Still Believe in Global Warming?

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by Marcel Petrin

You honestly think an evangelical Christian organization that believes in Creationism doesn't have a left or right slant, or that they're unbiased? They think the world started 6,000 years ago. Theology has no place in a debate about objective science. I'd love to see them apply as much scrutiny to the Bible as they do climatology.

Otherwise, I agree that climate change shouldn't be a right vs. left issue. But unfortunately that's what it has become. However there are plenty of "right" leaning politicians, organizations, and publications that don't have their heads shoved in the sand, such as the Economist.

"Theology has no place in a debate about objective science" I agree.

Would you agree that as long as science is dependant on Big Goverment and other sources for funding that the opportunity for skewed results persists?
It would help to explain why a politician would attempt to have a book ghost written by the wife of an evangelical pastor in Texas.

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

Would you agree that as long as science is dependant on Big Goverment and other sources for funding that the opportunity for skewed results persists?

That's a fairly ridiculous proposition. Does "Big Government" skew results in physics? Chemistry? Geology? Any other areas of science? Or is it just climate science? No, I don't agree that "Big Government" being involved in scientific research automatically leads to skewed results, because "Big Government" is involved in pretty much every field of scientific study. I do agree that bad science can happen in pretty much any field, however that doesn't appear to be the case with climate change in any way, shape or form. There are thousands of peer reviewed articles that support the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis, and none that disprove it. None.

Also, maybe you've heard of BEST? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkele...ce_Temperature

It was largely composed of climate skeptics, and funded by such lovely people as the Koch Foundation, who are pretty much the anti-christ when it comes to environmental stewardship and regulations.

Inconveniently, they found that their temperature record pretty much matches the three existing ones to a T: http://www.economist.com/node/21533360

Oops.

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by Marcel Petrin

That's a fairly ridiculous proposition. Does "Big Government" skew results in physics? Chemistry? Geology? Any other areas of science? Or is it just climate science?

Also, maybe you've heard of BEST? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkele...ce_Temperature

It was largely composed of climate skeptics, and funded by such lovely people as the Koch Foundation, who are pretty much the anti-christ when it comes to environmental stewardship and regulations.

Inconveniently, they found that their temperature record pretty much matches the three existing ones to a T: http://www.economist.com/node/21533360

Oops.

Actually I was trying to point out that if data from scientific research could possibly disagree with current administration that future funding could be jeopardized.
You seem to want an argument about this . I merely wanted to discuss some of the factors affecting decisions in the "national" interest.

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

Actually I was trying to point out that if data from scientific research could possibly disagree with current administration that future funding could be jeopardized.

This is nonsense. Look at something like theoretical physics. At this point there are multiple competing theories that surpass relativity and quantum mechanics, with string/brane theory being the most popular, but there are others. There are dozens of experiments around the world, from particle accelerators like CERN/LHC to others that attempt to detect dark matter, WIMPS, etc.

Some of them are likely to find results that contradict current understanding, such as the one in Italy that may or may not have shown that neutrinos travel faster than light. The scientists involved with that particular experiment aren't concerned that their funding would be jeopardized because their findings completely contradict our understanding of physics. In fact if anything they're likely to get more funding because of it. Other experiments are scrambling to either confirm or dispel their results.

That's how science works. Climatology wouldn't cease to exist as a field of study were someone to discover something that called anthropogenic climate change in to serious doubt. In fact, that scientist or team would instantly become the scientific equivalent of rockstars should their findings be robust and well supported. Climatology would continue on it's merry way of understanding how the Earth's climate works, what factors can affect it, and so on as it has for the past century or two regardless of whether or not humans are significantly changing it (which they unquestionably are).

There is far more money, and we're talking thousands to millions of times more, in the fossil fuel industry than there is in government grants for climate science, and therefore it's far more likely that the science (or rather, the debate about the science) is being skewed in the opposite direction you seem to think it is.

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

I merely wanted to discuss some of the factors affecting decisions in the "national" interest.

Then please discuss them. If your "factor" of discussion is that government funding is skewing climate science, there's really not much to discuss. You're simply wrong.

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by Marcel Petrin

Then please discuss them. If your "factor" of discussion is that government funding is skewing climate science, there's really not much to discuss. You're simply wrong.

perhaps you could clarify this for me then:
http://www.marketwire.com/press-rele...ses-908356.htm

and this:
http://nghoussoub.com/2011/04/18/the...search-policy/
and many many others????

[sundance]

Irony...
"While converting wind’s kinetic energy into electricity, wind turbines modify surface–atmosphere exchanges and the transfer of energy, momentum, mass and moisture within the atmosphere"
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journ...imate1505.html

[moahunter]

^Its not that surprising, basically eating up the wind and turning it into energy, must reduce the wind flow downstream. I guess that leaves us with solar as the only renewable with no impact on climate (as presumably hydro has an impact also, due to loss of forestry and similar).

[EveB]

Originally Posted by moahunter

^Its not that surprising, basically eating up the wind and turning it into energy, must reduce the wind flow downstream. I guess that leaves us with solar as the only renewable with no impact on climate (as presumably hydro has an impact also, due to loss of forestry and similar).

Not even solar. Solar is great for smaller installations (rooftops, electronics, etc.). But I read an article not long ago about the problem with paving the deserts with solar panels for large scale energy production.

Personally, I think it's about diversity in energy production. Using the proper energy source for its appropriate use. And reductions where appropriate.

Eve

[Paul Turnbull]

Even outside of the climate change debate there are plenty of good reasons for having diversity in power sources. Single points of failure are always a bad idea.

Personally I'd like to see more micro generation. While paving the deserts with solar panels isn't a great idea, roofing houses with them in the southern climates might be a great idea. Especially as the efficiency of the panels increases.

[moahunter]

Here's another article on wind farms, seems not about wind downstream like I suggested, more about the effect of turbulence at night:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/...searchers-say/

Concerns these farms might be leading to droughts in Texas.

^Agreed, I think a mix of generation is good regardless of environmental issues, it provides a buffer depending on how price of resources changes.

It will be neat if one day price of solar reduces enough to make it a standard fixture on single family home roofs.

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by moahunter

Here's another article on wind farms, seems not about wind downstream like I suggested, more about the effect of turbulence at night:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/...searchers-say/

Concerns these farms might be leading to droughts in Texas.

^Agreed, I think a mix of generation is good regardless of environmental issues, it provides a buffer depending on how price of resources changes.

It will be neat if one day price of solar reduces enough to make it a standard fixture on single family home roofs.

I read something in the last week that nano technology as well as advances in fabrication methods are pushing about a 45% increase in photovoltaic capture and there is a good possiblitily that the number of receptors per given area can be effectively doubled. Can't find the darn article now as I see about 1000 per week.

[Old Dawg]

Here's one for the articles that caught my attention:
http://www.solar3d.com/technology.php

[moahunter]

Oh well, maybe Gore and other alarmists will figure it out one day to? Its takes courage to admit your faith was wrong though:

OTTAWA - James Lovelock, one of the world's most revered environmentalists and scientists, has admitted to being an "alarmist" about climate change.

Lovelock -- whose books predicted billions of people would be dead by the end of this century because of global warming and the last "breeding pairs" of people would have to live at the polar regions -- now admits he went too far.

The 92-year-old now says his warnings were too alarmist, and that he and many others, including former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, were "extrapolating too far" from computer models.

"The climate is doing its usual tricks. There's nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now," he told MSNBC.

"The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time ... it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising -- carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that."

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews...01-084936.html

[Old Dawg]

It appears to me that the "plight" of the planet has become big business.
Currently, technology can't evolve fast enough to offset the comming population explosion. With the strong lobby comming from faith based science it is extremely difficult for scientists to make the progress that their research deserves.
We see the Obama admin growing corn to dump in fuel tanks which ultimately depleates the farmland, using billions of gallons of fossil fuel to produce and transport the product only to ultimately burn it up releasing CO2 anyway. His farmers love him because he's subsidizing the crop.

None of this makes any sense.

This is a good read while we are visiting this topic: http://phys.org/news/2012-05-america...s-reality.html

[Paul Turnbull]

Originally Posted by moahunter

Oh well, maybe Gore and other alarmists will figure it out one day to? Its takes courage to admit your faith was wrong though:

Except Lovelock's original claims were made with no reference to any actual science and were wildly out of whack with the predictions of actual climate scientists. ArsTechnica has a short overview and their conclusion is reasonable:

For many, the debate over the climate has become a polarized one, with self-labeled skeptics facing off against alarmists. This view isn't very useful, in that it ignores the fact that the vast majority of climate scientists reside somewhere in the middle, and are producing research that suggests both extremes are wrong. But the view is helpful in that it highlights how Lovelock shares so many features with the extreme skeptics, including a misunderstanding of the state of climate research and a willingness to make big pronouncements that are based on little more than their own opinions.

•Climate change proponent realizes he was wrong, but for the wrong reasons (ArsTechnica)

[Old Dawg]

I would agree with that too Paul.
I had no idea when I was younger that so many opportunists were around to distort scientific data for a buck.

It's odd that no one here so far has mentioned Suzuki.

He has recently tried to distance himself from his funding but apparently the feds are not buying it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/04...n_1426043.html

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by moahunter

Oh well, maybe Gore and other alarmists will figure it out one day to? Its takes courage to admit your faith was wrong though:

As has been pointed out, that goofball was never a climatologist, nor is Gore, and frankly I don't really care what either has to say about climate change. The science is quite clear on it's own. The planet is warming at a rate that is unprecedented in the past 1000+ years, and the majority of that warming is from human activities. There is no scientific basis upon which to dispute that statement, and even skeptics that set out to disprove that eventually realized they were wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkele...ce_Temperature

[SP59]

Where did the past 1000+ years get mentioned in the wikipedia entry.

[Paul Turnbull]

Originally Posted by SP59

Where did the past 1000+ years get mentioned in the wikipedia entry.

Founder of the BEST project, Richard A. Muller, was a long time critic of Michael Mann's research that led to the hockey stick graph. That graph represents the temperatures over the last 1000 years. The BEST project's preliminary results addressed criticisms of the controversial part of the graph, the last 50 years. Their initial conclusions were that the criticisms were not founded.

[Old Dawg]

Here's a decent explanation of the current discussion: http://youtu.be/8BQpciw8suk

It seems to differ with what appears on wikipedia.

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

Here's a decent explanation of the current discussion: http://youtu.be/8BQpciw8suk

It seems to differ with what appears on wikipedia.

That's because it's from before BEST released it's results. Muller has since stated that the other temperature records are essentially correct, and that he is now a "believer."

[moahunter]

^lol, its a joke on how this supposedly settled science, all these luminaries keep changing their minds. Even if there is warming, seems pretty apparent now, its so minor and inconsequntial that there is no need for drastic actions that will damage the economy.

[Old Dawg]

Marc Marano is on 630 ched /rutherford as I write if you are interested.
2012-05-02 09:15

[Paul Turnbull]

Turning up the heat: windfarms lead to local nighttime warming


Articles written by real science journalists (meaning ones with actual scientific backgrounds) make these stories far less dramatic.

Clearly, unless there's some growing difference between the two regions of the atmosphere, there's going to be a limit to how much surface warming wind farms can create. But given the short time frame of the study, we don't yet know what that limit is. In fact, since the study period was less than a decade, we don't even know if the effect will max out before it reaches the temperatures mentioned here. As the authors note, it's certainly worth monitoring this effect for longer time periods, and determining whether it applies to more geographically diverse regions. (If the authors' explanation is right, there's no reason to think it shouldn't.)

