Global Warming/Climate Change Discussion Thread

[Zrow]

Next time he starts ask if he can stick to the subject because he isn't being paid to give political rants. Seeing as how you are paying for his services you should have every right to ask him not to do this.

A professor/teacher that subjugates their students to this (from either side of the aisle) make me sick. If I stood around having political debates at my job I would get fired.

That's an idea. If he tries to tell you he can rant like that remind him that at a real job he would be fired if he acted in the same manner. Be sure to include the emphasis on real.

I'd love to - his whole lecture weaves in and out of his politics and actual anthropology, which makes the actual content we're supposed to know hard to filter out. I should probably stay on his good side though, as he is the keeper of my grade.

I admit that my economics teacher is a total pro-capitalist, but that's actually the economic theory that he teaches.

 

[FoolKiller]

I'd love to - his whole lecture weaves in and out of his politics and actual anthropology, which makes the actual content we're supposed to know hard to filter out. I should probably stay on his good side though, as he is the keeper of my grade.

Well, you would have to have a witness to your comment and then show that your grade went downhill immediately afterward.

Or follow these simple steps:

1)Use an audio tape recorder.
2)Give a copy to the Dean and the school's Omsbudsman.
3)See if he changes then.
4) If no change, send a copy to local media.

 

[Zrow]

The funny thing is, I picked this professor because I read that he was great. Figures. It's hard for me to believe that I'm the only one that disagrees with his points, but nobody else really seems to notice/care.

Of course, it's a 9am class, and I'm usually just half awake myself.

 

[Zardoz]

API Plans Major Disinformation Campaign (April, 1998)

And, of course, it's been going on all along since then. It's been well documented.

A proposed media-relations budget of $600,000, not counting any money for advertising, would be directed at science writers, editors, columnists and television network correspondents, using as many as 20 ''respected climate scientists'' recruited expressly ''to inject credible science and scientific accountability into the global climate debate, thereby raising questions about and undercutting the 'prevailing scientific wisdom.' ''

This is precisely the strategy described in this post, of course.

Many have bought into this, so it's been somewhat effective. Certainly more effective than the wussy Kyoto requirements would've been. Multiply Kyoto times ten or twenty, and maybe we could've done some good.


EDIT:

Might as well throw this in:

Rapid temperature increases above the Antarctic

We keep seeing the word "rapid" in these reports, don't we?

BBC blurb:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4857832.stm

 

[Famine]

Might as well throw this in:

Rapid temperature increases above the Antarctic

We keep seeing the word "rapid" in these reports, don't we?

BBC blurb:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4857832.stm

Hmm:

It's the largest regional warming on Earth at this level.

There are arguments for and against this temperature rise being caused by greenhouse gases. The problem is trying to differentiate between what is happening naturally and what is happening because of man's activities.

To try to resolve the conundrum, the BAS team compared the data with 20 simulations of the climate over the last century.

The models simulate rising levels of greenhouse gases and are used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to replicate past climates and make predictions for the future.

The team found that in all cases, the models failed to simulate the rise.

Dr Turner believes this could mean the temperature rise is a result of a natural fluctuation in Antarctica's climate or that current models are inadequate.

Dr Jeff Ridley, a climate scientist at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in the UK, agrees.

He believes it is likely that current climate models are unable to sufficiently recreate conditions on the continent.

"I've looked at all these models and seen that Antarctica is not very well modelled at all," he said. "So we shouldn't put too much confidence in what they tell us is going to happen there."

The guys doing the research say that climate models, as used by the IPCC to tell us what will happen in the future to the global mean temperature, are inaccurate - in the Antarctic at least.


Interestingly, the Stratospheric Cooling effect to which they refer (as the lower layers of the Earth's atmosphere trap more heat and warm up, the upper layers get less radiated heat and cool down) has indeed been going on since the 60s. But since the eruption of Mount Pinatubo caused a dramatic drop in stratosphere temperatures, the trend has been for the stratosphere to warm slightly - the opposite of what is predicted by global warmers.


I'm not quite sure where you get the idea that there's a myth that global warming is not scientific consensus, especially when the people to which you've just referred say that they just don't know whether the reported effect they've just released is because of man or natural Antarctic variations, or portions of each.

 

[Zardoz]

...I'm not quite sure where you get the idea that there's a myth that global warming is not scientific consensus...

I get it from stuff like this:

A surprising consensus is transforming the complex politics of global warming

Even the "political" wind is changing, and its the scientific consensus that is causing it.

