Earth a little more resilient than computer models
posted at 9:10 am on March 23, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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The Australian reports a few inconvenient truths regarding global climate change that have yet to receive much attention from a media sold on global warming. Not only has the Earth cooled since its peak year in 1998, not only are oceans cooler than predicted, but new NASA data shows that the computer models that predicted runaway global warming were based on a fundamental error. Rather than having clouds and water vapor amplifying the warming effect of carbon in the atmosphere, it turns out that they compensate for it (via Memeorandum):
Last Monday - on ABC Radio National, of all places - there was a tipping point of a different kind in the debate on climate change. It was a remarkable interview involving the co-host of Counterpoint, Michael Duffy and Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. Anyone in public life who takes a position on the greenhouse gas hypothesis will ignore it at their peril.
Duffy asked Marohasy: “Is the Earth stillwarming?”
She replied: “No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you’d expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years.”
Duffy: “Is this a matter of any controversy?”
Marohasy: “Actually, no. The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued … This is not what you’d expect, as I said, because if carbon dioxide is driving temperature then you’d expect that, given carbon dioxide levels have been continuing to increase, temperatures should be going up … So (it’s) very unexpected, not something that’s being discussed. It should be being discussed, though, because it’s very significant.” …
Duffy: “Can you tell us about NASA’s Aqua satellite, because I understand some of the data we’re now getting is quite important in our understanding of how climate works?”
Marohasy: “That’s right. The satellite was only launched in 2002 and it enabled the collection of data, not just on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapour. What all the climate models suggest is that, when you’ve got warming from additional carbon dioxide, this will result in increased water vapour, so you’re going to get a positive feedback. That’s what the models have been indicating. What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite … (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they’re actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you’re getting a negative rather than a positive feedback.”
Duffy: “The climate is actually, in one way anyway, more robust than was assumed in the climate models?”
Marohasy: “That’s right … These findings actually aren’t being disputed by the meteorological community. They’re having trouble digesting the findings, they’re acknowledging the findings, they’re acknowledging that the data from NASA’s Aqua satellite is not how the models predict, and I think they’re about to recognise that the models really do need to be overhauled and that when they are overhauled they will probably show greatly reduced future warming projected as a consequence of carbon dioxide.”
Hmm. How many have actually heard that the NASA Aqua satellite returned this kind of data? I searched the New York Times and found nothing since 2006 on Aqua — and that was just an announcement that NASA would launch more satellites to study weather. The Washington Post reported on ice loss in the Arctic just this week, but noted that Aqua shows an ice increase in the Acrtic this winter, but never reported on the other data that throws cold water on global warming.
So far, no one asserts that we have produced less carbon in the atmosphere. Global-warming activists continue to make Chicken Little predictions of catastrophe based on increases in carbon releases, especially from China and India as they modernize and industrialize. If carbon releases resulted in global warming, then the rate of increase should be constant; there definitely should be no decrease, especially given the theoretical amplification of water vapor.
Apparently, though, both assumptions have either proven incorrect or far too simplified to explain the actual impact of carbon on global temperatures. That’s not surprising, especially given the previous global-cooling scare of the 1970s and how baseless that theory turned out to be. What’s surprising is the utter lack of coverage that the new data has received. Why haven’t the same media outlets that relentlessly cover global-warming advocacy reported on the appearance of contradictory data?
Perhaps because global warming is more advocacy than science.
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I’ve been telling people since the ‘environmental’ movement got started years ago…
This planet will take care of herself, with or without us.
bridgetown on March 23, 2008 at 9:14 AM
Scientists will have to find some other crisis that gets government funding & job security.
jgapinoy on March 23, 2008 at 9:15 AM
Don’t tell Al Gore! He’s still trying to polish the rust off his Nobel Peace Prize! He’ll need to buy more offsets for the carbon all that rust remover is using!
Vntnrse on March 23, 2008 at 9:16 AM
Hey, what can we expect? A lot of money and politics rides on keeping people scared of this. Global Warmism is just a secular religion anyway.
AbaddonsReign on March 23, 2008 at 9:18 AM
Bingo
Wade on March 23, 2008 at 9:26 AM
The eco-freaks have turned the earth into just another political tool . . . fortunately, it will be around and thriving long after they are gone.
rplat on March 23, 2008 at 9:28 AM
Now wait just a dog gone minute! We have consensus. You tell those scientists to review their data until it supports our conclusion. Or else!
trubble on March 23, 2008 at 9:31 AM
It’s not surprising. Al Gore told us all that the debate was over. This new information didn’t make the data cut-off date under Al’s debate rules. Just another “inconvenient truth” that we’re not allowed to talk about.
