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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Apr 28, 2009 - 09:22am PT
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Chiloe, you've got no idea what the climate scientists are doing.
Bookworm, I talk with climate scientists just about every day.
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dirtbag
climber
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Apr 28, 2009 - 09:32am PT
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"but to keep this simple, i'll break it down for you one point at a time and invite you to respond with science rather than attacks on the source or my so-called "ideology"
"
What a joke. Why bother? You don't know the difference. You've had a few scientists here explain things here to you yet you dismiss it.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 28, 2009 - 10:45am PT
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bookworm, in a post above you wrote:The question is what do the independent scientists that specialize in that type of thing believe? I could care less what an Exxon funded scientist thinks, and not much more what a particle physcist thinks (no offense to Ed H.).
yet your link to the .pdf states in the introductory paragraph: My background is not is climatology or meteorology, so I do not write this as a so called “climate expert.” I view this as an asset, not a liability. I view this as an asset because I do not have a dog in this fight, my funding does not depend upon carbon being the cause of global warming, and contrary to what my critics have charged, I am not being funded by the big oil companies, I am not on President Bush’s payroll, and I was not abused as a child. My background is diverse; I have a doctor’s degree in optometry, an optometric pharmaceutical license, a master’s degree in economics, and majored in finance and economics in undergrad. I have worked as a portfolio manager and equity analyst for 9 years, served in the US Navy for 8 years, and taught both finance and economics. My expertise isn’t in doing climate research, it is in analysis, and analyzing research reports and findings.
I guess you really aren't interested in what scientists say at all.
Do you have a link to a scientist who is a practicing climate scientist that has produced a comprehensive critique of this science? I'd be interested in seeing it.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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Apr 28, 2009 - 11:29am PT
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Ed, to be fair to bookworm, that quote in the first paragraph was from me.
I guess in my mind, this is somewhat similar to the whole 9/11 conspiracy theory thing. A majority of the people that specialize in that kind of thing (NIST, structural engineers) stand by the official explanation. And yet the disbelievers would give more credit to people who don't specialize in that area of science.
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DrDeeg
Mountain climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Apr 28, 2009 - 12:08pm PT
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So here is the short elevator-explanation version:
We can explain many of the past climate changes, including regular variability in Earth's orbit that correlates with the various Ice Ages, periods of volcanic eruption, and solar variability. Variations in Earth's orbit are on time scales of 20 thousand to 100 thousand years, so are not part of the present discussion. Solar variability and volcanic dust can account for much of the variability of the past 1000 years, but we cannot explain the warming of the last century without the increases in greenhouse gases. The paper I have my students read is Tom Crowley, Science, 2000, doi: 10.1126/science.289.5477.270 (the doi is a Digital Object Identifier, you can go to http://dx.doi.org and plug in the doi to get to a link to the paper). Also, Judith Lean has a nice paper in Physics Today (2005) that shows that solar variability explains only part of the warming.
So, repeating the point, we cannot explain the recent warming without the increased concentration of greenhouse gases, mainly CO2 which has risen from the pre-industrial level of 270 ppm to around 370 today.
The next question that the skeptic might ask is, why do we think the increase in CO2 is caused by humans? The major store of CO2 is in the ocean, and couldn't something have happened to cause the ocean to emit more CO2?
There are three lines of evidence that point us to human activities. Any hypothesis about an alternative mechanism has to account for these three sets of data:
1 - From the ice cores, we know that the rise to present levels began about the time of the Industrial Revolution.
2 - There is a slight lag (1.5 to 2 years) between CO2 values at Mauna Loa and the South Pole, indicating that the source of the extra CO2 is in the Northern Hemisphere. The people are mostly in the north; if the source were the ocean, we would not see this lag.
