The amount of CO2 produced by humans is not actually that much when compared with natural production (respiration, organic decay, volcanoes, sea, etc.) That's true, but not really relevant. Natural sources of CO2 are larger than anthropogenic sources, but they are almost exactly balanced by natural sinks. The comparatively small additional input from human activity is enough to oversaturate those natural sinks, leaving some manmade CO2 to accumulate in the atmosphere every year. The vast majority of the increase in CO2 concentrations over the last 150 years has been due to these additional manmade sources of CO2.
Hence a single volcano going of will have a far more significant impact then human production. That's false. Volcanoes are not a significant source of CO2 compared to either human production or to other natural sources (such as dissolution from the ocean or vegetative decay). All the volcanic activity in the world amounts to only a few percent of human production.
What he doesn't say is that the temperature changes appear to lead the carbon dioxide level changes by up to 200 years. By as much as 1000 years, actually, but that doesn't disprove the effect of carbon dioxide on temperature. The greenhouse effect is a physical fact; what is in dispute is how strong it is and what effects may mitigate it, not whether CO2 can increase global temperatures.
(I would speculate that this is due to differing ocean soluability levels?) Yes, that's likely. What you're neglecting is that the additional CO2 from the oceans keeps the temperatures higher, for longer, than if there was no additional CO2. Without it, you would see temperatures leading CO2 levels, but they wouldn't grow as high or as for long as they actually do. You can see this by comparing the strength and duration of external forcings which produce the initial temperaure changes (e.g., variations in the Earth's orbit) to the temperature changes that resulted.
Furthermore, the Earth has undergone much more intense fluctuations before, without the American drivers, etc. There have been larger fluctuations than what has occurred so far, but there is no evidence for faster changes, which is what is particularly worrying about global warming.
It is known that the current period is one of increased solar activity, and a correlation between solar activity and temperature has been established. (google it). If you are implying that the current warming is primarily due to increased solar activity, you're mistaken. See Foukal et al.'s 2006 review paper for a good summary.
People were worrying about an ice age 30 years ago... Look how the media have switched the fear factor around. Well, the media likes to hype things up, but it doesn't change the large amounts of evidence in favor of anthropogenic global warming.
That isn't to say that environmentalism isn't bad, but CO2 is not the only thing they should be looking at. It most certainly isn't.
Carbon dioxide is a "clean" gas in that the plants will absorb it for you, no problem. No problem, except they don't absorb enough of it in the context of global warming.
Given that there may be 800,000 years covered by the samples, that does not prove that the earlies sample is 800,000 years old. how are we to know if it is not in fact 8,000,000 years old, but due to natural climate variations, a large proportion of the sample has melted in this time.
There are numerous methods for dating ice cores. Besdies, many of these cores are taken from the deep Antarctic where there just isn't substantial melting: you may get slow accumulation from little precipitation, but very little melting.
Strangely enough, there aren't all that many accurate temperature readings for the globe over 1,000 year old, and so all that can conceivably be claimed is that the current temperature fluctuations are the fastest in recorded history.
That's true; they may not be the fastest "ever". But they likely to be the fastest in tens of thousands of years at least; we see no evidence of changes that abrupt in the paleological record.
So from this we should be able to deduce that you believe that the sun is having no affect on temperature change here. however to claim thus would be to ignore evidence from at least 2 planets, where the temperature there has continued to rise.
As noted by the earlier poster, this evidence does not support the Sun's influence on temperature change. Indeed, Martian temperatures also rose during a decrease in solar irradiance. This is evidence that the warming on both planets is not solar.
In fact, looking at our nearest neighbour, it seems that other than the sun, there has been no other possible cause for this temperature rise.
Elsewhere in this thread a poster gave a cause which is more consistent with the evidence than "the Sun" (namely, Martian albedo changes).
Besides which, I seem to recall that temperatures peaked around 1998, and have been stable/dropping since then.
Not true. (Incidentally, 1998 is a disingenous choice of reference year by global warming deniers, as it had an anomalously strong El Nino.)
However, no such claim of bias is levelled at those whose funding comes from organisations with a vested interest in keeping the AGW myth going,
You mean, like the National Science Foundation?
or those who would lose funding were it to be known that the change in the Earth's climate WAS natural.
Really? Who do you think would lose funding? Do you think climate science would disappear if not for anthropogenic global warming?
Additionally, ALL the research being done that shows CO2 is the cause of global warming is started under the premise that this is what is the cause,
That is ridiculously false. Nothing is assumed a priori about the cause. Rather, the strengths of various natural and anthropogenic forcings are estimated from observational data. You plug in the amount of heating due to the Sun, the greenhouse effect, the cooling due to volcanism and air pollution, etc., and run your models from that.
relies entirely on almost identical computer models,
The models are not "almost identical". Some operate on spatial grids, some use spectral methods; they have competing models of biosphere feedbacks, ice dynamics, etc.
Besides which, what is wrong with "almost identical" models? The Earth runs on the same laws of physics, you know. Do you complain that aerospace codes all run on the same Navier-Stokes equations? As long as they are coded independently so they don't share the same bugs, what is the problem?
includes large "fudge factors"...
Such as?
and has yet to provide accurate results based on known information, even f
"Our decision here was not based on pure legal issues. It was based on what community we want to build and what we think is appropriate within that community and what's not."
Righto, so Six Apart are saying it doesn't matter if it's entirely legal, they're going to start banning journals based on what they think is "appropriate". No, they aren't saying "it doesn't matter if it's entirely legal". They're saying the decision was not based on legal issues, i.e., it wasn't just because they were afraid of being legally sued. In fact, they can legally ban journals based on what content they deem is "appropriate", as long as such a ban doesn't violate their stated Terms of Service.
CS graduates don't appear to be the intended audience. TFA says, "But there are many who, like me, stumbled into programming in an unexpected or unusual way and never had anyone drill this stuff into them. These things are basic to many but, to others, they are invaluable techniques that nobody has told them. So, to those who don't want to make a mess, this is for you."
