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Cosmic Rays and Global Warming
Overly Critical Guy writes "The former editor of New Scientist has written an article in the TimesOnline suggesting that cosmic rays may affect global climate. The author criticizes the UN's recent global warming report, noting several underreported trends it doesn't account for, such as increasing sea-ice in the Southern Ocean. He describes an experiment by Henrik Svensmark showing a relation between atmospheric cloudiness and atomic particles coming in from exploded stars. In the basement of the Danish National Space Center in 2005, Svensmark's team showed that electrons from cosmic rays caused cloud condensation. Svensmark's scenario apparently predicts several unexplained temperature trends from the warmer trend of the 20th century to the temporary drop in the 1970s, attributed to changes in the sun's magnetic field affecting the amount of cosmic rays entering the atmosphere."
oh noes he discredited the cult of global warming! he MUST be in the pocket of big business.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Before you people start screaming, "what do they expect us to do about cosmic rays??//?/?" Think. This isn't about "debunking" global warming, nor is it about fearmongering about it. It's about building more accurate climate models.
Move along.
http://outcampaign.org/
I have had some classes on this theory at university.
This being a somewhat new theory everything is still quite uncertain how much effect this has on the heating of the earth.
I think the estimates we saw in class a year ago was that this could explain from 10% to maybe 30% of the heating that has happened in the last 30 years.
We don't have measurements of the amount of cosmic radiation from more than something like 30 years so it is hard to go further back to check this theory.
We have CO2 measurements from somewhat longer, but not that much longer, but we have trapped air in the ice cores which give us information almost 100K years back which gives the evidence of CO2 and methane quite strong support.
Cosmic radiation does is not "trapped" anywhere in the geologic layers to my knowledge.
I am no saying Svensmarks theory is wrong, it most likely has an effect, but how big this effect is is very hard to say by now.
Anyhow I think the critique of the UN-report is justified, if this theory is not part of the report. Not taking this theory into account and then saying there is a 90% certainty that humans have caused global warming is not scientific.
"Global warming" is the net effect on the planet's surface, taken as a whole. "Climate change" describes the local effects of global warming.
http://outcampaign.org/
I for one refuse to comment on this subject until Michael Crichton tells me what is right!
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
Also, pretty much summed up in a recent Mark Steyn commentary.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
It's well know that the decline of seafaring pirates correlates the rise of global warming me hearties. sunspots too
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I'm all for exploring all avenues. We don't know enough, by far to know even what we know or don't know yet. We're making theories without any idea what all forces play in the big scale. If this man figures out just ONE more variable, then his work was worth the time and effort.
Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
you don't do anything to support your argument in that quote.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
LOL Well, You're obviously a non-scientist yourself, as your willingness to resort to authority argument clearly demonstrates.
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It surely be pirates, jim lad. Never a truer tale been told. All this shows is that pirate decline may be associated with cosmic rays.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The cosmic ray theory is just a natural attempt to get some money from Exxon. Just wait and we will hear theories that dinosaurs have caused current global warming.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
Apparently he doesn't need to. At least he thinks so, as long as the consensus is with him. Who are you to criticize him? are you some of those deniers who insist on old fashionable things as reproducible results?
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unlikely since this is a 5 year long research project recently completed. even less likely since it's nothing to do with oil.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
All those crazy "climate change has nothing to do with carbon levels" crackpots are going to have a field day. And all the "Yes it bloody well does!!" crackpots are going to get all defensive and who's going to win in the end? The trolls. That's who. The trolls.
In all this I'm reminded of a mock argument I heard on the radio between a geologist and a biologist about the source of oxygen in out atmosphere. Both "experts" were convinced that it was largely due to some effect described in their field of study and dismissed the other.
What I'm trying to say is that there is solid evidence that carbon in the atmosphere can trap heat. If we now discover that cosmic rays are warming the planet, that doesn't exclude the effect of carbon as an insulator from the equation. Now if both theories are true we have a serious problem. Cosmic radiation is warming the planet at a higher rate and carbon is preventing it from cooling.
What do we do about it?
1. Reduce carbon emissions.
2. reduce Earth's exposure to cosmic rays
If reducing cosmic rays can be done along the lines of Mr. Burns blocking out the sun with his big dish, I'm all for it, as long as I'm the one who owns the dish. Otherwise, with sincere apologies all the "I'm gonna fcsking well drive my big Ford SUV 2 blocks to buy my cheese in a can" crackpots, but it has to be option 1.
I don't therefore I'm not.
... until the experiment has been independently reproduced and there is some more data on whether and how much cosmic radiation affects our climate. So far, there is one paper on this topic (July 2002 issue of Journal of Geophysical Research-Space Physics), and not much else. The experiment is interesting, but rather tenuous in its conclusions. We have a potential mechanism, along with some ways on testing the validity of its predictions. But it's far too early to make this anymore than it is - an idea that needs further exploring.
3 1080631.htm
Besides, can we link to something more than someone's blog? Here's a link that has a lot more substance and not so much speculation: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/07/0207
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
LOL Well, You're obviously a non-scientist yourself, as your willingness to resort to authority argument clearly demonstrates.
Fair enough.
However, before my appeal to Authority, I did quite clearly state that his arguments dismissing global 'warming" (due to localised cooling) were false.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
From TFA:
The only trouble with Svensmark's idea -- apart from its being politically incorrect -- was that meteorologists denied that cosmic rays could be involved in cloud formation. After long delays in scraping together the funds for an experiment, Svensmark and his small team at the Danish National Space Center hit the jackpot in the summer of 2005.
Why didn't the oil cartel fund his experiment if they were so interested in it? Or did you just choose to assume, without actually reading the article?
I, personally, believe that there is some global warming, and that yes, it must have been caused, at least in some degree by human activities. But, I am no climate scientist, and for what I have seen so far, there's still not a complete theory, unchallenged that is able to quantify the warming, and the role of human effects on it.
I was trained as a economist (as a result of a silly familiar pressure on programming not being a respectable profession), and because of that, I've seen the stupidity that can happens when models are taken as more important than reality itself. Because of that, I get very worried when I see people trying to interdict scientific debate using moral, and utterly politically loaded statements to discredit everyone that holds a theory that contradict his/her particular view.
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Such an ignorant post you have made. By the same token, when I ask you if the Earth is round and you answer yes, you are resorting to authority as well, unless you have gone up in space and seen it to be the case with your own eyes.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Just wait and we will hear theories that dinosaurs have caused current global warming.
:-)
Considering that the main cause is CO2 from fossil fuel, this statement is actually not too far off
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
No. The idea is that there ought to be no need at this point to go over some very basic aspects of global climate change. The concept that global warming does not mean that all places everywhere will show at all times the same small increases in temperatures is one of them. It isn't everybody's responsibility to spoon feed you every single thing about everything.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
This the same Calder often quoted derogatorily on certain websites with anti environmentalist leanings?p hy/BG1143.cfm
several quote an article "In the Grip of a New Ice Age?" in the National Wildlife Federation's journal, International Wildlife attributed to a "Nigel Calder" in 70's
the line they like to quote is: "the threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind."
eg http://www.ncpa.org/ba/ba337/ba337.html
http://www.mises.org/story/2119
http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhiloso
As a matter of fact, if you asked me formally if the earth is round, I would have a lot of experiments to suggest you, that would prove my statement that earth is round. That's why reproducible results are the cornerstone for science. And as a historical side note, the knowledge of the roundness of earth precedes space travel by some centuries ;-)
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You know what I hate most about these articles? My own bias is plainly obvious to me.
When I read something that says global warming is wrong, I want to say yes! Brilliant! When something confirms it, I can't help but think 'alarmist fear-mongering can't-think-for-themeselves idiots.' But at the same time I know those thoughts are ridiculous, and that I don't really have the understanding of all the parameters to make an intelligent decision.
