I have mainly limited my blogging to modern evolutionary theory and the clash between science and religion. The main reason is that these are the areas that I felt knowledgeable enough to make a contribution to the debate that is engendered around them. However, I have been reading about another interest of mine, global warming. It is my opinion that global warming is not only real but there isn't even a scientifically valid doubt about it. It is bad news and I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised by the resistance to accept it. But I am.
I am also dismayed at the resistance to accept it on the part of otherwise intelligent young people. Here are some comments from some young people whose opinions I normally respect:
I think the whole bit about Global warming is a load of shit
These comments were taken from blogs on ProgressiveU.com entitled: The Truth About Global Warming & NASA Scientists Predict Period of Global Cooling. This website is primarily for high school and college age students. I deliberately chose comments from people whose work I have read before and have in my opinion posted thoughtful posts. Unfortunately they seem to think that the science behind global warming is weak, poorly done, being done only for the grant money, or the overall picture contradicts itself. That is unfortunate. My generation deserves a lot of the blame for global warming with our profligate use of energy but it is there generation that will have to deal with the consequences, and closed-eyed denial and conspiracy theory mongering is not going to put them in good stead to handle it.
I would like to do my part to stem this denialism by presenting the case for global warming. In stepping up to the plate to do this I feel like I am on familiar grounds. The promoters of global warming denialism use many of the same techniques as do creationists. They misrepresent the real science. They claim that the scientific establishment actively censures their point of view. They point to a legitimate controversy in peripheral area (such as whether or not global warming will lead to a greater number and more destructive hurricanes) as casting doubt on the entire field. I have had a great deal of experience dealing with such techniques and I think I can contribute some here.
The first step is to present the basis of the theory in a manner that shows the theory follows from simple logic. In the case of global warming, I think the way to do that is to look at the energy that strikes the earth's surface. We can use simple math to show that the observed rise in CO2 concentrations HAVE TO lead to a rise in the global temperature of the earth. After that is established I will present the evidence that the rise in CO2 concentrations is caused by the activity of man. Once this is done, then there should be no way around it ... anthropogenic global warming is a fact that should be dealt with.
One complaint that I often hear is that we can't predict next week's weather so how can we predict the climate decades from now? This is a fallacy. Climate and weather is not the same thing. Climate is best understood as AVERAGE weather. And the average weather is very predictable.
As a kid I remember a George Carlin skit in which he played "the hippy-dippy weatherman, Al Sleet". Al gives us his long-range weather forecast (quoted from memory):
"The year is going to start out cold. There will be a gradual warming trend through spring, becoming hot in the summer. That will be followed with a cooling trend in the fall before becoming cold again at the end of the year".
However, strictly speaking this is not a weather forecast it is climate forecast and everyone in the temperate latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere knows it is correct. So much so, that the humor in the skit lies in its obviousness. Climate is very predictable.
Climate change is also predictable. The reason is that, unlike next week's weather, we know the major factors that affect it. And when we talk about GLOBAL climate there is really only one factor that we need to look at ... the average energy absorbed at the earth's surface. Let's look at that now[1].
Let's begin in the stratosphere. If one were to measure the energy coming from the sun at the top of the earth's atmosphere one would find that 1,370 watts per square meter hits the upper atmosphere ever second. So the strength of the sun's output is 1,370 W/m2/sec. Of course not all the earth receives this energy input. Half the earth is in darkness. The further north one goes the more oblique are the rays of sunlight that hit that part of the atmosphere. Thus, if we average the solar input across the entire earth we find that it averages out to 342 W/m2/sec.
If the earth receives that much energy, then it MUST also emit that much energy or else it will instantaneously heat up until it does. Some of the energy is emitted before ever makes it down to the earth's surface. 77 W/m2/sec are reflected back from clouds and aerosols[2] in the atmosphere. Another 30 W/m2/sec hits the earth's surface but is reflected back into space by its albedo[3]. Thus, 107 of the sun's 342 W/m2/sec gets reflected back into outer space before it can absorbed. That leaves 235 W/m2/sec that are absorbed by the earth. The breakdown of that is that 67 gets absorbed by the earth's atmosphere, leaving 168 W/m2/sec to be absorbed by the earth's surface.
That is the amount of heat that we get directly from the sun. If that were the only heat that the earth gets then the average temperature at the earth's surface would be -19o C. Hopefully you can see that this is much colder than the earh actually is. The average temperature of the earth's surface is about 14o C, about 33o higher. So where does all this extra heat come from? The answer is greenhouse gases.
What has been long known is that certain gases absorb long-wavelength radiation and then re-radiate it. The earth's surface radiates about 390 W/m2/sec. Of that about 324 W/m2/sec gets re-radiated back to the surface by greenhouse gases.
I'm going to pause here for a moment to do a little housecleaning. If you have been following the story so far you will note that the earth's surface gets 168 W/m2/sec directly from the sun and another 324 W/m2/sec re-radiated to it by greenhouse gases. That totals out to 492 W/m2/sec coming in. But I have said that the earth radiates 390 W/m2/sec going out. There is a difference of 102 W/m2/sec. Why doesn't the earth instanteously heat up to the point that its thermal radiation matches that of the incoming radiation? The reason is that there are two other forms of heat loss that the earth's surface has that I haven't yet mentioned. For completeness, let me do so now.
Wind blows across the earth's surface. As it does some of the earth's heat is picked up. In climatology, these winds are called thermals and averaged across the surface of the earth they disappate about 24 W/m2/sec. And then finally some of the earth's heat is used to evaporate water that will make clouds and lead to rain. This averages out to a disappation of about 78 W/m2/sec. Or in other words, totals out to our (formerly) missing 102 W/m2/sec. OK, housecleaning is done, let's get back to the greenhouse gas story.
Note that most of the energy hitting the earth's surface actually comes from greenhouse gases (324 W/m2/sec for greenhouse gases compared to 168 directly from the sun). So the greenhouse gas effect is very strong. It naturally follows then that a change in the concentration of greenhouse gases WILL lead to a change in the amount of energy at the surface of the earth and therefore a change in climate. There is no way around that conclusion.
