Study Says Cosmic Rays Do Not Explain Global Warming

flock2000 writes "A new study conducted by Norweigan researchers finds (again) that changes in cosmic rays most likely do not contribute to climate change. Previously, other researchers have claimed to have found a link between cosmic rays and surface temperatures."

Comments

Common Sense

[COMON$]

Everyone knows global warming is caused by His Noodliness hugging the earth even closer.

Re:Common Sense

[jellomizer]

But there has recently been a rise in piracy.

Re:Common Sense

[LandDolphin]

And it's felt pretty cold this week

Re:Common Sense

[wclacy]

I wish Global warming was more than just a fairy tale. I am sick and tired of shoveling snow. Last winter was the coldest winter in a long time. This winter is looking about the same. We have had about 2 feet of snow in the last 3 days.

Re:Common Sense

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

and this year was the coldest on over a decade, or so i heard.

coincidence ?

Re:Common Sense

[bunratty]

There will still be cold winters and warm summers no matter whether the mean global temperature is rising or falling. The variation from year to year swamps the slow, gradual rise in temperatures.

Think of the stock market. After one or two days of going up, we don't suddenly say the bear market is over. Once again, it's long-term change we're looking for, and you're noticing short-term change.

Re:Common Sense

[bunratty]

Most of your post sounds like a nonsensical rant. You do have one question that I can answer. You're asking why the sea levels are not rising, even though the glaciers are melting. Sea levels are rising, around 1.7 mm per year for the past century. This rise is due to both melting glaciers and the expansion of oceans as they warm. Sea levels may rise about another meter during this century. One meter may not sound like much, but that amount of rise could flood many urban coastal areas.

Re:Common Sense

[Tony Hoyle]

Melting glaciers won't cause a sea level rise unless they're sitting on land.. think archimedes.

Re:Common Sense

[bunratty]

Yes, of course. But do you know of any glaciers in the ocean? I can't think of any.

Re:Common Sense

[crmarvin42]

it indicates that the connection between CO2 and Global average temperature may be correlational and not causational. Effect does not, under normal circumstances, preceed cause.

I don't pretend to know the Truth about global warming, but I am damn sure that most of the people claiming they do, are talking out of their collective asses.

We have not been directly recording global temperatures for long enough to draw any conclusions about global cycles that extend into the centuries and millennia. Hence the use of indirect measurements such as polar ice cores and other approaches. The problem is that indicrect measures are not as accurrate as direct measures, and are all dependent upon the validity of the models they are based on.

All models are wrong, but some are useful. That's the first think I learned in my statistics courses when we discussed modeling. All the evidence I've seen shows that the models that have been developed to explain our direct measurements of the environment have very poor predictive value when trying to predict wheather paterns we've already seen, and yet the acolytes of the Holy Church of Human Caused Global Warming (now climate change because global temperatures haven't changed in the last couple of years) seem to simply ignore this.

Is global climate change a concern? YES!
Has it been shown that it is definitely happening? Not in my opinion!
Is it the fault of humanity? Quite frankly, we can't know becuase the models are so bad!

Re:Common Sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort the average global temperatures for any decade and there'll be a hottest and a coldest. But being the coldest year in the hottest decade doesn't mean it's getting colder.

Re:Common Sense

[immcintosh]

The problem is you seem to be avoiding the simple point that global temperatures HAVE been rising. I'm sorry, but it's a recorded fact. The problem is you're setting up the classic straw man this argument alaways suffers from, namely, confusing the fact of a global rise in temperature with the theory of what is causing it or whether it is outside the realm of natural cycle.

All models are wrong, but some are useful.

That quote leaves out the fact that they're also necessary. The models may be bad, but until we get better ones we have to work with the ones we have now.

it indicates that the connection between CO2 and Global average temperature may be correlational and not causational. Effect does not, under normal circumstances, preceed cause.