I guess that's what happens when you politicize a scientific topic. Or maybe I'm just an optimist.
you don't do anything to support your argument in that quote.
Let me break it down for you.
Calder offers local cooling as an example of how anthropogenic climate change scientists are wrong.
However, anthropogenic climate change scientists predict local cooling in their models.
Therefore, one of Calder's 'proofs' that anthropogenic climate change scientists are incorrect is faulty.
Please note that I am not commenting on Cosmic Ray/Cloud formation experiment, until it is indepentantly reproduced (CERN is currently doing this).
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
I think most of the global warming crowd conveniently forget that by far the biggest determinant of Earth's climate is this object about 150 million kilometers from us called the Sun.
If you look at our sunspot cycle (which has been recorded since the 1600's), it should be noted that Earth warms up every time we have many sunspots and cools down when we have few sunspots. The famous Maunder minimum that bridged the 17th and 18th Centuries with very little sunspot activity resulted in seriously cold winters at the higher latitudes, as noted by the Thames River through London freezing over in winter regularly during this period.
But getting back on topic, scientists have noted that almost every planet in our Solar System is experiencing a warmup during the last 4-5 years. Note that the Martian ice caps are getting smaller and smaller, the atmospheres on our "gas giant" planets are warming up quite a bit, and even Pluto's surface is experiencing warming. That tells us either the Sun is generating a lot of unusual radiation or our Solar System is going through an area of our Milky Way galaxy with higher than normal cosmic radiation.
Of course, that is the case. But it obviously depends on the definition of what is a locally restricted effect. You know, "south oceans" is a rather large body of water....
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Wow. If you want to talk debate theory, you ought to know that there are specific instances when an appeal to authority is the proper way to proceed (or are you also arguing with cops who give you a ticket that they shouldn't argue from authority?), such as when legitimate experts on a specialized subject are quoted in the debate (see the last section in the entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority).
It's nice to see though that the arguments against global warming are getting this weak. It means that we finally might see some action on it.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Apparently he doesn't need to. At least he thinks so, as long as the consensus is with him.
Since science doesn't operate by consensus, any "consensus" is irrelevant. Brutal facts are simple. There is labortory evidence that the excess CO2 we have been putting into the atmosphere "ought" to affect the climate. The empirical data doesn't support this. The hockey stick curve is an artifact of data analysis and dependent upon data sets that are not correlated with temperature anyway. There is a clear chemical signature but the predicted climatic signal is largely missing. Between 1950 and 2000 the empirical data indicates that the amount of light reaching the ground decreased immensely; more than enough to explain the missing CO2 signal. Now the Danes have shown an alternative source of climatic effects in the incidence of cosmic rays, mediated by solar weather.
The short conclusion is, we have NO CLUE how the climate really works, nor do we know the full list of inputs that drive it nor their relative importance. Nor is there any convincing -i.e. not overly simplified- model of how our own inputs affect climate. It may well be that CO2 warming is all that is keeping us from a particulate driven cooling and ice age.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
Lol. You're parroting Crichton's book exactly. Polly wanna cracker? These terrible terrible people trying to stop mankind from messing something up, they might have exagerated a little bit. Let's ignore them and just keep doing what we're doing. lol.
It's too risky to not ALWAYS be looking at worst-case scenarios. For our very survival, we need to assume things are our fault and we must be willing to change, even if it may not be our fault.
Nothing like a good belly laugh
"Elvis Presley is dead, but not all of the class of dead people is Elvis Presley"
I don't therefore I'm not.
Personally I think that is very likely that human activities have some impact on recent climate changes. But I think that we would never be able to come to a sound body of theory if we keep on mixing politics with science. We need to give space to dissenting voice, and if we are worried with spin coming from interest groups, we should rely on better review methods instead of trying to silence every dissenting voice.
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I get something else out of your comment too.
If you are not pro-GW, you may have greater difficulty finding funding.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
infrared radiation from the sun causes global warming... Who'd have guessed
+1 insightful. Don't have any mod points, but I wish I did.
One of the arguments he uses is that east antarctica is colder. Erm, but look at the ice shelfs on the western peninsula. Localized cooling doesn't indicate squat. It's great that the penguins return x days later. I'm sure that the bears up north are happy for them.
I'm still up in the air as to the extent of our contribution to climate change... but politicians like yes or no answers. I'd rather see us err on the side of caution on an issue like this.
I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
The term "global warming" conceals several completely different ideas with completely different levels of evidence and likelihood.
Only some of the following statements are true or even supported by evidence:
1. The average temperature of the Earth is going up.
2. It is likely to continue doing so.
3. The largest cause is CO2.
4. The rise in CO2 levels is human-caused.
5. The results will be catastropic.
6. The result will be a mass extinction event.
7. The result will wipe out the human race.
8. This is proof that our economic system is evil.
9. We must destroy or replace the foundation of our economic system.
10. The planet is in jeopardy.
11. The Kyoto accord should be ratified.
It's logically consistent to snort with contempt at 8 and 10 while accepting 1-4 pending further data.
What frosts me (sorry) is that the policy implications don't have to be this politicized. We need a malaria vaccine anyway, regardless of whether the mosquito habitat moves north. We benefit a zillion ways from replacing coal burning by almost anything else. Fuel efficient vehicles are great just in terms of national security alone. Bangladesh is in trouble no matter what we do about future CO2 emissions and we need to make decisions about that (seawall? Resettle? (WHERE?!)).
>I don't really have the understanding of all the parameters to make an intelligent decision.
No one person does, but judicious application of "How do you know?" will cut through a lot of garbage and allow intelligent decision though not certainty.
At least the global warming skeptics have become "global warming is man made"-skeptics. During the 90ies, the dispute was about weither there actually was any warming going on at all.
No matter what the contributing causes for global warming is, it is very real, and we're going to have to deal with it one way or another or suffer massive global consequences. Now that we have consensus on that global warming is happening, the naysayers should find another strategy than "business as ususal", or else making money may become really difficult in the future.
A witty
>there is a well established correlation between CO2 levels and temperature.
It's a superb correlation, the curves track each other amazingly.
By itself that doesn't prove anything. Given only the correlation, you couldn't rule out that temperature increases cause increased CO2 levels. Which is plausible, since organic decay releases CO2 and goes faster when it's warmer (if you doubt that, unplug your refrigerator and see what happens).
Given only the correlation, you couldn't rule out that some other factor causes both warming and CO2 increases.
The reason to think it's causal is that there's a well-demonstrated mechanism and that the details match up.
>Florida may be the first state in the union to give fish the right to vote.
Hey, we already know all about Florida elections.
"Since science doesn't operate by consensus, any "consensus" is irrelevant."
BULLSHIT! Peer-review is an integral part of science, without it everything deteriorates into "he said - she said" politics.
Also the red herrings in TFA have been around for years and have been debunked ad-nauseam.
For all those wondering about attribution please look at the latest IPCC SPM, it has a diagram that has been peer-reviewed and agreed apon by ALL the national science bodies on the planet. It includes such things a volcanos, solar variation, ect, most impotantly it also includes error bars. The reason this guy has picked on clouds as other so called "skeptics" have done before him is because NOBODY has a good model of cloud formation.
"The short conclusion is, we have NO CLUE how the climate really works..."
The alternative conclusion is that you were deliberately aiming for the +Funny mod that you recieved.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
What is missing from this forum so far, and from the linked essay, is any link to the actual scientific paper in question. If we are to judge how significant this paper is, and what it means, shouldn't we be taking a look at it?
