Republicans Against Science

[daveman]

Here's my theory, this is before reading the thread by the way.

Most people in this thread have invested their belief system in science. They believe they have done significant research (which 99% of them haven't because they lack either a) the intellectual capacity b) the funds c) the time d) some combination of a, b and c) and ignore the fact that most of the research they accept is based on whether the researcher's point agrees with them.

"Peer review" doesn't mean anything. Neither does scientifically proven or accredited by... You have no idea who the peers that reviewed something are and you know jack squat about the references, backgrounds or character of the people whose articles you're reading. I'm not against science, I am against the scientific community. I do believe that they are for sale and I have a close personal friend in the research community who has, on multiple occasions, demonstrated how the scientific community works. It is driven by money and ideology. Many scientists are like politicians in that they get into the business with pure motives but over time they are corrupted by the need for funding for their projects.

With all of that, I will make a suggestion. Instead of quoting scientists, why not look at the journals/articles look at the questions that you are trying to answer. Next, try to find holes in the theory. Stop advocating this study and not that one and look at the actual data because there is absolutely nothing scientific about "scientists say so"...

Mike

... or you could use plain old logic and deductive reasoning.

The infra-red absorption properties of CO2 and other gases are scientifically well-documented.

The concentration of those gases in the atmosphere has been going up, since the advent of the Industrial Revolution.

Therefore, if the trend continues, more infra-red energy and, therefore, more heat will be reflected back towards earth.

Right. Small box = entire planet.

 

[daveman]

Wrong, that IS deductive reasoning. You'd only be correct, if there were no established link between CO2 and IR radiation! What part of my logical syllogism* do you think has a flaw? Statement #1 is true. Statement #2 is true. Statement #3 follows logically from 1 & 2. Where's the problem?!?!

*- A syllogism (Greek: συλλογισμός – syllogismos – "conclusion," "inference") or logical appeal is a kind of logical argument in which one proposition (the conclusion) is inferred from two others (the premises) of a certain form, i.e. categorical proposition.
Syllogism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As long as you continue not to be able to quantify that claim, which you cannot, all you have is post hoc ergo propter hoc...Especially in light of the established fact that CO2 concentrations have been shown follow temperature increases, rather than leading them.

1. Temperature rises.

2. CO2 levels increase.

3. Therefore, rising temperatures drives the increase in American SUVs and coal-fired power plants.


There, konrad, how'd I do?

 

[daveman]

The planet is warming and the evidence that man is responsible is rising. No scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion.

I guess these guys didn't get the memo, huh?

Experiments performed by a European nuclear research group indicate that the sun, not man, determines Earth's temperature. Somewhere, Al Gore just shuddered as an unseasonably cool breeze blows by.

The results from an experiment to mimic Earth's atmosphere by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, tell researchers that the sun has a significant effect on our planet's temperature. Its magnetic field acts as a gateway for cosmic rays, which play a large role in cloud formation.

Consequently, when the sun's magnetic field allows cosmic rays to seed cloud cover, temperatures are cooler. When it restricts cloud formation by deflecting cosmic rays away from Earth, temperatures go up.

<snip>

This new finding of 63 scientists from 17 European and U.S. institutes from an experiment that's been ongoing since 2009 is, if we may paraphrase Vice President Joe Biden, a big deal. Which is exactly why the mainstream media, with so much invested in global warming hysteria, is letting last week's announcement from CERN pass like a brief summer shower, ignoring it.

Watching A Green Fiction Unravel - Investors.com

Remember, it's not real science if it doesn't allow leftists to advocate global socialism.

 

[oreo]

Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn’t a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that’s too bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the “anti-science party.” This is an enormously important development. And it should terrify us.

Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, recently made headlines by dismissing evolution as “just a theory,” one that has “got some gaps in it” — an observation that will come as news to the vast majority of biologists. But what really got peoples’ attention was what he said about climate change: “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.”

That’s a remarkable statement — or maybe the right adjective is “vile.”



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/opinion/republicans-against-science.html

I hope not too many donated to this moron's campaign--because I'll bet he's out directly after this debate on the 7th.

Against science--- Well it was science that told us not to eat EGGS 2 decades ago--now they have changed their opinion of EGGS and we're supposed to eat them.

 

[daveman]

Must be difficult for Republicans living in a world where science is a "belief" equal to the "supernatural". That means that computers, large screen TV's, organ transplants, electron microscopes and so on are all "magical" in nature.

...says the guy who claimed that putting man on the moon wasn't a scientific achievement.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

I'd say a theory that can't explain how life formed where there was no life has a pretty big frickin' hole in it.

The theory of gravity can't explain how life formed either. Does that mean there's a "big frickin' hole in it" too?

Evolution and abiogenesis are two different fields.

 

[DiamondDave]

I'd say a theory that can't explain how life formed where there was no life has a pretty big frickin' hole in it.

The theory of gravity can't explain how life formed either. Does that mean there's a "big frickin' hole in it" too?

Evolution and abiogenesis are two different fields.

But gravity is not used to try and debunk a belief system in something greater than ourselves or what we think we have proven...

I laugh at the evolution 'proofers' just as I laugh at the zealots who spout of 'proof' of God...

The theory of evolution does not disprove 'religion' or 'God' or the belief in something bigger... just as those beliefs do not disprove evolution...

 

[konradv]

Really?

You mean to say that millions upon millions of different flora, fauna, the land masses, microclimates and weather systems (at the very least), interacting with the various atmospheric elements and conditions, interacting with varying inputs like solar radiation, the magnetosphere, cloud cover, cosmic rays, planetary wobble, elliptical orbital paths, the moon and numerous other variables add up to a definitely numerable total of possible outputs?

