Can Global Warming be stopped.

Another factor is the enormous ammount of air that gets heated at high altitude by jets engines on airliners.

Warm exhaust gasses in cold air make contrails.
In the 1970s enviromentalists were concerned that contrails from airliners would cause global cooling.

It was one of the reasons the US abandoned its SST program.

I think something that gets discounted is the factor of deforestation/urbanization of land. This accounts for a huge and very measurable change in weather patterns. For those of you here who are pilots, you should know the profound effect surface terrain makes on weather patterns. There is also the factor that trees and plantlife consume C02. In my opinion global warming is caused more from deforestations effect on the weather than C02. Another factor is the enormous ammount of air that gets heated at high altitude by jets engines on airliners.

Of more interest to you ELP might be:

http://www.dailytech.com/Global+Warming+on+Mars++and+Jupiter+Pluto+Neptune/article6544.htm

Global warming was detected on Jupiter last year, and the warming is apparently behind the formation of a second red spot. Global warming on Neptune’s moon Triton has also been noted, with severe atmospheric changes as a result. And even tiny Pluto has experienced moderate warming in recent years, with temperatures rising a full 3.5 degrees.

The common denominator in all these cases, the Earth included, is of course the Sun

I’m always prepared to change my view if the evidence is laid before me. 🙂

Long Range Solar Forecast
05.10.2006
Solar Cycle 25 peaking around 2022 could be one of the weakest in centuries.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm

Which means another cycle of global cooling. The minute parts of manmade CO2… or any CO2 in current or future levels won’t stop that.

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The Real Inconvenient Truth
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3183.html
Some scientists chime in on the manmade causation alarmism.

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‘Stranded Polar Bear’ Photo Taken Out of Context Says Photographer
Posted by Jake Gontesky on March 20, 2007 – 17:34.
http://newsbusters.org/node/11545

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March 20, 2007
What Do We Know About Clouds?
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/03/20/what-do-we-know-about-clouds/
Cloudy Science

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NASA Finds Sun-Climate Connection in Old Nile Records
March 19, 2007
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=1319
Better than the old hocky stick graph.

—————

Here is something to consider… good reading. What is amusing is that crap like Kyoto is sold to us and we are expected to accept it hook line and sinker, and it isn’t even especially good science.

==============

Rebels of the Sun
The science of how global warming occurs has become crucial to our economy. So why are dissenting explanations of the sun’s influence on our fate being pushed aside, asks environment writer Matthew Warren
——————————————————————————–

March 17, 2007

IT says a lot about the complexity of climate science that we can put a man on the moon but we still can’t predict the weather beyond the next few days. The warming of the planet, and man’s contribution to this phenomenon, has become the top scientific issue of this generation.
Science by its very nature is an argument. But apparently not this one any more. Yet a minority of scientists are still lining up to challenge the accepted wisdom with their claim that global warming is being principally driven by the sun, not by human activity.
The mainstream view is that an accumulation of greenhouse gases, mostly due to human activity, is trapping too much of the sun’s heat within our atmosphere. But the rebels against this dominant view suggest massive variations in the sun’s heat radiation are far more influential in warming than accumulating greenhouse gases.

The UN-linked Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the executive summary of the science of its fourth assessment report in February. It reported “90 per cent” certainty among consulted scientists that the 0.6C average temperature increase measured during the 20th century was largely caused by the release of greenhouse gases, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels by industrialised economies. In other words, by humans.

Although the scale of warming predictions had altered little during the preceding six years of research, politicians and mainstream climate-change scientists queued up to declare the argument about human-caused climate change was officially over.

Despite such confidence, hundreds of blogs across the world continue to run charged claims and counterclaims on the internet about the various positions adopted by climate scientists. The scale of the argument is unprecedented and reflects considerable uncertainty. By comparison, there are no blogs debating the validity of the periodic table of elements, for example.

Despite these claims, the minority of scientists who disagree with the mainstream view are still at large and remain unmoved by the latest IPCC report. Their views have recently been exhumed by two equally contentious, polar opposite documentaries profiling them on British and Canadian television.