I was referring more to hobbyists and possibly students who may frequent the site as evident by the fact that the story got posted in the first place. Somebody had enough interest to read it and submit it. It's news which is interesting to hobbyists and students, yes, but that doesn't mean that hobbyists and students should expect experts to be available to answer detailed methodological questions about the research.
My point is that forums like Slashdot can help to educate more people about many different issues when others means are not available. Yes, it can educate people. That's a major reason why Slashdot stories have comments threads.
But, as I said, it's not really fair to expect that experts can and should take the time to answer all of your detailed questions for free, nor to complain when someone who tried to help you didn't provide enough detail to suit you.
If an expert does help you out, be grateful that someone took the time out of their busy research to help an earnest hobbyist. And don't be ungrateful if one doesn't.
If you think that such a request is unfeasible, what is your solution to the disconnect? To paraphrase Euclid, there is no royal road to science. Honestly, the only reliable solution is for interested parties to study the science involved themselves. It's great when experts can write tutorials and introductory essays explaining the methods behind the science, but this can only cover a small fraction of the scientific findings which catch the public's eyes. Active research scientists can only spend so much of their time on educational outreach. The best you can expect in most cases is for pointers to references you should read, not a whole expert analysis handed to you on a silver platter.
Projects like asteroid mining and space-based solar power are not all that far off from today's technology and they could solve some of our major problems. That doesn't quite answer the question of why we should be looking at extrasolar planets, but that aside: will such projects really solve some of our major problems? It's taken as an axiom among space enthusiasts, but I'm not so sure. I was reminded of that issue by this essay. I think there are reasons why such projects have not taken off. It's not because our technology isn't quite there yet, it's because it doesn't make economic sense. Arguably, we already have the technology. It's the cost that's the problem; it would have to become many orders of magnitude cheaper for asteroid mining to make economic sense.... and I'm not even getting into the military-political implications of putting giant chunks of metal or power broadcasting stations into Earth orbit... I suspect other countries would flip out if any nation proposed doing that.
Overall, I wanted to point out the disconnect at the level of the laymen that makes it difficult for them to weigh the conclusions by experts in the field. Your solution was for the laymen to go read a book. However, that solution can be flawed if one does not have the time or the background to find out for himself. You complain that you don't have the time to find out for yourself, but your proposed solution is for experts to take their time to pick the paper's methodology apart on Slashdot at a level of detail which meets with your satisfaction? Nice in theory, but not very practical, and not entirely fair. The number of such experts is small, most of them do not read Slashdot, and those who do probably don't have very much free time to accommodate such requests. Note that you didn't get any responses with that level of detail, and criticized the one person who tried to be helpful by pointing you in the right direction. Every once in a while an actual exoplanet astronomer will wander into these threads and have some time to write detailed posts, but you certainly can't expect it.
The questions are good, but if you're concerned about the accuracy of the methods, you realistically are probably going to have to find some textbook or article which presents such calculations with error bars, rather than asking for a personalized tutorial. (But hey, it doesn't hurt to ask... just don't complain if you don't get it.)
I'm sure that you don't understand climate physics as well as you say you do.
Really. Feel free to point out where I'm wrong, then. I'm waiting.
Now, in this case, we're largely on the same side on things.
In what respect?
Not wanting to take measures to curb CO2 emissions for political reasons is as bad as calling people who want explanations deniers and crackpots (this last part is where you and I differ).
More spin. No, there is a huge difference between mere "people who want explanations", and "deniers and crackpots". The fact that you can't tell the difference says something about you, not me.
Do you want to explain to this poster what water and CO2 do to visible and infra-red light, or do I?
Why? The poster has given no indication that he doesn't know what the greenhouse effect is. He just claims that the Sun, as well as industrial power generation, are the largest contributors to warming. In my first response, I told him he was ignoring the greenhouse effect. He didn't come back and ask "what's that?" He came back and claimed that electric power generation was a significant effect which is outweighed by the Sun.
Can you have a real discussion instead of just scoffing at people with questions and treating them like idiots or crackpots?
That's libel. I've explained climate physics to dozens of people in this threads. You act like a jackass and are offended when you get treated like one. That doesn't mean everyone acts or gets treated that way.
The difference is humility. If someone comes in and says, "I've tried to calculate the warming effect of human beings and it works out to be smaller than the Sun; I don't understand how humans can have a large effect on the climate", then I'll give them a polite explanation. But when they come in and say "anthropogenic global warming is a myth, anyone who believes it is irrational, and I can disprove the whole of climate science with this simple three-line calculation", I'll tell them it's bunk and they're a crackpot. Because it is, and they are. Not understanding something about the climate doesn't make one a crackpot. Not understanding the climate and thinking that you have the revolutionary disproof of an entire field of science, summarized in a simple algebraic calculation that all the dumb scientists are too stupid to come up with themselves, makes on a crackpot. I mean geeze, there are plenty of results in science that I'm skeptical of, but I don't go around claiming I can disprove major branches of science.
In all of your posts on the matter (and there are a lot of them), I see a bunch of trolling, baiting, and name calling.
You have quite the selective memory there. And those are big words coming from someone with your posting history. In all of your posts, I see a lot of bluster. It's fine to not justify every single claim, but when you are repeatedly called on it and repeatedly fail to do so, it becomes obvious that you can't actually support any of them. You write many posts on how the political process is destroying the science, but it's all heat and no light. Don't complain about the mote in my eye when a beam is in your own.
(I'll show you this one again, which you've avoided answering before.)
I have not "avoided answering" anything. It's a story, not a question. If you have a question you want me to answer, or an assertion you want me to agree with or refute, state what it is. I already mentioned that the entire story is irrelevant to your claim about scientists losing funding for political reasons, since the story does not discuss scientists losing funding; as I said,
That story also fails to support any claims that any climate scientists have lost funding for questioning some findings of extreme change. It doesn't even concern climate scientists at all, let alone their research; it is about the certification of T
I was making the point about the second question, as I don't think that funding is lost these days over the first. And yet, you fail to make that point, or even support it.
