Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age

That would be the understanding of the contrarian blogosphere. Only one paper, the one you cite, contains global statements about the accuracy of hurricane intensity claims. Subsequent work found the answer is still not clear cut:

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~kossin/articles/Kossin_2006GL028836.pdf

"As a first step in addressing this debate, we constructed a more homogeneous global record of hurricane intensity and
found that previously documented trends in some ocean basins
are well supported, but in others the existing records contain
trends that may be inflated or spurious."

I am always intrigued by the contrarian logic. If there is disagreement about a particular issue, the larger point must be false too. In reality, there can be endless disagreements about side issues while everyone agrees about the central point.

 

Hooray TimBikes!!!! I may agree or disagree with your opinions, but at least you supply some attribution to your debate! Thank you.

Icarus

 

I made a specific response to a single point. Regardless, your statement is an interesting irony given that smaller points are used all the time as "proof" of the larger global warming point. "Oh, the tulips are blooming early this year - must be global warming!"

Anyway, I'm not sure why you attempt to promote the Kossin work as more current since it was published in early '07 and both references I provided were published in '08.

 

I understand your points and on a couple of them I agree with you but the problem here is that those who only care about nation security and peak oil will have no trouble turning to domestic supplies and coal as an alternative. There are terrible consequences for not looking at the whole picture and instead focusing on only a few of the factors. When a civilization only focuses on societal issues and ignores environmental ones, they often ended up worse for the inaction or face a total collapse. All factors must be considered IMO.

Here is where I disagree completely. You assume those resources are wasted if global warming doesn't pan out like it is predicted to. I feel you are wrong, many of the solutions, in fact the majority of them, would actually create jobs (3/4 of jobs are in manufacturing compared to 1/4 in extraction), help the long term economic gain of the majority of nations, increase human health, restore or at lease minimize ecosystem degragadation, etc.. The list goes on and on. The current path our economic practices are traveling is fraught with long term devestation and in NO WAY can it continue as it is.

 

Here is where - although as you know I have real doubts about the likelihood of any significant AGW - I do believe that greater efficiency and reliance on renewables, etc. are called for.

In fact, it may serve the environmental movement better to focus on a number of issues such as resource depletion, pollution, the costs of preserving access to oil, etc. Most of these concerns are ones that can connect with a broad range of constituencies, whereas AGW often produces disagreement and as a result, inaction on a number of important issues.

 

I know what you mean Tim. Often I hear of people focusing soley on CO2 and not taking other pollutants into account. I cringe when I see so much effort going into solving only 1 out of 12 problems when, as Jared Diamond put it, the other 11 could kill us if not solved. This is where the idea of solving for pattern comes in. Solve for multiple problems at once which the global warming issue could do if people would stop getting hung up on just CO2.

 

Ptolemy’s science of Geocentric Theory prevailed for 1400 years. For 1400 years it was scientific fact that the Sun and the planets revolved around the earth!

What of the Quaternary and Holocene period Ice age cycles?

Scientists have concluded that the most recent period, the (Quaternary) period some 2 million years old and running (inclusive of the Holocene) has had several cold (glacial) and warm (interglacial) phases. Scientists have dated the time line of the most recent phase or ice age to starting 70,000 years ago and (ending?) some 10,000 years ago. I question the ending portion since the planet still seems to be warming. Scientists agree that most of Canada was under glacial coverage 10,000 years ago and that those glaciers are still retreating. Archaeologists are repeatedly finding ancient coastal cities, only a few thousand years old, now underwater do to the melting of the ice and rising sea levels. With history as our teacher we have the knowledge that the earth has experienced several periods of warming and cooling and that these warming and cooling cycles repeated over and over again throughout the last 100,000 years without billions of humans burning fossil fuels.

Man made global warming is an interesting hypothesis, but in fact, just a hypothesis and nothing more. Best of luck in your studies.

http://qra.org.uk/what.html


http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=282&cid=9986



.

 

I'm curious if you even read the article you linked in its entirety. If you had and if you have done your studying you would know that significant anthropogenic additions to nearly any natural cycle can cause destabilization and cause addition forcings that may shift balance un-naturally.

