Scientists Refute Argument Of Climate Skeptics

Science Daily ^ | 10 Jan 09 | staff

[saganite]

Scientists at the GKSS Research Centre of Geesthacht and the University of Bern have investigated the frequency of warmer than average years between 1880 and 2006 for the first time. The result: the observed increase of warm years after 1990 is not a statistical accident.

Between 1880 and 2006 the average global annual temperature was about 15°C. However, in the years after 1990 the frequency of years when this average value was exceeded increased.

The GKSS Research Centre asks: is it an accident that the warmest 13 years were observed after 1990, or does this increased frequency indicate an external influence?

Calculating the likelihood

With the help of the so called "Monte-Carlo-Simulation“ the coastal researchers Dr. Eduardo Zorita and Professor Hans von Storch at the GKSS-Research Centre together with Professor Thomas Stocker from the University of Bern estimated that it is extremely unlikely that the frequency of warm record years after 1990 could be an accident and concluded that it is rather influenced by a external driver.

The fact that the 13 warmest years since 1880 could have occurred by accident after 1990 corresponds to a likelihood of no more than 1:10,000.

[nobama999]

It’s healthy to be skeptical about things.

It’s not healthy to treat science like it’s a silly partisan game.

Be a global warming denier all you want. Just do us a favour...don’t identify yourself as a Republican.

[nobama999]

Do you accept that C02 is a greenhouse gas?

Yes or no, please and thank you.

[sgtyork]

You may have two religions.

If you are a Christian, you should examine your conscience to see if you have in fact adopted another religion, because Anthropogenic Global Warming - as I have pointed out to you several times - has all the earmarks of a religion. With Al Gore as the current prophet. There is something very wrong with the pseudo religion that global warming crisis mongering embodies.

And frankly- own up - the Malaria holocaust wasn’t based on science - not at the end. While Christianity says Man is a good creation of God that belongs on the earth, socialism and enviro-nazi’s believe man is a disease upon the earth.

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Apparently, saving the whales is more important than saving 5.5 billion people. Paul Watson, founder and president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and famous for militant intervention to stop whalers, now warns mankind is “acting like a virus” and is harming Mother Earth.

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2007/20070506180903.aspx

Bill Bullitt, once said, mankind is ‘a skin disease of the earth,’ then there is an optimal balance, dependent on the manner of man’s life, between the density of human population and the tolerances of nature. This balance, in the case of the United States, would seem to me to have been surpassed when the American population reached, at a very maximum, two hundred million people, and perhaps a good deal less.

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Good reason to kill millions via Malaria and cap and trading them into permanent poverty. “Mother Earth”. Please open your eyes, this is the opposite of Christianity.

Frankly, you have such an unscientific mode of supporting your statements and beliefs that you convey the impression that you are an accolyte of this religion. You do it again when you say that those that disagree with you are blind fools. Very religious talk. Well, at least you are being gentle in defending this pseudo-religion, you aren’t calling us holocaust deniers, or child rapists. Way to support your position though, very persuasive.

As I contemplate God’s creation, I am humbled by the complexity and vastness and in my humility ‘wee’ mankind cannot displace what He set forth. Only the arrogance of those who do not see God’s power would believe this.

He may have indeed set Solar cycles, Earth Orbits, rotational wobbling, water vapor cycles, geothermal warming, cosmic rays, volcanic action and maybe an infinitesimal amount of greenhouse gases production in a direction to produce the global warming that began when the ice sheet the covered my home 12 thousand years ago began to recede.

If so then he has also given Man the wisdom and intelligence to SCIENTIFICALLY and DEMONSTRABLY prove that this is taking place and especially the extent that it is we and not all those other causes. At which point we won’t need to believe in a shoddy gallery of pseudo-scientists doctoring hockey sticks, putting monitoring stations in asphalt parking lots, and forgetting to update the temperature data from an ENTIRE COUNTRY. (Hint - this is peer review and correcting for our God given human fallibility.)

[sgtyork]

Be a global warming scare-monger all you want. Just don’t call your self a reasonable person or a Republican.

