Is Global Warming a Solar System wide Phenomenon?

[hammo1j]

There have been reports of Global Warming on Mars that is in line with the rise experienced by the earth.

http://www.mos.org/cst/article/80/9.html

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36049


This tends to suggest Global Warming is a phenomenon that is outside our control.

In science we do 2 experiments to indicate whether something is cause. In this case we have Mars with no people on it and Earth with people on it and the same effect is occurring. My first guess would be people are not the cause of the effect. The effect is there surely, but we are not its cause.

Since the effect is occurring on both Earth and Mars the likely cause is the Sun. Either it is burning more brightly or the region of space we are moving through has less 'dust' to absorb the sunlight.

Whatever the truth I think this information is very important for the global warming debate and should be brought to more people's attention.

[Gillianren]

in a pedantic sense, no--the term "global warming" means warming on Earth. (the globe?)

in a scientific sense, I doubt it but have no evidence to back me up.

[hammo1j]

I do think this is a very important question since it means that human resources will be devoted to a problem that may not exist, where there are many pressing human needs competing for resources.

I don't know enough about Astronomy to validate my hypotheses. Questions for those a bit more in the know:

Does the sun vary in activity?

Is the "space dust was absorbing the heat as we moved through that portion of space" have any evidence to support it?

[The Supreme Canuck]

It depends on what is causing global warming. If it is due to fluctuations in solar output, then it is likely that the phenomenon is solar system-wide. If global warming is caused by natural variations in Earth's climate, then it is not solar system-wide. And if we are causing global warming, then it is also not solar system-wide.

So. It depends.

[Glom]

It wouldn't be a surprise. Of all the factors, solar activity corrolates far better to climate change than any gas does.

[hammo1j]

So you are saying that the output of the sun varies and there is a correlation with the mean earth temperature?

[Jens]

I do think this is a very important question since it means that human resources will be devoted to a problem that may not exist, where there are many pressing human needs competing for resources.


Two caveats here.

One is that it is also possible that global warming could be caused by a combination of solar system causes and human action. So it's not necessarily an either/or proposition. It's always possible that it's 30% caused by human action and 70% by factors outside our control. Right?

And secondly, it's always possible that we could do something about it even if it is not caused by human activities. I think we can all recognize that even a change caused by natural factors beyond our control can have a negative impact on us. So if (and that may be a big if) there are things that we can do to prevent it, it may not be a bad investment even if it's not a result of something we did. As a simple example, earthquakes are not our fault, but it's still a good investment to try to build earth-resistant buildings.

[The Supreme Canuck]

The problem is, if it is caused by variations in solar output, there isn't much we can do short of launching a solar shade. And we can't really do that yet.

[akochan]

This is all very interesting... but in short futile. IF (and note the caps) there is any temperature changes affected by the sun (and I'm speaking currently, I know there have been before but it's usually dips not highs) then there is nothing one can do....

However we do know nigh absolutely (as close to 100% as science can get) that the PRIMARY cause for global warming is greenhouse gases. And unless we want our planet to look like Venus we need to do all that is necessary to stop eminating so many greenhouse gases.

So while it's an interesting theoretical question as to whether the sun COULD make the Earth hotter. We KNOW that we are making the earth hotter now with fossil fuel burning. Thus it is inane to say we should stop worrying about greenhouse gases. Unless you're enjoying this huricane season and hate polar bears that is...

[dgruss23]

This is all very interesting... but in short futile. IF (and note the caps) there is any temperature changes affected by the sun (and I'm speaking currently, I know there have been before but it's usually dips not highs) then there is nothing one can do....

However we do know nigh absolutely (as close to 100% as science can get) that the PRIMARY cause for global warming is greenhouse gases. And unless we want our planet to look like Venus we need to do all that is necessary to stop eminating so many greenhouse gases.

So while it's an interesting theoretical question as to whether the sun COULD make the Earth hotter. We KNOW that we are making the earth hotter now with fossil fuel burning. Thus it is inane to say we should stop worrying about greenhouse gases. Unless you're enjoying this huricane season and hate polar bears that is...

You really ought to read this thread (http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=18760&postdays=0&postorder=asc&hig hlight=climate+animosity&start=0) (at least the first 7 or 8 pages) and some of the papers linked to. We've had a lot of discussions on global warming here and the advocates of the notion that humans are responsible for changes in the Earth's climate have had difficulty providing the overwhelming proof.

[Kristophe]

However we do know nigh absolutely (as close to 100% as science can get) that the PRIMARY cause for global warming is greenhouse gases. And unless we want our planet to look like Venus we need to do all that is necessary to stop eminating so many greenhouse gases.

So while it's an interesting theoretical question as to whether the sun COULD make the Earth hotter. We KNOW that we are making the earth hotter now with fossil fuel burning. Thus it is inane to say we should stop worrying about greenhouse gases. Unless you're enjoying this huricane season and hate polar bears that is...

Yeah, as dgruss sorta pointed out to you, if you're going to take that stance there are a number of people here who are going to challange you very strongly to back up what you say with more than emotional rhetoric.

The fact of the matter is that the climate is changing. Of course it is! Climate is dynamic, just like everything else on this planet. At the moment, the Earth is apparently warming. It's popular to blame this on industry, oil, humanity, etc. I'm not entirely convinced these sectors haven't played a part. I'm not entirely convinced that they have, either. But I do know that when people stand up and say "I'm not so sure..." they're generally treated like heritics who hate penguins, polar bears, and coastal settlements. Instead of having their concerns put to rest, they're just treated like they're bad people, and told they should be ashamed of themselves.

That just seems like dirty debate to me.

[Taks]

Does the sun vary in activity?
yes, +/- 1% per year. rarely considered relevant in activist circles, for some strange reason. it is impacted heavily by sunspot activity as well, which is on the decline in the next decade or so...

should this be true, that mars is seeing similar changes, it may well be due to recent increases in sunspot activity... this is a very cyclical, and predictable, phenomena, IIRC. further, if this is true, then the activist crowd may be setting themselves up for some egg on the face in the near future. we shall see, i suppose, because even GW activists admit the current plans for "greenhouse gas" reduction will have little, if any, impact on the overall climate.

oh, and read the thread, and links, that dgruss23 points out... good stuff.

taks

[Faultline]

How much hotter will the sun be in 150 years? Not much, but would it be enough to affect the climate of Earth and Mars?

[Taks]

i don't think it's necessarily a matter of how "hot" it is, since actual heat isn't the sum total of the sun's contribution to our little ecosystem. high periods of sunspots actually correspond to a cooler sun. however, the higher level of activity delivers higher levels of energy, in the solar wind i assume, which our system must absorb.

taks

[hammo1j]

dgruss23. Here's a quote from one of the posts that you refered to that you wrote yourself.


Do we have any idea what those other natural climate forcers are? It turns out the clearest signal of climate forcing comes from solar activity


Now global warming on Mars would tend to support this view, but Taks is saying that sun activity is a cyclical process. What we need is a graph of solar activity average Wm-2 received at Planet Earth over the years 1900 to 2000 to see if there is an upward trend and by what fraction it varies.
I am going to take a look and I would appreciate it if anyone else could do the same.

My own opinion is that I am not decided on GW, but would like to dig deeper rather than taking the fact at face value. I did a search on previous posts about the GW debate (not exhaustive) and didn't find anything about Mars' own global warming so I consider this new information and I want to see how it fits into the debate.

I have learnt plenty from BABB and there are many times I have been wrong not least that H2 had 4 times the lifting power of He for airships. So I am open on this one.

[The Supreme Canuck]

What we need is a graph of solar activity average Wm-2 received at Planet Earth over the years 1900 to 2000 to see if there is an upward trend and by what fraction it varies.
I am going to take a look and I would appreciate it if anyone else could do the same.


Figure 22, page 20:

http://www.cspg.org/deFreitas_climate.pdf

Warning: PDF.

(This is one paper that dgruss23 linked to in the thread recommended earlier)

[hammo1j]

Here's another interesting paper.

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/23/12433#F3

In it they take the basic 11.5 year sun spot cycle and assume that there are harmonics 23 year, 46 year superimposed on that cycle and a bit like a music al note with a fourier analysis try and add in the harmonics to create a fit for observed events in the past.

According to this normal sun activity varies by + or - 0.1% of output and over ice age cycles + or - 0.3% with this being a warm period. This does not seem much to cause such an effect.

Using the inverse square law I was going to say well this is probably less than the difference that the difference caused by the Earth moving in an ellipse when it was furthest and closest to the sun. But the earths orbit is as near as damn it a circle! For all my life I thought of it as an ellipse because we are told it is at school so naturally we assume high eccentricity in our minds because that's what we think an ellipse looks like!

Told you BABB taught me new things! Off to bed now. Too tired.

[Jens]

The problem is, if it is caused by variations in solar output, there isn't much we can do short of launching a solar shade. And we can't really do that yet.

Is this really true? The reason I ask is, there has been some discussion in the past about "terraforming" Mars, i.e. planting some kind of bacteria that can have an influence on the climate. Even assuming that changes in climate are caused by changes in solar output, wouldn't it be possible to do something, say by planting some kind of plant in the Sahara, for example, to actually carry out terraforming on Terra?

There was an article in Popular Science recently that discussed methods for terraforming. Yes, they are bold and expensive ideas, but who knows, it seems better to me than the alternative: "it's not our fault, so let's just suffer."

I've heard that ice core samples show that climate has changed in the past (long before human intervention was possible!) over relatively short periods of time, and some scientists suspect that some of the mass extinctions of the past were caused by climate change. So regardless of whether it's our fault or not, it would seem wise to me to prepare for the eventuality.

[Taks]

According to this normal sun activity varies by + or - 0.1% of output and over ice age cycles + or - 0.3% with this being a warm period. This does not seem much to cause such an effect.
the heat of the sun varies little, yes, but why is 0.3% minimal? AAGWs are attributing ALL of global warming to a substance that is measured in parts per million, and it's only a 3% contributor in the first place. also, heat is not the only energy received from sun by the earth. UV radiation varies wildly (steadily increasing since the maunder minimum that glom loves so much!). the solar wind is a big contributor too, and it just peaked, preparing for a dramatic drop corresponding to decreased sunspot activity...

we shall see. i'm siding my $10 with that russian guy... :)

But the earths orbit is as near as damn it a circle!
well, it is an ellipse, just not very.

taks

[Taks]

Is this really true?
maybe, there is compelling evidence to that affect.

i.e. planting some kind of bacteria that can have an influence on the climate.
kinda like translplanting them australian tree frogs in springfield.

ok, simpsons joke aside, think about what you've just suggested. tampering with small ecosystems on earth has devastating effects. indigenous plant and wildlife are often wiped out. now, let's extrapolate that to attempting to tinker with the entire ecosystem, all at once. can we really guage the impact when we (uh, AAGWs and all) still can't put together two models that always agree?

what impact would we have if we introduced some method of deflecting energy away from the earth? would we turn ourselves into a snowball? is that what happened to the flourishing ecosystem that existed on mars 2 billion years ago (that we may some day find...)? big what ifs, IMO, that i'd rather not take at the moment.

