Originally posted by bigformula: The earth was heating up before man was burning fossil fuels. That's how we came out of an ice age. Settled science hates that fact. So of the .003 degree rise in the ocean how much of that rise was caused by man?
Originally posted by bigformula: The earth was heating up before man was burning fossil fuels. That's how we came out of an ice age. Settled science hates that fact. So of the .003 degree rise in the ocean how much of that rise was caused by man? You gonna answer rinselberg?
The short answer: ALL of that current 0.003 Celsius rise in ocean temperatures per year, caused by humans.
Now, the long answer.
Let's take the period from the first year CE to 1800. I suggest 1800, because that is before the rapid expansion of fossil fuels that characterizes the Industrial Age. So, 1800 years.
I think that number that you singled out, of 0.003 degrees Celsius rise in ocean temperature per year, comes from the commentary on the Scripps Oceanography website, which I posted here just two days ago, on March 23.
If that number were characteristic of the entire period from 1 to 1800 CE, it would translate to an increase of almost 6C (6 degrees Celsius) by 1800, compared to the planet at the very beginning of the Christian Era. That is an enormous planetary warming.
We are talking about large areas of ocean, from the surface down to 2000 meters, across the Eastern and Western hemispheres, and both above and below the Equator. That is my understanding of the data that is being discussed here. It is data from Argo, which is a network of ocean temperature sensors that have been deployed at various places around the world.
In all of the reading that I have done on this topic, I have never seen anything that would make me think that so much ocean water, all around the world, could have warmed by as much as 6C in the first 1800 years CE. Not even anywhere close to an increase of almost 6C. If that had actually occurred, it would have left a huge and unmistakeable "fingerprint" on the historical descriptions of climate, weather events, agricultural zones, natural vegetation, land and sea ice, and most obvious of all, coastlines (because of sea level rise), over the first 1800 years CE.
So why are scientists reporting this current yearly ocean warming rate of about 0.003? A warming which as I have just explained, cannot conceivably have characterized all of the years from 1 to 1800 CE. What is the difference between that period, and the period from 1800 until current day?
Everything points to CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions from the ever expanding human reliance on fossil fuels, and almost all of that happened after 1800.
Now some say, no, it's not that. It is because of some other natural cycle or change affecting climate over the entire planet. Very possibly related to whatever caused the last Ice Age to clear out about 12,000 years ago.
I am well aware that there many unresolved questions about these prehistoric advances and retreats of the glaciers, known as the Ice Ages.
But if the culprit is not human CO2 emissions, then what can it be?
Is it something to do with the earth’s orbit around the sun? With the sun’s orbit around the black hole at the center of the galaxy? Cosmic rays? Dark matter?
No one has been able to show how any of these hypotheses matches up with the observable evidence of a sudden, rapid global warming that began during the Industrial Age, as closely as the tie-in with human CO2 emissions.
What about the energy coming from the sun? Wikipedia has some paragraphs about this, backed by references to specific reports published in scientific journals:
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Since 1978, solar irradiance has been measured by satellites. These measurements indicate that the Sun's output has not increased since 1978, so the warming during the past 30 years cannot be attributed to an increase in solar energy reaching the Earth.
Climate models have been used to examine the role of the sun in recent climate change. Models are unable to reproduce the rapid warming observed in recent decades when they only take into account variations in solar output and volcanic activity. Models are, however, able to simulate the observed 20th century changes in temperature when they include all of the most important external forcings, including human influences and natural forcings.
Another line of evidence against the sun having caused recent climate change comes from looking at how temperatures at different levels in the Earth's atmosphere have changed. Models and observations show that greenhouse warming results in warming of the lower atmosphere (called the troposphere) but cooling of the upper atmosphere (called the stratosphere). Depletion of the ozone layer by chemical refrigerants has also resulted in a strong cooling effect in the stratosphere. If the sun were responsible for observed warming, warming of both the troposphere and stratosphere would be expected.
We are in a geologic era of relatively low volcanic activity. The best science that I found online estimates that year in and year out, despite the sporadic and often impressive looking volcanic eruptions that we see around the world, and the undersea venting that we don't usually see, the CO2 emissions from all human activities are about 100 times greater than the CO2 injected into the atmosphere from all volcanic sources around the world:
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Scientists have used a variety of methods to determine the CO2 emissions from volcanoes. A common method is to use a tracer gas, i.e., a gas emitted from volcanoes but which does not stay in the atmosphere for long. Determining the emissions rates of the tracer gas from volcanoes, together with the concentration of those gases in the atmosphere allows the overall level of volcanic activity to be measured. Once that is measured, measurements determining average rates of CO2 emissions for a given amount of activity can be used to determine the global CO2 emissions from volcanoes. Other techniques are used to measure CO2 emissions from volcanoes, mid-ocean ridges and subduction zones under the sea. The emissions, from all volcanoes, both on land and under sea, are about one one-hundredth of anthropogenic emissions. While there may be some error in the estimates, it is unlikely that the error would be large enough for volcanoes to be emitting a sizable fraction of anthropogenic emissions. That strongly suggests that volcanic emissions are not the source of the increased CO2 concentration.
