Posted on 04/06/2015 7:06:21 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In 2005, I changed my mind about climate change: I concluded that the balance of the scientific evidence showed that man-made global warming could likely pose a significant problem for humanity by the end of this century. My new assessment did not please a number of my friends, some of whom made their disappointment clear.
At the 2007 annual gala dinner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a D.C.-based free-market think tank, the master of ceremonies was former National Review editor John O'Sullivan. To entertain the crowd, O'Sullivan put together a counterfeit tale in which I ostensibly had given a lecture on environmental trends pointing out that most were positive. After my talk, O'Sullivan told the audience, a young woman supposedly approached me to express her displeasure with regard to my change of mind on climate change.
Continuing his fable, O'Sullivan recounted to the hundreds of diners that I had tried to explain why my views had shifted. Eventually realizing that the young woman was having none of it, I then purportedly asked her if it wasn't enough that we two actually agreed on most environmental policy issues. The young woman paused for a moment, said O'Sullivan, and then retorted, "I suppose that Pontius Pilate made some good decisions, too." Being compared, even in jest, to the Roman governor who consented to the crucifixion of Jesus is, to say the least, somewhat disconcerting.
Welcome to the most politicized science of our time.
So what evidence would convince you that man-made climate change is possibly real? Keep in mind that despite what progressive dimwits like Naomi Klein might assert, the scientific evidence does not mandate any particular program.
What about higher temperatures? Obviously, in order for there to be any man-made global warming, temperatures must be going up. Are they? Yes.
Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have increased from 280 parts per million in the late 18th century to around 400 ppm today. And the trend in average global surface temperatures has been increasing since the late 19th century. As I've reported before, all of the global temperature datasets, both the instrumental and satellite, find that the atmosphere has warmed since the 1950s.
By how much? Summed over the past 35 years—that is, since the advent of satellite monitoring—temperatures have increased by at most 0.56 C° (1 F°) and at least by 0.455 C° (0.8 F°). In general, the instrumental records suggest that surface temperatures have warmed on average by about +0.9 C° (1.6 F°) since the 1950s.
Let's look at the near-term trends. The average rate of increase since 1979 varies among the temperature datasets from a high of +0.16 C° to a low of +0.13 C° per decade. The rate of surface temperature increase dramatically slowed after 1998 to rate of around +0.05 C° per decade. Of course, correlation does not imply causation, but how sure can you be that the rise in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases just happens to coincide with an entirely natural increase in average temperatures? Conversely, how sure can you be that a natural decline in average temperatures is not temporarily countering a trend toward to higher temperatures caused by accumulating greenhouse gases? Explanations based on natural variability work both ways. I will address the recent “hiatus” in temperature trends below.
What about converging daytime and nighttime temperatures?
Climatologists predicted that man-made warming would produce a decrease in the differences between low nighttime temperatures and high daytime temperatures. And indeed, a decrease between day and night temperatures has been occurring in the United States, China, Spain, and other regions. This phenomenon is global, although more recently daytime and nighttime temperatures have been increasing at about the same rate. Along with the observed increases in average temperature, heat waves have become more common since the 1950s.
What about earlier spring and later fall seasons?
Many studies find that the onset of spring is occurring earlier than it did decades ago. A 2015 study reports that the advent of spring in the Northern Hemisphere occurs about 4 days earlier than in 1980. A 2006 European study found that spring is arriving about 3 days earlier, and a 2014 study reported that the growing season in the Northern Hemisphere is expanding.
Part of the reason that spring is advancing is that the extent of snow cover in March and April in the Northern Hemisphere has been falling. As a 2011 study in the journal Cryosphere reports, "The rate of decrease in March and April Northern Hemisphere (NH) Snow Cover Extent (SCE) over the 1970–2010 period is ~0.8 million km2 per decade corresponding to a 7% and 11% decrease in NH March and April SCE respectively from pre-1970 values." The decline in snow cover is broadly in line with climate model predictions.
What about disappearing glaciers and Arctic sea ice?
