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Comments 112151 to 112200:

  1. What caused early 20th Century warming?
    "The climate at any one time is affected by several factors..." When I was a kid, I learned that the Earth was just the right distance from the Sun to make it habitable. This was not true. It should have been a little further away to accomodate global warming.
  2. What caused early 20th Century warming?
    "The evidence strongly suggests that current warming is mainly the result of increasing greenhouse gas levels." So its not a proven fact?
  3. What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s?
    JMurphy 20 I need to read the article "properly"? "...some scientists suggested that the current inter-glacial period could rapidly draw to a close, which might result in the Earth plunging into a new ice age" "...some scientists were suggesting we might be facing another ice age" We choose to see what we choose to see. I assume by reading the article properly you mean I can only be in agreement with the author. I am sorry, but this time the cherry tastes delicious.
  4. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    Then Marcus was off also.
  5. How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
    Excessive rainfall requires excessive evaporation - rainfall doesn't occur without sufficient water vapor present. In regards to cloud cover - there appears to be a slight inverse relationship to temperature over the last 60 years (sorry, can't currently locate where that was discussed on skepticalscience), but all of the analysis I've seen on it indicates that cloud cover feedback (negative or positive) is fairly minor.
  6. Eric (skeptic) at 04:01 AM on 21 August 2010
    How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
    I witnessed a mechanism that locally reduced RH as the temperature rose today and my weather forecast tonight is for RH to be lower than last night. Repeat that globally and there's the global mechanism. No doubt that my mechanism could work the other way or it could keep global RH constant. But the only way to prove that it stays constant is to show that weather doesn't change in a warming world. But there are threads here claiming that climate extremes such as excessive rainfall have increased globally. That's certainly one way to reduce RH globally if it is true.
  7. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    Gee, thanks for deleting a post I worked on for about 30 minutes. I guess the answer was a bit too convincing. See you all in another life. it's clear that censorship of good rebuttal exists here.
    Moderator Response: It was far off topic. See my Moderator comment on your comment after that one. Maybe John will restore the one I deleted.
  8. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    theendisfar, Regarding "...an undereducated public is not the first people that need to be convinced." Most of us reading this live in democracies. Most democratically elected leaders will not do what their voters don't want them to do. So, undereducated or not, the public has to be convinced before action will be taken. Maybe they aren't the first people who need to be convinced, but most scientists have been convinced for decades and we can see how far that has gotten us.
  9. What caused early 20th Century warming?
    TOP at 02:02 AM on 21 August, 2010 I agree with every word you write in your first para. If at the end you added the line, "And now humans are upsetting the balance by increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere", it would be perfect!
  10. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    This is an active place. I really like it.
    Moderator Response: I'm glad. But one of its attributes that makes it a good site is the focus of each of its posts and the comments specifically on those posts. Please use the Search field at the top left of the page, or browse the list of Arguments, to find appropriate threads for your comments. Split your comments by topic, into the appropriate threads. Also, read the post and preferably the comments before writing your comment. If we all (including you) keep the comments on topic, they will be informative.
  11. Berényi Péter at 03:21 AM on 21 August 2010
    The Past and Future of the Greenland Ice Sheet
    #49 KR at 02:15 AM on 21 August, 2010 the Holocene peak roughly matched 2004 temperatures Much could be said about the holocene temperature reconstruction promoted on Wikipedia, but anyway, we are not talking about global temperatures here, but polar ones. 7500 years ago annual average insolation was 5 W/m2 higher inside 80N than it is today (at the eqator it was 1 W/m2 lower). You can check it here. Even if we accept estimated pre-industrial CO2 levels and the 3.7 W/m2 forcing for doubling of CO2, it is only 1.7 W/m2 up to now, far less than early holocene arctic forcing. Relax, the Greenland ice sheet is not in immediate danger.
  12. How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
    Eric - if global temperatures rise, and relative humidity remains constant, the total amount of water in the atmosphere will rise, as the peak absolute humidity, the amount of water the air can hold (driven by the vapor pressure of water at atmospheric pressure and temperature) rises. The relative humidity is the percentage of possible absolute humidity at stated conditions. So - unless you know of some mechanism that will globally reduce relative humidity as temperature rises, the total WV (kg water/kg air) will rise in lockstep with temperature.
