Global Warming/Climate Change Super Thread

[observor 69]

http://tinyurl.com/3drjum

                                                                                   
4 June 2007
                                                 
Don't Mention the Warming
                                                         
By Gwynne Dyer

        "I cannot negotiate on the two degrees," said German Chancellor
Angela Merkel, currently president both of the European Union and of the G8
summit of the major industrialised nations that starts (started) in
Heiligendamm on 6 June.  Her goal was to get the world's biggest producers
of greenhouse gases to agree to emission cuts deep enough to limit global
heating to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees F) by the end of this century,
but that isn't going to happen this year.
        In order to meet that target, Chancellor Merkel wanted countries to
commit to a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050
compared to the baseline figure for 1990, but US diplomats have already
deleted both the two degree limit and the fifty percent cut from the draft
summit declaration sent to them by Merkel. "There is only so far we can
go," they explained.
        As for China, which may overtake the United States as the world's
biggest polluter this year, a draft copy of a national global warming
assessment leaked in mid-April stated that "before general accomplishment
of modernisation by the middle of the 21st century, China should not
undertake absolute and compulsory emission reduction obligations." Like the
US government, the Chinese regime is starting to admit that climate change
is serious, but is against any preventive measures that might impair
economic growth.

More at link

 

[a_majoor]

More evidence of the prime cause of climate change:

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/view468.html#global

The evidence Boortz cited is on  http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2007/05/08/neptune-news/

Note that this article shows that Solar irradiance has increased by steadily from about roughly 1980 to 2000. This increase in irradiance is given as percent change per year (first derivative) rather than as a change relative to a baseline irradiance, which makes it look less significant than it actually is. I don't have time to work with these numbers this morning, but the data are interesting and the correlation is dreadfully obvious -- the onset of warming, at least, corresponds precisely with the increase in irradiance. Even more significant, when that first derivative nature of the solar data is considered, is that the sun began warming long before 1920 (since irradiance has been increasing on an annual basis since the start of the data) Even a mean 0.03%/year increase in solar radiance since 1920 corresponds to a huge percentage in total solar heating -- that graph seems to be claiming that the sun is more than 2% hotter over the last century and the rate accelerated in the 1980's.

Stellar engineering may be the career choice of future generations.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Does this mean that there will now be a tax on sunshine?  Will solar credits be traded between countries at the equator and those of us higher latitudes?

 

[muskrat89]

Betcha didn't know that the slaughter in Darfur was a result of Global Warming....

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070616212708.ymevxrx6&show_article=1&catnum=0

Climate change behind Darfur killing: UN's Ban 
Jun 16 05:27 PM US/Eastern


UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that the slaughter in Darfur was triggered by global climate change and that more such conflicts may be on the horizon, in an article published Saturday.

"The Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change," Ban said in a Washington Post opinion column.

UN statistics showed that rainfall declined some 40 percent over the past two decades, he said, as a rise in Indian Ocean temperatures disrupted monsoons.

"This suggests that the drying of sub-Saharan Africa derives, to some degree, from man-made global warming," the South Korean diplomat wrote.

"It is no accident that the violence in Darfur erupted during the drought," Ban said in the Washington daily.

When Darfur's land was rich, he said, black farmers welcomed Arab herders and shared their water, he said.

With the drought, however, farmers fenced in their land to prevent overgrazing.

"For the first time in memory, there was no longer enough food and water for all. Fighting broke out," he said.

A UN peacekeeping force may stop the fighting, he said, and more than two million people may return to rebuilt homes in safe villages.

"But what to do about the essential dilemma: the fact that there's no longer enough good land to go around?"

"Any real solution to Darfur's troubles involves sustained economic development," perhaps using new technologies, genetically modified grains or irrigation, while bettering health, education and sanitation, he said.

Sudan is not the only country with such problems, Ban said, and pointed to Somalia, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso as African countries with "food and water insecurity."

Khartoum agreed this week to accept 23,000 UN and African Union peacekeepers after four years of fighting, which has killed at least 200,000 people.

