Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Desertdog on December 15, 2008, 01:52:50 PM
-
From the next to last paragraph in the story. Doesn't make sense to me.
While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.
Obama left with little time to curb global warming
By SETH BORENSTEIN
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081214/D952LKP00.html
WASHINGTON (AP) - When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, global warming was a slow-moving environmental problem that was easy to ignore. Now it is a ticking time bomb that President-elect Barack Obama can't avoid.
Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it.
"The time for delay is over; the time for denial is over," he said on Tuesday after meeting with former Vice President Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming. "We all believe what the scientists have been telling us for years now that this is a matter of urgency and national security and it has to be dealt with in a serious way."
But there are powerful political and economic realities that must be quickly overcome for Obama to succeed. Despite the urgency he expresses, it's not at all clear that he and Congress will agree on an approach during a worldwide financial crisis in time to meet some of the more crucial deadlines.
Obama is pushing changes in the way Americans use energy, and produce greenhouse gases, as part of what will be a massive economic stimulus. He called it an opportunity "to re-power America."
After years of inaction on global warming, 2009 might be different. Obama replaces a president who opposed mandatory cuts of greenhouse gas pollution and it appears he will have a willing Congress. Also, next year, diplomats will try to agree on a major new international treaty to curb the gases that promote global warming.
"We need to start in January making significant changes," Gore said in a recent telephone interview with The Associated Press. "This year coming up is the most important opportunity the world has ever had to make progress in really solving the climate crisis."
Scientists are increasingly anxious, talking more often and more urgently about exceeding "tipping points."
"We're out of time," Stanford University biologist Terry Root said. "Things are going extinct."
U.S. emissions have increased by 20 percent since 1992. China has more than doubled its carbon dioxide pollution in that time. World carbon dioxide emissions have grown faster than scientists' worst-case scenarios. Methane, the next most potent greenhouse gas, suddenly is on the rise again and scientists fear that vast amounts of the trapped gas will escape from thawing Arctic permafrost.
The amount of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere has already pushed past what some scientists say is the safe level.
In the early 1990s, many scientists figured that the world was about a century away from a truly dangerous amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, said Mike MacCracken, who was a top climate scientist in the Clinton administration. But as they studied the greenhouse effect further, scientists realized that harmful changes kick in at far lower levels of carbon dioxide than they thought. Now some scientists, but not all, say the safe carbon dioxide level for Earth is about 10 percent below what it is now.
Gore called the situation "the equivalent of a five-alarm fire that has to be addressed immediately."
Scientists fear that what's happening with Arctic ice melt will be amplified so that ominous sea level rise will occur sooner than they expected. They predict Arctic waters could be ice-free in summers, perhaps by 2013, decades earlier than they thought only a few years ago.
In December 2009, diplomats are charged with forging a new treaty replacing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which set limits on greenhouse gases, and which the United States didn'tratify. This time European officials have high expectations for the U.S. to take the lead. But many experts don't see Congress passing a climate bill in time because of pressing economic and war issues.
"The reality is, it may take more than the first year to get it all done," Senate Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said recently.
Complicating everything is the worldwide financial meltdown. Frank Maisano, a Washington energy specialist and spokesman who represents coal-fired utilities and refineries, sees the poor economy as "a huge factor" that could stop everything. That's because global warming efforts are aimed at restricting coal power, which is cheap. That would likely mean higher utility bills and more damage to ailing economies that depend on coal production, he said.
Obama is stacking his Cabinet and inner circle with advocates who have pushed for deep mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas pollution and even with government officials who have achieved results at the local level.
The President-elect has said that one of the first things he will do when he gets to Washington is grant California and other states permission to control car tailpipe emissions, something the Bush administration denied.
And though congressional action may take time, the incoming Congress will be more inclined to act on global warming. In the House, liberal California Democrat Henry Waxman's unseating of Michigan Rep. John Dingell - a staunch defender of Detroit automakers - as head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee was a sign that global warming will be on the fast track.
Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., vowed to push two global warming bills starting in January: one to promote energy efficiency as an economic stimulus and the other to create a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from utilities. "The time is now," she wrote in a Dec. 8 letter to Obama.
Mother Nature, of course, is oblivious to the federal government's machinations. Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.
The average global temperature in 2008 is likely to wind up slightly under 57.9 degrees Fahrenheit, about a tenth of a degree cooler than last year. When Clinton was inaugurated, 57.9 easily would have been the warmest year on record. Now, that temperature would qualify as the ninth warmest year.
---
Associated Press writer Dina Cappiello contributed to this report.
-
:O You're kiddin', right? Please tell me "educated" people don't think this way.
-
Shhhhhhhhhh, quiet.......If you listen very carefully you will hear the rumble of hobnailed boots.
-
We mock what we do not understand.
-
We mock what we do not understand.
No, I ask questions and learn about things I do not understand.
I mock the things I understand and recognize for their foolishness.
-
Global warming is caused by the heat generated from the left trying to spin the facts.
-
"We're out of time," Stanford University biologist Terry Root said. "Things are going extinct."
Last I checked 99.99% of all the species that have ever lived on the earth have gone extinct.....
Sorry, Terry but your doom and gloom won't fly....
-
This stuff is right out of 1984.
War is peace. :lol:
-
We're out of time," Stanford University biologist Terry Root said. "Things are going extinct."
Ummm, yeah, but at least we are replacing these "things" that are going extinct from all this "warming".
Bid to name your new critter (if my bid wins, I'm calling the bat the "Irwin Maximus")=>http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=name-that-speciesafter-yourself-pur-2008-12-09
Don't critters like it warm, like, you know, plants? Snow and ice is called "God's Lysol" for a reason, it kills everything. How would a warmer earf be worse for animal and mankind?
Too bad Global Warming is rubbish, the Midwest could use some warmth right now.
-
No, I ask questions and learn about things I do not understand.
I mock the things I understand and recognize for their foolishness.
You know we're in a La Niña climate cycle, right? You know what La Niña is?
Colder than normal temps in the northwest? Warmer than normal in the southeast?
Do you also know that increased frequency of La Niña and El Niño events can be modeled due to increased Co2 in the atmosphere? These events are nature's way of dealign with increased heat dumped into the system.
-
You know we're in a La Niña climate cycle, right? You know what La Niña is?
Colder than normal temps in the northwest? Warmer than normal in the southeast?
Do you also know that increased frequency of La Niña and El Niño events can be modeled due to increased Co2 in the atmosphere? These events are nature's way of dealign with increased heat dumped into the system.
Hippy.
:lol:
In all seriousness, there are too many factors to accurately predict long-term global trends. Our sample size is too small, for one... but more importantly, how about all the tiny little things that CAN happen, are modeled to happen, but don't? How about the things that aren't modeled but do?
-
Four words for you Nitro.....
Sun Spots
Water Vapor
Neither of which are modelled in the "ClimateChanger-puter".
Global Woerming is a false religion......
-
Free link to a free book (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/)
-
Four words for you Nitro.....
Sun Spots
Nah. The sun was emitting less energy 4 billion years ago than it is now, yet for a lot of that time, it was a lot warmer than it is now.
Analysis of ice cores show strong correlation in the amounts of co2 in the atmosphere and global temperature. Less so than sunspots. There is no shown corrleation between solar cycles and global climate changes.
Water Vapor
Water vapor in the air has been steady over time, so doesn't correlate to any changes in the climate.
-
From the next to last paragraph in the story. Doesn't make sense to me. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.
I guess you missed The Day After Tomorrow, a movie which showed how global warming caused a new Ice Age almost over night. (The movie HAD to be good, because Algore lifted CGI scenes from it to use in HIS movie!)
Analysis of ice cores show strong correlation in the amounts of co2 in the atmosphere and global temperature.
I believe I read that CO2 went up after the temperature rose . . . correlation is not causation.
-
I have always read that CO2 has lagged temperature changes. It has not preceded them. That doesn't say much of anything about CO2 as a cause of GW.
-
I guess you missed The Day After Tomorrow, a movie which showed how global warming caused a new Ice Age almost over night. (The movie HAD to be good, because Algore lifted CGI scenes from it to use in HIS movie!)I believe I read that CO2 went up after the temperature rose . . . correlation is not causation.
That movie was so stupid at every turn that it made me angry.
Even when the Russian freighter bumped against the building, I was foolishly thinking of practical terms. "Great! A freighter designed for travel in the cold north sea. They'll get on that instead, secure and dog all the hatches, go belowdecks, and start one of the engines at idle power for electrical power and warmth, there's lots of fuel and probably provisions." But, of course, no.
-
There is also the issue I heard about that the GW contribution of CO2 decreases in a near logarithmic curve as CO2 increases. So further increases in CO2 will have less and less of an effect.
-
The sun was emitting less energy 4 billion years ago than it is now, yet for a lot of that time, it was a lot warmer than it is now.
Don't forget to account for things such as volcanoes (dust), different atmospheric conditions, different water makeup (dissolved minerals have changed RADICALLY over the years), radiation sources keeping the Earth's core molten, etc.
There are too many factors for me to believe ANY prediction, one way or the other.
-
Analysis of ice cores show strong correlation in the amounts of co2 in the atmosphere and global temperature.
Yep. What they failed to show, and no one has been able to conclusively prove, is if the correlation is cause or effect. Much of the repeatable and reputable data is leaning heavily towards the latter.
Water vapor in the air has been steady over time, so doesn't correlate to any changes in the climate.
El wrongo. Water vapor, like all other constituent atmospheric gasses, changes over time in both percentage and overall quantity. So sayeth the same ice core data you mentioned above.
Brad
-
Water vapor in the air has been steady over time, so doesn't correlate to any changes in the climate.
Water vapor in the air changes constantly. It is called Relative Humidity (RH).
RH is just how much water the air will hold at a given temperature. If you are talking about Absolute Humidity, that is something else.
When RH reaches saturation point, it will start dumping the moisture from the air, as rain, snow, dew, or frost, depending on conditions at the time.
-
Toba on Sumatra...
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wayfaring.info%2Fimages%2Fvolcano_toba_indonesia_eruption.jpg&hash=9ffa20f5bd28f0c9d21a608f3f0a717e6ec35728)
Ban these things.
-
Toba on Sumatra...
I'll see your "Toba on Sumatra" and raise you a "Darmok and Jilad at Tanagra".
=D
Brad
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg02.picoodle.com%2Fimg%2Fimg02%2F7%2F2%2F11%2Ff_darmokm_f512411.jpg&hash=82f7dfe6223d1fae75d70b9c59f47d5aefd99907)
-
I guess you missed The Day After Tomorrow, a movie which showed how global warming caused a new Ice Age almost over night. (The movie HAD to be good, because Algore lifted CGI scenes from it to use in HIS movie!)
That movie was so stupid at every turn that it made me angry.
And that movie was based on a book written by Art Bell and Whitley Streiber. While I have a little respect for Art Bell, I don't agree with what he's written and I doubt little if any actual science went into the project. I see it more as him trying to cash in rather than warning the world of a serious issue.
If you remember, not to long after that Owl Gore hopped the same money train.
-
This is all very silly.
Firstly I gave you all a link to a free book. Free people, free. Costs nothing. Good too.
Secondly - we've done this ad nauseum, and the only thing I've learned is that no matter how many times you address nonsense like 'but but volcanoes' and 'no water vapour in models' the same people repeat the same stuff over and over.
So horse meet water - http://www.aip.org/history/climate/ - now, the thirst is definitely on you.
-
So horse meet water - http://www.aip.org/history/climate/ - now, the thirst is definitely on you.
Linky no worky. Hard to drink from a pond with no water.
Also, I did some digging this Terry Root. Turns out she is Al Gore's pet global warming quote source, serving on the same boards and in the same groups as Gore and most of the other global warming zealots who routinely make the news. She has authored, in whole or in part, many of the papers submitted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is also the source for most of Gore's quotes/data.
Brad
-
Works for me. Google - AIP weart - should be first iink.
-
Went to www.aip.org and the page isn't loading.
AIP is the American Insitute of Physics if anyone cares.
Brad
-
I remember reading some paper looking at certain glaciers, and how they were melting away. They came to the conclusion that they were melting away because of changing sea currents or some other reason unrelated to global warming. Which goes to show how dangerous global warming really is, if the glaciers are melting away even without it! Yes, people (even scientific people) are that dumb.
-
Iain:
I see your link with a link of my own. http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202004/Spring2004/global.html
-
Iain:
I see your link with a link of my own. http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202004/Spring2004/global.html
Read the book. Read the criticisms. Read anything and everything, and then see if you can come back and read these endless and repetitive threads with their three line self-important dismissals of climate science, their claims of conspiracy and their endless recycling of nonsense and take any of it seriously.
I've largely quit these threads because the more I read about it the less certain I am and the less capable I am of making short posts on the internet in the face of deliberately ignorant snide. The reason I give you guys Weart is that many of you clearly have never read anything serious on the subject, anything that wasn't a columnists hatchet piece. Only those that will only read short, generally snidey, articles with conclusions that they already like can be so certain and so dismissive.
-
Like I stated earlier, the HUGE number of variables has left me unable to choose a side in this debate. In all actuality, I'll be dead before it matters... =D
-
Read anything and everything, and then see if you can come back and read these endless and repetitive threads with their three line self-important dismissals of climate science, their claims of conspiracy and their endless recycling of nonsense and take any of it seriously
As for me, the GW scenario would possibly sound more reasonable if they hadn't allowed Al Gore to be the key spokesman, and if in the 70's they hadn't been screaming "Global Cooling, Global Cooling."
Then it warmed up. So what did they say then? "Global Warming, Global Warming."
Then it started getting colder again. Now what were they saying? How about, "Climate Change, Climate Change."
With this record, why the hell should we listen to them?? What ever they say, they, change their war cry to oppose what ever happens.
The climate changes constantly. Man is not going to be able to make climate do what they want it to. Just look at what the world's weather history has been. Ice ages, hot periods, cold periods, always changing and always doing what it wants to.
-
I've largely quit these threads because the more I read about it the less certain I am and the less capable I am of making short posts on the internet in the face of deliberately ignorant snide. The reason I give you guys Weart is that many of you clearly have never read anything serious on the subject, anything that wasn't a columnists hatchet piece. Only those that will only read short, generally snidey, articles with conclusions that they already like can be so certain and so dismissive.
There's a nugget of wisdom in that remark, although I'm sure it's not what you intended.
Most of us here doubt the global warming 'hypothesis'. You assume it's because we're ignorant on the subject, when in fact it's because we're a lot like you. The more we actually learn about global warming, the less certain we are that it's real, and the less certain we are of the facts and data that underpin it. The more we learn about global warming, the more we realize that it's unproven, and in fact unprovable.
It's not unreasonable, therefore, to conclude that anyone who professes that global warming is proven fact is either lying to us, or lying to themselves, or completely ignorant on the subject and too dumb to realize it. Whichever is the case, I don't see why ridicule is inappropriate.
-
I well remember when the exact same historical data were cited in the 1970s to "prove" that we were killing the planet and were all going to die because of global cooling. I guess none of us actually exist now.
-
I well remember when the exact same historical data were cited in the 1970s to "prove" that we were killing the planet and were all going to die because of global cooling. I guess none of us actually exist now.
More misquoted mythology.
Sure, the media picked up on a couple rotten papers, only about 8-10% of which seemed inclined to future cooling.
Also, there are a lot less aresols in the atmosphere than there were then.
-
More misquoted mythology.
It's all mythology.
-
Read the book. Read the criticisms. Read anything and everything, and then see if you can come back and read these endless and repetitive threads with their three line self-important dismissals of climate science, their claims of conspiracy and their endless recycling of nonsense and take any of it seriously.
I've largely quit these threads because the more I read about it the less certain I am and the less capable I am of making short posts on the internet in the face of deliberately ignorant snide. The reason I give you guys Weart is that many of you clearly have never read anything serious on the subject, anything that wasn't a columnists hatchet piece. Only those that will only read short, generally snidey, articles with conclusions that they already like can be so certain and so dismissive.
Well, the same people that were yelling "Global Warming" & now "climate change" also yelled "blood in the streets"
when the awb rode off into the sunet and tell me that ccw is a terrible thing.
But I can prove climate change is real, last summer it was warm in Wyoming, this December it is cold there, Cheney is from
Wyo .... Bush knew!
-
i know a group of old fart meteorologists. so old that some of them were recruited to be weathermen by the airforce with scholarships to college just after ww2 mind you at least one guy had to be told what a meteorologist was. he had already signed up for free college ., they spent the majority of their careers designing computer models using punch cards. strangly enough exactly zero of them believe in the gorical or his church. they do laugh at it a bunch
-
Iain,
The problem that most of us have with global warming, now climate change, has to do more with the arrogance and smug knowitallism perpetrated by mostly leftist scientists, or scientists who's existence depends on government grant. Isn't it strange that most defenders of this "science" are avowed socialists or live in socialist leaning communities? Defenders of their conclusions brush off scientists that are funded by private industry but are quick to give credence to scientists funded at the public trough. Guess which entity has the power to force changes.
