Thanks for correcting me on that number. I had seen the Mauna Loa data and thought I could rely on my memory for that number. Just goes to show, never trust the memory -- look it up instead. Good lord, thinking about it, I can't even recall either the Heisenberg constant or Boltzmann's constant!

I have already provided many links to disprove the validity of the Hockey Stick Model. The Vostok data that you say proves your theory has not done so.

CO2 History from Vostok Ice Core

Here is the Insolation data you requested earlier: Sun's Insolation

If we compare that with global temperatures during the same time period: Global Temperatures

Sun heats up. Earth heats up. Sun cools down. Earth cools down.



Wait a minute. Now the change in temperature DOESN'T go "lockstep" with the levels of CO2? The argument is that eventually at some point down the road that temperatures will rise and it will be because of CO2? Couldn't that logic support the argument that the pre-1940 warming trend contributed to the increase in CO2 after 1940? Since there are so many factors that contribute to global warming and we now know that we expect things to have a long term instead of short term affect.

And again lets look at the data:

Contribution to the Greenhouse Effect

Your analogy is apples and oranges. With so many factors dictating the Earth's temperature, to believe that even a doubling of CO2 would make such a catastrophic dent in the normal temperature patterns is ridiculous. Especially when it constitutes such a minimal amount of gases in the Earth's atmosphere.

I again reintroduce data in my earlier post:





When Copernicus said that the Sun and not the Earth was the center of the Universe...he too was going against a view widely held by every scientist of his day. Just because a lot of people believe on thing is correct and a smaller amount of people belive another thing is correct doesn't make any group more right than the other based on that alone. A favorite quote of mine is...If everyone is thinking alike, somebody isn't thinking.

You manage to commit two statistical deceptions in a single post. Your first concerns the Vostok data you present. Your graph shows the data for the last 250,000 years. But our concern with global warming is the warming that has occurred due to manmade release of CO2 -- which has only been in the last 150 years. Now, here's the funny part: we both screwed up. I had originally consulted the Vostok data to demonstrate that the steep rates of change that we are experiencing are unparalled in planetary history. That point remains solid and you have never responded to it. Instead, you jumped to the Hockey Stick model, equating the Vostok data with the Hockey Stick model. In this, you were incorrect; the Vostok data does not include the last 150 years, which is the period covered by the Hockey Stick model. I didn't bother checking up on your statement and got sucked into a comparison of the Vostok data with the Hockey Stick model -- all of which is pointless because there IS no comparison between the two. I'll not argue with you about the details of the Hockey Stick model, as I believe that it is unnecessary to rely on a single model to prove the anthropogenic nature of global warming.



Very clever. You conveniently provide the URL to the gif of the graph, not the webpage on which it is placed. Why? Because that page states:

"The curves were derived using the changing values of the eccentricity of the orbit, tilt of the axis and precession of the equinoxes. "

In other words, these are calculated values, not actual measurements. I knew that the instant I saw the curves -- they were far too neat and clean to be data. But it took me a few minutes more to track down the real thing.

Moreover, this by itself proves nothing. You need to calculate the overall effect of the insolation on earth's temperature. I earlier challenged somebody who was making this claim to back up their claims with a rough calculation to show how much it would affect temperature. That person, of course, backed away when challenged to actually follow through, but now I'll do it for you. This is a simply blackbody radiation problem that uses the Stefan-Boltzmann law, E = sigma * T **4. Hence the total rate of energy radiated per unit area for the earth at, say, 300 degrees Kelvin is 5.67 * 10**-8 w/(m**2 * K) * 300**4
= 459 w/m**2, right in the middle of your graph. Now let's suppose that the insolation jumps to the highest value in your graph, about 500 w/m**2. Inverting the Stefan-Boltzmann equation to solve for T, we get a value of 306.44 degrees Kelvin. In other words, a change of +10% in the value of insolation yields an increase in temperature of 6.44 degrees Kelvin. Wow! That's a big jump! The only problem is, we're not looking at that big a jump in the amount of insolation over the last 150 years. You will note from your graph that the smallest periodicity in the graph is about 22,000 years in length. (I won't bother explaining where that comes from -- it gets us into some hairy dynamics.) Given a sine wave of period 22,000 years, the absolute maximum change that we could get in this curve over 150 years is about 2.5 degrees of phase angle or about 0.4% Therefore, if we assume that the insolation has been rising for the last 150 years, it has risen only 0.4%, or from 459 w/m**2 to 461 w/m**2. Plugging this value into our Stefan-Boltzmann equation yields a net increase in temperature of 0.28 degrees. The absolute maximum increase we could have gotten in the last 150 years, assuming that the Milankovitch theory is right (which I think it is) and that everything is lined up perfectly to yield the steepest possible increase, is 0.28 degrees, when in fact we have seen an increase twice that large. Changes in solar insolation might account for half of the observed increase -- but that still leaves an increase not explained by insolation.


It's all so simple to you, isn't it? If you could actually calculate these things, you'd realize just how complicated it really is.


You are confused about the difference between short-term effects and long-term effects. CO2 increases will yield an increase in global temperatures over the time scale of decades to centuries. Shorter-term factors can overwhelm the long-term effect -- for short periods of time. That's what we're seeing here. Quite a few drugs for the treatment of cancer make you sicker over the short term, but can heal you over the long term Would you plot a graph of the patient's overall well-being, show that it goes down for the first few weeks, and then claim that you have proven that the medicine doesn't work? That's exactly what you're doing here.


You still can't quite get down your craw the idea that a small change in CO2 concentrations can yield a change in global mean temperature. Remember, we're talking small on both sides of the equation, because a change of a mere 1% in global mean temperature amounts to 5 degrees Fahrenheit -- enough to cause serious problems.

