Study Says Cosmic Rays Do Not Explain Global Warming 656
flock2000 writes "A new study conducted by Norweigan researchers finds (again) that changes in cosmic rays most likely do not contribute to climate change. Previously, other researchers have claimed to have found a link between cosmic rays and surface temperatures."
Common Sense (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Common Sense (Score:5, Funny)
But there has recently been a rise in piracy.
Re:Common Sense (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Common Sense (Score:5, Funny)
and this year was the coldest on over a decade, or so i heard.
coincidence ?
Re:Common Sense (Score:5, Informative)
Sort the average global temperatures for any decade and there'll be a hottest and a coldest. But being the coldest year in the hottest decade doesn't mean it's getting colder.
But carbon emissions have gone up every year (Score:5, Funny)
So more carbon, yet lower temps. Hmm.
Re:But carbon emissions have gone up every year (Score:5, Informative)
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Think of global warming as moving your Normal Distribution Curve of all weather up 2 or 3 degrees (A shift to the right on the X axes).
Think of the current weather as a point along that curve. You can still get record colds in a period of global warming they are just slightly less probable then they were before. I don't think global warming has moved the chart a full standard deviation yet. So for the most case you can expect cold weather but more often then not the weather will be above the historical a
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Yes coldest since 2000. Spinning the data point in the opposite direction - it was the 10th hottest year on record.
And that is why hell froze over (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Common Sense (Score:4, Funny)
I wish Global warming was more than just a fairy tale. I am sick and tired of shoveling snow. Last winter was the coldest winter in a long time. This winter is looking about the same. We have had about 2 feet of snow in the last 3 days.
Re:Common Sense (Score:5, Insightful)
There will still be cold winters and warm summers no matter whether the mean global temperature is rising or falling. The variation from year to year swamps the slow, gradual rise in temperatures.
Think of the stock market. After one or two days of going up, we don't suddenly say the bear market is over. Once again, it's long-term change we're looking for, and you're noticing short-term change.
Re:Common Sense (Score:5, Informative)
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Melting glaciers won't cause a sea level rise unless they're sitting on land.. think archimedes.
Re:Common Sense (Score:4, Funny)
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Funny enough, in Alaska glaciers are actually growing right now (http://www.pjstar.com/oped/x420257915/Op-Ed-Look-to-patterns-to-grasp-glacier-growth). That neither proves nor disproves AGW, but the growth of glaciers makes it a bit more important to set out parameters on how much of a pause in global warming do you need before going back to the drawing board. We've currently got a decade's worth of pause with a bit of cooling the last year to two.
Re:Common Sense (Score:5, Insightful)
The seas have been rising 1.7mm/yr for the last several hundred years. They are up over 3 1/2 meters since the 17th century. Holland still has not flooded, even though they built dykes to dry-out and farm the Zuderzee over 400 years ago. If we can't match 17th century public works with 21 century science and equipment, then we deserve our fate...
Those who follow the rantings of a politically motivated activists seeking social justice need to wise up about what social justice really means.
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Re:Common Sense (Score:4, Interesting)
So how much cooling before you go back to the drawing board? How much of an unexplained pause in global warming before you figure out your current crop of models are useless?
Somehow I don't get very many takers on that question from AGW enthusiasts. I never have.
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We'll give you the benifit of doubt that you are asking serious questions here.
1. People have actually though to measure the effect of solar radiation on the average global temperature. Fluxuations don't make enough difference to account for current trends. Sorry.
2. Yes, in the past our fuel souces have been 'ineffient' (although some of this 'old' technology is actaully pretty damn good). Just because we now have 'efficient' power sources doesn't mean we haven't been using more...much more...of them. You s
Re:Common Sense (Score:5, Informative)
Mis-informative would be a better tag for your post, if the evidence was based soley on extrapolation of tempratures then you might have cause to dissmiss it as speculation. As it stands your post is just another lame political troll using the same tired old arguments [skepticalscience.com] that have been debunked to death.
BTW: The phrase "climate change" was coined by SKEPTICS in the early 90's, they pointed out that the term "global warming" implied a certain conclusion - both terms are literally correct.
