Global cooling.

[luke warm]

Let me say it a bit differently. If you ask the question "Is global warming happening?" to members of Congress, then

- a huge majority of the Democrats will say yes, and

- a huge majority of the Republicans will say no.

(I am not making this up, I did read about a survey on this, I just don't recall the exact numbers nor when exactly the survey was taken.)

 

I don't know any other country where the opinion on a factual question is so extremely guided by party affiliation (and thus, I assume we can agree on that, by ideology).

maybe you're right, arend, i don't recall anything like that though... i think if you changed it to "Is global warming caused by man?" you might get something like that result, but i don't know

[whereagles]

There are a lot of studies that try and simulate temperature tendency based only on geological and solar activity, i.e. decoupling the climate from CO2 and other antropogenic influence.

 

Those geophysical models are quite sophisticated, run on supercomputers, but they never get the temperatures right. Then you factor in CO2 emissions and suddently the model's curves fit actual data like a glove.

 

Statistics on correlation between CO2 and warming are strong enough that most scientists are accepting it.

[PassedOut]

It's an established fact that the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased dramatically over the past century, and that the billions of tons of CO2 being added to the atmosphere keeps driving that percentage higher. It's also an established fact CO2 slows the release of heat.

 

It seems to me that those who deny global heating bear the responsibility for describing what process they believe allows the heat to escape despite the increase in greenhouse gases.

[kenrexford]

Here's the political problem that I see.

 

The majority of those who deny the existence of global warming do so because they do not accept the premise that leads to the proposed actions because it is easier than discussing the whole issue.

 

The majority of those who talk about the existence of global warming do so with a loaded "and therefore" that scares the SH$#! out of many people.

 

There are many environmental concerns that are real and serious. That said, it is not obvious that a proposed cure is a good idea.

 

If we do not understand how the effects are being caused sufficiently, we cannot easily quantify how much alleviation a proposal will offer. If we do not know how much a proposed alleviation will help, or even if it will help, then we do not know that $x will yield Y result. So, it becomes difficult to justify an expenditure of a really big $x on a prospect of an unknown result.

 

No one, however, will ever address issues this way. You end up in ugly discussions like trying to figure out how much a life is worth and how many deaths are financially tolerable.

 

Obviously, for example, there would be no motor vehicle fatalities if everyone rode horses. There would be other fatalities, like those from delays from horse-drawn ambulances, but none from motor vehicle crashes. We'd have some deaths with a 20 MPH speed limit. We'd have more from 55 MPH. How much is tolerable? When do the gains outweigh the losses?

 

No one speaks this way, as I mentioned. The "right" denies that global warming exists because they do not want to be seen as ogres. The "left" overstates the proof of global warming and overstates the proof of cause, and then couples that with a "we must do such-and-such," with "such-and-such" seeming to be absurdly costly. Then, the right beats down any evidence tending to support gloabl warming as a concept and the left beats down any evidence running against the manifest obviousness of the complete company line.

 

I have no idea what the heck is really going on and am rather glad that I don't get to decide what multi-trillion-dollar mistake we will make one way or the other.

[whereagles]

Well, on the other hand, I pretty much would like to have the power to make a multi-trillion-dollar mistake :) :) :)

 

joke aside, even B)

[DrTodd13]

Why don't you explain how the CO2 concentration 100 million years ago was a 100 times higher than now and yet the temperature was only one degree higher. I may not be remembering the numbers completely accurately but the gist is that in the past CO2 concentrations were very much higher (how they know this I don't know) but the temperature was not.

 

We have a very complex climate system that most measurements show is warming. If you have a theory why it is warming then it is your responsibility to prove it. Even according to the global warming people, CO2 is less than 3% of all global warming gases. Human production of CO2 is dwarfed by natural production of CO2. Again, I don't remember the exact numbers but I'll be generous and say that humans are responsible for 10% of all CO2 (I think the actual number is even less). Thus, humans are responsible for 0.3% of all global warming gases. Your position is that doubling this contribution to 0.6% would lead to global catastrophy. Prima facie, believing that a 0.3% increase in CO2 would lead to disaster seems to put the burden on you to prove this seemingly outrageous claim. You probably don't believe me but I read both sides and I am unconvinced either way. I'm particularly unconvinced that all the feedback systems are understood. You can't modify a small part of an interconnected complex system and say you are going to hold the rest of the system constant and predict its behavior. Writing complex programs has taught me that small changes can cause unpredictable behavior and sometimes ends up doing the opposite of what you would have predicted. I have seen small changes lead to catastrophy so it is possible that anthropogenic GW is true.

