Global warming?

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's a trick to sell long underwear.

[Happy Monkey]

Depends on what you mean by "growing". It's getting smaller in area as chunks break off, but thicker as evaporating water falls as snow. Australia is safe from ice.

[Bullitt]

Here's an interesting twist in the global warming/climate change discussion: Since the 1960s, increased levels of atmospheric pollution have enhanced plant productivity by as much as one quarter, research has found. This will be interesting to see where the research and its implication goes because of how much more carbon is stored in the soil by a plant that has enhanced photosynthesis abilities according to their preliminary studies. If nothing else, this should be a reminder to us that the Earth is a very dynamic and surprising system. We should be careful with any artificial "corrective measures" taken because quite honestly, the intricacies of every facet of life and geographical detail on this planet, and exactly how they react to one another, is not fully understood as of yet.

[classicman]

Not fully? Thats an understatement. I don know that we have really even scratched the surface (pun intended).

Well put Bullitt.

[sugarpop]

That doesn't mean climate change and global warning aren't real.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0520-08.htm

[TheMercenary]

It appears that global warming is a figment of the imagination propagated by a warming
bias in the temperature measurements.

QUOTE: we found that 89 percent of the stations - nearly 9 of every 10 - fail to meet the
National Weather Service's own siting requirements that stations must be 30 meters (about
100 feet) or more away from an artificial heating or radiating/ reflecting heat source.


QUOTE: The conclusion is inescapable: The US temperature record is unreliable.


The errors in the record exceed by a wide margin the purported rise in temperature of 0.7º
C (about 1.2º F) during the twentieth century. Consequently, this record should not be
cited as evidence of any trend in temperature that may have occurred across the US during
the past century.


QUOTE: Since the US record is thought to be "the best in the world," it follows that the
global database is likely similarly compromised and unreliable.


Executive Summary


Global warming is one of the most serious issues of our times. Some experts claim the rise
in temperature during the past century was "unprecedented" and proof that immediate action
to reduce human greenhouse gas emissions must begin.


Other experts say the warming was very modest and the case for action has yet to be made.


The reliability of data used to document temperature trends is of great importance in this
debate. We can't know for sure if global warming is a problem if we can't trust the data.


The official record of temperatures in the continental United States comes from a network
of 1,221 climate-monitoring stations overseen by the National Weather Service, a
department of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).


Until now, no one had ever conducted a comprehensive review of the quality of the
measurement environment of those stations.


During the past few years I recruited a team of more than 650 volunteers to visually
inspect and photographicallydocument more than 860 of these temperature stations.


We were shocked by what we found.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.g...4ded04a362921?

http://www.surfacestations.org/

[classicman]

Link

The earth's atmosphere has actually cooled by 0.13° Celsius since 1979 according to highly accurate satellite-based atmospheric temperature measurements. By contrast, computer climate models predicted that the globe should have warmed by an easily detectable 0.4° C over the last fifteen years.

The scientific evidence argues against the existence of a greenhouse crisis, against the notion that realistic policies could achieve any meaningful climatic impact, and against the claim that we must act now if we are to reduce the greenhouse threat.

Current computer climate models are incapable of coupling the oceans and atmosphere; misrepresent the role of sea ice, snow caps, localized storms, and biological systems; and fail to account accurately for the effects of clouds.

Temperature records reveal that predictive models are off by a factor of two when applied retroactively in projecting the change in global temperature for this century.

Accuracy in land-based measurements of global temperatures is frustrated by the dearth of stations, frequent station relocations, and changes in how ocean-going ships make measurements.

Although all of the greenhouse computer models predict that the greatest warming will occur in the Arctic region of the Northern Hemisphere, temperature records indicate that the Arctic has actually cooled by 0.88° C over the past fifty years.

Corrective environmental policies would have a minuscule impact on the climate. According to its own projections, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's own plan would spare the earth only a few hundredths of a degree of warming by middle of the next century.

Dr. John Christy, professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Alabama at Huntsville said: "I remember as a college student at the first Earth Day being told it was a certainty that by the year 2000, the world would be starving and out of energy. Such doomsday prophecies grabbed headlines, but have proven to be completely false." "Similar pronouncements today about catastrophes due to human-induced climate change," he continued, "sound all too familiar and all too exaggerated to me as someone who actually produces and analyzes climate information."

The media, of course, like the exaggerated claims. Most are based on computer models that purport to predict future climates. But computer models are lousy at predicting climate because water vapor and cloud effects cause changes that computers fail to predict. In the mid-1970s, computer models told us we should prepare for global cooling.

Why don't we hear about this part of the global warming argument? "It's the money!" said Dr. Baliunas. "Twenty-five billion dollars in government funding has been spent since 1990 to research global warming. If scientists and researchers were coming out releasing reports that global warming has little to do with man, and most to do with just how the planet works, there wouldn't be as much money to study it."

