The Scientific Global Warming Debate.

[skadistic]

Its funny when people who aren't scientists insist on global warming when even the alarmists have backed away from calling it warming. Those same people will call any cooling anecdotal. Despite it being colder in large areas across the northern hemisphere. Call them "spots" all you want but when those "spots" are 1000s of miles wide those are big "spots". Then they talk about averages over time. What is the scope of those averages? How far back do they go to make their point? There was a time a few hundred years ago when it was warmer then it is to day. Do they go that far back? No they don't. To do that would alter the average to some much closer to the temp. today. And when they are done doing that they will attack studies that say its not man made in every way possible except for the actual study and its scientific conclusions.

http://www.heartland.org/NewYork08/newyork08.cfm

http://heartland.temp.siteexecutive.com/pdf/22835.pdf

Some scientists don't agree with all the alarmists. They raise questions. Questions the alarmists don't want asked. Those questions put all that alarmist bunk to task. That's why "global warming" is now " global climate change".

Its hard to have a scientific debate if the alarmists call all who dare to disagree the fringe and loons and paid off by big companies.

 

[brennan]

Wow. You've posted the same unscientific bollocks here that you posted on OT.

Er, the weather does tend to occur across fairly large areas Skad. When's the last time you heard about a cold front over a village and a warm front across the valley? You don't do you? Your argument is worthless isn't it?

I love the way we are 'alarmists'. You'll be having a go at me for ad-homs in a bit, completely oblivious to your hypocrisy.

 

[skadistic]

Wow. You've posted the same unscientific bollocks here that you posted on OT.

Er, the weather does tend to occur across fairly large areas Skad. When's the last time you heard about a cold front over a village and a warm front across the valley? You don't do you? Your argument is worthless isn't it?

I love the way we are 'alarmists'. You'll be having a go at me for ad-homs in a bit, completely oblivious to your hypocrisy.

So what exactly is unscientific about scientists doing a study and releasing its findings?

Wait so pointing the extremely large "spots" is wrong?Yup large areas of the globe being colder is irrelevant. Nope those numbers don't matter only the warm ones do. Curse me for putting things in perspective. I must be worthless along with my arguments because I'm not in the global warming...or is it global climate change camp. Doesn't matter does it. As long as I'm not in the alarmist camp I'm just a hack as are all the others who don't agree even the scientists who happen to be experts.
I love how you people work. Any data or conclusions that fit your agenda are worthless, hackery, bollocks and everything else you can use to minimize and rebuke with out actually doing the scientific thing and adding in with all the other data and conclusions.

So your scientific approach has been to belittle me and those who don't follow your line.

Did you know the oceans have been cooling over the last few years? Is that anecdotal too? I guess NOAA and NASA are hacks and worthless too for daring to take actual measurements that show cooling.

So cooling oceans and record cold winters across very large swaths of land is nothing of importance. Yeah we'll just forget all that data.

 

[brennan]

So what exactly is unscientific about scientists doing a study and releasing its findings?

1) There isn't any science in it.
2) The 'study' is entirely partisan. As is totally clear if you read it. it's about as scientific as a polemic on immigration by Al da Great.

Wait so pointing the extremely large "spots" is wrong?Yup large areas of the globe being colder is irrelevant. Nope those numbers don't matter only the warm ones do. Curse me for putting things in perspective. I must be worthless along with my arguments because I'm not in the global warming...or is it global climate change camp. Doesn't matter does it. As long as I'm not in the alarmist camp I'm just a hack as are all the others who don't agree even the scientists who happen to be experts.

Is the global average still above average? Yes. Are you being selective with your data? Yes. Is your analysis and resultant conclusion scientifically sound? No.

I love how you people work. Any data or conclusions that fit your agenda are worthless, hackery, bollocks and everything else you can use to minimize and rebuke with out actually doing the scientific thing and adding in with all the other data and conclusions. .

