You said this didn’t you ?
…
Above is my reply.

Ok…but that reply doesn’t seem to follow. I don’t attribute any “magical properties” to carbon dioxide. I’m a skeptic about CO2-induced, man-made global warming. I’m generally skeptical of any pronouncements made by climatologists, and this has consistently been the theme of my posts in this thread. The block you quoted was actually one of my more straightforward expressions of that skepticism.

My pointing out that “it is unavoidably, profoundly difficult to determine if man-made carbon dioxide emissions are a meaningful cause of current glimate warming trends” isn’t meant to suggest that only really smart people can accurately evaluate the situation. It’s meant to suggest that even really smart people can’t accurately evaluate the situation.

It is unavoidably, profoundly difficult to determine if man-made carbon dioxide emissions are a meaningful cause of current climate warming trends. There are too many possible intervening factors involved, alternative explanations to be had, counter-examples to be noted, and no way to create either meaningful controls for relevant experiments or even precise predictions to watch out for. As such, anybody who claims certainty–one way or the other–on the issue is engaged in an act of devotion far more akin to religious faith than scientific inquiry.

Blacklake on May 1, 2007 at 12:45 AM

Above is my reply.

Do you REALLY think Al Gore is doing this for the good of mankind ?

Maxx on April 30, 2007 at 7:04 PM

Yeah, one man-kind: Algore. After all, he lost his last gig, and this is as close as he’ll ever get to being a “star”, complete with Oscar. Besides, it takes a fair income to a/c that house of his, what with the global warming and all.

The United States’ leading hurricane forecaster said Friday that global ocean currents … are responsible for global warming

The oceans affect the Earth’s temps? Hmmm, I seem to recall something called El Niño … La Niña … naw. Must have been some fictional movie propaganda.
/sarc off

Maxx on May 1, 2007 at 12:14 PM

Either you called me out in that last post by mistake, or you’ve gotten a bit confused about where I stand on this issue…

Blacklake on May 1, 2007 at 12:45 AM

Romeo13 on May 1, 2007 at 12:54 AM

So… in other words, you have no study that shows carbon dioxide has these magical properties that you claim. I’d remind you that the burden of proof is on you. If you want people to buy carbon offsets and give up their cars and vacations and their lifestyles and hand over the world economy, then you had better get busy and show how carbon dioxide contributes to the warming you claim. But clearly you have nothing.

Carbon dioxide is far less than one percent of the atmosphere and man-made carbon dioxide is far less than that. Surly if carbon dioxide has some property that can overheat the planet, especially when its in such short supply in the air, this property can be demonstrated. But you say no…. you say it all far too complicated and that the little people just can’t understand it. You ask us to simply trust you…. while those who advocate global warming have been caught in one endless and continuous lie. The Polar bears are fine, the ice caps are not melting, the sea is not rising and the weather satellites, the most sophisticated temperature sensors in the world, detect no sign of this abnormal global warming that you claim.

Oh… I remember now, you have to be a scientist to understand…. but Al Gore isn’t a scientist.

Anyone want to buy some credits?

Maxx on April 30, 2007 at 11:47 PM

Problem is that you are not quoting their theory correctly.

The idea behind greenhouse gasses is NOT that they absorb heat, but that reflect the suns energy to a greater, or lesser extent (depending on the gas). You have experimental problems however when you add in a complex moving mass of gas, and cloud vapor (also a greenhouse gas), and have to consider that they not only reflect heat from the sun, but also reflect some heat downward.

Now… seeing as how the earth itself is molten at its core (dig down a couple of feet and you’ll find the dirt doesn’t freeze in most places during winter)…. and the heat sink capacity of the ocean… and you have a hugely complex system… which defies our best attempts at modeling.

Really? Its impossible to figure out if carbon dioxide absorbs heat more readily than nitrogen or oxygen or some combination thereof ?

