"Global warming is real and humans are responsbile"

Pushtrak

Sam Kade wrote: »

Are you living in a tree?

Read the post you replied to again. Is it advocating an extreme approach? No? Why the strawman, then?

darkpagandeath

Pushtrak wrote: »

I really hope you are just trolling.

Maybe look up the word trolling ?

KyussBishop

An interesting perspective from Philip Mirowski (not sure who that is personally) on why global warming narrative is so dirty, and how it relates back to 'neoliberal' type economics in general; read this catching up on some RSS feeds (highlighting in original):

...
NT: The politics of Climate Change are more widely known and discussed than many of the other issues you cover in this book. Yet your understanding of these other issues give you a view of the politics of Climate Change that I think is unique. In particular, how are the political responses to climate change a classic example of the Neoliberal response to crisis?

PM: It may seem odd to raise the issue of global warming in a book about the economic crisis, but I do it in order to suggest something that has escaped notice, namely, that the thought collective has developed a generic strategy to deal with really daunting crises that would seem to challenge its world view, and that this fact is easier to perceive in the case of global warming than it has been in the case of the global economic crisis. In pursuing this, I am suggesting that works like Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine and her more recent writings on global warming don’t adequately comprehend the logic of neoliberal political economy.

Neoliberals neutralize their opponents by mounting a full spectrum response to crises: a short-term easily mobilized response to stymie their opponents; a subsequent medium-term response which involves a strong state in instituting more new-fangled markets; and a long-term science fiction response (also involving the state) to present an upbeat optimistic version of neoliberal doctrine. The shorter-term responses buy time for the thought collective to mobilize their longer-term panaceas. The book describes the dynamic in greater detail, but here, let me just indicate that, in the case of the climate crisis, the short term response is global warming denialism; the medium-term response is to institute trading schemes for carbon emission permits and offsets; and the long term science fiction response is geoengineering, such as schemes to pump particulates into the stratosphere to supposedly block out the sun and mitigate the warming process—but not, significantly, to actually cut back on carbon emissions. What Klein and others get wrong is that neoliberals are not really ‘anti-science’ as such; rather, ploys such as denialism simply postpone political attempts by opponents to cut emissions until they can recruit and train a cadre of entrepreneurial neoliberal scientists, whereas meanwhile the situation gets so dire that their preferred ‘market’ solutions come to seem the last refuge for a desperate populace. It is significant that each of these ‘ideas’ were innovated in neoliberal think tanks.

The striking aspect of the history of the economic crisis is that the thought collective has resorted to the very same pattern of full-spectrum response to demands to restructure the financial sector after the crisis. The initial short-term response was crisis denialism, as documented in the book: banks did nothing wrong, it was all the fault of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the economics profession was not blind-sided, and so forth. The medium-term response comprised the market-based rescue of the banks. People attribute far too much agency to central banks as saviors, when the details of the rescue reveal that the privatization of balance sheet restructuring and outsourcing of asset management was the clear alternative to nationalization and breaking up the banks.*** The long term science-fiction solution is financial engineering: the doctrine that the only way The Market can transcend its problems is by entrepreneurial souls whipping up even more complex financial instruments to ameliorate the burden of the previously hobbled balance sheets. Robert Shiller’s Finance and the Good Society is one hymnal to such deliverance.

A greater comprehension of the full-spectrum politics of the neoliberal thought collective has many profound implications; the most obvious is that the Left possesses nothing even remotely approaching its sophistication, which explains why it gets so repeatedly outfoxed.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/fixing-old-markets-with-new-markets-the-origins-and-practice-of-neoliberalism.html

I said earlier in the thread, that I don't really expect much of anything to be done about climate change (that things will go on as they are 'until the oil runs out'), because those in power (and their descendants) largely won't be all that affected personally, and this seems to dovetail nicely with that.


So if you want to do anything about climate change and properly educate yourself on it etc., probably have to educate yourself on the far dirtier topic of economics, to properly understand what is driving it politically.

All the while, you've got to avoid getting sucked into any of the ideological intellectual-traps in economics - I've seen very very few people (many extremely smart) who are able to avoid those traps (usually end up accepting economic 'common knowledge' uncritically, when a lot of it is wrong - few take a skeptical stance; that is, until they've already accepted the standard narrative and are skeptical to everything else), and far far less who are even willing to take a passing glance at economics in any way whatsoever.

