New Global Warming Facts

[natty dread]

If the many worlds theory is true, and there is an infinite number of alternate realities, somewhere out there is an alternate reality where Nobunaga's posts actually make sense.

[Neoteny]

Simple fact: the number of climate scientists who recognize the reality of global warming far outnumber those who don't. That carries much more weight than your chemists and engineers; though, if we're including all scientific fields, most scientists are still going to fall in with the consensus. One can talk us vs. them all one wants, but there is no equivalence, either in number or in data quality, on the two sides of this issue. Anyone claiming otherwise is outright lying. Intellectually dishonesty at it's nastiest.

[Woodruff]

If the many worlds theory is true, and there is an infinite number of alternate realities, somewhere out there is an alternate reality where Nobunaga's posts actually make sense.

I've known pimpdave, sir. And let me tell you...Nobunaga is no pimpdave.

[natty dread]

If the many worlds theory is true, and there is an infinite number of alternate realities, somewhere out there is an alternate reality where Nobunaga's posts actually make sense.

I've known pimpdave, sir. And let me tell you...Nobunaga is no pimpdave.

If the many worlds theory is true, and there is an infinite number of alternate realities, somewhere out there is an alternate reality where Pimpdave's posts actually make sense.

[Lootifer]

Isn't most of the wealth transfer in carbon trading going to be Private Corporation -> Private Corporation? How do you figure this whole government "windfall" thing?

[PLAYER57832]

Feel free to respond, but please don't waste our time with "scientific data". I won't believe yours and you won't believe mine.

Outstanding.

That has got to be a logical fallacy of some sort.

It is what happens when teaching science is no longer a priority in US schools.. and when attempts to truly teach it are repeatedly stonewalled or derailed by "concerned citizens" who seem to think all scientists are in collusion to refute religion or destroy business.

... yada yada yada. You got your scientists, with their doctorate degrees and I have mine, with theirs. That is my point.

Nope, because ours actually have degrees in the subjects they proffer opinions upon.

... You can post your hockey stick charts and I will refute.

Yeah, some people still say the Earth is flat... and claim they have proof, too. Doesn't mean its scientifically provable.

You can speak of our education system being derailed by ignorant religious cons and I will point out to you that turning carbon into cash would be the biggest windfall for government in history... back and forth...

Who might or might not benefit is irrelevant to whether a fact is true.

... I don't want to argue religion with you. Keep yours, I already have mine.

Religion is fine.. until it claims to put forward scientific data that just isn't either scientifically based or even factual.

And remember this.. most religions don't encourage lies. So, why do the refuters of science find it necessary to lie?

[DiM]

in 20 years our kids will be concerned with global cooling and alarmists will claim an ice age is minutes away.
in 40 years we'll probably be back to global warming.
in 60 years we'll find some other sensational crap to worry about.

[Neoteny]

in 20 years our kids will be concerned with global cooling and alarmists will claim an ice age is minutes away.
in 40 years we'll probably be back to global warming.
in 60 years we'll find some other sensational crap to worry about.

Remember that time when the scientific consensus was sure the earth was cooling? Oh yeah, me neither, because it never happened. Remember that time the media was completely wrong about science? Yeah. That happens all the time.

[Nobunaga]

Isn't most of the wealth transfer in carbon trading going to be Private Corporation -> Private Corporation? How do you figure this whole government "windfall" thing?

... No, the tax is paid to government. A tax on electricity use, actually, is how it will be handled after companies using dirty fuels are recognized, categorized, et...

... Corporations can make money on the deal by selling off their "carbon credits" (if they used less than would have been "evil and irresponsible") through carbon brokerages. The brokerages will make huge profits.

...

[Nobunaga]

Outstanding.

That has got to be a logical fallacy of some sort.

It is what happens when teaching science is no longer a priority in US schools.. and when attempts to truly teach it are repeatedly stonewalled or derailed by "concerned citizens" who seem to think all scientists are in collusion to refute religion or destroy business.

... yada yada yada. You got your scientists, with their doctorate degrees and I have mine, with theirs. That is my point.

