Humanity's Contribution To "Global Warming"

jellisky writes: "In a recent climate modeling experiment, researchers have attempted to calculate the effect humanity has had on our climate. The results and article suggest that humanity is mainly to blame for a few recent warming periods, but also suggests that there are many other effects that might be just as important at times, including an oceanic oscillation and a mysterious "residual effect". Anyone else curious about this "residual effect"? How much trust should we put into these models when people cannot classify what's happening in them? Most importantly, though, what have we learned?"

Global Warming is a Crock

[provolt]

Any environmentalist who tells you that the human race is responsible for global warming, is doing nothing more than pushing a personal agenda.

Personally, I say that Global Warming is totally false because of Fargo, North Dakota, or more specifically Fargo's landscape. It's EXTREMELY flat. (There is only about a foot of elevation change ever mile.) This may sound kinda stange, but bear with me for a minute.

Why is Fargo flat? Well, because there was a huge covering the entire Red River Valley (where Fargo is at).

Where did all that water come from? It came for the large glacier that covered a large portion of the northern hemisphere.

When I was golfing last weekend in Fargo it was about 85 degrees out. Now that isn't very hot at all, unless you're a giant sheet of ice. Glaciers don't take well to 85 degree heat. (Even if it is only for 3 months.) So it seems to me, that it's a pretty good bet that at some point in the past the earth as colder. If it was colder then than it is now, it seems to follow pretty logically that there was some sort of warming that was in now way caused by cars, factories or people in general.

For the people who say we are just speeding it up, can you isolate all of the variables involved in gobal climate change? Is the energy output of the sun constant? Has there been slight deviation in the orbit of the earth? Those are just two variables that I can think of off the top of my head. And they would be damn hard to test.

provolt
[e-mail]

Or geeks don't care about the real world?

[ScutterBob]

But i don't really think thats the case. I think it just didn't show up in the normal lineup.

Re:Global Warming is a Crock

[trinitishwar]

According to some polar shift theories the reason that there are no longer glaciers in North Dakota (and elsewhere) is not just because of global warming. Put simply, the poles are't where they used to be. Take Siberia for instance. Today it's one of the coldest places on the planet, but during the last ice age it had a temperate climate. Hmmm...... Alaska? Same there. During the last ice age, the north pole was somewhere in Hudson Bay I think. Putting it a lot closer to North Dakota. About 2000 miles if I remember correctly. At the risk of making a generalized comment, anyone who thinks that we have not had an effect on the global temperature is being foolishly nearsighted.

Preventing the next ice age?

[Mudd Chick]

There was an interesting theory proposed by Larry Niven in "Fallen Angels" (and I think I've seen it elsewhere) that proposed that we are approaching the end of an interglacial period. Several supporting pieces of evidence were provided. One of these was that scientists have detected far fewer neutrinos from the sun than they expected. He suggested that this is because the sun has stopped fusing -- that the reason for ice ages is that the sun periodically loses too much heat to continue the fusion process and that there is a period of sun contraction and cooling before the sun contracts enough to begin fusion again. This is supported by the relatively low sunspot occurrence compared to past history (geologically speaking.) According to the book, the only thing preventing glaciers from sweeping back over the planet is the adjustments to climate begun in the Middle Ages, with current levels of smog and pollution providing "seeds" for rain to form around. Deforestation and the increased albedo of human development adds to this, I seem to remember a past article about cities having their own weather due to the heat absorbed by pavement. It was pretty entertaining, since it made a strong case for ignoring the Greens and polluting to your heart's content -- it's the only thing preventing you from freezing to death! ;)

Re:Global warming isn't a political issue

[Detritus]

Global warming has been used as a political issue by both the left and right to further their agendas. Al "don't confuse me with the facts" Gore has hopped on this as "his" issue. This has corrupted science. Researchers who discover or publicize "politically incorrect" results are likely to have problems with funding.

Inteesting Subject

[SigVn]

I find it facinating on how emotionaly charged the whole subject is.

For instance @ work we were discussing the subject. Somebody said that if the temprature @ the south pole was raised 1 degree it would all melt and the world would flood.

When I pointed out that the avrage Summer temperture was about -25C (I had found that out on a PBS or TVO spcial the week before) they got really offended. bizzare.

Other things that are really Odd.

Have you ever noticed that on a hot day everyone talks about "Global Warming" but on a cool day everybody forgets about it.

When the great lakes were low everybody said that it was global warming. Then it rained a lot and we had a really cool summer, every body forgot that The great Lakes were being emptyed by Global Warming.

There is a guy out in Winnipeg who went through old Hudsons Bay Jouranals and got the weather readings from the last 200-300 years (i forget wich), and he claims this is just part of a 100 - 150 year cycle.

My perosonal opinion is that Global Warming is a scam by "green" conmen ("greenpeace" comes to mind here) so they don't need to get real jobs, and can screw high school girls

But I am known as something of a cynic

Global warming isn't a political issue

[w00ly_mammoth]

One thing I've found quite interesting is that in the US, global warming is treated as a political issue, whereas in the rest of the world, it's a scientific issue. In other words, a substantial % of high profile coverage of global warming in the media is from political and business analysts, Rush limbaugh, Gore, politicians, etc. There is very little attention given to the scientific merits of the issue.

I think this is largely because of 2 things. Firstly, Americans in general aren't good at science, and most people would have a difficult time describing exactly what the greenhouse effect is. Secondly, scientific issues in the US aren't considered factual, but a matter of opinion and political affiliation. Thus, you have conservatives ridiculing evolution and global warming as leftist ideology.

In contrast, the rest of the world has an apolitical view of global warming - they are curious about it from a scientific perspective, similar to how knowledge about whether mobile phones cause cancer doesn't depend on whether you're pro or anti business, but is a scientific fact. It's unfortunate, but this is how it is - scientific attitudes in the US are dictated by talk show hosts and political beliefs.

I have rarely seen any Americans discuss global warming without being influenced by what it means to oil prices, the employment rate, etc.

w/m

Re:Global warming isn't a political issue

[jellisky]

That's a great point which I wholeheartedly agree with. I recently assisted in a Climotology class at my last university, and global warming was discussed in depth. It's amazing how many people think, thanks to the media, that, for example, CO2 causes global warming. The final conclusion in most of the scientific articles I've seen on global warming is that CO2 and temperature are "correlated". And as we told the class many times, "correlation is not causation". It took many hours to get people to understand this concept. The media tends to distort science to the point that anyone who tosses in big words is considered an expert. But, that's just my observation.

Re:Inteesting Subject

[BigBlockMopar]

My perosonal opinion is that Global Warming is a scam by "green" conmen ("greenpeace" comes to mind here) so they don't need to get real jobs, and can screw high school girls

Thank you! I agree with everything else you said in your post, and there *is* a lot of evidence that global warming *is* occurring, and there's even *more* evidence that it's just part of a natural weather cycle that we haven't been keeping records long enough to have observed very well. Of course, predictably, the media fails to acknowledge that evidence for the most part.

The line I quoted from your post, however, made me stand up and clap.

Thank you.