The idea that the climates and temperatures of the world have been pretty constant since humans began to exist is stupid. Climate change has been the rule not the exception of this planet since it's existence began. Assuming that this third more protective atmosphere was supposed to somehow change this continually evolving and changing climate is stupid. Thinking humans influence on the carbon cycle is going to somehow "ruin" the planet is also a stretch. Your belief in the current theories on the carbon cycle is a bit naive. To think that our current understanding of all the events in nature are well enough understood to know exactly what the net effect of forests and oceans and such have on CO2 levels is sufficient to make a reliable assessment is something far beyond naive. To say that a rainforest for example is a net CO2 sink is even a stretch as decaying plant and animal life produces CO2 and rainforest usually have decades worth of dead vegetation in a continual decaying state. I have lived in many swampy areas and they are the same. The smell most swamps give off make it seem obvious to me there is much more decay type things going on in them than there are photosynthotic type things. I don't care how many scientists you send to study such natural systems, you will never have a reliable idea of what is going on there. Also as a warming trend starts everything that happens naturally seems to lend more toward accelerating the warming trend. As ice(very reflective) melts more earth(very dark not at all reflective) becomes visible. This adds to a natural net heat gain and also the melting creates water vapor further helping hold heat that is absorbed. My feeling on the whole thing is that current understanding of the natural processes of this planet are still in their infancy. To believe any scientist or group of scientists has enough figured out to make a reliable assessment would just be a very naive thing to do. The nature of all intelligent people such as scientists is too be much more confident in their understanding of things than they should be. Our current state and level of knowledge and understanding of things is very small compared to what it could what it eventually will be. Knowledge and understanding of nature is still in prebirth stages. Humans will exist and further develop knowledge and understanding of nature and our universe for billions of years to come. To think that we are somehow in an advanced enough stage of this knowlege and understanding to figure things such as we are discussing several thousand years into developing it is a very large mistake and one of few that could abruptly end our current pace of learning. If you want world policy to take into account ideas and theories that are in infant or prebirth stages you go ahead and support that, but I for one WILL NOT!!
First off the IPCC is the last place you should look for raw data as it is the MOST political of ANY climate change research group. Your rebutal was silly though as you attributed the WHOLE 278ppm to 370ppm CO2 level increase soley on humans. Geological data suggests all warming trends are accompanied by CO2 increases. No previous warming occured in the industrial age though, so why did CO2 levels increase back then? In all honesty if you look at geological and ice data, most of it suggests a very icy past million years or so. Every so often there have been ice ages the filled a lot of the land masses of earth in ice and empty the oceans a good bit. Then you get warm periods between without much ice. If we started the industrial age in a warm period between and it is really having a warming effect it is probably a good thing, as it could delay an eventual cooling part of the cycle. All the geological data suggests the ice ages to be much less favorable climate wise to man kind and most other plant and animal life than the warming cycles between them. Some geological data put the earth at 10F warmer than it is today 75 million years ago and life did OK back then. Another interesting thing to consider is that the mini ice age from the 1400's-1800's seemed to have temperatures only around 1F cooler on average than they are today. I myself prefer the warming trend over a possible cooling trend if only 1F cooler is gonna freeze people outta places like greenland and such. Plants love CO2, heat, and water. I'm not gonna complain if there higher ocean levels and less ice. I would complain though if there were more ice and less water. Chances are anyhow that there is a temperature threshold in the current atmosphere in which water droplets(clouds/fog) would start to overpower water vapor and reflect more of the suns entergy causing a genaral cooling. If this is true, CO2 levels become very minor and only contribute to speeding up the process of reaching the temperature threshold that makes water droplet levels start the cooling trend side of the cycle. So bascially we end up with very little ability to control things since it is mostly water controlling the current cycles as I see it.
Well I am not sure where you get your data, but the DOE probably has the best data on actual gas emissions of humans I can think of. I don't know any other organization tracking what everyone burning as closely as them. Their figure don't reflect what you are spouting here. Beyond that when you are talking the mass and volume of gasses in something as large and complicated as our atmosphere I really doubt ANY organization has data that is reliable anyhow. You can't make a trustworthy assessment of anything until you have consistent data and our capabilities are still lacking when it comes to deciding how quickly humans are adding GHG's compared to natural events. First of all most data gathering on ppm and ppb of GHG's is probably being conducted near population centers where anthropogenic sources are obviously highest and very little direct GHG data at all is gathered over our oceans surfaces. I garuntee there are very few climatologists sitting around setting up intsruments around volocanic types sources of GHG's to assess their impact on daily GHG output. Satellites are helping, but there are still many questionable assumptions and such that need to be made before you convert data from them into useful GHG data. You are also still ignoring water vapor which is more than likely the dominant GHG by leaps and bounds anyhow. My whole point is that there are obviously billions and trillions of factors contributing to the current warming trend in out atmosphere and to think even the smartest scientists with the most accurate and complete data currently available have what they need to make an even remotely reliable assessment as to whether or not WE(Humankind) is making even a quantifiable contribution to this trend is laughable to anyone with even a lick of common sense.