At this point, it is customary to observe, with respect to CO2 and rising temperatures, that “correlation is not causation”. What about that?
In 1895 (53 years before Al Gore was born), the Swedish scientist Svante Arrenhius presented the first paper on the possibility of Industrial Age CO2 emissions leading to global warming, titled “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground”. This treatise described an energy budget model that considered the radiative effects of carbon dioxide (carbonic acid) and water vapor on the surface temperature of the Earth, and variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Arrhenius relied heavily on the experiments and observations of other scientists. http://earthobservatory.nas...nius/arrhenius_2.php
Unlike CO2, H2O does not accumulate in the atmosphere. It is continually removed when warm, moisture-laden air floats by its buoyancy to higher altitudes and cools, or is driven by winds that cause it to lose its heat energy to colder land and ocean surfaces. This moisture is eliminated from the atmosphere as precipitation (rain, hail or snow), or as ground condensation or frost. This is the hydrologic cycle, and it is the reason that water vapor is not the culprit behind global warming, even though it is so much greater in abundance that it traps far more of the sun’s heat than CO2 and the other greenhouse gases combined.
The heat trapping effect of CO2 gas in a test tube is a phenomenon that late 19th century scientists like Arrenhius were able to observe and measure.
Quantum physics and chemistry explains how it works, focusing on the asymmetry of the chemical bonding of the CO2 molecule. This is what differentiates CO2, H2O (water vapor) and other heat trapping or “greenhouse” gases from the symmetrically bonded nitrogen and oxygen molecules that constitute over 90 percent of the atmosphere.
Recently, using state of the art laboratory equipment, scientists were able to perform direct observations of the heat trapping effect of CO2 molecules in the earth’s atmosphere. Thus, the “Smoking Molecule” of anthropogenic global warming: http://www.livescience.com/...ect-measured-us.html
Based on the preponderance of the evidence that exists today, I declare human CO2 emissions Guilty on all counts of conspiracy to warm the planet and to acidify the oceans (separate deposition), to the detriment of its current inhabitants.
It would take a lot more than snarky but shaky testimony from PFF’s bigformula, or Arns85GT’s fairy tales about CO2 and plant life, to convince me otherwise.
"The existence of warmer and colder times in the distant past does not remove human fingerprints from the current global warming, any more than the existence of natural fires would remove an arsonist’s fingerprints from a can of flammable liquid.” ~ Richard Alley, climate scientist and researcher
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 03-25-2015).]
The short answer: ALL of that current 0.003 Celsius rise in ocean temperatures per year, caused by humans.
Now, the long answer.
Let's take the period from the first year CE to 1800. I suggest 1800, because that is before the rapid expansion of fossil fuels that characterizes the Industrial Age. So, 1800 years.
I think that number that you singled out, of 0.003 degrees Celsius rise in ocean temperature per year, comes from the commentary on the Scripps Oceanography website, which I posted here [XXX].
If that number were characteristic of the entire period from 1 to 1800 CE, it would translate to an increase of almost 6C (6 degrees Celsius) by 1800, compared to the planet at the very beginning of the Christian Era. That is an enormous planetary warming.
Objection your honor. speculation. fact is, you don't know what the water temps were from 0-1800, nor do you know if the temps were rising or falling during those 1800 years. so you have no basis for comparison on what temps are rising today. that is why you used the word "if". I can play the speculation game too. watch this.
I think the number .003 of the entire period from 1800 to present is actually less of a rise then what it was from 0-1800. water temps were rising faster during 0-1800 then they are now. its actually trending lower. see? its just that simple to disprove your speculation game. your whole post was speculation. no hard facts proving that all .003 was caused by man let alone any of it. no facts at all. nice try though.
A decorous response to my previous post, to be sure.
Paleoclimatology is the enterprise of using all available lines of evidence to make inferences about climate before present day, and before any direct human observations and measurements were recorded. This includes the analysis of fossil organisms and mineral compositions at different depths in sedimentary layers, corresponding to different periods of time before present, when sediments were deposited at the bottom of oceans and streams. Analysis of fossil air (literally) that has been preserved and is recoverable from cross sections of ice, taken at various depths by drilling into ice sheets; i.e., ice core drilling and recovery techniques. Analysis of tree rings from old growth forests. I don't need to present the A to Z of paleoclimatology just to bring it into this discussion.
So you may speculate freely (as you just did), but specialists have data from paleoclimatology to inform their ideas.
From 2013 (November), a report "Pacific Ocean heating up faster than in past 10,000 years". And so it began:
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The Pacific Ocean is warming at a faster rate than it has in the previous 10,000 years, suggesting more difficulties in countering the effects of global warming, according to a new study published Friday in the journal Science.
The study, "Pacific Ocean Heat Content During the Past 10,000 Years," reconstructs Pacific Ocean temperatures in the last 100 centuries by measuring the chemistry of ancient marine life to recreate the climates in which they lived.
