Effects on cloud cover which keeps heat in.


How does CO2 alone – and man made at that explain this with “99% certainty”?



By people who shut off debate with accusations of “oil company” money etc? Ya I buy that – sure. From the story I posted.

“So it’s difficult to do climate research without being suspected of having a hidden agenda?
Yes, it is frustrating. People can use this however they want, and I can’t stop them. Some are accusing me of doing it for political reasons; some are saying I’m doing it for the oil companies. This is just ridiculous. I think there’s a huge interest in discrediting what I’m doing, but I’ve sort of gotten used to this. I’ve convinced myself the only thing I can do is just to continue doing good science. And I think time will show that we are on the right track.”


And you blow the man off but if CERN is doing a follow up experiment that means more to me than all the IPCC "beilevers" say.

Frankly, its been hard to pin down what effect increased GCR induced clouds are suppose to have on temperature. According to this article there should be a net cooling effect.

(See Article).

Presumably, I guess, increased low clouds could muffle the diurnal temperature difference while high clouds cooled the average temperature. It's a stretch!

Amlord, its not true that Svensmark and his colleagues didn't attack AGO explanations for GW.

(See Psysics World Article).

And finally, even if the Cern experiment should lend credibility to GCRs as an agent in cloud formation, there is still a long way to go in establishing the solar activity modulation of GCRs as a major agent in the observed warming of the late 20th and 21st centuries. That's why the Realclimate article I quoted several posts back left such an outcome as a possible though unlikely outcome.

Here is the response from the physicists who originated the sunspot data. Although solar output fluctuations can not be ruled out, there really is not enough science yet to support it. It is unlikely anyone will be able to quantify and model all contributing factors of GW within the span of time in which the effects of GW will begin to affect people directly. Even if you believe in solar output as a factor, if you are going to be consistent by the same reasoning, you must therefore also believe in man's CO2 greenhouse contribution, since the evidence is just as conclusive, if not more so. Regardless, as I mentioned in another post, although some nations could change their carbon output, China and India will not likely be cooperative. From the contribution of their economies alone it is projected the number of fossil fuel vehicles worldwide will double in the next decade. Add that to their growing industrial output as well. Ultimately, it seems more realistic to simply plan for a loss of some coastal areas, and expect a change in arable land and weather patterns. Some nations may gain, others will lose.

I would still advocate reducing carbon emissions where possible, though. Just don't count on it doing much to reverse GW anytime soon.

As I pointed out earlier, I don't think you have to wait until anthropogenic carbon output establishes its carbon cycle balance to account for its effects, since it can create regional heat gradients from localized greenhouse effects which otherwise would not be there. Events like that could well trigger other changes, magnifying its effect disproportionate to its generalized effect once it is fully equilibrated with the carbon cycle. As seen in the arctic now, there are feedback mechanisms which can amplify small changes, - all you need is a trigger. Volcanism in one theory is the reverse trigger: high levels of andesitic volcanic activity (the explosive kind that throws particulates and gases high into the atmosphere), cause cooling on a dramatic scale. If there are consecutive eruptions, especially if spread across both hemispheres, you could have decades of severe cooling worldwide which could then push other systems, like the arctic ice, back into a perennially frozen state, expanding its extent, and so allow more solar radiation to be reflected away in the summer, thereby perpetuating the cooling trend, even after the volcanism dies down.

I personally think the little ice age starting around the 13th century is probably due to increased volcanism, not a change in solar activity. Ice core data suggests quite a bit of volcanic activity then. I wouldn't even doubt Krakatoa might also be involved since dramatic worldwide cooling events have been linked to it since it's located on the equator, but unfortunately there are only 3 confirmed eruptions in the last 2000 years. But if you look at the recorded events (as derived from historical records), from 535AD, 1680AD, and 1883AD, there is a big gap between 535AD and 1680AD which is probably due more to a lack of records and research than a lack of volcanic activity. But even without an equatorial supervolcano, there are still plenty of others around the world which could, if combined, fill the bill.

