Poll

is global warming a real threat

yes71%71% - 337
no28%28% - 135
Total: 472
sagexp
Member
+16|6757

Cheeky_Ninja06 wrote:

the dinosaurs managed to live on earth without any ice caps. maybe they burnt fossil fuels too? surely they must have had al this extreme weather we are predicted. and all of the world was under water etc etc :S
The dinosaurs lived on a massive super continent called Pangea, I know which subsequently broke up when they were hitting there hey day, but it stayed centred around the equator for a hell of a long time. The antartic as we know it was near the equator hence no sourthern ice cap, there was definetly a Northern one but proof is impossible.
This would mean they would not have our weather systems or currents and there were probably conditions for ice ages but they would not have affected the dinos the way they will affect Northern Europe and Northern America if they do come and all us sapiens are still on this ball of dirt
Cheeky_Ninja06
Member
+52|6935|Cambridge, England
no it would not ahve been the same but surely if their avg. temp was 10c higher than ours then their weather must have been amazingly extreme, if you pay attention to the media regarding the predicted extremeties of our weather systems after a few degree rise. (and yes here be sarcasm )

and it wasnt a particularly well thought out point, i was merely indicating the climate was much higher way before we could possibly have had an effect.

Last edited by Cheeky_Ninja06 (2006-07-07 03:00:05)

sagexp
Member
+16|6757
Massive extreme weather systems build over oceans but dissapte over land, now with the larger continents of the dinosaur era they would have had little effect over the majority of the land masses.
And besides we have no idea how there weather systems worked, there atmosphere was different to ours , we dont know what there weather was like, my whole point was they were centered around the equator while our major world continents are more wide spread across the globe both north and south so any extremes will be caught by human inhabitated land masses. We cant pretend we have not contributed to global warming no matter how small it may turn out to be
My concern would be global warming contributing to a swing in the gulf stream which ironicaly could trigger a mini ice age in Europe. A lot of evidence is showing up pointing to this event happening before in relatively recent past and with decreased salinty due to excess freshwater it could swing south again
PuckMercury
6 x 9 = 42
+298|6730|Portland, OR USA

sagexp wrote:

Massive extreme weather systems build over oceans but dissapte over land, now with the larger continents of the dinosaur era they would have had little effect over the majority of the land masses.
And besides we have no idea how there weather systems worked, there atmosphere was different to ours , we dont know what there weather was like, my whole point was they were centered around the equator while our major world continents are more wide spread across the globe both north and south so any extremes will be caught by human inhabitated land masses. We cant pretend we have not contributed to global warming no matter how small it may turn out to be
My concern would be global warming contributing to a swing in the gulf stream which ironicaly could trigger a mini ice age in Europe. A lot of evidence is showing up pointing to this event happening before in relatively recent past and with decreased salinty due to excess freshwater it could swing south again
Someone watched the Day After Tomorrow
kr@cker
Bringin' Sexy Back!
+581|6752|Southeastern USA
yeah, that movie was hilarious, the point was basically that Dick Cheney gave a speech and froze the earth. Maybe that's why they aren't doing anything about the illegal immigrants, they don't want anyone there when we move into mexico.
.:XDR:.PureFodder
Member
+105|7032
Just checking, is this debate happening anywhere in the world except for America?
Bubbalo
The Lizzard
+541|6764
Given that the Kyoto Protocal has been created without US support, I'm gonna go ahead and say yeah.
.:XDR:.PureFodder
Member
+105|7032

Bubbalo wrote:

Given that the Kyoto Protocal has been created without US support, I'm gonna go ahead and say yeah.
I meant is there anywhere else in the world other than America where people are still debating if global warming is real or not. Most of the arguing against global warming I've read has been from the U.S.
kr@cker
Bringin' Sexy Back!
+581|6752|Southeastern USA
WHAAAA!!!! THE US DOESN"T WANT TO FINANCE CHINA'S ECONOMIC DEVELOPEMENT!!! WHAAAAA!!!!


dumbasses, make sure u write one up for mars to prevent the warming there, too


(point being that the Martian polar caps are melting, because what little bit of g/w there is is caused by the sun and there ain't nothing we can do about it)

edit: in reference to the kyoto protocol

Last edited by kr@cker (2006-07-10 05:42:39)

Bubbalo
The Lizzard
+541|6764
kr@cker, the world does go through phases of warm/cold, however evidence now suggests that we are warmer than we should be at this time.