Out of curiousity what part of the global warming craze scares you the most, or more properly why are you against it?

 

Your kidding right?

Do you know why the US lost most of it's manufacturing jobs?

So what are you saying? We all go back to horse and buggy days?

Global Cooling?

Newsweek on the cooling world

 

The NY Times weighs in

March 2, 2008

Skeptics on Human Climate Impact Seize on Cold Spell

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
The world has seen some extraordinary winter conditions in both hemispheres over the past year: snow in Johannesburg last June and in Baghdad in January, Arctic sea ice returning with a vengeance after a record retreat last summer, paralyzing blizzards in China, and a sharp drop in the globe’s average temperature.

It is no wonder that some scientists, opinion writers, political operatives and other people who challenge warnings about dangerous human-caused global warming have jumped on this as a teachable moment.

“Earth’s ‘Fever’ Breaks: Global COOLING Currently Under Way,†read a blog post and news release on Wednesday from Marc Morano, the communications director for the Republican minority on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

So what is happening?

According to a host of climate experts, including some who question the extent and risks of global warming, it is mostly good old-fashioned weather, along with a cold kick from the tropical Pacific Ocean, which is in its La Niña phase for a few more months, a year after it was in the opposite warm El Niño pattern.

If anything else is afoot — like some cooling related to sunspot cycles or slow shifts in ocean and atmospheric patterns that can influence temperatures — an array of scientists who have staked out differing positions on the overall threat from global warming agree that there is no way to pinpoint whether such a new force is at work.
Many scientists also say that the cool spell in no way undermines the enormous body of evidence pointing to a warming world with disrupted weather patterns, less ice and rising seas should heat-trapping greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels and forests continue to accumulate in the air.

“The current downturn is not very unusual,†said Carl Mears, a scientist at Remote Sensing Systems, a private research group in Santa Rosa, Calif., that has been using satellite data to track global temperature and whose findings have been held out as reliable by a variety of climate experts. He pointed to similar drops in 1988, 1991-92, and 1998, but with a long-term warming trend clear nonetheless.

“Temperatures are very likely to recover after the La Niña
event is over,†he said.

Mr. Morano, in an e-mail message, was undaunted, saying turnabout is fair play: “Fair is fair. Noting (not hyping) an unusually harsh global winter is merely pointing out the obvious. Dissenters of a man-made ‘climate crisis’ are using the reality of this record-breaking winter to expose the silly warming alarmism that the news media and some scientists have been ceaselessly promoting for decades.â€

More clucking about the cold is likely over the next several days. The Heartland Institute, a public policy research group in Chicago opposed to regulatory approaches to environmental problems, is holding a conference in Times Square on Monday and Tuesday aimed at exploring questions about the cause and dangers of climate change.

The event will convene an array of scientists, economists, statisticians and libertarian commentators holding a dizzying range of views on the changing climate — from those who see a human influence but think it is not dangerous, to others who say global warming is a hoax, the sun’s fault or beneficial. Many attendees say it is the dawn of a new paradigm. But many climate scientists and environmental campaigners say it is the skeptics’ last stand.

Michael E. Schlesinger, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, said that any focus on the last few months or years as evidence undermining the established theory that accumulating greenhouse gases are making the world warmer was, at best, a waste of time and, at worst, a harmful distraction.

Discerning a human influence on climate, he said, “involves finding a signal in a noisy background.†He added, “The only way to do this within our noisy climate system is to average over a sufficient number of years that the noise is greatly diminished, thereby revealing the signal. This means that one cannot look at any single year and know whether what one is seeing is the signal or the noise or both the signal and the noise.â€
The shifts in the extent and thickness of sea ice in the Arctic (where ice has retreated significantly in recent summers) and Antarctic (where the area of floating sea ice has grown lately) are similarly hard to attribute to particular influences.

Interviews and e-mail exchanges with half a dozen polar climate and ice experts last week produced a rough consensus: Even with the extensive refreezing of Arctic waters in the deep chill of the sunless boreal winter, the fresh-formed ice remains far thinner than the yards-thick, years-old ice that dominated the region until the 1990s.

That means the odds of having vast stretches of open water next summer remain high, many Arctic experts said.

