Global Warming Happening on all Planets

[Riverwind]

That may be true, if for no other reason than the present economic collapse may slow the degree of man-made influences on climate

What a ridiculous claim. For starters the economy has only really slowed down in the last 6 months which means it cannot possibly explain an effect that became evident 4 years ago. Second, the CO2 levels in the atmosphere are higher than ever which means if it has the effect claimed by the IPCC the the warming should continue - even if we enter a global depression.

Hut he cites different data, on atmospheric and ocean surface temperature trends, then those who believe the pace of global warming is accelerating -- they see conclusive evidence that glaciers all over the world are melting at an accelerating rate.

There is a huge difference in the significance of the different datasets. You see, the oceans are not subject to the large random swings that atmospheric temperature is subject to which means it is not possible to argue that a cooling trend in the ocean heat content is random variation. If CO2 has the effect claimed then ocean heat content should be constantly increasing. A pause - even for a few years - is strong evidence that the planet is not warming as fast as previously claimed. Climate scientists know this which is why they spent a lot of time doing whatever they could to find 'errors' in the instruments that needed to be 'corrected'. Fortunately, even after these corrections there is still a slight cooling that should not be happening according to GHG theory.

OTOH, melting ice sheets tell us absolutely nothing about the rate of warming today. Even alarmists agree that ice sheets take 100s, if not 1000s, of years to respond to changes in temperature.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/...10406073401.htm

"Ice sheets do not change much on the scale of a few decades," says Hamilton. "They’re so large that it takes a very long time for them to respond to changes in the environment. It’s currently thought, for example, that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is still responding to the end of the last Ice Age about ten thousand years ago. The vertical movements of points on the ice sheet are very slow and constant over a 500 to 1000-year time frame. Having said that, we are still unsure how fast future changes might occur if climate enters an unstable phase."

IOW - melting ices tell us nothing about the current rate of warming so they cannot be used to support the claim.

Obviously, 4 years is not enough to conclusively repudiate the IPCC claims but it is enough to demonstrate that your claim of "accelerating warming" is unequivocally false.

What does he have to say about the shrinking glaciers in the Arctic and the Antarctic? The links from his article didn't refer to this problem either.

For starters - the only part of the Antarctic that is losing mass is the smaller west antarctic ice sheet. The larger east antarctic ice sheet is gaining mass. Second, there is no consensus on what is happening to the Greenland ice sheet either. One study claims that it is melting at an accelerating rate only to be followed by a paper that claims the Greenland is gaining mass from increased snowfall. Lastly, these studies that calculate the mass of ice sheets are computer modelling exercises that are extremely subject to the biases of the researcher. It is much more difficult to manipulate direct measurements like ocean heat content which is why the slight cooling still exists despite the best efforts on the part of the alarmists. For that reason alone, ocean temperature measurements are a more useful dataset when it comes to understanding what is happening to the climate.

BTW - there is also a tendency to exaggerate the significance of melting ice stories since they provide useful propaganda tools. This link illustrates:

http://ecoworld.com/blog/2008/12/26/pessim...ptimistic-data/

In our above-noted critique of this 2006 NASA report, we correctly noted 27 cubic miles of new water in the world’s oceans per year would result in a net rise of sea level of 1.2 inches per century

...

Three years ago what NASA quantified as an alarming loss of annual ice loss from Greenland was easily demonstrated at that time to be an insignificant loss, and today NASAs updated data appears to suggest the annual rate of global polar ice loss has actually decreased since then.

Which suggests to me that even the ice melt data does not really support the claim of accelerating warming.

Edited January 2, 2009 by Riverwind

[WIP]

What a ridiculous claim. For starters the economy has only really slowed down in the last 6 months which means it cannot possibly explain an effect that became evident 4 years ago. Second, the CO2 levels in the atmosphere are higher than ever which means if it has the effect claimed by the IPCC the the warming should continue - even if we enter a global depression.