Besides which, you won't be financing China's development, just allowing them to catch.  Winning in a fair fight, now isn't that a novel idea!
kr@cker
Bringin' Sexy Back!
+581|6752|Southeastern USA
So we pay money to clean up Italy because they use their entire year's pollution "vouchers" in their first quarter of production, but that's not us footing the bill to clean up someone else's env impact? We spend more time and money cleaning up other countries' messes than they do to clean themselves, withouth the KP. You should try reading it before posting again, and you may want to look up the environmental impact of the 3 Gorges Dam, too. It's flooding somewhere around 100 toxic and hazardous waste sites, including a few with nuke waste.
Bubbalo
The Lizzard
+541|6764
Why would I need to read up?  You contention was that the US would be footing the bill for China.  All you've shown is that you may or may not have footed the bill for Italy (I can't be bothered checking, it's irrelevant), and China needs to be more careful.
Jainus
Member
+30|6779|Herts, UK

Bubbalo wrote:

kr@cker, the world does go through phases of warm/cold, however evidence now suggests that we are warmer than we should be at this time.

Besides which, you won't be financing China's development, just allowing them to catch.  Winning in a fair fight, now isn't that a novel idea!
You never want a fair fight, you weigh the various factors in your favour and then crush your enemy. The most basic of all military maxims!! The only people who want a fair fight are the people who aren't good enough to win in the first place. You are there to win, fight an unfair fight and the enemy can piss off if he thinks your going to make it easy for him.

Getting back to the global warming topic; the simple truth is that nobody on either side really knows whats going on. Whats alarming most of the scientists who believe in global warming, is not that the temperatures are x degrees higher, but its the rate that things are changing thats concerning them. For all the "factual data" about the last 60trillion billion years, these readings are based upon educated guesses at best taken from tree rings or whatever. There is no substitute for the data that we can collect now and trying to compare the two is useless.

Why not spend less time looking for magic patterns and arguing over is it happening or not and look at what we know for definite.

1)  The temperature is going up

2)  Its at record highs since reliable readings began

3)  All the current trends point towards it getting warmer still

If you don't believe in global warming; then sit on your hands, drive your Hummers, pick your nose, do whatever the hell you want until there's nothing left of your face and all the crops have died and your in deep shit. At that point, go to your car and eat the starter motor and drink the petrol.

If you do believe in global warming; then stop whining about it and go and do something!! The number of people who say they believe its happening and then waste fuel, leave their TV on standby (yes you are still drawing around 30% of the total needed if it was on. do you and your electricity bill a favour and actually switch it off. I know, i know... complex), don't have proper insulation is obscene. Before you try and convert people, at least make sure you're not a hypocrite by doing all the things that your saying are bad for the planet. The easiest way for the anti-warming people to shoot you down is by your own inaction

Right... i feel better now . And by the way, my own opinions have little relevance to the above.
kr@cker
Bringin' Sexy Back!
+581|6752|Southeastern USA

Bubbalo wrote:

Why would I need to read up?  You contention was that the US would be footing the bill for China.  All you've shown is that you may or may not have footed the bill for Italy (I can't be bothered checking, it's irrelevant), and China needs to be more careful.
If you read then you would know that this was an illustration of the basic principles to he KP and other such nonsense. In regards to all of it's affected countries, poor countries get to pollute more and pay less, established countries, mostly the US, pay more and are penalized with even more fines if they can't meet a certain pollution goal.
Vilham
Say wat!?
+580|6969|UK

Darth_Fleder wrote:

Vilham wrote:

O Sorry i put an S on the end of pole. Are you now also claiming that the O3 molecules in the atmosphere arent been changed to O2 by greenhouse gases thus reducing the protection from UV rays at the sun thus causing increased energy in the H2O molecules thus melting them and causing water levels to rise??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone BAM!
No, I am not claiming that at all. I have no idea how you read that into what I did write. I acknowledge the correlation between some greenhouse gasses, primarily CFC's and the breakdown of O3. I was waiting for something a little more cogent from you after reading that inane post that you wrote. Now your claim that increased UV is causing global warming is very tenuous at best, ridiculous at worst. I saw nowhere in your Ozone article any link between Ozone depletion and global warming. Maybe you should read up a little on UV radiation. You may even refer to Wiki on this. You will note that there is no mention of global warming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB
Why is this? I'll tell you, it is because you are very confused about the mechanics of electromagnetic radiation and heat transfer.

