BF2S Forums global warming

They take samples from the poles, then they measure the ice for the quantites.

jonsimon wrote:

Out of curiosity, how are those measurements estimated? What fossil evidence is that based off of? I know we can estimate those kinds of measurements, I'm just curious as to exactly how.

The CO2 line on my chart is based upon the work of R.A. Berner, Yale University. Some of the technical details can be found here
Other methods
* Tree Rings
* Glacial Ice Cores
* Ocean Sediments - The ratio of oxygen 16 to oxygen 18 preserved in the steady rain of dead organisms.
* Radiocarbon dates of organic material
* Pollen samples found in packrat middens and lake bed samples.
* Variations in desert varnish coatings found on rocks in the arid southwest
* Variations found in peatbog deposits
* Sedimentary rock records.
to name a few.

UnOriginalNuttah wrote:

The chart speaks for itself.

The key word in your chart UnOriginal is 'Ice Age Cycles'. Again, I must point back to the chart that I have posted more than once in this thread...the Earth's mean temperature and atmospheric CO2 levels are currently as close to as low as they have EVER been in it's entire history as far as we know. Does the term 'Little Ice Age' ring any bells? 1400 to 1860 A.D. - The Little Ice Age. At best, we are contributing to breaking the current Ice Age cycle. During the Ice Age


Since the Ice Age


As you can see that as the Earth has warmed over the last 18,000 years, vegetation across the globe has flourished and spread. I would also like to point out that there has been not enough significant drift of the continents to account for the change. WARM=GOOD. I would reiterate here that deforestation is a far greater threat than global warming. There is still concern out there that the current inter-glaciation period of relative warmth will end soon and I am sorry, I choose a warm planet over a ball of ice. No one has been able to produce any data that concretely supports any dire consequences of a warmer planet. If you look carefully in any predictions you see a great many words such as may, could, conceivably, might, possibly, potentially, perhaps, interspersed throughout. Next time....count them.

It is worth remembering that our warm present day inter-glacial climate is the exception, not the rule during a glacial epoch.  For as much as 90% of the last 2 million years the ice fields on earth have been more extensive than they are today. On the other hand, our the current glacial epoch and ice on earth and for the most part is also an abnormality.  Our present-day Arctic Ocean is about 10-15°C cooler than it was at the time of the dinosaurs and for almost all of the time from about 2 to at least 200 million years ago (Ma) the surface temperature exceeded that of today.

Vilham wrote:

Vadar just look at the time scale! We have increased the CO2 lvls by 100 parts per million in 300 years based on this rate we should raise it by another 100 in probably 50 years if nothing changes, the natural rate is 3000 change over about 50 million years! We have already changed to 3% of that total in 300 years. meaning that at this rate it will take a couple thousand years to change it to 3000 rather than the normal rate of around 50 million years.

First Vilham....it's F L E D E R...not Vadar. Second, the Confused Pothead's beloved IPCC calls for a target level of 550ppm of CO2, even more than 'another 100 in probably 50 years'.

As to your report Bertster7 Royal Society Report on misconceptions about global warming, I have taken the time to read in it's entirety (which you have yet to do with the entire thread) and find by and large a defense of the IPCC report and I am sorry....filled with poppycock. I don't care how many 'August Bodies' have signed on to it. Once there was a large consensus of scientists in Europe that signed on to the notion that the Universe revolved around the Earth. Anyway, I digress, back to the document. Not only does it contradict itself, it is filled with quite a bit of uncertainty and a lot of sheer nonsense.

RoyalSociety Document wrote:

...According to the IPCC 2001 report, to stabilise concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at 550 parts per million (which would be 96% higher than pre-industrial levels and 49% higher than in 2000)...

96% above pre-industrial levels?? Oh yes, brilliant science, we compare the CO2 levels to an ICE AGE and make a statement like that. Never mind that CO2 levels have been as much as 18 times higher in the past then they are today...which also qualifies as pre-industrial.

RoyalSociety Document wrote:

...The IPCC report noted that the current concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has not been exceeded during the past 420,000 years and that “the rate of increase over the past century is unprecedented, at least during the past 20,000 years”....

What is the word 'unprecedented' doing there, even if mitigated by the following disclaimer? It is not unprecedented outside of the 20,000 year window...neolithic campfires perhaps, dinosaur gas emissions? Never mind that sharp increases in atmospheric CO2 have occurred repeatedly throughout geologic time, let's just pick the data that conforms to our hypothesis and make an alarmist statement out of it in defense of our flawed work.

RoyalSociety Document wrote:

...Increases in the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere enhance the greenhouse effect and, on average, lead to further warming. It has been long established that carbon dioxide strongly absorbs infra-red radiation. The IPCC 2001 report pointed out that carbon dioxide is “the dominant human-influenced greenhouse gas”, and is responsible for more than half the warming due to changes in atmospheric concentrations.....

Take a look at http://brneurosci.org/co2.html

RoyalSociety Document wrote:

...In a paper published in Nature in 2004, Stott and others noted that the summer of 2003 was probably the hottest in Europe since at least 1500. It has been estimated that the heatwave caused 22,000-35,000 additional deaths. Stott and others acknowledged that it was not possible to meaningfully determine whether the heatwave was due to increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases “because almost any such weather event might have occurred by chance in an unmodified climate”. However, they concluded from an analysis of instrument records since 1851 that ”it seems likely that past human influence has more than doubled the risk of European mean summer temperatures as hot as 2003, and with the likelihood of such events projected to increase 100-fold over the next four decades”. A further paper in Nature in 2004 by Schär and others reported the results of an analysis that found that “the European summer climate might experience a pronounced increase in year-to year variability” in response to rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. It concluded: “Such an increase in variability might be able to explain the unusual European summer 2003, and would strongly affect the incidence of heatwaves and droughts in the future”.

OK, let's go with the weak language, shall we...It may have been the hottest summer in 500 years. So outside the tiny window...there were hotter summers in Europe...according the definition provided by the document, that also qualifies as 'pre-industrial'. What was the cause of the hotter summers then? It also implies that there were even hotter summers before the 500 year window that we haven't broken yet...Cortez burning his ships maybe...no wait...that was in 1519. Never mind again that we have just come out of an ICE AGE! Again, I point to my chart...The Earth is near as cold as it has ever been. Compared to geologic time we should expect the Earth to warm...it has spent the majority of its history (approx 66%) at an average global temperature of 22C while only about 7.5% of its history is as cool as it is today. We can also expect to see CO2 levels rise...they have done so numerous times in the past without human intervention. I do not deny that we are releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, my point is that that the Earth's atmosphere has sustained much higher levels in the past and some are making it out that is has NEVER been that way.