A critical point with this story is that windfarms do not cause a net increase in atmospheric temperature. What they are doing is transferring heat from higher up to lower down. People actually do this on purpose in orchards and vineyards to lower the risk of overnight frost.

Maybe the headline should be: "Windfarms make wine!"

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by moahunter

^lol, its a joke on how this supposedly settled science, all these luminaries keep changing their minds. Even if there is warming, seems pretty apparent now, its so minor and inconsequntial that there is no need for drastic actions that will damage the economy.

As if the "science" is not questionable now I just came across this article.

The typical byline in the climate discussion, "Hear what you want to hear and disregard the rest" <g>
Apparently extreme weather has been with us for quite some time.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/...ather-wackier/

[Paul Turnbull]

Wow. Fox News is using an anonymous blogger as a sole source for an article allegedly debunking an entire field. And yes he is anonymous because he himself has said that this is not his real name.

[Titanium48]

^^Ah, faux news at it finest.

Faux news points out that more people were killed by a hurricane in Galveston in 1900 than by Katrina in 2005, then explains how "a local weather official drove “a horse-drawn cart around low areas warning people to leave.”" Do you think that might have had something to do with it? Despite the failures of emergency management post-Katrina, there was still far more warning and preparation before it hit.

Faux news discusses a single glacier in Alaska that has been retreating for hundreds of years as evidence of past warming, without discussing how the complex relationship between glaciers and local climate (precipitation as well as temperature) makes a single example irrelevant.

Faux news again tries to refute predictions of increased frequency of heat waves with single examples. So what if it was really hot in the eastern US on June 5, 1921? That does nothing to refute a claim that very hot days occur more frequently now than they did then. Then they point out that the deadliest US heat wave occurred in 1936. Perhaps the lack of air conditioning had something to do with that?

Faux news brings up the "dust bowl", but conveniently neglects to mention how it was as much a result of poor agricultural practices as of drought.

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by Paul Turnbull

Wow. Fox News is using an anonymous blogger as a sole source for an article allegedly debunking an entire field. And yes he is anonymous because he himself has said that this is not his real name.

I thank you for pointing out that the blogger is anon.

The following info that he reported however is tracable. I had hoped you would read it and perhaps follow the statements to their source instead of tracing the name of the blogger which seems unimportant under the circumstances.

BTW, Titanium, Fox reported the information. They did not "point it out" as you suggest. It behooves you to do your own research on the topic before you lay the blame on Fox.

1) Deadly hurricanes
The deadliest hurricane in U.S. history was not hurricane Katrina, but rather one that hit Galveston, Tex., more than a century ago
A storm wave… caused a sudden rise of 4 feet in water depth, and shortly afterward the entire city was underwater to a maximum depth of 15 feet.”
“Hurricanes have not become more frequent or intense,” University of Alabama climate scientist John Christy told FoxNews.com. NOAA hurricane records back up that claim.

“The story on hurricanes is a mixed bag,” says Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist at

2) Melting Glaciers

Glacier Bay, in Alaska, is one such place. The glacier was discovered in 1794, but the National Park Service reports that “by 1879… naturalist John Muir discovered that the ice had retreated more than 30 miles ... By 1916 it … had melted back 60 miles.”

3) Extreme Cold
It was so cold in New York City that the rivers around Manhattan froze over for five weeks -- in 1780, that is. British troops occupying the city at the time rolled cannons from Manhattan across the ice to Staten Island. They even built temporary fortifications on the ice, which stayed solid enough to support men on horseback until March 17.

5) Extreme Heat
Many scientists argue that greenhouse gases have made extreme heat events more common.
But Goddard notes that heat waves are nothing new. One newspaper reported that on June 5, 1921, the temperature in New York rose to 107 degrees. In Washington, DC, “an egg carefully broken ... on an asphalt pavement … as an experiment was completely fried in 9 minutes.”
The deadliest heat wave in U.S. history also struck long ago, in 1936, causing some 5,000 deaths nationwide.

[Paul Turnbull]

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

I thank you for pointing out that the blogger is anon.

The following info that he reported however is tracable. I had hoped you would read it and perhaps follow the statements to their source instead of tracing the name of the blogger which seems unimportant under the circumstances.

BTW, Titanium, Fox reported the information. They did not "point it out" as you suggest. It behooves you to do your own research on the topic before you lay the blame on Fox.

1) Deadly hurricanes
The deadliest hurricane in U.S. history was not hurricane Katrina, but rather one that hit Galveston, Tex., more than a century ago
A storm wave… caused a sudden rise of 4 feet in water depth, and shortly afterward the entire city was underwater to a maximum depth of 15 feet.”
“Hurricanes have not become more frequent or intense,” University of Alabama climate scientist John Christy told FoxNews.com. NOAA hurricane records back up that claim.

“The story on hurricanes is a mixed bag,” says Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist at

2) Melting Glaciers

Glacier Bay, in Alaska, is one such place. The glacier was discovered in 1794, but the National Park Service reports that “by 1879… naturalist John Muir discovered that the ice had retreated more than 30 miles ... By 1916 it … had melted back 60 miles.”

3) Extreme Cold
It was so cold in New York City that the rivers around Manhattan froze over for five weeks -- in 1780, that is. British troops occupying the city at the time rolled cannons from Manhattan across the ice to Staten Island. They even built temporary fortifications on the ice, which stayed solid enough to support men on horseback until March 17.

5) Extreme Heat
Many scientists argue that greenhouse gases have made extreme heat events more common.
But Goddard notes that heat waves are nothing new. One newspaper reported that on June 5, 1921, the temperature in New York rose to 107 degrees. In Washington, DC, “an egg carefully broken ... on an asphalt pavement … as an experiment was completely fried in 9 minutes.”
The deadliest heat wave in U.S. history also struck long ago, in 1936, causing some 5,000 deaths nationwide.

I am familiar with Goddard's writing. This is classic for him, cherry picking individual incidents without talking about broad trends. Actual research would require quantifying extreme weather incidents and looking for patterns. Goddard did none of that.

I also think the extreme weather story is a side-show maintained more by the media and environmental groups than by actual scientists. It is incredibly difficult research and even the scientists working in the area say there is no way to determine how an individual event relates to climate change. But every time some big event happens the media leaps all over it as somehow related.

Note this applies both ways. Just as climate scientists can't say whether or not an event is linked to climate change neither can the climate change skeptics say that the existence of individual extreme events in the past proves anything either.

Finally, if I have to chose between the credibility of people publishing research under their own names that includes the data they derived their conclusions from as well as their methodology, and anonymous person whose credentials we can not check and who doesn't appear to have done any original research, the decision is fairly easy.

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

The following info that he reported however is tracable. I had hoped you would read it and perhaps follow the statements to their source instead of tracing the name of the blogger which seems unimportant under the circumstances.

And it was already pointed out to you why highlighting single events as the article does is completely useless in determining whether the climate is changing.

[Old Dawg]

Gentlemen, could we agree then that there is no finite answer to climate change at this juncture and that humans could and should do what is within their grasp to better steward the planet?

Quite frankly I am growing tired of the ad hominem attacks gererated from both media camps.
It serves no one and prevents our brightest and best from collaborating.

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by Marcel Petrin

And it was already pointed out to you why highlighting single events as the article does is completely useless in determining whether the climate is changing.

You mean like the hockey stick analogy then right?

[Paul Turnbull]

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

You mean like the hockey stick analogy then right?

How is a reconstruction of 1000 years of temperature based on multiple data sets a single event?

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by Paul Turnbull

[
How is a reconstruction of 1000 years of temperature based on multiple data sets a single event?

What kind of thermometers did they have in the year 1012?

Were there certified climatologists?

Where could a guy get hold of the actual records from that time?

Oh, yeah, what made that single event worth a nobel peace prize and a film distribution to American public schools?

So much to learn, so little time.

[Paul Turnbull]

You either don't understand how reconstructions work or you believe that only direct observations are valid. If the latter then you're rejecting the vast majority of science.

In the case of reconstructing temperatures from the past, if you have multiple independent methods that all arrive at similar results then odds are you're pretty close to the actual temperatures.

I'm still not sure what 'single event' you're speaking of unless somehow you're alluding to Al Gore's movie. In which case I'm not sure how it's relevant. The movie has no impact on the research itself.

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by Paul Turnbull

You either don't understand how reconstructions work or you believe that only direct observations are valid. If the latter then you're rejecting the vast majority of science.

In the case of reconstructing temperatures from the past, if you have multiple independent methods that all arrive at similar results then odds are you're pretty close to the actual temperatures.

I'm still not sure what 'single event' you're speaking of unless somehow you're alluding to Al Gore's movie. In which case I'm not sure how it's relevant. The movie has no impact on the research itself.

That about sums it up Paul.

I don't believe in extrapolations from vague or non existent data.

This is the second time you have referred to a "single event" . I'm not sure where you got that from? I saw it first in one of your previous rebuttals.
You seem determined to turn this discussion into a contest related to the minutia of the science.

I'm not sure of your background but it seems more of a political science debate than a frank discussion of climate change.
Semantics is not my strong suit so I will respectfully bow out of this conversation.

[Paul Turnbull]

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

That about sums it up Paul.

I don't believe in extrapolations from vague or non existent data.

This is the second time you have referred to a "single event" . I'm not sure where you got that from? I saw it first in one of your previous rebuttals.
You seem determined to turn this discussion into a contest related to the minutia of the science.

I'm not sure of your background but it seems more of a political science debate than a frank discussion of climate change.
Semantics is not my strong suit so I will respectfully bow out of this conversation.

The single event reference came from here:

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

You mean like the hockey stick analogy then right?

I assumed you were treating the hockey stick graph as a single event comparable to using one weather event as evidence either for against climate change. Given that the graph in question is based on tens of thousands of data points using multiple methods that doesn't really make sense to me. If that's not what you meant then I apologize.

And I don't see this as a semantic discussion or one about minutia. It's about the basic premise of interpolating non-observable data from known data. I doubt either of us are qualified to discuss the minutia of the methods used.

In this case I would hold that if you use multiple methods using different sets of data (for example tree ring data, ice cores, records of crop harvest dates, etc) and they all give similar results then it is reasonable to say your results are accurate. That is more likely than that all the methods are wrong in exactly the same ways. Now add to that handing your data and methods over to other scientists to replicate and having them do so only strengthens the position. That is the case here.

Besides, the critical portion of the graph, the portion that shows consistent steady rise in temperature, is the last 150 years, the portion for which we instrumental records for. Data that is neither vague nor non-existent.

A final note, there isn't really a political science debate here, it's more of a philosophy of science issue. I have formal training in both as well as time spent with working scientists. I do consider this a frank discusion of climate change as deciding what is valid data and what is not is critical.

[moahunter]

Originally Posted by Paul Turnbull

Besides, the critical portion of the graph, the portion that shows consistent steady rise in temperature, is the last 150 years, the portion for which we instrumental records for. Data that is neither vague nor non-existent.

If it is a constant steady raise over the last 150 years, then we don't really have anything to worry about do we? Given that the world was just fine but perhaps a little bit colder 150 years ago, and will be just fine but perhaps a little bit warmer in 150 years time.

[sundance]

It looks like Ralph Klein may have been partly right about dino farts...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/17953792

[moahunter]

^lol, so if dinosaurs increase global temperatures through farting, that's natural and OK, but if humans do the same thing by burning carbon, that's unatural and bad. Too funny. The reality is all species impact their environment, often in their favour, sometimes against. One day when humans are extinct, maybe some future evolved species will be burning fossilized us for fuel to begin the carbon cycle again? Its all part of a natural cycle.

[Marcel Petrin]

The problem that you don't seem able to grasp is that while the climate does change over time, the timescales upon which it changes through natural processes are geological. Natural ecosystems are able to cope with gradual change. Human activities however are causing the climate to change so fast that natural systems cannot possibly cope.

