You've made a good point, albeit on shaky ground. For example, we know that some climate cycles can occur over years or decades; some over millennia. Even the ones we know about we don't know exactly how they work. It is entirely plausible that there is a climate cycle at work of which we are completely unaware. However; I think this might be a bit of a red herring, and here's why:
Carbon dioxide traps "heat". That is a physical property of the gas and you can prove it to yourself using a simple experiment. We strongly believe that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has always been correlated with temperature. The question about time scales is relevant because we do not know how the Earth will respond to the contemporary rapid increase in CO2. If the Earth was a simple uni-variable system like the soda bottle experiment, it would certainly heat up; however, biogeochemical systems are often self-regulating, so that means that maybe the oceans will absorb the carbon dioxide, or maybe plants will grow bigger, etc.
So you're on the right track. Maybe 100 years will go by and all the carbon will be absorbed into a known (or hereto unknown) "sink". This is a risk management issue, so do the soda bottle experiment and decide for yourself.
Yes, but once we're done with the fossil carbon we've still got a long way to go before we get all that pesky carbonate out of the crust and back into the atmosphere where it belongs. Join the United Hadean-Earth Restoration Front today!
I hope you are being serious, because those are actually important questions and strike at the core of the science (not the politics) of Global Warming.
3/4 of the world is water how many consistent accurate readings do we have from the oceans before say 1950.
So we have sixty years of accurate readings world wide could there possibly be a 70 year trend that we are missing ?
The simple answer is: Yes, there could be a 70 year trend we are missing. The El Nino cycle was arguably only first described in detail in 1969, so it is possible there are other trends we do not know about.
The planet is 4 billion years old, the last ice age was 10,000 years ago I don't think the sample is large enough for us to make a good decision.
There are temperature paleo-proxies that can be used as thermometers for the deep past. Some examples include sediment cores, ice cores, corals, tree rings, and leaf remains which provide a variety of information about the climate based on stable isotopes and other indicators. Ice cores give us a continuous record going back hundreds of thousands of years, while other proxies give incomplete records from millions of years in the past. I encourage you to challenge the validity of these proxies and learn about stable isotope fractionation.
How much of the atmosphere is CO2... not 90 percent but less than one percent correct and what is the the human contribution to that only a small fraction.
The atmosphere contains about 820 Pg of carbon, approximately 0.04% by volume. Each year, the net flux of carbon to the atmosphere from fossil fuels and land use changes is estimated at approximately 4.1(±0.04) Pg -- only 0.5% increase per year.
We are not the cause.
While the Earth's atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, carbon dioxide has a disproportionately large effect on controlling temperature. To prove it to yourself, you can do a physical experiment with two soda bottles and some alka-seltzer. We are measurably the cause of a small net increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (see above); however, if you want to be sceptical you should ask whether that short term increase will lead to a long term temperature change.
I have always wondered about that myself, and the traditional answer is that it has a low residence time in the atmosphere. I do not know how thoroughly this has been reviewed.
You're right about the causation correlation conflation. It boils down to a chicken-and-egg problem with temperature and carbon dioxide, complicated by paleo-climate proxies that only stable isotope biogeochemists seem able to talk about. Models are built with low 3D resolution and a vast array of unverified "constants" then calibrated using limited data sets. Underlying all of it is the fact that even peer-reviewed science is imperfect and fraught with academic politics.
The caveat is that we could have a serious, global, and long-term problem on our hands.
It is interesting to note that the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide may have been as much as 20 times higher as it is today at points in Earth's geologic past. Of course, you wouldn't want to live there:)
Am I the only one who fails to see the massive logic fail in that statement? If methane only lasts for 9-15 years, how is more effective at trapping heat over a 100 year period?
Yes, you are the only one who sees a massive logic fail because you are taking the statement at face value instead of trying to educate yourself about what they are talking about. I hope you were being facetious, but just in case: Atmospheric methane is oxidized in the atmosphere to produce carbon dioxide and water. FTA: "The 100-year global warming potential of methane is 25, i.e. over a 100-year period, it traps 25 times more heat per mass unit than carbon dioxide."
You have asserted that an increase in the price of gasoline will cause everyone to want a hybrid vehicle. The last seven years contradict that assertion. The increase of gas prices has continued unabated even though the proportion of hybrid vehicles sold has remained more-or-less flat.