Means Of Escape

Jonny7 wrote: »

Why would should this have any bearing?

We shouldn't be polluting the environment to the level we currently are. Full stop.

That's fine but for the size of our country we are getting in the neck with carbon taxes to a ridiculously high degree .
Thanks again for the memories Mr Gormley.

Akrasia

For those who are interested, there is a free online course available from Coursera.org starting next week.

It's delivered by the University of Chicago
https://www.coursera.org/course/globalwarming

This class is an introduction to the science of global warming for students without a science background. Students will examine the evidence surrounding climate change from a variety of perspectives and approaches, and, in the process, gain a multidisciplinary understanding of the scientific process.

darkpagandeath

Akrasia wrote: »

For those who are interested, there is a free online course available from Coursera.org starting next week.

It's delivered by the University of Chicago
https://www.coursera.org/course/globalwarming

So after my 8 week course my opinion on here will be taken seriously ?

Turtwig

darkpagandeath wrote: »

So after my 8 week course my opinion on here will be taken seriously ?

Don't care if somebody has a Nobel prize or a no primary school education their opinion is judged on the merit of what they say. So, to answer your question :
No, it most probably won't.

Akrasia

darkpagandeath wrote: »

So after my 8 week course my opinion on here will be taken seriously ?

Not if you start the course with the attitude that you're not going to learn anything from it.

It actually looks like a really fun course to do. I'd love to do it myself but I'm already signed up to 4 courses on there and I still have work and family to fit in there somewhere

Give it a go, it's free and if you don't like it, you can always drop out after the first few weeks.

FootShooter

darkpagandeath wrote: »

So after my 8 week course my opinion on here will be taken seriously ?

Do the course and actually try to understand the science instead of just dismissing it and your opinion will change. Unless you're too stupid understand the science.

When I was younger I also had the opinion it was all just part of the natural cycle. My opinion was formed by watching youtube videos about it and looking at graphs that showed past climate change. I know now I didn't know anything about climate change back then, but I understand why I had that opinion. It was because I lacked knowledge about it, and didn't properly understand the science so I just dismissed it.

_Redzer_

FootShooter wrote: »

Do the course and actually try to understand the science instead of just dismissing it and your opinion will change. Unless you're too stupid understand the science.

When I was younger I also had the opinion it was all just part of the natural cycle. My opinion was formed by watching youtube videos about it and looking at graphs that showed past climate change. I know now I didn't know anything about climate change back then, but I understand why I had that opinion. It was because I lacked knowledge about it, and didn't properly understand the science so I just dismissed it.

So many if the deniers have had their arguments completely picked apart because they genuinely hadn't a clue what they were talking about. The discussion about volcanos just goes as one example.

This reminds me about the opposition against GMOs. People without the faintest idea and nothing but the media's influence opposing it so strongly. It's quite desperate.

darkpagandeath

FootShooter wrote: »

Do the course and actually try to understand the science instead of just dismissing it and your opinion will change. Unless you're too stupid understand the science.

When I was younger I also had the opinion it was all just part of the natural cycle. My opinion was formed by watching youtube videos about it and looking at graphs that showed past climate change. I know now I didn't know anything about climate change back then, but I understand why I had that opinion. It was because I lacked knowledge about it, and didn't properly understand the science so I just dismissed it.

No one here does either. loads of people are making out there climate scientists when there just posting and re posting snippets of scientific journals. Then shouting down you don't understand or your to stupid as a valid argument against other opinions. Plenty of other scientist are saying it’s not human related or not as bad as made out. But they are then dismissed as crackpots and conspiracy nuts (some are) By people on here who just believe who shouts the loudest. Some will believe one thing some will believe another it’s not just as cut and dry as saying your stupid. Has man changed the climate in the last 200 odd years yes yes he has. Is it as big as made out that remains to be seen. If there so sure of there models are correct why have they been consistently wrong ? And wrong massively. Well over exaggerated temperature changes that have never surfaced. They keep saying were refining the model.

Mardy Bum

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Plenty of other scientist are saying it’s not human related or not as bad as made out.

Link to one reputable scientific body that says global warming is not related to human activity.

darkpagandeath

Mardy Bum wrote: »

Link to one reputable scientific body that says global warming is not related to human activity.

