Mass Plankton Die-Off

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by anotherT34C

I'm uninterested in politics. I am interested in science. If this is to be a scientific debate, I'm going to hold you to scientific standards. If you are hoping to be held to political standards, well sorry... don't bring a knife to a gunfight.

The quote below says nothing of relevance. What percentage of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor? What percentage is due to CO2? What percentage is due to Methane? Now, how many degrees of temperature are due to greenhouse warming, and how many degrees do each of the contributors contribute? That is a good place to start for a 1st order approximation.

I just googled

"What percentage of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor? What percentage is due to CO2? What percentage is due to Methane? Now, how many degrees of temperature are due to greenhouse warming, and how many degrees do each of the contributors contribute? That is a good place to start for a 1st order approximation."

6000+ hits.
Have at it.
Let us know if you find a consensus.

[anotherT34C]

Originally Posted by Therapy

I just googled

"What percentage of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapor? What percentage is due to CO2? What percentage is due to Methane? Now, how many degrees of temperature are due to greenhouse warming, and how many degrees do each of the contributors contribute? That is a good place to start for a 1st order approximation."

6000+ hits.
Have at it.
Let us know if you find a consensus.

Hits are irrelevant. This is a scientific subject, it has a scientific answer. For answers this elementary, I would first suggest a freshman textbook.

I can give you the answers of course, I've looked it up before. However, I think it more instructive for you to do your own research. For the lazy, (sourced) answers can also be found in the IPCC report.

[osirissail]

Originally Posted by Therapy

Honestly I did not go past the article on the site because it was an example of what is happening. Lots and lots of research with all sorts of theories. Lots of good data and lots of bad data. Then lots of interpretations of that data. And then it is fed into a computer model. And then that "garbage out" is interpreted yet again. Then it is publicized by those with an agenda. I think many have a "good" agenda but they are far back in the scheme that we see play out. Following the money is one thing that almost always ends up with heartache here. IMO . . .

As to the huge reliance on super-computer modeling there is some interesting comments in the reference cited much earlier:

UN’s IPCC preying on people’s ignorance

Pierre Gallois explains, If you put tomfoolery into a computer, nothing comes out of it but tomfoolery. But this tomfoolery, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and no one dares criticize it.

This is an extension of the well-known Garbage In Garbage Out (GIGO), which some now translate as Garbage In Gospel Out. Belief in the output of the models has reached religious proportions, but that is what the IPCC wanted. Now people are realizing the models don’t work, that their predictions are consistently wrong we hear a different story from IPCC. . .

-- There is more interesting comments in the link about relying on the use and abuse of computer modeling . . .

[hpeer]

RANT ON:

I have seen quite significant changes in the "environment" in my lifetime that convince me that humans are changing the way Earth behaves. Some are postive, some are negative. The point is that measurable change due to human intervention is quite evident, if you care to look.

Rivers and air are now much cleaner, we have exported our pollution. Raptors are making a comeback, we banned DDT.

When I drive around I see huge mounds of garbage. We used to dump this in the ocean, we now keep it on land.

Almost all of the large fish are gone.

There are now more than twice as many people on Earth. The per person consumption is higher than before. So the resultant pollution and load on Earth is greater. Where is it all going?

Lu Guang - Google Search

In my mind anyone that says we are not changing Earth's climate is exercising denial in mammoth proportions.

While I am not a great admirer of the human race I know of very, very, very few people who get up in the morning and say "I'm going to do something bad today." It just does not happen. Anyone who thought that people worked like that would never get behind the wheel of a car where you put your life in the hands of other drivers. Simply, we have a deep seated trust in one another to do the right thing.

To then say that an entire class of scientists are lying or conniving is just silly beyond description.

While I may agree that there is nothing we can do about climate change, or over population, it is not because we lack the 'ability' or 'technical knowledge' to do so. It is because humanity is dealing with issues it unable to cope with, issues beyond our emotional grasp. As clearly evidenced by some of the silliness propounded on this board.

There ARE things individuals can do to make life better for the ones they care for.

Enjoy life, go sailing, do good things for your kids, have hope that the future will work out.

RANT OFF

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by osirissail

. Belief in the output of the models has reached religious proportions,
. .

LMAO

This is good too but those that think "the science is settled" won't make it to the end.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/1272

[dacust]

Originally Posted by Therapy

LMAO

This is good too but those that think "the science is settled" won't make it to the end.

Environmental extremism must be put in its place in the climate debate

Those articles are written by Dr. Tim Ball & Tom Harris, the two executives of Natural Resources Stewardship Project, which according to the link below "has been exposed as being controlled by energy industry lobbyists" and "now appears to be defunct".

Natural Resources Stewardship Project - SourceWatch

When I read an article on a disputed subject, first thing I do is Google the authors. Then, especially if the author turns out to just be a "normal" journalist, I Google the people they quote. This time I didn't bother.

The site above is a great resource for finding out where information is coming from.