But we can't end the story there. So far we have said a lot about greenhouse gases, but we haven's said much about CO2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but it is not the only one. In fact, from the standpoint of the amount of energy re-radiated back to the earth it is not even the most important one. That honor should be given to water vapor, H2O. About 36%[4] of the greenhouse gas effect on the earth's surface is due to H2O.
This is not a new discovery. Climatologists have known about this for a long time. So then why do global warming climatologists stress CO2 so much and talk so little about water vapor? Is this some conspiracy to intentionally hide the evidence? Not at all. Global warming climatologists are interested in climate CHANGE. Human activity does very little to directly change the concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere. But they do a lot that directly changes the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. And CO2 IS the second most important greenhouse gas directly causing about 9% of the greenhouse effect on the earth's surface.
Climatologists refer to a change in CO2 concentration as a FORCING, and a change in water vapor concentration as a FEEDBACK. What do they mean by that? What they mean is that under normal conditions it is the temperature of the atmosphere that determines the amount of water vapor in the air, the higher the temperature the more water evaporates and the more water vapor will be in the air. That is a feedback.
But if the temperature goes up there is a neglegible effect on CO2 concentration. While if we raise the CO2 concentration (which we are doing; evidence to be presented later) then that will FORCE a rise in the temperature. If one has followed the discussion so far (and I complement you if you have) then one may see a sneaky little fact of global warming here ... a rise in CO2 concentration will directly cause a rise in temperature, which will in turn cause an increase of water vapor in the air, and the increased water vapor will have a further effect on the greenhouse gas effect. Thus, only part of the overall effect of raising CO2 concentrations is caused by its direct greenhouse effect, it also indirectly contributes to global warming by increasing the water vapor as well.
Let's pause here for a moment. Up to this point I have said very little that is controversial. Everything I have said is to the best of my knowledge not seriously contested by global warming advocates or by global warming denialists. Everybody agrees that a rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration will lead to a rise in global temperatures. Long established physics of radiation and simple math shows that. What I have tried to do (and do in detail) is to give you the background information to evaluate claims that will be controversial, if not with the scientists involved in the actual research at least with those who claim that global warming isn't really what the scientists say it is.
Some global warming denialists claim that global warming isn't really happening. For that to be true then we should see that CO2 concentrations are not really rising. So what does the evidence say?
The answer is CO2 concentrations are rising and rising rapidly. The above graph show that. Since the early 1950's we have measured the CO2 concentrations directly in the air. This measurement is done daily at an observatory on top of Mauna Loa in Hawaii. This site is chosen because it is far from any industrial source of CO2 emissions which could contaminate the measurement. That is shown in the red part of the graph.
Prior to that if we want to know what the CO2 concentrations were we have to infer them from other measurements. The best way to do it is to find some "fossil" air, air from the time of interest that has not been contaminated by air from other tmes. It turns out we have just what the science needs. We have ice cores from both Antarctica and from Greenland. These ice cores have yearly banding patterns on them that we can use to precisely date the area we use. Inside the ice is air bubbles, and inside those air bubbles is the "fossil" air we need. The data is so robust (from both the direct measurements at Mauna Loa, and from ice core data) that no reasonable person can deny that CO2 concentrations have dramatically gone up. And if the CO2 concentration goes up then global temperatures MUST rise. All we have to do to see that is follow the math. More CO2 in the atmosphere the greater the greenhouse effect. The greater the greenhouse effect the greater the energy at the surface of the earth. The greater the energy at the surface of the earth the greater the temperature ... no ifs, ands, or buts.
Some global warming denialists say that the rise in CO2 concentration is not manmade. What does the evidence say?
There are direct and indirect ways to answer this question and ALL of them point to humans being the cause. Let's look at an indirect method first.
Human input into global warming comes mainly from burning fossil fuels, oil and coal. They are called FOSSIL fuels because they came from living organisms. Living organisms grow by using biochemical pathways that are controlled by enzymes. Enzymes are molecules that direct chemical reactions. They do this by moving appropriate molecules together. So we have molecules moving molecules. And to do this requires a source of chemical energy. With respect to energy usage, enzymes are not much different than most humans ... they don't want to use any more than is necessary. Thus, they would prefer to move lighter molecule than heavier ones. There are two stable isotopes of carbon 12C which has 6 protons and 6 neutrons, and 13C which has 6 protons and 7 neutrons. 13C is heavier than is 12C. Thus, enzymes do a better job of using 12C than they do of using 13C. Living things then have an enrichment of 12C over 13C. Therefore if the cause of the increase in CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere is due to humans using fossil fuels then we should be able to see that 12C enrichment in the atmospheric CO2 of today compared to the CO2 found in the "fossil" air. And we do.
The direct way to determine if the rise in CO2 concentration is due to human activity is look at the CO2 we emit into the air and follow it through the carbon cycle. Can it explain the rise?
We emit over 27 gigatons of CO2 per year[5]. The molecular weight of CO2 is 44. 12, or approximately 27% of that is due to carbon. Thus, a release of 27 gigatons of CO2 corresponds to a release of about 7.3 gigatons of carbon (GtC) into the atmosphere. That is our present carbon footprint and it is an all-time high.
The above diagram shows the carbon cycle. It shows how carbon gets distributed throughout the ecosystem. It uses data from 2006 when our carbon footprint was only 5.5 GtC. In short, the carbon we put into the air is easily enough to account for 100% of the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
So the evidence strongly points to humans as the source for the increased CO2 concentration. Thus, if one actually believes what the science has to say, then there is little doubt that anthropogenic global warming is real. Humans are pumping CO2 into the air. It is causing a rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. We know from more than a hundred years of established physics that that rise in CO2 concentrations has to lead to global warming.
The above graph shows global temperatures over the past 1000 years. This is EXACTLY what we know MUST occur when there is a rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. This just confirms the math. For most reasonable people this enough. But global warming denialists would have you believe otherwise. I will end this post by very briefly looking at some of their arguments based on the above information.
