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New Satellite Data Confirms Global Warming
starannihilator writes "Researchers at the University of Washington have analyzed satellite data using a new and more accurate method (using channel 4 on the Microwave Sounding Unit satellite) to show that the troposphere has been warming faster than the Earth's surface for more than two decades. Nature reports that previous interpretations (using MSU channel 2) did not indicate such dramatic tropospheric warming because the data were compromised by stratospheric conditions. For years, the debate over global warming raged largely as a result of an incongruency between trends in surface and tropospheric temperatures. The new data gained by MSU channel 4 are consistent with the surface temperature's rising trends and indicate that global warming is, in fact, occuring in the troposphere. Read the full article in Nature, or similar stories in the Seattle Times and Newswise."
Limbaugh's not a "Christian Conservative", so replace the parts about the Anti-christ, Falwell and the 2nd Coming with some rant about Hillary and Terry McAuliffe.
Really. Does it now.
Because you just said that a "new ice age fad" is starting, and you're claiming it has something to do with global cooling. And now you're refering to a story about a thaw in Greenland threatens a new ice age, and you're saying this is about global cooling. Whereas the story is actually only about Global Warming. "Global Cooling" isn't mentioned - probably because no serious scientist believes it exists.
"Global cooling", in the sense of the temperature of the Earth lowering on average across the planet, is distinct from the idea of an "ice" age, at least in terms of the one you quoted. The Guardian is reporting, correctly, that one effect of a global shift in climate, even one that warms the Earth on average, can be that ice forms in areas where currently it doesn't. That's because warming can effect sea currents and other weather patterns, changing systems that usually bring warmth to areas of the planet that would normally freeze.
Try, for example, comparing London with Moscow. Compare how far North either one is, then ask yourself why London is usually temperate and Moscow is usually covered in snow. A brief look at other areas of the world level with London will tell you that there's something wierd about the weather in Britain (I mean, other than the rain, five year hurricane-strength storm cycle, etc): it's far warmer than it should be. That's because there's a weather system that actively moves heat from the Gulf of Mexico up to the British Isles (and thereabouts.)
Now, the evidence that global warming may cause Britain to turn into some icy wasteland isn't exactly scientific (not because it's impossible, but because right now they're trying to predict a chaotic system and simply assuming a change in the weather system will almost certainly have the worst result - nobody however really knows what the results will be), but it's being talked about as a possibility. It's a possibility because if you shove a huge amount of water into the ocean, it's not likely to act the same way as it did previously. The media, not the scientists, are raging about ice coming to currently unusually temperate parts of the world as some kind of inevitability. Do yourself a favour and don't pretend the rash harping of the media and the current scientific consensus are the same.
Utterly meaningless. This was a fad, a real fad, that lasted a few months. No serious scientists hung their hat on it. Scientists investigated it, but the ultimate conclusion was that the phenomena was bunk, and the reverse was, if anything, more likely.
The scientific community has been concerned about global warming since the mid eighties, if not earlier. They've been largely consistant. They've investigated trend after trend, and everything found has pointed in one direction.
The latest evidence is right at the top of this article. You see the headline "New Satellite Data Confirms Global Warming"? It's because, well, basically, there's this satellite data, it's just come out, and, erm, it also shows the globe has warmed.
The underlying concerns have a firm foundation. There's a lot of money being poured into discrediting it because, well, there's a lot of money to be lost if, say, we switch from oil to something more sane; because there are a lot of businesses that stand to see their costs skyrocket if their CO2 emissions are regulated; because there are ideologically swivel-eyed psuedo-libertarians who find it hard to comprehend that we might, as a group, need to do something. We rarely if ever see credible reports that GW isn't an issue. We regularly see well researched
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Ice cores
Any discussion of global warming as a climatic cycle needs to extend in a timespan of tens of thousands of years to look at a single cycle. The problem with the "global warming" as being a man-made effect is the localization of the time period were talking about. Most of the data being used to "prove" the theory are on the order of a decades and at best centuries. From a historical perspective we are in a regular warming trend that is situated inside of the end of an ice age. To this end it is highly likely that it will continue to get hotter regardless of human activity. This is factual based on data from hundreds of thousands of years. As the gp has said, while human efforts do have an effect on this pattern, to what degree is unknown. Anything contrary to this has to date has not modeled the climate to any appreciable margin of error. The problem lies in the complex interaction of a very large system. The simplifications assumed to actually compute projections cause unacceptable margins of error in a short future window.
For your article from late 2001, I'll give you an article from the very same agency.
Then, how about looking at the various timescales?
Yes, earth has been warmer in the past, and over the 2-4billion years of its existance, there are longer periods warmer. Imagine the universe is only 3K warm. Great. What does that mean for our situation at hand?
Now have a look at the very same link you provided, which is probably more of our concern, the time of human civilisation. As you can see,
the climate has been actually colder in average (Hence the often cited "fear of the Ice Age" in the 70s). But not only that, judging from the previous curves, 2000 AD should be the peak of its curve.
But, a time-scale which has ticks every 10 millenia is also a bit out of scale. Strangely enough, most people are more concerned about the next decades up to a century, not millenia.
