The great global warming swindle

[classical_hero]

One problem that I have with AGW, is the fact that there have been periods in history when the earth was hotter than it is now. This seems to point that the greater effect on our climate is not man, not that we play no part at al, but I think that the role that we play is greatly over emphasized. Our climate is a complex thing and just blaming one thing on all the increase is not really the best thing to do.

 

[El_Machinae]

If I remember correctly...if all the ice in the Anatarctic were to melt it would indeed be 20'. I think he hits that part in his trailer: you can view it on his website. I thought it was terrible...but I really can't stand Al Gore either.

Like I said, I hadn't seen the video before the other day. His comments about the whole of Greenland melting are in reference to what happens if the tundra methane is released and causes a tipping point. I don't think he's saying that human CO2 will melt the whole of Greenland, but that human CO2 has the potential to continue melting the tundra.

I have to remember that many people hate Gore for political reasons, while I know almost nothing of the man on that front. Because I have no partisan connections, I feel that I can judge the video with fewer biases.

My summary is that he spends a bit more effort on 'extreme case scenarios' without properly warning that they are the worst-case. Though, since I already knew they were worst case, I wasn't too alarmed.

Urederra: I watched the video. The 20' rise is with regards to Greenland melting, OR West Antarctica melting (they have equivalent ice, I guess) - not the whole of Antarctica.

As well, he specifically does not claim that the number of hurricanes will go up, but that the intensity of hurricanes will go up.

 

[carlosMM]

And this article says he is most likely right.

(unless you think the martians are also causing global warming on Mars)

False, Mars warming up is not 'all' warming up, which was the original claim.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Furthermore it's one guy in the article who "says he is most likely right."

Others in the same article disagree. And they provided links to studies also disagreeing:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/09/060913-sunspots.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070202-global-warming.html

I wonder Urederra, did you also read page 2?

 

[Gothmog]

Well, another classic couple of posts by Urederra.

You post a link to an article at national geographic which sports one mans (uninformed) opinion on the topic in response to my review of current scientific literature and list of talking points on the solar climate link.

Why don't you put Abdussamatov's name into a scientific literature database search tool Urederra?

Don't you have access to one?

Is it because you know this man has never published anything on this topic?

Or because you like to get your science information from right wing political blogs?
Which is what comes up when you use google on his name...

There are a number of scientists who study the atmospheres and climate of planets other than earth, why not look to them for some explanation of Mars' climate. You know, like the people who brought you the mars orbiter? Scientists within their field of expertise? Here's a link or two to get you started:
http://www-mgcm.arc.nasa.gov/mgcm/HTML/faqs.html
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/10/global-warming-on-mars/#more-192

You might find out that Mars has very little atmosphere, which makes dust and dust storms a very important factor in it's climate. You might find out that it's orbital variations are larger than the earth, in part because it has no large moon.

Abdussamatov ends with "the solar irradiance began to drop in the 90s", ???.

What does he know that he is not saying? There's nothing I've been able to find about this in the open literature. If solar irradiance is dropping it's by less than one tenth of one percent according to everything I've seen. Also, haven't you recently been arguing that we are at some kind of solar maximum? Or was that your right wing political blog companion theimmoratl1? You guys should really compare notes.

As well, you are just being a baby on the ozone hole issue. Why do you think that you are the only one who contemplates multi-causal phenomena? How many times have you been told that climate is multi-causal when you have insisted that CO2 and surface temperature must match 1:1 for AGW to be relevant?

"Wah, wah, wah, cry, cry, cry, I want to argue purely semantic points rather than look at the science ... "
(Edit: note that I am tired of being ignored by Urederra, his repeated posts on the same tired topics are starting to feel like trolls, and I guess I can't help but feed this one)

The reason it's called the 'hole' is partially like the 'big bang' it's just a name. But if you look at a global plot of ozone column abundances you see something like this:

Yeah, it sort of looks like a hole over the antarctic...

This was studied and it was found to be due to a combination of polar dynamics (the polar vortex), high level ice clouds (PSC's), and chlorine chemistry (primarily anthropogenic).

So stop crying and pretend you are a scientist.

As far as sea level rise there has been a number of recent reports suggesting that glaciers may be changing faster than we previously thought (e.g. E. Rignot and P Kanagaratnam, Science, 311, 5763, 986-990). Here's the abstract of that one:

Using satellite radar interferometry observations of Greenland, we detected widespread glacier acceleration below 66° north between 1996 and 2000, which rapidly expanded to 70° north in 2005. Accelerated ice discharge in the west and particularly in the east doubled the ice sheet mass deficit in the last decade from 90 to 220 cubic kilometers per year. As more glaciers accelerate farther north, the contribution of Greenland to sea-level rise will continue to increase.

