Humans are Causing Global Warming 1342
Big_Al_B writes "A Times Online article discusses a new study comparing 7 million real world datapoints with several computer models of global warming. Each model had a possible cause associated with it." From the article: "It found that natural variation in the Earth's climate, or changes in solar activity or volcanic eruptions, which have been suggested as alternative explanations for rising temperatures, could not explain the data collected in the real world. "
Flame Away! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Flame Away! (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're talking about common people, well, it's mostly the fault of the media which covers the issue as if there would be two equal sides in the story.
Personally, i'm always willing to see facts, if they are facts for real, from both sides. It doesn't mean i'm going to accept those facts without challenging them.
Re:Flame Away! (Score:5, Interesting)
The phrase "caused by humans" is dangerous to use in this topic. It implies that global warming is directly caused by humans. However, many scientists believe that global warming is indirectly caused by humans. For instance, we eat a lof beef, so we raise a lot of cows. The cows fart and burp a lot - creating greenhouse gasses. Then we get global warming.
Re:Flame Away! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Flame Away! (Score:3, Funny)
Well I fart and burp alot too. Certainly they can't be thinking about getting rid of..skjd+++NO CARRIER
Global warming IS directly caused by humans! (Score:4, Informative)
This is silly. A significant majority of anthropogenic climate forcing is due to CO2 produced directly by burning fossil fuels.
Indirect contributions to CO2, such as deforestation is very small in comparison. This can be seen by observing that during the 18th and 19th centuries, deforesting large areas of North America caused a measurable, but very small increase in atmospheric CO2. Burning fossil fuels in the 20th century caused a large increase in CO2 levels. There are several ways to tell where the carbon is coming from: isotope analysis shows that most of the additional carbon is old on the scale of the carbon 13 lifetime, so it has not come from organic material formed in the last couple of hundred thousand years. Second, the timing and magnitude of the increase coincides directly with the growth of fossil fuel use and not with any other anthropogenic or natural phenomenon.
Methane gets a lot of press, but it only lives for a decade in the atmosphere before it's oxidized, whereas carbon dioxide has a much longer lifetime (around a century) so it poses a much greater threat.
Even if we consider methane, cow farts are only a small fraction of total anthropogenic methane emissions.
if it only were cow farts (Score:4, Informative)
If cow farts were responsible for global warming, Kyoto would be a treaty on cow farts. Furthermore, methane has a short half life in the atmosphere, that would be really swell. Likewise, if deforestation were responsible for global warming, all the more reason to stop deforestation.
Unfortunatly for everybody concerned, it's easy to tell that cow farts are not the primary cause of global warming, CO2 is. CO2 has a long atmospheric half life, which means that we will have to live with the consequences of our stupidity for centuries.
In fact, what climate models really show is that other human activity (e.g., particulate emissions) has so far probably masked the full extent of global warming, so that things may actually already be further advanced than they appear based on our actual climate measurements. (And, in case you are wondering, we can't continue activities contributing to this masking effect because it has been killing huge numbers of people already.)
Why CNN shows 85% belie climate change is man-made (Score:3, Interesting)
Even in the US, the overwhelming scientific consensus is that climate change has been caused by man.
And even the big European oil companies are coming around to that view.
LEARN HOW TO FUCKING READ! (Score:3, Informative)
Do you agree with climate experts that global warming is well under way? [cnn.com]
So I guess the CNN website can be read by people in countries that CAN'T EVEN FIGURE OUT WHAT THE POLL QUESTION IS ACTUALLY ASKING.
Now, I believe that 'global warming' is going on, since we are coming out of an Ice Age but I don't believe it is man-made.
CNN words the questions in this way on purpose, they lead you t
Re:Flame Away! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Flame Away! (Score:5, Funny)
"The earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic...plastic came out of the earth, the earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children...could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place: it wanted plastic for itself, didn't know how to make it, needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old philosophical question...why are we here? plastic, assholes"
Re:Flame Away! (Score:4, Funny)
When I want to hear something funny, I'll listen to George Carlin. When I want to hear fundamental data about our climate, I'll listen to climatologists.
Re:Flame Away! (Score:3, Insightful)
Not really. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not really.
I, for instance, have been a major skeptic on the "humans caused it all" claims. In part this has been because of claims that the global warming models don't match the data, while other explanations fit much better.
For instance: It's well known that we're on our way out of an ice age and haven't yet gotten to the between-ice-ages temperature. Solar variations have been measured that cor
Re:Flame Away! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Flame Away! (Score:5, Insightful)
When the definition of "reputable" includes "accepts human-generated global warming as fact", then of course one side of the argument is "reputable" and the other is not.
re: global cooling? (Score:3, Insightful)
Does that make them more reputable, that they were apparently all wrong only 30 years ago?
Re: global cooling? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a word for this argument. It's on the tip of my tongue
Oh yeah! It's called a "lie."
Re:Flame Away! (Score:5, Insightful)
However, it seems those who think that burning fossil fuels and other activities of like nature should simply go on as it is are quite quick to latch on the minority view, declare the majority a bunch of scaremongers and go on their way.
How many other fields of inquiry are there where a small minority of experts are declared right, while a majority are called fear mongering and wrong? I mean, do we do this with physics or chemistry? How about archaeology or cosmology?
