Hey TedN5, just so that I am clear on this - you expect that the environment should always stay the same, like it was when your fond hiking memories were formed? Do you think that this is realistic, given the complex systems in play?


No, actually, it does not seem to "confirm a link." The logical fallacy you are employing is called "confirmation bias." You think that "global warming" is making things worse, so you accept stories that confirm your preconceptions. The fact that hurricane payouts are higher in 2004 results from a multitude of factors, whether real estate bubbles, zoning, lots of things.

scubatim was being flippant, but seriously, when can we dismiss all AGW advocates as being stooges of the establishment.

That's not what I was suggesting. The point was, way back when, that the free market does not do a good job at addressing certain problems, and those problems need direct investment by the government. I used basic medical research as one of my examples, because companies don't want to invest in the basic research on which more profitable (downstream) science is built. Alternative energy is another case in point. There may be some investment in alternative energy research by companies, but only to the degree that they find the risk worth taking in terms of profitability - it is nowhere near the level at which the country needs it. When Carter pushed for energy legislation back in the late 70's, it was a matter of national security, and it should have been forced ahead. Leaving it to the free market was a mistake, and now we are far behind where we could have been.

TedN5:

Re the lodgepole pines, I wouldn't worry too much, as they'll be back in a century or so. The whitebark pine on the other hand, well, they're a different story. And you left out the undeniably man-made phenomenon of forest fire suppression. Glad to see that years of fire suppression have endowed the beetles with an abundant food supply consisting of all those mature trees that would have perished prior in the natural occurring fires but for human-enforced fire suppression. I'll be waiting for the condemnation of fire suppression.


Dingo:

You really need to read more. For what I mean:

"According to the world's climate alarmists, earth experienced a number of deleterious environmental phenomena between 1980 and 2000. It weathered two of the warmest decades in the instrumental temperature record, three intense and persistent El Nino events, and the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. Concurrently, the air's CO2 content increased by 9%, while human population grew by 37%. It was a bad time for the biosphere. Or was it?

In the latest issue of Science, Nemani et al. (2003) present the results of a study of global vegetation response to all of these dire phenomena, as well as every other supposedly bad thing that happened over this period, such as illicit logging, fires, storms, etc. Based on satellite observations of vegetative activity over the period 1982 to 1999, their findings are most revealing. Rather than depicting a terrestrial biosphere in collapse, however, they reveal just the opposite, i.e., a terrestrial biosphere that is growing ever more robust."

Why is the terrestial biosphere growing ever more robust? Some different reasons for different places, but the one common for all is increased aerial fertilization owing to increased CO2 in the atmosphere [for the same reason, some tell you to talk to your plants, as your exhalation provides increased aerial fertilization for your plants owing to the CO2 in your exhaled breath]. And remember here that the last warm age was the age of the dinosaurs. How large were some of the dinosaur herbivores and how much protein is there in plants? So they had to eat a lot of plant material to get that large, just as do the large herbivores in our day? And so there must have a been a plant boom during that era, yes? And so what you call the catastrophe of global warming, I call the greening of the earth.

And Cruising Ram and I are worried about having enough potable water in years to come, and wouldn't you know that increased atmospheric CO2 also allows for greater water use efficiency in plants [won't lose so much water to evaporation with those open stomata when the stomata won't be open so much, what with the increased atmospheric CO2 and all].

And there ought to be no disputing the CO2 fertilization point, as the historical record is simply and undeniably that our plants evolved photosynthesis in an era of much greater atmospheric CO2 concentration than now. As a matter of fact, the historical record clearly shows that the era of low atmospheric CO2 was not the rule but the exception. And so maybe you and TedN5 would do well to consider the words of the one soul:

"For plants stressed by lack of moisture and fertilizers, increase of atmospheric CO2 from 'preindustrial 280 ppm' to current 380 ppm already resulted in increase of yield for wheat by 11%, oranges 37%, young pine trees whopping 72% [now if we could only control those beetles]. Carbon fertilization effect is proven to be linear up to 1000 ppm CO2 to most plants, and saturation point of carbon fertilization lays at about 1500 ppm for moisture stressed (and most plants are) plants (averaged from 279 published experiments). Field experiments proved that doubling of CO2 in the air to 600 ppm will result in increase of dry wheat yield by 38%, oranges by 130%, young pine trees by 248%. Practically all greenhouses artificially increase indoor CO2 concentration to about 1000 ppm (it is usual concentration of CO2 in offices and homes, totally harmless to humans and animals) to optimize harvest. Just Google 'greenhouse tomato carbon dioxide' for references."

And, yeah, do the Google search. Page 1 of your results will prove the point.

Here's a pdf file on the "Greening of Eurasia" owing to increased temperature and increased atmospheric CO2:

wija.ija.csic.es/gt/obster/Doctorat/Discussion_Zhou/Ahlbeck-GHG03.pdf

Now going back to our Google search, well, maybe the mere existence of the "greenhouse" ought to prove the point. Do you have anything against greenhouses? So what's wrong with the world as a greenhouse? Perhaps the theme song for increased atmospheric CO2 and accompanying increased aerial fertilization and accompanying increase in plant yield can be, feed the world, let them know it's Christmas time...

And, Dingo, the frog won't go belly up, as he and she have existed for more years in higher atmospheric CO2 concentration than you can possibly fathom in your one lifetime.

No doubt the fact that a feather falls slower than a stone proves that the law of gravity does not hold. You take the data that is most closely relevant to the broader principle.


At this point resistance to both fact-theories are principally political or perhaps psychological. I've gone at it with holocaust denialists and they are generally careful to marshal their "facts", "science" and "reason" to defend their theory, and have their own share of "experts" to back them up.


