CLIMATE RECORD: The records preserved in stalagmites and ocean fossilsm, such as those harvested from mud cores drilled by the "Resolution" pictured here, suggest that CO2 levels in the atmosphere have an outsized effect on the Earth's climate.
Image: © Science / AAAS
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Carbon dioxide levels climbing toward a doubling of the 280 parts per million (ppm) concentration found in the preindustrial atmosphere pose the question: What impact will this increased greenhouse gas load have on the climate? If relatively small changes in CO2 levels have big effects—meaning that we live in a more sensitive climate system—the planet could warm by as much as 6 degrees Celsius on average with attendant results such as changed weather patterns and sea-level rise. A less sensitive climate system would mean average warming of less than 2 degrees C and, therefore, fewer ramifications from global warming.
Human civilization is now running an experiment (and without a control) that will definitively determine the answer. Scientists, however, have also realized that history can be a guide: Two new papers published in Science this week examine the historical record preserved in a stalagmite and microscopic seashells, respectively, to offer some clues.
Earth scientist Aradhna Tripati of the University of California, Los Angeles's Department of Earth and Space Sciences and her colleagues extracted a record of past atmospheric concentrations of CO2 stretching back 20 million years from the shells of tiny creatures known as foraminifera buried in a column of ocean mud and rock. The microscopic animals build shells of calcium carbonate out of minerals in seawater—a process that is affected by the water's relative pH (acidity), which is, in turn controlled by the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. More CO2 in the atmosphere means a more acidic ocean.
"The two species we picked to analyze [Globigerinoides ruber and G. sacculifer] are both ones that are around today, and the living animals actually have photosynthetic algae as symbionts, which means that they live in the surface ocean, since the algae require sunlight to survive," Tripati explains. And that means the fossil record of their shells will reveal the relative acidity of the surface waters in the ratio of boron to calcium as well as the specific chemical signature of the boron itself. "When seawater is more acidic, less boron gets incorporated into the calcium carbonate shells," she adds.
The researchers first matched this fossil record secured by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition in the western tropical Pacific to existing records from bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice cores that stretch back 800,000 years, which preserve a precise record of past atmospheric composition. Thus reassured of the technique's accuracy, they plunged back into deep geologic time.
"Modern-day levels of carbon dioxide were last reached about 15 million years ago," Tripati says, when sea levels were at least 25 meters higher and temperatures were at least 3 degrees C warmer on average. "During the middle Miocene, an [epoch] in Earth's history when carbon dioxide levels were sustained at values similar to what they are today [330 to 500 ppm], the planet was much warmer, sea level was higher, there was substantially less ice at the poles, and the distribution of rainfall was very different."
Further, "at no time in the last 20 million years have levels of carbon dioxide increased as rapidly as at present," Tripati adds; CO2 concentrations have climbed from 280 ppm to 387 ppm in the past 200 years. And "our work indicates that moderate changes in carbon dioxide levels of 100 to 200 parts per million were associated with major climate transitions and large changes in temperature"—indicative of a very sensitive climate.
A nearly 400,000-year record of Ice Age transitions preserved in a stalagmite in the Sanbao and Linzhu caves of Hubei Province in China would seem to offer evidence in support of the sensitive climate scenario. The stalagmites, composed of calcium carbonate leached from dripping water, preserve a record of monsoon rainfall in the region by their composition. Paleoclimatologist Hai Cheng of the University of Minnesota and his colleagues then compared this record with climatic transitions, such as the shift into and out of an Ice Age.
The rock record reveals that such rainfall changes occur at the same time as general alterations in the relative strength of sunlight hitting the planet thanks to periodic shifts in Earth's orbit, known as Milankovitch cycles. At the same time as the solar heat increases, according to the monsoon record published in Science, CO2 levels also begin to rise.
"Climate systems are well linked worldwide, such as sea-level, CO2, ice sheet[s], the Asian monsoon, regional temperature and precipitation," Cheng says. "So a change in one of them could trigger changes in others." And that might mean the climate is too sensitive to tolerate current levels of CO2 without changing the conditions that have allowed human civilization to flourish in the past 10,000 years.
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96 Comments
Add Commentwithout a control?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we have a historical record it serves as a control. Someone with some scientific experience: please explain.
I have no legitimate scientific experience, but I do have a link to worldclimatereport.com (actually I don't do links, you will have to type it yourself.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnyhow, worldclimatereports a study in Geophysical Review Letters out October 6th on the extent of the meltback of snowcover in the Arctic (including over Arctic Ice) which suggests less meltback than anytime since 1980, which is when satellite measurement began. The study also produces a sawtooth graph which suggests to me that a general cooling is underway headed into a new little Ice Age most likely, but there will be upswing jags which should definitely not be attributed to global warming caused by carbon dioxide, even though C02 will definitely increase in this period.
Or, to phrase this in terms of scientific reasoning 101, correlation does not prove causation.
Conducting an experiment in science means intentionally affecting a specific variable in order to observe the outcome. Using a control means observing the outcome of your variable, under similar conditions as your experiment, but without your intentional action affecting the system. Scientists then compare the difference between the two to make claims about the impact the intentional behavior has on the system being studied.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat the author is trying to say is that we humans are intentionally affecting our climate system by burning fossil fuels, which increases the planet's carbon dioxide levels. We'll definitely be able to measure the impact this has after 50-100 years. The problem is we only have one earth. There is no way for us to take a "second" earth off of the shelf, completely remove our burning of fossil fuels on the planet (remove our intentional affect), and then observe what the climate would be like over that same 50-100 years. Because we will only be able to measure the intentional outcome, it's like running an experiment "without a control".
The upshot is that the historical record is simply the data log of this one side of the experiment, the intentional one.
What scientists would love to do is answer the question, "Well, what would happen if carbon dioxide levels hit 560 ppm?" (double the current 280 ppm level). If we had a control without the burning of fossil fuels at all, we could compare outcomes and prepare an educated estimate of what 560 ppm might lead to. Because we don't have a control, what life is like at 560 is really speculation.
And so the debate goes on about "how high is too high" for our planetary carbon dioxide levels...
Why are these articles always begun by what if's? Could this be true? Is it possible?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGlobal warming is here today, has been present for some time and will not go away because some corporations shill wills it to!
