Global Warming/Climate Change Super Thread

[GAP]

And now it's global COOLING! Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% in a year
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415191/Global-cooling-Arctic-ice-caps-grows-60-global-warming-predictions.html?ICO=most_read_module
    Almost a million more square miles of ocean covered with ice than in 2012
    BBC reported in 2007 global warming would leave Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013
    Publication of UN climate change report suggesting global warming caused by humans pushed back to later this month

By David Rose  7 September 2013

A chilly Arctic summer has left nearly a million more square miles of ocean covered with ice than at the same time last year – an increase of 60 per cent.

The rebound from 2012’s record low comes six years after the BBC reported that global warming would leave the Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013.

Instead, days before the annual autumn re-freeze is due to begin, an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia’s northern shores.

The Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific has remained blocked by pack-ice all year. More than 20 yachts that had planned to sail it have been left ice-bound and a cruise ship attempting the route was forced to turn back.

Some eminent scientists now believe the world is heading for a period of cooling that will not end until the middle of this century – a process that would expose computer forecasts of imminent catastrophic warming as dangerously misleading.

The disclosure comes 11 months after The Mail on Sunday triggered intense political and scientific debate by revealing that global warming has ‘paused’ since the beginning of 1997 – an event that the computer models used by climate experts failed to predict.

In March, this newspaper further revealed that temperatures are about to drop below the level that the models forecast with ‘90 per cent certainty’.

The pause – which has now been accepted as real by every major climate research centre – is important, because the models’ predictions of ever-increasing global temperatures have made many of the world’s economies divert billions of pounds into ‘green’ measures to counter  climate change.

Those predictions now appear gravely flawed.
more on link

 

[Haletown]

Thank Gawd for experts, especially ones that get more R&D money if there predictions are of the "falling sky" variety.




http://polarportal.dk/en/arctic-sea-ice/nbsp/sea-ice-extent/

 

[Kilo_302]

This above is one of the most commonly used and easily countered arguments. Yes we had a cooler summer of the most part. I live in Toronto and we went nearly a month July 19-August 12) without the temperature exceeding 27 degrees. And apparently less ice melted up north. This doesn't mean an overall trend is reversing. The weather has ups and downs, and larger scale trends. Climate change is a larger scale, longer term trend.

This article shows how the author of the Daily Mail piece above has distorted data in the past by focusing in the more immediate trends while ignoring the larger data.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/03/18/global_warming_denial_debunking_misleading_climate_change_claims_by_david.html



Here's the ACTUAL source of the data cited in that Daily Mail article, NASA itself. There's detailed data on the sea ice since they started taking measurements.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/


Note the FIRST PARAGRAPH.

"Sea ice continued its late-season summer decline through August at a near-average pace. Ice extent is still well above last year’s level, but below the 1981 to 2010 average. Open water was observed in the ice cover close to the North Pole, while in the Antarctic, sea ice has been at a record high the past few days."

This is an institution who solidly supports the theory of anthropomorphic climate change, and they haven't changed their tune with this data which I emphasize, THEY GATHERED. And yet this same data is misinterpreted (purposely) for our consumption in a paper known for its skepticism around global warming and by an author who has a history of misrepresenting data to support his own unfounded ideas.

I would add that this argument (in all of its forms) against climate change is also quite handily dismissed in the Rebuttals link I posted above.

 

[Kilo_302]

This image shows the overall average ice extent year through year. As you can see, there are several upticks in ice coverage, while the larger trend shows a decline of coverage by 10% a decade.

 

[Kilo_302]

It was actually a much slicker con than that.


"Recent reports that 97% of published scientific papers support the so-called consensus on man-made global warming are based on a paper by John Cook et al.

Precisely what consensus is allegedly being supported in these papers cannot be discerned from the text of the paper.

An analysis of the methodology used by Cook et al. shows that the consensus referred to is trivial:
• that carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas
• that human activities have warmed the planet to some unspecified extent.

Almost everybody involved in the climate debate, including the majority of sceptics, accepts these propositions, so little can be learned from the Cook et al. paper.

The extent to which the warming in the last two decades of the twentieth century was man-made and the likely extent of any future warming remain highly contentious scientific issues.


http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2013/09/Montford-Consensus.pdf


Remember Cook is a cartoonist by profession, he has no science credentials.

