Independent Group Confirms Global Warming

I have heard so much malarkey I really doubt anyone knows exactly what is happening - and that is not limited to either side. And, FWIW, I have also heard that a bunch of NASA data has been twisted. i.e. people disagreeing have been fired. I have seen evidence where temperature readings are now being located by building waste heat exhausts. A couple years ago, the warmest year since 1900 was 1934, but lately it has been listed as being cooler than everything since about 1980. I am sure some of that is true and some it it is not. However, I am reasonably sure of the cold dark ages and the warm medieval period. I learned of that in high school BEFORE this all got so politicized. I guess I am also pretty sure someone is playing games with at least some of the data. However, I cannot interpolate just how much is still believable.

 

No one is insisting that CO2 is the sole driver of climate change. However, CO2 is the aspect over which we have the most control. CO2 is a greenhouse gas the level impacts the climate and we are overwhelming the system.The bad thing is that increased temperature is likely to cause the immense amounts of methane retained in the arctic and elsewhere to be released. If that happens you can kiss humanity good bye.
When it comes to the impact of CO2 and the way CO2 works you don't need a degree you just need basic science. The mechanisms of CO2 and its reaction to infrared radiation are well known and has been for decades. As for my degrees. I have a bachelors in computer science. I am currently working on my Masters in Sociology with a minor in Environmental Science. Am I a climatologist? No. However, I do have the scientific knowledge to understand when someone is relying on the science or relying on personal bias.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/10/global-warming-on-mars/
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-other-planets-solar-system.htm

The actual question is what temperature on Earth will cause the most destruction to the humanity. I am not concerned with saving the planet. I am concerned with the planets impact on humanity. How high is too high for people to survive? We have developed through evolution to live in a small range of temperatures. The food crops on which we rely are only healthy in a certain range of temperatures. If the temperature goes too high they die and we die. If the average temperature on Earth is 105 degrees Fahrenheit what impact do you think this will have on us? This is the question I ask.
The earth itself will be here for several billion years, but that doesn't mean that we will.

According to what I can find it was in 2009. Once again it isn't the local changes that prove or disprove the global temperature increase. In addition, climate scientist have been saying for years that changes in the weather patterns are going to have freaky effects on different areas. The change in wind patterns, jet streams, water in th atmosphere, changes in the oceans heat sink capacity are going to cause different areas to receive different effects. A global temperature rise is the danger.

CO2 doesn't have a direct impact on the albedo of Earth. However, increased levels do have an effect on the temperature which has in impact on albedo. The hotter the average temperature the more ice is removed and the more land is exposed to the sun. Land absorbs more radiation than ice does and the temperature will get higher which will.....you get the picture.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/earth-albedo-effect.htm

 

This was a common accusation after the so called "climategate" release. However, every, and I mean every, investigation into that accusation has been found to be wrong. No a single investigation has found malfeasance anywhere.
Even James Inhofe's investigation found absolutely no evidence of falsification of data.

The very study I reported on in the beginning was performed to see to prove that the data has been incorrect and to prove that the "heat island" effect was the cause for the readings of heat. Pay attention to that statement. It was designed and set up by climate skeptics to prove that the data was wrong and they found out that the data was correct. How many investigations does it take.

 

The question that I have is how much control do we really have over the CO2 in the environment? Can we really control it enough to make a difference? When I was younger, the big environmental boogeymen were fluorocarbons and DDT--both of which cause serious issues to be sure and which should not be taken lightly.But now we are learning that the scientists do not agree on the actual nature of the hole closing--is it closing as fast as some people believe? But again, look at all the data on the ozone layer hole--it had been studied for 20 years before action was taken and it's taken another 25 years before truly measurable, if questionable, success. Who are we to believe when it comes to the ozone hole, which has been largely forgotten in our new concern over global warming? Is it really all-but closed? Or do we really have to wait another half-century before it is almost fixed? If it's taken close to a quarter century to effect what small change we have with global cooperation, then how long will it take for us to effect change with CO2 in the atmosphere if not everyone is on board with it? How can we be sure what products will help reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere without seriously having an impact on life as we now know it? Are lightbulbs bad? What about gas-powered engines? Where do we get the energy for a world transported by electric vehicles? If there isn't enough energy for all of these vehicles, do the poor have to ride horses? What about meat eaters? Do we have to give up our steaks because someone says that cow flatulence is bad for the atmosphere? But if cow flatulence is bad, what about horse flatulence--and what does that give the poor to transport them? Dog sled? But what do we feed our dogs? Does the replenished ozone layer contribute to global warming? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? (and how many are just there as wallflowers, showing off their cool new dress for prom?)

