Wrong About Global Warming?

[collegestudent22]

New data shows that the oceans may not be warming as predicted. If this isn't right, what other predictions about global warming might be wrong? I'm not going to say I told you so. (mostly because I didn't voice my opinion on this here)

My only question is why no one seems to speculate that this new data meant scientists were wrong? No, instead it means "global warming has taken a breather" (whatever that means) or "scientists aren't quite understanding what their robots are telling them" (what does that mean? scientists can't read their own data? so how did they come up with original measurements.....?)

[Thorsman]

CS22, that article doesn't even state that global warming is somehow wrong because of the oceans showing no apparent increase in temperature where the robots have measures. It's merely stating that the data isn't entirely conclusive.

Willis says some of this water is apparently coming from a recent increase in the melting rate of glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica.

You mean to tell me that cooler water from the polar regions has no influence on ocean temperatures? Care to explain that one away?

All this anti-global warming nonsense in reality points to the fact that a lot of people can't be bothered to change their habits for the good of the future and want to twist the data to justify a lack of change in their own habits.

[Martin Blank]

My only question is why no one seems to speculate that this new data meant scientists were wrong? No, instead it means "global warming has taken a breather" (whatever that means) or "scientists aren't quite understanding what their robots are telling them" (what does that mean? scientists can't read their own data? so how did they come up with original measurements.....?)

It's because data that does not fit with a theory does not necessarily mean that the theory is wrong. Sometimes it just needs to be adjusted, or an understanding of some component needs to be made more complete. Data sometimes needs to be corrected to take into account some factor that is not originally known. As an example, an astronomer may calculate the distance to some far-off galaxy using known and accepted theories, have the numbers checked a dozen times over by others, and still be incorrect because an unknown gravitational mass altered the path of light reaching earth, thereby lengthening the path that the light took and suggesting a longer distance to the galaxy than in reality.

Climate change is a relatively young aspect of climatology. The amount and quality of data is rapidly changing, and the research has uncovered enormous numbers of new factors that were not known before. There's an ice sheet in Antarctica that is moving faster than expected, but that may be because of geothermal activity underneath it. Ultra-high-altitude clouds may be reflecting more light than originally anticipated. Heat islands around cities are creating microclimates that may be throwing off localized data. These are all new factors that have to be added in. That does not necessarily mean that the basic theory is flat out wrong, though. As I've argued many times in the past, it's a far more complex issue than anyone realized.

[collegestudent22]

All this anti-global warming nonsense in reality points to the fact that a lot of people can't be bothered to change their habits for the good of the future and want to twist the data to justify a lack of change in their own habits.

That is nonsense. I would be fine changing my habits because oil prices are too high, or we are running out of oil so we need to use other fuels. That's fine. But one of the major things that would supposedly happen if global warming was true, in fact, one of the dangerous calamities of it was that the oceans would get warmer and currents would be forced to change, etc. And the influx of cooler water from the glaciers and icecaps would explain the phenomenon, but than it would seem that there is a lot more self-regulation of the climate than previously thought, as well as the fact that there is ALWAYS an influx of cooler water from those sources....

And the actual level of the water has not risen. So if all this extra water is melting, where is it going that it doesn't cause the sea level to rise any.

[Deacon]

I think the whole "lolz glaciers are like ice cubes" thing is a little weak as something to bring up in favor of man-made global warming. I mean, the volumes you're talking about are very small compared to the oceans at large and seem unlikely to change the nature of various currents, but even if you were convinced of it, it doesn't really do anything to bolster (or refute) global warming as a man-made phenomenon.

[adciv]

All this anti-global warming nonsense in reality points to the fact that a lot of people can't be bothered to change their habits for the good of the future and want to twist the data to justify a lack of change in their own habits.

All this pro-global warming nonsense in reality points to the fact that a lot of people want to control others habits "for their own good" and want to twist the data to justify them having the power to do so.

[Martin Blank]

And the actual level of the water has not risen. So if all this extra water is melting, where is it going that it doesn't cause the sea level to rise any.

Ice already in the ocean is not the concern. Melting that will not change anything. The concern is over the ice packs that are on land. The average thickness of the ice sheet in Greenland is about one mile, and the ice in some places in Antarctica is two miles thick. Between the two, there's enough water to raise the sea level by dozens of meters.

And the sea level has been rising at a rate of a little under 2mm per year. It's not much on an annual basis, but it does build up, and there are places that don't take well to even a foot of rise. Florida, for example, has a water table that can be reached by digging only a couple of feet in some places. I suspect the Gathering's favorite spot also has a very shallow water table. Bringing it up even higher could lead to significant structural damage to buildings in those areas.

[ampersand]

A couple of thoughts on the subject:

1) Along with Martin's observation that location of the ASOS stations (Automated Stationary Observation Stations) is that the numbers and scientific accuracy of these items has gone up rapidly since 1980. Sure, they maybe in bad locations, but usually that is already factored into the daily temperature readings. (So in other words, they already know and it's noted in the observed percentage error of a station.) Furthermore, not only has the accuracy of the data has improved, so has just simply reporting of storms. Many have argued part of the reason for the increase in a lot of things is that we've gotten better in noticing and tracking these things since 1980. (NEXRAD, Computing Power, etc.)

2) I still maintain the basic overlying problem is that you're trying to predict what's going to happen ten or twenty years down the line using data that we know the certainly of to about 1960 and only really guess at since then. That include tree ring analysis, ice core samples from the Arctic and Antarctic. We're really good at predicting out to five days, and our prediction power declines dramatically since then.