For more on scientific consensus look here: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2012/12/11/climate_change_denial_why_don_t_they_publish_scientific_papers.html

 

[ModlrMike]

They don't publish because journals don't accept the papers. 13950:24 is an extremely suspicious ratio that borders on 100% that smacks of censorship. Again, if you don't allow dissenting voices, you're not going to hear them.

 

[jpjohnsn]

They don't publish because journals don't accept the papers.

And your proof for this assertion is? 

 

[ModlrMike]

And your proof for this assertion is?

The sheer weight of numbers. Given the vociferousness of the climate skepticism community, there have to be more than 24 papers submitted for consideration. There's no way that 1/10 of 1% represents the opposing view.

 

[Kilo_302]

The sheer weight of numbers. Given the vociferousness of the climate skepticism community, there have to be more than 24 papers submitted for consideration. There's no way that 1/10 of 1% represents the opposing view.

That's not proof at all. Here's the link embedded in the above article to the original post about the study:

http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/15/why-climate-deniers-have-no-credibility-science-one-pie-chart

The author addresses your point specifically more than once:

"Polls show that many members of the public believe that scientists substantially disagree about human-caused global warming. The gold standard of science is the peer-reviewed literature. If there is disagreement among scientists, based not on opinion but on hard evidence, it will be found in the peer-reviewed literature."

"Of one thing we can be certain: had any of these articles presented the magic bullet that falsifies human-caused global warming, that article would be on its way to becoming one of the most-cited in the history of science."

"Global warming deniers often claim that bias prevents them from publishing in peer-reviewed journals. But 24 articles in 18 different journals, collectively making several different arguments against global warming, expose that claim as false. Articles rejecting global warming can be published, but those that have been have earned little support or notice, even from other deniers.

A few deniers have become well known from newspaper interviews, Congressional hearings, conferences of climate change critics, books, lectures, websites and the like. Their names are conspicuously rare among the authors of the rejecting articles. Like those authors, the prominent deniers must have no evidence that falsifies global warming.
"

Scientists are curious by nature. The incredible irony (and the this illustrates the terrifying Orwellian nature of the denial arguments) is that it would actually be a CAREER MAKER if you could disprove anthropomorphic climate change. No one in the scientific community takes such arguments seriously simply because the the science isn't there.

I would add that your final point ModlrMike, "There's no way that 1/10 of 1% represents the opposing view" is EXACTLY what we are debating here. There IS no scientific debate left, it's all an illusion. A masterstroke of PR.  Certain sectors of our political economy have a vested interest in casting doubt on climate change, and again, I think it's far more likely that the petroleum industry has paid for "scientists" to go on TV and shill for them than some other unknown interest to have hijacked 97% of the world's scientific opinion. Take for example the Heartland Institute. These guys are essentially a PR agency/think tank who just a few years ago were denying the link between smoking and lung cancer on behalf of the tobacco industry. They are now at the forefront of the denial movement. Given that track record, I would argue that money, not science is the prime motivation here.

 

[ModlrMike]

You claim 24 papers, I'll claim 1100:

1100+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarm

 

[Haletown]

Mr/Mrs/Ms Kilo_302

I can respect your belief in consensus subsituting for science.  I do however, have a high degree of curiosity about your answers to the questions posed previously.

"Do you have an opinion on why 100% of the climate models have failed to predict what is actually happening in the atmosphere?

Do you think we should continue to make public policies about and direct billions of public dollars into CO2 reduction schemes based on models that have 100% failure rate?"

I can agree to disagree about what the consensus study means and what the 97% of scientists agreed about. It is what is actually happening, what the real data shows what is happening that deserves your insight.

 

[Kilo_302]

You claim 24 papers, I'll claim 1100:

1100+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarm

This collection of papers has been modified several times, and the methodology is suspect.

http://itsnotnova.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/poptechs-list-of-confusion/

Mr/Mrs/Ms Kilo_302

I can respect your belief in consensus subsituting for science.  I do however, have a high degree of curiosity about your answers to the questions posed previously.

"Do you have an opinion on why 100% of the climate models have failed to predict what is actually happening in the atmosphere?

Do you think we should continue to make public policies about and direct billions of public dollars into CO2 reduction schemes based on models that have 100% failure rate?"

