CIA Teams Up With Scientists To Monitor Climate

MikeChino writes "The CIA has just joined up with climate researchers to re-launch a data-sharing initiative that will use spy satellites and other CIA asets to help scientists figure out what climate change is doing to cloud cover, forests, deserts, and more. The collaboration is an extension of the Measurements of Earth Data for Environmental Analysis program, which President Bush canceled in 2001, and it will use reconnaissance satellites to track ice floes moving through the Arctic basin, creating data that could be used for ice forecasts." Even though the program is "basically free" in terms of CIA involvement, the Times notes: "Controversy has often dogged the use of federal intelligence gear for environmental monitoring. In October, days after the CIA opened a small unit to assess the security implications of climate change, Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, said the agency should be fighting terrorists, 'not spying on sea lions.'"

Comments

Climate change is a security threat

[riverat1]

Well, considering that anthropogenic climate change is probably a bigger threat in the long run than terrorism it's good that the CIA is helping.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Chris Burke]

Yeah, I have to say I'm surprised anyone would object to CIA involvement. I think it's very important we keep a watch on the climate. After all, the climate has been acting pretty suspicious lately, and has been looking, dare I say it, more swarthy. Plus, I heard that the climate was recently spotted in Yemen.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

I actually disagree with you on your assessment of the risk, there is no really good scientific evidence of a threat from CO2 (and I seriously doubt you can show me any good evidence of a link).

However: I am STILL 100% in favor of this and think it's awesome, forget about global warming, think about all the good date we are going to get about things going on in the world. This is data that can have lots of uses, helping us figure out exactly what does go on in the world. I mean, can getting a better idea of how cloud cover works, and how ice flows move ever be a bad thing?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rei]

Perhaps the CIA is just trying to infiltrate the climate to overthrow it and replace it with a more US-friendly climate.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[spun]

Seeing as how the scientific consensus is that there is a link between CO2 and global warming, YOU are the one who needs to prove there isn't one (and I seriously doubt you can show me any good evidence that there ISN'T a link, as 'a definite link' is what the facts show.)

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rei]

I actually disagree with you on your assessment of the risk, there is no really good scientific evidence of a threat from CO2 (and I seriously doubt you can show me any good evidence of a link).

Yeah, who cares what those rubes at the science academies of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, India, Japan, Russia, Sweden, the UK, the US, and many others have to say? (every national science academy statement being in agreement, none opposed)

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

As a resident of Wyoming, Barrasso's stance doesn't surprise me one bit.
Wyoming is heavily dependent on it's energy resources industry. Coal, natural gas, oil. We've got enough oil locked in the green river shale oil deposit to meet the nation's appetite for the next 194 years (at current usage), but getting to it is going to take a lot of time and research, and if public opinion shifts too far away from oil then no one will invest enough to make it a reality.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rockoon]

Please tell us about this warming threat.

Remember that you implied some sort of danger, so you cannot possibly be talking about sea level rise: IPCC gives lowball of 19cm and highball of 59cm over 100 years, or between 0.19cm/year and 0.59cm/years. Might happen, but its not a threat to human life. Just walk away, folks.

Maybe you are talking about drought? No, rainfall will increase if it gets significantly warmer.

Heat stroke? OK maybe, but offset by less hypothermia.

So tell us, what THREATS are there that are comparable to terrorists?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

Yeah, who cares what those rubes at the science academies of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, India, Japan, Russia, Sweden, the UK, the US, and many others have to say? (every national science academy statement being in agreement, none opposed)

Yes, you are right. I don't care what their opinion is, I want to see the evidence. Scientific opinion is known to be inaccurate, wildly so at times.

Let's be honest here: when a scientific academy 'endorses' global warming, what are they saying? Have they done their own research? Usually not. What they are saying is that they agree with what the IPCC report says, which is reasonable. And frankly, the IPCC report draws no connection between CO2 and world calamity.

I'll repeat that again, because some people have trouble with this concept: the IPCC report draws no connection between CO2 and world calamity. If you've heard of New York being flooded when the glaciers melt, it wasn't based on any real scientific research. It was some weird propaganda that you picked up somewhere.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

I actually disagree with you on your assessment of the risk, there is no really good scientific evidence of a threat from CO2 (and I seriously doubt you can show me any good evidence of a link).

I've tried to condense the science into a (hopefully) accessible summary, complete with dozens of references to genuine peer-reviewed scientific articles showing the seriousness of the threat posed by CO2.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Tdawgless]

Actually... you're accusing CO2 of a crime. You need to prove it's guilty. It doesn't need to prove it's innocence; It just needs to discredit you.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[wizardforce]

Maybe you are talking about drought? No, rainfall will increase if it gets significantly warmer.

You are under the impression that warming affects the various parts of the globe in the same way and this is distinctly not the case.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[I cant believe its n]

Seeing as how the scientific consensus is that there is a link between CO2 and global warming, YOU are the one who needs to prove there isn't one (and I seriously doubt you can show me any good evidence that there ISN'T a link, as 'a definite link' is what the facts show.)

CIA: Pics or it didn't happen.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[vadim_t]

So tell us, what THREATS are there that are comparable to terrorists?

Well, Katrina seems to have caused quite a bit more material damage in New Orleans than what happened on 9/11, and killed quite a few people too.

From a look at the wikipedia page, it seems levee construction was started about 40 years ago, and still not fully done at the time of the disaster, and technical problems were known for at least 20 years or so. So I wouldn't put that much faith into everybody just building a higher wall.

Also, even if the sea rises very slowly, it's not just going to start slowly flooding things, the big problem will be a higher sea level combined with an unusually strong storm.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

No, the onus is on the scientists to provide evidence to support their claims, as it always is. You don't ask scientists to prove that God doesn't exist, do you? There can be no such proof.

While we are at it, it is important to look at what scientists do claim, and you will not find anywhere a scientific consensus that CO2 is going to cause some kind of global calamity. What you will find is consensus that CO2 does affect the global temperature. What you will not find is a consensus on how much it affects the global temperature. Global warming has become a kind of a scare in the mind of the public that is detached from the scientific reality.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[joocemann]

As a resident of Wyoming, Barrasso's stance doesn't surprise me one bit.
Wyoming is heavily dependent on it's energy resources industry. Coal, natural gas, oil. We've got enough oil locked in the green river shale oil deposit to meet the nation's appetite for the next 194 years (at current usage), but getting to it is going to take a lot of time and research, and if public opinion shifts too far away from oil then no one will invest enough to make it a reality.

The issue I take with that approach is that there seems there should be a point when a person or group of people should drop their self-interest and think about everyone, or in the AGW case, everything else.

Before someone tries to troll me, i've already showered. I'd rather be a hippie than an irrational layman.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rei]

Remember that you implied some sort of danger, so you cannot possibly be talking about sea level rise: IPCC gives lowball of 19cm and highball of 59cm over 100 years, or between 0.19cm/year and 0.59cm/years. Might happen, but its not a threat to human life. Just walk away, folks.

The next IPCC report will almost certainly have a higher forecast, as the research that's come out since then has shown those numbers to be significant underestimates. Expect a median forecast of about 1m in the next report. And the rate speeds up over time; the equilibrium rise for a 2C warming, historically, appears to be 6-9 meters.

Maybe you are talking about drought? No, rainfall will increase if it gets significantly warmer.

Both flooding *and* drought are forecast to increase (on average) in a warming world. Which you're likely to get depends on where you are; some regions will get both. Yes, you're absolutely right that warmer SSTs = more precipitation. But warmer surface temperatures also mean faster evaporation (dessication of soil, plants, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, etc). It also means less snow pack, meaning river flows will vary more dramatically between seasons (ice keeps many important rivers from drying out during the summer).

Heat stroke? OK maybe, but offset by less hypothermia.

Heat stroke, hypothermia, drought, and sea level rise -- that's all you've got? How about greater range for malaria and dengue-fever carrying mosquitoes? The spread of pine bark beetles? The loss of almost all of the world's coral? The loss of keystone species of calcium carbonate-shelled microorganisms? The complete loss of habitat for arctic sea ice-dependent species? Increased risk of extinction for 20-30% of species studied? More rapid intensification of hurricanes (i.e., less warning)? Increased risk of wildfire? Increased growth of ragweed? Increased spread in seaborne pathogens like V. parahaemolyticus? Increasing risk of drought and flood causing more crop failures (and the consequences of that)? Radical changes in ecosystems, including thousands of species of plants and animals already found by studies to be migrating poleward? Seriously, I could spend all day on this.

It's not that a warmer climate is somehow a "worse" climate; it's a climate that neither life on this planet nor the way we've laid out our non-mobile infrastructure is adapted to.

Humans will adapt, esp. us in the first world who have the resources for it. But this will come at the cost of economic growth; we'll be spending our resources to break even (for a random example, to get water to the increasingly-dry and already water-unsustainable desert southwest). Humans in poorer regions will have a harder time of it, and non-human species will suffer the most. We're basically recreating the PETM.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[maxume]

All you jokers in Florida better hope they aren't working out of North Dakota.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

I'll repeat that again, because some people have trouble with this concept: the IPCC report draws no connection between CO2 and world calamity. If you've heard of New York being flooded when the glaciers melt, it wasn't based on any real scientific research. It was some weird propaganda that you picked up somewhere.

Okay, something we can agree on. The estimates at the 2009 AGU Fall Meeting placed an estimate of ~1.2 meters of sea level rise by 2100, though it varies around the globe due to factors like the gravitational attraction of the glaciers that are melting. People who quote estimates of ~20 meters are simply calculating the volume of the glaciers as a whole, which is absurd because even our most pessimistic estimates don't allow glaciers to completely melt in less than ~500 years.

But even a 1.2 meter increase in sea level would bring substantial economic hardship. For example, a storm surge in New York up to a level that would now be considered "once in 100 years" would happen every ~5 years.

While this doesn't sound as melodramatic, it's a real threat, and it's not the only one. I worry that the most damaging impact of abrupt climate change will be unpredictable changes in precipitation patterns. If a substantial fraction of the world's farmlands experience droughts because water is falling in areas that are currently deserts, serious disruptions of the global food supply could result.

If people are willing to kill for territory and nationalism now, imagine how much more aggressive starving people will be. This is what worries me. Not the immediate effects of climate change, but their secondary effects on international relations.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[joocemann]

I have an alternative question.... how serious is the threat of terrorism?

The chances of you dying from heart disease is way higher. The chances of you dying from eating a peanut is higher.

But, I can throw around numbers and give ignorant analysis too.

AGW will produce a 4 degree net increase (no source cited) --- but will yield a 15 degree local increase in the middle east. This will drive the terrists from their homes and they will have no choice but to end up on the freedomland. God bless it. And then since they will be here, the terrism goes up 100 fold! OH NOES!

Also, the warm temperatures inspire Obama to relax enough to let it slip that he's a muslim... and then, not only that, but that he's a terrist! Then the hussein obama nukes us all!
OH NOES!

Go eat some peanuts.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

No, rainfall will increase if it gets significantly warmer.

Please provide proof that rainfall will increase globally when the globe gets significantly warmer.

So, what happens to all of your precious farms and soil when it rains significantly more? Flooding is not some simple matter. Topsoil is lost. Crops don't grow. Less food for people, less food for livestock. Soil pollutes the waterways, and fish can't breed. Overall, a bad situation.

When the temperature increases, crops and livestock will need MORE WATER.

Meanwhile, other areas of the world will receive less rain. Freshwater supplies will drop. Again, crops won't grow. Livestock won't have enough water.

California's farming industry (the largest in the United States) is currently severely impacted due to a lack of water. Not enough snow over the last few years means not enough water for the crops. It's a bad deal.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rei]

Yes, you are right. I don't care what their opinion is, I want to see the evidence.

Boy, too bad we don't have things called "journals" that contain many thousands of research papers on various aspects of the topic so that you could read what they all have. Sure sucks that "journals" don't exist...

Meh, conjecture and amateur disbelief without having read any actual research papers (let alone thousands of them) is probably better, right?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[riverat1]

The IPCC report is out of date on the subject of sea level rise. Current estimates are 1-2 meters by 2100. That doesn't sound like a lot but how much land does Florida and the gulf coast lose if sea level rises 3+ feet? And don't think it stops in 2100. It will take several hundred years for the climate and sea levels to reach a new equilibrium.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[DragonWriter]

Well, considering that anthropogenic climate change is probably a bigger threat in the long run than terrorism it's good that the CIA is helping.

Note also that while the evidence strongly supports the anthropogenic contribution to climate change, the security threat posed by climate change and the national security reasons to monitor, understand, and prepare to deal with the effects of climate change are independent of whether or not it is of anthropogenic origin.

The effects of climate change, not its causes, are the source of the security threats.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[dangitman]

No, the onus is on the scientists to provide evidence to support their claims, as it always is.

And that's what they've been doing.

Global warming has become a kind of a scare in the mind of the public that is detached from the scientific reality.

I'd say that's more the case with denialists and conspiracy theorists like yourself.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khallow]

The issue I take with that approach is that there seems there should be a point when a person or group of people should drop their self-interest and think about everyone, or in the AGW case, everything else.

You're making the unwarranted assumption that doing something to prevent AGW is more beneficial to everyone and everything than not doing so. That has not been established.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

What you will not find is a consensus on how much it affects the global temperature.

Wrong. Climate sensitivity is expressed as the temperature increase due to a doubling of CO2. Modern estimates assign a maximum likelihood value of 2.9C, with a 95% confidence that it's less than 4.9C but greater than 1.7C.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[joocemann]

The issue I take with that approach is that there seems there should be a point when a person or group of people should drop their self-interest and think about everyone, or in the AGW case, everything else.

You're making the unwarranted assumption that doing something to prevent AGW is more beneficial to everyone and everything than not doing so. That has not been established.

The dangerous outcomes of AGW are well scientifically founded. The results are far more reaching and serious than a state missing some revenue from sourcing its fossil fuels.

Let me guess... you don't believe those facts... That's your own doing. I bet you don't doubt anything else from scientific research that has made your life MORE convenient.

There is a big difference between Truth(whats happening) and what you want. I have this talk with my daughter all the time. Sometimes it isn't how you want it. That's life.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Totenglocke]

Well seeing as how we have evidence of "OMGZ CO2 is teh EVIL!!!" scientists 1) oppressing scientists who disagree with them 2) ignoring data that doesn't suit their agenda (such as ignoring 75% of the temperature recording stations in Russia) 3) blatantly alter data to show the outcome they desire (such as the one scientist who's email showed that he added X amount to the recorded temperatures to show an upward trend), I think the burden lies with you to show that there actually IS real evidence and that not all pro-global warming scientists are lying scum with a political agenda.

As for CO2 and "greenhouse gasses", I recall reading research findings that there have been no changes in upper atmosphere temperatures -- which is exactly what "greenhouse gasses" would cause (heat is trapped and the upper atmosphere warms first, then things below get warmer)....thus showing that there is no such thing as a "greenhouse gas" because the "greenhouse effect" only occurs in actual greenhouses, NOT with the entire planet.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rei]

No, the onus is on the scientists to provide evidence to support their claims, as it always is.

That's what thousands of articles in peer-reviewed journals are -- which, like it or not, is the standard for science in this modern world.

The ball is in your court.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rockoon]

I didnt imply any such thing, and the fact that changes at location X will be different than at location Y does not support the notion of a "threat" on par or greater than terrorism. The movie The Day After Tomorrow was fiction, folks. People wont be running for their lives away from gradual warming.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rockoon]

Weather is not Climate, and a warmer world means less Katrina's due to increased wind shear.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[omb]

I am all for as much modern climate data as possible, provided by the CIA or NASA, what I do NOT want is more on the AGW bandwagon cooking the data.

It is now clear that the data in th IPCC was heavily cherry picked and the pie was then cooked. We need accurate raw data and to have it all analysed impartially.

After ClimateGate several researchers Burt Rutan and Dr. Monckton have done that and come up with widely different answers 0.6dC/centuary with data that looks normal so it is time for Congress to insist on an impartial re-eveluation.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rockoon]

I have an alternative question.... how serious is the threat of terrorism?

Eventually a radical group will get their hands on a nuke (either from a supporting nuclear power, or made in a basement somewhere), so you tell me.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

No question there's a correlation. Throughout geological time temperature and CO2 have moved together. Of course this time it's different because, ah, just because.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rockoon]

So, what happens to all of your precious farms and soil when it rains significantly more? Flooding is not some simple matter. Topsoil is lost. Crops don't grow. Less food for people, less food for livestock. Soil pollutes the waterways, and fish can't breed. Overall, a bad situation.

"Bad Situation" does not imply a "threat" on the level that the poster was suggesting. Will people be running for their lives away from these gradual changes?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[wizardforce]

does not support the notion of a "threat" on par or greater than terrorism.

Funny you mention terrorism as more people have died from Fireworks accidents than terror attacks. 9/11 was about 6 months worth of drowning accidents in the US.

The movie The Day After Tomorrow was fiction, folks.

Indeed. You won't find many climate scientists that weren't completely pissed off about that dreadful movie.

People wont be running for their lives away from gradual warming.

Recipe for frog soup. Of course if you're living in Florida or other low lying lands around the world you might want to raise your house a meter or two.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[DeadDecoy]

I knew those clouds were up to something, blocking satellite images and all. And here I thought the CIA was shady.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

I'm going to ignore the rabid conspiracy theories you're presenting. As a scientist who sees a lot of evidence that our CO2 emissions are changing the climate, you'd probably just dismiss me as lying scum with a political agenda anyway.

But just in case someone else reads this, greenhouse warming models predict cooling and contraction of the stratosphere. The cooling is predicted to be strongest between altitudes of 40 and 50km.

The quick explanation is that greenhouse warming shifts the effective radiating layer of the planet to a lower altitude. As a result, the surface warms but the stratosphere cools. In fact, I consider this good evidence for the link between CO2 and increasing global temperatures. No other single cause warms the Earth from the surface like a greenhouse gas. (For example, an increase in solar illumination wouldn't have this effect.)

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[dbIII]

It won't work - this is a "meta" question about the relavance or irrelevance of facts. These people consider science in paticular and reality in general to take second place to fixed points of philosophy. Anything that changes is considered to be impossible in the neatly created world of Christianity Lite (now with 99% less New Testament!).

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[mevets]

Mod parent up. Do you know how much money oil companies have had to pay to break up this global warming conspiracy. Thanks to their tireless efforts we can now see what a charade it all is.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing as how the scientific consensus is that there is a link between CO2 and global warming, YOU are the one who needs to prove there isn't one (and I seriously doubt you can show me any good evidence that there ISN'T a link, as 'a definite link' is what the facts show.)

Well, how about the FACT that we've gone through periods of warming and cooling over that past 150 years. Yet the percentage of CO2 is exactly the same. That certainly doesn't sound like a link.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

OK, I'm going to try to condense your link down to your main points to make it easy to respond to. If this is an inaccurate representation of your argument, please correct me, but this is what I understand you to be saying:

1) CO2 level are drastically increasing because of human activity (now seem to be 25% to 50% greater than their historical levels)
2) The earth's temperature is warmer than it has been in the past
3) Computer models can show no other way to account for the warming trend between 1965 and 2000 other than CO2.
4) Feedbacks in the environmental system could make things significantly worse, although they might not.

This is something logical we can work with. This is how you do science, not by deferring to consensus of people who might be smarter than you.

No one disagrees with point 1. Point 2 is fairly well accepted, although the trend in the past is in no way indicative of the trend going forward, which is why you had to go to point three, to establish that it will continue into the future if we continue to release CO2.

Point 3, while technically true, is extremely shaky. I don't think many people realize that the entire link from CO2 to the warming is based on computer models not being able to think of any other explanation. That point alone is suspect when you consider that from the time the study you linked to was published until now, the temperatures have not continued to rise as those models predicted would happen. What this means is that there are other factors affecting global temperature, that are unknown, that are at least as big as CO2 (otherwise they would have continued to rise).

Ignoring that, if you look into more detail about how CO2 and the computer models work, there seems to be a rough consensus that doubling CO2 will increase the earth's temperature by .7 degrees. The computers predict a rise from 1.2 degrees to 5 degrees or so. In order to do this, they rely on feedbacks in the environmental system. Now, any scientist who claimed to understand all the potential positive and negative feedbacks in the system would be laughed out of the room, but there are known important feedbacks that they aren't considering, such as clouds (to understand the difference clouds can make, consider the difference in temperature on a cloudy day and a clear day, or even the difference of temperature in the shade of a tree). The fact is, these computers are known to be inaccurate.

Whether you believe the computers to be accurate or not depends on who you are: the people who wrote the summary of the IPCC report believed them to be accurate enough, whereas the full IPCC report doesn't actually make that claim. Of course most news agencies read the summary, not the full report (I can't say I blame them, it's thousands of pages long).

As for the fourth point, even on your web page you admit it is nothing more than a worry.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[spun]

Sorry, it has been proven guilty. If you want a new trial, you have to show new evidence.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Totenglocke]

And where did I present a conspiracy theory? I'm talking about documented facts, many (if not all) of which have even come across slashdot in recent weeks.

Also, isn't the vast majority of official temperatures all distributed by the same group in the UK that was proven to have manipulated the data? It kind of destroys any one else (regardless of their intentions) doing an accurate study if the only numbers they have to work with are the same falsified ones.

There's also documentation of the temperatures being collected in all sorts of places that don't fit the guidelines for where they should be placed - such as some that have been found placed directly under the vent from a buildings furnace.

But hey, why bother actually truly looking at the facts (and look at those who try to manipulate them) when we can just say "The debate is settled! Now lets pass some laws to damn our economy and knock us back to the stone age!" If this was any other type of science (physics, electrical engineering, whatever), everyone would be making a big deal about how you need to be completely accurate and ensure that the data is in fact legit. But when it comes to something that offers the promise of lots of money for saying what politicians want to hear or getting specific parties elected, all of the sudden no one cares much about being thorough.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rei]

Ah, I see you've been hitting the full "Amateur Denier Circuit". One by one!

1) oppressing scientists who disagree with them

By "oppressing", you mean "badmouthing them in -private- emails, and arguing against their papers (which they think are unsound) in public review". Contrast with, say, the Bush administration actively blocking global warming materials from being mentioned in reports and threatening to fire scientists who go public.

2) ignoring data that doesn't suit their agenda (such as ignoring 75% of the temperature recording stations in Russia)

Your "science" in this case comes from a Russian equivalent of the Heritage Foundation -- the Russian Institute of Economic Analysis. As with most amateurs, they don't know what the heck they're talking about (and failed to get several papers past peer review because of it).

Contrary to what most amateur deniers believe, the MET office's dataset is NOT simply an average of the readings of all land stations. Why? Because of precisely something that the deniers criticize the surface stations for -- they're not all good! In fact, some of them are run-down pieces of junk. Deniers love to post pictures of these, naively assuming that they're all just averaged in.

The process of building up a climate dataset from such sources has a number of steps. First off, you need to figure out just how closely temperatures are correlated over various distances. I.e., if you're in a heat wave in NYC, you're probably also in a heat wave in Philadelphia, but not necessarily in Los Angeles. Secondly, for each datapoint, you analyze that region with its correlation factor and look for discontinuities in your station record. You also look in abrupt changes in station readings to detect faults or changes in the station's surrounding that affect its accuracy or introduce various biases. Bad stations are either eliminated or detrended. Most importantly, this is all done in an automated manner.

After all of this, you do numerous studies to make sure that you're eliminating such errors properly. For example, one approach involves keeping a reference network of closely monitored stations in ideal conditions and comparing the results you get on the reference network to those you get on the broader network. Another involves comparing the results from windy days to those of calm days to see whether the data is being contaminated by the urban heat island effect (which varies with wind). And so forth.

In short, the elimination of a large number of stations is *part of the process*. But what you need to know is that it's done in a fully automated manner that has been subjected to extensive peer-review.

blatantly alter data to show the outcome they desire (such as the one scientist who's email showed that he added X amount to the recorded temperatures to show an upward trend)

You're referring to this:

"From: Phil Jones
To: ray bradley ,mann@xxxxx.xxx, mhughes@xxxx.xxx
Subject: Diagram for WMO Statement
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000
Cc: k.briffa@xxx.xx.xx,t.osborn@xxxx.xxx
Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm,
Once Tim's got a diagram here we'll send that either later today or
first thing tomorrow.
I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps
to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from
1961 for Keith's to hide the decline. Mike's series got the annual
land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land
N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999
for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with
data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998.
Thanks for the comments, Ray."

First off, check the date. You're arguing about something that's a *decade old*. Secondly, "Mike's nature trick" and "the decline" are about a dendrochronological anomaly in which the data series after 1961 deviated from the instrumental record. The

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

OK, what you have done is linked to a modern estimate (if by modern you mean 2006) made by two people. You tried to do this to show consensus. Even if the paper is 100% accurate, and 100% true, you still have not shown a consensus, you have shown that two people feel that way. To establish a consensus, you have to show that most of your sample feels that way. You have not done this. Sorry.

Incidentally, 5.76 degrees F is a rather large range. Don't you think they could cut it down at all?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rockoon]

Funny you mention terrorism as more people have died from Fireworks accidents than terror attacks.

I mentioned terrorism because the person I originally replied to compared global warming with terrorism, and implied that Global Warming its a greater threat to life (and thats presumably specifically American lives)

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[dakameleon]

To quote from your link:

However, the study does identify other regions, such as the western tropical Pacific, where global warming does cause the environment to become more favorable for hurricanes.

So yes, less hurricanes hitting the US, but more hurricanes likely aimed at the Phillipines, China, Taiwan, Japan and Indonesia. Not exactly lowly populated areas.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rei]

And where did I present a conspiracy theory?

The notion that the overwhelming majority of the world's climate scientists are lying for some nefarious reason sure fits the definition.

Also, isn't the vast majority of official temperatures all distributed by the same group in the UK that was proven to have manipulated the data?

Re, "manipulated": See my other reply, below. Nothing even remotely close to that occurred, and if you knew anything about the process in which the dataset was assembled rather than listening to Russian economic thinktanks, you'd know that.

Re, datasets: No. The CRU's is just one of the three most widely used datasets. NASA's and NOAA's are the other two. And there are a number of lesser-used datasets. And they're all assembled in different ways, and often from different data sources.

There's also documentation of the temperatures being collected in all sorts of places that don't fit the guidelines for where they should be placed - such as some that have been found placed directly under the vent from a buildings furnace.

Which is why you automatically eliminate bad stations, something you were just criticizing the CRU for doing, re. Russia.

But hey, why bother actually truly looking at the facts

I can tell you ascribe to that philosophy to a tee.

Go read a peer-reviewed paper. For once. Follow it with a few thousand more. Then come back here and talk.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

*yawn*

Except the "anthropogenic" part is the contested issue. There is far more evidence to support natural cycles than there is my grannies 1960s Oldsmobile.

However, since the pseudo-science community keep clamoring that the US is causing it, people dumb enough to believe it could potentially turn into environmental terrorists who try and stop my granny from getting groceries.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

I doubt everything until I have enough time to verify it myself. What you seem to have, sir, is conjecture and blind belief, otherwise known as faith. In this case, I have spent time trying to verify it myself.

To establish global warming, you have to verify these points:

1) CO2 is rising
2) The earth is getting warmer
3) The warming is being caused by the CO2.
4) All that warming from CO2 will cause a calamity.

