The Gaia ​Hypothesis--​Sun and Water

ScanIAm wrote:



Maddus Mattus wrote:  Dr Herbie wrote: Didn't mean to put you off contributing to this thread, just to point out that we've been through this more than once. No sense in doing it over and over again, I get the idea I'm not put off in any way.

You shouldn't be. 

Ray-Ray is kind of like the guy that stands on a street corner with a placard that reads "The end is Near".

The difference is that his sign actually says "Don't worry about it, Keep polluting".

Plus, he seems fixated on Al Gore...apparently he believes that Al Gore is in charge of the global conspiracy to ruin polluting energy companies.

Of course no one wants to continue polluting.
it appears to me that most of the posts on this topic have been and continue to be full of political ideals, half-truths and assumptions.

Instead of having a practical discussion, where each niner respects the others opinion, all we end up with is discourse, name calling and antagonization.

That's a great way to effect understanding through discussion and mutual respect

The point is, that we don't understand enough about global warming, or it causes to react with knee jerk decisions; of which again we don't understand what it's effects could be.

Plans and agendas like seeding the ocean with iron and space mirrors are completely reactionary and counter-productive to the issue itself.

Now, you want to reduce Co2 output and other pollutants, that's great. But arbitrarily and fanatically discussing implementing supposed 'solutions' do nothing more than perpetuate the ignorance of the issue.

Once again, I'll point to the essay's by the renowned MIT Sloan climatologist Dr. Richard Lindzen, that disputes most of the current hysteria. (Also, note he was part of the panel that drafted the report)

Something I find very interesting, is that according to Dr. Lindzen ,the original IPCC document "Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions," which , BTW, is the document used by just about everyone to connect humans and C02 to Global warming originally was written by scientists as stating:

National Academy of Scientists wrote:

   From the body of evidence since IPCC (1996), we conclude that there has been a discernible human influence on global climate. 

   Studies are beginning to separate the contributions to observed climate change attributable to individual external influences, both anthropogenic and natural. 

   This work suggests that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are a substantial contributor to the observed warming, especially over the past 30 years. 

   However, the accuracy of these estimates continues to be limited by uncertainties in estimates of internal variability, natural and anthropogenic forcing, and the climate response to external forcing.

But when the report was revised by policy makers, that paragraph mysteriously became:

Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions wrote:

In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations

And then when it was revised again for publication, it changed again.

If, you're truly interested in trying to discern the truth, then at least view some of these:

http://www.open2.net/truthwillout/globalwarming/global_lindzen.htm

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008220

http://eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/153_Regulation.pdf

http://www.opinionet.com/staff/bobwebster/globalwarmingseries04.shtml

Dr. Lindzen wrote:

Picking holes in the IPCC is crucial. The notion that if you’re ignorant of something and somebody comes up with a wrong answer, and you have to accept that because you don’t have another wrong answer to offer is like faith healing, it’s like quackery in medicine – if somebody says you should take jelly beans for cancer and you say that’s stupid, and he says, well can you suggest something else and you say, no, does that mean you have to go with jelly beans?

ScanIAm wrote:

Ray-Ray is kind of like the guy that stands on a street corner with a placard that reads "The end is Near".

 

The end is near, didn't you watch my movie?

ScanIAm wrote:

Plus, he seems fixated on Al Gore...apparently he believes that Al Gore is in charge of the global conspiracy to ruin polluting energy companies.

That's just not correct. The Global Conspiracy is run by a Board of Directors, everyone knows that.

Al Gore hs spoken!

A number of people have queried the antropomorphic (human induced) size of impact on global warming compared to natural parts, so I include the relative radiative forcing (in Watts per square metre) components:

These are a direct quote from the IPCC, which contrary to raymond's previous statement is a collaboration of scientists whose purpose is to take data on past trends in climate and project forward, and come to various conclusions and predictions with respect to the climate.

If raymond continues to object to this statement, he should perhaps consult page 19 of 21 in the summary of the IPCC findings.

Antropomorphic:
Carbon Dioxide gas (CO2)
RF = 1.66 [1.49-1.83] on global scale with high LOSU
Methane gas (CH4)
RF = 0.48 [0.48-0.58] on global scale with high LOSU.
Nitrogen dioxide gas (N20)
RF = 0.16 [0.14-0.53] on global scale with high LOSU.
Halocarbons as gas
RF = 0.34 [0.31-0.37] on global scale with high LOSU.
Ozone gas in stratosphere (O3)
RF = -0.05 [-0.15-0.05] on continental scale with med LOSU.
Ozone gas in troposhere (O3)
RF = 0.35 [0.25-0.65] on continental scale with med LOSU.
Water vapour in stratosphere (caused by CH4 reaction) (H20)
RF = 0.07 [0.02-0.12] on global scale with low LOSU.
Surface albedo effect (Land use)
RF = -0.2 [-0.4-0.00] on local scale with med-low LOSU.
Surface albedo effect (Black carbon on snow)
RF = 0.1 [0.0-0.2] on local scale with med-low LOSU.
Airosol use by direct effect
RF = -0.5 [-0.9- -0.1] on continental scale with med-low LOSU.
Cloud albedo effect (e.g. from airplane trails)
RF = -0.7 [-1.8 - -0.3] on continental scale with low LOSU.
Linear contrails (clouds formed behind planes)
RF = 0.01 [0.0003 - 0.03] on continental scale with low LOSU.