In 2003, researchers went to Indonesia to collect cores of sediment from the seas where water from the Pacific flows into the Indian Ocean. They compared the levels of magnesium to calcium in the shells of Hyalinea balthica, a one-celled organism buried in those sediments, in order to estimate the temperature of the middle-depth waters where the organism lived, about 1,500 to 3,000 feet below sea level.
The measurements of middle-depth temperatures in this region are representative of the larger western Pacific, the researchers said, since the waters around Indonesia originate from the mid-depths of the North and South Pacific.
Based on these findings, researchers concluded that the middle depths have warmed 15 times faster in the last 60 years than they did during natural warming cycles in the previous 10,000 years.
Was that the last word? Hardly. The report continued:
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Some experts, though, find aspects of the study problematic. For instance, John Abraham, a professor of thermal sciences at the University of St. Thomas School of Engineering, Minnesota, said that sediment studies are poor measurements of recent temperature information. Uncertainties in the rates at which sediments form coupled with bioturbation – a process through which sedimentary layers are mixed by animals – result in a great deal of doubt.
So, was THAT (from John Abraham) the last word, about the conclusions that should be drawn from those particular marine sediments? Nope. After that counter thrust from John Abraham, the report proceeded with this:
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Despite skepticism, experts believe studies like this show that Earth is experiencing an unprecedented energy imbalance.
Current research indicates that heat stored in the oceans could be released into the atmosphere in the future, obstructing human efforts to stabilize global temperatures by cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists warn that global warming, caused by the emissions, could dramatically raise average temperatures by the end of the century, causing widespread famine and violent storms.
Scientists have also warned that ocean warming could adversely affect marine life and accelerate climate change. Previous studies have shown rising ocean temperatures to be both a symptom and a multiplier of global warming.
Future studies, writes Abraham, can build on this one and produce a more comprehensive picture to gain a better understanding of what the future climate will be if humans do not curtail greenhouse emissions.
That was from 2013. And today, the beat goes on.
As a climate layman, and not a professional, I know that I cannot know for certain, based strictly on my own personal observations and knowledge. I have to go with the flow. And for me, scientific consensus is much like pornography (famously) in the eyes of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart: "I know it when I see it."
Here is what I see as positive scientific consensus about Attribution of Global Warming. And this is from current year--2015:
What do scientists think? That is an important question when engaging in science communication, in which an attempt is made to communicate the scientific understanding to a lay audience. To address this question we undertook a large and detailed survey among scientists studying various aspects of climate change , dubbed “perhaps the most thorough survey of climate scientists ever” by well-known climate scientist and science communicator Gavin Schmidt.
Among more than 1800 respondents we found widespread agreement that global warming is predominantly caused by human greenhouse gases. This consensus strengthens with increased expertise, as defined by the number of self-reported articles in the peer-reviewed literature. 90% of respondents with more than 10 climate-related peer-reviewed publications (about half of all respondents), agreed that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are the dominant cause of recent global warming, i.e. having contributed more than half of the observed warming. With this survey we specified what the consensus position entails with much greater specificity than previous studies. The relevance of this consensus for science communication will be discussed.
Another important result from our survey is that the main attribution statement in IPCC’s fourth assessment report (AR4) may lead to an underestimate of the greenhouse gas contribution to warming, because it implicitly includes the lesser known masking effect of cooling aerosols. This shows the importance of the exact wording in high-profile reports such as those from IPCC in how the statement is perceived, even by fellow scientists. The phrasing was improved in the most recent assessment report (AR5).
Respondents who characterized the human influence on climate as insignificant, reported having the most frequent media coverage regarding their views on climate change. This shows that contrarian opinions are amplified in the media in relation to their prevalence in the scientific community. This is related to what is sometimes referred to as “false balance” in media reporting and may partly explain the divergence between public and scientific opinion regarding climate change.
once again, your post is from speculating scientists. they have no real hard data knowing what ocean temps were like 2k years ago. it takes more energy to heat water than air. air temps haven't risen in 17 years. scientists have conceded this fact. Also recent reports have stated that scientists have doctored the old data to show a warming trend, which is now proven for the past 100 years isn't true either. if air temps aren't going up, neither is ocean temps. .003 degrees? up wellings or perhaps more underwater volcanoes or ocean vents is causing the heating. not man. man is not the cause. but if you think man is, should we get rid of all men? can you be first? you believe you are the problem. so what will you do with your life to save the planet?
the earth has been warmer in the past. it got cooler, now its getting warmer again. man isn't the cause of the warming. we had an ice age. we no longer are in an ice age. the climate changed and not because of man.
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh blasted President Barack Obama’s insistence that climate change “poses the world’s biggest threat” Monday after hundreds drowned trying to flee Libya and ISIS beheaded more Christians over the weekend.
Opening his Monday program, Limbaugh called climate change “one of the biggest scams that has ever been perpetrated on the people of the world,” adding that the whole idea isn’t “even worth a factual discussion.”