Now, this I'd like to hear.

More B.S.

Why not tell us about the Co2 experiment that disproves global warming?

Claiming BS doesn't refute the fact that we live in a dynamic ecosystem, with too many organic and inorganic influences on that ecosystem, from both within and without, to number.

It's neither scientific nor logical to demand that someone prove negatives...What science -real science, that is- is supposed to do is look for and consider every possible explanation for the given phenomenon, to eliminate that from the list of possible explanations...This is one definition of the term "falsifiability"...If you cannot adequately prove all other plausible inputs (or combinations thereof) as the cause for the given phenomenon, then you cannot, with any scientific credibility at least, claim that yours is proven.

What certainly isn't scientific is a bunch of carefully screened and selected stuffed shirts, with a bunch of letters behind their names, culled from all the "correct" academic institutions, getting together for a semi-annual "peer review" circle jerk, to declare one another correct...i.e. IPCC.

Now, you wouldn't mind taking a stab at:

X amount of atmospheric CO2, over and above the claimed "normal" = Y amount of temperature increase....Solve for X & Y and show your work.

Wouldya?

There you go again demanding an answer to a question you know no one has yet, as if that proved anything. In the mean time, you totally diismiss the simple logic of, if Y is changing, you look to the X that's changing. CO2 being one of those Xs and one that's definitely been changing in one direction, as opposed to cycling, is a prime candidate for recent temperature increases.

 

[Oddball]

More B.S.

Why not tell us about the Co2 experiment that disproves global warming?

Claiming BS doesn't refute the fact that we live in a dynamic ecosystem, with too many organic and inorganic influences on that ecosystem, from both within and without, to number.

It's neither scientific nor logical to demand that someone prove negatives...What science -real science, that is- is supposed to do is look for and consider every possible explanation for the given phenomenon, to eliminate that from the list of possible explanations...This is one definition of the term "falsifiability"...If you cannot adequately prove all other plausible inputs (or combinations thereof) as the cause for the given phenomenon, then you cannot, with any scientific credibility at least, claim that yours is proven.

What certainly isn't scientific is a bunch of carefully screened and selected stuffed shirts, with a bunch of letters behind their names, culled from all the "correct" academic institutions, getting together for a semi-annual "peer review" circle jerk, to declare one another correct...i.e. IPCC.

Now, you wouldn't mind taking a stab at:

X amount of atmospheric CO2, over and above the claimed "normal" = Y amount of temperature increase....Solve for X & Y and show your work.

Wouldya?

There you go again demanding an answer to a question you know no one has yet, as if that proved anything. In the mean time, you totally diismiss the simple logic of, if Y is changing, you look to the X that's changing. CO2 being one of those Xs and one that's definitely been changing in one direction, as opposed to cycling, is a prime candidate for recent temperature increases.

If you cannot put a value on X and tell me what Y is, then all you have is a fable...Which is indeed all you have....Period.

 

[konradv]

Claiming BS doesn't refute the fact that we live in a dynamic ecosystem, with too many organic and inorganic influences on that ecosystem, from both within and without, to number.

It's neither scientific nor logical to demand that someone prove negatives...What science -real science, that is- is supposed to do is look for and consider every possible explanation for the given phenomenon, to eliminate that from the list of possible explanations...This is one definition of the term "falsifiability"...If you cannot adequately prove all other plausible inputs (or combinations thereof) as the cause for the given phenomenon, then you cannot, with any scientific credibility at least, claim that yours is proven.

What certainly isn't scientific is a bunch of carefully screened and selected stuffed shirts, with a bunch of letters behind their names, culled from all the "correct" academic institutions, getting together for a semi-annual "peer review" circle jerk, to declare one another correct...i.e. IPCC.

Now, you wouldn't mind taking a stab at:

X amount of atmospheric CO2, over and above the claimed "normal" = Y amount of temperature increase....Solve for X & Y and show your work.

Wouldya?

There you go again demanding an answer to a question you know no one has yet, as if that proved anything. In the mean time, you totally diismiss the simple logic of, if Y is changing, you look to the X that's changing. CO2 being one of those Xs and one that's definitely been changing in one direction, as opposed to cycling, is a prime candidate for recent temperature increases.

If you cannot put a value on X and tell me what Y is, then all you have is a fable...Which is indeed all you have....Period.

REALLY?!?! Don't know much about modern science, do you? I'll make you a deal. I'll attempt to answer your question, if you can tell me the position of an electron given its angular momentum vector.

 

[flacaltenn]

OddBall -- KonradV:

Did you miss this? I worked hard to move that graphic up to USMB so that you guys could stop brawling..

[/IMG]

where C is the CO2 concentration in parts per million by volume and C0 is the reference concentration.[6] The relationship between carbon dioxide and radiative forcing is logarithmic so that increased concentrations have a progressively smaller warming effect.

Radiative forcing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Want to discuss the "equation" -- (well it's AN equation)? or how it was derived? or what it means? Ok - Round Four.

 

[peach174]

Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn&#8217;t a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that&#8217;s too bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. &#8212; namely, that it is becoming the &#8220;anti-science party.&#8221; This is an enormously important development. And it should terrify us.

Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, recently made headlines by dismissing evolution as &#8220;just a theory,&#8221; one that has &#8220;got some gaps in it&#8221; &#8212; an observation that will come as news to the vast majority of biologists. But what really got peoples&#8217; attention was what he said about climate change: &#8220;I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.&#8221;

That&#8217;s a remarkable statement &#8212; or maybe the right adjective is &#8220;vile.&#8221;



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/opinion/republicans-against-science.html

GOP is not anti science.
All of us agree that we have climate change.
They question if it is man made. Big difference from being anti science.
Gov. Perry is speaking the truth and this is vile?
Some example of what he stated about scientists;

* Freeman Dyson, Professor Emeritus of the School of Natural Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study; Fellow of the Royal Society:

"First, the computer models are very good at solving the equations of fluid dynamics but very bad at describing the real world. The real world is full of things like clouds and vegetation and soil and dust which the models describe very poorly. Second, we do not know whether the recent changes in climate are on balance doing more harm than good. The strongest warming is in cold places like Greenland. More people die from cold in winter than die from heat in summer. Third, there are many other causes of climate change besides human activities, as we know from studying the past. Fourth, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is strongly coupled with other carbon reservoirs in the biosphere, vegetation and top-soil, which are as large or larger. It is misleading to consider only the atmosphere and ocean, as the climate models do, and ignore the other reservoirs. Fifth, the biological effects of CO2 in the atmosphere are beneficial, both to food crops and to natural vegetation. The biological effects are better known and probably more important than the climatic effects. Sixth, summing up the other five reasons, the climate of the earth is an immensely complicated system and nobody is close to understanding it."

or this one;

* Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and member of the National Academy of Sciences:

"We are quite confident (1) that global mean temperature is about 0.5 °C higher than it was a century ago; (2) that atmospheric levels of CO2 have risen over the past two centuries; and (3) that CO2 is a greenhouse gas whose increase is likely to warm the earth (one of many, the most important being water vapor and clouds). But &#8211; and I cannot stress this enough &#8211; we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to CO2 or to forecast what the climate will be in the future."

"There has been no question whatsoever that CO2 is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas &#8211; albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in CO2 should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed."

"It is generally agreed that doubling CO2 alone will cause about 1 °C warming due to the fact that it acts as a &#8216;blanket.&#8217; Model projections of greater warming absolutely depend on positive feedbacks from water vapor and clouds that will add to the &#8216;blanket&#8217; &#8211; reducing the net cooling of the climate system. ... This, however, is not the case for the actual climate system where the sensitivity is about 0.5 °C for a doubling of CO2."

"Motivated by the observed relation between cloudiness (above the trade wind boundary layer) and high humidity, cloud data for the eastern part of the western Pacific from the Japanese Geostationary Meteorological Satellite-5 (which provides high spatial and temporal resolution) have been analyzed, and it has been found that the area of cirrus cloud coverage normalized by a measure of the area of cumulus coverage decreases about 22% per degree Celsius increase in the surface temperature of the cloudy region. ... The calculations show that such a change in the Tropics could lead to a negative feedback in the global climate ... The response to a doubling of CO2, which in the absence of feedbacks is expected to be about 1.2°C, would be reduced to between 0.57° and 0.83°C (depending on y) due to the iris effect."


And all of these scientists;
* Garth Paltridge, Visiting Fellow ANU and retired Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research and retired Director of the Institute of the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre:

"There are good and straightforward scientific reasons to believe that the burning of fossil fuel and consequent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide will lead to an increase in the average temperature of the world above that which would otherwise be the case. Whether the increase will be large enough to be noticeable is still an unanswered question." "The bottom line is that virtually all climate research in Australia is funded from one source &#8211; namely, the government department which has the specific task of selling to the public the idea that something drastic and expensive has to be done."

* Hendrik Tennekes, retired Director of Research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute:

"The blind adherence to the harebrained idea that climate models can generate 'realistic' simulations of climate is the principal reason why I remain a climate skeptic."

"It is my professional opinion that there is no evidence at all for catastrophic global warming. It is likely that global temperatures will rise a little, much as IPCC predicts, but there is a growing body of evidence that the errant behavior of the Sun may cause some cooling in the foreseeable future." "The political dichotomy about climate change is fueled by gross exaggerations and simplifications on both sides of the fence."

* Antonino Zichichi, emeritus professor of nuclear physics at the University of Bologna and president of the World Federation of Scientists:

"Models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are incoherent and invalid from a scientific point of view". "It is not possible to exclude that the observed phenomena may have natural causes. It may be that man has little or nothing to do with it."

"Not only do we need to improve the &#8216;mathematics&#8217; of the models but it is also necessary to improve the measuring devices and their sensitivity. ... Cloud characteristics are very important in order to allow a comparison between model forecasts and experimental data. ... When a proton enters our atmosphere, it acts as a nucleus of condensation for water vapour and thus contributes to cloud formation. ... In the last half billion years, earth has lost, four times, its polar caps: no ice at the North Pole and none at the South Pole. And, four times, the polar caps were reconstituted. Man did not exist then, only the so-called cosmic rays, discovered by mankind in the early twentieth century. The last cosmic ice age started 50 million years ago when we entered into one of the galaxy arms."

Position: Global warming is primarily caused by natural processes
Attribution of climate change, based on Meehl et al. (2004), which represents the consensus view
1979-2009: Over the past 3 decades, temperature has not correlated with sunspot trends. The top plot is of sunspots, while below is the global atmospheric temperature trend. El Chichón and Pinatubo were volcanoes, while El Niño is part of ocean variability. The effect of greenhouse gas emissions is on top of those fluctuations.
1860-1980: In contrast, earlier there was apparent similarity between trends in terrestrial sea surface temperatures and sunspots (related to solar magnetic activity: TSI varies slightly while UV and indirectly cosmic rays vary somewhat more).
Both consensus and non-consensus scientific views involve multiple climate change influences including solar variability and internal forcings, plus human influences such as greenhouse gas emissions and land use change. However, they can differ in which factor(s) gets considered quantitatively major versus more minor.

Individuals in this section conclude that the observed warming is more likely attributable to natural causes than to human activities.