Define reputable ? You mean one that does not contradict the argument ? And is therefore wrong and dismissed does it have to have massive funding by lobby groups to be considered correct ?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/10/15/the-true-global-warming-crisis-is-the-fibs-underlying-the-theory/

IPCC also finally admits in an obscure footnote that “No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.”

Thargor

Its not about belief though why can you not understand that?

What other established scientific consensus do you disagree with like this?

Mardy Bum

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Define reputable ? You mean one that does not contradict the argument ? And is therefore wrong and dismissed does it have to have massive funding by lobby groups to be considered correct ?

No just one that has a good reputation in the scientific world.
The massive funding comes from oil companies in fact.

Thargor

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Define reputable ?

Peer reviewed.

Could your problem be you just dont understand what the term means and how important it is?

darkpagandeath

Thargor wrote: »

Peer reviewed.

Could your problem be you just dont understand what the term means and how important it is?

IPCC also finally admits in an obscure footnote that “No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.”

I'll just re post that

IPCC are saying they don't know

Arctic sea ice fluctuates normally. After declining during the 1978-1998 period, it expanded by 60% in 2013. Although there was no mention of this by IPCC, Antarctic sea ice recently increased by about 1 million square kilometers. The extent of global sea ice has not diminished in recent decades.

hansfrei

CO2 ouput is increasing faster than previous models were expecting, am I right? Even with this unexpected rise in the use of coal, gas, diesel, petrol etc how much greater is the threat compared to climate models made in that last decade?

Thargor

darkpagandeath wrote: »

IPCC also finally admits in an obscure footnote that “No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.”

I'll just re post that

IPCC are saying they don't know

Arctic sea ice fluctuates normally. After declining during the 1978-1998 period, it expanded by 60% in 2013. Although there was no mention of this by IPCC, Antarctic sea ice recently increased by about 1 million square kilometers. The extent of global sea ice has not diminished in recent decades.

Did they? Or are you just cherry picking a sentence from a report that examined all available peer reviewed research on climate change and declared that it was undeniably happening and happening as a result of human activity?

Ill ask you again, what other pieces of established scientific consensus do you not "believe" like this?

hansfrei

Thargor wrote: »

Did they? Or are you just cherry picking a sentence from a report that examined all available peer reviewed research on climate change and declared that it was undeniably happening and happening as a result of human activity?

Ill ask you again, what other pieces of established scientific consensus do you not "believe" like this?

It will never occur to you that you may be wrong.

Turtwig

Do people here actually realise that the IPCC's is, if anything, conservative so as not to appear alarmist? In 1990 they projected sea level rise of between 2 -6 cm by 2010. The actual rise was over 6cm. So, they were actually conservative in choosing their scientific models to reference.

Regarding models being wrong, that's the assumption always they're wrong no matter what. To give one example of a complication. When ice melts there's less albedo to reflect sunlight thus adding to warming. There's also a darker body of fresh ocean water that absorbs heat better than bright blue water. When the model is created it has to predict a)how much ice will disappear and b)how much of the ocean water will now be exposed to the sun and c) what extra heat that will absorb. So there's a lot of variability to be refined and sorted out.

darkpagandeath

Thargor wrote: »

Did they? Or are you just cherry picking a sentence from a report that examined all available peer reviewed research on climate change and declared that it was undeniably happening and happening as a result of human activity?

Ill ask you again, what other pieces of established scientific consensus do you not "believe" like this?

No need it's all in the article i linked. And i think you will find the climate scaremongers are cherry picking an awful lot as well.

darkpagandeath

Jernal wrote: »

Do people here actually realise that the IPCC's is, if anything, conservative so as not to appear alarmist? In 1990 they projected sea level rise of between 2 -6 cm by 2010. The actual rise was over 6cm. So, they were actually conservative in choosing their scientific models to reference.

Regarding models being wrong, that's the assumption always they're wrong no matter what. To give one example of a complication. When ice melts there's less albedo to reflect sunlight thus adding to warming. There's also a darker body of fresh ocean water that absorbs heat better than bright blue water. When the model is created it has to predict a)how much ice will disappear and b)how much of the ocean water will now be exposed to the sun and c) what extra heat that will absorb. So there's a lot of variability to be refined and sorted out.

Taken from article linked

AR5 also claims that “The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia (high confidence).” Fluctuating sea level rise over the past several centuries has averaged about 7 inches, and continues to rise at that rate with no evidence of acceleration.