Every indication is that we are in the middle of a massive extinction event, with biodiversity plummeting. It's now fairly widely considered that we have entered in to a new geological age where human activities are the primary cause of change in the Earth's ecosystems, and they're not coping well with it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene

[moahunter]

Originally Posted by Marcel Petrin

The problem that you don't seem able to grasp is that while the climate does change over time, the timescales upon which it changes through natural processes are geological. Natural ecosystems are able to cope with gradual change. Human activities however are causing the climate to change so fast that natural systems cannot possibly cope.

That's a false statement, some natural systems are coping very well, and even thriving, like plants which are evolving in wild much faster than expected:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ence-suggested

And how does that match with the earlier coment by Paul that rate of change is the same as for the last 150 years? Also, to what extent are new species evolving to offset the extinction? For example, it seems plants are evolving very quickly, and are likely to be a "winner" to the extent there is more CO2 for them to absorb.

Of course, maybe you value animal life ahead of plant life? Really depends on ones perspective on what matters, and what doesn't, whats natural (it seems per you that dinosoaur farting is, even though it may have resulted in rapid climate change), and whats not (it seems human activites per you aren't). Its a bit silly though to claim todays climate is perfect just because it is what we are used to, but that a more quickly arising future climate (if that is happening, seems its not happening at doomsday pace like some claim), won't also be desirable for many species, perhaps more so for some.

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by moahunter

That's a false statement, some natural systems are coping very well, and even thriving, like plants which are evolving in wild much faster than expected:

It's not false at all. Some ecosystems may do well, but overall biodiversity is declining massively and the species extinction rate is 100-1000 times above background levels. All of those claims are from the Anthropocene link I provided above, and are backed by scientific studies.

It's certainly a good discovery that some plants appear to be coping better than expected, but that doesn't change the overall picture significantly.

Originally Posted by moahunter

And how does that match with the earlier coment by Paul that rate of change is the same as for the last 150 years?

I don't follow you here, please clarify.

Originally Posted by moahunter

Also, to what extent are new species evolving to offset the extinction? For example, it seems plants are evolving very quickly, and are likely to be a "winner" to the extent there is more CO2 for them to absorb.

Every indication is that the world's biomass is in significant decline for both flora and fauna. Again from the Anthropocene link above:

In 2010 a study published in Nature found that "marine phytoplankton — the vast range of tiny algae species accounting for roughly half of Earth's total photosynthetic biomass - have declined substantially in the world's oceans over the past century. Since 1950 alone, algal biomass decreased by around 40%, probably in response to ocean warming - and the decline has gathered pace in recent years.

Most of the world's "plants", aren't plants as you normally picture them, but phytoplankton. Most indications are that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is a net negative for them due to ocean acidification.

Originally Posted by moahunter

(it seems per you that dinosoaur farting is, even though it may have resulted in rapid climate change)

Please provide a citation for your claim that dinosaurs caused "rapid" climate change. The earlier link did not make that claim anywhere. Considering that dinosaurs were the dominant animal group for 135 million years, by definition that's hardly rapid. They would have evolved with, adapted to and influenced natural ecosystems hand in hand over millions of years, not a century or two.

Originally Posted by moahunter

Its a bit silly though to claim todays climate is perfect just because it is what we are used to, but that a more quickly arising future climate (if that is happening, seems its not happening at doomsday pace like some claim), won't also be desirable for many species, perhaps more so for some.

No one is claiming that there is such a thing as an optimal climate without the context of the current biosphere taken in to account. If humans cause a massive change in the climate over the next 100 years then disappear from the planet because of catastrophe or we venture off in to space, there's no question that a new equilibrium will be reached over the following eons. Whether that's tens of thousands or millions of years isn't really possible to say.

However, given that both natural ecosystems and human civilization are adapted to the current climate, the problem with rapid climate change is that it will incur significant costs economically on our civilization to adapt and cause a rapid decline in biomass and biodiversity, which is already well documented. We cannot accurately predict how big the changes will be, let alone what countries or species will win or lose.

As far as "doomsday" scenarios go, I don't necessarily disagree with you, however I think the primary blame for such claims fall not on scientists but mostly on the media for sensationalizing some aspects of the science. The reality is that Earth and the life on it will in all likelihood long outlast the human race and our civilization. However, by ignoring the clear warning signs of the changes and processes we are putting in to action and tampering with, we're only going to make things harder on ourselves in the long run.

[Old Dawg]

Another nail the the great CO2 hoax.

http://www.climatedepot.com/a/16140/...imate+Depot%29

[Marcel Petrin]

lol, that study doesn't say what your link claims it does.

Originally Posted by http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/03/shocker-the-hansengiss-team-paper-that-says-we-argue-that-rapid-warming-in-recent-decades-has-been-driven-mainly-by-non-co2-greenhouse-gases/

..we argue that rapid warming in recent decades has been driven mainly by non-CO2 greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as chlorofluorocarbons, CH4, and N2O, not by the products of fossil fuel burning, CO2 and aerosols..

If sources of CH4 and O3 precursors were reduced in the future, the change in climate forcing by non-CO2 GHGs in the next 50 years could be near zero. Combined with a reduction of black carbon emissions and plausible success in slowing CO2 emissions, this reduction of non-CO2 GHGs could lead to a decline in the rate of global warming, reducing the danger of dramatic climate change.

Bolding theirs, not mine. What should be bolded is the second paragraph. All that quote says in the first paragraph is that the warming in the previous decades was the result of things other than CO2, not that CO2 is not responsible for warming at all. The second paragraph pretty clearly states that CO2 emissions need to be reduced along with the other GHG's to reduce the RATE of climate change and the danger of "dramatic" climate change.

No one has ever claimed that CO2 was the only GHG or forcing in climate sciences. Far from it.

From further down the page/study:

We suggest equal emphasis on an alternative, more optimistic, scenario. This scenario focuses on reducing non-CO2 GHGs and black carbon during the next 50 years. Our estimates of global climate forcings indicate that it is the non-CO2 GHGs that have caused most observed global warming. This interpretation does not alter the desirability of limiting CO2 emissions, because the future balance of forcings is likely to shift toward dominance of CO2 over aerosols. However, we suggest that it is more practical to slow global warming than is sometimes assumed.

Bolding once again not mine, and once again completely misplaced. Notice the remark about CO2 being a dominant forcing?

This is ridiculous. Someone has taken a couple quotes completely out of context from a decade old study that clearly supports the premise of anthropogenic climate change, bolds a few sentences here and there that basically say "CO2 isn't the only climate forcing, there are others", and then claim that climate change is a grand hoax. All the while saying "PEER REVIEWED" as many times as they can possibly squeeze in, which while it is, doesn't lend any credence whatsoever to the claim being made because the very PEER REVIEWED article they cite is completely in line with the "hoax" they so deride.

Maybe ridiculous isn't the right word. Pitiful and shameful would be closer, I think.

edit: ah, no wonder. Here's the jackass that runs that website: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...=Anthony_Watts

http://www.watoday.com.au/environmen...215-1t6yi.html

Other cash recipients include Anthony Watts, the leading US climate sceptic blogger, who is to receive $US90,000 for his work this year. Programs slated for funding include new curriculum modules that teach science from a climate-sceptic perspective, to be sent to US schools.

Follow the money, indeed. The thing is that climate change denialists seem to forget that their side is the one with the money, not the other.

The Heartland Institute, by the way, is the same lovely organization that recently published billboards that link belief in climate change to mass murder and terrorism: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...warming-murder

Nice.

Too bad it completely blew up in their faces: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...rd-controversy

[Old Dawg]

Ah, gee, more bad news.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/738098

[bobinedmonton]

Debate hard now, folks.

Australia has (reportedly) passed a law that forbids the denial of "man made global warming".

The way things are going here, with leftest premiers and a potential leftist prime minister, we'll soon see this in Canada.

And we'll also be bidding a tearful farewell to the oil sands and prosperity.

[sundance]

Sadly Australia doesn't have freedom of speech
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom...ntry#Australia

Fortunately in Canada this isn't the case as it is enshrined in the charter

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
...
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication

There is a limit to this ...

Section 1
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by bobinedmonton

Australia has (reportedly) passed a law that forbids the denial of "man made global warming".

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

Ah, gee, more bad news.

Please make up your mind. Is global warming a hoax? Or is PV solar panel production going to make the problem worse? You can't have it both ways. So which is it?

Assuming that the science behind that study is sound, it's certainly a concern. Any attempts to mitigate emissions have to be looked at closely to determine if they truly are a net positive or not, without question.

Personally I have my doubts that PV solar will ever be anything more than a tiny fraction of our energy needs, barring extra-terrestrial solar generation being feasible and cost effective. It simply takes up too much space and the majority of the sun's energy is dissipated by the atmosphere before it even gets to the panel. But it might be worthwhile to cover some rooftops and the like with PV, and solar heating for water can be quite efficient.

[Old Dawg]

[QUOTE=Marcel Petrin;445792]

Originally Posted by bobinedmonton

Australia has (reportedly) passed a law that forbids the denial of "man made global warming".

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

Ah, gee, more bad news.

Please make up your mind. Is global warming a hoax? Or is PV solar panel production going to make the problem worse? You can't have it both ways. So which is it?

QUOTE]
I have:
1. Global warming is a hoax.
It's much like the strongly defended YK2 nonsense and has no business in the business of science. It brings out the pseudo intellectuals by the car load all screaming hysterically that they, of all people , know more about science than the folks trained in the fields.

2. Creating solar capture products using volatile and toxic fluorcarbon technology is not good stewardship of the planet and it's resources.

I find it odd that you would take 2 disimilar subjects out out context and address them as a question of ultimatum?
You do this alot.

Reducing the use of fossil fuels is a no brainer and should take precedence over Buck Rogers experimentation.
(Carbon capture and storage comes to mind as does the Volt automobile)

http://reason.com/blog/2012/04/24/ja...mate-change-ap

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

1. Global warming is a hoax.
It's much like the strongly defended YK2 nonsense and has no business in the business of science. It brings out the pseudo intellectuals by the car load all screaming hysterically that they, of all people , know more about science than the folks trained in the fields.

Again, laughable. The people "trained in the fields" of climate are something like 97% likely to believe that climate change is happening and three quarters that humans are the cause. The more someone is trained and active in the field, the more likely they are to accept the hypothesis.

This is fact. Not opinion. You can have your own opinion but not your own facts.

http://www.usnews.com/news/national/...limate-concern

Of the 489 Earth and atmospheric scientists surveyed by Harris Interactive, 97 percent said that global temperatures have increased during the past 100 years, and 74 percent agreed that "currently available scientific evidence substantiates the occurrence of human-induced greenhouse warming."

Meanwhile, less than 5% think that humans do NOT affect climate.

Here's a general link that clearly shows that climate scientists are pretty much unanimous when it comes to the question of whether climate change is happening, and nearly so on the question of whether humans are primarily responsible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveys...climate_change

So once again, it's incredibly ironic that you say "pseudo-intellectuals" that they "know more about science than the folks trained in the fields". Because the truth is, YOU are on the side of the pseudo-intellectuals (otherwise known as paid shills, many of them the same ones that denied the links between tobacco and cancer decades ago when again, the science was quite well settled).

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

2. Creating solar capture products using volatile and toxic fluorcarbon technology is not good stewardship of the planet and it's resources.

But I thought climate change is a hoax and we can't affect the climate? Who cares then?

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

I find it odd that you would take 2 disimilar subjects out out context and address them as a question of ultimatum?
You do this alot.