Nope, because ours actually have degrees in the subjects they proffer opinions upon.

... You can post your hockey stick charts and I will refute.

Yeah, some people still say the Earth is flat... and claim they have proof, too. Doesn't mean its scientifically provable.

You can speak of our education system being derailed by ignorant religious cons and I will point out to you that turning carbon into cash would be the biggest windfall for government in history... back and forth...

Who might or might not benefit is irrelevant to whether a fact is true.

... I don't want to argue religion with you. Keep yours, I already have mine.

Religion is fine.. until it claims to put forward scientific data that just isn't either scientifically based or even factual.
And remember this.. most religions don't encourage lies. So, why do the refuters of science find it necessary to lie?

... By "religion", I'm referencing your zeal with regard to global warming. And the portion in bold above, funny, I agree with this, especially as it pertains to your zeal with regard to the subject.

...

[GreecePwns]

I think we can all agree that we need to begin a move to alternative energy and we need to do it now. And we start by removing all oil subsidies (to dream...) and shifting them to hydro and solar based energy.

And that's how you win the future, Obama.

[DiM]

Remember that time when the scientific consensus was sure the earth was cooling? Oh yeah, me neither, because it never happened.

remember when you were wrong? i do. it just happened.

median temperatures on earth were dropping from ~1940 to ~1970 and the scientists agreed on this.

Remember that time the media was completely wrong about science? Yeah. That happens all the time.

true. that happens all the time. just like the media manufactured the ice age from the 70. just like it is exaggerating now with the global warming, just as it will always try and panic the population.

[Nobunaga]

in 20 years our kids will be concerned with global cooling and alarmists will claim an ice age is minutes away.
in 40 years we'll probably be back to global warming.
in 60 years we'll find some other sensational crap to worry about.

Remember that time when the scientific consensus was sure the earth was cooling? Oh yeah, me neither, because it never happened. Remember that time the media was completely wrong about science? Yeah. That happens all the time.

... An article from Time, circa June, 1974:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 14,00.html

... From the article:
As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.

... ICE AGE??!! OMG!!

... The scientific community was convinced. It didn't happen.

... The cooling scare of the 70's and the present warming scare show us well enough that climate science is indeed in its infancy. Basing huge policy change on it is at best irresponsible, at worst it is criminal.

... Oh, another "Ice Age is coming article from Newsweek, 1975:

http://www.denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm

[Neoteny]

Remember that time when the scientific consensus was sure the earth was cooling? Oh yeah, me neither, because it never happened.

remember when you were wrong? i do. it just happened.

median temperatures on earth were dropping from ~1940 to ~1970 and the scientists agreed on this.

Sure, but there was no consensus that this was a permanent trend. Indeed, many papers were beginning to express concern over warming, but you're too willing to be spoon-fed nonsense to even know how to verify that.

Remember that time the media was completely wrong about science? Yeah. That happens all the time.

true. that happens all the time. just like the media manufactured the ice age from the 70. just like it is exaggerating now with the global warming, just as it will always try and panic the population.

What sort of fuckwit nonsense is this? The media is so overwhelmed by "teach the controversy" crap these days that you have to actually go to scientific journals themselves to see what actual science says on any given issue. To say the media is exaggerating global warming is an aneurism of logical thought. Wink away, and let the real scientists figure this stuff out.

[jimboston]

Here are some simple facts.

1) NO ONE knows if "global warming" really happening or not... we have only a fraction of the data we need to understand this. Anyone who claims to KNOW is full of shit.

2) Even if the world is warming up... NO ONE knows if we (humans) are causing it... or if it is part of some larger cycle that we have very-little or no effect on.

3) We (humans) can and do impact our environment on a local / regional level. We can pollute rivers and create smog. These things ARE bad and we should take measures to stop or limit these things.

4) When we do pollute or otherwise impact our environment, the Earth has shown great potential to bounce back.

5) Reducing our dependency on fossil fuels is probably a good thing for a variety of reasons (even if you exclude the global warming argument). I support researching better and more efficient ways to get us the energy we need.