Here's another way to think about it: you're running a business, and it's in equilibrium, as the earth currently is with the sun. You get a million dollars a year of income, but your expenses are also exactly a million dollars, so the business isn't making any money. But then one day one of your employees comes up with a bright idea for cutting costs by 0.1%. That's not much, of course; compared to the million dollars, it's a drop in the bucket, just $1,000. But you implement it anyway. So the first year you put $1,000 in the bank. The second year you put another $1,000 in the bank. How long will it take before you've got a tidy bundle of money in the bank?

That's the idea. Every day, the earth receives 5.05 * 10**21 Joules of energy from the sun. That's as much energy as 100 million nuclear power plants would put out in a the same time. And every day, the earth radiates 5.05 * 10**21 Joules of infrared radiation out into space. Yes, that's a huge river of energy flowing in and out. It's all in equilibrium. But if we double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, then the amount of infrared radiation that CO2 returns to the earth is doubled. Yes, it isn't much, but there's the river is so huge that even a tiny contribution can have a big effect. You can find some raw numbers here. I was surprised at the quality of this entry; it's really quite good. You should read it just to give yourself a decent grounding in the basic science. Here's a summary of the key elements:

1. The atmosphere as a whole absorbs 64% of all of earth's surface radiation.
2. Water vapor accounts for 60% of this 64%, or about 38% of all of earth's radiation.
3. CO2 amounts for 26% of this 64%, or about 16% of all of earth's radiation.

Let's be simplistic and assume that a doubling of C02 would yield a doubling of the amount of energy absorbed by CO2. Thus, of the 459 w/m**2 that the earth radiates, we'd see an increase of about 16%, which would take us to 532 w/m**2. Recall from earlier, that a 10% increase to 500 w/m**2 would yield a temperature increase of 6.4 degrees Kelvin. This would yield an even greater temperature increase, maybe 10 degrees Kelvin or a whopping 22 degrees Fahrenheit, How'd you like to say daily high temperatures in the summer of 122 degrees?

Of course, that won't happen, because there are other forces at work. But the basic driving force of the greenhouse effect from CO2 is huge. We're just lucky that there are other factors that tend to reduce the effect.



Here we go again with the old "you can't trust scientists because they've been wrong before." All I can say is, if you really believe that, then don't get in any airplanes (aeronautical engineering is based on science), don't take any medicines (more science behind that), and don't use any computers (how do you know the radiation won't kill you? Scientists say it's safe, but how can you trust scientists?) Indeed, it's probably best not to get out of bed in the morning.

I have been intently following all of this and it has been highly informative thus far. Please allow me to inject the following non-technical scientific commentary into this discussion.

Both Erasmussimo and Leder seem to be focusing on CO2 concentrations, but if you are trying to argue that global warming isn't occurring because of those numbers I feel you are ignoring some rather large facts with big consequences. There are also of course other measurements like sea temperature, etc.

The earth is able to maintain cycles of hotter periods and cooler periods because it has many systems which help to regulate temperature. If you start destroying those systems or tampering with them then clearly you are going to effect the ability for the earth to regulate itself in a natural manner. Furthermore, many of these systems work in conjunction with each other and if you impact one of them it has an effect on others. I'd think this is a pretty universally accepted scientific fact, known by 8th graders everywhere that have taken earth science.

It is fairly common knowledge that CO2 results in the greenhouse effect which can heat up the planet. Plants are responsible for taking in CO2 and creating O2. It should be plainly obvious that man has had a huge impact on this system in the past 300 years or so with mass deforrestation around the globe.

The salt water/fresh water ratio also effects the rate of CO2 absorption by the ocean. If temperatures start to rise then that melts ice which effects that ratio and the process.

Finally, since the industrial age and the introduction of the car we have been pumping untold tons of chemicals, many which never existed naturally, into our atmosphere.

All of this will in turn effect other systems and it is additive. I don't know that anyone can predict when we'll pass the point of no return where everything is so out of whack we can't turn back, but to deny that it is happening and we have the power to do something about it right now is completely ridiculous to me.

The Guardian reported today that an area of the permafrost in Western Siberia the size of France and Germany together was melting and releasing methane. This is scary stuff. The uncertainty in the science has always been in both directions. The uncertainty on the up side had a lot to do with the potential for these kinds of positive feedbacks not included in the models. This report is from a newspaper not a scientific journal. Supposedly it was published in The New Scientist today but I haven't found it on line. Here is the Guardian article on Melting Permafrost. In any case, this deserves to be followed closely.

I discssed climate modelling with several ADers in this and other threads. One of the issues raised was that computer models use too small of a cell size to accurately project climate changes regionally. I disputed the contention that cell sizes the size of Kansas were used but agreed that size of cells used did limit the ability of the models to project. Now a new projection of future US climate using cells only 25 km on a side has been generated at Purdue University. See Purdue projection.



And, quoting from one of the authors:

I ran across this poem recently and couldn't resist linking it to one of our global warming discussions. The allusion to Nazi Germany may seem extreme to some but for me hardly a day goes by that I don't fret about the legacy we are leaving our children and grandchildren. Here is an excerpt from The Most Fortunate Generation:



You can find the Complete Poem here.

I still feel that we must prepare and adapt to the inevitable warming that is taking place and also take strong measures to avoid more extreme warming.

I am going to intrude here to make just one point, because there is a point that seems to be often tossed around that makes no sense whatsoever, and it is really irritating.

When confronted with the unassailable fact that a large and steadily incresing number of relevant experts in the field all agree that Global warming IS taking place, and that human Agency is causing it, there seems to be a standard off-the-cuff response, and that is that all of these people must be lying because 'they can get funding that way'.

