My belief in Global Warming is getting shaky

[Flying Binghi]

Flying Binghi, I urge you to look at the actual science related to AGW. Don't listen to the media. I often see media reports that are completely overblown or do not agree with the science they are reporting. This goes for both denialists articles and AGW articles.

 

freeztar, by useing the term "denialist", I think you have fallen into a little propaganda trick there. Me, I think of myself as more of a Realist then a sckeptic. I tend to look around for actual real life proof to back up the science claims - i.e, I have a look at the obvious, real world examples.

 

Heres an interesting media report, it starts off relativly straight forward reporting peoples views and experiences -

 

Extracts -

 

Tuvalu, a string of narrow coral atolls barely 1m above the high-tide mark in the South Pacific, faces extinction within a century.

 

...some islanders are concerned that the nation's potential plight is being exploited by deep-green ideologists keen to push worst-case scenarios for their own ends. Climate change fears also have been good for Tuvalu's foreign aid budget, giving politicians a financial incentive to talk it up.

 

Lieutenant Commander Steve Cleary, the Australian Department of Defence Maritime Surveillance Adviser to Tuvalu, is on his third tour of duty and has seen changes over the past five years but is noncommittal about the long-term threat.

 

Tuvalu's atolls have been eroding and reforming for centuries, as circular currents take material from one area and build in another.

 

"This area where we are now standing has built up since I was first here," he said. "I am not a scientist but I can tell you this area of coral we are standing on has grown considerably since I first came here. There are a lot of natural forces at work in these islands with sand and coral constantly shifting.

 

"The elders will tell you, some areas get washed away but other areas grow, and it is an ongoing process."

 

Then after Lt Cdr Clearys comments, we get -

 

The most reliable gauge of the problem is a skinny pole rising from the water at Tuvalu's main port.

 

The SEAFRAME (Sea Level Fine Resolution Acoustic Measuring Equipment) gauge is part of Australia's engagement with the South Pacific.

 

It was installed by the former National Tidal Facility of Australia

 

and is operated by the National Tidal Centre of the Bureau of Meteorology.

 

The sea level trend to date is 5.7mm per year...

 

Full article via -

Environmental refugees in Tuvalu | The Courier-Mail

 

 

As a contrast to the above poorly researched (edited?) article, we have this earlyer, apparently pro AGW article that makes a nonsence of the "most reliable gauge of the problem"

 

Extracts -

 

...Firstly, global warming is not the only factor affecting sea levels in the Pacific.

 

Bill Mitchell, the manager of the National Tidal Facility in Adelaide, which is collecting data in the region, says the ebb and flow of the sea is not fully understood.

 

"It's very, very complex. You have to get a handle on the movement of land. There are changes in weather, barometric pressure and oceanographic processes such as currents."

 

Those oceanographic processes include the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, where a huge slosh of water moves around the ocean over a 10-year cycle.

 

The El Nino effect has also played a part. Interruptions to trade winds across the ocean have affected global weather patterns, making the sea rise and fall unexpectedly.

 

...On far-flung Tuvalu, sea gauges have been in place for just over 11 years - too short a time scale ... to draw accurate conclusions.

 

 

 

Full article via -

Tuvalu's tides divide scientists - Science - www.theage.com.au

[Eclipse Now]

What's the world coming to? A denialist quotes another denialist! Wow! That's like, really heavy evidence man!

 

And what's the evidence?

 

It's like a conspiracy maaaan. You've just got to avoid the science and dig the whole worldwide nature of the conspiracy maaaaan. Here's some green stuff to take a nice long drag on as we ponder the huge, multi-departmental, multi-governmental nature of this global propaganda and conspiracy maaaaaaaaaaan, like wow. Yeah. And, like, what if dog were spelt "C.A.T.". Wow dude.

 

From Nigel's wiki,

Regarding global warming, Calder said:

 

"Governments are trying to achieve unanimity by stifling any scientist who disagrees. Einstein could not have got funding under the present system."[1]

 

Yeah, see maaan? This show the huge nature of the size of the thing maaaaan. Like, they say like "Peer review". Pfffft, peer review "rear review" in my opinion maaaan. They won't even admit Roswell, the Bermuda Triangle, or what the moon's really made out of maaaan! Peer review just the Guvern-ment's way of saying "Shut the F up dude!" But I'm not taken in — no way —*these are the same people that want us to believe Roswell was a weather balloon. Pfffffft. OK, now pass me some more green stuff.