I can only think of one other field where a vocal minority (virtually all of which aren't even really scientists) seem to be trumpeted as having some valid perspective, and that's biology. Here Creationists are very popular due to religious and political leanings, even though virtually every reputable biologist states that evolution happens, and is responsible for the way life has developed over the last 4 billion years.
The similarity between climatology and evolutionary biology is that in both cases the opposition is largely not scientific at all, but political.
Re:Flame Away! (Score:5, Insightful)
Fair enough, but we have a little more.
1) We have a plausible mechanism of action. CO2 traps infrared light (simple spectral tests easly back this up), and therefore we have reason to believe that all else being equal, increased CO2 might cause the earth to warm up.
2) We have 400,000 years of CO2 records, CO2 has recently reached higher concentrations than at any point in the last 400,000 years, and it's climbing at an incredible rate.
3) We have know that people produce a lot of CO2, primarily from burning of fossil fuels.
4) Seems plausible that humans (in the industrial age) are causing (through the increased CO2 emissions) the increased atmospheric CO2. Especially reasonable considering that the levels started to shoot up when the industrial revolution came, and have more or less tracked human emissions since.
5) Seems plausible that due to higher CO2 concentrations, the earth should warm up somewhat.
6) The earth is slowly warming, and has been for decades. Simple historical temperature data confirms this easily enough.
7) Is it crazy to assume that the earth is warming because the CO2 levels are higher, just as a naieve model would predict?
8) We don't know what the long term effects of this warming will be. Maybe things will stabilize, maybe not, we don't really know.
9) Given that we don't know what will happen as CO2 levels continue to rise, and we are pretty sure that we're responsible for rising CO2 levels, doesn't it make sense to at least start to take precautions until we know for sure what we're dealing with?
You are right to have doubts, but don't just reject things out of hand. It seems likely that we are causing the equilibrium of the earth to shift. How much it will shift, we don't really know, but maybe we shouldn't just plow ahead blindly. Maybe this should be the time to take a look around and see if we can perhaps be a little more careful, specifically because we don't know.
The skeptics should still side with the global-warming-is-happening crowd, as reducing CO2 is the natural position to take if you DON"T KNOW. Only the dogmatic conservatives (most of them religious) are anti CO2 control, and that's just because they flat out reject the notion that they could be causing anything bad for business.
Doubt all you want, but don't be one of them.
Re:Flame Away! (Score:4, Funny)
How dare you, sir! How dare you.
Unambiguous proof will arrive when it's too late (Score:4, Insightful)
CO2 lives in the atmosphere for a very long time. This is well-known. The more CO2, the longer the lifetime. Currently the lifetime of atmospheric CO2 is about 100 years.
Oceans warm up very slowly (on a timescale of 1000 years, which is determined by deepwater recycling times that can be measured very well.
Putting these two terms together implies that if global warming leads to unacceptable consequences, then by the time we have a clear and unambiguous observation of those consequences (remember that we're rejecting computer models that extrapolate from present trends) we will have set the earth on a course where those consequences will persist for another few centuries.
We don't have unambiguous proof today that human emissions of greenhouse gases will cause unacceptable damage to the environment. We can't predict future climates well enough to know with any certainty whether global warming is benign, catastrophic, or somewhere in between. We will not know this until we observe what the climate actually does.
Once we observe how the climate does change, it will be too late to alter its trajectory for a century or so, so deciding to wait until there is unambiguous proof is actually another way of deciding to do nothing. We should recognize that choosing to do nothing, choosing to take extreme action, or choosing some intermediate course of action will be done in a state of ignorance and uncertainty.
It may be that choosing to do nothing is the best course of action, but we should be honest that what we're doing is choosing to accept whatever climate change occurs in the next two centuries and not to sell it as though we would have the option of doing something about catastrophic climate change should we observe it 50 years from now.
As to nuclear power, I completely support you on this. Nuclear power is the only technology that has a hope of reducing CO2 emissions significantly in the next 30 years, so we should expand nuclear power as quickly as we can reasonably do.
But I don't see how Kyoto holds back the US at the expense of everyone else. Europe and Japan are committed under Kyoto to cut CO2 emissions more quickly than the US would be if we ratified the treaty.
Telling China that it would have to keep CO2 levels near its 1990 levels sounds good on paper, but even today, China emits only one sixth the amount of CO2 per person as the US does. Do you really think it would be a fair allocation of resources to freeze per-capita CO2 emissions with the US at about 6.5 tons per person per year, Europe at around 2.9 tons per person per year, and China at 1.2 tons per person per year?
Wow (Score:3, Funny)
And... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And... (Score:5, Informative)
In 2001, President Bush "withdrew" the US signature on the Kyoto treaty -- I have no idea if such a withdrawal is legitimate, not that it matters much.
Re:And... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, being anti-Kyoto treaty doesn't necessarily make one anti-environment, although the media would have one believe so (It's in their best interests to dumb down complex issues into a 22-minute Captain Planet cartoon). Pull that Matrix-plug-thingie out of the base of your neck and do your own thinking on this one.
Thank goodness, the treaty is TRASH! (Score:3, Insightful)
Worse two of the bigger economies, economies driven by industries that pollute heavyily, of China and India essentially immune to it?