As for the snideness, that comes mostly from those who defend government fiat over freedom with respect to this issue. I think scepticism more properly defines those of us who are having this stuff shoved down our throats. It is absolute arrogance to believe that humans are the major influence, or much more than a blip with respect to climate change. To me that is also the arrogance of the Humanist movement; that humans are so powerful they can alter an entire planet's ecological system by themselves. That arrogance is elevated when reasonable folks are expected to believe that any group of people other than the most advanced and free states in the world will pay any attention to any proposal by climate change disaster zealots. The biggest polluters always seem to be exempted. The countries that have contributed more treasure to, and at least try and be a good husband of our resources are vilified.
I suggest that those who are so convinced and believe that they can have any appreciable effect upon reversing a planetary weather cycle, pool your money and go do it. I suggest you leave the rest of us alone.
-
and if in the 70's they hadn't been screaming "Global Cooling, Global Cooling."
Then it warmed up. So what did they say then? "Global Warming, Global Warming."
Then it started getting colder again. Now what were they saying? How about, "Climate Change, Climate Change."
With this record, why the hell should we listen to them?? What ever they say, they, change their war cry to oppose what ever happens.
1984?
-
How many of you remember the dire warnings of the catastrophic facing the world because of all the fires in Kuwait? The fires were put out, the smoke cleared, and nothing more said about any bad happening.
-
Grampster, So you are saying you don't believe in climate change because you disagree with certain people's politics?
-
Grampster, So you are saying you don't believe in climate change because you disagree with certain people's politics?
Would that be unreasonable? Global warming alarmism is inescapably political.
-
more like global warming is a political agenda or since its not warming anymore climate change
-
Would that be unreasonable? Global warming alarmism is inescapably political.
I think that's the worst reason to disagree with the global warming/climate change thing.
Disagree with it because you don't believe the science.
-
Grampster, So you are saying you don't believe in climate change because you disagree with certain people's politics?
Isn't that statement equally applicable to those of you who hold to the notion of human caused climate change? In fact, in my opinion, it is more so.
See, you've walked right into my point and don't even know it. My whole problem with the human caused global warming issue is that your side is the one who has politicized it. The left is demanding governments tax/regulate human behavior because the left has no faith in the possibility of free people actually caring enough for their surroundings without being subjected to draconian at best, and bellicose at worst, government oppression. The fact is, the most oppressive governments are the ones who are the worst husbands of their natural resources. I hope I wouldn't have to list them for you. The global warming scientists are to more likely to be wrong or lying because the issue is politicized by the left. That's where their funding comes from. Without it, no one cares what they have to say because a lot of what they say is speculation not fact. I trust them less than the scientist on the other side of the spectrum for the obvious reasons.
-
Disagree with it because you don't believe the science.
When the "science" can tell me accurately what the weather will be just one month in advance, then I might, just might, start believing them when they forecast six months in advance. But to believe they know what is going to happen in ten years, or more, no way Jose.
Right now they cannot forecast what will happen in a week, except in cetain cases. Like Fargo ND will be cold and possible snow on the ground in January. Or the desert of NM will be sunshine and hot in the summer
-
Iain:
Don't assume ignorance on the part of those who don't agree with you, O Uniquely Wise and Informed One. For some, usually those who have been around the block a few times, the GW/CC racket sets off their BS detector and that is enough for them to kick it to the curb.
Others, such as myself, have some expertise in one of the fields that have a part to play in climate analysis.
Glacier activity, for instance, is not one field I claim to have any expertise, other than my physics education and survey courses in other sciences. So, when I read about glaciers retreating, advancing, and flanking other hostile glaciers with the intent to plunder and rape their way to the sea; I can not judge much of the analysis of what is presented on that subject.
Computer models (especially stochastic force-on-force) , OTOH, are my bread & butter. They are how I make my living. When some PHB (Pointy Haired Boss) needs a MS&A (Modeling, Simulation, & Analysis) SME (Subject Matter Expert), I am frequently the guy they call. Every so often they determine it makes sense to have me model and analyze something. Do this often enough and, over time, one can stay employed.
A very simplified explanation:
http://www.vertex42.com/ExcelArticles/mc/MonteCarloSimulation.html
http://www.vertex42.com/ExcelArticles/mc/StochasticModel.html
Which brings me back to how computer models interface with the GW racket. To put it bluntly, the GW racketeers who develop, use, and market the output of climate models predicting GW due to human action are dishonest scum I would not trust to jockey a checking account spreadsheet, let along develop and run a climate model. They may be intelligent, but they have no integrity, so they are unworthy of trust.
The errors and methodology can not be explained away as rookie mistakes or simple oversights. If I were to do something similar and present it to my customer, I would expect to be fired and prosecuted. My company would also face some pretty severe consequences, not the least of which is having their reputation dragged through the mud.
I look at the GW/CC contingent as the fraudulent faith healers of the scientific community. I almost expect Peter Popoff to jump on the GW bandwagon, since his talent for fraud could improve the GW racketeers'. Oh, wait, some of the off-the-reservation Christians have already done so. They know an opportunity and sucker GW believer supporter of their ministry when they see one.
-
jfruser - I won't assume ignorance when posts are actually thoughtful and well informed. Many here qualify - when they decide to contribute seriously to the discussion.
Others - well they repeat the global cooling/no water vapour/volcanoes/they now call it climate change/etc talking points...
When the "science" can tell me accurately what the weather will be just one month in advance...
...over and over. There is vast amounts out there to dispute these easy assertions - but as we've seen, some won't read it because they don't like its conclusions.
Most of us here doubt the global warming 'hypothesis'. You assume it's because we're ignorant on the subject, when in fact it's because we're a lot like you.
Again - not assuming ignorance on the part of those who do more than repeat something they heard on talk radio. And repeat it. And repeat it. But cannot back it up, and cannot or will not respond to counter arguments.
I think scepticism more properly defines those of us who are having this stuff shoved down our throats. It is absolute arrogance to believe that humans are the major influence, or much more than a blip with respect to climate change.
This is not a sceptical position. This position clearly defines what it will not accept, it is not an open position, it rejects all contrary scientific - the preponderance of scientific evidence.
But yes - this is all political, which is exactly why everyone has such strong opinions, everyone has their trusted 'experts' and there is so much heat and so little light on internet forums.
-
Oh, man, look at all these new species! Did you check out the couch cushions?
Our Dying Planet: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081215/sc_afp/sciencethailandseasiawildlife_081215132156
-
One of the main things I struggle with on the whole climate change debate is that the dire predictions are based on computer models. I do financial modeling and forecasting as my profession, and I know for a fact you can make a model say whatever you want even with very reasonable assumptions as inputs. If the model that is developed is very sensitive to small tweaks in assumptions, it's even easier to get the result you want. This is for models with maybe 3-5 key assumptions. With the climate change models, I'm guessing they have a lot more assumptions that underpin the way the model works.
I realize that climate models are not exactly the same as financial models, but the principles of modeling and forecasting don't change a whole lot based on what you're modeling.
My opinion based on what I know so far is that the inputs to the models are very reasonable and are based on scientific fact. However, I'm guessing there's at least some political tweaking to those inputs to get closer to the desired result. Since the inputs are only tweaked within a reasonable range, it's hard to challenge them on a scientific basis.
Having said that, I'm undecided on whether climate change is caused by man or not or whether it's anything to worry about or not. But I do know that carbon credit scams and more government regulation are not the answer. World politics are too corrupt and messy to even begin to solve the problem (if it exists).
-
You want to know my biggest problem with Global Warming Alarmists?
It's so very obvious they are wrong.
EVEN IF man is causing the current climate, the solution is not "Let's send man back to the dark ages".
If you want less pollution of any kind, work to make the most advanced economy in the history of the world EVEN MORE ADVANCED.
LET PEOPLE BUILD MORE POWER PLANTS, of all kinds.
LET PEOPLE DRILL FOR MORE OIL. Everywhere.
Why? Because as people get richer, they WANT less pollution. WORK TO MAKE PEOPLE RICHER, not poorer.
Why do you think China is the worst polluter in the world right now?
-
I think one problem when discussing Global Warming is the lack of definition of terms - mainly "Global Warming." For some people it means only what the phrase obviously says. The globe is warming. To others it is that the globe is warming and we are the cause. To others it means all the above and we will have to do something about it or we will all perish.
So the first thing I ask when discussing the subject is what their definition of Global Warming is.
Personally, I observe the first definition. I have seen a lot of evidence for the position that we are causing it. However, I am very leery of data that has not been "proven" to me. If I cannot find out how it is collected or, worse yet, the collection methods are actually hidden, I consider the information null, void, and irrelevant to the debate. I have to know that all the parts of the house (theory) you are building are structurally sound before I want to purchase one or sell it to other people.
I'm not putting the responsibility of finding that information on anyone. I just haven't done it. But I become very skeptical when the debate is incredibly politicized, as it has been. Not that it makes either sides arguments null. It just makes it that much harder to sift through the information to find accurate information and/or information that isn't corrupt. For example: Scientists may have grants to acquire in the near future and without towing the load everyone else is, they soon find themselves osteracised and possible out of a job.
So when you are personally faced with choosing to tow the party line and getting paid versus coming up with completely independent ideas and conclusions, what are you going to do? What if you have a wife and children to support?
I'm not saying that is what is going on, but it is an example of what can happen. I would think there is a lot of pressure for scientists to argue this debate a certain way. When you go in thinking that you want a particular outcome, you are close minded to the other possibilities and what paths you may be able to take in your research and what questions you should ask to get to alternate outcomes.
I don't blindly trust anything. The only things that I believe, especially when a debate has this much money riding on it, are absolute truths unless everything is explained in detail concerning the paths that lead to a particular conclusion.
Anywho. I'm hungover. My head hurts. So I will continue this later. Just some food for thought.
-
Well, this will probably go down as one of the longest posts in APS history.
What can I say? This is a complex topic, probably the most complex topic that humans have ever dealt with. One liners aren't sufficient. Even three or four paragraphs won't do, especially when there's so much misunderstanding, misinformation and flat out acrimony about it.
So, here goes.
On a whim, I decided to wander over to APS today. I haven't been here in ... years. (I spend most of my time at THR & MoF.) I really didn't like the vibe here when I enrolled a long time ago, so left and haven't been back.
But, out of curiosity, thought I'd stop by. What was I thinking? (Rhetorical question.)
I'm already sorry I did. I can see I run the risk of getting caught up in this thread because the topic is one that is not only of personal interest to me, but that I've dealt with professionally for years as an educator.
Suffice to say as a preface that I'm firmly in the same camp as Iain and Nitrogen.
Still, up until I read this from my trusted friend Grampster, I was thinking I might just lurk in here for a few minutes, have a few chuckles, then disappear without putting in my 0.02c worth.
The problem that most of us have with global warming, now climate change, has to do more with the arrogance and smug knowitallism perpetrated by mostly leftist scientists, or scientists who's existence depends on government grant. Isn't it strange that most defenders of this "science" are avowed socialists or live in socialist leaning communities?
Now, G'ster and I have had conversations about this topic over a couple of years mostly by private conversation. He KNOWS my position on global heating and climate change ("warming" is a severe misnomer, and yes, emphatically "heating" DOES drive climate change).
He also knows full well that I'm NOT a socialist. Hell, I'm not even a democrat. In fact, outside of stolid support for 2A/RKBA, I'm totally apolitical. I disdain politics. <spits> Even after hell freezes over, you'll never find me in the "political" part of this (or any) forum.
G'ster knows that I'm a scientist, first and foremost. PhD in ecology and evolution from a reputable university. Undergrad & MS in biology & mathematics. (No, that does NOT make me any smarter than the average APS participant. But it does make me more informed about the process of science and the natural world than the average APS person. Nothing more, nothing less.)
Yet, he throws out garbage like that quote above. G'ster, honestly, I'm appalled and offended by your comment. It's reflective of a conspiracy theory, and like most, is total horse s**t. I thought you to be above such arguments. :mad:
Then, I find this comment by jfruser:
Which brings me back to how computer models interface with the GW racket. To put it bluntly, the GW racketeers who develop, use, and market the output of climate models predicting GW due to human action are dishonest scum I would not trust to jockey a checking account spreadsheet, let along develop and run a climate model. They may be intelligent, but they have no integrity, so they are unworthy of trust.
I know of JF from THR, also, although I know him FAR less well than G'ster.
But I gotta call you out on that statement, JF. That's bull hockey, pure and simple, and an unjust insult to the thousands of professional modelers worldwide who've been working on this problem for decades, suffering the slings and arrows of ignorant people who don't have a clue about the art and science of modeling (ostensibly unlike you), and have made excellent strides even if their models do - by their own admission - still have flaws. (What's surprising about that? Earth's climate system is the most complex entity that humans have ever tried to build a computer model for, by several orders of magnitude. The fact that they're even close is a feat ranking up there with putting a man on the moon.)
Oh, yeah, JF, although I'm not a professional modeler, I understand modeling very well. I had numerous courses in modeling at university. I worked for a professional modeler as an RA on a climate related ecology project. I also have an MS in probability theory, so I understand the difference between deterministic & stochastic models. I'm also very well versed in nonlinear dynamics (AKA chaos theory), and I'll bet I can smoke you any day on an exam about said topics.
So, let's talk about your "dishonest scum" assertion. Upon what do you base such an outrageous statement? Please cite sources.
____________
Then, there's this tired old refrain uttered by Desertdog, a favorite among the "skeptics" (read obfuscators and misinformation specialists):
When the "science" can tell me accurately what the weather will be just one month in advance, then I might, just might, start believing them when they forecast six months in advance. But to believe they know what is going to happen in ten years, or more, no way Jose.
Well, sorry, bro, but that one illustrates Iain's point about ignorance about the climate issue.
The point is this: Even though many (but not all) elements of weather and climate models are the same, there is a HUGE difference between predicting weather and predicting climate. HUGE. In order to have an intelligent discussion about this issue, we need to quickly get past that important little misunderstanding. Let's try, shall we?
In short, weather is what's happening at any given moment, day, week with respect to temperature, precipitation, wind speed/direction, etc in a given place. Climate is the long term average of weather.
Due to sensitivity to initial conditions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect) in models, weather forecasters will never - NEVER - even a thousand years from now (assuming our species lasts that long), even with supercomputers ten times faster than now - will never be able to offer an accurate 10-day forecast. Won't happen.
So, I cannot tell you even closely - plus/minus 15* F - what the temperature will be here on January 20. But I'll guaran-dam-tee you that I can already do a credible job of climate prediction even without a model. In January, here on the Pac NW coast, on average, it will be cold (average around 40*F) and wet (average around 7" of precip for January). It will not be hot and sunny.
That's climate. That's what climate modelers attempt to predict: will it be hot and dry, hot and wet, cold and dry, cold and wet, etc. If hot and dry, by how much more than average.
And that turns out to be easier than predicting weather 10-days from now.
_____________
OK, so I guess I'll hang around in here for a few days at least, just for the pure intellectual exercise of it all. After all, if I'm going to have this conversation in public - as I do in my region professionally - nothing like wading into a bunch of "skeptics" for practice, right? Trial by fire? An intellectual Quigly of sorts.
I'm busy as hell, though, trying to float my business during a global economic collapse. (You really think it's going to get better from here? I've got a nice bridge in Brooklyn for sale ...) So, I won't be in here every day. But I'll check in on occasion.
_______________
OK, suggested reading. Iain has already suggested the best single source of information about this topic on the web: based in science, unbiased, supported by the American Institute of Physics. But it's clear that some of you are slacking on it. So, let me reiterate.
Spencer Weart's pages collectively called "The Discovery of Global Warming (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html)". Every issue raised here, every element of the arguments that skeptics repeatedly dish up - year after year after year - is addressed in depth in those pages, complete with references to the primary scientific literature.
Weart is as much historian of science as a climate change specialist (physicist). To his credit, his essays not only deal with the current state of climate science, but how we got to our current understanding over the last century (or more). He deals openly with the confusion that existed in the climatology community during the 20th century, including that caused by the "cooling trend" of the 1940s through early 1980s (that we now understand as being caused by sulfur aerosols from industrial activity, predominantly a northern hemisphere phenomenon). He deals with the challenges that modelers have faced - their trials and tribulations, their mistakes, and their amazing progress in the last decade, while acknowledging that they are still underestimating the severity of the problem because most models do not sufficiently treat the nonlinear nature of the climate system, and in particular omit key positive feedback processes that are RAPIDLY spinning the climate out of a balmy interglacial state and into a hellish future.
