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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Aug 27, 2013 - 12:27pm PT
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While our politics are in chaos almost as bad as this thread, science still goes on. A good window on new developments continues to be the leading interdisciplinary journal Science. Their 2 August issue has a special section on "Natural Systems in Changing Climates," with new developments and synthesis reviews on topics that hint at the breadth and accumulating knowledge of ongoing research:
Natural Systems in Changing Climates
Once and Future Climate Change
How a Fickle Climate Made Us Human
Out of the Kenyan Mud, an Ancient Climate Record
Can Coastal Marshes Rise Above It All?
Worth a Thousand Words [about comparing historical with modern landscape photos]
Advancing Seasons in China
Tundra in Turmoil
Tree Line Shifts
Humans Greening a Landscape
Changes in Ecologically Critical Terrestrial Climate Conditions
Marine Ecosystem Responses to Cenozoic Global Change
Climate Change and the Past, Present, and Future of Biotic Interactions
The Future of Species Under Climate Change: Resilience or Decline?
Climate Change Impacts on Global Food Security
Climate Change and Infectious Diseases: From Evidence to a Predictive Framework
Ecological Consequences of Sea-Ice Decline
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Chiloe
Trad climber
Lee, NH
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Aug 27, 2013 - 12:32pm PT
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And the 9 August issue of Science has a focus article on wildfires, a topic that sometimes comes up in this thread. It's an interesting read.
Computing a Better Fire Forecast
Eli Kintisch
As climate change threatens to make extreme fires more frequent in the western United States, fire researchers are working to improve computer models that can be used to predict how fires spread and where they might break out. Although improved models are on the horizon, an array of issues is complicating the search for alternatives, from technical debates to the differing cultures of firefighters and academic scientists.
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A warmer climate will lead to a "higher probability of extreme fire behavior, not in every fire of course, but more often than in the past," predicts forest scientist Steven Running of the University of Montana in Missoula. This new regime will not only tax tactical simulators like FARSITE, but strategic models as well.
Such tools use historic weather data on previous fires to map the probability of fire spread. But existing databases of previous fires are increasingly not representative of the changing climate regime in the western United States, says Krista Gollnick-Waid, a fire analyst with the Bureau of Land Management in Boise. That should raise doubts about results produced by one oft-used strategic modeling tool, called FSPro, she warns: "Analysts need to be aware of the potential for FSPro to underpredict fire spread [and] probability." During her work analyzing a recent fire in southwest Colorado, for example, she found that the blaze traveled farther in 1 day than "what the model said it would go in 5 days." Says Close: "If that's the new normal, we better be ready."
UC Berkeley's Moritz is already grappling with the changing climate of the West. In a 2010 paper published in Geophysical Research Letters, he used roughly a decade of wind and weather information to map the Santa Ana winds across coastal southern California, which dry out landscapes and stoke brushfires into conflagrations. The results were fairly broad but disturbing, highlighting areas that were potentially vulnerable to major fires. "I had fire departments calling me asking whether they could have even finer resolution maps to understand their local risks better," Moritz recalls. Unfortunately, those are still largely unavailable. But he says that the experience highlights the growing demand for better, and more detailed, strategic fire models.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6146/609.summaryhttp://
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 27, 2013 - 05:01pm PT
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rick sez:
Long ago i determined that the odds of CAGW effects posing a threat for the future well being of my descendants is near zero.
Let me see if I have this correct... Long ago, you listened to some propaganda that told you not to worry about climate change, and you liked what you heard. That helped you make up your mind that all the scientific studies around the world, made by real climate scientists, were flawed at the root level and that you had no reason to look at them because your mind was already made up.
Pretty laughable.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Aug 27, 2013 - 11:11pm PT
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Ed, exactly what physcical observations and measurements that your "scientists that have done that" have that fit the CAGW hypothesis advanced with ever increasing hysterics since at least the early 1980's?This is considerably more than the two year forecast i tried to pry from you earlier, its 30 years. Seems to me that thirty years is in the realm of the climate change scale.The stated purpose of all the hysterics were for nothing my friend. The severity of the current climate change has been well within the range of Earth normal for the Holocene. Certainly the change was no more severe than the little ice age, the Medieval warm or Roman warm periods (which were quite good for us earthlings and the biosphere i might add), and no where near as severe or as rapid as the cooling of the Younger Dryas or the warming coming out of it. So, as the old saying goes- put up or shut up-where are the matching physical realities to the frightening forecasts?
They don't exist Ed. As it turns out the climate is much less sensitive to CO2 than the attempted "scare science" forecast. Maybe it's time to jump ship, hell your not the captain anyway.