Also, by 2012 when the treaty comes up for renewal what happens when no one meets their goals? Both Canada and Japan don't have real plans to mee
Re:And... (Score:3, Insightful)
They would only buy such rights from us if they were concerned about violating the treaty, which they have not signed.
Re:And... (Score:3, Informative)
Humans cause... (Score:3, Funny)
Wha?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry Sol.
Old news (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Old news (Score:5, Insightful)
You are right on. This is true on both sides of this issue, and many others. Much of the problem, I believe, has to do with the manner in which we discuss these issues. Looking over the previous posts on this page, you will see a number of posts that are knee-jerk reactions from both camps. THESE DO NOT HELP ANYBODY.
When a story like this comes a long, the first thing we should all be thinking is how the computer model works, what data it uses, how accurate/inaccurate the data is, etc... That is where the discussion should start. Then tell people WHY you think what you think WITHOUT INSULTING THEM if possible.
On an encouraging note, there are already quite a few posts that do argue ideas without hurling politically loaded accusations. To the authors of those posts: I salute you.
An idea (Score:3, Interesting)
i) The propagation mechanism for Rossby Waves
ii) The primary sources of deep water formation in the Atlantic
iii) How a western boundary current is formed
iv) What Meddies are.
v) What a pycnocline is.
If you can't, you don't know anything about climate dynamics, and you're not smart, you're just recycling someone else's opinion.
Re:An idea (Score:5, Informative)
No, it just shows that you know how to use Google.
i) The propagation mechanism for Rossby Waves [soton.ac.uk]
ii) The primary sources of deep water formation in the Atlantic [usc.edu]
iii) How a western boundary current is formed [iugg.org]
iv) What Meddies are. [xs4all.nl]
v) What a pycnocline is. [noaa.gov]
Re:An idea (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it just shows that you know how to use Google.
First poster did not claim that positively answering those questions makes one an expert... merely that not answering them makes one definitely not an expert. Get yer logic straight.
Re:An idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:An idea (Score:3, Insightful)
-sigh- the question isn't what we know about climate, the question is what we DON'T know about climate, which exceeds by a wide margin what we do know.
The problem isn't what I know or don't know, it's the fact that climate scientists are arrogant and, frankly, foolish enough to try and claim that
Do people in the US... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, it isn't even a topic of debate outside the US, people accept it as fact.
Re:Do people in the US... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, frankly, people will throw money at a problem before dealing with the discoveries surrounding it. Thus many people don't take care of themselves, and end up paying higher medical bills, for instance.
Re:Do people in the US... (Score:3, Interesting)
It has nothing to do with what the people believe; it's what the government does.
If the current administration refuses to change their position on the matter; there's almost nothing the people can do about it for another 4 years.
I've accepted it as fact, and I doubt I'm alone on that...
I think the question I have is: "Do people outside the US realize that the US Gov't is not necessarily representative of the consensus of its people?"
Re:Do people in the US... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.gravito.com/globalwarming [gravito.com]
The above website is my own.
The science behind global warming (essay) (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting speech by Michael Crichton on whether global warming is science or politics and what the difference is. Highly recommended no matter what side you are on.
Of course, who wants to be on the side of ignoring or supporting the widespread destruction of the planet by humans? Therein likes the rub...
Re:The science behind global warming (essay) (Score:5, Informative)
Also worth reading is their original article examining the science in State of Fear [realclimate.org].
Critique of RealClimate.org's critique (Score:4, Insightful)
You labeled RealClimate.org's critique as a "detailed examination." But was it really that detailed? I read it, and it seems to me that they are only able to raise three objections, which I will detail here (easy, since there are only three):
1. Chricton claims, "No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality."
- RealClimate.org responds with, "Crichton should know that this assertion is false. He cites in the 'bibliography' at the end of his book, the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But he appears unaware, for example..." and then gives examples of models which, in their opinion, do, in fact, model data from the real world.
* Even if what they write is true, it's not enough to disprove Chrichton's claim. Read what he wrote: "increasingly, models provide the data." In order for them to show falsehood, they would have to show that the phenomenon he bemoans is actually decreasing in frequency or, at best, happening at the same rate. Merely providing examples in the way they did is not sufficient to make Chrichton's claim false. Strike one.
2. Chricton claims, "Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future?"
- RealClimate.org droops to mockery and replies, "Crichton then goes on to make the classic error of confusing 'weather' and 'climate'
* RealClimate.org's analysis is as stupid as it is condescending. Again, read what Chrichton wrote! "Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead." If "climate," by RealClimate.org's own admission is "what you expect," then that definition is functionally equivalent to a weather prediction. If there be any confusion here, it appears to be coming from RealClimate.org. Strike two.
3. Chrichton claims, "Certainly the increased use of computer models, such as GCMs, cries out for the separation of those who make the models from those who verify them."
- RealClimate.org looks down their nose again and claims, "Again, if Crichton has read the IPCC report, he should be aware of the fact that largely (though admittedly, not completely) independent communities of scientists are involved with..."