Thanks for the info but I wasn't committed either way to the biology of the matter. I do think it makes a great metaphor in this case.

Metaphors of great force often come from inaccurate biology. I commend to you the metaphor of folks who chronically avoid unpleasant truths by "hiding their head in the sand." That goes back to an observation of African ostriches that was reported by an early Roman explorer. He got it wrong but kicked off a 2000 year old way of talking about truth avoidance.



Well I introduced the frog in the pot as simply a metaphor but if your wish is to make its supposed historical hardiness an advertisement for the benign effects of our present global warming then you might want to check out this link.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6011102121.html

And if you have a link showing the "robust" effects GW is having on our planet please provide it. I know that CO2 is necessary for plant growth and I'm sure that in some cases the increase in CO2 is accelerating plant growth. Distorted growth isn't necessarily a good and in our west the effects of global warming means longer and hotter wildfires. The death of corals around the world is a consequence of the combination of warming and increased acidification of the oceans.

Excellent reference, Dingo. I wasn't yet aware of this study. I took the liberty of looking at the paper in Nature. (See Paper in Nature). It opens with this unambiguous comment.



I also came up with this PDF Editorial as well.



After relating the warming-fungus spread-frog extinction to the warming-pine bark beetle-pine tree kills (that I discussed above) and to warming-worms-musk ox dynamic, the Nature editorial concludes this way:

OK but in most advanced countries the governments DO basic research because thay know that only companies with very deep pockets can afford to do so. Of course “companies” actually do a lot of “basic research” - as in Bell Labs, Davis Sarnoff Labs, etc.

http://www.netsci.org/Courseware/Features/feature02.html

So to allow for competition beyond the big companies the government should and does fund and do basic research. But if you think the “government” could ever replace private industry at making just about anything I strongly disagree.



Back to GM: Another GW bogus scare bites the dust.

Study: Global Warming Will Reduce Hurricanes That Devastate U.S. Shores

"Washington, DC (AHN) - Scientists in the U.S. believe that global ocean warming will result in reduced Atlantic hurricanes in the U.S.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists analyzed the nature of Atlantic storms from 1854 to 2006 and found that higher temperatures increase the vertical wind shear of a system and decreased the frequency of storms.
NOAA News quotes Chunzai Wang, an oceanographer as saying, "We looked at U.S. land falling hurricanes because it is the most reliable Atlantic hurricane measurement over the long term. Using data extending back to the middle nineteenth century, we found a gentle decrease in the trend of U.S. land falling hurricanes when the global ocean is warmed up. This trend coincides with an increase in vertical wind shear over the tropical North Atlantic and the gulf of Mexico, which could result in fewer U.S. land falling hurricanes."
The study appeared in Geophysical Research Letters and contradicts the prediction of U.S. scientists with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which said that rising temperatures will increase the frequency of the storms reports Bloomberg News."

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7009806042

dingo:

Two refutations of Pounds et al. First, this fine item:

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=105788

With the key being:

"Our findings definitively link the appearance of chytridiomycosis to amphibian population declines," said Lips. The area had no evidence of climate anomalies in 2004; its temperature and rainfall patterns were similar to those found in long-term records. "These results support a model of amphibian declines in which this fungus enters and quickly spreads through a community with no previously infected individuals," Lips said."

See that bold? That is direct evidence against Pounds et al's hypothesis, or you might say that nature itself denies what Pounds et al claim is "undeniable", since the reality is that in the one instance we had the same devastation of the local frog population by the one fungus without there being any temperature or rainfall pattern beyond that found in the historical record.

Item two:

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.ph...ing-and-nature/

As to why we have the problem that we do [and warning, the following is a pdf file]:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol10no12/pdfs/03-0804.pdf

Or if you don't like pdf files, the short version without the charts/graphs:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol10no12/03-0804.htm

It wouldn't otherwise be the first time that we introduced a foreign pathogen that devestated a local non-resistant population. And to make matters worse, it wasn't just back in the day of pregnancy testing via frogs, since between 1998 and 2002 the US imported more than 14 million wild amphibians from across the globe.

Before I get to my next item, the latest Pounds et al paper certainly wasn't the first. In 1999 it was opined by Pounds et al that global-warming-induced UV-B radiation was killing the frogs. Of course, no one then knew about the fungus. Then there's the next paper in 2001 with another theory blaming global warming, with the fungus included. And then when that one didn't pan out, well, now we have in 2006 theory no. 3. The only common item to all is global warming. He refers to the interaction as global warming "conspiring" with other items. I didn't know that an inanimate thing could "conspire" with anything else, but use of that word certainly gives away his mental state. He is, in short, a global warming alarmist who is going to blame everything on global warming, and he'll find whatever co-conspirators that he hasn't used yet and put them in theory no. 4 when theory no. 3 collapses around him. That's both my assessment and my prediction.

And you'll have to forgive me, friend, but I live in Hawaii, barely above sea level, so I have more reason than most to care about whether our sea level rises. And, no, I have no investment in Big Oil, as a matter of fact, there's that one commercial on the t.v. speaking to how 2 out of 3 of us are not ready for retirement. I am the poster child for the 2 out of the 3 as I have no retirement plan and no retirement investment portfolio. So I have no monetary stake in the outcome here either. But while I have reason to be leery of a rise in sea level, I agree with Lord Monckton, as the greatest concern for our grandchildren and their children and so on is indeed resource depletion. We've had higher temperatures than now and life as we know it did not cease to exist but instead flourished. How in the hell do you think that the large herbivore dinosaurs got so darn big? They got big because the higher temperature and greater CO2 concentration in their day allowed plant life to flourish. And for you and TedN5, here's an article re Nemani's 2003 paper in Science re the greening of the earth:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/300/5625/1560

And here:

http://cybele.bu.edu/greeningearth/ge.html

And here, from Dr. Lindzen of MIT:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220

And since Ted posted on the matter, please note that part there that speaks about less hurricanes and less severe storms with global warming. So who is right? Those who were claiming violent hurricanes and other storms like Al Gore did and does? Or Dr. Lindzen and the rest of us "denialists"? And re fear, just who is playing on fear here?