Wrong. your data are little better than anecdotes as they do not reflect the overall picture (global average temperatures are still above average even if you ignore the fact that you are concentrating on recent data rather than the long term trend) and your conclusions are therefore unsound. That is what makes your comments worthless, unscientific bollocks.

Did you know the oceans have been cooling over the last few years? Is that anecdotal too? I guess NOAA and NASA are hacks and worthless too for daring to take actual measurements that show cooling.

No it's called La Nina, a well known and understood phenomenon that is part of climate modelling, whose contributions to the overall picture has therefore already been considered by the people who say there is warming going on. Sorry, did you have a point?

So cooling oceans and record cold winters across very large swaths of land is nothing of importance. Yeah we'll just forget all that data.

We know why the oceans are cooling somewhat right now and we know that global average temperatures are still above the recent norm. It is also plain that you wish to use a recent dramatic looking change as the 'trend' rather than the actual trend as anyone who can read a graph would understand it. Your conclusions are therefore, i'm sorry to say: Unscientific bollocks.

 

[ainwood]

Moderator Action: skadistic, brennan:

Stop with the personal attacks and loaded language. Debate the points, without insulting each other.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[peter grimes]

I find it incredible that no one is pointing out the questionable nature of the Heartland Institute's studies. The term "science" seems to be spelled more like "agenda" with these folks

Heartland Institute is, in the truest sense of the term, a extraordinary group. It is funded almost entirely by free-market and libertarian concerns, not to mention some huge corporations with an keen interest in the climate debate .

For years now, they have been peddling carefully crafted 'studies' that support a pro-business, pro-properties-rights response to populist and scientific evaluations of environmental issues.

I'd love to know if any studies they financed were ever published in a peer-reviewed journal

 

[brennan]

I did that already in OT Peter.

No 'study' such as Skadistic linked is going to be published anywhere that peer reviews as it is almost entirely politics and rhetoric. Actual scientific content = 0.

 

[brennan]

Just in today:

'No Sun link' to climate change


Scientists have produced further compelling evidence showing that modern-day climate change is not caused by changes in the Sun's activity.
The research contradicts a favoured theory of climate "sceptics", that changes in cosmic rays coming to Earth determine cloudiness and temperature.
The idea is that variations in solar activity affect cosmic ray intensity.
But Lancaster University scientists found there has been no significant link between them in the last 20 years. Presenting their findings in the Institute of Physics journal, Environmental Research Letters, the UK team explain that they used three different ways to search for a correlation, and found virtually none.

And just for Basketcase:

The Svensmark hypothesis is that when the solar wind is weak, more cosmic rays penetrate to Earth.
That creates more charged particles in the atmosphere, which in turn induces more clouds to form, cooling the climate.

The planet warms up when the Sun's output is strong.

Professor Sloan's team investigated the link by looking for periods in time and for places on the Earth which had documented weak or strong cosmic ray arrivals, and seeing if that affected the cloudiness observed in those locations or at those times.

"For example; sometimes the Sun 'burps' - it throws out a huge burst of charged particles," he explained to BBC News.

"So we looked to see whether cloud cover increased after one of these bursts of rays from the Sun; we saw nothing."

Over the course of one of the Sun's natural 11-year cycles, there was a weak correlation between cosmic ray intensity and cloud cover - but cosmic ray variability could at the very most explain only a quarter of the changes in cloudiness.

And for the following cycle, no correlation was found.

 

[ainwood]

I have a question:

One of the main concerns about global warming is the concern of a positive feedback loop. It is hypothesized that an increase in CO2 (a greenhouse gas) will lead to an increase in temperatures, which lead to more evaporation (or more correctly, more water vapour in the atmosphere). With water vapour also being considered a greenhouse gas, then this in turn leads to more warming, and more water vapour and more warming... etc.

Now - nature tends to abhor positive feedback loops (how many do you see?), which is one (anecdotal) reason that I am sceptical of alarmist claims.

