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Anthropogenic Global Warming 101

Well, consider this statement from rebelbuc in True Debate #6:



Who then posts a litany of nonsensical articles painting the IPCC at the center of some grand conspiracy of deception, as if what they said was new and not the consensus of published literature that it was. Odd considering that the conclusions of the IPCC, which have either been endorsed or confirmed by every scientific organization on the planet, aren't all that different than the warnings the scientific community has been issuing for decades now - disruption of food supply, sea level rise, infectious disease control, etc.

And given how often I've come across such memes in similar discussions, I hardly think I'm the one manufacturing the controversy.

If you want an explanation of rebelbuc's post, I suggest you contact him. I won't presume to speak for him.
 
If you want an explanation of rebelbuc's post, I suggest you contact him. I won't presume to speak for him.

Well, that's quite a Matrix dodge. Do you believe my assessment of his post is incorrect? What do you believe the point of his post was, IYHO?
 
Heretic said:
No, you just keep posting the same temperature trend believing it to be a reversal (again, in contradiction to the very people who made those measurements). The planet, however, is still absorbing more heat than it's releasing and the oceans are still warming, which wouldn't be the case if this were a true cooling and not the fluctuations from a PDO.

You should really find a source other than an alarmist site paid for by an environmental group.

PEER REVIEWED studies show that the ocean heat content has been dropping since 2003. This date is curiously in line with the major drop in atmospheric temperatures.
 
Any links to back up that statement?
 
And what exactly is your definition of alarmism? 'Cause so far it seems to be "anyone who supports AGW".
 
Any links to back up that statement?

Since you claim to be on top of all the current research on global warming, I naturally assumed you were aware of this.

Abstract. We observe a net loss of 3.2 (± 1.1) × 10 22 J of heat from the upper ocean between 2003 and 2005. Using a broad array of in situ ocean measurements, we present annual estimates of global upper-ocean heat content anomaly from 1993 through 2005. Including the recent downturn, the average warming rate for the entire 13-year period is 0.33 ± 0.23 W/m2 (of the Earth's total surface area). A new estimate of sampling error in the heat content record suggests that both the recent and previous global cooling events are significant and unlikely to be artifacts of inadequate ocean sampling.

Recent Cooling of the Upper Ocean
John M. Lyman, Josh K. Willis, and Gr egory C. Johnson
Geophysical Research Letters

Here's some choices for your response to save you time:

1. Realclimate says these scientists don't know what they're talking about.

2. Realclimate says these scientists are in the pocket of big oil.

3. Realclimate says that GRL is not a true scientific publication.
 
Ah. Just as I thought. You just don't keep up on research...

Climate-change naysayers pounced on a report last year suggesting that the upper oceans are cooling, not warming. Now it turns out this conclusion was wrong, the result of faulty measurements.

The Argo project was launched in 2000 to record ocean temperature and salinity all over the world, using a network of 3000 floats containing sensory equipment to gather data through the upper 2000 metres of the ocean. Unfortunately, 300 were mis-recording the water pressure, making the floats appear closer to the surface than they really were. Before Argo, ocean temperature was measured using sensors called XBTs that were thrown into the sea, where they slowly sank. These sensors didn't fall as fast as originally assumed. Water is warmer near the surface, so the XBT temperature readings were too high and some Argo readings too low.

When John Lyman from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, Washington, and his colleagues compared the Argo and XBT measurements, it appeared that the upper oceans had cooled by 0.02 °C between 2003 and 2005 (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1029/2006GL027033). In fact the cooling was an artefact, caused by the switch from XBTs to Argo, combined with the faulty floats. Lyman's team has submitted a correction and is recalibrating the data. Calculations are still ongoing, but it now looks like no cooling occurred.

"The upper ocean cooling was always surprising because the change was so sudden," says Josh Willis of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

How embarrassing.

