Global warming and environmental catastrophe: science or myth?
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frekk
Scourge of St. Lawrence
BasketCase said:
Me too, but we wouldn't necessarily be part of the new equation. It takes alot less than Doomsday to wipe out a single species. And several orders of catastrophe less than that to end our prosperity.
BasketCase said:
erhm, nope, and I know you are smaert enough to understand, thus you are lying here.
the 'biosphere' that emerged afterwards was so significantly different from the pervious one that around 90% of all species had gone extinct. If we apply that to today that means that there will NOT BE ANY HUMAN alive after the change.
please prove the stability - the pure existence of life is not something one can define as stability.
you are so dead wrong I can't believe it - we are here BECAUSE of the doomsday - without it it'd be dinos runjing around, not mammals
BasketCase
Username sez it all
You're the one who's wrong. The species that would eventually give rise to the human race DID live through it.carlosMM said:you are so dead wrong I can't believe it - we are here BECAUSE of the doomsday - without it it'd be dinos runjing around, not mammals
I give as I receive, bud.FearlessLeader2 said:
Edit: My basic point with the meteor thing is that it took total devastation to cause even that level of upheaval (which the planet was still able to repair). Anything less than a(nother) meteor strike is going to be correspondingly less devastating.
Re-edit: Bleh. Wrote that last edit sorta wrong, that was only half the point I was making. Need to sleep.
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Now, here's something interesting. Unexpected stuff like this is cool (figuratively speaking, of course)Perfection said:
It may actually complicate things; a lot of folks have been pointing to Antarctic shrinkage as a sign of warming. Then there are other folks who disagree on whether the southern ice cap is growing or shrinking.
Gothmog
Dread Enforcer
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On the ice issue: glaciers are receding, as are most ice shelves, permafrost is thawing and melting at an increasing pace, this is not under dispute. Meanwhile ice fields do seem to be thickening. All of this is consistent with what we know has been happening to our climate. One of the biggest (for scientists) changes in the last decade or so (aside from the increasing surface temperatures) has been an increase in water vapor transporting from the ocean to the land.
Urederra wrote:
Ill try to be brief 
.
It originates with a brilliant scientist, James Lovelock, as part of a NASA study on how to detect life on mars. Well, one aspect of the Gaia hypothesis goes as follows: atmosphere warms -> ocean warms -> more bugs grow in ocean -> bugs release more DMS into atmosphere -> DMS oxidizes to sulfate -> sulfate aerosol increases albedo thus offsetting warming.
To properly model this feedback we would need a full life cycle model of nearly the entire oceanic web of life. We are nowhere near being able to do that, even without having to incorporate it into a coupled atmospheric/ocean model. In addition we would need to isolate future volcanic eruptions and human inputs to the sulfur cycle (we currently are contributing between 40-60% depending on the time period covered and what volcanoes are doing then).
There are plenty of other feedbacks, positive and negative. Some will stabilize the current state, and others will send the system into a new equilibrium state. As we see here:
These swings in temperature are about 6-10 C each. On longer time periods (like 100s of millions of years) you would see larger trends.
To talk about other feedbacks, stabilizing or destabilizing ones, we must first describe them, then study them. The idea is far from lost, in fact it is central to modern climate studies. To assume that the earth system will take care of us no matter what we do is a form of religion (pray for us BasketCase).
We have enjoyed an almost unprecedented period of stable climate (for about 10000 years) that is conducive to human development. The earth system exhibits chaotic behavior; there are 'attractors' within this system that correspond to specific climatic patterns. An attractor is a specific configuration of variables such that small perturbations about the point decay in time back towards that point. We know that greenhouse gas concentrations are one of the variables that produce a given climate. Some of us are worried that the earth system will jump into a new stable mode due to a forcing that is directed towards one of those attractors.
In the plot above we see some very sharp transitions; that would be the earth system responding to a runaway feedback and entering a new equilibrium state.
We have converted vast areas to monoculture, we have cut down forests, we have increased the flow of fixed nitrogen, we have changed the infrared opacity of the atmosphere, we have changed ozone chemistry in the stratosphere, and we have changed the aerosol loading and distribution. These are globally significant changes.
The point that most reputable scientists try to make is that we should try to understand how these significant changes are going to affect our global climate. Great strides have been made on that account, especially in the last decade.
If we want to try and make changes that help enhance human survival, instead of just randomly changing important climate variables, we need to understand the issues. Denying that there is a problem will not make it go away.
We obviously depend on climate for our current mode of living. These are the facts, now do you really think that ignoring the issue is the best way to go? Or perhaps we should just pray that Gaia will care for us?
I think that humans can survive climate change in some form, but my goal is not simple survival. I am interested in improving the human condition. Our climate will eventually change; I feel that we need to understand how and why before we undertake any major alterations to the system - alterations that we have already begun.