Earth and its environment are vital to life and its existence. But our knowledge of the environment is wanting. There is a huge cry about carbon emission and global warming. Just as human body maintains its temperature, earth is designed to maintain her temperature. Every life on earth works to help nature maintain her temperature and sustain life. The only exception is human being. We humans out of ignorance of truth of nature, has been unilaterally increasing the temperature of earth and interfering into earth functioning to maintain her equilibrium. Consequently temperature of earth is increasing at alarming rate. A temperature increase invariably means disorder in the enclosed system increases. We are experiencing the misbalancing nature in the form increased natural catastrophes. The only way for humanity to survive is to know the Truth of Nature and yield to it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe truth is that much of the problems of the world can be directly be related to our reckless intervention energy cycle of nature in which we exist. The earth and its energy cycle have two simultaneously coexisting phases. When west awakes to sunlight and goes into disorder, the east sleeps to darkness and goes into order. These cycles and its working is the secret behind nature and its existence. All the problems of the world could be linked to breaking up this time or energy cycle. More about nature and its functioning from quantum particulate level is written in the site “awakening to truth” http://sites.google.com/site/awakeningtotruth
Have to agree with Frosty's comment. Global warming is here and will not go away because some corportation shill wills it to...and for that matter it wont do what we want even if some windmill selling corporation wants it, or failed politician, or once upon a time scientist with a track record of being wrong and hyper-excited as a doomsayer. Global warming's been going on, with a few notable exceptions, since the last great ice age...so the safe bet is that it will continue. Has our co2 emissions altered that? Probably, but then so has our agriculture, deforestation, damming of rivers and urban heat islands. When there are so many factors that are potentially responsible, why not recognize that just addressing co2 is not likely to turn down the thermostat just as we think it might,and besides, what's wrong with a little warming? All the dire predictions are based on a conflation of several negative feedback loops all amplifying each other,and we know that in complex systems, the very epitome of unpredictability, things don't act like that. For that matter at this point, if we could by sheer dint of will and effort, somehow force the co2 levels back to 280 ppm or what ever we're told it averaged in the relatively recent past, we would be fools to expect the temps to simply sink and be done with it. In fact we could face some very dire results. Consider how much food is produced in the northern hemisphere's grain producing regions. Ice ages don't appear as a wall of ice looming over major population centers as is so often portrayed but as large regions that experience killing frosts and snow that lingers just long enough to make it more likely that the cold lingers, but long before it's covered with lasting snow, the crops have failed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgain,in complex systems, the predictable is almost impossible and less possible the more specific we try to be. Our reliance on computers is noteworthy, but should not be mistaken for reality. In the mean time, more research and more attention to the dreadful state of our modern cities, most of which, unbeknownst to their orgininal plannners who had no idea of the impermanence of our landscape, are in great peril from waves, sinking coastlines, encroaching silt, vulcanism, earth quakes and in short, change. Any region that's imperilled by a few degrees of warming or a few inches of sea-level rise over a hundred years is already on shakey ground and by modern technological standards is due for an upgrade, and I'd suggest we take a lesson from the Dutch.
Please note that there are lots of fake websites with very fancy or convincing or legitimate-sounding titles that are actually designed deliberately to misguide unsuspected people who are not experts in the area. These website sponsors distort science in order to promote their own agenda. Obviously, the "worldclimatereport.com" is one of them. If you TRULY want to understand climate science better, and you are NOT one of those with an agenda, I recommend that you access realcomate.org, where real climate science is discussed, explained, debated for better scientific understanding.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is most unfortunate that Americans are among the most ignorant in the world when it comes to scientific understanding of climate change. One major reason is the huge consipiracy by those folks with an agenda to attack scientific findings that are inconvenient to them.
I can't believe it. Nearly ten comments and not one of them contains hand-waving bs about how the scientists in the article rigged their data to achieve support for assumed conclusions!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCan it possibly be the deniers have finally had their bluff called and negated?
Or have they just not woken up yet?
Whoops, I did confuse the Arctic and Antarctica while typing. For the most part worldclimatereport.com reprints whole articles. Yes, they emphasize the parts friendly to their point of view, which is that anthropogenic global warming ain't happening.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurther, NASA under the dear James Hanson was trying to convince the world last week that ice sheets are thinning
in Antarctica, this determined by superaccurate GPS measurements, but comparing to what historical record I can't imagine, as this precise new measuring tool hasn't been around for that long. Further, I would contend that reports in the last year that Antarctica is warming were obtained by a dubious method of summing over data in the very spotty historical records and then just making up numbers to plug into grids of Antarctica in the 1940's, 50's, 60's, and 70's in order to re-average historical temp estimates over the entire continent. By jiggering the historical record in this way some studies were able to make the past record colder, which then allows them to claim that today the continent is warming.
Yes, it would be nice to have an honest control, anyhow.
Loops did not comment on the sawtooth graph which shows a steady decrease of Antarctic snow cover meltback. Did I cherry pick and misinterpret that as well as two critical sentences?
No, I think they've decided that we'll never be convinced by "solid" evidence that consists of conspiracy theories and pseudoscience that's poorly constructed. We're just all bamboozled by "facts" and "evidence" and can't have our opinions swayed by their anecdotal "it's cold here, global warming can't be real!" flawed logic. We're slaves to science, which is our religion, and will never be swayed by emotional ignorance.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr, something like that. The fact is, after 70 years of study, climate change is accepted by a lot more people than is not. We're done entertaining their ignorance and are calling them out when we hear it (just as loopsyel does a great job of tearing apart Mr. Cook's completely failed interpretation of research). I think they're starting to realize that ignorance will no longer be tolerated. Climate change is real, the moon landing was real, the Earth is round, evolution is real, the holocaust happened and autism doesn't come from vaccines.
Of course climate changes. Always has. The debate is whether CO2 emissions are a dominant factor, an insignificant factor or somewhere in between. Climate is a complex subject which we do not have good models for.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurther complicating matters is agendas. Government and their sponsers (think IPCC, think industries tha will benefit form gov't subsidies) have a vested interest in CO2 being the cause of global warming.
An inconvenient truth is that the earth is cooling over the last decade. Maybe, just maybe the models are not accurate? Maybe they are really just tools to predict further catastrophies that yield subsidies and grants at taxpayer expense.
Industry is not the shills. Indisytry will benefit either way.
Could it be that our present high concentration of CO2 versus temperature/sea levels versus long ago proves that CO2 is not that big of a climate driver. This could also be the reason that the dire IPCC predictions of the last twenty years have not come true despite increasing CO2 concentrations. CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas and is a very small percentage of our atmosphere. Is it that surprising that it is not a primary driver of temperature? DUH!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, for the industry shill crowd, for every Exxon or other devilish company that makes money in the energy market there are just as many industry lobbyists (Al Gore? anyone) who push for government intervention to subsidize their “green” industries. They need a subsidy because their products would not sell unsubsidized. Who do you trust more? The guy who makes his living by selling his product in a free and voluntary market or one who lobbies to line his pocket with your tax dollars because he can’t succeed in a free and voluntary market?
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRunway global warming also doesn’t pass the BS detector test. Climate is extremely complex with many feedback mechanisms. Most of the CO2 is going to end the earth as we know it crowd seem to think that climate is a positive feedback mechanism, meaning a positive stimulus produces a corresponding amplification which leads to more stimulus and catastrophic runaway climate change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne thing is for certain is that historically climate can definitely be categorized as a negative feedback mechanism. Meaning a positive stimulus tends to generate a corresponding negative reaction which damps and brings the process back to equilibrium.
There are few examples of positive feedback mechanisms in nature for the simple fact that they are unstable. A nuclear explosion is an example of a positive feedback mechanism. Waves and virtually everything else in nature is a negative feedback mechanism because these mechanisms are stable.
Thus runaway global warming caused by CO2 doesn’t even remotely pass the smell test.