Here's the requisite discussion from RealClimate, if you're interested. :wink:

Which I'm sure you'll completely ignore as well. I'll save you some time:

1. Realclimate doesn't know what they're talking about (they believe AGW is real).

2. Realclimate is in the pocket of Big Green.

3. Realclimate is not a true scientific publication.

Ironically, had you actually read the Realclimate article on ocean heat that I posted on the previous page (ignored because it was written by "an alarmist site paid for by an environmental group"), you would have have been aware of the revisions:

Since 2003, the Argo program has seeded the oceans with autonomous floats which move up and down the water column and periodically send their data back for analysis. This has at last dealt with the spatial sampling issue (at least for the upper 700 meters in the ocean - greater depths remain relatively obscure). Initial results from the Argo data seemed to indicate that the ocean cooled quite dramatically from 2003 to 2005 (in strong contradiction to the sea level rise which had continued) (Lyman et al, 2006). But comparisons with other sources of data suggested that this was only seen with the Argo floats themselves. Thus when an error in the instruments was reported in 2007, things seemed to fit again.

Really embarrassing. :shock:
 
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Ah. Just as I thought. You just don't keep up on research...



How embarrassing.

Here's the requisite discussion from RealClimate, if you're interested. :wink:

Which I'm sure you'll completely ignore as well. I'll save you some time:

1. Realclimate doesn't know what they're talking about (they believe AGW is real).

2. Realclimate is in the pocket of Big Green.

3. Realclimate is not a true scientific publication.

Ironically, had you actually read the Realclimate article on ocean heat that I posted on the previous page (ignored because it was written by "an alarmist site paid for by an environmental group"), you would have have been aware of the revisions:



Really embarrassing. :shock:

It would have been simpler if you had just picked 1, 2, or 3.

How predictable. You should really try reading the peer reviewed papers rather than relying on the predictably alarmist blog Realclimate.

Really predictable. One question though? Do you have any thoughts of your own to share of does everything you think come from Realclimate?

By the way, where is the peer reviewed paper authored by the "brains" at Realclimate refuting the Willis paper? Is there one? Surely there is if it was as wrong as they claim.
 
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By the way, where is the peer reviewed paper authored by the "brains" at Realclimate refuting the Willis paper? Is there one? Surely there is if it was as wrong as they claim.

Seriously, d00d. First... Newscientist != Realclimate. I started with the actual news story, and only posted the RealClimate commentary to annoy you.

Second. Willis and Lymon were the ones that submitted the corrections to their own research. Read it here. This was specifically stated in all three of the relevant articles I posted. You'd have saved yourself the embarrassment (again) had you actually bothered to read them.

Since you seem completely unable to do any actual research with any of the material I post, I'll paste the relevant bits for you:

Correction to “Recent Cooling of the Upper Ocean”

Josh K. Willis, John M. Lyman, Gregory C. Johnson and John Gilson

Revised and Resubmitted 10 July 2007

to

Geophysical Research Letters

Abstract. Two systematic biases have been discovered 9 in the ocean temperature data used by Lyman et al. [2006]. These biases are both substantially larger than sampling errors estimated in Lyman et al. [2006], and appear to be the cause of the rapid cooling reported in that work.

:2funny:
 
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Ah, man, Heretic... you're getting a standing "O" from me. :lol:
 
Come on Heretic, that's a bunch of b.s.; you know scientists never go back and correct their own mistakes!

:mrgreen:

Gill, what's your shirt size? I'd like to send you a T-shirt that says PWND across the front.
 
I'll save him some time on a rebuttal:

Step three: (Not) Responding to Criticism
All great minds will be criticized by peon scientists who have grown fat and bloated with public grant funds. They've been feeding at the public coffers for so long, they wouldn't know an original idea if it fell out of the ether and struck them on their thick skulls. Here are some simple responses to common criticisms:

Accusation: "You haven't published in a real peer-reviewed journal"
Response: Either say "Peer review is just an old-boys network for peon scientists to pat each other on the back", or accuse journal editors of persecuting you. Compare yourself to Galileo.

Accusation: "You don't have solid proof"
Response: Either restate what you said already, restate it slightly differently, call your accuser a name, or suggest they are part of the conspiracy to hide the truth. Compare yourself to Galileo.

Accusation: "Because of X, Y, and Z, your theory is false and you're an idiot"
Response: Yell "That's Ad Hominem - I win the argument" (and that they've persecuted you).

