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Climate Change: Summary of Current Science
Cap and Trade, Global Warming, and Climate Change all have significant implications for we humans. The following analysis was done by Cato scholar, Andrei Illarionov, formerly Vladimir Putin's chief economic advisor. As an economist he studied the available literature and synthesized the current state of the scientific evidence on climate change and global warming. It is significant in that the "solutions" coming out of Copenhagen are really political in nature and not necessarily based on the best science or the best economics.
For the record, I believe in climate change and global warming, as the science suggests. The issue is the extent and impact of human behavior ("anthropogenic factors"). I think the scientific evidence presented by Illarionov and Cato, as well as the Competitive Enterprise Institute is pretty good.
I will also refer you to RealClimate.org which is run by four climatologists, and who have excellent resource materials. I will not comment on their objectivity or accuracy because I am not a climatologist. So, you can compare some of their data to those that Illarionov and Cato present. I checked a few and there is some agreement on the data, but perhaps not the overall view of things.
I will say that much of what is written about global warming and climate change is bunk. I think that it is the latest movement around which people who hate capitalism and free markets gravitate toward. And I am skeptical about the political solutions offered, especially those coming out of Copenhagen. My guess about Copenhagen: nothing major will happen.
A Few Notes On Climate Change
By Andrei Illarionov
December 11, 2009 at 5:33 pm
As the Copenhagen Climate Conference is taking place, it is appropriate to clarify once again what is more or less accurately known about the climate of our planet and about climate change.
Obviously, a brief post can not substitute for detailed studies of professionals in a variety of scientific disciplines – climatology, atmospheric physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, and economics. However, a short post can summarize basic theses on the main trends in climate evolution, on its forecasts, and on its actual and projected effects.
1. The Earth’s climate is constantly changing. The climate was changing in the past, is changing now and, obviously, will be changing in the future – as long as our planet exists.
2. Climatic changes are largely cyclical in nature. There are various time horizons of climatic cycles – from the annual cycle known to everyone to cycles of 65-70 years, of 1,300 years, or of 100,000 years (the so called Milankovitch cycles).
3. There is no fundamental disagreement among scientists, public figures and governments about the fact that the climate is changing. There is a broad consensus that climate changes occur constantly. The myth, created by climate alarmists, that their opponents deny climate change is sheer propaganda.
4. Current debate among climatologists, economists and public figures is not about the fact of climate change, but about other issues. In particular, disagreements exist on:
- Comparative levels of modern day temperatures (relative to the historically observed),
- The direction of climate change depending on the length of record,
- The extent of climate change,
- The rate of climate change,
- Causes of climate change,
- Forecasts of climate change,
- Consequences of climate change,
- The optimal strategy for human beings to respond to climate change.
5. Unbiased answers to many of these issues are critically dependent on a chosen time horizon – whether it is 10 years, or 30 years, or 70 years, or 1000 years, or 10,000 years, or hundreds of thousands or millions of years.Depending on the time horizon, the answers to many of these questions may be different, even opposite.
6. The current level of global temperature in historical perspective is not unique. The average temperature of the Earth is now estimated at about 14.5 degrees Celsius. In our planet’s history there have been few periods when the Earth’s temperature was lower than the current – in the early Permian period, in the Oligocene, and during periodic glaciations in the Pleistocene. For most of the time during the last half billion years, the air temperature at the Earth’s surface greatly exceeded the current one, and for about half of this period it was approximately 25°C, or 10°C higher than the current temperature. Regular glaciations of cold periods during the Pleistocene era lasted for approximately 90,000 years, with a low temperature of approximately 5°C below that of the present, alternated by warm interglacial periods (for 4,000-6,000 years) with temperatures of 1-3°C higher than at present. Approximately 11,000 years ago the last significant increase in temperature began (of approximately 5°C), during which time a huge glacier, that covered a considerable part of Eurasia and America, had melted. Climate warming has played a key role in humanity’s acquisition of the secrets of agriculture and in its transition to civilization. Over the past 11,000 years there were at least five distinct warm periods, the so-called “climatic optima” when the temperature of the planet was at 1-3°C higher than at present.
