New Anti-global warming debate?

[Schuyler]

Here are some basic issues from Borepatch that may be of interest to some: Bore Patch

Decadal Oscillation

The Oceans are a massive heat sink, much, much more significant than the atmosphere. We've learned a fair amount about climate cycles in ocean temperatures, for example the El Nino warmings that we see periodically. I hear more about the Pacific Decadal Oscillation than the Atlantic one.

The "oscillation" refers to alternating cycles of warmer and cooler ocean water, and approximately 30 year intervals. The warming that was observed during warm PDO cycles matches warming periods in the twentieth century precisely (e.g. 1905-1947, 1977-1998), and the cold PDO cycles match the cooling periods in the twentieth century.
​

Discontinuity

When the raw temperature is homogenized and gridded, the computer algorithms look for situations where the temperature shows sudden, unexpected changes. For example, if a weather station were moved to a different site, you might suddenly see the station reporting warmer or cooler temperatures. This is a discontinuity, and artificial modification to the temperature record.

The computer algorithms adjust temperature data when they find a discontinuity, to eliminate it. This is done automatically by machine, though, so it's very important that reported discontinuities are due to modifications to the instruments, and not an actual sudden change in temperature.

People are now investigating the weather service's computer programs that do this. Shockingly, it seems that these programs are misidentifying very large numbers of actual temperature changes as instrumental adjustment, and applying "corrections" to the temperature data. Even more shockingly, this adjustment causes older data to be adjusted downwards (made cooler) and newer data adjusted upwards (warmer). This process has amplified the reported warming over the twentieth century by a factor of four.
​

Divergence

The whole debate about AGW is uninteresting if we only look at the last 100 years - we wouldn't know whether we were in the realm of normal variation or not. To me meaningful, we need to look at thousand-year climate variations, and to do that, we can't use thermometers (which were invented around 1600). Instead, we use "proxies" such as tree rings that give us a sort of view into what temperatures likely were back in the day.

The "hockey stick" pictures that you've all seen rely on tree ring proxy data stretching back a thousand years or more. These pictures usually switch to thermometer data once it's available (starting around 1850 for a decent part of the earth's surface).

But there's a problem: the reported thermometer data say that the temperature has been going up, up, up over the last 50 years; tree ring proxy data says that the temperature has been going down, down, down for the same period. This difference is called divergence, and is probably the most important scientific discussion going on today. "Hide the decline" refers to this.
​

Grid

What's the average temperature of the world? We have a bunch of theremometers measuring temperature at different locations - so how do you average them? Gridding is the process of breaking up the earth's surface into identically-sized (or as close as you can get) areas, so you can measure the temperature in each area. Then all the areas are averaged. Voila!

Except there are 8000-odd grids, and there are only 1000 thermometers. So what do you do? The software massages the data, interpolating results from surrounding grids where there are thermometers.

Lately, it's come to light that interpolation is being performed for locations where there are actually weather stations that are reporting data - data that is not being used. Shockingly, the interpolation uses data from much hotter grids to produce an estimated temperature that is much higher than the raw data shows - for example, record reported heat in mountainous Bolivia when there have been no actual measurements in Bolivia (in the data sets, anyway) since 1990.
​

Homogenization

Discontinuities make a long term data set "inhomogeneous". Computer algorithms manipulate the data to make the data sets long term homogeneous. However, this modification is poorly documented and introduces errors, like in Darwin, Australia, where the process changed a 0.7° decline over the course of the 20th Century into a 1.2° increase over the same period. While there were discontinuities in the data, Darwin had five separate stations recording temperature data, and all five agreed very closely with each other. None of them agreed with the 1.2° "homogenized" result.
​

There you go - you now know more about the scientific debate than 99% of world, and 98% of the media. Next time you hear someone mutter "the science is settled", these are the terms to toss out there to make him squirm. Specifically, here are some questions that he won't be able to answer:

"Why are the reported anomalies from Siberia increasing, while the temperature there is not?"

"Why do the tree ring proxies used in the IPCC AR4 report show declining temperatures after 1960, while the reported thermometer data show increasing temperatures? Are the proxies wrong now, or were they wrong in the past, or were they always wrong? How do you reconcile the different errors?"

"Why has the number of thermometers in the data sets fallen from 8000 to 1000? Does it make sense to homogenize data from stations located close to each other with data from stations a thousand miles away?"

Actually, I lied - he will be able to reply: You must be one of those Deniers. Git the heck off my lawn.

 

[jkoci]

Here are some basic issues from Borepatch that may be of interest to some: Bore Patch

Decadal Oscillation

The Oceans are a massive heat sink, much, much more significant than the atmosphere. We've learned a fair amount about climate cycles in ocean temperatures, for example the El Nino warmings that we see periodically. I hear more about the Pacific Decadal Oscillation than the Atlantic one.

The "oscillation" refers to alternating cycles of warmer and cooler ocean water, and approximately 30 year intervals. The warming that was observed during warm PDO cycles matches warming periods in the twentieth century precisely (e.g. 1905-1947, 1977-1998), and the cold PDO cycles match the cooling periods in the twentieth century.
​

Discontinuity

When the raw temperature is homogenized and gridded, the computer algorithms look for situations where the temperature shows sudden, unexpected changes. For example, if a weather station were moved to a different site, you might suddenly see the station reporting warmer or cooler temperatures. This is a discontinuity, and artificial modification to the temperature record.

The computer algorithms adjust temperature data when they find a discontinuity, to eliminate it. This is done automatically by machine, though, so it's very important that reported discontinuities are due to modifications to the instruments, and not an actual sudden change in temperature.