I guess you are Mr. AGU. I kinda doubt these AGU folks would put money down though. Some Russian scientists studying solar activities influence mean temperatures have only found a set of British scientist willing to put up $10,000 in a bet that their theory of a cooling trend will start in the next 10 years based on their study of solar activity trends. There were a few american greenhouse climate guys that wouldn't take the bet. Seems like an easy 10g's if you are so sure the warming trend is here to stay. I am not even trying to suggest that solar activity is any more major a factor than greenhouse gases, but just that it is a possible factor many climatoligists probably don't take into account. This is only one factor I am suggesting. The real problem I am trying to point out is that greenhouse gas levels may be the driving force behind GMT, but I don't think much research is being done to study the just how much energy is being shot at this planet from outside it's atmosphere. The amount of energy that our atmosphere can possibly absorb may not be as constant as the scientific community has been assuming. On top of that factor just the study of whether greenhouse gas levels in modern times are driven primarily by anthropogenic causes or not is nearly an impossible thing to quantify reliably. Currently greenhouse gases make up less than.1% of our atmosphere by mass. The approximate mass of the atmosphere is around 5x10^18kg. This leaves less than about 5x10^15kg in greenhouse gasses. Now you can MAYBE say 4% of those are man made since the begining of industrialization if you check data at the US department of energy's data. It's taken us 200+ years to add this 4%, all while nature has added 20% according to the same data. This all ignores water vapor which is known to be the largest greenhouse contributor far and away and is nearly 100% natural. So we produce greenhouse gases far slower than nature and don't really produce any measurable % of water vapor in the atmosphere yet I am supposed to believe the 98 fools that believe our current warming trend is primarily due to anthropogenic causes?? Oh well. You believe who you want too.
Ok Mr. "With all do respect", I mentioned one skeptic of global warming. I didn't say there is only one. There are many credible scientists who are skeptics of global warming "alarmism". Not just many scientist, but even a considerable number of climatologists. Here is an article that points out a FEW in the skeptics camp ( http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg185248 61.500 ). They are mostly just not as outspoken about the theory as most will agree there is a warming trend going on they just don't believe it is anything to be hugely alarmed by. There have been various warming and cooling periods in this planets history before we existed here and many since we have come to exist most likely. Not only that, but there is plenty of geological data that suggests much sharper warming and cooling than anything that has happened during this industrial age of humans. If you want "Alarmist" science to influence your view of the future go ahead, but I myself don't buy into even the most scientific crystal ball. In the 1950's scientists in these same fields were warning of "global cooling!" They had 50 years of data then and have 100 now yet have changed their mind about the trend direction and probably will again in another 50 years of gathering data. The billions of years of earths existence has almost definately seen a higher and lower mean temp than any during the time of humans so to think that we could somehow influence such a thing is what is bone-headed.
I'm not going to say it was a good idea to appoint a hot headed 24 year old into a NASA press job and let him censor scientists, but I do think NASA scientists should only release findings and articles in a scientifically worded articles. This James Hansen does seem to be one of the sorts of scientists that aren't good for NASA or science in general himself. There are credible scientists who do not believe the "Greenhouse Effect" is the only contributor to our current warming trend or some who are skeptical is even the primary contributor. The greenhouse effect only explains a warming trends that happens when our planet has a relatively constant amount of energy to absorb from the sun and other cosmic energy sources. Many scientists believe the energy getting shot at our planet varies considerably with increases and decreases in solar activity. This article ( http://upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060207 -041447-2345r ) discusses the predictions of one russian scientist that believes a mini ice age may start in the next few decades. As far as I am concerned any global temperture trend theories are at best weak theories. There are far to many factors influencing global temperatures to predict what direction they will go in anything other than the very near future. If you talk to someone who studies dinasours he will be quite confident the earth was much warmer in their time than ours, yet we were not there to produce any greenhouse gasses to make that happen?? Were he dinasours farting to much?? Anyhow my primary point is that I think even the most brilliant scientists with the most sophistocated computer models sometimes get tunnel vision and can lead us off path. Always be skeptical.