I could go on. But I suggest that you just start reading. The entire site will require days to weeks of reading and repeated reading. (Why am I not optimistic that will occur? :rolleyes: )
In particular, readers should pay attention to the following of Weart's essays at a minimum to be at least minimally informed about this issue. By the way, these are required reading for students in my advanced college-level climate class that stretches over 12 weeks. Until discussion participants are conversant about these essays, we are - as the saying goes - pissing in the wind.
* The Modern Temperature Trend (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/20ctrend.htm) (start here)
* The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm) (Why those who argue that CO2 levels are irrelevant are not only wrong, but similar to those claiming Earth is flat.)
* Past Climate Cycles and Ice Ages (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/cycles.htm) (What we learned from ice core studies, and why we should be concerned about rapid climate change to a much hotter state.)
* Rapid Climate Change (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/rapid.htm) (Major climate shifts - the equivalent of moving from ice age conditions to balmy interglacial conditions like now - can occur in less than a decade. Let that sink in.)
* Ocean Currents and Climate (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/oceans.htm) (The real story is in the oceans; we are wasting our time focusing so much on the atmosphere. Water holds 20X as much heat as air. Most of the heat trapped so far is in the oceans, along with half the CO2, which is causing oceans to acidify (http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1211518535248120.xml&coll=7) because CO2 + H20 --> carbonic acid, a very bad thing.)
* Biosphere: How Life Alters Climate (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/biota.htm) (Ecological systems play a HUGE role in climate regulation.)
* Changing Sun, Changing Climate? (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/solar.htm) (Addresses the role of solar cycles, sunspots, etc.)
* Aerosols: Volcanoes, Dust, Clouds (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/aerosol.htm)
* Simple Models of Climate (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/simple.htm) (The early attempts at modeling, mostly pre-computer)
* Chaos in the Atmosphere (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/chaos.htm) (Why weather is unpredictable, but climate is not.)
* General Circulation Models of Climate (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/GCM.htm) (About supercomputer models being developed by no less than 14 international modeling groups in multiple countries, their successes and limitations. Successes include being able to start with climate conditions during an ice age and run it forward, inputting changes in CO2 and methane, and aerosols from volcanoes and industrial output, to approximate current Earth climate conditions very closely.)
To those, I add two other suggestions.
* The book With Speed and Violence (http://books.google.com/books?id=otocIlRRVPcC&dq=Fred+pearce+With+Speed+%26+Violence&pg=PP1&ots=SAdV8eKiLd&sig=r4IFsYcXo5yPs7KYEWFO6XghnxY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPP1,M1): Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change by Fred Pearce. Pearce is a journalist, but he spent years interviewing (mostly on location) climate scientists "on the ground", many of whom contacted him when they learned that he was writing a book about climate change because they are genuinely frightened by the changes in their respective systems that they are observing, all of which spell planetary catastrophe in the making. Furthermore, Pearce is a self-proclaimed skeptic about almost all other "doomsday" environmental issues, which usually turn out to be bull crap being spewed forth by young researchers trying to gain fame. This one, he says, is being driven by older professionals who are not prone to extremist claims, and know that without reliable evidence, their claims will be dismissed. They have reliable evidence. This issue, he says, scares him a lot, and the more he learns, the more scared he gets. I recommend it strongly for bed time reading - guaranteed to give you interesting dreams.
* A blog by climate scientists called RealClimate (http://www.realclimate.org/). Where as Weart addresses the history and current status of climate change science in a linear, then-to-now fashion, RealClimate addresses the latest releases of new data, new models, new controversies. They are very conservative in their approach (even more than they should be, IMO), cautioning readers to be careful about extrapolating too far from a given set of data or new study. They also not only allow debate among readers, they encourage it.
Here's a particularly relevant recent post (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/12/2008-temperature-summaries-and-spin/) by them that addresses the misconception that started this thread: Earth is NOT cooling as a whole. As pointed out earlier in this thread, the cold weather that most of us in the US are experiencing now is a temporary anomaly driven mostly by the El Nino/La Nina cycle, also known as ENSO, and related oceanic decadal cycles, exacerbated by an aggravated jet stream (expected with climate change driven by excess heat) which pulls down more cold Arctic air. If one only looks at a decade worth of data, there is a slight - no, tiny (relative to the last century) - cooling trend. But to say that's indicative that Earth is now cooling, that warming is over, is unadulterated crap. Like stock markets, climate changes in a jagged fashion. Even in a single day, let alone over years, stock markets never change monotonically (always increasing or decreasing), but in a "jumpy" way: ups and downs of all sizes.
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.equinox.co.za%2FMedia%2Fimages%2Fmv_0107aa.gif&hash=fb2978e08201e9d0d2d56e6e96df58f6a85e5f1b)
Climate is no different. Even though the trend is now towards increasing temperatures globally - and it will remain so for a long time - there WILL be temporary dips. That's just how any complex, nonlinear system behaves. Get used to it.
I assert strongly that another ice age, or even a long term cooling trend, now is impossible, because CO2 levels in the atmosphere are higher by far than at any time in the last 650,000 years. They are at 380 ppm (part per million). Highest before now: 300 ppm. Average interglacial levels: 280 ppm. Average ice age levels: 180 ppm. To enter a new ice age, CO2 levels would need to drop below 220 ppm or so. That would take over a century even with a healthy pump down process. In fact, CO2 levels are not only continuing to increase, they are accelerating, now increasing at ~ 2 ppm per year. Even if that rate remains constant and does not accelerate (very unlikely), we'll hit 500 ppm in only 60 years. At that point, the oceans and their carbon pump down processes will fail, and we'll be stuck in "hot" mode for a long, long time.
______________
Finally, this point. Al Gore is wrong. The situation is worse than he says it is. His presentation and position are based on IPCC models and data, which have substantive flaws. Notably, the IPCC reports are based on data that is already a year old upon their publication. With a system that is changing as fast as climate and with our understanding changing equally rapidly, a year is equivalent to a decade in the mid 1900s. Furthermore, every government that participates in the IPCC report process has line item veto power: anything they don't like can be struck out of the report.
And worse, as Fred Pearce points out, the IPCC models virtually ignore non-linearity in the climate system, representing climate as something that changes gradually, in a linear fashion over long periods of time. It does not; it lurches, and the changes can be extremely violent, nearly beyond human comprehension because our civilization has never experienced such a shift ... before now. (Hence the title of Pearce's book: With Speed and Violence.)
Gore is wrong in another important aspect as well. Climate change driven by heating is very likely unstoppable now. Even if we had the political and economic will to try - clearly we do not - we probably can't stop a large-scale climate event the likes of which hasn't occurred in 55 million years, since the PETM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene-Eocene_Thermal_Maximum). (More on that here (http://news.mongabay.com/news-index/petm1.html).) There are already too many positive feedback processes kicking in, and too many lags built into the system, including CO2 half life in the atmosphere and ocean inertia or committed heating that insure heating for a century even if greenhouse gases stabilize tomorrow.
______
Finally, I got no stock in this argument. Believe what you want to. Ride a bike or drive a hummer. I don't care. It's your right to do as you wish. Each person is going to do as they see fit, and deal with the consequences. Ce la vi.
In a few decades, even though this will still be Earth, it's not going to look and feel like the Earth that we've known for the last 11,000 years since the beginning of the current interglacial (and civilization). It will likely collapse civilization as we've known it, "melting" away tropical forests and turning most of the continents to deserts (simple physics: above about 70*F, soil will not hold sufficient water to support forests without daily rainfall). Agricultural systems will fail; droughts will prevail.
Best we can do at this point is hunker down, batten the hatches & try to adapt.
I'd recommend being ready to move north. Far north. If not you, then your kids.
And carry guns.
__________
OK, that's a year's worth of post right there.
I've spent two hours on it.
I'm going to take a few days off.
Maybe I'll check back in later.
Maybe not. We'll see.
I don't expect this post will make any substantive difference in the argument here.
People are going to believe what they want to, regardless of reasoned arguments.
That's the reason that, like Iain and/or Nitrogen wrote, I don't spend too much time in forums like this arguing about this issue. It's just not worth it. The issue may be too complex to resolve in a discussion forum like this.
Still, it's fun sometimes to write an essay that addresses the issues. Gives me a good opportunity to see what I know and how well I can express it.
Ya'll have fun arguing.
________
And happy new year. =D
Nem
-
you've not been in this furball before. so i'll give the short version of why i think global warming is a joke. my old man spent 35 of the almost 40 tears he spent as a meteorologist working for the weather bureau then noaa working/developing those models that the chicken lil folks rely on.the old mans says the models aren't that good yet. so do all the other old farts that he worked with . they have a one word explanation for the goreical and his disciples mission. politics
-
My only input is to reiterate the reading of the free book. I stay away from this topic on this board, I have friends that are atmospheric physicists, but I am not. Nematocyst had a damn good post there.
-
you've not been in this furball before. so i'll give the short version of why i think global warming is a joke. my old man spent 35 of the almost 40 tears he spent as a meteorologist working for the weather bureau then noaa working/developing those models that the chicken lil folks rely on.the old mans says the models aren't that good yet. so do all the other old farts that he worked with . they have a one word explanation for the goreical and his disciples mission. politics
Did you not even read Nematocyst's post?
Climate does not equal weather.
Modeling climate is done in a vastly different way than the GFS, NAM, RWF, etc.
Basically, it's like saying, "I won't fly on an airplane because car drivers are so dangerous"
-
well i'm probably good for a couple decades we'll see what happens
-
Nematocyst had a damn good post there
[/b]
I agree, in fact I was just over at thr.us and was going to pm Nem to say hi!
( I'm still banned at thr.org )
A huge problem I have with global warming folks is that they simply hate.
I'm not talking about Nem of course, or Ian.
Its the wacky moon bats I run into here in Frisco and Reno.
People tell me climatechangeglobalwarming with religious fervor yet they don't even know we had an ice age!
They think 100 years is a long time in the life of a planet, on top of that they are just as religious about guns and how guns make rational people kill
over fender benders.
& the solutions they want make me ill, let China and India continue to
bellow out all kinds of pollution ( Bhopal anyone ) and Europe and the USA
have to curtail our production.
Its like the communist have simply replaced their slogans and ideology with
GREEN
So Nem, what are we going to do? the greenies, get power and let China destroy the climate and take our guns and rights or we let the good ol USA destroy the climate and LA, SF, NY, NJ and DC gets flooded and removed from the electoral college .... wait a minute! =D :cool: :angel:
-
Hi Nemo!
I also happened by this thread by chance (Christmas is kinda slow in Canberra). =D
In a few decades, even though this will still be Earth, it's not going to look and feel like the Earth that we've known for the last 11,000 years since the beginning of the current interglacial (and civilization). It will likely collapse civilization as we've known it, "melting" away tropical forests and turning most of the continents to deserts (simple physics: above about 70*F, soil will not hold sufficient water to support forests without daily rainfall). Agricultural systems will fail; droughts will prevail.
Gee, and it's all happened before, repeatedly - except the part about collapsing civilation-
that's a new feature due to humankind's geologically brief time on the planet.
650,000 years worth of limited ice core samples taken ONLY at the poles and a few glaciers
is not a very 'long' look into the past.
The AGW "crisis" is largely a political movement, using its science as a wedge.
Transfer of wealth appeals to a lot of folks.
Earth's been there before, will be there again. I'd guess humankind will simply adapt to the change,
as during the Pleistocene, or join the other unfit species.
The sky isn't falling folks, but there is certainly political hay to be made in AGW. :rolleyes:
Y'all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
I'm off to the Snowy Mountains for the week to catch some alpine flowers, especially Caladenia alpina
I also do desert species....just in case. =D
-
its politicasl also in the sense that it makes those on campus more powerful
-
Last I checked 99.99% of all the species that have ever lived on the earth have gone extinct.....
Sorry, Terry but your doom and gloom won't fly....
But you don't understand. If only those poor species had been blessed with a knight protector, like Algore or Obama, mayhap they would not have gone extinct.
Or ... maybe things go extinct because it's just time for them to be replaced with other things. Now THERE's a concept.
-
but wait new from the front
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/24/AR2008122402174.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR
Faster Climate Change Feared
New Report Points to Accelerated Melting, Longer Drought
Ice sheets in the Antarctic and Greenland, above, are losing 48 cubic miles per year, pushing up sea level worldwide.
Ice sheets in the Antarctic and Greenland, above, are losing 48 cubic miles per year, pushing up sea level worldwide. (By John Mcconnico -- Associated Press)
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 25, 2008; Page A02
The United States faces the possibility of much more rapid climate change by the end of the century than previous studies have suggested, according to a new report led by the U.S. Geological Survey.
The survey -- which was commissioned by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and issued this month -- expands on the 2007 findings of the United Nations Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change. Looking at factors such as rapid sea ice loss in the Arctic and prolonged drought in the Southwest, the new assessment suggests that earlier projections may have underestimated the climatic shifts that could take place by 2100.
However, the assessment also suggests that some other feared effects of global warming are not likely to occur by the end of the century, such as an abrupt release of methane from the seabed and permafrost or a shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean circulation system that brings warm water north and colder water south. But the report projects an amount of potential sea level rise during that period that may be greater than what other researchers have anticipated, as well as a shift to a more arid climate pattern in the Southwest by mid-century.
Thirty-two scientists from federal and non-federal institutions contributed to the report, which took nearly two years to complete. The Climate Change Science Program, which was established in 1990, coordinates the climate research of 13 different federal agencies.
Tom Armstrong, senior adviser for global change programs at USGS, said the report "shows how quickly the information is advancing" on potential climate shifts. The prospect of abrupt climate change, he said, "is one of those things that keeps people up at night, because it's a low-probability but high-risk scenario. It's unlikely to happen in our lifetimes, but if it were to occur, it would be life-changing."
ad_icon
In one of the report's most worrisome findings, the agency estimates that in light of recent ice sheet melting, global sea level rise could be as much as four feet by 2100. The IPCC had projected a sea level rise of no more than 1.5 feet by that time, but satellite data over the past two years show the world's major ice sheets are melting much more rapidly than previously thought. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are now losing an average of 48 cubic miles of ice a year, equivalent to twice the amount of ice that exists in the Alps.
Konrad Steffen, who directs the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder and was lead author on the report's chapter on ice sheets, said the models the IPCC used did not factor in some of the dynamics that scientists now understand about ice sheet melting. Among other things, Steffen and his collaborators have identified a process of "lubrication," in which warmer ocean water gets in underneath coastal ice sheets and accelerates melting.
"This has to be put into models," said Steffen, who organized a conference last summer in St. Petersburg, Russia, as part of an effort to develop more sophisticated ice sheet models. "What we predicted is sea level rise will be higher, but I have to be honest, we cannot model it for 2100 yet."
Still, Armstrong said the report "does take a step forward from where the IPCC was," especially in terms of ice sheet melting.
Scientists also looked at the prospect of prolonged drought over the next 100 years. They said it is impossible to determine yet whether human activity is responsible for the drought the Southwestern United States has experienced over the past decade, but every indication suggests the region will become consistently drier in the next several decades. Richard Seager, a senior research scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said that nearly all of the 24 computer models the group surveyed project the same climatic conditions for the North American Southwest, which includes Mexico.
"If the models are correct, it will transition in the coming years and decades to a more arid climate, and that transition is already underway," Seager said, adding that such conditions would probably include prolonged droughts lasting more than a decade.
The current models cover broad swaths of landscape, and Seager said scientists need to work on developing versions that can make projections on a much smaller scale. "That's what the water managers out there really need," he said. Current models "don't give them the hard numbers they need."
CONTINUED 1 2 Next >
What we predicted is sea level rise will be higher, but I have to be honest, we cannot model it for 2100 yet."
-
Colder than normal temps in the northwest? Warmer than normal in the southeast?
In other words, basically normal fluctuations.
-
it may be Gods way of starting over, we had a great Republic based on the Ten Commandments and it seems like 85 to 95 % are unaware of what we are losing.
We are rapidly giving up freedom for the security of fascism, the people voting for fascism are the ones living on the soon to be flooded coast.
It could be Gods plan that teotwawki will be a reality, I hope he waits till I'm a bit older so I can retreat to a mountain hideaway, or at least get to say "I told you to buy some guns" to some liberal acquaintances
-
650,000 years worth of limited ice core samples taken ONLY at the poles and a few glaciers
is not a very 'long' look into the past.
