Global warming now causing mountains to grow taller

[jrenz]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: jrenz

Originally posted by: jpeyton
I said 'research', not 'data'. Data over the last few decades or 100 million years hasn't changed; interpretation of the data has.

Again, I'll trust hundreds of PhDs in peer-reviewed journals around the world over the opinion of some random internet Joe.

Thanks for playing.

Way to paint a picture, but your 8th-grade debate skills are useless. The scientific community is completely divided over this issue, and in light of the history of this issue and the conflict in what the data represents, you're just a fool jumping on the global-warming bandwagon, fueled by the media and driven by fear.
Edit: Forgot to include an attempt at a witty remark ala your post... so... Merry Christmas.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA :laugh:

Are you for real? Completely divided sounds like a 50/50 split. It's closer to 98/2 in favor of global warming because caused by humans. Keep it coming. There is no split except the lies propagated by government lobbies.

A survey of climatologists from more than 20 nations has revealed scientists are evenly split on whether humans are responsible for changes in global climate. The findings refute a widely reported study by a California ?Gender and Science? professor who claimed that, based on her personal examination of 928 scientific papers on the issue, every single one reached the conclusion that global warming is real and primarily caused by humans.

...

The newspaper reported that Dr. Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, ?decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents [cited by Oreskes]--and concluded that only one-third backed the consensus view, while only 1 percent did so explicitly.?

...

Bray received 530 responses from climatologists in 27 different countries.

With a value of 1 indicating ?strongly agree? and a value of 7 indicating ?strongly disagree,? Bray reported the average of the 530 responses was 3.62, almost right down the middle. More climatologists ?strongly disagreed? than ?strongly agreed? that climate change is mostly attributable to humans.

On Monday, Benny Peiser, a United Kingdom social anthropologist, called the Dec. 3 essay, "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change," a "disturbing" study.

"A one-hundred-percent record of 'scientific consensus' on anthropogenic climate change would be a sensational finding indeed. In fact, such a total result would be even more remarkable than any 'consensus' ever achieved in Soviet-style elections," Peiser noted sarcastically.

You still going to believe the propaganda you've been fed?

 

[Aegeon]

Originally posted by: jrenz
You still going to believe the propaganda you've been fed?

Good question all you? Because there certainly is an overwhelming scientific consensus that man made carbon dioxide is a major contributor to the current global warming trend.

Here's a quotation from an article about the creation of the global cooling myth and how some conservative commentators have been giving out false information to misrepresent the previous state of climate science and what they were concluding at that time.

The state of the science at the time (say, the mid 1970's), based on reading the papers is, in summary: "...we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course. Without the fundamental understanding, it does not seem possible to predict climate..." (which is taken directly from NAS, 1975). In a bit more detail, people were aware of various forcing mechanisms - the ice age cycle; CO2 warming; aerosol cooling - but didn't know which would be dominant in the near future. By the end of the 1970's, though, it had become clear that CO2 warming would probably be dominant; that conclusion has subsequently strengthened.

George Will asserts that Science magazine (Dec. 10, 1976) warned about "extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation.". The quote is from Hays et al. But the quote is taken grossly out of context. Here, in full, is the small section dealing with prediction:

"Future climate. Having presented evidence that major changes in past climate were associated with variations in the geometry of the earth's orbit, we should be able to predict the trend of future climate. Such forecasts must be qualified in two ways. First, they apply only to the natural component of future climatic trends - and not to anthropogenic effects such as those due to the burning of fossil fuels. Second, they describe only the long-term trends, because they are linked to orbital variations with periods of 20,000 years and longer. Climatic oscillations at higher frequencies are not predicted.

One approach to forecasting the natural long-term climate trend is to estimate the time constants of response necessary to explain the observed phase relationships between orbital variation and climatic change, and then to use those time constants in the exponential-response model. When such a model is applied to Vernekar's (39) astronomical projections, the results indicate that the long-term trend over the next 20,000 years is towards extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation and cooler climate (80)."

