Global warming

[Frank]

It can't both warm AND cool in the same timespan. It has to be either one or the other. If you want to nitpick, you might say in any given timespan it first warms, then cools, then warms...etc, however the net sum of all changes cannot be both warming AND cooling at the same time. It's like force vector addition, elementary highschool physics.

And we have evidence the earth has warmed in the modern industrial era, so disputing that kind of makes people into little don quijotes, flailing at windmills.

While I agree with you in general (people seem to be rather uneducated/unknowing on average) and I blame the media (television!) and politics, I tend to think that's just me being stupid. Because I'm a minority in many things.

Ok, I should know better by now, but it's like a build-in reflex (don't ask). And I did research most of all those things I'm talking about. Looked it up, figured it out for myself, cross-referenced it. And again. Etc. But most everyone will tell you that is just stupid, there is no way you can figure everything out by yourself, so why try? And so what: you do want to be able to join the conversation during lunch, do you? And the media might skew things a tiny bit, but surely they won't lie to us! They know what they're talking about!

And what is more important: being able to join conversations, know what they are talking about and being able to agree, or having a (hard gained) alternative opinion nobody cares about?


And I do agree with you, that the Earth warms and cools, whatever.


But, the important part: if the stratosphere cooling actually means that the Earth warms up, how do we re-calibrate our best measuring devices (again)? The satellites? Whom all scientists agree are the best ones we got, and have the most impact?

Yes, I know there are multiple wavelengths that all signify different things. But they're broad (overlap) and additive.

 

[Mintmaster]

I still don't believe that we can know the effects of CO2 concentration when we can't predict the weather accurately 3 days from now.

Not this retarted argument again. I feel like _xxx_ is back...

40 years ago, ice age was coming, 10 years ago, we were all heating up and harsh winters were to be a thing of the past, now it's harsh winters are due to global warming. I'm sure there will be different predictions 10 years from now, and they won't be accurate either.

Whoever you were listening to making these predictions certainly weren't scientists.

Predictions by scientists aren't the problem. Predictions by environmentalists on economic impact are. I've show multiple times that using the IPCC's own numbers, spending $0.05/kWh extra for carbon free energy amounts to spending a trillion dollars to reduce temperature by 0.02 degrees. Nobody can possibly think the damage from 0.02 degrees is worth that much.

When environmentalists stop blocking new Nuke plants from being constructed, then I'll think about going green again.

I can see that, at least. They're the biggest culprit in the magnitude of today's CO2 emissions.

And never mind that the majority of the negative impacts will be felt in poor areas of the world, such that your attitude is basically, "Hey, I've got mine. The poor people can just go fuck themselves."

There isn't one poor area around the world that thinks spending global goodwill on reducing AGW is the best way to help them get them out of poverty. AGW reduction has orders of magnitude lower impact per dollar on quality of life than sustainable development. Think of it this way: If the poorest 2B individuals could get US$2,500 worth of goods each - farming equipment, medicine, schools, roads, electricity, etc - and suffer the consequenses of a 0.1 degree increase in average temperature, would they go for it? Fuck yes.

So really, your attitude is one of "I want to feel fuzzy about helping the planet, so the poor can fuck themselves."

And don't give me some lameass answer of "we can do both". Let's see the vastly more important priority happen before making assumptions of what people in the free world will give for the good of humanity.

 

[Frank]

On average, North America, including the US, is warming.

Yes, and the EU (and quite a bit of the rest of the world) is definitely cooling.

That's AGW: Global Climate Change.

Did you ever consider why this new name is the politically accepted, correct one? Hint: it's because a large part of the world has seen a sharp decline in the overall, subjective temperature.

And people are like this: if they encounter the temperature going down very noticeably over three years in a row, they start to think: "well, everyone is telling me that global warming is happening, but I'm definitely seeing and feeling the opposite".

And just about all scientists publicly agree on this: "yes, we have increased the amount of CO2, which would signify warming by itself, but there are so many feedback mechanisms involved, that we can only state that it will have an impact on the global climate. But we don't exactly know what that impact will be, as such, depending".

Duh.

 

[Frank]

Well, it may be somewhat difficult for people to understand how it will affect them, but the changes induced by global warming are broad and sweeping.

A few important ones are:
1. Rising sea levels. By the end of this century, sea levels are expected to rise around 1-2 meters. This will put a number of coastal cities largely underwater. Now, obviously the richer cities will build dikes, but as we found with Katrina, dikes sometimes fail. The sea level rise also means that any existing dikes will need to be increased in size by around this amount.

Bullshit. That might happen in the most extreme scenario. Like: everything going rampant by having all feedbacks loops strengten and enforce it. It is not going to happen. Period.

Or, at least not by the things we did/do in the past and today.

2. Severe weather events will become more frequent. This is already happening, as there has been a measurable shift in precipitation such that a larger percentage of precipitation falls during storms than used to. This includes hurricanes, but also smaller storms.

