the way. No significant climate change is evident.

In the normal run of things the Mediterranean has a dampening effect on climate change. Try picking out the MWP and LIA from Greek-specific data.

 

[Diamond]

Climate models to date have not been claimed to be useful at regional change, because the grids they use are so large. They have been useful at saying that if you have this much land, this much ocean, this much CO2, in roughly these locations, and other inputs, what can I expect the overall temperature to be for the earth. It's going to get warmer. Regional changes would be nice to know, and the next generation of hardware may be able to tell us that, but it really doesn't change the temperature of the earth.

Even at the global scale, climate models have been useless. The 3 scenarios that James Hansen produced for global temperatures have all overshot the observations.

None of the climate models predicted the levelling off in temperature over the last eight years, or the plunge in temperatures over the last 18 months.

Can these models predict temperature change? I'm not prepared to give them credence when they have failed so far - that's called skepticism.

I will say this: if the solar theory is correct and solar activity declines, then very quickly we're going to find out whether greenhouse gases are controlling the temperature or not.

To say that when the temperatures rise its because of greenhouse gases and when it falls its because of natural variation masking the greenhouse gases is to be prey to an unfalsifiable religious dogma.

 

[Tubbythin]

Please tell me when it has ever been otherwise on Planet Earth.

Not content with putting words into a_unique_person's mouth you're now putting them in to mine. Tough is not a quantitative word. Do you think that at times conditions may be favourable and other times not for a given species?

Please tell us all that extinctions, mass extinctions have never happened before. Extinction is the flipside of adaptation, a key part of the environmental drivers of natural selection.

Why the hell would I want to do that? Mass extinctions have happened before and, I believe, often associated with rapid climate change. They've never been man-made before though. If that was to change then, that would in my opinion, be pretty dire.

The prediction of extinction has been one of the most ridiculous scare stories surrounding the AGW scare. How many extinctions have happened in the 20th Century due to climate change? I don't know of any.

I have no idea. I don't know how many could happen in the future either. Best asked a biologist.

Even the golden frog of Costa Rica which was supposedly extinct because of climate change, has been recently re-discovered right where it was supposed to be.

Well good for the golden frog of Costa Rica.

 

[Diamond]

The UK. And there are, of course, degrees of importance. There's a clue in the "olive trees and goats" reference.

There are degrees to madness as well.

Climate models don't claim to make specific projections, and Greece is very specific. The Arctic is far less so - the last I heard Greek seasons don't involve the Sun setting for months at a time, and then rising for months at a time.

Yet you're making specific projections based upon them. Gullible?

Go ahead. Predict a warming or cooling at a specific place and time. Base it on religion if you like.

Sorry. I can't predict the future. I have no evidence that climate models can either.

The Arctic is a very peculiar place that cannot be compared to Greece. Amplified warming in the Arctic was predicted, and has happened. The timescale was off regarding the physical effects of warming - the melt-rate - but that is not what climate models involve, any more than they involve precipitation in Greece in a warmer world.

As I said, counting the hits and ignoring the misses is the classic mistake of people willing to suspend their critical faculties.

The NW and NE passages weren't open at the same time in those days. There is no precedent for what's happened in the Arctic short of the last inter-glacial, and what's more there's no sign of it stopping.

That's soooo last year as well.

Failed on Greek rainfall, got it right on Arctic warming (and warming generally, it just shows up more in the Arctic). If I was to cite last year's summer forest-fires in Greece as evidence of global warming I would be at fault. So I don't.

It just doesn't show up in the Antarctic. Funny those well-mixed greenhouse gases don't produce warming when they're supposed to.

The Arctic and sub-Arctic don't exist in a computer. They exist in the real-world, aka the big bad analogue model.

And the Arctic warms and the Antarctic cools. I'm willing to guess that when the Arctic cools, the Antarctic will start to warm - but I'm not about to charge people for the privilege of living comfortably as a result.

So now you're basing your argument on Greek experience. Climate change has been the least of their worries. Philosophy they're good on, olive trees and goats they're good on, but keeping people at bay after the Persians? Not so much. First the Macedonians, then the Romans, and then the Turks. Meanwhile it was olive-trees and goats all the way. No significant climate change is evident.

In what? The Greeks are used to change. They are also skeptical of Oracles, and with good reasons that you probably will never grasp.

 

[Diamond]

Not content with putting words into a_unique_person's mouth you're now putting them in to mine. Tough is not a quantitative word. Do you think that at times conditions may be favourable and other times not for a given species?

Yes. Why are you trying to tell me such trivially true things as if they meant something?

Mass extinctions have happened before and, I believe, often associated with rapid climate change. They've never been man-made before though. If that was to change then, that would in my opinion, be pretty dire.

Which begs the question as to whether the current climate change is man-made, or unusual in any way.

I have no idea. I don't know how many could happen in the future either. Best asked a biologist.

You mean, not an oceanographer with a climate model? Shocking.

