Anthopogenic Global Warming Myth or Real ?

You know it's time to get out of a discussion when people start nitpicking slight mistypings. You'll see I had the correct spelling once and a 'b' slipped in somehow for the second one. I thought falsifiable meant refutable, able to be proven false. The belief that AGW was not falsifiable is on irrational position that I had yet to hear. Glad to see this was just over a misplaced 'not'. I never said that I was waiting for AGW to be falsified, so I guess I can 'wait' all I want seeing as that isn't what I'm waiting for.

I now see that the article meant the fires people are starting to create more farm land so that they don't starve to death. Guess we had better fix that problem by using less efficient farming methods and stopping the use of fossil fuel tractors then, as say, Greenpeace suggests? And of course no GM foods either. Sorry, that is another topic or two and really doesn't address the AGW thing at all.

I understand the IPCC policy statement because it is a political artifact. What I don't understand is how they can acknowledge that other forces can 'hide' the warming, that is negate it for a time, and that these forces are not well understood, but that it must be CO2? I knew the topic would only lead me in circles around the fence again, leaning back an forth. It really isn't even the topic I'm most interested in about global warming.

With that, I think I'll take a back seat.
 
tojohndillonesq said:
I am a bit disappointed in the continued ad hominem attacks. Is the goal of the sceptic to "win" by belittling and silencing the opponent, or to reach a rational conclusion?

The "majority of qualified scientists agree" is a classic error in logic known as "argumentum ad verecundiam." It is a reverse use of ad hominem. I could counter that the history of scientific revolution is the history of the majority being wrong... but that would be the reverse use of argumentum ad verecundiam.
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It is not a logical error to cite the findings of those who are expert in the field and who are doing the research.

For example, there is a scientific consensus on the Modern Synthesis of Darwinian theory, embryology, and genetics. This isn't because it's fashionable, or because it's cool -- it's because that's what the findings clearly indicate.

Ditto with AGW. It is accepted science. And pointing this out is entirely relevant.

If you want to know why this view is accepted science, you can see, for instance, the IPCC statement to policy makers.

Here is the Pew Center's summary:

Released on November 17, 2007, the Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Synthesis Report represents the IPCC’s most comprehensive and definitive statement to date on climate change. The report presents the key findings of the three Working Group reports released earlier this year by the Nobel Peace Prize winning-IPCC.

The following are some of the key highlights addressed in the Synthesis Report:

* There is strong certainty that most of the observed warming of the past half-century is due to human influences, and a clear relationship between the growth in manmade greenhouse gas emissions and the observed impacts of climate change.

* The climate system is more vulnerable to abrupt or irreversible changes than previously thought.

*Avoiding the most serious impacts of climate change -- including irreversible changes – will require significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

* Mitigation efforts must also be combined with adaptation measures to minimize the risks of climate change.
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Here is the IPCC reports page.

Every major scientific body on the planet which works in climate science supports these conclusions.

To brush that off as some argument from consensus is absurd.
 
Piggy said:
Interesting. I just browsed over there and this is the top article:

Drier, Warmer Springs In US Southwest Stem From Human-caused Changes In Winds

Then there's this:

NASA Study Improves Ability To Predict Aerosols' Effect On Cloud Cover



That's also from page 1, the 10 most recent stories.

I can cite more if you like.

But keep in mind, too, that the scientific community already accepts that global warming is being caused, in part, by human activity.

Therefore, when they speak of "global warming" they don't bother to add "which, by the way, is driven largely by human activity".
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Yes, there are many theories out there and when weather pattens change in the U.S. Southwest, no doubt that will be caused by humans too. How is it that regional weather is considered "global warming"? We are always told the U.S. isn't "global" and doesn't matter.

You missed one. It was worse 100 years ago.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080819160103.htm

What is this, the battle of news releases?