 

Whereagles, the data says that temperature changes precede changes in CO2. Historically that is what the data says. Just from this, if you want to believe anything it should be that temperature causes changes in CO2. The GW people will admit this but say that they don't know why the temperature started to go up but the reason for the 4/5ths of the increase after the initial temperature increase is due to the CO2 released from the oceans. Why does this process stop if CO2 is such a powerful cause of global warming? Repeat after me, correlation is not causation, particularly when the supposed cause happens after the effect.

[vuroth]

Mean global temperature is now as high as it ever has been in the last 800,000 years.

Bear in mind, there have been over 5,000 periods of such length in the existence of our planet.

[Al_U_Card]

Why don't you explain how the CO2 concentration 100 million years ago was a 100 times higher than now and yet the temperature was only one degree higher. I may not be remembering the numbers completely accurately but the gist is that in the past CO2 concentrations were very much higher (how they know this I don't know) but the temperature was not.

I gather that one of the more popular conjectures is that the land mass distribution was so different and aside from a few isolated "ice-ball earth" incidents, it is only since the continents separated significantly from the original land mass (with the outpouring of volcanic GG etc.) that this periodic cycling has been established.

 

Either way, trends tend to continue without the impact of significant outside force effects so the "established" norm is likely to continue. No matter the cause, it is the effect that we have to worry about. Who knows, maybe our CO2 emissions are actually saving us from another cycle. Only time (such as is left) will tell.

 

p.s. Don't buy land in Florida. :(

 

p.p.s Make some friends in the lower latitudes, just in case. ;)

[whereagles]

> Why don't you explain how the CO2 concentration 100 million years ago was a 100 times higher than

> now and yet the temperature was only one degree higher. I may not be remembering the numbers

> completely accurately but the gist is that in the past CO2 concentrations were very much higher (how

> they know this I don't know) but the temperature was not.

 

Atmospheric content at the time was different than it is today. Oxigen levels were lower too, I believe. As was the albedo and some more factors.

 

 

> We have a very complex climate system that most measurements show is warming. If you have a

> theory why it is warming then it is your responsibility to prove it.

 

Models aren't a proof, but they're evidence. Proving stuff like this is always an act of faith: you either believe it or not. Of course, when the probability of it being false is like 0.1%, you're going to have a hard time convincing people it's false ;)

 

 

> Even according to the global warming people, CO2 is less than 3% of all global warming gases.

> Human production of CO2 is dwarfed by natural production of CO2.

> Again, I don't remember the exact numbers but I'll be generous and say that humans are responsible

> for 10% of all CO2 (I think the actual number is even less). Thus, humans are responsible for 0.3%

> of all global warming gases. Your position is that doubling this contribution to 0.6% would lead to

> global catastrophy.

 

Let me check my textbook on this. I think it's not as little as you think. I did a calculation the other day for 500 million cars doing 30 km a day at 140 g/km of CO2 and the outcome was like 10 times as much as what was estimated for volcanic activity CO2. Maybe I messed up, but I'll check it out anway.

 

 

> Prima facie, believing that a 0.3% increase in CO2 would lead to disaster seems

> to put the burden on you to prove this seemingly outrageous claim.

 

It's only 0.3% in absolute terms. In relative terms it's 100%. It doesn't seem so outrageous when you put it like this... lol.

 

 

> You probably don't believe me but I read both sides and I am unconvinced either way.

 

Fair enough. However, most scientists are going from denial to acceptance.

 

 

> Whereagles, the data says that temperature changes precede changes in CO2. Historically that is

> what the data says. Just from this, if you want to believe anything it should be that temperature

> causes changes in CO2. The GW people will admit this but say that they don't know why the

> temperature started to go up but the reason for the 4/5ths of the increase after the initial

> temperature increase is due to the CO2 released from the oceans. Why does this process stop if

> CO2 is such a powerful cause of global warming?

