Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Furcifer]

ROFLOL, yes, finding out the problem is worse than we believed it to be by 0.003% (4.6/1365.4) means that we should throw everything out and ignore the issue of global warming! Exactly how do you see a correction of 3 one thousandths of a percent being a game changer?

Calculating percentages can be tricky.

You might also want to take a look at the Milankovitch Cycle and change in radiance between maximum and minimum to get a better idea what we are talking about. Here's a link: Sun Spot Activity, Solar Radiance and Climate Change It's one of those typical alarmist blogs but the discussion on the SORCE data might be easier to understand for a layman.

 

[Furcifer]

You made the claim about SORCE - now defend YOUR argument that it casts C02 impact and AGW into doubt....
that's your argument - there is certainly nothing there to support it....except perhaps wishful thinking

How exactly do you think and older paper refutes new findings?

As for the 0.34%, you really need to take a look at the variation in solar radiance during the Milankovitch cycles to get an idea of just how significant that is. The change in the 11 year cycle is only 0.15%! That's huge.

 

[Bill Thompson]

You think your rhetoric empty of any science content will change atmospheric physics.

No. I think studying how Al Gore has used logical fallacies in his movie will change politics. I also think exposing the things Gore got wrong might also change policies and politics.

Do you want some scientic content? Ok, how about this. He used the science behind Ice Age studies and reversed them but he got his facts, as a result, all wrong. We know that ice shelves advanced during a Ice Ages because 80 percent of sunlight is reflected off the white snow. THis ends up cooling the Earth more and thus produces more ice. Al Gore flipped this and tried to use it to describe the ice melting. He said that "ice reflects 80 percent of the sun's light and heat. As the ice melts, that 80 percent is asorbed into the ocean". I have told this to several of my Liberal friends and they think that this somehow makes perfect sense. It does not. If the ocean absorbed 80 percent of the sun's light, the oceans would look black from space. Also, people would not get sunburned by lying on the beach more often than just lying on their lawns or on roofs of buildings. The sunlight reflected off of ocean waves contribute to people getting more UV light on their skin.

Gore made other mistakes as well. THis coupled with the fact that the charts and graphs I am shown are not followed up with making the actual data available makes me wonder what is really going on. THe web site someone showed me here showed a very strong opinion, but when I went to the site where the author got his information from, the real stats and opinions and conclusions where not so powerful.

You know, if you only rely on the books and the articles and tv shows that people produce about the Bermuda Triangle, it is very convincing. But if you go to the source, every mystery and every story disolves into an explainable thing.

If I was retired, I would spend more time doing this to Global Warming. Instead I have to use small off-time to look around and I have to use my own personal experience on simular things.

When I was in the military, I discovered that the news media lies. It was a shock to find that NewsWeek fabracated an entire story about the missions I was involved in. So I doubt anything presented to me that does not allow me to go and look at the source.

As far as Global Warming is concerned, when I go to the source, the data does not back up what I have been told. Once again, why is it that the warmest temperature recored in the USA predates the coldest temperature ever recorded in the USA?

 

[BeAChooser]

This is interesting … from http://joannenova.com.au/2011/02/the-oceans-clouds-and-cosmic-rays-drive-the-climate-not-co2/ :

Dr Noor van Andel spoke at the Dutch Meteorological Institute (KNMI) … snip ... He is the former head of research at Akzo Nobel.

… snip ...

Essentially he uses empirical evidence to draw the conclusion that most recent climate variability is due to Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and to Cosmic Ray effect as described by Svensmark.

With the oceans covering 70% of the planet and the clouds covering over 60% of the sky, water in its various forms, dominates our climate. Solar magnetic effects correlate with changes in clouds. This graph below shows the rise and fall over the last 1000 years. Both the Medieval Warm Period and the The Little Ice Age (upper graph) match the highs and lows of Galactic Cosmic rays (lower graph).

http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/cosmic-ray/cosmic-rays-precipitation-andel.gif

I saw this theory immediately and simply dismissed earlier in this thread, but seriously, look at the graph, folks. How could temperature correlate with cosmic rays, if CO2 is the cause of global temperature changes? Nothing we do can affect cosmic rays. So explain this to me. Is the graph wrong?

 

[CapelDodger]

wow 0.34 % shift in observed versus estimated.....

It seems solar scientists' models of solar dynamics are getting pretty good. Solar observation satellites have been a dream-come-true. Note also :

'"This is a fundamental quantity that has been pursued for more than 100 years," Lean says. '

Couldn't have done it without those satellites, and some bloody excellent work by solar scientists. Solar dynamics is horribly complex.

