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lynnvinc
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I vote pro-life and against pro-death.
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lynnvinc
Guest
From what I’ve heard and seen, climate scientists are a very competitive bunch. If one were to find a warming mechanism aside from GHG to explain the current pattern and IT HELD WATER (made some kind of logical, theoretical, and evidence-based sense), then they’d be jumping all over it, wanting to study it further.
However, since the greenhouse effect is based on the laws of physics, that too would continue to stand, so the upshot would be scientists studying and getting funded for this newly discovered warming mechanism AND this newly discovered cooling mechanism (that cancel each other out).
Note that climate scientists speak of known knowns, known unknowns (e.g., things that cannot be put in an equation or well predicted), and unknown unknowns. “There is also the existence of ‘unknown unknowns’ … An example of this kind of surprise happened in relation to the Antarctic ozone hole, where unexpected chemistry on surfaces of ice particles lead to much more efficient destruction of ozone in the polar vortex than had been expected, making an existing concern into a serious problem. By their nature, we are not able to assess how important any such surprises might be, but it is impossible to rule them out entirely.” - See more at: realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/07/runaway-tipping-points-of-no-return/comment-page-5/?wpmp_switcher=mobile&wpmp_tp=1#sthash.hC95FbdE.dpuf
I find climate scientists to be a curious bunch and open-minded, but perhaps a bit biased toward their particular theory and/or area and method of study. For instance the computer modelers do NOT include anything about the longer term positive feedbacks (being known unknowns) and are likely grossly underestimating the problem. They are so close to their computers and short-term projections (<100 yrs), it would be good if they were to take some steps back and look at the issue holistically and long term.
RE some new warming factor coming up, I remember when the cosmic rays cause warming theory came on the scene, climate scientists were intrigued and did not dismiss it out-of-hand, but looked into it. I don’t think they have yet totally dismissed it (since it does have some logic, theory, and lab support behind it). However, they pointed out while it may increase warming, the cosmic rays themselves have not been increasing over the past 30 years, so could not explain the current warming, tho maybe if they do increase it could cause further warming. It’s in a wait and see mode right now. “Svensmark’s paper [on galactic cosmic rays and warming] itself is indeed of some interest. Aerosol processes are among the most uncertain, and most studied, aspects of climate and these experiments…” - See more at: realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/10/taking-cosmic-rays-for-a-spin/#sthash.sE1vL1vh.dpuf
I’m sure those studying GCR and other warming mechanisms are either getting regular grants to do so, or (if they’re smart) tapping into Koch funding, etc. The Koch funded BEST (Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature - berkeleyearth.org/) project headed by Richard Muller (a physicist, but not a climate scientist) was supposed to prove climate science wrong, however ended up supporting it. At least Muller was honest and did honest research. At one point Muller after his study even claimed GW was worse than the climate scientists were saying, and the climate scientists had to apprise him of the various factors and considerations that dampen that claim.
I do know that climate scientists get unmercifully harassed and attacked, and sometimes even get death threats to themselves and their children. You all here may take death threats very lightly as a joke or not really meant as true threats, but I have received death threats (over student grades) and I can tell you the person receiving them has to take them seriously, even if there is only a slight chance they might be killed. It is a very harrowing experience for months on end, and in the case of climate scientists once received, they are probably always looking over their shoulders. There have also been some untoward “accidents” to climate scientists that in my books are suspicious (tho there is no solid evidence of intent).
Just look at the hatred people here at CAF have toward climate scientists and imagine less scrupulous people with that level of hatred.
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Ender
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A study *suggests *that ocean warming is *likely *caused…and we are supposed to cripple the worlds economies based on this?
More solid reasons to take costly and unhelpful actions now.
Well yes, that’s pretty what has been claimed. It’s all settled…everyone agrees…we know all that needs to be known. Except apparently we don’t.
Meaning the facts won’t cooperate with the theory.
The problem of course is that the greenhouse effect is merely one of dozens of influences acting on the atmosphere, so while it is useful to understand a physical process in isolation, that’s not really the same thing as understanding what happens when dozens of processes interact, especially when many (most?) of those individual processes are not at all well-established.
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Ender
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This chart is a really good example of just how tenuous the understanding of the climate really is, and how desperate the search for evidence supporting AGW has become.
First, it implies something is known that is at best conjecture: the heat content of the oceans. It clearly suggests that ocean heat content was reliably calculated as far back as the early 60’s when in fact comprehensive data was not even available until this century.
Second, the curve for that section where we have the most accurate data (after 2000) doesn’t match the data. The graph shows continued and significant warming this century, but the data show no such trend.
