Is It All Just Hot Air? (Global Warming)

Albuquerque Journal ^ | 7/23/06 | John Fleck

[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.

[ChessExpert]

Figure 1.2 - Warmer is better?

[ancient_geezer]

Either way tit points to global warming as a real problem

All it points to is that temperature varies and we are at the upper end of a 100kyr cycle, not that global "warming" is a "real problem".

In geological history, the global ice box brought on by astrophysical effects represents much more of a problem for future civilizaton to deal with and will be of much greater concern over the next few centuries:

 

Figure 1-4 Climate of the last 100,000 years

Figure 1-5 Climate for the last 420 kyr, from Vostok ice

 

Global warming against that past and future potential is of little concequence and in fact has a boon to the earth's ecology and mankind, not a detriment:

At least these folks seem believe so:

Petition Project: http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p357.htm

During the past 2 years, more than 17,100 basic and applied American scientists, two-thirds with advanced degrees, have signed the Global Warming Petition.

Specifically declaring:

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."

Signers of this petition so far include 2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists (select this link for a listing of these individuals) who are especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide on the Earth's atmosphere and climate.

Signers of this petition also include 5,017 scientists whose fields of specialization in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, and other life sciences (select this link for a listing of these individuals) make them especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide upon the Earth's plant and animal life.

Nearly all of the initial 17,100 scientist signers have technical training suitable for the evaluation of the relevant research data, and many are trained in related fields.

[ancient_geezer]

Figure 1.2 - Warmer is better?

I would say so, considering what those little red dots represent in mankind's history.

Certainly better than that cold that preceded it and undoubtedly yet to come as earth's orbit continues its inevitable dance with the solar system mean:

 

Figure 3. Variations of the inclination vector of the Earth's orbit. The inclination i is the angle between this vector and the vector of the reference frame; Omega is the azimuthal angle = the angle of the ascending node (in astronomical jargon).. In (A), (B), and (C) the measurements are made with respect to the zodiacal (or ecliptic) frame, i.e. the frame of the current orbit of the Earth. In (D), (E), and (F) the motion has been trasformed to the invariable frame, i.e. the frame of the total angular momentum of the solar system. Note that the primary period of oscillation in the zodiacal frame (A) is 70 kyr, but in the invariable plane (D) it is 100 kyr.

[plain talk]

Some conservatives do deny there is global warming. The problem with this debate is the failure to separate two issues clearly

1. Is there global warming?

2. If so, what is the cause?

Al Gore and the lefties have lumped it all together in a clumsy fashion.

[ChessExpert]

its too much "us vs. them."

I agree. This also applies on the evolution threads.

No one chart is gonna make or bust the man-made aspect of global warming - its complex.

Perhaps no one chart can prove that man has no impact on global temperatures. But the charts I referred to (see posts 15 and 25) contradict the belief that human activity has been the major cause of global temperature variation.

[gondramB]

>>"may"

I find it insulting to use the word 'may'<<,

good point - that's the kind of sensitivity we are dealing with - at least I get a better discussion of this here than from my silicon valley friends.

[Finny]

Mark ... and great post.

[geopyg]

I read a review in a geophysical trade magazine (The Leading Edge) that had a review on a book entitled "Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate" by W.F. Ruddiman, ISBN 0-691-12164-8, princeton University Press. (Might be up your alley?)

The reviewers give him a thumbs-up on the long-ago history (farming, domestigation of animals, etc,. that influenced warming, the plagues, etc.)

[sportutegrl]

About Greenland being called Greenland. How does that explain the name of Iceland? I always heard that Greenland and Iceland were named thusly to fool other explorers who would go to Greenland, thinking it was habitable and leave Iceland alone.

[Brit1]

Our two planetary neighbors Venus and Mars are warming at a faster rate than the Earth.. there ain't no cars on either.

[bkwells]

ping

[woofie]

I saw that ....I think absolute stability in a universe that is constantly changing is a hard thing to come by

[Finny]

... measures that correlate over the long run (10,000 years +) ...

Ten thousand years is hardly the "long run." I am looking at a graphic of Florida that shows how ca. 125,000 years ago, the state was quite a lot smaller than it is now because of water levels ca. 25 feet higher than today. The same map shows a Florida as it was "only" ca. 20,000 years ago and a HUGE amount larger in land mass because of water levels about 350 feet LOWER than they are today. 125,000 years is the blink of an eye in terms of one million years ... and one million years is the blink of an eye in terms of the big picture on this planet.

COMMON SENSE indicates that claims of human-caused global warming are something more than patently dubious. People who fall for it do so either because they are ignorant, or because they are willing to be deceived in the name of political power.

[TASMANIANRED]

Greenland used to be inhabited.....

[F.J. Mitchell]

Greenland was obviously green when it was named by those Norse men. I have never met a norse with enough of a sense irony to name a snow covered island of ice "Greenland" have you??

Duh.....wonder if the world was a little warmer than now when Greenland was named?

[Brit1]

Can there ever be 'absolute stability'? You 'hit the nail right on the head' there.

Regards

[Steve Van Doorn]

"I think absolute stability in a universe that is constantly changing is a hard thing to come by"

that is funny :)