Note: I was just reading the article someone posted about about some physicists wishing to link a cooling event from the 17th century to fluctuations in solar radiation affecting cloud cover. Coincidentally, that also coincides with an eruption of Krakatoa. I think they will need to pick a different cooling event if they really want to prove their point.

Not at NIGHT they don’t. Look at you question.



Does not mean it will not be proved later. IMO it is at least as credible as the WAGs we have now.



I agree. The cost of dealing with what the GW folks say is inevitable is the way to go. Then when it either doesn’t happen or is way below the worst case we will not have wasted 100s of billions trying to reduce CO2 when clearly that ain’t gonna happen without China and India.

The most obvious concern with the cosmic ray experiment is that the researchers must be able to exclude the much better documented causes of cooling cycles, such as volcanism. Given the numerous documented episodes, even within recent history, of global or hemispheric cooling from volcanic sources, it would be rather silly for them to pick a cooling event that has a documented background of volcanism.

Moreover, if their intent is to show cosmic radiation causes cooling, then that really doesn't say much about recent warming.

Did anyone else see this in the WSJ today?

Greenhouse Affect


The article looks at some interesting problems behind the biofuel argument, specifically ethanol, as a solution to global warming.

Great catch!
From the article:
“So, incredibly, when the hidden costs of conversion are included, greenhouse-gas emissions from corn ethanol over the next 30 years will be twice as high as from regular gasoline. In the long term, it will take 167 years before the reduction in carbon emissions from using ethanol "pays back" the carbon released by land-use change. As they say, it's not easy being green.”

There were hints of this months ago. And the other “effect” not mentioned is the stealing of corn for fule has raised its price and with it all of our food. So not only is it bad for the environment but we all pay more to do it.
BUT and this is important – the FARM LOBBY is powerful in Congress and they LOVE this and so don’t count on science having much to do with the debate.


Its like GW - a little science and a LOT of politics

And then there is this one

Global warming 'may cut deaths

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7240463.stm

Well I'm something of an agnostic on this ethanol business but it doesn't surprise me that the WSJ would try to palm off the problem in promoting it stupidly on environmentalists rather than the agribusiness lobbies that advertise in the WSJ. Most of the objections I've read to inefficient biofuel practices, including diversion from food stuffs, have in fact come from environmentalists. Apparently there is a right way and a wrong way.

Here's another perspective on the matter. Apparently integrated farm management with agriculture wastes used as an energy source appears to be one way to go.

http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol_energy.html

I am with you – the FARM lobby owns half of the Congress on both sides of the isle.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6070100962.html

Maybe I am misunderstanding the argument against ethanol, but there is one reason that I think we can all support it's use: get away from foreign oil. Since we can't take advantage of all of the oil resources under our own land or expand refineries in our own country because of the environmentalist lobby, we need some solution. Right now we have ethanol. I know not all cars can accept the E85, but I have been putting the 15% variety in my car for as long as I can remember. The flex fuel cars are becoming more common, and even cheaper. Even if there is a higher cost for producing ethanol, that cost goes to American workers. I am a little bias, though. Ethanol has been great for Iowa's economy!

The problem is that it pollutes more than oil when used in gas and it raises the price of all food because corn is feed for most of the meat we eat. In effect we would be far better off just drilling for more oil on our land and in the ocean off our coasts – for now.

Then IMO we should spend whatever it takes to get to the next step – which is the conversion of grasses – like switch grass to fuel.

http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/bioen98/vogel.html

We're getting a long way from the original topic but I'll put in my 2 cents as well. Dingo is right to point out that corn based ethanol subsidies and mandates are largely the result of lobbying efforts by agribusinesses. While some environmentalists have supported its use as a foot in the door tactic leading to the use of other feed stocks, the majority of environmental opinion has been extremely skeptical. I have been reading articles for years suggesting that ethanol and perhaps other bio-fuels may be net energy users rather than a source of energy. Take This Article from Grist, an environmental site I have cited before.