Re:Common Sense (Score:4, Informative)
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Youre missing one major thing AC...unlike 'God', we have this thing called empirical evidence. The 'Faith' he was talking about is faith that the scientists know what they are talking about...something that *can* be tested and proved/disproved. With religious faith, its simply beleiving something that cannot be proven, simply based upon human wishes, hopes, dreams, tradition, magic and superstition.
*Please* use your brain AC.
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Funny how the proponents of the so called "Iris theory" fail to answer the obvious question. ie: There is no observable trend in cosmic rays since we started measuring them, so by what mechanisim does a LACK of trend in cosmic rays cause any trend in cloud cover?
Funny how some people ignore the fact that the role of CO2 in warming the Earth has been demonstrated experimentally time and time again for about a cen
Re:Common Sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't confuse evidence with effect because then you misconstrue science. As a measure of global warming scientists have used qualitative measurements like average temperature as a gauge or baseline. In science you need qualitative arguments. You can't say "the earth is getting warmer" without basing it on something qualitative. The raise in temperature is also not absolute but relative. For example, the average temperature from year to year are being compared to another not to the absolute temperature. What the data shows isn't just that the earth is getting warmer (that has happened before), but that the rate of climate change is much faster than in any previous period in the last several million years.
This has nothing to do with the temperature of the earth in general. No one is using a thermometer in cities and averaging them out. What they using are polar snowfall thickness, air pocket analysis, vegetation studies, etc.
Again, temperature is relative and being used for comparison. Temperatures are not absolute. In this vein, a change of few degrees by comparison changed the Sahara a few hundred thousand years ago from a tropical forest into the desert.
You haven't been paying close attention to NOAA [noaa.gov]. Or the warnings issued by the EPA [epa.gov]. That's just within this government. Italy is concerned about Venice sinking into the sea [pbs.org] that they are building sea barriers. They realize however Venice faces both rising sea levels and Venice was built on soft clay.
As a human you can change the temperature of your indoor surroundings or clothing. Many things in nature are triggered by temperature. Deciduous trees shed leaves and grow them back based on temperature. Some animals mate based on temperature (crocodile gender is determined by the egg nest's temperature). The world is bigger than your personal comfort level.
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So, therefore, a rise in carbon dioxide cannot cause a temperature rise? Sounds like a non sequitur to me.
It seems to me that whatever happened in the past, if we dramatically increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it will cause temperatures in increase, because carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. That's simple enough to follow, isn't it?
Re:Common Sense (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't pretend to know the Truth about global warming, but I am damn sure that most of the people claiming they do, are talking out of their collective asses.
We have not been directly recording global temperatures for long enough to draw any conclusions about global cycles that extend into the centuries and millennia. Hence the use of indirect measurements such as polar ice cores and other approaches. The problem is that indicrect measures are not as accurrate as direct measures, and are all dependent upon the validity of the models they are based on.
All models are wrong, but some are useful. That's the first think I learned in my statistics courses when we discussed modeling. All the evidence I've seen shows that the models that have been developed to explain our direct measurements of the environment have very poor predictive value when trying to predict wheather paterns we've already seen, and yet the acolytes of the Holy Church of Human Caused Global Warming (now climate change because global temperatures haven't changed in the last couple of years) seem to simply ignore this.
Is global climate change a concern? YES!
Has it been shown that it is definitely happening? Not in my opinion!
Is it the fault of humanity? Quite frankly, we can't know becuase the models are so bad!
Re:Common Sense (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is you seem to be avoiding the simple point that global temperatures HAVE been rising. I'm sorry, but it's a recorded fact [slb.com]. The problem is you're setting up the classic straw man this argument alaways suffers from, namely, confusing the fact of a global rise in temperature with the theory of what is causing it or whether it is outside the realm of natural cycle.
That quote leaves out the fact that they're also necessary. The models may be bad, but until we get better ones we have to work with the ones we have now.
Actually, the currently scientific thinking is more complex than either side really wants to talk about. Historically, there is very strong evidence to suggest that large changes in Earth's temperature are actually caused by slight changes in its orbit. But, that being said, those changes can't account for the increase in CO2 by themselves. Generally, the thinking goes that the changes in orbit trigger a small initial change, which triggers CO2 buildup and temperature change in a feedback loop [wikipedia.org]. In other words, current understanding of the evidence doesn't provide strong support for either side of this debate. (search around if you want to find evidence supporting this explanation--it's easy to find)
So, I would say you got right, one sorta right, and one dangerously wrong.
