Bob Park and Global Warming

[Diamond]

You have to go the original papers when these people quote them, because they have no interest in being truthful or scientifically accurate. They simply wish to persuade, and if lying and pseudo-science are necessary (which they are when you're trying to show something that isn't so), so be it.

This is incredibly rich coming from you.

 

[Diamond]

From the glossary:

"Little Ice Age"

A period of generally colder climate between c. AD1590 and AD 1850, best recorded in Northern and central Europe but probably global in extent

From page 215-216:

"Most evidence for the human consequences of of secular climatic variations over the last 500 years comes from temperate areas of the world, such as Europe and China, with rich historical records to draw on. But to judge by the 20th Century experience, drought-prone regions can be expected to have been at least as severely affected by any climatic fluctuations, especially those in rainfall. Greater aridity may have marked the North American Great Plains at the time of the Little Ice Age, to judge froim lake salinity variations. Increased dust flux on the Qualccaya ice cap in the Peruvian Andes suggests a similar tendency towards drought during this time interval. Elsewhere in the Americas, drought phases seem to have coincided with warming phases, such as the Medieval Warm Epoch before c. AD 1300, rather than cooling ones. Similarly in Africa, Sharon Nicholson (1980) used a range of evidence to conclude that at the time of the Little Ice Age, the southern (Sahelian) margin of the Sahara was significantly above that immediately before or since then. Stratigraphic records of lake levels show that Lake CHad was 4m above the 20th Century mean from AD 1570 to 1750, while in the two to three centuries prior to this both Lake Chad and Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana were at low levels. This drier phase appears to have been important in causing a retreat of settlement on the inland delta of the River Niger. Similar hydrological and climatic fluctuations in recent centuries are recorded in the water level history of Lake Abhé in Ethiopia.

Even more dramatic evidence comes from Africa south of the equator. Sediment cores from lake Malawi have shown that this, one of the largest and deepest of all the world's lakes, ceased overflowing and its water level fell by almost 100 m. Although this great regression occurred before the start of the documented historical data of the nineteenth century, it is recorded in both oral traditions and is dated from cores to between c AD 1450 and 1850. Calibrated climatically, this fall represents a rainfall levelonly 50-70 per cent of twentieth centuiry values, and would have created a drought whose severity and duration make recent climatic events in Africa pale in comparison. It is clear, then, that recent centuries have been every bit as turbulent climactically in the tropics as they have been in Europe, with its better known "Little Ice Age"

emphases added by me.

- from "The Holocene - an environmental history" by Neil Roberts

Don't read it Capel. You're in denial.

 

[Diamond]

And for those who don't think that China had an extremely similar climactic variation to Europe:

-taken from "The Genesis Strategy", Stephen Schneider, 1976

(which was one of the two books predicting Global Cooling in the 1970s)

 

[Diamond]

Scientific reports on the Little Ice Age away from the North Atlantic:

China:
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2001/v4n47c2.htm
http://www.scienceinchina.com/ky/0301/ky0095.stm
http://wdc.obs-mip.fr/paleo/pubs/yang2002/yang2002.html
http://www.cgfi.org/materials/articles/2002/nov_04_02.htm
http://www-bprc.mps.ohio-state.edu/Icecore/Abstracts/TM_TDLMD.95.html
http://station7.kgw.tu-berlin.de/english/abstracts/Song.html
http://acsys.npolar.no/links/chi.htm
http://home.austarnet.com.au/yours/Scientist_forced_to_recant.htm
http://www.ccrc.sr.unh.edu/hipp/KduWkshp_contents/2-4.html

Korea: http://www.geoedu.snu.ac.kr/database/geoedu_nonjip/document/Ge1401.htm

New Zealand:
http://www.co2science.org/journal/2000/v3n34c2.htm
http://www.uc.edu/news/nzstudy.htm
http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EAE03/03696/EAE03-J-03696.pdf
http://jrscience.wcp.muohio.edu/Weather/PaperProposalArticles/TheLittleIceAgewasitbigen.html

