Global Warming

[Alfonzo2006]

Sorry if I doing wrong posting like this but I would realy like you guys to see what i've seen on this site...

 

[Alfonzo2006]

O something else about the north and south poles switching you will see if you search on this happen that some time it happen fast like over 100years and sometimes over 2000 years

 

[Alfonzo2006]

This is the last one then I can post the link on the next one..

 

[Alfonzo2006]

http://religiousscience.freewebspace.com

If you look at this link and read all of the sites contence its not very big .

Can you good people give me your opinions my opinion is it looks like poniting in the right direction...

Thanks.. God bless the world

 

[The Ascetic Crusader]

You know, the real problem isn´t Global warming...its a lack of space exploration technology. Geepers! We shoulda been terraforming Mars by now. Have people shipping off to the Moon and Mars.

Our model for civilization is "expansive" in nature. That means unlimited resources for uninterrupted economic growth. We can´t keep it going within the sole confines of planet Earth.

That´s the gist of it all people.

 

[Greatcloud]

I don't want to hijack a thread but the most important thing needed to teraform Mars is gravity. How else are you going to hold an atmosphere in.​

In order to do this you send massive warheads full of nuclear explosives and repeatedly hit the surface at the proper angle to spin Mars. Once a certain point is reached it would become easier as the theory goes.Remember every time a rocket is launched from cape canaveral there is a measurable change in our rotation.

Then with gravity, building an atmosphere and all the rest is possible. Right now we are light years from that,and solving world hunger and poverty would come first obviously.​

Oh yeah I almost forgot, "AGW theorists are all enviromental extremists, and they emit a foul air" (not CO2).​

 

[Michael]

So...why with ALL this data, are there still people sticking thier fingers in thier ears and denying that global warming is even a problem.

Well, the problem is that the earth has documented temperature cycles that are independent of man's activity, and the oil companies are funding anyone who will point that out. Your best and most effective argument IMO is about the CO2 levels themselves because that is a number that is simply off scale compared to any of the ice core records dating back hundreds of thousands of years. That number isn't as easily attacked or disputed.

You're right of course about global warming, but the opposition (big oil and big business) will spend whatever it takes to confuse the general public to the point that they can't decide. If they can confuse us with enough disinformation, we'll do nothing, and it's business as usual for the oil companies.

What we need to do IMO is build electric, rechargeable hybrid cars that can travel at least 50 miles without using any gasoline, and can switch to gas on longer trips. If we were to dismantle even a small percentage of our nuclear stockpile and build nuclear power plants with that material to power our cars, we could reduce greenhouse emissions substantially.

 

[The Ascetic Crusader]

I don't want to hijack a thread but the most important thing needed to teraform Mars is gravity. ​

You´re not listening dude...we gotta get our people off this planet. That means building spaceships like we build cars. Mass production.

 

[EnemyPartyII]

I don't want to hijack a thread but the most important thing needed to teraform Mars is gravity. How else are you going to hold an atmosphere in.​

In order to do this you send massive warheads full of nuclear explosives and repeatedly hit the surface at the proper angle to spin Mars. Once a certain point is reached it would become easier as the theory goes.Remember every time a rocket is launched from cape canaveral there is a measurable change in our rotation.

Then with gravity, building an atmosphere and all the rest is possible. Right now we are light years from that,and solving world hunger and poverty would come first obviously.​

Oh yeah I almost forgot, "AGW theorists are all enviromental extremists, and they emit a foul air" (not CO2).​

Hate to be a stickler... but increasing the spin of Mars won't increase the gravity...

gravity is a function of mass, not RPM

 

[DaveS]

Well, the problem is that the earth has documented temperature cycles that are independent of man's activity, and the oil companies are funding anyone who will point that out. Your best and most effective argument IMO is about the CO2 levels themselves because that is a number that is simply off scale compared to any of the ice core records dating back hundreds of thousands of years. That number isn't as easily attacked or disputed.

