Is a mini ICE AGE on the way?

[Ridgerunner]

That isn’t a credibility issue and there are notable changes in other parts of the world.

There is always an explanation as to why something that doesn’t manifest itself, actually does. But it’s always somewhere else. If it’s not in the atmosphere, it’s in the deep ocean. If it’s not in the deep ocean, it’s under the arctic ice. If it’s not in North America, then it’s in Central Asia.

Realizing that North America isn’t the whole world, but also recognizing that it’s a big place, one would think people would experience MMGW. But they don’t.

 

[TheCuriousCat]

One of the credibility problems with MMGW theory is that nobody ever experiences it. I have said some of this before, but I will say it again.
-When I was a kid, decades ago, you could not successfully grow a hay crop of Bermuda much north of Springfield, Mo, because it’s temperature sensitive. You still can’t. But you can south of Springfield, and always could. The zone hasn’t moved an inch.
-Roadrunners are sensitive to cold, and can’t survive really cold winters. They don’t exist north of Springfield, but they do south of it.
-Lake of the Ozarks, in central Missouri, freezes over, bank to bank in a lot of winters, and always did. Table Rock Lake, in extreme southern Missouri, never does.

If there was all this global warming going on, one would think it would manifest itself in some way people could perceive.

How slight a difference do you think you’d notice? If Lake of the Ozarks froze over 6 out of 7 winters when you were a boy, would you notice if it was only 4 out of every 5 now? Would you be able to tell if it tended to freeze over on average 3-4 days later and thawed out roughly 5-6 days earlier? What if it was 1/4-1/2" thinner?

All of that would add up to a tremendously smaller amount of ice.

Certain places are much easier to notice change than others. I live in a very mild climate. When I was a kid, there were a handful of snowy days per year, and only 2-3 of those was heavy enough for it to stick on the ground. Whenever it snowed, there were stories in the paper about traffic accidents, as drivers unused to driving in the cold white stuff tried to deal with slipping around, and others complained about west coast drivers who didn’t change to winter tires early enough.

These days, if it snows hard enough to stick to the ground it makes front page news. People will tell you they forgot it snows here. I don’t own winter clothes anymore. There isn’t any point to owning clothing I might only wear once every couple of years.

I’m not saying winter is gone now. I fully expect we will see another really cold winter here again (because there is always variation), but it is on average warmer now than when I was a kid. If you are used to winter being 8-9 days long, and that goes down to 3-4 days, you notice.

All over the world, people are observing differences: species of birds are flying farther north but not farther south, migration times are shortening, permafrost is disappearing. But we’re not talking things changing by hundreds of miles or weeks, we’re talking days or a few miles. Lots and lots of little changes that will turn into bigger ones.

 

[lynnvinc]

There is always an explanation …

Sort of off topic (but not really – see below), but I thought you might like this:

“Can meat actually be eco-friendly?” grist.org/food/can-meat-actually-be-eco-friendly/?utm_campaign=round-2-image&utm_medium=email&utm_source=food-newsletter:

"…I was surprised when Frank Mitloehner, a UC-Davis animal science professor who is leading an update of the FAO’s livestock assessment, told me that the idea of eliminating animals from our food system was ridiculous and, actually, unsustainable.

‘Agriculture cannot be sustainable without animal agriculture,’ he said. ‘That is something I’m sure of.’

There are two key points to consider, Mitloehner said. First, most of the feed that livestock eat is not edible by humans. Globally, just 18 percent of animal feed is made up of grains or other crops that people might otherwise eat. The rest is crop residues, grass, and waste from milling grain and other food processing. And so, despite the inefficiency of converting calories to meat, animals are able to give humans access to energy that they wouldn’t have been able to access otherwise.

The second, issue, Mitloehner said, is that what I’d been thinking of as the “waste products” of animal agriculture are actually valuable resources. The manure animals produce is vital for agriculture (especially organic agriculture). “If we were to reduce the fertilizer animals produce by 100 percent, we would have to double or triple the amount of chemical fertilizer we apply, and we just don’t have that,” Mitloehner said.

