"That's as stupid as creationist and their logic. I don't care if 'science' says so, or God. My earth is relatively flat. Nothing in my personal experience shows me otherwise.....I personally have no way of verifying that information"
Science always gives you the option of reproducing results, if it deosn't then it can't be called science. If you are too lazy or stupid to repoduce the results for yourself but still insist they are wrong then you will quite rightly be labeled as an arrogant crackpot.
In the case of the flat earth, it's blindingly obviously you are not paying attention to your surroundings. For example how do you explain ships dissapearing over the horizon? If they fall of the edge then how do they get back?
"to suddenly go off into believing 'ex officio' everything science says is silly"
Please attempt to learn what science is before offering your critique.
"No where in the world have I seen smog like China, it is a unique sight."
It's dramatic but unfortunately it's not unique. Half a century ago the west were suffering pea-souper's of our own. Here in Melbourne Australia we have smog from bushfires during most summers, the summer of 06-07 was exceptionally bad with most of December looking like a bad day in Bejing.
"they say a theoretical 20% efficiency is obtainable"
We already have cells pushing 40% but they are expensive, dollars per watt over the lifetime of the installation is how you should figure out if a particular installation is financially viable.
I know what you mean, the part with the red drumsticks was terrible camera work. However I don't think it was NBC, I think it was the same pool cameras that I watched here in Oz.
On human scales, yes. On average a water molecule spends about 10 days in the atmosphere, meaning any imbalance created by humans is smoothed over in about 2 weeks (compared to ~200yrs for C02). However on a very large scale (such as filling dams) it would alter the local climate probably making surrounding areas drier.
You missed my point. The first thing your post did was disparage others for "seeing what they wanted to see". You then went on to tell us how you can see MOND making sense despite the fact that scientist can't get it to work.
"This is what I'm wondering... if we think climate change is rampant and coming fast, why haven't we started MOVING THE FARMS up a zone yet?"
Melting permafrost will be a huge swamp for decades/centuries. Here in Australia the SE is getting drier and the NW is getting wetter, however the soil in the SE breadbasket takes centuries to create. This is not to say that there won't be any good surprises, perhaps removing the Artic ice will lead to an explosion of phytoplankton that will suck up some C02 and feed a lot of fish.
"It's kind of weird that such rampant warming can cause frost in Florida and snow in Iraq."
Looking at the globe in thermodynamic terms the rise in temprature stirs up the atmosphere a bit more, raising the Earths temp by a few degrees takes an enourmous amount of energy. Models predict more extreme weather events but the jury is still out on an observable trend.
Anecdotally here in Australia we have had similar frosts kill our fruit whilst experiencing heat waves, drought and a cyclone that wiped out our entire bannana crop, I've seen news reports of snow falling on bushfires about a half dozen times over the last couple of summers. The year before last the fire season came 2 months early and was the worst I have seen in my 50yrs. The drought is said to be the worst in at lest 600yrs in a country that's dry at the best of times. The Murray-Darling basin no longer flows into the sea and has been that way for 6yrs now, one good harvest in the last 10yrs, other harvests have been down ~50%, we are 4th largest grain producer, every capitail city is on water rationing ( something that Californians may have to suck up soon, we have found that a 10% drop in rainfall translates to a 30% drop in run-off to storage ).
However all we can say with any certainty is that AGW is compounding existing land use problems and they will likely get worse before they get better.
The grape thing has a grain of truth to it, there was a warm period during medieval times but this has now far surpassed it. AFAIK nobody has a good eplaination for the ME warm period but I hear there are wineries in England that grow their own grapes.
Aside from that the Antartic is pretty much behaving as expected ( more snow up high, more melt around the edges ). The one place that is changing rapidly is the Antartic pennisula where temp rises have been three times the global average because of a phenomena known as polar amplification. Polar amplification has been forecast by the models since the 90's.
Even if you think we are not facing serious changes to our climate that could descimate global food production, surely a drastic reduction in the use of fossil fuels would go a long way to solving some of the other problems you mention. Personally I would like to see all pollution cleaned up but that's not going to happen in my lifetime.
"thereby guiding public funding of scientific research"
Exactly, I find the bit about changing NASA's mission statement the most telling example in the UCS link. Having said that I'm sure you can come up with equally telling examples from a different perspective.
"Is there nothing that politicians and corporations can't fuck up?"