Of course, they could have judged solar activity by looking at Mars instead ...

 

[CapelDodger]

This report on solar radiation flux just scratches the surface.

How do you know? If you find any of it, do let us know.

Reading it you should get an idea of how primitive our understanding of the climate really is.

Speak for yourself.

There isn't a great mass of mystery yet to discover. The Sun still hides many mysteries, but scientists are getting a good handle on that now. Their models might, one day soon, be able to give advance warning of flares pointed our way.

Of course those models wouldn't be perfect, but they'd be useful.

 

[Pixel42]

We know that ice shelves advanced during a Ice Ages because 80 percent of sunlight is reflected off the white snow. THis ends up cooling the Earth more and thus produces more ice. Al Gore flipped this and tried to use it to describe the ice melting. He said that "ice reflects 80 percent of the sun's light and heat. As the ice melts, that 80 percent is asorbed into the ocean". I have told this to several of my Liberal friends and they think that this somehow makes perfect sense. It does not.

Positive feedbacks work in both directions, they amplify and accelerate any change in input, both up and down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice-albedo_feedback (my bold)

Ice-albedo feedback (or snow-albedo feedback) is a positive feedback climate process where a change in the area of snow-covered land, ice caps, glaciers or sea ice alters the albedo. This change in albedo acts to reinforce the initial alteration in ice area. Cooling tends to increase ice cover and hence the albedo, reducing the amount of solar energy absorbed and leading to more cooling. Conversely, warming tends to decrease ice cover and hence the albedo, increasing the amount of solar energy absorbed, leading to more warming.[1]

The ice albedo positive feedback is one of several positive feedbacks which explain why the earth's climate reacts with such dramatic swings in temperature to the relatively small forcing of the Milankovich cycles. These positive feedbacks are why ice sheets not only advance rapidly when ice ages start but retreat rapidly when they end.

Gore was simply explaining some basic physics, as basic as the physics which tells us greenhouse gases trap heat not light (which you also got wrong). There is nothing remotely controversial about it, it's been known and understood for at least a century.

 

[BenBurch]

Al Gore is not why scientists know AGW is happening. Al Gore is a politician who tried to interpret science for the multitudes. Conservatives largely seem to not comprehend this distinction because the science is beyond their intellectual comprehension.

 

[macdoc]

We know that ice shelves advanced during a Ice Ages because 80 percent of sunlight is reflected off the white snow.

No Bill the ice shelves advanced during the ice age due to orbital changes reducing he amount of solar irradiance. that is the primary forcing.
As the oceans cooled they absorbed more C02 which further cooled the planet in a positive feedback cycle.This feedback is enhanced by the addition or reduction of water vapour as well which is a powerful but transient GHG. In the case of ice shelf growth the reduction in water vapour also cools the climate.

The albedo change is ALSO a positive feedback but in the case of entry and exist of ice ages neither is a primary forcing, both are feedbacks.

So don't spout the "we know" line - you clearly don't understand what a forcing is versus a feedback.

Try a little climate science instead of right wing claptrap about politicians...

Climate Forcing & Feedback

Outside of our atmosphere, variations in the Earth's orbit around the Sun or changes in the amount of energy that reaches the Earth's atmosphere can force climate change. Processes within our atmosphere that can force changes in climate include changes in ocean circulation or in the composition of the atmosphere, as well as the impact of singular events such as volcanic eruptions or meteorite collisions. While it is not often that a meteorite strikes the Earth, volcanoes spew heavy soot and smoke which can block out enough sunlight to result in measurable cooling.
A climate feedback is an indirect, or secondary, change - either positive or negative - that occurs within the climate system in response to a forcing mechanism. For example, suppose that a disturbance caused global temperatures to increase.

In a warm atmosphere, more water could evaporate from the oceans, leading to larger amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere absorbing more radiation from the Earth's surface and emitting more radiation back, thereby enhancing the greenhouse effect and further increasing the air temperature. This would also make it possible for the air to hold even more water vapor as evaporation increases. If this feedback is not stopped, it would be considered a runaway greenhouse effect; one in which the Earth's temperature could increase until the oceans eventually evaporated away.
In addition to positive feedbacks, there are negative feedbacks that act to restore the climate system to its initial state. In the example of a warmer atmosphere with more water vapor, more clouds could form which would increase the amount of solar radiation reflected back to space and decrease the solar radiation absorbed by the Earth's surface, thereby slowing the rate of warming slow. Although it may not be enough to push the Earth completely back toward its initial state, it might lead to a new energy balance, one that is in equilibrium with an overall increase in energy.

http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/678.html

We are currently in radiative disequilibrium due to the current forcing which is the release into the atmosphere of fossil carbon -

It's getting warmer
We're responsible
It's not going back to the way it was even if we stop releasing carbon.

