Global Warming

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/04.24/01-weather.html

AGW doomsday advocates are a bunch of hysterical, religious zealots that wouldn't know rational thought if it land on their big toe.

 

Have you any proof that that has not happened - and in fact the entire BEST study from Berkeley Earth Sciences was predicated on examining what the sceptics said

http://berkeleyearth.org/objectives/

 

Take the lead, fearful ones. Turn off your thermostat, and ask the power company to cut your service. Ride your bike to your office and quit your job since you will no longer be able to make the transit.

Form an Amish community and save the Great Mother. Why must you beg us all to ask the lords of government to create useless taxes. Besides, it's not like the US federal government is the biggest polluter on the planet, or maybe it is.

 

Ummm - Don't know if you realise this but you have linked to an OP ED piece in a student gazette - validity somewhere BELOW you tube, which is saying something

In fact, reading that piece I am unsure it is not a satire especially when I got to this bit

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/04.24/01-weather.html

 

*sigh* fine here is another link from the CFA site itself.

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/archive/pr0310.html

This is the key quote "Soon and his colleagues concluded that the 20th century is neither the warmest century over the last 1000 years, nor is it the most extreme." As in the difference in temperatures has been larger historically than it is in the last 100 years.

The very notion that an increase in global temperature is somehow going to be harmful to are ecosystem is also patently absurd. Earth has had the greatest variety of species when it was warm, not when it was cool. Whatever handful of species that might become extinct or endangered pales in comparison to the number of new species that will evolve and they will be able to spread further away from the equator.

Some areas will become more arid but far more territory will see an increase in plants and fauna.

I recently was able to see this film at my school and if you can see it I highly recommend it. It puts to bed this absurd love affair with wind and solar and the fear mongering by environmentalists over nuclear energy and natural gas and fracking.

http://www.switchenergyproject.com/

 

Google Willie Soon and Exxon

That will tell you all you need to know about this piece that is NOT a peer reviewed paper and is not published in a respected journal

It is a PRESS RELEASE

And one wonders how much Harvard got from Exxon if Wille has been so well rewarded

From your link

BTW the date on this is 2003 - do yourself a favour and check what has happened since

 

You don't seem to have any issues with scientists that are funded by government and university grants to study global warming which by definition means that their funding is dependent on promoting all these doomday scenarios. If they came out and said that nature was the main cause and mankinds influence was either nonexistent or trivial....THERE WOULDN'T BE ANY FUTURE FUNDING.

You mean Michael Mann's hockey stick being debunked by multiple studies.......which is still cited by AGW alarmists and that came out in 1998.

AGW is a complete non-issue. Even if mankind was the biggest factor in global warming it wouldn't matter anyways because the world's population is growing and more and more people will want cars and washing machines and smart phones etc. Unless Westerners (and increasingly Asians) are willing to give up all their creature comforts they are going to laughed at by the rest of the developing world when we tell them that we need to reduce emission in order to save the planet. That simply isn't going to happen. As the one scientist in the film I posted said the earth will more than likely warm up and we will adapt and learn to live with it and that is just how it is. The US in a very few years is going to be only a minor contributor to the world's pollution compared to India and China and the developing world. Even if we wanted to there isn't enough money in the entire Western World to subsidize all these silly fantasies if they wanted to.

Meanwhile, we have very serious issues coming down the road such as the Ogallala aquifer only having 25 years left in it, China dumping massive amounts of mercury into the ocean's, but do you ever hear any of that being discussed outside of small academic and political circles........NO!

All you hear is AGW this or global warming that or climate change the other thing. Issues that are very important right now or in the near future and that can be addressed realistically are being shoved aside for asinine pie in the sky dreams about making the world into some magical fantasy land of zero carbon emissions. This is a horrible mistake that is going to haunt the environmental movement in the future as they are dropping the ball right now.

