Mass Plankton Die-Off

[osirissail]

I love guys with a sense of humor - from the listed Wiki definition comes "English philosopher and historian of science William Whewell coined the term scientist in 1833, . . . Whewell reported in his review; alluding to himself, he noted that "some ingenious gentleman proposed that, by analogy with artist, they might form [the word] scientist, and added that there could be no scruple in making free with this term since we already have such words as economist, and atheist— but this was not generally palatable"
- - And special mention to Captain Bill for his 4th paragraph zinger. And to his 6th paragraph analysis of the news media. I was aghast a decade or two ago when I heard on talk radio and other radio programs the journalists bragging about how dumb they are about most subjects. It appeared to me that they were inferring that to be successful in broadcasting you have to be dumber than your audience or they will not listen. Remember the movies - "Dumb and Dumber," etc.
- - The modern definition of "scientist" he gives would then de-classify great scientists of the 17th through 20th century who had no accredited degrees from universities or colleges. But otherwise, IMHO, a very good post especially about including some of the other variables - and there are an awful lot of variables - that could make the climate change go the other way back towards another ice-age.
- - Of special interest, I am noting a subtle switch away from Carbon Dioxide as the villain and Methane emerging as its replacement villain. That I can understand fully as more than once I have been at the south end of a northbound facing bull and experienced where a lot of methane comes from. I am waiting for the next global conference in mandating corks be placed world-wide in such orifices or at least everybody will have to wear an activated charcoal filter (whatever) in their underpants.

[S&S]

Originally Posted by Captain Bill

There is one problem with current environmental research and that is if you can't tie your work to global climate change you won't get funded. None of the active scientists I know think that this is a good thing, but funding is handed out by government agencies and this is their agenda, not the scientist's. .

Sooo True. I know three people (astrophysics) that switched from studying planetary atmospheres to "climate change" bcause there was no money for extraterrestrial work but TONS for "global warming/cooling/whatever".

Person's gotta eat.

[stark]

Originally Posted by Therapy

These global warming, err climate change (a new term now) arguments continue as Science is the new religion. This will produce sects as in the past and they will war with each other, like in the past.

Far from the truth!!

Although S&S had a good point about people who are "not in the trade" have to take it on faith, the difference between science and religion is that if an "expert" in religion tells you about God, well you know even (s)he is basing it on faith. But when an expert in science tells you about Einstein's relativity, you may not understand it, but you know its true because it is used everyday in our GPS system. Just look around, everything you see is brought to you because scientists [for the most part] have a pretty good understanding of how things work.

Also scientists do not belong to some giant cohesive group that gets together and decides that we are going to believe this and that, but not the other. To the contrary, we are an extremely critical and competitive group. But this is what makes it such a strong group and this is why 'bad' science always washes out.

The influence of money on science? Well, yeah its there. But just because your making bank to do bad science doesn't mean you will be accepted by the community (check out these scam artists: Development -they can fool their investors, but they are rejects in our community)

Back on topic, I believe global warming is a serious issue. I also believe there is nothing we can do about it because we will never sacrifice our economy for it. The bigger impact on cruisers will not be how it affects weather predictions, but rather the availability and distribution of resources esp. in under-developed areas.

[Captain Bill]

Originally Posted by osirissail

- - The modern definition of "scientist" he gives would then de-classify great scientists of the 17th through 20th century who had no accredited degrees from universities or colleges. But otherwise, IMHO, a very good post especially about including some of the other variables - and there are an awful lot of variables - that could make the climate change go the other way back towards another ice-age.
- - Of special interest, I am noting a subtle switch away from Carbon Dioxide as the villain and Methane emerging as its replacement villain. That I can understand fully as more than once I have been at the south end of a northbound facing bull and experienced where a lot of methane comes from. I am waiting for the next global conference in mandating corks be placed world-wide in such orifices or at least everybody will have to wear an activated charcoal filter (whatever) in their underpants.

You are correct, I did give the modern definition of scientist. This is not ment to discredit pioneering minds in science that did not have the advantage of accredited universities and colleges. After all at one time barbers also acted as medical doctors and today you can go to barber college and to a university to medical school, but today would you go to your barber for medical advice?