I have written a number of letters to my Senators and Representative over the years opposing this approach. Where was the WSJ?

This is not off topic at all because, as you know, no country including the US is swimming in money to spare. And if we blow hundreds of billions on GW/CO2 reduction rather than say develop better nuclear plants and develop bio fuels from switch grass – then we have missed the boat.

Not here clearly.

http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol_energy.html#stdfarm

The global mean temperature has cooled slightly since 1998 .... interesting, and there has not been one word about it...


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jh...4/09/do0907.xml

Actually the statement you make has been repeated in the news and on the internet ad nauseum.

Just to set the record straight.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/scien...rdtemp2005.html



Like others you seem willfully to miss that the AGW theory states human induced carbon gas is the PRINCIPAL recent influence on global warming not the ONLY forcing effecting temperature change. So no, there is no expectation that temperature will go up in exact parallel with carbon gas increase. It is that clueless manner of argument that makes it easy to dismiss denialists as not scientifically serious and simply hyping a political agenda.

Year in and year out ice and snow have beat a steady retreat overall.



Here they discuss temperature variability.

Right and this is the crux of the disagreement as well. Sine the “true believers” cannot show (historically) to what extent CO2 actually causes warming we could be speaking about .1 deg C or 3 deg C over many decades. So the “true believers” like Gore just assume that CO2 and esp. that generated by us is the primary driver and that the high end, worst case numbers are “real”. This gives one the false idea that if we just spend a few trillion $$ over the next 20 years we can “fix” it.

At least now some of the IPCC fanatics are admitting that they cannot do squat without a big buy in from China and India – which they are not likely to get anytime soon.

Dingo, thanks for continuing your efforts to educate the reluctant! I don't think we will make much progress but events will eventually overwhelm them. Sometime back the NCDC NOA report on weather anomalies for 2006 was link on this forum. Here is the report for 2007 and Here is the accompanying map of world anomalies (expand it).

With respect to discussion of differentiating trends from weather variability, I recommend This Realclimate Article. See the graph especially.

Well I see progress here. It used to be whether CO2 caused global warming. Now it's refined to what extent it causes GW. Knowing that somebody is going to get a bullet in the brain does not tell us exactly to what extinct the brain will be damaged by the bullet but we can make a fair guess the damage will be considerable. Ice core tests have shown a close if not exact correlation between CO2 increase and temperature increase(1). Short term and long term the evidence is in and the evidence shows CO2 is a GHG that resists the release of infrared energy from the earth to the stratosphere. This effect has been known since the 19th century but old established knowledge is no deterrent to the terminally clueless. There is even a fairly rough estimate I understand between the amount of CO2 increase and the predicted degree of temperature rise in the longer term(2). Still because of other forcing factors the longer term predictions must accommodate a range of possibilities but the millions of hours of research and modeling should give us some confidence that these vetted experts know something about what they are talking about.

Of course like the Genesis folks there will always be some who have their own personal and/or political agenda, and that agenda will not include serious science.

Here's a picture of what many scientists roughly think the the world temperature change will be over the next 50 years. They must have refined their modeling pretty good to come up with that degree of regional precision.

http://people.ccmr.cornell.edu/~plh2/group...arm/PREDICT.GIF

(1) These graphs give you something of the shorter term temperature variability within a generally longer term tendency to parallel CO2 rise. It is interesting to speculate on those instances where they dramatically diverged for an extended period, like judging from the graph, 130,000 to 120,000 BP. Volcanoes, windstorms, orbital wobble?. Oddly this gives the lie to the argument that CO2 in the atmosphere is almost strictly temperature generated.

http://people.ccmr.cornell.edu/~plh2/group...arm/CO2TEMP.GIF

(2) I read a 1998 estimate of 2.3 deg. C(Large margin of error) increase based on a doubling of CO2. Presumably the estimate has been revised with greater information.

