Terrific article about what NASA and other agencies aren’t telling us about the correlation between solar activity and climate change.
Hmmmm. I think the administration might have to step in to impose more regulation.
Progress: administration keeps online transparency pledge.
Rubbish. The sun has nothing to do with it.
The sun controlling earth’s tempature? Blasphemy! Call Reverand and Defender of the Faith Gore! Looks like we have some non believers to deal with!
DENIALISTS!
But don’t you see? The weather may be get cooler but teh climate is heating up!!!1!
As global temps continue to drop in the next 10 years, which of the following revisions will the alamists adopt?
1). This is still just a hiccup – albeit a seemingly major one – from an otherwise long-term warming trend;
2). Go back to screaming about threats from manmade global cooling;
3). Demand drastic actions to curb the newly discovered manmade Yo Yo Effect.
What good is science to anyone if you can’t fake it to get money.
I am utterly gobsmacked. How can you denialists hope to have any credibility whatsoever by claiming that some hypothetical enormous ball of fire in the sky has an impact on temperatures here on Earth? This “Sun” if it even exists, must be at least 90 million miles away. It can’t possibly account for the massive .5 degree climb in temperature over the last century…if it’s even real.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going tanning.
#5 Buckeye
I don’t think the ecowarrior doomsday cult will even do that; they’ll just cook up new computer climate models to “prove” no cooling has occurred and “warming” continues.
I golfed all day Monday and got some (too much) sun on my pale Irish skin. I am now radiating heat that I am certain is contributing to the ambient temperature of earth.
My theory is that the phenomena of global warming is entirely attributable to the diaspora of the Irish to sunny climates.
I was just talking to BJ and he was reading a new global warming report that claims that 300,000+ die every year from the results of global warming.
We must always be reminded that regardless of what the tragedy du jour is with these people, the solution is always the same.
Yup,JD, this falls squarely under the category of “let’s just twist facts and assumptions and make up crap to suit our ends because most people are teh stoopid!”
I would just love to see the data set and criteria used to construct that heaping pile of monkey crap. I’m thinking a room full of spider monkeys banging on pooh covered laptops powered by hamsters in wheels.
And Kofi freakin’ Annan? Seriously? Have you no shame at all?
Apparently not.
Geez and conservative Christians are supposed to be “anti-science.” I’m waiting for the voodoo constructs for cars, factories and refineries to be produced and cursed.
One of my favorite TMBG songs:
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
Yo ho, its hot, the sun is not
A place where we could live
But here on earth there’d be no life
Without the light it gives
We need its light
We need its heat
We need its energy
Without the sun, without a doubt
There’d be no you and me
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
The sun is hot
It is so hot that everything on it is a gas: iron, copper, aluminum, and many others.
The sun is large
If the sun were hollow, a million earths could fit inside. And yet, the sun is only a middle-sized star.
The sun is far away
About 93 million miles away, and that’s why it looks so small.
And even when its out of sight
The sun shines night and day
The sun gives heat
The sun gives light
The sunlight that we see
The sunlight comes from our own sun’s
Atomic energy
Scientists have found that the sun is a huge atom-smashing machine. The heat and light of the sun come from the nuclear reactions of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and helium.
The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees
Now that they’ve elected Obama, can’t they just give up on the AGW bullshit finally? They’re destroying capitlaism without it.
They’ve destroyed it so much it’s not even spelled the same anymore.
I’m sure that when glaciers once again cover my Michigan the refugees from Ann Arbor will be blaming the wall of ice on man-caused-climate-change.
Why it’s all of that new transparency, see..?
A petty bureaucrat, James Hansen, the guy in charge of the “climate change” research won’t say it…
None of the political appointees will say it; they’re mostly AGW kool-aid drinkers…
And none of the career employees will dare breath a word; lest they be recognized and subject to the Gore-ish Inquisition…
So effectively NASA has gone from being an assembly of our best and brightest, to an AGW and radical environmentalism monastery…
It’s a real shame that so many of our young people, who know everything about Che, the eeeeevils our nation has foisted upon others, and of course, social justice, but who can’t add and don’t understand science-because there was no time for all that you see-simply can’t make the connection between that hot body 90 million miles distant and the fluctuation of surface temperatures on Earth…
Just as I said about politics yesterday, a large portion of our society is apathetic or too ignorant to actually spend time thinking about this; there are more important things to do like watch sports, drink, or ogle babes (just for the record I too enjoy all those pursuits). But, when asked their opinion on the subject, not wanting too actually admit they don’t understand or haven’t considered it, fall back on mouthing what they have heard most often from those “smart people” on TV…
I mean, if it’s on TV, it has to be true…right?
A combination of arrogant elitists at the top and a society of dumbed down sheeple underlings; they’ll cheer Obama as he rides up broadway and pull the lever for him to prove their enlightened post-racial outlook to the world-but they don’t really understand nor keep track of what is going on…
The miasma chokes the life out of me sometimes…
Look, it’s not as if CO2 is plant food and the more of it a plant gets, the better it grows and the more drought resistant it is. And it’s not as if a warmer world is a wetter world as more water is evaporated from the ocean and falls as rain. And it’s not as if growing seasons are longer and crop ranges can move into higher latitudes in a warmer wetter world.
And it’s not as if that 300,000 fauxtistic includes people dying of malaria or other so-called tropical diseases which could be eradicated by judicious use of DDT. Or that diarrhea is included in the deadly total, despite the fact that access to clean water is a political problem not a climate problem.
No, nothing good happens in a warming world, only bad.
What’s that you say? “Good job the world is cooling then.”
LIAR!!!! DENIALIST!!! BIG OIL!!! BIG TOBACCO!!!
All of us are merely bought and paid for tools of the fossil fuel industrial complex bent on careening head on into GLOBAL CLIMATE APOCALYPSE!!!!
And, please, ignore the transcendent irony of those climate warriors who would be sneering at Biblical Armageddon whilst preaching hothouse end times.
Reverand and Defender of the Faith Gore!
Al Gore, Global Warming’s Jimmy Swaggert.
“I paid for this carbon footprint.”
