Global Warming

[Diamond]

It is my understanding that the most extreme weather is caused by temperature differences between colliding air masses.

Correct. This inconvenient fact is ignored by the alarmists (and I'd have to put some journalists at the forefront of this alarmism)

If the climate warms evenly is there no change in extreme weather?
If warmer areas warm more than cooler areas is there more extreme weather?
If cooler areas warm more than warmer areas is there less extreme weather?

More information on basic meteorology and physics please (regarding warming and extreme weather ofcourse).

Correct. Weather is a function of the fact that the ocean/atmosphere system is not in thermodynamic equilibrium (which if you think about it, is a really good thing). So the greater the temperature gradient between tropics and poles, the greater and more extreme the weather. Conversely if that temperature gradient declines (as is being claimed with the Arctic is warming) then this would lead to less weather and fewer extreme weather events.

There's the problem: if globalwarming of the poles compared to the tropics is happening (which is happening for the Arctic in some places, but not to Antarctica except the small Antarctic peninsula) then the result would be fewer extreme weather events. Not exactly a rallying call to action is it? Global warming is happening: fewer tornados and hurricanes! longer growing seasons! milder winters!

So for reasons that have to do with alarmism and not science (and there's no other way to describe it) they emphasize that higher temperatures imply more energy and therefore more extreme weather (a non sequitur if ever there was one).

An extreme example is the planet Venus, which has high temperatures, and therefore lots and lots of thermal energy, but has no weather at all. At the surface are very light winds. No hurricanes, tornados or even dust devils. Why? Because Venus is as close as its possible to get to thermal equilibrium - the extra heating from the equator is circulated directly to the poles via a phenomenon called "super-rotation". It spins extremely slowly (more than a Venusian year) and has no oceans or any other facility to remove heat from the atmosphere.

I firmly believe that global warming, like the global cooling scare of the 1970s, is a religious and political belief masquerading as science. Climate has always varied on all timescales on the Earth and our response to climate change should be adaptation, a policy that has stood us in good stead since we learned to stand up millions of years ago.

 

[elaine]

I think for a lot of people it comes down to "Will this affect me personally?" And since it IS affecting me personally, I'm inclined to go with the evidence showing the earth is warming up. (Such as oceanic temperature being higher.) I live in the middle of a dying forest. Although some have told me this is "anecdotal evidence" the fact is the trees are a lot older than I am and they have been here a lot longer than I have. And the trees think that this used to be a good place to grow, but now it isn't. They no longer recieve sufficient water to live, which means that the climate in my part of the world has changed........

...Or maybe it's pine beetle, or other disease, or an increase in human population and changes in land use, reduced the amount of water available to the forests, or contributed to other factors.



I tend to be on the fence when it comes to the Global Warming debate and the why should I care part, but it seems to me that GW is often the first to be blamed, when it comes to any environmental distress. Not necessarily by scientists, but persons in the media seem to like to throw GW around alot.

 

[mummymonkey]

The local ski resort has just had its best season in over ten years. We are well into spring and there is still lots of snow on the higher ground, the daffodils are still in bud and the geese resolutely refuse to head north. Meanwhile the ospreys are back from Africa.

 

[Amapola]

You hit the nail on the head about the bark beetle. The reason so many trees are dying due to beetle kill though, is that there is a drought. The trees can normally fend off bark beetles by using their sap to sort of drown or push the beetles out (little tubes of pitch form on the trees where the beetles tried to get in and lay eggs) but when the trees are stressed by drought, they succumb in large numbers. This is pretty much what we are seeing.

Most likely at least some of the damage can be attributed to the fact that the forests are being used differently (less livestock grazing taking place, denser concentration of plants), but hardly to a large increase in human population. As I understand it, the latest figures for my county are a population of 5,180 people, in a 1,933 sq mile county. (These figures are from the Wikipedia.)

I agree that this is a complex issue, however I am persuaded by the evidence that the earth is warming. I am particularly persuaded by the rise in ocean temperature.

 

[BlackCat]

I think it's true that Global Warming tends to be blamed for everything that goes wrong environmentally, whether it deserves it or not. It's the new buzz word, and the new "devil." Unfortunately, I think this works against it, because it becomes like "crying wolf." Eventually people stop believing.

