I was wrong. It didnt end in 1998

[rushmc 23]

It appears we may be getting some more info/data soon

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/30/cru_foia_landmark/

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[kallend 2,113]

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It's from wiki

Somebody wrote it

I wonder who?

You have issues with wiki but post crap from the Mail as if it's from the gospels.

You may want to go back and read the op

I did, you provided a link to the Daily Mail. Having memory trouble now?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[rushmc 23]

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It's from wiki

Somebody wrote it

I wonder who?

You have issues with wiki but post crap from the Mail as if it's from the gospels.

You may want to go back and read the op

I did, you provided a link to the Daily Mail. Having memory trouble now?

Not at all teach
I know the link I provided

You, on the other hand, are trying to use your, yet unperfected, mind reading machine and making incorrect assumptions

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[lawrocket 3]

You know, I wrote a response to bill's post that tried to skewer non-substantive discussions based upon ad hominem - not to skewer bill (whom I admire) but to show that the discussion gets moved from what is suibstantive to attacks on the speaker.

And the whole discussion has turned into who-said-that.

Facepalm...

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[rushmc 23]

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You know, I wrote a response to bill's post that tried to skewer non-substantive discussions based upon ad hominem - not to skewer bill (whom I admire) but to show that the discussion gets moved from what is suibstantive to attacks on the speaker.

And the whole discussion has turned into who-said-that.

Facepalm...

Agreed

And I never said I agreed with what the op link said or implied

I just stated it was more to consider

But is seems the alarmists do not want a conversation

Thanks

Marc

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 3,085]

>But is seems the alarmists do not want a conversation

Neither do the deniers. But most people are neither. Most people accept the basic tenets of AGW (we are increasing CO2, CO2 causes forcing, the climate is warming) and are willing to discuss our options for dealing with it.

[lawrocket 3]

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Most people accept the basic tenets of AGW (we are increasing CO2, CO2 causes forcing, the climate is warming) and are willing to discuss our options for dealing with

right. And then when someone says, "I don't think it's worth dropping tens of billions, whihc will become hundreds of billions per year, of tax dollars into alternative technologies. It bespeaks of cronyism.

I was careful in pointing out that AGW is a political fact. Much more can be done with political facts than actual facts. I.e., the War in Iraq.

Was the war in Iraq worth it based on allegations of WMD's?

It's what the argument is all about. Not science. But the costs and benefits, the winners and losers. And whether the predictions will actually happen.

It's a pretty important thing and reasonable minds can differ. It’s also important that so much rests on predictions. “Sea level will rise by 30 feet by 2100!” Um – that sounds pretty steep. That’s a rise of a foot every three years and for the last twenty it’s been measured in millimeters every year.

Or temperature rising 4 degree Celsius by 2100. Um – that’s pretty steep, too.

And the famous, “No, we can’t guarantee it but we cannot take the chance.” The same justification for the war in Iraq. Trillions of dollars and thousands of lives later and…

I find very little difference between this and Iraq.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[billvon 3,085]

>I was careful in pointing out that AGW is a political fact. Much more can be done
>with political facts than actual facts. I.e., the War in Iraq.

Politics is interpersonal relationships on a large scale. Wars are political. Climate studies are science. (Programs to combat climate change are political, however.)

>It's what the argument is all about. Not science.

Depends on the argument, of course. Many arguments here vary from "CO2 is not a greenhouse gas" to "rising CO2 isn't our fault" to "but water is a much stronger greenhouse gas" to "but it's not really getting hotter." Those are all science arguments.

"We can't afford to try to fix it" is, however, a political argument.

[rushmc 23]

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>But is seems the alarmists do not want a conversation

Neither do the deniers.
.

Admiting this is a start I guess....

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[skiskyrock 0]

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I find it amazing that, with your background, you are as credulous as you would seem.

The site to which you referred is about as unbiased regarding "global warming" as vatican.com would be regarding Catholicism. Don't get me wrong, the Vatican has something together in order to wield so much power for so long, but, as in the case of the website, the level of dogma makes it hard to accept the data at face value.

I am not saying they are wrong, but that I do not trust anyone with so blatant a conflict of interest.

As far as computer models go, I can make a graph sit up and wag its tail. You know GIGO - Garbage In, Gospel Out.

