The reason human caused global warming isn't occuring.

[eyer]

http://www.wnd.com/images/misc/climatechangebumpersticker175.jpg​

 

[Peregrinator]

I forgot one:

The models have fallen apart, the data behind the models has fallen apart, the statistics used to massage the data to produce the models has fallen apart. The only thing left is for the true disciples to keep yelling, "Consensus, consensus." in an effort to drown out those that have picked the whole hypothesis apart data point by data point.


Ishmael

How reliable are climate models?


The skeptic argument...

Models are unreliable
"Models do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields, farms and forests. They are full of fudge factors so the models more or less agree with the observed data. But there is no reason to believe the same fudge factors would give the right behaviour in a world with different chemistry, for example in a world with increased CO2." (Freeman Dyson)

What the science says...


While there are uncertainties with climate models, they successfully reproduce the past and have made predictions that have been subsequently confirmed by observations.

There are two major questions in climate modeling - can they accurately reproduce the past (hindcasting) and can they successfully predict the future? To answer the first question, here is a summary of the IPCC model results of surface temperature from the 1800's - both with and without man-made forcings. All the models are unable to predict recent warming without taking rising CO2 levels into account. Noone has created a general circulation model that can explain climate's behaviour over the past century without CO2 warming.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/IPCC_model_vs_obs.gif
Figure 1: Comparison of climate results with observations. (a) represents simulations done with only natural forcings: solar variation and volcanic activity. (b) represents simulations done with anthropogenic forcings: greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols. (c) was done with both natural and anthropogenic forcings (IPCC).

Predicting/projecting the future
A common argument heard is "scientists can't even predict the weather next week - how can they predict the climate years from now". This betrays a misunderstanding of the difference between weather, which is chaotic and unpredictable, and climate which is weather averaged out over time. While you can't predict with certainty whether a coin will land heads or tails, you can predict the statistical results of a large number of coin tosses. In weather terms, you can't predict the exact route a storm will take but the average temperature and precipitation over the whole region is the same regardless of the route.

There are various difficulties in predicting future climate. The behaviour of the sun is difficult to predict. Short-term disturbances like El Nino or volcanic eruptions are difficult to model. Nevertheless, the major forcings that drive climate are well understood. In 1988, James Hansen projected future temperature trends (Hansen 1988). Those initial projections show good agreement with subsequent observations (Hansen 2006).

http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Hansen_2005_Model.gif
Figure 2: Global surface temperature computed for scenarios A, B, and C, compared with two analyses of observational data (Hansen 2006).

Hansen's Scenario B (described as the most likely option and most closely matched the level of CO2 emissions) shows close correlation with observed temperatures. Hansen overestimated future CO2 levels by 5 to 10% so if his model were given the correct forcing levels, the match would be even closer. There are deviations from year to year but this is to be expected. The chaotic nature of weather will add noise to the signal but the overall trend is predictable.

When Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, it provided an opportunity to test how successfully models could predict the climate response to the sulfate aerosols injected into the atmosphere. The models accurately forecasted the subsequent global cooling of about 0.5 °C soon after the eruption. Furthermore, the radiative, water vapor and dynamical feedbacks included in the models were also quantitatively verified (Hansen 2007). More on predicting the future...

http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Hansen_2007_Pinatubo.gif
Figure 3: Observed and simulated global temperature change during Pinatubo eruption. Green is observed temperature by weather stations. Blue is land and ocean temperature. Red is mean model output (Hansen 2007).

Uncertainties in future projections
A common misconception is that climate models are biased towards exaggerating the effects from CO2. It bears mentioning that uncertainty can go either way. In fact, in a climate system with net positive feedback, uncertainty is skewed more towards a stronger climate response (Roe 2007). For this reason, many of the IPCC predictions have subsequently been shown to underestimate the climate response. Satellite and tide-gauge measurements show that sea level rise is accelerating faster than IPCC predictions. The average rate of rise for 1993-2008 as measured from satellite is 3.4 millimetres per year while the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) projected a best estimate of 1.9 millimetres per year for the same period. Observations are tracking along the upper range of IPCC sea level projections (Copenhagen Diagnosis 2009).

http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/SLR_models_obs.gif
Figure 4: Sea level change. Tide gauge data are indicated in red and satellite data in blue. The grey band shows the projections of the IPCC Third Assessment report (Copenhagen Diagnosis 2009).

Similarly, summertime melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. The area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40% greater than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate models. The thickness of Arctic sea ice has also been on a steady decline over the last several decades.


http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Arctic_models_obs.gif
Figure 5: Observed (red line) and modeled September Arctic sea ice extent in millions of square kilometres. Solid black line gives the average of 13 IPCC AR4 models while dashed black lines represent their range. The 2009 minimum has recently been calculated at 5.10 million km2, the third lowest year on record and still well below the IPCC worst case scenario (Copenhagen Diagnosis 2009).

