I need help with research on global warming

[cantfindagoodscreenname]

My son has to take a position on global warming (believe it's real or not?) for a paper he's writing in a robotics class. He's working with three other high school students and has to make a presentation on Friday. Does anyone here have any good sources of info on the Internet for this? I'd like to find information that is from "respectable" (according to the libs) sources. Somehow, I think that if my son quotes Rush Limbaugh, he won't be believed, lol.

Thanks!

[BJungNan]

Here is my take on it.

The Earth has been here many millions of years. We have been studying its atmosphere with any modern sophistication for the last 30 or so years.

To say we understand atmospheric dynamics and conclude there is such a thing as global warming in our short study of it would be like saying you know someone intimately at the first shake of their hand when meeting them for the first time.

The Earth and the stars go through many cycles with some cycles lasting hundreds even thousands of years. If everything else in the world operates on such a wide cycle, why are we so quick to conclude that the warming some scientists detect over the last 30 years is not part of routine cycle.

You can quote me on that.

[Incorrigible]

http://www.junkscience.com

[Ramius]

So there is a school that is teaching that global climate should somehow be expected to remain constant except for the inputs of man?

One thing is certain, regarding climate: it will change. The ONE thing it will not do, is remain the same. If mankind wished to do anything about it one way or the other... could we control it if we wanted to?

Interesting question.

[aquila48]

Here's a very recent study attributing it to increased sun activity:

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1013226/posts

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=000CB4E1-111E-1C5E-B882809EC588ED9F

An Orbital Anomaly Once Chilled Earth

Earth meanders a bit in her slow walk around the sun, and scientists report in today's issue of Science that a particularly unusual orbit our planet took about 23 million years ago may have caused a sudden dip in global temperatures. To reach this conclusion, they considered three recurring orbital variations known as Milankovitch cycles. The first 100,000-year cycle involves eccentricity, or variations in the shape of Earth's orbit from a near perfect circle to an ellipse and back. The second cycle describes obliquity, or changes in the tilt of Earth's axis, which varies between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees over 41,000 years. The third cycle tracks precession, or slight wobbles in Earth's axis that repeat every 21,000 years.
"What we found at 23 million years ago is a rare congruence of a low point in Earth's eccentricity and a period of minimal variation in obliquity," James Zachos, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz and lead author of the paper, explains. In other words, the earth's orbit was almost circular and, at the same time, its axis tilted less, leading to fewer seasonal variations and less extreme weather conditions for a period of about 200,000 years.

The researchers suggest that such conditions would have made a difference of several degrees in summer temperatures at the poles—enough, they think, to have allowed the Antarctic ice sheet to expand. They looked to sediment cores from the ocean floor for a detailed climate record, and found a correlation between climatic changes and the Milankovitch cycles. "I'm not sure everyone will be convinced that the orbital anomaly alone is responsible," Zachos says, "but the congruence of those orbital cycles is a very rare event, and the fact that it exactly corresponds with this rare climatic event is compelling." --Harald Franzen

[wizardoz]

Typical call. "Please show me some liberal sites". And people wonder what is wrong with the school system.

Huh?!

[MainFrame65]

Don't ignore the fact that this is actually multiple issues, not just one. Whether global warming is or is not occurring is only one of the important issues. Another issue is the question of cause, if it actually is occurring. Our once comfortable assumption that the heat output from the sun is constant to a high degree is no longer so automatic. And the assumptions about greenhouse gases being responsible for all of it is clearly incomplete. Both methane (from digestion) and water vapor are FAR more potent greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide.

Finally, could we do anything to counter whatever warming might be occurring? This would be very difficult - probably impossible - if it is not directly related to something we can control directly.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

Somehow, I think that if my son quotes Rush Limbaugh, he won't be believed, lol.

As much as I think Rush has brilliant political insights, he is horrible with numbers and science.

You've already gotten most of the good sites, although I didn't see SEPP listed. Also, you might pay attention to this thread and my post #5.

One suggestion: make sure your son presents his results/ideas in a mild manner. If he goes in there saying that "Global Warming is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on a sentient species," which it is, he's going to get an even worse grade.

[speekinout]

I'm going to second the recommendation for the "Skeptical Environmentalist" by Lomborg.
It's a good refutation of the Environmental Warming scam, and it also shows how "junk science" can mislead people.

[knighthawk]

http://www.nationalpost.com/search/story.asp?id=06C603EF-5B3F-49CF-ACAC-50D9F895E7DE

[cantfindagoodscreenname]

Typical call. "Please show me some liberal sites". And people wonder what is wrong with the school system.

That's not what I meant. I was referring to original source material of a true scientific nature and not op-ed stuff.

[cantfindagoodscreenname]

I want to thank you and everyone else who helped my son out on this thread. Is there a way to ping everyone without copying and pasting everyone's names into the To: box?

[cantfindagoodscreenname]

Perhaps someone can explain why global warming would be relevant to the design of robots for Arctic exploration, unless one expects it to be so significant by the time the robots are completed that the robots' requirements could be eased.

My husband is fit to be tied over this. We're PAYING to have our son indoctrinated? Well, he's actually more upset about the fact that there are thousands of unsuspecting kids coming through this program who *will* be affected by this propaganda. My son isn't in any danger of becoming a member of the Green Party, lol.

[cantfindagoodscreenname]

Thanks, everyone! I appreciate your help. I don't know how to ping everyone without it taking a half an hour, so I'm hoping you came back here to check.

Candi

[cantfindagoodscreenname]

Click on the keywords and you will have more articles from more sources.

I have been on Free Republic for five years now and do you know that I never knew that I could do that? I typed "global warming" into the search engine, but I'm sure that doing it this way will bring more articles up.

I have a feeling there are many more things about this site that I don't know.

Thanks for the tip!

[cantfindagoodscreenname]

One suggestion: make sure your son presents his results/ideas in a mild manner. If he goes in there saying that "Global Warming is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on a sentient species," which it is, he's going to get an even worse grade.

LOL!

Actually, I had an idea this morning that would be pretty funny, but I'm not sure if my point is valid. If I'm correct, one of the reasons that global warming can't be proved is that we haven't been taking measurements long enough to establish a trend. So, to make the point, I thought he could (with a Power Point presentation) take a graph of the Dow Jone Industrial average and start off showing the portion of the graph that shows the short recession we had just before George H.W. Bush's reelection campaign. He could "prove" that the economy was on the decline and was also the "worst economy in the last bazillion years." Then he could zoom out and show it for what it really was. He could show the steady incline from the eighties and then point out how it started tanking while Clinton was in office. All this would be to make the point that you can't look at a small sample and establish trends.

Of course, this is probably not the best way to make the point, but it sure would be fun.

[StriperSniper]

Post #9(the link opens there) of this thread has some good links and the thread as a whole has lots more:

The Biggest LIE:Global Warming as the Great Reds' Green Hoax

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

That's a really great idea.