“Climate skeptics typically take a few small pieces of the puzzle to debunk global warming, and ignore the whole picture that the larger science community sees by looking at all the pieces,†said Ignatius G. Rigor, a climate scientist at the Polar Science Center of the University of Washington in Seattle.

He said the argument for a growing human influence on climate laid out in last year’s reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or I.P.C.C., was supported by evidence from many fields.
“I will admit that we do not have all the pieces,†Dr. Rigor said, “but as the I.P.C.C. reports, the preponderance of evidence suggests that global warming is real.†As for the Arctic, he said, “Yes, this year’s winter ice extent is higher than last year’s, but it is still lower than the long-term mean.â€

Dr. Rigor said next summer’s ice retreat, despite the regrowth of thin fresh-formed ice now, could still surpass last year’s, when nearly all of the Arctic Ocean between Alaska and Siberia was open water.
Some scientists who strongly disagree with each other on the extent of warming coming in this century, and on what to do about it, agreed that it was important not to be tempted to overinterpret short-term swings in climate, either hot or cold.

Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist and commentator with the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, has long chided environmentalists and the media for overstating connections between extreme weather and human-caused warming. (He is on the program at the skeptics’ conference.)

But Dr. Michaels said that those now trumpeting global cooling should beware of doing the same thing, saying that the “predictable distortion†of extreme weather “goes in both directions.â€

Gavin A. Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan who has spoken out about the need to reduce greenhouse gases, disagrees with Dr. Michaels on many issues, but concurred on this point.

“When I get called by CNN to comment on a big summer storm or a drought or something, I give the same answer I give a guy who asks about a blizzard,†Dr. Schmidt said. “It’s all in the long-term trends. Weather isn’t going to go away because of climate change. There is this desire to explain everything that we see in terms of something you think you understand, whether that’s the next ice age coming or global warming.â€



Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/science/02cold.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

 

Yeah, I know exactly why the US lost a lot of it's manufacturing jobs, a large part of it is because the majority of US citizens are ignorant and will only spend top dollar for items that increase their prestige instead of items that are better for our workers, local economy, and environmental health. People want things quicker and cheaper and rarely spend the extra capital required to have a product made here in the U.S. and under sound environmental practices. Maybe you should look into the subject a bit deeper.

Horse and buggy days? You are making me laugh. Reducing consumption of frivolous items and spending more on "good" items and promoting healthy technological alternatives is not what I would call going back to horse and buggy days. There are literally thousands of organizations and businesses that are taking on this new approach and seeing imediate and long term benefits.

You can start your search here:

State of the World 2007

Natural Capitalism

http://www.amazon.com/Ecology-Commerce-Paul-Hawken/dp/0887307043

Cradle to Cradle

If you like videos here are a couple from prominant members of our business world.

Ray Anderson of Interface Inc.

Van Jones on environmental justice in the green economy

[ame="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-593454281522009812&q=amory+lovins+economy&total=9&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=5"]Amory Lovins[/ame] on Winning the Oil End Game

I have plenty more if you are truely interested. This is very good info and really raises ones hope for the future.

 

I'll have to look into those links a bit later.


It's becoming very obvious that people are tired of hearing about global warming theory. Nearly 2 million dollars is funded towards these programs to invesitgate global warming theory. it has turned into a HUGE 2nd religion for believers. Global warming theory has also created plenty of jobs with all that funding these so called scientists get.

They say that CO2 is to blame but in actuality, Only 0.54% of it is in the air and thats not including what man contributes which I understand is a very small amount.

People are led to believe that man is the cause and we're in big trouble. I don't believe in it.

A very good reason why there is no manufacturing left in the US is all the the imposed laws that are in effect today on emissions. Do you realize what country has the biggest amount of emissions to this day? CHINA!

 

I'm sure more than that is funded to research climate change just as I can guarantee more than that is funded by corporations to go against that research.

O3 (ozone makes up a small portion of atmosphere as well but look what effect it has on life on this planet. I realize small amounts sound rival to the lay person but in fact small amounts of the right chemical can be devestating inthe right context. It may take 50 aspirin pills to kill you yet it would take a very tiny amount of arsenic to accomplish the same goal.