 

I think I'd need some charts on this before commenting.

 

Anyway, everyone's free to make his own judgement of the situation. I personally trust that models are correct and GW is real.

[vuroth]

May I ask what your background is? Interesting how you can make such an ignorant statement with such conviction.

My background is in engineering. I'm no stranger to the scientific method.

 

If I am ignorant, then I live to be enlightened.

 

Weather may be analyzed and predicted by looking at data collected in a short period of times - perhaps a few days. Climate, on the other hand, is a complex system, containing many more vaiables, some of which run on cycles measured in tens of thousands of years.

 

To base any conclusions on global warming on "how mild the winter is", or how hot is it today, or how many hurricanes there were last year is pointless. However, colliquial usage of these "proofs" does not mean that global warming is false.

 

There exists real scientific evidence for global warming. Scientists who understand that atmospheric CO2 levels fluctuate significantly over time, who understand precession and solar cycles and ice ages and glaciation and salinity and ocean currents believe that global warming is a real and valid proposition.

 

I'm always interested in learning more on the subject, so if you feel that my point of view is ignorant, I'm up for being enlightened.

 

V

[DrTodd13]

If a 100% increase in man-made CO2 is only a 0.3% increase in all greenhouse gases then yes it does seem to be pretty insignificant. The only thing that matters is the absolute increase in greenhouse forcing, not the relative increase of the constituent gases.

 

In any case, this story is just one data point. It is interesting, nothing else. It doesn't prove anything. The story pointed to some websites with up-to-date satellite temperature measurements and it seems like they have rebounded to 2007 levels by mid-February.

 

What I still don't fully understand is why people feel they must be either 100% "deniers" or 100% "acceptors." Shouldn't the default position be "I have no idea"? This isn't an area that most people can research, experiment, solve and form their own opinions. As such, if they have an opinion they must borrow it from someone else. What criteria are they using to determine truth. Get X number of Ph.D.'s to agree on something and you'll believe it? I saw a statistic at some point that upwards of 30% of all academic papers are shown to contain fundamental errors. These papers slip by as truth because reviewers and committees are not rigorous enough. And you want me to believe that models are evidence?

[matmat]

I am hardly an expert on global warming. (in reality i know very very very little about it.) But it seems ridiculous to me to be trying to be comparing conditions now to the conditions millions of years ago. Things evolve (big word, evolution, seems a large fraction of the population has a problem with this one too), anyhow, certain things evolve on geological or longer timescales. I would imagine that the solar constant (how much energy from the sun arrives at the top of our atmosphere) has not really been constant over the few billion years that the earth has been around. The solar system, by all accounts, has also been quite different -- the earth has had numerous colisions with meteors, rocks, iceballs etc. that have undoubtedly altered the climate to some extent. heck, one of them even knocked the moon out into orbit... which, btw, is changing, so the effect of tides is different now than it was a while back. throughout history, the composition of the atmosphere has varied (just a vague recollection, but i believe dinosaurs were thought to have been able to have gotten as big as they had because of elevated oxygen levels to 2 or so times as high as they are now). The surface of the earth has changed, changing the albedo (how good of a mirror the earth is). So comparing the earth now to the earth 100 million years ago is completely and utterly apples/oranges.

 

then we have strange cyclic events, ice ages, etc etc, but my understanding is that these happen over a certain other timescale, and there is a characteristic temperature gradient that they follow (again, making $#!^ up). the mean temperature increases observed over the last 100 or whatever years far exceed this other rate and show a trend, rather than just a statistical fluctuation. Using one data point that dips down not that much further than a few other data points seem to have in the last 20 years (just ogling the plots linked to by the OP) as evidence against global warming is a stupid as thinking that gas prices are going down just because your local one dropped their price today by 5c/gallon

 

Re "I have no idea" position.

 

Personally, i suspect global warming is taking place. Am I 100% sure? no. but close. and I really should sit down and see what data is available and see if i can convince myself otherwise. The problem, I feel, is that the acceptors' position is a lot more open to getting more data, discussing the data, publishing the data, whereas the deniers' position can pretty much be summed up as "no, it's not and i don't care, let's just forget about it."