There was an article in Popular Science recently that discussed methods for terraforming. Yes, they are bold and expensive ideas, but who knows, it seems better to me than the alternative: "it's not our fault, so let's just suffer."
yeah, let's get the suffering over in a century rather than a million years. ugh, but let's leave terraforming for places nobody lives, like mars. some runaway terraforming accident on earth could very well be the next step in our evolution: food source.

also, why is it such a bad thing for any warming at all? sure, 15 degrees overnight would be an issue... but 1 or 2 degrees over a century... big whoop. it's not like we won't figure out how to keep NYC from flooding. sheesh, nawlins is 12 feet UNDER sea level already. increased heat means more cloud cover, which means more rain, which means more food which means less starving people in the world.

nobody has ever convinced me that warming is bad. warmer, moister atmosphere would translate to more snow in the mountains, which i'm all about. -36 degrees instead of -38 degrees in siberia isn't a big deal, but growing wheat in russia is. overall, we'll need LESS of the very thing that's supposedly causing this warming just because of the very fact we're warming. certain plant and wildlife will become extinct, but new ones will begin to thrive. historically, this is proven to happen regularly.

more cloud cover also means less heat gets to the planet from the sun, which means a cooling earth, which means... oh my, it's a feedback loop. now if we can just nail down the million or so poles and zeros, we could probably accurately track it and always know where we'll be when we're dead.

I've heard that ice core samples show that climate has changed in the past (long before human intervention was possible!) over relatively short periods of time, and some scientists suspect that some of the mass extinctions of the past were caused by climate change. So regardless of whether it's our fault or not, it would seem wise to me to prepare for the eventuality.
you are dead on with this one. let's prepare. not prevent. let the earth do its thing. if there are to be cyclical changes, my guess is the human race has been pretty good at adapting over the course of the last 6 million years or so (uh, you aren't a YEC beliver by chance?). we handled it in the past with a lot less technology, why can't we handle it now?

taks

[Jens]

[quote=Jens]
you are dead on with this one. let's prepare. not prevent. let the earth do its thing. if there are to be cyclical changes, my guess is the human race has been pretty good at adapting over the course of the last 6 million years or so (uh, you aren't a YEC beliver by chance?). we handled it in the past with a lot less technology, why can't we handle it now?


No, I'm not a YEC believer, not unless you'd consider 4.4 billion years to be young.

I see your point about more heat not necessarily being worse. But you have to give me a break here, I'm writing from the middle of Tokyo in the middle of August. Warming doesn't strike me as anything I want any part of. . .

[akochan]

Well if anyone's not convinced that humans are 99% to blame for global warming yet they never will be... the proof is nigh incontrovertable.

Yes the earth has natural climatic changes (hurricane cycles being a good example right now). The current changes creating global warming are not natural. The only significant "natural" source for greenhouse gases are volcanoes... and in case you haven't noticed we're not exactly getting an excessive amount of volcanoes at the moment. Besides the ashes they also produce usually result in a temporal cool down. Thus the greenhouse gases (measurable) are coming from.............................................. .

PEOPLE.

Nobody is poo-poo'ing the posibility that such things as orbital changes, solar flucuations, etc, etc are not ALSO responsible to some degree or another for climate change now or in ages past if not now. But there is pretty much universal consensus by all but the most corporate friendly or uneducated humans that people are the primary greenhouse gas producers via transport and industry.

So one can stick their head in the sand like Bush or one can live up to the fact that our power plants, cars, factories, and the 700 Club are all producing too many harmful gases and are the reason that we have global warming.

[hammo1j]

Couple of things I thought of overnight. The previous paper I posted was a bit "we have created a model that explains climate change back over the past 200,000 years and accounted for Ice ages" but the model must have been derived from data over the past 200,000 years so of course it is going to be correct. The problem with the fourier type analysis is that we can create any waveform so this looks like a clever idea but one that may not help us immediately since we have to wait for the predictions to come through.

Water vapour is the biggest Greenhouse Gas: is this just something as simple as when its cloudy we don't get a frost because the heat is reflected back to the ground ?

[hammo1j]

dgruss23 - there seems to be a good CORRELATION between variation in activity of the sun but what do we think is the mechanism?

0.1% is not a lot of variation. Certainly we would not notice that in an electric fire. There has to be some way in which the effect is geared.

I think its a valid argument to say: water vapour is the main green house gas then after that it's CO2 and we only provide a fraction of that so how can that be relevant, but the climate change and solar activity hypothesis seems to be open to that kind of argument as well.

[Glom]

(steadily increasing since the maunder minimum that glom loves so much!).

I don't like the maunder minimum. It produced a climate of vicious storms, poor agriculture, mass famine and plagues. I'm glad that the sun decided to play friendly again and give us energy. I could say that if the sun didn't warm us up, we wouldn't be burdened by this global warming hysteria, but given that in the 1970s a twenty year trend of global cooling spurned hysteria about an anthropogenic ice age, any climate change will be enough to cause a panic paradigm blaming human activity. So, given the choice, I'd much rather be falsely accused of warming than falsely accused of cooling.

Warming doesn't strike me as anything I want any part of. . .

If its global warming as defined by the ever objective IPCC, then you needn't worry because most of the warming will occur in winter at a night. It is interesting to note that work from the University of London says that for the kind of temperature rises expected in the UK over the next fifty years, heat related deaths would increase by 2,000 but cold related deaths would be cut by 20,000. Given the choice, a bit of warming is better than a bit of cooling.

Well if anyone's not convinced that humans are 99% to blame for global warming yet they never will be... the proof is nigh incontrovertable.

At that proof is? You can say it is incontrovertible until you're blue in the face. It doesn't make it so.

only significant "natural" source for greenhouse gases are volcanoes...

As well as decay of biomatter, various physiological process, forest fires, oceanic discharge and various other factors. Anthropogenic emissions of GHGs are 5% of the natural discharge. It is less than the margin of error on natural sources.

But there is pretty much universal consensus by all but the most corporate friendly or uneducated humans that people are the primary greenhouse gas producers via transport and industry.

That is such a cliche! I was just reading about how the standard tactic is to accuse the heretics of being either shills for Big Oil or just plain stupid.

Appeal to consensus yet again. Haven't you people actually got evidence or is bullying the only argument you know? Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I'm getting tired of people fobbing me off with this argument by intimidation rather than discussing the scientific issues. If this consensus is so real, then why does Lord May have to practically forge the signatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Amerian National of Academy of Sciences on his "consensus statements"? If this consensus is so real and so legitimate, why do the IPCC need to force one of its scientists to quit because they gratuitiously lie about his work to say the paradigm is implied where it is not? I guess we can also subtract the 18,000 scientists who signed the OISM petition from this consensus. Not that it matters.

But more to the point, why a consensus? If those 18,000 scientists were wrong, one would be enough.

And human GHG are around 5% of total.

Actually, I'm sorry I got that wrong. I forgot about water vapour (so did the IPCC) water vapour is 95% of the greenhouse effect and virtually all of it is of natural origin.

BTW, even if we accept the role of carbon dioxide in climate driving (which the lag displayed in the ice cores thoroughly disputes), then Kyoto is still a complete load of rubbish as this little gem (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0312/S00036.htm) illustrates.

There's also this pdf (http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202004/Winter2003-4/global_warming.pdf) about the solar connection. I find it amusing the way some wonder about whether the sun could cause climate change while at the same time saying trace amounts of greenhouse gases definitely do. Excuse me, what is the one source of energy driving this entire planet's atmosphere? I'll give you a clue. It's big, hot and the EPA's worst nightmare.

[Glom]

0.1% is not a lot of variation. Certainly we would not notice that in an electric fire. There has to be some way in which the effect is geared.

I think it is stretching things to compare the sun to an electric fire. One produces a few hundred watts. The other produces are few hundred trillion trillion. I don't think you want to know about the kinds of climate changes that would occur is the sun varied its intensity by more than that. Suffice it to say, if we got into the range of a full percent, we'd see things far more catastrophic than a couple of degrees of change. A professor at my university says that from first order radiant transfer, that amount of variation can account for about a third of the temperature change and that's not including the effects of a complex and dynamic atmosphere.

[Glom]

Well if anyone's not convinced that humans are 99% to blame for global warming yet they never will be... the proof is nigh incontrovertable.

I just had another thought. Where did you get that 99% attribution from? The radiant transfer of the sun alone accounts for a third of the temperature rise, not mention the effects of the dynamic and complex atmosphere. Have you no respect for the Medieval Climate Optimum?

[dgruss23]

dgruss23. Here's a quote from one of the posts that you refered to that you wrote yourself.


Do we have any idea what those other natural climate forcers are? It turns out the clearest signal of climate forcing comes from solar activity


Now global warming on Mars would tend to support this view, but Taks is saying that sun activity is a cyclical process. What we need is a graph of solar activity average Wm-2 received at Planet Earth over the years 1900 to 2000 to see if there is an upward trend and by what fraction it varies.
I am going to take a look and I would appreciate it if anyone else could do the same.



I know the links I provided on the other thread provide some of the graphs you're looking for. In the case of Mars I find it an intriguing idea I'd never considered as an independent test of the Sun-climate connection. But the Martian atmosphere is so much thinner that I'm not sure what we should expect. I'll explain why in response to your later question.

[dgruss23]

dgruss23 - there seems to be a good CORRELATION between variation in activity of the sun but what do we think is the mechanism?

0.1% is not a lot of variation. Certainly we would not notice that in an electric fire. There has to be some way in which the effect is geared.

I think its a valid argument to say: water vapour is the main green house gas then after that it's CO2 and we only provide a fraction of that so how can that be relevant, but the climate change and solar activity hypothesis seems to be open to that kind of argument as well.

Here (http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0409123) is a nice research article that takes a look at several ways the solar variations can affect climate. One of the Early complaints about the solar variation was that - as you note - it only varies ~0.1% during a solar cycle. However, more recently they've come to realize that there are secondary effects that can have as large or larger a climate effect as the direct variations in solar output.

First the key here is that as the sun becomes more magnetically active (sunspots increase in number) the total solar energy output increases. At first this seems contradictory because sunspots are cooler than the surface. But what they've found is that when the Sunspot activity increases emission from faculae increases so the overall energy output from the Sun is a net increase at sunpot maximum.