I was looking more towards the immediate future, since the abrupt, grinding halt of economies around the world that has caused oil prices to crash is also likely to have an impact on greenhouse gas emissions and warming. If the average temperatures have leveled off during the last four years, that could just as easily be an anomaly or influence from other factors like the decline in solar output of late as evidenced by the low number of sunspots. The steep decline is already being overplayed by global warming deniers as the beginning of a Maunder Minimum -- referring to a time of low solar output during the 17th Century that has been linked with questionable degrees of success to the cold weather during that time, called the Mini Ice Age. On the other hand, NASA's David Hathaway predicts that the Sun's magnetic activity will start increasing next year, and the next peak sunspot cycle will be around 2012-2013, and greater than the last peak in 2004 -- and this is just in time to coincide with predictions of some members of the IPCC panel as the start of a runaway greenhouse effect that will be out of our control. Predicting solar activity is even more difficult than predicting the weather here on Earth, so do you want to assume we are starting a mini ice age, or err on the side of caution and consider the other possibility, that the Sun will if anything add to our problems here on Earth.

There is a huge difference in the significance of the different datasets. You see, the oceans are not subject to the large random swings that atmospheric temperature is subject to which means it is not possible to argue that a cooling trend in the ocean heat content is random variation.

In general, that's true, but it's not an absolute. If you recall about three or four years ago, there were alarm bells raised that the Gulf Stream Conveyor was shutting down when temperatures off the Atlantic coast dropped ten degrees in one year, so consideration has to be given to current changes and what locations the temperature readings are being taken from.

If CO2 has the effect claimed then ocean heat content should be constantly increasing. A pause - even for a few years - is strong evidence that the planet is not warming as fast as previously claimed. Climate scientists know this which is why they spent a lot of time doing whatever they could to find 'errors' in the instruments that needed to be 'corrected'. Fortunately, even after these corrections there is still a slight cooling that should not be happening according to GHG theory.

How about an alternative reason for not making blanket assumptions: the oceans are just as damned complicated as the atmosphere, and know-it-all skeptics who make those kind of claims are making more simplistic assumptions about the climate. If anything, possible dangers should not be ruled out until their is significant evidence against any risk; instead the global warming deniers demand conclusive proof of global warming, the relationship between CO2 and warming etc.. If the IPCC is wrong, you can go back to worrying about other things, but if your energy company financed disinformation sites like Ecoworld, are wrong, then we are all doomed by their criminal negligence!

BTW - there is also a tendency to exaggerate the significance of melting ice stories since they provide useful propaganda tools. This link illustrates:

http://ecoworld.com/blog/2008/12/26/pessim...ptimistic-data/

Which suggests to me that even the ice melt data does not really support the claim of accelerating warming.

And speak of the devil! Why does Ecoworld have this disclaimer:

We make no representation, explicit or otherwise, about the completeness, accuracy, or consistency of the data on our website, of the integrity of the services we provide, or of those with which we may interoperate. A portion of the data in our repositories originates elsewhere, and we cannot guarantee its correctness, nor do we guarantee that the processing we perform on these data is free from errors. While we attempt to provide accurate data and services, and are continually correcting errors upon discovery, individuals concerned with the correctness or accuracy of individual data items are advised to seek independent verification of such data.

http://www.ecoworld.com/credits.htm

They don't sound as confident about the accuracy of the information they feature than you do!

What kind of environmental group do they try to pretend to be when their editor makes such a forceful advocacy for building more highways:

Along with building more freeways and adding more lanes to freeways, we need to get rid of car pool lanes. First of all, they are discriminatory - anyone on an urgent errand or who is on-call can’t arrange for a car pool partner. But equally important, car pool lanes don’t reduce congestion, they cause congestion. Just when freeways need the most lanes, they are choked off and less flow occurs.

While we’re at it, enough already with fighting developers. It is ridiculous that a home should cost a half-million dollars on a tiny piece of land in California’s Central Valley. Instead of high density infill - which ruins city neighborhoods and causes traffic congestion - we need more low density sprawling suburbs interlaced generously with greenbelts, freeways, expressways and ranchettes. We have totally green homes just around the corner, that produce energy and process water efficiently. We have totally green cars practically here already, ultra-low emission cars, clean diesel cars, flex fuel cars, and battery-assisted cars. Homes and cars won’t hurt the environment, so what’s the beef with suburban sprawl if it’s done tastefully?

