Global climate change and glaciers

[BaliBabyDoc]

Except that a new home..even a new larger home consumes far less power than an older smaller home.

Depends . . . most older homes made of brick (like mine) are just as energy efficient (per sq foot) assuming the windows, doors, and attic are properly insulated/constructed/installed. In fact, the pre-fab and mass produced cul-de-sac homes of today are often produced with cut rate material (poor R-factor glass) which means they may very well be just as energy inefficient as older homes of comparable size.

Glass

According to U.S. Government estimates, the average household spends over 40% of its annual energy budget on heating and cooling.

Studies at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory suggest that if all windows purchased over the next fifteen years incorporated low-E coatings, gas fills, and a few other readily available efficiency improvements, our collective annual energy bill could be reduced by 25 percent or over $2.5 billion per year by 2010 (Geller, Thorne 1999).

Regardless, all things being equal there are a multitude of ways for Americans to consume less (reduce, reuse, recycle).

 

[naddicott]

Originally posted by: Jmman
Here is an article that says that the Earth's climate based upon ice core samples went through a dramatic shift in temperature in the short span of just 20 years....interesting read......

link

Yes, it is an interesting read. I don't see how it supports your overall position on the issue of climate change. For instance:

Slowing the rate of greenhouse-gas emissions would buy us more time to understand the consequences of our actions and might allow us to increase greenhouse-gas concentrations to a higher level before reaching the critical threshold.

Sounds like a call for precaution if I've ever read one. Do you generally make a practice of excerpting minor factual elements of scientific writings and then asserting the exact opposite conclusions as the authors? Chances are, the authors understand the implications of their findings far more accurately than you do.

 

[Jmman]

Originally posted by: naddicott

Originally posted by: Jmman
Here is an article that says that the Earth's climate based upon ice core samples went through a dramatic shift in temperature in the short span of just 20 years....interesting read......

link

Yes, it is an interesting read. I don't see how it supports your overall position on the issue of climate change. For instance:

Slowing the rate of greenhouse-gas emissions would buy us more time to understand the consequences of our actions and might allow us to increase greenhouse-gas concentrations to a higher level before reaching the critical threshold.

Sounds like a call for precaution if I've ever read one. Do you generally make a practice of excerpting minor factual elements of scientific writings and then asserting the exact opposite conclusions as the authors? Chances are, the authors understand the implications of their findings far more accurately than you do.

I draw conclusions from my own analysis of the available data. Nothing more, nothing less. His opinion is that we should be cautious and evaluate our options. I have no problems with that. He also states that their is uncertainty in the data and we do not know for sure if this current trend is anything other than natural variability. I personally don't think that implementing a treaty such as Kyoto that very well could have devastating consequences on our economy when the data is inconclusive is the right move. Obviously you feel otherwise, and that is certainly your right......

 

[naddicott]

Originally posted by: Jmman
I draw conclusions from my own analysis of the available data. Nothing more, nothing less. His opinion is that we should be cautious and evaluate our options. I have no problems with that. He also states that their is uncertainty in the data and we do not know for sure if this current trend is anything other than natural variability. I personally don't think that implementing a treaty such as Kyoto that very well could have devastating consequences on our economy when the data is inconclusive is the right move. Obviously you feel otherwise, and that is certainly your right......

Fair enough. I also feel differently about the potential for "devastating consequences" on the economy from prudent environmental policies, but that's another thread altogether.

 

[Grakatt]

Originally posted by: Jmman

Originally posted by: Grakatt

Originally posted by: Jmman

Originally posted by: Grakatt
It's funny though.
As someone already said, some people would stand with creased foreheads and proclaim how nothing has been proved until they're washed away by a giant wave or killed by the sun.
We already know we are contributing to the increased pace of global warming, and while water vapour remains the single dominant gas by far of the greenhouse gases it is the amount of carbon dioxide in the air that is increasing, and we are releasing lots of it.

Volcanoes do too, but not nearly as much as we do. Furthermore, they produce more global cooling than warming.

What I'm saying is that we have no historic pirnts pointing towards a temperature increase equal the one we are in now, the one we will probably experience, and the one that has happened these last 50 or 100 years, and since we know we are contributing to it, we should take care.

Yeah, my sentences turn out pretty long.

