A new look on global warming

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Re-visit the 1994 IPCC statement and tell me that again. Erratic weather patterns are both normal and expected, and were spelled out as far back as 1987. Wild fluctuations such as we have experienced are completely expected and have long been accounted for using existing science. Sure, they couldn't tell you that Timbuktu, CA was going to experience a record low on march 7th of 2009, but that doesn't mean that the existing models didn't allow for the possibility. Our recent weather fluctuations haven't broken climate models used by the IPCC and IPCC models never say that exactly [insert event here] will occur at exactly [insert date, time, or circumstance here]. They provide a range of possibilities, including many possible scenarios. Nothing that has occurred thus far has irreparably shaken the existing paradigm.

This isn't an all or nothing proposition, and I remain convinced that we should leave the highly trained and educated climatological professionals to hash this issue out themselves rather than try to jockey for political points every time a new study or book comes out. It is pointless, and none of us here (myself included) are really qualified to review the research conducted by the scientific community (unless someone here is a climatologist and isn't telling).

 

Awww dammit, I spent an hour and a half writing a reply to NOG's post, but i didn't copy the text before sending, and I got a stupid error message. How often must I make that mistake before learning to always backup long posts...? This will be but a shadow of the original post. I can't be arsed to recreate every fine detail, so here's the gist of it:
1.) Empirical temperature measurements are valid data, you are simply setting impossibly high standards. Measuring the temperature of every molecule everywhere? Be reasonable.
2.)The difference between these warming and cooling periods is an average temperature change of 0.2 celsius, not multiple degrees, as many of you seem to think. So far, global warming has altered the average temperature on the planet by almost a single degree.
3.)I found rumours of vineyards in England, but i also found historical evidence that the wine import in the 1400s was a major business. I lost the links...
4.)Yes, estimations become more crude the further back we go in time. What's your point?
5.)You seem to be on your own in doubting greenhouse gases:

7.)60% is 10% above half-right. It's like George Bush's multiple choice exams.
8.)Oh, less than 10% above half-right? well it seems we've been fussing over less than nothing.

 

Drew, none of the models the global warming extremists use can even be made to accurately match past temperatures when we have all of the information yet you believe that they can forecast the future?
You keep trying to use the same old strawman arguments that the gorea philes have been using for years even though they have long been shot down.

Coin check out this site wattsupwiththat & specifically surfacestations
Which shows 854 of the 1221 US temerature stations(of which 97% have a error bias greater than 1degree celsius & 31% have a bias greater than 2 degrees celsius)

Now how are you going to get a accurate temp. when the gauges used to measure it aren't set up in the manner required to ensure a true reading?

CO2 makes up 4% of the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, we as humans are responsible for just 3% of the 100% of that amount(which is 0.12%, yes 1/8th of 1% of the overall deal)
Boy we sure have made a big difference haven't we

 

How is it that the guys trying to poke holes into global warming as a scientific concept remind me of those who try to poke holes into the theory (heresy) of evolution ... and see their subjective and partial success in that as proof (which it is not, as it is theory, not a natural law) for their view?

 

Just like you remind us of those who wanted to persecute Galileo because he wouldn't knuckle under to their "right & true scientific" beliefs.

You're backing a dying horse ragusa.

Coin, the Little Ice Age saw a drop of 3-8degrees C(6-14degrees F) not 1/2 of a degree.

global warming study censored by epa

 

That's the beauty of having a large scala of sample points: Their sheer number cancels out the 1 degree error range of the equipment. You use the word bias in a wholly inappropriate context, suggesting that every error would be in favour of a certain outcome.
Not to mention, if the same equipment has been used at the same place, then the same error will always have been recorded. Since we're interested in the temperature change, it doesn't matter that much.

Yeah but no other plants or animals mine coal or drill for oil. The big problem is that the CO2 we produce isn't part of the active carbon cycle; we are adding far too much into the system by burning fossil fuels. This carbon took millions of years to sediment and fossilize, and now we're pumping it into the system at a speed that surpasses the worst natural catastrophes. Adding 0.12% to the system may seem minor year by year, but here's a helpful comparison: Take out a loan, and watch the debt build up... The 'compounded interest' translates into escalating environmental damage.

martaug, if the change in global average temperature was 3-8 degrees celsius, it wouldn't be a little ice age...

 

We have debated this to death before. What I find it stunning, if this is a scientific argument it is quite impressive that the detractors seem exists solely among the right wingers in America. Sure, there are a few others around.