In addition, every part of the animal that we don’t eat as meat — the skin, bones, sinew, organs, and fat — is used in some way…"
Of course, your grass-fed beef is even better than corn-fed – both for our health and the environment.

Well, I guess it does sort of relate to the OP in a way, since I read that early hunters could have caused a mini-ice age:
newscientist.com/article/mg20627623.300-did-early-hunters-cause-climate-change/
youtube.com/watch?v=EUpGc__2ikk

 

[Trident_H]

The other problem is that there are also credible-sounding reasons that look like they refute all the GW claims wherever they crop up. And then there are probably refutations to the refutations, but they don’t make it to the mainstream media so I never know what to think (it’s not like I always know who is credible online. I mean if I go to a government sponsored site I suspect that they just want to keep their government funding so they’ll say whatever is going to keep the money rolling in and if I go to an environmentalist site I know they are doing it for publicity so they can raise money and keep the lights on and if I go to an industry site I know they also have a vested interest. What I really wish is that some investigative reporting would be done that would really get to the bottom of things.

I mean I’ve seen the data showing the mean temperature rise as recorded in various locations throughout the country, but then I’ve read that those temperature rises were because thermal readings used to be taken at airports or just outside of the city, but urban growth has now grown to include those spots so eventually what they are showing is the fact that cities retain heat better than the outskirts.

I’ve see studies that show carbon increasing in the atmosphere and then I read an article from the former founder of Greenpeace who claims that carbon is at a relatively all-time low compared to the history of life on Earth (compared to the last billion or so years I guess)–something that he described as basically at the suffocation level for plants.

I’ve read that the last time CO2 was this high in the atmosphere was about 800,000 to 2.2 million years ago, but then I’ve read that back then the temperature was also 11degrees (celcius I think) warmer than it is now so that doesn’t really make sense if CO2 was the cause of GW.

I’ve read that the Earth is in the ideal spot for life because if it were even a little bit closer to the Sun we would have a lot more storms and wilder weather due to an increase in solar heating (we’d still be in the Goldilocks zone, but would just be a bit more volatile), but then I’ve read that the Earth doesn’t actually revolve around the sun, but instead orbits, along with the Sun, the center of gravity of the whole solar system, which means that at times the sun is actually closer to us than other times due to the way the planets line up.

I’ve heard that methane is a leading cause of GW and so blame is placed on the cattle industry for the increase, but then I read in history books about the millions upon millions of bison that used to roam the praries at will, which must have had far greater numbers than today’s cattle.

I mean I’ve heard lots more, but you get the idea. I just don’t know what to think about it all sometimes.

 

[Theo520]

It’s not so much looking at different statistics but observing similar pauses in the past:

skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47

LOL, now explain what that chart doesn’t match any of the IPCC climate model forecasts!

I hope you are aware that models should be validated against measurement.
That’s how the scientific method works.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’ve heard that methane is a leading cause of GW and so blame is placed on the cattle industry for the increase, but then I read in history books about the millions upon millions of bison that used to roam the praries at will, which must have had far greater numbers than today’s cattle.

I mean I’ve heard lots more, but you get the idea. I just don’t know what to think about it all sometimes.

The number of buffalo in 1491 was about the same as the number of cattle in the U.S. today. But the number of elk, antelope, etc was much higher then than now. So, I think you’re right about the methane, but for a slightly different reason.

 

[lynnvinc]

The other problem is that there are also credible-sounding reasons that look like they refute all the GW claims wherever they crop up. And then there are probably refutations to the refutations, but they don’t make it to the mainstream media so I never know what to think (it’s not like I always know who is credible online. I mean if I go to a government sponsored site I suspect that they just want to keep their government funding so they’ll say whatever is going to keep the money rolling in and if I go to an environmentalist site I know they are doing it for publicity so they can raise money and keep the lights on and if I go to an industry site I know they also have a vested interest. What I really wish is that some investigative reporting would be done that would really get to the bottom of things.