AZCoyote on March 23, 2008 at 9:32 AM
They coulda just listened to this kid a year ago…
http://kmaru.blogspot.com/2007/05/from-mouths-of-babes-climate-analysis.html
surrounded on March 23, 2008 at 9:32 AM
For several years now I’ve said that you can tell you’re old if you can remember when “he homeless” were called bums.
I think it’s time to add: If you can remember when “climate change” was called the weather.
Only thing I didn’t like about this particular article is that even it seemed to accept the climate alarmists’ assertion that there’s some sort of ideal climate that the planet should strive to maintain. There isn’t. If clouds and water vapor have the opposite effect as the alarmists expected–as seems likely; after all, clouds reflect sunlight and with it heat, then they aren’t acting as thermostats, they’re just acting how they naturally act.
But of course all the carbon that’s buried in oil deposits used to be in the atmosphere in any event, so maybe–for all we know–by harvesting it and returning it to gaseous form we’re returning it to its rightful place in the circle of life.
*Chortle*
Typhoon on March 23, 2008 at 9:35 AM
“Climate change” is nothing but the religion of Marxism transmogrified into working class = our fragile planet, upper class = mankind the exploiter. Remove the class warfare induced guilt that drives it, and the “science” of “global warming” evaporates likes fog in bright sunshine.
Halley on March 23, 2008 at 9:36 AM
Global Warming nuts also believe that “Love makes the world go around” not the reality that it is centrifugal force.
MSGTAS on March 23, 2008 at 9:36 AM
Not just political.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/20/business/deal.php
Think any of these hucksters is going to want to admit they’re betting on something that’s not gonna happen?
Typhoon on March 23, 2008 at 9:37 AM
I still find it funny that ’scientists’ can’t even predict the weather five days from now with any accuracy, yet expect us to believe their predictions for ten to twenty years from now.
Jezla on March 23, 2008 at 9:42 AM
Anyone else having trouble with the link? I mean it works, but I’m not finding the story there amongst the rest of the stuff.
Midas on March 23, 2008 at 9:43 AM
Link worked fine for me. That girl really deserves a full scholarship to MIT!
Moses99 on March 23, 2008 at 9:52 AM
Moses, she is a smart kid, but you have to chuckle, a lot of what she did was just use good old common sense. Didn’t even cost us any tax dollars.
surrounded on March 23, 2008 at 9:57 AM
A few interesting and “inconvenient” truths for the Goracle and his followers:
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/03/its_a_record_year_for_snowfall.html
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=731011
I just can’t remove that image from my mind, the image of the Hollywood elite shivering and sucking for air while the Goracle was at the podium receiving his Oscar award for his junk science documentary “Inconvenient Truth”… Al Gore should be investigated and tried for this scam; his connections with worldwide organizations pushing these lies on the worlds population; his ties to the United Nations, et al.
The MSM pushed this junk science on us 24/7; Liberal politicians pushed this junk science on us 24/7; Hollywood pushed this junk science on us 24/7. What price will these scam artists pay for this? What can we do about this?
Don’t buy/read anything created by the MSM; don’t pay for anything created by the Hollywood folks that have backed this agenda; don’t let Liberal politicians off the hook for this scam, they must be held accountable. Every politician that tried to shove this scam down the throats of the worlds population needs to answer for their part in this scam. Every scientist that predicted “doom & gloom” (swore it was coming) must answer for their part in this scam…
The earth is way smarter than humans; what governs the earth is so far beyond our comprehension, it’s simply irresponsible to think that we actually understand the science that governs our planet, let alone the universe. Only a huge ego, or a huge agenda could drive such claims.
Keemo on March 23, 2008 at 9:58 AM
One of these days, scientist-politicians will discover www.hotair.com is the cause of global warming and shut you down.
NNtrancer on March 23, 2008 at 9:58 AM
There’s too much money and politics invested to turn back now.
The main effect of news like this is to make the global warmists dig in their heels. If the Dems win in November, there’ll be so much regulation and so much money thrown at inefficient technologies that the misallocation of resources may put the economy in a tailspin.
As we know, MSM won’t acknowledge contradictory data, much less cover it, if they have a choice. Some event or crisis will have to force them to do it.
Suing Al Gore for fraud, as suggested by John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, is the best idea I’ve heard. The litigation would force him to argue his case and put the pseudo-science under public scrutiny. It would be a real attention-getter. I wonder, what could bloggers do to promote such a suit.
petefrt on March 23, 2008 at 10:03 AM
Amen to that, Surrounded! Common Sense…that wonderful quality that is so lacking in today’s world.
Moses99 on March 23, 2008 at 10:03 AM
Does this mean that all those poor school kids that had the Goracle’s “documentary” shoved down their throats were lied to? I thought it was always for the children with this bunch. You mean it’s all been about greed,control,and power? (power - get it.)