I can agree to disagree about what the consensus study means and what the 97% of scientists agreed about. It is what is actually happening, what the real data shows what is happening that deserves your insight.

I am not substituting consensus for science, there is scientific consensus.

1. Define "failed." Most predictions for say a rise in temperature provide a range (for example 2 degrees to 5 degrees Celsius) also over a range of decades during which we can expect to see that change. Scientists themselves admit they cannot be 100% certain, as there many variables. And as I have said on this thread before, a scientific theory can only disproven, not proven. Climate scientists have admitted being wrong in the past, as they will in the future. In fact, they are now saying they may have been wrong about the speed of the change. It's happening quicker than we thought.

2. Again, define "100% failure rate." What  data are you referencing? Do you honestly believe that you have a) access to data that NASA (or hundreds of other well respected insitutions) do not? or
b) that you are somehow qualified to decide that 100% of the studies are failures and we should not be basing public policy on them?

I am not a scientist, but the onus is on YOU to provide evidence, not me. The scientific consensus is that climate change is occuring, and human activity is its primary cause. The question should actually be,

"Do you think we should continue to direct billions of public dollars into C02 PRODUCING energy projects based on the claims of a very tiny minority of voices (many of them not real scientists) with ties to the very industry that would profit from this continued subsidization?"

It's really quite simple. Follow the money.

 

[Haletown]

Failure is self evident.  Not a single GCM has come anywhere close to predicting what is actually happening as measured by data.  They have all failed in their predictive value.  They have all failed by significant orders of magnitude.    You can believe the theory or you can believe the data, but not both.


I do not know anyone who has ever taken even an intro course in Climatology that does not know climate  has and always will change and that CO2 has an ability to act with an insulation capability.  Adding CO2 to the atmosphere will slow down heat  transfer to space and will cause a slight increase in global atmospheric temperature.  There is zero evidence for any catastrophic changes in climate or any changes that are outside historical norms.


But that is not what the AGW theory states. 


You do know what the theory states I assume?

 

[Kilo_302]

Failure is self evident.  Not a single GCM has come anywhere close to predicting what is actually happening as measured by data.  They have all failed in their predictive value.  They have all failed by significant orders of magnitude.    You can believe the theory or you can believe the data, but not both.


I do not know anyone who has ever taken even an intro course in Climatology that does not know climate  has and always will change and that CO2 has an ability to act with an insulation capability.  Adding CO2 to the atmosphere will slow down heat  transfer to space and will cause a slight increase in global atmospheric temperature.  There is zero evidence for any catastrophic changes in climate or any changes that are outside historical norms.


But that is not what the AGW theory states. 


You do know what the theory states I assume?

Of course the AGW doesn't state "There is zero evidence for any catastrophic changes in climate or any changes that are outside historical norms." I'm not sure how that helps your point.


Again, define "failure". Define a "siginificant order of magitude." If a climate model is off by a degree, but still accurately reflects an increase in temperature, is that a failure? I am sure that climate specialists the world over who have seen these  "failed" GCMs would not be sounding the alarm if they didn't bear out a dangerous warming trend.

There is zero evidence? That sounds suspiciously like an opinion. Again, which studies are you citing?  Do you think for a second that scientists who have spent their entire lives studying climate and atmosphere are not aware of the data that you have access to?  Are you somehow more qualified than highly tenured specialists at NASA and the like?

Haletown, you are depriving the world of important knowledge by posting these revelations on a discussion board. You must contact NASA post-haste and tell them their models are all wrong! :

 

[Haletown]

I shall leave you to your beliefs.

 

[Kilo_302]

I shall leave you to your beliefs.

