Global Warming? are humans to blame?

Bill & Matt,

You guys need to show a little maturity and admit when you're wrong. I've busted you, Bill, when you threatened me with the polar caps melting; I've shown that the EPA deliberately ignored the dominant greenhouse gas in their estimate of anthropogenic effects on global warming; and Matt, you're attempt to dismiss my sources inadvertently proved my point - that the global warming issue has been politicized.

 

One thing that bothers me about the whole framing of this issue is the name itself. "Global Warming". Now the name itself is easy to understand- is the GLOBE itself WARMING. Now there's plenty of data that indicates it is. But "Global Warming" is also the term applied to the science of studying the phenomenon. It has attached to it a variety of meanings. You ask a man on the street, "Do you believe in Global Warming?" and he might answer:

1. "Yes (I believe the globe is warmer than it was a decade ago)"; or
2. "Yes (I believe greenhouse gases are presently making the globe warmer)"; or
3. "Yes (I believe greenhouse gases are having some effect on the globe's temperature)"; or
4. "Yes (I believe greenhouse gases are making the globe warmer and it is the fault of human activity)"; or
5. "Yes (I believe that there truly is a group of scientists who study the warming and cooling cycles of our globe)".

Do you see the problem here with the very naming of the science? Science is supposed to be unbiased. There is a reason that Astronomy is called Astronomy instead of being called "The study of the objects which all revolve around the planet Earth". Biology isn't called "the study of animal magnetism and spirits which create life."

Looking back on it, a hundred years from now when high school students are taking a fourth mandatory science course, do you really think the field of study is going to be called, "Global Warming"? And yet, we accept that phrase today. That, to me, is just as much as bias as referring to Astronomy as "the study of celestial bodies revolving around the Earth".

What may be "obvious" at one period, may be ridiculous many years later. So science typically comes up with names that are impartial. Perhaps, "Global Climatology" would be a better name. Do I believe in "Global Climatology"? Yes! Just as much as I believe in Physics and Math. But asking whether I believe in "Global Warming", I must say, that is a very very loaded question....

So any scientist who says they are studying "global warming" is already starting out from a biased point of view. It would be like me studying the mating habits of igneous rocks. If I were indeed studying such a thing, could you possibly convince me that rocks didn't mate? Do you not think my mind would have already been made up on the subject?

 

Stonebreaker, I believe that you honestly think that you are right, so I will answer... I don't mean to be rude or arrogant.

What you have said is: "the good Dr. Hansen bases his sea level rise on ALL the added heat from global warming over the next century going into melting ice".

Probably you haven’t read the article from which I have posted some quotes.

One of the quotes said that “A planetary energy imbalance of +1 W/m2, maintained for a century, would cause a sea level rise of about 8 meters, if the energy went entirely into melting of ice”.

I don’t know enough to know if this is true, but clearly he says in the article that it is not this what will happen; this is a maximum, if all imbalance energy goes into melting ice and that is obviously not possible.

In the article he says why he thinks that a lot more energy is going to be diverted into the melting, considering previous and more optimistic studies, but clearly not all the energy.

Even in the quotes I have posted he says :

"Sea level during the Eemian is estimated to have been 5-6 meters (16-20 feet) higher than it is today.

Although the geographical distribution of climate change influences the effect of global warming on ice sheets, paleoclimate history suggests that global temperature is a good predictor of eventual sea level change. The main issue is: how fast will ice sheets respond to global warming?....
(about 5 meters of sea level rise per century)."

And that is obviously a lot less than 8 m. That means that even in the worst scenario only a part of the “Imbalanced energy” is going to melting ice.

If you don’t have a political agenda and are really interested in understanding the problem, read the full article and you are going to see that he, like all scientists, is very cautious in the claims he makes (I have only posted the “worst” highlights).

Of course he can still be wrong (I hope he is wrong) but what a scientist does is (out of any political agenda) a study of the facts, and then produce a model to explain them, see if all future developments are in accordance with the predictions that his model inform, change the model to work better and so on.

