Hotter Now Than in the Last 400 Years

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@HB: Contrary to what NOG is implying, scientists have been studying these areas and even accepted some of those theories 30 years ago. They were discounted as scientist learned more about our historical weather patterns and the mechanisms at work today. Every year, there is more evidence that what we are experiencing isn't cyclical and won't go away unless we change our behaviour. The earth, like the human body, can repair itself. The big problem is that it's hard to undo damage done by excessive greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere when we keep releasing more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In other words, if you keep ripping off the scab (releasing additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere), the wound takes longer to heal.

With his CO2 example, NOG also left out the important fact that the reason we call "greenhous gases" what we call them is that they hold CO2 in the atmosphere, thus throwing off the normal ratio of atmospheric gases and causing a "greenhouse effect". In other words, his argument actually contributes to the position of the climatologists studying global warming in a positive way.

 

Still seems mind-blowingly complex to me.

 

Whew, where to begin in that mass of anger?
First, I have studied this subject for many years and everything I read, once I filter through the resurcher/comity/author/publishers own agenda and bias I can clearly see that while man has an impact on global warming mankind is not the sole or biggest impact. While it is true man does a lot to pollute the environment all pollution does not equal greenhouse gas and while I am against fossil fuels and the reduction in thier use would help with environmental conditions they are not the cause of global warming. If you would bother to look at research on geological changes, historical weather patterns, and planetary changes exclussive of global warming you could find a window in your cabin, theodore kaczynski.
As for Hitler's scientists, If you would bother to find some "links" about history or even better, open a book, you wold see that even though German and Japanese scientists committed horrible acts against humanity but were able to trade thier advanced research data for freedom and in some cases new identities and jobs in the USA and other places. A lot of the advanced technologies we enjoy today have thier roots in the Third Reich & the Land of the Rising Sun no matter how disgusting thier methods. And while I shouldn't even graced this ignorance with a response, history is history wheather you approve of its outcomes or not. It's disgusting that I should have to be insulted for bringing up a valid point in this psudo debate at all....although it does wonders for your zealotry

 

Bassil: The entire climatological community is in agreement on global warming. There hasn't been a study disagreeing with the premise that our current excessive global warming exists due to excessive greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere by man in a peer reviewed scientific journal in 13 years. Not a single one. I guess that means every single climatologist who publishes his work is the Una-Bomber, huh?

It isn't zealotry to side with the (unnoposed for 13 years) consensus of scientists who are experts in a given field. It isn't "radical". It isn't "left-wing". It's science.....and accepting the fact that, if 99.9% of climatologists agree on something, they are far more likely to be right than I am. Even the scientists that president Bush hired specifically to disprove global warming ultimately agreed with the climatological community's consensus on the matter.

And don't for a single second compare the dehumanizing "research" done in the name of "science" to the research done on global warming. It's completely off base and it's disgusting. Just to point out the inanity of the non-published or reviewed "research" your are referring to which somehow "proves" the superiority of the Aryan race, I'd like to point out that measuring the different cranial sizes of selected individuals or the point at which oxygen deprivation will kill them or de-pressurization will cause them to bleed out and die hardly constitutes proof that one race is "better" than another. Cranial capacity doesn't dictate intelligence. If it did, Andy Mcdowel (famous actress and member of Mensa) would have a much bigger head than I do (she doesn't). That "research" done to prove Arian superiority was just an excuse to torture "lesser beings" in the name of "science". Comparing it to the research on global warming, or just about any other research ever done on anything at all for that matter, is crude, offensive, and sick.

[ July 05, 2006, 04:35: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

Yes, this issue is extremely complex. There are a wide number of variables to concider, a number of which we are just now beginning to understand. The geomagnetic factor I mentioned was just discovered a few years ago, and the exact relationship between CO2 concentrations and plant mass has only recently been measured. By the way Drew, greenhouse gasses don't effect plant absorbtion from my understaning of things,

The thing that really bugs me is that I keep seeing this graphic: Temp Changes 1880 to 2003 cut down to only include that last increase from 1972 on. Many global warming sites would have you believe that that was the trend being discussed and that it is completely consistent instead of the much larger trend which is actually on-track with the less conservative projected recovery estimates from the Little Ice Age.

The reason there have been no studies published int the past 13 years against global warming is because the scientists disagreeing with it haven't yet had their problems with it addressed. To put it simply, the ball is in the 'global warming' scientists' court and they are largely ignoring it.

Also, the science conducted by the Nazis and Japanese was valid science. The intent and the polotics both before and after were offensive and abusive of the science, but there's a reason NASA and NACA before them payed so much attention to those studies on oxygen deprivation. And we're still harvesting good information from the Japanese studies on disease spread and processes. These are like the 'forbidden experiments' in psychology. No one would ever want to raise up a child intentionally never exposing them to any kind of language just to see what happens, but if it does come about, a lot of valuable data can be harvested from the event.

On a side note: Drew, I find your emotional reaction to this topic, as well as others we've discussed in the past, both unfounded and unproductive. No one here is saying that reseach was good or that the people should have done it, just that they took proper notes and didn't fudge the data. I think you need to take a step back and reconcider the situation.

 

Correct. However, the point I was making is that greenhouse gases are disrupting this natural cycle within the atmosphere.

Dude, we aren't taliking about some random envioronmental website. We are talking about
the consensus opinon of climatologists. If you didn't read the link the first time, there it is again. Scientists aren't always right, but this refusal to accept the consensus opinion of climatologists without any peer reviewed research pointing to a different conclusion is just silly.

Links to published research by respected climatologists denegrating global warming, please. I've graciously provided several links and have stuck to the facts as we currently understand them. I'd appreciate the same courtesy.

@Nazi Research: Bassil was specifically referencing research done for the purposes of proving the superiority of the Aryan race. That was specifically the "research" I was denigrating. Also, people tend to get offended when you compare them to Nazi's. It isn't very nice.

I wasn't being emotional.....perhaps a little condescending or overly blunt, but emotional? I was actually giggling like a schoolgirl when I responded to Bassil's post regarding how Nazi scientists had somehow "proven" the superiority of the Aryan race. No one has ever "proven" the superiority of one race over another in any kind of verifiable scientific way. It was a stupid and meaningless comparison and I called him on it (although I could have been a lot nicer, I admit). I'd appreciate it if you take any other personal issues you have with me to PM. I go off topic on my own often enough......


I'd like to close this overly lengthy post with a couple of questions: If every climatologist who has published his work in a refereed scientific journal is wrong, but we still take precautions by lowering the ammount of emmisions we release into the air and switching to renewable sources for our energy, what does that really cost us? Who does it hurt?

Now, If every climatologist who publishes his work in refereed scientific journals is right about global warming and we do nothing about it, what will that cost us? Who will that hurt?

[ July 05, 2006, 12:57: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

Oh, I'm not saying we shouldn't lower pollution. Just on a local scale, pollution can be seen to have dramatic effects (i.e. Mexico City). What I'm arguing against is the people that are saying more people are dying because we are making more hurricanes with global warming. What I'm arguing against is the people that say we are the only significant contributer to our environment and if we fix ourselves, the world will follow. There are more forces at work than man, and everything won't be peachy-keen if we just cut emissions. The world has always been hard and dangerous to live in and it will continue to be. All we can do is not look to add to our problems.

 

True enough. There are more forces at work than just man. On the other hand, the consensus of the scientific community is that the majority of the excessive global warming we are experiencing is caused by man......and for good reason. When a catastrophic volcanic eruption occurs, it puts as many greenhouse gases into the envioronment as we (humans) put into the environment in one year. That's the thing, though. We don't have catastrophic volcanic eruptions every year. But we do release the same ammount of greenhouse gases as a catastrophic eruption......every year. On years where we actually have a really nasty eruption, the effect on the atmosphere would be as if we had two. The scientific consensus is that this is more than our planets natural regulatory processes can handle. Given that we are the only steady and substantial (please note my special emphasis on the word "substantial"...while there are factors that add a steady source of greenhouse gases and sources that occasionally add substantial greenhouse gases, there is only one source adding them both steadilly and substantially) source of greenhouse gases being released into the environment, it's pretty obvious where those greenhouse gases are coming from. I'm not saying that they are necessarily right....just that this is the consensus of experts in the field that know a hell of a lot more about global warming and the mechanisms surrounding it than I do.

Sure, maybe every climatologist who has published an article in a refereed journal in the last 13 years could be wrong, but you have to at least to admit that it's kind of unlikely. Every year, there is more evidence of global warming going out of control. The case keeps getting stronger. While global warming won't kill anyone (at least not any humans) directly if we do nothing to prevent it, assuming the consensus opinion is correct, the rising waters which will ultimately cover our coastal cities and make them uninhabitable will, at the very least, be an economic catastrophe (the largest concentrations of our population live in coastal cities). I think we should stay on the safe side and listen to the consensus of our climatologists. If the consensus is right and we do nothing about it our future isn't exactly going to be pretty.

[ July 06, 2006, 03:21: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

@Drew:
1.) A catestrophic eruption does not equal the output of man for one year, but the output of man for most if not all of the entire history of the industrial revolution. Mt. St. Helens, a catastrophic event, more than equaled all the greenhouse gasses mankind had put into the air for the past 200 years, all at once. The eruption in Hawai'i that's been going on for the last 16 or so years equals 1/4 of the US's contribution day-for-day and year-for-year. If you consider how many of them are going off rather continuously in the Ring of Fire, you find both a steady and substantial impact. Actually, all the cows in Montana apparently put out more greenhouse gasses than all the human activities on the average year. I suppose you could argue that most of those cows wouldn't be there if humans weren't there, but something else would be.