Their main page: SourceWatch

-dan

[hpeer]

Here is an interesting site on sailing the Northern Passage.

I have not had time to vet it but am running off to a meeting. At least it is in Annapolis.

People we have spoken to say that there are very little ice this year, and the water temperature is increidbly 7 degrees even here, (was 11 in Point Barrow)

Blog « Børge Ousland

And, that ties with this:

NASA reports hottest January-July on record, says that 2010 is “likely” to be warmest year on record and July is “What Global Warming Looks Like”

WMO: "Unprecedented sequence of extreme weather events ... matches IPCC projections of more frequent and more intense extreme weather events due to global warming."

NASA reports hottest January-July on record, says that 2010 is “likely” to be warmest year on record and July is “What Global Warming Looks Like” « Climate Progress

[canuck1955]

hmmmmm warmest periods ever.

Fossil records show a TROPICAL forest in Saskatchewan, Canada, with no seasonal die off.

Been there lately -30 degrees, no ferns, no tropical growth, lots of winter kill. Shore don't sound like no warmin' to me.

Population control, typhoons, hurricans, mass floodings.....sounds like Mother Earth is taking care of herself despite our best efforts at remodelling her.

I will agree we are changing the earth, upsetting the old balance, but in the end Earth will recover...with or without us.

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by hpeer

To then say that an entire class of scientists are lying or conniving is just silly beyond description.

People are strange folks. especially in groups I tend to work with folks who are often genuinely convinced that what they (and often colleagues) are doing is correct. and can be very defensive about it. and conjure up all kinds of proof and evidence to support their position - some of which has long words in So I don't tend to put a lot of store in that sort of thing as........

..........me trumps all that by using pictures even senior management can usually grasp pictures. usually

[osirissail]

Originally Posted by dacust

Those articles are written by Dr. Tim Ball & Tom Harris, the two executives of Natural Resources Stewardship Project, which according to the link below "has been exposed as being controlled by energy industry lobbyists" and "now appears to be defunct".
Natural Resources Stewardship Project - SourceWatch
When I read an article on a disputed subject, first thing I do is Google the authors. Then, especially if the author turns out to just be a "normal" journalist, I Google the people they quote. This time I didn't bother.
The site above is a great resource for finding out where information is coming from.
Their main page: SourceWatch
-dan

So?
NRSP is a conservative backed entity funded by those wishing to conserve their investments/incomes.
In Wikipedia the outfit that is behind "SourceWatch" is: The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a liberal[1] non-profit American-based media research group. It was founded in 1993 by environmentalist writer and political activist John Stauber, but has been run by Lisa Graves since 2009.[2]

So you have a "conservative" viewpoint on the first hand and a "liberal" viewpoint on the other hand. So what is new? I hardly think either of them is going to agree with the other on how they view the GW/ACC/CC debate.

On another related subject - does anybody remember what they were taught back in early schooling in mathematics about "significant digits?" Here is just some examples for thought from the NASA link:
"The global average July 2010 temperature was 0.55°C warmer than climatology in the GISS analysis, which puts 2010 in practically a three way tie for third warmest July. July 1998 was the warmest in the GISS analysis, at 0.68°C."
". . . Figure 3 shows that through the first seven months 2010 is warmer than prior warm years. The difference of +0.08°C compared with 2005, . . ."
The point is a lot of the original temperatures in the "data-bases" were recorded by human observers looking at glass mercury thermometers graduated in whole degrees using their "mark 1, mod 1" eyeballs. If frost or sweat did not obscure their vision they might be able to discern a partial difference between one degree and the next. Anyway, the recorded data was either in whole degrees or at best "interpreted" tenths. So to compile and publish and make conclusions on averaged readings to 2 significant digits violates the most basic tenets of scientific mathematical conventions. . .
- - Heck, in a lot of high latitude areas of this world daily temperatures vary 20C or more in a single day. In low latitude areas daily temperatures can vary 10C during a day - - and they are basing their declarations on hundredths of a degree changes?

[beowulfborealis]

The only thing we know for sure is that the entire history of the earth has been wild and crazy climate change. Antarctica for example, has been tropical in the past which is interesting since it has been the only stable continent for the past 500 million years remaining on the South Pole for that period of time. You can actually find fossil ferns there. Back in the Cambrian, the entire planet was a greenhouse and full of shallow seas teaming with Trilobites and other fun animals. It probably would have been a sailors paradise.

The Sahara Desert has cycled between wet freshwater marsh and extremely dry desert for the past million years. The East Coast of Australia has cycled between dry forest and lush tropical forest in recent history. North America has been sculpted by Pleistocene ice ages, and there have been 17 of them discovered by geologists so far in just the past 2 million years. What is causing these cycles? Nobody knows.

But no matter what, Mother Nature always bats last. Even if humans did not exsist, the climate of the earth would continue to change. We are part of the picture now, because we cause small changes to the climate system through water use, CO2 production, agriculture, and other human activities. Many geologists say we are now in the "Anthropocene" meaning humans are part of the earth's geological history. We are hardly alone though. All species alter the earth history to some degree or another. For example termites produce a lot of CO2 through their activity of digesting cellulose from decaying wood. But thank God they do for if they didn't break down dead trees, all that downed wood would pile up.