7. The focus of climate change depends critically on the choice of time horizon. In the past 11 years (1998-2009 years) global temperature was flat. Before that, in the preceding 20 years (1979-1998 years) it increased by about 0.3°C. Before that, during the preceding 36 years (1940-1976 years) the temperature fell by about 0.1°C. Before that, for the preceding two centuries (1740 – 1940 years), the overall trend in global temperature was mainly neutral – with periodic warming, followed by cooling, and then again warming. Over the past three centuries (from the turn of 18th century), the temperature in the northern hemisphere has increased by approximately 1.3°C, from the trough of the so-called “Little Ice Age” (LIA) during the years 1500-1740 years, followed by the contemporary climatic optimum (CCO), which started around 1980. During the three centuries preceding the LIA, the temperature in the northern hemisphere was falling compared to the level it was during the medieval climatic optimum (MCO) in the 8th – 13th centuries. Depending on the chosen time frame the long-term temperature trend has a different trajectory. For periods of the last 2,000 years, the last 4,000 years, and the last 8,000 years, the trend was negative. For periods of the past 1,300 years, the last 5,000 years, and the last 9,000 years it was positive.
8. The rate of contemporary climate change is much more modest in comparison with the rate of climatic changes observed earlier in the history of the planet. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describes the increase in the global temperature by 0.76°C over the last century (1906-2005 years) as extraordinary. There is reason to suspect this temperature value is somewhat overstated. However, the main point is that previous rises in temperature were greater than those in the modern era. Comparable data demonstrate that the increase in temperature, for example, in Central England in the 18th century (by 0.97°C) was more significant than in the 20th (by 0.90°C). The climatic changes in Central Greenland over the past 50,000 years show that there were at least a dozen periods during which the regional temperature increased by 10-13°C. Given the correlation between changes in temperature at high latitudes and globally, those shifts in temperature regime in Greenland meant a rise in global temperature by 4-6°C. Such a rate was approximately 5-7 times faster than the actual (and, perhaps, slightly exaggerated) temperature increase in the 20th century.
9. The rate of current climate change (the speed of modern warming) by historical standards is not unique.According to IPCC data, the rate of temperature increase over the past 50 years was 0.13°C per decade. According to comparable data, obtained through instrumental measurements, a higher rate of temperature increase was observed at least three times: in the late 17th century – early 18th century; in the second half of the 18th century; and in the late 19th century – early 20th century. The centennial rate of warming in the 20th century is slower than the warming in the 18th century that was instrumentally recorded and slower than the warming in at least 13 cases over the past 50,000 years that were measured by palaeoclimatic methods.
10. Among the causes of climate change in the pre-industrial era there were hardly any anthropogenic factors – due to modest population size and mankind’s limited economic activities. But the range of climatic fluctuations and their rate and peak values in the pre-industrial era exceeded the parameters of climate change recorded in the industrial period.
11. During the industrial age (since the beginning of the 19th century) climate change is believed to be under the impact of both groups of factors – of natural and of anthropogenic character. Since the rate of climate change in the industrial age is so far noticeably smaller than at some time in the pre-industrial age, there is no basis for the assertion that anthropogenic factors had already become as significant as natural factors, even less for the assertion that they overwhelm natural factors.
12. Factors of anthropogenic climate change are rather diverse and can not be confined to carbon dioxide only.Mankind impacts local, regional and global climate by constructing buildings and structures, heating houses, industrial and public premises, by logging and planting forests, plowing arable land, damming rivers, draining and irrigating lands, leveling and paving territories, conducting industry, issuing aerosols, etc.
13. There is no consensus in the scientific community on the role of carbon dioxide in climate change. Some scientists believe that it is crucial, others believe that it is secondary to other factors. There are also serious disagreements on the nature and direction of possible causality between concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and temperature: some researchers believe the former causes temperature to rise, others argue the opposite – that fluctuations in temperature cause changes in carbon dioxide concentration.
14. Unlike carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2) is harmless to humans; in contrast to aerosol, a harmful and dangerous substance, carbon dioxide does not pollute the environment. It has neither a color, nor a taste, nor a smell. Therefore, popularly used photos and videos showing factory chimney stacks emitting smoke and cars emitting exhaust to illustrate carbon dioxide are just misleading – CO2 is invisible; what is visible in those images are pollutants. It should also be noted that the increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the air has a positive impact on the productivity of plants, including agricultural crops.
