For those Anti-Earth people who don't believe in Global Warming....

As I stated the wiki page contains references to scholarly journals. Dates, names, catalogue numbers, they are all there, and the New Scientist graph references the scholarly reports its uses in its amalgamation of results. Read properly before demonstrating your ignorance The newer studies are, quite clearly, newer studies of the reconstructed temperature record over the past 1000 years, not studies of the temperature over the past two years. That would be somewhat redundant since we have instrumental temperature records dating back 150 years or so - that's the black line. What all of these studies demonstrate is that despite variances in the range of results, all of the reconstructions agree that the temperature now is higher than it has been at any point in the past 1000 years.

 

Incidentally the "very radical increase" in temperature at the very end of the data is the element of these graphs which is the least disputed, best understood and least prone to error precisely because it is corroborated by direct instrumental temperature measurement and not proxy measurements.

 

Well, clearly I'm not going to be changing your mind. You may be right, and man-made CO2 is the leading cause for rising global temperatures. However, I think there are enough dissenters of note that this is not certain. That's my point.

And forgive my "ignorance", but my years of studying statistics at the collegiate level gives me what I'd like to consider a fair understanding of how numbers work in studies like this, and I think my skepticism is warranted. I don't think it's ignorance that caused me to ask you to identify what sources you feel are valid and relevant, but rather proper form. The claimant must back his claim. It is not my responsibility as the respondant to sift through a jillion (I counted) wikipedia sources to find out what the heck you're talking about. If you think you're right, prove the case, don't ask me to do it for you (especially given that I've rebutted what has been presented already, with nary a proper defense out of you but, "lulz keep reeding dum guy").

Also, I question who is being included in your so-called "dispute" that it is so certain that this very small part of a very large data set is correct. Similarly, I am skeptical of your claim that "all temperature studies" indicate the same thing, because I am certain that this is not the case (otherwise, why would this thread even exist?). Indeed, I don't think that the half dozen or so studies referenced in that article encompass "all temperature studies".

Instead of your ad hominem attacks on my knowledge, I think it would have been more helpful to your argument if you didn't completely ignore my question as to why the more recent temperature studies omit the last 6 or 7 years of viable data. That smacks a bit of cherry picking to me, on both your part and in the case of these studies. Also in this light, and assuming you're 100% correct about global warming, this conclusion does nothing to address what I feel was my more significant point, that our approach to solving the problem is vastly more important than our identification of the problem and its roots, which ultimately is academic. Or in other words, whether environmentalists are right or wrong on how global warming is occurring, they are in many cases wrong on how to go about fixing it.

 

Well there are so many mistakes I really don't know where to begin.

1. It is not simply my opinion that co2 is almost certainly the driving factor behind recent temperature increase, I was pointing out the overwhelming scientific consensus that this is the case. As for dissenters, please cite your sources, please cite the studies in peer reviewed scholarly journals which show otherwise.

2. Forgive my terseness, the point has been made a jillion (I counted) times already in this thread and elsewhere in the forum, and each time someone like you comes along with a half-baked understanding of the issue and attempts to dispute the overwhelming body of evidence and scientific consensus about what we know about anthropogenic effects on climate change I try briefly to point out some of the evidence which supports what we know so that they can do the research for themselves and disabuse themselves of the myths they tend to repeat. There are a small number of myths that come up again and again (such as the one you came out with) and we've heard them all before. I probably make the mistake of assuming people have read or are at least familiar with the gist of the IPCC reports and some of the key findings and issues. I have now rectified my cursory response by providing you with a dozen independent studies which back up my point, whereas you have cited no contradictory evidence.

3. Are you seriously suggesting that the instrumental temperature record is not the most accurate and reliable part of the 1000 year record? It's the only part that is not "reconstructed".

4. I didn't say "all studies", I said "multiple" studies, and then "all of these studies" meaning all the ones I quoted. Please read more carefully to avoid repeatedly making this kind of mistake. I have referenced about 12 such studies, if you know of any others feel free to reference them.