Actually, the currently scientific thinking is more complex than either side really wants to talk about. Historically, there is very strong evidence to suggest that large changes in Earth's temperature are actually caused by slight changes in its orbit. But, that being said, those changes can't account for the increase in CO2 by themselves. Generally, the thinking goes that the changes in orbit trigger a small initial change, which triggers CO2 buildup and temperature change in a feedback loop. In other words, current understanding of the evidence doesn't provide strong support for either side of this debate. (search around if you want to find evidence supporting this explanation--it's easy to find)

So, I would say you got right, one sorta right, and one dangerously wrong.

Is global climate change a concern? YES!
Has it been shown that it is definitely happening? Indisputably. If you don't like the temperature fact, try the size of the ice cover over the north pole.
Is it the fault of humanity? Conclusively, we can't really say until it's all over of course. Currently accepted science, however, suggests it is.

And a fourth that nobody ever seems to ask:

If it's not the fault of humanity, is it a historically precedented change, or is there some other causal factor we aren't aware of?

Re:Common Sense

[MrHanky]

The link between CO2 and temperature is causational, and this is experimentally proven: it absorbs more infrared light than the dominant gasses in the atmosphere, directly heating it. The earth's climate is of course dependent on many other factors, and the CO2 level in the atmosphere likewise depends on other factors than humans burning fossil fuel, and your sorry attempt at criticism just isn't valid.

Re:Common Sense

[UnknowingFool]

It has been said that the Global temperature rising by 1-2 degrees? Average temperatures vary by more than that every year. Also 50 years ago without Digital thermometers the measurements could have been off by 1-2 degrees.

Don't confuse evidence with effect because then you misconstrue science. As a measure of global warming scientists have used qualitative measurements like average temperature as a gauge or baseline. In science you need qualitative arguments. You can't say "the earth is getting warmer" without basing it on something qualitative. The raise in temperature is also not absolute but relative. For example, the average temperature from year to year are being compared to another not to the absolute temperature. What the data shows isn't just that the earth is getting warmer (that has happened before), but that the rate of climate change is much faster than in any previous period in the last several million years.

It is also a proven fact that temperatures are warmer within cities than outside of cities. They may try to take that into account when figuring out Global temperatures, but a Corn field from 50 years ago will be warmer now that it is paved and full of buildings. Remove the data from larger cities and your global warming becomes more of a regional warming. While other regions are getting cooler.

This has nothing to do with the temperature of the earth in general. No one is using a thermometer in cities and averaging them out. What they using are polar snowfall thickness, air pocket analysis, vegetation studies, etc.

And how exactly is it that the ice caps are going to completely melt with a 1-2 degree change in temperature? If the temperature moves from -89 to -87 nothing is going to melt.

Again, temperature is relative and being used for comparison. Temperatures are not absolute. In this vein, a change of few degrees by comparison changed the Sahara a few hundred thousand years ago from a tropical forest into the desert.

If all the glaciers are melting where is the rise in sea levels?

You haven't been paying close attention to NOAA. Or the warnings issued by the EPA. That's just within this government. Italy is concerned about Venice sinking into the sea that they are building sea barriers. They realize however Venice faces both rising sea levels and Venice was built on soft clay.

Weather patterns are cyclical it will get warmer and it will get cooler. I would prefer warmer vs cooler.

As a human you can change the temperature of your indoor surroundings or clothing. Many things in nature are triggered by temperature. Deciduous trees shed leaves and grow them back based on temperature. Some animals mate based on temperature (crocodile gender is determined by the egg nest's temperature). The world is bigger than your personal comfort level.

Re:Common Sense

[dbrutus]

So how much cooling before you go back to the drawing board? How much of an unexplained pause in global warming before you figure out your current crop of models are useless?

Somehow I don't get very many takers on that question from AGW enthusiasts. I never have.

Re:Common Sense

[dbrutus]

Nice graph in your article. Did you notice that its data stopped at 2004? We're in a local period of warming pause from about 1998 through 2006 and outright cooling for 2007-2008. That's what most of the data's showing. Pointing to articles with old data does not help in discussing more recent data. In 2004, people were saying that a few years pause meant nothing. It's now a decade.