A recently published estimate of Earth’s global warming trend is 0.63 ± 0.28 W/m2,as calculated from ocean heat content anomaly data spanning 1993–2008. This value is not representative of the recent (2003–2008) warming/cooling rate because of a “flattening” that occurred around 2001–2002. Using only 2003–2008 data from Argo floats, we find by four different algorithms that the recent trend ranges from –0.010 to –0.160 W/m2 with a typical error bar of ±0.2 W/m2. These results fail to support the existence of a frequently cited large positive computed radiative imbalance.
[pas.rochester.edu/~douglass/papers/KD_(name removed by moderator)ress_final.pdf](http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~douglass/papers/KD_(name removed by moderator)ress_final.pdf)
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Arandur
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I’d like to see real evidence that global warming would be a bad thing.
As far as “nature” (biomes, animals, plants, etc) are concerned, “nature” is quite agnostic about things and organisms and ecosystems will simply proceed according to the built-in adaptation mechanisms that God designed into the system.
This leaves us only really legitimately considering impacts to humans. Here we have a few interesting things to consider:
So, in a sense, I think climate change is a moot point. It’s easiest just to adapt. And in the end, it may well be a net gain for humankind (see point 1).
As far as “nature” (biomes, animals, plants, etc) are concerned, “nature” is quite agnostic about things and organisms and ecosystems will simply proceed according to the built-in adaptation mechanisms that God designed into the system.
This leaves us only really legitimately considering impacts to humans. Here we have a few interesting things to consider:
- **Warming is better than cooling. ** More people die from colder temperatures than warmer ones. More overall energy is present to the earth, therefore allowing for greater overall life (so long as it does not fluctuate to incredible extremes, which we have no reason to suspect it will). Growing seasons are longer. More precipitation occurs. In fact, there are several studies that suggest that this warming cycle is preventing another Ice Age, which we otherwise seem overdue for (and which would be far more disastrous to biodiversity and human civilization than would warming).
- Climate shifts impact humans in various ways. Infrastructure and civilization have settled in particular areas right now, the distribution of which is heavily influenced by climate and geography, so there may be significant shifts that would be involved if any climate patterns change longer term. However, humans are better at adapting than any other species. So the question would be, how best can we adapt? And that leads us to point #3:
So, in a sense, I think climate change is a moot point. It’s easiest just to adapt. And in the end, it may well be a net gain for humankind (see point 1).
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Holly3278
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I don’t know why but I had always been under the impression that global warming would be a much longer term issue than this.
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freeRadical
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Why did you edit my post? I meant climate, not weather. And it is hard to predict climate, just like it is hard to predict weather. They are both chaotic systems with thousands if not millions of variables that affect them and they are both sensitive to initial conditions. Those kinds of systems are very hard to predict.
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SuperLuigi
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It’d be nice if some of them focus on proven environmental problems for once. :yup:
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lynnvinc
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No we’re supposed to enhance personal savings and help the world economies based on this (assuming we address GW in a smart, r/t stupid ways).
Also, please note that policy implications (esp stupid policy implications) are not supposed to determine science, but rather science is suppose to be used to help us come up with policies.
Ye old cart-before-the-horse thinking…
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lynnvinc
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There are extremophile species that might do well with GW. I’ve even heard that there may be some microbal extremophiles up in the atmosphere of Venus.
However, most species will likely suffer in the centuries to come, many going extinct. And it has more to do with the rapidity of the warming we are causing than the ability to adapt. During the Eocene maximum, with temp a lot hotter than today, there were alligators and palm trees up in the arctic. However that warming episode took millions of years, giving plenty of time for species to adapt and/or migrate.
The PETM, with great warming within 10,000 years caused a good number of species to go extinct and was much more harmful to life on earth.
Our current warming which could reach the same level as the PETM within a few 100 years – well who knows what will happen. There really isn’t any analog from the past.
Humans survived Pleistocene ice ages and the Little Ice Age okay. I know many fish species do better in cold than warm waters. And sealife (and land life) doesn’t do well at all with hydrogen sulfide outgassing, which could happen when oceans become super-anoxic from the warming, as they hypothesized during the end-Permian great extinction event.
Considering that humans have never had to live through a warming hysteresis, as during the end-Permian when 95% of life died out, or the PETM when a good portion of species went extinct, it is hard to say how humans might fair. Some say we are mean and ornery enough to survive.
My particular concern is that GW, once we get up to 3, 4, 5, or 6C warming will have disasterous effects on food productivity. Without adequate food not many will be able to survive. I’m thinking within a century or two it will become like a vicious killer musical chairs of people scrambling and fighting each other to survive.