Natural
Solar irradience
RF = 0.12 [0.06-0.30] on global scale with low LOSU.
Other non-antropromorphic sources
RF = 1.6 [0.6-2.4]

RF = Radiative Forcing in Watts per square metre, and represents the relative heating effect (in real terms) of the gasses on the scale indicated (global or local).
*LOSU = Level of Scientific Understanding on the impact of these gases.

additional (not included) forcing parameters are ignored due to very low LOSU, but are generally thought to constitute a small forcing factor compared to those given. Volcanic arosols constitute an additional natural forcing, but are not included because of their episodic nature. Range on Linear controls does not include other possible effects of aviation on cloud formation.

Totals are not included here as these require summing asymmetric uncertainty estimates from the component terms, and cannot be
obtained by simple addition.


With regard to amount of CO2 that is caused by anthropomorphic changes

See page 2 of the IPCC summary:

Carbon dioxide is the most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas (see Figure SPM-2). The global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased from a pre-industrial value of about 280 ppm to
379 ppm in 2005. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide in 2005 exceeds by far the natural range over the last 650,000 years (180 to 300 ppm) as determined from ice cores. The annual carbon
dioxide concentration growth-rate was larger during the last 10 years (1995 – 2005 average: 1.9 ppm per year), than it has been since the beginning of continuous direct atmospheric measurements (1960–2005
average: 1.4 ppm per year) although there is year-to-year variability in growth rates.

This would suggest that at least a third of the CO2 gas in the atmosphere is caused by human activity over the past 100 years.

Dr Herbie wrote:



Rossj wrote: I thought it was widely known that Crichton was very selective in his quoting of other people's text and scientific papers.  I don't know what his Agenda is, but I wouldn't put publicity out of the picture.

Can we just make this clear again:
Crichton is not a scientist, he is a writer of fiction.

He was a medical doctor, but that is not the same as a scientist, and certainly not the same as a climatologist.  He is not more qualified to talk on this subject than anyone else on this thread.




Herbie

Just to get this straight, Al Gore isn't a scientist either, maybe he should have left someone else to make the movie. But seriously, you know how easy it would have been for Crichton to get a degree in climatology if he wanted to? You know how easy it would be for me to get one? Going through a process to get a piece of paper doesn't mean thousands of other people couldn't have done the same thing.

But back to the actual discussion of the issue, Crichton's opinions aren't different than a lot of scientists. There pretty much IS consensus that humans are affecting the environment. There is NOT consensus that it we're facing a cataclysm in the short future that we need major political action to reverse. In fact, the confusion between these two views is what has caused most of the ruckus. When scientists are asked if they believe in gobal warming they say YES, there there's pretty much consensus. Then this fact is used to argue against people who are only trying to argue that there's no consensus that we're facing cataclysm.l

Crichton on that YouTube video is mostly criticizing Al Gore, btw, and not real scientists.

Global Warming? Some common sense thoughts

By Reid A. Bryson Ph.D., D.Sc., D.Engr. 1

Some Common Fallacies

1. The atmospheric warming of the last century is unprecedented and unique.
Wrong.
There are literally thousands of papers in the scientific literature with data that shows that the climate has been changing one way or the other for millions of years.

2. It is a fact that the warming of the past century was anthropogenic in origin, i.e. man-made and due to carbon dioxide emission.
Wrong.
That is a theory for which there is no credible proof. There are a number of causes of climatic change, and until all causes other than carbon dioxide increase are ruled out, we cannot attribute the change to carbon dioxide alone.

3. The most important gas with a "greenhouse" effect is carbon dioxide.
Wrong.
Water vapor is at least 100 times as effective as carbon dioxide, so small variations in water vapor are more important than large changes in carbon dioxide.

4. One cannot argue with the computer models that predict the climate effects of a doubling of carbon dioxide or other "greenhouse gases".
Wrong.
To show this we must show that the computer models can at least duplicate the present-day climate. This they cannot do with what could be called accuracy by any stretch of the imagination. There are studies that show that the average error in modeling present precipitation is on the order of 100%, and the error in modeling present temperature is about the same size as the predicted change due to a doubling of carbon dioxide. For many areas, the precipitation error is 300-400 percent.

5. I am arguing that the carbon dioxide measurements are poorly done.
Wrong.
The measurements are well done, but the interpretation of them is often less
than acceptably scientific.

