BS: Global warming?

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 08:02 PM

Don't confuse him with facts. His mind is made up.

Waste of time. I'm out of here too.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 16 Apr 08 - 10:36 PM

My final word...

PDQ says we (okay, maybe only me) only quote links that support us (me).

Absolutely correct!

I have provided no links to opinion or blogs - only data (please go test me on this).

Thank you PDQ for acknowledging that the data support us.

I am truly sorry that I annoyed you with data. Please do enjoy your little world, and I am truly sorry that we disrupted it.

You Win.

Goodbye.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 01:00 AM

"it is also the "party line" that many diseases are caused by germs. I hear this constantly, and without doubt nor nuance, from the mainstream media, the medical establishment, and my mother, and it makes me, frankly, very suspicious."

Disease is caused by Miasmas! And Combustion depends on the existence of Philostogen!


AS a musical aside I insert here reference to the song "Three hapence a Foot!"


"I have heard claims of 6' or more of sea level rise in the next 100 years and the result being flooding of major cities such as New York and Paris. Real change will be about 2 inches, scaremongers claim 6 feet. This is not even junk science, it is just plain junk."

If that's the case why bother with the London Barrage? Ah! High Tides come much ABOVE (including 'Tidal Surges') the 'average' rise of 3 mm a year...

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 01:41 AM

"Second, your graph is for 1992-2008 and can not be used to refute my claim which covered 150 years."


Your claim covering the past 150 yrs PDQ, lacks todays sophisticated technology, which there's no use in trying to compare the 2, give it up! In the past 16 yrs our scienctific reseach has advanced at a far greater rate that the privious 134 yrs that you're refering to.

There is now evidence that the sea ice at the polor regions are acting as insulators & trapping solor heat, furthing the ice cap melt. This many present a problem when this reaches a tipping point. But lets wait to see who wins the argument 1st & deal with all the problem afterwards,,,,,whne it's too late.

From a non PHD'd but very common sensed layperson.

Even non scientific photo's taken of glacier & & snow pack regions
during the 30's show that the toll taken to this regions has been such that it's impack is clearly visible compared to pictures taken after & up to the present. The Westen US ranges that supply the watershed for that half of the nation is becoming arid bound. Lake Meade is half of what it was, the Colorado is disappearing, the Platte which was once a trade & cargo route barely could be called a stream today. DO we need to dry up & shrivle before you'd admit to maybe a slight "we should consider the outcome" or would you prefere
we deal with istakes after they've been made & when they can't be made right.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Zen
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 04:37 AM

Just back to reply to pdq.

The BBC article I linked to referred to research at the world-renowned Proudman Oceanographic Institute in Liverpool.

You are clearly too blinkered and engaged with your own self-importance to read down that far pdq and I cannot be bothered to share bandwidth with you any more.

Go stick your head in thre trophoshere... it will clearly sustain your level of brain activity on this particular matter.

Goodbye.

Zen

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: pdq
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 09:46 AM

The subject of this thread is Global Warming It is not about me. Sorry so many folks feel the need to throw brickbats at anyone who will not parrot the 'party line', but that is their shortcoming.

Just something to think about: all this Global Warming we are supposed to worry about, and spend 3 trillion dollars fixing, is in the future. All we have so far, that anyone can agree on, is a slight rise in average ambient air temperature of 1 degree F, and that has occurred since about 1840, a period of over 150 years. We also have an increase of atmospheric CO2 from 290 parts per million to the current 380 PPM. Both these changes are beneficial to plant growth and crop production. About 2 more degrees rise will be a good thing for native plants and animals, and it will increase crop yeid to feed the enormous Third World population growth which really is happening.

Unfortunately, there is just as much chance of a 2 degree drop in temperature as there is rise. We have nothing to do about it. It will be the combined result of many naturally-occurring events that we have no control over. Predict the day of the Second Coming or the next San Francisco earthquake, you have just as much chance of being right.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 09:58 AM

That last post contains about 6 out of the 10 most common blogosphere talking points on global warming. And not a shred of science to back it up. All from one who was complaining upthread about the scientific illiteracy of liberal arts majors.

