Global Warming A Hoax? [Archive]

Straughn

08-12-2005, 07:14

Ever hear of global cooling? turns out that theory crapped out. and the same people spouting that are now spouting global warming. chances are it's caused by solar activity, but I'm not an expert in the field...but I'm still skeptical of the whole thing.
Discretion is the better part of valor.
If you aren't an expert in it and you're skeptical of warming AND cooling, could it be you aren't up to speed on what's happening?

Global warming: Carbon dioxide levels highest for 650,000 years

Space and Earth science : November 24, 2005

Levels of carbon dioxide, the principal gas that drives global warming, are now 27 percent higher than at any point in the last 650,000 years, according to research into Antarctic ice cores published on Thursday.
The study, adding powerfully to evidence of human interference in the climate system, appears in the runup to a key conference on global warming which opens in Montreal next Monday.

The evidence comes from the world's deepest ice core, drilled at a site called Dome Concordia (Dome C) in East Antarctica by European scientists who battled blizzards and an average year-round temperature of minus 54 Celsius (minus 65 Fahrenheit) and made a thousand-kilometer (650-mile) trek to bring up supplies.

The core, extracted using a 10-centimetre (four-inch) -wide drill bit in three-metre (10-feet) sections, brought up ice that was deposited by snows up to 650,000 years ago, as determined by estimated layers of annual snowfall.

Analysis of carbon dioxide trapped in tiny bubbles in the ancient ice showed that at no point during this time frame did levels get anywhere close to today's CO2 concentrations of around 380 parts per million (380 ppm).

CO2 levels began to rise with the Industrial Revolution, when coal began to be burned in large quantities, and have surged in recent decades as more countries become industrialised and millions more cars take to the road.

As a result, billions of tonnes of CO2 are now being released into the air each year from fossil fuels that previously were underground. In pre-industrial times, the CO2 concentration was just 278 ppm.

Today's rising CO2 concentrations are 27 percent higher than at the highest level seen over the 650,000-year time scale, according to the study, which appears in the weekly US journal Science.

The Dome C core, extracted by the 10-country European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA), outstrips by 210,000 years the previous record-holder, drilled at an Antarctic site called Vostok.

"We have added another piece of information showing that the time scales on which humans have changed the composition of the atmosphere are extremely short compared to the natural time cycles of the climate system," said lead author Thomas Stocker of the University of Bern's Physics Institute in Switzerland.
Skeptics about man-made global warming point out that Earth has been through many periods of higher and lower temperatures in its history as a result of natural processes.

Volcanic eruptions that disgorge CO2 and other greenhouse gases, oscillations in the planet's axial spin and minor changes in its orbit can have a major impact on surface temperatures, sometimes plunging Earth into prolonged Ice Ages, the last of which ended some 11,000 years ago.

But over the past decade, a mountain of scientific evidence has accumulated about Man's impact on temperatures through the unbridled burning of fossil fuels.

In the past five years, the average global temperature has risen by 0.2 C (0.36 F) -- 100 times higher than is normal for such a short time scale -- and 2005 is on course for being the hottest year on record.

Glaciers in the Alps, Greenland and the Himalayas are shrinking and ice shelves are cracking in the Antarctic peninsula in what appear to be early signs of dangerous climate change, according to recent studies.

The 12-day Montreal talks, gathering members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), will focus on the future of the Kyoto Protocol after this pact, aimed at curbing carbon pollution, runs out in 2012.

Scientists say political progress for tackling the problem falls miserably short of what is needed to avoid long-term damage to the climate system.

In the most extreme scenarios, global warming could drive up sea levels and drown coastal cities, cause floods, droughts and freak storms, and create tens of millions of "climate refugees."

© 2005 AFP

The Supreme Rulers

08-12-2005, 07:18

OK,
True, it may be part of a natural cycle, put the human factor is so great any natural factors are negligeble.

I believe you have it backwards, it is the human factor that is so minescule as to be nearly completely negligable. A single volcanic eruption emits so much more c02 than all the cars in the world it's shocking.
I also have done a research paper on this (global warming) and i decided that it is not complete bogus, but rather EXTREMELY exaggerated. There is warming yes, the human factor however is minimal if not non-existant.
most of the warming in this century took place in the 40's, well before the 'boom' in greenhouse gas use. note the following source:

“Burning Down the House: The Climate Change Treaty’s Probable Effects on the Natural Gas Industry.” Nation Center for Policy Analysis. <http://www.ncpa.org/oped/sterling/aprnatgas.html>.

12,500 years ago, the earth’s temperature rose more than 20 degrees in about 50 years, humans hadnt even discovered greenhouse gases so i dont think there's anything we could possibly do about a couple degrees in a hundred+ years. note the following source:

“Major Scientists Say Warming Is a Figment of Al Gore’s Imagination.” National Center for Policy Analysis. <http://ncpa.org/bothside/krt/krt081999a.html>.

I dont believe anyone has yet to put forth hard evidence, so rather than just put in my worthless 2 cents i figured i'd back it up with 2 of my stronger arguements. feel free to check those sources they should still be up and running, hopefully you find this informative. bottom line being, i stand convinced from a standpoint based purely on researched facts, that we would have to pump some ungodly immense amount of c02 into the atmosphere, so large an ammount i cant fathom it, before we could begin to rival what nature is capable of doing in a short period of time. i believe the fact that the current trend coincides slightly with our industrialization is pure happenstance. i beg people to look into matters like this, dont just believe whatever you are told, dont even take my word for it, look up my sources and whatnot.

one last thing i forgot. the methods we have to measure things like atmospheric levels of c02 go back hundreds of thousands of years, like the 650,000 suggested in the above post. but consider the age of the earth: 4,500,000,000 (4.5 billion) years. that makes 650,000 a glimpse into only the last 0.0145% (i.e. a VERY small percentage) of earth's history. not exactly an in-depth analysis of the history of climate change, might you agree?

Straughn

08-12-2005, 07:24

hit that one on the head, to some degree. This was a hot topic in my meteorology class. As it has been analysed in Fairbanks, there is an increase due to human activity, one supposedly occured during the idustrial age and when irrigation hit off big time. However, the jist of it all is there are multiple cycles of weather patterns, not just a year of hot and cold as some may think. There is one with a period of a decade and one with aproximately a century for it's period, these happen to peaking out about now, and who knows, maybe there are others. Personally though I don't think the dinosaurs caused the ice age, or even the unusually tropical weather they had in their pangaea.
Changing the temperature of the earth is not as easy as it sounds, (and it doesn't sound very easy) vehicle emmisions barely catch the lip of the change. Probably the best thing we can do is to reduce ozone levels and chloride releases since it is good to have an ozone layer above and not to create one on top of us (it is not exactly good for your health)
Fairbanks? Guess you haven't been paying attention to the Anchorage Daily News's STEADY stream of articles regarding this issue, especially since we're in the area to see the changes first.
The ADN carried most of the info from this article ....

Record ice core reveals Earth's ancient atmosphere
19:00 24 November 2005
NewScientist.com news service
David L Chandler

The longest ice-core record of climate history ever obtained has hugely extended the detailed history of Earth's atmosphere, and shows that levels of greenhouse gases really do march in lockstep with changes in temperature.

The frozen record of the Earth's atmosphere is 3270 metres long and covers the last 650,000 years – 50% longer than before. It was obtained from the tiny air bubbles trapped in a deep ice core from Antarctica.

The tight coupling between temperatures and the greenhouse gas levels revealed by the core matches the predictions from climate models used to forecast future global warming. It also bears some good news: the warm interglacial periods between ice ages can last a long time, contrary to the view that we may already be due for the onset of the next ice age.

The European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) team has spent years drilling the ice core in Antarctica's Ice Dome Concordia. They had previously analysed its record of global temperatures, but have just completed the detailed analysis of the trapped air. The bubbles record how the planet’s atmosphere changed over six ice ages and the warmer periods in between. But during all that time, the atmosphere has never had anywhere near the levels of greenhouse gases seen today.

Today's level of 380 parts per million of carbon dioxide is 27% above its previous peaks of about 300 ppm, according to the team led by Thomas Stocker of the University of Bern in Switzerland.

Validation and refinement
Edward Brook, an ice-core researcher at Oregon State University, US, who was not involved in the project, told New Scientist that the good match between climate model behaviour and the ice core data "really validates" the models’ predictions of what should happen as greenhouse gas levels increase. The precise new data in addition provides baselines that can be used to further refine climate models, Brook says.

The data also show that half of the previous six interglacial periods each lasted nearly 30,000 years – far longer than the roughly 10,000 years of the most recent cycles. The current interglacial period has persisted for about 10,000 years so far.

In the future, it should be possible to push the record even further back. The ice core dates back to 890,000 years ago but has yet to be analysed. And Brook adds: "There is undoubtedly 2-million-year old ice there. But we need to see it in sequence" in order to determine the ages of different layers. That may be hard, as ice sheets are dynamic, and layers can be shuffled.

However, such a long record would be of great interest because it would cross the boundary when, for unknown reasons, the duration of complete ice-age cycles suddenly shifted from 40,000 years to 100,000 years. Those cycles are known through measurements of isotopic variation in sea floor sediments.

Journal reference: Science (vol 310, p 1313)

Straughn

08-12-2005, 07:29

I believe you have it backwards, it is the human factor that is so minescule as to be nearly completely negligable. A single volcanic eruption emits so much more c02 than all the cars in the world it's shocking.
I also have done a research paper on this (global warming) and i decided that it is not complete bogus, but rather EXTREMELY exaggerated. There is warming yes, the human factor however is minimal if not non-existant.
most of the warming in this century took place in the 40's, well before the 'boom' in greenhouse gas use. note the following source:

“Burning Down the House: The Climate Change Treaty’s Probable Effects on the Natural Gas Industry.” Nation Center for Policy Analysis. <http://www.ncpa.org/oped/sterling/aprnatgas.html>.

12,500 years ago, the earth’s temperature rose more than 20 degrees in about 50 years, humans hadnt even discovered greenhouse gases so i dont think there's anything we could possibly do about a couple degrees in a hundred+ years. note the following source:

“Major Scientists Say Warming Is a Figment of Al Gore’s Imagination.” National Center for Policy Analysis. <http://ncpa.org/bothside/krt/krt081999a.html>.

I dont believe anyone has yet to put forth hard evidence, so rather than just put in my worthless 2 cents i figured i'd back it up with 2 of my stronger arguements. feel free to check those sources they should still be up and running, hopefully you find this informative. bottom line being, i stand convinced from a standpoint based purely on researched facts, that we would have to pump some ungodly immense amount of c02 into the atmosphere, so large an ammount i cant fathom it, before we could begin to rival what nature is capable of doing in a short period of time. i believe the fact that the current trend coincides slightly with our industrialization is pure happenstance. i beg people to look into matters like this, dont just believe whatever you are told, dont even take my word for it, look up my sources and whatnot.
Thanks for the laugh! ;)
Beg for what? To cite policy sources instead of actual researchers?
Pure happenstance indeed.
Just like, since you're dealing with "policy" issues, it being a happenstance regarding Abramoff, political contributions and certain tribes.

Amestria

08-12-2005, 07:34

The sea levels are rising and the oceans are getting warmer...

The Supreme Rulers

08-12-2005, 07:35

The longest ice-core record of climate history ever obtained has hugely extended the detailed history of Earth's atmosphere...
The frozen record of the Earth's atmosphere is 3270 metres long and covers the last 650,000 years – 50% longer than before...