And you can look here. You claimed that researchers in this very thread have lost funding: "How many of us have heard from researchers who lost funding because they questioned some findings of extreme change? Heck, I see at least one in this thread."
The link you give is not to any such researcher. It is a link to anonymous hearsay in another thread. In fact, we have not heard from any researchers in this thread. All we have is an unnamed person who claims that an unnamed research group lost funding for unverifiable reasons. That isn't evidence, any more than your claims are. It's even less evidence than your Lindzen quote: at least with that, both the source and the subject are named, even though Lindzen gives no details nor evidence that his claims are true.
In short, you are simply lying about the support for your claims, trumping them up to appear more valid than they actually are. If an actual climate researcher came into this thread and detailed their denial of funding, that would be a different matter.
The volume of claims from established climatologists would be enough to suggest the politicization of this body of science, What "volume of claims" is that? From how many "established climatologists"? And what is the evidence that any of these claims are true? You cannot justify your assertions by imagining you have an army of nameless (but assuredly plentiful) supporters. You need actual facts.
It's very easy to claim victimhood. "Boo hoo, my grant proposal wasn't approved. It can't be because only 30% of funding requests get approved and my proposal just came up lacking — it must be because the ruthless Global Warming Cabal is suppressing my revolutionary findings. The Inquisition is hard at work on my case."
In fact, you haven't produced any scientist who claims even that much — that their own research lost funding because they questioned the status quo. All you have is people who claim that other researchers were denied funding, for reasons that happen to conform to your ideological preferences. The researchers themselves have said nothing of the sort, nor does anyone have access to the funding rejection letter, nor the opinions of the funding panels.
Global warming is politically controversial, but there is a big difference between "politically controversial" and "the scientific establishment is suppressing the publication or funding of valid opposing research."
but we don't have to. In fact, we can merely look at an older slashdot posting. That story also fails to support any claims that any climate scientists have lost funding for questioning some findings of extreme change. It doesn't even concern climate scientists at all, let alone their research; it is about the certification of TV weather personalities. Perhaps somewhere in the comments there may be something relevant to your claim about loss of funding. Would you care to direct me to it?
Your game of skipping over genuine concerns and asking for proof that there is no proof is over when you back yourself into a corner like this. Snicker. I am in no corner; to the contrary, you failed completely to support any of your claims, and I called you on it. I know it must be embarrassing for you, but don't project your own failures onto me. You're making very serious accusations, which merit correspondingly strong evidence in their favor. I haven't even asked for proof, I've simply asked for supporting evidence. What you've provided doesn't even qualify as circumstantial evidence.
Now is the time where you shut up and move on. You wish. If you want people to stop calling you on your lies and mistakes, stop making them. Don't go around insisting that others stop correcting them. But hey, if you still want to be schooled in public, go right ahead.
No, the power into the system is not the issue. Or rather, it matters, but isn't the most significant contributor to global warming. The amount of additional power into the climate system — due to the Sun, industrial waste heat, etc. — is small compared to the additional amount of heat being prevented from leaving the system, which is the greenhouse effect. (Or, if you prefer to think in terms of power input, you're neglecting the input of power re-radiated by the atmosphere after it adsorbs long-wave radiation from the surface.)
The arrogance of crackpots just baffles me. Do you really think that your back of the envelope calculation disproves all the work ever published in the field of climate science? Before making such a bold claim, did you ever consider the possibility that you don't understand climate physics as well as you think you do?
No. Or rather, it's not nearly as important as the greenhouse warming due to anthropogenic emissions. Increased solar input is small compared to that, and electrical waste heat is even smaller.
And how many other well known scientists in or out of the National Academy of Sciences? Trotting out one ostensibly respectable guy is not impressive. Especially when his counterarguments consist of absurdities like the infrared iris effect. Geesh, after the beating that studies like Lin's gave him, even Lindzen himself has backed off from those arguments.
Your "calculations" are bunk. You compare the change in insolation to human power generation, and thus conclude that changes in the Sun's luminosity can cause greater warming than the waste heat from human civilization. This is the wrong calculation. Nobody is claiming that global warming is due to the waste heat generated by human electrical power consumption; this is a relatively small effect. Your calculation completely ignores warming from the greenhouse effect, whose radiative forcing is significant larger than the Sun's.
How many of us have heard from researchers who lost funding because they had dire prediction of runaway warming?
How many of us have heard from researchers who lost funding because they questioned some findings of extreme change?
Heck, I see at least one in this thread. Really? Which Slashdotter in this thread has claimed that they lost research funding for either of those reasons?
Or did you mean that in this thread we've heard from a Slashdotter (yourself) who quoted a climatologist (Lindzen) as claiming (without evidence) that yet another climatologist lost funding for those reasons?
What evidence do you have that any climate researcher has lost a research grant for those reasons, other than mere claims? Even good scientists lose funding. There is not a lot of funding to be had in the earth sciences.
I didn't say that I don't mind its slowness. I said that the current rate is relatively slow, but there are signs that it is increasing faster than predicted, which leads to the possibility that the rate will accelerate to worrisome levels.
I think I'm in rough agreement with you about energy issues.
Regarding the climate, though: no offense, but Giegengack is a better geologist than climatologist.
As to the specific objections mentioned in that article:
"For most of Earth history," he says, "the globe has been warmer than it has been for the last 200 years. It has only rarely been cooler." Those cooler periods have meant things like two miles of ice piled over much of what is now North America. Nothing to be nostalgic for. That's a fairly irrelevant statement. Yes, the Earth has been warmer in the past, and yes, the dinosaurs probably loved the tropical climate, but that doesn't mean that we do.
