Global Warming

[yossarian22]

Um... yes, there is. It's not unanimous (nothing is), but there is majority consensus.

Scientific opinion on climate change - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The only thing proving consensus was Oreskes paper. That paper has flaws in it which I have pointed out. A more recent study reveals that the majority of scientists are neutral on the issue, and that belief in anthropogenic climate change is not the view held by the majority.

 

[lilithu]

The only thing proving consensus was Oreskes paper. That paper has flaws in it which I have pointed out. A more recent study reveals that the majority of scientists are neutral on the issue, and that belief in anthropogenic climate change is not the view held by the majority.

The thing that proves there's consensus is the numerous statements made by various academies of science saying that there is consensus.

 

[yossarian22]

The thing that proves there's consensus is the numerous statements made by various academies of science saying that there is consensus.

Do you realize how warped that is?
Oh Bush said that there were WMDs in Iraq, so I guess there must be.
There is no proof of a consensus anymore. Try another argument.

 

[camanintx]

Its totally natural. The earth has been warming since the end of the last ice age. Once it stops warming, we enter an ice age. I think we are overdue for one anyhow.

Further evidence that our actions are driving Earth's climate in a direction it wouldn't normally have gone.

The climate of earth has never been balanced and probably will never be balanced.

I never said it has been or ever will be balanced, but like all systems it always seeks balance. The question is whether our actions are forcing it in a direction that is capable of supporting life.

Considering that CO2 has never historically followed a rise in temperature (Volstok Ice core), it is highly unlikely that CO2 is the primary instigator of warming.

CO2 has never historically followed temperature?!? I think the Vostok ice core data shows differently.

While CO2 increases have normally followed temperature increases, humans have pushed CO2 levels far above where they've ever been in human history. Since the role of CO2 in the greenhouse effect is well understood, predictions of temperature increases over the next 100 years are fairly reliable.

Water Vapor and methane are far more effective greenhouse gases, but you don't hear people screaming about reducing methane emissions.

Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas, but it is also almost entirely natural so there is little we can do to influence its effects. While methane is about 20 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere there is about 200 times more CO2 in the atmosphere. If we want to make a difference, CO2 reduction gives us the most bang for our buck.

Do people realize how stupid it is to take a very small sample from a chaotic system and base policy off of it?

Not as stupid as waiting so long to collect more data that you don't have enough time to make a difference.

 

[Muffled]

Further evidence that our actions are driving Earth's climate in a direction it wouldn't normally have gone.


I never said it has been or ever will be balanced, but like all systems it always seeks balance. The question is whether our actions are forcing it in a direction that is capable of supporting life.


CO2 has never historically followed temperature?!? I think the Vostok ice core data shows differently.

While CO2 increases have normally followed temperature increases, humans have pushed CO2 levels far above where they've ever been in human history. Since the role of CO2 in the greenhouse effect is well understood, predictions of temperature increases over the next 100 years are fairly reliable.


Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas, but it is also almost entirely natural so there is little we can do to influence its effects. While methane is about 20 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere there is about 200 times more CO2 in the atmosphere. If we want to make a difference, CO2 reduction gives us the most bang for our buck.


Not as stupid as waiting so long to collect more data that you don't have enough time to make a difference.

Wow! I guess that means that there were millions of us 100,000 years ago spewing industrial waste into the atmosphere to get that spike. Scientists never seem to get things right. They thought you could heal a person by draining blood out of him. They thought the world was flat and that we were at the center of the Universe. The truth is more likely that we do not have as big an impact on our world as our huge egos think.

As for pole shift rather than rotational shift, it would not matter much either one could change seasons. However with polar shift one would expect a warming at the ice caps to be offset by colder temperatures where the new ice caps should be.

 

[Halcyon]

Not as stupid as waiting so long to collect more data that you don't have enough time to make a difference.

Unfortunately we are way past the point where we had a chance to reverse the effects through moderate means. Now the best we can do is come up with strategies to cope with a changing climate.

There are some very inventive "out-there" strategies for CO2 soaking that i've read about, they don't seem too practical and so i doubt how effective they may be, but i fully support any attempt to reduce the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere back to reasonable levels.

 

[painted wolf]

Wow! I guess that means that there were millions of us 100,000 years ago spewing industrial waste into the atmosphere to get that spike.

actually those have been traced to massive volcanic events. We haven't had a super-volcano go off in a while, so that cause is moot today.