In the future, it should be possible to push the record even further back. The ice core dates back to 890,000 years ago but has yet to be analysed. And Brook adds: "There is undoubtedly 2-million-year old ice there.

again:
650,000 years = 0.0145% earth's history
890,000 years = 0.0198% earth's history
2,000,000 years still only = 0.045% earth's history

point being, we have hardly a glimpse of how earth's climate works.

Lazy Otakus

08-12-2005, 07:38

I believe you have it backwards, it is the human factor that is so minescule as to be nearly completely negligable. A single volcanic eruption emits so much more c02 than all the cars in the world it's shocking.

Are you sure about that?

Present-day carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from subaerial and submarine volcanoes are uncertain at the present time. Gerlach (1991) estimated a total global release of 3-4 x 10E12 mol/yr from volcanoes. This is a conservative estimate. Man-made (anthropogenic) CO2 emissions overwhelm this estimate by at least 150 times.

Source (http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/Gases/man.html)

The Supreme Rulers

08-12-2005, 07:40

i'll take your word for that. It is highly possible i misunderstood something or confused that with another fact. my apologies. i do still stand by the stuff i researched on my own though.

Maunoa

08-12-2005, 07:43

Fairbanks? Guess you haven't been paying attention to the Anchorage Daily News's STEADY stream of articles regarding this issue

True, I haven't and it has been about a year and a half if not more since I learned anything on the topic. It seems I am out-of-date already. Although I would be interested to learn of the way that they recorded the green house gases. When I was learning the material they were just developing the technique, the largest problem was caused by a significant variance in detecting gases due to decay, which was an issue. Also, what entitles a "green-house" gas? Also, I would be interested to know if there were any trends in the peaks of the green-house gas density.
Lastly, I do tend to not follow the ADN, since I have been in some of their articles and was never very pleased with their skew on things. Mainly, however it is that I just neglect news. A bad habit, though I figure it is just not something I specialize in and would rather focus in other areas.

The Supreme Rulers

08-12-2005, 07:46

greenhouse gas
n.
Any of the atmospheric gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect.

greenhouse effect
n.
1. The phenomenon whereby the earth's atmosphere traps solar radiation, caused by the presence in the atmosphere of gases such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane that allow incoming sunlight to pass through but absorb heat radiated back from the earth's surface.
2. A similar retention of solar radiation, as by another planet or in a solar panel.

on a humorous note: there are more people than ever before, possibly that drastically increases the rate of farting in which methane gas is released... hmmm

Straughn

08-12-2005, 07:48

I believe you have it backwards, it is the human factor that is so minescule as to be nearly completely negligable. A single volcanic eruption emits so much more c02 than all the cars in the world it's shocking.
I also have done a research paper on this (global warming) and i decided that it is not complete bogus, but rather EXTREMELY exaggerated. There is warming yes, the human factor however is minimal if not non-existant.
most of the warming in this century took place in the 40's, well before the 'boom' in greenhouse gas use. note the following source:

“Burning Down the House: The Climate Change Treaty’s Probable Effects on the Natural Gas Industry.” Nation Center for Policy Analysis. <http://www.ncpa.org/oped/sterling/aprnatgas.html>.

12,500 years ago, the earth’s temperature rose more than 20 degrees in about 50 years, humans hadnt even discovered greenhouse gases so i dont think there's anything we could possibly do about a couple degrees in a hundred+ years. note the following source:

“Major Scientists Say Warming Is a Figment of Al Gore’s Imagination.” National Center for Policy Analysis. <http://ncpa.org/bothside/krt/krt081999a.html>.

I dont believe anyone has yet to put forth hard evidence, so rather than just put in my worthless 2 cents i figured i'd back it up with 2 of my stronger arguements. feel free to check those sources they should still be up and running, hopefully you find this informative. bottom line being, i stand convinced from a standpoint based purely on researched facts, that we would have to pump some ungodly immense amount of c02 into the atmosphere, so large an ammount i cant fathom it, before we could begin to rival what nature is capable of doing in a short period of time. i believe the fact that the current trend coincides slightly with our industrialization is pure happenstance. i beg people to look into matters like this, dont just believe whatever you are told, dont even take my word for it, look up my sources and whatnot.

one last thing i forgot. the methods we have to measure things like atmospheric levels of c02 go back hundreds of thousands of years, like the 650,000 suggested in the above post. but consider the age of the earth: 4,500,000,000 (4.5 billion) years. that makes 650,000 a glimpse into only the last 0.0145% (i.e. a VERY small percentage) of earth's history. not exactly an in-depth analysis of the history of climate change, might you agree?
As per your addendum .... consider equilibrium.

Maybe try reading a little more science and a little less bull-og.

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/345.htm

Maunoa

08-12-2005, 07:48

greenhouse gas
n.
Any of the atmospheric gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect.

greenhouse effect
n.
1. The phenomenon whereby the earth's atmosphere traps solar radiation, caused by the presence in the atmosphere of gases such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane that allow incoming sunlight to pass through but absorb heat radiated back from the earth's surface.
2. A similar retention of solar radiation, as by another planet or in a solar panel.
Thanks sherlock, so how about editing out the redundancy and giving a list, perhaps I will rephrase this. What are the green-house gases. And no recursiveness this time!

The Squeaky Rat

08-12-2005, 07:50

I believe you have it backwards, it is the human factor that is so minescule as to be nearly completely negligable.

Viewed over a prolonged period of time (say quite a few thousand years) yes. But that does not mean there is no impact in the short term - as in "the period we are actually still around". Man made global warming may be only a small bump on the worldwide climate graph, but it is a bump we live in.

Twitch2395

08-12-2005, 07:51

how could there be global warming if it was the coldest winter ever last year in New Hampshire!!! It was -20 for 2 and half months. Plus, I am pretty sure there was an Ice Age a few thousand years ago? If human caused global warming is real, I guess humans caused global warming then which caused the Ice Age to end. Also dont scientists predict there to be another Ice Age in about 5000 years?

The Squeaky Rat

08-12-2005, 07:52

how could there be global warming if it was the coldest winter ever!!!

Because global is not the same as local ?

Der Drache

08-12-2005, 07:53

Well I believe global warming is largely influenced by human activities (though I do recognize there are natural warming and cooling cycles). But even if I'm wrong I think we are looking at this issue all wrong. Does it really matter if global warming is true or not. Wouldn't it still be a good idea to reduce pollution for health reasons? Wouldn't it be good to burn less oil? Burning less oil would make us less dependent on the middle east and we would have to worry less about it running out.

Anyway. My point is that regardless as to if global warming is caused by human activities, these activities are still destructive and should be changed.

Straughn

08-12-2005, 07:53

True, I haven't and it has been about a year and a half if not more since I learned anything on the topic. It seems I am out-of-date already. Although I would be interested to learn of the way that they recorded the green house gases. When I was learning the material they were just developing the technique, the largest problem was caused by a significant variance in detecting gases due to decay, which was an issue. Also, what entitles a "green-house" gas? Also, I would be interested to know if there were any trends in the peaks of the green-house gas density.
Lastly, I do tend to not follow the ADN, since I have been in some of their articles and was never very pleased with their skew on things. Mainly, however it is that I just neglect news. A bad habit, though I figure it is just not something I specialize in and would rather focus in other areas.
Well, to be fair, they sure as hell don't care for the clan Stevens of late.

Try http://www.usask.ca/agriculture/caedac/dbases/Debbie1.html
it's a decent primer so far ....
I have an *arseload* of stuff on this i've posted before ... archives have it, punch me up.
Else i have to go through my saved stuff and that'd take another few hours, which i don't have.
I'm on the Kenai Peninsula, so you know what time it is, IRL and all.

Straughn

08-12-2005, 07:56

Because global is not the same as local ?
I'll be damned if you didn't just win this thread.
*bows*

(FLORT)

The Supreme Rulers

08-12-2005, 07:57

let me make sure I got this right (and know i am not trying to be sarcastic i'm just making sure): you are saying that it does not matter how small the sample is because of earth's (in indeed about everything in nature's) tendency to balance itself out (equilibirum). so the sample's average should roughly equate to earth's overall average? agreed, that would be logical. but what i'm thinking is this (may or may not be right), you put it on a long enough timeline and there are so many small fluxuations that with a sample of less than 1% is it not possible that your small sample could happen to be of a section of the graph (if you will) that looks like this:

/
_/
and does not give you the broad picture as in how does the size of this climb compare to some in the past. is this on or off the regression line (best fit line)? could there have been some peaks twice as high but the average still remain the same?

Twitch2395

08-12-2005, 07:57

Because global is not the same as local ?

True but how can there be "Global" warming if some places are cooling down???

Twitch2395

08-12-2005, 07:59

I'll be damned if you didn't just win this thread.
*bows*

(FLORT)

Then you are now damned

Free Soviets

08-12-2005, 07:59

one last thing i forgot. the methods we have to measure things like atmospheric levels of c02 go back hundreds of thousands of years, like the 650,000 suggested in the above post. but consider the age of the earth: 4,500,000,000 (4.5 billion) years. that makes 650,000 a glimpse into only the last 0.0145% (i.e. a VERY small percentage) of earth's history. not exactly an in-depth analysis of the history of climate change, might you agree?

of course, that is just the direct measure of air trapped in ice cores. we have other methods that allow us to measure and estimate even earlier. but surely you knew this. it got it's very own section in the ipcc report even.

more importantly, the point isn't knowing how much atmospheric carbon has varied over the entire history of earth, but attributing the causes of the current increasing concentration. and it turns out that humans put out more than enough to account for it (the excess being taken up in various carbon sinks), while the other possible sources have stayed stable or even declined over the period in question.

Straughn

08-12-2005, 08:00

The Supreme Rulers

08-12-2005, 08:01

Thanks sherlock, so how about editing out the redundancy and giving a list, perhaps I will rephrase this. What are the green-house gases. And no recursiveness this time!
i apologize, here is a list:
Chemical Name
BROMOTRIFLUOROMETHANE
CARBON DIOXIDE
CARBON MONOXIDE
CARBON TETRACHLORIDE
2-CHLORO-1,1,1,2-TETRAFLUOROETHANE
1-CHLORO-1,1-DIFLUOROETHANE
CHLORODIFLUOROMETHANE
1,1-DICHLORO-1-FLUOROETHANE
DICHLORODIFLUOROMETHANE
DICHLOROTETRAFLUOROETHANE (CFC-114)
1, 1-DIFLUOROETHANE
ETHANE, PENTAFLUORO- (8CI)(9CI)
FREON 113
METHANe
MONOCHLOROPENTAFLUOROETHANE
NITROUS OXIDE
1,1,1,2-TETRAFLUOROETHANE
1,1,1-TRICHLOROETHANE
TRICHLOROFLUOROMETHANE
1,1,1-TRIFLUORO-2,2-DICHLOROETHANE
1,1,1-TRIFLUOROETHANE

Lazy Otakus

08-12-2005, 08:01

True but how can there be "Global" warming if some places are cooling down???

Because Global Warming is a complex issue?

Some places are expected to be cooling down (like Europe for example, because of the shutting down of the Gulf Stream), while the global average temperature is going up.

Straughn

08-12-2005, 08:01

Then you are now damned
Actually, to some, i've been damned for some time ... but more to the point, if they're not the winner, then who are the contenders?
Yourself?

Free Soviets

08-12-2005, 08:03

True but how can there be "Global" warming if some places are cooling down???

well you see, those tricksy scientists take lots of measurments from lots of places and use arcane alchemical methods to come up with something they call the 'global mean temperature'. they then use this to transmute lead into gold and create the philosopher's stone.