The whole drama of hidden agendas, who profits from what, the desires of individuals to get attention and upset people of one political stripe or another, are in the end irrelevant to the questions of "Is human activity affecting the climate" and "What, if anything, do we need to be doing to protect our existence". The drama affects what we end up ACTUALLY doing, so may be very significant to the outcome of the next few hundred years of human history. But our individual responsibilities are to understand the science as best we can, even if we are not climatologists.
Richard Feynmann used to bemoan the fact that reporters asking him about his work constantly tried to "dumb it down" so the average reader could understand it. His point was that, first of all, all the important stuff got lost in this process, and second, even if the "average" person couldn't follow it, there are huge numbers of scientists, engineers, and others who would be able to grasp the main points if they were actually presented.
Given the nature of this forum (we're nerds, right?) I'd love to see the actual science... if only Mr. Calder, or any of the other writers on this subject would deign to show us the actual papers, rather than giving us their predigested interpretations.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Arguing with a cop over a ticket is a really bad analogy for scientific discussion. And, no Appeal to authority doesn't have a place on science. Go read some good book on the scientific method, as it's blatantly obvious (*1) that you have forgotten some things you should have learned on university (*2).
It's nice to see that the global warming religion has to rely on zealots that have no idea about the theory they defend so eagerly.(*3)
*1 (did you enjoy my use of rhetorical qualifiers on this phrase to give reader an idea that you are so wrong that we can't even discuss?)
*2 (I hope you also liked this not so subtle ad-hominen attack)
*3 (I liked your style, and decided to imitate it. The funny thing is that I think that man-made-global-warming hypothesis is quite likely, but just because I want to see science devoid of political overtones I am attacked (by the way, in an overly inept and gross manner). The only thing that really annoys me, is exactly seeing that there's a condemnation of any competing theory that, even if slightly, happens to change the built consensus.
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"Please note that I am not commenting on Cosmic Ray/Cloud formation experiment" - right thats why you called the guy leading the research team a lone nut in an attempt to discredit his theory. more like your trying to back out of a hole you dug for yourself. oh and btw, you still don't prove your point in the above post in anyway. show me somthing better then a couple of anecdotal examples. i guess trying to reason with a self confessed fanboy type is pointless, your doomed like a life of stupidity.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005 /07/the-lure-of-solar-forcing/
4 /12/recent-warming-but-no-trend-in-galactic-cosmic -rays/
6 /10/how-not-to-attribute-climate-change/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/200
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/200
The notion that professional climate scientists have ignored solar forcing in estimating climate sensitivity is 100% false, and by now repeating it is slander.
By no means whatsoever have actual climatologists "forgotten" about the Sun since the earliest days of global warming studies in the 1960's and further. Of course popularizations ignore all the complexities but that's what they do.
The fact remains that by the best known observations and theory there is no way to explain the current observations WITHOUT major to dominant human greenhouse gas forcing.
There is no trend in solar activity observed or predicted which either explains recent past observations or will in any way nullify the clear and significant effect from greenhouse gas forcing. That depends on very predictable laws of physics, not statistical correlations.
And if the Sun does happen to be in an upswing in output, then that will just make the climate change we are causing that much worse. Since the upper extremes of events and risks are the greatest danger, any uncertainty in solar forcing adds to the variance in future forecasts, and not the mean. This means that doing something about the thing we can do something about is ever more urgent.
right thats why you called the guy leading the research team a lone nut in an attempt to discredit his theory.
/.)
Incorrect. Svensmark led the research. Calder is a reporter. Svensmark hasn't called other climate change research into question, Calder has.
You've been telling me to rtfa, but you clearly haven't read it yourself. Unbelievable (well, not really on
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
I don't know if this is better or worse, but I've certainly noticed this trend, too. It sounds at some level like progress, but I fear it actually hides a weird assumption on some people's part that if we didn't cause it, it's not up to us to fix it--that it will either fix itself or else that it can't be fixed because it's God's doing, not man's.
These days people are looking for any reason to dismiss things because there's just too much to think about. It's like when person A writes a long email on a serious topic and person B responds "there's a typo in line 2 there." Whose turn is it to respond now? What passes for discourse these days is really more like a game of ping pong. It doesn't matter what you respond, it only matters that you did respond. Then it's back in the other person's court for action. (If you don't like sports analogies, perhaps you'd prefer a Petri net. But it works out to the same thing.)
And when the debate is between someone who is using rationality and logic on one side and someone who is thinking superficially on the other side, it has a wierd kind of surreal sense to it--like something's wrong with the picture but you can't quite figure out what. The end result, though, seems to be a lulling of the public into non-action so that it doesn't perturb Big Business, which often just likes the status quo. But if inaction is the result, I'm not sure that's progress.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
Yeah? I'll see your "round" and raise you an "oblate spheroid." Your move.
Just one more area where the "common knowledge" is at best an approximation, but more fairly, simply wrong. There's a hint there, for those smart enough to take it.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Just to nitpick, but Galileo Galilei wasn't the first nor the only one to describe heliocentrism - Nicolas Copernic was the forethinker of that system, and Galileo Galilei main discoveries (Saturn's rings, Jupiter's satellites, physics of the pendulum etc.) weren't in the line at his trial. Actually, most of the learned scholars of the time knew for a fact that heliocentrism gave far more accurate mathematicals results to build sailing tables.
Galileo Galilei faced troubles because he wrote that helliocentrism was the physical TRUTH. He would have escaped any trial (and was offered a plea bargain as a matter of fact) had he accepted to write that heliocentrism was a mere hypothesis. But he refused and the rest is history. As to know why he was so stubborn, we now know there was a mix of self-pride, and insurance he received from high profile individuals among the Catholic Church that the Pope was considering adopting a progressive doctrine. That turned out to be deceptive. Basically, he was caught in the middle of a political fight, and sided with the wrong persons.
touché! Next time I meet you I'll refuse your gambit. LOL.
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...when Slashdot has nothing but articles about Global Warming.
What more could any of us need?
I would never leave the house! (well...this is assuming I left it now)
The problem is that even if the whole disaster scenario is valid, and even if we implement every mitigating measure, the result of our action will be very little positive impact on the environment, while simultaneously crippling the economy of the entire world.
Kyoto is madness--it is a wealth transfer mechanism from DCs to LDCs, and as if that weren't enough, it won't even do what people think it will. For ruinous effort, we would get negligible return.
If the parent followed his precautionary principle to its logical end, he would feel less comfortable with the prescriptions of the Global Warmingistas, he would be more enthusiastic about contrarian articles such as this, and he would be a more scientific thinker, not less.
A more complete aplication of the precautionary principle would say--since we don't really know what's causing any of this, although we do have several priomising theories, we shouldn't go wrecking the world economy, without which, I assure you, no further progress will be made. On anything.
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
Read the substantiated facts:o ved_05Feb.pdf IPCC science summary v4. asp refutation of M.C's state of fear:
2 _18.jpg
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/WG1AR4_SPM_Appr
http://www.realclimate.org/
http://www.wunderground.com/education/928.asp links to governmental agencies opinions.
http://www.wunderground.com/education/hoax.asp refutation of unsupportive satellite data:
http://www.wunderground.com/education/stateoffear
Distribution of EMS produced by our local star:
http://www.tak2000.com/data/planets/solar-rad.gif
or
http://www.eas.slu.edu/People/CEGraves/Eas138/fg0
Cue the climate trolls, both pro and con.*sigh*It is impossible to have a serious discussion about climate change (or any environmental issue) these days. Personally, I more fault the environmental movement for allowing itself to be hijacked by anti-capitalism and anti-globalization movements. However, I don't discount the role of industry wanting to maximize short term profits for a few at any cost (including search for the probable truth). In a way, it doesn't matter. Any piece of science gets immediately picked up and stretched for all it's worth to further a particular agenda. For instance, "cosmic ray flux may influence terrestrial climate" becomes "Man-made global warming is a myth because the real culprit is cosmic rays!"