{ I knew I'd get pulled more deeply into this. =| }
Good to see you, FB. Here we are arguing about climate ... again. =)
Just for the record, the ice core data is NOT limited to the poles. Yes, the best data is from two bore holes in Greenland (430,000 years) & the Vostok core in Antarctica (800,000 years). But that's far more than enough to unequivocally nail the tight linkage between temperature (as determined by oxygen isotope ratios), CO2 & CH4 (methane). Specifically, when one goes up beyond a critical threshold, the other two follow, and the three get caught in a positive feedback loop. It does not matter which one increases (or decreases) first; once a critical threshold is reached, the other two will follow. (I'll write more about that below.)
However, the pole cores do not stand alone in piecing together this story. That data has been repeatedly corroborated by mountain glaciers, notably in the Alps & Andes. Add to that pollen data from dry lake beds (especially in the Great Basin and around the Arctic circle) and tree ring data, both of which tell the same story as the ice cores.
For a view into the more distant past, oceanographers and geologists are able to use data from deep sea floor cores. That data includes both oxygen isotope ratios, and the distribution and chemical analysis (esp C and O isotopes) of fossil plankton, especially diatoms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatoms), foraminifera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foraminifera) & coccolithophores (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccolithophore). That extends the temperature record back 10's of millions of years, which is quite a good sample. The deep sea floor core data overlaps sufficiently with the ice core data to tell us that they're telling the same story about how climate changes.
Now, more on this "which goes up first: carbon gas or temperature" issue. "Skeptics" are fond of pointing out - correctly - that in the ice core data, temperature begins increasing first (by as much as several hundred years) before CO2. No problem there. The problem is in their interpretation. They attempt to use that fact to argue that temperature causes CO2 increase rather than the converse, and, ergo, the current temperature increase (which they deny at other times) can't possibly be "caused" by CO2.
Their incorrect interpretation reflects their ignorance of the system. From a systems view, temperature (T), CO2 and CH4 are tightly coupled or linked. When one increases, so do the others, and - again - it doesn't matter which increases first.
In the healthy climate system of the last 2 - 3 million years, during which there have been quasi-periodic oscillations between ice age and interglacial, the heating event that begins the end of an ice age is initiated by tiny changes in Earth's orbit (Milankovitch cycles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles)) causing the annual solar input to increase by a tiny amount. The heat gain is far less than needed to explain the total difference in global average temperature between an ice age and an interglacial. That is, the heat gain does not "cause" the transition from ice age to interglacial; it just triggers it. The cause is inherent in the system, and driven by that tight coupling between temperature and carbon gases.
It works this way. The heat gain over a few hundred years heats the oceans just enough so that they hold less CO2. (Just like a soda coming to room temperature "off gases" CO2 in those little bubbles.) That CO2 build up then amplifies the small amount of heat from the solar gain, which causes more CO2 release from ocean and other sources. Soon, methane hydrates from the thawing permafrost regions and ocean bottom begin off gassing as well, which cause even more heating and ... well, you get the picture, right? It's a positive feedback party between T, CO2 and CH4. All increase to a new stable state called an interglacial.
The interglacials usually remain stable for 10,000 to 20,000 years (mas o menos). Then, as our orbit changes back again in the continuing Milankovitch cycle, reducing annual solar gain, T is again reduced slightly, methane oxidizes to water and CO2, and the system begins actively pumping CO2 out of the atmosphere via the marine algae (the main carbon bilge pump with help from terrestrial plants), which lowers temperature, etc. Poof: back to ice age, which is actually a more stable state in the climate system.
We were probably nearing the end of our current interglacial. The temperature trend into the mid 1800s or so was steadily down (even if with the same jaggedness as always), then it shot up like a rocket to where we are now. So far, hottest years have been 1998 and 2005. (1934 was pretty hot as well, not surprisingly, since it occurred just before those aerosols took over to cool us back down a bit from 1940s to early 1980 or so. Still, during that time, CO2 continued to increase, so that after we passed the clean air act in 1970 or so, the aerosols started washing out of the atmosphere and temps shot up with a vengeance.
Sad thing is, there are still aerosols in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuel with sulfur (even though less sulfur now than before 1970) and they are dimming the sun (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/), cooling us down a bit. Paradoxically, if we quit burning fossil fuels with sulfur, those aerosols will wash out of the troposphere in weeks (not years), canceling their cooling effect, and temps would increase by as much as they did in the 20th century within a year or less. Translation: it's already hotter than you think.
OK, enjoy those alpine flowers ... while you can. :rolleyes:
-
Welcome to APS, Nematocyst. I've enjoyed reading your posts on THR... and am finding your posts in this thread quite interesting.
-
Thanks for the kind welcome, Cosine. =)
PM sent.
-
What I don't understand is how the US is to blame for all this, considering how this country has been at or near the forefront of "clean energy" since the sixties... Look at places like Mexico City - sheesh...
The whole mess -is- cyclic - otherwise we'd still have mastodons and dinosaurs and giant trilobites to deal with.
-
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fjustinbuist.org%2Fblog%2Fimages%2Fglobal_temp2.jpg&hash=e0b3af3050687e6391b1dd68adfc28e00fe54a4e)
We've been here before and survived it. Earth went through it before humans got here and managed too.
-
funniest for me is the way the disciples pitch it. saw a show on discovery the other nite chicken lil about sea level rise. used the cgi to show a thirty foot wall of water sweeping down wall street inundating everything. then cut to folks in small boats in new orleans to "put a face on it"
when acolytes to an agenda sell it with obvious caca i tend to throw them and the cause in the appropriate receptacle.
-
Thanks for the kind welcome, Cosine. =)
PM sent.
Great, I saidNematocyst had a damn good post there
[/b]
I agree, in fact I was just over at thr.us and was going to pm Nem to say hi!
( I'm still banned at thr.org )
& I get totally ignored, on Christmas Day too! :lol:
-
We were probably nearing the end of our current interglacial. The temperature trend into the mid 1800s or so was steadily down (even if with the same jaggedness as always), then it shot up like a rocket to where we are now.
So what your saying is that the current global warming crisis saved us from another ice age ???
It looks then like we are doomed to either freeze or burn... :|
-
I agree with climate change. It's has happened hundreds if not thousands of times since the earth was formed. What I disagree with is that Man is causing it. Ice caps shrinking on earth - manmade, Ice Caps shrinking on Mars - Martian SUV's ??. The sun (and sunspots) along with other natural phenomenon (Volcanoes, animal methane production, etc.) have more to do with climate change then anything we puny humans can do.
The other thing that I disagree with is the fact the ONLY solution to "fix" climate change is more government and socialism. If I had no scruples, I'd sell boxes of "New and Improved Socialism !!! Now with AnnoitedChangeHopeOne that will fix Global Warming, the Economy, Credit Scores, Terrorism and the Heartbreak of Psoriasis !!!"
Last I checked the biggest polluters in the world have been those countries with socialist governments.
What's wrong with letting the free market work ??
Oh and welcome Nemo !!! Hope to see you around here more.
-
So, if we use fossil fuels Really Fast, we'll get a 30' wall of water through New York and Los Angeles?
Cool...
-
On a whim, I decided to wander over to APS today. I haven't been here in ... years. (I spend most of my time at THR & MoF.) I really didn't like the vibe here when I enrolled a long time ago, so left and haven't been back.
But, out of curiosity, thought I'd stop by. What was I thinking? (Rhetorical question.)
I'm already sorry I did. I can see I run the risk of getting caught up in this thread because the topic is one that is not only of personal interest to me, but that I've dealt with professionally for years as an educator.
I was going to say "Welcome, Nem!", but it appears that would be something of a waste after reading the above monologue. APS is what you make of it - remember that. Hopping into a forum and calling folks "flat earthers" probably won't endear you to the membership and staff, nor will stating the above... =|
-
I'm still waiting for that 30' wall of water through LA and NYC...
-
So are exact predictions of temperature rise defined as "weather" or "climate"?
-
depends weather they support the position du jour
-
Was Nem's post intended to be satire?
-
oh hes very serious
brings to mind that line from bernard shaw everytime i hear "i'm an educator"
-
... & I get totally ignored, on Christmas Day too! cheesy
Gunsmith, I'm sincerely sorry for my omission. I read and appreciated your post, and really intended to acknowledge your kind words. Call it brain flatulence. I just spaced it.
Scout, thanks also for the welcome.
G'ster, my friend, thanks much for the lengthy PM clarifying your position. I appreciate your candor and your clarification of your position.
G'98, I accept your criticism of my attitude in my first post above.
APS is what you make of it - remember that.
Point well taken. So far, I'll admit that I was wrong about what's going on at APS. My experience a couple of years ago was sufficiently negative that it (probably unfairly) colored my expectations. (You should know that I'm not the only THR person that had negative experiences and hasn't been back since.) I confess I came in dragging an attitude and unfairly laid out expectations.
I apologize for that. Clearly the staff and membership have done a great job of ... um, improving the tone of the space. (I've been discussing that a bit with Cosine via PM.) I'm impressed and encouraged.
And, yes, I'll confess, I've developed a flinch from being jumped on vehemently so often when taking the position that I do on this issue. It will affect one after a while, despite best intentions.
And please understand, I'm trying deliberately not to paint with a broad brush about "flat earthers". I don't put all who disagree with the theory into that category, although there are some (not necessarily here) who deserve the label. (Maybe another day, I'll try to explain my position on that.)
CSDaddy, yes, I am an educator, and I make no apologies for it. ;)
However, I'm confident that GB Shaw would not lump me in his disdained group of that profession, particularly given that I agree with this statement by him which I assume is the one to which you were referring:
Simply because our education is not controversial, which means that as it is a hundred years out of date on all open questions, reforms have to come from the uneducated who suffer from the facts and know nothing of the books.
The only word I'd quibble with is "uneducated". There is an important distinction between "uneducated" and "self-educated". Some of the most brilliant & knowledgeable people I've ever known have been self-educated.
I have major issues with mainstream science and mathematics education in the US, from secondary to grad schools. Much of what they teach IS at least decades out of date. (Don't get me started.) Which is precisely why I'm NOT part of mainstream ed system any longer, but am an independent educator teaching cutting edge stuff (almost all Nobel laureate driven), much of which I've taught myself after 20 years of being force fed the standard science dogma. In that regard, I, too, am self-educated.
Of course, the benefit of having been fed a steady diet of standard dogma for decades prior to now is that I am better able to understand the flaws in the old models, and to therefore better understand why the IPCC continues to underestimate the severity of the issue at hand: the vast majority of those IPCC scientists are trained in the classical science approaches with roots in the 19th and early 20th century that are now known to be incorrect, and that lead to a picture of nature as relatively tame and controllable. It is not.
The new models that have been emerging for the past several decades - the ones that have not yet filtered down into the undergraduate curriculum, let alone high school - paints a very different picture of how nature works with which I suspect Shaw would have resonated.
But that's a conversation for another day.
_____________
I hope you are all warm & dry, and I thank you for your hospitality, and your invitation to hang out a while.
I'll try my best to be respectful despite my punk genes.
Right now, it's dinner time.
Nem
-
the vast majority of those IPCC scientists are trained in the classical science approaches with roots in the 19th and early 20th century that are now known to be incorrect, and that lead to a picture of nature as relatively tame and controllable. It is not.
Exactly my feeling, it seems as if what could be described as reasonable people are unaware of "nature red in tooth and claw"
They think they will play in the tundra with polar bear cubs and wolf pups, as long as they pray to the recycle bin.
That people think we can control weather (climate ) really appalls me.
Kids today are being brainwashed with green ideology
They will gladly pay their indulgences oops I mean carbon offsets to Al Gore so he can plant a tree and burn fossils in his private jet while the proletariat pollute the next generation with their green bulbs full of mercury, great ideas from the same people that scolded "save a tree" by getting rid of recyclable tree products in favor of plastic.
Nem, I trust you completely, its Michael Moore and Al Gore that I Know are up to no good.
The people selling carbon indulgences have never had a scientific thought in their life, their goal is plain corrupt power.
They want me to lead an Anthem ( Ayn Rand novel ) like existence, reading my instructions for the day by candlelight
while they dine on grilled Salmon flying on a private jet.
-
Just to stir the pot a bit I offer the following link. Solar system warming, not just earth (http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread221608/pg1).
For a bunch that can't even manage a base on our own satellite we seem to be doing a bang up job of exporting our greenhouse gases, eh?
Tiger
-
while they dine on grilled farm raisedSalmon flying on a private jet.
-
Just to stir the pot a bit I offer the following link. Solar system warming, not just earth (http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread221608/pg1).
For a bunch that can't even manage a base on our own satellite we seem to be doing a bang up job of exporting our greenhouse gases, eh?
Tiger
I would link to the source NASA, et al. documents instead of a site that has 9/11 Troofer crap as the top banner and features a video predicting TEOTWAKI ..... Might be a little more credible.
-
I assumed this crowd has the smarts and energy to verify the source materials cited in that link. "Credibility" is about the material, not the source, imo.
The original sources for all those quotes are easy to run down. I did it, presumably anyone else actually interested in the topic can too ;)
Tiger
-
So, if we use fossil fuels Really Fast, we'll get a 30' wall of water through New York and Los Angeles?
Cool...
Cool when can we start? =D
-
When the answer, invariably, is more government control, I don't care what the question is.
-
while they dine on grilled farm raisedSalmon flying on a private jet.
Wild is far better for you, I guess you mean that there will be no more wild?
-
In short, no.
Here are a couple of sources of info.
One. (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=192)
Two. (http://climateprogress.org/2007/08/08/the-other-planets-are-warming-myth/)
There are others. Just dig a bit.
Summary.
There are around 100 other sizeable objects in our solar system, none of which have the same orbital periodicity as Earth (i.e., their orbit takes other than one year). Most are much longer.
Less than a dozen are heating.
We have only a few years of data for most of them.
Mars is the exception. We have a few decades of data for it.
That of course is not even close to the millions of years of data we have for Earth.
Most of those are heating on the other bodies is because they are now getting closer to the sun in their elliptical orbits.
No surprise they're warming up. (Duh.)
Yes, Earth also has an elliptical orbit, and changes in the shape of the ellipse do trigger climate changes here. That's related to the Millankovitch cycles I wrote of above. However, here, they don't "cause" climate change, only trigger it. On other "planets" with simpler dynamics, the orbital effects themselves cause the changes more directly.
The notable exception is Mars. Up until a decade or so again, winds there were keeping dust stirred up. Dust is an aerosol that reflects sunlight, cooling the planet. Now, for reasons that I don't think are understood, winds are dying down, dust settling, and the cooling effect is being reduced, so it's heating.
The bigger issues are that Earth's climate regulation system is orders of magnitude more complex than that of other solar system bodies, and cannot - underscore, CANNOT - be explained in terms of physics and chemistry alone. The biosphere (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/biota.htm) plays an integral role here, unlike other bodies where there appears to be no life. There, heating and cooling are determined by physics and chemistry alone, and the processes are much simpler.
-
Earlier in the thread, I wrote:
the vast majority of those IPCC scientists are trained in the classical science approaches with roots in the 19th and early 20th century that are now known to be incorrect, and that lead to a picture of nature as relatively tame and controllable. It is not.
Gunsmith responded:
Exactly my feeling, it seems as if what could be described as reasonable people are unaware of "nature red in tooth and claw"
I agree. Somehow, we've convinced ourselves that we are "in control" of nature.
Some religions allege that it was put here for us (therefore, we must be in control.)
Some environmentalists refer to us as "stewards" of Earth.
This is simply hubris. We have deluded ourselves. We are drunk with the illusion of power.
I've written above of Fred Pearce's book With Speed and Violence.
He addresses this issue this way in his introduction (page xxiv).
The remainder of his book backs this statement up in spades.
“Nature is fragile, environmentalists often tell us. But the lesson of this book is that is not so. The truth is far more worrying. Nature is strong & packs a serious counterpunch ... Global warming will very probably unleash unstoppable planetary forces. And they will not be gradual. The history of our planet's climate shows that it does not do gradual change. Under pressure, whether from sunspots or orbital wobbles or the depredations of humans, it lurches – virtually overnight.”
-
Earth's climate regulation system is orders of magnitude more complex than that of other solar system bodies
Actually I would submit that historical Venusian atmosphere and climate are at least as complex as Earth's.
-
I want my water wall and I want it now! =D
Latin America, take them (New York and L.A.) away!
Freedom! The wall of water will bring me my freedom back!
Wall! Wall! Wall!
-
"Some religions allege that it was put here for us (therefore, we must be in control.)"[/u]
Uhhh, that's a stretch, methinks. I don't believe my faith teaches "control". I'm a Christian. My type of environmentalism is that our surroundings are ours to exploit. That exploitation need not be pillage and rape of the resource, however.
I prefer the word manage. The group that I chair manages the resource, a lake we live on, for the use of the riparians and the public that use the lake.