 

[Reccesoldier]

More evidence of the prime cause of climate change:

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/view468.html#global

Stellar engineering may be the career choice of future generations.

This won't do... You can't blame solar irradiance on GWB, SUV's or Big Oil!  The person that wrote this obviously has no idea how to run a half decent conspiracy theory.

Sheesh, amateurs!

 

[Flip]

This is from Muskrat89's quote.

UN statistics showed that rainfall declined some 40 percent over the past two decades, he said, as a rise in Indian Ocean temperatures disrupted monsoons.

I thought a rise in ocean temps was supposed to make weather worse
I mean more extreme!  Huh?

;D

 

[TCBF]

Here's one for all of the ecochondriacs to ponder:  Planting more trees in northern countries like Canada might just INCREASE global warming!!!!

Al Gore (?..  or was it Darryl Hannah?  whatever...) was telling us to stop polluting so as to not litter our snow with smog particles.  The smog particles de-whiten the snow and causes it to deflect less of the suns rays, so we heat up.

Planted trees screens the snow from the sun, and soaks up the heat.

Our mission: Plant Trees!  Make the ecochondriacs happy and warm up the planet, thus lowering out heating bills and our carbon footprint at the same time.  A win-win for all!

By the way, if the new emission standards don't cover pick-up trucks, what's the point?

 

[Flip]

I found this on Celestial junk Today

Swedish Scientist Accuses UN's IPCC of Falsifying Data and Destroying Evidence
Posted by Noel Sheppard on June 24, 2007 - 19:45.
If you listen to the global warming alarmists working for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or folks like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore, sea levels across the globe are rising at a rate that will eventually doom us all.

According to Swedish paleogeophysicist Nils-Axel Mörner, who’s been studying and writing about sea levels for four decades, the scientists working for the IPCC have falsified data and destroyed evidence to incorrectly prove their point.

http://newsbusters.org/node/13698

And this yesterday:

In the last week, the skeptics scored two goals.

The first was scored by a Canadian. Timothy Patterson, director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre at Carleton University in Ottawa, published an article conclusively demonstrating climate change is a permanent condition, that the Earth's climate has never been stable.

Many times in the past the Earth's climate has been far higher than it is today and, occasionally, temperatures were colder. As recently as 6,000 years ago, it averaged two degrees warmer than it does now.

Ten thousand years ago, mean temperatures rose as much as four degrees in a decade. That's 100 times faster than the warming over the past century, which has so alarmed scientists who triggered the current hysteria.

The second goal was far more devastating. It came with a book just published by Henrik Svensmark, director of the Centre for Sun Climate Research at the National Space Centre in Copenhagen. He calls it The Chilling Stars: A New Theory on Climate Change.

Like Patterson and the Russians, Svensmark contends the sun is a major factor in climate change, but he has been working for eight years to back this up with experimental proof.

http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Byfield_Ted/2007/06/24/4285924-sun.html

Thanks CG!

http://cjunk.blogspot.com/

Some CG comment here.

 

[GAP]

World's oldest DNA sheds light on global warming
Updated Thu. Jul. 5 2007 2:10 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Article Link

Using the world's oldest recovered DNA, a new study suggests Greenland was much warmer than previously thought during the last Ice Age and natural global warming trends may be as significant as human-induced warming.

The international study, published Thursday in the journal Science, was co-written by University of Alberta glaciologist Dr. Martin Sharp.

During their research, a team of international scientists retrieved ancient DNA found at the bottom of a two-kilometer ice sheet in Greenland.

The sample came from trees, plants, and insects of a boreal forest estimated to be between 450,000 and 900,000 years old.

The DNA samples suggest the temperature of the southern Greenland boreal forests was probably between 10 C in summer and -17 C in winter. By comparison, the temperatures at the ice surface in Greenland today are -8 C in summer and -30 C in winter.