 

Imagine if someone told you you looked sick, so you went to the doctor... the doctor would then come out to the waiting room, look at you from a few meters away, declare that you look great and sent you home. would you look for a second opinion or would you be happy with the diagnosis?

 

btw

"My background is in engineering. I'm no stranger to the scientific method."

this cracked me up.

[Al_U_Card]

Thank goodness for Google!

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Co2-temperature-plot.svg

[pclayton]

What frosts (sorry) me about this whole argument is the attitude of the left.

 

If you suggest that the data may be incomplete or faulty, you are a nutjob, or on the dole for big oil, or part of a republican think tank.

 

The fear mongering also gets pretty old. An Inconvenient Truth discusses wiping out the eastern seaboard with rising sea levels. My favorite was the one a few years ago that stated the polar ice cap near Antarctica was going to break free and cause the planet to wobble out of order. Sort of like a wet towel in the washing machine.

 

Ostracizing scientists? Scare tactics?

 

Sounds more like Big Religion to me ;) .

[blackshoe]

Even according to the global warming people, CO2 is less than 3% of all global warming gases. Human production of CO2 is dwarfed by natural production of CO2. Again, I don't remember the exact numbers but I'll be generous and say that humans are responsible for 10% of all CO2 (I think the actual number is even less). Thus, humans are responsible for 0.3% of all global warming gases.

Hang on a minute. You are asserting here that humans are not responsible for any global warming gas that isn't CO2. I don't believe it.

[mike777]

As I wrote last year I just have faith that some smart guy or gal will figure out a cheap and effective way to scrub out the gases and become rich. This may scub from the source or from what is up there already.

 

Call it blind faith in human innovation and greed. :)

[mike777]

My feeling is the real debate is not over the facts of who, what or why is there global warming.

 

I think many of us may say "global warming" but really are saying "dont kill the economy and throw people out of jobs."

 

Perhaps extreme but what I hear people really saying is:

If you do not believe in Global warming, you are an evil, heartless greedy person who does not care about killing all humans.

 

If you believe in Global warming, you want to kill the economy, make me lose my job to save some tiny fish no one ever heard of.

 

Now rephrase and say if there is Global warming we got a real chance here to create thousands and thousands of jobs for people from all skill levels and clean up the air and water....ok. :)

 

Note how the discussion shifted to jobs jobs jobs and my not losing my house not about what science says are the real facts about global warming. Let science figure that out and tell us. The rest of us worry about jobs and paying the bills.

[Gerben42]

I guess someone will need to spell it out again. Global warming is a fact, it's the human-enhanced global warming that is under discussion.

 

Without global warming we'd be freezing. A simple calculation shows that the surface temperature of a planet without atmosphere circling a star is:

 

T_planet = T_star * sqrt(1/2 * (R_star / distance))

 

For the sun we have T_star = 5780 K and radius / distance is simply the tangent of half the angle which is spanned by the sun in the sky, tan(15 arc minutes).

 

Answer: T_Earth = 269 K = -4°C

 

That's COLD! Take into account that most of the radiation is reflected back rather than absorbed and emitted and it's even colder.

 

The rest of the heating is due to global warming. But having too much of it heats up the planet too much.

[helene_t]

If you suggest that the data may be incomplete or faulty, you are a nutjob, or on the dole for big oil, or part of a republican think tank.

Yeah, a title like "an incovenient truth" sounds indeed more like religion than science. A little modesty would be appropriate, given the embarrassing failure of the "limits of growth" predictions. (I'm sure some of those posters who know something about this issue - I don't - could argue that our level of understanding is fundamentally different from "limits of growth". But to an ignorant like me it just is an unavoidable thought that the environmentalist lobby has been wrong before).

 

Then again, I think few scientists would deny that both data and theories relevant to this issue may be inaccurate. In fact what you typically see when climatologists give presentations or write articles about it that they compare some 5 very different scenaria.

 

To really make sure you will be called a dole for big oil you would have not only to express skepticism (which I personally think is a good thing) but also have the attitude that as long as something has not been proven we might as well assume it to be false if that is most convenient.

