|
I’d add that the human-caused global warming idea has achieved religeous levels in far too many people for comfort. It’s not just political: if you disagree it means you ’Don’t Care’, ’All real scientists agree’, ’All responsible scientists agree’, and so on. |
| |
Written By:
Firehand
URL:
http://elmtreeforge.blogspot.com
|
You don’t "believe" Global Warming is man-made and will lead to the destruction of our planet, the death of billions, and the end of civilization as we know it?
Get a rope! |
| |
Written By:
SShiell
URL:
http://
|
It’s worth noting that the short squib says nothing about whether the scientist believes that anthropogenic releases of greenhouse gases are causing changes in the climate.
what was the absolute temperature of the earth last year? Essentially a meaningless question. Was the earth warmer last year than historically? According to NOAA (as referenced on RealClimate.org), yes. Relative to the 30-year average, many more points on the globe were warmer than cooler and the size of the increases outweighed the size of the decreases.
|
| |
Written By:
Francis
URL:
http://
|
|
Any reasonable person can agree that we have had an increase in measured ground temperatures in the US over the past 50 or so years; warmer winters, etc. What we can’t agree on is how much, if anything, man has contributed to this change. One thing, beyond the scientific data, but provable is that my Viking ancestors settled in Greenland around 900 AD and farmed. The same is not possible today. Those hearty individuals had to abandon their settlement in the 1500’s due to the Little Ice Age. The well documented Medieval Warm Period was not caused by their camp fires nor was the documented Little Ice Age caused by man regardless of the elite of the time blaming it on the “climate cooking” sorcerers. Those who disagreed then were executed as perpetrators of the horrible weather. However, those who disagree today receive less horrific punishment; just banishment from scientific meetings, withdrawal of research grants and removal from Oregon’s and Delaware’s state climotologist positions. But it appears that more oppressive stifling of scientific debate and freedom of speech is being called for to save the world. I guess the al Qaeda terrorist threat is secondary. As my father says, thank God he won’t be around much longer to have to live through what is happening to us. At 62, I second that motion. |
| |
Written By:
AMR
URL:
http://
|
what was the absolute temperature of the earth last year? Essentially a meaningless question. We agree. He agrees. But that is what is being touted as proof of AGW. How many times have you heard the statement "the earth warmed by x degrees last year" as some sort of proof supporting AGW? Was the earth warmer last year than historically? According to NOAA (as referenced on RealClimate.org), yes. Relative to the 30-year average, many more points on the globe were warmer than cooler and the size of the increases outweighed the size of the decreases. OK ... and what does that mean in relation to AGW? That’s where he’s pushing you, Francis. Answer that question and tell us why. And don’t forget to factor in solar activity, cloud albedo and all the other complex systems integral to the global environment. Or El Niño-Southern Oscillation.
Then explain to us why a gas which makes up .003% of the atmosphere is supposedly driving this warming (even though temperature measurements in the troposphere don’t support that claim), when we only contribute 14% to that total and the ocean absorbs 50-60% of that. Or how we had CO2 totals which were 10 times the amount we now have and never suffered a "runaway greenhouse effect" previously.
And why the scare tactics about violent weather when most experts claim a warmer earth would see weather patterns moderated?
I’m sure those are among some of the reasons he thinks that what is out there right now is driven much more by politics than science. |
| |
Written By:
McQ
URL:
http://www.qando.net/blog
|
pedantry alert: the film you discussed last week (swindle thngy?) was a Channel 4 film, not BBC.
McQ,I cannot let this one hang:
Then explain to us why a gas which makes up .003% of the atmosphere is supposedly driving this warming (even though temperature measurements in the troposphere don’t support that claim), when we only contribute 14% to that total and the ocean absorbs 50-60% of that. Or how we had CO2 totals which were 10 times the amount we now have and never suffered a "runaway greenhouse effect" previously.
