He's referring to the 70s - in reference to the post a few back about the 'World is gonna freeze!' scare going on back then.

I am familiar with Lindzen, the source of most of your vitriolic. He is one of the few solid scientists who is skeptical of the consensus view. However, he has taken a number of positions and been forced to retreat again and again. I tried to date the Cato Institute link to his statement, but could not find anything definitive. (An interesting omission in itself). However, in the body of his statement he does refer to Al Gore's recently published book, Earth in the Balance, which was copyrighted in 1992 and 1993. Consequently, I think we can assume that this particular statement by Lindzen is about 13 years out of date. He also talks about recently appearing before a Senate committee chaired by Al Gore:



Gore was VP for 8 years and has been in private life for 5. Lindzen is still a skeptic but I don't think you would find him taking quite the same positions today. For instance, he now concedes the warming that has taken place and been well established. A lot of the people he refers to then as skeptical of the evidence aren't now.

In the future try to use references that are more up to date.

I won't try to answer each one of your distortions but here are a few rebuttals:

The Middle Ages were warmer than today. No they weren't. Such claims fail to distinguish between regional temperature shifts and world wide average temperatures and suffer from other methodology errors. (See Medieval Warm Period).

As for the cooling, warming melting of Antarctica:

(See Antarctica Temperatures).



As for the small per centage of the atmosphere represented by CO2 see Post 101 here.

I went through the whole negative versus positive effects of CO2 elsewhere in these forums and won't do it again. (See Post 109 here). Suffice to say that your champion, Richard Lindzen, wouldn't make these absurd claims about CO2. Of coarse some is necessary for plant life and to have enough greenhouse effect to raise average temperatures from minus 18 degrees to life supporting levels. Too much and we seriously disrupt global climate. CO2 is not inert - it forms carbonic acid in combination with water and its increase is responsible for a measurable increase in the PH of our oceans. Even if it were inert too much could be harmful since we are concern about its absorbtion of long wave radiation not its chemical reactance.

As for John Daly and his web site, I couldn't find any background regarding him other than he is an advisor to the Greening Earth Society, a Western Fuels funded organization:

(Integrity in Science)

Somehow I tend to distrust the objectivity on these subjects of someone associated with a fossil fuels funded organization.

Your response is fairly typical of global warming nay sayers. You gather in everything that you think might support your position even if it is internally conflicting or dated or sourced from those with a financial ax to grind. I urge you to read both sides, as I have done, and form an objective conclusion. This is far too important an issue to decide by preconceived ideological inclination.

Ted, I think your quote above can be said like this as well:

ahem,

Somehow I tend to distrust the objectivity on these subjects of someone associated with global warming enviromental organizations.

Your response is fairly typical of global warming doom sayers. You gather in everything that you think might support your position even if it is internally conflicting or dated or sourced from those with a ideological ax to grind. I urge you to read both sides, as I have done, and form an objective conclusion. This is far too overdramatic of an issue to decide by preconceived ideological inclination.

Steve Milloy, author of Junkscience.com, has just recently written an article explaining in very easy to understand terms how carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect work. It includes some nice graphics as well.

The Greenhouse Myth

The Real 'Inconvenient Truth'

Apparently, he felt the need to preempt Al Gore's new movie coming out in a few months, The Inconvenient Truth.

Milloy points out that there is little agreement as to the definition of Surface Air Temperature, let alone whether it is increasing or not. NASA link

The conclusion?


The temperature rise is already "measured" at 0.6 degrees C. So if the maximum change is 1.5 degrees C, we have less than 1 degree C left in the worst case.

Milloy points out that it is the computer models which are flawed because they include feedback loops which do not correlate to observed temperatures, nor do they accurately predict past temperatures.

His conclusions on the matter?


A very interesting read. As far as I know, Milloy is not on the payroll of Big Oil.

Here are some links to Steve Milloy and his critics. I'll let anyone interested investigate on their own.

Debunking Myths of Steve Milloy

Realclimate

Source Watch

clearproject 2001 profile of Milloy

Americans for Non Smokers Rights

One could go on with other sites documenting his role as a paid for distorter of science.

If you want a scientific refutation of what Amlord presented, I recommend the realclimate link.

My post #202 should read CO2 "reduces" the PH level of the oceans not "increases" it.



It was probably appropriate to chide me for getting on my high horse in response to KivrotHaTaavah. My excuse is that I'm becoming increasingly alarmed that the effects of global warming are broader and happening faster than predicted by the models and that we can ill afford to engage in anything but serious debate. Arctic ice is not reforming in the winter and melts more and more in the summer. Greenland glaciers have speeded up and dump more and more ice into the sea. Flooded and melted tundra and other soils are releasing both CO2 and methane. Dissolved CO2 may have unanticipated effects on ocean organisms. Here are a few examples of my concern:

Methane Release

Melt of Ice Shelves and Ice Sheets

More and more scientists are becoming concerned that we are nearing tipping points beyond which the climate system can't recover.

TedN5:

Might I suggest that we leave the "hockey stick" to the hockey player. But re the sun and also those sunspots:

"Incidentally, the Sporer, Maunder, and Dalton minima coincide with the colder periods of the Little Ice Age, which lasted from about 1450 to 1820. More recently it was discovered that the sunspot number during 1861-1989 shows a remarkable parallelism with the simultaneous variation in northern hemisphere mean temperatures (2). There is an even better correlation with the length of the solar cycle, between years of the highest numbers of sunspots. For example, the temperature anomaly was - 0.4 K in 1890 when the cycle was 11.7 years, but + 0.25 K in 1989 when the cycle was 9.8 years. Some critics of the theory of man-induced global warming have seized on this discovery to criticize the greenhouse gas theory.
***
Intuitively one may assume the that total solar irradiance would decrease as the number of (optically dark) sunspots increased. However direct satellite measurements of irradiance have shown just the opposite to be the case. This means that more sunspots deliver more energy to the atmosphere, so that global temperatures should rise.
***
Recent research (3) indicates that the combined effects of sunspot-induced changes in solar irradiance and increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases offer the best explanation yet for the observed rise in average global temperature over the last century. Using a global climate model based on energy conservation, Lane et al (3) constructed a profile of atmospheric climate "forcing" due to combined changes in solar irradiance and emissions of greenhouse gases between 1880 and 1993. They found that the temperature variations predicted by their model accounted for up to 92% of the temperature changes actually observed over the period -- an excellent match for that period. Their results also suggest that the sensitivity of climate to the effects of solar irradiance is about 27% higher than its sensitivity to forcing by greenhouse gases.
***
At present there is no concern about another Little Ice Age. Recent satellite measurements of solar brightness, analyzed by Willson (4), show an increase from the previous cycle of sunspot activity to the current one, indicating that the Earth is receiving more energy from the Sun. Willson indicates that if the current rate of increase of solar irradiance continues until the mid 21th century, then the surface temperatures will increase by about 0.5? C. This is small, but not a negligible fraction of the expected greenhouse warming.

The relationship between cycle length and Earth temperatures is not well understood. Lower-than normal temperatures tend to occur in years when the sunspot cycle is longest, as confirmed by records of the annual duration of sea-ice around Iceland. The cycle will be longest again in the early 2020's."

Please see:
http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/...2/sunspots.html

And from our friends at the BBC:

"Climate changes such as global warming may be due to changes in the sun rather than to the release of greenhouse gases on Earth.

Climatologists and astronomers speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Philadelphia say the present warming may be unusual - but a mini ice age could soon follow.
***
The sun is currently at its most active for 300 years.

That, say scientists in Philadelphia, could be a more significant cause of global warming than the emissions of greenhouse gases that are most often blamed.