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dirtbag
climber
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Aug 28, 2013 - 12:32am PT
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^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^
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dirtbag
climber
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Aug 28, 2013 - 01:07am PT
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^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Aug 28, 2013 - 01:18am PT
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Not back in Ak. till Sept. 6. Working my ass off on two remodels here in northern NV. Rehabbing habitats for the masses of humanity, but i expect a profit for my efforts. Anyway there is nothing preventing your access to the physical proofs of all the shocking CAGW predictions. Many of the dates of doom have come and passed over this thirty year period without the natural world caring not a wit about all the make believe climate models. But what do i know? The heat is probably hiding in the nearly uniform three degree centigrade waters of the deep blue where the sun never shines.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Aug 28, 2013 - 03:42am PT
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^yes you can jus go to Vegas
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Mad69Dog
Mountain climber
Superior, CO
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Aug 28, 2013 - 10:46am PT
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During 2005 - 2007, I was funded by NASA to work as a visiting scientist on two projects studying climate change - MIRAGE (Mexico) and Intex-B (Hong Kong to NW USA). We flew NCAR's C-130 stuffed full of instruments and scientists that measured all kinds of atmospheric components - gases, particles, contaminants, you name it. These weren't really fun projects to participate in since the C-130 had lousy ventilation and no A/C - and fat old scientists stink more than normal people. But the big surprise for me was that few of those onboard were sold on the Al Gore view of global warming. In fact, I did not meet a single disciple out of the 153 scientists working MIRAGE and Intex-B.
I spent much of my spare time reading the literature related to the measurement side of climate change. These are the key points I walked away with from those years:
1) Some of the most meaningful data are those published of ocean surface temperature. The thing is, many military, research and commercial vessels have collected this data for over 150 years all around the world. Thus the data set is fairly complete. Over the last 70 years, the trend has been up and the main weather correlation has been regarding the *intensity* of tropical storms (not frequency). It appears that rising surface temps makes more mass available for evaporation - logical.
2) The global research community has far too little active weather stations to feed atmospheric computational models. Some estimate that we'd need one million times more sensors simultaneously live to begin correlating parameters such as CO2 to climate change.
3) Most leading researchers in the field are not convinced that fossil fuel combustion has led to warming of Earth's surface. See 2) above but also go look at the publications to see how far we have to go in understanding the global heat picture. For the moment, we have more suspicion than actual real experimental data.
In reading this thread, I see all the hate dumped on the Chief and also see how different his plots look compared to that of the GW believers. Holy sh#t, can there be bias in science? Of course. I do believe the review papers on ocean surface temperature measurements are valid and that we have seen over 1 degree (C) rise over the last century. I'm not convinced that greenhouse gases have yet been correlated to that change. However, I think they will eventually be shown to be a significant component in the big picture. But when the vast majority of the world's leading scientists are highly skeptical of Al Gore's position, that should make you step back and ask if that view has excessive bias - and I believe it does. The global heat budget estimates have too much uncertainty to predict that fossil fuel combustion is the dominant contributor to global temperature rise.
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monolith
climber
SF bay area
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Aug 28, 2013 - 10:50am PT
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Most leading researchers in the field are not convinced that fossil fuel combustion has led to warming of Earth's surface.
^^^Complete Bullsh#t^^^
Who cares what Al Gore thinks?
Lets see, what could possibly be causing the warming?
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Degaine
climber
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Aug 28, 2013 - 11:13am PT
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mad69dog wrote:
Al Gore's position,
Could you please state what you think Al Gore's position on climate change to be?
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 28, 2013 - 11:26am PT
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Mad69Dog sez:
I see all the hate dumped on the Chief.
Proof positive that Mad69Dog can't see past his nose, and that he comes to the table biased. An unbiased viewer would quickly see that it is The Chief who initiates all the hate.
Try opposing one of The Chief's many views, Mad69Dog, and you will see what I mean. The angry man will begin to tear you down with his hatred, and you might not even be talking directly to him.
You worked with less than 200 researchers (153), and yet from this you claim "the vast majority of the world's leading scientists..." Your real-life observations seem to be riddled with bias. That doesn't do much to convince me of your scientific prowess.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 28, 2013 - 11:45am PT
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@ The Chief,
Bro, if I were a real friend of yours, I would take you aside and let you know that the way you address people turns them into your enemies.
The fact is, you would not have a single friend if you talked in person the way you do over the internet. I imagine that you might have a friend or two, and if indeed you do, you must be a very different person in real life because nobody who acts the way you do keeps friends for very long.
Of all the people with whom I've had personal interactions, either live or via written correspondence, there are very few who I consider to be 'enemies' of mine. Out of all people I've known, or have talked to, very few fall into the bucket into which I place you. And in that bucket are the people who I have zero desire to communicate with. It's a very lonely bucket, I'm not even sure there's more than one or two other people in there.
You might hold this as an honor. But believe me, it is just the opposite.
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Degaine
climber
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Aug 28, 2013 - 11:51am PT
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k-man wrote:
Proof positive that Mad69Dog can't see past his nose, and that he comes to the table biased. An unbiased viewer would quickly see that it is The Chief who initiates all the hate.