Catfish on March 23, 2008 at 10:07 AM
It’s not just liberal politicians though, its also GWB and our own nominee for POTUS….which totally mystifies me.
surrounded on March 23, 2008 at 10:08 AM
We can hope…
taznar on March 23, 2008 at 10:08 AM
I’d be first in line to contribute to Coleman’s suit. Heard him on Glenn Beck a couple weeks ago. I think he said they’d need a couple million to get it going. And you’re exactly right that the best thing in the world would be to watch him try to argue his fraudulent science in a courtroom!
Moses99 on March 23, 2008 at 10:09 AM
The real scary item is the latest NASA data on the oceans cooling - that is the true earth based driver on the global temperature. Couple that with the suns reduced magnetic activity and we may get very cold soon.
I don’t think the liberals can make a religion based on both ends and fool everyone into substinence serfdom to their gods (gore, obama, hillary).
Colonel_prop on March 23, 2008 at 10:10 AM
BTW, what has algore been up to lately? Seems not to have much use for the spotlight since he won his last blue ribbon. I mean I know he’s a modest guy and all, but….
surrounded on March 23, 2008 at 10:11 AM
Surrounded…much pressure will have to be applied to McCain on this subject similar to the uproar we created on immigration. He simply cannot be allowed to take us down the “global warming path” that will destroy this country.
Moses99 on March 23, 2008 at 10:12 AM
Algore’s probably cloistered away waiting to broker the dem’s national convention…awaiting the goracle draft.
Moses99 on March 23, 2008 at 10:17 AM
As the age old adage says “It is not wise to mess with Mother Nature”. She knows what she wants and knows how to achieve her goals so just let her be and balance your activities to let her have a chance to recover.
To follow every demand of an environmentalist will have humans on the endangered species within a couple years.
MSGTAS on March 23, 2008 at 10:18 AM
Global warming would “end” as soon as these always searching for their next grant researchers are paid to tell the truth and not Mr. Gore and company’s inconvenient lies. It’s all about power and money. Follow both trails as it pertains to global warming and you’ll see who is really behind it. The scam also gives liberal airheads the opportunity to pose and pretend that they are enlightened. Although my party’s presidential candidate has apparently been indoctrinated as well.
Sugar Land on March 23, 2008 at 10:18 AM
It’s snowing right now here in St. Louis. Damn global warming!
JimRich on March 23, 2008 at 10:20 AM
And I’d be right behind you.
Who’ll mobilize the blogosphere?
It goes without saying that global warmism is the vehicle for more government, more taxes, more socialist regulation and more totalitarian restrictions of our individual liberty. This fight is much larger than understanding the climate. It’s at the core of the struggle between conservatives and neo-Marxists.
petefrt on March 23, 2008 at 10:23 AM
You can track the rise in Global Warming alarms from when Clinton won the White House and politicized scientific research along with everything else.
JAW on March 23, 2008 at 10:25 AM
Hmmm…. interesting…
could we turn this into a Campaign issue?
Romeo13 on March 23, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Shazam! The guys at MIT have been saying the computer climate models were baloney for years. But this argument has no traction because it would mean most of the Federal funding to study global warming would dry up. Academic welfare at its finest…
Aviation Week and Space Technology has covered this project.
Zorro on March 23, 2008 at 10:37 AM
All any of this proves is that “junk science” is still junk science and that simplified computer models of very complex systems usually are inaccurate. It is too bad that in this case the global warming advocates have made more of a religion than scientific study of the problem. It is going to take a long time for sanity to filter back in this area and a lot of money will be wasted in the process.
duff65 on March 23, 2008 at 10:38 AM
Don’t I wish. But McCain has already caved on the issue, and it seems unlikely he’d reverse himself before the election.
But with contradictory data emerging at a rapid clip, it could be a big issue in the 2010 and 2012 elections. Meanwhile, we need to publicize the data.
petefrt on March 23, 2008 at 10:39 AM
Thank you, professor. Remind us of your qualifications again? BTW, do you happen to be an expert in finance as well?
Would you say US Dollar has been dropping with respect to Russian Ruble for quite while now? Are you sure?
freevillage on March 23, 2008 at 10:45 AM
I’ve said for a while global warming only became a major concern after 9/11.
Some people woke up and realised that Islam was waging war on civilisation. The other group of people started screaming that Islam wasn’t the problem. Instead, we were all doomed because of global warming but it was a bloodless fight we could all win if only we sacrificed according to socialist ideals.
The worries and cries about global warming only became screams after 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Canadian Infidel on March 23, 2008 at 11:10 AM
We’re simply going to have to find a new hoax to build our lives around. Any ideas?