I mean I’ve seen the data showing the mean temperature rise as recorded in various locations throughout the country, but then I’ve read that those temperature rises were because thermal readings used to be taken at airports or just outside of the city, but urban growth has now grown to include those spots so eventually what they are showing is the fact that cities retain heat better than the outskirts.

I’ve see studies that show carbon increasing in the atmosphere and then I read an article from the former founder of Greenpeace who claims that carbon is at a relatively all-time low compared to the history of life on Earth (compared to the last billion or so years I guess)–something that he described as basically at the suffocation level for plants.

I’ve read that the last time CO2 was this high in the atmosphere was about 800,000 to 2.2 million years ago, but then I’ve read that back then the temperature was also 11degrees (celcius I think) warmer than it is now so that doesn’t really make sense if CO2 was the cause of GW.

I’ve read that the Earth is in the ideal spot for life because if it were even a little bit closer to the Sun we would have a lot more storms and wilder weather due to an increase in solar heating (we’d still be in the Goldilocks zone, but would just be a bit more volatile), but then I’ve read that the Earth doesn’t actually revolve around the sun, but instead orbits, along with the Sun, the center of gravity of the whole solar system, which means that at times the sun is actually closer to us than other times due to the way the planets line up.

I’ve heard that methane is a leading cause of GW and so blame is placed on the cattle industry for the increase, but then I read in history books about the millions upon millions of bison that used to roam the praries at will, which must have had far greater numbers than today’s cattle.

I mean I’ve heard lots more, but you get the idea. I just don’t know what to think about it all sometimes.

You could get a college textbook on climate science (or has a chapter on it) and you’ll see it’s a well accepted fact.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You could get a college textbook on climate science (or has a chapter on it) and you’ll see it’s a well accepted fact.

I recall an economics course in college in which the textbook told us that Keynesian economics was a well accepted fact.

I have never visited Baptist Bible College or Evangel University in Springfield, but I would bet dollars to donuts they both have a textbook telling students that creationism is a well established fact.

 

[Trident_H]

You could get a college textbook on climate science (or has a chapter on it) and you’ll see it’s a well accepted fact.

Yeah, because textbooks are put together by experts–oh, wait they aren’t. They are assembled to a large degree by individuals working for minimum wage googling stuff online and then just checked by whoever isn’t too busy.
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/21/AR2010102104172.html
The fact checking is often haphazard, usually rushed, and the editing is typically outsourced to a 3rd world country. It’s a business. Do you really think anyone is going to buy a textbook that says GW is not in play given that it is today’s media sensation?

But I appreciate the suggestion and don’t mean to sound mean or anything. I’m just frustrated with the way things have gone in our society lately. I’m really sorry if I sound condescending or anything. I really don’t mean to.

 

[TheCuriousCat]

I’d love to give you some recommendations, but I’m afraid you’d have a problem with them.

You do realise that there really isn’t a single national science organisation, from any country in the entire world, that disagrees with AGW? There isn’t an accredited university where the consensus opinion disagrees with AGW? Other than a handful of groups that were formed specifically to sound credible and prepare the notion that AGW is a fraud, virtually every scientific body out there agrees with AGW.

The people who take the measurements, launch the satellites, build and regulate the weather stations, take ice core samples, submerge oceanographic equipment… they 97% agree that AGW is a very, very big problem.

It’s not like governments are so in love with AGW that they wouldn’t fund research to the contrary. In Canada for instance, research stations and scientific bodies that have been reporting on AGW are being shut down by the federal government because the Conservative government wants to open up two major oil pipelines and expand the Tar Sands. They would be thrilled to fund research showing AGW is a mistake. You don’t think the Chinese government would love to discover that coal is good for the environment?

Trust me, it’s not like scientists who disagree with AGW are hurting for money.