The Arctic-wide melt season has lengthened at a rate of 5 days per decade from 1979 to 2013, according to a 2014 study in Geophysical Research Letters. A 2014 review article looks at what satellite data are telling us about recent climate trends in the Arctic. Temperatures are rising at 0.6°C per decade, about 4 times the global average. Sea ice extent has been falling at 3.8 percent per decade, and spring snow cover is dropping by 2.1 percent per decade. The Greenland ice sheet has been losing mass at a rate of 34 gigatons per year, though that has increased sevenfold since 2002 to an estimated 215 gigatons per year.
Ice is not melting only in the Arctic. Most of the world's 130,000 mountain glaciers are also disappearing.
The growing extent of sea ice in the Antarctic over the past decades is a climate change conundrum. On the face of it, more sea ice would indicate cooling rather than warming. Researchers are still trying to figure out what is going on. One idea is that warmer waters are melting the bases of freshwater Antarctic ice shelves. The fresh water then cools the sea surface thus promoting the freezing of more sea ice. When climate researchers don't understand what is going on they often attribute the empirical trends to "internal variability."
As temperatures increase by 1 degree Celsius, global average water vapor in the atmosphere is estimated to increase by around 7 percent. It is difficult to determine the average global humidity. But a 2005 study parsing satellite data finds that the atmosphere did moisten, as predicted, between 1982 and 2004. A 2014 study confirmed the finding and suggests that the increase is mostly the result of man-made warming.
Increased atmospheric humidity suggests that precipitation should also increase. The data show that this is happening. A 2013 study that analyzed data from nearly 9,000 weather stations from around the globe found increases in annual maximum daily precipitation at nearly two-thirds of the stations since 1900. (Climate change does not appear to be exacerbating hurricanes, tornadoes, or droughts.)
What about warming oceans?
Does the recent 17-year hiatus in rising global temperatures cut strongly against the notion of man-made global warming? The pause certainly was not predicted by the computer climate models. As the researchers at the private consultancy Remote Sensing Systems have noted, "The troposphere has not [their emphasis] warmed as fast as almost all climate models predict." University of Alabama in Huntsville climatologist John Christy compared 102 climate model predictions with actual temperature data and found that "their response to CO2 on average is 2 to 5 times greater than reality." Pretty damning.
Other researchers have reluctantly come to acknowledge that there has been a slowdown in surface temperatures. But while surface temperatures may be on pause, they are convinced that "global heating" is not. Lots of researchers have been reporting that for the past couple of decades, 90 percent of the extra heat from greenhouse warming has been sequestered in the oceans. In February, Nature Climate Change asserted that planetary warming continues "unabated," with most of the excess heat being absorbed by the top 2,000 meters of the oceans. Just how and where the heat gets buried in the oceans remains controversial.
Last year an intriguing study in Science suggested that natural variability in the North Atlantic can keep transporting heat downward into the deep ocean for periods lasting 20 to 35 years. Those researchers propose that "the latter part of the 20th century saw rapid global warming as more heat stayed near the surface. In the 21st century, surface warming slowed as more heat moved into deeper oceans."
How about some falsifiable predictions?
Another February 2015 article in Nature Climate Change makes the bold prediction that the current hiatus will likely last only until the end of this decade. Around 2020, the authors suggest, the oceans will start to release the stored heat and surface temperatures will begin to rise rapidly. An even more alarming (alarmist?) article in the April 2015 Nature Climate Change asserts that the rate global average temperature increases will rise to 0.25°C per decade by 2020, "an average greater than the peak rates of change during the previous one to two millennia."
The future course of man-made warming depends on climate sensitivity, conventionally measured as how high average temperature would eventually increase if atmospheric carbon dioxide were doubled. In recent years, there has have a lot of back and forth between researchers trying to refine their estimates of climate sensitivity. At the low end, some researchers think that temperatures would increase a comparatively trivial 1.5 degrees Celsius; on the high end, some worry it could go as high as high 6 degrees Celsius. The uncertainty over this variable is largely why I think that future warming could become a signficant problem. In a 2014 article in Geophysical Research Letters, a group of researchers calculated that it would take another 20 years of temperature observations for us to be confident that climate sensitivity is on the low end and more than 50 years of data to confirm the high end of the projections. How lucky do you feel?