Mojave Mark on March 23, 2008 at 11:10 AM
Too many scientist’s and politician’s jobs and federal and private grants depend on Global Warming for it to “go away” any time soon.
Too many laws have been written to combat it, too many reputations have staked on it, too many advertising campaigns have been started, too many organizations have been started, too many professors and high-school teachers have taught this like gospel, too many headlines have been written, too many websites exist, too many activists have been fooled, and too many companies have been started for there to be a massive, worldwide collective “oops” released into the troposphere any time soon.
And…the U.N. is involved.
29Victor on March 23, 2008 at 11:13 AM
We have only recently had the capability to take the measurements and be able to look at the big picture as we can in this point in history. I had alwyas found it amazing at the possibilty that man could have an impact on the earth’s temperature. But we can hurt our environment by not being responsible and I think that’s the point that is always lost on this subject. Rejecting one set of scientists opinion that you disagree with and accepting one set of scientists opinion you agree with is a little closed minded.
Isn’t it possible that the truth is somewhere in the middle? We know cars produce smog, and you if you were ever in Los Angeles in the 1980’s and earlier you would know that the smog was real, so real that you could see it and smog levels were announced on the local news. So is having a car that burns cleaner a bad thing? Is forcing factories to produce less toxic emissions and responsibly dispose of waste that is toxic to humans a bad thing?
The Goracle gloom and doom crowd is probably just as wrong as the we have no impact on our planet crowd. I think the truth is in the middle.
Hog Wild on March 23, 2008 at 11:29 AM
Laws which, I’m presuming, will start being repealed tomorrow?
oldleprechaun on March 23, 2008 at 11:32 AM
I have yet to see Juan McCain explain his contention that global warming is a valid construct. Like most if not all cultists the key word used to describe ones subscription to an opinion is BELIEVE. Hence the embrace afforded by liberals to all manner of opinion is we believe = we feel. Facts need not apply!
dmann on March 23, 2008 at 11:36 AM
Only if someone McCain trusts can convince him that the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) caused by CO2 forcing has been falsified (which it has), and that the promoters of AGW are really interesting only in socialism.
The question, I guess, is how can we get to someone high enough up in the campaign to get the Senator’s ear?
MrLynn on March 23, 2008 at 11:43 AM
Make that: “. . .really interested only in promoting socialism”
MrLynn on March 23, 2008 at 11:43 AM
Hey, freevillage, remind me again, what are algore’s creds?
surrounded on March 23, 2008 at 11:51 AM
Here is a web site that might enlighten some of you.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=even-skeptics-admin-global-warming-is-real-video
bucko36 on March 23, 2008 at 12:27 PM
My argument against those who profess global warming as their new religion has always been that you cannot create an accurate model of the earth’s atmosphere. Too many variables (solar activity, ocean temps etc) to make a model around which to build a solid theory.
Of course, I am dismissed as “full of it” and a “sheet-wearing neo-con” so this development is quite appetizing for me as my mission to refute the idiocy of global warming and left wing lunacy in general moves forward in 2008.
Liberals! Commence meltdown.
Metro on March 23, 2008 at 1:08 PM
We do have reliable data that Al Gore is a huckster, the Nobel prize can be bought and Oscars are worth their weight in carbon.
BL@KBIRD on March 23, 2008 at 1:24 PM
I know of no one who wants polution, but it is funny that some people think that the only solution is the solution that promotes communism over free enterprise.
Johan Klaus on March 23, 2008 at 1:34 PM
NNtrancer on March 23, 2008 at 9:58 AM
Hotair
Johan Klaus on March 23, 2008 at 1:38 PM
petefrt on March 23, 2008 at 10:03 AM
Follow the Money.
Johan Klaus on March 23, 2008 at 1:43 PM
freevillage on March 23, 2008 at 10:45 AM
And what are your qualifications? I don’t suppose that the man that started the weather channel has any qualifications either. And of course the finding of the NASA sat…..Oh nevermind.
Johan Klaus on March 23, 2008 at 1:48 PM
Freevillage would know about the ruble considering it’s close association with communism. Of course academia seems to have that close association also.
Johan Klaus on March 23, 2008 at 1:56 PM
My own qualifications are mostly zero. I’m not a meteorologist. As are Al Gore’s. NASA haven’t made the conclusion you attribute to them. You are making those conclusions because you are clueless in at least two areas: climatology and statistics and random processes. I do know quite a bit about the latter.
It is true that there is some number of quite respected scientists who think the human impact of global warming has been overstated. The percentage of those who deny its existence outright is roughly zero. Only an ignorant nutcase would deny the existing overwhelming consensus on the subject. However, in all fairness consensus isn’t by itself sufficient to declare anything a scientific truth. People used to think the Earth was flat. That included scientists.