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The idea that the climates and temperatures of the world have been pretty constant since humans began to exist is stupid. Climate change has been the rule not the exception of this planet since it's existence began. Assuming that this third more protective atmosphere was supposed to somehow change this continually evolving and changing climate is stupid. Thinking humans influence on the carbon cycle is going to somehow "ruin" the planet is also a stretch. Your belief in the current theories on the carbon cycle is a bit naive. To think that our current understanding of all the events in nature are well enough understood to know exactly what the net effect of forests and oceans and such have on CO2 levels is sufficient to make a reliable assessment is something far beyond naive. To say that a rainforest for example is a net CO2 sink is even a stretch as decaying plant and animal life produces CO2 and rainforest usually have decades worth of dead vegetation in a continual decaying state. I have lived in many swampy areas and they are the same. The smell most swamps give off make it seem obvious to me there is much more decay type things going on in them than there are photosynthotic type things. I don't care how many scientists you send to study such natural systems, you will never have a reliable idea of what is going on there. Also as a warming trend starts everything that happens naturally seems to lend more toward accelerating the warming trend. As ice(very reflective) melts more earth(very dark not at all reflective) becomes visible. This adds to a natural net heat gain and also the melting creates water vapor further helping hold heat that is absorbed. My feeling on the whole thing is that current understanding of the natural processes of this planet are still in their infancy. To believe any scientist or group of scientists has enough figured out to make a reliable assessment would just be a very naive thing to do. The nature of all intelligent people such as scientists is too be much more confident in their understanding of things than they should be. Our current state and level of knowledge and understanding of things is very small compared to what it could what it eventually will be. Knowledge and understanding of nature is still in prebirth stages. Humans will exist and further develop knowledge and understanding of nature and our universe for billions of years to come. To think that we are somehow in an advanced enough stage of this knowlege and understanding to figure things such as we are discussing several thousand years into developing it is a very large mistake and one of few that could abruptly end our current pace of learning. If you want world policy to take into account ideas and theories that are in infant or prebirth stages you go ahead and support that, but I for one WILL NOT!!
First off the IPCC is the last place you should look for raw data as it is the MOST political of ANY climate change research group. Your rebutal was silly though as you attributed the WHOLE 278ppm to 370ppm CO2 level increase soley on humans. Geological data suggests all warming trends are accompanied by CO2 increases. No previous warming occured in the industrial age though, so why did CO2 levels increase back then? In all honesty if you look at geological and ice data, most of it suggests a very icy past million years or so. Every so often there have been ice ages the filled a lot of the land masses of earth in ice and empty the oceans a good bit. Then you get warm periods between without much ice. If we started the industrial age in a warm period between and it is really having a warming effect it is probably a good thing, as it could delay an eventual cooling part of the cycle. All the geological data suggests the ice ages to be much less favorable climate wise to man kind and most other plant and animal life than the warming cycles between them. Some geological data put the earth at 10F warmer than it is today 75 million years ago and life did OK back then. Another interesting thing to consider is that the mini ice age from the 1400's-1800's seemed to have temperatures only around 1F cooler on average than they are today. I myself prefer the warming trend over a possible cooling trend if only 1F cooler is gonna freeze people outta places like greenland and such. Plants love CO2, heat, and water. I'm not gonna complain if there higher ocean levels and less ice. I would complain though if there were more ice and less water. Chances are anyhow that there is a temperature threshold in the current atmosphere in which water droplets(clouds/fog) would start to overpower water vapor and reflect more of the suns entergy causing a genaral cooling. If this is true, CO2 levels become very minor and only contribute to speeding up the process of reaching the temperature threshold that makes water droplet levels start the cooling trend side of the cycle. So bascially we end up with very little ability to control things since it is mostly water controlling the current cycles as I see it.
Well I am not sure where you get your data, but the DOE probably has the best data on actual gas emissions of humans I can think of. I don't know any other organization tracking what everyone burning as closely as them. Their figure don't reflect what you are spouting here. Beyond that when you are talking the mass and volume of gasses in something as large and complicated as our atmosphere I really doubt ANY organization has data that is reliable anyhow. You can't make a trustworthy assessment of anything until you have consistent data and our capabilities are still lacking when it comes to deciding how quickly humans are adding GHG's compared to natural events. First of all most data gathering on ppm and ppb of GHG's is probably being conducted near population centers where anthropogenic sources are obviously highest and very little direct GHG data at all is gathered over our oceans surfaces. I garuntee there are very few climatologists sitting around setting up intsruments around volocanic types sources of GHG's to assess their impact on daily GHG output. Satellites are helping, but there are still many questionable assumptions and such that need to be made before you convert data from them into useful GHG data. You are also still ignoring water vapor which is more than likely the dominant GHG by leaps and bounds anyhow. My whole point is that there are obviously billions and trillions of factors contributing to the current warming trend in out atmosphere and to think even the smartest scientists with the most accurate and complete data currently available have what they need to make an even remotely reliable assessment as to whether or not WE(Humankind) is making even a quantifiable contribution to this trend is laughable to anyone with even a lick of common sense.