The most common argument is that what we are seeing is a natural cycle. The present increase in temperature is due to an increased solar activity. But that ignores EVERYTHING above. There is no reason that increased activity would lead to a natural increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration. There is no reason that a natural rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration should appear to have any of the characteristics we see that strongly suggest it is due to human activity. The only way this theory flies is to ignore the science.
The second most common argument is that the specific models used by climatologists are not accurate. As it turns out they are very accurate, and as we learn quantitatively about factors like methane concentration, aerosol reflectivity, the indirect effects of CO2 rise (such as increasing H2O vapor), changes in the earth's albedo by ice sheet melting, etc. the more accurate they become. But even if they weren't everything presented in this post relies solely on well tested physics and observations that (to the best of my knowledge) are uncontested.
The final argument is that those damn scientists are doing it for the money. They are in it only for the grant money. Creationists make similar allegations about evolutionary scientists. Why do you think it is that these complaints ONLY come from people who do not like the results science comes up with. If one actually looks at the science one finds that there is controversies and these can become quite personal. The confrontations between the late Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins was legendary. Science is not a monolithic entity. One does not get ahead in science by agreeing with others. One gets grants by proposing research that is designed to find out what we do not know. That means that you have to point out the shortcomings of other people in the field. And scientists do just that. If one scientist has good reason to think that he can show the field has taken a wrong turn, then he has a surefire grant in the waiting. And if he turns out to be corrrect in that assessment then he has his career made.
Science isn't in the good-old-boy business, it is in the evidence business. If your idea is wrong then it is unlikely that you are going to keep getting evidence supporting it ... unless you fake your data. If you fake your data on a problem that plenty of people are working on, then someone who doesn't care a whit about your pet ideas is going to find something that says you are wrong and then others are going be more than willing to "settle the controversy" and show that you are stupid and they are right. That is part of the self-correcting mechanism of science.
The final argument that I seem to hear is that Al Gore is an asshole, so global warming is a lie. This is a non-sequitur. Even if Al Gore were an asshole ... and having listened to him, I don't think he is ... it makes no difference. Al Gore has taken the time to read the literature, which is something that the vast majority of his critics seem not to have done. But he has done none of the science. And global warming is based on science not on Al Gore.
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REFERENCES:
(1) Much of the discussion that follows comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Fourth Assessment Report, Frequently Asked Questions 1.1. http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_FAQs.pdf
(2) Aerosols are small particles suspended in the earth's atmosphere that are capable of reflecting sunlight. They are not constant. Humans emit aerosols in certain forms of pollutions, especially sulfur-containing solutions. These are generally washed out of the atmosphere within a few days by rain. The sulfur-containing aersols so washed out are major contributors to the acidity in acid rain. Volcanos can be a natural source of aerosol production. Particularly violent eruptions can shoot aerosols above the level of the highest clouds. In that case, gravity must bring the aerosols down to a level where rain can eliminate them from the atmosphere. Since they are often only slightly more dense than air and turbulent winds can stir up the stratosphere, this process can take weeks to years to complete. During that time period the earth will reflect more of the sun's incoming light which will cause a temporary cooling event.
(3) Albedo is surface of the earth feature. The lighter the color of the earth's surface the more of the earth's sunlight it reflects back into space. This can potentially exacerbate the problem of global warming. As the earth heats up, more and more of the earth's surface formerly covered by ice gets exposed. This darkens the earth's surface causing it to absorb more of the sunlight causing it to heat up further.
(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
(5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissio...
Up until recently the United States has been the number 1 carbon emitter. China now has that honor. Unfortunately it isn't because the United States has reduced its emissions, it is because China has significantly increased theirs.
First, I would like to clarify (and it serves me right that things I've said at one point to come back and bite me in the ass) that in the quote of mine that you've linked, I was referring more to the hype, which does seem to have a certain cycle of its own. It's about time the hype reversed itself to this "global cooling" crap (as I has so eloquently put it...).
That's not to say that I don't think we contributed to global warming. The concept of global warming as being cyclical is evidenced, if nothing else, by the climate between the time of the dinosaurs and now, where you've started with a tropical setting, gone to at least one (if not a number of) complete ice age (as in most of the earth's temperature didn't rise enough to thaw the ground), to the rather temperate climate we have now. The causes for which vary (assuming the meteor theory for the destruction of the dinosaurs to be true, the ice age following that era was at least contributed by said meteor).
You mention the fossil air and how it had significantly less CO2 than current times. What era was that in? Also, what were the CO2 levels during the time of the dinosaurs, where it's generally accepted that most of the earth was in a tropical or semi-tropical state? Finally, could it be reasoned that global warming/cooling (regardless of causes) could have a cycle not far off from the predator/prey cycles we're taught about? Basically, during a warming time, there is an abundance of plants and animals (though especially plants). During the peak, plants outnumber animals and are able to remove more CO2 than can be created, allowing the earth to cool to the point that life either dies or goes dormant. During the cooling time, animals start to outnumber plants that undergo photosynthesis, thus creating more CO2 and warming the earth. (Honest questions, I'm curious.)
Also, it should be noted that not only are we burning fossil fuels, but we've greatly reduced the number of vegetation, specifically forests, over the past several decades. This would, one could reason, have an even greater effect than even burning fossil fuels, since it reduces the capacity to remove carbon from the air, regardless of the source(s) of carbon.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
There are certainly natural cycles of hot and cold. No one has ever said otherwise. The question is, "Is this particular episode of global warming part of a natural cycle?" The answer is a resounding, NO. THIS EPISODE is caused by man's activity.
We now have ice core data that goes back 850,000 years. That is certainly a long time. However, dinosaurs were wiped out 65,000,000 years ago. There is no "fossil" air from that time. There are a few studies that use what is called "proxy data" that attempts to estimate oxygen and carbon dioxide levels back in deep time. Proxy data is used when it is impossible to directly measure the parameter you are interested in. In that case one tries to find a parameter that one can measure that relates to the parameter of interest. Then one makes inferences from the related parameter about the parameter of interest.
This method is obviously not as accurate as a direct method. It becomes more accurate if one is able to measure several related parameters that come to a consilience in their implications concerning the parameter of interest. To my knowledge there is no agreement on CO2 concentrations on times prior to 850,000 years ago.