6. It is the consensus of scientists in general that carbon-dioxide-induced warming of the climate is a fact.
Probably wrong. I know of no vote having been taken, and know that if such a vote were taken of those who are most vocal about the matter, it would include a significant fraction of people who do not know enough about climate to have a significant opinion. Taking a vote is a risky way to discover scientific truth.

 1 Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, of Geography and of Environmental
Studies. Senior Scientist, Center for Climatic Research, The Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies (Founding Director), the University of Wisconsin, Madison

http://sitewave.net/news/s49p1837.htm


General Circulation Models of Climate

"...In 1967, Edward Lorenz, an MIT professor of meteorology, cautioned that "even the trade winds and the prevailing westerlies at sea level are not completely explained." Another expert more bluntly described where things stood for an explanation of the general circulation: "none exists." Lorenz and a few others began to suspect that the problem was not merely difficult, but impossible in principle. Climate was apparently not a well-defined system, but only an average of the ever-changing jumble of daily thunderstorms and storm fronts.(27)

<=Simple models

Would computer modelers ever be able to say they had "explained" the general circulation? Many scientists looked askance at the new method of numerical simulation as it crept into more and more fields of research. This was not theory, and it was not observation either; it was off in some odd new country of its own. People were attacking many kinds of scientific problems by taking a set of basic equations, running them through hundreds of thousands of computations, and publishing a result that claimed to reflect reality. Their results, however, were simply stacks of printout with rows of numbers. That was no "explanation" in the traditional sense of a model in words or diagrams or equations, something you could write down on a few pages, something your brain could grasp intuitively as a whole. The numerical approach "yields little insight," Lorenz complained. "The computed numbers are not only processed like data but they look like data, and a study of them may be no more enlightening than a study of real meteorological observations."(28)

"... As for modeling the atmosphere itself, experts still had plenty of work to do. The range of modelers' predictions of global warming for a doubling of CO2 remained broad, anywhere between roughly 1.5 and 4.5°C. The ineradicable uncertainty was caused largely by ignorance of what would happen to clouds as the world warmed. Much was still unknown about how aerosols helped to form clouds, what kinds of clouds would form, and how the various kinds of clouds would interact with radiation. That problem came to the fore in 1995, when a controversy was triggered by studies suggesting that clouds absorbed much more radiation than modelers had thought. Through the preceding decade, modelers had adjusted their calculations to remove certain anomalies in the data, on the assumption that the data were unreliable. Now careful measurement programs indicated that the anomalies could not be dismissed so easily. As one participant in the controversy warned, "both theory and observation of the absorption of solar radiation in clouds are still fraught with uncertainties...."

"...Critics kept pointing out every imperfection in the models as publicly as possible It was not just that there were questionable assumptions in the equations. There were also undeniable problems in the basic physical data that the models relied on, and uncertainties in the way the data were manipulated to fit things together. The models still needed special adjustments to get plausible ice ages. And when modelers tried to simulate the climate of the Cretaceous epoch — a super-greenhouse period a hundred millions years ago that had been far warmer than the present and with a CO2 level several times higher — the results were far from the climate pattern geologists reported..."

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/GCM.htm

Global Warming FAQ

"...Europe and the world face severe economic consequences from currently proposed strategies to deal with global warming. These approaches will produce job losses and consume scarce resources that could be better spent on handling other world problems such as AIDS or access to water.33 The economic consequences of global warming mitigation strategies currently proposed will probably be worse than the effects of global warming itself. Therefore, adaptive and resiliency strategies should be considered as a more cost-effective alternative. In addition, “no regrets” strategies that will provide benefits from greater economic growth whether global warming proves to be a problem or not should be adopted at once..."

http://www.cei.org/pdf/5331.pdf

Dirty Coal Power

"We all use electricity in our daily lives, almost without thinking about it -- turning on the lights, listening to the radio, using computers. If we stopped and learned about the energy we use, we would encounter some shocking realities about how energy production affects our health and our environment.

Where Our Power Comes From

With all the amazing technological advancements over the last century, one thing that has not changed very much is our reliance on fossil fuels, in particular, dirty coal to generate electricity. More than half of the electricity generated in the United States comes from coal.¹   The producers of the largest share of our nation's energy, coal-fired power plants are also one of the dirtiest sources of electricity. ..."

http://www.sierraclub.org/cleanair/factsheets/power.asp

I am still a solar heretic, however, for the man-made global warming true believers my suggestions are as follows:

Have the private sector build nuclear power plants and sell them to the governments and utility companies that want to buy them.

No government subsidies to the companies building the nuclear plants.
 

I can't wait until raymond gets his own blog.

raymond wrote:



Global Warming? Some common sense thoughts

By Reid A. Bryson Ph.D., D.Sc., D.Engr. 1

Some Common Fallacies

1. The atmospheric warming of the last century is unprecedented and unique.
Wrong.
There are literally thousands of papers in the scientific literature with data that shows that the climate has been changing one way or the other for millions of years.

