Man made, or natural, global warming is here

[Tikker]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080903/ap_ ... ce_shelf_4

jeje
19 miles of ice breaks off one of the most established ice shields

[Arlos]

Nonsense! Everyone knows global warming is a sheer fabrication by the liberal media establishment!

Therefore, that ice could NOT have melted! It is just, uh, hiding! Yeah, that's it!

-Arlos

[Nusk]

i dont think anyone is arguing whether global warming is real or not, just the causes

look up the midevil warming period and you will see that they used to grow wine grapes in the british isles. something it still isnt warm enough to do now

[Harrison]

Global warming isn't a myth.

The reasons are however, very questionable and easily misconstrued.

[Naethyn]

i dont think anyone is arguing whether global warming is real or not, just the causes

look up the midevil warming period and you will see that they used to grow wine grapes in the british isles. something it still isnt warm enough to do now

4,500-year-old Markham Ice Shelf separated in early August and the 19-square-mile shelf is now adrift in the Arctic Ocean.

So a piece of ice that has existed for 4.5 THOUSAND years suddenly up and disappears is justified by wine grapes in the british isles?

[Harrison]

4.5 thousand years is a fucking fart in the grand scheme of things. Even involving just the lifetime of this planet, that is a negligible amount of time...

[Tikker]

i think you missed his point

[numatu]

Average global temperature was warmer during the Medieval Warm Period. But, of course, that's a global average; some areas were warmer than others.

The fact that there is no still conclusive scientific proof as to why the Earth was so much warmer as recently as the Medieval Warm Period is the problem. Current theory is that the Sun's cycles and sunspots definitely influence the Earth's climate, much moreso than negligible CO2 increases. Indeed, the Sun just went through a period of zero sunspots for the longest period on record, and many scientists are predicting a global cooling to occur as the cycle repeats itself.

Example: Medieval Warm Period -> Little Ice Age -> 19th Century to the present day -> Back to future cooling

[Arlos]

Actually, for the past 800+ thousand years, for which we have direct physical evidence of climate and atmospheric content, via ice cores in Antarctica, CO2 and Global temperatures move pretty much in absolute lockstep. Indeed, if anything is aberrant about our current temp is that it should be HIGHER already, due tot he CO2 levels.

Not only are CO2 levels now the highest they've ever been, the speed at which they've increased is the fastest ever seen through that same 800k year span. All this without the massive series of explosive volcanic activity which is what would generally produce the massive glut of CO2 during previous warming epochs.

Oh no, Man is eminently responsible for this one. If not for the absolute fact that we're getting warmer, then VERY definitely how warm we're going to get and how fast we're going to get there.

-Arlos

[numatu]

That's not accurate.

Just as a recent example, CO2 levels rose to the (at the time) highest ever during the period 1945-1978. During that time, there was a reduction in average global temperature.

Oh no, Man is eminently responsible for this one.

While man-made influence certainly must play a part, and any way found to reduce not only CO2 emissions but any emissions is a good thing, saying unequivocally that man is eminently responsible is simply unscientific. The known processes that cause climate change are still in its infancy.

If not for the absolute fact that we're getting warmer, then VERY definitely how warm we're going to get and how fast we're going to get there.

There have been many periods in Earth's recent history that were much warmer, and increased or decreased at the same relatively rapid rate. Correlation != causation.

For example, Medieval Warm Period -> Little Ice Age:
There is nothing in the known record, except for changes in solar output, that accounts for not only the Warm Period, but for why the Earth went through such a dramatic shift in cooling (while CO2 levels still gradually increased as the human population grew).

[brinstar]

4.5 thousand years is a fucking fart in the grand scheme of things. Even involving just the lifetime of this planet, that is a negligible amount of time...

you fucking heathen, everyone KNOWS the earth was created 5200 years ago

[Diekan]

Damnit there was a site I found some time ago that talked about the devises used to measure temps around the country (that directly impact the calculations regarding global warming). MANY of these devices were put in places that a 5th grade science student would know was completely wrong. Some were placed at the end of runways where jet exhaust would pass over it as the planes took off. Others were placed on or very near asphalt (as you know absorbs and releases heat). Still other had heat exchanger fans blowing directly on them.

Ahhh here's a link:

http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/weather_stations/

One of the MANY images stuck out for me...



LOL - the heat from the AC unit is basically blowing RIGHT ON the MMTS device. You don't need a degree in science or engineering to see the flaw in this particular placement choice. But, that's not just one device - hundreds share the same flaw all over the world. THIS is the data we're collecting and using to make calculations about global warming...

[Tikker]

yes, and no one ever places things correctly, and no one intelligently interprets data and throws out obvious anomalies, or takes into account the thousand or so other factors that are a part of statistical analysis

[ClakarEQ]

I don't recall many people suggesting there isn't a "cycle" at work, the sheer peak we are heading for matches nothing on record. So while we just got lucky during the upswing of the cycle, I still agree with Arlos in that man has caused the rate of increase to the extent that we are seeing.

