Climate Change Skepticism

[Oleg Bach]

Seems to me you've been criticizing the Conservative government on the environment for some time. In reality, this broader approach to environmental concerns was what they presented in their original Clean Air Act. What the Opposition parties did as you mentioned was divide and conquer.

This fixation on CO2 emissions is what is poisoning the environment. There are real issues such as smog that need to be addressed that won't be because countries put their entire environmental budget into the collection plate of the GW preachers.

The softening of language and the use of the term "climate change" is a dis-service to humanity - it is actually climate destruction - same as the Orwellian term "green space" - as if the green area was an oddity to be preserved when actually it was there first and is the norm..that utlititarian greyness that is developement is natural and the natural world is some novel concept - where we slice off little sections of the things that are of real value - and "preserve" them as if clean air and water and land are museum pieces...Our western greed will totally destroy the earth - CHINA - will be the problem in the future - they want what we had in the 50s. No matter how green we get - the blacker CHINA - will become and that cloud of dirt will envelope all of us...and our buisness elite facilitate this destruction by uttilizing and enableing this huge slave state to become a monster..that will poop everywhere within the finite enviorn called the house of earth - there will be crap everywhere - as long as we continue to trade with these freaks - and our irresponsible buisness elite are akin to gun runners who do not pull the trigger but mearly supply the murderous weapon - and say - all is fine.

[noahbody]

The softening of language and the use of the term "climate change" is a dis-service to humanity -

Global warming has more to do with marketing a problem versus problem solving. The rebranding to "climate change" was done as "global warming" had a limited shelf life. When the earth starts a cooling cycle as it will most certainly do if it hasn't already started, the gig would have been up.

Edited December 11, 2007 by noahbody

[Oleg Bach]

Global warming has more to do with marketing a problem versus problem solving. The rebranding to "climate change" was done as "global warming" had a limited shelf life. When the earth starts a cooling cycle as it will most certainly do if it hasn't already started, the gig would have been up.

Millions of years pass - and "cycles" do not take place in one human generation - this is human activity that is causeing the problem - I am old enough to have seen the blue sky over Toronto turn green and the green turn to brown that was the grass - and the soil become dry in just my life time - a natural cycle does not take place in 50 years. Nature moves slowly and for this change to take place should have taken a thousand years - it's to quick to be natural. I used to be able to put my spade in the ground and find a dew worm for fishing - now I dig and there is dust.

[margrace]

Millions of years pass - and "cycles" do not take place in one human generation - this is human activity that is causeing the problem - I am old enough to have seen the blue sky over Toronto turn green and the green turn to brown that was the grass - and the soil become dry in just my life time - a natural cycle does not take place in 50 years. Nature moves slowly and for this change to take place should have taken a thousand years - it's to quick to be natural. I used to be able to put my spade in the ground and find a dew worm for fishing - now I dig and there is dust.

Oleg you and I may not agree on some subjects but I sure agree with you on this one. Gardening had become a very frustrating pastime. The beautiful, productive gardens my parent had no longer seem to be there and I refuse to use artificiall anything in mine.

[Oleg Bach]

Oleg you and I may not agree on some subjects but I sure agree with you on this one. Gardening had become a very frustrating pastime. The beautiful, productive gardens my parent had no longer seem to be there and I refuse to use artificiall anything in mine.

I love to grow things and all I tend blossoms - this year I had a city garden out front ...it took a lot of effort to keep it alive and beautiful - there is an ongoing drought ...makes me want to weep when I see the beauty struggling and the utilitarian idiots hate me for causeing and maintaining beauty - in fact there is a tenant - and a landlord who forced me out of my home here - because the more beauty I added to the place the more they dispised me....I took a fine old home and brought it up to speed and gave it class - the folks all along Boulton Ave..adored me and the garden - they said "it was a long time coming" - well I cut the base of the vine in back that covered the arbour out back - when I go - I take the beauty with me - screw the utlitarians......let them have their grey hell - where ever I go - it will be green...this time it will be for me....I love the land so much and to see the great Oak Ridge of my youth destroyed by habitual developers that lobbied Ottawa for more immigration...breaks my heart - the meadows and the creeks and lakes - all destroyed - spent my childhood with mud between my toes....I dearly love the earth - and what is good - for that they hate me - I don't get it - have the lunitics taken over?

