Climate change: A cooling consensus

The earth is divided up into grids such that each grid contains at least one data reporting point. The grids are, of course, all the same size. In Europe, and the US and Russia East of the Urals there are usually several data reporting points per grid. This makes it fairly easy to detect and deal with anomalous readings assuming of course that governments, which are always power hungry, are interested in accurately reporting the data in the first place, but in places with only one or two data reporting points detecting anomalous readings can be much more difficult. And bear in mind that anomalous high readings are likely to be more common than anomalous low readings mainly due to human ignorance.

And let's also not forget with this is the fact that according to at least one study, this one concerning Vienna, Austria the allowance for the urban heat island index may be understated by more than a degree and voila warming at the surface may well be a phenomonon that has more to due with the increasing density of population especially in Europe where population densities in excess of 500 people per square mile stretch from the Oder to the pyranees and well down into the Italian boot excluding Switzerland.

 

And that claim is objectively false. Temperatures have been flat for 15 years, and even before that, the cyclical increase over the previous 30 years was slower than the post-glacial warming 11-12Kya.

True, but history is pretty short in the lifetime of the planet, and there is no credible evidence that high or rapidly rising CO2 is a problem worth worrying about.

 

These people have no memory. Only emotions.

 

That and a desire to control everything and everyone.

 

Yes!, the climate is changing, and it always has been!

Is Human activity the primary cause of the climate change we're seeing today? NO, most likely NOT.

Among other things, why would the forces which caused large climate changes ages ago suddenly go away?

Since we most likely could not STOP or accurately control those forces, why even TRY?

When the last Ice Age occurred, 65K years ago, and there was a blanket of ice 200 feet thick covering most of North America...

Human existed!

As a stone age culture.

They lived through climate change at levels we are only fantasizing about.

Obviously, they survived, without any technology, or we would not be here today!

So Primitive humans managed to ADAPT and Take Advantage of Climate Change... with all our Tech, Why Can't We?

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But the highly educated conservative will point outside, tell you it's snowing, and use that as his incontrovertible evidence that global warming is a myth.

 

You'll have to provide evidence that the Sahara is "shrinking", because all the data I have seen shows that desertification continues, with fluctuations, as before. Local strategies can help with prevention of sands encroaching on farmland.

 

Of course you are not wrong; climate change exists. In the 70's the media and scientific community said we were in a period of global warming due to the same reasons they now say is causing global cooling. But since they couldn't prove either, they now call it climate change. Historical study and research on the climate from the beginning shows a pattern of warming and cooling of the planet, long before humans began using fossil fuels and "aerosol" sprays, etc. I am not against humans doing what they can to use less fossil fuels and other potential chemicals that effect the climate in a minute way; but, I am against taxing companies and consumers on the fuels they must use at the current time as "green energy" is just not affordable at the present time and likely will not be for several decades.

There is no question that the climate is changing. But there is a real question as to why and whether we can significantly slow down the rate of change. That still has not been proven. Most research indicates that we can only have an insignificant impact on the current change over the next 100's of years.( you can google this to find specific studies supporting this "hypothesis".

We need to use our tax dollars to research ways for us and other Countries to deal with the climate change and global warming. We need to stop building near the ocean shores, stop rebuilding in areas that are in the path of tornadoes( time and time again). Change building codes in risk areas. Spread the cost of flood insurance, lower it substantially by charging a low tax to all homeowners, commercial property owners.

 

No, people who are subject to flood should not be encouraged by lowering flood insurance rates. If anything, if someone wishes to rebuild in the same place after being flooded out they should not be able to get insurance at any price. This will encourage people to rebuild outside of flood zones and reduce the economic impact of the increasingly volatile climate.

 

I agree that people building within a set number of miles to coast lines should not be able to get flood insurance unless they want to pay an extremely high price for it and where they are mandated to have the coverage. However, many floods occur outside of the 100 year flood plains and in non-coastal areas. IMO virtually every homeowner is subject to flooding and therefore, flood insurance should be mandated for all residential and commercial properties. As should wind damage be mandated
which would cover tornadoes and hurricaine damage.

 

I think the application of rational policy based on evidence would accomplish a lot more than blanket prescriptions based in gross misunderstandings. In reality very few floods occur outside of 100 year riparian and coastal flood plains. For example, a friend of mine owns a house that was built in the 1700s on the top of a hill that is set well back from a granite bluff 38 feet above mean high water. His insurer has determined that his house is in danger of being flooded, which would only happen if a tsunami managed to over top the intervening islands and peninsula. In which case almost all of the rest of entire eastern seaboard would be destroyed for up to fifty miles inland.