Gentlemen, get out the bulldozers. Unclog the roads and recreate the California nation.

http://ecoworld.com/blog/2006/06/03/we-need-more-freeways/

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Ecoworld doesn't offer any detailed information about who provides their funding. This looks like another false flag operation of the energy companies promoting fake environmental sites in much the same way that the intelligent design organization Discovery Institute runs a separate false flag operation called Evolution News and Views, to lead unsuspecting readers to assume they are reading contradictory information about evolution from an actual scientific organization. The global warming deniers seem to be copying the playbooks of the cigarette company disinformation campaign and the creationists' disinformation strategies also.

[Riverwind]

the average temperatures have leveled off during the last four years, that could just as easily be an anomaly or influence from other factors like the decline in solar output of late as evidenced by the low number of sunspots.

Actually, blaming the current cooling on the sun would be very bad for the climate modellers (which is why they avoid doing it and prefer the "its just weather argument"). The problem is, according to the climate models, the sun cannot possibly have the 0.1-0.2 degC effect that is claimed by some empirical studies like Camp and Tung (the climate models suggest this effect can be no greater than 0.02 degC). IOW, using the sun to explain away the current cooling even though there is no known mechanism that could explain such a large effect would mean that the climate modellers can no longer claim that the warming was not also the result of the sun.

You also seem to have forgetten that the alarmists constantly tell us about how there is "warming in the pipeline" and how "stopping emissions now would not prevent an 3 degC rise in temps". This means that, according to the alarmists, a complete shutdown of the world economy would have no effect on the rate of warming.

On the other hand, NASA's David Hathaway predicts that the Sun's magnetic activity will start increasing next year, and the next peak sunspot cycle will be around 2012-2013, and greater than the last peak in 2004

So? The sun has no effect on climate according to the alarmists so a solar peak should not make a difference either. Incidently, Hatheway has been wrong on almost every prediction he has made for Cycle 24. What he is has now is a recently revised prediction. If we do see a significant increase in temperatures as the solar cycle ramps up then that will actually support the argument that the sun has a large effect on climate which climate models do not take into account.

How about an alternative reason for not making blanket assumptions: the oceans are just as damned complicated as the atmosphere, and know-it-all skeptics who make those kind of claims are making more simplistic assumptions about the climate.

EXACTLY. We don't have a clue what is causing the climate change or if the changes observed so far are part of the long term trend or cyclic variations. Given this uncertainty the stupidest thing we could do is invest trillions in anti-CO2 policies that could end up be absolutely useless EVEN if the alarmists are right because it 1) may be too late to do anything anyway or 2) it is technically impossible to significantly reduce CO2 emissions and support 10 billion humans on the planet. Given the lack of certainty the only prudent source of action is investment in R&D to see if someone can come up with economic alternatives to CO2 emitting energy and adaptation as required.

Your ecoworld rant is also quite rediculous. The link made the claim that the more recent studies on ice loss from the poles are predicting less loss than studies from 3 years ago. In other words, the most recent studies suggest that the ice sheets are melting more *slowly* than previously thought which completely negates you claim that melting ice sheets are evidence of accelerating warming. The ecoworld artical links to the sources which means the reader can check for themselves whether the claims are reasonable. In this case, the claim is supported and it does not make a difference if the artical was a press release from Exxon - the only thing that matters is whether the claims are true or not.

Frankly, your rants about funding of sources you don't agree with are getting quite tiresome. I don't dispute that funding does introduce a bias into all science - *including that of the IPCC and the various government agencies like GISS*. For this reason I am skeptical of any claim made on this topic and always try to look at what the claim is based on and how much the bias of the reseacher could affect the claim. As a result, there are many skeptical claims which I think are total nonsense (e.g. claims that CO2 rise is natural and not the result human activity).

You, on the other hand, appear to be completely blind to the biases of the alarmists and the IPCC while you obess about "energy companies".