[Riverwind]

Millions of years pass - and "cycles" do not take place in one human generation

Yes they do. The historical record has many examples of climate changing as fast if not faster than today. There is no data that supports the premise that the current warming trend is unusual.

[White Doors]

It is unconceivable to me that people cannot connect the whole thing, pollution to our air may be causing a speed up in climate change, laws that allow the poisoning of our ground may also be killing people.The whole idea is connected and people who advocate divide and conquer are at best advocates of doing nothing.

Global Warming has nothing to do with Pollution. Nothing. nada. zip. zilch.

Do you do any research on the topics you take a stand on?

[Canadian Blue]

I'm still amazed that the huge amount of population growth and expansion of industry in the past 150 years has not had any harmful effects on the planet. I am at a loss for why so many credible scientific organizations are trying to mislead us all into oblivion.

[JerrySeinfeld]

It's not rocket science.

Well actually it's probably even more complex than that - which makes me skeptical of any "conclusive" evidence that the "science is in".

Picture yourself as a scientist. You are in competition for grant money. You don't exist as a scientist unless you have funding for whatever researh you're doing.

Now. The amount of funding for "climate research" in the US has increased from $200 million a few years ago to $2 billion today. That's a ten fold increase.

Do you think perhaps it's in your interest to start coming to "definitive conclusions" about climate? Absolutely.

Anyone who thinks deniers are the only ones "in it for the money" are only looking at half the equation.

Now.

Think about a "climate prediction model". If you begin a study with the premise of trying to learn the effect of "carbon" on "climate", then you're model may well built on that premise.

So by definition, when you increase the "carbon" in your model, the "climate" will warm up too. With these kinds of models all over the world, it's no wonder guys in labs or on laptops are "introducing" massive amounts of carbon into their models then predicting the end of the earth - a prediction already decided upon by the POLITICIANS at the UN who wrote the IPCC summaries.

It's survivorship bias. If you are a scientist at the IPCC who writes a report contrary to the foregone conclusions in the IPCC summary, you are either silenced or kicked out for being "bogus". Through this process, it's not hard to see how "consensus" is reached.

This is starting to sound a whole lot more like hysteria and religino, than it is science.

[Canadian Blue]

Well don't you think that in general the current climate could be affected by humans, it's not that hard to consider especially what with CFC's in our past.

Keep in mind that if we were to get all of our science from Exxon Mobil most people would believe that wasting energy would be a good thing. It was the same thing with the Ethyl Corporation, and I can't imagine it's changed much since then.

You would also have to state that the Royal Society is also lying to the world about climate change, however I highly doubt it upon reading from credible scientific journals and organizations.

[stevoh]

Yes they do. The historical record has many examples of climate changing as fast if not faster than today. There is no data that supports the premise that the current warming trend is unusual.

I am interested in this quote, and want to find out more information.

In this chart:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:In...ture_Record.png

The temperature changes .8 in the last 160 years.

If we look at temperature trends for the last 1000 years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:1000_Ye..._Comparison.png

You can see that from 1800 to 2000, the temperature went from -.4 to .2, a total difference of a slightly more modest .6 degrees in 200 years. I can't see any example in the prior 800 of a .6 difference within 200 years.

The last 2000 years is shown here:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm..._Comparison.png

I still see no temperature change at the pace of the current warming, not .6 and certainly not .8.

If I go further back in time, there doesn't appear to be any data that is precise enough to define the pace of temperature change within a 150-200 year period.

However, within the last 2000 years, there has been no consistant warming at the pace of the current warming trend. So, while it is certainly possible that more than 2000 years ago, temperatures changed at some point at a similarly fast pace, within the context of the last 2000 years, the current warming trend is anomolous. What information do you have that contradicts this information, or do you feel that a 2000 year term is not long enough to establish normality?