Before I lay into this inane argument, allow me to present my credentials to deal with it, I am an academic and very familiar with the nature of academic funding, but prior to getting my D.Phil, I worked for 6 years, ending up as division manager at SSHRC, the primary government research funding body for Canada, which handed out about $150 million dollars of research funding every year. I also worked very closely with the funding agencies in the UK, France and the US on joint projects.

Firstly, this argument somehow presumes that scientists arguing on behalf of global warming have a vested interest (grant funding) while somehow scientists arguing against global warming have NO SUCH vested interest (fuel company research, private sector funding, etc) which is patently absurd.


However, even that massive flaw is not the biggest problem with the argument. The argument in fact simply collapses on the very face of it, because cademic funding simply does not work that way. Research funding agencies do not fund research towards specific goals or ends, they all, and I mean all, fund on the basis of peer review, research which is being conducted in a sound and scientific manner. Means tends to be more important than anticipated goals, in fact as a general rule any research project which stated from the beginning what its anticipated goals were stood a good chance of being rejected.

Even Better, academics which make up these peer review panels have an overwhelming tendency NOT to fund projects which look like they will just restate the orthodoxy. It is a universal symptom of scientific research that people are always more interested in outside the box or exploratory research, rather than research which explores the status-quo.

Thus, and let me be very clear on this:
1- Researchers who end up arguing FOR global warming have no more (and in fact arguably far LESS) financial reason to argue their position then those who end up opposing global warming (if there are any)
2- EVEN IF this were not the case, research both academic and governmental, is funded based on means and topic rather than anticipated outcome. Interestingly, privately funded research (like most studies opposing global warming) have no such standards.
3- EVEN IF neither of these points were true, the reality of academic research is that IF there were ANY bias in research funding, it would naturaly be AGAINST the orthodoxy, and thus against global warming.


Thus, on many levels, the whole "most scientists only support GW theory becauye they get money for it" argument is uttely and completely false, and I can only imagine this argument has been invented by GW opponents to deal with the rather massive and difficult to argue point that experts overwhelmingly and increasingly support Global warming theory.

Is it somewhat of a coincidence that the warming and cooling trends follow the sun's magnetic storm activity (i.e. sunspot activity)?

They don't. Past solar activity is imperfectly understood but it is clear that solar activity has not increased since the 1950s and is not the cause of the current warming trend. You might find this Realclimate Review of the status of the science useful.

it's not quite a closed door yet.

No and no. The earth has been heating and cooling itself, often times in dramatic fashion for over 5 billion years. The impact of man is little to none. The "theories" that claim to support "man made global warming" are absurd in their simplistic approach. They focus on "greenhouse gasses" without understanding the dynamics of the planet, the climate, the oceans, the the sun and how the entire system works together. Their data is full of holes (as seen in the temperature spike during the middle ages).

Politics has infiltrated the "global warming" debate and it's become a fault line between political viewpoints and a huge source of funds for research. The snap shot of data that scientists have collected over the past handful of years is meaningless when trying to decipher a complex and dynamic system. The premise that seems to be accepted by the left is that the earth is a static system... and therefore, noticing the rise of seas, changes in glaciers, and short-term temperature rises are "proof" of their theory.

Until our scientists can construct a model of the climate system and determine what the primary variables are controlling this complex system, the debate on global warming is a lot of hot air. In order to determine the impact of "man", one first has to determine the baseline of the system.

Rather than destroying our economic systems in order to solve a problem that can't be solved in the first place, we should be working to adapt to the dynamics of this planet.

The city that I live in just set a record low temperature for yesterday (at least in our recorded history which is also a very short-term view). Does that prove that global cooling is taking place? Does the 6 inches of snow I just got done shoveling point to an upcoming ice age?

Frankly, the "consensus" that is driving climate scientists is largely groupthink. Those who have the courage to think outside of the PC norm are quickly demonized, called "quacks", "anti-intellectuals", "industry mouthpieces" or "right wing ideologues".

With such a totalitarian viewpoint associated with the "consensus", I doubt that there is an environment conducive to finding the truth associated with climate change.

Well of course you doubt that. It is necessary for opponents to invent this concept of 'scholarly pressure' and 'funding bias' (which I dealt with a great length not 6 posts ago, please read over recent posts in a thread before you contribute). Otherwise opponents would have to deal with the unsavoury fact that a strong (and growing) majority of scientists the world over disagree with them.

It is very difficult for a layman to have an opinion that flies in the face of the opinions of the experts in the field, so anti-global warming people have invented this 'tyranny of the intellectual majority'. I say invented of course, because it is alwasy presented as a fact, with no evidence to support it, even though (again, as I went through in an earlier post) this 'tyranny' flies in the face of standard academic practice.




Actually no, they are exceptionally scholarly and extremely complicated, but I suppose its easier to dismiss their findings if you simply pretend they are something they are not. And as for this silly 'the earth heats and cools' theory, it is very similar to looking at a car accident and saying 'there was no car accident because it has been proven that cars eventually fall apart over time'.

The second part of that stement may be true, yes the earth does have a heating and cooling trend, but this is not part of that trend. I really suggest you read a few of these studies before dismising them. They may differ slightly from all the academic studies out there disproving global warming... oh wait... there are NO academic studies out there disproving global warming. How interesting.




This, of course, is complete fiction. Not a single one of the academic studies regarding global warming has ever assumed the earth is a static model. In fact the even assert that is absurd, it essentially means that without reading them, you would have everyon believe that the climatologists are stupid and know less about global warming than you do.




Again, total invention. But, on the part of those who refuse to believe global warming, a necessary invention to deal with the fact that they stnd increasingly alone in their opinions.

I find it incredibly amusing that these GW opponents invent some impossible 'conspiracy' in academia, some patently silly 'pro-GW bias' among independent scientists, but then refuse to consider the posibility that anti-Global warming reports have been written by industry, major energy companies and industries with a clear and vested interest in preventing stiffening environmental laws.