It’s times like this that I tend to remember that foolishness is, in the end, never rewarded.
Wow, a solar minimum. And the sun will stay that way forever. Burn me some more of that coal, bitches!
It’s on, Sun!
And please ignore those mainstream religions that sneer at my religion’s impending “Unicorns from the Dark Side of the Moon” invasion that will wipe us all out.
I don’t sneer at your Unicorns, Sammy. They are too cute just before they trample me to death. Plus the fairy dust makes me giggle.
No, it won’t be forever. But it might be a decade. Or a century. Or….
The record shows average of 90Ky ice ages and 10Ky interglacials. We’ve been in this interglacial for about 12Ky now, so we’re overdue. If we really are heading into an ice age, it will be close enough to “forever” for practical purposes.
The temperatures go up or down, and then CO2 follows ~800y later. CO2 is at its highest when the temperature has been falling for centuries, and at its lowest when it has been rising for centuries. I can understand the “post hoc, ergo propter hoc’ fallacy (A happened before B, therefore A caused B). I can’t begin to grasp the “pre hoc ergo propter hoc’ idea that rising CO2 can cause a temperature rise centuries before.
To the comment what said what happens in 5-10 years when we all haven’t died in the great eco-apocalypse of 2008, err, 2009, err, ad infinitum; temperatures haven’t risen, perceptibly or actually and Al Gore’s no ice caps in 5 years hits the 5 year anniversary. Well what they do is get their sycophants in a big conference room at the Ramada or maybe one of those castles on a hill and mayhaps the goracle himself but probably one of Waxman’s goons comes in and pounds the table and says “you’re weekly allowance will be cute if you don’t mow the lawn,” and everyone looks down at their Fiji and says hey man I’ve got a couple kids what the hell and they’ll just push along the corpse of climate science into the realm of Vioxx-pharmaceutical study fakery. The temperature WILL rise, damnit.
o. cute=cut
Bob,
Teah, can you believe they’ve published this twaddle?
BECAUSE OF THE SCIENCE!!!!
Plus, color me unimpressed, but a few marginally balmy days don’t really affect my life one way or the other, other than providing more “convertible days.”
Very pithy Sammy,
But I don’t recall anyone talking about the fact that during the 90’s, when sooooooo much evidence of AGW was “confirmed”, and the debate officially closed, that it was also the period surrounding a solar maximum…
The Sun Will Stay That Way Forever!1!11!eleventy
Kill Our Economies By Enacting The Kyoto Protocol Now, Or The Seas Will Keep Rising And Well Die A Fiery Death!1!11!eleventy
Hyperbole aside, if you know anything about science, and I don’t mean as a magazine reading dilletante, then the fact that the sun is the major driver in the Earths climate is no surprise…
Yes, it’s nice to talk about albedo, and cloud cover; to twist the transient phenomenon of nuclear winter of atmosphereic particles after a sizeable eruption into some sort of damning evidence of a man made apocalypse to come. Ot, to try and use the climate on Venus as some sort of condition that can be extrapolated here to Earth, and that therefor it’s obvious that CO2, and the “other” greenhouse gases, will cause the same thing to happen here…
What amuses me most is that the first set of allusions actually would cause cooling scenarios…
And the Venus comparisons leave out the fact that the Earth is about 50% farther away from the sun than Venus…
Trust me, that makes a bit of a difference; difference between radiation at a given point and one at a distance from that point scales as the Inverse Square of that distance-if I recall…
Scooter at #13. No doubt. I was sure they would ease up, but no, it’ still full bore ahead. I wish someone would tell AGW to start affecting North East Ohio post fucking haste.
test
Pablo,
Stuff like that tripe makes me ashamed, really…
These guys know there are a lot of factors, and error sources, that until only recently could not be controlled, predicted, nor accounted for…
We’ve only had satellites up for around 50 years or so, so that is the limit on how long we have actually been able to view this stuff globally…
It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the notion that matters of fact would be debated with the same intellectual dishonesty as political philosophy and social science…
It makes my head explode…
Hey, why not start taxing clouds, Sammy?
I think the theory is that there’s feedback in the system. As the temperature warms, the oceans warm, and release CO2 – which causes the temperature to rise even more.
We’ll, no one is predicting that, so as y’all would say, torch that straw man.
Yes, that is a theory, one that turns out to be wrong.
Someone didn’t see “The Day After Tomorrow.”
You just can’t get people to change their behavior if the worst that will happen is that they’ll have to buy more shorts.
It’s 67 here in Michigan. The global warming is killing us up here. My dad keeps running the furnace.
yep, Alec. There has been no gross hyperbole regarding the effects of AGW. None at all.
“I think the theory is that there’s feedback in the system. As the temperature warms, the oceans warm, and release CO2 – which causes the temperature to rise even more.”
So why does it cool down, again? And again? And again? Kyoto protocols that we don’t know about during the age of the earth?
Carin, my two little girls begged me to put on the furnace the last couple of nights. I could not do it, but yeah the AGW is killing us just down the way from you, too.
So, Sammy, what if we magically eliminate all the CO2 in the atmoshpere? Satisfied? Then what? We can construct a giant thermostat to fight over the “best” temperature for Gaia?
We can construct it with all the dead trees, too. Why do earth cultists hate the trees? Where’s fangorn when you need him?
Fifty two and rainy in Northern Colorado yesterday (June 2). Friggin’ global warming is teh suXxor.
Gore must’ve been speaking at CU or CSU.
Quite possibly, or possibly not.
The other “funny thing” about all this is: do you realize just how many of the Lost Cities of Antiquity are roughly a thousand years old?
Angkor Wat. Chaco Canyon. Teotihuacan. Macchu Picchu. Look ’em up. Get the dates when they were alive and busy. Then compare them to Flopping Aces’s graph labeled “2000 Years of Global Temperatures”. After that, go back and look at the Mongol invasions and other incursions of northern tribes into established civilizations. The pattern is clear. Warm times are good times — people have plenty to eat and get comfortable and prosperous; when it cools off, the barbarians of the steppes decide to become snowbirds.