What is insane though is to pretend like you are capable of forming independent conclusions and interpret newly available data without a relevant educational background. What next? Ed will start writing on how evolution has been disproven? Oh, wait… Bad example. Some cooks already do that.
freevillage on March 23, 2008 at 2:08 PM
This does not absolve us of our responsibility to be good stewards.
Squid Shark on March 23, 2008 at 2:19 PM
Not so much enlightening as disappointing, to see the venerable Scientific American stoop to the same schoolyard tactics the environmentalist media use against the skeptics. This should be a scientific debate, where evidence is the only argument that matters. Instead Scientific American questions the skeptics’ motivations, attacks their qualifications, cherry picks statements to misrepresent the skeptics’ actual views; then ties a bow around it all and stuffs it all under the profoundly deceptive headline, “Even Skeptics Admit Global Warming is Real.”
Some skeptics do think global warming is real, depending on how you define global warming. It’s hard to see how they can “admit” something they’ve thought all along, though. The headline uses the phrase “global warming” - the idea that the Earth has warmed recently, and will continue to warm for a time - in the broadest possible sense to create an illusion of consensus, even among skeptics, about the peril and reality of capital-G Global Warming - the comprehensive theory that humans are commiting eco-cide by SUV.
There’s global warming, there’s anthropogenic global warming, and there’s apocalyptic global warming. The first is a widely accepted climatological phenomenon, the second is the best-supported current explanation of the first, and the third is a media fantasy contrived to sell subscriptions and advertising.
RightOFLeft on March 23, 2008 at 2:33 PM
It never occurs to the Global Warmists that the reason that their “computer models” have ZERO predictive validity is that they are flat-out WRONG!!!
True scientists validate their theories and validate their models constantly as new experimental and physical data becomes available.
When the computer models do not agree with the data, the computer model must be discarded. Any idiot can get a computer to print “The earth is flat and we’re all doomed to fall of the edge” millions of times: the computer printout does not make this ridiculous assertion true no matter how many times it is printed.
landlines on March 23, 2008 at 2:33 PM
This is an example of someone who is obviously NOT a scientist and who is deeply confused about the difference between “consensus” and “science.”
Hint: Science is not established by mob rule.
landlines on March 23, 2008 at 2:41 PM
Earh saved
warmin is cooling
panic averted
Gore weeps
broken bulb
breathe in mercury
ah! salvation in sight
/s/Rosie
second digit on March 23, 2008 at 2:46 PM
Worldly Radiator Saves Earth from Al Gore.
Kini on March 23, 2008 at 2:54 PM
freevillage on March 23, 2008 at 2:08 PM
Hello, telephone pole!
Merovign on March 23, 2008 at 2:55 PM
Academic ideologues drop the “anthropogenic” from AGW for the same reason, and with the same level of mendacity, as they drop the “illegal” from “illegal immigration.”
When someone lies to me to make their point, I am less sympathetic to their point… after all, they’re lying to me.
Merovign on March 23, 2008 at 2:58 PM
OK. :)
freevillage on March 23, 2008 at 3:37 PM
Ya think?
I’ve been preaching much the same since the “The Coming Ice Age” days of the 70’s.
When you have seen as much of the World’s ‘back country’ as I have, you come to realize that all of Man’s Works throughout history all add up to little more than a pimple on Gaia’s posterior.
The arrogance of these idiots that buy into “GoreBull Warming” and the same sort of idiots that were buying into down jacket futures in the 70’s. They claim to worship Gaia, but they have no faith in either God or Gaia.
A thousand years after man is gone from the earth, there will be little obvious evidence of our civilization. Twenty thousand years after we are gone, it will take a huge team of archaeologists from somewhere in the Upsilon Andromedae system with an even huger budget to discover that there was indeed
intelligenttool using life on earth.Unless maybe a huge asteroid hits us and makes it all a moot point.
Hey, AlGore: If you had been able to be intellectually honest back in 2000 you wouldn’t have named that book “Earth in the Balance” You would have put different stuff in it and called it “Earth is IN Balance”.
It is just that our very limited human perspective and arrogance that makes it seem otherwise.
LegendHasIt on March 23, 2008 at 4:39 PM
There is no such person….. Or group of people…. Once McCain decides something, no force, no amount of facts can actually change his mind. Oh, he may pretend to ‘have learned his lesson’, but he has not. That is one of the reasons I fear him to be a greater potential danger as President than Obamillary.
The same attitude that made him a ‘Hero as a POW’ is the same attitude that made him a ‘Zero’ at the USNA; a ‘zero’ as a pilot, a ‘zero’ as the Senate Naval Attache, and a ‘zero’ as a Senator. That attitude will make him an incredible danger as President.