5. As for temperature since 2000, I don't know why the most recent studies take 2000 as their endpoint, perhaps data from paleoclimate proxies such as the glacier record, ice cores, corals, sediments and tree rings may not have been available or meaningful from such a recent period. However this is simply not a relevant issue since we have robust and ubiquitous direct temperature measurement of current climatic changes for this period which demonstrates with a high degree of precision a significant rise of global mean temperature in the last few decades and which matches the proxy record during the period of overlap. If you seriously dispute that this is the case then please give your reasons - most anti-global warming literature takes the line of "we don't deny there is global warming, we just deny it is manmade" because the recent rapid rise in temperature is so well demonstrated by the instrument record.

 

Not sure why we're suddenly numbering points here. I guess that means you're serious or something. :lol:

And yet you somehow begin with the very classic number...

Hey look, a parrot! Imitation is supposed to be the sincerest form of flattery, but frankly, I'm not flattered that you're regurgitating what I just wrote, as if that makes it some sort of rebuttal.

Still not flattered, but good effort.

Also not impressed with the insulting tone. Ugh...seriously. Is this how you engage adults in the real world? You must be very popular.

You mean repeating popular myths such as anthropgenic effects on climate change? See...I can do it too. The reason why mine's better is because I've already asked you twice to be more specific about exactly what sources you mean, and you failed to do so each time. Three strikes is a pretty clear concession. You don't have any evidence worth mentioning, else you wouldn't have thrown up a wikipedia article and asked me to make your argument for you.

Except I've already provided specific links to two people who say you're wrong, and you are still repeating "read all of wikipedia and divine somehow what evidence I mean. And when you do read, as you have, and rebut my argument, I'll ask you to read again, after intimating that you're an idiot." Lather, rinse, repeat. Sorry, but again, you fail.

Are you seriously putting so obvious a strawman out there?

I'm actually waiting for you to reference one. You see, a reference is more along the lines of "this article, here, which talks about this, and is relevant because of that." It is not "read wikipedia and follow links until you agree with me".

Yeah...so why wasn't that included in the study? Thanks for admitting that you don't know the answer, but in reality, it was a rhetorical question. In this context, it meant that it should have been included, and its exclusion seems a bit suspect.

Why the hell would people look at corals and ice cores (seriously...do you understand the science behind this? why do you think people would study ice cores for information on temperature change over the last 7 years?) when we have thermometers? And, frankly, the recent warming trend is not as clearly defined as you seem to think. Or rather, the cause of it all. Again, if it were, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Actually, that's not a bad idea. You seem unwilling or unable to compose a proper argument, have evidenced a poor grasp of the science behind this issue, I'm guessing a similar lack of knowledge of statistics from your total avoidance of it in discussion, and most importantly, you're quite rude. Internet debates are usually pretty silly, but a debate with a close-minded and offensive individual is double extra silly. Feel free to get the last word in (perhaps in bulleted points instead of numbered this time, for extra emphasis.), maybe you'll even stop skirting what I said about the greater significance of our approach to a potential warming trend as opposed to diagnosing it. In any case, I feel I've said my piece here.

 

Haha...very true. Funny how common sense clearly bears out what all the scientific jargon and rhetorical bullshit in this thread doesn't. Like I said before, science isn't a popularity contest.

 

For all the bluster and sarcasm there's surprisingly little intelligible content to your post.

I've referenced about a dozen studies and given you a link to a list of ten of them from which you could've gone and read the abstracts for yourself. I also showed two comparison graphs which provide an amalgamation of the reconstructed temperature records of a dozen independent studies demonstrating that current warming is unprecendented over the past 1000 years. Since you don't seem to be able to do any independent reading and continue to dispute the existence of this body of evidence despite the references to these articles already provided I will here give you links to the details of ten of these studies and paste some of the abstracts here as well:

High-resolution palaeoclimatic records for the last millennium: interpretation, integration and comparison with General Circulation Model control-run temperatures
http://hol.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/4/455

Northern hemisphere temperatures during the past millennium: Inferences, uncertainties, and limitations
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1999/1999GL900070.shtml
"Building on recent studies, we attempt hemispheric temperature reconstructions with proxy data networks for the past millennium. We focus not just on the reconstructions, but the uncertainties therein, and important caveats. Though expanded uncertainties prevent decisive conclusions for the period prior to AD 1400, our results suggest that the latter 20th century is anomalous in the context of at least the past millennium. The 1990s was the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, at moderately high levels of confidence. The 20th century warming counters a millennial-scale cooling trend which is consistent with long-term astronomical forcing."