The researchers point out that much of the half-a-degree rise in global temperature over the last 120 years occurred before 1940 - earlier than the biggest rise in greenhouse gas emissions.
***
Using ancient tree rings, they show that 17 out of 19 warm spells in the last 10,000 years coincided with peaks in solar activity."

Please see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/56456.stm

And again from the BBC:

"Global warming may not be caused by humanity's fossil fuel emissions, but could be due to changes in the Sun.

Research suggests that the magnetic flux from the Sun more than doubled this century. As solar magnetism is closely linked with sunspot activity and the strength of sunlight reaching Earth, the increase could have produced warming in the global climate.
***
The research is published in Nature and in the same journal Professor Eugene Parker, of the Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research, University of Chicago, comments that it could explain global warming.

He notes that the increased solar activity has occurred in parallel with an increase in carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere. And it may not be a coincidence, he says.

Professor Parker suggests that the Sun's increased activity caused the Earth's global temperature to rise and that in turn warmed the oceans.

Warmer oceans absorb less carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So a warmer Earth has more of the so-called greenhouse gases. Humanity's burning of fossil fuels may therefore not be the cause of global warming."

Please see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/358953.stm

And from the Telegraph:

"Dr Gareth Jones, a climate researcher at the Met Office, said that Dr Solanki's findings were inconclusive because the study had not incorporated other potential climate change factors.

"The Sun's radiance may well have an impact on climate change but it needs to be looked at in conjunction with other factors such as greenhouse gases, sulphate aerosols and volcano activity," he said. The research adds weight to the views of David Bellamy, the conservationist. "Global warming - at least the modern nightmare version - is a myth," he said. "I am sure of it and so are a growing number of scientists. But what is really worrying is that the world's politicians and policy-makers are not.

Instead, they have an unshakeable faith in what has, unfortunately, become one of the central credos of the environmental movement: humans burn fossil fuels, which release increased levels of carbon dioxide - the principal so-called greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere to heat up. They say this is global warming: I say this is poppycock.""

Oh, and the headline here?

"The truth about global warming - it's the Sun that's to blame
***
Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research."

Please see:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../ixnewstop.html

And then there's:

"Climate modeler James Hanson from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York made a similar point during a recent NASA-organized climate briefing. He noted, "There is a possibility" that aerosols and dust, generated partly by human activity, have "substantially counteracted" expected greenhouse warming. He said, "In that event, it is possible that an increasing solar irradiance contributed significantly to the [1 degree F] global warming of the past century." He added that scientists can't know how to sort things out until "we have good quantitative data on how all substantial climate forcings are changing."

M. Lockwood, R. Stamper, and M.M. Wild with the World Data Center at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Chilton, England, have reminded climatologists to take the sun's magnetic field into account. This is the sun's relatively weak general magnetic field, not the stronger fields associated with sunspots. The wind of electrically conducting gas that flows from the sun carries that field with it. It reaches Earth and interacts with our planet's own magnetic field. The British team worked backward from a century's worth of English and Australian records of geomagnetic activity to sort out the solar influence. They conclude that the sun's general magnetic field has increased by a factor of 2.3 since 1901."

And, Ted, sunspot activity, and those stronger magnetic fields, well, we apparently have an 8,000 year high:

"The study's finding: Sunspot activity has been more intense and lasted longer during the past 60 to 70 years than at anytime in more than eight millennia.

Sunspot activity is known to ebb and flow in two cycles lasting 11 and 88 years (activity is currently headed toward a short-term minimum). Astronomers think that longer cycles -- or at least long-term variations -- also occur. Scientists in other fields have shown that during the past 11,000 years, Earth's climate has had many dramatic shifts.

"Whether solar activity is a dominant influence in these [climate] changes is a subject of intense debate," says Paula Reimer, a researcher at Queen's University Belfast who wrote an analysis of the new study for Nature. Why? Because "the exact relationship of solar irradiance to sunspot number is still uncertain.""

Please see:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/suns...ord_041027.html

So, Ted, where do those on your side of the fence figure in the increased activity of the sun? And why, to borrow from the above, are those on your side of the fence discounting the same? Especially given that we KNOW that increased and decreased activity correlates to warm and cool periods here on earth? The Maunder Minimum was from 1645 - 1715 and coincides with the last little ice age. And for another cooler period, 1420 - 1520, we had the so-called Spoerer Minimum. And for even another cooler period, 1280 - 1340, we had the so-called Wolf Minimum. And for even another cooler period, 1010 -1050, we had the so-called Oort Minimum.

And, Ted, you do know, I trust, that water vapor is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2? Do you know what effect increased and decreased sun activity has on cloud and water vapor formation in our atmosphere?

And, Ted, re the poles. You do understand that the earth tilts on an axis and that the earth, or its axis, tends to wobble? And so we are now enjoying a period wherein the Northern Hemisphere is closer to the sun than the Southern Hemisphere?

And what are we to make of:

"For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).

Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate.
***
The problem here is not that of climate change per se, but rather that of the sophisticated scientific brainwashing that has been inflicted on the public, bureaucrats and politicians alike. Governments generally choose not to receive policy advice on climate from independent scientists. Rather, they seek guidance from their own self-interested science bureaucracies and senior advisers, or from the IPCC itself. No matter how accurate it may be, cautious and politically non-correct science advice is not welcomed in Westminster, and nor is it widely reported.

Marketed under the imprimatur of the IPCC, the bladder-trembling and now infamous hockey-stick diagram that shows accelerating warming during the 20th century - a statistical construct by scientist Michael Mann and co-workers from mostly tree ring records - has been a seminal image of the climate scaremongering campaign. Thanks to the work of a Canadian statistician, Stephen McIntyre, and others, this graph is now known to be deeply flawed.
***
Two simple graphs provide needed context, and exemplify the dynamic, fluctuating nature of climate change. The first is a temperature curve for the last six million years, which shows a three-million year period when it was several degrees warmer than today, followed by a three-million year cooling trend which was accompanied by an increase in the magnitude of the pervasive, higher frequency, cold and warm climate cycles. During the last three such warm (interglacial) periods, temperatures at high latitudes were as much as 5 degrees warmer than today's. The second graph shows the average global temperature over the last eight years, which has proved to be a period of stasis."

Please see:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jh...09/ixworld.html

Ted, as I said, leave hockey sticks to hockey players.

And re "politial correctness" once again getting in the way:

"The idea that cosmic rays influence climate "is one of only a few truly new theories in Earth science," says Steven Lloyd, an atmospheric scientist from the Johns Hopkins University in Laurel, Maryland, who will chair the session on cosmic rays and climate next week. But "the political implications of the research muddy the waters", he says."

Please see:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6270

And then there's:

"Time devotes its latest cover to the "near-certainty" that humans are causing dangerous global warming. However, Time offers evidence only of a warming, which could be either man-made or natural.

Based on historic and geophysical evidence, Time’s new cover story is likely to be as wrong as its 1974 cover story touting global cooling! Newsweek did one the next year.

Neither magazine understands the moderate; natural climate cycle that history tells us has dominated the last 2000 years of Earth’s temperature variations:
***
In the 1980s, we were surprised by the first long ice cores from both Greenland and the Antarctic, which gave us 400,000 years of the Earth’s detailed temperature history in their ice layers....

Since then, scientists have found the 1500-year cycle in tree rings; cave stalagmites and the microfossils of seabed sediments. Prehistoric villages moved up and down the Alps and Andes mountainsides while glaciers worldwide advanced and retreated, all in time with the cycle.

The North American pollen database shows nine complete reorganizations of our trees and plants in the past 14,000 years, or a cycle every 1,650 years. In my home state of Michigan, pollen shows that the numbers of warmth-loving beech trees yielding first to the cold-tolerant oaks and then to cold-adapted pine trees. Currently, with the world 150 years into the Modern Warming, the pine trees are being discouraged, the oaks are proliferating, and the beech trees are waiting another turn.