Is global climate change a concern? YES!
Has it been shown that it is definitely happening? Indisputably. If you don't like the temperature fact, try the size of the ice cover over the north pole.
Is it the fault of humanity? Conclusively, we can't really say until it's all over of course. Currently accepted science, however, suggests it is.
And a fourth that nobody ever seems to ask:
If it's not the fault of humanity, is it a historically precedented change, or is there some other causal factor we aren't aware of?
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But thats a bit of a cop out isn't it? So let me get this straight,we don't have the technology to accurately predict things so we will go with something we know to be horridly inaccurate because we have nothing better. I'm sorry if I'm sounding a bit harsh here but thats just not good enough.
The problem I have now with climate change (I'm a skeptic of the
Re:Common Sense (Score:5, Interesting)
Nice graph in your article. Did you notice that its data stopped at 2004? We're in a local period of warming pause from about 1998 through 2006 and outright cooling for 2007-2008. That's what most of the data's showing. Pointing to articles with old data does not help in discussing more recent data. In 2004, people were saying that a few years pause meant nothing. It's now a decade.
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The link between CO2 and temperature is causational, and this is experimentally proven: it absorbs more infrared light than the dominant gasses in the atmosphere, directly heating it. The earth's climate is of course dependent on many other factors, and the CO2 level in the atmosphere likewise depends on other factors than humans burning fossil fuel, and your sorry attempt at criticism just isn't valid.
Re:Common Sense (Score:4, Interesting)
The burden of proof is on the researchers creating the model and IMO they've only done a small portion of the work necessary and decided to claim victory without finishing.
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I've been hearing since elementary school telling me that by 2000 most of florida's coast would be under water. That lack of predictive accuracy made me a skeptic.
I am not sure about this but the highest informed sea level rise I have seen is about 0.5 m by 2050.
Note that all of the modelled sea level rises do not include 'non linear' effects, simply because we don't know enough to predict them. So there are real possibilities that sea level rise will be much greater if effects like water lubricating glaciers underneath turn out to be significant.
However, that doesn't make them ready for prime time (ie making global policy decisions, shooting our energy infrastructure in the foot, etc.)
I disagree.
There are two possibilities for whether climate change is real or not. Real and Not Real. The largest sci
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Global warming -> Melting polar ice -> New source of fresh water in the ocean -> Golf stream cuts east earlier -> Colder coasts in US North East / Warmer Coasts in Greenland -> People in Northern US suffering colder winters -> People misunderstanding that gl
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Wow, that story about where snow comes from is almost as far fetched as global warming.
More propaganda (Score:5, Funny)
Say it with me... (Score:2, Funny)
Correlation is not explanation.
Re:Say it with me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Correlation is not causa... wait... huh?
Anyway I think the fortune cookie logic here is, as usual, misapplied.
FTA
They're not saying "A happens with B, therefore A causes B." They're saying "A does not happen with B."
I guess the converse is possibly true, that lack of correlation does not indicate lack of causation per se. Didn't read if there was a possibility of a non-correlating causation, or maybe if I did, I don't have enough of a background in atmospheric science to realize it.
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I guess the converse is possibly true, that lack of correlation does not indicate lack of causation per se.
Well, yes, actually, absence of correlation implies the absence of causation. At least via the method you are examining for correlation. Correlation is not causation, but it is a prerequisite of causation. If you did a study where people smoked a cigarette and then were screened for lung cancer, you would find no correlation and thus correctly conclude that smoking a cigarette does not cause lung c
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I guess the converse is possibly true, that lack of correlation does not indicate lack of causation per se.
Actually lack of correlation is logically stronger than actual correlation. I'm going to simplify this a little bit, but it should stand. Let H = "Fewer cosmic rays causes fewer clouds." That's our hypothesis. Let O = "In periods where fewer cosmic rays are present, we would expect to observe fewer clouds." That's our expected observation. The statement H->O (H implies O) is TRUE: it literally states if fewer cosmic rays causes fewer clouds, then when we have a decline in cosmic rays we expect to see fe
Oh yeah? (Score:3, Funny)
Mooo (Score:2, Insightful)
I blame the cows. Farting around the country side doing nuttin' but to make us sweaty and fat.