 

There is a difference between the institution gaining the funding for the research and the researcher getting paid in person

And Mann's research has been validated by peer reviewed papers

Whereas Willie's paper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Soon

 

If global warming disappeared as an issue tomorrow then Federal grants which run in the millions of dollars would no longer be given to climatologists. Universities depend on their employees producing papers and getting accolades. Soon being give a million bucks over 10 years is no different to me than a Prof of Climatology getting tons of money over years by the Feds. If you are going to accuse one side of being bought and sold then it goes both ways.

Ill give you the Mann Soon thing because I stopped following AGW seriously years ago after I realized that it was pointless and it wasted valuable time detracting from other more immediate issues. I also get annoyed with the incredibly stupid assumption that global warming is somehow bad to begin with.

I also recently learned in my Anthropoligy class that our brains developed the fastest over a period of 400,000 years during which there was massive and catastrophic climate change with areas turning from lush forested land to dry savannahs and deserts and back again sometimes in less than the span of 1,000 years which is just a nano second in geological time.

http://humanorigins.si.edu/human-characteristics/brains

There weren't any trucks or coal plants back then.

Something else I never hear AGW doomsday people spout their idiotic mouths off about is the effect of plants and ocean absorption (algea etc).

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_22-3-2012-17-45-48

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/28/us-carbon-plants-idUSTRE78R43E20110928

Considering that young growing plants absorb far more C02 than existing fully grown plants and we grow more and more crops around the world every year.......I wonder if AGW people ever take that into consideratin. (I actually don't know if they do as it seems like a no brainer to me but these people completely missed dust in Greenland.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120301180830.htm

 

The Soon and Balilunas paper was bad. How bad? Well, half the editorial board of the journal it was published in resigned in protest after it was rushed through review by the lead editor. That's pretty bad.

Yeah, I can imagine, because you have no idea how the grant system works.

If it seems like a no-brainer, the answer is pretty much always going to be "yes". These people aren't stupid, intentionally or otherwise. Plant growth is another feedback loop that has been addressed.

 

Aaaaaannnnnnnnddd! Heeeeere it is folk! Step right up and get your share of the conspiracy theory. Yessiree!! Only one per customer but today we will make a n exception and you can take as many home as you like!!

Wasn't it P.T. Barnum who said "There is one born every minute?"

http://www.skepticalscience.com/recursive-fury-huffpo.html

- - - Updated - - -

Aaaaaannnnnnnnddd! Heeeeere it is folk! Step right up and get your share of the conspiracy theory. Yessiree!! Only one per customer but today we will make a n exception and you can take as many home as you like!!

Wasn't it P.T. Barnum who said "There is one born every minute?"

http://www.skepticalscience.com/recursive-fury-huffpo.html

But I will look at your links

Link 1 - off topic

Link 2 and 3 And where do you think we are planting those new crops?? Mostly WHERE FORESTS USED TO BE - Geeeesh!!

Link 4 Does not say climate change is not happening!!

 

Just for reference on Giaver.

http://www.politicalforum.com/curre...ockey-stick-more-ski-jump.html#post1062379063

Of course, the peer-reviewed papers in climatology have been saying for years that we're in an unprecedented period of temperature change over time - that there has never in known recorded history been an increase or drop with this speed. So... When he said "climate is stable", was he providing his own opinion in contrast to the peer-reviewed papers, or did he just not read those papers? I somehow think a trained scientist mouthing off about a subject he knows little about is far more likely than him lying about a subject he knows something about.

 

Lololol!!!!! Like the MET, you don't deny my assertion, you just really get upset when people point it out.

 

So you are saying that the government doesn't fund research into global warming which is done at universities?

http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/112xx/doc11224/03-26-climatechange.pdf

"As awareness of global climate change has
expanded over the past decade, successive
Congresses and Administrations have committed resources to studying climate change and
reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, most notably carbon dioxide. The effort has included
funding science and technology, creating tax preferences, and assisting other countries in their
attempts to curtail greenhouse-gas emissions. At the direction of the Congress, successive
Administrations have produced annual tabulations of the costs of the federal government’s
climate change programs."

http://governmentgrantss.com/global-warming-grants

"Finally, there are a number of global warming grants that come directly from the federal government. These grants may go to individual researchers or organizations that are funding research. They may also go to states or departments that are looking to hire researchers to conduct studies regarding certain aspects of global warming and what should be done about it. For more information on the different government grants that are out as well there as the specification on how to apply for them you can go to: Grants.gov"

Apparently I know more about the grant system than you do. Also notice that it says that individuals can receive the grants as well as the institutions.