What is even more amusing is that people think that the Energy companies have something to lose if people try to do something about the oncoming catastrophe. As long as they're supplying energy they’re gonna make money. In fact I’m starting to think that in some ways the energy companies want tougher regulations to make even more money. The idea that we can “stick it to the man” by cracking down on global warming (which btw there is no evidence that it can be stopped by human intervention) is some fantasy cooked up by the anti-corporation people. As long as there is a demand for energy, there will be large energy companies making a large profit.

I can't find the paper, but here's a quote from a recent research. The link goes to the abstract.

I agree with you on most of your points but I don't find it amusing. They have been very effective in the US in stalemating the response to GW in the political arena. They are trying to do the same thing in Europe. (See this article from the independent).





This is nonsense. Most of us who are convinced of the threat of human caused global warming would welcome any energy industry investments in alternative energy and indeed do in the case of BP's limited investments in Wind and Solar generation. You underestimate the incentive that large corporations with huge investments in facilities and resources have to exert their political influence to continue to make profits in the business they are use to.

I would like to see your article but don't subscribe to the Geophyical Research Letters. The article apparently goes to the level of confidence that can be established in studies of things like climate change but is certainly not a refutation of the research in the field. In fact, it is difficult to find a peer reviewed article that challenges the consensus that human induced climate change is underway. (See this Seattle Times Article).



Or you may prefer a reference to Oreskes' study in Science Magazine. (See here).

I thought it might be good to bump this thread in light of this new article.

Debate on Climate Shifts to Issue of Irreparable Change


I am afraid that the leaders of our great US of A, in their determination to make the democratized world safe from terrorists, have neglected (willfully or otherwise) to pay attention to physical phenomena that will affect us whether we are threatened with human acts of violence or not. I would much rather that we had paid more attention to and spent billions to forestall and perhaps reverse the climatic changes that will not only affect our weather but also the food chain, than on waging continual war.

Weather is known to be what is technically called "chaotic", which briefly means very sensitive to being calculated and/or predictable, and also usually wildly and surprisingly variable (sorry for the tutorial, but feel it's needed).

If weather is "chaotic", then so must be "climate" and so also transitions to and from "global warming", "ice ages", etc.

For more see in part: Alley, R. B., "Abrupt Climate Change", Sci Am, Vol 291, No 5, P 62.

Conclusion: Be prepared for anything always!

This article out on the BBC is worth a read. Basically the consensus of the scientific community has gone from humans "probably" being responsible for global warming to a certainty.

There are more than a few disturbing facts in this article such as:


Probably the saddest state of affairs though is this:

More evidence to support this, this time from NASA:


More analysis and a link to the study here.

That is not what the article says. It says that this is the conclusion only of the IPCC. Now their conclusions may be sound, or may be unsound, but either way, the IPCC is not "the scientific community", and it's sloppy reporting, at best, to use those terms interchangeably.

As for whether the warming actually is caused by greenhouse emissions, it's necessary to look at solar activity also, which has been recently on the increase. Indeed, Mars has been recently observed to be undergoing likely global warming of its own.

I should say that even if the greenhouse-gas global warming theory isn't completely proven, I'm not opposed to modest efforts to steer people away from high consumption of fossil fuels, because there are other benefits to doing so as well. But to go all-out with plans that could drastically increase the burden on the economy and on society is something that, at minimum, should only be done when the science behind the theory is rock-solid. "Consensuses" notwithstanding, it's not there yet.

Some would argue, Blackstone, that by the time science becomes "rock solid", you'll be sitting on top of your house waiting for the Coast Guard.

James Hansen, the chief Climatologist for NASA, believes that global warming isn't just a fact, but that its accelerating. (60 Minutes interview)

The scenario he paints in Time Magazine is even bleaker.

The cover story on this in Time is chilling. It seems like science is lining up more and more behind this. It might not be "rock solid", but I'm worried that waiting for that concensus might severely limit our alternatives (solutions) when it should come.

If Global Warming is a serious threat to the human race how do we stop it?

Should the world invest resources into eliminating the problem or into adapting with the changes?

Apparently it's a serious threat. I'm not a scientist, but I typically believe it when I see extreme evidence like that shown for Anartica or Australia.

You say it's surprising that that many people found it a threat, I not surprised it's THAT LOW! Most Americans are not in areas that can see the pending problems of global warming. If most were, they wouldn't scoff at it so.

Of course we should invest resources to protect ourselves and our planet. We definately should have leadership, unlike Bush, that at least respects the threat. Blair, in a rare instance, attacked Bush and the US for our stand on global warming. We NEED to act and soon.

Instead of blowing tons of money on Iraqi fuel lines, we should be building infrastructure that supports alternate energy in the US. THis also allows us to export such technology to help the globe.

We need to do much more and we need much better leadership than we have.

That couldn't be more true. One of the main problems behind the "wait and see" attitude is that the systems involved deteriorate at an accelerated rate over time due to feedback loops.

For example consider the perplexing scenario: Warming of the ocean causes the ice in polar regions (e.g. greenland) to melt. Ice relfects about 90% of the sun's heat and water absorbs about 90% of it. That means that as the ice melts there will be more water which will absorb heat where it was once relfected melting more ice and accelerating the process.

Hansen's research shows that the rate of ice melt has doubled.

Another impact of this increased ice melt is vastly increased amounts of freshwater being dumped into the ocean, specifically from Greenland and from the siberian rivers. I recently watched a program on either the Science Channel or the Discovery Channel called "The Big Chill". This article in the The Times talks about the science behind it.

