Global Overheating

[SpidermanTuba]

Yah...global heating and cooling has been going on for millions of years...what is your point...To blame it on fossil fuels? Not a very good argument when you take into consideration...volcanic action,natural forrest fires,and the suns cooling down and overheating...

Not a very good argument when you take into consideration specific scientific facts rather than making arguments based on generalizations.


Are you suggesting that scientists are completely unaware of the existance of volcanos and forest fires ?

Are you suggesting it is pure coincidence that the highest concentration of atmospheric CO2 levels in about the last half a million years happens to correlate with the highest output of CO2 by humans ever? Do you honestly expect a rational person to believe that?



If volcanos are a more profound effect than our output of CO2, then perhaps you can go to the graph of CO2 in more recent times which I have posted a few pages up and point out the features on this graph which correspond to particular volcanic erruptions?

 

[SpidermanTuba]

Cause and effect is not proven, or even necessarily inferred, by correlation.

Thank you Mr. Statistician.

We're not talking about just any correlation, here. The Co2 levels in the atmosphere right now are higher than they have been in hundreds and hundreds of thousands of years. Strangely enough, this happens to correspond exactly with human output of CO2 being higher than it has EVER been.

The chances of the 50 years of highest human output of CO2 falling on the 50 years of highest CO2 concentrations in 500,000 years is .01%.

Of course, if something is only 99.99% certain, it isn't really "proven" , right?

Its amazing how far otherwise intelligent people will go to defend an obviously defenseless viewpoint.

 

[Mariner]

data was officially extended backwards via analysis of Greenland ice samples, to show that the current CO2 level is higher than at any time in the past 650,000 years. As far as we know, it's possible the last time it was this high was prior to the evolution of oxygen creating plankton, which created our current atmosphere.

The last ice age lasted from 70,000 to 10,000 years ago. Human civilizations, based on fixed agriculture, evolved in the past 10,000 years in a blessedly stable--and rare--environmental state. If we "tip" it, who knows which way it will go. Some models suggest we could bump ourselves back into another ice age. That would be a bummer. Mile-thick ice covering NYC.

The most conservative supercomputer model currently running suggests a 3 foot rise in the ocean by the year 2100. Other models suggest 10 feet--enough to put good chunks of the U.S. underwater. These are not models created by Bush-hating Democrats. They are models created by sober scientists--who know their statistics cold, so to speak.

Mariner.

 

[Hobbit]

data was officially extended backwards via analysis of Greenland ice samples, to show that the current CO2 level is higher than at any time in the past 650,000 years. As far as we know, it's possible the last time it was this high was prior to the evolution of oxygen creating plankton, which created our current atmosphere.

The last ice age lasted from 70,000 to 10,000 years ago. Human civilizations, based on fixed agriculture, evolved in the past 10,000 years in a blessedly stable--and rare--environmental state. If we "tip" it, who knows which way it will go. Some models suggest we could bump ourselves back into another ice age. That would be a bummer. Mile-thick ice covering NYC.

The most conservative supercomputer model currently running suggests a 3 foot rise in the ocean by the year 2100. Other models suggest 10 feet--enough to put good chunks of the U.S. underwater. These are not models created by Bush-hating Democrats. They are models created by sober scientists--who know their statistics cold, so to speak.

Mariner.

Those same scientists told me in the 80s that the ocean would already have risen by over 3 feet by the year 2000, and that the state of Florida would be in danger of disappearing by 2025. I'm serious. This was taught in elementary school science class when I was in school. If they actually want me to believe them, they better stop crying wolf.

 

[archangel]

Not a very good argument when you take into consideration specific scientific facts rather than making arguments based on generalizations.


Are you suggesting that scientists are completely unaware of the existance of volcanos and forest fires ?

Are you suggesting it is pure coincidence that the highest concentration of atmospheric CO2 levels in about the last half a million years happens to correlate with the highest output of CO2 by humans ever? Do you honestly expect a rational person to believe that?