3 - The ratio of C14 to the normal C12 (called the Suess ratio, after a different Dr Suess) in the atmosphere has declined slightly since the late 1800s (from tree-ring data). Thus the extra CO2 is from a source depleted in C14. C14 has a half-life of 5700 years, so coal and oil have essentially zero C14 (coal & oil are millions of years old, which is why we call them fossil fuels).
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Apr 28, 2009 - 12:13pm PT
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ed, thanks to you also for illustrating my point by attacking the source instead of debating the claims...if this guy is really the idiot you make him out to be (of course, he's absolutely honest about his own credentials), then he should be easy to refute
but, to humor you: http://www.drroyspencer.com/
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Will Hobbs
Trad climber
Santa Monica, CA
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Apr 28, 2009 - 01:00pm PT
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"this is laughable...scientists need money to conduct their research and, in many cases, justify their research"
Do you have any idea how much a publicly-funded scientist gets paid? A lot less than you seem to believe. If I was bright enough to concoct some global scam and unethical enough to go ahead with it, then I sure as sh#t wouldn't be wasting my time trying scrabble around for science funding and wasting me time trying to teach undergrads. I'd be in S. America with Bernie Madoff's loot. Or I'd be a politician. And if I wasn't that bright, I'd be a Talk-radio host.
"...there are plenty of scientists living large on the global warming circuit..."
Oh yeah, these science conferences are just one long ballyhoo. Five star accommodation, first class travel, limos, chicks.....
Get real.
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corniss chopper
Mountain climber
san jose, ca
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Apr 28, 2009 - 01:07pm PT
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a warmer planet overall has benefited mankind
and will continue to, unless the real danger of
of the spotless Sun and volcanic eruptions bring on
another little ice age.
Remember that cold is bad and warm is good for all Life.
The fracking big Question is "How can I squeeze some money out of the GCC movement like Al Gore has?
$100million in 8 years is darn good. Atta-boy Al !
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Broken
climber
Texas
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Apr 28, 2009 - 02:35pm PT
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Anyone else notice that there are no scientists on this forum who are saying that climate change is independent of human behavior?
Hmm.
Oh, I know, it's just because none of them want to spoil the money train they've all been riding. All you rich, hoax-peddling scientists make me sick.
EDIT:
I just read CC's post above mine.
You know, the whole money argument is so bizarre. It is as if those "global-warming skeptics" can't comprehend a scientist reaching a conclusion without financial concern.
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Apr 28, 2009 - 07:42pm PT
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so, no responses to #1...i assume your silence means you concede
here's a fair question for #2:
Smoking Gun #2: Lack of consistent data.
As a portfolio manager, one of the main obstacles faced was data integrity. If I was going to model the Dow Jones Industrial Index, I had to ensure that the data I was using in the model was accurate. If I used bad data, or data from another index, the results of my model would give unreliable results. You never want to have a conclusion where the result depends on what data you used. Case in point, I have a brother-in-law that is a big Bill Clinton fan. The Dow Jones Industrial Index, S&P 500 Index, Mid-Cap Indices and Small-Cap Indices are all at or near their all time highs, and yet he will claim that the markets aren’t at new highs, and that President Bush lost him money. Ignoring the fact that his home is worth much more, and his take home pay is much higher after the Bush tax cuts, he is correct in saying that the markets aren’t at all time highs if you define the NASDAQ as the market. No matter what evidence I provide, there is always going to be some index that he can find to prove me wrong. A good theory shouldn’t however be based upon what data set is chosen. With global warming, the critical data is atmospheric CO2 and Temperature. The problem is, if the claim is made that temperatures are at all time highs all you need to do is ask, “according to what chart?” The IPCC report has had a different chart for temperature in each of its major reports. According to the 1995 IPCC Report, current temperatures are well below the highest level set over the last 2,000 years. Then in the 2001 report, the original chart was replaced with the notorious “Hockey Stick” Chart. With the release of the 2007 report, there is a totally new temperature chart. One has to ask, how can there be a consensus when there isn’t even agreement on the data that goes into the models. To make matters worse, Al Gore uses two different temperature charts in his own movie. One showing peak temperature and the other not.