You're right of course about global warming, but the opposition (big oil and big business) will spend whatever it takes to confuse the general public to the point that they can't decide. If they can confuse us with enough disinformation, we'll do nothing, and it's business as usual for the oil companies.

What we need to do IMO is build electric, rechargeable hybrid cars that can travel at least 50 miles without using any gasoline, and can switch to gas on longer trips. If we were to dismantle even a small percentage of our nuclear stockpile and build nuclear power plants with that material to power our cars, we could reduce greenhouse emissions substantially.

This so called 'fact' that all the scientists who oppose GW theory are funded by oil companies is actually completely untrue. The actual scientists who most prominently oppose the theory i.e by constructing different theories have most certainly never been offered any money from any of these big, bad oil companies. Do you want to know the reason? Oil companies are now making a killing out of marketing many of their fuels as 'more efficient' or 'eco-friendly' - it is not in their interests to back-track now as they have already made significant investments. These scientists also experience problems with funding which clearly would not occur if funded by the oil companies which are literally billions and billions in profit every year.

To address the actual arguments made where you claim that the CO2 levels are simply off-scale, look at the graph through the link below:
http://sharpgary.org/CO2GlobTemp.gifhttp://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/images/Vostok.jpg
Here you can see the levels of CO2 have actually been at similar levels in the past before at regular intervals - it would seem that we have temperature rises like this every 100,000 years or so.
Another slight problem is that global temperatures have actually been cooling over the last couple of years despite continued rising CO2 levels...
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/CO2Temp.gif

 

[chaim]

What are you talking about, your own CO2 data shows that in the past 400,000 years co2 has never been above 280ppm. We are currently above 380ppm and we will hit 500ppm in the next couple of decades.

Secondly I would tend to trust the NASA surface temp records over 4 year old un-cited data from Junkscience:

from: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

Which show a clear and continuing warming trend.

This so called 'fact' that all the scientists who oppose GW theory are funded by oil companies is actually completely untrue. The actual scientists who most prominently oppose the theory i.e by constructing different theories have most certainly never been offered any money from any of these big, bad oil companies. Do you want to know the reason? Oil companies are now making a killing out of marketing many of their fuels as 'more efficient' or 'eco-friendly' - it is not in their interests to back-track now as they have already made significant investments. These scientists also experience problems with funding which clearly would not occur if funded by the oil companies which are literally billions and billions in profit every year.

To address the actual arguments made where you claim that the CO2 levels are simply off-scale, look at the graph through the link below:
http://sharpgary.org/CO2GlobTemp.gif
Here you can see the levels of CO2 have actually been at similar levels in the past before at regular intervals - it would seem that we have temperature rises like this every 100,000 years or so.
Another slight problem is that global temperatures have actually been cooling over the last couple of years despite continued rising CO2 levels...
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/CO2Temp.gif

 

[chaim]

.

 

[DaveS]

What are you talking about, your own CO2 data shows that in the past 400,000 years co2 has never been above 280ppm. We are currently above 380ppm and we will hit 500ppm in the next couple of decades.

Over the past 400,000 years yes I agree, I had actually misread that particular graph (was in a rush) for the temperature line being CO2 - doh!
Anyway, consider the following graph for the last 550 (odd) million years:
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif

Here you can see that CO2 levels were relatively incredibly high as was temperature. However, you can also see that both seem to move completely independantly of eachother.

Which show a clear and continuing warming trend.

My argument isn't that there isn't GW, my argument is with it's supposed cause.

 

[Michael]

This so called 'fact' that all the scientists who oppose GW theory are funded by oil companies is actually completely untrue.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1876538,00.html
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/18/exxon-global-warming-2/
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/05/some_like_it_hot.html

I believe you are naive.

To address the actual arguments made where you claim that the CO2 levels are simply off-scale, look at the graph through the link below:
http://sharpgary.org/CO2GlobTemp.gif
Here you can see the levels of CO2 have actually been at similar levels in the past before at regular intervals

Er, nowhere on your graph of over 400,000 years do I see carbon dioxide levels this high. Furthermore every major spike in temperature (4 major ones) is preceded by a spike in C02 levels. I'd say your graph destroys your argument.

it would seem that we have temperature rises like this every 100,000 years or so.

