Posted on 07/02/2006 8:35:11 AM PDT by maine-iac7
Editor's note: Global warming is unlikely to be a dangerous future problem, with or without the implementation of such programs as the Kyoto Protocol, according to Dr. Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...alarmist media claims to the contrary are fueled more by politics than by science...
The global mean temperature is never constant, and it has no choice but to increase or decrease--both of which it does on all known time scales. That this quantity has increased about 0.6ºC (or about 1ºF) over the past century is likely. A relevant question is whether this is anything to be concerned about....
It doesn't even matter whether recent global mean temperatures are "record breakers" or even whether current temperatures are "unprecedented." All that matters is that the change over the past century has been small....
Kyoto, itself, will have no discernable impact on global warming regardless of what one believes about climate change...
The scientific community is committed to the maintenance of the notion that alarm may be warranted. Alarm is felt to be essential to the maintenance of funding. The argument is no longer over whether the models are correct (they are not), but rather whether their results are at all possible. One can rarely prove something to be impossible...
The main victims of any proactive policies are likely to be consumers, and they have little concentrated influence. As usual, they have long been co-opted by organizations like Consumers Union that now actively support Kyoto.
(Excerpt) Read more at heartland.org ...
The original assertion, which dirtboy stated, but which has been said similarly many times, was "The Hockey Stick was put forth to show that the Little Ice Age and Medival Warm Period did not exist."
Such a statement implies a recognizable intention to achieve this as an objective. I would like to see a statement indicating that the "elimination" of the LIA and the MWP was an intention/objective of the climate science community.
For the record, here's what the IPCC Third Assessment Report said about the Medieval Warm Period. They do quote Mann et al.; but they quote other sources as well. It should be noted that one of the NAS Panel's conclusions was that the proxy data is too sparse to make any truly meaningful comparisons between climate more than 400 years ago and now -- so though it's clear that both a little proxy data and a lot of anecdotal data (like farms in Greenland) indicate it was warm back then, it still can't be said definitively that "now" is warmer than "then", or vice versa.
IPCC: "As with the “Little Ice Age”, the posited “Medieval Warm Period” appears to have been less distinct, more moderate in amplitude, and somewhat different in timing at the hemispheric scale than is typically inferred for the conventionally-defined European epoch. The Northern Hemisphere mean temperature estimates of Jones et al. (1998), Mann et al. (1999), and Crowley and Lowery (2000) show temperatures from the 11th to 14th centuries to be about 0.2°C warmer than those from the 15th to 19th centuries, but rather below mid-20th century temperatures. The long-term hemispheric trend is best described as a modest and irregular cooling from AD 1000 to around 1850 to 1900, followed by an abrupt 20th century warming. Regional evidence is, however, quite variable. Crowley and Lowery (2000) show that western Greenland exhibited anomalous warmth locally only around AD 1000 (and to a lesser extent, around AD 1400), with quite cold conditions during the latter part of the 11th century, while Scandinavian summer temperatures appeared relatively warm only during the 11th and early 12th centuries. Crowley and Lowery (2000) find no evidence for warmth in the tropics. Regional evidence for medieval warmth elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere is so variable that eastern, yet not western, China appears to have been warm by 20th century standards from the 9th to 13th centuries. The 12th and 14th centuries appear to have been mainly cold in China (Wang et al., 1998a,b; Wang and Gong, 2000). The restricted evidence from the Southern Hemisphere, e.g., the Tasmanian tree-ring temperature reconstruction of Cook et al. (1999), shows no evidence for a distinct Medieval Warm Period.
"Medieval warmth appears, in large part, to have been restricted to areas in and neighbouring the North Atlantic. This may implicate the role of ocean circulation-related climate variability. The Bermuda rise sediment record of Keigwin (1996) suggests warm medieval conditions and cold 17th to 19th century conditions in the Sargasso Sea of the tropical North Atlantic. A sediment record just south of Newfoundland (Keigwin and Pickart, 1999), in contrast, indicates cold medieval and warm 16th to 19th century upper ocean temperatures. Keigwin and Pickart (1999) suggest that these temperature contrasts were associated with changes in ocean currents in the North Atlantic. They argue that the “Little Ice Age” and “Medieval Warm Period” in the Atlantic region may in large measure reflect century-scale changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation (see Section 2.6). Such regional changes in oceanic and atmospheric processes, which are also relevant to the natural variability of the climate on millennial and longer time-scales (see Section 2.4.2), are greatly diminished or absent in their influence on hemispheric or global mean temperatures. "
Interesting that you decline to argue the bottline issues behind the manufactured "Climate Change" crisis of the U.N. and their IPCC.
Arguing with you is like boxing a tar baby.
Indeed :O)
The influence of money on opinion and the conclusions of scientists conducting research is always hotly debatable. In the case of Soon and Baliunas, they get most of their support by doing science; they are both physicist/astronomers. But they also write a lot of op-ed pieces for institutes like Marshall, and because they are so vocal in their defense of the positions they take publically, the influence of their opinions (and those of their supporters) on their conduct of science is a concern.
Admittedly that's a concern for "the other side" of the climate science community as well. But I'd say that the number of op-eds authored by skeptical sources is considerably larger than the number authored by the consensus side.
But that's peripheral to the issues. Good luck with ancient_geezer. We have a history.
Indeed :O)
Unfortunately, a strenous activity such as that takes considerable time and effort with little to show for it when finally the opponents can be separated.
Stopped.
What's the difference between what you're 'saying', and what Gore is saying?
Gore is also saying it must be "stopped". Amusing that you both insist that we must somehow 'stop' an overwhelmingly natural process.