The data and code for one of the papers is available here:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/data-and-code-for-foster-rahmstorf-2011/#more-4571

feel free to wag away. That's really all I'm asking from the denialists. If it is all fraud, just dig in and publish a peer reviewed paper showing that. Show that the climate of the 20th century can be explained without CO2 as the dominant driving force. Show up at a scientific conference and give a talk. Hell just show up and ask questions.

The skeptical science website published a summary of six, count them, six peer reviewed papers that arrive at the same conclusions using differing data and methods. I guess I just have a bias in favor of that sort of bias.

[skiskyrock 0]

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If you only have time for the sound bite, see the attached graphic. Six independent research groups using different techniques and data arrive at the same conclusion, that humans are driving the observed warming.

Thank goodness the Minoans, Romans and Vikings got rid of their SUV's...who *knows* where we'd be now!

Ah, nice to see our old friend histo6 make and appearance. I like the red squiggly line. But the fact remains, the data end in 1855 not 1905.

You've added the squiggly line to show the mean global temperature anomaly. That anomaly is based on a base period that does not appear in the data you show. To do it properly you'd have to add the difference between the anomaly in 1855 and the current anomaly.

But wait; you're using the global anomaly, greenland is in the arctic, A region that is seeing very high temperature anomalies (up to 5C vs a 1971 to 2000 base period) compared to the rest of the globe. So perhaps your 0.6C warming might be a little low.

[winsor 236]

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I find it amazing that, with your background, you are as credulous as you would seem.

The site to which you referred is about as unbiased regarding "global warming" as vatican.com would be regarding Catholicism. Don't get me wrong, the Vatican has something together in order to wield so much power for so long, but, as in the case of the website, the level of dogma makes it hard to accept the data at face value.

I am not saying they are wrong, but that I do not trust anyone with so blatant a conflict of interest.

As far as computer models go, I can make a graph sit up and wag its tail. You know GIGO - Garbage In, Gospel Out.

The data and code for one of the papers is available here:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/data-and-code-for-foster-rahmstorf-2011/#more-4571

feel free to wag away. That's really all I'm asking from the denialists. If it is all fraud, just dig in and publish a peer reviewed paper showing that. Show that the climate of the 20th century can be explained without CO2 as the dominant driving force. Show up at a scientific conference and give a talk. Hell just show up and ask questions.

The skeptical science website published a summary of six, count them, six peer reviewed papers that arrive at the same conclusions using differing data and methods. I guess I just have a bias in favor of that sort of bias.

Again, the website to which you linked is about as unbiased as one backed by Scientology, with "peer reviewed," being the votes of Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and Kirstie Alley.

When voicing legitimate concerns regarding methodology ensures grants being pulled or contracts cancelled, I am unimpressed by claims of impartiality.

Your offer of code review is about as interesting as the opportunity to check the calculations providing the definitive answer to quite how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Why do you think I would waste the time trying to sway the opinions of those who do not see as I do? I do not expect you to agree with me, nor does it really matter. If people at a "scientific conference" want to get together and ooh and aah at each other's work, that's their prerogative. I have no interest whatsoever in participating - either for or against.

You are biased toward one particular dogma. I am biased against dogma.

Trust me, you have lost your audience.

[StreetScooby 5]

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That's really all I'm asking from the denialists

At this point in time, I don't see most informed deniers saying the physics is wrong. What I see them denying, myself included, is the "political" solutions being "imposed" by our government having any real effect on the problem. I believe most are in agreement that those "solutions" aren't going to have any real impact, other than to give more power and money to the government.

We are all engines of karma

[quade 4]

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That's really all I'm asking from the denialists

At this point in time, I don't see most informed deniers saying the physics is wrong. What I see them denying, myself included, is the "political" solutions being "imposed" by our government having any real effect on the problem. I believe most are in agreement that those "solutions" aren't going to have any real impact, other than to give more power and money to the government.

That's what I keep seeing too. It's the ever moving target of the denial crowd.

First they claimed the earth wasn't heating at all. But that proof is irrefutable.
Then they denied it was due to CO2.
Then they denied it was CO2 due to human invention.
Now they're denying the solutions.

It's very similar to the tactics used by the intelligent design crowd; just keep denying the truth by moving the target.

Even if CO2 by human invention is only one out of many factors, it's still a HUGE factor and it's pretty much the only one we have a possibility of controlling.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[StreetScooby 5]

A recent article from the WSJ...
I believe it's fair to question the magnitude and timing of change being sold by the "alarmists".
The 50 year economic case doesn't seem unreasonable to me, at this point in time.