15. The relationship of the concentration of carbon dioxide to climate change remains a subject of intense scientific debate. True, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the past two centuries increased from 280 parts per million of air particles in the early 19th century to 388 particles in 2009. It is also true that the global temperature in that period rose by about 0.8°C. But whether these two factors are connected is unclear. The dynamics of CO2 concentration did not correlate well with the expected changes in temperature. The significant and rapid increases in global temperature during the interglacial periods of the Pleistocene, during the Medieval Climatic Optima, in the 18th century, were not preceded by an increase in carbon dioxide concentration. In the industrial age, an increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere was not always accompanied by a rise in global temperature. In 1944-1976 CO2 concentration increased by 24 units – from 308 to 332 particles, but the global temperature fell 0.1°C. In 1998-2009 CO2 concentration increased by 21 units – from 367 to 388 particles, but the global temperature trend remained flat. In the first half of the 1940’s the decline in the concentration of carbon dioxide by 3 units (as a result of the massive destruction caused by World War II) did not prevent the global temperature to rise by 0.1°C.
16. So far global climate models demonstrate their limited effectiveness. The complex nature of the climate system is not reflected adequately enough in the global climate models whose use has recently spread around the world. The projections developed on their basis in the late 1990s through the early 2000s predicted the global temperature to rise by 1.4-5.8°C till the end of the 21st century with a 0.2-0.4°C increase already in the first decade. In reality during 1998-2009 the temperature was flat at best.
17. Forecasts of global climate change made at the beginning of this decade by Russian scientists (from the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, the Voejkov Main Geophysical Observatory) predicted a fall in the global temperature by 0.6°C by 2025-2030 in comparison with a temperature peak reached at the end of the 20thcentury. So far the actual temperature for the last decade has not risen.
18. Implications of climate change for human beings differ greatly depending on their direction, size and rate. An increase in temperature leads as a rule to a softer and moister climate, while a decline in temperature leads to a harder and drier climate. It was a climatic optimum in the Holocene period with temperatures 1-3°C higher than today that greatly contributed to the birth of civilization. Conditions for people’s life and economic activities in warmer climates are usually more favorable than in colder environments. In warmer climates there is usually more precipitation than in drier areas, the cost of heating and volume of food required to sustain human life is lower, while vegetation and navigation periods are longer, and crops’ yields are higher.
19. Methods “to combat global warming” by reducing carbon dioxide emissions suggested by climate alarmists are not only scientifically unfounded in the absence of extraordinary or unusual changes in climate during the modern era. Such measures, if adopted, are especially dangerous for mid- and lower income countries. Those measures would effectively cut those countries off the path to prosperity and hinder their ability to close the gap with more developed nations.
20. The impact of all anthropogenic factors (not only CO2) on climate is unclear when compared with factors of nature. Therefore, the most effective strategy for humanity in responding to different types of climate change is adaptation. That approach is exactly the way that humans have reacted to the larger-scale climatic changes in the past, even though they were less prepared then for such changes. Now mankind has greater resources to adapt to lesser climate fluctuations and it is better equipped for them scientifically, technically and psychologically. The adaptation of humanity to climate changes is incomparably less costly than other options being proposed and imposed by climate alarmists. Human society has already adopted to climate change and will continue to do so as long as economy and society are vibrant and free.
Andrei Illarionov is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. From 2000 to December 2005 he was the chief economic adviser of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Illarionov also served as the president's personal representative (sherpa) in the G-8. He is one of Russia's most forceful and articulate advocates of an open society and democratic capitalism, and has been a long-time friend of the Cato Institute. Illarionov received his Ph.D. from St. Petersburg University in 1987. From 1993 to 1994 Illarionov served as chief economic adviser to the prime minister of the Russian Federation, Viktor Chernomyrdin. He resigned in February 1994 to protest changes in the government's economic policy. In July 1994 Illarionov founded the Institute of Economic Analysis and became its director. Illarionov has coauthored several economic programs for Russian governments and has written three books and more than 300 articles on Russian economic and social policies.