IPCC Summary page 2:

The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide in 2005 exceeds by far the natural
range over the last 650,000 years (180 to 300 ppm) as determined from ice cores

2. It is a fact that the warming of the past century was anthropogenic in origin, i.e. man-made and due to carbon dioxide emission.
Wrong.
That is a theory for which there is no credible proof. There are a number of causes of climatic change, and until all causes other than carbon dioxide increase are ruled out, we cannot attribute the change to carbon dioxide alone.

IPCC Summary page 3:
The understanding of anthropogenic warming and cooling influences on climate has improved since
the Third Assessment Report (TAR), leading to very high confidence7 that the globally averaged net
effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming, with a radiative forcing of +1.6 [+0.6
to +2.4] W m-2. (see Figure SPM-2). {2.3. 6.5, 2.9}
(Very high confidence = at least one sigma (>= 98%) probability)

3. The most important gas with a "greenhouse" effect is carbon dioxide.
Wrong.
Water vapor is at least 100 times as effective as carbon dioxide, so small variations in water vapor are more important than large changes in carbon dioxide.

IPCC Summary page 2:

Carbon dioxide is the most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas (see Figure SPM-2).

See also my measured figures of the relative radiative forcing values for water vapour vs carbon dioxide - water may have a higher RF than CO2 per unit (citation please), but there's a lot more CO2 around in the atmosphere

4. One cannot argue with the computer models that predict the climate effects of a doubling of carbon dioxide or other "greenhouse gases".
Wrong.
To show this we must show that the computer models can at least duplicate the present-day climate. This they cannot do with what could be called accuracy by any stretch of the imagination. There are studies that show that the average error in modeling present precipitation is on the order of 100%, and the error in modeling present temperature is about the same size as the predicted change due to a doubling of carbon dioxide. For many areas, the precipitation error is 300-400 percent.

Making up numbers is scientific fraud, which you, sir are now guilty of. Without a citation, this doesn't even warrant a response.

5. I am arguing that the carbon dioxide measurements are poorly done.
Wrong.
The measurements are well done, but the interpretation of them is often less
than acceptably scientific.

If you mean the interpretations are not the result you are looking for, they you, sir, are being unscientific. If the majority of climate scientists are "doing it wrong", then I suggest that you go and "do it right" or at the very least show how it is that they are "doing it wrong". Disagreeing with a result because you don't like the answer is why governments haven't done something about this problem already.

6. It is the consensus of scientists in general that carbon-dioxide-induced warming of the climate is a fact.

Probably wrong. I know of no vote having been taken, and know that if such a vote were taken of those who are most vocal about the matter, it would include a significant fraction of people who do not know enough about climate to have a significant opinion. Taking a vote is a risky way to discover scientific truth.

Scientists don't "vote" on conclusions. Science isn't democratic. Scientific opinion is obtained by looking at serious (peer-reviewed) studies on a topic and comparing the results that they find. There is no "voted consensus" that global warming is happening, just like there is no "voted consensus" that quantum physics exists.

To quote from The scientific consensus on climate change by N. Oreskes on 3 Dec. 2004

Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords “global climate change” (9).

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

You mention, raymond, that the National Academy of Sciences disagrees with the IPCC's "politicised" report on their finding, but to quote from Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions

Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result
of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise

 1 Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, of Geography and of Environmental
Studies. Senior Scientist, Center for Climatic Research, The Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies (Founding Director), the University of Wisconsin, Madison

http://sitewave.net/news/s49p1837.htm

When you provide for me a peer-reviewed journal extract of a study he has made on the matter, I will take his words seriously. Otherwise this may well be someone else under his name, or indeed, him just being an unscientific prat.


General Circulation Models of Climate
Cropped to save space (see raymond's post for full)

From the same extract (last paragraph and summary)

The climate system and ecosystems are complex and only partly understood, so there is a chance that the impacts will not be as bad as predicted. There is a similar chance of impacts grievously worse than predicted. If the CO2 level keeps rising to well beyond twice the pre-industrial level with a similar rise of other greenhouse gases, as must inevitably happen if we do not change our ways, the results will certainly be worse — probably including a radical reorganization and impoverishment of many of the ecosystems that sustain our civilization. In any case, the sooner and more vigorously humanity restrains greenhouse gas emissions, the better the long-term result.

Global Warming FAQ
Cropped to save space (see raymond's post for full)

http://www.cei.org/pdf/5331.pdf

http://www.sierraclub.org/cleanair/factsheets/power.asp

This isn't a scientific study (it has no author and it hasn't been peer reviewed). I will therefore reserve my judgement on it. On the economics of global warming and it's prevention, I suggest you look at the studies in this area, such as the Stern Review. Without going into detail, the Stern review claims that "The costs of stabilising the climate are significant but manageable; delay would be dangerous and much more costly."

