Uh oh another one jumps ship

[Tassie_Rohan]

I think that the biggest problem with the climate change debate is that it long ago left the realms of science, went into the public area and since then its become a political issue with no one bothering to refer to the original data and models other than to selectively reference it if one or two points supports their belief. Now for every person with their head in the sand stating its not occurring we have an alarmists who blames just about everything on GW. Both sides in the popular arena have made sensible and absurd claims.

So far in this thread on the on the GW side:

We have had four scientists post on this thread. All have said that they believe the wide range of data collected shows that the world is warming, and that the simplest answer and best models for the rate of warming involves, at the very least, a significant man-made component. There are no non-human factors that can explain this spike in temperatures. I would say this stance is characteristic of great majority of scientists.

On the anti-gw warming side we have so far had:

I don’t like Al gore
No ones telling me what car I should drive
A scientist swapped sides because the alarmism of some GW popularisers
There are anti-GW popularisers out there.
China is doing nothing (wrong), so why don’t we do nothing.
GW is an invention of people who hate oil companies or have interests in alternative energy.
Scientists, doctors and surgeons in the past have make mistakes, therefore GW is a mistake.
Its a ploy to make climate scientists rich
Its a fad that will go way with time
Its a plot to cut the US down to size.
GW is invented by a few obscure climate nerds (so wrong)
The data for GW is always ‘maybe’ and not solid facts (hard to get in science) - therefore it can be ignored until completely 100% proven.
A few degrees change in temperatures won’t do any harm so lets sit back and wait.
Air temperatures measured in cities can be affected by the local environment, therefore all climate data is bogus.
Because we are not 100% certain of the future climate we should not make significant changes until we are 100% sure.
There’s a few climatologists that disagree with GW, some climate models, the projected rate of GW or with the alarmism of the current popular debate.
Our world will collapse if we have to do anything about carbon emissions – the cost of solutions far outweighs any risk.
There is some sort of scientific conspiracy out there that is suppressing research into GW that may counter the existing models
GW people are zealots who fear the truth.
Climate is too complex to model.


Yet no real discussion of the data.

 

[Kim]

We have had four scientists post on this thread. All have said that they believe the wide range of data collected shows that the world is warming, and that the simplest answer and best models for the rate of warming involves, at the very least, a significant man-made component.

Yeah......but that's just because they're all frightened someone's gonna cut off their money!!!!!
(I'm not sure if this crowd is interested in scientists....unless they say what these guys want to hear! )

 

[BTravlin]

In the news today:

China has told an international meeting that it has no intentions of capping carbon emissions at all, saying that it needs unfettered carbon output to fight poverty. The news story also said that China is about to overtake the US as leading annual producer of so-called greenhouse gases. Moreover, the International Energy Agency has calculated that China alone was responsible for 58% of the world's total carbon dioxide output for the period 2000-2006. Take that, America haters.

As I said, this is a dead topic. If the country responsible for almost 60% of the globe's carbon emissions refuses to change its policies, then we can drive our hybrids and screw in all the little squiggley light bulbs we want. If carbon dioxide is a problem, then we are doomed. Unless, of course, we want to go to war with China, too.

This will all be moot, however, if Iran gets the bomb. Then the planet's temperature in the year 2020 will be approximately 10,000 degrees C warmer than now. Give or take a degree.

We exploited our resources and polluted our way to the top of the heap and now use the riches to clean up our act. We're converting America from a manufacturer of goods to the creator of ideas and technologies. What industries we can't clean up cheaply, we export to other countries with low labor costs and lax pollution controls. Now we're going to tell these developing countries they can't exploit their natural resources and get rich like we did? No, that's not setting well with China and others.

It has also been asked who is responsible for China's pollution? The Chinese manufacturers themselves? Or the American company that moved production from the U.S. to China? Or the consumer in Australia or Europe or Canada or the U.S. who buys the product made in China? Tricky problem trying to determine who is responsible and who must make what cuts.

 

[Dustinh]

I don't post often but this is a wonderful point. I don't think scientists and the media go back to the source of data often enough in this day an age. This brings me back to GW, do a search on some of the locations of the data points in the US for temerature readings. You may be surprised just how many are compromised by things like AC exhast, jet exhast, and black top radiation.

Just something to think about.

Actually, surprisingly few data sets are compromised. If you collect data from a place like an airport, it's usually done on purpose for comparison, etc.

I think there's a very important misunderstanding about science. Forgive me if this has actually been posted already, there's 16 pages on this thread so far, and I've tried to catch up, but I may have missed a few.

ALL published scientific papers are PEER REVIEWED. That means that a year or more BEFORE it's ever published, scientists look at your data, and your paper and make comments. These reviewers are within your field, but are anonymous. They make comments, you re-write, it gets sent back out. If they approve, then one or two editors at the journal read the paper, make more comments,and finally, if it is deemed that your paper moved science forward, and has sound data and conclusions, it gets published.