The comments Limbaugh was questioning came from Obama’s weekly address on Saturday, in which he said there is “no greater threat” than climate change ahead of Earth Day, which he plans to spend in the Florida Everglades.
“The point is that we got Iran on the verge of a nuclear weapon. ISIS is on the march beheading and killing Christians everywhere…There is mass murder, there is death, there is mayhem, there is torture, there is slavery. The human condition is in great peril all over the world,” Limbaugh said. “And here he comes again, Barack Hussein O, the President of the United States on Saturday saying that climate change poses the world’s biggest threat. It’s just silly. It’s not even worth a factual discussion.”
“Even though there hasn’t been any increase in the world’s temperature for 18 years and even if it were to happen, even if the global warming that is predicted by these baseless computer models, even if it were to happen exactly as the models say, it’s not the end of anything,” Limbaugh continued.
“It does not destroy the world. It does not destroy anything,” Limbaugh said. “It’s one of the biggest scams that has ever been perpetrated on the people of the world….Temperatures have risen and fallen throughout the history of the universe and — the earth is still here and the population has grown exponentially during all of these fluctuations in temperature.”
“Global warming is nothing other than computer models. Even today there’s no evidence of it,” Limbaugh continued. “I mean, not one kernel of factual evidence that anybody can point to and say, ‘See? The models are right.’ There is no certitude, there is no consensus, science isn’t a consensus.”
“Climate change is one of the most front-and-center opportunities that statists and totalitarians have at their disposal for quelling the freedom of individual people the world over, by blaming everybody for it,” Limbaugh explained. “That’s why it’s so exciting.”
“It’s the greatest threat of all the threats out there,” Limbaugh said sarcastically. “It poses the single greatest threat to you, your family, your neighborhood, your town, your city, than anything else happening. It’s absurd…it’s just the ongoing liberal effort, like health care was, to attempt to wrest and exert as much control over individuals as possible. That’s why people like Obama and others of his ilk salivate.”
they are an astro-turf group created and funded by big coal they LIE as their funders want and direct them to do
there is proof CO2 retains heat the sun in the resent cycle is a bit lower in output but because of more CO2 in the air the temps did not drop but with less heat input remain nearly the same as before the drop in solar output
facts are something the teaparty does NOT want to understand so they LIE about the facts that is all they can do
Ray with the name calling and bigotry. But ray, I thought leftists and democrats were the tolerant ones? ray, if co2 traps heat why do you continue to exhale? everytime you do, you destroy the planet a little bit more. and here I thought you actually cared. temps haven't risen in 17 years ray. that's a fact bigoted radical leftists like you don't like to discuss
"Temperatures have not risen in 17 years"... I don't buy that.
This link will only be of interest to those with the patience for more than six or eight-word long sound bytes. It's about a two or three-page read. Anywhere that a word or phrase is highlighted in blue colored text, a reader could "click it" and branch to another page that fills out the discussion with more detail.
April 8, 2015 "Global warming hiatus explained and it's not good news"
"You may have heard that global warming has 'paused' but it's only one part of a bigger picture and the search for understanding has equipped climate scientists with better tools than ever."
"Temperatures have not risen in 17 years"... I don't buy it ]
so you are a denier than. Its scientific fact temps haven't risen and your links admit it albeit offer excuses as to why their computer models were wrong. either way temps globally are not up. If you don't believe it then you are a denier of science. Let me guess the world is flat too right?
So your solution to excessive co2 is to stop breathing? I'm probably misunderstanding your post.
define excessive. Would it be a turbocharged v8 like what you have? I would say that's excessive. You going to give that up because I think you are killing the planet? the EPA says co2 is a polluter. Which means according to your govt, breathing pollutes. If you believe co2 is bad for the planet then stop breathing. or don't you care about the planet?
Ray with the name calling and bigotry. But ray, I thought leftists and democrats were the tolerant ones? ray, if co2 traps heat why do you continue to exhale? everytime you do, you destroy the planet a little bit more. and here I thought you actually cared. temps haven't risen in 17 years ray. that's a fact bigoted radical leftists like you don't like to discuss
Really. Ray has to use a slur like teabaggers instead of Tea Party to try to get his point across. So you say Tea Party is in the pocket of Big Coal...in whose pockets do you suppose your leftists stick their grubby little hands? And the defacing of the Gadsden Flag is inappropriate considering the historical significance of the flag but whatever, first amendment and all....
Your link said temps haven't risen and gives an excuse as to why and says its not good. Your link rinselberg says they have not risen. Proof rinselberg is a denier and a flat earther
The verdict is in: Sticking your head in the sand wont stop climate change.If you think it will, you may have the symptoms of a very serious disease. See your physician (if you have the money) for suggestions about curing your disease.
I cant believe anyone is STILL 'debating' this. ------------------
I speak English. Sue me.
[This message has been edited by NEPTUNE (edited 04-22-2015).]