Re:Common Sense

[TapeCutter]

Rather than demanding simplistic answers that fit their politcs, scientists put error bars on things that are uncertain such as clouds. Clouds are not ignored they are simply not well understood, the affect of cosmic rays on clouds is even LESS well understood and like the Hadley center, I fail to see how a lack of an observable trend in cosmic rays results in an observable trend in clouds. Also kind of strange how the climate does not cycle over 11yrs in tune with the cosmic rays from sunspots.

Mis-informative would be a better tag for your post, if the evidence was based soley on extrapolation of tempratures then you might have cause to dissmiss it as speculation. As it stands your post is just another lame political troll using the same tired old arguments that have been debunked to death.

BTW: The phrase "climate change" was coined by SKEPTICS in the early 90's, they pointed out that the term "global warming" implied a certain conclusion - both terms are literally correct.

Re:Common Sense

[CorSci81]

It's because most of the world's population lives very near to the coast, and a great deal of developed coastal land is less than 2m above sea level. Moving that much infrastructure "three feet uphill" would cost a lot compared to the cost of addressing the problem in the first place. It also means places like Manhattan become much more prone to flooding and the effects of storm surges. One meter could be the difference between a strong winter storm being a nuisance versus flooding the subways. Sea level rise is most talked about because it's one of the most tangible effects and one whose economic costs are easiest to calculate. If you can frame global warming as an economic argument many more people who might otherwise say "so what?" start to listen. Convincing them to pony up now to avoid a catastrophic economic cost later is a different matter, given how short sighted some people seem to be. Unfortunately short term greed frequently wins over long term prudence, especially if you don't expect to be around to suffer the consequences of your actions.

Re:Common Sense

[ElectricRook]

The seas have been rising 1.7mm/yr for the last several hundred years. They are up over 3 1/2 meters since the 17th century. Holland still has not flooded, even though they built dykes to dry-out and farm the Zuderzee over 400 years ago. If we can't match 17th century public works with 21 century science and equipment, then we deserve our fate...
Those who follow the rantings of a politically motivated activists seeking social justice need to wise up about what social justice really means.

Re:Common Sense

[crmarvin42]

Just because CO2 can increase the temperature inside of a very simplified model under fixed conditions, does not PROVE that the link between CO2 and global temperature is causational. As I said before, All models are wrong but some models are useful. There exists a lot of work to be done between proving that a theorized mechanism is possible and that the mechanism is valid enough to be called a fact.

The burden of proof is on the researchers creating the model and IMO they've only done a small portion of the work necessary and decided to claim victory without finishing.

Re:Common Sense

[alexibu]

I've been hearing since elementary school telling me that by 2000 most of florida's coast would be under water. That lack of predictive accuracy made me a skeptic.

I am not sure about this but the highest informed sea level rise I have seen is about 0.5 m by 2050.

Note that all of the modelled sea level rises do not include 'non linear' effects, simply because we don't know enough to predict them. So there are real possibilities that sea level rise will be much greater if effects like water lubricating glaciers underneath turn out to be significant.

However, that doesn't make them ready for prime time (ie making global policy decisions, shooting our energy infrastructure in the foot, etc.)

I disagree.

There are two possibilities for whether climate change is real or not. Real and Not Real. The largest scientific effort undertaken by humanity to date says that Real inequivical, and is 90% certain to be caused by our carbon emissions.

Note that the IPCC only accepts as fact things that have unanimous support amoung thousands of member scientists.

There are two possibilities for how we might conduct ourselves in the coming years. We fix it or don't fix it.