A mini-lesson in basic electromagnetic physics:


Infrared.
The term "infrared" refers to a broad range of frequencies, beginning at the top end of those frequencies used for communication and extending up the the low frequency (red) end of the visible spectrum. The wavelength range is from about 1 millimeter down to 750 nm. The range adjacent to the visible spectrum is called the "near infrared" and the longer wavelength part is called "far infrared". In interactions with matter, infrared primarily acts to set molecules into vibration. It is molecular vibration that is detected as heat.

Visible Light.
The narrow visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum corresponds to the wavelengths near the maximum of the Sun's radiation curve. In interactions with matter, visible light primarily acts to set elevate electrons to higher energy levels. The primary mechanism for the absorption of visible light photons is the elevation of electrons to higher energy levels. There are many available states, so visible light is absorbed strongly. With a strong light source, red light can be transmitted through the hand or a fold of skin, showing that the red end of the spectrum is not absorbed as strongly as the violet end. While exposure to visible light causes heating, it does not cause ionization with its risks. You may be heated by the sun through a car windshield, but you will not be sunburned - that is an effect of the higher frequency UV part of sunlight which is blocked by the glass of the windshield.

Ultraviolet (UV).
The region just below the visible in wavelength is called the near ultraviolet. It is absorbed very strongly by most solid substances, and even absorbed appreciably by air. The shorter wavelengths reach the ionization energy for many molecules, so the far ultraviolet has some of the dangers attendant to other ionizing radiation. The tissue effects of ultraviolet include sunburn, but can have some therapeutic effects as well. The sun is a strong source of ultraviolet radiation, but atmospheric absorption eliminates most of the shorter wavelengths. The eyes are quite susceptible to damage from ultraviolet radiation. Welders must wear protective eye shields because of the UV content of welding arcs can inflame the eyes. Snow-blindness is another example of UV inflammation; the snow reflects UV while most other substances absorb it strongly.

I want you think of a cloudy day at the beach or on a sunny ski slope where the temperatures seem cool, yet later you notice that you have developed a nasty sunburn. UV is not a significant contributor to 'global warming', it poses a health threat of a completely different nature.


Vilham wrote:

The reason i wrote the top part is because what you are saying is exactly what american political scientists are saying thus justifying the fact that america isnt reducing its carbon emmission on the same scale as the rest of the world. The sheer fact that you refuse to accept that we are causing increases in carbon emmission thus themeratures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect) shows you as a nutta.
Your presenting of one Wikipedia article supporting your view hardly constitutes me being a 'nutta', Vilham,  it does however illustrate your limited understanding of the topic. I do not dispute that we are contributing to CO2 emissions, that was noted in the chart, it is just very minor at .28% of the total.
From your own writing about UV.

It is absorbed very strongly by most solid substances, and even absorbed appreciably by air.

Therefore the lack of O3 in the ozone at the north pole lets in increased amounts of UV thus making the ice warmer, through the water molecules absorbing the UV energy, thus heating up to melting point, thus melting parts of the north pole. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion if you had read the page rather than claiming to have read it you would have found this link.

now im realy not going to debate this anymore, we are increasing the rate of global warming enough that it makes a difference, now whether you are going to accept that and change your life style or not is up to you or you could continue debating it and doing nothing to help the world in its natural course whether that is it warming up naturally or not. Infact if we are going on your argument that it is warming up anyway without our help it quite clearly doesnt need our help in this process and therefore we should stop helping it.
[FB]Eraser
Back in battle after 3-year break
+39|6924|Switzerland
Very interesting post's in here, but it seems to go in a very sientific direction an there's a lot of hypothetical and unprooven stuff in here...

