68% of the largest firms have climate change as a central priority.

Have you studied any type of science? Are you saying satellite measurements of solar radiation are "junk"? They're actually very simple and the data is open to the public. Do you think it's a complete lie that we are taking in more thermal energy, as a planet, than we are giving off? If that's a lie, what measurement do you trust? Your electric bill? Your gas gauge? Anything?

I mean, it's clear you've made up your mind, and I'm not trying to change it. But just understand that you've not made it up on based on data or logic. And even if you don't want to accept that, everyone else can see it plainly.

 

Not trying to take one side or the other, but increases in surface temperature ain't entirely controlled by greenhouse gases. Change in surface albedo, undersea hydrothermal vents and volcanoes here on Earth also play a role. However, the sun has the biggest effect. In fact, not until 2010 was there a satellite system available to image the sun and study its effect. And just recently, NASA released a report saying there is more to solar flares than we once new, that they include high energy ultraviolet aftershocks.

Again, not saying CO2 ain't a greenhouse gas, just saying there is more to the equation than just tailpipe fumes.

 

We're actually in agreement. Where do I say anything about tailpipe fumes (which I actually believe to be largely negligible, going by the data, in terms of net CO2 contributions)? I'm just saying that "climate change" is real, whatever the causes.

Here's another little tidbit, that I'm sure the [sarcasm] vast network of liberal scientists have gone to great lengths to cook up [/sarcasm]
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20876-giant-red-crabs-invade-the-antarctic-abyss.html

Dire predictions said these crabs could invade Antarctica's waters within 100 years, but now it's already happening, due to changes in water temp.

Anyway, if we want to get into a CO2 conversation, we could. I kind of think the horse is out of the barn, but certainly less would be a good idea (since we know, from like 1930 onward, what CO2 does with sunlight, and it can only contribute to a warming trend.)

But it's probably best, in my view, just to ADMIT that yes, all data shows a warming climate. Having people flat-earthing this issue just isn't helping anything.

 

This seems like as good a thread as any for this excellently written and reported article from the Christian Science Monitor.

I don't like the "Koch Brothers" slant that people are taking with this, but what's interesting here is that it's a very independent scientific group, with Richard Muller, a bit of a grandstanding skeptic, heading it up. Muller is a known critic of the IPCC and I've seen him give nasty talks about climate scientists. (This is probably why he got funding for his study from the Kochs and others, but the bottom line is he's a very thorough and legit scientist in his own right.)

Like all other groups, they confirm the trend of warming temperatures. This is the largest data set used so far and it rules out the "urban island" explanation some had tried to use for some of the warming data.

The new study actually shows that the 2000's decade was warmer than other studies had suggested. Basically, it's a little faster than we thought.

As I've said before, we can argue the extent of human impact, and we can argue about what to do, but there's no tenable turf left for someone who wants to claim that warming isn't happening (sadly.)

 

Meanwhile, CO2 production spikes beyond the "worst case" estimates from the 2007 IPCC.

The following charts breaks down the not-at-all-surprising reason:

 

Wow. That's why I'm saying the horse is out of the barn and our hybrid cars aren't going to make a lick of difference. (Power generation and air travel are much larger contributors of carbon than all cars combined anyway.)

If the Earth's albedo (reflectivity, essentially) doesn't increase, this is going to be a real interesting test for the global community. Let's just say I wouldn't put money on certain island nations right now. Yikes.

 

B-Bob, you keep bringing up ocean level rise - what are your expectations for ocean rise by the year 2100?

The Colorado center had it going up by about 3mm per year - but even they admit that that has leveled off a little bit. That's not going to soak anyone's feet anytime soon.

My problem with predicted ocean level rises is that it's been this warm before - and nothing catastrophic happened. We didn't have runaway global warming. It's different this time because of a trace gas in the atmosphere has increased?

How about temperature? From what I've read the temperature has gone up about 1° C from 1850 (aka the little ice age). That's a damn good thing, in my books. People were freezing their ashets off back then. What do you believe?

My biggest problem is all the research and scary stories is based on models. None of their predictions have come true. We haven't seen increased amounts of major hurricanes, we haven't seen the end of snow in England, and streets in New York haven't been permanently covered by ocean water. CAGW scientists haven't proven a damn thing.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html

..New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism
By James Taylor | Forbes – Wed, Jul 27, 2011

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth's atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA's Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA's Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.


"The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show," Spencer said in a July 26 University of Alabama press release. "There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans."

In addition to finding that far less heat is being trapped than alarmist computer models have predicted, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted.

The new findings are extremely important and should dramatically alter the global warming debate.

