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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
 Posted - 12/17/2004 : 07:58:31
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Hi Skeptics. I'm looking for some objectivity regarding the Climate Change argument. Specifically:
Is there evidence the world climate is currently warming in a way more significant than the warming trends of the last thousand years or so?
Is there evidence this warming is due to human activity?
Is there evidence it is due to something else?
I've recently been in arguments with folks on another board who've made claims the world is actually cooling right now. Or that the warming we've seen is due to increases in solar activity. Or that the warming trends of recent history were far more significant than our current trend. And so on. I've gone to the IPCC web site and I found some good stuff on the American Institute of Physics site, but there's a LOT of stuff out there from obviously biased sources saying all kinds of things....Those who oppose any action on climate change have created a huge base of what, in my current opinion, is total fluff and fog. I know you guys look into this kind of thing for fun, so I'd love to know what you've come across, what your arguments are, and so on.
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-Chaloobi
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2004 : 08:37:56 [Permalink]
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The climate is indeed, changing. Fish that prefer cool, shallow areas are moving deeper. They're being gradually replaced by species that perfer warmer waters, and I wish I could find that study. It took place over some 30 years.
The Gulf Stream is warmer. The world's glaciers are measurably receding. And so forth.
There is no question that global warming is occuring. The only questions are; how much are our activities affecting it, and what can be done about it, assuming the polititions actually begin to care about anything beyond sucking up to the money.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2004 : 08:38:24 [Permalink]
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Wow where to start, There is so much evidence for human induced warming its not even funny.
Start by saying that 9 of the last ten years are on the top ten list for global climate average, including 4 of the last five in the top five. This year being the second hottest ever. Coral reefs around the world are dying off at a ridiculous rate because they are very temperature sensitive, Underwater habitats are shifting to new waters causing havoc in many places(north sea fishing, tropical invasive species in the Mediterainian and warm weather beetles destroying millions of arces of northern forrests) to name a few. Even If we stop all greenhouse gas production now the frozen peat mosses release CO2 into the air as they thaw, so It woulndt stop for a few hundred years. Thats if we stop, but in fact the world as a whole is still increasing CO2 output regularly. Thanks mostly to GWB's inaction. Gotta protect jobs ya know.
Boat loads of info.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html#INFO
http://gcmd.gsfc.nasa.gov/Resources/FAQs/glob_warmfaq.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2004 : 08:50:22 [Permalink]
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Oh another favorite of mine, they expect that there may be no sea ice left at the north pole during the summer by 2100 Edit: lol what about Santa GWB?. And withing a few hundred years you can expect at least an eight meter increase in sea height. Of course warmer waters could mean year round hurricanes in some places, turn jungles into deserts and Freeze otherwise warm regions.
Then of course theres the 'Day After tomorrow' Senerio, which is the same principal without the mega storm thing and the whole ice age thing taking longer to take effect.
Edit2: Specifically on the Issue of humans causing the change.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_of_recent_climate_change
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
excerpt
Oreskes, 2004
In December 2004 Science published an opinion essay [7] ( http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686 ) that summarized the results of a survey that attempted to determine whether there is consensus that global warming exists in the scientific literature. The essay concluded that there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. The author analyzed 928 abstracts of papers from refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, listed with the keywords "climate change". The abstracts were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. 75% of the abstracts were placed in the first three categories, thus either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, thus taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change; none of the abstracts disagreed with the consensus position, which the author found to be "remarkable". It was also pointed out that "authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point."
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"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
| Edited by - BigPapaSmurf on 12/17/2004 09:00:04 |
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2004 : 09:05:13 [Permalink]
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| Another good site for your research might be http://www.realclimate.org/. The site contains commentaries of climate scientists working in the field on current global warming issues, without making comments about which policies to follow. I haven't had a good chance to really look at the site yet, but it might be of your liking. |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2004 : 09:17:20 [Permalink]
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| Seems to me like the commentarys are not from scientists, but just interested parties. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2004 : 09:27:01 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
Seems to me like the commentarys are not from scientists, but just interested parties.
