Dinosaur Farts == Global Warming

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

http://news.yahoo.com/gas-dinosaur-flatulence-may-warmed-earth-160634516.html

Kinda funny.....

[salsashark]

...never trust a fart

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

...never trust a fart
Hah! And never trust an OLD fart either! :)

[Zach929rr]

Came expecting franks conservative denial of global warming.

Left disappointed.

[#1Townie]

So see its the meat eaters that have been trying to save the planet the whole time.

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

Came expecting franks conservative denial of global warming.

Left disappointed.
Yes, the Left is always disappointing, isn't it? :)

That's why it's called the global warming THEORY. It still has not been established as fact, and, in fact, there are huge holes in the pro argument. Little things like, oh, improper placement of the thermometers which gave false high readings.

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

So see its the meat eaters that have been trying to save the planet the whole time.
Hah! Now THAT's comedy! friggin' vegetarians...

[vort3xr6]

manbearpig.jpg.

Want to hear a joke?

Global Warming.

Ba dum tchhsssshhhhhhhhhhhh

[#1Townie]

Oh fuck manbearpig. Im out.

[mdub]

my shed is almost full of jar farts.

[modette99]

Yes, the Left is always disappointing, isn't it? :)

That's why it's called the global warming THEORY. It still has not been established as fact, and, in fact, there are huge holes in the pro argument. Little things like, oh, improper placement of the thermometers which gave false high readings.

Not long ago we were in Global Cooling...LOL We would all freeze to death *roll my eyes*

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

Not long ago we were in Global Cooling...LOL We would all freeze to death *roll my eyes*
Yep. Ecological fearmongering for profit, it's an old liberal tradition. I remember as a kid the big global cooling scare that had a bunch of hippies demonstrating in front of our grade school scaring all the kids........ The Gore-Bot and his cronies all made out like bandits on this "inconvenient" fantasy, didn't they?

[#1Townie]

Nope.

[Ghost]

Yep. Ecological spin-mongering for profit, it's an old rightwing tradition. I remember as a kid there were dinosaurs running around, and the liberal caveman hippies all said they were going to die off, but none of us believed it because our brains not evolved yet. Now it's all about money, and no one wants to spend any to protect something called "the environment" since it's not like we need it anyway. Them Big Brains who evolved past us cromags think something coming, but me not think so. Me big expert on everything. Me big man. Tiny pee-pee but big, hairy man. Me like other men. Me like elk too. Back in my day we used to fuck elk, now libtards say fucking elk bad. Say fucking dead elk worse, but me like to fuck elk, dead or not dead. Someday world get all fucked up, and me be proven wrong, but at least me not spend money to fix problems since money worth more than clean air. Me can breathe and eat money. Me have another elk fantasy, me have to go rub one out.

Fixed.

[grim]

Trolled.

Fixed

[mauser72]

Gravity is also a theory not proven so I think its a giant conspiracy to keep us on this planet

[Ghosty]

Fixed.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v231/SpectralCat/Emoticons/rofl.gif

I don't care WHICH side you're on, that shit there's effing genius, EPIC funny!!!


I remember as a kid the big global cooling scare...
When the hell was this? I don't remember any global cooling scare, lol...

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v231/SpectralCat/Emoticons/rofl.gif

I don't care WHICH side you're on, that shit there's effing genius, EPIC funny!!!


When the hell was this? I don't remember any global cooling scare, lol...
Yeah, too bad he can't get a job writing humor, eh?

[grim]

Yeah, too bad he can't get a job writing humor, eh?

I didn't know you were Canadian.

[Snowman]

Perception of climate change (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/07/30/1205276109.full.pdf)

“Climate dice,” describing the chance of unusually warm or cool seasons, have become more and more “loaded” in the past 30 y, coincident with rapid global warming. The distribution of seasonal mean temperature anomalies has shifted toward higher temperatures and the range of anomalies has increased.

An important change is the emergence of a category of summertime extremely hot outliers, more than three standard deviations (3σ) warmer than the climatology of the 1951–1980 base period. This hot extreme, which covered much less than 1% of Earth’s surface during the base period, now typically covers about 10% of the land area.

It follows that we can state, with a high degree of confidence, that extreme anomalies such as those in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 were a consequence of global warming because their likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small. We discuss practical implications of this substantial, growing, climate change.

The greatest barrier to public recognition of human-made climate change is probably the natural variability of local climate. How can a person discern long-term climate change, given the notorious variability of local weather and climate from day to day and year to year?

This question assumes great practical importance because of the need for the public to appreciate the significance of humanmade global arming. Actions to stem emissions of the gases that cause global warming are unlikely to approach what is needed until the public recognizes that human-made climate change is underway and perceives that it will have unacceptable consequences if ffective actions are not taken to slow the climate change. A recent survey in the United States (1) confirms that public opinion about the existence and importance of global warming depends strongly on their perceptions of recent local climate variations.

[Ghosty]

Thx Snowman...

http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/funny-pictures-global-warming-polar-bear.jpg

[rforsythe]

Randall, stop throwing science into this debate.

[#1Townie]

This was a debate? Im lost.

[Ghost]

July 2012 was officially not only the warmest July on record, but also the warmest month ever recorded for the lower 48 states, according to a report released Wednesday by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html). The average temperature for the month came in at 77.6°F overall, which is 3.3°F higher than the 20th-century average, and 0.2°F warmer than the previous hottest month on record, which was July 1936, way back in the Dust Bowl era (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl).

It wasn’t just that July was a single record month: the 12 months ending with July was the warmest such period since modern recordkeeping began in 1895, and the January-July 2012 period was also the warmest on record.