This is a very short version of the process, but I mention it to help clarify that science does not

a) just come out of the blue
b) get published no matter what

How many people here have actually read a scientific paper? A real, honest to goodness published paper in a peer reviewed journal? I wish I could post attachments, I'd post one here for everyone to read. You'd see that almost every other line in a paper cites some other paper as supporting material. And you'd see an average of about 50 sources cited per 10-12 page paper (at least in marine biogeochemistry, it could be a lot more in other sciences).

Of course you have to go back to the source of the data! Maybe there's a lot of lazy journalists out there (before I went back to school to finish my PhD, I worked in journalism for MANY years, I know the industry VERY well. I worked the scientific beat a lot of times too), and probably a lot of lazy scientists too, but what's come before you is what you build on.

 

[Tassie_Rohan]

We exploited our resources and polluted our way to the top of the heap and now use the riches to clean up our act. We're converting America from a manufacturer of goods to the creator of ideas and technologies. What industries we can't clean up cheaply, we export to other countries with low labor costs and lax pollution controls. Now we're going to tell these developing countries they can't exploit their natural resources and get rich like we did? No, that's not setting well with China and others.

It has also been asked who is responsible for China's pollution? The Chinese manufacturers themselves? Or the American company that moved production from the U.S. to China? Or the consumer in Australia or Europe or Canada or the U.S. who buys the product made in China? Tricky problem trying to determine who is responsible and who must make what cuts.

Good points BT.

One thing I'm very tired of hearing in the west is the constant sinophobia and bashing of china.

Chinese leaders aren’t stupid . They are aware that the current rate of growth is economically and environmentally unsustainable. They are pumping huge amounts of money into green technology and sustainable energy. Walk into any research centre in the west that is working on clean coal technology and its likely they have received a great deal of attention, and indeed funding, from Chinese groups. Hell – who’s the richest guy in china? Its Shi Zhengrong. What does he do: build dirty power stations? Make dangerous toys? Pollute the earth? Nope – his company is the largest manufacturer of solar panels in the world. Yes they have a long way to go to clean up from their period of rapid industrialisation – but having spent a lot of time in china in recent years I’m sure they are making the transition a lot faster then many western countries did.

Cheers,
Rohan.

 

[Kim]

In the news today:

China has told an international meeting that it has no intentions of capping carbon emissions at all, saying that it needs unfettered carbon output to fight poverty. The news story also said that China is about to overtake the US as leading annual producer of so-called greenhouse gases. Moreover, the International Energy Agency has calculated that China alone was responsible for 58% of the world's total carbon dioxide output for the period 2000-2006. Take that, America haters.

As I said, this is a dead topic. If the country responsible for almost 60% of the globe's carbon emissions refuses to change its policies, then we can drive our hybrids and screw in all the little squiggley light bulbs we want. If carbon dioxide is a problem, then we are doomed. Unless, of course, we want to go to war with China, too.

This will all be moot, however, if Iran gets the bomb. Then the planet's temperature in the year 2020 will be approximately 10,000 degrees C warmer than now. Give or take a degree.

That's playing fast and loose with the truth isn't it?
China 'will agree to cut its carbon emissions' - Independent Online Edition > Asia

They're prepared to do a deal if the US does.

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

That's playing fast and loose with the truth isn't it?
China 'will agree to cut its carbon emissions' - Independent Online Edition > Asia

They're prepared to do a deal if the US does.

Did you even read this article? China has not offered any plan to reduce emissions and only said it will do so "eventually". Wow. The bottom line is they are not going to do it.

Let's talk about the data---

read the UN summary report for policy makers, from the Nobel Prize winners themselves. Remember, even if we agree to all your premises (anthropogenic GW is a current "fact") and try to extrapolate using models:

1) the authors admit they have no understanding of how to project what carbon feedback loops, changes in cloud cover or ice sheet flows will do to their model projections because "data is lacking" in these regards. I am no atmospheric scientist, but these flaws seem pretty significant to me.

2) in the next hundred years, the average global temp rise and sea level rise is projected to be as low as 1.8 degrees C and .2 meters, or as high as 4 degrees and 0.59 meters. Virtually no change is said to be unlikely, but still possible.

Thus, the worst case scenario, at least for sealevel, is projected to be 20 inches, the best case scenario is what, six inches.

Is a rise in temp of a few degrees C and a third of a meter in sea level change in a century that devastating to us?

And isn't any of the GW advocates willing to admit that having "no data" about carbon feedback, cloud contributions or ice sheet dynamics a bit unsettling when it comes to making sweeping predictions about what will happen a century from now?

 

[Kim]

Did you even read this article? China has not offered any plan to reduce emissions and only said it will do so "eventually". Wow. The bottom line is they are not going to do it.

Now now....I think you're just reading the bits that suit you!