So, I'm curious to hear the arguments regarding global warming knowing that the numbers we are seeing do not exist in any record. Just because it has been "proven" that earth is cyclic (duh) why is it folks try to explain away the current numbers and projections?

I don't know (didn't give it much thought though) of any animal or even insect that is so paristical to their host and offer no other benifit as humans are to this planet. Some zoologist prove me wrong

[Lueyen]

Tikker, Arlos, you guys are behind the times. In response to contradictory evidence regarding the theory of global warming, the new term which far left liberals are using is "global climate change". You must still assert that it is caused primarily (even better grade if you say completely) by human influence, but you must no longer make predictions about the actual temperature, only that it will be extreme and bad for everyone and everything. 8).

On a serious note however, Arlos have you ever considered that the relation to global temperatures may be the opposite of what you are thinking. That CO2 levels may rise as an effect not as a cause of warming? As I recall when first reading about the interaction of CO2 in our atmosphere and it's supposed effect on global temperatures, it seemed like an almost cyclic process, which didn't quite make sense, as it would be self propogating.

[brinstar]

uhhh as the world gets hotter, people use their AC units more, which cause an increase in the MMTS readings, which indicates global warming, duh

[Tikker]

Tikker, Arlos, you guys are behind the times. In response to contradictory evidence regarding the theory of global warming, the new term which far left liberals are using is "global climate change". You must still assert that it is caused primarily (even better grade if you say completely) by human influence, but you must no longer make predictions about the actual temperature, only that it will be extreme and bad for everyone and everything. 8).

You realize I'm not a liberal, yes?

[Evermore]

fuck it we are all doomed

[Diekan]

If millions of dollars where being offered in the form of grant money to study the effects of global cooling – you can bet your ass we’d suddenly be heading toward a catastrophic impending ice age within the next hundred years.

[Arlos]

Well, it's quite obvious Diekan hasn't the first clue about how scientific investigation works.

-Arlos

[Diekan]

LOL knowing my past position on global warming I would think that you’d have picked up on the sarcasm.

I very much believe that humanity is contributing to the problem. I also do indeed understand the science behind it… very well I might add.

However – even though my remark was meant to sarcastic in nature, you can’t deny the morsel of truth that lies embedded in it. My personal definition of science is simply “the human endeavor to understand natural phenomena.” Of course there’s more to it than that, but without digressing further, while the practitioners of science may have honorable objectives they are also human and not immune to the influence of the worst the of the seven deadly sins… greed. Just as money poisons and corrupts the business mind, it too can poison the agenda of a well intended scientist just as easily.

If we are to take serious the data that is being collected regarding global warming then we need to take serious the placement of the measuring devices. Granted, outlier data can and should be thrown out, but that doesn’t excuse placing measuring devices 5 feet from AC units, or placing them on heat absorbing asphalt. How do we know the data being gathered by these devices isn’t being used? Of course other sources of data are being used such as ice cores, historical data, CO2 levels, etc.

But, as someone who’s been trained (extensively) in science I can’t help but ask “well if the MMTS devices are gathering faulty data, how competent is the other data that’s been collected from other sources (such as ice cores)? I would say probably pretty damn competent. But, the question still must be asked.

We’re not talking about a handful of devices here – being placed in parking lots – we’re talking about hundreds, if not thousands around the world.

There are many factions on both sides of the fence that have both a monetary and political agenda behind the papers they publish, which makes is incredibly difficult to decipher the real science from the fiction.

Is global warming real? I believe it is.

Is the science behind it 100% accurate? No, I do not believe it is.

Is human kind solely responsible for it? No, I do not believe we are. I believe we are a major contributing factor, but we are not solely responsible.

Has the scientific method been corrupted in the pursuit of the “truth?” I’m sure it has, but to what extent I do not know. Nor does anyone else for that matter.

[Nusk]

so alot of the radical temp changes are nothing more than headline fodder, climatology is in its infancy and sometimes forgest history

i think alot of climate historians point to midevil warming->little ice age because we do live in a cyclic environment so therefore what happened then will happen now

greenland AGAIN will become a lush and fertile place to live as it once was, and as the ice shelves melt and the ocean raises everything will (gasp) cool down

arlos you live near san francisco, go look at where the coast line was 100 years ago.. there is a sign and everything.... is about 200 feet above where the coast line is now. that is drastic change in a VERY short time and yes it will go back to that same level probably in our lifetimes

[Naethyn]

Pretty much sums it up for me:

[Nusk]

i really dont have a problem with this guys thesis, i agree we need to curtail polution.

reality check says sorry guys this will ONLY happen in the west. so we institute draconian environmental laws in the us and europe i guarantee that china will say fuck you or have an exemtion because its a "emerging economy" regardless that its the worlds third largest economy and already the worlds largest poluter

so of instead of curtailing global warming we spend lots of money go into a depression that economically ruins euro and the west, and we still have end of the world because china didnt do anything with what was agreed upon

[Evermore]

Cow farts are a big conributor to global warming. So stop eating beef and drinking milk.