RoyalSociety Document wrote:

...Examples of these possible abrupt changes highlighted by the IPCC included a weakening during the 21st century, and even a complete shutdown thereafter, of the large-scale circulation in the oceans associated with differences in temperature and salinity (called the thermohaline circulation), reducing the amount of heat reaching the high latitudes of Europe, including the UK. The report warned: “some impacts of anthropogenic climate change may be slow to become apparent and some could be irreversible if climate change is not limited in both rate and magnitude before associated thresholds, whose positions may be poorly known, are crossed”...

What a load of pure speculation that is contradicted by both the very document that is comes from and by historical fact. The document itself states that there have been hotter times in the past millenia, far too short a time for the continents to have shifted much which is a large contributor to oceanic currents without such an event happening. If that were the case, wouldn't every rise in average global temperature throughout geologic time have encountered such an event? You claim to have a physics background, so tell me how can you support such drivel?

RoyalSociety Document wrote:

...This is important because the report pointed out that carbon dioxide can remain in the atmosphere 200 years, and as a result “stabilization of CO2 emissions at near-current levels will not lead to stabilization CO2 atmospheric concentration, whereas stabilization of emissions of shorter lived greenhouse gases CH4 [methane] leads, within decades, to stabilization of their atmospheric concentrations.” The report noted that the relatively long life of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means its effects on climate would continue for an extended period: “After stabilization of the atmospheric concentration of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, surface air temperature is projected to continue to rise by a few tenths of a degree century for a century or more, while sea level is projected to continue to rise for many centuries”....

Stable? When has the atmospheric level of CO2 concentration ever been stable? It has fluctuated wildly throughout time. Even TheUnoriginalNuttah's chart shows this over the short term. Does this now mean that we think we humans have the power to accomplish stabilizing the climate of the planet? Again I ask, what if these attempts went awry and we plunged the planet back into the throes of an ice age? To me that possilibity has far worse ramifications than the planet resuming its normal warmth.

RoyalSociety Document wrote:

...The focus on the UK also ignores the misery and suffering that will increase for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. The IPCC concluded that “the impacts of climate change will fall disproportionately upon developing countries and the poor persons within all countries, and thereby exacerbate inequities in health status and access to adequate food, clean water, and other resources.”

This excerpt really highlights the political nature of the document as does all the the reply to #10.

Bertster7 wrote:

...the Royal Society, probably the most trustworthy unbiased scientific group on the planet...

Hardly unbiased. Those evil developed nations and especially the non-Kyoto signing U.S. Now we can lay blame for any natural disaster squarely on their doorstep for not taking this hysteria ridden, fact ignoring science in its infancy seriously. Never mind that the climate has never previously been, nor will be in the foreseeable future, stable and un-changing. It is also in line with Canada's former Environmental Minister, Christine Stewarts view, "No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits.... Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."

RoyalSociety Document wrote:

...The IPCC 2001 report also warned that natural systems are “vulnerable to climate change, and some will be irreversibly damaged”. It stressed that “while some species may increase in abundance or range, climate change will increase existing risks of extinction of some more vulnerable species and loss of biodiversity”. For instance, the report projected with “high confidence” that “future sea surface warming would increase stress on coral reefs and result in increased frequency of marine diseases”.

Charles Darwin, remember him? Also...once again....the Earth has been significantly warmer throughout a majority of its history...please show me the evidence that these warmer temperatures ever threatened the diversity of oceanic life. Another issue is that this document is a call for planetary and climatological stasis, a condition that has NEVER existed. The one constant in the entire history of the Earth is perpetual change. Somehow people have gotten it into their heads that we can somehow freeze the climate just how it is. Poppycock!

I could go on and on with this document but I will leave off with something that I already posted in this thread, again.

Darth_Fleder wrote:

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.

Bertster7 wrote:

Links discrediting the OISM report - there are lots:

http://www.fair.org/activism/stossel-tampering.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition

The National Academy of Sciences (the foremost scientific body in the US) refused to have anything to do with the petition with this statement:
"The NAS Council would like to make it clear that this petition has nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences and that the manuscript was not published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or in any other peer-reviewed journal"

Here is a link so you can examine the signatories for yourself and see that there are in fact numerous duplicate signatories:

http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

(Also my friends are not distinguished - many of my associates and family members colleagues (who I have met several times - I would not claim to 'know' them) are, but certainly not my friends who are studying anything related to climate change)

*edit*
Sorry I haven't addressed the issue of your chart. I am from an engineering and physics background not meterological, so I don't know myself - I'll look into it and get back to you soon - it's late over here now.

I asked for a scientific refutation of the OISM document...those two links hardly qualify as that. I want to see the scientific refutation of the facts the OISM document presents, not some attack on their source of funding. If that is the basis for discrediting work then I suggest that any work funded by any government and especially the U.N. is also just as suspect. Governments have political agendas, so ANY science sponsored by them must be in line with their political agendas. In fact...that is your next homework assignment....you, your friends, your family, associates or whoever is in your circle can provide a step by step refutation of the OISM document found at this link... http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

Darth_Fleder wrote:

UnOriginalNuttah wrote:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/e … 400kyr.png
The chart speaks for itself.

The key word in your chart UnOriginal is 'Ice Age Cycles'. Again, I must point back to the chart that I have posted more than once in this thread...the Earth's mean temperature and atmospheric CO2 levels are currently as close to as low as they have EVER been in it's entire history as far as we know. Does the term 'Little Ice Age' ring any bells? 1400 to 1860 A.D. - The Little Ice Age. At best, we are contributing to breaking the current Ice Age cycle. During the Ice Age
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/3914 … mod7ry.gif

Since the Ice Age
http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/6213 … 6pn3oh.gif

As you can see that as the Earth has warmed over the last 18,000 years, vegetation across the globe has flourished and spread. I would also like to point out that there has been not enough significant drift of the continents to account for the change. WARM=GOOD. I would reiterate here that deforestation is a far greater threat than global warming. There is still concern out there that the current inter-glaciation period of relative warmth will end soon and I am sorry, I choose a warm planet over a ball of ice. No one has been able to produce any data that concretely supports any dire consequences of a warmer planet. If you look carefully in any predictions you see a great many words such as may, could, conceivably, might, possibly, potentially, perhaps, interspersed throughout. Next time....count them.

