97% of climatologists believe in man-made global warming

[Chris]

There is an enormous amount of evidence for global warming. I don't have to investigate the deniers. They are all right wingers who believe this is a political issue. It is not. Rising CO2, melting glaciers and melting ice caps have no political affiliation.

The ice caps have always been and always will be either expanding or receding. They have never been nor will they ever be static. If our beliefs are correct, there have been times during which life flourished on this planet and there were no ice caps at all. Now they've been receding from some interval that is an instant in the context of geological time scales. Ice caps receding does not infer that humankind is the cause of generally rising temperatures over a period any more than ice caps expanding would prove humankind is causing generally falling temperatures.

I interpret what I'm seeing as, "The ice caps have been generally receding recently so we have to do X." The problem is that nobody really knows what effect doing X will have. Nobody knows that doing X will have any effect on the "behavior" of the ice caps at all. And if there would be an effect, nobody knows what the magnitude will be. There are people who are creating the impression that they know, but they don't.

And the global warmists are asking for some pretty significant Xs. I think they'd be much better off being honest about the level of certainty associated with their assertions and taking the "just in case" approach. In other words, they should be doing something like noting that we're going to have to move away from fossil fuels sooner or later anyway and saying it could be that there could be some serious consequences if we don't go ahead and do it now.

Instead, they're basically saying they know it's going to be a disaster for our species if we don't take draconian measures right now and that's dishonest.

I love how people simple state their opinion with no evidence to back it up.

We have increased CO2 in the atmosphere by 40% in the last 200 years. Soon we will have doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. We continue to add 8 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere every year. There is no question that we are warming the earth.

 

[Old Rocks]

JR, it is you that is being dishonest. No, the caps are not always expanding and contracting by the degree that they have been diminishing in the last 50 years. And we are seeing significant acceleration in the diminishment in just the last decade.

No, by rapidly reducing the our use of fossil fuels, we will not prevent the what will be happening in the next 50 years. The inertia of the system is such that we will feel the effects of a major reduction only toward the end of this century. But if we continue as we are, we will definately feel the effects of the CO2 that we will be adding in a decade.

Essentially, the alpine glaciers will be mostly gone by mid-century, no matter what we do. And that will vastly affect agriculture on all the continents. A rapidly rising sea level will reduce the agriculteral land available even further. This is not a future forecast, the affect with the glaciers has already started. And aquifers are being affected by the small rise in sea level that we have already had.

However, you, and the rest of the ostrichs here, as things get bad, will say "Why didn't those damn scientists tell us that this was coming!". LOL

 

[JohnStOnge]

I love how people simple state their opinion with no evidence to back it up.

We have increased CO2 in the atmosphere by 40% in the last 200 years. Soon we will have doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. We continue to add 8 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere every year. There is no question that we are warming the earth.

I think I backed up my opinion about cause and effect inference earlier in this thread. I think at some point I quoted the IPCC Physical Science Basis report indicating that what it would take to achieve "unequivocal attribution" is impossible. But if you choose to read a description of why that is so, I keep something from a textbook used during 1997-1998 for two general graduate level Experimental Statistics courses. I'll include the entire discussion so no one will think I'm quoting anything out of context. I'll underline some of the key statements. While reading it, understand that the assertions about human beings as cause of climate change are based on observational data. It is observational study. The author illustrates the point with cigarette smoking, but the principle applies to any instance in which statistical data are used. It is not a principle I made up, and there are reasons for it. Maybe I'll attempt to elaborate on those reasons at some point. For now, here goes:

From Ott, R. Lyman (1992). An introduction to statistical methods and data analysis. Chapter 2. Belmont California: Duxbury Press.

"Before leaving the subject of sample data collection, we will draw a distinction between an observational study and a scientific study. In experimental designs for scientific studies, the observation conditions are fixed or controlled. For example, with a factorial experiment laid off in a completely randomized design, an observation is made at each factor-level combination. Similarly, with a randomized block design, an observation is obtained on each treatment in every block. These 'controlled' studies are very different from observational studies, which are sometimes used because it is not feasible to do a proper scientific study. This can be illustrated by way of example.