  13. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    JMurphy, Interesting reads, thank you. Correction, Evolution in the much more detailed sense that Darwin postulated was not available to Newton et al. It seems that along with concrete, evolution in it's simple postulations was also lost during the Middle Ages, to the West that is. Great credit should go to Darwin for having so little to work from. The general public then and now are not evolutionists and again I would argue that an undereducated public is not the first people that need to be convinced. In essence they are nothing more than a fan club. A person who believes in Calculus is only as useful as their ability to use it. Just because you become a 'fan' of the Calculus Facebook page has no bearing on whether it works or not.
  14. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    Consensus is a curious thing. In science, a 90-95% consensus is pretty strong, indicating that there are few loose ends or strong alternative theories/hypotheses. However, in the public domain a tiny percentage of disagreement can be hyped, paraded, and presented to the public as a 'valid alternative', irregardless of the strengths of their arguments. Hyping 'uncertainty' and presenting isolated views as mainstream alternatives are a standard industry tactic of the last 40 years - including the dangers of smoking, of second hand smoke, acid rain, DDT, holes in the ozone layer, the value of the Strategic Defense Initiative, and now climate warming. Many of the same people have been and are involved in all of these anti-scientific campaigns. I'm rather deeply familiar with these tactics - my brother was an apologist/denier for a major tobacco company, arguing uncertainty in the face of second hand smoke dangers. He gave me a copy of "Thank You For Smoking", stating "This is my job - I am this man". But back to science, rather than financially driven white-washing: If 97% (+/- ~3% based on the given sampling statistics) of experts in the field agree that AGW is occurring, while 0.3% of non-experts (no sampling statistics or sampling criteria presented) disagree, well, I'm going to go with the expert opinion.
  15. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    theendisfar wrote : "Evolution had not been postulated prior to Newton. Had Darwin come before them I believe they would have agreed with him if they took an interest." Like the myths about Galileo and flat-earthism (and, indeed, the Oregon Petition), that is not true : Contrary to many assumptions, evolutionary theory did not begin in 1859 with Charles Darwin and The Origin of Species. Rather, evolution-like ideas had existed since the times of the Greeks, and had been in and out of favor in the periods between ancient Greece and Victorian England. Indeed, by Darwin's time the idea of evolution - called "descent with modification" - was not especially controversial, and several other evolutionary theories had already been proposed. Darwin may stand at the beginning of a modern tradition, but he is also the final culmination of an ancient speculation. ThinkQuest History of evolutionary thought Perhaps you shouldn't be getting so much of your information from those so-called skeptical sites.
  16. Eric (skeptic) at 02:48 AM on 21 August 2010
    How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
    CBDunkerson, warming from WV forcing depends on the amount of WV (in general, but see below). WV feedback from other warming depends on the amount of that other warming. Hopefully we agree on those two things. Where I disagree is that "as global temperature increases the global total amount of water vapor does as well". You are trying to make a global case for a local effect which is not necessarily true and will become false at some level of warming. My question from the beginning of the thread is "what is the physical process that limits the feedback when WV increases warming and warming increases WV". I stated it poorly as "when does positive feedback stop". The actual question is when does weather start to limit the positive feedback from WV. It already does in the tropics (in fact increasing warmth has negative WV feedback). It does not seem to be limited outside the tropics, so there is positive feedback there (except where there is no available water). So how is that feedback limited? When will we start to reach the limits (i.e. will we reach them soon or will it warm a lot more first)? The most basic error in your statement is that the distribution of water vapor (caused by weather) determines the amount of warming from water vapor, not the "total amount of water vapor". This is easy to prove. Suppose all the water vapor in the world was moved to one hemisphere (case 1). Suppose that amount was doubled. Now do the same doubling without first moving the water vapor (case 2). In both cases the "total amount of water vapor" went from X to 2X. But in case 1 the world would not warm with the doubling, and probably cool because of large increases in precipitation in an overall wet world. In case 2, the world would warm by some amount certainly greater than any warming in case 1.