Then their is my friend from Slidell Louisiana whose house was completely obliterated by Katrina, nothing but the slab was left. He had flood and wind insurance but the insurance company tried to assert that his house was carried away by the wind because his payout from wind was less. At the same time they asserted that his next door neighbours house was carried away by the water because his payout would be less from water than wind.

The town I live in was first settled in 1638. It is built on a solid granite peninsula that faces northeast into the Atlantic Ocean. There is about twenty houses out of two thousand that are in possible danger from even the most ferocious hurricanes and noreasters since the rest of the town is many feet above sea level. Nevertheless insurers demand a premium regardless of the fact that many houses have been standing where they are for over 300 years without being flooded or even damaged by the weather.

 

It took all of five seconds to google it. The irony is that they warmists were predicting an increase in the growth of the Sahara due to global warming but when satellite images showed the opposite they changed it so that global warming was going to reduce the size of the Sahara desert. It must be nice being an AWG alarmist because no matter what happens........its because of global warming.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8150415.stm

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/sep/16/highereducation.climatechange

 

In a similar vein, the Global alarmists came out with data stating that the southern polar Ice cap was significantly shrinking, and gave satellite data percentages of decrease for one of the three major sea floating ice sheets which surround Antarctica.

What they didn't tell you, was that while one ice sheet, I believe it was the Ross Ice Sheet, was shrinking, the other two Ice sheets actually grew more than the Ross shrunk.

Furthermore, there was data to indicate that there is a natural cyclonic wind driven osculation between the three sheets that has been know about since the days of the first Antarctic explorers, and that they selected their planned ship debarkation point, years in advance, based on which one was expected to be in regression, therefore less over-ice travel required to reach the pole.

But most people today, have not interest in studying the history of the polar exploration, therefore their abuse of the knowledge, to create a false perception of a drastic, horrifying trend, for the most part worked.

Unfortunately, for the "Global-Warming-Deceivers" (What a great new term! ) a few of U.S. old curmudgeons are fans of exploration history, and we spotted the deception right off, and spread the word...

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There is nothing unraveling about global warming. The article in the economists fails to take into account the accelerated warming measured in the oceans, and it fails to explain the relationship between the atmosphere and oceans to its readers. In a basic nutshell, the oversight of this dynamic has led to an incorrect conclusion.

 

A highly education conservative would know that there is a difference between climate and weather.

 

Any well educated Liberal should know the importance of long sampling times across several cycles in any measurement of semi-cyclical phenomenon which will be used for non-linear extrapolation when the signal to noise ratio is low and the median pattern being extrapolated is several decibels below the noise floor...

But judging by their scientifically foolish snap judgements in support of "human caused" global warming, the temptation to "CONTROL" has over-ridden their scientific good sense.

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Appeal to ignorance and a generalization fallacy followed up with an ad hominem is not characteristic of an educated argument.

There exists quite a few papers on the topic of signal to noise ratios in climate change. For example, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011JD016263/abstract

If you or anyone else has evidence that global warming is false, please do us all a favor and submit the evidence to peer review. But so far, climate deniers have been long on opinions and short on evidence.

 

You do know that forty years from now, when it hasn't happened, they'll be shaking their heads at the silliness.

Tell me, what is the Temperature of the EARTH right now? Where would you measure it? How would you measure it?

How would you calibrate any instrument or instruments you could measure it with?

How long have such instruments existed, if they exist now?

What is the natural cycle time of the planet? What is the natural temperature variation? Surely you realize the planet has gone through Ice Ages and Hot Ages in the past, so what is the control measurement, by which you compare the "man-made" Component?

I could go on and on with examples of why the whole Human-Caused Global Warming is so full of holes, contradictions and obviously false claims, but it simply isn't worth my time.

The whole notion is scientifically ludicrous and anyone who has done real science knows it.

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Perhaps you should read more about it:

There is good a list of resources here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/

The IPCC summarizes quite a bit of research in the area.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml#.UgYJ_23pxyI

Note: you should probably start with the basics from the first link before starting the IPCC reports.

 

Which must be why it's typical of warmists' "arguments."

LOL! Seriously?? You point to a paper where the LONGEST time frame examined is just 32 years -- which just happens to be about HALF THE OCEANIC TEMPERATURE CYCLE -- and claim that addresses the signal to noise problem??? REALLY????

ROTFL!!

