The Globe is Not Warming

Thank you.

maybe its time for a swim?

Maybe if you took it out of the fridge it would?

Your FACE is not warming. Let me help with that *slap*

It's 29 C here... I think it's warming..

Funny, I bumped into this just after reading that NOAA just reported that they were mistaken, and they are an organization that for political reasons (e.g. Kyoto Protocol) probably has significant pressure to paint things as rosy.

The Globe isnt warming.
Children arent dying in Iraq because of us.
Corporate greed isn't ruining the world.
The panda isn't endangered.
Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.

Nice joke, Introvert!

I read the same article, via the link you provided, and it had nothing to do with NOAA saying they were wrong. Quoting the article:


"According to the published report, there is no longer a discrepancy in the rate of global average temperature increase for the surface compared with higher levels in the atmosphere. This discrepancy had previously been used to challenge the validity of climate models used to detect and attribute the causes of observed climate change. This is an important revision to and update of the conclusions of earlier reports from the U.S. National Research Council and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

This synthesis and assessment report exposes the remaining differences among different observing systems and data sets related to recent changes in tropospheric and stratospheric temperature," said Chief Editor Thomas Karl, director of the NOAA National Climatic Data Center. "Discrepancies between the data sets and the models have been reduced and our understanding of observed climate changes and their causes have increased. The evidence continues to support a substantial human impact on global temperature increases. This should constitute a valuable source of information to policymakers."



Of course the globe is warming. There's a lot of hot air coming out of people's mouths
And greed may be evil, but many corporations are not.

Ah, I see you don't speak Bureaucrat.

Of course you can't say you were wrong, you just say you are now more correct. And yes, the organizations that they do claim as having bad models are formally distinct; I don't have the interest to trace all the myriad members of UNP-IPCC but I'd be really surprised if NOAA wasn't participating as such organizations hate to be left out of meetings because it makes them feel unloved.

Of course the globe is warming. And that's GOOD!

Maybe for you, but I have fond memories of Bangladesh.

I do like your humor!

I didn't write the article so I'm not saying "I'm not wrong." And it has nothing to do with "me" being correct. I did not participate in any of the many thousand of scientific studies that this report is based on.

I will say this, though. It is no longer an issue whose camp is ensconced within one political party. In the US, many Democrats, Republicans, and Independents are now on the same page with this issue. Even the religious right has gone on record saying that human-induced global warming is not a fictitious phenomenon (http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19025454.700.html). Also, read this Newsweek article (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11179145/site/newsweek/).

It's a tough issue but one that affects us all. Open your mind and realize that the science is very strong on this issue.

If people don't accept the overwhelming body of scientific data on global warming, then why don't they question the same scientific principles that made modern medicine, computers, communication satellites and many of the modern day wonders everyone uses everyday without a second thought?

Whose turning this into a political statement? The politicians and activists or the scientists? The vast majority of climate scientists are in agreement and most scientists hate the bureaucratic politicking just as you do.

These are good questions. I think the answer has a lot to do with the atmosphere being just too big and the changes visible to a person's perceptions are just too small.

I consider myself a practicing Scientist, but even I have trouble wrapping my head around:

1. the global average temperature is rising slightly
   
2. human carbon production (including methane from cows) is very likely contributing
   
3. so far, this is well within the range of normal climactic variation
   
4. how much a part of normal variation are we responsible for?
   
5. how will the effects manifest? (last year's Atlantic hurricanes exhausted the alphabet)
   
6. how much would human carbon abatement help?
   
7. is it possible that we triggered a shift and that abatement to zero would have no effect?
   

We's gots troubles saying what the weather will be like in Peoria tomrrow; this is indeed a tough nut.

It's Inconvenient...

http://www.climatecrisis.net/


plus from the NYT
(posted without written permission)

Federal Study Finds Accord on Warming


By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: May 3, 2006
A scientific study commissioned by the Bush administration concluded yesterday that the lower atmosphere was indeed growing warmer and that there was "clear evidence of human influences on the climate system."

The finding eliminates a significant area of uncertainty in the debate over global warming, one that the administration has long cited as a rationale for proceeding cautiously on what it says would be costly limits on emissions of heat-trapping gases.

But White House officials noted that this was just the first of 21 assessments planned by the federal Climate Change Science Program, which was created by the administration in 2002 to address what it called unresolved questions. The officials said that while the new finding was important, the administration's policy remained focused on studying the remaining questions and using voluntary means to slow the growth in emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide.

The focus of the new federal study was conflicting records of atmospheric temperature trends.

For more than a decade, scientists using different methods had come up with differing rates of warming at Earth's surface and in the midsection of the atmosphere, called the troposphere. These disparities had been cited by a small group of scientists, and by the administration and its allies, to question a growing consensus among climatologists that warming from heat-trapping gases could dangerously heat Earth.

The new study found that "there is no longer a discrepancy in the rate of global average temperature increase for the surface compared with higher levels in the atmosphere," in the words of a news release issued by the Commerce Department and approved by the White House. The report was published yesterday online at climatescience.gov.

