Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

[jk]

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

http://greens.org.au/QldSenate#post_1195964611

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...efer=australia


http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=328489

i guess when you have a terrible drought, severe enough to threaten the whole economy, people will tend to pay attention to climate. [although i couldn't help but notice the prominence given to the change in stance on iraq.,] of course, if people are paying attention to climate because it is having a huge impact on their nation, they cannot be said to paying attention to climate on the basis of mere political correctness.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

i guess when you have a terrible drought, severe enough to threaten the whole economy, people will tend to pay attention to climate. [although i couldn't help but notice the prominence given to the change in stance on iraq.,] of course, if people are paying attention to climate because it is having a huge impact on their nation, they cannot be said to paying attention to climate on the basis of mere political correctness.

I try to pay attention to climate on the basis of pure science, regardless of what I think is politically correct and regardless of what I think of the eco-nuts. So, using pure science or pure climatology, here are some forecasts of mine:

This year, being a La Nina year, means that the weather will be cool and dry along the West Coast, especially in southern California. Sadly, expect the drought in California to worsen. This meshes very nicely with climate records as well because most of the occurrences of drought in southern California last for at least 2 years. This year will be the second year of the drought.

Expect cold weather this winter too in California. La Nina nearly always brings chill.

My forecast also meshes with the sunspot cycle which is at a minimum now. A sunspot minimum correlates with drought and cold in California.

Four or five years on, we will be in the other half of the cycle: El Nino with a sunspot maximum, and that would likely mean warm and wet in California and throughout much of the desert Southwest and northern Mexico. Drought may re-occur in the Pacific NW and BC. Strong hurricanes would likely bring flooding once again to the southern Baja peninsula and the west coast of mainland Mexico.

Of course, as we go back into El Nino in 2011 or 2012, the eco-frauds will say that the Earth is warming-up and it's all due to carbon-dioxide. And get ready for another book by Al Gore. :rolleyes:

[Guest]

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Starving Steve -

Why not post about something other than global warming or peak oil! This community discusses many different topics.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Starving Steve -

Why not post about something other than global warming or peak oil! This community discusses many different topics.

I do have a degree in climatology which I earned back in the early 1970s. At that time, climatologists were suggesting that the Earth might be facing another Little Ice Age, or possibly something even colder.

My other interests are economics, especially gold ( gold fever, gold mining, gold hoaxes, gold coins, gold standard, gold investment, gold as element #79, inflation, fiat money, depression, Goldfinger, Bretton Woods, Republican morons, central bankers, liars, devaluations, Weimar inflation, Argentina, Brazil, the Mexican peso, "the mess that Greenspan made", Gordon Brown type morons, supplyside economics morons, neo-cons, Arthur Laffer, etc.).

I am also interested in issues in public education in the US such as the complete FAILURE of the Bush education programme---- and how that failure is being hushed-up from the public by a frightened and controlled media in the US.

So, we have plenty to discuss, or at least, I do here.

[Guest]

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Starving Steve -

Have at it!

You can start your own topics. If you are really digging into some issues and not just sounding off, people will post in views of their own.

[GRG55]

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

GLOBAL WARMING - FACT OR FICTION - A FOLLOW UP TO AN ITULIP DISCUSSION FROM JULY / AUGUST

Original thread was here:

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...12102#poststop

Here are some comments from members of this community on the validity of the global warming thesis, posted just a few months ago. I include the original reactions to the "thesis" that global warming might be real, because we now have the results in from a coordinated massive study conducted by a UN sponsored panel consisting of fully 2,500 climatologists and related discipline scientists from all over the world.

I came across this in my archive as I was trolling for something else. Not sure if it's already been posted, but if you have not seen it, an interesting interactive graphic on Arctic sea ice change from the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...C_GRAPHIC.html#

[c1ue]

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Lukester,

I haven't been following the climate wars too closely - unfortunately I agree with Steve that the mood is more adversarial than scientific.

My main questions are as follows:

1) Are the climate models which show global warming due to human created CO2 at the point now where they can explain the 1650-1850 ice age?