Got trounced by real scientists, so talking points is all that's left I suppose.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Amos
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 03:28 PM

Der SPiegel (Germany) reports:

Researchers have found ...evidence that the frozen Arctic floor has started to thaw and release long-stored methane gas. The results could be a catastrophic warming of the earth, since methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. But can the methane also be used as fuel?

(aerial photo: The Lena River flowing through Russian Siberia and empties into the Arctic Ocean. This satellite image shows the river delta, where methane concentrations are unexpectedly high).

It's always been a what-if scenario for climate researchers: Gas hydrates stored in the Arctic ocean floor -- hard clumps of ice and methane, conserved by freezing temperatures and high pressure -- could grow unstable and release massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Since methane is a potent greenhouse gas, more than carbon dioxide, the result would be a drastic acceleration of global warming. Until now this idea was mostly academic; scientists had warned that such a thing could happen. Now it seems more likely that it will.

...

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 07:23 PM

Having a degree in science is not necessarily an indication that one can tell Shinola from the other stuff, even in a field that is closely related—very closely relate—to one's own specialty.

In 1956, I took an astronomy course from a Professor T. S. Jacobson at the University of Washington. I must admit that I was more than a little disappointed in the course (Astronomy 101) because it was supposed to be an introductory course to astronomy. Though the whole course, he had us drawing triangles on a hemisphere about the size of half a grapefruit, according to coordinates he gave us. Right ascension, declination, that sort of thing. How to find a particular star in the sky once you've looked it up in that year's astronomical almanac.

I was not the only one who grew restive after a number of weeks of this. I was hoping that the course would be about the birth of stars, different types of stars, formation of planetary systems, etc. That's what most of the other students in the class had expected also. The drop-out rate was fairly high, but I beavered on and stuck it out in the hope that things might improve.

At the beginning of one class, as Prof. Jacobson was preparing to pass out the hemispheres, the calibrated curved triangle protractors that went with them, and the sheets of coordinates, a student ask a question.

"Professor, what do you think of the International Geophysical Year plan to launch an artificial satellite?"

"A ridiculous waste of money," said the good professor. "It will just fall back to earth. Artificial satellites are impossible. It'll never work!"

At the age of six, sparked by the comic strip, "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" I became fascinated with the idea of space travel, and this got me to reading science fiction. But not just fiction. I also read books by Willy Ley, such as Rockets and Space Travel (1947). It was one of the earlier books on rocketry for the general public, and it became a reference for both science fiction writers and for reality writing on the subject. Also, perhaps his best-known book, The Conquest of Space (1949), beautifully illustrated with the imaginative—and often amazingly predictive—paintings of Chesley Bonestell. There was also a whole series of articles by Werner von Braun in Colliers Magazine about, not just artificial satellites, but space stations. As far as I know, the wheel-shaped space station in "2001: A Space Odyssey" first appeared in the illustrations accompanying these Colliers articles. In addition to Willy Ley's writings, I was also quite familiar with the works of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Hermann Oberth, and Robert Goddard.

So I knew the science was there, the principles were sound, and, if they got the engineering right (and most of those involved with the program seemed more than competent), artificial satellites and far beyond that would indeed "work."

So—if I knew all this, which door had Professor Jacobson been standing behind?

But the good professor's diet had to turn to quantities of crow when, on October 4th, 1957 the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I. The American Vanguard project was nearly ready to go, but the Russians had beat us into space. The professor may have felt a slight amount of vindication a couple of months later, on December 6th, 1957, when Vanguard blew up on the launch pad. I was not totally surprised because I had read criticisms of the Vanguard rocket by a number of rocket scientists, saying the entire fuel system of the Vanguard was a plumber's nightmare. Von Braun's Redstone was a much simpler and inherently more reliable launch vehicle.