Accusation: "Because of X, Y and Z, you are wrong"
Response: If they fail to call you an idiot, there are a few ways to respond to this. Either nitpick an aspect of their argument so that you can ignore the rest while diverting the discussion into a meaningless tangent. Or cut and paste large sections of print or references to papers that may or may not agree with you (the exhaustion strategy). Finally, it's always a good idea to just ignore them and restate your original argument. Alternatively demand they provide you with *scientific* evidence that their theory is the correct one. If they do, ignore it and restate your original argument.

Accusation: "No credible scientists or scientific agencies believe this theory"
Response: "That's because they're part of a conspiracy to hide the truth!" In addition assert motives for the conspiracy like maintaining control over the populace, spreading materialistic atheist dogma, acquiring grant money, etc. Don't forget to challenge orthodoxy and compare yourself to Galileo! He was persecuted by the orthodoxy too! Remember, whenever a majority of scientists believe anything, that means it's wrong. Cite Kuhn, compare yourself to Galileo again.

If they show up at your blog and leave comments, remember to delete anything critical at all, dissent must not be tolerated on your home turf. Anything critical might damage the proof of your unassailable intellect, and the absence of critique will make it appear as if your critics are afraid to engage you on your own turf.

You see? It's easy! All you have to do is ignore anything that contradicts your theory, nitpick others' arguments, force them to explain themselves, accuse them of lying, accuse them of conspiring against the truth, exhaust them with dumps of links or citations, repeat yourself, and compare yourself to Galileo, because he had problems convincing the orthodoxy too. Also, don't forget to call yourself a skeptic, or dissident, or iconoclast.

:2razz:

Sciencewins.jpg
 
Seriously, d00d. First... Newscientist != Realclimate. I started with the actual news story, and only posted the RealClimate commentary to annoy you.

Second. Willis and Lymon were the ones that submitted the corrections to their own research. Read it here. This was specifically stated in all three of the relevant articles I posted. You'd have saved yourself the embarrassment (again) had you actually bothered to read them.

Since you seem completely unable to do any actual research with any of the material I post, I'll paste the relevant bits for you:

What were you saying about actual research???

Let’s recap:

1. You contend that the oceans have continued to warm despite cooling air temperatures.
2. I disputed your contention.
3. I posted a paper by Lyman that claimed the ocean’s have actually been cooling this decade.
4. You stated that they have published a correction to their paper and they did not believe the global ocean’s had cooled as much as their paper reported, BUT THEY DID NOT KNOW THE EXTENT OF THE INSTRUMENT BIAS.
5. What you actually linked to was their NOTICE of a correction, not the actual correction.
6. You obviously assumed that the instrument bias would result in the declaration that the oceans are continuing to warm as you previously stated.
7. YOU OBVIOUSLY NEVER BOTHERED TO LOOK AT THEIR CORRECTION AFTER REVIEWING THE INSTRUMENT BIAS.

Here is Lyman et al’s final word on ocean temperatures this decade:

With biased profiles discarded, no significant warming or cooling is observed in upper-ocean heat content between 2003 and 2006.
Feb. 29, 2008

So, while there has been no net cooling of the ocean as I claimed, there also hasn’t been any warming as you claimed. In my opinion, no gain in ocean temps is an oops for your side. If the catastrophic warming you alarmists have been predicting was actually going to happen, the ocean would continue to suck up heat non-stop. It takes a while for a heat sink like the world oceans to either heat up or cool down, so I expect the ocean’s to show actual cooling soon in response to the rapidly falling atmospheric temperatures.

People that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

You didn’t really expect Realclimate to comment on the final correction did you? They are famous for filtering all comments so that only news supporting their opinions is posted.

MDM and Middleground: You can apologize any time you want, but I’m not holding my breath waiting on it.
 
What were you saying about actual research???