Go to the literature and read. As I have mentioned before the argument about excess CO2 and previous warmings is a red herring - the causes of those warmings have been discussed in the scientific literature. The point is that this warming is different in its nature - it is not simply a glacial-interglacial change as experienced many, many, many times in the past. The discussion of the percentage make-up of the atmosphere (closer to 0.04% for CO2 by the way) is also a red-herring and simply demonstrates a lack of understanding of the physics and chemistry of the system on your part.
Go to the literature (not even work on climate change) and read about the chemistry of the atmosphere and you will find that size isn’t everything. Take ozone, it makes up ~0.000004% of the atmosphere but its bloody important in preventing harmful EUV from reaching ground level. The charged portion of the atmosphere, the ionosphere, is tiny in comparison with the density of neutral species yet it is vastly important for radio communication.
By the way are you basing your claim about the Troposphere on the results of Spencer and Christy? Because every other estimate based on the satellite data has been higher than their original values. The reason for this ambiguity has now been rectifed (correcting for errors in the analysis) as reported by the US Climate Change Science program report in 2006 (of which Christy was an author)
The CCSP SAP 1.1 Executive Summary states:"Previously reported discrepancies between the amount of warming near the surface and higher in the atmosphere have been used to challenge the reliability of climate models and the reality of humaninduced global warming. Specifically, surface data showed substantial global-average warming, while early versions of satellite and radiosonde data showed little or no warming above the surface. This significant discrepancy no longer exists because errors in the satellite and radiosonde data have been identified and corrected. New data sets have also been developed that do not show such discrepancies." Remember, don’t believe everything you see on TV and please forgive me if my tone sounds arsey - it’s been a long day... |
| |
Written By:
Kav
URL:
http://livingrealworld.blogspot.com
|
This little blurb of a story is exactly correct. Air surface tempratures are simply not up to the task of portraying any "global" picture. The pronouncements you periodically hear about "the warmest" this or that are rhetoric and nothing else.
Climate Science had the best take on all of this:1. The needed focus for the study of climate change and variability is on the regional and local scales. Global and zonally-averaged climate metrics would only be important to the extent that they provide useful information on these space scales.
2. Global and zonally-averaged surface temperature trend assessments, besides having major difficulties in terms of how this metric is diagnosed and analyzed, do not provide significant information on climate change and variability on the regional and local scales. But they didn’t just complain about it, they offered the only scientific solution:4. The spatial pattern of ocean heat content change is the appropriate metric to assess climate system heat changes including global warming. But, of course, you can’t issue dire sounding press releases about data you don’t have.
|
| |
Written By:
Rich Horton
URL:
http://www.iconicmidwest.blogspot.com
|
New data sets have also been developed...
When the facts don’t fit, get new facts.
Are you serious? I’m not ready to spend a nickel on conclusions drawn by politicians from theories concocted by "scientists" who depend on grant money to fund their "research." After all, we can’t trust anything that might tend to disprove anthropogenic global warming, because they take money from industry. I’m just being even-handed here.
After all, in the March 14 Guardian, Mike Hulme admits: "Self-evidently dangerous climate change will not emerge from a normal scientific process of truth seeking" and "Climate change is too important to be left to scientists - least of all the normal ones."
They’ve said they are going to lie. OK, I’ll take them at their word.
|
| |
Written By:
MarkD
URL:
http://
|
MarkD,
I am funded to do research in solar-terrestrial physics. I could get more research money by only pushing the argument that climate change is all solar. I’m not doing that.They’ve said they are going to lie. OK, I’ll take them at their word. I missed where I said that. Funny how one person you quote becomes ’they’.New data sets have also been developed...
When the facts don’t fit, get new facts. Are you serious? Have you ever heard of improvements in technology, and the development of new techniques for measuring parameters or improvements in calibration? What are you, a luddite? |
| |
Written By:
Kav
URL:
http://livingrealworld.blogspot.com
|
The point is that this warming is different in its nature - it is not simply a glacial-interglacial change as experienced many, many, many times in the past. What makes it different from past cycles and how was this difference established?
