Another global warming question

[irishScott]

Originally posted by: homercles337

Originally posted by: Tuktuk

Originally posted by: homercles337

Originally posted by: Tuktuk
I found this article interesting:

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm

Whose pay roll is this guy on? Any time an op ed piece starts with "credentials" one should raise a brow and wonder. The author IGNORES scientific consensus in favor of his UCL degree which makes him canadians smartest man. :roll:

Pure rubbish based on the politicizing of the issue that the right so desires. Yay, for ignorance.

You ignore the argument all together. It seems you read the italics and stopped there. If you're going to call it rubbish, please do so with facts. The man presented an argument, what is wrong with what he said? He acknowledges scientific consensus but finds flaw in it, as any good scientist has an obligation to try to do.

Again, n00b, my facts are found in Science and Nature. Two of the highest, most respected, career determining journals in the scientific community. Find me ONE pub form said journals that agrees with your pundit/op-ed crap. Just one, thats all i ask. You claim to understand the scientific process so searching and finding pubs from Science and Nature sould be NO problem, right? Ok then...go.

Science that ignores the little guy is not science.

I am a litlle WTFd at what a "Doctor of Science" is. What major is that? 😛

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: irishScott

Originally posted by: homercles337

Originally posted by: Tuktuk

Originally posted by: homercles337

Originally posted by: Tuktuk
I found this article interesting:

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm

Whose pay roll is this guy on? Any time an op ed piece starts with "credentials" one should raise a brow and wonder. The author IGNORES scientific consensus in favor of his UCL degree which makes him canadians smartest man. :roll:

Pure rubbish based on the politicizing of the issue that the right so desires. Yay, for ignorance.

You ignore the argument all together. It seems you read the italics and stopped there. If you're going to call it rubbish, please do so with facts. The man presented an argument, what is wrong with what he said? He acknowledges scientific consensus but finds flaw in it, as any good scientist has an obligation to try to do.

Again, n00b, my facts are found in Science and Nature. Two of the highest, most respected, career determining journals in the scientific community. Find me ONE pub form said journals that agrees with your pundit/op-ed crap. Just one, thats all i ask. You claim to understand the scientific process so searching and finding pubs from Science and Nature sould be NO problem, right? Ok then...go.

Science that ignores the little guy is not science.

I am a litlle WTFd at what a "Doctor of Science" is. What major is that? 😛

Yes it is you dope. Any jerk off can submit claims of reputable scientific inquiry. For example, I think spiders have the ability to read human minds and i will show this empirically. I will conduct study after study where i think about killing a spider while looking at it. If it runs off when i think, "i shall kill you" while looking at it directly my theory is validated. Right? Despite the MOUNTAINS of evidence contradicting my hypothesis you will accept it, right? Excellent! Do you happen to be wealthy and looking for "little guy" science to fund?

 

[Tuktuk]

Originally posted by: shoegazer

Originally posted by: Tuktuk
Of course co2 levels have gone up, we had the industrial revolution. I believe he was referring to the temperature that is still within the field of normalcy. Simply coinciding with the industrial revolution spike is hardly concrete proof that global warming is man made.

All other factors remaining the same, rising CO2 in the troposphere will result in higher temperatures. Just look at temperatures on Venus.

But, the earth is an extremely complicated system. So, to figure out how the climate fluctuates we've drilled out ice cores that give us a CO2 record form trapped gas in the ice and a temperature record from oxygen isotope data. We also have records of other gases from these cores. But, it appears that CO2 levels, of all the gases and other factors we are aware of, match up the closest with temperature as seen in the graph posted above. And it matches up quite well at that.

As a result, we are led to believe that more CO2 will result in higher temperature for the complex earth system as well. But, how do we test this? Well, with modeling. Here is a graph of natural forcings (volcanoes, el nino, etc.) and anthropogenic forgings in the form of particulate pollution (which cools the troposphere) and greenhouse gas pollution.

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figspm-4.htm

Note that neither anthropogenic nor natural forcings that we are aware of match up with the temperature record. However, the combination of the two does closely match up to the temperature record.

I appreciate you using facts to explain your argument. Assuming global warming is caused by humans (I make no claim either way, just playing devil's advocate), is it not true that anything short of a return to 18th century lifestyle will fail to stop it? Even if 1st world countries agree to environmental standards, the 3rd world will keep polluting more year by year and as the thoery goes once the Chinese start living like Americans we are all doomed.

 

[FleshLight]

Originally posted by: Tuktuk

Originally posted by: shoegazer

Originally posted by: Tuktuk
Of course co2 levels have gone up, we had the industrial revolution. I believe he was referring to the temperature that is still within the field of normalcy. Simply coinciding with the industrial revolution spike is hardly concrete proof that global warming is man made.

All other factors remaining the same, rising CO2 in the troposphere will result in higher temperatures. Just look at temperatures on Venus.

But, the earth is an extremely complicated system. So, to figure out how the climate fluctuates we've drilled out ice cores that give us a CO2 record form trapped gas in the ice and a temperature record from oxygen isotope data. We also have records of other gases from these cores. But, it appears that CO2 levels, of all the gases and other factors we are aware of, match up the closest with temperature as seen in the graph posted above. And it matches up quite well at that.

As a result, we are led to believe that more CO2 will result in higher temperature for the complex earth system as well. But, how do we test this? Well, with modeling. Here is a graph of natural forcings (volcanoes, el nino, etc.) and anthropogenic forgings in the form of particulate pollution (which cools the troposphere) and greenhouse gas pollution.

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figspm-4.htm

Note that neither anthropogenic nor natural forcings that we are aware of match up with the temperature record. However, the combination of the two does closely match up to the temperature record.