When science becomes a "for profit" business as Al Gore and his sales force have made it , there is less science...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpiff
Oh, good, I was beginning to think the clueless dimwits weren't going to show up to the party! Thanks for dropping by truthe2141, slimemold and Spiff. Without your complete lack of understanding of a) the fact that global warming research goes back decades before just this last one b) the cooling trends of a decade or longer have been recorded, but the overall trend is UP c) conspiracy theories are not science...the debate just wouldn't be the same.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe simple fact is all of your tired, old arguments have all been invalidated by actual science and you really need to come up with something new. If not, you're really not welcome in the debate. Despite the populace believing differently, not all opinions are valid. Yours would all be examples of those that are not. Your "facts" are wrong or simply made up, your interpretation of results is incomplete and incorrect and you think that despite thousands of research projects being done providing evidence FOR cliamte change that somehow because you don't understand it, it doesn't exist. Sorry, that's not how science works.
You bring nothing to the debate, so please leave and only return when you've gotten an education.
According to the British journal Geophysical Research Letters, to be published soon, the Antarctic ice pack has expanded over the last 30 years - I guess that means we have a few scientists left...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmazingly it's the AGW alarmists who need some scientific rigor. They have yet to show with any degree of accuracy that a certain amount of CO2 emitted increases temperature by a predictable amount or increases temperature at all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou say ten years of cooling means nothing. The whole AGW premise was based on twenty years of warming that started after a relatively cool period (the 1970's).. You can't cherry pick your data and then claim how scientific and logical you are.
Unless of course your agenda is actually political not scientific.
But then again why debate something if you can declare as Al gore does "the debate is over" and then resort to name calling as your only defense.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSure was cold this summer. Also, it's hilarious that invariably AGW protests are usually met with record cold temps. Mother nature seems to have a sense of humor.
So Spoonman do you think climate actually does operate on a positive feedback mechanism?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf so, please provide some evidence of this runawsay type effect or do we have to reach some mysterious tipping point that the IPCC predicts for our future?
Do you think that scientists have indeed accurately modeled CO2 versus temperature with any degree of accuracy?
The AGW alarmist models have all way over estimated CO2 versus temperature. They even have their polarity wrong. CO2 has gone up yet temperature has gone down. How could this be?
Humor us dimwits with your wisdom
@Spiff: yes, it's been well documented that portions of the ice pack are increasing. There are reasons for that:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm
@truthe2141: you make it sound like research on this has been limited to one or two studies over the last couple of decades. That's simply not true. We have temperature data going back over 100 years, with a consistent upward trend that also includes a couple of short-term drops. All of this during a down stroke of a Milankovitch cycle (meaning temps should have been on a consistent DOWNward trend, not upwards). This is based on temp/CO2 data that covers the last 450,000 years.
There are quite a few studies spanning numerous fields showing an increase in CO2 causes an increase in temperature and a fairly consistent and accurate ratio between the two. You, however, are the one cherry picking your data by finding one or two studies that, when you misinterpret them, tell you what you want to read into them and then look at everyone else like they're nuts.
The problem is, you're irrational, and no amount of evidence (and there's mountains of it) will convince you of your being wrong.
Another question for the geniouses like the Spoonman.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince temperatures have been much higher with lower CO2 concentrations in the past could it quite possibly be that CO2 and temperature don't really correlate much?
If your "mission" is to determine the effects of CO2 concentrations on temperature then any good scientist has to consider the possibility that the effects are minimal or nil. One sign of this is that the data (temp vs CO2) does not correlate. Or CO2 lags temp which means it is a reaction to temperature rise not the cause.
Of course that approach may not satisfy a political agenda.
Oh my good sweet lord! Go back and read my last post spiff. We already know that what you are saying are not the actual results of the study. And GRL is not British. It's done by the AGU.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy the way, I have to say at first I couldn't figure out what sawtoothed diagram Cook was talking about because the paper doesn't appear to have one. But then I saw it on the site he listed. It was adapted from the paper. It's just one line from a plot with a bunch of them, so it was difficult to know what he was talking about.
Anyway, my same statement stands. How does the past four years equal and ice age?
Further, I analyzed the numbers on that graph. The mean over thirty years shows positive but almost zero melt anomaly. And the regression with time does indeed show a declining trend. But it's -0.03 [whatever their units are]/year. That's two orders of magnitude less than the units on the chart. It'll take 100 years to notice anything. But that's only true if the correlation were any good. R-squared is 0.07! Talk about correlation does not mean causation!
Further, the world climate report version of the graph leaves off the lines that are central to the paper, which indicate, as I said before, that the SAM and ENSO are the cause of the reduction in melt.
The next time you want to cherry pick some cherry-picked data, make sure you sample it first, so that it doesn't leave such a sour aftertaste.
So the models are correct? Why are they keeping it a secret? I could have swore they said CO2 goes up temps increase, ice packs melt, sea levels rise, enormous amounts of methane get released and the world as we know it ends.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen skeptics said, what about the sun, or the possibility that CO2, a weak greenhouse gas is not that key to climate? Well, how stupid could we be. Of course CO2 is the main driving force. To suggest otherwise would make one a dim wit.
CO 2 has gone up, temps have gone down. Here is a newsflash. Your model is no good if it's predictions turn out to be false.
Give it a rest. How can you possibly suggest that CO2 and temperature do not correlate??
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut you are right that CO2 did lag temperature in the past. Guess why. You're going to love this: it's part of a feedback mechanism! That's just really funny.
In nature, CO2 will degas from the oceans and ice as temps warm. The warmer it gets, the more CO2 there is, and the warmer it makes the planet. Until, some larger force (Milankovitch) shoves it back.
What we see now is CO2 leading temps. That is certainly unnatural. Perhaps it's even so unnatural it's anthropogenic. But natural or not, there is no change in the underlying feedback loop. CO2 will still make it get warmer. And the problem for us is that any Milankovitch redirection is not going to happen any time soon.
Of course, that might not fit with your political agenda.
Let's rewrite that last line with actual observations:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCO2 has gone up, the sun has turned down, and global temps in each year this decade, while flat in trend, are higher than any recorded in the 90s (except 98, of course, the big el nino year).
Here's a newsflash: you're not the first person to have these questions. Please forgive the climate models for not expecting the sun to be so dim for so long and break pace with it's pattern of the past century.
@truthe2141: here's the problem with your "logic": you're taking a natural history in which CO2 is produced by natural events and is handled by the biosphere via natural processes. In that scenario, yes, CO2 lags temp for a reason: CO2 causes temperature rise AND warming causes CO2 outgassing from oceans.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere's your feedback mechanism. In previous NATURAL climate changes, warming trends caused CO2 outgassing which increased temperature in a feedback loop. However, our current warming trend was introduced with an unnatural and excessive increase in CO2 (and other greenhouse gases, BTW) over the last couple of centuries. But, unlike previous upwards trends, we're not just seeing a natural increase of CO2 from outgassing, we're also still putting 29 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere per year ourselves on top of the natural increase of 16 gigatons per year.
Temperature on the graph over the last 70 years has gone both up AND down, but it has consistently been on an upward trend. When plotted along side the increase in CO2, the trend has been identical. I don't know how much clearer to make it to you. There is, as I've mentioned, mountains of evidence against your claims. I posted a link to an article at skepticalscience.com, I suggest you peruse that site for a while as the author, unlike you, presents the data and the studies to back up all rebuttals to your "arguments"...which are really just your opinions and not backed by any evidence whatsoever. It's a good place for you to start some actual research that's backed by evidence.