People are now investigating the weather service's computer programs that do this. Shockingly, it seems that these programs are misidentifying very large numbers of actual temperature changes as instrumental adjustment, and applying "corrections" to the temperature data. Even more shockingly, this adjustment causes older data to be adjusted downwards (made cooler) and newer data adjusted upwards (warmer). This process has amplified the reported warming over the twentieth century by a factor of four.
​

Divergence

The whole debate about AGW is uninteresting if we only look at the last 100 years - we wouldn't know whether we were in the realm of normal variation or not. To me meaningful, we need to look at thousand-year climate variations, and to do that, we can't use thermometers (which were invented around 1600). Instead, we use "proxies" such as tree rings that give us a sort of view into what temperatures likely were back in the day.

The "hockey stick" pictures that you've all seen rely on tree ring proxy data stretching back a thousand years or more. These pictures usually switch to thermometer data once it's available (starting around 1850 for a decent part of the earth's surface).

But there's a problem: the reported thermometer data say that the temperature has been going up, up, up over the last 50 years; tree ring proxy data says that the temperature has been going down, down, down for the same period. This difference is called divergence, and is probably the most important scientific discussion going on today. "Hide the decline" refers to this.
​

Grid

What's the average temperature of the world? We have a bunch of theremometers measuring temperature at different locations - so how do you average them? Gridding is the process of breaking up the earth's surface into identically-sized (or as close as you can get) areas, so you can measure the temperature in each area. Then all the areas are averaged. Voila!

Except there are 8000-odd grids, and there are only 1000 thermometers. So what do you do? The software massages the data, interpolating results from surrounding grids where there are thermometers.

Lately, it's come to light that interpolation is being performed for locations where there are actually weather stations that are reporting data - data that is not being used. Shockingly, the interpolation uses data from much hotter grids to produce an estimated temperature that is much higher than the raw data shows - for example, record reported heat in mountainous Bolivia when there have been no actual measurements in Bolivia (in the data sets, anyway) since 1990.
​

Homogenization

Discontinuities make a long term data set "inhomogeneous". Computer algorithms manipulate the data to make the data sets long term homogeneous. However, this modification is poorly documented and introduces errors, like in Darwin, Australia, where the process changed a 0.7° decline over the course of the 20th Century into a 1.2° increase over the same period. While there were discontinuities in the data, Darwin had five separate stations recording temperature data, and all five agreed very closely with each other. None of them agreed with the 1.2° "homogenized" result.
​

There you go - you now know more about the scientific debate than 99% of world, and 98% of the media. Next time you hear someone mutter "the science is settled", these are the terms to toss out there to make him squirm. Specifically, here are some questions that he won't be able to answer:

"Why are the reported anomalies from Siberia increasing, while the temperature there is not?"

"Why do the tree ring proxies used in the IPCC AR4 report show declining temperatures after 1960, while the reported thermometer data show increasing temperatures? Are the proxies wrong now, or were they wrong in the past, or were they always wrong? How do you reconcile the different errors?"

"Why has the number of thermometers in the data sets fallen from 8000 to 1000? Does it make sense to homogenize data from stations located close to each other with data from stations a thousand miles away?"

Actually, I lied - he will be able to reply: You must be one of those Deniers. Git the heck off my lawn.

I guess you couldn't sit out on this discussion for long Schuyler.

I've been following the discussion and Jonah seems to be doing a good job.

Carry on gentlemen.

 

[Jonah]

They should have stuck with Global Cooling. They could sell that very easily today. Hey Jonah, you still there?

Actually Pixelsmith, although I find this to be another distraction and attempt at misdirection, I'd like to address the idea of Global Cooling and the canard put forth by denialist that science has waffled on the subject over recent decades. Actually, I'll let Tom Peterson, William Connolley & John Fleck address this subject in the linked .PDF. I'll give you the abstract to wet your appetite. It was first published by the American Meteorological Society.

The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus
Thomas C. Peterson^a, William M. Connolley^b, and John Fleck^c

a. NOAA/National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, North Carolina
b. British Antarctic Survey, National Environment Research Council, Cambridge, United Kingdom
c. Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque, New Mexico

DOI: 10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1

ABSTRACT

Climate science as we know it today did not exist in the 1960s and 1970s. The integrated enterprise embodied in the Nobel Prizewinning work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change existed then as separate threads of research pursued by isolated groups of scientists. Atmospheric chemists and modelers grappled with the measurement of changes in carbon dioxide and atmospheric gases, and the changes in climate that might result. Meanwhile, geologists and paleoclimate researchers tried to understand when Earth slipped into and out of ice ages, and why. An enduring popular myth suggests that in the 1970s the climate science community was predicting “global cooling” and an “imminent” ice age, an observation frequently used by those who would undermine what climate scientists say today about the prospect of global warming. A review of the literature suggests that, on the contrary, greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists' thinking as being one of the most important forces shaping Earth's climate on human time scales. More importantly than showing the falsehood of the myth, this review describes how scientists of the time built the foundation on which the cohesive enterprise of modern climate science now rests.

The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus - Full .PDF

For criminy's sake, the earth has survived ice ages, warm ages, comet/asteroid collisions, massive eruptions.

You left out the 5 Mass Extinction Events Bob.


Image provided by Scientific American

So we were talking about Ice Cores and the science used to determine the historical atmospheric record by studying them. Why are they important?

"Ice cores contain an abundance of climate information --more so than any other natural recorder of climate such as tree rings or sediment layers. Although their record is short (in geologic terms), it can be highly detailed. An ice core from the right site can contain an uninterrupted, detailed climate record extending back hundreds of thousands of years. This record can include temperature, precipitation , chemistry and gas composition of the lower atmosphere, volcanic eruptions, solar variability, sea-surface productivity and a variety of other climate indicators. It is the simultaneity of these properties recorded in the ice that makes ice cores such a powerful tool in paleoclimate research."

National Ice Core Laboratory

I could go on for pages providing proof of the scientific validity of Ice Core studies. Do I have to?​

​

 

[pixelsmith]

So excuse my ignorance, but am I to understand that those of you who think that global warming is a scam are claiming that the burning of fossil fuels has had zero effect on the planet? Do you think we should promote the increased burning of fossil fuels? Do you think that human industrial activities have a zero sum impact on the planet? Do you feel that the Earth is less important than human progress and industrial activity?