I used to be against global warming. I thought for sure that it was imperfect science, based on models, and some evidence. Now, I'm not so sure. I think it's pretty likely, though. What changed my mind? Reading Billions and Billions by Carl Sagan. He explained the science behind GW so well that I'm almost convinced. An excellent quote from that book made me think more about GW:

I wonder if we're not more likely to miss unpleasant feedbacks than comforting ones. We're not smart enough to predict everything. That's certainly clear. I think it's unlikely that the sum of what we're too ignorant to figure out will save us. Maybe it will. But would we want to bet our lives on it?

Basically what that says to me is, it's easier to hear what you want to hear, and doing nothing and hoping that everything will sort itself out isn't really a prudent course of action.

Besides, why is it such a bad thing to be conscious of the environment? (Note: I said conscious, not obsessive.) Whether GW is human-caused or not, it's advantageous to our species to maintain the only place we have to live. That said, I'm also not advocating that we give up mining and cars and such. I think a equilibrium can be found between the demands of people, and the needs of the planet.

Just my thoughts.
BlackCat

 

[joller]

What do you people think of this website?
http://www.globalwarming.org/

Is a a resonable and reasonably reliable source of info on the subject?

 

[a_unique_person]

Unfortunately most of what you linked to has been debunked in the last 5 years.

Especially the crowning glory of the IPCC TAR, "The Mann Hockey Stick", which has been conclusively shown to be a product of bad statistics and is without any merit.

The Hockey Stick is nothing like the whole case, and is nothing like "The crowning glory", you are just making it up. If the only paper that the deniers can claim to have debunked is this single one out of the thousands published, then the AGW science is pretty convincing.

 

[a_unique_person]

Because it is a religious debate (rather like those other two tinderboxes on the JREF, gun control and Palestine/Israel) much more heat than light is produced. Self-proclaimed skeptics on most other issues become at a stroke, polemicists and heretics in a religious debate, whose underpinnings are not the utility of climate models or the sensitivity of trees or coral to temperature change but are in reality reflections of our internal beliefs about the world around us.

What you say about some environmentalists may well be true, but I would like to think that all the evidence presented here is based on science. Who cares what the unscientific argument is?

 

[a_unique_person]

Well, here's my starting point: there is reason to believe that the temperature of the earth fluctuates. Therefore, at any given time, it is getting warmer, or it is getting cooler, or it is changing from one to the other. Therefore the fact (if it is a fact) that it is now getting warmer is not in itself a cause for concern.

Perhaps we should be worried, and perhaps we can do something about it; but I'm not convinced that either of these propositions has been proved. What disturbs me is the number of people who seem to believe both as a matter of faith, and react to any doubt or dissent in the same way as religious people react to heresy.

Changes in climate of any sort are cause for concern, as they mean that a lot of expensive and essential infrastructure is now not going to work. Rising sea levels will flood vital ports, many important cities are close to sea level. Property and farms that were viable may not be. Water supplies in Australian cities are under threat all over the country, including every major city.

In "The Weather Makers", he asks the question of why it took so long for man to rise above being just able to survive. He believes it is because the climate did fluctuate so much. When it stabilised, civilisation took off.

 

[a_unique_person]

What do you people think of this website?
http://www.globalwarming.org/

Is a a resonable and reasonably reliable source of info on the subject?

It does have an agenda, so the information it presents will only reflect the point of view it wants to present.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] These bi-weekly updates are courtesy of the The Cooler Heads Newsletter published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute in conjunction with the National Consumer Coalition.

[/FONT]

 

[a_unique_person]

Correct. This inconvenient fact is ignored by the alarmists (and I'd have to put some journalists at the forefront of this alarmism)



Correct. Weather is a function of the fact that the ocean/atmosphere system is not in thermodynamic equilibrium (which if you think about it, is a really good thing). So the greater the temperature gradient between tropics and poles, the greater and more extreme the weather. Conversely if that temperature gradient declines (as is being claimed with the Arctic is warming) then this would lead to less weather and fewer extreme weather events.

