Thread: Global warming - it's real

... and the latest report has even more evidence for some to ignore.

Panel Sees Centuries of Warming Due to Humans - NY Times, Feb 2, 2007:

The world is already committed to centuries of warming, shifting weather patterns and rising seas from the atmospheric buildup of smokestack and tailpipe gases that trap heat, but warming can be substantially blunted with prompt action, an international network of climate experts said today.

In a report released here today, the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations, in its fourth assessment since 1990 of the causes and consequences of climate change, for the first time expressed with near certainty – more than 90 percent confidence – that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases were the main drivers of warming since 1950.

In its last report, in 2001, the panel, consisting of hundreds of scientists and reviewers, put the confidence level at between 66 and 90 percent. Both reports are online at Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Should the concentration of carbon dioxide reach twice the pre-industrial average of 280 parts per million, the report said, the climate will likely warm some 3.5 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit, and there would be more than a one in 10 chance of much greater warming – a situation many earth scientists say poses an unacceptable risk.

“The new report powerfully underscores the need for a massive effort to slow the pace of global climatic disruption before intolerable consequences become inevitable,” said John P. Holdren, the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an energy and climate expert at Harvard University. “Since 2001 there has been a torrent of new scientific evidence on the magnitude, human origins and growing impacts of the climatic changes that are underway. In overwhelming proportions, this evidence has been in the direction of showing faster change, more danger and greater confidence about the dominant role of fossil fuel burning and tropical deforestation in causing the changes that are being observed.”

At some point, even those who - for reasons I won't pretend to understand - have previously flat-out refused to accept at least the possibility of global warming will have to acknowledge that their beliefs are contrary to huge and increasing amounts of scientific data. Why have experts if we don't listen to them?

But a broad array of scientists, including authors of the report and independent experts, said the latest analysis was the most sobering view yet of a century in which – after thousands of years of relatively stable climate conditions – the new normal is likely to be continual change.

Should greenhouse gases continue to build in the atmosphere at even a moderate pace, temperatures by the end of the century could match those last seen 125,000 years ago, in the previous warm spell between ice ages, the report said.

At that time, the panel said, sea levels were 12 to 20 feet higher than they are now due to the melting of great amounts of ice now stored – but eroding – on Greenland and in parts of Antarctica.

But don't believe the NY Times' "spin", or my own. Read the report summary for yourself.

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level.

At continental, regional, and ocean basin scales, numerous long-term changes in climate have been observed. These include changes in Arctic temperatures and ice, widespread changes in precipitation amounts, ocean salinity, wind patterns and aspects of extreme weather including droughts, heavy precipitation, heat waves and the intensity of tropical cyclones.

Originally Posted by Curly

... and the latest report has even more evidence for some to ignore.

Panel Sees Centuries of Warming Due to Humans - NY Times, Feb 2, 2007:



At some point, even those who - for reasons I won't pretend to understand - have previously flat-out refused to accept at least the possibility of global warming will have to acknowledge that their beliefs are contrary to huge and increasing amounts of scientific data. Why have experts if we don't listen to them?


But don't believe the NY Times' "spin", or my own. Read the report summary for yourself.

No one is saying the earth's climate is not warming. The problem is the "evidence" claiming that it is mainly caused by human activity is flawed. If you have actually seen some of these research reports they are filled with contradictions which many scientists just ignore. We don't understand what drives the earth's climate and therefor the computer models are flawed from the start.

Originally Posted by Doctor Who

No one is saying the earth's climate is not warming. The problem is the "evidence" claiming that it is mainly caused by human activity is flawed. If you have actually seen some of these research reports they are filled with contradictions which many scientists just ignore. We don't understand what drives the earth's climate and therefor the computer models are flawed from the start.

I have studied many reports and what the (few & american) critics say. I have found no contradicitions so far. Would you please name some?

Originally Posted by Doctor Who

No one is saying the earth's climate is not warming. The problem is the "evidence" claiming that it is mainly caused by human activity is flawed. If you have actually seen some of these research reports they are filled with contradictions which many scientists just ignore. We don't understand what drives the earth's climate and therefor the computer models are flawed from the start.