As opposed to democrats plan for healthcare. Your grandma can't have surgery to save her life. Instead we will give her a pill for the pain so she can die slowly and painfully. Obama said that. that is a better solution right Neptune?
hey Neptune, the climate changed which melted the glaciers 40k years ago. Why couldn't primitive man at the time stopped that from happening? What technology does modern man have to stop that from happening today? What technology does man have today to keep glaciers or ice packs from growing?
The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were the only geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming.
define excessive. Would it be a turbocharged v8 like what you have? I would say that's excessive. You going to give that up because I think you are killing the planet? the EPA says co2 is a polluter. Which means according to your govt, breathing pollutes. If you believe co2 is bad for the planet then stop breathing. or don't you care about the planet?
How are you still posting when you've been banned Shaun?
[This message has been edited by dratts (edited 04-22-2015).]
Power said that 1998, the start of the 'pause', was a particularly hot year due to the natural El Niño climate pattern that has a warming influence on worldwide temperatures.
Power said that if you choose a 15-year period starting in 1996 instead of 1998 then the rate of warming almost triples to 0.14°C per decade.
"Globally average surface temperature is just one measure of changes in the Earth's climate system," he says.
During the 15-year 'hiatus' period, studies of other aspects of the climate system have continued to show warming as expected.
The world's oceans have continued to gain heat, a recent study has found. And, in late March, a study in the prestigious journal Science found Antarctica's ice sheets were melting at an accelerating rate.
So, according to bigformula, "temperatures have not risen for 17 years"..?
Really? Reading comprehension?
Just to pick on one part of this, consider some large expanses of the world's oceans, from the surface, down to a depth of about 6000 feet (over a mile below the surface). The ARGO network, which started about year 2000 and expanded to 3000 measurement stations by 2007, has been reporting temperature data from this ocean regime. That is part of the data that went into the studies that are behind the sentence that begins with "The world's oceans have continued to gain heat ...". In other words, rising temperatures. Because ocean temperatures are the only direct measurement of heat energy stored in the oceans.
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 04-23-2015).]
The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were the only geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming.
There's no doubt that there were other factors during the Ordovician Period, aside from (in addition to) the greenhouse warming effect of very high concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (4400 ppm) :
"The Ordovician Period lasted almost 45 million years, beginning 488.3 million years ago and ending 443.7 million years ago. During this period, the area north of the tropics was almost entirely ocean, and most of the world's land was collected into the southern supercontinent Gondwana. Throughout the Ordovician, Gondwana shifted towards the South Pole and much of it was submerged underwater."
That was almost a half billion years ago. As far as the differences between what is going on today, and what was going on a half-billion years ago, that much (about the way that the Ordovician oceans and land masses were entirely different in geography from today) is only a small part of it. This is the Apples versus Oranges comparison problem.
The people who believe that reducing human greenhouse gas emissions is an urgent necessity are not saying that this would protect the planet (and its human inhabitants) from drastic climate changes for an indefinite period into the future--only for about the next thousand years. If you consider how much of an increase there has been in human capabilities over recent history, even preserving the earth's climate in a human-friendly condition for just another 100 years would be a significant accomplishment. Because, in another 100 years, humans will likely be capable of much more than we are today, in terms of protecting our societies from unfriendly climate changes.
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 04-23-2015).]
Today is Earth Day and to hear the experts like Usher and Al Gore tell the story, the planet is in a miserable state. We’re running out of our natural resources, we’re overpopulating the globe and running out of room, the air that we breathe is becoming toxic, the oceans are rising and soon major coastal cities will be underwater, and the Earth is, of course, heating up, except when it is cooling down.
This is perhaps the single greatest misinformation campaign in world history. Virtually none of these claims are even close to the truth—except for the fact that our climate is always changing as it has for hundreds of thousands of years.
Since the first Earth Day back in the 1970s, the environmentalists—those who worship the creation rather than the Creator—have issued one false prediction of Armageddon after another. Yet despite a batting average approaching zero, the media and our schools keep parroting their declinism as if they were oracles rather than proven shysters.
Here are the factual realities that we should be celebrating on Earth Day.
1) Natural resources are more abundant and affordable today than ever before in history. Short-term (sometimes decades-long) volatility aside, the price of most natural resources—from cocoa to cotton to coal—is cheaper today in real terms than 50, 100, or 500 years ago. This has happened even as the world’s population has nearly tripled. Technology has far outpaced depletion of the Earth’s resources.
2) Energy—the master resource—is super abundant. Remember when people like Paul Ehrlich nearly 50 years ago and Barack Obama just three years ago—warned the we were running out of oil and gas. Today, thanks to the new age of oil and gas thanks to fracking, the United States has hundreds of years of petroleum and an estimated 290 years of coal. Keep in mind, this may be a low-ball estimate; since 2000, the Energy Information Administration’s estimates of recoverable reserves have actually increased by more than 7 percent.
We’re not running out of energy, we are running into it.