That would be the GCC prediction.

Like: a higher global temperature increases the cloud coverage, so we expect softer summers and winters.

Oh, wait, that was the one up to two years ago! The current one would be: a higher global temperature increases the energy in the system, so expect more violent summers and winters.

Sorry about that!

3. Dramatic shifts in possible crops in a given region. Farmers have already noted shifts in growing seasons, and within a few decades there will be dramatic shifts in what sorts of crops can be grown in various locations. The worst of this will be experienced in areas that face significant falls in precipitation that don't allow crops to be grown at all.

Anyway, those are just a few. For more:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-negatives-intermediate.htm

So, things change. What's new?

The million dollar question being: did we do it? And the billion dollar one: can we do so again, at will?

 

[epicstruggle]

Al Gore is my barometer. The day he stops flying and driving big cars will be the day I know he is serious about GW/CC. Until then he is milking an easy cash cow.

 

[Frank]

Cold weather is far more disruptive to human economic activity and quality of life than warm weather. It'd be even better if northeast US and northern Europe never had any storms like this ever.

Increased CO2 is just a signal of increased human economic activity and prosperity. People are not going to give that up and return to the stone age. Accept and live with it until a suitable and economically feasible alternative for oil, both as an energy source and energy storage is found.


Now Katrina is a result of global warming? I guess there were never any hurricanes, earthquakes, or any natural disasters before 50 years ago.

I won't live to see any of the effects of global warming, so I don't care, and I'm certainly not adjusting my lifestyle for the worse to save the polar bears.

Agreed.

 

[epicstruggle]

What? There are effects today. But beyond that, this point of view is positively asinine. You don't give a rat's ass for future generations? What is wrong with you?

Why should he? I do, but thats because I have a family, believe in God. He might have different priorities that do not include worrying about someone elses future.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Whilst the fact remains that the world is warming, the fiction or unknowns are the effects of the warming. So whilst we can say the world is warming and scientists have been very good at proving such things, the sensationalism roots itself in the predictions of the effects of the warming from both scientists, and the CTT/Media sides.

Allow me to make a Godwin-like analogy.
during the unstoppable march towards the war against Iraq, the effects and outcome of it, or their scale were unknown.

Some voices, including high ranking officials of countries opposing the war, pointed out that the country would become a beacon of terrorism and major instability would ensure in the region for many years to come. Yet feel-good fantasies prevailed. The result is an unmitigated disaster with one million dead, lots of ethnic cleansing, four hours of electricity in the capital, border conflicts, a few small wars in the region, mass torture and so on.

yay, don't listen to "alarmists".
if the effects of global warming on, yay, "human economic activity and quality of life" in regions that are not northeastern America or western Europe is anything like the "alarmist" scientists hint at, you may end up with horrors one order or even two orders of magnitude worse than my little Godwin example.

 

[corduroygt]

if the effects of global warming on, yay, "human economic activity and quality of life" in regions that are not northeastern America or western Europe is anything like the "alarmist" scientists hint at, you may end up with horrors one order or even two orders of magnitude worse than my little Godwin example.

Since a lot of the alarmism in the past has been unfounded, I'm comfortable with going against them. Modeling the weather, atmosphere, etc is a very complex task, and even omitting the slightest detail or using different starting conditions will greatly alter the outcome.

 

[KimB]

yay, don't listen to "alarmists".
if the effects of global warming on, yay, "human economic activity and quality of life" in regions that are not northeastern America or western Europe is anything like the "alarmist" scientists hint at, you may end up with horrors one order or even two orders of magnitude worse than my little Godwin example.

And so far, the effects of global warming have been worse than the mainstream predictions.

 

[KimB]

Since a lot of the alarmism in the past has been unfounded, I'm comfortable with going against them. Modeling the weather, atmosphere, etc is a very complex task, and even omitting the slightest detail or using different starting conditions will greatly alter the outcome.

Except that errors can alter the outcome in either direction. Things could end up being a whole hell of a lot worse than is currently predicted. In fact, that has been what has happened so far, as I already showed in this thread.

That said, if you want to get an accurate picture of the current predictions, look at the IPCC reports, not news articles. News articles tend to gravitate towards sensationalistic stories, which means that they tend to always report the wildest predictions. Obviously those are usually wrong. The popular press is completely and utterly unreliable when it comes to anything related to science.

 

[KimB]

Why should he? I do, but thats because I have a family, believe in God. He might have different priorities that do not include worrying about someone elses future.

I don't think belief in a god has anything to do with it. In fact, that can go either way, because many Christians believe that the world is going to end soon, so it really doesn't make any difference what we do in the long term.

What does matter, however, is simple empathy. Just caring about other people. I mean, sure, if you are an evil sociopath, it makes sense to not give a rat's ass about peoples' lives other than your own. But if you are a normal, well-adjusted human being, it makes damned good sense to care that we leave the next generation a habitable planet.