The solar-created carbon and beryllium isotopes in the ice tell us the cycle is linked to a similar cycle in the sun’s irradiance. We had known for centuries that the coldest parts of the Little Ice Age occurred when there were virtually no sunspots. Now, space satellites are documenting small variations in what we used to think was an unchanging sun."

Please see:
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/avery033006.htm

And please see the graph here:

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/glob-warm.html

And then note:

"An increase of just 0.2% in the solar output could have the same affect as doubling the carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere."

And, Ted, the models that you and some other are enamored with:

"It has been said CO2 could conceivably triple before stabilizing with sink sources, but even if it did, you can see, even in quantity, it is far from H2O, and its absorption by doubling or tripling would never exceed most any mixing ratio of water vapor. Therefore by itself, it cannot modify the earths radiation flux. Now where I think this becomes tricky is by increasing CO2, you slightly increase the density of the atmosphere and by this change absorption of IR energy will be increased. Whatever that slight increase in absorption would be, the spectral curves and coefficients would direct almost all of the radiation to H2O. As this would be the case, it opens up a pandoras box of complicating factors in ever tracking it. But this is where climate modeling goes to explain and exascerbate this effect. And this is why so many who look at the problem get heartburn when oversimplified arguments get made just because you can claim by increasing absorption, ther must be a conclusion made that the increased radiation would find its way back to the earths surface and get converted to sensible heat that would melt glaciers, flood the earth or damage the environment. Extremists on the pro side of this have tried to make that case. But I would point out that doubling CO2 using a simplified mean radiating temperature of 59 deg F. for the earth gets us back to that 1.65 watts/ square meter figure you and I have already talked about. That is less than 1% of additional capture of infrared energy from the earth! If using the Stephan Boltzman equation to convert the extra flux to sensible heat that is .6degC. But thats assuming it all comes back for conversion....and I would bet the probability of that is as close to zero that you can get. And even if it was, what about increased evaporation? That wipes out the increase all together now, doesn't it? What would increased vapor concentrations do to to cloud cover and the albedo? What about increased convection? Heat energy goes mechanical here and that part of a convective event is lost forever. I can go on. These reasons also give me the heartburn I have with climate modeling. We are just not where the science needs to be to treat this problem with scientifically accurate models, and the models themselves are oversimplified, truncated junk in my opinion because they can't track water vapor or model clouds. If Elsasser was wrong and CO2 could modify the earths radiation flux this problem would be easily resolved and I would then agree we have to be concerned about the effects of global warming. But Elsasser is right which makes the problem far more complex, but none the less in my opinion, with far more reasons to believe we do not need to be concerned that with the conceivably possible concentrations of CO2 in the future that this would ever be linked to changing the earths climate. Urban heat islands are about as much influence that man can make on changing the temperature of the planet that I could see....but again, I'm always all ears to more discussion and I would gladly concede a position if someone can prove CO2 global warming is what climate modeling cracks it up to be.
***
No, Mike, I do not label all who disagree with me dishonest, disengenuous or fradulent. As I said, that label is reserved for those such as Mann and and his cohorts that helped him push his work past peer review as well as the pro-warmers who claim they have PROVEN CO2 warming is the reason for recent warming and the climate modelers who claim they have a working earth atmosphere climate system model that we should shape public policy on. Others who disagree with me I don't believe are correct in their stance, but thats OK. I just want proof of their assertions with some good and correctly applied physics. Have yet to see that! If I do, I will gladly concede my position and jump on board. By the way, I don't mind moving towards cleaner air for the sake of it being good for the environment. But the other day I had to laugh when I heard a conversation about a transport bus I ride from the airport employee lot to the terminal. The conversation involved the driver of the bus who was bragging to one of the riders that his bus was green friendly as it used natural gas to burn for fuel and one of its chief components of emission was water vapor. The driver proudly exclaimed to the the passenger to whom he was speaking, that yeah, we do our part here at the Port of Portland to cut down on those nasty green house gases!"

And that about sums it up, some brave soul bragging about how he's helping us all be safe from global warming and not even realizing that water vapor IS THE MOST POTENT GREENHOUSE GAS...

Please see the discussion here:
http://jimlittle.net/bulletinboard/viewtop...7c7a38cd34a6a0e

And, Ted, when they don't know how to model clouds and otherwise account for water vapor in the same, then they don't know much about "global warming."

And let me simply say that I am with my man Chuck on this one:

"For someone who has followed this debate as you seem to have done I will throw your statement that mentioning natural climate cycles DOES NOT RULE OUT MANS EFFECTS back in your face. I mentioned the medeival climate maximum only because the greenies ( don't know if you're in that camp or not but you seem to lean that way ) have used that desperate argument themselves to try and validate their claims that man and CO2 are changing the climate! Remember Michael Mann? He is the modern fraud PhD that falsified climate data to make his infamous "hockey stick" temperature graph that showed the decade of the 1990's was the "warmest ever on earth" and my GOd we gotta do something! Our models were right! We are validated! What crap! His work was never sent through proper peer review before publishing and for that he had to have gotten help from more dishonest Phd's in academia anxious to close rank on the arguments and shut out true science and debate. When he got caught from the Canadian academics,( Dr. McIntire et al ) he refused to show or prove his work like what should have happened through peer review in the first place! Mentioning the medeival climate maximum merely refutes Manns work which attempts to falsely validate climate modeling! The 1990's were NOt the warmest ever and neither is the fist half of this decade!"

And from the "[G]Taylor" who "Chuck" reports was disrespected [par the course for more than a few on your side of the fence]:

"Michael, the reason the models predict big increases in temperature in the future is because of water vapor feedback: CO2 increases, which warms the atmosphere, which makes its saturation vapor pressure higher, which increases the humidity, which warms the atmosphere, which...and so on.

But what about clouds? If humidity increased, one would expect clouds to increase, and low clouds cause a net *reduction* in temperature, so in the real world there's a negative feedback which limits the increase (a "natural thermostat"). But nobody knows how to model clouds, so they're not included in the models. Thus, a big positive feedback but no negative feedback."

Ted, what do we say about that? Hold the thought, since there will be more on the negative feedback provided by low clouds in a bit. In the meantime, for more from George Taylor:

"Enhanced greenhouse effect during industrial era: 2.4 W/m2. According to page 66 of the 2001 compendium of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC), about a quarter of this amount, or 0.6 W/m2, has occurred since the mid-1980s. [my note, W/m2 = watts per meter squared]

Change in solar radiation absorbed by the earth from 2000 to 2004, estimated from low-orbiting satellite data, reported by Wielicki et al.: 2.06 W/m2.

Change from 1983 to 2001 in solar radiation absorbed by the earth, estimated at the surface by satellites, reported by Pinker et al.: 2.7 W/m2.

Change from 1985 to 2000 solar radiation absorbed at the surface, as measured at the surface, reported by Wild et al.: 4.4 W/m2.

If we average the results of Pinker et al. and Wild et al., we get 3.55 W/m2 for the period 1985 to 2000. To this we add 2.06 W/m2 from 2000 to 2004 and get 5.61 W/m2. If we divide this by 0.6 W/m2 (the total change in greenhouse forcing from 1985 to 2004, we get 9.35. The added forcing from increased solar radiation reaching the earth’s surface has contributed nearly 10 times as much energy as greenhouse changes! When compared to the overall greenhouse forcing since pre-industrial times, it’s four times larger."