@truthe2141: no one says that CO2 level increases ABSOLUTELY results in an increase in temperature across the globe. The Earth's climate is a complex animal and there are multiple factors involved. Short term decreases in temps are not only expected, but normal. What matters, as always, is the long term trend.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou don't have a model that accurately predicts the observed phenomenom which is actual temperature versus CO2.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCO2 lags temperature. That doesn't mean that the two curves don't overlap. DUH, what kind of scientist are you guys.
The problem is all of the "science" you quote was funded by the notion that CO2 causes global warming. It's premise was not if but how much CO2 increases global warming. A true scientist would have ventured on a study of the cause of global warming without a preconceived outcome.
Skeptics have merely been poking holes in the AGW theory because it doesn't match reality and doesn't make any common sense. Next you'll be telling me that the "Day after Tomorrow" could happen. None of the predictions have even remotely come true.
I know, we just need to wait another decade for the sky to fall.
So loopy what's your models say now that you have to contend with a dim sun?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet me guess. Rising temps, NYC under water , and no more polar bears unless we cut back our CO2 output to 1900 levels.
Maybe we should hold our breath.
"You don't have a model that accurately predicts the observed phenomenom which is actual temperature versus CO2."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-No, not a model...more like 10 of them
"CO2 lags temperature. That doesn't mean that the two curves don't overlap. DUH, what kind of scientist are you guys. "
-What are you even talking about??
"A true scientist would have ventured on a study of the cause of global warming without a preconceived outcome."
-How do you think they came up with it in the first place??
"The problem is all of the "science" you quote was funded by the notion that CO2 causes global warming. It's premise was not if but how much CO2 increases global warming."
-So you have a problem with verification? The premise eventually became not "if" but "how much," because at some point the "if" problem had already been taken care of. The next question to ask is obviously "how much." It is a testament to the validity of the "if" question that the answer to the "how much" question was "quite a bit." Keep in mind that all of this had already been done to some degree before it became the slightest bit political.
I know, we just need to wait another decade for this to sink through someone's thick skull.
Damn good question. I have no idea. Let's check it out and come back.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGlobal Warming is hogwash. Record low temperatures this year across most of the USA. Look at Montana this week it will be below ZERO in October! What global warming you idiots!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat global warming you morons. Right now, tonite, it's going to be below zero in Montana and this is in early October! furthermore, all across the USA, it has been below normal substantially this year with numerous records broken. You call that Global Warming? Baloney. The chemistry of the atmosphere is far more complex in the scheme of things than scientists are allowing. They are nothing but wolf's in a sheep's clothing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother typical Warmermonger article where effect and cause are mixed up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMassive hole in the logic of this article: it assumes that the increase in CO2 was the cause of the increase in temperature; not the effect, and it does not demonstrate at all that any type of an increase in CO2 leads to an increase in temperature. It's more political propaganda.
This article speaks nothing as to causality; it makes as much sense as President Obama getting a Nobel award and then assuming that he must have done something to deserve it because he got it. Oh wait... that did happen....
Did any of you commentators see something about the Milankovitch cycle?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBesides the annual weather cycle which is caused by the 23 degree tilt of the earth's axis of rotation there is a 10,000 year Milankovitch weather cycle. It has 3 causes, The eccentricity of the earth orbit, its axial tilt and precession (the slow rotation of the axis).
If you remember there was a time scientists were predicting a freezing of the planet to start sometime now, it was because the earth's orbit is increasing in eccentricity now. At the Northern hemisphere's summer solstice we will be further away from the sun than we have been for a very long time. Our southern pole should be freezing over rapidly.
What is odd is that we are not entering an age of glaciation.
Oh yeah...I forgot. I've gotta go make up some more data to make people think that the world is warmer. Obama said I'd get paid more if I turned it in by Tuesday. Gee, what would I do with this PhD if I couldn't make up data?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou see, I'm actually stupid, and I love my easy climatologist job. I make TONS of money off of this.
I wish you guys would stop being so smart, coming up with all these ideas that poke holes in my theories. I wish I would have though of all the things you thought of. Come to think of it, none of these things have come up at conferences or even in classes. Well, I guess that's good, because I want nothing more than for you all to be annoyed by my doomsaying that will never come true.
Oh wait... this is not my life....
What I am most surprised at is not the science but the perception of the out-group's "agenda". It seems that the political right, the friend of big business and big oil (and the fundamentalist crowd that is generally hostile to science) believe that environmental lobbyists and supporters have more clout than the shills, advertising and lobbyists for the world's largest economic sector, the oil-dominated energy sector. Their perception then is that greedy or deluded climatologists are behind the facade of AGW. Recently alternative energy profiteers are suspect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConversely, according to this stereotype, the people on the left, always distrustful of powerful institutions of change, such as the military and big business, think that corporations and the politicians they have bought make the debate seem like it is scientifically balanced in two camps - similar to the tactics of the Intelligent Designers, or those who cast doubt on the connection between smoking and lung cancer.
We need a fair picture of the true agendas on both sides. How much money is at stake by big oil? How much do they spend on perception management? Likewise, do climatologists have a union? Do they get more pay or esteem if they are doom-sayers (it is certainly more attractive for the media)? What is the media's role? How do proposed green subsidies stack up to current oil subsidies? What percentage of green initiatives are owned by big oil and what percentage would truly undercut possible oil revenues? What is the correlation between AGW belief and political tendency?
Since there is so much emotion in this debate, I think an objective picture of the context - including perceptions of special interests verses common good - would cut down on hostility and suspicion and leave the debate in the free arena of science.
Wxrocker72:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe reason that that none of these issues are brought up at conferences is that they are not allowed. A University of Alberta professor recently disinvited a world renowned polar bear researcher from a polar bear conference, not because anybody disagreed with his polar bear research, but because the researcher had the audacity to question man made global warming. Muzzling, censoring, intimidation, call it what you will, it only shows the utter desperation in the MMGW camp as they see their pet cause evaporate in a cloud of dust and political corruption and now, Multibillion dollar cases of financial fraud related to fake carbon credits.
Who needs to sell crack when you can sell CO2 credits?
Hey Shoshin, I see you are having fun poking facts at nitwits. Most of which have been brainwashed all of their short lives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisP.G.
"Global Warming is hogwash. Record low temperatures this year across most of the USA. Look at Montana this week it will be below ZERO in October! What global warming you idiots!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease be aware that the U.S (3% of the world's surface area) is not the whole globe. You have also confused weather with climate. I am sorry but because you got cold weather in your back yard does not mean that GLOBAL CLIMATE has been negated. Please go educate yourself. Pronto.
"The reason that that none of these issues are brought up at conferences is that they are not allowed. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo now according to you we have the following groups involved in a conspiracy:
Geophysicists
NOAA
NASA
American Geophysical Union
U..K's Hadley Center
Climatologist
Paleoclimatologist
Glaciologist
Marine Biologist
And now we can add Polar Bear Specialist. Your list of conspirators keeps on expanding.