The Squeaky Rat

08-12-2005, 08:03

Then you are now damned

*wonders how much Hell contributes to global warming*

Straughn

08-12-2005, 08:04

i apologize, here is a list:
Chemical Name
BROMOTRIFLUOROMETHANE
CARBON DIOXIDE
CARBON MONOXIDE
CARBON TETRACHLORIDE
2-CHLORO-1,1,1,2-TETRAFLUOROETHANE
1-CHLORO-1,1-DIFLUOROETHANE
CHLORODIFLUOROMETHANE
1,1-DICHLORO-1-FLUOROETHANE
DICHLORODIFLUOROMETHANE
DICHLOROTETRAFLUOROETHANE (CFC-114)
1, 1-DIFLUOROETHANE
ETHANE, PENTAFLUORO- (8CI)(9CI)
FREON 113
METHANe
MONOCHLOROPENTAFLUOROETHANE
NITROUS OXIDE
1,1,1,2-TETRAFLUOROETHANE
1,1,1-TRICHLOROETHANE
TRICHLOROFLUOROMETHANE
1,1,1-TRIFLUORO-2,2-DICHLOROETHANE
1,1,1-TRIFLUOROETHANE

Now ... how many of these are contributed by cows? ;)

Transcendental Waldens

08-12-2005, 08:05

how could there be global warming if it was the coldest winter ever last year in New Hampshire!!! It was -20 for 2 and half months.

One of the generally agreed upon theories regarding climate change: the Gulf Stream will decrease. This would lead to colder winters in the North Atlantic.

"Computer models simulating ocean-atmosphere climate dynamics indicate that the North Atlantic region would cool 3° to 5° Celsius if Conveyor circulation were totally disrupted. It would produce winters twice as cold as the worst winters on record in the eastern United States in the past century"(Woods Hole).

from:
http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/climatechange_wef.html

The Supreme Rulers

08-12-2005, 08:06

The Squeaky Rat

08-12-2005, 08:08

True but how can there be "Global" warming if some places are cooling down???

People are talking about the global average.
Example- take this row of numbers:

6,4,5,3,7. The total is 25, the average 5.
Now change it:
1,9,10,1,9. The total is 30, the average 6. But some numbers got lower instead of higher.

However, this is *still* a simplification. Most of earths warmth can be stored in the oceans, which warm up slowly. Problem is that they are also very slow to cool down again.

Straughn

08-12-2005, 08:09

*wonders how much Hell contributes to global warming*
:eek:

I hadn't considered that the burning of souls in the living, due to damnation, could be ..... contributing to global warming too!!!
My, my, as i live and *cough* breathe, fire & brimstone!!
In yet another fashion, people like me are dooming everyone, apparently.
You should wash yourself thoroughly after reading this!! Please! For your own sakes!
Doomed!!!!

Straughn

08-12-2005, 08:13

btw, Straughn since you and i seem to really be goin at it, i do intend this as friendly and by no means think my opinion on the matter is set in stone. i just mean to have a good heated debate!
and it does stand to reason that more ppl=more eating of cows...
'Tis all good. To be honest, Corneliu and i have wasted MUCH, MUCH more bits of info at each other and often to the chagrin of thread viewers ... or hopefully to their amusement.
Again, i'll prop my name and this topic for more interested viewers in the Thread Archives .... or maybe punch of Corny, since (he)'s usually on the opposite side of the debate than myself.
On a sidenote, The Daily Show f*cking ROCKS tonight!!!!!!!!

*note: I don't actually know Corny's gender. This is a virtual/digital medium, after all. Nothing personal.

Straughn

08-12-2005, 08:17

One of the generally agreed upon theories regarding climate change: the Gulf Stream will decrease. This would lead to colder winters in the North Atlantic.

"Computer models simulating ocean-atmosphere climate dynamics indicate that the North Atlantic region would cool 3° to 5° Celsius if Conveyor circulation were totally disrupted. It would produce winters twice as cold as the worst winters on record in the eastern United States in the past century"(Woods Hole).

from:
http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/climatechange_wef.html
Currently (pardon the pun) ... something's come up in the past two weeks, worth gandering.
In the December 1st issue of Nature magazine, Harry Bryden and colleagues at Britain's National Oceanography Centre report that the Atlantic meridional circulation (also known as the thermohaline circulation (THC) -- the density driven current that carries warm surface water northward and returns colder deep water southward -- has slowed by 30 percent between 1957 and 2004.

The significance of this finding is difficult to assess in light of other recent observations.

Climate model simulations estimate that a complete shutdown of the THC would result in a cooling of Europe of 4ºC or more. So, shouldn't a 30% slowdown have some noticeable impacts, such as a pretty sharp cooling trend?

Just two days before the Bryden results were published, a report from the European Environment Agency detailed all of the ills that Europe has been facing recently because of how warm it has been, and prominently proclaimed that Europe's four hottest years on record were 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004. And yet, how many breathless news stories, like the one in London's Guardian, played the Bryden paper as reflecting a long-term (read: anthropogenic influenced) trend in the THC?

A close read, however, shows that the THC changes have really only taken place sometime since 1992. Since 1957, the characteristics of the Atlantic Ocean that Bryden et al. used in making their calculations were sampled 4 more times -- in 1981, 1992, 1998, and 2004. No remarkable changes were detected between 1957 and 1992, but since then, Bryden found indications that the THC had slowed a bit by 1998, and further in the 2004 data.

A large-scale, arguably "natural" event took place during that same time. Karcher et. al. recently reported a large freshwater release from the Arctic Ocean into the North Atlantic Ocean in the mid-1990s as a result of atmospheric circulation patterns resulting from an extremely intense North Atlantic Oscillation (or NAO, a measure of the pressure distribution over the North Atlantic Ocean basin). Since the early to mid-1990s, the NAO has returned to more normal values indicating that the trend from low NAO values characteristic of the 1960s to the historically high values in the early 1990s has ended. The return to normal NAO conditions has also, according to Karcher et. al., resulted in a more normal degree of freshwater input to the subpolar North Atlantic. Addition of a pulse of freshwater to the North Atlantic is one mechanism for slowing the THC, and so it is possible that the freshwater release in the mid-1990s identified by Karcher could have acted to slow, temporarily, the THC -- perhaps an effect picked up in Bryden's analysis.

And further, a recent paper by Knight et. al. reconstructed the history of the THC in the Atlantic for the past 125 years or so based upon a combination of climate model simulations and sea surface temperature observations. They concluded that the THC had increased substantially since the 1970s -- a finding in opposition to that of Bryden et. al. Squaring these disparate findings is not a simple matter and indicates that the situation is much more complex than perhaps realized.

Science magazine's Richard Kerr covers the Bryden et. al. findings in the December 2nd issue of the magazine with an article titled "The Atlantic Conveyor May Have Slowed, But Don't Panic Yet." Kerr's look at the issue is a bit more critical than most other mainstream press reports. He notes that the trend reported by Bryden et. al. is hardly bigger than the uncertainty in the calculations, and even quoted Bryden as telling him "we don't know enough about the ocean to know whether [our result] represents a trend" that will persist.

Here is how Kerr concludes his look into the issue:

The picture is still fuzzy, however. "It would be dangerous to jump to the conclusion that there's a persistent weakening" of the conveyor circulation, says ocean and climate modeler Richard Wood of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Exeter, U.K. Wood, Rhines, and Bryden all worry that the near-instantaneous snapshots taken by the ocean surveys might have been misleading. Like any part of the complex climate system, the conveyor is bound to slow down at times and speed up at others. The two latest surveys, Wood says, may have happened to catch the Atlantic as the conveyor slowed temporarily, giving the impression that a permanent change had taken place.

On the other hand, the [Bryden's] analysis may not have even captured what happened in the past decade or so. Climate models simulating the conveyor in a warming world don't call for such a large slowdown until sometime in the next century, Wood notes. In fact, climate researcher Jeff Knight of the Hadley Centre and colleagues recently reported that changing sea surface temperatures suggest that the conveyor has speeded up a bit since the 1970s (Science, 1 July, p. 41). And physical oceanographers Carl Wunsch and Patrick Heimbach of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have just crunched far more oceanographic data from a variety of sources over the interval of dramatic change (1993 to 2004) in the NOC analysis. In a paper submitted for publication, they report a small slowdown, a quarter the size of the NOC group's. The change in heat transported northward is negligible, they calculate.

So has the conveyor slowed? Might it continue to slow? "We don't know," says Wunsch. And it may take a decade or two more of watching and waiting to know for sure.

Together, all of this points to a far less clear picture about the state of the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean than is generally being reported. On the other hand, if Bryden et. al. have discovered a real long-term change in the THC, then this will in turn change the paradigm as to how the THC relates to a huge host of climate parameters -- parameters that, at present, don't seem to be behaving like they should if the THC is indeed slowing dramatically. Not often does one anomaly break a paradigm. It happens -- but rarely.

References:

Bryden, H.L., et al., 2005. Slowing of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation at 25ºN. Nature, 438, 655-657.

Karcher, M., et al., 2005. Arctic Ocean change heralds North Atlantic freshening. Geophysical Research Letters, 32, doi:1029/2005GL023861.

Kerr, R., 2005. The Atlantic Conveyor May Have Slowed, But Don't Panic Yet. Science, 310, 1403-1404.

Knight, J.R., et al., 2005. A signature of persistent natural thermohaline circulation cycles in observed climate. Geophysical Research Letters, 32, doi:10.1029/2005GL024233.

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http://www.techcentralstation.com/120205F.html

Straughn

08-12-2005, 08:24

btw, Straughn since you and i seem to really be goin at it, i do intend this as friendly and by no means think my opinion on the matter is set in stone. i just mean to have a good heated debate!
and it does stand to reason that more ppl=more eating of cows...
Actually, i imagine a *good* heated debate would have some facts in it ... i tend to use "Argument Sketch" from Monty Python as my control group.

Straughn

08-12-2005, 08:26

well you see, those tricksy scientists take lots of measurments from lots of places and use arcane alchemical methods to come up with something they call the 'global mean temperature'. they then use this to transmute lead into gold and create the philosopher's stone.
See, THIS would qualify as "Contender" for winning this thread.
Might this turn to be a nail-biter?
And will Corneliu pop in and really "heat things up"???????

Straughn

08-12-2005, 08:29

I should also add the Gymoor II: The Return is particularly versed on this topic.

Twatwaffle

08-12-2005, 08:32

sorry i havn't read every single reply so i'm not 100% sure or not but did anyone else bring up the snowball earth theory and how natural global warming raised the temp to unfreeze the earth from an accumulation of "greenhouse" gases released from active volcanoes to unfreeze the earth by raising the tempature and the weather and rain patterns forming to create the climates the earth has now (rain being a natural cleanser of the atmosphere) i'm not a scientist, and i don't know much on it... just another interesting theory to throw out there as to explaining why global warming isn't our fault

from a paper published august 8th 1999

Geology tells us that the Earth's climate is subject to change on various timescales, but what are the limits to climatic variability? Over the last million years that constitute the Pleistocene epoch, the time in which humans evolved, continents bordering the North Atlantic Ocean were periodically glaciated at intervals governed by changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun. At the height of the last ice age, a mere 21,000 years ago, much of North America and Europe were covered by glaciers over 2 kilometers thick, causing sea level to drop by 120 meters. The chill was global: land and sea ice combined to cover 30 percent of the Earth's surface, more than at any other time in the last 500 million years. Although these are dramatic examples of the variability of Earth's climate, they pale by comparison with climatic events near the end of the Neoproterozoic eon (1000-543 million years ago), events that immediately preceded the first appearance of recognizable animal life around 600 million years ago.

http://www-eps.harvard.edu/people/faculty/hoffman/snowball_paper.html

Straughn

08-12-2005, 09:00

Straughn

08-12-2005, 09:42

*BUMP*ies...
There should be a few more posts on this.