Add them to the list of global-warming-causes-everything.
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

This article says there's not enough pollution:

Aerosol and cloud effects on solar brightening and the recent rapid warming
The rapid temperature increase of 1°C over mainland Europe since 1980 is considerably larger than the temperature rise expected from anthropogenic greenhouse gas increases. Here we present aerosol optical depth measurements from six specific locations and surface irradiance measurements from a large number of radiation sites in Northern Germany and Switzerland. The measurements show a decline in aerosol concentration of up to 60%, which have led to a statistically significant increase of solar irradiance under cloud-free skies since the 1980s. The measurements confirm solar brightening and show that the direct aerosol effect had an approximately five times larger impact on climate forcing than the indirect aerosol and other cloud effects. The overall aerosol and cloud induced surface climate forcing is ∼+1 W m−2 dec−1 and has most probably strongly contributed to the recent rapid warming in Europe.
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tyr_13 said:
I now see that the article meant the fires people are starting to create more farm land so that they don't starve to death. Guess we had better fix that problem by using less efficient farming methods and stopping the use of fossil fuel tractors then, as say, Greenpeace suggests? And of course no GM foods either. Sorry, that is another topic or two and really doesn't address the AGW thing at all.
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The fact that people are setting the fires to create farmland doesn't change the fact that the fires are helping to fuel GW. And that was the issue at hand -- whether there were articles which supported human causes of GW. Let's try not to let the conversation drift at will.

And if we do want to talk about consequences, if GW continues, the negative impact on agriculture is predicted to be quite significant, so it doesn't make sense to argue that we should continue with practices that fuel GW in order to benefit agriculture.

I don't know anything about any recommendations to stop using tractors, and GM foods are irrelevant -- the fact that you bring them up and mention Greenpeace indicates you have a political ax to grind here -- but there are alternatives to clearing the rainforest for farmland, such as extracting plants for pharmaceuticles, research, and other purposes, such as sustainable logging, etc.


tyr_13 said:
I understand the IPCC policy statement because it is a political artifact. What I don't understand is how they can acknowledge that other forces can 'hide' the warming, that is negate it for a time, and that these forces are not well understood, but that it must be CO2? I knew the topic would only lead me in circles around the fence again, leaning back an forth. It really isn't even the topic I'm most interested in about global warming.
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Why do you say it is a "political artifact"? There's no evidence for that.

And why do you assume that you're going to get led in circles?
 
David Rodale said:
Yes, there are many theories out there and when weather pattens change in the U.S. Southwest, no doubt that will be caused by humans too. How is it that regional weather is considered "global warming"? We are always told the U.S. isn't "global"?

You missed one. It was worse 100 years ago.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080819160103.htm

What is this, the battle of news releases?

Add them to the list of global-warming-causes-everything.
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

This article says there's not enough pollution:

Aerosol and cloud effects on solar brightening and the recent rapid warming
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You miss the point.

The articles I posted were to contradict the assertion that none of the SD articles cited human causes for climate change. That's all.

As for that list... that's not a site that should be taken seriously.

Now, if you want to discuss the larger issue of AGW, then I'll have to repeat my invitation to read the science, and to explain why there is a global scientific consensus -- at long last -- on this issue if AGW is not valid, and how it can be argued that AGW is not valid when there is an utter lack of credible evidence against it, and when the current data show things moving at an alarming pace.

ETA: The article you cite about "100 years ago" has to do with pollution spreading to polar zones. It addresses issue such as food chain contamination, but doesn't even mention warming or CO2 or any other greenhouse gases.
 
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You know, if you look at any issue through a soda straw, you can deny anything.
 
tyr_13 said:
You know it's time to get out of a discussion when people start nitpicking slight mistypings. You'll see I had the correct spelling once and a 'b' slipped in somehow for the second one. I thought falsifiable meant refutable, able to be proven false. The belief that AGW was not falsifiable is on irrational position that I had yet to hear. Glad to see this was just over a misplaced 'not'. I never said that I was waiting for AGW to be falsified, so I guess I can 'wait' all I want seeing as that isn't what I'm waiting for.
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My bad, I didn't intend it as nitpicking. I could use more smileys.