So Giegengack tells his students they might want to consider that "natural" climatic temperature cycles control carbon dioxide levels, not the other way around. Natural temperature cycles do control carbon dioxide levels. That does not, however, mean that the carbon dioxide levels do not in turn control the temperature cycles. It is a mutual feedback.
He points out that within his lifetime, there was a three-decade period of unusually low temperatures that culminated in the popular consciousness with the awful winter of 1976-77. If this is supposed to refute global warming, note that said three-decade period was due to heavy levels of air pollution as well as increased volcanism temporarily suppressing the CO2-driven warming. Volcanism has subsided and CO2 emissions have grown faster than pollution levels (indeed, pollution has been slowed).
Back then, scientists started sounding the alarm about a new ice age. Yeah, a few of them did, and most of them (correctly) concluded that there was insufficient evidence to conclude any such thing. Even the extremists didn't claim that there was an imminent ice age, or that the mid-century cooling was going to cause an ice age.
"The scientists are mad because they think nobody in Washington is listening to them. So it's all either apocalyptic disaster or conflict of interest." Way to paint an entire community of scientists with a broad brush there. The vast majority of climatologists are not talking about apocalyptic disaster or the end of the human race.
"We don't know that. We don't know that! We don't know that polar bears haven't drowned in every interglacial period. Nobody was watching them back then." Again, a misguided statement. Whether polar bears have drowned in the past is irrelevant to the question of whether they are drowning now, or are drowning more now than, say, 50 years ago.
"At the present rate of sea-level rise," Gieg says, "it's going to take 3,500 years to get up there. Yes, but what people are worried about is what happens if the rate increases.
So if for some reason this warming process that melts ice is cutting loose and accelerating, sea level doesn't know it. On the contrary, sea level is rising faster than is predicted by any climate model, for unknown reasons. This is worrisome.
And sea level, we think, is the best indicator of global warming." Arguably, global temperatures are the best indicator of global warming, though there are some who vote for ocean heat content, or for sea level rise.
"See," Gieg says, "the thing he doesn't mention is that there are 2.4 billion people in India and China who have launched a campaign that will increase their energy consumption by a factor of 10. No matter what we do. If we somehow cut our CO2 emissions in half, you wouldn't be able to measure the difference because of the role played by India and China. This assumes that what China and India do is independent of what the US does. In the political reality, there is no way we can convince reluctant developing countries to cut back on their emissions when we ourselves do not.
YOU CANT FUCKING PREDICT THE WEATHER FOR THE NEXT 1, 2, 3, 5 , 7 DAYS TO A DEGREE OF ACCURACY THAT IS USEFUL SO HOW THE FUCK DO YOU SUGGEST THIS SO CALLED "DATA" CHANGES THAT?
We're not talking about weather prediction, we're talking about climate prediction, which concerns itself only with global, long term averages, not local weather patterns.
hey, i'm not the climatologist, he is; you want to hear what he has to say, go right ahead. his argument was pretty convincing, though i'm not completely convinced.
If you could link to any presentations or essays he has on the subject, it would be helpful. I didn't see anything like that in his publication list.
the hybrid thing though; the infrastructure is there -- there are electrical outlets everywhere. furthermore, personal sized engines are much less efficient than ones based on creating electrical energy could be (at least in theory; i don't know about the actual efficiency of coal powerplants, but if i were to build one i'd care about that a lot, and i don't have to facilitate changes in rpm like a car's engine would, even in a hybrid).
There are electrical outlets "everywhere", but not necessarily a sufficient number of them at gas stations, parking lots, etc. And the availability of outlets doesn't mean that all-electric cars are feasible replacements for regular cars. The battery technology isn't quite there yet, IMHO. However, I think there will be a transition towards electric vehicles. It's true that it's more efficient to generate all the power at the central power station instead of in each vehicle via internal combustion. However, there is still the pollution problem from increased power plant emissions. The first thing that needs to be done is to clean up power plants and reduce their CO2 emissions. Only then will be see the most benefit from electric vehicles.
so, even if the electricity is taken from a fossil fuel plant it's not as bad as a hybrid.
I think it is worse: an internal combustion engine actually produces less pollution than the equivalent amount of electricity generated by a power plant. (That depends on the pollutant. Engines produce more carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons, but less CO2 and nitrogen and sulfur oxides.)
How about ALL the data and mathematical models the Global Warmers are using?
Please, do tell. Describe how ALL data and models used by an entire field of science are "fudged".
They are all fudged, with arbitary feedback variables inserted to produce the observed results.
Feedbacks are not "arbitrary", they are real. And yes, you need feedbacks to reproduce observations, because feedbacks exist in the climate and have a large influence on it. If you could explain the observations without feedbacks, it would mean that your model is wrong, because feedbacks exist: warming increases water vapor, water vapor is a greenhouse gas, producing more warming; warming melts ice, which causes the Earth to adsorb more sunlight, producing more warming; increased CO2 levels foster plant growth, which removes CO2 from the atmosphere. There is a complex web of feedbacks, both positive and negative, and feedback from CO2-induced warming produce at least as much additional warming as the CO2 itself does.
If you think that that I am not being serious, just look at any one item - say, the Mann Koyoto 'hockey-stick' graph.
You're not being serious, since the Mann "hockey stick graph" has nothing to do with Kyoto, climate models, or feedbacks.
Look at McIntyre and McKitric's complete demolition of it.
Gee, maybe you ought to read the review panel studies of Mann's work, which found that (a) there were flaws in Mann's analysis, and (b) when you fix them, you still get a hockey stick. Not to mention all the other analyses which have also produced hockey sticks. And it's not as if the case for global warming rests on any hockey stick graph to begin with.
thing is, there are some legit claims against the greenhouse effect causing global warming
Do tell.
(ie, things not from corporate shills -- friend of a friend of a friend is professor giggengack (spelling?) who pokes holes in the inconvenient truth movie).