Now when the sun is more active, the solar wind is stronger. The solar wind deflects cosmic rays. So when the solar wind is stronger (sunspoit maxima) fewer cosmic rays strike the Earth. Now the interesting thing is that cosmic rays provide a nice means of tracking variations in solar activity because they interact with atoms in the atmosphere to create Beryllium-10 and Carbon-14. And sure enough records show that Be-10 and C-14 ratios fluctuate with the observed sunspot records. When the Sun is more active, there is less Be-10 because the stronger solar wind reduces the number or cosmic rays striking the Earth.

But in addition to providing a means of tracking solar activity well past observed sunspot records (~1600 A.D.) cosmic rays actually may affect climate because cloudcover seems to vary with the solar cycle. Researchers have suggested that the cosmic rays create particles in the atmosphere that act as seeds for cloud formation. When the sun is less active not only is there less energy from the sun, but more sunlight is reflected because more cosmic rays strike the Earth leading to a highe cloud cover.

And even more recently I was reading something about interstellar dust - that sunlight blocking dust may reach the Earth in higher amounts when the sun is less active. That would add aditional cooling during sunspot mimima.

So those three contributions potentially account for the observed climate changes. According to the Shaviv study I linked to the solar output variations account for 0.16 deg of the observed change and the cloud cover can account for another 0.21 degrees. So there you have 0.37 deg C which is about 2/3 of the observed warming - but Shaviv did not include the possible influx of interstellar dust in his model. If that contribution is confirmed, then the solar cycle influence will increase - leaving very little for anthropogenic causes.

BTW one of the articles I linked to in the other thread traces teh solar climate connection back ~ 100,000 years using the Be-10 ratios.

[dgruss23]

Well if anyone's not convinced that humans are 99% to blame for global warming yet they never will be... the proof is nigh incontrovertable.

Well since I asked for the overwhelming evidence in the other thread and made specific detailed explanations as to the evidence for the solar climate connections and how a detailed look at the records contradicts the CO2 forcing of climate notion, you could perhaps provide a description of the incontrovertable proof? Nobody did on the other thread.

[hammo1j]

To quote what Glom said from his reference:

http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202004/Winter2003-4/global_warming.pdf



In 1997, Danish scientists H. Svensmark and E. Friis-Christensen noted that the changes in cloudiness measured by geostationary satellites perfectly coincide with the changes in the intensity of cosmic rays reaching the troposphere: The more intense the radiation, the more clouds.52 Cosmic rays ionize air molecules, transforming them into condensation nuclei for water vapor, where the ice crystals— from which the clouds are created—are formed.

The quantity of cosmic radiation coming to the Earth from our galaxy and from deep space is controlled by changes in the so-called solar wind. It is created by hot plasma ejected from the solar corona to the distance of many solar diameters, carrying ionized particles and magnetic field lines. Solar wind, rushing toward the limits of the Solar System, drives galactic rays away from the Earth and makes them weaker. When the solar wind gets stronger, less cosmic radiation reaches us from space, not so many clouds are formed, and it gets warmer. When the solar wind abates, the Earth becomes cooler.



This would be the 'gearing' effect of the Sun's activity that I was looking for.

Now. this being the BABB I would expect there might be someone out there who could corroborate this idea or dismiss it.

[hammo1j]

Dgruss23 to quote from this article it almost looks like I'd read it first.

Him


However, the climatic variability attributable to solar activity is larger than could be expected from the typical 0.1% changes in the solar ir- radiance observed over the decadal to centennial time scale [Beer et al., 2000; Soon et al., 2000]. Thus, an amplifier is required unless the sensitivity to changes in the radiative forcing is uncomfortably high.


Me


0.1% is not a lot of variation. Certainly we would not notice that in an electric fire. There has to be some way in which the effect is geared.


I think he's also done what I would do if I had the skill and patience which is to construct an abstract physical (NB NOT STATISTICAL) model of the world and try and fit the data to it.

Certainly the gearing effect of sunspot activity can be seen in communications and electrical devices which have to protect against unusual solar activity so it is not unreasonable to suggest that this same gearing be applied to less cosmic rays and so less high cloud cover and less light reflection.

Am I right in saying that low cloud cover keeps the heat in, but high cloud cover tends to reflect it?

Also in that article is an awesome conclusion if future evidence backs it up.


It was shown using astronomical data that a large _ O(1) CRF variability should arise from our passages through the galactic spiral arms, with a period of 132 ± 25 Ma. It was also shown that the CRF history can actually be reconstructed using the cosmic-ray expo- sure age data of Iron meteorites, exhibiting a periodicity of 143 ± 10 Ma and a phase consistent with the astronomical data. Moreover, it was found that the reconstructed CRF nicely synchronizes to the occurrence of ice-age epochs on Earth, which appeared on average every 145 ± 7 Ma over the past billion years. Additionally, the mid-point of the ice-age epochs is predicted to lag by 31 ± 8 Ma after the mid-point of the spiral arm crossing, while it is observed to lag by 33 ± 20 Ma. That is, the CRF and ice-age epoch signals agree in both phase and period.

[hammo1j]

Just realised though there are no clouds on Mars!

This would not explain GW on the Red Planet. Anyone got any ideas on this.

I will try and get some more info on MGW (or should that be NAMGW - Non Antromophic Martian Global Warming)

[Taks]

No, I'm not a YEC believer, not unless you'd consider 4.4 billion years to be young.
it was a facetious/rhetorical question. kind of an inside joke :) my thesis of surviving with climate variability for 6 million years would not hold water with a YEC! :)

I see your point about more heat not necessarily being worse. But you have to give me a break here, I'm writing from the middle of Tokyo in the middle of August. Warming doesn't strike me as anything I want any part of. . .
i understand. remember, too, the term "warming" does not necessarily mean "everywhere on the planet is now ALWAYS two degrees warmer." the actual "function" is still rotating around in the AAGW circles. for some reason, global warming also allows colder temperatures. go figure...

taks

[Taks]

The only significant "natural" source for greenhouse gases are volcanoes...
uh, you've got a credibility problem on this one... the largest source of CO2 in the environment is the ocean. volcanoes are second, livestock third (not sure about the last one...). humans come in pretty low.

and in case you haven't noticed we're not exactly getting an excessive amount of volcanoes at the moment.
none that are on tv, but the pacific rim is constantly lighting up. just because the valcano isn't mt. st. helens doesn't mean it doesn't erupt. also, there currently 50-60 or so active volcanoes around the globe (that i could find reference to). when they are not erupting, they're typically spewing out... gases.

Nobody is poo-poo'ing the posibility that such things as orbital changes, solar flucuations, etc, etc are not ALSO responsible to some degree or another for climate change now or in ages past if not now.
actually, AAGWs are pooh-poohing the ideas. their dogma requires it.

taks

[Taks]

I don't like the maunder minimum.
you mention it alot, another funny. generally the theme of my entire post. :)

Excuse me, what is the one source of energy driving this entire planet's atmosphere? I'll give you a clue. It's big, hot and the EPA's worst nightmare.
this is the best. i laughed quite out loud when i read it. darn epa can't figure out what to do about the thing...

taks

[Peptron]

Just noting some errors in Taks' post:

also, why is it such a bad thing for any warming at all? sure, 15 degrees overnight would be an issue... but 1 or 2 degrees over a century... big whoop.

A note: 1 or 2 degrees is the increase of the GLOBAL temperature over the century. The greenhouse effect does that hot places don't really increase in temperature at all, but cold places do get an awfully big increase. Places near the equator will get almost no increase, while places near the poles will get 10 degrees+ increases, for a global increase of 1 to 2 degrees.


it's not like we won't figure out how to keep NYC from flooding. sheesh, nawlins is 12 feet UNDER sea level already.

NYC is right next to the Atlantic Ocean... I'm not sure of the location of nawlins... But if you are far from the ocean, you can get as low as you want compared to the sea level. If there isn't much rain where you are, you can even dig further to lower your position relative to the sea level without problem.


increased heat means more cloud cover, which means more rain, which means more food which means less starving people in the world.

Actually, global warming will increase the starving people problem. The starving people of the world usually live in desertic places. If the weather gets warmer, it will simply become even more desertic, there won't be more rain there. Places that DO get rain will get more though...


nobody has ever convinced me that warming is bad. warmer, moister atmosphere would translate to more snow in the mountains, which i'm all about. -36 degrees instead of -38 degrees in siberia isn't a big deal, but growing wheat in russia is.

The increase in Siberia will be MUCH bigger than that... The problem in Russia won't really affect the people in the short terms, except the somewhat welcome increase of temperature :). The problems Russia will get are an increase of weather related disasters (like tornadoes, etc), extreme reduction of the biodiversity of the wildlife (wildlife of the north of Russia will simply disapear). The melting of the ice in the north of Russia will affect the whole world, and not just Russia.


certain plant and wildlife will become extinct, but new ones will begin to thrive. historically, this is proven to happen regularly.

The wildlife that will become extinct won't come back, and "new" ones won't beging to thrive (at least not in the next 100s years). The wildlife that will disapear is the one that are dependant of their climate, mainly the Arctic wildlife, like Polar Bears, etc. The new climate there will leave the place to wildlife that is ALREADY thriving in other places. The "net amount" of animals on the planet won't be reduced, but the biodiversity will be extremely reduced. This is a problem with many cultures in the world that need that biodiversity to live (like the Inuits) While this historically happens regularly over large time scales, it doesn't happen in such a small one. A global extinction at this speed was only recorded once in history (the Permian-Triassic extinction event).


more cloud cover also means less heat gets to the planet from the sun, which means a cooling earth, which means... oh my, it's a feedback loop.

More cloud cover INCREASES the global temperature. Go outside in winter when it's clear and when it's overcast, you'll understand immediately. Some of the heat of the sun is indeed reflected by the cloud, but the amount of captured heat is greater.


I personally see the global warming as something extremely bad. The weather disasters are multiplicating, and some weather events that never occured in certain places are starting to. I'm living in Quebec, and tornadoes are starting to be common this far north. Tornadoes were basically non-existant here before. The sea level is increasing, but it's still not too problematic right now. The main problem I see, other than the weather, is the mass extinction event that is taking place. Most of it is happening in the north, where the global warming is the worse.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Thing is, global warming should reduce the severity of weather. Higher minimum temperatures mean that the disparity between minimum and maximum temperatures is reduced. Storms are usually caused by interactions between atmospheric regions of differing temperatures. So, less difference, less severity.

Certainly maximum temperatures will also increase, but the variance between minimum and maximum will decrease.

