The truth of Global Warming

[OscarB63]

Temperature on this planet varies based on weather patterns, primarily, and concentrations of gasses in the atmosphere.

yeah right, the amount of input of solar radiation has nothing to do with temperature on this planet. :roll:

 

[Barbbtx]

According to a lot of geological data, the Earth is overdue for another ice age. I can't say I know the truth about global warming, or global climate change. But the answer is not to stick our fingers in our ears and hum loudly. The real problem is the polarization of the issue. Crazy environmental activists on one side, and corporate profit-mongering on the other. Neither side is totally right, and if it comes down to it, profit MUST be sacrificed to abate whatever danger there is.

The Republican leaders are too busy sucking on the teat of business to care whether or not our grandchildren have clean air, clean water, or any kind of safe environment. Environmental hysterics, on the other side, are based on unreasonable expectations and inane fears. Our species really is more important than other species. It's survival of the fittest and we are fit in an unprecedented way.

Extremism will not solve this problem. Careful, unbiased research will. And accepting necessary sacrifices to possibly save the human race from extinction.

If you follow the money to be made with a cap and trade it leads to the left and their special interest groups.

 

[ksu_aviator]

The planet's orbit does not vary over a 100,000 year period. There is no substantive difference in temperature based on the Earth's orbit from year to year. Temperature on this planet varies based on weather patterns, primarily, and concentrations of gasses in the atmosphere. I also like how you attacked the first sentence of my post and ignored the rest of it, which was the important parts.

Even if you have a study that shows this bizarre theory, the overwhelming majority of research does not square with this conclusion.

If you start off with a false statement, why would I read the rest?

 

[Barbbtx]

The planet's orbit does not vary over a 100,000 year period. There is no substantive difference in temperature based on the Earth's orbit from year to year. Temperature on this planet varies based on weather patterns, primarily, and concentrations of gasses in the atmosphere. I also like how you attacked the first sentence of my post and ignored the rest of it, which was the important parts.

Even if you have a study that shows this bizarre theory, the overwhelming majority of research does not square with this conclusion.

In my opinion as to something being bizarre is passing a cap and trade to save the planet. Ship jobs to those who don't participate and have even less regulations than the US. Sell/trade the right to pollute. Pay Brazil to deep water drill. Shut down our own drilling for the environment. Just a few stupidities to save the planet.

 

[Deuce]

We’ve all seen the arguments that support Man-Made Global Warming. What we rarely see is the science behind climate change. Here is that science.

The indisputable fact is that the Earth’s climate has been changing drastically as far back as science can determine. This graph from Scotese, show us the relationship of the average global temperature to geological time periods.

What causes these variations? According to many scientists, the Earth’s orbit is the biggest factor. This theory hinges on the fact that the Earth travels around the sun in a slightly elliptical orbit that varies over a period of time. According to the Milankovitch theory, the variations in the elliptical orbit change the intensity of the Sun’s rays on the Earth’s atmosphere. The Earth’s orbit cycles from a near perfect circular orbit to the maximum elliptical orbit over a period of about 100,000 years.

An additional factor may be the increased seismic and volcanic activity that is associated with the elliptical orbit. The theory here is that as the Earth’s orbit changes, forces on the Earth change as well. These changes in force actually change the shape of the Earth slightly stressing fault lines and creating movement that allows for earth quakes and eruptions.

The location of the eruptions determines how they affect the atmosphere. Eruptions that occur above water release sulfur gasses that combine with water vapor and reduce the amount of the suns radiation that enters the atmosphere. The sulfur dioxide dissipates rather quickly and is nearly completely removed from the atmosphere within three years.

However, eruptions that occur below water, specifically deep in the ocean, serve to warm the ocean floor. The ocean floor is home to, among many other things, methane hydrate. Methane hydrate is the solid form of methane gas. When the floor of the ocean is warmed, methane hydrate “thaws” and becomes a gas. The methane gas quickly rises to the atmosphere where it helps to trap radiation at a rate that is ten to twenty one times more effective than carbon dioxide. It takes up to twelve years for methane to dissipate from the atmosphere. Methane and the Climate

When you place all of this information together, we see a correlating pattern that links the Earth’s orbit with the average global temperature.