Honestly, why do you care what The Chief thinks (of you or of an issue)? Why is it so important to you to convince him or bring him over to your point of view?
He has the minority opinion in this particular thread. Dude, let it go, you'll never ever get 100% of people to agree with you, whatever the issue.
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monolith
climber
SF bay area
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Aug 28, 2013 - 11:59am PT
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 28, 2013 - 12:05pm PT
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Yo, Chief, can I bring my Hayabusa and join yous guys? ;-)
(you're gonna pick up the tab for the tickets, right?)
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Mad69Dog
Mountain climber
Superior, CO
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Aug 28, 2013 - 12:10pm PT
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>Maddog, was John Travolta flying that C-130? Those weren't scientists...
Your credibility is questionable.
http://mirage-mex.acd.ucar.edu/
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Mad69Dog
Mountain climber
Superior, CO
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Aug 28, 2013 - 12:25pm PT
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>you claim the rather shocking statement that the majority of "scientists in >the field" dispute that carbon emissions are the primary driver of GW.
I don't think those are my precise words but the devil is in the details. Depending on which measurements you choose to interpret, you can find real research data acquired by competent experimentalists that supports 'no global warming' and 'pro global warming' stances. The problem comes when you try to knit it all together into a global heat budget kind of perspective *THEN* point the finger at an un-isolated component such as CO2. We do not have a control to compare against, so attempting to isolate variables in an uncontrolled 'experiment' is fantasy. That is why so many scientists are skeptical that the proofs are valid.
>you must be aware that this runs contrary to all institutional and popular >understanding. If you are right can you explain the gross disception that >has been perpetuated for the past few decades? Rick Sumner claims that it >is a vast global willfully organized communist plot.
I think our media loves to grasp at a thread and interpret it beyond their expertise.
Remember, I said that I believe the ocean surface temperature trend review reports are valid because the data inputs are hugely broad and competent. For the layperson, those reports alone scream 'global warming' but to the road-weary geologist, it's business as usual.
>Surely you don,t believe this but what other explanation is there? You >must be capable of expanding on this at length and in detail.
People love simple answers - so do I! But these are highly complex phenomena and we are learning to collect and interpret the data right now. The problem is that we have snap-shots taken here and there on a sporadic time scale. We need much more data density, scattered appropriately around the globe and it has to be qualified data, meaning that outside inputs such as sunspot activity, etc., has to be there to help sort and classify. This is what happens when you work with chaotic systems - you end up data-starved.
Thanks for your polite and reasoned response. You are obviously in the upper intellectual classification on this forum - which is sparsely populated.
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Mad69Dog
Mountain climber
Superior, CO
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Aug 28, 2013 - 12:35pm PT
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>Could you please state what you think Al Gore's position on climate change to be?
You mean you don't have his book memorized?
http://www.amazon.com/An-Inconvenient-Truth-Planetary-Emergency/dp/B000QEJ0WY/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1377707488&sr=8-3&keywords=al+gore
wherein the summary states:
"The truth about the climate crisis is an inconvenient one that means we are going to have to change the way we live our lives. Our climate crisis may at times appear to be happening slowly, but in fact it has become a true planetary emergency and we must recognise that we are facing a crisis. So why is it that some leaders seem not to hear the clarion warnings? Are they resisting the truth because they know that the moment they acknowledge it, they will face a moral imperative to act? Is it simply more convenient to ignore the warnings? Perhaps, but inconvenient truths do not go away just because they are not seen, rather, their significance grows. Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States, has been a passionate advocate of action to halt climate change for many years. In An Inconvenient Truth Gore writes about the urgent need to solve the problems of climate change, presenting comprehensive facts and information on all aspects of global warming in a direct, thoughtful and compelling way,using explanatory diagrams and dramatic photos to clarify and highlight key issues. The book has been described in the New York Times as one which could 'push awareness of global warming to a real tipping point'. The documentary film of the same name, based on the book, premiered at this year's Sundance Festival to great acclaim."
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Mad69Dog
Mountain climber
Superior, CO
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Aug 28, 2013 - 01:00pm PT
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>Mario Molina would likely call you out on that.
I spoke at length with Mario and his team. They were all advocates for increasing sensor density to improve the ability to model cause and effect. Why? To improve the ability to correlate selected variables with gross observables (such as temperature).
So, if you were to ask Mario if there is a positive trend in global surface temperature, I suspect he would say: "Yes", but if you asked if he had direct proof that greenhouse gases were the dominant factor in producing the temperature rise, you'd start hearing numerous qualifying remarks.
The reason scientists like to work in a lab is because one hopes to isolate the effect of key variables. When working in the environment, one can develop incredible analytical tools, but one also has little to know ability to control those key variables. Thus the integrity of cause and effect.
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