Vegetation growth will certainly remove CO2 from the air. Until it dies, whereupon decomposition will add it back. When we see a loss of forests, not only are we losing the power of growth of trees to take CO2 out of the air, but also where did the carbon that was already in those trees go? For instances such as slash-and-burn agriculture it goes back into the air.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
===
If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
Vegetation growth will certainly remove CO2 from the air. Until it dies, whereupon decomposition will add it back. When we see a loss of forests, not only are we losing the power of growth of trees to take CO2 out of the air, but also where did the carbon that was already in those trees go? For instances such as slash-and-burn agriculture it goes back into the air.
Good point, though the way I understood it when I was last taught about it (which was admittedly a number of years ago), CO2 is used during the process of photosynthesis, giving off oxygen as a by product and using the carbon as part of the energy created from the process. Now, obviously the plant itself is made from carbon, so burning it certainly releases that carbon, but when it decays naturally, is all the carbon emitted, or is it absorbed by the organisms? There has to be a certain amount of absorption, otherwise we'd see an increase in CO2 while the volcanoes were most active and it would never have decreased.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
You know what, DB? No, Al Gore is still an idiot.
Other than that, I have to agree with you, but I must persist in trying to be less wrong that I might have been, so I pose the following:
1) If global warming is as real as you make it out to be (I'm going to resist belief for as long as possible), then how long do you think we have? Is it the fire and brimstone predicted by Nostradamus for 2012? Or will it be a gradual heating period filled with natural disasters, one after another?
2) Why Mauna Loa? I mean, there've got to be just as isolated spots from human contamination. And it's a well established fact that volcanoes emit CO2.
So, while this source does admit that anthropogenic emissions are astronomical (ESTIMATED!!!! 8-} ), it also admits that we're missing a good part of the CO2 emissions from volcanoes. Also, has there been proof that Mauna Loa is not emitting ANY CO2?
Also, thanks for calling me "thoughtful!" :dances:
Nicholas Aden
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This is the third time I will have typed up this response to you. It is so damned easy to accidently hit something that takes me to another page and the whole damned response gets lost. I am giving up on the details and will give you an abreviated response:
The effects of global warming are a lot less certain than the fact that it is here. It is possible that the effects will be minimal. Perhaps about the only thing we will notice is that residents of Nome, Alaska can sunbathe well into October.
However, temperature is a major property of every ecosystem on earth. And we are messing with it and we are messing with it in ways that are causing RAPID changes. We have seen in the past 50 years a rise in temperature that natural warming cycles see over a period of 5,000 years.
Can organisms adapt to such a rapid pace? I doubt it. If they can't and we don't do something to mitigate global warming then there we will have Earth's 6th great mass extinction event. In such a case, with the interdependencies between species so poorly known it is impossible to predict who will be the survivors and who will go extinct. That even includes us.
All life will not go extinct no matter how bad global warming gets. Some species will be winners and their progeny will repopulate the earth. Eventually the diversity of life on earth will become as great as it ever was (which was at its greatest only a few thousand years ago).
Mauna Loa was chosen because it is isolated and the prevailing winds pretty much eliminate all local sources of CO2.
This is a picture of the CO2 data we have gotten from Mauna Loa. Notice the oscillations. If you look closely you will notice that those are yearly oscillations. There are mechanisms (plant growth, human energy usage patterns) by which CO2 varies on yearly time scale but none which includes outgasing from a volcano.
Furthermore, climatologists have known for a long time that volcanos outgas CO2. There models include that data.
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
===
If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
You should use Firefox for typing responses. If you accidentally go to another page (I hit back all the time), what you've written so far won't be lost.
"Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third."
Ambrose Bierce
I love that feature. It works when Firefox closes unexpectedly as well :dances:
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
That feature has saved my life several times. I'm still trying to get in the habit of saving my work in a notepad or elsewhere, but as often as I forget to do it; Firefox is my hero.
-----
~Fallon~
“What is insanity, anyway? Is it when you scream and everyone else whispers, or is it when you fight for what's right, even when everyone else thinks your wrong?” Ethergoth
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I do that, too, but I tend to give up after the first attempt, depending on how much I had typed. For blogs, I tend to do it in MS word and then do the nit-picky stuff in HTML.
My religion believes in global warming (it's killing the pirates!), but I'm still not convinced that it's as BAD as some (Gore) would like us to believe.
Nicholas Aden
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The number of pirates has shot upward at the same time as these record temperatures. It is thus obvious to anyone except a denialist that pirates are heating up the planet! The RIAA and MPAA are going to love this.
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/The-Pirate-Bay-Worlds-Largest-BitTorr...
Although there might be a little dissention
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070315101129.htm
Actually, the scale is flipped. The number of pirates has gone down as global temperature has gone up.
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
Internet pirates, lol. Not pirates in full pirate regalia.
Nicholas Aden
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And have moved their servers off-shore.
They just need some eye patches and peg legs.
My dogmatic relationship with the FSM is currently working towards building a great ship to travel the world.
Nicholas Aden
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Rest in peace
yourfuneralguy
http://www.lowercostfuneral.com
Nick you are working too hard on your blog
It's the firefox stupid.
Rest in peace
yourfuneralguy
http://www.lowercostfuneral.com
Personally I believe that Al Gore's claims on Global Warming are the on the same level as his claim as inventing the internet.
This definition of Al Gore is in my Embalming textbook.
al-gor-mortis means the cooling of death, or a body assuming room temperature after life is gone,
What do we make of this? http://mises.org/story/2795
It's short and sweet. Essentially it proposes the following:
1) The ice core data had changed in 2003 to suggest that CO2 isn't nearly the evil bastard we thought it to be.
2) The warming patterns expected of greenhouse global warming don't exist.
3) Warming does not create heat-trapping clouds, but in fact dissipates them. Kind of like a reverse ocular iris.
4) We seem to be coming off of the actual warming according to satellite measurements.
This was my main point of scientific contention. I also have an issue with using a cartoon flowchart as scientific evidence, but I'm not sure that's really relevant to our discussion.