The report's authors all agreed that their review of the data showed that the atmosphere was, in fact, warming in ways that generally meshed with computer simulations. The study said that the only factor that could explain the measured warming of Earth's average temperature over the last 50 years was the buildup heat-trapping gases, which are mainly emitted by burning coal and oil.

All other industrial powers except Australia have accepted mandatory restrictions on such gases under the Kyoto Protocol, but efforts to extend and expand that treaty face hurdles.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that conducts an exhaustive periodic review of causes and impacts of warming, has just finished reviewing drafts of its next assessment, to be published next year.

Scientists involved in that effort, while refusing to comment on specific findings, said that research since the last assessment, in 2001, had generated much greater certainty that humans are the main force behind recent warming, and that much more warming is in store unless emissions are curtailed.

Michele St. Martin, a spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said, "We welcome today's report" and added that it showed that President Bush's decision to focus nearly $2 billion a year on climate monitoring and research was "working."

Thomas Karl, the director of the National Climatic Data Center in the Commerce Department and the lead editor of the report, said it was not simply a review of existing work but also, by forcing scientists with differing views to meet repeatedly, resulted in breakthroughs.

"The evidence continues to support a substantial human impact on global temperature increases," Dr. Karl said.

John R. Christy, an author of the new report whose analysis of satellite temperature records long showed little warming above Earth's surface, said he endorsed the conclusion that "part of what has happened over the last 50 years has clearly been caused by humans."

But Dr. Christy, who teaches at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, said the report also noted that computer simulations of the climate system, while good at replicating the globally averaged temperature changes, still strayed in projecting details, particularly in the tropics.

This implied that the models remained laden with uncertainties when used to study future trends, he said.

Dr. Christy also said that even given what the models projected, it would be impossible to slow warming noticeably in the coming decades. Countries would be wise to seek ways to adapt to warming, he added, even as they seek new sources of energy that do not emit heat-trapping gases.

Well put, Introvert!

I also would suggest everyone go see An Inconvenient Truth. Good link, Blueman.

Nah, only for the last 12 years

If we look at history in the age of the dinosaur, the earth was mostly a tropical climate then came the bad ol meteor that his the earth sending dirty into the sky causing the Ice Age. Now we are here today talking about global warming and how its our fault its happing, well my thought is this, is it really our fault or is the earth going back to its original state? Hummmmm Something to think about I think.

No one really denies that there might be some natural warming going on. However, if you take the time to wade through the data from all the studies, not the political rhetoric on either side, but the actual data collected, then it seems pretty obvious that the most likely candidate for the recent rapid increase in global temps is human activity. If you put all the data together as a whole it seems to point pretty clearly in a single direction. I'm even including those studies that claim that human activity isn't a factor. Putting them all together and averaging them out, it's us.

As for why I think it's too late, well it's because of human nature. Too many people just tend to shrug at abstract, “sometime in the future” type things and say “meh, we'll work it out.” and then turn on the tv. Or worse, they get stuck in a “I won't let them win” mode so they don't even care about who's right anymore, just winning the argument (come on, admit it, we've all done it.) So while it may be possible for us to do something to prevent the coming ecological collapse, the prob is we just won't. We'll hem and haw and argue about it until it's actually happening, and by then it will be too late.

I am SO glad someone finally cleared that up.

Does this mean no swimming this summer?

P2

That the planet has gone through broad of cycles atmospheric carbon dioxide and corresponding "greenhousing" for most of its history is pretty clear:

and it is kind of hard to blame human activity for it as there were at least four major ice ages in the last two billion years with the last one beginning around 70,000 years ago when humans were not big petroleum users (and there were less than 5 million of em).

On the other hand, ants and termites outweigh humans now by a factor of about 100 (thus 100,000x back then) and those critters make a lot of carbon dioxide and methane.

Indeed, before the animals evolved and started getting rid of all that nasty oxygen, the plants nearly poisoned themselves with the stuff. This atmospheric stuff is complicated, even moreso when you add the effects of all the life that infects the planet.

Lest someone think I'm trying to say we should ignore it, we shouldn't as we have pushed carbon dioxide higher than it's been in at least the last billion years or so in just the last century. Then again, earth's changing position relative to the sun and even the sun's position in the galaxy probably contribute to global climate change too.

Complicated.

Your post contained 97% less fun than is required for this thread.



P2

The scary thing is to look at atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the last fifty or so years.




The total atmospheric CO2 content observed has gone up 15%. Now, 15% might not sound like much, but it's a big world and that number represents an enormous change. Really, the White House's policy meddling in science is upsetting, and them claiming that the change in the metrics used to observe global climate change somehow invalidating the relatively consistant results/conclusions they point to is a disservice to the American people and, indeed, humanity. The technology for monitoring global climate change has improved drastically over the last century, so, yes, the techniques applied in studies over the years have changed. They're only conceeding the point, now, because to not do so they would seem foolish even to their supporters; they've been (correctly) criticized as foolish by the scientific community for years... c_c

My memories of the the last three global ice sheet interludes are not so fond. The problem with human beings is that their perspectives, personal, group, and species, are very limited. So the idea that recent developments (seven hundred years of progressive warming) have delayed the latest cycle of glaciation is something that most people shake their heads at.

An increasing number of scientists, on the other hand, are taking the concept seriously.