I love when I'm right RE: "Global Warming"

[dalem]

I can not find a reference to this at all. All the data I find shows no upward trend over the last 25 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Solar-cycle-data.png

Solar radiation cannot explain the rapid increase in global temperature in the last 25 years.

Here's a quick Google grab that describes the increases in solar radiance from an old article. Here's a more recent one. The described maximums have been decreasing since about 2000/2001.

And here's a much more recent one that addresses the difficulties with extrapolating Martian data.

-dale

[dalem]

Any atmospheric comparisons between Mars and Earth have to be treated carefully. Remember, Mars has an atmosphere that is less than 1% as dense as Earth's. The dynamics of the two systems differ considerably.

Mars should be treated as its own case, not compared to Earth.

Mars is its own case with regard to heat trapping and weather, but as a planetary body in the same rough orbital region as the Earth, is a valuable comparative datum with respect to solar radiation.

-dale

[raptor1992]

true. imagine if mars was put in the orbit region of the earth. i can't even picture what will happen.

[dalem]

Always happy to rub salt in this wound:

Kyoto still all wet.

Global Warming Blues
Thursday, December 01, 2005
By Steven Milloy
February 22, 2005

The 11th annual meeting of global warming enthusiasts in Montreal isn’t turning out to be a very happy event. Even though this is the first opportunity for the burgeoning global climate bureaucracy to celebrate the full implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, the realities of science, economics and politics are raining on its parade.

First, a new study published this week in the journal Nature (Dec. 1) turns global warming alarmism on its head. British researchers reported that the ocean current responsible for the tropical winds that warm Europe’s climate has decreased by an estimated 30 percent since 1957. The headline of the New Scientist report (Nov. 30) on the study nicely captured its import, “Failing ocean current raises fear of mini ice age.”

-dale

[mtnbiker]

global cooling is soooo 1980.

didn't they get the memo that it's global warming now?

[barrowaj]

I just read that Fox News article. It is crap jounalism, and lowers the credibility of Fox News as a whole. Essentially the journalist who wrote the article is claiming that anyone who accepts global warming is a hypocrite because they are saying that a decrease in the North Atlantic currents would require a cooling of ocean temperatures. The non sequiteur is that we haven't measured a decrease in ocean temperatures, and somehow the author interprets this to mean that people who accept global warming are alarmists bent on some sinister objective of unkown motivation. It doesn't follow to me, considering the Nature article reports that the estimated error is 2/3 of the observed decrease.

Well, I have an exam to study for tomorrow, but look for my review of the Nature article in the future.

[Praxus]

As a scientist myself, I look at everything with a measure of skepticism. The difference is that the evidence for man-driven global warming is there. That's why nearly all climatologists believe it, along with nearly all of America's top scientists (the NAS). But, it is true that they could all be wrong. I just think its foolish not to trust what our top thinkers are telling us.

It would be foolish to trust what our top thinkers are telling us. We should not accept it simply because it came from someone who claims to be an authority on the subject.

Almost everyone agrees that man is attributing to Global Warming, the issue here is the degree to which we are attributing to it and if Global Warming is catostrophic.

This is what I know. The most accurate data we have comes from satilites put up into space in 1972. This shows no increase in global temperatures. Data gathered on the surface is all over the place and is more affected by things such as the heat island effect caused by cities.

[dalem]

I just read that Fox News article. It is crap jounalism, and lowers the credibility of Fox News as a whole. Essentially the journalist who wrote the article is claiming that anyone who accepts global warming is a hypocrite because they are saying that a decrease in the North Atlantic currents would require a cooling of ocean temperatures. The non sequiteur is that we haven't measured a decrease in ocean temperatures, and somehow the author interprets this to mean that people who accept global warming are alarmists bent on some sinister objective of unkown motivation. It doesn't follow to me, considering the Nature article reports that the estimated error is 2/3 of the observed decrease.

Well, I have an exam to study for tomorrow, but look for my review of the Nature article in the future.