Please see:
http://jimlittle.net/bulletinboard/viewtop...r=desc&start=15

Oh, sorry, George strikes again, and Ted, this goes to the dishonesty and/or stupidty of some on your side of the fence:

"....Where to begin? Well, I picked out one item that's been in the news a lot lately:

"Greenland is already contributing significantly to sea level rise. Our best estimate right now is that Greenland contributes about 1/3rd of the global sea level rise. So at the end of this century at 2100, we expect sea levels to be two to three feet higher than today. How much the sea level rises depends on the warming patterns."

But, according to

Zwally, H.J., Giovinetto, M.B., Li, J., Cornejo, H.G., Beckley, M.A., Brenner, A.C., Saba, J.L. and Yi, D. 2005. Mass changes of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and shelves and contributions to sea-level rise: 1992-2002. Journal of Glaciology 51: 509-527

"the Greenland ice sheet is thinning at the margins (-42 ± 2 Gt a-1 below the equilibrium-line altitude (ELA)) and growing inland (+53 ± 2 Gt a-1 above the ELA) with a small overall mass gain (+11 ± 3 Gt a-1; -0.03 mm a-1 SLE (sea-level equivalent))." A net GAIN in mass!"

So, loss of Greenland ice is contributing one-third to the purported global sea level rise, only problem is, as stated, there is a NET GAIN IN MASS in Greenland's ice, which means that there is more ice in Greenland, and not less, and since ice comes from somwhere, it ain't in the oceans/seas.

But wait, there's more:

"From

Chylek, P., Box, J.E. and Lesins, G. 2004. Global warming and the Greenland ice sheet. Climatic Change 63: 201-221:

"summer temperatures, which are most relevant to Greenland ice sheet melting rates, do not show any persistent increase during the last fifty years." In fact, working with the two stations with the longest records (both over a century in length), they determined that coastal Greenland's peak temperatures occurred between 1930 and 1940, and that the subsequent decrease in temperature was so substantial and sustained that then-current coastal temperatures were "about 1°C below their 1940 values.""

And more [see also: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1115356v1 ]:

"Johannessen, O.M., Khvorostovsky, K., Miles, M.W. and Bobylev, L.P. 2005. Recent ice-sheet growth in the interior of Greenland. Science 310: 1013-1016.

say that "below 1500 meters, the elevation-change rate is -2.0 ± 0.9 cm/year, in qualitative agreement with reported thinning in the ice-sheet margins," but that "an increase of 6.4 ± 0.2 cm/year is found in the vast interior areas above 1500 meters." Spatially averaged over the bulk of the ice sheet, the net result was a mean increase of 5.4 ± 0.2 cm/year, "or ~60 cm over 11 years, or ~54 cm when corrected for isostatic uplift."

So, there's more frozen water in/on Greenland and, again, since frozen water has to come from somewhere, well, let me just say that some need explain how a non-existent loss of ice in/on Greenland gives rise to a higher sea level.

And, Ted, re the warning that we were all going to be refrigerated, from NASA itself:

"Global records of surface temperature over the last 100 years show a rise in global temperatures (about 0.5 degrees C overall), but the rise is marked by periods when the temperature has dropped as well. If the models cannot explain these marked variations from the trend, then we cannot be completely certain that we can believe in their predictions of changes to come. For example, in the early 1970's, because temperatures had been decreasing for about 25 to 30 years, people began predicting the approach of an ice age! For the last 15 to 20 years, we have been seeing a fairly steady rise in temperatures, giving some assurance that we are now in a global warming phase."

Oh, and Ted, please note the same "assurance" that was given re the impending but never occurred ice age.

And re those models:

"Getting reliable predictions from models is difficult because many of the secondary processes are not understood. For example, when temperatures start to warm because of the direct radiative effect of increasing carbon dioxide? will clouds increase or decrease. Will they let in less radiation from the sun, or more? These secondary processes are important.

The direct radiative effect of doubling carbon dioxide is relatively small, and there is not much disagreement on this point among models. Where models conflict is in regard to the secondary, or feedback effects. Models that predict a very large warming from carbon dioxide show cloud cover changes that greatly amplify the warming effects, while models that predict more-modest warming show that clouds have a small or even damping effect on the warming."

And, Ted, to confirm some of what was said above, and to put what I consider the hoax to this whole affair [ http://maui.net/~jstark/nasa.html ]:

"Can we match the observation of temperature trends with the model predictions? The temperature record of the past hundred years does show a warming trend, by approximately 0.5 degrees C. However, the observed warming trend is not entirely consistent with the carbon dioxide change. Most of the temperature increase occurred before 1940, after which Earth started to cool until the early seventies, when warming resumed."

To say, "not entirely consistent", is rather an understatement, since most of the temperature increase came before the rather large increase in industrial and other greenhouse gas producing activity that occurred subsequent to WWII.

But so there is no confusion, to continue with that same paragraph:

"Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, has been increasing steadily throughout the past century."

So, CO2 has been steadily increasing, yet most of the temperature change occurred before 1940, and from 1940 until into the 1970s, the earth cooled.

Now, Ted, may I ask the obvious question? If one depends on man-made global warming to earn one's keep, then what interest does one have in finding and concluding that we will never be able to emit enough CO2 such that our emission will have some truly deleterious effect on our global climate? Kind of like lawyer me, who dreams of and prays for a perfect world, but then realizes that if such were so, I'd be out of a job and have otherwise wasted some rather valuable time studying a useless subject matter. Of course, I have an advantage that the grant dependent don't, the existence of humans. And since we don't have a perfect world and God otherwise values free-will, we'll keep having to have the need for lawyers. But the same simply cannot be said re the grant dependent...

And, Ted, it is a 2-way street, and some of what the enviro-fascists may want might well spell our doom, at least if one were to assume that they are correct re man-made global warming [ http://www.nap.edu/openbook/0309095069/html/ ]:

"Policies designed to manage air pollution and land use may be associated with unintended impacts on climate. Increasing evidence of health effects makes it likely that aerosols and ozone will be the targets of stricter regulations in the future. To date, control strategies have not considered the potential climatic implications of emissions reductions. Regulations targeting black carbon emissions or ozone precursors would have combined benefits for public health and climate. However, because some aerosols have a negative radiative forcing [my note, meaning that the aerosols help cool the earth], reducing their concentrations could actually increase radiative warming. Policies associated with land management practices could also have inadvertent effects on climate. The continued conversion of landscapes by human activity, particularly in the humid tropics, has complex and possibly important consequences for regional and global climate change as a result of changes in the surface energy budget."

And, Ted, do we want grasses or trees? While you are pondering the matter [ http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2005GL024550.shtml ]:

"When changing from grass and croplands to forest, there are two competing effects of land cover change on climate: an albedo effect which leads to warming and an evapotranspiration effect which tends to produce cooling. It is not clear which effect would dominate. We have performed simulations of global land cover change using the NCAR CAM3 atmospheric general circulation model coupled to a slab ocean model. We find that global replacement of current vegetation by trees would lead to a global mean warming of 1.3°C, nearly 60% of the warming produced under a doubled CO2 concentration, while replacement by grasslands would result in a cooling of 0.4°C. It has been previously shown that boreal forestation can lead to warming; our simulations indicate that mid-latitude forestation also could lead to warming. These results suggest that more research is necessary before forest carbon storage should be deployed as a mitigation strategy for global warming."

So don't plant trees to stop global warming, plant grasses [yes, I know, trees are more "sexy" than grasses].

And, Ted, going back to our NPR report, funny, but re things "climate forcing":

"Examples include changes in solar energy output, volcanic emissions, deliberate land modification, or anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases, aerosols, and their precursors."

So you blame it on CO2 while I blame it on variable solar energy output [and so I, and not you, can at least theoretically account for both warming AND cooling].

And now from our friend at Colorado State [and note that our friend reports on the prior warming, the prior cooling, and the warming again, though you'll have to read the article for that]:

"Are we, the fossil-fuel-burning public, partially responsible for this recent warming trend? Almost assuredly not.