The cost of fixing it is important but most studies show that it will be some small fraction of economic growth

So that gives us four possible outcomes

Fix it and its not real - not a disaster slowed economic growth, recoverable, skeptics say I told you so

Fix it and its real - not a disaster slowed economic growth, recoverable

Don't fix it and its not real Skeptics proven correct, unaffected economic growth, we fight over the remaining fossil fuels in an increasingly polluted world (by things other than CO2 because it has been proven not to effect climate), before moving to renewables anyway.

Don't fix it and its real Disaster mass extinction , political unrest, starvation.

The choice is easy, unless you are involved in coal or oil, or just have ideological hatred of the thought of rich people having to do anything that might benefit more than just themselves.

More propaganda

[genner]

Nothing but lies from the people making money off cosmic rays.

So?

[Glock27]

It's fine that cosmic rays aren't correlated with cloud formation, however it's clear that cooling is strongly correlated with low sunspot activity.

So, even if this is not the mechanism, it changes very little. We're still in solar minimum, instead of a peak that was originally predicted for 2006. Not surprisingly, the global climate is also in a cooling trend.

Talk about inconvenient...

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's inconvenient is that despite a global cooling it's still one of the hottest years on record. It's only cool relative to 2000.

Re:So?

[BlackSabbath]

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelii/

To quote from the linked article:
"The model accounts for both the seasonal and diurnal solar cycles in its temperature calculations."

But hey, why let facts get in the way of a complete fabrication?

Re:So?

[asynchronous13]

Not surprisingly, the global climate is also in a cooling trend.

Needs citation.
Global Temperature Land Ocean Index? -- Increasing
Global Temperature (meteorological stations)? -- Increasing.
Annual Mean Temperature Change for Three Latitude Bands? -- Slight dip for low latitudes, but mostly increasing
Annual Mean Temperature Change for Hemispheres? -- You guessed, it, increasing.
Global Monthly Mean Surface Temperature Change? -- All positive (thus, increasing)
Annual Mean Temperature Change in the United States? -- Shocking! - also increasing!
Seasonal Mean Temperature Change? -- Don't let the dip fool you, just means it is warming less rapidly

Perhaps you heard that 2008 is the coolest year since 2000? Well that's true. 2008 has the coolest temperatures of the past 8 years. But guess what? It's the 9th warmest year on record (since 1880). I'd wait for a few more data points before claiming a global cooling trend.

Talk about inconvenient...

Indeed.

Re:So?

[bunratty]

You may be referring to the abnormally warm year of 1998, which was caused by a strong El Nino. The fact is that the mean global temperature is continuing to rise, at an increasingly faster pace. This is why the Arctic ice is melting.

Re:So?

[Jerry]

Science isn't making shit up...

Don't think so? GW "data" is laced with examples of manipulation. The most recent is the July 2008 CO2 readings from Mauna Loa. It seems that the folks "maintaining" the Mauna Loa CO2 data has been caught "Hansenizing" it all the way back to 1974 to ELIMINATE a CO2 reversal. The GW folks are all about using "adjusted" data to support their agenda, Thankfully, the military doesn't buy into their schemes and use REAL temperature data in their guidance equations, otherwise their accuracy might falter from being able to hit a 1 sq meter target to missing by a mile. Here is the data showing the CO2 manipulation, from the posting by Dee Norris.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/08/04/mauna-loa-co2-january-to-july-trend-goes-negative-first-time-in-history/

Dee Norris (19:08:01) :

it would seem, contrary to earlier claims that NOAA only adjusted the recent year, that the dataset back to mid-1974 has been adjusted. I will resist using the term Hansenized until I hear back from Dr Tans.

Here is a comparison of the new and old mean values:

Mauna Loa CO2 Adjustments on Aug 4th 2008
# decimal new old
Year Month date mean mean Change
1958 3 1958.208 315.71 315.71 0
1958 4 1958.292 317.45 317.45 0 .... snipped for brevity ... .... check URL for total listing ...
2008 6 2008.458 387.87 387.99 0.12
2008 7 2008.542 385.6 384.93 -0.67

Dee Norris (20:05:35) :

I did a quick plot of the differences between the old and new means.

          http://tinyurl.com/6qb3sg

Other than July 2008, the change seems to radiate out from 1994, each oscillation growing larger as time progresses in either direction.