The National Climatic Data Center also looked at precipitation: the average for July was 2.57 inches, which was 0.19 inches below average. That may not sound like much of a shortfall, but the nation’s midsection experienced near-record dryness.

Overall, the so-called drought footprint for the states, excluding Alaska and Hawaii, covered nearly 63 percent of the total land area, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor (http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/). The drought is the most widespread and intense drought since at least 1956, and is expected to cost billions in damage to agricultural interests, as what was expected to be a bumper corn crop withered under unrelenting heat and dry conditions.

Extreme weather continued to plague the nation as well. The U.S. Climate Extremes Index (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/cei/), which keeps track of the highest and lowest extremes in temperatures, precipitation, and other events, stood at a record 46 percent for the period January-July, 2012, which is twice the average. That means that nearly half the country was affected by extreme weather conditions during the period. The record (42 percent) was last set in 1934 — again, during the Dust Bowl.

Much of the explanation for the currently high index is due to very warm daytime temperatures and warm overnight temperatures across a record-large area of the nation. The overnight warmth is what distinguishes July, 2012 from July, 1936. "In 1936," said NOAA scientist Jake Crouch in an interview, "the record was driven primarily by high daytime temperatures." In both cases, the daytime highs were driven in part by drought: when the soil is wet, said Crouch, "solar energy goes into evaporating moisture." When it's dry, the same energy goes into raising the thermometer.

Warm overnights, however, don't have much to do with soil moisture, so they're a more robust signal that the planet is warming overall. They're also more dangerous than daytime heat. "Cooler temperatures at night let our bodies recover," said Crouch.

As Climate Central reported yesterday (http://www.climatecentral.org/news/more-record-highs-during-2012-so-far-than-all-of-2011-14768/), record daily high temperatures through August 5 of this year have already eclipsed the number of record daily highs set during all of 2011, a remarkable feat.

Some of the other highlights in the report:
— The largest departures from average temperatures occurred across most of the Plains, the Midwest and along the Eastern Seaboard.
— July temperatures in 32 states were among the top 10 on record. Seven had their second-warmest temperatures, and Virginia had its warmest July.
— Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri had precipitation totals among the 10 lowest on record. These states include some of the nation’s prime cropland; a broader swath of agricultural states known as the Primary Corn and Soybean Agricultural Belt (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=pcp&month=04&year=2003&filter=2&state=260&div=00), had its eighth driest July, third driest June-July, and sixth driest April-July (which covers the entire growing season so far) on record.
— July’s heat and dryness created ideal conditions for wildfires, and more than 2 million acres burned during July, nearly 30 percent above average.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/hottest-month-on-record-july-2012_n_1756217.html


Maybe Curiosity will find us all a nice place to live on Mars...

[#1Townie]

Na im going to move under the ocean.

[Snowman]

http://i1.cpcache.com/product/105569254/long_sleeve_tshirt.jpg?color=White&height=460&width=460

[FZjake719]

How can a person discern long-term climate change, given the notorious variability of local weather and climate from day to day and year to year?


How can a person automaically think it's anything OTHER than what the earth has been doing for the millions and millions of years it's already been around?

Remember those little things called "ice ages", and the whole "continent formation/shifts"? Think that suddenly STOPPED? :silly:

Am I saying it isnt a possibility? No, not even close. I'm just a little more inclined to believe the world goes through temperature fluctuations on its own, as it has for the last few million years or so, than I am to believe speculation based on what, 35-40 years of research?

Seems a lil thin, dont you think? That's like saying that "one time" you couldnt get it up is going to happen more and more, unless you take viagra.... Well, maybe that isnt the best example....

[Snowman]

The difference this time the the rate of change. An Ice Age takes several thousand years to go from one extreme to another. This change is happening in hundreds of years (a 10 fold increase.) That is what hasn't been seen before.

[FZjake719]

I dont understand that, really. Especially considering they find frozen remains of prehistoric creaturs and plants/etc, suggesting a very rapid freeze occured....

I dont know, just my .02 I suppose.

In reality, I think it's just the nature of the beast. There is ALWAYS going to be some sort of "end of the world" theory, always. It's how we get people to fear the unknown and behave...lol

[#1Townie]

What about the little ice age? Didnt that come and go kind of fast? A few hundred years?

[dirkterrell]

The difference this time the the rate of change.

I previously looked into this using ice core data going back thousands of years and showed that it was false. Unfortunately the post where I described the results was lost in the Great CSC Disk Crash, so I'll have to go back and look at my files on it again, but here was the plot I posted:

http://www.boulder.swri.edu/%7Eterrell/images/gw_temp_derivative.gif

[rforsythe]

If you can understand english and science at a 9th grade level, read the entire PDF Randall linked to. There are pictures, it will be ok.

[Ghosty]

I'll attempt to break down why I think there will never be a winner/loser or way to prove your side is correct, in THIS debate:

1.) The anti group (mostly conservatives) thinks there is no way to prove this isn't a normal cycle but in geological time-frames. Millennia (not just centuries) that is almost beyond the capability of a human brain to grasp. All scientists and teachers are (like Obama), "professorial intellectual elitist commies", so cannot be trusted. We'd be warming up regardless of human activity, and you can't prove them wrong, haha. The've (supposedly) debunked everything Al Gore tries to feed the public.

2.) The pro climate-change group has tons of data collected worldwide by accurate instruments and groups of researchers linked by network collaborating and coming up with mounting evidence in their favor. Temperature changes ARE occurring, the arctic shelf IS MELTING, the PolarBears ARE running out of landmass to survive. HUGE pieces of glacial ice are dropping off in record sizes. Same thing in Antarctica. Ocean levels ARE rising, even if it's just inches, it means something, something important that needs to be addressed. Even if "Inconvient Truth" has a GOP website debunking it, actually most of it is credible and true.

