Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Trakar]

As a casual observer I have to question why when the topic of money and funding comes up it's only ever about the petro-chem companies funding bunk research. The first time someone suggests the pro-AGW side is funding bunk science he gets dismissed as senile.

"Bunk" research and science? How is "bunk" defined?

Personally, the first dividing line should be whether or not it is based upon a foundation of established, oft repeated, science fact and evidence. If it meets the standard - not bunk.

The second dividing line is whether or not the material meets the bare minimum of process, evidences and field relevent peer-review to achieve publication standards in the mainstream Journals of expertise. If it meets the standard - not bunk.

Finally, if it survives the investigations, debates, discussions and replication trials among the "foot soldiers" of science in its particular field of application and is gradually accepted as a contribution to the understanding of that particular area of science - not bunk.

If you judge bunk from non-bunk merely by which perceived "side" or group of people is advocating that position, or by one's personal perceptions of the other associated ideas and ideals those who advocate that position hold, then you are talking politics not science. Science has some pretty specific conditions and tests by which one can establish science from non-science.

 

[macdoc]

Tropical forest diversity increased during ancient global warming event
November 11, 2010 Tropical forest diversity increased during ancient global warming event

http://cdn.physorg.com/newman/gfx/news/hires/tropicalfore.jpg
This is a scanning electron microscopy image of characteristic angiosperm pollen taxa from the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Credit: Photo by Francy Carvajal, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

The steamiest places on the planet are getting warmer. Conservative estimates suggest that tropical areas can expect temperature increases of 3 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. Does global warming spell doom for rainforests? Maybe not. Carlos Jaramillo, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and colleagues report in the journal Science that nearly 60 million years ago rainforests prospered at temperatures that were 3-5 degrees higher and at atmospheric carbon dioxide levels 2.5 times today's levels.

more

http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-tropical-forest-diversity-ancient-global.html

no Virginia....we aren't angiosperms...

 

[CapelDodger]

As a casual observer I have to question why when the topic of money and funding comes up it's only ever about the petro-chem companies funding bunk research. The first time someone suggests the pro-AGW side is funding bunk science he gets dismissed as senile.

There could be a reason for that. Who are in this "pro-AGW side"?

 

[CapelDodger]

The current level of urgency I've seen expressed here in Canada seems adequate. I'm not worried yet.

That's not an answer to anything. Do you think it's foolish to have a sense of urgency about AGW?

(What you're not worried about is no concern of mine.)

I usually only laugh

It would be a laughable book were it not one long exercise in mendaciousness with the specific purpose of maligning honest scientists. That makes it vicious.

But that's what it takes to keep the denial machine rolling these days. And roll it will while the money lasts, and while the likes of Hal Lewis keep a grip on their perches.

 

[Furcifer]

"Bunk" research and science? How is "bunk" defined?

I suppose for purposes of these discussions it's pseudoscience.

 

[bit_pattern]

As a casual observer I have to question why when the topic of money and funding comes up it's only ever about the petro-chem companies funding bunk research. The first time someone suggests the pro-AGW side is funding bunk science he gets dismissed as senile.

Bunk research? WHAT research? I think you are mistaking think tank press releases with research.

 

[Trakar]

I suppose for purposes of these discussions it's pseudoscience.

So what Lewis does, pseudoscience, what Mann does, science. Now that we have definitions and processes defined, it is so much easier to differentiate.

 

[Furcifer]

Bunk research? WHAT research? I think you are mistaking think tank press releases with research.

I stand corrected, you're right this would be more accurate. I kinda convoluted scientific research and "research" as in cherry picking stuff you found on the internet to put in a power point presentation.

 

[bit_pattern]

I stand corrected, you're right this would be more accurate. I kinda convoluted scientific research and "research" as in cherry picking stuff you found on the internet to put in a power point presentation.