* Khabibullo Abdusamatov, mathematician and astronomer at Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences:

"Global warming results not from the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but from an unusually high level of solar radiation and a lengthy &#8211; almost throughout the last century &#8211; growth in its intensity." "Had global temperatures directly responded to concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, they would have risen by at least 0.1 degrees Celsius in the past ten years &#8212; however, it never happened."[24] "By 2041, solar activity will reach its minimum according to a 200-year cycle, and a deep cooling period will hit the Earth approximately in 2055-2060. It will last for about 45-65 years and by mid-21st century the planet will face another Little Ice Age.&#8221;

* Sallie Baliunas, astronomer, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics:

"Most of the increase in the air's concentration of greenhouse gases from human activities--over 80 percent--occurred after the 1940s. That means that the strong early 20th century warming must be largely, if not entirely, natural.""The coincident changes in the sun's changing energy output and temperature records on earth tend to argue that the sun has driven a major portion of the 20th century temperature change."

"[T]he recent warming trend in the surface temperature record cannot be caused by the increase of human-made greenhouse gases in the air."[26]"One can have surface warming from a variety of reasons. So the key layer of air to look at is the one-to-five-mile up layer of air. ... Now, this is the layer of air sensitive to the human-made warming effect, and the layer that must warm at least as much as the surface according to the computer simulations. Yet, the projected warming from human activities can't be found in the low troposphere in any great degree."

* George V. Chilingar, Professor of Civil and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Southern California:

"The authors identify and describe the following global forces of nature driving the Earth&#8217;s climate: (1) solar radiation ..., (2) outgassing as a major supplier of gases to the World Ocean and the atmosphere, and, possibly, (3) microbial activities ... . The writers provide quantitative estimates of the scope and extent of their corresponding effects on the Earth&#8217;s climate [and] show that the human-induced climatic changes are negligible."

* Ian Clark, hydrogeologist, professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa:

"That portion of the scientific community that attributes climate warming to CO2 relies on the hypothesis that increasing CO2, which is in fact a minor greenhouse gas, triggers a much larger water vapour response to warm the atmosphere. This mechanism has never been tested scientifically beyond the mathematical models that predict extensive warming, and are confounded by the complexity of cloud formation &#8211; which has a cooling effect. ... We know that [the sun] was responsible for climate change in the past, and so is clearly going to play the lead role in present and future climate change. And interestingly... solar activity has recently begun a downward cycle."

* Chris de Freitas, Associate Professor, School of Geography, Geology and Environmental Science, University of Auckland:

"There is evidence of global warming. ... But warming does not confirm that carbon dioxide is causing it. Climate is always warming or cooling. There are natural variability theories of warming. To support the argument that carbon dioxide is causing it, the evidence would have to distinguish between human-caused and natural warming. This has not been done."

* David Douglass, solid-state physicist, professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester:

"The observed pattern of warming, comparing surface and atmospheric temperature trends, does not show the characteristic fingerprint associated with greenhouse warming. The inescapable conclusion is that the human contribution is not significant and that observed increases in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases make only a negligible contribution to climate warming."

* Don Easterbrook, emeritus professor of geology, Western Washington University:

"Temperatures during most of the last 10,000 years were somewhat higher than at present until about 3,000 years ago. For the past 700 years, the Earth has been coming out of the Little Ice Age and generally warming with alternating warm/cool periods. ... Georef lists 485 papers on the Medieval Warm period and 1413 on the Little Ice Age for a total of 1,900 published papers on the two periods. Thus, when Mann et al. (1998) contended that neither event had happened and that climate had not changed in 1000 years (the infamous hockey stick graph), geologists didn't take them seriously and thought either (1) the trees they used for their climate reconstruction were not climate sensitive, or (2) the data had been inappropriately used."

"Glaciers advanced from about 1890&#8211;1920, retreated rapidly from ~1925 to ~1945, readvanced from ~1945 to ~1977, and have been retreating since the present warm cycle began in 1977. ... Because the warming periods in these oscillations occurred well before atmospheric CO2 began to rise rapidly in the 1940s, they could not have been caused by increased atmospheric CO2, and global warming since 1900 could well have happened without any effect of CO2. If the cycles continue as in the past, the current warm cycle should end soon and global temperatures should cool slightly until about 2035, then warm about 0.5°C from ~2035 to ~2065, and cool slightly until 2100."

* William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus and head of The Tropical Meteorology Project, Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University:

"This small warming is likely a result of the natural alterations in global ocean currents which are driven by ocean salinity variations. Ocean circulation variations are as yet little understood. Human kind has little or nothing to do with the recent temperature changes. We are not that influential." "I am of the opinion that [global warming] is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people." "So many people have a vested interest in this global-warming thing&#8212;all these big labs and research and stuff. The idea is to frighten the public, to get money to study it more."

* William Happer, physicist specializing in optics and spectroscopy, Princeton University:

"All the evidence I see is that the current warming of the climate is just like past warmings. In fact, it's not as much as past warmings yet, and it probably has little to do with carbon dioxide, just like past warmings had little to do with carbon dioxide"

* William Kininmonth, meteorologist, former Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology:

"There has been a real climate change over the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries that can be attributed to natural phenomena. Natural variability of the climate system has been underestimated by IPCC and has, to now, dominated human influences."

* David Legates, associate professor of geography and director of the Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware:

"About half of the warming during the 20th century occurred prior to the 1940s, and natural variability accounts for all or nearly all of the warming."

"Many records reveal that the 20th century is likely not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millennium, although it is clear that human activity has significantly impacted some local environments."