But so many factors are still not understood hardly at all like for example space weather and its impact, the sun and its possible cycles, and other space events like the changes in earth's orbit around the sun. We know that the sun has 11 year solar cycles and solar activity right now went through an extreme minimum with almost zero sunspots. Now the polarity of the sun is going to reverse and there will be extreme solar storms in 2012. There will be extreme havoc on satellites and some at JPL predict about 1/3 of them will be destroyed by solar flares. 2012 is going to be an exciting year, space weather wise.

The part that always puzzles me is why are we trying to predict the future of global climate when we cannot yet explain the past?

[osirissail]

All this web searching is very informative to those (including me) who have had opinions solely based on what we heard in the various news media outlets. I think all of us in this thread might agree that news media outlets are less than faithful/scrupulous about their accuracy in reporting what was actually said in various documents.
- - Since the IPCC is the front and center of the GW/AGW/ACC/CC movement they deserve more careful scrutiny about where their "stuff/data" comes from. In that vein here is an interesting link: (probably put out by those awful conservatives)

End of the IPCC: one mistake too many

[hummingway]

The argument against climate change seems to be generating a lot more heat then light. Attacks on the IPCC have nothing to do with the discussion. The IPCC isn't climate change. When the arguments at the end of the links don't contain scientific discussion it makes it even more obvious. Here is a list from scientists purported to oppose the current assessment of the effect of man on climate change.
List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here is an interesting page that purports to rebutte most of the arguments commonly heard against climate change.
Arguments from Global Warming Skeptics and what the science really says

Incidently a number that is floating out there is that 97% of climatologists support the view that man has affected climate change. The fact that there is a list of scientists opposing the common view doesn't make that untrue. First off it is the common view and hence the list and secondly most of these guys aren't climatologists., none-the-less I post it in the interest of balance.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by osirissail

All this web searching is very informative ...
... In that vein here is an interesting link: (probably put out by those awful conservatives)

End of the IPCC: one mistake too many

More You might do a search on your author, Fred Singer.

[dacust]

Originally Posted by osirissail

So?
NRSP is a conservative backed entity funded by those wishing to conserve their investments/incomes.
In Wikipedia the outfit that is behind "SourceWatch" is: The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a liberal[1] non-profit American-based media research group. It was founded in 1993 by environmentalist writer and political activist John Stauber, but has been run by Lisa Graves since 2009.[2]

So you have a "conservative" viewpoint on the first hand and a "liberal" viewpoint on the other hand. So what is new? I hardly think either of them is going to agree with the other on how they view the GW/ACC/CC debate.

...

Since I am neither a Democrat/Republican/Liberal/Conservative I look at all of them from the outside. In a way that I think is more objective . I don't see much difference in those groups. I think they are almost exactly alike. They refuse to actually discuss an issue. They only argue about things they think they have a snappy comeback to. They are totally polarized and don't really care about any issue at all. They only care that their side wins, whatever the issue. (OK, I have over simplified and exaggerated. But I want to keep this post to under 10,000 words.)

So, I evaluate the sources using a different criteria.

I see that the one seems to be funded and backed either directly by the energy industry or by people formerly involved in the energy industry - and the other source where I can see nothing overt to make me doubt what they say. That is, nothing more than the fact that I always suspect the pissibility of ulterior motives.

However, the link I gave was just one link that said NRSP had energy ties, there were more. So, when I get corroborating evidence, then I find it easier to believe. Only easier, I am always aware that even then it may be misleading.

So, you tell me. Do your own research. Is there enough said on links from various sources that makes it reasonable that I have doubts about their motives and objectivity? Not enough to prove it, but enough where it is reasonable that I would want to hear what they have to say from a different source before I believe it?

That is all I am saying. I researched them and think there is reasonable doubt as to their credibility.

It is absolutely astounding to me how many times I research the GW deniers and find ties to the energy industry, or a total lack of peer reviewed publications, or a total lack of credentials - and it's usually a combination of those.

It is also telling the huge number of times I read quotes of scientists, that when I go see the actual paper they wrote, the quote was either taken out of context and/or the shortcomings were completely acknowledged and/or the actual quote was preceded with "In an absolute worst case scenerio...", etc.

And additionally, it is telling that the attacks against scientists research are in the paper, on TV, etc. But the scientists rebuttal is usually found on the web, many pages into the google rating, as published in a scientific journal. Since these rebuttals so seldom see the light of day, you almost never see a denier even address them. After all, why call attention to it?

And the REAL interesting point, is that generally, the scientists viewpoint only gets heard as a quote in a denier article. So, the huge majority of the public gets BOTH sides of the story from the energy industry. Because they have a bigger budget. And I could go on about that subject for a few paragraphs.

I think I'll shut up now.

-dan