Global Warming? are humans to blame?

Great to see the thread alive again.

From where we left off..... can we get a TOPIC??

I don't mind the banter but the hosts ideal is very good i believe.

Also- What the heck is global warming? I had thought way back then that a link to a decent primer would help flesh out the topic and get folks up to speed on vocabulary and....
I will try to find something on the net.

 

Hans, what about the ~800 year gap 'tween rising temps and rising carbon fractions, with CO2 ALWAYS lagging? Doesn't that bother you even a TEENY little bit :?:

If CO2 raises temps, then why do temps go up circa a few hundred years in advance of CO2 rises in EACH and EVERY case in the (Vostok) geological record? This was pointed out (quite pointedly ) in the film, which I'm guessing (not pejoratively, mind you) that you did not watch. Pundits insist that once better data emerges that it will show that CO2 rose first. Trouble is, we're on the THIRD generation of data now, each consistently showing CO2 rises lagging behind temp increases. The current warming trend also shows this.

How inconvenient

If we simply do not understand, then why be so adamant that we do? You cannot have it both ways, unless this is not really a scientific debate, then anything goes, of course

The origins of the current iteration of the theory should also give you pause and proves the completely political nature of the debate which is bad because it SHOULD be a scientific/technical debate. It also proves once again that politics makes for some very strange bedfellows indeed!

Jimbo

 

Global Warming is Dead

Now I was under the impression that the subject on global warming was now dead because the nut cases that originally came up with that conception now have egg on their face as it has been shown that overall the Earth is not or has not got any warmer than it has in the past.

If global warming is the result of industrialisation as they claim, then the temperature would have risen in relation to the growth of industrialisation but it hasn't.

So in order to wipe some of the egg off their face they have now changed (a change that seemed to have gone reletively unoticed) the name from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change."

It seems that because some parts of the world have received some wild storms they are now blaming that on greenhouse gasses or hairspray.

This change of name I feel is because the record of storms have not been kept as has the record of temperatures. So these nutters still have egg on their face but they are hoping no one will notice it.

Wild weather caused by industrialisation? Well lets look at England where storms were recorded. Their worst winter ever recorded was around 1860, obviously too many cars on the road and the coldest winter recorded was in 1947.

I reckon the next crap they come out with after it is shown the climate is not changing is, "Climate Stabalisation"

What a Crock Load!

Poida

 

I will put you back on track......this was the starting coment "


Often this issue arises across an array of threads, related usually but also probably off thread and argumentatively.
In this forum and in the wider community there is strong disagreement across this question."

Very true but but there is almost NO disagreement in the scientific community......sigh.......

 

Jimbo,
Outof respect, I did actually watch the entire doco.
1 hour and 15 minutes of my time.

I wonder if you spent ANY time whatsoever reading through the links that I provided.
Somehow I doubt it, otherwise you would not have asked the question that you did, or at least not in the way you did.

I am not going to dig out any more targeted responses and links to your specific questions, until at least you show the smallest sign of having returned the favour...
Go and look for your self.

Within RealClimate every single argument that is raised in that Documentary is dealt with- what is also dealt with is the disingenous way that they have misrepresented opinion and research, and deliberately omitted information.

Try the search feature there, try the links, check out the place. Actually READ, and do not just skim through. If you do indeed like scientific debate, and are interested in the complicated specifics of climate science, then this is the place for you.

If you actually believe the theories in that Doco, and believe in the scientific integrity of the producer, then be honest enough to read through some of the professional critiscism of its claims, methods and strategies.

Let me know how you go.

Hans.

 

Idlerboat,
I agree,

although part of the disagreement of the skeptics is that this is not the case at all, and/or scientific disagreement gets shouted down by a conspiracy of grant-hungry/communist greeny idealogues (posing no-doubt in stolen white scientist jackets)...