Do we know enough to act?
Skeptics argue that we should wait till climate models are completely certain before we act on reducing CO2 emissions. If we waited for 100% certainty, we would never act. Models are in a constant state of development to include more processes, rely on fewer approximations and increase their resolution as computer power develops. The complex and non-linear nature of climate means there will always be a process of refinement and improvement. The main point is we now know enough to act. Models have evolved to the point where they successfully predict long-term trends and are now developing the ability to predict more chaotic, short-term changes. Multiple lines of evidence, both modeled and empirical, tell us global temperatures will change 3°C with a doubling of CO2 (Knutti & Hegerl 2008).

Models don't need to be exact in every respect to give us an accurate overall trend and its major effects - and we have that now. If you knew there were a 90% chance you'd be in a car crash, you wouldn't get in the car (or at the very least, you'd wear a seatbelt). The IPCC concludes, with a greater than 90% probability, that humans are causing global warming. To wait for 100% certainty before acting is recklessly irresponsible.

 

[Sonny Limatina]

The conservative position on car engines is to add and change oil regularly, since the cost of the oil and filter are miniscule compared to the cost of a new engine.

We live longer than our cars. If we buy a car and never add oil, we will see the results first-hand, and the money to repair or replace will come from our own pockets.

The conservative position on global warming is the opposite. Nothing that happens as a result of anything we do now will happen while we are alive. Therefore, it costs more money to 'change the oil' than simply to wait it out and die first, since it will not be our pockets that money is removed from.

The current scientific consensus wishes to pick the conservatives' pockets. That's why every occasional study to the contrary is seen as MASSIVE REPUDIATION! It is permission not to change the oil. The eventual engine damage will be someone else's tab, long after we're gone.

Nevermind that even if that consensus is wrong, the attendent cautions will be beneficial either way. If it requires dipping a hand into good conservative pockets, it is blasphemy.

 

[Peregrinator]

The conservative position on car engines is to add and change oil regularly, since the cost of the oil and filter are miniscule compared to the cost of a new engine.

We live longer than our cars. If we buy a car and never add oil, we will see the results first-hand, and the money to repair or replace will come from our own pockets.

The conservative position on global warming is the opposite. Nothing that happens as a result of anything we do now will happen while we are alive. Therefore, it costs more money to 'change the oil' than simply to wait it out and die first, since it will not be our pockets that money is removed from.

The current scientific consensus wishes to pick the conservatives' pockets. That's why every occasional study to the contrary is seen as MASSIVE REPUDIATION! It is permission not to change the oil. The eventual engine damage will be someone else's tab, long after we're gone.

Nevermind that even if that consensus is wrong, the attendent cautions will be beneficial either way. If it requires dipping a hand into good conservative pockets, it is blasphemy.

Especially if it can be spun as some sort of global power-grab communist conspiracy and derided as simply a matter of faith:

I realize that that question, and others like it that I've posited, will make no difference to the true believer because the true believer, like any follower of doctrinal religion, take the findings as a matter of faith. Nor will it make any difference to the politicians who see this as an opportunity to further control the population and plunder their wallets for 'the common good.' And least of all to the UN, a body that has been searching for decades to find a means to impose a world tax and see this as a golden opportunity. The UN knows that they are essentially a toothless entity and they hate it, having access to the worlds wallet goes a long way to relieve their angst.

Ishmael

 

[Sonny Limatina]

Especially if it can be spun as some sort of global power-grab communist conspiracy and derided as simply a matter of faith:

It's one of my favorite bad argument techniques, which I really believe has been given new life by the internet:

Person A says something reflective solely of personal belief. Say, "Pizza was invented in Cleveland in 1987."

Person B weighs that conviction against all available/reliable evidence--say, historical records placing pizza in ancient Greece or whatever, with attendant etymologies and contemporaneous documentation.

Person A says, "You only believe that stuff because you're blinded by your personal beliefs."

 

[Peregrinator]

It's one of my favorite bad argument techniques, which I really believe has been given new life by the internet:

Person A says something reflective solely of personal belief. Say, "Pizza was invented in Cleveland in 1987."

Person B weighs that conviction against all available/reliable evidence--say, historical records placing pizza in ancient Greece or whatever, with attendant etymologies and contemporaneous documentation.

Person A says, "You only believe that stuff because you're blinded by your personal beliefs."

