Man Based Global Warming....

That's a strawman argument. I've yet to see any research scientists claim they have it all figured out. Instead they continue to tweak the models.

And how about business and denialists? Wow, the amount of arrogance from those sectors is staggering. Afterall, how arrogant is it to conclude that it will "all work out" just because one wants it to? That's essentially the denialist approach.

The models have been underpredicting the rate of change we've been seeing, not overpredicting. That should give pause to engineers, but ironically many engineers take the non-conservative approach to this problem: wishful thinking. NASA did the same thing several times with shuttles, turning their usual safety criteria upside down to "prove it won't work" rather than "prove it will." That didn't work out so well did it?

You are probably too young to remember the history of global warming. During the first decade or two there were all sorts of theories about how the CO2 increase wasn't due primarily to man, that the Earth should be able to absorb it rapidly, that it was just a short lived spike, and so on. Many of us engineering types hoped that in the end there would be little to worry about. But one by one, all these hypotheses have been proven wrong.

Now that we've had some time to study it, anyone with some technical background can quickly appreciate that CO2 will cause warming, and one can also comprehend (or calculate) that the carbon we've pulled from the ground and put in the air is responsible for the observed rise in CO2.

All that is left is a debate over how much warming we will get as a result, how long it will take, and if there is any natural cycle that will counteract it in the short term.

Do you really think we have a better chance of maintaining the present climate by continuing this radical global experiment of digging up millions of years worth of sequestered carbon and putting into the atmosphere, or do you think it might be wiser to minimize our unintended impact on the climate...at least until we understand better where it would be headed if we weren't changing it?

 

Icarus - here's an idea. Show me a plan for CO2 reduction that has some reasonable certainty of being attainable and tell me how much the corresponding temperature reduction will be.

If you can demonstrate such a workable plan, perhaps I will buy in. Until then, why don't you leave my kids out of it.

 

You of course know that in fact the global temperature is not rising (has not been for at least the past 8 years) and globally far more ice is freezing than melting.

 

OK - so please show me an IPCC report that concludes that Kyoto was in any way effective in reducing global warming - and I will gladly retract my statement.

 

True. Good point. Actually though, I would broaden it a bit - the "evil force" is not really CO2. That is just a convenient "force" to rally around. The true "evil force" is industrialization and economic advancement. Pretty much any activity under these 2 headings can be restricted if CO2 output can be controlled by government.

 

Of course you are right .

 

Your first statement is true - a single observation is meaningless, really. Although one has to admit there have been a lot of strangely cold "single observations" in the past year or so.

Regardless, your second point is fallacious. Saying that we've had "above average temperatures...for the 16th year" is really not very insightful. What is more insightful is the trend - and the trend is cooling in recent years. And what is interesting about that is the WHY. Why is the earth cooling in the face of increasing concentrations of CO2? And the related question - will the cooling continue?

The reason the "16th year" argument is weak is that the global temperature doesn't typically change abruptly (the earth is a big place to heat / cool after all). Accordingly, one would expect any years clustered near a relatively warm period (1990s) to be relatively warm themselves. As one moves further from that period, one would expect fewer and fewer instances of - in this case - above average temperatures. Again, what is more interesting is the trend. And that, Pat, is cooling.

 

I'm curious if someone can help me out with this:

We often see graphs of temperature vs. CO2 for the last 150 to 50 years
Then we see graphs of Temperature vs. CO2 for 100,000 to millions of years

What I've not seen is a graph of the last 1000 to 2000 years.

I've seen this graph pop up several times:



Anyone have CO2 vs. global temperature for the 0 to 2000 A.D.? I've curious to see if CO2 concentrations declined with temperature from 1000 A.D. to ~ 1700 A.D.

 

Gee, Mr. Gore and congregation, I generally dislike monikers but I wonder who now should be labeled as a Denialist???

Rick
#4 2006

 

Since you posed it as a question: "why don't I leave your kids out of it. (? sic)"
The reason to include your kids and my kids (metaphoric as I have no kids) is the consiquences of erring are significant enough that it concerns me. Regardless of how you feel about the science, and the differing conclusions that people may come to with the science, it seems intuitive to me that we should do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING we can to reduce emissions of all sort from all sources. As the human load on the planets continues to get bigger, the ability of the planet to carry that load HAS to be diminished. It therefore just seems smart to err on the side of caution our of respect for future generations.

