canoe

There is no possible way I can be an expert in every field of science. Nore is there any need for me to be an expert in order to beleive the results and findings of other people who are experts in a specific field. I do it everytime I step on a plane, start my car turn on my pc.

Just to clear this up if there was some kind of mass divided opinion about this in the scientific community where a significant portion (more then 30%) beleived the theory behind global warming was incorrect or misunderstood then I wouldn't even be having this debate right now I'd probably be still sitting on the fence. The issue is there very little debate in the scientific community about if global warming is infact happening or not the scientists seem to have made up their mind.

Aside from a personal story about a reef diving trip no one has posted anything from a scientific or other credible expert in an appropriate field saying either the findings and information that seems to be pretty well agreed on by most of the experts are wrong or are being misinterpreted.

So far the only person here posting any evidence or information to back up at least some of what they've been saying is me. Basiclly if you've got something with a different take on the information I've been posting again (not sure how many times I've asked this now) please post it.

brokensickle

http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO.../subject_s.jsp

This link has good info on CO2. It's good to have stats. and plain English commentary. I've noticed that the 'global warming bad', crowd try to talk over the layman's head. This smacks of deception, when I try to explain something to someone that I understand expertly I try to help them understand fully in a way and language they will understand. People who are not experts in a given field aren't necessarily stupid. And if you talk in expert nomenclature to an intelligent person that does not know all the terms of that given expertise you should expect them to be a bit confused and maybe even rightfully insulted by talking over their head. There are many an intelligent person that can extrapolate an opinion based on simple facts. The global warming scientist are hopefully trained well in the art of gathering data and interpreting it. If they have a social or political agenda and it takes over their thinking it might be easy for them to confuse us with scientific mumbo-jumbo or twisting of facts to fit their thinking. Thus vilifying the unconvinced as some sort of dolts or kooks for daring question their superior intellect or opinion. Besides if they can not interpret to the common man adequately do they even deserve the right to be working on his behalf?
You said that there is very little debate in the scientific community. I would agree that there is an illusion that there is very little debate created by politicians, media sources, and the new global warming fear mongering industry. Scientist and people monitoring and gathering data have quit or lost their jobs because they were ashamed of fixing of data or the fear tactics being employed by the science industry. Many scientist just have not been heard or have been ignored or lampooned
by bought out side of media and special interest groups. How come I can go on the internet and find so much info on opposing views, scientific and layman?
Ivan

__________________
"Evil opposes freedom and uses those who pervert it as pawns to destroy it."

Fortudinae

you're talking to a tree stump Ivan

ArmchairGeneral

No, really, I'm curious. What did that post mean?

__________________
"Apocalyptic thought is curiously pleasurable."
-Theodore Dalrymple

brokensickle

A tree with roots.

I Like green things. I am conspiring to aide in greening the globe. My agenda is to let nature run its course. It is hard to help the global warming crowd to understand the vast benefits of global warming. Did you know that in the 1930's the poles were much warmer than today? And the Earth was not destroyed. They were warmer in time of Eric the Red, for hundreds of years they were warmer than they currently are. But the vikings didn't have the global warming alarmist telling them to put catalytic converters on the bottoms of their farting cows. Seems a lot of methane is created by eating vegetables.


If these people get what they want and the globe cools, and terrible things start happening because of global cooling, will it be their fault or will they also blame that on the free industrialized world and mankind in general? Or will they concede and throw in the towel. It seems they would blame man also as they did in the seventies for the future ice age they wrongfully predicted. Can they take both sides of the issue and still be taken seriously.

Ivan

brokensickle

Do they still Brew white lighting in their mountain stills, in NC?
And have you ever heard that song, 'White Lightening'? When but a wee lad in the 1960's I remember this song.
Where did you find the avatar and what does it symbolize for you?

I appreciate your take many times on the issues.