What was out of context. This is a thread about climate change. You made two posts in close proximity that claimed the following:

a) You say that climate change is a massive hoax.

b) You say "more bad news" and link an article that says that solar panel manufacturing may lead to more GHG emissions than they offset.

If a) is true, then b) is irrelevant. If a) is not true, then b) is useful information to use when considering mitigation strategies. I personally found it an interesting read, and stated that I personally doubt solar will ever be more than a tiny fraction of our energy needs.

What exactly did I take out of context?

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

http://reason.com/blog/2012/04/24/ja...mate-change-ap

Oh look! Another "pseudo-intellectual" biologist who has no training in climatology!

Joking aside, I agree that there are legitimate concerns about alarmism surrounding climate change. I have stated so before. That hasn't changed. That does not however mean that climate change is a giant hoax.

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by Marcel Petrin

Again, laughable. The people "trained in the fields" of climate are something like 97% likely to believe that climate change is happening and three quarters that humans are the cause. The more someone is trained and active in the field, the more likely they are to accept the hypothesis.

This is fact. Not opinion. You can have your own opinion but not your own facts.

http://www.usnews.com/news/national/...limate-concern

Scraped from a questionable article dated April 23, 2008 ??????

You may be inclined to call that cherry picking where I come from.
I'm thinking the figures are dramtically different today. (4 years can make such a difference)

p.s. love the way you refer to it as "fact".

"More than 1,000 dissenting scientists (updates previous 700 scientist report) from around the globe have now challenged man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore. This new 2010 321-page Climate Depot Special Report -- updated from the 2007 groundbreaking U.S. Senate Report of over 400 scientists who voiced skepticism about the so-called global warming “consensus” -- features the skeptical voices of over 1,000 international scientists, including many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN IPCC"

http://ec.libsyn.com/p/b/f/6/bf663fd...2&c_id=2869473

[Marcel Petrin]

I provided a Wiki link that listed half a dozen or more similar surveys. All show similar results, and as usual, the trend is the opposite of what you claim it to be: more and more climatologists agree that climate change is primarily caused by human activity as time goes on.

As far as your link from Climate Depot, the vast majority of the signatories to that letter are not climatologists, and quite a few of those that are, are in fact not active publishers of research in the field:

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/news...redible_says_/

After assessing 687 individuals named as “dissenting scientists” in the January 2009 version of the United States Senate Minority Report, the Center for Inquiry’s Credibility Project found that:
• Slightly fewer than 10 percent could be identified as climate scientists.
• Approximately 15 percent published in the recognizable refereed literature on subjects related to climate science.
• Approximately 80 percent clearly had no refereed publication record on climate science at all.
• Approximately 4 percent appeared to favor the current IPCC-2007 consensus and should not have been on the list.

Handy chart: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/uplo...lity_Chart.pdf


So once again, you're on the side of the "pseudo-intellectuals" telling the actual scientists who study climatology that they are wrong. And hilariously enough, a significant number of the names listed are either not even scientists or if they are, are not climate skeptics. Whoops.

But wait, there's more!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/us...o.html?_r=3&hp

Chris Allen, for example, the weather director for WBKO-TV in Kentucky, is listed as a meteorologist on the report, even though he has no degree in meteorology. On his Web site, Mr. Allen has written that his major objection to the idea of human-influenced climate change is that “it completely takes God out of the picture.” Mr. Allen did not respond to phone calls. Mr. Grandia also said Mr. Morano’s report misrepresented the work of legitimate scientists. Mr. Grandia pointed to Steve Rayner, a professor at Oxford, who was mentioned for articles criticizing the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 international treaty on curbing carbon dioxide emissions.

Dr. Rayner, however, in no way disputes the existence of global warming or that human activity contributes to it, as the report implies. In e-mail messages, he said that he had asked to be removed from the Morano report and that a staff member in Mr. Inhofe’s office had promised that he would be. He called his inclusion on the list “quite outrageous.”

Asked about Dr. Rayner, Mr. Morano was unmoved. He said that he had no record of Dr. Rayner’s asking to be removed from the list and that the doctor must be “not to be remembering this clearly.”

Now, let's take a look at Climate Depot and Mark Murano shall we?

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...=Climate_Depot

ClimateDepot.com is being financed by the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, a nonprofit in Washington that advocates for free-market solutions to environmental issues. Public tax filings for 2003-7 (the last five years for which documents are available) show that the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the ExxonMobil Foundation and foundations associated with the billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, a longtime financier of conservative causes, including being the primary source of money used to fund attacks against Bill Clinton during the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky eras of his presidency [1]. According to a report issued by the Union of Concerned Scientists, from 1998-2005, approximately 23% of the total ExxonMobil funding for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow was directed by ExxonMobil for climate change activities [p. 32].

Let's all pretend to be surprised by the above.

Mark Morano was also heavily involved in the "Swift Boat" campaign against John Kerry in 2004 that questioned his Vietnam service (when he was running against a President who got daddy to pull some strings to make sure he never saw action and barely showed up for duty):

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...rans_for_Truth

The guy is scum, and is a paid whore for hard-right causes. Just like I said a few posts up about the vast majority of those who question climate change. If you find yourself agreeing with someone like this, you've made a wrong turn somewhere.

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by Marcel Petrin

I provided a Wiki link that listed half a dozen or more similar surveys.

Handy chart: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/uplo...lity_Chart.pdf


So once again, you're on the side of the "pseudo-intellectuals" telling the actual scientists who study climatology that they are wrong.

And hilariously enough, a significant number of the names listed are either not even scientists or if they are, are not climate skeptics. Whoops.


Dr. Rayner, however, in no way disputes the existence of global warming or that human activity contributes to it, as the report implies. In e-mail messages, he said that he had asked to be removed from the Morano report and that a staff member in Mr. Inhofe’s office had promised that he would be. He called his inclusion on the list “quite outrageous.”

Asked about Dr. Rayner, Mr. Morano was unmoved. He said that he had no record of Dr. Rayner’s asking to be removed from the list and that the doctor must be “not to be remembering this clearly.”

Now, let's take a look at Climate Depot and Mark Murano shall we?

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...=Climate_Depot

ClimateDepot.com is being financed by the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, a nonprofit in Washington that advocates for free-market solutions to environmental issues. Public tax filings for 2003-7 (the last five years for which documents are available) show that the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the ExxonMobil Foundation and foundations associated with the billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, a longtime financier of conservative causes, including being the primary source of money used to fund attacks against Bill Clinton during the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky eras of his presidency [1]. According to a report issued by the Union of Concerned Scientists, from 1998-2005, approximately 23% of the total ExxonMobil funding for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow was directed by ExxonMobil for climate change activities [p. 32].

Let's all pretend to be surprised by the above.

Mark Morano

>>>snipped for brevity

The guy is scum, and is a paid whore for hard-right causes. Just like I said a few posts up about the vast majority of those who question climate change. If you find yourself agreeing with someone like this, you've made a wrong turn somewhere.[/QUOTE]

Boy, that's a little harsh!

So what bad things have you copied to say about this fellow?

Roy Spencer, principal research scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville said in 2008 testimony to a US Senate committee: "I predict that in the coming years, there will be a growing realization among the global warming research community that most of the climate change we have observed is natural, and that mankind’s role is relatively minor.

or perhaps this poor fellow:

Tim Patterson, paleoclimatologist and Professor of Geology at Carleton University in Canada said in a 2007 newspaper article: "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years. On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?".

BTW, I really enjoy your " shoot the messenger" approach to scientific discussions.

[moahunter]

^Biggest "climate change" concern at the moment seems to be the possible onset of a mini-ice age, albeit, this climate change would be "natural" as a result of Cycle 25:

The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.

The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.

Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers of sunspots seen at their peak.
We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call ‘Cycle 24’ – which is why last week’s solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further south than usual. But sunspot numbers are running at less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the 20th Century.

Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona – derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun’s surface – suggest that Cycle 25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...#ixzz1wxjHOcRP

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

BTW, I really enjoy your " shoot the messenger" approach to scientific discussions.

Well actually, in my previous post I was careful to first address the content of your post, which was the laughably bad Climate Depot attempt to name a bunch of skeptical scientists, many who are not actually scientists let alone publishing/researching climatologists.

Then sure, once I was done exposing just how silly that "report" was I figured I'd point out the source of such a blatantly false piece of trash, because the source and it's funding are indeed important to consider.

And again, how ironic that on the one hand you say that climate change "brings out the pseudo intellectuals by the car load all screaming hysterically that they, of all people , know more about science than the folks trained in the fields" yet on the other hand complain that I'm "shooting the messenger." What, pray tell, would that quotation fall under if not that?

In the past several pages, I have posted numerous well sourced links that back up what I have stated. You on the other hand have managed two links to well paid energy industry shills that make claims about past research or people's opinions that are demonstrably false and a third link that actually supports the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis!

There's been only one side to this discussion, you're right. And once again, unbeknownst to you, you're on the wrong side of it.

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

So what bad things have you copied to say about this fellow?

Roy Spencer, principal research scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville said in 2008 testimony to a US Senate committee: "I predict that in the coming years, there will be a growing realization among the global warming research community that most of the climate change we have observed is natural, and that mankind’s role is relatively minor.

Heh, well, Sourcewatch's entry on him calls him "one of the few AGW deniers with real credentials," so that's certainly something to be said in his favor. He's an actual climate scientist!

However unfortunately it very quickly deteriorates from there. To start with, he's closely associated with the Heartland Institute, which I mentioned in one of my recent posts as the lovely organization that compares belief in AGW to mass murder and terrorism.

Summary of this is that he royally screwed up some measurements of the temperature of the troposphere, errors that just happened to to tilt in the right direction for climate change denial (and then claimed that the errors weren't big enough to make a difference, when most everyone else disagreed): http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/12/sc...long.html?_r=1

As it turns out, that little goof up ended up costing the editor of Remote Sensing his job because their peer review was so poor and they initially ignored critiques of the research, turning the journal in to a laughing stock willing to publish anything in some views.

I could go on and on, but instead I'll provide a couple links that consolidate a lot of the criticisms of Spencer:

http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/roy-spencer/

http://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptic_roy_spencer.htm

But wait, there's more:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Spencer is a proponent of intelligent design as the mechanism for the origin of species.[33] On the subject, Spencer wrote in 2005, "Twenty years ago, as a PhD scientist, I intensely studied the evolution versus intelligent design controversy for about two years. And finally, despite my previous acceptance of evolutionary theory as 'fact,' I came to the realization that intelligent design, as a theory of origins, is no more religious, and no less scientific, than evolutionism. . . . In the scientific community, I am not alone. There are many fine books out there on the subject. Curiously, most of the books are written by scientists who lost faith in evolution as adults, after they learned how to apply the analytical tools they were taught in college."[33] In The Evolution Crisis, a compilation of five scientists who reject evolution, Spencer states: "I finally became convinced that the theory of creation actually had a much better scientific basis than the theory of evolution, for the creation model was actually better able to explain the physical and biological complexity in the world... Science has startled us with its many discoveries and advances, but it has hit a brick wall in its attempt to rid itself of the need for a creator and designer."

Not related to climate change, of course, but pardon me if I gag when I hear a reasonably well credentialed scientist advocate Intelligent Design. The cognitive dissonance is strong in this one.

He's a scientist, yes. An incredibly poor one at that, by every account.

As far as his statement from 2008 that "in the coming years, there will be a growing realization among the global warming research community that most of the climate change we have observed is natural, and that mankind’s role is relatively minor," well, that dog don't hunt. His ability to predict the future opinion of climatologists appears to be every bit as bad as his pilloried scientific research. Once again, you and he both are on the wrong side of the tide.