Do you all think that perpetual growth is viable? Ever hear of cancer? Is cancer a good thing for the host body?

Yeah, I know, I'm being awfully provincial and all, but I'm just wondering...

Of course, I'll regret posting this message, especially when pixel starts typing, but I do this show, so I must be a masochist.

dB

With all due respect, Yes dB you are a bit ignorant about some of us but I still like you anyway. I do not believe ANYONE said burning fossil fuels has had zero impact on the planet. I see no reason to promote burning more fossil fuels either but I am going to continue driving my old 1947 Plymouth Business Coupe BECAUSE it is far more "green" that a POS electric car.

Human industrial activities have most certainly had a small impact on the planet but Mt St Helen spewed more noxious crap into the air than ALL human industrial waste to date, and that was just a small blast. The Earth is just as important as humans, no more, no less. We are NATURAL. We all belong here just as much as any other living OR non living thing.

Personally, I always recycle, I grow much of my own food, I pick up litter, I try to not use any aerosols, etc etc. I am sick to death of the false green movement. We need to take back our green flag form the monsters running this great big cool rock.

The Earth has a very cool way of maintaining itself. Cancer may be a way to control humans and other life forms but I think some cancer is primarily caused by humans in the first place.

It never ceases to amaze me that some people despise humans so much, and yet they do not take themselves out of the picture. I would never want anyone to do that of course, unless they had a good reason other than humans suck.

We have been around for just a speck in time. To think we have done any considerable harm to this planet is absurd, even more absurd is thinking we can change the climate. Earth will get rid our species in due time just like the millions of other species before us.

---------- Post added at 01:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:21 AM ----------

Climate science as we know it today did not exist in the 1960s and 1970s

You got that part right! We didn't Today it isn't Science, it is computer models that cannot predict even yesterdays weather!

I could go on for pages providing proof of the scientific validity of Ice Core studies. Do I have to?

At least make your point. No one is disputing using ice cores for data. Near as I can tell you are just trying to show that there have been drastic climate changes in the past. No one I know of is disputing that.

An enduring popular myth suggests that in the 1970s the climate science community was predicting “global cooling” and an “imminent” ice age, an observation frequently used by those who would undermine what climate scientists say today about the prospect of global warming.

That would be a false statement. Do you know who John Holdren is? Have you read EcoScience that he co-authored?

 

[bobheck]

You left out the 5 Mass Extinction Events Bob.

What? I don't see a problem. What am I missing?

1. There have been increases in CO2 several times.

2. There have been decreases in CO2 several times.

3. We are currently in an increasing trend that started some 50 million years ago, well before man and SUV's.

4. The earth is still here. It survived all of that.

What is inconsistent in what Pixel and I have been saying all along?

 

[Jonah]

What? I don't see a problem. What am I missing?

1. There have been increases in CO2 several times.

2. There have been decreases in CO2 several times.

These statements are not in dispute. It's understanding causal mechanisms that's important here.

3. We are currently in an increasing trend that started some 50 million years ago, well before man and SUV's.

It is a given that the atmosphere is composed of gases and that levels of those gases fluctuate due to natural ebbs and flows. That said, I'd like to focus on the following for the sake of this discussion.



"Trends

The atmospheric CO₂ reconstructions presented here offer records of atmospheric CO₂ mixing ratios from 1006 A.D. to 1978 A.D. The air enclosed in the three ice cores from Law Dome, Antarctica has unparalleled age resolution and extends into recent decades, because of the high rate of snow accumulation at the Law Dome drill sites (Etheridge et al. 1996). Etheridge et al. (1996) reported the uncertainty of the ice core CO₂ mixing ratios is 1.2 ppm. Preindustrial CO₂ mixing ratios were in the range 275-284 ppm, with the lower levels during 1550-1800 A.D., probably as a result of colder global climate (Etheridge et al. 1996). The Law Dome ice core CO₂ records show major growth in atmospheric CO₂ levels over the industrial period, except during 1935-1945 A.D. when levels stabilized or decreased slightly."

Historical CO₂ Records from the Law Dome DE08, DE08-2, and DSS Ice Cores

Do you see a problem here?

4. The earth is still here. It survived all of that.

What is inconsistent in what Pixel and I have been saying all along?

The continued existence of the Earth is not what';s at stake. It is the existence of the life upon, life which depends greatly on it's climactic stability in order to insure it's continuation. Do you see that almost vertical rise in the graph, starting not coincidentally with the beginning of the industrial age?

Your house is on fire bob.

 

[pixelsmith]

The continued existence of the Earth is not what';s at stake. It is the existence of the life upon, life which depends greatly on it's climactic stability in order to insure it's continuation. Do you see that almost vertical rise in the graph, starting not coincidentally with the beginning of the industrial age?

What is your point? CO2 levels have spiked much much higher in the past. We are almost CO2 starved actually. I would like to see CO2 between 700 and 1200 ppm. We need it for growing food. You want continued life on Earth? Then get the CO2 levels higher.

 

[bobheck]

Do you see a problem here?

No I do not. All conjecture. Notice the word probably. And also, during 1935-1945 when we burned way more fuel than average during a world war, they decreased. A minute time frame from such a large time span on earth, insufficient data to form any kind of reasonable opinion.

The continued existence of the Earth is not what';s at stake. It is the existence of the life upon, life which depends greatly on it's climactic stability in order to insure it's continuation.

Wait, wait. I thought the earth is what everybody was so worried about. So now you are taking a myopic view and want to make sure it's all comfy for you.. I see.

Do you see that almost vertical rise in the graph, starting not coincidentally with the beginning of the industrial age?