The point about timescales is worth noticing: predicting an ice age (even in the absence of human forcing) is almost impossible within a timescale that you could call "imminent" (perhaps a century: comparable to the scales typically used in global warming projections) because ice ages are slow, when caused by orbital forcing type mechanisms.

Will also quotes "a full-blown 10,000-year ice age" (Science, March 1, 1975). The quote is accurate, but the source isn't. The piece isn't from "Science"; it's from "Science News". There is a major difference: Science is (jointly with Nature) the most prestigous journal for natural science; Science News is not a peer-reviewed journal at all, though it is still respectable. In this case, its process went a bit wrong: the desire for a good story overwhelmed its reading of the NAS report which was presumably too boring to present directly.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94

 

[jrenz]

Originally posted by: Aegeon

Originally posted by: jrenz
You still going to believe the propaganda you've been fed?

Good question all you? Because there certainly is an overwhelming scientific consensus that man made carbon dioxide is a major contributor to the current global warming trend.

I'm glad you didn't read anything I posted. You know... the part where it said there WASN'T an overwhelming concensus. Minor detail I suppose.

 

[Aegeon]

Originally posted by: jrenz
I'm glad you didn't read anything I posted. You know... the part where it said there WASN'T an overwhelming concensus. Minor detail I suppose.

You mean the place where a single individual apparently came out with data somewhat different than the study? Its worth noting that data certainly DID NOT actually imply most climatologists don't believe man made carbon dioxide is a major cause behind global warming. What it means is some climatologists are not yet confident enough to actually assert global warming is mostly the cause of global warming since there may be other factors they are not fully aware of. This is just typical scientific caution. If you ask if they believe its a major factor, you're get numbers of 98% or higher to your survey results. You need to get better at interpretating available data.

Basically even if other things are also causing a temperate increase, carbon dioxide is an element of this we can control. A strong continued warming trend will be highly harmful not just to the enviroment but humans in a variety of ways such as the issue of rising sea levels, so mitigating this trend by trying to limit the made made emmissions of greenhouse gases is beneficial. There is always a possibility that the other facts involved with temperatures will reverse in the future, but we have no way to know that. (If they did do so in really dramatic fashion, we could always conclude that it makes sense to start emmiting more greenhouse gases at that point to try to mitigate the cooling trend.) The issue is we don't have a backup planet available, so there is simply too much risk of us screwing up the planet if we don't pay attention to this trend given the data we now have.

 

[Jaskalas]

1: The world was the center of the universe.
2: The world was flat.

So with such brilliance recorded in the past, are we to assume that today we are above folly and that we can be assured that we are responsible for rising surface temperatures?

While it?s painfully obvious the earth is warming, it has been consistently doing this since the last ice age and I believe it will continue to do so with or without us. Mass extinctions are naturally part of the planet?s history and happened long before we evolved. We are not the sole cause.

Now, if our contribution is so significant as to warrant immediate knee jerk reaction to somehow reinvent our entire energy infrastructure - is really what I find at debate here. Being the skeptic on our part, I?m one for taking the measured steps that we are currently taking today, perhaps with more focus on R&D. Other than that, I don?t care.

Oil WILL run out by the end of our life times and this problem will naturally solve itself regardless of any actions we take to undermine our economy.

That as they say, is that.

 

[Aegeon]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas
Oil WILL run out by the end of our life times and this problem will naturally solve itself regardless of any actions we take to undermine our economy.

That as they say, is that.

This is rather flawed reasoning. We definately have hundreds of years of coal left, which can produce one heck of alot of carbon dioxide, and does so even with "clean coal" technologies. Its also true that theoretically we could rely upon coal to power electric cars or even produce the hydrogen for hydrogen fuel cells. Running out of oil does not suddenly ensure that we stop producing large amounts of carbon dixide gas.