With regards to methane being the culprit for global warming, the models that predict a runaway greenhouse effect (worst case warming) see the release of large amounts of methane from the permafrost and from methane hydrates at the bottom of the ocean as the ultimate global warming catastrophe. The buildup of CO2 slowly warms the earth and oceans enough that the methane stored in the permafrost and methane hydrates is released. Methane is said to be ( I have not read these papers myself) 17 times more effective at blocking infrared radiation than is CO2. So CO2 is the trigger that releases methane and causes the runaway greenhouse effect. If CO2 does not cause this warming then the methane release never happens. CO2 is still the culprit in this model. By the way activated charcoal does not absorb methane, just the sulfurous emmisions that accompany it.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by humming way

So far a pretty weak arguments. The first two citations don't come up for me the next one the Science and Public Policy Institute are conservative wonks and the paper starts with the rather silly argument that the surface air has been cooling the last six years. Science and Public Policy Institute - Wiped, the free encyclopedia

They are a political think tank not a science institute.

Next is an article in the Canada Free Press. Hardly a scientific journal and if there is any form of peer review it is for political content.

Really this stuff just punctuates my point.

It's an example of how the IPCC is constructed and is operating to control the masses with their ideals. The scientists on "the list" are reneging in large numbers. The predictions are from computer models. The famous movie is bunk.

I apologize for not being able to re-research and find everything I have read on the subject since around, oh, 2006 or so.

I can say I have not read lots of the papers themselves, nor looked at the raw data myself. I can't make a computer "model" either. So I have to read all that I can find and have time for and understand (don't use that as a poke please). I have formed my opinion over time and have not found enough to convince me otherwise even though I read the "other side's" stuff even more.

Sorry about that.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by osirissail

- - Of special interest, I am noting a subtle switch away from Carbon Dioxide as the villain and Methane emerging as its replacement villain. That I can understand fully as more than once I have been at the south end of a northbound facing bull and experienced where a lot of methane comes from. I am waiting for the next global conference in mandating corks be placed world-wide in such orifices or at least everybody will have to wear an activated charcoal filter (whatever) in their underpants.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which last year earned a joint share of the Nobel Peace Prize, said that people should then go on to reduce their meat consumption even further

UN says eat less meat to curb global warming | Environment | The Observer

You mentinoned dumb and dumber...........

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by stark

Also scientists do not belong to some giant cohesive group that gets together and decides that we are going to believe this and that, but not the other. To the contrary, we are an extremely critical and competitive group. But this is what makes it such a strong group and this is why 'bad' science always washes out.


.

It ain't washed out of the IPCC.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by stark

Back on topic, I believe global warming is a serious issue. I also believe there is nothing we can do about it because we will never sacrifice our economy for it. The bigger impact on cruisers will not be how it affects weather predictions, but rather the availability and distribution of resources esp. in under-developed areas.

I see you use Global Warming and not Climate Change. Shows your age. The new term includes ice ages. How convenient for the "priests".

I agree a GW is serious (it will change what and how we do a lot of stuff) but I do not agree that we have any real influence on it. That is our difference.

Stop our energy use tomorrow, stop our ability to produce food in the astronomical amounts we do now, let billions starve and die, and the planet will continue on it's merry warming trend. Till the next cooling trend anyway.

[knothead]

Originally Posted by Therapy

It ain't washed out of the IPCC.

Which indicates, to this layman, that it's not bad science.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by Captain Bill

With regards to methane being the culprit for global warming, the models that predict a runaway greenhouse effect (worst case warming) see the release of large amounts of methane from the permafrost and from methane hydrates at the bottom of the ocean as the ultimate global warming catastrophe. The buildup of CO2 slowly warms the earth and oceans enough that the methane stored in the permafrost and methane hydrates is released. Methane is said to be ( I have not read these papers myself) 17 times more effective at blocking infrared radiation than is CO2. So CO2 is the trigger that releases methane and causes the runaway greenhouse effect. If CO2 does not cause this warming then the methane release never happens. CO2 is still the culprit in this model. By the way activated charcoal does not absorb methane, just the sulfurous emmisions that accompany it.