The Similized world

08-12-2005, 14:23

True but how can there be "Global" warming if some places are cooling down???
One of the many lovely aspects of global warming is how it utterly fucks up local climate regulation. It's presently not possible to accurately predict how all local climate regulation interacts.

Anyway.. Local climate is highly dependent on local phenomenons. Even slight permanent changes in local temperature can alter how local phenomenons interact, and thus result in feedback effects that systain themselves.

For example; if you live in a coastal region, chances are the ocean currents are what keeps you warm at winter. So if the ocean currents change slightly & give you just slightly colder winters, a build-up of snow may occur. That snow will reflect a lot of the sunlight that would've otherwise keept your area from getting permafrost. The permafrost in the ground will in turn increase the amount of snow, which will increase the amount of permafrost, which will increase the amount of snow, which...

That's how climate feedback works, although this is a very, very simple example. Local feedback effects can potentially have a huge effect on the global climate, but pt, noone knows on how great a scale these things will happen. Feedback effects are already happening though. Retreating glaciers are perfect examples of this, although the result is a temperature increase instead of decrease. Melting glaciers will reach a critical point where there glacier have retreated to such a degree that the local temperature increases. That makes it impossible for the glacier to advance, which means it'll melt faster, which makes the local enviroment even warmer, which makes it melt faster, which makes the local enviroment even warmer, which...

Usually though, the phenomena regulating local climate are much, much more complex - making it that much harder to predict possible feedback risks. Global warming in itself can reach proportions where feedback occurs, and become self-sustaining. That's the real danger.

For better - and actual - examples, visit IPCC. Actually, IPCC is the single greatest resource for information about global warming (surprisingly).

Corneliu

08-12-2005, 14:33

Well, some one has declared Kyoto dead but it seems to be the US right wing lobby. So hmmmmmmn.......

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=\ForeignBureaus\archive\200512/FOR20051206c.html

It isn't just us. Apparently the people at the conference believe it too.

I guess you didn't read the entire article now did you?

U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair conceded in September that Kyoto would never succeed. Blair said, "No country is going to cut its growth or consumption" because of the fear of climate change and predicted that disputes regarding its execution will "never be resolved."

According to a report from the International Council for Capital Formation, a European-based think tank, adherence to the emission limits of the Kyoto protocol will severely restrict European economic growth. In addition, many of the industrialized nations that ratified the protocol are not only failing to reduce emissions, but also are instead facing increases in their emissions. For example, Canada's emissions are up 24 percent, according to a 2003 U.N. report.

OOPS! I guess people who were talking about Kyoto being worthless where right after all.

Before jumping on against the United States, do read what others are saying.

Corneliu

08-12-2005, 14:39

'Tis all good. To be honest, Corneliu and i have wasted MUCH, MUCH more bits of info at each other and often to the chagrin of thread viewers ... or hopefully to their amusement.

Now that's an understatement :D

Again, i'll prop my name and this topic for more interested viewers in the Thread Archives .... or maybe punch of Corny, since (he)'s usually on the opposite side of the debate than myself.
On a sidenote, The Daily Show f*cking ROCKS tonight!!!!!!!!

Gotta be fair and balanced :D

]quote]*note: I don't actually know Corny's gender. This is a virtual/digital medium, after all. Nothing personal.[/QUOTE]

I am a he :)

Transcendental Waldens

09-12-2005, 01:43

Transcendental Waldens

09-12-2005, 04:03

something goes bumb in the night.

Straughn

09-12-2005, 06:38

Now that's an understatement :D

Gotta be fair and balanced :D

]quote]*note: I don't actually know Corny's gender. This is a virtual/digital medium, after all. Nothing personal.

I am a he :)[/QUOTE]
Fair 'nuff!
I'll line up my cache of male-assault ordinance for ya, for future arguments!
...and then i'll probably misplace them, leaving me to my faltering wit.
*sigh*

Straughn

09-12-2005, 06:42

It isn't just us. Apparently the people at the conference believe it too.

I guess you didn't read the entire article now did you?

OOPS! I guess people who were talking about Kyoto being worthless where right after all.

Before jumping on against the United States, do read what others are saying.
Now for the follow-up ...

*ahem*

Warning to Blair on climate change
The Scotsman
Tony Blair has been warned not to allow the US to dictate the future of the
Kyoto Protocol on climate change by refusing to participate in discussions.

The Prime Minister was accused by aid and environment groups of sending out
confusing and ambiguous messages on the subject.
The UK coalition - the first of its kind - aims to highlight the problems
human development and ecosystems are facing as ministers discuss the issue
in Montreal.

It is calling for official recognition that the threat from climate change
is so large that it threatens all the internationally-agreed targets for
poverty reduction - the Millennium Development Goals. It is also lobbying
that any deal to develop the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012 should force
countries to adopt greenhouse gas reduction targets which are adequate to
stop dangerous climate change.

Sufficient resources must be provided to enable developing countries to
adapt to the degree warming already built into the earth's climate system,
it urges. The groups are calling on Tony Blair to resist pressure to block
progress in order to appease the current US administration.

The coalition's report "Africa: Up in Smoke?" makes it clear that Mr Blair's
efforts to alleviate poverty in Africa will ultimately fail unless urgent
action is taken to halt dangerous climate change.

Rich countries have failed to join the dots between climate change and
development, particularly in Africa, it said. And unless addressed, this
could condemn generations in the world's poorest nations. Africa is on the
front line of global warming, with 70 per cent of the workforce relying on
mostly rain-fed agriculture for their livelihoods. Climate change is already
disrupting these vital rains, bringing more droughts and floods.

The report, with a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, details the impact
that climate change is already having on Africa and the threat it poses to
human development.

John Magrath of Oxfam said: "The Kyoto Protocol must and will go forward. It
is the only game in town." Similarly, Catherine Pearce, of Friends of the
Earth, said: "Politicians gathered here in Montreal need to take on board
that the public want action. Coalitions like ours are now emerging in other
countries.

Andrew Simms, of the New Economics Foundation, said: "The Government's chief
scientific adviser Sir David King, former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix,
and Sir John Houghton have all said that global warming is a bigger threat
to society than terrorism. That means it needs a stronger international
response."

--
U.S. Execs Clamping Down on Environment

By CHARLES J. HANLEY
The Associated Press
Thursday, December 8, 2005; 7:10 PM

MONTREAL -- Clamping down on automobile emissions and plugging city
buildings into wind or solar power, U.S. governors and mayors are stepping
in to help head off climate change where they say the federal government is
failing.

"Together we can make a huge difference," Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels said
Thursday as he and other U.S. city executives worked the corridors of the
U.N. climate conference in Montreal.

They said they hoped to spur the Bush administration to take the lead. But
although federal action is needed, "we cannot afford to wait for federal
action," said K.C. Golden, an environmental consultant to U.S. local
governments, including Seattle.

The action is unfolding quickly in places like California, where Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger on Thursday received a task force's proposals for meeting his
goal of reducing his state's "greenhouse gas" emissions to 1990 levels by
2020.

Later this month, nine northeastern states expect to produce a regional plan
for capping power-plant emissions and allowing trading in "carbon credits."
And at least nine states, including New York, have adopted or plan to adopt
California's tough new standards on automobile emissions.

Nickels, organizer of a 195-city coalition to combat global warming, said
local actions accelerated after the Kyoto Protocol took effect last February
without U.S. participation.

The international agreement requires 35 industrialized countries to curb
emissions of carbon dioxide and five other gases that act like a greenhouse
trapping heat in the atmosphere. The gases are byproducts of auto emissions,
power plants and other fossil fuel-burning operations. The warming
atmosphere is expected to disrupt climate and expand oceans, raising sea
levels.

President Bush formally renounced the Kyoto accord in 2001, saying capping
energy use would stunt the U.S. economy. Other nations hoped the Americans
would agree at this annual climate conference to future talks on emissions
controls after 2012, when Kyoto expires. But the U.S. delegation has made
clear it is not interested.

The delegates from Washington did not disparage local U.S. efforts, however.

"It's a strength, not a weakness, that we have states that do want to try
these things," David Garman, a U.S. undersecretary of energy, told
reporters. "We all can learn a lot."

The mayors' reasons for acting are as varied as the American landscape.

"The rising tides of global warming could wipe out homes and businesses in
Santa Monica," explained Mayor Pam O'Connor, whose California city perches
precariously beside Pacific Ocean waves. Nickels noted that the mountain
snowpack on which Seattle relies for water and hydropower almost failed to
materialize last winter _ a symptom, scientists believe, of climate change.
"I was telling people they couldn't shower, they couldn't water their
plants," he said.

Nickels said his government operations have reduced their greenhouse-gas
emissions by 60 percent in recent years _ through motor pools of hybrid
gasoline-electric cars, trucks that use biodiesel fuel and other measures.
Seattle is also building an energy-saving light-rail system.
Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Ryback, speaking by phone from his city, said his
administration has been "greening" city buildings, by installing a
solar-energy system at a police precinct, for example.

State-level actions will have deeper impact. California's new law will
require approximately a 30 percent reduction in automobile emissions by
2016. Automakers are fighting the controls in court in California and other
states adopting the standard.

More broadly, Schwarzenegger issued an executive order last June setting a
statewide target of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to 80 percent below
1990 levels by 2050, with intermediate benchmarks in 2010 and 2020. "We know
the science, we see the threat, and the time for action is now," he said
then.

The task force charged with developing recommendations for meeting those
goals reported to the governor Thursday.

In the Northeast in 2003, another Republican governor, New York's George
Pataki, invited other states to develop a regional plan of "cap and trade"
for power plants _ a system whereby plants that do not use up their reduced
quotas of carbon dioxide emissions can sell "offsets," or credits, to
companies that overshoot their allowances.

The nine states have set a deadline of this month to finalize that program,
which would then require legislation or executive orders in the state
capitals to take effect.

The planned Northeastern trading zone is an example of where federal action
is preferable, Nickels said. "Creating a national market to trade credits _
that is a very critical part of what our federal government can do," he
said.

-------

M3rcenaries

09-12-2005, 07:25

i say nay!

Transcendental Waldens

09-12-2005, 08:16

i say nay!

Nay what?

The Cat-Tribe

09-12-2005, 08:22

Hey,

Just for interest and to see where people stand on the issue. Did you said yay or nay? why? What is your source?

Global warming is real and is at least largely man-made.

The vast majority of relevant scientists agree. Here are a few of my sources:
The Science of Global Warming (http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/science-of-global-warming.html)
http://www.ipcc.ch/
http://www4.nationalacademies.org/onpi/webextra.nsf/web/climate?OpenDocument
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/
http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/index.html
http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/default.asp
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html

The Supreme Rulers

09-12-2005, 18:12

Originally Posted by Transcendental Waldens

I guess it is true that people only hear what they want to hear, perhaps we are both guilty of that?

I respect you for saying that, although i dont agree with you i respect you and appreciate your willingness to have a civilized arguement. more people should say things like that.

Gymoor II The Return

09-12-2005, 20:51

I usually go on at length on this topic, taking care to not only provide articles supporting the idea that man contributes to Global Climate Change but to also find the specific critiques against certain articles that question Global Climate change.

Most of which, I fear, goes completely unread.

So, I will just cut to the chase with this single observation:

Those who reject the gloomy picture science paints about the changing climate are all to ready to embrace the gloomy picture economists (closely related, in most cases, to the primary industries concerned in allegations of greehouse gas emissions,) paint about the economy if measures are taken to reduce mankind's emissions.