Number 1 is well established, for number 2, at the very least the 90s were an anomalous warm period (we'll see over the next decade if the trend continues or not), but number 3 and 4 are not well established in any way. To fix the problem we should add another point:

5) The proposed fix will actually make a significant difference to the earth's temperature.

The Copenhagen agreement will not, and neither will the cap and trade proposed by congress.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[mosb1000]

Now, imagine a world where we burn 90% less oil. That is the remedy that is being suggested.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[wizardforce]

and implied that Global Warming its a greater threat to life

Well that is because it probably is. Terrorism is such a tiny nigh insignificant threat to the average westerner that a single extra hurricane due t AGW would be responsible for more loss of life. Just one.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

While this doesn't sound as melodramatic, it's a real threat, and it's not the only one. I worry that the most damaging impact of abrupt climate change will be unpredictable changes in precipitation patterns. If a substantial fraction of the world's farmlands experience droughts because water is falling in areas that are currently deserts, serious disruptions of the global food supply could result.

This is exactly the problem. People think about climate change, and then they get into scenarios like this that have no scientific backing. Just like with Y2K when they worried about power plants exploding and planes falling out of the sky. Everyone has a scenario to worry about.

Of course global warming is something to keep our eye on, but lets not go insane over it.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Nefarious Wheel]

Yeah, I have to say I'm surprised anyone would object to CIA involvement

I certainly don't, and I can be as paranoid as anybody. For years I've enjoyed the amount of geographical information you can get from their World Factbook on their public web site. It includes such things as a country's crops and other products. If they keep historical data behind that (I can't imagine them throwing any of it away) you have the ability to mine economic indicators over time for trends.

However you judge the organisation, they do have a rather large database of facts. It's a lot of data, and with data you can do science.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

You summarized one of my points as "The earth's temperature is warmer than it has been in the past" but in fact what worries scientists is the rate of the warming, which is probably higher than at any point in the last 1000 years. Scientists are concerned about the abrupt nature of these changes, not the absolute temperature.

I don't think many people realize that the entire link from CO2 to the warming is based on computer models not being able to think of any other explanation.

It's based on the fact that global circulation models account for temperatures after 1970, which can't be explained by any other process like increasing solar illumination, magnetic effects, etc. Those GCMs have been validated in multiple ways, by correctly predicting climate response to volcanic eruptions, by comparison to independent paleoclimate data and modern temperature records (which are independent because GCMs are dynamical models, not empirical models.) As I've explained, GCMs are able to reproduce strange features of modern warming like the cooling stratosphere which can't be explained using other hypotheses.

That point alone is suspect when you consider that from the time the study you linked to was published until now, the temperatures have not continued to rise as those models predicted would happen. What this means is that there are other factors affecting global temperature, that are unknown, that are at least as big as CO2 (otherwise they would have continued to rise).

Nonsense. I've already been over this. ENSO variation isn't important to the long term climate.

The computers predict a rise from 1.2 degrees to 5 degrees or so. In order to do this, they rely on feedbacks in the environmental system.

Very close. Modern estimates assign a maximum likelihood value of 2.9C, with a 95% confidence that it's less than 4.9C but greater than 1.7C.

Now, any scientist who claimed to understand all the potential positive and negative feedbacks in the system would be laughed out of the room...

Of course. What's troubling is that our estimates of the long-term feedback effects are known to be too small to account for the Milankovitch glaciation cycles.

there are known important feedbacks that they aren't considering, such as clouds (to understand the difference clouds can make, consider the difference in temperature on a cloudy day and a clear day, or even the difference of temperature in the shade of a tree).

Yes, I've already had to explain that I'm aware of how important clouds are. But why do you say clouds aren't being considered? In fact, all models take clouds into account. I've previously linked to a new paper describing recent improvements to models of clouds.

As for the fourth point, even on your web page you admit it is nothing more than a worry.

Yeah, it's a worry about the future of human civilization.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[mevets]

You should chat with the folks an Mauna Loa, looks like they are on the wrong track..

Familiarity with concepts like equilibrium, and damping can help shine some sense onto what must seem like an eerily erratic world.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

What you will not find is a consensus on how much it affects the global temperature.

Wrong. Climate sensitivity is expressed as the temperature increase due to a doubling of CO2. Modern estimates assign a maximum likelihood value of 2.9C, with a 95% confidence that it's less than 4.9C but greater than 1.7C.

Did you alter your quote for a reason, or are you constructing an obvious strawman?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

There is indeed a strong link between CO2 concentrations and Global temperature. When the world warms, CO2 concentrations go up.

Ice core results clearly show this, and NOT the other way around. So there is certainly a link. Trouble is, it shows that CO2 is a result, and not a cause of, global warming....

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[mosb1000]

"there should be a point when a person or group of people should drop their self-interest and think about everyone"

LOL

Is this the first news article you've read about congress, or the US government?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

Huh? What? Please explain.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

OK, what you have done is linked to a modern estimate (if by modern you mean 2006) made by two people. You tried to do this to show consensus.

The paper itself combines multiple estimates from different independent scientists. If you don't want to read the article, the summary says: However, a new paper in GRL this week by Annan and Hargreaves combines a number of these independent estimates to come up with the strong statement that the most likely value is about 2.9C with a 95% probability that the value is less than 4.5C.

You'll get similar results from examining models used in the ensemble of Meehl 2004. Sorry that I don't have time to make all this explicit. As you can tell, I'm swamped with pseudoscientists and I simply can't give everyone a crash course in climate physics.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[GaryPatterson]

The answer to that is clear when you rank threats based on pretty much any objective index.

Terrorism is no real threat whatsoever.

Sure, there may be rare 'bursts' of threat, but that's nothing compared to the sustained threat to us posed by our lifestyles, our vehicles and our own propensity towards violence.

Terrorism was never a threat, merely a pretext.

Hell of a lot of votes in it though, and beating it up makes for good newspaper sales.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[GaryPatterson]

Eventually an asteroid will collide with the Earth and wipe out all life larger than a microbe. Infinitely worse threat than a single nuclear weapon, or even a small arsenal of them.

Seems to me we've got a lot to worry about if we get into "what if" scenarios. Perhaps we should stick with the known world.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

No scientific backing? Altering the global average temperature will affect precipitation patterns. Our current croplands are chosen to match current precipitation patterns. Altering them would be extremely expensive, maybe even impossible given the short amount of warning we'll probably get. (That's because predicting exactly how precipitation will change is very difficult.)

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Totenglocke]

I love how you accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist because I point out actual evidence of your side committing fraud, then you use unproven claims of "anyone who disagrees with me is just paid off by the oil industry".

Remember college, when you had to write papers for idiot professors that were incapable of looking at anything objectively (probably not since you seem to have been brainwashed pretty well by them, but that's another point)? You wrote whatever you had to in order to get a good grade. It didn't matter if you believed it or if it was a blatant lie, you wrote what the professor wanted to see in order to get a good grade. Now we have governments offering billions to people who prove climate change - do you really think any of them are going to provide evidence to their masters that it's not real? They'll lose their jobs and pass up the opportunity to have more money than they'd ever dreamed of. So what do you think the typical person is going to put first - their principles or a large pile of cash? You can claim "principles" all you want, but history has shown that the vast majority will always choose the money....it's human nature.

As for your "poor citation" claim, I never claimed it was a citation - if you want proof (which you don't, which is why I never bother providing links on slashdot anymore - it's not worth the effort to look things up with the people like you won't read it anyways), you can look it up yourself.

Is your blind devotion to messianic leaders really so strong that you will unquestioningly follow them instead of saying "Hey wait, if some of these government funded groups have been horribly corrupt and we know that all governments are corrupt, shouldn't we really take a step back and check out all the others to make sure that they're not corrupt too"?

Here's the same thing put in simple terms. If it's real, what does any scientist have to gain from it? Killing us all? Sorry, but mad scientists bent on world destruction only exist in sci-fi. Then ask yourself, what does someone who knows it doesn't exist stand to gain from saying it does? Government research grants, get politicians they support elected, and when eventually if it's shown to be a bunch of crap, you can just say "well our information at the time pointed to it" just like Bush did.

If it was just a scientific issue, then I wouldn't give a rats ass if people are lying or not. However, since the way to "fix" it involved destroying the industrialized world and making cots of living go through the roof for everyone, it makes it pretty fucking important to be absolutely sure. Just like how we look back on ancient civilizations that did something stupid and damned themselves, people thousands of years from now could end up having classes about how the entire modern world in the 21st century destroyed itself trying to combat something that didn't exist.

Oh, and

As someone who (probably) "is just asking questions", why aren't you "asking questions" about who's spreading this climate change FUD?

, I did research on it a few years back and every non-government funded research institute (including many from private colleges) that I looked at all found the same thing.......that it's non-existent (or at least man-made global warming is non-existent). But yea, I guess they were all paid off by big oil......and you call me the conspiracy theorist.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Totenglocke]

Go read a peer-reviewed paper. For once. Follow it with a few thousand more. Then come back here and talk.

Normally that would work - except we have proof that the peer reviewed journals were intentionally kept from publishing anything that disagreed with the idea that we're all going to die unless liberals are elected to save us all. That's what you're not acknowledging is that things were rigged to prevent any disagreement (well, any publicly acknowledged disagreement) among scientists.

Since you want to claim that by pointing out the lies and manipulation that I'm "a conspiracy theorist", here's a question for you - if we really are doomed unless we stop the boogeyman of global warming (sorry, "climate change"), what reason does any scientist have to lie and say that it's not happening? Do you think that they have some nefarious plan to kill off the human race?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[NeutronCowboy]

Actually, 3) has been established multiple times. It has both a working theory for its mechanism, and confirmation from data collection. And for the sake of precision: not all warming is caused by the CO2 increase, but the CO2 increase is responsible for the most increase. Yes, solar forcing is part of that increase, but accounts for less than CO2. 4) Would be the conclusion from 1-3.

As for 5), you're right, it's bunk. The general consensus is indeed that it failed in creating any meaningful framework that could help with CO2 emissions.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

Incidentally, 5.76 degrees F is a rather large range. Don't you think they could cut it down at all?

We're trying to, as fast as we possibly can. But note that this is a 95% confidence interval, not a 1-sigma error bar.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Montezumaa]

Is your love interest, Al Gore, reading this or something? My grandmother is a bigger threat to drunken bingo night than "anthropogenic climate change" is a threat to the planet.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[husker_man]

I knew those clouds were up to something, blocking satellite images and all. And here I thought the CIA was shady.

This does have the possibility of eclipsing anything else the Agency does.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khallow]

Let me guess... you don't believe those facts...

Sorry, I have to correct you here. I don't believe those opinions. Part of the problem being that the parts that claim we should reduce CO2 emissions to fight human-induced global warming are neither well founded (having in common an absolute ignorance of economics) or scientific (being unable to reproduce important research, models not produced using the scientific method, and speculation on the future based on skimpy evidence).

I bet you don't doubt anything else from scientific research that has made your life MORE convenient.

That is a fallacy. There's been a lot of bad ideas in scientific research as well: Lysenkoism, polywater, eugenics, the aether, epicycles, etc. The proponents of AGW still have to show that CO2 emissions from human activity contributes in a significant way to global warming. They have not yet done so. I don't know why this is so hard for you to understand. I think there's a good chance (better than 50%) that they may do so in the next few decades. Given the slow pace of global warming, that is more than good enough for me.

There is a big difference between Truth(whats happening) and what you want. I have this talk with my daughter all the time. Sometimes it isn't how you want it. That's life.

Heal thyself, physician. You want AGW to be "True" for some reason, even going as far as to claim it is "well scientifically founded". Sure, as a hypothesis, it is. But you need extraordinary evidence backing up that hypothesis before I will support restructuring of society.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[apoc.famine]

I'm guessing you don't really want to see the data, and are just being disagreeable, but on the off chance you do, I'll point you to these posts of mine. I'm working on a PhD related to climate change and climate modeling. I've got a pretty good inside look at the process. It's a couple orders of magnitude more complicated than I had assumed going into it. Doom and Gloom? Only if you don't have insurance. If you have that, no worries. If you don't, you're in a fair bit of trouble in the next 50-100 years. Feel free to peruse, and ask me questions - I'll do what I can to answer.
 
  On Climate Models
  Who's screwed
  Why Data is hard to work with
  BATS oceanographic data
  NCAR Reanalysis data
  The LEDO data
 
There you have it - a brief explanation of climate science as I understand it, and links to some data.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[riverat1]

Yes, I'll give you that, regardless of source it's a threat. But since global warming is largely of anthropogenic origin we can reduce the threat by reducing our contribution to it.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[budgenator]

The data that the scientific consensus used is bogus, they define a day's average temperature as half the difference between the daily maximum and the daily minimum. The only reliable data comes from satellites. No one is arguing that there isn't a link between CO2 and global temperatures, yet I will not let myself believe that this so called consensus really believes that decisions about the fate of mankind is based on such a sparse dataset analyzed by computer code that is at best pathetically sloppy and at worst hard-coded to give the desired result irregardless of the input data. Of course I could be wrong and well educated people really can be that evil.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[ArcherB]

Well, considering that anthropogenic climate change is probably a bigger threat in the long run than terrorism it's good that the CIA is helping.

I know. Maybe the CIA can help spin... explain how anthropogenic global warming is causing the worldwide Arctic blasts right now that are causing the coldest winter in decades worldwide, I'm glad the CIA is getting involved to help push the political agenda along. Nothing says "increase government power" like a worldwide spy agency. I wonder if we can get the KGB's assistance.

Funny how in the summer, it's anthropogenic global warming, but in the winter, it becomes anthropogenic climate change.

Seriously, as long as the data is honestly looked it at and made public and not "influenced" by any political factors, I'm all for it. Otherwise, I don't like the idea of my tax dollars going to twist the facts in order to push political agenda.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the climate satellites were scrapped, and the secret military and spy ones were sent up instead, this seems only fair.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[ArcherB]

Seeing as how the scientific consensus is that there is a link between CO2 and global warming, YOU are the one who needs to prove there isn't one (and I seriously doubt you can show me any good evidence that there ISN'T a link, as 'a definite link' is what the facts show.)

You can't prove a negative. I thought you'd be smart enough to know that. Do you really need someone to post the link of the thousands of scientists who are not part of the consensus? Were you not paying attention when the emails were released trying to shut those scientists out of journals?

You really shouldn't accuse someone else of ignoring the evidence when you obviously have no problem ignoring it yourself.

http://www.petitionproject.org/

There! I disproved your "consensus". Now PROVE that AGW is real.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[wtbname]

Look, relax, don't worry.

When the rich people with the coast line beach houses get swamped, and apply to FEMA for replacement funds, they will just rebuild everything at the new coastline.

It will be fine, worrywart.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[riverat1]

Hey there Monte, when you can't attack the science attack the messengers, eh?

It's not a threat to the planet, just to the complex intertwined civilization we've created that is built around the natural resources and processes that sustain us. Many of those processes are dependent on climate to function. But the planet will go on even if homo sapiens goes extinct (which I don't expect, we're a very adaptable species).

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[tjstork]

showing the seriousness of the threat posed by CO2.

If it was such a threat, Democrats would not have killed nuclear power plant construction in their first legislative moves of early 2006. In fact, if AGW was such a threat, the stimulus package would have been to build 200 nuclear power plants at 4 billion apiece, which, is about what the Chinese are paying for them. But, it wasn't. It was for ROADS, as in, LETS MAKE IT EASIER FOR PEOPLE TO DRIVE.

Yeah, AGW is a crock of shit. If it was real, the party plotting to fix it, would have done it already.

I mean, Bush thought Iraq was a threat, and he took care of it. Obama thinks AGW is the greatest threat, and what does he do, spend 800 billion dollars on making it easier for people to drive.

What a crock of shit.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[joocemann]

It IS well scientifically founded. The only skeptics to those FACTS (which takes me from opinion to 'well founded) are OPINIONATED LAYMEN like yourself.

I am not a climate scientist. I am a biologist. And what I know is that neither you nor I are even qualified to have this discussion in any sense of reality that is going on. Didn't you ever learn not to talk unless you know what you are talking about?

I've challenged many skeptics to go study climatology. The usual response is "I don't need to." Well, to convince ME of anything you need to. I only trust the facts and opinions and theories of QUALIFIED PEOPLE.

YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED. Show me how you are qualified and I might care. Chances are, you aren't. Chances are the people who fed you the junk reasons for your skepticism aren't either.

Don't bother writing back unless you want to show me a list of the scientific publications on the topic that you've personally contributed to.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

it's close to the sun, numbnuts.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[ArcherB]

What you will not find is a consensus on how much it affects the global temperature.

Wrong. Climate sensitivity is expressed as the temperature increase due to a doubling of CO2. Modern estimates assign a maximum likelihood value of 2.9C, with a 95% confidence that it's less than 4.9C but greater than 1.7C.

Oh wait! Are those the same models that were used to predict a steady increase in global temperatures? You know, the ones that didn't predict the coldest winter the northern hemisphere in decades or more?

Sorry, but when I see stuff like what you just typed and the hockey stick graph and emails to shut out skeptics and scientists that call it a travesty when data doesn't match the models all while Britain just had its worst snowfall in 50 years, the midwest measuring snow by the foot, Iowa temps a full 30 degrees below normal, Seoul buried in heaviest snowfall in 70 years, Vermont setting the 'all-time record for one snowstorm' and people are literally dying from the cold... you have to step back and wonder if you'd been had!

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[tjstork]

There is a big difference between Truth(whats happening) and what you want. I have this talk with my daughter all the time. Sometimes it isn't how you want it. That's life.

the truth is, if you live in wyomig, continued use of fossil fuels will make your state warmer, eliminate coastal rivals, and improve your quality of life.

seriously, what the hell do 4 billion people on coastlines mean to the 2 billion that don't. It's zero point zero. And, who cares if NYC has to move inland or uphill 20 feet. The existing city sucks anyway, let it collapse, and build something new. It's all 200 year old leaky pipes and crackheads.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[ArcherB]

That's what thousands of articles in peer-reviewed journals are -- which, like it or not, is the standard for science in this modern world.

The ball is in your court.

Were those the same journals that were threatened (and complied) that if they were to publish sceptic's arguments that the scientists would publish their findings elsewhere?

Yeah, that's not how peer review is supposed to work.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[ArcherB]

I'm going to ignore the rabid conspiracy theories you're presenting. As a scientist who sees a lot of evidence that our CO2 emissions are changing the climate, you'd probably just dismiss me as lying scum with a political agenda anyway.

But just in case someone else reads this, greenhouse warming models predict cooling and contraction of the stratosphere. The cooling is predicted to be strongest between altitudes of 40 and 50km.

The quick explanation is that greenhouse warming shifts the effective radiating layer of the planet to a lower altitude. As a result, the surface warms but the stratosphere cools. In fact, I consider this good evidence for the link between CO2 and increasing global temperatures. No other single cause warms the Earth from the surface like a greenhouse gas. (For example, an increase in solar illumination wouldn't have this effect.)

So if it warms, it's global warming. If it doesn't warm, it's well trained global warming.

Did I get that right?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

If you'd actually read the link, you'll see that I strongly support nuclear power. The existence of abrupt climate change is a scientific matter, not a political one. For instance, at the moment I own four pistols, a shotgun, and an AK47. I'm just as annoyed as you are about gun grabbers. But if you read the article, you'll see why as a scientist I have to say that abrupt climate change is very well-supported.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Abies Bracteata]

Oh wait! Are those the same models that were used to predict a steady increase in global temperatures? You know, the ones that didn't predict the coldest winter the northern hemisphere in decades or more?

Does the term "ensemble average" mean anything to you?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

Good plan. Gain the higher ground as a scientist with snarky, personal zingers like "Amateur Denier Circuit." Keep doing it while you wonder why more and more people stop listening. The oil companies thank you.

No one owes credibility. It doesn't matter if you are right and wrong, your behavior will shut you out. If you really think this is THAT important, than acting like jackasses. Yes, you'll have to repeat and explain yourself over and over and over. That's how credibility works. I'm terribly sorry if reality is inconvenient to you, but if you really believe this and it is super important to you, then you'll do it.

Until then, stop harming those that are trying...

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

Or maybe you could step back and realize that no GCM predicts monotonic warming, that there's a difference between local weather and the global climate, and that reading crackpot websites isn't a substitute for a graduate education in climate physics?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

No, if the surface and lower troposphere warms but the stratosphere cools, that's a unique (aside from separate ozone effects on UV absorption) prediction of the greenhouse warming models.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Abies Bracteata]

I've read a couple of the papers that Mann was all worked up about.

And you know what, those papers were garbage. Freshman f***up garbage. As term papers, they would have earned an undergraduate a grade south of a "C-" at any respected university.

The papers in question are:

1) "Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years", Soon, W., Baliunas, S. (2003)

2) "Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature", McLean, J. D., C. R. de Freitas, and R. M. Carter

Google them up, download them and read them.

If you cannot identify "showstopper" blunders in each paper (they both contain whopper errors), then you have no business participating in this discussion.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[tjstork]

If you'd actually read the link, you'll see that I strongly support nuclear power

The point is that the leaders of the world who are actively promoting their climate change agenda are doing so to cash in on their own pet projects. If climate change scared -them-, then they would be a cry in Europe, Japan and the USA to do something about massive nuclear plant construction and a transition to electric cars and now. There's just not. The political leadership that embraces this stuff sees it as a chance to cash in, and the other political classes see THAT as B.S.

you'll see why as a scientist I have to say that abrupt climate change is very well-supported

I think the point is, man or no man, mankind or not, abrupt climate change can and will happen. Everyone knows this. There's snowball earth, ice ages, changes of river course, the whole planet is in constant change, and climate's one of those things that can and will just snap. Just the way it is. When it happens, people will move from the bad spots to the good spots, just like they always have.

Besides : The whole idea about fixing CO2 so it will somehow put the climate "Back" is dumb altogether. There's no putting the climate back to anything.

WE might go extinct, at any time.

Oh well.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[ArcherB]

Or maybe you could step back and realize that no GCM predicts monotonic warming, that there's a difference between local weather and the global climate, and that reading crackpot websites isn't a substitute for a graduate education in climate physics?

So when you say local weather, do you mean like, the northern hemisphere? I ask because that's the half that's in winter now and is what I was referring to. You don't need a graduate education in geology to know that.

Winter Could Be Worst in 25 Years for USA...
Britain braced for heaviest snowfall in 50-years...
Iowa temps 'a solid 30 degrees below normal'...
Seoul buried in heaviest snowfall in 70 years...

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

Alright, that's a lot of information there, so it will take a while for me to digest it. While you are waiting, take a look at this graph. The grey is sum of all the computer simulations the IPCC kept track of. As you can see, by 2010 there is a margin of error of a whole degree, which is significantly more than the change from 1980 to 2010, or even the hottest and coldest years in that time period. That is not something that inspires confidence in computer models. That is, while computer models are useful for some things, that doesn't mean they are useful for predicting the result of doubling CO2 in a hundred years. In fact, I suspect if you start digging into it, you will start to doubt their capability to do so as well.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

The global climate is an average over the entire globe for at least several years. Probably 20 year averages are necessary to eliminate ENSO variability. And yeah, you wouldn't need a graduate education in geology, because that's not relevant. Try computational geophysics.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[ArcherB]

Oh wait! Are those the same models that were used to predict a steady increase in global temperatures? You know, the ones that didn't predict the coldest winter the northern hemisphere in decades or more?

Does the term "ensemble average" mean anything to you?

Does the phrase, "Lies, damn lies, and statistics" mean anything to you?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

The point is that the leaders of the world who are actively promoting their climate change agenda are doing so to cash in on their own pet projects.

You can spend all your time worrying about politicians if you want. Personally, I think they're all morons, especially people like Al Gore who don't endorse nuclear power. So I don't worry about them. I only worry about the science. That's what I consider "the point." But if you're not interested in the scientific evidence then we have nothing to talk about. Good day.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Fishbulb]

[...] there is no really good scientific evidence of a threat from CO2 (and I seriously doubt you can show me any good evidence of a link).

It's hard to receive "really good scientific evidence" if you have your head in the sand.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[omb]

Now, that paper Meehl 2004 helps make things much clearer:

It is nearly 30 years since I last read a paper like that, that time in quantitive Econometrics, and they were all wrong too. Climate Science seems like a social science, not hard science. You have a huge bunch of guys, living in Alice's Wonderland, using what is said in other papers as data and evidence.

Sorry, it is not. This paper is evidence of one thing only, that the mesh used in the (DOE) PCM is far too course ( The resolution of the atmosphere is T42, or roughly 2.8 x 2.8 degree;, with 18 levels in the vertical. Resolution in the ocean is roughly .75 x .75 degree down to a .5 x.5; in the equatorial Tropics, with 32 levels.)

The discussion of the simulations tell us little since we do not have accurate experimental data for much of the period. Linearity is moot since it depends on the model equations, which, are somewhere else, ... after you have read enough of this self-serving crap, all it is an academic self promotion scheme. What is missing from all this pseudo-science is fact:

The equations an mathematical set up of the model

The computer code to implement the model. See some of the nonsense from CRU.

If this is the best answer to Can CO2 cause run-away warming? God help us.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[budgenator]

If people are willing to kill for territory and nationalism now, imagine how much more aggressive starving people will be. This is what worries me. Not the immediate effects of climate change, but their secondary effects on international relations.

News flash people are starving right now, if we have less money to feed them due to fighting climate change more will die, if climate change reduces productive crop land more will die; we can't afford to go off half-cocked based on results from sparse data, improperly homogenized and fed into shoddy computer models.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khallow]

It IS well scientifically founded. The only skeptics to those FACTS (which takes me from opinion to 'well founded) are OPINIONATED LAYMEN like yourself.

Oh look. More opinion.

I am not a climate scientist. I am a biologist. And what I know is that neither you nor I are even qualified to have this discussion in any sense of reality that is going on. Didn't you ever learn not to talk unless you know what you are talking about?

Look, AGW is not string theory. It's not some obscure and esoteric field that won't impinge on humanity for centuries or millennia. Instead, its proponents often claim we need to act now. Since that action demands changes in behavior for virtually every human on Earth, we are inherently qualified to discuss this. We can choice to bury our heads in the sand and let authority figures decide for us (which is typically what I get accused of doing merely for my views), but in the end we have to approve any action or inaction concerning global warming. That means the climate scientists need to explain their evidence, their models to us. If they can't do that, we need to find and fund climate scientists who will.

I've challenged many skeptics to go study climatology. The usual response is "I don't need to." Well, to convince ME of anything you need to. I only trust the facts and opinions and theories of QUALIFIED PEOPLE.

I don't. It's not profitable to fully study climatology, but one can get the gist of the research and debate. I've investigated a number of these "qualified" people. I've also kept in mind the huge incentives that await people who support or oppose AGW. My view is that these huge incentives have poisoned the research, at least for the past 20 or so years. Further, the current climate models are an embarrassment, dependent both on data of dubious provenance for their calibration, and the expectations of the programmers and the politicians who fund them.

To abandon this responsibility on the basis of not being "qualified" is simply a variation of the fallacy of appeal to authority. The problem is that the authority can and often is wrong.

YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED. Show me how you are qualified and I might care. Chances are, you aren't. Chances are the people who fed you the junk reasons for your skepticism aren't either.

You know what I got from this paragraph? YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED to disagree with me. For all your words, you have to come up with a credible, "scientific", or "well founded" reason to disagree with me.

Don't bother writing back unless you want to show me a list of the scientific publications on the topic that you've personally contributed to.

I just have one entry. This post. In this very post, I demonstrate the error of your argument above. You can chose to ignore it, but ultimately, we decide what to do about AGW because we are the only ones qualified to decide the fates of our societies. Exaggerating the certainty underlying climate prediction and the harm associated with AGW just hurts us in the end.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[apoc.famine]

I've been digging into it. I'm required to... :)
 
Yes, there is a ton of uncertainty. It's because climate science is a god damn baby compared to most sciences. Physics has a couple hundred years under it's belt. As does Chemistry, Biology, Medicine, and Engineering. Climate has about a hundred years, at the most. Instrumentation has about that much. Computing, half that much.
 
I fully recognize that there is a massive amount of uncertainty. However, there is one thing that makes me very concerned:
 
Our measurements of dissolved CO2 in the oceans are plateauing, while the atmospheric concentrations are increasing exponentially. Looking at the chemistry of dissolved CO2 in seawater, it's clear that we're reaching saturation. As the best estimates are that 50% of the CO2 that we've put into the air ended up in the oceans, if no more goes in, we're in deep shit.
 
From that standpoint, I tend to assume that our models for the next 100 years underestiamte the amount and effect of CO2 in the atmosphere. Combined with the amount of deforestation we're doing, and the loss of albedo near the poles, we're most likely underestimating the effects of global warming.
 
That said, I'm looking forward to the next 50 years as a gradual warming, and a being a bit more expensive for me. The people in 3rd world countries are going to have some major issues. I've got a solid education, a good skill-set, insurance, and the ability to relocate. It won't be too bad for me.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

He was just trying to help you understand how climate models work. I'll repeat: global circulation models allow for short-term variability due to weather. That's the whole point of taking an ensemble (see chapter 8) with varying initial conditions and parameterizations. For example, here are individual realizations of a climate model. Notice that the short-term fluctuations are severe and unpredictable, but the long term trend is robust and predictable.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[joocemann]

You are not qualified. I am not qualified.

I'm not even reading your junk because it is unqualified blather from an opinionated layman.

Type more, I won't read it.

I told you not to reply without proving you are worth listening to.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Cassius Corodes]

Normally that would work - except we have proof that the peer reviewed journals were intentionally kept from publishing anything that disagreed with the idea that we're all going to die unless liberals are elected to save us all. That's what you're not acknowledging is that things were rigged to prevent any disagreement (well, any publicly acknowledged disagreement) among scientists.

Statements like these don't even have to be disproved - only repeated for the public to come to our side :D This is bordering on a global warming poe.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

As the best estimates are that 50% of the CO2 that we've put into the air ended up in the oceans, if no more goes in, we're in deep shit.

Nah, actually it doesn't have to be that bad, and I'll tell you why: one of the fundamental physical principles of atmospheric CO2 is that each successive doubling of CO2 has a cumulatively smaller effect on temperature. Thus while the next doubling will increase global temperature by .7 degrees (+- whatever feedbacks may occur), the subsequent doubling will be somewhat less to worry about.

As for ocean levels, rising oceans can sound scary, but geological effects (plate tectonics) move more quickly than the ocean levels. Thus California will fall into the ocean, regardless of what temperatures do. Mankind is going to have to move and adapt, as we always have, no matter what happens to CO2 levels.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

Well seeing as how we have evidence of "OMGZ CO2 is teh EVIL!!!" scientists 1) oppressing scientists who disagree with them 2) ignoring data that doesn't suit their agenda (such as ignoring 75% of the temperature recording stations in Russia) 3) blatantly alter data to show the outcome they desire (such as the one scientist who's email showed that he added X amount to the recorded temperatures to show an upward trend), I think the burden lies with you to show that there actually IS real evidence and that not all pro-global warming scientists are lying scum with a political agenda.

You think so, yes. You probably think the Earth is flat, too. Problem is: you're wrong. The burden lies with you, shithead, end of story.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rising Ape]

Meh, the important people will listen. It's not the job of scientists to convince ideological zealots and the wilfully ignorant, and if they're being jackasses it's only because of having to put up with a great deal of abuse over the years. Frankly the climate scientists are a lot more polite and patient than I would have been. Most of the "sceptic" stuff is on the same level as creationism, tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory and, yes, holocaust denial - not morally equivalent, but equivalent in terms of twisting the facts to fit an ideological agenda. The rest is just ignorance and a lack of appreciation of their own ignorance (Dunning-Kruger effect).

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Abies Bracteata]

It's pretty obvious that the answer to my question is a resounding "no!"

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

This paper is evidence of one thing only, that the mesh used in the (DOE) PCM is far too course ( The resolution of the atmosphere is T42, or roughly 2.8 x 2.8 degree;, with 18 levels in the vertical. Resolution in the ocean is roughly .75 x .75 degree down to a .5 x.5; in the equatorial Tropics, with 32 levels.)

The effect of decreasing the resolution of the models has been extensively studied. It provides a modest increase in model "skill" but runs enormously slower. They've chosen instead to run at a course resolution but create an ensemble of many runs which actually works better than decreasing the resolution.

What is missing from all this pseudo-science is fact: The equations an mathematical set up of the model

Notice in the first sentence of the first paragraph of section 2 that they used the DOE PCM described in Washington et al (2000).

The computer code to implement the model. See some of the nonsense from CRU.

Some of the GCMs have publicly available code, which is indexed here.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rising Ape]

Now we have governments offering billions to people who prove climate change - do you really think any of them are going to provide evidence to their masters that it's not real?

Do you really think the government want it to be true? They've as much reason as anyone to hope it's not, as the measures to deal with it will be politically unpopular. Furthermore, the Bush administration would have been *very* interested in anti-AGW results, given their fossil fuel links - in fact they pretty much told researchers not to talk about their results showing AGW. Nevertheless, the results showing that climate change was happening kept coming out, despite being against the government line.

If it's real, what does any scientist have to gain from it? Killing us all?

How about money from fossil fuel interests? And if you really have to ask what fossil fuel companies have to gain by denying climate change, then there's no hope for you. It's not going to kill us all (and nobody's said it will) - the doom-mongers are the ones saying that doing anything at all to stop it will destroy civilisation. Speaking of which...

If it was just a scientific issue, then I wouldn't give a rats ass if people are lying or not. However, since the way to "fix" it involved destroying the industrialized world

Good job nobody's proposed destroying the industrialized world then isn't it? Well, nobody anyone's going to listen to. It'll just cost money, resulting in slightly lower economic growth than otherwise (though probably still an overall benefit if you consider costs of adapting to climate change avoided).

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Fishbulb]

[..] no connection between CO2 and world calamity.

Oh, I don't know. I consider this to be pretty calamitous.

And I seriously doubt the climate gives a rats butt what the IPCC report says or doesn't say.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Blakey Rat]

I'm not even reading your junk because it is unqualified blather from an opinionated layman.

As opposed to your posts which are...?

Look, the grandparent brings up a very good point. If people don't understand the urgency of global warming, that's because scientists haven't done a very good job of explaining it to us. Some of us require more convincing than "I'm qualified, trust me." (Which is apparently enough for you.)

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khallow]

I'm not even reading your junk because it is unqualified blather from an opinionated layman.

The hypocrisy here is exquisite. I posted why I am qualified, namely, because any decision on AGW affects me significantly. But let's play your game of "qualifications" for a bit.

I'm a mathematician and a programmer. I have a good deal of experience with economics. I also am an amateur better and prognosticator with a fairly successful record. I'm not qualified to judge the data, how it was sampled and collected. I don't know just how severe AGW actually is (other than the constraints imposed by historical evidence). What I am qualified to judge is a) The quality of any computer code that managed to escape into the public domain, b) the algorithms by which certain groups aggregated a variety of temperature sensitive data and use it to build a temperature profile, c) the attitudes and behavior of the participants in the debate, and d) the quality (though not correctness!) of the climatology prognostications.

Based on my observations, the politics of AGW is driving the science. The models are terrible and the predictions are irresponsible. The claimed results are far too certain for the foundation they are built upon.

The solution is simple. Wait. Continue to observe. We will have more data and by stretching out the decision process, we will weaken the harmful political influences. Now I gather you will probably disagree with me either on the matter of my qualifications or my conclusions, but we both agree that you aren't qualified to have an opinion on the matter.

Type more, I won't read it.

Just on the off chance, you are wrong (again) and read this far, let me explain why I posted this: a) because you might change your mind. b) there are other people reading Slashdot than just you. I can't let flawed arguments stand unchallenged or unfinished. And c) the process of debate helps me refine my thoughts and present a better argument in the future.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[joocemann]

I know I'm not credible on this topic. And I'm sure you know what all the credible people are in agreement on. So I defer to the credible if you want some 'facts', lol.

I've read loads of articles about AGW and they clearly explain it. You can take your doubt as far as the semantics of the words in the language if you want and trivialize little things and keep acting like you don't get it; but it has been pretty well spelled out for me.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[joocemann]

I opened this... I got to the part where you said "I'm a mathematician and a programmer... experience with economics".

You should have started with something to show you are credible. Nope, I don't think you are. Not reading the rest.

Write more, but I hope you start with credibility else it's just a waste like this one.

Bye. I'm sick of you guys masquerading as legit.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rising Ape]

Look, AGW is not string theory.

No, for a start it's an experimental science. And interpreting data correctly is very hard to do, particularly for something like a wide variety of factors affect it. The one common factor I see in these discussions is that people who aren't experimental scientists (e.g. programmers or engineers) have *no* understanding of how subtle and difficult it is. In fairness, neither did I before I did my experimental physics PhD, but at least I wasn't so sure that I knew better than the people who actually practiced these fields. There are so many things that can trip you up and give a completely wrong answer - and unlike programming (where your program doesn't compile or run correctly) you have no automatic way of discovering mistakes.

. Since that action demands changes in behavior for virtually every human on Earth, we are inherently qualified to discuss this.

What? You may be qualified to discuss what, if any, action should be taken, but that doesn't make you qualified to discuss the science. That's independent of its consequences.

That means the climate scientists need to explain their evidence, their models to us.

It's all published, knock yourself out.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[apoc.famine]

one of the fundamental physical principles of atmospheric CO2 is that each successive doubling of CO2 has a cumulatively smaller effect on temperature

Can you give me a respectable citation on that?
 
I agree with ocean levels - that's one of the things I HATE about climate scare-mongers. Insurance will do away with most of the issues in the developed world. Bangladesh is fucked in that regard, as is a bunch of the rest of the developing world. Everyone else will just move inland, when they can't afford to rebuild near the ocean.
 
As for the feedbacks, "(+- whatever feedbacks may occur)" is the devil's work. It turns out that the feedbacks are an order of magnitude more of an effect than anything else. Positive or negative. Getting those right is the crux of all climate science. More clouds can either cool the earth, or warm it, depending on where they are, how high up there, and the size of the water particles in it. Albedo is potentially the most influential thing in regards to climate change. Add more crops around the equator, and you reflect more sunlight back into space. Remove more ice from the poles, and you absorb more sunlight. Which is a dominant effect?
 
It's stuff like that which makes climate science very, very hard. Give us 50 more years of data collection and 50 more years of computing increases, and we'll have it down. But in 50 years, what we're doing NOW takes effect. The real question is what that's going to be. By all accounts, the answer is "not good". For us, it will be "eh, an inconvenience before we retire", at the most. The major issue is what happens globally, for future generations.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[budgenator]

While the large amount of year-to-year variability in global temperatures seen in the above plot makes it difficult to provide meaningful statements about long-term temperature trends in the context of global warming, the running 25-month average suggests there has been no net warming in the last 11 years or so. December 2009 UAH Global Temperature Update +0.28 Deg. C

One would think that Roy Spencer has enough stature to be considered a serious scientist, you might find this piece interesting, Global Warming as a Natural Response to Cloud Changes Associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and this winter just wiped out your upward trend. Suck it.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[locallyunscene]

This is why scientists will never "win" a politicized debate.

Anybody can grab a couple one-way hash arguments off their favorite talking heads and it takes a couple of pages of context to explain why a relatively simple statement is wrong even though it has truthiness to it.

For example opening the data probably wouldn't help anybody because institutions who are actually qualified to look at the data all ready have access to it. You'd just get a bunch of quacks who'd "poke holes" using more truth-y statements without scientific process. The "75% of the whole tree ring data" canard as described above is a good example.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

one of the fundamental physical principles of atmospheric CO2 is that each successive doubling of CO2 has a cumulatively smaller effect on temperature

Can you give me a respectable citation on that?

I'm just guessing here, but it sounds like he's repeating the "CO2 is saturated" argument that seems to be popular these days. It's old news, of course, integrated into GCMs in the 1950s.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[newhoggy]

Maybe you are talking about drought? No, rainfall will increase if it gets significantly warmer.

Drought isn't just about precipitation. A warmer climate might mean more rainfall (eg. flash floods), but also that rainwaters evaporate faster, so that when it doesn't rain, lands become drier faster.

Both are problematic.

Also, precipitation that now comes down as snow and get released slowly in snow melts in the warmer months would in the future just come straight, exacerbating flooding in some areas, and again affecting the consistency of water supplies.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

It's truly amazing to me that this religious belief persists in the face of direct evidence to the contrary.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[riverat1]

And maybe the CIA can spin how record heat waves next summer are a result of global warming as well. Please direct me to a source for "the coldest winter in decades worldwide" statement. They had a record heat wave in Australia in November. The third one in the last 2 years.

Of course weather happens. It's just the noise signal on the climate carrier wave. It's winter and we expect cold weather. Sometimes records will be set. Across the Continental US in the 2000's the ratio of record highs to record lows is 2.04:1. In the 1990's the ratio was 1.36:1. Those are the kind of statistics that have something to do with global warming.

Personally, I see far more twisting of facts coming from the anti-global warming side of the argument.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[ancient_kings]

Chemical FACTS: - CO2 absorbs sunlight and converts it to heat. - There is "stuck" CO2 in the oceans and land. - Higher temperature will force more CO2 out of the water and land (much like warming pop soda). This is called Henry's Law, again, scientific fact. - Put two and two together you stupid neocon! High temperature will force more CO2, which will raise the temperature which will force more CO2 will raise the temperature which will force more CO2 which will raise the temperature which will force more CO2 which will raise the temperature which will force more CO2 which will raise the temperature which will force more CO2 which will raise the temperature which will force more CO2 which will raise the temperature which will force more CO2 ... Get it? You stupid, fucking neocon freak?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[cbeaudry]

You must have no idea how idiotic you sound.

The head of the IPCC is an economist.

But it seems he is qualified to talk climatology...

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[uninformedLuddite]

No scientific backing?

Great sauce

Altering the global average temperature will affect precipitation patterns.

Only if the alterations aren't just on paper(and the real unadjusted data lost forever)

Our current croplands are chosen to match current precipitation patterns.

Hence all that cotton and rice being grown in just the right spots for it precipitation wise

Altering them would be extremely expensive, maybe even impossible given the short amount of warning we'll probably get. (That's because predicting exactly how precipitation will change is very difficult.)

If precipitation patterns are that hard to predict climate must be much harder to do

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[mevets]

Insightful? I know there isn't a sarcasm mod, but wouldn't funny do?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

If precipitation patterns are that hard to predict climate must be much harder to do

It must be? No, in fact the global temperature averaged over ~15 years (i.e. climate) is easier to predict than changes to the jet streams, ocean currents, local moisture, etc which would be needed to predict exactly where precipaitation would shift. Everything I've seen in the peer-reviewed scientific journals indicate that our precipitation predictions are less robust than the predictions of the global temperature averaged over ~15 years.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

Here, you can look at the equation for yourself, and follow the citation chain if you so desire.

But in 50 years, what we're doing NOW takes effect. The real question is what that's going to be. By all accounts, the answer is "not good".

To be honest, I'm not so sure. The direct effects of the CO2 in the atmosphere take place immediately, so when we are talking about latent effects, we are talking about uncertain feedbacks. It is true that it could be bad, but if developing countries continue growing the way most of them have been for the last 20 years, they should be ok monetarily even if the worst case scenario feedbacks happen.

In any case, you are right, hopefully with 10 more years of data collection we will have this question settled. I can be patient.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[n2art2]

Science actually proves nothing by nature. It only attempts to disprove specific situations with specific conditions applied.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[n2art2]

I've always seen positive debate tactics, when someone lowers themselves to attacking the person they are debating.

Good show.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah its a very large threat .... hell look at the last anthropogenic atmospheric change threat.

It indeed created an entire market in India, cost American businesses billions and eventually drove them to china and Mexico.

To bad the ozone layer never really changed. Score one for the good guys.... if you consider communist and socialist leaders "the good guys"

BTW what happened to the old term "global warming"

oh wait ... guess that not really valid anymore is it.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rockoon]

Seems to me we've got a lot to worry about if we get into "what if" scenarios. Perhaps we should stick with the known world.

I propose that it is FAR preferable for the CIA to point those satellites outward to watch for those asteroids YOU bring up, than it is to waste them watching for global warming.

So far, NOBODY has listed an actual global warming "THREAT."

And there is no "what if" about asteroids hitting this planet. It is not a question of "if." Its a question of "when." The same goes for radicals using nukes. Its not a question of "if." Its a question of "when" and "where."

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phigmeta]

no ... sadly when it was called "global warming" and the gore man told us we would all be wearing shorts in December; you could pull that bull$hit..... but now with this new evidence ... ya know ... that thing called LOWEST TEMPS ON RECORD.... i am thinking you need to prove the new term "climate change" So bring it ... or kiss my a$$ because this one won't be conveniently forgotten like the last scam (Ozone layer scare) Hurry climate change zombies I am questioning your new religion VOTE ME DOWN QUICK

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khallow]

No, for a start it's an experimental science. And interpreting data correctly is very hard to do, particularly for something like a wide variety of factors affect it. The one common factor I see in these discussions is that people who aren't experimental scientists (e.g. programmers or engineers) have *no* understanding of how subtle and difficult it is. In fairness, neither did I before I did my experimental physics PhD, but at least I wasn't so sure that I knew better than the people who actually practiced these fields. There are so many things that can trip you up and give a completely wrong answer - and unlike programming (where your program doesn't compile or run correctly) you have no automatic way of discovering mistakes.

Public policy is far more like engineering than it is like experimental science. At its core, it's control. When the science is too subtle and difficult, it is not an appropriate mechanism for a control system for society. You don't want this degree of ambiguity in far reaching public policy. It will be a disaster. That's the bottom line. If the elimination of that ambiguity means waiting till obvious, dangerous manifestations of global warming appear, then I see that as necessary.

What? You may be qualified to discuss what, if any, action should be taken, but that doesn't make you qualified to discuss the science. That's independent of its consequences.

One necessarily includes the other. They are not independent. Let me put it this way, due to the political influence on climatology research, the science is not independent of the consequences. It would be irresponsible to ignore that.

It's all published, knock yourself out.

As I've noticed, it's not all published. For example, the code to most climate models is not published. People, even publicly funded scientists are free to make whatever unsubstantiated claims about the climate as they wish. But making major changes to society based on scientific research requires in my view a greater degree of openness.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rockoon]

Well that is because it probably is.

Citation needed. We know for a fact that terrorists kill people, and are going to kill more people, and have been doing this for decades.

Why is it so hard to answer the question? If you can't explain how gradual warming is going to kill people, then maybe you should rethink your position on the matter.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[FiloEleven]

There's also documentation of the temperatures being collected in all sorts of places that don't fit the guidelines for where they should be placed - such as some that have been found placed directly under the vent from a buildings furnace.

Which is why you automatically eliminate bad stations, something you were just criticizing the CRU for doing, re. Russia.

I ask this as a curious outsider, not an adversary: what are the criteria for considering a station to be "bad"? Some would certainly be obvious, like an average temperature jump of 10 degrees overnight, but I'm having trouble imagining a winnowing process that adequately controls for selection bias.

Any takers?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

Never mind--you answered a few posts down. I'll repost here for the sake of resolution (anon because the moderators like to mod up good information).

The process of building up a climate dataset from such sources has a number of steps. First off, you need to figure out just how closely temperatures are correlated over various distances. I.e., if you're in a heat wave in NYC, you're probably also in a heat wave in Philadelphia, but not necessarily in Los Angeles. Secondly, for each datapoint, you analyze that region with its correlation factor and look for discontinuities in your station record. You also look in abrupt changes in station readings to detect faults or changes in the station's surrounding that affect its accuracy or introduce various biases. Bad stations are either eliminated or detrended. Most importantly, this is all done in an automated manner.

After all of this, you do numerous studies to make sure that you're eliminating such errors properly. For example, one approach involves keeping a reference network of closely monitored stations in ideal conditions and comparing the results you get on the reference network to those you get on the broader network. Another involves comparing the results from windy days to those of calm days to see whether the data is being contaminated by the urban heat island effect (which varies with wind). And so forth.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[riverat1]

Global warming is a fine term. I use it all the time because it's true. The average temperature of the globe is increasing. It doesn't mean every year will be warmer than the last, just that the long term mean global temperature is going up. I use other terms as well as you noticed.

You should read up on ozone depletion. The problem hasn't gone away, it's just under better control than it was before.

I don't have a clue what you mean about India. If you think American jobs went offshore because of climate change regulations you're crazy. They started going long before any such regulations came into being.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

You are the one that needs to prove that there is one, considering that the imaginary concensus has been exposed to be merely more than a dozen or so well politically connected scientists, modifying data, threatening journals that defy their theory, getting rival scientists fired, and intense media campaigns of science-less propaganda, to sell this idiotic religion to ignorant citizens, masqueraded as science. . . hidden behind secrecy, we find a foundation that is shaky and built on a fault line.

All of this going green and climate change business is merely there to create a new investment bubble, now that several have effectively popped, and to sell you on living like a pauper while banks and aristocrats fly around in private jets and dine on caviar. It doesn't have anything to do with the environment. Take a lesson from just how well these idiots do their other jobs they've been given control over. They've wrecked the economy, trampled over the constitution, destroyed education, seriously damaged the environment (you know, the guys who all of the sudden "love the earth" now that a new kind of Ponzi scheme is unveilled?), impoverished the third world, etc.. etc...

We have an organization to "stop wars" and once they get in, we see endless wars, that even lack the basic honor of historical warfare.

We've got a bank that is supposed to "ensure 100% employment and a stable economy" who has effectively destroyed both employment (on more than one occassion) and the economy. . . and soon to be the Dollar itself.

Why does the CIA, an intelligence outfit, that has nothing to do with the environment, even if the climate change hoax were real, care to "help out"? What is that surveillence really for? Will you know? How about your elected representatives? The president? How high of a clearence would one have to be in order to know that "state secret".

Gee, I wonder if this might have anything to do with those new "full body scanners" that are being hyped. Hmmmm. Seems quite timely for a new global surveillence system to combat a completely ficticious problem.

Damn you people. You criticize totalitarianism under Bush, and then when it's dressed up with a neo-Leftist feel good image, you cheer it on like a true Fundamentalist Fanatic.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rockoon]

I am reminded of an interview of Richard Feynman.

When he was a boy he had a discussion with his father where he indirectly asked his Dad why things in motion tend to stay in motion and things at rest tend to stay at rest, and his fathers reply was that nobody know why but that the phenomena is called Inertia.

In one fell swoop his father taught him that there is a difference between observation and understanding. That nobody understand why things behave the way they do, that we can only observe things and assign labels to the phenomena we measure.

Men like Feynman didn't ignore inconvenient data that didn't fit their theory. On the contrary, men like Feynman charged right towards the data that didnt fit existing theory. For men like Feynman, inconvenient data is an undescribed phenomena begging for a closer inspection.

These climate scientists are not men like Feynman. Feynman would not ignore inconvenient data, or presume that his theory can be trusted given the existence of that data. On the contrary, these climate scientists are claiming that there is a consensus. That the science is settled, while ignoring data that doesnt fit their theory.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[aynoknman]

Plus, I heard that the climate was recently spotted in Yemen.

Furthermore, it's an indisputable fact that the climate spotted in Yemen is known to be warm! Far more than the mandated 2 C above the global average!

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Isaac-1]

One of the things that is bothering me out of this whole "Global Warming" mess is this term "Antropogenic Global Warming" Or "Antropogenic Climate Change". Maybe some people think it makes them look smarter when they mix in Greek or Latin based words, to me it just seems idiotic and pretentious. If your going to tag a Greek based compound word like Antropogenic onto the front of your term, at least come up with an equally obscure replacement for the more common "global warmning", etc. end of the phrase.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khallow]

The estimates at the 2009 AGU Fall Meeting placed an estimate of ~1.2 meters of sea level rise by 2100

[...]

I worry that the most damaging impact of abrupt climate change will be unpredictable changes in precipitation patterns.

What abrupt climate change? The only thing you mention before this is a modest rise in sea level 90 years from now. 90 years is not an abrupt climate change.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[CrossChris]

When can you clueless fools get used to the reality of this bogus "climate change"? This nonsense is a political construct - it's just a crude attempt to control the usage of increasingly scarce fossil fuels, particularly in the third world.

There was more "climate change" in the ten years prior to the start of the industrial revolution than there has been recently, and this was followed by a period of almost thirty years when most of the major European rivers froze each winter...

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[riverat1]

Now that's an insightful comment.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

What abrupt climate change? The only thing you mention before this is a modest rise in sea level 90 years from now. 90 years is not an abrupt climate change.

I've repeatedly stressed that atmospheric CO2 has increased 35x faster than at any point in the last half million years, and as a result the global average temperature (averaged over a period of at least several years) is increasing at a rate that's probably faster than at any point in the last 1000 years.

I've defined "abrupt climate change" in a popup over the words at the beginning of the article: A large-scale change in the climate system that takes place over a few decades or less, persists (or is anticipated to persist) for at least a few decades, and causes substantial disruptions in human and natural systems.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Kierthos]

Er, no. They clearly say that the average temperature is the (minimum temp + maximum temp)/2. I'm not sure where you're getting that it's half the difference.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

You summarized one of my points as "The earth's temperature is warmer than it has been in the past" but in fact what worries scientists is the rate of the warming, which is probably higher than at any point in the last 1000 years. Scientists are concerned about the abrupt nature of these changes, not the absolute temperature.

OK. If you look at the top and middle graphs the actual rate of warming doesn't seem any different than the rates of change in the past. I haven't investigated the climate temperatures enough to really comment on them, but we are talking about a difference of a degree, which is a change small enough that I am usually willing to accept it as reasonable: it's not likely to be wildly inaccurate so in my opinion not worth much time arguing about.

Onward:

It's based on the fact that global circulation models account for temperatures after 1970, which can't be explained by any other process like increasing solar illumination, magnetic effects, etc.

Exactly. "We can't explain it any other way." This is about the weakest line of logic ever. Sometimes it works, but all it takes is one missed piece of evidence to topple your logical castle. One problem and you're screwed. If I were staking my career on this point, I would definitely want more research done and stronger evidence.

by correctly predicting climate response to volcanic eruptions,

This isn't impressive, though, because it isn't hard. We have lots of test eruptions to go on from the past, and you could probably do the calculations by hand on paper to make some good estimates of the change in temperature if you knew the output from the volcano.