Now the Tim Lambert has taken the time to E-mail the Polar Bear Specialist Groups and found the following:
"Dr. Taylor retired from the Nunavut government last year and was replaced on the Polar Bear Specialist Group by Dr. Lily Peacock. Further, Dr. Taylor was not re-appointed the to the PBSG by the Canadian government that decided to appoint 3 other people to the PBSG meeting here in Copenhagen. Involvement with the PBSG is restricted to those active in polar bear research and management and Dr. Taylor no longer fits within our guidelines of involvement. Dappointed 5 people that are active in polar bear issues on an ongoing basis. ... I never was a student of Dr. Taylor's and for him to suggest so is more than a little surprising to me. I have know Dr. Taylor for over 25 years but I can assure you that at no point did he ever supervise me in any capacity.
I am unsure what the intent of Dr. Taylor's comments were but I can assure you that the PBSG has broad representation. Given the 20 members and my appointing of only 5, it is largely up to the 5 nations to construct the Group that I Chair. The Chair position rotates by nation - my term is up and it will be up to the next Chair to appoint 5 members because my term will end and my membership in the PBSG will end. I will also note that our former Chair, Scott Schliebe of the US Fish and Wildlife Service is not attending this meeting. He also retired in 2008 and is no longer active in the field. ...Dr. Taylor is no longer in a position to assist with such issues. The PBSG has heard Dr. Taylor's views on climate warming many times. I would note that Dr. Taylor is not a trained climatologist and his perspectives are not relevant to the discussion."
This E-Mail can be found at:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/07/christopher_bookers_misinforma.php
So my question for you Shoshin is why lie about something so easily debunked?
The current level is 387 not 280-it was 280 at the start of the industrial revolution
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOk, Shoshin, you've got everyone's ear right now. Show us the research, the numbers, and the evidence that blows the conclusion of decades of research, numbers and evidence out of the water.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo one here can possibly censor you.
Give us a bullet list of points or a list of references if you'd like.
Of course, we do get to respond...
If you remember there was a time scientists were predicting a freezing of the planet to start sometime now,..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis old lie ha been trotted out more times than a pimp's whore. So many times in fact that it has been the subject of a peer reviewed study. In Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, in 2008, it was concluded that the vast majority of peer reviewed articles made no such prediction:
"The survey identified only 7 articles indicating
cooling compared to 44 indicating warming. Those
seven cooling articles garnered just 12% of the
citations. Graphical representations of this survey are
shown in Fig. 1 for the number of articles and Fig. 2
for the number of citations. Interestingly, only two of
the articles would, according to the current state of
climate science, be considered wrong in the sense of getting the wrong sign of the response to the forcing
they consideredone cooling (Bryson and Dittberner
1976) and one warming (Idso and Brazel 1977) paper
and both were immediately challenged (Woronko
1977; Herman et al. 1978). As climate science and the
models progressed over time, the findings of the rest
of the articles were refined and improved, sometimes
significantly, but they were not reversed."
From:
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F2008BAMS2370.1&ct=1&SESSID=edab1b72ce533e867ef61e9bc746da49
No they were not.
"...it was because the earth's orbit is increasing in eccentricity now. "
Peer evidence please. You seem to be unaware that orbital mechanics have been investigated and dismissed as the cause for the present warming.
So my question for you Scientific Earthling is why lie about something so easily debunked?
"When science becomes a "for profit" business as Al Gore and his sales force have made it , there is less science..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis message brought to you by Exxon-Mobile.
"Sure was cold this summer."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot on the globe it was not.
"Also, it's hilarious that invariably AGW protests are usually met with record cold temps. Mother nature seems to have a sense of humor."
And you seem to be the classic example of a dupe. Allow me to demonstrate. NOAA keeps a record of the monthly records for the globe, let us go see what they say:
"The combined average global land and ocean surface temperatures for May 2009 ranked fourth warmest since worldwide records began in 1880, according to an analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C."
June 2009:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090717_ ...
"The world’s ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for June, breaking the previous high mark set in 2005, according to a preliminary analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. Additionally, the combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for June was second-warmest on record. The global records began in 1880."
July 2009:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090814_ ...
"The planet’s ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for July, breaking the previous high mark established in 1998 according to an analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The combined average global land and ocean surface temperature for July 2009 ranked fifth-warmest since world-wide records began in 1880."
August 2009:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090916_ ...
"The world’s ocean surface temperature was the warmest for any August on record, and the warmest on record averaged for any June-August (Northern Hemisphere summer/Southern Hemisphere winter) season according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The preliminary analysis is based on records dating back to 1880."
So my question for Truthe is why lie about something that is so easily debunked? Do you think that if you repeat the lie long enough that it will become true?
@Loopsyel,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Show us the research, the numbers, and the evidence that blows the conclusion of decades of research, numbers and evidence out of the water. "
I think you have Shoshin confused with a rational human being. He has told me that in so many words that demands for peer reviewed evidence are "fascist".
I understand, Trent.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut I don't even need anything peer reviewed. Let's just allow the crazy to show itself off.
Trent1492:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEither you don't read or lack logic.
Read my post again. We have warming, we should have cooling as predicted by the Milankovitch cycle.
When the earth gets further away from the sun, temperatures should drop. But this is not happening, the rises are more alarming considering we are receiving less energy from the sun.
In December we shall be a long way away from the sun.
What does one say to a person who does not understand what one is saying.
"Either you don't read or lack logic."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI did not read carefully. My apologies. I thought that you where bringing up that old denialist trope of "They predicted an Ice Age in the 70's." After reading so much tripe you get a hair trigger response to the idiocy.
"Read my post again. We have warming, we should have cooling as predicted by the Milankovitch cycle."
True.
"When the earth gets further away from the sun, temperatures should drop. But this is not happening, the rises are more alarming considering we are receiving less energy from the sun."
True.
"In December we shall be a long way away from the sun."
True.
"What does one say to a person who does not understand what one is saying."
Use sign language?
how anyone can look at this evidence and look at the data of greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere - how they can look directly at the facts and deflect them as not being "indicative" of any problem is a study in itself; a psychological study.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhat i am waiting for is the desalination point caused by human induced global warming that will shut down the transfer of heat from the equator to the northern latitudes. then, we will have ourselves a nice little ice age!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou think that cold weather means there is no global warming? you do realize how stupid you sound, right?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually, at some point cold weather does decay the anthropogenic global warming orthodoxy that we all have been submerged in so relentlessly. NOAA (maybe in conjunction with NASA) say that over a three month period this year the mean sea level temperature was one degree F. warmer than usual as measured by satellite. Interesting, but this is the kind of thing only NASA can easily verify, plus we have to believe that they are interpreting the conveyor system effects and the El Nino effects properly, plus the pro-AGW folks decided long ago to calibrate satellite and balloon sensors to say whatever they wanted them to say. Lastly, one degree F., if not within the range of error, is certainly with the range of fudging factors that idealists often build right into their calculations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNASA also said that the ice over Antarctica is thinning as measured by very precise GPS measurements. But we learn this week that the meltback of Antarctic ice this summer (which decreases the snow-covered area of the continent by almost half, which means the apparent size of Antarctica fluctuates by almost half depending on the time of the year)has been trending towards less meltback. In fact, the meltback this year was the least since satellite measurements began in 1980! What an interesting graph goes with this study, which you can find at Geophysical Letters or more conveniently at globalclimatereport.com. You know, the nice thing about weather is that everybody can verify what's happening, you do not have to rely on the objectivity of politically funded gurus.
