"Global warming", I wish!

Started by Tom S. Fox, Tue 10/07/2007 17:24:35

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big brother

#20
You don't need a degree in anything to tell this graph is bullshit.

For starters, there is no point of reference besides the word "present". How are we, the gullible reader, to divine what year this data (with sources mysteriously absent) was actually compiled? Most credible graphs will have a note like "Data compiled from 2007 Gallup Poll results" or "see Appendix B" attached.

It doesn't indicate what part of this carbon dioxide is man-made. Don't plants (which are only net absorbers during their growth stages) and animals produce this gas too?

Are these temperature changes taken from one place (it doesn't seem to indicate mean/mode, which might be more useful when considering the variety of climates on this planet)?

Finally, I highly doubt there a consistent and accurate measurement for both temperature and C02 levels that spans 400,000 years like the graph claims. According to anthropological studies of mankind's prehistory, we have record of maybe 40,000 years. This would mean that literally 90% of this graph is irrelevant to human production of C02.

This may be of interest also: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=NVVI0TXTKWJIHQFIQMGCFFOAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2006/11/05/nosplit/nwarm05.xml

A little critical thinking goes a long way.

Anyone remember Y2K? Every computer in the world failed simultaneously, airplanes fell out of the sky, and microwaves malfunctioned, turning families into brain-dead mutants. Or were those just the doomsayers' predictions? We can laugh now, but the hoax was taken seriously enough that a lot of companies from a lot of industries shelled out millions to update their databases to make them compliant for the extra two digits.
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cobra79

#21
The temperatures are derived from deuterium isotopic measurements (δD) on ice cores in Antarctica. (Petit et al. 1999) (Lisiecki and Raymo 2005)
Look up the EPICA community members in Nature 429:6992, 623-628.
Same goes for the CO2 measurment...ice cores. It is an average of the Vostok ice core, EPICA ice core, Law Dome ice core and Siple Dome ice core enhanced since 1958 by measurements of Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawai.
Google Keeling curve. There is an overwhelming amount of literature available and I am not going to flood this post when a simple google search would be enough. But I will find a nice little referenced graph, if that satisfies you.

EDIT:
this is the Vostok ice core data by Petit published in Nature 399
http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/climatechange/figure_1.jpg
Here you can read what NASA has to say about Keeling and its visualization of his data:
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=17223
together they result in this
http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publications/warming_earth/scientific_evidence.htm

Sorry Andail. I did not know that this was debated already. I will not go any further from here.

Andail

#22
Jeez, didn't we have this debate half a year ago...
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=29365.40

Please at least come up with new arguments if you wanna debate it again.

Quote
Anyone remember Y2K? Every computer in the world failed simultaneously, airplanes fell out of the sky, and microwaves malfunctioned, turning families into brain-dead mutants. Or were those just the doomsayers' predictions? We can laugh now, but the hoax was taken seriously enough that a lot of companies from a lot of industries shelled out millions to update their databases to make them compliant for the extra two digits.

BigBrother, these two events are completely unrelated. I for one never cared about that Y2M virus scare one little bit, and truthfully I think it was mainly an American hysteria. I sure as heck never heard about anyone around here stocking up food stuffs etc.
Secondly, just because there has, in the past, existed a doomsday prediction that proved false (although it was completely anti-intellectual and more of an urban myth - and God knows there have been gazillions of such predictions, and they are mostly supersticious and irrelevant here) doesn't mean we must never again be catious with anything whatsoever.
Sorry, but bringing up that old thing isn't helping you one bit in this debate.

big brother

Quote from: Andail on Tue 10/07/2007 23:55:30
BigBrother, these two events are completely unrelated. I for one never cared about that Y2M virus scare one little bit, and truthfully I think it was mainly an American hysteria. I sure as heck never heard about anyone around here stocking up food stuffs etc.

I'm not using this example to "prove" anything, besides show the similarities between two events where the media generated hysteria. What IS irrelevant is that you were not worried and did not hear of anyone reacting. Whether or not you gave a shit, it's a fact that millions of dollars were wasted on this hoax. My point is that, like global warming, we're pouring lots of money (billions for the latter) into it. This fact sets Y2K apart from the "gazillions of predictions" you refer to. So no, they are not completely unrelated.