Where the disagreement is, is if that warming is a natural part of earths long term weather patterns
Source?
IF increased carbon dioxide causes warming AND sources, sinks, and fluxes of carbon dioxide can be quantified THEN the human contribution to warming can be estimated
"just for brief science fiction" "U-U dates were thrown off by all the Uranium from the explosion." "created a large enough hole that the continents slid far more quickly than anyone today realizes."
Our understanding of the deep past hinges on a small number of assumptions, such as radioactive dating and plate tectonic theory. While we have no reason to suspect that our assumptions are incorrect, we also know that there are probably lots of things we don't know. I think this is a clever theory, and have always wondered about the effects of a large bolide on a planetary body. There are a variety of impact metamorphism features, and potentially effects on climate, but can they affect plate tectonics?
TFA is about the pertussis vaccine. Your sweeping generalizations about vaccines in general are inaccurate and misleading.
Your opinion equally condemns those who opt out of the influenza or varicella vaccines as it does those who opt out of the polio or pertussis vaccines.
I also challenge your assertion that sanitation is the most important public health technology in the history of mankind. The true prime is self-evident;)
All of the decisions made about our child are discussed at length in a rational manner. We always come to a resolution, and the average outcome shows that we are each "right" about half of the time. I suspect many people who are under 40, have a family, and live in a large urban centre may share that experience as gender-based roles have transformed in recent decades. Respecting your position, single-income households where the father is working must by necessity favour the mother in decisions regarding children. The opposite should be true for single-income households where the mother is working. In those cases "daddy knows best".
In 2010 11% of single income households had a stay-at-home dad. In 1976, it was 1%.
Those numbers are for Canada, but I think in the USA the number is closer to 16% though the way the statistics were collected makes it hard to compare. I could only find one survey for the UK indicating 6% stay at home with the kids, but I'm not sure how representative that data is.
I think maybe you had your kids in the 70's? The times, they are a changin'.
I recently encountered this conundrum as well with a new arrival in my family. Without having been exposed to the recent "controversy" and the usual polarization of "you're either for vaccination or you're with the child pornographers", I did what I usually do and that is question the merits of whatever course of action has been recommended to me. Living in Canada, vaccines are crowd sourced, so money does not factor into my decision making. There is actually a pretty good federal resource here, so it is convenient to inform myself.
The Public Health Agency of Canada recommends vaccinating your child against 13 separate "diseases". My "cohort" has been vaccinated against maybe half that number. Why the change? Why those 13, why not more, or less? What are the risks and benefits for each one? Are they all equal? Are some more beneficial than others? Who made these decisions? What research was used in each case? How long have they been in general circulation? Unfortunately the government FAQ doesn't contain that information.
We ended up getting the DTaP-IPV-Hib (Diphtheria, Tetanus, Whooping Cough, Polio, Hib) and Pneu-C-13 (Pneumococcal disease) vaccines but opted out of the Rot (Rotavirus) vaccine after weighing the risks and benefits. I am still not sure if I have made the right decision; it seems that there are people on both "sides" using emotional arguments to try and sway me one way or the other. The nurses looked at us like we were criminals for not getting the Rotavirus vaccine. In the coming months, we will have to choose whether to vaccinate against Influenza, Varicella, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, and Meningococcal disease. Wait, why are Chicken Pox and the Flu on the immunization schedule now? I don't get the free flu shots every year and I had chicken pox when I was younger, to no great detriment of which I am aware. Do I blindly trust what the health agency recommends? Policy and science do not always go hand in hand -- I'm a scientist and I work for government so I know how that shit works.
I once had a serious adverse reaction to a vaccine and want to avoid that risk for my children where possible, if it is reasonable to do so. Maybe I will only give my child a few of those vaccines... Have I made a horrible mistake? Do I deserve to burn in hell like some of the commenters suggest? Do I get to wear an "anti-vaccine" badge now? In which bi-chromatic "camp" do I belong?
Speaking of Gulliver's Travels, it was written in 1726 and I would classify it more as a Science Fiction novel than a Fantasy novel (consider Part III of the book). How is Frankenstein, written almost 100 years later, "arguably the first time Science Fiction appears"?