(You mentioned Pinatubo. Did you know that human activity pumps as much CO2 into the air every year as 100 to 500 Pinatubo eruptions, depending on whether you use the high estimate or low estimate of Pinatubo's CO2 output?)

 

[Famine]

(You mentioned Pinatubo. Did you know that human activity pumps as much CO2 into the air every year as 100 to 500 Pinatubo eruptions, depending on whether you use the high estimate or low estimate of Pinatubo's CO2 output?)

Pinatubo caused global cooling and stratospheric heating. Since you say carbon dioxide causes global warming (and stratospheric cooling), where's the comparison?

Did you know that human activity pumps as much CO2 into the air every year as one thirtieth of the rest of the world?

 

[Danoff]

I get it from stuff like this:

A surprising consensus is transforming the complex politics of global warming

Even the "political" wind is changing, and its the scientific consensus that is causing it.

(You mentioned Pinatubo. Did you know that human activity pumps as much CO2 into the air every year as 100 to 500 Pinatubo eruptions, depending on whether you use the high estimate or low estimate of Pinatubo's CO2 output?)

No response to famines previous post? Just more articles written by non-scientists who are trying to push paper?

 

[Kylehnat]

What? We can't post scientific articles from liberty.edu? It's an academic institution, you know!
[/Jerry Falwell bashing....for now]

 

[Zardoz]

No response to famines previous post? Just more articles written by non-scientists who are trying to push paper?

Which post?

Very few scientists write articles for the major media outlets. However, non-scientist writers report what scientists are saying, doing, and publishing. Do you object to that? If a journalist reports on scientific work, is it somehow invalid to you?

Why are Steve Milloy's "Junk Science" articles valid? He's certainly a non-scientist pushing paper. Could it be because his stuff dovetails with your opinion?

 

[Famine]

You mean Steven Milloy:

a B.A. in Natural Sciences from the Johns Hopkins University, a Master of Health Sciences in Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Baltimore, and a Master of Laws from the Georgetown University Law Center.

?

Just checking.

 

[Swift]

Well that on hurts.

 

[Zardoz]

...Just checking.

Yes, I know that. Is he a climatologist?

 

[Famine]

Does he need to be when analysing statistics?

 

[Keef]

OOHHHHHH! Buuuuuuurn!

I'd say no, by the way.

And the main reason for volcanoes' cooling of the earth is because of all the dust and dirt ejected into the air that blocks the sun, not the actual gases inside that ejection, although they probably help a little.

 

[Zardoz]

Does he need to be when analysing statistics?

Yeah, actually, he does. The work of climatologists needs to be peer-reviewed. Steve Milloy is not a peer.

So, apparently you agree with danoff that the writings of a non-climatologist with a Bachelor's in Natural Science are somehow more valid than a journalist reporting on the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the Royal Society, the Hadley Research Center, the British Antarctic Survey, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the National Academy of Science, and the Woods Hole Research Center?

Please explain how that works. I would like to hear danoff's explanation, as well.

 

[Zardoz]

I'm not quite sure where you get the idea that there's a myth that global warming is not scientific consensus...

I also get it from here. Journalists are not writing this stuff, so maybe danoff will assign it a little validity, at least:

From The Royal Society -

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/landing.asp?id=1278

There is an international scientific consensus that increasing levels of man-made greenhouse gases are leading to global climate change.


Ignore this at your discretion:

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=2986

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/downloaddoc.asp?id=1630



More on the carbon dioxide issue:

From the IPCC report -

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/125.htm

In conclusion, anthropogenic CO2 emissions are virtually certain to be the dominant factor determining CO2 concentrations throughout the 21st century. The importance of anthropogenic emissions is underlined by the expectation that the proportion of emissions taken up by both ocean and land will decline at high atmospheric CO2 concentrations (even if absolute uptake by the ocean continues to rise). There is considerable uncertainty in projections of future CO2 concentration, because of uncertainty about the effects of climate change on the processes determining ocean and land uptake of CO2. These uncertainties do not negate the main finding that anthropogenic emissions will be the main control.

That page is from here:

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/095.htm

And that one is from here:

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/

Keep in mind that the IPCC report is way out of date. The next one is due in 2007. Considering what has been going on lately, and the shock and surprise climatologists are expressing about how rapidly things are happening, we can't even guess as to what the new report's conclusions will be.

 

[Famine]

Yeah, actually, he does. The work of climatologists needs to be peer-reviewed. Steve Milloy is not a peer.