The question I have is why we haven't seen the results of these feedback loops previously? The world has had higher CO2 concentrations before - if it did cause a positive feedback loop, then what was the negative influence that prevented the climate warming uncontrollably? What broke the cycle? And why is the requisite negative feedback loop not in play now?

Background: I have read a few claims of the NASA aqua satellite providing data that shows that increased water vapour is actually the cause of a negative feedback loop, which is at odds with most climate models that assume a positive feedback loop. I am therefore asking the question, not strictly on a climate science basis, but more on a intuition / mathematical modelling basis - systems I have modelled are either self-limiting (negative feedback dominated), or completely unstable (positive feedback dominated). Given a few billions of years, the climate doesn't really seem that unstable to me....

 

[peter grimes]

In the past (I'm talking about deep geologic time, here) increased concentrations of CO2 and water vapor have resulted in a response from the biosphere to this change of environment. The expected positive feedback loop was short circuited by biological activity.

Today, with humans effectively engineering vast swaths of the biosphere for our own interests, the biosphere is not allowed the freedom of action that prevented prior positive feedback loops from going over the tipping point.

[/speculation]

(thanks for bringing this thread back to more of a conversation than a shouting match )

 

[brennan]

Ainwood: I don't think anyone's seriously predicting that Earth will be like Venus in a few decades. What we are worried about is forcing the climate into a new equilibrium at a higher average temperature - a temperature rise of just a few degrees over a short space of time will do enormous environmental damage, not to mention the economic damage. I for one do not want the tsetse fly to spread. I do not want to see the havoc caused by rising sea levels should the main Antarctic Ice Mass be threatened, I do not want the gulf stream to shut down and put Western Europe in the deep freeze. I don't want to see the Sahara spread, I don't want to see a new Sahara where the Amazon rain forest used to be.

None of that requires a runaway positive feedback loop. The suggested positive feedback mechanisms merely suggest that the new equilibrium will be at slightly higher temperatures.

 

[ainwood]

Ainwood: I don't think anyone's seriously predicting that Earth will be like Venus in a few decades. What we are worried about is forcing the climate into a new equilibrium at a higher average temperature - a temperature rise of just a few degrees over a short space of time will do enormous environmental damage, not to mention the economic damage.

Well, the 'solutions' are already starting to do economic damage.

I for one do not want the tsetse fly to spread. I do not want to see the havoc caused by rising sea levels should the main Antarctic Ice Mass be threatened, I do not want the gulf stream to shut down and put Western Europe in the deep freeze. I don't want to see the Sahara spread, I don't want to see a new Sahara where the Amazon rain forest used to be.

Antarctica is getting colder. Malaria was present in europe, but was eradicated. The biofuels hysteria is causign more deforestation of the amazon.

None of that requires a runaway positive feedback loop. The suggested positive feedback mechanisms merely suggest that the new equilibrium will be at slightly higher temperatures.

Well, a positive feedback loop will not suggest a slightly higher average temperature - by definition, it suggests an unstable system where temperatures will go ouot of control.

The issue is that many people are claiming that there is a positive feedback loop. If this were the case, then it won't result in a 'slightly higher average temperature', unless a negative feedback loop kicks-in to mitigate its effect. Unfortunately it appears that anyone suggesting a negative feedback loop is labelled a 'denier', and science is all the worse for it.

 

[peter grimes]

Well, the 'solutions' are already starting to do economic damage.

Everything we do does economic damage from someone's perspective. Sheepherding in Ireland prevents a healthy forestry industry, Salmon fisheries in Spain reduce the tourism potential, etc. These are completely fabricated examples I use only to illustrate my point - not facts intended to prove it.

Antarctica is getting colder. Malaria was present in europe, but was eradicated. The biofuels hysteria is causign more deforestation of the amazon.