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

or perhaps this poor fellow:

Tim Patterson, paleoclimatologist and Professor of Geology at Carleton University in Canada said in a 2007 newspaper article: "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years. On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?".

Funny you should mention Patterson! Guess which PR/lobbying firms he's been associated with? You guessed it! Those same tobacco lobbying firms I mentioned before.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/0...thpiece-Part-2

Tim Patterson: He is also an author for Tech Central Station. He appeared in the Friends of Science video called "Climate Catastrophe Cancelled". He was an invited climate specialist at a Canadian news conference which was put together by none other than columnist Tom Harris, who is also an Associate for APCO Worldwide. That event was funded by companies such as Imperial Oil, Talisman Energy, and a group of Canadian lime producers. We've hit the trifecta: oil, energy, and lime corporations. And wait... what about this APCO Worldwide? One of APCO's front groups was The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), which helped Philip Morris discredit research that smoking was a cause of cancer and heart problems. After helping Big Tobacco, TASSC moved on to help global warming skeptics. So Patterson is associating with the same people and organizations that were behind Big Tobacco claiming there was no link between smoking and cancer.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...APCO_Worldwide


That's some ugly company he's running with, to be sure. Not surprisingly, he's also somewhat associated with the Heartland Institute. Again, let's all pretend to be surprised.


He's also associated with Friends of Science (yet more irony in that name!): http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...nds_of_Science


http://www.desmogblog.com/r-timothy-patterson


The long and short of Patterson is that while he is also apparently a reasonably well credentialed, legitimate scientist he's also closely associated with the very same lobby groups and PR firms that are backed by the energy industry as most other denialists.


He's also associated with this, as he and Harris are apparently BFF's and long term partners in crime (and guess who Harris used to work for? That's right, APCO!): http://scientificskepticism.ca/conte...l-science-team


Seriously, it's kind of funny how the same names and firms keep popping up again and again and again.

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by moahunter

^Biggest "climate change" concern at the moment seems to be the possible onset of a mini-ice age, albeit, this climate change would be "natural" as a result of Cycle 25:

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...#ixzz1wxjHOcRP

If I could add to your posting the following fact:

We are only seeing the activity on the side of the sun facing the earth so that the activity observed in the past may just be part of the random cycles of activity occuring on the sun's surface during a peak period.

We could easily have dodged the bullet so to speak in this instance.
A redux of the data back to the 1500's suggests that cold periods did occur along with unusual warm climates. This could very well be the ebb and flow of the earth cycles around the "fire ball".

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by moahunter

^Biggest "climate change" concern at the moment seems to be the possible onset of a mini-ice age, albeit, this climate change would be "natural" as a result of Cycle 25:

lol, the Daily Mail. A tabloid. That has been repeatedly criticized for shoddy reporting on climate science:

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...ility-science/

Specific response to moahunter's link: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...solar-changes/

I say “willfully misleading” because the UK’s Met[eorological] Office, part of its Defence Ministry, has taken the unusual step of releasing a statement utterly debunking Rose’s assertions as “entirely misleading” — and pointing out that they spoke to Rose before the piece came out but he chose to ignore what they had to say.

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by Marcel Petrin

Well actually, in my previous post I was careful to first address the content of your post, which was the laughably bad Climate Depot attempt to name a bunch of skeptical scientists, many who are not actually scientists let alone publishing/researching climatologists.

>>>>>>>Conspiracy Theories snipped for brevity>>>>>>>>

Seriously, it's kind of funny how the same names and firms keep popping up again and again and again.

Just to be fair and on balance, I used your favourite source for quotes this time.... Wiki.

Seems like we have ourselves a real live Jesse Ventura here!

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

We are only seeing the activity on the side of the sun facing the earth so that the activity observed in the past may just be part of the random cycles of activity occuring on the sun's surface during a peak period.

The sun rotates. Not to mention there are several satellites that orbit and study the sun.

But yeah, I'm sure no scientist has thought of checking on what's happening on the "dark side of the sun".

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

We could easily have dodged the bullet so to speak in this instance.
A redux of the data back to the 1500's suggests that cold periods did occur along with unusual warm climates. This could very well be the ebb and flow of the earth cycles around the "fire ball".

Such cycles are actually fairly well understood, and very predictable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

They haven't been overlooked in studies on the Earth's climate. Nor has the sun's radiance been: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation

The variation in radiance is easily swamped by other climate forcings: http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/brightness.shtml

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

>>>>>>>Conspiracy Theories snipped for brevity>>>>>>>>

Just to be fair and on balance, I used your favourite source for quotes this time.... Wiki.

Seems like we have ourselves a real live Jesse Ventura here!

lol, you claim that thousands upon thousands of scientists and researchers around the planet, to say nothing of the hundreds of associations and organizations they belong to are all perpetuating a giant "hoax" about the climate changing, and then have the gall to say I'm spouting conspiracy theories?

It's not a conspiracy when it's happening out in the open. The Heartland Institute, Friends of Science, APCO, et al aren't all that secretive about their goals. It's hardly a conspiracy when they outright state their intentions and have modeled their efforts on what the very same people and companies did in the 70's and early 80's to deny cancer's links to tobacco.

Such a transparently craven attempt to mislead the public is many things, but it's not a conspiracy when anyone with half a brain and an open mind can clearly see what they're doing.

[moahunter]

Originally Posted by Marcel Petrin

lol, the Daily Mail. A tabloid.

Shooting the messenger and not the science again? Is the WSJ a tabloid as well?

A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy now. Many other policy responses would have a negative return on investment. And it is likely that more CO2 and the modest warming that may come with it will be an overall benefit to the planet.

If elected officials feel compelled to "do something" about climate, we recommend supporting the excellent scientists who are increasing our understanding of climate with well-designed instruments on satellites, in the oceans and on land, and in the analysis of observational data. The better we understand climate, the better we can cope with its ever-changing nature, which has complicated human life throughout history. However, much of the huge private and government investment in climate is badly in need of critical review.

Every candidate should support rational measures to protect and improve our environment, but it makes no sense at all to back expensive programs that divert resources from real needs and are based on alarming but untenable claims of "incontrovertible" evidence.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...838421366.html

You and your disciples continue to keep the faith though Marcel I'll also listen to the scientists who are willing to challenge religious dogma:

Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris;
J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting;
Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society;
Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton;
Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.;
William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology;
Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT;
James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University;
Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences;
Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne;
Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator;
Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem;
Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service;
Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by Marcel Petrin

The sun rotates. Not to mention there are several satellites that orbit and study the sun.

But yeah, I'm sure no scientist has thought of checking on what's happening on the "dark side of the sun".

Such cycles are actually fairly well understood, and very predictable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

They haven't been overlooked in studies on the Earth's climate. Nor has the sun's radiance been: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation

The variation in radiance is easily swamped by other climate forcings: http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/brightness.shtml

Now your being silly. You quite obviously don't or can't understand what is being said.

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by moahunter

Shooting the messenger and not the science again? Is the WSJ a tabloid as well?

Once again, I provided a very clear link where scientists and the Met Office have spoken out against the incredibly poor reporting by the Daily Mail. In case you missed the chart:



No warming in 15 years, my ***.

As far as the WSJ goes, it's reputation has indeed suffered since it was taken over by News Corporation (Rupert Murdoch and Co.). Some of it's reporting is very good, some of it not.

That particular article falls under the not category, and was criticized hugely around the world: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...-climate-lies/

But the most amazing and telling evidence of the bias of the Wall Street Journal in this field is the fact that 255 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences wrote a comparable (but scientifically accurate) essay on the realities of climate change and on the need for improved and serious public debate around the issue, offered it to the Wall Street Journal, and were turned down. The National Academy of Sciences is the nation’s pre-eminent independent scientific organizations. Its members are among the most respected in the world in their fields. Yet the Journal wouldn’t publish this letter, from more than 15 times as many top scientists. Instead they chose to publish an error-filled and misleading piece on climate because some so-called experts aligned with their bias signed it. This may be good politics for them, but it is bad science and it is bad for the nation.

http://news.discovery.com/earth/atmo...al-120201.html

But Trenberth stated scientists like Allègre are a fringe in the field of atmospheric science. "The few authors who have such expertise are known to have extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert," said Trenberth.
“Research shows that more than 97 percent of scientists actively publishing in the field agree that climate change is real and human caused,” wrote Trenberth.

http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-new...stry-influence

Half of the 16 scientists who penned a controversial Wall Street Journal opinion piece proclaiming there is "no need to panic" about global warming have ties to either the oil and gas industry or groups dedicated to debunking climate science, a DailyClimate.org investigation has found.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/02/01-6

You published "No Need to Panic About Global Warming" (op-ed, Jan. 27) on climate change by the climate-science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology. While accomplished in their own fields, most of these authors have no expertise in climate science. The few authors who have such expertise are known to have extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert. This happens in nearly every field of science. For example, there is a retrovirus expert who does not accept that HIV causes AIDS. And it is instructive to recall that a few scientists continued to state that smoking did not cause cancer, long after that was settled science.

Once again, I could go on and on. All bolding mine.

Originally Posted by moahunter

You and your disciples continue to keep the faith though Marcel I'll also listen to the scientists who are willing to challenge religious dogma:

See above. A far larger group of scientists who are actually, you know, climatologists offered to publish a response in the WSJ. They were rejected. Why do you accept the opinion of the group that has less credentials and experience in the field?

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

Now your being silly. You quite obviously don't or can't understand what is being said.

Enlighten me as to what I don't understand about what you said.

Coming from the guy who said that "we are only seeing the activity on the side of the sun facing the earth", when the sun rotates every 24 days give or take and we have probes orbiting and observing it continually, that is pretty rich.

[moahunter]

Originally Posted by Marcel Petrin

See above. A far larger group of scientists who are actually, you know, climatologists offered to publish a response in the WSJ. They were rejected. Why do you accept the opinion of the group that has less credentials and experience in the field?

Again, you shoot the messenger not the science. It wouldn't be the first time in history a small of group of scientists proved the majority wrong.

I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. Maybe there is an impact from carbon from human activity, but I think the impact isn't properly understood, new learnings are happening all the time. Once the models are more accurate, we have a better understanding of the inputs into the models, and we have a better understanding of the economic consequnces of different actions, e.g. Carbon taxes, then yes, I think it might then make sense to make some changes. Not yet though.

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by Marcel Petrin

Enlighten me as to what I don't understand about what you said.

Coming from the guy who said that "we are only seeing the activity on the side of the sun facing the earth", when the sun rotates every 24 days give or take and we have probes orbiting and observing it continually, that is pretty rich.

Now it's your turn.

Show me the probes reporting geomagnetic storm activity occuring on the blind side of the sun?

I was simply saying if the activity on the sun were occuring on the blind side then the repercussions would not be evident on Earth.
If you want to believe that these phenomena are occuring simultaneously on all the sun's surfaces then go ahead. It fits in with the rest of your bizzare ideas about science.

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

Now it's your turn.

It's apparently been my turn the whole time.

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

Show me the probes reporting geomagnetic storm activity occuring on the blind side of the sun?

Take your pick of any of the dozens launched since the 60's: http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/dev/...-observing.htm

Current specific ones:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_a...ic_Observatory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STEREO

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_D...ervatory#Orbit

It should also be noted that pretty much any other space probe being sent to other planets, of which there are also dozens, can also be used to observe the sun.

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

I was simply saying if the activity on the sun were occuring on the blind side then the repercussions would not be evident on Earth.

And I was simply saying that there is no such thing as the "blind" side of the sun, both because it rotates every 24 days just like every other object in space rotates (and the sunspots rotate with it), the Earth itself orbits the sun, and we have numerous probes that can observe it from all directions.

