Okay is global warming a real phenomenon caused by man made pollution/changes to the environment? Or, is it a natural cycle that the Earth goes through every now and then?

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The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. ~ Ernest Hemingway ...

The possible answers are different from the question. There are two parts, first, whether the Earth is warming, and second, if so, what is the largest or most important cause.

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"I'm as accurate as any psychic. And I'm a cartoon!" -- Squidward

"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender

BBP, you have actually preempted a thread I was thinking about starting. A discussion of the issues specifically is somewhat redundant given that they are constantly being discussed in many threads across this board. But this thread could be useful in determining how people stand on this issue at the moment.

Obviously, my position is that there is no conclusive evidence for GWT and plenty of contradictory evidence (such as the cooling of Antarctica and the carbon lag). That the climate change is not in dispute. The problem is some people can't distinguish the logical difference between evidence of change and evidence of GWT.

The principle of precaution demands me to assume that GW is anthropogenic. Sorry.

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What brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart

Conversely, the principle of precaution demands me to assume that forced reductions in energy consumption will hurt the world economy.

Edited to add that in my field, I tend to be very leery of computer models. So I'm predisposed to being skeptical of apocalyptic claims based on Computer Model X, Y or Z. I think that there is nothing humans can do to destroy the environment on a geological time scale, so I worry more about what we should do to maximize human usage* of the environment.

(Usage includes about everything you can think of --- food production from, resource mining from, enjoyment of, etc...)

Have you seen the thread on the effects of precession on the seasons?
I can't remember where it is off-hand.

the way I understand it now
currently the Northern hemisphere experiences winter at perihelion
as a result, winter is shorter in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere.

this situation reverses as precession causes the seasons to occur earlier in the earth's orbit about the sun.

could it be possible that current climate is being doubly affected by an increase in solar output AND and a lengthened northern summer that may not have coincided in eons?

Interesting, I expected the poll might show about equal support for the first and second options.

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"The scientist who asks the right question reconnoiters a new patch of the unknown, and may, with luck, bring it within the constricted but expanding boundaries of the known."

~Timothy Ferris (The Red Limit) 1982

No doubt about it. The problem is that the GW itself (whether human-generated or not) will also hurt.

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What brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart

I voted "no." I agree with those that are skeptical of the GWT and think natural cycles should not be ruled out. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for cleaner air, but I'm just not ready to buy into the kind of thinking that gives us things like the Kyoto Protocol, which I still believe is more of an attempt to level the economic playing field than anything else.

The climate is changing. Why is it changing? I'm leaning to the idea that a detectable fraction of the change is anthropogenic, but I haven't made any effort to prove it one way or the other, so you won't see me taking a hard stand either way until I do.

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Forming opinions as we speak

i don't know what to believe.
one day, you'll have a group of scientists saying that the rate that the earth is warming up now is unprecedented.
then, the next day, you'll hear about some scientists digging up core samples from the ocean or antarctica saying that millions of years ago the earth warmed up at a rate that would be catastrophic to human society as we know it if it happened today.
i think it mostly matters who is either funding each particular research group and what they are looking for, or in how ti is presented.

like Dennis Miller said (or something like it, anyways)
"they say the earth is warming up 1.5 degrees over the next 30 years. sounds good to me.
and my kids? 3.0
and my grand kid? 4.5
after that point, i don't care, becasue i'll never know the people that will be alive then. it's hard to care about people you'll never meet".

or something like that.
and, before you get your feathers all ruffled over that, he is a comedian. and i have a weird sense of humor..

aurora pointed out that the original question broke down into two parts. Some of the subsequent posters were influenced by the potential policy ramifications to the extent of basing their answers to these questions at least in part on their social preferences. I think we are better served by attempting to ascertain the correct answers. I don't know what those correct answers are.

I don't know if this was directed at me but since I brought up Kyoto I'll assume I had something to do with it. Just to clarify my POV: I agree with aurora that there's really two issues here but my skepticism has nothing to do with "social preferences" as a result of "potential policy ramifications." (I would be opposed to the Kyoto treaty even if I voted "yes" but I won't continue a sidebar about it's flaws here). I actually had an "undecided" attitude about the whole thing until I read some input on this board from dgruss23 and did some digging on my own. IMO this whole issue hasn't been demonstrated to exist outside of natural cycles.