It is worth remembering that our warm present day inter-glacial climate is the exception, not the rule during a glacial epoch.  For as much as 90% of the last 2 million years the ice fields on earth have been more extensive than they are today. On the other hand, our the current glacial epoch and ice on earth and for the most part is also an abnormality.  Our present-day Arctic Ocean is about 10-15°C cooler than it was at the time of the dinosaurs and for almost all of the time from about 2 to at least 200 million years ago (Ma) the surface temperature exceeded that of today.

Well, let's attribute most of the swings and roundabouts from the age of dinosaurs to volcanic activity and perhaps a little to external factors like meteors.  Let's say that generally, since a time of massive eruptions and fire and brimstone CO2 has been on a downwards trend as the system which is the earth settles and cools.  And let's say we've observed a cycle of ice ages occurring every 100,000 years or so, with vibrations, resonances and variations but that overall a general sine wave pattern is observable.  Would you at least agree with most of that?

Now, imagine a pendulum swinging, with a small amount of energy being applied, like a clock.  Now imagine at one end of the pendulum the earth is warmed, and the other it is cooled.  Now, imagine if it's been oscillating at a nice gentle rate for a few million years, small cycles, survivable for most forms of life.  Times are good sometimes, others food is scarce.  Then on one cycle you decide to apply a massive new energy source and swing it way out to warm side, much further to the warm side than it's ever gone before (edit:on this timescale of 100,000 year oscillations over a few million years)... what happens next?  I'm of the opinion that there will be a much greater ice age than would otherwise have occurred, however it may be possible to damped the effect with (you might not believe this one coming from me) more carbon emission on a massive scale never before seen by the like of man.  Then when the swing comes around again and we are emerging from the dampened ice age into a heat wave, the reciprocal swing can be reversed by removing as much carbon from the atmosphere as possible.  I would guess that it may even be possible to completely eliminate the large oscillations and simply have the noise and external vibrations affect the weather. 

I would consider the trends towards massive ice ages followed by hot periods evidence that a extremely warm planet is a unstable planet, prone to oscillate ferociously to the other extreme, and not proof that we can heat the planet as much as we like without consequence.

Last edited by UnOriginalNuttah (2006-09-01 15:23:14)

Darth_Fleder wrote:

As you can see that as the Earth has warmed over the last 18,000 years, vegetation across the globe has flourished and spread. I would also like to point out that there has been not enough significant drift of the continents to account for the change. WARM=GOOD. I would reiterate here that deforestation is a far greater threat than global warming. There is still concern out there that the current inter-glaciation period of relative warmth will end soon and I am sorry, I choose a warm planet over a ball of ice. No one has been able to produce any data that concretely supports any dire consequences of a warmer planet. If you look carefully in any predictions you see a great many words such as may, could, conceivably, might, possibly, potentially, perhaps, interspersed throughout. Next time....count them.

It is worth remembering that our warm present day inter-glacial climate is the exception, not the rule during a glacial epoch.  For as much as 90% of the last 2 million years the ice fields on earth have been more extensive than they are today. On the other hand, our the current glacial epoch and ice on earth and for the most part is also an abnormality.  Our present-day Arctic Ocean is about 10-15°C cooler than it was at the time of the dinosaurs and for almost all of the time from about 2 to at least 200 million years ago (Ma) the surface temperature exceeded that of today.

Human life wasn't around then. Human civilisation certainly wasn't. The Earth has undergone massive changes in it's history, absolutely, but these changes have never affected human civilisation - which is the concern with global warming. If half of Europe and coastal America (as well as many other places) disappear underwater how will society cope? Will there not be massive reprecussions?

Darth_Fleder wrote:

No one has been able to produce any data that concretely supports any dire consequences of a warmer planet. If you look carefully in any predictions you see a great many words such as may, could, conceivably, might, possibly, potentially, perhaps, interspersed throughout. Next time....count them.

Words like estimation come into it. But science is estimation, have you ever heard of the Heisenburg uncertainty principle? Nothing can ever be measured in absolutes. Are you saying scientists can precisely predict the future? Of course not, they make predictions based on what they know, based on observation.
The field of environmental sciences is based almost entirely on statistical probabilities - which is why nothing quoted is ever in absolutes - I would have thought you would know that. Hence all the qualifiers that come with statements "may, could, conceivably, might, possibly, potentially, perhaps" - one must be very suspicious of any scientific reports in this field which do not use such qualifiers, as the opponents of global warming rarely seem to - they treat analysis of statistical probabilities as absolute fact which in itself is dubious and calls their very argument into question.

Obi Wan Kenobi wrote:

Only a Sith deals in absolutes

But you'd know all about that wouldn't you Darth.

That said, there are solid observations of what has happened.

IPCC 2001 wrote:

Recent regional changes in climate, particularly increases in temperature, have
already affected hydrological systems and terrestrial and marine ecosystems in
many parts of the world

That's a pretty concise statement, not based on imprecise predictions, but on observation of what has happened as a result of a rise in temperature. Predictions made by the IPCC in 2001 have been surpassed by what has been observed and the rate of change is occuring even faster than anticipated, although following the same trends.

Darth_Fleder wrote:

Vilham wrote:

Vadar just look at the time scale! We have increased the CO2 lvls by 100 parts per million in 300 years based on this rate we should raise it by another 100 in probably 50 years if nothing changes, the natural rate is 3000 change over about 50 million years! We have already changed to 3% of that total in 300 years. meaning that at this rate it will take a couple thousand years to change it to 3000 rather than the normal rate of around 50 million years.

First Vilham....it's F L E D E R...not Vadar. Second, the Confused Pothead's beloved IPCC calls for a target level of 550ppm of CO2, even more than 'another 100 in probably 50 years'.

As to your report Bertster7 Royal Society Report on misconceptions about global warming, I have taken the time to read in it's entirety (which you have yet to do with the entire thread) and find by and large a defense of the IPCC report and I am sorry....filled with poppycock. I don't care how many 'August Bodies' have signed on to it. Once there was a large consensus of scientists in Europe that signed on to the notion that the Universe revolved around the Earth. Anyway, I digress, back to the document. Not only does it contradict itself, it is filled with quite a bit of uncertainty and a lot of sheer nonsense.