Much research and public interest centers on the effect of cigarette smoking on lung cancer and cardiovascular disease. One possible experimental design would be to randomized a fixed number of individuals (say 1,000) to each of two groups – one group would be required to smoke cigarettes for the duration of the study (say 10 years), while those in the second group would not be allowed to smoke throughout the study. At the end of the study, the two groups would be compared for lung cancer and cardiovascular disease. Even if we ignore the ethical questions, this type of study would be impossible to do. Because of the long duration, it would be difficult to follow all participants and make certain that they follow the study plan. And it would be difficult to find nonsmoking individuals willing to take the chance of being assigned to the smoking group.

Another possible study would be to sample a fixed number of smokers and a fixed number of nonsmokers to compare the groups for lung cancer and for cardiovascular disease. Assuming one could obtain willing groups of participants, this study could be done for a much shorter period of time.

What has been sacrificed? Well, the fundamental difference between an observational study and a scientific study lies in the inference(s) that can be drawn. For a scientific study comparing smokers to nonsmokers, assuming the two groups of individuals followed the study plan, the observed differences between the smoking and nonsmoking groups could be attributed to the effects of cigarette smoking because the individuals were randomized to the two groups; hence, the groups were assumed to be comparable at the outset.

This type of reasoning does not apply to the observational study of cigarette smoking. Differences between the two groups in the observation could not necessarily be attributed to the effects of cigarette smoking because, for example, there may be hereditary factors that predispose people to smoking and cancer of the lungs and/or cardiovascular disease. Thus, differences between the groups might be due to hereditary factors, smoking, or a combination of the two. Typically, the results of an observational study are reported by way of a statement of association. For our example, if the observational study showed a higher frequency of lung cancer and cardiovascular disease for smokers relative to nonsmokers, it would be stated that this study showed that cigarette smoking was associated with an increased frequency of lung cancer and cardiovascular disease. It is a careful rewording in order not to infer that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer and cardiovascular disease.

 

[dustyp]

I'm happy today to discover that there are other citizens out there actually questioning the global warming panic. How many of us remember the dire warnings of "the coming ice age?"

How pompous we are to think that we can change the climate! Thanks for the exchange. If you haven't read "Cool It" by Bjorn Lomborg, I highly recommend it.

Happy trails.

 

[Chris]

I'm happy today to discover that there are other citizens out there actually questioning the global warming panic. How many of us remember the dire warnings of "the coming ice age?"

How pompous we are to think that we can change the climate! Thanks for the exchange. If you haven't read "Cool It" by Bjorn Lomborg, I highly recommend it.

Happy trails.

Ignorance finds a friend.

 

[JohnStOnge]

I love how people simple state their opinion with no evidence to back it up.

We have increased CO2 in the atmosphere by 40% in the last 200 years. Soon we will have doubled the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. We continue to add 8 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere every year. There is no question that we are warming the earth.

Ok. I tried looking for an earlier reference to the IPCC Physical Science Basis Report in this thread but I can't find an easy way to search for my posts in a thread and there are just too many posts. So I will repeat the reference. You can go to Chapter 9 of the 2007 IPCC Physical Science Basis Report at http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_Ch09.pdf . Do a "search" in the word "experiment." The first occurrence of the word is in the following discussion that starts at the bottom left of page 668 of the overall report (the 6th page of Chapter 9). I have underlined the key statement:

"Detection does not imply attribution of the detected change to the assumed cause. ‘Attribution’ of causes of climate change is the process of establishing the most likely causes for the detected change with some defined level of confidence (see Glossary). As noted in the SAR (IPCC, 1996) and the TAR (IPCC, 2001), unequivocal attribution would require controlled experimentation with the climate system. Since that is not possible, in practice attribution of anthropogenic climate change is understood to mean demonstration that a detected change is ‘consistent with the estimated responses to the given combination of anthropogenic and natural forcing’ and ‘not consistent with alternative, physically plausible explanations of recent climate change that exclude important elements of the given combination of forcings’" (IPCC, 2001).

You say "There is no question that we are warming the earth." To me, that's saying there is unequivocal attribution. In the language above, the IPCC says that the controlled experimentation that would be necessary to achieve unequivocal attribution is not possible. And I agree. In fact, it's a position I maintained long before I realized the IPCC made the above statement in its report.

 

[Old Rocks]

I'm happy today to discover that there are other citizens out there actually questioning the global warming panic. How many of us remember the dire warnings of "the coming ice age?"

How pompous we are to think that we can change the climate! Thanks for the exchange. If you haven't read "Cool It" by Bjorn Lomborg, I highly recommend it.