I am certainly a denier and I get beat over the head by very zealous debunkers. All I know is this--record cold in Central North America today. Record cold and the drought patterns that accompany ice ages in Central Asea. Record cold in central Africa causing crop failure and famine this year.
China is buying up coil, oil shale, and natural gas deposits in Australia and Canada, indicating to me that China is not all that pessimistic about the future of fossil fuels. No doubt the soot from all of China's new diesel engines and power plants that rev up every day causes some snow melt somewhere, but the Co2 seems to be doing nothing to retard the coming Ice Age.
Yes, a ski resort in Peru is out of business and a local glacier retreats, but once again have you noticed that drought is an Ice Age effect? Here in Seattle the ski areas are open for business as of two weeks ago--very unusual. And glaciers, isn't it time for an impartial update on those? Start with Mt. Blanc.
Oh, also I think Russia is still cold. Bam! No global warming. Or, I'm sure there's some country in Africa (or we can call it central Africa, it makes our point seem more "global") whose crop failures are caused by extreme cold. Shazam! Cut and dry, proof positive that man made global warming is a farse!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow! Science! We're doing it. Isn't this fun?
What is it about louder and dumber that makes you think you win? Get off the GRL paper. You've been shown how wrong you are twice already. Do you think that repetition equals truth?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou say: "we have to believe that they are interpreting the conveyor system effects and the El Nino effects properly"
Are they not the ones who discovered these features and teach about them every day? How can you not trust that?
And you say: "pro-AGW folks decided long ago to calibrate satellite and balloon sensors to say whatever they wanted them to say"
Whoever calibrated the instruments calibrated them just like anyone calibrates anything: it gives the same answer to the same measurement. You can't calibrate something to give a trend, especially not the 75,000 individual radiosondes that go up every year. That would mean that the private makers are in on it too. And that just makes no sense. They're going to sell their instruments no matter what happens. What would be the incentive?
I can't wait to hear you explain away the next heat wave.
In December we shall be a long way away from the sun.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat does one say to a person who does not understand what one is saying.
Here is what I say to you:
The earth is closest to the sun "perihelion" on January 3. (I know that is not December but it's close.) The earth is farthest from the sun "aphelion" in July.
You may be right or accurate in all else you have to say but if you get such a simple thing so wrong it causes everything els you say to be scrutinized much more closely. Or dismissed out of hand.
This comment was meant to be in reply to:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisscientific earthling at 11:29 PM on 10/10/09
This comment was meant to be in reply to:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisscientific earthling at 11:29 PM on 10/10/09
My other comment was supposed to be in reply to
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisscientific earthling at 11:29 PM on 10/10/09
Yup, the uneducated, dimwits have arrived in full force with their same, tired, well debunked, ignorant drivel and no matter what kind of facts you present them, they sill believe in their delusions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's sad, really, until you realize they're nothing but a very vocal minority who sound dumber and dumber each year. They're losing ground as more and more evidence piles up in front of them, drowning out their harrowed cries. They're desperate to be right, and know they never can be, so they scream as loudly as they can what they know to be wrong at anyone who contradicts them. It's so obvious in their comments that even they don't believe such useless claims as "it was cold this week in Montana, global warming is a farce!" anymore. They're just shouting them out to be heard.
The best thing we can do with these dimwits is pretend they don't exist. Ignore them, and they'll go away.
tulcak, you ask how I can fail to see the correlation between a trace greenhouse gas increasing in the atmosphere (all the way up to .000385%) and the global warming which took place for most of the 20th century. Easily, I don't mistake correlation for causation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo prove the anthropogenic global warming case (AGW) you have to rule out anything else causing that surge in warming up until 1998. Despite all the bluster, that certainly has not been done to my satisfaction, not for the least reason that there are so many things about this planet that we still don't understand, including the way that various climate factors influence each other in the long term versus the short term.
Actually, the "calibration" dispute I refer to happened about a decade ago when establishment data analyzers simply took all the temperature data that had been collected by balloon and satellite measurements historically (many thousands of different instruments and technicians adjusting those instruments) and recalculated the data putting in a formula
that assumed a hidden factor made all the readings too cold.
So, arbitrarily, all the data was made warmer after the fact. You can read the history of this at globalclimatereport.com.
So, I basically don't trust anything anymore that comes through the filter of idealistically indoctrinated government gurus who incidentally get their paychecks from politicians.
One funny anecdote. On Saturday the Colorado Rockies delayed their playoff game due to cold and bad weather, but the women's lingerie football league played their game, demonstrating how much tougher women are mentally than men. I know this because of acquaintance with one of the ladies on the Seattle team who played the Denver team.
Coincidentally, when the Rockies played the game Sunday night, a sportsbroadcaster said it was some kind of record for the coldest playoff game--maybe just for the Colorado Rockies, I don't remember.
Difficult to compare now with the Miocene. As the oceans and atmosphere affect each other. During the Miocene, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were in communication over what is now part of Central America. This would have allowed some of the cold water originating in the Antarctic to flow through the Gulf of Mexico and on into the Atlantic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, the Mediterranean sea inundated much of what is now southern Europe and the currents from Atlantic could easily flow through the Mediterranean into the Indian ocean.
You are right Spoonman. I remember reading about when there was this idiot named Galileo running around saying the earth was round and revolved around the sun. All the really smart people back then just ignored the dimwit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJamesSmith:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLove the idea of having my comments thoroughly scrutinised. Please do this always.
I should have used perihelion and aphelion in my original comment but used "Summer Solstice". I live in the southern hemisphere and my readings of the Milankovitch cycle was back to front since it too used terms like summer and winter which were opposite for me. Thanks for pointing out this error. When I look at the text & diagrams again I shall always remember that where it says summer is winter where I live.
There will be a next heat wave and it will be enthusiastically seized upon to promote ironclad government controls over almost everything about the way people live, enjoy themselves, and prosper (formerly.) The graph at worldclimatereport.com from the study of the big cycles of ice and snow meltbacks around the South Pole quite clearly shows a sawtooth cycle and we are near low point of a minimal meltback period.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut the interesting thing about this graph is that it is clearly tending to less and less meltback, so that if the trend persists then after the next warming period the failure of snow and ice to meltback during Antarctic summer is going to be glaringly noticeable.
Which brings up Galileo. His big point of proof was the fact that he could see the moons of Jupiter in the primitive Huygens looking glass he was using. This device was so crude, however, that a reasonable person who persisted through the considerable difficulty of getting Jupiter into focus might not agree that what they were seeing around Jupiter were moons and not simple optical chimera, rather like the later sighting of canals on Mars would be through much more controllable and powerful telescopes.
Galileo also appeared to enjoy poking a stick in the eye of the Vatican on a lot of other issues, but unlike Tycho Brahe Galileo knew when to back down. When orthodoxy gets something wrong, eventually orthodoxy will correct itself. So which side of today anthropogenic global warming debate has come to argue from the arrogant citadel of orthodoxy backed by political iron fists?
