The thing you will never see discussed, or this image shown to the public at large... Climate change has been periodic and going on for long before human activity has existed...
Posted on 07/23/2006 9:45:19 AM PDT by woofie
SANTA FE— Greenland has become global warming's poster child: rising temperatures melt glaciers, threatening a devastating rise in sea levels that could inundate coastal cities around the world.
Greenhouse gases from factories and cars are to blame, according to the conventional story, which features prominently in Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."
And yet there was Los Alamos National Laboratory climate scientist Petr Chylek last week, standing before a gathering of his colleagues to explain that Greenland isn't actually warming.
What gives?
Chylek is a dissenter from the scientific mainstream. While most scientists think greenhouse gases are responsible for changes already seen in Earth's climate, Chylek believes the "data are inconclusive."
"You really cannot say for certain what is causing current climate change," Chylek said in an interview.
The Greenland story gained traction in February, when a team of U.S. scientists drew headlines around the world with new data suggesting Greenland's glaciers are melting and slipping into the ocean far more rapidly than previously thought.
Chylek shot back last month with evidence from Greenland temperature records showing the North Atlantic island was cooler in the second half of the 20th century than it was in the first.
The exchange is the sort of thing that happens all the time in science: researchers doing their best to make sense of imperfect and sometimes conflicting data.
But this is not just any science. In climate science, the debate over whether we need to change global energy production to reduce greenhouse gas emissions turns ordinary scientific disagreements into political minefields.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
The Earth is warming.
Human exhaust— primarily carbon dioxide, a "greenhouse gas" that holds heat close to the Earth's surface— is likely a big part of the reason.
The more exhaust we spew, the more temperatures will go up. But when you get into the details, as Chylek is quick to tell you, you find that climate science is not a monolith:
Could changes in the sun be responsible for some of the warming?
While scientists obsess over greenhouse gases, are they missing other things that could be having equally large effects on the climate?
Are the thermometer records that show warming as good as scientists think they are?
Contrary to the common perception of textbooks filled with fixed knowledge, real science is a tangled process fraught with uncertainties, and such debates are common in any field.
"Science," said Texas A&M climate scientist Andrew Dessler, "is this turbulent interface between what we know and what we don't know."
But if all science is turbulent, then climate science, because of its political dimensions, is all the more so.
Chylek placed that turbulence center stage last week, inviting more than a hundred scientists from around the world to Santa Fe for the 2nd International Conference on Global Warming, to discuss what scientists know and don't know about our changing climate.
He understands his views place him in a minority among his scientific colleagues.
Chylek opened the interview with the Journal by pointing out, carefully and firmly, that he speaks for himself on these questions, not for Los Alamos.
"We have many people in the lab who completely disagree with me," he said.
The conference, he said, was an attempt to recognize that a range of legitimate scientific views exists on global warming, and to encourage a discussion. To do that, Chylek invited both supporters of the mainstream view, as well as the most well-known skeptics.
Participants agreed Chylek achieved his goal.
"This is about one of the most diverse conferences there is," said University of Alabama climate scientist John Christy, perhaps the most prominent of the global warming renegades.
The range of views held by working climate scientists does not show up in the political version of the debate, according to Roger Pielke Jr., a University of Colorado political scientist who studies the politics of climate science.
The science becomes caricatured, according to Pielke, dichotomized into "skeptics versus alarmists ... even though it does not do justice to the complexities of the science debate." Pielke has the pedigree to hold forth on the issue. His father, Roger Pielke Sr., is one of those hard-to-pigeonhole climate renegades.
A tiff the elder Pielke had last summer with The New York Times illustrates the problem. In a story, the Times characterized Pielke Sr. as "a scientist who has long disagreed with the dominant view that global warming stems mainly from human activity." Pielke Sr.'s views are not nearly so black and white, and he demanded a correction. The result: It took the Times 74 words to correct the initial 18-word description.
"Humans are having a significant effect on the climate system," Pielke Sr. said in an interview during a break in Chylek's conference. It's a view that would seem to place him firmly in the mainstream. But it is not that simple.
Pielke Sr. thinks greenhouse gases are not the whole story. Massive human land-use changes— wholesale shifts from forest to agriculture, for example— are also important but are being given short shrift because of the emphasis on greenhouse gases. Pielke Sr. also thinks global temperature data, the backbone of global warming claims, are fraught with uncertainties. And he is skeptical of the computer climate simulations used to forecast future climate change.
All of those legitimate scientific questions are lost in the simplified black-and-white version of climate science that shows up in public discourse, Pielke Sr. believes. So what should the public, policymakers and politicians make of this debate, given the argument by some that there is enough scientific evidence to support action to reduce exhaust emissions?
The first thing is to recognize that the sort of renegades Chylek invited to his conference are honest scientists raising serious questions, said Chick Keller.