Edit.
NH5, just caught your realclimate article. Good piece. It appears the 8 year trend line running through 2007 is about a 45 deg. angle up. So much for the cooling phenomenon. It also gives a clear demonstration of the dimming effect of the last two major volcanoes.

Dingo/TedN5:

Here's the piece from your man re increased northern forestation accompanying warming causing increased melt, and it's a pdf file, so don't say you weren't warned:

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/200...0_Greenland.pdf

And so, TedN5, is some forest good but other forest not? Can we ask the people in Bangladesh to move [with the world's help] if the world gains a bigger breadbasket from the land now frozen becoming land growing grain crops? In that sense, I don't care about the cause, since blaming a "polluting" non-pollutant CO2 isn't the issue, as instead the issue is, no matter the cause, do we gain more than we lose from the warming? From your side, all I hear about is rising sea level and the loss of ice sheets. Fine. But how about the increased global vegetation and more food to feed people? And less people dying from the temperature, since as I already knew and so already reported here, well, even the BBC is now making the point:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7240463.stm

Again, death from cold has always far outpaced death from warm. And it isn't even close. Why don't we ever hear your side speak to that? And back to my prior question, do we trade the 20,000 for the 6,000?

Wow, wouldn't that be neat if we could reduce the matter to death from cold vs. death from heat. We could ignore all those other marginal issues like massive flooding, increased forest fires, droughts and spreading deserts, insect and disease spread(Malaria in California, I just can't wait), loss of water runoff, increased intensity of hurricanes, coral destruction, species die off - lots of fun things.

These statistics on deaths only apply to temperate zones. An expansion of the tropics and tropical diseases would make them pale in comparison. The real issue is the one of ecological systems lack of ability to adapt to rapid climate change and the impact this has on the ability to feed a world population set to expand to 9 billion. We could experience millions of deaths or even billions in the long term. Adding to Dingo's list, here is an Article regarding the expansion of dead zones in the oceans in formerly productive waters, a phenomenon probably linked to GW. (See This LA Times Article reproduced by Common Dreams).

.

I never said CO2 had no effect on warming. And the fact that temperature went up and TNEN CO2 concentrations were higher is not clear cause and effect – the kind that can tell you how mush the CO2 actually contributed.

.

Right ROUGE est. and LONG term – with lots of variation – so tell me why I should spend 100s of billions on this again?


“precision” is part of the model and the models are limited as has been discussed. They are little more than the rough estimates and new data could make them totally invalid any time.


Warming and the following of CO2 may not be the big picture or a firm cause and effect relationship as the “believers” want us to buy into.

Ted HERE is an article from Grist with a Link to the Scientific American article that speaks to your concerns about cost and energy independence.

Temperature increase causes more CO2 and more CO2 causes increased temperature, it's interactive.

For some reason believer/ideologue/religionists are addicted to either/or worlds.


Because the general trend line is a slam dunk and the damage will be in the many trillions.


Back in the late 70s when there was still a serious debate as to whether temperature was headed up in the future or headed down the modelers went to work and decided the models showed them that by the year 2000 there would be a substantial increase in temperature due to the influence of ghgs. They were right. Modeling has improved considerably since then.

I suppose this deserves a reply? I guess by "my man" you are referring to Jim Hansen of NASA although the author of your citation is unclear other than through a reference to how to be removed from his email list. The point the author makes in the article is that the evidence of forests in Southern Greenland during a previous interglacial period should be alarming since current temperatures are within one degree centigrade or both interglacial maximums and temperatures are set to rise at least 2 degrees C by the end of the century. He suggests that the expansion of northern boreal forests will lead to a change in the amount of heat absorbed by dark forests versus snow covered and open landscapes. This in turn will lead to increased glacial melting and a rapid rise in sea levels. His conclusions are entirely consistent with the model projections I posted showing a significant rise in average temperature if northern forests expand.