China, now the world's biggest greenhouse-gas emitter, will eventually agree to cut its soaring carbon dioxide emissions, one of the country's leading environmentalists forecast yesterday – but only on the basis of a deal with the United States and the rest of the developed world.
The Chinese would be very unlikely to set their own unilateral target for reducing CO2, said Professor C S Kiang, the founding dean of the College of Environmental Science at the University of Beijing. But they would join in the next, post-2012 stage of the Kyoto protocol, the international climate change treaty, and seek to reduce their emissions to a definite figure, as long as this was part of a global agreement that involved all countries acting together – including the US – and the transfer to China of modern energy technology, he said.

That absolutely doesn't say they aren't going to do it!

He also said they probably wouldn't be doing any deals with GWB...

He also suggested no agreement would be possible until after next year's US election. President George Bush's withdrawal of the US from Kyoto in 2001, with the abandonment of US climate targets, has been a major stumbling block to developing countries. "But by 2009-10, we might see light at the end of the tunnel," Professor Kiang said.

Now there's a surprise!

They're obviously hoping that by 2009 they might have someone they can have a sensible conversation with.

 

[Warthaug]

Whenever someone snidely refers to people watching Fox News, it is a dead giveaway as to their political persuasion.

LOL. I'm up in Canuckistan, so the whole political thing is a little different up here, but I've never once voted for any of our (many) left-leaning parties. I have alway voted for one of our conservative parties.

Fox news is plain, unadulturated crap. And the things you say sound just like what comes out of that channel.

Think you have me confused with Shakey, I am here for the education and amusement, not presenting data.

But part of education is critical analysis and factual discussion. Data is part of that, as data is simply a scientific term for "facts".

Bryan

 

[Warthaug]

1) the authors admit they have no understanding of how to project what carbon feedback loops, changes in cloud cover or ice sheet flows will do to their model projections because "data is lacking" in these regards. I am no atmospheric scientist, but these flaws seem pretty significant to me.

Please provide a citation for this, as most (all?) of these factors are modeled in recient studies. The effect of changes in carbon sinks and ice cover have been included in nearly all models over the past decade. Clouds have been a problem, but recient studies have found solutions to those complexities:

Acceleration of global warming due to carbon-cycle feedbacks in a coupled climate model : Article : Nature
CARBON CYCLE FEEDBACK EFFECTS ON GLOBAL WARMING
Global warming and climate forcing by recent albedo changes on Mars : Abstract : Nature
Role of Land-Surface Changes in Arctic Summer Warming -- Chapin et al. 310 (5748): 657 -- Science
ScienceDirect - Journal of Hydrology : Evidence for intensification of the global water cycle: Review and synthesis
ScienceDirect - Ecological Modelling : Global warming and human activity: A model for studying the potential instability of the carbon dioxide/temperature feedback mechanism
http://kiwi.atmos.colostate.edu:16080/BUGS/pubs/Cess-book-paper.pdf

2) in the next hundred years, the average global temp rise and sea level rise is projected to be as low as 1.8 degrees C and .2 meters, or as high as 4 degrees and 0.59 meters.

I'm curious where you got those numbers from. The latest IPCC numbers are vastly different, with a predicted sea level change of 110-770mm (0.11 to 0.77m) and temp increases of 1.4-5.8C.

To make things worse, it looks like the IPCC may have been too conservative - with both recient measurements and new data showing a faster-then-expected rise:

Image:The Rising Sea Level.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sea level rise due to global warming - Climate Change

Thus, the worst case scenario, at least for sealevel, is projected to be 20 inches, the best case scenario is what, six inches.

Is a rise in temp of a few degrees C and a third of a meter in sea level change in a century that devastating to us?

Yep. Although the temperature appears small, it represents a huge increase in the amount of energy contained within the earths atmosphere and oceans. The impacts of this energy increase are many - changes in rainfall patterns, wind currents, albedo, plant cover, and so forth. And the models all point towards the same thing - decreasing rainfall in the major farming areas of the earth, increased drought in places like the SW USA, increased flooding in many areas, huge amounts of warming in some places. Worst-case scenarios include things like shutting down the gulf stream.

As for what is at risk, the EPA has done an in-depth assessment for the USA. And it doesn't look good:
EPA : Global Warming : Resource Center : Publications : Sea Level Rise : Maps of Lands Vulnerable to Sea Level Rise
EPA : Global Warming : Resource Center : Publications : Sea Level Rise : Sea Level Rise Reports

And the costs are into the hundreds of billions, even for the best-case scenario:
EPA : Global Warming : Resource Center : Publications : Sea Level Rise : Greenhouse Effect and Sea Level Rise: The Cost of Holding Back the Sea

Now, expand that world-wide.

The maldives submerged, hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of coastline submerged (including parts of several major cities), at a cost of trillions upon trillions of dollars.

And isn't any of the GW advocates willing to admit that having "no data" about carbon feedback, cloud contributions or ice sheet dynamics a bit unsettling when it comes to making sweeping predictions about what will happen a century from now?

Except that such a admission would either be:

a) Over a decade old, or
b) a lie

Bryan