2.) You are drastically overstating the 'consensus' among the climatological community. There may have been no papers that claimed global warming wasn't happening, but there have been a number citing significant contributing factors other than man and even more saying things won't be as bad as so many have claimed. The original estimates for the impact of melting ice on sea level assumed that all ice everywhere would melt, which would produce catestrophic flooding. New simulations, however, that concider the cooling effects of this process as well as some other discounted factors, find that the ice caps, as well as ice and snow on mountains, will not totally melt, but will reach a new equilibrium. These reports show only minimal rises in sea level.

3.) The enhanced greenhouse hypothesis states that Antarctica, being a large, cold, and dry land mass, should exibit the most significant response to increased CO2 levels. Well, the data's in and it doesn't. From 1948 to 1973, when CO2 was increasing at a tiny crawl in Antarctica, there was a significant warming trend. The catch, however, is that from 1973 on, when CO2 concentration has been increasing MUCH more dramatically in Antarctica, there has actually been a cooling trend. It would seem that things aren't working out quite the way we had expected.

The interesting thing here is that, in these same periods of time, the North Pole's ice levels and temperatures did more or less the opposite. Add into that concerns about freak winds off the Indian Ocean causing localized warming in the Atlantic and a myriad of other factors and you start to get the impression that we may just not know everything about the issue.

 

NOG: You're gonna need links to peer reviewed scientific data if you expect me to believe any of this. I'm quoting the consensus opinion from available position papers released by the climatological community (many of which can be found in links from this thread), so the burden of proof is actually on you, here. I won't link to the consensus statement again, but will only point out that I haven't said anything they didn't say. The only peer reviewed studies released which have disagreed on the scientific community's global warming stance have actually been about past events. Not one peer reviewed study released in the last 13 years has disagreed with the scientific communities position on what is causing global warming now. Don't shoot the messenger, man. I'm only parroting what the climatological community keeps saying. If you want to try and disprove it, knock yourself out, but I wash my hands of it. Frankly, I lack both the time and inclination to go out and get the PhD I'd need to actually be able to give any kind of cogent and credible criticism to their current position on global warming and what causes it....so I'm going to accept their consensus until that consensus changes. When it changes, I'll accept that consensus as well. If you've read the links on the scientific consensus on the matter, than you know what it said. I need not repeat it for the 20th time. You don't need to hear more explanations from me. Take it up with them, if you have a problem with their position.

[ July 06, 2006, 10:14: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

@ DMC, I agree that things are getting but most good arguments are but still I sincerly apologize to all for my behavior.

 

I find it funny that this is an issue on which peoples opinion seem to be decided more on which side of the political spectrum they are than on personal views.

How can this issue have turned into yet another abortion/gay/Iraq like issue where leftist is saying aye on one side and rightist nay on the other. It could just be that one or both sides are blinded by ideology and propaganda. Which one is it though?

 

http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/frequent_questions/grp6/question1375.html
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Hazards/What/VolGas/volgas.html
http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/Gases/man.html

In other words, sorry NOG, but the evidence shows that man's output of CO2 overwhelms the output of volcanoes by over 150 times.

Actually, Drew, we're currently in an ice age. We have been for the past 10,000 years. Any time that ice is present at the poles, it is an ice age.

Links for anyone interested in the opposing position:
http://www.skepticism.net/faq/environment/global_warming/

I strongly recommend that people read both sides of the issue before reaching any conclusion. I agree with joacquin that this thread is turning into a political argument instead of a scientific one.

 

Please pardon my lapse in terminology. The theory to which I was referring is the one which states that the rate at which glaciers will again spread across the land will actually be greatly increased due to the "temperature backlash" caused by the melting of the polar ice caps. In other words, the ice age we are experiencing will be greatly accelerated by global warming.

 

My point was not that "Nazi scientists had somehow "proven" the superiority of the Aryan race." My point, as NOG correctly deduced, was pointing out that brilliant scientist made many advanced, solid, Irrefutable discoveries in various fields ( regardless of how barbaric some of thier work was carried out ) and then used thier profession to back a ridiculous quest to prove the superiority of the Aryan race ( what ever that was). An unscientific and clearly political claim. These people who had made great strides in physics, biology, and other fields wasted thier "scientific credibility" to satisfy a political claim that clearly will never be backed up by anything more than arbitrary, made up psudo science. I was not promoting Naziizm, racism, or Aryan research. I am not a racist, I beleive that all mankind is created equel and pronounced good by thier creator. I was simply pointing out that it is not unheard of for science to be set aside in favor of a political view. I do not dispute that the world is warming up. But thier are many reasons for it and man is not the main cause. This is part of a natural cycle. we may make parts of the cycle more intense but the Earth will change us long before we change it. So keep giggling like a schoolgirl and showing what a closed minded, prejudice, leftist you are and I will Keep going And to quote Fel again:

Good Day Sir.

 

To bring up Mengele & Co. against the majority of climatologists - aka leftist nutjobs - is beyond the distateful. The detractor's mudslinging, and nothing but.

It gets better and better.