This graph shows us the average global temperature over the last 400,000 years. Notice that today is a near maximum (but still below) along with 125,000, 235,000, 320,000 and 405,000 years ago. This is a pattern that coincides with the elliptical orbit of the Earth. In all likelihood, the modern day increase of the average global temperature is primarily caused by natural patterns.

Oh, and if you want to answer a really hard question...I'd like to see you try. Modern internal combustion engines did not become widely used until the mid to early 1900's. If the primary cuase of global warming is carbon dioxide and the proof is that the glaciers and ice caps are melting...why is it that the glaciers and ice caps have been melting since the 1700's? Are SUVs so powerful in their emissions that they sent CO2 back in time to destroy the planet?

Here's the problem:
1) Climate changing naturally does not preclude man from having an influence also. That's just faulty logic.
2) Milankovitch theory deals with cycles over many thousands of years. Look at your own chart, some of those peaks take 10,000 years to increase temperatures by about 10C. (being generous to make the math easier.) That's about .1 degrees per century. The current warming trend is ten times that.
3) We had a recent peak. Milankovitch theory says we should be getting colder, not warmer, due to our current position in that cycle.

Milankovitch cycles definitely impact global temperature trends, but they can't account for the current warming trend.

 

[ksu_aviator]

Here's the problem:
1) Climate changing naturally does not preclude man from having an influence also. That's just faulty logic.
2) Milankovitch theory deals with cycles over many thousands of years. Look at your own chart, some of those peaks take 10,000 years to increase temperatures by about 10C. (being generous to make the math easier.) That's about .1 degrees per century. The current warming trend is ten times that.
3) We had a recent peak. Milankovitch theory says we should be getting colder, not warmer, due to our current position in that cycle.

Milankovitch cycles definitely impact global temperature trends, but they can't account for the current warming trend.

Actually, you are viewing these charts with two different data sets. The first is a median set that shows the long term trend, but not the year to year or even century to century changes. The second is a short term chart that shows actual data points. That's why you see a discrepancy. It would be difficult to show, on a long term chart, the individual data sets for each year when each year represents such a small portion of the chart...the dot alone would be roughly 50 years wide.

As for your first point, you are absolutely correct that the fact the planet should be warming doesn't mean that men are not changing the planet's climate. What it does mean is the "proof" that is often put forth by the global warming believers is generally not indicative of an actual problem. Several years ago they talked about heat waves as "proof" of global warming and they still talk about glaciers and polar caps melting even though that only indicates a warming planet and has no implication as to why. Plus, they conveniently ignore the observations of about 200 years prior to the combustion engine that show the Earth was warming rapidly.

Let's keep in mind that we've only been recording weather data for 2000 years or so, and only accurately so in the last 100 years. We don't have enough data to make any real conclusions...we just know enough to know that we don't know enough. Until we know something for sure, panicking and transferring wealth to 3rd world countries will not solve any problems.

 

[Deuce]

Actually, you are viewing these charts with two different data sets. The first is a median set that shows the long term trend, but not the year to year or even century to century changes. The second is a short term chart that shows actual data points. That's why you see a discrepancy. It would be difficult to show, on a long term chart, the individual data sets for each year when each year represents such a small portion of the chart...the dot alone would be roughly 50 years wide.

I didn't even bother with the first chart. The Jurrassic period is not particularly relevant because there are way too many other factors that were radically different.
The bottom line is, the earth's eccentricity is currently decreasing. .016 or something like that and getting "rounder." Milankovitch theory says this would be a cooling trend, as a less eccentric orbit would receive less total sunlight. Yet, the earth is getting warmer, not colder. So clearly Milankovitch cycles aren't the only forcing.

As for your first point, you are absolutely correct that the fact the planet should be warming cooling doesn't mean that men are not changing the planet's climate. What it does mean is the "proof" that is often put forth by the global warming believers is generally not indicative of an actual problem. Several years ago they talked about heat waves as "proof" of global warming and they still talk about glaciers and polar caps melting even though that only indicates a warming planet and has no implication as to why. Plus, they conveniently ignore the observations of about 200 years prior to the combustion engine that show the Earth was warming rapidly.

Again, it "should be" cooling, according to your position.