You've probably already seen the argument I made to the other guy, but I feel I should make it here, too: look at this graph. There is a calculation difference of nearly a degree in those climate models, whereas the temperature itself has varied significantly less than that. Do these models really inspire you to trust them? They are not very convincing to me at all.

I'm going to say, your writing style makes me feel like you spend a lot of your time on realclimate.org. I strongly suggest instead that you look at the ipcc report (the actual report, not just the summary which a lot of people don't feel represents the report). realclimate.org has a kind of propaganda-ish feel, and the IPCC report covers tons and tons of ground. If you are an information junkie, that is where you should go. It's the good stuff.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

If the greenhouse effect only appears in greenhouses, I guess you might want to fix this article.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

How about actually linking to something real? Come on, discover magazine? Get serious. You have failed.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[trendzetter]

"all pro-global warming scientists are lying scum with a political agenda" Sounds you are more driven by a political agenda than science.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[shutdown -p now]

Normally that would work - except we have proof that the peer reviewed journals were intentionally kept from publishing anything that disagreed with the idea that we're all going to die unless liberals are elected to save us all.

I hereby propose a Godwin-like rule for any discussions on AGW:

The moment you mention words such as "Democrat" or "Republican" or "liberal" or "neocon", you lose.

Because it really has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Ambiguous Puzuma]

http://www.petitionproject.org/qualifications_of_signers.php
Note that the only requirement regarding background is a degree (bachelor's or higher) in a "related" scientific field.

I write software for a living. Yet because I have a bachelor's degree in computer science and mathematics, I am apparently as qualified as some of those people to make a scientific claim regarding global warming: 935 of the people on the list have degrees in computer science and/or math.

One of my relatives is an athletic trainer with a masters degree in sports medicine. She is equally qualified: 2,327 of the people on the list have degrees in medicine.

Another relative has worked in sales and management, with a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering. He is equally qualified: 7,281 of the people on the list have degrees in unspecified engineering disciplines.

Come to think of it, almost every living adult in my family--parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents--meets the single criterion (aside from agreeing with the petition statement) to be included. And none of them are scientists, or have any sort of specialized knowledge of climate science.

An appeal to false authority is not a way to make an effective argument.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[smashin234]

"crash course on climate physics" ....

Since you are the expert and the teacher, teach me why its wrong for people to question science?

Once again, its been said over and over again, but the basic tenant of science is questioning theories vigorously until they are proven through exhaustive testing.

Or why climate has anything to do with physics? I am also confused on that point...

All I hear is climate scientists have a "consensus" on what the future holds, and here you quote these people and claim to be one of these experts...Tell me, how is my stock going to do in 5 years? 10 years? 50 years....

It may seem like a bad example, but climate "physics" as you called it predicts the future, and there are many things that we do not know of the future that may effect climate. Even trying to predict 10 years in the future is dangerous because any number of unknowns may pop up...here are 4 examples, and you can tell me how the models take these into consideration...

1. The sun has an unusual period of sunspots. Not beyond the realm of impossible.
2. Major volcanic eruption. We still can't predict volcanic eruptions as of yet.
3. An increase in photosynthesis in plants that actually reduces CO2 from what we predict it will be.
4. Nuclear holocaust and/or insert your doomsday prediction here___________________ .

Again, you are the expert since you appear to be a teacher, so enlighten us all....

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[shutdown -p now]

If it was such a threat, Democrats would not have killed nuclear power plant construction in their first legislative moves of early 2006. In fact, if AGW was such a threat, the stimulus package would have been to build 200 nuclear power plants at 4 billion apiece, which, is about what the Chinese are paying for them. But, it wasn't. It was for ROADS, as in, LETS MAKE IT EASIER FOR PEOPLE TO DRIVE.

You miss one other obvious option.

On one hand, Dems are a mainstream corrupt populist political party (just like Reps). That means that their primary political philosophy is "get elected" - everything else is coincidental to that. If mainstream politics dictate that they cannot go nuclear for the fear of losing support, they will not, and the world can burn tomorrow for all they care (tomorrow is another term, and if they're lucky, it will be a Rep term - so more the better!). At the same time, if said politics dictate that most of their electorate supports AGW, they will support AGW, too - solely to maintain support of their electorate, and for no other reason. Hence you get to hear a lot of misinformed opinions on what it is and how it works from that camp, including stories of drowned NYC etc.

At the same time, do Dem (or Rep, or whoever) politicians actually personally care about AGW? Not much, probably. They're all well-off, meaning they won't be the ones to feel the effects of e.g. food shortages (one of uncertain, but possible side effects). Property? All insured, thank you very much. And, as we all know, it's actually easier to rule in time of crisis compared to stability and prosperity, because you can tighten the screws "for security", and the people will beg you for more to "feel safe". So even those Dems who do believe in AGW (which, I think, is far fewer than those who use the associated rhetoric in public), don't really care much about it.

Yes, all points above also specifically cover Obama, by the way.

So, to sum it up: don't seek any confirmation of truthfulness or falsehood of AGW in your (or others') politicians behavior. They play political games, not do science; their opinions don't matter in the slightest, and their actions are in their personal interests, not yours or mine.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

Exactly. "We can't explain it any other way." This is about the weakest line of logic ever.

Huh? I just showed you how the greenhouse warming model explains the current observations, has been validated in multiple independent ways, and has no serious competition. That's exactly the same thing I say about evolution, but I gave up trying to explain that to creationists. Perhaps I should give up here for similar reasons?

I'm going to say, your writing style makes me feel like you spend a lot of your time on realclimate.org. I strongly suggest instead that you look at the ipcc report [www.ipcc.ch] (the actual report, not just the summary which a lot of people don't feel represents the report). realclimate.org has a kind of propaganda-ish feel, and the IPCC report covers tons and tons of ground. If you are an information junkie, that is where you should go. It's the good stuff.

Holy crap! You're telling me to look at the source which- in that very article- I've referenced over and over and over and over? Are you serious? Most of the graphs in the article that you were just talking about are from the AR4 report. I've only deviated from it with respect to sea level increase, because their information is out of date and too conservative based on data collected since 2007.

Had it ever occurred to you that maybe I spend most of my time studying the climate as a professional physicist, and that I'm not just regurgitating bullshit I read on the internet?

You've probably already seen the argument I made to the other guy, but I feel I should make it here, too: look at this graph. There is a calculation difference of nearly a degree in those climate models, whereas the temperature itself has varied significantly less than that. Do these models really inspire you to trust them? They are not very convincing to me at all.

How ironic. Maybe you should stop looking at a single realclimate.org graph and consider the AR4 scenarios from the IPCC report. (Yeah, the same ones I linked in my article months ago.) Notice that the uncertainty for each scenario is wide, but the error bars for different emissions scenarios don't overlap. The scenarios are referenced in the second column of page 755 of chapter 10 of the AR4 report.

These uncertainties are estimated using procedures described on pages 805-809, in section 8.5.4: "Sampling Uncertainty and Estimating Probabilities". Those pages describe the role of multi-model ensembles and perturbed physics (i.e. perturbed parameters) ensembles in evaluating the uncertainty of climate projections.

And, yes, I'm impressed by the careful job they've done. The methods they're using to validate the models are ingenious. The error bars don't have to be infinitesimal; just smaller than the difference between emissions scenarios. And they are.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[smashin234]

Your comment on Russia is one that should be explained in more detail...and what other stations were thrown out. I know in the case of Russia, it was because stations were under-funded and lax controls meant measurement was not exact if not missing...and I for one understand that case....HOWEVER

This is where I started having a major issue with the global warming movement a long time ago. The SECOND you start picking out sites as unreliable, you are left with data points missing and every other weather station becomes human choice on whether its included in your modeling. Of course this is necessary, but even excluding one station can effect predictions especially when you are drawing the correlation based on just one variable, and there is more then one with climate.....This is a big issue in statistics, and the fact that we can not even be 100% sure on modern data collection of temperature throws modeling this same data into the waste basket. Start over, get new measurement techniques and redo the modeling...that is what I would recommend, but of course its impossible to do that as a climate scientist today now that the "end of the world as we know it" slogan has already been sung.

As a side not, peer reviews simply say whether or not the technique was scientifically sound...if bias was introduced purposely or accidently, peer reviewing this will NEVER catch it. Peer reviews deal with the technique, they do not touch the data gathering methods..

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

Or why climate has anything to do with physics?

Slowly bangs head against nearest wall...

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[voidphoenix]

Or why climate has anything to do with physics? I am also confused on that point...

Epic fail.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

There is a calculation difference of nearly a degree in those climate models, whereas the temperature itself has varied significantly less than that. Do these models really inspire you to trust them? They are not very convincing to me at all.

My point in emphasizing the future projections was to stress that this uncertainty doesn't grow over time (aside from uncertainties as to which emissions scenario we adopt.) But even the "large" uncertainties in current GCMs are small enough to show that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are responsible for the warming since 1970. Even though the two curves have wide error bars, they don't overlap. The entire point of that graph you're fixated on is that the observed temperatures stay within the IPCC's error bars. You couldn't even see the prediction for the temperatures without human greenhouse gas emissions on that plot (as in the Meehl 2004 plot), because they'd be far below it.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

Oops. Change section 8.5.4 to 10.5.4.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

Try computational geophysics.

You made that degree up, didn't you?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Olivier Galibert]

There are so many things that can trip you up and give a completely wrong answer - and unlike programming (where your program doesn't compile or run correctly) you have no automatic way of discovering mistakes.

Errr, you probably don't realize it, but that sentence proves you're not qualified to talk about programming. Defining and verifying "run correctly" can be as hard as validating experimental results, simply because a run of a program is an experiment.

    OG.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[JackieBrown]

This attitude it is difficult to have a serious discussion about this topic.

Anyhing pro-global warming is almost certainly funded by polititions and governments. If it came out that there was no man made global warming, many scientists and "think tanks" would be instantly out of work. And the money being channeled to these groups are from those already believe global warming to be true (or see the fear that it brings useful for control.)

Anything anti-global warming is attributed to the projects being funded by oil companies. They would certainly not want to come out and say that their product is destroying the world.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[JackieBrown]

YOU are the one who needs to prove there isn't one

If you want us to change the way we live, the burden should be on you.

The same people that talk about how unimportant it is to convice the common folk are the same ones that bash conservatives for being "elitist."

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[JackieBrown]

I've got a solid education, a good skill-set, insurance, and the ability to relocate. It won't be too bad for me.

It should be great for you.

If society breaks down and nature becomes harsh and cruel, I am sure that solid "climate change" education will be extremely useful for surving in the new world.

Those people in the third world countries are too soft to survive...

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[hazem]

It doesn't even have to be anthropogenic climate change.

Any significant climate change, regardless of the source, has the potential to wreak havoc on the economy and that impacts national security. Food security is a large part of national security and when zones for growing key crops changes, we might not be able to respond fast enough. Changes in climate will also most likely effect availability of water. California has been in a drought for several years now. It's also a key food-producing region. A long-term change in precipitation patterns could devastate the agriculture there.

Higher sea temperatures will lead to more energetic hurricanes, which definitely will effect the gulf and south-eastern seaboard of the US. And of course rising sea levels will impact any of the cities near sea level and will probably lead to salinization of currently fresh-water marshes near the ocean.

Even if you deny the probability of anthropogenic impact on the climate, the "natural swings" in the climate can still have a large impact on the security of the nation. Therefore, it IS within the scope of the CIA's work to keep an eye on it.

And of course, this is just looking at the direct impacts on the US. These same climate-related problems will be global in nature and that will also have a destabilizing effect on governments around the world; both ones we like and ones we don't.

In short, Sen. Brasso is an idiot. Anything that can severely impact national security is clearly in the purview of the CIA.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[elkto]

Riiight. And Venus is so much hotter than its radiative equilibrium temperature because......?"
Sulfuric Acid

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

"Maybe the CIA can help spin... explain how anthropogenic global warming is causing the worldwide Arctic blasts"

Already explained: unusually cold La Nina in 2007-2008, and slow-to-start new sunspot cycle.

"coldest winter in decades"

GW is about long term trends (based on about a century of data), one year with a cold winter does not make for a trend.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[noisyinstrument]

Fact: the weather (which believed to be in close association with the climate) has been responsible for more plane crashes in the last 10 years than al Qaeda.

It's a numbers game, really.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Or you could just point out that the current weather does not -by a long shot- match any of the predictions (made BEFORE it started). For any non-political theory, that would do it.

Specifically that the IPCC predicted a warming of 0.12 degrees +- 0.05 degrees in 2000. From 2000 to 2009, however, there was a cooling of just over 0.1 degrees. That's over 4 times the maximum error they predicted. If you take pure satellite data, it's even more of course.

Before I get accused of heresy (not that having the facts on my side will prevent that, but hey, one hopes against hope):
-> IPCC prediction according to it's 2000 report : http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/vol4/english/pdf/wg1spm.pdf figure 5 : uniform rising temperatures for the entirety of the 21st century : every year is warmer than the previous year from now up till 2100, including the lower error bar
-> consistent 10-year dropping temperature http://climateprogress.org/2009/12/08/world-meteorological-organization-wmo-2000s-warmest-hottest-decade-on-record/ (which is a somewhat misleading headline. 2000-2010 may be the warmest decade, but 1995-2000 would be the warmest 5 year period. Wouldn't want to indicate warming has stopped, even temporary, now would we ? That'll just lead to skepticism. There was a time when skepticism WAS science, but hey)

Needless to say, if this occured within any exact science, all scientists would be sent back to the "put all your crazy ideas on a napkin" stage, and the theory that produced the errant predictions sent to the bin.

(and while I fully agree this hardly constitutes a cooling trend over the long term, it is far outside of the error margins for the theory, so something is horribly wrong with the models, making their predictions useless at best, dangerous at worst)

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rising Ape]

Of course, it depends on what level of "correctness" we're talking about. A good deal of programming is of the good enough variety - it doesn't have to be correct, just to work well enough to sell. How else would you explain the pre-NT series of Windows? I'm sure there are cases where higher correctness guarantees are required, but how common are they?

My point was really that typically in programming you know what your program is supposed to do so you can test your answer - maybe not completely, but to the point where it's good enough. That's much harder in science since you don't know what answer you're supposed to get.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

"Frankly the climate scientists are a lot more polite and patient than I would have been."

I think this is key, honestly I've been quite on the fence about it all, but think most proposals to combat climate change are sensible for other reasons (i.e. reduced dependence on middle eastern oil). The thing I note in the discussions though is those fighting against the idea of man made climate change or even climate change altogether simply appear to be utterly irrational, unable to put together arguments that follow through logically, they seem to be filled with hate, anger and agression. In contrast, the response from those actually doing the science seem so level headed and sensible, their arguments follow, they show an actual understanding of the subject rather than use points that are demonstrably quite incorrect even to the rational layman.

As you say it has the same feel to it as creationism discussions, those supporting creationism are so utterly irrational, seem to be full of so much anger and agression.

I'm swayed towards the scientists because they seem to be smart, intelligent people whilst the deniers group just seems like an irrational dumb hate machine, the type of people who would vote for McCain after Palin had been selected as VP- deniers just seem to be stupid people, it really is a battle of smart vs. stupid more than anything else.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Olivier Galibert]

Then some would say an experiment just has to be good enough to publish... :-)

    OG.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khallow]

A large-scale change in the climate system that takes place over a few decades or less, persists (or is anticipated to persist) for at least a few decades, and causes substantial disruptions in human and natural systems.

Ok, I see where you're going with that. Although I think it's poorly defined due to the different time scales of human and natural systems. Normally, when I hear "abrupt" change I think something that causes disruption to me now (say turns me into a refugee). A 1.2 meter rise in sea levels in 90 years is dim background noise compared to what else will be going on. But natural systems don't have the dynamic nature of human societies.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khallow]

I've repeatedly stressed that atmospheric CO2 has increased 35x faster than at any point in the last half million years, and as a result the global average temperature (averaged over a period of at least several years) is increasing at a rate that's probably faster than at any point in the last 1000 years.

I agree with the claim about CO2 levels and their rate of increase. The latter claim seems rather weak to me due to the short span of time (what makes it sufficiently different from the warming period more than 1000 years ago that we should act to reduce it?). As I've indicated in numerous places in this discussion, I think we need a stronger signal and a far more dire situation before we cut economic activity in order to mitigate or prevent global warming. Even a 100 meter rise in sea level isn't that serious, if it occurs over the time span of centuries. And if it results in a far wealthier and technologically advanced society than today, then it's probably worth it as well, no matter what damage happens to natural systems.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard there's even climate *change* in Yemen. Terrifying.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Troed]

The CRU's is just one of the three most widely used datasets. NASA's and NOAA's are the other two. And there are a number of lesser-used datasets. And they're all assembled in different ways, and often from different data sources.

You should really look this up for yourself. I promise you're in for a surprise.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[dwiget001]

Well, considering that the anthropogenic climate change hoax is a bigger threat in the long run than terrorism I hope the CIA helps bring all the fraudsters to justice. That would be the proper use for any CIA resources related to anthropogenic climate change.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[spun]

There is simply no point in debating with someone who hasn't bothered to educate himself obout basic science. Do you know how climate works? Global warming means more energy entering a chaotic system. More energy means more extremes. Look at the trends, not just the winter temperatures.

You don't WANT climate change to be true. You don't WANT the damn hippies to be right. It goes against your religion, doesn't it, hippies being right? So, you've made up your mind, despite not having educated yourself, and thus, there is no point debating you.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[spun]

Sure, but when we DO prove things beyond a reasonable doubt, your answer is simply 'No, you didn't. More proof!'

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[dwiget001]

If this is all true, as you say, then *why* have temperatures cooled over the past decade?

Take your time, I'll wait.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Troed]

You neither know the first nor the second fact with any scientific certainty whatsoever, of course. Granted, you do qualify one of the statements with "probably", I'll give you that.

We do not have trustworthy numbers on whether the rise in temperatures from the 70's to 00 was any faster than earlier in the 20th century, in the 19th century, during the MWP, the Roman .. the ... oh .. yeah, all those other warm periods that were warmer than today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFbUVBYIPlI

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[apoc.famine]

I hate to break it to you, but in the next 50-100 years, we're not going to transform the world into that of Mad Max. We're talking about small changes here.
 
If the climate changes such that it's harder to grow crops in parts of the US, we'll just import them. It will be a bit more expensive, but I'll be able to afford it. That was my point. A couple of degrees warmer during my lifetime isn't a big deal.
 
If you're a subsistence farmer reliant on one crop, it could destroy your entire society. It's not that they're soft - if their family has farmed for generations on the flood plains, and they become permanently flooded, then what? When you're impoverished, you likely don't have the means to move, nor the insurance to cover your losses, nor the deed to the land you're farming. When it's gone, it's gone. You then pack up and go live in a shanty-town on the outskirts of a city. There are numerous examples of this already. It's just going to get worse for the impoverished.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Troed]

3 has not been established, unless you mean temperatures of tenths of degrees which no one cares about. You need water vapor and mythical positive forcings (which, when measured, have turned out to be negative) to get to any temperatures that would cause changes worth talking about.

The good Lord, say what you want about his writings, actually summed up the state of science on that really nicely a week ago:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/commentaries/climate_lies.pdf

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Troed]

How about greater range for malaria and dengue-fever carrying mosquitoes?

Thanks, now we know you don't know much about the subject :) Those mosquitoes can already habitate in "our" areas of the world - and they did so before we eradicated them (and that's why we don't have them any more - NOT due to climate). http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/science/medicine/malaria.htm (and yes, link chosen on purpose).

This is common knowledge, for those who spends a lite time researching their beliefs. Apparently, you don't - the rest of your post is equally ill-informed.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[pwfffff]

FACT: Sodium explodes upon contact with water.
FACT: Chlorine will poison you and cause your lungs to fill with water, giving you a very painful death.
FACT: Combining the two and eating it will KILL YOU DEAD! This is called dicknose's law, again, scientific fact.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[dwiget001]

>

No.

You make the bold statement that man is causing global warming. And then, if it is warm, it is "global warming".

But, after your bold statement, after the next ten years where the temperature decreases, it magically becomes "global climate change".

That way, you can fear-monger "the people" about it, to totally justify even more taxes and abuse of the citizenry at the hands of central governments.

It's all very simple, really.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[spun]

Funny, looking at those same graphs, I don't see what you are talking about. The IPCC graphs go to 2100, and the change shown for 2010 is minuscule, a tenth of a degree.

You do know that climate is chaotic, right? It's like a pot of water. We can predict when it will start to boil, but not when individual bubbles will rise. I don't think anyone has EVER said "The temperature will be hotter every single year."

Your speculations, while interesting, aren't scientific. They are the opinions of an untrained amateur.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

1) hurricanes form in warmer regions of the globe during the hurricane season; global warming lengthens this hurricane season slightly which increases the statistical liklihood of hurricane formation.
2) an increase in global average temperature can cause flooding/drought to be more likely depending on where on the Earth you are and this kills people.
3) Sea level rise of 1.2-2 meters increases the incidence of sea erosion which can destroy homes and infrastructure killing people in the process.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[dangitman]

I've always seen positive debate tactics, when someone lowers themselves to attacking the person they are debating.

I've also seen sentences that make sense.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Chris Burke]

Yeah, that's not how peer review is supposed to work.

Where was your "that's not how peer review is supposed to work" outrage when the reviewers said these papers were not fit for publication, but the journal wanted to publish them anyway?

If scientists were threatening to publish elsewhere if a journal was ignoring peer review by not publishing skeptic's papers, you'd be all for that.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Chris Burke]

By "oppressing", you mean "badmouthing them in -private- emails, and arguing against their papers (which they think are unsound) in public review". Contrast with, say, the Bush administration actively blocking global warming materials from being mentioned in reports and threatening to fire scientists who go public.

Also administration bureaucrats edited the report that did end up getting published to modify and weaken the conclusions. It was direct political manipulation of scientific results.

It's funny that in order to explain why so many climatologists are all supporting something that is so obviously untrue, the deniers say that scientists always come to the conclusions that whoever is funding their research pays them to.

That may be true for the kind of "scientists" who work in the think tanks publishing studies like "Is Oracle really the best database?" funded by Oracle, or "Which has lower TCO, Windows or Linux?" funded by Microsoft. But it's not true for science in general.

And here's a direct counter example. Scientists in the direct employ of an administration who had every political motivation to want a certain result -- and was demonstrably willing to use their authority to get it -- actually arrived at the result their paymasters didn't want!

I'm sure the deniers have a great explanation for that. I'm guessing it's that scientists only obediently do what their told by their masters if their masters are also liberals. :P

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[dietdew7]

I thought that the oceans and atmosphere and land mass formed a complex system with many feed back loops. My bad.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Thanks for the post. It must have taken you quite some time to put together a rebuttal that comprehensive but I haven't heard anyone take the time to sum up the criticism of the AGW skeptics arguments based on the CRU hacks. It was nice to read some actual science on slashdot again complete with enough names and keywords that I could start my Google journey successfully. I hope your boss doesn't mind your spending company time doing this =P

In all seriousness though, this is a great post. Thanks for the effort.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[delt0r]

I think these things bring up a different and perhaps more important perspective. The claim is that the paper that was let through was rubbish. In other words the "peer review" didn't work. So if it didn't work, what does that say about their papers that got through peer review? You can't have it both ways...

Peer review is not great. But its the best we got to filter out dross. And there is a lot of dross. Thousands of papers are published each year, many more were submitted. We can't read them all and we don't want to waste a lot of time on noise. So peer reivew does offter a pretty good first filter... or more to the point i don't have better idea.

But its overrated. It does not mean a paper is good, or that its good science. The last paper i reviewed had incorrect math and i rejected on this basis. It was published anyway....

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

You do know that climate is chaotic, right?

If you're talking about mathematical concept "chaos", then we can shut down climate science, and turn out the lights permanently. The only thing that would remain to be done is observe, strictly after the fact, what has happened. We would have zero use for any theory or model for predicting the weather.

It is proven that if a system exhibits "chaos" (as defined by ...) cannot be predicted, except with FULL knowledge of the initial conditions.

This means that unless we find a way to determine the location of every last photon, every last atom, and every last little magnetic field, down to less than the planck length since the creation of the universe up till now, we can make no better prediction for the weather than "tomorrow's probably going to be the same as today" (meaning that even if we were able to send scientists back in time to measure with the best instruments that can theoretically be conceived, and allow violating of several principles of physics, it still wouldn't be possible to measure the state of the system).

Your example is equally stupid : The chances are good (very good) that water will boil at 100 degrees, but that's as far as theory allows you to go. It is nowhere near certain. I'm more of a mathematician so "certain", to me, means 1. 100%. Not one trillionth less.

You can't predict when water will start to boil (not that water boiling is an actual chaotic system, but hey, we "amateurs" shouldn't nibble on details, should we ?). Put water of 80 degrees in the microwave. Make sure it is very stable, nothing moving (disable any rotation in recent ovens). Add heat using the microwave until the water should be at least 120 degrees celcius. Contrary to what you'd expect all of the water will be liquid. If perfectly stable, you can leave it on full power for half an hour, and it will STILL be liquid.

Given the right equipment it is possible to make water freeze while it's being heated inside a microwave oven. In fact, several power generator designs are based on doing exactly this.

You cannot, in fact, predict when a pot of water will start to boil. It might not boil, it might go "critical". It might go "supercritical". If you add heat to water at 98 degrees celcius, it might freeze. All these are possibilities and indeed illustrate quite well what "chaos" means, even if they are not actually chaotic.

The whole point of chaos, of course, is that the tiniest, minutest detail WILL change the outcome in a massive way. Not might. Not should. It is a certainty. If the climate is indeed chaotic (which is not entirely certain, just very likely), whether you put your shoes to the left or the right of your bed matters more than what factories do 1 year from now (that would be, incidentially, the very definition of chaotic behavior of a system, but I'm sure you know that, right ?).

If you were to have a haystack on a field somewhere in the middle of nowhere, moving a needle inside 1 nanometer will produce radically different climate after a while. That's chaos. If that is true, obviously doing anything to either encourage or discourage global warming is idiotic, as there is no way whatsoever to predict the effect of doing anything.

And btw, the IPCC models are based on differential equations that are solved by numerically approximating them with supercomputers, using incomplete data. If climate is indeed chaotic, this cannot work, this would be a theoretical impossibility. It would be akin to dividing 3 by 2 until it grows larger than 10.

Only a purely theoretical solution to the problem, that does not use actual measured values, has any chance for a successfull prediction in a chaotic system (due to the absolute need for perfect accuracy. Not accuracy down to the last nanometer. Or even the last planck length. Theoretically perfect accuracy, not even infinite accuracy would do). In all likelihood, there is no such formula.

And the IPCC predi

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[delt0r]

If you cannot identify "showstopper" blunders in each paper (they both contain whopper errors), then you have no business participating in this discussion.

This is the arrogance thats causing all the problems. "You are not smart enough to understand, we will tell whats true and not true...." Clergy attitude. You are not the Friken pope, we are not all under your rule. If you can't be bothered expalining or backing up your postion with more than "you are an idoit" then you are the one that should not be in the debate.