* Tad Murty, oceanographer; adjunct professor, Departments of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa:

[Global warming] "is the biggest scientific hoax being perpetrated on humanity. There is no global warming due to human anthropogenic activities. The atmosphere hasn&#8217;t changed much in 280 million years, and there have always been cycles of warming and cooling. The Cretaceous period was the warmest on earth. You could have grown tomatoes at the North Pole"

* Tim Patterson, paleoclimatologist and Professor of Geology at Carleton University in Canada:

"There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years. On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century's modest warming?"

* Ian Plimer, Professor emeritus of Mining Geology, The University of Adelaide:

"Natural climate changes occur unrelated to carbon dioxide contents. We've had many, many times in the recent past where we've rapidly gone into a greenhouse and the carbon dioxide content has been far, far lower than the current carbon dioxide content. It was only 1,100 years ago where Greenland was populated. It was called Greenland because it was green. There were crops, there were cattle there. ... We only have to have one volcano burping and we have changed the whole planetary climate... It looks as if carbon dioxide actually follows climate change rather than drives it".

* Tom Segalstad, head of the Geology Museum at the University of Oslo:

"The IPCC's temperature curve (the so-called 'hockey stick' curve) must be in error, because the Medieval warm period (the "Climate Optimum") and the Little Ice Age both are absent from their curve, on which the IPCC bases its future projections and recommended mitigation. All measurements of solar luminosity and 14C isotopes show that there is at present an increasing solar radiation which gives a warmer climate (Willson, R.C & Hudson, H.S. 1991: The Sun's luminosity over a complete solar cycle. Nature 351, 42-44; and Coffey, H.E., Erwin, E.H. & Hanchett, C.D.: Solar databases for global change models. NOAA/NESDIS/NGDC-STP,Boulder - Solar Databases for Global Change Models). Warmer climate was previously perceived as an optimum climate and not catastrophic. ... On a wet basis the Earth's atmosphere consists by mass of ~73.5% nitrogen, ~22.5% oxygen, ~2.7% water, and ~1.25% argon. CO2 in air is in minimal amount, ~0.05% by mass, and with minimal capacity (~2%) to influence the "Greenhouse Effect" compared to water vapor"

* Nicola Scafetta, research scientist in the physics department at Duke University, wrote a booklet proposing a phenomenological theory of climate change based on the physical properties of the data. Scafetta describes his conclusions writing:

"At least 60% of the warming of the Earth observed since 1970 appears to be induced by natural cycles which are present in the solar system. A climatic stabilization or cooling until 2030&#8211;2040 is forecast by the phenomenological model."

* Nir Shaviv, astrophysicist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem:

"[T]he truth is probably somewhere in between [the common view and that of skeptics], with natural causes probably being more important over the past century, whereas anthropogenic causes will probably be more dominant over the next century. ... [A]bout 2/3's (give or take a third or so) of the warming [over the past century] should be attributed to increased solar activity and the remaining to anthropogenic causes."

"The climatic variability attributable to solar activity is larger than could be expected from the typical 0.1% changes in the solar irradiance observed over the decadal to centennial time scale [Beer et al., 2000; Soon et al., 2000]. ... Over the solar cycle, the interplanetary magnetic field varies considerably, such that the amount of tropospheric ionization changes by typically 5%. Svensmark [1998, 2000], Marsh and Svensmark [2000a] as well as Palle Bago and Butler [2000] have shown that the variations in the amount of low altitude cloud cover (LACC) nicely correlate with the cosmic ray flux (CRF) reaching Earth over two decades. A recent analysis has shown that the latitudinal variations of the LACC are proportional to the latitudinal dependence of the low altitude ion concentrations [Usoskin et al., 2004]."

"Recent theoretical and experimental studies (Dickenson, 1975; Harrison and Aplin, 2001; Eichkorn et al., 2002; Yu, 2002; Tinsley and Yu, 2003) relate the CRF to the formation of charged aerosols, which could serve as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), as demonstrated independently by ground-based and airborne experiments (Harrison and Aplin, 2001; Eichkorn et al., 2002)."

* Fred Singer, Professor emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia:

"The greenhouse effect is real. However, the effect is minute, insignificant, and very difficult to detect."[50][51] &#8220;It&#8217;s not automatically true that warming is bad, I happen to believe that warming is good, and so do many economists.&#8221;

"The current warming cycle is not unusual. ... The Earth consistently goes through a climate cycle marked by alternating warmer and cooler periods over 1,500 years (plus or minus 500 years)." "When the sun is less active, its solar wind weakens and provides less shielding for the Earth from the cosmic rays that bounce around space." "We have a number of shorter-term proxies (cave stalagmites, tree rings from trees both living and buried, boreholes and a wide variety of other temperature proxies) that testify to the global nature of the 1,500- year climate cycles. ... Models that posit a human impact on the climate must better take this evidence into account before any conclusions are drawn regarding humanity&#8217;s ability to prevent future climate change."

"The IPCC summary report presents selected facts and omits important information. The summary (correctly) reports that climate has warmed by 0.3 °C to 0.6 °C in the last 100 years, but does not mention that there has been little warming if any (depending on whose compilation is used) in the last 50 years, during which time some 80% of greenhouse gases were added to the atmosphere. ... The summary does not make it explicit that the IPCC time scale for warming has now been stretched out &#8212; doubled, in fact, from 2050 to 2100 &#8212; making any possible impact less dramatic. The summary also does not mention an authoritative U.S. government statement; it quotes a global warming as low as 0.5 °C by 2100 &#8212; only half of the IPCC's lowest 1995 prediction."