I am still a solar heretic, however, for the man-made global warming true believers my suggestions are as follows:

Have the private sector build nuclear power plants and sell them to the governments and utility companies that want to buy them.

No government subsidies to the companies building the nuclear plants.

There are solutions that are already viable with either carbon costs factored in (at less than 1% increase in cost of energy) or with government subsidy. All that is needed in government buy-in. We don't need more solutions, we just need to implement the ones we have.

Answer one question: Is the rise of CO2 levels a result or cause of global warming?

I agree with many scientist that say a result.

The world is going to double electrical power generation over the next 30 years and most of that increase will come from coal-powered electrical plants and an increasing percentage from nuclear power plants.

To be blunt, nobody in the developing countries gives a damn what the elites in the United States and Europe say about global warming.  They want their people to have electricity and you know what-- they are right.

Marlo Lewis Responds to Al Gore's Appearance on Oprah

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXw17pIuL0w&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecei%2Eorg%2Fpages%2Fait%5Fresponse%2Ecfm

raymond wrote:

Answer one question: Is the rise of CO2 levels a result or cause of global warming?

I agree with many scientist that say a result.

The world is going to double electrical power generation over the next 30 years and most of that increase will come from coal-powered electrical plants and an increasing percentage from nuclear power plants.

To be blunt, nobody in the developing countries gives a damn what the elites in the United States and Europe say about global warming.  They want their people to have electricity and you know what-- they are right.

Marlo Lewis Responds to Al Gore's Appearance on Oprah

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXw17pIuL0w&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecei%2Eorg%2Fpages%2Fait%5Fresponse%2Ecfm">http://www.cei.org/pages/ait_response.cfm">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXw17pIuL0w&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecei%2Eorg%2Fpages%2Fait%5Fresponse%2Ecfm

Which scientists say that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have increased because of global warming? I haven't heard any credible study come to that conclusion.

Whether or not electrical power consumption increases, decreases, stays stationary or stops entirely, this does not change the truth value of global warming. Global warming is not false because we're not doing anything about it - that is just an assertion of our own stupidity.

Simmilarly, raymond, you seem obsessed by Al Gore and his take on global warming. Al Gore is perhaps the best known advocate of the science behind global warming, but he is not one of the scientists behind it and he does not fund research into global warming. Al Gore might be doing his speeches for political gain and he may say one thing and do another, but even if that were so, the science behind his speeches is sound, and his conclusion is correct: Humans are causing global warming and humans are going to have to face the consequences.

The IPCC and the National Academy of Science are not saying that the third world cannot have electricity, nor are they saying that we must reduce carbon emissions. They are scientific and their result says simply: If we do not reduce carbon emissions then climate change will occur, and all the evidence suggests that this will cause decreased crop yields, changes in local precipitation and sea-currents, increase in severity of local and global weather conditions, melting of ice-caps and potentially large increases in sea-level causing lots of flooding.

Scientists arn't saying that we can't or won't increase CO2 or electricity production - that's for politicians to say. They merely say that if we don't, climate change will occur.

In response to Marlo Lewis' claims:

Antarctica is growing
This is a well known myth.

No 20ft increase in the sea-levels in our (or our children's lifetimes).
This is a bit of an Al-Gorism. The figures he is quoting come from the IPCC summary:
Paleoclimate information supports the interpretation that the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1300 years. The last time the polar regions were significantly warmer than present for an extended period (about 125,000 years ago), reductions in polar ice volume led to 4 to 6 metres of sea level rise. {6.4, 6.6}
This does not imply that a 6 metre increase in sea level will occur, but lends credibility to the predictions that at least a 1-2 metre rise in the sea level should be expected in the next 100 years.

Greenland is losing ice at an effective rate of increase in sea levels of 1 inch / centuary.
Newer studies suggest that it is about twice this figure. Even so, greenland is not the only contributing factor to sea-level rise.

Global warming over the past 30 years is constant and modest.
Hard data again. Since 1960 global average surface temperature has increased by just over 0.5 degrees Celcius.

It is not easy, profitable or do-able to reduce carbon emissions.
It's not easy and there are real costs, but that does not mean that it is not happening. There are many studies (e.g. Stern et al) which show global warming to be more economically catastrophic than reducing carbon emissions, but even if that were not true, it seems to be just dishonest to deny the existence of global warming because it is inconvenient. Governments should at the very least say "We've looked at the evidence, and we think global warming is real, but too expensive to deal with", and let them answer to their children, their grandchildren and their voters who have to deal with the very real effects of their decisions, rather than attempting to undermine the very real science that is done by good scientists on the subject.

evildictaitor wrote:



The IPCC and the National Academy of Science are not saying that the third world cannot have electricity, nor are they saying that we must reduce carbon emissions. They are scientific and their result says simply: If we do not reduce carbon emissions then climate change will occur, and all the evidence suggests that this will cause decreased crop yields, changes in local precipitation and sea-currents, increase in severity of local and global weather conditions, melting of ice-caps and potentially large increases in sea-level causing lots of flooding.