Yup. So transparent. The argument about AGW is lousy with it. I just posted enough science to convince any reasonable person, with links to the original pages, which pages contain links to the peer-reviewed science in creditable scientific journals. That will not convince the people who posted here in the contrary. Ish is good about addressing the science, most of the time, but his cheerleaders will continue to post the same vapid and asinine shit they posted on page one. This is as certain as the sun rising tomorrow and being kinda warm.

 

[Ishmael]

*chuckle*

Nice try Perg. I'm going to refute each and every single point that you posted, and I'm going to do it with data captured by many scientists that were out to support the whole AGW theory. Obviously this is going to take some time.

Suffice it to say that the entire data set that the IPCC is working from is in serious question. The least of those questions regards oceanic temperatures which are wholly fictitious. This was proven last year when the data collected over several years was collected and published. The researcher in question was an AGW advocate that was at a loss to explain why, after deploying a ton of sophisticated instrumentation to support the claims, found that no such oceanic warming was occurring. (I posted the press release in another thread.) What you posted here was the IPCC's extrapolation of warming based on selective data.

The other is the tidal chart. Just the other day a paper was published, by an AGW proponent, that the reason there has been no significant increase in sea levels is because of continuing plate rebound from the last ice age. Soooo, exactly which is the truth?

The temperature charts have already been decimated by trysail and I assume that we might have the opportunity to see those data points he(?) posted re-posted here.

I'm truly ashamed of you for having such blind faith in an organization that has such a political and financial interest in this all being true. Any scientist worth their salt questions everything.

Ishmael

 

[Sonny Limatina]

Yup. So transparent. The argument about AGW is lousy with it. I just posted enough science to convince any reasonable person, with links to the original pages, which pages contain links to the peer-reviewed science in creditable scientific journals. That will not convince the people who posted here in the contrary. Ish is good about addressing the science, most of the time, but his cheerleaders will continue to post the same vapid and asinine shit they posted on page one. This is as certain as the sun rising tomorrow and being kinda warm.

All science has in this case is models and best guesses, since the time frame is massively larger than us. Those models give people a false sense of scale, since they appear to be based on recent and current trends. So people end up arguing about a hot decade or two, instead of looking across millennia (as those making the models do).

We're *probably* fucking up the planet. We might as well be careful. If it's 'just a natural warming period,' we might as well even MORE careful, since that's the last time we want to make things worse, no?

But doing so means investing money up front. Since that investment is made on faith alone, the two choices are to argue against the basis of the faith or hand over money you don't want to hand over. Which choice are most people going to make?

In the long run, the earth doesn't care if we live on it. The ball still spins whether we're here or not. The anti-AGW argument is based on a contradictory understanding of that. On one hand, it holds a sense of our own importance--no one's going to tell me whether to burn coal or not, it's certainly not going to stop the world from spinning. On the other, that "earth left to its own devices" argument that is the very argument against any human importance at all--meaning, we're arguing for our own extinction.

Me, I'd rather just turn the car off while I'm waiting for the kids to come out.

 

[mercury14]

Ish, the critical thinking error you're making is that you dismiss science. You're deeply suspicious that science is "liberal", aren't you? Even though you don't have any evidence of that little idea. If you do ever have any evidence, show me and I'll be the first to denounce that source with you.

The fact is, you're just a chump on a porn board. You're not qualified to analyze complex climate data. None of us are - but you do so anyway. In reality all of us here are dependent on scientific bodies for this type of analysis. That's why I'm not guilty of religious thinking - I simply look to what science has to say.

Virtually every single significant scientific body related to climatology has taken the position that global warming is significantly impacted by man. But you have a religion, so you're not going to let this sort of thing phase you. So what do you do? You scurry off to right-wing blogs and cite people who, like you, have no ability to analyze climate change.

And yes, there are studies out there that do not support the idea that global warming is related to man. But you must take those in the context of the entire body of research. You can't just look at 100 studies and say that since four of them differ from the other 96, that the body of research takes the position of those four. And you can't just say that "models" are broken, even though it's the consensus of modern science that they work... And they're constantly adjusted to work better based on what's observed.

Well you can do these things... if you have a religion.

 

[GiaCat]

Global warming or not, belching all these toxic chemicals into the air could not be good.

 

[torchthebitch]

So, a climatologist produced results that showed global warming up to a point. Then, when the data didn't fit his theory instead of looking for a reason, he used a "trick" to make it fit. Now it appears a real scientist doing real science has found a reason for the variation.

It seems the "scientific consensus" is based on peer reviewed research that has just been proved to be little more than a hunch.

What is most interesting about this is that the scientist who showed the pause in AGW went on to examine his data. He did some real science to explain it, rather than fiddle the data to suit the consensus. It seems he is a rarity.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

I forgot one:



How reliable are climate models?