Pokes holes in a movie, or in actual climate research?
but, in general, the thing is that we, humans, are more endangering ourselves than the planet. earth and its creatures evolve, they'll be fine.
No, we're more adaptable than most species. Some will go extinct (many have already; climate change just makes it worse), some won't; we won't.
(what the hell happened to electic cars? why are we using hybrids?)
We may get to electric cars, but the infrastructure isn't there. Hybrids are a good transition strategy: get the bugs worked out of cars with batterys, shift toward plug-in hybrid electrics, then towards full electric. But in the meantime, full electric isn't going to help us much in terms of pollution (or CO2), because most electric power is currently generated by fossil fuel burning plants.
If global warming is as much a threat to all of humanity as Al claims, then why isn't he mailing a free DVD to every man, woman and child on this planet? Don't say it can't be done; I used to get discs from AOL all the time.
AOL can afford to do that because (a) they're a big company and (b) can recoup the costs of manufacture/mailing using the profits from the new customers they gain from their mass mailing.
As noted elsewhere, Gore does not profit from the DVD sales.
There have been no first pass simulations showing that CO2 is a major amplifier. Methane has been the simulators gas of choice (it's an order of magnitude more effective "greenhouse gas' than CO2) for this "amplification" boogyman
Uh, yeah, that's not even remotely true. CO2 forcings are several times larger than methane (which, while having greater global warming potential than CO2, is present in far smaller amounts).
Problem is, we have no metrics on "heavy air pollution", especially particulate levels, which is what this BS depends on.
Also false. There are plenty of estimates of air pollution levels. (The biggest uncertainties are more in how this translates into radiative forcing, not on the actual concentrations themselves.)
Volcanism, BTW, ADDS lots of non-man-made CO2
No, volcanic CO2 is about two orders of magnitude smaller than manmade. (Volcanic aerosol emissions, on the other hand, are large for really big eruptions, but they produce short-term cooling, not long-term warming.)
There seems to be a strong correlation between solar wind and cloud formation heights.
There have been claims of correlations between cosmic rays and cloud formation, but any putative effect on the climate completely fall apart just when the warming trend becomes strongest (during the last 40 years), as cosmic ray incidence has not undergone a similar change during that period.
Slashdot Mirror
Given that there may be 800,000 years covered by the samples, that does not prove that the earlies sample is 800,000 years old. how are we to know if it is not in fact 8,000,000 years old, but due to natural climate variations, a large proportion of the sample has melted in this time.
There are numerous methods for dating ice cores. Besdies, many of these cores are taken from the deep Antarctic where there just isn't substantial melting: you may get slow accumulation from little precipitation, but very little melting.
Strangely enough, there aren't all that many accurate temperature readings for the globe over 1,000 year old, and so all that can conceivably be claimed is that the current temperature fluctuations are the fastest in recorded history.
That's true; they may not be the fastest "ever". But they likely to be the fastest in tens of thousands of years at least; we see no evidence of changes that abrupt in the paleological record.
So from this we should be able to deduce that you believe that the sun is having no affect on temperature change here. however to claim thus would be to ignore evidence from at least 2 planets, where the temperature there has continued to rise.
As noted by the earlier poster, this evidence does not support the Sun's influence on temperature change. Indeed, Martian temperatures also rose during a decrease in solar irradiance. This is evidence that the warming on both planets is not solar.
In fact, looking at our nearest neighbour, it seems that other than the sun, there has been no other possible cause for this temperature rise.
Elsewhere in this thread a poster gave a cause which is more consistent with the evidence than "the Sun" (namely, Martian albedo changes).
Besides which, I seem to recall that temperatures peaked around 1998, and have been stable/dropping since then.
Not true. (Incidentally, 1998 is a disingenous choice of reference year by global warming deniers, as it had an anomalously strong El Nino.)
However, no such claim of bias is levelled at those whose funding comes from organisations with a vested interest in keeping the AGW myth going,
You mean, like the National Science Foundation?
or those who would lose funding were it to be known that the change in the Earth's climate WAS natural.
Really? Who do you think would lose funding? Do you think climate science would disappear if not for anthropogenic global warming?
Additionally, ALL the research being done that shows CO2 is the cause of global warming is started under the premise that this is what is the cause,
That is ridiculously false. Nothing is assumed a priori about the cause. Rather, the strengths of various natural and anthropogenic forcings are estimated from observational data. You plug in the amount of heating due to the Sun, the greenhouse effect, the cooling due to volcanism and air pollution, etc., and run your models from that.
relies entirely on almost identical computer models,
The models are not "almost identical". Some operate on spatial grids, some use spectral methods; they have competing models of biosphere feedbacks, ice dynamics, etc.
Besides which, what is wrong with "almost identical" models? The Earth runs on the same laws of physics, you know. Do you complain that aerospace codes all run on the same Navier-Stokes equations? As long as they are coded independently so they don't share the same bugs, what is the problem?
includes large "fudge factors"...
Such as?
and has yet to provide accurate results based on known information, even f
Anybody remember these features from 1UP, with commentary from sarcastic elementary school kids?
Righto, so Six Apart are saying it doesn't matter if it's entirely legal, they're going to start banning journals based on what they think is "appropriate". No, they aren't saying "it doesn't matter if it's entirely legal". They're saying the decision was not based on legal issues, i.e., it wasn't just because they were afraid of being legally sued. In fact, they can legally ban journals based on what content they deem is "appropriate", as long as such a ban doesn't violate their stated Terms of Service.
CS graduates don't appear to be the intended audience. TFA says, "But there are many who, like me, stumbled into programming in an unexpected or unusual way and never had anyone drill this stuff into them. These things are basic to many but, to others, they are invaluable techniques that nobody has told them. So, to those who don't want to make a mess, this is for you."
To keep my code from destroying me, I shouldn't #define MAX_ALIENS_ON_SCREEN_AT_ONCE to equal 100. That's way too many aliens to survive.