It is puzzling why, when past global warming occurred, atmospheric Co2 rose too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne logical explanation would be that as ocean temperatures rose, less CO2 would have been dissolvable, thus gassing off CO2.
That explanation would put paid to climate change denier's most frequent argument, (saying that Current CO2 levels are not anthropic but due to some natural phenomenon raising air temperature).
But it would give more urgency to the need to act on IPCC reports.
Scientists do not examine 'what if' scenarios, novelists do. Try this novel on the most likely 'abrupt change' scenario, shutdown of the ocean conveyor. It can be found at Amazonas The Novel.com. This is not about who is responsible, it's about what if. And what we will do if our way of life is threatened.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIan Ryman
Still waiting for Shoshin to post his 'evidence'...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGalaxy-man, trent1492 et al.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI love being a threat to your new-found religion. I especially enjoy Trent1492 ostensibly quoting me. Gotta love it. But Trent1492, if you can't even quote from someone as obviously misguided as me without finding the need to twist it or embellish it, why should anybody take anything else that you say seriously? Surely as easy pickin's as me should give you plenty of fodder without the need to misquote?
Galaxy-man: The muzzling of research that you are waiting with baited breath for is detailed on:
http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/
Explain to me how this is anything other than politics?
As well, take a close read of the upcoming Copenhagen Summit. You will find that it imposes restriction on CO2 production not only on a country by country basis, and gives the UN the power to decide not only which countries, but which industries within those countries will be able to emit CO2, and how much. It also forces a permanent disparity between developed nations and the developed world by outlawing and counter-vailing trade tariffs. What this means is that from thais point onwards, the developed world will be free to pollute as much as they want and the developed world will be unable to force them to stop through placing a tariff on goods produced in an environmentally irresponsible manner and refusing or penalizing their import.
On top of that, the UN expects that the developed nations will fork over between $50 and $100 billion annually to the UN for "distribution".
Sign me up; the UN did such a great job with oil for guns that they have my vote. And so now we have the IPCC pushing an issue from which they derive primary financial gain. Looks like the biggest scam of all time to me.
excuse me I meant to say "...the undeveloped world will be free to pollute..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh and galaxy-man;
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne final issue; I admire how you steadfastly stand by computer models that are unable to model the actions of the real world. I wish I could muster that type of faith.
And trent1492: Just because I know you love to bully and belittle:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/10/09/kevin-libin-copenhagen-plan-could-wreck-global-economy.aspx
And Trent1492:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA definition of fascism:
According to Griffin:
[F]ascism is best defined as a revolutionary form of nationalism, one that sets out to be a political, social and ethical revolution, welding the ‘people’ into a dynamic national community under new elites infused with heroic values. The core myth that inspires this project is that only a populist, trans-class movement of purifying, cathartic national rebirth (palingenesis) can stem the tide of decadence”[16]
Sounds like the greenie movement shaking hands with the UN to me. And everyone gets a Nobel peace prize!
First of all I have no idea what you are talking about when you say I'm 'standing by computer models'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnless you think that recognizing and accepting a decade's worth of data is somehow linked to brainwashing (not all of which is based on models, by the way), you're just following your old routine to get a rise out of somebody.
Second, and this is really the more important point I'd like to emphasize, I seriously doubt anyone regards your comments a threat to any idea whatsoever. Let's be honest, you have made a practice for who knows how long (I've observed it for about 8 months now in various topics) of throwing out grand conspiracy theories and generally making a mockery of the entire scientific process in the name of what can best be described as bi-partisanship. It would almost be tolerable if you weren't just trying to inflame people. Kind of reminds me of Ann Coulter.
The reason people are demanding a look at your data is because when the chips are down, you fold every single time. It's really sad that the loudest opposition to the idea of unnatural global warming also appears to be the least justified.
By the way, you're right. Your website really is politically motivated and driven. Great job of demonstrating what NOT to do in a scientific debate. I mean that. Kudos!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgalaxy_man:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNumerous studies and issues critical to the proposition of Man Made Global Warming have been published and/or raised. I'm not going to bother going tit-for tat with you; you know what they are and whether you choose to accept them or not is irrelevant. All that can safely be demonstrated is that the case for MMGW remains unproven at best and is under siege from an increasing number of fronts.
The more research that is done into MMGW, the shakier the psuedo-theory becomes, as more and more inconsistencies with the real world become evident. Contrast that to Einstein's theory of relativity, which when tested, proves more solid with each test.
If I rub you the wrong way, get over it; I'm not here to be join your consensus or any other consensus, nor do I care if anyone agrees with me. And as you are aware, it is inconsistent with scientific principals for me to claim that I can disprove MMGW.
And also under scientific principals, as you must be painfully aware, but somehow consistently and conveniently choose to ignore, that the road is more challenging to you. The burden of proof falls on you, as you must prove MMGW and demonstrate that only MMGW can recent variations in climate.
So far you and your cadre are failing miserably, as the real world repeatedly fails to co-operate with MMGW pseudo-theory.
Just my observations.
And I'll make one bold prediction:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen sunspots return to the face of the sun, earth's temperature will again begin to rise. And when they disappear again, it will fall.
read this??? http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/9/29/the-yamal-implosion.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdid you read this??? http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2009/9/29/the-yamal-implosion.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh, you know what I know? Wow, you must be a total psychic. Hey can you let me in on what this week's lucky numbers are while you're at it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Still waiting for Shoshin to post his 'evidence'..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am betting on Satan needing a parka first before that happens.
"I love being a threat to your new-found religion."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do not think that word means what you think it does.
"I especially enjoy Trent1492 ostensibly quoting me. Gotta love it. But Trent1492, if you can't even quote from someone as obviously misguided as me without finding the need to twist it or embellish it, why should anybody take anything else that you say seriously? Surely as easy pickin's as me should give you plenty of fodder without the need to misquote?"
Can you substantiate that claim or is asking for evidence of your assertions just too onerous for you?
Shoshin posts the following dribble:
http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/
Yo. Shoshin, below is two links debunking the fossil fuel propaganda you linked too:
"Debunking the 'Skeptics Handbook': More CO2 Does Worsen Climate Change"
http://www.desmogblog.com/skeptics-handbook-carbon-dioxide-climate-change
Part 2
http://www.desmogblog.com/debunking-joanne-nova-climate-skeptics-handbook-global-warming-real-and-happening
Why do I have a sneaking feeling you will never go there?
"Explain to me how this is anything other than politics?"
You are right Joanne Nova's screed is nothing more than fossil fuel propaganda. Glad we agree on that.
"Sign me up; the UN did such a great job with oil for guns that they have my vote. And so now we have the IPCC pushing an issue from which they derive primary financial gain. "
More of those fact free assertions I see.
Shoshin Writes the following post at 11:45 AM on 10/14/09
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"And Trent1492:
A definition of fascism:
According to Griffin:
[F]ascism is best defined as a revolutionary form of nationalism, one that sets out to be a political, social and ethical revolution, welding the ‘people’ into a dynamic national community under new elites infused with heroic values. The core myth that inspires this project is that only a populist, trans-class movement of purifying, cathartic national rebirth (palingenesis) can stem the tide of decadence”[16]
Sounds like the greenie movement shaking hands with the UN to me. And everyone gets a Nobel peace prize!"