LegendHasIt on March 23, 2008 at 4:57 PM
That’s right, all the talk we’ve been hearing about the environment is nonsense. Scientists are a bunch of liberal activists, and most of their ’science’ is a fraud designed to further research studies.
Remember the ‘hole on the ozone layer’? Changing aerosols around the globe was a complete waste of money, the ozone hole would have closed on its own. And last time I checked, smog was more of a buzzword than a real problem in US cities. Overfishing of the oceans? Last time I checked, the ocean had plenty of fish.
Let’s ignore the scientists are use a little common sense- the kind of common sense you hear from conservatives. People can’t affect the environment. The environment will take care of itself, thank you very much.
bayam on March 23, 2008 at 4:57 PM
Not a climatologist… but I am a systems analyst.
Earth is a closed heat engine. It has energy in the core, energy in the crust, Energy in the sea, and energy in the atmorphere.
The ONLY incoming energy is from the sun… the only outgoing energy is that which is radiated as heat to space.
The whole arguement for Manmade Global Warming is that we have changed the rate at which sunlight (energy) is reflected back into space… making the total amount of energy GREATER than it once was.
Problem is that the SUN was going through a “hot” phase when they were taking these readings, AND there was a lot of volcanic activity in the Pacific, which was transfering heat from the earths mantle, to seawater, and thus to the atmosphere (where we measure it).
We had THREE major things impacting the system, but they BLAMED only one… and discounted the others.
Now? Volcanic activity in the Pacific is lower, and the sun is going through a periodic and predictable cooling phase…
Now the Earth seems to be cooling, and yet the one they were blaming is still rising?
Sorry, but the entire hypothesis is in serious doubt.
Why spend TRILLIONS of dollars, and limit freedom, on a hypothesis that is not only unprooven, but based on new data, seriously in doubt?
Romeo13 on March 23, 2008 at 4:59 PM
The earth has always warmed and cooled. Thus the word weather. In the middle ages olive trees grew in the Ruhr Valley in Germany. I guess that warm weather then was caused by the Mercedez SUV’s. Oh thats right, they were not invented then and as most people know it is too cold for olive trees to grow there now.
Johan Klaus on March 23, 2008 at 5:13 PM
Don’t be a smartass. Obviously there are sometimes serious threats to the environment, which need to be dealt with proactively. That has absolutely nothing to do with global warming.
c6gunner on March 23, 2008 at 5:17 PM
It is hard to take a scientist or congress seriously, when they name the gas that a human exhales as a pollutant. Especially, when one volcano eruption emits more pollutants than our automobiles. If anyone cannot see that carbon credits are a scam, they are really in denial. Oh yeah I forgot, that is a river in Egypt.
Johan Klaus on March 23, 2008 at 5:35 PM
c6gunner on March 23, 2008 at 5:17 PM
But it does have to do with making dire predictions with proper data.
Johan Klaus on March 23, 2008 at 5:37 PM
Without. Their I go making statments with my brain being engaged.
Johan Klaus on March 23, 2008 at 5:40 PM
I’m sorry but I’m not gonna debate science with you. I have an 18 story building full of planetary sciences people to talk to about this. All I need is to take an elevator. “I am a system analyst. Here’s what I think about meteorology.” If you don’t see how insane that is, I can’t help you.
People have discarded solar and volcanic activity? Like who? Name a name!
freevillage on March 23, 2008 at 6:22 PM
I think it’s time to start worrying about Global Cooling again. In just a few years, we’ll have the ice age, woolly mammoths returning and glaciers wrecking havoc everywhere!
mark on March 23, 2008 at 6:25 PM
Yet, still no runaway global warming on Mars despite several times the density of CO2 in the atmosphere there without the water vapor.
Buddahpundit on March 23, 2008 at 6:41 PM
That’s only partly true. I am a cook that doesn’t believe in evolution, but I do know that it feels warmer in my kitchen every night around 6:30, particularly around the stove.
bobthepeeler on March 23, 2008 at 7:39 PM
But who’s qualified to evaluate the science and affect public policy? If you listen to Ed, every piece of scientific data needs immediate press coverage so that the populace can update their analyses of global warming theories.
All this talk about how you can’t trust the scientists is pointless. Perhaps people like Al Gore have politicized the issue but people on the right are doing the same. The best that we can do as a country is form policy around the consensus of top scientists. The opinions of conservatives, liberals, or some other group that lacks domain expertise on evolution or any another scientfic theory shouldn’t inform public policy.
bayam on March 23, 2008 at 7:57 PM
You have no idea what you’re talking about. That’s entirely untrue- you may want to keep your day job.
bayam on March 23, 2008 at 8:03 PM
……. and since Al Gore and this hoax has hit everyone in the pocket, anyone else want to join in a Class Action Lawsuit?