QuoteSorry, but bringing up that old thing isn't helping you one bit in this debate.
You're debating? Isn't this your first post? Do I detect a snide, condescending tone? Will I have to choke a bitch?
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Vince Twelve

Unfortunately, the similarities between the two events stops at "some people say there's going to be trouble."  In the Y2K case, it was the media shouting that the sky was falling.  In global warming's case, it's thousands of highly educated scientists that specialize in this kind of study.

Y2K happened during my senior year of high school and I was working for the school paper.  I was assigned an article on the Y2K bug.  I interviewed ten people who were either university-level computer science educators or computer technicians working in my city's largest software company.  Each one of them laughed off my questions saying that, at worst, there would be some legacy systems that would get confused and need a little maintenance to fix the issue.  My editor was mad because the final article wasn't "balanced."  I couldn't find an reliable opinion that supported what the media was spouting.

The biggest difference between the two events is that in Y2K's case, we had a very specific deadline for learning if the hysteria was justified or not.  With global warming, we could be driving ourselves over a cliff but all we have is scientific projections to claim that the cliff is coming up.  It could be hundreds of years before we finally see it coming and by that time, it could be too late.  Is erring on the side of caution a bad thing here for anyone but the major petroleum companies?

TerranRich

The arguments against global warning keep getting shot down, yet people constantly claim that it's all crap. LAWL
Status: Trying to come up with some ideas...

Nacho

Your opinion about global warming are like a Roschard Test. There are good reports from both sides, so, you pick deppending on "which is your side". I have read some very good reports de-mithyfying the very well known "hockey stick" graph, proven to be made with uncorrect statistic tecniques. The new "official" graph, based on the rings of the trees, shows a caothic temperature graph, with little glacial eras in the beginning of the XIX century and a hot period on the middle age. Apparently the Industriall revolution has not much to see... Also, C02 emissions are being redouced.

Temperature changes in earth, that' s for sure. The photos of the glaciars are there. Now we must decide if we have something to see. Human C02 emissions are 0.2% of the total amount, natural sources as volcanos are much important. Same with petrol natural emissions compared with taker accidents... It is important to care the nature, but it is also important not to swallow everything the propaganda says, and having a critic mind. Temperature has changed before we were here, no?

Specially if those reports come from a group of musicians who go to the "Live Earth" concert in jets, droping in a journey more C02 to the athmosphere that Afganistan does in a year. Specially if those reports come from a man whose house consumes more energy in a month than a whole family in a year. Specially if that "person" is paid 250,000 $ in every speech he says. Specially if that "person" has been 8 years in white house, and did nothing when he had the opportunity.

I am for ecology. I never drop rubbish in the forrest (well, only organical, such as banana or orange peel) I use public transport, try to use the flush as less as I can, and I don' t have a pet (Because Amazonas is being de-forested for making cheap grass fields for feeding the cows that are going to be in the "Cat-Chow" cans) I don't use the air conditioning and I save energy as much as I can... But I am not going to follow a band of billionare hypocrits just because it' s fashioned, sorry. Not saying you all AGSers do that, but much people do.
Are you guys ready? Let' s roll!

Adamski

Look what I saw in the news today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6290228.stm

Those with high levels or arrogance can carry on dismissing it as liberal European hippy bullshit I guess.

Timosity

I've usually associated hail with summer anyway, not winter, at least it happens more often in Sydney in summer.

Hail is usually caused from air rising pushing the moisture back up continually freezing, falling, getting pushed back up, collecting more moisture and freezing till it is too heavy and eventually falls as hail, and these updrafts are usually caused by hot air rising, which tend to happen more in summer. If you break up a piece of hail, you can see the layers formed from it's different trips up and down.