[Michaelangelica]

October 05, 2008

How good are climate models?

 

The only way General Circulation Models can produce catastrophic CO2-induced warming is to introduce positive forcings from other agents, such as water vapour.

Without these forcings temperature increases are relatively benign.

What most don't understand is that the values attributed to these forcings are largely imaginary.

 

I've just come across two pieces of information which demonstrate the precariousness of the modelling assumptions of forcings.

 

The first is courtesy of a post on Jennifer Marohasy's blog. In a soon to be published paper Douglass and Christy eliminate all of the known forcings on climate from the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and aerosols (produced by volcanoes) and demonstrate that the underlying increase in global temperature without these independent forcings is 0.062±0.010ºK/decade, which they argue is consistent with the IPCC's formula for unforced CO2 which gives a value of 0.07ºC/decade.

 

Of course correlation doesn't equal causation, but Douglass and Christy point out that if the IPCC assumptions of positive forcings are correct, then there must be other, as yet undiscovered, negative forcings which have acted over the last 30 years.

 

The other piece of information is these notes posted by Roger Pielke Senior.

They are by Ann Henderson-Sellers, Professor in the Department of Physical Geography at Macquarie University, and until 2007, the Director of the World Climate Research Programme WCRP (WCRP) based in Geneva at the headquarters of the World Meteorological Organisation. She is one of the most frequently cited researchers in the world.

Ambit Gambit: How good are climate models?

[Michaelangelica]

Yes Flying Binghi

Flanery is certainly promoting himself so to are his very pro active publishesr

Within ayear or two much of what he says will be ancient history

 

Another spoon to stir the pot :_

Gas escaping from ocean floor may drive global warming

 

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) -- Gas escaping from the ocean floor may provide some answers to understanding historical global warming cycles and provide information on current climate changes, according to a team of scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The findings are reported in the July 20 on-line version of the scientific journal, Global Biogeochemical Cycles.

Gas escaping from ocean floor may drive global warming

[Flying Binghi]

*Delete*

[Flying Binghi]

Yes Flying Binghi

Flanery is certainly promoting himself so to are his very pro active publishesr

Within ayear or two much of what he says will be ancient history

 

Speaking of Flannery again, I've just started on the "Now or Never" in the Quarterly Essay. The Quarterly Essay - Current Issue

 

I found Flannerys first books years ago very interesting. (pre AGW books) Unforetunately of late He seems to have left the rails (thats my opinion) I might have to have a few drinks to help me thru the 'essay' or it might be a 'never' read essay B)

[Flying Binghi]

Seems some others might have a few doubts -

 

The IPCC report: what the lead authors really think

 

Energy budget is really worrisome; we should have had 20 years of ERBE [Earth Radiation Budget Experiment] type data by now- this would have told us about cloud feedback and climate sensitivity

 

Via -

The IPCC report: what the lead authors really think - environmentalresearchweb

[Essay]

Seems some others might have a few doubts -

Such is the nature of science (and scientist). :(

===

 

About the author, Ann Henderson-Sellers, from your link:

The science of climate change

Ann Henderson-Sellers has been an Earth Systems scientist all her life and a leader in describing and predicting the influence of land-cover and land-use change on climate and human systems for many years.

She has a BSc in mathematics, undertook her PhD in collaboration with the U.K. Meteorological Office and earned a D.Sc. in climate science in 1999.

 

She wrote this summary of the comments from the 2007 survey, and adds:

"I have done this because I believe it is essential for the climate change research community to be transparent and honest about what it can and cannot deliver and how, if ever, current inadequacies can be resolved."

---

 

The full quote, that you selected from the section entitled, Serious inadequacies in climate change prediction that are of real concern is:

"Energy budget is really worrisome; we should have had 20 years of ERBE [Earth Radiation Budget Experiment] type data by now- this would have told us about cloud feedback and climate sensitivity. I'm worried that we'll never have a reliable long-term measurement. This combined with accurate ocean heat uptake data would really help constrain the big-picture climate change outcome, and then we can work on the details."