[Moonlight Graham]

It doesn't matter if you don't believe in the "human-caused global warming" theory. Humans are still using up natural resources much faster than they are, or sometimes can, replenish them. Wood, fish (plus other aquatic life), oil etc. The global population + the rate of your consumption + the rate of our overall pollution is going to get us quite screwed in the coming century unless we make drastic changes to our lifestyles, technology we use, and the way we treat the planet.

Even if we fix the greenhouse gas problem we're still f'ed. Oh, and CO2 isn;'t the only thing that comes out of car tailpipes. We have a smog problem around our cities for a reason.

Edited January 2, 2009 by Moonlight Graham

[eyeball]

Even if we fix the greenhouse gas problem we're still f'ed. Oh, and CO2 isn;'t the only thing that comes out of car tailpipes. We have a smog problem around our cities for a reason.

I'm quite certain there's a couple of scientists somewhere, more than enough in other words, who doubt that smog is anything but an asthetic issue at best and there is no reason whatsoever for alarm. Speaking of asthetics a gasoline slick on the water's surface is a thing of beauty when you look at it in a certain light - a real man's rainbow we call them around here.

The only salient facts are the controversial ones.

[Moonlight Graham]

I'm quite certain there's a couple of scientists somewhere, more than enough in other words, who doubt that smog is anything but an asthetic issue at best and there is no reason whatsoever for alarm.

Then why do we get smog & air-quality alerts on hot days in the summer in my city, & they do weathermen tell at-risk people to stay inside? And why do they show charts of % of particles in the air? And is the asthma epidemic just because our kids are fat?

[WIP]

Actually, blaming the current cooling on the sun would be very bad for the climate modellers......

You also seem to have forgetten that the alarmists constantly tell us about how there is "warming in the pipeline" and how "stopping emissions now would not prevent an 3 degC rise in temps". This means that, according to the alarmists, a complete shutdown of the world economy would have no effect on the rate of warming.

So? The sun has no effect on climate according to the alarmists so a solar peak should not make a difference either. Incidently, Hatheway has been wrong on almost every prediction he has made for Cycle 24. What he is has now is a recently revised prediction. If we do see a significant increase in temperatures as the solar cycle ramps up then that will actually support the argument that the sun has a large effect on climate which climate models do not take into account.

This all fits into the big category of anything is possible! If Hathaway was wrong before, you can rag on about his methods used to interpret solar data and make future predictions.. but what if he's right this time! We're screwed if a higher than ever solar maximum coincides with a realization that the skeptics are out to lunch with the claims that rising atmospheric CO2 levels won't contribute to the greenhouse effect. To me, erring on the side of caution means giving the risks of global warming credence unless we're sure that we can pump the atmosphere full of greenhouse gases and go hogwild without effecting the climate in the world we live in........for some reason I can't get away from thinking something bad is bound to happen if we can't control our population, our increasing use of finite resources and turning more and more rainforests into urban jungles.

EXACTLY. We don't have a clue what is causing the climate change or if the changes observed so far are part of the long term trend or cyclic variations. Given this uncertainty the stupidest thing we could do is invest trillions in anti-CO2 policies that could end up be absolutely useless EVEN if the alarmists are right because it 1) may be too late to do anything anyway or 2) it is technically impossible to significantly reduce CO2 emissions and support 10 billion humans on the planet. Given the lack of certainty the only prudent source of action is investment in R&D to see if someone can come up with economic alternatives to CO2 emitting energy and adaptation as required.

The experts in resource management generally estimate our world's population as being double what would be a sustainable population for the coming decades or hopefully, centuries. Aside from the climate change debate, there are enough extinctions of insects, amphibians, reptiles and even mammals to lead many zoologists to conclude that we have already started a mass extinction cycle whether or not we are aware of it. The decline in biodiversity is not good news for us whether we think we are at the top of the pyramid or not. We won't discover how many plant and animal species are necessary for our survival until they are gone, and adding another three and a half billion people to this world will put even greater pressure on the natural environment. We could be in a situation similar to animals that flourish in closed environments that flourish until they use up all of their food and resources and then totally crash and become another statistic on the extinct species list.