1 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Mail Stop 300-319, Pasadena, CA 91109–8099, USA.
2 Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS), University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA.

Other references:
Otto-Bliesner et. al, Science, 311, 5768, 1751-1753
Ekstrom et. al, Science, 311, 5768, 1756-1758
Veliconga I, and Wahr J, Science, 311, 5768, 1754-1756

Now this does fit with other reports and data, but the science of Ice Sheet dynamics is pretty young, and we don't have certainty about weather the observations reflect a long-term trend, and so this was not considered part of the consensus as represented by the IPCC.

This example actually shows the rational approach taken by the IPCC. It will certainly be considered for the next report if the science matures, is verified, and becomes well accepted. But this is what Gore was basing his estimates on no doubt.

I would say that he is better informed on the current state of the literature than you, Urederra. At least he references the scientific literature and not political blogs.

BTW, here are a couple links to NAS reports. We Americans paid for them, sonorakitch you might find them interesting. They are representative of scientific consensus and have nothing to do with Al Gore.

On radiative forcing and climate change.
http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676

On paleoclimatological records:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11175

 

[El_Machinae]

LOL

The film also maintains that manmade global warming is disproved by conflicting temperature data. Professor John Christy speaks about the discrepancy he discovered between temperatures at the Earth's surface and temperatures in the troposphere (or lower atmosphere). But the programme fails to mention that in 2005 his data were proved wrong, by three papers in Science magazine.

Christy himself admitted last year that he was mistaken. He was one of the authors of a paper which states the opposite of what he says in the film. "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 human-induced 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."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2032575,00.html

Even the experts in the film, disagree that the film presented their views.

 

[ainwood]

Oh, and the graph used to 'link' sunspot activity and global temperature got picked apart a few years back - turns out it is not great science after all:
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/DamonLaut2004.pdf

I understand the need to be sceptical of claims about climate change, but lets at least be equally sceptical about claims on both sides....
BFR

These findings do not by any means rule out the existence of important links between solar activity and terrestrial climate. Such links have been demonstrated by many authors over the years.The sole objective of the present analysis is to draw attention to the fact that some of the widely publicized,apparent correlations do not properly reflect the underlying physical data.

And similar things could be said of Mann & his hockeystick.

 

[Gothmog]

Ainwood,

if you really want the scoop on Mann and the hockeystick check out the link above to the NAS report on paleoclimatological records. This was a direct result of the congressional call for such a report before the associated hearing. It is quite impartial, and describes the issues with constructing such a record in detail.

Actually I got the links backwards so click the one on radiative forcing.
i.e. http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676

 

[ainwood]

Ainwood,

if you really want the scoop on Mann and the hockeystick check out the link above to the NAS report on paleoclimatological records. This was a direct result of the congressional call for such a report before the associated hearing. It is quite impartial, and describes the issues with constructing such a record in detail.

Actually I got the links backwards so click the one on radiative forcing.
i.e. http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676

Thanks, Gothmog. I may try to read that later.

The point I was referring to is that from what I understand, people actually draw more conclusions from Mann's model than he himself is prepared to do. He made some statistical errors in his initial modelling work, and some of his proxies were shown to not be as robust as he initially relied on.

Whereas more analysis and research has shown that the conclusions drawn from sunspots are not as clear as they once were believed to be; the message from Mann's work is similar. Am I right in my understanding that the graphs have been dropped from the latest IPCC report (or at least, corrected?)

 

[Gothmog]

The plots have been updated, in part with work from Mann himself.

The bottom line conclusions are the same though.


Edit: Oh, and sunspots are somewhat different in that the records are not in dispute. There the issue is the science, as I described in my thread 'Cosmic Rays and Climate'.

 

[Urederra]

Sorry for loosing my patience, but are you dumb or unhonest?

That is not very civilized...

Gothmog, myself and others are repeating again and again that no scientist claims this. Why are you repeating this again and again and again. SCIENTISTS KNOW THAT THERE ARE ANTHROPOGENIC AND NATURAL FACTORS INFLUENCING CLIMATE. THERE IS NOT ONE CLIMATE SCIENTIST CLAIMING THAT THERE ARE NO NATURAL VARIABILITIES IN CLIMATE. Got it?

Really? And how much weight is due to anthropogenic and how much is due to natural factors? Any link to back-up your claims? The only paper I found that put a number on each factor is this one

And what's now the thing with the ozone hole[?]

You asked me if there is an example where losts of scientists lied, remember? I quote your request for you.