And here, more from Dr. Lindzen:

http://opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008597

And here is a link re the 400 "denialists" who are much smarter than you and Al Gore and who aren't playing on fear to ensure their livelihoods and stoke their egos:

http://tinyurl.com/2dv6nz

And please note that with your fascist "denialists" comes the fascist intimidation spoken of in the piece. Kudos to you and yours. And so you get the point of the evil of it all, read the letter and what follows here:

http://tinyurl.com/34a5f8

Is that how you got your purported "consensus"? Again, kudos to you and yours.

Lastly, here is more on the 400 "denialists":

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fus...ty.SenateReport

So, please, friend, never speak to me about genuine debate and discussion when you and your side has no interest in the same.

dingo:

You might also read this:

His Excellency

Ban Ki-MoonSecretary-General,

United Nations New York, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

Re: UN climate conference taking the World in entirely the wrong direction

It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena by promoting economic growth and wealth generation.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued increasingly alarming conclusions about the climatic influences of human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis. While we understand the evidence that has led them to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it.

The IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers are the most widely read IPCC reports amongst politicians and non-scientists and are the basis for most climate change policy formulation. Yet these Summaries are prepared by a relatively small core writing team with the final drafts approved line-by-line by ­government ­representatives. The great ­majority of IPCC contributors and ­reviewers, and the tens of thousands of other scientists who are qualified to comment on these matters, are not involved in the preparation of these documents. The summaries therefore cannot properly be represented as a consensus view among experts.

Contrary to the impression left by the IPCC Summary reports:

*Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats, sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive species are not evidence for abnormal climate change, for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability.

*The average rate of warming of 0.1 to 0. 2 degrees Celsius per decade recorded by satellites during the late 20th century falls within known natural rates of warming and cooling over the last 10,000 years.

*Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today's computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling.

In stark contrast to the often repeated assertion that the science of climate change is "settled," significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming. But because IPCC working groups were generally instructed ( http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/wg1_time..._2006-08-14.pdf ) to consider work published only through May, 2005, these important findings are not included in their reports; i.e., the IPCC assessment reports are already materially outdated.

The UN climate conference in Bali has been planned to take the world along a path of severe CO2 restrictions, ignoring the lessons apparent from the failure of the Kyoto Protocol, the chaotic nature of the European CO2 trading market, and the ineffectiveness of other costly initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Balanced cost/benefit analyses provide no support for the introduction of global measures to cap and reduce energy consumption for the purpose of restricting CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it is irrational to apply the "precautionary principle" because many scientists recognize that both climatic coolings and warmings are realistic possibilities over the medium-term future.

The current UN focus on "fighting climate change," as illustrated in the Nov. 27 UN Development Programme's Human Development Report, is distracting governments from adapting to the threat of inevitable natural climate changes, whatever forms they may take. National and international planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that lie ahead. Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems.

Yours faithfully,

The following are signatories to the Dec. 13th letter to the Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations on the UN Climate conference in Bali [List of signatories: LINK]:

Don Aitkin, PhD, Professor, social scientist, retired Vice-Chancellor and President, University of Canberra, Australia

Syun-Ichi Akasofu, PhD, Professor of Physics, Emeritus and Founding Director, International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, U.S.

William J.R. Alexander, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Civil and Biosystems Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa; Member, UN Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, 1994-2000

Bjarne Andresen, PhD, physicist, Professor, The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Geoff L. Austin, PhD, FNZIP, FRSNZ, Professor, Dept. of Physics, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Timothy F. Ball, PhD, environmental consultant, former climatology professor, University of Winnipeg, Canada

Ernst-Georg Beck, Dipl. Biol., Biologist, Merian-Schule Freiburg, Germany

Sonja A. Boehmer-Christiansen, PhD, Reader, Dept. of Geography, Hull University, UK; Editor, Energy & Environment journal

Chris C. Borel, PhD, remote sensing scientist, U.S.

Reid A. Bryson, Ph.D. D.Sc. D.Engr., UNEP Global 500 Laureate; Senior Scientist, Center for Climatic Research; Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, of Geography, and of Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin, U.S.

Dan Carruthers, M.Sc., wildlife biology consultant specializing in animal ecology in Arctic and Subarctic regions, Alberta, Canada

Robert M. Carter, PhD, Professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

Ian D. Clark, PhD, Professor, isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa, Canada

Richard S. Courtney, PhD, climate and atmospheric science consultant, IPCC expert reviewer, U.K.

Willem de Lange, PhD, Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences, School of Science and Engineering, Waikato University, New Zealand

David Deming, PhD (Geophysics), Associate Professor, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Oklahoma, U.S.

Freeman J. Dyson, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, N.J., U.S.

Don J. Easterbrook, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Geology, Western Washington University, U.S.

Lance Endersbee, Emeritus Professor, former Dean of Engineering and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Monasy University, Australia

Hans Erren, Doctorandus, geophysicist and climate specialist, Sittard, The Netherlands

Robert H. Essenhigh, PhD, E.G. Bailey Professor of Energy Conversion, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio State University, U.S.

Christopher Essex, PhD, Professor of Applied Mathematics and Associate Director of the Program in Theoretical Physics, University of Western Ontario, Canada

David Evans, PhD, mathematician, carbon accountant, computer and electrical engineer and head of 'Science Speak', Australia

William Evans, PhD, Editor, American Midland Naturalist; Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, U.S.