If you want everyone to change based on what you claim you better be prepared to answer to everyone.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[delt0r]

Our current croplands are chosen to match current precipitation patterns

Huge amounts of croplands are based on irrigation, not precipitation. We can also adapt and switch crops and/or change irrigation patterns. As for warnings.... Well earth quakes and financial crisis tends to have short warnings (and how many do you think we will get in the next 100 years), but nothing in climate change is expected to happen overnight... fast for this sort of thing is 10 years. Last i checked we can build quite a lot of irrigation in 1 year...

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[spun]

Weather is chaotic. Climate is not so much. Simulating climate is like simulating when water will boil, given a certain heat input and output. Simulating weather is like simulating when a particular bubble will burst on the surface. You do see the difference, right?

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[delt0r]

I put my money on tree hugging hippies that are convinced the solution to all our problems is to live as we did in the stone ages...

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[riverat1]

Huh? "Anthropogenic" is a perfectly good word. It simply means of human origin.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

You found one problem with his comment and declare the whole thing wrong. I'm not impressed.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Troed]

Ok, so here's another one. What are coral islands really? What's the carbon levels in the sea as well as atmosphere over the geological timescales corals have existed?

Yeah, exactly. The corals are going nowhere, and no, the seas aren't going acidic either.
 

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

Nah, I was referring to this.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rockoon]

1) Wrong.

citation


2) More likely here, and Less likely there. Its called Tradeoffs.

3) Yes, the great dangers of less than 1cm per year sea level rise. People just can't deal with such a monstrous rate of change.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Sarius64]

California's farming industry (the largest in the United States) is currently severely impacted due to a lack of water. Not enough snow over the last few years means not enough water for the crops. It's a bad deal.

California's drought is due to infrastructure and the EPA, not the lack of water resources. SoCal's water infrastructure is even further affected by litigation that the farm valleys.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

And if you'd read the link, you'd have seen that I was talking about the same logarithmic dependence of global temperature on CO2 concentration. It's old news... like 50 years old. All modern GCMs account for this behavior, and have for many decades.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rei]

Hmm.. a kids page or the World Health Organization, who to believe, who to believe....

Tip: Colder temperatures don't cause the *elimination* of malaria-carrying mosquito populations, but they do make them *less common*.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Troed]

You should believe observations over hypothesises, if available.

(You're free to source the same information I gave you from other historical records, of course)

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

Except I'm not saying that CO2 is saturated. The only reason I even brought it up was because a lot of people are unaware that each additional unit of CO2 has a cumulatively smaller affect, like apparently that guy was unaware. Sheesh.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rei]

Ok, so here's another one. What are coral islands really? What's the carbon levels in the sea as well as atmosphere over the geological timescales corals have existed?

For God's sake, can't you look up basic facts before you ask stupid questions? The coral that makes up atolls is *young*; it doesn't last because of wave erosion. To pick a random example, Narau's surface corals date from 300,000 to 5,000,000 years old. The last time we had a major ocean acidification event was the PETM, 55.8 million years ago.

The corals are going nowhere

Coral response to pH is extremely well understood, and it's very negative. Warming of water is also extremely dangerous to corals, who live within very narrow temperature bands and are not mobile. Anyone who's ever had a reef tank is well aware of this. You can see this effect in the wild with calcium carbonate-shelled organisms living near volcanic vents.

As for "the corals are going nowhere", how profoundly ignorant of the plight of the world's corals can you be? Over half of the world's reefs have already completely disappeared or are rapidly declining. Most of this so far had been due to pollution and overexploitation, but an increasing percent is due to the warming and increasingly acidic waters, measurements of which routinely exceed what corals can withstand. They're incredibly delicate organisms. The extremely hot 2005 Gulf of Mexico waters that fueled Katrina and Rita, for example, caused such a massive die-off that they put the Elkhorn and Staghorn corals on the endangered species list.

Seriously, read about a topic before you post on it.

and no, the seas aren't going acidic either.

"Anthropogenic ocean acidication over
the twenty-rst century and its impact on calcifying organisms". Ocean pH has decreased by approximately 0.075 since the industrial revolution.

And look, this isn't the first time this has happened. The exact same thing happened 55.8 million years ago. It was devastating. It left the world such a different place that we give it a new era name. We don't want to recreate that.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rei]

This is where I started having a major issue with the global warming movement a long time ago. The SECOND you start picking out sites as unreliable, you are left with data points missing and every other weather station becomes human choice on whether its included in your modeling.

Please skip down several posts. It's not a manual process. It's a fully automated, peer-reviewed process that is validated in numerous ways.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

You can keep remaking a point after it's been discredited, but that will not exactly prove it.

In reality the analogy is close to all you know about the theory. Yet this does not stop you from calling me an "amateur". Great. I am an amateur (though more knowledgeable about it than you).

Your assertion that something can be chaotic in the near term (weather) and predictable in the long term (climate) is obviously bullshit. One of the three bodies might fly away, or even two, making any prediction you think you can make about the three body problem idiotic. In the three body problem any reasonable certainty of prediction stops after 1 period of the system. If you take the same for weather that means that 1 day in advance should be doable. I do not know what the climate's equivalent would be of this but there probably exist discrete events that would change the climate forever and that occur on a specific day.

You also have no response to the failed prediction other than the excuse "they made no such prediction". Tell me, do you think you're convincing anyone ? The error bars are clearly visible in the linked document, and the lower error bound indicates a clearly rising temperature, an event which has not happened. Some numbers are available in the second document on the same site (though thorougly buried : clearly the IPCC is not interested in people testing their predictions, a criticism which has been leveled against them again and again, but they do not seem to like this idea of getting pinned down on their predictions at all. We all know why this is)

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rei]

Sulfuric acid decreases albedo, lowering the radiative equilibrium. On Earth, we know it as "volcanic winter". Plus, there's not actually that much sulfuric acid on Venus.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[spun]

It seems you don't understand my analogy, which is why I keep making it. Let me be clear. Given 100cc of water in a beaker of known size and composition, over a Bunsen burner of known BTU output, can you predict when it will boil? Yes, you can. Can you predict where the very first bubble to break the surface will do so? No, you can't. Climate prediction is not like weather prediction. Weather prediction is like predicting when and where the first bubble will burst. Climate prediction is like saying, 'given this amount of water in this kind of beaker with this amount of heat input, it will take 10 minutes for it to boil.' Even though the actual heat transfer from burner to water is chaotic, the larger system is not.

Quantum mechanics would be another example. The collapse of a wave function is chaotic or nondeterministic. Yet the bulk behavior of materials is NOT chaotic or nondeterministic, even though it is based on behavior that is. The random variations even out on a larger scale, much like the random variations of weather even out on the scale of climate.

The fact that average temperatures for a given year are outside of the prediction for that year does not invalidate the model, as long as the general trends remain within the margins for error. Any scientist will recognize that a single outlier does not invalidate a model.

As for calling you an amateur, are you paid for your work in the field? If not, sorry, but you are an amateur.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Taevin]

You can't prove a negative. I thought you'd be smart enough to know that.

By arguing against scientific consensus, I thought you'd be smart enough to understand simple falsifiability. Actually, I'm not that harsh; the problem is a lack of education in the scientific process and logical thought, that is, you lack knowledge, not necessarily intelligence. However, if you clearly do not understand these things, what business have you arguing subjects in which you have no qualification?

In science, you make observations and then formulate a theory that explains those observations. Someone else could come in and prove that your theory is incorrect or incomplete by showing a counterexample. Let's break down what spun said:

Seeing as how the scientific consensus is that there is a link between CO2 and global warming, YOU are the one who needs to prove there isn't one

He basically said "Seeing as how the scientific consensus is that [A], YOU are the one who needs to prove [NOT A]." Let's substitute in the conjecture "all swans are white" for A. We get "Seeing as how the scientific consensus is that all swans are white, YOU are the one who needs to prove that not all swans are white." Clearly, this is something you can prove by a simple demonstration of one black swan.

More reading: Falsifiability

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Troed]

"Over half of the world's reefs have already completely disappeared or are rapidly declining. Most of this so far had been due to pollution and overexploitation, but an increasing percent is due to the warming and increasingly acidic waters"

{{citation needed}} - and something recent at that.

http://www.uq.edu.au/news/?article=17983

(although you bring in pollution, overexploatation and warm water - which is a cyclic phenomena - and yet try to blame it on global warming)

Regarding ocean "acidification", and don't forget to mention how we could measure it with three significant digits hundreds of years ago, it's neither historically nor recently a problem: http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7545&tid=282&cid=63809&ct=162

The only reason one could have for believing there is a problem is by being blissfully ignorant on geological levels of CO2 in the oceans as well as temperature changes.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[elkto]

Wow, thanks for the heads up on that current scientific revision. For years I had been taught that Venus was blanketed in clouds of Sulphuric acid which also contributed to its greenhouse environment. Now half the WebPages state a nebulous collection of gasses with CO2 concentrations over 90%, others still state the sulphuric acid composition. Take down notices have probably been posted.

I am sure a CO2 answer is forthcoming on the current warming trend on Mars and other planets in the solar system

Truly amazing.

While I must yield to your knowledge at this point at sulphuric acid lowering the radiative equilibrium, the term “scientific” continues to be maligned in the climate (ahem) “discipline”.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rei]

For years I had been taught that Venus was blanketed in clouds of Sulphuric acid which also contributed to its greenhouse environment.

If you wrote that on a 7th grade science test, you'd fail.

There is a small amount of sulfuric acid on Venus which makes up part of its uppermost cloud layers, increasing the albedo (reflectivity) of the planet. Increasing the albedo means *more* reflection, meaning *less* light hits the planet, meaning *cooler* temperatures. Sulfuric acid *is* the prime cause of volcanic winter.

Venus's atmosphere is overwhelmingly CO2. This has been known for ages.

Get an education.

I am sure a CO2 answer is forthcoming on the current warming trend on Mars and other planets in the solar system

No, Mars had a small hemispheric warming trend due to its ice being covered by a planet-wide dust storm, lowering its albedo. The locations and intensity of the warming directly correspond to the albedo changes.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[PerfectionLost]

Remember that you implied some sort of danger, so you cannot possibly be talking about sea level rise: IPCC gives lowball of 19cm and highball of 59cm over 100 years, or between 0.19cm/year and 0.59cm/years. Might happen, but its not a threat to human life. Just walk away, folks.

That's enough to sink most of the Maldives.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[c6gunner]

I think the phrase you're looking for is "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes". That's why conspiracy theories of all sorts tend to live on long after all credible doubt has been erased. They can spit out 100 different "facts" in under 10 minutes, each of which takes at least that long to answer in detail. As long as there are people who do not understand reason and logic, bullshit will continue to be an easier sell than truth.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

Oops. Replace "long-term feedback effects" with "long-term positive feedback effects".

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

Oops. Change "decreasing resolution" to "increasing resolution". What I meant to describe was the situation in which the GCM cells get smaller, but I was thinking about "decreasing" the size of those boxes.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[elkto]

Nice, my 7th grade education was many decades ago. I grew up in a defense park. We were all learning at the time. The space race had not even started yet. Thanks for the info on Mars, but you failed to mention any reasoning for the other planets warming such as Uranus, maybe Neptune’s warming.

You know, I will recant my attitude, somewhat. I really enjoy science as it is supposed to discover the truths found in around us.

The problem I have had of late is the disingenuous and outright lies made in the name of science.

Your statement of consensus of CO2 relating to Global Warming is such example. While CO2 may indeed be a contributing factor, you fail to mention that the factor may be as little as a fraction of a percent. It may be a whole bunch larger. There is no consensus on the impact. If you keep water vapor in the picture, CO2 is finally in the strong single digits of a percentage of a greenhouse gas present in our atmosphere.

Another example someone gave was watts per meter. The Earth showed warming of about 1 watt per square meter. When the author looked over the tundra, he imagined all the little light bulbs placed per square meter. As my wife switched on her 1500 watt hair dryer, I imagined the 1500 square meters lighting up from just the BTU’s displaced! When you stand next to a fire, do you feel warm because of the radiant energy, or the CO2 being created? Point being, the whole picture needs looked at to see if a problem can be solved, what to do to solve it, or even if a problem exists.

We all hate pollution and waste. I want energy efficient cars because I dislike purchasing oil from peoples that care for us even less than we do for them. This should not result in me coming up with all sorts of poor ideas that need to be pushed on people to get them to stop driving their cars. Rather, to keep looking for a real tangle solution to using less oil. Cap and trade is not a solution, it’s a money making parlor game.

In short, the IPCC and Al Gore were busted for pushing a money grubbing agenda. We all smelled it along time ago. Lets stick with tang able facts and truths so that we can advance a better way of life for everyone involved, without sacrificing what right we have already.

I assume you maybe a researcher in the climate field. If so you have the not so enviable task of becoming a credible information source after some serious damage has been done.

Regards

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

Oops again! Replace "shifts the effective radiating layer of the planet to a lower altitude" with "shifts the effective radiating layer of the planet to a higher altitude". Because the temperature in the troposphere is lower at higher altitudes, this shift results in less IR radiation emitted to warm the stratosphere.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Xyrus]

Now we have governments offering billions to people who prove climate change - do you really think any of them are going to provide evidence to their masters that it's not real?

Oh yes billions. Oh all those billions making climate scientists filthy rich.

Except that the total budget last year for climate related studies in the US was $2 billion. The only reason it was so high was because a good chunk of that money is going towards new satellites for monitoring weather AND climate. The rest goes towards grants and the like.

Oh and the fact that $2 billion isn't even pocket change when compared to the national budget. And there are DARPA grants that are bigger than than COMBINED grant money going towards climate research.

There's also the fact that the average pay for a climate scientist is less than the average IT person as well.

You don't get rich being a climate scientist. Come up with a better conspiracy theory, climatroll.

~X~

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Xyrus]

Why is this ignorant tripe modded insightful?

I know. Maybe the CIA can help spin... explain how anthropogenic global warming is causing the worldwide Arctic blasts right now that are causing the coldest winter in decades worldwide, I'm glad the CIA is getting involved to help push the political agenda along.

Well climatroll, first you need to understand the difference between climatology and meteorology. Seems a lot of the mad dog skeptic crowd can't differentiate between these two very well and seem to have tendancy to claim that their backyard thermometer refutes the science. It doesn't.

Then perhaps you could pick up a book on basic meteorology and climatology and...you know...see for yourself. But to explain it simply, We have a strong El Nino going on along with several other anomalies that have have been pushing the arctic air masses out of the arctic. This cold air, amazingly, has to head south. Since we are in winter here in the northern hemisphere, there are no strong subtropical or tropical air masses to counteract these air masses (when there are, you get massive storms such as in sprint in the midwest).

And despite the cold temperatures we are still at a net positive anomaly. In the NORTHERN hemisphere we may end up going net negative, but temps in the southern hemisphere are quite toasty.

Nothing says "increase government power" like a worldwide spy agency.

Nothing says paranoia like "AHHHH! THERE OUT TO GET ME!!!!". If you RTFA, you'll see that this is using data the CIA already has (in the form of images and the like) to get a better idea of what areas are being impacted by climate change. This actually isn't new, since the were doing this before.

Funny how in the summer, it's anthropogenic global warming, but in the winter, it becomes anthropogenic climate change.

I guess you haven't been paying attention. It's been "climate change" for a while, since "global warming" (as you have so eloquently demonstrated) has and continues to be used in a disingenuous way. The average temperature of the planet is warming, but not everywhere is going to get warmer. A number of places will get cooler.

Seriously, as long as the data is honestly looked it at and made public and not "influenced" by any political factors, I'm all for it. Otherwise, I don't like the idea of my tax dollars going to twist the facts in order to push political agenda.

Why do you need politics when you got Glen Beck and Sean Hannity?

And sorry, but everything is political. Where there is money, you will find politics. But more to the point, what are you talking about? What is the nefarious purpose of the global climate science community? Considering even now that climate research money is a mere pittance compared to just about anything else, exactly what is the drive of the evil global cabal? Cleaner air? Less pollution? Less reliance on foreign fossil fuels?

Hell if all they wanted was money they just need to switch careers since a lot of fields pay more.

Along these lines, as another poster mentioned, it is actually in the government's interest for there to NOT be climate change. Do you think Uncle Sam wants to pay billions in public works to minimize climate impacts instead of diverting those funds into the slush-piles of senator's pet projects and pockets?

The flat earth society has more credibility than a climate conspiracy.

~X~

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rei]

Thanks for the info on Mars, but you failed to mention any reasoning for the other planets warming such as Uranus, maybe Neptune's warming.

Because you didn't ask about them. Duh.

The only part of Uranus itself that is warming is its northern hemisphere. Its southern hemisphere is cooling. Why? Because it's becoming freaking spring on Uranus. This is the pathetic quality of denier "research".

Uranus's moon Triton is warming because it's entering its summertime. It's extremely sensitive to albedo variations. Comparing atmosphere-less or low-atmosphere bodies with no oceans to a body with an atmosphere and huge oceanic heat sink is ridiculous, because there's such a huge difference in thermal inertia, so small changes have greater effects on the former.

Neptune is also entering spring, and is experiencing the exact same thing as Uranus -- one hemisphere warming while the other cools.

I can tell by your line of argument that you believe in one of the dumbest denier lines -- the "solar output is increasing!" argument. Right. The sun is changing without us noticing it. The freaking sun, the most intensively studied object outside of Earth. We watch it from all over the surface, from satellites in orbit, from satellites at the Lagrange points -- but it's sneakily warming everything without us noticing! That tricksy sun!

Can you see how ridiculous that argument is?

There's an entire chapter in the IPCC report about solar variation, which cites the current research papers on solar output and its impact on Earth. Dozens of them. Please read them. Need links? If you'll actually read them, I'd be glad to dig them up for you.

Your statement of consensus of CO2 relating to Global Warming is such example. While CO2 may indeed be a contributing factor, you fail to mention that the factor may be as little as a fraction of a percent.

No, it is not. The forcing from CO2 within its confidence interval dwarfs all other forcings within their confidence intervals. The only one that comes close is methane.

If you keep water vapor in the picture, CO2 is finally in the strong single digits of a percentage of a greenhouse gas present in our atmosphere.

Water vapor makes up about 35-70% of the planet's greenhouse effect, depending on the time of year and weather. Water vapor causes both warming and cooling, as clouds increase the planet's albedo. Water vapor, however, is *not* forcing because it has a very short average atmospheric residency (days to weeks), while CO2 has an very long atmospheric residency (hundreds of years). If you took all of the water vapor out of the atmosphere, we'd be back to normal in just a couple months. In short, the average amount of water vapor-induced warming will always be a response to whatever *other* factors are forcing the climate (along with some random fluctuation -- we call that fluctuation "weather").

In the long term (hundreds of thousands of years), you see the exact same thing with CO2. On the order of hundreds of years, CO2 is forcing. But on the scale of hundreds of thousands of years, it averages out as just a response to other factors -- a feedback. For example, Milankovitch cycles drive Earth's glacial and interglacial periods. However, the amount of forcing they provide is significantly less than the temperature variations between glacials and interglacials. The rest is made up of feedbacks. The warm phase of Milankovitch cycles leads to increased emissions of CO2, amplifying their warming trends.

Another example someone gave was watts per meter. The Earth showed warming of about 1 watt per square meter.

Actually, about 2.4W/m^2, but let's go on.

If you want to picture them as little lightbulbs, picture them inside a vacuum-sealed cooler (our planet drifts in a vacuum).

When you stand next to a fire, do you feel warm because of the radiant energy, or the CO2 being created?

Horrible analogy, for several reasons.

1) Most of the e

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

You don't seem to understand the mathematics of chaos (not many people bother to, but I like fractals). If you think you can predict a chaotic system using measured data, even if that measurement were to be infinitely accurate (and climate measurements are seriously imperfect), you should not be talking to me, but to the nobel prize comittee.

As I said, even though predicting when water will boil is nowhere near as simple as you make it out to be (try any substance other than water, predicting when iron melts for example is MUCH easier). As I said water does not necessarily respond as you would expect due to a variety of effects. Water responds strangely in magnetic fields. Water can convert inserted heat energy into electrical current instead of boiling. Water can convert incoming heat into a magnetic field. The list goes on. I've been told that there are viruses that use a water layer around their shell that enables them to survive temperatures of over 2500 degrees, where the water manages to redirect the force of the impacts around the virus molecule (which brings the question of why a virus would evolve the ability to withstand temperatures like that, but that's not the subject here). And the point is that it's *not* even a chaotic process. It's mathematical resemblance to weather patterns is ZERO. I repeat : this process is not chaotic, it bears no resemblance whatsoever to weather or climate patterns.

The collapse of the wave function is neither chaotic nor nondeterministic. It is perfectly predictable.

What is not deterministic (but NOT chaotic either) about the wave function is the VALUE it will assume AFTER collapsing (and to say the least the last word about when and how such collapses take place has not been said. Quantum mechanics is not a physics theory. It is a theory about what we see, unlike relativity theory which is a theory about what is. There can be no question the planets rotate around the sun whether or not someone is watching, but there is the (non-stupid) question of what happens in quantum mechanics when nobody's watching, and it's an unsolved question)

The fact that average temperatures for a given year are outside of the prediction for that year does not invalidate the model, as long as the general trends remain within the margins for error. Any scientist will recognize that a single outlier does not invalidate a model.

Except their predictions now failed for 10 years. Since their predictions only go 100 years, and they're differential equations. They calculate x+1, based on x. Therefore if they miss the first year, they're sure to miss all subsequent years. And unless temperature rises like a son of a bitch, 11. Given that the prediction was made for 100 years and it failed ALL of the first 10 years, and is very nicely on it's way to fail for the 11th, does that also mean nothing ?

Say if the predictions for the Higgs boson were checked by the LHC. They test, they don't find it. They build another particle accelerator, test, don't find it. 10 times they don't find it. The 11th test is underway, and it looks to be VERY unlikely to yield a different result. When exactly do you, in all your amateur wisdom, discard a theory ? (in physics, that would be after 2 failures, just in case the first was a fluke) ?

And what is it now ? Is the climate or weather chaotic, making any prediction about it totally worthless, or is it not chaotic, and do you demand the IPCC why they don't know the exact weather it will be in wisconsin on 23 Jan 2091 ...

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[elkto]

Deniers? Research?

Using your analogies, I guess I am a agnostic. But I confess you look allot like one of those holy rollers you see on TV. They say some interesting things, grab you attention, but can be just annoying.

I am no researcher, but throw some of that money this way, and I feel fairly confident that I would be able to trump many of your arguments.

But here, have some data and math that you probably have seen before. Feel free to go ahead and correct the data and math. Figures posted 2003:

“To finish with the math, by calculating the product of the adjusted CO2 contribution to greenhouse gases (3.618%) and % of CO2 concentration from anthropogenic (man-made) sources (3.225%), we see that only (0.03618 X 0.03225) or
0.117% of the greenhouse effect is due to atmospheric CO2 from human activity. The other greenhouse gases are similarly calculated and are summarized below.

Anthropogenic (man-made) Contribution to the "Greenhouse
Effect," expressed as % of Total (water vapor INCLUDED)
Based on concentrations (ppb) adjusted for heat retention characteristics

%ofGreenhouseEffect %Natural %Man-made
Water vapor 95.000% 94.999% 0.001%
Carbon Dioxide (CO2) 3.618% 3.502% 0.117%
Methane (CH4) 0.360% 0.294% 0.066%
Nitrous Oxide (N2O) 0.950% 0.903% 0.047%
Misc.gases( CFC's, etc.)0.072% 0.025% 0.047%
Total 100.00% 99.72 0.28%



The Kyoto Protocol calls for mandatory carbon dioxide reductions of 30% from developed countries like the U.S. Reducing man-made CO2 emissions this much would have an undetectable effect on climate..."

"Such drastic measures, even if imposed equally on all countries around the world, would reduce total human greenhouse contributions from CO2 by about 0.035%."

"This is much less than the natural variability of Earth's climate system! “

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Rei]

Once again, you're quoting amateurs who don't know what they're talking about. In this case, West Virginia Office of Miner's Safety chief engineer, Monte Hieb. Here's his webpage. Now, you might be asking yourself why you're getting your science data from a mine safety engineer. If not, you probably should!

Here's the huge blunders he makes in his numbers:

1) He only credits a small portion of the CO2 to anthropogenic emissions. Why? He doesn't say it, but one can only assume that it's because natural emissions are higher than anthropogenic emissions. The problem with this argument is that natural emissions of CO2 are nearly perfectly balanced with natural sinks of CO2; that's why CO2 levels have historically fluctuated by such small amounts on the order of thousands of years. We haven't had CO2 levels this high in at least the past 15 million years. Picture a half-full bathtub draining water at a constant rate, with water being added to it at the same rate. The level of the tub remains the same. Now start adding extra water -- even a small amount. The bathtub will steadily fill up. Our emissions are not matched by corresponding sinks.

CO2 levels in the atmosphere are very easily measured. Past levels are very readily measured from air bubbles trapped in ice cores. Here's what you see. That's the addition to the atmosphere that is not balanced out by a corresponding CO2 sink. The atmosphere's C13/C12 ratio changed 1/5th as much in the entire last glacial as it changed in the past 150 years (the C13/C12 ratio shows how much of our atmosphere is made of old, deep carbon rather than fresh surface carbon).

You should also know that Hieb faked this graph. Go compare his graph to the DOE's that he "cites". He adds a "natural" and "manmade" column that exists nowhere on his reference, thus making it sound like the DOE believes what he's trying to imply.

2) He does no calculations to determine his water vapor forcing. None of his references are primary sources, and in fact, one of them states that the elimination of CO2 entirely from our atmosphere would lower heat-trapping efficiency by 12% and elimination of water vapor would lower it by 36%. That said, all of his references for the "95%" number trace back, ultimately, to "Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and a Parameterization for General Circulation Models" (Ramaswamy, 1993). Please pay attention to the title. Solar radiation absorption. That is, incoming radiation, not outgoing. Here's the abstract. You probably don't have access to the full paper, but I do. The very first line is, "A proper representation of the absorption of solar radiation in the atmosphere is important to determine accurately the radiative fluxes and heating rates in weather forecasting and climate models." Got that? Solar, not re-radiated infrared from Earth's surface. The greenhouse effect is based on absorbing as *little* solar radiation as possible and as *much* re-radiated infrared as possible.

Want real references and numbers for the *total* greenhouse contribution? Here you go. For a more layman's version, here. These numbers all come from first principles.

I hate to dump on Hieb so hard for this, but this is what you get when you go to a coal mine safety engineer for science.

3) As has been mentioned to you before, and is something Hieb completely ignores, water vapor is not forcing. It's feedb

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[True Grit]

Insightful? I know there isn't a sarcasm mod, but wouldn't funny do?

Ah, but what do you do when the sarcasm is *both* funny and insightful? Such a dilemma! :)

Well, since funny doesn't add to your karma, but insightful does, when I'm faced with this kind of dilemma, I go with insightful too, as the mods did in your case.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[tjstork]

I only worry about the science. That's what I consider "the point." But if you're not interested in the scientific evidence then we have nothing to talk about. Good day.