Scientists never seem to get things right. They thought you could heal a person by draining blood out of him. They thought the world was flat and that we were at the center of the Universe. The truth is more likely that we do not have as big an impact on our world as our huge egos think.

Right... so I suppose you never go to the hospital then? Never take antibiotics?
I mean why trust those scientists at all?
Apparently the ego is more hurt by the idea that we are having an impact have to change our ways than the idea that we have no impact.
What give up my SUV? However shall I cope??

As for pole shift rather than rotational shift, it would not matter much either one could change seasons. However with polar shift one would expect a warming at the ice caps to be offset by colder temperatures where the new ice caps should be.

The magnetic pole doesn't determine the location of the ice caps. Global tilt determines that.
The magnetic pole is traveling right now, quite quickly in fact. It has been since we discovered it, and it will for the rest of its existance.
As for the magnetic flip... north becomes south and vice versa. It will have no impact on the ice caps.

wa:do

 

[logician]

"The truth is more likely that we do not have as big an impact on our world as our huge egos think. "

It has nothing to do with ego, but a lot to do with stupidity. We cannot control our emotional need to have it all now, with no thought for the future. Americans in particular still have not caught on generally that we are committing global suicide by our wasteful habits and wanton destruction of the ecology.

 

[yossarian22]

Further evidence that our actions are driving Earth's climate in a direction it wouldn't normally have gone.

Yes, but all means temperatures should be dropping. We are over due for an ice age I think.

CO2 has never historically followed temperature?!? I think the Vostok ice core data shows differently.

Whoops.
Thats what happens late atnight.
A rise in CO2 has never preceded a rise in temperatures. I have said that in more than a few threads.

While CO2 increases have normally followed temperature increases, humans have pushed CO2 levels far above where they've ever been in human history. Since the role of CO2 in the greenhouse effect is well understood, predictions of temperature increases over the next 100 years are fairly reliable.

Bull.
Our models have never been right. We can't even accurately predict the current climate, let alone one one hundred years from now.
No compelling arguments against the lag still. Its either, it reached this point, so it had to have an effect, or there were other factors.

While methane is about 20 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere there is about 200 times more CO2 in the atmosphere. If we want to make a difference, CO2 reduction gives us the most bang for our buck.

Methane is easier to reduce, and less costly. Bang for our buck? Is that what you call Kyoto? Hooray for lowering projected increases in temperatures by .025C, at costs estimated at 1 trillion USD. (probably better to measure in Canadian dollars now though)

Not as stupid as waiting so long to collect more data that you don't have enough time to make a difference.

Do you realize the problem with predicting even simple chaotic systems, let alone one with millions of variables, all of which effect each other?
Our models are utter garbage, and we cannot base global policy based off of them.

Assuming you are right, we can not make a difference. We would have to return to 1840 population levels. So about 5 out of 6 people in the world need to die.
Considering there is no proof that the warming would even be bad for us (Ice caps melting? Odd how Antarctica is bigger and is its ecosystems are having problems with cold), I see to reason to spend trillions on a problem that may not exist.

 

[yossarian22]

Here is a theory that says that North Atlantic Oscillation and Pacific Decadel Oscillation, El Nino, and the North Pacific Oscillation all attempt to seek balance with each other, and form pairs. The pairs cannot balance with each other without breaking apart, and they break apart trying. Temperature changes follow

 

[lilithu]

Do you realize how warped that is?
Oh Bush said that there were WMDs in Iraq, so I guess there must be.
There is no proof of a consensus anymore. Try another argument.

Umm... do you even understand the meaning of consensus?! :areyoucra

When all the scientific academies agree, that is a consensus.
When Bush says something and the rest of the world does not agree that is not a consensus.

 

[yossarian22]

Umm... do you even understand the meaning of consensus?! :areyoucra

When all the scientific academies agree, that is a consensus.

There is no consensus among scientists. It is highly doubtful that there ever was a consensus.

 

[MoonWater]

Umm... do you even understand the meaning of consensus?! :areyoucra

When all the scientific academies agree, that is a consensus.
When Bush says something and the rest of the world does not agree that is not a consensus.