Last month, the ABC’s Four Corners screened the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program The Denial Machine, which claimed the campaign for caution about human-caused climate change was conceived by spin doctors and driven and funded by oil and coal companies. Produced last November, the program compared scientific scepticism on climate change to the tobacco industry’s much publicised one-time campaign to discredit links between smoking and lung cancer.

Then last week Channel 4 in Britain screened a program called The Great Global Warming Swindle, in which many of the same scientists from the CBC program were interviewed to put the dissenting sceptics’ sun-driven case on human-caused climate change. Yet to be screened in Australia, and unlikely to make its way on to Four Corners, the program argued the warming measured during the 20th century was the result of changes in solar activity, not increases in carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. It also took issue with what it described as a multibillion-dollar global warming industry that continued to play up the threat to support research, funding and relevance.

The debate over climate change has become increasingly stifling and intolerant to dissenting voices as the mainstream position has become more secure. Some argue it is appropriate, indeed necessary, to censor such dissent for fear it will delay action on the increasingly urgent policy response needed to make deep cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions.

Unsurprisingly, the program sparked considerable controversy. One of the scientists interviewed claims he was misrepresented not so much by what he said on air, but by being associated with the thesis of such a one-sided polemic. Main British media outlets subsequently committed considerable space to attack what they claimed were the half-truths and discredited facts, as well as the credibility of the dissenting scientists who made them. While not interviewed for Channel 4, hydro-climatologist Stewart Franks at Newcastle University in NSW is one such scientist. Like all other scientists quoted in this article, he says he has never received any funding from any industry, but is increasingly uneasy about the dangerous path the debate is taking, where alternative views are discouraged and reputations attacked and discredited.

Franks says our understanding of the physics of climate is still so limited, we cannot explain natural variability or predict when droughts will break, or the when and why clouds form, which makes him wary of mainstream claims projecting temperature changes over the next century.

He argues that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere account for only about 2 per cent to 3 per cent of the overall warming effect, meaning even major increases in gases lead to only slight shifts in temperature: between 0.5C and 1C. He is less certain than other dissenting scientists that variation in solar activity is the cause, but doubts that greenhouse gases are the main driver of temperature changes. “It’s clear that we don’t understand enough of the physics of climate to understand natural variability but I don’t expect climate change from CO2 to be particularly significant at any point in the future,” he says.

Franks points to new modelling which has measured changes in the Earth’s albedo or reflectance, driven mainly by cloud formation. The paper by a team of geophysicists reported an unexplained decline in cloud cover until 1998, which caused the Earth to absorb more heat from the atmosphere.

This resulted in increases in incoming solar radiation more than 10 times bigger than the same effect attributed to greenhouse gases. Franks says the current IPCC models assume albedo is constant but such research should be added to the body of knowledge, not excluded or rejected. “It’s reached the point that anyone who offers an open mind publicly is basically criticised and put down,” he says.

New Zealand climatologist Associate Professor Chris de Freitas says it is generally agreed greenhouse gases are having a warming effect on the radiation balance of the Earth, but there is disagreement on the extent of positive feedbacks. The IPCC models claim the warming caused by the release of carbon dioxide encourages accelerated warming, with the system spiralling slowly but insiduously upwards. The IPCC models predict a range of temperature increases from 1.1C to 6.4C by 2100. So much for certainty.

De Freitas, unlike the IPCC, thinks the warming effect of carbon dioxide decreases over time as it becomes more saturated in the atmosphere.

“There is so much scope for disagreement because there is so much uncertainty. This was one of the most outrageous implications of the first IPCC report – claiming that the science was settled,” he says. “The big problem is the feedbacks warming accelerates itself . We don’t still understand the very complex climate system. None of the models have proved to be accurate at all. So using the outputs of models is fallacious because they’re not evidence of anything, they’re just hypotheses.

“The IPCC started it in their first report by calling it a ‘consensus view’ to shut down debate. By calling their critics deniers, they are saying, ‘look these guys are arguing against the impossible’.”

The IPCC is the scientific and political engine room of the climate-change debate. It’s “consensus view” is based on 19 different computer models to project temperature changes based on known increases in greenhouse gases.