In his magisterial 1960 essay "Why I Am Not A Conservative," economist Friedrich Hayek observed:
Personally, I find that the most objectionable feature of the conservative attitude is its propensity to reject well-substantiated new knowledge because it dislikes some of the consequences which seem to follow from it—or, to put it bluntly, its obscurantism. I will not deny that scientists as much as others are given to fads and fashions and that we have much reason to be cautious in accepting the conclusions that they draw from their latest theories. But the reasons for our reluctance must be rational and must be kept separate from our regret that the new theories upset our cherished beliefs.
What Evidence Would Persuade You That Man-Made Climate Change Is Real?
It might be that it is just so happens that natural climate variability has boosted global temperatures and the trends discussed above are occurring coincidentally at the same time the concentrations of carbon dioxide are 30 percent above their highest levels in the past 800,000 years. Correlation does not imply causation. The data cited (and uncited) do not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that man-made climate change is real. However, in my best judgment the preponderance of the evidence suggests that the greenhouse gases produced by humanity are warming the climate and that it could be a significant issue later in this century. In the foregoing I have aimed to cite data, not model outputs. I have long been a critic of computer climate models.
To restate: The existence of man-made warming does not mandate any particular policies. So back to the headline question: If generally rising temperatures, decreasing diurnal temperature differences, melting glacial and sea ice, smaller snow extent, stronger rainstorms, and warming oceans are not enough to persuade you that man-made climate is occurring, what evidence would be?
How about models that actually predict reality. You know, what we used to call science?
We have man made climate change. Its called chemtrails. Where we live they spray every sunny day all day. You can watch they criss crossing each other. They do everything but loopdy loops.
Try to remember back when you were younger. Remember when it would rain for a day or two and then maybe not rain for a week or even two weeks? Or depending on the time of year it might rain for two weeks. No more. Now its two or three days of sunshine and then two or more days of rain. Then two or three days of sunshine and a couple of days of rain. That’s abnormal. My belief is that they have screwed the weather patterns up so badly that now they have to spray or it will never rain. Its likely the reason California has no water.
Saturday there was a GA power crew working on the poles in our neighborhood. Mr. GG2 was walking the dog and he stopped to chat. These guys were up from South GA on a temporary project. As they were chatting one of the power guys looked up and remarked “well they are spraying the crap out of us today” Mr. GG2 was shocked. The guy said “oh yeh we watch the sky all the time and they spray really heavy in South GA.”
So for any of you who think that’s just jets flying around up there at low altitudes coming and going aimlessly. Wake up.
Easy enough”
Here is a simple way to overload the warmunists “reported” thought process.
1. Define the “correct” temperature range for the planet.
2. Define the “correct” humidity range for the planet.
3. Define the “correct” mean sea level for the planet’
4. Define the “correct” amount of precipitation for the planet.
5. Define the “correct” makeup of the atmosphere.
6. Define the “correct” amount of sea ice at the N/S poles.
7. Define/explain past glaciation and subsequent warming without any input from humans.
I’m sure many more “easily” answered questions could be added but these are pretty basic.
How about somebody who does not rely on government tax dollars for their survival and to pay their “smart phone” bills to prove to us that it is man made.
Hmm. Remove one word and you can't tell if it's a Liberal talking about Global Warming "Deniers" or a Christian talking about Atheists.
The fluctuation of the suns total irradiance has only a weak relationship(which is NOT none, but rather a sign that it is overwhelmed by other effects)....however the general activity of the sun, which is an exibition of its magnetosphere, is pretty strongly correlated. This means that as the sun’s magnetosphere allows more cosmic rays in, more clouds are formed, which raises the albedo.
“I concluded that the balance of the scientific evidence showed that man-made global warming could likely pose a significant problem for humanity by the end of this century.”
Evidence? Fool! I’ve seen evidence of fraud.
In 1972 David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski presented to the Bilderberg meeting a proposal to institute a technocratic global agenda through an org to be called the Trilateral Commission. This thinly disguised rephrasing of the 1930s Technocracy movement needed a hook to hang the lie upon, and Al Gore was just the stupid enough big name to use for the agenda.