We have discussed conspiracy theories before and how they most often are not true and that it is neigh on impossible to keep any kind of greater secret. What the people arguing against global warming is doing is basically saying that there is a giant conspiracy made up of a very large chunk of the scientific community which goal is to, not sure about this but maybe wreck the US economy? I dunno but if global warming is bullpoop a whole lot of people have been bullpooping and bullpooped.

 

Hey now, don't you be putting words in my mouth! I swore an oath to uphold [plausible] conspiracy theories. It doesn't hurt to be open to the possibility, in any case.
That's a motivator for me to take the time with this conspiracy theory, to pick it apart, and see if it breaks down. From a scientific viewpoint, it's looking a lot shakier than the 9/11 conspiracy theory.

martaug, I checked out the claim you linked, that epa censored its own report. Since transparency and peer review is one of the fundamentals of the scientific method, I'm finding it hard to believe that this is an accurate account of events. I believe that the scientific community simply wouldn't have it; it's intellectual dishonesty. I know I'm sounding a lot like debunkers of the 9/11 conspiracy now, and I apologize if it's hypocritical. But I bestow the scientific community with a degree of trust in their own intellectual integrity, which it has earned over the years. And that's far more than I can say about american politicians.

 

Coin, that's very much my point. You're trying to take a statistical average of countless particles, and you're using a data sample of a couple hundred at best. That's like trying to sample the political leanings of the US by randomly calling 10 phone numbers. Sure, the selection of samples is pretty good (or, was originally, there's problems with those sites now), but even at best, the sample size is woefully inadiquate for the population being sampled. Even if all of them were placed in the US, you woudn't be able to take a statistically reliable sample.

The only articles I've been able to find that support your claim reference the infamous "hockey puck graph", which has long since been completely discredited as a fraud. Most of the others (while wildly disagreeing about both temperatures and time ranges) put the MWP's peak at either similar to or substantially above our current temperatures. Historical evidence seems to support the latter.

I find this quite believable, but what's your point?

My point is that we loose a MASSIVE amount of reliability when we jump from the modern space age to the pre-space age, where we rely on local records, and then rapidly loose reliability as the locations of those local records shrink. Any claims of precise numbers on global temperature from those periods are guesswork. That means that the only critical comparisons that you can make are over the last 30 years or so, and we all recognize that climate can naturally change over such a short span of time.

You missed my point completely. The point is, gasses line nitrogen, water vapor, (which compose large portions of our atmosphere) and methane (which is vastly more powerful than even water vapor) are long-established greenhouse gasses. No one's questioning them. It's CO2 that's the newcomer, and I have yet to see any evidence that it belongs. All the data on CO2 itself says that it hardly contributes anything at all to the greenhouse effect, certainly not enough to cause recently seen warming. The AGW proponents, though, claim a scientific backing, one that I've never seen tested.

Well, it's good to see that we've seen different charts.

At a guess, because you disagree with both?:

Actually, you're wrong on both points. First off, since the number of faulty items presented was a percentage, it doesn't matter how large the sample size is. Secondly, 1221 isn't a huge sample size, it's tiny. As in, microscopic.

Actually, that's highly debated, too, with the more credible (scientists) sources citing a carbon cycle of between 4 and 10 years, with wave action and rain as the 2 largest factors for disolving CO2 out of the atmosphere.

Actually, there is a growing portion of the global scientific community that is vocally questioning AGW. The science just isn't there to prove one way or another.

Ah, but Coin, you're forgetting that the EPA is a government entity. Hell, I'd bet the bulk of their employees (at least on the higher levels) aren't even scientists. And anyway, I know from personal experience that the EPA doesn't really care about science at all, it's all about the political agenda.

 

What gets me about the global warming debate is how activists get more sanctimonious than any preacher could ever become. Here's a little factoid for you: China has 1,338,364,683 people. India has 1,166,012,017. Canada has 33,212,696. Even if it were true that humans are 100% responsible for climate change, and that climate change is 100% bad (and both of those bloody statements are debatable, I assure you) then even if Canada unilaterally shut down every factory, drilling site, mine and other industry in the country, every citizen stopped using gasoline powered vehicles, and we never burned another piece of wood, coal, oil, or anything else (we'd be cold, but at least we'd be eco-friendly!) it wouldn't make one mother*$$!*#! bit of difference in the overall scheme of things. It wouldn't save one bloody life in India, China, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, or anywhere else in the world. It doesn't take a university math degree to figure that out.