And where do I find information that shows that prior changes were greater than today? The last 2000 years don't appear to show that, and before that the record does not appear to be precise enough.

Edited December 11, 2007 by stevoh

[Riverwind]

I am interested in this quote, and want to find out more information.

The temperature changes .8 in the last 160 years.

Excellent. Let's discuss the science.

First, the graphs you linked to were not created by checking the level on a thermometer. They were created from a variety of physical phneomema (called proxies) such as tree rings, ice cores and ocean sediment and not all proxies are equal and there have been a number of peer reviewed studies that look at the errors associated with different proxies.

Here is a graph of the last 1000 years that excludes the data from the tree ring proxies. As you can see there are numerous periods where the climate changed as fast as it appears to change today (>0.5deg per century). The paper that explains the issues with tree ring proxies and how that graph was created is here.

Now if you poke around you will find that GW advocates try to dismiss the statistical methods in that report, however, in other places you can find skeptics that refute those criticisms. I only understand some of the statistics involved but from what I do understand it is clear that the skeptics know more about the topic than the GW advocates. As far as I can tell, some of the skeptics are people who specialize in statistical analysis who became skeptics when they looked at the work produced by climate scientists with a limited understanding of the topic.

It is worth noting that the IPCC itself published a very different version of the temperature record in 1990. You can see the data from the 1990 IPC report here (the IPCC data is red). As you can see the 1990 data presents the same picture that the Loehle report does. The Loehle report and the IPCC data also matches the widely accepted view in the climate world before GW became a political issue. This fact also supports the argument that the IPCC 1990/Loehle data is a better representation of reality.

Here are a couple more examples of rapid, natural climate change: http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/arch/examples.shtml

The most spectacular aspect of the YD is that it ended extremely abruptly (around 11,600 years ago), and although the date cannot be known exactly, it is estimated from the annually-banded Greenland ice-core that the annual-mean temperature increased by as much as 10°C in 10 years.

Edited December 12, 2007 by Riverwind

[stevoh]

Excellent. Let's discuss the science.

Here is a graph of the last 1000 years that excludes the data from the tree ring proxies. As you can see there are numerous periods where the climate changed as fast as it appears to change today (>0.5deg per century). The paper that explains the issues with tree ring proxies and how that graph was created is here.

One of the challenges of discussing this issue is the lack of precision in the longer time scales. However, for me to judge if this graph is accurate, I compared it to what we know are accurate temperature measurements, those that are from actual temperature instrument measurements:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Instrum...ture_Record.png

If I look at the period from 1800 to 2000 on the link you provided, it shows a fairly steep rise in temperature from approximately 1900 to 1970 ish, and then a steep drop in temperature from around 1970 to 1990 ish. When I superimpose this section of the graph onto the accurate temperature measurements, they don't appear to correspond. The rise from 1900 to 1970 on the Loehle paper is steep and unbroken, the rise on the actual temperature measurements peaks around 1940 then is steady for a while. Lack of precision could be blamed on this relatively minor lack of correspondence, but the steep rise on actual temperature measurements from 1970 is not reflected at all in the Loehle paper, that information instead indicates a steep decline, which we know is false.

Based on that information, I would extrapolate that the information provided by the Loehle paper does not match what is actually occuring.

Here are a couple more examples of rapid, natural climate change: http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/arch/examples.shtml

Interesting. There do appear to be times in history where there were abrupt climate changes. What is really interesting about that is the analysis of potential causes. While the research is ongoing, two potential causes of the Younger Dryas are a THC shutdown from the sudden release of large amounts of meltwater, and a cessation of El Nino southern oscillation. So, these sudden changes are related to specific events, events that cannot be used to explain the "sudden" change that is occuring right now, however.

We need to find an example of a sudden climate change that has occured that has the same reason as the current climate change for it to be relevant to today's warming. But I do stand corrected, sudden change has occured in the past, finding corresponding factors between those changes and todays change is critical however in understanding the reasons behind current warming.