Also, I'm really curious to see what the government(s) would do with all that carbon-tax money...
Has anyone heard what the EU is going to do with the airline carbon tax?

No Need to Panic About Global Warming
There's no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy.

Editor's Note: The following has been signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article:

A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about "global warming." Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed.

In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in the last election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a letter that begins: "I did not renew [my membership] because I cannot live with the [APS policy] statement: 'The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.' In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?"

In spite of a multidecade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the "pollutant" carbon dioxide will destroy civilization, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And the number of scientific "heretics" is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.

Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 "Climategate" email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2.

The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.

The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better plant varieties, chemical fertilizers and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the atmosphere.

Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job.

This is not the way science is supposed to work, but we have seen it before—for example, in the frightening period when Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union. Soviet biologists who revealed that they believed in genes, which Lysenko maintained were a bourgeois fiction, were fired from their jobs. Many were sent to the gulag and some were condemned to death.

Why is there so much passion about global warming, and why has the issue become so vexing that the American Physical Society, from which Dr. Giaever resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by many of its members to remove the word "incontrovertible" from its description of a scientific issue? There are several reasons, but a good place to start is the old question "cui bono?" Or the modern update, "Follow the money."

Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.

Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.
Related Video

A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy now. Many other policy responses would have a negative return on investment. And it is likely that more CO2 and the modest warming that may come with it will be an overall benefit to the planet.

If elected officials feel compelled to "do something" about climate, we recommend supporting the excellent scientists who are increasing our understanding of climate with well-designed instruments on satellites, in the oceans and on land, and in the analysis of observational data. The better we understand climate, the better we can cope with its ever-changing nature, which has complicated human life throughout history. However, much of the huge private and government investment in climate is badly in need of critical review.

Every candidate should support rational measures to protect and improve our environment, but it makes no sense at all to back expensive programs that divert resources from real needs and are based on alarming but untenable claims of "incontrovertible" evidence.

Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.

We are all engines of karma

[quade 4]

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A recent article from the WSJ...

Which is obviously well regarded as a scientific journal and not tied to business interests.

Of course, they don't like the idea of regulation.
People who exploit for a living rarely do.

And AGAIN we see that moving target of the deniers.

Now it's "oh, well, yeah of course it's happening, but we don't need to regulate it for another 50 years."

What kind of nonsense is that?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[billvon 3,085]

>Also, I'm really curious to see what the government(s) would do with all that
>carbon-tax money...

The goal is eventually to not make much money off the tax because it will discourage people from burning carbon.

>CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us . . .

CO2 in exhalations is about 4%. Compare that to the exhaust of a car, which is around 12%. That's one reason that while a typical person produces about 2 pounds of CO2 a day, a typical car produces 120 pounds. (Which, of course, is why burning fossil fuels is a much bigger deal than breathing.)

>Dr. Giaever resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by
>many of its members to remove the word "incontrovertible" from its description of a
>scientific issue?

Because the science behind AGW is incontrovertible. The conclusions, however, are quite "controvertible" - it is entirely reasonable to say "just let the planet warm, we don't really care." Thus a better approach would have been to alter the "We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now" section - because that conclusion is not supportable scientifically.

>And it is likely that more CO2 and the modest warming that may come with it will be
>an overall benefit to the planet.

Yes, one can take that approach. But if we decide to do that, we cannot take advantage of the benefits some will see while claiming we have no responsibility for the problems it will cause.

[StreetScooby 5]

Interesting article in New Scientist today, thought I'd post it. I recently spent some time diving deeper into global warming. The one thing I walked away with is this - there are some very smart people working on this problem, and the work they're doing inspires significant confidence in me. There's alot more going on in the dynamic energy balance of the Earth than we fully understand right now. But, we're going to get there. Clearly, we can't continue pumping 15GT of carbon into the atmosphere as a way of life, but I don't think we need to destroy our current way of life to properly address the problem.

First land plants plunged Earth into ice age

Never underestimate moss. When the simple plants first arrived on land, almost half a billion years ago, they triggered both an ice age and a mass extinction of ocean life.

The first land plants appeared around 470 million years ago, during the Ordovician period, when life was diversifying rapidly. They were non-vascular plants, like mosses and liverworts, that didn't have deep roots.