Right, me and

1.Academia Chilena de Ciencias, Chile
2.Academia das Ciencias de Lisboa, Portugal
3.Academia de Ciencias de la República Dominicana
4.Academia de Ciencias Físicas, Matemáticas y Naturales de Venezuela
5.Academia de Ciencias Medicas, Fisicas y Naturales de Guatemala
6.Academia Mexicana de Ciencias,Mexico
7.Academia Nacional de Ciencias de Bolivia
8.Academia Nacional de Ciencias del Peru
9.Académie des Sciences et Techniques du Sénégal
10.Académie des Sciences, France
11.Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada
12.Academy of Athens
13.Academy of Science of Mozambique
14.Academy of Science of South Africa
15.Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS)
16.Academy of Sciences Malaysia
17.Academy of Sciences of Moldova
18.Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic
19.Academy of Sciences of the Islamic Republic of Iran
20.Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, Egypt
21.Academy of the Royal Society of New Zealand
22.Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Italy
23.Africa Centre for Climate and Earth Systems Science
24.African Academy of Sciences
25.Albanian Academy of Sciences
26.Amazon Environmental Research Institute
27.American Academy of Pediatrics
28.American Anthropological Association
29.American Association for the Advancement of Science
30.American Association of State Climatologists (AASC)
31.American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians
32.American Astronomical Society
33.American Chemical Society
34.American College of Preventive Medicine
35.American Fisheries Society
36.American Geophysical Union
37.American Institute of Biological Sciences
38.American Institute of Physics
39.American Meteorological Society
40.American Physical Society
41.American Public Health Association
42.American Quaternary Association
43.American Society for Microbiology
44.American Society of Agronomy
45.American Society of Civil Engineers
46.American Society of Plant Biologists
47.American Statistical Association
48.Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
49.Australian Academy of Science
50.Australian Bureau of Meteorology
51.Australian Coral Reef Society
52.Australian Institute of Marine Science
53.Australian Institute of Physics
54.Australian Marine Sciences Association
55.Australian Medical Association
56.Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society 
57.Bangladesh Academy of Sciences
58.Botanical Society of America
59.Brazilian Academy of Sciences
60.British Antarctic Survey
61.Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
62.California Academy of Sciences
63.Cameroon Academy of Sciences
64.Canadian Association of Physicists
65.Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
66.Canadian Geophysical Union
67.Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
68.Canadian Society of Soil Science
69.Canadian Society of Zoologists
70.Caribbean Academy of Sciences views
71.Center for International Forestry Research
72.Chinese Academy of Sciences
73.Colombian Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences
74.Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) (Australia)
75.Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
76.Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences
77.Crop Science Society of America
78.Cuban Academy of Sciences
79.Delegation of the Finnish Academies of Science and Letters
80.Ecological Society of America
81.Ecological Society of Australia
82.Environmental Protection Agency
83.European Academy of Sciences and Arts
84.European Federation of Geologists
85.European Geosciences Union
86.European Physical Society
87.European Science Foundation
88.Federation of American Scientists
89.French Academy of Sciences
90.Geological Society of America
91.Geological Society of Australia
92.Geological Society of London
93.Georgian Academy of Sciences 
94.German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina 
95.Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences
96.Indian National Science Academy
97.Indonesian Academy of Sciences 
98.Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management
99.Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology
100.Institute of Professional Engineers New Zealand
101.Institution of Mechanical Engineers, UK
102.InterAcademy Council
103.International Alliance of Research Universities
104.International Arctic Science Committee
105.International Association for Great Lakes Research
106.International Council for Science
107.International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences
108.International Research Institute for Climate and Society
109.International Union for Quaternary Research
110.International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
111.International Union of Pure and Applied Physics
112.Islamic World Academy of Sciences
113.Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
114.Kenya National Academy of Sciences
115.Korean Academy of Science and Technology
116.Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts
117.l'Académie des Sciences et Techniques du Sénégal
118.Latin American Academy of Sciences
119.Latvian Academy of Sciences
120.Lithuanian Academy of Sciences
121.Madagascar National Academy of Arts, Letters, and Sciences
122.Mauritius Academy of Science and Technology
123.Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts
124.National Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences, Argentina
125.National Academy of Sciences of Armenia
126.National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic
127.National Academy of Sciences, Sri Lanka
128.National Academy of Sciences, United States of America
129.National Aeronautics and Space Administration 
130.National Association of Geoscience Teachers
131.National Association of State Foresters
132.National Center for Atmospheric Research 
133.National Council of Engineers Australia
134.National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, New Zealand
135.National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
136.National Research Council
137.National Science Foundation
138.Natural England
139.Natural Environment Research Council, UK
140.Natural Science Collections Alliance
141.Network of African Science Academies
142.New York Academy of Sciences
143.Nicaraguan Academy of Sciences
144.Nigerian Academy of Sciences
145.Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters
146.Oklahoma Climatological Survey
147.Organization of Biological Field Stations
148.Pakistan Academy of Sciences
149.Palestine Academy for Science and Technology
150.Pew Center on Global Climate Change
151.Polish Academy of Sciences
152.Romanian Academy
153.Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium
154.Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of Spain
155.Royal Astronomical Society, UK
156.Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
157.Royal Irish Academy
158.Royal Meteorological Society (UK)
159.Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
160.Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research
161.Royal Scientific Society of Jordan
162.Royal Society of Canada
163.Royal Society of Chemistry, UK
164.Royal Society of the United Kingdom
165.Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
166.Russian Academy of Sciences
167.Science and Technology, Australia 
168.Science Council of Japan
169.Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research
170.Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics
171.Scripps Institution of Oceanography
172.Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
173.Slovak Academy of Sciences
174.Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
175.Society for Ecological Restoration International
176.Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
177.Society of American Foresters 
178.Society of Biology (UK) 
179.Society of Biology, UK
180.Society of Systematic Biologists
181.Soil Science Society of America 
182.Sudan Academy of Sciences
183.Sudanese National Academy of Science
184.Tanzania Academy of Sciences
185.The Wildlife Society (international)
186.Turkish Academy of Sciences
187.Uganda National Academy of Sciences
188.Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities
189.United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
190.University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
191.Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
192.World Association of Zoos and Aquariums
193.World Federation of Public Health Associations
194.World Forestry Congress
195.World Health Organization
196.World Meteorological Organization
197.Zambia Academy of Sciences
198.Zimbabwe Academy of Sciences