Actually, the increase in the last 100 years of 1 degree fahrenheit is underwhelming at best. There have been such fluctuations long before man ever had an impact on the climate. In the last 1000 years the Earth has been both hotter than today and colder than today. Sorry, I am not willing to pay $3 a gallon for gas just because the Earth might warm up a little.

First of all, in this country we pay more for gas than $3/gallon.

Second of all, how many climatologists can you find that support that your statement? It sounds to me as if though you've read some right-radical book?

http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/fgwscience.asp
The earth has not been hotter, as far as most scientists can tell, than today. Also, that you find a 1.1 degree Fahrenheit raise in the average globe temperature under one century 'underwhelming at best' is ..well, I hope you never breed.

So the Earth was never warmer than today, huh? So the poles were once ice-free because it was colder than today??!! My advice to you my friend is to step away from the bong before you injure yourself any further.....


Here is an article that says that the Earth's climate based upon ice core samples went through a dramatic shift in temperature in the short span of just 20 years....interesting read......

link

Yes, interesting..and still, it, as stated, supports caution when it comes to our release of greenhouse gases.
Also, I haven't really seen those particular results anywhere else.
About the bong...'has not been hotter in ~1000 years' it should, of course, have said.

I know you feel you(the U.S) shouldn't 'hurt your economy' because of something that hasn't been proved (can it be proved?), but I don't know if you ever thought about it in a worldly context. "I will not do anything.....that can hurt american workers!" or whatever,..yes, Bush has said alot of fine things. As someone said previously in this thread, the general consensus among relevant scientists, or at least a quite large majority, should be heeded. The U.S is one of the biggest food-producers in the world, both livestock I think? and grain and such..what will happen to the economy if droughts and storms become increasingly common?

EDIT: Fod-producers eh?

 

[Jmman]

dp

 

[Jmman]

Originally posted by: Jmman
Actually, there is a lot of evidence that the Earth was warmer than today even in the Middle Ages.......Text

As far as hurting American workers, or the like, the effects of the Kyoto treaty would not just hurt American workers, it could very well hurt workers in the entire industrial world.

 

[naddicott]

Originally posted by: Jmman
Actually, there is a lot of evidence that the Earth was warmer than today even in the Middle Ages.......Text

From the press release:
"The study - funded by NASA, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the American Petroleum Institute - will be published in the Energy and Environment journal.."
Have to love independent academic research.

Looking at the publishing journal, every issue appears to be "discredit the IPCC" issue. Some sort of editorial agenda? Who sponsors the publication of this magazine?

"One of the objectives of E&E is to inform social scientists of this ongoing debate and occasionally publish scientific papers rejected for their critiques of the IPCC.."
- Dr. Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, editor of Energy and Environment journal.

Are those papers rejected for critiquing the IPCC or are some of them just rejected for poor science twisted to please the interests of those who gave the Petroleum industry grants?

 

[Jmman]

If you like I can find other reports and scientists who make make the same claim. The "Little Ice Age" and the warming trend in the Middle Ages are pretty well documented......

 

[naddicott]

I'm guessing you're referring to the Mideaval Warming Period (MWP) article in Science a couple years back (which I don't have a problem with - the editorial board of Science has a much cleaner record when it comes to independent academic inquiry):
Jan Esper, Edward Cook and Fritz Schweingruber; Low Frequency Signals in Long Tree-Ring Chronologies for Reconstructing Past Temperature Variability. Science. Vol 295

"[E]vidence for a large-scale MWP (sensu lato) has been reconstructed, and it approaches the magnitude of 20th-century warming in the NH up to 1990."

After 1990, warming has been occurring at a rate far exceeding anything found in MWP data.

What I would be interested in seeing would be papers with significant research, published in a reputable scientific journal, where the authors explicitly say their findings preclude the possibility of human contribution to climate change to such an extent that cautious environmental policies should be unneccessary. Their words, not you quoting a quick snippet and drawing your own conclusions.

Someone not dependent on grant money or speaker fees from organizations with titles like "petroleum institute" would be nice too.

Dr. Lindzen is the closest I've seen so far - although none of the citations you've given with him as the source have been from peer-reviewed scientific journals.


On a slightly OT note, my first climateprediction.net run finished today... results. Temperatures in my model rose about five degrees celcius in fifteen years using the parameters assigned to me...


[edit: the graph here gives a more sensible picture of our level of confidence in past temperatures (graphs of several different reserachers' temperature reconstructions and an appropriately large 95% confidence bar)]