3) Air and water. Since the late 1970s, pollutants in the air have plunged. Lead pollution plunged by more than 90 percent, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide by more than 50 percent, with ozone and nitrogen dioxide declining as well. This means that emissions per capita have declined even as the economy in terms of real GDP nearly tripled. By nearly every standard measure it is much, much, much cleaner today in the United States than 50 and 100 years ago. The air is so clean now that the EPA worries about carbon dioxide which isn’t even a pollutant. (And, by the way, carbon emissions are falling too, thanks to fracking). One hundred years ago, about one in four deaths in the U.S. was due to contaminants in drinking water. But from 1971-2002, fewer than three people per year in the U.S. were documented to have died from water contamination.
4) There is no Malthusian nightmare of overpopulation. Birth rates have fallen by about one-half around the world over the last 50 years. Developed countries are having too few kids, not too many. Even with a population of 7.3 billion people, average incomes, especially in poor countries, have surged over the last 40 years. The number of people in abject poverty fell by 1 billion from 1981 to 2011, even as global population increased by more than 1.5 billion.
5) Global per capita food production is 40 percent higher today than as recently as 1950. In most nations the nutrition problem today is obesity—too many calories consumed—not hunger. The number of famines and related deaths over the last 100 years has fallen in half. More than 12 million lives on average were lost each decade from the 1920s-1960s to famine. Since then, fewer than 4 million lives on average per decade were lost. Tragically, these famines are often caused by political corruption—not nature. Furthermore, the price of food has fallen steadily in the U.S.—and most other nations steadily for 200 years.
6) The rate of death and physical destruction from natural disasters or severe weather changes has plummeted over the last 50 to 100 years. Loss of life from hurricanes, floods, heat, droughts, and so on is at or near record lows. This is because we have much better advance warning systems, our infrastructure is much more durable, and we have things like air conditioning, to adapt to weather changes. ?We are constantly discovering new ways to harness and even tame nature.
Earth Day should be a day of joy and celebration that life on this bountiful planet is better than anytime in human history. The state of the planet has never been in such fine shape by almost every objective measure. The Chicken Littles are as wrong today as they were 50 years ago. This is very good news for those who believe that one of our primary missions as human beings is to make life better over time and to leave our planet better off for future generations.
Originally posted by rinselberg: Paleoclimatology is the enterprise of using all available lines of evidence to make inferences about climate before present day, and before any direct human observations and measurements were recorded. This includes the analysis of fossil organisms and mineral compositions at different depths in sedimentary layers, corresponding to different periods of time before present, when sediments were deposited at the bottom of oceans and streams. Analysis of fossil air (literally) that has been preserved and is recoverable from cross sections of ice, taken at various depths by drilling into ice sheets; i.e., ice core drilling and recovery techniques. Analysis of tree rings from old growth forests. I don't need to present the A to Z of paleoclimatology just to bring it into this discussion.
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Originally posted by rinselberg: That was almost a half billion years ago. As far as the differences between what is going on today, and what was going on a half-billion years ago, that much (about the way that the Ordovician oceans and land masses were entirely different in geography from today) is only a small part of it. This is the Apples versus Oranges comparison problem.
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Originally posted by rinselberg: I don't contradict or deny my own sources.
Just curious as to why it is ok for you to cite "Paleoclimatology" and then dismiss it when I used it "Apples versus Oranges"?
Originally posted by Mickey_Moose: Just curious as to why it is OK for you to cite "Paleoclimatology" and then dismiss it when I used it "Apples versus Oranges"?
Edmonton, hello..! A very fair question, indeed.
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How could evidence from Paleoclimatology be used to examine the current day relationship(s) that connect atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) with the state and dynamics of the earth's climates and ecosystems?
You have to look beyond just the atmospheric CO2 and also consider all of the other factors that would also be affecting and determining the planet's climate regimes and ecosystems during any previous time, in order to have valid comparisons with what is going on at the present time.
As you go farther back in time, it is generally a more difficult and problematic comparison. There is (generally) not as much data available to the paleoclimatologist in the way of fossil minerals and organisms (compared to more recent times), and the fossil data that has been recovered is more difficult to analyze. Farther back in time implies that there has been that much more time when the fossil data could have been subjected to subsequent events that are (in effect) "tampering with the evidence".
The chronological sequence in which sedimentation layers were originally deposited is more likely to have been disturbed by tectonic events, or even by the effects of living organisms. That much more time has elapsed for subsequent weathering processes and other natural reactions that change the original crystalline structures and chemical compositions of fossil minerals and organisms. So the inferences from fossil data about what it was like during a much earlier time (like the Ordovician Period, almost a half billion years ago) are more difficult and generally less reliable.
What else could have differentiated the Ordovician Period from what is going on today? As I said in my previous post, a completely different geographic configuration of oceans and land masses. The farther back you go in time, the more that factor has changed.
Volcanic activity? There have been times in the past when this was affecting the earth's atmosphere on a scale that no human or close human ancestor species has ever experienced. Depending on what is known about this during the Ordovician Period, vulcanism could have charged the earth's atmosphere with other chemical gases, aerosols and particulates (like soot from the combustion of carbon in plants that were set on fire) to the extent that it would be just about impossible to isolate and quantify the effects on climate from CO2 during the Ordovician Period, from all those other volcanic-induced effects on climate that could have been going on.
