Global warming or not?

[recluse]

I found it! The solution for Global Warming! It's so simple! Are you ready?

NUCLEAR WINTER!

All it takes is one person with a clear head and a healthy disregard for human life.

You are very welcome.

[GeoffC]

Global Warming cues up local farmers to install wind turbines, not to help out the majority with electricity, but because they can get rich on subsidies and selling electricity onto the grid.
The hype now means that firms are suggesting we can save money by upgrading; for instance, I can save £300 per year on my heating bill, but it'll cost £5000+ to implement.

My father, at 88, is being advised to pay £300 to replace older electric heaters with the result that a saving of £28 can be assumed each year - and the advisers cannot appreciate why he said no....!

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by recluse

I found it! The solution for Global Warming! It's so simple! Are you ready?

NUCLEAR WINTER!

All it takes is one person with a clear head and a healthy disregard for human life.

You are very welcome.

Are you slow or what, I came up with that ages ago.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

From Scientific American:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...onsense&page=2

Claim 2: The alleged "hockey stick" graph of temperatures over the past 1,600 years has been disproved. It doesn't even acknowledge the existence of a "medieval warm period" around 1000 A.D. that was hotter than today is. Therefore, global warming is a myth.

It is hard to know which is greater: contrarians' overstatement of the flaws in the historical temperature reconstruction from 1998 by Michael E. Mann and his colleagues, or the ultimate insignificance of their argument to the case for climate change.

First, there is not simply one hockey-stick reconstruction of historical temperatures using one set of proxy data. Similar evidence for sharply increasing temperatures over the past couple of centuries has turned up independently while looking at ice cores, tree rings and other proxies for direct measurements, from many locations. Notwithstanding their differences, they corroborate that Earth has been getting sharply warmer.

A 2006 National Research Council review of the evidence concluded "with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries"—which is the section of the graph most relevant to current climate trends. The report placed less faith in the reconstructions back to 900 A.D., although it still viewed them as "plausible." Medieval warm periods in Europe and Asia with temperatures comparable to those seen in the 20th century were therefore similarly plausible but might have been local phenomena: the report noted "the magnitude and geographic extent of the warmth are uncertain." And a new research paper by Mann and his colleagues seems to confirm that the Medieval Warm Period and the “Little Ice Age” between 1400 and 1700 were both caused by shifts in solar radiance and other natural factors that do not seem to be happening today.

After the NRC review was released, another analysis by four statisticians, called the Wegman report, which was not formally peer reviewed, was more critical of the hockey stick paper. But correction of the errors it pointed out did not substantially change the shape of the hockey stick graph. In 2008 Mann and his colleagues issued an updated version of the temperature reconstruction that echoed their earlier findings.

But hypothetically, even if the hockey stick was busted... What of it? The case for anthropogenic global warming originally came from studies of climate mechanics, not from reconstructions of past temperatures seeking a cause. Warnings about current warming trends came out years before Mann’s hockey stick graph. Even if the world were incontrovertibly warmer 1,000 years ago, it would not change the fact that the recent rapid rise in CO2 explains the current episode of warming more credibly than any natural factor does—and that no natural factor seems poised to offset further warming in the years ahead.

You show a parody picture of people with their heads in the sand, mixed with the hockey stick charts, clearing implying that those who don't agree have their heads in the sand....and the graph is wrong? I find that hilarious...

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

You show a parody picture of people with their heads in the sand, mixed with the hockey stick charts, clearing implying that those who don't agree have their heads in the sand....and the graph is wrong? I find that hilarious...

I find not only this whole discussion, but the media frenzy around the topic ridiculous. It has been clearly shown by science and even casual layman observation that humanity is having a disastrous impact on the planet and something needs to be done.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

From Scientific American:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...onsense&page=2

Claim 2: The alleged "hockey stick" graph of temperatures over the past 1,600 years has been disproved. It doesn't even acknowledge the existence of a "medieval warm period" around 1000 A.D. that was hotter than today is. Therefore, global warming is a myth.

It is hard to know which is greater: contrarians' overstatement of the flaws in the historical temperature reconstruction from 1998 by Michael E. Mann and his colleagues, or the ultimate insignificance of their argument to the case for climate change.