Yet at no point on that graph are the C02 levels as high as they are today.

Another slight problem is that global temperatures have actually been cooling over the last couple of years despite continued rising CO2 levels...
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/CO2Temp.gif

Junk science is good name for that website alright. 9 out of the 10 hottest years on record happened since 1995.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2004-12-15-hot-year_x.htm

 

[chaim]

You have to stop with the moving goal posts here Dave. You have made several claims that have been demonstrably false, and each time this is pointed out you just reply with a new claim. The fact that temperature and CO2 are not correlated for the past 650 million years is not that surprising, the planet even a couple of million years ago was an entirely different system. Secondly if you look at the original version of this data you will notice that the error bars are as large as the values, making it only slightly meaningful. It is dishonest to replot the data without its error bars.

My question to you is: If the current warming is not due to greenhouse gases what is causing it?
Just to make it clear, I want specifics here, not just the claim 'it is natural'. The climate does not just ge up and move to a new equilibrium, there must be a forcing. In your theory what is the forcing that is causing the current warming?

Over the past 400,000 years yes I agree, I had actually misread that particular graph (was in a rush) for the temperature line being CO2 - doh!
Anyway, consider the following graph for the last 550 (odd) million years:
http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif

Here you can see that CO2 levels were relatively incredibly high as was temperature. However, you can also see that both seem to move completely independantly of eachother.



My argument isn't that there isn't GW, my argument is with it's supposed cause.

 

[DaveS]

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/cl...876538,00.html
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/18/...bal-warming-2/
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feat...ke_it_hot.html

I believe you are naive.

Hardly, the actual real opposition to the cause of GW comes from real scientists who actually receive very little funding. This is because most of these scientists don't exactly argue against CO2 having an effect on global temperatures they just argue that it has a limited effect. This is not completely what the oil companies want to hear. Also, many of these scientists have other arguments against the oil companies such as habitat destruction, bad use of resources etc. which leads to non-funding.
I may also point out that the current 'blame the funder' is a bit of a logical falacy - just because the funder may have an interest in the outcome does not invalidate any real science the study has unearthed. Besides, many people have a very large interest in CO2 GW Theory being correct and therefore fund it - why is that somehow moral and correct when apparently the opposite isn't at all?
Finally, I'll take you to the quick example of Henrik Svensmark. He has been constructing an opposing theory for over 10 years and yet he has only just secured a research grant for proper experiments in CERN. In today's world it is said that when you are putting forward an application for a grant all you have to do is put 'environment' and 'CO2' in there and it will accepted without delay. It is halting the progression of science!

Er, nowhere on your graph of over 400,000 years do I see carbon dioxide levels this high. Furthermore every major spike in temperature (4 major ones) is preceded by a spike in C02 levels. I'd say your graph destroys your argument.

Take a look at the second post to show higher CO2 concs. over the last 550 million years.
If I may I would like to display a more detailed graph as that one is a tad misleading due to it's size:
http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/IceCores1.gif
This above graph shows that temperature actually seems to be the leading line in temperature rise and fall rather than the other way around. It also shows that there has been similar temperature rises at regular intervals throughout the last 400,000 years with rises in CO2 levels. If, as you say CO2 is the driving force what then exactly causes these spikes to occur?
If I may now give you a graph over the last 1300 years:
http://biocab.org/Comparison_TT-CO2-Solar_Irradiance.jpg
From this graph you can see that while temperature varied quite considerably up to 1600 CO2 levels were actually at a pretty much constant value. It also reveals that when CO2 levels did begin to rise it was actually during a period of global cooling known as the 'mini ice age' in the 1600s shown on the graph shaded in blue.
Also (rather inconveniently) from 1850-1900 when all this was supposed to have started (despite it actually starting in 1600) there was actually a depression in CO2 levels. Oops.

Yet at no point on that graph are the C02 levels as high as they are today.

