Why it's too late to stop global warming

[PaulD]

I virtually agree with your lengthy post above Mech Engineer. But the arguements go deeper. you refer to the UHI effect, this has been taken into account in a lot of calculations but the argument goes on if the adjustments are correct...who knows, as you say records are comapritively extremely recent. One can interpolate 10 year, 500 year and much longer cycles from available graphs if they are to be believed, we will not know if GW is happening for at least another 30 years unless it is AGW and man has had such a significant impact that the figures will run off the scale.
The other point about GW and politics is that is very PC to be seen to "stand up and save the Earth"! This is where the logical arguements become top heavy as the media tends to follow the politicians who are making these bold statements, it is also much more newsworthy to say "Holland, London, Southern States etc WILL be flooded ! Nothing worth reporting in that the above areas will not be flooded until enough people believe they will
Regards
Paul D

 

[Mech_Engineer]

I am not convinced by the adjustments being made to measurments being taken next to ecosystems that have changed (whether by a city or a forest fire, the list goes on and on...) since it is more of a guess than hard data as to how much it must be adjusted. Too small an adjustment might artificially show heating, while too large an adjustment will show cooling...

Additionally, the heat island adjustments are based solely on population rather than other important factors such as population density, landscaping, nearby water sources, industrial facilities, etc. We don't really have any reliable way to accurately know how much skyscrapers affect the net temperature vs. a sprawling suburb. This is another case where a single variable is being used to predict a system of thousands of degrees of freedom.

It would seem that the only reliable temperature measurements are the ones that don't need a bunch of "fudge factors." Of course, these sets of data are few and far between, making it difficult to even come up with long-term pure data. It's difficult to have a weather station far from developed areas, especially back near the turn of the century (1900, not 2000). So what we have are a bunch of weather stations that were on the outskirts of a town, and are now in the middle of a metropolis... The overall correction for each city is calculated differently, and as such some cities might show heating, some might show cooling, but all data is suspect because it might be beacuse of world-wide climate change, or it might be because of improperly calculated corrections.



I'm being a little bit devils advocate, and a little of the opposite I suppose...

 

[Mech_Engineer]

Also:

There are several problems in showing that GW is due to carbon dioxide emissions:

Global temperature changes seem to be largely INdependent of atmospheric CO2. There are examples of the temperature rising with no change in CO2 (pre-1940), and examples where CO2 levels rise while temperatures go into a cooling trend (1970-1980 I think, I'll look up the sources).

I feel like a broken record here, but it is obvious that CO2 is only one in a million variables that must be looked at. We have even discussed some of them, such as the fact that the largest contributor to the greenhouse effect is in fact WATER, not CO2. I'm guessing that interviewing 100 people on the street would reveal that they all cite CO2 as the major contributor to the greenhouse effect and GW (due to propoganda, not scientific journals). Shall we now begin reducing our H2O emissions? What about methane emissions from cattle ranches? Cork off a few volcanoes?

There's all sorts of stuff we can spend trillions on and still have no lasting effect. BUT, if some law takes effect and it happens to coincide with a decrease in warming rates, it must be the culprit, right?

 

[Mk]

Wow, this thread got some airtime since yesterday!

Earth has known much hotter and much colder periods

What periods, namely?

The bit of information that has most surprised me is how a relatively small average global temp change is sufficient for a mass extinction - as reported, 10 degrees centigrade.

Its not the change, its how fast it changes.

I'm guessing that interviewing 100 people on the street would reveal that they all cite CO2 as the major contributor to the greenhouse effect and GW (due to propoganda, not scientific journals). Shall we now begin reducing our H2O emissions? What about methane emissions from cattle ranches? Cork off a few volcanoes?

Mech Assault! Anyway, if you interviewed a hundred people they would all say CO2 is the CAUSE of the FACT of a anthropogenic global warming happening RIGHT NOW.

Propoganda? It is probably mostly the news media. A few of the more knowledgeable environmentalists say we should stop harvesting cows.

The real problem is excessive scaremongering in a delicate unbalanced human society, where people seem to have a great need for recognition and a need for safety but face the fear of the unknown. Those of the world, searching for recognition, admiration, and power, are more than happy to create an image of great danger, threatening the world and humanity. The media are happy to exagerate that message a little because because that's what the people want to hear and they want their share of recognition. Good news is no news and we thrive on bad news. So the governments, that want to govern in peace, give the people what the people want, because happy people are prepared to pay the taxes required to stop the horror, so they support the scaremongers who are happy to comply and produce even more scare. This a powerful positive feedback system that tends to go out of control, regardless of the scare of the moment.