More simply, Global Climate Change deniers to not display an even level of cynicism across the board.

Eichen

09-12-2005, 21:11

Gymoor II The Return

09-12-2005, 21:29

It really doesn't matter if it's ntural or man-made. The real question is, how are we going to adapt to the inevitable? It's clear that no nation is going to agree to take a big dent in thei economy, so where are the real-world proposals?
Why aren't the environmentalists coming up with anything practical?
If the answer is "we can't", then I'm afraid we'll have to adapt or go the way of the dinosaurs. That's what we deserve if we aren't intelligent enough to keep up with a changing environment. Nature's a bitch.

There are real world proposals, but instead of responding to the gradual, common-sensical approaches of the mainstream environmentalists, the big business economists would rather respond to the fringe types and construct strawmen against them.

Pushing technology towars sustainable goals is smart and saves money in the long run....just not on the quarterly basis that the stockholders like. A little hydroelectric here, turbines there, solar where practical and nuclear (closely watched,) will work...but industry would rather yelp, "well solar can't provide all the power we need!"

Well, no, it can't. That's why people suggest a holistic approach...an all-encompassing approach. Find new technologies. Support them. Look beyond the quarterly bottom line and see the benefits down the road. Protect sensitive areas. Continue to probe. To question. Don't poo-poo science with spurious arguments.

For an example of a spurious argument, I point to the "well we haven't studied it long enough. Even the longest core samples only go back a fraction of the earth's existance!"

True. But we've only know the fact that the Earth goes around the Sun for a few centuries. We've only been able to directly observe that fact for a relatively short time. Does that mean that the Earth is liable to fall out of it's orbit spontaneously?

Weather patterns have reason behind them. They DON'T "just happen." They happen for reasons. For every natural thing everyone here who isn't a climatologist can think of that might affect the climate, a climatologist can think of twenty. They take ALL of that into account and they STILL see something left over that fits what they believe man is contributing.

Eichen

09-12-2005, 21:51

*snip*
You bring up some very good points. And like I said, if global warming is happening (and the majority of scientists seem to agree that it is), then regardless of the cause, we should be adapting or face the consequences.
The crux of the problem is that the environmental movement (and its loudest proponents) have been hijacked by the anti-corporate/globalization wackos.
This is why anyone not on the far left doesn't take their proposals (or even their science) seriously. In many cases, pro-environment arguments have been thinly veiled anti-business diatribes. The co-founder of Greenpeace left the orgainization because of this, and it's hurt the movement since.
We need to come up with practical solutions that allow businesses to act like businesses (make a profit) by introducing technologies (that people will WANT to purchase) that will lead to a cleaner tomorrow.
The first step for anyone who cares more for the future than for partisan politics is to quickly seperate the science from the granola, tree-hugging, back-to-tribalism proponents on the far, screeching left.
Until this happens, we're gonna keep going down the same road to disaster.
This isn't what hippies... I mean environmentalist want to hear, but it's the truth. I'd like to see an honest, scientific discussion on the issue without all of the political interference. This probably isn't going to happen (both sides are too caught up in "winning"), so I think it's best that we prepare ourselves for a very hot, very wet future.
Like I said, we'll get what we deserve.

Desperate Measures

09-12-2005, 21:55

Gravity!! A Hoax?
*levitates*

Gymoor II The Return

09-12-2005, 21:56

snip

Those that rise to prominence are often the most fanatical. That goes for both the fringe environmentalists and the "bottom line only," big business types.

There are just as many business types that pursue their goal with the fanatacism that the leftiest lefty does.

Except the fanatical big business types have all the money they need to appear respectable and to garner political support.

Never forget this.

Eichen

09-12-2005, 22:05

Those that rise to prominence are often the most fanatical. That goes for both the fringe environmentalists and the "bottom line only," big business types.

There are just as many business types that pursue their goal with the fanatacism that the leftiest lefty does.

Except the fanatical big business types have all the money they need to appear respectable and to garner political support.

Never forget this.
Well, this doesn't help at all. You're not going to see capitalism's demise anytime soon. You're not going to see businessmen foregoing a dollar in order to "save the planet". It's not going to happen.
You're also not going to hear the far-left agreeing on any proposals that don't fuck over corporations. If the environment were really their first concern, they'd be dealing with this mess practically. Their first concern seems to be the demise of cpaitalism. At least the businessmen are honest about their intentions.

Don't you agree that the earth is going to go to hell in a handbasket if the problem isn't dealt with in a realistic manner? Or are you also one of those who wrap their anticapitalist argument in the shroud of planetary salvation?

Bambambambambam

09-12-2005, 22:08

Global Warming, a hoax? Whatever next...

*penguins break into room, keyboard freezes to ice, starts snowing*

Bambambambambam

09-12-2005, 22:10

Gymoor II The Return

09-12-2005, 22:16

Well, this doesn't help at all. You're not going to see capitalism's demise anytime soon. You're not going to see businessmen foregoing a dollar in order to "save the planet". It's not going to happen.
You're also not going to hear the far-left agreeing on any proposals that don't fuck over corporations. If the environment were really their first concern, they'd be dealing with this mess practically. Their first concern seems to be the demise of cpaitalism. At least the businessmen are honest about their intentions.

Don't you agree that the earth is going to go to hell in a handbasket if the problem isn't dealt with in a realistic manner? Or are you also one of those who wrap their anticapitalist argument in the shroud of planetary salvation?

Who said I wanted to see an end to capitalism? I'm just for marginalizing the uber-business fanatics.

Again, you're constructing a strawman by characterizing the bulk of the people concerned about the environment as anti-capitalists. This is simply not true.

And again, for every rabid anti-capitalist there's a venal uber-capitalist. Neither should be paid attention to...but the uber-capitalist can buy attention at will.

Look, I think my opinion is main-stream with regards to environmentalism. I don't mind dams (as long as they aren't omnipresent,) even though they may be a danger to some ecosystems, because I think the benefits, when carefully considered and executed, outweigh the disadvantages. I don't want to see capitalism fail. I don't want lack of competition and innovation.

But I also don't want to see the tyrrany of capitalism either. A dollar is not the end-all be-all of existence. Neither is it not a handy thing to have around.

Look, we have to find a compromise one of these days. The effects of climate change are only going to become more apparent (and expensive,) and prevention is cheaper than repair. THAT is an economic reason for intelligent environmental policy right there.

Eichen

09-12-2005, 22:17

It's common knowledge. Just ask your geography teacher if you go to school. I haven't heard of a single government that doesn't accept that fact, but whether they do anything about it is a different matter entirely... yeah, Mr. Bush, whaddaya gonnadoo now?
Exactly. It doesn't matter in the least if we admit there's a problem, but get mired in political quicksand instead.
How many "save the earth" bumper stickers have you seen lately on an SUV?
How much of this can be lamed on the consumers for making awful choices?
They're at least as much to blame as the corporations, who's job it is to give people what they want (read: will purchase).

We need to staet deveolping better products that don't harm the environment that people will actually spend their hard-earned money on, and forego the hazardous choices. That's the only way we're going to get our "green" future.

Eichen

09-12-2005, 22:27

Who said I wanted to see an end to capitalism? I'm just for marginalizing the uber-business fanatics.

Again, you're constructing a strawman by characterizing the bulk of the people concerned about the environment as anti-capitalists. This is simply not true.
Don't throw around the overused "straw man" argument. Have you been to an environmental rally lately, and checked out their "sister" causes? Have you seen what GreenPeace's agenda looks like? This may not be the majority of people concerned with our environment, but unfortuantely, it's the loudest leaders of the movement we see far too often, and it doesn't help if the major environmental groups have bought into this sidelined agenda.

And again, for every rabid anti-capitalist there's a venal uber-capitalist. Neither should be paid attention to...but the uber-capitalist can buy attention at will.
Who cares? If the big business guys are "winning" and have all of the money, bitching about it isn't going to save the planet from destruction.
In fact, it's just going to worsen the problem. Things are as they are. That's you starting point.

Look, I think my opinion is main-stream with regards to environmentalism. I don't mind dams (as long as they aren't omnipresent,) even though they may be a danger to some ecosystems, because I think the benefits, when carefully considered and executed, outweigh the disadvantages. I don't want to see capitalism fail. I don't want lack of competition and innovation.
I hope that there's more people who share this opinion, because I share it, too.
But I also don't want to see the tyrrany of capitalism either. A dollar is not the end-all be-all of existence. Neither is it not a handy thing to have around.
Again, everyone who gives a shit about our future should steer clear of this argument. A duck's gonna be a duck, and a corporation is gonna care about the buck first. It's the way it is, and we've got to work within that system.
We don't have an alternative. Scientists, inventors, and creative people of all professions need to work together with businesses in order to provide the poulace with better alternatives to those we currently have. And we need to make those alternatives affordable, not an expensive political statement.
Look, we have to find a compromise one of these days. The effects of climate change are only going to become more apparent (and expensive,) and prevention is cheaper than repair. THAT is an economic reason for intelligent environmental policy right there.
I agree. Hopefully, people can put aside their political differences long enough to come up with practical applications to the problem. If we can't, we're doomed (and probably deserve to be).

Gymoor II The Return

09-12-2005, 22:37

Don't throw around the overused "straw man" argument. Have you been to an environmental rally lately, and checked out their "sister" causes? Have you seen what GreenPeace's agenda looks like? This may not be the majority of people concerned with our environment, but unfortuantely, it's the loudest leaders of the movement we see far too often, and it doesn't help if the major environmental groups have bought into this sidelined agenda.

To be honest, I don't give a flying fuck what those people do. Also, realize that a function of politics is to ask for too much so that when a compromise is reached, you get closer to what you really wanted.

Who cares? If the big business guys are "winning" and have all of the money, bitching about it isn't going to save the planet from destruction.
In fact, it's just going to worsen the problem. Things are as they are. That's you starting point.

Capitalism as it exists now has not always existed, nor will it look the same in the future. THAT is certain. "Bitching" about something is how every movement gets started, so don't tell me it's useless. It's only "bitching" if your ideas lose out in the long run. It's "leading" if people listen.

I hope that there's more people who share this opinion, because I share it, too.

I think you'll find the majority of those who are aware and think for themselves indeed do.

Again, everyone who gives a shit about our future should steer clear of this argument. A duck's gonna be a duck, and a corporation is gonna care about the buck first. It's the way it is, and we've got to work within that system.
We don't have an alternative. Scientists, inventors, and creative people of all professions need to work together with businesses in order to provide the poulace with better alternatives to those we currently have. And we need to make those alternatives affordable, not an expensive political statement.

Who said anything about working outside the system? Innovation is what we nedd and, yes, political pressure. Political pressure was needed to abolish child labor, amidst the cries of encroaching poverty by those who "depended" on child labor. Hell, economic collapse was even used as an argument against abolishing slavery! Political pressure was needed to protect workers rights. Political pressure was needed to bust up the Trusts. If there's one thing history shows us is that the more things change, the more they stay the same...but still, they change.

I agree. Hopefully, people can put aside their political differences long enough to come up with practical applications to the problem. If we can't, we're doomed (and probably deserve to be).

Well, if not doomed, then at least highly inconvenienced. Man will be able to adapt...at greater and greater expenditure of effort as time goes by if things don't change.

Eichen

09-12-2005, 22:44

Honestly, it sounds like we agree on most things concerning the issue.
Let's hope that the human race spends more time and energy developing practical solutions, rather than arguing about whether or not the problem exists.