[Peptron]

Thing is, global warming should reduce the severity of weather. Higher minimum temperatures mean that the disparity between minimum and maximum temperatures is reduced. Storms are usually caused by interactions between atmospheric regions of differing temperatures. So, less difference, less severity.
Global warming will increase the amount of stroms, simply because excessively cold air is quite poor at making storms. The storms near the equator will mostly stay the way they are (or become slightly weaker), but storms will start to form to the north, where they never formed before.

[Taks]

A note: 1 or 2 degrees is the increase of the GLOBAL temperature over the century.The greenhouse effect does that hot places don't really increase in temperature at all, but cold places do get an awfully big increase. Places near the equator will get almost no increase, while places near the poles will get 10 degrees+ increases, for a global increase of 1 to 2 degrees.
not an error at all. i realize that. and no, the poles aren't projected to increase that much. as glom pointed out, it is mostly night-time, cool season temperature rises.

NYC is right next to the Atlantic Ocean... I'm not sure of the location of nawlins... But if you are far from the ocean, you can get as low as you want compared to the sea level. If there isn't much rain where you are, you can even dig further to lower your position relative to the sea level without problem.
nwalins = new orleans which sits pretty much right in the middle of the largest river delta on the planet... coincidentally lower than the level of the gulf of mexico. in other words, they're in the ocean, and they can deal with it now, but NYC is above the ocean, and even worst case scenarios won't need them dealing with it for 100 years or so. again, not an error.

Actually, global warming will increase the starving people problem. The starving people of the world usually live in desertic places. If the weather gets warmer, it will simply become even more desertic, there won't be more rain there. Places that DO get rain will get more though...
no, actually, it won't. this theory has been disproven over and over again. exactly what proof are you using to say that desert mass will increase due to any warming?

The problems Russia will get are an increase of weather related disasters (like tornadoes, etc), extreme reduction of the biodiversity of the wildlife (wildlife of the north of Russia will simply disapear). The melting of the ice in the north of Russia will affect the whole world, and not just Russia.
uh, the ability to grow food, the whole staple of life thing, would far offset any new natural disasters. the US is frought with nearly every natural disaster known to man yet we manage to deal with it because we have the economic resources to do so. also, a warmer russia will mean less reliance on foreign fuel sources, and less people dying from the cold. you need to consider these things when painting with broad strokes, particularly when referring to such things that don't really amount to many problems where they already exist.

The wildlife that will become extinct won't come back, and "new" ones won't beging to thrive (at least not in the next 100s years).
never said they'd "come back." i only pointed out that species regularly disappear, and the rate at which this is occurring is proven to be consisten with historical trends. why should we worry?

like Polar Bears, etc.
which are actually beginning to increase in population... they've just moved around. wildlife adapts, too.

but the biodiversity will be extremely reduced. This is a problem with many cultures in the world that need that biodiversity to live (like the Inuits) While this historically happens regularly over large time scales, it doesn't happen in such a small one. A global extinction at this speed was only recorded once in history (the Permian-Triassic extinction event).
you've taken an unproven basis (decreased biodiversity) and extrapolated it all the way to mass extinctions... there's a fallacy in there, i just can't remember the latin term. not an error on my part, but certainly one on yours.

More cloud cover INCREASES the global temperature. Go outside in winter when it's clear and when it's overcast, you'll understand immediately. Some of the heat of the sun is indeed reflected by the cloud, but the amount of captured heat is greater.
you're again extrapolating current conditions to unkown future conditions, using anecdotal evicence. low levels of cloud cover do, indeed, increase temperatures, but only locally. high levels of cloud cover and the condition reverses.

The weather disasters are multiplicating, and some weather events that never occured in certain places are starting to. I'm living in Quebec, and tornadoes are starting to be common this far north.
uh, they've never occured there, or not since you've been alive? or since recorded history? kansas, in the US, hasn't been covered by ice since i've been alive, nor has it been a great dust bowl. however, several thousand years ago, kansas was a sheet of ice and as recently as the 1930s, well, you've probably heard of the dust bowl theory. just read some steinbeck.

The sea level is increasing, but it's still not too problematic right now.
in some places, but it is decreasing in others. still, i've already shown how rising sea levels are hardly an issue. and i've even countered your apparent rebuttal.

The main problem I see, other than the weather, is the mass extinction event that is taking place. Most of it is happening in the north, where the global warming is the worse.
uh, first of all, if it is "global warming" how is it not "global" but instead worse in the north? second, mass extinction is not taking place. it is occurring at relatively the same pace as always. you're extrapolating alarmist news stories to reality. science will solve your issues.

taks

[Taks]

Global warming will increase the amount of stroms, simply because excessively cold air is quite poor at making storms. The storms near the equator will mostly stay the way they are (or become slightly weaker), but storms will start to form to the north, where they never formed before.
uh, no. first, you need to define "excessive." second, the term "cold" is only relative to human perception of the environment. as Canuck pointed out, temperature differential is what is needed for storms. third, you're really stretching when you talk about the relative changes at the equator and the north. i'd like to see some evidence of this disparity. AAGWs aren't even making this claim, and i'm beginning to think you're just making your own assumptions.

taks

[dgruss23]

Thing is, global warming should reduce the severity of weather. Higher minimum temperatures mean that the disparity between minimum and maximum temperatures is reduced. Storms are usually caused by interactions between atmospheric regions of differing temperatures. So, less difference, less severity.
Global warming will increase the amount of stroms, simply because excessively cold air is quite poor at making storms. The storms near the equator will mostly stay the way they are (or become slightly weaker), but storms will start to form to the north, where they never formed before.

Here (http://www.techcentralstation.com/091404D.html) is a good explanation of why this is not so. And this one (http://www.sepp.org/glwarm/hurricane.html) from 1992 also illustrates that we've been hearing this hurricane/GW connection claim for a while.

[dgruss23]

increased heat means more cloud cover, which means more rain, which means more food which means less starving people in the world.

Actually, global warming will increase the starving people problem. The starving people of the world usually live in desertic places. If the weather gets warmer, it will simply become even more desertic, there won't be more rain there. Places that DO get rain will get more though...


nobody has ever convinced me that warming is bad. warmer, moister atmosphere would translate to more snow in the mountains, which i'm all about. -36 degrees instead of -38 degrees in siberia isn't a big deal, but growing wheat in russia is.

The increase in Siberia will be MUCH bigger than that... The problem in Russia won't really affect the people in the short terms, except the somewhat welcome increase of temperature :). The problems Russia will get are an increase of weather related disasters (like tornadoes, etc), extreme reduction of the biodiversity of the wildlife (wildlife of the north of Russia will simply disapear). The melting of the ice in the north of Russia will affect the whole world, and not just Russia.


certain plant and wildlife will become extinct, but new ones will begin to thrive. historically, this is proven to happen regularly.

The wildlife that will become extinct won't come back, and "new" ones won't beging to thrive (at least not in the next 100s years). The wildlife that will disapear is the one that are dependant of their climate, mainly the Arctic wildlife, like Polar Bears, etc. The new climate there will leave the place to wildlife that is ALREADY thriving in other places. The "net amount" of animals on the planet won't be reduced, but the biodiversity will be extremely reduced. This is a problem with many cultures in the world that need that biodiversity to live (like the Inuits) While this historically happens regularly over large time scales, it doesn't happen in such a small one. A global extinction at this speed was only recorded once in history (the Permian-Triassic extinction event).

I personally see the global warming as something extremely bad. The weather disasters are multiplicating, and some weather events that never occured in certain places are starting to. I'm living in Quebec, and tornadoes are starting to be common this far north. Tornadoes were basically non-existant here before. The sea level is increasing, but it's still not too problematic right now. The main problem I see, other than the weather, is the mass extinction event that is taking place. Most of it is happening in the north, where the global warming is the worse.

Can you provide references to back up any of this?

[Peptron]

A note: 1 or 2 degrees is the increase of the GLOBAL temperature over the century.The greenhouse effect does that hot places don't really increase in temperature at all, but cold places do get an awfully big increase. Places near the equator will get almost no increase, while places near the poles will get 10 degrees+ increases, for a global increase of 1 to 2 degrees.
not an error at all. i realize that. and no, the poles aren't projected to increase that much. as glom pointed out, it is mostly night-time, cool season temperature rises.


I got the 10 degrees+ from CBC's documentary show "découverte". I should have said "up to 10 degrees" though... Découverte gives from +5 to +15 over 100 years.
http://radio-canada.ca/url.asp?/actualite/decouverte/encyclopedie.html


NYC is right next to the Atlantic Ocean... I'm not sure of the location of nawlins... But if you are far from the ocean, you can get as low as you want compared to the sea level. If there isn't much rain where you are, you can even dig further to lower your position relative to the sea level without problem.
nwalins = new orleans which sits pretty much right in the middle of the largest river delta on the planet... coincidentally lower than the level of the gulf of mexico. in other words, they're in the ocean, and they can deal with it now, but NYC is above the ocean, and even worst case scenarios won't need them dealing with it for 100 years or so. again, not an error.

Ok, maybe my "noting errors" was misleading. I was just trying to say that being lower than the level of the sea isn't a problem, as long as there is something in between to prevent the water of the sea from reaching you.

Actually, global warming will increase the starving people problem. The starving people of the world usually live in desertic places. If the weather gets warmer, it will simply become even more desertic, there won't be more rain there. Places that DO get rain will get more though...
no, actually, it won't. this theory has been disproven over and over again. exactly what proof are you using to say that desert mass will increase due to any warming?
Some deserts (like the Sahara) will become bigger if it gets hotter. But of course, cold deserts will become fertile too. By "starving people" I was mainly thinking about those of Africa. The Sahara will spread to the north and the south if it gets hotter. But people of say, the north of Canada, will start to have access to more fertile lands.


The problems Russia will get are an increase of weather related disasters (like tornadoes, etc), extreme reduction of the biodiversity of the wildlife (wildlife of the north of Russia will simply disapear). The melting of the ice in the north of Russia will affect the whole world, and not just Russia.
uh, the ability to grow food, the whole staple of life thing, would far offset any new natural disasters. the US is frought with nearly every natural disaster known to man yet we manage to deal with it because we have the economic resources to do so. also, a warmer russia will mean less reliance on foreign fuel sources, and less people dying from the cold. you need to consider these things when painting with broad strokes, particularly when referring to such things that don't really amount to many problems where they already exist.

Like I said, Russia might like warmer weather :).


The wildlife that will become extinct won't come back, and "new" ones won't beging to thrive (at least not in the next 100s years).
never said they'd "come back." i only pointed out that species regularly disappear, and the rate at which this is occurring is proven to be consisten with historical trends. why should we worry?

