How Global Warming Really Works

[KingOrfeo]

The Guardian: Climate-change denialism is not "skepticism," it is "motivated reasoning.

So given the evidence is so strong against them, then why do these beliefs garner such passionate, vocal support? It's tempting to say the problem is a simple misunderstanding, because increasing average global temperature can have paradoxical and counterintuitive repercussions, such as causing extreme cold snaps. The obvious response to this misunderstanding is to elucidate the scientific details more clearly and more often.

The problem is that the well-meaning and considered approach hinges on the presupposition that the intended audience is always rational, willing to base or change its position on the balance of evidence. However, recent investigations suggests this might be a supposition too far. A study in 2011 found that conservative white males in the US were far more likely than other Americans to deny climate change. Another study found denialism in the UK was more common among politically conservative individuals with traditional values. A series of investigations published last year by Prof Stephan Lewandowsky and his colleagues – including one with the fantastic title, Nasa Faked the Moon Landing – Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science – found that while subjects subscribing to conspiracist thought tended to reject all scientific propositions they encountered, those with strong traits of conservatism or pronounced free-market world views only tended to reject scientific findings with regulatory implications.

It should be no surprise that the voters and politicians opposed to climate change tend to be of a conservative bent, keen to support free-market ideology. This is part of a phenomenon known as motivated reasoning, where instead of evidence being evaluated critically, it is deliberately interpreted in such a way as to reaffirm a pre-existing belief, demanding impossibly stringent examination of unwelcome evidence while accepting uncritically even the flimsiest information that suits one's needs.

The great psychologist Leon Festinger observed in 1956 that "a man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point." This is the essence of the problem, and sadly, Festinger's words ring true today: the conviction of humans is all too often impervious to the very evidence in front of them.

Motivated reasoning is not solely the preserve of conservatives. While nuclear power has been recognised by the IPCC as important in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, staunch and uninformed opposition to nuclear power arises often from the liberal aisle. In the furore over the Fukushima nuclear disaster (which has claimed no lives and probably never will) many environmentalists lost sight of the fact that it was a natural disaster, very possibly exacerbated by climate change, that cost thousands of lives. Instead, they've rushed to condemn nuclear power plants.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The impact of volcanic eruptions on global warming could provide a new explanation for the so-called “pause” used by sceptics to deny climate change is happening, scientists have said.

http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...l-warming-pause-scientists-claim-9147856.html

So desperate to save the model...

Linear math to model a chaotic system.

 

[Ishmael]

http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...l-warming-pause-scientists-claim-9147856.html

So desperate to save the model...

Linear math to model a chaotic system.

Volcanoes, the Pacific Ocean, what else are they going to come up with?

In a very real sense of the word they are behaving like little children caught in a lie who continually manufacture another and another to avoid the truth. Only one source that I've seen recently has mentioned a quiescent Sun.

Ishmael

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

As I pointed out in another thread, sunspots and other natural cycles allowed The Farmer's Almanac to get this winter right.

 

[Ishmael]

As I pointed out in another thread, sunspots and other natural cycles allowed The Farmer's Almanac to get this winter right.

I saw that one. I keep bringing up the Sun and the proselytizers keep posting the measured data that the Sun's radiant output hasn't changed since science first started recording same. But we have over 600 years of observation that ties the Sunspot cycles to Earths climate. More spots, higher temperatures, less spots, lower temps.

If the latter is the case, how can the former be true? And of course the opposite question applies as well. Could it be that there's something that they just don't know yet?

Ishmael

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

They began their study of climate by putting man at the center of the Universe.


The Settled Science of the Middle Ages.






A_J got game!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The co-founder of Green Peace even admits that his movement got taken over by the defeated Communists so he had to lead it.


I think that explains most of the Climate Change crowd.

 

[Ishmael]

The co-founder of Green Peace even admits that his movement got taken over by the defeated Communists so he had to lead it.


I think that explains most of the Climate Change crowd.

They had to go somewhere.

Ishmael

 

[VaticanAssassin]

They began their study of climate by putting man at the center of the Universe.


The Settled Science of the Middle Ages.






A_J got game!

There is no pause!!!!


There is no pause!!!!!!

Ok.... If there was a pause we have 30 reasons to explain it!

But there is NO pause.

 

[trysail]

WTF is with these people?

There hasn't been any significant warming for at least a decade and a half.

Where the fuck is the dangerous warming?
Where the fuck is the evidence?


These folks wrapped themselves in "science." Well, show us some.