Urederra wrote:
More than you are likely to want to read
Ill try to be brief .It originates with a brilliant scientist, James Lovelock, as part of a NASA study on how to detect life on mars. Well, one aspect of the Gaia hypothesis goes as follows: atmosphere warms -> ocean warms -> more bugs grow in ocean -> bugs release more DMS into atmosphere -> DMS oxidizes to sulfate -> sulfate aerosol increases albedo thus offsetting warming.
To properly model this feedback we would need a full life cycle model of nearly the entire oceanic web of life. We are nowhere near being able to do that, even without having to incorporate it into a coupled atmospheric/ocean model. In addition we would need to isolate future volcanic eruptions and human inputs to the sulfur cycle (we currently are contributing between 40-60% depending on the time period covered and what volcanoes are doing then).
There are plenty of other feedbacks, positive and negative. Some will stabilize the current state, and others will send the system into a new equilibrium state. As we see here:
These swings in temperature are about 6-10 C each. On longer time periods (like 100s of millions of years) you would see larger trends.
To talk about other feedbacks, stabilizing or destabilizing ones, we must first describe them, then study them. The idea is far from lost, in fact it is central to modern climate studies. To assume that the earth system will take care of us no matter what we do is a form of religion (pray for us BasketCase).
We have enjoyed an almost unprecedented period of stable climate (for about 10000 years) that is conducive to human development. The earth system exhibits chaotic behavior; there are 'attractors' within this system that correspond to specific climatic patterns. An attractor is a specific configuration of variables such that small perturbations about the point decay in time back towards that point. We know that greenhouse gas concentrations are one of the variables that produce a given climate. Some of us are worried that the earth system will jump into a new stable mode due to a forcing that is directed towards one of those attractors.
In the plot above we see some very sharp transitions; that would be the earth system responding to a runaway feedback and entering a new equilibrium state.
We have converted vast areas to monoculture, we have cut down forests, we have increased the flow of fixed nitrogen, we have changed the infrared opacity of the atmosphere, we have changed ozone chemistry in the stratosphere, and we have changed the aerosol loading and distribution. These are globally significant changes.
The point that most reputable scientists try to make is that we should try to understand how these significant changes are going to affect our global climate. Great strides have been made on that account, especially in the last decade.
If we want to try and make changes that help enhance human survival, instead of just randomly changing important climate variables, we need to understand the issues. Denying that there is a problem will not make it go away.
We obviously depend on climate for our current mode of living. These are the facts, now do you really think that ignoring the issue is the best way to go? Or perhaps we should just pray that Gaia will care for us?
I think that humans can survive climate change in some form, but my goal is not simple survival. I am interested in improving the human condition. Our climate will eventually change; I feel that we need to understand how and why before we undertake any major alterations to the system - alterations that we have already begun.
so now you're even more wrong than before and can't follow your own logic: they did live through it, but they hand't amounted to more than an appetizer to any significant creature for the 135 million years before that. So WITHOUT the doomsday, what would have been their chance to evolve into something significant?BasketCase said:
Nah, buddy, there was no 'staybility' ever in any meaning that makes sense for the GW debate at all. You're just throwing stuff around that sounds good, but the second one asks for proper proof or definition, you simply redifine stuff and run.
so you basically tell us to ignore GW becaquse it will at most kill 89% of all species?
very helpfull, Mr. BasketCase!
Urederra
Mostly harmless
Hi, very busy during the week....
Glad that Carlos didn't take offence.
Back on topic.
Lomborg manuscript did pass peer review by three earth scientists on both sides of the Atlantic. Cambridge University Press said so.
Mann's Hockey Stick graph is not global, only for the Northern hemisphere. It says so in the title of his Nature's paper. Yet, I fail to see the Little Ice age and the Medieval Warm Period in the uncorrected graph. And these two phenomena occurred in the Nortern hemisphere.
A bit about consensus. (Replying tricky's post)
Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There are a lot of examples, not only Copernicus and Galileo, But also Alexander Gordon and the puerperal fever, the pellagra germ, the continental drift, the list goes on an on...
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus.
Have the climate predictions made by the IPCC Scientists proven to be true?