Let’s recap:

1. You contend that the oceans have continued to warm despite cooling air temperatures.
2. I disputed your contention.
3. I posted a paper by Lyman that claimed the ocean’s have actually been cooling this decade.
4. You stated that they have published a correction to their paper and they did not believe the global ocean’s had cooled as much as their paper reported, BUT THEY DID NOT KNOW THE EXTENT OF THE INSTRUMENT BIAS.
5. What you actually linked to was their NOTICE of a correction, not the actual correction.
6. You obviously assumed that the instrument bias would result in the declaration that the oceans are continuing to warm as you previously stated.
7. YOU OBVIOUSLY NEVER BOTHERED TO LOOK AT THEIR CORRECTION AFTER REVIEWING THE INSTRUMENT BIAS.

Here is Lyman et al’s final word on ocean temperatures this decade:



So, while there has been no net cooling of the ocean as I claimed, there also hasn’t been any warming as you claimed. In my opinion, no gain in ocean temps is an oops for your side. If the catastrophic warming you alarmists have been predicting was actually going to happen, the ocean would continue to suck up heat non-stop. It takes a while for a heat sink like the world oceans to either heat up or cool down, so I expect the ocean’s to show actual cooling soon in response to the rapidly falling atmospheric temperatures.

People that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

You didn’t really expect Realclimate to comment on the final correction did you? They are famous for filtering all comments so that only news supporting their opinions is posted.

MDM and Middleground: You can apologize any time you want, but I’m not holding my breath waiting on it.

There you go again gill, academic dishonesty.
Why do you not include the actual conclusion as opposed to simply cherry picking and manipulating sentences.
Here is the actual conclusion from the paper.
This work has several implications. First, the updated time series of ocean heat content presented here (Figure 1) and the newly estimated confidence limits (Figure 3) support the significance of previously reported large interannual variability in globally integrated upper-ocean heat content [Levitus et al., 2005]. However, the physical causes for this type of variability are not yet well understood. Furthermore, this variability is not
adequately simulated in the current generation of coupled climate models used to study the impact of anthropogenic influences on climate [Gregory et al., 2004; Barnett et al. 2005; Church et al. 2005; and Hansen et al., 2005]. Although these models do simulate the long-term rates of ocean warming, this lack of interannual variability represents a shortcoming that may complicate detection and attribution of human-induced climate influences.
Changes in OHCA also affect sea level. Sea level rise has a broad range of
implications for climate science as well as considerable socioeconomic impacts [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, 2004]. Diagnosing the causes of past and present sea level change and closure of the sea level budget is therefore a critical component of understanding past changes in sea level as well as projecting future changes. The recent cooling of the upper
ocean implies a decrease in the thermosteric component of sea level. Estimates of total sea level [Leuliette et al., 2004; http://sealevel.colorado.edu], however, show continued sea-level rise during the past 3 years. This suggests that other contributions to sea-level rise, such as melting of land-bound ice, have accelerated. This inference is consistent with recent estimates of ice mass loss in Antarctica [Velicogna and Wahr, 2006] and accelerating ice mass loss on Greenland [Rignot et al., 2006] but closure of the global sea level budget cannot yet be achieved. New satellite observations from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE; launched in March, 2002 and administered by NASA and Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt, GRACE will map Earth's gravity field approximately once every 30 days during its lifetime) should soon provide sufficient observations of the redistribution of water mass to more fully describe the causes of recent sea-level change.

So sure, the time period of 2003 to 2006 had seen no significant warming, but it hadn't seen any significant cooling but guess what? The long term was still warming.
So your source clearly disagrees with your claim that it agrees with you in that it's cooling and it continues to support the premise of AGW as in it will continue to warm.
Yet you still claim that, despite the opposite claim of your source, oceans will continue to cool. On what basis?

Bottom line is this, you have zero basis for your claim other than pure speculation or rather gamble so that you can say your right and can't be proven wrong.
All the evidence and research demonstrated is opposite of what you claim, and you still continue to bury your head in the ground and deny AGW.
You claim your opposition side has been filtered out by mainstream scientists money hungry yet this is the 3rd time now you have cherry picked and got caught for doing so; only this time, laughably, the cut and paste job flat out refutes your claim that there is any "cooling trend".
Time and time again, since 2005, you've been proven wrong over and over and over again, you still haven't presented a single scientific source that supports your position yet still claim "rage against the machine" through mis-information, data manipulation, and some times flat out lies for the purpose of what? I've no idea.
I do know however of another crowd that does just this, they claim the earth is only 4000 years old and humans walked along side with dinosaurs. This crowd also claims that 9/11 was an inside job, and they think that the only method in filtering out alien brain scanners is by wearing a tin foil hat on their head.
 