Read it and weep, I too believe this is what is happening, and has been happening.

Collective hysteria, and moral panic, this is what it is.

This way we have seen (chronological order) female hysteria, spring heeled jack, the eugenics scare, comic books, backmasking, day care sex abuse, "rock 'n' roll" music, anti-semitism, mutual assured destruction, nuclear waste, nuclear meltdown scenarios, the coming ice age, the population bomb, the asteroid collision, the clash of the civilizations, radon, microwaves and power lines, cell phones, Y2K, and now it's called global warming with all it's infinite extremities.

Notice in each situation, it is always some threat to everybody, whether it be America, the world, or all life. It is always an inevitable threat, and cannot be seen, heard, felt, smelled, and you don't know when it'll hit.

Usually and regardless of positive proof pro or con, those hypes fade slowly when signs stay out. The next hype may be clathrate destabilization disasters when it finally becomes clear that those have been responsible for the spikes that we see in the ice cores and oceanic foram cores.

 

[Skyhunter]

Real science is peer reviewed

All props aside Mech_Engineer, I only mentioned Crichton's book to illustrate the most prominent source of disinformation on the subject. I find it laughable that a bunch of amateurs on a physics forum can speak with such authority.

I must ask. What peer reviewed scientific papers have you read that dispute AGW?

You site the media as hyping GW It is truly just the opposite. The media suggests that there is a disagreement between climate scientists that just does not exist.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change, then-EPA administrator Christine Whitman argued, "As [the report] went through review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change" (1). Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the science (2). Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case.

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" [p. 21 in (4)].

IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].

Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).

The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

[edit] highlights added by me. [/edit]
So if you know of other peer reviewed scientific papers that disagree with the consensus position, please reference them and supply links. Otherwise your just blowing hot air and contributing to global warming.

 

[Skyhunter]

An Inconvenient Truth

Has anyone here seen Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth"?

I saw it, and highly recommend it. It is funny entertaining and above all informative. A much better source of facts than what some are trying to present in this thread.

 

[Mech_Engineer]

It's late, so I'm making this short, for now...

Mk- We agree on all counts, I may have inadvertently mis-worded my "essays" in some of the areas.

Skyhunter- I intend to answer all of you challenges, but for now, let me just say that "peer reviewed" scientific papers are NOT the main information source for the average person, the main-stream media is. And by the way, I intend to watch Al Gore's movie so that I may take notes on the "evidence" watchers of this movie will use.

P.S.
I don't consider myself an "amateur on a physics forum," this forum is filled with intelligent people, and any person can be properly informed on current issues, INCLUDING this one. I will talk with as much authority as I choose to.

Until tomorrow then...

 

[Skyhunter]

Skyhunter- I intend to answer all of you challenges, but for now, let me just say that "peer reviewed" scientific papers are NOT the main information source for the average person, the main-stream media is.

I agree, the media is the primary source of information for the "average person". However you should clarify what you mean by the term "main-stream".

It is not a challenge, just a request for something more than your opinion. Unless you are a credentialed climatologist your opinion is no better than the "average person"

And by the way, I intend to watch Al Gore's movie so that I may take notes on the "evidence" watchers of this movie will use.

Really?

You have not even seen the movie?

Yet you are such an expert.

By the way, the supposed "documentary" coming out with Al Gore called "An Inconvenient Truth" is just a huge load of scary pictures, cherry-picked data, and propoganda. It is not real science, it is instead a huge implementation of scare tactics.

Hmmm? Do you really think you are going to watch it with an open mind?

P.S.
I don't consider myself an "amateur on a physics forum," this forum is filled with intelligent people, and any person can be properly informed on current issues, INCLUDING this one. I will talk with as much authority as I choose to.

Until tomorrow then...

This is a science forum. The rules are simple. If you make claims, provide sources to support and validate those claims.

I am eager to see the sources of such claims as:

Global temperature changes seem to be largely INdependent of atmospheric CO2. There are examples of the temperature rising with no change in CO2 (pre-1940), and examples where CO2 levels rise while temperatures go into a cooling trend (1970-1980 I think, I'll look up the sources).