An example: The lake is 800 acres. It is considered hyper-eutrophic. That means it is generally shallow, silty and warm containing a lot of vegetation. The lake is at the end of its life. Perhaps in another hundred years, if left to its own devices, it would be a swamp.
The lake became infested with a non native species of vegetation, Eurasian water milfoil. It grows very rapidly. A 15% infestation in September will be 35% by late spring and would take over the lake in a couple of years. Milfoil crowds out most other species of vegetation and it mats on the surface blocking sunlight and making the lake impassible for boating. Lots of bad things result from that.
We use a lakewide treatment using a chemical called floridone to kill the milfoil. At about 6-8 parts per billion it causes Eurasion milfoil to not be able to produce chlorophyll. The stuff is harmless to fish, critters and humans. At 6-8 parts per billion the milfoil starves but the native plants are not affected. Native plants are now able to reestablish themselves. The native plants are good for the resource as filters and fish cover. We plant pan fish, pike and fathead minnows as forage. We encourage the halting of fertilizing around the lake, not putting grass clipping and leaves into the lake. Keeping septic systems pumped and up to date. We have just started a program to have riparians plant deep rooted native shore line plants to take up runoff and nutrient loading from septic systems. We have been exploring a sewer system. (Currently too pricey.) We paid for a program to kill gypsy moths which can destroy the oak forest that surrounds the lake. We have partnered with the county road commission to inhibit runoff from the roads around the lake.
As a result the lake is beautiful. Property values are stable or growing. It has a great bass, pike and pan fishery. People canoe and kayak on the lake. Pontoon boats cruise. Water skiing is popular. There are times when it's just pleasing to look at. In other words, people have entered into an agreement with each other to protect/manage our resource so that we may use it in many ways.
There are some who would not do as we do; they just don't care about taking care of it. Others would prohibit humans from even using the lake; let nature take its toll.
My point is not about the lake specifically. The point is about resources in general. We can exploit them carefully for our benefit, doing some good along the way, or crap in our beds, or worse yet, cause our culture to stop or move backwards because some fools or opportunists among us believe we shouldn't be able to use the resources we have. To think that humans are the be all/end all with respect to a planet is arrogance in my opinion. We should find ways to reduce harm, certainly. But to give way to some of the opportunistic mythology and dogma that has gained a foothold, with respect to climate does more harm than good.
It is good to pay attention to what credible people have to say. But once they start selling a bill of goods that sounds a bit counterproductive, then cooler heads should prevail. That is especially when the few sellers of the bill of goods are trying to subject the masses to bellicose control while ignoring huge examples of already nasty folks who are raping, pillaging and otherwise trampling all over, well, everything.
-
Actually I would submit that historical Venusian atmosphere and climate are at least as complex as Earth's.
Ben, I'd like to read how you justify that assertion.
If there's no life on Venus - and there's no evidence otherwise - then the climate system can't be as complex there. Its climate is determined by the forces of physics and chemistry alone.
Adding life - biological systems - to the mix complexifies a climate by orders of magnitude.
I prefer the word manage.
A semantic quibble, G'ster. "Manage" is a form of control.
Here's one definition (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Manage) of "manage" : to direct or be in charge of (e.g., an organization); to handle or control, to force; to succeed at an attempt: he managed to climb the tower.
Here's another (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management): Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal.
If there is not an element of control, one can't manage a system.
Call it what you want: if one attempts to manage something, one is attempting to control it's behavior.
We've long thought that we (humans) are in control of nature. Modern western science has largely been an exercise in learning enough about how nature works so that we can make accurate predictions about how it will behave under certain conditions. That's necessary because if one can't predict the dynamics of a system, one can't control it, or manage it, or whatever.
What we're now learning the hard way (with much more soon to come) is that we have no control over the climate system. Have we effected it? You bet. Will we continue to effect it? You bet.
Can we manage or control it, to make it do what we want it to do? No way.
-
If there's no life on Venus - and there's no evidence otherwise - then the climate system can't be as complex there. Its climate is determined by the forces of physics and chemistry alone.
Adding life - biological systems - to the mix complexifies a climate by orders of magnitude.
The AGW myth depends on exactly this sort of assumption. Your assertion unproven at best, and quite probably unprovable, at least under current technology.
So now it's my turn to ask you to justify your beliefs. I'd love to read a compelling argument that biological life is a prerequisite for a volatile climate. I'd settle for a compelling argument that life "complexifies" climate by orders of magnitude.
What we're now learning the hard way (with much more soon to come) is that we have no control over the climate system. Have we effected it? You bet. Will we continue to effect it? You bet.
Can we manage or control it, to make it do what we want it to do? No way.
If what you say is correct, then this whole AGW proposition is utter horse manure. All we can do is hold on for the ride, to prepare and adapt as best we can. Decimating our standard of living and tossing away our liberties, all for the sake of policies intended to do the impossible, is folly.
-
So now it's my turn to ask you to justify your beliefs. I'd love to read a compelling argument that biological life is a prerequisite for a volatile climate. I'd settle for a compelling argument that life "complexifies" climate by orders of magnitude.
First, the word "volatile" is yours. I didn't use it in my response to Ben. (Neither did Ben.)
My point is, again, adding life to a planet complexifies its climate system.
A complex system is complex by virtue of being composed of more parts with more connections than a less complex system.
The reasoning is simple. Venus and Mars have no life (again, no evidence of any on either planet). Therefore their climate is controlled entirely by the laws of physics and chemistry.
Earth, on the other hand, obviously has life on it. It's climate is thus controlled by the laws of physics, chemistry AND biology. There are far more parts to the climate system here - those organisms - and they are linked to the inorganic components of air, water and rocks in complex ways. Thus the system is more complex.
For a simple example, the main carbon dioxide removal system on Earth involves marine algae like coccolithophores (http://www.soes.soton.ac.uk/staff/tt/), diatoms and actinopods. They incorporate calcium carbonate (mineralized carbon dioxide) into their shells. When they die, they sink to the ocean bottom, building up as limestone and chalk, removing carbon from the system. That effects climate by removing a greenhouse gas, which cools the planet.
(How else do you think all that CO2 from volcanoes got removed for hundreds of millions of years?)
Likewise, methane is a waste product of methanogens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanogen) AKA methane generating bacteria.
Both carbon dioxide and methane effect temperature of a planet, which strongly effect its climate since climate is effectively a heat engine: heat drives weather systems.
Not to mention the presence of O2 in the atmosphere, which can ONLY be explained by the presence of photosynthesis by plants, algae and photosynthetic bacteria.
Without living systems, climate on Earth would be much simpler.
For more on how life effects climate, read this (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/biota.htm).
(We've suggested that you do so previously. This would be a lot easier if you would just do some reading.)
All we can do is hold on for the ride, to prepare and adapt as best we can.
At this point, that is correct.
A century ago, those policies of which you speak could have prevented what is now inevitable.
Now, the system is already turning. It's too late to stop it in time.
Like a truck doing 70 on I-95, even slamming on the brakes,
it will require time to stop, but it's already too close to the bridge abutment.
This is why in an earlier post, I criticized Gore and company for advocating policy changes
that they contend will stop warming, and stop climate change.
They will NOT. Change is now inevitable.
Hold on. Hope you're wearing a seat belt.
-
Without living systems, climate on Earth would be much simpler.
Agreed, but unless that are major shifts in composition of life on planet Earth they should be pretty predictable. Right?
For more on how life effects climate, read this.
(We've suggested that you do so previously. This would be a lot easier if you would just do some reading.)
I skimmed it. Looks like a story of how we've realized that climate change is occurring. A notable lack of numbers and such which means it has no real meaning to me. Not saying the info is inaccurate, just that I like concrete numbers and such when making decisions. Show me the numbers, I can handle 'em.
Earth's been warming up since the last ice age, long before we all started driving SUVs.
I'm skeptical of the "man made global warming will kill us all!" message. Grew up being told that acid rain would do us in if we didn't all get skin cancer when the ozone layer went away. Didn't happen. Was told we'd be out of oil in 50 years 20 years ago, but nobody really thinks we're going to be devoid of oil in 30 years today.
Remember the boy that cried wolf? I don't pay much attention to his pleas anymore.
-
Show me the numbers, I can handle 'em.
Check his bibliography.
(Follow the footnotes.)
The numbers are there
even if you may have to dig.
(Such is the reality of research.)
Here's a summary with (simple) numbers.
For the last 2 - 3 million years,
the "ice ages" have been quasi-cyclic.
During that time, CO2 levels were never - NEVER - as high as they are now. Not even close.
Average ice age levels: 180 ppm. Average interglacial: 280. Highest in at least 650,000 years: 300 ppm.
Now, CO2 is 380 ppm, and rising faster by nearly 30X than it has during the ice ages.
It's now not only increasing, but accelerating. It's increasing at 2 ppm per year. Even at that rate,
we'll be at 500 ppm in 60 years or less. (And it's unlikely that it'll stay at a rate of increase of 2 ppm/year for long; it will accelerate.)
The last time Earth had 500 ppm of carbon dioxide in atmosphere was the PETM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene-Eocene_Thermal_Maximum) 55 million years ago,
a catastrophic heating event that resulted in a mass extinction that lasted for 200,000 years.
Here's more (http://news.mongabay.com/news-index/petm1.html) on that hypothesis.
That's what we're about to repeat.
Buckle up, Dorothy.
-
Quote
So now it's my turn to ask you to justify your beliefs. I'd love to read a compelling argument that biological life is a prerequisite for a volatile climate. I'd settle for a compelling argument that life "complexifies" climate by orders of magnitude.
First, the word "volatile" is yours. I didn't use it in my response to Ben.
My point is, again, adding life to a planet complexifies its climate system.
A complex system is complex by virtue of being composed of more parts with more connections than a less complex system.
The reasoning is simple. Venus and Mars have no life (again, no evidence of any on either planet). Therefore their climate is controlled entirely by the laws of physics and chemistry.
Earth, on the other hand, obviously has life on it. It's climate is thus controlled by the laws of physics, chemistry AND biology. There are far more parts to the climate system here - those organisms - and they are linked to the inorganic components of air, water and rocks in complex ways. Thus the system is more complex.
For a simple example, the main carbon dioxide removal system on Earth involves marine algae. They incorporate calcium carbonate (mineralized carbon dioxide) into their shells. When they die, the sink to the ocean bottom, building up as limestone and chalk, removing carbon from the system.
Likewise, methane is a waste product of methanogens AKA methane generating bacteria.
Both carbon dioxide and methane affect temperature of a planet.
Without living systems, climate on Earth would be much simpler.
For more on how life affects climate, read this.
(We've suggested that you do so previously. This would be a lot easier if you would just do some reading.)
Sigh. What is it with you AGW proponents? What makes you all assume that the only reason any of us disagree with you is because we're ignorant?
It's insulting, frankly.
I've seen Weart's website before. I've read a lot of it, skimmed the rest of it. It serves to reinforce my conclusion that most of the underpinnings of AGW are fatally unsupported. It suffers from the logical fallacy of confusing plausibility with proof, and seems to ignore the scientific method whenever convenient, which is most of the time.
For example, models and theories and speculation abound as to what capacity humans may have for changing the climate, but there's no proof. If we were scientists operating under the scientific method, then all we could say is that there are numerous hypotheses. Each hypothesis seems to have its own biased camp of believers and supporters, but actual testing and verification of any of these hypotheses is conspicuously absent.
If that wasn't enough, basic common-sense shows that it's indeterminable (at present) whether life makes climate more complex or less complex, or has no affect on balance. Absence of life may introduce its own set of unique complexities unknown to planets with biology. Since we have virtually zero observation on how climate interacts on lifeless planets (and, frankly, very little understanding of how life affects climate on life bearing planets), we have no way to make a comparison. Thus have no sound basis for concluding that life-bearing planets are any more (or less) complex. To be technical, we lack a control group to compare against.
All we can do is hold on for the ride, to prepare and adapt as best we can.
At this point, that is correct.
A century ago, those policies of which you speak could have prevented what is now inevitable.
Now, the system is already turning. Like a truck doing 70 on I-95, even slamming on the brakes, it will require time to stop. Too late: it'll hit the bridge abutment.
Hold on. Hope you're wearing a seat belt.
Wow, this just sums up my doubts on anthopormorphic global warming in one fell swoop.
First you say that biology has a huge impact on climate. Humans are one of the biggest influences on biology, at least according to Weart and most AGW alarmists I've seen. Humans must therefore have a substantial ability to change climate.
Then you say that humans can't change climate.
Then you clarify. Well, humans 100 years ago could have changed climate. If they'd only used their climate control abilities back then we wouldn't have any climate problems today.
It comes off as being completely subjective. The truth is whatever you need it to be, to support whatever reasoning you're trying to use at the moment.
So what am I to conclude? I find most of the "science" to be lacking in actual science. I find the conclusions drawn from the faulty science to be completely subjective, inconsistent, and fallacious. Please, tell me, what am I to conclude from all of this?
Seems to me that the only sensible conclusion is that nobody really knows what's going on, and that people who do claim to know are almost certainly wrong.
-
I find most of the "science" to be lacking in actual science. I find the conclusions drawn from the faulty science to be completely subjective, inconsistent, and fallacious.
Why?
Discuss. Provide sources.
This is very interesting.
May you live in interesting times.
-
I just did discuss. In a nutshell:
AGW conclusions (dire predictions of calamity) do not follow logically from the premises. The premises (the purported science behind it all) isn't sound or scientific, it relies upon speculation that is not tested to verify or refute.
It's late and I'm tired. I'll pick this up again tomorrow if you want.
-
I'll pick this up again tomorrow if you want.
Yes, please do.
In particular, justify this statement:
The premises (the purported science behind it all) isn't sound or scientific, it relies upon speculation that is not tested to verify or refute.
Horse s**t.
[Added by edit: as discussed in a subsequent series of posts, I included that last statement here because originally, Headless Thompson Gunner said much the same to me in a post on page 4 (third from the bottom). He has now edited his original post, as he admits in a post on the next page. I'll leave this one intact.]
-
Ben, I'd like to read how you justify that assertion.
A few links below on things we're learning about Venus. The fact that you have an atmosphere that rotates every 4 or so days compared to over 200 for the planet itself to rotate is pretty unstable in itself. Note that I also said historically. It's quite possible Venus may have had life at one time, and our own atmosphere was in a (relatively) stable (and hostile to life as we know it) state for longer than life higher than cyanobacteria has been on Earth. And of course we know relatively little about the outer planets and their atmospheres and climates to reach any conclusions or comparisons regarding any dynamic phenomena past or present. Not that we know all that much about Venus, but probes over the last couple of decades are beginning to paint a rather interesting and chaotic picture.
Life can complicate a climate system, as it does on Earth, but we don't have a clue as to whether it's a prerequisite for complexity over other factors on planets that are not terrestrial.
http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/venus_pr.html
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008AGUFM.U23E0092P
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Venus_Express/SEMUG473R8F_0_ov.html
-
And while we're discussing premises, science and other heady topics,
let's review how science works.
Step 1: observation.
Examples:
The Arctic ice is melting at rates far faster than any historical records, and even faster than the models predicted.
At that rate, the Arctic ocean will be ice free in summer in 20 years or less.
The NW passage is open for the first time in history.
Permafrost is melting releasing methane.
Oceans are not only becoming hotter, but more acidic (due to increased CO2 --> carbonic acid).
Step 2: Question: Why are these things happening?
Step 3: Hypothesis: CO2 levels are higher now than at any time in 650,000 years.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, which traps heat in the atmosphere.
Step 4: Prediction: Earth will continue to heat.
Step 5: Test prediction.
(Please stand by for 20 years.)
-
Also lets play nice boys and girls, or the padlock comes out.
-
Life can complicate a climate system, as it does on Earth...
That's my point.
QED.
-
Yes, but my reading of your post implied "must". I'm quite open to "can".
-
That's my point.
QED.
You didn't assert that life can complicate climate. You asserted that life does complicate climate, and by orders of magnitude.
I say prove it.
-
Those who understand science and probability theory
know that "proof" is not attainable.
(It's related to those p = 0.025 outer tails.)
Only evidence is admissible.
I resubmit, knowing full well,
as indicated by Iain and Nitrogen
early in this thread, that this will not settle it.
Settling it will require 20, maybe even 30 years.
Even then, for those born 10 years earlier,
it will not be settled. They will just learn to adapt.
Ce la vi.
And tit for tat: can you "prove"
(obviously not; just provide evidence)
that life does NOT complexify climate
by orders of magnitude?
___________
My point is, again, adding life to a planet complexifies its climate system.
A complex system is complex by virtue of being composed of more parts with more connections than a less complex system.
The reasoning is simple. Venus and Mars have no life (again, no evidence of any on either planet). Therefore their climate is controlled entirely by the laws of physics and chemistry.