 

[DrPizza]

:laugh:
This thread was interesting, and invokes the same arguments that every other thread on global warming has had. I thought the title was something about mountains (I've forgotten now, but I was seeking a justification to my "wtf" when I read that - thermal expansion?)

Anyway, when you're trying to justify your side of an argument, presenting sources such as this:

The newspaper reported that Dr. Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, ?decided to...

or citing the opinion of social anthropologist probably really caught the other side of the argument off guard. I mean, no link to an actual study/survey. No link to who conducted the survey... In all honesty, I could conduct a survey of 100 scientists (relevant to the topic of global warming) and get a 100% consensus - on either side of the argument. How was such a survey conducted?? To give a simple example, suppose I surveyed people by sending the survey via email or posting in online and asked people "do you use email" - I might be able to conclude from my survey that 100% of the people in the U.S. use email.

It's unfortunate that so many scientists are clouding the issue... wtf is a gender scientist doing in the argument? WTF is a social anthropologist doing in the argument. Everyone wants to make their mark... they all want some degree of fame. So they keep sticking their nose where it really doesn't belong. Unfortunately, the majority of people in the media aren't intelligent enough to be able to sort through what's rubbish coming from the "scientific" community and what's valid. (Heck, in one recent article posted in OT, they couldn't even convert km/h to miles/hr correctly)

So, while you couple of people continue arguing about it here, may I suggest, no, may I beg of you to use valid sources, complete with the source or a link to the source? It's a very interesting topic, but these threads rapidly degenerate into a waste of time when people start using ridiculous data. Time magazine? Pleeease. Try using Time magazine as a source in even a typical college level composition I class.

 

[GoPackGo]

Originally posted by: jpeyton
XZeroII, the problem is that in peer-reviewed studies, science has proven that humans are responsible for a large spike in CO2 concentration in our atmosphere, and as a direct result an increase in global temperature. I would challenge you to find a peer-reviewed study that says anything to the contrary.

We have atmospheric CO2 data going back over 100 million years. That's before there were humans, and the data covers several ice ages and warming/cooling cycles. Never in the history of our planet have CO2 levels been as high as they are today during any single warming/cooling cycle. Why anyone would argue against the blunt logic that humans, through centuries of burning fossil fuels, burning forests for agriculture, reducing our planet's biomass through the destruction of habitat, and increasing all our greenhouse-gas emitting activities at a geometric rate, would not cause global warming?

100 millions years? is that it?

Thats a drop in the bucket.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: jpeyton
XZeroII, the problem is that in peer-reviewed studies, science has proven that humans are responsible for a large spike in CO2 concentration in our atmosphere, and as a direct result an increase in global temperature. I would challenge you to find a peer-reviewed study that says anything to the contrary.

We have atmospheric CO2 data going back over 100 million years. That's before there were humans, and the data covers several ice ages and warming/cooling cycles. Never in the history of our planet have CO2 levels been as high as they are today during any single warming/cooling cycle. Why anyone would argue against the blunt logic that humans, through centuries of burning fossil fuels, burning forests for agriculture, reducing our planet's biomass through the destruction of habitat, and increasing all our greenhouse-gas emitting activities at a geometric rate, would not cause global warming?

Because CO2 isnt the primary gas responsible for the temperature of the earth?

Ut oh, new can of worms.

 

[Acanthus]

See also:

Man now apparently also controls solar activity.

WE ARE RESPONSIBLE!

:roll:

 

[Drift3r]

There are two phenomenon's at play here one is well known and publicized as "Global Warming" and the other is less known but well studied and proven called "Global Dimming". Both are a result of pollution and both can cause a spike in temperatures in either direction. I suggest people read up on both of these phenomenon and how they interact with each other and effect global temperatures.

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: glenn1
No longer content to simply raise temperatures, increase hurricanes, wipe out coastal cities, inconvience polar bears, destroy agriculture, and inflict us with Al Gore in a movie, now global warming is going to turn Des Moines into Kathmandu. News like this fills me with such dread that I feel like I should go plant a tree or something - of course now more trees increases global warming also. Oh crap.


link

That, and tree growth in the US already outpaces tree usage by over 40%. <---learned that on a Discovery Channel show

 

[GoPackGo]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
See also:

Man now apparently also controls solar activity.