Who is this "they?" Journalists, that's who. Climatologists don't look at individual heat waves as "proof" of anything. Science doesn't work that way. Neither do climatologists use melting glaciers as proof of CO2 causing warming, that would just be stupid. The evidence pointing to CO2 stands on its own, it doesn't require prehistoric data at all.

Let's keep in mind that we've only been recording weather data for 2000 years or so, and only accurately so in the last 100 years. We don't have enough data to make any real conclusions...we just know enough to know that we don't know enough. Until we know something for sure, panicking and transferring wealth to 3rd world countries will not solve any problems.

We know:
1) CO2 (as well as methane, CFCs, H2O, and some others) absorbs a particular spectrum of energy: longwave infrared.
2) This spectrum is exactly the spectrum of energy that the earth radiates
3) Quantities of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are increasing due to human activity

Hypothesis: CO2 would absorb and trap outgoing longwave infrared radiation, warming the planet, so we'd expect to see:
1) Outgoing longwave infrared radiation to decrease, indicating that it was being absorbed
2) Downward longwave infrared radiation to increase, indicating that it was being reflected back downwards. (absorbed radiation is re-radiated in all directions, some will go up, some will come back down)
3) Warming temperatures

Observations:
1, 2, and 3 are all confirmed. Energy in exactly the spectrum that CO2 and other greenhouse gases absorb is being trapped in larger and larger quantities. Total Solar Irradiance has also not increased over the last 50 years, so it's not a result of greater or lesser input of energy.

No glaciers. No prehistoric temperature reconstructions. Basic physics. The rest is doing the math to see how much of a temperature rise that should cause.

 

[ksu_aviator]

I didn't even bother with the first chart. The Jurrassic period is not particularly relevant because there are way too many other factors that were radically different.
The bottom line is, the earth's eccentricity is currently decreasing. .016 or something like that and getting "rounder." Milankovitch theory says this would be a cooling trend, as a less eccentric orbit would receive less total sunlight. Yet, the earth is getting warmer, not colder. So clearly Milankovitch cycles aren't the only forcing.

No, you have that completely backwards. The less eccentric the orbit, the more sun light the earth gets in a given year.

Again, it "should be" cooling, according to your position.

No. I didn't say that, I didn't imply that, I didn't even remotely hint at that. Every bit of evidence I brought to the table was to the contrary.

Who is this "they?" Journalists, that's who. Climatologists don't look at individual heat waves as "proof" of anything. Science doesn't work that way. Neither do climatologists use melting glaciers as proof of CO2 causing warming, that would just be stupid. The evidence pointing to CO2 stands on its own, it doesn't require prehistoric data at all.

Again, you are putting words in my mouth. I said liberals, not climatologists.

We know:
1) CO2 (as well as methane, CFCs, H2O, and some others) absorbs a particular spectrum of energy: longwave infrared.
2) This spectrum is exactly the spectrum of energy that the earth radiates
3) Quantities of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are increasing due to human activity

Hypothesis: CO2 would absorb and trap outgoing longwave infrared radiation, warming the planet, so we'd expect to see:
1) Outgoing longwave infrared radiation to decrease, indicating that it was being absorbed
2) Downward longwave infrared radiation to increase, indicating that it was being reflected back downwards. (absorbed radiation is re-radiated in all directions, some will go up, some will come back down)
3) Warming temperatures

Observations:
1, 2, and 3 are all confirmed. Energy in exactly the spectrum that CO2 and other greenhouse gases absorb is being trapped in larger and larger quantities. Total Solar Irradiance has also not increased over the last 50 years, so it's not a result of greater or lesser input of energy.

No glaciers. No prehistoric temperature reconstructions. Basic physics. The rest is doing the math to see how much of a temperature rise that should cause.

You skipped a step. We know that humans are putting out CO2, but what we don't know is if CO2 is actually increasing in a significant enough amount (or at all) to cause a measurable change in the atmosphere. With human activity causing CO2, we also have increased vegitation. Irrigation, landscaping, farming and numerous other activities have increased the amount of vegitation on the planet. If you need proof, fly over a city and notice the landscape in and out of town. Most cities look like a forest oasis in the middle of flat open plains. Not to mention that crops absorb and transform more CO2 than native grasses that tend to wither and die and block new vegitation.