* hold on just a minute! If, by RealClimate.org's admission, the communities of science are not completely independent, then how is RealClimate.org so sure that such a phenomenon is not precisely the complaint that Chrichton has? The counterexamples RealClimate.org provides fall outside of that complaint and are, by nature, irrelevent. Strike three.
Is this the best that the "scientists" at RealClimate.org can come up with? Should I expect their writings on the Truth(TM) of Global Warming to be of the same caliber? Anyone who fails to communicate their thoughts without resorting to snotty invective loses huge amounts of credibility with me.
Kyoto is only a start (Score:5, Interesting)
It's funny when you read the articles arguing against Kyoto, though: they always end with "Kyoto is fatally flawed, and it'll cost too much to cut CO2, so we should wait to do it." Do you think it's going to be any easier to cut GHG emissions even more drastically in 10 years, just as we're realizing oil is getting more expensive and having to switch back to coal?
The funny thing about all of this is that Canada stands to make out really well. Our four-month growing season will probably become more like the American midwest's 6 -8 months, and our boreal forest ecosystem will shift to a St.Lawrence-Deciduous style forest, which is much more habitable for humans. Also we have a ton of oil here.
Of course, there's the problem of Prince Edward Island probably being under water by then. And oh yes, countries like Bangladesh or the Maldives which will be entirely under water if Antartica (i.e. Ross Ice Shelf) starts to melt. My view is that the best thing to do as an individual is a) bike to work (which I intend to do for the first time this summer), b) keep your house colder than you normally would, and c) evangelize energy efficiency. I don't really see that I can do anymore (aside from reading everything I can) as an just one person with no government connections.
Re:Kyoto is only a start (Score:5, Insightful)
I work in downtown Washington DC, and live in Arlington, the corner cut off of DC in the 19th century, so it's not as if my commute is very long -- only about 2.5 miles ( I walk when the weather's really nice and I'm not in a rush ) -- but I tell you it's a blast. I can avoid traffic completely, and the view in the mornings on Key Bridge overlooking the Potomac is breathtaking.
Perhaps it's too cold right now for you to start biking to work, but start soon!
P.S. If you're in or near a city, wear a helmet. I've been hit by cars three times in four years. None actually hurt me, but... well... I can't count on luck forever.
P.P.S. Also, I agree 100% that if it's hard to cut emissions now, why would it be easier ten years from now? Criminy.
Re:Kyoto is only a start (Score:3, Insightful)
Oil is primarily used for plastic production and cars in the USA. Therefore, the end of oil will have nothing to do with Coal. Especially as hardly any oil is used in electricity generation. If we want to really cut CO2 emmisions in the USA, we should switch to nuclear as opposed to coal and start re-enrichment of the nu
A an interesting reversal... (Score:4, Funny)
1. Global warming will result in colder temperatures in some currently heavily populated regions.
2. People tend to stay inside when it is colder.
3. Staying inside increases the likely hood of procreation.
Therefore, global warming will cause humans.
Gentlemen, start your rhetoric (Score:5, Insightful)
Me? I look at it this way. There's a lot of good information out there and a lot of experienced people have made very sober arguments about the issues of global warming. So, I give them credit, and figure that the efforts to reduce global warming, even if they do nothing, are unlikely to have a significant negative impact.
I'd say global warming appears to be one of those things like evolution . . . but I'd be right in more ways than one.
I do find it amusing to see people argue that a large number of experienced, intelligent, educated people are somehow irrelevant because some pundit shoots off his mouth. I'd like to start a talk show, then begin discussing how only egghead crackpots believe seatbelts save lives and that eating fried lard is unhealthy. I wonder how many people I could decieve into terribly unhealthy habits just by shooting my mouth off long enough.
Accurate weather simulations?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Accurate weather simulations?? (Score:5, Informative)
An analogy would be that if you flipped a coin once, you wouldn't be able to tell if it would end up heads or tails, but if you flipped it a thousand or a million times, you'd notice a general trend of 50-50.
Re:Accurate weather simulations?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Question 1: Do you know how did the grains of sand collide with each other, whirl and which position they took up while falling? (Do meterologists know the weather up to a year?).
Question 2: Do you know where will the sand end up on the floor with a few meters precision? (Can scientists predict global climate changes?).
Now answer these questions and you'll find it easier to believe the computer modells.
Re:Accurate weather simulations?? (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't tell you whether it will rain tomorrow in Boston, either, but I'd be willing to place a very large bet that it will be warmer in Boston on August 19th than on February 19th.
Are they measuring output from the Sun? (Score:3, Insightful)
Excuse me for being skeptical, but I know output from any star can and does fluctuate. If, prior to 2003, this data wasn't being collected, and if as far as I know, this data isn't being used in studies...I will remain skeptical.
I'm sorry. But little things like energy from the Sun are important variables I would like to have mapped against warming trends before I come to any conclusions.
Great article.... NOT. (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly, climate simulations should always be taken with a huge grain of salt. Such simulations when run into the future are virtually always wrong when checked with the facts later on. Second, any data points collected are from an insanely short periods of time and/or from an insanely small areas. The data is extremely two dimentional.
This is nothing more than people setting out to prove something they wanted to prove based on statistical models that they came up with and, surprise, they go the numbers they wanted, yet again.