I look forward to NOAA explaining the justification for this sort of adjustment.

This is just one of many examples of data cooking by GW believers. With their GW as a hammer they see everything else as a nail. Earth warming? Proof of GW! Earth cooling? Proof of GW! Drought? Proof of GW. Unusual rain and floods? Proof of GW.

To the GW Faithful EVERY change "proves" GW. This attitude moves them from the area of science to that of Faith. When you can't falsify your hypothesis then your hypothesis is a Faith.

Re:So?

[dwguenther]

If you read the NOAA data description and papers, you will find that the adjustments are due to carefully documented re-calibrations of the standard gases used as references by the measurement instruments. More importantly, if you look at the difference graph linked in your comment, you will note that the typical correction is 0.2ppm and the largest correct is about 0.7ppm. This is insignificant compared to the 50ppm increase over the last 30 years at Mauna Loa. It begs the question; why are you (and others in this thread) ranting so violently against a simple measurement? What possible benefit could NOAA scientists gain over your lives? The politicization of science here is making no sense...

Global Warming Heretics

[bizitch]

Snowing today in Malibu, New Orleans and Vegas

Then of course there are these heretics

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6

"I am a skeptic Global warming has become a new religion." - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

"Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly..As a scientist I remain skeptical." - Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called "among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years."

Warming fears are the "worst scientific scandal in the history.When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists." - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.

"The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn't listen to others. It doesn't have open minds. I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists," - Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.

"The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC "are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity." - Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico

"It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don't buy into anthropogenic global warming." - U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.

"Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.". Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.

"After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet." - Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.

"For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" - Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.

"Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp.Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact." - Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.

"Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined." - Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.

"Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense.The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning." - Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of P

Re:Global Warming Heretics

[fracai]

Some real nice attempts at "Argument from Authority" there.

So far it seems that the scientific consensus is that warming is real and likely to be contributed towards by human activity.

My favorite of your quotes is, "Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined."
No real scientist needs to figure out how to do that. They would just say, "Ya know? I looked at the data again, existing and new, and I've changed my evaluation because of the following points: ...". And that's that. Anyone who's afraid to say "I was wrong" isn't a good scientist, or a scientist at all.

All I see in those quotes are buzzwords and alarmist phrasing targeted at grabbing headlines. There may be just as much of that on the other side as well, but you'll need to do better than a list of quotes to convince anyone, or me anyway.

Re:Global Warming Heretics

[Strep]

Name this passionate movement. No one said that making "things more shitty" is good. All that's being said is that increased CO2 is not necessarily a bad thing and that CO2 is not a pollutant.

Re:Global Warming Heretics

[Neon Aardvark]

Plants (and therefore most life by weight) don't seem to view C02 as a "shitty pollution". Actual, precisely the opposite.

Re:Global Warming Heretics

[BlackSabbath]

So what?

Half these quotes are nonsense themselves that merely display the non-science related biases of the person speaking (e.g. Delgado Domingos).

What I don't get is what skeptics hope to prove by making quotes like that. Where are the peer-reviewed papers by all these guys? Oh, you mean they are just blowing hot air instead of doing the science? Perhaps they're too lazy, or maybe they are so brilliant that they can see through it all. However this brilliant minority seems to produce very little in the way of concrete science related to THIS subject (climatology) as opposed to the overwhelming, prodigious amount of science produced by the vast majority of climatologists of which a very large proportion has similar conclusions.

Forget the soundbites, show me the science!

Re:Global Warming Heretics

[leereyno]

I really don't understand what motivates you to lie and construct straw man arguments. Is intellectual honesty and integrity so difficult?

A disbelief in anthropogenic planetary warming is not an implied argument for the destruction of the environment.

"Exactly when did you stop beating your wife?"