 

[Barbbtx]

No, you have that completely backwards. The less eccentric the orbit, the more sun light the earth gets in a given year.































No. I didn't say that, I didn't imply that, I didn't even remotely hint at that. Every bit of evidence I brought to the table was to the contrary.



Again, you are putting words in my mouth. I said liberals, not climatologists.





You skipped a step. We know that humans are putting out CO2, but what we don't know is if CO2 is actually increasing in a significant enough amount (or at all) to cause a measurable change in the atmosphere. With human activity causing CO2, we also have increased vegitation. Irrigation, landscaping, farming and numerous other activities have increased the amount of vegitation on the planet. If you need proof, fly over a city and notice the landscape in and out of town. Most cities look like a forest oasis in the middle of flat open plains. Not to mention that crops absorb and transform more CO2 than native grasses that tend to wither and die and block new vegitation.

UhOh... I think saying CO2, good for plant life, might cause some here to shoot blood out of their eyes.:lol:

 

[Manc Skipper]

When you chop down slow cycling wildwood forest to create those flat plains of monoculture crops, you release millions of tons of carbon from centuries old growth and replace it with a far lesser volume of rapidly cycling new growth. They are not the same

 

[Deuce]

No, you have that completely backwards. The less eccentric the orbit, the more sun light the earth gets in a given year.

You're right. I managed to inverse the inverse square law. *doh*
I also mashed together the other Milankovitch forcings (axial precession and tilt). NASA says we're on the uptick for about 25000 years.

Which still leaves the issue of the rate of warming. We're still more than ten times the speed of previous cycles.

No. I didn't say that, I didn't imply that, I didn't even remotely hint at that. Every bit of evidence I brought to the table was to the contrary.

Same error as above.

Again, you are putting words in my mouth. I said liberals, not climatologists.

Sorry, I just assumed you were talking about scientists because who the hell cares what liberals or conservatives think? Carbon dioxide does not have a political bias.

You skipped a step. We know that humans are putting out CO2, but what we don't know is if CO2 is actually increasing in a significant enough amount (or at all) to cause a measurable change in the atmosphere. With human activity causing CO2, we also have increased vegitation. Irrigation, landscaping, farming and numerous other activities have increased the amount of vegitation on the planet. If you need proof, fly over a city and notice the landscape in and out of town. Most cities look like a forest oasis in the middle of flat open plains. Not to mention that crops absorb and transform more CO2 than native grasses that tend to wither and die and block new vegitation.

Changes in land use create a warming forcing as well. Like I said, it's about doing the math. Have you done the math? Are you qualified to confirm or deny the math that scientists have done?

UhOh... I think saying CO2, good for plant life, might cause some here to shoot blood out of their eyes.:lol:

CO2 is good for plants. To a point. (also, increasing CO2 from the current levels does not have much increase in yield)

A rapidly warming planet, on the other hand, is not good. Each type of crop has a particular optimum temperature. Warming up to that temperature will yield an increase in crop yields, but if you exceed that temperature crop yields drop of very quickly. Higher global temperature also means more instances of heat waves and droughts that cause crop failures. Unfortunately rice is one of the most negatively impacted crops from rising temperatures, and it is the biggest staple crop we have.

 

[American]

Well, just about everything you wrote is wrong, but I'm just going to point out that The Great Global Warming Swindle has several straight-up, bald-faced lies in it. As in literally they fabricated data. (among other blatant deceptions)

Also, the sun's long-term trend has been flat for 50 years. So, if not the sun, can you perhaps tell me the physical mechanism that is causing the current "natural warming cycle?"

I ask because skeptics constantly tell me it's all part of a natural cycle, but they never have an adequate explanation of the cause.

Then refute what he said, point by point.

 

[American]

When you chop down slow cycling wildwood forest to create those flat plains of monoculture crops, you release millions of tons of carbon from centuries old growth and replace it with a far lesser volume of rapidly cycling new growth. They are not the same

Really, how does this release occur?

 

[Deuce]

Then refute what he said, point by point.

Okey dokey. I have to wait for a computer to finish some scary repair process. Oh god I hope my documents remain intact!

Global warming really is just a myth. There is no proof that current warming is caused by green house gasses caused by humans.