Hadley Centre Central England Temperature (HadCET) dataset (the CET dataset is the longest instrumental record of temperature in the world— 1772-2012)

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/graphs/HadCET_graph_ylybars_uptodate.gif

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/


_______________
Temperatures from University of Alabama-Huntsville (NASA)

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_February_2014_v5.png

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_February_2014_v5.png

_______________
Temperatures from Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.C.gif

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.C.gif


_______________
Global Land and Sea Temperatures from Hadley Centre, Climate Research Unit, UK Meteorology Office, University of East Anglia

http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut3gl/from:1995/normalise

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1995/normalise


_______________
Global Land and Sea Temperatures from Hadley Centre, Climate Research Unit, UK Meteorology Office, University of East Anglia
CO2 from Earth Sciences Research Laboratory (Mauna Loa) NASA


http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut3gl/from:1995/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/from:1995/normalise

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1995/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/from:1995/normalise


_______________
The upper panel shows the air temperature at the summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet, reconstructed by Alley (2000) from GISP2 ice core data. The time scale shows years before modern time. The rapid temperature rise to the left indicate the final part of the even more pronounced temperature increase following the last ice age. The temperature scale at the right hand side of the upper panel suggests a very approximate comparison with the global average temperature (see comment below). The GISP2 record ends around 1855, and the two graphs therefore ends here. There has since been an temperature increase to about the same level as during the Medieval Warm Period and to about 395 ppm for CO2. The small reddish bar in the lower right indicate the extension of the longest global temperature record (since 1850), based on meteorological observations (HadCRUT3). The lower panel shows the past atmospheric CO2 content, as found from the EPICA Dome C Ice Core in the Antarctic (Monnin et al. 2004). The Dome C atmospheric CO2 record ends in the year 1777.



http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif

http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2 TemperatureSince10700 BP with CO2 from EPICA DomeC.gif
http://www.climate4you.com/

​

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

It is still getting warmer and we Kant prove it, so who are you going to believe us or your own lying intellect?

 

[Ishmael]

The last graphs that Trysail posted are interesting and merely reinforce posts that I made long ago.

Each one of those documented historic warm periods coincided with an explosion of human agriculture, population, and prosperity. Now there is an attempt on the part of the proselytizers to convince us these are evil things.

Ishmael

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Yes.


It is good. We would have so much more fertile land.

 

[JohnnySavage]

Yes.


It is good. We would have so much more fertile land.

Yea, in Canada.

 

[trysail]

Whenever anyone starts telling me I need to hand over my money as a moral imperative, a moral virtue, or for the salvation of the planet, my first instinct is to check to make sure my wallet is still in my pocket. The language of the huckster pervades this business; to look at most of the websites and literature of local/organic/sustainable sellers you'd think they wouldn't dream of taking your money, so noble is their calling ("We are in the redemption business: healing the land, healing the food, healing the economy, and healing the culture," reads one typical specimen). Old rule of commercial interaction: when someone says it's not about money . . . it's about money.

-Stephen Budiansky
The Liberal Curmudgeon​

​

 

[Ishmael]

Whenever anyone starts telling me I need to hand over my money as a moral imperative, a moral virtue, or for the salvation of the planet, my first instinct is to check to make sure my wallet is still in my pocket. The language of the huckster pervades this business; to look at most of the websites and literature of local/organic/sustainable sellers you'd think they wouldn't dream of taking your money, so noble is their calling ("We are in the redemption business: healing the land, healing the food, healing the economy, and healing the culture," reads one typical specimen). Old rule of commercial interaction: when someone says it's not about money . . . it's about money.

-Stephen Budiansky
The Liberal Curmudgeon​

​

I believe that in some instances their faith in what they are doing is so complete that they actually believe what they are telling others.

Ishmael

 

[phrodeau]

I believe that in some instances their faith in what they are doing is so complete that they actually believe what they are telling others.

Ishmael

And you don't believe the crap you spew?

"Yuh, dem science guys are too dumb to know that the sun is causing global warming."

 

[KingOrfeo]

I saw that one. I keep bringing up the Sun and the proselytizers keep posting the measured data that the Sun's radiant output hasn't changed since science first started recording same. But we have over 600 years of observation that ties the Sunspot cycles to Earths climate. More spots, higher temperatures, less spots, lower temps.

If the latter is the case, how can the former be true? And of course the opposite question applies as well. Could it be that there's something that they just don't know yet?

Ishmael

What's that got to do with anything?

Global warming has more to do with the sun than the earth

Changes in the sun have not been responsible for recent climatic trends; there has not been any significant change in the total energy output of the sun since we have started measuring it, and no changes in the sun or sun phenomenon correlate with increased temperatures. One thing that can change is small perturbations in the orbit of the earth that draw the planet closer or further from the sun. These perturbations might be linked to the start of several of the major climate changes in the geologic history of the earth. Nonetheless, the actual change in temperature due to these orbital changes is small and the large scale changes are due to feedback loops localized to earth pushing things in one direction or another.

There is no evidence that such an orbital shift is happening now, but even if it has, it can only explain a very small percentage of the increase in global temperature. This issue was also a point of contention in the Soon and Baliunas controversy.