Flat out, that's not what the science tells us. What science tells us is that climate is a complicated system with many inputs and feedbacks that we only crudely understand. Even so, we understand enough to know one significant input right now is anthropogenic CO2 emissions. How significant? That is the multi-trillion dollar question.
See, the question is not yes/no. Our choices are not "We're destroying all life! Dismantle capitalism before it's too late!" vs "we're doing nothing! Burn more coal!" What we're really looking at here is a serious study of how much we're influencing the climate we depend on (climate scientists agree enough to be worried). Following from that, we seriously need to look at the risks and how best to manage them without tanking our economy.
We have many choices and a lot will depend on the relative significance of our contributions to climate change. We NEED studies like this, not as a tool to discredit global warming, but as a way to refine our understanding to better understand what WE'RE doing, so we can more effectively do the cost/benefit analysis of various scenarios. Unfortunately, reasonable voices are being drowned out by trolls in the warring camps.
> If global warming did not exist, leftists would have to invent it.
No, leftists would have invented global cooling. Warming will turn more states red, but cooling would turn the blue.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Well, actually - they weren't cosmic rays.
If anything - Cosmic rays were responsible for only one superhero. Super-ted.
Jesus Saves
then why does man made smoke cause global warming? http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1997/of97-262/of97-262.htm l
It appears to me that if we remove the sulfur filters from coal fired power station smoke stacks, the earth will cool down again...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
If so he must be right! Take that global warming!
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With this Black Tyrano, I can finally exterminate those pesky apes!
I just watched Al Gore's movie tonight, so forgive me if I'm skeptical of this climate skeptic. Among Gore's claims:
* Japan was hit with 10 typhoons in 2005. The previous record was seven.
* Brazil was hit with a hurricane in 2005. The previous record in the South Atlantic was zero.
* Atmospheric CO2 will reach 500 ppm in the next fifty years, up from 2-300 ppm in the past 600,000 years.
I'm all for "alternative" science, but the thing is, it has to be science. I'm not sure that cosmic rays and precipitation account for the numerous cases of ice melt shown, by photo, in Gore's movie.
It's hard to argue around Lake Chad in Africa disappearing completely. Cosmic rays did this? Should we also blame cosmic rays for sucking the life out of the Ural Sea in Russia?
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
The "we are headed towards an ice age" meme was due to the belief in cyclic weather, basically that the global temperature could be predicted by a Fourier series. You can always fit any measured data to a Fourier series, but here at least some of the coefficients had astronomical explanations.
Global warming was also a concern 30 years ago, as the mechanisms were well known. There were actually people warning about global warming a 100 years ago. However, only recently computers have become fast enough, and measurements accurate enough, that you can actually quantify the risk.
Interestingly enough, cyclic weather has until recently[1] been used to dismiss global warming, claiming that it was not man made but predicted by the coefficients in the Fourier series. Which does apparently conflict with the series predicting an ice age, but not really, as the series consist of overlapping cycles, and you can be on the way up on one of the short cycles, and on the way down one of the longer.
[1] You still see references to it by laypeople on the net, but it is no longer used that way by scientists.
The world economy will not be wrecked with reductions in CO2 levels and fossile fuel use. The economy of the US, is another question altogether. Frankly, from where I'm sitting, a US stuck in subsistence farming isn't such a bad looker. It would probably benefit the rest of the planet a lot more than any futile attempts to salvage the US economy at the cost of more environmental damage.
Nyhetsankaret.com -- det bÃsta av Sveriges Nyhetssido
There is really no need for accusations about funding and so on. Just answer some simple questions:
1) Why is East Antarctica cooling?
2) Why has air temperature apparently stabilized?
3) What caused the Medieval Warm Period?
4) What caused the mini Ice Age of the 1700s?
5) Why in the historical record do temperatures rise before CO2 rises?
And that's not even getting into the Holocene....
Well, maybe there is a simple explanation that results in it remaining plausible that the modern warm period is different from the Medieval being due wholly or mainly to CO2 emissions since what, 1850 or so, and not due to whatever caused the Medieval, and will not be followed by whatever caused the Mini Ice Age.
No, it can only be stopped by our ceasing to emit CO2. Like they suddenly did in 1400...?
Well, if there is a simple explanation along these lines, it would be very interesting to see someone write it down.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Please explain the following:
6 17_020618_croc.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/06/0
************
The desert crocodiles have adapted to the changing environment in northern Africa; 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, what is now desert was probably lush savannah and grasslands. Today the Sahara is hot and arid, the land sandy, rainfall minimal, and vegetation sparse.
"The extension of range almost certainly reflects climatic changes," said Ross. "We know that even in Roman times, the Sahara was much wetter and greener than it is now. As these places slowly dried up, remnant populations became isolated from the other crocodiles on the continent. How these populations adapted to the changing conditions is most interesting."
***************
Ok so what happened here? Imagine if today the Sahara was drying up. The media and politicians would be saying the world end is near and everything is going to dry up and be burnt like a twig. Yet here we are 10,000 years later still alive...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
... your precious economy? Easy, stop eating cows. Kill all the ones you have now and eat them, but don't make new ones. The farmland you can reclaim will yield ten times as much food and whatever you have left over that doesn't need to be used for growing food can be used for growing for instance industrial hemp, which can then be used as fuel for heating houses. Oil can be extracted from the plants which mixed with gasoline (20/80 in normal cars without any modifications) can run cars, reducing your addiction to foreign oil (or domestic, if you live in a country whose oil production still surpasses demand).
Nyhetsankaret.com -- det bÃsta av Sveriges Nyhetssido
The Copernican model didn't offer very good astronomical predictions compared to the most sophisticated Ptolemaic models. When Galileo saw Venus go through complete phases (full -> new -> full), it pretty much convinced anyone conversant in astronomy that geocentrism was wrong. Why? Because in a geocentric system Venus can't go through all the phases; only half the phases depending on whether it's inside or outside the Sun's orbit.
Still, Ptolemaic models with their fancy epicycles within epicycles within epicycles gave better results. It wasn't until Kepler came along and put the planets on elliptical paths that the Ptolemaic models were finally thrown out.
The trouble with appeal to authority is not that the experts could be wrong. The real trouble is that a person who needs to cite an authority probably doesn't know if they're citing it correctly.
If you really understand something, you can cite the data directly. I don't have to cite Galileo to discuss gravity, for instance. I know how to measure the speed of a falling object and work out the force necessary to generate that speed over that distance and time. Having to cite Galileo (or Newton) means that I probably don't know how to do the measurements myself, and can be thrown by something like the 'experiment' in the movie Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead:
R (or G): "You'd think that this (holds up a bowling ball) would fall faster than this (flourishes a feather)."
[Drops both. The ball thumps to the foor almost immediately, and the feather wafts slowly down]
R (or G): "... and you'd be absolutely right."
Do you read the research papers in climate science? If you answered no to both these questions then you shouldn't be trying to weigh the evidence yourself based on what you read in newspapers.
In any scientific discipline, and particularly complex ones like climate science, it is easy to select evidence (even honestly) to make almost anything appear to be the right explanation. The reason the scientific process works is because it doesn't just let each theory get up and give a stump speech but demands to know how it can answer tough questions and fit consistently with our other knowledge. The question is not, 'would cosmic rays make for a good hypothesis on the basis of our inexpert knowledge,' but 'given the vast body of knowledge scientists have is it plausible that cosmic rays explain climate variation.'
Thankfully, climate scientists have not only already addressed this question but even written lay explanations about it. You can find plenty of other discussions about cosmic rays over on realclimate.org and they point out that there is considerable reason to discredit the cosmic ray explanation for global warming.
