Bring on Global warming!!!

[Jake8898]

I believe the jury is still out on anthropogenic warming.

http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?ide=4


MYTH 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.

FACT: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased from a rate of about 0.2% per year to the present 0.4% per year. But there is no proof that CO2 is the main driver of global warming. As measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically through solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming surface layers of the earth's oceans expel more CO2 as a result.

MYTH 6: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.
FACT: In a 1996 report by the UN on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft. Here they are:
1) “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”
2) “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man–made causes”

To the present day there is still no scientific proof that man-made CO2 causes significant global warming

[Jake8898]

I'm not sure how much respect Dr. William Gray gets here but this is a notable excerpt from an interview...

Glassman: You’re familiar with what your colleagues believe. Do you think many hurricane experts would take a different point of view, and would say, “Oh, it’s global warming that’s causing hurricanes?”

Gray: No. All my colleagues that have been around a long time – I think if you go to ask the last four or five directors of the national hurricane center – we all don’t think this is human-induced global warming. And, the people that say that it is are usually those that know very little about hurricanes. I mean, there’s almost an equation you can write the degree to which you believe global warming is causing major hurricanes to increase is inversely proportional to your knowledge about these storms.

Now there’s a few modelers around who know something about storms, but they would like to have the possibility open that global warming will make for more and intense storms because there’s a lot of money to be made on this. You know, when governments step in and are saying this – particularly when the Clinton administration was in – and our Vice President Gore was involved with things there, they were pushing this a lot. You know, most of meteorological research is funded by the federal government. And boy, if you want to get federal funding, you better not come out and say human-induced global warming is a hoax because you stand the chance of not getting funded. >....

Gray: Well thank you for asking me.

I am convinced myself that in 15 or 20 years, we’re going to look back on this and see how grossly exaggerated it all was. The humans are not that powerful. These greenhouse gases, although they are building up, they cannot cause the type of warming these models say – two to five degrees centigrade with a doubling of the greenhouse gases.

Glassman: Well thank you very much for giving us your time.

[curtadams]

Greenhouse gases drive the climate. There's a spectacular demonstration from 500,000 years of Vostok ice core http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org ... limate.htm The scary thing is that the current level of CO2 is literally off the chart - WAY off - enough that we're due several degree C of temperature increase beyond the 1-2 we've already had. It's *not* a cycle - CO2 (and CH4) haven't been this high for about 20 million years.

I seriously doubt that. Once again, I reiterate that many of the folks in this debate cite all these websites that have their own agenda. If there is one bromide that is very true, it's that you can use statistics and/or the Bible to prove just about any viewpoint you wish. The same can be said for using website data. There are even places for those who want to believe in the flat earth and just about every other ridiculous theory/idea/conspiracy for that matter. For the people who want to cry "the sky is falling!" they frequent the websites that cater to this belief, and frankly they are no more credible than those which claim that there is absolutely no global warming.

There are very credible scientists who think that the concept of so-called "human-induced" global warming is either mythical, or extremely minimal. It all depends on who you want to get your information from, and yes, the panic-mongers have the center-stage for the time being so their side gets a lot more exposure.
A2K

No there aren't. Try to find *any* papers published in reputable climatology/general science journals that question there being a substantial effect of human on the climate, projected to break all recent (as in last 10 million years) records in the next few centuries. You won't find them because they don't exist. The website I cited refered to an article in Nature, one of the two "journals of record" for the most significant science (the other being Science) and is one of the most heavily cited and respected papers in the climatology literature. Scientifically the issue is settled.

Some people - mostly funded by oil and gas companies - are trying to confuse the issue with claims disproven years or even decades ago. Go to the literature; check out their claims. They don't hold up. Often they are laughably wrong - like the guy who saw some big glaciers still in Greenland and concluded they must be growing.

[Extremeweatherguy]

like the guy who saw some big glaciers still in Greenland and concluded they must be growing

Actually these glaciers have been growing, there is no dispute over that. It is a FACT that some glaciers around the world are growing.