LOL

Although, just after I posted a few examples came to mind, Soon, Balunias 2003 is a good example of dodgy research being conducted by oil-funded think tanks.

 

[BenBurch]

Not good news; http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/greenland.html

 

[Bill Thompson]

Actually, this is incorrect. We are currently still in an "ice age" as there are still areas of the planet that have year round ice/snow cover.

Your honor, this is hearsay. Please quote your sources. Or is this just an opinion? Since you do not give any sources, I will take it as an opinion. And thus, not worth much as far as a counter-point goes.

I, on the other hand, have some other people to back me up and from sources who study this sort of thing.

 

[Pixel42]

Please quote your sources. Or is this just an opinion?

This is one of those cases, like with the word 'theory', where the colloquial everyday meaning of a term has drifted away from its original scientific meaning. Wiki gives as good an explanation of the difference as you're likely to find (my bold):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age

An "ice age" or, more precisely, "glacial age" is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Within a long-term ice age, individual pulses of extra cold climate are termed "glacial periods" (or alternatively "glacials" or "glaciations" or colloquially as "Ice Age" ), and intermittent warm periods are called "interglacials". Glaciologically, ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres;[1] by this definition we are still in the ice age that began at the start of the Pleistocene (because the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets still exist).[2]

More colloquially, "the ice age" refers to the most recent colder period that peaked at the Last Glacial Maximum approximately 20,000 years ago, in which extensive ice sheets lay over large parts of the North American and Eurasian continents. This article will use the term ice age in the former, glaciological, sense: glacials' for colder periods during ice ages and interglacials for the warmer periods.

So yes, we are currently in an ice age. We are in an inter-glacial period within that ice age, which (absent human interference) would be expected to end in a few thousands or tens of thousand years and be succeeded by another glacial period. The ice age itself probably won't end until plate tectonics rearranges the continents such that there are none over or near either of the poles (again, absent human interference; as TShaitanaku explained, this one may be brought to a premature end by the sequence of events initiated by our activities).

I would expect the posters in a science forum like this one to use the scientific definition of terms like 'theory' and 'ice age' rather than the colloquial definition.

 

[Trakar]

To be clear, there are even those among the field professions who improperly refer to advancing glaciations as "ice ages," it is problematic but difficult to correct. There are enough such references and confusions that it is futile to get too worked up about the issue. I generally mention such periodically and offer the proper definitions and explanations, and then let the issue drop. Those who are truely interested in the science and facts pick up on it, those who have other issues and find that other words (whether or not they are accurate) fit their dogma better, are welcome to them.

Though my feelings about wiki are known, in this instance, they explain the issue much as I have over the last few decades.

 

[Matt Giwer]

Not true. Statistical analysis is the same either way.

Not true. Statistics is the same tool as it was before.

Not true. Raw data, adjusted data or medium-well data... statistics is equally applicable.

By changing the input data for deterministic reasons the data is no longer what is required for the theoretical foundations of statistics to apply. It is no different from changing coin toss results for deterministic reasons and then discovering the odds are no longer 50-50. It is as simple as that.

One cannot wish away the theoretical foundations of statistics and apply the methodology to data which does not satisfy the theoretical requirements for what is being analyzed.

I cannot change that. You cannot change that. Wishful thinking cannot change that.

The "importance" of global warming cannot change that.

 

[macdoc]

Back in the real world I've just about washed my hands of H Sapiens in regard to not cooking themselves and the rest of the biome.

Obama is now crippled and any small progress there likely to be reversed.

and in Canada an unelected Conservative dominated Senate just killed the last remaining vestige of respectable commitment to reduced carbon without even a debate.

November 17, 2010

(Ottawa) Stephen Harper has done what he promised to never do, allow the Senate to go against the will of the majority of Members of Parliament and the Canadian public. Last night, Stephen Harper’s Senators voted to defeat the Climate Change Accountability Act (Bill C-311) before the bill even had a chance to be debated.