About 35 million years later, ice sheets briefly covered much of the planet and a mass extinction ensuedMovie Camera. Carbon dioxide levels probably fell sharply just before the ice arrived – but nobody knew why.

Tim Lenton of the University of Exeter, UK, and colleagues think the mosses and liverworts are to blame.
Moss versus rock

It's not the first time that plants have been fingered as a cause of glaciation. Researchers already suspect that the rise of vascular plants in the Devonian period, some 100 million years later, triggered another ice age. The plants' roots extracted nutrients from bedrock, leaving behind vast quantities of chemically altered rock that could react with CO2 and so suck it out of the atmosphere.

Non-vascular plants like mosses don't have deep roots, so it was thought that they didn't behave in the same way. Lenton suspected they might have played a role nevertheless. To find out, he set up an experiment to see what damage a common moss (Physcomitrella patens) could inflict on granite. After 130 days, rocks with moss living on them had weathered significantly more than bare ones – and about as much as they would have if vascular plants were living on them. "The secret seems to be that the moss secrete a wide range of organic acids that can dissolve rock," Lenton says.

When Lenton added this effect of non-vascular plants to a climate model of the Ordovician, the CO2 dropped from about 22 times modern levels to just eight times modern levels. That was enough to trigger an ice age in the model of Ordovician Earth.

In his experiments, the non-vascular plants also released lots of phosphorus from rocks. Much of this would have wound up in the ocean, where we know it can trigger vast algal blooms. As other bugs feasted on the algae, they would have used up the oxygen in the water – suffocating oxygen-breathing animals and accounting for the mass extinction of marine life known to have occurred at the end of the Ordovician.

Although the first land plants were responsible for these mass deaths in their ocean-dwelling neighboursMovie Camera, Lenton says they themselves probably came out of the Ordovician ice age largely unscathed. That's because the ice was concentrated around the South Pole, while the plants lived in the tropics.

Life may also have caused an even harsher cold snap much earlier in Earth's history. The first complex animals appeared some time around 800 million years ago, and may have sucked so much CO2 from the atmosphere that the entire planet froze over in a "snowball Earth".

Journal reference: Nature Geoscience, DOI: 10.1038/ngeo1390

We are all engines of karma

[Coreece 190]

Interesting...I would like to hear what you have to say, but it's pretty long.

25 bucks?

Your secrets are the true reflection of who you really are...

[StreetScooby 5]

The article says moss can take alot of CO2 out of the atmosphere. There was a time in the planet's history where they did so, and it put us in an ice age.

We are all engines of karma

[rushmc 23]

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The article says moss can take alot of CO2 out of the atmosphere. There was a time in the planet's history where they did so, and it put us in an ice age.

Just a general observation. It looks like we are better off with too much CO2 (what ever amount that may be) than too little

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[StreetScooby 5]

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The article says moss can take alot of CO2 out of the atmosphere.

I don't remember where I saw it, but the North American growing season takes a staggering amount of CO2 out of the atmosphere. Not as much as we're pumping in, but still alot.

We are all engines of karma

[skiskyrock 0]

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If you only have time for the sound bite, see the attached graphic. Six independent research groups using different techniques and data arrive at the same conclusion, that humans are driving the observed warming.

Thank goodness the Minoans, Romans and Vikings got rid of their SUV's...who *knows* where we'd be now!

I just looked up the original data for your central "europe" temperatures and I have a couple of points

1) it's central England not central europe, England being an island warmed by the Gulf stream and perhaps not representative of europe as a whole

2) it includes data from the mid 1600's; using 250 years of data unaffected by anthropogenic CO2 will tend to skew the trend a bit

3) CO2 is listed as emissions, only about 50% of CO2 emitted winds up in the atmosphere, so the CO2 values are overstated by a factor of 2

4) the projected warming they show is 7C, which is on the very high end of the projections I've seen.

5) I ran the numbers in Excel... whoever put together that graph claims a .26C increase per century. Since 1946 (this is a cherry pick on the authors part, but I'll let it slide) I calculate it as .23C/ decade. In the last 30 years, the trend is .30C/decade. Clearly something has happened in the recent past, with more warming in the past three decades than in the last three centuries.

6) the author of the graph puts the CO2 on a large scale and the temps (in degrees C) on a small scale to minimize the fact that it has gotten a lot hotter in England recently. A plot from Hadley center that shows this nicely.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/