Grudgingly, the job was given to von Braun and his Redstone team who, on January 31, 1958, launched—glitchlessly—Explorer I. Whereas Sputnik I carried no scientific package and did little more than broadcast "beeps," it did provide some information about atmospheric density by studying the decay of its relatively low orbit, and because it was filled with pressurized nitrogen, the decrease of the gas pressure inside provided some information about micrometeorite penetrating. Explorer I, however, carried a small scientific payload that eventually discovered the magnetic radiation belts around the Earth, that were named after principal investigator James Van Allen. Eleven and a half years later, on July 20th, 1969, Neil Armstrong set foot on the surface of the moon.

Fortunately, there were other astronomy classes at the University of Washington, and other astronomy professors. In a later class, I learned (or rather, confirmed) much of what I already knew from my reading about the birth of stars and the formation of planetary systems, and actually got a chance to use the telescope in the small observatory on 17th Avenue N. E., just south of East 45th Street (near the north entrance to the campus). Despite the fact that the viewing from this location was not particularly good due to light pollution from the University business district just a few blocks to the west, I got a good look at the Arend-Roland comet (Spring, 1957), Jupiter and its four Galilean moons, and Saturn, complete with rings at a good angle for viewing. Looking at the real thing tends to pump a lot more adrenalin that looking at a photograph, even though the photo may show a lot more detail.

So—this was one of those times when I learned that having a degree in science, even being a professor at a major state university, is no guarantee that someone is immune from speaking a lot of twaddle, even in fields related to their specialty. I learned that there are experts and there are "experts." This, along with the principle of "listen carefully, but verify." With whom does one verify? Other scientists. And if they disagree, don't just listen to the disagreement, but understand the reasons for the disagreement. Again, listen carefully. And use your own brain!

Now it has most certainly happened in the history of science that the majority of scientists have held a particular view and a tiny minority have held another view, and the minority was eventually proved to be right. But if the vast majority of scientists agree on something, and a small number of scientists disagree, providing only contradictory and inconsistent "evidence" to support their position—and if they have a vested interest in their position—and when all the data of which I am aware corresponds with the majority position—I feel I am on fairly safe ground by casting my lot with the majority of scientists.

Thus it is for the matter of global warming. The vast majority of scientists agree that it is happening. The only disagreement within this majority is just how fast it's happening.

And I might point out—once again—that this is a question of science, not politics/ There are those who wish to make it a political issue, having a financial interest in attempting to debunk the overwhelming evidence for global warming. Future generations may very well regard them as criminally culpable for the consequences, if action is not taken immediately

Whether the Earth is flat or spherical is not a question of political viewpoint or bias.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 10:11 PM

Then Don there are those without the science degrees that adhere to the physiology of "if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck & looks like a duck, it a duck. I like yours better but,,,,
When I read the evidence & see the actuall photos & look at the imaging, hear what the polor bears, seals & penguins are saying & someone else whose got a vested interest in an opposing view tells me some thing completly oof the wall, I'll go with what my own thought process tells me is correct. When the weather man is saying it's bright & sunny all day & then I look out my window & it's dark & it's pouring, my thinking is to disguard the weather man's conclusion. There have been many claims made by the science community that the government has been very bais in this area of global warming & poultion & here's where those with a vested interest comes into play. They are the minority that are claiming that the majority is screeming that the "sky is falling". Well the sky isn't falling but global warming is happening & man plays a role in it, let's except it & do something about it.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Amos
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 02:56 AM

An educated and well-researched article in Nature magazine assesses the assumptions and projections of climate-change thinking, and finds them wanting in pessimism.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Amos
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 02:58 AM

The New York Times' Kristof discusses the failures of Bush' best efforts in regards to climate projections.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 07:58 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 11:03 AM

The actual records show that the mean sea level has risen 2mm per decade over the last 150 years. (pdq)

Someone (perhaps you) has made an error in converting one unit to another. Even if one looks at writings of Robert Johnston (a global warming skeptic) the number he gives is around the mid 1800s the rate of sea level rise increased to about 15 centimeters per century (http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/environment/sealevel.html) which is 1,5 mm/a.

What you have written differs from all the varying estimated values by roughly a power of ten.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: pdq
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 11:34 AM

OK, Wolfgang, we shall use your figures.