Except for my last two questions, what I've asked is serious business. We knew exactly what was to blame for the ozone layer and had concrete steps we could take to fix it. The products that needed to be developed were relatively small in nature and didn't require massive changes to our ways of life. I think you'll find that there was a lot less resistance to replacing aerosols with other kinds of sprays simply because, all things being equal, the other sprays did the same job just as well. Now we are asking people to use lightbulbs that change the interior lighting and cause some people headaches--and remove their alternatives. We ask people in a mobile culture to drive vehicles that have a range of about 40 miles, if a hybrid engine is not available for that vehicle (I drive 70 miles to school twice a week and 100 miles to train my dogs, for example--how would that work?). We are telling omnivores that reducing or eliminating meat from their diet is a good thing--but many people actually require meat in their diet in order to stay healthy. This thing is more than just changing hair control delivery devices. And what about the other effects? Closing the ozone hole has an actual effect on global warming. The lightbulbs require special handling for proper disposal and cleanup, should one get broken. If we use dams and off-shore windmills to provide electricity for all of our cars, then what environmental effects do those actions have? Nothing is without consequences.

btw, according to My Weekly Reader, which we were given in elementary school, we were also supposed to be heading into an ice age, so please do excuse me if I can't get all het up over environmental doomsayers now, 40 years later. I think that a lot of people are like me, which is why there is resistance to taking the whole global warming thing at face value.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100505-science-environment-ozone-hole-25-years/

Doom and Gloom

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20111020_ozone.html

 

First, I would like to clarify something. I have absolutely no expectation that any action will be taken which will ameliorate the coming climate change. There simply isn't any to get enough people together to prevent it. The catastrophe is going to happen. It is just a matter of time. Just like we are not going to be able to stop the draining of the aquifers or the depletion of fossil fuels. We have to accept that it is going to happen and start getting ready for it.

This is the problem I have with the people spending so much effort into denying the reality. They are doing humanity a disservice by pretending that everything is going to be just fine and they should be called on their lies. Every year that we spend keeping our heads in the sand means that much less time we are spending preparing for it. The CO2 levels are going to keep increasing and eventually it is going to release all that methane being kept in place in the arctic and the peat bogs. What do you think will happen to human life when the 1,000,000 gigatons (2,204,622,621,848,775,700) of methane stored in the arctic gets released? What do you think that will do to our plant crops? It will be catastrophic and quick and we aren't going to be ready. We aren't going to be ready because a bunch of semi-scientist have decided that there some kind of global conspiracy to take their stuff is actually behind the stories of global warming. None of the denialist claims to science have held up. When called on it they claim a global conspiracy of scientist working to turn the planet socialist have pulled the wool over the public and is keeping their data down.

 

So, DeeNeely, what do mercury-filled lightbulbs have to do with preparing to deal with the CO2 levels increasing to those levels? What is the timeline for all those gigatons of methane being released? 10 years? 100 years? 1000 years? "Quick" is relative when we're talking about a planetary timeline. Did you read the article that said that the CO2 and heat being trapped is not as dramatic as all that? Why are the scientists are "semi-scientists," just because they disagree with your view? What if the conspiracy is in the opposite direction and there really is a socialist conspiracy? I don't believe it, but it's just as likely as the idea that people are debunking global warming for profit.