Dude, you sound all Aspergers... "I want to talk about the evidence", and like, it doesn't even matter. You've missed the point that the politicians get the science, and they have either looked at the map and decided - "who cares" ("GOP"), or, "let's tax it", ("Democrats").

Basically, New York City is going for a swim, its just, how much federal bucks will be available to build them boats.

And honestly, that DOES jive with the science, surprise, because surely you know that if we went to ZERO emissions today, it would take about 400 years for the earth to balance back out, assuming that the climate did not change over that time for other reasons.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

I think at this point in the discussion it would be useful to discuss what exactly these computer models are. I think you already know all this, but sometimes going over such things can help clear things up.

A computer climate simulation is just a big calculator. A lot of the things they simulate can be calculated by hand, even without a computer. For example, we can calculate how adding CO2 to the atmosphere affects temperature directly with a pencil and paper. We can estimate how a volcanic eruption will affect the temperature fairly easily by itself. We know how the reflectiveness of snow changes temperature compared to the unreflectiveness of dirt. We know all these things because of experimental evidence, although we understand some better than others. The computer comes in handy for the large calculations that are required when they are all put together, because they are all interconnected and all affect each other.

Of course, we get these different pieces of the simulation based on observations from the natural environment, and so the simulation can only be as good as the observations. Thus when a person says their climate model is 90% accurate, what they are really saying is that they have a 90% understanding of the natural environment (at least, so far as it affects the temperature). I am wary of anyone who claims to understand the environment that well.

The good thing is we are getting better observations. We now have satellites that measure radiation coming off the earth in various wavelengths, so we can get a direct measurement of the greenhouse effect as it is happening on earth, for example. We have more thermometers all over the earth. So in the next decade we should gain a much clearer picture of what is going on.

In essence, it is certainly possible that greenhouse gasses could warm the earth as much as 5 degrees, but the observational evidence supporting this scenario is not very strong; it is still a lot of guesswork.

Which leads to my other disagreement with you, which is the scale of the disaster you predict when you say things like this

it's a worry about the future of human civilization.

I mean, come on, is it really? In the worst case, will it be worse than the dustbowl? That sucked, but it in no way threatened the future of human civilization. Is it going to cause California to redistribute its water, so Los Angeles has to start extracting water from the ocean (like Israel does now) so there is more for farmers? Is it going to cause subsistence farmers on the edge of the Sahara into battle because they have no more farmland?

The fact is, farmers have been facing droughts as long as there have been farmers, and they will continue to do so into the future, whether global warming comes or not.

In fact, the human race is guaranteed to have some horrible disasters in its future, as there have been in the past. We've had war, drought, disease, famine, and meteor impacts. In the absolute worst case, global warming will be just one more thing we have to adapt to. If human civilization is not good at adapting, it will cease to exist no matter what happens to the earth's temperature.

A lot of these disaster scenarios are things that could happen. The scientists are rarely saying this will happen, they are saying it is something that could happen. As an example, going back to the drought scenario, it could be that we will have more droughts because of global warming. But the truth is, nobody knows. And I for one, am not going to drastically change my behavior over a scenario that has such a small level of confidence.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

By the way, it is amazing to me how active this thread has been. People were still modding it days after it left the front page.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

I thought they quantified uncertainty in a very nuanced, open manner.

The scale of the damages is, as you say, still up for debate. It may well be comparable to a global dustbowl, which by itself would be worse than the 1930s version that was specific to north America. But it could also be worse if we've underestimated the positive feedback effects at the timescale from now until 2100 in the same way we're underestimating the longer-period positive feedback effects of the Milankovitch glaciation cycles.

And you're right, the human race is good at adapting. I think the evidence available is sufficient that we need to start adapting by spurring a new industrial revolution (probably nuclear-based) to help wean ourselves from a (limited) fuel that props up oppressive foreign regimes.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

new industrial revolution (probably nuclear-based) to help wean ourselves from a (limited) fuel that props up oppressive foreign regimes.

Getting off oil to stop supporting oppressive foreign regimes is an idea I can support 100%.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientists vote with their feet (or in this case, journal submissions). If a journal acquires a reputation for publishing shoddy papers that shouldn't ever have made it through the review process, then scientists aren't going to submit their papers to it anymore. There's no merit in further contributing to a journal with shoddy editorial and/or review practices. And yes, this is how the scientific publication process is supposed to work. Quality journals acquire their reputations by publishing quality papers.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[khayman80]

it's a worry about the future of human civilization.

I mean, come on, is it really?

Just to clarify, I'm saying we have a choice between making the shift to a carbon neutral civilization now or waiting until the last possible moment. The more we continue to stagnate, the less prosperous our future will be. Extinction of the human race is unlikely, but our civilization may be unrecognizable after some of the worst case scenarios.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

I think you are right, in the worst case scenarios our civilization could become unrecognizable, but I am not sure there is any kind of evidence other than conjectural that those scenarios will actually happen. They certainly could happen, but that isn't enough to act on it. In order to spur (rational) action, two things have to be true: it has to have a reasonably high probability of happening, and the effect has to be worse than the cure. From an economic perspective, if you want to measure it in dollars, you can say will the cost of fixing it now be less than the cost of investing that money instead in economic development, and adapting to it later?

For example, a lot developing countries have actually been developing rapidly over the last two decades. It is reasonable to assume they will continue growing rapidly. It may be better to let them spend their effort on continued growth, then when the crisis comes they will be developed nations, and will be able to deal with any problems that may arise. So you really have to do a cost/benefit analysis of the situation.

Re:Climate change is a security threat

[phantomfive]

In any case, I'm sure we'll meet again in some other story. Hopefully this conversation gave you some new ways of looking at things (certainly in my case, this type of conversation helps me clarify my views), and when we do meet again we will both see the situation that much more clearly.

Best wishes.

I don't know about this,

[Icegryphon]

I don't know but those sea lions might be planning a jihad attack.

I don't know, sea lions can be trouble

[magsol]

"...Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, said the agency should be fighting terrorists, 'not spying on sea lions.'"

I sincerely doubt the CIA is going to put terrorism intelligence-gathering on the back burner in order to free up resources for this initiative. I also wouldn't be surprised if this Senator was one of the many who called for heads of the CRU scientists; and now he's quashing an attempt to make this research more transparent (not that there was really anything over which to call for the heads of the CRU scientists, unless you were part of a conspiracy circle).

Re:I don't know, sea lions can be trouble

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he's just scared that the CIA will get indisputable photographic and video evidence of Republicans molesting and outright raping those poor sea lions.

Re:I don't know, sea lions can be trouble

[mobby_6kl]

>I sincerely doubt the CIA is going to put terrorism intelligence-gathering on the back burner in order to free up resources for this initiative.

No, of course not. They'll just have some of the more prominent heret^Wunbelie^Wdeniers assassinated, set up a nuclear reactor in the arctic to melt a few glaciers, and then shoot down the weather satellites and replace them with their own birds. Once this is done, they'll go back to their usual routine of getting blown up by double agents, setting up death squads, and overthrowing unfriendly governments.

Re:I don't know, sea lions can be trouble

[BobMcD]

"...Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, said the agency should be fighting terrorists, 'not spying on sea lions.'"

I sincerely doubt the CIA is going to put terrorism intelligence-gathering on the back burner in order to free up resources for this initiative

I'm all for transparent oversight. Clearly we agree that if the CIA were to free up resources in this way it would be a bad thing, and since we jointly pay the bills, I assume we'd agree that someone could look in from time to time and make sure that this didn't happen.

I also wouldn't be surprised if this Senator was one of the many who called for heads of the CRU scientists; and now he's quashing an attempt to make this research more transparent (not that there was really anything over which to call for the heads of the CRU scientists, unless you were part of a conspiracy circle).

How is this quashing? And since when is anything the CIA does 'more transparent'. I missed that, I think.

And I can think of a myriad of reasons to 'call for the heads', so long as that means 'replace these people with actual scientists'. Honestly, who would be against that kind of a move at this point? We don't exactly need to worship these men and women. There are many others who can and will do this work, and hopefully they will do it in such a way that is open to, and can withstand, scrutiny. Because that's what we're going to need if indeed real changes are necessary.

Re:I don't know, sea lions can be trouble

[Anonymous Coward]

Once this is done, they'll go back to their usual routine of getting blown up by double agents, setting up death squads, and overthrowing unfriendly governments.
 
Uhm, you do know felix leiter was a fictional character, right?

Re:I don't know, sea lions can be trouble

[michaelhood]

I sincerely doubt the CIA is going to put terrorism intelligence-gathering on the back burner in order to free up resources for this initiative.).

Since the 'spy' satellites are of course not in a geosynchronous orbit, they are often left unused for huge portions of their orbits as they move across uninteresting* parts of the surface.

*to the intelligence community

Re:I don't know, sea lions can be trouble

[shadowbearer]

You forgot the giant mirrors the AGW supporters have already built and launched, hiding stealthed in high orbit, that are really the reason the glaciers are melting and temperatures are rising. The Illuminati started this all from Germany after WWII from a hidden rocket base secretly funded by the Soviet Union and US in an attempt to take over the whole world's economics by forcing everyone to pay for carbon credits fifty years later.

  Oh, and the sea lions? They are really genetically morphed secret agents busily altering ocean temperatures using giant spa pumps and killing off coral reefs and other ocean flora/fauna using cyanide.

  All millions of scientists worldwide who think that GW/AGW is a real problem are all SECRETLY FUNDED BY THE ILLUMINATI.

  I expect a knock at the door any second now... c'ya.

SB

Some people...

[nametaken]

...just don't know when to shut their mouths. I'm pretty sure when the CIA needs their satellites they'll use their satellites. In the meantime, lets maximize our investment and use these things in their downtime for something useful.

Re:Some people...

[magsol]

I would almost think this would be the perfect opportunity for all those whining senators and representatives over the CRU not-debacle to institute some governmental oversight.

Re:Some people...

[magsol]

Ok seriously, I'm tired of being modded troll when I actually had what I thought was a valid point. It would seem to me that the men and women of Congress would be jumping all over the opportunity to implement some governmental oversight on a hot-button political topic.

"Shouldn't be spying on sea lions"

[Arancaytar]

What, so now freaking sea lions have more privacy rights than we do?

Re:"Shouldn't be spying on sea lions"

[Bragador]

I wanted to mod you insightful instead of your current "Funny" status that you currently have.

Instead of having these guys spread the fear of terrorism and spy on us, they actually get to help science.

I can't believe people are angry over this.

Re:"Shouldn't be spying on sea lions"

[electricprof]

Actually, the major ISP's have been reading the sea lions' email for years. The penguins on the other hand ...

Re:"Shouldn't be spying on sea lions"

[michaelhood]

What, so now freaking sea lions have more privacy rights than we do?

CIA is not allowed to operate their imaging stuff over the US.

Of course if the NSA already is sniffing your traffic, that probably isn't relevant. :)

Re:"Shouldn't be spying on sea lions"

[PPH]

Not just privacy. You try to chow down on endangered salmon the way they do with impunity and see how fast the game department Tasers your ass.

Re:"Shouldn't be spying on sea lions"

[Arancaytar]

I'm actually in Europe, so the CIA would have no problem there. ;)

Re:"Shouldn't be spying on sea lions"

[Arancaytar]

(PS: Except for the EU flipping their shit. But from the whole secret prison stuff, it's clear that doesn't make a difference.)

Straw Man

[P0ltergeist333]

An unreasonable assertion with a lack of any pertinent information. Seems to me the Wyoming Republican expects you all to fall for his straw-man argument.

The real reason for this

[Anonymous Coward]

The CIA is not going to let the arctic or antarctic go commie.

imaging issues

[girlintraining]

I can only assume -- or hope, that the data has been sanitized before release so that the image quality has been significantly degraded to not reveal the full capabilities of said satellites. The capabilities of those satellites are a closely-guarded national secret, and for good reason.

Re:imaging issues

[Nyeerrmm]

The CIA is always protective of their secrecy, and they're being cooperative, so will obviously degrade the image quality, since you don't even need commercially available quality (0.5 meter) to measure ice flows. Plus exporting anything higher resolution (finer resolution technically) than that out of the country is illegal anyway.

I would assume also that any images that show a feature that might indicate *when* the image was taken, such as an identifiable ship, would be held back as well. These guys don't tend to be too lax about these things -- I'm a little surprised they're going along with this at all, even though these precautions can eliminate the security threat.

Re:imaging issues

[ksheff]

It would be trivial to run the image data through a program that would average an NxN block of pixels to reduce it to the resolution available from commercial/public sector sources. But what's the point? The satellites that are a part of NASA's Earth Observing System were built for the purpose of monitoring the planet. Not to mention that the light wavelengths that are sufficient for collecting intelligence data may or may not be that useful for generating land cover/sea surface classification maps. Also, why take up valuable satellite and computer resources to track ice floes? If there is free time on those platforms, it is a failure of CIA management to properly schedule them for tasks that are a part of that agency's objectives. There are civilian agencies that are supposed to be doing that stuff. To me, this sounds more like a "feel-good" PR stunt than anything else.

Re:imaging issues

[Neo Quietus]

"Also, why take up valuable satellite and computer resources to track ice floes? If there is free time on those platforms, it is a failure of CIA management to properly schedule them for tasks that are a part of that agency's objectives."

I suspect that most spy satellites are in polar orbits, so that they cover the entire Earth's surface once every 24 hours, as the Earth rotates underneath them. Assuming this is the case, then most of the time the satellites will not be over an area that is of interest to the intelligence community, so scheduling scientific photographs during that period (assuming they happen to be over an area of scientific interest) makes use of a satellite that would otherwise be doing absolutely nothing.

As for taking up valuable computer resources, I don't think that is really a problem. The communication antennas cost the same if they are being used or if they are not being used, so the only real costs to taking these images are the electricity used to power the receivers and the ground-side servers that store the images, and the cost of any personnel-hours required to declassify an image. Frankly, they might have the entire declassification process automated: if the picture is not of a predefined sensitive location, lower its resolution and send it off to the scientists.

Re:imaging issues

[budgenator]

I'm not surprised, these guys are so up to the necks in secrecy day in and day out, they almost get an all day woody when they can share interesting things with the people who pay there salaries.

Re:imaging issues

[gtall]

Here's a hint, the satellites are not in geo-synchronous orbit. They go around a planet which is mainly water and sometimes over land which has no bin Ladens doing unspeakable things with their turbans. So...err...why not put their spare time and compute resources to good use.

Re:imaging issues

[ksheff]

I used to work at a site that archived this sort of data, so I know what types of orbits these things are flying. There already are civilian satellites that are collecting data with sensor packages that are better tailored for environmental monitoring. The computer resources used to declassify & process these images so they would be useful for these scientists is a waste of the agency's time & money when NASA & NOAA are doing the same damn thing.

But, we have reason to suspect...

[Anonymous Coward]

that the sea lions are in possession of WMDs. If we let the ice melt these terrorists win.

Classic Misdirection

[Monkeedude1212]

Of course they would admit they aren't spying on sea lions. They are in fact spying on Penguins! I saw the Documentaries titled "Madagascar" and I know for a fact that Penguins are very elusive and deceptive creatures. We need to keep an eye on them at all costs, lest we fall into their trap for world domination.

I'm glad they are keeping it undercover as a climate operation. The less we really know, the less the penguins know.

Re:Classic Misdirection

[R3d M3rcury]

I saw the Documentaries titled "Madagascar" and I know for a fact that Penguins are very elusive and deceptive creatures. We need to keep an eye on them at all costs, lest we fall into their trap for world domination.

We've actually started crowd-sourcing that operation to Nickelodean. It's a clever Government/Private Industry initiative.

Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

... should add "Em" to the beginning of his last name. Either he's genuinely too stupid to understand how climate change is a national security issue, or he's grandstanding. I'm having a hard time deciding which. ("Both" is also a possible answer, of course.) I'm sure he was one of those who, during the Bush administration, thought anything the CIA did was just fine and dandy, since "Thou shalt not question the Executive Branch in Time of War(r)(tm)" was pretty much the Republican Eleventh Commandment until January 2009. How quickly things change.

Cue the conspiracy theory nut-jobs...

[Jawn98685]

...in three, two, one..
"Oh my god! The CIA is in cahoots with Al Gore to advance their socialist, commie, enviro-facist agenda!"

Re:Cue the conspiracy theory nut-jobs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you at least agree that if Global Warming is a myth, we should still be searching for alternate energy sources besides Oil & Gas, and that improving recycling would be beneficial to society?

Re:Cue the conspiracy theory nut-jobs...

[wizardforce]

This is one of the few things Neocons and environmentalists are in general agreement; alternative energy is the way to go. Just for completely different reasons and by completely different methods.

Re:Cue the conspiracy theory nut-jobs...

[Jawn98685]

Bite me, asshole.

Now that we've gotten your qualifications as a debater out of the way...

You imbeciles who support the myth of global warming want to make it seem like those of us who don't are somehow "weird" but it is YOU who are the stranger in a strange land, it is YOU who has the problem, not US. The vast majority of people, when you show them the email evidence, come to the entirely rational and reasonable conclusion that global warming is a scam.

"email evidence"..., That's rich.
So when your cousin sends you stuff that he clipped from World Net Daily, that's "evidence". Man... That's just... sad. So sad, in fact, that it hardly seems sporting to challenge you to actually support your regurgitated assertion that, ...Gore and groups like Greenpeace and the World Wildlife FUND are positioned to make billions or even trillions of dollars off this scam..." But what the heck. It's a new year so, yeah, Cletus, [citation needed]. That's one of them big words that means "Y'all got any actual facts or is you just reading what your yer cousin sent you in them emails?" Please prove to us that there is somebody lining up to pay off Al Gore and Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund for sharing what they have learned by actually studying the matter. Go ahead. We'll wait.

Re:Cue the conspiracy theory nut-jobs...

[leereyno]

That would be true if Al Gore was president.

The CIA dances to the tune the president plays, and since Obama is even more to the left than Gore is.....

Re:Cue the conspiracy theory nut-jobs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Valentine Michael Smith was the main truth-sayer in that story. His truth was so potent that it allowed his followers to change alter the world simply by perceiving it.

Are you sure that's the reference you intended to make?

Re:Cue the conspiracy theory nut-jobs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Serious question: why wouldn't they?

Your daily concept:
statism
Wikipedia link

Re:Cue the conspiracy theory nut-jobs...

[zippthorne]

If AGW is a myth, then the market will relax towards alternate energy sources as we run out of Oil & Coal. In fact, we already have plenty of tenable alternatives that are currently mired in *political* machinations. It will be easy to clear the red tape for integral fast reactors, wind farms, algae farms, geothermal wells, damming up the few remaining dammable resources, etc. when the time comes that those things are unavoidable.

Oil and Coal use is perfectly fine if there aren't any environmental downsides to them, so there is absolutely no need to push for seeking replacements that aren't going to be implemented until they naturally would be anyway.

Recycling is another canard. At the moment, ores are concentrated enough that it doesn't actually make sense to recycle many materials: the value of the materials on the recycled market is *less* than the cost of the recycling process (and that's not even counting the man-hours spent sorting). It really just makes sense at the moment to just take all that stuff and dump it in a pile somewhere to wait until the pile itself has the highest concentration of the minerals in question, then mine the pile.

The first big clue that recycling is not beneficial is that you have to pay extra for the privilege. If it really saved energy, then at the very least, it wouldn't cost extra, and possibly the waste management companies would be offering small bounties for your recyclables. And.. oh look.. for the materials that actually make sense to recycle, there *are* bounties.

So yeah, I definitely agree that improving recycling would be beneficial. As long as we improve it so much that it's no longer "not beneficial."

Re:Cue the conspiracy theory nut-jobs...

[dontmakemethink]

Gotta admit the timing is very odd. Just as the credibility of the scientists reaches an all-time low, they bring in the spooks. They couldn't incite the conspiracists any better.

Seriously, this will probably convince a lot of nut-jobs that the complete wackos are onto something. Anyone care for some more Oklahoma City with their Waco?

Re:Cue the conspiracy theory nut-jobs...

[ShakaUVM]

>>Oil and Coal use is perfectly fine if there aren't any environmental downsides to them, so there is absolutely no need to push for seeking replacements that aren't going to be implemented until they naturally would be anyway.

Besides, you know, the whole "middle east" dynamic going on?

Nuclear is a perfectly acceptable alternative to coal, but "it's scary" so we don't build nuclear plants any more. AGW issues aside, coal kills thousands of people every year. (And dumps lots of radiation into the atmosphere, but people never talk about that either.)

>>Recycling is another canard.

Agreed. What actually bothers me is that even with things like CRV in place, city governments can't run recycling programs without incurring a loss. In my town here, they've enrolled all apartment complexes in a "voluntary" recycling program (that they can't opt out of), put in recycling bins, and then charge them hundreds of dollars each month for the privilege of being in the program.

This is a town that has a serious problem with people going through trash looking for recycleables, in organized teams. Which means that obviously these people are turning a profit at it. So they outlawed these people. It boggles the mind.

Re:Cue the conspiracy theory nut-jobs...

[chord.wav]

BS, this is a distraction operation from the stuff that really matters: US economy, never-ending war in the middle east with more and more reinforcements, bailouts, etc. So newspapers today will copy this story instead of the important ones. Front page's real state has a limit, so they flood the system with tons of sensationalism and crappy news, that ironically will sell better. That's why the newspapers pick them instead of the important ones.

Industrial behavior has climatic effects, so...

[soup_laser]

tracking climatic effects should show industrial behavior. Tracking industrial behavior of foreign countries sounds like the business of the CIA to me.

Re:Industrial behavior has climatic effects, so...

[thered2001]

I agree. Climate change, in general, has many socio-political effects...right up the CIA's alley. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but at one time they employed more economists than field agents.

The CIA Should Be Involved

[CodeBuster]

In some sense the climate change issue involves intelligence and security concerns because the purported effects of climate change could become the impetus for future wars, terrorism, and social instability. Should the CIA pour significant resources into this? Perhaps not, but some minimal level of observation and planning is probably a wise investment of agency resources against future potential problems. Nobody, least of all the CIA, likes to be caught flat footed when a crisis suddenly hits; especially if the crisis could have been managed with better early intelligence analysis, response planning, and warnings.

Re:The CIA Should Be Involved

[jpmorgan]

What? No it shouldn't. What does the CIA have to offer climatology?

The articles talk about satellite data, but satellite data is collected by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), not the CIA.

Re:The CIA Should Be Involved

[pavon]

The NRO has no authority to hand over pictures that it took on behalf of the CIA.

If we don't spy on sea lions . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

. . . how will we know if they have armed themselves with frickin' lasers?

Intelligence has it that sharks are selling them.

Re:If we don't spy on sea lions . . .

[R3d M3rcury]

No, no, no! You're falling into a trap. The sharks provided the documentation that the sea lions were getting frickin' lasers so we'd go take them out and then the sharks would end up with all the fish!

Don't believe the shark propaganda!

Re:If we don't spy on sea lions . . .

[2PAIRofACES]

The sharks provided the documentation that the sea lions were getting frickin' lasers so we'd go take them out and then the sharks would end up with all the fish!

That's just what the zionist Dolphins with their Whale slaves want you to believe.

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[MichaelSmith]

The biggest mistake we make about climate change is to think of it as a short term issue. Its not. You can't look at the climate over a year or a decade and make statements about global climate change.

So yeah it is a security issue, but on the scale of the next 50 or 100 years. I don't think it is appropriate for the CIA to work on issues over that time scale.

Having said that, the CIA apparently has remote sensing assets which can contribute to the long term picture of global climate. Using data from those assets in other domains is appropriate.

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[BobMcD]

Either he's genuinely too stupid to understand how climate change is a national security issue, or he's grandstanding.

Color me stupid, if you like, while I color you wrong.

Climate change is not in any way a national security issue unless all issues are national security issues, at which point the term has basically zero meaning.

Important to note

[Anonymous Coward]

That they aren't going to take a single new additional picture. This just allows the scientists to look at pictures after they have already been taken. This is getting an additional bang for our buck. We have already paid for these pictures, getting another use from them is a great thing.

Re:Important to note

[Anonymous Coward]

Each picture is scheduled and processed for a specific purpose. They don't take images of ice flows for intelligence gathering. And if they take a picture of something it means they're not taking a picture of something else. I recall reading somewhere that they once imaged New York, then swung around and imaged Los Angeles a few seconds later. So it's not like there's nothing they could be doing as it passes over one of the poles.

But the main reason to not do this is to hide what our collection capabilities really are. Clinton, and now Obama, don't seem too concerned about that though.

Re:Important to note

[Reziac]

But what about when it becomes an all too likely:

Oh, don't worry, we're only taking pictures of your back yard to measure the snow levels..

or (perhaps facetious but the idea did occur to me):

Hey! give us those pictures you promised us -- I don't care if we're scientists working for your nation's enemies!

not free

[ncohafmuta]

Even though the program is "basically free" in terms of CIA involvement

nothing's free. man hours aren't free. somebody has to task those satellites. this isn't SkyNet.

Re:not free

[Trepidity]

As far as I can tell, they're just going to share with scientists imagery that they're already taking, not offer to take photos on request.

Re:not free

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it seems some things in the world are in fact free.

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[Rei]

There's also the issue that things just keep speeding up over time. For example, the Copenhagen's (failed) *goal* was to limit average global temperature rise to "only" 2 degrees celsius. Well, that'd mean "only" about 1 meter of sea level rise over the next hundred years. But the equilibrium sea level rise for a 2C temperature rise, historically, is 6-9 meters. It takes several hundred years for the planet to reach its sea level equilibrium, but we're talking about (among countless other things) 1/4 of the land mass of Florida going underwater. 1m is mostly just the everglades.

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Countries worldwide are lining up to fight water wars; some current civil wars, such as Darfur, can be traced directly to scarcity of water. Canada is making territorial claims to the Northwest Passage which a number of other countries dispute -- nobody cared before the ice started melting, but now it's a different story. This is the reality right now, not in 50 or 100 years; how is keeping track of it not part of the CIA's job?

One Phrase

[The Wild Norseman]

One phrase comes to mind and that is "plausible deniability."

CIA Dude: Hey, we're not intentionally spying on your country from our satellites. We're tracking migratory patterns of pigeons and their nests in and around your capitol buildings. Completely innocent, I assure you.

Re:One Phrase

[phantomfive]

Except no one denies that we actually are spying on them from our satellites.

Re:One Phrase

[The Wild Norseman]

There are always cases wherein deniablility is essential and used. But, I will concede your point.

Re:Building the Trust

[riverat1]

The only scandal in "ClimateGate" is that people think it affect the scientific conclusions about anthropogenic climate change.

While we're at it ...

[abbynormal brain]

... why not set up public kiosks where we can swipe our credit cards and get to use CIA satellites for limited times (kind of like the pay-per-use telescopes at famous tourist spots)?

What would you look at with your 2 mins?

Playing soon near you

[thrillseeker]

"The CIA ... on Ice"

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[metlin]

So yeah it is a security issue, but on the scale of the next 50 or 100 years. I don't think it is appropriate for the CIA to work on issues over that time scale.

Why, of course. Long term thinking? Who needs that? I mean, it's not like long term thinking like agriculture helped anyone, right?

And who needs enough data to look for patterns and all that good stuff? That involves brain cells. I forget that we're in a country where we think with our guts.