Causes of Climate Change Over the Past 1000 Years
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/289/5477/270
"Recent reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperatures and climate forcing over the past 1000 years allow the warming of the 20th century to be placed within a historical context and various mechanisms of climate change to be tested. Comparisons of observations with simulations from an energy balance climate model indicate that as much as 41 to 64% of preanthropogenic (pre-1850) decadal-scale temperature variations was due to changes in solar irradiance and volcanism. Removal of the forced response from reconstructed temperature time series yields residuals that show similar variability to those of control runs of coupled models, thereby lending support to the models' value as estimates of low-frequency variability in the climate system. Removal of all forcing except greenhouse gases from the ~1000-year time series results in a residual with a very large late-20th-century warming that closely agrees with the response predicted from greenhouse gas forcing. The combination of a unique level of temperature increase in the late 20th century and improved constraints on the role of natural variability provides further evidence that the greenhouse effect has already established itself above the level of natural variability in the climate system. A 21st-century global warming projection far exceeds the natural variability of the past 1000 years and is greater than the best estimate of global temperature change for the last interglacial."

Low-frequency temperature variations from a northern tree ring density network
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2001/2000JD900617.shtml

Low-Frequency Signals in Long Tree-Ring Chronologies for Reconstructing Past Temperature Variability
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/295/5563/2250

Global surface temperatures over the past two millennia
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2003GL017814.shtml
"We present reconstructions of Northern and Southern Hemisphere mean surface temperature over the past two millennia based on high-resolution ‘proxy’ temperature data which retain millennial-scale variability. These reconstructions indicate that late 20th century warmth is unprecedented for at least roughly the past two millennia for the Northern Hemisphere. Conclusions for the Southern Hemisphere and global mean temperature are limited by the sparseness of available proxy data in the Southern Hemisphere at present."

Climate over past millennia
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2003RG000143.shtml
"We review evidence for climate change over the past several millennia from instrumental and high-resolution climate “proxy” data sources and climate modeling studies. We focus on changes over the past 1 to 2 millennia. We assess reconstructions and modeling studies analyzing a number of different climate fields, including atmospheric circulation diagnostics, precipitation, and drought. We devote particular attention to proxy-based reconstructions of temperature patterns in past centuries, which place recent large-scale warming in an appropriate longer-term context. Our assessment affirms the conclusion that late 20th century warmth is unprecedented at hemispheric and, likely, global scales. There is more tentative evidence that particular modes of climate variability, such as the El Niño/Southern Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation, may have exhibited late 20th century behavior that is anomalous in a long-term context. Regional conclusions, particularly for the Southern Hemisphere and parts of the tropics where high-resolution proxy data are sparse, are more circumspect. The dramatic differences between regional and hemispheric/global past trends, and the distinction between changes in surface temperature and precipitation/drought fields, underscore the limited utility in the use of terms such as the “Little Ice Age” and “Medieval Warm Period” for describing past climate epochs during the last millennium. Comparison of empirical evidence with proxy-based reconstructions demonstrates that natural factors appear to explain relatively well the major surface temperature changes of the past millennium through the 19th century (including hemispheric means and some spatial patterns). Only anthropogenic forcing of climate, however, can explain the recent anomalous warming in the late 20th century."

Merging information from different resources for new insights into climate change in the past and future
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2004GL019781.shtml

Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v433/n7026/abs/nature03265.html;jsessionid=D9211AFEF9FFEAA009648F3E17D097D2

Extracting a Climate Signal from 169 Glacier Records
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/308/5722/675

If you did I'm afraid I missed it - please cite this scholarly evidence.