Corneliu

13-12-2005, 15:11

Now, now, let's be nice. It is not nice to accuse someone of ignorance just because you don't agree with them. I did'nt read the entire article? Did you read the bit about:
"These kinds of comments just come from the United States actually and it's driven by the White House who actually wants to see this process die,"

OR how ABOUT
"Kyoto is alive and kicking. This conference is proof of that,"
-http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=\ForeignBureaus\archive\200512/FOR20051206c.html

I guess it is true that people only hear what they want to hear, perhaps we are both guilty of that?

Actually I did read it but if you noticed, the United States and a few other nations knew that Kyoto wasn't going to work. We've said so from the very start. The US Senate even knew it wasn't going to work. Clinton decided to sign it anyway but he never submitted it to the Senate for Ratification because he knew it would never pass.

Before you say damn republicans, just prior to the signing, the US Senate passed a resolution 98-0 against Kyoto. That is why Clinton never submitted it to the floor.

Corneliu

13-12-2005, 15:15

More simply, Global Climate Change deniers to not display an even level of cynicism across the board.

Climate changes happen anyway. Its been happening through the eons.

Corneliu

13-12-2005, 15:17

The Squeaky Rat

13-12-2005, 17:49

Global Warming is a natural phenomena. A look throughout history is proof of this

No one disputes this. What is disputed is if humanity is adding to it in an amount which is significant to us. As I said earlier: our influence may only be a small and insignificant bump when looking at the grand pattern of millenia - but it is a bump we have to live in.

Free Soviets

13-12-2005, 18:01

Climate changes happen anyway. Its been happening through the eons.

yes. and these changes have attributable physical causes. the current changes include unprecedented anthropogenic activities as significant causes.

Corneliu

13-12-2005, 22:24

yes. and these changes have attributable physical causes. the current changes include unprecedented anthropogenic activities as significant causes.

And if you decide to go back into history, you'll see that with all the climate changes in history.

Gymoor II The Return

13-12-2005, 22:30

And if you decide to go back into history, you'll see that with all the climate changes in history.

And if you look back in history, you'll see mass extinctions too.

Just because something happened before doesn't mean that is a good or even a neutral thing.

Just because something happened naturally in the past does not mean that it happens NOW naturally. Natural wildfires happen all the time. Does that mean that arson doesn't exist?

The Similized world

13-12-2005, 22:30

And if you decide to go back into history, you'll see that with all the climate changes in history.Can you back that up somehow?

Also, the current situation is not one of "Well it's impossible to attribute the increase in CO2 (and similar), so let's just blame ourselves for no reason."

Gymoor II The Return

13-12-2005, 22:32

Desperate Measures

13-12-2005, 22:34

Asking Corny to back something up is like asking Michael Jackson to be more macho.
HEE-HEEE-HEEEE. oooh.

Corneliu

13-12-2005, 23:10

Can you back that up somehow?

Also, the current situation is not one of "Well it's impossible to attribute the increase in CO2 (and similar), so let's just blame ourselves for no reason."

Yea its called Leaf Erickson. Its also called the Vikings who had to leave Scandanavia because of over population due to a longer growing season and sat foot on the Island of Greenland.

If it wasn't for climate change and Global Warming, Leaf Erickson probably wouldn't have sat foot on Newfoundland.

Gymoor II The Return

13-12-2005, 23:16

Yea its called Leaf Erickson. Its also called the Vikings who had to leave Scandanavia because of over population due to a longer growing season and sat foot on the Island of Greenland.

If it wasn't for climate change and Global Warming, Leaf Erickson probably wouldn't have sat foot on Newfoundland.

The name if Leif, not Leaf.

Again, CO2 levels are much higher now than even in Ericson's time. The cause of TODAY's warming is completely different from the cause of that warming. The warming during Leif's time eventualy cooled back down. The present day warming isn't likely to disappear until we manage to stop pumping so much CO2 into the atmosphere.

Again, here's the Sci-Am article that clearly shows that CO2 levels are at unprecedented levels for the last 650,000 years (well before Leif's time.)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=00020983-B238-1384-B23883414B7F0000

Free Soviets

13-12-2005, 23:22

Yea its called Leaf Erickson. Its also called the Vikings who had to leave Scandanavia because of over population due to a longer growing season and sat foot on the Island of Greenland.

If it wasn't for climate change and Global Warming, Leaf Erickson probably wouldn't have sat foot on Newfoundland.

i don't think you are quite getting it.

climate is a physical process. it is influenced by a number of known physical variables. we can figure out the changes in those variables. we can figure out the causes for the changes in those variables. which means we can figure out the causes of particular instances of climate change. in the current instance, the sheer volume of human activity is such a large factor that it actually overcomes some natural cooling factors. conversely, the instance you are referencing was a more localized event due to non-anthropogenic changes in the currents of the north atlantic.

Corneliu

13-12-2005, 23:24

The name if Leif, not Leaf.

Again, CO2 levels are much higher now than even in Ericson's time. The cause of TODAY's warming is completely different from the cause of that warming. The warming during Leif's time eventualy cooled back down. The present day warming isn't likely to disappear until we manage to stop pumping so much CO2 into the atmosphere.

Again, here's the Sci-Am article that clearly shows that CO2 levels are at unprecedented levels for the last 650,000 years (well before Leif's time.)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=00020983-B238-1384-B23883414B7F0000

Actually, Liefs time would be around 1000 ad. So let me ask you this, if they are at unprecendented levels before Liefs time and the advent of the Industrial Revolution of the the 1800s then what caused the High CO2 levels?

Corneliu

13-12-2005, 23:26

i don't think you are quite getting it.

climate is a physical process. it is influenced by a number of known physical variables. we can figure out the changes in those variables. we can figure out the causes for the changes in those variables. which means we can figure out the causes of particular instances of climate change. in the current instance, the sheer volume of human activity is such a large factor that it actually overcomes some natural cooling factors. conversely, the instance you are referencing was a more localized event due to non-anthropogenic changes in the currents of the north atlantic.

And I don't think you quite understand that we just don't know that much about how climate really changes all that well yet. Just like we barely know our own atmosphere.

Until we know more about both subjects, this debate really is a moot point. Theories will change over time and we'll go back to a stage of Global Cooling. It is inevitable that this will occur.

Swallow your Poison

13-12-2005, 23:28

And I don't think you quite understand that we just don't know that much about how climate really changes all that well yet. Just like we barely know our own atmosphere.

Until we know more about both subjects, this debate really is a moot point. Theories will change over time and we'll go back to a stage of Global Cooling. It is inevitable that this will occur.
Surely, you contradict yourself with the statements that we don't know anything about how something works, and then claiming a certain outcome is inevitable?

Free Soviets

13-12-2005, 23:28

we just don't know that much about how climate really changes
...
we'll go back to a stage of Global Cooling. It is inevitable that this will occur.

mmm, contradiction

Swallow your Poison

13-12-2005, 23:30

Hey, look! Free Soviets' response proves that great minds* think alike!

*or at least middling-good minds

Corneliu

13-12-2005, 23:31

Surely, you contradict yourself with the statements that we don't know anything about how something works, and then claiming a certain outcome is inevitable?

I'm drawing on history here. I'll go back to using the vikings and their Greenland settlement again. It thrived while they were able to grow food during the warming trend that was taking place but then had to be abandoned when cooling took place.

Gymoor II The Return

13-12-2005, 23:32

Actually, Liefs time would be around 1000 ad. So let me ask you this, if they are at unprecendented levels before Liefs time and the advent of the Industrial Revolution of the the 1800s then what caused the High CO2 levels?

Actually, our testing of ice cores only go back 650,000 years, so we don't know if CO2 levels were at unprecedented levels before then. All we do know is that CO2 levels are 27% higher than at any time we can directly measure.

Now, the ARE other sources of CO2 besides man. This is true. Question: Do these sources go away once man starts producing CO2? I don;t think so.

So, what we have is natural CO2 cycles being augmented by man.

Have you ever heard the term "the straw that broke the camel's back"?

Think of global warming like that. Sure, there's a whole lot of weight already on the camel...which is why adding more is a bad idea.

Swilatia

13-12-2005, 23:34

Gymoor II The Return

13-12-2005, 23:37

I'm drawing on history here. I'll go back to using the vikings and their Greenland settlement again. It thrived while they were able to grow food during the warming trend that was taking place but then had to be abandoned when cooling took place.

The Black plague happened in the past too. Should we let it happen again?

Europa Maxima

13-12-2005, 23:39

Gymoor II The Return

13-12-2005, 23:40

Not a hoax but part of a natural cycle. Though the polar icecaps are already melting, the size of polar icaps has been different in different times. Global warming will stop before any doomsday scenarios happen, though pollution should stop, we are too worried. I say that the teaching of the theory that all of global warming is 100% caused by human activity should stop, because it is a false theory.

No one who knows anything thinks that 100% of globlal warming happens because of man. The greenhouse effect, at natural levels, is necessary for life. Mars is a planet without significant a greenhouse effect, and the temperature there varies drastically between extremes because of the atmosphere's inability to retain heat. The danger is when man's contribution AUGMENTS the natural greenhouse effect.

You say global warming will stop by itself, but you're basing that on natural cycles WITHOUT man's influence.

Gymoor II The Return

13-12-2005, 23:44

People are aware that even if global warming is solved, then we will have a much bigger problem still, right? Apparently although the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps heat, it also reduces the intensity of sun light that the earth receives. Take it away, and the sun is more intense. So, its not a desirable situation either way.

Global dimming is not caused by CO2. CO2 does not filter out harmful radiation either (that's the ozone layer and the magnetic field.) Particulates in the air (also partially caused by, but not limited to, pollution,) are what causes global dimming. Less visible light intensity is harmful to agricultural production.

Europa Maxima

13-12-2005, 23:47

Global dimming is not caused by CO2. CO2 does not filter out harmful radiation either (that's the ozone layer and the magnetic field.) Particulates in the air (also partially caused by, but not limited to, pollution,) are what causes global dimming. Less visible light intensity is harmful to agricultural production.
Indeed, yet stronger light intensity is dangerous for human skin, to the point of being cancerous. Global warming has to be ended, of course, yet its not going to be easy.

Gymoor II The Return

13-12-2005, 23:54

Indeed, yet stronger light intensity is dangerous for human skin, to the point of being cancerous. Global warming has to be ended, of course, yet its not going to be easy.

Ultra Violet light is dangerous for human skin, not visible light (or at least it's a lot less dangerous.) UV light tends to penetrate through particulates, and even largely goes through cloud cover (it's possible to get a sunburn on an overcast day.)

Ultra Violet light is filtered, to a certain extent, by the ozone layer. Even higher frequencies (cosmic radiation for example,) are also filtered partially by the earth's magnetic field.

Europa Maxima

13-12-2005, 23:56

Ultra Violet light is dangerous for human skin, not visible light (or at least it's a lot less dangerous.) UV light tends to penetrate through particulates, and even largely goes through cloud cover (it's possible to get a sunburn on a cloudy day.)

Ultra Violet light is filtered, to a certain extent, by the ozone layer. Even higher frequencies (cosmic radiation for example,) are also filtered partially by the earth's magnetic field.
That implies that the ozone layer is still able to filter the radiation. Its been weakened considerably by pollution and will take decades to repair, if such is even possible.

Gymoor II The Return

14-12-2005, 00:01

That implies that the ozone layer is still able to filter the radiation. Its been weakened considerably by pollution and will take decades to repair, if such is even possible.

Most of it's weakening has occurred over the Antarctic, and reduction in CFC pollution has allowed it to repair itself somewhat. The ozone layer was never destroyed, just tattered a bit.