 

[Trident_H]

I’d love to give you some recommendations, but I’m afraid you’d have a problem with them.

I’m sorry if I come across like that. Please recommend away.

Oh, never mind, you gave some anyway:

You do realise that there really isn’t a single national science organisation, from any country in the entire world, that disagrees with AGW? There isn’t an accredited university where the consensus opinion disagrees with AGW? Other than a handful of groups that were formed specifically to sound credible and prepare the notion that AGW is a fraud, virtually every scientific body out there agrees with AGW.

No, I did not realize that. No one ever introduced me to all of them.

The people who take the measurements, launch the satellites, build and regulate the weather stations, take ice core samples, submerge oceanographic equipment… they 97% agree that AGW is a very, very big problem.

I guess I am attracted to the underdog and hang out with the 3%. I don’t know if that is always bad. The track record on the underdog being right in science is pretty high.

It’s not like governments are so in love with AGW that they wouldn’t fund research to the contrary. In Canada for instance, research stations and scientific bodies that have been reporting on AGW are being shut down by the federal government because the Conservative government wants to open up two major oil pipelines and expand the Tar Sands. They would be thrilled to fund research showing AGW is a mistake.

No, I don’t know about that. Do the governments have any reason to argue against GW either? The media is against them and if the science is agaisnt them, why would they argue against such a potentially huge power grab?

You don’t think the Chinese government would love to discover that coal is good for the environment?

Yeah, but particulates from things like coal plants was cited as a major cause of global cooling in the 70s. That’s one reason why they put so many filters on the smoke stacks (that and the air was getting toxic). So it’s kinda funny that after doing that they now have to worry about warming instead.

Trust me, it’s not like scientists who disagree with AGW are hurting for money.

Well I don’t know if they are or not and I suspect neither do you.

But here’s the thing, and please hear me out because you have so far 75% convinced me, k? Let’s say you are right about all that stuff (and I mean honestly maybe you are):

I have heard everyone in despair about a 0.2 degree change in temperature at the end of the decade (ok, maybe it is now 0.4) and I’m thinking, why is that so bad? I mean I know that eco systems would change pretty rapidly and all that, but I want you to think about this from the point of view of someone who was terrified by global cooling when I used to read about it–especially when they said we were due for an ice age anyway. It just seemed like when they finally said the world was warming I was really quite happy! At first I thought it was super news!

I mean, why is GW only bad? I mean aside from everyone losing ocean-front property.

1. During the mini warming spell in the middle ages (whenever it happened that they could grow grapes in England) no real species died off. It is estimated that during that time global conflicts fell to an all-time low due to the relative abundance of food and the longer growing season.

That heating spell was warmer than it is now and warmer than it is projected to become for quite a while.

1. I would think the increase in arable land as the permafrost melts would give Canada a pretty big economic boost. I’d think you’d be happy, actually.
2. More CO2 in the atmosphere means faster and bigger plant growth.
3. Given that the areas on the planet with the greatest biodiversity are often those nearest the equator, making the world warmer overall should increase global biodiversity in the long run.
4. The creatures hanging around the galapogous islands seem to have adapted in record time to even greater temperature ranges than GW ever predicts for the poles. I mean there are penguines living near the tropics because of that. And their habitat suffers from an 11 - 15 degree (c) temperature drop (and later rise) every 4 - 7 years due to the change in ocean currents and yet still they hang on and adapt.
5. And other stuff.

What I want to know is why we aren’t just told the pros and cons of GW if it is actually happening? Why don’t we get the facts and sit down and think about what it all means? My problem is that whenever I start hearing some media hound screaming about the ‘devastating effects’ I just remember their track record on horrible predictions. I grew up thinking we were going to run out of tungsten by the year 2000. I was worried that we’d have no more fish. We were all going to be killed by killer bees! I mean, I get very suspicious because the world has become a dumbed-down place.