Look at any current tournament pool that's on any national sports website and notice how many people (or computer simulations) will end up being exactly right by the time the Final Four starts. It'll be no more than maybe five people at the most. That's predicting the outcome of events six games in advance. Look at how much of their brackets are wrong as we go from 64 to 4. They maybe right 75% of the time and wrong about 25%. That's typically how accurate meteorologists are for short-term forecasts.

Now, climatologists are asked to forecast the weather ten to twenty years from now using programs that combine statistical forecasts and physical models. You'll see a lot of things that they won't get right, like ocean temperatures in certain locations or precipitation rates. I don't know if there are any POS error rates for such decadal forecasts have been developed yet.

3) The worst thing the sciences has done with Global Warming is to force politicans and everyone else to do something about it when, as Martin has noted, how there are so many new nuisances that are being learned about it. I think part of it is that when they started to fully realize the impact of the increases in mean temperature have on everything else. I really wish the other disciplines that are piggybacking on Global Warming as their issue (mostly all of the biology disciplines) would temper on their concern a bit.

4) That doesn't mean it wouldn't hurt to try to figure out ways to moderate the temperature a bit anyway. A lot of the practical steps I've heard to save the environment are really ways to also save money on your heating, cooling and other utility bills too. My part of Missouri has gotten really big into Wind Farms. One local town will completely switch their electrical needs to Wind Farming and it will be interesting to see if Wind does become an good long-term solution for small rural towns like Rock Port.

For me, I feel there is a Global Warming problem, but I think it is exaggerated greatly through political pressure more than scientific results. While I do believe more research is needed to fully understand all of the details and to have more accurate climate forecasts, it wouldn't hurt to go ahead and try to do something about it.

[collegestudent22]

And also, global warming isn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, warmer temperatures and more CO2 would help plants out. So really, it is only bad for us, and isn't the whole thing about environmentalism trying to do something good for things that aren't part of human society. And why should I listen to these scientists anyways, when twenty years ago they were ranting about global COOLING.

[Thorsman]

All this pro-global warming nonsense in reality points to the fact that a lot of people want to control others habits "for their own good" and want to twist the data to justify them having the power to do so.

That is such rubbish, adciv. The fact of global warming, caused by our own actions, is staring us in the face. We pump CO2 into the atmosphere, the CO2 traps more solar rays, the planet heats up further. I don't see what's difficult to understand about this. It's not some infringement upon your rights to ask you to change a few of your habits for the better. Do you also think that someone asking you not to dump toxic chemicals into the local river is also an attempt to "control" your habits? Basically your response is tantamount to this.

Yay for good old rugged American individualism. No one's gonna "tell you what to do," adciv. Good way to hide your head in the sand. And that's from a fellow American.

[collegestudent22]

The fact of global warming, caused by our own actions, is staring us in the face. We pump CO2 into the atmosphere, the CO2 traps more solar rays, the planet heats up further.

And plants can grow better and larger, thus more CO2 is taken from the atmosphere, and thus the planet cools down. I don't see what's difficult to understand about this. It's a cycle....

[Thorsman]

And plants can grow better and larger, thus more CO2 is taken from the atmosphere, and thus the planet cools down. I don't see what's difficult to understand about this. It's a cycle....

The trouble with that, CS22, is that we're pumping more CO2 than the plants can take in. In fact, a lot of plants aren't getting the rainfall they need because of the increased temperatures (hint: water vapor needs to strike COLD AIR for rain to fall). I don't see what's difficult to understand about this. We're putting a pretty big imbalance in the "cycle."

[adciv]

The fact of global warming, caused by our own actions, is staring us in the face. We pump CO2 into the atmosphere, the CO2 traps more solar rays, the planet heats up further. I don't see what's difficult to understand about this. It's not some infringement upon your rights to ask you to change a few of your habits for the better. Do you also think that someone asking you not to dump toxic chemicals into the local river is also an attempt to "control" your habits?

No, but I do see someone that wants to control the entire economy by declaring what can and can not be produced, forcing people to live bunched up in cities like pigs and limiting my ability to travel as an attempt to control my habits. It smacks of wanting control and using the environment as an excuse. Especially when we have several solutions that already exist for reducing CO2 but are protested against, such as nuclear power. Even Wind and Hydro are protested against.

[collegestudent22]

The trouble with that, CS22, is that we're pumping more CO2 than the plants can take in.

Are we? How do you measure how much CO2 a plant can take in?

In fact, a lot of plants aren't getting the rainfall they need because of the increased temperatures (hint: water vapor needs to strike COLD AIR for rain to fall).

RELATIVELY cold air. The air just needs to be significantly colder than the air the water vapor is in. If it is extremely humid, it doesn't even matter if it DOES rain.

I don't see what's difficult to understand about this. We're putting a pretty big imbalance in the "cycle."

You are basing this analysis on the last 40 years or so of data. On a cycle that takes millions of years. How do you know how much you have skewed the slope of the curve if you don't know what it started at....

[Martin Blank]

And plants can grow better and larger, thus more CO2 is taken from the atmosphere, and thus the planet cools down. I don't see what's difficult to understand about this. It's a cycle....

It's not remotely that simple. It's easier to understand the processes going on inside a black hole billions of light-years away than it is to grasp climate, where your local temperature is affected by climate events on the other side of the planet.

In the South, the drinking water supplies depend greatly on rainwater not only from generic storms, but also from hurricanes. Hurricanes form in the southern latitudes of the North Atlantic, gathering moisture and heat and transporting them north. Hurricanes have trouble forming if there's too much dust from the Sahara desert blowing out into the North Atlantic. The strength of those winds after they reach the ocean is dependent on the temperature of the currents flowing along the coast of Africa.

And this is only a very simple example of how things are interrelated.

Are we? How do you measure how much CO2 a plant can take in?

You put a sensor next to it and put a bag over it, and see how much the CO2 changes.

Really, you have no imagination whatsoever.