Right, scientists can cheat, and unfortunately some (too much?) do so. But not thousands of scientists for more than 20 years. Not on a topic that is politically and economically that hot. Sorry, but my imagination just doesn't reach that far to imagine a conspiracy of this extend.
<snip> Care to enlighten me on this comment to?

So I proved that thousands of scientists can cheat for more than 20 years... calling a hole something that was not a hole.

If I interprete what you have written there correctly, you agree that due to human activity, and especially the emission of CFCs, the concentration of stratospheric ozone declined. The result of a lower concentration of stratospheric ozone results in higher incident UV radiation which is known to cause skin-cancer. For this reason, an international agreements was taken to ban the use of these CFCs. Thanks to this agreement, the Ozone concentration is recovering.
Would you agree up to here?

Yes, I agree up to there.

And in this case, is your only problem in the story that someone called it ozone hole? I mean it's just a word, which perhaps is a bit to drastical.

First, not someone but loads of scientists called it a hole. And Second, one word that makes the statement false. The question is, was it a hole, yes or not? The answer is not, it wasn't a hole. Why did they call it a hole? to scare us. Because they wanted to play politics. Calling it a hole wasn't a scientific decision, but a political one. Lying to achieve political triumphs is a machiavellian way of understanding politics. Do you think that was necessary to lie to reduce the emisions of CFCs? No, we would have done the same if they had said that the ozone layer was thinning. Bad precedent.

False, Mars warming up is not 'all' warming up, which was the original claim.

[sarcasm] Yeah, very convincing reason. [/sarcasm]

Well, another classic couple of posts by Urederra.

Yeah, I am a classic.

You post a link to an article at national geographic which sports one mans (uninformed) opinion on the topic in response to my review of current scientific literature and list of talking points on the solar climate link.

Why don't you put Abdussamatov's name into a scientific literature database search tool Urederra?

Don't you have access to one?

Is it because you know this man has never published anything on this topic?

Or because you like to get your science information from right wing political blogs?
Which is what comes up when you use google on his name...

First, this man is the Head of St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia.
Second, Do you want me to provide a paper published by him as a prove? Here it is: Pis’ma v Astronomicheski Zhurnal, Vol. 26, No. 3, 2000, pp. 234–240.
Do you want his email address? Here it is: abduss@gao.spb.su
Do you want his work address? Here it is: Pulkovo Observatory, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pulkovskoe sh. 65, St. Petersburg, 196140, Russia.

So, he is not a "nobody" as you always claim every time I mention a scientist who doesn't share your point of view.

There are a number of scientists who study the atmospheres and climate of planets other than earth, why not look to them for some explanation of Mars' climate. You know, like the people who brought you the mars orbiter? Scientists within their field of expertise? Here's a link or two to get you started:
http://www-mgcm.arc.nasa.gov/mgcm/HTML/faqs.html
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/10/global-warming-on-mars/#more-192

hehehe, you complain that I don't post links to peer-reviewed journals and you end up linking www.realclimate.org

You might find out that Mars has very little atmosphere, which makes dust and dust storms a very important factor in it's climate. You might find out that it's orbital variations are larger than the earth, in part because it has no large moon.

Abdussamatov ends with "the solar irradiance began to drop in the 90s", ???.

What does he know that he is not saying? There's nothing I've been able to find about this in the open literature. If solar irradiance is dropping it's by less than one tenth of one percent according to everything I've seen. Also, haven't you recently been arguing that we are at some kind of solar maximum? Or was that your right wing political blog companion theimmoratl1? You guys should really compare notes.

Neither, theinmmortal1 is not my right wing political blog comanion and I haven't arguing about solar maxima.

As well, you are just being a baby on the ozone hole issue. Why do you think that you are the only one who contemplates multi-causal phenomena? How many times have you been told that climate is multi-causal when you have insisted that CO2 and surface temperature must match 1:1 for AGW to be relevant?

I haven't said anywhere that CO2 and surface temperature must match 1:1 for AGW to be relevant. You are the one being extremist here.

"Wah, wah, wah, cry, cry, cry, I want to argue purely semantic points rather than look at the science ... "
(Edit: note that I am tired of being ignored by Urederra, his repeated posts on the same tired topics are starting to feel like trolls, and I guess I can't help but feed this one)

That is a bit trollish of yours...

The reason it's called the 'hole' is partially like the 'big bang' it's just a name. But if you look at a global plot of ozone column abundances you see something like this:

Yeah, it sort of looks like a hole over the antarctic...

DO you realize that it is not a photograph, but a computer generated graph and the colors are not real?