It has been assumed by the human-induced global warming advocates that as anthropogenic greenhouse gases increase that water vapour and upper-level cloudiness will also rise and lead to accelerated warming - a positive feedback loop.
***
As human-induced greenhouse gases rise, global-averaged upper-level atmospheric water vapour and thin cirrus should be expected to decrease not increase.

Water vapour and cirrus cloudiness should be thought of as a negative rather than a positive feedback to human-induced - or anthropogenic greenhouse gas increases.

No significant human-induced greenhouse gas warming can occur with such a negative feedback loop.
***
I have closely followed the carbon dioxide warming arguments. From what I have learned of how the atmosphere ticks over 40 years of study, I have been unable to convince myself that a doubling of human-induced greenhouse gases can lead to anything but quite small and insignificant amounts of global warming."

Please see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci_te...nge/1023334.stm

And, Ted, re that positive feedback that your side has as the proverbial lynchpin of its models:

"The major source of uncertainty in determining climate feedback concerns the impact of clouds on the radiative balance of the climate system.7 A CO2-induced increase in low clouds mainly acts to reflect more solar radiation and thus would provide a negative feedback to global warming. An increase in high clouds mainly adds to the absorption of infrared radiation trying to escape the planet and would thus provide a positive feedback. A change in cloud microphysical and optical properties could go either way. Which of these would dominate in an increasing-CO2 world? We are not sure. Our inability to answer this question with confidence is the major source of uncertainty in today's projections of how the climate would respond to increasing infrared-absorbing gases. Furthermore, it is not likely this cloud-radiation uncertainty will be sharply reduced within the next 5 years, no matter what promises are offered, expectations are stated, or claims are made."

Please see: http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/~gth/web_page/art...aree_page3.html

Ted, one almost always hears of the positive feedback from those on your side of the fence, but why the almost never mention of negative feedback, and the uncertainty as well?

Oh, and Ted, from the one site that you linked to, and this concerns the pH level of the oceans:

"Yes, to reduce pH alone is technically not "acidification." It must be reduced below pH=7. The authors seem to be referring to any reduction in pH to be "acidification." Or maybe they're referring to a future pH<7 state, but I read recently something to the effect that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 over the next 100 yrs would only reduce the pH of the oceans by 0.24, so we'd be talking way, way into the future (if ever) before pH<7 conditions should exist."

And then there's this comment:

"I finally got a chance to actually read the Royal Societies' report. I was especially interested in Section 3 entitled Biological impacts: effects of changing ocean chemistry on organisms and populations. Obviously, the most important affects of ocean acidification would be on living organisms in the ocean thereby affecting primary productivity. This would have devastating effects on life on Earth. Any calls to reduce CO2 emissions would certainly be justified and compelling. But here is what I found instead from the conclusions section 3.8:

On the effects on micro-organisms:
The evidence considered in Section 3.2 suggests that the increase of CO2 in the surface oceans expected by 2100 is unlikely to have any significant direct effect on photosynthesis or growth of most micro-organisms in the oceans.... A substantial increase in information is required if we are to arrive at widely applicable conclusions on the effect of increased surface ocean CO2 on the functioning of nonphotosynthetic micro-organisms in the oceans.

On the effects on multicellular animals:
In the short term (20-40 years), projected increases in atmospheric CO2 will produce minor impacts on multicellular marine animals.... Much more work is needed to establish the effects of the changes [on multicellular animals] in surface ocean CO2 concentrations expected over the next century.

On the effects on calcification:
It is expected that calcifying organisms will find it more difficult to produce and maintain their shells and hard structures. However, the lack of a clear understanding of the mechanisms of calcification and its metabolic or structural function means that it is difficult, at present, to reliably predict the full consequences of CO2-induced ocean acidification on the physiological and ecological fitness of calcifying organisms.

I could have quoted the whole page. Other than telling us that coral reefs (and Pelagic ecosystems) are in trouble -- I have already kissed the coral reefs goodbye due to temperature increases alone -- no firm conclusions were drawn about ocean acidification and its affects on ocean biology. Common sense (I know, often wrong) tells us that if the pH of the oceans drops 0.5 by 2100, then this is going to create serious havoc in the oceans. Yet this report, on the face of it, says no such thing and does not justify in any serious way its call for CO2 emission reductions.

So, as a strong advocate of CO2 emissions reduction to combat climate change, I'm a bit disappointed with this report."

And well he should be. Oh, and Ted, the ocean is not acidic, it is, as the one poster reported, alkaline. True, the pH is now less alkaline, but it is still alkaline. Your friends use words such as "acid", "acidification", and "acid ocean" simply and only to scare us. The counterpoint to the scare tactic can be found here:

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=042606B

And, Ted, for more on a Greenland with more ice and not less, and the prior attempt to scare us by telling us that we were going to all freeze, from the 27 April 2006 edition of the Calgary Sun:

"Exactly 31 years ago tomorrow Newsweek carried a story that predicted a rapidly cooling world that would result in a "drastic decline in food production -- with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth."

Hmmmm? It's the same doom and gloom scenario we hear today except turned on its ear -- now, however, it's not about devastation caused by cooling but rather by global warming.
***
"Recently, media and politicians have virtually stopped talking about global warming and are now referring to climate change instead," states [Chris] de Freitas [world-renowned climatologist, geographer and environmentalist from the University of Auckland in New Zealand]. "That's because predictions of doom and gloom from warming just aren't coming true. But with 'climate change,' Kyoto advocates can now cite any change or phenomenon as proof that CO2 emissions have upset the global apple cart."

It's the old 'heads-I-win, tails-you-lose' trick played on a massive scale by "the global warming industry" who want to keep their hundreds of millions of research dollars flowing when their dire predictions of catastrophic warming are proven false, if not completely fraudulent...
***
De Freitas says in the 1930s it was warmer in the Arctic than it is now -- before there was massive industrialization and man-made greenhouse gasses -- and between 1600-1800, Greenland actually lived up to its name -- it was green.

Currently, Greenland is losing ice on its southern margins but is gaining ice in its interior -- a measurable fact.

Meanwhile, the Antarctic is cooling, with the exception of a small Antarctic peninsula as a result of currents.
***
"From 1900 to 1940 there was global warming," he says, even though large scale industrialization didn't start until 1948.

"Then, from 1940 to 1979 there was global cooling and that happened when we were putting heaps of carbon into the air."
***
"If you do consult the facts, have an unbiased, open mind and you don't have an agenda, you can't help but be at least an agnostic on this," he adds."

Please see:
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Cor...27/1552464.html

Aw, what the heck, one more from the Canada Free Press:

"At this point, all of us have been deluged with "research" that is cited as proof of global warming, ranging from the migration of a few thousand feet by some furry creatures in a national park to the momentary melting of snow on some African mountaintop. At no time is the activity of the Sun ever mentioned, nor is the increased volcanic activity in the Earth’s oceans, nor the fact that no one knows why clouds do what they do.
***
Meanwhile, back on Earth, on March 12 a late season storm dropped 8 inches of snow on northern Great Britain and, a week earlier, there were blizzards in Western Europe that killed 17 people. Some regions of Germany, France, Switzerland, and Italy saw the heaviest March snowfall in nearly three decades. In February it had snowed for 50 straight hours in Sichuan, China, and a record freeze occurred in Russia that destroyed an estimated 30% of its winter crops. "This is the worst winter in 28 years," said Alexei Gordeyev, the Agricultural Minister. Are we looking at a trend? Nobody really knows.
***
During a period climatologists now call the "Medieval Warming", the Vikings thrived for some 300 years. Then the "Little Ice Age" began and, by 1408, Greenland was, well, really cold and the Vikings had abandoned the place. Dr. Avery points out that "Our panic-prone scientists seem to have forgotten their own ice cores, drilled deep into the Greenland ice sheet in the 1980s." Those ice cores revealed that the Earth is in a constant cycle between hot and cold climate.