Smog is of much greater concern to me at the moment than CO2 output. And since H2O is a much better greenhouse gass than CO2, I don't see why we're not focusing on that. It's always seemed just a little strange to me.

Call me skeptically neutral. In such a heated debate, I'm leery of both sides.

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"The plan does not involve mayonaise."
"... I knew there was a catch."

You can't take the sky from me.

Your position, not just on climate change but your also your Nuke-attitude has been proven to be fraud on many other threads, to quote NASA's top scientists on this issue they remark that 'some "greenhouse skeptics" subvert the scientific process, ceasing to act as objective scientists, rather presenting only one side, as if they were lawyers hired to defend a particular viewpoint. '

Easy there Manchurian Taikonaut. There are two sides to this issue and one's position on a topic unrelated to this one is irrelevant. Let's keep this "nice."

So you ignore all the threads discussing the issue apart from when you drop in to affirm the consequent and involve Dubya on occasion and then decide to launch into this attack? You're not going to win many friends that way.

And I missed where my positions on climate change, let alone nuclear power, were proven to be fraud. Can you point them to me?

I recall that there are over 50 times in which Glom has been proven to be false while chosing to ignore other evidence


Here are some quick examples : in the 'Freezing to Death' thread other posters and members ask Glom ' is this some kind of standard response you give to every remark about any climate change ' in the Hiroshima remembers' debate Glom makes incorrect claims that the Kyoto CO2 plan is a political stunt by Al-Gore, in the 'weather divers' topic Glom decalred that Climate Change and all appearances of Global Warming were caused by a Cosmic rays or Solar-sunspot cycle, Scientists have shown an article linking cosmic rays and changes in temperature was "scientifically ill-founded" and also NASA scientists and Danish meteorologists suggest another factor is involved - probably other issues which are described in great detail like human activity.

In the topic ' Trickery - stifle scientific evidence on Climate-Change' Glom remarks that higher temperatures mean less severe weather, it is unsure what Glom means by 'severe weather' perhaps he means flooding, drought, Hurricanes, Heatwaves...? Glom also declares that the USA should not sign Kyoto as India produces more pollution - now while nations like India and China are stating to produce lots of pollution and should do something about this quickly, the USA remains the world's number one producer of pollution and CO2 emissions. In the tread 'What's with the animosity towards Climate Change advocates' Glom makes false claims that the only reason Russia decided to cut down on pollution is because the Ruskies were bullied and bribed by Green-Socialists in the EU. In the 'Green is noble; if only it was intelligent' topic Glom declare that Oil and Fission will produce far less pollution than Solar or Hydro power ever will. Glom also declares that the South section of planet Earth is cooling while the North is heating up due to some tilt in the Earth's axis, and he makes some kind of an effort to use 'Antartica' as proof of this so-called 'fact' while he turns a blind eye to the Glaciers melting at alarming rates in areas like Parque Nacional los Glaciares-Argentina, New Zealand, NASA and ESA observations of our Earth, temperature mapping, glaciers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, Uganda....

That's not exposing my position as fraud. That's a compaint about my launching into a rant about the opportunistic use of contradictory weather of the day for the political cause, which was perhaps uncalled for in that thread.

Can't find the thread.

That refutation is no where in that thread. You offer no sources.

Severe weather events generally refer to storms etc. But this ambiguity is hardly my position being proven a fraud.

I never said that the gross pollution from those nations was greater than the US. I said eventually it will. And the US is not the number polluter in per capita terms. Canada and Australia are worse.

That's correct. The Russian government's advisors had always said that they opposed Kyoto. It wasn't until the EU made a deal with Russia involving dropping their opposition to her entry into the WTO that Russia signed.

Pruned so I can't verify what I said. It doesn't sound like me to imply that oil would necessarily be cleaner, but that is certainly the case with fission, whether you choose to listen or not.

I never said anything of the kind. Antarctica is cooling in contradiction with climate models, which say it should be warming rapidly. I never extended this trend to the entire hemisphere.

Water vapor is a more powerful greenhouse gas, but isn't produced directly (much) by us. Warming will cause more water to evaporate and be retained in the atmosphere. It's therefore somewhat linked with the levels of other greenhouse gases and amplifies their effect.

Not that I'm an expert, but that's the gist of it as I understand it.