The "proof" is the work of thousands of scientists over the last several decades. There's an enormous volume of evidence behind this. Skeptics often make this statement, "there's no proof," or "there's no evidence." That's just plain ignorant. You can't win a scientific argument by just handwaving everything the opposition says. Science has never worked that way, and never will.

I wrote up a thread a while back on some of the basic science behind the greenhouse effect.
http://www.debatepolitics.com/envir...-some-basic-empirical-evidence-favor-agw.html

Ice core records from the past 650,000 years show that temperatures increases have proceeded, not resulted from, increases in CO2 by hundreds of years, suggesting that warming of the ocean is an important source in the rise in atmospheric CO2.

These things are true. However, it's not the whole picture. CO2 is described as both a feedback and a forcing, because it can act both as a cause of and a result of a warming trend. When the world warms up (through those milankovitch cycles), the ocean (and ice caps) start to release large amounts of stored CO2. This increases the greenhouse effect further, causing more warming, which releases more CO2, causing a little more warning, etc. The reverse is also true. World cools, ocean stores more CO2, ice caps grow and trap more CO2, reducing greenhouse effect, causing more cooling, trapping more CO2, and so on. The end result is that the stored CO2 in the ocean and ice caps will amplify and accelerate a warming or cooling trend.

So, in the past a milankovitch cycle would start the trend, and CO2 would amplify it. Today, however, the warming is much too fast for orbital factors to be causing all of it. Orbital eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession all occur over many thousands of years, not 100.

Mankind releases gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. Past trends in CO2 have required between 5,000 and 20,000 years to increase the concentration by 100ppm. We've seen a 100ppm change in 120 years. We can even tell the difference between CO2 from burning fossil fuels and the CO2 from natural sources. Plants have a different ratio of Carbon-13 to Carbon-12 than the atmosphere or fossil fuel emissions. The increasing CO2 concentrations is coming from us.

If the cause of warming is mostly natural then there is little we can do to stop it. We cannot control the inconsistent sun, the most likely origin of most climate variably.

The sun is not the cause. Even a cursory look at the evidence makes this obvious.


Interestingly enough, 2010 is shaping up to be one of the hottest years on record, at the same time the sun is at one of the lowest levels of output we've ever recorded.

Finally, no one can show that a warmer climate would produce negative impacts overall. The much–feared rise in sea levels does not seem to depend on short–term temperature changes, as the rate of sea–level increases has been steady since the last ice age, 10,000 years ago. In fact, many economists argue that the opposite is more likely—that warming produces a net benefit, that it increases incomes and standards of living. Why do we assume that the present climate is the optimum? Surely, the chance of this must be vanishingly small, and the economic history of past climate warmings bear this out.

Yes, we can show that.
SAP4.3 Final Report
Here's the USDA's comprehensive report on the subject. (links to chapters on right)

With increased CO• 2 and temperature, the life cycle of grain and oilseed crops will likely progress more rapidly. But, as temperature rises, these crops will increasingly begin to experience failure, especially if climate variability increases and precipitation lessens or becomes more variable.

The marketable yield of many horticultural crops – e.g., tomatoes, • onions, fruits – is very likely to be more sensitive to climate change than grain and oilseed crops.

Climate change is likely to lead to a northern migration • of weeds. Many weeds respond more positively to increasing CO2 than most cash crops, particularly C3 “invasive” weeds. Recent research also suggests that glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in the United States, loses its efficacy on weeds grown at the increased CO2 levels likely in the coming decades.

Increasing CO• 2 will alter forage quality; in nitrogen-limited native rangeland systems, CO2-induced reduction in nitrogen and increase in fibrous plants (e.g., woody shrubs, trees) may lower quality.

Economists say there will be a benefit? Me, I'd rather listen to people who actually research these things. As a rule, whenever you find yourself saying "Nobody knows," "there's no evidence," "we can't tell," and the like, stop yourself. Look into it. Chances are, somebody out there has done extensive research on the subject that you're just not aware of.