The energy that was being received from the sun? How has that changed the course of almost a half billion years since the Ordovician Period? I am going to go out on a limb here, without "Googling", but I think that astrophysicists can say with very high confidence that the earth was receiving fractionally less solar energy (compared to today). That far back in time, it was a "cooler" sun. That is very significant, in trying to compare the Ordovician climate regime to present day.
This should not be confused with any speculations about more recent and current changes in solar luminosity involving the cyclic ups and downs of sunspots, or how solar luminosity may have increased (coincidentally) since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Over a half-billion years, there has been a much larger fractional increase in solar luminosity, as the sun has aged. As stars like the sun get older, they burn hotter. (Use a search engine, check out some online references from the astrophysicist community.)
It's certainly admissible (a priori) to introduce prehistoric or paleoclimates in this discussion, but it has to be examined in a very disciplined and totally scientific way.
Am I an expert on the Ordovician Period? By no means.
Am I skeptical about the comment that was just presented here, that climate researchers who are very much into the greenhouse concerns about human CO2 emissions are subject to "consternation" when they consider the high CO2 levels and paradoxically Ice Age-like conditions during the Ordovician Period?
Yes. I'm skeptical about that comment.
Not saying that comment is "wrong". Just saying that I have not been exposed to that case and its arguments from the other sides in this discussion. (Or in my own readings.)
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 04-23-2015).]
Last week Secretary of State John Kerry warned graduating students at Boston College of the "crippling consequences" of climate change. "Ninety-seven percent of the world's scientists," he added, "tell us this is urgent."
Where did Mr. Kerry get the 97% figure? Perhaps from his boss, President Obama, who tweeted on May 16 that "Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous." Or maybe from NASA, which posted (in more measured language) on its website, "Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities."
Yet the assertion that 97% of scientists believe that climate change is a man-made, urgent problem is a fiction. The so-called consensus comes from a handful of surveys and abstract-counting exercises that have been contradicted by more reliable research.
One frequently cited source for the consensus is a 2004 opinion essay published in Science magazine by Naomi Oreskes, a science historian now at Harvard. She claimed to have examined abstracts of 928 articles published in scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and found that 75% supported the view that human activities are responsible for most of the observed warming over the previous 50 years while none directly dissented.
Ms. Oreskes's definition of consensus covered "man-made" but left out "dangerous"—and scores of articles by prominent scientists such as Richard Lindzen,John Christy, Sherwood Idso and Patrick Michaels, who question the consensus, were excluded. The methodology is also flawed. A study published earlier this year in Nature noted that abstracts of academic papers often contain claims that aren't substantiated in the papers.
Another widely cited source for the consensus view is a 2009 article in "Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union" by Maggie Kendall Zimmerman, a student at the University of Illinois, and her master's thesis adviser Peter Doran. It reported the results of a two-question online survey of selected scientists. Mr. Doran and Ms. Zimmerman claimed "97 percent of climate scientists agree" that global temperatures have risen and that humans are a significant contributing factor.
The survey's questions don't reveal much of interest. Most scientists who are skeptical of catastrophic global warming nevertheless would answer "yes" to both questions. The survey was silent on whether the human impact is large enough to constitute a problem. Nor did it include solar scientists, space scientists, cosmologists, physicists, meteorologists or astronomers, who are the scientists most likely to be aware of natural causes of climate change.
The "97 percent" figure in the Zimmerman/Doran survey represents the views of only 79 respondents who listed climate science as an area of expertise and said they published more than half of their recent peer-reviewed papers on climate change. Seventy-nine scientists—of the 3,146 who responded to the survey—does not a consensus make.
In 2010, William R. Love Anderegg, then a student at Stanford University, used Google Scholar to identify the views of the most prolific writers on climate change. His findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. Mr. Love Anderegg found that 97% to 98% of the 200 most prolific writers on climate change believe "anthropogenic greenhouse gases have been responsible for 'most' of the 'unequivocal' warming." There was no mention of how dangerous this climate change might be; and, of course, 200 researchers out of the thousands who have contributed to the climate science debate is not evidence of consensus.
In 2013, John Cook, an Australia-based blogger, and some of his friends reviewed abstracts of peer-reviewed papers published from 1991 to 2011. Mr. Cook reported that 97% of those who stated a position explicitly or implicitly suggest that human activity is responsible for some warming. His findings were published in Environmental Research Letters.
Mr. Cook's work was quickly debunked. In Science and Education in August 2013, for example, David R. Legates (a professor of geography at the University of Delaware and former director of its Center for Climatic Research) and three coauthors reviewed the same papers as did Mr. Cook and found "only 41 papers—0.3 percent of all 11,944 abstracts or 1.0 percent of the 4,014 expressing an opinion, and not 97.1 percent—had been found to endorse" the claim that human activity is causing most of the current warming. Elsewhere, climate scientists including Craig Idso,Nicola Scafetta,Nir J. Shaviv and Nils-Axel Morner, whose research questions the alleged consensus, protested that Mr. Cook ignored or misrepresented their work.