Perhaps this pic brings some simplicity into it, for the ones that have a real interest, but wont look at it the sientific way:

https://chronicle.augusta.com/images/headlines/080402/Global_Warming.jpg
PekkaA
Member
+36|6867|Finland
Apprently wasn't first link by darth, that he didn't bother reading first.
CrazeD
Member
+368|6876|Maine
The ignorance on these forums scares me.
kr@cker
Bringin' Sexy Back!
+581|6752|Southeastern USA

Vilham wrote:

Infact if we are going on your argument that it is warming up anyway without our help it quite clearly doesnt need our help in this process and therefore we should stop helping it.
if it's all about humans then why is the antarctic shelf thickening?

and eraser that pic is a horrible over simplification of things, especially considering it's source as the EPA's funding relies on scaring people into thinking they are necessary, and the fact that Mt Pinatubo released more pollutants and gases than man in total since the beginning of the industrial revolution

Last edited by kr@cker (2006-07-10 09:56:37)

Darth_Fleder
Mod from the Church of the Painful Truth
+533|7009|Orlando, FL - Age 43

Vilham wrote:

It is absorbed very strongly by most solid substances, and even absorbed appreciably by air.

Therefore the lack of O3 in the ozone at the north pole lets in increased amounts of UV thus making the ice warmer, through the water molecules absorbing the UV energy, thus heating up to melting point, thus melting parts of the north pole. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion if you had read the page rather than claiming to have read it you would have found this link.

now im realy not going to debate this anymore, we are increasing the rate of global warming enough that it makes a difference, now whether you are going to accept that and change your life style or not is up to you or you could continue debating it and doing nothing to help the world in its natural course whether that is it warming up naturally or not. Infact if we are going on your argument that it is warming up anyway without our help it quite clearly doesnt need our help in this process and therefore we should stop helping it.
Apparently junior, you do not even read your own articles (nor does PekkaA, or he would have caught this too). Only once is the word 'melt' used in the entirety of the article and that usage is NOT related to UVB. Again I state that the main concern with the depletion of the ozone layer is biological, not thermal.

Wikipedia wrote:

Consequences of ozone depletion
Since the ozone layer absorbs UVB ultraviolet light from the Sun, ozone layer depletion is expected to increase surface UVB levels, which could lead to damage, including increases in skin cancer. This was the reason for the Montreal Protocol. Although decreases in stratospheric ozone are well-tied to CFCs, and there are good theoretical reasons to believe that decreases in ozone will lead to increases in surface UVB, there is no direct observational evidence linking ozone depletion to higher incidence of skin cancer in human beings.

Biological effects of increased UV
The main public concern regarding the ozone hole has been the effects of surface UV on human health. As the ozone hole over Antarctica has in some instances grown so large as to reach southern parts of Australia and New Zealand, environmentalists have been concerned that the increase in surface UV could be significant.
No one here is arguing that the depletion of the ozone layer is a good thing, Vilham. However your lack of understanding of how UV radiation works is fairly clear. I suggest you take a look at the following link...
http://gcrio.gcrio.org/ozone/chapter3.pdf


PekkaA wrote:

Darth_Fleder, could you explain to...me, what were you trying to say when you linked this and thisCan you show any other similarities between Earth, Mars and Jupiter than having a same sun? Or did you just find some nice looking page that had one sentence that suited your purposes? I'm curious. Btw, this is picked from first article: "Despite more than three decades of Red Planet exploration, scientists are still relatively clueless about the climate of Mars". So even if you could point out something it wouldn't be reliable.
First PekkaA, that statement means that there is not enough data to understand how the Martian climate works and subsequently there is no way to make any conclusions of why events are occuring with 100% certainty. However the data on the retreating polar caps on Mars has been documented and that final statement does not in any way invalidate the data. The fact that the Earth, Mars and Jupiter share the same sun is rather relevant, PekkaA. I am sorry to point this rather obvious fact out to you, but the sun is the engine which drives the solar system. If there is evidence to suggest that other planets in the solar system undergoing similar climate shifts in the same direction as here on Earth, doesn't that beg further consideration of a common factor, in this case the sun? Those citations were included to show that there is some effect other than gas emissions at work and to illustrate that there is still too much unconsidered in the current hysteria and being left out in current climatological models.

NASA wrote:

SUN'S DIRECT ROLE IN GLOBAL WARMING MAY BE UNDERESTIMATED, DUKE PHYSICISTS REPORT At least 10 to 30 percent of global warming measured during the past two decades may be due to increased solar output rather than factors such as increased heat-absorbing carbon dioxide gas released by various human activities, two Duke University physicists report. The physicists said that their findings indicate that climate models of global warming need to be corrected for the effects of changes in solar activity.