Because no environmental agency, media, or corporation ever sits down and says, “Well, yes we will lose all of our polar bears, but we will end up with a lot more types of birds!” Or something. It’s always a lose, lose, lose scenario that gets bandied around–whether it’s cooling or warming–as if the world has always been this temperature and is sitting on the absolute balance ready for a disaster.

I guess I don’t want you to think I didn’t listen. I did. I am. I neither want to be a denier nor a tool of some agency that wants to control all the world’s resource by pretending it has to be regulated some more. I don’t want to be a radical in either camp. I just want the truth.

Thanks for taking the time.

Peace.

-Trident

 

[Theo520]

LOL,
If you are talking about the basic physics of radiative forcing by CO2 as a GHG, you won’t even find a skeptic that disagrees.

If you are talking about the degree of warming man contributes, even the IPCC can’t make up their mind. They aren’t very certain if doubling CO2 will increase temps by 1.5C or maybe more than 4.5C, it’s hardly settled.

I’d love to give you some recommendations, but I’m afraid you’d have a problem with them.

You do realise that there really isn’t a single national science organisation, from any country in the entire world, that disagrees with AGW? There isn’t an accredited university where the consensus opinion disagrees with AGW? Other than a handful of groups that were formed specifically to sound credible and prepare the notion that AGW is a fraud, virtually every scientific body out there agrees with AGW.

 

[estesbob]

authorama.com/english-fairy-tales-23.html

 

[TheCuriousCat]

LOL,
If you are talking about the basic physics of radiative forcing by CO2 as a GHG, you won’t even find a skeptic that disagrees.

If you are talking about the degree of warming man contributes, even the IPCC can’t make up their mind. They aren’t very certain if doubling CO2 will increase temps by 1.5C or maybe more than 4.5C, it’s hardly settled.

They are scientists, not soothsayers. There is exactly one Earth, and this is the first time anyone has substantially altered the atmosphere in a relatively short period of time. They couldn’t possibly know everything.

How hot will it get from doubling? That depends, how much more urban sprawl is there going to be in the next 20 years? And how many earthquakes? What other ggs will be released to what degree? What years will be el niño years?

They released a range of predictions, and pretty amazingly really, we are within the range they predicted.

 

[Mark121359]

Actually the sun is getting hotter and hotter on its way to self-destruction in several billion years.

I think we’re causing this!..Umm…I mean unfettered capitalism and Republicans are causing it!

Peace, Mark

 

[Theo520]

They released a range of predictions, and pretty amazingly really, we are within the range they predicted.

No, we’re below the model projections made for our actual growth in CO2 emissions. Our temperatures are tracking to the projections for if we had flatlined our CO2 at 2000 levels.

Do your homework and stop simply repeating talking points.

 

[TheCuriousCat]

I’m sorry if I come across like that. Please recommend away.

Oh, never mind, you gave some anyway:

No, I did not realize that. No one ever introduced me to all of them.

I guess I am attracted to the underdog and hang out with the 3%. I don’t know if that is always bad. The track record on the underdog being right in science is pretty high.

No, I don’t know about that. Do the governments have any reason to argue against GW either? The media is against them and if the science is agaisnt them, why would they argue against such a potentially huge power grab?

Yeah, but particulates from things like coal plants was cited as a major cause of global cooling in the 70s. That’s one reason why they put so many filters on the smoke stacks (that and the air was getting toxic). So it’s kinda funny that after doing that they now have to worry about warming instead.

Well I don’t know if they are or not and I suspect neither do you.

But here’s the thing, and please hear me out because you have so far 75% convinced me, k? Let’s say you are right about all that stuff (and I mean honestly maybe you are):

I have heard everyone in despair about a 0.2 degree change in temperature at the end of the decade (ok, maybe it is now 0.4) and I’m thinking, why is that so bad? I mean I know that eco systems would change pretty rapidly and all that, but I want you to think about this from the point of view of someone who was terrified by global cooling when I used to read about it–especially when they said we were due for an ice age anyway. It just seemed like when they finally said the world was warming I was really quite happy! At first I thought it was super news!