Basically the reason that the UK isn't the same climate as Alaska is due to the Gulf Stream conveyor belt moving warm water to the North Atlantic. This mechanism depends on a high level of salinity in the North Atlantic. As freshwater dillutes the concentration it has the ability to stop the conveyor belt. This would make the North Atlantic a whole lot colder and would also effect global weather patterns drying up regions that enjoy lots of rain in the tropics, which could cause a massive die-out in the rainforests replacing them with grasslands. There is scientific evidence currently and in the fossil record to support all of this.

So we really should be calling it global climate change, not just global warming. And the main point is that all of the earth's systems are interconnected and once you start getting some of them out of whack to the point they can't self correct it effects other systems until you have a chain reaction on a global scale.

We have the power to stop or at the very least reduce the impact, but politics is in the way - particularly in the US.

WOW!! I thought I was watching a deleted scene from The Day After Tomorrow

If there is scientific evidence and fossil record of this happening then it would occur to me this happened BEFORE man was on this planet and the climate shift will happen regardless of man's presence.. right?

Who knows? What were the conditions then that caused it to happen? The conditions that caused it to happen may not have been preventable, but maybe we can slow the trend, put it off some to make preparations to ensure species survival due to the eventuality, not close our eyes to the developments and doom our children and grandchildren to widespread suffering or death because we didn't give a damn about our contributions to the problem.

I'm nitpickingly dodging in out of nowhere but...

You dodged my question. I asked for the actual percentage increase in insolation. You provide a bunch of charts and figures that dance all around without ever actually admitting that observed changes in solar output amount to less that 0.1% net change (Wikipedia). Your claim that a 0.1% increase in solar radiation can yield a 1% increase in mean earth surface temperature is patently absurd.
Also, the "scientific source" you quote from is "Fathers for Life" which declares on its home page that "This website is about fatherlessness, fatherhood, and about the impact of both on children, families and society; it is also about the role that feminism and gender politics play in all of that." And you're claiming that this source is as reliable as, say, the National Academy of Sciences?

His graph showed that the level of solar radiation corresponded with both the major temperature temperature dips in the past 10,000 years. Of course, the graph's temperatures were stripped from averaged temperature records from London and Paris, telling us little about the globe at all. A increase or decrease of .1% of solar radiation is small (I mean that in realitive terms, not in effect) its true, but so is an increase or decrease of temperature of 1%. We have a difference of magnitude of 10, and I am finding it difficult to define certain variables needed to assert that, that difference can write off its significance.

In an uncorrelated note, looking at another graph, I saw that CO2 fluctuated concurrently with temperature in the past 350,000 years, which proves either that it caused the warming, or was caused by the same thing as the warming.

Looking for a graph of the past 1000 years for purposes of objectively comparing cooling rates during the little ice age, and warming rates after it, I couldn't find anything but hockey stick models till I purposely searched for websties that were against anthropogenic global warming claims. Heres what I found: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba450/ba450.pdf

While I was rebuffed in my assertion that the cooling rate then was as fast or faster then the heating rate now, I did find out that temperature was rising faster in the 1700s then it is today...

In order to get further on this subject, I need to know what naturally increases CO2 rates (so I can determine whether in the past 350,000 years, CO2 was a cause or a result).

I don't think you read my post very closely. I wasn't denying that the warming was happening. I was showing that there's very good reason to believe that something other than man-made carbon dioxide, at least in part, is responsible for it.


There are also negative feedback loops, whereby warming increases cloud cover, which results in heat being reflected back into space, which results in cooling. Like it or not, the science is still highly incomplete. You can always come up with scary scenarios that just might happen unless we were to take this, that, or the other step. You could drive yourself crazy with it.

What we likely can predict quite accurately are the economic and social consequences of instituting something like Kyoto (they would be severe). If we're going to commit ourselves to something like that, we should have a comparable level of certainty regarding the consequences of not doing so. Right now, we know very little, except that the climate has always been unpredictably variable.

We could implement every recommendation of the IPCC and still be stuck with catastrophic change, or we could "fail" to do so, and in the process prevent a catastrophic change. We just don't know yet, and emotional arguments are not a substitute for lack of knowledge.

I have always found this logic to be baffling:

Observe:

There is scientific and fossil evidence of entire species dying out and special extinction before man ever walked on the planet, therefore any extinction which has happened in the last 1000 years cannot be the fault of man.


Really?


Perhaps you might want to look at causality. IF climate change occurred in the past, WHY did it occur? Was it because some natural event caused an increase in atmospheric contaminants and CO2 levels?

So, by artificially doing the same thing now, has not humanity caused the same thing to happen by our own hand?




Really? Do you have specific evidence that the same natiural phenomenon which caused hypothetical past rapid climate changes are occurring now? Do you have any justification for the assumption that the vast damage man has done to the environment and atmosphere COULD NOT have brought about rapid climate change artificially?

It's just evidence that natural occurrences caused their extinction. This proved it did happen naturally. And if then it is happening now suddenly it's not the natural cycle anymore it's humans doing it. I'm as analytical as they come. I have a family member who is convinced that online pokerroom are rigged because he kept track of 1000 hands and said that hands that won should not have according to statistics of the game. Well 1000 hands is not even close to a good enough sample to gauge this sort of thing. In the same way the Earth has been around for 4.5 billion years. You are going to tell me that even if we were collecting data for 1000 years it would be accurate?

I read your post just fine, thanks. You chose to ignore the point anyways. Why is it that so many are willing to committ an entire country to a devastating war based on shaky intelligence but unwilling to take proactive measures that could very well save most life on this planet because the science isn't "rock solid"?

I'm not denying your point that Man isn't the only contributor to this crisis. But the others are natural events. Which do you think we have more control over?

When the chief climatologist at NASA tells me we're at extreme risk of this scenario, I'm inclined to listen. When the current administration tries to restrict his ability to give that message, I want to listen more.