So, the only question which is virtually impossible to answer, is whether it's just normal naturally occurring cycles over thousands of years, both up and down, and would happen even without human causes, greenhouse gases, etc. OR is it a direct result of greenhouse gases increasing and insulating our climate. This isn't just bad timing for our geologically-tiny period of human existance (5k-6k years or whatever it is).


The difference this time the the rate of change. An Ice Age takes several thousand years to go from one extreme to another. This change is happening in hundreds of years (a 10 fold increase.) That is what hasn't been seen before.
+1

[#1Townie]

If you can understand english and science at a 9th grade level, read the entire PDF Randall linked to. There are pictures, it will be ok.
Well im fd. I need pop ups.

[Snowman]

Eat them quick, they are melting too....

[mdub]

same here:


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GmncKaz7hhE/TpMUg5MheaI/AAAAAAAAATg/Duf_ZrrOGjE/s1600/Skeleton.JPG

[Snowman]

I previously looked into this using ice core data going back thousands of years and showed that it was false. Unfortunately the post where I described the results was lost in the Great CSC Disk Crash, so I'll have to go back and look at my files on it again, but here was the plot I posted:

http://www.boulder.swri.edu/%7Eterrell/images/gw_temp_derivative.gifAll those charts showed was that there have been times in earths past where the climate has changed over short periods of time. Most of these quick climate change events have been traced to known sources of catastrophic events, like massive volcanic activity, BFRs from space, even solar activity.

With the lack of any these major natural events over the past 100 years, how would you explain the global temperature rise following the CO2 so closely? Can you think of another global CO2 source in this time frame other than humans?



On A side note, right this moment we have teams of survivors out looking of places on the Ross Ice Shelf to land a Australian rescue plane, to evact out someone from McMurdo. They are having to go much further south to find ice with the correct density for wheeled aircraft. We had to give up on the Ice Runway directly in front of the station that we used just a few years ago. Rescue plane en route to Antarctica to pick up patient (http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/08/world/antarctica-us-emergency/index.html)

[dirkterrell]

All those charts showed was that there have been times in earths past where the climate has changed over short periods of time.

And yes, I looked at that claim too. Here was the plot done for warming periods of greater than 100 years. Here was the result:

http://www.boulder.swri.edu/%7Eterrell/images/gw_temp_derivative_centuries.gif

Even if we take the short term rate for today, it still isn't the biggest rate of change in historical times.

[Ghosty]

Don't shoot the messenger, just passing along info I've found (a small bit among a mountain). I'm sure there's tons on both sides of this...

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/aug/14/tim-pawlenty/do-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming/


To summarize: Based on our research, there is very little dispute in the scientific community, especially among climate specialists, on whether climate change is primarily caused by natural or man-made forces. The overwhelming majority of scientists polled feel that human activity is the primary driver of climate change. Also, based on scientific studies by the IPCC and others, global warming over the past 50 years has been primarily driven by human activity.

Based upon the preponderance of evidence we conclude that Tim Pawlenty’s claims are both incorrect and misleading to the public, who may not be familiar with the science behind climate change. It is not "fair to say the science is in dispute," as if there are good arguments on both sides. Rather, there is significant scientific consensus that human beings are contributing to global warming. We rate his statement False.


But several inquiries debunked those allegations, including those conducted by the British Parliament (http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/science-and-technology-committee/inquiries/uea/), the U.S. Department of Commerce (http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110224_climate.html), Pennsylvania State University (http://live.psu.edu/pdf/Final_Investigation_Report.pdf), and the InterAcademy Council (http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=08302010). The inquiries found that while the scientists had made rude remarks about people who questioned climate change, they were not falsifying data. A few reports recommended greater transparency and sharing of climatic data, but the independent investigations exonerated the researchers of falsifying data.

[dapper]

What happened to Wikileak’s website (http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html?nocache) ?

[Ghosty]

You can find that same info on Forbes, just search for "wikileaks climategate 2.0". But just like everything, do you believe that side perpetuated by Forbes, WSJ, FoxNews and like-minded pro-business pro-coal pro-pollution corporations? Or do you believe the liberal and scientific articles and blogs who most likely have nothing to profit, they don't make money off greener legislation or a cleaner planet, do they?... It's tough to wade through all the B.S., either way, imo.

[Ghost]

You can find that same info on Forbes, just search for "wikileaks climategate 2.0". But just like everything, do you believe that side perpetuated by Forbes, WSJ, FoxNews and like-minded pro-business pro-coal pro-pollution corporations? Or do you believe the liberal and scientific articles and blogs who most likely have nothing to profit, they don't make money off greener legislation or a cleaner planet, do they?... It's tough to wade through all the B.S., either way, imo.

Which is the point. Stall everything until it's too late to do anything, then the corporations can profit off of building domed cities and charging us for canned air...

[dirkterrell]

Ok, I couldn't find my files for the earlier work, so I decided to re-do it using an independent dataset to see if the results stood up. The data I took for the historical record are from a paper in Nature:

Moberg, A., D.M. Sonechkin, K. Holmgren, N.M. Datsenko and W. Karl 2005, Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low-and high-resolution proxy data, Nature, Vol. 433, No. 7026, pp. 613-617, 10 February 2005

retrieved from the NOAA site at

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/moberg2005/moberg2005.html

It gives the temperature at annual steps going back ~2000 years (from 1979 to AD 0) and seems to be a highly regarded data set in the climate research community.