I guess you are Mr. AGU. I kinda doubt these AGU folks would put money down though. Some Russian scientists studying solar activities influence mean temperatures have only found a set of British scientist willing to put up $10,000 in a bet that their theory of a cooling trend will start in the next 10 years based on their study of solar activity trends. There were a few american greenhouse climate guys that wouldn't take the bet. Seems like an easy 10g's if you are so sure the warming trend is here to stay. I am not even trying to suggest that solar activity is any more major a factor than greenhouse gases, but just that it is a possible factor many climatoligists probably don't take into account. This is only one factor I am suggesting. The real problem I am trying to point out is that greenhouse gas levels may be the driving force behind GMT, but I don't think much research is being done to study the just how much energy is being shot at this planet from outside it's atmosphere. The amount of energy that our atmosphere can possibly absorb may not be as constant as the scientific community has been assuming. On top of that factor just the study of whether greenhouse gas levels in modern times are driven primarily by anthropogenic causes or not is nearly an impossible thing to quantify reliably. Currently greenhouse gases make up less than .1% of our atmosphere by mass. The approximate mass of the atmosphere is around 5x10^18kg. This leaves less than about 5x10^15kg in greenhouse gasses. Now you can MAYBE say 4% of those are man made since the begining of industrialization if you check data at the US department of energy's data. It's taken us 200+ years to add this 4%, all while nature has added 20% according to the same data. This all ignores water vapor which is known to be the largest greenhouse contributor far and away and is nearly 100% natural. So we produce greenhouse gases far slower than nature and don't really produce any measurable % of water vapor in the atmosphere yet I am supposed to believe the 98 fools that believe our current warming trend is primarily due to anthropogenic causes?? Oh well. You believe who you want too.
Ok Mr. "With all do respect", I mentioned one skeptic of global warming. I didn't say there is only one. There are many credible scientists who are skeptics of global warming "alarmism". Not just many scientist, but even a considerable number of climatologists. Here is an article that points out a FEW in the skeptics camp ( http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg185248 61.500 ). They are mostly just not as outspoken about the theory as most will agree there is a warming trend going on they just don't believe it is anything to be hugely alarmed by. There have been various warming and cooling periods in this planets history before we existed here and many since we have come to exist most likely. Not only that, but there is plenty of geological data that suggests much sharper warming and cooling than anything that has happened during this industrial age of humans. If you want "Alarmist" science to influence your view of the future go ahead, but I myself don't buy into even the most scientific crystal ball. In the 1950's scientists in these same fields were warning of "global cooling!" They had 50 years of data then and have 100 now yet have changed their mind about the trend direction and probably will again in another 50 years of gathering data. The billions of years of earths existence has almost definately seen a higher and lower mean temp than any during the time of humans so to think that we could somehow influence such a thing is what is bone-headed.
I'm not going to say it was a good idea to appoint a hot headed 24 year old into a NASA press job and let him censor scientists, but I do think NASA scientists should only release findings and articles in a scientifically worded articles. This James Hansen does seem to be one of the sorts of scientists that aren't good for NASA or science in general himself. There are credible scientists who do not believe the "Greenhouse Effect" is the only contributor to our current warming trend or some who are skeptical is even the primary contributor. The greenhouse effect only explains a warming trends that happens when our planet has a relatively constant amount of energy to absorb from the sun and other cosmic energy sources. Many scientists believe the energy getting shot at our planet varies considerably with increases and decreases in solar activity. This article ( http://upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060207 -041447-2345r ) discusses the predictions of one russian scientist that believes a mini ice age may start in the next few decades. As far as I am concerned any global temperture trend theories are at best weak theories. There are far to many factors influencing global temperatures to predict what direction they will go in anything other than the very near future. If you talk to someone who studies dinasours he will be quite confident the earth was much warmer in their time than ours, yet we were not there to produce any greenhouse gasses to make that happen?? Were he dinasours farting to much?? Anyhow my primary point is that I think even the most brilliant scientists with the most sophistocated computer models sometimes get tunnel vision and can lead us off path. Always be skeptical.