It is instructive that, after the 1970s during which environmentalists were warning of a coming Ice Age, they changed course and began telling everyone "global warming" was coming. And where were all those man-made greenhouse gases in the pre-industrial age of the Vikings and elsewhere around the world that experienced the Medieval Warming? And why didn’t they fend off the Little Ice Age?

The warming that has occurred, 0.8 degree Celsius, "virtually all occurred before 1940," notes Dr. Avery, "and thus before much industrial development. Ice cores from the Fremont Glacier in Wyoming "show it went from Little Ice Age cold to Modern Warming warm in the ten years between 1845 and 1855. Naturally."

And, Ted, if you and yours live on the beach, you'll be safe:

"It is simply impossible for the scientific community to ignore what is going on, even as prone to exaggeration of threats as it has grown to be. The planet is warming at the low end of projections. Antarctica is undoubtedly gaining, not losing ice. Greenland appears to either lose a little ice, or, in the recent study of Johannessen, gain dramatically. It's going to take some time for it to contribute much to rising oceans.

Meanwhile, Antarctica grows. Computer models, while still shaky, are now encountering reality, and every one of them now says that Antarctica contributes negatively to sea level rise in the next century, while almost every model now has Greenland's contribution as a few inches, at best.

It is inevitable that one of tomorrow's headlines will be that scientists have dramatically scaled back their projections of sea level rise associated with global warming. Had they paid attention to data (and snow) that began accumulating as long as fifteen years ago, they would have never made such outlandish forecasts to begin with."

Please see: http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4470

And another comment from a skeptic:

"Moreover, the other graphs of modelled GHGs influence (1b) and GHGs+aerosols (1c) clearly show that the models don't reproduce reality. for GHGs alone the latest decades are much too warm and the 1930-1940 periode too cold. For GHGs+aerosols, the low-to-mid latitudes in recent decades are too cold and the 1930-1940 period is even cooling further... If a model isn't able to reproduce reality (i.e. not validated), it is inapropriate to make any conclusions from the results... And the researchers clearly underplayed the solar cycles in these matters."

Please see: http://www.realclimate.org/wp-comments-popup.php?p=22&c=1

And from that same comment-maker [as it were]:

"The results of the 1999 state-of-the-art climate model are not very impressive (to say the least). If a model only accurately describes some 10% of the time-latitude area, then such a model has not the slightest value to make any conclusion of it. That the model can reproduce some (internal) natural variation is more an artefact of the model (the temperature jump may occur anywhere, even in recent decades, see previous paragraph) than of reality. Current models anyway underestimate solar influences, as they only incorporate direct insolation and ignore secondary effects on changes in jet stream position, cloud cover,..."

So much for the models...

Let me leave you with this fine item, since it has some interesting speculation [with photos] concerning what the world would like with higher sea levels, say, 66 meters higher [say goodbye to Florida, but note that the loss of land to sea might be made up for by increased habitable land in Greenland and the Antarctic sans the ice]:

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/environment/waterworld.html

Oh, and Ted, forget the hockey sticks and go with grapes:

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2Scien...V7/N48/EDIT.jsp

And, Ted, you're on the wrong side if the greening of the earth is what you desire:

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2Scien...eeningearth.jsp

So, Ted, who are the greens? The "Greens"? Or those of us generating and emitting CO2 into our atmosphere? And, Ted, given the concern over not enough nitrogen to allow CO2 and plants to do their thing, maybe we could send Drew B. back out into the woods, since she seems to fancy pooing the woods...

KivrotHaTaavah, everything and the kitchen sink again, I see. I'm not sure what to make of your remark about Michael Mann and the hockey stick graph. You might be interested to know that Science has published a correction to the Von Storch et al paper published in 2004 by that magazine which mistakenly attacked Mann et al. (See Here or Here).





Your first reference in from a paper clearly dated 12'97. Hardly current evidence on the role of solar radiation variance on climate change. In the second place, the consensus scientific position doesn't discount this issue. It is a subject which has been well researched and continues to be studied. For a more up to date discussion you might start at Realclimate and follow a few links.



BBC may be better than Newsweek or Time but is hardly solid evidence particularly when the item referenced was from 1998. Oh, excuse me, there are 2 BBC references - the second is from 1999.

As for your 2004 reference to a World Telegraph Article, at least it refers to a solid scientific paper but it is far from an established position. (See Did Sun Hit Record Highs in Radiance?). But even if you take the conclusions of this article at face value, it attributes warming to both solar and rises in greenhouse gases. If solar activity is part of the cause, it just makes it that much more important to control the cause we have some influence over.

Edited to add:



I notice you didn't source this quotation. My guess is that is from about 1990. I doubt that you know much about James Hansen or you wouldn't have used him to try and support a skeptical argument about greenhouse forcing of climate change. Hansen was responsible for kicking off the political portion of the discussion over global warming with his testimony before a Senate committee in 1988. At that time the science was less established and some critics of Hansen's position pointed out that observed warming was substantially less than models predicted. In other words, the sensitivity of average worldwide temperature increases with increases in greenhouse gases was less than models indicated would be the case. The quotation you cite is part of Hanson's hypothesis to explain this discrepancy. His hypothesis has now been well studied and is now generally accepted. This is not much comfort, however, because aerosols like SO2 and NO2 don't build up in the atmosphere like CO2 and their release is paradoxically being regulated because of other environmental effects including acid rain and health impacts. Hansen remains one of stronger voices in the scientific community for doing something starting NOW! See This NYT Article from January 2006, for instance.

If all things are allowed to run their courses, won't we run out of oil and gas in a few more decades anyways? I believe one of your sites proclaimed 60% of emissions have to be cut before 2050 to advert the worst effects of warming, and by that time, we may not even be physically capable of keeping emission rates above 60% of their current level.

Do treaties demanding lower emissions, demand them through superior processing or reduced consumption?

Here is article that's about the new 'sceptical consensus.' I'm sure all these people are in bed with energy companies.

Gee, even the Bush Administration's sponsored scientific reviews of the evidence are supporting the consensus position. (See this reprint of an NYT article).



These studies were primarily delaying tactics so the administration could delay doing anything substantial on global warming but they may prove worthwhile if the quiet the skeptics.



2/3rds of oil goes to transportation. Transportation only generates about 1/3 of the carbon release. Consequently, it would be difficult to cut carbon release by 60% by elimination oil. 2/3rds of carbon release comes from the commercial, residential and industrial sectors. Much of this was from the generation of electricity, primarily with coal plants but also from gas and fuels.

Whether your proposition proves valid depends on how we react to the coming energy crisis. If we try to maintain current consumption levels by turning to sources like tar sands, oil shales, heavy oils, and coal gasification (absent sequestration of CO2), we might even increase our carbon release. That is because all of these sources have less efficient production cycles than discovering and pumping convention petroleum. If we move to greatly improved energy efficiency and renewable sources, then we might solve both problems at once. Nuclear is also benign so far as global warming is concerned but I don't believe it is competitive with other alternatives absent large subsidies. Nuclear is not a transportation fuel unless you want to use the electricity generated to run electrolysis plants to generate hydrogen.



The Kyoto Treaty is the only one I'm aware of. The US refused to sign it. Under the treaty there are a number of things a country can do to meet its target. Included are improvements in energy end use efficiency, switching to less carbon intense fuels, and increasing carbon sinks like planting forests.

http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm

It sounds as though nuclear would be the cheapest for most countries, or at least for most of the countries listed on the above website. Complications would include: An accelerated decline of nuclear proliferation if nuclear was made completely global, and inevitable repeats of Chernobyl like circumstances.