So far, no. The new ice age that many scientists predicted was wrong. And now nobody says that they substained that 30 years ago. S. Schneider from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, predicted in his book Global Warming a huge jump in temperature, polar ice melting away, seas surging across the land, famine on an epidemic scale, and ecosystem collapse. Yet other climatologists, too, made forecasts in the eighties they no longer maintain. C. D. Schönwiese [Schönwiese, C. D.: Der Treibhauseffekt: Weltweit wird das Wasser steigen. Bild der Wissenschaft, September 1987, 97, 98.], usually critical and cautious in his statements, still predicted in 1987 a 4.5° C rise in temperature until 2030, though only as an upper limit. He thought that the sea level in the German Bay could rise by 1.5 m till 2040 and in the ocean around India even 2 to 3 m. A projection of his temperature forecast yields 11.8° C for the year 2100. At the climate conference in Villach in 1985 similar predictions were presented to the public. The IPCC still predicted in 1990 and 1992 that global temperature would rise 1.9° - 5.2° C until 2100 [ Schönwiese, C. D.: Klima im Wandel. Hamburg, 1994, 99, 161] and thought that a rise in sea level by 1.10 m was possible [Houghton, J. T., Meira Filho, L. G., Callander, B. A., Harris, N., Kattenberg, A. & Maskell, K: Climate Change 1995. Cambridge, 1996, 81, 366, 381.]
All these predictions have turned out to be untenable. It is accepted that global temperature has risen by 0.5° C in the last hundred years. Yet during the last fifty years the temperature has remained approximately at the same level, even though 70% of the anthropgenic carbon dioxide contribution was injected into the atmosphere during this time. From 1940 to 1970 the temperature fell (that's when they started scaring us with the new ice age), and according to satellitite data available since 1979, which are in good accord with balloon data [Gordon, A. H.: Bias in measured data. In: Bate, R., Hsg.: Global Warming. The continuing debate. Cambridge, The European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF), Cambridge, 1998, 55.], the trend in the lower troposphere has remained at -0.06° C per decade. The IPCC prediction made in 1992 proved so exaggerated that it had to be adjusted to reality three years later by reducing the rise range to 1° - 3.5° C by 2100. As to sea level rise, the IPCC meanwhile acknowledges (in accordance with a consensus in the specialized literature [Baltuck, M., Dickey, J., Dixon, T. & Harrison, C. G. A.: New approaches raise questions about future sea level change. EOS, 1. October 1996, 385, 388.]) that sea level has risen by merely 18 cm in the last hundred years. According to M. Baltuck et al. it is very probable that the rising sea level is due to natural causes and not to mans contribution to the greenhouse effect.
The discrepancy between IPCC forecasts and observed data stands out very clearly as to temperatures in the polar regions. The general circulation models, presented by the IPCC in 1990, predict for the regions near the poles in a CO2 doubling scenario a rise in temperature of more than 12° C [Courtney, R. S.: Die Risiken des global warming. In: H. Metzner, Hsg.: Treibhaus-Kontroverse & Ozon-Problem. Tübingen, Europäische Akademie für Umweltfragen, 1996, 159]. If this were true, in the last 40 years with their steep increase in CO2 concentration, a warming trend with a temperature rise of several °C should have emerged. The opposite is true [Flohn, H.: Jüngste Klimaänderungen: Treibhauseffekt oder Beschleunigung des Wasserkreislaufs. In: Metzner, H., Hsg.: Globale Erwärmung - Tatsache oder Behauptung? Tübingen, Europäische Akademie für Umweltfragen, 1993, 91.]. A joint investigation by American, Russian and Canadian scientists shows that the surface temperatures in the Arctic region observed between 1950 and 1990 are going down. They fell 4.4° C in winter and 5° C in autumn [Kahl, J. D., Charlevoix, D. J., Zaitseva, N. A., Schnell, R. C. & Serreze, M. C.: Absence of evidence for greenhouse warming over the Arctic Ocean in the past 40 years. Nature 361 (1993), 335.]. Satellite data too, available since 1979, do not indicate rising temperatures [Singer F.: Globale Erwärmung. In: H. Metzner, Hsg.: Treibhaus-Kontroverse & Ozon-Problem. Tübingen, Europäische Akademie für Umweltfragen, 1996, 31.]. This agrees with data published by the world Glacier Monitoring Network in Zurich, according to which 55% of the glaciers in high latitudes are advancing compared with 5% around 1950.
I read in one of my searches that in the year 1900 the most important environmental concern of NY citicens was horsesh.it pollution, and as an estimate, somebody thought that by the year 2000 there were so many people in NY that horsesh.it was going to be the most important factor that will prevent NY from growing. Nowadays, that asumption seems laughable. We will beter learn something about that episode and don't believe what the apocaliptical prophets say about what the weather would be in 2100. Specially when they have been proven wrong before.
d'uh, long post. Just to keep you guys busy.
Regards.
Glad that Carlos didn't take offence.
Back on topic.
Lomborg manuscript did pass peer review by three earth scientists on both sides of the Atlantic. Cambridge University Press said so.