The discussion needs to be how to mitigate the consequences - not dodging the responsibility for fouling our own nest...

 

[Bill Thompson]

Positive feedbacks work in both directions, they amplify and accelerate any change in input, both up and down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice-albedo_feedback (my bold)



The ice albedo positive feedback is one of several positive feedbacks which explain why the earth's climate reacts with such dramatic swings in temperature to the relatively small forcing of the Milankovich cycles. These positive feedbacks are why ice sheets not only advance rapidly when ice ages start but retreat rapidly when they end.

Gore was simply explaining some basic physics, as basic as the physics which tells us greenhouse gases trap heat not light (which you also got wrong). There is nothing remotely controversial about it, it's been known and understood for at least a century.

80 percent of light is not absorbed into the ocean, like he said. Since the ice reflects 80 percent of light, in Al Gore's mind, this should work the other way. But it doesn't.

He might love numbers but he gets the math all wrong.

Here is another example. During his movie he says that he has been to "well over one thousand cities and towns" giving his little global warming lecture. But there are only 365 days in a year and he had been doing this for less than 3 years during Bush's first term as president and it would have to take him at least a day to travel to the next stop and at least a day to set things up and at least a day to break down the set and load things up.

Gore does numbers, not math.

Here is another example. Al Gore was on the Today's show with Leno explaining geothermal energy. During the broadcast he talked about how the magma under the Earth's crust is "millions of degrees". That is funny because, the last I heard, even the surface of the sun is not millions of degrees.

If the leader of the Global Warming movement is a guy who makes so many flaws with math and science that I cringe, how can I get onboard? Why isn't a real scientist out front making the case for Global Warming?

 

[lomiller]

No. I think studying how Al Gore has used logical fallacies in his movie will change politics. I also think exposing the things Gore got wrong might also change policies and politics.?

If you want to talk about Al Gore, do it in the politics forum.

Fair warning though, climate scientists have seen his film too and by and large say he got the science right. If and when you do decide to try and make a post in the politics forum on this, if you don’t learn the science first you will just end up making a fool of yourself. With your current level of understanding it will be you, not Gore who is called up for choosing bad science over politics.

Do you want some scientic content? Ok, how about this. He used the science behind Ice Age studies and reversed them but he got his facts, as a result, all wrong. We know that ice shelves advanced during a Ice Ages because 80 percent of sunlight is reflected off the white snow. THis ends up cooling the Earth more and thus produces more ice. Al Gore flipped this and tried to use it to describe the ice melting. He said that "ice reflects 80 percent of the sun's light and heat.

You just repeated the same thing twice. Gore was saying that less ice reduced the amount of sunlight reflected to space, which causes further warming, and he’s right.

He said that "ice reflects 80 percent of the sun's light and heat. As the ice melts, that 80 percent is asorbed into the ocean". I have told this to several of my Liberal friends and they think that this somehow makes perfect sense. It does not. If the ocean absorbed 80 percent of the sun's light, the oceans would look black from space. Also, people would not get sunburned by lying on the beach more often than just lying on their lawns or on roofs of buildings. The sunlight reflected off of ocean waves contribute to people getting more UV light on their skin.

Sorry, but this is a measured value, Gore is absolutely right you are wrong. Keeping in mind this changes with angle and therefore time of day, but on average 20% is about right. 20% is still more light then land that isn’t covered in ice reflects.

Gore made other mistakes as well. THis coupled with the fact that the charts and graphs I am shown are not followed up with making the actual data available makes me wonder what is really going on. THe web site someone showed me here showed a very strong opinion, but when I went to the site where the author got his information from, the real stats and opinions and conclusions where not so powerful.

You know, if you only rely on the books and the articles and tv shows that people produce about the Bermuda Triangle, it is very convincing. But if you go to the source, every mystery and every story disolves into an explainable thing.

If I was retired, I would spend more time doing this to Global Warming. Instead I have to use small off-time to look around and I have to use my own personal experience on simular things.

When I was in the military, I discovered that the news media lies. It was a shock to find that NewsWeek fabracated an entire story about the missions I was involved in. So I doubt anything presented to me that does not allow me to go and look at the source.

So other than the one “fact” that turned out to be wrong you give us lots of hand waving.

As far as Global Warming is concerned, when I go to the source, the data does not back up what I have been told. Once again, why is it that the warmest temperature recored in the USA predates the coldest temperature ever recorded in the USA?