Ivan

ArmchairGeneral

They have methods of telling the temperature, but they're kind of messy. Tree rings go back for a while, and they can use those as a very rough temperature scale. They also have pollen, which works in a similar manner. And they can measure the ratios of various isotopes which are affected by temperature; different isotopes of H and O within water have different evaporation rates depending on temp, for example. I expect they can correlate the various data so that they can get a rough idea of the temp. The fact that there is such a close correlation between CO2, methane, and the temp data suggests that what they have is pretty accurate. Either they're cooking the data, or it's real. Not precise, but accurate.

ArmchairGeneral

I'm not really seeing what you're seeing. The lines don't seem to be ahead of one another either way very much.

ArmchairGeneral

Actually there has been a measured rise in sea level. About 1-3 mm a year since 1900. Before that it was typically .1-.2 mm a year. Neither rate is enough so that you would notice it diving. I don't think the current rate is something to worry about, but if the rate increases another order of magnitude like it has in the past century, we may have something to worry about. That would mean about an inch a year, which adds up pretty quickly.

Also, sea level rise is not the only possible danger. I rather doubt the whole bigger storms idea; in order for that to occur, there would have to be an increase in ocean temp without an increase in air temp. Storms work on temperature difference, not absolute temperature. OTOH, it could cause other climate changes that could cause problems, such as droughts and floods. It could also cause the extinction of many rare organisms. That probably won't cause major problems since they were rare species to begin with, but the loss of biodiversity is not a good thing either. Another rather scary possibility is that the methane hydrates present on the bottom of the ocean could melt, releasing large amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Methane is a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, so it could conceivably accelerate warming considerably.

ArmchairGeneral

Agreed, for the most part. CO2 reduction might be a good idea, if we don't hurt the economy doing it. Environmentally, reducing other pollutants is good, but CO2 is not neccessarily a pollutant. Economically, I think that consumers are the best judges of when they need to switch to non petroleum energy sources. Geopolitically, it would definitely be nice to stop giving crazy people lots of money.

ArmchairGeneral

I have a hard time believing that, considering that all the CO2 we're producing was at one time in the atmosphere. Fossil fuels and all that. Which, considering that it looks like the earth may have been much warmer at the time that those fuels were produced, seems like another reason to think that CO2 is linked to temperature.

ArmchairGeneral

Not sure about the white lightning. A guy I worked with this summer comes from a family with a tradition of moonshining. His grandfather shot and killed a sheriff's deputy, confessed to it on his deathbed. They say it still goes on in the mtns of Tennessee, where I go to school, but I don't know about my area. My dad is big into home brewed wine, though.

As for the avatar, ask THL.

brokensickle

The rise in CO2 in the earth due to human influence has increased but those increases do not spike up and down like the graph Canoe has shown in his example.The growing levels of human CO2 would show smoother on a graph. Those CO2 levels shown on canoes graph indicate the type of CO2 production you would expect to be created by increases in solar radiation. In my humble opinion that is why the CO2 levels seem to closely follow the temperature rise and fall. Solar radiation can turn on a dime, as recently seen in news.

Ivan

dalem

There is tremendous debate on the causes of the latest warming trend. Just because you're not aware of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

You are asking us to prove a negative. It is YOUR responsibility to prove (or attempt to prove) the positive. So far, zilch. Rising CO2? No mechanism for warming. Industrial pollution? The planet has been both hotter and colder without factories. Warming and cooling trends? The Milankovich Cycles. Mars warming. Sunspots, solar flares.

Planet is warming "rapidly"? Look at data between 1930 and 1970 - the planet was cooling "rapidly".

In other words, your theory is full of crap. Maybe someday it won't be. But right now, it is.

Read the other climate and warming threads here in this forum - they have plenty of posts of mine, with links even, if you're a linky kind of fellow.

-dale

ArmchairGeneral

Actually the rise in CO2 due to human activities has been much quicker than natural rises, that's why people are concerned. Over a period of a century, yes, it would be a gradual rise, but canoe's graphs were over a period of 4000 centuries, so it would show up as a spike. As for increased radiation causing increased CO2, perhaps, but do you know of a plausible mechanism for it? I don't.