So, apparently you agree with danoff that the writings of a non-climatologist with a Bachelor's in Natural Science are somehow more valid than a journalist reporting on the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the Royal Society, the Hadley Research Center, the British Antarctic Survey, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the National Academy of Science, and the Woods Hole Research Center?

Please explain how that works. I would like to hear danoff's explanation, as well.

He reviews the statistics only - not the materials, methods or results themselves. Just the analysis of the results. As it is, he IS a peer in that respect, holding a Masters' degree in Biostatistics.

He analyses results, the journalist reports on the results as presented - without necessarily understanding them.


And you're still quoting the IPCC as gospel, despite your previous source - the British Antarctic Survey - saying in the text you referenced that the IPCC's models do not replicate reality.

 

[Danoff]

So, apparently you agree with danoff that the writings of a non-climatologist with a Bachelor's in Natural Science are somehow more valid than a journalist reporting on the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the Royal Society, the Hadley Research Center, the British Antarctic Survey, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the National Academy of Science, and the Woods Hole Research Center?

There's a range of validity to the arguments. You post some valid articles/papers, that have some real authority behind them, and you post a lot that have none.

Something you don't do, is respond to any of Famine's arguments about the scope of emissions. I think it's irresponsible to go grab papers and articles supporting your viewpoint instead of addressing the issues he brings up. It's like you're saying "See! I have people on my side, so you should just trust them like I do." You should understand what your own viewpoints better than that if you're going to have them. I, for one, don't really have a viewpoint, so there isn't much of a problem. As it is, I stand unconvinced. That's not a hard position to support, all I have to do is throw stones.

 

[Zardoz]

Looked at your post again:

Death.

...Why not try actually addressing some of the points Famine and I (mostly Famine) have laid out?

Right. Like I haven't. You mentioned two that seem to be important to you:

...Take a look at that CO2 chart and the lack of corresponding temperature change.

Okay, but first you'll have to tell me which one you're talking about. You can't mean this one:

It doesn't show CO2, so you can't be referring to the much-maligned "hockey stick" chart, which the denial community went after like a pack of hyenas on a crippled gazelle:

Millennial Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperature reconstruction (blue – tree rings, corals, ice cores, historical records) and instrumental data (red) from AD 1000 to 1999. A smoother version (black), and two standard error limits (grey) are shown. Source: IPCC Third Assessment Report

This was typical of their attacks:

The `Hockey Stick': A New Low in Climate Science

An incredible amount of energy was expended on attacking it. Problem with their hysterical zeal, as it turns out, is that the "flaw" that took the little bump out of the shaft of the stick is of minor consequence, and many other studies, which have not been refuted, arrived at the same result: A sharp jump in temps starting when we began to really run through our supply of fossil fuels with a vengeance. (What an amazing coincidence, huh?) The hockey stick has been pretty thoroughly revived and rehabilitated:

Scientific American

BBC News

This really has fizzled out as an issue, but if you want to chew on the shaft of the stick some more, be my guest.

Take a look at the solar output charts I put on this thread 50 pages back and try addressing those.

Searched for a while, but couldn't find them. Please re-post. Do they refer only to what the sun is doing, or how much solar energy we're getting down here where we actually live? :

The Darkening Earth

Why the Sun seems to be 'dimming'

Are Skies Dimming Over Earth?

Solar activity, measured by satellites orbiting above the atmosphere, is one thing, but all that matters is what is actually getting through all the particulate matter we've filled the air with. Seems like we can't point our fingers up and say "the sun did it" after all. In fact, if it weren't for dimming, temps would be even higher.

...Both Famine and I have quoted your articles and showed how they use inferences to draw conclusions which aren't supported.

Which are "not supported"? Please support your claim of non-support.

And try not to fall back on logical fallacies like "attacking the source" either. Just because Exxon sponsored it doesn't mean it's wrong.

Nope, sorry. No can do. Professional deniers are using this "argument" heavily to defend their spurious work. They really want us to think ExxonMobil's financial support has no erosive effect on their credibility. Do you really think there is no significance to the fact that ExxonMobil has bankrolled a huge chunk of the global warming denial effort? Now THAT is seriously illogical, and naive, as well. The disinformation campaign started clear back in 1997, and continues to this day, as I posted previously.

And just because a million journalists agree with you, doesn't make you right.

Where did that come from? Read through my posts. I don't quote journalists, do I? I quote climatologists. Find a post of mine where I quote a journalist as a referrence or an authority. Of course, "journalists" are reporting the work of the climatologists, so should we kill the messengers for having the nerve to report data generated by scientists that conflicts with our beliefs? That's the same fallacious argument that's being used in Iraq.