The skeptic argument...

Models are unreliable
"Models do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields, farms and forests. They are full of fudge factors so the models more or less agree with the observed data. But there is no reason to believe the same fudge factors would give the right behaviour in a world with different chemistry, for example in a world with increased CO2." (Freeman Dyson)

What the science says...


While there are uncertainties with climate models, they successfully reproduce the past and have made predictions that have been subsequently confirmed by observations.

There are two major questions in climate modeling - can they accurately reproduce the past (hindcasting) and can they successfully predict the future? To answer the first question, here is a summary of the IPCC model results of surface temperature from the 1800's - both with and without man-made forcings. All the models are unable to predict recent warming without taking rising CO2 levels into account. Noone has created a general circulation model that can explain climate's behaviour over the past century without CO2 warming.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/IPCC_model_vs_obs.gif
Figure 1: Comparison of climate results with observations. (a) represents simulations done with only natural forcings: solar variation and volcanic activity. (b) represents simulations done with anthropogenic forcings: greenhouse gases and sulphate aerosols. (c) was done with both natural and anthropogenic forcings (IPCC).

Predicting/projecting the future
A common argument heard is "scientists can't even predict the weather next week - how can they predict the climate years from now". This betrays a misunderstanding of the difference between weather, which is chaotic and unpredictable, and climate which is weather averaged out over time. While you can't predict with certainty whether a coin will land heads or tails, you can predict the statistical results of a large number of coin tosses. In weather terms, you can't predict the exact route a storm will take but the average temperature and precipitation over the whole region is the same regardless of the route.

There are various difficulties in predicting future climate. The behaviour of the sun is difficult to predict. Short-term disturbances like El Nino or volcanic eruptions are difficult to model. Nevertheless, the major forcings that drive climate are well understood. In 1988, James Hansen projected future temperature trends (Hansen 1988). Those initial projections show good agreement with subsequent observations (Hansen 2006).

http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Hansen_2005_Model.gif
Figure 2: Global surface temperature computed for scenarios A, B, and C, compared with two analyses of observational data (Hansen 2006).

Hansen's Scenario B (described as the most likely option and most closely matched the level of CO2 emissions) shows close correlation with observed temperatures. Hansen overestimated future CO2 levels by 5 to 10% so if his model were given the correct forcing levels, the match would be even closer. There are deviations from year to year but this is to be expected. The chaotic nature of weather will add noise to the signal but the overall trend is predictable.

When Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, it provided an opportunity to test how successfully models could predict the climate response to the sulfate aerosols injected into the atmosphere. The models accurately forecasted the subsequent global cooling of about 0.5 °C soon after the eruption. Furthermore, the radiative, water vapor and dynamical feedbacks included in the models were also quantitatively verified (Hansen 2007). More on predicting the future...

http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Hansen_2007_Pinatubo.gif
Figure 3: Observed and simulated global temperature change during Pinatubo eruption. Green is observed temperature by weather stations. Blue is land and ocean temperature. Red is mean model output (Hansen 2007).

Uncertainties in future projections
A common misconception is that climate models are biased towards exaggerating the effects from CO2. It bears mentioning that uncertainty can go either way. In fact, in a climate system with net positive feedback, uncertainty is skewed more towards a stronger climate response (Roe 2007). For this reason, many of the IPCC predictions have subsequently been shown to underestimate the climate response. Satellite and tide-gauge measurements show that sea level rise is accelerating faster than IPCC predictions. The average rate of rise for 1993-2008 as measured from satellite is 3.4 millimetres per year while the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR) projected a best estimate of 1.9 millimetres per year for the same period. Observations are tracking along the upper range of IPCC sea level projections (Copenhagen Diagnosis 2009).

http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/SLR_models_obs.gif
Figure 4: Sea level change. Tide gauge data are indicated in red and satellite data in blue. The grey band shows the projections of the IPCC Third Assessment report (Copenhagen Diagnosis 2009).

Similarly, summertime melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. The area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40% greater than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate models. The thickness of Arctic sea ice has also been on a steady decline over the last several decades.


http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Arctic_models_obs.gif
Figure 5: Observed (red line) and modeled September Arctic sea ice extent in millions of square kilometres. Solid black line gives the average of 13 IPCC AR4 models while dashed black lines represent their range. The 2009 minimum has recently been calculated at 5.10 million km2, the third lowest year on record and still well below the IPCC worst case scenario (Copenhagen Diagnosis 2009).