Scientists arn't saying that we can't or won't increase CO2 or electricity production - that's for politicians to say. They merely say that if we don't, climate change will occur.

Really, which 'IPCC scientists'?  Do you even understand what your babbling on about? The IPCC aren't comprised of scientists, they're U.N. bureaucrats. 

They do have scientists and other specialists draft the essays, but so do all similar governmental entities. When it comes down to the agenda, it is the chair members not that scientists that set it's parameters.

The 'Climate Change Essay' is controversial. The summary section you (and everyone else) keeps referencing, was revised (by bureaucrats) AFTER it's draft was approved by the contributing scientists. In fact the entire life of the IPCC has been plagued with controversy.

Research Team Member Dr. Richard Lindzen wrote:

As usual, far too much public attention was paid to the hastily prepared summary rather than to the body of the report. The summary began with a zinger -- that greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise, etc., before following with the necessary qualifications. For example, the full text noted that 20 years was too short a period for estimating long-term trends, but the summary forgot to mention this.

Dr. Richard Lindzen wrote:

The draft of the Policymakers Summary was significantly modified at Shanghai. The IPCC, in response to the fact that the Policymakers Summary was not prepared by participating scientists, claimed that the draft of the Summary was prepared by a (selected) subset of the 14 coordinating lead authors. However, the final version of the summary differed significantly from the draft. For example the draft concluded the following concerning attribution:

From the body of evidence since IPCC (1996), we conclude that there has been a discernible human influence on global climate. Studies are beginning to separate the contributions to observed climate change attributable to individual external influences, both anthropogenic and natural. This work suggests that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are a substantial contributor to the observed warming, especially over the past 30 years. However, the accuracy of these estimates continues to be limited by uncertainties in estimates of internal variability, natural and anthropogenic forcing, and the climate response to external forcing.

The version that emerged from Shanghai concludes instead:

In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations

As for scientists that disagree with the mainstream medias asesment of Gloabal Warming, well, here, have a list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming

"...Here is a small sample of the side of the debate we almost never hear:

Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"

Patterson concluded his testimony by explaining what his research and "hundreds of other studies" reveal: on all time scales, there is very good correlation between Earth's temperature and natural celestial phenomena such changes in the brightness of the Sun.

Dr. Boris Winterhalter, former marine researcher at the Geological Survey of Finland and professor in marine geology, University of Helsinki, takes apart Gore's dramatic display of Antarctic glaciers collapsing into the sea. "The breaking glacier wall is a normally occurring phenomenon which is due to the normal advance of a glacier," says Winterhalter. "In Antarctica the temperature is low enough to prohibit melting of the ice front, so if the ice is grounded, it has to break off in beautiful ice cascades. If the water is deep enough icebergs will form."

Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, emeritus professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden, admits, "Some small areas in the Antarctic Peninsula have broken up recently, just like it has done back in time. The temperature in this part of Antarctica has increased recently, probably because of a small change in the position of the low pressure systems."

But Karlen clarifies that the 'mass balance' of Antarctica is positive - more snow is accumulating than melting off. As a result, Ball explains, there is an increase in the 'calving' of icebergs as the ice dome of Antarctica is growing and flowing to the oceans. When Greenland and Antarctica are assessed together, "their mass balance is considered to possibly increase the sea level by 0.03 mm/year - not much of an effect," Karl»n concludes.

The Antarctica has survived warm and cold events over millions of years. A meltdown is simply not a realistic scenario in the foreseeable future. ..."

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm

I know I am repeating myself, but please watch these videos and then follow up some with some reading on the subject.

Great five part series of videos on climate change by scientists actually doing research on the subject:

Global Warming - Doomsday Called Off  (1 of 5)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr5O1HsTVgA&mode=related&search=

Global Warming - Doomsday Called Off  (2 of 5)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD6VBLlWmCI&mode=related&search=

Global Warming - Doomsday Called Off  (3 of 5)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZS2eIRkcR0&mode=related&search=

Global Warming - Doomsday Called Off  (4 of 5)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIbTJ6mhCqk&mode=related&search=

Global Warming - Doomsday Called Off  (5 of 5)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2XALmrq3ro&mode=related&search= 

The Great Global Warming Swindle 1 of 8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f8v5du5_ag

The Great Global Warming Swindle 2 of 8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2S5OGS-g9g&mode=related&search=

The Great Global Warming Swindle 3 of 8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vufPWwsUu_k&mode=related&search=

The Great Global Warming Swindle 4 of 8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9Ku1_gruaQ&mode=related&search=

The Great Global Warming Swindle 5 of 8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zalexeUwtNw&mode=related&search=

The Great Global Warming Swindle 6 of 8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvkX3jNjPK8&mode=related&search=

The Great Global Warming Swindle 7 of 8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=660hjo4f6Ig&mode=related&search=

The Great Global Warming Swindle 8 of 8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0c9K4QGIMY&mode=related&search= 

"A prominent scientist who's followed the science of global warming from the beginning, Dyson explains why climate models have no scientific merit, why average global ground temperature is a great fiction, and what he believes the real dangers of increased CO2 in the atmosphere are. He suggests that the relatively simple solution of land use management could potentially give us the ability to control the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere at any level we'd like, and there's no need to stop burning coal and oil."