Thargor

hansfrei wrote: »

It will never occur to you that you may be wrong.

You dont get it. You cant be wrong if you subscribe to the scientific method, you can only look at the weight of evidence on any subject, the available evidence determines what I think of everything, evolution, star formation, immunology, everything. If new evidence came on the scene that discredited global warming in the morning I would dismiss it like you do aswell, but the evidence is utterly overwhelming that it is happening and humans are the major contributors, therefore I have no choice but to "believe" as you and your friends would put it even though belief shouldnt come into it.

Thargor

darkpagandeath wrote: »

No need it's all in the article i linked. And i think you will find the climate scaremongers are cherry picking an awful lot as well.

I suggest you read the abstract of the IPCC report if you cant be bothered reading the whole thing then because it concludes nothing of the sort, the complete opposite, you're cherry picking as I said.

darkpagandeath

Thargor wrote: »

I suggest you read the abstract of the IPCC report if you cant be bothered reading the whole thing then because it concludes nothing of the sort, the complete opposite, you're cherry picking as I said.

How is linking something that contradicts someone's point cherry picking ?

Turtwig

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Taken from article linked

AR5 also claims that “The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia (high confidence).” Fluctuating sea level rise over the past several centuries has averaged about 7 inches, and continues to rise at that rate with no evidence of acceleration.

You realise that our sea levels rose about almost 1/5 of a metre (and that's probably underestimated) since the beginning of the 1900s and that rate of rise is expected to increase. So I'm not even sure what your actual point is here?

Thargor

darkpagandeath wrote: »

How is linking something that contradicts someone's point cherry picking ?

darkpagandeath wrote: »

IPCC also finally admits in an obscure footnote that “No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.”

I'll just re post that

IPCC are saying they don't know

Arctic sea ice fluctuates normally. After declining during the 1978-1998 period, it expanded by 60% in 2013. Although there was no mention of this by IPCC, Antarctic sea ice recently increased by about 1 million square kilometers. The extent of global sea ice has not diminished in recent decades.

The phrase in bold is an example of cherry picking, you are stating that is the conclusion of the IPCC, that they "dont know", that is blatantly not the conclusion of the report, there will always be quibbling over the exact values of anything.

FootShooter

darkpagandeath wrote: »

No one here does either. loads of people are making out there climate scientists when there just posting and re posting snippets of scientific journals. Then shouting down you don't understand or your to stupid as a valid argument against other opinions. Plenty of other scientist are saying it’s not human related or not as bad as made out. But they are then dismissed as crackpots and conspiracy nuts (some are) By people on here who just believe who shouts the loudest. Some will believe one thing some will believe another it’s not just as cut and dry as saying your stupid. Has man changed the climate in the last 200 odd years yes yes he has. Is it as big as made out that remains to be seen. If there so sure of there models are correct why have they been consistently wrong ? And wrong massively. Well over exaggerated temperature changes that have never surfaced. They keep saying were refining the model.

Maybe some people here actually are climate scientists, did you never consider that?
I'm not a climate scientist but I've taken several climate science courses in university and know the science quite well.

Plenty of scientists who aren't climate scientists, but scientists in completely different fields. They have no legitimacy. Some people will accept the what the scientific evidence says, others will deny it because of their cultural preferences or ability to understand it.

It does not remain to be seen how much contribution man has made. We know with high confidence how much contribution humans have made to the warming. Since 1950 near 100% of the warming can be attributed to humans.

Climate models have not been consistently wrong, that is a myth. And models are only an estimate anyway no one is expecting them to be 100% accurate and predict short-term natural climate fluctuations, like the slowdown in warming since 1998. There is a reason climate science always has used 30 year periods to deduce any sort of long term climatic trend. 30 years is long enough to filter out any natural short-term variability. Deducing a long term trend from a 15 year period like many climate change deniers do is very unscientific.

Some reading on climate model accuracy:
http://skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/contary-to-contrarians-ipcc-temp-projections-accurate.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/lessons-from-past-climate-predictions-ipcc-far.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/ipcc-global-warming-projections.htm
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/what-the-ipcc-models-really-say/

FootShooter

darkpagandeath wrote: »

IPCC also finally admits in an obscure footnote that “No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies.”