Yet we still have people piously telling us that we are horrible selfish people for daring to take a shower longer than some activist with a pole up his anus deems necessary. Piss off, activists! I'll shower for as long as I damn well feel like, and I'll run my air conditioner to stay cool if I want to. You are not me, you don't know how I react to hot or cold temperatures because you don't live in my body. Live however the **** you want but quit your stupid, useless preaching and moralizing. People get so wound up when religious people tell them how to live, and for a lot of them I can't say as I blame them, but I get just as pissed off when some unwashed granola eating, hemp wearing , tofu humping 20-something whose parents paid for 100% of his college education whose never had to pay a bill in his useless little life starts telling me how to live my life.

And don't start with the "oh, it just takes some simple lifestyle changes to leave a smaller carbon footprint" crap. Look at the damn numbers again -- if the whole world doesn't buy in, it doesn't make a turds bit of difference what I do, and I am not going to totally inconvenience myself just so these people can pat themselves on the back about how they've "changed the world" while they're drinking guava juice. If they want to change, they have every right, but they can just shut the hell up about it and leave the rest of us in peace. I am not a bad person out to pollute the world. I'm just trying to make it from paycheque to paycheck and don't need to be harangued by David Suzuki and his ilk all the damn time. I get tired of it and it pisses me off, as some of you might be able to tell.

 

Do you vote in elections, LKD? If so, why? I'm only asking because, as I'm sure you realize, your vote (or anyone else's individual vote) doesn't really count for much.

 

Touche, Splunge. And I'm not opposed to making changes that will benefit me in some way. But when people start guilting me, it really gets my back up. Especially people whose "authority" I do not recognize. Maybe that's a reason that a lot of people in Western Democracies don't vote -- they don't like the guilt that gets laid down come election time.

 

Yeah, like NASA and The National Weather Service and the Atomic Energy Commision (now the NRC). The govenment has no interest in science nor employs scientists in a significant way; they have only a political "agenda." R-i-g-h-t. The government is responsible for a large portion of the science that is done in this country.

http://www.science.gov/

 

Now that I can agree with.

 

Chandos, speaking from personal experience, the EPA would rather hit Big Business and an established scapegoat with hundreds of millions of dollars in required (and totally unnecessary) upgrades than spend a few thousand working with a delocalized population to actually make a real dent in the problem. Now, here I'm not talking about CO2, but rather nutrient levels in the Chesapeake bay, but I'd bet good money they apply the same problem-solving techniques to CO2 that they do to NH3.

Splunge, the difference is that an election is decided by 50+% of the population, while Global Warming, if real, can be continued by less than 10% and still screw everyone.

 

Ah, but it does coin, as shown at this page: How not to measure temperature

They don't even place them correctly.
gistemp station
This graph shows the station data at the old site up to 2000 & then from the new site. Notice the jump when they moved the site.

They are even changing the records they show on there websites
Check out this chart showing how much they have changed the results since 2000.
gistemp surface air temp anomalies

It is based on the John Daly archived data:
http://www.john-daly.com/usatemps.006
and the current Contiguous U.S. surface temperature anomaly data from GISS:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt

It's even acknowledged on wiki, coin.

You(and i) would like to think so, but as this shows Political correctness rules.
Polar bear expert barred by global warmists

http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/hammer-graph-1-us-temps.jpg
Heck just look how they increased the data from ~1970 and up.

Yes they are chandos, however, numerous of those scientist have been shown to start with a predetermined outcome already in hand. Just look at how bad James Hansen has disgraced himself fudging numbers & flip flopping his stances.

 

You lost me right there. I don't give two shiznits about what the extremists say, Martaug. What I care about is what the majority of scientists say (weighted in favor of the side who counsels caution in the absence of a clear majority), who I think should hash this issue out amongst themselves, free from political pressure from either side of the aisle -- and able to report their results without fear that some idiot science reporter or politician will take them out of context and make them appear to say something they were never meant to say. Sadly, this is all but impossible in the United States. And apparently Australia, too...

 

No. Error margins take into account the inadequacies of the sampling size. And your comparison is exaggerated; its error margins would be far greater.

Now that's rubbish. If the 'hockey stick graph' were fraudulent, and long discredited, then why does it remain pervasive in scientific literature? Try to get it removed from wikipedia if you like. Or are you also of the opinion that they're part of the conspiracy?
I didn't choose to be convinced by the 9/11 conspiracy theory simply because I liked the feel of the controversial statement. I did so because I found it far more plausible than the official story.
These doubt I hear about global warming are numerous and diverse, but they all seem to contain fallacies.

