Four degrees of warming 'likely'

[caedmon]

I call bunk on the whole topic.

The models predicting this doom and gloom failed to predict this recent decade of temperature decrease.

And the believer in global warming like to point out the ice shelves in Antarctica shrinking, while ignoring that only one side shrank, while the other side grew. Or that their models failed to find over 200,000 square miles of ice that satellite images proved existed.

Suspect data, being processed by scientists with a political agenda is bad for science.

[SteveShaw]

I call bunk on the whole topic.

The models predicting this doom and gloom failed to predict this recent decade of temperature decrease.

And the believer in global warming like to point out the ice shelves in Antarctica shrinking, while ignoring that only one side shrank, while the other side grew. Or that their models failed to find over 200,000 square miles of ice that satellite images proved existed.

Suspect data, being processed by scientists with a political agenda is bad for science.

Ten years is not within the scope of long-term climate predictions. Every report I've seen that has been tailored for public consumption (and I don't mean dumbed-down) has cautioned against jumping to conclusions from shorter-term anomalies, whether individual weather events or full years. Even in the UK we have predictions that, in the medium term, we can expect one year in three to yield a summer heatwave of the kind we had in 2003. That's still two years in three with crap summers.

[mukade]

And the believer in global warming like to point out the ice shelves in Antarctica shrinking, while ignoring that only one side shrank, while the other side grew.

Which is believed to have been caused by higher temperatures causing increased snowfall.

Warming doesn&t mean that everything gets colder.
The world's weather system is far more complicated than that.

Mukade

[daveboling]

And now for something completely different....
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/200 ... l-cooling/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... ked-emails

And to show that Republicans aren't the only paranoid ones out there:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4929149,00.html

"Meanwhile, East Anglia's Jones suggests that the timing of the theft means it was intended to cause maximum embarrassment ahead of the Copenhagen talks.

"One has to wonder if it is a coincidence that this e-mail correspondence has been stolen and published at this time. This may be a concerted attempt to put a question mark over the science of climate change in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks," he told the Guardian.

The post deletion clock is ticking.....

[Nanohedron]

Pick one and see if it works for you.

[jim stone]

And now for something completely different....
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/200 ... l-cooling/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... ked-emails

And to show that Republicans aren't the only paranoid ones out there:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4929149,00.html

"Meanwhile, East Anglia's Jones suggests that the timing of the theft means it was intended to cause maximum embarrassment ahead of the Copenhagen talks.

"One has to wonder if it is a coincidence that this e-mail correspondence has been stolen and published at this time. This may be a concerted attempt to put a question mark over the science of climate change in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks," he told the Guardian.

The post deletion clock is ticking.....

Three cheers for a healthy skepticism, doubly so for positions you want to be true.

[MTGuru]

Four cheers for unhealthy cynicism, and doubly so for messengers you want to be wrong. Huzzah!

Tick, tock ...

[WyoBadger]

So, what is the difference between healthy skepticism and unhealthy cynicism? The skeptic agrees with you; the cynic does not?

It does appear that these scientists covered up potentially embarrassing data. That's a shame, especially if their overall point is correct--they have really destroyed their own credibility. If the case is as ironclad as they claim, you have to wonder why they would bother. To keep the ignorant masses from asking the wrong questions that might lead to our doom? To keep the funding coming? To advance an ideological agenda of some sort?

Viva healthy skepticism and its cuter cousin, open-mindedness! The two go hand-in-hand.

FWIW, Mrs. Badger and I have been taking considerable steps toward simplifying our lives and reducing our carbon (and pesticide, and petroleum, and human rights, and so on) footprint for many reasons. And if global warming is really going to happen, our riding bikes to work, buying local beef, and growing our own organic eggs and veggies is not going to slow it down one iota.

Tom

edited to tone it down and maybe preserve an interesting thread a bit longer. Geez, sucked into another CF political debate. I should know better. Time to up my meds and/or take a nap.

[dwest]

growing our own organic eggs and veggies, Tom

Aren't eggplants a veggie too?