The scarey thing is how they claim that their simulation should "lay to rest any argument". What utter rubbish! Such things are said all the time and decades later are virtually always refuted. Making such a claim in itself is all the evidence needed to completely discount the research as they were certainly "absolutely convinced" about their model and it's outcome.
Complete and utter BS.
Reaction is Premature (Score:3, Informative)
There will be plenty of time to work one's self into a lather once the article has been reviewed.
The actual studies (Score:3, Informative)
BBC coverage here [bbc.co.uk], probably a bit more detail than the Times. No, I haven't RTFA, it's just a gut reaction based on 20 years' exposure to the rotting carcase of a once-great newspaper, rotten with the maggots of the parasitical MurdochWasp that impregnated it with it's eggs... (yep, I don't like Rupe, does it show? :)
Funny (Score:3, Insightful)
This guy is from an oil company...let's believe him.
This guy is an objective scientist...he must be lying!!
crontab on www.slashdot.org (Score:3, Funny)
global warming vs. cigarettes (Score:4, Insightful)
we're at the stage when the public knows about cigarettes and the conspiracy to cover up the data. but for global warming, we're still in the "don't listen to those commie environmentalists, everyone else drives SUVs, don't YOU want to be cool too?" stage.
the only problem is by the time global warming is a big problem we'll ALL be fucked.
Workweek Causes Climate Fluctuations (Score:3, Insightful)
Many are missing the point... (Score:3, Insightful)
Take a step back for a moment. Being right on this one SIMPLY DOES NOT MATTER.
What does matter is this:
As we reduce greenhouse gases--even if they're not a threat and/or causing global warming: Conversely, if we wait too long because no one can agree on data points to study then on data validity then on data modeling, etc., etc., at least we'll make great pets.
that Nunavat beachfront property ... (Score:3, Funny)
And that salesman thought he was ripping me off.
(Nunavat is Canada's newest province on the Arctic Ocean.)
Man.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Either way, they lose...
As for me, whether global warming is man-made or not, I'm still going to work to make the earth cleaner and more hospitable, by trying to use less energy or use it more efficiently, find cleaner fuels, not dump junk into the air and water and basically try to be a good steward. Have conservatives just completely lost the desire to be good like that? Is the quest for money so overwhelming that it blocks out all those other desires? What's going on, and when did it become wrong to try to do good for Mother Earth?
Re:Man.. (Score:4, Informative)
You're kidding me, right? Please tell me you are kidding. Even the EPA admits that "Fossil fuels burned to run cars and trucks, heat homes and businesses, and power factories are responsible for about 98% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions" [1]
And regarding methane, yes it is more potent as a greenhouse gas, but livestock warming the earth? They don't contribute anywhere near as much aggregate effect as carbon dioxide.
1. http://yosemite.epa.gov/OAR/globalwarming.nsf/con
Not millions, but here is 400,000 years worth (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/warming/etc/graphs.html
Re:Not millions, but here is 400,000 years worth (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not millions, but here is 400,000 years worth (Score:4, Insightful)
Without having everyone convinced that there's a real, tangible problem here, it's going to be impossible to get everyone to agree that something has to be done. Why? Because the steps we'd need to take involve some serious expense which will be incurred on the part of people really, really opposed to spending money, especially ( just on principle ) being told they have to do so.
I'm talking about having to put scrubbers on smokestakes. I'm talking about seriously looking into replacing reliance on fossil fuel. I'm talking about having to re-tool a vast amount of our current industrial machinery. I'm talking about finding ways to eliminate unneccessary burning of plant matter, from forests in Brazil to agricultural burns in the US. The things we have to do to slow global warming are huge, and it'll be hard enough to do them if we all agree there's a real, serious problem. As long folks like you are sitting around going "well, I don't know if it's real until it's a whole lot warmer. Oh, wait, it's warmer? Well, I don't know if it's carbon emissions that are doing it...", as long as that's going on, it's easy for our 'leaders' to sit around and do nothing, which is exactly what will cause your grandchildren some serious, life-threatening problems.
And no, I'm not talking about major changes in your personal lifestyle. I'm talking about changes in corporate practices, along with major investment in research and infrastructure which will allow you and I to basically go about our lives with little change, since we're not driving SUVs hundreds of miles every week. People who _do_drive SUVs hundreds of miles a week ( lots of 'em here in the California bay area ), they might have to adjust a bit, though...
Most of the data I have seen is not conclusive in my mind.
I have to say it's interesting that you say "most" of the data isn't conclusive. What about the data that is conclusive ? I'm sorry, it really does sound like you're saying you can't be convinced. Isn't the kind of 'solid' evidence you're waiting for only possible _after_ devastating climate change has already come to pass ?
How are the vast majority of scientists politically motivated to make findings against the interest of big business ? I'm afraid I don't understand that line of reasoning.
No facts here (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not millions, but here is 400,000 years worth (Score:4, Interesting)
But, unless you believe that man's activities on Earth influence the behavior of the Sun, then the following URL should prove interesting:
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/su
It shows a direct correlation between solar activity and global temperatures.
"Global warming -- a gradual increase in planet-wide temperatures -- is becoming more well documented and seems to be accepted by many scientists and people now as fact. Generally, this warming is attributed to the increase of green-house gases in the Earth's upper atmosphere.