I don't know if Antarctica as a whole is getting colder or not, but I'm not sure that really matters so much. Sea level rise, which could result in a mass migration out of Bangladesh and other heavily populated river deltas, will happen whether or not the regional temp in Antarctica falls or not. It's really more about the existing icesheets collapsing and 'uncorking' the glaciers. Since the icesheets are already floating, sea level won't rise. But once those glaciers are able to slide into the sea, sea level rise will be a fact. The icesheets' stability has more to do with the underlying sea temp and precipitation than the air temperature. So even if regional temps are lowering, the icesheets could still be threatened. Take that all with a grain of salt, though - I'm not really sure if it's correct; just the line of reasoning.

Malaria, and other tropical diseases, will naturally move as the ecosystems slowly adjust to local and regional (and global) climate change. Areas that haven't seen endemic diseases will start to. There will be other areas where endemic diseases dissipate as well.

I completely agree that Biofuels should be a four-letter word - unless you restrict the raw materials to waste-stream sources. Hysteria is precisely the right word to describe the situation, sadly.

 

[ainwood]

I don't know if Antarctica as a whole is getting colder or not, but I'm not sure that really matters so much. Sea level rise, which could result in a mass migration out of Bangladesh and other heavily populated river deltas, will happen whether or not the regional temp in Antarctica falls or not.

Like the refugees flocking to New Zealand that Al Gore made up was mistaken about?

How much will the sea level really rise? If its feet, then that would be a problem. If its a few millimetres?

It's really more about the existing icesheets collapsing and 'uncorking' the glaciers. Since the icesheets are already floating, sea level won't rise. But once those glaciers are able to slide into the sea, sea level rise will be a fact. The icesheets' stability has more to do with the underlying sea temp and precipitation than the air temperature. So even if regional temps are lowering, the icesheets could still be threatened.

Antartica is mostly continental ice, hence the regional temperatures ARE the important variable.

Malaria, and other tropical diseases, will naturally move as the ecosystems slowly adjust to local and regional (and global) climate change. Areas that haven't seen endemic diseases will start to. There will be other areas where endemic diseases dissipate as well.

Well, they might - its not certain. In fact, Al Gore's claims re malaria have been pretty-much proven incorrect.

My concern is that the alarmism that we are seeing now has a disturbing amount in common with the alarmism that we saw with DDT use: on the surface, banning stuff is done with good intentions. But ultimately, the ban can do more harm than good.

Hysteria is precisely the right word to describe the situation, sadly.

Yep. Which is a sure sign that its no longer a scientific issue, but a political one.

 

[ainwood]

And here is another political problem:

A research review published March 23 in Nature Geoscience online shows that black carbon particles in the atmosphere have a more powerful global-warming effect than any of the greenhouse gases except carbon dioxide. And these particles are 60 percent as effective as CO2 itself. That’s far more powerful than the estimate in last year’s report of the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

So: Soot emissions have a big impact on global warming (I guess soot settling on ice would also promote melting).

It would therefore make a lot of sense to get the likes of the Chinese to invest in 'clean coal' to mitigate soot. But from a political perspective, would getting the Chinese to clean-up their soot emissions from coal plants be akin to tacit endorsement of coal? A message that "if you clean up the soot emissions, the coal burning is probably OK?"

It would certainly be a decent compromise, but no one really wants compromise at the moment.


Edit: There does seem to be a flawed statement in that article:
black carbon particles in the atmosphere have a more powerful global-warming effect than any of the greenhouse gases except carbon dioxide - this implies that CO2 is the worst greenhouse gas - it isn't.

 

[peter grimes]

I'm not sure that nobody is interested in compromise. After all, both extremes of the policy are untenable. Compromise and pragmatism are the only realistic options.

Coal will continue to be mined and burned. Since that's the case, we should make sure to do it as 'cleanly' as possible.

 

[brennan]

Antarctica is getting colder.

I'm getting distinctly bored of seeing people post these half truths:

Spoiler :

An analysis of NASA satellite data from 1979-1999 has shown that areas of Antarctica where ice is increasing outnumbers areas of decreasing ice roughly 2:1.[2]. This was significant because there is a large amount of ice in the area and climate models predicting global warming also predict that some of the most severe events from warming should occur in Antarctica. The general trend shows that a warming climate in the southern hemisphere would transport more moisture to Antarctica causing the interior ice sheets to grow, while calving events along the coast will increase, causing these areas to shrink[1]. More recent satellite data suggests that the total amount of ice in Antarctica has begun decreasing in the past few years[3].