Meh…….. selling Carbon Credits.
Seven Percent Solution on March 23, 2008 at 8:10 PM
freevillage, I assume that’s a Green Building reference of some sort. Do you go to MIT, or are you some Suffolk University 5th-year who sneaks on to the MIT campus to bask in genuine talent and snort the chalkdust? You’re happy to drop cute little hints all day long about your qualifications while attacking others’. If I’ve missed a more direct statement of your bona fides let me apologize now, but just who the hell do you think you are, anyway? What are your degrees, where from, and what in?
I’ve studied with some of the best econometricians in the world, and every single one of them taught that statistics is all about the limitations the mathematics places on inference. All models should invoke skepticism, and the ones built on reconstructed paleoclimate data are piles of auxiliary hypotheses Superman couldn’t leap over. I’m not saying the GCMs are wrong, but you sound like a 200-level stat student with all this misplaced concreteness. AmStat only recently issued a statement on the statistical work done in climate science, and if you’ll review it you’ll see that the areas suggested for statisticians to assist their brethren in climatology are pretty freaking basic. Wegman’s review of the curricula in climate science found an almost irresponsible lack of grounding in statistics.
I assume MIT’s different, or maybe your transcendent genius makes up for that.
DrSteve on March 23, 2008 at 8:26 PM
That has to be the argument because if energy is radiating from Earth to outer space at the same rate as always while solar input is constant, you have zero increase of energy in the system.
Buddahpundit on March 23, 2008 at 8:49 PM
Well said. Also, one has to differentiate between acknowledging the existence of a problem and supporting a specific potential solution. One can acknowledge global warming and still demand more evidence as to how Kyoto protocol would even begin to address it. Much like it is possible to acknowledge the existence of institutional racism and yet be against affirmative action in its most popular forms.
freevillage on March 23, 2008 at 8:50 PM
Yes, I work in Green building. I don’t claim to know anything about meteorology so my qualifications are irrelevant. General lectures (not from you) on how I don’t understand what science is are funny, but other than that the debate isn’t about me.
Here’s what the debate is about. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that there is global warming and men have contributed to it. It can easily be demonstrated with a list of references in peer-reviewed journals. People who claim otherwise don’t know anything. At all. They aren’t even worth talking to. Note that it doesn’t mean there aren’t some articles by respected scientists where the authors claim either that the man-made component has been overstated and is really insignificant or that it doesn’t exist at all. The latter form a miniscule percentage though.
Clearly, any mathematical theory needs a justification before it can be used in an applied science seeing as how it always relies on assumptions. That includes statistics. Guess what. People in meteorology know it. Nobody in Earth sciences runs a differential equation on a computer and then says: well, this must be it. The answer must be supported by more than one method.
I sound like a reasonable person who trust professionals to make their judgement. I realize their fallibility. I also know there is a process in place that eliminates most errors. Now, you, Ed and others in this thread, on the other hand, sound like 9/11-truthers with your south-central-high-school level scientific theories and accusations of global conspiracy by mainstream scientists and media.
freevillage on March 23, 2008 at 9:10 PM
Heck, Al Gore doesn’t even take it seriously! And he’s the leading ummm… person when it comes to global warming! Well him, and Leo.
Can you anyone me when this global warming thing started? What year?
redzap on March 23, 2008 at 9:21 PM
I would be willing to put a lot of $$ down on this: When evidence proves that global warming is gone, and the world starts to seriously cool again, the MSM will switch gears without even a pause. No apology necessary (Sarc off).
TimothyJ on March 23, 2008 at 9:25 PM
First this:
Immediately followed by:
So Al Gore’s right: the debate is over.
Now if only someone could find a way to sell some sort of thing that would offset my carbon emmissions…
And finally:
Yeah, that’s just sexist.
redzap on March 23, 2008 at 9:46 PM
Of course you won’t debate the FACTs with me… because you have none…
I learned my physics from Navy Nuclear Power School, where we studied a LOT of basic physics, especialy those having to do with closed heat systems.
Key to one who has no standing in a debate. I won’t debate with you cause I know people who know more than you do… so I don’t need facts, you are just wrong…
Interesting.
You “believe”… we get it…
Just a question… because someone studies it at a College, does it mean they understand it better than someone who just studies it??? ie… do the little letters after your title mean you have a clue?
Might want to read a bit of the history of science, because the people who make adavances very seldom have titles…
Romeo13 on March 23, 2008 at 9:52 PM
You’ve heard me advance no scientific theory here, high-school-level or otherwise, nor any accusation of conspiracy, so please recall what I said about the limits of inference before you draw one to which you’re not entitled.