It’s peculiar how eagerly people want to paint others into corners on this issue. When did I ever say anything was impossible? I’ve described climatology as difficult and a field of study that faces hardships, and called the testing of many climate-related theories nearly impossible. Nowhere have I invoked the specter or hopelessness, and painstakingly so.

That said, I’m sure even you recognize your balloon experiment is absurd. Using that kind of testing methodology, one could spend months mixing warm and cold air masses together in a fishtank, only to conclude such conditions don’t seem to be conducive to tornado formation, as no matter how hard I try I can’t get one to form in the tank. Real weather conditions, let alone real global climatological conditions, just aren’t that simple.

It is unavoidably, profoundly difficult to determine if man-made carbon dioxide emissions are a meaningful cause of current climate warming trends. There are too many possible intervening factors involved, alternative explanations to be had, counter-examples to be noted, and no way to create either meaningful controls for relevant experiments or even precise predictions to watch out for. As such, anybody who claims certainty–one way or the other–on the issue is engaged in an act of devotion far more akin to religious faith than scientific inquiry.

The fact that evidence that human carbon dioxide is warming the planet is weak doesn’t mean that competing theories are strong. All the theories–carbon dioxide, increased solar activity, unforseeable fluxuations in ocean currents, etc.–are hamstrung by the same inherent limitations of the field of research. There are no strong theories, because the nature of the subject matter makes the testing of any plausible theory nearly impossible.

Blacklake on April 30, 2007 at 10:58 PM

Really? Its impossible to figure out if carbon dioxide absorbs heat more readily than nitrogen or oxygen or some combination thereof ?

How about this little experiment. Blow up a party balloon and it will contain mostly carbon dioxide because that’s what people exhale. Blow up another party balloon using a compressor…. it will contain normal air. Put them both out in the sun for an hour and then take there temperature.

If carbon dioxide absorbs heat so much faster than the other gases then your blown up balloon should get much hotter. But it won’t be.

And your blown up balloon will contain a much higher percentage of carbon dioxide than normal air, because it came straight from your lungs. Normal air only contains far less than one percent carbon dioxide.

Is it really so hard to figure this stuff out?

Now, where is your study that shows that carbon dioxide absorbs heat or blocks heat or does anything to heat at all….. faster than normal air ?

Yes – we already knew that La Niña is due in the next few years, as El Niño is almost over. They come and go – if only Mr. Gore would get the message. But what would he make his living from then? Surely, there must be a different kind of shystering for him, and a different lot of ‘lambs’ to fall for his ‘preaching’. He’s got the perfect voice for it.

csdeven on April 30, 2007 at 11:26 PM

That’d be Bryan, not Pinky.

I swear to God, I’m never going to be nice to another person as long as I live.

Bad Candy on April 30, 2007 at 6:18 PM

He’d probaly rather you NOT tell him he has brocolli stuck between his teeth after dinner.

My response would be: No prob.

Please give us some examples of “unsupported claims” made by those who think global warming is fraud.

I’m talking specifically about Dr. Gray saying that warming is due to ocean currents, not about skepticism of global warming. Even I’m skeptical about global warming.

Please give us some examples of “unsupported claims” made by those who think global warming is fraud.

Not to put words in his mouth, but if he had said “unsupportable” or better yet “tenuous” rather than “unsupported,” I’d have to agree. The fact that evidence that human carbon dioxide is warming the planet is weak doesn’t mean that competing theories are strong. All the theories–carbon dioxide, increased solar activity, unforseeable fluxuations in ocean currents, etc.–are hamstrung by the same inherent limitations of the field of research. There are no strong theories, because the nature of the subject matter makes the testing of any plausible theory nearly impossible.

Let’s separate the politics from the science. Just because politicians like Gore twist the most tenuous and extreme predictions into some environmentalist morality fable doesn’t mean we should disregard climatology altogether.

I never suggested anything of the sort. It’s a profoundly difficult subject to study. It’s not a meaningless subject.

There are problems with your analogies between climatology and medicine and astronomy, however.