As far as weather is concerned lately in New South Wales, Australia, we had the hottest May for many years, it was a big extension of summer which the winter fashion people were not happy about. Then the coldest wettest June for even more years (we are still in a drought even after floods) we had a Cyclone (hurricane/typhoon) only category 2 but it is very rare to have one outside the northern part of Australia. There were also a few more strong low pressure systems that carried at lot of strong wind and rain all within a few days of each other.

In July so far Sydney has had more than the average monthly rainfall in 2 days and we've also had days up to 23 degrees celcius and this is the middle of winter, and in the worst drought we've ever seen (97-07 and counting)


Here's some photo's from june's storms

This is Newcastle where Las Narajas lives (haven't seen him round here for a while)


The Entrance which is between Sydney and Newcastle




The Pasha Bulker, a coal ship, which was washed onto Nobby's beach in Newcastle in a fierce storm, was beached there for over 3 weeks until it was finally refloated


This weather has not been normal, but is not outside the bounds of anything that has happened before, plus we have only been recording weather for a fraction of Earths existence.

The polar caps melting can't be denied though, although they have melted before numerous times throughout earths existence and frozen again, but probably not at the rate we have made it start to happen.

The main problem is when the tundra melts it will release more CO2 into the atmosphere (which has been happily trapped there for years) hence speeding up the melting process and it will become irreversible in our lifetime.

We are likely to see a lot of strange weather patterns for the rest of our lives.

Andail

Quote from: big brother on Wed 11/07/2007 00:23:15
I'm not using this example to "prove" anything, besides show the similarities between two events where the media generated hysteria.
In the case of Y2K, media generated hysteria, in the case of global warming it's a scientific concensus, with the exceptions of some right-wing think-tanks.

The problem I have with the kind of reasong behind "bah, look at this and that scare campaign in the past, it was never real! We're all having a good laugh now!" is that it's doing a great job making people oblivious to anything that could ever happen in the future.

I remember when electricity (/radiation or similar) allergies were first discussed. Then a lot of conservative know-it-alls kept using the "but you remember when everybody thought ballpoint pens caused allergies, right? It was just hysteria! Stop being so hysterical about novelties all the time!"
The fact of the matter is that similar arguments have always been used, even when it came to asbestos, neurosedyn, or various pesticides, that in the end proved very dangerous to humans. But each time an alarming report appeared about the health issues and hazards of such substances/activities/phenomena, the same group of reactionaries would always chant "remember the ballpoint pens!"

Quote
You're debating? Isn't this your first post? Do I detect a snide, condescending tone? Will I have to choke a bitch?
I dunno, maybe it's pretty condescending to tell everyone here - along with the entire scientist community - that their worries are nothing more than another collective hysteria caused by irrational media. That sounds pretty darn condescending to me, truthfully.

cobra79

#30
I have read parts of the argument Mr. Monckton of the Sunday Telegraph makes (the link is provided by bigbrother).
The most interesting point is, that he does not refute the data of Petit. Normally critics first refute your whole approach, then they criticize the way you did it and at the end they dismiss your interpretation. Mr. Monckton dismisses the interpretation and assumes if those 2 graphs were superimposed, that warming periods precede CO2 rises. I have no idea what leads him to this assumption and even if he was right it looks like an argument of what was first hen or egg.
I had to do a bit of statistics for my degree (of business administration, not meteorology) and I can tell without knowing the data (just looking at the graphs) that the correlation between CO2 and temperature is significant (most likely even better than the 0,001 level). What he does next is concentrate on periods which seem to contradict the argument of global warming by concentrating on cooling periods decades ago and warmer periods before the Industrial Revolution. This looks to me like someone who does not want to see the forest because of all the trees. In fact proponents of global warming are guilty too in this respect. I highly doubt that every single event in the last 5 years was caused by global warming.

The criticism leveled at the hockey stick graph (Mann et al.) by McIntyre&McKitrick was about higher variation, not the general trend and therefor the National Academy of Sciences issued this:
"The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence [...]"

On a personal note: I too can't stand this "Live Earth" "Live Aid" "Live Whatnot" concerts where pampered millionaires tell me to change. I do recycle. I walk and go by bike. I have implemented a lot of energy saving measures. I don't do this because I am a hippie or because I think that my contribution will save the planet. It saves me money.