The model as it stands runs roughly as follows:
1) Increased warmth means increased precipitation
2) Increased precipitation means that more ice will form in many areas of Antarctica. (that's your half truth)
3) BUT: Increased warmth means that the glaciation/calving process speeds up at the edges.

IOW both the gains and losses to the Antarctic Ice Mass increase. What's the net result? Currently the Ice Mass is thought to be decreasing.

On your positive feedback loops: yes positive feedback automatically leads to runaway in principle, but in practice there are too many other factors limiting this.

 

[ainwood]

I'm getting distinctly bored of seeing people post these half truths:

Are you? Then don't post half-truths yourself.

An analysis of NASA satellite data from 1979-1999 has shown that areas of Antarctica where ice is increasing outnumbers areas of decreasing ice roughly 2:1.[2]. This was significant because there is a large amount of ice in the area and climate models predicting global warming also predict that some of the most severe events from warming should occur in Antarctica. The general trend shows that a warming climate in the southern hemisphere would transport more moisture to Antarctica causing the interior ice sheets to grow, while calving events along the coast will increase, causing these areas to shrink[1]. More recent satellite data suggests that the total amount of ice in Antarctica has begun decreasing in the past few years[3].

The model as it stands runs roughly as follows:
1) Increased warmth means increased precipitation
2) Increased precipitation means that more ice will form in many areas of Antarctica. (that's your half truth)
3) BUT: Increased warmth means that the glaciation/calving process speeds up at the edges.

IOW both the gains and losses to the Antarctic Ice Mass increase. What's the net result? Currently the Ice Mass is thought to be decreasing.

'Thought' to be decreasing. Not exactly hard evidence to refute anything, is it?

I refer to temperature, you refer to ice coverage to refute it: Strawman.
You refer to a prediction of a climate model, and then use a further prediction of that climate model to support your contention: Strawman.

The climate model is a prediction. If I understand your assertion correctly, you are saying that precipitation in the center of the continent results in increasing icemass, but because its getting warmer, that ice melts, and results in decreasing icemass as it runs-off at the coast.

Problem is, the interior of the continent is not warming, as the model predicts. its getting colder. The only area on the continent that is warming is the antarctic peninsula.
http://www.ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/2-CSPP-antarcticatemp.pdf
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/antarctica_white_paper_final.pdf
http://www.phys.uu.nl/~broeke/home_files/MB_pubs_pdf/2004_vdB_AnnGlac.pdf

On your positive feedback loops: yes positive feedback automatically leads to runaway in principle, but in practice there are too many other factors limiting this.

Yes, there are, aren't there. Yet it doesn't seem to bother the alarmists to just post the "half truth" of a positive feedback loop resulting in catastrophe.

 

[Lord Neil]

All I have to say is the world is changing every second.

Check out the link in my signature it has some stuff on the enviroment.

 

[brennan]

I refer to temperature, you refer to ice coverage to refute it: Strawman.

No, You post a half truth about a scientific process you clearly do not understand and act like it implies a lack of scientific understanding of the issue.

I respond with a full description of all the processes involved, clearly indicating that climatologists have a far fuller grasp of the situation than you and are better aware of the issues involved, up to and including the 'problem' with the theory you suggested. And climatologists overwhelmingly are concerned about Global Warming.

Temperatures are dropping somewhat at the moment because we are in a La Nina oscillation of oceanic waters. It is noticeable that climate change deniers are taking the last years measurements as some kind of refutation of climate change when the mechanism explaining the current situation is known and understood. The deniers are being unscientific (giving preferential status to data points that appear to support their position) and dishonest (using a counter-intuitive but known and understood phenomenon to claim that the science is not understood).