The graph only shows the time since 0 CE. If it extended farther back, it would show another warm period coinciding with the peak of the Roman and Persian empires — and another cooling trend corresponding with the barbarian invasions. Go back another millenium, and you’re at the time of the Old Testament prophets, again a period of relative prosperity ended by a cooling-off period. A millenium before that, and you’re looking at the Indus Valley civilizations, the real-deal Original Civilization (the Tigris-Euphrates, Babylon and all that, are parvenus in comparison) and the only one that actually survived through two warms and the intervening chill — perhaps because it was too hard for the northern barbarians to get through Afghanistan, a familiar problem even now :-)
Warm times are Good Times. Cold periods are times of poverty, starvation, and invasions from people who live where it gets colder yet.
Regards,
Ric
Uh, they call that weather, not climate.
Global Warming = Better Tomatoes.
Better basil and peppers too.
Sounds like Carin will be doing fine growing mint and I immagine the cabbage, brocolli and potatoes will do okay too. But forget about watermellon, tomatoes, or cantelope.
Ok, so can we address how the CLIMATE has been freakin cold up here for the last few years?
but… but… KATRINA!
Yes, sammy. You’re correct that is called weather. That’s something we’ve been trying to tell you tools for the last few years. How’s the climate been?
Sammy – I have a series of questions for you, since you seem invested in this idea.
1) What is the ideal temperature for the earth?
2) If this 0.6 degree warming over 100 years is a crisis, what immediate steps should be taken to cool the earth?
3) If we enacted a national policy to reduce the earth’s temperature by 5 degrees, would that be a good thing, and could we do it?
4) Ice Ages, and the melt-off of same have come and gone throughout history without any of man’s help. Why should this be viewed as anything different.
5) The same people telling us global warming is a crisis were the same people that told us global cooling was a crisis previously. Why should we believe them now, and isn’t it an odd coincidence that their solutions to each look remarkably the same?
Finally, for someone that claims fealty to Teh Science, does this bastardization of Teh Science bother you at all ?
I doubt anyone even has the idea, really.
There are people who say it, sort of — rely on it, in different ways — and people who think “Carbon” is a chemical. Those are bad. Especially that one. The worst! I hear its name on TV all the time. LAW!
(Except that “organic” signifies carbon. But it doesn’t anymore. Whew!)
The devil needs only a name.
Well, a bunch of them.
Ever so.
Nowadays, there’s a handy-when-mishandled idea from Marx (sort of from Marx, anyway; it claims to be his or not depending on its audience) floating around — occasionally finding itself in the mouth of the President, even (depending on his audience) — that observed things, events in life, material facts, evident causalities — derided usually as “common sense,” “simplistic,” “easy answers,” etc. — are illegitimate, “ideological” pseudo-knowledge. Because knowing outside the Party (“consensus,” often) is not-knowing.
It’s not a new idea. It’s a very old religious one.
(Marx’s idea was a better one, but hey. Shit happened.)
Global Climate Change Crisis = weather
Thank you for that psycho. I have no fucking clue what you were trying to say, but it was interesting.
Uh, they call that weather, not climate.
That’s not what every fucking news outlet calls it on warm days.
Climate is what we expect. Weather is what we get.
That would be wrong, Sammy, because that would be positive feedback…which wrecks stuff but good. Negative feedback brings stuff back to equilibrium.
But it would be really, really historically wrong in that for whatever lagging CO2 does behind temperature, that phenomenon is utterly swamped by vastly greater temperature cycles.
I like the point about organic. I never buy organic. I go out of my way to not buy organic. I’m just not that precious is why.
illegitimate, “ideological†pseudo-knowledge
We can spend our way out of recession!!
We await the brillaint Sammah, student and disciple of Teh Science, to answer the above and explain how those that he supports shit on the science that he claims to love.
Organic sucks. And is only for those that can afford to pay way more for fruits and vegetable that are otherwise relatively cheap. But it was too damn hard for Michelle to keep them around, because of the biceps.
Well put pycho,
When the truth interferes with the Party’s ideological agenda, it is declared to be fallacies, demagoguery (wow, that ones rich, eh?), and outright lies…
No truth exists outside the approved party line; and the MSM is a willing Pravda. Hell, we’ve duped most of our kids into this group think to the point that my 12 year old niece can recite the AGW mantra like I can the Nicean creed…
Also, I agree with the notion of the coopting of meanung being the “devils” tool, so-to-speak…
Organic has lost it’s scientific meaning; now it’s just free-range chickens and no pesticide arugula!
That’s what I was alluding to when I spoke of the long decline in the par level of the poulations understanding through the dumbing down of our educational system; what is often reffered to as the long march through the institutions…
Couple that with the natural apathy of a part of society, throw in a willing MSM/Pravda to trumpet the party line, and stir in a Charismatic, appealing, figurehead for the public to “rally round”, and Bingo; instant totalitarian society, ready in only 30 to 40 years!
Never mind the “inconvenient truth” that the largest experiments in this kind of society and governence failed miserably in one case, and demmanded a wholesale course change in another; never mind the loss of our freedom and rights to private property, our beliefs and ideas being the most valuable assets among those…
I get it psycho, I think we’re on a similar wavelenth…
I just don’t know wether that should worry me or not!
Best Wishes
I too avoid buying organic food. I refuse to consume any carbon at all, whatsoever.
[…]
What?
Bob, Dan, any of you that know your religious stuff – What is the fundamental difference between the Nicean Creed as said in the Catholic and Episcopalian Churches? We alternate weeks, and there are subtle language differences, and I have always wondered what the differences represented.
Now, back on topic … I welcome some global warming. The last several winters have been a bitch.
JD,
That’s because he’s busy googling…
No, I write about the large scale scientific angles in my tome at #30. They were never answered…
We often get bogged down in talking about leading lagging indicators, micro-temerature variations of the last century(ones that are difficult to measeure accurately and precisely by todays standard) and forget about the large scale phenomena driving the situation…
Fortunately for us, much of nature will return to an equilibrium; even if we nuked the joint, eventually it would be jake again…
Maybe the time scales involved would be, ahem, inconvenient for us humans, but the Earth is a marvelous, unique, and fascinating stable system; and like most, when perturbed, will trend back toward the equilibrium point…
Stay Cool!