I took these data and wrote a Python script to do linear regressions on 30 year segments over the range of the data to get the warming rates in those 30 year periods in units of degrees C per decade (which is the commonly used unit). For the current period (1979-2011; hence my using 30 year segments in the older data for comparison) for which we have multiple temperature datasets, there was a pretty good analysis of the warming rate from the various datasets in a recent paper:

Foster and Rahmstorf 2011, Environ. Res. Lett. 6 044022

available here (the full paper is probably only available to subscribers to the journal but PM me if you'd like a copy):

http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022

They found warming rates from 0.141 C/decade to 0.175 C/decade (see their table 1).

So, I plotted up the historical warming rates and a box showing the spread of the estimations for the current rate (between the blue lines):

http://www.boulder.swri.edu/%7Eterrell/images/gwrate_30.png

So, with 30-year segments, which smooth out the variability effects that Randall mentioned (e.g. aerosols from volcanic eruptions which last a few years, El Nino, etc. also a few years, and solar variability on the timescale of a decade and a lower amplitude effect than the other two), you can see that the current warming rate has been achieved or exceeded multiple times in the past.

Let me be clear that I am not addressing anything beyond the claim that the current warming rate is unusual. As I have said many times before, global climate modeling and interpretation is a very complicated process, and based on my many years of experience modeling complex, chaotic systems, I believe we have a long ways to go in understanding what the Earth's climate will do in the future and what is driving it. What we can say, however, is that the argument for anthropogenic global warming based on the current warming rate's being unusual is not supported.

[Snowman]

So the earth is warming, the rate is not unusual.
Do you believe that increasing levels of green house gasses are the cause?

CO2 levels have never been this high in the past 400,000+ year of ice cores we have sampled.

[Ghost]

So the earth is warming, the rate is not unusual.
Do you believe that increasing levels of green house gasses are the cause?

CO2 levels have never been this high in the past 400,000+ year of ice cores we have sampled.

By the time everyone gets done arguing, it'll be too late...

[Snowman]

By the time everyone gets done arguing, it'll be too late...Dude, it is already too late. Time to adapt.

[Ghost]

Dude, it is already too late. Time to adapt.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_qZGouBqZeg8/SPGUrUYKMuI/AAAAAAAAAjQ/GkPZX92wDJw/s400/Future+Underwater+City.JPG

[dirkterrell]

So the earth is warming, the rate is not unusual.


That appears to be what the data are telling us.



Do you believe that increasing levels of green house gasses are the cause?


Over time I have come to realize the pitfalls of looking for "the" answer/cause/etc to things that are complex in nature, and climatology is one of the most complex phenomena to model, having done some myself in exploring habitability in binary star systems. It is certainly plausible that CO2 has a role in the observed warming, but I have yet to see convincing evidence of the amount of that effect. All we have is climate model outputs and I have too much experience with that kind of modeling to accept that we know what is going on well enough to undertake a multi-trillion dollar economic adjustment to try to avert something that has clearly happened multiple times in pre-industrial history.

This is a scientific issue that has been thoroughly infested with politics on both sides of the political aisle, and I prefer to look at things carefully for myself, straying as little as possible from questions that can be addressed with observations. When I hear the "but we might be the cause and we have to act NOW" argument, my bullshit detector goes off scale, just as it does when somebody is trying to sell me something. And, yes, there is a powerful financial motivation for climate modelers to promote anthropogenic global warming ideas (to answer a question posed by Ghosty earlier). I have said it before, I have a feeling that anthropogenic global warming as a disaster scenario for human civilization is going to turn out to be an embarrassment for science based on what I've seen happening in the research community.

[rforsythe]

On A side note, right this moment we have teams of survivors out looking of places on the Ross Ice Shelf to land a Australian rescue plane, to evact out someone from McMurdo. They are having to go much further south to find ice with the correct density for wheeled aircraft. We had to give up on the Ice Runway directly in front of the station that we used just a few years ago. Rescue plane en route to Antarctica to pick up patient (http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/08/world/antarctica-us-emergency/index.html)

I was impressed they took an A319 into there for a winter rescue. Sounds like no US planes were available so the Aussies lent their Airbus out for a quick trip south. Not the sort of aircraft I'd have expected to see make that kind of flight.

[Penadam]

My issue(s) with global warming:

I accept the fact that it is real, the earth is getting warmer. I don't have an answer if humans are the cause, but it doesn't matter for the sake or my argument.



The earth is warming. The earth has been warmer than this before, and it's been cooler than this before. A warmer earth means a longer growing season, more of the planet becoming habitable and less cold related deaths.
CO2 needs to be controlled. CO2 is not very effective as a greenhouse gas and is a byproduct of most life on the planet. It has also been much higher than the current levels in the past. High CO2 levels would contribute to more productive farming causing a decrease in starvation in developing countries.
Controlling CO2 is the best way to prevent climate change. Reducing CO2 emission is probably the worst way to control climate change. If CO2 has the impact that people claim, there's already so much in the atmosphere and reducing it will have an enormous economic impact, doesn't it make since to explore other options? SO2 injection into the high atmosphere (similar to a volcanic eruption) has a proven cooling effect. Large scale solar shading or other similar geo-engineering projects have much smaller costs with superior benefits. If people were really serious about controlling global temperature, these options would offer direct control, faster results and less economic impact. Limiting CO2 production is akin to buying an expensive new wardrobe of moisture wicking fabrics when it's hot out rather than simply standing in the shade.

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

I'll attempt to break down why I think there will never be a winner/loser or way to prove your side is correct, in THIS debate:

1.) The anti group (mostly conservatives) thinks there is no way to prove this isn't a normal cycle but in geological time-frames. Millennia (not just centuries) that is almost beyond the capability of a human brain to grasp. All scientists and teachers are (like Obama), "professorial intellectual elitist commies", so cannot be trusted. We'd be warming up regardless of human activity, and you can't prove them wrong, haha. The've (supposedly) debunked everything Al Gore tries to feed the public.