6) Please don't site local instances of population displacement as "proof" of global warming. There are many places were people have lived (or live now), where the Earth has (or is) "telling us" that those places are not suitable for the type of development / population that currently lives there. These reasons are unrelated to global warming.
-> Greenland... the vikings settled here thinking it was a nice place. Later the weather returned to its' more-typical colder norm and the settlement failed.
-> The American Southwest is dry... in now "appears" the past couple hundred years have been wetter than "typical". It's likely the American Southwest will not support the current population levels.
-> New Orleans should be allowed to fall into the ocean. Fighting mother-nature to keep it is a waste of money.
-> The Mississippi Valley is a flood plain. The reason it is so fertile is because it's a flood plain. Cities should not be built on flood plains. The land should be farmed... structures should be raised... and there should be much fewer people living there.

These are all local / regional issues... they do NOT prove "global warming".

(Yes most of my examples are US based... but I bet other people here can give us other examples.)

[jimboston]

Oh BTW... some scientists theorize that "global warming" could cause an ice-age.

[Neoteny]

in 20 years our kids will be concerned with global cooling and alarmists will claim an ice age is minutes away.
in 40 years we'll probably be back to global warming.
in 60 years we'll find some other sensational crap to worry about.

Remember that time when the scientific consensus was sure the earth was cooling? Oh yeah, me neither, because it never happened. Remember that time the media was completely wrong about science? Yeah. That happens all the time.

... An article from Time, circa June, 1974:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 14,00.html

... From the article:
As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.

... ICE AGE??!! OMG!!

... The scientific community was convinced. It didn't happen.

... The cooling scare of the 70's and the present warming scare show us well enough that climate science is indeed in its infancy. Basing huge policy change on it is at best irresponsible, at worst it is criminal.

... Oh, another "Ice Age is coming article from Newsweek, 1975:

http://www.denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm

Lol I like how you cited the media to refute my statements. Ironic... Clueless...

[Neoteny]

Here are some simple facts.

1) NO ONE knows if "global warming" really happening or not... we have only a fraction of the data we need to understand this. Anyone who claims to KNOW is full of shit.

2) Even if the world is warming up... NO ONE knows if we (humans) are causing it... or if it is part of some larger cycle that we have very-little or no effect on.

3) We (humans) can and do impact our environment on a local / regional level. We can pollute rivers and create smog. These things ARE bad and we should take measures to stop or limit these things.

4) When we do pollute or otherwise impact our environment, the Earth has shown great potential to bounce back.

5) Reducing our dependency on fossil fuels is probably a good thing for a variety of reasons (even if you exclude the global warming argument). I support researching better and more efficient ways to get us the energy we need.

6) Please don't site local instances of population displacement as "proof" of global warming. There are many places were people have lived (or live now), where the Earth has (or is) "telling us" that those places are not suitable for the type of development / population that currently lives there. These reasons are unrelated to global warming.
-> Greenland... the vikings settled here thinking it was a nice place. Later the weather returned to its' more-typical colder norm and the settlement failed.
-> The American Southwest is dry... in now "appears" the past couple hundred years have been wetter than "typical". It's likely the American Southwest will not support the current population levels.
-> New Orleans should be allowed to fall into the ocean. Fighting mother-nature to keep it is a waste of money.
-> The Mississippi Valley is a flood plain. The reason it is so fertile is because it's a flood plain. Cities should not be built on flood plains. The land should be farmed... structures should be raised... and there should be much fewer people living there.

These are all local / regional issues... they do NOT prove "global warming".

(Yes most of my examples are US based... but I bet other people here can give us other examples.)

No one knows how people can be so obtuse. None of those are cited as proof of global warming. None of those touches the causes of global warming. Those are all possible symptoms, but using them in such an evasive manner, though effective, is misleading and disgusting.

Also, numbers 1 and 2 are blatantly false.