What disgusts me about this whole buisness is that whenever something like this comes up a bunch of people who can't be bothered to actually read the journal articles but think they are entitled to second guess the people who have pipe up and complain about how global warming is just a dogma. Like any topic you have a choice. You can either choose to learn enough about the subject to intelligently weigh the evidence, which in this case would mean keeping up with the actual scientific papers not just media summaries, or you can count on experts to analyze that evidence for you and reach your conclusion on the authority of those experts.
Look it's simple really. Either you can read the scientific papers yourself and argue with the other experts about the evidence or you can argue about which experts are more credible. If you are debating the matter here you are doing the later. So do you really expect anyone to believe that the handful of climate change deniers are more credible than all experts who find the evidence for global warming compelling? If the positions were reversed and it was the deniers who were claiming it was global warming would you believe?
The worst part of all this is that these very idiots who claim that climate science is just some dogma pose a real threat to important dissent in the climate science community. While we may be sure of the vague outlines of human caused climate change there are many issues that still require vigorous scientific debate but if this debate is jumped on by skeptics as proof that global warming is a fraud then responsible scientists will be more reluctant to publicly express such disagreements.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
An economist gives an interesting view on the cost versus effect of reducing CO2 emissions: http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key =b_lomborg
Claiming to be pedantic on Slashdot is asking for trouble
As you didn't say the Earth was spherical, just that it was "round", the correct way to get back at you would be to pull out some fractals and talk about jagged structures on the surface. Still, as an overall average, it should be considered correct to say that the Earth is round.
You shouldn't surrender so easily.
-Lasse
> when I ask you if the Earth is round and you answer yes, you are resorting to authority as well, unless you have gone up in space and seen it to be the case with your own eyes.
Obviously Eratosthenes didn't know jack.
And apparently the top of a ship's mast appearing first from a distance doesn't mean anything either...
HINT: Why don't you go back to school and learn some logic and mathematics.
Non-critical followers of the religion "believe" that this doctrine is the truth, no matter what scientific evidence is brought up against it. Worse, when people insist the doctrine is not true, they proceed to use force against them.
t arianism/global warming/string theory/kibology/bigfoot/socialized healthcare/anarchism/(insert your favorite belief system here). What you're faulting is not a behavior unique to religion, but is something that can be categorized as something bad all on it's own. Namely the behavior of destroying those who disagree with you instead of just trying to prove them wrong. As a good example, Edison did it to Tesla, and at no point was religion involved. People do it in politics everyday.
Funny, you just described dogmatic believers in communism/socialism/liberalism/conservatism/liber
I know, I know, don't feed the trolls...
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
One must also ask, and this is something I rarely see in the general debate : "What about all the nitrogen?"
Even back in 1994 the global warming potential of fertilizers were known :
"In wet soils, denitrifying bacteria convert nitrate to nitrous oxide and gaseous nitrogen. The former is a greenhouse gas that has an energy reflectivity per mole 180-fold higher than that of carbon dioxide."
I came across the notion in an MIT courseware video lecture (16 or 17 I think)
On a slightly different tack nitrogen's role in reducing carbon fixing was documented in 1996
and thus warning against adding nitrogen to the ecosystem because it reduces the ability to fix the dreaded carbon, ignoring N's own contribution.
Yet here we have Nasa saying that carbon fixing is nitrogen limited and we should add more nitrogen to the system.
Not that all modern thinking is pro-nitrogen.
Add into the mix the world's estimated 1,300,000,000 cattle belching out 400 litres of methane each per day : 520,000,000,000 litres
Here's more on methane
Methane is responsible for nearly as much global warming as all other non-CO2 greenhouse gases put together. Methane is 21 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2. While atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have risen by about 31% since pre-industrial times, methane concentrations have more than doubled. Whereas human sources of CO2 amount to just 3% of natural emissions, human sources produce one and a half times as much methane as all natural sources. In fact, the effect of our methane emissions may be compounded as methane-induced warming in turn stimulates microbial decay of organic matter in wetlands--the primary natural source of methane.
and more
What conclusions?
My conclusion is that reducing one's carbon footprint will not suffice. The way to fix more nitrogen is to grow more pulses and legumes which is good because you're going to need something to replace the cows you're eating now. Stop pouring nitrogen on to the fields and start eating more organic produce.
As we've been saying for a while : "think globally, act locally"
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Fox must want a favor in the USA because News International (Fox) is the owner of this paper. Possibly they plan a take-over!
No you can't trust me but, hey, advice on Slashdot might be a better bet than all those pump-and-dump share scams clogging your in-box.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Climate change/global warming has become the same as the evolution debate.... a handful of people understanding what the evidence shows, and the masses listening to people who don't have a clue, but have some form of plan to gain power/make money off argueing.
Both sides agree that it is happening, although they still disagree a bit about what the effect will be (as someone mentioned, climate models are not all that accurate). Ultimately, the question shouldn't be: Is man causing, or accelerating climate change? The question should be: What can we do to mitigate the negatives of climate change?
It's a far harder question to answer, and is a lot less likely to be answered before it's too late with the continued bickering.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Your optimism is excessive, particularly if you think the stability of the world wouldn't be insanely affected by the collapse of the US. The ties are too strong now to let any big player go down.
I almost wish it would happen just so I could point at you and laugh.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
The US is the reason for most of the instability of the world. I promise we would be better off without them. Not the parts of our economy that deal with the US, granted, but I believe they would be easily assimilated into the rest of the economy.
Nyhetsankaret.com -- det bÃsta av Sveriges Nyhetssido
I used to talk about land use when asked about being a vegetarian(x acres of land can feed y times as many people as cows etc). However, I recently heard a radio program(I think it was on a "Forum with Michael Krasny"p rogID=RD19) where they were discussing "factory farms". One of the guests who was somehow involved in the raising of cattle remarked that the raising of cattle was a far more efficient use of land for food production than growing crops, because they feed cows not with grain etc, but with OTHER COWS!
)
http://www.kqed.org/programs/program-landing.jsp?
It's the kind of "creative problem-solving" I would expect from Mr. Burns.
I also seem to recall hearing that cow canibalism is what's causing "Mad Cow" disease.
Maybe the same "geniuses" will figure out how to increase the fat/oil content of cows(or some other animal)
and use that to reduce our dependance on foreign oil. Better living through canibalism!
(curls up into a fetal ball screaming "Futuuurrre!!!...Futuuurrre!!!...Futuurrre!!!..."
Sure! Because a world where China is the sole superpower is undoubtedly A Better Place(tm).
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
The TSUBAME Grid Cluster was created in 2002. It is still in the top 20 of top500.org's report. An incredible machine. It has been modeling the earth since its inception. I have never found much data which it has produced, have you?
Let me point out that while cosmic rays might have a *small* part to play in cloud formation, the biggest player in cloud formation is the air humidity. Clouds form when relative humidity hits 100% and it cannot happen when humidity is low.
Here's a nice "Cosmic Rays and Climate Change for Dummies" article that has pretty pictures and graphs. At least give it a read before dismissing this. I found it compelling.
http://www.sciencebits.com/ice-ages
more on the climate debate: http://www.sciencebits.com/ClimateDebate/
Shaviv's personal site: http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/
"The measurements are not accurate..."
Agreed, and that is why NASA should drop the "man on Mars" crap and refocus on our own biosphere.
"...enough --- that is one reason why global warming proponents have to *declare* that the debate is decided, rather than let the evidence speak for itself."
This is a totally assinine assumption on your part, "not accurate" != "not usefull".
As for "evidence speaking for itself" please refer to figure SPM-2(PDF warning) in the 2007 IPCC SPM.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You refer to people that you know, or have anough reasons to assume, that they know what they are talking about.
That is not reference to authority.