Stewart Franks, PhD, Associate Professor, Hydroclimatologist, University of Newcastle, Australia

R. W. Gauldie, PhD, Research Professor, Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, School of Ocean Earth Sciences and Technology, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Lee C. Gerhard, PhD, Senior Scientist Emeritus, University of Kansas; former director and state geologist, Kansas Geological Survey, U.S.

Gerhard Gerlich, Professor for Mathematical and Theoretical Physics, Institut für Mathematische Physik der TU Braunschweig, Germany

Albrecht Glatzle, PhD, sc.agr., Agro-Biologist and Gerente ejecutivo, INTTAS, Paraguay

Fred Goldberg, PhD, Adj Professor, Royal Institute of Technology, Mechanical Engineering, Stockholm, Sweden

Vincent Gray, PhD, expert reviewer for the IPCC and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of 'Climate Change 2001,' Wellington, New Zealand

William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University and Head of the Tropical Meteorology Project, U.S.

Howard Hayden, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Connecticut, U.S.

Louis Hissink M.Sc. M.A.I.G., Editor AIG News and Consulting Geologist, Perth, Western Australia

Craig D. Idso, PhD, Chairman, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Arizona, U.S.

Sherwood B. Idso, PhD, President, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, AZ, USA

Andrei Illarionov, PhD, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, U.S.; founder and director of the Institute of Economic Analysis, Russia

Zbigniew Jaworowski, PhD, physicist, Chairman - Scientific Council of Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw, Poland

Jon Jenkins, PhD, MD, computer modelling - virology, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Wibjorn Karlen, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden

Olavi Kärner, Ph.D., Research Associate, Dept. of Atmospheric Physics, Institute of Astrophysics and Atmospheric Physics, Toravere, Estonia

Joel M. Kauffman, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, U.S.

David Kear, PhD, FRSNZ, CMG, geologist, former Director-General of NZ Dept. of Scientific & Industrial Research, New Zealand

Madhav Khandekar, PhD, former Research Scientist Environment Canada; Editor "Climate Research" (03-05); Editorial Board Member "Natural Hazards, IPCC Expert Reviewer 2007

William Kininmonth M.Sc., M.Admin., former head of Australia's National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological organization's Commission for Climatology

Jan J.H. Kop, M.Sc. Ceng FICE (Civil Engineer Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers), Emeritus Professor of Public Health Engineering, Technical University Delft, The Netherlands

Professor R.W.J. Kouffeld, Emeritus Professor, Energy Conversion, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Salomon Kroonenberg, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Geotechnology, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Hans H.J. Labohm, PhD, economist, former advisor to the executive board, Clingendael Institute (The Netherlands Institute of International Relations), The Netherlands

The Rt. Hon. Lord Lawson of Blaby, economist; Chairman of the Central Europe Trust; former Chancellor of the Exchequer, U.K.

Douglas Leahey, PhD, meteorologist and air-quality consultant, Calgary, Canada

David R. Legates, PhD, Director, Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware, U.S.

Marcel Leroux, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Climatology, University of Lyon, France; former director of Laboratory of Climatology, Risks and Environment, CNRS

Bryan Leyland, International Climate Science Coalition, consultant - power engineer, Auckland, New Zealand

William Lindqvist, PhD, consulting geologist and company director, Tiburon, California, U.S.

Richard S. Lindzen, PhD, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S.

A.J. Tom van Loon, PhD, Professor of Geology (Quaternary Geology), Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland; former President of the European Association of Science Editors

Anthony R. Lupo, PhD, Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science, Dept. of Soil, Environmental, and Atmospheric Science, University of Missouri-Columbia, U.S.

Richard Mackey, PhD, Statistician, Australia

Horst Malberg, PhD, Professor for Meteorology and Climatology, Institut für Meteorologie, Berlin, Germany

John Maunder, PhD, Climatologist, former President of the Commission for Climatology of the World Meteorological Organization (89-97), New Zealand

Alister McFarquhar, PhD, international economist, Downing College, Cambridge, U.K.

Ross McKitrick, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Economics, University of Guelph, Canada

John McLean, Climate Data Analyst, computer scientist, Melbourne, Australia

Owen McShane, B. Arch., Master of City and Regional Planning (UC Berkeley), economist and policy analyst, joint founder of the International Climate Science Coalition, Director - Centre for Resource Management Studies, New Zealand

Fred Michel, PhD, Director, Institute of Environmental Sciences and Associate Professor of Earth Sciences, Carleton University, Canada

Frank Milne, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Economics, Queen's University, Canada

Asmunn Moene, PhD, former head of the Forecasting Centre, Meteorological Institute, Norway

Alan Moran, PhD, Energy Economist, Director of the IPA's Deregulation Unit, Australia

Nils-Axel Morner, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Paleogeophysics & Geodynamics, Stockholm University, Sweden

Lubos Motl, PhD, physicist, former Harvard string theorist, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

John Nicol, PhD, physicist, James Cook University, Australia

Mr. David Nowell, M.Sc., Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, former chairman of the NATO Meteorological Group, Ottawa, Canada

James J. O'Brien, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Meteorology and Oceanography, Florida State University, U.S.

Cliff Ollier, PhD, Professor Emeritus (Geology), Research Fellow, University of Western Australia

Garth W. Paltridge, PhD, atmospheric physicist, Emeritus Professor and former Director of the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies, University of Tasmania, Australia

R. Timothy Patterson, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Earth Sciences (paleoclimatology), Carleton University, Canada

Al Pekarek, PhD, Associate Professor of Geology, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Dept., St. Cloud State University, Minnesota, U.S.