Re:Building the Trust

[dangitman]

"ClimateGate"? Seriously?

Re:Climate change is a security threat,jordanshoes

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Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[R3d M3rcury]

[...] but we're talking about (among countless other things) 1/4 of the land mass of Florida going underwater.

You say that like it's a bad thing...

Comedians needed

[Anonymous Coward]

The C.I fucking A. ?

Bullshit

[omb]

Did you read the DRAFT paper you cited. It is amost all statistical handwaving, and profers nothing to the even the existance of "Climate sensitivity", which an input parameter of a Computer Model, not a fact of life.

Taking the existance of such a parameter is to assume the whole AGW thesis, hook, line and sinker. To attempt to estimate its value is like trying to guess the body-temperature of a Jaberwocky. What the paper is is a fairly naive demonstration that AGW Scaremongers estimate is untenable.

On the other hand the IceCore data strongly suggests that CO2 level lag, not lead temperature. Further the fall of 0.8dC over the last 8 years, which cause such anguish to Jones and Mann strongly suggests the whole thing is flawed.

Now it has taken us 9 months to find out the the H5N1 flu scare was vastly overblown, but I see no resignations at CDC or WHO, about 14 months for us to understand that the Financial crisis was caused by Bankers Behaving Badly, and inadaquate Regulatory Agencies and fraudulent Credit Rating Agencies and nothing hase been done about Naked Shorts, Mark-2-Market and Flawed Debt Consolidation and no one from SECC or Moody is in the dock.

It is time to WAIT 10 years, and gather all the raw climate data we can, insure it is properly processed and ignore the shrill cries of the media and bought Snake-oil salesmen.

Finally, Follow the Money and the concept of Wold Government so more corrupt third world tin-pot dictators can bilk us.

Re:Bullshit

[khayman80]

Did you read the DRAFT paper you cited.

That's because it's the publically accessible version. Here's the version you want if you're on campus. Citation: Annan, J. D., and J. C. Hargreaves (2006), Using multiple observationally-based constraints to estimate climate sensitivity, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L06704, doi:10.1029/2005GL025259.

I've already discussed the lag between temperature and CO2. Aside from your conspiracy theories, the only other thing you say is that model parameterizations in general can't be used to learn about the universe. What a weird attitude coming from someone who's using technology created with the help of computer models!

Re:Bullshit

[omb]

NO, I just know the difference between theories, models and data. I understand the impact of Chaos theory on this kind of extrapolation.

I nkow the difference between modeling and simulation.

You seemingly do not.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand the IceCore data strongly suggests that CO2 level lag, not lead temperature.

Did you actually read any papers that show this? All the papers that I have read that claim this refer to a paper that has an incorrect statistical analysis. CO2 levels lags when the atmosphere in cooling, because the CO2 is returned to the deep ocean in a slow process, timescale on the order of 1000-10000 yrs. CO2 increases first during warming when the atmosphere warmed, time scale on the order of 10-100yrs. Note the difference in timescales. What this means is the atmosphere warms fast, and cools slow. A bad analysis appears to show that CO2 lags temp because most of the time the atmosphere is cooling slowly.

Education

[omb]

All you are demonstrating is that YOU do not understand the Scientific Method.

A bunch or Peer-Reviewed papers and consensus proves absolutely nothing except that science has become hopelessly politicised in the US and UK.

As the ClimateGate e-mails, which are undisputed by their authors, including Jones and Mann show clearly that the Peer Review and Grant Approval processes were corruptly fixed which I hope leads to loss of Tenure and dismissal for all senior staff involved

Re:Education

[NeutronCowboy]

Please explain how everyone of the thousands of papers published in peer-review journals failed the Scientific Method. Please. I'm not sure if you'll be done within the next 100 years or so, but I'll be happy to wait.

Re:Education

[locallyunscene]

WTH? The emails say nothing about grant approval.

And your critique of Peer Review is misguided. Some scientists are biased, that's nothing new and there have been long standing feud between different camps which theories fit the given data sets/experimental evidence best. The best way to counteract this is to have lots of different scientists peer review papers, which is what happens now.

Re:Education

[cbeaudry]

Point to them.

All... thousands of them.

We keep hearing of these thousands of peer reviewed papers in thousands of journals, but all we get is people pointing to the same half dozen papers written by 1 or 2 pseudo scientists and those papers use data and results from about another half dozen scattered supposed scientific models, experiments and theories, to build their own theories.

But all it is, is a half dozen self serving papers with an answer looking for a theory.

So I ask you again.

Please point us to those thousands of journals and papers, because, saying they exist, does not make it reality.

Re:Education

[Rockoon]

WTH? The emails say nothing about grant approval.

Yes they do, specifically manipulations to get grants from Russia.

The best way to counteract this is to have lots of different scientists peer review papers, which is what happens now.

What has been happening is that Mann, Jones and the rest conspired to boycott journals that do not use peer reviewers that they liked.

Let me say that one more time for you. They conspired to boycott journals that did not use peer reviewers that they liked.

Most journals simply allow the author to recommend a reviewer. Guess who they recommend? Each other. Thats right. Each other. All the while, none of them are experts in the field that they are practicing (which is Statistics.)

Re:Education

[NeutronCowboy]

I'll make it easy for you. I'll point you to one technical paper: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_technical_papers_climate_change_and_water.htm
Go read it. Now go read every single paper that it references. Then go read the references that are referenced in the references. I think you'll be up to about a hundred by then. If that's not enough, feel free to read every paper published by the authors of that paper.

And that's just what you get by starting with a single technical paper.

Simple, isn't it? I'll be here waiting.

Re:Education

[shutdown -p now]

A bunch or Peer-Reviewed papers and consensus proves absolutely nothing except that science has become hopelessly politicised in the US and UK.

You need to put a comma after UK, and then list all other developed and developing countries there, to be correct. Because not a single one has a climate science community in which the majority rejects AGW.

Re:Education

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll continue to look closer at those references, however from a quick glance (a couple of hours review) I can tell you 1 thing:

- The majority of those papers are all on the impact of global warming aka climate change to a local or regional resource.

They all ASSUM climate change science is sound.

I thought we where talking about proving climate change here, not pointing to 1000 papers about its impact if the numbers ARE good.

Lets prove the actual numbers first.

I'll continue to look closely at these references, however, they do not seem to prove your point.

Re:Education

[delt0r]

How the hell can do do the "scientific method" on a planets climate! Models are not facts and they are not experiments. We don't have an extra planet to use as a control last time i checked, and we haven't waited a few dozen years to see how well the models actually predict anything.

Don't get me wrong. Its the best we can do, and its valid science... But the "scientific" method is not applicable directly here as in many other scientific fields. But dam don't quote model predictions as facts, they are not. And don't oversell confidence, it will only do even more damage. And for gods sake I am not allowed to publish "predictions/claims/etc" without the data i used to arrive at these claims, why should this be any different.

Re:Education

[NeutronCowboy]

Very true. At this point, most climate scientists have moved on. For a start on the numbers behind climate change, you can start with any of the technical papers of the first IPCC, and go through the same process.

Re:Education

[Rei]

How the hell can do do the "scientific method" on a planets climate!

Perhaps you should, you know, actually read the papers?

Models are not facts and they are not experiments.

Science doesn't deal in absolutes. But models absolutely are experiments. For example, you apply a climate model to data from the 1950s and see how well it forecasts what happens after that. And our earliest models are decades old now. If you want to see peer-reviewed analysis of earlier literature and how closely it matched its predictions, many of those have been published, too.

Contrary to popular belief, models are just a tiny fraction of climate science. And also contrary to popular belief, they largely trace back to first principles -- only a few things that are unusually hard to model, such as cloud formation, are based on statistical models. Models aren't used to see whether global warming will happen. They're used to get a good handle on what form it will take, how it will be distributed, what sort of effects it will carry with it on different regions (precipitation changes, etc), and so forth.

Papers on the major climate models probably number several dozen, perhaps a bit over a hundred if you count with a very broad brush. Out of the thousands of papers on climate science.

And for gods sake I am not allowed to publish "predictions/claims/etc" without the data i used to arrive at these claims, why should this be any different.

The overwhelming amount of data used in climate science *is* public. Name the sort of data you want and odds are I'll be able to give you a link to it. There is, however, a small amount that isn't, and any request that includes this data (even among other, public data) will be denied. This primarily comes from various national meteorological agencies who consider their data proprietary. That sucks, but it's anything but the scientists' faults that it's proprietary.

Now, some scientists such as Jones have used that to deliberately try to deny as many of the requests of these amateur deniers as possible -- but you need to understand where he was coming from. Jones used to respond to each and every FOI request (which the amatuer deniers have been making increasingly common, leading to a perception among many scientists that they're just trying to waste their time and money in responding to them). One of the requests he filled was to a day trader who fancied himself an amatuer "climate scientist". He found "error" in Jones' partner's work, and literally tried to get the FBI to arrest him. A university investigation cleared his partner of any and all wrongdoing, but after that, Jones tried to deny every amateur-denier FOI request he got, for any reason he could. And honestly, I can't blame him.

Re:Education

[delt0r]

I publish and I have read the papers (My physics department had a climate group). Simulations are not and never will be the same as an experiment. They cannot do anything outside of the assumptions and parameters you put in, where an experiment is not so constrained. I should know, the bulk of my papers are simulation papers, and I have to be careful with what i claim or reviews will reject it outright.

And lets face it, the confidence in these models is way oversold and the vast bulk of the claims of certain calamity is from simulations->climate predictions. And i don't know what papers you have been reading, but the older models do not have a good record so far, and over fitting is easy to match partial data-sets. There is just too many parameters that are just set/guesstimated or otherwise, everything from precipitation models, to ocean circulation models. Its a lot of assumptions, and models that are simply "the best we can do" kinda deals. Nothing wrong with that of course... But that's not a validated experimental result, no matter how much you wave your arms.

I am not disputing that Climatology is science, I am disputing the "scientific" method in this case is overrated and in any true sense cannot be really applied. This is not the only field like this.

As for the data. I *must* provide my data for download as supplementary material, or it doesn't even get reviewed. There is no need for FOIA requests. I don't even get to know who downloads the data. I also work with drug companies, in this case where the data is not allowed to be published neither are the results since they cannot be replicated.

Re:Education

[Rei]

I publish and I have read the papers (My physics department had a climate group). Simulations are not and never will be the same as an experiment. They cannot do anything outside of the assumptions and parameters you put in, where an experiment is not so constrained. I should know, the bulk of my papers are simulation papers, and I have to be careful with what i claim or reviews will reject it outright.

Simulations absolutely can do things "outside of the assumptions and parameters you put in", in that if you put in assumptions and parameters for events that have already occurred, you can see if they match the outcome.

I'm surprised that you didn't mention the *actual* weakness of this sort of validation, in that hindcasting accuracy implies but doesn't inherently grant forecasting accuracy (for a good example, see hindcasts vs. forecasts of the intensity of hurricane seasons). But I will note that you didn't address at all that models are just a small part of climate science, and are really just used to provide specifics rather than the broad generalizations we can tell just from laboratory experiments and first-principles calculations.

Concerning the models: There's very little uncertainty associated with the models except on a few fields. Cloud formation being the major one, which generally necessitates the use of statistical models. GCR used to be a significant (related) unknown, but its significance has been downplayed by a number of recent papers and it's much better constrained now. Also the role of carbon black has been found to be higher than previously thought, and there have been some changes in our understanding of how arctic sea ice behaves (for the worse, sadly). And there's always more research being done on how important increasing granularity is. In general, however, the overwhelming majority of what goes on the simulations is pretty well constrained and understood.

Climate Data changers are a security threat!

[elkto]

Hardy har har, You are funny! (And according to some Insightful too)

I take it you probably a member of the IPCC, very scientific, in the liberal sense. Don't confuse yourself with Einstein, Newton, or Copernicus.

"It's in the tree ring data...wait a minute, I mean the ice core samples, hold it, I mean the satellite data, WAIT...The proof is somewhere here, I just know it!"

"Shut that peer reviews pie hole!"

Deniers

[omb]

Listen, I have had enough of your biased and ignorant NONSENSE.

1. To label skeptics Deniers tells us all about your agenda. This is not about Jews and the Holocaust.

2. Both NOAA and NASA data have now been shown to have gone though the HAD-CRU massaging and improvement process which is entirely mathematically mis-conceived.

It dosnt matter how, why, whether it was done for the best reasons, it is just plain wrong. If you go further and look at the CRU code, it is clearly fraudulent.

It dosnt matter who pointed out that 75% of the Russian data was omitted, it was, and it should not have been

It dosnt matter "this is all done in an automated manner" if the program was fraudulant, or even just wrong.

3. Having read Lord Dr. Monckton and Dr. Burt Rutan's re-analysis of the raw-data, now we have it thanks to UK FOI and ClimateGate it makes much more sense than Professor Jones and Dr. Mann's work and the first two are not caught up in the AGW evangelists.

The whole tone of your post, the anger that you feel about any opposition or skepticism to your own views, your use of ad hominum arguments, your twisting of plain facts means that you cannot be taken seriously.

Re:Deniers

[hairyfeet]

This is actually an easy argument to solve, and why I personally don't trust the AGW'ers ATM. Show us the CODE! Give us ALL the raw data, every last scrap, and let us see the code behind the models. As much as I can't stand RMS I have to agree with him when it comes to something this important: We just can't trust "black box computing" and without the code it can be manipulated to say anything you want. Considering it will cost billions and make a lot of scammers (Goldman Sachs and the whole "carbon credit" bullshit) an assload of cash I want to see the code.

I may not have the skills to read the daw data, but one of the nice things I learned from the FLOSS movement is their are plenty of really smart folks out there that can read the code if it is made available. And frankly I would trust the Comp Sci geeks a LOT more than all the political BS we have seen from BOTH camps in this debate. Want us to believe you? Show us the code!

Re:Deniers

[joocemann]

Wow. You cannot have possibly read the message you replied to!

It is clear to me that he used logic and evidence to make his point.

And then you basically just spout more 'I don't belive it'...

I'll do you the same:

It doesn't matter how or why or what you say. You are wrong.

It doesn't matter if what you said makes any sense, Its fraudulent! I SAID SO!

The whole tone of your post twists plain facts means that you cannot be taken seriously.
--------

Now what?

If you knew anything you were talking about you wouldn't say stupid shit like "it doesn't matter". Guess what, the educated people say it DOES and you are NOT qualified in any way to be trusted when you say it doesn't.

I'm sick of hearing the opinionated layman spew his dogshit opinion about something far too complex for he/she to even understand, let alone have a valid theory about.

Re:Deniers

[tjstork]

1. To label skeptics Deniers tells us all about your agenda. This is not about Jews and the Holocaust.

Holocaust? Didn't you know, World War II was faked. In fact, there's actually no such place as Germany!

Re:Deniers

[joocemann]

You don't even have the skills to criticize.

GTFO.

Didn't you ever learn not to talk unless you know what you're talking about?

Ding! Add another opinionated layman to the roster, Bob! I've found another!

Re:Deniers

[budgenator]

It dosnt matter how, why, whether it was done for the best reasons, it is just plain wrong. If you go further and look at the CRU code, it is clearly fraudulent. ...

It dosnt matter "this is all done in an automated manner" if the program was fraudulant, or even just wrong.

do you mean code like this

briff_sep98_e.pro:
;
; PLOTS ‘ALL’ REGION MXD timeseries from age banded and from hugershoff
; standardised datasets.
; Reads Harry’s regional timeseries and outputs the 1600-1992 portion
; with missing values set appropriately. Uses mxd, and just the
; “all band” timeseries ;****** APPLIES A VERY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION FOR DECLINE*********
or maybe like this
pro maps12,yrstart,doinfill=doinfill
;
; Plots 24 yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD reconstructions
; of growing season temperatures. Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually
; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
; the real temperatures.
  or even this

; Computes regressions on full, high and low pass Esper et al. (2002) series,
; anomalies against full NH temperatures and other series.
; CALIBRATES IT AGAINST THE LAND-ONLY TEMPERATURES NORTH OF 20 N
;
; Specify period over which to compute the regressions (stop in 1960 to avoid
; the decline ;

I'd say its leaning toward fraudulant

Re:Deniers

[geekpowa]

The parent was not criticising anything. They are merely echoing RSM's suggested solution that transparency of data and methods would completely diffuse all the heat that is building up around this very important policy issue. It is a good solution.

Climategate would be a non issue if there was complete transparency of data and methods - instead we have an audit trail in the public domain demonstrating scientists acting in a way that quite unprofessional and unbecoming to the 'fearless pursuit of knowledge'.

When people hide data and methods, then hide behind authority figures - just like you consistently do in all of your, slightly elitist, posts on this issue - then talk of consensus - as though the scientific method is some sort of popularity context - my balony detection kit starts ringing.

The bulk of climate science isn't hard. It is largely statistical analysis. Of the few papers I've read - I've had no trouble following them.

Re:Deniers

[omb]

Ja, es gibt und gab es zwei Konzentrationslager, von denen ich ein in Amersfoort, NL und die andere im südlichen Deutschland in Dachau bei München besucht, nur 350k weg

Re:Deniers

[joocemann]

Science is transparent. People are kicking up dust and pretending they didn't see anything and trivializing otherwise meaningless tidbits of nothing.

I'm sick of unqualified people being given room to speak.

From now on, especially on this topic, I'm going to simply ask a person to show how they are credible/qualified in the topic/field so that I can trust anything they say. Otherwise its just more opinionated laymen hanging out in peanut galleries.

You can hate me for not trusting any of you skeptics, but until someone worth listening to will step up and speak, I'm just gonna keep shouting you down for your lack of credibility.

I know when I don't know something, and when its best I take it from people who are qualified. Pretty much all of the qualified people (and articles i've read) are in agreement on this.

Quit wasting your time trying to convince me of anything unless you're ready to show me why I should believe you.

Re:Deniers

[Anonymous Coward]

Go look up Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer, Roger Pielke Snr and go through the lists of skeptics on wikipedia and the Senate minority list then.

If you've only read articles from people who agree with you then you haven't read much.

I've read quite a bit from both sides and this idea that all the qualified people are on one side is a myth.

Re:Deniers

[geekpowa]

You assert alot of things about the state of climate science here - yet previously you said that you are not a climatologist and all non-climatologists (including presumably yourself) should butt out.

I never broadcasted my opinion on this issue only to request more transparency and to assert that climate science fundamentals are reasonably approachable without requiring too much onerous background knowledge.

With all due respect to you, your assertion that science, as it is practiced today is already fully transparent and by inference is free from politics, self interest and corrupting influences is a little naive - especially coming from a practising scientist.

Finally - if you insist on only getting data from credible/qualified sources - then good for you. If you insist on personalities over empirical evidence, that can be easily accommodated. For a skeptical "qualified" viewpoint - hears some personalities: Lindzon, Haynie, McKintyre, Spencer, McKitrick, Lomberg. Quite a diversity of research and conclusions should you care to take a look.

Re:Deniers

[joocemann]

We can go back and forth about 'transparency' all day. Science is VERY transparent. No, you and the infant in your arms can't touch the equipment. But that doesn't mean you can't earn the right to do so; and that doesn't mean it isn't transparent. But since people want to trivialize the topic and pretend they don't understand, or act like O.J. putting on a leather glove... well... I'm sorry you're incapable of understanding and incapable of acquiring the education to do so or be a part of the science.

Pretty much every review article I have read regarding AGW is written in a way that a person with a high school education could understand it. Thats what review articles are for. Now when it comes to the technical pubs, well then you usually have to be a part of the field to understand them. Even if you understand the language, you probably won't understand the context, significance, relevance, etc. And it is reasonably improbable, without a person interpreting it for the layman (in a review), for it to be done otherwise.

To publish heavy science in laymans terms would mean they would be written with TONS of background info and would require way more words to write because scientific words are not known by the layman and would require wordy definitions each time. The end result would be that each article would be more of a full on teaching, and in the end, the target audience (the related peers developing the science) gets their time wasted.

This is what review articles are for. They sum up the technical articles and put up pretty pictures and diagrams to make it easier to take.

Even just a couple years ago I would not understand more than a couple words about the stuff I read daily and am involved in with my own research. But if I picked up a high school text book on the topic, they could sum up the gist of it in a way that I would assume nearly any adult should clearly understand.

To be a little clearer about this. If you want to understand it, but not be specifically educated prior to getting the info, then the info will need to be written at the level to which you are educated to receive it. If you want to know MORE information, the deeper/heavier science of it, then you'll have to cross the gap of education on your own effort... and then it won't look like Chinese anymore.
--------

By the way. I apologize for being so angsty about this. I really am sick of the opinionated layman on this topic; especially when I understand everything I've read, and yet the layman keeps acting like they are O.J. putting on that leather glove (where completion of the act would be the understanding of the science... figurative language).

I only apologize to you because it looks like you're not asserting some ignorant opinion as any qualified point against real scientists, but that you are open to understanding.

Re:Deniers

[hairyfeet]

And it is that attitude right there, the one that screams "you are too stupid so just do what you're told" that has allowed Climategate to cause such a stink! No where did I say to 'dumb down" the data, that is why I said give us the pure raw data. if someone wants to dumb it down they are free to do so, but it is not a prerequisite.

But considering the fact that both sides have billions of dolars at stake, with Al Gore and Goldman Sachs ready to cash in on Carbon credits (and BTW having a guy flying around in his personal Lear jet giving lectures on how we should conserve is a wee bit hypocritical, don't ya think?) on the one side and big oil and the middle eastern bloc ready to continue making money hand over fist on the other frankly BOTH sides should be treated as suspect, especially if they give us the "You're too dumb to understand just do what you're told" attitude.

Which is why I still say show us the raw data, along with the code the models are based on. if there really isn't anything to hide then releasing the code will only help your cause and make the next climategate look like total BS. Just look at how we have creationists still claiming the earth is less than 6000 years old, yet nobody believes them. Why? Because the evidence is right there for anyone to see. So while I may have a 155+ IQ (don't know the exact number because I kept getting bored and goofed off during the tests) I'm sure there will be parts I don't understand which is why I trust the FLOSS methodology. While I may not understand it all, no doubt there will plenty who do, and likewise any flaws in the code or problems with the math will no doubt be found and the models made even more accurate.

And isn't that what we all want? To have the best data with true transparency so that we can all sit down and discuss what comes next, instead of childish name calling and political BS? But by not releasing the data you just make everyone suspicious and give more ammo to those that are already gaining ground thanks to events like climategate. Wouldn't it be better to just show the code, and show the world that science means not having to hide?

Re:Deniers

[riverat1]

The vast majority of data and model codes are available if you care to look for them. The GISS has links on their web site to all of theirs including the Model E General Circulation Model (GCM, aka Global Climate Model) code. That's one of the GCM's used in the latest IPCC report. NOAA has lots of data available including raw station data. Knock yourself out.

Re:Deniers

[khallow]

You don't even have the skills to criticize.

Look who's talking. Again, we see you belittling people because they aren't your approved authority figures. You might be, as you claim elsewhere, a biologist, but you are not a scientist.

Re:Deniers

[Anonymous Coward]

Holocaust? Didn't you know, World War II was faked. In fact, there's actually no such place as Germany!

There were, it was just heavily debated whether they were caused by Nazis (the so-called "Nazi-Concentrated Camps" theory), or were the natural migratory effect of massive Jewish populations during that particular period of solar cycle.

Debated in some countries, that is.

Re:Deniers

[Dr_Terminus]

I've posted this before, but heres a non-comprehensive list of the raw data: knock yourself out.

Data:
NOAA NCDC: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html [noaa.gov]
NOAA sattelite data: http://www.class.noaa.gov/ [noaa.gov]
ARM data: http://www.archive.arm.gov/armlogin/login.jsp [arm.gov]
NASA GISS data: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]
NCAR data: http://www.ncar.ucar.edu/tools/datasets/ [ucar.edu]

Models:
NASA GISS GCMs: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/ [nasa.gov]
NCAR models: http://www.ncar.ucar.edu/tools/models/ [ucar.edu] ...

That being said - I think this whole 'give me the raw data' thing is just a big red herring. What are you going to do with it when you get it? Do you understand all the sources of the data, their biases and errors? Do you understand how they calculated some of the parametrizations in the models for bulk cloud parameters? Do you think its just a matter of plugging the data into a code and getting a Yes/No result about global warming? Come on! Theres a reason this stuff generally requires a PhD or years of experience to understand. But there it is, lots of data. Now shut up about the data or methods being unavailable.

Re:Deniers

[hawkfish]

Since you don't seem to be able to use Google (most of the data sets and code have been out there for quite a while), here you go.

Re:Deniers

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, science just needs now a self-selected, undereducated work force, with strong bias for or against AGW, making uninformed claims from data they don't really understand. Great.

Show me your code and conceal your data structures, and I shall continue to be mystified. Show me your data structures, and I won't usually need your code; it'll be obvious.

You don't need the code: if you don't understand the data, you won't understand the code. If you understand the data, you won't need the code. It's as simple as that.

Re:Deniers

[Troed]

Please point to NOAA's "raw" data. Then look at their source. Then check to see where _that_ source has their "raw" data.

Hint: It's not in electronic format easily available to you.

Re:Deniers

[locallyunscene]

There are anthropogenic global warming skeptics, and there are also deniers.

Skeptics say while there is non-trivial linkage of CO2 to warming, and increased CO2 is being caused by humans, and the current trend of climate data shows a warming, there is unlikely to be catastrophic change in climate, and efforts to prevent a catastrophic change are likely not well spent for their own sake.

Deniers claim the science is wrong and there is an implicit conspiracy among climate scientists because their armchair climate theories are not taken seriously when they have shaky scientific methodology.

You, sir, are a denier.

Re:Deniers

[Rei]

Show us the CODE! Give us ALL the raw data, every last scrap, and let us see the code behind the models

The overwhelming majority of it IS available. Pick a random paper and I can with a high degree of confidence get you all of the code and data for it. There is a small amount of data, however, that is not publicly available. Most notably, meteorological data from a number of national meteorological agencies. It sucks, but they consider this proprietary. But it's hardly the scientists' fault that some national meteorological agencies won't make their data public.

Re:Deniers

[Rei]

You don't even know what code you're posting, do you?

****** APPLIES A VERY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION FOR DECLINE********* ...
Specify period over which to compute the regressions (stop in 1960 to avoid
; the decline

You don't even know what "the decline" is, do you?

Re:Deniers

[joocemann]

It isn't an attitude, it is a reality. But so you know, all of the raw data is usually available in science --- the problem is that the layman has no idea what they are looking at. This is why reviewers must dumb it down; they must interpret it FOR you because you lack the relevant knowledge to interpret it yourself.

Here's a terrific global-warming video....

[Abies Bracteata]

...that *everyone* should watch: http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml

The video is of a lecture given at the American Geophysical Union 2009 Fall Meeting. The lecture was given by a professional scientist, for an audience of scientists -- so you get the straight scientific scoop (not the dumbed-down Al Gore version).

The lecturer (Dr. Richard Alley) is an AGU Fellow and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Highlights:

Shortly after the beginning of the lecture (a little over 3 and 1/2 minutes into the video), Dr. Alley shows an email cc'd to him by a Penn State alum who is demanding that he be dealt with severely for "crimes against the ... the citizens of the world". Just a little taste of the looniness that climate-scientists have to put up with.