Is a possible rise in sea level of greater concern than a possible die-off[sic] of a huge swath of sea life? Not sure, thus my question.
A die-off of marine life could lead to more severe long-term consequences if the oxygen balance of the ocean is sufficiently disrupted. There has been research and speculation on oceanic anoxic events suggesting that anaerobic bacteria, specifically sulphate reducers that normally live in sea-floor sediments, could gradually migrate towards the surface as environmental conditions became more hospitable for them (i.e. less oxygen in the water). If you're really interested, you'd find some interesting reading by Googling "Permian Triassic". Here's a couple of quick teasers to get you started.
"...you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which, in its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It does not appear, from all you have said, how any one perfection is required towards the procurement of any one station among you; much less, that men are ennobled on account of their virtue; that priests are advanced for their piety or learning; soldiers, for their conduct or valour; judges, for their integrity; senators, for the love of their country; or counsellors for their wisdom... I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth."
From Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift (1726).
Not a bad point about adapting; humans are almost as widespread as some species of bacteria and fungi, so we're probably going to survive anything short of an oceanic anoxic event, large meteorite impact, massive volcano, or alien/zombie invasion. Canadians will, anyway, as long as we have the Mexican Asparagus, California Tomatoes, and Florida Oranges stocking our shelves in the grocery stores. If we run out of food in the winter, those 5.5 million people in the greater Toronto Area can just fish the great lakes and the 1.5 million in Montreal can just go out and hunt Moose. Oh, wait...
If it's focussed more in the north, then expect large amounts of flooding as the snow and ice melt.
1. Open Google Earth 2. Look at the continent of North America 3. What colour is it? 4. Where is the snow and ice that is going to melt and flood Canada?
Slashdot Mirror
Here's the link to the experiment
You've made a good point, albeit on shaky ground. For example, we know that some climate cycles can occur over years or decades; some over millennia. Even the ones we know about we don't know exactly how they work. It is entirely plausible that there is a climate cycle at work of which we are completely unaware. However; I think this might be a bit of a red herring, and here's why:
Carbon dioxide traps "heat". That is a physical property of the gas and you can prove it to yourself using a simple experiment. We strongly believe that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has always been correlated with temperature. The question about time scales is relevant because we do not know how the Earth will respond to the contemporary rapid increase in CO2. If the Earth was a simple uni-variable system like the soda bottle experiment, it would certainly heat up; however, biogeochemical systems are often self-regulating, so that means that maybe the oceans will absorb the carbon dioxide, or maybe plants will grow bigger, etc.
So you're on the right track. Maybe 100 years will go by and all the carbon will be absorbed into a known (or hereto unknown) "sink". This is a risk management issue, so do the soda bottle experiment and decide for yourself.
Yes, but once we're done with the fossil carbon we've still got a long way to go before we get all that pesky carbonate out of the crust and back into the atmosphere where it belongs. Join the United Hadean-Earth Restoration Front today!
I hope you are being serious, because those are actually important questions and strike at the core of the science (not the politics) of Global Warming.
3/4 of the world is water how many consistent accurate readings do we have from the oceans before say 1950.
Sea surface temperature is a good global thermometer and was first systematically recorded during the Challenger Expedition from 1872-1876. Read "135 years of global ocean warming between the Challenger expedition and the Argo Programme" for more detail.
So we have sixty years of accurate readings world wide could there possibly be a 70 year trend that we are missing ?
The simple answer is: Yes, there could be a 70 year trend we are missing. The El Nino cycle was arguably only first described in detail in 1969, so it is possible there are other trends we do not know about.
The planet is 4 billion years old, the last ice age was 10,000 years ago I don't think the sample is large enough for us to make a good decision.
There are temperature paleo-proxies that can be used as thermometers for the deep past. Some examples include sediment cores, ice cores, corals, tree rings, and leaf remains which provide a variety of information about the climate based on stable isotopes and other indicators. Ice cores give us a continuous record going back hundreds of thousands of years, while other proxies give incomplete records from millions of years in the past. I encourage you to challenge the validity of these proxies and learn about stable isotope fractionation.
How much of the atmosphere is CO2... not 90 percent but less than one percent correct and what is the the human contribution to that only a small fraction.
The atmosphere contains about 820 Pg of carbon, approximately 0.04% by volume. Each year, the net flux of carbon to the atmosphere from fossil fuels and land use changes is estimated at approximately 4.1(±0.04) Pg -- only 0.5% increase per year.
We are not the cause.
While the Earth's atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, carbon dioxide has a disproportionately large effect on controlling temperature. To prove it to yourself, you can do a physical experiment with two soda bottles and some alka-seltzer. We are measurably the cause of a small net increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (see above); however, if you want to be sceptical you should ask whether that short term increase will lead to a long term temperature change.
I have always wondered about that myself, and the traditional answer is that it has a low residence time in the atmosphere. I do not know how thoroughly this has been reviewed.
The assertion is not incorrect.
The time scale is.
You're right about the causation correlation conflation. It boils down to a chicken-and-egg problem with temperature and carbon dioxide, complicated by paleo-climate proxies that only stable isotope biogeochemists seem able to talk about. Models are built with low 3D resolution and a vast array of unverified "constants" then calibrated using limited data sets. Underlying all of it is the fact that even peer-reviewed science is imperfect and fraught with academic politics.
The caveat is that we could have a serious, global, and long-term problem on our hands.
How would you risk manage this situation?
It is interesting to note that the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide may have been as much as 20 times higher as it is today at points in Earth's geologic past. Of course, you wouldn't want to live there :)
Sometimes people compare today's warming with the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum.
Am I the only one who fails to see the massive logic fail in that statement? If methane only lasts for 9-15 years, how is more effective at trapping heat over a 100 year period?
Yes, you are the only one who sees a massive logic fail because you are taking the statement at face value instead of trying to educate yourself about what they are talking about. I hope you were being facetious, but just in case: Atmospheric methane is oxidized in the atmosphere to produce carbon dioxide and water. FTA: "The 100-year global warming potential of methane is 25, i.e. over a 100-year period, it traps 25 times more heat per mass unit than carbon dioxide."
You have asserted that an increase in the price of gasoline will cause everyone to want a hybrid vehicle. The last seven years contradict that assertion. The increase of gas prices has continued unabated even though the proportion of hybrid vehicles sold has remained more-or-less flat.
Where the disagreement is, is if that warming is a natural part of earths long term weather patterns
Source?
IF increased carbon dioxide causes warming
AND sources, sinks, and fluxes of carbon dioxide can be quantified
THEN the human contribution to warming can be estimated
Climate proxies are used to extend the record, and often give useful correlations between carbon dioxide and temperature.
"just for brief science fiction"
"U-U dates were thrown off by all the Uranium from the explosion."
"created a large enough hole that the continents slid far more quickly than anyone today realizes."
Our understanding of the deep past hinges on a small number of assumptions, such as radioactive dating and plate tectonic theory. While we have no reason to suspect that our assumptions are incorrect, we also know that there are probably lots of things we don't know. I think this is a clever theory, and have always wondered about the effects of a large bolide on a planetary body. There are a variety of impact metamorphism features, and potentially effects on climate, but can they affect plate tectonics?
Fallacy of defective induction.
TFA is about the pertussis vaccine.
Your sweeping generalizations about vaccines in general are inaccurate and misleading.
Your opinion equally condemns those who opt out of the influenza or varicella vaccines as it does those who opt out of the polio or pertussis vaccines.
I also challenge your assertion that sanitation is the most important public health technology in the history of mankind. The true prime is self-evident ;)
All of the decisions made about our child are discussed at length in a rational manner. We always come to a resolution, and the average outcome shows that we are each "right" about half of the time. I suspect many people who are under 40, have a family, and live in a large urban centre may share that experience as gender-based roles have transformed in recent decades. Respecting your position, single-income households where the father is working must by necessity favour the mother in decisions regarding children. The opposite should be true for single-income households where the mother is working. In those cases "daddy knows best".
In 2010 11% of single income households had a stay-at-home dad.
In 1976, it was 1%.
Those numbers are for Canada, but I think in the USA the number is closer to 16% though the way the statistics were collected makes it hard to compare. I could only find one survey for the UK indicating 6% stay at home with the kids, but I'm not sure how representative that data is.
I think maybe you had your kids in the 70's? The times, they are a changin'.