RoyalSociety Document wrote:

...According to the IPCC 2001 report, to stabilise concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at 550 parts per million (which would be 96% higher than pre-industrial levels and 49% higher than in 2000)...

96% above pre-industrial levels?? Oh yes, brilliant science, we compare the CO2 levels to an ICE AGE and make a statement like that. Never mind that CO2 levels have been as much as 18 times higher in the past then they are today...which also qualifies as pre-industrial.

You don't care how many what the majority of experts think? That's a very sensible attitude to take 'Everyone else is wrong and I'm right, no matter how much they know about it'.

Darth_Fleder wrote:

RoyalSociety Document wrote:

...The IPCC report noted that the current concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has not been exceeded during the past 420,000 years and that “the rate of increase over the past century is unprecedented, at least during the past 20,000 years”....

What is the word 'unprecedented' doing there, even if mitigated by the following disclaimer? It is not unprecedented outside of the 20,000 year window...neolithic campfires perhaps, dinosaur gas emissions? Never mind that sharp increases in atmospheric CO2 have occurred repeatedly throughout geologic time, let's just pick the data that conforms to our hypothesis and make an alarmist statement out of it in defense of our flawed work.

RoyalSociety Document wrote:

...Increases in the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere enhance the greenhouse effect and, on average, lead to further warming. It has been long established that carbon dioxide strongly absorbs infra-red radiation. The IPCC 2001 report pointed out that carbon dioxide is “the dominant human-influenced greenhouse gas”, and is responsible for more than half the warming due to changes in atmospheric concentrations.....

Take a look at http://brneurosci.org/co2.html

RoyalSociety Document wrote:

...In a paper published in Nature in 2004, Stott and others noted that the summer of 2003 was probably the hottest in Europe since at least 1500. It has been estimated that the heatwave caused 22,000-35,000 additional deaths. Stott and others acknowledged that it was not possible to meaningfully determine whether the heatwave was due to increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases “because almost any such weather event might have occurred by chance in an unmodified climate”. However, they concluded from an analysis of instrument records since 1851 that ”it seems likely that past human influence has more than doubled the risk of European mean summer temperatures as hot as 2003, and with the likelihood of such events projected to increase 100-fold over the next four decades”. A further paper in Nature in 2004 by Schär and others reported the results of an analysis that found that “the European summer climate might experience a pronounced increase in year-to year variability” in response to rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. It concluded: “Such an increase in variability might be able to explain the unusual European summer 2003, and would strongly affect the incidence of heatwaves and droughts in the future”.

OK, let's go with the weak language, shall we...It may have been the hottest summer in 500 years. So outside the tiny window...there were hotter summers in Europe...according the definition provided by the document, that also qualifies as 'pre-industrial'. What was the cause of the hotter summers then? It also implies that there were even hotter summers before the 500 year window that we haven't broken yet...Cortez burning his ships maybe...no wait...that was in 1519. Never mind again that we have just come out of an ICE AGE! Again, I point to my chart...The Earth is near as cold as it has ever been. Compared to geologic time we should expect the Earth to warm...it has spent the majority of its history (approx 66%) at an average global temperature of 22C while only about 7.5% of its history is as cool as it is today. We can also expect to see CO2 levels rise...they have done so numerous times in the past without human intervention. I do not deny that we are releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, my point is that that the Earth's atmosphere has sustained much higher levels in the past and some are making it out that is has NEVER been that way.

RoyalSociety Document wrote:

...Examples of these possible abrupt changes highlighted by the IPCC included a weakening during the 21st century, and even a complete shutdown thereafter, of the large-scale circulation in the oceans associated with differences in temperature and salinity (called the thermohaline circulation), reducing the amount of heat reaching the high latitudes of Europe, including the UK. The report warned: “some impacts of anthropogenic climate change may be slow to become apparent and some could be irreversible if climate change is not limited in both rate and magnitude before associated thresholds, whose positions may be poorly known, are crossed”...

What a load of pure speculation that is contradicted by both the very document that is comes from and by historical fact. The document itself states that there have been hotter times in the past millenia, far too short a time for the continents to have shifted much which is a large contributor to oceanic currents without such an event happening. If that were the case, wouldn't every rise in average global temperature throughout geologic time have encountered such an event? You claim to have a physics background, so tell me how can you support such drivel?

RoyalSociety Document wrote:

...This is important because the report pointed out that carbon dioxide can remain in the atmosphere 200 years, and as a result “stabilization of CO2 emissions at near-current levels will not lead to stabilization CO2 atmospheric concentration, whereas stabilization of emissions of shorter lived greenhouse gases CH4 [methane] leads, within decades, to stabilization of their atmospheric concentrations.” The report noted that the relatively long life of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means its effects on climate would continue for an extended period: “After stabilization of the atmospheric concentration of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, surface air temperature is projected to continue to rise by a few tenths of a degree century for a century or more, while sea level is projected to continue to rise for many centuries”....

Stable? When has the atmospheric level of CO2 concentration ever been stable? It has fluctuated wildly throughout time. Even TheUnoriginalNuttah's chart shows this over the short term. Does this now mean that we think we humans have the power to accomplish stabilizing the climate of the planet? Again I ask, what if these attempts went awry and we plunged the planet back into the throes of an ice age? To me that possilibity has far worse ramifications than the planet resuming its normal warmth.

RoyalSociety Document wrote:

...The focus on the UK also ignores the misery and suffering that will increase for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. The IPCC concluded that “the impacts of climate change will fall disproportionately upon developing countries and the poor persons within all countries, and thereby exacerbate inequities in health status and access to adequate food, clean water, and other resources.”

This excerpt really highlights the political nature of the document as does all the the reply to #10.

Bertster7 wrote:

...the Royal Society, probably the most trustworthy unbiased scientific group on the planet...

Hardly unbiased. Those evil developed nations and especially the non-Kyoto signing U.S. Now we can lay blame for any natural disaster squarely on their doorstep for not taking this hysteria ridden, fact ignoring science in its infancy seriously. Never mind that the climate has never previously been, nor will be in the foreseeable future, stable and un-changing. It is also in line with Canada's former Environmental Minister, Christine Stewarts view, "No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits.... Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."

RoyalSociety Document wrote:

...The IPCC 2001 report also warned that natural systems are “vulnerable to climate change, and some will be irreversibly damaged”. It stressed that “while some species may increase in abundance or range, climate change will increase existing risks of extinction of some more vulnerable species and loss of biodiversity”. For instance, the report projected with “high confidence” that “future sea surface warming would increase stress on coral reefs and result in increased frequency of marine diseases”.