Also, I’m not clear on the usefulness of average global temperature as a metric. Do you know of any accessible resources on that topic? |
| |
Written By:
Shasta
URL:
http://
|
MarkD, my apologies, the luddite thing was harsh.
Shasta, although sometimes derided, realclimate.org is a good place to start reading about it, especially by following links to papers and then following the citation trail.
Past cycles are heavily influenced by the planetary orbit (for example) and demonstrate a clear lag in the temperature-CO2 record as CO2 is released from the deep ocean and a feedback mechanism occurs. Its seems as though there is no lag in the current period (and certainly not a 800 year lag).
The initial point of this post is very interesting and I skimmed the paper earlier. I am going to be interested in seeing the climate scientist response. i have no answer straight away as I need to go think about his points. |
| |
Written By:
kav
URL:
http://livingrealworld.blogspot.com
|
Ms. Phillips trying to make some sense out of what is happening re: AGW:”Post-modernism long ago deconstructed truth. Now in similar vein, ‘post-normal’ science deconstructs scientific empiricism and rationalism and detaches science from truth. In other words, where science fails to support an ideology, the absolute and overriding imperative of putting that ideology into practice means that science has to suspend its very essence as a truth-seeking activity and instead perpetrate lies.
…So the true battleground has now been illuminated for us. The real fight is between scientists who believe in empirical observation and the truth, and ‘post-normal’ scientists who believe in ideology and lies. It’s a battle between Enlightenment values of rationality and those who wish to return us to a pre-rational era where thought was controlled and truth was a heresy. The stakes could not have been delineated more clearly.”
She’s just sayin’ |
| |
Written By:
notherbob2/robert fulton
URL:
http://
|
Past cycles are heavily influenced by the planetary orbit (for example) and demonstrate a clear lag in the temperature-CO2 record as CO2 is released from the deep ocean and a feedback mechanism occurs. Its seems as though there is no lag in the current period (and certainly not a 800 year lag).
If other increases in global temperature reliably attributable to essentially contemporaneous increases of CO2 are absent from the historical record, it is more than quixotic to attribute this rise in temperature to man-made CO2—that gas being similar in effect whether from man-made or natural sources.
So much so, that opposed to quixotic mania, I attribtute the Global Warming(TM) progaganda to malice.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, & pfpp |
| |
Written By:
Tom Perkins
URL:
http://
|
Past cycles are heavily influenced by the planetary orbit (for example) and demonstrate a clear lag in the temperature-CO2 record as CO2 is released from the deep ocean and a feedback mechanism occurs. Its seems as though there is no lag in the current period (and certainly not a 800 year lag). If other increases in global temperature reliably attributable to essentially contemporaneous increases of CO2 are absent from the historical record, it is more than quixotic to attribute this rise in temperature to man-made CO2—that gas being similar in effect whether from man-made or natural sources.