Now where was it that the charts of the past (extrapolated by "scientists") and present showed first warming (not sure how - the sun?) and only then followed by CO2 rise?
Seen it several times.

The trigger was pulled before the industrial revolution right?

Some CO2 stuff here.
CO2 Science

[dacust]

Originally Posted by Therapy

Yea right.
From above.
IPCC Technical Paper VI - June 2008

The IPCC under the Microscope

John McClean - "Computer consultant and occasional travel photographer" according to his web page.

-dan

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by knothead

Which indicates, to this layman, that it's not bad science.

Well, hmm.

I guess what I am saying about the IPCC is this: The IPCC is mostly a lot of government people. Many governments. They asked the scientists to give them information. They then took what they liked and wrote up all this stuff about carbon capping, trading - whatever and started foisting it out to "us".

Many of the scientists who said "whoa there, that isn't necessarily true" or things like that and wanted off the list (signed on before the foisting) were black-balled.

I will try to find that again - sigh.......

It is not that science doesn't tell us things are warming. It is the twisting of why and how to gain power and money by a coalition of "spin doctors".

I still say the same thing. Turn off every electrical or mechanical device we have and nothing much will change. Well, for Mama Earth I mean. Me, I won't have business for you, I will be protecting the tomatoes in my back yard.

I love fresh tomatoes.

[Therapy]

Sort of an example of human condition. Normal really.

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/im...censorship.pdf


Science is best progressed by open and free discussion in which all participants have equal rights of contribution. This is especially the case when a scientific issue is related to a matter of high public controversy - such as the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming.
In July 2009 we published a paper in the peer-reviewed Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR) in which we described the results of comparing global atmospheric temperature since 1958 with variations in the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climatic framework. Our analysis supported earlier research that demonstrates a close link between these factors, and indicated that a large portion of the variability in global temperature is explained by ENSO variation, thus leaving little room for a substantial human influence on temperature.
On November 20, a newly appointed, replacement JGR editor informed us that a group of scientists led by Grant Foster had submitted a critique of our paper for publication in JGR. We were invited to write a response, which we did, submitting it to JGR on January 14, 2010. 3
On March 16, the replacement editor contacted us again. He included three referees’ reports, and indicated that on the advice of these referees he was rejecting our response to the Foster et al. critique, and that the response would therefore not be published in JGR.
The practice of editorial rejection of the authors’ response to criticism is unprecedented in our experience. It is surprising because it amounts to the editorial usurping of the right of authors to defend their paper and deprives readers from hearing all sides of a scientific discussion before they make up their own minds on an issue. It is declaring that the journal editor - or the reviewers to whom he defers - will decide if authors can defend papers that have already been positively reviewed and been published by that same journal. Such an attitude is the antithesis of productive scientific discussion.

[Captain Bill]

Originally Posted by Therapy

Now where was it that the charts of the past (extrapolated by "scientists") and present showed first warming (not sure how - the sun?) and only then followed by CO2 rise?
Seen it several times.

The trigger was pulled before the industrial revolution right?

Some CO2 stuff here.
CO2 Science

The real problem is that the sunspot minimum period ended about the same time that the industrial revolution started. CO2 levels have lagged a bit behind the warming trend. I believe that it is hard to tell exactly how much of the current rise is due to industrial CO2 and how much is due to natural causes. The best available models run with man made CO2 in the model show a higher temperature than they do without the man made CO2 in the model and the ones with the manmade CO2 are closer to what were seeing then the ones without. This could all be coincidence. The problem is we won't know which model is correct or even close to correct until all of this plays out over time. One of the things that climate modelers have predicted is more extreme swings in the weather (note; climate is not weather) as the climate got warmer. So far on a world wide basis 2010 is shaping up to be the warmest on record, yet last winter people were freezing in their boats in Miami (keeping the thread sailing related). Is this one of the predicted swings? Unfortunately the only way to know for sure is to wait and see what happens.