Earth, on the other hand, obviously has life on it. It's climate is thus controlled by the laws of physics, chemistry AND biology. There are far more parts to the climate system here - those organisms - and they are linked to the inorganic components of air, water and rocks in complex ways. Thus the system is more complex.
For a simple example, the main carbon dioxide removal system on Earth involves marine algae like coccolithophores, diatoms and actinopods. They incorporate calcium carbonate (mineralized carbon dioxide) into their shells. When they die, they sink to the ocean bottom, building up as limestone and chalk, removing carbon from the system. That effects climate by removing a greenhouse gas, which cools the planet.
(How else do you think all that CO2 from volcanoes got removed for hundreds of millions of years?)
Likewise, methane is a waste product of methanogens AKA methane generating bacteria.
Both carbon dioxide and methane effect temperature of a planet, which strongly effect its climate since climate is effectively a heat engine: heat drives weather systems.
Not to mention the presence of O2 in the atmosphere, which can ONLY be explained by the presence of photosynthesis by plants, algae and photosynthetic bacteria.
Without living systems, climate on Earth would be much simpler.
-
You didn't assert that life can complicate climate.
You asserted that life does complicate climate, and by orders of magnitude.
That is NOT what I wrote.
I did not use the word "complicate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complicated)".
I used the word "complexify (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system)".
Those words differ in both character strings and meaning.
-
Sigh. What is it with you AGW proponents? What makes you all assume that the only reason any of us disagree with you is because we're ignorant?
It's insulting, frankly.
I quite clearly said that my previous comments were aimed at those who threw the same old easy lazy comments in to threads over and over.
Nitrogen, myself, wacki and others can at very least take credit for the fact that in these endless threads people have stopped using charts of the composition of the atmosphere as 'proof' that global warming isn't real - "0.038% carbon dioxide, how can that do anything?" Expect that'll have to be good enough.
-
The NW passage is open for the first time in history.
no
-
Horse s**t.
That did it for me. What was an interesting discussion turned disheartenly personal in an instant. Too bad.
-
On September 14, 2007, the European Space Agency stated that, based on satellite images, ice loss had opened up the passage "for the first time since records began in 1978".
-
http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2007/09/bad-reporting-about-northwest-passage.html
beral
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Bad reporting about the Northwest Passage issue.
There is nothing that that spreads faster than a global warming scare story even when it is false. I’ve investigated several of the bogus claims here over the last year or so. Those can be found here, here, here, here and here. Now for the newest story. The famed Northwest Passage is now open, supposedly for the first time, so that a ship can actually make the journey.
The BBC dramatically reported on September 14 that: “The most direct shipping route from Europe to Asia is fully clear of ice for the first time since records began.” They are a bit dicey about when those records began or what records they are referring to. In fact it is satellite records of the passage that were started in 1978. So they mean for the first time since 1978. They leave out the date for the start of the records. Note: The report now mentions 1978, if it was there when I read it two days ago I didn't see it. However, many, many other reports have left the date out.
The first time!!!! Really? How can they say that? They actually reported on September 10, 2000 that: “A Canadian police patrol boat has completed a voyage through the fabled Northwest Passage without encountering any pack ice.”
How many “first times” are there at the BBC? Is this the environmental equivalent being a virgin, again?
National Geographic reports the Passage “is ice free for the first time since satellite records began in 1978”. Alas, the 2000 report from the BBC reports a previous first time. But at least National Geographic mentioned that the records in question only began in 1978, unlike the BBC which carefully excluded that key fact.
Slashdot announced “Impassable Northwest Passage Opens For First Time in History”. Canada.com referred to the Passage as the “historically impassable maritime shortcut”. Associated Press reported that the ice melt is “raising the possibility that the Northwest Passage that eluded famous explorers will become an open shipping lane.” Saying it eluded them is pretty clear. No one has ever been through the Northwest Passage because of heavy ice.
The Melbourne Herald-Sun called the Passage “the dreamed of yet historically impassable maritime shortcut...” The environmental site Environmental Graffiti reports that “Explorers have searched for it for centuries and failed.” The it being the Northwest Passage. But they report that now it has been discovered thanks to “our malignant little friend: global warming.” The New York Post has also told the world that until now, the Northwest Passage has “eluded explorers”. And Scientific American has called this a “historically impassable route”.
You get the drift. The world’s media is saying variations on the same theme. Google news shows almost 1,300 outlets reporting this story. The basic claim is that the Passage is passable today and this is the first time in recorded history. Some mention that the recorded history is since 1978, while others make it sound like this is the first since human history began, a much longer period and a far more dramatic claim. Either claim is false. As noted the BBC reported the exact same story in 2000.
We should also look at the claim that the ice has always been so thick that the Northwest Passage has been “historically impassable”. Most attempts by explorers to find this passage happened during the Little Ice Age. I would think they would have had great difficulty making it through the Passage under ice age conditions. But are they saying that after the Little Ice Age ended that no one has made it through the Passage? They seem to be.
The problem is that ships have sailed through the Northwest Passage before today and long before a police patrol did it in 2000. It has happened several times. The historically impassable route has been passed through numerous times for over a century now.
Here is a photo of the St. Roch. It’s a wooden ship, not some massive, metallic icebreaker. According to the Vancouver Maritime Museum web site, this 104 foot wooden ship sailed through the Northwest Passage from 1940 to 1942, that was from west to east. In 1944 it did it again from from east to west. King George VI awarded Captain Henry Larsen, and the crew, the Polar Medal for making the 1944 voyage.
The Maritime Museum also includes a little information about the Northwest Passage as well. And they specifically mention that the famed Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen “became the first person to sail the entire Passage from east to west” and that was in 1906.
Remember that police patrol boat that went through the Passage on the other “first” time in 2000? It was actually named the St. Roch II. It sailed the same route as the first St. Roch as a fund raiser to help preserve the original ship. They were re-enacting the previous voyage from 60 years earlier.
The USS Storis made the journey in 1957 as this US Coast Guard history of the ship mentions. They do claim, falsely, that this trip “ended a 450-year search for the Northwest Passage” neglecting to mention the St. Roch did it twice before them and Amundsen did so as well. Here is a photo of the Storis during its 1957 trip through the Northwest Passage.
A Dutch businessman, Willy de Roos, 56, made a solo voyage through the Northwest Passage in 1977 and you can see a Canadian Broadcasting Network clip on the journey here. They have another report on the S.S. Manhattan making the trip through the Passage in 1969
I shouldn’t neglect to mention that a couple of Canadians, Mike Beedell and Jeffrey MacInnis, sailed through the Northwest Passage using a catamaran with wind power only. That was in 1988. And in 1985 there was a diplomatic row between the US and Canada because the ship, the Polar Sea, was setting sail through the Northwest Passage and hadn’t asked Canadian permission. The US argued it was international waters and Canada said it wasn’t.
Even tourists on the M.V. Lindblad, a Swedish ship, have traveled through the Northwest Passage. They did it with luxurious food and in comfort. The trip was a 40 day trip from Newfoundland to Japan via the Passage and cost the tourists $16,000 to $22,000 in 1984! You can even hear the captain being interviewed by Canadian radio saying that the ice is in retreat and the water is open. That was back during the time when the panic mongers were pushing the global cooling theory. The Lindblad made a second trip through the Passage in 1988.
In 1977 another Canadian ship, with four Canadians, made the trip through the Passage as well. At one point of their trip they sailed together with the Dutch businessman who was making the solo trip. So you had two different ships traveling through the “historically impassable” Passage at the same time. I guess that is the Passage’s equivalent of a rush hour.
With just a few minutes of research I have been able to compile twelve cases of vessels traveling through the Northwest Passage. Yet major media outlets from around the world are pretending that such trips have never been possible until this year. The BBC didn’t even check their own web site.
Once “global warming” is mentioned all critical faculties are shut down in the media. They don’t verify facts. They just repeat the claims that are made.
We simply don’t know if the Northwest Passage has been relatively ice free before the 1978 satellite data started being collected. But we do have two different BBC reports, in two different years, each claiming the Passage was ice free “for the first time”. Before 1978 we don’t know. It is pure guesswork. But given that the planet has been much warmer than today, in the past, it is likely the Passage has been ice free on many occasions.
Regardless of that, the history of ships traveling through the Northwest Passage has been well documented. This is not conjecture or guessing. It is a historical fact. We’ve had small wooden ships do it, luxury tourist boats, a solo voyage, and numerous other incidents, all of which I have documented here.
The only reason I can think of that explains why journalists, who repeated the false claims of this story, didn’t bother to do any research is because these claims have been linked to global warming. They don’t want to be called “deniers” by the warming alarmists. Global warming to the Left is what “terrorism” is to the Right. It is an issue that is meant to be so scary that one is supposed to close down their mind, repeat the slogans, and obey.
-
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/29/northwest.passage/
this lil story shows how accurate the agw folks are
-
http://nwpi.krc.karelia.ru/climas/Ice/Ice_no_sat/XX_Arctic.htm
what was going on in the 20's? when ice levels were similar to today?
-
Ad Hominem Tu Quoque fallacy.
-
how so?
-
Sigh. What is it with you AGW proponents? What makes you all assume that the only reason any of us disagree with you is because we're ignorant?
It's insulting, frankly.
I quite clearly said that my previous comments were aimed at those who threw the same old easy lazy comments in to threads over and over.
Nitrogen, myself, wacki and others can at very least take credit for the fact that in these endless threads people have stopped using charts of the composition of the atmosphere as 'proof' that global warming isn't real - "0.038% carbon dioxide, how can that do anything?" Expect that'll have to be good enough.
Sorry, Iain, I didn't mean to snub you. Those comments of mine were directed at Nematocyst and the other AGW proponents (not necessarily here on APS) who take the attitude I described.
-
That is NOT what I wrote.
I did not use the word "complicate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complicated)".
I used the word "complexify (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system)".
Those words differ in both character strings and meaning.
You do realize that "complicate" and "complexify" mean much the same thing, right?
Complicate - to make or become complex
Complexify - to make complex
But if we're going to start quibbling over dictionary definitions of synonyms, then I'm out. Been there, done that, not going to repeat it with you.
-
Those who understand science and probability theory
know that "proof" is not attainable.
(It's related to those p = 0.025 outer tails.)
Only evidence is admissible.
I resubmit, knowing full well,
as indicated by Iain and Nitrogen
early in this thread, that this will not settle it.
Settling it will require 20, maybe even 30 years.
Even then, for those born 10 years earlier,
it will not be settled. They will just learn to adapt.
Ce la vi.
And tit for tat: can you "prove"
(obviously not; just provide evidence)
that life does NOT complexify climate
by orders of magnitude?
I believe you're catching on.
Global warming hypotheses mostly cannot be tested. If I remember correctly, the overarching IPCC hypothesis is that the planet will experience 4 to 8 *C of warming and X feet of seal level rise over the next century. How do you propose that you or I test that hypothesis? Shall we invent a time machine an travel one century into the future to make measurements? Hopefully by then they'll know how to accurately measure these quantities.
Do you not see how an untested and untestable hypothesis does not amount to scientific proof? Do you not see that piling yet more untestable hypotheses on top of this one don't alter the fundamental problem? The problem is that these hypotheses are nothing more than speculation, supported by other speculation, supported by yet more speculation, all of it untested and probably untestable. Such a mess is NOT a sound basis for acquiring knowledge.
Now, science can be proven. We have ample proof of scientific laws, and we have a myriad of theories (theories in the context of the scientific method) that we know to be true as far as they go. So it's not that science cannot be proven. It's that AGW isn't proven, at least not at the current time.
Maybe some day AGW will be proven. Or, maybe some day AGW will be revealed as nothing more than hubris. Only time will tell.
Until then, I'll oppose anyone who claims that AGW is fact. I'll especially oppose anyone who claims that we need to give up our standard of living and our liberties in order to fight AGW. That's the only sensible position I can see.
Since we're now at the point of repeating what we've said earlier, and of quibbling over two things that mean the same thing, I'm done.
-
Responding to my use of the term "horses**t", RocketMan wrote:
That did it for me. What was an interesting discussion turned disheartenly personal in an instant. Too bad.
My use of the term was to reflect back Headless HG's use of the term in my direction in the third post from the bottom of page 4.
If what you say is correct, then this whole AGW proposition is utter horse *expletive deleted*it.
Right or wrong, I tend to reflect back what's thrown at me, especially when it involves excrement.
Still, I'll do what I can to keep the discussion out of the sewer. We are, after all, still an element of the high road.
-
Around here, describing an argument as horse s*** and giving reasons why is one thing, but just calling someone horse s*** and moving on is something else entirely.
;)
Although I do apologize for using profanity. That was a mistake and it has been edited.
-
Powder and crust are both types of snow, but they have significant differences, meanings and consequences for skiers.
Likewise, even though the words are similar in meaning,
the meanings of "complex" and "complicated" are subtly and importantly different.
Still, since it's relatively tangential to the main discussion, and Headless doesn't want to discuss that, I'll not belabor the difference.
I'll just be on record as noting that "complex" is not equivalent to "complicated".
-
Around here, describing an argument as horse s*** and giving reasons why is one thing, but just calling someone horse s*** and moving on is something else entirely.
Right.
Let's examine the post to which I was responded:
AGW conclusions (dire predictions of calamity) do not follow logically from the premises. The premises (the purported science behind it all) isn't sound or scientific, it relies upon speculation that is not tested to verify or refute.
It's late and I'm tired. I'll pick this up again tomorrow if you want.
You made the assertion without explanation, no examples given. You made the statement, then, in your words, moved on. You offered no justification of that assertion until a later post.
__________
Now, let's see if we can move on.
-
From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage#Amundsen_expedition), which offers a reasonable summary.
The Northwest Passage was not conquered by sea until 1906, when the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who had sailed just in time to escape creditors seeking to stop the expedition, completed a three-year voyage in the converted 47-ton herring boat Gjøa. At the end of this trip, he walked into the city of Eagle, Alaska, and sent a telegram announcing his success. Although his chosen east–west route, via the Rae Strait, contained young ice and thus was navigable, some of the waterways were extremely shallow making the route commercially impractical.
Then (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Passage#Effects_of_climate_change),
Effects of climate change
Arctic shrinkage as of 2007 compared to previous years
Around the time of the Viking sagas and for at least two more centuries (a conservative interval from AD 1000 to 1200 that also happens to include the dates allotted to some of the larger Norse ships), prior to the Little Ice Age some limited regions of the Arctic may have been somewhat warmer than they were in the early 20th century, and were certainly warmer than they were in the depths of the Little Ice Age (see Medieval Warm Period). Also, the sea level in the Arctic was different from that of the present day.[45] Because of glacial rebound land levels of the land masses about the Northwest Passage have risen upwards of 20 m (66 ft) in the centuries after the Viking times.
In the summer of 2000, several ships took advantage of thinning summer ice cover on the Arctic Ocean to make the crossing.[citation needed] It is thought that global warming is likely to open the passage for increasing periods of time, making it attractive as a major shipping route. However the passage through the Arctic Ocean would require significant investment in escort vessels and staging ports. Therefore the Canadian commercial marine transport industry does not anticipate the route as a viable alternative to the Panama Canal even within the next 10 to 20 years.[46]
Sister project Wikinews has related news: Arctic ice levels at record low opening Northwest Passage
On September 14, 2007, the European Space Agency stated that, based on satellite images, ice loss had opened up the passage "for the first time since records began in 1978". According to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, the latter part of the 20th century and the start of the 21st had seen marked shrinkage of ice cover. The extreme loss in 2007 rendered the passage "fully navigable".[47][48] However, the ESA study was based only on analysis of satellite images and could in practice not confirm anything about the actual navigation of the waters of the passage. The ESA suggested the passage would be navigable "during reduced ice cover by multi-year ice pack" (namely sea ice surviving one or more summers) where previously any traverse of the route had to be undertaken during favourable seasonable climatic conditions or by specialist vessels or expeditions. The agency's report speculated that the conditions prevalent in 2007 had shown the passage may "open" sooner than expected.[49] An expedition in May 2008 reported that the passage was not yet continuously navigable even by an icebreaker and not yet ice-free.[50]
Scientists at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union on December 13, 2007, revealed that NASA satellites observing the western Arctic.[clarification needed] showed a 16% decrease in cloud coverage during the summer of 2007 compared to 2006. This would have the effect of allowing more sunlight to penetrate Earth's atmosphere and warm the Arctic Ocean waters, thus melting sea ice and contributing to the opening the Northwest Passage.[51]
[edit] 2008 sealift
On November 28, 2008, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that the Canadian Coast Guard confirmed the first commercial ship sailed through the Northwest Passage. In September 2008, the MV Camilla Desgagnés, owned by Desgagnés Transarctik Inc. and, along with the Arctic Cooperative, is part of Nunavut Sealift and Supply Incorporated (NSSI),[52] transported cargo from Montreal to the hamlets of Cambridge Bay, Kugluktuk, Gjoa Haven and Taloyoak. A member of the crew is reported to have claimed that "there was no ice whatsoever". Shipping from the east is to resume in the fall of 2009.[53] Although sealift is an annual feature of the Canadian Arctic this is the first time that the western communities have been serviced from the east. The western portion of the Canadian Arctic is normally supplied by Northern Transportation Company Limited (NTCL) from Hay River. The eastern portion by NNSI and NTCL from Churchill and Montreal.