Rigorous international surveys conducted by German scientists Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch—most recently published in Environmental Science & Policy in 2010—have found that most climate scientists disagree with the consensus on key issues such as the reliability of climate data and computer models. They do not believe that climate processes such as cloud formation and precipitation are sufficiently understood to predict future climate change.
Surveys of meteorologists repeatedly find a majority oppose the alleged consensus. Only 39.5% of 1,854 American Meteorological Society members who responded to a survey in 2012 said man-made global warming is dangerous.
Finally, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—which claims to speak for more than 2,500 scientists—is probably the most frequently cited source for the consensus. Its latest report claims that "human interference with the climate system is occurring, and climate change poses risks for human and natural systems." Yet relatively few have either written on or reviewed research having to do with the key question: How much of the temperature increase and other climate changes observed in the 20th century was caused by man-made greenhouse-gas emissions? The IPCC lists only 41 authors and editors of the relevant chapter of the Fifth Assessment Report addressing "anthropogenic and natural radiative forcing."
Of the various petitions on global warming circulated for signatures by scientists, the one by the Petition Project, a group of physicists and physical chemists based in La Jolla, Calif., has by far the most signatures—more than 31,000 (more than 9,000 with a Ph.D.). It was most recently published in 2009, and most signers were added or reaffirmed since 2007. The petition states that "there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of . . . carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."
We could go on, but the larger point is plain. There is no basis for the claim that 97% of scientists believe that man-made climate change is a dangerous problem.
Really. Ray has to use a slur like teabaggers instead of Tea Party to try to get his point across. So you say Tea Party is in the pocket of Big Coal...in whose pockets do you suppose your leftists stick their grubby little hands? And the defacing of the Gadsden Flag is inappropriate considering the historical significance of the flag but whatever, first amendment and all....
they are the ones using the teabag as a political symbol and lying to get tax exemptions as they a purely political group
my ancestors fought on both sides of the revolutionary war I will fly what ever flag I please
------------------ Question wonder and be wierd are you kind?
define excessive. Would it be a turbocharged v8 like what you have? I would say that's excessive.
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How are you still posting when you've been banned Shaun?
Why don't you answer the question pussy? Proof you are a hypocrite, and how everyone else needs to emit less c02, while you don't have to. proof you don't really care.
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posted by rinselberg "You may have heard that global warming has 'paused'
Oh I see so the word pause doesn't mean a pause, it really means "temps still climbing" Wow thanks. thats good info to know.
Hey NEPTUNE, why does obama hate old people and won't let them have surgery if needed but instead give them a pill to die in pain?
there is the resident tough guy. yyou can do like 100k situps at a time and curl 300 lbs right? you made some assinine comment like that before. where is the proof ***** ?
Yes, I work out quite a bit. I find that it keeps my insanity at bay. Well, just barely. I am able to curl 120 lbs., with one arm. I do over 1,000 situps. I can perform well over 100 one arm pushups. I have fallen a bit on pull ups, but I still do around 50 at a time. One armed pull ups? Yep. My bench is only around 260. I have never been able to really do more than that? Eh, at 190 lbs., 41, and graying/balding, I am an anomaly."
Where is the video proof tough guy? love the posture from someone who claims to be so ripped.
just post a video of your claims. it will take 10 minutes. you can't do it. your bs has been called. I love that pic of you all huntched over like Igor. I want to see you do 100 one armed push ups with a mountain dew in your other hand like in the pic above. face it, you are a sloth.
and why would a self claimed nice guy like you want "any and all pertinent" information about another member? what do you plan to do with it? do nice things with it? Hypocrite.
[This message has been edited by starnes691 (edited 04-26-2015).]
You talk to yourself on your Face Book wall! A quick search made me laugh. OMG! You actually talk to yourself! Ha! Funniest **** I will see all week.
I always thought that was a joke, but it is REAL. ROTFFLMFAO! Hold on, I will show my girlfriend this. I will let her comment next. Ha! Too funny. Too true. "Lonely is the night..."
cool post the link of the facebook account so everyone else can see it. while you are at it, post up the video of you doing 100 one arm pushups.
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Originally posted by Tony Kania:
Yes, I work out quite a bit. I find that it keeps my insanity at bay. Well, just barely. I am able to curl 120 lbs., with one arm. I do over 1,000 situps. I can perform well over 100 one arm pushups. I have fallen a bit on pull ups, but I still do around 50 at a time. One armed pull ups? Yep. My bench is only around 260. I have never been able to really do more than that? Eh, at 190 lbs., 41, and graying/balding, I am an anomaly."
[This message has been edited by starnes691 (edited 04-26-2015).]
love the posture from someone who claims to be so ripped.
I always thought that was a joke, but it is REAL. ROTFFLMFAO! Hold on, I will show my girlfriend this. I will let her comment next. Ha! Too funny. Too true. "Lonely is the night..."