Ian Plimer, PhD, Professor of Geology, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide and Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia

Brian Pratt, PhD, Professor of Geology, Sedimentology, University of Saskatchewan, Canada

Harry N.A. Priem, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Planetary Geology and Isotope Geophysics, Utrecht University; former director of the Netherlands Institute for Isotope Geosciences

Alex Robson, PhD, Economics, Australian National University

Colonel F.P.M. Rombouts, Branch Chief - Safety, Quality and Environment, Royal Netherlands Air Force

R.G. Roper, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, U.S.

Arthur Rorsch, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Molecular Genetics, Leiden University, The Netherlands

Rob Scagel, M.Sc., forest microclimate specialist, principal consultant, Pacific Phytometric Consultants, B.C., Canada

Tom V. Segalstad, PhD, (Geology/Geochemistry), Head of the Geological Museum and Associate Professor of Resource and Environmental Geology, University of Oslo, Norway

Gary D. Sharp, PhD, Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study, Salinas, CA, U.S.

S. Fred Singer, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia and former director, U.S. Weather Satellite Service

L. Graham Smith, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Geography, University of Western Ontario, Canada

Roy W. Spencer, PhD, climatologist, Principal Research Scientist, Earth System Science Center, The University of Alabama, Huntsville, U.S.

Peter Stilbs, TeknD, Professor of Physical Chemistry, Research Leader, School of Chemical Science and Engineering, KTH (Royal Institute of Technology), Stockholm, Sweden

Hendrik Tennekes, PhD, former Director of Research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute

Dick Thoenes, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Chemical Engineering, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands

Brian G Valentine, PhD, PE (Chem.), Technology Manager - Industrial Energy Efficiency, Adjunct Associate Professor of Engineering Science, University of Maryland at College Park; Dept of Energy, Washington, DC, U.S.

Gerrit J. van der Lingen, PhD, geologist and paleoclimatologist, climate change consultant, Geoscience Research and Investigations, New Zealand

Len Walker, PhD, power engineering, Pict Energy, Melbourne, Australia

Edward J. Wegman, Bernard J. Dunn Professor, Department of Statistics and Department Computational and Data Sciences, George Mason University, Virginia, U.S.

Stephan Wilksch, PhD, Professor for Innovation and Technology Management, Production Management and Logistics, University of Technology and Economics Berlin, Germany

Boris Winterhalter, PhD, senior marine researcher (retired), Geological Survey of Finland, former professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, Finland

David E. Wojick, PhD, P.Eng., UN IPCC Expert Reviewer, energy consultant, Virginia, U.S.

Raphael Wust, PhD, Lecturer, Marine Geology/Sedimentology, James Cook University, Australia

Zichichi, PhD, President of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva, Switzerland; Emeritus Professor of Advanced Physics, University of Bologna, Italy.

Saying they didn't have evidence of climate anamolies in Panama in one year hardly constitutes a refutation. Still it's important to get different perspectives on the record.

Frogs and other amphibians dying off world wide suggests broader factors are in play. Also my piece offers global warming as additive to other stresses that man is putting on frog environments. I would guess they all come into play.



I realize that the climate change amphibian species die off studies are at a pretty early stage and it is difficult to set up a direct cause and effect chain. However the indicators are pretty scary and I think they shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.

From TedN5:

.99% level of accuracy that there is a GW influence? I'll go with that.

On a different note I really don't get impressed with lists of names of scientists etc. who question AGW. It's standard on just about any denialist post I read and seldom do they refer to any study that is vetted. I can't tell you how many times I have been confronted with the noble 400. It doesn't break down the degree of criticism. Are they challenging AGW in general or perhaps one particular piece in the IPCC Report? I know for instance one climate scientist that accepted most of the Report but had an argument with their present tie in between increasing storm intensity and global warming. He didn't deny it, just said the evidence presently didn't support it so he quit the IPCC team.

As for the across the board AGW denialists, I've seen their stuff presented and easily refuted. Nothing new here. I cut my teeth dealing with 911 conspiracy nutcases and afterward holocaust denialists, not to mention the whose hiding the missing WMDs folks, or Kennedy was assassinated through a hidden conspiracy buffs. They never failed to reveal a bench of prestiges "experts" or a host of factoids to make their case. My own take on it is there are certain folks who may develop narrow expertise at the expense of sheer common sense, so they don't have any clear framework to mount their "evidence"(Often dated or misconstrued) in. They appear to simply fit them into some pre-existing bias or inapplicable homily. A give away is some statement like "temperature is always changing naturally" as if that addresses the AGW issue and the overwhelming evidence to back it up. I also note how so many of them like yourself just assume the overwhelming majority of scientists who respect most of the IPCC Report are paid off or are going along for job security purposes. No evidence, just a conspiracy belief.

I know that I'm just a dumb denialist, but seriously, the "average temperature of the whole world" cannot possibly be relevant to anything. I doubt that nutritionists explore the average height of the world's inhabitants, so that they can examine whether we are getting enough milk in our diets. There are like 4 climates on the island of Maui alone. How can the "average temperature" of an entire planet, made up of literally millions of systems and micro-systems of weather and climate, be relevant to anything?


I have to agree with you there. Al Gore and the IPCC, heck, all of you guys, have facts, science and reason marshalled to your side (Just like the Eugenics movement in the early 20th Century). Imagine this in other walks of life.

• Greenspan says that the Euro will increase in value by 5% by 2100
• Bernacke says that the Euro will increase by 75% by 2100*, (if Greenland gets really warm and their gold reserves fall into the sea). And look at what would happen to the world economy if it did!!!!!11!!1 The sky is falling!!!1!1!!!
• They both split the Nobel Prize for economics in 2008 based on their ground-breaking work in raising the "awareness
  " of Euro appreciation vs. the dollar by 2100, based on predicting something, which probably won't happen, and if it does we'll all be dead and not see it.