Medicine is different in an obvious way; There are billions of human beings, as well as untold mammals similar to human beings, upon which to conduct controlled studies with repeatable results. These facts alone make medicine, no matter how difficult, a hard science. This mitigates the problem of complexity.

The astronomy analogy is even less strong. Astronomy is essentially just the study of physics as it affects large bodies. There are definitely disconnects to be found between the physics of very small things and very large things–in fact, reconciling those differences is the big quandry that’s been facing theoretical physics since Einstein. But it’s all still physics, and physics can be tested under controlled conditions. Time and time again, physics has made possible the formulation of precise predictions about yet-to-be-observed astronomical phenomenon (like gravitational lensing), and these predictions have proven to be accurate. The ability to make such precise predictions based on theoretical antecedants clearly illustrates that astronomy, being an extension of physics, is rather much a hard science. This mitigates the problem of scale.

With climatology, not only are problems of both complexity and scale at work, but little or nothing is in play to mitigate either. It’s clearly not pseudo-science; it is meaningful inquiry into the physical world. But as a field of research it faces hardships that the above subjects simply do not.

Perhaps the best parallel to climatology is sociology–another frequently meaningful, but nevertheless “soft,” science.

Nor does it mean we should give credibility to scientists promoting equally unsupported claims because they happen to disagree with Mr. Gore.

RightOFLeft on April 30, 2007 at 9:49 PM

Please give us some examples of “unsupported claims” made by those who think global warming is fraud.

Nostalgia for The Coming Ice Age always hits when the temp tops 80.

I don’t know if this was your intent or not, but you’ve managed to illustrate the problem with the “soft” sciences like climatology rather nicely

The intent of my comment was simply to point out that it’s a little hypocritical to criticize climatologists’ work for being speculative, then quote Dr. Gray’s speculation as some kind of rebuttal. (No disrespect intended to Dr. Gray, who’s a giant in his field as far as I can tell).

Also, I have a couple of thoughts on your comments…

I agree, climatology has 2 serious problems to overcome – complexity and scale. I think the situation is a little less hopeless than you depict, however.

A good comparison in terms of complexity is physiology. The human body is at least as complex as our climate system, and we probably understand a thousandth of what we could understand about physiology. Medical science has still managed to produce compelling results through a painstaking (literally, in some) accumulation of little insights.

A good comparison for scale would be astronomy. Scientists have spent thousands of years coming up with ingeneuous methods to take indirect measurements of the dimensions of our universe. Climatologists are starting to put the same ingenuity to the task of measuring things like global mean temperature.

We’re still a long, long way from a comprehensive understanding of the global climate, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth investigating, and it doesn’t mean that we can’t come to firm conclusions about limited aspects of our climate. One of those aspects that we understand in a limited sense is the relationship between “greenhouse gases” and global mean temperatures.

Let’s separate the politics from the science. Just because politicians like Gore twist the most tenuous and extreme predictions into some environmentalist morality fable doesn’t mean we should disregard climatology altogether. Nor does it mean we should give credibility to scientists promoting equally unsupported claims because they happen to disagree with Mr. Gore.

I know other planets show the trend as well, and I believe the warming comes from the sun and we’ll probably start cooling in a few years as expected.

I’m just curious of Bryan’s thoughts, since (I believe) he said he has experience in this area?

lorien1973 on April 30, 2007 at 6:43 PM

…”Changes in the Earth’s tilt and the shape of its orbit lead to climate cycles of around 1.2 and 2.4 million years. At their extremes both these cycles cause global cooling, expansion of polar ice sheets and changes in rainfall patterns. The extinction peaks coincided with global cooling maxima, while new appearance peaks coincided with periods of stable climate (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature05163).”

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19225735.300-earths-wobble-killed-off-mammal-species.html

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Paleoclimatology_Evidence/

http://geography.about.com/od/learnabouttheearth/a/milankovitch.htm

SEEEE PRRRROOOOFFFFFF!!!! Its all our fault!!!! Repent you Carbon Footyprint SINNERS!!!!