Look at who the contributors are. All are professional climate scientists and they are the ones writing the articles. The comments on the articles written by them are by interested parties (not necessarily scientists). |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2004 : 10:07:20 [Permalink]
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| Righto, thats what I was trying to clarify. ;) |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2004 : 11:15:34 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
<snip>The only questions are; how much are our activities affecting it, and what can be done about it, assuming the polititions actually begin to care about anything beyond sucking up to the money.
What about the question: Should something be done about it? |
-Chaloobi
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2004 : 11:28:50 [Permalink]
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| Well of course and eventually there will be dramatic steps, It just may take far too long for them to come. Long story short, we are f^cked, but how f^cked is still up to us at this point. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
| Edited by - BigPapaSmurf on 12/17/2004 11:29:10 |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2004 : 13:32:24 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
First, I must confess I have yet to read any of the links provided. But I just wanted to point out that there has been no evidence citied in this forum which shows humans have caused global warming.
It has been shown that the climate is changing
It has been shown that humans release CO2 and other gases into the atmosphere
It has been shown that CO2 and other gases can change the climate
However, what has not been shown is that the climate change that is occuring is a direct result of CO2 increase. While this does seem the most likely and probable, you need to show something that CO2 is the cause of the global warming. What if this change is just part of a natural climate change, as is always occuring? Is there any evidence against this?
Just providing an alternate hypothesis.
Singlehandedly caused, no. Contributed to, definately. Since the only thing we can control is how much we contribute to it, that is what the Kyoto Treaty and others are trying to address.
Rising CO2 emissions are definately a cause of global warming as can be evidenced by Venus. I am afraid, though, that global warming as a whole and what emissions contribute to it are far more complex systems than a single cause or single source. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2004 : 13:43:55 [Permalink]
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| This is the most dramatic increase in CO2 levels in 400,000 years. Obviously we cant date back forever, but that a decent chunk for sure. All indicators show that this increase is much larger and faster than any previously recorded. The links goto this information. I believe Ice is dated back like 150,000 years and sea floor cores go to 400,000, trees a few thousand, and of course many others. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2004 : 15:05:01 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
First, I must confess I have yet to read any of the links provided. But I just wanted to point out that there has been no evidence citied in this forum which shows humans have caused global warming.
It has been shown that the climate is changing
It has been shown that humans release CO2 and other gases into the atmosphere
It has been shown that CO2 and other gases can change the climate
However, what has not been shown is that the climate change that is occuring is a direct result of CO2 increase. While this does seem the most likely and probable, you need to show something that CO2 is the cause of the global warming. What if this change is just part of a natural climate change, as is always occuring? Is there any evidence against this?
Just providing an alternate hypothesis.
According to the IPCC 2001 global warming is very likely to be caused by anthropogenic sources (ie humans). In their summary for policymakers some of the arguments they give for this are:
-According to current models the warming due to only natural sources is not enough to explain climate change in the last 100 years
-New studies of natural and anthropogenic causes of global warming give a significant effect of anthropogenic causes in the last 35 to 50 years
-Natural causes alone are not enough to explain the temperature shifts in the last half of the 20th century. They do explain a significant part of the first half.
-These effects of anthropogenic effects can be considered robust despite the modeling-uncertainties involved
The IPCC seems to give quite a few good reasons to believe that anthropogenic emissions are indeed responsible for global warming. |
Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2004 : 15:15:07 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by chaloobi
quote:
Originally posted by filthy
<snip>The only questions are; how much are our activities affecting it, and what can be done about it, assuming the polititions actually begin to care about anything beyond sucking up to the money.
What about the question: Should something be done about it?
Why not? It might not change anything -- probably won't change anything, but we'd be a lot more comfortable in the heat if a large portion of pollutant emmisions were eliminated.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Siberia
SFN Addict
Brazil
2322 Posts |
Posted - 12/17/2004 : 15:17:00 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
quote:
Originally posted by chaloobi
quote:
Originally posted by filthy
<snip>The only questions are; how much are our activities affecting it, and what can be done about it, assuming the polititions actually begin to care about anything beyond sucking up to the money.
What about the question: Should something be done about it?
Why not? It might not change anything -- probably won't change anything, but we'd be a lot more comfortable in the heat if a large portion of pollutant emmisions were eliminated.
If only for our lungs' sake, it's worth it, don't you think? |
"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa
"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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