First, there is not simply one hockey-stick reconstruction of historical temperatures using one set of proxy data. Similar evidence for sharply increasing temperatures over the past couple of centuries has turned up independently while looking at ice cores, tree rings and other proxies for direct measurements, from many locations. Notwithstanding their differences, they corroborate that Earth has been getting sharply warmer.

A 2006 National Research Council review of the evidence concluded "with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries"—which is the section of the graph most relevant to current climate trends. The report placed less faith in the reconstructions back to 900 A.D., although it still viewed them as "plausible." Medieval warm periods in Europe and Asia with temperatures comparable to those seen in the 20th century were therefore similarly plausible but might have been local phenomena: the report noted "the magnitude and geographic extent of the warmth are uncertain." And a new research paper by Mann and his colleagues seems to confirm that the Medieval Warm Period and the “Little Ice Age” between 1400 and 1700 were both caused by shifts in solar radiance and other natural factors that do not seem to be happening today.

After the NRC review was released, another analysis by four statisticians, called the Wegman report, which was not formally peer reviewed, was more critical of the hockey stick paper. But correction of the errors it pointed out did not substantially change the shape of the hockey stick graph. In 2008 Mann and his colleagues issued an updated version of the temperature reconstruction that echoed their earlier findings.

But hypothetically, even if the hockey stick was busted... What of it? The case for anthropogenic global warming originally came from studies of climate mechanics, not from reconstructions of past temperatures seeking a cause. Warnings about current warming trends came out years before Mann’s hockey stick graph. Even if the world were incontrovertibly warmer 1,000 years ago, it would not change the fact that the recent rapid rise in CO2 explains the current episode of warming more credibly than any natural factor does—and that no natural factor seems poised to offset further warming in the years ahead.

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

You show a parody picture of people with their heads in the sand, mixed with the hockey stick charts, clearing implying that those who don't agree have their heads in the sand....and the graph is wrong? I find that hilarious...

Ralph Sir Edward, sir,

Do you only see what you want to see?

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Ralph Sir Edward, sir,

Do you only see what you want to see?

Looked at the photo again. Labeled "climatechangeskeptics".

Three people with their heads in the sand with the global warming "hockey stick" chart in the "missing man" position.

Seems to me it was a laugh at global warming skeptics. What did I miss?

Tree rings seem not to reflect the full impact of recent warming (2009). So...maybe they didn't reflect the full impact of previous warmings? Did the ice cores correlate with the tree rings? If so, are they subject to the same bias? If not, why was this discrepancy not noted, in order to provide cross-check between different data sources?

Any time I ask questions like this, it's like watching a Fundamentalist Baptist going after an atheist....

[GeoffC]

We be doomed .... BBC web link ....

Professor James Lovelock, the scientist who developed Gaia theory, has said it is too late to try and save the planet.

The man who achieved global fame for his theory that the whole earth is a single organism now believes that we can only hope that the earth will take care of itself in the face of completely unpredictable climate change.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

We be doomed .... BBC web link ....

Bit of a relief really.

As Brian Stimson says in Clockwise - "It's not the despair, Laura. I can stand the despair. It's the hope!"

[GeoffC]

MPs have seemingly cleared the Prof of any wrong-doing with regards to falsifying climate data ... make of that what you will ....

I'll just use my eyeballs and see what I can see .... (out de window, 4 inch of wet snow !)..

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

We be doomed .... BBC web link ....

Professor James Lovelock, the scientist who developed Gaia theory, has said it is too late to try and save the planet.
...

Guess it's time to Pack Our Bags and Go.

Rescue Party - Arthur C. Clark:

http://www.webscription.net/chapters...498747___1.htm

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Guess it's time to Pack Our Bags and Go.

Rescue Party - Arthur C. Clark:

http://www.webscription.net/chapters...498747___1.htm

Bar-be-que at my back yard.....

[Lady Blue]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Bar-be-que at my back yard.....

I'll bring the tater salad.

[GeoffC]

I'll bring chocolate, champagne and Guinness ....

[kennyc]

I'd bring an Ice Chest full of Coors, but there's no ice left.
Fortunately it doesn't need cooling, being pasteurized and all.