Do we know enough to act?
Skeptics argue that we should wait till climate models are completely certain before we act on reducing CO2 emissions. If we waited for 100% certainty, we would never act. Models are in a constant state of development to include more processes, rely on fewer approximations and increase their resolution as computer power develops. The complex and non-linear nature of climate means there will always be a process of refinement and improvement. The main point is we now know enough to act. Models have evolved to the point where they successfully predict long-term trends and are now developing the ability to predict more chaotic, short-term changes. Multiple lines of evidence, both modeled and empirical, tell us global temperatures will change 3°C with a doubling of CO2 (Knutti & Hegerl 2008).

Models don't need to be exact in every respect to give us an accurate overall trend and its major effects - and we have that now. If you knew there were a 90% chance you'd be in a car crash, you wouldn't get in the car (or at the very least, you'd wear a seatbelt). The IPCC concludes, with a greater than 90% probability, that humans are causing global warming. To wait for 100% certainty before acting is recklessly irresponsible.

Nice cut and paste.

If you let me see the code, I'll tell you what's wrong with them.

Even if you discover the "right" model for a chaotic system, and that's one huge fucking if, if you don't have the initial condition, which they do not, the model will never accurately work. So they keep tinkering and refining and adjusting, even massaging data until the can match the historical and then they boldly go out and predict the future.

The last greatest example of this was the modeling team that designed the Obama stimulus that was going to keep unemployment to 8%.

Where scientific models DO work: bandwidth usage and packet routing, limited variables, random events, but not chaotic.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Ish, the critical thinking error you're making is that you dismiss science. You're deeply suspicious that science is "liberal", aren't you? Even though you don't have any evidence of that little idea. If you do ever have any evidence, show me and I'll be the first to denounce that source with you.

The fact is, you're just a chump on a porn board. You're not qualified to analyze complex climate data. None of us are - but you do so anyway. In reality all of us here are dependent on scientific bodies for this type of analysis. That's why I'm not guilty of religious thinking - I simply look to what science has to say.

Virtually every single significant scientific body related to climatology has taken the position that global warming is significantly impacted by man. But you have a religion, so you're not going to let this sort of thing phase you. So what do you do? You scurry off to right-wing blogs and cite people who, like you, have no ability to analyze climate change.

And yes, there are studies out there that do not support the idea that global warming is related to man. But you must take those in the context of the entire body of research. You can't just look at 100 studies and say that since four of them differ from the other 96, that the body of research takes the position of those four. And you can't just say that "models" are broken, even though it's the consensus of modern science that they work... And they're constantly adjusted to work better based on what's observed.

Well you can do these things... if you have a religion.

He's not the one dismissing inconvenient science...

And yes, in Science, it is often the minority that happens to be right. It's hard to shake a consensus once it has formed and this one is much like the Duke Rape Case; the consensus had those boys convicted because they had the perfect victim for the story they so badly wanted to be true and to be written...

The Climate Change Cult is just that; a new-age "secular" religion based on The Return of the Primitive and the worship of Gaia....

 

[unregistered]

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

There was a time when the majority thought the world was flat.

Hell, just revisit our past and recall the vast majority of settled science was a new ice age...

30 years ago if we didn't act immediately, the oceans would be dead within a decade.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Weren't we supposed to run out of oil in the late 1990's?

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Weren't we supposed to run out of oil in the late 1990's?

Yup...


One of the first tells of a religion is that if you don't accept the tenets then you are an atheist...

Ergo, we, the non-believers "hate" science and "education."

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Yup...


One of the first tells of a religion is that if you don't accept the tenets then you are an atheist...

Ergo, we, the non-believers "hate" science and "education."

How limited. I am much more Equal Opportunity - I hate everything.


Except reading.


And some other things, too.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

We must keep in mind the real goals of this movement...


A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States...,
John P. Holdren
White House Office of Science and Technology Director

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Remember the Pre-Pereg big liberal who wrote the Population Bomb?

I still have a copy of Toffler's "Future Shock" lying around to constantly remind me of the Doom and Gloom religious wing of Science...

Isn't he involved with this administration?



__________________
Obama has never been overly modest about his own powers. [during his campaign], he declared that history will mark his ascent to the presidency as the moment when “our planet began to heal” and “the rise of the oceans began to slow.”
When you anoint yourself King Canute, you mustn’t be surprised when your subjects expect you to command the tides.
Charles Krauthammer

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Yes the real goal is to de-construct the United States and make the world safe for the Third World.

The tenets of Socialism; if you cannot raise them to your level with your superior intellect, might and power, make them more comfortable by sinking to their level and then they will follow your example...

 

[unregistered]

 

[kbate]

http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=29522484&postcount=52


Oh, how the bullshite doth change after only a few years . . .