  17. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    doug_bostrom, "Is it surprising that scientists should respond to a PR campaign in a scientific way?" Yes and no. Yes, if only repeatable methods and conclusions is the mission of the exercise. No, if the motivation of the scientist is anything otherwise. Science is meant to make consensus moot. Scientific Consensus in a strict definition is an oxymoron. "If the fossil fuel industry mounts a concerted effort to confuse the public, what would you suggest as a better way of trying to untangle the mess made by public relations firms?" I don't have any doubt that the public is easy to confuse, however I would offer that a convention similar to the ones held on a Static vs. Inflationary Universe in the mid 20th Century would a good starting point. We must recall that that debate was just as heated as the AGW debate today. Egos very often come with intelligence, but again repeatable methods and conclusions is the sure fire way to get around both egos and consensus/opinion. If you want to sway the public, sway the skeptical scientists first. Prior to the Static vs. Inflationary debate, the public only had trust to rely on, and most believed in Static along with most scientists. It was not up to the Static's to disprove the Inflationaries, but rather for the Inflationaries to prove Inflation. Afterwards, they had proof and very few scientists did not switch sides. Of course the cause is now under debate. "Do a little work, learn some history. Why not?" :) Back-atcha.
  18. What caused early 20th Century warming?
    Anne-Marie, I too think the wording that cbrock highlights is open to mis-interpretation. How about "and are now dominating climatic changes" ? I have to say that the following sentence is somewhat awkward, with the word "factors" appearing too many times. My (slightly longer) wording would be "This is why climate scientists have spent so much effort in discovering all the factors that affect our climate as well as evaluating which of these are dominant at any given time."
  19. The Past and Future of the Greenland Ice Sheet
    Yes, temps were warm in the Holocene. But much warmer in the edges of the Tarantian, with temperatures then close to where ours are heading now. I read the paper you referenced, Berényi, and that bowhead skeleton does appear to be out of the current range - my apologies. I would guess that it's presence there would be due to both the Holocene warming (long term, allowing Arctic melt to come to equilibrium) and much larger range of the bowhead prior to large scale human whale hunting; that's apparently shrunk their range considerably. Looking at some Holocene temperature data: it appears (black trace is the average reconstruction) that the Holocene peak roughly matched 2004 temperatures. Other references I've run across indicate that if temps rise another 1°C, it'll be the hottest it's been in the last 1.35 million years.
  20. Anne-Marie Blackburn at 02:14 AM on 21 August 2010
    What caused early 20th Century warming?
    cbrock, thanks for the input. The point of these plain English posts is to keep things as simple as possible. More information is available in the intermediate blogs for those who want to take it further. If I think about who the target audience is, I have to agree with The Ville in that I don't think that 'perturbing the climate equilibrium' would automatically be clear to them. TOP, this is not strictly correct. The sun is ultimately where the energy comes from and can indeed affect the climate. However, other factors also have an impact on climate and global temperatures and there is strong evidence that the sun is unlikely to be driving recent changes.
  21. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    Rick G, Evolution had not been postulated prior to Newton. Had Darwin come before them I believe they would have agreed with him if they took an interest. I would add that the validity of lists based upon opinion is a two way street. I truly find it surprising that any scientist would be satisfied with consensus, especially with the tools that are available today. With that, I agree that 32,000 signatures means bunk along with Scientific Consensus. A good question is how can we prove or falsify AGW?
  22. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    Theendisfar, if you do a little research you'll discover that casting the impression that a plurality or truly significant number of climate researchers are not convinced by the evidence we're warming planet has been a strategy of public relations people working for industry for nearly a couple of decades. This is actually nothing new, the same thing happened with CFCs, tobacco, tetraethyl lead and a number of other pollutants we've had to deal with over the past 100 years. It's all well-documented, not even slightly controversial. Long before folks like Doran and Schneider began producing any publications treating consensus, industry public relations campaigns included loud and repeated messages to the effect that no scientific consensus existed w/regard to AGW. As part of these efforts, public relations firms have cast a wide net in their effort to convey an air of authority, including creating such vehicles as "The Oregon Petition." Is it surprising that scientists should respond to a PR campaign in a scientific way? If the fossil fuel industry mounts a concerted effort to confuse the public, what would you suggest as a better way of trying to untangle the mess made by public relations firms? Do a little work, learn some history. Why not?