This was studied and it was found to be due to a combination of polar dynamics (the polar vortex), high level ice clouds (PSC's), and chlorine chemistry (primarily anthropogenic).

I have never denied that. My point is that a 200 Dobson units thick ozone layer is a 200 Dobson units thick ozone layer, not a hole. And it absorbs UV light according to Beer-Lambert law. If you call it a hole, you are denying that there is UV absortion at all.

So stop crying and pretend you are a scientist.

More trolling, that is not typical of yours... The ozone hole thing must have hurt.

As far as sea level rise there has been a number of recent reports suggesting that glaciers may be changing faster than we previously thought (e.g. E. Rignot and P Kanagaratnam, Science, 311, 5763, 986-990). Here's the abstract of that one:


Other references:
Otto-Bliesner et. al, Science, 311, 5768, 1751-1753
Ekstrom et. al, Science, 311, 5768, 1756-1758
Veliconga I, and Wahr J, Science, 311, 5768, 1754-1756

Veliconga and Wahr paper serves more as a initial investigation into some of the applications of observations of gravitational variations, rather than bearing any relevance to the issue of global climate change and its implications.

Here are other articles that indicates that the overall snow fall in Anrtarctica is growing:

Davis, C. H., et al., 2005. Snowfall-driven growth in East Antarctic ice sheet mitigates recent sea-level rise. Science, 308, 1898-1901.

Rignot, E., and P. Kanagaratnam, 2006. Changes in the velocity structure of the Greenland ice sheet. Science, 31, 986-990.

Vaughn, D.G., 2005. How does the Antarctic ice sheet affect sea level rise? Science, 308, 1877-1878.

Now this does fit with other reports and data, but the science of Ice Sheet dynamics is pretty young, and we don't have certainty about weather the observations reflect a long-term trend, and so this was not considered part of the consensus as represented by the IPCC.

I agree with that.

I would say that he is better informed on the current state of the literature than you, Urederra. At least he references the scientific literature and not political blogs.

Uh... more trolling. I have also referenced scientific literature.

 

[CCA]

YOu know Global Warming is an established fact when the Conservative party in Britain have pledged to reduce carbon emmisions by "at least" 60&#37;

In other words:

Get over it opponents of Global Warming, the anti-global warming campaign has failed. Too late man.

Game over.

Any feasible opposition to Global Warming I will expect to disappear in 5 years.

Even the Republicans will campaign on it

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Of course, a hole in the ozone layer can only mean 'not ozone at all". That is the meaning of 'hole' in any context, including light absorption. What It cannot be possible is that a 300 Dobson units thick ozone layer is a normal average ozone layer and a 220 (or 200 for that matter) Dobson units thick ozone layer is a hole in the ozone layer.

[snip Beer-Lambert law and lots of ramble]

Since when science became so black or white? So lacking of gradation? It seems to be either a normal ozone layer or a hole. Same happens with the global warming issue. Seems to be either 100 &#37; anthropogenic or 100 % natural. I am the only one who contemplates the possibility of being multicausal?

[snip lots of claims that scientists are "lying"]

I had this with Princeps a few weeks ago. Stop arguing with the definition. It makes me want to hit you with the dictionary. You are not Humpty Dumpty.

TERM OR PHRASE INCORRECT MEANING ACTUAL MEANING

Inflammable Not flammable Flammable

Anti-semitism Opposition to Semites (descendants of Biblical Shem, aka Arabs and Israelis) Hatred of or prejudice against Jews

Ozone hole Area of atmosphere with zero ozone Area of atmosphere with less than 200 Dobson of ozone

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

'Big Bang'?

In vacuum, there can't be a Bang. Furthermore there was no one to hear it. If the start of a universe happens in a forest with no one around to hear it, does it make any noise?

'Solid objects'?

They're 99.9&#37; nothing. Just forces holding a couple of tiny unspecified thingies together.

Bloody lying scientists!

 

[carlosMM]

Hey urederra, that's nice: you post an article that is supposed to back up the claim that 'all' planets heat up, we point out that it only talks about mars, and that there is by far no consensus, and that this is even mentioned in the article - and all you say is a sarcastic remark?


How about you retract your statement, as it has been proven FALSE?

 

[Goa]

That is not very civilized...

Really? But who cares, I never pretended to be civilized

Really? And how much weight is due to anthropogenic and how much is due to natural factors? Any link to back-up your claims? The only paper I found that put a number on each factor is this one

Than you haven't been searching very hard. Oh, and by now I noticed that you read only parts of my posts so I will quote myself here to help you in this search:

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/WG...oved_05Feb.pdf
On page 4 you can find the different factors. CO2 represents about 60% of the anthropogenic warming factors.