I think there are huge reasons to reduce our CO2 output that don't have to do with global warming. The amount of oil available is finite and it is a hugely important industrial feedstock for all kinds of manufactured goods. It is a great disservice to future generations to be burning it as fuel, but an equally energy dense form of fuel needs to be produced to replace it. So far biodiesel is the only one that comes close, but it has yet to be produced in significant quantities.

I said in a previous post that in the grand scheme of things global warming didn't amount to much. The original posting in this thread decried the mass die off of phytoplankton which got this thread on the track of global warming. With all of the chemicals, herbicide, pesticides and other stuff we have thrown in the ocean in the same time period, I don't know how anyone can attribute this decline to only global warming. At the beginning of this time herbicides were virtually nonexistant, but are now in wide spread use. This stuff runs off of the land and into our rivers and eventually the oceans. It's sprayed on golf courses in most developed countries at unbelieveable rates. 50 years ago golf courses were few and far between, now they're all over the place. 50 years ago they didn't use herbicides on golf courses, now they all do. The oceans have been tremendously overfished, coastal wetlands have been developed and destroyed. How much and what pieces of what have been destroyed were required to support the old plankton species and densities? We'll never know because it was destroyed before we could find out. Could global warming have something to do with it? Maybe, but since we didn't understand the system before we changed it, we'll never know. It's possible we had such high plankton densities 50 years ago because of all the raw sewage we were dumping in the ocean. The industrial countries have pretty much cleaned up their act with sewage treatment and that might have caused the decline. We'll never know.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by Captain Bill

The real problem is that the sunspot minimum period ended about the same time that the industrial revolution started. CO2 levels have lagged a bit behind the warming trend. I believe that it is hard to tell exactly how much of the current rise is due to industrial CO2 and how much is due to natural causes. The best available models run with man made CO2 in the model show a higher temperature than they do without the man made CO2 in the model and the ones with the manmade CO2 are closer to what were seeing then the ones without. This could all be coincidence. The problem is we won't know which model is correct or even close to correct until all of this plays out over time. One of the things that climate modelers have predicted is more extreme swings in the weather (note; climate is not weather) as the climate got warmer. So far on a world wide basis 2010 is shaping up to be the warmest on record, yet last winter people were freezing in their boats in Miami (keeping the thread sailing related). Is this one of the predicted swings? Unfortunately the only way to know for sure is to wait and see what happens.

I think there are huge reasons to reduce our CO2 output that don't have to do with global warming. The amount of oil available is finite and it is a hugely important industrial feedstock for all kinds of manufactured goods. It is a great disservice to future generations to be burning it as fuel, but an equally energy dense form of fuel needs to be produced to replace it. So far biodiesel is the only one that comes close, but it has yet to be produced in significant quantities.

I said in a previous post that in the grand scheme of things global warming didn't amount to much. The original posting in this thread decried the mass die off of phytoplankton which got this thread on the track of global warming. With all of the chemicals, herbicide, pesticides and other stuff we have thrown in the ocean in the same time period, I don't know how anyone can attribute this decline to only global warming. At the beginning of this time herbicides were virtually nonexistant, but are now in wide spread use. This stuff runs off of the land and into our rivers and eventually the oceans. It's sprayed on golf courses in most developed countries at unbelieveable rates. 50 years ago golf courses were few and far between, now they're all over the place. 50 years ago they didn't use herbicides on golf courses, now they all do. The oceans have been tremendously overfished, coastal wetlands have been developed and destroyed. How much and what pieces of what have been destroyed were required to support the old plankton species and densities? We'll never know because it was destroyed before we could find out. Could global warming have something to do with it? Maybe, but since we didn't understand the system before we changed it, we'll never know. It's possible we had such high plankton densities 50 years ago because of all the raw sewage we were dumping in the ocean. The industrial countries have pretty much cleaned up their act with sewage treatment and that might have caused the decline. We'll never know.

Thanks for that.

I have not seen enough to convince me that CO2 causes warming. Warming seems to cause CO2 increases to me.

Yes, the pollution issue is certainly a big one. Much bigger than GW on my list. But then I own a plastic boat........

And when I get to get on it I breathe out a lot more CO2 than when I type here.