Agriculture is an enormous and critical industry. Regardless of the cause of a warming planet, we damn sure want to know the effect of a warming planet on our ability to feed ourselves. Tons of research has been done on this, and for the most part it points to the idea that a fast increase in temperature is a bad thing. "Optimum" temperature is a bit of a straw man. Nobody claimed that the temperature in the 1950's was optimum. The "optimum" temperature, if there is one, is whatever temperature our food crops and livestock are adapted to. Evolution can take care of slow changes for us, it's done it for hundreds of millions of years. Fast changes, though, are bad news. In fact, several of the earth's mass-extinction events correspond with times of abnormally rapid temperature changes. (also, sometimes asteroids)

I imagine that in the not–too–distant future all the hype will have died down, particularly if the climate should decide to cool—as it did during much of the past century; we should take note here that it has not warmed since 1998. Future generations will look back on the current madness and wonder what it was all about. They will have movies like An Inconvenient Truth and documentaries like The Great Global Warming Swindle to remind them.

"Global warming stopped in 1998/1995" is one of the most common and easily disproven skeptic myths. It stems from an interview with a newspaper in the UK, I believe with Phil Jones. Then the daily mail took one of his quotes, misinterpreted it, and conveniently ignored the very next sentence which would have revealed the fact that their interpretation was wrong.

The quote:
B - Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming

Jones: Yes, but only just.
He then says "I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods. "

You see, "No statistically significant warming" is not the same thing as "no warming." He's talking about scientific confidence levels. Global average temperature is a very "noisy" signal. Temperature varies quite a bit from year to year, as there are a lot of variables. You need to look at larger periods if you want a meaningful representation of temperature trends. So, when you cherry pick 1995-2009, you just miss the 95% confidence level in establishing a warming trend. This happens because 1995 was a particularly hot year. (as was 1998, this skeptic myth sometimes randomly switches to 1998) If you use 1994-2009, you once again get statistically significant warming.

The only way to say global warming stopped is to cherry pick data over the last few years - when the sun was tanking to one of the lowest solar minimums we've ever recorded. (the sun cycles up and down about every 11 years) It's on its way back up again. The sun's rapid drop temporarily slowed the warming trend.

The Great Global Warming Swindle told you three major lies:

1) They cut charts off at 1980. Remember when they showed you the solar activity compared to temperature and stated there was a good correlation? It stops, strangely, at 1980. Take a look at the chart I showed you. This is where temperature and solar activity deviate drastically. They cherry-picked the data in order to hide that from you.

2) They had a guy giving that ocean CO2 statement you basically quoted. He's pretty pissed, because they placed the statement cleverly in the "documentary" to make it look like he was saying our CO2 output is not important because there's so much CO2 in the ocean. In actuality, he was saying exactly the opposite. His intention was to say that our CO2 output is dangerous because the ocean would magnify any warming trend we started. I think he filed a lawsuit even. Spinning someone's statement to mean exactly the opposite of their intention? I call that a lie.

3) Finally, the straight-up fabrication of data. In the film's first version, they show you a temperature chart with a NASA logo, and claim that most of the warming occurred before 1940, when CO2 levels were lower. In actuality, NASA's temperature chart doesn't show that at all. The film's producers changed the data. Most of the warming occurred after 1940, as clearly shown by NASA's actual data. Compare these two:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif


1 and 2 you might dismiss as cherry-picking and spin, respectively, but 3 is a straight up lie. Fabrication of data. They just made **** up.

They lied to you. If the science behind AGW is so clearly flawed, why did the producers of Swindle have to lie to you?

Really, how does this release occur?

Setting the wood on fire will do it. Lots of people clear forests for planting that way.

 

[bowerbird]

Really, how does this release occur?

Bit complex really but it has to do with the soil - it is most notable in the tropics where the soil is wet and disturbing it releases methane - far far more powerful than CO2

 

[Deuce]

Bit complex really but it has to do with the soil - it is most notable in the tropics where the soil is wet and disturbing it releases methane - far far more powerful than CO2

Methane is far more powerful by weight, but only about a third as powerful in total, because we spit out way more CO2 than methane.

Still, worthy of consideration in any case.
File:Radiative-forcings.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[ptif219]

Okey dokey. I have to wait for a computer to finish some scary repair process. Oh god I hope my documents remain intact!



The "proof" is the work of thousands of scientists over the last several decades. There's an enormous volume of evidence behind this. Skeptics often make this statement, "there's no proof," or "there's no evidence." That's just plain ignorant. You can't win a scientific argument by just handwaving everything the opposition says. Science has never worked that way, and never will.