So? Roman empire has long since disappeared.
Grapes can grow in various temperature environments, it's the humidity that is the big problem.
Do you know why the UK is far warmer than similar latitude regions?

I just thought I'd point out that a few thousand years ago, long before C02 scares and global warming fears filled the heads of so many chicken littles... You could grow Grapes and make fine wines in places far too cold now in Britain.

It's food for thought.
 
Bottom line is this, you have zero basis for your claim other than pure speculation or rather gamble so that you can say your right and can't be proven wrong.

That's it in a nutshell. The only evidence that skeptics have that anything is amiss is a seething hatred for Algore and anything liberal.

We are still absorbing more heat than we are emitting, energy which can't be wished out of existence regardless of how much one hates RealClimate or the IPCC. The only thing skeptics have come up with is some sort of new forcing that will magically appear to keep temps in check - Lindzen's Iris, a PDO or low solar cycle that will somehow last forever, etc.

Here is Lyman et al’s final word on ocean temperatures this decade:

Hardly. Lyman fully acknowledged that there were still problems with the data sets as well as acknowledging the year-to-year variability in surface ocean temps. While the warming so far hasn't been demonstrated to be as high as I thought, trend analysis and the continuing sea level rise seems to suggest that the oceans are still warming.

Judging by the fact that the entire scientific community, from the Pentagon down to the NWS and everything in between, has yet to issue a "WE SOREE!! WEEZ LIBERUL LYERZ!!" report yet in light of Lyman's research, I think its far more likely that you're analysis is still wrong than the entire scientific community trying to deceive us.
 
Actually most of us against drastic life altering measures to "save the earth" want something more concrete then theories and political dogma attached to a movement that's reached a near cult like mentality.

My job in the Navy was weather, I know a bit more about the limits then any of you reading blogs, and cut and pasting the cherry picked notes you find to be worth your time.

Here's a little test for you:

1. Find a computer model predicting these drastic, over heating events.

2. Find where it's been run from say oh.. 1900 to present. The only data it's fed is the KNOWN C02 and other "green house gasses".

3. Find the one that is within say 0.5C of the actual.

4. FYI the reason for this is proofing the model. IF it can nail the known "heating" to this point, that means it's probably pretty dialed in and you can look to it for a good idea of what "probably" will happen.

Good luck, not a one exists. Oh a few have been "proofed" and lauded, only to be later sunk because the model data was altered to fit the known reality after the fact. That's called cheating. Every single one of these models FAILS the proofing test.

Meteorologist can't tell you what the local weather will be more then 4 days out, and even then, drastic weather events like cold fronts.. specifically fast moving fronts, screw this data up even more.

This isn't because the science isn't known we do have a decent idea of how certain weather events play out... it's because the data is lacking, the variables too many and there does not exist a computer out there that can grid the entire planet. Nor do we have the data we need to understand it all.

Your best models for local weather are based on dense population, high data input regions. Like Europe, they have a great model program that stays ahead of the curve. And like ALL computer models, even those have built in biases that either under estimate, or over estimate the effects of certain weather patterns.


Before you go off all gloriously high and mighty, ready to demand we scale back our lives, suffer greatly in terms economic and personal rights... shouldn't the data be better? Shouldn't the probability of accuracy be unassailable?

And if the "theory" is so solid, what do you fear from critics? Shouldn't scrutiny be welcomed, to ensure the measures being sold are the RIGHT ones and necessary?
 
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Actually most of us against drastic life altering measures to "save the earth" want something more concrete then theories and political dogma attached to a movement that's reached a near cult like mentality.

"It's just a theory!" The classic creationist canard. :D

My job in the Navy was weather, I know a bit more about the limits then any of you reading blogs, and cut and pasting the cherry picked notes you find to be worth your time.