At least one of the 1500 “leading scientists” it quotes as its underpinning authority is also one of its staunchest critics, Richard Lindzen, who is Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a contributing author to this year’s fourth IPCC assessment report but remains highly critical of how the panel operates, claiming it is largely a political process underpinned by science, which carefully stage-manages the release of its reports to maximise political impact.

The IPCC made headlines across the world in February with the release of the executive summary of its assessment report, which Lindzen says was severely modified by the political session that writes it and which is now modifying the full scientific report to fit for release in May. “That’s a very funny procedure by most standards,” he said. “You don’t appeal to consensus if you have a scientific argument.

“Very few of the models are independent and they all share certain profound difficulties. They all get clouds hugely wrong and a small change in clouds has a much bigger effect than doubling CO2.”

Bob Carter, who is a research professor in marine geology at James Cook University, says there are some excellent scientists involved in the IPCC process and the actual report is likely to be both sound and useful science. But he is even more scathing of the process.

“I think it is probably without precedent in any Western democratic process, the idea that you would publish an executive summary before the report and then openly say that ‘we need a few more weeks to work on the report to make sure it is consistent with the executive summary’,” he says.

“I don’t know how anybody can take them seriously. It’s become a religion. I have no doubt that a number of the IPCC supporters genuinely believe. Others know very well that the evidence isn’t there, but it suits them to believe.

“I’m agnostic. And when the evidence is there I shall be perfectly happy to believe the hypothesis. But the evidence is not there.”

In his Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, former US vice-president Al Gore’s central claim in his description of the science was his correlation of 650,000 years of temperature changes with atmospheric carbon concentrations using polar ice-core samples. Gore described the relationship as complex, but made the most of the theatre, climbing up on a crane to accentuate the scale of the increases in greenhouse gas. But the sceptics point to a paper published in Nature and Science magazines showing the historical relationship between carbon dioxide and temperature has the gas lagging, not leading.

That is, greenhouse gas rises occurred about 800 years later than allegedly matching temperature change, as the warming seas released more gas into the atmosphere and trapped it when cooling.

This doesn’t discredit the mainstream theory that present levels of greenhouse gases are still well above historical levels, but it is one of several areas where even mainstream scientists believe Gore appears loose with the science to make his film more dramatic.

The CBC documentary referred to predictions of sea-level rises of up to 24m as a result of climate change. The IPCC predicts rises at worst of about 50cm by 2100. If it’s not OK to mislead the public in criticising climate-change science, why is it OK to mislead people in selling it?

Recently Prime Minister John Howard was effectively forced to recant a comment made in parliament that the science was uncertain. Clean Up Australia boss Ian Kiernan recently accused federal Finance Minister Nick Minchin of being an “unscientific looney” because he expressed some doubts about the validity of the climate-change science. Suddenly it’s not just unfashionable to hold some doubts or keep an open mind on the science of climate change.

Having accepted the risk flagged by the mainstream science that the planet is warming, by developing an appropriate policy response, the debate in Australia has effectively decoupled the science from the policy response. We have agreed the issue is too important to wait for more conclusive answers, that we are prepared to act comprehensively on climate change, possibly at considerable cost, on the trust that most respected, credible scientists are deeply concerned about the seriousness of this threat.

Greenpeace played an important role in its formative years by challenging companies, and governments developed economies. Why was that OK then, but this is not now?

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21395368-30417,00.html

Funny that I have to be abused for years by an alarmist crowd that says man made C02 is contributing significantly to global warming and that if we were to lower that it would be a big help… where as the TV show that has real scientists on it shows another completely different theory which is:

Those are just some of the things. Of course you are allowed your opinion. But striking out one science theory just because you don’t like it, is bad science practice. What is happening today is similar to the Spanish Inquisition. Heretics will be demonized at every turn. Anyone that doesn’t believe man made CO2 contributes significantly to global warming is a heretic and needs to be silenced. That, not believing man made CO2 contributes significantly to global warming, is the same as being a Holocaust denier. Not really the scientific way is it?

HA HA HA

I seen the TV show, and wasn’t too impressed with it. I doubt just how much knowledge the ‘experts’ had on the subject as they used some quite basic terms incorrectly.