Could you provide references? It is well established that climate changes correlate with solar activity. I've provided numerous references to back that up. What scientists showed that this evidence is "ill-founded" and what was their evidence to the contrary?

What is this other factor that is described in great detail? Where is it described in great detail?

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"The scientist who asks the right question reconnoiters a new patch of the unknown, and may, with luck, bring it within the constricted but expanding boundaries of the known."

~Timothy Ferris (The Red Limit) 1982

It isn't just solar activity as Glom has claimed - climate studies, Danish scientists, NASA websites, Canadian arctic studies say otherwise, changes can happen for any number of reasons from our Earth orbit, human activity, a comet smashing into our planet....

The fact of the matter is I and many other people think nuclear energy if done correctly could be very beneficial to mankind, I think there are a number of factors involved in climate change, and that nuclear power can help space exploration - points which Glom has often made.

However the way Glom presents his case with 'greenpeace-bashing', incorrect statements, wrong sceintific facts, and political rants makes it hard for me and many others to agree with him.

I'm just wondering what specific articles/links you've read that provide evidence that solar activity is not important in climate change - because I've found numerous references that say otherwise.

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"The scientist who asks the right question reconnoiters a new patch of the unknown, and may, with luck, bring it within the constricted but expanding boundaries of the known."

~Timothy Ferris (The Red Limit) 1982

So? Don't agree with him then. I'm waiting for you or anyone else that is sympathetic to the GWT to change my thinking. Let's stick with the issues and avoid past bad blood, OK?

In case you haven't noticed, I haven't posted too much in these GW threads outside of a post on the BABB many moons ago pointing out the flaws of Kyoto and objections to the ideology of Greenpeace (the resultant "scrum" with Lee ended up being diverted to FWIS because it was considered too political for the BABB). While I'm not sold on the GWT at this point, I'm not all that emotionally involved. I have no axe to grind and am willing to "listen" to intelligent input from those more sympathetic to the GWT than I am.

On that note, I'm still waiting for you to post something substantive here in that respect Manchurian Taikanaut .. all I've read from you so far is Glom posted this here - Glom posted that there. That's personal, tell me why you think I should believe in the GWT. Spare me what others think, they can speak for themselves if they want to.

GWT fans! With all the dust storms on Mars and all the hurricanes on earth, I cast my vote for all the major influences are totally out of our hands. How the Sun will behave given the neighborhood it is in should remind us of our very vulnerable situation as a planet. Since we can not nuke the Sun when it won't behave, we remain totally contingent on its moods. One direct hit from a major solar flare would put this discussion on permanent hold. There may be very good reasons why we don't bother colonizing the Moon or modifying our gas-guzzling SUV's. Personally I trust there are and I don't really need to know why as long as Walgreen's has sun screen on sale.

All change horses!

You said that the solar-terrestrial connection was proven as fraud. Now you're saying that other factors are involved, which is not dispute. You haven't been paying attention. I never said solar activity was the only factor. That would be pretty dumb.

Then what part of my nuclear position is fraud?

I haven't brought Greenpeace into this in ages and I haven't seen you make public apology for all the ad hominem straw men and Bush bashing you've used in the past. You have yet to demonstrate where I made any significant incorrect statement and wrong scientific facts other than those things you misremembered.

And if my presentation is all of a sudden the only quibble you have, then that hardly exposes my position to be fraud.

A good place to start MT would be the claim you've made that the solar-climate connection was shown to be "scientifically ill-founded". I'd be interested in seeing any such claims because it does contradict what I've read.

That would be a lot more productive than going after Glom about his posting style.

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"The scientist who asks the right question reconnoiters a new patch of the unknown, and may, with luck, bring it within the constricted but expanding boundaries of the known."