So on page four you have an graphical overview of the different radiative forces with error bars. If you look then in the main report, you can read in detail how they come to this graph, with lots of references to the corresponding papers.

You asked me if there is an example where lots of scientists lied, remember? I quote your request for you.

So I proved that thousands of scientists can cheat for more than 20 years... calling a hole something that was not a hole.


First, not someone but loads of scientists called it a hole. And Second, one word that makes the statement false. The question is, was it a hole, yes or not? The answer is not, it wasn't a hole. Why did they call it a hole? to scare us. Because they wanted to play politics. Calling it a hole wasn't a scientific decision, but a political one. Lying to achieve political triumphs is a machiavellian way of understanding politics. Do you think that was necessary to lie to reduce the emisions of CFCs? No, we would have done the same if they had said that the ozone layer was thinning. Bad precedent.

Rofl, this is cheating and lying in your book? You're getting more and more ridiculous.
Probably it was even the media who introduced the word.

 

[ainwood]

Moderator Action: People - keep the debate civil, please.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Gothmog]

Urederra, wow you finally respond to a post of mine. It has been a while. I guess feeding the troll worked in this case.

First I am going to respond to this:

Really? And how much weight is due to anthropogenic and how much is due to natural factors? Any link to back-up your claims? The only paper I found that put a number on each factor is this one

I've been addressing that here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5199697&postcount=32

Though I'm sure you don't want to talk about the science.

Oh and the link you provide does nothing like what you claim, in fact its conclusion is that solar forcing will cause an average global temperature increase of 10 degrees over the next 2 billion years. And that only after making some very tenuous assumptions about our ability to ignore various factors in the climate equation (such as life, oceanic circulation, various nonlinear feedbacks and bifurcations). Where do you even find this stuff?

I am aware that Abdussamatov is head of an Astronomical Observatory, it says as much in the link you provided - I have no reason to doubt national geographic in such a case (though I do often question its science - it is a popular magazine not a journal).
Why would I want his address or e-mail?

Why give me a reference to an article titled: "Mesostructure of the solar granulation" that was published 7 years ago?

Because it is Abdussamatov's only publication in at least the last decade?
Because he has never published anything on a relevant topic?

As I said. Not an expert.

Again you fail to address any science.

I linked to a NASA page showing that there are scientists who study the climate of Mars (unlike Abdussamatov). If you were really interested in the science.

The realclimate link is to a guest contribution by S. Sigurdsson who is an astrophysicist at Penn State. Really more of an educator, and so a good writer and explainer. Since you have not wanted to bring actual scientific articles I thought this would be easier for you (and others) to read.

Anyway here are a couple references, which I'm sure you wont look at.

"Climate change of Mars-like planets due to obliquity variations: Implications for Mars"
Nakamura, Takasumi; Tajika, Eiichi
Geophysical Research Letters; 1 July 2003; vol.30, no.13, p.18-1-4

"Response of the intermediate complexity Mars Climate Simulator to different obliquity angles"
Segschneider, J; Grieger, B; Keller, HU; Lunkeit, F; Kirk, E; Fraedrich, K; Rodin, A; Greve, R
Planetary and Space Science; May 2005; vol.53, no.6, p.659-70

Really I just wanted to point out that Abdussamatov is not an expert in the climate of Mars, but that such experts do exist - and believe me if they had made a discovery of the magnitude of what Abdussamatov is claiming, they would publish it immediately. If it had even a modicum of credibility it would would easily make a whole career, if it were later verified and accepted it would be award winning work.

You haven't mentioned solar maxima lately, but I think we argued about sunspots and the Lassen paper before. I'm not going to search for it though, so I wont press the point. But again, you ignore the blatantly false statement by Abdussamatov about solar irradiance - i.e. the science.

DO you realize that it is not a photograph, but a computer generated graph and the colors are not real?

Are you serious?

The purple color represents a column abundance of 100 DU and the red 500 DU.

If you call it a hole, you are denying that there is UV absorption at all.

Again, are you serious? Is there something wrong with you?
Moderator Action: Its these kind of comments that I was referring to. Keep it civil.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889


Plots like the one I presented are how scientists visualize large data sets, it looks like a hole in the picture... no?

Finally you give a couple reputable references wrt future sea level change, and as I said. This work was not included in the IPCC for a reason - there is no clear answer yet. But I did force you to do more than laugh at Gore and make outrageous claims about his integrity.

 

[Masquerouge]

I'm glad that Urederra posts, because I can then read Gothmog's replies

 

[Pokurcz]

Yeah, I mean the patience needed to give such good answers to such obvious gibberish is staggering!