That suggests that mean sea level will rise about 6 inches in the next 100 years, if things go as they have been going.

Why do some scare-mongers say that the sea will rise 5 to 6 feet in the next 100 years and flood most of the great costal cities of the world, including New York?

Where will all this water come from? There is not enough ice to make that happen.

Where is the connection between man's use of carbon-based fuels and ice melt? We do have a huge amount of underground volcanic activity in the southern Pacific Ocean. The heated water produced is softeneng the edges of the ice in Antacrtica. The part above the ocean is softening, the part above land is still solid as ever, actually growing slightly.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 08:16 PM

Last night the local TV Weather man, commenting on the huge bubble of polar air surging up from the Antarctic, putting a huge High over a large chunk of Oz, and bringing record (since start of recording) low temps, said "So much for Golbal Warming."

I cringed again!

GW _IS_ responsible for this!

Just because you don't understand something Scientific, you CAN make jokes, but be careful lest those who DO understand think you are stupid, as well as ignorant!

GW means - NOT uniformly increasing temps everywhere - BUT AN INCREASE IN TOTAL ENERGY OF THE WHOLE SYSTEM - which leads to 'turbulence'. This means BOTH higher AND lower temps EVERYWHERE!

SO the record lows ARE part of GW!

Sadly this whole thread is just full of similar ignorance!

Just shouting what you believe doesn't stop the plane from crashing! :-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
It's difficult to make EASY emphasis in plain ASCII text without capitalisisng...

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 04 May 08 - 09:29 PM

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2010336/posts


""I don't make climate predictions because I don't know what the Sun will do next," says S. Fred Singer, University of Virginia emeritus professor of environmental sciences and founding director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service. "But analysis of the best data of the past 30 years has convinced me that the human contribution has been insignificant — in spite of the real rise in atmospheric CO2, a greenhouse gas."

These researchers are not alone. They are among a rising tide of scientists who question the so-called "global warming" theory. Some further argue that global cooling merits urgent concern.

"In stark contrast to the often repeated assertion that the science of climate change is 'settled,' significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming," 100 prestigious geologists, physicists, meteorologists, and other scientists wrote U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon last December. They also noted that "today's computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998."

In a December 2007 Senate Environment and Public Works Committee minority-staff report, more than 400 scientists — from such respected institutions as Princeton, the National Academy of Sciences, the University of London, and Paris's Pasteur Institute — declared their independence from the global-warming "conventional wisdom."

"Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas," asserted climatologist Luc Debontridder of Belgium's Royal Meteorological Institute. "It is responsible for at least 75 percent of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact, but Al Gore's movie has hyped CO2 so much that nobody seems to take note of it."

"The hypothesis that solar variability, and not human activity, is warming the oceans goes a long way to explain the puzzling idea that the Earth's surface may be warming while the atmosphere is not," explained Dr. David Wojick, co-founder of Carnegie-Mellon University's Department of Engineering and Public Policy. "The public is not well served by this constant drumbeat of false alarms fed by computer models manipulated by advocates."

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 04 May 08 - 09:45 PM

PDQ - again you say there is not enough ice to melt and cause significant flooding. Again, I recommend that you educate yourself about the separate "steric" and "mass" components of sea level rise before making unscientific pronouncements. Melting is less than half the story when it comes to sea level rise. Again, I am not doing your homework and explaining here. I hope that you will do some reading, and learn some things.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 04 May 08 - 09:53 PM

Are we really supposed to believe an article from freerepublic.com that is written by a fellow of the Hoover Institute. No political axes to grind there I am sure. I'll stick to the science thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: pdq
Date: 04 May 08 - 09:55 PM

GUEST,TIA

With all do respect, I never used the term "significant flooding". I said that the 5 feet some goofballs are suggesting cannot happen. If you are going to make up statements and attribute them to others, please go back and talk to yourself. You obviously like to see your own words more than others do.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 04 May 08 - 10:23 PM

GUEST,TIA ,

Since you seem incapable of actually reading something that might disagree with your particular world view, I will just mention that to judge SCIENCE data based on a political bent, AS YOU ARE DOING, is NOT sccience. Did you read WHO the referenced science sources were? Or do you just look at the author, and decide it is wrong???