There's the problem: if globalwarming of the poles compared to the tropics is happening (which is happening for the Arctic in some places, but not to Antarctica except the small Antarctic peninsula) then the result would be fewer extreme weather events. Not exactly a rallying call to action is it? Global warming is happening: fewer tornados and hurricanes! longer growing seasons! milder winters!

If you read Varwoche's links, the first one is about a thirty year study on warming in the Antarctic. They say the only thing the model's are wrong on is that they underestimate the amount of warming.

 

[Indolent Wretch]

The Religious Label

Attribute 1: A topic with a huge amount of science behind it, where despite alternate scientific views there is a consensus.

Attribute 2: The effects of which are hard for an individual to perceive because of the gradualness of the changes and the long periods of time involved.

Attribute 3: Where a large vested interest would much rather pretend that either the effect doesn't exist or if it does exist it's not our problem and therefore nothing should be done about it.


It seems that when you put these 3 attributes together there will always be people who point at the science and say "You can't trust what these people say because it's basically a religion to them".

Evolution
Global Warming


What do some of you want these climatologists to do? Research their fields diligently, find increasingly worrying evidence about a possibly terrible climate change, realize that the problem is either being caused or exacerbated by human activity, work out that the end result may mean future generations having extreme weather, greater famine and the loss of many great cities, and then just keep quiet?

Maybe they should only whisper the research to each other, wait for everything to go belly up and then tell us, 'Ah yes we knew about this 150 years ago but we didn't want to make a scene since you were all having such fun with your SUVs'


You can't keep pumping CO2 and it's ilk into the atmosphere and expect everything to be peachy, thats basic physics, the atmosphere will retain more heat and things will get hotter.

Certain other factors may mask or try and balance this, pollution is believed to reflect sunlight back into space (global dimming), as do clouds, cloud cover increases when the world is hotter as more moisture evaporates from the ocean so in some ways it acts as homeostat.

But certain other runaway effects are expected to kick in once temperatures climb, rising sea temperatures for example could cause the destabilizing of sea floor methane hydrates releasing a massive extra quantity of this potent greenhouse gas.


Evolution is both fact and theory. The fact is that we know that creatures change gradually over time through fossil records, we know that mutations and breeding produce changes in a population. The theory states our best attempt at how these random changes through natural selection build up in a population and cause long term evolution.

Global Warming is both fact and theory. The fact is that we know the worlds temperature can fluctuate largely through fossil records, we know that changing atmospheric conditions can affect the global climate, we know that CO2 and other gasses cause a variation in the amount of the suns heat that can escape into space, we know that global CO2 levels are rising and we know that mankinds activity is releasing a huge amount of CO2, methane and other greenhouse gasses. The theory in question states that man is the prime cause in these changing factors and that if something isn't done then theoretical models show that in a 100 years it may not be very pleasent here anymore.


I have one question to those stating that global warming is essentially all natural and man if anything is having a small effect.

If man contributes 20% and the rest is natural, and by reducing mans contribution we can delay the worst of the effects of global warming should we do so? Our should we just let the Sun and the Earth kill us?

 

[varwoche]

Published studies do not mean that they are true, unfortunately.

And where does that leave op-ed pieces?

You have casually dismissed an extensive list of recent scientific studies conducted by some of the world's leading scientific organizations based on nothing more than an op-ed piece. Bizarre.

Some of the studies you quote have already been shown to be faulty

I notice you have backed off from your original statement...

most of what you linked to has been debunked

What is it? Some or most? Please be specific about which studies have been debunked with credible citations for a change.

Here, I've numbered them to make it easier...

1. British Antarctic Survey March 31, 2006
2. University of Arizona March 23, 2006
3. NASA March 14, 2006 agw
4. NASA March 3, 2006
5. Woods Hole Feb 2006
6. Yale/NOAA Feb 2006:
7. UCSC Feb 2006 agw
8. NOAA Feb 2006:
9. Scripps/DOE Jan 2006 agw
10. US Global Change Research Information Office 2006 agw
11. British Antarctic Survey Apr 2005:
12. Scripps/Livermore Labs Feb 2005 agw
13. Ohio State Jan 2005:
14. Schneider/Stanford 2004 agw
15. NASA Oct 2003:
16. IPCC 2001 (pdf) agw
17. DOE/Livermore/Santer March 2001 agw
18. McCarthy/Harvard March 2001 agw
19. EPA agw
20. PEW Center for Climate Change agw

It would be particularly interesting if you would take it top-to-bottom as I'm most curious how it is that studies released so recently have already been debunked. I look forward to your reponse.