But not all scientific academies do agree. In fact I'd even go so far as to say that there can never be agreement between ALL scientific academies. As a result we wouldn't get anywhere if we waited for ALL scientific academies to agree. I agree that the human race desperately needs to clean up it's act. And if whining about global warming, whether it's really happening or not, whether we are the cause or not, gets us to work harder at being more environmentally friendly then I could certainly live with that. In my opinion it shouldn't matter whether or not global warming is really happening or is really our fault. We should clean up after ourselves anyway.

 

[lilithu]

But not all scientific academies do agree.

Evidence, please. I know that there are individual scientists who don't agree but the consensus amongst the academies is overwhelming. Certainly all the major ones.

The idea that the scientific community as a whole has not made up its mind on this is flat out wrong.

 

[yossarian22]

Evidence, please. I know that there are individual scientists who don't agree but the consensus amongst the academies is overwhelming. Certainly all the major ones.

The idea that the scientific community as a whole has not made up its mind on this is flat out wrong.

I have already posted evidence. There is no consensus in the scientific community. If you want I will repost the links

 

[lilithu]

I have already posted evidence. There is no consensus in the scientific community. If you want I will repost the links

Oh bother. Consensus does not mean 100%. It means majority. You being able to find a few scientists who disagree does not constitute proof that there is no consensus. It's just proof that it's not unanimous, which no one ever claimed it was.

Whereas I've posted the link listing all of the academies who have publicly stated that they believe Global Climate Change is real and that human activity is the cause.

 

[yossarian22]

Oh bother. Consensus does not mean 100%. It means majority.

Did you bother to read what I posted?
There is no majority for either side. There is a paper saying this. The paper that said there was a majority has been debunked.
I will summarize for you

Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38 (7%) gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus [that humans have some effect on global climate change]. If one considers "implicit" endorsement (accepting the consensus without explicit statement), the figure rises to 45%. However, while only 32 papers (6%) reject the consensus outright, the largest category (48%) are neutral papers, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis.

On Oreskes paper being debunked. Replicated results found that
According to Oreskes, 75% of the 928 abstracts she analysed (i.e. 695) fell into these first three categories, "either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view". This claim is incorrect on two counts: My analysis shows that only 424 abstracts (or less than a third of the full data set) fall into these three categories.


The data used in these papers are different. The latter was from papers prior to 2004. The former is of papers from 2004 to now

 

[!Fluffy!]

Its totally natural. The earth has been warming since the end of the last ice age. Once it stops warming, we enter an ice age. I think we are overdue for one anyhow.

The climate of earth has never been balanced and probably will never be balanced.

Not only that, few laypeople understand the JUNK science that is climatology. Here are some snippets from a speech Michael Crichton (author of State of Fear) made to a Senate committee:

..."For a person with a medical background, accustomed to this degree of rigor in research (the double-blind), the protocols of climate science appear considerably more relaxed. In climate science, it's permissible for raw data to be "touched," or modified, by many hands. Gaps in temperature and proxy records are filled in. Suspect values are deleted because a scientist deems them erroneous. A researcher may elect to use parts of existing records, ignoring other parts. But the fact that the data has been modified in so many ways inevitably raises the question of whether the results of a given study are wholly or partially caused by the modifications themselves.

In saying this, I am not casting aspersions on the motives or fair-mindedness of climate scientists. Rather, what is at issue is whether the methodology of climate science is sufficiently rigorous to yield a reliable result. At the very least we should want the reassurance of independent verification by another lab, in which they make their own decisions about how to handle the data, and yet arrive at a similar result.

Because any study where a single team plans the research, carries it out, supervises the analysis, and writes their own final report, carries a very high risk of undetected bias. That risk, for example, would automatically preclude the validity of the results of a similarly structured study that tested the efficacy of a drug.

By the same token, any verification of the study by investigators with whom the researcher had a professional relationship-people with whom, for example, he had published papers in the past, would not be accepted. That's peer review by pals, and it's unavoidably biased. Yet these issues are central to the now-familiar story of the "Hockeystick graph" and the debate surrounding it.

To summarize it briefly: in 1998-99 the American climate researcher Michael Mann and his co-workers published an estimate of global temperatures from the year 1000 to 1980. Mann's results appeared to show a spike in recent temperatures that was unprecedented in the last thousand years. His alarming report formed the centerpiece of the U.N.'s Third Assessment Report, in 2001.