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Dude. "Hide the decline" was a shift of databases. They shifted from proxy data to real temperatures. So, while that is not statistically "viable", it does allow them to pursue their agenda.
Why was the proxy data suddenly wrong? And why was the temperature data previously wrong?
Interestingly, neither of these items are discussed. Why? Because they would cause significant modelling problems.
Fact is, the temperature data IS discussed, at length, in the emails. It is determined to be badly flawed, but will be used anyway to pursue an agenda. This is clearly mentioned. But many journalists, in order to HIDE the real story have casually glossed over this point.
i agree with you that the shift in data bases was bad science and your point is well taken
there are other data sets gathered by noaa, the japanese and others
we will have to see if these have also been corrupted..im watching...we all are
Hey dip, I read that article and a ton of others. I've even read a good amount of the emails.
One of the key parts is the Harry Read Me portions, where it is clear he is making things up. He admits it. He admits the flaws in both the data AND the model.
I build models for a living - it's what I do to prepare for the coming year. Guess how many have been accurate?
Which is why, as a model builder, I have several on hand, to prepare for "inconvenient truths". Sadly, as I review the models which "prove" AGW, they lack any rigor. There are no alternatives. There is only one potential outcome - disaster.
Don't buy it, never will. I can build a model like that, but if I run into contrary data like, oh let's say....10 years of declining temperatures...I may have to say...."hide the decline". Yes, another quote from the CRU.
Furthermore, the concept that a "trick" is a real way to fix a model is more of a joke than I've ever heard. Model builders use "tricks" all the time. Why? Because we are PURSUING A PREDETERMINED OUTCOME. So, is it valid? Absolutely - IF WE BELIEVE THE PREMISE UPON WHICH WE ARE BUILDING THE MODEL. Otherwise, it's pure bunk. Which this AGW is.
Get over your bad self.
you started out calling me a "dip
and ended by telling me to "get over my bad self"
in the middle was bragging about how you create models for a living
all of these ad hominum arguments are irrelevant to the case at hand
If you believe Yahoo and AP, you probably get your financial advise from Jim Cramer. MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING IS NOW PROVABLE FRAUD!!
Told you the Climategate deniers were coming!
You're right. All this time and I never saw it...God's Blood, you're right!!!
I'm cancelling my subscriptions to Nature and Scientific American. To Reuters/AP/Al-Jazeera, all guests are to leave the premises! Google & Yahoo news feeds, NYT, Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, Daily Show / Colbert Report, and Jim Lehr News Hour all need to GTFO!
From now on, I'll get my wires from respectable sources. FOX News, The Weekly Standard, and NewsMax FTW. Let's get this party started!
Don't forget the Washington Times!
A paper with more integrity has never existed outside of South Korea.
i rely on reputable news outlets only to the degree that the reporting is verifiable by other sources
yahoo carried the story...researched and written by AP reporters
name another outlet that has read ALL the emails and come to alternative conclusions and i will be glad to weigh that input
ive read only a few of the emails myself and so im looking to intelligent discourse to add information
id be interested to hear your take on the emails referenced in the AP story when you get the chance to read them
As with Revkin at the New York Times the journalist Seth Borenstein of AP has no journalistic integrity. Here is his email to the gang. On July 23, 2009 he wrote, “Kevin, Gavin, Mike, It’s Seth again. Attached is a paper in JGR today that Marc Morano is hyping wildly. It’s in a legit journal. Watchya think?” “Again” means there is previous communication. A journalist talking to scientists is legitimate, but like the email’s tone and subjective comments are telling.
BTW: On the AP being a good non biased source of news:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/12/aps-seth-borenstein-is-just-too-da...
I am a scientist, and I strongly agree with this article.
The only thing that I disagree with is the use of aerosol as a polutant, when it is only particles suspended in the air. A cloud would be an aerosol.
Then share your data.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aerosol
Americans survived the dirty thirties, I think we will survive a little dust in the air. Also, I worked in a plant that, before they cleaned up their act, had coolant mist so thick you couldn't even see 100 yards. People were retiring after 30 years of that kind of atmosphere.