Mann's Hockey Stick graph is not global, only for the Northern hemisphere. It says so in the title of his Nature's paper. Yet, I fail to see the Little Ice age and the Medieval Warm Period in the uncorrected graph. And these two phenomena occurred in the Nortern hemisphere.
A bit about consensus. (Replying tricky's post)
Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There are a lot of examples, not only Copernicus and Galileo, But also Alexander Gordon and the puerperal fever, the pellagra germ, the continental drift, the list goes on an on...
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus.
Have the climate predictions made by the IPCC Scientists proven to be true?
So far, no. The new ice age that many scientists predicted was wrong. And now nobody says that they substained that 30 years ago. S. Schneider from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, predicted in his book Global Warming a huge jump in temperature, polar ice melting away, seas surging across the land, famine on an epidemic scale, and ecosystem collapse. Yet other climatologists, too, made forecasts in the eighties they no longer maintain. C. D. Schönwiese [Schönwiese, C. D.: Der Treibhauseffekt: Weltweit wird das Wasser steigen. Bild der Wissenschaft, September 1987, 97, 98.], usually critical and cautious in his statements, still predicted in 1987 a 4.5° C rise in temperature until 2030, though only as an upper limit. He thought that the sea level in the German Bay could rise by 1.5 m till 2040 and in the ocean around India even 2 to 3 m. A projection of his temperature forecast yields 11.8° C for the year 2100. At the climate conference in Villach in 1985 similar predictions were presented to the public. The IPCC still predicted in 1990 and 1992 that global temperature would rise 1.9° - 5.2° C until 2100 [ Schönwiese, C. D.: Klima im Wandel. Hamburg, 1994, 99, 161] and thought that a rise in sea level by 1.10 m was possible [Houghton, J. T., Meira Filho, L. G., Callander, B. A., Harris, N., Kattenberg, A. & Maskell, K: Climate Change 1995. Cambridge, 1996, 81, 366, 381.]
All these predictions have turned out to be untenable. It is accepted that global temperature has risen by 0.5° C in the last hundred years. Yet during the last fifty years the temperature has remained approximately at the same level, even though 70% of the anthropgenic carbon dioxide contribution was injected into the atmosphere during this time. From 1940 to 1970 the temperature fell (that's when they started scaring us with the new ice age), and according to satellitite data available since 1979, which are in good accord with balloon data [Gordon, A. H.: Bias in measured data. In: Bate, R., Hsg.: Global Warming. The continuing debate. Cambridge, The European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF), Cambridge, 1998, 55.], the trend in the lower troposphere has remained at -0.06° C per decade. The IPCC prediction made in 1992 proved so exaggerated that it had to be adjusted to reality three years later by reducing the rise range to 1° - 3.5° C by 2100. As to sea level rise, the IPCC meanwhile acknowledges (in accordance with a consensus in the specialized literature [Baltuck, M., Dickey, J., Dixon, T. & Harrison, C. G. A.: New approaches raise questions about future sea level change. EOS, 1. October 1996, 385, 388.]) that sea level has risen by merely 18 cm in the last hundred years. According to M. Baltuck et al. it is very probable that the rising sea level is due to natural causes and not to mans contribution to the greenhouse effect.
The discrepancy between IPCC forecasts and observed data stands out very clearly as to temperatures in the polar regions. The general circulation models, presented by the IPCC in 1990, predict for the regions near the poles in a CO2 doubling scenario a rise in temperature of more than 12° C [Courtney, R. S.: Die Risiken des global warming. In: H. Metzner, Hsg.: Treibhaus-Kontroverse & Ozon-Problem. Tübingen, Europäische Akademie für Umweltfragen, 1996, 159]. If this were true, in the last 40 years with their steep increase in CO2 concentration, a warming trend with a temperature rise of several °C should have emerged. The opposite is true [Flohn, H.: Jüngste Klimaänderungen: Treibhauseffekt oder Beschleunigung des Wasserkreislaufs. In: Metzner, H., Hsg.: Globale Erwärmung - Tatsache oder Behauptung? Tübingen, Europäische Akademie für Umweltfragen, 1993, 91.]. A joint investigation by American, Russian and Canadian scientists shows that the surface temperatures in the Arctic region observed between 1950 and 1990 are going down. They fell 4.4° C in winter and 5° C in autumn [Kahl, J. D., Charlevoix, D. J., Zaitseva, N. A., Schnell, R. C. & Serreze, M. C.: Absence of evidence for greenhouse warming over the Arctic Ocean in the past 40 years. Nature 361 (1993), 335.]. Satellite data too, available since 1979, do not indicate rising temperatures [Singer F.: Globale Erwärmung. In: H. Metzner, Hsg.: Treibhaus-Kontroverse & Ozon-Problem. Tübingen, Europäische Akademie für Umweltfragen, 1996, 31.]. This agrees with data published by the world Glacier Monitoring Network in Zurich, according to which 55% of the glaciers in high latitudes are advancing compared with 5% around 1950.