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dirtbag
climber
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Apr 28, 2009 - 07:56pm PT
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Man that's a lame website.
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Apr 28, 2009 - 08:00pm PT
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I'll help him out. Here's another smart one from the same website:
Smoking Gun #26: The Nobel Prize given to Al Gore and the IPCC was a Nobel “Peace” Prize, not for the actual science. If the science is so sound, and the consensus so solid, why wasn’t the Nobel Prize for Physics of Chemistry awarded?
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Apr 28, 2009 - 08:04pm PT
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This one's even better:
Smoking Gun #20: If anthropogenic global warming is correct, Mother Nature must be wrong. Mother Nature, before, during and will continue after man to deliberately increase greenhouse gasses as the earth warms. Water vapor, precipitation, methane and CO2 all increase with temperature. Mother Nature has built in systems to increase greenhouse gasses with an increase in temperature. Any efforts to reverse what Mother Nature does will likely be futile because she is responsible for 95% of atmospheric CO2, while man only creates a minuscule and insignificant 5%. Man only creates a drop in the bucket when it comes to atmospheric CO2.
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Apr 28, 2009 - 08:05pm PT
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"Watch out, folks. Bookworm understands nothing about science, but he's got 26 more of these "smoking gun" posts left to plagiarize."
hey chiloe, plagiarism occurs when you fail to cite your sources; i provided a link to my source and never claimed the information as my own...but i understand that personal attacks are the modus operandi (that means "mode of operation") for libs
and still no response beyond the personal attacks
ps: yasser arafat also won a novel "peace" prize
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 28, 2009 - 08:28pm PT
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I actually have to work for a living... so I couldn't take the time, yet, to reply to your post above...
...sorry for the delay, I didn't know you were in a rush to call my response "wrong"
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 29, 2009 - 12:46am PT
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I'm not sure I'm going to defend Al Gore's theatre, he was making a point. I believe that there are many technical objections to what Gore presented, on the whole, it is considered a fair popularization of the issue.
Those on the other side of the debate from Gore disagree and stage their own theatre to advance their point of views.
Your "Smoking Gun #1" is about Al Gore's representation of the research. The statement it somewhat strange: Therefore, when Al Gore gets on the fork lift to show that atmospheric CO2 is at an all time high, you would expect temperature to be at or at least near an all time high as well.
No you wouldn't, necessarily.
The relationship between the temperature and the CO2 concentrations can be offset in time, the temperature lagging behind the CO2 concentration. This is not unusual at all, just think of the time of the longest day (most solar energy) in the northern hemisphere and the average hottest day, or the shortest day (least solar energy) and the average coldest day. The temperature is related to the amount of solar energy incident on the earth, but the relationship is more complex, and there is a lag in the the response of the temperature to the incident solar energy.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 29, 2009 - 01:15am PT
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as for "living large" it seems that scientists willing to speak out against climate change could get their travel expenses paid and receive an honorarium of $10,000
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/feb/02/frontpagenews.climatechange
the Heartland Institute also offered speakers an honorarium to speak at their conference
http://www.realclimate.org/docs/Heartland.pdf
note that the vast majority of speakers at scientific meetings do not receive honorariums for their attendance. Their travel is supported by their research grants (with approval from the sponsor of the grant) and their salary is also paid for by their grants.
In my 26 year professional life as a physicist, I received an honorarium once for a talk I gave at Notre Dame, where they also paid my travel. I took unpaid leave of absence from my normal job to make it work out... a net loss to me as the honorarium wasn't as good as the Heartland Institute's $1,000...
Seems to me like you would make a bunch more by supporting bookworm's perspective than falling in line with the scientific orthodoxy.
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Apr 29, 2009 - 06:24am PT
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ed, i can understand a "lag"...hey, if co2 levels and temps rose simultaneously, there would be no way of knowing which caused which, right?
but what about the claims that rises in temp PRECEDE rises in co2?
