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This conclusion is based on your expertise as a climatologist?
I'm NOT saying you are wrong, understand.
I am merely suggesting that I am not qualified to determine which set of scientists are right.
Are you?
I feel that I am qualified, in this case, to determine which set of scientists is correct. First, the existance of GHGs was identified by Fourier arround 1820. Tyndal isolated CO2 as the primary GHG a bit later. In 1895, Svante Arnnhenius did the numbers for CO2, and recognized the increasing amount from the industrial revolution would start warming the atmosphere. So the science of the affect of GHGs is not new at all, and has been confirmed repeatedly.
Suess did the work in the 1950s that established that the increase in CO2 was from the anthropogenic burning of fossil fuels. Since the '60s, there has been ever increasing and intensive research into how our climate works, and how it has worked in the past. Paleo-climatology is a full blown and respectable science today, and has given us many insights into the climates, and climatic disasters of the past geologic ages.
What has been found is that if the amount of GHGs in the atmosphere is increased rapidly, there are natural feedbacks, involving sequestered CO2 and CH4, that cause adrupt climate changes. Climate changes that create conditions that cause extinctions.
Today, there is not a single scientific society, not a single National Academy of Science, not a single major university that does not state that global warming is occuring, that it is a clear and present danger, and that the primary driver is manmade GHGs. That is a clear and overwhelming scientific consensus.
But one does not have to know any of this to observe that our climate is rapidly changing. From losing two trillion tons of ice in the last few years from the worlds glaciers and ice caps, to the drunken forests of Alaska, one can readily see that the world is warming. The reason for that warming is also readily apparent. The total solar irradiance for the last 50 years has not increased, indeed, there has been an insignificant decrease. There is no vast volcanic eruption putting GHGs into the atmosphere, as there was in the P-T and PETM extinctions. The only known source for the 39% increase in CO2 in our atmosphere, is the burning of fossil fuels by man.
Given that the Milankovic driven feedback on CO2 involves a change of only 100 ppm to make the differance between ice age and interglaciel, and that we have added another 100 ppm to the interglaciel high of 280 ppm, so that we now stand and 385+ ppm, with an accelerating increase, how can we not be having a major affect on the climate?
And look at many of the leaders of the denialist movement. Singer for instance, a known charlatan that, for money, is quite willing to testify in front of Congress that tobacco smoke is harmless. Oregon Institute of Medicine and Science, that so many love to cite, a group of loonies from the great learning center of Cave Junction, Oregon. Population, 1126. One of their "petitions" claiming 31,000 scientists, had people on it that were not involved in science in any way, and a number of real scientists, when told that their signiture was on vehemently denied ever signing it, or holding the opinions expressed in the paper. And these same people, until it became too obvious to deny, denied that there was any warming at all, right up to 1998. Today, they have changed their tune to "Well, there is warming, but it is not man caused". That too, is no longer accepted by the majority of people in the world, and not accepted at all by the scientific community.
I minored in climate and geography some years back and have spent considerable time doing weather observation while I was in the army. That enough for you?
The data set that we have is sufficient to create an overwhelming consensus among the scientists worldwide that global warming is occurring, is a clear and present danger, and that the burning of fossil fuels is the primary driver. The data set that we have goes back, through proxies, to a least 2 billion years. That data set includes several times that there has been sudden increases in GHGs, each time with the same results, major and minor extinctions.
Now you keep throwing out these 'talking points'. How about linking to some real science papers that agree with your position. Here are some of the sources of my information;
http://geo-nsdi.er.usgs.gov/metadat...htmlhttp://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/paleo.html
http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm05/fm...servatory.nasa.gov/Features/Paleoclimatology/
I feel that I am qualified, in this case, to determine which set of scientists is correct. First, the existance of GHGs was identified by Fourier arround 1820. Tyndal isolated CO2 as the primary GHG a bit later. In 1895, Svante Arnnhenius did the numbers for CO2, and recognized the increasing amount from the industrial revolution would start warming the atmosphere. So the science of the affect of GHGs is not new at all, and has been confirmed repeatedly.
Suess did the work in the 1950s that established that the increase in CO2 was from the anthropogenic burning of fossil fuels. Since the '60s, there has been ever increasing and intensive research into how our climate works, and how it has worked in the past. Paleo-climatology is a full blown and respectable science today, and has given us many insights into the climates, and climatic disasters of the past geologic ages.
What has been found is that if the amount of GHGs in the atmosphere is increased rapidly, there are natural feedbacks, involving sequestered CO2 and CH4, that cause adrupt climate changes. Climate changes that create conditions that cause extinctions.
Today, there is not a single scientific society, not a single National Academy of Science, not a single major university that does not state that global warming is occuring, that it is a clear and present danger, and that the primary driver is manmade GHGs. That is a clear and overwhelming scientific consensus.
But one does not have to know any of this to observe that our climate is rapidly changing. From losing two trillion tons of ice in the last few years from the worlds glaciers and ice caps, to the drunken forests of Alaska, one can readily see that the world is warming. The reason for that warming is also readily apparent. The total solar irradiance for the last 50 years has not increased, indeed, there has been an insignificant decrease. There is no vast volcanic eruption putting GHGs into the atmosphere, as there was in the P-T and PETM extinctions. The only known source for the 39% increase in CO2 in our atmosphere, is the burning of fossil fuels by man.
Given that the Milankovic driven feedback on CO2 involves a change of only 100 ppm to make the differance between ice age and interglaciel, and that we have added another 100 ppm to the interglaciel high of 280 ppm, so that we now stand and 385+ ppm, with an accelerating increase, how can we not be having a major affect on the climate?
And look at many of the leaders of the denialist movement. Singer for instance, a known charlatan that, for money, is quite willing to testify in front of Congress that tobacco smoke is harmless. Oregon Institute of Medicine and Science, that so many love to cite, a group of loonies from the great learning center of Cave Junction, Oregon. Population, 1126. One of their "petitions" claiming 31,000 scientists, had people on it that were not involved in science in any way, and a number of real scientists, when told that their signiture was on vehemently denied ever signing it, or holding the opinions expressed in the paper. And these same people, until it became too obvious to deny, denied that there was any warming at all, right up to 1998. Today, they have changed their tune to "Well, there is warming, but it is not man caused". That too, is no longer accepted by the majority of people in the world, and not accepted at all by the scientific community.
Mars is Melting
The south polar ice cap of Mars is receding, revealing frosty mountains, rifts and curious dark spots.
Mars is Melting
it must be all the cars....
Like Earth, Mars has seasons that cause its polar caps to wax and wane. "It's late spring at the south pole of Mars," says planetary scientist Dave Smith of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "The polar cap is receding because the springtime sun is shining on it."
Lastly, if we wanted to change the climate, we couldn't do it.
Could you expand on this?
I can change the temperature of my backyard by planting trees vs paving the whole thing.
Heat islands exist in urban areas, so we obviously change climate at a city wide level as well.
If I am not mistaken, larger scale changes, such as desertification, can be linked to agriculture.
What specifically do you mean when you say we can't change climate?