* Willie Soon, astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics:

"[T]here's increasingly strong evidence that previous research conclusions, including those of the United Nations and the United States government concerning 20th century warming, may have been biased by underestimation of natural climate variations. The bottom line is that if these variations are indeed proven true, then, yes, natural climate fluctuations could be a dominant factor in the recent warming. In other words, natural factors could be more important than previously assumed."

* Roy Spencer, principal research scientist, University of Alabama in Huntsville:

"I predict that in the coming years, there will be a growing realization among the global warming research community that most of the climate change we have observed is natural, and that mankind&#8217;s role is relatively minor".

"It has been calculated theoretically that, if there are no other changes in the climate system, a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration would cause less than 1 deg C of surface warming (about 1 deg. F). This is NOT a controversial statement&#8230;it is well understood by climate scientists. (As of 2008, we were about 40% to 45% of the way toward a doubling of atmospheric CO2.) BUT&#8230;everything else in the climate system probably WON&#8217;T stay the same! For instance, clouds, water vapor, and precipitation systems can all be expected to respond to the warming tendency in some way, which could either amplify or reduce the manmade warming."

"A confusion between forcing and feedback (loosely speaking, cause and effect) when observing cloud behavior has led to the illusion of a sensitive climate system, when in fact our best satellite observations (when carefully and properly interpreted) suggest an IN-sensitive climate system... Finally, if the climate system is insensitive, this means that the extra carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere is not enough to cause the observed warming over the last 100 years &#8212; some natural mechanism must be involved ... my favorite candidate: the Pacific Decadal Oscillation."

* Philip Stott, professor emeritus of biogeography at the University of London:

"...the myth is starting to implode. ... Serious new research at The Max Planck Society has indicated that the sun is a far more significant factor..."

* Henrik Svensmark, Danish National Space Center:

"Our team ... has discovered that the relatively few cosmic rays that reach sea-level play a big part in the everyday weather. They help to make low-level clouds, which largely regulate the Earth&#8217;s surface temperature. During the 20th Century the influx of cosmic rays decreased and the resulting reduction of cloudiness allowed the world to warm up. ... most of the warming during the 20th Century can be explained by a reduction in low cloud cover."

We find that the observed variation of 3&#8211;4% of the global cloud cover during the recent solar cycle is strongly correlated with the cosmic ray flux. ... The effect is larger at higher latitudes in agreement with the shielding effect of the Earth's magnetic field on high-energy charged particles.

Variations in the cosmic-ray influx due to solar magnetic activity account well for climatic fluctuations on decadal, centennial and millennial timescales ... to reconcile abundant indications of the Sun's influence on climate (e.g. Herschel 1801, Eddy 1976, Friis-Christenen 1997) with the small 0.1% variations in the solar cycle measured by satellites. ... The connection offers a mechanism for solar-driven climate change much more powerful than changes in solar irradiance.

* Jan Veizer, environmental geochemist, Professor Emeritus from University of Ottawa:

"At this stage, two scenarios of potential human impact on climate appear feasible: (1) the standard IPCC model ..., and (2) the alternative model that argues for celestial phenomena as the principal climate driver. ... Models and empirical observations are both indispensable tools of science, yet when discrepancies arise, observations should carry greater weight than theory. If so, the multitude of empirical observations favours celestial phenomena as the most important driver of terrestrial climate on most time scales, but time will be the final judge."

Position: Cause of global warming is unknown

Scientists in this section conclude that no principal cause can be ascribed to the observed rising temperatures, whether man-made or natural.

* Syun-Ichi Akasofu, retired professor of geophysics and Founding Director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks:

"[T]he method of study adopted by the International Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) is fundamentally flawed, resulting in a baseless conclusion: Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. Contrary to this statement ..., there is so far no definitive evidence that 'most' of the present warming is due to the greenhouse effect. ... [The IPCC] should have recognized that the range of observed natural changes should not be ignored, and thus their conclusion should be very tentative. The term 'most' in their conclusion is baseless."

* Claude Allègre, geochemist, Institute of Geophysics (Paris):

"The increase in the CO2 content of the atmosphere is an observed fact and mankind is most certainly responsible. In the long term, this increase will without doubt become harmful, but its exact role in the climate is less clear. Various parameters appear more important than CO2. Consider the water cycle and formation of various types of clouds, and the complex effects of industrial or agricultural dust. Or fluctuations of the intensity of the solar radiation on annual and century scale, which seem better correlated with heating effects than the variations of CO2 content."

* Robert C. Balling, Jr., a professor of geography at Arizona State University:

"t is very likely that the recent upward trend [in global surface temperature] is very real and that the upward signal is greater than any noise introduced from uncertainties in the record. However, the general error is most likely to be in the warming direction, with a maximum possible (though unlikely) value of 0.3 °C. ... At this moment in time we know only that: (1) Global surface temperatures have risen in recent decades. (2) Mid-tropospheric temperatures have warmed little over the same period. (3) This difference is not consistent with predictions from numerical climate models."

* John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, contributor to several IPCC reports:

"I'm sure the majority (but not all) of my IPCC colleagues cringe when I say this, but I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see. Rather, I see a reliance on climate models (useful but never "proof") and the coincidence that changes in carbon dioxide and global temperatures have loose similarity over time."

"The global atmospheric temperature anomalies of Earth reached a maximum in 1998 which has not been exceeded during the subsequent 10 years. ... El Niño/La Niña effects in the tropical band are shown to explain the 1998 maximum while variations in the background of the global anomalies largely come from climate effects in the northern extratropics. These effects do not have the signature associated with CO2 climate forcing. However, the data show a small underlying positive trend that is consistent with CO2 climate forcing with no-feedback. ... The global warming hypothesis states that there are positive feedback processes leading to gains g that are larger than 1, perhaps as large as 3 or 4. However, recent studies suggest that the values of g is much smaller."