As for changing global temperatures, there are 1000x more clouds than there are dust clouds. (This is my estimate. But since the surface of the earth is 71% ocean, I don't think that I am very far off.) This would make dust clouds .1% of the reflective layer in the atmosphere. Now lets say that humans are responsible for 30% of that. .03% Not very likely to change anything.
Illarionov is a smart guy. I know him :)
Heres the graphs from NOAA (US government AGW believing agency guys) showing the global climate over the last couple hundred thousand years in incremental graphs. IPCC can't argue with this... sorry "gassers".
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/12/historical-video-perspective-our-current-unprecedented-global-warming-in-the-context-of-scale/
With such extreme natural variation it is impossible to determine the effect of the anthropogenic component of co2 which will warm things up only a very tiny bit. That is the IPCC's problem which is why they created the now discredited Hockey Stick graph.
AGW is not a problem. Period.
sure climate change is not a problem and the planet has been much colder and warmer in the past
and if you are ok with bringing on some of those changes in the next 50 years or less its not for me to say you wont like it
the us midwest bread basket reaching temps of 115 in the summer and the arctic ice cap melting causing a foot or more rise in ocean level
hey if you are kool with that NP
life on earth will adapt, species will change or go extinct, and im reasonable certain that at least a billion human beings will survive...more than enough to my way of thinking, so go on, piss in the well
besides why eliminate half of the current account deficit by shifting to nuclear, wind, solar geothermal etc... after all, middle eastern terrorists need those oil dollars as much as anyone else, right? (snark meter pinned)
This sort of apocalyptic prognosticating is based in cherry-picked data and resulting straight-line graphs. This sort of thinking means a DOW of 50,000 in the near future.
Besides, if the breadbasket of America really gets that hot, we'll have some real nice cropland available in Canada and Siberia.
You are a leftist stooge and too young to know better yet.
i have a significant net worth
i was an alternate delegate to the state republican convention several years ago
i have supported good candidates from both the right and the left side of the aisle
and your impulsive comments designed to insult me indicate that i am very much older than you
It's hard to give up false beliefs, when you tie your self esteem to them.wake the fuck,up, and quit pushing this wheelbarrow full of crap, you're not the smartest guy in the room, and repitition, does not increase plausibility.
Now let me see..
"the arctic ice cap melting causing a foot or more rise in ocean level"
Did you learn this from the Al Gore University, perchance?
The Arctic Ice Cap is floating on water. It displaces its own weight in that water. When (if) it melts, it will cause no sea-level rise.
Experiment:
Put a couple ice cubes in a glass. Fill the glass to the rim with water. Tell me if the water overflows the rim once the ice has melted.
Once you've got that one into your brain, you will begin to spot the other "porky pies" being spread about AGW more easily. Like this one:
Al Gore said (in at least 4 interviews) that Climategate was nothing and questioned why anybody would get excited about a bunch of 10 year-old emails.
The Truth? The most recent are 1-2 months old, and many are from the last year or two.
FInally, there is a growing number of Temperature Stations around the world being discovered to show a cooling trend in the Raw Temperature Data (ya know, one of those thermometer thingies) while the "adjusted" temperature data (GISS GHCN) shows a warming trend. Here's one:
http://thedogatemydata.blogspot.com/2009/12/raw-v-adjusted-ghcn-data.html
Mock Turtle, we've ben HAD! It's all a fraud, and what we are witnessing now is the many guilty parties covering up like mad eg. GISS Raw Data has recently been removed from their website.
Great, balanced article, by the way.
Ron from Down Under.
you are absolutely correct that the ice in the water has LESS of an effect (not none)
however significant portions of ice surrounding the north pole are on land in canada and greenland etc
mock turtle, et al;
We have TWO polar ice caps. The one to your south is NOT melting, it is increasing. Please explain.
Mock turtle - you stated that oceans would rise due to arctic melting. When someone pointed out the objective falsehood of that conclusion, you retrace and data mine to restore your initial conclusion (which is still dubious, at best). You are pathetic, and your behavior is disgustingly similar to the scientists behind climategate.
btw i dont want to defend some of the east anglia scientist's emails or behavior
if you look at the AP story i linked below you will see things are not what they seem
but in any case there are good and bad scientists on both sides of the debate and we are better off sticking to the data rather than arguing if lord monkton is better than al gore or beck is smarter than olberman...
