2011 was the ninth warmest year on record

[cybrsage]

That's simply false. What you would be showing me are theories which aren't backed by empirical evidence. Moreover, the warming predictions made by the warmers a decade ago simply did not happen. That's not "evidence" in my book.

"Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

 

[monovillage]

Mono, that sarcasm makes no sense.

What made no sense was his bringing Democrat/Republican into the debate. Most of the sources I link to are self declared liberal Democrats teaching at Universities and colleges.
Because of his statement I gave him something to say that would accurately describe himself.
Ignorant, gullible,lefty and dependent on authority to tell him what to think.

 

[piasabird]

You have absolutely no proof what temeratures were millions of years ago. You are full of it. Nice to know that Alaska and Europe are having one of the worst winters on record.

 

[cybrsage]

You have absolutely no proof what temeratures were millions of years ago. You are full of it. Nice to know that Alaska and Europe are having one of the worst winters on record.

Actually, there is a pretty rough idea of the temps.

 

[GaiaHunter]

Are humans forcing a natural trip switch to be triggered BEFORE it would occur "naturally"?

Also, just sit back for a second and take a look at things from a different perspective. What was the climatological layout of the world 4 million years ago? 20 million? What were the sea levels? Simply saying "well, it was MUCH warmer than this X years ago, why worry now! It's 'natural'" is not a valid statement given our IMMOBILE SOCIETY.

Rising sea levels would be bad, m'kay?
Shifts in climate rendering our rain forests arid and our temperate zones tropical would be bad, m'kay?
Melting of permafrost to trigger a ECOLOGICALLY RAPID shift in climate would be REALLY bad, m'kay?

If all we are doing now is simply the straw that will break the camels back, lets get the damn straw off the poor beast and stop arguing about what country or what industry is at fault.

Spending resources on useless things instead of having those resources available for useful things is also bad, mkay?

And what if we spend all those resource and stop creating as much wealth has we have been and the sea levels still rise, the rains forest still become arid, etc?

Then what?

Not only we didn't prevent it we also deplete our ability to face the changes.

Or do you think our society will be more mobile?

If it is natural we need to look for ways to face the changes, not trying to do something useless.

Of course there are also questions about where exactly are those changes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/08/glaciers-mountains?intcmp=122

The world's greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian Shan on the border of China and Kyrgyzstan, have lost no ice over the last decade, new research shows.

The discovery has stunned scientists, who had believed that around 50bn tonnes of meltwater were being shed each year and not being replaced by new snowfall.

The study is the first to survey all the world's icecaps and glaciers and was made possible by the use of satellite data. Overall, the contribution of melting ice outside the two largest caps – Greenland and Antarctica – is much less than previously estimated, with the lack of ice loss in the Himalayas and the other high peaks of Asia responsible for most of the discrepancy.

Bristol University glaciologist Prof Jonathan Bamber, who was not part of the research team, said: "The very unexpected result was the negligible mass loss from high mountain Asia, which is not significantly different from zero."

The melting of Himalayan glaciers caused controversy in 2009 when a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change mistakenly stated that they would disappear by 2035, instead of 2350. However, the scientist who led the new work is clear that while greater uncertainty has been discovered in Asia's highest mountains, the melting of ice caps and glaciers around the world remains a serious concern.

"Our results and those of everyone else show we are losing a huge amount of water into the oceans every year," said Prof John Wahr of the University of Colorado. "People should be just as worried about the melting of the world's ice as they were before."

His team's study, published in the journal Nature, concludes that between 443-629bn tonnes of meltwater overall are added to the world's oceans each year. This is raising sea level by about 1.5mm a year, the team reports, in addition to the 2mm a year caused by expansion of the warming ocean.

The scientists are careful to point out that lower-altitude glaciers in the Asian mountain ranges – sometimes dubbed the "third pole" – are definitely melting. Satellite images and reports confirm this. But over the study period from 2003-10 enough ice was added to the peaks to compensate.

The impact on predictions for future sea level rise is yet to be fully studied but Bamber said: "The projections for sea level rise by 2100 will not change by much, say 5cm or so, so we are talking about a very small modification." Existing estimates range from 30cm to 1m.

 

[Paul98]

I have nothing against studying climate changes. What I have a problem with is doing so with a predetermined bias that humans are responsible for it, and then looking for ways to manipulate data to support that bias.

The vast majority of scientists would not manipulate data to support their bias. I won't say all as there are always bad apples in any profession.

 

[Ninjahedge]

Spending resources on useless things instead of having those resources available for useful things is also bad, mkay?

The problem is not that. The problem is in the unilateral obfuscation of the problem and ANY steps being taken. People are still arguing the "what if's" and not dealing with the "what should we do".

And what if we spend all those resource and stop creating as much wealth has we have been and the sea levels still rise, the rains forest still become arid, etc?

Then the "money" we have will probably be useless. Go take a look at the census data and see how many major cities are located in coastal regions. If we are tipping the scales to permafrost thaw and end up getting a dramatic shift in one lifespan, you will see much "debate" about whose property is whose.

Not only we didn't prevent it we also deplete our ability to face the changes.

What, you think that we will have nothing left? What TV miniseries are you writing for, anyway?

Or do you think our society will be more mobile?

It will be, or it will die. But in doing so, many people will be hurt, literally.

You can't "Amsterdam" NYC.

If it is natural we need to look for ways to face the changes, not trying to do something useless.

You are still trying to point the finger at blame. "If it is mother nature"... thing is, the whole "debate" has stopped right there. We will be arguing it until the cause is moot. The first thing you do when you see the car heading for the wall is try the brakes. If that does not work, you then worry about how to get out of the wreck.

Of course there are also questions about where exactly are those changes.

No, there aren't. It has been documented that weather patterns have been changing, additional humidity in the atmosphere, increased tropical storm activity, melting caps.

I really do not give a rats ass about the Himalayas being an odd man out to the widespread thawing being seen in the arctic, and that nice huge ice field fault recently discovered in Antarctica.

You are still dancing the dance and not facing the music.

 

[monovillage]

That rant was so full of non-scientific and misinformed crap it's not even worth quoting and refuting.

 

[Darwin333]

Are humans forcing a natural trip switch to be triggered BEFORE it would occur "naturally"?

Also, just sit back for a second and take a look at things from a different perspective. What was the climatological layout of the world 4 million years ago? 20 million? What were the sea levels? Simply saying "well, it was MUCH warmer than this X years ago, why worry now! It's 'natural'" is not a valid statement given our IMMOBILE SOCIETY.

Rising sea levels would be bad, m'kay?
Shifts in climate rendering our rain forests arid and our temperate zones tropical would be bad, m'kay?
Melting of permafrost to trigger a ECOLOGICALLY RAPID shift in climate would be REALLY bad, m'kay?

If all we are doing now is simply the straw that will break the camels back, lets get the damn straw off the poor beast and stop arguing about what country or what industry is at fault.

How exactly do you propose that we do that?