[kenberg]

Almost all important decisions have to be made while there is still uncertainty. If the question is phrased: Is global warming an established fact then you can get an argument from people who point out that well maybe the scientists are wrong. Evolution is just a theory, global warming is just a theory, quarks are just a theory, etc. It seems that the better question is: Given that a very large number of very respected scientists think that some very bad things are in store for the planet, what should be our course of action? Of course there can be counter arguments explaining away whatever evidence is supplied. Me, I'll go with what clearly seems to be the highly preponderant view of the best scientific minds. Call me a follower rather than a leader, but I don't plan on doing my own position paper on this anymore than I plan on doing an independent study of Evolutionary Theory.

[sceptic]

By definition armchair arguments are ridiculous.

 

I thought that was the whole purpose of the water cooler

[jtfanclub]

If a 100% increase in man-made CO2 is only a 0.3% increase in all greenhouse gases then yes it does seem to be pretty insignificant.

A one degree celsius change is only .3% of the total temperature of the planet, given that absolute 0 is about -273 degrees C.

 

Curious about how much of a temperature change you would consider significant.

[Cascade]

Why is it that the USA is completely unable to discuss these issues without ideological prejudice?

OK, I didn't want to go there but you said it.

arend did ask a good question... does this prejudice extend to all ideologies, i wonder?

I believe that Stephen Colbert nailed this one to a T when he made the following comment during the White House Correspondent's Dinner a couple years back...

 

"Reality has a well known liberal bias"

 

Don't get me wrong: There are plenty of kooks and ideologues on the Left. However, from what I can tell, most of them are isolated nutcases.

 

In contrast, the Right has a well orchestrated machine that is designed to propagate all sorts of lunacy. Large corporations and wealthy individuals (essentially) pay individuals to manufacture controversy in all sorts of areas.

 

Its very interesting that han brought up the Tobacco think tanks: The same group of people who paided for "scientific" studies claiming that there isn't any clear evidence between smoking and cancer are the ones sponsoring all the research that is promoting the idea that Global Warming is a massive hoax/conspiracy.

 

For all their talk about "liberal bias" in the news media, the Right is the group that went out and built itself an overt propaganda machine. Ever wonder how it was that the overwhelming majority of the American public fell victim to the exact same delusion that Saddam Huseein was reponsible for 9/11?

Let me guess ...

 

you are a Republican :)

[DrTodd13]

Even according to the global warming people, CO2 is less than 3% of all global warming gases.  Human production of CO2 is dwarfed by natural production of CO2.  Again, I don't remember the exact numbers but I'll be generous and say that humans are responsible for 10% of all CO2 (I think the actual number is even less).  Thus, humans are responsible for 0.3% of all global warming gases.

Hang on a minute. You are asserting here that humans are not responsible for any global warming gas that isn't CO2. I don't believe it.

That's not what I'm asserting. My understand is that water vapor contributes about 97% of the greenhouse effect. CO2 is maybe 2% or so. Methane and others are even less. Humans may be adding some methane. What are humans doing to water vapor? I don't know but I suspect that directly they aren't doing much. We certainly don't hear about calls to restrict human influence on water vapor. Temperature has a big effect on water vapor concentrations but that interaction is fraught with feedback loops that I don't think the scientists have a complete grasp on.

[DrTodd13]

Almost all important decisions have to be made while there is still uncertainty. If the question is phrased: Is global warming an established fact then you can get an argument from people who point out that well maybe the scientists are wrong. Evolution is just a theory, global warming is just a theory, quarks are just a theory, etc. It seems that the better question is: Given that a very large number of very respected scientists think that some very bad things are in store for the planet, what should be our course of action? Of course there can be counter arguments explaining away whatever evidence is supplied. Me, I'll go with what clearly seems to be the highly preponderant view of the best scientific minds. Call me a follower rather than a leader, but I don't plan on doing my own position paper on this anymore than I plan on doing an independent study of Evolutionary Theory.

If there is scientific fact, there is no need for consensus opinion. Studies have shown that experts are no better than laymen at prediction when it is purely a matter of a guestimate. If you have facts then you just run the numbers and get an answer. If they just have an educated opinion then I don't think that is worth much and I certainly wouldn't throw the world into financial disaster based on opinion.