WE ARE RESPONSIBLE!

:roll:

When the sun explodes, it wont matter.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Originally posted by: GoPackGo

100 millions years? is that it?

Thats a drop in the bucket.

Since when does 25% = a drop in the bucket? We know the earth's atmosphere has only been similar in composition to today for about 400 million years; before that there was a lot less oxygen, more hydrogen, etc., so the atmosphere before that is basically irrelevant to climate change analysis.

 

[CanOWorms]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: XZeroII

Originally posted by: Rainsford
Ah, mocking things you don't understand. Such a proud tradition among the C students. But don't worry, like most facets of reality, this one too can be driven away by closing your eyes and chanting "There's no such thing as global warming, there's no such thing as global warming" and then hopping in your SUV and enjoying some 12 mpg, overcompensating excitement!

I guess that blindly listening to the mass media who cares more about profit and their own political agendas than the truth is much better than doing some actual research on the subject, right?

I've said this millions of times, but stupid people like you just don't seem to get it. I am very environmentally friendly, in many ways. Probably moreso than you are. However, I have not seen enough evidence to persuade me that global warming is a direct results of human activity. I'm sure we contribute, but I don't see any conclusive evidence that says that we are directly causing major temperature shifts. If you would do some actual research, you would find that there is actually a lot of evidence that humans may not be responsible. Again, I do my part and act as if we are responsible, but I still don't believe that we are. I act because I believe that we should respect the environment as a whole, not because some BS crackpot politician has a political agenda.

Who's listening to the media? I'm going by what almost every major, peer-reviewed study on the subject says. The majority of evidence suggest you are wrong and I'm right...forgive me if agreeing with the vast majority of experts on the subject makes me "stupid", but I just don't see it. And honesty, the fact that you are "environmentally friendly" is great and all...but it doesn't make your opinion any more valid.

Hmmm... so you've taken the time to read every peer-reviewed study regarding the subject?

I think that most people rely on the media for this argument. 98% of people don't read scientific journals.

 

[XZeroII]

Originally posted by: jpeyton
XZeroII, the problem is that in peer-reviewed studies, science has proven that humans are responsible for a large spike in CO2 concentration in our atmosphere, and as a direct result an increase in global temperature. I would challenge you to find a peer-reviewed study that says anything to the contrary.

We have atmospheric CO2 data going back over 100 million years. That's before there were humans, and the data covers several ice ages and warming/cooling cycles. Never in the history of our planet have CO2 levels been as high as they are today during any single warming/cooling cycle. Why anyone would argue against the blunt logic that humans, through centuries of burning fossil fuels, burning forests for agriculture, reducing our planet's biomass through the destruction of habitat, and increasing all our greenhouse-gas emitting activities at a geometric rate, would not cause global warming?

You are mixing your data up. You're showing me solid evidence, then drawing conclusions and acting like the conclusions are as solid as the evidence. It is true that CO2 levels are high right now, BUT that does not mean that there is a directly proportional increase in global temperature because of the CO2 levels. In fact, that is what the whole global warming debate is about! Yet, you made it sound like it was a proven fact! Sure, more CO2 in the atmosphere can cause an increase in temperature, but by how much?

Why would all that not cause global warming? Because there is no solid proof that it does cause global warming. You are now just entering assumptions into the argument as facts. This is the reason why we have scientists and science. Obviously the sun revolves around the Earth! Look at it! Who would argue that it doesn't when you can obviously see that it does! This is the argument that you are using. Hopefully you see how poor of an argument it is.

 

[BrownTown]

Also, its total BS that in the history of the earth there has never been more CO2 than now. MAybe the last few hundred thousand years or whatever, but not 7 Billion or however old the earth is.