That is refering to authoritative knowledge, which is completely different.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
so I click through to the article, hoping to see an interesting technical discussion of cosmic-ray fluxes, ionization, and climactic effects.
But what I get is a long ideological/political rant, wrapping up with a "BUY MY NEW BOOK!!!1!" bit of crap.
Sheesh. Talk about false advertising.
#1. Yes, ionization can cause clound condensation. It's been known since the 20's, or even earlier. Try looking up "cloud chamber". The fact that some Danish guy set up a little cloud-chamber in his basement is NOT major news! You can buy little kits for doing this stuff for $100 or so. It's a high-school science project, fercryinoutloud!
#2. The question is whether ionization is the DOMINANT mechanism, or a small contributor, for meterological cloud formation. And the linked article doesn't even begin to address this.
#3. Yes, there are correlations between weather and cosmic-ray fluxes. There were underground experiments in central italy (more or less directly east of Rome) that showed a correlation between cosmic-ray flux and the weather two weeks later in Venice (much further north). Wow! Cosmic-rays cause that? No they don't, both are affected by the average temperature of the atmosphere, with the two-week lag coming from the way seasonal changes differ from south to north.
#4. There's a fair amount of fluctuation in the SOLAR cosmic-ray flux, the stuff that causes auroral activity. But those are low-energy particles, and stop rather high up in the atmosphere (the ionosphere), well above any clouds or other weather. They do produce 14C (via (p,n) reactions on atmospheric 14N), so the various 14C dendrochronology studies gives some relevant data about long-term variations. But in any case, if the SOLAR cosmic-ray fluxes where driving the Earth's weather, you'd see a VERY strong 11-year cycle. You don't.
#5. The higher-energy cosmic-rays that penetrate to the toposphere and below are known to be extra-solar origin (they're amazingly isotropic), but their exact source is not known with any great certainty. What can be said with great certainty, as a result of decades of measurement, is that the flux of these high-energy cosmic-rays is constant, once you take into account the varying attenuation effects from the atmosphere (with its thickness changing with temperature and pressure).
Whatever is (or isn't) causing global warming, it isn't the cosmic-rays. Those that wish to place the blame on cosmic-rays are either ignorant, disingenuous, or both.
Well, you are slightly better off getting your science information from an author with doctorate in medicine than politian with a bachelor of arts degree (though in fairness, he did invent the internet).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
If you'd like to do some of the experiments discussed in the article yourself, the EdGCM project has wrapped a NASA global climate model (GCM) in a GUI (OS X and Win). You can add CO2 and/or turn the sun down by a few percent (to measure solar effects) all with a checkbox and a slider. Supercomputers and advanced FORTRAN programmers are no longer necessary to run your own GCM.
Disclaimer: I'm the project developer.
Space and Computers.
Agreed, and that is why NASA should drop the "man on Mars" crap and refocus on our own biosphere.
You know, I really fail to understand why we can't do both. The Earth facing missions really aren't that expensive in comparison.
This is the basic human fundamental fight.... individualism vs collectivsm.... the bee hive vs the wasps....
Kinda funny to learn that ants evolved from wasps, eh?
Also, who gave you the idea that bees are a collective? Better go watch "Life in the Undergrowth".
It's SLANDER to question your position? "Of course" you "ignore the complexities"? "No way" to explain this except your opinion? And even if it's not our fault, it's still our fault?
.org any more than I did from Jimmy Swaggert.
Face it, you are a religious zealot. Blind, reflexive faith in these computer models (which can't even explain the 100k year glaciation cycles, or little ice ages) is pathetic, as is your willful denial when other explanations are put forth. Highly unconvincing.
News flash: the Earth is going to get either hotter or colder, as it has done in cycles for eons. I'm not buying this new Original Sin doctrine from you or your friends at realclimate
Ok, so I'm utterly late on this one... and this comment is likely never to see the light of day. Oh, well
Has anyone ever proposed a correlation between the changing magnetic fields to that of this supposed global warming (or climate change as they like to call it when it gets cold in the northern hemisphere.)
I'm not saying there isn't a climate change happening, but it seems to me that if the northern ice caps are receding, but the southern ice cap is expanding... this might have something to do with the earth's magnetic field preparing for a magnetic flip.
Ban pet hamsters. Those annoying little critters.
the next time my boss looks suspiciously at me when I blame the server outage on sunspot activity.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is more about politics than science. And that is a really bad thing.
We need a way to fund scientific research that removes the political influence. And politicians need to stay out of the discussion.
If more of the liberal politicians were driving "green" vehicles, living in "green" homes, limiting their air travel, etc, then their hand-wringing about global warming would at least appear a little less hypocritical.
You are comparing this nut job to Galileo? He says man isn't causing global warming. When the Bible...err, our Socialist masters...our politician (hey, don't we believe politicians lie?)...alright then, our Oscar nominated actors (hey, one of them is a politician and none of them are scientists)...a whole bunch of people say, (that's good, nobody could possibly disagree with "a whole bunch of people", after all, they have numbers on their side), how dare you side with a guy who disagrees with out cult...err, religion...beliefs...our whole bunch of people?
psst, you mentioned our socialist masters, they won't like it. People might see through their anti-capitalist plot.
You know what, forget I said anything. Now, where is that Don't Submit button?
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
News Flash: Scientists believe that the cause of warming on our planet may, possibly, sort of potentially have something to do with the bloody SUN. Film at eleven...
Assuming this lone gunmen actually has more insight than the rest of the establishment--possible
but not frickin' likely since he mistakenly believes that cooler local temperatures (CA cold snap)
are in conflict with our notions of global warming--this single aspect is not really enough to go
once way or another. There are still a number of variables in current climate models with unclear
implications i.e; aerosols. This is one of the reasons that you get "wide" ranges of possible average
global temperature increases. Maybe the cosmos really is cooking us, but then its also possible
that global dimming offset that.
Were that I say, pancakes?
Look, if you don't have the evidence to disprove her (apparent) knowledge of such events, I suppose you'll just have to save any punishement for that stranger, when her or she appears.
That's what most of the posts supporting these guys appear to believe.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
(1) As I said the first time you posted this exact same diatribe - which media are we not hearing this from?
(2) We have proxies. Those proxies can be checked against more recent data to help determine margins of error. No, proxies are not perfect, but they do allow us to gather remarkable information back 800,000 years.
(3) Yes, the Earth's magnetic field is decreasing. And, no, you're not a genius for "figuring out" that it might be related to climate change. There are lots of electrical engineers who no doubt know far more about climate science than you. If you disagree, you should publish a journal article in a peer-reviewed journal. Don't give me any conspiracy theory on that, either.
(4) Jupitor [sic] is not experiencing the "same" climate change as Earth. Jupiter takes a lot longer to go around the sun than Earth, so it's natural variations are also longer. According to your link, "We're sorry, but there is no SPACE.com Web page that matches your entry." If you're going to keep posting stuff that has been debunked, as least refresh your link list.
(5) Mars is also not experiencing the "same" climate change on Earth. Read the one link you posted (for this bullet) that actually works. It's experiencing climate change - which it should when it goes from summer to fall to winter to spring (which takes about a year and a half of Earth time). Of course, if Mars is experiencing the exact same climate change, then that kind of shoots down #3, right?
(6) And who is responsible for these livestock? Methane is an important factor. However, C13/C12 ratios (as well as simple math) determine that the vast majority of increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is due to fossil fuels. Luckily, methane has a much shorter "life span" in the atmosphere than CO2. Even so, why would it reduce our need to take action otherwise? Also, you realize that this "point" contradicts #4 and 5, right?
(7) Just like last time you posted this drivel and had it debunked, you stopped numbering at this point. Why can't you actually create new arguments?