First and foremost, ALL of the supposed "data" that "proves" global warming is cherry-picked like crazy, and there are most likely equal amounts of data that refute GW theories.

I look forward to seeing those "most likely" amounts of data.

 

[vanesch]

Wow, this thread got some airtime since yesterday!
What periods, namely?

Have a look at:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/292/5518/870

for instance.

A (non-peer review, but hopefully reliable) site is here:
http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm

It indicates in fact that we are in a rather "cool" period as compared to most other periods. That, by itself, doesn't say anything about any possible human causes or not of the *slope*, but definitely, average Earth temperatures HAVE been higher in previous geological times (as they have sometimes been cooler too).

 

[Skyhunter]

Wish I had an extra $139.00 to subscribe Vanesch. I would like to learn more about the Earth's prehistoric history.

 

[vanesch]

Wish I had an extra $139.00 to subscribe Vanesch. I would like to learn more about the Earth's prehistoric history.

Oops, sorry, I didn't realize that. On my computer it displays without problem or any special login, but that must be because at my place there's an automatic subscription. Sorry, I thought it was freely accessible...

In fact, in the article the second website is cited as illustrative material (the scotese site). So I think it is reliable (in the sense that it is not some crackpot or opinion site).

 

[Mk]

I find it laughable that a bunch of amateurs on a physics forum can speak with such authority.

Ahh, we meet again. Skyhunter, for the first time you have succeeded in angering me a bit. Aside from the fact that we actually do have experts here on climatology, physics is the art and science of describing interactions between matter and energy—this expands to every science.

For the second part of your comment regarding our authority: you do not need authority to know. You do not need authority to think. I admit I have absolutely no authority in paleoclimatology, although I sure do damn know a lot more than a lot of people. I have no credentials in physics, although I can tell you about M- and string theory, I can explain to you the mechanics of photovoltaics, and I can read and write technical writing concerning nuclear engineering.

Has anyone here seen Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth"?

I saw it, and highly recommend it.

As with all propaganda, whether on my side or the other, I believe we should avoid it. I hate heavily biased media!

Mk- We agree on all counts, I may have inadvertently mis-worded my "essays" in some of the areas.

I realized that— just adding on what I thought you didn't say.

Skyhunter- I intend to answer all of you challenges, but for now, let me just say that "peer reviewed" scientific papers are NOT the main information source for the average person, the main-stream media is. And by the way, I intend to watch Al Gore's movie so that I may take notes on the "evidence" watchers of this movie will use.

Make sure you check the works cited list.

I don't consider myself an "amateur on a physics forum," this forum is filled with intelligent people, and any person can be properly informed on current issues, INCLUDING this one. I will talk with as much authority as I choose to.

Fight the power!

It is not a challenge, just a request for something more than your opinion. Unless you are a credentialed climatologist your opinion is no better than the "average person"
NO! It is WHAT YOU KNOW that matters, not what credentials you have, not what degrees and what colleges you have attended. Those only bring you up, having a lack of them does not bring you down. And in the Earth forum it is easy to tell if somebody is "claiming" or "making an opinion." Claiming involves hypothesis, fact, truth, science. Opinion involves what you believe. A scientific claim can be that humans are burning fossil fuels which increase CO₂ concentration in the troposphere, and that may now to be causing a global warming of the atmosphere, land, ice, and oceans. Making an opinion is like "God is exists." They can both be backed up, and both me hit hard upon. But one is an opinion and one is a conjecture, hypothesis, or theory.

I look forward to seeing those "most likely" amounts of data.

Skyhunter, if you've ever browsed through the threads of the Earth section, you know that about half of us believe in the AGW, half of us don't, and a few seemingly linger in the middle. Data, charts, articles, studies have been presented in the Earth forum for years proving this.

You have not even seen the movie?

I guess not, since he said he didn't

Hmmm? Do you really think you are going to watch it with an open mind?

Same to you. Science is different from persuasion, demagoguery, and their brothers. In science you work with results, facts, data, and search for the truth. It is not a war, or a debate. It is a search for the truth.

 

[Mech_Engineer]

Very well then, it's time for round two. I have finished with work for a bit, collected my thoughts a bit. Shall we begin?

I agree, the media is the primary source of information for the "average person". However you should clarify what you mean by the term "main-stream".