My point though, is that the dimming you spoke of, while filtering visible light, does little to filter UV light. Higher frequency light has a greater ability to penetrate than visible light does.

Europa Maxima

14-12-2005, 00:04

Most of it's weakening has occurred over the Antarctic, and reduction in CFC pollution has allowed it to repair itself somewhat. The ozone layer was never destroyed, just tattered a bit.

My point though, is that the dimming you spoke of, while filtering visible light, does little to filter UV light. Higher frequency light has a greater ability to penetrate than visible light does.
Hmm odd...because there was an article in The Focus mentioning the potential dangers of dimmer light. It wasn't very thorough though.

Gymoor II The Return

14-12-2005, 00:15

Hmm odd...because there was an article in The Focus mentioning the potential dangers of dimmer light. It wasn't very thorough though.

I didn't say there weren't dangers involved with dimming. Dimming reduces photosynthesis, blunting plant growth on a global basis. It also means dusk and dawn are darker, increasing electrical usage for lighting sake, further exacerbating pollution (albeit incrementally.) Less plant growth means less oxygen and less CO2 being removed from the atmoshpere. It also means less food production. Dimming could also mean that the human pupil contracts less to pull in more light...meaning the human eye is also allowing much more of the less-dimmed UV light in, causing a rise in eye problems.

Corneliu

14-12-2005, 00:15

The Black plague happened in the past too. Should we let it happen again?

That was caused by something they didn't know and the people killed the cats that hunted the rats and mice that carried the disease. Now we have a treatment of the Bubonic Plague.

That can be contained and remedied. You cannot remedy global warming as it is a natural phenomena.

Corneliu

14-12-2005, 00:16

Indeed, yet stronger light intensity is dangerous for human skin, to the point of being cancerous. Global warming has to be ended, of course, yet its not going to be easy.

You'll never end Global Warming.

Europa Maxima

14-12-2005, 00:18

You'll never end Global Warming.
Yeah, because global warming has a will and a person, and thus refuses to give up its fight to rule the world :rolleyes:

Gymoor II The Return

14-12-2005, 00:23

That was caused by something they didn't know and the people killed the cats that hunted the rats and mice that carried the disease. Now we have a treatment of the Bubonic Plague.

That can be contained and remedied. You cannot remedy global warming as it is a natural phenomena.

No, it's a phenomenon that CAN be natural, but is not necessarily natural in all cases. All modern data suggests that the current global warming trend is augmented by man.

If it were a purely natural phenomena, then we should be able to identify which natural factors are causing it. An upsurge in volcanism. Slowing down of continental drift, which exposes less CO2-eating crust, an increase of solar radiance. Fluctuations in cosmic radiation levels. And on and on and on, including many many more natural factors than you or I can imagine. After eliminating all the natural factors science can think of, there's still warming left unaccounted for THAT EXACTLY MIRRORS PREDICTIONS AS TO WHAT MAN MADE WARMING WOULD CONTRIBUTE.

It's all very well to speak of natural cycles, but even natural cycles have reasons behind them. Let's put it this way, Corny. If the current climate change trend is purely natural, what natural processes are causing it?

I don't expect you to address the specifics of this post, you never do.

Gymoor II The Return

14-12-2005, 00:26

You'll never end Global Warming.

We can't halt the natural processes that cause natural climate change...but we can certainly eventually end piling on our contributions...which means climate change, at least, will be slower and gentler, i.e. easier and cheaper to adapt to.

Corneliu

14-12-2005, 00:40

Yeah, because global warming has a will and a person, and thus refuses to give up its fight to rule the world :rolleyes:

So your saying it can be stopped and that you can prevent it?

Corneliu

14-12-2005, 00:46

No, it's a phenomenon that CAN be natural, but is not necessarily natural in all cases. All modern data suggests that the current global warming trend is augmented by man.

Yea and I have data that says I will graduate in May of 2007 but I'm not 100% sure if I will. Data can be wrong and we all know that.

If it were a purely natural phenomena, then we should be able to identify which natural factors are causing it.

Not necessarily.

An upsurge in volcanism. Slowing down of continental drift, which exposes less CO2-eating crust, an increase of solar radiance. Fluctuations in cosmic radiation levels.

Actually, there have been a number of eruptions. Solar radiance increases and decreases based on the solar activity level. As for Continental drift, that I can't answer.

And on and on and on, including many many more natural factors than you or I can imagine. After eliminating all the natural factors science can think of, there's still warming left unaccounted for THAT EXACTLY MIRRORS PREDICTIONS AS TO WHAT MAN MADE WARMING WOULD CONTRIBUTE.

*yawns* And I'm telling you that it is so minute as to make no difference. Explain to me then why it was hotter prior to the Industrial Revolution?

It's all very well to speak of natural cycles, but even natural cycles have reasons behind them.

You sure? I have a natural cycle of going to bed at midnight and waking up at 8 the next morning. Why do I do this? Why does the sun have a natural cycle of 11 years?

Let's put it this way, Corny. If the current climate change trend is purely natural, what natural processes are causing it?

I don't expect you to address the specifics of this post, you never do.

I'm sorry but I cannot explain natural events. They do occur. Weather has a natural cycle. Pittsburgh gets a blizzard roughly every 10 years. You can't explain everything with science despite what people try to pass on.

Lazy Otakus

14-12-2005, 00:47

So your saying it can be stopped and that you can prevent it?

We can surely reduce our influence on it.

Corneliu

14-12-2005, 00:51

We can surely reduce our influence on it.

But how much are we actually influencing? That should be the debate. Not whether or not it is happening but how much we are actually affecting it.

Spottilogic

14-12-2005, 01:03

But how much are we actually influencing? That should be the debate. Not whether or not it is happening but how much we are actually affecting it.

I agree. I can imagine a science fiction story about how humankind went extinct arguing over global warming. Maybe something like the US calling the Chinese a nation of terrorists for polluting the atmosphere. Tempers flare, next thing you know, nuclear winter.

Europa Maxima

14-12-2005, 01:05

So your saying it can be stopped and that you can prevent it?
By reducing pollution, yes.

Europa Maxima

14-12-2005, 01:06

But how much are we actually influencing? That should be the debate. Not whether or not it is happening but how much we are actually affecting it.
It is visibly impacting it. The temperature has increased more in the last 50 years than it has over millions of years.

Corneliu

14-12-2005, 01:14

By reducing pollution, yes.

even though Global Warming has been going on before the advent of heavy industry?

Corneliu

14-12-2005, 01:16

It is visibly impacting it. The temperature has increased more in the last 50 years than it has over millions of years.

*dies of laughter*

Europa Maxima

14-12-2005, 01:18

*dies of laughter*
Read the Economist or the Focus or any scientific journal. And try not to choke on your laughter, we wouldn't want that, now would we ? :)

Free Soviets

14-12-2005, 01:21

An upsurge in volcanism.

minor point - increased volcanism leads to cooling, because they pump out more than enough ash to block sunlight and counter any greenhouse gases they put out.

Gymoor II The Return

14-12-2005, 01:28

Yea and I have data that says I will graduate in May of 2007 but I'm not 100% sure if I will. Data can be wrong and we all know that.

Data can be wrong...but that doesn't mean we should ignore data.

Not necessarily.

Actually, there have been a number of eruptions. Solar radiance increases and decreases based on the solar activity level. As for Continental drift, that I can't answer.

Indeed there have been some eruptions and perturbations in solar radiance. But when accounted for, they don't match up with what we're seeing. Something else (most likely man,) is also in action

*yawns* And I'm telling you that it is so minute as to make no difference. Explain to me then why it was hotter prior to the Industrial Revolution?

Actually, it was colder directly preceding the industrial revolution. The "little ice age" that occurred between the years of 1200 and 1850 coincided with a period of increased volcanic activity and drops in solar radiation.

You sure? I have a natural cycle of going to bed at midnight and waking up at 8 the next morning. Why do I do this? Why does the sun have a natural cycle of 11 years?

Man is mostly a diurnal animal. We're set up (mostly) to operate during daylight hours because we don't have excellent night vision or other senses such as an acute sense of smell or hearing that would compensate for the lack of light. Furthermore, as social animals, we tend to coordinate our sleeping patterns. The advent of fire then artificial lighting has allowed up to operate effectively much later into the night.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/02/0203_050205_sunspots.html

Sunspots are thought to result from a shifting magnetic field inside the sun, explains Aimee Norton, a solar astronomer with the High Altitude Observatory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

he number of sunspots fluctuates over time, reaching a peak every 11 years. This 11-year pattern is known as the sunspot cycle and was discovered in 1843 by German astronomer Samuel Heinrich.

see this as well:
http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/solar/sunspots.htm

and this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babcock_Model

I'm sorry but I cannot explain natural events. They do occur. Weather has a natural cycle. Pittsburgh gets a blizzard roughly every 10 years. You can't explain everything with science despite what people try to pass on.

Blah blah blah. If man was meant to fly, God would have given him wings. You know, if you're so scientifically incurious, why the hell do you argue so much about what you obviously know so little about?

Gymoor II The Return

14-12-2005, 01:33

minor point - increased volcanism leads to cooling, because they pump out more than enough ash to block sunlight and counter any greenhouse gases they put out.

Indeed, I misspoke.

Gymoor II The Return

14-12-2005, 01:38

even though Global Warming has been going on before the advent of heavy industry?

A rock can fall on your head because it fell off a cliff naturally OR because someone chucked it at your head (for repeatedly ignoring valid arguments perhaps.) If you're not standing by a cliff or any other source of naturally falling rocks, isn't it smart to suspect the fellow with rock dust on his hands who is laughing at you?

I've told you repeatedly that this argument is invalid, and yet you keep repeating it as if it were clever. It's not. Quit it.'

And since you have so little faith in science, I suggest you stop typing messages into the magical gnome-filled box we call a computer and save every rational person here endless aggravation.

Straughn

14-12-2005, 01:39

Data can be wrong...but that doesn't mean we should ignore data.

Not necessarily.

Indeed there have been some eruptions and perturbations in solar radiance. But when accounted for, they don't match up with what we're seeing. Something else (most likely man,) is also in action

Actually, it was colder directly preceding the industrial revolution. The "little ice age" that occurred between the years of 1200 and 1850 coincided with a period of increased volcanic activity and drops in solar radiation.

Man is mostly a diurnal animal. We're set up (mostly) to operate during daylight hours because we don't have excellent night vision or other senses such as an acute sense of smell or hearing that would compensate for the lack of light. Furthermore, as social animals, we tend to coordinate our sleeping patterns. The advent of fire then artificial lighting has allowed up to operate effectively much later into the night.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/02/0203_050205_sunspots.html

see this as well:
http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/solar/sunspots.htm

and this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babcock_Model

Blah blah blah. If man was meant to fly, God would have given him wings. You know, if you're so scientifically incurious, why the hell do you argue so much about what you obviously know so little about?
Good post, Gymoor.
I think, per your last line, Corny's in the attitude of "hope over experience".

Gymoor II The Return

14-12-2005, 01:46

Good post, Gymoor.
I think, per your last line, Corny's in the attitude of "hope over experience".

Thanks Straughn, you.ve been making some very good posts yourself.

Straughn

14-12-2005, 01:49

Thanks Straughn, you.ve been making some very good posts yourself.
I just re-read this, and it would appear that Corny never even bothered to look anything up.
Or even, for that matter, bother to read all the posts.
I think he's just trolling.
But, as always, good comedy relief. Just hoping that the 'tards among us don't take him so serious as to find some kind of conviction in him worth emulating. On this topic, anyway. Or the right-wing perspective, either.
Come to think of it ... well, i think he was right about ONE topic somewhere a year or two back ... :confused:

EDIT: i just got a thumbdrive and i'm tired of not having some of my archives, so i will hopefully have some luck at this new venture. If so, it'll be fairly obvious.