Happy trails.

OK, another person that thinks that Newsweek speaks for the scientific community. No, there were not dire warnings from the major scientific community concerning global cooling.
Science-type stuff

The differance between an interglacial climate is the differance between 180 ppm of CO2 and 280 ppm of CO2. We have added another 100 ppm of CO2, and now have about 385 ppm of CO2 in our atmosphere. How can that not change the heat budget of the Earth?

Lomborg? The same Lomborg that was censored by the Danish Academy of Science for trying to back up his arguements with obvious falsehoods?

 

[JohnStOnge]

JR, it is you that is being dishonest. No, the caps are not always expanding and contracting by the degree that they have been diminishing in the last 50 years. And we are seeing significant acceleration in the diminishment in just the last decade.

No, by rapidly reducing the our use of fossil fuels, we will not prevent the what will be happening in the next 50 years. The inertia of the system is such that we will feel the effects of a major reduction only toward the end of this century. But if we continue as we are, we will definately feel the effects of the CO2 that we will be adding in a decade.

Essentially, the alpine glaciers will be mostly gone by mid-century, no matter what we do. And that will vastly affect agriculture on all the continents. A rapidly rising sea level will reduce the agriculteral land available even further. This is not a future forecast, the affect with the glaciers has already started. And aquifers are being affected by the small rise in sea level that we have already had.

However, you, and the rest of the ostrichs here, as things get bad, will say "Why didn't those damn scientists tell us that this was coming!". LOL

You're entire outlook appears to be based on the premise that we know what the effects are; that 1) we have that demonstrated certain cause and effect relationships between anthropogenic activity and climate change are occurring and that 2) we know the form of the synthesis of those cause and effect relationships well enough to predict with some acceptable level of confidence that if we do or don't do X then Y or Z will happen. You write of what will and will not happen above as though it's as certain as knowing that distilled water will freeze if you hold it at below 0 degrees Centigrade at sea level.

What I'm trying to get across to you is that we (or they who create the impression that they do) do not. It's not possible. The standards for making such claims have not and can not be met. We do not know that alpine glaciers will be gone mid century. For all we know, we might be talking about entering an ice age then. We have scientists who believe a certain trend will unfold based on their beliefs about how things work. And I accept that their beliefs about how things work are reasonable as well as based on a whole lot of thought and assessment. But they can not test their beliefs about how things work through controlled experimentation and they don't even have the benefit of more than one observational subject (the planet).

 

[jreeves]

That has to be the dumbest question ever.

No, not even close.

There is an enormous amount of evidence for global warming. I don't have to investigate the deniers. They are all right wingers who believe this is a political issue. It is not. Rising CO2, melting glaciers and melting ice caps have no political affiliation.

My research is entitled how much are Chrissy pants and Old Rocks hypocrites?Are you a vegan?
Chrissy pants----No, not even close.

Old Rocks----Completely irrelevant. However, not only am I not a vegan, but I hunt and fish as oppertunity avails itself.

Now from your beloved IPCC....

Rajendra Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will make the call at a speech in London on Monday evening.

UN figures suggest that meat production puts more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than transport.BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Shun meat, says UN climate chief

Hmm....so you think AGW is a real problem?
Yet the one thing you could do to eliminate....

They found that eating a vegan diet prevents the equivalent of 1.5 tons of CO2 emissions every year
Eating Meat Contributes to Global Warming | ChooseVeg.com

You both are hypocrites.....

When the facts are on your side, argue the facts.

When the law is on your side, argue the law.

When you have neither, bang on the table.

When you're a hypocrite try to convince everyone else your not.

 

[KittenKoder]

Actually ... here's a fact environuts always miss ... all their evidence (just for pretend let's say it is actually based on complete facts) is based on things we could not predict would happen one way or the other. Our history as a species is so tiny compared to how old the world is, and the recorded history of science used for "Global Warming/Cooling/Whatever it is now" is even smaller. For the areas we can analyze all we have is effect ... no cause. Even then much of that evidence is often contradictory depending on where you look. This is why many call it "junk science", it's like looking in the junk yard and saying that the future of cars is going to be ... whatever.