--Mike
Check out the Topic of the Week
http://www.progressiveu.org/weeklytopic
It is short, sweet, and DISHONEST. It makes assertion after assertion without giving any mechanistic support for those assertions, and it cherry picks data while ignoring the vast stores of data that show anthropogenic global warming is real.
(1) Let's be a bit more precise on what it actually says. It sasys that ice core data shows that during warming periods that CO2 rises followed the warming by a period of 800 years. They also claim that THEY have shown this.
First of all THEY have shown nothing. THEY are a libertarian think tank whose main focus is on economics. THEY have done absolutely NO science regarding global warming . What THEY have done is replotted data from scientists and claim that the data suggests something other that scientists (who actually know what they are doing) think it suggests. That being that warming causes CO2 rises and not the other way around.
Second, this goes against the physics. By what mechanism will warming cause an increase in CO2 concentrations? As things warm plant growth should be greater. That will take CO2 out of the air. But we KNOW from hundreds of years of well controlled physics experiments that raising CO2 concentrations WILL cause an increase in temperatures. It is a FORCING, by that climatologists know that if CO2 concentrations are raised then the temperature MUST go up.
Third, let's look at the data this was extracted from. The ice core data has extremely good resolution on the CO2 concentration. It is a direct measurement. However, the resolution on temperature is not so precise. THAT relies on proxy data. That means what is actually measured is not the actual temperature but another parameter that is correlated with temperature. The temperature data is actually compiled from about 6 different proxies. The proxies all lead to the same general conclusion, but the its temporal resolution is not perfect. For data that goes back 850,000 years a difference of 800 years is statistically indistinguishable from 0 years.
2. The site claims that the global warming should cause warming in the tropics mainly at 10 km up in the atmosphere and we don't see that. Why is that? Why should global warming do that? I'll bet you don't have a clue. I'll bet THEY don't have a clue. So why should we accept this as a valid criticism when what WE DO KNOW explains the data perfectly fine.
If you are actually interested in what climatologist have to say about tropospheric concentrations in the tropics and how well the data actually supports the global warming models, go here
But to give you a little taste of how they lie ... here is an updated picture of what global warming models predict will be the temperature distribution in the troposphere in the tropics:
Here is an updated picture of what it is:
Contrast that to the pictures your site gives.
I have to get ready and go to work now so I don't have time to respond to the rest of your sources misrepresentations, perhaps later.
But before I go, let me ask you why it is that you take these nebulous claims that global warming is wrong, when you can rely on a completely understood and uncontested mechanism that says global warming MUST be happening?
Cheers,
Darwin's Beagle
===
If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
wait, so your 'proof' that they lie is that their prediction differs from your prediction? That's not really 'proof' of any level.
Please note, patterns are cyclical.... CO2 follows temperature rises, it does not cause it (Many, MANY scientists have stated this on MANY occassions, but it is ignored and often unpublished, as the current fad is to push global warming hysteria, just as it was to push global COOLING hysteria about 30 years ago.)..... Also note, about 800 to 1000 years ago, Vikings farmed on Greenland. They didn't grow ice.
So, unless President Bush and Cheney made a time machine to go back in time and pollute and cause global warming then, I'd say that history is NOT on your side, despite any Al Gore-ish graphs and charts you show.
Because those who say it is happening get paid alot of money in grants to study Global warming, prove it is man made and figure out how to stop it. Those who say it is not happening receive no grants for their research, but instead fight the Global Warming Machine led by Al Gore and his paid scientists. There are even scientists that are quoted in Al Gore and the UN's work that disagree with the theories that have been taken from their work and have come out strongly against the idea of man-made global warming.
Why are you so quick to ignore people saying it isn't true, but so ready to believe people who are paid in grants to find the results they do?
You are the only one who said that. The reason they lie is because they do not present the data as it is.
This is a picture of what they claim to be the data from 2006 and they claim that it is confirmed by data from 2007. The graph I posted is data from 2007. That is lying by anyone's definition.
WOW, I don't believe I've read a statement that is more obviously wrong. EVERY SCIENTIST knows that CO2 captures long-wave radiation and radiates back to earth. The capture and re-radiation of long-wave energy is what the greenhouse effect is. It has been known since 1824. The fact that you think otherwise doesn't speak well for you.
The fact that you fall for the global cooling hype from global warming denialists also shows that you are just parroting the global warming denialists without attempting to verify what they say. The fact is that accusation comes from a SINGLE article in TIME magazine which does not necessarily represent the scientific consensus. The fact is that global cooling has never been a seriously held position by climatologists.
Of course there are cyclical patterns in global climate that are naturally produced. The question concerning global warming today is whether THIS ONE is naturally produced or not. The answer is NO, it isn't naturally produced. There is a rise in CO2 concentrations. There is no "natural" explanation for that rise. Look at the graph above at how sharp that rise is. That is 10 to 100 faster than can be seen in any naturally caused warming event in the past. Just as an aside, it is mind boggleing that anyone can believe that sharp increase in CO2 concentrations could be caused by a temperature rise 800 years ago (as would be suggested by the link that I was responding to).
Furthermore, when we do the math concerning human CO2 emissions we find that unlike past warming events, it CAN be the cause of 100% of the atmospheric CO2 rise. And finally the enhancement of 12C in the CO2 we see today over that we see in the past is further evidence that it is man-made.
The fact that you didn't address any of that, but instead made unsubstantiated assertions shows you are not serious about actually looking into the data.
There are no sides here. What is going to happen is going to happen to you, me and everybody living.
I guess you didn't bother to actually read my original post where I talk about the absolutely STUPID claim that global warming science is a conspiracy among scientist to get grant money. I wont repeat it for you here, you can go back up top and read it if you want. Instead, I'll make this observation ... you live in an incredibly advanced society. If a person from any time prior to the enlightenment were to come here today, he would probably think that we were all Gods. We routinely travel around in machines that take us in a few minutes what would have taken days to travel in the past. We can talk to people thousands of miles away. We have up close and personal pictures of many of the planets of the solar system. We have tamed most of the diseases that had put the life expectancy of pre-enlightenment humans at around 30 years of age. ALL OF THAT PROGRESS HAS COME FROM SCIENCE. All of that progress has come from science using the same SCIENTIFIC METHOD that has led climatologists to the conclusion that global warming is real and humans are causing it. Where the HELL do you get off claiming that THIS area is a conspiracy simply because YOU don't like the results. If believe global warming is a conspiracy then you have absolutely no justifiable reason to believe the development of antibiotics isn't either. When you get sick, and you go to your doctor and he prescribes an antibiotic for that upper respiratory tract infection, do you take it? If the answer is "yes" then you are a hypocrite.