Charles Darwin, remember him? Also...once again....the Earth has been significantly warmer throughout a majority of its history...please show me the evidence that these warmer temperatures ever threatened the diversity of oceanic life. Another issue is that this document is a call for planetary and climatological stasis, a condition that has NEVER existed. The one constant in the entire history of the Earth is perpetual change. Somehow people have gotten it into their heads that we can somehow freeze the climate just how it is. Poppycock!

I could go on and on with this document but I will leave off with something that I already posted in this thread, again.

Darth_Fleder wrote:

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.

I agree that a certain amount of global warming is a good thing. Were it not for global warming the Earth's average temperature would be about -17°C - it is not and that is a good thing. However you can get too much of a good thing, leading to flooding and global economic collapse. If the ocean gets much warmer then there won't be much agricultural land for it to fall on. Less fertile farm space = less food. Which, obviously is bad for people. So is less living space, especially if you consider the majority of major cities in the world are coastal and would be totally flooded.

The accelerated rate of change in global warming is certainly a bad thing.

Darth_Fleder wrote:

Bertster7 wrote:

Links discrediting the OISM report - there are lots:

http://www.fair.org/activism/stossel-tampering.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition

The National Academy of Sciences (the foremost scientific body in the US) refused to have anything to do with the petition with this statement:
"The NAS Council would like to make it clear that this petition has nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences and that the manuscript was not published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or in any other peer-reviewed journal"

Here is a link so you can examine the signatories for yourself and see that there are in fact numerous duplicate signatories:

http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

I asked for a scientific refutation of the OISM document...those two links hardly qualify as that. I want to see the scientific refutation of the facts the OISM document presents, not some attack on their source of funding. If that is the basis for discrediting work then I suggest that any work funded by any government and especially the U.N. is also just as suspect. Governments have political agendas, so ANY science sponsored by them must be in line with their political agendas. In fact...that is your next homework assignment....you, your friends, your family, associates or whoever is in your circle can provide a step by step refutation of the OISM document found at this link... http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

Ah the lovely OISM petition. The initial document that was circulated had signatories such as 'Dr' Geri Halliwell, better known as Ginger Spice and Micheal J. Fox. Scientific American published an article in which they tried to track down some of the 'expert' signatories of the petition, a random sample of the signatories revealled that 1/10th of the signatories within the sample group were actually anything close to 'experts'.

Where did I attack their source of funding? Institutions being funded by the government is no cause for their research to be discredited. In fact the NAS are the scientific body who receive most funding from the US government who until recently denied global warming existed, their views do not coincide with what the body funding them wanted to hear - they are not a biased source. Nor are any of the other academies of science, who ALL subscribe to the idea of global warming being caused (by that I mean rate of increase massively accelerated) by carbon emissions.

What is cause for sources of funding to be called into question and grounds for research to be questioned is when small unknown scientific bodies suddenly present reports, which the recognised scientific community do not agree with, that governments (such as the US government) base their decisions on rather than the research carried out by other reputable institutions.
Why would governments try to promote the issue of global warming through funding research institutions? Governments stand to lose a lot of money by implementing legislation to cut carbon emissions. It would be far more convenient for them to deny global warming and carry on as usual. Why would the UN 'make up' global warming. I don't see what anyone has to gain by making false claims about it, other than to deny it. Therefore your whole government backed research being biased argument falls through.

Scientific American wrote:

Scientific American took a random sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition—one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages

Link to Article

3 of 30 had releveant expertise. Real experts signing their petition then.

Scientific refutation;

OISM Petition wrote:

The empirical evidence actual measurements of Earth's temperature shows no man-made warming trend. Indeed, over the past two decades, when CO2 levels have been at their highest, global average temperatures have actually cooled slightly.

That graph from the US National Climatic Data Center (sorry it doesn't show up very well on this background - meant to be on white background) would seem to contradict that statement entirely.
All other records of global climate also contradict this statement. Certainly all those I have ever seen.

The petition only uses US temperature records from the same source as I have quoted (US National Climatic Data Center) rather than looking at the global picture of temperature change - which is what is important.

Exclusion of facts like these is what makes the findings of the report so redundant.

In fact,

EPA wrote:

The 20th century's 10 warmest years all occurred in the last 15 years of the century

Doesn't quite seem like cooling in the past two decades does it?

Seems to show a rise in average temperature. A very basic fact which the OISM petition denies. Over the past two decades global average temperatures have actually cooled slightly, now that is poppycock.
If they make such fundamental errors as that, they clearly haven't conducted a very reliable report.

They also use data obtained from the MSU satellites, which have been shown to be unreliable in studies by the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The trends shown by the MSU satellite do not tie in with observations made from the ground.

Spurious trends in satellite MSU temperatures from merging different satellite records - James W. Hurrell & Kevin E. Trenberth - National Center for Atmospheric Research wrote:

Analysis of global surface air temperature records has indicated that recent years have been among the warmest since the late nineteenth century, with 1995 being the warmest year on record. But the rate of global annual mean surface warming of 0.13 °C per decade during the period 1979−95 differs substantially from the global lower-tropospheric cooling trend of − 0.05 °C per decade Inferred from the record (MSU-2R) of radiance measurements by the satellite Microwave Sounder Unit (MSU). Accordingly, the satellite record has been widely cited by sceptics as evidence against global warming. However, a substantial fraction of the measured radiance originates not from the atmosphere but from the Earth's surface, and gives rise to high noise levels. This noise can lead to errors when merging temperature time series obtained from different satellites. Here we present comparisons among different MSU retrievals, sea surface temperatures (SSTs), and equivalent MSU temperatures derived from an atmospheric general circulation model forced with observed SSTs. The comparisons, focused on the tropics where atmospheric temperatures are closely tied to SSTs, strongly suggest that two spurious downward jumps occur in the MSU-2R record coinciding with changes in satellites, and that the real trend in MSU temperatures is likely to be positive, albeit small.

There are several other reports questioning the reliability of data obtained from the MSU satellites one of which, by the American Meteorological Society can be found here.

Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) are the group funded by the NOAA Climate and Global Change Program to analyse the data from the MSU satellites. They are the experts in the field when it comes to the MSU satellite.