The point is, we need more research. We need more UNBIASED research, gathered by multiple disciplines, that can be analyzed by a committee without ties to either industry or business. We need more data and a clear direction as to how any action on our part will affect the future. People don't want to hear, "we can't do anything so we need to prepare" if we are unable to make changes for the better. That seems to be a waste of time and effort, as well as a waste of money as we continue to make ineffectual changes. IF the disaster is inevitable, then we need to be developing better protective gear and shelters, better plants for agriculture, and designing emergency measures to be taken when the disaster occurs. If these horrid, ugly lightbulbs are useless in preventing the inevitable, then let me keep my incandescent bulbs. These bulbs not only give me a headache, but they don't illuminate a room nearly as well.

 

First off, I am impressed. You actually answered my questions. Very impressed, FWIW.

I disagree about not needing a degree to understand "impact of CO2 and the way CO2 works". Just look at the link HollysMon posted. NASA has more degrees than you, I , and Moen put together and they still don't understand it. And, BTW, I did not think the methane was connected to the Arctic. Maybe you have a link connecting to the Arctic?

As for Mars, your first link talks a lot about weather on Mars (short term) and pretty much ignores the long term climate. I do not read blogs like your second link.

No, the actual question is/was "What is the correct temperature for Earth". There is a lot more to that question than you touched on. Let's just assume that we do a wonderful job at getting rid of the CO2 and everything is your ideal with man putting zero CO2 in the atmosphere. My guess it that would be the end of humanity as we know it today. Oh, and BTW, I am assuming that all of our power requirements are being met somehow and that the temperature on Earth remains steady where it is today.

Snowed in NYC in July, 2009? Really? Try again.

CO2 doesn't have a direct impact on the albedo of Earth. Humm? See NASA link again.

 

We need more research across multiple disciplines not tied to business or industry. We have already had that. It is called the IPCC and the people who deny global warming insist that their research is faulty because they get grants. They don't want to accept that most scientist agree with the data. The data has been confirmed by scientist in countries across the globe, but the people who deny global warming insist its a conspiracy by scientist. How many times do we need the same data checked with the end result confirming all the previous results. In the scientific community there isn't a debate at all. The debate is all political.

A lot of the people trying to deny global warming are meteorologist, doctors, veterinarians and people who are most definitely not scientist, but that people tend to treat like scientist so I tend to refer to them as semi-scientist. I don't care if the local veterinarian believes in global warming because it isn't qualified to disagree with the science.

The estimate is that the release of the methane can occur before 2100. A hundred years of catastrophic climate input is just that catastrophic. http://www.skepticalscience.com/Permafrost-Final.html

If the article about CO2 and global warming is the link you posted above then I have already read it. Within a week of its release the results were proven incorrect and biased with deliberate cherry picking of data.

Have you ever looked into the funding sources for the major anti-global warming groups like the Heartland Institute. I have. It is almost completely funded by companies who are constantly battling to eliminate environmental protections. Exxon's profits soared 41% this quarter and they are just a piece of the funding going into global warming denial. Check out the report on SourceWatch to see who is funding Heartland and then tell me there isn't any evidence that people are debunking global warming for profit. There is plenty of evidence for this but the only proof the denial groups have for a grand socialist conspiracy is personal opinion. When comparing evidence for the two the proof is apparent.

Fluorescent light bulbs are much more energy efficient. The more efficient the light bulb the less carbon is created in using the light bulb.

 

Arctic Methane:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=arctic methane release&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart

Roy Spencer aka the NASA link. NASA didn't have anything to do with the study.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/clouds-negative-feedback.htm
http://www.livescience.com/15293-climate-change-cloud-cover.html
http://www.desmogblog.com/roy-spencer
I like Phil Plaits response best of all http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/b...low-a-gaping-hole-in-global-warming-alarmism/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/07/misdiagnosis-of-surface-temperature-feedback/

 

You will pardon me if I do not believe that the alarmist have not adjusted the data. I have seen too much of it. However, I do doubt that the practice is limited to one side. BTW, meteorologist aren't scientists? Now TV weather casters may not be scientists (meteorologist, that is), but I firmly believe meteorologist are scientists.

 

Well done DeeNeely.