Freeman Dyson on Global Warming 1of 2 Bogus Climate Models

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTSxubKfTBU&mode=related&search=


Freeman Dyson on Global Warming 2of 2 Stratospheric Cooling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k69HUuyI5Mk&mode=related&search=



Freeman John Dyson

"...The good news is that we are at last putting serious effort and money into local observations. Local observations are laborious and slow, but they are essential if we are ever to have an accurate picture of climate. The bad news is that the climate models on which so much effort is expended are unreliable because they still use fudge-factors rather than physics to represent important things like evaporation and convection, clouds and rainfall. Besides the general prevalence of fudge-factors, the latest and biggest climate models have other defects that make them unreliable. With one exception, they do not predict the existence of El Niño. Since El Niño is a major feature of the observed climate, any model that fails to predict it is clearly deficient. The bad news does not mean that climate models are worthless. They are, as Manabe said thirty years ago, essential tools for understanding climate. They are not yet adequate tools for predicting climate...."^[14] 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson 

Bjorn Lomborg: Our priorities for saving the world

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/62



PS Update: Working on my blog.

 

According to Wikipedia, The Great Global Warming Swindle has been denounced by many major bodies in the scientific world including:

The IPCC:
[The program] a mixture of truth, half truth and falsehood put together with the sole purpose of discrediting the science of global warming

The British Antarctic Survey
[The program] deliberately distorted data on at least one of the graphs to show a distorted timescale

A comparison of the distorted and undistorted contemporary data reveal that the plot of solar activity bears no resemblance to the temperature curve, especially in the last 20 years.

A second issue was the claim that human emissions of CO2 are small compared to natural emissions from volcanoes. This is untrue: current annual emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production are estimated to be around 100 times greater than average annual volcanic emissions of CO2. That large volcanoes cannot significantly perturb the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere is apparent from the ice core and atmospheric record of CO2 concentrations, which shows a steady rise during the industrial period, with no unusual changes after large eruptions

The Director of the Danish National Space Centre:
We have concerns regarding the use of a graph featured in the documentary titled ‘Temp & Solar Activity 400 Years’. Firstly, we have reason to believe that parts of the graph were made up of fabricated data that were presented as genuine. The inclusion of the artificial data is both misleading and pointless. Secondly, although the narrator commentary during the presentation of the graph is consistent with the conclusions of the paper from which the figure originates, it incorrectly rules out a contribution by anthropogenic greenhouse gases to 20th century global warming.

The Cheif Executive of the UK National Environment Research Council:
First, let's deal with the main thesis: that the presence or absence of cosmic rays in Earth's atmosphere is a better explanation for temperature variation than the concentration of CO₂ and other gases. This is not a new assertion and it is patently wrong: there is no credible evidence that cosmic rays play a significant role...Let scepticism reign, but let's not play games with the evidence


The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge:
Scientists will continue to monitor the global climate and the factors which influence it. It is important that all legitimate potential scientific explanations continue to be considered and investigated. Debate will continue, and the Royal Society has just hosted a two day discussion meeting attended by over 300 scientists, but it must not be at the expense of action. Those who promote fringe scientific views but ignore the weight of evidence are playing a dangerous game. They run the risk of diverting attention from what we can do to ensure the world's population has the best possible future.

37 Scientists also filed an official complaint against the program, stating that
[We] believe that the misrepresentations of facts and views, both of which occur in your programme, are so serious that repeat broadcasts of the programme, without amendment, are not in the public interest. In view of the seriousness of climate change as an issue, it is crucial that public debate about it is balanced and well-informed.

Professor Mike Lockwood (of the Rutherford Appleton Research Centre):
... carried out a study in response to the program and showed that despite one of the major claims of TGGWS; "that global warming directly correlates to solar activity" was false.