* Petr Chylek, Space and Remote Sensing Sciences researcher, Los Alamos National Laboratory:

"Carbon dioxide should not be considered as a dominant force behind the current warming...how much of the [temperature] increase can be ascribed to CO2, to changes in solar activity, or to the natural variability of climate is uncertain"

* David Deming, geology professor at the University of Oklahoma:

"The amount of climatic warming that has taken place in the past 150 years is poorly constrained, and its cause &#8211; human or natural &#8211; is unknown. There is no sound scientific basis for predicting future climate change with any degree of certainty. If the climate does warm, it is likely to be beneficial to humanity rather than harmful. In my opinion, it would be foolish to establish national energy policy on the basis of misinformation and irrational hysteria."

Position: Global warming will have few negative consequences

Scientists in this section conclude that projected rising temperatures will be of little impact or a net positive for human society and/or the Earth's environment.

* Craig D. Idso, faculty researcher, Office of Climatology, Arizona State University and founder of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change:

"The rising CO2 content of the air should boost global plant productivity dramatically, enabling humanity to increase food, fiber and timber production and thereby continue to feed, clothe, and provide shelter for their still-increasing numbers ... this atmospheric CO2-derived blessing is as sure as death and taxes." (May 2007)[68] "On average, a 300-ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 leads to yield increases of 15% for CAM crops, 49% for C3 cereals, 20% for C4 cereals, 24% for fruits and melons, 44% for legumes, 48% for roots and tubers and 37% for vegetables."

[There was not] "a single coherent area within the SCPDSI maps that 'showed a statistically significant trend over the 1901-2002 period,' once again demonstrating that one of the major calamitous predictions of the world&#8217;s climate alarmists (that more dramatic droughts accompany global warming) is found to be totally unsupported by real-world data over a vast area of North America."

* Sherwood Idso, former research physicist, USDA Water Conservation Laboratory, and adjunct professor, Arizona State University:

"Warming has been shown to positively impact human health, while atmospheric CO2 enrichment has been shown to enhance the health-promoting properties of the food we eat, as well as stimulate the production of more of it. ... [W]e have nothing to fear from increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 and global warming." (2003)

"If strong positive feedbacks existed, the Earth would likely exhibit a radically unstable climate, significantly different from what has characterized the planet over the eons... Ramanathan & Collins, by the use of their own natural experiments, have shown how the warming-induced production of high-level clouds over the equatorial oceans totally nullifies the greenhouse effect of water vapor there, with high clouds dramatically increasing from close to 0% coverage at sea surface temperatures of 26°C to fully 30% coverage at 29°C... And in describing the implications of this strong negative feedback mechanism, Ramanathan & Collins state that &#8216;it would take more than an order-of-magnitude increase in atmospheric CO2 to increase the maximum sea surface temperature by a few degrees.

" The warming of the last hundred years is seen to be basically a recovery from the global chill of the Little Ice Age, which was a several-hundred-year period of significantly cooler temperatures than those of the present that persisted until the end of the nineteenth century."

* Patrick Michaels, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and retired research professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia:

"Scientists know quite precisely how much the planet will warm in the foreseeable future, a modest three-quarters of a degree (Celsius), plus or minus a mere quarter-degree ... a modest warming is a likely benefit... human warming will be strongest and most obvious in very cold and dry air, such as in Siberia and northwestern North America in the dead of winter." (October 16, 2003)

"One way to project the future with confidence is to look to history, when it was warmer... There is very strong evidence that the integrated warming &#8211; that&#8217;s temperature times time &#8211; was much greater for millennia after the end of the recent ice age around 10,800 years ago... In those millennia &#8211; which are only the blink of a geologist&#8217;s eye ago &#8211; trees used to grow where there is now only barren tundra. When they died, they were preserved in the acidic bogginess, so we can tell exactly when they were alive with carbon dating. It&#8217;s very clear that the forest in Eurasia used to extend all the way to the Arctic Ocean during that warm period... The Arctic Ocean was likely to have been largely ice-free during the summer during much of this time &#8211; from 6,000 to 8,000 years ago &#8211; as noted by the University of Stockholm&#8217;s Martin Jacobsson in a 2010 edition of the scientific journal Quaternary Science Reviews. The Geological Survey of Norway found something similar in 2008. Not only did Greenland&#8217;s ice survive &#8211; so did the polar bear."

Seems like Gov, Perry is very well informed about this topic Flopper.
And you call it vile?

 

[konradv]

OddBall -- KonradV:

Did you miss this? I worked hard to move that graphic up to USMB so that you guys could stop brawling..

[/IMG]

where C is the CO2 concentration in parts per million by volume and C0 is the reference concentration.[6] The relationship between carbon dioxide and radiative forcing is logarithmic so that increased concentrations have a progressively smaller warming effect.

Radiative forcing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Want to discuss the "equation" -- (well it's AN equation)? or how it was derived? or what it means? Ok - Round Four.

Thanks, now let's see if Oddball can answer my question.

 

[Texanmike]

OddBall -- KonradV:

Did you miss this? I worked hard to move that graphic up to USMB so that you guys could stop brawling..

[/IMG]

where C is the CO2 concentration in parts per million by volume and C0 is the reference concentration.[6] The relationship between carbon dioxide and radiative forcing is logarithmic so that increased concentrations have a progressively smaller warming effect.

Radiative forcing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Want to discuss the "equation" -- (well it's AN equation)? or how it was derived? or what it means? Ok - Round Four.

Thanks, now let's see if Oddball can answer my question.

Come on man. Lets be honest. You could have come up with that question just by searching the internet. Instead of trying to vet someone by asking them facts that can be looked up why don't we have an actual discussion?