“The Climate Change Accountability Act (Bill C-311) has been the only strong piece of climate change legislation before Parliament. It has been supported by a majority of MPs twice, and represents the will of the majority of Canadians who want our government to take strong action on climate change,” says Keith Stewart of Greenpeace Canada. “In using an undemocratic, nineteenth-century institution to avoid dealing with the twenty-first century’s most pressing environmental problem, the Harper government is being both hypocritical and irresponsible.”

The Climate Change Accountability Act passed through the House of Commons to the Senate in the spring of last year. Because Conservative Senators had chosen not to take the opportunity to debate the bill, the bill had not yet been referred to a committee for study. Instead of doing so, Conservative Senators called a surprise vote last night, and managed to kill the bill while many of its supporters were away from the Senate.

“It seems clear that the Conservative government doesn’t want to be accountable to Canadians about setting and meeting climate targets,” said Clare Demerse from the Pembina Institute. “This bill would have required the government to publish regular reports explaining its climate policy to Canadians – and as things currently stand, every one of those reports would have created bad headlines for the government.”

“This manipulation of the democratic process is irresponsible and goes against the campaign promises that Stephen Harper made on accountability, transparency and democratic fairness, not to mention Senate reform,” says Steven Guilbeault of Equiterre. “The Harper controlled senate has been delaying discussions of this bill for months, and now they have killed it without even the due process in terms of bringing the bill to committee and debating it. It is like a jury arriving at a verdict in a trial without hearing any witnesses or knowing what they need to know about the case.”
“In the face of the climate change crisis, and weeks before the United Nations climate talks begin in Cancun, this is a clear signal that this government is refusing to take global warming seriously,” says Graham Saul of Climate Action Network Canada. “Right now, Canada’s government is on track to arrive at the UN climate talks in Cancun with no plan to reach its target and having just killed the country’s best chance to do better, despite majority support from MPs and Canadians for stronger climate action.”

a pox on them all...

 

[Trakar]

Back in the real world I've just about washed my hands of H Sapiens in regard to not cooking themselves and the rest of the biome.

Obama is now crippled and any small progress there likely to be reversed.

and in Canada an unelected Conservative dominated Senate just killed the last remaining vestige of respectable commitment to reduced carbon without even a debate.

...unfortunately, greatly similar to my own assessment a while back. There is no relief in company. I am not resigned to defeat, but rather to a far more restricted and harsh future. I really did not anticipate "terraforming run amok" to be high up on our specie's agenda for a few centuries yet,...but, I'm sure the knowledge gained over the coming centuries will temper the mettle of our descendents well into the future...

a pox on them all...

They curse themselves far better than I could ever, in good conscience, condemn upon them.

 

[macdoc]

Yeah peak oil is coming with a rush and what the idjits don't seem to get is decarboning is more about that than the atmosphere in the short term.

It looks at this point it will forced change with huge economic forces at play rather than some level of management of the transition.

The world is going to continue to warm regardless of what steps are taken as at least .6 C addition to the current .6 is now embedded within a few short decades.
That of course will increase as we keep pumping the carbon so coping will be the norm instead of avoiding the worst by limiting to 2 degrees C by 2100.

With 50% more population the peak of cheap fossil will simply come far sooner and force change....maybe in some respects that is better than dragging out a losing battle.

Let it hit the wall hard

We have 45% nuclear and 30 % hydro in Ontario and rates are still forecast to rise 46% for electricity within 5 years. This decade is going to be a hell of a ride and I'm already plotting my escape....new SigO has solar hot water and panels and lives in year around warmth.
4 years out I'll be ready to consider settling there if it gets too gnarly.

With the latest failures of carbon control everywhere and the massive economic tsunami's looming ( my opinion - we've not seen nuthin' yet )... I don't see much if any progress except in places like Sweden from a purely atmosphere protection.

There is simply too much cheap coal around and too many lily livered or corrupt politicians and coal may yet supply fuel ala SASOil process.