(in a BBC interview)
All the graphs they showed stopped in about 1980, and I knew why, because things diverged after that...You can't just ignore bits of data that you don't like

David Jones, Andrew Watkins, Karl Braganza, Michael Coughlan:
The Great Global Warming Swindle does not represent the current state of knowledge in climate science… Many of the hypotheses presented in the Great Global Warming Swindle have been considered and rejected by due scientific process. This documentary is far from an objective, critical examination of climate science. Instead the Great Global Warming Swindle goes to great lengths to present outdated, incorrect or ambiguous data in such a way as to grossly distort the true understanding of climate change science, and to support a set of extremely controversial views

Carl Wunch:
I'm somewhat troubled that TV companies around the world are treating it [TGGWS] as though this were a science documentary. It's not. It's a tendentious political propaganda piece... It's not a science film at all. It's a political statement

Carl Wunch also appered in TGGWS, and later claimed that he was "wholly misrepresented" and had been "totally misled" when he agreed to be interviewed. He said TGGWS was "grossly distorted" and "as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two".


In response to phreaks' list of scientists who stand against the tidal wave of evidence stating that global warming is effected by CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, and a lot of it was put there by people, I present to you a big long list of science institutions that think the other way.

Please note that of 976 publications on "global climate change" that have been published in peer reviewed journals, 75% came to the conclusion that global warming was happening and was man-made, 25% made no assertion one way or the other, and a huge 0 publications stated that global warming either was not happening or that humans were the cause of it.

For a fuller list of errors that TGGWS posed, take a look here.

"Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled."

S o said Al Gore ... in 1992. Amazingly, he made his claims despite much evidence of their falsity. A Gallup poll at the time reported that 53% of scientists actively involved in global climate research did not believe global warming had occurred; 30% weren't sure; and only 17% believed global warming had begun. Even a Greenpeace poll showed 47% of climatologists didn't think a runaway greenhouse effect was imminent; only 36% thought it possible and a mere 13% thought it probable.

Today, Al Gore is making the same claims of a scientific consensus, as do the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hundreds of government agencies and environmental groups around the world. But the claims of a scientific consensus remain unsubstantiated. They have only become louder and more frequent.

"...Somewhere along the way, I stopped believing that a scientific consensus exists on climate change. Certainly there is no consensus at the very top echelons of scientists -- the ranks from which I have been drawing my subjects -- and certainly there is no consensus among astrophysicists and other solar scientists, several of whom I have profiled. If anything, the majority view among these subsets of the scientific community may run in the opposite direction. Not only do most of my interviewees either discount or disparage the conventional wisdom as represented by the IPCC, many say their peers generally consider it to have little or no credibility. In one case, a top scientist told me that, to his knowledge, no respected scientist in his field accepts the IPCC position.

What of the one claim that we hear over and over again, that 2,000 or 2,500 of the world's top scientists endorse the IPCC position? I asked the IPCC for their names, to gauge their views. "The 2,500 or so scientists you are referring to are reviewers from countries all over the world," the IPCC Secretariat responded. "The list with their names and contacts will be attached to future IPCC publications, which will hopefully be on-line in the second half of 2007."

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=c47c1209-233b-412c-b6d1-5c755457a8af

The series

ZippyV wrote:

I can't wait until raymond gets his own blog.

Already have one.

Were you on vacation ZippyV, I missed you!

Keep drinking chocolate milk. It is good for you.

Then why still post here?

Sharing knowledge that may or may not be of interest to developers.

raymond wrote:

Today, Al Gore is making the same claims of a scientific consensus, as do the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hundreds of government agencies and environmental groups around the world. But the claims of a scientific consensus remain unsubstantiated. They have only become louder and more frequent.

So the IPCC, the UN, Al Gore and hundreds of government agencies and environmental groups across the world are leading a huge conspiracy to silence the "real scientists" who believe that all of this huge amount of evidence for global warming is a "hoax" and that these government agencies and environmental groups all headed by comrade Al Gore are all getting exactly what out of it?

Perhaps the claims of a scientific consensus are getting louder and more frequent because there really is a general scientific consensus on the issue.

Or perhaps Al Gore is secretly using his illuminati and alien connections to silence these climate change skeptics?

It doesn't matter though - we can all be glad that the IPCC is not financially benefitting those fools who believe all of this well published rubbish on global warming which the data unfortunately agrees with and that that those glorious few who stand up against Al Gore and his alien invaders are being rewarded for their troubles.

Perhaps Al Gore and his alien henchmen are stealing the evidence of those poor few who stand up against Comrade Gore and his evil UN bureaucrats, because those who stand up against Gore's arguments seem to fall down at the slightest scrutiny.

Or perhaps we should notice that of the 978 peer-reviewed publications on global climate change, none of them found that either global warming was not happening or that it is not at least in part due to man's post-industrial activities.

Your statistics were of "scientists" which is a superset (and not a very good one) of climate scientists. If they are not scientists actively looking at the data they should shut up. The data is also from 1992 (i.e. 15 years old)

Consensus amongst solar scientists and astrophysists is unlikely to be conclusive, because there is no correlation between solar events and global warming on the scale posed by The Great Global Warming Swindle - who by-the-way used fabricated data and outright lied designed to mislead the public in the interests of companies such as Exxon.