There's a nice debunking of the silly "CO2 lags warming, therefore CO2 cannot cause warming" talking-point, starting at about 35:30.

The "cosmic ray" hypothesis is very nicely taken apart starting about 42 minutes into the video.

Starting at about 45:40 is the "money-quote" recap -- a quick two-minute-ish summary of why CO2 *must* be the primary driver of the Earth's temperature.

During the Q&A session, Prof Alley was asked where we might end up if we burned up all the economically recoverable fossil fuels. His reply included the word "Cretaceous". "Cretaceous" means sea-levels 250+ feet higher than today's, no polar ice-caps, and 100F sea-surface temperatures. We are talking about the potential of 65+ million years of climate-change compressed into a few centuries here. And all this was delivered straight from the lips of a leading scientist (not a Gore/Greenpeas type). That's a sobering thought, folks.

Re:Here's a terrific global-warming video....

[dontmakemethink]

First of all, I am (recently) convinced that CO2 does in fact pose a serious global warming threat, currently accounting for a ~2% increase beyond the highest total GHG from pre-industrial levels and rising with no end in sight. However, I am still not convinced that CO2 is primarily responsible for the warming trend of the past 40 years - certainly it has contributed, but if there were another significant contributor, then the CO2 contribution may be overestimated and we may have more time to change our ways. The global economy would certainly better tolerate a more gradual transition to sustainable living than to change cold-turkey.

That video demonstrates the IPCC position in good detail, however the argument is that the temperature rise of the last 40 years is ultimately unexplained, and CO2 is their best guess in the absence of a more plausible explanation. I'm not saying it isn't, but statistically they can't definitively say it is. Much to their chagrin, this leaves the subject wide open to speculation.

For example, could the detonation of over 1000 nuclear bombs underwater and/or underground contribute significantly to global warming? Of course it could. In particular heating up tectonic plates beneath the ocean floor could be the most efficient way to heat the ocean, like a ceramic water heater. Well that's exactly what happened in testing around the world from 1962 to 1995. It's feasible that there would be a lag of several years before the detonations made a global effect, so it could explain the 40-year temperature rising trend quite well, including how the global temperature rise has slowed in the last decade, despite the highest carbon emissions ever.

Regardless, CO2 traps heat, no getting around it, and the sun isn't getting any cooler. But the sustainability transition is already killing millions in impoverished countries from starvation due to rising food prices caused by the allocation of agricultural land for 'green energy' and rising transportation costs. A cure is definitely needed, but it shouldn't be worse than the disease, whose exact nature remains a mystery.

Heist

[omb]

The only Heist here is of public opinion, and potentially the public purse.

Get it through your head that every time you bring your Consensus, Peer Reviewed, 1000's of scientific papers crap near a Mathematician or Hard Scientist or Engineer he will see right through you without the ClimateGate revalations which speak to how, fraudulently, the consensus was built and how the data was cherry-picked and fudged.

What we KNOW about the leading world wide Climate Research Unit is that it was infested with self serving crooks, who conspired to lie and break the law, FOI.

We can now read the fudge-code and read how the data was cherry picked.

We can see the abysmal quality of the Statistical analysis, ignorance in modeling and placing conjectures before data.

In a very real sense, skepticism, conjecture and amateur disbelief are at the centre of the scientific method.

Again and again here I have read skeptics asking for evidence, and they are entitled to it not twee Ivory Tower Academic put downs "Meh, conjecture and amateur disbelief without having read any actual research papers", argumenta ad hominum and other obfuscation.

In a matter this serious, it should be possible to write a sort (<10 page) summary paper (not 1000+ page garbage) setting out the facts, and the conclusions they lead to without hand-waving. That this has not been done says it all, we get nothing from politicised Academics but obfuscation and lies.

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[Anonymous Coward]

CIA probably produces risk assessments or information to the support the risk assessments made by the state department. Environmental terrorism, food riots, political uncertainty, increased probability of storms, short term changes in glaciers or ice sheets used in some hypothetical operations and long term investment protection should all be considered already in the short term. So most threats would be really about the people reacting to the information and not about the actual damage caused by rapid rising of the sea level, for example.

Re:Building the Trust

[Anonymous Coward]

the conclusions are bogus. You are gullible.

SO why is it so fucking cold?

[tjstork]

Look, the problem is thus. Is man changing the climate? Yes. Can man control the climate? No. It's that simple. All the trillions of dollars and vast reduction in lifestyle that AGW advocates propose to throw at something that would actually benefit a lot of countries, you can't actually prove that it will work, at what rate, and when.

The predictions are a mess.

Global warming in the 1990s predicted that 2000 would be even hotter still, and it wasn't. In fact, its colder out now than it has been in years. Snow three times in a month in Delaware? Not since I've lived here. The next prediction was that, it would be 6C warmer in 100 years, but, no one could give a straight answer as to the temperature increase in the next 10 years. IT's all non-linear, which really, is the modern buzzword for religion.

Seriously, if AGW was such an emergency, we'd be building nuclear power plants. And we're not. Instead we get all this wishy washy lets build windmills and suck each's other dicks liberal crap that won't solve anything but will jack up the prices of energy, kill our standard of living, and pretty much make everybody dirt poor.

Re:SO why is it so fucking cold?

[riverat1]

The 2000s were warmer than the 1990s. That's what the data says. Maybe it's colder than it's been in decades where you live but that's not a true statement globally. Here in Oregon we had a cold snap in December, 4 straight days of lows under 10F at my house. I've lived in this area since 1958 and only remember perhaps 2 or 3 comparable events. Yet the glaciers on Mt. Hood have lost nearly 20% of their ice since 1970. These events are not surprising to climate scientists, they're just a part of the weather noise that makes up the climate. I've seen no predictions for 6C temperature increase in 100 years. Maybe 6F (around 3C).

I guess maintaining your standard of living is more important than maintaining a livable planet.

Re:SO why is it so fucking cold?

[shutdown -p now]

The next prediction was that, it would be 6C warmer in 100 years, but, no one could give a straight answer as to the temperature increase in the next 10 years. IT's all non-linear, which really, is the modern buzzword for religion.

Isn't this the problem with any complex ("chaotic") system? With initial impulse, you're going to see fairly wild "ripples" as the entire system is suddenly engaged, and those are extremely hard to predict in minute detail (and that minute detail can in fact be very much observable on human scale!). But long-term, when all those "ripples" cancel and average out, is much more predictable.

Seriously, if AGW was such an emergency, we'd be building nuclear power plants. And we're not.

And we should (for many reasons, but AGW is certainly one of the major ones)!

But it depends on who's "we". India does, and so does China. Countries that care about their future.

Meanwhile, in Europe, the people who dare call themselves "green" have successfully spread FUD about how evil nuclear radiation will kill baby seals and rape Gaia, so now voters timidly tick "yes" in every new referendum to ban the building of nuclear plants in perpetuity. It seems that the only country that is sane in that regard that's still remaining there is France.

Why the U.S. ultimately went down that same crapper, I've no idea. It doesn't seem to have a particularly strong "romantic environmentalist" (which is what I call people who, deep down, feel that they - as all humans - are blight on the face of the Earth, and should be eradicated for the betterment of universe, after a prolonged self-flagellation to confess and atone of all sins against Mother Nature - such as well, anti-nuclear "greens") movement. It looks like either nuclear is buried in red tape, or the population was somehow convinced about how nuclear is very much personally unsafe to them. Either way, it sucks.

Re:SO why is it so fucking cold?

[gtall]

A weather guy on our local station showed recent temperature maps of the globe (don't know where the data came from). It was indeed abnormally cold in the eastern U.S. and Europe. However, it was abnormally warm over Greenland and all its lovely glaciers. If that persists over several decades, the U.S. and Europe could still be abnormally cold but suprisingly, Florida will be underwater. Frankly, I wouldn't complain, however, it does point that anecdotal evidence like "SO why is it so f-cking cold?" is a bit misdirected.

Incidentally, the reason we are not building nuke plants is all the enviro-nutjobs who complained and filed lawsuits in years past rather than do something intelligent like get physics degrees and learning how to build the current safe generation plants. Add to that a liberal dose of getting in tune with their inner little girl who told them that science is bad but subsistence farming is good and a general belief if someone made money, then someone else had to lose an equal amount, and you get the current cluster f-ck that is liberal America.

I don't care about New York.

[tjstork]

For example, a storm surge in New York up to a level that would now be considered "once in 100 years" would happen every ~5 years.

I don't care about New York. They are a bunch of liberal assholes that want to take my guns away and raise my taxes. Plus, the Yankees always beat my team. So fuck them. I'm lighting a bonfire.

Go CO2!!!

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[khallow]

It takes several hundred years for the planet to reach its sea level equilibrium, but we're talking about (among countless other things) 1/4 of the land mass of Florida going underwater.

I guess our many times removed descendants will have to figure out how to move to better locations, build dikes, or come up with some other solution. It's not a compelling argument to nursemaid the future. They'll be wealthier, more knowledgeable, and more technologically capable of dealing with this problem than we'll be.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

[yooy]

What I don't like about the climate-change-evangelists is that they try to answer at least 6 questions in one answer. * Do we have climate change? * Is it getting colder or warmer in the long run? * Are we causing this change? * Is CO2 the reason for the change? * Is climate change a bad thing? * If climate changes can we prevent it, if yes how? Hence the bold statement of the semi-scientist actually is: We have climate change, it is getting warmer and we are causing this via CO2 increase and climate change is a bad thing and we should decrease CO2 emissions to stop it. Climate is one of the most complex phenomenons and I would be careful to make any bold statements in either directions. I am a scientist and from post "YOU are the one who needs to prove there isn't one" I conclude that you even have no idea what science is about. For future reference: Leave "proof" the the mathematicians and never use this word together with the scientific method.

Obligatory Humor

[Anonymous Coward]

Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, said the agency should be fighting terrorists, 'not spying on sea lions.'"

That's just what the sea lions want you to think.

Don't worry about it. This just means nature is under surveilance. It's about time, too.

Re:Mod Parent "-1 Redundant" Please

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, sorry. Was it that far over the top? I never know when to ease off on the dim-witted knuckle-dragger schtick. Come on, tell me. The "smelly hippy" part was good, wasn't it? Leon and I worked on it all afternoon, right after we finished brunch and before we went to that mad sale at Philene's.

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[shadowbearer]

  Climate change on a global scale will lead to more wars over resources, even if it's just regional warfare. How is this not a national security issue and within the purview of the CIA?

  By saying that it's not a national security issue unless all issues are such, you're comparing it to such trivial idiocy as Britney Spear's latest relationship scandal or any of a million other things that would *seriously* be a waste of their time.

  Yes, your statement was pretty stupid.

SB

In related news....

[leereyno]

The CIA has also launched a joint effort with the Association for Alternative Science (ASS) to determine the effect of changes in the luminiferous aether on the mating habits of Leprechauns.
 

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[Blakey Rat]

It takes several hundred years for the planet to reach its sea level equilibrium, but we're talking about (among countless other things) 1/4 of the land mass of Florida going underwater.

Anything we can do to speed this up?

More seriously, you do realize that we have these things called "dikes" and "technology-in-general", right? What bothers me most about the global warming thing is that the proponents think we're so useless as a species... we've solved a hell of a lot of problems before, we'll solve this one too.

Re:Building the Trust

[Onthax]

climategate, in australia we had Utegate, i mean how stupid can you be http://newmatilda.com/2009/07/21/real-utegate-scandal

Follow all the money

[Anonymous Coward]

That oil net, not gross, profit they make, huge as it is now, is a drop in the bucket compared to the global warming "cap and trade" artificial market, which has zero production costs for its alleged "product", and 100% stolen from everyone else net profit, to the projected tune of trillions of dollars. A billion people will be forced to participate in this new market, by government force, to have extra money taken from them, for virtually every product they consume.

THAT is the real financial effort being pushed, the behind the scenes major funding effort, to get a global market for carbon set up, where every consumer must pay a fee into this kitty so that those huge rich rip off market gamblers can have even more to play with, plus a slew of politicians can get more political power and establish more onerous government agencies. It is being pushed hard and heavy by the exact same people who just got handed a few trillion, stolen from the tax payers, to cover their bad bets. This is their normal modus operandi, and why they control governments now. And they have enough spare change to throw around behind front foundations to obfuscate their involvement, but they sure as hell are going to be the ones that profit from this new stealth tax on everyone.

So, how much do you get paid to push global cap and trade warming? How do you like that, do you like being accused of being corrupt? Because you are either corrupt, or a willing patsy, a dupe, you've been faked out, one or the other. You want to follow the money, then follow all the money, don't just cherry pick, don't just play make believe that some oil guys are the only opposition, or that the only people to question these rather dubious claims are somehow "in the pay of" the oil people.

If anyone can't see this huge arranged carbon swindle, and how much these present and future trillions represent in corruptible influence potential, they just aren't looking, don't care, or are relying on some pretty juicy checks to keep coming in, nice and regular, and with a lot of zeroes to the left of the decimal point, for "academic research".

Our great leaders

[PopeRatzo]

Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, said the agency should be fighting terrorists, 'not spying on sea lions.'"

This guy was elected as a United States Senator.

We are so fucked.

I guess he doesn't realize that the all branches of the United States Military, well-known liberals that they are, have been taking the effects of global warming into their planning since at least 2001. So have many multinational corporations that are involved in the collection and distribution of natural resources. They are all working from the assumption that global warming is real and will have a measurable effect on their respective missions going forward. And brother, the Department of Defense has some heavy scientific talent working for them. They're not going to put their long-term success in the hands of some mechanical engineer from Hillsdale College who believes fossils were put there by God 6000 years ago to fool us all.

Companies like Exxon and Archer Daniels Midland don't like to advertise the fact, but global climate change is part of their modeling, even as they hire people to gin up "research" to deny it. Fortunately for them, it's not very expensive to hire people to do denier research, drawing from the pool of people who can't rate jobs in real institutions. These corporations are doing their best to protect their short-term bottom line, so they don't want any environmental regulations in place, but their long-term bets are on global warming happening. They're not stupid enough to ignore the real scientists.

Of course the CIA is involved...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, missed the CIA report from earlier in 2009 that listed global climate change as one of the largest potential sources of international instability in our future. Mass migrations caused by climate change could be hugely destabilizing to countries that accommodate refugees. What would happen if Great Britain really does end up buried under a "Siberia-like" climate thanks to global climate change? How does the rest of the world cope with the influx of 62 million refugees and the elimination of the world's 6th largest economy (with a GDP over $6.2 billion)? You'd better believe that the CIA is interested in climate change.

It doesn't even take climate change on a global scale to cause instability. A single catastrophic climate event can have long-lasting effects on the economy and security of governments. Sustained drought or famine could easily lead to a shortage of food and water in susceptible geographic areas, which in turn could lead to rioting, the overthrow of unstable governments, or outright war over limited resources.

Think about what Hurricane Katrina did to oil prices when all of the oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were shut down. Think about the economic loss and instability caused by the evacuation after Katrina hit New Orleans. Now imagine that happening to a smaller, more militant country that is less well equipped to handle it.

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[ShakaUVM]

>>There's also the issue that things just keep speeding up over time. For example, the Copenhagen's (failed) *goal* was to limit average global temperature rise to "only" 2 degrees celsius. Well, that'd mean "only" about 1 meter of sea level rise over the next hundred years.

Uh, no. In climate science, the general consensus is that we need to keep temperature gain below 2 degrees C. The IPCC estimates even with the high end (5 to 6 degree rise) still less than a .7m rise by 2100.

I'm not sure what source you're using for your 2 degrees -> 1 meter gain idea. Did the lack of temporal data in An Inconvenient Truth confuse you?

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[zippthorne]

I haven't seen any charts yet that suggest that we've failed to limit the temperature rise 2 degrees C temperature anomaly yet. By what metric are you suggesting they've failed in the goal?

Global warming is a communist scam

[AlexLibman]

We are just a few decades away from humanity starting to export all sorts of dirty industries into space, where solar and (post)nuclear power production, asteroid mining, and robotic manufacturing can take place at exponential productivity benefits compared to doing those things on earth, and with virtually no pollution liabilities to worry about! Government intervention has done much to delay this inevitability, which in a free market society would be the natural desire of every person who's every looked up at the night sky. Scramble as they might to clip the wings of the human civilization through scams like religion (including socialism and environmentalism), they are ultimately losing their struggle to control us. Governments must suppress the reality that we live in an abundant universe where science and the free market (which are really the same concept applied to different things) can liberate humanity forever!

mod parent up

[BitHive]

to infinity

Manbearpig

[kimvette]

Maybe now Al Gore will finally find Manbearpig!

Climate "science"

[Anonymous Coward]

I think anybody who has done any real science can tell most climate "scientists" are total bags of windy sh*t who couldn't hack physics or engineering, didn't get biology, got all turned around by chemistry, but got jazzed up by the emotional sophistry and drama of "climate science" and the siren call of impending AGW(!). They play with their hand-waving fantasy computer models when they aren't in the back room wanking each other off. What a bunch of morons. Forget the emails. Their code is complete sh*t and nobody has even seen the "data" they used in their bizarre model. I would be more concerned about the next glacial maximum, which will leave Canada, Scandinavia, and most of Europe either under glacier and/or without any arable land. How *about* some global warming? It is f*cking cold in North America. Longer growing seasons? Check. Higher crop yields? Check. Oregon with the climate of California and California with the climate of Mexico? Check! Unfortunately, it just won't work. AGW due to CO2 is a crock of sh*t and anybody with half a brain knows it. How about aerosol and particulate pollution?! Probably also not that big of a deal as far as climate change, but pollution causes cancer and wrecks the environment. But all that gets airtime is CO2! What a bunch of loser gas-bags. These guys are TOTAL FRAUDS. AGW is a HOAX. These people have NO SCIENTIFIC CREDIBILITY. It is a RELIGION filled with the emotionally STUNTED and scientifically CHALLENGED.

Consensus means NOTHING

[dbjh]

You sound like an activist -- too passionate and not thinking clearly anymore. You should be a bit more precise in your wording. Read his post again. He wasn't saying there's no link between CO2 and global warming. He wrote and I'll quote "there is no really good scientific evidence of a threat from CO2". Which is true.
You may come up with forecasts published by the IPCC (a political, not a scientific organisation) based on computer models which are so crude even the sign of the projected temperature change is unreliable.
In science consensus means *nothing*. If you cannot show the evidence you have no case. And a computer model is no evidence. You are the one who claims something, so *you* are the one who needs to come up with proof.
However, the funny part is that there is no consensus about the link between _anthropogenic_ CO2 and climate change at all. You may want to read "Climate Change Reconsidered: 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)" to get an idea what independent scientists think about the matter. It contains a petition which is pretty strongly worded, signed by more than 30,000 scientists. You can download the full report from http://www.nipccreport.com/.

Re:Consensus means NOTHING

[spun]

Prove the computer models are inaccurate. Otherwise, it's just your word against that of a large number of trained scientists.

The Nongovernmental Panel on Climate Change is run by Fred Singer, a consultant for GE, Ford, GM, Exxon, Shell, Sun Oil, Lockheed Martin and IBM, according to his well documented wikipedia page. His slipshod attempts to please his corporate masters are well known.

But you don't care. You are a fanatic, and have made up your mind.

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[Rei]

You clearly haven't kept up on the papers on sea level rise since the AR4 reports.

There is no threat.

[dbjh]

The peer review process in climate science is heavily corrupted. If everyone peer reviews like minded colleagues peer review loses its meaning. Have you ever read "Climate Change Reconsidered: 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)" (available from http://www.nipccreport.com/) or do you too only read what confirms what you already believe to be true?

30,000 scientists don't agree with you.

[dbjh]

30,000 QUALIFIED people (scientists) don't agree with you. See http://www.petitionproject.org/. Read "Climate Change Reconsidered: 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)" (available from http://www.nipccreport.com/) for all the arguments and references to scientific publications.

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[rsborg]

Climate change is not in any way a national security issue unless all issues are national security issues, at which point the term has basically zero meaning.

Uh, Gay Marriage is NOT a security issue, and yet, it's a political issue. Climate change impacts are very much a security issue when wars will be fought as resources dry up or become available.

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[ShakaUVM]

It's probably not that bad:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/08/ups-and-downs-of-sea-level-projections/

However, there's really no reason why we shouldn't be looking into solutions (geoengineering foremost among them) and switching to nuclear. There's a variety of Really Good Reasons why we should be on nuclear power, AGW just one of them.

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[Beezlebub33]

The US military disagrees with you. See, for example, this CNA report.

CIA Perfect!

[hackus]

Since man made climate change data has been purposefully destroyed, or "enhanced" or otherwise manipulated in complete secrecy, along with major academic contributors absolutely refusing peer review, this sounds like a perfect match in my view.

Perhaps the CIA can give them pointers on how to not leak information or at the very least secure their computer systems.

http://newsfeedresearcher.com/data/articles_n52/climate-warming-global.html

-Hack

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[BobMcD]

Climate change on a global scale will lead to more wars over resources, even if it's just regional warfare. How is this not a national security issue and within the purview of the CIA?

Religions cause more wars than everything else combined, so I suppose the CIA should be involved in that as well?

Not everything that might eventually cause a war merits government and/or military intervention.

Heretic!

[drainbramage]

What is all this talk about using data, facts, information that mere people can check and confirm?
You sir are clearly not a climatologist.
You are hereby expelled!

You come up with evidence please!

[dbjh]

Why do you keep asking for people to prove a negative? You are making the claims, not me! You really cannot expect people to be convinced by your "arguments" if you continue being so, well, unreasonable.
And why the ad hominem attacks? Come up with facts, counter arguments, not with ideology. The NIPCC report is full with references to actual scientific research, executed by people who aren't dependent on echoing what the IPCC wants to hear. The fact that Singer is one of the lead authors doesn't affect the research one bit.
And what about the more than 30,000 scientists? Admit that your claim about there being consensus was just plain wrong.

Re:You come up with evidence please!

[spun]

No. I am not making claims. The claims have been made and backed up by science. YOU are claiming the science is bad. Prove it.

You are also a hypocrite, whining about ad hominems, while using same. I quote: "You sound like an activist -- too passionate and not thinking clearly anymore." While I said, "But you don't care. You are a fanatic, and have made up your mind." What's the difference between your statement and mine? How is it okay for you to do it, but not me?

There are no '30,000 scientists' that dispute climate change. There are 30,000 names, people who signed up via web form, without any kind of verification of who they really are.

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[Anonymous Coward]

It takes several hundred years for the planet to reach its sea level equilibrium, but we're talking about (among countless other things) 1/4 of the land mass of Florida going underwater.

I guess our many times removed descendants will have to figure out how to move to better locations, build dikes, or come up with some other solution. It's not a compelling argument to nursemaid the future. They'll be wealthier, more knowledgeable, and more technologically capable of dealing with this problem than we'll be.

Like the Europeans were all weathier, more knowledgable, and more technologically capable circa 500-1000 AD than they were prior to 500 AD? Or more to the point, that little trouble that happened in the same region around the 14th century? Progress is not enivitable over any set period of time; a self procalimed amatuer prognosticator like yourself would do well to keep this in mind.

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[khallow]

Like the Europeans were all weathier, more knowledgable, and more technologically capable circa 500-1000 AD than they were prior to 500 AD? Or more to the point, that little trouble that happened in the same region around the 14th century? Progress is not enivitable over any set period of time; a self procalimed amatuer prognosticator like yourself would do well to keep this in mind.

If such a setback occurs, then that's even easier to deal with, since carbon emissions are naturally greatly reduced while coupled with massive reforestation. We have even less need to reduce carbon emissions now. And yes, I do keep in mind that my prognostications can be and often are wrong.

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[khallow]

It's also worth noting that forced carbon emission reduction is one such trigger for such a setback in human civilization. That's yet another reason why I refuse to support it without extraordinary evidence of need.

the subtext here is...

[truth94]

that the evidence for "climate change" is so elusive that the CIA has been enlisted to find out where it's hiding! I guess the author has been living under a rock and hasn't heard that "climate change" or "global warming" is a hoax. Something that the more informed people of the world have known for decades.

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[Rising Ape]

Hardly. Overnight elimination of carbon emissions may do that, but there are lots of low hanging fruit not being exploited in terms of efficiency, as well as a lot of relatively cheap lower-carbon energy options.

For example, coal fired electricity is responsible for a large amount of emission. Nuclear power is estimated to be only slightly more expensive, at least if done at scale (and we need to). Obviously at some point we'll run out of the easy options, but we're nowhere near there yet.

Fine use of resources

[amightywind]

Great idea! What is muslim terror in the skies compared to the plight of the polar bears?

Re:Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming ..

[shadowbearer]

  You mean you think the CIA *doesn't* track religious fanatics and militants who may pose a threat to the US? Like islamic terrorists, for example?

  I definitely agree with your statement about religions and wars, btw :) What I took issue with was the silly broadness of your last statement; it's obvious that the CIA has to pick and choose what they have the resources to keep track of, and those resources are not infinite.

  But don't feel insulted; *everyone* says stupid things on occasion (some people more than occasionally), including me...

SB

You are lying.

[dbjh]

I don't think this is going anywhere. You are lying, because you *are* making claims. When I point out where you are wrong you just ignore it as if nothing happened. Instead you start attacking and insulting me personally. I think I should spell it out or else I fear you will twist my words. You were making this claim:

Seeing as how the scientific consensus is that there is a link between CO2 and global warming

I replied that consensus means very little in science. Even if it did mean something, there is no consensus. As proof for my statement I referred to a list in "Climate Change Reconsidered: 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)". You can also find the list at http://www.petitionproject.org/. At that website they clarify what the purpose of that petition is. I'll quote:

The purpose of the Petition Project is to demonstrate that the claim of “settled science” and an overwhelming “consensus” in favor of the hypothesis of human-caused global warming and consequent climatological damage is wrong. No such consensus or settled science exists. As indicated by the petition text and signatory list, a very large number of American scientists reject this hypothesis.

Furthermore:

These scientists are instead convinced that the human-caused global warming hypothesis is without scientific validity and that government action on the basis of this hypothesis would unnecessarily and counterproductively damage both human prosperity and the natural environment of the Earth.

You are clearly wrong in this case.
In your last reply you made the claim and I'll quote:

There are no '30,000 scientists' that dispute climate change. There are 30,000 names, people who signed up via web form, without any kind of verification of who they really are.

You are lying in the face of evidence and you don't even know what you are talking about. The petition cannot be signed through a web form. Read here how the petition is circulated: http://www.petitionproject.org/how_petition_is_circulated.php. You are clearly wrong in this case too.
You are accusing me of being a hypocrite for politely asking why you made ad hominem attacks. I didn't "attack" you, I just informed you about what kind of impression you made. I left room for you to correct me. You were shouting in your very first reply in this thread. It didn't look like you were thinking clearly. And I wasn't referring to you calling me a fanatic without a valid reason. I was referring to you ignoring a solid report full of references to actual scientific research, just because one of the lead authors happens to have ties to big corporations. I don't have to prove the science is bad. I will just refer to scientific research that shows it for me. Perhaps one day you will get over yourself and will accept that people can have different viewpoints based on the same facts.