If the previous and well documented ice age (and subsequent warming) is not showing up in the models, I have grave doubts as to the model's validity for predicting present events.

2) How is historical solar energy output documented?

Radiation exposure during solar flares can increase by up to 100x - the amount is small in terms of cancer risk but does point to the possibility of significant variation in the sun's energy footprint on Earth. Thus I think it is important to understand how past solar energy is estimated/measured; the sun by far is the greatest impact on climactic conditions on this planet.

[Guest]

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

C1ue -

Maybe start by reading through this entire thread, rather than a couple of posts.

As for gaining a better fix on the basis for this alarm, I'm presently all tuckered out on the topic. If you express skepticism, you are being skeptical of the continually firming conclusions of many thousands of scientists worldwide (and many dozens of national governments who are one after another putting their heads in a noose for some really gargantuan economic costs to comply with it's findings) who are climbing on board this thesis every year now, not to speak of the quite extraordinary agreement of the 2500 scientists scattered around the world in many different countries who contributed their findings to the new IPCC report (and elsewhere).

At a certain point, the same skepticism you are exercising here initially, must begin to ask how a mere scam could fool that many nations, scientists and state budget controllers into agreeing to release vast amounts of funding. When it comes down to a large number of nations all getting 'fooled' in concerted fashion for world-budget-busting sums of money, maybe you need to look closer at the thesis.

Just do a quick Wikipedia search of the IPCC REPORT 2007 if you are short of time, to gather a summary of the findings of the most recent issued report. There seems near unanimity as to the human industrial output component. As to mini ice ages in the fifteenth or sixteenth century, I confess I'm unwilling to do the research for you to satisfy this question.

There are a lot of issues discussed in this entire thread. If you are interested you can read them to collect many different starting points of further inquiry.

As always, I very much appreciate your healthy skepticism about so many things. In virtually all other instances I find it the perfect tonic for many erroneous 'conventional wisdoms'.

[c1ue]

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Lukester,

The last reports on the weather models being used by IPCC which I saw in Scientific American 3 months ago clearly stated that the models are not able to forecast past events before the 18th century.

I also have recently seen other reports which admit that any estimations of solar radiation levels before 1900 are 3rd order or worse: i.e. tree rings. But tree rings are water dependent more so than sun - plus there are other things like pest outbreaks.

As for numbers of scientists - there are much more than 2500 economists forecasting no recession in the US.

Why should I believe in the numbers of voices?

As for funding - are you serious? So the millions spent on ESP research must mean that this field is also real?

What about farm subsidies? Are these really based on facts or politics?

All I am pointing out is that as a person of scientific pragmatic view - I want some more validation that the 'marks to model' of climate change a) being due to human interference and b) likely result of present policies.

From what I've seen in the IPCC reports - the majority of the arguments are based on the graph of CO2 levels vs. temperature. Also: yep, global temperatures have gone up in the past 20 years (which comprises all of our present day scientifically accurate measurement data)

For that matter, I've done a little research into the methane arena; what is well known is that the population of cows and similar large domestic animals greatly increased at specific points in history.

The volume of methane thus generated should theoretically have introduced some warming, but this is absolutely not evident from the historical profiles.

[Guest]

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

C1ue -

Interesting you mention Methane. I'd be curious to know what the potential methane release from the thawing of the hundreds of millions of acres of Siberian tundra will be - many multiples of the entire globe's population of herbivores in "dung methane equivalents" there, I should imagine.

My whole point in the posts above was not to take mere 100 or even 300 year old data and try to extrapolate anything, A) because we are laymen and don't really know squat, and B) because even if we did know something that time frame is simply too short on data-points to pin down a trend in something so incredibly complex to correctly analyse as climate change.

But there are some data points on 400 thousand year charts that even a 12 year old could successfully point out and draw simple, clear inferences from. CO2 being one full standard deviation above it's highest recorded points in 400,000 years is one such clear issue. I pointed out above what the inferences are, due to CO2's very, very long correlation to temperature.