Only the recession knocked down emissions a bit last year and I suspect it will not be repeated.
Govs will not be able to afford the high subsidies for alternative power as they are generally broke.

This is what people don't get

IEA fears oil spike if climate pledges fail

By Javier Blas and Sylvia Pfeifer in London

Published: November 3 2010 22:30 | Last updated: November 3 2010 22:30

The global energy watchdog will next week throw its weight behind calls for governments to implement pledges to fight climate change and cut fossil fuel subsidies, warning that a failure to do so would significantly inflate oil prices​

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bc40251a-e787-11df-b5b4-00144feab49a.html#ixzz15i6UErES

One way or another there is a cost to be born and it will get paid .....we can either decarbon now, or keep BAU, pay through the nose for oil and then STILL have to decarbon anyways......

Total ****wits in charge.....
​

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bc40251a-e787-11df-b5b4-00144feab49a.html#axzz15i6QSDlN

 

[Matt Giwer]

We have 45% nuclear and 30 % hydro in Ontario and rates are still forecast to rise 46% for electricity within 5 years.

Why is this increase going to happen? Some details, please. That you wish to imply it is because of the cost of fossil fuel does not make it so. As I understand it Ontario regulates utilities prices so the reasons for the increase are in the public record so there is no excuse for you not to know the reasons for the increase.

 

[macdoc]

Expect more rain, heat and hurricanes, say scientists

November 18th, 2010 in Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Enlarge

A Malawian farmer works on his land in Nsanje district, 2005.

Scientists say hungry polar bears gathering along the tundra, twice as many record-breaking temperatures and stronger hurricanes are among the latest signs of climate change.
Hungry polar bears gathering along the tundra, twice as many record-breaking temperatures and stronger hurricanes are among the latest signs of climate change, scientists say.
And we can expect more rain, more drought and fiercer storms in the future if the world continues on its fossil-fuel gobbling track, they told reporters on a conference call Wednesday to discuss the year in global warming.
Michael Mann, a leading US scientist, said he just returned from a trip to Churchill, Manitoba, the Canadian shore town famous for its polar bears, where the sea ice they depend on for hunting seals has not yet formed because of warm temperatures.
"When you go up there you see the bears all along the coast on the tundra awaiting the sea ice to form and it hasn't formed yet," Mann said.
"This was for me a very tangible and personal opportunity to see the impacts of climate change firsthand," he said. "The Arctic is in many respects a harbinger of things to come on our planet." Mann also pointed to research being presented on Capitol Hill by another climate scientist, Jerry Meehl of National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), showing the number of record-breaking hot days is twice as high as the record cold days.

continues
http://www.physorg.com/print209297609.html

 

[macdoc]

Scientists find toxic algae in open ocean, botching idea for fighting global warming November 18, 2010 By Keith Rozendal Enlarge
Blooms of toxic algae can occur in the open ocean, a team led by University of California-Santa Cruz and Moss Landing Marine Lab scientists reported last week.



Once thought to be a problem plaguing only the coast, causing fisheries closures and wildlife deaths, the research shows that open sea algae populations also occasionally bloom into a toxic soup.


The scientists found toxin-producing algae almost everywhere they looked within open regions of the Pacific Ocean. The scientists also detected domoic acid, the toxin that the algae produces. The toxicity exploded whenever iron was added to the water, producing a population boom.
"They grew like a fury," said UCSC ocean scientist Mary Silver, who designed the research. "They are really responsive to iron."


Algae blooms visible from the moon grew during previous studies fertilizing open ocean waters with iron. Kenneth Coale, director of the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, led these studies in 1995 and 2002. The toxicity of the blooms could not be confirmed until more sensitive measures were invented.
Even up to 12 years later, algae toxin remained in the iron-enriched seawater samples Coale had in storage.

more
http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-scientists-toxic-algae-ocean-botching.html