This image (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2007_Arctic_Sea_Ice.jpg) is relevant to the discussion.
-
Global warming hypotheses mostly cannot be tested. If I remember correctly, the overarching IPCC hypothesis is that the planet will experience 4 to 8 *C of warming and X feet of seal level rise over the next century. How do you propose that you or I test that hypothesis?
We do the same thing we do to test tomorrow's weather forecast of rain: we see what tomorrow brings.
Likewise, GW theory is testable. We have been testing it for decades. Each year, we collect more and better data from real time measurements of temperature, precipitation, sea levels, ocean pH and other data.
Each year, the data supports the theory: Earth - both atmosphere and oceans - is heating, climate is changing, ocean pH is decreasing.
Even the relatively conservative (scientifically speaking, meaning not previously prone to making radical claims) World Meteorological Organization (http://www.wmo.int/pages/index_en.html) (WMO) admits that weather is changing in ways that cannot be explained without invoking the heating theory.
We will continue to test the theory during this century.
We also retrodict: that is, we look at patterns of change in the past and attempt to explain them using science. Patterns of change reflected in ice cores, tree rings, pollen studies, deep sea floor cores and other sources are analyzed statistically. In particular, researchers seek relationships between carbon gases and temperatures. That evidence is extremely strong, and as close to "proof" as one can get that the temperature and carbon gases CO2 and CH4 are tightly coupled: when one increases, so do the others. And I'll say again: it does not matter which increases first.
We build sophisticated super computer models based on the best real world data we have, then start those models with conditions from decades, centuries and millennia past (into the last ice age) to see if they reproduce today's conditions. That is hypothesis testing: they test whether the explanatory model accurately represents reality. If they do, it's viewed as support for the hypothesis or (now) theory.
Neither the models nor the data are perfect. That will always be the case. Data collection can never capture every aspect of the picture, and a model is always necessarily simplified. But they've come a long way, and our confidence in them is strong.
The three biggest problems in modeling now are: 1) insufficient data on the role of clouds (especially high v low clouds, which have different effects on heating, and clouds are notoriously difficult to model because they are so dynamic); 2) ocean currents (still poorly mapped); and most importantly, the models still do not adequately represent positive feedbacks, the ones that amplify and accelerate changes. That's why the IPCC models under estimate the predictions consistently. Within a couple of years after every IPCC report, scientists are already saying, "We didn't expect change in {insert variable here} would be so fast. It is changing much faster than predicted." This is now an almost cliche refrain.
Obviously, the people involved in this discussion have glaring differences in their interpretation of the data that continues to amaze me. It's hard for me to understand how anyone that really looks at the supporting data as presented by Weart, Pearce, and RealClimate can fail to understand that this is a serious problem. But that's the state of things.
In some cases, there is undoubtedly an element of denial based in psychology (not wanting to believe that Earth is changing in ways that we cannot control) or politics (which is why I just don't deal with the political component).
The problem is that these hypotheses are nothing more than speculation, supported by other speculation, supported by yet more speculation, all of it untested and probably untestable. Such a mess is NOT a sound basis for acquiring knowledge.
Speculation is fundamentally different from hypothesis. Speculations are guesses based on no data, and usually with no model.
Hypotheses are based on data and models.
Spencer Weart, Fred Pearce & RealClimate discuss tons of real data and models about this issue. You choose to ignore them.
Now, science can be proven. We have ample proof of scientific laws, and we have a myriad of theories (theories in the context of the scientific method) that we know to be true as far as they go.
My comments about "proof" and "disproof" in science have a basis in probability theory. In my science classes, I counsel my students that in science, we can never say that something is "proven" or "disproven", only "supported" or "rejected". It's a technicality, but an important one, based on the asymptotic nature of probability distribution functions that never reach a point of probability 0 or 1.
We can only make probability statements about natural phenomena, not absolute statements about "proof" and "disproof".
Until then, I'll oppose anyone who claims that AGW is fact.
Patterns in global heating and climate change are being observed and are consistent with predictions except that both are consistently occurring faster than predicted.
I'll especially oppose anyone who claims that we need to give up our standard of living and our liberties in order to fight AGW.
I make no claims at all about what people should or should not do about this. I make no assertion that you should, let alone must, change your life style, let alone give up your liberty. Do what you want. It's your decision, and I have no intention of trying to force you to do anything about it. I own an F-250 diesel. I'm not planning to sell it. I don't drive it much these days because fuel is so expensive, but I'm not selling it over this issue.
As for me, I'm planning contingencies, because it's clear to me - based on sound evidence (see Weart, Pearce & RealClimate) that the problem is real, accelerating and will get much worse very quickly.
And that is a testable hypothesis.
-
Hi Nemo!
Good to see you, FB. Here we are arguing about climate ... again. smiley
Not arguing, Nemo. Discussing! =D
"Go to the high country" is not just a plan for alpine plant-seeking botanists!
It's been the plants themselves solution to warming/drying since there have been
terrestrial plants. Like all life, they either adapt or go extinct.
Why the panic?
My quarrel with the AGW doom-saying extremists is twofold:
First:
Even if the globe is warming as precipitously as claimed, there is ample evidence
in the geological record of similar events in the past. Why panic?
Second:
The "solutions" proposed to deal with AGW invariably involve dramatically
increased control of all aspects of human endeavor by 'authority'.
Historically, this approach never seems to end well for human liberty and dignity.
You mentioned the PETM awhile back -
Now there's a nice close (to geologists!) example of non-anthropogenic global warming.
The ice core data you mention is such a TINY slice of geologic time.
It is insufficient to extrapolate so much effect from.
PETM from (portion) Wikipedia:
Climate
Average global temperatures increased by ~6 °C in the space of 20,000 years. This is based on Mg/Ca and δ18O values of forams. δ18O is a more useful proxy for palæotemperature during the Eocene, as the lack of ice makes it safe to assume that the oceans' δ18O signature is constant.[12] Due to the positive feedback effect of melting ice reducing albedo, temperature increases would have been greatest at the poles, which reached an average annual temperature of 10-20 °C;[13] the surface waters of the northernmost[14] Arctic ocean warmed, seasonally at least, enough to support tropical lifeforms[15] requiring surface temperatures of over 22°C.[16]
The climate would also have become much wetter, with the increase in evaporation rates peaking in the tropics. Deuterium isotopes reveal that much more of this moisture was transported polewards than normal.[17] This would have resulted in the largely isolated Arctic ocean taking a more freshwater character as northern hemisphere rainfall was channelled towards it.[17]
So, why the panic?
I believe it is primarily political in nature, in order to establish the "one world" government socialists
have been dreaming of but up to now have not been able to achieve. They have found a 'product'. ;/
Fantastic display of alpines on at the moment in Kosciusko National Park!
Around 80% endemism at specific level - which suggests local adaptation
to the emerging alpine environment as well as migration from afar.
Dang it Nemo!
These plant critters have "been there done that" for so long now
I suspect if they could read the AGW hype they'd
do the plant equivalent of a yawn and turn the page. =)
They adapt or disappear. Why the panic?
-
First:Even if the globe is warming as precipitously as claimed, there is ample evidence
in the geological record of similar events in the past. Why panic?
FB, I'm not in panic mode. I don't panic very easily. Let's call it concern.
Yes, Earth has been here before with respect to a large-scale heating event: PETM (55 mya), KT boundary (65 mya) and end of Permian (180 mya, I think). All were associated with mass extinctions. Earth recovered each time, and will probably do so this time (even if recovery will require 100,000 years or more).
My concern is that humans have never experienced anything like this in the history of our species. It's not something we've ever dealt with before. We have little in our toolkit ready to pull off the shelf, so to speak, to adapt to a change this large that so severely affect freshwater availability, food production, fish stocks, etc.
The planet is already in turmoil because there are so many mouths to feed, oil is not getting cheaper, and we're in a global financial meltdown. Add this to the mix (which trumps all the others in severity) and you've got the makings for catastrophe.
My biggest concern is not climate change itself. My biggest concern is living in a society that gets blindsided because it hit fast, we didn't see it coming and have no plan B.
As for the conspiracy theory about this all being politically motivated, I find that so unbelievable (I'm trying to be respectful here) that I can't even discuss it.
-
Fair enough Nem!
I am not trying to invoke conspiracy (perhaps others are?) so much as trying to
attribute the degree of panic attending this likely natural climate cycle to those
who wish to consolidate authoritarian control over society.
Mass extinctions create opportunity for new life, do they not?
Where would we mammals be if the KT event hadn't happened?
I appreciate all the diversity we have now - it's INCREASED
from the KT event.
Maybe that's just how life is on this planet-
tied to a cyclical climate and dealing with it?
The planet is already in turmoil because there are so many mouths to feed, oil is not getting cheaper, and we're in a global financial meltdown. Add this to the mix (which trumps all the others in severity) and you've got the makings for catastrophe.
Nem, I think it's time for you to go visit some of your local wild places again. =)
All those plants and critters - their ancestors lived through catastrophes as bad or worse.
Life can handle it.
Those political authoritarians who stand to gain from the panic over "AGW'......
Now there's something to be concerned about! :O
-
I am not trying to invoke conspiracy (perhaps others are?) so much as trying to
attribute the degree of panic attending this likely natural climate cycle to those
who wish to consolidate authoritarian control over society.
FB, other than "likely natural climate cycle" (which you probably understand by now that I don't buy :rolleyes: ), I hear you.
Assume for the moment that I'm right. (Sure, sure, suspend disbelief for a minute, as in strategy and tactic development exercises. You can go back to your belief in a minute, even if it is wrong. :D)
For me, the most worrisome threats are: 1) Those folks just up the road that aren't prepared for it, are very short of what they need and decide they're just going to come and try to take mine (which is the biggest reason I've got more guns in my safe now than I did a few years ago before I began studying this so closely); and 2) governments that decide that Marshall law or other draconian measures are the best way to deal with it.
The pentagon (and probably other agencies) has commissioned studies on this (http://www.grist.org/news/muck/2004/02/25/pentagoners/). They've thought through the potential national security issues involved, just in case it turns out to be right.
_____________
We really can do without the phrase "AGW" as far as I'm concerned. I've never liked the term. It oversimplifies the issue. Did humans have a role in it? Yes, IMO. (Obviously others disagree.) But are humans wholely responsible? No. Not even close. It's like blaming an economic crash on the failure of some specific corporation or industry. Does the crash of the latter effect or even trigger the larger crash? Sure. Does it cause it in the same way that a cue ball moves the 3 ball into the corner pocket? Nope.
______________
And you know what probably sucks the most, IMO.
This issue has such a negative effect on our community.
I'll bet if we were discussing rifles or 2A, we'd get along just fine, probably even amicably.
-
Bit tardy getting back to this thread, but in the second link Nematocyst offered in response to my post concerning possible solar system as opposed to planetary warming, the following irrationality sorta jumped out at me:
This last point is key. The causal link between the Earth’s warming and the alleged warming of other planets would have to be solar activity. But a recent study has shown that solar activity, including cosmic rays, are not responsible for recent planetary warming. The study (subs. no longer req’d) concluded:
Here we show that over the past 20 years, all the trends in the Sun that could have had an influence on the Earth’s climate have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures.
My original point in making my first post was to illustrate just how iffy the entire global warming hooraw is. "Science", in the quote above demonstrates my point quite nicely... "would have to be solar activity"... how charmingly naive ;) An honest statement would be "that's the only possibility that comes to mind and fits our current articles of faith, so that would have to be what it is".
Tiger
-
Tiger, I don't follow your logic there.
The problem is that you extracted your quote out of context. When you read the context, it becomes clear that you are missing the point that the authors are making:
One of the scientists involved in the research explained, Pluto’s warming was “likely not connected with that of the Earth. The major way they could be connected is if the warming was caused by a large increase in sunlight. But the solar constant–the amount of sunlight received each second–is carefully monitored by spacecraft, and we know the sun’s output is much too steady to be changing the temperature of Pluto.” And it is too steady to be changing the temperature of the Earth, for that matter: “The sunspot record and neutron monitor data,” as Realclimate.org explains, “show that solar activity has not increased since the 1950s and is therefore unlikely to be able to explain the recent warming.
This last point is key. The causal link between the Earth’s warming and the alleged warming of other planets would have to be solar activity. But a recent study has shown that solar activity, including cosmic rays, are not responsible for recent planetary warming.
Their point is in the first paragraph, especially that last sentence in the first paragraph, regardless of how poor their wording is in the second. They're point is that with Pluto, it is the extreme elliptical orbit of Pluto and it's tilt that are entirely responsible for its warming (not changes in solar activity). That is not true of Earth. The changes in our trajectory are known to trigger climate changes here (those Millankovitch effects), but it's equally well known that the amount of heating difference caused by them is insufficient to explain the entire temperature difference between ice ages, interglacials or now.
Again, the sun explanation is just another in a long string of "myths" (sensu incorrect) that "skeptics" just won't let die regardless of how sound the data is.
Here's a news story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7327393.stm) about one of the latest studies to put a nail in the coffin of that idea that the temperature trend is solely due to solar changes.
Weart (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/solar.htm) addresses other work and concludes there's more to it than merely sun changes. So does RealClimate, who provide nine different sources explaining why it's not "just the sun" (http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=It%27s_all_just_the_sun).
Does sun activity play a role in climate? Of course. How could it not?
But the real naivety is coming from those who are trying unsuccessfully (in the face of evidence) that's the only factor involved.
You can't ignore the fact that such a small proportion of other solar system bodies are experiencing warming, and more importantly that Earth's climate system is operating according to more complex rules than those others due to the nature of this system. (Back to that life component again.)
-
I'm enjoying this. Even learning some stuff. Keep it up guys!
-
FB, other than "likely natural climate cycle" (which you probably understand by now that I don't buy rolleyes ), I hear you.
Ha-ha, couldn't slip that one by you. :angel:
You can go back to your belief in a minute, even if it is wrong. Cheesy)
Naughty! "Wrong" is not a good word for science discussions. =)
) governments that decide that Marshall law or other draconian measures are the best way to deal with it.
See?! We are on the same track here!
The thing to worry about, IMHO is the people using the AGW panic to centralize power.
We really can do without the phrase "AGW" as far as I'm concerned. I've never liked the term. It oversimplifies the issue. Did humans have a role in it? Yes, IMO. (Obviously others disagree.)
The "usurpers" (for want of a better term) need the fundamental concept of AGW.
They need the voters and minions to genuinely BELIEVE that salvation lies in the transfer of power to those who can 'save' us. :O
But are humans wholely responsible? No. Not even close.
This is why professional bloviators such as Gore disgust me.
If one has to lie (and knows they are doing so) to promote a position, isn't it
time for some introspection as to motive? Yet Al continues with the dog & pony show. :rolleyes:
I'll bet if we were discussing rifles or 2A, we'd get along just fine, probably even amicably.
Shucks Nem, I'm already getting along amicably. =)
I respect your position and diligent scholarship on the issue.
And you like leverguns! =D
-
And you like leverguns! =D
Ah, yes.
Common ground is good, no? =D
Thanks for the kind words, FB.
-
Nematocyst,
it is the extreme elliptical orbit of Pluto and it's tilt that are entirely responsible for its warming
changes in our trajectory are known to trigger climate changes here
equally well known that the amount of heating difference caused by them is insufficient to explain the entire temperature difference
Nice examples of those articles of faith I was mentioning. The distinction between "know" and "believe" is an important one, imo. Science is a fine tool, in it's proper place, but (imo again) it is as terrible a faith as any other and leads to the same sort of exclusivist dogma as any other.
Theories and models, regardless how extensively supported remain just theories and models. When the step is taken that places them into the "known" classification, they become, in my book, indistinguishable from the primitive naturist beliefs science was supposed to supplant and supercede. The prevalent tendency to equate the map/model with the territory is functionally identical to the sympathetic magic of earlier ages.
Tiger
-
Sorry, Tiger. You're not making sense.
-
That's ok. I'm entirely accustomed to that reaction, being the semi-pro gadfly sort =D
Tiger
-
Common ground is good, no? grin
Thanks for the kind words, FB.
Thanks for your persistent civility Nem.