What sources have you gone to? Gore’s film is a good summary of the science published in peer reviewed journals, which overwhelmingly say global warming is happening and is primarily caused by humans.

Once again, why is it that the warmest temperature recored in the USA predates the coldest temperature ever recorded in the USA?

What temperature reading are you re4fering to? Ignoring the fact that you seem to think the “Global” means “continental US”, new record highs in the US widely outnumber new record lows. And the US has warmed considerably over the last 100 years.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.lrg.gif

 

[Furcifer]

It's getting warmer
We're responsible
It's not going back to the way it was even if we stop releasing carbon.

Get used to us it!

It's not supposed to go back to the way it was. Climate changes all the time and we know that. Be thankful we aren't heading into an ice age because a lot of people would die, a lot more than from warming that's for sure.

 

[Bill Thompson]

Am I the first one to actually look up and see how a greenhouse really works? We are assuming that, based on what we were taught by people who really did not know, and based on how Al Gore is using the word, a greenhouse works by letting sunlight in while not letting the same sunlight out. This, is how "greenhouse gasses" work.

But I had a problem with this. First of all, if CO2 has that kind of reflective property, wouldn't it also reflect light back out into space? I have failed to read anyone's response to that here. Maybe it is posted but I have not read it.

According to the description of a greenhouse by the Global Warming folks, one is led to believe that an actual greenhouse works by having some sort of special glass -- like a one way mirror -- that lets light enter but the inside is more reflective and so the light is reflected around inside the greenhouse.

Ah but it is not true. I looked it up. A greenhouse works by allowing solar radiation pass through the windows while it prevent convection heat loss from wind and result is higher temperature in greenhouse. This kind of dynamic and model does not apply on a global scale.

Busted !!

But how can this be with all the graphs and charts? Well, statistics can be selected and presented in just about any way you want. When you look at the raw data, often what you thought was there is not there.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/...ells-a-different-story-than-the-official-one/

 

[Trakar]

This is interesting … from http://joannenova.com.au/2011/02/the-oceans-clouds-and-cosmic-rays-drive-the-climate-not-co2/ :



I saw this theory immediately and simply dismissed earlier in this thread, but seriously, look at the graph, folks. How could temperature correlate with cosmic rays, if CO2 is the cause of global temperature changes? Nothing we do can affect cosmic rays. So explain this to me. Is the graph wrong?

Yes

http://www.skepticalscience.com/a-detailed-look-at-galactic-cosmic-rays.html

 

[Trakar]

You might also want to take a look at the Milankovitch Cycle and change in radiance between maximum and minimum to get a better idea what we are talking about. Here's a link: Sun Spot Activity, Solar Radiance and Climate Change It's one of those typical alarmist blogs but the discussion on the SORCE data might be easier to understand for a layman.

And you find this of any relevence to this exchange, how?

Finding out that the baseline solar irradiance is 3 thousandths lower than tradtionally accredited simply means that there is a larger impact by other factors to retain as large of an energy residual as has been being empirically measured over the last several decades. How do you feel that this is reflected or explained in the reference above?

 

[Bill Thompson]

Is global warming occurring because CO2 (carbon dioxide), CO (carbon monoxide) and CH (methane) reflect radiation? This is a simple yes or no question.

 

[Trakar]

Originally Posted by DC
Just a few days ago you said you know the world is warming up and we are the main cause. this is actually the scientific consensus.
and now you deny it? why?
You have not present anything in the meanwhike that would show AGW to be wrong or not happening etc.

There's compelling evidence to suggest humans may not have had a significant part in the warming. Nobody said it wasn't happening, so that's just a strawman of your own creation.

This is just a hollow refutation without any supporting evidence that fails to address the science.

If you take out the "A" it isn't "AGW," Anthropogenic Global Warming is the mainstream scientific position.

 

[ThunderChunky]

Really? They cite published articles in peer reviewed journals by NASA scientists? I'd like to see them because if they exist I might consider revisiting my views on evolution.

They sure do. Organism gets reassigned (or a new one discovered in and unknown phylum) and creationists say it calls evolution into question. Same arctic you are using. Model changes slightly and the whole thing must be called into question.

 

[DOC]

Al Gore says Excessive Snow Storms caused by Global Warming

Snow shovel, warm clothing, and sled manufacturers rejoice, Global Warming causes excessive snow and sometimes colder winters -- at least according to Al Gore.

http://blog.algore.com/2011/02/an_answer_for_bill.html

 

[Halfcentaur]

You realize that global warming is supposed to be causing "climate change" in general. It's not literally just a steady increase of heat. This is also one of the most rudimentary defenses employed by those who deny the whole climate change thing.