CO2 is currently relatively higher than temperature by quite a large degree relatively. To compensate this you would expect a very sharp relative increase in global temperatures due to the effect this would cause. However, last year there was a drop in average temp. and this year while it has been sunnier earlier in the year I can't say that there has been any really weird heatwaves in my area.

Junk science is good name for that website alright. 9 out of the 10 hottest years on record happened since 1995.
[URL="http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news...hot-year_x.htm"]http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news...hot-year_x.htm[/URL]

So what? I agree and I know that temperatures are rising. However, there is little evidence to suggest that CO2 levels make any meaningful contribution to this trend.

 

[DaveS]

You have to stop with the moving goal posts here Dave. You have made several claims that have been demonstrably false, and each time this is pointed out you just reply with a new claim. The fact that temperature and CO2 are not correlated for the past 650 million years is not that surprising, the planet even a couple of million years ago was an entirely different system. Secondly if you look at the original version of this data you will notice that the error bars are as large as the values, making it only slightly meaningful. It is dishonest to replot the data without its error bars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology
Wiki would disagree --- the composition of the atmosphere seems to be fairly constant in the current '3rd atmosphere'.

My question to you is: If the current warming is not due to greenhouse gases what is causing it?
Just to make it clear, I want specifics here, not just the claim 'it is natural'. The climate does not just ge up and move to a new equilibrium, there must be a forcing. In your theory what is the forcing that is causing the current warming?

Just to clarify - I am not saying that greenhouse gases have no effect, I am just saying that their effect is somewhat limited.
To clarify my own beliefs I would really recomend reading 'The Chilling Stars: A new theory of climate change' by Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder as that pretty much puts it all down in one book. However, I will try to summarise it below although obviously I cannot provide all the back-up data straight away:

My argument is that the temperature on Earth is controlled largely by the actions of cosmic rays, particularly the actions of muons.
The sun moves in fairly regular cycles in the strength of it's magnetic field, also known as the 'solar wind'. This increases in strength, then decreases over a period of time. As it's magnetic field strength increases so to does the relative influence that it exerts over the surrounding area - it gets stronger therefore bigger and vice versa. This has a large effect on cosmic rays... particularly muons.
A muon is basically a variant of the electron that has the same charge but a much larger mass and is thus affected by a magnetic field as if this increases in size then it is more likely to be deflected away from the Earth. However, assume that a muon does enter the atmosphere for now. Due to it's charge and mass it is highly ionising, particualrly with water molecules which causes them to be attracted to it. This on a wider scale causes cloud production which prevents the sun's heat from reaching the Earth - it is reflected. This causes a global decreases in temperature.
However, at the moement we are experiencing a period of heightened activity of the sun which therefore creates a larger mag. field with higher strength. This causes less muons to penetrate the atmosphere which causes less cloud formation which causes increased penetration by the sun's rays and therefore increased temperatures.

 

[chaim]

I am quite familiar with Svensmark's work. Most recently his claims about cosmic ray influence on cloud formation and therefore climate forcing are based on his paper: "Experimental evidence for the role of ions in particle nucleation under atmospheric conditions" by Svensmark et al., Proc. R. Soc. A (2007). I have reviewed this paper and if you would like a copy I can provide it.

The abstract is as follows:

"Experimental studies of aerosol nucleation in air, containing trace amounts of ozone,
sulphur dioxide and water vapour at concentrations relevant for the Earth’s atmosphere,
are reported. The production of new aerosol particles is found to be proportional to the
negative ion density and yields nucleation rates of the order of 0.1–1 cmK3 sK1. This
suggests that the ions are active in generating an atmospheric reservoir of small
thermodynamically stable clusters, which are important for nucleation processes in the
atmosphere and ultimately for cloud formation."

While this paper and associated research is interesting and explores an important subject it is dramatically flawed and has been way over sold, in the form of press releases and his book.