[radiojake]

I don't think 'climate change' is as important as it is made out to be - We definately have to fundamently change the way our economy is set up (based on over-exploitation of land and the continual use of finite resources as if they were infinite), i think this is a bigger concern than climate change --

New taxes wont solve anything like this, it will just give the impression of 'doing something' without anything really been done -

[patches70]

Wow, we human beings can be responsible for actually affecting the Earth's temperature. We cause it to go down or up. So awesome!

I bet we could other things as well. Maybe if we can get every single person on the planet to jump up and down at the same time we might be able to knock the Earth out of orbit! Sort of like that Senator what's his name who thought if you put too many people on an island we would tip it over and sink it.

Hey! Can we humans cause the hurricanes to stay away from our shores?

Can we keep a tsunami from slamming into the beach?

Can we make a tornado quit blowing? Or make it go in a direction we want?

I mean, if we can control the global temps, then we can surely do all those other thing, right?


Now, Descartes showed us that we can't ever know much of anything for certain. It all comes down to varying degrees of faith. So it is that global warming is a type of religion. In so much that the proponents believe what they think is true even though it can't be proven without a doubt. Just like any other God fearing religious type believes in Heaven and Hell.

I think it would do humanity good to organize every man, woman and child on the planet to on a certain day, have everyone face East and run in place. Slow the Earth's spin and thus increase the length of the day so that we all have a little bit more time to do the things we like to do but run out of time.

Seems like a good plan!

[Doc_Brown]

On Global Cooling Predictions
It is a myth that there was any sort of consensus in the 1970s that global cooling was in effect. In fact, a survey of the literature found 7 scientific papers from 1965 to 1979 that predicted global cooling. In that same period, there were 44 papers that predicted global warming and 20 that were neutral.
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2008/10/global-cooling-was-a-myth.html
The full study is available here:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1
Yes there were alarmist Time and Newsweek articles that radically misrepresented what the scientists were actually saying. I am a scientist, and I see this all the time. The article cited in the OP is another good example of this. The authors of the original study more or less came to the conclusion that the models predicting the amount of heat being trapped by the atmosphere may not be entirely correct. Other climatologists are saying that their methodology is flawed and their approach is not repeatable (a hallmark of good science). Yet the news article basically hails this paper as the wooden stake in the heart of global warming. Never trust a news publication's spin on any supposed groundbreaking scientific paper until you've read and understood the paper itself, or at the very least, peer-level commentary on it.

On the increase in Antarctic Ice
It is true that the total size of the Antarctic ice sheet has roughly maintained its size and partially offsets the melting of the Arctic ice cap. But there's a lot more to it. The main land mass of Antarctica has cooled over the last decade or so, but the Antarctic Peninsula has actually warmed, leading to the loss of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in 2002, an ice sheet that is believed to have been stable for 12,000 years. Clearly there is more to this story!

It turns out that Antarctica is surrounded by a rather strong circumpolar atmospheric vortex that largely isolates the Antarctica climate from that of the rest of the globe. The Antarctic Peninsula extends outside that vortex, allowing it to experience the climate changes affecting the Arctic. The cooling trend is believed to be related to the ozone hole. If the vortex weakens or the ozone hole closes up, it is expected that the Antarctic climate will catch up with trends experienced elsewhere on the planet.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1178

2010-2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?

The pace of extreme weather events has remained remarkably high during 2011, giving rise to the question--is the "Global Weirding" of 2010 and 2011 the new normal? Has human-caused climate change destabilized the climate, bringing these extreme, unprecedented weather events? Any one of the extreme weather events of 2010 or 2011 could have occurred naturally sometime during the past 1,000 years. But it is highly improbable that the remarkable extreme weather events of 2010 and 2011 could have all happened in such a short period of time without some powerful climate-altering force at work. The best science we have right now maintains that human-caused emissions of heat-trapping gases like CO2 are the most likely cause of such a climate-altering force.

from: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1831

[Lootifer]

in 20 years our kids will be concerned with global cooling and alarmists will claim an ice age is minutes away.
in 40 years we'll probably be back to global warming.
in 60 years we'll find some other sensational crap to worry about.