A TV show can be made to portray whatever the maker wants it to protray.

Besides, from stuff I’ve subsequently seen, the information that the ‘experts’ on the show based their opinion on has already been proven to be incorrect – several times.

Actually ATFS_CRASH, the bulk of what you say is totally irrelevant to this debate, since we are not discussing mass extinction events (fascinating as they are), but the impact of human CO2 emissions upon global climate. Super erruptions and large meteor strikes are rare events over which humanity has no control, where as the burning of fossil fuels is something that mankind is directly responsible for.

If we consider that we have been burning fossil fuels in increasing bulk since about 1700, I hope you can see that the time frame under discussion is substantially less that geological and in this period there have been no super erruptions – indeed the last one was 70,000 years ago, long enough ago, to be totally irrelevant, and if Yellowstone went of tomorrow human CO2 emissions would be the least of our worries.

What we are concerned with here are the effects of human v natural CO2 emissions over the time frame since roughly 1700 and during this period volcanic output has been roughly inline with the USGS’s figures. ie. Volcanoes have produced far less CO2 than man.

Anybody involved with proffessional modelling and prediction knows all about ‘wild cards’ as you put it, so whilst your comments are correct at one level; the real trick is to ask the correct questions (ie. what happens to the price of copper? if demand follows current trends, there are no stockmarket crashes and no wars breaking out in producing countries etc etc.) – I think your reply shows that you have little or no experience of modelling and predicting trends

Moving on your suggestion that ‘The movement to stop CO2 production is not practical and it may actually increase the odds of a global extinction release of greenhouse gases.’ Is almost laughable, huge quantities of methane are locked up in the worlds permafrost and this is already starting to thaw, burning more fossil fuels will only exasperate this trend. And as I am sure you are aware methane is ten times as potent a green house gas as methane…….

Finally your closing remarks show an unwarranted arrogance; ‘By the way this information is much more deeper than you’ll find on most online resources,’ is a fatuous claim because it isn’t. Also what makes you think that ‘most will find it hard to understand or believe?’ Most people on here are well educated, and there is nothing complex in your ramblings indeed if people don’t understand it is probably more down to poor english than anything intrinsicley difficult in your ideas.

Steve.

Who here saw the link to the TV show that was posted?

Funny that I have to be abused for years by an alarmist crowd that says man made C02 is contributing significantly to global warming and that if we were to lower that it would be a big help… where as the TV show that has real scientists on it shows another completely different theory which is:

-Global warming is happening but that its cause is more natural than anything else.
-That the crowd that hangs their hat on man made CO2 being a major problem point to ice core samples ( Like what is shown in Al Gores Movie “An Inconvenient Truth”.
-Where the scientists in the TV show link I posted say if anything, those ice core samples only do the following: “The evidence of what is in the ice core samples, if anything, disproves the theory of CO2 contributing to global warming.” That those samples show that CO2 follows global warming trends, where CO2 increases hundreds of years after a warming trend. The two lines of data never match up.
-The long trends of global warming and cooling don’t prove anything about man made CO2 having any effect on global warming.
-What is interesting is the two lines of data that go hand in hand over the ages are: Global temperature and sunspot activity. The affects of emissions from the sun during higher solar activity go in long trends.
-Where kind of solar activity influences how much cloud cover is present. Lower solar activity means a higher percentage of clouds and starts a slow cooling trend. Higher solar activity over time means less cloud cover and starts warming trends.
-It takes the ocean a very long long time to react to a warming or cooling event. At the minimum, hundreds of years. If ocean activity is warm today, it is in reaction to an event hundreds of years ago. The reverse is true.

Those are just some of the things. Of course you are allowed your opinion. But striking out one science theory just because you don’t like it, is bad science practice. What is happening today is similar to the Spanish Inquisition. Heretics will be demonized at every turn. Anyone that doesn’t believe man made CO2 contributes significantly to global warming is a heretic and needs to be silenced. That, not believing man made CO2 contributes significantly to global warming, is the same as being a Holocaust denier. Not really the scientific way is it?

I would imagine you are better at computers that I am, it wouldn’t take much. Just because you are experienced with simulation doesn’t mean you can accurately predict global warming. Like they say in the computer field, junk in, junk out. Like I said before it depends on the variables.