Some of the major flaws with the paper, is that he claims to have seen particle formation under conditions representative of atmospheric conditions. Unfortunately he introduced orders of magnitude more SO2 and O3 that are found anywhere in the atmosphere. He then irradiated it all with 254nm UV light. Never mind that 254nm UV does not penetrate the atmosphere and hence is totally unrealistic. Along with the technical issues with his experiment, he has failed to demonstrate most of the steps necessary to proceed from this experiment to anything to do with climate.

The first issue is that even though he formed particles (he calls them clusters), the are incredibly tiny, a few nm across. This is WAY to small to be a cloud condensation nuclei. Secondly in the marine boundary layer (where he claims these clouds will have the most effect on climate) there is already an abundance of particles large enough to form clouds in the form of sea salt aerosol. To make the claims that he does he would have to demonstrate that the availability of CCN is the limiting factor to cloud formation, which he doesn't. To claim that because he saw 3nm sulfate aerosols form in his smog chamber and therefore cosmic rays are forming low level clouds is entirely unscientific.

The second big issue is that in addition to publishing this paper (which besides its flaws isn't that bad) he also made a press release. This is available here: http://spacecenter.dk/research/sun-...heory-of-climate-change/?searchterm=svensmark

Unfortunately this press release goes well beyond what can be justified by the scientific method from the experiments he performed.
For example he claims:

“The data revealed that electrons released by cosmic rays act as catalysts, which significantly accelerating the formation of stable, ultra-small clusters of sulphuric acid and water molecules which are the building blocks for cloud condensation nuclei.”

Except no where in his research has he shown that these ultra-small clusters can go on to form Cloud condensation Nuclei (CCN). He then starts getting political:

“‘Many climate scientists have considered the linkages from cosmic rays to clouds to climate as unproven,’ comments Eigil Friis-Christensen, who is now Director of the Danish National Space Center. ‘Some said there was no conceivable way in which cosmic rays could influence cloud cover. The SKY experiment now shows how they do so, and should help to put the cosmic-ray connection firmly onto the agenda of international climate research.’”

However, unfortunately his experiment still doesn't show how cosmic rays can form clouds, it shows that how under certain unrealistic conditions, you can form extremely small clusters.

Making claims such as these that are not based on science grossly hurt his credibility.

Finally assuming Svensmark has it right, let us look at the recent warming compared to cosmic ray intensity:

From real climate.

Oooops, it doesn't appear to me that we have a decrease in cosmic rays that is associated with the current warming.

Anyway I appreciate an actual discussion of the science of climate change, and hopefully we can both learn something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology
Wiki would disagree --- the composition of the atmosphere seems to be fairly constant in the current '3rd atmosphere'.



Just to clarify - I am not saying that greenhouse gases have no effect, I am just saying that their effect is somewhat limited.
To clarify my own beliefs I would really recomend reading 'The Chilling Stars: A new theory of climate change' by Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder as that pretty much puts it all down in one book. However, I will try to summarise it below although obviously I cannot provide all the back-up data straight away:

My argument is that the temperature on Earth is controlled largely by the actions of cosmic rays, particularly the actions of muons.
The sun moves in fairly regular cycles in the strength of it's magnetic field, also known as the 'solar wind'. This increases in strength, then decreases over a period of time. As it's magnetic field strength increases so to does the relative influence that it exerts over the surrounding area - it gets stronger therefore bigger and vice versa. This has a large effect on cosmic rays... particularly muons.
A muon is basically a variant of the electron that has the same charge but a much larger mass and is thus affected by a magnetic field as if this increases in size then it is more likely to be deflected away from the Earth. However, assume that a muon does enter the atmosphere for now. Due to it's charge and mass it is highly ionising, particualrly with water molecules which causes them to be attracted to it. This on a wider scale causes cloud production which prevents the sun's heat from reaching the Earth - it is reflected. This causes a global decreases in temperature.
However, at the moement we are experiencing a period of heightened activity of the sun which therefore creates a larger mag. field with higher strength. This causes less muons to penetrate the atmosphere which causes less cloud formation which causes increased penetration by the sun's rays and therefore increased temperatures.

