Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[quadraginta]

Is there not a whole above the Arctic? If not.... Why?

A whole what?

 

[lomiller]

So is the original data wrong, from the OP. Was it just made up?

Real data but not enough of it to be statistically significant.

To get a valid trend you need to pick a period long enough that ENSO (el nina/la nina) and natural year to year variations drop away. The period used here cherry pickes at the top of a BIG el nino (warmer) to start and ends with a couple la nina (cooler) years.

 

[lomiller]

It is considered gauche to refer to global warming these days. The politically correct term is climate change.

Using "climate change" instead of global warming was promoted by right wing spin doctors because their focus groups said people found the former less threatening and therefor figured it would be easier to argue against.

In reality both terms are in common use, though climate change is the more general one. In this case since we are strictly talking about temperature global warming is correct.

 

[lomiller]

Is it true that the Artice ice sheets are shrinking, while the Antarctic ice sheets are growing?

Nope both are shrinking. Perhaps you mean sea ice, in which case Arctic sea ice is shrinking dramatically while Antarctic sea ice is showing a small increase right around the edge of statistical significance.

Interesting the the small increase in Antarctic sea ice is despite warmer air and water temperatures. Reduced salinity of surface water, possibly due to fresh water melting from Antarctic glaciers is the primary suspect.

 

[Olowkow]

I'm far from an expert on climate, but the problem with the term "warming" is that too many seem to think that if we have a colder winter, then that means there is no global warming, and the issue risks being confused by the terms. Even this past summer is not necessarily predictive of another hot summer. The bottom line is the "change", not just of weather, but of the earth's climate. The warming trend is sometimes difficult to communicate without proper charts such as the famous "hockey stick". The charts show lots of ups and downs where temperature means are concerned, but the trend is upward. AGW deniers may proudly show one small segment of a graph, where there is in fact a dip, and draw the disingenuous conclusion that 2500 IPCC scientists are wrong.

I learned recently, by the way, that the rise in sea level is mainly due to the warming of the oceans (expansion of water), not the added water from glacial melt. I have not checked the truth of this claim about expansion as the cause yet, but the lecturer seems to know his stuff. Of course, icebergs melting add nothing to sea level.

I recently read Romney's answer on the Scientific American questionnaire. He essentially takes both sides, it is really pretty blatant, but there it is.

 

[Caper]

I know personally I have observed climate change. I'm only 33, but when I was a kid everyone in my hometown owned a snowmobile. Now, no one owns them. There simply isn't enough snow.

On the other hand. When I first heard about Global warming 20 years ago, there was a tone of doom and gloom talk. I remember teachers telling us how in 20 years the sea level would be higher then all the docks down the shore and the sea would be flooding residential areas..... None of that happened. Im sure it's happening, but its hard not to be suspect about the doom and gloom scenarios.

 

[lomiller]

I'm far from an expert on climate, but the problem with the term "warming" is that too many seem to think that if we have a colder winter, then that means there is no global warming, and the issue risks being confused by the terms.

People tend to confuse colder with more snow. One of the implications of a warmer world is that there is more evaporation and correspondingly more precipitation. In the winter this typically means more snow.

A second issue is that it causes extreme weather events to become more frequent, and in the winter this can take the form of blizzards, which again, people think of as "cold" even though the temperatures that winter were actually warmer overall.

Anyway, like I said. Climate change is a more general term, global warming is more specific and descriptive. Both have their uses.

 

[lomiller]

I know personally I have observed climate change. I'm only 33, but when I was a kid everyone in my hometown owned a snowmobile. Now, no one owns them. There simply isn't enough snow.

On the other hand. When I first heard about Global warming 20 years ago, there was a tone of doom and gloom talk. I remember teachers telling us how in 20 years the sea level would be higher then all the docks down the shore and the sea would be flooding residential areas..... None of that happened. Im sure it's happening, but its hard not to be suspect about the doom and gloom scenarios.

Who where these people and where were they getting their information from. Certainly sea level is expected to rise, with more recent estimates being 1 - 2 meters (3 - 6 feet) over the next 100 years and possibly as much as 6 meters (20 feet) over the next several hindered, but the scientific community was never predicting anywhere near that much this soon.

 

[Olowkow]

I know personally I have observed climate change. I'm only 33, but when I was a kid everyone in my hometown owned a snowmobile. Now, no one owns them. There simply isn't enough snow.

On the other hand. When I first heard about Global warming 20 years ago, there was a tone of doom and gloom talk. I remember teachers telling us how in 20 years the sea level would be higher then all the docks down the shore and the sea would be flooding residential areas..... None of that happened. Im sure it's happening, but its hard not to be suspect about the doom and gloom scenarios.