I recently encountered this conundrum as well with a new arrival in my family. Without having been exposed to the recent "controversy" and the usual polarization of "you're either for vaccination or you're with the child pornographers", I did what I usually do and that is question the merits of whatever course of action has been recommended to me. Living in Canada, vaccines are crowd sourced, so money does not factor into my decision making. There is actually a pretty good federal resource here, so it is convenient to inform myself.
The Public Health Agency of Canada recommends vaccinating your child against 13 separate "diseases". My "cohort" has been vaccinated against maybe half that number. Why the change? Why those 13, why not more, or less? What are the risks and benefits for each one? Are they all equal? Are some more beneficial than others? Who made these decisions? What research was used in each case? How long have they been in general circulation? Unfortunately the government FAQ doesn't contain that information.
We ended up getting the DTaP-IPV-Hib (Diphtheria, Tetanus, Whooping Cough, Polio, Hib) and Pneu-C-13 (Pneumococcal disease) vaccines but opted out of the Rot (Rotavirus) vaccine after weighing the risks and benefits. I am still not sure if I have made the right decision; it seems that there are people on both "sides" using emotional arguments to try and sway me one way or the other. The nurses looked at us like we were criminals for not getting the Rotavirus vaccine. In the coming months, we will have to choose whether to vaccinate against Influenza, Varicella, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, and Meningococcal disease. Wait, why are Chicken Pox and the Flu on the immunization schedule now? I don't get the free flu shots every year and I had chicken pox when I was younger, to no great detriment of which I am aware. Do I blindly trust what the health agency recommends? Policy and science do not always go hand in hand -- I'm a scientist and I work for government so I know how that shit works.
I once had a serious adverse reaction to a vaccine and want to avoid that risk for my children where possible, if it is reasonable to do so. Maybe I will only give my child a few of those vaccines... Have I made a horrible mistake? Do I deserve to burn in hell like some of the commenters suggest? Do I get to wear an "anti-vaccine" badge now? In which bi-chromatic "camp" do I belong?
Speaking of Gulliver's Travels, it was written in 1726 and I would classify it more as a Science Fiction novel than a Fantasy novel (consider Part III of the book). How is Frankenstein, written almost 100 years later, "arguably the first time Science Fiction appears"?
Qadhaffi funded irrigation of the whole of North Africa down to the Equator
Does that makes his madness tolerable?
Is a possible rise in sea level of greater concern than a possible die-off[sic] of a huge swath of sea life? Not sure, thus my question.
A die-off of marine life could lead to more severe long-term consequences if the oxygen balance of the ocean is sufficiently disrupted. There has been research and speculation on oceanic anoxic events suggesting that anaerobic bacteria, specifically sulphate reducers that normally live in sea-floor sediments, could gradually migrate towards the surface as environmental conditions became more hospitable for them (i.e. less oxygen in the water). If you're really interested, you'd find some interesting reading by Googling "Permian Triassic". Here's a couple of quick teasers to get you started.
They didn't hold on to a house - they were renting.
Unless you paid cash for your house, you're renting it from the bank.
"...you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which, in its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It does not appear, from all you have said, how any one perfection is required towards the procurement of any one station among you; much less, that men are ennobled on account of their virtue; that priests are advanced for their piety or learning; soldiers, for their conduct or valour; judges, for their integrity; senators, for the love of their country; or counsellors for their wisdom... I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth."
From Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift (1726).
Not a bad point about adapting; humans are almost as widespread as some species of bacteria and fungi, so we're probably going to survive anything short of an oceanic anoxic event, large meteorite impact, massive volcano, or alien/zombie invasion. Canadians will, anyway, as long as we have the Mexican Asparagus, California Tomatoes, and Florida Oranges stocking our shelves in the grocery stores. If we run out of food in the winter, those 5.5 million people in the greater Toronto Area can just fish the great lakes and the 1.5 million in Montreal can just go out and hunt Moose. Oh, wait...
How the hell did this get a score of 4? Who the fuck moderates this forum? There are nearly 20 "American" countries.
If it's focussed more in the north, then expect large amounts of flooding as the snow and ice melt.
1. Open Google Earth
2. Look at the continent of North America
3. What colour is it?
4. Where is the snow and ice that is going to melt and flood Canada?
If I understand the ruling correctly, it looks like we dodged the bullet this month.