You haven't addressed the specifics of his message, especially the melting that seems to be accelerating around the poles.

The whole point, Blackstone, is that if you wait until that certainty exists, we've already lost too much. Are you willing to gamble with the Earth like that? I'm not.

And what is lost if we implement the changes recommended by the IPCC? Some of our precious economic growth? Have we become such poor custodians of this planet that growth trumps every other argument, even survival?

I just said there was Sleeper, and if you don't want to take my word for it then you can track down the show and watch it yourself. It may have happened regardless of Man's presence but the show also cites that we are accelerating it which is the key point.

If you read my follow up post you would see that I don't take credence to data extrapolated from such a short period of time based on the age of the earth. It just does not make sense to me that we can be so sure that we are in nothing more than a cycle of temperature change that has happened on this planet since the beginning.

Sleeper - the major change between the earth's natural cycles and now is because man now exists on the Earth. To suggest that man doesn't greatly impact the environments in which he takes up residence and in fact the whole world is the equivalent of screaming to the heavens that the Earth is flat in this day and age - it is just ridiculous.

The Earth very well may have a natural cycle, but the evidence becomes more solid by the year that we are accelerating those cycles and removing the ability for the earth to self correct. We pump untold tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we've literally changed the face of the planet with mass deforrestation, and all of these things contribute to the problem.

More and more data comes out from scientific circles each month warning us of problems in the coming decades but yet there is a sizable contingent of people like yourself that would prefer to just stick their fingers in their ears and continue on with the status quo.

I don't know, Sleeper. The conditions which permit humans to inhabit the earth have only existed for a very short time. We wouldn't be here otherwise, so I'm not sure comparing temperature cycles between today and 50,000 years ago helps us out much. Certainly the earth, and cockroaches (who probably worship at the idol of a mushroom cloud now and pray for the big one) will still be around, but the conditions that permit us to be around might not.

I DO believe in the ingenuity of man to combat such problems, but it stands to reason, IMO, that if man is capable of combatting earth's destruction, he could incite it as well.

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba450/ba450.pdf

If this chart is accurate, then there has been a faster sustained heatspike then today a mere 300 years ago. The site claims this chart is what the mass majority of scientests used before they started up on the fudged hockey model, which is an allegedly inaccurate and unarguably incomplete chart of the worlds temperatures for the past 1,000 years.

I just linked to this article from realclimate.com and thought I would link it here. It makes clear that consensus climate scientist are well aware of the historical record and use it to construct and test their models. It also makes the point that I have reiterated over and over, that is, while there are many uncertainties remaining they exist on both the up and downside.

(From Scientific American Article).

Here is an interesting piece from World Climate Report on the data presented by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. This is a very careful analysis of the data that shows that even with a 67% decrease in C02 emissions the model still shows the Earth's temperature increasing. A decrease that drastic is economically impossible.

Nemov, I see you are still citing Patrick J. Michaels and his fossil fuel funded website. Those not privy to our previous debates might like to look at a little background on the World Climate Report. (See Facts about World Climate Report).

It is interesting that Michaels and his cohorts have now moved to the argument that we can't do enough to stop global warming so why try. They started out saying there was no problem. In reality we can do a great deal, first at the margins and later with major programs to cut carbon dioxide and methane releases. And, yes, it may require more nuclear, more carbon sequestration, more wind generation, more tidal generators, and above all massive improvements in the end use efficiency of energy use. To be effective, we have to make the playing field level and provide the proper incentives to all alternatives.

So Ted, no comment on the graphs presented in the above citation? You'll have to do better that try the "he's tied to fossil fuel companies" argument. The energy companies will providing whatever source of fuel we decide to use in the future. The fact remains the model shows a scenario that is economically impossible. The countries that signed Kyoto have found that out themselves.

Can you proved some information on how we can get to 1940 CO2 levels in an economic way?

There are several fallacies with this presentation. To begin with - its not original. Most climate scientists recognize that a 70% reduction in greenhouse gas release is necessary to stabilize climate change. Even many environmental organizations are aware of this:



(See the Earth Policy Institute).

In the second place, no one thinks we can stop global warming in the near term, only slow it down and avoid the most catastrophic scenarios. In other words, buy time for more comprehensive solutions. Some of these efforts require reducing CO2 release moderately, others require stabilizing CO2 in the short term and concentrating on Methane and Carbon Blacks. (See NASA Proposal).

Finally, who says there is no economic way to curb greenhouse gas forcing? Studies supported by the fossil fuel industry? I have repeatedly cited the 30 year body of work done by Amory Lovins, RMI, and associated individuals. (See Rocky Mtn. Institute). Lovins and other advocate of drastic increased end use efficiency have consistently shown that, using existing technologies, it is cheaper to improve end use efficiencies by several fold than it is to build new power plants. With higher efficiencies, renewable alternatives also become more attractive. (See this PEW Climate Report for one comprehensive approach).

A number of other alternative economic studies have been done demonstrating that stabilizing and reducing GH gas levels need not be economically crippling and might even have positive economic impacts. (See this NRDC Study for example).

Assuredly, there will be winners and losers in the transition and that is what makes it so difficult. The economic entities that have the most to lose have tremendous economic and political influence. The orchestrated campaign to confuse the public about the status of climate change science is but one manifestation of their clout.

One thing is fairly certain, however. If we fail to act and one of the worst scenarios occurs, the economic impacts will dwarf any costs associated with addressing the problem over the near term.

Yeah, just like during the 70s? I know mankind has made progress the past three decades, but it appears the rhetoric has not changed.

Nemov, don't you ever give up on these tired arguments? I wouldn't bother answering this canard but I'm afraid some casual reader might see it and give it some credence. In this case, I will only reference an article on realclimate.org that thorgoughly debunked this whole line of half-truths.