They didn't account for the dust in Greenland, they haven't accounted for the newest research that show plants absorb 25% more CO2 than previously thought, they "forgot" to include the extra snow from siberia in their models a couple years ago. And you claim that they are somehow not missing anything. The plant thing alone is a HUGE factor. Adjusting the absorption rate of plants by 25% is going to mean a dramatic shift in the calculations right there. The world is not going to turn into a cinder block with ashen wastelands and boiling oceans and the cities will not be flooded by rising oceans all around the world. The world will probably go up by one degree and I have to ask again....................SO WHAT? We have had larger temperature changes historically before were even around.

 

Link one is not off topic. Read the section about how are brains evolved because of massive climactic change. That shows that the earth is constantly changing with or without us doing anything.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-change-may-have-spurred-human-evolution

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ncestors-adapt-quickly-changing-habitats.html

Graduate student Clayton Magill added: 'The landscape early humans were inhabiting transitioned rapidly back and forth between a closed woodland and an open grassland about five to six times during a period of 200,000 years.

'These changes happened very abruptly, with each transition occurring over hundreds to just a few thousand years.'

Address how we can even begin to solve world wide carbon emissions on a realistic level. Tell me how it is a good thing that we ignore the Ogallala aquifer which is something that we can do because the modern environmental retardo movement focuses almost exclusively on global warming all the time.

I posted links showing that univerisities and individual researchers receive grants from the feds and from private organizations specifically in regards to global warming.........how long would those funds last if global warming became a non issue all of a sudden.

You didn't address the massive climate shifts in extremely brief periods of time that have happened in earth's past. We would shut down every last car and washing machine right now and it won't stop the earth from heating and cooling.

Newly planted crops absorb more CO2 than existing trees and crops are put on more than just woodlands they are also on savannahs and grasslands as well.

I never argued that climate change isn't happening, I am not even arguing that mankind has some influence on it. My argument is that we don't know the exact influence and even if we do accept that manking is the major cause of climate change (which is just absurd from a geological standpoint) that still isn't going to fix anything. The world will get warmer and all this energy being wasted on a problem that cannot be solves could be spent on things that can be fixed. How about taking all that money spent on research and setting up a Manhattan project for clean coal and cleaner natural gas technology. Coal isn't going away anytime soon and neither are oil or natural gas and it takes years to build nuclear plants and they have super high start up costs (cept Thorium reactors but noone wants to take them seriously apparently). We are pushing against a brick wall and it isn';t going to budge. Let's move on to stuff that we can push and move.

 

The neurologist would be capable of providing some basic trauma care, not to mention expert advice on how to diagnose and treat neurological trauma and disorder. If you offered an ER physician a neurologist to constantly assist them, they would gladly accept. Collaboration and cooperation in science is the norm, unless you're a climatologist, that is. They don't require the input of lame-brained particle physicists!

You are conflating theory with application. Those engineering examples are application, AGW is "theory" (and I use that word loosely). When talking about theory and research, general theoretical knowledge and data analysis skills reign supreme. Most, if not all, physicists have what could be called a strong theoretical base, as well as strong data analysis skills. Explaining natural phenomena (which is what AGW theory is about) is much different than applying basic scientific principles and laws in the real world. They are two different realms.

 

I'm sorry, do you have something important to say? "There has been no statistically significant warming over a 15-year period" is up there with "CO2 isn't the sole driver of climate" as far as duh statements goes. Yeah, with 15 data points, all with significant variance, you will not get a statistically significant trend line. So what do you do? You add more data points! You don't measure 15, you measure 30, or 40. You measure the underlying, long-term trend (the trend is, by the way, up - warming is actually accelerating). We have filtered out the signal from the noise, and the signal is very clear.