Well good for the golden frog of Costa Rica.

And bad for the notion that man-made climate change has caused extinctions.

 

[Tubbythin]

It hasn't happened. In the 1970s you believed that we were on the verge of catastrophic cooling - now you believe in warming just as the temperatures have levelled off and may even be starting to decline.

Which 'you' are you talking about here?

How many more cycles of warming and cooling are you going to join before you realise that climate always changes, always has and always will?

So. The vulcanologists tell you you should evacuate your home because the local volcano is about to go off. You do so. Nothing happens. The next time they tell you... you just ignore them because they've been wrong before?

 

[CapelDodger]

Please tell me when it has ever been otherwise on Planet Earth.

Please tell me when you last had to adapt to global change.

Please tell us all that extinctions, mass extinctions have never happened before.

Please tell me when you last experienced one.

Extinction is the flipside of adaptation ...

Prediction holds the weather-gauge over adaptation.

The prediction of extinction has been one of the most ridiculous scare stories surrounding the AGW scare. How many extinctions have happened in the 20th Century due to climate change? I don't know of any.

How many mass extictions have happened since the dinosaurs? Just the current one, and that's down to a whole variety of anthropogenic influences, so it's hardly possible to pick AGW out of the mix.

Even the golden frog of Costa Rica which was supposedly extinct because of climate change, has been recently re-discovered right where it was supposed to be.

Nobody claims to have a comprehensive explanation for the current decline of amphibians. It certainly isn't specific to climate change, so your "supposedly" is hanging on empty air.

 

[lomiller]

The models also predicted POLAR amplification of warming and yet while the Arctic has warmed, the Antarctic has COOLED down.

Then why are ice shelves that have existed for thousands of years breaking up? The truth is polar circulating winds and currents isolate Antarctica somewhat. Central Antartica is neither warming or cooling in a statistically significant way, but the peninsula is warming rapidly just as predicted.

It hasn't happened. In the 1970s you believed that we were on the verge of catastrophic cooling -

You may have believed that but the science said something altogether different. even then *warming* dominated peer reviewed papers on the subject.

http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf

There is evidence that between 6 and 8 thousand years ago the Arctic pack was even smaller and may even have disappeared.

The Artic ice pack hasn’t disappeared in at least 700 000 years based on microfossils evidence. A more likely value based on genetics of Atlantic and Pacific populations of animals that follow the ice edge is that the artic hasn’t been ice free 5 million years.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118705913/abstract

On a much longer scale, we have been been in an Ice Age (with permanent polar ice caps) for only a few million years.

Interestingly that ice age can only be explained by long term CO2 trends that humans have undone.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7208/abs/nature07223.html


BTW throwing out garbage "facts" in the hopes that no one will take the time to debunk them is a classic way crackpots present their case. something you may want to consider in your future posting...

 

[Tubbythin]

Yes. Why are you trying to tell me such trivially true things as if they meant something?

You were trying to suggest that a_unique_person didn't believe in evolution. You've just completely failed to back up that claim. Congratulations.

Which begs the question as to whether the current climate change is man-made, or unusual in any way.

No it doesn't. Just because event A can lead to result B does not stop event C also leading to result B.

You mean, not an oceanographer with a climate model? Shocking.

Nope. I'm a physicist for what its worth.

And bad for the notion that man-made climate change has caused extinctions.

Doesn't say an awful lot about the notion that climate change will not cause extinctions though.

 

[lomiller]

Even at the global scale, climate models have been useless. The 3 scenarios that James Hansen produced for global temperatures have all overshot the observations.

Source…

Cause you know there are published papers that say the exact opposite.

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2006/2006_Hansen_etal_1.pdf


Wait, let me guess. You have no source but read it on a blog someplace and it sounded like something you really wanted to believe?

 

[CapelDodger]

There are degrees to madness as well.

If you say so. It's not a subject I'm privy to, because I don't care. A nutter is a nutter as far as I'm concerned.

Yet you're making specific projections based upon them. Gullible?

What specific projections?

Sorry. I can't predict the future. I have no evidence that climate models can either.

They predicted warming, and it has happened. That's evidence.

As I said, counting the hits and ignoring the misses is the classic mistake of people willing to suspend their critical faculties.

You have nothing but misses, and AGW has hit every time. The benefit of science is that it takes a lot of the guesswork (and all of the religion and ideology) out of predictions.

That's soooo last year as well.

For the NW passage it was this year as well (with the NE passage thrown in). Your Antarctic sea-ice reference hasn't survived so long. So last year.

It just doesn't show up in the Antarctic. Funny those well-mixed greenhouse gases don't produce warming when they're supposed to.

It has showed up in the Antarctic. In fact it showed up earlier than in the Arctic.

And the Arctic warms and the Antarctic cools. I'm willing to guess that when the Arctic cools, the Antarctic will start to warm - but I'm not about to charge people for the privilege of living comfortably as a result.