But, as I said, it's not really fair to expect that experts can and should take the time to answer all of your detailed questions for free, nor to complain when someone who tried to help you didn't provide enough detail to suit you.
If an expert does help you out, be grateful that someone took the time out of their busy research to help an earnest hobbyist. And don't be ungrateful if one doesn't. If you think that such a request is unfeasible, what is your solution to the disconnect? To paraphrase Euclid, there is no royal road to science. Honestly, the only reliable solution is for interested parties to study the science involved themselves. It's great when experts can write tutorials and introductory essays explaining the methods behind the science, but this can only cover a small fraction of the scientific findings which catch the public's eyes. Active research scientists can only spend so much of their time on educational outreach. The best you can expect in most cases is for pointers to references you should read, not a whole expert analysis handed to you on a silver platter.
The questions are good, but if you're concerned about the accuracy of the methods, you realistically are probably going to have to find some textbook or article which presents such calculations with error bars, rather than asking for a personalized tutorial. (But hey, it doesn't hurt to ask... just don't complain if you don't get it.)
I'm sure that you don't understand climate physics as well as you say you do.
Really. Feel free to point out where I'm wrong, then. I'm waiting.
Now, in this case, we're largely on the same side on things.
In what respect?
Not wanting to take measures to curb CO2 emissions for political reasons is as bad as calling people who want explanations deniers and crackpots (this last part is where you and I differ).
More spin. No, there is a huge difference between mere "people who want explanations", and "deniers and crackpots". The fact that you can't tell the difference says something about you, not me.
Do you want to explain to this poster what water and CO2 do to visible and infra-red light, or do I?
Why? The poster has given no indication that he doesn't know what the greenhouse effect is. He just claims that the Sun, as well as industrial power generation, are the largest contributors to warming. In my first response, I told him he was ignoring the greenhouse effect. He didn't come back and ask "what's that?" He came back and claimed that electric power generation was a significant effect which is outweighed by the Sun.
Can you have a real discussion instead of just scoffing at people with questions and treating them like idiots or crackpots?
That's libel. I've explained climate physics to dozens of people in this threads. You act like a jackass and are offended when you get treated like one. That doesn't mean everyone acts or gets treated that way.
The difference is humility. If someone comes in and says, "I've tried to calculate the warming effect of human beings and it works out to be smaller than the Sun; I don't understand how humans can have a large effect on the climate", then I'll give them a polite explanation. But when they come in and say "anthropogenic global warming is a myth, anyone who believes it is irrational, and I can disprove the whole of climate science with this simple three-line calculation", I'll tell them it's bunk and they're a crackpot. Because it is, and they are. Not understanding something about the climate doesn't make one a crackpot. Not understanding the climate and thinking that you have the revolutionary disproof of an entire field of science, summarized in a simple algebraic calculation that all the dumb scientists are too stupid to come up with themselves, makes on a crackpot. I mean geeze, there are plenty of results in science that I'm skeptical of, but I don't go around claiming I can disprove major branches of science.
In all of your posts on the matter (and there are a lot of them), I see a bunch of trolling, baiting, and name calling.
You have quite the selective memory there. And those are big words coming from someone with your posting history. In all of your posts, I see a lot of bluster. It's fine to not justify every single claim, but when you are repeatedly called on it and repeatedly fail to do so, it becomes obvious that you can't actually support any of them. You write many posts on how the political process is destroying the science, but it's all heat and no light. Don't complain about the mote in my eye when a beam is in your own.
(I'll show you this one again, which you've avoided answering before.)
I have not "avoided answering" anything. It's a story, not a question. If you have a question you want me to answer, or an assertion you want me to agree with or refute, state what it is. I already mentioned that the entire story is irrelevant to your claim about scientists losing funding for political reasons, since the story does not discuss scientists losing funding; as I said,
That story also fails to support any claims that any climate scientists have lost funding for questioning some findings of extreme change. It doesn't even concern climate scientists at all, let alone their research; it is about the certification of T
The link you give is not to any such researcher. It is a link to anonymous hearsay in another thread. In fact, we have not heard from any researchers in this thread. All we have is an unnamed person who claims that an unnamed research group lost funding for unverifiable reasons. That isn't evidence, any more than your claims are. It's even less evidence than your Lindzen quote: at least with that, both the source and the subject are named, even though Lindzen gives no details nor evidence that his claims are true.
In short, you are simply lying about the support for your claims, trumping them up to appear more valid than they actually are. If an actual climate researcher came into this thread and detailed their denial of funding, that would be a different matter. The volume of claims from established climatologists would be enough to suggest the politicization of this body of science, What "volume of claims" is that? From how many "established climatologists"? And what is the evidence that any of these claims are true? You cannot justify your assertions by imagining you have an army of nameless (but assuredly plentiful) supporters. You need actual facts.
It's very easy to claim victimhood. "Boo hoo, my grant proposal wasn't approved. It can't be because only 30% of funding requests get approved and my proposal just came up lacking — it must be because the ruthless Global Warming Cabal is suppressing my revolutionary findings. The Inquisition is hard at work on my case."
In fact, you haven't produced any scientist who claims even that much — that their own research lost funding because they questioned the status quo. All you have is people who claim that other researchers were denied funding, for reasons that happen to conform to your ideological preferences. The researchers themselves have said nothing of the sort, nor does anyone have access to the funding rejection letter, nor the opinions of the funding panels.