Remember that time when the scientific consensus was sure the earth was cooling? Oh yeah, me neither, because it never happened. Remember that time the media was completely wrong about science? Yeah. That happens all the time.

... An article from Time, circa June, 1974:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 14,00.html

... From the article:
As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.

... ICE AGE??!! OMG!!

... The scientific community was convinced. It didn't happen.

... The cooling scare of the 70's and the present warming scare show us well enough that climate science is indeed in its infancy. Basing huge policy change on it is at best irresponsible, at worst it is criminal.

... Oh, another "Ice Age is coming article from Newsweek, 1975:

http://www.denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm

Linear extrapolation = modern scientific modeling?

[Neoteny]

On Global Cooling Predictions
It is a myth that there was any sort of consensus in the 1970s that global cooling was in effect. In fact, a survey of the literature found 7 scientific papers from 1965 to 1979 that predicted global cooling. In that same period, there were 44 papers that predicted global warming and 20 that were neutral.
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2008/10/global-cooling-was-a-myth.html
The full study is available here:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1
Yes there were alarmist Time and Newsweek articles that radically misrepresented what the scientists were actually saying. I am a scientist, and I see this all the time. The article cited in the OP is another good example of this. The authors of the original study more or less came to the conclusion that the models predicting the amount of heat being trapped by the atmosphere may not be entirely correct. Other climatologists are saying that their methodology is flawed and their approach is not repeatable (a hallmark of good science). Yet the news article basically hails this paper as the wooden stake in the heart of global warming. Never trust a news publication's spin on any supposed groundbreaking scientific paper until you've read and understood the paper itself, or at the very least, peer-level commentary on it.

On the increase in Antarctic Ice
It is true that the total size of the Antarctic ice sheet has roughly maintained its size and partially offsets the melting of the Arctic ice cap. But there's a lot more to it. The main land mass of Antarctica has cooled over the last decade or so, but the Antarctic Peninsula has actually warmed, leading to the loss of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in 2002, an ice sheet that is believed to have been stable for 12,000 years. Clearly there is more to this story!

It turns out that Antarctica is surrounded by a rather strong circumpolar atmospheric vortex that largely isolates the Antarctica climate from that of the rest of the globe. The Antarctic Peninsula extends outside that vortex, allowing it to experience the climate changes affecting the Arctic. The cooling trend is believed to be related to the ozone hole. If the vortex weakens or the ozone hole closes up, it is expected that the Antarctic climate will catch up with trends experienced elsewhere on the planet.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1178

2010-2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?

The pace of extreme weather events has remained remarkably high during 2011, giving rise to the question--is the "Global Weirding" of 2010 and 2011 the new normal? Has human-caused climate change destabilized the climate, bringing these extreme, unprecedented weather events? Any one of the extreme weather events of 2010 or 2011 could have occurred naturally sometime during the past 1,000 years. But it is highly improbable that the remarkable extreme weather events of 2010 and 2011 could have all happened in such a short period of time without some powerful climate-altering force at work. The best science we have right now maintains that human-caused emissions of heat-trapping gases like CO2 are the most likely cause of such a climate-altering force.

from: http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1831

Note: Nobunaga will not accept "your science." He only accepts opinions that have been properly vetted for consistency with his worldview.

[PLAYER57832]

On Global Cooling Predictions
It is a myth that there was any sort of consensus in the 1970s that global cooling was in effect.

What I found amazing was the reference to the 1970's.... I thought we were now in 2011???? So the assertion is that no new developments have occurred in over 40 years?

And why doesn't anyone want to understand that global warming initially cuases increased snow and in some cases, mini ice ages? (due mostly to shifting ocean currents).

[oVo]

Effects of Global Warming?

August 1st and it's already the second hottest summer of record in Texas and likely to become the first before it's over, since this is the start of the Lone Star State's hot month. The remnants of a tropical depression just blew through last weekend and brought no rain. In fact I haven't seen any rain since early May.

I'm guessing many mid-western states will also set record highs this summer.