This Scientist has been studying and making computer models and changing them to better adapt to the climate data for the last 25 years. Of course, he can still be wrong….but do you think that it makes any sense to put your confidence in studies “financed” by lobbies to conform to Political agenda?

 

OK, I'll be happy to address Dr. Hansen's observations in a little more detail.

1) Despite Dr. Hansen's assertions that the sea level should have risen 2.5 meters in the last century based on the increase in temperature, the sea level only rose about 20 cm from 1900 to 2000.

2) The sea has in fact been rising for the last 20,000 years as the last ice age has retreated. It has risen 120 meters in the last 14,000 years alone. Thus, a rise in sea level in and of itself does not indicate anthropogenic global warming - especially when you consider that the average sea level rise over the last 14,000 years was 85 cm per century - 4 times greater, on average, than the rise in sea levels in the last century. You can see by this graph that the rate of sea level rise is actually decreasing, not increasing, despite the fact that the earth has gotten steadily warmer over the same period.



Therefore, the rise in sea level of the last century cannot be attributed to anthropogenic CO2 emissions, nor can any future rises that fit the long-term historic curve.

 

Have you discussed this two "facts" from the physics department?
(somewhat simplified)

1) CO2 absorbs or reflect energy (heat waves) of certain wave length(s?). We have passed the level of CO2 where it does a 100% job in this regard, so adding more doesn't mean anything (in this regard).

2) Temperatures measured on the earth the last 50 or 100 years follow closely the activity on the sun. This is probably more important than CO2 in the atmosphere.

Then you have the economics:
It is possible that human activity will change the climate and this will cost something, however, forcing countries to reduce CO2 emissions will (probably) cost more.

Then you have the ethics:
The "CO2 regime" is forcing poor countries to limit their growth. Is that fair? Shouldn't we, the rich, reduce our emissions before we buy quotes (spelling?) from them?

 

The core samples are BOGUS. the separation layers are not science based because the separation lines are compressed and without mineral distinction. Therefore it is very difficult to ascertain a definitive time line. Also in compression you have outgasing that can occur and corrupt your findings. The simple fact is that weather is cyclical. When the weather is cold, the global warmers disappear, when its hot , they are out there justifying their jobs. In a greenhouse enviroment the higher the CO2 levels the more oxygen the plants produce and the faster they grow.Its a problem the greens have yet to explain. I wonder what levels we were at when everyone was burning wood for heat. The pollution was as thick as mud in the citys.

 

I don't see how you can say that. We've been discussing it rationally here for days. The problem I see is that the facts don't always fit your wishes. So you dismiss them as "politics instead of science".

What I've discovered over tha past few days is that people who want to blame humans for the recent rise in global temps only go back over the last 150 years or so, and say, "See! See! the temps have been rising over the last 150 years, coinciding with the Industrial Revolution!" They then go on to make dire predictions like the ice caps melting, despite the fact that the ice they get their data from is nearly a million years old.

Yet when other people point out that the recent rise in global temps is part of a millenias-long rise in temps as the earth has come out of the last ice age, and that there was a solar-induced Little Ice Age from the 1400's to about 1850, and from the 1000's to the 1300's the earth was actually warmer than it is now, they get shouted down and dismissed as tools of big business by the first group.

Actually, you're right. The liberals ARE politicizing it.

 

Without being to fanatical - what does it matter who or what is causing it? We're all goint to cop a load of it! the question is really when? today, next year two hundred years? nobody no matter how clever he thinks he is is going to change it, the die is cast. All that most peole want to know is do I buy a pair of shorts for next summer or do I stick to decent trousers?

 

It matters because it determines how we deal with it. If it's man-made, then we have a moral responsibility to deal with it. If it's natural, then there's not really much we CAN do about it. The problem comes in when you have some eco-nut using shaky premises trying to dictate economic policy from his tree house.

As I've read up on this issue, I've found out several things:

1) Global warming is occurring.