Japan:
http://www.uah.edu/News/2000news/coralsea.html

Himalayas:
http://wwwgeo.ees.hokudai.ac.jp/memberhome/~asahi/abst00at.html

Thailand:
http://www.ainse.edu.au/ainse/prorep2000/R_00_005.pdf

Depth and extent of the Little Ice Age globally: http://www.atmos.washington.edu/1998Q4/211/project2/group4.htm
http://www.objectivescience.com/articles/hl_recent_warming.htm
http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/NatSci102/images/extlittleice.htm
http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/Articles/2001/hockey1.htm
http://www.co2andclimate.org/climate/previous_issues/vol4/v4n4/hot1.htm
http://www.scientific-alliance.org/news_archives/climate/claimsaboutglobal.htm
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba450/
http://search.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/08/24/p16s2.htm
http://members.cox.net/biome/EES142LittleIceAge.html
http://www.iosphere.net/~tharris/nationalpost.htm
http://atlas-conferences.com/c/a/h/r/15.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/hecht1.htm
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/archives/vol21/vol21_iss14/record2114.23.html


Don't read them Capel. You're in denial.

 

[Diamond]

Australia:
http://www.geo.umass.edu/climate/hadley/abstracts/gagan.pdf

Nowhere near the North Atlantic is it?

 

[Diamond]

Global Warming, Climate Change and the IPCC:

http://www.sepp.org/GWbooklet/GW-BKLET July 1999.doc

 

[Mark]

Even the Bush administration has publically accepted the truth of man-made global warming. They just say it's too late to do anything about it. Of course, before that they said it was "premature." I wonder when the window of opportunity went by?

Example: The forests all across the Southwest U.S. are dying rapidly due to the population explosion of wood boring beetles, which in turn is caused by the warming of the climate over the last 25 years.

Of course, that doesn't suit the agenda of most politicians, so it isn't really being discussed much. I live here, and I'm telling you it is ugly and frightening. Try visiting the forest around Prescott, AZ; it isn't dying. It's dead.

Edited to add:
"An increasing body of observations gives
a collective picture of a warming world
and other changes in the climate system."

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2001

http://www.climatehotmap.org/
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/global_warming/page.cfm?pageID=503
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/04/12/global_warming020412
http://www.dailyrepublican.com/elninoeffect.html

 

[Diamond]

Even the Bush administration has publically accepted the truth of man-made global warming. They just say it's too late to do anything about it. Of course, before that they said it was "premature." I wonder when the window of opportunity went by?

And this means what, exactly? If by man-made warming you mean changing the planet's albedo through forest clearance and agriculture, I'd have to say yes, and I'd like the last 6000 years of human history taken into account.

In any case, the question of whether human-induced global warming is significant is a scientific question, not a political one. I have no interest whatsoever in what George W Bush has to say.

Example: The forests all across the Southwest U.S. are dying rapidly due to the population explosion of wood boring beetles, which in turn is caused by the warming of the climate over the last 25 years.

They have enjoyed favorable conditions in the last ten years, but so what? Climate changes on scales of centuries and at most quarter-centuries. Some predation waxes when it gets warmer (translation: winters get milder). On the other hand, growing seasons get longer and more forest and grassland grows at higher altitude.

In any case, forests have grown back across the US and are now a third bigger than they were in the 1920s

Of course, that doesn't suit the agenda of most politicians, so it isn't really being discussed much. I live here, and I'm telling you it is ugly and frightening. Try visiting the forest around Prescott, AZ; it isn't dying. It's dead.

No. Its just how the earth behaves. The climate is not static and forests do not stay static. They grow and shrink according to a host of environmental factors. In this case a wood boring beetle kills a lot of woodland. Then what? The wood dies and so does the beetle. Then the wood grows again. This is Nature at work.

I think the cry of "Its all the fault of climate change" has been used far too often.

Edited to add:
"An increasing body of observations gives
a collective picture of a warming world
and other changes in the climate system."

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2001

http://www.climatehotmap.org/
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/global_warming/page.cfm?pageID=503
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/04/12/global_warming020412
http://www.dailyrepublican.com/elninoeffect.html

What would you prefer? A cooling climate? Think you can do anything about it? Wrong.

The climate has changed perfectly naturally for the last 1000 years at least. The only thing that has happened in the warming since the end of the Little Ice Age, is that its got a little wetter.

 

[Mark]

And this means what, exactly? If by man-made warming you mean changing the planet's albedo through forest clearance and agriculture, I'd have to say yes, and I'd like the last 6000 years of human history taken into account.

In any case, the question of whether human-induced global warming is significant is a scientific question, not a political one. I have no interest whatsoever in what George W Bush has to say.



