Hackers & Global Warming

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Really? Well, I guess I need to be more outspoken about it, then. Yes, questioning authority is important, but it should always be done with the full expectation of an answer. Beyond that, though, there's a vast difference between power and authority.

Then how about the emails? There is one set where one of the researchers is corresponding with an outside researcher who's going through the results data. When the outside researcher notices a problem and asks how they got that data, the CRU researcher basically says, "Why should I tell you anything when you just want to attack my research?" (Actually, I think that's almost verbatim.) Given that that's the closest I've seen to any attempt to reproduce the research, it doesn't leave a very encouraging sense.

Unfortunately, the IPCC isn't terribly trustworthy, since many of the scientists that 'contribute' to it's papers have actually spoken against it. Any institution that completely re-writes a scientist's work before using it, without the scientist's consent, is not trustworthy in my book. Furthermore, the 'statistical and climate models' they're relying on to make those distinctions are the very things we're calling into question.

And, if you look at the history, the older models actually significantly overestimated the warming of this past decade. The newer one's have been made in an effort to match that warming. We'll see how well they hold up in the next decade.

I'm a little confused as to why you keep bringing him up in the first place. I'm not worried about a president questioning scientific results, just the other scientists questioning the results.

We're discussing this because you and others are supporting drastic and destructive actions based on disputed research.

You're right, the IPCC isn't a court of law, thank God. It's a political entity, advising political bodies. Yes, it's the politicians that are focused on blame and guild tripping. The scientists are just helping them along because it serves their own ends.

I remember explaining to you, in engineering detail, as someone who personally knows about engineering, how the 'compelling evidence' you presented was wrong. You ignored me completely.

Well, I do apologize for assuming you were altogether new. You were a new name in these forums and I hadn't even played IWD2 yet, so I never went in there.

Please, please don't. For starters, I can't even see how half of them could happen without first assuming a tipping point. Boreal and Amazon diebacks would only make sense if the rain patterns were significantly changed. For sea ice loss and permafrost loss, I suggest you once again look at the reports of the Medival Warming Period. Again, the disruption of the monsoons is not supported by evidence but rather assumed to be a result. As for Atlantic deep water... I'm not sure what you or Wikipedia were trying to say there, but there's already Atlantic deep water near the Arctic ocean. If you meant formation of currents, well, those are already there, too. The deep water currents take the sinking, cooling waters from the Gulf Stream and run them south, well south. In fact, if I recall correctly, they don't rise again until the Indian Ocean. Could you elaborate that a little more?

That was really just a small piece against an increasingly common misconception among people in general. It was bad enough when they all became convinced that the Greenhouse Effect was a bad thing, but now changing climates are, too. There's been talk about how to counter the effect of Global Warming with things like orbital umbrellas, landscapes painted white, and the like. They're all ridiculous, but they're being semi-seriously tossed around by some people.

And again, this claim is not supported by evidence.

All in all, though, on the last two paragraphs, let me just say this: If you don't know how something works, don't touch it. This is an old, old principle, and a wise one. I fear we're forgetting it, though. Now, I'm not suggesting we blatantly ignore it all. After all, if CO2 really is a potent greenhouse gas, we are 'touching' something we don't understand, and we should stop. We should, however, make sure that CO2 is actually doing what we claim it is. This is my problem: they've never actually proven that CO2 is an effective greenhouse gas in small concentrations. The theory of CO2 Forcing has never been tested, and has actually had some holes shot in it, yet the AGW crowd still expects us to take it as a given.

 

You keep claiming that things haven't been proven, but scientists have already undertaken the steps of skepticism, scrutiny, caution, testing and doublechecking. Don't expect me to look up every little step of decades of research for you, just so you can pick it apart with predetermined skepticism.

The evidence that CO2 absorbs radiation, was discovered over a century ago, and was accepted in the early 20th century to be a greenhouse gas. How far back do you think this conspiracy goes, exactly? Should I be offering you a tinfoil hat now??

The problem with the current increase in CO2 and associated warming is that it is happening very fast (in geological terms). Never before has such a sharp or drastic change in atmospheric chemistry occurred without an extreme catastrophic event like a volcanic eruption or cosmic impact. The main fear that earth scientists have is that the current changes may be so rapid that a runaway situation may occur and life and climatic systems will not be able to equilibrate. Rapid melting of continental ice in Greenland for example, may result in a fresh water cap on the north pacific, which would halt the thermohaline circulation (the gulf stream) and prevent warm equatorial waters from upwelling there. this occurred during the younger dryas, known as a Heinrich even, and resulted in the drastic cooling of Europe to arctic conditions similar to that of Siberia.
In essence, global warming resulting from increased CO2 may have any number of known and as yet unknown effects on the earth, many of which may be catastrophic for man kind. Once they occur, it will be too late to do anything about them. For this reason, it is important that humanity acts as a whole to preserve the natural system on which we depend. It is important to regard scientific opinion with skepticism, because this maintains science's integrity, but when faced with overwhelming evidence from many different sources, the skeptical argument becomes weaker, and should eventually be abandoned. We have reached that point with the issue of global climate change.
And let's leave professional skepticism to the specialists, shall we? you're an engineer, I'm a biologist; we don't have the relevant expertise. I'm sure the public outcry is leading many people to investigate the IPCC's findings, and i'll know soon enough if you're right. If you're wrong, the misisnformation campaign will have served its purpose, but the international consensus will remain unchanged. There's certainly a lot of money invested in the campaign; on google the AGW-debunking sites get very high in the search results, they even get above wikipedia.