There is an argument out there that AGW is not falsifiable; It's been brought up around here a bunch of times. I would have to agree that it is an irrational position to hold.
 
tojohndillonesq said:
I am a bit disappointed in the continued ad hominem attacks. Is the goal of the sceptic to "win" by belittling and silencing the opponent, or to reach a rational conclusion?

The "majority of qualified scientists agree" is a classic error in logic known as "argumentum ad verecundiam." It is a reverse use of ad hominem. I could counter that the history of scientific revolution is the history of the majority being wrong... but that would be the reverse use of argumentum ad verecundiam.
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Well, as it happens, when everybody who knows what he is talking about agrees on a matter, that is how consensus is reached; We no longer listen to the idiots who say the world is flat or that Quantum Mechanics is just measurement error even though some of them have advanced degrees.

And if you need any proof, the state of Arctic ice is enough proof for all but true idiots and brittle ideologues.
 
Sorry my previous message was cut and pasted badly !!!

Piggy,

You say..

But keep in mind, too, that the scientific community already accepts that global warming is being caused, in part, by human activity.

Therefore, when they speak of "global warming" they don't bother to add "which, by the way, is driven largely by human activity".
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I think that is the point.. in PART by human activity.. what part is it and how significant is it.

I still say NONE of the articles point to any sort of significant man made cause for GW !

Even the worst case scenario as stated before is a 1.5 % man made cause.

And is a bit of GW going to hurt.. it may help.. ask the people on Greenland who are growing vegetables !
 
Aussie Thinker said:
So if the Carbon effect is a disputable high of 30 % it means that man 5 % contribution would be making a 1.5 % effect on Global Warming… still doesn’t sound shattering ?
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Huh?

If carbon dioxide causes about 25% of the natural greenhouse effect (which results in the earth's surface being about 30 degrees C warmer than it would otherwise be) and human activity has increased the level of CO2 in the atmosphere by 35% in the last 150 years ...

... where did you get that 1.5% from?
 
mhaze said:
Look, suppose we agree that the planet's "greenhouse effect" is 33C net-

Take all 20th century warming, 0.7C, assign it to AGW as a "max AGW".

AGW CO2 effect is 0.7/33 = 2.1% absolute maximum.

Realistically, maybe 0% to 0.5%. Zero is not unrealistic at all with negative feedback.
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Can you give me an example of a negative feedback associated with CO2?
 
Aussie Thinker said:
Sorry my previous message was cut and pasted badly !!!

Piggy,

You say..



I think that is the point.. in PART by human activity.. what part is it and how significant is it.

I still say NONE of the articles point to any sort of significant man made cause for GW !

Even the worst case scenario as stated before is a 1.5 % man made cause.

And is a bit of GW going to hurt.. it may help.. ask the people on Greenland who are growing vegetables !
Click to expand...


Start here

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=87

You may criticize it as a blog, but the main contributors have 10 more PHDs than mHaze, and quite a few peer reviewed published articles.
 
I am not sure if Global Warming means the whole planet warms up.

I am pretty sure Europe warms up. I do a lot of gardening. My dad and my grandmother are also serious gardeners. So not only do I READ all about the change of climate (plants blossoming earlier, plants from warmer climates surviving in Holland, change of behaviour from insects, birds and mammals) I also did witness some of these changes with my own eyes in my own backyard (or the gardens of my family) These are not just feelings, they are recorded in logbooks and diaries.

In our rivers we see sea life surviving from warmer areas. 30 years ago these crabs or shellfish would also get carried along with the biggest ships, but they would just die in our waters. Now they survive.

The Netherlands is a tiny developed crowded country. Every nook and cranny has been cultivated. For centuries. We don't have any wild areas. As a result we have an absurd number of government bodies regulating every aspect of our scarce land and water area.
I seriously think there are not many mature trees in the whole country that are not recorded in some official list.