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 04 May 08 - 10:38 PM

Sorry my yelling friend. I am a scientist, not a politician. I'll get my science from the journals, not from the Hoover Institute.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 04 May 08 - 10:39 PM

You are right, I am sorry. You did not use the word significant. But my point remains - if you believe that meltwater alone will raise sea level, you are missing other important effects.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 04 May 08 - 10:41 PM

P.S. BB - I believe I read the referenced authors long before you discovered those references on freerepublic.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 04 May 08 - 10:43 PM

Better keep listening to politicians as to what journals are saying the correct thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 04 May 08 - 10:54 PM

Let me see..... "political pundits I should ignore:


Chapman neither can be caricatured as a greedy oil-company lobbyist nor dismissed as a flat-Earther. He was a Massachusetts Institute of Technology staff physicist, NASA's first Australian-born astronaut, and Apollo 14's Mission Scientist.

Dr. Oleg Sorochtin of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Oceanology advised: "Stock up on fur coats and felt boots!"

The ice between Canada and southwest Greenland also spread dramatically. "We have to go back 15 years to find ice expansion so far south," Denmark's Meteorological Institute stated.

"The University of Alabama, Huntsville's analysis of data from satellites launched in 1979 showed a warming trend of 0.14 degrees Centigrade (0.25 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade," Joseph D'Aleo, the Weather Channel's first director of meteorology, told me.

As marine geologist Dr. Robert Carter of Australia's James Cook University recently observed: "The real-world global average temperature...exhibits no significant increase since 1998, and the preliminary 2007 year-end temperature confirms the continuation of a temperature plateau since 1998, to which is now appended a cooling trend over the last three years."

"I don't make climate predictions because I don't know what the Sun will do next," says S. Fred Singer, University of Virginia emeritus professor of environmental sciences and founding director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service. "But analysis of the best data of the past 30 years has convinced me that the human contribution has been insignificant — in spite of the real rise in atmospheric CO2, a greenhouse gas."

"In stark contrast to the often repeated assertion that the science of climate change is 'settled,' significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming," 100 prestigious geologists, physicists, meteorologists, and other scientists wrote U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon last December. They also noted that "today's computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998."

In a December 2007 Senate Environment and Public Works Committee minority-staff report, more than 400 scientists — from such respected institutions as Princeton, the National Academy of Sciences, the University of London, and Paris's Pasteur Institute — declared their independence from the global-warming "conventional wisdom."

"Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas," asserted climatologist Luc Debontridder of Belgium's Royal Meteorological Institute. "It is responsible for at least 75 percent of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact, but Al Gore's movie has hyped CO2 so much that nobody seems to take note of it."

"The hypothesis that solar variability, and not human activity, is warming the oceans goes a long way to explain the puzzling idea that the Earth's surface may be warming while the atmosphere is not," explained Dr. David Wojick, co-founder of Carnegie-Mellon University's Department of Engineering and Public Policy. "The public is not well served by this constant drumbeat of false alarms fed by computer models manipulated by advocates."

AccuWeather's Expert Senior Forecaster Joe Bastardi has stated: "People are concerned that 50 years from now, it will be warm beyond a point of no return. My concern is almost opposite, that it's cold and getting colder."



Scientific expert that is irrefutable:

Al Gore.


Yup, that sure looks like proof that global warming is both caused entirely by man, and can be prevented by voting the "correct" party in the next election...


"No political axes to grind there I am sure. I'll stick to the science thanks."

Right- I have to consider that I have a better basis on science than you, if that is what you are claiming. Or do you claim that Al Gore is not as biased as the Hoover institute???

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 04 May 08 - 10:54 PM

BTW BB, just to wet your cartridges, I started looking at the links in the article you referenced. One ends with "To sum things up, global warming hasn't been called off." So, the reference to it in the article is sneaky at best. Several others are to US government websites, or a New Zealand government website with summaries of government reports. Another is a bio of a weatherman that features a videoclip of an appearance on the Sean hannity show. Another, oddly, is simply a link to a metric to imperial converter routine (although it purports to be a link to some kind of NASA data). I gave up in disgust before finding any references to actual scientific articles. So, have I seen enough to being doing science instead of politics?