I read in one of my searches that in the year 1900 the most important environmental concern of NY citicens was horsesh.it pollution, and as an estimate, somebody thought that by the year 2000 there were so many people in NY that horsesh.it was going to be the most important factor that will prevent NY from growing. Nowadays, that asumption seems laughable. We will beter learn something about that episode and don't believe what the apocaliptical prophets say about what the weather would be in 2100. Specially when they have been proven wrong before.
d'uh, long post. Just to keep you guys busy.
Regards.
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Asteroid knocks planet's environment out of whack.carlosMM said:
Planet restores itself. Back to the very same basic environmental conditions.
My proof is simply that it DID happen. That's all that's needed. If human beings knock the environment out of whack, the planet will act to counterbalance. And the human race isn't committing anything nearly as devastating as an asteroid.
Hell, even take a look at the graph Gothmog just re-posted. While the planet's 10-degree spikes are a little irregular, they always recur, and the planet has held to that pattern for, at the very least, almost a million years.
I don't run away from anything. I meet it head on and crush it like a bug. You're the one who's running away for a vacation.
(Enjoy my absence, however
)
Urederra
Mostly harmless
I have changed mi sig... ¿Is it cool or not?
.... I love the opening question marks. ¿and you?
.... I love the opening question marks. ¿and you?
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Yep, I like it. 
Gothmog
Dread Enforcer
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2002
- Messages
- 3,352
Urederra wrote:
The little ice age looks almost exactly the same in Mann and Lomburgs results, so I don't know what you are on about there. Have you actually looked at those papers?
I did say global, sorry I meant hemispheric, there is very little data in the southern hemisphere on those time scales.
Claims that global average temperatures during Medieval times were warmer than present-day are based on a number of false premises that a) confuse past evidence of drought/precipitation with temperature evidence, b) fail to disinguish regional from global-scale temperature variations, and c) use the entire "20th century" to describe "modern" conditions , fail to differentiate between relatively cool early 20th century conditions and the anomalously warm late 20th century conditions.
My point stands, reanalysis of the Lomburg paper shows its bias quite clearly for the reasons I posted. Rebut or accept.
Blah blah blah consensus, blah blah blah IPCC. What is your point there? Are you disputing that humans have changed the energy balance of the earth in significant ways? That's the consensus.
Jones, P.D. and Moberg, A., 2003:
Hemispheric and large-scale surface air temperature variations: An extensive revision and an update to 2001.
Journal of Climate, 16, 206-223.
The satellite discrepency has been mostly solved too, I note that all your references are old. Much has been learned in the last decade and you need to keep up.
There were inter satellite calibration problems (known for at least a decade by the relevant scientists, but only showing up in the published lit in the last few years) orbital drifts, and the microwave limb sounders they use actually get about 25% of their signal from the stratosphere, which has been cooling due to greenhouse gasses and decreasing ozone.
Influence of Satellite Data Uncertainties on the Detection of Externally Forced Climate Change
B. D. Santer, T. M. L. Wigley, G. A. Meehl, M. F. Wehner, C. Mears, M. Schabel, F. J. Wentz, C. Ammann, J. Arblaster, T. Bettge, W. M. Washington, K. E. Taylor, J. S. Boyle, W. Brüggemann, and C. Doutriaux
Science 23 May 2003; 300: 1280-1284
Global Warming Trend of Mean Tropospheric Temperature Observed by Satellites
Konstantin Y. Vinnikov and Norman C. Grody
Science 10 October 2003; 302: 269-272
The Effect of Diurnal Correction on Satellite-Derived Lower Tropospheric Temperature
Carl A. Mears and Frank J. Wentz
Published online 11 August 2005 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1114772] (in Science Express Reports)
But that doesn't mean such simulations are useless, and they do get better and better. We learn more and more about what we do not know. Your examples are cherry picking and mostly irrelevant. "horsesh" etc. is a major problem for eutrophication and nitrogen mobilization.
The thing is that we have so much beter data now than we ever did, satellites have revolutionized earth science.
The consensus is not about what climate will be doing in a century. It is that human are significantly changing important climatic variables, and the first order effect is more infrared radiation trapped in the troposphere, and cooling in the stratosphere. Feedbacks are much more uncertain.
It may be that we have already delayed a coming ice age with our random actions, maybe not. We have done enough to potentially throw the earth into a new equilibrium unseen over the last million years, previous to that there are some similar examples.
But we are seriously screwing with important climatic forcings, do you not care at all? Do you really just want to pray and forget it?