It must be the sun because Mars and Pluto are warming too

Many of the planets and moons (and a certain dwarf planet) in our solar system are big enough and geologically active enough to have both an atmosphere and a climate. In any given system there will be some planets increasing in temperature and some decreasing in temperature. This is due to changes in the localized climate, just as it is with earth. The causes are different for each planet and have little to no bearing on each other.

Even if the sun does have a role, it is not likely that our own activities are helping the situation. It would actually be even more incentive to temper our works, because anthropogenic activity combined with solar activity obviously equals even higher rates of warming.

 

[phrodeau]

WTF is with these people?

There hasn't been any significant warming for at least a decade and a half.

Where the fuck is the dangerous warming?
Where the fuck is the evidence?


These folks wrapped themselves in "science." Well, show us some.

Hadley Centre Central England Temperature (HadCET) dataset (the CET dataset is the longest instrumental record of temperature in the world— 1772-2012)

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/graphs/HadCET_graph_ylybars_uptodate.gif

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/


​

OK, one at a time.

This graph shows the temperatures over time for a small area of one country. The zero line is based on temps between 1961 and 1990, a period when warming was well underway. Even so, it shows significant warming after 1940.

 

[phrodeau]

_______________
Temperatures from University of Alabama-Huntsville (NASA)

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_January_2014_v5.61.png

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_January_2014_v5.6.png

Here again we see an average made from a recent period, 1981 to 2010. This graph is additionally misleading by only including data from the past 35 years. Even so, it shows a general increasing trend, which needs to be combined with the trend observed before 1979, and not seen on the graph.

 

[phrodeau]

_______________
Temperatures from Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.C.gif

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.C.gif

This shows an even smaller span of years. It doesn't say what was used to determine the zero line, so that is a bit suspicious. However, every single data point on the graph is above zero.

 

[phrodeau]

_______________
Global Land and Sea Temperatures from Hadley Centre, Climate Research Unit, UK Meteorology Office, University of East Anglia
CO2 from Earth Sciences Research Laboratory (Mauna Loa) NASA


http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut3gl/from:1995/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/from:1995/normalise

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1995/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/from:1995/normalise

Look for the word "normalise" in this graph. It means that the graph was given a zero line based on the average of the range. This one has a range of 1995 to 2014. It's very much like taking the Goddard graph above, drawing a line at 0.65 and calling it zero. This graph is shown twice for some reason, and I will only address it once.

 

[phrodeau]

_______________
The upper panel shows the air temperature at the summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet, reconstructed by Alley (2000) from GISP2 ice core data. The time scale shows years before modern time. The rapid temperature rise to the left indicate the final part of the even more pronounced temperature increase following the last ice age. The temperature scale at the right hand side of the upper panel suggests a very approximate comparison with the global average temperature (see comment below). The GISP2 record ends around 1855, and the two graphs therefore ends here. There has since been an temperature increase to about the same level as during the Medieval Warm Period and to about 395 ppm for CO2. The small reddish bar in the lower right indicate the extension of the longest global temperature record (since 1850), based on meteorological observations (HadCRUT3). The lower panel shows the past atmospheric CO2 content, as found from the EPICA Dome C Ice Core in the Antarctic (Monnin et al. 2004). The Dome C atmospheric CO2 record ends in the year 1777.



http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif

http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2 TemperatureSince10700 BP with CO2 from EPICA DomeC.gif
http://www.climate4you.com/

Now we have gone to the other extreme, with a graph that shows thousands of years. But hang on, it says the graph ends at "1855 or so", which means that there is no recent data on it. If we compare to the Goddard graph again, the current temp anomaly is somewhere around 0.9. So imagine that as the point on the graph under the zero year mark. And of course, the warming didn't start in 1855 and steadily increase, it has shot up dramatically after 1950. So the line is very steep, and would clearly be the steepest line on the graph.

At the very last, we see a graph of CO2 concentration over the same period. For reference, the current level of CO2 is about 396 ppm. Oops, we need a much taller graph and a very steep line to plot that point.

 

[bill-pix-trade]

How did global cool work in the 70S?

 

[zipman]

Now we have gone to the other extreme, with a graph that shows thousands of years. But hang on, it says the graph ends at "1855 or so", which means that there is no recent data on it. If we compare to the Goddard graph again, the current temp anomaly is somewhere around 0.9. So imagine that as the point on the graph under the zero year mark. And of course, the warming didn't start in 1855 and steadily increase, it has shot up dramatically after 1950. So the line is very steep, and would clearly be the steepest line on the graph.

At the very last, we see a graph of CO2 concentration over the same period. For reference, the current level of CO2 is about 396 ppm. Oops, we need a much taller graph and a very steep line to plot that point.

But they're graphs with pretty colors and everything.