It's a great site. One of my readers turned me on to it.
ZERO;
That's one of several sites that blast this russian's BS to hell all day every day.
The moment of truth happened for me. When GE bought Vetco Gray and started scarfing $20 billion dollar deep water contracts in Brazil.................?!?!!!
That's when "I" knew cap and trade was a scam and man made global warming was a fraud.
Google GE oil and Gas see for yourself!
When GE gets ass deep in Big oil it's time to GTFO of green energy.
T. Boone Pickins dumped green energy a long time ago.
This article sounds like Algore or better yet...the last remaining 12yr. old in the neighborhood that still thinks wrestling is real.
Are you attempting to say that this article on ZH is pro warming? If so please re-read the article...the whole thing and get back with me.
It's NOT real??? Shit.
I'll tell you what is real though... The University of East Anglia through the CRU boys trying to get money out of Shell. While anyone who questions their work is in the pay of Big Oil...
ClimateGate... the gift that keeps giving... the turd that will not flush...
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/12/05/climategate-research-unit-sought-funds-shell-oil
Is GoldmanSachs secretly funding some of these global warming protest groups ?
Listen, when we start talking misdirection and disinformation, don't always try to link everything back to GS.
They play their part, but you are under-rating the involvement of other groups, that is, who does GS work for?
Or do we honestly believe self-interest alone has created the behemoth of GS. No, the elites use GS for their purposes. That traders get huge bonuses for carrying out the destruction of equity and currency markets is just a bonus.
GS is not pulling the strings, they are just one of many tools.
I would imagine 'The Brotherhood' funds ALL kinds of global warming sites. Blogs in favor of carbon tax, news sites in favor of doing nothing, ClimateGate blogs. Never underestimate their desire to control both sides of the debate. Much like what we have seen with the inflation/deflation debate the last year!
It doesn't matter, what matters is the end result, and what can we do before its too late!
Lets not forget that GS is the trustee of the country's largest private land owner: The Nature Conservancy. If they can monetize the carbon sequestration of the millions of acres it would be billions upon billions of dollars worth of carbon credits longterm.
Simply brilliant, you get a gold star.
Just like implementing the fractional reserve system for gold (paper gold and ETF's) to make money on assets held in trust, this could do the same by turning land into an income generator without the need to develop the land or farm it. Ted Turner would probably support this since he may be one of the largest landowners in the US. I like the idea of not having to develop the land (cutting trees, building housing developments, and over farming) to create an income stream. That is very interesting and would benefit very wealthy individuals owning land.
here's another connection..
The British Royal Family and their support for cap'n trade legislation makes sense.
Geez, do they own allot of land or what? They illegitimately owned the land for centuries and now they get paid even more tax payers money just to have the land and not to use it.
whoa squid, nice call! can't tell you how many times i've noticed that little tidbit and the connection passed me right by.
from wiki:
The Conservancy has over one million members, and has protected more than 69,000 square kilometers (17 million acres) in the United States and more than 473,000 square kilometers (117 million acres) internationally.
The Nature Conservancy is led by President and CEO Mark Tercek, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, and an adjunct professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business.
117 million of undeveloped acres represents a nice big pile of carbonaris they can peddle to their clients, yes? taking a big hunk of carbon cash for themselves in brokering the deal of course.
Oh snap tip e and squid. Thanks for connecting those dots. The tentacles reach far and sting deep. I'm going to re-read your post with this music playing in the background so I can appreciate the pure genius of GoniffSachs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkTQdEZbjQA
These bankstas know how to plan ahead. Let's give credit. Goldman helped finance this video, which looks to me like another attempt to brainwash the youth about the fraudulent climate crises.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S58xZVx0PEo
Let's give Merrill Lynch an Honorable mention for doing their part in promoting the fraudulent climate crises.
http://www.nature.org/joinanddonate/corporatepartnerships/partnership/ar...
