Aridas
Crazy Little Green Dragon
Alright. There's a bunch of claims made here, so I'll be doing a bit more splitting up than usual and this will get a bit long. First, though, thank you for expressing such as you did and moving this discussion here, much as it probably would have been slightly better to provide a direct link to here as courtesy in the thread that you moved this part of the discussion from and a direct link/quote to what you were responding to in this thread. Luckily, I had posted previously in this part of the thread, though, so it didn't matter as much.
After checking that again... I'm ruling that claim as false, given the "only" part. It is true that there's notably more effect in the direction that you're emphasizing, though, because, in general, cold things are warming up faster than warm things, with the Arctic, for example, heating up at roughly double the average rise.
To poke at some effects of that in the US, incidentally, NPR's got a piece that pokes at the subject a bit. How Warming Winters Are Affecting Everything. Warming winters would be a notable problem, even if it was just that, but to be clear -
Summers Are Getting Hotter Faster, Especially in North America's Farm Belt
Four decades of satellite data confirm man-made global warming and find seasonal warming trends that could threaten crops.
First, your source?
Absent that, I'll scrounge around a little. You're referring to, perhaps, stuff like this? Not much change in projected difference? Maybe some of this?
With that said, a short summation of what looks like the overall evidence on the issue is...
To poke at that further,
As noted, there is uncertainty about the specifics of the subject for a number of reasons, not least being very significant changes in the quality of data collection, but your claim here seems to suffer notably from the common phenomenon in climate change denial of trying to cherry pick some fact or claim that does not represent the larger picture all that well.
Fun fact/link on one aspect of hurricane damage, though, just because. Today's hurricanes kill way fewer Americans, and NOAA’s satellites are the reason why
As for forest fires, that's a generally more complex subject. Trying to solely focus on one aspect of forest fires numbers is inevitably going to be misleading. For example, when significant areas of forest are removed to make space for agriculture, that's significant area that can no longer be counted when it comes to raw numbers for how many forest fires are happening. It's entirely plausible that fires can happen at greater frequency and severity in the remainder of the forest while the raw numbers go down. To be clear, I'm using that as an example of why it's wrong to look at more complex problems like that through a narrow lens when evaluating them, rather than presenting that as a sole cause.
To poke further into the larger issues -
Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: perceptions versus realities in a changing world
From the abstract there -
It's honestly not hard to cherry pick from that at all, given that again, forest fires are a notably more complex issue than the simplistic versions that tend to get tossed around. I do suggest reviewing that in greater detail if you're actually interested, though, with the added note that it's still not even close to a full overview. As well as this article from the same people (well, plus one) that's much more recent - Wildfires Are Becoming so Frequent and Intense They Are Turning Forests From Carbon Sinks Into Climate Heaters.
First, sea levels, then. You sound a bit dismissive about this, but even a few inches has a very disproportionate effect on humans. Something like 40% of humans live quite close to the coasts and 8 out of 10 of the biggest cities in the world are on the coast. What's projected to happen in the next thirty years is expected to do quite a huge amount of damage and displace potentially hundreds of millions of people. That displacement and damage then has plenty of subsequent consequences as well.
Second... your analysis is wildly incomplete if those are the only factors you're looking at. Global warming and the resulting climate change is not all bad, but the negatives significantly outweigh the positives.
They're not an authority. To be clear, they weren't being used as an authority in what I said, either. What I said is that they *knew* with great certainty (because of the actual authorities on the subject) and decided to work hard and spend big to obfuscate what they knew to be the case for the sake of profits. That's to the point where Tobacco and Oil Industries Used Same Researchers to Sway Public
As early as the 1950s, the groups shared scientists and publicists to downplay dangers of smoking and climate change
Do you dispute this?
*sigh* Honestly, this post is far too long for easy consumption already and has taken a dramatically greater amount of my time than it took for you, so I'm not going to look into this part more deeply and respond as I did the previous parts. Given the nature of the rest of your response, though, I don't consider it at all likely that there's all that much merit to what you're saying here when it's put into the larger picture. Hopefully, you've learned a bit, either way.
(Answer to Aridas)
If you look at the actual warming statistics they show that it's only getting warmer during the winter time and in cold countries.
After checking that again... I'm ruling that claim as false, given the "only" part. It is true that there's notably more effect in the direction that you're emphasizing, though, because, in general, cold things are warming up faster than warm things, with the Arctic, for example, heating up at roughly double the average rise.
To poke at some effects of that in the US, incidentally, NPR's got a piece that pokes at the subject a bit. How Warming Winters Are Affecting Everything. Warming winters would be a notable problem, even if it was just that, but to be clear -
Summers Are Getting Hotter Faster, Especially in North America's Farm Belt
Four decades of satellite data confirm man-made global warming and find seasonal warming trends that could threaten crops.
There's also that storms
First, your source?
Absent that, I'll scrounge around a little. You're referring to, perhaps, stuff like this? Not much change in projected difference? Maybe some of this?
The latter, I should note is argued by H. Leighton Steward -According to the National Hurricane Center, storms are no more intense or frequent worldwide than they have been since 1850. Temperatures were high in the 1920s and 1930s when there was much less CO 2 in the atmosphere. Constant 24-7 media coverage of every significant storm worldwide just makes it seem that way.