You are also deluded if you think the motives of global warming denialists is pure. Exxon/Mobil has funnelled over 19 million dollars to them. Global warming denialist (or minimizer?) Richard Lindzen who says he takes no money from oil companies for his research charges them $2500 per day for his advocacy in his appearances before congress. Global warming denialist, Dr. Patrick Michaels gets $100,000 from the IREA, an electric company that generates its electricity from coal.
Because unlike you, I HAVE done science. I HAVE written grants. I HAVE published research. One is AWARDED grants for coming up with ideas about how to answer questions that are presently unsolved. IF I can show that I have a reasonable chance of performing a controlled investigation that will show that an entire field is on the wrong track, I WILL get funding. But simply not liking the implication of the findings of hundreds of climatologists falls a little short of that standard.
===
If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
Never use the word 'every' . .. it just makes you look bad when you're proven wrong:
1. http://www.nov55.com/gbwm.html
2. http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070115/59078992.html
3. http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/
I'd post more than three, but I don't expect you to actually read them with the same open mind that you demand from me.
Funny, people keep saying that all I do is parrot.... it is like people who think a conservative is wrong just.... parrots the others who think a conservative is wrong. Surely YOU'RE not the one doing the parroting.....
Are you old enough to even remember the Global Cooling scare? Or are you old enough to remember, but just decide to push it aside and pass it off as 'nothing' because it'd damage the creditibilty of your case now?
We had to get rid of CFCs and change areosols because we were destroying the earth, and nothing was going to stop it! It was just as rabid as today's Global Warming crusade.
Stop passing your opinion off as fact. It only makes you look silly.
Measuring carbon frozen into ice in Antartica (how they measure carbon levels from eons ago) is not an accurate way to find the global carbon dioxide levels. The TRUTH is, once we started measuring CO2 levels via other ways, the CO2 levels started sharply rising (I.e, the 50's and 60's, when we started measuring in Hawaii and other areas)
That doesn't mean that the CO2 levels have risen . . . just that we're getting a more complete measurement of where they are at. Stop buying into the Al Gore Hockey Stick graph.
Bullshit. Plain and simple. And shame on you for trying to blame man. Humans account for such a minute amount of the CO2 emissions that it is laughable t o suggest that WE are the cause. Since the Industrial Revolution, it has been calculated (look at link number 3 above) that our carbon emissions have gone from 0.02 to 0.03 of the world's carbon dioxide production.
And, Carbon Dioxide pales in comparison to water vapor, the ACTUAL source of the 'greenhouse effect'
There we see the same 'scare tactics' from the Global Cooling crusade. The same fearmongering that Al Gore's "Carbon Footprint" company is making good profit from. Keep it up, his further wealth depends on you convincing laymen and laywmen that Global Warming is real and man made, and those who disagree (despite our VAST numbers) are just wrong and parroting 'deniers'. . .
No, I read it. However, that you said it doesn't happen doesn't counter the most basic knowledge that it does happen. Out of the mouths of scientists themselves. Now, I don't go so far as to say that it is a 'conspiracy' . . . I do say that those who push global warming as man made find themselves getting more grants and publications, as that is the current topic-fad.
Scientific advancements in curing diseases or 'extending the life span' (Actually, we've really just reduced infant death, which is why the stats say we live longer.... things like the Plague not withstanding), or even those majestic automobiles.... none of those have anything to do with scientsits being wrong about global warming.
They once believes that the earth was the center of the universe. They once believed that the earth was flat. they once believed that if you drove faster than 60mpg the skin would tear off of your face, they once believed that if you went faster than the speed of sound your innards would turn to jelly, the once believed that the human body was a sack of organs randomly floating around in blood, and they once beleived that the physical size of your head was the way to tell intelligence.... In your attempt to prove global warming as true in light of the perfection of Science, don't overlook their mistakes. Man-Made Global Warming is one of those mistakes, just as Global Cooling was in the 1970's.
The TRUTH is, we haven't been watching the weather long enough to get a good bead on how such trends work. Yes, we can be fairly accurate in whether it is going to rain in a few hours or not, but the big things? Nope. we've barely scratched the surface of understanding... and you expect us to believe your Chicken Little "The Sky is Falling!" bit?
HAHAHHAHAHAaaa... So those who support Global warming are pure crusaders, but those who deny it are all paid off by "Big Oil" eh? Now who wears a tin foil hat?
Ahh, then perhaps YOU can explain why, if Global Warming is man made, that Mars has had a greater increase in global temperatures than we have on earth?
We're at a TINY fraction of a degree over 100 years, they're at a mugh higher increase, given the way their polar caps are melting. Unless you're going to blame President Bush for sending the rovers over there, how exactly is OUR TINY bit of warming 'wholly man-made' when their GREATER increase cannot be?
Just for the record, Lance... DB's about twice your age. Give or take a few years.
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
... and?
Does that mean that his argument holds more water by virtue of someone older than me saying it?
No but you did ask if he was even old enough to remember something or another. She pointed out that he is twice your age in response.
-----
~Fallon~
“What is insanity, anyway? Is it when you scream and everyone else whispers, or is it when you fight for what's right, even when everyone else thinks your wrong?” Ethergoth
-----
here's what I said:
Are you old enough to even remember the Global Cooling scare? Or are you old enough to remember, but just decide to push it aside and pass it off as 'nothing' because it'd damage the creditibilty of your case now?
I still fail to see the problem. She merely told you that he was older than you in response to the question you asked.
-----
~Fallon~
“What is insanity, anyway? Is it when you scream and everyone else whispers, or is it when you fight for what's right, even when everyone else thinks your wrong?” Ethergoth
-----
Thanks Fallon.