The question is really how much does man's activity affect global warming? Do you think the sun is responsible for some of it? Can you draw a concrete link between man's activity and global warming?

Here's my problem with the science. I'm not a scientist, though I am more versed in it than your average Joe. Formulas are useful for describing events but they are terrible for predicting events with so many variables. For example, where is the coorelation coefficent between the temperature and man's output of CO2? Well we can't really find that coefficient because we don't really know what man's output is.

My RL job is as a statistical analyst/database manager. While I don't specialize in climatology, I do have to do a little work with the climate due to the nature of my job. I'm not proclaiming myself to be an expert or anything but like I said it does give me a little insight to how numbers can be used and misused. One of the problems is unknown. We are seeing more CO2 in the atmosphere and that is undeniable. What causes that? Is it deforestation? Is it just burning carbon? Is it an increase in population of O2-CO2 converting life? Is the suns creation of Ozone affecting that by robbing the atmosphere of the O2 that skews the proportions? There are a lot of unkowns in this equation and to write it off as a wholesale "man is responsible" or "man plays no part" are both ridiculous.

Anyone who tells you either is an absolute truth is either incredibly vain or politically motivated. The answer lies somewhere in between because there are two types of science. There is the kind in which someone sets out to prove a point and ignores any data that doesn't support their hypothesis. This is relatively easy to do because I can set my std-d and use that to skew that data I use, I can also subjectively select sets of data that will, without further manipulation, give me the trend I want to see. If you don't question the validity of ever data point you are going to be prone to errors. For example, when you're taking these temperature readings, is everything constant? Time of day? Environment? Shade? I know this sounds tedeous but I see very little evidence that this has been done. Any study that really seeks to find an answer will list limiting factors and I haven't seen studies that list very many limiting factors.

There is another kind of science. That is the pursuit of truth. This science rarely happens on hot button topics like global warming/evolution etc. That is not to say that it is a conspiracy, it is the nature of the science. A lot of people are drawn to these particular topics because they have a preconceived notion of what the truth should be. They may try to be impartial but that is difficult. When things get reviewed, if the majority of the community reviewing them agrees then the results are not scrutenized the way they should be. This goes for both man-made global warming and environmental cause camps. They lose all credibility with the other side and the study of global warming has devolved into the two camps disproving eachother's theories.

Look at environmental science over the last 25-30 years. First it was Acid rain and the threat of global cooling, then it was the ozone layer, next came global warming and now we're at climate change. Isn't climate change really just an admission that we don't know W T F is going on? I'm not really critizicing your intelligence or your motives, I'm not supporting odballs or anyone elses... I'm encouraging you to look at your own theories and try to point out its shortcomings. If you can't find shortcomings then you're probably not being objective. That goes for both of you.

/rant

Mike

 

[konradv]

Well we can't really find that coefficient because we don't really know what man's output is.

Say what?!?!

List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Oddball]

I've also seen plenty of sites that try to debunk and discredit this research but typically it's not from people I would consider to be experts.

Oh, so your no expert, yet your inexpert "consideration" can weed out the "true" experts from the dilettantes.

Yes, politics is in play, but logic tells me what when_________________scientists around the world generally agree on something, there is probably some merit to it. I have a hard time believing this is a world wide conspiracy.

You left out "carefully hand-picked and screened" in that blank part there, pal.

 

[Chris]

Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn’t a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that’s too bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the “anti-science party.” This is an enormously important development. And it should terrify us.

Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, recently made headlines by dismissing evolution as “just a theory,” one that has “got some gaps in it” — an observation that will come as news to the vast majority of biologists. But what really got peoples’ attention was what he said about climate change: “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.”

That’s a remarkable statement — or maybe the right adjective is “vile.”



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/opinion/republicans-against-science.html

Republicans hate science because science involves facts.

Republicans vote on their gut feelings and prejudices not the facts.

 

[Oddball]

Did you miss this?

[/IMG]

where C is the CO2 concentration in parts per million by volume and C0 is the reference concentration.[6] The relationship between carbon dioxide and radiative forcing is logarithmic so that increased concentrations have a progressively smaller warming effect.

Radiative forcing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Want to discuss the "equation" -- (well it's AN equation)? or how it was derived? or what it means? Seems like some people just want to bluster and fight.

You didn't really think I was pushing for an answer to the question by accident, did you?

 

[konradv]

Did you miss this?

[/IMG]

where C is the CO2 concentration in parts per million by volume and C0 is the reference concentration.[6] The relationship between carbon dioxide and radiative forcing is logarithmic so that increased concentrations have a progressively smaller warming effect.

Radiative forcing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Want to discuss the "equation" -- (well it's AN equation)? or how it was derived? or what it means? Seems like some people just want to bluster and fight.

You didn't really think I was pushing for an answer to the question by accident, did you?

You don't really think I care, unless you also answer mine, do you?

 

[RDD_1210]

I've also seen plenty of sites that try to debunk and discredit this research but typically it's not from people I would consider to be experts.

Oh, so your no expert, yet your inexpert "consideration" can weed out the "true" experts from the dilettantes.

Yes, politics is in play, but logic tells me what when_________________scientists around the world generally agree on something, there is probably some merit to it. I have a hard time believing this is a world wide conspiracy.

You left out "carefully hand-picked and screened" in that blank part there, pal.

LOL, Your tin foil hat is too tight.

When you start showing me actual proof that all the climatologists from all those agencies around the world are hand picked based upon their opinion then maybe I'll start to care about anything you have to say. Until then, you'll continue to be a loud mouth, all opinion, no substance corporate stooge. You're a dinosaur, face it. Your time and your mindset have passed.