Scafetta & West wrote:

N. Scafetta Physics Department, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA B. J. West Mathematical and Information Science Directorate, U.S. Army Research Office, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA PMOD has been widely used in geophysical research. According to this composite, TSI has been almost stationary (-0.009%/decade trend of the 21-23 solar minima [Willson and Mordvinov, 2003]) and by adopting it, or the equivalent TSI proxy reconstruction by Lean et al. [1995], some researchers and the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2001; Hansen et al., 2002] deduced that the Sun has not contributed to the observed global surface warming of the past decades. Consequently, the global surface warming of DT1980 - 2002 = 0.40 ± 0.04K (*insert DT=delta T which means change in temp*) from 1980 to 2002 shown in Figure 2 could only be induced, directly or indirectly, by anthropogenic added green house gas (GHG) climate forcing. [4] Contrariwise, ACRIM presents a significant upward trend (+0.047%/decade trend of the minima) during solar cycles 21-23 (1980-2002) [Willson and Mordvinov, 2003]. The purpose of this letter is to estimate the contribution of this upward trend to the global surface warming from 1980 to 2002, which covers one Hale solar cycle... ...In conclusion, we believe our estimates Z7 and Z8 of the climate sensitivity to solar variations from 1980 to 2002 are realistic. By using the ACRIM TSI increase estimate DIsun (1) and the climate sensitivity Z8 (6) in equation (3), the warming caused by DIsun is DTsun 5 0.08 ± 0.03. Thus, because the global surface warming during the period 1980-2002 was DT1980 - 2002 = 0.40 ± 0.04K, we conclude that according to the ACRIM TSI composite the Sun may have minimally contributed 10-30% of the 1980-2002 global surface warming. http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/2005GL023849.pdf
What they are saying is that the previous model's only conclusion was that the increase in temperature could only have been attributable to atmosoheric causes and neglected to account for variations in the output of the sun. Note the word minimally. Their report is summed up well here...

The World Climate Report wrote:

"The sun played a dominant role in climate change in the early past, as several empirical studies would suggest, and is still playing a significant, even if not a predominant role, during the last decades. The impact of solar variation on climate seems significantly stronger than predicted by some energy balance models...The significant discrepancy between empirical and theoretical model estimates might arise because the secular TSI [total solar irradiance] proxy reconstructions are disputed and/or because the empirical evidence deriving from the deconstruction of the surface temperature is deceptive for reasons unknown to us. Alternatively, the models might be inadequate because of the difficulty of modeling climate in general and a lack of knowledge of climate sensitivity to solar variations in particular. In fact, theoretical models usually acknowledge as solar forcing only the direct TSI forcing while empirical estimates would include all direct and indirect climate effects induced by solar variation. These solar effects might be embedded in several climate forcings because, for example, a TSI increase might indirectly induce a change in the chemistry of the atmosphere by increasing and modulating its greenhouse gas (H2O, CO2, CH4, etc.) concentration because of the warmer ocean, reduce the earth albedo by melting the glaciers and change the cloud cover patterns. In particular, the models might be inadequate: (a) in their parameterizations of climate feedbacks and atmosphere-ocean coupling; (b) in their neglect of indirect response by the stratosphere and of possible additional climate effects linked to solar magnetic field, UV radiation, solar flares and cosmic ray intensity modulations; (c) there might be other possible natural amplification mechanisms deriving from internal modes of climate variability which are not included in the models. All the above mechanisms would be automatically considered and indirectly included in the phenomenological approach presented herein. The bigger the observed solar impact, the smaller the observed human impact. The smaller the human impact, the less sensitive the climate is to greenhouse gas emissions. The less sensitive the climate is to greenhouse gas emissions, the less the impact greenhouse changes (and greenhouse gas emissions restrictions) will have in the future." http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index … r-warming/
Now I would again like to reiterate that a warming planet and rising CO2 levels is NOT necessarily a bad thing.