They have enjoyed favorable conditions in the last ten years, but so what? Climate changes on scales of centuries and at most quarter-centuries. Some predation waxes when it gets warmer (translation: winters get milder). On the other hand, growing seasons get longer and more forest and grassland grows at higher altitude.

In any case, forests have grown back across the US and are now a third bigger than they were in the 1920s



No. Its just how the earth behaves. The climate is not static and forests do not stay static. They grow and shrink according to a host of environmental factors. In this case a wood boring beetle kills a lot of woodland. Then what? The wood dies and so does the beetle. Then the wood grows again. This is Nature at work.

I think the cry of "Its all the fault of climate change" has been used far too often.



What would you prefer? A cooling climate? Think you can do anything about it? Wrong.

The climate has changed perfectly naturally for the last 1000 years at least. The only thing that has happened in the warming since the end of the Little Ice Age, is that its got a little wetter.

Nice debate. Unfortunately, I really do have to head out to work. I will say that you are flying in the face of the vast majority of scientists these days. That, in itself, doesn't mean they are correct, of course. But the latest data seem to indicate that the rate of warming has accelerated in the last 100 years.

As far as the wood beetle, this has never happened before. The wood beetle is also destroying the forests ability to reproduce; they aren't going to grow back this time (unless we help).

I have noticed that most people who hold your view seem to reject any evidence for global warming much as you have done with, "This is nature at work." In the sense that man is inarguably a part of nature, I agree with you. Look at the web sites I gave you...at some point you may find that you can't reject all of the evidence before you, no matter how much you want to.

 

[Diamond]

Nice debate. Unfortunately, I really do have to head out to work. I will say that you are flying in the face of the vast majority of scientists these days. That, in itself, doesn't mean they are correct, of course. But the latest data seem to indicate that the rate of warming has accelerated in the last 100 years.

It's warmed certainly, but no "acceleration" I'm afraid. It warmed globally from about 1880 to 1940, then cooled 1940-1978, then a very slight warming 1979 to the present. Most of the warming happened in the early 20th Century with basically a neutral trend since then. By the way, most of the carbon dioxide enrichment happened after 1940, so cause follows effect, as it were.

You'll have to cite some data on this "acceleration" I'm afraid.

As far as the wood beetle, this has never happened before. The wood beetle is also destroying the forests ability to reproduce; they aren't going to grow back this time (unless we help).

Is the wood beetle native to that part of the country? How long has Arizona been a state of the Union? The reason I ask, is if the wood beetle does this periodically, it could be on a scale of a century or longer to cause damage like this. Perhaps the last time this happened was 1000 years ago when things were warmer than they are today. Do we know this?

I have noticed that most people who hold your view seem to reject any evidence for global warming much as you have done with, "This is nature at work." In the sense that man is inarguably a part of nature, I agree with you. Look at the web sites I gave you...at some point you may find that you can't reject all of the evidence before you, no matter how much you want to.

I don't reject the idea that mankind can have affected the global climate, but the climate varies anyway regardless of what we do becauses its a non-linear system. To ascribe a warming now (which is very slight, as measured by satellites) to something like carbon dioxide is absurd, when the climate can change rapidly all on its own without any carbon dioxide contribution.

What people don't appear to understand is that the issue of what climate does and how it behaves is not a soluble problem at all. What we have, at best, are approximations which should be assigned warnings by the Surgeon-General as to their reliability.

I'll give an example:

The latest global climate model produced by the Hadley Centre in England was called "holistic" because it incorporated everything they could think of (or, it embodied all of their assumptions - you choose) Nevertheless, they made two huge assumptions: 1) That the Sun would be constant for the next 100 years and 2) That there would be NO significant volcanic activity during that time.

It's all about assumptions. In the end, you pays your money and you takes your choice. I'm old enough to remember the Global Cooling scare of the 1970s, the nuclear winter scare of the 1980s (unfortunately Carl Sagan was at the vanguard of that one), the Ozone Hole scare and now Global warming. I remember we were going to run out of food to feed the exponentially rising world population, therefore we'd have to make food out of oil, but we'd run out of oil in 20 years (this was the 1970s).

For some reason, when the next panic comes, it seems the world is about to end, and the same people: Stephen Schneider, Lester Brown and others are wheeled out to great applause, forgetting their earlier apocalyptic prophecies were entirely false, but now the vanguard of a new fashionable scare.