[Mr Rogers]

Is CO2 the only greenhouse gas, or even the primary one?

[ETL]

Do you accept that C02 is a greenhouse gas?

Of course it is. It's just that there is no way enough of it in our atmosphere for it to cause significant warming. Now if you're talking about the planet Venus, that's a horse of another color. C02 makes up a whopping 97% of Venus' atmosphere. Earth, a measly 0.038%.

[ETL]

Do you accept that C02 is a greenhouse gas?

Surprised you asked me this dopey question, since it was addressed in one of my earlier posts...

________________________

From JunkScience.com:

So, greenhouse [effect] is all about carbon dioxide, right?

Wrong. The most important players on the greenhouse stage are water vapor and clouds [clouds of course aren't gas, but high level ones do act to trap heat from escaping, while low-lying cumulus clouds tend to reflect sunlight and thereby help cool the planet -etl]. Carbon dioxide has been increased to about 0.038% of the atmosphere (possibly from about 0.028% pre-Industrial Revolution) while water in its various forms ranges from 0% to 4% of the atmosphere and its properties vary by what form it is in and even at what altitude it is found in the atmosphere.

In simple terms the bulk of Earth's greenhouse effect is due to water vapor by virtue of its abundance. Water accounts for about 90% of the Earth's greenhouse effect -- perhaps 70% is due to water vapor and about 20% due to clouds (mostly water droplets), some estimates put water as high as 95% of Earth's total tropospheric greenhouse effect (e.g., Freidenreich and Ramaswamy, 'Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and a Parameterization for General Circulation Models,' Journal of Geophysical Research 98 (1993):7255-7264).

The remaining portion comes from carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone and miscellaneous other 'minor greenhouse gases.' As an example of the relative importance of water it should be noted that changes in the relative humidity on the order of 1.3-4% are equivalent to the effect of doubling CO2.

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

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Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse System

Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect (4). Interestingly, many 'facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold.

Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).

Human activities contribute slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have a very small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

[Bhoy]

Thanks for info & graphics.

[nobama999]

C02 is not, by far, the largest of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Deniers use this as a tool to confuse people.

It’s easy for them to hide from reality behind these red herrings. They shoot out a bunch of links they’ve found to comfort themselves, to convince themselves that their willful ignorance is the correct choice for them.

So, if water is the largest greenhouse gas in the atmosphere does that mean that C02 can’t be causing our current rapid, unwanted global warming?

No.

It’s a meaningless red herring, useful to people trying to avoid reality.

[ETL]

If you look at the chart below, you will see that sunspot activity (during solar maxes--the individual peaks) has been relatively high since about 1900 and almost non-existent for the period between about 1625 and 1725. This period is known as the Maunder (sunspot) Minimum or "Little Ice Age".-ETL

From BBC News [yr: 2004]:
"A new [2004] analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years. Scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star's activity in the past. They say that over the last century the number of sunspots rose at the same time that the Earth's climate became steadily warmer."..."In particular, it has been noted that between about 1645 and 1715, few sunspots were seen on the Sun's surface. This period is called the Maunder Minimum after the English astronomer who studied it. It coincided with a spell of prolonged cold weather often referred to as the "Little Ice Age". Solar scientists strongly suspect there is a link between the two events - but the exact mechanism remains elusive."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3869753.stm

It's really hard to imagine how this little ball of fire could have any impact on our climate at all.

But the main arguments being made for a solar-climate connection is not so much to do with the heat of the Sun but rather with its magnetic cycles. When the Sun is more magnetically active (typically around the peak of the 11 year sunspot cycle --we are a few yrs away at the moment), the Sun's magnetic field is better able to deflect away incoming galactic cosmic rays (highly energetic charged particles coming from outside the solar system). The GCRs are thought to help in the formation of low-level cumulus clouds -the type of clouds that BLOCK sunlight and help cool the Earth. So when the Sun's MF is acting up (not like now -the next sunspot max is expected in about 2012), less GCRs reach the Earth's atmosphere, less low level sunlight-blocking clouds form, and more sunlight gets through to warm the Earth's surface...naturally. Clouds are basically made up of tiny water droplets. When minute particles in the atmosphere become ionized by incoming GCRs they become very 'attractive' to water molecules, in a purely chemical sense of the word. The process by which the Sun's increased magnetic field would deflect incoming cosmic rays is very similar to the way magnetic fields steer electrons in a cathode ray tube or electrons and other charged particles around the ring of a subatomic particle accelerator.-ETL

