Man Based Global Warming....

It may surprise you to hear that I agree. However, I think the presumed "cost" of CO2's impact would likely be far too high. If it is cut incidentally because we are seeking to reduce pollution or conserve energy, that is fine by me though. But I am utterly unconvinced the release of CO2 into the atmosphere is creating a global warming catastrophe when most of the temperature data from the past 100+ years is out of sync with CO2 and current temperatures do not appear to be responding to copious increases in CO2.

 

As Lindzen notes, most IPCC contributors focused only on a few pages of the report, not the broad conclusions. So it would seem - to your argument - that the idea that the IPCC reports reflect "scientific concensus" is not necessarily backed up by their published IPCC work.

 

I'm calling B.S. Where do you get that? It certainly doesn't align with the facts. Corporate R&D has risen fairly steadily.

 

I get that from first hand experience. It has all but disappeared in many industries...you know the ones that manufacture things. I've seen far too many R&D organizations systematically dismantled and not replaced by others. And what there is left in these is often little more than development with no basic research.

 

Sure - it has disappeared in many companies because those companies are no longer competitive and can't afford it. Likewise, it has risen dramatically in other companies that are doing well. That is the nature of capitalism. I'm sure RCA (a declining company) is spending next to nothing on R&D, while Apple (a rising company) is spending a ton. This is as it should be.

On the whole though, as indicated in my link, R&D has risen steadily in the U.S. So again, your contention seems to me to be quite inaccurate - unless you can provide something other than anecdotal experience that demonstrates otherwise.

 

Well - as noted in the paper, there has been no there has been no thermal expansion of the ocean. So one can conclude pretty safely that the ocean hasn't warmed -- unless the laws of physics have changed.

Further, there is a reference to the Willis paper and that paper finds no increase in ocean heat content for the past 4 years.

So I think it is reasonable to say that there has been no global warming over that period.

 

Where in that paper is that a conclusion? What they are looking for is a reason for ocean level increase and the paper is arguing that it is not because of heat content but because of glacial melting and other factors. Assuming it is correct ocean heat content has not increased, doesn't the glacial melting part sound like warming to you?

This is a prime example of contrarian thinking and hubris. There are climatologists coming to a consensus based on research and giving recommendations and yet you would armchair reasons to why they are wrong. We can not do that. We are not climatologists and we have to let them do their job and follow their recommendations. Specially when as darreldd has argued effectively the outcome is positive anyway.

I would also discourage at-home surgery and home cooking of pharmaceuticals. Just in case you engage in those activities as well.

 

Yes. All work in the IPCC is backed by the research included in the report. The conclusions of each individual part where agreed upon by the researchers that produced the data in the first place.

The IPCC is the scientific consensus and the recommendation of the most experienced and accomplished researchers in the field.

 

Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age


Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age - Pravda.Ru



FTA:
The main flaw in the AGW theory is that its proponents focus on evidence from only the past one thousand years at most, while ignoring the evidence from the past million years -- evidence which is essential for a true understanding of climatology. The data from paleoclimatology provides us with an alternative and more credible explanation for the recent global temperature spike, based on the natural cycle of Ice Age maximums and interglacials.

 

Very true. Take for example the graph you have posted. The last 10,000 year before present are odd. CO2 is rapidly rising but the temperature is slightly declining. Then if you look at the peak in temperature at the end of the ice ages our present conditions are odd. The peaks for the last 4 warm periods are very sharp while we are currently in a plateau of abnormally warm temperatures. If anything our "normal" temperature that corresponds to the rise of man is 6 degrees C warmer than average.

We need to save our fossil fuels to warm our ice huts built on the glaciers that will soon (geologically) be invading the upper 30 degrees from the poles. We won't be able to fall back to our old tactic of migration to the equator to escape the next ice age. We simply have too many people for that.

 

It's not just anecdotal. Whole industires have done this in the U.S. and are fast disappearing. But then again these brainiacs have also been quite vociferous about denying Global Warming--so perhaps it serves them right.

You've got cause and effect backward. They became non-competitive because of their decisions not to reinvest (R&D) and where they chose to put their resources. It's called eating your seed corn, sure you are fat and happy during Winter, but you've got nothing to plant in the Spring, and nothing to harvest in the Fall.

And what do we have to show for this as a nation? We have a bunch of mature companies that don't really innovate. The remaining top R&D expenditures in the lists I've found have done a very poor job of allocating those R&D resources as shown by their financial results. Look at Microsoft, what a lame excuse for "R&D". What have they really innovated? Vista??? Or how about Ford?

Okay, let's talk about Pharma...where they claim huge R&D investment, but much of that appears to be geared toward gaming flawed patent law that allows endless extensions of patents through minor process improvements. And they also seem to be doing a rather poor job of evaluating risk of new drugs. Bang for the buck wise, I'm not at all impressed. Yet, they have a nearly protected monopoly and as a result, like monopolist Microsoft, have been able to peg the returns they wanted. It's not a healthy system, and in fact is moribund.

I've been watching the geniuses of industry systematically destroy themselves and everyone connected to them for the past decade. What do I see? A massive misallocation of capital. What does the market see for the past decade? The same (as reflected in valuations.)