If I were an American, I would be a Democrat, not a Republican and I'm quite liberal on some issues and quite conservative on others. Nothing is more damaging to the cause of liberalism and the fight for the soul of the American people against George W. Bush, than this absurd panic over climate change. Its as if breastbeating and feeling guilty over something was a liberal obsession.

I just wish people would develop memories that were more than 5 minutes in duration. In this hot summer, does anyone remember that for most of the Northern Hemisphere, the winter and spring were especially cold?

 

[BobK]

Diamond,
I've just read this entire thread and I think you have acquitted yourself very well.

You and others may be interested in a post I just placed in the "Greenhouse may be worse than thought" thread in PC&E.

Here is a cross link to the post for those that are interested.
It contains a link to some well reasoned comments on the global warming debate made by Dr. Brian Tucker formerly Chief of atmospheric research at CSIRO.
http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=1870052860#post1870052860

By the way, I don't think the science is settled enough concerning human induced global warming to start spending hundreds of billions of dollars trying to ameleorate it.

 

[Diamond]

Diamond,
I've just read this entire thread and I think you have acquitted yourself very well.

You and others may be interested in a post I just placed in the "Greenhouse may be worse than thought" thread in PC&E.

Here is a cross link to the post for those that are interested.
It contains a link to some well reasoned comments on the global warming debate made by Dr. Brian Tucker formerly Chief of atmospheric research at CSIRO.
http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=1870052860#post1870052860

By the way, I don't think the science is settled enough concerning human induced global warming to start spending hundreds of billions of dollars trying to ameleorate it.

The only thing I'd like to know is why this subject, almost alone in the sciences, has become so politicized that I may not even comment on it, or quote other studies or people, or challenge statements.

To me, scientific paradigms must be checked and falsified (at least in principle). Relativity is constantly being challenged by experiments designed to falsify it, yet no-one screams down the experimentors or calls them "relativity deniers" or compares them to "flat earthers". A large part of climate science, it appears, is in the eye of the beholder, which means it is not science at all.

 

[Mark]

The only thing I'd like to know is why this subject, almost alone in the sciences, has become so politicized that I may not even comment on it, or quote other studies or people, or challenge statements.

I suspect it is because no matter how much the evidence mounts that global warming is real, no matter how many scientists support the theory, some people will just refuse to accept it as even a possibility simply because they don't want to.

 

[Diamond]

I suspect it is because no matter how much the evidence mounts that global warming is real, no matter how many scientists support the theory, some people will just refuse to accept it as even a possibility simply because they don't want to.

No-one at all, thinks that the recent warming is anything other than real. Not me, not anyone else.

The question is whether such a change is unusual. The answer is clearly very ambiguous. There are rafts of evidence that the recent warming is a) very minor b) can be accounted for entirely by natural variation and c) appropriated by people who wish to scare the public into supporting their political agenda.

Where it ends up is rooted in the evidence, but also in people's willingness to change their beliefs in the face of evidence. I am not an optimist on this point. If someone can say that the Little Ice Age only existed in the North Atlantic because only the Europeans were literate enough to write about it, ignore worldwide evidence of a global cool dry period and historical writings from other civilisations and claim that I am in denial, then I frankly despair.

As a throwaway remark, the earth is not as warm as it was 1000 years ago, nor 1500 years ago, nor 3000 years ago during the so-called "Holocene Maximum". A case could be made scientifically that we are in a very long cooling trend. But lets not let the facts get in the way of people's feelings, shall we?

 

[Mark]

No-one at all, thinks that the recent warming is anything other than real. Not me, not anyone else.

The question is whether such a change is unusual. The answer is clearly very ambiguous. There are rafts of evidence that the recent warming is a) very minor b) can be accounted for entirely by natural variation and c) appropriated by people who wish to scare the public into supporting their political agenda.

Where it ends up is rooted in the evidence, but also in people's willingness to change their beliefs in the face of evidence. I am not an optimist on this point. If someone can say that the Little Ice Age only existed in the North Atlantic because only the Europeans were literate enough to write about it, ignore worldwide evidence of a global cool dry period and historical writings from other civilisations and claim that I am in denial, then I frankly despair.

As a throwaway remark, the earth is not as warm as it was 1000 years ago, nor 1500 years ago, nor 3000 years ago during the so-called "Holocene Maximum". A case could be made scientifically that we are in a very long cooling trend. But lets not let the facts get in the way of people's feelings, shall we?