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
Before you can post more than three, you have to post one.
Your first link goes to a person claiming to be an "independent scientist". But he has published absolutely nothing, in fact, he has a link on his site to an essay claiming peer review is a sham. You cannot be a scientist and not submit your work
Your second link is to a Russian scientist who claims that global warming is causing the oceans to release its stores of CO2. But nowhere does he deny that "hat CO2 captures long-wave radiation and radiates back to earth."
He says that the greenhouse effect is not what scientists think it is because "it fails to take into account the effective transmission of heat to the outer layers of atmosphere."
He's full of shit too. (1) If the CO2 rise in the atmosphere were due to a release of oceanic stores then we would not expect to see the 12C enrichments that we do. (2) By following the carbon cycle and doing precise measurements scientists have shown that human emissions are causing it. (3) the oceans are acting as a huge CO2 sink sequestering a lot of CO2 from the air. While it is true that as the temperature rises the oceans cannot sequester as much, the oceans are buffered. It is harder to heat water than it is the air. The rise in ocean temperatures is not that great and cannot account for the rise in CO2 concentrations. But anthropogenic sources can.
Your third link is to Steven Miloy, who is not a scientist either.
The greenhouse effect has been studied since 1824 is well established science and there is no serious scientific debate concerning whether or not CO2 absorbs long-wave radiation and radiates it back to earth. If there were no greenhouse effect the average temperature on earth would be MINUS 19o Centigrade. It isn't. It is about 14o C. (So your first links "Crunching the numbers" is also full of shit). The greenhouse effect is what is keeping us from freezing.
*** You might want to try to crack a science text book sometime. The difference is that unlike you, I have looked at the real data. All you have looked at is global warming denialists.
The fact that you would even ask that is an indication of your blind parroting. I gave you a link to an article WRITTEN BY CLIMATOLOGISTS who actually do the research. They cite the research of the time period. It is stuff that you could check out if you want to, but you don't want to.
Here it is again. Here is another overview of that time period
And by the way, I am 56 years old. Yes, I remember those days. Do you?
Er... lance. That was ozone depletion, not global warming. And while CFCs are STILL making their way up to the ozone layer and will continue to do so for a few more years, the ozone layer will repair itself in about 50 years. Messing around with the earth's thermostat can have more drastic effects. I don't know enough yet about global warming to make a statement about what WILL happen, but what COULD happen scares the shit out of me.
Go back and read my original post. I said that that I don't think there is ANY scientifically valid reason to doubt that global warming exists and that it is anthropogenic. Also I gave the reasons for my thinking that.
You are supposed to be a clever guy. When one gives data it is no longer opinion. So ** actually try to understand what is being said. I'll translate it for you again if you want ... It is well-shown that our global warming event is NOT a natural occurrance.
So let me understand what you are saying, measuring CO2 levels directly from gas bubbles is not as accurate as measuring CO2 levels from "other ways" (which you don't mention by the way). That is an incredibly ** statement.
Shame should be bestowed, but not on me:
http://www.strom.clemson.edu/becker/prtm320/commons/carbon3.html
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=160
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch02.pdf
And these are from REAL scientists.
It is the height of rudeness when right up there I have already addressed this canard and there you go using it again as though it hasn't been mentioned.
CO2 does NOT pale in comparison. H2O IS the most important causing 36% of the direct greenhouse effect, but CO2 is still substantial causing 9% directly. BUT water vapor is a feedback while CO2 is a forcing. THAT is the big difference. You need to go up into my post and actually read it to find out what that is.
Within the climatological community there are no "VAST numbers" of global warming denialists. But there are VAST numbers of climatologists who publish research and agree that global warming is real, manmade, and potentially a MAJOR problem. You would do well to actually become aquainted with their work.
You are ** to believe that, but go ahead.
The thing that it has to do with global warming is that the discoveries were made using the Scientific Method just like the discoveries concerning global warming. By claiming that global warming is a conspiracy, and the claim you make DOES amount to that, you are claiming that we cannot trust the scientific method. If you take the Dr's antibiotics then you are taking something based on a method that you say cannot be trusted ... you are a hypocrite. I will also add that if you don't take them then you are a fool. And if you don't believe what the scientific consensus says about global warming being real then you are also a fool.
(1) ***
(2) I don't have the time to respond to shit like that so I'll for the sake of argument, I'll accept the above list for now. And just ask you what it was that makes us no longer believe such shit ... science.
*** But the TRUTH is you can't present any evidence that REAL scientists haven't already addressed.
Gotta go to work,
DB
(**Edited by Fallon for ToS Violation 1/31/08)
(***Further edited by mvenus929 for similar ToS violations on 31 Jan 2008)
I'm not saying that global warming is wrong, I'm saying that I'm skeptical. I compare it to the reactionary hype to bonsai kitty or...well, creationism. If you look hard enough and pick and choose facts, you can make a pretty good case for anything that can be supported through a process of logic alone. For example, string theory has been laid out in meticulous mathematical models; however, it has not been proven because it has a missing component: the particle which makes it true in the real world.
My real issue with the whole global warming really has nothing to do with the science behind it, but rather the people calling for government intervention into the matter. They've already passed an energy resolution that will make 100W incandescent lightbulbs illegal in 12 years as well as cars that get less than 35 mpg (I wonder what that means for the military who subsist on tanks and hummers?). Of course, this means that we destroy the environment in other ways (as well as the economy).
If people are really concerned about global warming, they should take their own measures to try to fix the problem. The government sucks when it comes to solving problems.
--Mike
Check out the Topic of the Week
http://www.progressiveu.org/weeklytopic
If the two graphs used the same scale they would look less similar.
I wonder what the motive was for altering the scale?
To show a broader range, for one. Either way, it still supports the point that the temperature is rising.
Look at the scale in the first picture, it ranges from -13.2 -- 3. The second scale ranges from -20 -- 3.5.
From there, let's look at the images themselves.