 

Alric - try reading again - the paper says:

Recently published results suggest that since about 2003, ocean thermal expansion change, based on the newly deployed Argo system, is showing a plateau while sea level is still rising, although at a reduced rate ( ~2.5 mm/yr).
So ocean thermal expansion has plateaued, therefore ocean heat content has plateaued and thus the ocean is not warming (as the Willis data also shows). And the oceans comprise something like 70% of the earth's surface area, so if they ain't warming, it's not likely the earth is warming - a fact which is confirmed by satellite and land temperature data for the past decade:

Satellite:




And land:



To your point about glacial melt - yes, glacial melt is still being added to the ocean, but that does not mean the earth is warming, particularly since the rate of sea level increase is less now than the prior decade:

...since 2003, sea level has continued to rise but with a rate (of 2.5 +/-0.4 mm/yr) somewhat reduced compared to the 1993-2003 decade (3.1+/-0.4 mm/yr).

So the evidence is there is no thermal expansion, there is a reduced rate of sea level rise, and this is consistent with land and satellite data that show the earth is not warming.

If you believe it is warming over the past decade, please show me temperature data that supports your contention. The ocean, land, and satellite data indicate otherwise.

 

The World's most innovative companies according to BusinessWeek. Seems the U.S. is doing pretty well with 36 on the list. So your claim that R&D is shrinking and that US companies are not innovative seems a bit off. Not that companies can't do better, but your anecdotal claims are once again just that - anecdotes not supported by hard facts.

 

Two things. First, note the disconnect between the paper's conclusion and the wild extrapolation done by you and contrarian blogs. The paper does not make statements about global warming or temperature. The statements are made naively by you and contrarian blogs.

Second, the claim that there is no warming based one that one set of data (Hadcrut3) is also incorrect. Let's look at the Hadley Centre page that discusses their own data:

Met Office Hadley Centre observations datasets

"In March 2008, some diagrams were placed on this web site which showed smoothed annual series that included data for 2008. The annual value for 2008 was based on the only two months of data - January and February - that were available at the time. January and February 2008 were cooler than recent months, leading to a marked downturn towards the end of the smoothed series (Figure 2, orange line) that caused much discussion."



Figure 2: Annual global average near-surface temperatures from HadCRUT3. The solid black line shows the annual average temperatures from 1950-2007. The dashed black line shows the continuation of the series to include the estimate of the annual value for 2008 based on January and February data. The solid blue line shows the annual values (1950-2007) after smoothing with the 21-point binomial filter. The solid orange line shows the annual values for 1950-2007 and the estimated value for 2008 after smoothing with the 21-point binomial filter. The broken blue and orange lines show the values used to extend the series so that the smoothing can be run to its ends.

A similar, albeit less extreme, situation occurred in March 2007 (Figure 3, orange line). January 2007 was nominally the warmest January in the HadCRUT3 record and the anomaly for February was only a little lower. This led to the smoothed curve (including the annual estimate for 2007 based on only two months of data) showing stronger warming at the end of the series (Figure 3, orange line) than when data for only whole years were used (Figure 3, blue line).



Figure 3: annual global average near-surface temperatures from HadCRUT3. The solid black line shows the annual average temperatures from 1950-2006. The dashed black line shows the estimate of the annual value for 2007 based on January and February data only. The solid blue line shows the annual values for 1950-2006 after smoothing with the 21-point binomial filter. The solid orange line shows the annual values for 1950-2006 and the estimated value for 2007 after smoothing with the 21-point binomial filter. The broken blue and orange lines show the values used to extend the series so that the smoothing can be run to its ends.
It is clear that the average of January and February data does not give a reliable indication of what the annual average temperature will be and including these in a diagram which attempts to show even longer-term changes in temperature is inappropriate. Therefore, it was decided that incomplete years should be excluded from the calculation of the smoothed annual series (Figures 2 and 3, blue lines). Monthly average data will continue to be displayed as before.
The way that we calculate the smoothed series has not changed except that we no longer use data for the current year in the calculation.
This change has a noticeable effect only on the first and final 7 or so years of the smoothed time series. Smoothed values between 1860 and 1997 are completely unaffected.
We are continually reviewing the way that we present our data and any feedback is welcome.



So basically all of Pilkie's and your arguments are based on an admitted erroneous way of presenting the data.

Please understand. There are no amateur scientists. You can not browse the web, read a couple of blogs and claim understanding of a subject as complex as climatology. Like I do, you should take experts at their word. Even if they are ultimately wrong, they are more likely to be right than you.

 

Alric - address one simple question. Please show me where any measure of global temperature shows any warming this decade. You can't. Not in the land based measures, satellite measures, or ocean based measures. And this is not from "some contrarian blog" - it is from NOAA.



In fact, substantially all of the warming occurred from approximately 1990 - 2000. None occurred prior. None has occurred after. Strange that CO2 acts on a decadal basis, isn't it?

 

Looks to me it keeps rising after 2000 just fine. It plateaus in the last couple of years but as you can see in the graphs it has plateaued in the past before continued rise. The graphs themselves say .17° rise per decade.

I'd also like to point out how the temperature anomaly is more severe near the surface. This is consistent with greenhouse warming.

You care to address how what Pilkie posted so flat out contradicts what the crew behind Hadcrut3 explains?

 

Alric, the denier's brain's aren't going to allow themselves to "absorb" anything else than what they already believe.

Their whole self-concept is based on being right on this. Let's all review the biases post number 103 shall we.

The good news is that most of the people with political power now don't need to be convinced anymore.

 

" I believe on Wednesday, the same thing I believed on Monday regardless of what happened on Tuesday." GWB or Rummy? I can't remember.

Icarus

 

The same can be said of believers.

I know quite a few people that believe the earth is 5000 years old and was created in 6 days by a supernatural being that watches them every second tabulating their errors.

 

Another serious problem and example of the same phenomena. Good point.