So much so, that opposed to quixotic mania, I attribtute the Global Warming(TM) progaganda to malice.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, & pfpp |
| |
Written By:
Tom Perkins
URL:
http://
|
|
The facts of the situation no longer matter. Government has agreed “Global Warming” exists, rather it does or not. NASA has announced a pln to launch trillions of small mirrors into the upper atmosphere to block sunlight. Another proposal is to seed the seas with billions of tones of iron to bind up CO2. Now that we have government consensus, there is no limit to what we can waste to solve what, most likely, is not a problem. |
| |
Written By:
James E. Fish
URL:
http://
|
Tom,
5/6 of the past warmings occur after the CO2 increase so the first 1/6 of the warming is not due to CO2. It’s a feedback mechanism. A glacial-interglacial warming begins, after a sufficient lag the rising temperature of the ocean starts to release CO2 (interestingly the long lag times involved might suggest that the CO2 is coming from the deep ocean). A feedback then occurs such that best estimates (which I suspect you will dismiss) put CO2 as responsible for about 1/2 of previous warmings. The point I am trying to make is that the lag of 800 years does not indicate an anti-correlation between temperature and CO2. So your point that:other increases in global temperature reliably attributable to essentially contemporaneous increases of CO2 are absent from the historical record is erroneous. It is a complex system that cannot be nailed down with a nice correlation study. The increase in CO2 occurs the heating occurs, what we do know is that the heating was not initiated by the release of CO2. But we also understand the concept of feedback in a system. Your point would be valid if anyone was arguing that all and every warming period in history is completely due to CO2. I know I’m not arguing that and I know most climatologists aren’t. |
| |
Written By:
kav
URL:
http://livingrealworld.blogspot.com
|
A glacial-interglacial warming begins I’ll bite, what causes the warming to beguin if not the hyped CO2? |
| |
Written By:
James E. Fish
URL:
http://
|
James,
One factor that has been identified is the Earth’s orbit - orbital forcing as its often termed. Look up the Milankovitch cycles, it is thought that these variations can affect the glacial-interglacial periods through modulation of the amount of solar power reaching the Earth. It is not a simple process though. Another possibility is variation in the Sun’s output (the misnomered solar constant) itself. Otherwise go read some geophysical text books :-) |
| |
Written By:
kav
URL:
http://livingrealworld.blogspot.com
|
Kav,
I am aware of solar and orbital causation and others. I thought you had a unique answer. If I understand your position, this time global warming is triggered by a non CO2 event, then CO2 is released accelerating warming. I might accept that, but it still does not explain why the small percentage of greenhouse gas produced by humans as changed things. |
| |
Written By:
James E. Fish
URL:
http://
|
I am funded to do research in solar-terrestrial physics. I could get more research money by only pushing the argument that climate change is all solar. I’m not doing that Now if we could apply that principal to everyone. Really that’s not fair, I believe the vast majority of scientists are ethical and would not resort to that kind of grant gaming.
I am not a scientist, but I played one on television. In reality I explained many in the news. During my quarter century, I tried to keep up with general trends, then go to the experts for clarification. Now, if I were still in the profession, I am not sure I could trust the “experts”, many seem to have a political rather than scientific agenda. |
| |
Written By:
James E. Fish
URL:
http://
|
Well, these scientists here are not global warming "skeptics," and they say that people need to be cautious about over-hyping claims. The same thing reported in the New York Times last week.
Now, they must have some reason to think that some of the claims being made are over-hyped, do they not?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=443043&in_page_id=1965He said: "We must be careful not to sensationalise our side of the argument or Hollywoodise the argument otherwise you end up in an ever increasing cycle of claim and counter-claim.
"We have to be clear about what our level of understanding is and to be clear about where we are making judgements based on understanding."
Their comments were backed today by other leading figures in the debate.
Dr Peter Stott, manager of understanding and attributing climate change at the Hadley Centre for Climate Change, said he believes scientists have to make it clear there is a long way to go until we know how bad climate change will be.
He said: "There is a lot more research to do to understand about exactly what effects its going to have on you and me in the future."
He said that while he welcomed a growing public awareness about the dangers brought about by films and headlines, informed debate was vital.
"I think it is important that having said there is a problem, it would be unfortunate if people got the impression that there’s nothing we can do about it because there is a lot we can do to change the future of climate change," he said.
Professor Tim Palmer, of the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, called for better technology and computers to be developed to help climatologists to predict the future more precisely.
He said: "There are still big scientific uncertainties such as how is the weather going to change with global warming.
"My personal view is that we do need to start thinking in an international way." |
| |
Written By:
Keith_Indy
URL:
http://inactivist.org/blog/keith_indy
|
|
uh, Keith, I do, which is why I linked it on the other thread a couple of days ago. |
| |
Written By:
Kav
URL:
http://livingrealworld.blogspot.com
|
|
Sorry, hadn’t read every comment on every thread... :D |
| |
Written By:
Keith_Indy
URL:
http://www.asecondhandconjecture.com
|
