Climate Change

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NickP
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Re: Climate Change

Postby NickP » March 27th, 2014, 7:09 am

It is a contrarian view, one that I disagree with, but I find your post to be really well written. Props :)

mplsjaromir
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Re: Climate Change

Postby mplsjaromir » March 27th, 2014, 7:13 am

To me the strongest evidence is the retreating of glaciers globally. Due to Milankovitch cycles the Earth's glaciers should on net be extending. Instead over the last 100 years glaciers have made major retreats.

Those in this region will likely benefit from global warming. The big concern I have for human beings is the salinization of the Mekong River. One billion people rely on if food production, high salt levels in the Mekong would have devastating cascade effects.

Rich
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Re: Climate Change

Postby Rich » March 27th, 2014, 7:18 am

Let me repeat…no warming since 1997


According to the UN World Meteorological Organization, 13 of the 14 warmest years on record have all occurred since 2000. The hottest year ever on record is 2010. Shall I repeat that or did you get it?
Anyone who claims to understand all the nuances of climate and be able to predict, with certainty, where climate is headed, is lying or delusional. Or both.


97% of climate scientists agree that the warming we’re seeing is caused by humans. There is not one single national or major scientific institution on the planet that disputes the theory of anthropogenic climate change. But in your mind these people are all lying or delusional.
Why lie? Money. Power. Popularity. Politics. Get invited to all the right parties and hang out with the cool climatologists


Yes. Those ubercool climate scientists are all members of the wealthy and powerful jet set. And their parties are legendary.
Climate science is a science in evolution. Not so long ago, Time and the NYT were concerned about "the coming ice age".
Once upon a time a few writers pushed sensationalist stories about a new ice age in order to sell papers. Meanwhile there were 68 scientific studies on climate change done from 1965 to 1979. Only 10% of which predicted cooling. Even back in the 60s and 70s most climate scientists were predicting warming.

kiliff75
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Re: Climate Change

Postby kiliff75 » March 27th, 2014, 7:55 am

But we've seen no warming globally since 1997. Let me repeat…no warming since 1997. Look it up, its in all the papers.
The atmosphere, which takes up only 2% of the heat from increased greenhouse gases, is still warming...but at a slightly slower pace than during the 1980s and 1990s. A very large majority of the excess heat absorbed by the Earth from increased greenhouse gases goes into the ocean (93%). Warming of the deep ocean has accelerated over the time that is has slowed down in the atmosphere. To sum it up, we have more heat being absorbed by the ocean and less by the atmosphere because of changes in ocean currents that occur naturally. Give it enough time (a decade or two) and the heat absorbed by the deep ocean will be released into the atmosphere, probably the next time there is an El Niño event...or a return to the normal frequency of El Niños...which release heat from the ocean into the atmosphere.

Also, when you look at atmospheric temperatures over a short time period like 1997-2013, it will often be the case that natural variability completely overwhelms the warming from CO2. If you use a longer time frame then CO2 will dominate, which it has if you look at several decades of temperature data. The ocean is less susceptible to these fluctuations, and you see rather continuous warming in the oceans as a result.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global- ... ng-up.html

Snelbian
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Re: Climate Change

Postby Snelbian » March 27th, 2014, 8:55 am

Talking about global warming by only examining atmospheric temperatures and ignoring the huge increase in ocean temps is like dismissing evolution or plate tectonics because the rocks in your backyard don't look particularly active and your dog hasn't grown a third eye yet. It demonstrates a disingenuous approach to the subject, basic scientific illiteracy, or more likely both.

This discussion is pointless. The earth isn't flat, gravity works, bad vapors don't cause the plague and Hitler isn't hiding under Antarctica (obviously, since there's not much ice left to hide under). Dave Dahl is an idiot. That's the useful takeaway here.

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FISHMANPET
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Re: Climate Change

Postby FISHMANPET » March 27th, 2014, 9:51 am

The LA Times no longer publishes letters to the editor from climage change deniers.
Simply put, I do my best to keep errors of fact off the letters page; when one does run, a correction is published. Saying "there's no sign humans have caused climate change" is not stating an opinion, it's asserting a factual inaccuracy.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion- ... z2xB9Rrnqw

PhilmerPhil
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Re: Climate Change

Postby PhilmerPhil » March 27th, 2014, 10:27 am

Why is this even being discussed here? Because one user is a denier? I think we're all on the same page except for the kid.

David Greene
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Re: Climate Change

Postby David Greene » March 27th, 2014, 11:10 am

The LA Times no longer publishes letters to the editor from climage change deniers.
Simply put, I do my best to keep errors of fact off the letters page; when one does run, a correction is published. Saying "there's no sign humans have caused climate change" is not stating an opinion, it's asserting a factual inaccuracy.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion- ... z2xB9Rrnqw
I wish the Strib could be so enlightened.

I have no hope for the Putrid Press in that area.