2.) The pro climate-change group has tons of data collected worldwide by accurate instruments and groups of researchers linked by network collaborating and coming up with mounting evidence in their favor. Temperature changes ARE occurring, the arctic shelf IS MELTING, the PolarBears ARE running out of landmass to survive. HUGE pieces of glacial ice are dropping off in record sizes. Same thing in Antarctica. Ocean levels ARE rising, even if it's just inches, it means something, something important that needs to be addressed. Even if "Inconvient Truth" has a GOP website debunking it, actually most of it is credible and true.

So, the only question which is virtually impossible to answer, is whether it's just normal naturally occurring cycles over thousands of years, both up and down, and would happen even without human causes, greenhouse gases, etc. OR is it a direct result of greenhouse gases increasing and insulating our climate. This isn't just bad timing for our geologically-tiny period of human existance (5k-6k years or whatever it is).


+1
Sorry ghosty, but that's total bullshit. To claim that the "science" of the left is accurate is nonsense. There are SERIOUS errors with the data collected by those whacko's, including but not limited to bad placement of the thermometers used to record the temperatures. I was around when the "fearmongering" liberal hippies were claiming we were going into a "man-made ice-age" in the late '60's. It's all the same bullshit, just different fearmongers, and for the same reason: corporate and personal greed. Follow the money trail if you don't believe me. I find far more loonies on the left.

My thing is this: I agree with Dr. Dirk 1000%. We have been FAR hotter and FAR colder in the past, way before man existed, so to claim man is THE basis of this climate change is lunacy. As to Snowmans point about CO2 emissions, 1 volcano emits more greenhouse gasses than even he does:), or, in fact, the entire history of man ever has. do we have SOMe influence on weather or climate? Sure, and we should limit that as best we can. Are we the cause? F#ck no, and it's idiotic to claim we are.

[Ghosty]

I find far more loonies to the right, but we'll have to agree to disagree, there are wacko's in both camps. Just like there are idiots of every race/creed/color/social standing. Yes Dirk's posts here are more info to add to everyone's data store, and I definitely take it as credible.

When weighing two arguments, my bullshit meter is biased in favor of scientists more than corporations and Republicans, just my personal choice based on my own observations and experiences through MY life. This includes "climategate". Yours of course might be far different, and obviously is. Does this mean all scientists and research is infallible? No, of course not, but it definitely weighs in on who I think is more credible. YMMV...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v231/SpectralCat/Emoticons/hatsoff.gif

P.S. I don't consider it "science of the left", I just consider it science.

[Snowman]

Sorry ghosty, but that's total bullshit. To claim that the "science" of the left is accurate is nonsense. There are SERIOUS errors with the data collected by those whacko's, including but not limited to bad placement of the thermometers used to record the temperatures. I was around when the "fearmongering" liberal hippies were claiming we were going into a "man-made ice-age" in the late '60's. It's all the same bullshit, just different fearmongers, and for the same reason: corporate and personal greed. Follow the money trail if you don't believe me. I find far more loonies on the left.

My thing is this: I agree with Dr. Dirk 1000%. We have been FAR hotter and FAR colder in the past, way before man existed, so to claim man is THE basis of this climate change is lunacy. As to Snowmans point about CO2 emissions, 1 volcano emits more greenhouse gasses than even he does:), or, in fact, the entire history of man ever has. do we have SOMe influence on weather or climate? Sure, and we should limit that as best we can. Are we the cause? F#ck no, and it's idiotic to claim we are.I’m pretty sure Dirk wasn’t suggesting with his data that global climate change was a liberal corporate conspiracy, falsified by scientists to trick you into voting Democrat, Frank... :rolleyes:

[rforsythe]

The neat part about science is that intelligent people can work problems, disagree on the answers, and back things up with data and math -- without having to resort to turning everything into liberal vs conservative propaganda.

If Frank could compose a rational counterpoint based on scientific process that didn't devolve into a political ad every single time, I would perhaps take his arguments more seriously. Valid though they may be in terms of science (i.e. thermometer placement variances), it's hard to give any of it credence when it's *always* liberal this, conservative that, democrats are evil, blah blah.

[Ghost]

The neat part about science is that intelligent people can work problems, disagree on the answers, and back things up with data and math...

My concern is the following--the data and math seem "inconclusive" at this time--in that there is no definitive/clear-cut answer available.

So, that leads to a split in what ought to be done/not-done.

However, in a case where we could (potentially) reduce CO2 and various emissions, and it could (potentially) offset global warming, then it seems that the logical course of action would be to try to take preventative measures now, before it gets too late/worse. We do this all the time--garages have self-closing doors, public places have fire suppression systems and clearly marked exits, we have various forms of insurance, etc., we prepare for or try to prevent harm even when it never happens.

If we take measures and nothing happens then we've wasted money, but we do that anyway--the Wall Street Bailouts and various ongoing wars being prime examples of wastes that have no positive effect on anything.

If we do nothing, we save money, but we (potentially) reach a tipping point where things become unrecoverable, and if that's the case then the various droughts, fires, floods, famines, etc. will probably wreak more economic disaster than the money we'd spend reducing emissions/creating alternative power anyway.

So, to me, I fail to see how there's an argument for doing nothing over doing something. The data is inconclusive, but the potential outcomes seem to suggest that we err on the side of caution and take actions now rather than do nothing and hope for the best...

Basically, this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ

[Snowman]

That appears to be what the data are telling us.