According to the UNESCO, the rate at which species disappear (or get close to) is much greater than historical trends. Though it is pretty unrelated to global warming. In fact, the UNESCO thinks that the global warming and the species extinctions have the same causes (but that one doesn't cause the other).


like Polar Bears, etc.
which are actually beginning to increase in population... they've just moved around. wildlife adapts, too.

They essencially go where their food goes :). I think that the wananiche is a nice example of fast adaptation to change (the wananiche is a fresh water salmond that lives only in the Lake St-Jean in Quebec).

but the biodiversity will be extremely reduced. This is a problem with many cultures in the world that need that biodiversity to live (like the Inuits) While this historically happens regularly over large time scales, it doesn't happen in such a small one. A global extinction at this speed was only recorded once in history (the Permian-Triassic extinction event).
you've taken an unproven basis (decreased biodiversity) and extrapolated it all the way to mass extinctions... there's a fallacy in there, i just can't remember the latin term. not an error on my part, but certainly one on yours.

The biodiversity is actually reducing. There will be an UN meeting in New York in September about it. Some of it is due to global warming, but most of it is due to deforestation (which increases the amount of CO2 not transformed in oxygen).

The weather disasters are multiplicating, and some weather events that never occured in certain places are starting to. I'm living in Quebec, and tornadoes are starting to be common this far north.
uh, they've never occured there, or not since you've been alive? or since recorded history? kansas, in the US, hasn't been covered by ice since i've been alive, nor has it been a great dust bowl. however, several thousand years ago, kansas was a sheet of ice and as recently as the 1930s, well, you've probably heard of the dust bowl theory. just read some steinbeck.

There have been about 7 tornadoes in Quebec in the last 3 years. Apart from that there have been about 1 tornado max per year. They are very weak tornadoes, but it's rare here. The last 2 ones were pretty strong (by Quebec's standards (F1 tornado I think?))


The main problem I see, other than the weather, is the mass extinction event that is taking place. Most of it is happening in the north, where the global warming is the worse.
uh, first of all, if it is "global warming" how is it not "global" but instead worse in the north? second, mass extinction is not taking place. it is occurring at relatively the same pace as always. you're extrapolating alarmist news stories to reality. science will solve your issues.
edited that paragraph for clarity:In the UNESCO conference "Biodiversité, science et gouvernance" (Biodiversity, science and governance), Jacques Chirac mentionned that the rate of extinction of species was the same as it was during the end of Permian. There will be a meeting organised by the UN in New York this September to talk about the issue.
(Before the edit I mentionned that somebody in the UNESCO said that, but I forgot who it was. It was Jacques Chirac.)

According to the link I gave:
http://radio-canada.ca/url.asp?/actualite/decouverte/encyclopedie.html
The Global Warming is essencially caused by:
33% to 50% by the sun itself becomming more active. The rest is due to gases that cause the greenhouse effect. CO2 and methane are two of thoses. A lot of the CO2 and methane come from the oceans, and for the last 160000 years it never went over 300ppm. At the end of the 20th century it was at 370ppm, the highest in the last 160000 years. It is expected to be between 400 to 1000ppm by the end of the century. The main causes of the CO2 increase over 300ppm are fuel burning and deforestation.

[hammo1j]

dgruss23

Had a look at your suggested posts in the BABB board. One of the questions that never got answered was how does GW explain the cooling 1940 to 70.

Found this as an answer given on an environmentalist web site


It is true that temperatures have not strictly followed the trend in atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs). Over the past century, temperatures first rose, then fell slightly, then rose again, while GHGs rose steadily the entire time. But there's a simple explanation: there are many factors in addition to GHGs that affect climate. These include natural forces, such as changes in sunlight intensity and volcanic eruptions, and other human-produced effects such as those caused by sulfate aerosols from sulfur oxide emissions. Sunlight variations can either warm or cool the planet depending upon the direction of the change. Volcanic eruptions and sulfate aerosols, on the other hand, have a cooling effect. The actual variation in temperature reflects the net effect of all of these influences.

Since the non-GHG effects change over time, the pattern of observed temperature changes should not be expected to directly follow the trend in GHGs. The slight global cooling from the 1940s to the 1970s appears to be the result of a decrease in solar intensity and a rapid rise in global sulfur oxide emissions. (During this period, both the United States and Europe relied heavily on coal with little or no controls on pollutant emissions, and as a result, global sulfur oxide emissions are estimated to have increased by a factor of about three.) Together, these effects acted to offset the warming effect of increasing GHGs.

By contrast, over the past 25 years, direct satellite measurements of solar intensity exhibit little or no trend and global sulfur oxide emission increases have been modest, while CO2 and other GHG concentrations have continued to increase. The result has been the rapid rise in global average temperatures experienced in recent decades. It is not possible to explain this rapid warming without invoking a dominant role for human-produced CO2 and other GHGs.


http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?ContentID=4371&Page=2&subnav=&project= &colorback=ffffff

This does have a little bit of a ring of: there are other factors in climate change other that MM CO2 emissions only when we need them to explain discrepancies.

There does not seem to be an attribution of what % age is MM and what is the naturally caused similar to the 2/3rds natural proposed in the Israeli paper.

[hammo1j]

And I thought there were no clouds - these are the high ones we want.


Martian air contains only about 1/1,000 as much water as our air, but even this small amount can condense out, forming clouds that ride high in the atmosphere


http://www.solarviews.com/eng/mars.htm

Theres also a speculative reference to low clouds of CO2 crystals.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/278/5341/1273

Off to bed now. Hope none of you guys in US have suffered too badly from the hurricane.

[Taks]

Ok, maybe my "noting errors" was misleading. I was just trying to say that being lower than the level of the sea isn't a problem, as long as there is something in between to prevent the water of the sea from reaching you.
BINGO! then we agree. see, rising sea waters is a VERY SLOW problem (assuming it is real for a moment). while we're twiddling our thumbs waiting for the few mms per year to get us, we can easily figure out how to prevent it... oh wait, we already have! granted, new orleans is now actually under water, but that was due to katrina (why people live in such areas is beyond me)... the result of this catastrophe will be even better technology in a rather short order, which means rising sea levels won't be a problem at all... even better.

Some deserts (like the Sahara) will become bigger if it gets hotter. But of course, cold deserts will become fertile too. By "starving people" I was mainly thinking about those of Africa. The Sahara will spread to the north and the south if it gets hotter. But people of say, the north of Canada, will start to have access to more fertile lands.
in other words, the net effect will be less people starving? keep things straight, look at the big picture and reality becomes clear. you're allowing alarmist viewpoints to cloud rational thought.

also, hate to tell you but the sahara is growing regardless of any AAGW. it has been for centuries. there won't be more people starving in the sahara, as those on the edge will move out.


Like I said, Russia might like warmer weather :).
actually, i don't see where you said russia may like it... you pointed out only problems. however, maybe i missed it and either way, now we agree! someone on "the other side" actually want sto listen to reason! (so rare) :)

According to the UNESCO, the rate at which species disappear (or get close to) is much greater than historical trends. Though it is pretty unrelated to global warming. In fact, the UNESCO thinks that the global warming and the species extinctions have the same causes (but that one doesn't cause the other).
then we can't blame global warming, either way, so it is a moot point. i've read contradictory assessments, however, and i will post when i have time to locate the source.

They essencially go where their food goes :). I think that the wananiche is a nice example of fast adaptation to change (the wananiche is a fresh water salmond that lives only in the Lake St-Jean in Quebec).
which is my point. species that are capable of adapting will survive, those that are not will not. that is natural selection in its harshest sense. but in the end, it is natural. to say that we will not have as great a biodiversity, however, is misleading as a) it is not proved and b) not proved to be of any benefit/detriment anyway.

The biodiversity is actually reducing. There will be an UN meeting in New York in September about it. Some of it is due to global warming, but most of it is due to deforestation (which increases the amount of CO2 not transformed in oxygen).
a UN meeting, must be true. again, to say "biodiversity is actually reducing" is a) unproven and b) unproven to be detrimental. somewhere along the line i'd like to see numbers on past "biodiversity," and some definition as to what level is "good." is it arbitrary? or just a thumb in the air "this looks good guys, 2 billion species!"

There have been about 7 tornadoes in Quebec in the last 3 years. Apart from that there have been about 1 tornado max per year. They are very weak tornadoes, but it's rare here. The last 2 ones were pretty strong (by Quebec's standards (F1 tornado I think?))
busy hurricane years, too. you're talking anecdotal evidence. proof of nothing. do you have the tornado record for the last thousand years? i certainly have the hurricane record of the last 150 or so (it gets iffy, IMO, prior to "modern" times)... contrary to popular opinion, the 50's and 60s were actually busier (more majors). 6 majors in 2004 (3 or above) yet there were SEVEN, oh my, SEVEN in 1961. in other words, it was actually worse before... my point? anecdotal evidence is not statistically relevant. do you know the true mean? how about the 5/10/20/50/100 year moving averages? how about the variance? "about 7 tornadoes in the last 3 years" may well be within statistical variance, which means it is not unexpected. just because you aren't used to it doesn't make it global warming.

edited that paragraph for clarity:In the UNESCO conference "Biodiversité, science et gouvernance" (Biodiversity, science and governance), Jacques Chirac mentionned that the rate of extinction of species was the same as it was during the end of Permian. There will be a meeting organised by the UN in New York this September to talk about the issue.
(Before the edit I mentionned that somebody in the UNESCO said that, but I forgot who it was. It was Jacques Chirac.)
yah, there's a guy without an agenda. sorry, but i don't buy mr. chirac as any kind of expert. i think once his country's extreme socialism bankrupts it, he'll have to change his political opinion or be voted out... i give it a decade or less.

According to the link I gave:
http://radio-canada.ca/url.asp?/actualite/decouverte/encyclopedie.html
The Global Warming is essencially caused by:
33% to 50% by the sun itself becomming more active. The rest is due to gases that cause the greenhouse effect. CO2 and methane are two of thoses. A lot of the CO2 and methane come from the oceans, and for the last 160000 years it never went over 300ppm. At the end of the 20th century it was at 370ppm, the highest in the last 160000 years. It is expected to be between 400 to 1000ppm by the end of the century. The main causes of the CO2 increase over 300ppm are fuel burning and deforestation.
ok, some real numbers... note, however they fail to mention water vapor, which is 95% of the "greenhouse" effect. why don't they mention the overwhelmingly primary gas? because it isn't anthropogenic. mentioning water vapor as the primary cause of the greenhouse effect will shoot too many holes in the quest for socialist control over our resources...

the 3.6% that CO2 is responsible for actually only accounts for a percent or two in the end of ALL the warming. in other words, negligible. and we've already shown we can't change the other 98%, why waste the money (which actually pollutes in the end) on something we cannot control? btw, the 50% due to the sun is about to drop rapidly, which will likely lead to a cooling...

taks

[QuagmaPhage]

To quote what Glom said from his reference:

http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202004/Winter2003-4/global_warming.pdf



In 1997, Danish scientists H. Svensmark and E. Friis-Christensen noted that the changes in cloudiness measured by geostationary satellites perfectly coincide with the changes in the intensity of cosmic rays reaching the troposphere: The more intense the radiation, the more clouds.52 Cosmic rays ionize air molecules, transforming them into condensation nuclei for water vapor, where the ice crystals— from which the clouds are created—are formed.