It's not that some forests are good others are not. It is rather that existing balances are being disrupted leading to feedbacks we don't understand. It's like CO2. Some of it keeps the earth from being frigid, too much may cause such a rapid temperature change that it will be difficult, if not impossible, for existing species to adapt. The whole subject is another cautionary tale about assuming something is part of the solution before the issue is carefully studied.

No we can't or won't move future Bengal climate refugees any more than we have moved those from Darfur or the political refugees from around the world. Your assumption about an expansion of food production in a globally warmed world is also flawed. While Northern Canada and Russia may benefit, the Mid West and the South East will be drier, so will much of the Mediterranean and North Africa. Vast areas of Asia and South America that rely on glacial melt for summer water may be left without.

From the article: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/15/7082/



So it isn't the higher temperatures that are the culprit, it is the stronger winds. These stronger winds cause more upwelling, which increases the available nutrients (which is what made the area a good fishery in the first place), which caused the hypoxia.

Notice that the mechanism here is that there is too much growth at the bottom of the food chain. The phytoplankton isn't consumed by higher animals and dies off, drifts to the bottom of the ocean and forms a rich area for bacteria to grow. These bacteria rob the water of oxygen.

This is an interesting theory on the mechanism and I wish I had a full copy of this study. You see, the Gulf of Mexico is also experiencing increased dead zones (hypoxic areas) and the mechanism is the same but the cause is entirely different. In that case, it is believed that nitrate fertilizers from the Mississippi valley region is the culprit.

The Benguela Current off of Africa is similar to the California Current and has undergone cyclical hypoxic episodes which are unrelated to climate change.

What's my point? Perhaps the urge to blame climate change for things isn't the right urge. Perhaps we are simply learning more about the mechanisms of how the earth functions and we are realizing that we live in a dynamic world, not a static one.

Dingo
.

How about that. And the rate is unknown. And the root cause of the initial rise is sure as hell not CO2 by definition.



Trend lines have this habit of changing don’t they and the ‘range” is very large.



But not nearly enough to give us CO2s contribution to the rise and no certainty as to the extent or duration of temperature rise. Certainly when you start your “measurements” at the end of the “little ice age” you can expect it to get warmer.




Certainly sounds doable and yet out friend in Congress, on either side of the isle, have done squat since 1960. Bush has done more than the previous 2 administrations. But I agree it is TIME to do something and quickly.

Try earth wobble as a common initiator. Then the feedback kicks in. And the rate of temperature rise relative to CO2 rise is pretty well known within a certain range. I think I laid it out earlier.


The low end of the range trends upwards but of course the trend could go down with some sort of unusual forcing. You might want to offer what that forcing might be. In the mean time the more and more accurate models have us headed for disaster and no one is offering an alternative possibility based on sound evidence.


The global warmers got it right and as I said they are getting better and better with their models and if you look at the IPCC charts on temp. forcings, which you obviously haven't, you will see indeed that they give the annual contribution of CO2 to temperature rise. As far as your little ice age remark, the stuff I've seen is that looking at natural forcing minus the AGW factor there would probably be almost no cumulative change in temperature since 1880. Furthermore the general temp. trend over the last 8000 years has been gradually downward. If the temperature goes up 3 degrees Cent. by the end of the century which seems likely without radically changing our standard energy use practices the temperature will probably be about as high as it has been in 120 thousand years. That's a lot to risk so you can drive your SUV on fossil fuel.

Ya right “wobble” – give me a break. And CO2 correlation to temperature rise is as a follower and can be caused by many other factors with CO2 rise being more of a “result” of the rise than the cause. And imo the “models” are not even close to definitively telling the difference.



That number in on the high side and as you might expect over 100 years we could easily adapt to it if we had to and it would actually save lives in places where (like UK) more people die every year from cold than hot.

And I don’t have a SUV and I spent lots of $ to build an insulated house (you have one) with ZERO help from our stupid government. The key to alternative energy id to do something now by funding IT instead of wasting money on just CO2 reduction.