Oh, and JD,
I’ve never looked into the differences; I’ll have to some time…
Bob – Since we were not around measuring temperature in the manner in which we are today, aren’t they essentially just taking educated guesses at past temperatures?
While on vacation, I saw an ad for “carbon-free sugar”. No shit, they actually said that.
67.
Ice cores amongst other things are good for that.
Well JD,
That’s just part of what’s debated…
In the old days, folks local measurements, of lacking accuracy, may have at least been consistent. But, we can’t be sure if two guys, in places where the temperature was exactly the same on successive days, would have arrived at the same measurement values on all of the days. Notwithstanding the fact that could they measure to a fraction of a degree acurately, at all locations, anyway..
.
Part of the whole argument in the computer models that have been devoloped surround the “conditioning” of prior data by folks today, the validity of the data sets, and the statistical method used on those sets to arrive at the coefficient and exponent values applied to the variables in said computer models. There was a really good, but geeky to lay people, dicussion of this published by Lord Monckton last fall; I believe the “watts up” site has links to the report; you could probably google Monckton and watts up and arrive at the page…
Still, this is a difficult read if you’re not familiar with higher mathematics. But he unequivocally states that models often vastly overstate the past correlation between CO2 levels and temperature, among other things. It’ll make your nose bleed though if you’re severely math challenged…
This requires more study, without a doubt. Bolstered by real satellite based global observations…
We’ll get to the bottom of it all one day. It;s just that the debate is far fom over, and we shouldn’t go off half-cocked…
Best Wishes
Dash – How accurate are they? I do not understand how they can state the accuracy down to tenths of degrees, since the measurements were not being taken at the time, so there is nothing contemporaneous to compare them to. Seems to me that since we are discussing a 0.6 degree increase over a century, their historical readings better be really damn accurate, down to at least a tenth of a degree. But I am not a scientist, so that may just be silly thinking on my part.
but… but… KATRINA!
Also weather. I know.. i know.. you’d never get that watching the idiot box, as every hot day is attributed to GW.
1) What is the ideal temperature for the earth?
I dunno. Did I claim to know? Do you know? Also, the earth’s temperature isn’t uniform, so you might as well ask me the ideal temperature for each spot on the earth. I can answer for one of them. I like the temperature around me to be 71 Fahrenheit – 24 hours a day.
2) If this 0.6 degree warming over 100 years is a crisis, what immediate steps should be taken to cool the earth?
Again, dunno. Again, I don’t think I claimed to.
3) If we enacted a national policy to reduce the earth’s temperature by 5 degrees, would that be a good thing, and could we do it?
Now that I can answer. An average global temperature drop of 5 degrees from the current 10 year average would likely be bad. Who’s proposing that?
4) Ice Ages, and the melt-off of same have come and gone throughout history without any of man’s help. Why should this be viewed as anything different.
Because there’s evidence that human activity is exerting a forcing effect on the climate. In the literal sense, that why this is different. Again, I’m not saying we know what the ultimate effect of that will be.
5) The same people telling us global warming is a crisis were the same people that told us global cooling was a crisis previously. Why should we believe them now, and isn’t it an odd coincidence that their solutions to each look remarkably the same?
Not sure you have that entirely accurate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
Finally, for someone that claims fealty to Teh Science, does this bastardization of Teh Science bother you at all ?
At first, but I’ve just learned to accept the fact that you’re a science-fearing straw man factory.
Some other comments:
Uh, they call that weather, not climate.
That’s not what every fucking news outlet calls it on warm days.
Correct. Call your local station and complain. I’ve given up on TV news, esp. local. Cat in Tree! Film at 11!
Climate is what we expect. Weather is what we get.
Awesome.
Dash,
I always thought that ice cores were better for determining atmospheric composition and precipitation data than temperature…
Not being disputatious friend, just wasn’t aware of the ability to do more than that from cores…
Thanks, Bob. I googled that, clicked on the link, and my eyes started bleeding.
I’m not a climatologist nor a proper chemist, but if I recall correctly it has something to do with the concentration of a certain isotopes in the ice. The concentration indicates the temperature b/c of the contracture-expansion of water. I think its one of those radio-carbon dating, established type things. It’s interesting b/c the ice core data indicates that atmospheric increases CO2 lag behind temperature by several hundred years, as I think several have pointed out on this thread. It is also one of the core fallacies in Gore’s movie, in that the temperature is portrayed to respond to CO2 in direct contradiction to the established literature. Maybe I’ll find links later.
You’re certainly right about the atmospheric conditions b/c air bubbles are caught in the ice, I think the temperature calculation is a secondary inference based on isotope concentration. Heh, as with our 31 year old friend Deese, I haven’t spent much time reading the body of lit on the subject.
I thought it was the Nicene Creed. At least that’s what I remember when I was a practicing Episcopalian.
Hey, Sammy, what say we dispense with not just CO2 but carbon altogether?!? Huh, you in?
FTFY
as every hot day is attributed to GW
Ironically, your fellow travelers also attribute cold days, hurricanes, tornadoes, and snow storms to global warming.
If we do not know what the ideal temperature for Mother Gaia is, why should we claim that a 0.6 degree increase over 100 years is bad. How do you know it is not on its way to its natural equilibrium?
I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, I am not say what we know the ultimate effect will be … but, we must take immediate and drastic steps to stop it immediately!
I have no problem with science, Sammy. I have a problem when it is politicized, and then used as a cudgel to advance a political agenda, especially when it is apparent that there is very little “science” involved in it.
but we better fix it, like, YESTERDAY!!!
Hey Sammy look at the box for Gore’s movie. What’s that you say? A hurricane coming out of a smokestack. Fuckin wingers.
Amen, maggie. Kyoto, cap and trade, all of this hysteria, and they cannot do a simple thing like predict what will happen in the next 10 years, or state with any certainty what is bad about a 0.6 degree increase over 100 years.
I highly recommend the late Mike Crichton’s book ‘State of Fear,’ mainly because it pissed off all the right people and consists of a nonsensical plot built around something like 300+ pages of demolishing AGW with a plethora of graphs and works cited dispersed throughout the text.