Originally Posted by Old Dawg

If you want to believe that these phenomena are occuring simultaneously on all the sun's surfaces then go ahead. It fits in with the rest of your bizzare ideas about science.

What bizarre ideas do I have about science?

And the way it works is that if you make a claim, YOU are the one who has to back it up. So please, what research have you seen that indicates that sunspot activity on the "blind" side of the sun is not able to be monitored, given that the Sun rotates and we have numerous probes that can view it from virtually all angles simultaneously?

Originally Posted by moahunter

Again, you shoot the messenger not the science. It wouldn't be the first time in history a small of group of scientists proved the majority wrong.

Very true.

However, I find it odd that so many denialists use an argument from authority that "SO AND SO SAYS THIS" and highlight how many dozens or hundred of scientists signed some silly letter (many of whom, apparently, did not in fact sign or agree with it), and then as soon as it's pointed out to them that 97% of climatologists agree on the cause of global warming, go running away from said same argument from authority.

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by Marcel Petrin

It's apparently been my turn the whole time.

Take your pick of any of the dozens launched since the 60's: http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/dev/...-observing.htm

Current specific ones:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_a...ic_Observatory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STEREO

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_D...ervatory#Orbit

It should also be noted that pretty much any other space probe being sent to other planets, of which there are also dozens, can also be used to observe the sun.

And I was simply saying that there is no such thing as the "blind" side of the sun, both because it rotates every 24 days just like every other object in space rotates (and the sunspots rotate with it), the Earth itself orbits the sun, and we have numerous probes that can observe it from all directions.

What bizarre ideas do I have about science?

And the way it works is that if you make a claim, YOU are the one who has to back it up. So please, what research have you seen that indicates that sunspot activity on the "blind" side of the sun is not able to be monitored, given that the Sun rotates and we have numerous probes that can view it from virtually all angles simultaneously?

Very true.

However, I find it odd that so many denialists use an argument from authority that "SO AND SO SAYS THIS" and highlight how many dozens or hundred of scientists signed some silly letter (many of whom, apparently, did not in fact sign or agree with it), and then as soon as it's pointed out to them that 97% of climatologists agree on the cause of global warming, go running away from said same argument from authority.

Not that it will matter but here is a partial explanation to the original question:
http://www.space.com/852-jupiter-act...-activity.html
I can find no information that suggests that solar activity on the blind side of the sun can be measured with any accuracy at this point. It follows that if the actiivty is primarily on the far side of the sun that the earth will be least impacted by such activity. Its' agonising trying to bring you to understand the dynamics of two spheres rotating at different revolutions per cycle. If the majority of activity occurs on the back side then how would that affect the earth? Unless you think that it occurs all the time and throughout the 24 day cycle.

[Marcel Petrin]

Again, the sun rotates. There is no such thing as the far side of the sun. We see every side of the sun on a regular basis. There is no basis to your claim that somehow we are missing big pieces of the puzzle when it comes to the sun's radiance and influence on the climate. Sunspot records date back literally millennia, for one. For another, there are numerous proxies that have allowed scientists to determine the sun's radiance, again going back millennia, the variance is tiny, and not nearly enough to swamp the far greater impact we are having with GHG emissions.

Going back to the "far side" of the sun: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helioseismology

Helioseismology can also be used to image the far side of the Sun from the Earth,[7] including sunspots. In simple terms, sunspots absorb helioseismic waves. This sunspot absorption causes a seismic deficit that can be imaged at the antipode of the sunspot.[8] To facilitate spaceweather forecasting, seismic images of the central portion of the solar far side have been produced nearly continuously since late 2000 by analysing data from the SOHO spacecraft, and since 2001 the entire far side has been imaged with this data.

So again, at any time we are able to observe the entire surface of the sun, not just the half that is facing the Earth. And that's not taking in to account, once again, that the sun itself rotates fairly quickly and the "far side" becomes the near side in 12 days. Couple that with the fact that sunspots and sunspot regions generally last for weeks, although some have much shorter durations, however given that they're of a shorter duration it follows that they would have less of an impact on the sun's output.

Moving back to solar variance, here's a repeat link: http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/brightness.shtml

The new study looked at observations of solar brightness since 1978 and at indirect measures before then, in order to assess how sunspots and faculae affect the Sun’s brightness. Data collected from radiometers on U.S. and European spacecraft show that the Sun is about 0.07 percent brighter in years of peak sunspot activity, such as around 2000, than when spots are rare (as they are now, at the low end of the 11-year solar cycle). Variations of this magnitude are too small to have contributed appreciably to the accelerated global warming observed since the mid-1970s, according to the study, and there is no sign of a net increase in brightness over the period.

To assess the period before 1978, the authors used historical records of sunspot activity and examined radioisotopes produced in Earth's atmosphere and recorded in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. During periods of high solar activity, the enhanced solar wind shields Earth from cosmic rays that produce the isotopes, thus giving scientists a record of the activity.

The authors used a blend of seven recent reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperature over the past millennium to test the effects of long-term changes in brightness. They then assessed how much the changes in solar brightness produced by sunspots and faculae (as measured by the sunspot and radioisotope data) might have affected temperature. Even though sunspots and faculae have increased over the last 400 years, these phenomena explain only a small fraction of global warming over the period, according to the authors.

Indirect evidence has suggested that there may be changes in solar brightness, over periods of centuries, beyond changes associated with sunspot numbers. However, the authors conclude on theoretical grounds that these additional low-frequency changes are unlikely.

“There is no plausible physical cause for long-term changes in solar brightness other than changes caused by sunspots and faculae,” says Wigley.

[moahunter]

Abacus Data late last month released a poll showing that 55 per cent of Canadians are quite worried about pollution of drinking water, rivers, lakes, reservoirs and contamination of soil by toxic waste. But only a third of those surveyed said they worry a lot about climate change. This reflects a similar trend in the United States, measured by Gallup this past April. It seems we're really not all that concerned about climate change, after all.

...

McKitrick disagrees profoundly with the notion that the science is settled. More to the point, even if the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is right, he is convinced that all major policy remedies proposed so far would have been ineffective, even if implemented precisely as designed.


"There's no way of fixing it by tinkering around the edges," he says. "Windmills are irrelevant. We're talking about shutting down industry and taking cars off the road."

The human toll of rolling back development — which is unavoidable, if global CO2 emissions are to be sharply curbed — has yet to be carefully considered, McItrick says.

"Think of the alleviation of suffering that comes when people get electricity, access to motor vehicles, ordinary development. To stop all that from happening, it just seems to me that would be a much heavier human toll than just learning to adapt to climate change as it comes along."

...

Dr. Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, agrees. She posits human causes, but also other possible causes. One of her concerns is regional climate variability. "In some parts of the world, warming would be good," she says. "Think Canada, Russia, northern China for starters. They might have more hospitable weather, longer growing seasons, a longer tourist season."

...

Like McKitrick, Curry contends that the cost-benefit analysis — a clear-headed comparison of the benefits of development and better infrastructure, against the benefits of lowering sea levels by perhaps two or three feet, over a century — has yet to be done. And she argues that, rather than developing big global carbon treaties that go nowhere, Western governments ought to put more resources into advancing the science of weather forecasting, to better mitigate the damage caused by hurricanes, floods, droughts and other weather-related disasters, especially in the Third World.


There's more, but you get the point: Why is it, given that so much of the policy debate in our country now concerns what to do about climate change, that speaking about gaps in the science, which clearly do exist, is taboo?

Read more: http://www.canada.com/technology/Tan...#ixzz1x7MaJ6vb

[kcantor]

Originally Posted by moahunter

Read more: http://www.canada.com/technology/Tan...#ixzz1x7MaJ6vb

none of the quotes you posted dispute climate change in the least - they simply point out different priorities in dealing with it and with its consequences. if anything they confirmed that "faith" - as you choose to put it - in climate change is not blind at all but real - otherwise there would be no need to debate the best course of action. there appears to be nothing at all in your quotes about "gaps in climate science" except your conclusion.

[moahunter]

^I quoted the article today in the paper, which is headlined blind faith, it is the writers conclusion not mine (although I support it).

Personally, I don't know whether or not human activities significantly contribute to climate change more or less than natural events, or whether or not even if they do, it means we should take actions now like Carbon taxes. I agree with McKitrick that the science is not settled. I'd like the science to be firmed up, it is far from that right now. I'd like to see a solid prediction (not multiple scenarios) of the climate in the next decade that actually comes true (rather than after the event, a bunch of analysis as to why the data or model was wrong, data mining instead of more robust scientific analysis to better undertand the variable inputs). I expect we might have a better idea in the future once all the variables are better understood, and there are many variables (including more accurate predictions on solar activity, and even micro impacts like wind farms).

Until then, we'd be foolish to take actions that favor one industry over another.

[kcantor]

Originally Posted by moahunter

^I quoted the article today in the paper, which is headlined blind faith, it is the writers conclusion not mine (although I support it).

Personally, I don't know whether or not human activities significantly contribute to climate change more or less than natural events, or whether or not even if they do, it means we should take actions now like Carbon taxes. I agree with McKitrick that the science is not settled. I'd like the science to be firmed up, it is far from that right now. I'd like to see a solid prediction (not multiple scenarios) of the climate in the next decade that actually comes true (rather than after the event, a bunch of analysis as to why the data or model was wrong, data mining instead of more robust scientific analysis to better undertand the variable inputs). I expect we might have a better idea in the future once all the variables are better understood, and there are many variables (including more accurate predictions on solar activity, and even micro impacts like wind farms).

Until then, we'd be foolish to take actions that favor one industry over another.

i wouldn't disagree that we'd be foolish to take actions that favour one industry over another.

on the other hand i also think we'd (continue to) be foolish if not outright irresponsible to take no action at all. irrespective of "all the variables" and continual accusations of "data mining" (as if "data mining", whatever the *&^% it is, fundamentally impacts actual science - data is data.), virtually everything relating to the minimization of climate change is also good and responsible stewardship of limited resources (irrespective of the overall time frame) in a closed financial as well as ecosystem.

those that rely on the "we can't prove climate change and shouldn't do anything until we can" to do nothing at all fail regardless of the climate change front.

ps. if you want the paper to be responsible for "their headline", you should put in the quote and not "borrow" it to headline your post....

[moahunter]

^I would have thought it was obvious but next time I will put in the "". I agree it makes sense to conserve energy, but that should make economic sense anyway without government intervetion as technology to reduce consumption and improve efficiency becomes more viable. But, I don't think it makes sense to put in place, for example, carbon taxes. BC is reviewing their carbon tax system at the moment as they are finding some industries are becoming uncompetitive with the rest of North America, it will be interseting to see what happens.

[Marcel Petrin]

For what it's worth, while I disagree with McKitrick that there's large gaps in the science, I do agree that any action we take does have to be carefully considered. The uncertainties about climate change are predominantly about how big of a temperature increase we will see, what regions will be more or less affected, what kind of changes in rainfall/precipitation we will see, and how much sea level rise. There's virtually no scenarios that don't see significant changes in all of the above. And many of the uncertainties stem from the simple fact that it's tough to model the climate in the future when you don't even know what carbon emissions will be.

It is also important to note that McKitrick is not a climate scientist. He's an economist. While he may have the expertise to comment on the economic impacts of carbon mitigation efforts, his opinion on the actual science of climate change is fairly worthless. He's simply not qualified in the field of climatology. And again for what it's worth, I have stated in this thread in the past that my gut feeling is that it's likely that mitigation of climate change's effects will have to be a significant component of our response to it, and that its going to be virtually impossible to actually "stop" climate change any time in the next 50-100 years without grinding the global economy to a halt.