Do you see how the x-axis of the graph for the last part has been distorted to make it look worse? Notice that about an inch on the x-axis represents about 100 million years up until "Present". And then from "Present" to 2200 A.D. is about a half an inch, which should represent about 50 million years, not 200 years. The red dot (AD 200) should be an indistinguishable blip on that graph, and that figure is all speculation anyway based on a very small fragment of data to form a speculative trend. Also notice how the Permian, Triassic and Toarcian periods all had sharp rises in C02, all without our help.

Your house is on fire bob.

My alarms aren't going off. I'm staying in bed.

This is, as stated before, a religious debate. I'm leaving church and going outside to play.

 

[pixelsmith]

Industrial Age CO2 levels may be inaccurate. I ran across this VERY interesting paper from Prof. Zbigniew Jaworowski Chairman, Scientific Council of Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection Warsaw, Poland
Follow the link for the rest of the paper and to see graphics. Zbigniew Jaworowski on CO2 measurements

For the past 40 years I was involved in glacier studies, using snow and ice as a matrix for reconstruction of history of man-made pollution of the global atmosphere. A part of these studies was related to the climatic issues. Ice core records of CO2 have been widely used as a proof that, due to man's activity the current atmospheric level of CO2 is about 25% higher than in the pre-industrial period. These records became the basic input parameters in the models of the global carbon cycle and a cornerstone of the man-made climatic warming hypothesis. These records do not represent the atmospheric reality, as I will try to demonstrate in my statement.

Relevant Background

In order to study the history of industrial pollution of the global atmosphere, between 1972 and 1980, I organized 11 glacier expeditions, which measured natural and man-made pollutants in contemporary and ancient precipitation, preserved in 17 glaciers in Arctic, Antarctic, Alaska, Norway, the Alps, the Himalayas, the Ruwenzori Mountains in Uganda, the Peruvian Andes and in Tatra Mountains in Poland. I also measured long-term changes of dust in the troposphere and stratosphere, and the lead content in humans living in Europe and elsewhere during the past 5000 years. In 1968 I published the first paper on lead content in glacier ice[1]. Later I demonstrated that in pre-industrial period the total flux of lead into the global atmosphere was higher than in the 20th century, that the atmospheric content of lead is dominated by natural sources, and that the lead level in humans in Medieval Ages was 10 to 100 times higher than in the 20th century. In the 1990s I was working in the Norwegian Polar Research Institute in Oslo, and in the Japanese National Institute of Polar Research in Tokyo. In this period I studied the effects of climatic change on polar regions, and the reliability of glacier studies for estimation of CO2 concentration in the ancient atmosphere.

False Low Pre-industrial CO2 in the Atmosphere

Determinations of CO2 in polar ice cores are commonly used for estimations of the pre-industrial CO2 atmospheric levels. Perusal of these determinations convinced me that glaciological studies are not able to provide a reliable reconstruction of CO2 concentrations in the ancient atmosphere. This is because the ice cores do not fulfill the essential closed system criteria. One of them is a lack of liquid water in ice, which could dramatically change the chemical composition the air bubbles trapped between the ice crystals. This criterion, is not met, as even the coldest Antarctic ice (down to -73°C) contains liquid water[2]. More than 20 physico-chemical processes, mostly related to the presence of liquid water, contribute to the alteration of the original chemical composition of the air inclusions in polar ice[3].

One of these processes is formation of gas hydrates or clathrates. In the highly compressed deep ice all air bubbles disappear, as under the influence of pressure the gases change into the solid clathrates, which are tiny crystals formed by interaction of gas with water molecules. Drilling decompresses cores excavated from deep ice, and contaminates them with the drilling fluid filling the borehole. Decompression leads to dense horizontal cracking of cores, by a well known sheeting process. After decompression of the ice cores, the solid clathrates decompose into a gas form, exploding in the process as if they were microscopic grenades. In the bubble-free ice the explosions form a new gas cavities and new cracks[4]. Through these cracks, and cracks formed by sheeting, a part of gas escapes first into the drilling liquid which fills the borehole, and then at the surface to the atmospheric air. Particular gases, CO2, O2 and N2 trapped in the deep cold ice start to form clathrates, and leave the air bubbles, at different pressures and depth. At the ice temperature of -15°C dissociation pressure for N2 is about 100 bars, for O2 75 bars, and for CO2 5 bars. Formation of CO2 clathrates starts in the ice sheets at about 200 meter depth, and that of O2 and N2 at 600 to 1000 meters. This leads to depletion of CO2 in the gas trapped in the ice sheets. This is why the records of CO2 concentration in the gas inclusions from deep polar ice show the values lower than in the contemporary atmosphere, even for the epochs when the global surface temperature was higher than now.




The data from shallow ice cores, such as those from Siple, Antarctica[5, 6], are widely used as a proof of man-made increase of CO2 content in the global atmosphere, notably by IPCC[7]. These data show a clear inverse correlation between the decreasing CO2 concentrations, and the load-pressure increasing with depth (Figure 1 A) . The problem with Siple data (and with other shallow cores) is that the CO2 concentration found in pre-industrial ice from a depth of 68 meters (i.e. above the depth of clathrate formation) was "too high". This ice was deposited in 1890 AD, and the CO2 concentration was 328 ppmv, not about 290 ppmv, as needed by man-made warming hypothesis. The CO2 atmospheric concentration of about 328 ppmv was measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii as later as in 1973[8], i.e. 83 years after the ice was deposited at Siple.

An ad hoc assumption, not supported by any factual evidence[3, 9], solved the problem: the average age of air was arbitrary decreed to be exactly 83 years younger than the ice in which it was trapped. The "corrected" ice data were then smoothly aligned with the Mauna Loa record (Figure 1 B) , and reproduced in countless publications as a famous "Siple curve". Only thirteen years later, in 1993, glaciologists attempted to prove experimentally the "age assumption"[10], but they failed[9].

continued at above link.

