Cap and trade?

Rat

Global warming and natural climate change in the past

What the science says...

The usual drivers of natural climate change have shown little to no warming trend since the 70's.
It's a well established fact that climate changes naturally and sometimes dramatically. The pertinent question isn't "has climate changed in the past?" (of course it has) but "what is causing global warming now?" To begin to answer that, it's helpful to look at the major causes of natural climate change in the past.
Solar activity

Solar variations have been the major driver of climate change over the past 10,000 years. When sunspot activity was low during the Maunder Minimum in the 1600's or the Dalton Minimum in the 1800's, the earth went through 'Little Ice Ages'. Similarly, solar activity was higher during the Medieval Warm Period.
However, the correlation between solar activity and global temperatures ended around 1975. At that point, temperatures started rising while solar activity stayed level. This led a team of scientists from Finland and Germany to conclude "during these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must have another source." More on the sun & global warming...
Milankovitch cycles

Earth's climate undergoes 120,000 year cycles of ice ages broken by short warm periods called interglacials. The cycle is driven by Milankovitch cycles. Long term changes in the Earth's orbit trigger an initial warming which warms the oceans and melts ice sheets - this releases CO2. The extra CO2 in the atmosphere causes further warming leading to interglacials ending the ice ages.
For the past 12,000 years, we've been in an interglacial. The current trend of the Milankovitch cycle is a gradual cooling down towards an ice age.
Volcanoes

Volcanic eruptions spew sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere which has a cooling effect on global temperatures. These aerosols reflect incoming sunlight, causing a 'global dimming' effect. Usually, the cooling effect lasts several years until the aerosols are washed out of the atmosphere. In the case of large eruptions or a succession of eruptions such as in the early 1800's, the cooling effect can last several decades. Strong volcanic activity exacerbated the Little Ice Age in the 1800's.
Summary

The usual suspects in natural climate change - solar variations, volcanoes, Milankovitch cycles - are all conspicuous in their absence over the past 3 decades of warming. This doesn't mean by itself that CO2 is the main cause of current global warming - you don't prove anthropogenic warming by eliminating all other options. But the primary causes of commonly cited climate change in the past have played little part in the current warming trend.
As for CO2, empirical observations show that CO2 has a warming effect as a greenhouse gas, CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere and the expected warming you would get from greenhouse gases is occuring. Any alternative theory that found a different cause of global warming would also need to explain why the expected (and observed) warming from CO2 has not eventuated.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm
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Solar activity & climate: is the sun causing global warming?

What the science says...

The correlation between sun and climate ended in the 70's when the modern global warming trend began.
As supplier of almost all the energy in Earth's climate, the sun certainly has a strong influence on climate change. Consequently there have been many studies examining the link between solar variations and global temperatures.
The correlation between solar activity and temperature

The most commonly cited study by skeptics is a study by scientists from Finland and Germany that finds the sun has been more active in the last 60 years than anytime in the past 1150 years (Usoskin 2005). They also found temperatures closely correlate to solar activity.
However, a crucial finding of the study was the correlation between solar activity and temperature ended around 1975. At that point, temperatures rose while solar activity stayed level. This led them to conclude "during these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must have another source."
You read that right. The study most quoted by skeptics actually concluded the sun can't be causing global warming. Ironically, the evidence that establishes the sun's close correlation with the Earth's temperature in the past also establishes it's blamelessness for global warming today.
Measurements of solar activity

This is confirmed by direct satellite measurements that find no rising trend since 1978, sunspot numbers which have leveled out since 1950, the Max Planck Institute reconstruction that shows irradience has been steady since 1950 and solar radio flux or flare activity which shows no rising trend over the past 30 years.
Other studies on solar influence on climate

This conclusion is confirmed by many studies quantifying the amount of solar influence in recent global warming:

• Solanki 2008 reconstructs 11,400 years of sunspot numbers using radiocarbon concentrations, finding "solar
  variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the
  strong warming during the past three decades".
• Ammann 2007: "Although solar and volcanic effects appear to dominate most of the slow climate variations within the past thousand years, the impacts of greenhouse gases have dominated since the second half of the last century."
• Lockwood 2007 concludes "the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanism is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified."
• Foukal 2006 concludes "The variations measured from spacecraft since 1978 are too small to have contributed appreciably to accelerated global warming over the past 30 years."
• Scafetta 2006 says "since 1975 global warming has occurred much faster than could be reasonably expected from the sun alone."
• Usoskin 2005 conclude "during these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must have another source."
• Haigh 2003 says "Observational data suggest that the Sun has influenced temperatures on decadal, centennial and millennial time-scales, but radiative forcing considerations and the results of energy-balance models and general circulation models suggest that the warming during the latter part of the 20th century cannot be ascribed entirely to solar effects."
• Stott 2003 increased climate model sensitivity to solar forcing and still found "most warming over the last 50 yr is likely to have been caused by increases in greenhouse gases."
• Solanki 2003 concludes "the Sun has contributed less than 30% of the global warming since 1970".
• Lean 1999 concludes "it is unlikely that Sun–climate relationships can account for much of the warming since 1970".
• Waple 1999 finds "little evidence to suggest that changes in irradiance are having a large impact on the current warming trend."
• Frolich 1998 concludes "solar radiative output trends contributed little of the 0.2°C increase in the global mean surface temperature in the past decade"

http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm

 

Quote:
My reasons for comparing global warming deniers to Holocaust deniers is to do with the way both seem to be based in political bias and ideology, a certain dogmatic certitude that blocks out the rational or reasonable.

Rat

As I said you always seem to defend the vested interests of wealth.

I remember when there was flat denial that such a thing as global warming even existed.

And if it didn’t exist then there was no need to curb wealth vested interests

But the evidence mounted to the contrary.

So there were calls for more research on the subject

And nothing should be done to curb wealth’s vested interests until absolute proof was found that global warming existed

But the evidence mounted that it did.

Yes they said but…was it man made global warming (the intelligent design argument of GW deniers).

And if it wasn’t manmade then there is no reason to curb wealth’s vested interests.
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I think most people will notice a trend in all this.

For those that don’t see it I’ll make it plain – all the global warming denier arguments seem to about protecting the power and interests of wealth.

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That’s what you do

Why?

Well you seem to have this dogmatic belief that private (wealth) is always good and public (democratic government) is always evil.

And to tackle the man made elements of global warming you think would involve curbing wealth’s power and influence and increasing that of elected governments.

So you’re biased political ideology is influencing your view of the subject (just as it does Holocaust deniers) blocking out the rational or reasonable.

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Anyway while you wish seems to be the protection of wealths influence I wish to limit that power.

You see if people insulated and had alternative sources of power it is “not good news for the big energy concerns; who make money by selling coal, oil, gas and electricity, these kind of measures actually have the effect of reducing how much coal, oil, gas and electricity is needed to be supplied.

Their profits would fall.

So no wonder big finance and its friends on the right are either trying to claim global warming has nothing to do with anything man does so do nothing or are pushing for the ‘big’ power plant schemes like nuclear and are seemingly trying to play down the alternative ideas. They want to invest in something that will get them guaranteed and growing revenue, they don’t want people being able to buy into technology that would lower energy bills (and in some cases the ability to sell energy back into the grid).

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Is there anyway you can write a post like a normal person, without the large font and excessive paragraphing? It makes it rather annoying to read and hard to respond to. But I suppose maybe that is your whole intention behind it.

I have read all that information already. You provided sources that support only what you have chosen to believe. For every source you included, I can come up with about three that say the opposite. Here are just a few:

Episodes of Relative Global Warming. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics Volume 71, Issue 2, February 2009, Pages 194-198

Science & Environment Policy Project (From the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology.)

Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says (National Geographic, 2007)

US Senate Minority Report: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent over Manmade Global Warming Claims (US Senate)

MIT scientists baffled by global warming theory, contradicts scientific data (TG Daily)

Top Scientist Debunks Global Warming (The Australian)

Japan's boffins: Global warming isn't man-made (The Register)

2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved (Telegraph)





More peer-reviewed articles supporting climate change caused by solar activity:

A mechanism for sun-climate connection(Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 32, 2005)- Sultan Hameed, Jae N. Lee

A Millennium Scale Sunspot Reconstruction: Evidence For an Unusually Active Sun Since the 1940's(Physical Review Letters 91, 2003)- Ilya G. Usoskin, Sami K. Solanki, Manfred Schüssler, Kalevi Mursula, Katja Alanko

Celestial Climate Driver: A Perspective from Four Billion Years of the Carbon Cycle(Geoscience Canada, Volume 32, Number 1, March 2005)- Ján Veizer

Celestial driver of Phanerozoic climate?(GSA Volume 13, Issue 7, July 2003)- Nir J. Shaviv, Ján Veizer

Climate Change: The Sun's Role(arXiv:0706.3621, 23 Jun 2007)- Gerald E. Marsh

Comparison of proxy records of climate change and solar forcing(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 23, Issue 4, p. 359-362, 02/1996)- Crowley, Thomas J., Kim, Kwang-Yul

Evidence of Solar Variation in Tree-Ring-Based Climate Reconstructions(Solar Physics, Volume 205, Number 2, Pages 403-417, February 2002)- M.G. Ogurtsov , G.E. Kocharov, M. Lindholm, J. Meriläinen, M. Eronen, Yu.A. Nagovitsyn

Geophysical, archaeological, and historical evidence support a solar-output model for climate change(PNAS, Vol. 97, No. 23, 12433-12438, November 7, 2000)- Charles A. Perry, Kenneth J. Hsu

Has solar variability caused climate change that affected human culture?(Advances in Space Research, Volume 40, Issue 7, Pages 1173-1180, 2007)- Joan Feynmana

Imprint of Galactic dynamics on Earth's climate(Astronomische Nachrichten, Volume 327, Issue 9 , Pages 866 - 870, 10 Oct 2006)- H. Svensmark)

Is solar variability reflected in the Nile River?(Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 111, D21114, 2006)- Alexander Ruzmaikin, Joan Feynman, Yuk L. Yung

Length of the Solar Cycle: An Indicator of Solar Activity Closely Associated with Climate(Science, Vol. 254. no. 5032, pp. 698 - 700, November 1991)- E. Friis-Christensen, K. Lassen

Linkages between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development(Journal of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering, Vol 49 No 2, Pages 32–44, June 2007)- W J R Alexander, F Bailey, D B Bredenkamp, A van der Merwe, N Willemse

Long-Period Cycles of the Sun's Activity Recorded in Direct Solar Data and Proxies(Solar Physics, Volume 211, Numbers 1-2, December, 2002)- M.G. Ogurtsov, Yu.A. Nagovitsyn, G.E. Kocharov, H. Jungner

Orbital Controls on the El Niño/Southern Oscillation and the Tropical Climate(Paleoceanogrpahy Vol. 14, No. 4, Pages 441–456, 1999)- A. C. Clement, R. Seager, M. A. Cane

Palaeoenvironmental evidence for solar forcing of Holocene climate: linkages to solar science(Progress in Physical Geography, Vol. 23, No. 2, 181-204, 1999)- Frank M. Chambers, Michael I. Ogle, Jeffrey J. Blackford

Persistent Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate During the Holocene(Science, Vol. 294. no. 5549, pp. 2130 - 2136, 7 December 2001)- Gerard Bond, Bernd Kromer, Juerg Beer, Raimund Muscheler, Michael N. Evans, William Showers, Sharon Hoffmann, Rusty Lotti-Bond, Irka Hajdas, Georges Bonani