 

[DaveS]

interesting - I'm glad to actually be discussing this with someone who knows something of science! In the past I have received answers to these claims in a somewhat basic, irrelevant and insulting manner! I even had someone challenging me about the law of limiting factors in respect of photosynthesis! That kinda makes my ears shut...

Right to answer your criticisms I shall use all graphs from the book only by scanning them in etc. etc. so then I know that I am actually taking what they say! This may take some time however so I will do it at a point by point and then discuss if that is ok?

The first graph which I came across answers your question about whether cosmic rays affect cloud cover. This shows that while there is no real correlation at high and medium altitude there is a positive correlation between low altitude cloud cover and cosmic ray levels:

http://img265.imageshack.us/my.php?image=chilling1ua7.png http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/2417/chilling1ua7.th.png

There are obviously some deviations as there always are with science but I think most people would agree to a correlation there.

Right now I'm going out for a double 40yr old bday party so I wont be able to do anymore for a while.. I will get to it though.

BTW If you know of a better image source than imageshack then please say! Everything takes ages with them...

 

[chaim]

The figure you scanned is from a paper by Marsh and Svensmark:

Marsh, N., and H. Svensmark (2003), Galactic cosmic ray and El Niño–Southern Oscillation trends in International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project D2 low-cloud properties, J. Geophys. Res., 108(D6), 4195, doi:10.1029/2001JD001264.

While the low cloud correlation appears to be quite good, there are several issues that have been brought up with the analysis they performed (which I doubt Svensmark included in his book). The first is the cloud data set they used. It is from a satellite instrument called ISCCP, which obviously views clouds from above. As such it can only resolve the low clouds that they claim are correlated when they are not obscured by higher clouds. This leads to biased sampling, it is very hard to say that there has been an actual change in the low clouds, or if there has been a change in the higher clouds allowing ISCCP to see the low clouds more frequently. The second issue is that Marsh and Svensmark applied a 'correction' to the ISCCP data, that is necessary to make their correlation work. While correcting satellite data is not unheard of and is often necessary to account for changes in instrument response etc, it is generally performed by the satellite science team and not the data end user. It is awfully suspicious that Marsh and Svensmark took it on themselves to make a correction to satellite data that NOAA didn't deem necessary.

Unfortunately I don't have the time to figure by figure refute Svensmark's book. But I also don't think this is necessary. I thin Svensmark has done some good work, and it may help explain some previous climate variability (in addition to orbital dynamics). Unfortunately he has tried to over sell his work as it applies to current climate change. I think this is well reflected by the fact that a lot of the comments he has made in press releases (and apparently in his book) are not supported by the research he has published for a professional audience.

Finally, and on a more fundamental level, if GCR are responsible for the current warming, why is there no decreasing trend in GCR over the past 5 decades using the very same data svensmark cites:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/COSMIC_RAYS/cosmic.html

Until you can answer this the point is moot. Correlation does not prove causation, but lack of correlation does indicate lack of causation.

interesting - I'm glad to actually be discussing this with someone who knows something of science! In the past I have received answers to these claims in a somewhat basic, irrelevant and insulting manner! I even had someone challenging me about the law of limiting factors in respect of photosynthesis! That kinda makes my ears shut...

Right to answer your criticisms I shall use all graphs from the book only by scanning them in etc. etc. so then I know that I am actually taking what they say! This may take some time however so I will do it at a point by point and then discuss if that is ok?

The first graph which I came across answers your question about whether cosmic rays affect cloud cover. This shows that while there is no real correlation at high and medium altitude there is a positive correlation between low altitude cloud cover and cosmic ray levels:

http://img265.imageshack.us/my.php?image=chilling1ua7.png http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/2417/chilling1ua7.th.png

There are obviously some deviations as there always are with science but I think most people would agree to a correlation there.

Right now I'm going out for a double 40yr old bday party so I wont be able to do anymore for a while.. I will get to it though.

BTW If you know of a better image source than imageshack then please say! Everything takes ages with them...