The Marshall Insitute wrote:

It is said, for example, that CO2-induced global warming will be so fast and furious that many species of plants and animals will not be able to migrate towards cooler regions of the planet (poleward in latitude and/or upward in elevation) rapidly enough to avoid extinction. It is said that the process has already been set in motion by the global warming of the past hundred and fifty years. It is said, that "a significant impact of global warming is already discernible in animal and plant populations," and that, as a result, "we're sitting at the edge of a mass extinction." It is easy to make long-term predictions; but to substantiate them with facts is an entirely different matter. And even when the facts are largely in hand, one can still be blinded by preconceived ideas that make it difficult to comprehend the real meaning of what has been discovered. So it is with the specter of species extinction that hovers over the global warming debate. The vast majority of people who have studied the subject have not understood some of the issue's most basic elements; and they have consequently drawn conclusions that are not aligned with reality. Proponents of what we shall call the CO2-induced global warming extinction hypothesis seem to be totally unaware of the fact that atmospheric CO2 enrichment tends to ameliorate the deleterious effects of rising temperatures on earth's vegetation. They appear not to know that more CO2 in the air enables plants to grow better at nearly all temperatures, but especially at higher temperatures. They feign ignorance of the knowledge (or truly do not know) that elevated CO2 boosts the optimum temperature at which plants grow best, and that it raises the upper-limiting temperature above which they experience death, making them much more resistant to heat stress. The end result of these facts is that if the atmosphere's temperature and CO2 concentration rise together, plants are able to successfully adapt to the rising temperature, and they experience no ill effects of the warming. Under such conditions, plants living near the heat-limited boundaries of their ranges do not experience an impetus to migrate poleward or upward towards cooler regions of the globe. At the other end of the temperature spectrum, however, plants living near the cold-limited boundaries of their ranges are empowered to extend their ranges into areas where the temperature was previously too low for them to survive. And as they move into those once-forbidden areas, they actually expand their ranges, overlapping the similarlyexpanding ranges of other plants and thereby increasing local plant biodiversity. http://www.co2science.org/scripts/Templ … nction.pdf
Now as to fears that our activities may be pushing into another 'Little Ice Age' by a change in the gulf stream, I would point out that we have just emerged from one that could hardly be blamed upon the Industrial Revolution. After reading several long documents on the subject by proponents of this theory, I was able to glean from this from one of them.

Gagosian wrote:

Robert B. Gagosian President and Director Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution The equatorial sun warms the ocean surface and enhances evaporation in the tropics. This leaves the tropical ocean saltier. The Gulf Stream, a limb of the Ocean Conveyor, carries an enormous volume of heat-laden, salty water up the East Coast of the United States, and then northeast toward Europe... But records of past climates-from a variety of sources such as deep-sea sediments and ice-sheet cores-show that the Conveyor has slowed and shut down several times in the past. This shutdown curtailed heat delivery to the North Atlantic and caused substantial cooling throughout the region. One earth scientist has called the Conveyor "the Achilles' heel of our climate system." At what threshold will the Conveyor cease? The short answer is: We do not know. Nor have scientists determined the relative contributions of a variety of sources that may be adding fresh water to the North Atlantic. Among the suspects are melting glaciers or Arctic sea ice, or increased precipitation falling directly into the ocean or entering via the great rivers that discharge into the Arctic Ocean.6 Global warming may be an exacerbating factor. http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/vie … do?id=9986
Again, these events are shown to have happened before in the past without the benefit of an industrial revolution to aid them. The main gist that I was able to extract from reading of the document was that he presented many alarming possibilities, but he uses them a lever to promote his fields of study, i.e. more funding.

Gagosian wrote:

Though we have invested in, and now rely on, a global network of meteorological stations to monitor fast-changing atmospheric conditions, at present we do not have a system in place for monitoring slower-developing, but critical, ocean circulation changes.
It's hard to get funding without a pressing need, isn't it. I refer back to an earlier quote...

Stephan H. Schneider in interview for Discover magazine, Oct 1989 wrote:

On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but - which means that we must include all doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This "double ethical bind" we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both." http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Pu … itNews.pdf
In the case of Mr. Gagosian it appears that he is choosing to be effective.