 

[N00b]

If you think SCIENTISTS believed earth to be flat, then, unfortunately, you are ignorant beyond repair. :|

Actually, scientists DID believe the earth was flat, simply because science itself was not advanced enough (namely astronomy was just in its infancy). Just like doctors once believed that blood was produced in the liver.

 

[Gubbi]

Off topic.

Actually, scientists DID believe the earth was flat, simply because science itself was not advanced enough (namely astronomy was just in its infancy). Just like doctors once believed that blood was produced in the liver.

Those were hardly scientists. That is, they drew most of their knowledge from religious dogma rather than observation, inference and deduction.

Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the earth in the 3rd century BC, by measuring the difference of shadows cast at different latitudes.

Cheers

 

[KimB]

Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the earth in the 3rd century BC, by measuring the difference of shadows cast at different latitudes.

To within about 10%, if I recall correctly.

 

[corduroygt]

Except that errors can alter the outcome in either direction. Things could end up being a whole hell of a lot worse than is currently predicted. In fact, that has been what has happened so far, as I already showed in this thread.

That said, if you want to get an accurate picture of the current predictions, look at the IPCC reports, not news articles. News articles tend to gravitate towards sensationalistic stories, which means that they tend to always report the wildest predictions. Obviously those are usually wrong. The popular press is completely and utterly unreliable when it comes to anything related to science.

You mean I should look at the reports of an organization, who screwed up the melting date for the Himalayan glaciers and said they'd all melt by 2035, instead of 2350? If they screw up a simple thing like that just requires source checking and no actual science, what else could they have screwed up? How about their vegetarian chair asking everyone to eat less meat? How about his own country (India) saying it cannot trust IPCC's findings in light of their errors and forming their own climate panel?

 

[Gubbi]

You mean I should look at the reports of an organization, who screwed up the melting date for the Himalayan glaciers and said they'd all melt by 2035, instead of 2350? If they screw up a simple thing like that just requires source checking and no actual science, what else could they have screwed up?

Christ on a corn dog, not this again!!

Here's a more complete list of errors in AR4.

And yes, the IPCC reports are a great place to start if you want to learn about climate change. If some findings seem dodgy to you, all the sources are listed for you to dig into, - and you're free to do your own digging too.

Cheers

 

[KimB]

You mean I should look at the reports of an organization, who screwed up the melting date for the Himalayan glaciers and said they'd all melt by 2035, instead of 2350?

If you actually look up what happened there, the IPCC report on the science basis had it correct. It was the later report on the impacts of global warming that grabbed the information from a news article. This error was found and corrected in later revisions. The editorial practices for the release of the IPCC reports have been revised to help prevent such errors in the future.

But in any event, the only errors that have yet been found in the IPCC reports have been extremely minor errors that have had no impact whatsoever on the overall results.

If they screw up a simple thing like that just requires source checking and no actual science, what else could they have screwed up?

This is called a "poisoning the well" fallacy. The strength of science, the reason we can trust it, is because it is an error-correcting enterprise. The fact that this error was uncovered and corrected is what makes science so extremely reliable.

How about their vegetarian chair asking everyone to eat less meat?

It's a valid point. Eating meat is one of the more significant causes of current greenhouse gases. I don't entirely agree that it's that important, because the primary gas released is methane, which tends to decay over a time scale of 10 years. But the statement does stem from the fact that eating meat actually does contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.

How about his own country (India) saying it cannot trust IPCC's findings in light of their errors and forming their own climate panel?

Sounds like partisan political hackery to me.

 

[gamervivek]

Off topic.

Those were hardly scientists. That is, they drew most of their knowledge from religious dogma rather than observation, inference and deduction.

They observed the earth was flat around them, ergo the earth was flat.
observation, inference, deduction.

The strength of science, the reason we can trust it, is because it is an error-correcting enterprise. The fact that this error was uncovered and corrected is what makes science so extremely reliable.

Umm science itself makes mistakes and then corrects them, what's the reliability in that, except that of being reliable of being possibly wrong?
Sometimes it's just a poor joke:

http://doublemindedman.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/medical-science-all-wrong/

These science proclamations sound just like those of communism; "the system is air-tight and fool proof, now only if you all stopped acting like fools".

 

[FUDie]

They observed the earth was flat around them, ergo the earth was flat.
observation, inference, deduction.

It's clearly not flat as you see a ship's sail before you see the hull. QED.

Umm science itself makes mistakes and then corrects them, what's the reliability in that, except that of being reliable of being possibly wrong?

Yes, science can be wrong and sometimes older, less precise, theories are good enough. For example, Kepler's laws regarding the motion of planets are close enough to reality for most of us.

Is space-time flat or curved? For most of us, it's flat. But if you want your GPS satellites to be accurate, then you have to do better

-FUDie