I agree with you here. Rhetoric that has a non-factual basis, or a discredited factual basis is a very powerful tool. Facts just seem to change after a while somehow. How many of us think that man's brain is left or right, an idea that has been discredited for 25 years? I was in a meeting 2 days ago, where a partner company was likening the "global warming" crisis to the "AIDS crisis" in the 80's. I asked politely "but AIDS wasn't really a crisis, was it?" and the room got kind of quiet. All the predictions that AIDS was going to decimate the heterosexual community, that you could get it from a toilet seat, yada yada, did not come true. How many millions did we spend on that crisis, and it was never enough. How many millions of African kids died after "Silent Spring" came out, and has anyone ever apologized for that one? When they banned DDT, farm workers actually died as a result, since (unlike DDT) organophosphates were dangerous, toxic chemicals.

I have to wonder, given the panic and "crisis" terminology regarding Global Warming, what is the real reason? Why do these people want to scare us?

Lastly, regarding confirmation bias and global panic-inducement, neither you nor TedN5 have responded to my relatively simple query, although you have now personally posted 3 times, and ridiculed me for even saying it, labeling me a "denialist" and asking me what I "don't get" about AGW. Please, take a moment.



on edit, could you guys please make up your minds regarding Hurricanes and global warming?

Global warming could reduce how many hurricanes hit the United States


So, if more hurricanes hit land, that is still evidence of more or less global warming? Also, can any of you guys give a study that doesn't use the words "may" or "likely," replaced by "is" and "will" - thanks!

Your second reference is just so many sour grapes from a longstanding skeptic organization. The first, however, is a solid scientific reference. While it did not constitute a refutation of the Pounds et al article in Nature (both articles were published within one month of each other), it did present some conflicting evidence. That prompted me to research the subject some more. While I did find support for Pounds, et al (Here and Here for example) and the paper was taken seriously by other researchers, it became clear that the role of global warming in these extinctions was an unsettled issue within the field.



Since you insist on a reply to this question, let me answer it 2 ways. First, as Dingo has stated, no one claims global warming and most of all climate change proceeds in a straight line. That is one of the things this topic was suppose to be about, differentiating climate change from the background noise of normal weather fluctuations. It is not unusual that 2006 was quieter than 2005 nor that 2007 was more noisy than 2006 but less active than 2005. What is important is whether activity trends upper over time.

In the second place, the statement was made by a reinsurer (Munich Re) in an insurance claims context. Most insurance is written for the economically prosperous regions of the world and damaging weather events in the 3rd world would not result in large claims. 2006 wasn't all that quiet world wide. (See Anamolies 2006). I wonder if the Munich Re spokesperson would have describe 2006 as quiet if just the damage and loss of life of the East Asia and SE Asia weather events shown here had been fully insured.

Your lack of imagination is noted. Think of it this way, if you are holding on to a copper pipe that is cold on the holding end and the other end is being blow torched eventually you'll will burn your hand. Obviously the GW situation is more time delayed and more complex in its manifestations but the principle is pretty much the same. There are more copper pipe ends that are being blow torched and therefore more collateral effects eventually show up. Or try this, you are locked in a freezer at 0 deg. Cen. and the sun goes spaz and flames out the rest of the world. The fact that you are still freezing is not particularly meaningful relative to the earth, despite what your solipsistic ideology tells you. By the way, somebody's diet in Borneo doesn't have any meaningful relation to what someone is eating in Alaska. Weather on the other hand is dynamic in a world wide sense. The weather in each area does in fact play a roll long term in their counterparts area. Your apples and oranges comparison dropped dead.


Thank you. Notice my references as to the denialists were in quotations. And the AGW experts weren't some small unvetted minority, who had been refuted by hard evidence umpteen times.



No you don't agree with me. I said metaphors, not rhetoric. Metaphors are analogous pictures and as such aren't meant to be taken literally. Think Aesops fables.


Maybe some are just presenting the facts as they see them and your propensity for paranoia overflowed a rational consideration of the matter. You might want to take it up with a global warming informed psychologist.





I did in fact respond to your clueless inquiry. Apparently you overlooked it or are reading challenged. I doubt the latter because I use simple words.

a quickie, as I'm pressed for time here.



Your answer* does indeed use simple words, but lacks a "yes" or a "no," hence my re-iteration.

*I'm fascinated by this continuous grasping at straws by AGW denialists. What about this don't you get?

I'm afraid that only your lack of imagination prevents you from seeing how diet in different parts of the world is just as interrelated as complex weather systems. Indeed related to said systems. Sorry.

on edit - (again sorry in a hurry) - my bad, you did refer to trend lines. Of course, all of the trend lines seem to start at 1880, for some reason. Why don't we see any trend lines that start at 1930?

Back to weather, per TedN5's request, referring to the IPCC SP4:

there is no clear trend in the annual numbers of tropical cyclones

Based on a range of models, it is likely that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will become more intense, with larger peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation associated with ongoing increases of tropical SSTs. There is less confidence in projections of a global decrease in numbers of tropical cyclones. The apparent increase in the proportion of very intense storms since 1970 in some regions is much larger than simulated by current models for that period.

There is insufficient evidence to determine whether trends exist in small scale phenomena such as tornadoes, hail, lighting, and dust storms.

Again, going to the IPCC document itself, we see "likely" temperature increases of 1.1 - 6.4ºC (2 - 11.5ºF) by 2100. That's quite a range!!! Your cable bill is going to be "somewhere between $20 and $115," now please sign here.