Global warming is politically controversial, but there is a big difference between "politically controversial" and "the scientific establishment is suppressing the publication or funding of valid opposing research." but we don't have to. In fact, we can merely look at an older slashdot posting. That story also fails to support any claims that any climate scientists have lost funding for questioning some findings of extreme change. It doesn't even concern climate scientists at all, let alone their research; it is about the certification of TV weather personalities. Perhaps somewhere in the comments there may be something relevant to your claim about loss of funding. Would you care to direct me to it? Your game of skipping over genuine concerns and asking for proof that there is no proof is over when you back yourself into a corner like this. Snicker. I am in no corner; to the contrary, you failed completely to support any of your claims, and I called you on it. I know it must be embarrassing for you, but don't project your own failures onto me. You're making very serious accusations, which merit correspondingly strong evidence in their favor. I haven't even asked for proof, I've simply asked for supporting evidence. What you've provided doesn't even qualify as circumstantial evidence. Now is the time where you shut up and move on. You wish. If you want people to stop calling you on your lies and mistakes, stop making them. Don't go around insisting that others stop correcting them. But hey, if you still want to be schooled in public, go right ahead.
No, the power into the system is not the issue. Or rather, it matters, but isn't the most significant contributor to global warming. The amount of additional power into the climate system — due to the Sun, industrial waste heat, etc. — is small compared to the additional amount of heat being prevented from leaving the system, which is the greenhouse effect. (Or, if you prefer to think in terms of power input, you're neglecting the input of power re-radiated by the atmosphere after it adsorbs long-wave radiation from the surface.)
The arrogance of crackpots just baffles me. Do you really think that your back of the envelope calculation disproves all the work ever published in the field of climate science? Before making such a bold claim, did you ever consider the possibility that you don't understand climate physics as well as you think you do?
Power into the system is important, no?
No. Or rather, it's not nearly as important as the greenhouse warming due to anthropogenic emissions. Increased solar input is small compared to that, and electrical waste heat is even smaller.
There is plenty of doubt out there about whether man-made CO2 is the cause of global warming
A handful of skeptics does not constitute "plenty of doubt".
including well-known scientists in the National Academy of Sciences. Like this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen
And how many other well known scientists in or out of the National Academy of Sciences? Trotting out one ostensibly respectable guy is not impressive. Especially when his counterarguments consist of absurdities like the infrared iris effect. Geesh, after the beating that studies like Lin's gave him, even Lindzen himself has backed off from those arguments.
Your "calculations" are bunk. You compare the change in insolation to human power generation, and thus conclude that changes in the Sun's luminosity can cause greater warming than the waste heat from human civilization. This is the wrong calculation. Nobody is claiming that global warming is due to the waste heat generated by human electrical power consumption; this is a relatively small effect. Your calculation completely ignores warming from the greenhouse effect, whose radiative forcing is significant larger than the Sun's.
How many of us have heard from researchers who lost funding because they questioned some findings of extreme change?
Heck, I see at least one in this thread. Really? Which Slashdotter in this thread has claimed that they lost research funding for either of those reasons?
Or did you mean that in this thread we've heard from a Slashdotter (yourself) who quoted a climatologist (Lindzen) as claiming (without evidence) that yet another climatologist lost funding for those reasons?
What evidence do you have that any climate researcher has lost a research grant for those reasons, other than mere claims? Even good scientists lose funding. There is not a lot of funding to be had in the earth sciences.
I didn't say that I don't mind its slowness. I said that the current rate is relatively slow, but there are signs that it is increasing faster than predicted, which leads to the possibility that the rate will accelerate to worrisome levels.
Regarding the climate, though: no offense, but Giegengack is a better geologist than climatologist.
As to the specific objections mentioned in that article: "For most of Earth history," he says, "the globe has been warmer than it has been for the last 200 years. It has only rarely been cooler." Those cooler periods have meant things like two miles of ice piled over much of what is now North America. Nothing to be nostalgic for. That's a fairly irrelevant statement. Yes, the Earth has been warmer in the past, and yes, the dinosaurs probably loved the tropical climate, but that doesn't mean that we do. So Giegengack tells his students they might want to consider that "natural" climatic temperature cycles control carbon dioxide levels, not the other way around. Natural temperature cycles do control carbon dioxide levels. That does not, however, mean that the carbon dioxide levels do not in turn control the temperature cycles. It is a mutual feedback. He points out that within his lifetime, there was a three-decade period of unusually low temperatures that culminated in the popular consciousness with the awful winter of 1976-77. If this is supposed to refute global warming, note that said three-decade period was due to heavy levels of air pollution as well as increased volcanism temporarily suppressing the CO2-driven warming. Volcanism has subsided and CO2 emissions have grown faster than pollution levels (indeed, pollution has been slowed). Back then, scientists started sounding the alarm about a new ice age. Yeah, a few of them did, and most of them (correctly) concluded that there was insufficient evidence to conclude any such thing. Even the extremists didn't claim that there was an imminent ice age, or that the mid-century cooling was going to cause an ice age. "The scientists are mad because they think nobody in Washington is listening to them. So it's all either apocalyptic disaster or conflict of interest." Way to paint an entire community of scientists with a broad brush there. The vast majority of climatologists are not talking about apocalyptic disaster or the end of the human race. "We don't know that. We don't know that! We don't know that polar bears haven't drowned in every interglacial period. Nobody was watching them back then." Again, a misguided statement. Whether polar bears have drowned in the past is irrelevant to the question of whether they are drowning now, or are drowning more now than, say, 50 years ago. "At the present rate of sea-level rise," Gieg says, "it's going to take 3,500 years to get up there. Yes, but what people are worried about is what happens if the rate increases. So if for some reason this warming process that melts ice is cutting loose and accelerating, sea level doesn't know it. On the contrary, sea level is rising faster than is predicted by any climate model, for unknown reasons. This is worrisome. And sea level, we think, is the best indicator of global warming." Arguably, global temperatures are the best indicator of global warming, though there are some who vote for ocean heat content, or for sea level rise. "See," Gieg says, "the thing he doesn't mention is that there are 2.4 billion people in India and China who have launched a campaign that will increase their energy consumption by a factor of 10. No matter what we do. If we somehow cut our CO2 emissions in half, you wouldn't be able to measure the difference because of the role played by India and China. This assumes that what China and India do is independent of what the US does. In the political reality, there is no way we can convince reluctant developing countries to cut back on their emissions when we ourselves do not.