Re:Global Warming Heretics

[FooGoo]

It's not a passionate movement for more pollution... It's a passionate movement against government social experimentation/intervention under the guise of science. You'll find that most people who support the manmade global warming assumption use it to justify a whole host of government intrusion into our lives from punitive taxation to telling you what kind of car you should drive (hybrid), to what kind of coffee you should drink (organic, fair trade). These are personal social issues and not areas for government mandates.

If I where a scientist I would be very upset that the credibility of my profession was being undermined by people with political agendas. Pretty soon scientists will have the same level of credibility as the 4 out of 5 dentists or recommend Crest.

I believe that there are 3 great professionals that can truly benefit humanity. The statesman, the religious leader, and the scientist. We've already witnessed the decline of the first two so I guess it the scientists turn.

Re:Global Warming Heretics

[FauxPasIII]

> It's not a passionate movement for more pollution... It's a passionate movement against
> government social experimentation/intervention under the guise of science.

I realize that you and the broader movement for denying human-caused global are not pro-pollution, but those are the bedfellows you're lying down with. The net result of your movement is more pollution and more environmental degradation. I just keep hoping that well-intentioned people would be willing to table the academic questions about what's causing global warming until we've achieved the goals I think we mostly agree on; to stop crapping up our planet.

Re:Global Warming Heretics

[FooGoo]

Both sides have their crackpots and their extremes lead to undesirable results. But we shouldn't just accept the claims of global warming promoters just because we might like the end result. Flawed science is still flawed even if the result may be something that makes us feel good.

The truth is other than a few isolated cases and in some third world countries the planet is pretty nice. The third world just lacks the will and infrastructure to keep it clean. I've experienced the pollution in India, the smog, in China, and flooding in the Philippines because trash clogs the drainage. These are not global warming problems.

I've seen television campaigns in the Philippines saying that the flooding is cause more powerful storms do to global warming so it's something they can't do anything about. While the truth is if they stopped littering in the streets the drainage wouldn't get clogged and the streets wouldn't be flooded.

These are social/cultural problems. Fixing them will not affect global warming one way or the other but they will improve peoples lives.

Re:Global Warming Heretics

[BlackSabbath]

OK Dr.Itoh, what is the "truth"? Where is YOUR peer-reviewed paper showing some actual research?
Well, maybe you can be forgiven, since you are actually a bio-med engineer (Google it yourself you lazy sods).

By the way, Itoh was a "reviewer" not a "contributor". And just so that you know, the scientists on the IPCC were chosen by their respective governments, so of course, there's no change of bias there...

Re:Global Warming Heretics

[Teresita]

Why is climate change so bad anyway? When has the climate not changed? Do we know what would happen to the genetic diversity of animals if the climate stopped changing? Why is promoting a static climate called a "progressive" (experimentalist) issue and not the ultimate conservative (traditionalist) issue?

Re:Global Warming Heretics

[Neon Aardvark]

Yeah, I did took chemistry courses for the first 2 years of my physics degree, so I know what carbon dioxide is. I also typo-ed "actually" as "actual".

Broadly speaking, I'm skeptical about fragile natural balances, given the continuously changing climate of Earth, stretching as far back as we can measure it.

I'm skeptical that this particular climate is somehow miraculously the best of all, given that it's by mere chance we are alive at this point.

And humanity is the most adaptable of all creatures, living in the frozen tundra, and in the Sahara, and everywhere in between. So I'm not particularly worried.

We need more objective science, and less scare-mongering.

Re:Say it with me...

[philspear]

Correlation is not causa... wait... huh?

Anyway I think the fortune cookie logic here is, as usual, misapplied.

FTA

This result is in line with most other research in the field. As far as Kristjansson knows, no studies have proved a correlation between reduced cosmic rays and reduced cloud formation.

They're not saying "A happens with B, therefore A causes B." They're saying "A does not happen with B."

I guess the converse is possibly true, that lack of correlation does not indicate lack of causation per se. Didn't read if there was a possibility of a non-correlating causation, or maybe if I did, I don't have enough of a background in atmospheric science to realize it.