  23. What caused early 20th Century warming?
    The sun is responsible for all warming. The atmosphere, oceans, land and vegetation are responsible for controlling the balance of UV and visible in vs IR out. Those items form a system that somehow keeps a balance in place. For thousands of years that system has been able to maintain a balance within some tolerance that allows life on the planet to flourish, albeit, with some setbacks. The climate is always changing. At one time the climate allowed humans to cross the Bering straits on dry land or pretty close to it. I agree with The Ville, the word perturb might be better.
  24. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    One must wonder the validity of such lists. I've seen lists of evolution dissenters that include Newton, Galileo, and Copernicus, etc.
  25. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    Chris G, "I think you'll find that most climate scientists don't care what the consensus is." Then why is it touted so often by scientists? Mr. Cook saw fit to bring it up again, and Everett Rowdy seems to find some usefulness in opposing the Skeptic's Consensus. "What, there wasn't convection before we starting adding more CO2 to the biosphere?" The argument is that Convection + Evaporation are so much more influential on the temperatures within the Troposphere (convection is very relevant far above the biosphere), that a small amount of trapped radiation, ~2 Watts versus ~1 Watt for CO2, is negligible. An increase in surface temps automatically induces a higher rate of convection. "All the forces in play now have existed for longer than we care about." I would argue that the forces in play 'all' need to be well represented in any theory. Current IPCC models have convection and evaporation accounting for only ~10% of the cooling of the surface. The atmosphere cools rapidly with altitude and trapped radiation has little explanation for this. Why this occurs will certainly lead to a better understanding of the observations for all. Convection and Evaporation are obvious candidates for this phenomenon and current understanding of the two support a rapidly cooling atmosphere with increasing altitude. Mirages are very good examples of this. "What we are doing changes the balancing point of the forces." With land use changes, UHI, and the like, I must agree, but with regards to adding CO2, I see no evidence when taking into account our knowledge of how efficient convection is. Would you say it would be worthwhile to discover/discuss the differences between convection and radiation cooling within our atmosphere, especially over altitude (distance)?
    Moderator Response: Please make an effort to stay on topic. If you want to discuss the role of convection in transporting heat through the atmosphere or other physical sciences topics, use the search box at upper left and find an appropriate subject.
  26. Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
    The whole point was to refute the length of the lunar day as being an issue to explain that the Moons surface temperature saturates quickly. I should have looked for this before... http://www.gps.caltech.edu/classes/ge151/references/vasavada_et_al_1999.pdf Figure 2 in this report is a plot of a computer model of the Moons surface temperature which maxs out after five hours only. Case rested.
  27. What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s?
    RSVP wrote : "Even the current article explains that thirty years ago, the science indicated we were possibly heading to an ice age. Yet regardless of all this information, you perceive me as being insidious because I question AGW. As you say, "Wow!"" No, you need to read the article properly, especially sentences like this : At the same time as some scientists were suggesting we might be facing another ice age, a greater number published contradicting studies. (My emphasis)
  28. What caused early 20th Century warming?
    cbrock: Maybe it's better to say they are perturbing the climate equilibrium? How many people know what perturb means? They might just understand equilibrium.
  29. What caused early 20th Century warming?
    Nice, brief post. You might want to reword "greenhouse gas concentrations. . . are now dominating the climate system." Maybe it's better to say they are perturbing the climate equilibrium?