The second paragraph above is precisely the point I made when I was explaining why the 2000 cut-off for proxy data is irrelevant to the issue at hand. Since it is irrelevant, I fail to grasp why you think it "should have been included" and that its exclusion "is suspect". Proxy temperature indicators are valuable for reconstructing the Earth's temperature in the period before we have instrumental measurement; their overlap with this period is what allows us to calibrate these proxy indicators to measured climatic conditions. They are of diminishing ongoing value besides further corroboration/overlap to aid calibration of the historical proxy record, the addition of several years of extra data is hardly pivotal given that we have over a century of reliable instrumental readings with which to perform this calibration.

 

Consensus is not science, but it is a short-hand way of saying that of all of the studies on the issue published in peer-reviewed academic journals in recent years, an overwhelming majority demonstrate findings consistent with the anthropogenic attribution of climate change. That's not to say there aren't inaccuracies, error margins, remaining questions and doubts - that's why we continue to do science. If results came up which were to falsify the theory it would be incredibly important to scrutinise it and modify our understanding of climate change and its attribution accordingly. The reason why critics of global warming have such trouble providing reliable and robust data which counteracts what the current science tells us is because no such data has yet been found. This is what we mean by 'the scientific consensus on climate change' - plenty of data supporting the theory, little or none which potentially falsifies it.

 

For some folks the Global Warming Crisis is just easier to embrace than say the Social Security Crisis or the Budget Deficit or Pork Barrell Corruption by our politicians.


For Global Warming, there is no easy solution, if one nation cuts back emissions, other nations can go on as before. Do you imagine China will curb pollution?

Yet the Global Warming Crisis offers opportunities for posturing and loathing of your home culture without actually sacrificing anything.

This is easier than embracing budget cuts to solve a deficit. The bribes and payoffs to your constituents would be cut-off. So Politicians can distract you with Global warming theater and partisan games.

 

Its hard to feel guilty about polution in The US. We have a tight environmental regime that dictates capital expenditure for polutiion abatement. The Regulators can close your plant down.

Plenty of production has been sent overseas to other countries in part because of absolutist enviromental mandates, taking jobs with them. Its not just low wages.

Who will speak for polution abatement in nations like Brazil, Russia, China, Indonesia, Mexico, India and other places these plants have migrated to?

.

 

Some good points Piney, but just because we all have other domestic and perhaps more immediately pressing and intractable problems in our respective countries it does not mean that we should ignore this one. If only some of the milder claims of the potential future effects of continued warming are true then we will be looking at very serious problems worldwide in future generations. Acting and campaigning on this issue does not mean we can not also act and campaign on others. This one is big news at the moment but these things tend to go in cycles; it is of course just one of many problems we face.

The problem of multilateral co-operation which is what is really needed is also a difficult issue but not one which cannot be overcome. We need international political consensus and concerted international effort. If this happens soon the IPCC estimates the necessary changes can be made for (from memory) something like 3% global GDP. At this stage, it is not an insurmountable problem, but soon it may be.

 

Yes, and that was, in part, the larger point I was trying to make. The issue isn't really whether the planet it in a warming trend, it's what do we do to address pollution in the most effective way possible. Added to this is the humanitarian issue: is it right to deny people living in poverty the opportunity to industrialize simply because some Green Americans feel guilty about the environement?

Personally, I think all people have a right to a good way of life. If pollution in the immediate future will allow them to develop to a point where they can, in 10-20 years, have an industrial base that will allow them to produce few pollutants and live comfortably, then I'm fine with that. Maybe that makes me "anti-earth", but it also makes me "pro-people".

 

Just to return to this idea of a "saturation point" of CO2 after which no further greenhouse effect occurs because it's not an argument I've come across before...

These articles (Part one Part two) explain the science of atmospheric carbon dioxide radiative forcing which is well understood and has been for half a century and is factored into all the current models of the effects of CO2 on future warming. I'm aware that global warming critics often produce 'old' evidence in an attempt to discredit current scientific knowledge but this particular one is something of a classic of the genre and is based on flawed experiments dating back to around 1900! More accurate experimentation from the 1940s and onwards into tropospheric radiation discovered that while such a saturation point may theoretically exist the kind of concentrations we are talking about for atmospheric CO2 are far below such a point by a very large factor. An interesting read for anyone interested in the science of climate change

Another myth that has come up again and again in this thread is that volcanic activity produces more CO2 than human activity. This is simply wrong. This report from the British geological survey finds that atmospheric CO2 from volcanic activity is around 0.3GT per annum, around 100th of human-produced CO2.