Gagosian wrote:

Such a change could cool down selective areas of the globe by 3° to 5° Celsius, while simultaneously causing drought in many parts of the world. These climate changes would occur quickly, even as other regions continue to warm slowly.
As Patrick Michaels wrote "Seventeen years ago, in 1989, the Alps endured a virtually snowless winter. Environmentalists blamed global warming. A Swiss lobbying group, Alp Action, wrote in 1991 that global warming would put an end to winter sports in the Alps by 2025. Then in 1999 the Alps had their greatest snowfall in 40 years. Greenpeace blamed global warming. How in the world can that be? Is it possible to blame global warming for every weather anomaly, even if two consecutive events are of opposite sign? Can such a claim have "scientific" justification? If one regards the United Nations as an authority on such things, the answer, unfortunately, is yes. Global warmers, thanks to the good offices of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, can blame any weather event on pernicious economic prosperity and resultant greenhouse gas emissions. The most recent IPCC summary on climate change was published three years ago. IPCC purports to be the "consensus of scientists" but in fact is a group of individuals hand-picked by their respective governments. The United Nations wrote in 1995: "Warmer temperatures will lead to . . . prospects for more severe droughts and/or floods in some places and less severe droughts and/or floods in others."
As a punishment for not cleaning out the cat box, you might ask your kid to diagram this sentence. Rather than strain the graphics of this word processor, we'll simply parse it. What the IPCC is saying is that global warming will cause in "some places" and/or "others":
*   More intense wet periods.
*   More intense dry periods.
*   More intense wet and dry periods.
*   Less intense wet periods.
*   Less intense dry periods.
*   And less intense wet and dry periods.
So, according to the "consensus of scientists," it's OK to blame a flood, or, if you're in the mountains, a flood of snow, on global warming. It's also OK to blame a drought or a snowless Alp on global warming. It's even OK to blame weather that is more normal than normal ("less intense wet and dry periods") on global warming.
The IPCC statement, which cannot be proved wrong, is a cynical attempt to allow anyone to blame anything on global warming. As Julius Wroblewski of Vancouver, Canada, wrote, this logic "represents a descent into the swamp of the non-falsifiable hypothesis. This is not a term of praise. Falsifiability is the internal logic in a theory that allows a logical test to see if it is right or wrong."
A non-falsifiable theory is one for which no test can be devised, and the U.N. statement fits the bill perfectly. There is simply no observable weather or climate that does not meet its criteria, except one: absolutely no change in the climate, meaning no change in the average weather or the variability around that average.
Every climatologist on the planet knows that is impossible. Climate has to change because the sun is an inconstant star and the Earth is a nonuniform medium whose primary surface constituent, water, is very near its freezing point. Freezing (or unfreezing) water makes the planet whiter (or darker), which affects the degree to which it reflects the sun's warming rays. A flicker of the sun, therefore, ensures climate change.
Robert Mann, writing in Geophysical Research Letters, recently provided a powerful demonstration of this phenomenon. Using long-term records from tree rings and ice cores, he concluded that the planet was on a 900-year cooling streak between 1000 and 1900. Then we warmed up almost twice as much as we had cooled, but at least half of that warming was caused by our inconsistent sun. Two NASA scientists recently demonstrated that the sun has been warming throughout the last 400 years. As a result, if the last decade weren't among the warmest in the last millennium, something would have been wrong with the basic theory of climate: The sun warms the Earth.
That doesn't mean we haven't supplied a bit of greenhouse warming, too. But greenhouse warming behaves differently than pure solar warming: It occurs largely in the coldest air masses of winter. That's a far cry from the United Nation's nonsense about "some places" and "others" experiencing more unusual, less unusual or unusually usual weather."

Again, we are forgetting that WARM PLANET=GOOD and COLD PLANET=BAD. Many seem to have a great fear of the planet drying up and becoming a desert with increased temperatures. You seem to be forgetting how the process of precipitation works.

Clausen et al @ Potsdam-Institut fur Klimafolgenforschung wrote:

Martin Claussen1, Claudia Kubatzki, Victor Brovkin, and Andrey GanopolskiPotsdam-Institut fur Klimafolgenforschung, Potsdam, Germany
Philipp HoelzmannMax-Planck-Insitut fur Biogeochemie, Jena, Germany
Hans-Joachim PachurInstitut fur Geographie, Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany

During the mid-Holocene some 9 - 6 thousand years ago(ka), the summer in many regions of the Northern Hemi-sphere was warmer than today. Palaeobotanic data indicate an expansion of boreal forests north of the modern treeline [Tarasov et al., 1998; Texier et al., 1997; Yu andHarrison, 1996]. In North Africa, data reveal a wetter climate [Hoelzmann et al., 1998]. Moreover, it has been found from fossil pollen [Jolly et al., 1998] that the Saharan desert was almost completely covered by annual grasses and low shrubs...