  30. What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s?
    Marcus, 12, 16 Having consciously taken steps to reduce your carbon footprint, does this not reflect ideological posturing? In my own case, I'm just trying to survive as best as I can. My only ideology with respect to the possibility of global warming has been to preserve my own personal sense of objectivity. I have conceded more than once that GHG can affect climate, however this is different from saying that CO2 is causing global warming. You know very well for instance that energy cannot be created or destroyed. You also know that two thirds of the surface of the Earth is covered with water, and that the Earths atmposphere is proportionally thin as the skin of an apple. You know that the extra CO2 man has produced constitutes only 100 ppm above natures 250 ppm. You explain yourself that a GHG problem has been accumulating for the last 100 years, yet you also know that temperature signals are buried in the noise of global statistics. Even the current article explains that thirty years ago, the science indicated we were possibly heading to an ice age. Yet regardless of all this information, you perceive me as being insidious because I question AGW. As you say, "Wow!"
  31. Can't We At Least Agree That There Is No Consensus?
    And more from Poptech : Pielke Jr. does not need "telling" anything as that is simply his opinion even though it is irrelevant, His opinion is 'irrelevant', especially when it comes to his views about his own papers, right ? Lucky you know the 'truth', eh ? Keep 'em coming - I'll help you to discover more about yourself but you may not like what you see.
  32. Can't We At Least Agree That There Is No Consensus?
    More incredible quotes from Poptech : ...it is explaining to them the criteria for their papers being included... Ah yes, the Poptech method of 'explaining' it to the authors how he knows better than they about their own papers. Lovely. Since I created the list, I know why I included them... Of course you do. Shame no-one else does, especially some of the original authors. Never mind, eh, you know why and that's all that matters. There is nothing in my mind... No comment needed. Pielke Jr. explicitly stated that "Assuming that these are Hypothesis 1 type...", which is wrong... Of course Pielke was wrong...because you are right, right ? Harold Brooks again had the same misconception as Pielke Jr... Of course he did, because you were right again, right ? ...his papers support skeptic's arguments against the negative environmental or economic effects of AGW. After this was explained to Brooks... Ah, again - Brooks had to have his own paper explained to him. Good of you to do so. I have never been pulled up on anything and have bullied no one. As long as you believe that, that's all that matters. There was no mistake made in the link you have provided. Of course not, because you don't make mistakes, do you ? I admire your self-important, self-awareness of your own infallibility. My comment is accurate and I stand by it. Of course you do, because you are never wrong and never make mistakes, do you ? Understood. No one has gotten the better of me. Keep repeating that to yourself and things look better, don't they ? I have yet to spam anything... Unfortunately, anyone at all interested in all this can see all the links where you constantly spam the same nonsense, going round and round until everyone else gets dizzy and you proclaim victory. How nice it would be to live in Poptech world. That consensus is still proceeding without you. Have you noticed yet ?
  33. Berényi Péter at 01:05 AM on 21 August 2010
    The Past and Future of the Greenland Ice Sheet
    #47 Dappledwater at 23:47 PM on 20 August, 2010 Doesn't your whale skull match what is known? It does. However, people here are denying both air and sea surface temperatures were considerably warmer in the Arctic during the Holocene Climatic Optimum than they are today just to make the present feeble warming unprecedented and alarming. Their concern being if Greenland has failed to melt down to the bedrock during those millennia, it would hardly do it now. Truth may be tardy, but in the long run it prevails over communication.
  34. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    theendisfar, I think the correct answer to your question: "How many scientists does it take to change a consensus?" is 1. All it would take would be one scientist whose understanding of the climate mechanics was so much better than the others that he/she would be able to put together an argument that none of the others could refute. That hasn't happened yet over the course of about 100 years. In fact, it has happened the other way more and more. The idea that humans could affect the climate of the planet was once very much not a mainstream idea amongst scientists. That was about 100 years ago. More and more researchers have become convinced over the years.
  35. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    Improving the analogy. Let's say the homeowner added in some of the wiring himself. Let's say it was an electrician who first said that what he had done was potentially dangerous. Let's say that the 97 said that it was much more likely than not that the new work would cause a fire. Let's say that none of the 100 would be the ones to do the repair work. This might be a point of contention; so, I'll say that I really don't know how much stock in alternative energy companies the typical climate scientist owns.