If volcanos are a more profound effect than our output of CO2, then perhaps you can go to the graph of CO2 in more recent times which I have posted a few pages up and point out the features on this graph which correspond to particular volcanic erruptions?

not arguing anything spidey...just gave a simple opinion!

 

[Hobbit]

Spidey, I don't know exactly where you saw that picture, but I copied the image location and went to the base site, which has some very interesting information. The general conclusion of the site is that man has had little, if any impact on the global climate. The average temperature has risen less than 1 degree over the past hundred years. It also mentions that water vapor accounts for 95% of all greenhouse gases, and that humans have only contributed a thousanth of a percent to the water vapor levels on this planet. In fact, humans have contributed a mere half a percent of all greenhouse gases. The site also says that the highest level of CO2 in all of human history was between 7500 and 4000 years ago, long before the smokestack.

He also posted this picture, which looks a lot cooler than your picture.

 

[SpidermanTuba]

not arguing anything spidey...just gave a simple opinion!

An opinion based more on what you what like the truth to be than the facts.

 

[SpidermanTuba]

The site also says that the highest level of CO2 in all of human history was between 7500 and 4000 years ago, long before the smokestack.

Then either you have misintepreted or misread their data, or they are contradicting themselves, as this graph on the very same website shows that present day is the highest levels of CO2 in the past 50000 years.

Note the exponential rise at the left edge. Are you telling me this has absolutely nothing to do with industrialization?

Go back up a few pages and look for the first graphic I posted in this thread. It is a graph of CO2 vs time for the past 50-100 years or so.

You claim volcanos have a bigger impact on CO2 levels than humans, this despite the fact that the rise in CO2 levels is correlated with the rise in human production of CO2.

If this is indeed true, you should be able to point to features on this graph which correspond to major volanic erruptions. Where are they?

 

[archangel]

An opinion based more on what you what like the truth to be than the facts.

I do believe your comment fits more along the lines of your arguments...Hobbits post substantiated my simple opinion!

 

[SpidermanTuba]

I do believe your comment fits more along the lines of your arguments...Hobbits post substantiated my simple opinion!

Hobbits post has already been refuted. He claims the site from which he got his data from says that the Earth's atmospheric concentration of CO2 was higher 4-7500 years ago than it is now, yet a graph from the VERY SAME SITE says differently.

FACTS - its something some people choose to ignore.

 

[Mariner]

continues to try to bend science to politics, which is one of the main reaons people here are so reluctant to see the truth on this issue. Muzzling scientists is hardly in the post-Sputnik, man-on-the-moon tradition of American science.

(P.S. Hobbit, life looked a lot different in the Devonian than it does now. Plants and animals have evolved vastly since then, and the atmospheric changes took place over millions and hundreds of millions of years. No mammals back then! Even the most ancient current species we have (crocodiles, horseshoe crabs) are on the order of 100 million years old. Why should we think that modern life can withstand a shift back to climatic conditions from several times that long ago? At the least, any such shift confirms what we've been telling you--vast extinctions and complete changes on how the world's ecosystems operate. Sure, life will go on, but it wouldn't look anything like life now.)

Anyway, here's the article from today's Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/earth/29climate.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

January 29, 2006
Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," he said.

Dean Acosta, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs at the space agency, said there was no effort to silence Dr. Hansen. "That's not the way we operate here at NASA," Mr. Acosta said. "We promote openness and we speak with the facts."

He said the restrictions on Dr. Hansen applied to all National Aeronautics and Space Administration personnel. He added that government scientists were free to discuss scientific findings, but that policy statements should be left to policy makers and appointed spokesmen.

Mr. Acosta said other reasons for requiring press officers to review interview requests were to have an orderly flow of information out of a sprawling agency and to avoid surprises. "This is not about any individual or any issue like global warming," he said. "It's about coordination."

Dr. Hansen strongly disagreed with this characterization, saying such procedures had already prevented the public from fully grasping recent findings about climate change that point to risks ahead.