So? (Score:4, Insightful)
So, even if this is not the mechanism, it changes very little. We're still in solar minimum, instead of a peak that was originally predicted for 2006. Not surprisingly, the global climate is also in a cooling trend.
Talk about inconvenient...
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Not surprisingly, the global climate is also in a cooling trend.
And piracy is up...
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You're right, there is no causal link between the giant ball of fire and the temperature on earth.
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What's inconvenient is that despite a global cooling it's still one of the hottest years on record. It's only cool relative to 2000.
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"Places like Manhattan becoming flood prone, grain growing "bread baskets" shifting north, small islands becoming flooded out"
You mean business like usual. Climate changing is nothing new. Some places become less habitable with time, other becomes more habitable.
The people who don't move get stuck in worse conditions while those who move to better places can live better. Of course, there are people who refuse to move because of sentimental reasons but they die eventually. And there are always people who mov
Re:So? (Score:5, Informative)
Not surprisingly, the global climate is also in a cooling trend.
Needs citation.
Global Temperature Land Ocean Index? -- Increasing [nasa.gov]
Global Temperature (meteorological stations)? -- Increasing. [nasa.gov]
Annual Mean Temperature Change for Three Latitude Bands? -- Slight dip for low latitudes, but mostly increasing [nasa.gov]
Annual Mean Temperature Change for Hemispheres? -- You guessed, it, increasing. [nasa.gov]
Global Monthly Mean Surface Temperature Change? -- All positive (thus, increasing) [nasa.gov]
Annual Mean Temperature Change in the United States? -- Shocking! - also increasing! [nasa.gov]
Seasonal Mean Temperature Change? -- Don't let the dip fool you, just means it is warming less rapidly [nasa.gov]
Perhaps you heard that 2008 is the coolest year since 2000? Well that's true. 2008 has the coolest temperatures of the past 8 years. But guess what? It's the 9th warmest year on record (since 1880). I'd wait for a few more data points before claiming a global cooling trend.
Talk about inconvenient...
Indeed.
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. Everyone, apparently, but the authors of the various global climate models, none of which currently include it.
Re:So? (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelii/ [nasa.gov]
To quote from the linked article:
"The model accounts for both the seasonal and diurnal solar cycles in its temperature calculations."
But hey, why let facts get in the way of a complete fabrication?
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Science isn't making shit up...
Don't think so? GW "data" is laced with examples of manipulation. The most recent is the July 2008 CO2 readings from Mauna Loa. It seems that the folks "maintaining" the Mauna Loa CO2 data has been caught "Hansenizing" it all the way back to 1974 to ELIMINATE a CO2 reversal. The GW folks are all about using "adjusted" data to support their agenda, Thankfully, the military doesn't buy into their schemes and use REAL temperature data in their guidance equations, otherwis
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Here is the data showing the CO2 manipulation, from the posting by Dee Norris.
And of course Dee Norris knows this first-hand because his brother Chuck is the real cause for global warming/climate change. Sea levels are actually rising because of all the people Chuck has triple-kicked in.
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
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To the GW Faithful EVERY change "proves" GW. This attitude moves them from the area of science to that of Faith. When you can't falsify your hypothesis then your hypothesis is a Faith.
Well, I don't know about the "GW Faithful", but for you, every post seems to be a lunatic rant against those who consider heathens for not believing the same as you. You sound very religious about it.
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Or, to use a car analogy, it's like saying that GM doesn't have a financial problem because their stock was up yesterday.
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We had a WARMING TREND.
Fixed that for you, it's been getting cooler the last 10 years.
Re:So? (Score:4, Informative)
Global Warming Heretics (Score:3, Informative)
Snowing today in Malibu, New Orleans and Vegas
Then of course there are these heretics
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6 [senate.gov]
"I am a skeptic Global warming has become a new religion." - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.
"Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly..As a scientist I remain skeptical." - Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called "among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years."
Warming fears are the "worst scientific scandal in the history.When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists." - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.
"The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn't listen to others. It doesn't have open minds. I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists," - Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.