I'll just re post that

IPCC are saying they don't know

Arctic sea ice fluctuates normally. After declining during the 1978-1998 period, it expanded by 60% in 2013. Although there was no mention of this by IPCC, Antarctic sea ice recently increased by about 1 million square kilometers. The extent of global sea ice has not diminished in recent decades.

They can estimate the amount of warming that comes from a given amount of CO2 emissions quite accurately. They can not accurately enough estimate the warming when they include all the feedback effects that will increase warming. A lot of studies are showing different estimates. That is what they mean.

It's typical misleading bull**** from Richard Lindzen. He gets paid by a bunch of think-tanks like the Heartland Institute to come up with this ****. His work does not get pubslished in peer-reviewed journals about climate science because they do not have the required standard of quality. His hypothesises have been widely criticised and deemed false. He doesn't even think smoking is correlated with lung cancer, also a Heartland Institute position. Heartland Institute is funded by oil companies like ExxonMobil.
http://www.desmogblog.com/richard-lindzen
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_S._Lindzen
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=17
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Richard_Lindzen_quote.htm

Have you even read the full AR5 report? The 60% decrease is from 2012 to 2013. The lowest Arctic sea ice extent ever recorded was in 2012. The 2013 extent was 6th lowest on record btw. And as you say it fluctuates, so a 60% increase in lowest sea ice extent is not abnormal. Stop reading the Daily Fail and stop using it as your source on climate change.

Antarctic sea ice has increased because the Antarctic has a different regional climate, and is influenced by the ozone whole. However West-Antarctic land ice is melting. As well as glaciers all over the world.
Overall sea ice on Earth is decreasing. Saying global sea ice hasn't diminished in the last decades is completely false:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Monckton-Myth-6-Global-Sea-Ice.html
http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/sea_ice.html

Akrasia

One interesting point about the global climate. It is very unusual for the planet to have two frozen poles. Usually throughout the history of planet earth there were many periods where the North was frozen while the south was ice free, and also the reverse. It was only on a few occasions when there have been ice caps on both poles.

This just illustrates how complex the global climate is. While climate change has shown with close to certainty that the global average heat content is increasing, we can not say for certain what the effects will be on all of the heat transfer mechanisms in the oceans and the atmosphere.

It is possible that there could be a subtle (or even a sudden) change to the atmospheric currents which could have very large changes to regional climates.

Similarly, if the ocean currents change, this will have severe local impacts to climate. (We've all heard what will happen to ireland if the North atlantic drift is diverted. We can not say for certain what the exact tipping point for this is. It may not happen for centuries, or at all, or it might happen within our lifetimes.)

We can only make estimates of probability weighted on the best evidence we have available to us.

This is why Global warming is such a huge risk. It's an uncontrolled experiment that we can not reverse. We have ideas about what could happen, but we do not know for sure.

FootShooter

Nice explanation of the global warming "pause" and what it actually means:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/oct/18/global-warming-pause-meaning

Maybe the system is just reaching a new "thermal equilibrium" after the end of the last little ice age, all the extra energy that mankind has added to the system may not have yet had an affect. :eek:

cnocbui

Deleted User wrote: »

Maybe the system is just reaching a new "thermal equilibrium" after the end of the last little ice age, all the extra energy that mankind has added to the system may not have yet had an affect. :eek:

Yeah, It's amazing how there is a decades long hysteresis for warming caused by CO2, yet a big volcano goes off and the whole world cools within a year. No doubt the climate prestidigitators have a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Filibuster

Jernal wrote: »

You realise that our sea levels rose about almost 1/5 of a metre (and that's probably underestimated) since the beginning of the 1900s and that rate of rise is expected to increase. So I'm not even sure what your actual point is here?

This is the same horse**** as "it is the hottest ever since records began". Pick an arbitary date that suits your agenda and suggest that is the level the climate should be consistent with. Ignore the solar cyce that is actually causing the climate to change.

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/sea-level-rate-of-change-and-solar-cycles-510.jpg?w=640

Turtwig

cnocbui wrote: »

Yeah, It's amazing how there is a decades long hysteresis for warming caused by CO2, yet a big volcano goes off and the whole world cools within a year. No doubt the climate prestidigitators have a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Hold a rock up in front of a light source. Light hitting it gets scattered in all directions. Similarly if you place rock particles, or in this case ash and volcanic aerosols, in the atmosphere incident radiation from the sun will get scattered in all directions. Due to the Earth being an oblate spheroid more heat radiation will be scattered back into the space than radiation that gets directed towards the earth's surface.* The net result being the particles contribute a cooling mechanism.

