Posted on 12/23/2003 12:33:31 PM PST by cogitator
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:45:19 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Leaders of one of the nation's top scientific organizations issued a new warning this week that human activities -- most notably the greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other industries -- are warming Earth's climate at a faster rate than ever.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The American Geophysical Union declares: "...that since 1900 more than 80 percent of the atmosphere's heat-trapping carbon dioxide...has been caused by fossil fuel burning and changes in land use."
Before you ever get to the question of whether humans affect global warming, you must first deal with the assumption that there actually is any global warming in the first place.
To believe the global warming scenario that's being passed off as science these days, this is what you've got to be willing to swallow...
--Boot Hill
Some things require more than three seconds of thought to understand.
The data still has to be high quality, though, or the model results could be totally screwed... er, skewed.
Fred will be dead before Hell freezes over, and Sallie will blame the cooling trend in Hell on a reduction in solar irradiance.
This is acknowledged in the AGU statement as follows:
"Scientists' understanding of the fundamental processes responsible for global climate change has greatly improved during the last decade, including better representation of carbon, water, and other biogeochemical cycles in climate models. Yet, model projections of future global warming vary, because of differing estimates of population growth, economic activity, greenhouse gas emission rates, changes in atmospheric particulate concentrations and their effects, and also because of uncertainties in climate models. Actions that decrease emissions of some air pollutants will reduce their climate effects in the short term. Even so, the impacts of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations would remain."
Commentary by James Risbey on Soon, Baliunas et al. Climate Research 2001
John Christy's name on this statement is a very important indicator. Christy and Spencer's research results have been "attacked" by those who you might call advocates of the global warming agenda for several years. But these "attacks" have been on the integrity of the data, not the integrity of the scientists. Because scientists question, question, question, they wondered why Spencer and Christy's data weren't toeing the line. But, as they questioned, questioned, questioned, errors were discovered, and Christy and Spencer modified/improved their analysis methods. Lo and behold, their data now shows a significant warming trend -- and independent analyses of the same data show a larger warming trend.
Christy, as shown by his statements, doesn't want to be seen as advocating the catastrophic projections of global warming that the media adore. Neither do I. There are other more pressing environmental and social concerns; access to clean drinking water is a major one, coral reef decline is another. But global warming could make both of these get worse. If we don't understand it and if it turns out that ignorance is not bliss, the legacy we pass to future generations (including three very Christmas-excited toddlers that I know very well) might not be one to be proud of.
Speaking of those toddlers, I already have to consider their college costs. How dumb would I look if I suddenly discovered a family financial "crisis" a year before they attend college, that we don't have a way to pay for it? I could certainly be accused of not paying attention to a potential problem.
Same goes for global warming. We need to pay attention to what the scientists are saying (like those in the AGU). Ignore the political radicals with anti-business, anti-human agendas. We need to seek the rational path.
This article leaves out one important aspect of the story. Climate Research lets the authors choose the editor to handle their reviews. Soon, Baliunas et al. chose the one global warming skeptic on the editorial board (Colin de Freitas). The editorial review referred to above indicated that the paper should have been sent back to the authors for extensive revisions.
Unfortunately, my observations of how this Administration works with regard to science tend toward support for the Waxman report. I thought initially that the Bush Administration might provide some balance to the Clinton/Gore viewpoints, but I've lost that hope. The Bush Administration is adept at manipulating the scientific discussion in their favor.
Where do you live? Regional variability means that some areas will probably be colder than normal, every winter. The eastern U.S. was colder than normal last winter; the western U.S. was warmer than normal (and notably, the difference from average conditions was larger for the warmer area than the colder area).
Volcanoes aren't significant emitters of CO2.
SO2 and sulfate aerosols, they can be a significant source.
The ~0.8 C increase since the 70's is a surface record value. Depending on whose satellite data analysis is consulted, the lower troposphere warming is somewhere between 50% to about the same as that value. Radiosondes on balloons also give different values depending on the distribution of sites where they are deployed; James Angell's NOAA radiosonde dataset has shown warming consistent with the surface record.
And was it Mr. Christy who said the said the upward adjustments to the satellite record were very peculiar since the adjustments were made primarily because they agreed with the models?
I can't confirm that Christy said that, and if he did, I have no idea regarding the context of the statement. Certainly in the robust nature of scientific debate, Christy and Spencer have defended their methods and results as compared to the more recently released analyses from other groups.
Update: Christy's data shows a significant increase in lower tropospheric temperatures (the area where he is doing the analysis of MSU channel 2 data).
The statement immediately following the paraphrase appears to be a direct quote from Christy.
"It is scientifically inconceivable that after changing forests into cities, turning millions of acres into farmland, putting massive quantities of soot and dust into the atmosphere and sending quantities of greenhouse gases into the air, that the natural course of climate change hasn't been increased in the past century."
I think that's a reasonable statement.
To an extent. Cloud processes are still one of the largest uncertainties in the models. Observations such as this one help improve the models.
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