[SteveShaw]

Global warming is a bit like belief or not in God (don't worry, mods ). There cannot be certainty on one side or the other. What you can't deny is that there is an awful lot of very persuasive evidence to suggest that it is happening and that most of that evidence is in the form of thoroughly peer-reviewed science. The "evidence" against is rarely as rigorous. Don't take my word for this, go and look it up. The bottom line is that we can't afford to do just nothing in the hope that it's all a myth. Whether or not we believe it, we now have to act as though it's real. If the whole world takes stern measures to cut carbon emissions and live in "greener" ways, and we still find that global warming happens, well we were wrong but begod we did a lot of good in finding out we were wrong.

[Denny]

And if global warming is really going to happen, our riding bikes to work, buying local beef, and growing our own organic eggs and veggies is not going to slow it down one iota.

yeah, but it'll taste better

[jim stone]

Global warming is a bit like belief or not in God (don't worry, mods ). There cannot be certainty on one side or the other. What you can't deny is that there is an awful lot of very persuasive evidence to suggest that it is happening and that most of that evidence is in the form of thoroughly peer-reviewed science. The "evidence" against is rarely as rigorous. Don't take my word for this, go and look it up. The bottom line is that we can't afford to do just nothing in the hope that it's all a myth. Whether or not we believe it, we now have to act as though it's real. If the whole world takes stern measures to cut carbon emissions and live in "greener" ways, and we still find that global warming happens, well we were wrong but begod we did a lot of good in finding out we were wrong.

I agree with this. Especially as the measures in question are good for us in other ways.
These folks shot themselves in the foot, but I expect the case for GW stands anyway--
though now we have more reason to review it.

I work in a field where my work is peer reviewed by people often smarter and more
knowledgeable than myself. If there are mistakes or defects, they find it.
Often they find mistakes that aren't even there. It can take years of
writing and rewriting to get something published, often four years.

So I've learned to be my own worst critic, to look for every possible flaw
in my work. To treat my own arguments, for conclusions I badly want
to be true, as if they were for conclusions I badly wanted to be false.

It's been so many years of this that I never turn it off.
And I do think that, if one operates this way, it can change your
mind about lots of issues in political, social and practical affairs.
I never turn off the philosopher.

I'm very good at spotting
and exposing bad arguments for positions I passionately support.
Also spotting forceful arguments for positions I despise.
For giving them their due, for presenting them in their most
appealing light before I criticize them.
Recommend this. No better way to get to the truth, IMO.
But it doesn't make you popular, and people
who don't do this often think you support the opposite
of what you do.

[hans]

Please lets not get into a political or quasi religious debate about global warming. That surely will get this thread locked fast. I am interested in what is being discovered as facts about global warming, both supporting or refuting the idea that human activity is a large contributing factor. What politicians do about it, of if they should or should not do anything about it, or if i or you personally should or should not do anything about it, are totally different issues.

Some bits from the BBC NEWS website:

Professors Singer and Watson on climate change debate
"Climate change sceptic Professor Fred Singer, and Professor Bob Watson, the chief scientific advisor at the department of the environment debate the issues over climate change and global warming."

Past climate anomalies explained

Pause in Arctic's melting trend
"In recent decades, the Arctic region has been warming about twice as fast as the average for the Earth's surface.

Recently, scientists specialising in reconstructing past temperatures released data showing that the current decade is the warmest in the Arctic for at least 2,000 years. "

[Dale]

Global warming is a bit like belief or not in God (don't worry, mods ). There cannot be certainty on one side or the other. What you can't deny is that there is an awful lot of very persuasive evidence to suggest that it is happening and that most of that evidence is in the form of thoroughly peer-reviewed science. The "evidence" against is rarely as rigorous. Don't take my word for this, go and look it up. The bottom line is that we can't afford to do just nothing in the hope that it's all a myth. Whether or not we believe it, we now have to act as though it's real. If the whole world takes stern measures to cut carbon emissions and live in "greener" ways, and we still find that global warming happens, well we were wrong but begod we did a lot of good in finding out we were wrong.

I think this is a pretty much perfect summary of the most sensible way of seeing all of this. I admit to being a pessimist on this topic. The world economies are way too dependent on the status quo and I think it takes a calamity to create the kind of change required. The kind of change required to avoid the calamity won't occur voluntarily. I think the world ecological systems are heading for a major reset.

[jim stone]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/t ... 374523.stm

This 'debate' Hans posted is really very good. Crash course on the issues.