"The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC "are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity." - Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico
"It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don't buy into anthropogenic global warming." - U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.
"Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.". Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.
"After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet." - Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.
"For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" - Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.
"Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp.Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact." - Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.
"Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined." - Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.
"Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense.The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning." - Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of P
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Perhaps you can help me with something I genuinely don't understand. Why is it that there is such a passionate movement for wanting more pollution, more shitty water, more shitty air, more shitty soil? Even if you don't agree with the science that shows global warming is manmade, why not work to clean up the environment anyway? I don't understand what motivates you.
Re:Global Warming Heretics (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Global Warming Heretics (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Global Warming Heretics (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I did took chemistry courses for the first 2 years of my physics degree, so I know what carbon dioxide is. I also typo-ed "actually" as "actual".
Broadly speaking, I'm skeptical about fragile natural balances, given the continuously changing climate of Earth, stretching as far back as we can measure it.
I'm skeptical that this particular climate is somehow miraculously the best of all, given that it's by mere chance we are alive at this point.
And humanity is the most adaptable of all creatures, living in the frozen tundra, and in the Sahara, and everywhere in between. So I'm not particularly worried.
We need more objective science, and less scare-mongering.
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All kinds of stuff gets dumped in the environment that we could do without.
Questioning the validity of the models used to support the "Humans are the primary cause of global warmig", or even the "global warming is happening" movements, doesn't in any way mean that someone is in favor of environmental pollution. Separate the two in you mind and you'll be able to follow the discussion a lot better
Re:Global Warming Heretics (Score:5, Insightful)
I really don't understand what motivates you to lie and construct straw man arguments. Is intellectual honesty and integrity so difficult?
A disbelief in anthropogenic planetary warming is not an implied argument for the destruction of the environment.
"Exactly when did you stop beating your wife?"
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If climate change is real, but it isn't driven by human activity, then human activity probably can't be used to counter it. If CO2 emissions are not the cause of global warming, then reducing CO2 emissions will not stop it. Don't you see how important a distinction that is?
It would mean that we are wasting time, money, and resources chasing a red herring, instead of figuring out w
Re:Global Warming Heretics (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not a passionate movement for more pollution... It's a passionate movement against government social experimentation/intervention under the guise of science. You'll find that most people who support the manmade global warming assumption use it to justify a whole host of government intrusion into our lives from punitive taxation to telling you what kind of car you should drive (hybrid), to what kind of coffee you should drink (organic, fair trade). These are personal social issues and not areas for government mandates.
If I where a scientist I would be very upset that the credibility of my profession was being undermined by people with political agendas. Pretty soon scientists will have the same level of credibility as the 4 out of 5 dentists or recommend Crest.
I believe that there are 3 great professionals that can truly benefit humanity. The statesman, the religious leader, and the scientist. We've already witnessed the decline of the first two so I guess it the scientists turn.
Re:Global Warming Heretics (Score:4, Insightful)
> It's not a passionate movement for more pollution... It's a passionate movement against
> government social experimentation/intervention under the guise of science.
I realize that you and the broader movement for denying human-caused global are not pro-pollution, but those are the bedfellows you're lying down with. The net result of your movement is more pollution and more environmental degradation. I just keep hoping that well-intentioned people would be willing to table the academic questions about what's causing global warming until we've achieved the goals I think we mostly agree on; to stop crapping up our planet.
Re:Global Warming Heretics (Score:4, Insightful)
Both sides have their crackpots and their extremes lead to undesirable results. But we shouldn't just accept the claims of global warming promoters just because we might like the end result. Flawed science is still flawed even if the result may be something that makes us feel good.
The truth is other than a few isolated cases and in some third world countries the planet is pretty nice. The third world just lacks the will and infrastructure to keep it clean. I've experienced the pollution in India, the smog, in China, and flooding in the Philippines because trash clogs the drainage. These are not global warming problems.
I've seen television campaigns in the Philippines saying that the flooding is cause more powerful storms do to global warming so it's something they can't do anything about. While the truth is if they stopped littering in the streets the drainage wouldn't get clogged and the streets wouldn't be flooded.
These are social/cultural problems. Fixing them will not affect global warming one way or the other but they will improve peoples lives.