And then there's that other timeless classic - the 642..... :laugh:
-
Where would we mammals be if the KT event hadn't happened?
We would be on the menu! :lol: =D
Nem, the gov't wouldn't invoke "Marshall Law"
"martial law" is the term, a Marshall is a law enforcement officer.
;-)
-
"martial law" is the term, a Marshall is a law enforcement officer.
Hahaha... yeah, thanks, Gunsmith.
-
Reading . . .
Listening . . .
Still not convinced . . .
Intensely suspicious of "solutions" that involve more government meddling. Consequently suspicious of arguments that permit government to assert "savior" status to curtail liberty. And following from that, suspicious of any "science" that enables a political agenda.
That's not to say that said science (add salt as needed) is entirely and unredeemably wrong-headed, but it's not helping that its biggest supporters are the biggest enemies of self determinism and liberty.
Still . . .
I watch.
I listen.
-
Good to see you here, Arf.
I don't blame you for your distrust of "solutions". It's why I continuously avoid them when writing about the science.
IMO, it's crucial for us to separate our understanding of the issue from the "solutions". When they get tangled up, as they seem to be for you and so many others, it can lead to distrust of the diagnosis which is not necessarily justified. (Not at all in this case, I assert.)
Think of it this way. I'm betting that if multiple physicians diagnosed an illness in you or a loved one using multiple tools (perhaps chemical tests, MRI's, biopsy, ultrasound, etc), but all recommended different treatments, none of which you liked or approved of, you wouldn't discount the diagnosis just because you disliked their prescribed remedies. Instead, you'd seek alternative remedies.
That's what I recommend that you do with the issue at hand. Learn as much as you can about heating and climate change, and for the moment, ignore the solutions proposed by the Gores and others. Just focus on the science. (Oh, yes you can do it. I know because I do it.)
Then, at a time of your choosing (or not) you can deal with "solutions".
PS: I rarely if ever discuss "mitigation" any longer. Such discussions just lead to arguments, and most are impractical anyway, either politically, economically, technologically, ecologically or otherwise. I'm pretty convinced that even if everyone agreed on the science - and clearly everyone does not (current thread offered as evidence) - we probably would not have the political and economic will to do anything substantive to "stop it".
So, increasingly, I focus on what individuals, families, neighborhoods and communities can do to prepare for adaptation to large scale change, just in case the science is right.
It falls back on my boy scout training that carried right through to my mountaineering experiences: be prepared. One would be a fool to go on an expedition above the treeline or into a desert without the proper tools, skills and knowledge. Likewise with a journey into the future where the home planet will change in ways that are similar to a desert expedition at times and above the treeline expeditions at others - meaning far more challenging than what we've been used to.
-
So... If Yellowstone pops, how do we figure the resulting data next to the adjacent data?
If I understand the theory, the added pollution causes the climate to become warmer - then why did we have the "year without a summer" when Krakatoa (or whatever it was...) popped?
I'm guessing that we're more likely to see "environmental change" from an external (big-ass comet) or an internal (big-ass volcano) event than we are from burning a bit of fossil fuel... There've been fires like you wouldn't believe in places where man had never stepped foot... And the developed world is considerably less "polluted" than it was 50-150 years ago...
I'm leery of the folks claiming knowledge of cement clouds - for the simple reason that there's grant money in them there clouds... And there's darn little gain to be found in saying "Hey folks, nothing to be seen here - that sky isn't falling..."
-
So... If Yellowstone pops, how do we figure the resulting data next to the adjacent data?
If Yellowstone pops in a big way, then all bets are off for the time being, at least for the Pacific NW. ;/
If I understand the theory, the added pollution causes the climate to become warmer - then why did we have the "year without a summer" when Krakatoa (or whatever it was...) popped?
Simple one here. Volcanoes put up massive amounts of CO2. Before humans came along, they were the only real source of CO2. In fact, the climate system has evolved to actively pump down CO2 (mainly those marine phytoplankton) because the more passive processes that rely on rock weathering can require tens to hundreds of thousands of years to lower CO2 levels.
However, volcanoes also expel large quantities of ash (and big ones like Krakatoa put it up in the stratosphere) and sulfur dioxides, both of which cause temporary cooling and "years without summers". Same thing happened when Pinatubo blew. Those aerosols wash out in a year or two, though, where as the CO2 requires MUCH longer to scrub out (at least decades, but up to hundreds of years if the carbon load is significant).
This is why past global heating events have been largely volcanic in origin: massive volcanic eruptions (either terrestrial or submarine or both) have been behind the Permian extinction, the Cretaceous Tertiary event (when dinosaurs bit it; ultimate cause there was an asteroid, but the proximate cause was vulcanism triggered by the asteroid) and the PETM event (triggered by submarine volcanism that destabilized methane hydrates on the ocean floor).
-
I'm pretty convinced that even if everyone agreed on the science - and clearly everyone does not (current thread offered as evidence) - we probably would not have the political and economic will to do anything substantive to "stop it".
Oh, I think you're just talking to the wrong people, and I don't see any reason why we need to get politics involved here. A lot of global warming activists want to, but that's never the right way to go about things.
There's a lot of reasons to dump hydrocarbon fuel sources outside of the global warming concerns. We just need to get some entrepreneurs and science minded folk on finding ways to fuel our energy needs without them and to do it cheaper.
Dump coal, go nuclear for all electrical needs. Not too hard to convince the Republican type crowd that nuclear is awesome. They (we) generally seem to be all for it. I'll take that over windmills and solar panels. Okay, politics would be involved in that one because he electric companies are granted monopolies in their areas, but it's an easier sell because it's not tinkering directly with citizen's lives.
Get somebody pushing an electric commuter car. I think we're on the verge of this, which I talked about in another thread. I don't buy the "global warming will kill us all!" line, neither does my father, businessman and Republican through-and-through, but we're both excited about the possibilities of electric cars. We think they make good economic sense. Hell, looked into building my own a bit for personal use.
I think we could do those two things in this country, and while selling nuclear reactors to other countries might be problematic the electric car stuff would export easily enough.
Just look to CFLs to see how you sell this kind of tech to people: "Hey, it saves you money. Take it or leave it." I'm sticking the suckers wherever I can. Saves me money.
-
the climate system has evolved to actively pump down CO2 (mainly those marine phytoplankton) because the more passive processes that rely on rock weathering can require tens to hundreds of thousands of years to lower CO2 levels.
So what are you saying ... that there is some purpose or active direction that is guiding random events ???
-
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-comet-webjan02,0,3624054.story
Scientists find signs of 13,000-year-old extinction event
Comet may have exploded over planet, causing fires, die-offs, researchers say
By Robert Mitchum | Tribune reporter
January 2, 2009
A meteorite colliding with the Earth 65 million years ago is considered to be the most likely reason dinosaurs vanished from the planet. Now a team of scientists says it has found new evidence that an object from space caused a similar extinction event only 13,000 years ago.
In an article to be published Friday in the journal Science, researchers present what one author calls the "smoking bullet"—proof that an exploding comet triggered the sudden, thousand-year freeze that killed off mammoths, saber-toothed tigers and other large mammals that used to live in North America.
Working at multiple sites across the continent, researchers found nanodiamonds—microscopic particles thought to be found on comets—in a 13,000-year-old layer of carbon-rich soil.
The authors, led by University of Oregon anthropologist Douglas Kennett, theorize that the comet exploded above the Earth's surface, raining fragments upon North America and starting fires across the continent. That would have ushered in an abrupt global cooling and caused the "megafauna" extinction.
In the layer with the nanodiamonds, fossils of the large mammals are abundant. After that layer, they disappear, said Allen West, an Arizona geophysicist and one of the paper's authors.
"It's extraordinary that tens of millions of animals disappeared synchronously at exactly the time when the diamonds and carbon layer are laid down across the continent," West said.
West said the event also would have affected human populations of the time. Artifacts from the Clovis culture of humans—an early hunter-gatherer society—also disappear after the 13,000-year layer, suggesting they, too, were killed off by the comet or its aftereffects.
Many archeologists remain skeptical of the comet theory, said Daniel Amick, an associate professor of anthropology at Loyola University Chicago who studies the Clovis culture.
"When most archeologists heard about it they were somewhat dismissive," Amick said. "We would think, 'How in the world could we have missed this? How could this spectacular kind of event have occurred and never even dawned on us?' "
The authors have much to prove before their theory is accepted, Amick said, like pinpointing the date of the event and ruling out other potential causes of extinction and climate change.
In response to one common criticism of the comet theory—that no craters have been found from an impact—West said the comet may not have actually reached Earth, but exploded into fragments somewhere above the surface.
Researchers found the highest concentration of nanodiamonds at a site in eastern Michigan, which suggests the comet may have exploded somewhere over the Great Lakes, West said.
"We think that Chicago might well have been very near ground zero," West said. "If you'd been in Chicago back in that time, it would've been one very bad day."
The possibility of a comet causing catastrophic climate change and extinction relatively recently in Earth's long history suggests scientists shouldn't dismiss the possibility of it happening again, West said.
"Unlike mammoths, who might happen to look up and see the thing coming at them from the sky but can't do anything about it, we're in a position of civilization where we can possibly deflect these things," West said.
-
"We think that Chicago might well have been very near ground zero," West said.
Maybe that explains Blagojevich's actions, also. :D
_______________
Tallpine, interesting question. I'll work on a response.
-
I'm not forgetting Tallpine's question.
It's just been a busy few days.
But this just in (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123085070980447477.html), from Wall Street Journal.
The Warming Earth Blows Hot, Cold and Chaotic:
Subtle Rises in Temperature Make for Wild Weather;
'Exceptionally Unusual' Becomes the New Normal
They got it right: it's NOT about uniform warming.
It's about extreme and chaotic.
Violent is yet to come.
-
Warming Earth Blows Hot, Cold and Chaotic
So how would we even notice the difference in Montana? That's pretty much the normal here :laugh:
We only have two temperatures: too hot and too cold.
And the wind doesn't always blow this way - sometimes it blows the other way.
-
So how would we even notice the difference in Montana?
That's pretty much the normal here.
I can guarantee that if the changes occur that we think will occur,
you WILL notice the difference in a huge, almost unimaginable way.
(Unimaginable because our species has never experienced
a climate change event as big as the one that appears to be now unfolding.)
The differences won't be simply a few degrees here or there.
It will be an entirely different climate, with extremes that
even Montana has not experienced during human times.
-
...the climate system has evolved to actively pump down CO2 (mainly those marine phytoplankton)
because the more passive processes that rely on rock weathering can require
tens to hundreds of thousands of years to lower CO2 levels.
So what are you saying ... that there is some purpose or active direction that is guiding random events?
Been away from this for a while.
(Real life earning a living sometimes gets in the way of having fun. :rolleyes: )
For an evolutionary biologist, TallPine's question is so intellectually rich that it's hard to know where to start.
This may take a few posts, but I'm up for the challenge.
(Hey, I survived my doctoral exams; this should be fun by comparison. =D )
Let me begin my response to your question with a question.
A lowly bacterium - the "lowest" form of life on Earth -
purposefully moves towards its food source in a manner that is clearly NOT random.
Evidence is easy. Watch a million hungry E. coli under a microscope
when you drop a grain of sugar into their medium near them. Their movement is purposeful.
That they "know" where the sugar is evidenced by how rapidly they move towards it.
They can find it the same way you find fried chicken: by following a chemical gradient.
That behavior has evolved in them because they must regulate their internal sugar content.
No food, no life.
Easier still: watch a sunflower track the sun on a July day.
No sun, no life. That behavior, too, is purposeful.
Given those, why is it surprising that a planetary climate system that has evolved both with and because of (*) bacteria and sunflowers would evolve to regulate carbon dioxide levels, given that carbon dioxide is as important to climate as sugar is to an E. coli and sun is to a sunflower?
(* Sunflowers are plants. Without plants and other photosynthesizing organisms (some are bacteria),
there would be no free O2 in our atmosphere. Without bacteria, there would be no free methane.)
-
Given those, why is it surprising that a planetary climate system that has evolved both with and because of (*) bacteria and sunflowers would evolve to regulate carbon dioxide levels, given that carbon dioxide is as important to climate as sugar is to an E. coli and sun is to a sunflower?
So the planetary climate system has some sort of volition like living beings ???
Sounds like the Gaia hypothesis to me ... =|
-
So the planetary climate system has some sort of volition like living beings ???
Sounds like the Gaia hypothesis to me ... =|
Well, the whole enviro/GW deal has been liked to a religion.
-
So the planetary climate system has some sort of volition like living beings?
OK, before we get back to the climate system, we need to establish some clarity about biological systems in general.
Here's a definition of volition (http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+volition&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a): the capability of conscious choice and decision and intention.
You are falling into an incorrect line of reasoning by using the word "volition". I purposefully (because I am a conscious being) chose (made a decision about) the examples I used - bacteria and sunflower - to illustrate my point that living things can act "purposefully" even if they have no volition, that is, no capacity for conscious choice and "intention".
Let me state that very explicitly: neither bacteria nor sunflowers possess consciousness like humans, and therefore are not capable of making rational choices. They are not self-aware like humans are.
The problem is that you - and most people who are not familiar with cognitive sciences - do not distinguish between cognition and consciousness. Cognition is simply "knowing", able to detect differences in their environment that are relevant to their survival, but it does NOT imply rational thought or even self-awareness.
By contrast, consciousness is knowing that you know. Humans are conscious. We know that we know. We are self-aware; we make rational decisions. We have volition. We're discussing that now.
Bacteria and sunflowers are not conscious. Cognate? Yes. Conscious? No. They have no volition. (Neither does the climate system.)
Bacteria "know" where food is and will move towards it. Light-seeking bacteria, some algae & sunflowers know where the sun is and can follow it. Planaria worms, on the other hand, know where the sun is and move away from it (they want shade, not sun). Yet none of these creatures are conscious. They aren't making conscious, rational choices. Their choices are hardwired. There is no volition. Their cognition is simply a faculty that has been naturally selected during their evolution because it allows them to stay alive longer than other variations of their species that are not cognate. The bacterium that "knows" (not consciously) where food is stays alive; those that can't find the food die. Simple as that.
Consciousness - knowing that you know, being able to make rational decisions based on evidence gathered, having volition and free will, self-awareness - requires a well-developed brain, probably considerably more developed than a bumble bee.
If you can't grasp that distinction, then this discussion is going nowhere and we'll just leave it where it is. (But then I won't be able to address your interesting question.)
The climate system is not conscious. It has no volition. It has no power to make rational decisions, and no self-awareness. Yet, it responds to outside stimuli much like a bacterium would even though - like a bacterium - the responses of that system are hard wired, much like those of a bacterium or sunflower. Yet, it in a sense, it is acting cognitively (again, NOT consciously) because the climate system involves living components that play a very significant role in climate (see my earlier references to Spencer Weart's essay on the role of biosphere in climate (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/biota.htm)).
That's why I made reference to oxygen and methane above. No one in this forum, no one in science, can explain using physics and chemistry alone why Earth's atmosphere is 20.9% molecular oxygen with measurable quantities of methane present (right now, 1750 ppb). Those molecules are biological products. Without life on this planet, there would be no free O2 in the atmosphere, and no methane. Those biological entities are part of the system, and therefore play a role in its dynamics. Yet again, there is no consciousness involved, no volition. It's just an automatic response.
Systems respond to changes. They don't need to be conscious (like humans) in order to do so. Sometimes, negative feedback processes kick in that automatically (without thought) correct the change. This happens daily in your physiology. If you get too hot, you start sweating automatically, without thinking about it. If you get too cold, you start shivering, automatically. Your blood glucose levels automatically adjust (as long as you follow your cognition and eat food). There is no consciousness involved in temperature regulation by sweating and shivering. It just happens. Likewise with blood glucose (and every other nutrient, hormone and antibody in your blood). It's automatic. But it's also purposeful. There is no denying that.
Sometimes, when negative feedback processes fail, positive feedback kicks in that amplify deviations from "normal" and shove the system into a new state. (That's what's happening now in the climate system.)
Again, to be as clear as possible, with climate regulation there is no thought on the part of the global system. It has no volition. The adjustment of the climate by the system is as automatic as your own physiology adjusting your temperature. The adjustment of CO2 is as automatic as your own physiology's regulation of your blood CO2 (which, if it varies by a tiny fraction of a fraction, will kill you in seconds due to change in blood pH).
Finally, anyone who accuses me of advancing a religious argument around this issue doesn't know me very well. I'm as atheist as they come. Just read my posts in the APS thread on "What religion are you?" or something like that. This is pure science, not new age hogwash or superstition.
-
Thanks for that response Nem. I knew what you were driving at and was going to post but decided you'd do it better.
-
Thank you, Iain. I appreciate your perspective.