"To have a forest at this location we would probably have had to melt at least the southern one-third of the Greenland ice sheet," Sharp wrote in an email to CTV.ca.

"It provides further evidence that natural processes can and do produce climate change, and that this can be large enough to produce effects similar to those predicted to result from anthropogenic warming."

The reduced glacier cover in the region also meant the global ocean was probably between one and two metres higher during that time compared to current levels.

"These findings allow us to make a more accurate environmental reconstruction of the time period from which these samples were taken, and what we've learned is that this part of the world was significantly warmer than most people thought," Sharp said in a release.

While the study does suggest a natural warming progression is significant, Sharp cautioned the research does not prove the current global warming trend is not human induced.
More on link

 

[I_am_John_Galt]

World's oldest DNA sheds light on global warming
Updated Thu. Jul. 5 2007 2:10 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Article Link

Using the world's oldest recovered DNA, a new study suggests Greenland was much warmer than previously thought during the last Ice Age and natural global warming trends may be as significant as human-induced warming.

[hands covering ears] LA, LA, LA!  I can't hear you!  NO, NO, NO!  The science is IN.  Man-made global warming is a FACT.  It is the consensus scientific opinion.  We must stop wasting time on these pointless and misleading studies!!!  We must stop these evil corporations NOW, or all will be lost!!!

The preceding message was brought to you by the David Suzuki Foundation and Al Gore - "Buy carbon offsets from the companies we own".

 

[Brad Sallows]

Warren Meyer has produced a readable skeptic's guide at Coyote Blog.

 

[Strike]

Flip,

It's nice to know that all this information that is readily preached in university oceanogrophy and enviro sci textbooks is now making it to the mainstream.  I was reading about all of this 3 years ago when I was taking these courses.

On a different note, must say that those commecials about the receding glaciers steam me.  The ones in NZ are advancing by more than 20cm/year.

 

[Flip]

The ones in NZ are advancing by more than 20cm/year.

Really?..................

.....................Cool! ;D

The commercials that bugged me were the "give money to save the polar bears"
ones run by the WWF.

What is a polar bear to do with my $100 bucks?

Do polar bears have pockets?  Who will carry their groceries for them?

State Of Fear by Micheal Crichton describes this nonsense in detail......

 

[eerickso]

Here's a fun question:

What is the bare minimum amount  of W88 thermonuclear warheads you would need to detonate in a year to release the same amount of heat that the additional amount of CO2 in our atmosphere absorbs in a year?

W88 has a yield of 475 kilotons  ( 1 kiloton of TNT = 4.184 TJ or 4.184 E 12 Joules)

 

[Kirkhill]

Flip,

It's nice to know that all this information that is readily preached in university oceanogrophy and enviro sci textbooks is now making it to the mainstream.  I was reading about all of this 3 years ago when I was taking these courses.

On a different note, must say that those commecials about the receding glaciers steam me.  The ones in NZ are advancing by more than 20cm/year.

Most folks are aware of the arts and science dichotomy at universities.  Scientists are blissfully ignorant of history and artists are equally at sea with numbers.

Fewer are aware of the dichotomy between the physical sciencies and the biologists. 

The biologists share the artists disdain for numbers and the rest of the science community's lack of knowledge of history.

Guess who leads the Global Warming charge? The biologists of the Enviro-Sciences.  The artists follow because they trust anybody that doesn't trust numbers.  > :warstory:

 

[Kirkhill]

A bit more on the Forests of Greenland that GAP put up:

Greenland's ice caps melted to about 1-1.5 km thick with temperatures 5 C warmer than today for about 14,000 years.  The current ice is 2 km thick.

Greenland's ancient forests shed light on stability of ice sheet
Ice cores drilled from southern Greenland have revealed the first evidence of a surprisingly lush forest that existed in the region within the past million years. The findings from an international study published today in the journal Science suggest that the southern Greenland ice sheet may be much more stable against rising temperatures than previously thought.