Didier
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Re: Climate Change

Postby Didier » March 27th, 2014, 12:43 pm

But we've seen no warming globally since 1997. Let me repeat…no warming since 1997. Look it up, i
I'm curious what this means, since it was widely reported last year that the warmest years in recorded history have all come since 1998.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2 ... 3/4719911/

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Avian
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Re: Climate Change

Postby Avian » March 27th, 2014, 2:49 pm

....
I'm troubled by anthroprogenic global warmists who refuse to publish (or even consider) skeptical papers in peer reviewed journals. That's not science, that's hiding behind a wall of group think. If this theory is so sound, people should welcome debate and rigourous challenge....
But the challenges posed so far have proved not to be rigorous at all. They do not hold up to full analysis. They usually miss a piece of the puzzle or deliberately dismiss certain evidence. And those challenges have not been published in "peer-reviewed" journals because they don't stand up to scrutiny by those very peers. They appear in popular magazines and books and are agenda-driven.

You can't point to "the coldest winter in 30 years" as scientific proof that undermines AGW. That's just part of the natural cycles. We're on a rollercoaster when it comes to climate. There are annual ups and downs. The problem is that, on average, the rollercoaster is getting higher every year.

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”
― Plato

m b p
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Re: Climate Change

Postby m b p » March 27th, 2014, 3:06 pm

^Coldest winter in 30 years... for North America. The northern hemisphere just had one of it's hottest winters on record.

m b p
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Re: Climate Change

Postby m b p » March 27th, 2014, 3:31 pm

Saying the science is settled doesn't make it so. But I do love that phrase. That's what they said to Galileo. I remember when Al Gore said the North Pole would be ice free by, when was it, this summer, last summer? Or when the Met Office said kids in England would grow up "not knowing what snow was?" That was before the last two years set cold weather records across the UK. Most of the climate models around when Al Gore told us the science was settled predicted temperature rises by now on the order of 2-4 Deg C. But we've seen no warming globally since 1997. Let me repeat…no warming since 1997. Look it up, its in all the papers.

Look, I'm not saying that CO2 is not a greenhouse gas, but at this point we don't know what the sensitivity of the climate is to co2, and we don't understand all of the feedback mechanisms at play. The complexity of climate is too much for anyone to grasp with certainty. Anyone who claims to understand the all the nuances of climate and be able to predict, with certainty, where climate is headed, is lying or delusional. Or both.

Why lie? Money. Power. Popularity. Politics. Get invited to all the right parties and hang out with the cool climatologists….

Wasn't this past year supposed to be when we were going to see all those severe hurricanes? Whipped up all that heat energy in the oceans? Until actually it turned out that there were fewer Hurricanes recorded in the Atlantic in 100 years. Or maybe it was this past year that the polar bears would all disappear. Now that turns out to have been another scam, cooked up to raise our antennae (and open our wallets?) to help avert the coming climate catastrophe.

Climate science is a science in evolution. Not so long ago, Time and the NYT were concerned about "the coming ice age".

I'm troubled by anthroprogenic global warmists who refuse to publish (or even consider) skeptical papers in peer reviewed journals. That's not science, that's hiding behind a wall of group think. If this theory is so sound, people should welcome debate and rigourous challenge.

Sorry, know this is a contrarian view, but there it is.
I admire your try. but you are way off. Apparently scientists don't understand the mechanics of everything... but somehow you do. And you know enough to declare this to be a hoax.

yes... all of those scientists are lyeing for money, power, popularity, and politics. All of the billionaires , who worship money, power, popularity and politics, are telling us the truth.

I'm sorry if this comes across as rude. I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinions... but this IS fact. How can everything remain the same if we change the makeup of our atmosphere.

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FISHMANPET
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Re: Climate Change

Postby FISHMANPET » March 27th, 2014, 3:39 pm

By the way, a peer reviewed journal means the article is peer reviewed before being published, not after. If some crackpot climate scientist is writing papers denying climate change and trying to get them published in journals, the journals are turning them away because OTHER CLIMATE SCIENTISTS are reading the paper and deciding that it's not scientifically sound.

Bunk papers aren't going to get published to foster debate, only papers with a sound scientific basis are going to be published. If all the papers written on a sound scientific basis are coming to the same conclusion, and the ones that don't come to that conclusion aren't written on a sound scientific basis then...

Yep, probably a conspiracy.

m b p
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Re: Climate Change

Postby m b p » March 27th, 2014, 5:23 pm

Did anyone watch last week's Vice (HBO)? The first half of the 30 minute episode is about climate change. it was very interesting... look for it on your on-demand or piratebay or whatever you use.

From that episode, this should be some very simple basic proof for climate change deniers: It is a fact that darker objects absorb more heat from sunlight. Lighter objects reflect more radiation and don't warm up as fast. In recent decades, the white ice pack, in Greenland, is getting dingy. Why? Soot. We are burning so many things that the soot is accumulating on ancient snow packs. Enough to make it darker... enough to make it absorb more radiation and accelerate heating and melting. Fact.