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There's a relatively new book out on the subject titled The Chilling Stars. It's written by one of the top scientists advancing the theory (Henrik Svensmark).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/books/t/1840468157-the_chilling_stars_the_new_theory_of_climate_change.htm

And here is the website for the place where he does his research:
2008: "The Center for Sun-Climate Research at the DNSC investigates the connection between variations in the intensity of cosmic rays and climatic changes on Earth. This field of research has been given the name 'cosmoclimatology'"..."Cosmic ray intensities – and therefore cloudiness – keep changing because the Sun's magnetic field varies in its ability to repel cosmic rays coming from the Galaxy, before they can reach the Earth." :
http://www.spacecenter.dk/research/sun-climate

100,000-Year Climate Pattern Linked To Sun's Magnetic Cycles:
ScienceDaily (Jun. 7, 2002) HANOVER, N.H.
Thanks to new calculations by a Dartmouth geochemist, scientists are now looking at the earth's climate history in a new light. Mukul Sharma, Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth, examined existing sets of geophysical data and noticed something remarkable: the sun's magnetic activity is varying in 100,000-year cycles, a much longer time span than previously thought, and this solar activity, in turn, may likely cause the 100,000-year climate cycles on earth. This research helps scientists understand past climate trends and prepare for future ones.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/06/020607073439.htm

From a well-referenced wikipedia.com column (see wiki link for ref 14):
"Sunspot numbers over the past 11,400 years have been reconstructed using dendrochronologically dated radiocarbon concentrations. The level of solar activity during the past 70 years is exceptional — the last period of similar magnitude occurred over 8,000 years ago. The Sun was at a similarly high level of magnetic activity for only ~10% of the past 11,400 years, and almost all of the earlier high-activity periods were shorter than the present episode.[14]"

[14] ^Solanki, Sami K.; Usoskin, Ilya G.; Kromer, Bernd; Schüssler, Manfred & Beer, Jürg (2004), “Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years”, Nature 431: 1084–1087, doi:10.1038/nature02995, . Retrieved on 17 April 2007 , "11,000 Year Sunspot Number Reconstruction". Global Change Master Directory. Retrieved on 2005-03-11.

"Reconstruction of solar activity over 11,400 years. Period of equally high activity over 8,000 years ago marked.
Present period is on [the right]. Values since 1900 not shown."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation

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From NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory's "Not So Frequently Asked Questions" section:

Q-Does the number of sunspots have any effect on the climate here on Earth?

A-Sunspots are slightly cooler areas on the surface of the Sun, due to the intense magnetic fields, so they radiate a little less energy than the surroundings. However, there are usually nearby areas associated with the sunspots that are a little hotter (called falculae), and they more than compensate. The result is that there is a little bit more radiation coming from the Sun when it has more sunspots, but the effect is so small that it has very little impact on the weather and climate on Earth.

However, there are more important indirect effects: sunspots are associated with what we call "active regions", with large magnetic structures containing very hot material (being held in place by the magnetism). This causes more ultraviolet (or UV) radiation (the rays that give you a suntan or sunburn), and extreme ultraviolet radiation (EUV). These types of radiation have an impact on the chemistry of the upper atmosphere (e.g. producing ozone). Since some of these products act as greenhouse gases, the number of sunspots (through association with active regions) may influence the climate in this way.

Many active regions produce giant outflows of material that are called Coronal Mass Ejections. These ejections drag with them some of the more intense magnetic fields that are found in the active regions. The magnetic fields act as a shield for high-energy particles coming from various sources in our galaxy (outside the solar system). These "cosmic rays" (CRs) cause ionization of molecules in the atmosphere, and thereby can cause clouds to form (because the ionized molecules or dust particle can act as "seeds" for drop formation).