The Arctic warms, the Antarctic warms, everywhere in between warms, and where you take comfort is not my concern.

In what? The Greeks are used to change.

Political change, not climate change. Olives and goats, remember?

They are also skeptical of Oracles, and with good reasons that you probably will never grasp.

Greek culture is famous for its contribution to science, and science is what I go by.

 

[Piggy]

1. You have no evidence that the model has been verified over decades, when it has been tuned to reproduce those decades.

2. You have no evidence that the assumptions fed into the model are physical

3. You have no evidence that warming will produce "dire consequences" and neither do they. The model did not produce a big red banner saying "X species were destroyed" - the modellers were giving their extremely non-expert opinion on biological diversity, ignoring the fact that all life on planet earth has evolved to adapt to climate change.

4. You cannot say that we "deny the possibility of dire consequences". What we can say is that this argument that if climate does continue to warm, some species will thrive and some will do less well - which is the story of life on Earth. What are the dire consequences that have not happened before?

How can anyone deny a future that has not happened? I remember religious people claiming that non-believers were "denying the future Apocalypse and the Final Judgment of God" and that the signs of the End Times were "all around us". The "research" was of similar quality.

There is no difference substantially, between those who use the pronouncements of climate modellers to announce Apocalyptic futures unless we repent of our high carbon ways and seek salvation through "sustainability" and the behavior of religious zealots predicting the End of the World unless we repent of our sins against God.

They are both irrational and they properly deserve skepticism.

So what's your take on the article? How do you read it?

Do you find fault with their methods as described? Or with the research they cite?

What specifically is your problem?

Or are you pretending that your ignorance is their ignorance, is everybody's ignorance?

 

[mhaze]

You cannot show deletion or snips on CA except if off topic or subjects discouraged or not allowed. A waste of time to discuss this.

There is somewhat narrow focus on CA, politics and religion do not exist.

 

[a_unique_person]

You cannot show deletion or snips on CA except if off topic or subjects discouraged or not allowed. A waste of time to discuss this.

 

[Diamond]

Please tell me when you last had to adapt to global change.

Last night, it grew dark and cold over half the world! Its definitely anthropogenic.

Prediction holds the weather-gauge over adaptation.

£10 to anyone who knows what that means.

How many mass extictions have happened since the dinosaurs? Just the current one, and that's down to a whole variety of anthropogenic influences, so it's hardly possible to pick AGW out of the mix.

Lots of extinctions have happened, usually at the cusp of ice ages. The last one was probably 3-4000 years ago during a period of dramatic cooling which saw Northern Africa turn from a verdant land criss-crossed by rivers and jungle to a massive gasping desert that we now call the Sahara.

Nobody claims to have a comprehensive explanation for the current decline of amphibians. It certainly isn't specific to climate change, so your "supposedly" is hanging on empty air.

Actually they do. Its caused by a fungus. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7591070.stm

Not climate change.

 

[David Rodale]

Then why are ice shelves that have existed for thousands of years breaking up? The truth is polar circulating winds and currents isolate Antarctica somewhat. Central Antartica is neither warming or cooling in a statistically significant way, but the peninsula is warming rapidly just as predicted.



You may have believed that but the science said something altogether different. even then *warming* dominated peer reviewed papers on the subject.

http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf




The Artic ice pack hasn’t disappeared in at least 700 000 years based on microfossils evidence. A more likely value based on genetics of Atlantic and Pacific populations of animals that follow the ice edge is that the artic hasn’t been ice free 5 million years.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118705913/abstract







Interestingly that ice age can only be explained by long term CO2 trends that humans have undone.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7208/abs/nature07223.html


BTW throwing out garbage "facts" in the hopes that no one will take the time to debunk them is a classic way crackpots present their case. something you may want to consider in your future posting...

How many do you think can be fooled by your games?

How did you twist this
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118705913/abstract
into this:
The Artic ice pack hasn’t disappeared in at least 700 000 years based on microfossils evidence. A more likely value based on genetics of Atlantic and Pacific populations of animals that follow the ice edge is that the artic hasn’t been ice free 5 million years.

And this:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7208/abs/nature07223.html which is a hypothesis based on climate models, nothing more.
into this:
Interestingly that ice age can only be explained by long term CO2 trends that humans have undone.

Which blog did you get that from to come up with those inferences?


Past temperatures directly from the Greenland Ice Sheet

Greenland warming of 1920-1930 and 1995-2005

To summarize, we find no direct evidence to support the claims that the Greenland ice sheet is melting due to increased temperature caused by increased atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. The rate of warming from 1995 to 2005 was in fact lower than the warming that occurred from 1920 to 1930. The temperature trend during the next ten years may be a decisive factor in a possible detection of an anthropogenic part of climate signal over area of the Greenland ice sheet.

Have warmers thrown Greenland under the bus? Provide evidence the current Arctic condition is a direct result of rising CO2 levels. It has been much warmer in that region than it is now.