 

*stands on chair and cheers for pressed_rat*
brilliant.

 

A 'majority of the world's scientists' - in the period before the enlightenment when "science" didn't really exist? With no empirical evidence to support their findings? Early scientific experimentation at the very beginnings of the scientific method by Galileo and then Newton in the 17th century correctly adduced that gravity is constant for all objects. So, once we began to develop the logic, mathematics and empirical methods which underpin the scientific method we enabled ourselves to become confident about the accuracy of our empirical findings. Do you think these methods and techniques might have improved somewhat since the days of Galileo and Newton? (Not to detract from those giants of science, they got things remarkably, inspiringly right in many areas). Do you not think there are many more working scientists each scrutinising the evidence of their peers than there were when "a majority of scientists" did not understand gravity?

Are you really using this as an argument?

Interesting readjustment of continental USA temperature readings to within a couple of hundredths of a degree. Not terrifically statistically significant, but interesting nonetheless. We are talking about a readjustment of the anomaly for 1934 from 1.23 to 1.25C and a readjustment for 1998 of 1.24 to 1.23C for temperature measurements from the continental USA, this does not affect the global mean or the warming trend since the 1970s - there was slight global cooling in the postwar period as a consequence of atmospheric sulphate aerosols.

Global warming critics will jump on this kind of statistically insignificant error as if the whole proof of anthropogenic climate change rests on a claim that 1998 temperatures for the continental USA are 0.01C higher than those for 1934. It clearly doesn't, and what the discovery of this mistake demonstrates is the openness and accuracy of scientific methods we use. Once the mistake was discovered and corrected it was rectified and Steve McIntyre was told and thanked for pointing it out. This is why we may have confidence in the scientific method - we are constantly trying to improve the accuracy of our findings in any way we can. That the temperature readings have been corrected a few hundredths of a degree is a very good thing.

Interesting article about the technical detail of the discovery of this methodological flaw (a conflict between data sets known about in 2001: "The U.S. annual (January-December) mean temperature is slightly warmer in 1934 than in 1998 in the GISS analysis (Plate 6). This contrasts with the USHCN data, which has 1998 as the warmest year in the century. In both cases the difference between 1934 and 1998 mean temperatures is a few hundredths of a degree.")
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/08/1934-and-all-that/

Please show how climatology isn't science - if you are able to contest any findings of any research paper on the subject please, please do so. I for one welcome advances and improvements to our understanding of the issue, such as this one

 

Pressed_Rat is correct! No matter what their personal politics happen to be, the global warming activists/alarmists are dupes! They've been sold a lie, and they are eating it up like it's the best thing they ever tasted. In 15 years, we will all be laughing at their naive, childish perspective. Have any of you people ever had a real "cause" to dedicate your lives to? The TRUTH: The climate on earth is far beyond human control, even though we like to think we rule the universe. Humans have no more control over earth than ants! Accept the truth; it will set you free! Live every day as if it were your last. Never believe what you are told by the mainstream media, because 95% of the time, it is proven wrong over time. If you are truly worried about the earth, go to college and take some geography/geology/climatology classes! You will learn how insignificant humans are in the big picture. I promise. Knowledge will put your mind at ease.

 

Are you kidding S.Temper? Open your eyes. Humans are cutting down entite forests for wood and coal. We are draining marshes. We are killing animals by millions. We are emptying the seas. We are darkening the sky with industrial dust. We are dumping our shit all over ourselves and now your telling yourself that don't have any impact on the earth!

 

PS : There is MUCH more to pollution then Global Warming.

 

CorpFreak, he claimed that humans are insignifiant in the big picture and that we had as much control over the earth than ants... that's why I said this.

 

well, it's pretty true. in the end, we'll live or die. the earth will carry on it's merry way.