Also: If you would have read Jake8898's post above...you would have seen that the huma produced carbon dioxide has not increased. Here is the website he had posted if you want to take a look at all the myths surrounding global warming:

http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?ide=4

BTW..here is a segment of an article on the growth of New Zealand glaciers:

30 August 2005 - The most recent survey of the 50 glaciers monitored annually by the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA) was undertaken in March of this year. Dr Jim Salinger of NIWA said today that the glaciers in New Zealand’s Southern Alps had gained much more ice than they had lost during the past glacier year.

This year’s gains are due to more snow in the Southern Alps , particularly from late
winter to early summer 2004. During this five month period, temperatures were 0.6°C below average, producing more snow.

"Over the last three years, the glaciers have gained in mass, halting the declines seen between 1998 and 2002. This past year was the seventh largest gain since we started aerial surveys in 1977," said Dr Salinger.

[Extremeweatherguy]

I'd rather a warmer Earth than a colder one. Us humans evolved in a warm climate thats why we are mostly hairless. Just a little over 1000 years ago the Vikings discovered Greenland, which is now covered mostly in ICE. The Vikings also grew grapes in Labrador, funny but I have not tasted any wine from that region in some time. I wonder what happened? The Earth got cooler. A mini ice age would lead to the deaths of millions due to crop failures because of a reduced growing season in the norther hemisphere. The warming trend started hundreds of years ago. Glaciers have been retreating since the early 1800's as John Mier noted of Alaskan glaciers. I'll take the warmth thank you.....MGC

I wish people would read up on the Greenland Vikings before making claims. Greenland was *not* green when the Vikings settled it. It was *colder* and probably had more ice than today (although probably warmer than 50 years ago). The Vikings squeezed into two small areas which for miniclimactic reason had no ice sheets (and still don't) and long enough summers to grow hay (barely). They were iced in the majority of the year and in bad years couldn't travel by boat at all because of ice (it never gets that bad now). They never grew grapes anywhere - they found wild grapes going south but we don't know how far south. The settlement we found was a base camp, and they definitely went further south than that. The warming trend did indeed start about 300 years ago - when Europe started burning coal on a large scale.

Actually...Greenland was warmer during the period that they settled it. I do not know where you are getting the idea that it was colder??

Here is a statement to back this up:

"Cores taken from the ocean bottom west of Iceland show evidence that the ocean conditions between the 8th and 12th centuries were relatively calm and that little sea ice was present to hinder navigation."

(statement taken from: http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/su ... nment.html )

[x-y-no]

Keep in mind that those glacier pictures represent just 2 glaciers...there hae been other glaciers that have actually grown in recent years.

I agree...Also the Antartic and greenland glaciers have been growing. That is a amazing 90 percent or more of the worlds glaciers. I was reading about it in said wow!

Again, this is ABSOLUTELY FALSE.

Glaciers in Greenland and Antarctic are not growing, they are flowing faster. Not the same thing at all.


In fact, to the extent that there is any evidence at all of total net change of ice mass in both Antarctica and Greenland, the evidence is that they are losing ice. See this gravitometric study for example (the time baseline is quite short, which is why I added the caveat above - but the important fact is that this, and every other piece of research I've seen, contradicts your factual claim that Greenland and Antarctic glaciers are growing).

[x-y-no]

I believe the jury is still out on anthropogenic warming.

http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?ide=4


MYTH 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.

FACT: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased from a rate of about 0.2% per year to the present 0.4% per year. But there is no proof that CO2 is the main driver of global warming. As measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically through solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming surface layers of the earth's oceans expel more CO2 as a result.


MYTH 6: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.
FACT: In a 1996 report by the UN on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft. Here they are:
1) “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”
2) “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man–made causes”

To the present day there is still no scientific proof that man-made CO2 causes significant global warming

Absolutely false.