A lot of his past writings and criticisms have themselves been heavily criticized as taking quotes out of context, mis-attributing things said to the wrong people, and so on: http://deepclimate.org/2011/11/28/mc...ext/#more-3917

As far as Judith Curry goes, while she's slightly more qualified, she also is heavily criticized for many of her statements. For example, she was involved with the BEST temperature record project, which was funded by various anti-climate action foundations and largely headed by skeptics. Turned out their attempt to disprove the previous temperature records ended up more or less falling completely in line with them, and the head of it Richard Mueller has since declared he is now a "believer." That data record also clearly showed that there has been absolutely no statistically significant decline in the pace of global warming in the past 10 years. The timeframe is simply too short to say with any certainty, and anyway the oughts were warmer than the 90's, just not as much warmer as the 90's were in comparison to the 80's.

Curry of course jumped ship after the report was published, and made an idiot of herself in the process: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/10/...#comment-56043

[moahunter]

^again why do you constantly attack the credibility of anyone whose view you do not agree with? One can equally say that Climate Scientists saying we need to urgently take drastic action, are also perpetuating their self importance and guaranteeing their funding through their alarmisim. Try looking at the science, not the personalities. When we have a scientific consensus on a prediction of temperature increases over say the next decade, then sure, I'll agree with you that there are no gaps. I haven't seen such a consensus though, even among climate alarmists there are various models and predictions as to what will happen over the next decade. Until we understand what is going to happen with some accuracy, I don't see why we should be taking economic actions, the consequences of which we don't understand with accuracy (like in BC where carbon taxes haven't raised as much tax as predicted).

[kcantor]

Originally Posted by moahunter

^again why do you constantly attack the credibility of anyone whose view you do not agree with? One can equally say that Climate Scientists saying we need to urgently take drastic action, are also perpetuating their self importance and guaranteeing their funding through their alarmisim. Try looking at the science, not the personalities. When we have a scientific consensus on a prediction of temperature increases over say the next decade, then sure, I'll agree with you that there are no gaps. I haven't seen such a consensus though, even among climate alarmists there are various models and predictions as to what will happen over the next decade. Until we understand what is going to happen with some accuracy, I don't see why we should be taking economic actions, the consequnces of which we don't understand with accuracy (like in BC where carbon taxes haven't raised as much tax as predicted).

sorry moa but i still don't agree that we "need to understand with accuracy" prior to doing anything at all.

if you have a pinhole leak in a pipe you need to repair it. you don't need to understand with accuracy whether it was caused by hard water (or soft water), sediment, the temperature of the water or the frequency and velocity of water moving through it. and you don't need to be able to accurately project when the pipe will fail completely before knowing that it's in your best interest to repair it and to minimize the chance of similar failures and recurrence sooner rather than later.

[moahunter]

Originally Posted by kcantor

sorry moa but i still don't agree that we "need to understand with accuracy" prior to doing anything at all.

So, in the 1970's when the scientific view of many was that an ice age was coming, many also believed that pollution was more cooling than warming given the drop in temperatures in the 70's, would you have supported then massivley increasing carbon output to offset the natural climate change? Or perhaps we should have done that to offset the risk of a nuclear winter?

We do need to understand. For example, the differences between a few feet of ocean rise, and a few meters from different potential increased temperature levels are huge. One might not require any economic action at all (some more warmth might even be economically favourable to Canada), the other might require drastic action. Until we understand:

1. How much temperatures will rise
2. Whether or not that rise will help or hinder the Canadian economy

it doesn't make sense to take economic actions which we also don't fully understand the consequnces of (although I don't mind BC choosing to be a crash test dummy for us).

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by moahunter

^again why do you constantly attack the credibility of anyone whose view you do not agree with?

Because their views are wrong, and most often they do not have the qualifications to make such pronouncements. You have quoted numerous people who have claimed for example that climate change has "paused" in the past 10 or 15 years. That's false. Demonstrably false. I post a link that picks that argument apart, and you whine that I'm attacking the credibility of the person who said it. Hell yes I am. They said something that is wrong, and have a history of doing so. Why would I not point that out?

Originally Posted by moahunter

Try looking at the science, not the personalities. When we have a scientific consensus on a prediction of temperature increases over say the next decade, then sure, I'll agree with you that there are no gaps.

It is not possible to make predictions of the temperature on such short time frames! There is no question that there is a large amount of natural variability from year to year, and that natural variability in the short term can easily swamp climate change. But over longer periods that signal becomes clear.

You are intentionally setting the bar so high that it is impossible to be met.

Originally Posted by moahunter

I haven't seen such a consensus though, even among climate alarmists there are various models and predictions as to what will happen over the next decade.

Natural variability aside, how can you possibly expect an accurate prediction when it is impossible to even know what emissions will be in 2 years' time, let alone 10? Will the global economy grow by 4% a year? 5%? Will emissions grow by 2%? 3%? Pause because of an economic/financial crisis as they did in 2009? What about if China suddenly says "you know what, screw coal" and stops building coal plants?

You're essentially asking for climatologists to have a crystal ball and to be able to pile numerous predictions about the economy and emissions on top of each other and then in to their models to come up with a perfect prediction. And that doesn't even take in to account positive and negative feed back loops (melting permafrost releasing methane, melting sea ice reflecting less sunshine, so on and so forth). All on an extremely short timeline.

You're asking for an impossible level of accuracy that will likely NEVER be achieved.

Originally Posted by moahunter

Until we understand what is going to happen with some accuracy, I don't see why we should be taking economic actions, the consequnces of which we don't understand with accuracy.

You keep making claims about the uncertainty and accuracy, yet you don't seem aware that the uncertainties are at the margins. Not about whether or not it's even happening. We know enough now that action can be taken.

The argument you are making would be the equivalent of not building earthquake proof structures in areas prone to them because seismology can't make perfect predictions about frequency and strength of quakes. "Well, we don't KNOW if the next quake will be a 4.0 or a 8.0, and we don't KNOW if it will happen tomorrow or next century. So until we KNOW with absolute certainty when the next one will happen, and how big it will be, let's keep building unreinforced masonry structures and just hope for the best."

Or as I have mentioned, another great parallel is the campaign of denial, obfuscation, and "uncertainty" that Big Tobacco waged for decades regarding the health effects of tobacco and nicotine. As recently as the 80's and 90's both tobacco executives and scientists were testifying under oath to the US Congress that there were "uncertainties" about the link between tobacco and cancer, and that nicotine was not addictive: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2007/f...sr-022107.html

This has been documented in depth in numerous books, documentaries, and elsewhere. The same tactic is being used against climate change, for the same reasons (big industry, big money): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt

What it really comes down to is that certainty or lack thereof of the science isn't the problem. This isn't unique to climate change. People's beliefs are generally not arrived at rationally. Rather, they're inherently irrational, and the only rational thinking done is after the fact to justify them. You and I have made up our minds, and are only seeking to justify those positions. The problem is, only one of those positions is correct.

A very interesting read on the above, from that well known socialist/communist/marxist/anti-free market rag The Economist: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democ...c06c010184c684

The operative concept here is “motivated reasoning.” The idea is, we begin by absorbing the values of our tribes—what is and isn’t important, what is and isn’t a risk—and use whatever numeracy and scientific literacy we possess to seek out facts and arguments that support those views. Getting smarter, in other words, only makes us better at justifying our own worldviews. It does not necessarily give us more scientifically accurate worldviews.

[Jeff]

Originally Posted by moahunter

So, in the 1970's when the scientific view of many was that an ice age was coming, many also believed that pollution was more cooling than warming given the drop in temperatures in the 70's, would you have supported then massivley increasing carbon output to offset the natural climate change? Or perhaps we should have done that to offset the risk of a nuclear winter?

You are perpetuating a media driven myth. The overwhelming scientific opinion of the 70's was not, "a prediction of global cooling and an imminent ice age".

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by moahunter

So, in the 1970's when the scientific view of many was that an ice age was coming, many also believed that pollution was more cooling than warming given the drop in temperatures in the 70's, would you have supported then massivley increasing carbon output to offset the natural climate change? Or perhaps we should have done that to offset the risk of a nuclear winter?

Once again, your claim that "the scientific view of many was that an ice age was coming" is patently false. Completely and utterly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

Concern peaked in the early 1970s, though "the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then" [2] (a cooling period began in 1945, and two decades of a cooling trend suggested a trough had been reached after several decades of warming). This peaking concern is partially attributable to the fact much less was then known about world climate and causes of ice ages. However, climate scientists were aware that predictions based on this trend were not possible - because the trend was poorly studied and not understood (for example see reference[11]). Despite that, in the popular press the possibility of cooling was reported generally without the caveats present in the scientific reports, and "unusually severe winters in Asia and parts of North America in 1972 and 1973...pushed the issue into the public consciousness."

Nice try though. Don't you get tired of repeatedly being wrong?

[Jeff]

Originally Posted by sundance

Irony...
"While converting wind’s kinetic energy into electricity, wind turbines modify surface–atmosphere exchanges and the transfer of energy, momentum, mass and moisture within the atmosphere"
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journ...imate1505.html

This has nothing to do with climate/global warming. It is nothing more than a localized effect in proximity to the wind farm/turbine, one that occurs only at night with wind turbines pulling warm air down to a ground level, redistributing the air's heat near the ground surface.

[moahunter]

Originally Posted by Marcel Petrin

Nice try though. Don't you get tired of repeatedly being wrong?

Time will tell who is right and wrong, and to what extent they are, because it is not black or white like you imagine. I remember as a child the talk of an ice age coming, it wasn't a joke restircted to a few scientists, it was a mainstream view (even if often dennied now). Take this Newsweek article:

There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.

The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.

To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”

http://www.denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm

I guess just a few crackpots in the National Academy of Sciences? Sounds a lot like what we read today in such media, albeit with a different conclusion. I won't be surprised to see another flip in the future. This rings familiar:

Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.

Such a shame we didn't try to melt the ice cap... not that we need accurate information to make decisions

Regardless, most Canadian's aren't worried about climate change. They are worried about pollution. I'm ok with a focus on that, carbon taxes though are an inefficient means to do that, as they miss many harmful polutants.

[Jeff]

Originally Posted by moahunter

Time will tell who is right and wrong, and to what extent they are, because it is not black or white like you imagine. I remember as a child the talk of an ice age coming, it wasn't a joke restircted to a few scientists, it was a mainstream view (even if often dennied now). Take this Newsweek article:

Again, you are perpetuating a media driven myth. That Newsweek article is the principal myth driver. I provided a meta study in my previous reply to your nonsense - I suggest you read it. Again:

Originally Posted by Jeff

You are perpetuating a media driven myth. The overwhelming scientific opinion of the 70's was NOT, "a prediction of global cooling and an imminent ice age".

[moahunter]

^I said a scientific view of many, not all, or most. The newsweek article highlights how wrong scientists and scientific bodies can be on climate, I'm not surprised climatologists are rewritting history to try and hide this "dark" period. Lol, some day in a decade or so when the climate hasn't warmed, I am sure we will see studies that show most of them weren't demanding actions (just nutters like Al Gore)

[kcantor]

Originally Posted by moahunter

So, in the 1970's when the scientific view of many was that an ice age was coming, many also believed that pollution was more cooling than warming given the drop in temperatures in the 70's, would you have supported then massivley increasing carbon output to offset the natural climate change? Or perhaps we should have done that to offset the risk of a nuclear winter?