To assume a steady state for the Earth is insane.

You’ve totally got the context of what I’m saying wrong.

You said earlier that since weathermen/women cannot predict a weeks weather with simulation, how can they predict 10 years ahead.

When meteorologist are educated for years in college and even after years of experience meteorologists cannot predict the weather two weeks away accurately. Yet Al Gore is such a genius he can predict catastrophic global warming decades away.

In the weather simulation, your dealing with transient effects (things like a low pressure area over there, and a storm front over here, but with the 10 year analysis, all that can simply be neglected – making the simulation algorithms soooo much easier.

Its not based on pure steady state for eternity – thats stupid. But as far as the computer knows, its steady state. Proper term for it would be quasi-steady state.

Actually ATFS_CRASH, the bulk of what you say is totally irrelevant to this debate, since we are not discussing mass extinction events (fascinating as they are), but the impact of human CO2 emissions upon global climate. Super erruptions and large meteor strikes are rare events over which humanity has no control, where as the burning of fossil fuels is something that mankind is directly responsible for.

If we consider that we have been burning fossil fuels in increasing bulk since about 1700, I hope you can see that the time frame under discussion is substantially less that geological and in this period there have been no super erruptions – indeed the last one was 70,000 years ago, long enough ago, to be totally irrelevant, and if Yellowstone went of tomorrow human CO2 emissions would be the least of our worries.

What we are concerned with here are the effects of human v natural CO2 emissions over the time frame since roughly 1700 and during this period volcanic output has been roughly inline with the USGS’s figures. ie. Volcanoes have produced far less CO2 than man.

Anybody involved with proffessional modelling and prediction knows all about ‘wild cards’ as you put it, so whilst your comments are correct at one level; the real trick is to ask the correct questions (ie. what happens to the price of copper? if demand follows current trends, there are no stockmarket crashes and no wars breaking out in producing countries etc etc.) – I think your reply shows that you have little or no experience of modelling and predicting trends

Moving on your suggestion that ‘The movement to stop CO2 production is not practical and it may actually increase the odds of a global extinction release of greenhouse gases.’ Is almost laughable, huge quantities of methane are locked up in the worlds permafrost and this is already starting to thaw, burning more fossil fuels will only exasperate this trend. And as I am sure you are aware methane is ten times as potent a green house gas as methane…….

Finally your closing remarks show an unwarranted arrogance; ‘By the way this information is much more deeper than you’ll find on most online resources,’ is a fatuous claim because it isn’t. Also what makes you think that ‘most will find it hard to understand or believe?’ Most people on here are well educated, and there is nothing complex in your ramblings indeed if people don’t understand it is probably more down to poor english than anything intrinsicley difficult in your ideas.

Steve.

Global warming is a myth invented to impose more “green”(dy) taxes on the modern citizen-sheep.The Great Global Warming swindle should be made compulsory viewing to debunk this myth,the environmental taliban must be stopped.

More generally however the models for climate change have been through the peer review system where people more knowledgable than us have vetted them and found them to be good solid science.

Your statement is partly true but your insinuation is false.

People with much more knowledge than us have gone over the data. And yes we do have a pretty good model for the past, however there are still unexplained events of global warming and cooling. As time goes on we are developing a more accurate model. Just because we can understand the past fairly well, does not mean that we can predict the future.

We have records that explain the weather back for centuries, yet we cannot accurately predict what happens two weeks from now. It’s the same way with climatology.

Predicting climatology is like predicting whether, you can make a fairly accurate model if you get enough of the variables, however there are some major variables that are still wild cards that cannot be predicted. The predictions and cells are not entirely accurate however throw in a wild-card and the predictions can become completely erroneous.

Comparison of CO2 emissions from volcanoes vs. human activities.
Scientists have calculated that volcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year (Gerlach, 1999, 1992). This estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes, about in equal amounts. Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 22 billion tonnes per year (24 billion tons) [ ( Marland, et al., 1998) – The reference gives the amount of released carbon (C), rather than CO2.]. Human activities release more than 150 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes–the equivalent of nearly 17,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 13.2 million tonnes/year)!