This may be the case.
A lack of knowledge is a good place to start research.
It would be elementary to conclude "its not humans" simply because of some correctable flaws.

However, i'm not sure what finding the source will do to stop it. It might just be futile. But, we gotta keep on track in researching the issue. 2006, for me, was one of the wackiest weather years ive ever seen.

Originally Posted by Doctor Who

No one is saying the earth's climate is not warming.

Actually, I think there are some people who are not only saying that, but believe it to be true. You know, the ones who immediately point to there being more ice at one of the poles, or how a particular location just recorded its coldest day, or stuff like that.

Originally Posted by Doctor Who

The problem is the "evidence" claiming that it is mainly caused by human activity is flawed. If you have actually seen some of these research reports they are filled with contradictions which many scientists just ignore. We don't understand what drives the earth's climate and therefor the computer models are flawed from the start.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean about contradictions in the evidence. There is some variation in the interpretation of how bad global warming is, and how quickly climate change will happen in the future.

But anytime you can get hundreds of scientists to agree, with a 90% degree of certainty, on anything, to me that shows that any contradictions are very minor. And in this report, scientists have a confidence level of 90% that "... carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases from human activities were the main drivers of warming since 1950." I have not seen, either in this report or other similar reports, that scientists are saying that human activity is the only thing that affects the earth's climate, or is the only thing that is causing global warming. But they are saying, based on mountains of evidence, that human activity is the main driver of global warming.

I for one think that a) there is global warming b) the science is far from exact c) the squabbles over the past regards ice ages coming and going, sea levels at different points in history etc. d) the reasons- yes its easy to say and or agree to an extent that we, human activities have exacerbated what may be a natural or warming of the planet that comes and goes… ( there is evidence that all scientist from both sides agree on regards a natural ebb and flow in the past very long hist. of the planet regards warming and cooling), due to the acid rain scare of the ;lat 70’s and 80’s I have become skeptical of scientific scare’s….acid rain was after much research and many opinions found to, overall be a natural ebb and flow regards lakes ponds and the nature surrounding them dieing and becoming rejuvenated periodically…

So, that leaves us with 2 differing opinions..regards gw…fine, the problem right now is finding lucid viewpoints from both sides in language we can all parse and understand…..shutting down debate, while there is still much evidence out there from than opposing viewpoint, is not the way to go….




for one instance..a view below certainly is confusing...re" what we are being bombarded with.....

In 2003, Nils-Axel Mörner and his colleagues (see below) pub-
lished a well-documented paper showing that sea levels in the
Maldives have fallen substantially – fallen! – in the last 30 years.
I find it curious that we haven't heard about this.

"The Maldives in the central Indian Ocean consist of some 1,200
individual islands grouped in about 20 larger atolls," says Mörner.
In-as-much as the islands rise only three to seven feet above sea
level, they have been condemned by the IPCC to flooding in the
near future.

Mörner disagrees with this scenario. "In our study of the coastal
dynamics and the geomorphology of the shores," writes Mörner,
"we were unable to detect any traces of a recent sea level rise.
On the contrary, we found quite clear morphological indications
of a recent fall in sea level."

Mörner’s group found that sea levels stood about 60 cm higher
around A.D. 1150 than today, and more recently, about 30 cm
higher than today.

"From the shape and freshness," Mörner says, "one would assume
that the sea level fall took place in the last 50 years, or so."

In the last 50 years.

I find it difficult to understand how the IPCC could have missed
this information - unless they did it deliberately.

All they had to do was ask the locals.

"Local people report that the dhonis (local fishing boats) could pass
straight across theMaduvvare Falhus thila in the 1970s and 1980s,"
Mörner reports, "whilst they in the last 15 years have had to make
a detour around the thila, because it is now too shallow. The thila
has not grown, so it must be the sea that has fallen."

"In the IPCC scenarios," Mörner concludes, "the Maldives were
condemned to disappear in the near future." "Our documentation
of actual field evidence contradicts this hypothesis."