Scientists on all sides of the global warming debate are in general agreement about how much heat is being directly trapped by human emissions of carbon dioxide (the answer is "not much"). However, the single most important issue in the global warming debate is whether carbon dioxide emissions will indirectly trap far more heat by causing large increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds. Alarmist computer models assume human carbon dioxide emissions indirectly cause substantial increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds (each of which are very effective at trapping heat), but real-world data have long shown that carbon dioxide emissions are not causing as much atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds as the alarmist computer models have predicted.

The new NASA Terra satellite data are consistent with long-term NOAA and NASA data indicating atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds are not increasing in the manner predicted by alarmist computer models. The Terra satellite data also support data collected by NASA's ERBS satellite showing far more longwave radiation (and thus, heat) escaped into space between 1985 and 1999 than alarmist computer models had predicted. Together, the NASA ERBS and Terra satellite data show that for 25 years and counting, carbon dioxide emissions have directly and indirectly trapped far less heat than alarmist computer models have predicted.

In short, the central premise of alarmist global warming theory is that carbon dioxide emissions should be directly and indirectly trapping a certain amount of heat in the earth's atmosphere and preventing it from escaping into space. Real-world measurements, however, show far less heat is being trapped in the earth's atmosphere than the alarmist computer models predict, and far more heat is escaping into space than the alarmist computer models predict.

When objective NASA satellite data, reported in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, show a "huge discrepancy" between alarmist climate models and real-world facts, climate scientists, the media and our elected officials would be wise to take notice. Whether or not they do so will tell us a great deal about how honest the purveyors of global warming alarmism truly are.

 

^^^ Go back a page.

 

Hi Gutter, these are good questions, minus some exaggerations* at the end. I've had these conversations too many time. I totally respect you doubting there's a problem, and where we agree, ultimately, is that if we're changing things with carbon in the atmosphere, that horse is out of the barn.

As for what I believe, I think there's a striking correlation of our output and global temperature change since the start of the industrial revolution, and it mirrors hundreds of thousands of years in which global mean temp and CO2 levels track one another. (No correlation does not mean causation, but if you want to suggest that suddenly, for the first time, CO2 and temp won't track one another, that's a bold assertion after they have for as long ago as we can track with ice cores, etc.)

I think I believe the fundamental science of knowing how CO2 works when you shine sunlight on it. I've consistently said on here, for years, that *maybe* the warming we start will help us stave off the next ice age; we're very much due. I've posted that graph a few times and we're on the edge of the cliff for the next cool down, and hey, maybe our own unintentional effects are like building a little blanket before that starts. Maybe.

As for sea level rise, people I trust have shown what current melt rates lead to, and a lot of real estate would change by 2100 if they're correct. (It's not a complicated calculation, but it's possible they're wrong.) You're right that the world has been warmer before, and we didn't have billions of human beings living on coastlines and millions of humans living on little low slung islands either. But yeah, the earth will be fine. I guess I just picture the economic impact of having to move a lot of people.

Finally, where this fails, and why I predict our conversation will fail in this thread, sadly, is that we humans just aren't comfy talking probability. So we get Al Gore talking about certainties, and people like yourself responding reasonably to those predicted certainties. What we're doing with CO2 is "loading the dice" for a warmer future, maybe a lot warmer than we like. That's from the late Stanford scientist Steven Schneider, rest his soul. He worked with six straight presidential administrations including Reagan and Both Bush admins. No exageration, etc. He just admitted it's a probability function, like predicting where a hurricane will land. We're skewing the probability towards warmer, period. Nobody can tell you when X, Y and Z will happen.

* = I haven't read a model that predicted the streets of new york flooded by 2012. I haven't read a reputable model saying the things you list. It's a long-term trend that will be hard to observe year to year, but in a hundred years, the notion is that things will be different. As for "proving a damn thing," what the skeptic Mueller's group just found is that the models have not properly accounted for the recent warming rate. maybe that's because China is pumping out CO2 a lot faster than any of the models predicted. maybe it's something else. Who knows.

 

Supermac, gotta love the objective tone of that Forbes "article." I looked up the 2011 article in remote sensing and it seemed to me to overstate conclusions based on their analysis (I did download it just now.) But it's not my field. Also what struck me is the incredibly fast turnaround time in publishing it. it was received in May, peer-reviewed fully and then published in July. That's kind of unusual, but not unheard of.

Then I looked around to see if there had been any response to that paper, since it was published in July. Uh oh.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/09/editor_of_remote_sensing_agree.php
The Editor of the Journal resigned over publishing that paper, which he admits did not satisfy the criteria of peer-reviewed science. Ugh. That whole bit from Forbes is based on an overturned result, for what it's worth.

For NASA's official position on the changing Earth, you can see an update any time here.
http://climate.nasa.gov/

 

With the possible consequences, it sure seems like you would want to do everything you could to avoid them even if the science is possibly sketchy.
Beats not doing anything and then having to adapt to a whole changed planet.

But whatever.

 

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