To analyze why desertification in North Africa is abrupt in comparison with the rather smooth orbital forcing, we performed a series of simulations exploring the dynamics of the atmosphere-only model (model A), the atmosphere-vegetation model (AV) and the atmosphere- ocean model(AO), respectively. Firstly we have run the atmosphere-only model while keeping the ocean, i.e. the seasonal cycle of sea-surface temperatures (SST) and sea ice, as well as global vegetation pattern constant in time.In this case, the atmosphere follows orbital forcing rather smoothly(Fig.1, B). The same applies to global precipitation. Keeping sea-surface temperature, sea-ice, and vegetation at mid-Holocene values yields a generally warmer and wetter climate for the following reasons. Firstly, a warmer ocean surface directly warms the near-surface atmosphere. Secondly, a warmer ocean evaporates more water.
http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:eiz … &cd=12
More evaporated water = more rain. Water+warmth+CO2=GOOD for plant growth. Increased plant growth=GOOD for the food chain. WARM PLANET=GOOD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT. It would appear the you so-called environmentalists are on the wrong side of this issue.
Major Payne
Member
+18|6983|Netherlands
no, i  maby some dutch guy can translate this or its the same as english: transgessie fase and ressesie fase

it happend 10 times in the last timeage (holoceen something goelogical) if it will happenend it ganna be colder again it can kill some people but it will change back

Last edited by Major Payne (2006-07-10 11:53:19)

PekkaA
Member
+36|6867|Finland

Darth_Fleder wrote:

First PekkaA, that statement means that there is not enough data to understand how the Martian climate works and subsequently there is no way to make any conclusions of why events are occuring with 100% certainty. However the data on the retreating polar caps on Mars has been documented and that final statement does not in any way invalidate the data. The fact that the Earth, Mars and Jupiter share the same sun is rather relevant, PekkaA. I am sorry to point this rather obvious fact out to you, but the sun is the engine which drives the solar system. If there is evidence to suggest that other planets in the solar system undergoing similar climate shifts in the same direction as here on Earth, doesn't that beg further consideration of a common factor, in this case the sun? Those citations were included to show that there is some effect other than gas emissions at work and to illustrate that there is still too much unconsidered in the current hysteria and being left out in current climatological models.
NOTHING on those articles says that sun would be reason for Mars's or Jupiter's warming. And even IF it would, you couldn't really use it as a evidence when talking about earth. Those planets are totally different from earth and there are billions of variables that might be the reason for HYPOTHETICAL warming of those planets. Just think how big effect tiny molecule  that is made of three oxygen atoms has on earths climate...

I don't have enough knowledge to judge if global warming is a threat and how much of it is caused by humans (and neither do you), but I think it would be stupid to go and try how much pollution this planet can take. Especially when only reason is greed.
Darth_Fleder
Mod from the Church of the Painful Truth
+533|7009|Orlando, FL - Age 43

PekkaA wrote:

NOTHING on those articles says that sun would be reason for Mars's or Jupiter's warming.
That's exactly why I provided more links to data on the sun's activity. Try reading them and then making some conclusions.
kr@cker
Bringin' Sexy Back!
+581|6752|Southeastern USA
His conclusions are preformed, he just picks and chooses smalll sections of articles that fit his predetermined outcome.


So what the fuck else is going to warm Mars? Maybe all of our SUV windshields are reflecting too much sunlight back into space to Mars?

lolz@fleder for
*   More intense wet periods.
*   More intense dry periods.
*   More intense wet and dry periods.
*   Less intense wet periods.
*   Less intense dry periods.
*   And less intense wet and dry periods.

but you forgot hot and cold periods, apparently no matter what happens, hot, cold, wet, or dry, it's all Halliburton's fault for causing global warming

Last edited by kr@cker (2006-07-10 12:38:09)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6975|PNW

I don't take pollution's effect on rising global temperature seriously, considering geological temperature records, but I do know that it smells mightily and is the cause of many health issues. But as cleaner power is an inevitability of the future, I'm not so much worried about my "grandchildren's grandchildren's" ability to breath so much as I am about their ability to cope with human overpopulation and the resultant disease and strife it will generate.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2006-07-10 12:50:59)

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