To be fair, their "best estimate" is 1.8 - 4.0ºC (3.2 - 7.1ºF), and many of us remain unconvinced that this will be "catastrophic," noting the increased food yields, cost savings and more comfortable climate in many places. That is, to remind us, "the average temperature for the whole world" so folks in Minnesota would have cheaper heat, deserts would retreat somewhat and re-green desolate areas of Africa, and yes, somewhere, the coast would rise and some people may have to move. Not that man has ever moved for weather- or climate-related reasons in the history of the planet.

carlitoswhey

Also see my response to your repeated question in Post 260 on the previous page.

This aint a court of law. Like it or not my answer stands as is.


For years before the Europeans arrived the Indians ate potatoes and corn and avocados. What effect did it have on the European diet preColumbus?

I have never claimed that there was any settled science showing that tropical cyclone would increase or decrease in number due to global warming. Similarly, I have even acknowledged that there is the lack of a consensus among hurricane experts that tropical cyclones that do occur would show greater power dissipation or precipitation, despite the IPCC's acknowledgment that it is likely. Nor have I indicated that an increase in tornadoes and their seasonality is part of the consensus view. What I have claimed is that we could expect a variety or anomalous weather events that taken together would provide an indication that GW is impacting us already.

TO BE EDITED WITH ADDITIONS
0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F)

Well, OK then. If you're feeling generous, would you note that "we can expect a variety of anomalous weather events" is pretty much a standard conversation starter for about 90% of the world, and has been since Man developed speech? Seriously, how many Ice Ages did Neanderthals live through, although, to be fair, they probably couldn't spell "anomalous."

That's my main point, those who think that global warming, er, climate change is a real, serious problem, are now emphasizing weather. It's truly alarmist, and unhealthy for society. Cold snap? Ignore it or blame 'climate change.' Warm summer? Must be global warming. More hurricanes? Global Warming. Less hurricanes? Global warming, silly. It's not a healthy way to discuss what may be a real problem. The alarmism around global warming just makes many of us dismiss it as the latest 'crisis' that will pass in 20 years, like all the other crises which I won't name here.

Actually, no; that's not what I believe. I do not seek evidence to buffet my claims, I read up on a subject, and then decide for myself what is going on.

And by your logic, if the housing market was so good, there would be profits to overcome losses sustained during the hurricanes. While real estate watchers did report a "hot" market that year, the fact that hurricanes are becoming more powerful with each passing season is suspect. Denying global warming is like denying the Holocaust. There are tangible factors everywhere. People can argue that it is natural; to a point, I acknowledge it is. But scientists have measured what too much CO2 in atmospheric conditions does on a micro-scale and some of the best minds of this generation have predicted the doom and gloom if things do not change for the betterment of the environment.

Even if someone denies global warming, the fact of the matter is people shouldn't pee in the pool. It's unhealthy to be polluting the only planet we have and people are letting other people kill them. There are documented holes in the ozone layer not too far from where I live because they like shooting pretty rockets into space. The kind of gas released does a number on the ozone layer and is thereby hurting the planet. Global warming aside, the factors going into the scientific sparring over the issue are still unhealthy.

Oh, I guess you missed this link that I posted a few days ago then.


Honestly, I can't even understand what you are trying to say that 'there would be profits to overcome losses sustained during the hurricanes.' What? A hurricane wrecks your house or condo, you file a claim, and the insurance company pays you. They get paid by "re-insurers" who insure the insurance companies in big-time disasters.

Insurance payouts are related to the economy (more jobs = more people = more houses), zoning (how many people are allowed to build near the sea, did the state allow riverboat casinos, etc.), sheer luck as to where the hurricane hits, legal rulings that affect insurance payouts, a whole myriad of things. That is the reason I cited confirmation bias. You dismiss those factors when seeing one statistic on insurance, blaming "global warming" and not all of the other obvious factors that contribute to what insurance companies pay out in a given year.


And there we have it. The reason it's impossible to logically discuss this topic.

a) A scientific theory that manmade activity MAY warm the earth by an additional three quarters of a degree over a hundred years
b) The actual, historical FACT that Jews were killed in large numbers by Germany's Third Reich

Honestly, the only reason I debate this subject is to reveal the illogic employed by "global warming" proponents. You aren't fighting for the environment; you are practicing a religion.

So, according to you, there is fact that hurricanes are becoming more powerful with each passing season.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2006atlan.shtml
Of the five 2006 Atlantic hurricanes, two made it to category 3.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2007atlan.shtml
Of the six Atlantic hurricanes in 2007, two were major, the rest were category 1.

With that said, how do you suggest to support your claim of fact that hurricanes are becoming more powerful?

Want to look at the Pacific? OK!

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2007epac.shtml
Four hurricanes. One hurricane made it to category 4, the rest were either category 1, or were at that point for a brief period in 2007.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2006epac.shtml
Of the nine Pacific hurricanes, two were major, 3 if category 3 hurricanes are considered major. The majority of them seemed to be poorly organized, but due to wind speed were classified as hurricanes.

So, with these facts, how do you support your claim?

I promised to add to this post but got sidetracked. Better late than never!

Your discussion of the range of temperature projection in the IPCC's AR4 is taken totally out of context. The range of temperatures projected in 2100 included a number of scenarios about the world's response to the threat. Each scenario's projection had a much more limited range of uncertainty. Only when taken together do they display the range you indicate. The low scenarios assume we act vigorously to reduce GHG release and control population increase. Even so, the temperature increases they suggest would be serious but probably manageable. Doing nothing, as you seem to suggest, practically guarantees one of the higher scenarios which would cause mass extinctions and threaten human civilization.

(See IPCC Working Group 1 Summary for Policy Makers page 18. This is a PDF file).