I personally would rather turn off lights not in use today and the many others thing I can and am doing to mitigate GW and reduce my GHG emissions (and concomitant pollution) than risk such scenarios, even if by some people’s estimate those risks are fairly low.
I just don’t like killing people. But that’s just me.
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lynnvinc
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Not so re climate…
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freeRadical
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Yes so regarding climate.
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freeRadical
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The problem is that science is often influenced by politics, especially science that depends on government funding.
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
I think that happens less often than you would have us believe. Especially in research done by academic institutions, researchers enjoy a great deal of academic freedom. The researchers are much more interested in the integrity of their work than in coming to any specific preordained conclusion. On the other hand, research sponsored and conducted by corporations is much more likely to be pressured to produce the results that is most favorable to the corporation.
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
That depends on what sort of predictions you are trying to make. Some weather predictions are very easy to make: “This winter it will be colder than last summer”. It doesn’t take a supercomputer to make that prediction. I think even stone-age men could have managed that one. On the other hand, “One month from now it will be within 2 degrees of 70 in Kansas City” is a very difficult prediction to make. So sweeping statements about what is hard and what is easy are meaningless.
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Ender
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Despite all the fanfare and hype, virtually no country reached its Kyoto Protocol target. Why was that if not because of the expense involved? What has happened in those countries that have dived headlong into renewable energy? One of the poster children for that approach was Spain, so how has it worked for them?Once touted as the embodiment of progress, wealth and sustainability, the industry is now seen as an unwanted and costly extravagance. (NY Times, 2013)
The problem is that wind and solar generators require enormous government subsidies to make them viable, and at some point that reality asserts itself over the daydreams of the sustainable energy crowd.* The government has not yet said how it will pay off the accrued $35 billion debt. Ultimately consumers and taxpayers will have to shoulder the cost, through power bills or government budgets. *
Well, you may think, perhaps Spain is just an anomaly. Surely if any country could get it right it would be Germany; so how is it working out for them?But many companies, economists and even Germany’s neighbors worry that the enormous cost to replace a currently working system will undermine the country’s industrial base and weigh on the entire European economy. Germany’s second-quarter GDP decline of 0.6%, reported earlier this month, put a damper on overall euro-zone growth, leaving it flat for the quarter.
*Average electricity prices for companies have jumped 60% over the past five years because of costs passed along as part of government subsidies of renewable energy producers. Prices are now more than double those in the U.S. *(Wall Street Journal, yesterday)
What seems totally unappreciated is that even if all countries had met their Kyoto targets the predicted effect would have been a reduction of warming of less than 0.1 degree C by 2100.
Yes, that is the way things are supposed to work, but like everything else associated with this issue, things don’t work they way they are supposed to.
As compared to what? Ye old wishful thinking?
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Theo520
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Sadly, there are now over **30 competing theories **in circulation trying to explain this pause.
Incidentally, the American Meteorological Society has polled their membership and now show only 52% agree with the so-called “consensus” that global warming is mostly man-made. The poll finds members are far from unanimous in their views of climate change.
Incidentally, the American Meteorological Society has polled their membership and now show only 52% agree with the so-called “consensus” that global warming is mostly man-made. The poll finds members are far from unanimous in their views of climate change.
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
Why is that a sad thing? Seems like the sign of a robust science community.
That’s one take on it. The other is “Hey, look, the majority of AMS members agree that global warming is mostly man-made. So that’s why I, with no formal training in meteorology, am going to choose to reject global warming as absolute hogwash. Yea, makes tons of sense to me!”.
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lynnvinc
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Yep, skeptic climate (bogus) “science” is heavily influenced by politics, actually more than by cash cow money (of which there is also aplenty). It is ideologically driven – like in a modern world using (very flawed) neoclassical economics as a guide where each man for his own and make it rich (and stomping on women and children to do so is “that’s the breaks”), climate change or any environmental limits to infinite accummulation of wealth, power, and glory is just impossible. It just can’t be happening. The climate scientists have got to be wrong. Why are they wrong. It’s obvious – they are impacted by greed, politics, and totalitarian conspiracy…
And if we have to lob death threats at them and their small children to put a halt to their ridiculous claims re AGW, then that’s what has to be done…
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Theo520
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Leaf, there are 30 competing theories trying to prop up a single theory that failed to pass the ‘Scientific Method’ It’s sad because we should instead have theories that genuinely compete with the failed AWG story on C02 being the root cause of all warming.
The consensus moving from 97% to a bare majority is a telling trend on what the experts now think of AWG. The trend will continue as more people focus on the actual science (or lack there of by AWG fans)
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