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I realize that you and the broader movement for denying human-caused global are not pro-pollution, but those are the bedfellows you're lying down with.
So what if there are polluters that want to pollute more? We already have lots of environmental regulations in place to reduce pollution, and those won't go away just because we don't believe in global warming. CO2 is not pollution. What the hell do you think all those plants and trees are surviving on?
The net result of your movement is more pollution and more environmental degradation.
And I could just as easily say that the net result of your movement will be the tanking of the world economy.
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That's why I'm against people who criticize the wa
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Bjorn Lomberg (author, "the skeptical environmentalist") made this argument:
We have $1 today. We can spend it now to clean up the environment. Or we can invest it now, watch it turn into $50 in a century, and of that use $5 to clean up the environment at that time. It'll be more expensive, naturally, but he thinks that economies grow faster than do environmental burdens.
My instinct is that he's flat out wrong.
Re:Great question. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Global Warming Heretics (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Global Warming Heretics (Score:5, Insightful)
Some real nice attempts at "Argument from Authority" there.
So far it seems that the scientific consensus is that warming is real and likely to be contributed towards by human activity.
My favorite of your quotes is, "Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined." ...". And that's that. Anyone who's afraid to say "I was wrong" isn't a good scientist, or a scientist at all.
No real scientist needs to figure out how to do that. They would just say, "Ya know? I looked at the data again, existing and new, and I've changed my evaluation because of the following points:
All I see in those quotes are buzzwords and alarmist phrasing targeted at grabbing headlines. There may be just as much of that on the other side as well, but you'll need to do better than a list of quotes to convince anyone, or me anyway.
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The idea of a scientific consensus concerns me to no end. Science is about proving theories wrong, you can't prove a theory correct you can only demonstrate that a given theory is better than another theory. If everybody agrees then nobody is out trying to prove the current theory wrong, and that is simply not science, its belief.
Re:Global Warming Heretics (Score:4, Insightful)
So what?
Half these quotes are nonsense themselves that merely display the non-science related biases of the person speaking (e.g. Delgado Domingos).
What I don't get is what skeptics hope to prove by making quotes like that. Where are the peer-reviewed papers by all these guys? Oh, you mean they are just blowing hot air instead of doing the science? Perhaps they're too lazy, or maybe they are so brilliant that they can see through it all. However this brilliant minority seems to produce very little in the way of concrete science related to THIS subject (climatology) as opposed to the overwhelming, prodigious amount of science produced by the vast majority of climatologists of which a very large proportion has similar conclusions.
Forget the soundbites, show me the science!
Re:Global Warming Heretics (Score:4, Insightful)
OK Dr.Itoh, what is the "truth"? Where is YOUR peer-reviewed paper showing some actual research?
Well, maybe you can be forgiven, since you are actually a bio-med engineer (Google it yourself you lazy sods).
By the way, Itoh was a "reviewer" not a "contributor". And just so that you know, the scientists on the IPCC were chosen by their respective governments, so of course, there's no change of bias there...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's because the Higgs Boson and dark matter has no immediate impact on our lives. But the man-made global warming hysteria campaign can have a real impact on our daily lives.
Hell, it's already bad enough that I can't watch an educational show about nature or the environment without it turning into a propaganda piece about how awful humans are.
In other news (Score:2)
Video at 11.
Give that duche Al Gore another prize! (Score:4, Funny)
The ostrich brigade is out in full force today. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
OK, The graph you link to has it's last data point at 1950. On the graph, CO2 never gets above 300 ppm going back 400,000 years. Your graph also shows a strong correlation between CO2 levels and global temperature.
This graph has come current data: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ [noaa.gov]
It shows current CO2 levels at 385 ppm and rising.
The implication is that global temperature will see an equivalent rise above the norm of the past 400,000 years.
Your turn; ball's in your court.
What about a big ball of fire in the sky? (Score:2, Interesting)
Now maybe it is just me, but doesn't it seem plausible that a huge ball of nuclear fire situated somewhere nearby might be causing changes to the earth's climate?
I don't know what you would call this object, and I don't think there is any evidence that it exists, but if it did exist then slight changes in its energy output would probably result in changes to earth's climate as well.
I know this sounds completely insane. I mean there aren't any such object out there right?