Some solar scientists are considering whether some part of global warming may be caused, by a periodic but small increase in the Sun's energy output. An increase of just 0.2% in the solar output could have the same affect as doubling the carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere.
What is the Problem?
What is the evidence for global warming? Certainly, there are considerably more green-house gases (e.g. carbon dioxide) in our atmosphere than in previous times. And there appears to be some evidence that global temperatures are rising. But, how accurate and correct are our global warming statistics? And, do we really know what role, if any, the Sun might play in any global warming patterns?
These issues are currently being debated, and may significantly affect you for the rest of your life. Would you like to do some research to find out more about global warming?
We suggest here some research topics and places to begin looking for information. But these are all controversial issues, and there are no definitive answers (yet). As an informed, and voting, citizen of the next millenium, you will need to keep listening, looking, and being alert to new research and evidence.
The following are key questions in your research on global warming:
* What is global warming?
* What is the evidence that global warming exists? How reliable and accurate is this evidence?
* What are the projected effects of global warming? How many of these projections have, in fact, been realized?
* What is the evidence that global warming might be caused by greenhouse gases?
* What is the evidence that global climate change might also be affected by solar variation?
* What can or should be done about global warming, at least that portion caused by pollutants and emissions?
* What can or should be done if there is also global climate change being caused by solar variability? "
Re:Indeed... (Score:5, Insightful)
"OMG! Did you hear the Weather Channel guy? He said it's NEVER been this cold in February before! That's AMAZING!" -- like they're living a part of history.
Um, pretty sure it's been colder. And hotter. And wetter. And you name it. Just not that we're aware of.
Re:Indeed... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll be interested to see the fallout of this once the details are published. If it indeed shows it's humanities fault, so be it. Understand it's just as much the rest of the worlds fault as anyones.
Re:Indeed... (Score:3, Informative)
Do you have any knowledge of statistical models? (I'm not asking to be a jerk, I'm just wondering). Basically if you have data subject to seasonal variation, you'll need multiple periods' worth of data to correct for this. As far as climate goes, its period is similar to geologic timescales, or in other words, thousands and thousands of years. We don't have thousands and thousa
Re:Indeed... (Score:4, Informative)
We don't have thousands of years of weather data. We do have thousands of years of climate data, thanks to fossils and ice cores.
Weather data is specific, as in "67 degrees F and rained 1/4 of an inch".
Climate data is more general, such as "averages 50-70 degrees in winter, raining 10 inches".
We don't need to have collected weather data in order to get climate data, it just makes the climate data more accurate. But we can use the ice cores/fossils to say that, within a reasonable margin of error, the average tempature rose by 3 degrees over a particular 10,000 year period.
Re:Indeed... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Indeed... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Indeed... (Score:3, Insightful)
Please tell me if I am wrong, it's just what makes the most sense to me
Re:Indeed... (Score:3, Insightful)
The scientists are talking about climate, the overall weather on the planet. You're talking about weather, as in it's going to be 37 degrees and sunny today in my neighborhood.
To look at climate trends over a long period of history, scientists don't need to know that it was 83 degrees in what is now Los Angeles on July 23rd, 397,421 BCE. What they can do is look at the average temperature in one loca
Ice Before Christ (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a friend who worked as support staff at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, and he said the scientific staff had an "Ice Before Christ" party, where they used ice from some core samples that were dated to several thousand years ago to make margaritas and use in their cocktails and such. Kinda neat, if a little silly.
Re:Indeed... (Score:3, Funny)
I would consider myself a scientist, or at least a strong thinker with a lot of scientific knowledge, and I am very uncomfortable with how far we are willing to extrapolate our knowledge. By the time you make a fifth degree indirect measurement and mix in a handful of assumptions (reasonable though they might be) you
Re:Indeed... (Score:5, Insightful)
People really are suffering from information overload. They live busy lives, and it's all they can do to keep up with their own lives, and that that of their families. It also does not help that 'The Academy' has become so heavily populated with folks with very left-wing social, and political agendas. Large sections of Americans do not trust institutions that they view as hot beds of neo-marxist pointy-headed, ivory tower bound granolas. Most of all they don't trust the chicken-little, 'doom is at hand' rhetoric that so many advocates (those who advance the theory of) of anhtropogenic warming. They have seen this pose before, and it's has become a pose that they very deeply distrust.
It's also not helpful that the whole dooms-day asteroid scenario has gotten so heavily played up by the Discovery Channel, etc.. In fact the dooms-day via natural event thing has completely out of control on several of the cable "science" channels, and in the general media as well. Many Americans see global warming as just another of the scenarios, and like the others interesting but not relevant to daily life. Indeed, it seems to me at least that the shows that draw big ratings on the cable 'science' channels are really nothing more that 'scientific' soap-operas. Drama! Drama! Drama! Will the world survive the crash of the asteroid?!?!!!!!! Tune in tomorrow, and find out!
Computer models are not going to change the publics mind. Hey you can use a computer model to generate FX such as in the Matrix and other movies to produce whatever scenario you'd like.