 

[Schuyler]

This was just published yesterday:

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/surface_temp.pdf

Its conclusions:

• All terrestrial surface-temperature databases exhibit very serious problems that render them useless for determining accurate long-term temperature trends.
• All of the problems have skewed the data so as greatly to overstate observed warming both regionally and globally.
• Global terrestrial temperature data are gravely compromised because more than three-quarters of the 6000 stations that once existed are no longer reporting.
• There has been a severe bias towards removing higher-altitude, higher-latitude, and rural stations, leading to a further serious overstatement of warming.
• Contamination by urbanization, changes in land use, improper station sitting, and inadequately-calibrated instrument upgrades further overstate warming.
• Numerous peer-reviewed papers in recent years have shown the overstatement of observed warming is 30-50% from heat-island contamination alone.
• Cherry-picking of observing sites combined with interpolation to vacant data grids may make heat-island bias greater than 50% of 20th-century warming.
• In the oceans, data are missing and uncertainties are substantial. Comprehensive coverage has only been available since 2003, and shows no warming.
• Satellite temperature monitoring has already taken the place of terrestrial stations in compiling the global lower-troposphere temperature record.
• The terrestrial global-temperature databases on which so many important policy decisions based are entirely inadequate and unfit for further use.
• NOAA, not CRU, was the driving force behind the systematic hyping of 20th-century “global warming” – a warming that has been exaggerated in level and rate.

Lots of graphs and supporting information in the PDF.

 

[Roro]

So excuse my ignorance, but am I to understand that those of you who think that global warming is a scam are claiming that the burning of fossil fuels has had zero effect on the planet? Do you think we should promote the increased burning of fossil fuels? Do you think that human industrial activities have a zero sum impact on the planet? Do you feel that the Earth is less important than human progress and industrial activity?

Not at all. I look forward to the day when mankind is free of the need to burn fuels of any kind. The air will be cleaner, the water will be cleaner, cities will be quieter and we might be healthier. Long term I see no downside to moving on to cleaner energy technologies. We need to evolve into new power sources as technologies mature, not be forced into it by fear created using lies.

I really hate being lied to and manipulated. Each article I read where someone has been forced to admit that they lied to further the AGW cause they use the same reasoning, that it's alright to lie if it is for an important cause. Different entities have different motivations. First are environmentalists who have seized on CO2 as the all encompassing pollutant that virtually every industry on the planet can be attacked for creating, in fact everything that breathes on the planet can be blamed for creating CO2. Second are the governments and industries (in partnership) who can use fear of CO2 to seize ever increasing control over every aspect of peoples lives and become rich through taxation and the CO2 market. People will accept anything if you generate enough fear, up to and including a global governmental authority.

There are plenty of good, scientifically defendable reasons for cleaning up the earth (and we have already come a long way). Fear of CO2 just isn't one of them.

 

[pixelsmith]

The environmental movement was hijacked years ago. Even greenpeace is a joke now days. It is time to take back our green flag.

 

[Schuyler]

The issue to me is several fold.

1. Climate skeptics are marginalized by the Alarmist crowd and called 'deniers,' for example, equating them to Holocaust deniers. That marginalization effort is now back-firing. It's the same tactic Democrats have used to label all Republicans, even very moderate ones like Scott Brown, as right-wing zealots. And, just to be equalitarian here, the same tactic used by some right wingers to label all Democrats, even moderate ones, as socialists or communists.

2. We have seen, starting with the first Climategate, then moving on to non-disappearing Himalayan glaciers and non-disappearing Rain Forests, faulty NOAA data, and 'hiding the decline' that the data used to justify clamping down on carbon is flawed, if not intentionally biased in favor of showing global warming where there has been none.

3. We have also seen large-scale manipulation of data to deny that a Medieval Warming Period (hotter than now) ever took place. The same with the Roman Warm Period. I have shown, especially on the last thread, that when you take a long-term view of climate over thousands of years, that it is cyclical, and that the so-called hockey stick is the one that disappears.

4. If you actually take a look at the data itself you can see that ALL (Yes, ALL) the 'warming' and ALL (yes, ALL) the dire predictions on what will happen if it does warm are based on 'adjusting' the data beyond what was observed in the first place, and 'presuming' that nature is inherently unstable in the second and will spin wildly out of control.

5. there is an assumption made by the alarmists that more CO2 is 'BAD." Last time we had abundant CO2 in the atmosphere the forests were lush with life and animal life flourished. Alarmists will quickly point out that their 'computer models' show that more people will die from heat exhaustion, then completely ignore the fact that more people will live because they didn't freeze to death if it warms up. You want more food for a larger population? Then it had better warm up so we can grow it.

6. It is clear to me on studying this that the data itself is not that good to begin with. It is laced with untested proxies, fraught with assumptions, and manipulated with the false accuracy spreadsheets will give you. Spreadsheets and computer programs are very accurate, but they can be wrong to twenty places past the decimal. I've looked at some of the code and I have to tell you, it's a mess in there, NOT to standards. Microsoft does a much better job, savvy?

7. And on top of all this you have people who are manipulating the data for political and personal gain. You have climate scientists who will condemn a skeptical researcher as being in the pockets of 'Big Oil' because they earned $2000 on a consulting project with Exxon twenty years ago, but who themselves have received $15 million in grant money that specifically REQUIRES them to show how climate change is bad.

This is the worst hypocrisy imaginable.

7. NONE OF THIS means that climate skeptics are against 'saving the planet.' NONE OF THIS means that climate skeptics agree with continuing pollution on any scale whatsoever. NONE OF THIS means that climate skeptics don't want to protect the water supply, genetic diversity, save the whales, or promote organic farming. NONE OF THIS means that climate skeptics want to prohibit higher gas mileage vehicles and alternative cleaner-burning fuel alternatives. And NONE OF THIS means climate skeptics are against conserving resources.