I believe you're exaggerating facts: Although we now have a massive amount of temperature data over the last 30 years, we don't need this much to make some basic conclusions about past temperatures. Scientists are very conservative in their 5% error margins, meaning they are hesitant to jump to conclusions.
And you are also overlooking the timespan itself: We may not have thousands of measure points of temperature at any given moment in time, but we do have a vast amount of measurements spanned over time, which, coupled with the error margins, are more than sufficient to allow us to discern a pattern.

Well, it was apparently determined very long ago. Only the increased concentration of CO2 as the result of industry caused it to become a significant contributor to the greenhouse effect. Here:

You neglect thee fact that there is also carbon buildup on the ground and in oceans, used by many organisms. Besides the fact that it leads to red tides and algal blooms which darken and choke the oceans, this excess carbon can easily become airborne again: The fires in Greece last year created black smoke clouds which could be seen stretching all the way to Tinisia uninterrupted. I saw a satellite photo on CNN.

And that's a good thing, I encourage it. More questions will mean more research, and more knowledge of the problem (or hoax).

First of all, try not to get hung up about the how of the message. Don't make it about the people who are saying the message; it should be about the message itself.
Secondly, who the heck is this caricature of yours based on? Are fringe-culture hippies the only environmentally aware people in your country?
Personally, while I can agree with some of the political viewpoints of hippies, this caricature is nothing like me: I'm a working man who paid for my own study. My single mom gets financial support from me rather than the other way around. And although i wish I had the focus to change so much of my lifestyle (humping tofu isn't a conventional way to conserve the environment... and nothing has ever been inserted in my anus!), in reality I'm a normal guy. I don't make much less of a carbon footprint than you do: I burn gas, fly on holiday, etcetera. Much of the improvements that can be made, must be done by governments and corporations. But without a push from the general public, there's no hope that they're ever going to do it themselves. When you guys cast doubt on global warming, confusing the (easily swayed) general public by baffling them with , you are destroying the collective consciousness. Without awareness, mankind has no hope atall. I don't want us to divide-and-be-conquered by our own conflicting self-interest. That's why we need government regulation.

Power corrupts, and if what you claim is true, then the EPA has gone the same way as the pharmaceutical industry (interested in profit margins, not in curing new diseases), U.S. veteran's charity (used for warfare intead of aiding disabled veterans), and so many other corporations and charities. It's not completely impossible, but still, the EPA corrupted?

Nobody claimed that the solution will be easy. But I'm all for environmental warfare, it'll make a change from boring old racial, religious and cultural motives! Kill the evil polluters! It might well be the first morally legitimate reason for warfare in the history of mankind.

Would you mind linking the actual wiki article? Maybe it's not actally saying what you think it does (it didn't say global average temperature), but if it is, it may just be erroneous...

If people commit intellectual fraud, the scientific community will find them out. Our discussion will be resolved eventually, when scientists determine which scientists' claims aren't reproducable and verifiable. Frankly, scientists that do this stuff deliberately aren't deserving of the title: It's like being an american, and trying to 'save' America by selling the country to the Russians -- it totally defeats the purpose.

You know the story of David Attenborough? He was Britain's foremost biologist in the media, and remained very skeptical of global warming until recently. His skepticism was probably a factor in his rise to fame, but still he was well respected by the scientific community, as well as corporate stakeholders and the public. Eventually he caved to the overwhelming array of empirical data, research and evidence, and could do nothing other than acknowledge that global warming is real. You may think that being critical of global warming will get you into trouble (as martaug illustrated with his link), but I think that quite the opposite is the case. He hasn't been in the media that much, since he changed his stance.

 

link to the report

Wait, this can't be true. Intelligent scientists debating the "it's over, there is a consensus" about AGW.

If you want to know who he is wiki

no consensus

link
Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics

Do scientist benefit from toeing the AGW line?
yes

Hmmm, and i thought AGW skeptics were only supposed to be from the US & Australia? Seems that it is way more wide spread than the AGW extremists want you to believe.

As far as discrediting the hockey stick goes coin, please read these:
hockey stick shot down
Can't See the Signal For the Trees
cherry picking in new hockey stick
the blade of the stick uses less than 5% of the data available
what hockey stick
revival of the hockey stick
and more
and another




The more time that goes by the deader this AGW horse gets.

 

The EPA is only as corrupt as the person the president appoints to run it.