(8) Just because slow climate change in the past was natural does not mean that the fast climate change now is natural. Just because cancer kills you, it doesn't mean that a bullet won't kill you as well. Do you understand your logical fallacy about bringing up past climate change? The basic science is:
(a) We've increased the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere from the range of about 180-280 ppmv (over the last 800,000 years, where 180 ppmv = ice age) to over 380 ppmv.
(b) CO2 absorbs infrared radiation.
(c) Absorbing infrared radiation leads to an increased thermal equilibrium point.
No fancy computer simulations are required to understand this basic science. As for cosmic rays, sounds like a BOFH excuse to me.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
To the extent this theory is correct (and it does correctly account for several observed events - while conventional "Global Warming" theory does not) it will be a real inconvenient truth for many who have invested in the current consensus.
Maybe the lesson is not to treat a scientific theory like religion.
One of the co-authors of that study is a friend of mine. He's bemused by how the press has gotten the data's implications entirely wrong. An average increase in global temperatures results - according to all models - in some local average decreases. The overall patterns change.
Consider the question some must be asking, "Why is there record snow in Mexico, New York now if our winters are warming?" It's because the Great Lakes are warmer than usual because of the unusually warm December and January, so there's more evaporation now that cold winds are finally blowing across, and that becomes snow. Global warming means as a planetary average it snows less (because it's more often rain instead). But locally it may be that Mexico, New York is in for a string of nasty winters.
It's similar effects we're seeing in Antarctica, where local regions have more snow buildup, or more cold, even though on the large scale major ice shelves are breaking off for the first time in tens of thousands of years.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Agreed, and that is why NASA should drop the "man on Mars" crap and refocus on our own biosphere.
I'm kinda different. I think all that biosphere monitoring crap should be spun off just to NOAA and let NASA work at 2 main things, looking at stars and near solar objects, and working at getting there. If we want to look at Earth and use that for weather/climate predication, that should be done and budgeted under NOAA instead of NASA so NOAAs budget could be raised while NASAs is lowered.
Nothing bad about being a bit distrusting, but to borrow a line from Reagan: distrust but verify.
There's a difference between being skeptical of the answers and being skeptical of the questions.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
It can't be hamster farts... because it's dinosaur farts!
The real problem with Appeal to authority is that Ad Hominem is a natural counter argument to it. The wikipedia article lists several conditions for a valid appeal to authority, and undercutting any of those conditions would be both valid and an ad hominem attack on that source. For instance, "The authority must have competence in an area, not just glamour, prestige, rank or popularity." leads directly to accusations incompetence. Said ad hominems then get directly challenged as such, and are ignored despite being directly relevant to the actual argument given. I've seen lots of variations on that theme on Slashdot at one time or another. I'd much rather see both drop out of usage, but they're too easy as shortcuts.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
2. Mann's study (the one whose data analysis has been contested) is not the only reconstruction which leads to a hockey stick curve. In fact, reconstructions do, to one extent or another, and many of them use quite different methods of analysis.
3. Paleoproxies are indeed correlated with temperature, and there is a large literature on this subject.
4. You don't need a "hockey stick" reconstruction at all to see that there has been global warming; you can look at the instrumental record. Between 1950 and 2000 the empirical data indicates that the amount of light reaching the ground decreased immensely; more than enough to explain the missing CO2 signal. The empirical data indicates no such thing. There have been solar variations, but they are quite small. Stott et al. and Foukal et al. are the usual references. Similarly, the Earth's albedo (determining how much light gets reflected back into space instead of reaching the ground) has not changed to an extent that can account for global warming. I am also puzzled as to how a decrease in light reaching the ground can lead to a warming trend. Now the Danes have shown an alternative source of climatic effects in the incidence of cosmic rays, mediated by solar weather. They haven't shown any such thing. They've demonstrated an influence of cosmic rays on condensation in a laboratory. They have not given observational evidence that this effect is correlated with actual cloud formation in the atmosphere, and they have not demonstrated that this effect drives climate change. The short conclusion is, we have NO CLUE how the climate really works, nor do we know the full list of inputs that drive it nor their relative importance. You are confusing your personal ignorance with that of the scientific community. The existence and relative importance of different drivers of climate have been studied for over a century. While there are uncertainties, they are not on the level of "whoops, insolation effects are really 5x bigger than we thought they were" or whatever. Further, if you want to propose hitherto-unknown non-anthropogenic driver of global warming, you have to also propose an even larger unknown source of cooling to explain why the known large amounts of anthropogenic CO2 haven't been warming the Earth even more than your proposed natural warming driver. It is not credible. It may well be that CO2 warming is all that is keeping us from a particulate driven cooling and ice age. That's possible, but it still doesn't mean that we want global warming, either. If CO2 is staving off an ice age, then what we want is not necessarily "business as usual", but probably reduced CO2 emissions which warm us, but not too much.
Also, the BIG point left out by the original poster: it doesn't matter to the current debate if cosmic rays can alter the Earth's climate since the level of cosmic rays has been measured as constant over the period in dispute.
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
Ah, the ol' response to anything critical of the consensus. It must be petrol-funded!
Meanwhile, let's ignore all the "donations" and other grants the global warming alarmists get from Greenpeace and other groups.
"Sufferin' succotash."
The hidden assumption in your questions is that any one of those raise substantial doubts about the effect of human-generated gases on climate change. This seems common in non-science discussions, and I think it's because we all watch legal dramas and understand the importance of "reasonable doubt" in murder trials. It doesn't work that way in science though--it's more like "a preponderance of the evidence," a legal standard that non-lawyers are not as familiar with.
To answer your specific questions:
- The "Medieval Warm Period" and "Mini Ice Age" could have been caused by any number of factors, which could still today be acting. The anthropogenic theory states that man-made greenhouse gases are an additional factor that is having a new effect, not that it is the only factor, or that it has replaced other factors.
- Regional effects such as relative cooling or warming will occur regardless of forcings because of the chaotic mixing of the atmosphere. No theory of climate change predicts increasing uniformity or smoothness in weather.
- The infamous Mann et al. "hockey stick" has been subjected to much study, disproof, and criticism, just like Darwin's "The Origin of Species." Both debunking efforts have discovered errors, but at the cost of ignoring the enormous amounts of other research and proof presented in non-famous papers.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Your momma.
"Sufferin' succotash."
From the article:
"The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999."
Ice in a glass of water will cause the water to stabilize right around the freezing point. Even if you slowly heat it, the temperature will remain around freezing...that is until the last of the ice melts.
It's logical to think that the same is happening in the oceans. The ice is helping keep the oceans at a fairly constant temperature and the oceans are absorbing the extra heat from the atmosphere.
The problem is that it looks like the oceans' ice is melting at an alarming rate.
I posted some thoughts a while back, but my comments festered without either response or modding (in either direction). So, can some one please explain to me how we, the human race, can continue to use energy and *not* raise the global temperature ?
Every device we use, adds a little bit of heat to the global system. We don't have 100% efficient devices, so every machine, engine, and electronic device adds to the system. We also have millions of miles on nice black roads, nice heat absorbing concrete and roof tiles. You could say, for instance, that if a house is not well insulated, then a certain amount of heat is lost to the atmosphere. We regard that as bad, because it is not efficient, or in real terms, we are wasting energy. But that seems to be where the problem is summed up - it's an issue of wasting a precious resource. I have never heard of any calculations that go further and attempt to quantify what effect all that lost heat has on the climate system. And don't say "it's insignificant", because it can't be. It is cumulative because it can't escape (due to CO2) and that old problem of conservation of energy says it can't just disappear.
And not only are we gradually, but inexorably raising the global temperature, we are also adding CO2 which helps to keep it trapped. Even if we got rid of all man made sources of CO2, it still wouldn't be enough, because we still keep adding heat. We would need to go to a much lower level of CO2 in the atmosphere, just to try and break even and stop the climate warming.