Sammy,
To non-dilletantes seriously looking at the data, ones who have no a priori agenda save scientific curiosity, the only thing that exists is the hypotheses that human activity may be a forcing effect on Earths climate…
This is far from conclusive, and still be explored; indeed the early “consensus” that Gore liked to speak of is now overshadowed by those who disagree…
Science is not about consensus. The debate is never over, There are folks who test and retest the validity of Newtons laws of motion, the value of gravity here on Earth, and other phenmomena all the time…
What I will say, it is at best like Pascals wager. All serious scientists and engineers realize that it is our duty to reduce the harmful emissions of the products we devise to enhance our lives.
But the debate is not over, we should not act rashly and hurriedly, and should not sacrifice our complete way of life nor adopt dubious international standard nor sign on to the carbon trading international welfare sceme just to make us feel better about ourselves…
Especially when China, Russia, and India will NEVER agree to the same restrictions…
China has surpassed us in emmisions, India will too within the space of a decade, and Russia’s been an environmental nightmare for years. The EU has seen no positive effect whatsoever from their draconian green schemes. We should not cripple our economy, especially now and especially at the expense of poorer folks, for an unproven panacea to an baseless hypothesis…
with all due respect
And there’s the little fact that climate is essentially tri-phasic throughout the 20th century, with temperatures rising from ~1900-1940, decreasing from ~1940-1975 (hence the caterwauling about ice ages and paradoxically* corresponding with one of the largest industrial expansions in human history) and increasing again (hence the contemporary AGW meme) and now again decreasing. Add a maunder minimum and you see where this is going.
O, and the O! bemoans the decline of American prestige, yet Russian and Chinese scientists are snickering at our scientists’ full fledged descent into apocalyptic early-Christianesque fear mongering.
Thanks for the tip Dash…
I’ll have to read up on the whole isotopal inference thing…
My forte was always flight systems, but I had to grind through all the other stuff to be able to understand those…
JD,
I warned you about that report man…
Yea, I used to be into reading the primary lit on climatology but now a misplaced excel sheet superimposing August temperatures for September passes for rigor. Fuck that, I’ll stick with conjuring Loki on the nearest hill whilst doing a Sumatran rain dance to figure our the trajectory of climate.
I believe in one Gaia, the Mother Almighty, who is actually composed of heaven and earth, giver of life (except when it is not covienent and then sayonara fetus), and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Obama, the only-begotten Son of Gaia, begotten of the Gaia before all worlds; Obama of Obama, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with Gaia, by whom all things were made.
Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of his Kansas mother on the holy island of Oahu, and was made man; and he was falsely attacked by Christianists and Pumas; He suffered and his campaign was alomst buried; but with a surprise win in Iowa He rose again, according to the Scriptures he won; and ascended into the White House, and sits on the right hand of Gaia; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Media, the messanger of truth; who proceeds with the pantheon of pagan gods; who with that pantheon is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets, such as the Prophet Gorecle, blessed be his name.
And I believe in one holy universal, inclusive, non gender and sexually biased and apostolic Church of Political Correctness, Feminism, and Enviromentalism. I acknowledge Caucasian guilt and shame for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead by the cloning of those unwanted fetuses, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
Here’s the refutation at Wiki:
And, this is supported by Footnote [1]. Guess what that is.
OK, now that’s funny, Sammy.
Pablo beeyotch slaps Sammah, again. Ouch. That one is going to leave a mark.
Why wouldn’t you take an IPCC report as scientifically authoritative?
They always say that, unless it is hot. Matter of fact, I think taking “unseasonably warm” temperatures next to a tar kettle is climate. Maybe I’m wrong, but isn’t climate an aggregate of lots of weather?
That’s good, Joe.
I always like to say “Ok, I’ll take for granted that we’re heating up the Earth, can you please tell me how that’s a bad thing?”
Besides some vague references to losing some coastal areas there isn’t much ‘there’ there. Every instance in the Earth’s history of startlingly higher temps then we currently enjoy has brought nothing but prosperity, there is no evidence to the contrary. I mean, who wouldn’t mind losing a mile of coastline here and there when you recover all the land north of New Brunswick from the ice?
Losing animal species is a sham too. The Earth has been much warmer than it is now, several times in the past, and yet, there are still polar bears…
C’mon, Sammy. Let’s not take any chance that carbon will naturally occur in the environment with any other element like, oh, say, oxygen. Best we act now and eliminate all carbon just to be prudent!
Be a good little Gaia licker and eliminate all carbon from your life. Auto-erotic asphyxiation comes to mind in your case. You down with that? Good, now get on with it…for Gaia.
Oh snap! Touche! Bam!
Except for the footnote [2] you chose to ignore:
[2] ^ Peterson, Thomas & Connolley, William & Fleck, John (September 2008). The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus. American Meteorological Society. http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1520-0477/89/9/pdf/i1520-0477-89-9-1325.pdf.
I too avoid buying organic food.
Good on ya! Mind you, that inorganic food can be a bit…chewy.
C’mon, Sammy. Let’s not take any chance that carbon will naturally occur in the environment with any other element like, oh, say, oxygen. Best we act now and eliminate all carbon just to be prudent!
Be a good little Gaia licker and eliminate all carbon from your life. Auto-erotic asphyxiation comes to mind in your case. You down with that? Good, now get on with it…for Gaia.
What was it that thor said? Oh yeah: What a delirious garment staining dump of stupid. How’d you ever learn to fuck?
I always like to say “Ok, I’ll take for granted that we’re heating up the Earth, can you please tell me how that’s a bad thing?â€
Now we’re getting somewhere. That’s where I’d agree we’re extrapolating beyond our ability to have any confidence. I think the closest you could get is: This climate seems to work. A different climate may work better, or worse.
JD,
This may help. Or it may make your eyes bleed also.
From what I have read the Episcopal version was to be made the same the same as the Orthodox version in 1978, 1988, but was rescinded in 1998 and 2008.
From Wiki,
So, the IPCC was not credible before it was credible?