As Steve McIntyre discovered, many many studies cannot be replicated, and the ones that he has investigated are riven with mathematical problems which invalidates their conclusions.

Er, yet still no citation. Unimpressive.

 

[LTC8K6]

Why do some folks think the earth should remain at the same temperature?

Why do some folks think the weather should remain the same?

Why do some folks think the amount of precipitation they get should not vary over time?

Why do some folks think nothing on earth should go extinct?

The earth changes all the time in all ways, and it was doing so long before man arrived.

One halfway decent volcanic eruption has a great effect on the earth.

 

[Rolfe]

And where does that leave op-ed pieces?

You have casually dismissed an extensive list of recent scientific studies conducted by some of the world's leading scientific organizations based on nothing more than an op-ed piece. Bizarre..

Hmmm, last time I asked Diamond a question about this, it related to an interesting and detailed interview on the BBC given by a senior meteorologist from the Met Office. I wanted to know why Diamond disagreed with this person, who seemed to me to have some authority worth recognising.

Diamond attacked me for believing anything spouted by a "taking head".

Oh well.

Rolfe.

 

[wunky]

An exhibit that will be opening in two weeks at the Smithsonian.

http://forces.si.edu/

 

[Diamond]

And where does that leave op-ed pieces?

You have casually dismissed an extensive list of recent scientific studies conducted by some of the world's leading scientific organizations based on nothing more than an op-ed piece. Bizarre.

I notice you have backed off from your original statement... What is it? Some or most? Please be specific about which studies have been debunked with credible citations for a change.

Here, I've numbered them to make it easier...

1. British Antarctic Survey March 31, 2006
2. University of Arizona March 23, 2006
3. NASA March 14, 2006 agw
4. NASA March 3, 2006
5. Woods Hole Feb 2006
6. Yale/NOAA Feb 2006:
7. UCSC Feb 2006 agw
8. NOAA Feb 2006:
9. Scripps/DOE Jan 2006 agw
10. US Global Change Research Information Office 2006 agw
11. British Antarctic Survey Apr 2005:
12. Scripps/Livermore Labs Feb 2005 agw
13. Ohio State Jan 2005:
14. Schneider/Stanford 2004 agw
15. NASA Oct 2003:
16. IPCC 2001 (pdf) agw
17. DOE/Livermore/Santer March 2001 agw
18. McCarthy/Harvard March 2001 agw
19. EPA agw
20. PEW Center for Climate Change agw

It would be particularly interesting if you would take it top-to-bottom as I'm most curious how it is that studies released so recently have already been debunked. I look forward to your reponse.

You mark them as agw despite the fact that none of them demonstrate that. At best they describe warming. To ascribe them to a particular cause requires belief.

You've quoted press releases and summaries. Some of the linked articles are to interviews and opinion pieces.

I'll pick a few because I can't be bothered going through them all:

1. British Antarctic Survey March 31, 2006

It has made a claim that Antarctica is warming (or at least the atmosphere has), but uses weasel words to describe the effects as

"The rapid surface warming of the Antarctic Peninsula and the enhanced global warming signal over the whole continent shows the complexity of climate change," Turner says. "Greenhouse gases could be having a bigger impact in Antarctica than across the rest of the world and we don't understand why."

Erm, yes the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed but the rest (the other 98%) has not. In fact it's cooled. Sharply. If that's an "enhanced global warming signal" then all bets are off because then everything is an enhanced global warming signal.

9. Scripps/DOE Jan 2006 agw

This was a PRESS RELEASE for a study that had yet to be written, let alone peer-reviewed, let alone published. It was Yet Another Smoking Gun Climate Model, and to this date no publication has been seen. It made headlines around the world, which only goes to show. It still hasn't been published.

16. IPCC 2001 (pdf) agw

The IPCC TAR featured the "Mann Hockey Stick" which was acclaimed as final proof of the reality of man-made warming, but even AUP now admits has been debunked. The Hockey Stick featured five times in the Summary for Policy Makers and was the sole reconstruction for the last 1000 years mentioned in the entire assessment.