My confirmed belief is that the vast majority of people laboring in climate science are doing real science, advancing a research programme carefully and incrementally, focusing on well-defined problems. By and large they see climate change as a serious issue. I accept that.
My experience in my own field has shown me the same workaday caution and dedication, plus ample cases of publication bias, failure of peer review, bad data accidental and intentional, etc., with the occasional far-reaching policy implication. So please forgive the broad skepticism, but I think I’ve earned it.
As for the media, they don’t know their asses from deep center field.
DrSteve on March 23, 2008 at 9:59 PM
So, then there must have been WMDs in Iraq?
Proffesionals?…. chekc…
Vetted… yep…
Lots of countries believed…. uh huh.,..
Process in place to make sure no errors??? … of course…
the defense rests
Romeo13 on March 23, 2008 at 10:00 PM
That depends on a time scale. Generally speaking, the debate is never over. Additional evidence will surface and it will eventually be incorporated into relevant scientific theories. I don’t think anyone familiar with history of science will claim any modern scientific book will be adequate, say 300 years from now. However, by its nature scientific method tends to produce better results than anything else does, so relying on science has been proven extremely worthwhile.
Also, as I said “global warming theories” is many things including the statement of the existence of some physical process driven by humans but also proposed policies to deal with it. I think there’s far less consensus on the latter part.
Basically, yes. I’m sorry if this concept is novel to you. Any company will request your resume before talking to you.
No, it’s this thing called “peer-review process” that’s key. When you think you have proved everyone wrong, you write a paper, submit it to a journal and also go to meetings and present it in front of professionals in your area. Then you either become famous or get your ass handed to you.
Right.
freevillage on March 23, 2008 at 10:11 PM
Don’t troll on Easter.
Chakra Hammer on March 23, 2008 at 11:18 PM
Ya think?
corona on March 23, 2008 at 11:37 PM
Yes, lets see… Nobel prizes… Yasser Arrafat?
Jimmy Carter?
Al Gore?
You do know that HITLER was put in for a Nobel Prize?
You make my case for me… thank you…
Romeo13 on March 24, 2008 at 1:05 AM
freevillage on March 23, 2008 at 9:10 PM
I can tell by you post that your Phd. is not in english. Do not worry, neither is mine. I keep asking posters and my friends in the science programs about the very warm weather, that was in northern Germany in the middle ages, but I can get no satisfatory answer.
By the way, when I was in the airforce, we had some of the best trained meterolgist in the world and with the best equiptment that money could buy. The head of the squadron was a metereologist. There was a competition each month to see who could make the most correct weather predictions, with the winner getting a two week leave. While I was there, I did not see the same person win twice.
Johan Klaus on March 24, 2008 at 1:07 AM
freevillage, do you know a Kelly Drinkwater? She’s my sister, a freshman, Neuroscience major I think. Just a thought since I see you’re from MIT.
In other words, the anthropogenic global warming theory was produced by the scientific method, ergo there may be debate over parts of it the way there’s debate over parts of evolution, but it’s “established science” as a whole and not to be challenged by those creationist tards.
Since we’re allowed to debate over parts of AGW theory, then, why is it so inconceivable that we might see a le Chatelier-like effect here with a negative feedback loop instead of a positive one? That’s basically what the “compensating” talked about up above is. Of course, it depends on the experiments, and what comes out of them, but it doesn’t seem too farfetched to me to imagine that an increase in CO2 would trigger a decrease in the net quantity of some other atmospheric greenhouse gas, like water for example. This is just what I come up with as a (somewhat) advanced high school student; there’s probably better models that could plausibly explain a negative feedback loop.
Last point: You say there’s a small minority of scientists who are putting forth intelligent disputations of AGW theory. Why, then, do you equate our skepticism with 9/11 trutherism, known best for the “fire can’t melt steel” fallacy? Yes, my science is high school level (well, college freshman actually); does that mean that climatology is therefore utterly incomprehensible to me, and that I should therefore listen to the group with more scientists on their side? Science isn’t ruled by majority vote.
Math_Mage on March 24, 2008 at 1:52 AM
Theory=Plausible, hypothesis, supposition, conjecture, abstract thought. That is what we have with the theory of man made global warming. That could be true, but before billion of dollars is spent to fight it we need to have facts not scientific consensus. Scientific consensus said that rabies could not be cured, but Louis Pasteur proved the doctors wrong, even though he was a chemist and not a doctor. You do not necessarlly need to be an expert in a given field to notice flaws in a program. In our business we have technicions without major degrees, who catch mistakes made by engineers. When scientist with different opinions are ostracized, that gives rize to question the motives.
Johan Klaus on March 24, 2008 at 2:00 AM
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