RSS wrote:

The MSU and AMSU instruments were intended for day to day operational use in weather forecasting and thus are not calibrated to the precision needed for climate studies.

not calibrated to the precision needed for climate studies and yet that is exactly what they are being used for, incorrectly, in the OISM petition.

It claims the IPCC figures are higher than will occur. In the years since the 2001 IPCC report actual recorded change has been in line with the models predictions (the IPCC do not only use computer models, which do differ slightly from the predictions calculated by many scientists, they use an overlay of both sources), in fact the rate of change recorded over the past 5 years has been slightly higher than the IPCC predicted, but following the predicted trend.

The validity of the long term sea surface temperatures chart used in the OISM petition has also been called into question. The technique of using isotope ratios of marine organism remains in sediment at the bottom of the sea (which is what they did), has been questioned because it does not fit in with other data known about the periods.

Paul N. Pearson, Peter W. Ditchfield, Joyce Singano, Katherine G. Harcourt-Brown, Christopher J. Nicholas, Richard K. Olsson, Nicholas J. Shackleton and Mike A. Hall wrote:

Climate models with increased levels of carbon dioxide predict that global warming causes heating in the tropics, but investigations of ancient climates based on palaeodata have generally indicated cool tropical temperatures during supposed greenhouse episodes. For example, in the Late Cretaceous and Eocene epochs there is abundant geological evidence for warm, mostly ice-free poles, but tropical sea surface temperatures are generally estimated to be only 15–23 °C, based on oxygen isotope palaeothermometry of surface-dwelling planktonic foraminifer shells. Here we question the validity of most such data on the grounds of poor preservation and diagenetic alteration. We present new data from exceptionally well preserved foraminifer shells extracted from impermeable clay-rich sediments, which indicate that for the intervals studied, tropical sea surface temperatures were at least 28–32 °C. These warm temperatures are more in line with our understanding of the geographical distributions of temperature-sensitive fossil organisms and the results of climate models with increased CO2 levels.

You can find this report and the authors credentials here.

OISM petition wrote:

Moreover, claims that global warming will cause the Antarctic ice cap to melt and sharply increase this rate are not consistent with experiment or with theory.

Yet strangely enough the Antarctic ice caps are melting. 16200 sq km of ice shelves have fallen in to the sea and melted. (Source: NASA and BAS) Warming seas will only accelerate this process. This has come as quite a shock to the scientific community and is amongst the reasons acceptance of the IPCC models and global warming predictions has become almost universal.

It is ommissions of other important information and using data from unreliable or irrelevant sources that make the petition so misleading. The dodgy signatories do nothing to increase my confidence in it's reliability either.



Which reputable scientific establishments do not believe that global warming is accelerated by carbon emissions? Give me a list.

Here's a list of ones that do believe carbon emissions are seriously accelerating global warming:

IPCC
National Academy of Sciences (US)
Royal Society (UK)
Academia Brasiliera de Ciências
Royal Society of Canada
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Academié des Sciences
Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher
Indian National Science Academy
Accademia dei Lincei
Science Council of Japan
Russian Academy of Sciences
Oxford University
Cambridge
MIT (with the exception of Professor Richard Lindzen*)
NASA
NOAA
BAS

and many, many more - but I won't go on because if I were to continue this list it would be far too long.

*
Prof. Richard Lindzen claims that "predictions of more hurricanes, the catastrophic rise in sea levels, the melting of the global poles and even the plunge into another ice age are not scientifically supported".
All available evidence is to the contrary.

More hurricanes are occuring. The National Hurricane Center in the US has published figures showing this.

Sea levels are rising. Due to melting of ice caps, all the water has to go somewhere. Not so much in the case of the Arctic, because the Northern polar ice caps are floating ice, whereas in Antarctica the ice is mostly on land based ice shelves, which have been dropping off at rates that are much faster than anyone had previously predicted. The concern with the Arctic ice melting (which it is, as shown by results found by NASA, the US Navy (who measure the ice thicknesses to determine where submarines can surface) and all other research institutions who have measured changes in ice thickness - The US Navy say the amount of the Arctic ice decreased by 8% last year alone) is that water absorbs heat, whereas ice reflects it. The effect of all the ice becoming water and absorbing heat rather than reflecting that heat is an increase in global sea temperature. An increase in global sea temperature means more melting ice in Antarctica, which means a rise in sea level.

The global poles are melting.

Ben Holt Sr. - GRACE project - NASA wrote:

Recent analyses of GRACE data indicate that the Antarctic ice sheet has lost mass equivalent to between 19 and 40 trillion gallons of water.

Thats a lot of water.

The BAS have measured changes in the amount of ice in Antarctica which are consistent with the findings from the GRACE satellite. I have yet to see any readings which contradict these findings.
The ice shelves in Antarctica are melting. Warmer water, which you seem to believe will bring more rain and peace and happiness to the world, will only accelerate the melting

BAS wrote:

The Larsen A ice shelf, which measured 1,600 sq km, broke off in 1995. The 1,100 sq km Wilkins ice shelf fell off in 1998 and the 13,500 sq km Larsen B dropped away in 2002.

That's a lot of ice.

Isabella Velicogna - Colorado University at Boulder's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences wrote:

Antarctica holds 90 percent of the world's ice, and the disappearance of even its smaller West Antarctic ice sheet could raise worldwide sea levels by an estimated 20 feet.

This report is based on the data from GRACE and backed up by NASA.

A 4 metre rise in sea levels would be catastrophic. (20 feet = 6 metres)

The report is challenged by George Taylor, from Oregon (remember them? The people who think it isn't getting hotter, despite all evidence to the contrary.)

Washington Post wrote:

But some scientists remain unconvinced. Oregon state climatologist George Taylor noted that sea ice in some areas of Antarctica is expanding and part of the region is getting colder, despite computer models that would predict otherwise.

"The Antarctic is really a puzzle," said Taylor, who writes for the Web site TSCDaily, which is partly financed by fossil fuel companies that oppose curbs on greenhouse gases linked to climate change. "A lot more research is needed to understand the degree of climate and ice trends in and around the Antarctic."

It is not a case of computer models predicting otherwise. It is a case of reports from scientists in the region measuring the amount of ice and the temperature. It is getting hotter and ice is melting. The GRACE project is not done by scientists in the region (as all the BAS reports are), but is a means for other scientists around the world to study the amount of ice in detail using a collection of satellites. Is Mr Taylor questioning the effectiveness of the GRACE satellites, which have had immense success in all of their tests and provide results which are consistent with physical findings on the ground? It would seem so.
What is the point of even more research being done just so Mr Taylor can claim it is invalid, he refutes the findings of all research that has been done there anyway.


