Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion

[JRP3]

Is the earth getting warmer? We should hope so for at least two reasons: First, the world emerged from the Little Ice Age in the 19th century, so it would be worrisome if it weren’t getting warmer. Second, all the history indicates that humans thrive more during warmer periods than colder ones.

Typically short sighted and simplistic, there is no question that the earth has been warmer, the question is has the climate ever changed at the rate we are seeing, excluding some disaster, (meteor strike, giant volcano, etc.), and how will a human population of 7+ billion fare under those conditions. Again, it's not an experiment I think we should be playing with.

 

[Raffy.Roma]

BBC News - Climate slowdown means extreme rates of warming

This is the title of the linked article:

Scientists say the recent downturn in the rate of global warming will lead to lower temperature rises in the short-term.

It means that the slope (first derivative) of the function describing the Temperature Anomaly is decreasing but always > 0, which means that the Temperature Anomaly is increasing anyway.
We want at least to stop the increasing of the Temperature Anomaly, that is to say having a slope of the above mentioned function = 0.

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The NO CARBON TAX Climate Sceptics Blog: Has Man-made global warming been disproved? (Part: 1)

In this article Figure 1, which is very important to understand how is it possible that the more Earth gets warm the more infrared radiation gets out of the atmosphere into the space, doesn't show what is the value in the ordinate axis.
I am sorry to say it but if somebody wants to give proofs of such a thing like that which is above mentioned a detailed physical explanation has to be given, not a graph without clear indication of the value represented in the ordinate axis.
Then the linked article mentions infrared rays as Long Wave energy.
On the contrary I would think to infrared rays as Very Short Wave energy (energy at very short wavelength).

 

[RichardC]

The NO CARBON TAX Climate Sceptics Blog: Has Man-made global warming been disproved? (Part: 1)

More disinformation from consultants to the oil industry. Given the trillions of dollars in carbon that will have to be left in the ground once appropriate levels of pollution charges are imposed, one has to expect an increasing volume of this pseudoscientific rubbish will be generated and distributed by astroturf groups, PR flacks and lobbyists in an unrelenting campaign to raise doubt in the minds of the public. Rather than respond to the individual nuggets of disinformation (which has ably been done by others, for examples see: http://planetsave.com/2012/03/08/how-richard-lindzen-screws-up-climate-science/ http://lackofenvironment.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/an-open-letter-to-richard-lindzen/ http://www.skepticalscience.com/Richard_Lindzen_art.htm and http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php) I will instead summarize the conclusions reached by the scientific bodies which have examined this question in much greater depth than any of us are able to do.

http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus

As resported by NASA, ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities, and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position. The following is a partial list of these organizations, along with their published statements.

AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES

Statement on climate change from 18 scientific associations

"Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver." (2009)

American Association for the Advancement of Science
"The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society." (2006)

American Chemical Society
"Comprehensive scientific assessments of our current and potential future climates clearly indicate that climate change is real, largely attributable to emissions from human activities, and potentially a very serious problem." (2004)

American Geophysical Union
"The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system — including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons — are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century." (Adopted 2003, revised and reaffirmed 2007)

American Medical Association
"Our AMA ... supports the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fourth assessment report and concurs with the scientific consensus that the Earth is undergoing adverse global climate change and that anthropogenic contributions are significant." (2013)

American Meteorological Society
"It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide." (2012)

American Physical Society
"The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now." (2007)

The Geological Society of America
"The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2006), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) that global climate has warmed and that human activities (mainly greenhouse‐gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s." (2006;
revised 2010)

SCIENCE ACADEMIES
International academies: Joint statement
"Climate change is real. There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world’s climate. However there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring. The evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and biological systems. It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities (IPCC 2001)." (2005, 11 international science academies)

U.S. National Academy of Sciences
"The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify taking steps to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere." (2005)

U.S. GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

U.S. Global Change Research Program
"The global warming of the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced increases in heat-trapping gases. Human 'fingerprints' also have been identified in many other aspects of the climate system, including changes in ocean heat content, precipitation, atmospheric moisture, and Arctic sea ice." (2009, 13 U.S. government departments and agencies)

 

[Doug_G]

First, the world emerged from the Little Ice Age in the 19th century, so it would be worrisome if it weren’t getting warmer.

That is nonsensical. The little ice age was a relatively minor blip. The recent warming is much larger and much faster than that small blip. Just because someone dubbed it the "Little Ice Age" doesn't mean it was an ice age!

The most accurate measures of temperature come from satellites. Since the start of these measurements in 1979, they show minor fluctuations and an insignificant net change in global temperature.

Satellites do not measure temperature directly, and the conversions and calibrations are complex. So they aren't the "most accurate" method. Even so, they exhibit good correlation with climate models. Source: Satellite temperature measurements - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Okay, I'm getting tired of debunking your cherry-picked information.

For humans to presume that they are more than a gnat on an elephant’s rump in terms of impact on climate change is vain and delusive.

How about the arrogance of someone who thinks they know better than the scientific consensus? You chose to believe the rare scientist who agrees with your views and ignore the evidence from the thousands of scientists who disagree with you.

 

[Kaivball]

The collective faith in the government and government sponsored studies is mesmerizing.

Reminds me of religious zealots.

Governments are full of tyrants and human rights abuses. Government has brought forth more death, misery and wars than all corporations combined.

But this blind faith that government knows best and we better pay up and listen or else 100 years from now is truly sad and pathetic to observe.

The global famines and food shortages due to overpopulation didn't occur as threatened by government scientists.

The oceans didn't die as government scientists threatened.

The ozone layer didn't disappear as threatened by government scientists.

The global cooling didn't occur as predicted by government sponsored scientists.

And man made global warming is just the latest clap trap predicted by government sponsored scientists based on flawed computer models threatening us 100 years from now.
And the answer is always more tyranny, government subjugation, abdication of individual liberty and freedom for the sake of the collective and the all knowing government.

But hey, THIS TIME they are right. And who cares if they are wrong, we are all dead 100 years from now. But the loss of the individual to tyranny and collectivism will last much longer.

10 years from we will get the next catastrophic prediction "unless we do something" or else.

CO2... The plant food.
CO2... What we exhale

Nobody, and I mean nobody knows what the ideal CO2 level is. But yeah, lets spend billions and billions of dollars and waste our precious resources to sequester it. LOL.
Science is crystal clear on the fact that temperature change precede major CO2 level changes, not the other way around.
But hey, when someone's foundation for AGW belief is Al Gores sack full of lies "documentary" what do you expect?

Here is a quick reminder of CO2 "in the olden days"



Here is another scientific fact: (my highlights)

Carbon Cycle and Computer Models
So many processes have to be considered in the carbon cycle that it is extremely difficult to keep them in mind, and impossible to calculate without building a computer model to simulate them. Scientists interested in the carbon cycle have built a number of such models over the years. Such models can have between 50 and 100 interacting equations describing all the different processes of the carbon cycle that are relevant to the problem of how carbon dioxide changes through geologic time.

To what extent should the answers generated from such models be trusted? All one can say is this: Models are the best we can do, everything else is ballpark back-of the envelope stuff. This means we should use models to educate ourselves about possibilities, realizing that their output produces probabilities not measurements.



I am sorry guys, call me old fashioned, but I am not willing to hand over my life choices and freedom to some politicians based on some flawed computer models that are entirely dependent on the assumptions used by the programmer who's pay comes from the government.

Every time a model predicts, ask what percentage role water vapor plays in the calculations.
Water vapor has the most impact of all the greenhouse gases, not CO2.

The human contribution to the greenhouse effect is about 0.28%, if water vapor is taken into account-- about 5.53%, if not.

This point is so crucial to the debate over global warming that how water vapor is or isn't factored into an analysis of Earth's greenhouse gases makes the difference between describing a significant human contribution to the greenhouse effect, or a negligible one.

"Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect (5). Interestingly, many "facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold.

Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).

Human activites contribute slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have a very small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html


http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/27/man’s-contribution-to-global-warming/


The Cost of Global Warming: A Story in Pictures | The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation


No thanks.

 

[Raffy.Roma]

More disinformation from consultants to the oil industry. Given the trillions of dollars in carbon that will have to be left in the ground once appropriate levels of pollution charges are imposed, one has to expect an increasing volume of this pseudoscientific rubbish will be generated and distributed by astroturf groups, PR flacks and lobbyists in an unrelenting campaign to raise doubt in the minds of the public.

Agree 100%

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How about the arrogance of someone who thinks they know better than the scientific consensus? You chose to believe the rare scientist who agrees with your views and ignore the evidence from the thousands of scientists who disagree with you.

Agree 100%

 

[HVM]

The ozone layer didn't disappear as threatened by government scientists... LOL...

As a child of 80s and 90s, needing always use hat sunglasses and long sleeves, I hope you continue CFC ban, just for lolz.

 

[VolkerP]

If this were a stock curve, would "experts" agree that there is "resistance" to break thru .6? If yes, will it break thru in 6 months? Analysts agree on possible new target value of 1?

Spreading skepticism on GW or the human contribution to it is like buying into a short position for the temperature curve - and we recently learned that this can hurt.

 

[Raffy.Roma]

Spreading skepticism on GW or the human contribution to it is like buying into a short position for the temperature curve - and we recently learned that this can hurt.

That's right Volker.

 

[JRP3]

The collective faith in the government and government sponsored studies is mesmerizing.

Reminds me of religious zealots.

That's funny coming from someone who has to deny reality, ignore the science, and post links to articles using junk science and outright distortions of data to support their closely held beliefs. Exactly what religious zealots do to support their "faith" in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

 

[Kaivball]

That's funny coming from someone who has to deny reality, ignore the science, and post links to articles using junk science and outright distortions of data to support their closely held beliefs. Exactly what religious zealots do to support their "faith" in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The "reality" is that humans are not responsible for climate change.

But feel free to send more money to the government to "save the world" if it makes you feel better.

Sorry.

 

[Kaivball]

Yes, science is now all about "consensus".

Brilliant.

So much for "science".



Mike Smith Enterprises Blog: The Midnight Train to the Middle Ages

The single best course I took in my education at the University of Oklahoma was called “history of science” and it explained, in detail, the “scientific method.” Briefly, in order to be “science,” an idea must follow the following process,

A person has a new idea about how something works and does some preliminary investigation. It seems to hold up and seems worth pursuing. This is called a hypothesis.
The person (it doesn’t matter if the person is a scientist, what matters is the process in this case) does some experimentation and the hypothesis holds up.
The person publishes the hypothesis so it can be reviewed by all interested parties. Other parties must be able replicate the experimental results.
If the hypothesis passes muster (i.e., the results are accurate and reproducible) then it becomes a scientific theory.
A theory is considered to be “science” until someone can show it does not work in the real world. For example, primitive telescopes seemed to show the sun rotated around the earth. When new data showed otherwise, the theory of an earth-centric universe was discarded.
Note there is no place in the scientific method for “consensus.” Science is what can be demonstrated in the real world, nothing more and nothing less. Opinions matter in many areas of human endeavor, but they are not “science.”

 

[Kaivball]

As a child of 80s and 90s, needing always use hat sunglasses and long sleeves, I hope you continue CFC ban, just for lolz.

View attachment 22470

Aug 05, 2010
The Ozone Hole Debacle from an Insider
By Will Happer

The Montreal Protocol to ban freons was the warm-up exercise for the IPCC. Many current IPCC players gained fame then by stampeding the US Congress into supporting the Montreal Protocol. They learned to use dramatized, phony scientific claims like “ozone holes over Kennebunkport” (President Bush Sr’s seaside residence in New England). The ozone crusade also had business opportunities for firms like Dupont to market proprietary “ozone-friendly” refrigerants at much better prices than the conventional (and more easily used) freons that had long-since lost patent protection and were not a cheap commodity with little profit potential.

I was the Director of Energy Research at the US Department of Energy at the time, and I knew very well that the data to support the treaty was not there. Ever since Dobson’s first expeditions to Antarctica in the early 1900’s, we had known that ozone levels were always low over the Antarctic, but we had no real idea of what the natural fluctuations were. As far as we know, there has always been an ozone hole over Antarctica, with a size that varies from year to year. The size of the hole has hardly changed since 1990, as you can see from NASA’s site.

I don’t know what the current status is, but two or three years ago, some researchers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology remeasured the rate of ozone destruction by the key chlorine oxide, and they found a number about 6 times smaller than the one promoted during the freon-ban crusade. Even the establishment value was really not big enough cause substantial ozone depletion. The ozone hole over Antarctica involves high-altitude “ice” particulates, made from a witch’s brew of water, nitric acid, chlorine etc. It is not clear if freon has made any difference to this. The behaviour of these ice crystalsmay be more determined by the stratospheric temperature and the amount of water vapor in the stratosphere, all changing with time at the poles. At any rate, stratospheric freon and its breakdown products are steadily diminishing, but little is happening to the ozone hole.

As Director of Energy Research, I argued strongly for better measurements to be sure we understood the science well enough to support the Montreal Protocol. I did manage to get a new network of UVB sensors deployed to measure year-to-year changes of ground-level UVB. The existing network was an embarrassment to the alarmists since it showed stable to decreasing UVB levels. I thought that this might be analogous to the urban heat island problems that so vex ground-based temperature measurements. Suburbs had grown up around the old network, so there was the possibility that air pollution was increasingly attenuating UVB. The new DOE network had real rural sites, as far as possible from urban smog. These activities really infuriated Al Gore, who had me fired as soon as possible after becoming Vice President.