Phenomenological solar contribution to the 1900–2000 global surface warming(Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 33, L05708, 2006)- N. Scafetta, B. J. West

Phenomenological solar signature in 400 years of reconstructed Northern Hemisphere temperature record(Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 33, L17718, 2006)- N. Scafetta, B. J. West

Possible solar forcing of century-scale drought frequency in the northern Great Plains(Geology, Vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 263-266, Mar 1999)-Zicheng Yu, Emi Ito

Reply to Lockwood and Fröhlich – The persistent role of the Sun in climate forcing(Danish National Space Center Scientific Report, 3/2007)- H. Svensmark, E.Friis-Christensen

Regional tropospheric responses to long-term solar activity variations(Advances in Space Research, Volume 40, Issue 7, Pages 1167-1172, 2007)- O.M. Raspopov, V.A. Dergachev, A.V. Kuzmin, O.V. Kozyreva, M.G. Ogurtsov, T. Kolström and E. Lopatin

Rhodes Fairbridge and the idea that the solar system regulates the Earth’s climate(Journal of Coastal Research, SI 50, pp. 955-968, 2007)- Richard Mackey

Solar activity variations and global temperature(Energy (Oxford), Vol. 18, no. 12, pp. 1273-1284, 1993)- Friis-Christensen, Eigil

Solar and climate signal records in tree ring width from Chile (AD 1587–1994)(Planetary and Space Science, Volume 55, Issues 1-2, Pages 158-164, January 2007)- Nivaor Rodolfo Rigozoa, Daniel Jean Roger Nordemann, Heitor Evangelista da Silva, Mariza Pereira de Souza Echer, Ezequiel Echer

Solar correlates of Southern Hemisphere mid-latitude climate variability(International Journal of Climatology, Volume 22, Issue 8 , Pages 901 - 915, 27 May 2002)- Ronald E. Thresher

Solar Cycle Variability, Ozone, and Climate(Science, Vol. 284. no. 5412, pp. 305 - 308, 9 April 1999)- Drew Shindell, David Rind, Nambeth Balachandran, Judith Lean, Patrick Lonergan

Solar Forcing of Drought Frequency in the Maya Lowlands(Science, Vol. 292. no. 5520, pp. 1367 - 1370, 18 May 2001)- David A. Hodell, Mark Brenner, Jason H. Curtis, Thomas Guilderson

Solar total irradiance variation and the global sea surface temperature record(Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 96, NO. D2, Pages 2835–2844, 1991)- George C. Reid

Solar variability and climate change: Geomagnetic aa index and global surface temperature(Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 25, Issue 7, p. 1035-1038, 1998)- E.W. Cliver, V. Boriakoff, J. Feynman

Solar variability and ring widths in fossil trees(Il Nuovo Cimento C, Volume 19, Number 4, July 1996)- S. Cecchini, M. Galli, T. Nanni, L. Ruggiero

Solar Variability Over the Past Several Millennia(Space Science Reviews, Volume 125, Issue 1-4, pp. 67-79, Friday, December 22, 2006)- J. Beer, M. Vonmoos, R. Muscheler

Suggestive correlations between the brightness of Neptune, solar variability, and Earth's temperature (Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 34, L08203, 2007)- H. B. Hammel, G. W. Lockwood

Surface warming by the solar cycle as revealed by the composite mean difference projection(Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 34, L14703, 2007)- Charles D. Camp, Ka Kit Tung

The link between the solar dynamo and climate - The evidence from a long mean air temperature series from Northern Ireland(Irish Astronomical Journal, vol. 21, no. 3-4, p. 251-254, 09/1994)- C.J. Butler, D.J. Johnston

The Sun–Earth Connection in Time Scales from Years to Decades and Centuries(Space Science Reviews, v. 95, Issue 1/2, p. 625-637, 2001)- T.I. Pulkkinen, H. Nevanlinna, P.J. Pulkkinen, M. Lockwood

Variable solar irradiance as a plausible agent for multidecadal variations in the Arctic-wide surface air temperature record of the past 130 years
(Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 32, L16712, 2005)- Willie W.-H. Soon

Variability of the solar cycle length during the past five centuries and the apparent association with terrestrial climate(Journal of Atmospheric and Terrestrial Physics, Volume 57, Issue 8, Pages 835-845, July 1995)- K. Lassen, E. Friis-Christensen

Variations in Radiocarbon Concentration and Sunspot Activity(Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 66, p.273, 01/1961)- Stuiver, M.