Sheesh.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Amos
Date: 04 May 08 - 11:20 PM

Surface warming, but not high atmosphere warming, is completely consistent with the greenhouse model of CO2 and other greenhouse gases impeding the transfer outward from surface through atmosphere.

Which is exactly what most models of global warming say is happening.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Amos
Date: 05 May 08 - 01:30 AM

The Earth's temperature may stay roughly the same for a decade, as natural climate cycles enter a cooling phase, scientists have predicted.

A new computer model developed by German researchers, reported in the journal Nature, suggests the cooling will counter greenhouse warming. However, temperatures will again be rising quickly by about 2020, they say.Other climate scientists have welcomed the research, saying it may help societies plan better for the future.


The key to the new prediction is the natural cycle of ocean temperatures called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), which is closely related to the warm currents that bring heat from the tropics to the shores of Europe.

The cause of the oscillation is not well understood, but the cycle appears to come round about every 60 to 70 years.

(BBC)

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Amos
Date: 05 May 08 - 01:33 AM

On the other hand, the BBC News site also carries this:

"Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice.

Their latest modelling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.

Professor Wieslaw Maslowski told an American Geophysical Union meeting that previous projections had underestimated the processes now driving ice loss.

Summer melting this year reduced the ice cover to 4.13 million sq km, the smallest ever extent in modern times.

Remarkably, this stunning low point was not even incorporated into the model runs of Professor Maslowski and his team, which used data sets from 1979 to 2004 to constrain their future projections.

"Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007," the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC.

"So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative.""

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: pdq
Date: 05 May 08 - 05:16 AM

GUEST, TIA:

"...if you believe that meltwater alone will raise sea level..."

Once again, you credit statements to me that have nothing to do with what I say. That is the lowest form of "winning at any cost" arguement technique and is not the type of behavior worthy of someone who thinks of himself as a scientist.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 05 May 08 - 10:05 AM

"...water at a depth of 4,500 metres in the Weddell Sea warmed by a tenth of a degree Celsius between 1989 and 2005, although the warming trend may have begun earlier. The latest work, by researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, found that temperatures have cooled slightly since 2005..."
(Nature news, April, 30th, 2008)

From the abstract of the article Amos has mentioned:

"we make the following forecast: over the next decade, the current Atlantic meridional overturning circulation will weaken to its long-term mean; moreover, North Atlantic SST and European and North American surface temperatures will cool slightly, whereas tropical Pacific SST will remain almost unchanged. Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic warming."

Advancing decadal-scale climate prediction in the North Atlantic sector, N. S. Keenlyside, M. Latif, J. Jungclaus, L. Kornblueh & E. Roeckner, Nature 453, 84-88 (1 May 2008)

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 05 May 08 - 10:19 PM

PDQ - you are ducking the question by hiding behind literalism. Here is your quote:

"There is not enough ice to make that happen."

You are correct in that statement, but it misses the point. And *that* is exactly my point. The ice is not the whole story. Please go educate yourself before making such statements.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 05 May 08 - 10:25 PM

BB:
I do not give a      what Al gore says. I read the actual peer-reviewed journals. From what I can tell, you read the references that are fed to you by websites with political axes.

When I stray into *your* field of expertise, please tell me. In the meantime, I have no inclination to argue with your links from political websites. If you care to argue actual science rather than the spin and selective quotes you find on political websites, bring it on.

Interestingly, your quote regarding the German study on ice thickness in west Greenland, and my rebutal pointing out that the article was egregiously misquoted disappeared from this thread. Hmmmm.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 05 May 08 - 10:30 PM

Wolfgang has kindly provided a link to the actual article above. You will find that it does not deny global climate change. It does point out that a specific region of the globe will lag for approximately a decade. It most certainly does not argue that global climate change is a myth or a political invention. The Hoover Institute fellow quite cleverly misquotes to disguise this result.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 05 May 08 - 10:35 PM

"Since you seem incapable of actually reading something that might disagree with your particular world view"

Well, no. I read it, but am capable of distinguishing spin from data.