[Riverwind]

However, for me to judge if this graph is accurate, I compared it to what we know are accurate temperature measurements, those that are from actual temperature instrument measurements:

You are comparing apples to oranges. The Loehle data set only includes data from the proxies. The graphs you provided splices instrument data onto the end of the proxy data so you would expect a better match in modern times. However, that match does *not* mean the pre-1900 data is more accurate. In fact, the tree ring data which was used for your graphs has a very poor correlation with modern instrument data. This is one of the reasons why people believe it should be excluded from the datasets used.

Lack of precision could be blamed on this relatively minor lack of correspondence, but the steep rise on actual temperature measurements from 1970 is not reflected at all in the Loehle paper, that information instead indicates a steep decline, which we know is false.

Would you believe the Loehle report more if he had included the instrument data for the last 100 years? It would have provided a better match. However, creating an artificial match in later years by splicing instrument data does not automatically make the historical data more accurate. If you wish to reject the Loehle data for those reasons then you also must reject the data that you linked to.

Based on that information, I would extrapolate that the information provided by the Loehle paper does not match what is actually occurring.

As I said before, the Loehle report trends match the trends reported in the 1990 IPCC report. It is also consistent with numerous historical records regarding the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. IMV, any historical temperature trend which omits those temperature analomies is not credible.

In other words, if you claim that historical records are unreliable then you must accept that we don't know if this kind of temperature change occurred before and we cannot make any conclusions based on the presumption that the current trends are unusual.

Edited December 12, 2007 by Riverwind

[Riverwind]

Here is another paper that illustrates that the current temperature is not unusual.

You should look at Figure 10:

FIG 10 - Oxygen isotope time series for the last 5000 years, GISP2 Greenland ice core (light line; same dataset as Figure 7), fitted with a oving average (dark line; after a slide by Andre Illarianov, 2004). The Late 20th Century Warm Period represents the latest of a regular millennial cycle of similar warm periods (grey stripes). The Late 20th Century Warm Period may have equalled the magnitude of the Mediaeval Warm Period, but it has not yet attained the warmth of either of the preceding Roman or Minoan Warm Periods.

and Figure 11:

Rate of temperature change for the last 48 000 years, in °C/century, based on the analysis of oxygen isotope ratios from the GISP2 ice core (same dataset as Figure 7; after a slide by Andre Illarianov, 2004). Note that during the last 9000 years of the Holocene, temperature change occurred regularly at rates between +2.5° and -2.5°C/century. Earlier, during the last glaciation, rates of change as high as 15°C/century are indicated.

You can find the raw data used to create these charts here

This data includes the Younger Dryas peak at around 11000BC, however, the rate of change before and after is still significant. For example, the temperature increased 0.60 degC between 900AD to 1000AD and 0.66 degC between 100BC and 1AD (I calculated this myself from the raw data).

Glacier ice cores are considered to be some of the most reliable temperature proxies.

In short, the rate of temperature change that we see today has been seen in the recent past.

Edited December 12, 2007 by Riverwind

[stevoh]

You are comparing apples to oranges. The Loehle data set only includes data from the proxies. The graphs you provided splices instrument data onto the end of the proxy data so you would expect a better match in modern times. However, that match does *not* mean the pre-1900 data is more accurate. In fact, the tree ring data which was used for your graphs has a very poor correlation with modern instrument data. This is one of the reasons why people believe it should be excluded from the datasets used.

Would you believe the Loehle report more if he had included the instrument data for the last 100 years? It would have provided a better match. However, creating an artificial match in later years by splicing instrument data does not automatically make the historical data more accurate. If you wish to reject the Loehle data for those reasons then you also must reject the data that you linked to.

As I said before, the Loehle report trends match the trends reported in the 1990 IPCC report. It is also consistent with numerous historical records regarding the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. IMV, any historical temperature trend which omits those temperature analomies is not credible.

In other words, if you claim that historical records are unreliable then you must accept that we don't know if this kind of temperature change occurred before and we cannot make any conclusions based on the presumption that the current trends are unusual.