~Timothy Ferris (The Red Limit) 1982

Let me repeat myself again for those of you who didn't get it the first time, Glom had made many dubious claims about climate activity and aswell he claimed ( which he is now trying to deny ) that the current change in climate was indeed due to solar activity. This claim was proven to be false by other posters and the posted links to sources like Canadaian scientific reports, newscientist, NASA's website, nationalgeographic, and other Danish sceintists studies, and I think Glom had chosen to ignore those posts. I'm not sure what Glom means by saying I should apologise for 'Bush bashing', I have in the past been critical of ISS-plans, or Shuttle-tiles but this was not an attack aimed directly at the United States President, it's difficult to see what Glom is on about here, is he angry that I couldn't vote for the guy ? I - myself still have an open-mind on this whole climate change issue, it could be mankind, it could be part of a natural cycle, but one thing I am totally against is some folks trying to shovel their unfounded claims. There was a link in one of the other threads that greatly described the impact on native Inuit and Eskimo populations because of disappearing Arctic ice and permafrost. NASA satellites have also reported on this - their satellite data -- the unique view from space -- are allowing researchers to more clearly see Arctic changes and develop an improved understanding of the possible effect on climate worldwide. People like Dr. Josefino C. Comiso, Hansen director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Michael Steele and others have all gone into great detail on this process. NASA's Pathfinder had show that the temperature of the Earth's surface had increased at a rate of almost 0.5ºC or 0.8ºF per decade, it is easy to describe a greenhouse effect one of the worst examples perhaps being the scorching planet Venus. Space based observation to our Planet Earth enhance our scientific understanding that ground based scientists cannot realistically achieve.

There has also been the claim made that our Earth is cooling and I've seen posters use Antarctica as example while choxing to ignore scientific models that predicted the loss of dissolved oxygen in the Antarctic ocean, NASA temp records, Glaciers in South America, New Zealand and some of Collapsing ice-shelf in the Antarctic Peninsula, and strong warming trends in the Southern Ocean. Glom himself has claimed that the south section of our Earth is in fact cooling because of this 'Antarctic evidence'. The Scientific community has also noted that permanent ice cover of nine lakes on Signey Island has decreased by about almost 50 % in the past 45 or so years. It is true that in the past 20 years some small spots on our planet have in fact got 'Cooler' rather than warmer but using NASA's 21 years of accumulated data indicate temperature trends in the Arctic, the overall direction of the trend suggests 'Warming' for the Northern region of our Planet Earth.

Sadly the scientifc studies of climate change are sometimes taken hostage by the radical-left or the far-right for whatever reason that may be. I would rather people stick to the facts of Climate Change rather than starting to bash Al-Gore, or do some Dick-Cheney hunting or make remarks that the corrupt Europeans blackmailed the Russians into cutting back on emissions. Studies by many American and European scientists have shown that Earth has probably never warmed as fast as in the past 30 years - a period when natural influences on global temperatures, such as solar cycles and volcanoes should have cooled us down. The NASA reports say polar caps not only hold much of the planet's total fresh water, but they also play an important role in regulating the Earth's temperature under a characteristic called albedo. There are many other issues to be solved and other studies to be taken before this climate change question is answered, but let's all try to stick to the facts rather than start 'Green bashing', doing a witch hunt on Cheney, or saying corrupt Europeans are trying to bribe the Russians. There are many people doing good serious work on this subject who haven't be hijacked by politics, NASA satellites bring back good data, there are many studies by American sceintists, we have the European Envi-Sat and NASA's ICESat spacecraft. There have also been a number of scientific predictions of an intensifying a feedback loop, one example being sunlight that otherwise would have been reflected back into space now gets absorbed by our Planet as the Earth's ice caps start to recede.

I think you need to take a step back and reflect on some things Manchurian Taikonaut. You've spent more time on Glom than addressing the topic and obviously have some preconceived notions that are open to debate. I didn't want Kyoto to be a distraction after I brought it up earlier but geo-politics is a hobby of mine and Russia's about-face regarding Kyoto had nothing to do with climate. They weren't "bullied" into signing on, they were seduced. Glom is correct in this thread as to why Russia finally signed on.

Regarding the GWT, I have yet to be convinced. I've read the various pro-GW citations (hard to miss it nowadays) and won't deny that we have some warming going on, but I'm skeptical at this juncture that it's more than a natural cycle.

Did you ever think, maybe just maybe the Russians ( who have very intelligent scientists ) might be onto something without getting bullied and blackmailed by corrupt Europeans ?
Russian area near the South of the nation - the Caspian sea and Black sea is very low lying, Russian and former Soviet researchers just back from the area around Siberia have been finding large melts, the area near St Petersberg ( Leningrad ) is very low in altitude, Russians have been going through years of CO2 emissions, a number of Msocow scientists have predicted increased flooding in climate change. There are many Russians who weren't bribed by Euros but are instead concerned by the changes it will bring to Russian, the human impact that climate change can cause.