This is sampling on a timescale. Right now nature is in a period of low CO2 output, which it normally is. If you study history you’ll see that there are long periods of low CO2 output, with rare massive catastrophic events.

The CO2 output from Kilauea is insignificant. Its largest known event hardly even registers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_Explosivity_Index

The Krakatau eruption released much more then the largest eruption on record for Kilauea. Yet the documented Krakatau eruption was minor compared to Mount Tambora. The Mount Tambora event was small compared to Mount Tambora (Year Without a Summer).

And they all were days in the park compared to super volcano eruptions like; La Garita, Caldera, Yellowstone (Lava Creek eruption) (Huckleberry Ridge eruption), Toba, or Taupo (Oruanui eruption).

What you’re doing is an unequal comparison, it’s like comparing a pile of gunpowder to a burning log and saying the log is more flammable because as putting out more heat. Will light a match to the gunpowder, and you might have a slightly different opinion (sarcasm).

The natural CO2 output of the earth is not a constant, it slowly builds up the CO2 and typically releases it in catastrophic events. The Yellowstone eruption could have released more CO2 and other greenhouse gases in a few days then mankind has in the last hundred years.

The Chicxulub impact would have likely made Yellowstone look like a day and a park. The crater is estimated at over 100 miles in diameter. Any petroleum products in the ground or in the sea nearby wooded been released to the atmosphere and probably set on fire, in other words a massive CO2 event, also it likely released CO2 as if it was a super volcano. Also it would have likely triggered the largest known Megatsunami. The direct impact to the sea floor and the Megatsunami would have likely triggered a catastrophic release of methane ice, which in itself would probably be the largest known release of greenhouse gases in history.

Right now there seems to be massive stores of methane ice waiting for a natural events to trigger a sudden release. This methane ice could possibly be used as fuel. If we were to find a way of harvesting and distributing the methane ice, it could possibly replace our oil dependency.

The methane ice and the oil is just stored waiting for a cataclysmic event to release it. If we use the methane ice on the oil we can use/burn/release it at a rate that would much less likely cause of extinction event.

Right now we seem to be in a global warming phase, it is possible could trigger a massive release of methane ice, that would further accelerate the global warming. One of the ways we might be able to prevent this event from being so cataclysmic is from switching from oil to methane ice.

If we can find a way of harvesting and distributing the methane ice, it could be converted to burn in our factories, homes, and automobiles owned by doing so we would be regulating/slowly releasing the greenhouse gases and thusly reducing the impact on life. Otherwise the same amount of greenhouse gases will likely be suddenly released to the atmosphere, and all that useful energy will go to waste and will cause a major extinction event.

It may seem strange but by controlling the way we pollute the world, we might be able to actually reduce the odds of an extinction event.

Let me say it another way, by burning hydrocarbons like oil and methane we may be increasing the global warming but we may be doing it more gently in a way that is less likely to cause catastrophic extinction. Most of the hydrocarbons are going to find their way to the atmosphere whether or not we use them. Coal might be one of the few exceptions. That’s why our long-term goal should be to switch most of our power plants to nuclear, hydroelectric, ect….

The movement to stop CO2 production is not practical and it may actually increase the odds of a global extinction release of greenhouse gases.

In a generation or two; oil is likely to be so expensive that it will not be practical to use for most applications.

If you’re not familiar with methane ice, it is somewhat like how oil is formed. Methane accumulates from dying organisms and other waste products on the bottom of the ocean, sometimes it is cool enough and under enough pressure that it can turn into a solid (ice). Much of this methane ice is trapped under the sentiment in our oceans, just waiting for global warming to warm it enough to release it or for a cataclysmic event like a meteor strike to release it. It is possible that an earthquake could possibly release it.

By the way this information is much more deeper than you’ll find on most online resources. It is based on facts, but the final conclusion is largely my own theory.

You don’t have to agree with me, I suspect most will find it hard to understand or believe.;) :rolleyes:

Roscaria, actually I haven’t missed the point , yes change is inevitable and nowhere have I advocated a ‘steady state’ model for the earths climatic systems. It is the rate of change which is at issue here.