Have a look at the curve, which is probably more of our concern. Should that not be recent enough, here some more, including one from 2003.
> But how much, and is it even measurable compared to a massive volcanic eruption?
Let's start with the fact that vulcans contribute their CO2 regardless whether humans contribute or not. So anthrophogenic CO2 is added to their exhaust.
Now to the data. According to these geologists, anthropogenic CO2 emissions are roughly 150 times the estimated emissions of volcanos.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
Spencer and Christy published the original paper on microwave sounding and atmospheric temperatures.
To the unaware, there is a medal given out by Uppsala University in Sweden under the auspices of the Royal Swedish Academy called the Angstrom Medal. Pretty impressive stuff. Now there's this private group, the AFAB, who decided to give out an Angstrom Medal to Hoagland. Here is a nice quote from the department of Physics at Uppsala:
Also, it turns out after all that the people in AFAB have admitted that giving their version of the Angstrom Medal was "a mistake." This is like Taco and Cowboy getting together and deciding that I should recieve the "Nobel Prize," and then me running around adding to my name "winner of the Nobel Prize."BTW interplanetary climate specialist (what, are you talking solar wind here? What is this interplanetary climate you are speaking of?), you might think you know a lot about the subject, but your analysis of the Mars climate shows you are very ignorant (hint: you need to consider extinction values and optical depth, to name just two items). Please provide even a back-of-the-envelope calculation to show that Mars should be hotter than Mercury. While we wait, you can also tell us all about "the face," the "geometry of Cydonia," and you might as well weigh in with your scientific expertise and explain why the Martian atmosphere is as blue as a Texas sky. These are, after all, all topics widely promoted and lectured upon by the "great" Hoagland.
For the rest of you, if you want to see what a huge pile of horseshit people like this peddle, start with pages like this.
Yeah, yeah, I know, "fight the system," "the man is keeping you down," etc., etc. I apologize for my ramblings, but I am just part of the scientific intelligentsia who will not rest until we bury the "truth" and protect our positions, and we can't help but attack the few honest men like you.
Because there is no evidence of man-made atmospheric changes contributing to anything.
Here is an article from the BBC News about a scientific study that gives strong evidence of man-made greenhouse gases contributing to global warming. So you can stop with your bullshit claims about there being "no evidence." That link proves that you are either ignorant or a liar.
So what you end up with is 100% political efforts like Kyoto which requires that "bad" countries decrease CO2 emissions and requires that "good" countries increase them.
More bullshit. The Kyoto treaty did not require any country to increase CO2 emissions. That's just complete and utter fabrication.
I'd rather pay more for banana's and CDs to stop Martian invasion, Godzilla attacks, and hangnails. As long as you are paying to affect something that has nothing to do with anything....
Since you've already proven yourself woefully ignorant about the entire subject, your opinion about the topic is worthless. Do us all a favor: Stay home on election day and study rather than going out to vote. We'll all be better off if you do.
China is already using more coal every year than the USA
Handwaving. You have to look at total emissions:
CO2 emissions per year (tons)
China
2,893,000,000 (2.3 / capita)
USA
5,410,000,000 (20.1 / capita)
source: wikipedia
To say that China needs to boost their efficiency rather than the US is ridiculous looking at those figures.
It's not enough to give a shit about the environment; we have to make sure they give a shit too, or at least give a shit about what the industrialized world will do if they don't act like it.
The rest of the world does give a shit about it. Most of the rest of the countries that matter have ratified Kyoto, which, whilst not perfect, will at least go some way towards controlling emissions. It is the US that is doing absolutely nothing.
If any actual research backs up your claim in any way, please share it with the rest of us.
What "dramatic shift" are you talking about? The dinosaur article mentions a temperature change of 10C over a period of 7 million years. That's a shift of a little over one millionth of a degree per year - not very dramatic if you ask me. Current climate research predicts the same amount of change over a period of several hundred to a few thousand years. Taking the more mild predictions, that means our climate is changing about 2000 times faster than the "dramatic shift" you refer to.
Here is an article about a National Academy of Sciences' report provided at the request of the Bush administration. It states plainly that "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in the earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise."
Here is a paper from the American Geophysical Union stating that "human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate... scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century."
Anyway, I could go on with pages of links from universities and scientific organizations who are increasingly making unqualified statements that, yes, the tons of pollution we pump into the air, water, and soil on a daily basis are having negative effects - including global warming. Most of the opposition to these views can be found on the websites of right-wing political think tanks, individual right wing politicians, and in "opinion" pieces with no links to actual scientific research.
For instance, A volcanic erruption can cause so much more so called "greenhouse" gasses to be released into the atmosphere than all the polutants man has expelled since the first machine of industry.
That is, quite simply, crap. You're wrong and embarassingly so.
"There is no doubt that volcanic eruptions add CO2 to the atmosphere, but compared to the quantity produced by human activities, their impact is virtually trivial: volcanic eruptions produce about 110 million tons of CO2 each year, whereas human activities contribute almost 10,000 times that quantity." - Scientific American
Moderators, please don't mod up silly statements like these where sources aren't cited.