And even advocates of Kyoto admit that if all the nations signed the Kyoto agreement and obeyed it, global temperatures would still increase. The difference by 2050 would be less than a tenth of a degree. The fuss over Kyoto is absurd. Even if Kyoto would have an impact, do you think all the signers are going to honor what they signed? China is predicted to out-emit us in five to 10 years. India will soon follow.

[sugarpop]

There is no way you will convince me that the earth has actually cooled. There is too much evidence to the contrary.

[classicman]

Eighty percent of the world's energy comes from fossil fuels. Kyoto would decimate just about every Third World country's economy.

study out of NASA which determined that "not all the large changes seen in Arctic climate in recent years are a result of long-term trends associated with global warming."

Goes quite counter to all the recent media reports, as well as assertions by Nobel Laureate Al Gore, that low ice conditions in the Arctic are all the fault of that despicable -- albeit essential to life and naturally occurring! -- gas carbon dioxide.

Of course, it's quite unlikely many climate alarmists will even hear about this study, for today's green media wouldn't want to do anything that destroys their illusion that there's a scientific consensus regarding this matter.

The current scientific community has refuted all the panicked predictions quoted in his article. World weather changes are cyclical and cannot be thwarted by any efforts or sacrifices of man. We are actually entering a cooling cycle.

Only 34% Now Believe Global Warming Caused By Human Activity
We are down to the lunatic fringe. Most normal adults hold the shockingly controversial opinion that Global Warming is caused by normal planetary temperature cycles.
Just one-out-of-three voters (34%) now believe global warming is caused by human activity, the lowest finding yet in Rasmussen Reports national surveying. However, a plurality (48%) of the Political Class believes humans are to blame.

Forty-eight percent (48%) of all likely voters attribute climate change to long-term planetary trends, while seven percent (7%) blame some other reason. Eleven percent (11%) aren’t sure.
These numbers reflect a reversal from a year ago when 47% blamed human activity while 34% said long-term planetary trends.

That is a shift of a whopping 14% in one year.

Over the past several years, it appeared that our society was doomed to succumb to what Weather Channel founder John Coleman has described as "the greatest scam in history": anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming (AGW). For two decades there has been an incessant drumbeat of propaganda attributing every weather-related event to an increase in carbon dioxide caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

Satellite data from NASA shows no increase in average global temperature since 1998, a year when El Niño caused a worldwide spike having nothing to do with carbon dioxide. Alarmists contend this is just a pause in a continuous rise in temperatures and that it will begin to increase again. Ironically that is the same argument that the warming skeptics have been using for years. There was warming for the first 40 years of the 20th century — until the very time CO2 began to climb significantly — and then came cooling, which sparked concerns in the '70s about a looming Ice Age. Then rising temperatures resumed until 1998 and now we're back on a cooling trend. This fits well with a general planetary warm up, but is in conflict with climate forcing by CO2 that calls for a continuous upward temperature movement.


This was evidenced by a 2007 Oxford-style debate in New York sponsored by National Public Radio, a more difficult venue being hard to imagine for warming skeptics, or "deniers" as they were popularly referred to. The issue under debate was "Global Warming Is Not a Crisis." Prior to the debate about 30 percent of the audience agreed with the motion, and 57 percent were against, with 13 percent undecided. After the debate 46 percent agreed, while 42 percent were opposed with 12 percent apparently still unsure, a swing of 19 percent of those with an opinion toward the climate-realist position.

There are about 50 more links to credible scientists and articles from other sources that debunk and/or refute the "global warming" argument.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

There is no way you will convince me that the earth has actually cooled. There is too much evidence to the contrary.

we are supposed to be concerned over was less than 1°C for the entire 20th century, meaning minor errors in measurements can contribute significantly to an apparent warming trend.
With 650 volunteers, more than 860 of the National Weather Service's 1,221 climate-monitoring stations were inspected and photographically documented. Of these, 89 percent did not meet the Weather Service's own requirements of being 30 meters away from artificial heating or reflecting sources such as pavements or building.

Perhaps the data is flawed...

[sugarpop]

I'm not even talking about that. Scientists have been going out for years taking samples of ice from remote places. There is evidence that most of the glaciers of the world are melting. With all the asphalt now covering the planet, you can't convince me that doesn't have an effect on the earth's temperature.

Besides, there are other reasons to stop polluting the air, and those are health related issues. You certainly can't claim that disease isn't on the rise.

[classicman]

Whew - you just bounce around like a ball don't you?

[classicman]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

you can't convince me

thats because your mind is already made up. Thats ok I wasn't trying to convince you of anything anyway.

[sugarpop]

My mind is made up because of the evidence. There are mountains of it, and scientists have been collecting it for decades. In addition, climate change is a fact. All you have to do is look back in time at the weather, and then look at it now. The storms are a lot more destructive and intense, and there are more of them, all over the world.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by classicman

Whew - you just bounce around like a ball don't you?

Why? Because I brought up the health aspect of the issue? I always do that when talking about "global warming" or CO2. Frankly I prefer the term "climate change," because that is something people can relate to. You can't deny the climate is changing.