Your smugness regarding our ability to adapt within 100 years to a 4 degree C worldwide temperature increase is breath taking. That is as much higher temperature from todays as existed in the last interglacial period. Note the reference in the quotation is to polar temperature which is magnified in a greenhouse gas warmed world.

(See AR4 Summary page 9).

One, I have never, ever suggested "doing nothing." Obviously, we should be good stewards of the environment, and indeed the USA is a great place to live because we are good stewards. We should reduce carbon emissions and indeed fossil fuel dependence as we are able to do so. We shouldn't litter or pollute. Common sense.

However, the hubris you possess in telling me that we are going to have mass extinctions and threaten civilization, that's just ridiculous. This is where you lose people. Doomsayers have been predicting global apocalypse for millenia. In my lifetime, I have been assured that:

- An Ice Age was coming
- Florocarbons burning a hole in the ozone would make it impossible to go outside during daylight
- Homosexuality is a mental disorder
- Homosexuality is a lifestyle choice
- AIDS is going to decimate the heterosexual population of the United States
- The world would run out of oil by 1990
- Hundreds of millions of people would starve from overpopulation in the 70's and 80's
- We would run out of key minerals in the 70's and 80's

To add insult to injury, many of the same people that warned me about overpopulation and mass famine are now warning me of global warming. How many times do scientists get to be wrong, before I dismiss them? Just this one last time?

Many of these threats to civilization have been supported the best science available. In hindsight, we see that the best science available is always incomplete information. All of them have been wrong. Human civilization will be fine. Life will go on. You are wrong. Sorry. I'm not buying that this time, we really do understand the world and we have to "act fast" to reduce population, yada yada.

I am sure that this frustrates you and everyone else that believes in the science of man-made global warming, but I just cannot be bothered. It is likely going to get one degree Celcius warmer over the next hundred years, and everything will be ok. Relax. Disband the IPCC and tell them to go do something useful, like predict El Nino or forecast accurate weather for more than 5 days.

Your examples of "false" predictions are a mixed bag of mostly useless comparisons that are examples of one off papers or over imaginative science writers looking for a story (the Newsweek ice age article for example). The starvation scenario remains a delayed but real threat, cereal reserves are at an historic low for recent decades and food and cooking oil prices have sky rocketed. The most similar example that compares to Anthropogenic Global Warming is the impact of chlorofluorocarbon on the ozone layer. In this instants some creative scientists identified a possible problem, others studied it and confirmed the threat, environmental groups took up the issue and pressured governments, and finally an international agreement was forged to gradually eliminate CH4s. AGW is a similar but much more complex issue involving thousands of scientists. The IPCC was formed to look at it comprehensively so the world could deal with it in a similar rational manner.
Unfortunately, progress has been stymied by special interests and their manufactured disinformation.



Please provide some examples of climate scientists who have misled you in the past which justifies your dismissal of a whole body of work concluding that it is very likely that AGW is a serious threat.

To be blunt - bull. Face it, beliefs just change over time. They do. The APA designated, experts in the field, counted homosexuality as a mental disorder and deviant behavior. Now, 30 years later they don't. Nothing about homosexuality changed in that time to impact this finding, it's still two individuals of the same sex doing their thing. I remember a lot more than just that Newsweek article regarding the ice age. The planet had been cooling for decades and every time it snowed a foot in Chicago, people talked about the next Ice Age. Just like now, when it's hot, people talk about global warming.


Wonderful. Please show me someone who is approaching this in a rational manner. Kyoto was a joke. The IPCC, for some reason, isn't allowed to include papers written since 2005 which run counter to their hypothesis. Here are 100 scientists urging the UN to do something rational; I doubt they will listen, preferring to talk about the "impending crisis." I'm sure you will dismiss them as 'tools of industry' or whatever.


No thanks, although to be fair, Paul Ehrlich did write another book a few years back. I'm not going to believe these scientists this time; I have my life to live and more important things to do. Which, lucky for you, includes being environmentally conscious, just not preachy about it.

CW is a trip. First diet is the equivalent of weather and then an old prejudice held by a largely nonscientific APA and then abandoned is the same as long term vetted studies by the very scientifically oriented IPCC. On top of that a butterfly expert name Paul Ehrlich gets some predictions partially wrong related to population growth consequences and resource exhaustion and with that grotesque analogy AGW with the massive continuing science and climate scientists that backs it up is dismissed.

I've even run across holocaust denialists who mounted a better case than that. Again one has to ask the question, why are there so many folks running around insisting 2+2=3. What's the payoff? For the most part there has to be some kind of faith system operating. One kind of knows this because of their continuous diversion to mindless conspiracy theories like the 911 folks. The vast majority of the climate scientists and virtually all major scientific organizations have signed on or do not dispute AGW. Presumably they are all being paid off or intimidated by outfits dedicated to global control of the world. Who might those folks be?

Dingo, could we at least attempt to be adult in our discussions here?

As far as I know, nobody on this board is likely to benefit from business as usual versus whatever course global warming alarmists (what's good for the goose...) are proposing (what ARE they proposing, exactly?).

One group who would definitely benefit is the carbon traders in Europe. The EU already has the structure in place for trading carbon credits and taxing those that don't comply. Of course, those taxes are going somewhere. The EU carbon market is already being gamed. The IETA is hoping that the market will reach $60 to $70 billion next year. Somebody is definitely profiting from this "scheme" (interesting that they chose to use the term scheme).

I was stating my point of view. I have to assume your "adult" criticism simply means you don't agree with me.


Well the folks who accept AGW are following the evidence. As to what additional agenda they are pursuing I guess you have to ask each of them individually. Can't think of any benefit I'm getting from pursuit of the AGW thesis other than the satisfaction of being on the side of truth and the American way.