If we must choose between coal and nuclear, then I don't really envy our choices...

Solar would be nice, though without a large increase in prices from fossil fuel powers, I don't see it taking over a significant portion of the market. It has been getting gradually more economic for ages, but it is still not quite cost effective.

TedN5:

This is my concern:

You posted:

"The Kyoto Treaty is the only one I'm aware of. The US refused to sign it. Under the treaty there are a number of things a country can do to meet its target. Included are improvements in energy end use efficiency, switching to less carbon intense fuels, and increasing carbon sinks like planting forests."

I had posted prior:

"[ http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2005GL024550.shtml ]:

"When changing from grass and croplands to forest, there are two competing effects of land cover change on climate: an albedo effect which leads to warming and an evapotranspiration effect which tends to produce cooling. It is not clear which effect would dominate. We have performed simulations of global land cover change using the NCAR CAM3 atmospheric general circulation model coupled to a slab ocean model. We find that global replacement of current vegetation by trees would lead to a global mean warming of 1.3°C, nearly 60% of the warming produced under a doubled CO2 concentration, while replacement by grasslands would result in a cooling of 0.4°C. It has been previously shown that boreal forestation can lead to warming; our simulations indicate that mid-latitude forestation also could lead to warming. These results suggest that more research is necessary before forest carbon storage should be deployed as a mitigation strategy for global warming.""

So why do we want to sink carbon in forests? And that's my problem, we don't have a clue when it comes to clouds, the man driving the transport thinks that he's anti-greenhouse gas even though he's generating water vapor, and here we are thinking that we are being environmentally friendly and otherwise greening our world by planting trees to make forests even though some model predicts that doing so will lead to increased global warming and isn't that what some are trying to avoid in the first instance? Could such reasonably be called a case of the cure being worse than the disease? Or maybe throwing good money after bad?

And by the way, re "sources", it appears that the "GTaylor" on that one discussion site is the George Taylor who serves as a scientific advisor to CO2 Science. Here is a link in that regard:

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2Scien.../sab/taylor.jsp

And if you haven't already posted it yet:

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=24

Ted, one just has to love the conspiracy theorists. Take money from Big Oil and you've just got to be a crook and/or a fraud, and never mind that you're the State Climatologist for the State of Oregon and you otherwise ride a bike to work everyday and otherwise love to surf. Please see:

http://www.ocs.orst.edu/page_links/publica...r_response.html

And, Ted, I would appreciate some more honesty and/or objectivity from some on your side of the fence [I didn't say you, I said, some]:

"Scientists have had to find a different source for their climate data. They turned to tree rings, coral, and boreholes dug deep into ice and soil for information. They added some Fortran code and produced a series of results. Since the year 1000, global temperatures were essentially flat until around 1900. In the past 30 years they have been rocketing skyward. When plotted on a graph, the result looks like a hockey stick lying on the ice, its blade pointing toward the sky."

Right, and the Vikings called Greenland, Greenland, and otherwise decided to take up residence and do some farming there because it was covered in ice just like it's been for the last three hundred or so years and maybe the good docter can explain just why they abandoned the place...

And, Ted, George even sings:

"If you're wondering why it rains all night. The weather bites -- El Niño"

Please see:

http://www.newsreview.info/article/20050119/NEWS/101190079

And back to conspiracy theorists, argumentum ad hominem by those claiming the moral high and some other things as well:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_431994.html

Lastly, Ted, might I suggest that we stick to the real concerns over pollution and not invent some hysteria, especially when we humans have rather short life spans and so are usually without direct sensory experience of what I will call the earth's cyclical nature?

And for those of you live in Florida and the Gulf Coast, please see:

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page...T20040915c.html

So maybe those of you who lived through that hell we call a hurricane and/or a typhoon might not be so adverse to a warmer earth...



Edited to add:

Ted, re the recently released report from the US Climate Change Program, and the certainty that you and some others, including those responsible for the report, are placing in that report, all I can say for now is [ http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display..../wf-latest.html ]:

"Not every problem is resolved, he added.

A remaining issue involves the rates of warming in the tropics. Models and theory predict an amplification of surface warming higher in the atmosphere, but such greater warming aloft is not evident in three of the five observational data sets used in the report."

So, Ted, we are having a substantial impact on our climate when the models and theory don't match 3 of the 5 data sets? Or if one prefers, they call it "substantial" and say that it's "scientifically proven" when 3 of the 5 data sets don't match the models and the theory. Maybe I should ask Vermillion to point me in the direction of one of those tribal witch doctors, since I might get a better science from them...

And, Ted, I say that because:

"Whether this is a result of uncertainties in the observed data, flaws in climate models, or a combination of these is not yet known. Recommendations in the report suggest ways for the problem to be resolved."

I don't suppose that they've ever considered that "this is a result" of the initial conclusion being in error? And, Ted, what they call "resolving differences", I call "manipulating the data." And we don't otherwise "resolve problems." We check the data. And we let the data lead us...

And back to Dr. Christy:

"John Christy, who directs the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, thinks humans are contributing to global warming but had long pointed to the discrepancies between surface and atmospheric readings in challenging predictions of future rapid climate change. A co-author of yesterday's federal study, he said he has "a minimalist interpretation" of the report because Earth is not heating up rapidly at this point.

"That doesn't change my whole view of the thing, because the whole rate of change is fairly modest," Christy said in an interview."

Please note:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6050201677.html

And note the end of that article, as these scientists have an opinion different than that held by those cited to prior re "global warming" and "hurricanes."

And here is a somewhat more "critical" BBC report:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4969772.stm

As you can see, going back to what I said above:

"Additionally, the majority of the available datasets show more warming at the surface than in the troposphere, whereas most models predict the opposite."

And back to what I said re the new "science" of some who can apparently disregard 3 of 5 data sets that don't match the model and theory:

"For Fred Singer, of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, a prominent climate sceptic, this suggests that the report's support for the concept of human-induced climate change is spin rather than substance.

"The basic data in the report is quite OK," he said, "but the interpretation that's been given is different from what the data says.

"In particular, [the authors] suppress the major result of the report; that data do not agree with models.""

And, Ted, a lesson in what does not constitute "science":

""I would be reticent to say the report provides a clear answer," said Peter Thorne, "but I would say it provides a clear road-map.

"But we do now have overlap between what is happening and what we believe ought to be happening.""

Might I suggest that we ask Dr. Thorne whether "what we believe ought to be happening" ought to be influencing how we intrepret the data? Especially when 3 of 5 data sets don't match "what we believe ought to be happening?"

Actually, I was aware of the gist of this research. It would be nice to read the paper and not just the abstract. From the abstract, I can't see any conflict with the consensus view of AGW. This is the kind of research that continually takes place. Knowledge is built bit by bit. That is the way the consensus view on climate change was built. We would never act on anything if we required perfect knowledge first. (Of course it is OK to invade other countries on the basis of no knowledge whatever).

My remark was in direct response to a question from A Left Handed Person and remains valid. It had nothing to do with any earlier remark about forests you might have made. I have always opposed the credits for reforestation and other carbon sinks put into Kyoto because they are subject to too much manipulation. They were put there primarily to please American negotiators who wanted them because they would lessen the burden of directly reducing carbon release. Of course we Americans then refused to sign.



If the stakes weren't so high it would be hilarious to have skeptics defended as victims of conspiracy theories. After all it is they who have tried to characterize the working community of climate scientists as a conspiracy trying to sensationalize the issue of GW in order fund their research. I ask you, which is more legitimate, that kind of attack on a whole field of scientists or identifying the financial connections of many skeptics to Exxon and coal companies? Personally, I have never pointed to such connections of skeptical scientists who actually work in the field like Richard Lindzen. However, I think it is highly relevant to point to the financing of those who do little or no original research in the field and gain financially using their credentials as agents to confuse the public regarding the status of the science.