All I can say is that I agree with the quotes "war is a failure of politics" and "all wars are resource wars". The Monkeysphere is both a reasonable and humourous explaination for all the random ass-headed cruelty of the world.
"The scientific method is good and all"
To paraphrase Sagan, "Science is mankind's candle in the dark".
Glad you noticed that the errors I chose support different conclusions by different un-scientific groups. An error is an error regardless of which conclusion it supports. Errors do make a model less reliable but they certainly don't make them useless ( as can be witnessed by everyday interaction with the internet ).
The most pessimistic estimates of the (winter) 2007 IPCC report had the summer Artic being "ice free" by around 2050, GHG "alarmists" at the same time were saying ~2030, now 2015 is looking not unreasonable. Last years melt was so dramatic that large shipping companies have been seriously contemplating the feasiblity of opening new shipping routes across the pole. Meanwhile a considerable number of scientists are still looking behind the couch for the missing methane.
Well said. Estimates of various forcings are represented in this pretty graph. My guess is this discoverey will change the estimated forcing due to land use, but not so much that it falls outside the existing error bars.
As I said in my reply to the OP, vested interests cut both ways, IMHO the track record of science is much more impressive than the track record of politics and industry.
Yes H20 is a GHG, however what many people fail to mention is that the atmosphere is currently saturated with H20, as can be evidenced by dew drops forming in deserts before the sun rises.
In other words, pump as much steam as you like into the atmosphere and all it will do is fall out as rain/dew somewhere else.
"But it does show that there is MUCH we don't know about the issue."
I agree but recognise that the same can be said about any area of scientific enquiry. Science is more than a seemingly contradictory pile of factoids, it's a way of thinking that is never 100% certain about anything, and can never prove anything to anyone. But if it's not the best model of the Universe that we have then may God strike me down before I hit submit.
"unless you count a consensus of scientists as evidence"
A scientific opinion is not evidence, at best it is an "expert witness statement". However consensus is an intergral part of the "republic of science", scientific consensus is implied by the term "scientists say", eg: "Scientists say the Earth orbits the Sun". Have a google and find out what the consensus on GW actualy says and then we can discuss.
Vested interests cut both ways, IMHO the track record of science is much more impressive than the track record of politics and industry. Here are a couple of blogs to practice the art of skepticisim on. The first is run by a bunch of climate scientists who contributed to the IPCC, it's founder is M.Mann the guy who came up with the much maligned "hockey stick", the second is from nature.com. Other excellent sites include NASA, NOAA, WMO, MET, CSIRO and countless other (not so excellent) sites from national scientific and meterological institutions across the globe.
Good points. Interestingly there is a lot of Methane bubbling out of the melting permafrost, particularly in E. Siberia. However the last two IPCC forecasts for increased Methane concentrations have failed to materialize, ie: levels have remained relatively stable for a decade after a steadily rising trend a few decades long. I consider the "missing methane" and "collapse of the Artic sea ice" to be the two biggest errors in the IPCC forecasts.
Just a thought but perhaps this new discovery is connected to the "missing methane"?
"No, it means that global warming isn't the disaster the proponents would have us believe."
You need to think that through a little deeper, nothing in this discovery changes existing observations of the upward trend in GHG concentrations, nor does it change the observed temprature trends, nor suddenly refreeze the Artic, reverse the melting of glaciers, fill the dams of SW Australia, restore the oceans ph balance, etc, etc.
There is nothing wrong with being skeptical but be aware that skepticisim is a skill, not an instinct.
The mandatory quote in this kind of thread is "absense of evidence is not evidence of absense" since the only thing that can be said about the (non)existance of God is "dunno".
You can learn more about the scientific method from Sagan's book including the concept that science does not "prove" anything. I admire Dawkin's for his writings and his efforts to fight the pious who take pity on people who don't share their beliefs. However his lack of belief can only be differentiated from a theist using Occam's razor, ie: "The universe just is" is a simpler model than "God did it". Regardless of what model you use there are at least 10 things that Atheists and Theists can agree on
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"That's as stupid as creationist and their logic. I don't care if 'science' says so, or God. My earth is relatively flat. Nothing in my personal experience shows me otherwise.....I personally have no way of verifying that information"
Science always gives you the option of reproducing results, if it deosn't then it can't be called science. If you are too lazy or stupid to repoduce the results for yourself but still insist they are wrong then you will quite rightly be labeled as an arrogant crackpot.
In the case of the flat earth, it's blindingly obviously you are not paying attention to your surroundings. For example how do you explain ships dissapearing over the horizon? If they fall of the edge then how do they get back?