(See The Global Cooling Myth for the complete article).

huh? Were the articles written or not? (New York Times, Newsweek, etc.) There's nothing to debunk there, just an example of extreme hyperbole about events that never came to pass by news outlets that use the same language today for Global Warming. If it is so important to point out that no actual consensus existed then about the "problem" why should reasonable people believe the same press outlets today when they are discussing a similar issue. It seems to me those in the climate prediction business have a long ways to go before they become a creditable source.

Wow! You've just discovered that the mainstream media writes sensational articles to sell magazines and newspapers. When they write about science they sometimes get it right and they often get it wrong. You know perfectly well that you and the source you cited were trying to muddy the waters and question the conclusions of the climate change scientific community regarding humane caused climate change. What Newsweek and the NYT said in the 70s and at the present is not a reliable indication of what the scientific community thought or thinks now. In the past we have gone round and round on peer reviewed scientific papers versus non peer reviewed articles and how the later try to use statements in the popular press to discredit the former. Patrick J. Michaels' books are full of this kind of stuff.

What, like someone can't find two other biased scientists to facilitate a biased peer reviewed article?

In particular, I would expect major science magazines to have their own peer reviewers to review submitant theories, and of course, those reviewers a likely to have their own set of beliefs.

Peer reviews aren't fool proof...I mean, wasn't that blasted hockey stick graph peer reviewed? Even if it was accurate (which I have heard profusely refuted), it was still intentionally misleading, as it only showed one hemisphere.

Global Warming is a passionate topic. We're talking about a possible armageddon, and I think that the end justifies the means argument is rampant on the side of the proponents. They stretch and a fudge for attention, and noticing this is what originally set me off against them.

scientists are human and in this topic quite political, and I don't trust politicians.

How can people remain so willfully misinformed? This is an issue that may impact the survival of human civilization and yet many repeat the propaganda of those paid to muddy the waters rather than reality digging into the issue to find out the status of the science. Spencer Weart's on line or hard back book on the History of Climate Change Science is a good place to start. If that is too daunting try this Vanity Fair Article. It has a particular good treatment of the sceptics and the connection of many of them to the fossil fuel industries.

Who knew being informed meant reading Vanity Fair and a book by Spencer Weart? Ted, your complaints about tired arguments are as tiring as your insistence that every skeptic is tool of evil fossil fuel companies. I think I’m beginning to understand why some evangelical groups are getting involved in stopping the “problem.” There’s a religious belief in this theory and any naysayers are either a ) misinformed b ) tool of fossil fuel companies. Some group is always pprophesying the end of civilization, historically they’ve been wrong a lot more than being right.

TedN5:

You and I will not only have to disagree re Iraq and Rumsfeld, but also on global warming. The theory of global warming caused by human created greenhouse gases is very nearly the single greatest hoax that any human or humans have ever tried to foist on their fellow humans.

And, no, this isn't the hottest time on record, since during the Middle Ages it was 2 degrees hotter than it is now. And so there is no mistake, we used to call the Middle Ages the Dark Ages because we considered the people living at that time ignorant. So we can't blame a hot Middle Ages on greenhouse gases produced by humans [since they were too ignorant to produce them].

And, Ted, sorry, but I was alive at the time, and I remember what more than a few were telling us. And they told us to expect a new ice age.

And, Ted, the emission of CO2 should otherwise be a boon to agricultural production and the Amazon rain forest, given that plants "inhale" CO2 and use the same for photosynthesis.

And, by the way, excepting a small, rather small, 2% portion of the Antarctic ice sheet, the other 98% is not only not melting, it is actually expanding. And according to the US, Russia, Australia, and some others who have bases in Antarctica, the average mean temperature of that contintent is decreasing, i.e., Antarctica is getting cooler and not warmer.

And here are some words from Richard Lindzen, professor of meteorology at MIT [ http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg15n2g.html ]:

"[here, we discover that the former myth tellers are still at it, and you'll have to forgive me for noting the cruel but yet sweet and savory irony, at least given what you've written so far re myth] Many studies from the nineteenth century on suggested that industrial and other contributions to increasing carbon dioxide might lead to global warming. Problems with such predictions were also long noted, and the general failure of such predictions to explain the observed record caused the field of climatology as a whole to regard the suggested mechanisms as suspect. Indeed, the global cooling trend of the 1950s and 1960s led to a minor global cooling hysteria in the 1970s. All that was more or less normal scientific debate, although the cooling hysteria had certain striking analogues to the present warming hysteria including books such as The Genesis Strategy by Stephen Schneider and Climate Change and World Affairs by Crispin Tickell--both authors are prominent in support of the present concerns as well--"explaining'' the problem and promoting international regulation."

So, the myth tellers are at it again. But for more:

"The present hysteria formally began in the summer of 1988, although preparations had been put in place at least three years earlier. That was an especially warm summer in some regions, particularly in the United States. The abrupt increase in temperature in the late 1970s was too abrupt to be associated with the smooth increase in carbon dioxide. Nevertheless, James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in testimony before Sen. Al Gore's Committee on Science, Technology and Space, said, in effect, that he was 99 percent certain that temperature had increased and that there was some greenhouse warming. He made no statement concerning the relation between the two.

Despite the fact that those remarks were virtually meaningless, they led the environmental advocacy movement to adopt the issue immediately. The growth of environmental advocacy since the 1970s has been phenomenal. In Europe the movement centered on the formation of Green parties; in the United States the movement centered on the development of large public interest advocacy groups. Those lobbying groups have budgets of several hundred million dollars and employ about 50,000 people; their support is highly valued by many political figures. As with any large groups, self-perpetuation becomes a crucial concern. "Global warming'' has become one of the major battle cries in their fundraising efforts. At the same time, the media unquestioningly accept the pronouncements of those groups as objective truth."