Researchers analysed ice cores from a number of locations in Greenland, including Dye 3 in the south of the country. From the base of the 2km deep Dye 3 core, they were able to extract what they believe is likely to be the oldest authenticated DNA obtained to date.

By analysing these DNA samples, the researchers identified a surprising variety of plant and insect life, including species of trees such as alder, spruce, pine and members of the yew family, as well as invertebrates related to beetles, flies, spiders, butterflies and moths. The researchers believe that the samples date back to between 450,000 and 800,000 years ago.

"We have shown for the first time that southern Greenland, which is currently hidden under more than 2km of ice, was once very different to the Greenland we see today," explains Professor Eske Willerslev, a Wellcome Trust Bioarchaeology Fellow from the University of Copenhagen, who led the study."Back then, it was inhabited by a diverse array of conifer trees and insects."

The research implies that ancient forests covered southern Greenland during a period of increased global temperatures, known as an interglacial period. When temperatures fell again, the area became covered in ice. This ice sheet appears to have remained during the last interglacial period (116,000-130,000 years ago) when the temperature was 5°C warmer than today, contrary to the view currently held by scientists. Professor Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, also at the University of Copenhagen, has shown that in fact, even during this interglacial period, the ice thickness at Dye 3 would have been reduced to between 1 km to 1.5km.

"If our data is correct, then this means that the southern Greenland ice cap is more stable than previously thought," says Professor Willerslev. "This may have implications for how the ice sheets respond to global warming."

However, Professor Willerslev was keen to dismiss the idea that this meant sea levels would not rise to the levels predicted by scientific models.

"We know that during the last interglacial, sea levels rose by 5-6m, but this must have come from other sources additional to the Greenland ice cap, such as Antarctic ice. I would anticipate that as the Earth warms from man-made climate change, these sources would still contribute to a rise in sea levels."

The results also show conclusively that ancient biomolecules from the base of ice cores can be used by scientists to reconstruct the environments hidden underneath ice-covered areas and can yield insights into the climate and the ecology of communities from the distant past.

"Analysing ancient biomolecules from beneath glaciers and ice sheets is challenging due to the very low concentrations, but the information is worth the effort," says Dr Enrico Cappellini, a member of the University of York's new PALAEO Group and another of the paper's co-authors, whose work is supported by the European Commission. "Our study suggests a solution to this problem. Given that ten per cent of the Earth's terrestrial surface is covered by thick ice sheets, it could open up a world of new discoveries."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-07/wt-gaf070207.php

 

[TCBF]

Here's a fun question:

What is the bare minimum amount  of W88 thermonuclear warheads you would need to detonate in a year to release the same amount of heat that the additional amount of CO2 in our atmosphere absorbs in a year?

W88 has a yield of 475 kilotons  ( 1 kiloton of TNT = 4.184 TJ or 4.184 E 12 Joules)

- Try Mk 17's, or some of those big Russki suckers instead.

 

[rmacqueen]

The commercials that bugged me were the "give money to save the polar bears"
ones run by the WWF.

One of the things that really bugs me about the save the polar bears thing is  the only population that is declining are the ones in Churchill and Baffin island.  The reality is that in the last 30 years the total population has gone from around 5,000 to 25,000.  But, like baby seals, they make cute pictures to launch an emotional campaign without letting the facts get in the way.

 

[PMedMoe]

The commercials that bugged me were the "give money to save the polar bears"
ones run by the WWF.

I like when they say in the commercial, "In the future, your child may only see a polar bear in the zoo."  Umm, considering where the polar bears live, compared to where most people live and the result is that most children will only see a polar bear in the zoo. 

 

[GAP]

I like when they say in the commercial, "In the future, your child may only see a polar bear in the zoo."  Umm, considering where the polar bears live, compared to where most people live and the result is that most children will only see a polar bear in the zoo. 

and even then.....you don't want to run into one anywhere else.....you generally see them when they have not eaten in months (Aug-Sept - waiting for the ice to form), they are very hungry, you smell like food, rich tasty food, and a threat to-boot.....