Yes, northern hemisphere, so why did Lomburg not use the north american data? As I said, the Medieval Warm period was a western europian phenomina not hemispheric. If you had looked at the references I provided you would have seen that. It didn't even show up in Hungary. Or you could just browse the Science or Nature search function for 2000-2001, or even do a future search on the Lomburg paper.
The little ice age looks almost exactly the same in Mann and Lomburgs results, so I don't know what you are on about there. Have you actually looked at those papers?
I did say global, sorry I meant hemispheric, there is very little data in the southern hemisphere on those time scales.
Claims that global average temperatures during Medieval times were warmer than present-day are based on a number of false premises that a) confuse past evidence of drought/precipitation with temperature evidence, b) fail to disinguish regional from global-scale temperature variations, and c) use the entire "20th century" to describe "modern" conditions , fail to differentiate between relatively cool early 20th century conditions and the anomalously warm late 20th century conditions.
My point stands, reanalysis of the Lomburg paper shows its bias quite clearly for the reasons I posted. Rebut or accept.
Blah blah blah consensus, blah blah blah IPCC. What is your point there? Are you disputing that humans have changed the energy balance of the earth in significant ways? That's the consensus.
This is totally false. Most of the warming has hapened in the last couple decades.
Jones, P.D. and Moberg, A., 2003:
Hemispheric and large-scale surface air temperature variations: An extensive revision and an update to 2001.
Journal of Climate, 16, 206-223.
The satellite discrepency has been mostly solved too, I note that all your references are old. Much has been learned in the last decade and you need to keep up.
There were inter satellite calibration problems (known for at least a decade by the relevant scientists, but only showing up in the published lit in the last few years) orbital drifts, and the microwave limb sounders they use actually get about 25% of their signal from the stratosphere, which has been cooling due to greenhouse gasses and decreasing ozone.
Influence of Satellite Data Uncertainties on the Detection of Externally Forced Climate Change
B. D. Santer, T. M. L. Wigley, G. A. Meehl, M. F. Wehner, C. Mears, M. Schabel, F. J. Wentz, C. Ammann, J. Arblaster, T. Bettge, W. M. Washington, K. E. Taylor, J. S. Boyle, W. Brüggemann, and C. Doutriaux
Science 23 May 2003; 300: 1280-1284
Global Warming Trend of Mean Tropospheric Temperature Observed by Satellites
Konstantin Y. Vinnikov and Norman C. Grody
Science 10 October 2003; 302: 269-272
The Effect of Diurnal Correction on Satellite-Derived Lower Tropospheric Temperature
Carl A. Mears and Frank J. Wentz
Published online 11 August 2005 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1114772] (in Science Express Reports)
Agreed, I don't buy into the sky is falling stuff either. I would never believe anyone who says they can predict exactly what the climate will be doing in 2050 much less 2100, too many non-linear feedbacks and unconstrained variables.
But that doesn't mean such simulations are useless, and they do get better and better. We learn more and more about what we do not know. Your examples are cherry picking and mostly irrelevant. "horsesh" etc. is a major problem for eutrophication and nitrogen mobilization.
The thing is that we have so much beter data now than we ever did, satellites have revolutionized earth science.
The consensus is not about what climate will be doing in a century. It is that human are significantly changing important climatic variables, and the first order effect is more infrared radiation trapped in the troposphere, and cooling in the stratosphere. Feedbacks are much more uncertain.
Pray for us BasketCase, meanwhile let the scientists do their thing.
Most of us don't want to live in climates different from what we have had over the last 10000 years. Much more stable and condusive to human culture than previously. As I have said unprecidented stability.
It may be that we have already delayed a coming ice age with our random actions, maybe not. We have done enough to potentially throw the earth into a new equilibrium unseen over the last million years, previous to that there are some similar examples.
But we are seriously screwing with important climatic forcings, do you not care at all? Do you really just want to pray and forget it?
Urederra
Mostly harmless
Gothmog said:
But CO2 levels have been increasing for more than a century, due to fossil fuels burning. (Yes, Coal is also a fuel, and is fossil as well). How can you explain that?
My sentence was taking into account the last 50 years. I stated that. I remind you that the 1950-1970 period was colder than normal. Even with a steady increase in CO2 levels since the begining of the century.
There is no evidence of a link between CO2 levels and temperature increase even in the last century.
EDIT: And I repeat. Consensus is not science. Science is not consensus.
Urederra
Mostly harmless
Who is that Lomburgs are you talking about? And what is the relation to Mann's hockey Stick graph?
farting bob
ThEy MaDe Me Do iT.
Huh? Humans can adapt to any condition on earth using our intelligence and technology. Humans would almost certainly survive any sudden or long term change, however our lifestyle will be completely different.carlosMM said:
Gothmog
Dread Enforcer
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2002
- Messages
- 3,352
Urederra wrote:
I of course meant McIntyre and McKitrick who you brought up as a way to discredit the Mann record. I was pointing out that they don't have a leg to stand on.