Over time I have come to realize the pitfalls of looking for "the" answer/cause/etc to things that are complex in nature, and climatology is one of the most complex phenomena to model, having done some myself in exploring habitability in binary star systems. It is certainly plausible that CO2 has a role in the observed warming, but I have yet to see convincing evidence of the amount of that effect. All we have is climate model outputs and I have too much experience with that kind of modeling to accept that we know what is going on well enough to undertake a multi-trillion dollar economic adjustment to try to avert something that has clearly happened multiple times in pre-industrial history.

This is a scientific issue that has been thoroughly infested with politics on both sides of the political aisle, and I prefer to look at things carefully for myself, straying as little as possible from questions that can be addressed with observations. When I hear the "but we might be the cause and we have to act NOW" argument, my bullshit detector goes off scale, just as it does when somebody is trying to sell me something. And, yes, there is a powerful financial motivation for climate modelers to promote anthropogenic global warming ideas (to answer a question posed by Ghosty earlier). I have said it before, I have a feeling that anthropogenic global warming as a disaster scenario for human civilization is going to turn out to be an embarrassment for science based on what I've seen happening in the research community.I understand your apprehension with these climate models. Nothing science has ever predicted been perfectly right or even sometimes close. And I agree that this topic has become a political football for both sides. Neither side is giving what the general public needs to hear, calling it a disaster in the making or blowing it off as non-existent.

However every climate model I have seen all move in the same general direction of 2° to 5° global warming by the end of this century. These climate models alone meant nothing to me until I realized just how much of what I do, has to deal with these trends. (Short List...)

Finding places further away from McMurdo to place Pegasus Airfield because the ice is no longer suitable for wheeled aircraft, when we use to park planes within walking distance of the station.

Adding and supporting pump stations because the flexible aircraft fuel line running from Pegasus Airfield to McMurdo is now 8 miles long.

No new constriction at McMurdo can be below the 10m sea level mark.

Meetings where serious discussions on whether it’s feasible to move McMurdo someplace further south.

The possibility that both shipping and aircraft won’t be able to make it into McMurdo and the alternative of using airships to get food, people and fuel in, is being seriously considered.

Several Dry Valley Field Camps having to be moved to higher ground because water from melting glaciers is rising at 1 foot a year.

Discussions on extending the summer season at South Pole another month and what impact that would mean on getting the needed fuel and supplies in, knowing that more air flights cannot bring in that much cargo.

Standing outside at the South Pole Marker when it was 10°F above zero.

All of these realities I have faced personally and all pretty convincing to me that what these climate models taken collectively are saying are true.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Global_Warming_Predictions.png

[rforsythe]

My concern is the following--the data and math seem "inconclusive" at this time--in that there is no definitive/clear-cut answer available.


Hence the reason it is still theory and not fact, and many ideas are being pursued and considered on all sides. What concerns me however is that some politicians want to stifle some ideas which make them unpopular, or that it's turned into an us-vs-them political debate at all. This is about the state and future of the physical world we live in, which transcends governments, ideologies, politics, and personal feelings about anything really.

That the data and math are inconclusive and often contradictory at some level *encourages* me. It tells me that enough smart people are interested and engaged enough to put the effort into determining what's real, even if our understanding of the subject evolves day by day. I hope guys like Dirk are right and the warming trend we see today is just a fluke, a micro cycle in the grand scheme of life on Earth. IF it's not though and we're in for a large-scale climatological change that will fundamentally alter the quality of life as we know it, I'm glad that people outside of politics are seeking those answers. Regardless of who ends up finding the real truth of it all, it's something that needs to be analyzed and understood.

[Ghosty]

However, in a case where we could (potentially) reduce CO2 and various emissions, and it could (potentially) offset global warming, then it seems that the logical course of action would be to try to take preventative measures now, before it gets too late/worse...

...So, to me, I fail to see how there's an argument for doing nothing over doing something. The data is inconclusive, but the potential outcomes seem to suggest that we err on the side of caution and take actions now rather than do nothing and hope for the best...
+1 on your entire post, along with rforsythe & Snowman's. I don't know about everyone, but sacrificing some profits for big coal now is a small price to pay for a cleaner/greener world for my future kiddies. Now if Nevada would let us open Yucca mountain to store nuke waste, that would be another step I'd like to see!

My hypocrite part I'll admit: My Supra has pretty much a wide open 4" exhaust from the turbo back, no cat, can run a tad rich, incl. leaded C16 racegas occasionally, no emissions controls, no EGR, etc. It's an environmental nightmare, way worse than any Hummer I'm sure. In my defense, nowadays since it's no longer my only vehicle like it was way back in the early 2k's, the mileage is minimal, only a few thousand a year at most.

[dirkterrell]

However, in a case where we could (potentially) reduce CO2 and various emissions, and it could (potentially) offset global warming, then it seems that the logical course of action would be to try to take preventative measures now, before it gets too late/worse.


Sure, but you have to consider the cost. if it were the case that spending ten bucks a year would eliminate human CO2 emissions, then we wouldn't even be having this conversation. If it's going to mean a huge impact on the world economy, we need to be sure what we're doing is actually necessary. And CO2 mitigation is not cheap.

[dirkterrell]

However every climate model I have seen all move in the same general direction of 2° to 5° global warming by the end of this century. These climate models alone meant nothing to me until I realized just how much of what I do, has to deal with these trends. (Short List...)

...

All of these realities I have faced personally and all pretty convincing to me that what these climate models taken collectively are saying are true.



But the fundamental issue is that we don't know whether the cause of the predicted rise in the models (CO2) is the cause of the observed warming. Another phenomenon missing in the models could very well cause the same effect, and as complex as the Earth's climate system is, I'd put the odds of that very high.