 

[Meister]

Your spot on, Kitten, but these global warming nuts seem to think that they know it all just from the last 120 years. They will tell you that there is evidence from the glacial cores, and such. But...they really can't answer why there is more CO2 in the atmosphere, and we are in a cooling cycle. When I have mentioned that the Earth has been a lot warmer than today, and has cooled, they just ignore that little fact, and go forward with their agenda, just like the sites they worship. It's no more than the new religion, with some followers. Kinda like the Jim Jones Cult of the 1970's. These people would drink the Kool-Aid, too.

 

[Old Rocks]

You're entire outlook appears to be based on the premise that we know what the effects are; that 1) we have that demonstrated certain cause and effect relationships between anthropogenic activity and climate change are occurring and that
................

We have established, a hundred years ago, that CO2 has a certain absorbtion spectra. We have established that as you increase the percentage of CO2, the layers in the atmosphere absorb more of the energy that is normally emitted into space. We know from the records of the coal used and the oil burned for fuel the amount of CO2 that mankind is putting into the atmosphere every year. We also know what percentage of the CO2 that is in the atmosphere right now is the result of the use of fossil fuels by mankind. That information is obtained through isotopal analyztion of the atmospheric CO2. As all studies have predicted, we are warming the surface of the Earth by adding more than 100 ppm of CO2 to the atmosphere.
............
............


2) we know the form of the synthesis of those cause and effect relationships well enough to predict with some acceptable level of confidence that if we do or don't do X then Y or Z will happen. You write of what will and will not happen above as though it's as certain as knowing that distilled water will freeze if you hold it at below 0 degrees Centigrade at sea level.

.............

If we continue to add more CO2, we doggone well know that the atmosphere will absorb more energy, warm, and increase the amount of water vapor that it can hold. Therefore, since water vapor is also a potent greenhouse gas, even though the retention time is less than ten days, this too will increase the heat trapped in our atmosphere. Also lead to more, and more violent, precipitation.

..............
..............

What I'm trying to get across to you is that we (or they who create the impression that they do) do not. It's not possible. The standards for making such claims have not and can not be met. We do not know that alpine glaciers will be gone mid century. For all we know, we might be talking about entering an ice age then. We have scientists who believe a certain trend will unfold based on their beliefs about how things work. And I accept that their beliefs about how things work are reasonable as well as based on a whole lot of thought and assessment. But they can not test their beliefs about how things work through controlled experimentation and they don't even have the benefit of more than one observational subject (the planet).

............

When Glacier National Park was established, there were 150 glaciers in it. Today, there are less than 30. Given the present rate of melt of the surviving glaciers, barring the climate getting much cooler, there will be no glaciers in Glacier National Park after about 2030. Worldwide, glaciers are in an accelerating retreat. Again, simple real time observations indicate that barring major cooling most will be gone mid-century.

The observational subject that we are speaking of here is our only source of life. Screw up it's systems badly enough and a lot of the human race is going to die. From Greenland to the Maya, we would not be the first civilization to screw up it's natural support system badly enough to destroy all that we have built.

 

[Old Rocks]

Your spot on, Kitten, but these global warming nuts seem to think that they know it all just from the last 120 years. They will tell you that there is evidence from the glacial cores, and such. But...they really can't answer why there is more CO2 in the atmosphere, and we are in a cooling cycle. When I have mentioned that the Earth has been a lot warmer than today, and has cooled, they just ignore that little fact, and go forward with their agenda, just like the sites they worship. It's no more than the new religion, with some followers. Kinda like the Jim Jones Cult of the 1970's. These people would drink the Kool-Aid, too.

Silly ass. We have ice cores that go back 650,000 years. And there are many other proxies that tell us how things were even as far back as a billion years ago.

Why is there more CO2 in the atmosphere now than 150 years ago? Where the hell have you been? Do you really thing that you can burn carbon and hydrocarbons at a multi-billion a year ton rate and not put massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere? No, we are not in a cooling cycle. The warmest 11 years of the last 150 years have occurred in the last 13 years. Now explain how you claim that is a cooling cycle?

Oh sure, numbnuts, it is a religion. A religion that all of the scientific societies of the world, all the National Academies of the World, and all the major universities of the world subscribe to. Now go make your tinfoil hat and crawl back under your bed.