Ok, very well then. "Main Stream" should be defined as the media a large portion of the U.S. population have easy access to, whether on T.V. (ABC, NBC, CNN, etc.) or magazine publications (such as Time, etc.). There, are we done mucking through simple semantics then?

It is not a challenge, just a request for something more than your opinion. Unless you are a credentialed climatologist your opinion is no better than the "average person"

What about your questioning of my supposed "expertise" on the subject?

This is a science forum. The rules are simple. If you make claims, provide sources to support and validate those claims.

I am eager to see the sources of such claims as:

"Global temperature changes seem to be largely INdependent of atmospheric CO2. There are examples of the temperature rising with no change in CO2 (pre-1940), and examples where CO2 levels rise while temperatures go into a cooling trend (1970-1980 I think, I'll look up the sources)."

I look forward to seeing those "most likely" amounts of data.

Let's tone down on the condescension there, Skyhunter. I don't remember hearing any of your credentials on the subject. This is just a conversation on a forum, credentials are unimportant in my opinion. I am more interested in keeping the conversation friendly, and I am more open to discussing opinions we have heard, data we have seen, etc.

Really?

You have not even seen the movie?

Yet you are such an expert.

Hmmm? Do you really think you are going to watch it with an open mind?

I wonder, is Al Gore's movie peer-reviewed? You put a large amount of faith in peer-reviewed articles or papers (as well you should, but WHAT do those reviews say, if they exist?) I think my point is clear here.

Make sure you check the works cited list.

First and foremost, watching Al Gore's movie sure as heck isn't going to make me an expert. Second, I am going to keep an eye out for sources and logical arguments, as well as calls to emotion and ad-hominem arguments (some of which you have fallen to yourself in this very conversation.) Do you really think that Al Gore MADE this movie with an open mind? Did YOU watch it with an open mind? Any one going into the movie will go in with certain pre-conceived notions, and that's the way it is.

Now then, to the data I promised you. I need to slightly revise my statements, here they are:

1) Much of temperature increases in the last century were before 1940, when CO2 could not have been a dominant factor.

2) CO2 levels seem largely INdependent of global temperature, as shown by the fact that CO2 levels increased from 1940 to 1970, but there was a mean cooling trend recorded.

Very well then, where can this be verified? Quite simple if you look around. This data has been published by NASA, and a quick search for CO2 levels and a temperature history will confirm my claims, both in the fact that about one-half of the warming occurred pre-1940, and that CO2 levels rose while temperature did not. These are powerful arguments used in "State of Fear," with sources clearly cited in the book.

Now then, one other thing:

So if you know of other peer reviewed scientific papers that disagree with the consensus position, please reference them and supply links. Otherwise your just blowing hot air and contributing to global warming.

WOAH, simmer down there. First, all it takes is a little searching and the opinions are easy to find. I would like to point you to a powerful online paper that will help you in your blind search for internet links (although it is important to note that most papers are not available in link form on the internet.)

http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

It's kind of a long read, but brings up a lot of good points.

Additionally, you might consider looking at this website:

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16260

It mentions all of the arguments against global warming covered in "State of Fear" and and says where these arguments are backed up by data.

Finally, there is a good list of scientific articles on the subject here, take a look if you have time.

http://www.globalwarming.org/science.php

Additionally, it would seem you are having trouble finding arguments against global warming. You might consider searching this very forum, I'm sure the intelligent people here have produced some convincing arguments for and against the topic, in previous threads.

There, I feel much better now.

 

[Amp1]

The info I would like to have has to do with glacier meltings/dissappearings
It is reported that glaciers are disappearing at an astonishing rate. For instance, Glacier National Park will have to be renamed soon.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/07/19/tech/main515653.shtml

http://www.terradaily.com/news/arctic-05i.html

http://www.china.org.cn/english/2002/Jun/33719.htm [/URL]

[PLAIN] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/08/0821_020821_wireglaciers.html [/URL]

[PLAIN] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/13/tech/main1391827.shtml [/URL]

This global loss of glaciers is probably one of the most compelling reasons to consider GW is happening and likely increasing. There is, I do not doubt, a threshold point where the temps could get chaotic/erractic and global thermal systems will go haywire.

 

[iansmith]

This thread has turn into a political subject rather than science. If you wish to continiue the thread go to P&WA forum