[dirkterrell]

but sacrificing some profits for big coal now is a small price to pay for a cleaner/greener world for my future kiddies.

It's much more than "some profits for big coal". It's a top-to-bottom reworking of the global economy.

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

The neat part about science is that intelligent people can work problems, disagree on the answers, and back things up with data and math -- without having to resort to turning everything into liberal vs conservative propaganda.

If Frank could compose a rational counterpoint based on scientific process that didn't devolve into a political ad every single time, I would perhaps take his arguments more seriously. Valid though they may be in terms of science (i.e. thermometer placement variances), it's hard to give any of it credence when it's *always* liberal this, conservative that, democrats are evil, blah blah.
Don't need to. Dr. Dirk posted all the relevant data I need, and had referenced since the start. For reference Ralph, Ghosty made the (incorrect) assumption (see his post) that the science is always on the left and the whacko's are on the right. I disagreed, and cite the above evidence. Why should I simply repost all the data if someone else is going to do it far more eloquently than I could? ;)

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

I understand your apprehension with these climate models. Nothing science has ever predicted been perfectly right or even sometimes close. And I agree that this topic has become a political football for both sides. Neither side is giving what the general public needs to hear, calling it a disaster in the making or blowing it off as non-existent.

However every climate model I have seen all move in the same general direction of 2° to 5° global warming by the end of this century. These climate models alone meant nothing to me until I realized just how much of what I do, has to deal with these trends. (Short List...)

Finding places further away from McMurdo to place Pegasus Airfield because the ice is no longer suitable for wheeled aircraft, when we use to park planes within walking distance of the station.

Adding and supporting pump stations because the flexible aircraft fuel line running from Pegasus Airfield to McMurdo is now 8 miles long.

No new constriction at McMurdo can be below the 10m sea level mark.

Meetings where serious discussions on whether it’s feasible to move McMurdo someplace further south.

The possibility that both shipping and aircraft won’t be able to make it into McMurdo and the alternative of using airships to get food, people and fuel in, is being seriously considered.

Several Dry Valley Field Camps having to be moved to higher ground because water from melting glaciers is rising at 1 foot a year.

Discussions on extending the summer season at South Pole another month and what impact that would mean on getting the needed fuel and supplies in, knowing that more air flights cannot bring in that much cargo.

Standing outside at the South Pole Marker when it was 10°F above zero.

All of these realities I have faced personally and all pretty convincing to me that what these climate models taken collectively are saying are true.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Global_Warming_Predictions.png
Note that the variations by the different agencies are more than the total temperature delta from 0 based on NCAR PCM. And, again, even IF there is a warming trend, there is ZERO proof that man is THE reason, or even a major or minor reason for the change. As stated many times before, there were far more, and more drastic climate changes LONG before man was industrialized, or, in some cases, was even on the planet. So, again, with the climate model as complicated as it is and STILL a guess, pointing the finger at man is lunacy and fearmongering for profit.

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

But the fundamental issue is that we don't know whether the cause of the predicted rise in the models (CO2) is the cause of the observed warming. Another phenomenon missing in the models could very well cause the same effect, and as complex as the Earth's climate system is, I'd put the odds of that very high.
I've seen charts that showed the level of CO2 rising AFTER the warming trend, shooting down that whole theory.

[Ghost]

It's much more than "some profits for big coal". It's a top-to-bottom reworking of the global economy.

But, if it's true and we are exacerbating and accelerating the problem then it'll be an economic disaster as well as an ecological catastrophe...

And, if that's the case, then we've not only not saved any money but we're in a worse position to do anything and the money that would have been spent on mitigation will instead be lost during the ensuing economic collapse...

[dirkterrell]

as well as an ecological catastrophe...


That's a whole other discussion in itself. The Earth will be different but whether it would be a catastrophe is quite debatable.

[Ghosty]

Ghosty made the (incorrect) assumption (see his post) that the science is always on the left and the whacko's are on the right.
No I didn't. You are re-wording what I said, and taking it out of context by leaving out some key words. In fact I went out of my way to make extra care to show I know there are wackos, extremists, and intellectuals on both sides, regardless of political affiliation. I just have the personal objective opinion, that I've seen more loonybirds from the right than from the left. I didn't put a percentage on it.

[TransNone13]

I would like to see a paper on how population control (voluntary or compulsory) would have on this out of curiosity.

[dapper]

There are many variables to take into consideration with a lot of similar topics.
Some on here may have heard about "The Butterfly Effect".

Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies has one more area that has been found, part of the cycle of life with some trees.

Diseased trees in forests may be a significant new source of methane that causes climate change, according to researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies in Geophysical Research Letters.
Sixty trees sampled at Yale Myers Forest in northeastern Connecticut contained concentrations of methane that were as high as 80,000 times ambient levels. Normal air concentrations are less than 2 parts per million, but the Yale researchers found average levels of 15,000 parts per million inside trees.
"These are flammable concentrations," said Kristofer Covey, the study's lead author and a Ph.D. candidate at Yale. "Because the conditions thought to be driving this process are common throughout the world's forests, we believe we have found a globally significant new source of this potent greenhouse gas."
Source (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120807151309.htm)

[Ghost]

I would like to see a paper on how population control (voluntary or compulsory) would have on this out of curiosity.

I'd assume radically less people, especially in highly-polluting "developing" nations like China and India would mean a commensurate drop in pollution and the emission of Greenhouse Gasses.

Other than that, since the impact of man-made greenhouse gases on global warming is still being debated, I'm not sure you'd be able to "prove" the impact of population...

[rforsythe]

Has anyone calculated the heat generated by the amount of computing infrastructure required to permit everyone to argue about global warming on the Internet?