Garbage. Many peer-reviewed papers have been published refuting CO2-based AGW theory. I've pointed to a couple of recent papers showing that solar activity (ignored by AGW alarmists) has been at a sustained high over the last 150-odd years -- and especially the last half of the 20th century, which is the only time frame that can be doctored to support AGW theory -- that hasn't been seen in THOUSANDS OF YEARS.

 

He was not trying to seriously convince people with mathematical and scientific knowledge with that post, he was trying to Dupe the Ignorant.

Honestly, I do believe that the climate is in a warming cycle, but we have not had the instruments in operation long enough to even tell for sure that the average global temp is changing, and which direction it is going.

In another 50-100 years, we'll be able to barely answer that question.

In 1000 Years, we be able to say what the rate of change is, and make some simple linear predictions on when it will affect our ecology at a point where we may have to start to make adaptive plans for survival.

If and when we do, it will be due to naturally occurring forces changing the climate, not human activity. We're simply not important and big enough.

Planets are big systems, and in terms of human lives, they change very, very slowly, unless there is a truly big event, like a Manhattan Isle sized meteor impact.

No, burning 0.000000001% of the planets atmospheric mass in hydrocarbon fossil fuels is NOT a big event.

This is not to say that we should not take environmental concerns very seriously. The threat posed by errant Genetech mutating our food supply crops or mercury poisoning of topsoil from pesticides, or a emergent lethal virus spread by jet airline travel, all pose serious and REAL threats to humanity.

But none of those threats give Liberalism the justification it needs to control every facet of your daily life.

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Actually, the instrumental record is pretty clear that the earth warmed significantly in the 1910-1940 period, and again in the 1970-2000 period, and has warmed overall since reliable, broad-coverage instrument readings began in the 19th century. The proxy record is pretty unanimous that the earth has warmed significantly over the last 200-300 years.

If we had to rely on the instrument record alone, it would take thousands of years to get enough data just to decompose the major cyclical influences with shorter periods than the ~100ky glacial cycle.

Actually, technological progress is probably giving us greater and greater ability to affect global climate. Once we have a substantial presence in orbit, it will probably be used to influence both weather and climate. It is also likely that anthropogenic deforestation has an influence on global climate greater than that of CO2 release through burning of fossil fuels.

Ahem. The total mass of the atmosphere is about 5x10^18kg, while the total mass of fossil carbon burned to date (most of it coal) is about 4x10^14kg. So it's actually slightly less than 0.01%.

The largest global environmental threat is probably large-scale volcanic activity. Level 7 eruptions, which substantially chill the global climate, tend to happen about every 200 years -- and it is nearly 200 years since the last one. As for anthropogenic threats, deforestation and overfishing are both already clear problems; bioterror is not yet a major concern, but could become one at any time.

The modern global warming alarmism campaign was the brainchild of arch-conservative British PM Margaret Thatcher.

 

A nice accurate cost/benefit analysis would be nice to read someplace. We do have to keep in mind that even this graph is rising, and if we screw up this planet, we don't have a planet B to move to. All our eggs are in this one basket.

 

You don't measure it in any one place. You measure all over and take an average. It's measured in various ways: by satellite microwave sounding, by sea surface water temperature, and by near-surface air temperature. I would have thought you would have known that by now. But I guess they don't teach that over at WUWT.

Each instrument is calibrated against itself, yielding an anomaly.

The earliest thermometer goes back to 1593. The mercury thermometer, still in use today, was invented in 1714.

That depends entirely on what you mean by "natural cycle time". For what? Earth has a lot of cycles. You need to be much more specific if you want an answer. But I suspect you don't really want an answer, you just want to pretend that we don't know a lot of what we do in fact know quite well.

You can start here.

If the topic isn't worth your time, then please get off the thread. As you go, you might want to think about this, because this is what I'm going to hit you with if you ever decide to come back:
* Atmospheric CO2 has risen 40% since the Industrial Revolution, and this is entirely human caused.
* Because CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the extra CO2 that we have added to the air is causing (currently) an additional 1.9 W/m² of extra energy at the Earth's surface that wasn't there in 1750. This ability of CO2 to absorb and emit infrared has been measured in the lab repeatedly, and is perfectly in accord with quantum mechanical theory.
* Since energy cannot be created or destroyed, where do you think that extra 1.9 W/m² -- roughly a thousand terawatts -- ends up?

Says the guy whose position violates conservation of energy. Tsk tsk.

 

I'm sure you'll have no problem writing a paper on how my peer reviewed citation is filled to the brim with errors.

In terms of solar activity, I'd love to hear you explain the divergence of solar activity and global temperatures since 1978.
http://skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm