Climate change
In Mr. Schallert’s letter, he says, “as a proud denier of global warming, I will continue to enjoy producing all my carbon emissions and be reminded of Chicken Little every time one of these stupid stories hits the paper.” Mr. Volskis states that, “There is no scientific evidence that we are causing global warming.” The deniers of Climate Change seem to have a disregard for the mountain of evidence documenting that Climate Change is a real threat and that the major crisis we now face is of our own making. The evidence is well-documented in peer-reviewed scientific journals. No legitimate scientist questions Climate Change anymore. They only resistance comes from paid pundits in newspapers and, sadly, our own government.
The problem goes beyond this issue. We live in a time where the gut is trusted more than logic. We live in a time where the media makes it seem like, in every issue, both sides are equally valid. This is not always the case. How can one, being in his or her right mind, deny evidence when it is presented, without legitimate counter-evidence? Sometimes, we must swallow our pride and bow to the evidence, and to the correct conclusion that our capability for rational thought must lead us to.
Why would one knowingly continue wasteful, hurtful behavior? Aristotle reminds us that when the mind knows one action to be good, it will always incline to that action. How could it ever make sense to deny overwhelming evidence in order to continue destructive behavior?
This letter has not been edited.
Because it is only the liberals that believe there is undisputable evidence that we cause global warming. People like Al Gore are making money off people having to pay for carbon credits. The scientists that disagree with the liberals are totally ignored as not knowing what they are talking about.
Posted by [Jim in Erie] on June 28, 2007 04:39 PMFrom Kevin Trenberth, head of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research and one of the top advisors of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC):
"None of the models used by IPCC is initialised to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models corresponds even remotely to the current observed climate.
"The state of the oceans, sea ice and soil moisture has no relationship to the observed state at any recent time in any of the IPCC models.
"There is neither an El Nino sequence nor any Pacific Decadal Oscillation that replicates the recent past; yet these are critical modes of variability that affect Pacific rim countries and beyond . . . the starting climate state in several of the models may depart significantly from the real climate owing to model errors" and "regional climate change is impossible to deal with properly unless the models are initialised".
GCMs "assume linearity" which "works for global forced variations, but it cannot work for many aspects of climate, especially those related to the water cycle . . . the science is not done because we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate".
And there you have it.
Posted by KW on June 28, 2007 05:08 PMWhat's this? Glaciers growing right here in the USA amidst this catastrophy of global warming?
And glaciers are also growing in France? How can this be?
Posted by KW on June 28, 2007 05:17 PMHe!! froze over?
Posted by RU Serious on June 28, 2007 07:03 PMIt seems to me that a lot of people who believe in this 'overwhelming evidence in favor of Global Warming' were the students who sat in the back of science class and talked about how awesome their weekend was going to be.
Just because a scientist produces a paper does not mean his data was correctly collected, analyzed, and interpreted. I'll admit I've had my own findings at work torn apart because of a certain factor I did not account for in my experiments. With something as complex as the climate (and models which can barely be correct about the "partly sunny" weather one week from now) I have to look at every report skeptically considering what is at stake.
The global warming camp has shifted gears continuously as certain aspects of their argument are proven false by closer inspection (don't think that peer-review is helping weed these problems out in the first place; if your colleague asked you to review a paper, how thoroughly would you edit its contents?) They have even taken on the name 'Global Climate Change' so that any change in climate can be attributed to greenhouse gases. I have in front of me Al Gore's book which states that Kilamanjaro is melting due to global warming, but now it is understood to be a land use issue. Recent studies have shown that a decrease in solar activity allows more cosmic radiation to pass through the Earth's atmosphere and aid in cloud formation (an aspect of climate that models do not even take into account. Who has ever been outside on a hot day and NOT noticed a difference when a cloud passes overhead?)
The climate change debate will lose steam over the years as nothing changes and more and more evidence points out the fact that humans have very little control over how the atmosphere changes through time.
Posted by Steve S on June 28, 2007 07:53 PMIt seems to me that a lot of people who believe in this 'overwhelming evidence in favor of Global Warming' were the students who sat in the back of science class and talked about how awesome their weekend was going to be.
Just because a scientist produces a paper does not mean his data was correctly collected, analyzed, and interpreted. I'll admit I've had my own findings at work torn apart because of a certain factor I did not account for in my experiments. With something as complex as the climate (and models which can barely be correct about the "partly sunny" weather one week from now) I have to look at every report skeptically considering what is at stake.
The global warming camp has shifted gears continuously as certain aspects of their argument are proven false by closer inspection (don't think that peer-review is helping weed these problems out in the first place; if your colleague asked you to review a paper, how thoroughly would you edit its contents?) They have even taken on the name 'Global Climate Change' so that any change in climate can be attributed to greenhouse gases. I have in front of me Al Gore's book which states that Kilamanjaro is melting due to global warming, but now it is understood to be a land use issue. Recent studies have shown that a decrease in solar activity allows more cosmic radiation to pass through the Earth's atmosphere and aid in cloud formation (an aspect of climate that models do not even take into account. Who has ever been outside on a hot day and NOT noticed a difference when a cloud passes overhead?)
The climate change debate will lose steam over the years as nothing changes and more and more evidence points out the fact that humans have very little control over how the atmosphere changes through time.
Posted by Steve S on June 28, 2007 07:54 PMSteve S -
"Just because a scientist produces a paper does not mean his data was correctly collected, analyzed, and interpreted. I'll admit I've had my own findings at work torn apart because of a certain factor I did not account for in my experiments."
...
"Recent studies have shown that a decrease in solar activity allows more cosmic radiation to pass through the Earth's atmosphere and aid in cloud formation (an aspect of climate that models do not even take into account."Posted by CL on June 28, 2007 09:15 PM
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 34, L04701, doi:10.1029/2006GL028083, 2007
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/clavr/amato/2006GL028083.pdf"The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) multi-decadal record of cloudiness exhibits a wellknown global decrease in cloud amounts. This downward trend has recently been used to suggest widespread increases in surface solar heating, decreases in planetary albedo, and deficiencies in global climate models. Here we show that trends observed in the ISCCP data are satellite viewing geometry artifacts and are not related to physical changes in the atmosphere. Our results suggest that in its current form, the ISCCP data may not be appropriate for certain long-term global studies, especially those focused on trends." (emphasis mine)
Oops...
And there's no evidence that smoking it bad for your health. It's all a big government lie....
Posted by Liam on June 28, 2007 09:43 PMSteve said ”It seems to me that a lot of people who believe in this 'overwhelming evidence in favor of Global Warming' were the students who sat in the back of science class and talked about how awesome their weekend was going to be.”
That is typical of most people in science class, but not that typical of scientists, who are the folks behind the issue of climate change and warming.
So it would be interesting as to why it “seems to you” that this would be the case, or was this one of those Fox News tricks like “some people say”?
”…(don't think that peer-review is helping weed these problems out in the first place; if your colleague asked you to review a paper, how thoroughly would you edit its contents?)… “
So evidently you think that peer review means getting a buddy to agree with what you wrote?
Hmmm… I can see where science education may be falling down a tad, or were you one of those guys in the back of the class dreaming about the weekend?
No Steve, while the peer-review process certainly has its faults, this is not an accurate description of the process.
”Recent studies have shown that a decrease in solar activity allows more cosmic radiation to pass through the Earth's atmosphere and aid in cloud formation (an aspect of climate that models do not even take into account.”
Ok, so your belief is that the fewer solar flares there are the less of this increased energy gets through our atmosphere? Sort of a homeopathic mechanism where the hotter it gets the cooler it is. I think you meant to say “sunspot activity”. (btw Flare to spot ratio tends to even things out.)
So in that case, the less energy the sun puts out towards us, the less enters the atmosphere, but then this results in more cloud cover? That’s also backwards. The higher the energy, the more evaporation, the more cloud cover is how it works.
You are right that some models don’t take cloud cover into account, and that it because clouds cast a shadow both ways and are also transient. In other words, they shield the ground immediately below them from some solar output (some just scatters, some goes right through), but they shield infra-red and visible light from reflecting back into space, and they do it to light coming from a far greater area than what they shielded.
”The climate change debate will lose steam over the years as nothing changes and more and more evidence points out the fact that humans have very little control over how the atmosphere changes through time.”
What do you mean “as nothing changes”?
It was visible change and change in data that led to this whole investigation.
People from all kinds of fields were turning in reports of changes, from spread of fungus, to changes in migration patterns, to animal, plant, and insect die-offs or movements, to changes in iceberg calving, to ice-sheet movement, to coastline changes, to temperature changes in the oceans, to crop changes, to irrigation changes, to salinity and pH changes, and on, and on.
Just about every field of science was reporting unusual things that made sense in the context of a global warming event.
We may prove in time that we were looking at this wrong, but at the moment the scientific position is that we are looking at a novel warming event for which the most significant cause is human activity.
A man I know has a pomegranate growing in Colorado. Outside, jokers, just to head you off.
I know that is an antidote and the plural of antidote, as a wise man once said, is not data, but that is amazing.
Do any of you know of other weird stuff growing here? Melting glaciers depends on other variables then heat, Particulate matter on them catches sunlight and melts them.
Making a list of warm weather plants moving North is fascinating. Can anyone add to mine?l
Posted by Sharon B. on July 1, 2007 07:12 AM