I have no great urge to convert you to a different point of view. Your conclusions are entirely your own to make. As you arrive at your own point of view however, one useful thing may be to keep a keen eye out on what exactly the global scientific community consensus is doing in terms of evolution of it's ideas on this topic.

If you see that consensus steadily growing, then perhaps it's opportune to concentrate less on your own narrow technical points of objection (what you view as their flawed methodologies) and simply look more and more closely into the affirmative arguments this growing community of scientists will be making in a process of innocent minded curiosity.

That growing consensus within this scientific community can be expected to be cumulative over time. Don't forget the age-old quite tenacious reluctance of people, and entire nations, to be parted from their substantial wealth by mere untruths.

As you may start seeing large economies begin to be 'parted from their wealth' to accomodate this thesis, you'll need to conclude ever more that they are mere dupes, to maintain your skepticism. At a certain point you may be concluding very large groups of peoples are dupes, while you remain correct. This is the trend that you are embarking upon, and it would be good to maintain a flexibility within one's own opinions, as one observes any changes of the global consensus on the issue.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

C1ue -

Interesting you mention Methane. I'd be curious to know what the potential methane release from the thawing of the hundreds of millions of acres of Siberian tundra will be - many multiples of the entire globe's population of herbivores in "dung methane equivalents" there, I should imagine.

My whole point in the posts above was not to take mere 100 or even 300 year old data and try to extrapolate anything, A) because we are laymen and don't really know squat, and B) because even if we did know something that time frame is simply too short on data-points to pin down a trend in something so incredibly complex to correctly analyse as climate change.

But there are some data points on 400 thousand year charts that even a 12 year old could successfully point out and draw simple, clear inferences from. CO2 being one full standard deviation above it's highest recorded points in 400,000 years is one such clear issue. I pointed out above what the inferences are, due to CO2's very, very long correlation to temperature.

I have no great urge to convert you to a different point of view. Your conclusions are entirely your own to make. As you arrive at your own point of view however, one useful thing may be to keep a keen eye out on what exactly the global scientific community consensus is doing in terms of evolution of it's ideas on this topic.

If you see that consensus steadily growing, then perhaps it's opportune to concentrate less on your own narrow technical points of objection (what you view as their flawed methodologies) and simply look more and more closely into the affirmative arguments this growing community of scientists will be making in a process of innocent minded curiosity.

That growing consensus within this scientific community can be expected to be cumulative over time. Don't forget the age-old quite tenacious reluctance of people, and entire nations, to be parted from their substantial wealth by mere untruths.

As you may start seeing large economies begin to be 'parted from their wealth' to accomodate this thesis, you'll need to conclude ever more that they are mere dupes, to maintain your skepticism. At a certain point you may be concluding very large groups of peoples are dupes, while you remain correct. This is the trend that you are embarking upon, and it would be good to maintain a flexibility within one's own opinions, as one observes any changes of the global consensus on the issue.

Starving Steve again:

Carbon-dioxide and methane are global warmers. Melting ice sheets floating on the Arctic Ocean are another global warming mechanism. But please remember that removal of forests and conversion of those forest lands to farmlands increase the reflectivity (albedo) of the Earth's surface and tend, therefore, to cool the Earth. Not only that but smoke and filth and soot from cities block-out solar radiation and cool the Earth.

And if the Earth's climate is getting warmer--- which I doubt--- more water vapour will be evaporated from the oceans, and this water vapour forms cloud cover and cloud cover cools the Earth.

The climate puzzle is far from solved. No-one knows whether the Earth is warming or cooling, let alone whether the total affect of man is to warm or cool the Earth. Not only this, but the affect on the Earth's climate from sunspots and fluctuation in the solar constant is not understood. And then we have the Earth's cycles in El Nino/La Nina and the Gulf Stream cycles to subtract out of the data. The Madden-Julian Oscillation has to be subtracted out of the data as well.

And speaking of data, our climate data is biased by urban development through time. So, if nothing really changes on Earth, our temperature data on land tends to show warming around official weather stations because of the construction of buildings and roads.

Introduce government grants, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the Rocky Mountain Institute, the UN, Kyoto, Canada, New Zealand, the BBC, the CBC, and Al Gore into this mix, and what you end-up with is a global warming belief system--- a religion, and not a science.