Obviously, some predictions 20 years ago were wrong. Much has been learned since then.
There is an almost overwhelming amount of information on the IPCC site.

http://www.ipcc.ch/

The many graphs that depict every single parameter, sea level, temperature, snow cover, etc. all have many predictive curves, each with its own error bars. Either with small or large error bars, they all get worse. That's just a fact.

I grew up with smog and steel mills. Nobody that I recall was against losing the smog. But, maybe I just don't remember those contrarians.

 

[SezMe]

It is considered gauche to refer to global warming these days. The politically correct term is climate change.

The two terms are not interchangeable. There is global warming which causes climate change. Sure, I know the terms are sloppily used but I'd expect a better usage here.

 

[lomiller]

The two terms are not interchangeable. There is global warming which causes climate change. Sure, I know the terms are sloppily used but I'd expect a better usage here.

Global warming is one way the earths climate is changing. The cause of the change is mostly human activity.

 

[bit_pattern]

Interesting

http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/

David Rose has a long history of making up quotes - why on earth the Met still give him the time of day is beyond me

 

[SezMe]

Global warming is one way the earths climate is changing. The cause of the change is mostly human activity.

Yes, but aren't we chasing our semantic tail here. Human activity (read, release of CO₂ causies global warming which causes climate change which is caused by human activity. And, yes, things other than human activity contribute to the cycle.

Anyway, my original post was to shine a light on the false equivalence of the two terms as illustrated by Brainster's usage. I didn't mean to go beyond the terminology into science.

 

[bit_pattern]

But Phil Jones disagrees? Isn't this the same man who, according to the Daily Fail, admitted a couple of years ago that global warming ended in 1998?

Same journalist too. See Deltoid scienceblogs & search for rosegate

ETA

http://www.google.com.au/search?red...action=devloc&q=scienceblogs deltoid rosegate

 

[bit_pattern]

Yes. The hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is allowing heat to escape, when it closes the Antarctic will warm.

Also, the Antarctic is surround by ocean, the Arctic us surrounded by land and changes in deep water circulation paradoxically means surface temperatures in the southern ocean will get cooler before the region starts warming. This is something predicted over 20 years ago by climate models.

 

[bit_pattern]

I am looking for recent reviews of/sources of anti-science (re: climate) that passes over the higher bar. Not attacks on individuals, nor loud shouts of nonsense, but what on first glance (and ideally on second) appears to be sound argument. Any pointers? Again: the aim is to identify and respond to well-argued and misleading claims that might mislead
policy makers (not obvious hogwash).

While lots of scientific societies have put out "why it is real" pages, there is a perceived need for (soft spoken) scientific rebuttal of specific (ill founded) arguments. Does such a place already exist?

thx
lenny

Oh boy, do have the site for you!

www.skepticalscience.com

It is exactly the site you are looking for

 

[Caper]

This should all play out right? I mean for all the talk we have about doing something to combat it, little is ever done and it seems to me, what we would have to do....no one in the end would do it.

 

[bit_pattern]

This should all play out right? I mean for all the talk we have about doing something to combat it, little is ever done and it seems to me, what we would have to do....no one in the end would do it.

It's already playing out. The collapse of the Arctic sea ice is happening at a jaw dropping rate and is happening decades earlier than was previously forecast. Amplification of warming in the Arctic has pushed temperatures in the region up by three degrees over the last few decades and this year witnessed a surface melt over the complete Greenland ice mass. And all of this in the middle of a deep solar minimum and a La Nina cycle, both historically tend towards a cooling influence in the climate system.

Time is definitely running out & we're likely committed to more drastic change than we'd like doing nothing is not an option, if we continue emitting at the current rate for the rest of the century we'll see 6 degrees of warming, an absolute nightmare scenario (2 degrees is considered safe, we're already 0.8 of a degree into that)

 

[SezMe]

This should all play out right? I mean for all the talk we have about doing something to combat it, little is ever done and it seems to me, what we would have to do....no one in the end would do it.

'Fraid so. As long as the USA displays an utter lack of leadership on this issue, no real, effective action will happen. If Romney is elected, goodbye. If Obama is elected and continues his present leadership, goodbye. As long as Republicans hold a majority in either house of congress, goodbye.

It ain't a pretty picture.

 

[SezMe]

Time is definitely running out & we're likely committed to more drastic change than we'd like doing nothing is not an option, if we continue emitting at the current rate for the rest of the century we'll see 6 degrees of warming, an absolute nightmare scenario (2 degrees is considered safe, we're already 0.8 of a degree into that)

Yes. Remember that the IPCC reports are consensus documents. That means they are watered down to get them approved. They are, to use a dirty word, VERY conservative with regard to their predictions regarding future scenarios. So far, actual temperature, ice, etc. data show changes far worse than IPCC predictions.