Hard data, analyzed by trusted, and calm minds is the only thing that the public will take seriously. The chicken-little presentations must get flushed, and solutions, plans, etc. must be presented with a 'can do' attitude. i.e. 'we've got a problem, and here's our options.' 'The problem is serious, but not insurmountable.' Until such time as those who believe in the anhtropogenic global warming scenario come to this realization very many Americans will view this theory with deep skepticism.
Re:Indeed... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. Every single sentence in your post is wrong. How you even manage to breathe is beyond me:
Why is it that anyone who goes against the common, left-leaning attitude here on /. regarding politics or science is automatically branded with either "troll" or "overrated"?
They aren't. I see plenty of posts which go against the common, left-leaning attitude on /. which have been modded insightful or interesting.
The parent is 100% correct!
He is not.
We have practically no climate data of any real value beyond a few hundred years or so, yet we're expected to just ooh and aah every time some simulation from some scientist comes across that purports exactly how climates change over eons.
There is plenty of climate data beyond a few hundred years or so, such as ice cores, the fossil record, geological evidence, etc.
Our own weather forecasters can't even get the weather correct 48 hours in advance most of the time (save for areas like the equator and extreme north/south, of course). Yet, we're supposed to believe that the climate can be accurately simulated for millions or billions of years by having a few hundred years of data and some simulations?
The one has nothing to do with the other. Weather is small scale (in space and in time) and chaotic, climate is large scale. It is much easier to predict large scale behaviour due to the law of averages. Don't make the mistake of thinking that climate must be chaotic because weather is; climate causes weather, not the other way around.
We're going to have global warming because the scientists so!
No, where going to have global warming because of polution of the atmosphere.
Oh, wait! Just 30 years ago we were supposed to be entering a new ice age because the scientists said so!
First of all: no scientist ever said that we definitely were going to enter a new ice age. Scientists don't talk like that. They speak in theories and likelihoods. If a scientist says an event is likely, and it doesn't occur, that doesn't mean he was wrong. You clearly don't understand the first thing about science or scientists.
Secondly: we still might get an ice age. The global warming might trigger one because it may increase the cloud cover of the Earth, causing more sunlight to be reflected back into space.
Sailors from hundreds of years ago reported the unusually warm, Pacific waters hundreds of hears before the Industrial Revolution! Oh, wait! El Nino is actually being caused by global warming because the scientists said so!
Nobody says that El Nino is caused by global warming. Nobody actually knows what causes El Nino, since it is caused by an incredibly complex and diverse set of circumstances. All scientists ever said is that the likelihood of El Nino occurring seems to be increasing as the Earth warms up. That doesn't mean that El Nino couldn't be occurring already hundreds of years ago.
An asteroid is going to slam into us in 30 years because scientists said so!
No scientist ever said that. They said as far as they could tell with the available data, it was possible that it would hit the Earth.
Oh, wait! It's actually going to miss us by about 1 million miles because other scientists said so.
Wrong again. They were the same scientists, and the reason they were now saying it was probably going to miss the Earth is that they now had better data (since the asteroid was closer) so they could determine more accurately what the probably trajector of the asteroid was going to be.
And now ... humans are the cause of global warming because some scientist said so, and the parent is a troll because some moderator said so. Oh, wait! ...
Not some scientist said so, the majority of scientsts say so. Just not the ones in Bush's cozy little world...
Dumbass...
Re:Indeed... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that you need to upgrade your browser. The one that you're using is apparently not displaying text properly as it's putting in words that aren't there.
Re:Indeed... (Score:4, Insightful)
Until you understand the difference between "fossil records" and "climate data", you will never understand the debate. The simple fact is that we don't have climate data for more than a very short period of the earth's history. The rest is guesswork.
And the other fact you need to face is that modelers spends hours and hours tweaking their models until they "look right", and if "humans are the cause of global warming" is what looks right to them (and they get paid to get that result) then that is what the models say. Models need real data to work right (which we don't have) and real understanding of the processes (guess wrong and you get the wrong answer.)
I remember one NOAA model that came out a few years ago showing a sudden upturn in temperatures just about to happen. CALAMITY! WOE! This was supposed to be the latest and most accurate model. Proof beyond all doubt that we were ruining the planet!
It didn't happen.
Insightful indeed.
Re:Indeed... (Score:5, Insightful)
"I remember one NOAA model that came out a few years ago showing a sudden upturn in temperatures just about to happen"
There was an uptrun in tempratures. Species are suffering, the ice caps are melting, the glaciers have all but gone away. I guess none of that qualifies as a calamity in your book though.
Re:The Lemming Effect (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hard enough to get a group of five scientists to agree to be in the same damn room at the same time much less this "lemmings" nonsense.
Re:Indeed... (Score:5, Informative)
And the other fact you need to face is that modelers spends hours and hours tweaking their models until they "look right", and if "humans are the cause of global warming" is what looks right to them (and they get paid to get that result) then that is what the models say.
Perhaps this is true. But those on the other side do it as well - they also train their "there's no problem" models to fit all the weather data that is available.
Which is why this particular study is so very important - they didn't tweak the models, they took a bunch of existing tweaked models and applied them to another set of data. The models made predictions about ocean temperatures, but hadn't been tweaked with them.
And it turns out that the predictions of the "the greenhouse effect is currently causing warming" models were very close to the actual measurements, and the predictions of the "it's volcanic activity / a solar cycle / natural fluctuations in weather" models totally failed.