You're right. Those elitist bastards at the Pentagon are just part of the massive liberal conspiracy that is AGW.

Here's a little test for you:

1. Find a computer model predicting these drastic, over heating events.

2. Find where it's been run from say oh.. 1900 to present. The only data it's fed is the KNOWN C02 and other "green house gasses".

3. Find the one that is within say 0.5C of the actual.

4. FYI the reason for this is proofing the model. IF it can nail the known "heating" to this point, that means it's probably pretty dialed in and you can look to it for a good idea of what "probably" will happen.

Good luck, not a one exists. Oh a few have been "proofed" and lauded, only to be later sunk because the model data was altered to fit the known reality after the fact. That's called cheating. Every single one of these models FAILS the proofing test.

Computer models can't be trusted.

Meteorologist can't tell you what the local weather will be more then 4 days out, and even then, drastic weather events like cold fronts.. specifically fast moving fronts, screw this data up even more.

This isn't because the science isn't known we do have a decent idea of how certain weather events play out... it's because the data is lacking, the variables too many and there does not exist a computer out there that can grid the entire planet. Nor do we have the data we need to understand it all.

Your best models for local weather are based on dense population, high data input regions. Like Europe, they have a great model program that stays ahead of the curve. And like ALL computer models, even those have built in biases that either under estimate, or over estimate the effects of certain weather patterns.

Climate is too complicated to understand.

Before you go off all gloriously high and mighty, ready to demand we scale back our lives, suffer greatly in terms economic and personal rights... shouldn't the data be better? Shouldn't the probability of accuracy be unassailable?

And if the "theory" is so solid, what do you fear from critics? Shouldn't scrutiny be welcomed, to ensure the measures being sold are the RIGHT ones and necessary?

And back to the classic creationist standards... "It's just a theory" again and it's companion, "they're silencing dissent."
 
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and a top UN official urged industrialised nations Friday to alter their lifestyles and not let the global financial crisis hamper climate change efforts.

Industrialised nations should also help developing countries respond to climate change, Wen said at the opening of a two-day international meeting on global warming in Beijing.

"The developed countries have a responsibility and an obligation to respond to global climate change by altering their unsustainable way of life," the state news agency Xinhua quoted him as saying.

"As the global financial crisis spreads and worsens, and the world economy slows down, the international community must not waver in its determination to tackle climate change."

The gathering in Beijing is focused on the development and transfer of technology that can help tackle climate change ahead of next month's talks on creating a new global treaty on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Representatives from 76 nations are attending.

China proposed last week that rich nations devote one percent of their economic output to helping poor countries fight global warming.
Rich nations should ditch 'unsustainable' lifestyles: China's Wen

China agrees with you guys. That should make you feel better.
 
And Darwinism was responsible for the Holocaust.

Basing the validity of a scientific theory on its support from Communist regimes sounds like a fantastic scientific policy.

Thanks for such a profound and useful post. :2wave:
 
And Darwinism was responsible for the Holocaust.

Basing the validity of a scientific theory on its support from Communist regimes sounds like a fantastic scientific policy.

Thanks for such a profound and useful post. :2wave:

Further study shows you have no original thoughts on this movement, you merely cut and paste whatever you think will bolster your need to feel like you are superior to those that disagree with "AGW".

The one key, to anyone that cares about getting it right, finding the science behind it all... is that your side claims the issue is settled.

Science doesn't work that way. Einstein's theory of relativity is STILL being challenged, and debated to this day. The fact that you fight against those that question AGW, the fact that we are told "We must act now or else! No no no need to question anything, you deniers! We must ACT!!"

The more a fanatical group demands you quit questioning the basis of their demands and act, the more you need to put the brakes on.
 
I just thought I'd point out that a few thousand years ago, long before C02 scares and global warming fears filled the heads of so many chicken littles... You could grow Grapes and make fine wines in places far too cold now in Britain.

It's food for thought.
It's also irrelevant.
You're attempting to suggest this:
It's warmed in the past, so this current warming has nothing to do with man, but is just nature at play again.
Sure, just find me a T-Rex and I'll conceed the point.
 
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