First off: The scientific method does not mean continually repeating something as fact, and then coming up with a disaster scenario for emphasis (to get people motivated without thinking it through). Scientific method entails forming a hypothesis and then testing it.
Thanks for the education. Indeed, only one of the points that I labeled fact was a hypothesis (the explanation why CO2 typically lags temperature in natural ice-age cycle), the others are all extremely well supported by evidence. Which fact do you not agree with?
Second: The use of the term disbelivers/naysayers is highly loaded. It presupposes that the supposition is true without proving it. It also attempts to shut down all discussion (in violation of the scientific method). This is the reason I personally call the groups “pro” and either “anti or con”, and I get specific to “man made CO2 induced global warming”, as opposed to “global warming”.
A very large majority of climate scientists believe “man made CO2 induced global warming” is occurring. Because the majority of skeptics who don’t believe in “man made CO2 induced global warming” don’t have any formal training or experience in climate science, and prefer to believe that climate scientists are engaged in a vast conspiracy to hide the truth, and tend to uncritically repeat bogus information they read on junkscience.com, I call them naysayers. I think calling them skeptics gives them too much credibility. But if you prefer I’ll call them skeptics … I’ll also start calling people who believe the Earth is flat “Spherical Earth Skeptics” too. Seriously, there are still big uncertainties, but to state that AGW is a hoax, or that thousands of climate scientists don’t know what they are talking about, but you do is retarded.
Ok, now to the more major points: Lets take on the Vostok-ice-core: Take a look at the graph indicated, remember that it reads right to left (not left to right in time.. see scale on bottom). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png
There was a real rise in CO2 before temperature occurred 350K years ago (remember right to left). The interesting part is the temperature correlation to particulate matter (dust). It is stated higher dust levels are believed to be caused by cold dry periods, but this in part is already known to be false. Higher particulate levels are already known to reduce global temperature (see temperature results after volcanic eruptions – global dimming). One of the biggest problems is discerning the temperature of the earth over the same period. Most methods have been proven to be horribly inaccurate. I would like to know how they came up with the temperatures.
How is it known to be false? First of all, colder worlds are drier worlds, hence dust is less likely to be washed out of the atmosphere. Secondly, since sea level drops during cold periods, there is more newly exposed land to provide dust to the atmosphere. Also, dust (and aerosols) can be either warming or cooling depending on their composition, their residence time in the atmosphere, and how high they are in the atmosphere. Finally, stable oxygen isotopes are a good measure of paleo-temperature. What is your definition and your reference for stating that it is horribly inaccurate?
Forth: I, personally, find it insulting that those who disagree with the forced consensus that man made CO2 is the cause of current global warming are immediately labeled as ‘industry puppets’. This again, is the use of inflammatory words to try to prove ones case by default. Since people brought up the issue of $10,000 offering by the oil industry, I would also like to counter with the Heinz award going to James Hansen for work on global warming..(Hansen is very strong advocate for humans as being the cause).. Heinz awards are unrestricted cash amounts up to $250,000. http://www.heinzawards.net/recipients.asp?action=detail&recipientID=9
Whoopdeedo. Hansen was offered the award based on a lifetime of scientific, peer-reviewed work. Nobody offered him $250k upfront to refute the “science” of the oil companies. And the award is not specifically targeted at global warming research. I wonder why Exxon didn’t offer anybody that deal: 1) work for 30+ years in obscurity, 2) while being bullied by political bosses, and 3) then maybe, just maybe, we will give you $250,000 (or $8300 per year!).
I also throw into the mix, Branson (Virgin Airlines) throwing some $25Million for solutions to sequestering C02.
So what? Branson is offering money for a specific engineering task, not for undermining the poor Exxon scientists.
What does this have to do with the fact that Bush political appointees edited EPA, NOAA and NASA documents to remove references to Anthrogenic Global Warming (http://tinyurl.com/dulcq). Or that political managers have attempted to muzzle US government scientists at climate conferences? The fact that California sues car-makers or a federal agency has nothing to do with the fact that Bush has tried hard to suppress the science. California knows how much it has to lose if snowpack in the sierras decreases. I’d sue, too, out of economic self-interest.
Lawsuits are the opposite of giving money (they take money away from someone.. even just to defend oneself and come out even). Point summary: The pro global warming camp have proven themselves to be more aggressive financially than the con, the pro camp likes to hold out the simple 10K.. but compared to the awards and lawsuits being brought about.. and the scale of these.. the pro human cause global warming camp have proven the opposite to be true. Just leave the scientists alone and let them do their work in peace, whether they are pro or con. They know how to debate science, politicians and flamboyant CEOs don’t.
Sure. And almost all of the scientists are telling you that AGW is a real and growing problem. So you prove my point.
Fifth; Since people have brought up the IPCC.. I will now point to where they are going to ‘re-write’ science: http://www.ipcc.ch/about/app-a.pdf
search on grammatical (should end up being on page 4 of 15). Quoted:
“Changes (other than grammatical or minor editorial changes) made after acceptance by the Working Group or the Panel shall be those necessary to ensure consistency with the Summary for Policymakers or the Overview Chapter.”
Is that how we conduct science? If the research is not consistent with the intended summary, change the research papers to put them in line? This is not exactly the behavior of a responsible scientific body. Summaries should always be derived from the underlying research, not the other way around.