And so the enviro-Nazis strike again, with an assist from some rather ignorant but presumably well-meaning media types who wouldn't know the second law of thermodynamics from your Aunt Betty's famous recipe chili. But now for the perversion of science and proof that US Senators are sometimes nothing more than mere charlatans [I'll spare you my commentary re the ignorant actors, etc.]:

"As most scientists concerned with climate, I was eager to stay out of what seemed like a public circus. But in the summer of 1988 Lester Lave, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote to me about being dismissed from a Senate hearing for suggesting that the issue of global warming was scientifically controversial. I assured him that the issue was not only controversial but also unlikely. In the winter of 1989 Reginald Newell, a professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, lost National Science Foundation funding for data analyses that were failing to show net warming over the past century. Reviewers suggested that his results were dangerous to humanity. In the spring of 1989 I was an invited participant at a global warming symposium at Tufts University. I was the only scientist among a panel of environmentalists. There were strident calls for immediate action and ample expressions of impatience with science. Claudine Schneider, then a congressman from Rhode Island, acknowledged that "scientists may disagree, but we can hear Mother Earth, and she is crying.'' It seemed clear to me that a very dangerous situation was arising, and the danger was not of "global warming'' itself.

.....One of the more striking of those meetings was hosted in the summer of 1989 by Robert Redford at his ranch in Sundance, Utah. Redford proclaimed that it was time to stop research and begin acting. I suppose that that was a reasonable suggestion for an actor to make, but it is also indicative of the overall attitude toward science. Barbara Streisand personally undertook to support the research of Michael Oppenheimer at the Environmental Defense Fund, although he is primarily an advocate and not a climatologist. Meryl Streep made an appeal on public television to stop warming. A bill was even prepared to guarantee Americans a stable climate.

By the fall of 1989 some media were becoming aware that there was controversy (Forbes and Reader's Digest were notable in that regard). Cries followed from environmentalists that skeptics were receiving excessive exposure. The publication of my paper was followed by a determined effort on the part of the editor of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Richard Hallgren, to solicit rebuttals. Such articles were prepared by Stephen Schneider and Will Kellogg, a minor scientific administrator for the past thirty years, and those articles were followed by an active correspondence mostly supportive of the skeptical spectrum of views. Indeed, a recent Gallup poll of climate scientists in the American Meteorological Society and in the American Geophysical Union shows that a vast majority doubts that there has been any identifiable man-caused warming to date (49 percent asserted no, 33 percent did not know, 18 percent thought some has occurred; however, among those actively involved in research and publishing frequently in peer-reviewed research journals, none believes that any man-caused global warming has been identified so far). On the whole, the debate within the meteorological community has been relatively healthy and, in this regard, unusual."

And, Ted, this truly does say it all:

"Outside the world of meteorology, Greenpeace's Jeremy Legett, a geologist by training, published a book attacking critics of warming---especially me. George Mitchell, Senate majority leader and father of a prominent environmental activist, also published a book urging acceptance of the warming problem (World on Fire: Saving an Endangered Earth). Sen. Gore recently published a book (Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit). Those are just a few examples of the rapidly growing publications on warming. Rarely has such meager science provoked such an outpouring of popularization by individuals who do not understand the subject in the first place."

Sorry, Ted, but "global warming" has about as much validity as Al Gore's claim that he invented the internet. And the good Senator cum failed vice presidential candidate, well, he, Robert and Barbara wouldn't know the second law of thermodynamics from your Aunt Betty's famous recipe chili [though they might claim that it is the 2nd law that makes your aunt's chili so unique and otherwise in need of special protective legislation].

And for the Orwellian nature of the claim of "global warming":

"...For example, Alabama has had a pronounced cooling trend since 1935. Nevertheless, a poll among professionals in Alabama found that about 95 percent of the participants believed that the climate had been warming over the past fifty years and that the warming was due to the greenhouse effect."

And, Ted, re Antarctica [and some other places as well]:

http://www.reason.com/rb/rb111004.shtml

And, Ted, you might also peruse this site, since John Daly is still waiting:

http://www.john-daly.com/

When you peruse his site, please look for and at the graphs showing mean temperature in the Antarctic over the last 20 or so years [as reported by various stations].

And, Ted, we have global warming and global cooling because of our sun and sunspot activity. And that's the refutation of Mann and all those who perverted Mann for their own sordid ends. We had a warm Dark Ages because of high sunspot activity and we had a little ice age because of low and no sunspot activity. And wouldn't you know, the latter part of the last century just happened to be a high sunspot activity stage.

And, Ted, please read up on the Sargossa Sea:

http://www.john-daly.com/hockey/hockey.htm

So much for Mann and some others who were even more shameful and perverted than Mann.

Daly is otherwise an amateur scholar and makes his fair share of mistakes, but he's far and above your "scientists."

Lastly, please see this site for weekly temperature updates:

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/Index.jsp

Here is this week's lead:

"Temperature Record of the Week
This issue's Temperature Record of the Week is from Dupree, SD. During the period of most significant greenhouse gas buildup over the past century, i.e., 1930 and onward, Dupree's mean annual temperature has cooled by 0.69 degrees Fahrenheit. Not much global warming here!"

And this also sums it up:

"There are three crucial questions related to global warming

Is it happening?
Is the effect large enough to be measurable
If so, is it caused by human activity?

The answer to the first is probably yes, as the earth is still colder than during the mediaeval warm period and has probably not recovered from the little ice age. The answer to the second question is moot, but if the proponents are so sure they are right, why do they feel the need to go in for so much misdirection, selection and fraud? The answer to the third is not known and perhaps never will be, but the vague possibility does not merit the election for economic suicide.

As