 

I knowwww! I wish the denialist had let us start studying this stuff 20 years ago, but they had better uses for the money, I guess. :(

 

Other sections of the summary include:

 

Urgent policy issues that climate change research must tackle

 

Climate change research topics identified for immediate action

 

International organization issues, especially regarding the IPCC

 

&

Institutional/ infrastructure issues hamper climate change information delivery

 

She finishes with statements such as:

Those that concern me most include the simple, but dastardly, statement that "until and unless major oscillations in the Earth System can be predicted to the extent that they are predictable, regional climate is not a well defined problem. It may never be. The rush to emphasize regional climate does not have a scientifically sound basis." This is underscored in another quote: "adding complexity to models, when some basic elements are not working right (e.g. the hydrological cycle) is not sound science." (The italics are mine.)

&

...there is real reluctance to state too baldly the magnitude of the challenges to be overcome before climate change research can deliver relevant results.

&

In some places there is an (unhealthy?) fear of mis- (or out of context) quoting by global warming "deniers". We are hesitant to stress comments such as "the Fourth Assessment Report missed doing this owing essentially to the timelines that were arranged."

&

Climate change research entered a new and different regime with the publication of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. There is no longer any question about "whether" human activities are changing the climate; instead research must tackle the urgent questions of: "how fast?"; "with what impacts?'; and "what responses are needed?"

I think that last one deserves repeating:

Climate change research entered a new and different regime with the publication of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. There is no longer any question about "whether" human activities are changing the climate; instead research must tackle the urgent questions of: "how fast?"; "with what impacts?'; and "what responses are needed?"

 

Thanks for that link; the whole survey was way too much to wade through (I tried once). It's great that someone so well respected in the community has taken the time to summarize that survey.

 

~ ;)

[Eclipse Now]

Yes Flying Binghi

Flanery is certainly promoting himself so to are his very pro active publishesr

Within ayear or two much of what he says will be ancient history

 

Speaking as an activist, sometimes to do one is to appear to do the other. Sometimes to get our message across we have to brush our teeth and speak nicely in front of the camera. Is there anything wrong with that IF the message is true?

 

Another spoon to stir the pot :_

 

Gas escaping from ocean floor may drive global warming

My understanding is that the climate scientists warn that this is one of the tipping points. In other words, rather than throwing doubt on man-made global warming, this is evidence that we've stuffed climate stability and are now about to hit various run-away feedback loops.

 

And the sceptics want to try and turn it around and blame it all on these underseas gases, when climatologists have been warning our Co2 emissions might trigger this? They've known about this possibility for decades, and the sceptics want to try and argue... "No no no... this is what is CAUSING the warming and so we don't have to do anything!?"

;):doh::(:doh::(:doh::doh::doh::doh::doh::doh:

 

Isn't that like the Irishman that jumps from the plane with his mate Paddy, constantly delaying opening the chute until they get to 5 meters because "they can jump from here!" :doh:

 

FB — still taking things out of context I see? Where does it say Co2 does not interact with energy the way we say? Where does it disprove basic spectroscopy? Where does it disprove the Radiative Forcing Equation? No? Well that's because the overall tone of the whole report you quote is one of desperate concern for the climate, fear about various runaway systems, and the need for more certainty in projecting how serious it all is by amplifying our understanding in more niche areas.

 

There may be a modicum of good news if warming increases certain kinds of cloud, or more bad news if it increases other types of cloud. Sure there's debate in this area, just as Tim Flannery admitted years ago in "Weather Makers". (Have you read that yet? No? Oh, but happy to judge the man otherwise). Face it. Scientific theories often have broad areas of agreement and minor areas of uncertainty or labelled "Work to be done". Just because chaos theory turned out to be a bit more complex than Einstein imagined does not mean we throw out General Relativity OK?

[Eclipse Now]

Scientific American has a new summary of the reasons we can be sure about what the theory actually does say, while still admitting the "wiggle room" in some of the scenarios and minor aspects of some of the models.

[Michaelangelica]

I just got this in the mail.

best for the yanks to take up not my place to

 

 

ABC won't air our ad.

 

 

Tell ABC to air the Repower America ad this Friday on 20/20.

 

Take Action

 

!

 

Dear Michael,

 

Did you notice the ads after last night's presidential debate?

 

ABC had Chevron. CBS had Exxon. CNN had the coal lobby. But you know what happened last week? ABC refused to run our Repower America ad -- the ad that takes on this same oil and coal lobby.