Misleading. Working Group 1 (which reviewed the scientific basis for climate cange) included 600 co-authors, over 600 expert reviewers, government reviewers. The fact that they came to a consensus is in itself remarkable. The fact that rules were put in place such that the conclusions in working group 1’s report was not open to further debate is obvious. After five years of work, it needed to be published. New data and new conclusions will be discussed ad nausium for the next report (5 years hence). AGW skeptics can, do and will make their voice heard. There have been four assessment reports. The scientific case and consensus have only gotten stronger through time.
Sixth: of 1jrp1 analogy, that is just plain ridiculous; What about the actual happening with respect the MTBE? We now have a carcinogen in our water supply because of the eco mandate for oxygenated fuel. This stuff does not go away, and is not going to break down for a considerable amount of time. Don’t even try to say that it was forced by the oil companies. It wasn’t. They don’t like the stuff. It is a ether, and a super solvent. That means that it dissolves the seals in the fuel processing plants (driving up the oil companies costs and causing plant fires), and you know they don’t like things that drive up their costs. Summary: doing something, just to prevent what is perceived as a problem, may be much worse than doing nothing at all until the full/real truth is figured out
Agreed some solutions are worse than the problems, this is not one of those situations.
Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter earth’s atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human activity. Approximately 90 billion tons come from biologic activity in earth’s oceans and another 90 billion tons from such sources as volcanoes and decaying land plants.
CO2 that goes into the atmosphere does not stay there but is continually recycled by terrestrial plant life and earth’s oceans.
Yes, CO2 is recycled (on a time scale of 100s of years). Yes. The natural fluxes of CO2 are much larger than the anthropogenic fluxes. However, the natural input was almost exactly balanced with the natural output – before the industrial revolution the net flux to the atmosphere was very close to zero. Now, we are adding 6 billion tons a year from fossil fuels, of which 3 billion tons is being taken up by the natural world, and 3 billion tons is remaining in the atmosphere. We know that man is too blame for the current rise because; 1) CO2 is rising 50-fold faster than at any time previously in the last 650k years, and 2) the age of the radiocarbon in the atmosphere indicates that there is a large amount of very old carbon entering the atmosphere (fossil fuels).
CO2 is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. Plants absorb CO2 and emit oxygen as a waste product. Humans and animals breathe oxygen and emit CO2 as a waste product. Carbon dioxide is a nutrient to plant life, and is an essential gas not a pollutant. All life on earth is carbon-based and CO2 is an essential ingredient. When plant-growers want to stimulate plant growth, they introduce more carbon dioxide (to the greenhouse).
Wow. You sure know a lot of neat stuff! Still has nothing to do whether the CO2 we are putting into the atmosphere is raising the temperature. Oh, BTW, terrestial plants in natural ecosystems are mostly nitrogen limited, so increasing CO2 won’t increase carbon uptake. That greening of the earth argument does not hold water.
At 360+/- parts per million CO2 is a minor constituent of earth’s atmosphere, less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present. (This is why kewp’s experiment at http://www.chemsoc.org/networks/LearnNet/jesei/co2green/home.htm is a flawed example (the sample of C02 gas was 1,000,000ppm not 360ppm). In addition, the setup is flawed (lamp output is not guaranteed to be the same(should use same lamp with an apparatis setup forcing same distance, same type of glass). I also have problems with the ‘typical results. From time sample 2 to time sample 3, air shows a rapid drop in temperature.. even under continuous IR input?? somethings goofy here!! and also contradicts kewp’s earlier assertion that CO2 reflects.. kewp, it absorbs and then re-emits.. and it is very band (wavelength) specific. In addition, light transitioning phase changes refracts, not reflects.. big difference) Absorption is done in many ways: energies of ionization (moving an electron to an outer orbit), translational/rotational/vibration between chemical bonds of carbon and oxygen atoms as well as translational (brownian motion) of the whole.
Gobbedlygook. What’s your point exactly? Seems like you are admitting that CO2 absorbs IR, which supports the idea that extra CO2 would lead to increased warming.
And now the link: http://freenet-homepage.de/klima/indexe.htm
This paper does not detail the effect of evaporation and condensation of water. When water evaporates, it takes 1000 Calories to accomplish this (vs 1 Calorie to heat one degree Celcius). To condense, that heat has to be given up. Gaseous water has a very light atomic weight (approx 10) compared to oxygen gass(02 = 16) nitrogen (N2 = 14) Carbon Dioxide (C02 = 22). This means that when condensation occurs, it will likely be in the upper atmosphere (troposphere?). When gaseous water condenses to a vapor, its global warming feedback goes from a postive feedback to a negative feedback. It is also a very strong heat/thermal energy transport mechanism.
Hmmm. Let’s say lots of words! The gist of the linked rambling is that “Backradiation of the heat radiation outgoing from the earth’s surface would only be possible by reflection, similarly to the effect of aluminium foil under roof insulation,” and because hot air rises thermal transfer is only one direction. Well, shoot, I guess I’m not too smart, but I’m pretty sure that IR can be absorbed and then re-emitted by CO2 molecules in a random direction (half of which is towards the ground). Also, by this logic, the temperature structure of the atmosphere is impossible. It should be -50C at the surface and +25C at the tropopause. Let me get my parka. Duh. Of course there is convection and mixing going on all the time (if there weren’t, Earth’s surface would be much hotter), but because of gravity (disclaimer: gravity is just a theory!) there is a higher gas density at the surface than at altitude. Local heating due to absorption of incoming solar radiation and outgoing IR is much higher at the surface. Because the timescale of absorption and emission is so much faster than the mixing rate (e.g. convection), much of the heat is slowed in its transfer out of the atmosphere, which is why we don’t freeze to death, which is the basis of the greenhouse effect.