That Science has been prostituted to support such a great lie should not surprise anyone, since the oligarchy will use any means, tell any lie, in order to achieve their goals, namely one world government in a totalitarian form that has the oligarchs atop the pyramid ruling the little people.
Anyone desiring to read more about the Technocracy movement and the subsequent technocratic age of Brzezinski can find the data in Patrick Wood's works on the Trilateral Commission.
By far, the most important lack of credibility for the MMGW *theory* is a simple and standard, scientific measure.
It is called a “negative case”.
For example, if you wish to test the scientific theory of gravity by holding a ball above the ground and releasing it, even if you expect it to fall, you still need to provide a negative case, “If I drop it and it does *not* fall, gravity is not acting on it, for some reason.”
That is a negative case.
But in the case of MMGW, even non-scientifically trained people smell a big rat, when the proponents of the MMGW *theory* are all over the map with their proof, and absolutely *refuse* to provide a negative case.
That is, what happens if there *isn’t* MMGW?
So far, they have attributed hot weather to MMGW, cold weather to MMGW, normal temperature to MMGW, both storms and stillness to MMGW, receding and growing ice caps, etc., etc.
They also have a BAD problem with “circular logic”, such as “The proof of MMGW is unicorns, and because there are unicorns it proves MMGW.”
And when it is pointed out that there are no unicorns, you guessed it, they say it is because of MMGW.
So really, when you talk to a *proponent* of MMGW, before they can preach to you, *demand* a reasonable negative case.
They may first try bad circular logic on you, such as saying something like “The negative case of MMGW is that there is not MMGW”, which is nonsense.
Next they will try and assert that the negative case of MMGW would be if the percent of CO2 in the atmosphere would be declining. Again, this proves nothing, because fluctuations of the trace amount of human produced CO2, which is a fraction of the natural trace amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, has not been demonstrated to do *anything*, much less muscle around the Earth’s climate.
That is like insisting that a bacteria on a flea controls the flea, and the flea controls the elephant on which it rests, therefore a bacteria controls the elephant. A very, very hard theory to prove.
Your views are beyond heretical. They are hierarchical, euro-centric, patriarchal, hegemonic, gender-normative, imperial, colonial, and yes, racist. What you call "Science" is just a bunch'o'stuff that was invented by dead white men to keep our people down. Data? What difference do they make?
Papa Bear, you will never drink the Kool-Aid or eat the porridge in this community again!
Better questions: What evidence would ever convince a liberal that man-made climate change is not real? None. They are stupid and are told what to think.
The quote from Hayek just shows what we know. These leftists are elitist know-it-all’s, and because we don’t believe their horse manure, we are luddites.
Pathetic,and no evidence to boot.
What would convince me?
The development of a single model that can predict current warming (or pause) and explain past climate variation; based upon anthropogenic variables.
Years ago, when the idea of ‘carbon credits’ was being expounded, any discerning person would/could realize the entire program was to allow some people to make a lot of money, either by promoting or buying ‘carbon credits’. The credits were merely exchanges to keep the pollution controversy alive and lucrative for some people.
Yet amazingly this same phenomenon doesn't occur in the Arctic.
To the global Warming proponents I guess physics work differently in whatever hemisphere you are in.
When climate researchers don't understand what is going on they often attribute the empirical trends to "internal variability."
How convenient.
These are two (of many) examples of why I can't believe in MMGW,
That is in "Real" science you first gather data and from that data you develop a hypothesis, in fake science like Global Warming you first develop a hypothesis and then gather data and then make whatever $[-]/+ up you need in order to make the data fit the hypothesis
“When I switched last fall to low carb, higher fat, I lost 25 lbs in 2 months, and have lost another 5-6 lbs over the last 4 months”
What are examples of low carb, higher fat diets?
Let’s just assume for a moment that man-made climate change is real.
So what? Climate has always changed, we adapt.
So, What Evidence Would Persuade You That Man-Made Climate Change Is Real?
When man solves world peace knows how to feed everyone and have no hunger, cures cancer and all other illness etc.
When man becomes powerful enough to do that stuff then he may be powerful enough to change what the universe does to the climate.
When the warmers stop using it to push bigger government and less reliable "green energy" and when they instead push for more nuclear energy.
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