"Communicating with the public seems to be essential," he said, "because public concern is probably the only thing capable of overcoming the special interests that have obfuscated the topic."

Dr. Hansen, 63, a physicist who joined the space agency in 1967, directs efforts to simulate the global climate on computers at the Goddard Institute in Morningside Heights in Manhattan.

Since 1988, he has been issuing public warnings about the long-term threat from heat-trapping emissions, dominated by carbon dioxide, that are an unavoidable byproduct of burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels. He has had run-ins with politicians or their appointees in various administrations, including budget watchers in the first Bush administration and Vice President Al Gore.

In 2001, Dr. Hansen was invited twice to brief Vice President Dick Cheney and other cabinet members on climate change. White House officials were interested in his findings showing that cleaning up soot, which also warms the atmosphere, was an effective and far easier first step than curbing carbon dioxide.

He fell out of favor with the White House in 2004 after giving a speech at the University of Iowa before the presidential election, in which he complained that government climate scientists were being muzzled and said he planned to vote for Senator John Kerry.

But Dr. Hansen said that nothing in 30 years equaled the push made since early December to keep him from publicly discussing what he says are clear-cut dangers from further delay in curbing carbon dioxide.

In several interviews with The New York Times in recent days, Dr. Hansen said it would be irresponsible not to speak out, particularly because NASA's mission statement includes the phrase "to understand and protect our home planet."

He said he was particularly incensed that the directives had come through telephone conversations and not through formal channels, leaving no significant trails of documents.

Dr. Hansen's supervisor, Franco Einaudi, said there had been no official "order or pressure to say shut Jim up." But Dr. Einaudi added, "That doesn't mean I like this kind of pressure being applied."

The fresh efforts to quiet him, Dr. Hansen said, began in a series of calls after a lecture he gave on Dec. 6 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. In the talk, he said that significant emission cuts could be achieved with existing technologies, particularly in the case of motor vehicles, and that without leadership by the United States, climate change would eventually leave the earth "a different planet."

The administration's policy is to use voluntary measures to slow, but not reverse, the growth of emissions.

After that speech and the release of data by Dr. Hansen on Dec. 15 showing that 2005 was probably the warmest year in at least a century, officials at the headquarters of the space agency repeatedly phoned public affairs officers, who relayed the warning to Dr. Hansen that there would be "dire consequences" if such statements continued, those officers and Dr. Hansen said in interviews.

Among the restrictions, according to Dr. Hansen and an internal draft memorandum he provided to The Times, was that his supervisors could stand in for him in any news media interviews.

Mr. Acosta said the calls and meetings with Goddard press officers were not to introduce restrictions, but to review existing rules. He said Dr. Hansen had continued to speak frequently with the news media.

But Dr. Hansen and some of his colleagues said interviews were canceled as a result.

In one call, George Deutsch, a recently appointed public affairs officer at NASA headquarters, rejected a request from a producer at National Public Radio to interview Dr. Hansen, said Leslie McCarthy, a public affairs officer responsible for the Goddard Institute.

Citing handwritten notes taken during the conversation, Ms. McCarthy said Mr. Deutsch called N.P.R. "the most liberal" media outlet in the country. She said that in that call and others, Mr. Deutsch said his job was "to make the president look good" and that as a White House appointee that might be Mr. Deutsch's priority.

But she added: "I'm a career civil servant and Jim Hansen is a scientist. That's not our job. That's not our mission. The inference was that Hansen was disloyal."

Normally, Ms. McCarthy would not be free to describe such conversations to the news media, but she agreed to an interview after Mr. Acosta, at NASA headquarters, told The Times that she would not face any retribution for doing so.

Mr. Acosta, Mr. Deutsch's supervisor, said that when Mr. Deutsch was asked about the conversations, he flatly denied saying anything of the sort. Mr. Deutsch referred all interview requests to Mr. Acosta.