I appreciate you using facts to explain your argument. Assuming global warming is caused by humans (I make no claim either way, just playing devil's advocate), is it not true that anything short of a return to 18th century lifestyle will fail to stop it? Even if 1st world countries agree to environmental standards, the 3rd world will keep polluting more year by year and as the thoery goes once the Chinese start living like Americans we are all doomed.

There are only two ways to stop global warming:

1. Remove the sun

2. Increase earth's emissivity to 1.

 

[shoegazer]

Originally posted by: Tuktuk

Originally posted by: shoegazer

Originally posted by: Tuktuk
Of course co2 levels have gone up, we had the industrial revolution. I believe he was referring to the temperature that is still within the field of normalcy. Simply coinciding with the industrial revolution spike is hardly concrete proof that global warming is man made.

All other factors remaining the same, rising CO2 in the troposphere will result in higher temperatures. Just look at temperatures on Venus.

But, the earth is an extremely complicated system. So, to figure out how the climate fluctuates we've drilled out ice cores that give us a CO2 record form trapped gas in the ice and a temperature record from oxygen isotope data. We also have records of other gases from these cores. But, it appears that CO2 levels, of all the gases and other factors we are aware of, match up the closest with temperature as seen in the graph posted above. And it matches up quite well at that.

As a result, we are led to believe that more CO2 will result in higher temperature for the complex earth system as well. But, how do we test this? Well, with modeling. Here is a graph of natural forcings (volcanoes, el nino, etc.) and anthropogenic forgings in the form of particulate pollution (which cools the troposphere) and greenhouse gas pollution.

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figspm-4.htm

Note that neither anthropogenic nor natural forcings that we are aware of match up with the temperature record. However, the combination of the two does closely match up to the temperature record.

I appreciate you using facts to explain your argument. Assuming global warming is caused by humans (I make no claim either way, just playing devil's advocate), is it not true that anything short of a return to 18th century lifestyle will fail to stop it? Even if 1st world countries agree to environmental standards, the 3rd world will keep polluting more year by year and as the thoery goes once the Chinese start living like Americans we are all doomed.

Global climate change is not an on and off concept and as a species we are always going to be releasing greenhouse gases no matter how hard we try to limit them. But, any cutbacks to emissions will reduce the effects of global climate change.

CO2 actually has a residence time of 100-200 years in the atmosphere which means that if we stopped emitting CO2 altogether we would still be stuck with the effects of it.

Of course we can't go back to an 18th century lifestyle. But we can move towards renewable energy sources (we're going to have to eventually anyway) and make more efforts to conserve energy.

China is actually making decent progress on moving towards renewables.(not surprising with all the air pollution problems they have). These plans include wind, nuclear, and hydroelectric.

But, they will probably surpass the U.S. in greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade or two.

Of course, one could argue that a huge proportion of the greenhouse gas emissions that are currently changing the climate (and will be for another 50+ years) are from the U.S. Why should developing countries which are not responsible for much of the emissions currently effecting the globe be as responsible to cut emissions as the U.S.? As great as it would be for them to develop in an environmentally friendly way, they have serious health and poverty issues right now.

(EDIT: So, what I'm saying is that developed countries (like the U.S.) were able to build up infrastructure and industry without the added expense of developing in an environmentally friendly way. We got a free ride at the world's expense. (tragedy of the commons problem)

Developed countries need to take initiative and cut emissions while assisting undeveloped countries to develop as environmentally friendly as possible given the needs of the people.

 

[Tuktuk]

It seems unlikely to me that nations will change too drastically for results that aren't seen for such a long time. The only thing that would force their hand is economic concerns, which will probably result in viable renewable energy solutions being developed. Especially in the case of China who is soon going to be very desperate for resources as their population becomes more developed. The best thing that could happen to humanity might be the fact that oil won't be around forever.

Developing countries will likely take the same free ride we got, and that is where the problem lies. The United States got away with it but 30 countries cannot get away with it at the same time (number pulled out of my ass but you get the idea). Fair or not that is the major problem we're dealt with, a seemingly hopeless problem if global warming is as much human's fault as many scientists believe.

The problem is daunting.. it combines economic, political, and scientific issues and a complete solution is impossible because each area has only a loose basis of fact to operate off of. The best I can do at this point is cross my fingers.

 

[shoegazer]

Originally posted by: Tuktuk
It seems unlikely to me that nations will change too drastically for results that aren't seen for such a long time. The only thing that would force their hand is economic concerns, which will probably result in viable renewable energy solutions being developed. Especially in the case of China who is soon going to be very desperate for resources as their population becomes more developed. The best thing that could happen to humanity might be the fact that oil won't be around forever.

Developing countries will likely take the same free ride we got, and that is where the problem lies. The United States got away with it but 30 countries cannot get away with it at the same time (number pulled out of my ass but you get the idea). Fair or not that is the major problem we're dealt with, a seemingly hopeless problem if global warming is as much human's fault as many scientists believe.

The problem is daunting.. it combines economic, political, and scientific issues and a complete solution is impossible because each area has only a loose basis of fact to operate off of. The best I can do at this point is cross my fingers.

Human's aren't very good at planning beyond our own lives. Yet, one of the characteristics that make us unique is our ability to do so.

On a more positive note, we've made a lot of progress with the issue of depleting the ozone hole. Countries actually did band together (the U.S. and many developing countries included) to limit production of CFCs. So, maybe there is hope.

Beyond crossing your fingers you can just make day to day decisions that reduce your energy use (Compact fluorescent bulbs, more efficient automobiles, public transportation, etc.) and also write to your representatives voicing your concern about the issue. And, of course, vote for candidates that support action on climate change.

The issue IS indeed complicated. That's why I enjoy studying it. (I'm an earth science major)