Poida,
whats all this about eggs?
I prefer mine poached, and on my toast.
rather than scrambled and on the walls (like you seem to prefer )
also, the general claim is that the majority (not all) of our current Climate Change (warming) is caused by the release of GHG's (Green House Gasses) rather than by Industrialisation per se. When affective and mitigating effects are taken into account (such as the changes in global cooling/dimming gasses, among the others), temperature does actually map very close to the models predictions.
Anyway don't mind me,
I am sure you have some eggs to lay or something

 

How's that "Australia's worst drought in 1000 years" thing going?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10409680
I read in the papers a rush is on to claim land in the Arctic region. Fish, oil, minerals are all wanted, along with ports for when the ice melts back enough that shipping routes open up. Business poo-poo's climate change on the one hand and grabs all it can to cash in on it with the other. Surprise surprise. In 2005, some Russian ship was the first to make it to the North pole without needing an icebreaker. In Norway, they're developing ships that won't need icebreakers, which go forward in open water and turn around and use the sterns to break through thick ice. That ought to help melt all that stuff faster, to break it up into smaller chunks. Get out of the ******* way Santa, ships coming through! On the news was a piece on a family owned Maple syrup operation, every year the season is getting shorter. The season is now ending when it used to begin. A few years ago I read where the Maple trees themselves are moving North, the range shifting and what is now prime Maple syrup territory is expected to become marginal or extinct. Isn't that something, some trees now have more sense than some people. Go figure.

 

So if this is the worst drought in Australia in a thousand years, doesn't that mean there was a worse drought a thousand years ago?

 

Hans,

I followed up on about six of the links on that page, and their resposes to the challenge are on the whole, weak, IMHO. They argue that the amounts on the various graphs are too large/small/whatever rather than address the fact that the graphs show discrepancies in the wrong direction. There is NO substantial counter to the fact that temperature increases lead CO2 increases, only that it's by only 2-300 years rather than the 800 stated in the film. They apparently operate on a different concept of 'cause and effect' logic than most of us learned back in primary school.

So, Hans, I ask again: What about the fact that CO2 increases ALWAYS lag behind temperature increases? Even a true believer like yourself would have to admit that if this particular objection cannot be overcome, the the theory MUST be wrong whether this discrepancy be by 300 or 800 years.


Hans, you mention that some of the participants in the film later disavowed involvement with the project once they saw the finished film. This, you claim casts doubt on the veracity of the premises in the film. How much credence then, should we give the IPCC executive summary, which is quite at odds with the various section of that report released earlier (though not with the full report since the IPCC admits rather unabashedly that they have deleted sections which were at odds with said summary), given the number of key scientists who have disavowed their involvement with the report and even have demanded that their names be removed from the bibliography?

If the evidence is such a 'slam dunk', then why tweak it to match a certain outcome?

Jimbo

 

That makes sense. Maybe there were no records kept more than a thousand years back.

How about this. Apparently we burn 89,000,000 barrels of oil a day on Earth. Say a barrel is 3' long, so there's 1760 to a mile. Divided into 89 million, that makes a line of end to end barrels 50,568 miles long, enough to circle the Earth twice. We burn that every day. 18.4 million miles of barrels of oil per year. Plus coal.
I don't know but that that sounds preposterous. I could be wrong, check my math, I have a hard time believing that myself. If perchance it's right, or close, do you really think this has no effect on the environment or climate change?

 

Some advice to both sides here:

- Avoid inflammatory rhetoric. Heresay gets us nowhere. If you have scientific credentials, say so. If you don't, then don't pretend to.

- Avoid political and corporate sources. Data are too easily distorted when there is a vested interest at stake, and most corporate and political sources have a strong vested interest in keeping things the way they are. Canada, for instance, has reversed its political position on the matter three times in as many years as governments with different ideologies come to power and change their policies.

- Regarding sources of information: In the scientific community, peer-reviewed journals are considered reliable sources. Non-reviewed publications such as Scientific American are considered acceptable so long as the articles draw from and accurately represent peer-reviewed research. The mass media- meaning anything that is not independently reviewed by experts in the field- is NOT considered an acceptable source in any scientific institution, university or research group on this continent, period. If you cannot cite genuine, independently vetted research, don't bother making any up because nobody will believe you.

- Skeptics: Cite some sources. Put the name of the researcher and institution on your data plots. Give links to the original articles. See what the scientific literature really says, before jumping to conclusions. Climate is a complex, highly nonlinear system, and if you go on intuition and what you believe is right, you will almost certainly end up making no sense. There will always be a fringe element that is given to radical fear-mongering, but by and large the other side is made of reasonable and well educated people who will change their positions according to the evidence available. Try to maintain civilized discussion and, if you have persuasive evidence, provide and cite it.

- The rest of you: Try to avoid getting angry. Responses to the skeptics so far on this board are often met not with research papers and data, but with "you're a clueless idiot" type statements. That is probably not the case- most detractors are reasonably smart, but may not have access to the sources of knowledge you do, or may be subscribing to sources that aren't what they seem. Don't try to draw your own conclusions unless you have the scientific knowledge and computing power to do so; your intuition will certainly fail you if you try to apply it to climate modelling without the proper scientific background. Present your arguments logically and without contempt.


Remember that we are all individuals, and few of us are in positions powerful enough to effect real change in either direction. No skeptic will be persuaded to understand the complex and counterintuitive science of climate research by reading a boating forum; likewise, no believer is likely to deny the evidence that led him to that position as a result of trivial arguing. Regardless of what you believe is the cause, you and your children will have to live with the consequences- which you, as one individual, have little control over.

You can buy a Civic or Jetta and replace your incandesent lamps with CF bulbs; on the other hand you could buy a Pathfinder and install gas heaters on your back porch. I prefer the former approach; as a result I save a whole whack of money as well as polluting my city and my planet less. Your choice, however, is yours. Repeating the same argument over and over is of little benefit, but you as an individual can make choices that, regardless of what you think is happening, will benefit both you and your environment. Is it really worth doing nothing, even if you presently doubt that there's a problem?

 

Seems like a lot when considered with no contextual info. But the resulting CO2 release is but a tiny fraction of what is released every day by natural sources. The data from the pie chart is compiled from data published by the US EPA and is within a point or two of any similar breakdown published by several other scientific bodies; the numbers are not in dispute.

The post reveals a certain mindset of 'believers', which is something like "We are polluting SO much; it MUST be very bad: we MUST do something about it IMMEDIATELY!"

Having been bombarded with 'green' messages since childhood, it's easy to develop this mindset. But you must keep these numbers in context, both from a historical context and as a comparison to the whole of the atmosphere.

Jimbo

 

I remember my hippy parents reading enviro doom books to me. The earth was going to freeze back then. Then during the 80's the earth was heating up, and the green house theory was all the rage. Now it is no ones fault. We can now pollute freely, and it is not our fault if the ice caps melt.

There is a lot more to do with climate change than getting bogged down in CO2. Burning fossil fuels releases some pretty disgusting and toxic stuff. For any life form. Burning oil poisons our planet.

How about the ozone hole in the southern hemisphere?
An ozone hole is a really bad thing. If that thing had formed over Europe and was irradiating that continent the UN would be bombing hairspray factories around the world.

How long before some pointy head makes a correlation between declining fish stocks and climate change?

I am sceptical of science that absolves industry/humanity of guilt. It seems a waste of resources to prove that we are not doing anything wrong.

Stand on a busy street corner crowded with vehicular traffic,and have a good sniff. A deep lung full. It is poison you smell.
You might think that considering the size of the planet, that little bit of poison could puff away, and it would not harm any thing. That poison has been manufactured on earth and is not going any where. It is staying on earth. Every day more poison for the planet.

That is how we got the ozone hole. All that nasty poisonus stuff went away, into the 'atmosphere'.

Happy breathing every one ^__^

 

thank you Jimbo-

Can we take this as our opening 'Topic'?

Something like:

What is the role of CO2 in atmospheric warming and how important is the human contribution of CO2 to this mechanism?

Been awhile since my forays into this subject but I believe the above does not encompass the entire issue as it might seem at first glance.
If the above is too broad however it may be limited to just the significance of the human contribution bit as the role of CO2 as a green house gas may be agreed to as being not in dispute.

 

Typical? Graphics showing temperature in southern and northern Norway.
Why did it drop from 1935 to 1985? And why is the period from 1876 to now chosen? Why not from 1935?
From http://met.no/p_og_t/marked/vermelding/feb_1999_7.shtml