That's not what the point of the article is at all. It is merely showcasing the "have their cake and eat it too" situation the enviropanic folks are trying to set up. Are the same folks that wet their pants about human driven global warming the same folks who wet their pants about possible global cooling? Probably not, but the whacko enviro left embraces all the panic, all the time, and therefore should be viewed with suspicion. That is the point of that particular piece.

-dale

[Bluesman]

Oh, GREAT, dalem. With Broken in self-banishment, you had to find another guy on my 'Ignore' list to quote, dincha?

[dalem]

Oh, GREAT, dalem. With Broken in self-banishment, you had to find another guy on my 'Ignore' list to quote, dincha?

;)

-dale

[Bulgaroctonus]

That's not what the point of the article is at all. It is merely showcasing the "have their cake and eat it too" situation the enviropanic folks are trying to set up. Are the same folks that wet their pants about human driven global warming the same folks who wet their pants about possible global cooling? Probably not, but the whacko enviro left embraces all the panic, all the time, and therefore should be viewed with suspicion. That is the point of that particular piece.

-dale

There is no inconsitency between European regional cooling and global warming. The link can be simplified and explained. A rise in global temperatures, such as is probably happening right now, triggers the melting of icecaps. This is also apparently happening since the arctic ice has been decreasing in area and thickness for some time now. It is the arctic ice were are concerned with here.

When ice melts, especially large amounts of it, it introduces fresh water into an otherwise saline solution - the ocean. Fresh water sinks because it is denser than salt water. Therefore, the melting of ice will tend to cool and submerge warm currents in the area. These currents drop to the sea floor and are useless as conveyors of heat.

In the case of Europe, this could mean trouble. I shall explain.

All of you may have noticed that Europe is quite a bit more northerly than most of the U.S. For example, Britain has a latitude roughly equal to that of Newfoundland, Canada, but has the same climate as New York or New Jersey. Countries like Norway and Sweden are even farther north, and if they were in the Americas, they would probably be ininhabited.

The reason for Europe's warmth is an ocean current called the Gulf Stream, which carries warm water from the Gulf of Mexico, north off of the Eastern American seaboard, and then finally over to Europe. This current is essential to Europe's unusually warm climate.

The Gulf Stream may become imperiled as it sweeps east. It does this to the south of Greenland. If global warming causes enough ice to melt, this ice will drift south. The ice will carry with it a large infusion of cold, fresh water that will submerge the Gulf Stream and make Europe colder.

So, global warming and the cooling of Europe are not mutually exclusive events. We should all remember that the Earth's climate is a complex mechanism, and that there are many nuances and apparent contradictions. An open mind is useful.

[dalem]

In the case of Europe, this could mean trouble. I shall explain.

Spare yourself, kiddo - I am well aware of the current state of global climatology.

I am speaking, as is the article in question, purely to the political aspects of the folks who have pushed the Kyoto Accords as somehow related to good science or economics.

-dale

[Bulgaroctonus]

Spare yourself, kiddo - I am well aware of the current state of global climatology.

I am speaking, as is the article in question, purely to the political aspects of the folks who have pushed the Kyoto Accords as somehow related to good science or economics.

-dale

Most of the objections to the Kyoto Accords are political and economic. I'll provide an article from the New York Times that is in that general vein. Yes, I know you all hate the New York Times. I figure there is more than enough conservative opinion on this site, so a drop in the ocean won't be a loss.

On Climate Change, a Change of Thinking
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
IN December 1997, representatives of most of the world's nations met in Kyoto, Japan, to negotiate a binding agreement to cut emissions of "greenhouse" gases.

They succeeded. The Kyoto Protocol was ultimately ratified by 156 countries. It was the first agreement of its kind. But it may also prove to be the last.

Today, in the middle of new global warming talks in Montreal, there is a sense that the whole idea of global agreements to cut greenhouse gases won't work.