Excuse me why I go put on some sunsc
Re:What about a big ball of fire in the sky? (Score:4, Insightful)
You're a fucking genius. In the entire history of climatology, no scientist has ever considered the possibility that the sun impacts climate. I wonder why that is, but no matter, clearly you are their intellectual superior.
Oh, wait, they've considered that, and solar variation explains at most 30% of the observed temperature change. Guess you aren't a genius after all. Sorry about that!
Re:What about a big ball of fire in the sky? (Score:5, Informative)
Given that the change in global mean temperature is 0.7 degrees Celsius, 30% of that is about 0.2 degrees Celsius. That leaves about 70% or about 0.5 degrees Celsius due to anthropogenic global warming.
Science never proves anything. Science can either refute or support a hypothesis. No one has been able to successfully refute the hypothesis of manmade global warming. On the contrary, there's lots of evidence to support it.
Total Solar Output (Score:2)
What about total solar energy output?
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Realization (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing that bugs me is that the public at large doesn't the read journals and papers on the latest scientific findings, instead they listen the political figure heads and corporations and news reporters, all of which have an agenda to push. I think what I'm beginning to realize is that science is ultimately going to suffer from this nonsense. I don't think it will matter if the results are peer-reviewed anymore, I think the public won't trust them anyway.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Re:Realization (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeing some facts being shot down around here because they're not in line with someone elses way of thinking has made me a cynic about geekdom in general. All of the mouths yammering on about truth via scientific reasoning are completely drowned out by those who feel the need to push their ideas on other regardless of the truth being 6 inches from their faces.
Bigger problems (Score:3, Insightful)
The bigger problem is that no matter what, "climate change" is a fact of life that we have yet to deal with. It is upon us for whatever reason.
Personally, I do not believe it is all human-caused and therefore cannot be stopped or deterred by any human action. I might be wrong, but it seems an awful lot like someone observing that each morning when they awaken the sun rises and therefore believes that it is their awakening that causes the sun to rise. Somewhat arrogant, perhaps?
The problem is that we have not built things in the last 100 years or so to account for even the possibility that the climate might be variable. Reluctantly we have begun to acknowledge that it might not be a good idea to build fragile structires in the path of hurricanes. We have yet to begin to acknowledge there might be a risk to building certain types of structures in areas frequented by tornados. The thought that sea levels might change is even further from anyone's mind.
The reality is that the climate has been remarkably calm and forgiving for the last 400 years or so. Much further back than we have detailed history of. What was the climate like in 1200 AD? How about 150 AD? 2500 BC? Sorry, but all we can do is guess from some very indistinct records. We have some evidence in ice cores, some historical documents and some biological evidence. As to where the sea levels were 4500 years ago we have no idea. Clearly, there have been changes because we know, for example, that the British Isles were connected to mainland Europe some time in the past.
Humans have been around for perhaps 4.5 million years, in one form or another. The Earth's climate has a history of hundreds of millions of years before that and again, we have only the faintest idea of what it was like.
Assuming the climate is going to be the same tomorrow as it was today is a reasonable expectation. Things do not change on that scale very quickly. However, assuming the climate will be the same in 100 years as it was 100 years ago is provably false over periods of time where we have pretty decent records. George Washington dragged heavy sledges across the frozen Delaware River which is impossible today because the river doesn't freeze.
Trying to terraform the Earth to keep the climate the same way it was before is a pointless and futile exercise. Beliving that humans can control the climate is an arrogant statement that is provably false. The climate is going to change and there is nothing we can do to change that fact. If you build your house at the beachfront, do not be surprised when the water level rises.
Every time it snows in Vegas (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
But nobody in their right mind doesn't think that the global climate isn't in a state of constant flux. The thing that AlGore and his minions don't want us to know is that right now, it's getting cooler, not warmer.
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Unable to defeat freedom and capitalism
ROFLMAO. You're either one hell of a dingbat or just a really shitty troll. Thanks for the laugh!
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Given that it will take decades for most of the predictions of global warming to become obvious, I think the conclusion that they haven't come to pass is a bit premature. The most obvious short-term predictions are that global termperatures will rise and the Arctic ice will melt [bbc.co.uk], and they have been. So exactly what predictions do you think were made that have not come to pass?