*If you have difficulty conceptualising this, imagine you can stand on a football with a flash light in your hand. Which is the bigger area that you could place the beam of the flash light inside? Anything that belongs to the ball, or anything that isn't part of the ball?

Jernal

Jernal wrote: »

Hold a rock up in front of a light source. Light hitting it gets scattered in all directions. Similarly if you place rock particles, or in this case ash and volcanic aerosols, in the atmosphere incident radiation from the sun will get scattered in all directions. Due to the Earth being an oblate spheroid more heat radiation will be scattered back into the space than radiation that gets directed towards the earth's surface.* The net result being the particles contribute a cooling mechanism.

*If you have difficulty conceptualising this, imagine you can stand on a football with a flash light in your hand. Which is the bigger area that you could place the beam of the flash light inside? Anything belong to the ball, or anything that isn't part of the ball?

Dust or the absence of dust in the atmosphere will have a rapid affect on the amount of energy hitting the earth's surface, CO2 increases the insulation properties of the atmosphere.

But if the heat energy is reduced, the planet will cool down regardless of how good the insulation is.

The extra heat energy & CO2 that mankind is adding to the system will cause a rise in temperatures, but only to a new level at which point heat lost will equal heat gained/ generated.

Thermal equilibrium will be restored.

The deniers say that there is no affect & the climate alarmists say that there is only positive feedback.

Turtwig

Filibuster wrote: »

This is the same horse**** as "it is the hottest ever since records began". Pick an arbitary date that suits your agenda and suggest that is the level the climate should be consistent with. Ignore the solar cyce that is actually causing the climate to change.

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/sea-level-rate-of-change-and-solar-cycles-510.jpg?w=640

I'm still lost. What's the point here?

FootShooter

Deleted User wrote: »

Dust or the absence of dust in the atmosphere will have a rapid affect on the amount of energy hitting the earth's surface, CO2 increases the insulation properties of the atmosphere.

But if the heat energy is reduced, the planet will cool down regardless of how good the insulation is.

The extra heat energy & CO2 that mankind is adding to the system will cause a rise in temperatures, but only to a new level at which point heat lost will equal heat gained/ generated.

Thermal equilibrium will be restored.

The deniers say that there is no affect & the climate alarmists say that there is only positive feedback.

Yeah a point where human civilisation and maybe even human life will be impossible to sustain. If we use all of the estimated fossil fuels left, temperature may rise by an average of 20 C on land areas.

Of course this will take a very long time and we won't experience it so why bother with it. /s

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/2001/20120294.full

Filibuster

Jernal wrote: »

I'm still lost. What's the point here?

cnocbui

Jernal wrote: »

Hold a rock up in front of a light source. Light hitting it gets scattered in all directions. Similarly if you place rock particles, or in this case ash and volcanic aerosols, in the atmosphere incident radiation from the sun will get scattered in all directions. Due to the Earth being an oblate spheroid more heat radiation will be scattered back into the space than radiation that gets directed towards the earth's surface.* The net result being the particles contribute a cooling mechanism.

*If you have difficulty conceptualising this, imagine you can stand on a football with a flash light in your hand. Which is the bigger area that you could place the beam of the flash light inside? Anything that belongs to the ball, or anything that isn't part of the ball?

You have described why the output from volcanoes causes cooling. I have been perfectly well aware of the mechanism involved for some decades now since Carl Sagan used Mars an example to warn of the dangers of a nuclear winter in or around 1970.

My point was we are being asked by the prestidigitators to believe there is a miraculous mechanism delaying the effects of heating caused by CO2 - deep ocean sequestration of the heat being the current fairy story - Yet a cooling mechanism has a near instantaneous effect. In other words, continuing and increasing heat input is being magically masked, while a reduction in heat input has a sudden and profound effect.

FootShooter

Filibuster wrote: »

This is the same horse**** as "it is the hottest ever since records began". Pick an arbitary date that suits your agenda and suggest that is the level the climate should be consistent with. Ignore the solar cyce that is actually causing the climate to change.