Don't be rude. There are more scientists now that feel global warming is being influenced by man, than there are those who don't. The minority may be correct...but your final comment betrays a political bias that is disturbing. Not surprising, but disturbing.

 

[Solitaire]

CO2 acts like a blanket in the atmosphere and absorbs infrared
thus retaining the heat from the sun. That is high school science.

Oh cool!

Could you use high school science and calculate the perindustrial era,
let's say 1800, atmosphere without the added carbon dioxide and then
calculate it with the post industrial era, let's say 2000, atmosphere with
the extra carbon dioxide.

P.S. Could you show your work, including the argon, nitrogen, oxygen,
and water vapor contributing effects? Oh, and have it in by Thursday?

 

[Mark]

Oh cool!

Could you use high school science and calculate the perindustrial era,
let's say 1800, atmosphere without the added carbon dioxide and then
calculate it with the post industrial era, let's say 2000, atmosphere with
the extra carbon dioxide.

P.S. Could you show your work, including the argon, nitrogen, oxygen,
and water vapor contributing effects? Oh, and have it in by Thursday?

I know you weren't asking me, but my reflexive response requires that I tell you..."My dog ate it."

 

[Diamond]

Don't be rude. There are more scientists now that feel global warming is being influenced by man, than there are those who don't. The minority may be correct...but your final comment betrays a political bias that is disturbing. Not surprising, but disturbing.

If the minority may be correct, then why mention a majority of scientists at all? Science is not decided by a show of hands or voting or popularity but by experimental results confirming or disconfirming falsifiable hypotheses. In science, one may be right and everybody else wrong.

I am not in the slightest bit interested in what a majority of scientists feel is happening, but what they can prove. Feelings can be right or wrong and scientists being human can be beguiled by their feelings into foolishness (as Randi will tell you). That's why skepticism is so important - if only to force people to justify their feelings with proper scientific testing.

My political bias is that I've watched certain individuals create fear and panic in order to advance a political agenda. No doubt about it - there is a political agenda to some pro-warming propagandists and it involves more bureaucracy and a strangling of western economies with ludicrous treaties whose expected result cannot even be discerned even if we had a sensitive thermometer in every meter of the earth's surface.

I favour proper responsible action to protect the environment and alleviate the suffering of the poor. I do not support artificially created scares that take away real money away from those things to the undeserving and the self-serving of this world.

Want to see real science grapple with the issue of global warming? See http://spacescience.com/headlines/y2000/ast21jul_1m.htm

Its a lot more complicated than some climate modellers will ever admit.

 

[Diamond]

Oh cool!

Could you use high school science and calculate the perindustrial era,
let's say 1800, atmosphere without the added carbon dioxide and then
calculate it with the post industrial era, let's say 2000, atmosphere with
the extra carbon dioxide.

P.S. Could you show your work, including the argon, nitrogen, oxygen,
and water vapor contributing effects? Oh, and have it in by Thursday?

"When you know that the claim is true, and generally accepted and well established, then yes, it is 'nick-picking.' It's also petty, pointless, and time consuming. It's like asking for a citation for Newton's laws of motion, or evidence that the sky is blue. No honest debate can proceed under these kinds of conditions."

- Brian the Snail

 

[Mark]

If the minority may be correct, then why mention a majority of scientists at all? Science is not decided by a show of hands or voting or popularity but by experimental results confirming or disconfirming falsifiable hypotheses. In science, one may be right and everybody else wrong.

I am not in the slightest bit interested in what a majority of scientists feel is happening, but what they can prove. Feelings can be right or wrong and scientists being human can be beguiled by their feelings into foolishness (as Randi will tell you). That's why skepticism is so important - if only to force people to justify their feelings with proper scientific testing.

My political bias is that I've watched certain individuals create fear and panic in order to advance a political agenda. No doubt about it - there is a political agenda to some pro-warming propagandists and it involves more bureaucracy and a strangling of western economies with ludicrous treaties whose expected result cannot even be discerned even if we had a sensitive thermometer in every meter of the earth's surface.

I favour proper responsible action to protect the environment and alleviate the suffering of the poor. I do not support artificially created scares that take away real money away from those things to the undeserving and the self-serving of this world.

Want to see real science grapple with the issue of global warming? See http://spacescience.com/headlines/y2000/ast21jul_1m.htm

Its a lot more complicated than some climate modellers will ever admit.

Since you totally misunderstood my point, I can't see any purpose in responding.