The second is to recognize the context surrounding the questions they are raising. While the questions are legitimate, they are not sufficient to undermine the vast evidence for greenhouse-caused global warming, said Keller, a retired Los Alamos National Laboratory climate modeler and a veteran of the climate science wars.
"The trouble with the Chyleks and the Pielkes and to some extent Christy is they're nitpickers," Keller said in an interview. "You can always find something wrong." Pielke Sr., Chylek and Christy obviously don't think they're picking nits. So how should the public and policymakers, whipsawed by debate, sort out the competing claims?
"That's easy," said Dessler, co-author of Cambridge University Press's "The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change."
Dessler calls for the use of "expert assessments"— panels of specialists brought together to sort out and summarize scientific information for politicians, policymakers and the public.
It's a common technique on all sorts of science-policy questions. On climate change, a number of such reviews have been done, including work by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the National Academy of Sciences. The panels' findings have been consistent and are reflected in the key finding in the IPCC's 2001 "Climate Change: The Science": Greenhouse gas emissions are altering Earth's climate.
Pielke Sr. has a different answer— listen to more diverse scientific voices. He thinks expert panels like the IPCC are inbred, representing a narrow focus on greenhouse gases.
"The public is getting a very narrow view of the breadth of issues in climate science," he said.
"A Convenient Falsehood" for Weird Al and his toadies.
There they go again, spouting crap like this with no data to back it up. Who do they consider scientests anywy? People like Al Gore and Barbara Streisand?
This article is more even handed than most
Yes, it is but they still had to throw in the statement about "most scientests believe...." just as a matter of fact.
Actually, it doesn't matter how many scientists agree on an error. And, this 'fact' of warming is not a fact at all, as it looks like the long term avg temp is from a warm planet to one with periodic ice ages. If your time period is 1700-2000, it looks like we are warming. If your time scale is 1400-2000, it doesn't.
Once there was widespread agreement that the earth was flat
It is called Greenland beacuse the first Europeans found it green, not white. How much human pollution was there then, over a thousand years ago?
The natural cycles will continue regardless of our pitiful activities.
BTT
Virtually no one believes this anymore. Anyone who bothers to actually look at the data knows this assertion is utter nonsense. The amount of "green house" gases created by man do not even equal the climate impact of a single volcano. Pure political hysteric emotionalism glazed with a fraudulent "Scientific" label". Utter garbage "Science". Global Warming, IF it is happening, has more to do with sunspots cycles and the Earth coming out of period of global cooling. This is more political hysteric wrapped in a "Scientific" label in the hopes the peons will keep shoveling billions of R&D into the pockets of the self styled "Climatologists". It total junk science. It nonsense.
This article is even more stupid them most since it despertly clings to the nonsensical Greenie dogma in the face of the inconvenient truths.
And once their was wide spread "Scientific" agreement that the Earth was the center of the Universe.
You don't think scientists have looked at this? Ice core data is giving us clues to past climate variations.
Talking with guys in the field (not politically motivated), I find that there is really hard evidence that indeed we are warming.
The rub is, have humans contributed to the situation or is it just one of the natural cycles that will continue as long as the Earth exists?
The other rub is will any efforts on our part to "curb" this trend result in a worse situation in the long run?
Ho-ry Ca-ra-poo. I cannot stand this Bogus Science.
The Greenland story gained traction in February, when a team of U.S. scientists drew headlines around the world with new data suggesting Greenland's glaciers are melting and slipping into the ocean far more rapidly than previously thought.
Ahhhhhh this is what I love about the Global Warming moonbats. Every article where these 'scientists' are quoted there's the words; 'thought', 'think', 'believe', 'suggesting', 'maybe', 'might be', 'could be', etc, etc - and that AIN'T science.
Anyway as to Greenland, I wonder if these scientists ever read this:
WORD HISTORYNow if Greenland (and Europe) was warmer in the 10th century, I can only assume that all them Knights in shining armor roaming around Europe on their 'chargers' were actually doing it in -- Dodge Chargers, with blown Hemis!!
How did a glacier-covered island get the name Greenland? In Norse legends written in the 12th century and later, it is told that Eric the Red explored the southeast and southwest coasts of Greenland in A.D. 983-986 and gave the country its name because people would be more likely to go there if it had an attractive name. Greenland was warmer in the tenth century than it is now. There were many islands teeming with birds off its western coast; the sea was excellent for fishing; and the coast of Greenland itself had many fjords where anchorage was good. At the head of the fjords there were enormous meadows full of grass, willows, junipers, birch, and wild berries. Thus Greenland actually deserved its name.
That's my Global Warming Theory and I'm sticking to it. /s
There's a reason it's called "Green"land.
It was once green. DUH.
Now it's becoming green again.
Obviously that signifies the end of the world.
(Hills > that way!)
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