The most AMAZING part of this argument is that as soon as someone dares to go against this orthodox politically correct view that "Global Warming will destroy the planet," they are immediately cast into a far right wing, let's shit on the planet, Nazi, capitalist pig dog category. Anyone who doesn't buy off on global warming alarmism must,THEREFORE, be all for destroying the planet.

This is just insanely stupid.

SHAME on you! You've been brainwashed. You're not looking at the data. You're an unquestioning believer. All you folks who say you are skeptical, who question people claiming stuff about UFOs and the paranormal, who know FOR CERTAIN that your governments have lied to you about EVERYTHING from WMD to Roswell to 9/11, then turn right around and when a politician like Al Gore, Tony Blair, Arnold Schwartzeneger, or Barack Obama, says 'The science is settled.' bow down like acolytes before your favorite god and say, "Yes! It must be true! I believe!! I believe!"

You are skeptical about everything EXCEPT global warming, but with global warming you buy the whole thing hook, line, and sinker.

So let's have no more of this "Climate skeptics want to destroy the planet" crap. Deal with the DATA. But first, you have to LOOK at what's been done rather than just accept what you are told.

 

[pixelsmith]

Bravo!!! Well stated Schuyler!!!

 

[conor]

Thanks for your reply Jonah.
Please show us the "science" that supports run-away-global-warming due to increased CO2.
Please show us how politics will save the planet.
Please explain the massive corruption that surrounds the Leader of the UN IPCC and its supporting scientists, including NASA and other environmental agencies, and also explain why they have to manipulate data if the AGW theory is true.

It's all just one big conspiracy. That explains everything! I no longer have to think about complex issues anymore! Thanks Pixelsmith, that's a weight off my mind:

---------- Post added at 11:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:36 PM ----------

The issue to me is several fold.

1. Climate skeptics are marginalized by the Alarmist crowd and called 'deniers,' for example, equating them to Holocaust deniers. That marginalization effort is now back-firing. It's the same tactic Democrats have used to label all Republicans, even very moderate ones like Scott Brown, as right-wing zealots. And, just to be equalitarian here, the same tactic used by some right wingers to label all Democrats, even moderate ones, as socialists or communists.

2. We have seen, starting with the first Climategate, then moving on to non-disappearing Himalayan glaciers and non-disappearing Rain Forests, faulty NOAA data, and 'hiding the decline' that the data used to justify clamping down on carbon is flawed, if not intentionally biased in favor of showing global warming where there has been none.

3. We have also seen large-scale manipulation of data to deny that a Medieval Warming Period (hotter than now) ever took place. The same with the Roman Warm Period. I have shown, especially on the last thread, that when you take a long-term view of climate over thousands of years, that it is cyclical, and that the so-called hockey stick is the one that disappears.

4. If you actually take a look at the data itself you can see that ALL (Yes, ALL) the 'warming' and ALL (yes, ALL) the dire predictions on what will happen if it does warm are based on 'adjusting' the data beyond what was observed in the first place, and 'presuming' that nature is inherently unstable in the second and will spin wildly out of control.

5. there is an assumption made by the alarmists that more CO2 is 'BAD." Last time we had abundant CO2 in the atmosphere the forests were lush with life and animal life flourished. Alarmists will quickly point out that their 'computer models' show that more people will die from heat exhaustion, then completely ignore the fact that more people will live because they didn't freeze to death if it warms up. You want more food for a larger population? Then it had better warm up so we can grow it.

6. It is clear to me on studying this that the data itself is not that good to begin with. It is laced with untested proxies, fraught with assumptions, and manipulated with the false accuracy spreadsheets will give you. Spreadsheets and computer programs are very accurate, but they can be wrong to twenty places past the decimal. I've looked at some of the code and I have to tell you, it's a mess in there, NOT to standards. Microsoft does a much better job, savvy?

7. And on top of all this you have people who are manipulating the data for political and personal gain. You have climate scientists who will condemn a skeptical researcher as being in the pockets of 'Big Oil' because they earned $2000 on a consulting project with Exxon twenty years ago, but who themselves have received $15 million in grant money that specifically REQUIRES them to show how climate change is bad.

This is the worst hypocrisy imaginable.

7. NONE OF THIS means that climate skeptics are against 'saving the planet.' NONE OF THIS means that climate skeptics agree with continuing pollution on any scale whatsoever. NONE OF THIS means that climate skeptics don't want to protect the water supply, genetic diversity, save the whales, or promote organic farming. NONE OF THIS means that climate skeptics want to prohibit higher gas mileage vehicles and alternative cleaner-burning fuel alternatives. And NONE OF THIS means climate skeptics are against conserving resources.

The most AMAZING part of this argument is that as soon as someone dares to go against this orthodox politically correct view that "Global Warming will destroy the planet," they are immediately cast into a far right wing, let's shit on the planet, Nazi, capitalist pig dog category. Anyone who doesn't buy off on global warming alarmism must,THEREFORE, be all for destroying the planet.

This is just insanely stupid.

SHAME on you! You've been brainwashed. You're not looking at the data. You're an unquestioning believer. All you folks who say you are skeptical, who question people claiming stuff about UFOs and the paranormal, who know FOR CERTAIN that your governments have lied to you about EVERYTHING from WMD to Roswell to 9/11, then turn right around and when a politician like Al Gore, Tony Blair, Arnold Schwartzeneger, or Barack Obama, says 'The science is settled.' bow down like acolytes before your favorite god and say, "Yes! It must be true! I believe!! I believe!"

You are skeptical about everything EXCEPT global warming, but with global warming you buy the whole thing hook, line, and sinker.

So let's have no more of this "Climate skeptics want to destroy the planet" crap. Deal with the DATA. But first, you have to LOOK at what's been done rather than just accept what you are told.

It's just that many people want to see something done about this, after fifty years of data, and they want government to force people to cut their emissions so that we might have a chance to curtail the bad effects which are almost certain at this stage.