...Something you don't do, is respond to any of Famine's arguments about the scope of emissions...

Okay. Let's start here:

That chart shows billions of tons per year! And it's climbing steadily! "Scope of emissions"??? What, you think this is insignificant? You think the biosphere is invulnerable or something? We're fiddling with the controls of an extremely delicate life-support system, and we have no idea what the controls do! You think its all attributable to coincidence that this is happening precisely during the human Industrial Age? :

CO2 'highest for 650,000 years'

Still think 25 billion tons of human-produced CO2 every damned year is insignificant? Well, it's all we need to do this:

Prove something to me: Prove that "natural forces" are doing this. Prove it.

Earth is too crowded for Utopia

"Utopia"? Ha! How about "life as we know it"?

You think 6,500,000,000 constant consumers can't have an effect? Huh? I'm sorry danoff, and Famine, and FK, but recent developments have proven deniers like you wrong. As of 2006, the burden of proof has shifted. It's up to the denial community to prove we neurotic hominids are not inflicting severe damage on the biosphere. You are the ones who have to prove conclusively that we haven't screwed the pooch, and do it in the face of an ever-increasing stream of data that indicates that we have done exactly that.



EDIT:

BushCo is getting desperate:

Climate Researchers Feeling Heat From White House

That SOB seriously needs to get his butt impeached and removed from office.

 

[Famine]

Okay, but first you'll have to tell me which one you're talking about.

This one:

Which shows that not only is atmospheric carbon dioxide at near to an all-time low, but that it was 10 times more concentrated during the Ordovician ice age and that over geological timespans, the Earth in the most recent 15% of its life has been on average 6 whole degrees hotter than it is now without man to "influence" it...


You're also getting hung up on numbers. BILLIONS of tons of something must be absolutely loads, right?

Wrong. Not only is mankind contributing only about 3% of global carbon dioxide emissions (check with the IPCC and DoE - prove it to yourself), but the atmosphere itself weighs 5,300,000 BILLION tonnes. To turn this into something resembling comprehension, get a container of water capable of holding 250 litres of water and fill it. This is the atmosphere. Now add a single drop of red food colouring. That's man's carbon dioxide emissions compared to the atmosphere. Give it a damn good shake. See any change in colour? Take 5ml out, stick it into a quartz cuvette and run it through a spectrophotometer - comparing it with 5ml of the original water. See any difference?

If you fancy a second run through, add 30 drops. This is what the rest of the world, without man, produces.

 

[DeLoreanBrown]

Famine, what's so special about the 'ave.(!?) global temp' that it has to be represented in that there chart as something varying within 12'C - 22'C?
Is the present of no merit? Why 12?

 

[Famine]

Famine, what's so special about the 'ave.(!?) global temp' that it has to be represented in that there chart as something varying within 12'C - 22'C?
Is the present of no merit? Why 12?

I'm sorry, but your post is practically illegible.

You appear to be asking why the scale on the right-hand side uses 12, 17 and 22 degrees. The simplest answer is that the Earth's average global temperature over the last 650 million years has varied pretty much between 22 and 12 degrees. 17 is marked as it represents a halfway point between the two extremes of temperature. For reference, the current global mean temperature is at about 11.5 degrees, or about the same as the last really kickass ice age. Worryingly, we're due another one sometime in the next 5-10,000 years. On that graph that's less than a pixel more on the horizontal axis, and we're at the right kind of global temperature...

 

[DeLoreanBrown]

'

Thanks,

The alltime global mean would be seventeen or above, let's say, in the region of the ambient energy hike we're expected to see by 2100, according to some experts.

That would mean that this century we actually return to the Ave.

 

[Famine]

Well quite.

One thing about which there is no doubt is that current global average temperatures are marginally - and boy do I mean marginally - higher now than 150 years ago. Now in terms of man's lifespan that's not very long, but in terms of the planet's lifespan it's practically nothing. We are currently sitting at a point in geological-level time where global temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at are an all-time low. Stretch the graph out enough - to say, 100 years, and it appears that we're at an all-time high. Stretch it out yet further and, since today is cooler than yesterday, zOMfG! I©3 4g3! 1111one!

Fact is we know so little about the mechanisms surrounding the climate that to make any supposition one way or the other is highly premature. Hell, we don't understand the weather enough to tell you what it'll be like next Sunday, but we're expected to say with certainty what the entire climate will be like in a hundred years' time?