Mann's work was immediately criticized because it didn't show the well-known Medieval Warm Period, when temperatures were warmer than they are today, or the Little Ice Age that began around 1500, when the climate was colder than today. But real fireworks began when two Canadian researchers, McIntyre and McKitrick, attempted to replicate Mann's study. They found grave errors in the work, which they detailed in 2003: calculation errors, data used twice, data filled in, and a computer program that generated a hockeystick out of any data fed to it-even random data. Mann's work has since been dismissed by scientists around the world who subscribe to global warning.

Why did the UN accept Mann's report so uncritically? Why didn't they catch the errors? Because the IPCC doesn't do independent verification. And perhaps because Mann himself was in charge of the section of the report that included his work."

MichaelCrichton.com | Testimony before the United States Senate

Considering that CO2 has never historically followed a rise in temperature (Volstok Ice core), it is highly unlikely that CO2 is the primary instigator of warming. Water Vapor and methane are far more effective greenhouse gases, but you don't hear people screaming about reducing methane emissions.

Exactly.

Do people realize how stupid it is to take a very small sample from a chaotic system and base policy off of it?

Apparently not.

Read this and see if you agree: MichaelCrichton.com | Environmentalism as Religion

Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.

 

[lilithu]

from wiki:

Scientific consensus

Several scientific organizations have explicitly used the term "consensus" in their statements:

• American Association for the Advancement of Science: "The conclusions in this statement reflect the scientific consensus represented by, for example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the Joint National Academies' statement."
• US National Academy of Science: "In the judgment of most climate scientists, Earth’s warming in recent decades has been caused primarily by human activities that have increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. ... On climate change, [the National Academies’ reports] have assessed consensus findings on the science..."
• Joint Science Academies' statement, 2005: "We recognise the international scientific consensus of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)."
• Joint Science Academies' statement, 2001: "The work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) represents the consensus of the international scientific community on climate change science. We recognise IPCC as the world’s most reliable source of information on climate change and its causes, and we endorse its method of achieving this consensus."
• American Meteorological Society: "The nature of science is such that there is rarely total agreement among scientists. Individual scientific statements and papers—the validity of some of which has yet to be assessed adequately—can be exploited in the policy debate and can leave the impression that the scientific community is sharply divided on issues where there is, in reality, a strong scientific consensus. ...IPCC assessment reports are prepared at approximately five-year intervals by a large international group of experts who represent the broad range of expertise and perspectives relevant to the issues. The reports strive to reflect a consensus evaluation of the results of the full body of peer-reviewed research. ... They provide an analysis of what is known and not known, the degree of consensus, and some indication of the degree of confidence that can be placed on the various statements and conclusions."

Dissenting statements

With the release of the revised statement by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, no scientific bodies of national or international standing are known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate.


Statements by concurring organizations

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007
...human actions are "very likely" the cause of global warming, meaning a 90% or greater probability.

Joint science academies’ statement 2007
In preparation for the 2007 G8 summit, the national science academies of the G8+5 nations issued a declaration:
It is unequivocal that the climate is changing, and it is very likely that this is predominantly caused by the increasing human interference with the atmosphere. These changes will transform the environmental conditions on Earth unless counter-measures are taken.

Joint science academies’ statement 2005
In 2005 the national science academies of the G8 nations, plus Brazil, China and India, three of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the developing world, signed a statement on the global response to climate change. The statement stresses that the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action, and explicitly endorsed the IPCC consensus.

Joint science academies’ statement 2001
In 2001, following the publication of the IPCC Third Assessment Report, sixteen national science academies issued a joint statement explicitly acknowledging the IPCC position as representing the scientific consensus on climate change science.

U.S. National Research Council, 2001
In 2001 the Committee on the Science of Climate Change of the National Research Council:
The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities,

American Meteorological Society
The American Meteorological Society (AMS) statement adopted by their council in 2003 said:
There is now clear evidence that the mean annual temperature at the Earth's surface, averaged over the entire globe, has been increasing in the past 200 years. There is also clear evidence that the abundance of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased over the same period... Human activities have become a major source of environmental change.

American Geophysical Union
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) statement adopted by the society in 2003 affirms that rising levels of greenhouse gases will cause the global surface temperature to be warmer:
Human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate. These effects add to natural influences that have been present over Earth's history. Scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century.