Variations in the Earth's Orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages(Science, Vol. 194. no. 4270, pp. 1121 - 1132, 10 December 1976)- J. D. Hays, John Imbrie, N. J. Shackleton

Variations of solar coronal hole area and terrestrial lower tropospheric air temperature from 1979 to mid-1998: astronomical forcings of change in earth's climate?(New Astronomy, Volume 4, Issue 8, Pages 563-579, January 2000)- W. Soon, S. Baliunas, E. S. Posmentier, P. Okeke

What do we really know about the Sun-climate connection?(Advances in Space Research, Volume 20, Issue 4-5, p. 913-921, 1997)- Eigil Friis-Christensen, Henrik Svensmark

Will We Face Global Warming in the Nearest Future?(Geomagnetism i Aeronomia, Vol. 43, pp. 124-127, 2003)- V. S. Bashkirtsev, G. P. MashnichSolar -

 

Well Rat

My point is that some people’s viewpoint on global warming is driven not by rationality but by bias and ideology or are working in the interests of wealth.

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I’m not going to go through all your links but lets take just look at one of those you quote from.

Well the president of SEPP and the man who set it up is Dr S Fred Singer

Here is an overview of Dr Singer, who seems to make a living from being a bit of a corporate stooge.
http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=S._Fred_Singer

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As I say bias and ideology, and the interests of the wealthy.

 

Cripes, Blab-at-us,

how do you figure that denying global warming is a way for the wealthy to get richer?

If there isn't any manmade global warming,

THEY WON'T MAKE A CENT OFF THE CARBON TAXES.

And, once again, everything you accuse others of is exactly what you do.

------

Gardener:

It does make you wonder, doesn't it?

If everyone is so concerned with the future, global warming and pollution,

it really doesn't make ANY sense to continue business as usual, and begin to charge for pollution...

The Big Idea SHOULD be to encourage inventors, designers and the factories that can manufacture such to design clean engines, and clean transportation,

thereby ENDING the problem.

Charging folks for something that they have been pretty well forced to use isn't very kosher, imho.

 

Never,

in my wildest dreams (nightmares... )

did i EVER think Blabus could be outdone in the "Blathering-On-In-A-Post" competition,

especially not with links to the articles, rather than cut-&-paste!

i'm impressed, Rat! :sifone:

 

Fy

I see you are still not reading the posts in a thread.

I pointed out in post 16 that –

And gave links.

In post 17 I quoted from George Monbiot about why carbon trading came about and that it came down to –

In post 18 I showed how the rich are directing the agenda.

In post 22 I showed how the denier’s arguments always seem to end up favouring the interests of wealth and have pointed out many times that a lot of the information used by deniers came from wealth backed foundations and institutions.

And in post 24 I showed that one of the two pieces quoted by Rat came from such a dishonest source (the other being only a summary without body or conclusion).

*

Once again you are making uninformed and snide swipes at people rather than genuinely contributing to a thread.

If you have something useful to contribute please do so if not could you please desist from trolling.

 

Thank you for this. It is priceless.

 

It is ALL fucking lies and bullshit!!!!!!
Global warming is a natural occurance. ANyone that has taken a few college courses in Science, Geography, Geology, Nat. History, Biology w.h.y . knows that.
Carbon tax, cap & trade is just another rip-off of us working taxpayer.
the only group making profit of that are the jews on wall street, bay street, NYC, Toronto a.s.o.
I say it is high time we, the people, do away with the doom sayers and theri masters!