I will leave now, and let you have your political argument, while I pursue science.

Please write to me in 50 years, if you are alive, and I am alive, and we will discuss how thing really turned out.

I am much more interested in making the world habitable for my kids than I am in proving I am "right" to politicobots. Now, gnash your teeth while I go educate the next generation.

buh-bye.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 05 May 08 - 11:02 PM

"things"

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 07 May 08 - 07:49 PM

I am enjoying the spitting in this thread, don't stop now!

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 May 08 - 08:02 PM

You can bury your head in the sand if you wish, but sooner or later you're going to become painfully aware that your ass is on fire.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 11:23 AM

"This message was recently backed up by the findings of the Copenhagen Consensus project, which gathered eight of the world's top economists -- including five Nobel laureates -- to examine research on the best ways to tackle 10 global challenges: air pollution, conflict, disease, global warming, hunger and malnutrition, lack of education, gender inequity, lack of water and sanitation, terrorism, and trade barriers.

These experts looked at the costs and benefits of different responses to each challenge. Their goal was to create a prioritized list showing how money could best be spent combating these problems.

The panel concluded that the least effective use of resources in slowing global warming would come from simply cutting carbon dioxide emissions. "

read the whole article-

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 11:44 AM

HEy--if the anthopogenic warming trend is going tobe temporarily offset by a regular cyclical cooling phase in the natural course of things, we should be delighted we have gained a little breathing room in which to reverse our toxification processes.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Jun 08 - 10:22 PM

"The panel concluded that the least effective use of resources in slowing global warming would come from simply cutting carbon dioxide emissions."

We should do one helluva lot more than "simply" cut carbon dioxide emissions. But reducing CO2 emissions is essential to diminishing and, hopefully, eventually putting the brakes on the greenhouse effect.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 03:00 AM

Polar scientists reveal dramatic new evidence of climate change
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Friday, 27 June 2008


INDEPENDENT GRAPHICS
ENLARGE
Related Articles
Click here to have your say
Peter Wadhams: Every time I visit the Arctic, the ice gets thinner
Print   Email

Search
Go
Independent.co.uk   Web
Bookmark & Share
Digg It
del.icio.us
Facebook
Stumbleupon
What are these?
Change font size: A A A
It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year.

The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic Ð and worrying Ð examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.

"From the viewpoint of science, the North Pole is just another point on the globe, but symbolically it is hugely important. There is supposed to be ice at the North Pole, not open water," said Mark Serreze of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado.

If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above.

Seasoned polar scientists believe the chances of a totally icefreeNorth Pole this summer are greater than 50:50 because the normally thick ice formed over many years at the Pole has been blown away and replaced by hugeswathes of thinner ice formed over a single year. (The Independent)

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 02:57 PM

What a marvelous bonanza for the oil companies!

The earth will survive, no matter what we do to it. But will we?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Amos
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 03:27 PM

IF you mean the Earth as a rock-based accretion in orbit around 150,000,000 KM from SOl, sure it will still be here. If you mean Gaia--a huge and sophisticated community of organisms thriving under a narrow band of temperature and chemical variation osupported by a precise orbit, reliable ratios of light, water and key elements in circulation--not so much, maybe...

But if the removal of Gaia from Earth does occur, it will not be because of people writing gloomy articles.

I would guess, purely speculatively, that it won't even be because of anthropogenic warming. More likely one could whack on the side of the ecosystem by a medium sized comet, or a planetary tidal commotion caused by the Moon getting knocked out of orbit, or some such cataclysm. IF you think life in the ecosphere is brutal, you should try surviving in cold vacuum.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Rumncoke
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 06:28 PM

Casually listening to a nature program on BBC Radio 4 I heard a report of how sea bird colonies were being affected by the spread of tropical plankton and other organisms outward toward the poles.