Give that duche Al Gore another prize!

[Phizzle]

Solar flares DO effect temperatures, and that has been consistently downplayed by the humanity-loathing environazis in their ongoing duchbaggery crusade for world luddism. But hey, lets not start any religious debates on /.

Re:What about a big ball of fire in the sky?

[Chris Burke]

You're a fucking genius. In the entire history of climatology, no scientist has ever considered the possibility that the sun impacts climate. I wonder why that is, but no matter, clearly you are their intellectual superior.

Oh, wait, they've considered that, and solar variation explains at most 30% of the observed temperature change. Guess you aren't a genius after all. Sorry about that!

Realization

[AstrumPreliator]

You know I think if Global Warming is any indication, science is going to get even more politicized in the near future. People will use science, or rather manipulated and partial data and false pretenses which they will call science, to push agendas and line their pockets. Before anyone calls me a shill for whatever organization they hate most and mods me down let me make clear that I'm not pointing at the vast majority of scientists who are doing honest work using the scientific method. I am pointing at both parties who have politicized this issue for their own gain.

The thing that bugs me is that the public at large doesn't the read journals and papers on the latest scientific findings, instead they listen the political figure heads and corporations and news reporters, all of which have an agenda to push. I think what I'm beginning to realize is that science is ultimately going to suffer from this nonsense. I don't think it will matter if the results are peer-reviewed anymore, I think the public won't trust them anyway.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Re:Realization

[east coast]

You don't even need to look as far as politics. Just look at some of the moderations around here and you'll see a clear agenda behind some of them. If that can drive us at this level there's no telling where things will go when there is money and real power behind the same kind of thinking that gets totally valid posts modded down as over rated.

Seeing some facts being shot down around here because they're not in line with someone elses way of thinking has made me a cynic about geekdom in general. All of the mouths yammering on about truth via scientific reasoning are completely drowned out by those who feel the need to push their ideas on other regardless of the truth being 6 inches from their faces.

And that is why hell froze over

[alfrin]

Las Vegas gets record snow fall

Re:What about a big ball of fire in the sky?

[bunratty]

Given that the change in global mean temperature is 0.7 degrees Celsius, 30% of that is about 0.2 degrees Celsius. That leaves about 70% or about 0.5 degrees Celsius due to anthropogenic global warming.

Science never proves anything. Science can either refute or support a hypothesis. No one has been able to successfully refute the hypothesis of manmade global warming. On the contrary, there's lots of evidence to support it.

Re:Cry me a frozen river

[wclacy]

Wow, that story about where snow comes from is almost as far fetched as global warming.

Re:Great question.

[enharmonix]

I strongly recommend Michael Crighton's State of Fear. Well researched, cites sources, and a plain good read on top of everything. It may not change your mind, but it might at least shed some light on why some of us ostriches are not so Chicken Little about temperature fluctuations.

Re:The ostrich brigade is out in full force today.

[buback]

OK, The graph you link to has it's last data point at 1950. On the graph, CO2 never gets above 300 ppm going back 400,000 years. Your graph also shows a strong correlation between CO2 levels and global temperature.

This graph has come current data: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
It shows current CO2 levels at 385 ppm and rising.

The implication is that global temperature will see an equivalent rise above the norm of the past 400,000 years.

Your turn; ball's in your court.

But carbon emissions have gone up every year

[unassimilatible]

We have more carbon and methane than ever in the atmosphere, yet temps are down? This means there must be another variable in global temperatures than carbon emissions.

So more carbon, yet lower temps. Hmm.

Re:But carbon emissions have gone up every year

[bunratty]

Yes, the other variable is the ever-changing weather. Global warming is a long-term trend in addition to the continuing short-term warming and cooling trends. Winters are cold. Summers are warm. El Nino and La Nina cause temperature variations also. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not the only cause of changing temperatures, and no one ever said it was.