 

Have you? Have you actually seen manipulated data. Have you checked each piece of HADCRUT data, its source, and the interpretation to verify that it was manipulated? I haven't. However, I have watched every investigation, including that of committees set up by denialist, come back with the result that the data is correct. Even the one I posted at the beginning of this thread which was set-up specifically to prove that they had. How many investigations have to be done before people stop using irrational arguments to try and disprove the findings.

I will give you that some meteorologist are scientist, but that all.

 

I don't really know what most people want to do about it all, but I'm looking for a new planet myself lol

 

I have to begin by congratulating DeeNeely and HollysMom. Between the two of you, you've given me more insight into this whole issue than I would have got by trying to read some of the scientific articles you've cited.

There's nothing much I can contribute from a technical point of view, but my usual cynicism won't let me rest without saying something.

Climate change is an established fact. I just don't like calling it global warming because the effects aren't really as balmy as most of us might have expected. The change of climate can be attributed to nature and humans, as HollysMom has pointed out. Humans have speeded up a process which was inevitable. So what?

Why should it be such a problem if it's something that would have happenend anyway? There have been ice ages and the warming periods in the past. All those were entirely nature playing its part. So now humans are contributing to the process. Humans who are themselves part of nature, after all.

The main players in this game are the scientists. If you really come to think of it, it is the scientists who've contributed most to climate change. Everything that you can list that has contributed directly to this problem is a consequence of scientific, and thereby technological, inventions.

And now these same scientists are making a big issue out of it because this promises immense profits to the scientists who will now be paid to solve the problem created by them.

This is the same thing as science and technology contributing to increased cases of cancer, and then the same scientists being paid to do research into curing it. There's really nothing much we can do about this. It's not the politicians alone who control our lives. Increasingly it is the scientists who're doing so.

 

Some of the more dire forecasts have been intentionally downplayed by scientists in order to avoid mass panic. If it was just a matter of a few extra degrees in temp, and a few feet of ocean height then yeah, not really a big issue for most (ask low-lying islands that though, many have already been abandoned). The thing is, once the temp rises a few degrees a lot of bad things happen, things that make life more difficult for us. The oceans can potentially increase in height by 10, 20, 50, possibly more than 100 feet. That's a lot of major cities underwater. In our lifetime? Uncertain, but my guess is faster than what they predicted 20 years ago.

 

This sounds scary indeed. The reports of flooding that is already taking place in quite a few areas is scary, to say the least. I am especially scared because I live in a city that is below sea level, and is nothing but sand. There's no rock at all. The city I live in is Richmond, British Columbia. You probably know that this is also an earthquake prone area. You can imagine all the consequences of an earthquake, and/or a tsunami, flooding, etc.

As I say, scary indeed. Yet, what I say about the effects of global warming shouldn't be based on my personal situation. To begin with, now, with perfect hindsight, we can say that these cities should never have been built. But that doesn't help much. And, I think, even knowing the longterm risks, people would still go ahead and build such cities. As it is, even now, in Richmond, they're allowing ever higher buildings, and ever greater density of buildings. When I moved here 20yrs. ago, no building higher than five floors was to be seen.

But that is people's greed and shortsightedness. Coming back to the topic of global warming, I'm saying simply that all this was bound to happen. The honeymoon is merely ending sooner than expected. But again, human folly will reign supreme. The authorities here are arguing over the budget for raising the dykes that are holding the waters out. They're estimating that they might have the required funds in ten years time.

Of course the oceans will wait till they have the funds. This is all futile talk. It was bound to happen; and now it's happening. It's going to be a mad rush for higher ground.

 

It would be real interesting if you could back some of that up, but then that would be just a dream, right?

 

I could, but not for you. To be clear, none of what I said was for certain, only that they have been hypothisized by experts. But, fall back of the provide proof bs, I have no intention of trying to convince you of what may or may not occur in the future, you're not part of mine lol

 

Eh, I have faith that humankind will adapt... as long as we get rid of all the lawyers... they just slow down things and agitate lol

 

To be even clearer, no "expert" has even hypothesized any 100 foot rise in sea level. 20 feet, maybe 30 feet, but nothing like 100 feet.