Here's an even better more recent hemispheric temperature reconstruction record:
Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data
Anders Moberg, Dmitry M. Sonechkin, Karin Holmgren, Nina M. Datsenko and Wibjörn Karlén
Nature 433, 613-617 (10 February 2005) | doi: 10.1038/nature03265
I got mixed up with Lomborg (the book you mention, which I misspell Lomburg) for some reason. Btw, you haven't gotten back to the Lassen curve (solar cycle length and surface temp) after again claiming there was some there there in post #127.
From the hadley center: http://www.met-office.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/CR_data/Annual/HadCRUG.gif
This claim could have been made a decade or two ago, but not today. Do try to keep up.
You haven't addressed the fact that current satellite data now corroborates the surface record. As I said, this has only been true in the published literature for the last two years or so.
Sorry, I got a bit mixed up again. Happens when I post in a hurry in the morning before going to a meeting.
I of course meant McIntyre and McKitrick who you brought up as a way to discredit the Mann record. I was pointing out that they don't have a leg to stand on.
Here's an even better more recent hemispheric temperature reconstruction record:
Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data
Anders Moberg, Dmitry M. Sonechkin, Karin Holmgren, Nina M. Datsenko and Wibjörn Karlén
Nature 433, 613-617 (10 February 2005) | doi: 10.1038/nature03265
I got mixed up with Lomborg (the book you mention, which I misspell Lomburg) for some reason. Btw, you haven't gotten back to the Lassen curve (solar cycle length and surface temp) after again claiming there was some there there in post #127.
Coal (yes, coal is a fossil fuel thank you) also releases a lot of SO2, and NO2, into the atmosphere. These have a cooling effect in general. Also, when did I ever make the claim that CO2 has a one to one relationship with surface temperature? What I've said is: humans are significantly changing important climatic variables, and the first order effect of CO2 is more infrared radiation trapped in the troposphere, and cooling in the stratosphere. Feedbacks are much more uncertain.
Your sentence was totally false afaik, most warming has occurred in the last couple decades.
From the hadley center: http://www.met-office.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/CR_data/Annual/HadCRUG.gif
This claim could have been made a decade or two ago, but not today. Do try to keep up.
You haven't addressed the fact that current satellite data now corroborates the surface record. As I said, this has only been true in the published literature for the last two years or so.
Do you even know what an attribution study is? Also given that you seem to think that there has not been any temperature increase isn't this a moot point?
Thank you, does that somehow mean that there cannot be a scientific consensus? What does this mean to you?
BasketCase said:
BC, nobody is so st5upid not to see that you change your definition here - initially, we were talking Glowbal Warming and major climate changes. Now you suddenly call exactly that 'stability' by defining that before and after a massive changes basic environmental conditions are, in your view, 'the same'. Utter nonsense, there's no chance in hell mankind could have made it through the K/T boundary......
calling before and after 'the same' is ridiculous, especially considering that thus far the change we are talking about today is far less.Personification of earth is bulldroppings. Or can you bring any proof for a coherent 'actor earth'?
wrong - the suddeness and scale of the climate change is quite comparable.
So? check the time scale, buddy!
you're just envious - and wrongI don't run away from anything. I meet it head on and crush it like a bug. You're the one who's running away for a vacation.
BasketCase
Username sez it all
Of course there is. Our predecessors HAD to have made it through the boundary, otherwise evolution would have had to start evolving us all over again. The simple fact that we're here in the first place proves your above paragraph (actually your whole post) is garbage.
If the Earth was not a self-stabilizing system, it would not be here. And the simple fact that the seasons cause different parts of the planet to warm or cool in a matter of WEEKS, shows that the planet is capable of adapting very quickly.
If humans are warming the planet, we are doing it very SLOWLY (one degree over a century, where my hometown warms up by FORTY degrees within a month as winter gives way to spring).
Sorry, you lose, thank you for playing.
BasketCase said:
nope, BC, now you just show how idiotic your argument is: because an animal the size and intelligence of a MOUSE made it through.........
please prove this absurd hypothesis.
so physics = adaptation to you?????
Shows again that you don't understand anything posted in this thread....
the plus and minus 40 is a normal fluctuation caused by a fluctuating heat sourse - one that is fluctuating quite stably, thanx to gravity.
the plus 1 in the last century is caused by totally different factors, and moves the entire RANGE in which your fluctuation happenes.
It is a bit like saying: well, the piston in that steam enginge goes up and down 10 inches all the time - where's the trouble if it goes up 11 once?
Tell you what that'd mean: the engine would BREAK. Because the 11th inch would have to be due to totally different causes and result in somwething totally different.