I really couldn't care less if you dispute the data. Some of it may be debatable. But the concensus is not a conspiracy. There is simply no evidence for that. Now if you want to get into the philosophical underpinnings of why you find yourself saying 'It's not true!', and joining such magnificent pillars of society such as exxon mobil (can you detect the sarcasm?) and Fox News, then we may get somewhere in this debate.

It's about the free market. It's about the political view that government should stay out of peoples lives. It is the dominant ideology of our day. It centres on the individual. And it all sounds lovely. But the truth of the matter is that, having shown how bad an totally free market can be, there are some things which need government intervention. And before you all shout 'heretic!' or 'conspiracy', I don't think that the state should control all aspects of our lives. But there are areas which need to be acted upon on a state level. Will it effect your cushy life (cushy compared to most of the humans who have ever lived on this planet)? Probably a little.

But then, I suppose you can always just call it another conspiracy.

My point is, I want something done about this, cause if your house is dirty, you should at least try to clean it. And I do think it is very dirty at the moment

 

[bobheck]

My point is, I want something done about this, cause if your house is dirty, you should at least try to clean it. And I do think it is very dirty at the moment

\

Nobody is stopping you from cleaning your house. Go ahead. Knock yourself out.

We are against letting some global authority set taxes and restrictions on sovereign nations, using the trumped up global warming farce as the justification.

It sounds as if you are in the crowd that thinks curtailing free peoples' activities to suit your interest is the main objective (restricting CO2 emissions), and if lies and deceit get that done, so be it -- as long as it gets done.

 

[Schuyler]

It's just that many people want to see something done about this, after fifty years of data, and they want government to force people to cut their emissions so that we might have a chance to curtail the bad effects which are almost certain at this stage.

They do, and I don't, at least not with CO2. I don't want to be forced to join the Global Warming Religious Cult. I have studied the issue as well as I can, and my conclusion is that the Global Warming Cult is based on false data and political motivations. Whether you want to trot out ice core data, Urban Heat Islands, or tree-ring data, it looks to me like the science of this thing is so faulty as to be entirely misleading. Leftist control freaks have hijacked the environmental movement to their own ends. Green is the new Red. The real issue isn't environmental at all; it's political control.

The Global Warming Cult is acting as if I MUST worship their false gods or meet the fate of their Inquisition. I don't want to be forced to be a Muslim. I don't want to be forced to be a Christian, and I don't want to be forced to be a Scientologist. The Global Warming Cult is composed of believers who believe in selected data and vigorously ignore that which does not fit their beliefs. I do not want to be taxed into the stone age and poverty because of their false beliefs. The Global Warming Cult is freaking out over false and manipulated data and wanting us all to jump off a cliff with them.

No thanks. I will resist them with every fiber of my being.

 

[AdamI]

David seems kind of 'put out' more so than usual lately.

That is a pretty strong statement, and it worries me. I truly hope every is ok with him. He may just be burned out, reading a lot of the drivel on these boards, too. I know I walked away from them for quite a while.

As a species we are still in a tribal warfare stage, to be sure. We are using a vast amount of our resources and energy to build and maintain bigger and better sticks and stones. But, hey, we also have art, culture, hospitals, medicine, religion. We ARE trying and at least on some fronts are making progress. I don't know where it is all going, but I really don't think that the sooner we are extinct the better. I am not that cynical. I think we have a chance in the future to finally rise above and start to actually progress as a species. The earth will still outlast us and survive until the sun goes nova.

The problem I have with quotes like that is that they're... well... moralistic.

We're a "virus with shoes?" According to whose judgement? God? Aliens? Mother Earth? Earth has been here far longer than we have, and it will be here far longer than we will.

I think this level of human-hate is sort of the flip-side to the old "we're special! we're created in God's image!" idea. In some ways it continues it. We're not special-evil either. We are not divine beings created in God's image, and we are not a plague upon the Earth. We just are what we are, and are going to run whatever evolutionary trajectory we're going to run.

We're also not the first organism to massively alter the biosphere. When photosynthesis evolved, the atmosphere was shifted from reducing to oxidizing... a far greater change than we could accomplish even if we tried. If the early cyanobacteria were sentient, I'm sure they'd be protesting each others' dangerous oxygen emissions and guilt-tripping each other with moralistic flagella-wringing. Since the Earth was probably covered with brown mats of bacteria in those days, maybe they'd call their protest group "brownpeace?"

On manmade global warming / climate change I am somewhat agnostic at this point. I have seen some good first-hand evidence that it's happening, such as the effect it may be having on the arctic. However, I have also become increasingly skeptical of computer simulation... not just in climate modeling but in all fields. To be more accurate, I have become skeptical of the idea that you can predict the future of any complex system with computer models.

A largely untold story of the most recent financial crash was the utter failure of computer models of risk in finance for example. The people who built these models were just as smart as the people who build climate models, and were funded even more lavishly. These models failed miserably. Part of why some of these guys didn't see the obvious imbalances that were building in the economy was because their genius quant models told them everything was fine.

I also don't think anything can stop us from burning all the fossil fuels we have except for a technological innovation that renders them obsolete. Passing laws won't help... laws change, governments collapse, etc. Even an event that kills 95% of humanity off wouldn't stop it... we'd be back where we are today in a thousand years or less. I can't think of anything that would slow down our process of burning off all this fossil fuel for any significant amount of time. By significant I mean geologically significant... even a CO2-restriction treaty that lasts a thousand years is geologically insignificant.

When you think about it, it makes sense. Fossil fuels are basically gigantic geologically sequestered piles of food. It was evolutionarily inevitable that something would discover them and eat them. Leave a pile of food outside and see what happens.

---------- Post added at 03:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:51 AM ----------

They do, and I don't, at least not with CO2. I don't want to be forced to join the Global Warming Religious Cult. I have studied the issue as well as I can, and my conclusion is that the Global Warming Cult is based on false data and political motivations. Whether you want to trot out ice core data, Urban Heat Islands, or tree-ring data, it looks to me like the science of this thing is so faulty as to be entirely misleading. Leftist control freaks have hijacked the environmental movement to their own ends. Green is the new Red. The real issue isn't environmental at all; it's political control.