By the way I love liberal towns like the ones here in MA. In my town a man wanted to put up a windmill (75K) so he would be off the grid. It would have been invisible and quiet – but his neighbors and the town permit weenies STOPPED it. So much for that.

And of course you have heard about our far left idiot Senator Ted Kennedy that has held up a windmill farm off the coast for TEN YEARS because he can see it from his “compound” in Hyannis MA.

Bottom line is I want to spend the money on alternative energy and energy independence not on speculation that CO2 is going to “force” the temp up 3 deg C in 100 years.

For all of you who are unconvinced by the overwhelming evidence that the build up of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are causing the climate to change, maybe you will be more convinced by the related and equally threatening phenomena of ocean acidification. It may be an even greater threat from the excess CO2 now in the atmosphere and being added to at an increasing rate. One of every 4 molecules of CO2 now in the atmosphere was put there by humans. There would be more but a significant fraction gets absorbed by the oceans. This changes their Ph and the ability of coral and other tiny animals at the base of the food chain to form calcium carbonate shells.

(See National Geographic Article).

Odd TedN5 that you missed this story which conflicts with the Party Line from the same Organization. You may have to send the hit squad and have these “non-believers” purged for this heresy!


NEWS FROM NOAA ***
NATIONAL OCEANIC & ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION U. S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON, DC
Contact: Dennis Feltgen, NOAA 305-229-4404
Increased Hurricane Losses Due to More People,
Wealth Along Coastlines, Not Stronger Storms, New Study Says

A team of scientists have found that the economic damages from hurricanes have increased in the U.S. over time due to greater population, infrastructure, and wealth on the U.S. coastlines, and not to any spike in the number or intensity of hurricanes.

“We found that although some decades were quieter and less damaging in the U.S. and others had more land-falling hurricanes and more damage, the economic costs of land-falling hurricanes have steadily increased over time,” said Chris Landsea, one of the researchers as well as the science and operations officer at NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami. “There is nothing in the U.S. hurricane damage record that indicates global warming has caused a significant increase in destruction along our coasts.”
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard...tive-hurricanes



And as you know “acidity” is also related to the sulfur and other nasty and harmful outputs of power plants – i.e. – REAL pollution – as in acid rain.

Sorry to have to flatten your denialist religion Ted, but hurricane intensity influenced by GW is generally acknowledged as an area of great dispute. Landsea believes in AGW and even accepts some influence on hurricanes from sea warming, just not as much as other scientists.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/weather/jul...ence_10-18.html

I think we've crossed the rubicon. AGW denialists are now forced to use AGW believers to keep pushing their agenda.

From the standpoint of the BA's Lysenkoists, Landsea was a good boy. He did his duty.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/09/19/noaa/

There is nothing new here, Ted. Far from being a cornerstone of consensus climate science, the discussion of tropical cyclones frequency and intensity has always been hotly contested with reputable scientist on both sides of the debate. I have stated several times that these are not settled issues. I haven't looked up a reputable account of this particular study but judging from your post and link it was about trends in hurricane damage in the US and says very little about trends in tropical cyclone intensity either in the North Atlantic or worldwide.

Yes, I will acknowledge that acid rain has some impact on ocean acidification, primarily in coastal waters, but the major impact is from rapid rise in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

(See this National Science Foundation Article).

If you want to look at something more technical about how increased levels of CO2 are impacting the PH of the oceans try this Realclimate 2005 Article post before some of the recent papers created a heightened sense of urgency about this issue.

My point in raising this issue here is to point out that no matter how one chooses to interpret the evidence about GHG induced GW, the rapid increase in CO2 concentrations is still a serious matter for other reasons.

I did in fact address the hurricane intensity trend for the Atlantic in post #66.

http://www.americasdebate.com/forums/index...st&p=230298

Dingo, I'm not sure what point you were trying to make regarding the discussion of hurricane trends. My remarks were directed at Ted's post in reply to one of mine. I certainly didn't mean to imply that the issue was a tossup, only that it wasn't a settled matter and part of the GW consensus view. I have been raising this subject for years. For my views see Weather Events 1, particularly Post #1 and Post #47.