The Montreal Protocol may not have been necessary to save the ozone, but it had limited economic damage. It has caused much more damage in the way it has corrupted science. It showed how quickly a scientist or activist can gain fame and fortune by purporting to save planet earth. We have the same situation with CO2 now, but CO2 is completely natural, unlike freons. Planet earth is quite happy to have lots more CO2 than current values, as the geological record clearly shows. If the jihad against CO2 succeeds, there will be enormous economic damage, and even worse consequences for human liberty at the hands of the successful jihadists.

See this report on the Nature story of the collapse of the ozone hole consensus.

ICECAP

 

[Kaivball]

Interesting

http://icecap.us/docs/change/hpcc.pdf

 

[Kaivball]

Greenhouse Warming Scorecard

http://www.warwickhughes.com/hoyt/scorecard.htm

 

[Kaivball]

That's funny coming from someone who has to deny reality, ignore the science, and post links to articles using junk science and outright distortions of data to support their closely held beliefs. Exactly what religious zealots do to support their "faith" in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

This is actually a funny post considering that Al Bores "mockumentary" became the incubus of the AGW movement and couldn't be riddled with more falsifications and untruths.

 

[Kaivball]

This is the crap AGW disciples believe in:

ICECAP

Global warming increases prostitution... Idiots.

 

[Doug_G]

The global famines and food shortages due to overpopulation didn't occur as threatened by government scientists.

No, that was the Club of Rome who said that - not a government. Club of Rome - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The oceans didn't die as government scientists threatened.

Yet. That's coming.

The ozone layer didn't disappear as threatened by government scientists.

Only because governments successfully TOOK ACTION to ban ozone-damaging chemicals.

The global cooling didn't occur as predicted by government sponsored scientists.

There never was any kind of global consensus that this would occur. You just love to cherry pick individual reports, don't you?

And man made global warming is just the latest clap trap predicted by government sponsored scientists based on flawed computer models threatening us 100 years from now.

No, it's based on a heck of a lot more than computer models. Computer models alone would not have convinced me. I'm convinced by the basic science on this. The models are just an attempt to understand the impacts.

But hey, THIS TIME they are right. And who cares if they are wrong, we are all dead 100 years from now. But the loss of the individual to tyranny and collectivism will last much longer.

I'm somewhat hopeful that the solutions will come from industry, not governments.

CO2... The plant food.
CO2... What we exhale

Too much of anything is harmful. Oxygen is harmful in concentrations above the current atmospheric levels.

Nobody, and I mean nobody knows what the ideal CO2 level is. But yeah, lets spend billions and billions of dollars and waste our precious resources to sequester it. LOL.

Personally, I don't think carbon sequestration is the answer.

I am sorry guys, call me old fashioned, but I am not willing to hand over my life choices and freedom to some politicians based on some flawed computer models that are entirely dependent on the assumptions used by the programmer who's pay comes from the government.

The science is based on a heck of a lot more than computer models.

Every time a model predicts, ask what percentage role water vapor plays in the calculations.
Water vapor has the most impact of all the greenhouse gases, not CO2.

That is quite correct. However, water vapour has a balance. CO2 used to have its own balance, and we are gradually and progressively upsetting that balance. It is very clear that we are the cause of that - there is no doubt whatsoever on that point.

The resulting acidification of the oceans due to this is enough reason alone to cut back on emissions, never mind global warming.

 

[Raffy.Roma]

@Doug_G

I live in Rome but I didn't know about the Club of Rome. I read the abstract for their book "The First Global Revolution" and I liked it very much. In fact in my opinion to have a better world we should change a little bit our habits. I think that I should read this book. Maybe that by reading it I will get some ideas and advice that I like.

 

[dhrivnak]

The "reality" is that humans are not responsible for climate change.

But feel free to send more money to the government to "save the world" if it makes you feel better.

Sorry.

How about we let you send loads of cash to your favorite oil companies.

Also if you look at any scientific data the REALITY is we are causing climate change.

And no science is not abotu consensus. But when 97% of papers have data supporting postion 1 and 3% are expousing other theories I will go with the 97%.

Just because there are groups that maintain people are abducted by aliens, or that the earth is flat or that eating 2 Big Mac meaks a day with fries will cause one to lose weight does not mean I will believe them.

Read the studies and look at the data.