So anything that changes will be noticed. And a lot is changing. It's getting warmer fast.

In many other places on the northern hemisphere it's also getting warmer. But it might be getting cooler in other areas. I don't know.
 
Blackadder said:
In many other places on the northern hemisphere it's also getting warmer. But it might be getting cooler in other areas. I don't know.
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Getting a reliable historical dataset for the average of the world's temperature at the surface is no mean feat. As well as gathering data from all the sources, you have to quality control them for all manner of artefacts like changing coverage, urban heat islands, changes to instrumentation, etc. There are multiple versions of the trend depending on whose data, expertise and motives you trust but very few of them disagree about the world (as a whole) warming up over the last century and a half.
 
tyr_13 said:
You know it's time to get out of a discussion when people start nitpicking slight mistypings. You'll see I had the correct spelling once and a 'b' slipped in somehow for the second one. I thought falsifiable meant refutable, able to be proven false. The belief that AGW was not falsifiable is on irrational position that I had yet to hear. Glad to see this was just over a misplaced 'not'. I never said that I was waiting for AGW to be falsified, so I guess I can 'wait' all I want seeing as that isn't what I'm waiting for.

I now see that the article meant the fires people are starting to create more farm land so that they don't starve to death. Guess we had better fix that problem by using less efficient farming methods and stopping the use of fossil fuel tractors then, as say, Greenpeace suggests? And of course no GM foods either. Sorry, that is another topic or two and really doesn't address the AGW thing at all.

I understand the IPCC policy statement because it is a political artifact. What I don't understand is how they can acknowledge that other forces can 'hide' the warming, that is negate it for a time, and that these forces are not well understood, but that it must be CO2? I knew the topic would only lead me in circles around the fence again, leaning back an forth. It really isn't even the topic I'm most interested in about global warming.

With that, I think I'll take a back seat.
Click to expand...

Ewwww.... politics. The whole blurring of policy and IPCC makes my skin crawl slightly; I'd prefer it if the scientists (in general) stuck to the facts when it came to delivering science, but you can't stop them having their opinions I guess. For the record, I disagreed with the Nobel Peace Prize.

A few things that are worth remembering about the latest IPCC report:

  1. Its purpose was to advise policymakers, not to make policies.
  2. The policymakers paid for a comprehensive assessment of the state of the science and that's what they got. The reason we (the believers) keep linking back to it is because of that fact, not because of any political motivation. If this were not the case, the high-profile journals would have become inundated with letters and review papers claiming otherwise and very few would have been stupid enough not to publish them.
  3. It is organised into three sections that were written by three completely different committees of authors; the science basis, the impacts and mitigation. Most of the policy-influencing stuff is in the third and (to a lesser extent) the second sections. The 'is AGW real' and 'is CO2 the biggest contributor' questions are addressed solely in the first section, which pretty much entirely sticks to the science.
  4. Most of the political stuff that gets attributed to the IPCC report is usually the personal opinion expressed by various authors in interviews and such like. The emphasis in the actual report is more 'tell it like it is'.

As for Greenpeace, well, they say a lot of things. Doesn't make it so. If you want to know some science, talking to a scientist is a much safer bet.
 
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Aussie Thinker said:
Sorry my previous message was cut and pasted badly !!!

Piggy,

You say..



I think that is the point.. in PART by human activity.. what part is it and how significant is it.

I still say NONE of the articles point to any sort of significant man made cause for GW !

Even the worst case scenario as stated before is a 1.5 % man made cause.

And is a bit of GW going to hurt.. it may help.. ask the people on Greenland who are growing vegetables !
Click to expand...

The site posted by bobdroege7 is probably a better place to start than SD, for that purpose, because that particular issue is not the most pressing one currently -- those issues are "How much are we going to warm?" and "What will the extent of the changes be?" and "What can we do to slow things down and mitigate the damage?"