Maybe it's a psychological process people are going through: Anger, denial, blame, acceptance (hopefully)..?

 

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Read a better breakdown than I can give, from a more creadible source than some random person on a gaming forum.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It is also the least effective greenhouse gas we know of. Given the known absorbtion of CO2 and it's average concentration in our atmosphere, all atmospheric CO2 would account for less than 0.1% of the current 60 degree greenhouse effect. The scare has been raised in recent years over a theory called "CO2 Forcing", in which CO2 engages in a complex series of atmospheric reactions that end in water vapor (the leading greenhouse gas due to effectiveness and concentration) being many times more effective than it usually is. The problem is that it hasn't been tested.

Actually, the observed warming isn't unprecedented at all. Only the projected warming is.

Here I agree with everything but your assumption. The evidence is far from overwhelming, and the debate continues even in the scientific community, contrary to what the media has claimed. The only real scientific consensus is that there is some level of climate change going on, not what the causes are or how severe it is.

What?! Wait for the professionals to come to a professional conclusion before jumping on people's heads?! These are the Alleys, man, not some high-class debate club! Jumping to conclusions and making assumptiosn are what we do best here!

Seriously, though, I fully expect this investigation to be rife with political motives and problems, simply because of it's nature. The appointed leader, Sir Muir Russell, doesn't seem to be biassed on the debate, but his history with something called the "Scottish Parliament fiasco" is worrying. We'll see, but I expect any conclusion to be seriously challenged by much of the loosing side, and not just for good form.

 

I know this is off-topic, but are you by chance referencing Piltdown Man? (Perhaps the biggest achaeological hoax in history. It was discovered to be a hoax until about 40 years after the fact. There is even debate to this day as to who planted the evidence although most believe the forger was the one who "found" the remains.

 

The '32000 Leading Scientists oppose Global Warming' Meme

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Point taken. We hardly represent an investigative commission that needs to come up with balanced findings, so let the rumours fly high!!!

Interesting. And the name of the collector was Charles Dawson, which sounds very similar to Charles Darwin. I was reading half-way through the article thinking: 'Did Darwin really...?'.
Perhaps the imam who told my friend this claim, based it on an honest misreading of the facts.

Ragusa, another great video. You gotta appreciate the people who do all the fact checking on bogus figures and claims. I don't envy the guy(s) who've taken this task upon themselves at Crock of the Week, but they have my respect for doing so. This is what the internet is all about: Not just freedom of information, but freedom from misinformation too!

 

To be honest, the similarity of the names didn't even occur to me until you brought it up. It's just that as soon as I hear about a faked human-ape skull, Piltdown Man is the first thing that pops into my head. However, you are right correct that Darwin and Dawson are kind of close, and on top of that they both have the first name of Charles. So when you are reading something regarding human evolution, your eyes might see "Charles Dawson" but you mind says "Charles Darwin".

 

For you, NOG

This one tackles your CO2 forcing argument:

 

Coin, the problem I have with your first video is that Mann discarded large chunks of previously established scientific evidence that didn't confirm with his own conclusions. He did this with CO2 measurements, so I'm not about to trust is 'global history of the weather'. Furthermore, as I've said before, I don't trust the IPCC. The National Academy of Science is another issue, but as Ragusa conveniently pointed out above you, even they aren't above fault.

As for your second video, I'm still watching, but here goes:
First of all, it doesn't touch on the theory of CO2 Forcing at all. Secondly, I have never said that anyone says CO2 is the only force. Thirdly, the very presumption of increasing CO2 concentration is debatable, as significant records (dismissed by Mann and other IPCC officials) indicate concentrations in excess of 400 PPM in the 1940s, and similar peaks in two points in the 1800s, in both the US and Europe, each one following a local warming period. These do not represent a uniform global average, but neither do any other source we have (not even ice cores and tree rings). Fourthly, at the end they bring up the Sun, but that was never discussed (just thrown in there). The data I've seen indicates the Sun's magnetic field and solar emissions may indeed be playing a vital role today. Again, not sole by any means, but still vital.

Basically, the second video itself is, in large part, presenting a strawman.

 

This will explain the misinformation you´ve seen about solar warming nicely, along with a number of other crocks I´ve heard you and others mention before.

As for CO2 forcing, I haven´t found a movie that tackles your claims precisely, but 'Polar Ice Update' should shed some light into it for you.
And check out the one before that: 'Watts up with Watts'. It may convince you to be more skeptical about wattsupwiththat dot com...
You should really have a look around the Crock of the Week channel on youtube.