The first image shows a very distinct band of purple from the 0 to the 50 vertical marker that goes along the whole top of the image. According to the chart, that means the readings fall between -13.2 and -3. That same area on the chart, however, not only does not have the band, but also does not have any reading below -2. Even using the other scale, that band along the top would still be white (that particular color, on the second scale actually has a smaller range, so if the reading in the second image fell between -.5 and -1, it would be green, not white; likewise, if it fell between .5 and 1, it would be yellow).
If you actually look at the main part of the image, there's not a whole lot that actually changes, and what does change is countered by opposite changes elsewhere. The spot in the middle, with the dark red, has risen in reading (from 3+ to 3.5+). However, down and to the right, the reading has stayed the same or decreased (note the larger area in the light orange and yellow areas, which have gone from 1-2.2 in the first to .5-2.3 in the second).
The key, though, is that band along the top. That is where the largest increase in reading has taken place, and there is no similar drop in reading anywhere else on the chart, even adjusting for the change in the scale on the color bar.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
My comment as well was more of a political statement on Gore.
I agree with you more than some of the commenters you singled out, but find certain parts of your argument here reveal more about your bias than they do the truth. First let's go with agreements:
1) The activities of man have released a great deal of fossilized Carbon into the atmosphere in the form of CO2, particularly in the last 150 years.
2) CO2 is a greenhouse gas which helps trap solar energy and tends to increase the temperature of the atmosphere.
3) Efforts should be made to mitigate the impact of human activities on the environment.
As I have stated previously I feel a great deal of hyped misinformation is published in the name of global warming. That type of exaggeration and hyperbole tends to discredit the very real dire possibilities, and leads to reaction of the type you linked to here at ProgressiveU. You are adding to the problem when you make these type statements:
--
"The promoters of global warming denialism use many of the same techniques as do creationists."
Why not compare them to holocaust denialists? You are just wallowing in a straw man fallacy. The two subjects are unrelated, and it is intentionally misleading to attempt to connect them. Perhaps you feel they are the same people, but the SCIENTIFIC validity of your argument is harmed rather than helped by including misinformation of this sort. It is argumentative rhetoric, not even related to fact.
---
"We can use simple math to show that the observed rise in CO2 concentrations HAVE TO lead to a rise in the global temperature of the earth."
Simple math is often misleading when a simpleton attempts to apply it to a complex system. It is indicative of how over invested you are in the conclusion you have reached that this obviously WRONG statement seems correct to you. Your conclusion is only valid absent other factors. Since there are factors like changes in cloud cover, vegatation, airborne particles, and solar radiation it is simply not true.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/17jan_solcon.htm
---
"One complaint that I often hear is that we can't predict next week's weather so how can we predict the climate decades from now? This is a fallacy. Climate and weather is not the same thing. Climate is best understood as AVERAGE weather. And the average weather is very predictable."
This could be true, but it has DEFINITELY not been true in the recent past. The models that attempt to predict the future climate have been created using historical data. They have undergone MAJOR revision during this past decade, because they were inadequate. At this point they accurately predict what has already happened, but it remains to be seen if they can predict the future climate. Many do not think they will be able to. Not only because of the 'butterfly effect' that confounds weather prediction, but also because factors such as volcanic and solar activity are not predictable or accounted for in their models.
--
The controversy is as much the fault of the exagerators as it is the denialists.
Rest in peace
yourfuneralguy
http://www.lowercostfuneral.com
Jan31st 2007 Fox news 9:00 AM Eastern
Snow in Jerusalem and Snow in Jerusalem
The eyes have it Global Cooling
We got huge ass snow storms (like 5 in a row, once a week, with at least a foot each time) last year too. What's your point? Heat up water, it goes up to clouds... the clouds move over a colder area, and the water falls as snow instead of rain. Jerusalem is near the mountains, if I remember correctly...
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
Rest in peace
yourfuneralguy
So did the entire middle east.
That's because global warming is a misleading name. What it is is global climate change. Overall, the temperature will rise, but this won't stop there from being cold days. Even if that wasn't the case, it's not like a straight up arrow,
"Alliance - in international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third."
Ambrose Bierce
Awwww... you think I'm intelligent. Thanks DB.
I'd spend time picking this apart, but I've got a Heat Transfer exam tomorrow. Interesting blog... but I'm not read to cede any points to you quite yet. Give me a few days to regroup.
Why don't we all stop arguing about global warming and all come together to try and stop it like civil human beings???????????
Have to prove it first.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
Click to send Hate Mail
Choice Picks
Pretend I'm you.
"It's true."
Are you convinced yet?
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do."
Benjamin Franklin
No. Here's why:
1) You are pretending to be me. You're an i**** for that. Everyone knows that I'm a shitty source.
2) You offered no proof.
3) You simply stated it was true, which would mean that global warming, an action, was true. You're an i****.
HA! How you like them logical apples, Jsaj?
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
Click to send Hate Mail
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**** = diot
Ah, but you have some problems of your own.
"1) You are pretending to be me. You're an i**** for that. Everyone knows that I'm a shitty source."
Quite. We all know you're a shitty source. However, I am not, so me pretending to be you means that you have the advantages of being you, which means that you will intrinsically believe yourself and being me, so that your belief in yourself is not self-delusional.
"2) You offered no proof."
I offered plenty of proof. I don't need to prove it to other people, but to you. You believe yourself so therefore, when you say something so definitively, you know it's true. You don't need further proof then that.
"3) You simply stated it was true, which would mean that global warming, an action, was true. You're an i****."
Precisely, it is true that actions that have been and are continuing to be taken are causing the globe to warm. Naturally, you believe that, since it is you who says it, and therefore, you have to stop using air conditioning and styrofoam.
And diot's have nothing to do with this, so leave them out of it!
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do."
Benjamin Franklin
Well, maybe. But I still disagree....mostly...O_o I think.br>
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
Click to send Hate Mail
Choice Picks
:dances:
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do."
Benjamin Franklin
If anyone wants proof of gobal warming take a look around you. Look what we've done to the world. We've ruined it. Start facing the consequences please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I see proof of global warming, but not proof that we've ruined the world. If we had ruined it, we'd be dead.
Great post.
Thanks for shedding your bit of light on this very important issue.