The ice ages came and receeded over tens/hundreds of thousand of years, we however are now talking of comparable changes in one or two centuries. Why? That is what the science seeks to answer. Unfortunately as this is an ‘inconvenient truth’ many seek to dismiss what is sound science with pseudo science.

For example having accepted that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, some people have argued that man’s output is insignificant in comparrison with volcanic output. This myth has entered into the conciesness of those who seek to deny mans influence on climate change – and is frequentlyu encountered in debates such as this. It is however utter rubbish. Please look at this link

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/Hazards/What/VolGas/volgas.html

Which is the US Geological Survey and contains the following ;

Comparison of CO2 emissions from volcanoes vs. human activities.
Scientists have calculated that volcanoes emit between about 130-230 million tonnes (145-255 million tons) of CO2 into the atmosphere every year (Gerlach, 1999, 1992). This estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes, about in equal amounts. Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 22 billion tonnes per year (24 billion tons) [ ( Marland, et al., 1998) – The reference gives the amount of released carbon (C), rather than CO2.]. Human activities release more than 150 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes–the equivalent of nearly 17,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 13.2 million tonnes/year)!

More generally however the models for climate change have been through the peer review system where people more knowledgable than us have vetted them and found them to be good solid science. These people do not assume a ‘steady state’ either.

Steve.

ATFS has put across a lot of good points, they certainly make you realise, just how complicated things really are in the natural world.
I’m sorry, but it’s going to take a lot to convince me, that mankinds CO2 emmisions, are solely responsible for global warming.
_______________________________________

Moderator Moment

Ahem…. highly entertaining though it can be when done well, argument by ad hominem does not make for a reasoned and thoughtful debate.

Please bear this in mind as we proceed, chaps and chapesses.

Thanks 🙂

GA

“Aye… sure what would I know, I only work on computational simulation every day.”

I would imagine you are better at computers that I am, it wouldn’t take much. Just because you are experienced with simulation doesn’t mean you can accurately predict global warming. Like they say in the computer field, junk in, junk out. Like I said before it depends on the variables.

To assume a steady state for the Earth is insane.

If you think that the Earth is inevitably bound for a steady state, then there’s no need to worry about man, a steady state implies man has no influence over global warming..(Which I don’t believe, I’m just pointing out how you are contradicting yourself logically)

I guess no one’s heard about the dust bowls. Ect… I guess people have never heard of land Management.

”Its easier to predict (simulate/model) events over a longer time scale when local fluctuations can be averaged.”

No it’s not, and it can be proved or disproved because we won’t live long enough. It’s also a matter of what time scale you use, as I pointed out depending on what timescale you use depends on whether we are in a period on global warming now or global cooling now.

Like I said all one has to do is look at history and no we are not in a steady state.

Anyone that knows anything about Earth science or cosmology can tell you that expecting the Earth to be in a steady state temperature wise is insane.

The core of Earth is cooling. The iron core is liquid and the spinning induces a magnetic field. Not only is the Earth’s core cooling but the rate of spin is slowing down due to friction, that will definitely change the weather. We are also seem overdue for an Earth magnetic pole reversal, which will inevitably change the Earth’s weather (endearing this pull reversal there will be periods of lower magnetic field which will allow more radiation to the Earth’s surface). Also eventually the Earth’s core will cool to the point that it solidifies, at that point we will lose our magnetic field, thusly we will be bombarded by radiation. Also the lack of magnetic field will all allow our atmosphere to be stripped away at a much higher rate. Eventually earth will become a cold barren planet much like Mars.

On a longer time scale. The sun is a furnace, its fuel is limited. The nuclear reactions that power the sun change as the composition of the sun changes due to nuclear combustion, this process will have periods of warming and cooling. When the sun is near its death it will likely swell (as a red giant) and burn up the Earth, before the sun itself fizzles.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/sun/sundeath.shtml

It’s not exactly known for sure but some people theorize that part of the Earth’s core heat is from nuclear reactions at the core of the Earth, if that is true eventually the nuclear fuel will run out.