Funny business bear.
glad you could make it. sorta. Thing is, if we don’t know one way or the other, why go broke trying to not find out?
Geoff – Between you and Bob, my eyes are going to bleed for days. I am going to call my priest and whatevs they call the guy at the Episcopal Church.
How does your positive runaway feedback factor into all that, Sammy?
Between the Roman Catholic and Episcopal Churches I have not a dog in the fight. We attend Eastern Orthodox, you upstarts. :-)
You know what kind of works for me now? A world that is not dominated by a Chinese Superpower.
What has the most predictive value, in what order? Simple question.
I don’t know if this answers your question, but I’d take runaway warming over runaway cooling (there’s evidence for both). But again, where it’s at now is known to work well for homosapiens.
Just wait till you see what Government Motors has in the works for you!
This climate seems to work. A different climate may work better, or worse.
For whom? And why do you have to foist your climate on me? I like teh See-oh-too.
People in Ohio have ways of creating a different climate for themselves. It’s called “moving to where it’s not so fucking cold half the year”.
eh heh, office “overhearsion”:
you want to save elephants? let people eat them! cows and chickens aren’t endangered.
This would amount the the climate version of “one vote, one time” in politics. Venus is an example but not Earth which has not experienced a “positive runaway feedback” since the reducing atmosphere was replaces by the oxidizing one we have to this day. That was a global catastrophe caused by living things.
…therefore, obeying the Precautionary Principle, we absolutely must see to it that the climate doesn’t change regardless of cost.
And what we must do to accomplish that is dismantle industrial civilization. This presumes that
1) It’s industrial civilization that causes the problem;
2) Dismantling industrial civilization will fix it.
Please note that unmistakeable signs of global warming are present on three other planets of the solar system (Mars, Jupiter and Pluto) and ambiguous indications of possible warming on three others (Saturn, Neptune, and Mercury). Note also that Mars gets roughly 40% of the sunlight that Earth does, but has sixteen times as much carbon dioxide — yet the warming detected there is much smaller than that of the Earth. If CO2 were a problem Mars would be a warm place.
Note also that plants in general are currently starved for CO2. One absolutely standard piece of equipment used by greenhouse operators is a CO2 generator, which brings the level of carbon dioxide up to the point where the plants can grow well.
Note also that the United States and Western Europe, taken together, are being surpassed by China and India in CO2 emissions. If the US and all its people and works were dumped in the Marianas Trench, CO2 emissions would still be such that the atmospheric levels would be rising.
There’s also the matter of “good faith”. There is exactly one source of energy that has a substantial profit fraction (energy produced minus energy in to provide it), and that’s fission nuclear. Yet the people most up in arms about, e.g., polar bears are also the ones who absolutely and vehemently reject any possibility of developing nuclear power.
Taken all together:
There is very slim and ambiguous evidence that human activity has any significant effect upon the levels of CO2;
There is very slim and ambiguous evidence that CO2 levels are even a leading indicator, much less a cause, of global warming;
There is a great deal of historical evidence indicating that global warming is, despite there being some losers, a generally good thing;
There is no evidence whatever that a complete abandonment of CO2 generation by Western countries would have any significant impact on CO2 levels, and much that China and India would quickly take up any slack;
There is no historical evidence of any of the apocalyptic ramifications of warming — the Antarctic Ice Shelf did not melt and inundate Bengladesh in the year 1000;
There is a great deal of seemingly deliberate obfuscation and a good bit of outright lying in the presentations of those committed to Anthropogenic Global Warming — note particularly the “hockey-stick” graph, which has been sufficiently massaged mathematically that the Medieval Warm Period (a.k.a. “Medieval Climactic Optimum”) is nowhere visible, and that the baseline temperature from which warming is determined is in the middle of an anomalous cold period.
Given all that, I don’t think even the Precautionary Principle calls for massive impoverishment of the Western industrial nations. But that’s what’s presented as the Only Possible Way to Prevent Global Warming.
Regards,
Ric
The coming implosion of Obama?
Dick Morris is known for making crazy predictions, but his logic on this seems pretty sound.
I think there’s examples on both planets. The question is, where does the climate run-away to? Venus (i think) eventually reached a state of equilibrium, just at a surface temperature that melts lead. The Earth shows evidence of positive and negative feedback as well, but none that continue indefinitely to the point where Earth couldn’t support human life.
I think if we suddenly burned all the fossil fuels, release all the permafrost methane, change ocean salinity enough to alter the course of global currents, etc, we might find the climate moving in a direction that would require significant migration for many millions, but I don’t think the Earth would be uninhabitable. I don’t think there’s evidence of that in, say, the last 600,000 years.
Those mad CO2 moleculez account for less than four tenths of one percent of the Earth’s atmosphere, yet they’re somehow precipitously raising the temperature of some half billion square kilometers of area on a ball massing 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms.
Water vapor? Nah.
Sammy, let me put this another way: what’s the principle factor in the earth’s climate, and to what degree does it overmaster every other consideration? You can consider all available information.
How about spinning on an axis?
Bravo, senor Locke. Bravo.
I support a world where Carin can grow coconuts in her Michigan garden.
“When you have no idea what the fuck you’re doing, the best thing to do is nothing at all”
Really. No kidding.
Well, I’m going to guess solar radiation that reaches the Earth, followed by the % of that solar radiation that’s reflected vs absorbed, followed by the Earth’s ability to radiate. Am I close?
Yeah, that’s pretty close. Now, what proportion of the earth’s “trapping” of heat that can be ascribed to anthropogenic CO2.
Strange but true. You could test it with a glass jar and a lightbulb. You don’t have to take the opacity of CO2 to I/R on faith, believe it or not, you can measure it!
There’s a meme (although I can’t attest to the accuracy) that if CO2 were purple, we’d all be scared shitless.
Well, Yea!
One wonders if Kofi Annan really, really cares about Global Climate Change. I think not. Kofi being a life long money grubbing bureaucrat is primarily concerned with grubbing money… for himself and his family and cronies. The UN’s involvement in declaring the need for “rich Western Nations” to significantly diminish their quality of lives in order to protect (i.e. “pay off”) third world countries presents yet another, albeit far larger than ever before, opportunity to skim billions for the hoi polloi of lucre skimmers.