How do they know it's fact? Scientists in Greenland drill holes and plant 50 foot long poles into the ice pack. They come back a year later and 20-30 feet of the previously buried pole is revealed. This didn't used to happen. Granted, these ice packs are thousands of feet deep... miles deep in places. But still... 20-30 feet of ice, expanding over thousands of square miles, is transformed into fresh water and dumped into the ocean every year... just in Greenland.

As, a child, I had been to Glacier National Park a few times. This is in the late 80s/early to mid 90s. There were glaciers... go figure. I was out there just a couple years ago. The glaciers are gone. Shit is really happening.

seanrichardryan
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Re: Climate Change

Postby seanrichardryan » March 27th, 2014, 6:15 pm

I did catch a bit of that VICE program last week from my hotel room (who pays for HBO?). Interesting- https://news.vice.com/articles/vice-on- ... nded-labor
Q. What, what? A. In da butt.

Orbi
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Re: Climate Change

Postby Orbi » March 27th, 2014, 9:35 pm

Not sure I know of many people who would spend 5-6 years in graduate school, a couple years or more postdoc-ing, apply for every available academic job in the hopes of getting one, 5-7 years of 60-70 hour work weeks to get tenure - in the quest for money(?), power(?), politics(?), getting invited to parties with people like yourself (I guess you probably would).....then of course a whole group of people claim that all you do in your professional life is an intentional fraud.

the kid
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Re: Climate Change

Postby the kid » March 27th, 2014, 10:41 pm

I'm happy to see my post generated some comments. You guys were suprisingly gentle. Nobody even called me a name! That's great.

I'm not a climatologist nor do I claim to be. My field is medicine. We try to practice what we call "evidence based" medicine. We do the best we can to adapt randomized controlled trials to clinical practice. We all think we're doing the right thing, but I'm amazed at how often the consensus turns out to be wrong. Not because of willful malpractice, and not becuase we're all stupid (although I've been accused of that too), but because someone isn't satisfied with the status quo and, through experimentation, discovers a new, and often better way of doing things. Community standards change rapidly and dramatically because of new evidence that's come to light. And that's exactly the way science is supposed to work; it demands constant questioning, testing, and an openess to accepting possible alternatives that don't fit with what we've been taught or thought was best.

I've learned it's healthy to treat scientific dogma with skepticism, because it's often wrong.

As far as data goes, there are many different data sets that are used to monitor global temperature. They don't all show the same thing. You can cherry pick what you want confirm your own point of view. I don't know enough about climate to know which is best, but I do know there are some very smart people who don't agree with consensus. That doesn't make them idiots.

The IPCC, fuctioning under the auspices of the UN, is very heavily invested in anthroprogenic global warming theory. But recent IPCC reports have been heavily redacted and have stepped back from some of their initial catastrophic claims.

Anecdotes abound. At the same time that north pole ice pack is shrinking (is it?), south pole ice extent has increased to record levels. The observation that glaciers are retreating in GNP is visually powerful but not proof of anything. As to the claim that 97% of climate scientists agree with the consensus AGW view, that is a reference to a 2013 paper by John Cook, an "alarmist", who claimed that 97% of climate abstracts support his point of view. This ignored obvious publication bias (skeptical articles simply aren't published) and more troublingly, willfully mischaracterized many abstracts as supporting consensus theory.

Alright this is too much. I'm tired, and most of your, even assuming you've read this far, are convinced I'm a hopeless neocon (or nazi). There are too many posts for me to address them all, even if I was able enough, but I would just reiterate that the perjorative term "climate denier" is inappropriate. I'm not a denier, I'm a skeptic. I'm certain about nothing except uncertainty. When the data doesn't fit the model, the model needs to be reconsidered.

Snelbian
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Re: Climate Change

Postby Snelbian » March 28th, 2014, 7:00 am

People call me a Spherical Earth denier, which is insulting. I'm just skeptical is all. There are plenty of models that raise some doubt, after all. You've got the Elephant Model, the Back of a Turtle Model, the Infinite Stack of Turtles Model...

Rich
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Re: Climate Change

Postby Rich » March 28th, 2014, 8:25 am

As to the claim that 97% of climate scientists agree with the consensus AGW view, that is a reference to a 2013 paper by John Cook, an "alarmist", who claimed that 97% of climate abstracts support his point of view. This ignored obvious publication bias (skeptical articles simply aren't published) and more troublingly, willfully mischaracterized many abstracts as supporting consensus theory.
Cook and his colleagues examined over 12,000 papers. Errors are expected in a study that size, and like all good scientists they acknowledge the margin of error in the data. Critics, predictably, ignore this acknowledgement and proceed to describe any of the study’s discrepancies as “willful mischaracterization”. Because of course it’s all part of some vast consipiracy. Or something.

RailBaronYarr
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Re: Climate Change

Postby RailBaronYarr » March 28th, 2014, 10:03 am

This thread is fun.


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