 

[Meister]

Your spot on, Kitten, but these global warming nuts seem to think that they know it all just from the last 120 years. They will tell you that there is evidence from the glacial cores, and such. But...they really can't answer why there is more CO2 in the atmosphere, and we are in a cooling cycle. When I have mentioned that the Earth has been a lot warmer than today, and has cooled, they just ignore that little fact, and go forward with their agenda, just like the sites they worship. It's no more than the new religion, with some followers. Kinda like the Jim Jones Cult of the 1970's. These people would drink the Kool-Aid, too.

Silly ass. We have ice cores that go back 650,000 years. And there are many other proxies that tell us how things were even as far back as a billion years ago.

Why is there more CO2 in the atmosphere now than 150 years ago? Where the hell have you been? Do you really thing that you can burn carbon and hydrocarbons at a multi-billion a year ton rate and not put massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere? No, we are not in a cooling cycle. The warmest 11 years of the last 150 years have occurred in the last 13 years. Now explain how you claim that is a cooling cycle?

Oh sure, numbnuts, it is a religion. A religion that all of the scientific societies of the world, all the National Academies of the World, and all the major universities of the world subscribe to. Now go make your tinfoil hat and crawl back under your bed.

Not in all scientific societies, not in all national academics of the world. Just the ones you that you want. You want to talk about university acedemia...which is really far left bias, well that is an entire subject all by its self. CO2 has been higher than today, you dumb ass. It has dropped from the high levels....just how did that happen you dumb ass. Cycles, cycles, cycles. Get off your CO2 kick, there is much more than CO2 that causes greenhouse gasses. So Old Rock, you get under YOUR bed and shudder that the world won't come to an end. Who's your messiah??? Oh, I know...global warming.
By the way dude you sound like an old record.

 

[Old Rocks]

OK. Name one scientific society that states that the current warming is not the result of the burning of fossil fuels. Name one National Academy of Science. Should be an easy enough task, correct?

Yes, levels have been higher in the past. And there have also been times of very rapid increase in GHGs in the past. And those times were also periods of extinction.
Bad things a-comin’ — global warming edition « Later On

 

[Chris]

In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].

Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).

The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change -- Oreskes 306 (5702): 1686 -- Science

 

[KittenKoder]

There's the problem ... we have posted opposing views ... many wingnuts and people like me who don't take sides until all the facts are in. Guess what ... you ignored them while posting more obviously biased links that just happen to support your side. Penn and Teller did the best at explaining why I don't believe it at all, they showed the documents submitted to the government to advance this con by your "wonderful" leader, Al Gore.

 

[jreeves]

There's the problem ... we have posted opposing views ... many wingnuts and people like me who don't take sides until all the facts are in. Guess what ... you ignored them while posting more obviously biased links that just happen to support your side. Penn and Teller did the best at explaining why I don't believe it at all, they showed the documents submitted to the government to advance this con by your "wonderful" leader, Al Gore.

What really cracks me up, is that Chrissy and Rocks would have everyone paying a ton of money for new cars that didn't emit CO2. While the greatest cause according to the IPCC is meat production. Yet Chrissy and Rocks have not taken the steps according to their own religion(AGW) to save the planet from AGW, as they are not vegans.

 

[KittenKoder]

There's the problem ... we have posted opposing views ... many wingnuts and people like me who don't take sides until all the facts are in. Guess what ... you ignored them while posting more obviously biased links that just happen to support your side. Penn and Teller did the best at explaining why I don't believe it at all, they showed the documents submitted to the government to advance this con by your "wonderful" leader, Al Gore.

What really cracks me up, is that Chrissy and Rocks would have everyone paying a ton of money for new cars that didn't emit CO2. While the greatest cause according to the IPCC is meat production. Yet Chrissy and Rocks have not taken the steps according to their own religion(AGW) to save the planet from AGW, as they are not vegans.

Environuts just really don't like facts.

 

[jreeves]

We are at the low point of the sun's cycle. It will take 5 years to get back to the top of the cycle.....

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/Fig3_irradiance.gif

Hey...if we are in the same solar slump even then, why has the artic gained ice cover this year? When CO2 concentrations play such a large role in ice cap melting....

Your theory of AGW has so many holes it looks like swiss cheese..

Hey...if we are in the same solar slump even then, why has the artic gained ice cover this year? When CO2 concentrations play such a large role in ice cap melting....

Your theory of AGW has so many holes it looks like swiss cheese....
I know, here is what I said to Chrissy and here is his dumbass response...

jreeves, check back with me in September.