A major reason the optimism over Kyoto has eroded so rapidly is that its major requirement - that 38 participating industrialized countries cut their greenhouse emissions below 1990 levels by the year 2012 - was seen as just a first step toward increasingly aggressive cuts.

But in the years after the protocol was announced, developing countries, including the fast-growing giants China and India, have held firm on their insistence that they would accept no emissions cuts, even though they are likely to be the world's dominant source of greenhouse gases in coming years.

Their refusal helped fuel strong opposition to the treaty in the United States Senate and its eventual rejection by President Bush.

But the current stalemate is not just because of the inadequacies of the protocol. It is also a response to the world's ballooning energy appetite, which, largely because of economic growth in China, has exceeded almost everyone's expectations. And there are still no viable alternatives to fossil fuels, the main source of greenhouse gases.

Then, too, there is a growing recognition of the economic costs incurred by signing on to the Kyoto Protocol.

As Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, a proponent of emissions targets, said in a statement on Nov. 1: "The blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that no country will want to sacrifice its economy in order to meet this challenge."

This is as true, in different ways, in developed nations with high unemployment, like Germany and France, as it is in Russia, which said last week that it may have spot energy shortages this winter.

Some veterans of climate diplomacy and science now say that perhaps the entire architecture of the climate treaty process might be flawed.

The basic template came out of the first international pact intended to protect the atmosphere, the 1987 Montreal Protocol for eliminating chemicals that harmed the ozone layer, said Richard A. Benedick, the Reagan administration's chief representative in the talks leading to that agreement.

That agreement was a success, but a misleading one in the context of climate. It led, Mr. Benedick now says, to "years wasted in these annual shindigs designed to generate sound bites instead of sober contemplation of difficult issues."

While it was relatively easy to phase out ozone-harming chemicals, called chlorofluorocarbons, which were made by a handful of companies in a few countries, taking on carbon dioxide, the main climate threat, was a completely different matter, he said.

Carbon dioxide is generated by activities as varied as surfing the Web, driving a car, burning wood or flying to Montreal. Its production is woven into the fabric of an industrial society, and, for now, economic growth is inconceivable without it.

Developing countries - China and India being only the most dramatic examples - want to burn whatever energy they need, in whatever form available, to grow their economies and raise the living standard of their people.

And the United States - by far the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases - continues to say that emissions targets or requirements would stunt economic growth in both rich and poor nations. All this has turned the Montreal meeting, many participants have conceded, into, at best, a preliminary meeting on how to start over in addressing the threat of global warming.

Indeed, from here on, progress on climate is less likely to come from megaconferences like the one in Montreal and more likely from focused initiatives by clusters of countries with common interests, said Mr. Benedick, who is now a consultant and president of the National Council on Science and the Environment, a private group promoting science-based environmental policies.

The only real answer at the moment is still far out on the horizon: nonpolluting energy sources. But the amount of money being devoted to research and develop such technologies, much less install them, is nowhere near the scale of the problem, many experts on energy technology said.

Enormous investments in basic research have to be made promptly, even with the knowledge that most of the research is likely to fail, if there is to be any chance of creating options for the world's vastly increased energy thirst in a few decades, said Richard G. Richels, an economist at the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit center for energy and environment research.

"The train is not leaving the station, and it needs to leave the station," Mr. Richels said. "If we don't have the technologies available at that time, it's going to be a mess."

[Shek]

Kyoto a "binding" agreement? Ha! That's a great one. It has zero enforcement mechanisms. It's a feel good, non-binding agreement.

[dalem]

Most of the objections to the Kyoto Accords are political and economic. I'll provide an article from the New York Times that is in that general vein. Yes, I know you all hate the New York Times. I figure there is more than enough conservative opinion on this site, so a drop in the ocean won't be a loss.

The political objections are indeed political, the economic objections are indeed economic, but underlying all of them are the scientific objections, which are, unsurprisingly, scientific.

Because, you see, no one has shown that any such thing as human driven global warming really exists. It is the Flying Spaghetti Monster of the Green Left.

-dale