"to suddenly go off into believing 'ex officio' everything science says is silly"
Please attempt to learn what science is before offering your critique.
"No where in the world have I seen smog like China, it is a unique sight."
It's dramatic but unfortunately it's not unique. Half a century ago the west were suffering pea-souper's of our own. Here in Melbourne Australia we have smog from bushfires during most summers, the summer of 06-07 was exceptionally bad with most of December looking like a bad day in Bejing.
"they say a theoretical 20% efficiency is obtainable"
We already have cells pushing 40% but they are expensive, dollars per watt over the lifetime of the installation is how you should figure out if a particular installation is financially viable.
I know what you mean, the part with the red drumsticks was terrible camera work. However I don't think it was NBC, I think it was the same pool cameras that I watched here in Oz.
On human scales, yes. On average a water molecule spends about 10 days in the atmosphere, meaning any imbalance created by humans is smoothed over in about 2 weeks (compared to ~200yrs for C02). However on a very large scale (such as filling dams) it would alter the local climate probably making surrounding areas drier.
You missed my point. The first thing your post did was disparage others for "seeing what they wanted to see". You then went on to tell us how you can see MOND making sense despite the fact that scientist can't get it to work.
"I doubt this simulation did more than let them see what they wanted to see..[snip]..Why do they think MOND is for cranks and crackpots?"
The first bit is wrong, to understand why it is wrong you need to answer the second bit yourself.
"This is what I'm wondering... if we think climate change is rampant and coming fast, why haven't we started MOVING THE FARMS up a zone yet?"
Melting permafrost will be a huge swamp for decades/centuries. Here in Australia the SE is getting drier and the NW is getting wetter, however the soil in the SE breadbasket takes centuries to create. This is not to say that there won't be any good surprises, perhaps removing the Artic ice will lead to an explosion of phytoplankton that will suck up some C02 and feed a lot of fish.
"It's kind of weird that such rampant warming can cause frost in Florida and snow in Iraq."
Looking at the globe in thermodynamic terms the rise in temprature stirs up the atmosphere a bit more, raising the Earths temp by a few degrees takes an enourmous amount of energy. Models predict more extreme weather events but the jury is still out on an observable trend.
Anecdotally here in Australia we have had similar frosts kill our fruit whilst experiencing heat waves, drought and a cyclone that wiped out our entire bannana crop, I've seen news reports of snow falling on bushfires about a half dozen times over the last couple of summers. The year before last the fire season came 2 months early and was the worst I have seen in my 50yrs. The drought is said to be the worst in at lest 600yrs in a country that's dry at the best of times. The Murray-Darling basin no longer flows into the sea and has been that way for 6yrs now, one good harvest in the last 10yrs, other harvests have been down ~50%, we are 4th largest grain producer, every capitail city is on water rationing ( something that Californians may have to suck up soon, we have found that a 10% drop in rainfall translates to a 30% drop in run-off to storage ).
However all we can say with any certainty is that AGW is compounding existing land use problems and they will likely get worse before they get better.
The grape thing has a grain of truth to it, there was a warm period during medieval times but this has now far surpassed it. AFAIK nobody has a good eplaination for the ME warm period but I hear there are wineries in England that grow their own grapes.
"...said the company has been aware of the research and is very interested to see it once it has been made public."
Funny, my decoder ring translates that to: "...said the company has seen it and is flat out creating a patch".
"Meanwhile, the Antarctic ice is growing."
Well yes, it's the middle of winter down here.
Aside from that the Antartic is pretty much behaving as expected ( more snow up high, more melt around the edges ). The one place that is changing rapidly is the Antartic pennisula where temp rises have been three times the global average because of a phenomena known as polar amplification. Polar amplification has been forecast by the models since the 90's.
Even if you think we are not facing serious changes to our climate that could descimate global food production, surely a drastic reduction in the use of fossil fuels would go a long way to solving some of the other problems you mention. Personally I would like to see all pollution cleaned up but that's not going to happen in my lifetime.
"Good to hear the careful words of a fellow yank!"
Ummm I think he is an Aussie. Although I admit we Aussies make our outragous territorial claims in the hope that the yanks will defend it for us.
Yes, me. :)
"thereby guiding public funding of scientific research"
Exactly, I find the bit about changing NASA's mission statement the most telling example in the UCS link. Having said that I'm sure you can come up with equally telling examples from a different perspective.