Like I said there are too many wildcards, we don’t even understand the Atlantic conveyor belt. It has histories of fluctuating, however we are not exactly sure what triggers the switch. They think in the past there has been large ice dams from melting ice that have suddenly gave away and have allowed a sudden flow of fresh water into the ocean. The density difference between the sudden on surge of fresh water is thought to disrupt ocean conveyor belts.

All you’re doing is spewing rhetoric, you havn’t even demonstrated that you know the proper terminology. The global warming nuts sometimes use the right terminology, but they usually use pseudoscience. The other side seems to use pseudoscience also but much less often.

If you look at it on an even longer time scale our galaxy is going to mix and be consumed by another galaxy and then massively changed.

Roscaria,

Global warming is real, the science is good, it is mainly caused by humans, and action now can be effective – in reducing the worst effects.

You are falling into the common human trap of believing what you want to believe, not what you have reason to. NO ONE in their right mind wants to give up the comfortable life we are all accustomed to, and many people are in denial, grasping at the most absurd straws of hope and pseudo scientific claims, such as the program on Channel 4. A program that was about as accademically credible as Eric von Danniken!

Nearly all scientists are in agreement upon climate change being a ‘clear and present’ danger, and those who aren’t are invariablly in denial and looking for straws or prostituted to energy companies. READ THE SCIENCE AND GET REAL, or else it is you children who will suffer the consequences.

Remember a 2 degree rise in the UK gives us a mediterranian climate, but in much of the world it makes it uninhabitabal.

Steve.

You have missed a very important point, about the world we live in. We live in a world of constant change, and this will include the worlds climate. To assume that the worlds climate will stay the same over a long period of time, while everything else around us is changing, can’t be right.
Eventually, we are going to have to accept, that changes in the worlds climate, are an inevitable part of this ever changing world.
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Al Gore is a shameless fear monger, that is promoting hysteria to grandstand himself for political and financial gain. That is putting it politely.

Who gives a sh_t about what Al Gore says?

Its the thousands of peer-reviewed papers on the subject that have me worried!

False. Anyone can make a prediction, its accuracy that counts. There are too many variables and too many unknowns and we are to new to the science to have anyway of accurately predicting global warming and cooling.

Your “steady-state” theory is obviously a fraud. Anyone can look at the history of the universe and the laws of nature and see that change is part of natural things on our time scale and location. You were steady state theory is at odds with the laws of nature.

Aye… sure what would I know, I only work on computational simulation every day. :rolleyes:

Its easier to predict (simulate/model) events over a longer time scale when local fluctuations can be averaged.

BTW: I don’t mean steady state as in from the begining and end of time!

Roscaria,

Global warming is real, the science is good, it is mainly caused by humans, and action now can be effective – in reducing the worst effects.

You are falling into the common human trap of believing what you want to believe, not what you have reason to. NO ONE in their right mind wants to give up the comfortable life we are all accustomed to, and many people are in denial, grasping at the most absurd straws of hope and pseudo scientific claims, such as the program on Channel 4. A program that was about as accademically credible as Eric von Danniken!

Nearly all scientists are in agreement upon climate change being a ‘clear and present’ danger, and those who aren’t are invariablly in denial and looking for straws or prostituted to energy companies. READ THE SCIENCE AND GET REAL, or else it is you children who will suffer the consequences.

Remember a 2 degree rise in the UK gives us a mediterranian climate, but in much of the world it makes it uninhabitabal.

Steve.

Wont get fooled again.

Wouldn’t it be interesting, if our politicians decided to tell the truth about global warming. They wouldn’t dare to say, that there wasn’t much that could be done to stop global warming, because it was probably due to natural causes. Far better to distort the truth of the matter, and profit from global warming taxes. Fortunately, there are still some of us free thinking people left, that don’t trust politicians.
The fact that humans haven’t been around for that long on planet Earth, means our scientists haven’t had the time or experience, to understand what makes the world tick. So there is no real scientific proof, that mankinds CO2 emmisions are having much effect, on a naturally occurring global warming process.
We are going to look pretty stupid in the future, when we begin to realise that all that has been done to curb CO2 emmisions, has had no effect at all. It wont bother the present governments though, as they would have made a financial killing in the process. At least they will say they tried. :p :p
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