I mean, why is GW only bad? I mean aside from everyone losing ocean-front property.

1. During the mini warming spell in the middle ages (whenever it happened that they could grow grapes in England) no real species died off. It is estimated that during that time global conflicts fell to an all-time low due to the relative abundance of food and the longer growing season.

That heating spell was warmer than it is now and warmer than it is projected to become for quite a while.

1. I would think the increase in arable land as the permafrost melts would give Canada a pretty big economic boost. I’d think you’d be happy, actually.
2. More CO2 in the atmosphere means faster and bigger plant growth.
3. Given that the areas on the planet with the greatest biodiversity are often those nearest the equator, making the world warmer overall should increase global biodiversity in the long run.
4. The creatures hanging around the galapogous islands seem to have adapted in record time to even greater temperature ranges than GW ever predicts for the poles. I mean there are penguines living near the tropics because of that. And their habitat suffers from an 11 - 15 degree (c) temperature drop (and later rise) every 4 - 7 years due to the change in ocean currents and yet still they hang on and adapt.
5. And other stuff.

What I want to know is why we aren’t just told the pros and cons of GW if it is actually happening? Why don’t we get the facts and sit down and think about what it all means? My problem is that whenever I start hearing some media hound screaming about the ‘devastating effects’ I just remember their track record on horrible predictions. I grew up thinking we were going to run out of tungsten by the year 2000. I was worried that we’d have no more fish. We were all going to be killed by killer bees! I mean, I get very suspicious because the world has become a dumbed-down place.

Because no environmental agency, media, or corporation ever sits down and says, “Well, yes we will lose all of our polar bears, but we will end up with a lot more types of birds!” Or something. It’s always a lose, lose, lose scenario that gets bandied around–whether it’s cooling or warming–as if the world has always been this temperature and is sitting on the absolute balance ready for a disaster.

I guess I don’t want you to think I didn’t listen. I did. I am. I neither want to be a denier nor a tool of some agency that wants to control all the world’s resource by pretending it has to be regulated some more. I don’t want to be a radical in either camp. I just want the truth.

Thanks for taking the time.

Peace.

-Trident

Argh! I just spent an hour on a response, dropped my phone, and lost it all. Sigh… I wanted to let you know I will respond though. I just don’t have it in me to rewrite it now. :banghead:

I was one sentence away from being done.

 

[TheCuriousCat]

No, we’re below the model projections made for our actual growth in CO2 emissions. Our temperatures are tracking to the projections for if we had flatlined our CO2 at 2000 levels.

Do your homework and stop simply repeating talking points.

I did.

 

[Trident_H]

Argh! I just spent an hour on a response, dropped my phone, and lost it all. Sigh… I wanted to let you know I will respond though. I just don’t have it in me to rewrite it now. :banghead:

I was one sentence away from being done.

Oh man, I hate it when that happens! I am so sorry to hear about that! I will wait patiently for your reply and tell you what, for the double effort I will pay double the attention, k?

 

[estesbob]

They are scientists, not soothsayers. There is exactly one Earth, and this is the first time anyone has substantially altered the atmosphere in a relatively short period of time. They couldn’t possibly know everything.

How hot will it get from doubling? That depends, how much more urban sprawl is there going to be in the next 20 years? And how many earthquakes? What other ggs will be released to what degree? What years will be el niño years?

They released a range of predictions, and pretty amazingly really, we are within the range they predicted.

We are not within the range of their predictions. In fact CO2 has increased significantly more than they predicted and the temperature has increased not all . They were wrong. Instead of just admitting they were wrong they come up with increasingly bizarre theories as to why the world is warming even though it is notFor instance after wholesale changing of past temperature readings downwaninrd ,supposedly to make them more “accurate” ,they then issue alarming press releases claiming 2014 was the warmest year on record- of course when you get to the FinePrint you see they’re claiming a 200s of 1 degree warming. That’s the best they can do after manipulating the data?