I wrote up a thread a while back on some of the basic science behind the greenhouse effect.
http://www.debatepolitics.com/envir...-some-basic-empirical-evidence-favor-agw.html




These things are true. However, it's not the whole picture. CO2 is described as both a feedback and a forcing, because it can act both as a cause of and a result of a warming trend. When the world warms up (through those milankovitch cycles), the ocean (and ice caps) start to release large amounts of stored CO2. This increases the greenhouse effect further, causing more warming, which releases more CO2, causing a little more warning, etc. The reverse is also true. World cools, ocean stores more CO2, ice caps grow and trap more CO2, reducing greenhouse effect, causing more cooling, trapping more CO2, and so on. The end result is that the stored CO2 in the ocean and ice caps will amplify and accelerate a warming or cooling trend.

So, in the past a milankovitch cycle would start the trend, and CO2 would amplify it. Today, however, the warming is much too fast for orbital factors to be causing all of it. Orbital eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession all occur over many thousands of years, not 100.

Mankind releases gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. Past trends in CO2 have required between 5,000 and 20,000 years to increase the concentration by 100ppm. We've seen a 100ppm change in 120 years. We can even tell the difference between CO2 from burning fossil fuels and the CO2 from natural sources. Plants have a different ratio of Carbon-13 to Carbon-12 than the atmosphere or fossil fuel emissions. The increasing CO2 concentrations is coming from us.




The sun is not the cause. Even a cursory look at the evidence makes this obvious.


Interestingly enough, 2010 is shaping up to be one of the hottest years on record, at the same time the sun is at one of the lowest levels of output we've ever recorded.



Yes, we can show that.
SAP4.3 Final Report
Here's the USDA's comprehensive report on the subject. (links to chapters on right)









Economists say there will be a benefit? Me, I'd rather listen to people who actually research these things. As a rule, whenever you find yourself saying "Nobody knows," "there's no evidence," "we can't tell," and the like, stop yourself. Look into it. Chances are, somebody out there has done extensive research on the subject that you're just not aware of.

Agriculture is an enormous and critical industry. Regardless of the cause of a warming planet, we damn sure want to know the effect of a warming planet on our ability to feed ourselves. Tons of research has been done on this, and for the most part it points to the idea that a fast increase in temperature is a bad thing. "Optimum" temperature is a bit of a straw man. Nobody claimed that the temperature in the 1950's was optimum. The "optimum" temperature, if there is one, is whatever temperature our food crops and livestock are adapted to. Evolution can take care of slow changes for us, it's done it for hundreds of millions of years. Fast changes, though, are bad news. In fact, several of the earth's mass-extinction events correspond with times of abnormally rapid temperature changes. (also, sometimes asteroids)




"Global warming stopped in 1998/1995" is one of the most common and easily disproven skeptic myths. It stems from an interview with a newspaper in the UK, I believe with Phil Jones. Then the daily mail took one of his quotes, misinterpreted it, and conveniently ignored the very next sentence which would have revealed the fact that their interpretation was wrong.

The quote:
B - Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming

Jones: Yes, but only just.
He then says "I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods. "

You see, "No statistically significant warming" is not the same thing as "no warming." He's talking about scientific confidence levels. Global average temperature is a very "noisy" signal. Temperature varies quite a bit from year to year, as there are a lot of variables. You need to look at larger periods if you want a meaningful representation of temperature trends. So, when you cherry pick 1995-2009, you just miss the 95% confidence level in establishing a warming trend. This happens because 1995 was a particularly hot year. (as was 1998, this skeptic myth sometimes randomly switches to 1998) If you use 1994-2009, you once again get statistically significant warming.

The only way to say global warming stopped is to cherry pick data over the last few years - when the sun was tanking to one of the lowest solar minimums we've ever recorded. (the sun cycles up and down about every 11 years) It's on its way back up again. The sun's rapid drop temporarily slowed the warming trend.

The Great Global Warming Swindle told you three major lies:

1) They cut charts off at 1980. Remember when they showed you the solar activity compared to temperature and stated there was a good correlation? It stops, strangely, at 1980. Take a look at the chart I showed you. This is where temperature and solar activity deviate drastically. They cherry-picked the data in order to hide that from you.