And why are China's emissions so high I dare ask? How much of our material goods come from China? I would argue that we are then partly responsible for their pollution. It is very easy to point a finger at "the other guy" for doing wrong but, in fact, the source of blame is usually staring at us in the mirror. If you choose to buy from the cheapest source and do not research the products you buy then you are untimately responsible for any harm that occurs during the extraction, production, marketing, shipping, and stocking of that product for if you did not buy it then they would not produce it. So please, before you go try to blame another country for anything, look around your house and then look in the mirror and ask yourself honestly, could I have been the cause of any of this? With enough research I think you will find that yes, you have been and are.

It's a pretty crappy situation I agree. I did not always used to think this way but with a ton of research and education on the subject I have been forced to rexamine my life and either live apathetically or make a change. I chose to make a change and I'm much happier for it.

 

If you listen to them with an open mind I think you will enjoy them.

People rarely like being told they are wrong. Regardless of the eventual impact of global warming (other factors could nullify the issue like the earth going into a cooling cycle or oceananic circulation changing) the science behind it is completely sound and you nor I or any loud-mouthed radio personality can refute that. I talk to scientists every day and I realize that none are perfect yet I respect their knowledge and dedication to truth enough that I do not so readily brush off their opinions simply because those opinions do not match my uneducated worldview.

One really cool thing about this whole problem is that if we are wrong then we have not really lost anything. If we are right and we do not act then the consequenses will be dire indeed. Pascal's Wager anyone? lol

 

Actually, I have no problem with trying to increase domestic oil production, coal usage, nuclear, wind, solar, whatever it takes. We are going to need those "traditional" power sources while we work on the technologies behind wind, solar, geothermal, and other "renewable" sources since that is where the long term solution likely is....

The heart of the matter I am getting at is this seeming global effort to force carbon credits and emission trading on people in various countries. I see this as nothing more than a blatant attempt to impose higher taxes on people...which anti-growth, will likely hurt the economy (even more than it already is) and ultimately it is a new way to redistribute wealth. One example I read recently (and I'd have to go back and find the source) is a politician in the UK wants to allocate people a certain number of miles they could fly per year, anything over that they would be heavily taxed for those excess miles because of the extra carbon they are contributing towards the evironment.

 

I did not mean you in particular.

The second part of your reply is too deep for me to go into right now as I'm getting ready for class. There are some points I'd like to make, one of them being someone who pollutes more than othrs should be charged more to compensate but we can go into that on another thread.

 

Not anti-growth. Anti oil and car company. Which I can assure you, neither have your best interest in mind.

 

Taxes are anti-growth. If you want people to do less of something you generally increase taxes on it (ie, alcohol/tobacco). If you want people to spend less then you take more of their money in taxes. The idea behind the carbon taxes and trading scheme is to punish people for using gasoline, jet fuel, and oil. When you raise those taxes on these things you invariably raise prices in the private sector on nearly anything that needs to be transported (food, electronics, any consumer good). When prices go up people either pay out more for it, cut back on buying it, or don't buy it at all -- hence, anti-growth.

And, whether or not oil and car companies have our/my interest at heart is not the issue here...like em' or not, they do employ a lot of people.

 

Grow up! I get so tired of the anti-tax crowd! The bottom line is that they just don't want to pay for anything! We don't want to pay taxes for health care for example,,,,but my wife and I pay $16k a year for medical care: insurance, deductable, dental, Rx etc, and we are healthy. The reason it is so expensive is that those of us who self insure get stuck will all the extra. those with big plans get a break, and the poor get treated at the er and we get to pay the bill. It is a major tax on the Middle class! We just don't call it that.

You don't want taxes, who is going to educate your children, build your roads, keep the airplanes from running into one another? Whose going to keep your toys, and food and drugs safe? Oh I forgot, we've privatized the latter. I guess we don't care if someone else's kid dies, we just do want to pay!

As I say, grow up!

 

In terms of environmental damage, we already are paying for it. We've destroyed - sorry, I think "consumed" is the politically correct term - half the wetlands, half the forests, and enough biomass and biodiversity to classify as a mass extinction. It's not the tax that's 'anti-growth'.