 

I sent a letter asking ABC to reconsider their decision and put our ad on the air, but still we haven't heard back more than a week later. I think they need to hear from all of us. Can you help? Please send a message

 

to ABC and tell them to air the Repower America ad this Friday on 20/20. Just click here:

 

We Can Solve It | Send a Message to ABC

 

 

 

We're working to get 100,000 public comments to ABC before 20/20's next airing.

 

Our Repower America ad has a clear and simple message -- that massive spending by oil and coal companies on advertising is a key reason our nation hasn't switched to clean and renewable sources for our energy.

 

Here's the script of the ad:

 

The solution to our climate crisis seems simple.

Repower America with wind and solar.

End our dependence on foreign oil. A stronger economy.

So why are we still stuck with dirty and expensive energy?

Because big oil spends hundreds of millions of dollars to block clean energy.

Lobbyists, ads, even scandals.

All to increase their profits, while America suffers.

Breaking big oil's lock on our government ...

Now that's change.

We're the American people and we approve this message.

 

You can view the ad on the ABC petition page, here

 

.

 

As our country faces deep economic problems, we need to be able to have an honest debate about the root causes of our problems. As Al Gore has said, "We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the future of human civilization. And every bit of that has to change."

 

As oil and coal backed groups outspend even major party committees in this political year, it's outrageous that ABC would deny our ad. Let ABC know what you think. Just click here

 

.

 

Thank you,

 

Cathy Zoi

CEO

We Can Solve It

I notice the local paper 'rag" has a denialist letter or two ever week (We live in a low lying area bordered by beaches and lakes)

I have sent in letters correcting FACTUAL errors but my letters are not published.

 

[Flying Binghi]

Now that I have your attention...

 

Heres what originaly bought it to my attention.

 

Some extracts -

 

Belief in the truth of a theory is inversely proportional to the precision of the science. At least that is what someone called Harris once said.

 

Modern climate science theory seems to be a case in point with imprecise extrapolation from often poorly understood variables to what have become generally accepted General Circulation Models which many scientists claim can predict future climate.

 

But do the leading climate scientists, in particular the United Nation’s IPCC scientists, really believe in this theory?

 

Via -

 

Jennifer Marohasy

 

 

I'll cover my thoughts on this tommorow.

[goku]

i was driving a 615 caterpillar dirt pan the other day, pondering global warming, and i had a thought. what is the temp on the surface of the moon?

what happens to all the energy that impacts the earth from the sun?

what keeps us from over heating?

[Zythryn]

... what is the temp on the surface of the moon?

Dayside is about 107 degrees Celsius, night side -153 degrees Celsius

 

what happens to all the energy that impacts the earth from the sun?

Some is absorbed, some is reflected. Of the reflected energy some is absorbed by the atmosphere while some escapes back into space.

what keeps us from over heating?

 

This is a great question:hyper:

We don't overheat because enough of the energy that is reflected from the surface escapes into space.

 

Proponents of GW are concerned that:

A) More of the suns energy is being absorbed as we change the albedo of the surface.

:( Less energy escapes into space as we increase the amount of CO2 and Methane in the atmosphere.

[Turtle]

Proponents of GW are concerned that:

A) More of the suns energy is being absorbed as we change the albedo of the surface.

:) Less energy escapes into space as we increase the amount of CO2 and Methane in the atmosphere.

 

Some proponents of 'hey wait a minute' say the albedo of the clouds, which reflect the Sun's radiation back into space, is not accounted for in the models. :) :hihi:

[Zythryn]

Some proponents of 'hey wait a minute' say the albedo of the clouds, which reflect the Sun's radiation back into space, is not accounted for in the models. ;) :confused:

 

Those proponents would be incorrect;)

They would be correct if they had instead said, there is more research to be done to learn more about the behavior of clouds (especially in the upper atmosphere). But the albedo and heat trapping behavior are both accounted for. We can lessen the level of uncertainty with additional research, but to say that albedo of clouds is not accounted for at all is wrong.

[Turtle]

Those proponents would be incorrect;)

They would be correct if they had instead said, there is more research to be done to learn more about the behavior of clouds (especially in the upper atmosphere). But the albedo and heat trapping behavior are both accounted for. We can lessen the level of uncertainty with additional research, but to say that albedo of clouds is not accounted for at all is wrong.

 

Not according to the article I earlier posted* here and that no one commented on. But whatever. :confused:

 

*cloud problem

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