  36. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    theendisfar, I think you'll find that most climate scientists don't care what the consensus is. It's mostly people who can't do the research for themselves who care what the consensus is of those that can. What, there wasn't convection before we starting adding more CO2 to the biosphere? All the forces in play now have existed for longer than we care about. What we are doing changes the balancing point of the forces.
  37. NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
    Argus, you seem keen to lessen the impact of the recent rain on Pakistan for some reason. Is it, perhaps, their own fault for living too close to a river; or are there too many of them ? Whatever your reasons, and with regard to your list, perhaps you should try to differentiate between those countries which are more used to receiving a lot of rain (e.g. Cherrapunji, which is one of the wettest places on earth; the Choco Department in Columbian, where Lloro is, which is one of the wettest and most humid places on earth; Guadeloupe and Reunion, which annually receive 178cm and 154cm rain per year respectively - as compared to the UK, which we all consider to be a wet country and which receives an average of 59cm); and those countries like Pakistan (49cm per year, even with the monsoon) which aren't so used to these amounts in such a short space of time. (All these can be checked on Climate Temp) Perhaps Pakistan's total of 30cm in 36 hours IS quite unusual after all, eh ?
  38. How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
    Eric, your arguments contain so many false assumptions that I can't even follow what you are trying to say half the time. To start with... water vapor feedback definitely DOES depend on the amount. It is just like any other 'greenhouse gas'. The greater the quantity in the atmosphere, the more it will act to prevent heat escape to space and warm the climate. No, atmospheric water vapor is not maintained at a constant level worldwide... but as global temperature increases the global total amount of water vapor does as well. Higher total water vapor = greater greenhouse warming. BTW, you also said that 'clouds dominate albedo'... most studies show that to be the case SO FAR. However, there has been very little change in albedo due to ice melt to date. Only a tiny percentage of the planet's surface which had ice now does not. As time goes by and the large areas of ice on Greenland, Antarctica, the Arctic ocean, et cetera disappear the albedo effects of ice loss will become much greater. Clouds also trap heat in the same way that greenhouse gases do... creating a great deal of debate over whether their NET feedback effect is positive or negative. What we CAN say with a fair degree of confidence is that the net effect is SMALL.
  39. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    Argus et al, Your arguments are roughly analogous to someone discovering that that the electricity in their house is acting unusually, and it happens that 100 electricians to take a look at it. Ninety-seven of them report that there is a problem with the wiring that has reasonable potential of starting a fire at some point. Being able to prove that there will be a fire and what the damages from that fire would be has little to do with whether or not it's a good idea to fix the wiring.
  40. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    How many scientists does it take to change a consensus? What an odd question for a scientist to ask. A consensus is nothing more than a majority of opinions. I guess the proper answer is ZERO. Scientific consensus is a scientific opinion. Theories do not deliver opinions, they either deliver a result or they do not. So if you are saying that AGW because of CO2 is a hard fact, then please provide some evidence that can be repeated by a neutral skeptic. Perhaps now is a good time to create a post on 'Convection and Evaporation cooling versus Radiation cooling within the Troposphere'? If it can be shown that Radiation delivers more energy to the Tropopause than Convection, then AGW because of CO2 is the only explanation for the increase in temps the Earth has experienced since the end of the Little Ice Age. This of course creates new questions regarding energy transfer, but science should be able to sort that out, correct? This all reminds of the Clinton scandal when he was trying to hide his indiscretions with Lewinsky using legal arguments when all it took was a blue dress to make the relationship clear. Everyone has an opinion, where is AGW's 'Blue Dress'?
  41. How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
    Cruzn246 #25: "OK if CO2 is such a strong positive feedback, as claimed, how does the earth dramatically cool when it is about 250?" At present CO2 is a human induced climate driver rather than any sort of significant feedback. In order for CO2 to become a major feedback effect you'd need to see something like extreme heat causing massive wildfires without resulting increased plant growth elsewhere... or rising temperatures causing the oceans to expel excess carbon... in short, heat causing a rise in CO2 which causes more rise in heat. I suppose it could be argued that we have something like that now with extra fossil fuels being burned to run air conditioners more due to increased temperatures... but for the most part the increase in CO2 is due to human industry in general rather than being a feedback effect as you describe. As to how the earth cools when CO2 decreases... that seems so obvious that the mere existence of the question indicates some sort of profound misunderstanding of the situation. CO2 and other greenhouse gases 'trap' heat within the climate system. If the quantity goes down less heat is trapped and it gets colder.