The quantity of cosmic radiation coming to the Earth from our galaxy and from deep space is controlled by changes in the so-called solar wind. It is created by hot plasma ejected from the solar corona to the distance of many solar diameters, carrying ionized particles and magnetic field lines. Solar wind, rushing toward the limits of the Solar System, drives galactic rays away from the Earth and makes them weaker. When the solar wind gets stronger, less cosmic radiation reaches us from space, not so many clouds are formed, and it gets warmer. When the solar wind abates, the Earth becomes cooler.



This would be the 'gearing' effect of the Sun's activity that I was looking for.

Now. this being the BABB I would expect there might be someone out there who could corroborate this idea or dismiss it.

The 1997 paper was based on data from 1983-1994. In 2001 Svensmark and Marsh published an update (http://www.dsri.dk/~ndm/CLOUD_UPDATE/UPDATE.html) based on data from 1994-1998 where they conclude:
While not a proof that the correlation still holds, it does indicate that the uncertainties in cloud amount for the period after 1994 are clearly too large at present to draw any conclusion on either the absence or presence of a correlation with the cosmic ray intensity.

[Fram]

Ok, maybe my "noting errors" was misleading. I was just trying to say that being lower than the level of the sea isn't a problem, as long as there is something in between to prevent the water of the sea from reaching you.
BINGO! then we agree. see, rising sea waters is a VERY SLOW problem (assuming it is real for a moment). while we're twiddling our thumbs waiting for the few mms per year to get us, we can easily figure out how to prevent it... oh wait, we already have! granted, new orleans is now actually under water, but that was due to katrina (why people live in such areas is beyond me)... the result of this catastrophe will be even better technology in a rather short order, which means rising sea levels won't be a problem at all... even better.
I admire your trust in technology, but in the meantime, people are suffering. You can probably make New Orleans as safe again as it is now, but a suffering country like Bangladesh will get it even worse if the sea levels would rise.
Floods have been a problem for as long as we know. Why would there now be better technology in a short order? Because it happened in the US?

Some deserts (like the Sahara) will become bigger if it gets hotter. But of course, cold deserts will become fertile too. By "starving people" I was mainly thinking about those of Africa. The Sahara will spread to the north and the south if it gets hotter. But people of say, the north of Canada, will start to have access to more fertile lands.
in other words, the net effect will be less people starving? keep things straight, look at the big picture and reality becomes clear. you're allowing alarmist viewpoints to cloud rational thought.

also, hate to tell you but the sahara is growing regardless of any AAGW. it has been for centuries. there won't be more people starving in the sahara, as those on the edge will move out.
And why do you think aren't the people that are starving now moving out? Why would that problem change if the Sahara gets bigger? Speaking of rational thought and reality becoming clear, it sometimes helps to look at reality before discussing what will or will not happen. Where do you get that the effect will be less people starving? Someone tells you that there will be extra problems on the one hand, and extra possibilities on the other hand, and your conclusion is that the other hand will win. Just like that?

edited that paragraph for clarity:In the UNESCO conference "Biodiversité, science et gouvernance" (Biodiversity, science and governance), Jacques Chirac mentionned that the rate of extinction of species was the same as it was during the end of Permian. There will be a meeting organised by the UN in New York this September to talk about the issue.
(Before the edit I mentionned that somebody in the UNESCO said that, but I forgot who it was. It was Jacques Chirac.)
yah, there's a guy without an agenda. sorry, but i don't buy mr. chirac as any kind of expert. i think once his country's extreme socialism bankrupts it, he'll have to change his political opinion or be voted out... i give it a decade or less.
We aren't supposed to discuss politics here, and I guess it is best to not discuss when you don't know what you are talking about. Chirac isn't a socialist, that's Mitterand. Chirac was his opponent. France doesn't have 'extreme socialism' (is there any difference between 'extreme socialism' and 'communism' by the way?) as a regime. What political opinion will he have to change? Of course he isn't an expert, he is just giving the opinion of experts. Aren't politicians allowed to talk about serious problems and challenges anymore?

[snip]mentioning water vapor as the primary cause of the greenhouse effect will shoot too many holes in the quest for socialist control over our resources...



Ah yes, you truly have more of a political than a scientific agenda. Thanks for making that clear.

[dgruss23]

To quote what Glom said from his reference:

http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202004/Winter2003-4/global_warming.pdf



In 1997, Danish scientists H. Svensmark and E. Friis-Christensen noted that the changes in cloudiness measured by geostationary satellites perfectly coincide with the changes in the intensity of cosmic rays reaching the troposphere: The more intense the radiation, the more clouds.52 Cosmic rays ionize air molecules, transforming them into condensation nuclei for water vapor, where the ice crystals— from which the clouds are created—are formed.

The quantity of cosmic radiation coming to the Earth from our galaxy and from deep space is controlled by changes in the so-called solar wind. It is created by hot plasma ejected from the solar corona to the distance of many solar diameters, carrying ionized particles and magnetic field lines. Solar wind, rushing toward the limits of the Solar System, drives galactic rays away from the Earth and makes them weaker. When the solar wind gets stronger, less cosmic radiation reaches us from space, not so many clouds are formed, and it gets warmer. When the solar wind abates, the Earth becomes cooler.



This would be the 'gearing' effect of the Sun's activity that I was looking for.

Now. this being the BABB I would expect there might be someone out there who could corroborate this idea or dismiss it.

The 1997 paper was based on data from 1983-1994. In 2001 Svensmark and Marsh published an update (http://www.dsri.dk/~ndm/CLOUD_UPDATE/UPDATE.html) based on data from 1994-1998 where they conclude:
While not a proof that the correlation still holds, it does indicate that the uncertainties in cloud amount for the period after 1994 are clearly too large at present to draw any conclusion on either the absence or presence of a correlation with the cosmic ray intensity.

They have noted a problem with the satellite calibration (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2001JD001264.shtml) as contributing to the apparent weakening of the correlation. In your original link they discuss a problem with satellite "drift" and conclude that regions which have a clear view of the low level clouds show a significant correlation between the two instruments.

[dgruss23]

dgruss23

Had a look at your suggested posts in the BABB board. One of the questions that never got answered was how does GW explain the cooling 1940 to 70.

Found this as an answer given on an environmentalist web site


It is true that temperatures have not strictly followed the trend in atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs). Over the past century, temperatures first rose, then fell slightly, then rose again, while GHGs rose steadily the entire time. But there's a simple explanation: there are many factors in addition to GHGs that affect climate. These include natural forces, such as changes in sunlight intensity and volcanic eruptions, and other human-produced effects such as those caused by sulfate aerosols from sulfur oxide emissions. Sunlight variations can either warm or cool the planet depending upon the direction of the change. Volcanic eruptions and sulfate aerosols, on the other hand, have a cooling effect. The actual variation in temperature reflects the net effect of all of these influences.

Since the non-GHG effects change over time, the pattern of observed temperature changes should not be expected to directly follow the trend in GHGs. The slight global cooling from the 1940s to the 1970s appears to be the result of a decrease in solar intensity and a rapid rise in global sulfur oxide emissions. (During this period, both the United States and Europe relied heavily on coal with little or no controls on pollutant emissions, and as a result, global sulfur oxide emissions are estimated to have increased by a factor of about three.) Together, these effects acted to offset the warming effect of increasing GHGs.

By contrast, over the past 25 years, direct satellite measurements of solar intensity exhibit little or no trend and global sulfur oxide emission increases have been modest, while CO2 and other GHG concentrations have continued to increase. The result has been the rapid rise in global average temperatures experienced in recent decades. It is not possible to explain this rapid warming without invoking a dominant role for human-produced CO2 and other GHGs.


http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?ContentID=4371&Page=2&subnav=&project= &colorback=ffffff

This does have a little bit of a ring of: there are other factors in climate change other that MM CO2 emissions only when we need them to explain discrepancies.

Yes, and notice how they don't attempt to place any constraints on how these factors specifically affected the climate - and some of what they say is inaccurate (solar activity has been increasing since the 70's). The 1940-1970 cooling corresponds with a reduction in solar activity. The Sun's activity has increased since then - and we see a warming trend. All they did was toss out a bunch of natural climate factors, claim that they explain the 30 year cooling but then assure us that the cumulative effect of CO2 increases is now back in charge causing the recent warming.

But they create another problem for themselves by going this route: If CO2 is such a strong climate forcer, then how is it that for 30 years other climate factors were capable of overwhelming it? I suppose they'll say that you have to accumulate a certain amount to tip the balance, but the fact remains that climate records show a correlation between the Sun's activity and Earth's climate back ~100,000 years.

Another important point never adequately answered is that the ice cores show an 800 year gap between Temp increases and CO2 increases - with CO2 increases coming after temp increases. See the big Freitas article linked to in the "animosity" thread.

See this is the issue that is not established - CO2 has a heat trapping effect. But is it capable of forcing climate change? Is it a climate forcer? The 1940-1970 cooling suggests the answer is "no" as does the 800 year lag of CO2 increases after temp increases.

As I pointed out in the other thread, the lag suggests that CO2 increases follow temperature increases. This makes sense - If warming causes the permafrost regions to release CO2 then we might expect CO2 increases to occur after enough natural warming happens. After all they keep telling us that global warming will cause the permafrost to release even more CO2 thus increasing atmospheric CO2 even further.

The other point that is not addressed by these groups is that even if we should be able to say that 1/3 of the warming is anthropogenic - that doesn't mean that CO2 is the reason. You have the urban heat island effect. Nasa showed that jet contrails can lead to warming. After you factor those effects is there anything left for CO2 and if so is it enough to worry about?

[Taks]

I admire your trust in technology, but in the meantime, people are suffering. You can probably make New Orleans as safe again as it is now, but a suffering country like Bangladesh will get it even worse if the sea levels would rise.
Floods have been a problem for as long as we know. Why would there now be better technology in a short order? Because it happened in the US?
man you missed that point by a mile. the POINT, need i make it any clearer, is that we already know how to construct societies on or below sea level even at the coast.

nobody will "get it even worse" if sea levels gradually rise over the next century. the point, again, is that this doesn't happen over night.

people either a) have time to move inland a few feet or b) have time to implement the technology to help out. which, btw, will be cheaper as time comes. you're trying to take a problem well over a century into the future and frame it with current economics. ideology.