First off, I admitted in my last post that I accept that temperature changes great as the current may have occured in the past. So no need to try and convince me further of that.

Secondly, I don't care if the data source is tree rings, ice cores, or some other source, if the temperature plots over time for the last 150 years don't match known data, then they need to be re-assessed, and that includes the Loehle data, and may include the graphs I linked to that were non-instrumental as well. A hypothesis should always be compared to known fact and rejected if there is not a reasonable match.

I am trying to do this without wanting a specific answer, instead seeing where the science leads me. I want to be equally skeptical of all data sources, not just pro or anti AGW.

[Riverwind]

I am trying to do this without wanting a specific answer, instead seeing where the science leads me. I want to be equally skeptical of all data sources, not just pro or anti AGW.

I can understand your rational but I am not sure how far you can get without answering the question whether the current warming is abnormal or not since the entire CO2 hypothesis is built on the *assumption* that the observed warming is abnormal and must be explained. If the warming is normal then the warming is likely a natural variation that is nothing to be concerned about.

I realize that normal warming in the past does not prove that the warming today is normal, however, there is no proof that the warming today is not normal either. That means that the CO2 hypothesis is much less plausible even if cannot be ruled out.

Edited December 12, 2007 by Riverwind

[stevoh]

I can understand your rational but I am not sure how far you can get without answering the question whether the current warming is abnormal or not since the entire CO2 hypothesis is built on the *assumption* that the observed warming is abnormal and must be explained. If the warming is normal then the warming is likely a natural variation that is nothing to be concerned about.

I realize that normal warming in the past does not prove that the warming today is normal, however, there is no proof that the warming today is not normal either. That means that the CO2 hypothesis is much less plausible even if cannot be ruled out.

Defining whether todays climate change is normal or abnormal, I feel, should be based on known factors that have influenced climate in the past. So, even if the climate has changed rapidly in the past, if we have a good hypothesis on WHY that change occured, and that hypothesis does not apply to todays climate change, then we have cause for concern.

In other words, its more important to me to define the current change as abnormal due to the reasons for the change, not the pace of the change.

[Riverwind]

In other words, its more important to me to define the current change as abnormal due to the reasons for the change, not the pace of the change.

But that is a circular argument. The CO2 hypothesis is only reasonable if you assume that the current warming is abnormal and then rule out other explanations because you assume it is abnormal. If you assume that the current warming is normal then a solar hypothesis is most reasonable. In both cases, it will be the complex feedback processes that determine what happens to the climate in the future - processes that we understand very little.

For example, a reasonable person could assume that solar variation is the driving factor and that there are complex feedbacks that cause the temperature to rise faster than what would be expected based on simple energy calculations. Rising CO2 would be a part of that model but it would not be the driving factor because the feedbacks are attributed to the solar variation. The IPCC has taken then reverse view that CO2 is the driving factor and has attributed all feedbacks to the CO2 rises despite the fact that there is no science supporting this attribution. It is simply a assumption based on the assumption that current warming is abnormal and must be explained.

[stevoh]

But that is a circular argument. The CO2 hypothesis is only reasonable if you assume that the current warming is abnormal and then rule out other explanations because you assume it is abnormal. If you assume that the current warming is normal then a solar hypothesis is most reasonable. In both cases, it will be the complex feedback processes that determine what happens to the climate in the future - processes that we understand very little.

Is it unreasonable? We do know a few facts.

1. That we are releasing enough CO2 into the atmosphere to significantly change the concentration.

2. That CO2 is a climate forcing agent.

3. That we are in a warming trend.

Just these three facts warrant further investigation on the subject. Yes, other climate change agents need to be examined as well, such as solar influences, but I hardly think that the CO2 hypothesis is any more unreasonable than any of the other hypothesis around what is influencing our climate currently, particularly when considering the three facts mentioned above.

I actually think its more dangerous to assume that the current waming is normal (as defined by reason) and doesn't need any further investigation. The cost of being wrong is too high.