The point of reviewing SD's climate page is to see that there is no longer any controversy about AGW. It's settled.

That's why you don't see any raging debate -- or any debate at all -- about it there.

It's the same for evolution: You'll see debate over plenty of questions within the field, but the fact of speciation by evolution, driven by natural selection via genetics, is not a point of contention.

However, when you look at their pages on, say, Alzheimer's and cancer, you see a lot of different approaches being taken, lots of different theories being investigated, about the very basics: What are the causes?

With climate change, you no longer see a debate over the questions of whether the globe is warming, or whether human activity is a significant forcer.

Still, you do see references to the accepted position in articles like this one, from 3 months ago, concerning an improvement in the climate models:

"I think this puts to rest any lingering doubts that the atmosphere really has been warming up more or less as we expect, due mainly to the greenhouse effect of increasing gases like carbon dioxide,” Sherwood said.
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Notice the word "mainly" here.

And the occasional rebuttal of misconceptions held by those outside the field (this article calls them "a minority of commentators") like this one, from about the same time:

Professor Nigel Weiss, 2007 winner of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) Gold medal, is rebutting claims that a fall in solar activity could cancel out the effects of man-made global warming. In a lecture at the RAS-sponsored National Astronomy Meeting in Preston, Professor Weiss, who is Emeritus Professor in Mathematical Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge, described how solar activity was an important factor in past climate change but that current global warming is very much driven by human activity – specifically the emission of greenhouse gases.
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The fact is, AGW is non-controversial within the climate sciences, just as evolution is non-controversial within biological sciences.

The only place where the acceptace of AGW and evolution is controversial is the realm of the blogosphere, political punditry, pop media, talk radio, and the barber shop.
 
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Spud1k said:
The policymakers paid for a comprehensive assessment of the state of the science and that's what they got. The reason we (the believers) keep linking back to it is because of that fact, not because of any political motivation.
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I also prefer to refer people to it because it's intended for non-scientists.
 
Piggy said:
I also prefer to refer people to it because it's intended for non-scientists.
Click to expand...

I agree most of the time, but the fact that the language is quite often clearly aimed at policymakers can act as a bit of a turnoff for some people.
 
Spud1k said:
Ewwww.... politics. The whole blurring of policy and IPCC makes my skin crawl slightly; I'd prefer it if the scientists (in general) stuck to the facts when it came to delivering science, but you can't stop them having their opinions I guess. For the record, I disagreed with the Nobel Peace Prize.

A few things that are worth remembering about the latest IPCC report:

  1. Its purpose was to advise policymakers, not to make policies.
  2. The policymakers paid for a comprehensive assessment of the state of the science and that's what they got. The reason we (the believers) keep linking back to it is because of that fact, not because of any political motivation. If this were not the case, the high-profile journals would have become inundated with letters and review papers claiming otherwise and very few would have been stupid enough not to publish them.
  3. It is organised into three sections that were written by three completely different committees of authors; the science basis, the impacts and mitigation. Most of the policy-influencing stuff is in the third and (to a lesser extent) the second sections. The 'is AGW real' and 'is CO2 the biggest contributor' questions are addressed solely in the first section, which pretty much entirely sticks to the science.
  4. Most of the political stuff that gets attributed to the IPCC report is usually the personal opinion expressed by various authors in interviews and such like. The emphasis in the actual report is more 'tell it like it is'.

As for Greenpeace, well, they say a lot of things. Doesn't make it so. If you want to know some science, talking to a scientist is a much safer bet.
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Yes, no one is going to support WWF/Greenpeace assertions with mainstream science such as IPCC reports, politicized thought it certainly is (Summary having been written before the technicals, technicals changed to conform to summary. Reviewer comments on line since they were released under threat of Freedom of Information act are telling about where numerous criticisms were squished to induce conformity).
 
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