Regarding the human source of the CO2 increase:

For one thing, CO2 is increasing several orders of magnitude faster than it ever has in the record.

Second, the total volume of increase correlates very well with the amount of fossil carbon we have introduced (it's about half - the other half primarily having been absorbed by the ocean).

Finally and conclusively, isotopic analysis shows with no doubt that the source of the carbon increase is fossil coarbon. See, for instance:

Stuiver, M., Burk, R. L. and Quay, P. D. 1984. 13C/12C ratios and the transfer of biospheric carbon to the atmosphere. J. Geophys. Res. 89, 1731–1748.

Francey, R.J., Allison, C.E., Etheridge, D.M., Trudinger, C.M., Enting, I.G., Leuenberger, M., Langenfelds, R.L., Michel, E., Steele, L.P., 1999. A 1000-year high precision record of d13Cin atmospheric CO2. Tellus 51B, 170–193.

Quay, P.D., B. Tilbrook, C.S. Wong. Oceanic uptake of fossil fuel CO2: carbon-13 evidence. Science 256 (1992), 74-79


Regarding whether CO2 contributes to warming:

The physics of frequency-specific absorption and re-radiation by greenhouse gasses is well understood and amply demonstrated both in the lab and in the atmosphere. I can provide cites for some basic physics texts if you seriously wish to maintain this claim.

[Steve]

I'm not reading the thread after the first post, but you've got to be kidding me. Besides monumental climate changes, you have the issue of biodiversity. Certain trees (as well as other flora) won't be able to make the jump in bioms from say South LA to Missouri in the time that it would take for them to get established. Widespread extinction would be the rule. Come on Matt. You used to be pretty shock-oriented and ADHD but had toned that down significantly in the last few years. I guess you couldn't help this outburst. I vote the premise of this thread the big Thumbs Down!

Steve

[Extremeweatherguy]

Keep in mind that those glacier pictures represent just 2 glaciers...there hae been other glaciers that have actually grown in recent years.

I agree...Also the Antartic and greenland glaciers have been growing. That is a amazing 90 percent or more of the worlds glaciers. I was reading about it in said wow!

Again, this is ABSOLUTELY FALSE.

Glaciers in Greenland and Antarctic are not growing, they are flowing faster. Not the same thing at all.


In fact, to the extent that there is any evidence at all of total net change of ice mass in both Antarctica and Greenland, the evidence is that they are losing ice. See this gravitometric study for example (the time baseline is quite short, which is why I added the caveat above - but the important fact is that this, and every other piece of research I've seen, contradicts your factual claim that Greenland and Antarctic glaciers are growing).

the same is not true in New Zealand though. Here is part of one of my earlier posts:

BTW..here is a segment of an article on the growth of New Zealand glaciers:

30 August 2005 - The most recent survey of the 50 glaciers monitored annually by the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA) was undertaken in March of this year. Dr Jim Salinger of NIWA said today that the glaciers in New Zealand’s Southern Alps had gained much more ice than they had lost during the past glacier year.

This year’s gains are due to more snow in the Southern Alps , particularly from late
winter to early summer 2004. During this five month period, temperatures were 0.6°C below average, producing more snow.

"Over the last three years, the glaciers have gained in mass, halting the declines seen between 1998 and 2002. This past year was the seventh largest gain since we started aerial surveys in 1977," said Dr Salinger

[gtalum]

New Zealand's glaciers are a tiny fraction of the size of Greenland's and Antarctica's glaciers. The growth in New Zealand's glaciers, as noted in the article, is attributed to unusually heavy snowfall in 2004. However, the loss of glaciers elsewhere is troubling.

[GalvestonDuck]

Please, not another global warming debate.

Keep it civil, gang.

Furthermore, I'm moving this to the obvious -- Global Weather.

[Hybridstorm_November2001]

Exactly what I was saying Please not again

[Audrey2Katrina]

Scientifically the issue is settled

That is a gross overstatement of colossal hubris. I would *NOT* call Dr. Gray, and a LOT of his colleagues (who are experts on climatology) a bunch of groupies and paeons for the oil and gas and other industrial companies--and THEY do *NOT* agree at all with the concept of human-induced global warming--the issue is anything BUT settled--end of story!