Both approaches, those of the skeptics, and those of the IPCC are complimentary. The IPCC is assuming carbon is the major contributor to the current climate change occuring, and is attempting to negate the other climate change agents. "Skeptic" groups are assuming that carbon is NOT a major contributor, and seek other explanations to explain the climate change.

In the end, if we get down to the science and through the politics, we will have a clearer understanding of the subject from both sources of "bias".

[noahbody]

Is it unreasonable? We do know a few facts.

1. That we are releasing enough CO2 into the atmosphere to significantly change the concentration.

Is man significantly changing the concentration?

[stevoh]

Is man significantly changing the concentration?

Yes.

[ScottSA]

Well don't you think that in general the current climate could be affected by humans, it's not that hard to consider especially what with CFC's in our past.

Well, there's probably quite a bit we can learn from the CFC hysteria, as long as we're willing to learn. Are you?

Markus Rex, an atmosphere scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute of Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam, Germany, which finds that the data for the break-down rate of a crucial molecule, dichlorine peroxide (Cl2O2) is almost an order of magnitude lower than the currently accepted rate.

Oops. Billions upon billions down the drain, entire industries shut down, hundreds of jobs lost, and well, maybe CFCs weren't all that bad after all. Oh well, on to bigger and better giant apocalyptic scares, like Y2K! Act NOW!

[Riverwind]

Just these three facts warrant further investigation on the subject. Yes, other climate change agents need to be examined as well, such as solar influences, but I hardly think that the CO2 hypothesis is any more unreasonable than any of the other hypothesis around what is influencing our climate currently, particularly when considering the three facts mentioned above.

The direct effects of CO2 are well understood and there is no debate about them. The trouble is the direct effects of CO2 follow a logarithmic curve which means that increases CO2 over time have a smaller and smaller affect on temperature. Even AGW advocates agree that the direct CO2 induced temperature rise would not exceed 1 DegC even if the CO2 levels double from the pre-industrial levels (i.e. nothing to worry about).

Unfortunately, the AGW argument does not limit itself to the direct effects of CO2 - it makes the assumption that increases in CO2 must cause positive feedbacks which cause much large temperature rises. Yet there is no empirical data to support this amplification hypothesis. In fact, AGW proponents admit that their calculation of the amount of feedback is based on assuming that 100% of all changes are CO2 induced and simply adding a multiplier to make the CO2 theory match the observed data. A more rational approach would assume that there are other feedback inducing factors such as solar variations and seek to understand them better. This is where the assumption that the current warming trends exceed historical trends is critical. AGW advocates justify their focus on CO2 by claiming that current trends are abnormal and that makes CO2 the only plausible explanation. That rational falls apart if current trends are within historical norms.

Both approaches, those of the skeptics, and those of the IPCC are complimentary. The IPCC is assuming carbon is the major contributor to the current climate change occurring, and is attempting to negate the other climate change agents. "Skeptic" groups are assuming that carbon is NOT a major contributor, and seek other explanations to explain the climate change.

I wish it was that dispassionate. The fact is the AGW advocates have abandoned scientific inquiry in favour of political activism and propaganda. Skeptics are not treated as colleagues with alternate views but as evil individuals seeking to destroy humanity. Edited December 13, 2007 by Riverwind

[Canuck E Stan]

The fact is the AGW advocates have abandoned scientific inquiry in favour of political activism and propaganda. Skeptics are not treated as colleagues with alternate views but as evil individuals seeking to destroy humanity.

More scientific ammunition from the evil skeptics....and broadcast on that evil news network

Study: Part of Global-Warming Model May Be Wrong

The study, published online this week in the International Journal of Climatology, found that while most of the models predicted that the middle and upper parts of the troposphere —1 to 6 miles above the Earth's surface — would have warmed drastically over the past 30 years, actual observations showed only a little warming, especially over tropical regions.

"Can the models accurately explain the climate from the recent past? It seems that the answer is no," said lead study author David H. Douglass, a physicist specializing in climate at the University of Rochester.