From "New perspectives for the future of the Maldives"
Nils-Axel Mörner, Michael Tooley, and Göran Possnert,
Global and Planetary Change, Vol. 40, Issues 1-2,
Jan 2004, pp 177-182


Nils-Axel Mörner, Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics,
Stockholm University, Sweden

Michael Tooley, Geography and Archaelogy,
University of Durham, Durham, UK

Göran Possnert, The Angstrom Laboratory,
Uppsala University, Sweden

Read entire paper at:
ScienceDirect - Home

then there was the hockey stick contraversy..

Technology Review: Global Warming Bombshell


I think we need to keep an open mind...from both perspectives.

Global warming is a counterfeit truth. There has not been a single degree raise in temperature verifiable since the invention of the thermometer.
Temperature is a random. It varies 100% in a single day…

FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA, APRIL 21, 1998---More than 15,000 scientists, [8/4/98: now about 17,000] two-thirds with advanced academic degrees, have now signed a Petition against the climate accord concluded in Kyoto (Japan) in December 1997. The Petition (see text below) urges the US government to reject the Accord, which would force drastic cuts in energy use on the United States. This is in line with the Senate Resolution, approved by a 95-to-0 vote last July, which turns down any international agreement that damages the economy of the United States while exempting most of the world's nations, including such major emerging economic powers as China, India, and Brazil.

In signing the Petition within a period of less than six weeks, the 15,000 basic and applied scientists -- an unprecedented number for this kind of document -- also expressed their profound skepticism about the science underlying the Kyoto Accord. The atmospheric data simply do not support the elaborate computer-driven climate models that are being cited by the United Nations and other promoters of the Accord as "proof" of a major future warming. The covering letter enclosed with the Petition, signed by Dr. Frederick Seitz, president emeritus of Rockefeller University and a past president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, states it well:

"The treaty is, in our opinion, based upon flawed ideas. Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful."

SEPP News Release: More Than 15,000 Scientists Protest Kyoto Accord; Speak Out Against Global Warming Myth

Is the earth in a warming cycle? Yes. Are humans responsible for any of this? We don't know.

Scientists are not in agreement at the tune of 90% in the assertion that humans are actually in any way responsible for any increase in global temperatures.

Varus

Originally Posted by mabus

I have studied many reports and what the (few & american) critics say. I have found no contradicitions so far. Would you please name some?

Just off the top of my head...

They correlate the rise is greenhouse gases with the rise in temperature. That's really about it. That's what they are hanging their hat on.

1. The tempurature in the past and even in the last century has actually decreased while greenhouse gases were rising.

2. Tempuratures in the past have been higher, with and without greenhouse gas correlations.

3. Tempuratures in the past have been lower, with and without greenhouse gas correlations.

4. We have no clue about the Sun's effect on our climate. The Sun is now in a phase where it is significantly hotter than in the past. This actually occurs about every 1500 years and we are in one of those phases.

5. We have no idea the ability of the negative feedback systems (trees, ocean, clouds, particulate matter, wind patterns, volcanoes...) to offset any changes. It is a complete guess in the models.

6. Every model that I have seen does not work when you run it backwards. It doesn't accurately reflect the past global climate. The modelers make arbitrary changes so that it does work. That's a problem.

Number 4, 5 and 6 are the biggest reasons I am skeptical. The good news is the report that came out today says there is nothing we can do about it so let's move on. We were around when it was warmer, we were around when it was colder. Humans can survive climate change...no reason to panic.

Originally Posted by varrussword

SEPP News Release: More Than 15,000 Scientists Protest Kyoto Accord; Speak Out Against Global Warming Myth

A link to a 1998 source is not especially helpful or relevent in 2007.

Originally Posted by varrussword

Scientists are not in agreement at the tune of 90% in the assertion that humans are actually in any way responsible for any increase in global temperatures.

Once again, for people who may have missed it - from the original post .....

But for the first time the group asserted with near certainty — more than 90 percent confidence — that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases from human activities were the main drivers of warming since 1950.

Is that every scientist in the world? No. It's the collective view of the scientists involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body responsible for this report.

Frankly, I don't understand why people resist so strongly the notion - backed now by even more evidence - that (1) global warming exists, and (2) human activity is responsible for most of it. I don't see what good is derived by saying that scientists, backed by more and more data, are wrong about this.

Will there ever be total agreement within the scientific community about this? No, of course not. But when growing numbers of scientists say the same thing, I'm inclined to believe them.