But wait, you didn't say "there's no statistically significant warming". Here's what you said:

But there has been warming. There has been significant warming, and it doesn't take a professional statistician to figure that one out (although they did when given the data without being told what it was). Again, do you get what statistical significance means?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance

Let me quote Phil Jones on the topic:

 

What is your source? And it may not be a big threat right now, but it will be should we continue doing the things we are now (albeit that changes in global temperature are natural and happen cyclically).
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs2-00/

"Reduction of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets similar to past reductions would cause sea level to rise 10 or more meters. A sea-level rise of 10 meters would flood about 25 percent of the U.S. population, with the major impact being mostly on the people and infrastructures in the Gulf and East Coast States (fig. 3). Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey and elsewhere are investigating the magnitude and timing of sea-level changes during previous interglacial intervals. Better documentation and understanding of these past changes will improve our ability to estimate the potential for future large-scale changes in sea level."

 

Well, you can get your doctorate in physics, so I'm not sure what you mean, nor do I see how it's relevant to my point, that is, climatology is just a branch of physics. You don't get to summarily dismiss the opinion of millions of scientists because they don't specialize in the weatherman, er, I mean the "climatologist" department. That's NOT how it works, nor how it will ever work. If the specialist wants to demonstrate their worth, then they have to convince the scientific community at large that they're "theory" is sound.

 

Oh, and when were you going to address RV's points about the limitations of the applied mathematics to model the climate system? You don't need a PhD in climatology (is there such a thing?) to know that some systems are too chaotic to model, no matter how advanced your mathematics are. Anyone who has watched the weatherman knows "climatology" is just guesswork, only on a much larger scale...

 

How many data points is considered to chaotic?

 

I'm not sure I understand your question.

 

You made the observation some systems are too chaotic to model. To create a model you need data points. So my question is when does the model become overwhelmed by the number of data points required to try and run the simulation

 

You're completely wrong and I'm not going to explain it to you again.

As soon as I figure out what the hell he's talking about.

 

I'm not sure exactly why you would think that if climate change became a non-issue federal grants for climate studies would cease. There will always be a need for us to further our understanding of how our climate functions regardless of whether or not climate change is happening. Its not like if there was no such thing as climate change climatologists would suddenly find themselves in the unemployment line.

As for whether or not climatologists have been 'bought and paid for' NSF grants are awarded based on the quality of the hypothesis' that they pose rather than the substance of the results they produce. The assertion that there is a coordinated and systemic cabal of climate scientists who are producing fraudulent science to receive grant funding is unfounded. There are always going to be isolated instances of scientists engaging in fraudulent activities for nefarious reasons because scientists are human just like the rest of us. The very nature of the scientific method is such that there are numerous safeguards bulwarking the publication of apocryphal results. 'Climategate' was a coordinated smear campaign that greatly damages the reputation of the scientific community as a whole. While the accusations made against climate scientists dominated the media for some time there was little subsequent mention of how the scientists in question were exonerated unequivocally by numerous independent investigations.

What you need to realize that 'global warming' is a misnomer'. The appropriate term for the phenomena is 'climate change'. Its not like the planet is going to get a warmer and everything else is going to remain the same. The danger of climate change is that there could be significant disruption in the planets climate that could have deleterious effects on agriculture and the environment. Drastic climate change events in the planets history have been linked to mass extinction events as well as dynamic shifts in the ecology of the planets flora and fauna.

Changes in our understanding of the planets carbon budget- dust and CO2 absorbtion by plants- are accounted for in the modern synthesis of climate science. There is no reason to think that such things are wholly dismissed from our understanding of climate change.

BTW, your link on the dust and greenland could very likely a positive feed back mechanism that accelerates climate change rather than a mitigating factor or alternative explanation for the observed warming of the planet.