A2K

[greeng13]

according to the article in Time Magazine x-y-no has my vote and i'm sorry but i feel the rest of you might be a bit misinformed.

for 1 the greenland glaciers are MELTING not growing. Summarizing glaciologist Eric Rignot and Pannir Kanagaratnam' research of analyzing satellite data they found (quoted from article):

"that Greenland ice is not just melting but doing so more than twice as fast, with 53 cu. mi. draining away into the sea last year alone, compared with 22 cu. mi. in 1996.....Dumping that much water into the ocean is a very dangerous thing. Icebergs don't raise sea levels when they melt because they're floating, which means they have displaced all the water they're ever going to. But ice on land, like Greenland's is a different matter. Pour that into oceans that are already rising...and you deluge shorelines. By some estimates, the entire Greenland sheet would be enough to raise global sea levels 23 ft.....The Antarctic holds enough ice to raise sea levels more than 215 ft

fine so the glaciers melt...it turns on a cycle wherby the more that melts the faster it does so.

Explanation: (quoted from article)

Polar ice is so reflective that 90% of the sunlight that strikes it simply bounces back into space, taking much of its energy with it. Ocean water does just the opposite, absorbing 90% of the energy it receives. The more energy it retains the warmer it gets, with the result that each mile of ice that melts vanishes faster than the mile that preceded it

once the ice melts it exposes the warmer water that lies beneath it as well.

and also when one takes into account the now exposed permafrost laters (after melting) and the permafrost layers that thaw out (maybe not currently covered by a glacier)...the situation gets worse.

explanation: (quoted from article):

Sealed inside [that ice] are layers of partially decayed organic matter, rich in carbon. In high-altitude regions of Alaska, Canada, and Siberia, the soil is warming and decomposing, releasing gases that will turn into methane and CO². That in turn could lead to more warming and permafrost thaw, says research scientist David Lawrence of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo. And how much carbon is socked away in Arctic soils? Lawrence puts the figure at 200 gigatons to 800 gigatons. The total human carbon output is only 7gigatons a year

i won't go one forever but the article then mentions how you might see colder climates in Europe as a result of the breakdown of the Gulf Stream "conveyor belt".

last quote from the article:

Last December, researchers associated with Britain's National Oceanography Center reported that one component of the system that drives the Gulf Stream has slowed about 30% since 1957. It's the increased release of Arctic and Greenland meltwater that appears to be causing the problem, introducing a gush of freshwater that's overwhelming the natural cycle

basically the UK is on the same latitude as Alaska and because of the Gulf Stream the climate is relatively mild (i.e. less cold than Alaska).

i won't mention the flooding and droughts, and flora and fauna effects, and unfortunately i cannot link to the site and post it here (you must subscribe to Time magazine or buy the issue)...

i would copy and paste it but at the risk of copyright infringement i would rather not...and it is widely available at any news stand...

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

I'm not reading the thread after the first post, but you've got to be kidding me. Besides monumental climate changes, you have the issue of biodiversity. Certain trees (as well as other flora) won't be able to make the jump in bioms from say South LA to Missouri in the time that it would take for them to get established. Widespread extinction would be the rule. Come on Matt. You used to be pretty shock-oriented and ADHD but had toned that down significantly in the last few years. I guess you couldn't help this outburst. I vote the premise of this thread the big Thumbs Down!

Steve

Sorry...I don't mean to sound like a troll or anything like that. Just discusing global warming which makes it sound like it.

[x-y-no]

the same is not true in New Zealand though.

I made no dispute about New Zealand. Before someone gets around to mentioning it as evidence that glaciers are growing everywhere, I'll add that they're growing in Norway too.

But this is the same nonsense as citing some localized cooling trend as evidence that the world isn't getting warmer. LOCAL IS NOT GLOBAL.