Personally I think Prof. Lindzen (along with Mr Taylor) is ignoring all the evidence which contradicts his claim totally.

NASA seem to think global warming is a serious threat. I'm inclined to believe them, all the evidence I have seen indicates that climate change is happening and is dangerous.

NASA wrote:

With the possible exception of another world war, a giant asteroid, or an incurable plague, global warming may be the single largest threat to our planet. For decades human factories and cars have spewed billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and the climate has begun to show some signs of warming. Many see this as a harbinger of what is to come. If we don’t curb our greenhouse gas emissions, then low-lying nations could be awash in seawater, rain and drought patterns across the world could change, hurricanes could become more frequent, and El Niños could become more intense.

From here

Sounds bad.

Last edited by Bertster7 (2006-09-02 12:38:38)

kr@cker wrote:

holy shit, you should know better, no one on here is going to read that

A few will. I hope. Fleder asked me to answer certain points, I think I've done that in that post, quite concisely. If he's the only one who reads it, that's ok by me. Hopefully some other global warming sceptics will read it too.

If anything just read the bottom bit refuting the OISM petitions validity - that's the most important bit.

Cheeky_Ninja06 wrote:

Surely we cannot have more numerous and serious hurricanes floods and droughts all becuase of global warming?


Also total uk power consumption was 283.33333333334 TWh (in 1996 so less than today) so thats 283,333,333.3333333334 MWh (its actually a 3 recurring but i dont have the right symbols on here)

wiki wrote:

The world's largest turbines are manufactured by the Northern German companies Enercon and REpower. The Enercon E112 delivers up to 6 MW, has an overall height of 186 m and a diameter of 114 m.

okay so lets say every turbine in the UK is as big as the worlds largest. so they make 6MW and have a diameter of 114m, We dont want them hitting each other so lets round that up to a minimum of 120m (still way to close but hey) 283,333,333.333333333333334 / 6 = 47,222,222.22 thats how many turbines we would need.

lets find how much of the UK they would cover. we'll give them a rectangle each thats 120m*30m (cant find any figures for the width of a turbine but i think 30m will be alright)  so thats 3,600 Sq.m

now all of our 47 million tubines will need that much space soooo 47,222,222.22 * 3,600 = 1.7*10^11 or 1,700,000,000,000 m² = 170,000 km²

Now would you like to have 170,000 km² of wind turbines? considering the total area of the uk is 244,820 km² that would mean covering roughly 69.44 % of the UK with turbines, or you could stand them in a line that would be 5,999,999 Km long

This is why i have said that wind power isnt a very realistic alternative.

Wind power is a highly realistic variable output power source. Used as a supplement to nuclear power, as fossil fuels are currently used to supplement nuclear power, it is a reasonable environmentally friendly alternative.

Cheeky_Ninja06 wrote:

no i agree it is realistic as a supplement, same as hydro-electric etc etc my argument is for the people who suggest wind turbines as the alternative to fossil fuels. sure they may be pretty and popular, but they arent particularly effecient.

You are right that wind power is not a realistic primary energy source. It is a good idea as a supplement and as something that individual companies can use on site to help out. I mentioned earlier I think that a Sainsburys near me is powered entirely by a single wind turbine, nothing like the size of a 6 MW.

Also your calculations are somewhat flawed. You have used TWh, which means you need to divide by 8760. The number of hours in a year, because you have neglected the fact that the turbine are producing 6MW an hour rather than a year.

47,222,222.22/8760 = 5390.66, call it 5500 turbines. Not 47 million. That's a big difference.

5500*3600=19800 Sq. km. Which isn't actually all that big an area. Well, 86 miles x 86 miles, fairly large. Also that is not a great estimate because the biggest turbines are not actually the most efficient in terms of area - so it would in fact be an even smaller area than that.

Nuclear power all the way.

Last edited by Bertster7 (2006-09-04 06:35:37)

As bertster says Nuclear is the way forward, most people just dont learn enough about it, in my A level physics i have learnt alot about it and tbh exposure to radiation isnt as bad as people think, its only exposure over long periods of time that are dangerous, ofcourse if you get a piece of radiated material stuck in you then you are pretty buggered. Most of the problems that people hear about are from the 60s or 70s when there just wasnt enough knowledge about the dangers of used cores, thats why there are two beaches in N.England that have particals of metal from an explosion in the 60s that are radiated. Now there havent been any noticable effects of this but the shards are still extremely dangerous to individual life forms.

i knew id buggered up somewhere lol but i deleted the bit saying i havent done any math for 11 weeks, and its 2am so ill have made a mistake that some1 will gladly point out. however ty for doing it nicely

jarhedch wrote:

not a threat, a boat load of media hype, look at the temperature records, wqarming and cooling is a NATURAL trend that has ahppened for millions of years, and climate change has yet to be proven in response to global warming. and that "great" institution known as the UN has become less accurate with their figures the more studies they have done. Sound like progress huh?

Look up the Keeling Curve, and do some reading.

Also, some say that by somewhere around 2060, the Greenland Ice Caps will melt, increasing the Atlantic Sea level as much as 25 feet.  That means, unless someone builds a wall, that Manhattan is under 25 feet of water.  That's just what some of the brains say though.

Last edited by bEAv3D (2006-09-06 11:55:34)

Bertster7 wrote:

kr@cker wrote:

holy shit, you should know better, no one on here is going to read that

A few will. I hope. Fleder asked me to answer certain points, I think I've done that in that post, quite concisely. If he's the only one who reads it, that's ok by me. Hopefully some other global warming sceptics will read it too.

If anything just read the bottom bit refuting the OISM petitions validity - that's the most important bit.

I'll try next time I'm home and sober, either status being a rarity the past few weeks, now even my dial up at work is crapped out so I have to use a verizon wireless PCI card to take care of company business and am afraid that those posts may bankrupt the account

Darth_Fleder wrote:

Previous estimates were wrong? Again, further evidence at the fallibility associated with this fledgling science.

Previous estimates were wrong. The melting of the ice has been far more rapid than anyone anticipated. You are right this sort of science is certainly failable. So far all estimates from IPCC and NAS have been surpassed by observed rates of change. I would call this reason enough for some concern. Failibility, yes, absolutely - but so far all changes have exceeded all projections.