And why do you think aren't the people that are starving now moving out?
what difference does that make? the point, AGAIN, is about global warming causing more starving, a flawed concept.

Speaking of rational thought and reality becoming clear, it sometimes helps to look at reality before discussing what will or will not happen. Where do you get that the effect will be less people starving?
more food in developing nations as a whole. warmer weather will result in more moisture in the atmoshphere which will result in more rain which will result in less arid lands. the sahara, unfortunately, is a victim of its own ecology and growing regardless of GW or anything else we can do. you're trying to take one place, which will never be able to support a large society, and extrapolate that to the entire globe. that's not rational.

We aren't supposed to discuss politics here, and I guess it is best to not discuss when you don't know what you are talking about.
i'm not discussing politics. i'm pointing out that chirac is not a climate expert.

Chirac isn't a socialist, that's Mitterand.
uh, he's not the socialist cadidate, but his economic ideology is rooted in socialism in the end.

France doesn't have 'extreme socialism' (is there any difference between 'extreme socialism' and 'communism' by the way?) as a regime.
yes, actually, compared to more capitalist nations, they are. there just aren't many of the other type, communist, to compare to. and no, sorry to tell you, "extreme socialism" is NOT communism. not by any stretch. socialism is socio-economic policy. communism is political as well. in other words, socialist societies are not government specific, communist societies are.

What political opinion will he have to change? Of course he isn't an expert, he is just giving the opinion of experts. Aren't politicians allowed to talk about serious problems and challenges anymore?
what does it take to make you understand the difference between economics and politics? climate decisions are driven by economics as well as politics. climate change advocacy fits with socialist models, not capitalist models. period.

also, chirac's right to discuss this issue is not the point, AGAIN. politicians are most certainly allowed to talk about serious issues. but to use jacques chirac's statements as evidence is nothing more than an appeal to authority.

Ah yes, you truly have more of a political than a scientific agenda. Thanks for making that clear.
uh, not political. economic. pleast try to understand the difference.

taks

[Taks]

You have the urban heat island effect.
i've never been certain this bias is being removed from temperature readings today. well, the fact that the cities are warmer certainly should be factored into global temperatures. however, the ratio of temperature readings in and around cities vs. rural land is changing due to sprawl. is that being factored in?

taks

[hammo1j]

Just to get this right, dgruss23, we are saying that the CO2 increase is caused by man currently, not that its a result of something that happened 800 years ago?

Looking more into the Mars model here's the original NASA article

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/CO2_Science_rel/malin_etal.html

Here's a confirmation.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1660

Mars follows a cyclic yearly pattern probably because its orbit IS AN ELLIPSE with a fairly high eccentricity closest to sun 200Mkm and furthest is 250Mkm. Its period is roughly 2 years.

Using the inverse square law we get (4/5)**2 = 9/16 ~ 50% of the energy in the Martian Winter compared to the Summer.

To quote the NASA article the seasonal effect is well documented but:


The recognition of layered materials in the martian polar regions in Mariner 9 images acquired in 1971-1972 led to the realization that environmental conditions on Mars might vary cyclically on other than seasonal or annual timescales. Using advancements on the Leighton and Murray approach, numerous scientists began investigating "climate change" on Mars. An important factor in all of these investigations, or models, was that the equilibrium examined by Leighton and Murray also operated on these longer timescales. There is today a well-developed theoretical framework for studying long-term climate change on Mars, but direct evidence of such change has not been found. Until now.


There does seem to be a gearing mechanism present here in that the ice is CO2 ice which is a green house gas so melting the ice causes it to get hotter which melts more ice etc etc.

This article dates back to 2001 but I can't find anything beyond this.

If I was Richard Hoagland I am sure I would be shouting COVER UP! by now, but if any BABBlers can find later stuff I would be appreciative.

[Fram]

I admire your trust in technology, but in the meantime, people are suffering. You can probably make New Orleans as safe again as it is now, but a suffering country like Bangladesh will get it even worse if the sea levels would rise.
Floods have been a problem for as long as we know. Why would there now be better technology in a short order? Because it happened in the US?
man you missed that point by a mile. the POINT, need i make it any clearer, is that we already know how to construct societies on or below sea level even at the coast.

nobody will "get it even worse" if sea levels gradually rise over the next century. the point, again, is that this doesn't happen over night.

people either a) have time to move inland a few feet or b) have time to implement the technology to help out. which, btw, will be cheaper as time comes. you're trying to take a problem well over a century into the future and frame it with current economics. ideology.
No, you made a point as if we would have technology in the short term that would make this no longer a problem. Now you say that the technology is already there, thus contradicting your previous post. I was saying that technology alone isn't enough, as we can see in countries that already get flooded often. Moving a few feet inland wont help them very much (I guess you mean a few feet because that's the place needed for a barrier of any sort? Because they will have to mave a bit more than a few feet inland to counter any rise of the water).

And why do you think aren't the people that are starving now moving out?
what difference does that make? the point, AGAIN, is about global warming causing more starving, a flawed concept.
No, the point is that you state unreasoned things to make your point. I don't care for the moment if AAGW is true or not, but while you are saying that the proponents are giving false arguments, you do just the same. I'm just saying that the argument you use is wrong, and ifyour only defense is 'what difference does that make', then there is no point debating with you, as you can say whatever you like.

Speaking of rational thought and reality becoming clear, it sometimes helps to look at reality before discussing what will or will not happen. Where do you get that the effect will be less people starving?
more food in developing nations as a whole. warmer weather will result in more moisture in the atmoshphere which will result in more rain which will result in less arid lands. the sahara, unfortunately, is a victim of its own ecology and growing regardless of GW or anything else we can do. you're trying to take one place, which will never be able to support a large society, and extrapolate that to the entire globe. that's not rational.
Where am I trying to do that? I'm just pointing out that you jump to conclusions. The Sahara was able to support a large society only some 10,000 years ago, by the way, but that's quite irrelevant. You are implying that AAGW is simplistic, but your view of it is even less realistic. More moisture does not equal more rain on those places that need it, or evenly spread. Perhaps we get less stable weather, more heavy rains and long draughts. The climate and the effects of it on us aren't so simple a you seem to think.

Ah yes, you truly have more of a political than a scientific agenda. Thanks for making that clear.
uh, not political. economic. do you understand the difference?

taks

Oh yes. Do you? Why were you then talking about Chirac's political opinion?
And I'll repeat the second political quote you made:
[snip]mentioning water vapor as the primary cause of the greenhouse effect will shoot too many holes in the quest for socialist control over our resources...
The quest for socialist control: that's not political? That's purely economical? An economical conspiracy theory, why not...
Socialism can be an economic system, but the quest for it is political. And I don't think Chirac is trying to have a socialist (let alone an extremist socialist) economic system.

[Taks]

No, you made a point as if we would have technology in the short term that would make this no longer a problem. Now you say that the technology is already there, thus contradicting your previous post.
no, i said we have technology to do it now, and it will be better in the future. i'm reinforcing my point, not contradicting it.

I was saying that technology alone isn't enough, as we can see in countries that already get flooded often. Moving a few feet inland wont help them very much (I guess you mean a few feet because that's the place needed for a barrier of any sort? Because they will have to mave a bit more than a few feet inland to counter any rise of the water).
"few feet" is a relative phrase. it could easily be much more than that. that technology isn't enough now is why i pointed out that it is, and will continue to, improve. it'll take a while, for sure, but we have a while.

keep in mind, sea levels aren't rising everywhere, either...

No, the point is that you state unreasoned things to make your point. I don't care for the moment if AAGW is true or not, but while you are saying that the proponents are giving false arguments, you do just the same. I'm just saying that the argument you use is wrong, and ifyour only defense is 'what difference does that make', then there is no point debating with you, as you can say whatever you like.
the argument is not wrong. increased temperatures would mean increased agricultural production which would mean increased economies, particularly in developing nations, which translates to less poverty.

Where am I trying to do that? I'm just pointing out that you jump to conclusions.
i'm not jumping to conclusions. the agricultural surpluses and economic growth during the benign medieval period are solid evidence of what happens in a warmer climate.

More moisture does not equal more rain on those places that need it, or evenly spread. Perhaps we get less stable weather, more heavy rains and long draughts.
i'm jumping to conclusions? btw, dgruss and glom have already shown that we'll actually have more stable weather as a result of a warmer climate...

The climate and the effects of it on us aren't so simple a you seem to think.
i agree. however, sorry to say, but AAGW attempting to attribute all of the climate changes to CO2 is the simplistic view.

Oh yes. Do you? Why were you then talking about Chirac's political opinion?
no, i was talking about his economic opinion.

And I'll repeat the second political quote you made:
[snip]mentioning water vapor as the primary cause of the greenhouse effect will shoot too many holes in the quest for socialist control over our resources...
The quest for socialist control: that's not political? That's purely economical? An economical conspiracy theory, why not...
yes, economical. and if you'd like to read the UN's world constitution you'll note that the eventual goal is an economy based on socialism. not really a conspiracy per se, given that it is out in the open for anyone to read. however, the impact i point out is merely economic, and that is the context in which i discuss it. a socialist economy requires control of natural resources, which is in context.

Socialism can be an economic system, but the quest for it is political. And I don't think Chirac is trying to have a socialist (let alone an extremist socialist) economic system.
your opinion, not mine. it is an economic point i made and i followed it up by noting that climate change advocacy fits socialist economic models, not capitalist. fwiw, i consider even the US economy to be mildly socialist, so france in comparison, by my economic standards, is extreme.

taks

PS: it should be noted that my economic "ideology" is pretty hardcore capitalist. this, of course, would certainly tend to skew what i view as "extreme" in other economic models.

[Fram]

As you apparently were still changing your post after you first submitted it, I'll try to answer the additions and differences here.

We aren't supposed to discuss politics here, and I guess it is best to not discuss when you don't know what you are talking about.
i'm not discussing politics. i'm pointing out that chirac is not a climate expert.
Well duh. Then why your comments on what he will have to do politically?

Chirac isn't a socialist, that's Mitterand.
uh, he's not the socialist cadidate, but his economic ideology is rooted in socialism in the end.
In what end? Seen from an extreme capitalist point of view? Any interference by the state is socialism? By that definition, every country on this planet has a socialist economy.