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/sea-level-rate-of-change-and-solar-cycles-510.jpg?w=640

Right. There is no evidence that shows the Sun is the main cause of the climate change we are experiencing today. The Sun is just one of many natural forcings. It was a large contributing factor to the warming before the 1950s when CO2 levels were still quite low. After that Sun activity has gone down, CO2 has gone up, and temperature has gone up. The Sun can not explain the rise in temperature since the 1950s. Saying "it's the Sun" displays a very large gap in what little knowledge you have about climate science.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/Solar_vs_Temp_basic.gif

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/600px-Temp-sunspot-co2.svg.png

http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/cosmic_temp.jpg

http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming-advanced.htm

http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/13421/2011/acp-11-13421-2011.pdf

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009JD012105/abstract

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2009/2009_Lean_Rind.pdf

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008JD011639/abstract

http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/464/2094/1387.abstract

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JCLI3585.1

FootShooter

cnocbui wrote: »

You have described why the output from volcanoes causes cooling. I have been perfectly well aware of the mechanism involved for some decades now since Carl Sagan used Mars an example to warn of the dangers of a nuclear winter in or around 1970.

My point was we are being asked by the prestidigitators to believe there is a miraculous mechanism delaying the effects of heating caused by CO2 - deep ocean sequestration of the heat being the current fairy story - Yet a cooling mechanism has a near instantaneous effect. In other words, continuing and increasing heat input is being magically masked, while a reduction in heat input has a sudden and profound effect.

The ocean accumulates over 90% of warming, that's been known for a long time. It's also known that there are several natural short-term variabilities that affect air temperature. So using anything shorter than a 30 year period to deduce any sort of long term trend in climate will result in mistakes because you can't filter out the short-term variabilities. Variabilities like La Nina and El Nino affect air temperatures. Since 1998 there have been 8 La Nina events which cause cooler air surface temperatures, and only a few El Nino events that have been weak. Usually the number of La Nina events would be half of that. Despite this, 2000-2010 was the warmest decade on record and the temperature kept on rising indicating the strong effect of greenhouse gases. If the temperature rise continues to be not as fast as it was before 1998 for another 15 years, then you have an argument that climate change may be slowing down.

Of course there would be a difference between how fast a large volcano eruption affects temperature compared to a steady release of greenhouse gases. Volcanic eruptions are orders of magnitude bigger and faster, and they affect temperature with different mechanisms. Blocking the Sun out will have a more instantaneous effect on climate than trapping reflected long wave radiation.

Temptamperu

whether or not its cyclical or a human by product, the weather is heating up and ice is going to melt and oceans will rise so we need these scientists to work on it one way or the other.

Pushtrak

Temptamperu wrote: »

whether or not its cyclical or a human by product, the weather is heating up and ice is going to melt and oceans will rise so we need these scientists to work on it one way or the other.

We need more than that. We need politicians to give a crap. We need businesses to give a crap. We need people to give a crap.

hansfrei

Temptamperu wrote: »

whether or not its cyclical or a human by product, the weather is heating up and ice is going to melt and oceans will rise so we need these scientists to work on it one way or the other.

Ice caps are either going to decrease in size or increase in size? They're increasing now. Thats the problem. No one is making a clear case for climate.change.

FootShooter

FootShooter wrote: »

Yeah a point where human civilisation and maybe even human life will be impossible to sustain. If we use all of the estimated fossil fuels left, temperature may rise by an average of 20 C on land areas.

Of course this will take a very long time and we won't experience it so why bother with it. /s

http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/2001/20120294.full

Well, that article fits into the alarmists category so.
Ignoring the negative feed back that is associated with rising temperatures, i.e. greater cloud cover blocking sunlight & reducing direct solar warming.

LordSutch

steddyeddy wrote: »

"Global warming is real and humans are responsbile"

"Global warming is real alright, but humans are only partially responsible"

The latter is a more reslistic and complete scientific statement IMO.

Thargor

hansfrei wrote: »

Ice caps are either going to decrease in size or increase in size? They're increasing now. Thats the problem. No one is making a clear case for climate.change.

No they're not, constant repetition of the same Daily Mail nonsense isnt going to make it true:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm

Not to mention basically every glacier on the planet shrinking, plus Greenland thawing out.

hansfrei

:pac:

Thargor wrote: »

No they're not, constant repetition of the same Daily Mail nonsense isnt going to make it true:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice.htm

Not to mention basically every glacier on the planet shrinking, plus Greenland thawing out.

Lol.


Thats hilarious.