QuoteHuman C02 emissions are 0.2% of the total amount,...
Care to elaborate? As it is it reminds me of this little joke, that 27% of all data you read on the Internet is wrong.  ;D

Nacho

It is easy... Volcanoes drop more C02 than all the human activity together. 500 times more.
Are you guys ready? Let' s roll!

cobra79

But Volcanoes have been around forever. Why do we see a rise in CO2 concentration for the last 200 years. 77 ppmv higher than ever for the last 400k years. Look at the graph again. CO2 concentration always peaked at around 300 ppmv. 2005 we were at 377 ppmv already.
I say this is not the work of Volcanoes.

Nacho

Volcanoes activity it' s not constant, and some scientists say that these variations cause the different temperature eras. I think that there was a time when the Earth was a block of ice (Seen Ice Age and Ice Age 2   ;)) And it moved to tropical... and then to Ice era again... And then tropical... And Bush was not there to drop C02 and pollution to the air, I think...  :)
Are you guys ready? Let' s roll!

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens

I argue that you can't possibly know for certain that Bush wasn't there to drop CO2.  I contend that he stole H.G. Wells' time machine and used it to cause the Ice Age for fun and profit (fossilized bones = petroleum!).

Nacho

Quote from: ProgZmax on Wed 11/07/2007 10:15:31
I argue that you can't possibly know for certain that Bush wasn't there to drop CO2.  I contend that he stole H.G. Wells' time machine and used it to cause the Ice Age for fun and profit (fossilized bones = petroleum!).

That' s one of the most absurd arguments I' ve ever read. That machine had two positions (One for going to the future, and other for going to the past). Too complicate for George W.
Are you guys ready? Let' s roll!

Andail

At any rate, with the disastrously bad weather we have in Sweden right now - with perpetual, freezing rain - I think just a tad global warmth might be in place.

Hudders

Quote from: BBC""All the graphs they showed stopped in about 1980, and I knew why, because things diverged after that. [...] You can't just ignore bits of data that you don't like,"

Too true.

Nacho

Preciselly, Petter...  ;D Some years ago it was "Globar warming". Now it is "Climate change". They had to change the name of the "catastrophe" because reality just doesn' t match with the reality... Rains and cold in summer, polar fronts (Specially funny were those which followed Al Gore when he was giving speeches about "global warming"). It was silly to call it "warming".

Climate changes exists. Earth was cooler (yes, cooler) In the middle age. It was colder in the end of the XVIIIth century (There was a big famine in Europe during the beginning of the XIXth because there was a "year without summer", ergo, no harvests...  :-\) That period is even called "small ice age".

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

Also, notice the graph. There are severall lines because there are several theories. Which one do we believe? What I see is that weather is quite caothic. What I see as well is that there are some people (I don' t know which are their intentions) who try to fool us (Notice the big black line at the end, representing a severe warming in the latest 20 years... The other lines don' t do that... Who put that there, and why?)

So, have a critic and skeptic mind... I recommend this book, for not swallowing only the yellow press headlines when talking about climate change.

[link]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skeptical_Environmentalist[/img]

And take care for nature... Actually taking care of it... Not just posting in threads about it and complaining... It' s in our hands.
Are you guys ready? Let' s roll!

Andail

#39
I was, for reference, joking in my previous post.

Nacho, when you say that you have a sceptical mind, and don't believe "yellow press headlines", what part of
Quote
These basic conclusions have been endorsed by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists is the only scientific society that rejects these conclusions.[4][5] A few individual scientists disagree with some of the main conclusions of the IPCC.[6]
Are you not understanding? It's from the same Wikipedia as you browsed in.

For the last time - the vast majority of the entire collective scientist and researcher community agree on this.
Do you think they have simply forgotten to account for climate variations? So despite their education, degrees and outstanding insight in weather and metereological engineering and whatnot, it just never occured to them that during the middle ages there was also a warm period, etc etc?

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