"Is there nothing that politicians and corporations can't fuck up?"
All I can say is that I agree with the quotes "war is a failure of politics" and "all wars are resource wars". The Monkeysphere is both a reasonable and humourous explaination for all the random ass-headed cruelty of the world.
"The scientific method is good and all"
To paraphrase Sagan, "Science is mankind's candle in the dark".
Glad you noticed that the errors I chose support different conclusions by different un-scientific groups. An error is an error regardless of which conclusion it supports. Errors do make a model less reliable but they certainly don't make them useless ( as can be witnessed by everyday interaction with the internet ).
The most pessimistic estimates of the (winter) 2007 IPCC report had the summer Artic being "ice free" by around 2050, GHG "alarmists" at the same time were saying ~2030, now 2015 is looking not unreasonable. Last years melt was so dramatic that large shipping companies have been seriously contemplating the feasiblity of opening new shipping routes across the pole. Meanwhile a considerable number of scientists are still looking behind the couch for the missing methane.
Well said. Estimates of various forcings are represented in this pretty graph. My guess is this discoverey will change the estimated forcing due to land use, but not so much that it falls outside the existing error bars.
As I said in my reply to the OP, vested interests cut both ways, IMHO the track record of science is much more impressive than the track record of politics and industry.
Yes H20 is a GHG, however what many people fail to mention is that the atmosphere is currently saturated with H20, as can be evidenced by dew drops forming in deserts before the sun rises.
In other words, pump as much steam as you like into the atmosphere and all it will do is fall out as rain/dew somewhere else.
"But it does show that there is MUCH we don't know about the issue."
I agree but recognise that the same can be said about any area of scientific enquiry. Science is more than a seemingly contradictory pile of factoids, it's a way of thinking that is never 100% certain about anything, and can never prove anything to anyone. But if it's not the best model of the Universe that we have then may God strike me down before I hit submit.
"unless you count a consensus of scientists as evidence"
A scientific opinion is not evidence, at best it is an "expert witness statement". However consensus is an intergral part of the "republic of science", scientific consensus is implied by the term "scientists say", eg: "Scientists say the Earth orbits the Sun". Have a google and find out what the consensus on GW actualy says and then we can discuss.
Vested interests cut both ways, IMHO the track record of science is much more impressive than the track record of politics and industry. Here are a couple of blogs to practice the art of skepticisim on. The first is run by a bunch of climate scientists who contributed to the IPCC, it's founder is M.Mann the guy who came up with the much maligned "hockey stick", the second is from nature.com. Other excellent sites include NASA, NOAA, WMO, MET, CSIRO and countless other (not so excellent) sites from national scientific and meterological institutions across the globe.
Good points. Interestingly there is a lot of Methane bubbling out of the melting permafrost, particularly in E. Siberia. However the last two IPCC forecasts for increased Methane concentrations have failed to materialize, ie: levels have remained relatively stable for a decade after a steadily rising trend a few decades long. I consider the "missing methane" and "collapse of the Artic sea ice" to be the two biggest errors in the IPCC forecasts.
Just a thought but perhaps this new discovery is connected to the "missing methane"?
"No, it means that global warming isn't the disaster the proponents would have us believe."
You need to think that through a little deeper, nothing in this discovery changes existing observations of the upward trend in GHG concentrations, nor does it change the observed temprature trends, nor suddenly refreeze the Artic, reverse the melting of glaciers, fill the dams of SW Australia, restore the oceans ph balance, etc, etc.
There is nothing wrong with being skeptical but be aware that skepticisim is a skill, not an instinct.
Yes, but unfortunately one of the byproducts of methane decomposition is CO2.
I love the way the spokesperson tries to make it sound better by listing all the things that were not on the laptop.
Contradict yes, invalidate no. See my reply to the OP above.
The mandatory quote in this kind of thread is "absense of evidence is not evidence of absense" since the only thing that can be said about the (non)existance of God is "dunno".
You can learn more about the scientific method from Sagan's book including the concept that science does not "prove" anything. I admire Dawkin's for his writings and his efforts to fight the pious who take pity on people who don't share their beliefs. However his lack of belief can only be differentiated from a theist using Occam's razor, ie: "The universe just is" is a simpler model than "God did it". Regardless of what model you use there are at least 10 things that Atheists and Theists can agree on
"atheists have empirical evidence to back up their claims"
Can you enlighten us as to what that "emprical evidence" is, or am I missing a joke?