It's not [natural]. Even Lindzen agrees. Unless, of course, industrialization is considered to be a natural process.
Rising and falling levels of co2 are not a natural process? Bull.
-- Aren't you both advocating global government controls because you have ~debatable~ belief that '-- atmospheric co2 levels are likely to result in severe unpleasantness --'?
Nope. I don't share Gore's belief in the effectiveness of government controls on this and related issues.
Neat way of inferring that you don't share his ~debatable~ belief that '-- atmospheric co2 levels are likely to result in severe unpleasantness.
But I do.
You boldly said "Nope" just above. --- Which is it?
That's what I've been arguing from the beginning. Just as my first post (or maybe it was my first post on another similar thread) made clear that I don't believe government can stop it.
Yet you advocate it be "stopped". -- How would you have it?
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Not at this stage...and perhaps not at any stage.
You support his beliefs about stopping "garbage" co2, but not on controlling it. -- Sure..
Why is that so difficult to understand? I can agree with a doctor that my friend has cancer but disagree as to the efficacy of a proposed cure.
Paraphrased: --- I can agree with Gore that our world has a 'co2 cancer' that must be stopped but disagree as to the efficacy of a proposed cure, -- as long as it is stopped in some way...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It seems that preserving the environment requires people to restrict their propensity to breed, their desire to get rich, and their dependence on the status quo to stay alive. No government has the power to impose those things. Not now.
"Not now", but people's propensities must be stopped. Ominous.
Things will have to get bad enough so that far more people see the need for collective action
Ah yes, collective action..
Yes, you know. It's what groups of people do when they share a common goal and think it's best to work together to achieve it.
I applaud it when done in a Constitutional manner. -- When its done to correct subjectively "bad" things, -- well, you know.
and, even then, war is far more likely than cooperation. Maybe some technological break-through will save us.
Or maybe a 'collective' return to rational political discourse will save us from Gore-ism.
Ah yes, the fabled, ever-popular, return to Eden.
You see an effort to restore rational constitutional discourse as a "fable"? -- How telling..
In the present context..."interesting" only to a paranoid lunatic.
Doesn't say much for the "Climate Change" is a crisis argument does it.
The point being is that both sides have arguments they adhere to each for their own motives.
For me, knowing the political U.N. and Watermelon motives and drive in this manufactured political crisis is sufficient for me to raise a very large red flag and delve into the counter argument from emperical measurement and emperical studies in opposition to rather inadequate and limited modeling driven by the flawed economic scenarios and assumptions of the UN/IPCC.
Are you saying they're dangerous because they're effective advocates? If so, I can hardly fault them...even though I disagree with them...and if I did agree with them I would certainly support them financially if I could.
Or perhaps you're saying that popular, public advocacy interferes with proper scientific research. I'm sure it can and does but it's utopian to think much can be done about it.
Good luck with ancient_geezer.
Ah, ancient_geezer. He just told me who he was and I put a name to it in post #128.
In the present context..."interesting" only to a paranoid lunatic.
You are the one with the "gut fear" of an inert gas comprising less than 400parts per million of the atmosphere of which only a small fraction and debatable fraction is due to mankind.
My concerns have substantially more substance considering the majority makeup of the United Nations driving its agendas and programs for ever greater political power in the world.
The IPCC and the entire "global warming" debate had its inception from the U.N. out of politically driven motives, not science. I serves us well to question the motives behind this supposed debate.
Yes, isn't it. When was this period of rational constitutional discourse that we are going to restore? Was it before or after the flood?
Paraphrased: --- I can agree with Gore that our world has a 'co2 cancer' that must be stopped but disagree as to the efficacy of a proposed cure, -- as long as it is stopped in some way...
It's even worse than that. It's going to be stopped in some way - either by human design or by natural processes (the four horsemen).
That's assuming I'm right. I'm only human and could easily be wrong. But the same applies to all of us, doesn't it?
Ah, ancient_geezer. He just told me who he was and I put a name to it in post #128.
Ahh, yes indeed the inevitable adhominen write off by one who run out of logic and reason and merely relies on "gut fear" to drive his opinions.
Typical tactic, when confronted with that which one does not wish to delve into.
Yes, the comminists never die even when you drive a stake through their hearts. Or is it the 33rd degree Masons, or the International Jew that's behind it all?
Sorry, I'm a bit rusty on this stuff.
Just the current majority membership of tin horn dictators, socialist governments etc in the U.N.
Folks, looking for more than a mere old ladies debating club in mind for their future.
Sorry, I'm a bit rusty on this stuff.
You are also either abit naive about the political makeup of the U.N. or worse.
Yes, they're certainly responsible for Dr. Mann and his ilk. I know for a fact that he's not really alive. He's just a robot and they manipulate him.
You are also either abit naive about the political makeup of the U.N. or worse
Worse. Much worse. I'm a secret agent sent to spy on you and your ilk. Right this moment we're ferreting out your real identity. We know how to deal with you.
Or is it the 33rd degree Masons, or the International Jew that's behind it all?
LOL, lets see, you tried adhominen, now it is marginalization. Neither is of any concern nor have they ever been, quite the contrary as both have provided positive forces in the world's political history. Sorry to dissappoint.
On the contrary they've been of great concern to many, many people over long periods of time. Your attempt to deny the obvious is more proof of your instability.
Worse. Much worse. I'm a secret agent sent to spy on you and your ilk. Right this moment we're ferreting out your real identity. We know how to deal with you.
LOL as you will, more marginalization.
I do note however your total lack of desire to address the actual issue, that of the U.N. drive to be a greater political force in the world with the use of manufactured crisis to create further wedges to lever into that end.
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