JP Morgan and Jamie Dimon amp it with the purchase of EcoSecurities.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&sid=aSR_1eiU6K0Q
If you prefer the Reader's Digest version...
Michael Mann's computer model output predicted a hockey stick increase in temperatures ( not sawtooth, no back-tracking, straight the fuck up ). It didn't happen, it didn't come close to happening. End of theory, end of story.
Oh, and CO2? This dastardly gas, which comprises such a minute percentage of the atmosphere, and the man-made contribution "minuter yet". Gosh, it must be one hell of an absorber of IR ( heat reflected off the Earth ). Uhh, no. It absorbs IR in only three narrow spectra.
The best AGW skeptic blogs are (IMHO):
Bishop Hill and Watt's Up With That
This is an excellent summary of the climate controversy. Climate is changing (as it has always done) and the effect of man upon climate is unknown but seems to be small compared to natural processes. Man must (and can) adapt to a changing climate but should focus on addressing real environmental issues (over fishing, pollution, habitat destruction), and not destroy modern society (and our freedom) to address an imaginary problem such as ABW.
Hydrocarbon man's ethical responsibility is not to kill off its host, or the environment of the other inhabitants, at least until a better solution for all its inhabitants exists, with a special notation of the Boreal Forest.25
you are fooling yourself if you think we can continue to pump 30 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year and not pay a price
so far the effects have been muted by the oceans rapid absorption of CO2 with concomitant acidification which is destroying coral reef habitats
but with continued warming the oceans will be less and less able to serve this function
yes its true the planet was very warm especially 100s of millions of years ago...yes indeed before the huge carboniferous forests , since submerged as coal and oil blanketed the earth
as we re liberate that carbon look to the past to see the future
?I'm confused? or? Are not oceans the biggest reservoire of CO2? If temp.
of the water increase CO2 is released. From what I know the increase of
temp. of the planet is followed by CO2 with 800 years lag, this due to the
ocean's thermal inertia.
Hi Mock Turtle Neck-
This is the best piece I have ever seen on AGW:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stij8sUybx0
This is Lord Mockton discussing the data, he won the Nobel prize when it was still legitimate. He also challenged Al Gore to a debate on AGW but Gore refused.
I highly recommend it, and would welcome an attempt by debunkers.
Apocalypse Now
im looking at the power point presentation that accompanies the 1 hour video you linked... that will take time for me to understand
thanks for the link
im not a scientist, but my brother is a petrogeologist and a hydrologist...and my daughter is a climate scientist so i will bounce the info you linked off them
let me say that im somewhat familiar with Monktons arguments and his references to anthropogenic climate change proponents as hitler youth and his claims that switching over to alternative energy sources thru gov direction and treaty will lead us to communism...all very hyperbolic and extravagant pronouncements to my way of thinking and does not encourage me to adopt his point of view
but at your recommendation i will watch the video
let me close by saying anybody who is intelligent about this entire affair has to recognize that we can not, on either side be 100 percent certain in our conclusions
this is very complex science and either side could be wrong
the real issue is the relative contribution short term...centuries, to climate change that is natural and change that is human induced...it is certain both inputs are significant...what we dont know is the relative weight to give to each
god help us if both the natural and human induced inputs are significant and positive and additive all at the same time
"let me close by saying anybody who is intelligent about this entire affair has to recognize that we can not, on either side be 100 percent certain in our conclusions
this is very complex science and either side could be wrong"
If that's the case, then perhaps the world's governments should not be making landmark policy decisions about controlling the lifestyles of people in industrialized nations until they have an accurate view of what is going on.
The reason Climategate is rocking the AGW debate right now is because these scientists have been promoting global armageddon "IF WE DON'T DO SOMETHING NOW!!!!" for the last 20-25 years. Now that their "scientific" process has been shown--by their own words--to be a manipulated, homogenized mess, their peer-review process to be a circle-jerk of methodologies seen more often in religious apologetics, and their transparency of the data to be completely lacking in any of the transparency whatsoever, people are starting to rightly ask if the entire global economy should be completely overhauled on a mere supposition.