We in the west have lived very high on the hog for a century or two. As the developing world catches up, and wishes the comforts and convenience of live that we have, the load on the planet WILL only increase. It is arrogant to assume that we in the west are "entitled" to our excess, and perhaps even more arrogant to think that humans have a right to destroy the planet for our benefit.

So, yes, you may not worry about your kids future (in regards to this conversation) but I do!

Icarus

 

You can add as many lame links as you want but until the majority of climate scientists say global warming is reversing you are simply wasting your time.

 

I'm all for reducing emissions sensibly - but don't think we should do "ANYTHING and EVERYTHING", as you advocate.

In fact, I think all the children of the world will thank us if we reduce emissions and pollution in a thoughtful manner, but not in a hysterical, unsound and economically irresponsible manner.

So again - please show me how CO2 emissions can be cut in an economically responsible manner such that the cuts have a measurable impact on climate outcomes, and I'm all on board. And so are my kids.

 

A majority may soon have to come to that conclusion if present temperature trends hold.

But I doubt most will admit global warming is a non-problem, else they'd run out of research grants (and jobs). They will just change definitions - we are already seeing "global warming" morph into "climate change" and "climate change" into "climate disruption". Thereby any change or disruption that occurs (hot/cold, wet/dry, stormy/calm, etc) can be blamed on CO2 and the research largess retained.

 

BTW - when you talk about a "majority" of climate scientists, I presume you base that assertion on the IPCC. Well you might consider that few of the reviewers or contributors to that document explicitly support the notion of a significant human influence on climate, they are just agreeing to their small section of the report.

So it is a mistaken notion to assert that just because a scientist contributed to the IPCC process that they in fact believe that humans are exerting a significant influence on climate as a result of CO2. In fact, a number of scientists have quit participating in the IPCC process because of its political nature and pre-conceived agenda. And many of the remaining "climate scientists" are nothing more than "routine weather service functionaries" - not climatologists - as Lindzen notes below:

The "most egregious" problem with the report, said Lindzen, "is that it is presented as a consensus that involves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of scientists and none of them were asked if they agreed with anything in the report except for the one or two pages they worked on."



Most press accounts characterize the IPCC report as a consensus of 2,000 of the worlds leading climate scientists. The emphasis isnt on getting qualified scientists, said Lindzen, but on getting representatives from 100 countries, only a handful of which do significant research. "It is no small matter," said Lindzen, "that routine weather service functionaries from New Zealand to Tanzania are referred to as the worlds leading climate scientists. It should come as no surprise that they will be determinedly supportive of the process."

 

Funny, I've heard eminent climatologist Andrew Weaver stress that the problem should be referred to as "global warming" not "climate change". He says the latter term is used by groups to downplay the seriousness of the climate crisis.

Also, granting agencies in Canada like NSERC don't really care what your research discovers as long as: you are a professor at a Canadian University, you submit the forms properly and your research adds to the knowledge base in your area you get money for your research. You get a salary regardless, which is separate. If you're good at getting big grants or more grants, then you might get bigger raises, that's about it. Plus there are lots of different things to study and discover in climate science that isn't necessarily related to the climate crisis.

So to say that climatologists need AGW in order to get grants is just ignorant. Professors can't lose their jobs - they would practically would have to kill someone to get the axe.

If anything, a scientist's career would only be furthered if he was successful at discovering contrary information than the prevailing view - as long as he/she had the data to back it up. I assume it's the same in the USA especially where the Cheney administration has been busy meddling in and muzzling climate science/scientists.

 

I'll make sure to check on what the prevailing sentiment is among the climate science community from time to time.

 

In the US, university professors do get money for research in addition to their university salary. Part of the grant process is setting how much money you will need for salaries and staffing. US professors add money for themselves in this section.

US university professors can lose their jobs and they do. Both my wife and I saw excellent professors lose their jobs because they concentrated on teaching instead of bringing in research money.

The professor that my wife did her graduate work under is representative of the typical university professor. He only taught one class a semester. While he had other classes they were taught by his graduate students, including my wife. The professor spent ~ 90% of his time managing his current research and pitching for additional research. He didn't actually do any of it himself, he would check in on his grad students once a week to get a status report that he would forward on to sponsors. He personally got $21,000 for the 18 month research project my wife did for her master's thesis. He managed 12 graduate students so you can image his personal income from his research.

 

Wasn't Lindzen the lead author of the IPCC report in 2001?

 

Albert Einstein:

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."