[Guest]

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Starving Steve -

<< The climate puzzle is far from solved. No-one knows whether the Earth is warming or cooling, let alone whether the total affect of man is to warm or cool the Earth. >>

Forget temperature. Tell us what you think about 370 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere compared to the half million year ranges. I understand that today's CO2 readings are 80% - 100% further out from the half million year highest readings?

How curious, and how extraordinary the statistical odds, that out of half a million years of even very approximately logged CO2 history, this anomaly should co-exist with the earth's first experience of runaway fossil fuel based human industrialisation, with a vanishingly small statistical probability the two events should ever overlap so precisely by mere chance, eh? Such improbabilities tweak some minds into an unhindered spirit of curiosity, but not everyone responds to the call.

We haven't had massive volcanic activity in hundreds of thousands of years. To what do you attribute a CO2 reading that is reaching out a million years into our past for any parallel?

Are 6.5 billion humans and the surge of global industrialisation an (intuitive by lack of intellectual curiosity) non-sequitur to you relative to the above CO2 hard data fact, or do they prompt any glimmer of curiosity in you above and beyond your "ideologically hardened armadillo" shell?

[Starving Steve]

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Starving Steve -

<< The climate puzzle is far from solved. No-one knows whether the Earth is warming or cooling, let alone whether the total affect of man is to warm or cool the Earth. >>

Forget temperature. Tell us what you think about 370 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere compared to the half million year ranges. I understand that today's CO2 readings are 80% - 100% further out from the half million year highest readings?

How curious, and how extraordinary the statistical odds, that out of half a million years of even very approximately logged CO2 history, this anomaly should co-exist with the earth's first experience of runaway fossil fuel based human industrialisation, with a vanishingly small statistical probability the two events should ever overlap so precisely by mere chance, eh? Such improbabilities tweak some minds into an unhindered spirit of curiosity, but not everyone responds to the call.

We haven't had massive volcanic activity in hundreds of thousands of years. To what do you attribute a CO2 reading that is reaching out a million years into our past for any parallel?

Are 6.5 billion humans and the surge of global industrialisation an (intuitive by lack of intellectual curiosity) non-sequitur to you relative to the above CO2 hard data fact, or do they prompt any glimmer of curiosity in you above and beyond your "ideologically hardened armadillo" shell?

Starving Steve again from Watsonville, Cal:

If your Greenpeace global-warming alarmists are to be believed, then there have been no major episodes of volcanism on Earth for the past half-a-million years, which seems to be a very fishy assumption on their part. So if there has been no major volcanism, then of course, mankind is the culprit for CO2 hitting the current level of some 550 or 600 PPM.

But I shall ignore the natural occurrences of forest fires such as the Hinkley Fire which a century ago burned thousands of square miles in Minnesota. (And those volcanoes just stay constant and rather quiet, only the odd Mt. St. Helens popping-off --- for some 400 or 500 thousand years. :rolleyes: )

[Guest]

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Starving Steve -

You are talking to yourself.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Follow up (and reality check) on iTulip Global Warming Thread from July

Starving Steve -

You are talking to yourself.

I may be talking to myself, but I do not use an ice-core sample to infer the CO2 history of the Earth for half-a-million years.

I don't know much, but I do know that everything on this planet is changing and will continue to change, and that includes the CO2 content of the atmosphere. Every time a volcano erupts, every time a forest burns, the CO2 content of the atmosphere changes.

When you post that the CO2 content of the atmosphere has been constant at 350 PPM for 400,000 or 500,000 years, you are tacitly saying that the occurrences of volcanic eruptions and burning of forests have been constant--- which is fishy. Very fishy!

The job of a scientist is to check his findings and theories against all questions raised and not to ridicule the questioners. A true scientist welcomes all questions and critical thinking about his thesis.

"I'm from Missouri. Show me." Show me why the CO2 content of the atmosphere has been constant for some half-a-million years until the late 20th C. --- when Greenpeace and the Sierra Club got organized.