  42. The Strange Case of Albert Gore, Inconvenient Truths and a Man in a Powdered Wig
    TOP @14 The judge seems to be saying that the film is being used for political purposes. There have been other politicians that have used science and technology for political ends. Political uses of science such as Gore is doing tend to create a situation where science can be codified into law. This is against science. No, the judge was saying the film was encouraging a particular political agenda, driven by the scientific evidence presented. This is not codifying science into law, but using scientific findings to help drive policy. I wonder what you would have drive public policy ?
  43. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    There is a lot of fuzzy language so far in this post, two examples: - 'many lines of empirical evidence' - is not the same as scientific proof. - saying that the consequences 'could' be catastrophic - is not the same as saying that they 'will' be catastrophic .
  44. gallopingcamel at 23:54 PM on 20 August 2010
    What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s?
    Marcus (#17), Humanity's efforts to change the planet are pretty feeble compared to what has already been achieved by other life forms. For example, have you ever wondered where the oxygen we breathe came from? Do a little studying and perhaps you will see humanity in a new perspective.
    Moderator Response: This thread has drifted ("lunged," actually) off topic. Everybody please check against the thread topic before you post, and if appropriate go look through the Arguments list on the left side of the page to find a more relevant thread.
  45. The Past and Future of the Greenland Ice Sheet
    BP, doesn't 7500 years ago put it smack dab in the middle of the Holocene Optimum, when Arctic temperatures were much warmer than now?. Doesn't your whale skull match what is known?.
  46. Eric (skeptic) at 23:45 PM on 20 August 2010
    How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
    Dappledwater, thanks for link to the other thread. The discussion was all gummed up unfortunately by long tangents into anthropogenic water vapor forcing (in a word: negligible). Feedback works locally on the entire quantity. The climate in any location cannot possibly know or care that the CO2 caused a small amount of global warming, it simply reacts to whatever local warming or cooling is caused by whatever anthropogenic and natural factors are in that location. CO2 warming is almost always going to be the least of those factors. Where it is not (e.g. hot and cold deserts), the feedback will probably be positive (added WV) but limited by lack of water and those being a small portion of the earth.
  47. The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
    cruzn246, have you looked at the link given to you, to do with empirical evidence ? When you have, try these too : 10 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change 10 Key Climate Indicators point to same finding - Global Warming is unmistakable Then, come back and detail your arguments against. In the meanwhile, from your Oregon Petition link, in what way do you think that Figure 1 (showing Sea Surface temperatures in the Sargasso Sea) argues against anthropogenic global warming ? How did they get their 2005 figure, since the study referred to only went up to 1975 ? How does that Figure 1 prove "George Washington and his army were at Valley Forge during the coldest era in 1,500 years", as they state ? Why does the link to the data behind that Figure 1 not work ?
  48. Berényi Péter at 23:26 PM on 20 August 2010
    The Past and Future of the Greenland Ice Sheet
    #45 KR at 13:32 PM on 20 August, 2010 a bowhead whale skull as evidence for a warmer Arctic is both meaningless and misleading - they like it cold, and live in the Arctic year round According to NOAA Fisheries Office of Protected Resources this is where they live: The site of the skeleton is 500 km away from the present day margin of their habitat, only accessible through heavily ice laden narrow channels. They do like it cold, but being mammals they also need breathing. They can break through 20 cm thick ice with their heads, but not thicker.
  49. How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
    Eric, you seem to have a rather confused understanding of climate, such as your claims regarding water vapor
  50. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Effects of Climate Change
    batsvensson The malaria parasite needs a bare seven days to develop in a mosquito. If mosquitoes live a shorter life then you can bet yout biology textbooks that evolution will find a way to get the cycle a bit shorter. Whether it's the parasite itself or the mosquito or both, one way or another it'll happen.

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