Straughn

14-12-2005, 06:54

Gotta bump for some obvious reasons.

*ahem*

Arctic ice meltdown continues rapid pace
RECORD: This year's pack receded farthest since satellite monitoring began.

By DOUG O'HARRA
Anchorage Daily News

Published: September 29, 2005
Last Modified: September 29, 2005 at 06:42 AM

Arctic sea ice has melted back farther this year than in 25 years of
satellite monitoring, marking the fourth consecutive summer with "a stunning
reduction" in the polar pack north of Alaska, Asia and Europe, according to
scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and NASA.

Combined with record or near record declines since 2002, the ice appears to
be slipping into a long-term meltdown that may be slowly accelerating as the
summer sun pumps more and more heat into the green-dark surface of the sea.

If the sea ice continues to shrink at the same rate, the summertime Arctic
could be completely ice-free well before the end of this century, the
scientists said.

While many factors contribute to the ice loss -- warm water creeping north
from the Bering Sea and Atlantic Ocean, changes in air circulation, thinning
floes that don't rebound in winter -- overall warming across the Arctic
appears to be a growing influence.

"The sea ice cover seems to be rapidly changing and the best explanation for
this is rising temperatures," said climate researcher Mark Serezze, a senior
scientist at the snow and ice center. "My view is it's getting increasingly
difficult to argue against the notion that what we're seeing is a greenhouse
gas effect taking hold."

Shrinking ice may be the most dramatic consequence of widespread climate
change in the Arctic that includes melting glaciers and disintegrating
permafrost. The loss of ice could disrupt Native subsistence life, expose
coastal communities to devastating storms and erosion, and threaten the
existence of marine mammals like polar bears. Until recent years, the ice
melted in summer then rebounded during the long, dark Arctic winter. But
during the past four seasons, something has changed.

The refreezing of ice during the 2004-05 winter season produced the smallest
recovery ever measured by satellites, with nine of the past 10 months
setting new records for low ice cover, the scientists said.

During the five days centered on Sept. 21 -- the general period when sea ice
reaches an annual minimum and starts refreezing -- the ice pack covered only
2.05 million acres. That left hundreds of miles of mostly open water off
northwest Alaska and Far Eastern Russia and appeared to beat the previous
record of open Arctic water set in 2002. The pack also is smaller than
previous low-ice periods of the 1930s and 1940s, the scientists said in
their release.

Comparing the average extent of September coverage since 1979 to last week's
observations, it's as though an area the size of Texas had melted away.

"Considering the record low amounts of sea ice this year leading up to the
month of September, 2005 will almost certainly surpass 2002 as the lowest
amount of ice cover in more than a century," said Julienne Stroeve, a
scientist at the data center, in a statement.

The trend has been moving faster. Between 1979 and 2001, sea ice cover
retreated 6.5 percent per decade. By this summer, the rate had leapt to
about 8 percent.

"That means, come autumn and winter, it's harder to grow sea ice back in
again," Serreze said. "It's not that you had one really low year. It's four
in a row now. At least part of what we're seeing is a greenhouse gas signal,
and it's starting to kick in."

The results are consistent with predictions made last year by the Arctic
Climate Impact Assessment and match what scientists would expect from more
water soaking up ever more solar heat instead of white ice and snow
reflecting it back, several Alaska researchers said.

"Basically, you're dimming down the Arctic," said ice researcher Hajo
Eicken, an associate professor of geophysics at the University of Alaska
Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. "If you remove that ice, then you start
heating the water by as much as a factor of 10 or more. And, as a result,
you expect that the ice doesn't fully recover and it just keeps inching
back."

"You don't have to be a rocket scientist to interpret this picture," said
Lawson Brigham, Alaska office director for the U.S. Arctic Research
Commission in Anchorage and a former captain of a U.S. Coast Guard
icebreaker. "With the sunlight for 24 hours in the summer and all that dark
(ocean) area, it's just like you painted your house a dark color. It's going
to warm it even more."

One mystery in the situation is that researchers don't have a good way to
measure the total volume of ice in the Arctic, what Serreze called the "Holy
Grail" of sea ice science. But a clear harbinger of thinning ice occurred
this season, when a record nine ships reached the North Pole, including the
first vessel that was not specifically an icebreaker, said Brigham, who in
1994 captained the first U.S. icebreaker across the pole from the Bering to
the Atlantic.

This summer, the passage along the Arctic coast of Russia between Europe and
the Bering Strait remained ice free between Aug. 15 and Sept. 28, the
scientists said. The Northwest Passage through Canada, the fabled route of
Arctic lore, opened up except for one 60-mile-long stretch.

Though shrinking ice might sound like an immediate boon to transportation,
actual conditions could become more complex and difficult, Eicken said. Ice
floes can blow into open areas fast, making navigation especially
treacherous.

"You can't say, you can just take a whole bunch of barges up there and
you'll never see sea ice," he said. "That ice may move a heck of a lot
faster than it would have before, and it may be present throughout the
summer."

Still, of the 61 ships to ever visit the North Pole, 17 traveled there in
the past two years, Brigham said. Two of the seven ships ever to cross the
ice pack from ocean to ocean made the transit in 2005.

"The numbers aren't huge, but I think that one can correlate the retreating
sea ice and changing ice conditions with the increasing number of ships,"
Brigham said. "So, here at the beginning of the century, I would say you
can, if you've got the right kind of boat, routinely go to the North Pole.
Pretty amazing, huh?"
------

Straughn

14-12-2005, 06:57

And ....

Alaska glaciers making biggest contribution to sea level change

By Doug O'Harra
Anchorage Daily News

Published: July 19, 2002
Last Modified: October 11, 2002 at 01:42 PM

Alaska's glaciers have been shrinking even faster than scientists thought,
producing more meltwater over the past half-century than any other icy
region on Earth.

The findings arose from a 10-year study by a team of Fairbanks
glaciologists, who figured out a way to apply modern laser technology to the
white-knuckle savvy of Alaska glacier flying.

The meltdown doubled during the late 1990s and has flooded the ocean with
enough runoff to raise global sea level as much as 0.27 millimeters per
year, about one-hundredth of an inch, five scientists with the University of
Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute reported today in the prestigious
journal Science.

If that sounds tiny, consider this: Spread over all the world's seas, this
runoff amounts to about 8 percent of the recent rise in sea level. It is
enough water to flood the Anchorage Bowl 630 feet deep every year.

That's more than twice the water flushing from the giant Greenland ice
sheet, which is many times larger than Alaska's combined ice, said
glaciologist Keith Echelmeyer, the study's lead scientist and glacier pilot.

"Alaska's glaciers are very active," Echelmeyer said. "They are providing
the single largest glacier-related contribution to sea level change that has
yet been measured."

All this melting has complex causes, global warming among them, Echelmeyer
added. But the evidence is clear.

"What's happened in the last 100 years is huge compared to anything that's
happened in the past 10 centuries."

UAF scientists Echelmeyer, Anthony Arendt, William Harrison, Craig Lingle
and Virginia Valentine described in Science how they used a laser altimeter
from Echelmeyer's ski plane to document dramatic changes in 67 glaciers.

Over five decades, these 12 tidewater, five lake and 50 landlocked glaciers
got an average of 20 inches thinner each year. By applying the same rate to
all Alaska glaciers, the scientists figured Alaska was dumping enough water
to raise worldwide sea levels about 0.14 millimeters per year.

Between 1999 and 2001, the team remeasured 28 glaciers and found that they
were melting even faster. They were thinning by an average of almost 6 feet
per year, almost doubling the amount of water flushing into the sea.

With extraordinary winter snowfall and summer melt, glaciers bordering the
Gulf of Alaska in the Chugach and St. Elias and Coast ranges made the
largest contributions, the authors wrote. About 75 percent of the meltwater
came from just five glaciers: Columbia in Prince William Sound, Malaspina
and Bering along the Gulf coast, LeConte near Petersburg and Kaskawulsh near
Kluane in Canada's Yukon territory.

Seeing the changes from the air was spectacular, Echelmeyer said.

The Columbia had retreated miles, filling a vast fjord with a jumble of
cockeyed bergs. Over 44 years, the glacier's terminus thinned by almost
1,000 feet, then thinned another 490 feet during the past five years, they
wrote. During recent years, it shrank in height by about 25 feet per year
throughout its length while dumping more than 1.8 trillion gallons into
Columbia Bay.

Other tidewater glaciers have peeled back to reveal new landscapes. "Now
there are islands of rock 200 feet high that were never mapped," he said.

The more familiar glaciers in the study included Exit Glacier near Seward,
Worthington near Valdez, and the Tazlina, which spills north from the
Chugach Mountains and is visible from the Glenn Highway.

The findings suggest that scientists may be underestimating how much sea
levels will keep rising.

Mark Meier and Mark Dyurgerov, from the University of Colorado Institute of
Arctic and Alpine Research, wrote in an essay that accompanied the article:
"More than 100 million people live within one meter of mean sea level, and
the problem is especially serious for low-lying small island nations."

The Alaska study had its origins in the early 1990s, when Echelmeyer,
Harrison and other glaciologists at the Geophysical Institute became
frustrated with time-consuming methods for figuring out changes in glacier
mass. Only four Alaska glaciers had been monitored long term.

Advances in laser surveying technology and global positioning system
instruments suggested to Echelmeyer that it might be possible to measure
glaciers from the air, covering many locations in a short time.

NASA had such technology, but it required an airplane too large to maneuver
through Alaska's narrow glacial valleys.

"It was very important that we could fly down the valley and land and take
measurements," Echelmeyer said. "And we didn't have NASA's budget."

Working with glaciologists, Alaska surveyors and technicians at the
Geophysical Institute, Echelmeyer and Harrison mounted a laser altimeter in
the belly of his 1947 Piper PA-12. Using a GPS unit to record location and a
gyroscope to track the plane's angle, the team began testing the method on
Gulkana Glacier in the Alaska Range.

"There was a lot of trial and error to get the accuracy that we needed,"
Echelmeyer said.

The polished technique involved maneuvering to the top of the glacier, then
flying down its center at speeds of up to 120 mph.

Over the next decade, the team flew 102 glaciers and re-profiled about 50,
often landing for more measurements.

"We got stuck more than a few times," Echelmeyer said. On a trip to Harding
Icefield in 1995, he and his assistants were snowed in for eight days,
getting a vivid lesson in Alaska glacier production.

"The plane got totally buried, and the tent poles broke," he said. "We
didn't have anywhere near eight days' worth of food. . . . In the end, we
had to dig out the plane and dig out a ramp to take off."

Not all glaciers shrank or retreated. Taku Glacier near Juneau has expanded,
while other tongues fed by Juneau Icefield have shrunk, Echelmeyer said.

Hubbard Glacier, now pushing a dam across Russell Fiord near Yakutat, had
also increased a little in volume, though not enough to explain its current
advance, Echelmeyer said.

Complicating the picture, the scientists found that retreating glaciers
didn't always lose volume, while advancing glaciers didn't always get
thicker.

The next step for the scientists will be to complete calculations on the
glaciers -- such as the Knik near Palmer -- that have been measured but not
yet analyzed, Echelmeyer said. Then he and his team want to tackle the
causes behind the meltdown.

"We have not yet figured out whether it's due to climate warming or, say,
less snowfall," he said.

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