It is not a theory, not an opinion, the birds can't find the right sort of food to give their chicks in the places they habitually breed. They bring them all sorts of things they can find, but in many cases it is not suitable, so the bird watchers are finding nests of chicks dead from starvation but surrounded by rejected organisms, or even choked by unsuitable food.

The tropical boundaries - an arbitary separation of the Earth's seas by the classification of ecosystems seems to be showing a considerable recent alteration in the warmth of the oceans.

I expect some Northern Hemisphere birds will begin to move their breeding places Northwards once the permafrost melting has settled down and the land develops vegetation suitable for a warmer climate which hopefully will stabilise it.

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Amos
Date: 05 Sep 08 - 02:51 PM

From Ars TEchnica:

The landscape surrounding Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic is a shadow of its former self, thanks in part to last month's departure of 55 square kilometers of the Markham Ice Shelf. Ellesmere Island anchors one of only five remaining ice shelves in the Arctic, although how long it will retain that distinction remains to be seen. Including the Markham loss, Ellesmere Island has now lost 10 times more shelf ice this summer than scientists predicted on July 30.

Related StoriesHoley cling-film (may slow global warming) batman
Modeling ice-melt may lead to improved global climate forecasts
Located just west of Greenland, Ellesmere Island is Canada's most northerly landmass. Prior to the 20th Century, it was covered by one continuous 9,000-square-kilometer ice shelf. The Arctic has warmed more rapidly than the rest of the planet, though, over the past 100 years, and Ellesmere's ice shelf soon split into five distinct entities. In summer 2008 alone, Ellesmere Island's other ice shelves, the Ward Hunt and the Serson. have lost 43 square kilometers and 120 square kilometers respectively. The Markham split is the latest loss, leaving Ellesmere with only around 800 square kilometers of shelf ice.

Arctic sea ice has been disappearing at near record pace this summer. While the ice retreat has traditionally slowed in early August, this year's downward trend appeared unflappable in those telling few weeks. Scientists are concerned other cracks in the largest remaining shelf, the Ward Hunt, will continue the trend over the next few years.   

Ellesmere Island's ice shelves are estimated to be around 4,000 years old, and experts do not expect them to reform under current climate conditions. "These changes are irreversible under the present climate and indicate that the environmental conditions that have kept these ice shelves in balance for thousands of years are no longer present," said Derek Mueller, Arctic expert at Trent University in Canada.

Ice shelves like those found around Ellesmere Island support unique ecosystems, many of which have gone unstudied. The Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, for example, dammed the mouth of the Disraeli Fjord to form a 3,000-year-old freshwater ecosystem. As the glaciers on the island melted each summer, their runoff fed the "epishelf lake" that was suspended atop the denser seawater. Between 2000 and 2002, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf cracked and drained the lake, whisking its rare inhabitants out to sea.

Ellesmere Island lost much of its original ice shelf in the 1930s and 1940s, a particularly warm period in the last century. Since 2002, though, ice loss has again accelerated as Arctic temperatures overtop those seen in the first half of the 20th Century

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Sep 08 - 03:12 PM

Meanwhile, global cooling continues to do its diabolical work around here. It's dreadful. I can hardly imagine what October will be like! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Sep 08 - 04:03 PM

"Global cooling" is a great sop to those who want to keep right on using the ecosystem as a garbage dump. But the so-called "global cooling" phenomena are local weather purturbations that are caused by overall global warming.

Example:   the melting of the Greenland ice sheets dumps cold fresh water into the north Atlantic which disrupts the warm, heavier salt water flowing up in the Gulf Stream. It is the warm water of the Gulf Stream that keeps Northern Europe's climate moderate. Disruption of the Gulf Stream by the melting ice sheets could, more than likely, trigger extremely cold winters in Northern Europe.

But localized (even though apparently widespread) cooling of this type comes as a result of global warming.

Seeming small actions can have monumental effects down the line. The legendary fluttering of a butterfly's wings in the Amazonian jungle….

:-O    Eeeeeek!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Global warming?
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Sep 08 - 04:11 PM

Oh, what the hell!

Two Hunnert!

Don Firth