Smoking Gun #3: In any cause and effect model, the cause must occur before the effect. I exercise, and
then I lose weight. It makes no sense to claim that exercise caused the weight loss, if you exercise after
the weight was lost. Correlation studies show that CO2 increases AFTER temperature, not before it.
Basically, the sun warms the earth and oceans, things begin to grow and produce CO2, CO2 then
increases. The key however is that things must warm first, and then CO2 increases. Things cool, and then
CO2 decreases. Temperature drives CO2, CO2 does not drive temperature. This chart demonstrates
how CO2 remains at peak levels, and yet temperatures plummet into an ice age. In fact, ice ages usually
begin during times of relatively high CO2.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/07/carbon-dioxide-and-temperatures-ice.html
"The temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations have been correlated - see e.g. Petit et al., Nature 1999 - but we know for sure that the temperature was the cause and the concentration was its consequence, not the other way around...It follows that the C0₂ greenhouse effect has not been important in the history and we shouldn't expect that it will become important in the future.
Special comment for Australian readers on Sep 28, 2007: just yesterday, there was a new paper in Science - Lowell et al., Science 2007 - that showed that CO₂ lagged by about 1,000 years when the last ice age started to end 18,000 years ago
The direction of the causal relationship can be shown in many ways: for example, it is not just CO₂ but other gases such as methane that follow temperature. The hypothesis of CO₂ as the primary reason wouldn't explain why these other gases are correlated, too. Also, we understand how oceans react to temperature changes by releasing gases. Finally, the gas concentrations lag behind the temperature by 800 years, see e.g. this 2003 paper in Science by Caillon et al.
See also: climate sensitivity & nonlinear relationship between CO₂ and temperature"
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Apr 29, 2009 - 08:06am PT
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Writing on RealClimate.org, Eric Steig gives a scientist's-eye view of the temperature and CO2 timing which confuses so many nonscientists.
When I give talks about climate change, the question that comes up most frequently is this: “Doesn’t the relationship between CO2 and temperature in the ice core record show that temperature drives CO2, not the other way round?"
On the face of it, it sounds like a reasonable question. It is no surprise that it comes up because it is one of the most popular claims made by the global warming deniers.
....
the idea that there might be a lag of CO2 concentrations behind temperature change (during glacial-interglacial climate changes) is hardly new to the climate science community. Indeed, Claude Lorius, Jim Hansen and others essentially predicted this finding fully 17 years ago, in a landmark paper that addressed the cause of temperature change observed in Antarctic ice core records, well before the data showed that CO2 might lag temperature. In that paper (Lorius et al., 1990), they say that:
"changes in the CO2 and CH4 content have played a significant part in the glacial-interglacial climate changes by amplifying, together with the growth and decay of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets, the relatively weak orbital forcing"
What is being talked about here is influence of the seasonal radiative forcing change from the earth's wobble around the sun (the well established Milankovitch theory of ice ages), combined with the positive feedback of ice sheet albedo (less ice = less reflection of sunlight = warmer temperatures) and greenhouse gas concentrations (higher temperatures lead to more CO2 leads to warmer temperatures). Thus, both CO2 and ice volume should lag temperature somewhat, depending on the characteristic response times of these different components of the climate system. Ice volume should lag temperature by about 10,000 years, due to the relatively long time period required to grow or shrink ice sheets. CO2 might well be expected to lag temperature by about 1000 years, which is the timescale we expect from changes in ocean circulation and the strength of the "carbon pump" (i.e. marine biological photosynthesis) that transfers carbon from the atmosphere to the deep ocean.
....
Eric Steig is an isotope geochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle. His primary research interest is use of ice core records to document climate variability in the past. He also works on the geological history of ice sheets, on ice sheet dynamics, on statistical climate analysis, and on atmospheric chemistry.
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