The IPCC is a Ponzi scheme of vast potential for untold riches to those who will present themselves as the arbiters of protecting those islanders about to be swamped by the rising oceans (which aren’t rising) and those poor, drought stricken whoevers, wherever, who need someone like Gang Kofi to manage the alleviation of their climate change caused natural disasters.
The only real challenge is finding just the right country’s banking system to deposit the reasonable fees wrenched from the climate crisis. It pays to think of carbon credits as AK-47’s pointed at all of our heads held by people in Italian business suits who have committed to memory the password details of the various ultra low interest bank accounts.
Hands up!
At four-tenths of one percent.
Well, I’d be four-tenths of one percent scared shitless, anyway.
No idea. Some googleing tells me we’re at 387 ppm, and if I remember right, over the last 600,000 years it’s averaged about 100 ppm lower. Now what’s the direct heat trapping difference of 100ppm? I couldn’t tell you. My understanding is that it’s more of an indirect effect. Higher CO2 leads to slight warming, which reduces snow cover, which leads to slighly more warming, which leads to melting permafrost… nothing you haven’t heard before. But exactly how much the IR opacity of the atmosphere changes between 280-or-so ppm, and 380 or so, I couldn’t say.
ppm = Parts per Million
Oh and Water Vapor is over 100 times more reflective than CO2.
Ever been to LA? Ever notice the smog? How many 1/10ths of a percent change in the atmosphere do you think causes that?
But, you know, it doesn’t seem like much, therefor it can’t be.
Smog isn’t caused by excess levels of CO2.
I think JHo and BJT’s point is that 4/10s of 1% of anything can’t be all that significant. So my question remains, what % change in the atmosphere do you have to make to get LA smog?
Smog are actual dirt particulates in suspension, much like clouds…
As opposed to CO2, which is simply another gas in the mixture we call air…
Whether you believe it or not, we skeptics would be immensely relieved if there were a kitchen-table experiment that would answer all the questions. As it is, you’re pulling an Oprah on that one — tossing an I-beam in a trash fire and declaring that “fire can’t melt steel!”
Rubbish.
The opacity of CO2 to IR radiation is well known and easily measured. The opacity of water vapor is almost as easy to measure, given the setup you already have for the CO2 measurement. What you will find is that combining opacity and abundance, 95% of the “greenhouse effect” is caused by water vapor. All the rest of the gases amount to approximately 5% of the total. CO2 adds up to about three and a half percent, with the rest being methane and other trace gases. That’s why I brought up Mars. Mars has 40% of the sunlight and sixteen times the carbon dioxide. Why isn’t Mars warm?
Because it doesn’t have anything but carbon dioxide.
Now, water vapor is hard to model in a computer because it doesn’t stay vapor — it might be a liquid, and that liquid might be in bulk (oceans, lakes, rivers, etc.) or finely divided particles (clouds); it might be a solid, and that solid might be ice (Arctic, Antarctic, glaciers), snow (glaciers, polar snow cover, snow on mountains and elsewhere), or (again) finely divided particles (high clouds). Very small changes in conditions can and does shift the H2O from one form to the other in moments — and every form not only has a different effect on how much energy is absorbed or reflected, but a different effect depending on where it is at that moment.
The very best climate models have one, and only one, contribution from water accounted for: each cell in the model either has or doesn’t have cloud cover, assumed reflective, according to the historical record for that cell. The rest of the effects are ignored — more correctly, the rest of the effects are assumed to move in lockstep with CO2 concentration.
Again, bullshit. When I went out to feed critters this morning the sky was bell-clear. At the moment it’s 8/8 low cloudiness. Did the concentration of atmospheric CO2 change notably in that six-hour time frame? Not hardly. But the sky went from essentially zero reflectance to near-100% reflectance (in both directions).
But all of that is just support for inference. There are two measurements that the warmenists themselves declared to be crucial: upper troposphere temperature in the Tropics, and ocean warming. The first is important because of something you may have noticed yourself: in a greenhouse or plant-forcing frame, the glass gets warm too and, by analogy, the greenhouse gases should also get warm (this isn’t exactly correct, but it’ll do as a simplified version). The second is fairly obvious. Most of the heat on the planet is held in the oceans, and if the planet is warming the oceans must warm.
You can, if you like to dig deep enough, find the results of both measurements. The upper troposphere in the Tropics is not warming; it is staying the same or cooling somewhat. The oceans are not warming; they are staying the same or cooling somewhat. The latter measurements are easier to find: google “Argos buoys”. You can get to the data if you dig deep enough, but what you will find first is desperate handwaving trying to explain the data away.
And there has been one fairly crucial experiment done, although inadvertently. After 9/11/01, air traffic over much of North America was to all intents and purposes nil for three days. Some researchers looked up the temperatures during the period 9/12 – 9/15/01 and found a temperature increase — which led me to propose that the solution to Global Warming was to issue everybody on the planet a plane ticket to the other side of the planet, with the high-altitude contrails blocking the sunlight and cooling us all off. If you investigate, you will now find an extensive set of papers with suggestions, each more fantastic than the last, of why it is that high-altitude ice clouds, including contrails, contribute to warming and therefore air traffic should be shut down except for Brother Al’s Traveling Globe-Warming Show. When somebody tells you that the data means something entirely reversed from what it demonstrates, you should be very suspicious.
Regards,
Ric
That’s quite a stretch. Certainly things exist where a change of 4/10’s of 1% can be significant. But is CO2 one of those things, when we are talking about something as massive as Earth’s atmosphere? I don’t think anyone has ever proven any such thing.
Oh, and do please try to stay on the subject. Smog has nothing to do with the CO2 debate in any way.