Mankind might be making the world hotter, but as I showed earlier, just because the amounts of stuff we make are incredibly huge to us doesn't mean they're incredibly huge to the planet - we'd have to chuck out last year's CO2 production for the next 6,000 years in order to even match what is currently taught as the CO2 component of the air. And even that's assuming CO2 is the culprit which, given the estimated atmospheric concentration of 4,000 parts per million during the Ordovician Ice Age (compared to the estimated 320ppm today), even that cornerstone of Anthropogenic Climate Change isn't looking too useful.

Advocating broad, legislated lifestyle changes based upon short term calculations of an highly long-term effect with no clear understanding of why the effect occurs is foolish. By all means save electricity/energy/whatever - it'll cost you less money. But don't tell me that you're "saving the planet" (got to wonder what for, really, but I digress) while you're doing it because, even if we CAN affect the climate, you're actually saving humans - the planet can take care of itself - and you may have a completely different effect from the one you think you're having because we just do not understand it.

 

[Danoff]

An incredible amount of energy was expended on attacking it. Problem with their hysterical zeal, as it turns out, is that the "flaw" that took the little bump out of the shaft of the stick is of minor consequence, and many other studies, which have not been refuted, arrived at the same result: A sharp jump in temps starting when we began to really run through our supply of fossil fuels with a vengeance. (What an amazing coincidence, huh?) The hockey stick has been pretty thoroughly revived and rehabilitated:

Who are you talking to? You can't just pick someone else's argument, attack it, and claim you've commented on anything I said.

Searched for a while, but couldn't find them. Please re-post. Do they refer only to what the sun is doing, or how much solar energy we're getting down here where we actually live? :

The Darkening Earth

Why the Sun seems to be 'dimming'

Are Skies Dimming Over Earth?

Solar activity, measured by satellites orbiting above the atmosphere, is one thing, but all that matters is what is actually getting through all the particulate matter we've filled the air with. Seems like we can't point our fingers up and say "the sun did it" after all. In fact, if it weren't for dimming, temps would be even higher.

I've posted them at least twice. Here are the charts.

Here's wikipedia:

here' an entire wikipedia entry devoted to solar variation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation
here's one for global dimming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming

So here's a nice plot

from space.com http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun_output_030320.html
Here's the one I originally posted.

Here's another one

from here: http://www.intellicast.com/DrDewpoint/Library/1295/
that website has a few others

One interesting thing I've found is that the solar output is also causing global warming on Mars. Satellites at Mars have been starting to see a trend there as well.


Even your heroes the IPCC admit that the Sun is contributing to warming. They think they know how much it contributes - [sarcasm] and I'm sure they know it perfectly. [/sarcasm] I hate to use them against you, but perhaps this will calm your "solar dimming" fears.

Here:

Note the positive change in global temp due to the sun.
I got that here
http://www.ipcc.ch/present/graphics.htm

Nope, sorry. No can do. Professional deniers are using this "argument" heavily to defend their spurious work. They really want us to think ExxonMobil's financial support has no erosive effect on their credibility. Do you really think there is no significance to the fact that ExxonMobil has bankrolled a huge chunk of the global warming denial effort? Now THAT is seriously illogical, and naive, as well. The disinformation campaign started clear back in 1997, and continues to this day, as I posted previously.

That doesn't change the fact that what you're using is a logical fallacy.

 

[Zardoz]

Phoenix Rises (Again) on Global Warming

Another hack writer, another overblown story, right?

 

[DeLoreanBrown]

'

This may be a little backwater (a pacific rim scientific research methodological collective); But, Check this small paper(mostly reference warning).

Its where i grabbed this;



This 'coincidental' species of graph is frequenter in recurrence on the 'deniet'(?)

 

[Famine]

That's the "hockey stick" graph.

 

[DeLoreanBrown]

'

The document references Mann for it, but there's controversy about who did the work on it. It is eight years old, but these arguments have been backgrounding a while.

I would also like to point out something about danoff's chosen graph; http://www.ipcc.ch/present/graphics/2001syr/large/06.01.jpg.

The graph does indeed bar solar radiation for positive warming, but it is in the lowermost column of very low surface warming (Watts/MxM, i presume).

Is this suprising?, we should be aware today that the sun is approaching it's prime, it is a young ambitious man radiating steadily greater quantities of energy, considerably stronger now than at the emergence of life on this sphere. It is component numero uno in this energy matrix we are discussing and to disregard any tertiary effects is foolhardy.



Update;

Check today's BBC article; Two-way 'Dimming'