2) Far from happening over only the last 150 years, as claimed by the eco-nuts, the globe has been getting steadily warmer ever since the end of the last ice age. There was a solar-induced cold spell in the middle ages called The Little Ice Age that ended about 1850. Before that, it was actually warmer than it is today - the Romans were actually able to grow grapes at higher lattitudes in Britain than it's possible to grow them today.

3) Based on geological evidence in the Caribbean, sea levels were 6 meters higher BEFORE the last ice age than they are today. Since we are still coming out of the last ice age, it is to be expected that sea levels will continue to rise. New Orleans will just have to deal with that.

4) For some reason, and this makes me extremely suspicious of the climatologists, their reports all fail to address the effects of water vapor in the atmosphere. This is significant to me because in the EPA paper I referenced above, as well as several others, they DO mention that water vapor is the most dominant greenhouse gas, but that it has a buffering effect on the global temperature - too hot and you get more water vapor, which leads to more clouds, which cools things down again. But they then make excuses that either water vapor is too short-lived to worry about, or that they will ignore it because a) they don't understand it, or b) they do not consider water vapor a greenhouse gas, not because it doesn't function as a greenhouse gas, which they admit it does, but because it is not produced by humans.

All of these taken together make me think that politics is getting in the way of science. Number 4, in particular, also leads me to the conclusion that the data are being deliberately misrepresented. Why? If the data for anthropogenic global warming is so strong, why do they need to obfuscate the data? Why not put it out there for everyone to look at?

 

Actually, it was my understanding that, under the Kyoto Protocol, developing nations are given a "pass" on the emissions reduction- it only applies to already well-developed countries. The weird thing about this though, is that it creates a lop-sided appearance. Any signer to the agreement will say that they have 100-some countries signed on, when in fact, many of those countries don't have to do anything significant under the agreement (because they're developing). So why wouldn't they sign?

It seems to me that if you have a hundred people and you take a vote as to whether the 5 strongest ought to become weaker, you will get at least 95 people to agree. So it behooves the weaker countries to sign and hurts the stronger countries who will get bashed over the head if they don't sign and will be economically hampered if they do.


Please correct me if I'm mistaken on that.

 

In The Independent today:

Massive surge in disappearance of Arctic sea ice sparks global warning
Arctic meltdown is speeding up... sea ice is vanishing faster than ever before... polar bears face extinction... and America's top climate scientist warns we only have a decade to save the planet

By Michael McCarthy and David Usborne
Published: 15 September 2006

The melting of the sea ice in the Arctic, the clearest sign so far of global warming, has taken a sudden and enormous leap forward, in one of the most ominous developments yet in the onset of climate change.

Two separate studies by Nasa, using different satellite monitoring technologies, both show a great surge in the disappearance of Arctic ice cover in the last two years.

One, from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, shows that Arctic perennial sea ice, which normally survives the summer melt season and remains year-round, shrank by 14 per cent in just 12 months between 2004 and 2005.

The overall decrease in the ice cover was 720,000 sq km (280,000 sq miles) - an area almost the size of Turkey, gone in a single year.

The other study, from the Goddard Space Flight Centre, in Maryland, shows that the perennial ice melting rate, which has averaged 0.15 per cent a year since satellite observations began in 1979, has suddenly accelerated hugely. In the past two winters the rate has increased to six per cent a year - that is, it has got more than 30 times faster.

See the rest here: http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1603667.ece

And the lead-in article here: http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article1603643.ece

 

BillyDoc- That's a fair and balanced article in my opinion.

The problem that I'm having, really, is the obfuscation of the term Global Warming in general. The globe is warming. Of that, I have no doubt. It's the cause, and whether such warming is unprecedented, that concerns me.

I don't dispute that one bit. It IS alarming. But since we didn't have satellites during the previous warming period, it should be no surprise that the rapid shrinkage has not been shown before.

He does state above that greenhouse gases are the most likely cause. I really don't see how anyone can claim otherwise, except for the issue of the sun's natural cycles which, admittedly, I haven't researched at all.


Anyway, I take exception with the statement that all the ice will be gone by 2070. It's not that I don't believe it's possible, it's just that well.... as any Mayan will tell you, the world is going to end on December 21, 2012.