If clouds are formed very high in the atmosphere, the net result is a heating of the Earth - it acts as a "blanket" that keeps warmth in.

If clouds are formed lower down in the atmosphere, they reflect sunlight better than they keep heat inside, so the net result is cooling. Which processes are dominant is still a matter of research.

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/explore/other.html#SUNSPOT_CLIMATE

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NASA graph of sunspot activity over the past 400 years [note the profound lack of sunspot activity during the "Little Ice Age" period (apprx 1650-1720), AND the sharp INCREASE during the past 60 years:

http://science.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/solar/images/ssn_yearly.jpg

[nobama999]

“If you are a Christian, you should examine your conscience to see if you have in fact adopted another religion, because Anthropogenic Global Warming - as I have pointed out to you several times - has all the earmarks of a religion. With Al Gore as the current prophet. There is something very wrong with the pseudo religion that global warming crisis mongering embodies.”

My conscience is perfectly fine.

You can point out to me that “Anthropogenic Global Warming” (capitalized, for some reason) is a religion all you want.

In the end all you’re doing is engaging in what you think is partisanship. In reality it’s just willful ignorance.

You will promote any denial garbage you can find, and ignore any and all science that exists.

I wish deniers would stop dragging the Republican party down with this crap.

The sooner we embrace reality on this issue the sooner our reputation stops getting damaged.

[Liberty Valance]

You are the one avoiding reality

http://www.booktv.org/program.aspx?ProgramId=9998&SectionName=After%20Words

After Words: Chris Horner, “Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud and Deception to Keep You Misinformed,” interviewed by Jed Babbin, Editor, Human Events

Upcoming Schedule

Sunday, January 11, at 6:00 PM
Sunday, January 11, at 9:00 PM
Monday, January 12, at 12:00 AM
Monday, January 12, at 3:00 AM
Sunday, January 18, at 12:00 PM

About the Program

Red Hot Lies contends that, with a new administration, the global warming lobby is about to go into overdrive, forcing through new legislation that further weakens the U.S. economy. The author presents what he believes the global warming lobby is doing and saying to advance their agenda - and what conservatives must do to counter their arguments.

About the Author

Christopher Horner is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a practicing attorney in Washington, DC. He’s testified before Senate committees on global warming legislation and regulation and authored New York Times bestseller, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism.

[Scotswife]

First - and only time I gambled - I sat down at a blackjack table and got blackjack 5 times in a row.
I quit and paid for dinner with my buddy.

[Liberty Valance]

Careful, this one's like kryptonite to global warming cutlists.

[Liberty Valance]

cutlists=cultists
and yes global warming is a cult-like religion for those intent on destroying America’s economy.

[D-fendr]

Let’s assume one of their conclusions:

Weather, including temperature, are not chance events.

Don’t know any scientist who would disagree.

Now, what doesn’t follow from their probability exercise is:

“Therefore man-made CO2 is the cause of higher temperatures.”

Proving that climate has causes is an result only Captain Obvious could applaud.

[Brucifer]

Leave me out of this. They’re arguing again over on another thread about who shot John F Kennedy. You know what that means. LOL!

[Liberty Valance]

LOL! I didn’t do it. I was in school that day ;o)

[nobama999]

Good grief. Chris Horner?

What evil force has afflicted our proud Republican tradition with this global warming denial nonsense, I don’t know.

The desperate postings here of graphs and tables and links in a desperate attempt to deny what has become obvious to the majority of Americans is a sad thing.

It’s time for true Republicans to get on side. Accept the REAL science on global warming and let’s start talking about solutions.

To the rest, I have to wonder...are they really Republicans, or are they here to make us look stupid?

[count-your-change]

Anyone remember, “Watts Up With That”? , the examination of the weather stations and their inaccurate readings?

From the Heartland Institute, “Watts is the creator of surfacestations.org, a project that gathers data about the temperature measurement stations used by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to compute yearly U.S. temperatures.”

Poor maintenance and siting make any info from these stations suspect and running it through a number grinding program doesn't improve it. GIGO.