I realize you were addressing Ted and in fact your comments about the matter of GW influencing hurricane intensity being unresolved were similar to mine. My reason for posting was to follow up on your noting that Ted had not addressed hurricane trends in the North Atlantic. In response I linked to a post where I had in fact addressed the matter. No criticism, just offering hopefully a useful set of data to indicate a possible relationship between warming seas and increased hurricane intensity.

PS. Your Discovery Channel and RealClimate links on post 47 of GW and WE 1 don't work. I'd be interested the see them if you can reconnect to the articles.

So Much for Global Warming
By Phil Brennan
NewsMax.com | 2/20/2008

“Are the world’s ice caps melting because of climate change, or are the reports just a lot of scare mongering by the advocates of the global warming theory?
Scare mongering appears to be the case, according to reports from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that reveal that almost all the allegedly “lost” ice has come back. A NOAA report shows that ice levels which had shrunk from 5 million square miles in January 2007 to just 1.5 million square miles in October, are almost back to their original levels.

An ongoing record-long spell of cold weather in Vietnam’s northern region, which started on Jan. 14, has killed nearly 60,000 cattle, mainly bull and buffalo calves, local press reported Monday. By Feb. 17, the spell had killed a total of 59,962 cattle in the region, including 7,349 in the Ha Giang province, 6,400 in Lao Cai, and 5,571 in Bac Can province, said Hoang Kim Giao, director of the Animal Husbandry Department under the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, according to the Pioneer newspaper.”
http://globalwarminghoax.wordpress.com/

Yes I know TedN5 and Dingo – It’s the fault of AGW. – of course.

Poor Ted, he can't seem to find anymore scientists ready to debunk AGW so he trots out a no nothing ideologue from an anti-GW site.



Long term trends take into account one year inconsistencies and GW presumes temporary local or regional cold patterns. I'd think by now such elementary truths would have sunk in but I guess that denialist religion just is going to keep grabbing for those old discarded cigarettes butts that you call evidence.

Meanwhile, scientist are becoming increasingly concerned about trends in the cryosphere not included in the IPCC's AR4 review, and not just those in Greenland and the Arctic.

(BBC Article).



I'm not sure what happened to these links. I did a search on Realclimate.org for the one and didn't find it. I seem to recall a notice that they had had problems with their server and lost some files, most were restored but perhaps this one wasn't. I haven't looked for the other one.

Interesting article. Further down they suggest a contributing factor for ice lost here that is not AGW related.



Frankly I had never really thought about volcanoes as being a contributer to major ice removal.

Just noticed the above post didn't bump up at the home site or acknowledge my post. This is the first time I have seen that at this forum although it has happened at others. A bump up ought to do the trick.

I was aware of the suggestion that volcanic activity might be contributing to Antarctic ice loss prior to reading this article. The whole issue, however, illustrates the fallacy in the logic of seizing on every alternative cause to debunk greenhouse gas forcing, when in reality, any of these other forcings or contributing melts that prove to have some merit only serve to make the consequences worse than AGW projections indicate.

.

I know – if you don’t agree – regardless of the “data” you are a denialist, ideologue, etc.

More words to dismiss the data. And yes the “fanatics” have said that even if the world cooed and all the ice came back they are still – RIGHT.

Ya I see now.

I'm afraid the data isn't your friend on this one Ted. To let you know where I was coming from there are different levels of folks who don't believe in evolution. I was just encouraging you to upgrade your denialism.

Yes and the “data” is not your friend either when the very group of fanatics who tell us it is “99% certain” CO2 produced by us is the cause of any warming – knowing that debate is stifled – even peer reviewed data scoffed at, and the models used for the ‘predictions” are one hell of a long way from producing this accuracy.