We do need to understand. For example, the differences between a few feet of ocean rise, and a few meters from different potential increased temperature levels are huge. One might not require any economic action at all (some more warmth might even be economically favourable to Canada), the other might require drastic action. Until we understand:

1. How much temperatures will rise
2. Whether or not that rise will help or hinder the Canadian economy

it doesn't make sense to take economic actions which we also don't fully understand the consequnces of (although I don't mind BC choosing to be a crash test dummy for us).

it so happens that "in the 1970's" we (and i will happilly - if no-one does the math - include myself in that) started to design more efficient buildings and develop better construction techniques and standards and many of those are as applicable in warmer (or more extreme) climate conditions as they are in colder climate conditions. things like the r200 housing program, moving to double glazed windows and high efficiency furnaces and incorporating heat sinks and berming and xeriscape landscaping... all of these things occured even though there were just as many people then that said "we shouldn't do anything until we understand the science better" just as you are today. and they were just as wrong then as you are now.

if you look at what we're doing now and how we're doing it and compare it to what was being done in the 1970's, why on earth would you want that progression in managing to do the things we do better to slow down? i'm not talking about whether a carbon tax is the best way to do that or not or who it should be levied on or in what jurisdiction. that's a straw man discussion and nothing more.

one of my vehicles is 20 years old and gets 12 mpg on a good day. a comparable model in the 1970's probably got 8 if driven gently. and a comparable model today probaby gets 24 regardless of the temperature. we are learning to make our individual footprints smaller even if we haven't managed that on a collective basis yet and even you have to admit that the collective will continue to get both more numerous and more demanding - deservedly - of more equity on a global basis.

you're right in some respects - we can't control solar activity and volcanic eruptions or earthquakes and tsunamis. but to some degree we can control what we do and the impacts of what we do irrespective of whether those impacts are singular or cumulative. and whether they are singular or cumulative doesn't really matter anyway - they are the only pieces we can impact directly.

[kcantor]

Originally Posted by moahunter

^I said a scientific view of many, not all, or most. The newsweek article highlights how wrong scientists and scientific bodies can be on climate, I'm not surprised climatologists are rewritting history to try and hide this "dark" period. Lol, some day in a decade or so when the climate hasn't warmed, I am sure we will see studies that show most of them weren't demanding actions (just nutters like Al Gore)

this discussion has nothing to do with al gore's sanity, emoticon notwithstanding.

if complete unanimity and 100 per cent certainty on all of the underlying causes is a prerequisite before doing what we can while we have the opportunity, we would probably still have our polar ice caps today because we would still be waiting for 100 per cent certainty on the best way to actually successfuly melt them because we wouldn't actually do anything without unanimity would we?

but we probably wouldn't have any cod stocks at all today or don't you remember those that blamed the decline on the seals and not the overfishing and wanted to keep on fishing because we didn't know with certainty and unanimity that fishing was the cause? it probably wasn't the sole cause but it was the only one we could impact before it was too late.

and we probably wouldn't have a single live organism in the great lakes or most of the continent's northeast watersheds either or don't you remember the "we're not sure if acid rain comes from our plants or from those in asia so until we know for sure..."

and we would probably still be dumping phosphates in our watersheds because "we can't be 100% sure that things wouldn't have been inflicted with "natural" algae blooms regardless of the phosphate flows so until we know for sure..."

certainty might be a wonderful thing when it comes to facts as well as opinions but not taking a course of action while waiting for it is likely to prove foolhardy regardless of your chosen timeframe... it doesn't matter whether the climate has warmed or not in a decade or so, what should matter is whether those things we will have done in the meantime provided a better and more efficient way to live for the next decade or so (or longer). all of our actions may not prove to be correct and some of their implementation may prove faulty but on balance what we need to strive for is to be better than the status quo you seem so happy with.

[Jeff]

Originally Posted by moahunter

^I said a scientific view of many, not all, or most. The newsweek article highlights how wrong scientists and scientific bodies can be on climate, I'm not surprised climatologists are rewritting history to try and hide this "dark" period. Lol, some day in a decade or so when the climate hasn't warmed, I am sure we will see studies that show most of them weren't demanding actions (just nutters like Al Gore)

You said it was a mainstream scientific view. It most certainly wasn't. The meta study I provided reference to shows exactly what the prevailing scientific view was as represented by published scientific papers of the day. That meta study shoots the media driven 70's global cooling myth and your perpetuation of it down, big time. There is no, as you say, rewriting of history; that is to say, other than what you're fabricating.

Given the earth has warmed and continues to warm, what foundation do you base your preposterous suggestion that the earth won't warm (won't continue to warm) in the next decade?

Your grasping onto a Gore slag is the sure giveaway tell that you're a neophyte.

[Transplanted_Edm]

I think the examples given of some of the "changes in course" that occurred for past environmental issues, even with limited data or evidence, are red herrings a bit, because today's climate change experts keep telling us we have to make drastic and immediate changes to our lifestyles.

This is a little different from reformulating a detergent to make it phosphate free and thereby adding 35 cents to the cost of a bottle.

My actions towards climate change and the environment are consistent with our understanding...it's never a good idea to waste resources, we should always seek efficiency and improvement, we should design neighbourhoods to be human-centric and not auto-centric, etc.

But I'm not about to stop travelling by plane or eating foods imported from overseas out of concern for my carbon footprint.

[moahunter]

Originally Posted by Transplanted_Edm

But I'm not about to stop travelling by plane or eating foods imported from overseas out of concern for my carbon footprint.

Interestingly, locally grown foods can have a higher carbon footprint than imported, because an imported food can often be produced with with less intensity and less carbon in more moderate climates than is possible in Alberta.

I am agreeable to conservation, I just think we have to be careful not to throw the bath out with the bathwater. Increased temperatures aren't a significant threat to Canada, and may even be an advantage. Being more efficient with energy makes economic sense though, it doesn't need government mandates for it to become real. Doing a proper cost benefit analysis of losing part of environment for economic gain also makes sense, whether it be another hydro dam or another oil sands project.

[moahunter]

Its stuff like this, unexpected, and not yet fully understood - scientists are still learning about so many variables:

The amount of phytoplankton blooming beneath the ice, the theory goes, is so great that it contributes to the lack of blooms in open water – the under-ice blooms simply eat up all the available nutrients before they have a chance to make it out to the open ocean.

The huge amount of CO2 photosynthesized by the phytoplankton, in fact, may help explain why the ocean is absorbing more of that greenhouse gas than calculations would otherwise indicate: even though the amount of dissolved CO2 in Arctic waters is below predicted levels, that carbon is finding another home in the photosynthetic systems of the phytoplankton.

Although the extent of Arctic ice surveyed by ICESCAPE was small, there's little reason to suspect why other ice-covered areas over continental shelves – given the right amount of nutrients and light – wouldn't also be harboring mammoth blooms.

As with most environmental switcheroos, however, there's a possible downside to this one, as well – namely, that since the blooms change the timing of the nutrient chain, their effect on the rest of the food web is currently unknown.

"It's entirely possible that it would be a disaster," biological oceanographer Walker Smith told Science, "and entirely possible [marine fauna] could adapt to this change fairly easily – most likely it's in between."

In any case, it appears that some biological systems – phytoplankton, in this case – when handed global-warming lemons are making lemonade, albeit in this example it's a rather green, algae-filled liquid refreshment.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06...lankton_bloom/

[Marcel Petrin]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ton-population

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...decline-nature

Yeah, I'm sure that some isolated colonies of phytoplankton under thin (and soon to be gone) arctic sea ice will make up for the 40% of phytoplankton that have declined in the past half century.

[kcantor]

Originally Posted by moahunter

Its stuff like this, unexpected, and not yet fully understood - scientists are still learning about so many variables:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06...lankton_bloom/

yes, not fully understood... but your selective editing and presenting the results as a coherent whole are a bit misleading.

it certainly doesn't "read" the same without also reading "As with most environmental switcheroos, however, there's a possible downside to this one, as well – namely, that since the blooms change the timing of the nutrient chain, their effect on the rest of the food web is currently unknown."

and your adding bolding to make your own point out of someone else's without noting the emphasis was added by you and not part of the original quote is equally disengenuous, particularly when even the original was already a summary point of an interview summary:

"The implications for the food web are unclear. Changes in bloom timing might not be good news for migratory animals, such as gray whales traveling from the Gulf of California to feed in the nutrient-rich waters of the Arctic shelf. "The blooms are happening possibly weeks before the ice begins to retreat," Arrigo says. Timing, he notes, is a really important issue in the Arctic, with its short seasons. "We have no idea how this might be changing those [migratory] patterns.""

it's also "interesting" that the phenomenon you think is potentially a good offset for some of the effects of global warming is an effect that will itself soon cease as the ice on which its existence depends continues to melt. you do remember not quoting this part don't you:

"According to Don Perovich of the US Army Corps of Engineers' Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, ponds of meltwater form on the surface of the ice sheet, acting as "skylights" that let light reach the phytoplankton below. These skylights don't have to let the light travel far: since satellite observations began in 1979, summer ice has declined by about 45 per cent due to global warming, wind patterns, and pollution.
Perovich told the Monitor that much of the melt-season sea ice is now no more than around six feet thick, and has little or no snow cover. No snow cover, more melting; more melt ponds, more skylights; more sunlight, more phytoplankton."

[moahunter]

^I quoted last part of article including switchero part. The point is simply that as things change, new consequnces arise. It isn't surprising that plant life and plankton will do very well if there is more CO2, the surprise here is that there is more plankton under the arctic than the current climate models are based on.

[Marcel Petrin]

Originally Posted by moahunter

It isn't surprising that plant life and plankton will do very well if there is more CO2

Sorry, no, that article and study never made that claim. The reason for the blooms was increased sunlight penetration due to thinner ice and less snow. Not because there is more CO2.

Please provide a source for your claim that as a whole, higher CO2 levels combined with higher temperatures will overall result in an increase in the planet's biomass and/or biodiversity. If it's so self-evident, it should be easy to find plenty of scientific literature to back that up.

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by Marcel Petrin

Sorry, no, that article and study never made that claim. The reason for the blooms was increased sunlight penetration due to thinner ice and less snow. Not because there is more CO2.

Please provide a source for your claim that as a whole, higher CO2 levels combined with higher temperatures will overall result in an increase in the planet's biomass and/or biodiversity. If it's so self-evident, it should be easy to find plenty of scientific literature to back that up.

http://www.co2science.org/articles/V12/N46/B3.php

http://www.co2science.org/articles/V12/N46/B3.php

[Old Dawg]

Originally Posted by Marcel Petrin

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ton-population

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...decline-nature

Yeah, I'm sure that some isolated colonies of phytoplankton under thin (and soon to be gone) arctic sea ice will make up for the 40% of phytoplankton that have declined in the past half century.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture09950.html

[moahunter]

Who would have guessed?

Computer models utterly fail to predict climate changes in regions

A few years ago a biologist I know looked at how climate change might affect the spread of a particular invasive insect species. He obtained climate-model projections for North America under standard greenhouse-gas scenarios from two modelling labs, and then tried to characterize how the insect habitat might change. To his surprise, he found very different results depending on which model was used. Even though both models were using the same input data, they made opposite predictions about regional climate patterns in North America.

This reminded me of a presentation I’d seen years earlier about predicted changes in U.S. rainfall patterns under global warming. The two models being used for a government report again made diametrically opposite predictions. In region after region, if one model predicted a tendency toward more flooding, the other tended to predict drying.

Just how good are climate models at predicting regional patterns of climate change? I had occasion to survey this literature as part of a recently completed research project on the subject. The simple summary is that, with few exceptions, climate models not only fail to do better than random numbers, in some cases they are actually worse.

http://opinion.financialpost.com/201...-reality-test/

[Marcel Petrin]

Whoops, didn't see Old Dawg's posts above. I'll respond next week.