France doesn't have 'extreme socialism' (is there any difference between 'extreme socialism' and 'communism' by the way?) as a regime.
yes, actually, compared to more capitalist nations, they are. there just aren't many of the other type, communist, to compare to. and no, sorry to tell you, "extreme socialism" is NOT communism. not by any stretch. socialism is socio-economic policy. communism is political as well. in other words, socialist societies are not government specific, communist societies are.
Ah, you don't believe that there are socialists in a political sense, only in an economical sense. #-o I do understand your points better now, but I fear it has little use discussing with someone who has such a different definition of words.
And your argument that France is an extreme socialist economy compared to more capitalist nations is a bit too easy. I suppose France is by the same reasoning an extreme capitalist economy compared to more socialist nations.


What political opinion will he have to change? Of course he isn't an expert, he is just giving the opinion of experts. Aren't politicians allowed to talk about serious problems and challenges anymore?
what does it take to make you understand the difference between economics and politics? climate decisions are driven by economics as well as politics. climate change advocacy fits with socialist models, not capitalist models. period.
Oh, 'period', that has convinced me. I was going to give arguments against your point of view, but that has become unnecessary now, as the discussion is obviously closed.
Do you honestly believe you cannot have a capitalist economy and measures to protect the environment at the same time?
And again, you were the one talking about Chirac's political opinion. Silly me to think you meant anything political by this.

EDIT: forgot some text at the bottom which wan't supposed to be there anymore.

[Taks]

Well duh. Then why your comments on what he will have to do politically?
again, economic, not political. his economic viewpoint, IMO, helps to drive his credibility.

In what end? Seen from an extreme capitalist point of view? Any interference by the state is socialism? By that definition, every country on this planet has a socialist economy.
yes, to differing degrees, that last statement is true.

Ah, you don't believe that there are socialists in a political sense, only in an economical sense.
no, not true at all. i've made it quite clear that my comments were made regarding an economic sense. you are the only one trying to put political implications into my statements in order to make a broad generalization that i can't make these claims on this board. your problem, not mine.

#-o I do understand your points better now, but I fear it has little use discussing with someone who has such a different definition of words.
not sure which words i've redefined. using terms like "extreme" are, by definition, opinions of relative comparison. no redefinition, just a different interpretation on our respective sides.

And your argument that France is an extreme socialist economy compared to more capitalist nations is a bit too easy. I suppose France is by the same reasoning an extreme capitalist economy compared to more socialist nations.
irrelevant and getting way too off topic. my points were made clearly in the context of the economic implications of climate control. now you're trying to argue the merits of calling different economies socialist or capitalist and further attempting to debate the shades of grey differences between them. you're getting into a straw man since the debate is about global warming.

Oh, 'period', that has convinced me. I was going to give arguments against your point of view, but that has become unnecessary now, as the discussion is obviously closed.
capitalism does not allow any government intervention in business (protection is a different issue), so i'm not sure how there can be any control of resources... period. whether you like it or not. now YOU are trying to redefine terms.

Do you honestly believe you cannot have a capitalist economy and measures to protect the environment at the same time?
another straw man. i said nothing about a capitalist economy providing measures to protect the environment. never. capitalist economies will do exactly what they need to protect their economies. if it means producing environment friendly products, they will. irrelevant point number...?

And again, you were the one talking about Chirac's political opinion. Silly me to think you meant anything political by this.
again, to beat you over the head with the same point, again... chirac's economic policies are socialist. to make you happy, they are more socialist than pure capitalism. his climate control policies are driven by this view that requires controlling resources.

taks

[Fram]

Taks, while I stand after most of the content of what I said, I think I stated it too harsh and direct. I was a bit hurried when I posted and should have asked for clarifications before replying. My apologies for the tone of my posts.
I still think what you discuss is politics (and economics), but not solely economics), and some of your definitions are different from mine and those I am used to. Some of your points of view seem to optimistic as well.
However, I was too harsh.

One more point: I am not an AAGW defender. I don't know (yet) which side to believe, they both have good arguments and authorities (and I'm not referring to Chirac here :-) ). But I had a feeling that you were making wrong arguments, and that's why I reacted.

[publiusr]

This is one reason I want space-based solar power sats in the worst way.

If GW is caused by CO2--then more solar power gives us less emissions. If GW is caused by the sun--large powersats can reduce temperatures while supplying power--and perhaps break up hurricanes as discussed in the POP SCI article of a year ago--and the more recent solar shade more recently.

[Peptron]

Just a little quick question:
What is/are the AAGW? All I can find with Google are links to the BABB and informations about "The Association of Albanian Girls and Women", which I for some reasons think might not be what you are talking about...

[Taks]

Taks, while I stand after most of the content of what I said, I think I stated it too harsh and direct. I was a bit hurried when I posted and should have asked for clarifications before replying. My apologies for the tone of my posts.
i understand... no problem. perhaps i was a bit defensive as well, and this is certainly a topic that gets me going.

I still think what you discuss is politics (and economics), but not solely economics), and some of your definitions are different from mine and those I am used to. Some of your points of view seem to optimistic as well.
i think had i been concentrating on motive and debating the merits of the socialist view, yes, it would have been a political point. i was not, however. my intention was simply to point out that the economic model of socialism requires resource control, which provides motive for socialist leaning individuals in their policies, be they social, economic or political. my primary concern was simply the economic impact of climate control, which must be considered when disucssing global warming.

However, I was too harsh.
nah. you certainly forced me to put some more meat behind my intentions and motivations. definitions aren't really the issue, i don't think. more of relative extremes. i see the minimum wage as "extreme" socialism, as an example, just because my base point is really, to a point, true capitalism. to me, the french economy is as close to true socialism as it gets in the world! :)

edit: keep in mind, had i been critiquing socialism or weighing the pros and cons vs. capitalism, political discussion certainly would have been in play. i purposely did not do that, though i have clearly since made my views apparent. however, even that was only to point out my intentions with the classification "extreme."

One more point: I am not an AAGW defender. I don't know (yet) which side to believe, they both have good arguments and authorities (and I'm not referring to Chirac here :-) ).
i kinda got the impression you were more of a devil's advocate in this debate, true. the first mention of chirac, btw, was almost as an authoritative "Jacques Chirac is saying this, and they're going to have a meeting therefore it must be true" argument which is why i commented. in reality, noting the appeal to authority was probably enough on my part without mentioning the socialist motivation. i threw it in simply because economic motivations are relevant, for and against this issue.

But I had a feeling that you were making wrong arguments, and that's why I reacted.
you are entitled to your opinion. and i have no problem defending mine, even if i don't always provide enough supporting information (more of a convenience than anything). a lot of that, i believe, was really provided by dgruss and glom anyway, and i try to put the same evidence into context of my own perception.

taks

[Taks]

Just a little quick question:
What is/are the AAGW? All I can find with Google are links to the BABB and informations about "The Association of Albanian Girls and Women", which I for some reasons think might not be what you are talking about...
apocalyptic, anthropgenic global warming.

AAGWs are those that believe in it. for reference, the "consensus" global warming scene is not AAGW, just AGW. the apocalyptics typically are dismissed by most rational people, e.g. those that blamed the tsunamis on GW got a little press time, then were laughed off as quacks.

i'm not talking about albanian women now, but there have been those times... uh, wait, never mind. wrong board. ahem. :)

taks

[Monique]

i'm not talking about albanian women now, but there have been those times... uh, wait, never mind. wrong board. ahem. :)

taks
Is difficult to keep boys on subject, no? :wink:

[Taks]

sometimes. like when i was in vegas last week and... oh. :)

taks

[Glom]

This does have a little bit of a ring of: there are other factors in climate change other that MM CO2 emissions only when we need them to explain discrepancies.

LOL. I've noticed that quite a bit, especially on sites like RealClimate. One particular example had them trying to explain away the serious issue of the carbon lag. They said that warming was started by other factors, but carbon dioxide took over 800 years later. What was particularly stupid about this was that they still need to explain what ends the warming and what causes the cooling. Lord William of Occam must have been spinning in his grave when he heard that one.

Of course, it's important to note that other factors cannot be included in climate models because we don't know what they're going to do, so in that way the simulations are far from complete. In this way, we cannot, as some would have us do, accept that these dire predictions will happen with "near to 100% scientific certainty".

So yes, they invoke complexity when they need to explain why the theory hasn't worked but ignore it so that they can tell us to accept their predictions as guaranteed truth.

[Taks]

there would certainly be more credibility if more models agreed with each other as well, and researchers such as mann didn't cherry pick only the models that support his hypothesis.

taks

[Glom]

there would certainly be more credibility if more models agreed with each other as well, and researchers such as mann didn't cherry pick only the models that support his hypothesis.

That's another issue. The range of predictions coming from models with slightly different inputs is quite large. The recent talk over confirmation of warming in the troposphere based on recalibration of satellite data brought the numbers slightly closer (although not close enough for validation) to the milder models that don't predict much to concerned about. However, it is common for the advocates to say that we should take the severe models seriously, even though they're not the ones standing any chance of being validated. There is a sleight of hand going on.

[Taks]

no kidding... it's actually painful to watch science be distorted by phd's no less. somewhere along the line you just have to pull your head out of your ideological... well, you get the picture.

taks

[Taks]

The recent talk over confirmation of warming in the troposphere based on recalibration of satellite data brought the numbers slightly closer (although not close enough for validation) to the milder models that don't predict much to concerned about.
and just because a model is milder, doesn't make it right, either. if we're actually due for some huge cooling as a result of this sun activity thing, even those will be reporting negative correlations!

taks

[hammo1j]

More stuff that shows space might be a big player in climate.

Some Aussie scientists studied the breakup of a 1000 tonne asteroid in our atmosphere (did n't know we regularly got them that big!) and the accompanying effects.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/26/shooting_stars/

Goes to show that the GW boys are modelling the climate without all the parameters in the model just yet.

[Glom]

Goes to show that the GW boys are modelling the climate without all the parameters in the model just yet.

Not to mention a lack of understanding of cloud formation and completely screwed up economics scenarios that frankly wreak more of trying to generate political favourable results that realistic ones.

[Taks]

edit... never mind.

taks

[Taks]

Goes to show that the GW boys are modelling the climate without all the parameters in the model just yet.
how is this surprising. the problem with complex feedback models, too, is assessing the true impact of the various pole/zero combinations. drive one tiny, low impact pole to an unstable region and the whole model blows up. the biggest impactors will cause the system to function as expected in steady state conditions, but when transitions happen (as all the parameters are moving around), predictability is lost.

taks

[hammo1j]

Folks here's the IPCC's model on Man Made v Natural warming.

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figspm-4.htm

It does seem prima facie to be strong evidence. Any comments?

[Taks]

pretty plots, for sure, but only address temperature changes at best... and still show no consideration for correlation vs. causation. note that only solar variation and volcanic activity are considered "natural." also, is that solar heat or all solar activity?

as for the "observed" temperatures, are they still relying on the bristlecone