And let's not forget the major American institutions:


Statement on climate change from 18 scientific associations

"Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver." (2009)2


American Association for the Advancement of Science

"The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society." (2006)3


American Chemical Society

"Comprehensive scientific assessments of our current and potential future climates clearly indicate that climate change is real, largely attributable to emissions from human activities, and potentially a very serious problem." (2004)4


American Geophysical Union

"The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system — including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons — are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century." (Adopted 2003, revised and reaffirmed 2007)5


American Medical Association

"Our AMA ... supports the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fourth assessment report and concurs with the scientific consensus that the Earth is undergoing adverse global climate change and that anthropogenic contributions are significant." (2013)6



American Meteorological Society

"It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide." (2012)7


American Physical Society

"The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now." (2007)8


The Geological Society of America

"The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2006), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) that global climate has warmed and that human activities (mainly greenhouse‐gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s." (2006; revised 2010)9

http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus


You should probably send these guys an email.

 

[ArmyRick]

I also choose to believe in Global Climate change/disruption/etc. And in this society there is a huge crowd of us "nut jobs" buying into this. I am not arguing with anybody here about it anymore, I have simply made up my mind.

Kilo_302, I wouldn't bother arguing it here anymore. people choose to believe what they want to.

I also have a another general human explanation to this. It would not matter how much evidence, facts or theories that you put forward about HUMAN impact on the global climate (and the environment as a whole, everything should be viewed in a symbiotic relationship), its not good news and most people can not deal well with bad news. Its my opinion so don't ask for facts, studies, etc but people in general have a poor mental mechanism with having to face change. We as a race, MUST change our ways or we are dooming our future generations to live in terrible world.

believe what you want.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

we are dooming our future generations to live in terrible world.

believe what you want.

..and yet my kids can swim in water I sure couldn't and don't have 'smog days' like I did when I was thier age.  Fishing is back and better than ever in Lake Ontario and folks even catch the occasional game fish in a river near where I live that was nothing but carp and chemicals before.

Now, lets get into the recycling of things we never even dreamed of, never mind doing which saves resources like never before.

Yup,...I've doomed them............

 

[Kilo_302]

I agree ArmyRick, and in fact there is a slew of literature pertaining to humanity's poor track record of dealing with longterm problems that require us to change as a society. If the past is any indicator, we are totally f#&$%d.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

I agree ArmyRick, and in fact there is a slew of literature pertaining to humanity's poor track record of dealing with longterm problems that require us to change as a society. If the past is any indicator, we are totally f#&$%d.

You mean like cars that don't blow out blue smoke by the ton anymore??......no wait......... :