The whole field needs to start from zero, do the research ALL over again, and ALL the data made public. Not the weasel game of three card monte the CRU played for years in conjunction with Mann and Hansen.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/05/moncktons-deliberate-manipulation/
Realclimate.org is the mouthpiece of Mann and Jones, and the emails confirm this. They are not a credible source of information, period. They simply publish coments that agree with their positions, and provide cover for the scam.
This essay was an excellent summary of the whole issue, and I wholeheartedly agree.
Actually, the increase in PPM of CO2 remains relatively insignificant. Most of the scare tactics are just that - scare tactics.
I don't believe in AGW. It makes not a whit of sense. More importantly, there is no clear tie between CO2 increase and increasing temperatures. In fact, there seems to be significant divergence - if CO2 does indeed increase temperatures significantly, why has it not occurred yet?
Correlation, as we know, is not causation. The increasing temperatures we have experienced for years have not increased with the rapidity the climatologists suggest should occur.
Melting glaciers? Point me to the temperature data which shows the temperatures in these regions has been significantly HIGHER than average. In some of the key glacial data, it's not happening. It seems the glaciers are "melting" due to wind or increased light. Another possibility is lack of snowfall to replenish the glaciers. None of these is, in and of themselves, indicative of AGW.
The land based temperature readings, as we have seen from ClimateGate, is inconsistent and fraught with problems. Not the least of which is encroaching urbanization - a classic example I've seen is a reading center which suddenly showed significant increases in temperature during the summer for several years. A picture, taken of the weather measurement center, showed the temperature booth had an air conditioner exhaust directly on it. The installation of this AC unit coincided with the spike in temperatures. Was it fixed? No (it happens to be near my house, so I can see it regularly).
Fact is, there is an agenda being pursued. I want no part of it. Is anyone surprised that most of the skeptics happen to be Physicists? Why? Because they are forced to adhere to rigor which climatologists are not.
In fact, climatology as a science is a joke. I have yet to see one accurately predict the number of hurricanes in a season to any reasonable extent. Forget about predicting landfall.
Climatology is simply a 5 day forecast thing, and they barely get that right. Good luck with any long term view.
And to make it more interesting, has anyone noticed that AGW (global warming) has shifted? It's now AGCC (global climate change). Why? Because it may not be warming....
They have NO IDEA what's happening. Get over it.
-100
Picking and choosing little sound bites and slapping together doesn't make for a coherent argument. You say you want no part of an "agenda" being pursued, but yet it seems you're carrying the torch of your own cause. And it is good science to openly question prevailing beliefs, so the mere existence of skeptics doesn't disprove an entire theory.
Those that understand climate processes get the fact that climate change is real. The name had to change away from global warming because that had become too politicized. And here we are trying to make even climate change taboo. Ask island nations how their receding coastlines are working out for them. Even ask Sarah Palin, she has seen the evidence of climate change in her home state of Alaska.
Society needs to get beyond arguing what is or is not real. We need to be good stewards of the land that supports us. It is easy to comprehend the local effects of anthropogenic pollutants... why is it so difficult to conceive that this may also be working on a global scale?
without greenhouse gases in our atmosphere the earth would be a ball of ice
this is not disputed
the amount of leading greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased more than 1/3rd in the last century
water of course is a leading greenhouse gas but adding water doesnt affect climate because we are already at overflow..ie there are lakes and oceans on the planet and more water would deepen the oceans...when CO2 reaches equivalent levels it will rain CO2 and there would theoretically be lakes of it
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=environment_how_...
as for your point that temperature is not responsible for shrinking glaciers verses wind and sun reducing glaciers...the suns output varies by about 1% or less over the last several centuries as indicated by sunspot activity and other measures
temperature has increased significantly since the industrial revolution and the melting of glaciers parallels this change
this is not proof as the connection may be associational
check out these pegs....especially the 4th and 5th in the series...the changes are startling
http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagegallery/igviewer.php?gid=42
ive been climbing in the colorado rockies and the pacific northwest for 40 years and going back to ice fields and glaciers were ive climbed 20 or 30 years ago in horrifying
What do you recommend doing when the earth starts cooling again? Because it will. Go hug some ice. Scientists can barely agree on temperature readings. I've studied this stuff enough to know that scientists agree on nothing.