The above is you entire post in its entirety. The first part of your post gives a pretty fair definition of Fascism.
In the second part you then baldly assert that environmentalism has meet this definition without out offering one scintilla of supporting evidence. Perhaps that is just a oversight on your part so I am going to give you that opportunity.
Please explain with supporting evidence why the desire for clean water meets the above definition. How is regulating the amount of mercury emitted into waterways Fascistic?
How is the effort to not have cities choked with air pollution fit the definition of "a revolutionary form of nationalism..." ?
Why do you think that having the air quality of east coast Chinese cities is a step toward freedom?
Can you use supporting evidence that the biological concept of biomagnification in regards to the increasing amount of a pesticide as you go up the food chain and its deleterious effect on the top pyramid of that food chain, is a political concept, and not a scientific one? How is the regulation of such chemicals Fascistic?
Please note that I have included your post to which I am responding in its entirety. Now let us see if you can provide evidence for your assertions.
I've always wondered about just how much we really have no idea about our climate given that it's probably the most dynamically complex system we can observe. No one can discount the notion that we have the ability to destroy our habitat. Can we take the risk in not trying to mitigate the outcomes of C02 output? So what level do we attempt to mitigate the effects of our c02 output? Hey! Does anyone know anything about the effect that our oceans play in cleaning our atmosphere of C02? As far as other pollutants I would say that the atmosphere and the oceans probably scrub most of our pollutants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat could be true if most of our polutants were natural chemicals. However, in this day and age of synthetic materials, the fact remains that much of what we release into the ecosystem is stuff that is not easily absorbed, decomposed, or otherwise broken into its constituent base molecules.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd I agree, the greatest risk is in assuming there is nothing wrong and doing nothing to mitigate potential bad effects. I am constantly shocked that even those who will admit that global warming is a real phenomenon, albeit having nothing to do with human activity, will still protest against efforts and plans to wipe out pollution.
There are some on these forums who label supporters of human-based global warming a bunch of religious nutjobs. Yet each and every one of them is so unwilling to even consider the possibility that one wonders if they actually believe what they are saying and are not merely being paid to do so. I have a question for all of you:
What exactly do you stand to save by NOT wanting anyone to reduce or eliminate the pollution that mankind dumps on the planet?
We need to be looking at what will happen if global warming takes us over a major tipping point and things really start to unravel. There is a lot of interesting science to examine, not to speak of the politics. My view is that we will act as we always have when we're up against it - we'll fight to defend our interests. At Copenhagen we'll still be pussyfooting around the issues. My novel Amazons takes it a step further...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIan Ryman
galaxy_man:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCo2 is not a pollutant; Your lungs tolerate 40,000 ppm of Co2. If it were a pollutant in the true sense of the word rather than a "political pollutant" life as we know it would never have evolved on this planet.
CO2 is the stuff of life; it feeds plants so that we can feed ourselves. Declaring it now time to unleash WMD's (Weapons of Mass Decarbonizaton) is utterly silly. It makes as much sense as damning that most noble gas, Neon, for having the audacity to glow when an electric current is passed through it. And that if we could only , somehow, stop Neon from it's nefarious ways, the sin and corruption of Las Vegas would end.
Get a life. The myth of man made global warming was a purely political construct from the beginning and has always been about $$$ and wealth transfer. Nothing more and nothing less.
This message brought to you by IPCC Corporation, your partners in politically pure living.
galaxy_man:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe are all still waiting for you to post your evidence showing that MMGW is the only possible explanation for climate change. As you are well aware, the onus is on you. Please post something, anything.
But just a word of warning, pictures of cute polar bears, melting glaciers and penguins aren't evidence, they are propaganda; scuba divers having a meeting off the Maldives aren't evidence, they are also propaganda.
Data from 14 trees in Siberia which happen to support the IPCC conclusions, and create the infamous Mann Hockey Stick whilst ignoring 33 trees from the same data set that contradict the IPCC conclusions not are not even propaganda, they are a deliberate calculated, criminal attempt to mislead and are no different than Bernie Madoff sending out false financial statements to clients to keep his con alive.
So what do you have?
As Richard Lindzen and other noted climatologists point out, each doubling of CO2 might add .5 degrees or warming. That is, from 250 to 500 ppm, ,5 deg.; from 500 to 1000 ppm, .5 deg., etc. In other words, by far the greatest effects are at the lower end of CO2 concentrations. Your statement, "If relatively small changes in CO2 levels have big effects..." is a misleading cue to your readers. All things being equal, it would require nearly 4000 ppm of CO2 to take us to 2 deg. C. We will be long out of fossil fuels before then. Incidentally, the last time levels were THAT high was during the Ordovician Period, about 450 million years ago, when the earth was in the midst of a deep and persistent ice age. http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html Before that, during Rodinian time, the earth was in an even more dramatic ice age, and CO2 concentrations were even higher still. I would expect Scientific American to at least point out this obvious counterpoint in their article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are too many variables to gauge the effect of CO2 increase. Recent studies claim carbon soot and other aerosols are responsible for over half the glacier and ice field melt, not CO2. Other studies claim land use change is the predominant cause of land temperature increase. I've seen charts that show CO2 at 7000ppm 540 million years ago. If CO2 were the demon the IPCC claims, temps would be fantastically high.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConsider this. We used to have much more CO2 in the air, and over time, nature has sequestered most of it underground. It went from 7000ppm to 280ppm. That's a 94% drop. Is it POSSIBLE, that mankind did nature a favor by releasing some of it back into the air? We know plants need CO2, and everyone admits plants will benefit with the CO2 increase. If nature had been left alone, is it possible more CO2 would have been sequestered below the 150ppm level, where most plants on Earth would die of starvation? And if that's the case, how long would plants have had until it would have occured? I estimate 10-20 million years. Maybe, just maybe, we did something right.
Probably the best place to verify climate change would be around an EL Nino event. Before it happens, measure the atmospheric and oceanic CO2 levels. As it happens, keep on measuring. As temperature increases due to the greenhouse gas effect, oceanic CO2 should decrease, but increase in the air. This would increase air temperature and the cycle would continue in a closed cycle. I have suggested such research to international scientists, as present data on El Nino is lacking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCO2 constitutes between 0.2% to 0.3% of the earth's atmosphere and you're telling me that IT is the culprit? Life on earth is carbon-based, yet constitutes such a tiny part of the atmosphere is amazing and yet the climate change crowd would have us believe it is the evil monster in this atmospheric matrix? What a tangentially skewed perspective of reality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"CO2 constitutes between 0.2% to 0.3% of the earth's atmosphere and you're telling me that IT is the culprit?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, and your incredulity is not an argument against the reality of it. Are you even slightly aware that 99% of the atmosphere is transparent to U.V and IR light? That is right what makes this planet have a different temperature regime than the Moon is less than 1% of the atmosphere. Now stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
A proper control would require a second planet where we could keep CO2 where it belongs here and then fool around there with foolishly raising CO2 by 30-50% over a century.
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