Here in NYC, we already have gondolas, so were good to go. Commence "Global Warming" proceedure.
Posted on 02/01/2006 11:28:41 AM PST by presidio9
As used by the media, "global warming" refers to the theory not only that the earth is warming, but doing so because of human industrial activity.
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All we have is hypothesis.
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So how else might an intelligent layperson judge the matter?
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Well, he could begin by evaluating the claim that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from 0.028% to 0.036% without necessarily taking the measurements himself. This finding is so straightforward, it's reasonable to assume it would have been widely debunked if unreliable.
Next, the claim that this should lead to higher temperatures because of the heat-absorbing qualities of the CO2 molecule. A reasonable person might be tempted to take this finding on faith too, for a different reason: because even ardent believers in global warming accept that this fact alone wouldn't justify belief in manmade global warming.
That's because all things are not equal: The climate is a vast, complex and poorly understood system. Scientists must resort to elaborate computer models to address a multiplicity of variables and feedbacks before they can plausibly suggest (choice of verb is deliberate here) that the net effect of increased carbon dioxide is the observed increase in temperature.
By now, a diligent layperson is equipped to doubt any confident assertion that manmade warming is taking place. Models are not the climate, and may not accurately reflect the workings of the climate, especially when claiming to detect changes that are small and hard to differentiate from natural changes.
Nobody doubts, for instance, that when Bill Clinton asserts global warming is the greatest threat to mankind, he's consulting not the science but a purported "consensus" of scientists. A layman asks himself: What can "consensus" mean if it asserts a judgment nobody is equipped to confidently make?
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(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I read this on the way in to work this morning. It is one of a handful of pieces on this topic that was written by an adult.
A final thought that probably won't please the environmentalists: Whatever the truth of climate change turns out to be, today's vast investment in climate research will likely lead someday to technologies that really will allow us to alter local and global weather.
Hmmm ...
Before I start turning Pittsburgh into my tropical island paradise (average temperature year-round: 82degF) I might note that there are some people who actually like seasons, who actually think it's a brainy scheme to have this "winter" we are suffering through.
Now, I don't understand them, and they don't understand me, but I can't help but wonder how the politics of that would work. If nothing else, "winter" costs millions (if not billions) of dollars a year and more people die from the cold than died in Hurricane Katrina, a once a decade plus event.
My business partner and I have noted that it's been a record mild winter so far here, and of course we wonder if it's an example of "global warming". But then we remember that last time we looked, the "global warming" people were looking forward to a new ice age to prove their theories.
So, if you could change the climate in your area, what would you do? What do you think politicians should do? I suppose in theory there's a market for eternal summer and one for eternal winter (for ski buffs).
And what would happen to house prices in Florida if you could have Florida weather nationwide?
(I have pinged some friends who I think might have interesting observations/ideas).
Thoughts?
D
George Bush's lack of an environmental policy is causing the current the global warming crisis. It also caused the much more severe global warming that occurred 13,000 years ago, ending the ice age.
Bush LIED! Mammoths DIED!
Here in NYC, we already have gondolas, so were good to go. Commence "Global Warming" proceedure.
Global Warming is an ideology, not a scientific theory. Please freepmail the rest of the article, thanks.
BUMP!
Its not even that! Its a steaming pile of Nonsense!
I cannot read the entire article because I am a skinflint.
The one thing that bothers me about "Global Warming" is that all of the apocalyptic scenarios all presume that the Carbon Cycle is fundamentally unstable.
If this were really the case, we wouldn't be here to agonize over it.
The models are, in fact, unstable because they have been chosen to be such, by eliminating any negative feedback, that I say, must exist.
For example:
Warmer temperatures means more water vapor which means more clouds which means more solar reflection.
Or more CO2 + longer growing season means more plants which means more CO2 sequestration.
These two figures show former temperatures with major periods of glaciation labeled. The dashed lines are the present global average temperature of about 15° C (59° F). Thus the solid curves show small changes from this average; note that the temperature drops only about 5° C during a glaciation. This has occurred about every 100,000 years, with smaller wiggles in between. That is, there has been a 100,000 year glaciation cycle for the past million years or so, and there may be shorter cycles as well.
The most recent glaciation, 20,000 years ago, is called the Laurentide, and Earth is still recovering from it. This map from the The Illinois State Museum exhibit on ice ages shows the extent of that ice.
The most recent small drop in average temperature caused the Little Ice Age of 1500-1700 AD, which history describes. Mountain glaciers advanced in Europe and rivers like the Thames in England froze solid, which doesn't happen now.
Three paragraphs from the full feature:
"The key points of the paper are that: i) model simulations with 20th century forcings are able to match the surface air temperature record, ii) they also match the measured changes of ocean heat content over the last decade, iii) the implied planetary imbalance (the amount of excess energy the Earth is currently absorbing) which is roughly equal to the ocean heat uptake, is significant and growing, and iv) this implies both that there is significant heating "in the pipeline", and that there is an important lag in the climate's full response to changes in the forcing."
2. "What does this imply? Firstly, as surface temperatures and the ocean heat content are rising together, it almost certainly rules out intrinsic variability of the climate system as a major cause for the recent warming (since internal climate changes (ENSO, thermohaline variability, etc.) are related to transfers of heat around the system, atmospheric warming would only occur with energy from somewhere else (i.e. the ocean) which would then need to be cooling)."
3. "Secondly, since the ocean warming is shown to be consistent with the land surface changes, this helps validate the surface temperature record, which is then unlikely to be purely an artifact of urban biases etc. Thirdly, since the current unrealised warming "in the pipeline" is related to the net imbalance, 0.85+/-0.15 W/m2 implies an further warming of around 0.5-0.7 C, regardless of future emission increases. This implications are similar to the conclusions discussed recently by Wigely and Meehl et al.. Many different models have now demonstrated that our understanding of current forcings, long-term observations of the land surface and ocean temperature changes and the canonical estimates of climate forcing are all consistent within the uncertainties. Thus since we are reasonably confident in what has happened in the recent past, projections of these same models under plausible future scenarios need to be considered seriously."
for years now, I've waiting for you to post your own thoughts to one of these threads, rather than someone else's. Is it ever going to happen?
ping
BUMP!
Lessee now---do those "models" account for all the methane it has recently been discovered that plants emit, or the additional CO2 vented into the ocean and atmosphere by the new chain of subsea volcanos just discovered under the arctic ocean?? Do those models factor in WATER VAPOR and CLOUDS??
"Aliens Cause Global Warming."
Excellent article. I read Crichtons "State of Fear." Great book and a sharp stick in the eye of the environmental whackos.
Global warming research is also a multi-billion dollar business.
The researchers have house payments, car payments, boat payments. Compassionate conservatives wouldn't throw these researchers out in the cold would they?
(/sarcasm)
Which of my thoughts do you want me to post? I don't mean that flippantly; when a skeptical viewpoint on the global warming/climate change issue is posted (which is what you did, unless you wrote the WSJ opinion) I feel it is necessary to provide the current "mainstream" scientific understanding of the issue. My "thoughts", minimal as they may be, tend to credit the knowledge of the majority of scientific community on the global warming/climate change issue as accurate. Therefore, I am of the opinion that what I posted is a reasonably accurate scientific representation of this issue, and is relevant to a balanced consideration of it.
My thoughts as a scientifically-literate layman are less relevant than those of the experts, I would think.
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