Naturally, that the guy has severe financial conflicts of interest doesn't negate what he says directly, but really should make you much more wary of what he's pushing.Steward is also a director at oil and gas company EOG Resources, formerly known as Enron Oil and Gas Company, where he earned $617,151 in 2008. Steward also serves as an honorary director of the American Petroleum Institute. [2]
With that said, a short summation of what looks like the overall evidence on the issue is...
It is unclear whether global warming is increasing hurricane frequency but there is increasing evidence that warming increases hurricane intensity.
To poke at that further,
Global satellite data since 1981 can be used to extend analysis of hurricane intensity to each ocean, looking for any trend in wind speed (Elsner 2008). Figure 3 plots the long term trend in maximum wind speed (eg - whether hurricanes are getting stronger or weaker) against different strength hurricanes. This tells us not only whether hurricanes are overall getting stronger but also how different strength hurricanes are being affected. Overall, there is a statistically significant upward trend (the horizontal red line). But more significantly, Elsner found weaker hurricanes showed little to no trend while stronger hurricanes showed a greater upward trend. In other words, stronger hurricanes are getting stronger. This means that as sea temperatures continue to rise, the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes hitting land will inevitably increase.
As noted, there is uncertainty about the specifics of the subject for a number of reasons, not least being very significant changes in the quality of data collection, but your claim here seems to suffer notably from the common phenomenon in climate change denial of trying to cherry pick some fact or claim that does not represent the larger picture all that well.
Fun fact/link on one aspect of hurricane damage, though, just because. Today's hurricanes kill way fewer Americans, and NOAA’s satellites are the reason why
and forest fires are down since 50 years ago.
As for forest fires, that's a generally more complex subject. Trying to solely focus on one aspect of forest fires numbers is inevitably going to be misleading. For example, when significant areas of forest are removed to make space for agriculture, that's significant area that can no longer be counted when it comes to raw numbers for how many forest fires are happening. It's entirely plausible that fires can happen at greater frequency and severity in the remainder of the forest while the raw numbers go down. To be clear, I'm using that as an example of why it's wrong to look at more complex problems like that through a narrow lens when evaluating them, rather than presenting that as a sole cause.
To poke further into the larger issues -
Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: perceptions versus realities in a changing world
From the abstract there -
Wildfire has been an important process affecting the Earth's surface and atmosphere for over 350 million years and human societies have coexisted with fire since their emergence. Yet many consider wildfire as an accelerating problem, with widely held perceptions both in the media and scientific papers of increasing fire occurrence, severity and resulting losses. However, important exceptions aside, the quantitative evidence available does not support these perceived overall trends. Instead, global area burned appears to have overall declined over past decades, and there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago. Regarding fire severity, limited data are available. For the western USA, they indicate little change overall, and also that area burned at high severity has overall declined compared to pre-European settlement. Direct fatalities from fire and economic losses also show no clear trends over the past three decades. Trends in indirect impacts, such as health problems from smoke or disruption to social functioning, remain insufficiently quantified to be examined. Global predictions for increased fire under a warming climate highlight the already urgent need for a more sustainable coexistence with fire. The data evaluation presented here aims to contribute to this by reducing misconceptions and facilitating a more informed understanding of the realities of global fire.
It's honestly not hard to cherry pick from that at all, given that again, forest fires are a notably more complex issue than the simplistic versions that tend to get tossed around. I do suggest reviewing that in greater detail if you're actually interested, though, with the added note that it's still not even close to a full overview. As well as this article from the same people (well, plus one) that's much more recent - Wildfires Are Becoming so Frequent and Intense They Are Turning Forests From Carbon Sinks Into Climate Heaters.
The only thing would be rising sea levels but from what I can see, the Oceans are large enough that they won't be going up by that much.
First, sea levels, then. You sound a bit dismissive about this, but even a few inches has a very disproportionate effect on humans. Something like 40% of humans live quite close to the coasts and 8 out of 10 of the biggest cities in the world are on the coast. What's projected to happen in the next thirty years is expected to do quite a huge amount of damage and displace potentially hundreds of millions of people. That displacement and damage then has plenty of subsequent consequences as well.
Second... your analysis is wildly incomplete if those are the only factors you're looking at. Global warming and the resulting climate change is not all bad, but the negatives significantly outweigh the positives.
Also what makes oil company executives an authority on global warming?
They're not an authority. To be clear, they weren't being used as an authority in what I said, either. What I said is that they *knew* with great certainty (because of the actual authorities on the subject) and decided to work hard and spend big to obfuscate what they knew to be the case for the sake of profits. That's to the point where Tobacco and Oil Industries Used Same Researchers to Sway Public
As early as the 1950s, the groups shared scientists and publicists to downplay dangers of smoking and climate change
Do you dispute this?
With CO2 based global warming there's a special danger in that it's taken to be undisputable where the scientific process of retesting conclusions isn't allowed to function like it normally would. That's why after the models have all failed to predict the last 20 years, and the CO2 levels in the antarctic record went up after the earth got hotter, the theory still is prevalent.
*sigh* Honestly, this post is far too long for easy consumption already and has taken a dramatically greater amount of my time than it took for you, so I'm not going to look into this part more deeply and respond as I did the previous parts. Given the nature of the rest of your response, though, I don't consider it at all likely that there's all that much merit to what you're saying here when it's put into the larger picture. Hopefully, you've learned a bit, either way.
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