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

Has anyone calculated the heat generated by the amount of computing infrastructure required to permit everyone to argue about global warming on the Internet?Interesting, and a very valid point. I saw a documentary once on how a hydo plant up in the NW US had gone from producing power strictly to produce alunimum ingots for use in real products, now simply supplies energy to power and cool the google servers if I remember correctly. wouldn't it be ironic if the very people going all Chicken Little about global warming on the i-net are the main cause. ;)

[CYCLE_MONKEY]

No I didn't. You are re-wording what I said, and taking it out of context by leaving out some key words. In fact I went out of my way to make extra care to show I know there are wackos, extremists, and intellectuals on both sides, regardless of political affiliation. I just have the personal objective opinion, that I've seen more loonybirds from the right than from the left. I didn't put a percentage on it.
"1.) The anti group (mostly conservatives) thinks there is no way to prove this isn't a normal cycle but in geological time-frames. Millennia (not just centuries) that is almost beyond the capability of a human brain to grasp. All scientists and teachers are (like Obama), "professorial intellectual elitist commies", so cannot be trusted. We'd be warming up regardless of human activity, and you can't prove them wrong, haha. The've (supposedly) debunked everything Al Gore tries to feed the public.

2.) The pro climate-change group has tons of data collected worldwide by accurate instruments and groups of researchers linked by network collaborating and coming up with mounting evidence in their favor. Temperature changes ARE occurring, the arctic shelf IS MELTING, the PolarBears ARE running out of landmass to survive. HUGE pieces of glacial ice are dropping off in record sizes. Same thing in Antarctica. Ocean levels ARE rising, even if it's just inches, it means something, something important that needs to be addressed. Even if "Inconvient Truth" has a GOP website debunking it, actually most of it is credible and true."


Show me where I misconstrued this. ;)

[TransNone13]

I'd assume radically less people, especially in highly-polluting "developing" nations like China and India would mean a commensurate drop in pollution and the emission of Greenhouse Gasses.

Other than that, since the impact of man-made greenhouse gases on global warming is still being debated, I'm not sure you'd be able to "prove" the impact of population...

You can certainly gain some valuable information on resource conservation and economic footprints based on waste. Green house/chemical emissions from the power grids supporting more people? Said waste etc. Translate conflicts over resources and the simple fact that mo' people = mo' problems. It's more farther reaching than that.

[Snowman]

http://s3.amazonaws.com/infobeautiful2/when_sea_levels_attack_960.png

[#1Townie]

Good thing i will already be dead. But i do like swimming.

Actually after further review i see no issue with this at all. China and Russia gone. A nice little chunk of north africa. And most of the north east us. How can that be bad? No more jersy shore people. How can we make this happen faster? If you need me i will be on a glacier with a blowtorch.

[Filo]

My only input to this whole thing ignores the origin of global warming and if it is catastrophic or not. It has to do with the usage of the word "theory", especially as it pertains to scientific theories, as a synonym for "guess". Call it one of my pet peeves. Here is a definition of a scientific theory from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

Now, granted, global warming theory is a bit iffy, mainly due to the complexities of modelling something like the absorptivity of the atmosphere in the presence of excess CO2 and predicting the resultant ecological effects of the current temperature rise. The fact is has become politicized, and that politics leaves a sheen of feces on everything scientific it touches, doesn't help either. But that doesn't mean that saying "the theory of evolution" is the same as "the theory of why socks disappear in the dryer" - unless you are making multiple observations of missing socks in carefully controlled experiments that are repeated by others unaffiliated with you who are drawing the same conclusions from the data. In which case you need a hobby.

Finally, I think we can all agree that we have a fixed number of fossil energy resources AND that the effects of burning the same is deleterious (that means bad) to human health, so maybe we should be spending some money and time on finding alternatives (disclaimer: I spend my days designing battery measurement and control chips for the HEV/EV market for a large semiconductor firm).

[grim]

Good thing i will already be dead. But i do like swimming.

Actually after further review i see no issue with this at all. China and Russia gone. A nice little chunk of north africa. And most of the north east us. How can that be bad? No more jersy shore people. How can we make this happen faster? If you need me i will be on a glacier with a blowtorch.


Use a large weed burner (propane torch) it will cover more area faster, and hotter.

[#1Townie]

Im going to get four. Two for each hand.

[rforsythe]

Good thing i will already be dead. But i do like swimming.

Actually after further review i see no issue with this at all. China and Russia gone. A nice little chunk of north africa. And most of the north east us. How can that be bad? No more jersy shore people. How can we make this happen faster? If you need me i will be on a glacier with a blowtorch.

Where do you think those people are going to end up? They certainly aren't going to sit still and drown - they are headed for higher ground. I.e. here. Fuck that, I want those assholes kept to their own piece of the world. I like my Jersey Shore-free town.

[grim]

They certainly aren't going to sit still and drown


You sure about that? :lol:

[Nick_Ninja]

Where do you think those people are going to end up? They certainly aren't going to sit still and drown - they are headed for higher ground. I.e. here. Fuck that, I want those assholes kept to their own piece of the world. I like my Jersey Shore-free town.

Fortify your bunker now! :headbang:

[rforsythe]

You sure about that? :lol:

Well, I suppose duct tape could be persuasive in that scenario. :twisted:


Fortify your bunker now! :headbang:

Word.

[#1Townie]

Where do you think those people are going to end up? They certainly aren't going to sit still and drown - they are headed for higher ground. I.e. here. Fuck that, I want those assholes kept to their own piece of the world. I like my Jersey Shore-free town.


You sure about that? :lol:

Just keep dropping them roids and we will be fine.