Ms. McCarthy, when told of the response, said: "Why am I going to go out of my way to make this up and back up Jim Hansen? I don't have a dog in this race. And what does Hansen have to gain?"

Mr. Acosta said that for the moment he had no way of judging who was telling the truth. Several colleagues of both Ms. McCarthy and Dr. Hansen said Ms. McCarthy's statements were consistent with what she told them when the conversations occurred.

"He's not trying to create a war over this," said Larry D. Travis, an astronomer who is Dr. Hansen's deputy at Goddard, "but really feels very strongly that this is an obligation we have as federal scientists, to inform the public."

Dr. Travis said he walked into Ms. McCarthy's office in mid-December at the end of one of the calls from Mr. Deutsch demanding that Dr. Hansen be better controlled.

In an interview on Friday, Ralph J. Cicerone, an atmospheric chemist and the president of the National Academy of Sciences, the nation's leading independent scientific body, praised Dr. Hansen's scientific contributions and said he had always seemed to describe his public statements clearly as his personal views.

"He really is one of the most productive and creative scientists in the world," Dr. Cicerone said. "I've heard Hansen speak many times and I've read many of his papers, starting in the late 70's. Every single time, in writing or when I've heard him speak, he's always clear that he's speaking for himself, not for NASA or the administration, whichever administration it's been."

The fight between Dr. Hansen and administration officials echoes other recent disputes. At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone.

 

[Mariner]

Take a look at your graph. It goes all the way back to the beginnings of complex life on earth. Essentially what it documents is the reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere due to the evolution of photosynthesis. So, you're showing how a volcanic earth with an unbreathable atmosphere was transformed by life into a hospitable place for readers of the Wall Street Journal.

Mariner.

 

[Emmett]

At exactly 12 noon every day all citizens are required to open their refrigerator for 10 minutes and their windows. This will help combat the problem!

It could also help if Santa would stop deadheading back to the North Pole when he empties out all his Christmas...........I mean Holiday presents. He could stop by 7-11 and carry bags of ice back with him and have the reindeer distribute them to different points along his route to help cool things down.

 

[Emmett]

Start stuffing the mouths of volcanos with liberals. This would in fact help defuse the volcanic effect of the mountains while reducing homosexuality and global warming.

If there are any other catastrophic problems that you need assistance with please don't hesitate to call. We can create a solution for your individual needs!

 

[Annie]

continues to try to bend science to politics, which is one of the main reaons people here are so reluctant to see the truth on this issue. Muzzling scientists is hardly in the post-Sputnik, man-on-the-moon tradition of American science...

Problem is all I can say is Paul Erlich and Rachel Carson, both of whom I bought into big time, only to be proven more than a bit wrong.

 

[Emmett]

Hobbits post has already been refuted. He claims the site from which he got his data from says that the Earth's atmospheric concentration of CO2 was higher 4-7500 years ago than it is now, yet a graph from the VERY SAME SITE says differently.

FACTS - its something some people choose to ignore.

So now we know that cavemen DID use hairspray don't we?

 

[SpidermanTuba]

At exactly 12 noon every day all citizens are required to open their refrigerator for 10 minutes and their windows. This will help combat the problem!

How?

 

[SpidermanTuba]

So now we know that cavemen DID use hairspray don't we?

Are you here to have a serious conversation?

 

[Hobbit]

Take a look at your graph. It goes all the way back to the beginnings of complex life on earth. Essentially what it documents is the reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere due to the evolution of photosynthesis. So, you're showing how a volcanic earth with an unbreathable atmosphere was transformed by life into a hospitable place for readers of the Wall Street Journal.

Mariner.

It also shows that the atmospheric temperature had little to do with the CO2 levels, as the graphs are very dissimilar.

 

[SpidermanTuba]

It also shows that the atmospheric temperature had little to do with the CO2 levels, as the graphs are very dissimilar.

Considering there is a positive weak correlation, you are wrong.

Also, you would have to assume that all other factors remain constant to draw that conclusion.