I can't accept that this isn't a cause for concern. Nature hasn't stopped all the natural heat producing processes, so the *normal* background heating is still there. All our stuff is over and above that. I am clearly not a scientist, but this issue appears to be the elephant in the room.
So, is it worth calculating the actual calorific value of all the wasted heat that we let escape and have come to regard as acceptable ?
I mean a Calorie is a unit of heat defined as the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree centigrade at atmospheric pressure. So we must be able to get some kind of idea what size the problem is. How much heating has occurred over the last 200 years, specifically caused by waste ?
There is a saying, "The brighter it burns, the shorter it lives". That says a lot about western societies, and their lust for energy.
In my last post, I mentioned the sight of the Northern Hemisphere as seen from space at night. The amount of light is incredible. And I know they don't give off a massive amount of heat, but they do give off *some", and this has been going on generation (oops pun) after generation, and the dots are starting to join up into large sheets of light. This is without the *dark* heat produced by every man made energy consuming machine. Mankind seems to be in a desperate race towards using all the energy we can get our grubby little mitts on. We pay lip service by trying to be efficient and not pollute, but we're really just trying to find new and interesting things to burn.
This is not a rant, I genuinely would like to understand this unwillingness to address the real problem. And it's not valid to say "we need these machines, what can you do" because I *need* a cigarette/large whiskey/12 pints . Doesn't mean it's good for me.
BTW, I do practice what I preach. I have no heating in my rooms, other than - a)the cooker which is only on when cooking, b)the water heater, which is manually turned on when I want some hot water and c)my media server, which runs all the time (it's only a sempron running at 1750 Mhz). Oh yeah, I have a couple of fluorescent lights too. If I feel cold, I *do* something. If it's nighttime, I go to bed, still get to watch the tv (on the computer) read a book, whatever. I realise I couldn't expect someone in Winnipeg to adhere to my standards, but there are things we can all do. Reduce seems to be the Cinderella of Reduce, Re-use and Recycle.
Really? Any evidence to back that up? I can cite counter-examples. Lindzen, for example, has no problems getting funding (his most recent article cites 3 sources - NSF, DOE, and NASA), whereas scientists who are more cautionary are having trouble (see recent /. article). Without evidence, it's your claim that's FUD, not sober reports such as the recent IPCC.
I'm glad that you're in favor of reducing our impact on the climate regardless of your personal belief on the strengths of anthropogenic global warming, but I do recommend that you read some climatology journals and try to get first hand information. I suggest that perhaps your current source of information is quite filtered and biased.
Are you aware of biased or sensationalist coverage in the scientific community? The press has problems with accuracy, of course, but I'm not aware of any problems in the scientific community itself. (No more than with other fields, that is. No community is perfect.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
95% is not good enough I am still not 100% convinced. I think that More Apocalyptic and hysterical thought is needed
Added Pressly: "Oh, and by the way, milk is nothing but liquid meat."
My SUV puts out more heat than all those wimpy cosmic rays. The New York times said so!
Dean
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And apparently the top of a ship's mast appearing first from a distance doesn't mean anything either...
By itself that is not proof that the Earth is round, since it could be an optical illusion or [insert whatever here]. Likewise for Eratosthenes.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
I don't have a problem with doing both, but trading research for joy rides is kinda silly.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"I think he meant serious, peer reviewed investigation"
Have a look again, RC is attacking a PRESS RELEASE similar to the PRESS RELEASE that is TFA. If this guy (or anyone else) publishes a paper on cosmic rays and climate I am sure it will be treated with more respect.
"In case the writers didn't know - environmentalists are also widely regarded..."
Perhaps RC contributors are also evil boogey-men "environmentalists" in their spare time, but they are climatoligists first and foremost. The guy who started the blog is the hockey stick guy and has been a lead authour in the IPCC reports, many of the contribitors also have a long list of current peer-reviewed publications under their belt, there is a bio for all of them on the site and (unlike psuedo-skeptical sites there is a prominent list of "other opinions. OTOH: The guy in TFA is a journalist who's claim to fame is that he was once the editor of New Scientst.
Having said that I doubt it will slow you from dogmatically defending a psuedo-skeptical press release in the face of overwhelming contra-evidence.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Considering the world is currently more stable now than it has ever been in history, your position is interesting, if unenlightened.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Ha! Modded up by a "denier" and modded down by an "alarmist".
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
OK Coward Idiot. Demonstrate, not prove.
Your ad could be here!
The world population is projected to grow from 6 billion in 1999 to 9 billion by 2042, an increase of 50 percent that will require 43 years. http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/world.html
Human population growth is the real culprit and nations seem unwilling to accept that. Nations have too much at stake economically and politically. Nope, must be the boogey man of technology. And the US is, at the moment, at the head of that pack. So, the US is the "beast".
Calls for "carbon footprint" taxes, if enacted, ought to include a tax on EVERY human head. Rich and poor alike. They are ALL contributing to the unsustainable human population growth, overuse of resources, and ultimately the destruction of the environment.
There is a subtle point that is being overlooked. Climate change revisionists (who should all be jailed for conspiracy to commit genocide of the human race) have gone from denying climate change, which is no longer credible, to denying humans are the cause of climate change.
The non-sequitur implication being, human behaviour, even stupid behaviour, does not need to change.
But on one level it does not matter if catastrophic climate change is caused by pollution or by cosmic rays, it will still kill us. It means massive ecological dislocation, terrible human suffering, and a major setback for, if not the end of, civilization.
And we can't just turn off cosmic rays, so if that's the real cause, we better get moving on whatever ecological remediation we can do.
For someone who wants to remove politics and authority from science, you spend precious little time discussing the actual science. Come again once you're done reveling in your own greatness.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
"The article does not refute anything."
Actually I agree, see my post below answering the same critisim.
"But my point, which I would empathically assert is equally fair and demand to make, is - if these pieces are MISSING and UNKNOWN, why are we in the course of changing the entire global political, economic and social systems and the daily life of every person in the world based on pure speculation about them?"
No argument here either, extrodinary claims require extrordinary eveidence and all that...
"IFF you don't mind, I will do everything I can to stop that until such knowledge exists"
I find it extrodinary that 2500 scientists can agree on a single 20 page report, you might find figure SPM-2 informative.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Cosmic rays nucleating clouds was the basis for the Wilson cloud chamber, the first way we visualized cosmic rays. THis is nothing new, and it's something that every school child can do. Having said that, it's also something physicists have taken into account when doing climate modeling. I made a cloud chamber as a kid ( dry ice, alcohol, coffee can and black velvet) and these tracks are certainly real and only a tiny part of the story. Unless we have a supernova in the neighborhood, this cosmic ray nucleated cloud formation won't change anything much as the flux variation is in a range that hasn't changed for a very long time. Greenhouse gasses are changeing and unless we prevent the release of methane clathrates from the cold mud, our civilization won't be around for the climate change luddites to enjoy their illgotten riches.
If the Temp increase is caused by pollution due to green house gasses from human pollution then the temp rise will eventually will kill off enough people that the emissions will decrease, causing a decrease in emissions, and thus a new balance. So... There are only two things to worry about: 1. Are the non-out-gassers right? 2. Are the Out-gassers right? If the non-out-gassers are right there is nothing to worry about. If the out-gassers are right, there are only two things to worry about: 1. Will my family live through it? 2. Will my family die? If your family will live through it there is nothing to worry about. If your family will die, there are only two things to worry about: 1. Will we go to heaven 2. Will we go to hell If you go to heaven there is nothing to worry about. If you go to hell you will be so busy shaking hands with friends you won't have time to worry. So why worry?
Nothing is foolproof, fools are too ingenious. - Murphy