Darth_Fleder wrote:

One important fact to remember is that as long as the continent of Antarctica is at the south pole, It is extremely unlikely for the ice cap to melt completely. This is because the ice is resting on land and will not be significantly affected by a warming sea. Why is the Western part thinning? The rock on which the West Antarctic ice rests is below sea level - and British Antarctic Survey researchers believe the thinning could be due to the ice sheet melting on its underside. Also, if portions of the West sheet are below sea level to begin with, wouldn't that fact negate any contribution to further raising the sea-level?

You might think that the ice being partially below sea level would negate any contribution to the raising of sea level. But unfortunately it does not (or only very slightly). The bulk of the ice is above sea level, unlike floating ice where around 70% of the ice is below water. The floating ice at the Arctic will have little effect on the sea level because it is floating ice and most of it is underwater anyway. Western Antarctica is raised up on bedrock and so is grounded ice, which does contribute significantly to rising sea levels. This has all been factored into the calculations which predict that the whole of Western Antarctica melting would raise sea levels by 20ft. If you look at the size of the ice cliffs that have been falling away you begin to get an idea of the volumes of water we are talking about.

Here is the breakup of the Larsen B ice shelf, which is 13,500 sq km.


When you consider that these ice shelves are not just sheets of ice but are huge ice cliffs like these:

(Bit of a crap pic sorry)

or these:



It's slightly concerning.

Here's a little pic of the area just to illustrate where everything is:
*edit* Picture gone from source

Eastern Antarctica is in no danger of melting (although that is what was said about Western Antarctica a decade ago). However if all of Western Antarctica melts (and it is melting) there will be big problems with rising sea level.

The Arctic is melting much more rapidly than the Antarctic. The link you gave quotes projections stating that all Arctic summer ice will be gone within 60 years. No North Pole. The reprecussions of this for sea temperatures will be severe. This is because as it is the Arctic ice reflects 90% of the heat of the sun. When it has melted and become water however, it absorbs 90% of the heat of the sun. Therefore when the Arctic ice is gone, sea temperatures, which are increasing a fair amount anyway, will go up even more. This will expediate the melting of other grounded ice which will have a real impact on sea level. Greenland has also had gounded ice melting on it, at current rates sea levels only stand to rise by about 1m by the end of the century. But the rates are highly unlikely to stay constant. Only 10 years ago scientists would have told you that there is no way the Arctic could melt - now it is melting and in the Antarctic 10s of 1000s of sq kms of ice have melted into the sea.

BBC wrote:

If the entire West Antarctic ice sheet did melt, sea levels globally would rise, by around 5m. But at the moment, there is no sign of that happening.

However, the Larsen ice shelf showed no signs of melting, until suddenly it collapsed into the sea. There is nothing to suggest this will not continue to happen. It is not unprecedented, several other ice shelves have suddenly collapsed in the past decade, before that though this sort of activity has not happened for at least 10000 years.

Melting ice has a snowball effect, if you'll excuse the pun, as more ice melts the rate the rest of the ice melts at increases.There have been no reports that have matched the rate of melting that has been observed in recent years. With the Arctic gone sea temperatures may go up immensely, but the impact on global climate in general would be very hard to predict. It would not be good though.

I believe human activity is to blame for the exceptional rates of global warming because it is so unlikely to be caused by natural variablity alone.

BAS wrote:

As part of the work undertaken for the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC, about 20 different climate models were run to simulate the climate of the 20th century, with specified changes to natural and anthropogenic forcing factors. The simulated changes in Antarctic surface temperatures over the second half of the 20th century vary greatly from model to model (and even between experiments run with the same model but with slightly different starting conditions), with no single model reproducing exactly the observed pattern of change. This lack of a clear and consistent model response to changed imposed forcing suggests that much of the observed change in temperatures may be due to natural variability rather than changes in natural or anthropogenic forcing. However, some caution is called for as the models used may not adequately represent all of the complex processes that determine temperatures in the polar regions. Most of the model experiments do simulate the observed strengthening of the circumpolar westerly winds, suggesting that this phenomenon is a robust response to changed climate forcing. Further experiments have indicated that changes in anthropogenic forcings, particularly stratospheric ozone depletion and increases in greenhouse gases, have made the largest contribution to the strengthening of the westerlies. Recent climate observations show that changes in the strength of the westerlies strongly influence temperature variations on the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Taken together, these two results suggest that human activity has contributed to the recent observed changes in climate in this part of the Antarctic.

I think that statement from the BAS shows quite nicely the general concensus on global warming and why some people do not believe it to be caused by human activity, yet it almost certainly is.

Which brings us to another possible human cause of global warming. Population

A factor I'm suprised you haven't brought up is human population. It has gone from 2 billion to nearly 7 billion in half a century. This will clearly increase carbon levels as people breathe. More people also means more energy consumption, which means even more carbon emissions.


(Sorry graph is a bit messed up, but it does show the rate of change quite nicely)

The rate of change of human population ties in with the rate of change of global warming, albeit at much higher levels. I don't think there can be much doubt that humans have caused the increased rate of global warming.

The link between more people and more greenhouse gases is hard to ignore, there is an indirectly proportional increase. The link between more greenhouse gases and increased rates of global warming is also hard to ignore. This is one reason why the vast majority of scientists believe humans are responsible for massively increased rates of global warming.

The levels of carbon in the atmosphere are increasing significantly, it is known that this will increase the temperature, as has been observed. In fact the global temperature increase is almost exactly in line with the increase in greenhouse gases.

Levels of Greenhouse gases. (NOAA)


Levels of global temperature.


You have to be careful when you look because the graphs don't start from the same point in time, but you can clearly see the correlation between the rise in greenhouse gas levels and the rise in temperature.

Not that you've disputed that point, I just thought it worth mentioning.

I'll have to get back to you on the Holocene stuff, because I don't know enough about it right now. I do recall hearing some things about it before though. Something to do with how the great lakes were formed (I think I mentioned that in an earlier post, but didn't go into ANY detail). I thought the melting of such vast quntities of ice caused the last ice age due to massively endothermic reactions affecting climate patterns - but I'll have to look into that. I thought the melting of the Arctic would be exactly the sort of change that could plunge the world into an Ice Age, but I'm not positive - I know I've heard something similar as an argument for the devastation global warming could cause.

*edit* This has got to be the longest page of a thread ever.

Last edited by Bertster7 (2006-09-13 14:44:45)