2) They had a guy giving that ocean CO2 statement you basically quoted. He's pretty pissed, because they placed the statement cleverly in the "documentary" to make it look like he was saying our CO2 output is not important because there's so much CO2 in the ocean. In actuality, he was saying exactly the opposite. His intention was to say that our CO2 output is dangerous because the ocean would magnify any warming trend we started. I think he filed a lawsuit even. Spinning someone's statement to mean exactly the opposite of their intention? I call that a lie.

3) Finally, the straight-up fabrication of data. In the film's first version, they show you a temperature chart with a NASA logo, and claim that most of the warming occurred before 1940, when CO2 levels were lower. In actuality, NASA's temperature chart doesn't show that at all. The film's producers changed the data. Most of the warming occurred after 1940, as clearly shown by NASA's actual data. Compare these two:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif


1 and 2 you might dismiss as cherry-picking and spin, respectively, but 3 is a straight up lie. Fabrication of data. They just made **** up.

They lied to you. If the science behind AGW is so clearly flawed, why did the producers of Swindle have to lie to you?



Setting the wood on fire will do it. Lots of people clear forests for planting that way.

The lies have come from the IPCC and GISS but you ignore that

 

[Erod]

Global warming is not man made, the earth is not flat, Santa Claus isn't real, and you can't get warts from toads.

All four are equally ridiculous. One day, global warming will be a punchline.

 

[Deuce]

Global warming is not man made, the earth is not flat, Santa Claus isn't real, and you can't get warts from toads.

All four are equally ridiculous. One day, global warming will be a punchline.

What a coherent and thorough debunking of the work of thousands of scientists. Well done.

 

[joe six-pack]

Global warming really is just a myth.

Please learn the difference between a "myth" and a "theory." Global Warming is a theory and climate change is a very real result of rising temperature. While how much effect human beings have is debatable, the data supports current GW Theory more than non-scientifically supported "theories" that human activities have zero effect on the planet.

Clearly, we are adding to the total Co2 in the atmosphere--and clearly a thick Co2 rich atmosphere will cause a planet to heat up. But beyond that, yes, the model we currently have is a "theory" not a "myth." Please get a dictionary the next time you decide to post. Thanks.

 

[American]

Bit complex really but it has to do with the soil - it is most notable in the tropics where the soil is wet and disturbing it releases methane - far far more powerful than CO2

Sources and Emissions | Methane | Climate Change | U.S. EPA

ScienceDirect - Soil Biology and Biochemistry : Methane release from millipedes and other soil invertebrates in Central Europe

It's the millipedes!!!

 

[Deuce]

Sources and Emissions | Methane | Climate Change | U.S. EPA

ScienceDirect - Soil Biology and Biochemistry : Methane release from millipedes and other soil invertebrates in Central Europe

It's the millipedes!!!

Be honest:
Did you even read these?

Our results suggest that although overall methane fluxes from soil invertebrates under study cannot substantially influence a methane budget in most ecosystems, methane production is significant at least in some millipedes and therefore can impact mesoenvironments and microenvironments inhabited by these invertebrates

Natural sources of CH4 are estimated to produce 37 percent of the total CH4 flux into the atmosphere every year. The largest source of natural CH4 emissions is natural wetlands, which contribute 170 Tg CH4/yr

Because they actually said it's not the millipedes.

 

[American]

Be honest:
Did you even read these?




Because they actually said it's not the millipedes.

It was a joke. I guess we should get rid of wetlands though.

 

[Deuce]

It was a joke. I guess we should get rid of wetlands though.

I know, if we release all that methane from the wetlands, the world will get warmer and dry up the wetlands!

Problem solved. *dusts off hands*

 

[Jetboogieman]

Global warming is not man made, the earth is not flat, Santa Claus isn't real, and you can't get warts from toads.

All four are equally ridiculous. One day, global warming will be a punchline.

/facepalm

When that's all you have to say, and the fact you cannot truly debunk Climate Change and the fact man is causing it.

Our world is changing, the evidence is clear. I reckon the only mistakes that have been made, is how severe, and how quickly this change will come.

The punchline in the future will be people like you who refused to see the light.