Er, yet still no citation. Unimpressive.

Oh I 'm terribly sorry I thought you were going to admit that Steve McIntyre is not a "fossil fuel salesman". Silly me.

The citation that you won't bother to read is:

GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L03710, doi:10.1029/2004GL021750, 2005

"Hockey sticks, principal components, and spurious significance"
and can be found at: http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/mcintyre.grl.2005.pdf

What else?

14. Schneider/Stanford 2004 agw

This is an interview with Stephen Schneider, a serial alarmist who in the 1970s published research and wrote articles and books on the reality of man-made global cooling. I'll give him credit for at least being flexible.

You're not going to read the citation. You're not going to take back your smear of Steve McIntyre. You're not interested in the considerable scientific doubt about how you attribute any change in a chaotic system to a single cause.

You certainly won't read Richard Lindzen's introduction to global warming science and why its claims are not what they appear because he's not in the majority?

 

[Jimbo07]

You certainly won't read Richard Lindzen's introduction to global warming science and why its claims are not what they appear because he's not in the majority?

Okay. I've just read it.

Diamond, what is your general thrust?
i) That global warming isn't happening? (Not supported by your link as he continually refers to the agreement)
ii) That humans are not contributing greenhouse gases? (Not supported by your link, again, as he generally agrees with the agreement)
iii) That the issue should not be politicized? (then what was the point of the 'cartoon' on p. 16 in his paper?)
iv) That we shouldn't be alarmed? This, I don't know about. I can't speak to the reliability of his claims about others' models.
v) That Kyoto is almost futile? (Heck, its' proponents will say so! It is weak.)
vi) That we should be prepared to adapt? (p. 19)

What is your essential point about climate change, Diamond?

 

[Amapola]

Why do some folks think nothing on earth should go extinct?

This is an honest question, so please don't assume I am being flippant; I really want to know. Would you be so serene about the extinction of the human race? Of course, humans are very creative in surviving in tough environments, but if the climate and conditions change enough, humans will be on the extinction list. After all they do require a food base (no matter what the food is) and fresh water to drink.

The reason I am curious (in a non-confrontational way) is that my life is lived very close to nature and animals. I would not feel casually about the extinction of a lot of animals, so I am curious how you would feel about the extinction of humans. And thanks.....

 

[Geckko]

Okay. I've just read it.

Diamond, what is your general thrust?
i) That global warming isn't happening? (Not supported by your link as he continually refers to the agreement)
ii) That humans are not contributing greenhouse gases? (Not supported by your link, again, as he generally agrees with the agreement)
iii) That the issue should not be politicized? (then what was the point of the 'cartoon' on p. 16 in his paper?)
iv) That we shouldn't be alarmed? This, I don't know about. I can't speak to the reliability of his claims about others' models.
v) That Kyoto is almost futile? (Heck, its' proponents will say so! It is weak.)
vi) That we should be prepared to adapt? (p. 19)

What is your essential point about climate change, Diamond?

I must admit that I hadn't come across Richard Lindzen before. Being fairly new to this area (I started reading in another thread about a side issue on the Hockey Stick) I have tended to believe that no knowledgable people doubted:

1. the magnitude of the impact of human activities on changing climate
2. the seriousness of the future implications, and
3. the overriding need to take corrective action to reverse carbon emissions.

But I must admit a byline of "Professor of Atmospheric Sciences - MIT" makes me sit up and pay attention. So the following statements made by Professor Lindzen leave me somewhat perplexed. Namely:

The issue of man induced climate change involves not the likelihood of dangerous consequences, but rather their remote possibility.

The main areas of widespread agreement [...] do not imply dangerous warming.

and

If one is concerned, the approach almost certainly is to maximize adaptability.

And he might as well be speaking about me here:

After spending years describing the physics of climate to audiences concerned with global warming, I came to the realization that I was speaking to people who were not aware of the basic premises of the issue. The listeners were typically under the impression that the case for climate alarm was self-evident and strong, and that concern for the underlying physics constituted simply nit-picking in order to see if there were any remotely possible chinks in the otherwise solid case. [my bold]

I must admit this paper caught me by complete surprise. Thanks Diamond.