This study addresses exactly that criticism of yours, and it blows it away.
Re:Indeed... (Score:4, Insightful)
But the point is that despite their tweaking they correctly predicted current weather phenomenon, while the other models didn't.
That is the fundamental test of a scientific theory: Does the theory predict the measured data?
Maybe you're missing what they did: They took the models, and used them to predict climate changes. They compared these predictions to measured data. The model using greenhouse gasses as a driver of climate changed matched the data closely, the other models did not. There is only one conclusion you can make, political machinations of the model designers being irrelevent: the greenhouse gas model was accurate, the other models were not.
So yes, it does blow away your criticism of politically motivated "tweaking" invalidating the models. They can tweak the model, they can't tweak the real-world data that their model was used to predict. Maybe Newton "tweaked" his theory because he wasn't sure of it. It still perfectly predicts planetary motion.
It's clear you want to dismiss these results. If you want to, a better way to do it would be to say that the paper has not yet been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. That's my main criticism -- they've ran to the press before their results were analyzed, and even if the paper stands up this can still be damaging.
And don't forget that this "greenhouse warming" causes cloud formation -- and the albedo of clouds is significantly less than that of the ground.
You're assuming the delta in light reflected would be greater than the delta in heat retained. I won't say with assurance that it's either, but I'll note that the coldest days of January in Michigan are the few without clouds.
If we weren't here, we couldn't have caused it, and if it happened before when we didn't cause it, there is no reason to believe we are causing it now.
That's fallacious reasoning. Fires existed before man, therefore man has started no fires?
The reason to suspect man is not because climate change is unique, because it isn't. The reason to suspect man is because the massive release of greenhouse gasses caused by industrialization is unique.
Plenty of fires have been caused by lightning. When you see a field with a charred box of fireworks in the middle, suspecting human interaction instead of assuming lightning is prudent.
Re:Indeed... (Score:4, Interesting)
While there is a model in which carbon dioxide can lead to global warming, there are also several models in which global warming leads to increases in carbon dioxide levels.
1) Permafrosts thaw, allowing the built up organic matter (of which there is quite a lot of under tundra) to decay rapidly, releasing CO2 and CH4.
2) Increasing the temperature of water will decrease the solubility of gasses in that water, therefore increasing the temperature of the oceans will decrease the solubility of carbon dioxide in them, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
While this sounds like I am saying not to worry about CO2 emissions, it does bring about a third possibility: Both models are right. 1)Greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere by humans causes global warming. 2)Global warming releases greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, leading to... more global warming. Uh oh... we found a potential positive feedback loop in which crossing a certain threshold of greenhouse gas emissions will push us past the point of no return.
Then I like to go along with the idea that messing with something you don't know about ends up with that thing broken. What happens if that thing is essential to your life???
Re:Indeed... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not quite. We don't have weather data for more than a very short period of the Earth's history. We've got millions of years of climate data.
To say the Earth was warmer when the dinosaurs roamed, we don't need to know that the high was 97 degrees in what will become Los Angeles on January 19th, 2,619,847 BCE, and it rained 2 inches. Instead, we can look at the fosilized tropical plants and thus know it was warmer and wetter.
I remember one NOAA model that came out a few years ago showing a sudden upturn in temperatures just about to happen.
Yes, one model was wrong, therefore all future models should be completely ignored. The geocentric model of the solar system was wrong, therefore this new-fangled heliocentric model must be wrong too.
In all seriousness, predictive models about the climate are really in their infancy...but this story is not about predictive models. These models are being compared to historical trends in the earth's climate, in order to figure out which one matches what we can already tell about the climate.
The fact the closest match was a model where human activity did cause global warming does lend some support to the idea that we do cause global warming...but it's also possible that it was a combination of the natural factors instead of individual factors that caused it.
Or even more likely, a combination of natural and human factors.
Re:Indeed... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Indeed... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because the book says it was 6 days doesn't mean literally 6 days, why not 6 ages? The average arab 3000 years ago wouldn't have understood the concept of 600 mill
Re:Indeed... (Score:5, Informative)
To use comments out of context is a disengenous ploy. Willful ignorance and deceit are not virtous behaviour.
Re:Indeed... (Score:4, Interesting)
Archaean and Proterozoic fossils are billions (with a B) of years old.
Archaean [google.com] & Proterozoic [google.com] fossils on Google.
Re:What about farting Cattle (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, just because it's Friday and some of us started drinking early doesn't mean we're responsible for global warming. Leave my cow orkers out of it!
Re:Newsflash (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure where you get the idea that damming a river or strip mining or clear-cutting forest can't be defined as "negative" to our surroundings, but I'd like to know. Positive to man's economy, sure. But positive to the environment? Are you for real?
Re:Says nuffin' (Score:3, Insightful)
Take it with a grain of salt. There's no reason to go public with it now before the peer-review unless it's for political effect timed before Bush's visit to Europe and the implementaion of Kyoto in Britain. And real sc
Re:Every day... (Score:3, Interesting)
Next question, How much study has there been over whether or not the warming will actually cause harm? Not from an "All warming is bad standpoint" but from a "this are is getting warmer, lets figure out what will happen" point.