 

Actually, that wasn't the solar stuff I had seen at all, though it does bring up an interesting question. Human CO2 production did not begin in the 1980s, nor did it go through any singularly spectacular change there. It did increase there, of course, but the increase was substantial beforehand. One would expect, then, that the temperature would diverge from the solar activity (given such a close match previously) well before the 1980s, with the divergence growing in proportion to CO2 emissions. What they're saying, though, is that the odd warming apparently just suddenly developed in the 80s. This is not only contrary to logic, but also to previous claims from climatologists.

Other than that, the only thing they mentioned that I had even heard was volcanoes, which I knew to be false.

 

Well, CO2 production in the western world did not dramatically increase in the 1980s, but starting in the 1980s was when China, India and many South American nations began industrializing at a rapid pace, and when a much larger percentage of their populations started using cars. There are literally billions of more cars in the world now that there was in 1980. CO2 emissions in the US rise every year (mostly attributable to population growth - more people means more cars, more houses, more heating), but the US is not responsible for the dramatic rise we see in total human CO2 emissions from the past couple of decades (even though we still pump out more CO2 than any other nation). But the rise in CO2 emissions is tracable to a human source.

 

You'd still expect to see a noticable divergence from the norm much earlier and, like I said, this is what climatologists used to claim, that we had been messing with the climate for most of the last century.

 

I found an adequate response to your solar arguments [I love the title].
Guess who else is in on the conspiracy of global warming: NASA, and the US navy research lab...

 

... That's so flawed it isn't even funny, Coin. For one thing, the idea that NASA hasn't seen any change in the Sun (not directly said) is ridiculous, and that NASA hasn't seen any change in the Sun that could be responsible for our warming (directly said) just means NASA hasn't seen (or doesn't believe) research into low-level cloud formation influenced by the Sun. This is the thing I've heard about: that increased magnetic activity has put out more charged particles and neutrinos which disrupt low level cloud formation, thus causing more solar radiation to reach the surface and heat it. Then, the increased water vapor in the lower atmosphere (because it didn't become clouds) traps that heat, heating the lower atmosphere, exactly as the video said.

More confusing, though, is it's claim that the planet warms more durring the night than durring the day and more in winter than in summer. There are some major problems with this:
1.) The planet, as a whole, experiences both extremes simultaneously, therefore one cannot be identified as more responsible for global warming than the other. What I mean by that is that, at any time 1/2 the world is in night, the other half is in day. Also, at any time 1/2 the world is in winter, the other half is in summer.
2.) How are they measuring increased 'heat' durring the night? I'm betting it's through infrared satalite detection. The problem is, that's not an indication of increased heat, but of increased heat loss, a phenomenon that's been understood and expected for decades. Not so sure about the winter claim, though.
3.) More warming at the poles than at the equator is due to the simple fact that colder things warm faster than warmer things. Add to that the planet's natural heat distribution system and, again, polar warming is expected from any source of warming, solar, natural earth, or man-made.

For the solar graph over 30-years, I notice that they didn't mention the other identified cycles the Sun goes through (they've identified a 100-ish year cycle, a 150-year-cycle, and a multi-thousand-year cycle).

As for the graph from the Global Warming Swindle movie, umm, that looks an aweful lot like what he claimed was their graph of temperature and CO2 in an earlier piece. I don't know, maybe the Swindle used all the same coloring schemes for their graphs (a bad, bad idea). Moreover, though, their claim that sunspot formation dies down drastically over the past 30 years is just a plain lie. Look here for more info. I really hate to rely on Wikipedia, but they've got a great page on this topic.

Lastly, for that 'latest study by NASA and the Navy', could they provide a name or date for it? The last sun-activity research I heard of was just a few years ago (2007 I think) and claims the sun's recent activity contributed to warming over the past 30 years, but will likely contribute to cooling in the long-term.

Oh, and here's another fun idea. Solar radiation (not just light, but charged particles) is funneled into the atmosphere at the poles by our geomagnetic field. This is what causes the Auroras, those charged particles interacting with the upper atmosphere. Normally, this is a rather small funnelling, as the geomagnetic field channels the bulk of it away alltogether and only a small amount into a small hole at each pole. Currently, though, our geomagnetic field is going through a drastic weakening that planetologists believe is a lead-up to a total field reversal (north will be south and vice-versa). This has been going on for the last 100-200 years (we're not completely sure) and will likely take another 100-200 years (depending on when it started) before full reversal is achieved and the field strengthens again. Anyway, a weaker field means a larger hole with more solar debris falling into it. Might this contribute some to the warming? I'm not about to blame it entirely, but I'm not about to blame anything entirely.

Interestingly, the historic data of past polar reversals also line up pretty well with periods of significant and rapid evolutionary change. Here's to the future!

 

You should be working for NASA! You obviously possess superior reasoning and judgement skills. If you took charge of their research program, I'm sure they'd come up with the findings you believe in..

 

Well, one thing I noticed that was rather suspicious to me was that, despide the videos lambasting the other video for not citing it's research accurately, they don't even cite their research, or their quotes. I have no idea when that 'latest solar research' was done, or what it concluded. They may have been drawing from something in 2000 for all you know.

 

Aren't they the one's that killed a Mars probe by confusing feet and meters? Or was that an outside contractor?