Realclimate recently posted links to 2 ads distributed by Competitive Enterprise Institute. CEI is industry funded and receive substantial contributions from ExxonMobil. This is a clear example of the on going disinformation campaign.

(See CEI Video Ads).

An interesting paragraph from your link:



And yet, listening to the rhetoric surrounding this issue, you'd think that it was beyond conclusive that the Greenland glaciers were shrinking (not to mention the Antarctican glaciers). Yet here, the author admits that the techniques are "difficult" and "uncertain".

At least their "sense" of the data says that Greenland is "probably" losing ice mass.

If the proponents of human-induced global warming would simply be more candid, then my "sense" is that we could "probably" come to some type of agreement.

Amlord, you missed the main points in the Realclimate discussion. The most significant point was that the Competitive Enterprise Institute ads quoted scientific papers out of context to draw conclusions that contradicted those of the authors. Another significant point was that increasing snow falls and consequently ice thickening at higher elevations in Greenland and the Antarctic is totally consistent with global warming models. What wasn't predicted in the modeling was the speed up of low altitude glaciers fringing these ice caps. This paragraph directly preceded the one you quoted:

(Realclimate Ad Discussion).

The paragraph you quoted only serves to illustrate the care climate scientists take to state their conclusions precisely even in internet posting versus the total distortion of scientific papers evident in the CEI propaganda.

May be a threat at but IMO not one we can stop. I am with Left Handed Person. Warming is part of a trend that we have not significantly influenced.


No. Not possible esp. since we know so little about the real causes. For example some German scientists have now discovered that all “plants” including trees give off the potent green house gas methane! Should we mow down our forests?

In the last few years, more and more research has focused on the biosphere; particularly, on how gases which influence the climate are exchanged between the biosphere and atmosphere. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics have now carefully analysed which organic gases are emitted from plants. They made the surprising discovery that plants release methane, a greenhouse gas - and this goes against all previous assumptions.



Equally surprising was that methane formation is not hindered by the presence of oxygen. This discovery is important not just for plant researchers but also for understanding the connection between global warming and increased greenhouse gas production (Nature, January 12, 2006).

Methane is the greenhouse gas which has the second greatest effect on climate, after carbon dioxide. The concentration of methane in the atmosphere has almost tripled in the last 150 years. Methane is best known as natural gas, currently an important energy source. Nonetheless, only part of the methane uptake in the atmosphere is due to industrial activities connected to energy production and use. More important for the increase of methane in the atmosphere is the increase in so-called "biogenic" sources, e.g., rice cultivation or domestic ruminants related to the rise in the world's population. Nowadays, methane in the atmosphere in fact is largely of biogenic origin.


http://www.physorg.com/news9792.html

Ted, it is difficult to answer your wild claims when they are cherry picked from the scientific literature and offered without attribution. Perhaps it is sufficient to offer a fairly recent press release from the Max Planck Institute describing their official position on climate change.

(September 30, 2005 Press Release from Max Planck Institute).

You were probably referring to the January 2006 article published in Nature and discussed HERE. Note that this is a surprising finding but is part of the natural level of Methane not part of climate change and that planting and sustaining forest still has a net positive impact on reducing AGW.

The care they take? OK, maybe the care they sometimes take or perhaps the chinks in the armor that sometimes show themselves.

This scientist (is it posted by a scientist?) begins his rant by comparing this ad to a fictional movie about the tobacco industry. Instead of pointing to a real world example, he calls it "straight out of the Nick Naylor playbook." Nick Naylor is fictional. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a playbook since he was created by a satirist.

The CO2 label "we call it life" although lame is true. Greenhouses used to grow plants have artificially increased CO2 levels to aid in plant growth. A documentary shown on HBO recently had scientists scoffing at this idea. Their main argument: CO2 induces weed growth as well as crop growth which will force us to use more herbicides. Uh, earth to documentary scientists: is that the best you can do?

Crucifying the messenger only goes so far. Until the climate change alarmists face up to a few pertinent facts, the discussion is like two deaf men shouting at one another. There is no scientific consensus that the current warming trend is anthropomorphic. There is consensus that temperatures are rising--but the mechanisms are poorly understood and their predictions cannot model the past 100 years let alone the next 100.

The National Academy of Sciences said in 2001: "Because of the large and still uncertain level of natural variability inherent in the climate record and the uncertainties in the time histories of the various forcing agents…a causal linkage between the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the observed climate changes during the 20th century cannot be unequivocally established.”

Temperature observations between satellite and surface measurements do not agree. There are various hypotheses explaining this discrepancy, from both sides.

Sea levels are not rising appreciably and are below the levels seen at the turn of the 19th century: link

Perhaps the CEI focused on one piece of information, but that is done all the time--even by climate change alarmists. I merely pointed out that the author of that article let slip that he doesn't know if Greenland ice is accumulating or melting. But his "sense" says that it is "probably" melting. Good for him, but not particularly compelling to me.

I started this thread a while back looking at the economics of this problem. It appears that much of the resources in the debate are in proving the hypothesis and not what the hypothesis economic impact would be.

It's basically a "change is bad" debate. Global Warming is bad, it will cause poverty, drought, sea level changes, and it is the worst problem facing humankind. The models indicate that even if the world moved to the CO2 levels of 1940 the Earth's temperature would still increase. Obviously moving back to those levels is economically impossible. Some research (as mentioned early on in this topic) has been done assessing the economic impacts of warming (not the ridiculous dooms day scenarios) and it appears that it will cost more trying to prevent warming than to live with it. One would have to believe in some data well down the bell curve to think we should make drastic changes now.

(No source).

(Factscheck Article).

(not attributed).

This use to be the case but these discrepancies have been largely resolved in favor of the models and the consensus position.

(Realclimate).



At least this one is sourced to a paper received in 2001 and published in 2003. The author is credentialed but apparently misrepresents his current position. (See Letter to the Russian Academy of Science). You might like to see an alternative view HERE but the issue is not one I raised.

Edited to add:


The CEI distorted the research. Cherry picking is bad enough but deliberate distortion of research used as a source is beyond the pale. The conclusion as to whether Greenland and Antarcrtic ice is accummulating of melting is not germane and that is what the Realclimate scientist was stating. Climate models actually predict more snow and thus ice accummulations in the early decades of global warming, what has been surprising is the fring melting. As temperatures increase, higher and higher regions will feel the impact.

What I just don't understand is how climatoligist models can predict the climate future 100 years or so down the road when meteorologists can't even give us a reliable 5-day weather forecast.

There are so many factors that affect the climate and its changes that no model could possibly encompass everything. This is not from a lack of trying but simply a lack of knowledge about our planet and its relationship with climate. No models are reliable because scientists can choose which factors to emphasize on whether it be CO2, water vapor, solar radiation, exc... and it would get different results.

I do not see a catastrophe as many people predict and I think it would be smarter both practically and economically to research new technologies that make use of alternative fuel sources than try to roll back the emissions we currently make which would lead to massive job loss and huge economic loss.

I get it. The most powerful computers on the planet and some of the smartest people in the sciences don't know enough to make educated guesses... but you do?



Because you say so? What experience do you have in modelling or simulations? You profess to not know the difference between climatology and meteorology but you know enough to dismiss literally thousands of man-hours of painstaking research and proper scientific inquiry by simply saying "I don't think they can do that."

If there is a debate to be had about global warming (climate, economics, causes, effects, etc.) lets try to situate it around the facts and not vague lay impressions of what people can and cannot do.