Your ecoworld rant is also quite rediculous. The link made the claim that the more recent studies on ice loss from the poles are predicting less loss than studies from 3 years ago. In other words, the most recent studies suggest that the ice sheets are melting more *slowly* than previously thought which completely negates you claim that melting ice sheets are evidence of accelerating warming. The ecoworld artical links to the sources which means the reader can check for themselves whether the claims are reasonable. In this case, the claim is supported and it does not make a difference if the artical was a press release from Exxon - the only thing that matters is whether the claims are true or not.

Frankly, your rants about funding of sources you don't agree with are getting quite tiresome. I don't dispute that funding does introduce a bias into all science - *including that of the IPCC and the various government agencies like GISS*. For this reason I am skeptical of any claim made on this topic and always try to look at what the claim is based on and how much the bias of the reseacher could affect the claim. As a result, there are many skeptical claims which I think are total nonsense (e.g. claims that CO2 rise is natural and not the result human activity).

You, on the other hand, appear to be completely blind to the biases of the alarmists and the IPCC while you obess about "energy companies".

You can put a chart or graph in front of me and tell me it means the moon is made of green cheese! Analyzing data sets is out of my realm. But I am going to have a little trouble just taking analysis at face value from a guy posing as an environmentalist who just happens to want to cover the rest of California with concrete highways. I want a 2nd opinion first, doctor....and hopefully not from someone who wants to pump oil and build more coal-fired generating stations.

[Riverwind]

Then why do we get smog & air-quality alerts on hot days in the summer in my city, & they do weathermen tell at-risk people to stay inside? And why do they show charts of % of particles in the air? And is the asthma epidemic just because our kids are fat?

I am pretty sure eyeball was being sarcastic, however, the media reports on many things because people want to hear it even if the scientific justifications are unclear.

That said, there are millions of people exposed to smog which gives scientists a lot of data which can be used to seperate the effects of smog from other effects. This gives a certainty in the scientific results that cannot possibily be achieved in a discipline like climate science where we have only one planet to collect data from. There is also the aesthetic factor - i.e. even if there was no firm link between smog and health we could justify cleaning up smog because we want a clean home. Of course, what is reasonable depends on cost. i.e. even if the smog-health link is indisputable we could never ban all cars as a "precautionary measure".

[GostHacked]

Yes, energy CAN be stored! Just not in the gigawatts involved in a national power grid. That was my point. Batteries as storage for your house are one thing. For a city it's quite another. How many 'AA' cells do you suggest for a steel-making plant?

Then you need to rethink power storage and distrobution.

You seem to have misunderstood me about a backup system. I'm not talking about when the wind stops blowing. I'm talking about when dawn breaks, everybody's TV's comes on, air conditioning kicks in, offices and factories start rolling and your electrical demand hits a sharp peak. In a house system a battery storage system would have stored power when demand was low to provide it when demand is high. This allows a much smaller and less expensive generating system. It's a lot cheaper in solar cells or turbines to keep a battery bank charged than to be able to power the entire house at peak demand with NO storage system!

Sure, dawn breaks, and let's look at a hypothetical city that every house is wind/solar and has an energy storage system. You no longer have to worry about peak demand, because everyone is self sustaining. They draw from the energy they have stored. I admit factories and large facilities present another issue. You go from a central power generation station and large distrobution network, to each home having their own generation and storage solution. It is a different solution and demands a different way of thinking. New strctures should be considering alternative energy generation and storage systems.

You also may technically be right about a warp drive, in the future. The problem is (to quote Firesign Theater) "Yeah, but it's TODAY!" Not only do we need solutions for today's problems but to echo the original point, wind power advocates seem to add up generating numbers TODAY as if they are all that we need to consider! This tells us that they frankly don't understand what they're talking about.

Sure, and with the Global Warming alarmists, it sure is not about TODAY. It is about tomorrow that everything will go to shit. If we don't consider it today, tomorrow may not exist.