BasketCase
Username sez it all
You're the one who doesn't understand anything in here.
Dynamically unstable systems always collapse the minute they get nudged out of balance by the tiniest bit. Humans (and indeed most of the biosphere) has survived many environmental changes much more drastic than the changes we're (allegedly) imposing now. Life survived multiple Ice Ages. Life even survived a direct asteroid impact (though with considerable damage). The system attempts to repair itself whenever it is shoved out of balance. That's what "stable" means.
The seasonal plus and minus 40 degrees we see is caused by this or that area of the Earth getting less solar radiation. Less sunlight cools the planet in a matter of WEEKS. The environment responds to the change immediately.
When U.S. airlines around New York were completely grounded after 9/11, a measurable response was detected in the weather. Not exactly the response I expected--rather than becoming cooler, the daytime actually got a degree WARMER, while the nights became colder. Still, the effect occurred within a day or two.
When Saddam torched 700 Kuwaiti oil wells and turned the sky black, the temperature at ground level dropped 10 to 15 degrees. Within DAYS.
Carbon dioxide absorbs sunlight and converts it to heat. Its global warming effect comes directly from solar radiation. This effect is immediate.
Yet, whenever I challenge anybody to explain how temperature has suddenly failed to keep up with carbon dioxide levels, I get a weak cop-out: "Oh, that's due to other factors".
#1: If that's true, then the global warming ITSELF could be due to "other factors" besides humans.
#2: Why did these "other factors" mysteriously fail to affect the seasons or the 9/11 airline shutdown or the sooty clouds over Kuwait? That gives it all away--this "other factors" counter-argument is bullpuckey.
A while back, the theory was posed that the universe was expanding (rather than static, as had been previously believed before then).
There was a particular crackpot scientist who refused to believe it. This crackpot was so certain the universe had to be static that he made up a new expansive force that he said would exactly balance gravity. Note what this crackpot did: he decided first what conclusion he WANTED to reach, then he made up a theory that would allow him to believe that conclusion. This isn't science. It's a really bad screw-up is what it is.
Would you like to know the name of this crackpot scientist?
If a mind that brilliant can commit such a logical foul, a bunch of lazy Internet-surfing hacks like us sure can.
So don't be so certain you know what you think you know. Rumsfeld nailed it just right: there are some things we don't know we don't know. Me, I know that we don't know them.
Look down. See if the Earth is there or not. Proof complete.
Dynamically unstable systems always collapse the minute they get nudged out of balance by the tiniest bit. Humans (and indeed most of the biosphere) has survived many environmental changes much more drastic than the changes we're (allegedly) imposing now. Life survived multiple Ice Ages. Life even survived a direct asteroid impact (though with considerable damage). The system attempts to repair itself whenever it is shoved out of balance. That's what "stable" means.
The seasonal plus and minus 40 degrees we see is caused by this or that area of the Earth getting less solar radiation. Less sunlight cools the planet in a matter of WEEKS. The environment responds to the change immediately.
When U.S. airlines around New York were completely grounded after 9/11, a measurable response was detected in the weather. Not exactly the response I expected--rather than becoming cooler, the daytime actually got a degree WARMER, while the nights became colder. Still, the effect occurred within a day or two.
When Saddam torched 700 Kuwaiti oil wells and turned the sky black, the temperature at ground level dropped 10 to 15 degrees. Within DAYS.
Carbon dioxide absorbs sunlight and converts it to heat. Its global warming effect comes directly from solar radiation. This effect is immediate.
Yet, whenever I challenge anybody to explain how temperature has suddenly failed to keep up with carbon dioxide levels, I get a weak cop-out: "Oh, that's due to other factors".
#1: If that's true, then the global warming ITSELF could be due to "other factors" besides humans.
#2: Why did these "other factors" mysteriously fail to affect the seasons or the 9/11 airline shutdown or the sooty clouds over Kuwait? That gives it all away--this "other factors" counter-argument is bullpuckey.
A while back, the theory was posed that the universe was expanding (rather than static, as had been previously believed before then).
There was a particular crackpot scientist who refused to believe it. This crackpot was so certain the universe had to be static that he made up a new expansive force that he said would exactly balance gravity. Note what this crackpot did: he decided first what conclusion he WANTED to reach, then he made up a theory that would allow him to believe that conclusion. This isn't science. It's a really bad screw-up is what it is.
Would you like to know the name of this crackpot scientist?
Spoiler :
If a mind that brilliant can commit such a logical foul, a bunch of lazy Internet-surfing hacks like us sure can.
So don't be so certain you know what you think you know. Rumsfeld nailed it just right: there are some things we don't know we don't know. Me, I know that we don't know them.