 

Oh, oh!

I thought (hoped) I had a little longer than that. Only six more years?

As for the cause, or causes . . . it reminds me of predicting the weather! Our home 'spaceship' is a complex machine indeed. It is probably more difficult to predict the weather accurately for next week than to make general global predictions like: "it will be hot next summer in most of the Mid West."

The thing I fall back on to in my own mind is this chain of thought:

Sunlight has fallen on this planet for a long, long time. During the later part of that long period there have been organisms like plants that have effectively stored a portion of the energy from that sunlight in the form of chemical bonds, which in many cases ended up as oil, or coal, safely tucked away underground. This process thus sequestered a great deal of the heat and the carbon from our atmosphere and put it away where it can do no harm. When we burn some of this coal, or oil, we reverse the process of sequestration and release the carbon back into the atmosphere, as well as the raw heat.

So, by burning fossil fuels we are really enabling the delayed effect of ancient sunlight falling on the planet. But there is a 'rate' problem. It isn't hard to see the difference in effect that you would get from releasing a little bit of energy in the living room of your house, say from striking a cigarette lighter loaded with gasoline, and lighting a few gallons of gasoline all at once in the same place. You can absorb and live with the small effect from the lighter, but the large volume of gasoline has the potential to overwhelm any control systems that you may have in place, and really ruin your day. As a society we seem to be releasing our ancient sunlight at a pace that is overwhelming any existing natural control systems. Control systems like the water vapor cycle already mentioned: more vapor results in more clouds, which provides a more reflective planetary surface, which cools the planet, which results in less water vapor . . . and so on. We do this for one reason only: to assure oil company profits.

Then there is the problem of 'exponential' effects. You are probably aware of the fact that many natural processes or phenomena follow exponential patterns. Increase your speed and the air resistance goes up by an exponential factor of two. Melt the ice at the poles and the reflectance of the surface changes from highly reflective to highly absorptive, thus “feeding back” to cause more warming and melting. An increase in ice melting rate from 0.15% to 6% over a couple of years sure looks like an exponential effect. The thing is, exponential effects get away from you very fast.

If you are old enough you may remember a Disney demonstration of the principle behind atomic fusion where a room full of (Mickey) mousetraps were set with two ping-pong balls delicately balanced on each. Then the announcer casually tossed in a single ball . . . and an exponential progression proceeded. First two traps were sprung, then four more from those balls, then 8, then 16, then 32 . . . and within a second or two they had all gone off. With a great roar thousands of balls were tossed into the air all at once!

All of the evidence collected seems to indicate that we are on the cusp of just that sort of explosion in our environment. The CO2 in ice core samples, the melting ice at the poles . . . I saw Kilimanjaro in 1972 and it had a bunch of ice on it, with both the main peak and a lessor one to the West fully covered . . . but not now. Get on Google Earth and take a look. The oil companies (and all the big corporations, it seems) have proven many times that they will do absolutely anything to make a profit, and they don't like the idea of controlling those profits merely to save our spaceship. So they flood us with propaganda to sooth us and lull us into complacency. And, unfortunately, many people buy it. But I think you have to agree that the evidence is piling up that indicates a real problem exists and needs to be dealt with while there is still time.

If there is time, which personally I doubt. I think our Corporations and their Coin-Operated politicians have effectively killed us all with their abject greed.

BillyDoc

 

And in this corner....

West Antarctic ice sheet is thickening
19:00 17 January 2002
Jeff Hecht, Boston

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1806-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-is-thickening.html

 

West Antarctic ice sheet is thickening

Jeff Hecht

"The giant West Antarctic ice sheet, long the subject of warnings about its continuous melting and collapse, is actually getting thicker in parts. However no-one is sure how long the change will last.

.......
That is a dramatic change in an ice sheet covering about a third of West Antarctica.....

Finally, Joughin says that two nearby West Antarctic glaciers are thinning rapidly, so the trend cannot be extended across the continent".
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1806