It's always the details! Blue sky talk is nice but any engineer knows that when it comes from non-technical people it usually is no more than "verbal diarrhea", where lots of ideas are spewed out but they're all based on crap. To make something WORK you HAVE to answer the details! What's more, details ALWAYS take more time and money than you would expect! In fact, they often make what sounded like a great idea just not cost-effective.

You gotta start somewhere. And most thing start with a blue sky dream. Dreamers and engineers may need to work more closely together. Dreamers ask, 'can we?' engineers respond with, 'well let's give it a shot. All things start with a vision or dream.

[Riverwind]

You gotta start somewhere. And most thing start with a blue sky dream. Dreamers and engineers may need to work more closely together. Dreamers ask, 'can we?' engineers respond with, 'well let's give it a shot. All things start with a vision or dream.

Too many people seem to think that not having a technology to do 'X' is simply a matter of will and money. It does not work that way in the real world. There has been an need for a large capacity battery for use in electrical generation applications for 100 years and billions have been spent trying to develop one without success. There is absolutely no reason to believe that a few years of rhetoric and government spending woud change that.

Perhaps that is the problem with the entire climate debate. Too many people think there are easy technical fixes out there and all we have to do is 'believe;. I think such a view is naive and dangerous if it is used to drive government policy.

[Wild Bill]

Too many people seem to think that not having a technology to do 'X' is simply a matter of will and money. It does not work that way in the real world. There has been an need for a large capacity battery for use in electrical generation applications for 100 years and billions have been spent trying to develop one without success. There is absolutely no reason to believe that a few years of rhetoric and government spending woud change that.

Perhaps that is the problem with the entire climate debate. Too many people think there are easy technical fixes out there and all we have to do is 'believe;. I think such a view is naive and dangerous if it is used to drive government policy.

You've nailed it, RW! It's described best by Clarke's Law, which states that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. This leads to the situation described by these past few posts, in that people insufficiently educated in science and technology confuse it with magic. Magic can of course do ANYTHING!

This is likely also a source for many of the technical conspiracy theories, like the 200 mpg carburetor kept from us by the oil companies. If you think of a problem in terms of magic then anybody's opinion is as valid as that of anyone else. Truth becomes a matter of consensus. A scientific challenge to your argument can be deflected by criticism of its motives, i.e. "You sir are a DENIER!"

Worse yet, when dealing with someone who thinks of the Universe in terms of magic it is impossible to ever convince them of something with facts. They don't understand them so they blow right over them! You have to resort to tricks of confidence, which is the basis of politics.

[Argus]

The test just hasn't been seen through to its conclusion is all.

And yet advocates demand we spend trillions of dollars based on the presumption the theory is true.

[GostHacked]

Too many people seem to think that not having a technology to do 'X' is simply a matter of will and money. It does not work that way in the real world. There has been an need for a large capacity battery for use in electrical generation applications for 100 years and billions have been spent trying to develop one without success. There is absolutely no reason to believe that a few years of rhetoric and government spending woud change that.

Wait, why do batteries in all our gadgets just get smaller and end up having longer life? With the advancement in computer technology to help us out with creating these things, it is getting cheaper and easier to accomplish these things.

I would not leave it up to the government to change it, or even corporations to initiate change, it will come from the people wanting to invest in the new technology themselves.

Perhaps that is the problem with the entire climate debate. Too many people think there are easy technical fixes out there and all we have to do is 'believe;. I think such a view is naive and dangerous if it is used to drive government policy.

Those fixes exist out there today. Like I said, it demands a new way of thinking of how we use and store energy. If you move from a power grid that is centralized in generation, then in failures like that nice black out a decade or so ago, that took out Ontario, Quebec, New York, ect ect .... would not even have a chance to happen. Everyone would be independant in generating/storing their own energy. Self reliant, self sustaining , self dependant and independant. Not only that, working with technology that creates green energy that will produce little to no carbon emissions, is that not the ultimate goal here??? Not to mention we are pretty shitty at using out energy consumption wisely, which part of the problem.