Globally, glaciers are shrinking. Looking at some selective subset ("high altitude" or "New Zealand" or whatever) doesn't change that fact.

And my response above still stands. Glaciers are not growing in Greenland an Antarctica. They're flowing faster. Not the same thing at all.

[Downdraft]

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. That being said I will listen to the folks whose degrees and expertise in this area are probably much better than your own Matt. It really is true that which we do not understand we are likely to dismiss.

[Sanibel]

That is a gross overstatement of colossal hubris. I would *NOT* call Dr. Gray, and a LOT of his colleagues (who are experts on climatology) a bunch of groupies and paeons for the oil and gas and other industrial companies--and THEY do *NOT* agree at all with the concept of human-induced global warming--the issue is anything BUT settled--end of story!

I think it is foolish to ignore Dr Gray's affiliations and the cautions forced upon him by the institutions he represents and answers to. I love reading posts in contempt of GW that ignore a monster 2005 season setting records far and above previous seasons (gee no evidence there). It's very obvious to me Dr Gray is part of the government conservative information control that doesn't always answer to true science. 2005 spoke loudly enough for me - I don't know about you.


As I explained before, but was ignored, some areas of the planet will experience colder spells and micro-climate conditions due to shifting weather patterns caused by GW. People who find record cold snaps or cold weather data and come and post "see Global Warming isn't happening" are ignorant of the complicated dynamics involved. That is true for the various cases of glacier growth as well. I promise you in 50 years those glaciers will probably be severely melted if not gone. These people will not be around for that. It's obvious to me their opinions are politically motivated first, then empirical (but only in a cherry-picking way). This is common from economically-inspired governments. It's also very obvious these same persons are using propaganda to push all the blame on natural cycles where - low and behold - we won't have to do anything about it.


What Dr Gray is saying is this peak multi-decadal oscillation is not strictly due to Global Warming. However, he did not detail in particular that these record pressures and numbers of storms were not seriously enhanced by GW either. Weather speaks louder than rhetoric. So does Gaia.

[curtadams]

Actually, glaciers are shrinking in New Zealand too! Check the PDF available at http://www.rsnz.org/publish/nzjgg/1996/128.php New Zealand glaciers have lost 25% of their area since their LIA maximums (about 150 years ago). Since then (1996) the glaciers have shrunk further. All that has happend is that for the past 3 years NZ glaciers have increased *slightly* - not even enough to make up for the previous 6 years. 3 years of a slight increase in one relatively small area means NOTHING.

[Extremeweatherguy]

Actually, glaciers are shrinking in New Zealand too! Check the PDF available at http://www.rsnz.org/publish/nzjgg/1996/128.php New Zealand glaciers have lost 25% of their area since their LIA maximums (about 150 years ago). Since then (1996) the glaciers have shrunk further. All that has happend is that for the past 3 years NZ glaciers have increased *slightly* - not even enough to make up for the previous 6 years. 3 years of a slight increase in one relatively small area means NOTHING.

Either way they HAVE increased since then. New Zealand's glaciers ARE currently growing, and the trend may certainly last for more than just three years (and if it does then it might make up for previous losses). Also, I can not understand how record lows are still managing to be broken worldwide if we are in a state of warming. If the earth was warmer now than 50+ years ago...then how come we have cities breaking record lows that are up to 100 years old? Also, how can you explain some of the coldest weather in Asia in over 20 years? I think that Global warming may be *slowly* occurring, but I think that if so it is part of a natural cycle. I find it hard to believe that the NE will be as warm as a place in Georgia in just 100 years. I also do not trust these long range models they use to predict claims like that one either. If we can not get the GFS to be accurate in the 7-15 day range...then how are we going to have a global model be accurate in the 50 to 100 year range? We as humans think we know everything now days...which simply is not the case. Even the most well-respected meteorologist with a PHD will be wrong sometimes. Nature will do what it wants; not what we tell it to do.