“According to the IPCC, the majority of climatologists agree that important climate processes are imperfectly accounted for by the climate models Scientists point out that there are specific flaws in the models, such as albedo errors, and external factors not taken into consideration that could change the conclusion above. GCMs are capable of reproducing the general features of the observed global temperature over the past century [17].
A debate over how to reconcile climate model predictions that upper air (tropospheric) warming should be greater than surface warming, with observations some of which appeared to show otherwise [18] now appears to have been resolved in favour of the models, following revisions to the data: see satellite temperature record.

The effects of clouds are a significant area of uncertainty in climate models. Clouds have competing effects on the climate”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_circulation_model

“At the Prometheus blog, you'll find lots of posts concerned with testing the predictions of climate models. It's a little hard to test those predictions because the IPCC offers projections for a whole variety of scenarios (depending on CO2 output, methane output, etc.), and one can argue forever about which scenario is actually unfolding. This makes the models almost untestable, which is great for global warming enthusiasts (because, like Frued's theory of psychoanalysis, the models can't be proven wrong). Also, various temperature readings that can be used to test the models seem to wildly disagree with each other, so determining what is actually happening to the global temperature is not as easy as I thought. For example, here is one graph that looks at IPCC projections for the worst-case CO2 output scenario (called the A1F1 scenario):”
At the beginning of the graph, you can see recent temperature measurements taken by satellite (the little red squiggly line). Most agree that CO2 output these days corresponds to the worst case scenario, so temperatures ought to be increasing according to these predictions. So far, though, the satellite measures suggest that we are a bit too cool.

In later posts, other temperature readings are shown, such as surface temperatures taken by NASA. The NASA values more closely correspond to the model predictions. Unfortunately, the highly politicized scientist James Hansen is apparently in charge of those measurements. This is one reason why it's bad for scientists to be political animals. Would you trust findings reported by a conservative right wing activist scientist purporting to show that abortions cause women to later suffer from debilitating mental illness? No, you'd wait for other non-partisan scientists to weigh in on the matter. Even the most honest partisan scientists (which James Hansen may very well be) cannot keep their unconscious biases at bay. This obvious phenomenon applies to every domain of scientific research, though, again, perhaps climate scientists are uniquely superhuman in this regard. In any case, here is the same chart, but this time Hansen's measurements included (in blue):
http://engram-backtalk.blogspot.com/2008/0...ls-to-test.html

So models are inexact, and some scientists might have outcome biases. What does that have to do with 4 straight IPCC reports over nearly 2 decades concluding that AGW is a reality. The direction of warming has been pretty much as predicted and the science has been highly peer reviewed to cover for biases. I don't need to have every i dotted and every t crossed to see that man produced carbon gas is contributing to a warming trend.

The IPCC is producing substantial reports with lots of descriptions and lots of graphs to make their point and countries and their scientists from across the globe have signed off on it. I don't see any of the denialists producing a similarly comprehensive report based on vetted studies. At least the general picture of what's happening seems pretty well established if not all the details worked out. And apparently the climatologists ability to predict from their models has improved quite significantly.

Do you know any scientific group or association that's been around for a while that rejects AGW?

Because that is the basis for the predictions sir. Ya the world has warmed somewhat but the stretch to AGW and CO2 as the driver and the big predicted rise over the next decades IS the modeling.
So how can you be 99% sure with a model that is maybe 45% accurate – or less?

99% sure with respect to the fact of the important role of human activities in influencing global warming. The 45% is of course meaningless because predictions are made within a broad range. Obviously one can't predict all the forcing factors in the future nor know politically how much we will be able to slow energy use and convert to alternatives to fossil fuels. That doesn't obviate the demonstrably slam dunk relationship between carbon gas and the retention of solar energy.

And I dispute that as do others. AND as you say “broad range”. And here is where the models come in. We will spend trillions in the world on the bet that CO2 is the driver and that the warming will be more than .3 deg – and all this will be based on inaccurate models.

Real stupid.