The Global Warming Cult is acting as if I MUST worship their false gods or meet the fate of their Inquisition. I don't want to be forced to be a Muslim. I don't want to be forced to be a Christian, and I don't want to be forced to be a Scientologist. The Global Warming Cult is composed of believers who believe in selected data and vigorously ignore that which does not fit their beliefs. I do not want to be taxed into the stone age and poverty because of their false beliefs. The Global Warming Cult is freaking out over false and manipulated data and wanting us all to jump off a cliff with them.

No thanks. I will resist them with every fiber of my being.

You hit on another thing that makes me skeptical. Michael Crichton said this too, and was practically lynched.

Green ideology is effectively a secular remapping of Judeo-Christian guilt-and-redemption ideology. More accurately I think it's an atheistic secular version of Calvinism.

You have eden, which was (supposedly) a time when we lived in relative balance with the Earth. Then you had what I call the "thermodynamic fall from grace," when we discovered all these technological tricks to access more energy and resources than we theoretically should be accessing. This resulted in our banishment from eden, and threatens us with divine judgement (global warming, malthusian catastrophes, etc.) if we do not reform or atone for our sin.

Atoning for our sin involves restricting our use of energy, imposing self-punishment, ritually flogging ourselves, and even eating special "Kosher" food in the form of organic.

(Don't get me wrong... I like organic food, but I buy it because it's often of higher quality not because of any religious idea. Halal meats and many Kosher items are good too.)

If you want to see what I'm talking about, ask any ideological green this question: "what if global warming is good for us?"

The answer doesn't really matter. In reality it would probably be both good and bad depending on where you're located. But the idea is to note the emotional reaction to the question. Asking that question is like asking "what if the serpent in the garden was the good guy and was setting us free, and what if the God of the old testament was really evil?" Merely asking such a question is high heresy, and will provoke a strong emotional response from stern believers.

 

[Jonah]

Industrial Age CO2 levels may be inaccurate. I ran across this VERY interesting paper from Prof. Zbigniew Jaworowski Chairman, Scientific Council of Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection Warsaw, Poland

So we are discussing the scientific study of Ice Core. Pixelsmith has attempted to discredit this science by providing us with a missive from Zbigniew Jaworowski. I won't bother trying to point out that he is not a climate scientist nor does he specialize in Ice Core science. Rather, here is a rather enlightening dissection of the good Professor courtesy of Some Are Boojums

"In Dashiell Hammett’s story The Golden Horseshoe, much of the action takes place in a bar of that name in Tijuana. At one point the narrator, an operative for the Continental Detective Agency, kills a few strategic seconds by studying the decorations: I was reading a sign high on the wall behind the bar:

ONLY GENUINE PRE-WAR AMERICAN AND BRITISH WHISKEYS SERVED HERE
​

I was trying to count how many lies could be found in those nine words, and had reached four, with promise of more …

Sometimes I come across an article, web posting, advertisement or other statement that makes me feel when I read it just as I imagine the Continental Op did in that Tijuana bar. How can they possibly pack so much misinformation into such a small space?"

We will continue with the science of AGW in upcoming post, but I wanted to riff a bit on Schuylers (welcome back) analogy with belief in UFO's. I see the reality of AGW much as I see the reality of UFOs, whatever they may be. The evidence is so totally overwhelming that it simply cannot be denied by rational, open minded thinkers. I find the arguments against this reality to be much in the same vein and which is on display in this very thread. The analogy is that by presenting the case for each, UFOs and AGW, the excuses and evidence provided by the skeptic becomes more and more absurd.

Think "Swamp Gas".

I know because I've seen it, and am practicing a bit of that art form here. I will continue to provide the science, over and over and over again, and the skeptic will continue to link to Exxon funded blogs, or to essays such as that given us by Jaworowski above. And as usually, once the prey..er.. I mean the skeptic starts to realize what is to come, they begin with misdirection, conspiracy theory, name calling (CULTS in ALL CAPS) and by providing even more unfounded, morally questionable "denialist science" by the likes of Anthony Watts, who was once a "weatherman" (See Schuylers link), which is a noble profession, but who is NOT quite qualified academically to provide me with true climate science.

I prefer my information and education to come from the likes of Harvard, Princeton, the National Academy of Sciences, the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the National Ice Core Laboratory, Penn State, The Royal Academy, the AAAS, the GPU and a thousand other peer reviewed, well respected and world famous organizations/laboratories, led by scientist who truly care about what they do. And to me, these institutions, and the science they provide us, are the equivalent of the best UFO cases. They simply can't be denied. As you'll see.

Eventually, it is the skeptics who become the one's wearing the tinfoil hats......heh.

OK...more science. Carbon Cycles, Feedback Loops, Ocean Acidity....yum.

 

[bobheck]

I prefer my information and education to come from the likes of Harvard, Princeton, the National Academy of Sciences, the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the National Ice Core Laboratory, Penn State, The Royal Academy, the AAAS, the GPU and a thousand other peer reviewed, well respected and world famous organizations/laboratories, led by scientist who truly care about what they do. And to me, these institutions, and the science they provide us, are the equivalent of the best UFO cases. They simply can't be denied. As you'll see.

Ah, but it has been proven here (with science, mind you and a 111 page document, et al) that their data was skewed and the earth is not in fact warming after all. So, the very basis for their findings, and your arguments, was flawed.

OK...more science. Carbon Cycles, Feedback Loops, Ocean Acidity....yum.
The evidence is so totally overwhelming that it simply cannot be denied by rational, open minded thinkers

And there we have it. When you have run out of legitimate arguments, deny the evidence, make broad statements and start the personal attacks. The Church of Global Warming, hear their cry.