Smog is the result of sunlight-driven chemical reactions upon unburned hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen. It is also an extremely localized phenomenon, because it doesn’t form below certain concentrations of the inputs; LA and other areas are unfortunate in that the wind doesn’t dissipate the gook and reduce the concentration enough to prevent smog formation. Treat the preceding as an hypothesis. We are now in the latter stages of a half-century experiment to test that hypothesis, and the preliminary results confirm it: catalytic reactors (to eliminate the unburned hydrocarbons) and careful control of the combustion process (to reduce NOx) does in fact reduce smog. It’s best not to overstate, though. Pre-automobile descriptions of the LA Basin all include “haze”, which is smog from natural causes, particularly the emissions from plants. (Yes, dear, plants emit unburned hydrocarbons and NOx. This is especially true of plants well-adapted to arid or semi-arid conditions).
Regards,
Ric
Again, on the smog, I was responding to JHo scoffing at the notion that 387ppm of anything could possibly have a detectable effect.
I pointed to smog as an example that far less that 387 ppm of certain chemicals in the atmosphere can have a highly apparent affect.
That’s all.
Sorry, the analogy doesn’t hold.
Smog results from chemical reactions with the usual exponential curve of reaction rate vs. concentration (at low concentrations). Heat trapping is a linear effect of concentration. The two situations aren’t at all comparable.
Regards,
Ric
Did you see what Ric did there, Sammy? He demonstrated that four-tenths of one percent of CO2 creates about 3.5 % of the greenhouse effect. That having been said CO2 forcing has been given the man’s helping of blame for perpetuating Global Climate change even though it only accounts for 3.5% of the greenhouse effect.
And let’s also try to remember that plants call CO2 “food.”
I say we cut down all of the trees.
BLT – Do you even know what you just said?
Let’s say the Earth radiates exactly as much heat as it absorbs. What does that mean for the Earth’s temperature? (hint – it’s called equilibrium) Now let’s say that the Earth radiates 1% less heat than it absorbs. Now what happens to temperature?
You meant that as a joke, right?
Feedback destroyed.
Better get working on a new rhetorical bandage otherwise our Global Warming religion is going tits up.
I thought that the point had been made previously that the Earth is not a closed system, due in no small measure to the fact that there is a giant, burning ball of gas around which the Earth maintains an orbit.
Alec – details … details …
Correct. Where do you think the heat comes from. However, if the Earth doesn’t radiate the same amount of heat it absorbs (from the Sun), then the Earth gets warmer and warmer.
JD, Alec, did either of you pay attention in high school physics?
Sammy, if the Sun radiates more, even if the earth radiates the same percentage, it gets warmer.
Good Allah, it is dense. Intentionally dense.
But remember, I dunno, I dunno, no way to know, but just in case, we should take steps to stop the possible outcomes, despite not knowing if those steps could be successful, and would wreck our economic system even more than Teh One is currently doing.
Sammy, the whole concept of more or less energy radiating from the sun seems to be something you are struggling wrapping your head around.
Think of these annoying glowing people as the sun’s energy out put.
Ding, Ding,Ding***
We have a winn-ah…
Our own Dan Collins delivers the coup-de-main, with his non-science background tied behind his back!!!
Dan, I’m proud of you…
What this grizzled ol’ ex-flyboy rocket-scientist couldn’t get across in volumes, you have summarized succinctly…
I guess I should have taken more technical writing classes…
Or, as perhaps the classical natural philosophers, I should have relied on logic instead of, you know, resorting to mathematics and scientific theory; the WMD’s of liberal arts majors everywhere…
Huzzah!
Dan,
I don’t want to be insulting, but maybe you should have gotten a J.D. also; ‘cuz bro’ you most certainly just delivered a eureka moment that ol’ Perry Mason would have been proud of…
*standing ovation*
Correct. You guys are in the “it’s all the sun” camp. Composition of the earths atmosphere has zero to do with it. Well, except for water, which is constant.
Well, on this one, time will tell.
Sammy,
You are correct. Time will tell. No one is saying composition is a zero factor, just that the Sun dominates the larger process; by at least an order of magnitude, if not several…
I blame Bush.
And Clinton, for not passing Kyoto.
Non. We’re all in the “probably not hairspray and cow farts so you have to live in mud huts and have no more than .3 kids” camp.
#152
I’d give my standard Boing 777 explanation, but I think it would be lost on Sammy.
As the number of variables approaches infinite the probability of an accurate assesment approaches zero. Sorry, sammy there just isn’t enough data to pin this on us humans.
I think some people just really dislike actual humans.
You’ve missed the fuller perspective, Sammy. The issue isn’t, for example, that I had the gall to suggest 4/10% CO2 wasn’t horribly, terribly hazardous, it’s that failing sufficient evidence that it is, you continue to argue on, missing the hard truth that gaming AGW hysteria is a sure way to control and power.
Which is more likely, Sammy, AGW or politicians abusing the illusion of AGW in order to dominate and profit by it?
See, one is conjecture (offset by a shitload of objective, contradictory evidence) and the other is human history. If you can’t weigh those two things fairly, you’ll probably remain on the wrong side of the issue.
Don’t get me started on Nitrogen.
It’s ironic that you would characterize our position in this way when, in fact, we are arguing the lack of scientific common sense that suggests that it’s all about the CO2!
I don’t have to be a science and math geek to appreciate the skepticism associated with 3.5% of the greenhouse effect being produced by one chemical being solely or mainly responsible for warming on a global scale even if it’s gone up 20%. I also might recognize that every ecological nightmare asserted or predicted over the past 50 years has always been linked to the burning of fossil fuels as the bad boy. It leaves one with the sense that the conclusion was generated by fervent wish and now the disparate facts are being molded and pounded like Silly Putty to meet the preordained narrative.
But you keep flogging those strawmen rather than seeing the attempt to understand rather than just accept on blind, heated faith.
AGW is a tyrant’s argument for why he should be given the whip. Those who believe in it never reasoned their way into that position, and nothing will ever lead them to reason their way out.
Yea, Rob. It’s as if the “We have to do something!” has permanently trumped the “Now, here’s the problem and here is what, definitely, has caused it.”
Thus barreling through the economies of the entire world (less China, Russia and India) like a Pamblona bull, goring industry left and right and, oh, by the way, redistributing money through the kindly gently hands of UN officials, both current and past, scratches the itch of the need-to-doers.
World economic and environmental policy by ideological impulse, I think.