American Institute of Physics
The Governing Board of the American Institute of Physics has endorsed a position statement on climate change adopted by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Council in December 2003.

American Astronomical Society
In endorsing the "Human Impacts on Climate" statement, the AAS recognizes the collective expertise of the AGU in scientific subfields central to assessing and understanding global change, and acknowledges the strength of agreement among our AGU colleagues that the global climate is changing and human activities are contributing to that change.

Federal Climate Change Science Program, 2006
The Federal Climate Change Science Program commissioned by the Bush administration in 2002 released:

Studies ... show clear evidence of human influences on the climate system (due to changes in greenhouse gases, aerosols, and stratospheric ozone). ... The observed patterns of change over the past 50 years cannot be explained by natural processes alone, nor by the effects of short-lived atmospheric constituents (such as aerosols and tropospheric ozone) alone.

American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science stated, "The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society."

Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London
The Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London stated, "We find that the evidence for human-induced climate change is now persuasive, and the need for direct action compelling."

Geological Society of America
"The Geological Society of America (GSA) supports the scientific conclusions that Earth’s climate is changing; the climate changes are due in part to human activities; and the probable consequences of the climate changes will be significant and blind to geopolitical boundaries.

American Chemical Society
The American Chemical Society stated, "There is now general agreement among scientific experts that the recent warming trend is real (and particularly strong within the past 20 years), that most of the observed warming is likely due to increased atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, and that climate change could have serious adverse effects by the end of this century.

Engineers Australia (The Institution of Engineers Australia)
"Engineers Australia believes that Australia must act swiftly and proactively in line with global expectations to address climate change as an economic, social and environmental risk...

 

[!Fluffy!]

Yes, consensus - the language of politics and religion, spoken by faithful adherents, grant-whores and pollsters.

let’s turn to the evidence, both graphic and verbal, for global warming. As most of you have heard many times, the consensus of climate scientists believes in global warming. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.

In the sixties and seventies the two major environmental concerns were overpopulation and global cooling. We were warned repeatedly that the world was rapidly heading into the next Ice Age, which combined with burgeoning population would spell worldwide disaster due to a mini ice age crop failure. By the 1980s there would be 60 million Americans dead or suffering from starvation (Paul Ehrlich aka Population Bomb, Professor of Population Studies in Biological Sciences at Stanford University). We grew up on Rachel Carson (whose shoddy BS "research" has cost millions of lives) and Paul Population Bomb Ehrlich. According to them and the scientific consensus community, half of the world's species would be extinct and the world would run out of fossil fuels well before most RFers were even born. But of course we wouldn't care, because most of us would be dead or starving.

Why do you think so many bright young academics dropped out of college and pursued libertine lifestyles? We were doomed. If the bomb or the draft didn't get you, Paul and Rachel had you convinced what world was left wouldn't be worth living in anyway. Given the choices, is it any wonder dope became the religion of choice?

----------------------------------

In the first Earth Day in 1970, UC Davis’s Kenneth Watt said, “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age.” International Wildlife warned “a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war” as a threat to mankind. Science Digest said “we must prepare for the next ice age.” The Christian Science Monitor noted that armadillos had moved out of Nebraska because it was too cold, glaciers had begun to advance, and growing seasons had shortened around the world. Newsweek reported "ominous signs" of a "fundamental change in the world’s weather."

"But in fact, every one of these statements was wrong. Fears of an ice age had vanished within five years, to be replaced by fears of global warming. These fears were heightened because population was exploding. By 1995, it was 5.7 billion, up 10% in the last five years.​

Back in the 90s, if someone said to you, "This population explosion is overstated. In the next hundred years, population will actually decline." That would contradict what all the environmental groups were saying, what the UN was saying. You would regard such a statement as outrageous.​

More or less as you would regard a statement by someone in 2005 that global warming has been overstated.​

But in fact, we now know that the hypothetical person in 1995 was right. And we know that there was strong evidence that this was the case going back for twenty years. We just weren’t told about that contradictory evidence, because the conventional wisdom, awesome in its power, kept it from us."​

MichaelCrichton.com | The Case for Skepticism on Global Warming

It's a good solid case, and presents a more rational scientific approach to statistical data analysis for anyone who wants to exercise their brain and try thinking outside of the box. (Alternatively, there are plenty of dry, boring scientific papers and websites offering solid research and facts ignored by most global warming devotees.)