YOU CANT FUCKING PREDICT THE WEATHER FOR THE NEXT 1, 2, 3, 5 , 7 DAYS TO A DEGREE OF ACCURACY THAT IS USEFUL SO HOW THE FUCK DO YOU SUGGEST THIS SO CALLED "DATA" CHANGES THAT?
We're not talking about weather prediction, we're talking about climate prediction, which concerns itself only with global, long term averages, not local weather patterns.
hey, i'm not the climatologist, he is; you want to hear what he has to say, go right ahead. his argument was pretty convincing, though i'm not completely convinced.
If you could link to any presentations or essays he has on the subject, it would be helpful. I didn't see anything like that in his publication list.
the hybrid thing though; the infrastructure is there -- there are electrical outlets everywhere. furthermore, personal sized engines are much less efficient than ones based on creating electrical energy could be (at least in theory; i don't know about the actual efficiency of coal powerplants, but if i were to build one i'd care about that a lot, and i don't have to facilitate changes in rpm like a car's engine would, even in a hybrid).
There are electrical outlets "everywhere", but not necessarily a sufficient number of them at gas stations, parking lots, etc. And the availability of outlets doesn't mean that all-electric cars are feasible replacements for regular cars. The battery technology isn't quite there yet, IMHO. However, I think there will be a transition towards electric vehicles. It's true that it's more efficient to generate all the power at the central power station instead of in each vehicle via internal combustion. However, there is still the pollution problem from increased power plant emissions. The first thing that needs to be done is to clean up power plants and reduce their CO2 emissions. Only then will be see the most benefit from electric vehicles.
so, even if the electricity is taken from a fossil fuel plant it's not as bad as a hybrid.
I think it is worse: an internal combustion engine actually produces less pollution than the equivalent amount of electricity generated by a power plant. (That depends on the pollutant. Engines produce more carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons, but less CO2 and nitrogen and sulfur oxides.)
I see your knowledge of climatology is as poor as your knowledge of evolution.
How about ALL the data and mathematical models the Global Warmers are using?
Please, do tell. Describe how ALL data and models used by an entire field of science are "fudged".
They are all fudged, with arbitary feedback variables inserted to produce the observed results.
Feedbacks are not "arbitrary", they are real. And yes, you need feedbacks to reproduce observations, because feedbacks exist in the climate and have a large influence on it. If you could explain the observations without feedbacks, it would mean that your model is wrong, because feedbacks exist: warming increases water vapor, water vapor is a greenhouse gas, producing more warming; warming melts ice, which causes the Earth to adsorb more sunlight, producing more warming; increased CO2 levels foster plant growth, which removes CO2 from the atmosphere. There is a complex web of feedbacks, both positive and negative, and feedback from CO2-induced warming produce at least as much additional warming as the CO2 itself does.
If you think that that I am not being serious, just look at any one item - say, the Mann Koyoto 'hockey-stick' graph.
You're not being serious, since the Mann "hockey stick graph" has nothing to do with Kyoto, climate models, or feedbacks.
Look at McIntyre and McKitric's complete demolition of it.
Gee, maybe you ought to read the review panel studies of Mann's work, which found that (a) there were flaws in Mann's analysis, and (b) when you fix them, you still get a hockey stick. Not to mention all the other analyses which have also produced hockey sticks. And it's not as if the case for global warming rests on any hockey stick graph to begin with.
thing is, there are some legit claims against the greenhouse effect causing global warming
Do tell.
(ie, things not from corporate shills -- friend of a friend of a friend is professor giggengack (spelling?) who pokes holes in the inconvenient truth movie).
Pokes holes in a movie, or in actual climate research?
but, in general, the thing is that we, humans, are more endangering ourselves than the planet. earth and its creatures evolve, they'll be fine.
No, we're more adaptable than most species. Some will go extinct (many have already; climate change just makes it worse), some won't; we won't.
(what the hell happened to electic cars? why are we using hybrids?)
We may get to electric cars, but the infrastructure isn't there. Hybrids are a good transition strategy: get the bugs worked out of cars with batterys, shift toward plug-in hybrid electrics, then towards full electric. But in the meantime, full electric isn't going to help us much in terms of pollution (or CO2), because most electric power is currently generated by fossil fuel burning plants.
If global warming is as much a threat to all of humanity as Al claims, then why isn't he mailing a free DVD to every man, woman and child on this planet? Don't say it can't be done; I used to get discs from AOL all the time.
AOL can afford to do that because (a) they're a big company and (b) can recoup the costs of manufacture/mailing using the profits from the new customers they gain from their mass mailing.
As noted elsewhere, Gore does not profit from the DVD sales.
There have been no first pass simulations showing that CO2 is a major amplifier. Methane has been the simulators gas of choice (it's an order of magnitude more effective "greenhouse gas' than CO2) for this "amplification" boogyman
Uh, yeah, that's not even remotely true. CO2 forcings are several times larger than methane (which, while having greater global warming potential than CO2, is present in far smaller amounts).
Problem is, we have no metrics on "heavy air pollution", especially particulate levels, which is what this BS depends on.
Also false. There are plenty of estimates of air pollution levels. (The biggest uncertainties are more in how this translates into radiative forcing, not on the actual concentrations themselves.)
Volcanism, BTW, ADDS lots of non-man-made CO2
No, volcanic CO2 is about two orders of magnitude smaller than manmade. (Volcanic aerosol emissions, on the other hand, are large for really big eruptions, but they produce short-term cooling, not long-term warming.)
There seems to be a strong correlation between solar wind and cloud formation heights.
There have been claims of correlations between cosmic rays and cloud formation, but any putative effect on the climate completely fall apart just when the warming trend becomes strongest (during the last 40 years), as cosmic ray incidence has not undergone a similar change during that period.