Climate Change in the Northeast

[expat]

Gloom and doom

There are two other natural phenomena that are occurring as a result of human influence:

1) the magnetic pole has increased the speed of its movement. By mid-century it could leave Canada! This is surely the result of the increased use of microwave ovens and MRI machines.

2) the polar icecaps are melting...on Mars. Our greenhouse emissions are also affecting the Martian atmosphere! Life on Mars as we know it will never be the same. The green men will soon have sunburns.

Check the news folks. People aren't the cause of everything bad.

 

[Puck]

Check the news folks.

This statement is a bit condescending. Most posters on this site strike me as being well informed...many infact are resources, well versed in a variety of subjects. Most peole have responded with links or a demand for citations.

Because the conclusions drawn do not converge means a variety of things;
1) our own conclusion is wrong and the others are right.
2) vise verca
3) the literature has not been exhausted.
4) we have had a slanted review of the literature
5) we are in the middle of a paradigm shift and nothing is solid yet.

This topic can easily slip into propaganda, hyperbole and polemcs. I think the moderators have done a great job keeping the garbage out of the thread and focused on the tangibles.

 

[Gris]

Puck, you forgot IMO the most accurate one:

(6) in the modern climate where money and materiaism rule the day, so-called scientific experts get paid to espouse a certain view. As a trial lawyer I see it all the time...

 

[Bob]

My Last Reply

This topic can easily slip into propaganda, hyperbole and polemcs.

that is the bottom line here, please everyone; do some research on your own!

so-called scientific experts get paid to espouse a certain view

and grant funded jobs would cease if the alarmists admitted it was a natural cycle...has anyone figured out what caused the end of the last ice age?

 

[onestep]

...has anyone figured out what caused the end of the last ice age?

Global warming?

Onestep (closer to a 'whack)

 

[Gris]

IMO, the cause for alarm is that the RATE of warming, as measured by glacial melt, has increased at an exponential rate very recently and in perfect correlation with the man-made greenhouse effect. The ice core measurements are like tree rings, very precise. Say what you will about whether we should worry or do anything about the calamity that will occur in 20, 50 or 100 years, but it seems Ostrich-like to deny the evidence that it is occurring at an incredibly rapid rate...

 

[Puck]

Puck, you forgot IMO the most accurate one:

(6) in the modern climate where money and materiaism rule the day, so-called scientific experts get paid to espouse a certain view. As a trial lawyer I see it all the time...

Gris you are shaking me out of my ivory tower. Although I have read Kuhn, Lakatos, and Feyerabend is still perfer and innocent and niave style of epistemology. Science and knowledge advances for the pure love of learning and awe of the world around us. All discoveries can fuel technology for the betterment of humanity, the planet and the puppies on the LL Bean catalog.

can't you tell my science is limited to 150 kDaltons?

 

[giggy]

pretty good passionate discussion - not being politcal here - but using some political terms to make a point - the whole issue is biased IMO.

1) most here are outdorsy people - ie, likely more in tune with enviro issues
2) most enviro issue minded people associate with the left side of political spectrum
3) most here are probably more left than right
4) most here are well informed - but biased on the issue
5) most on the other side are well informed but biased on the issue
6) most who write on the topic are biased on the issue - stats can be made to say anything.
7) most people in the world are not outdorsy and don't like or want snow, - and could really care less about global warming - in fact most people would welcome warmer winters in the NE. Its nice talk about at cocktails parties to bash polititicans - but nobody (most people) really cares enough to do anything -
8) most people I know don't plant, but take down trees in the yard to get more sunlight or take a away a tree through the roof scenerio.



my personal opinion is there is some impact from humans - how much, I don't know, cuz I really take the whole issues from both sides of the fence with a few grains of salt and like someone mentioned - I have more important things to worry about and I don't attend many elite cocktail parties.

 

[DougPaul]

(6) in the modern climate where money and materiaism rule the day, so-called scientific experts get paid to espouse a certain view. As a trial lawyer I see it all the time...

In theory, science is evidence driven, however, as a researcher my observation is that some scientific experts let their statements be influcenced by funding or some agenda and some don't. It is certainly legitmate for a researcher/expert to have an evidence-based opinion/viewpoint. And it can be legitimate for different researchers to interpret ambiguous evidence differently.

And of course, there are the organizations with a viewpoint who shop around until they find an "expert" who supports their viewpoint. I would guess that this is not unheard of in the legal, commercial, and politcal worlds...

Doug

 

[Tuco]

I had a longer post that I trashed after Stevehikers post since he stated what I was going to mention- that is there were many changes in weather patterns both warm and cold before humans. Change is natural. Perhaps the current warming trend is a natural one- of course aided by the greenhouse effect….? Maybe my grandkids kids while living in an ice house will wish for the days of heat....

This post is not meant to agree or refute with any prior posts and appreciates the viewpoints of all…..

 

[Gris]

There have been many ice-ages and warm periods in the past.

Yes, but you missed the point of my post. NOTHING in the history of the earth has even come close to the RATE at which it is now occurring and this new rate just happens to coincide perfectly with the greenhouse effect.

2) most enviro issue minded people associate with the left side of political spectrum

I vehemently disagree with this assumption, at least as far as the south is concerned. You will not find a more conservative (in the true sense of the word) group than my family of old southern hunter/fisherman, farmers. Yet, we are as enviromentally conscious as anyone. When you grow up way out in the country, you respect it.

 

[beverly]

Don't feed the tro...I mean skeptics!

How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic Lots of good Q & As on climate change.
and
The Scientic Consensus on Climate Change

The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" [p. 21 in (4)].

and

PCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements

and

The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point.

This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.

The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it.

Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen.

 

[Puck]

Yes, but you missed the point of my post. NOTHING in the history of the earth has even come close to the RATE at which it is now occurring and this new rate just happens to coincide perfectly with the greenhouse effect.

This is worth repeating. I have not heard of any altenative theory, glacial and ice age cycles, earth's tilt and rotation etc that have not already been incoporated into the models. They do not explain the rate of the trend.

 

[Roxi]

NOTHING in the history of the earth has even come close to the RATE at which it is now occurring and this new rate just happens to coincide perfectly with the greenhouse effect.

Agreed. I have been following the global warming debate for several years reading many independent sources and looking at evidence from different places around the world. Gore's book An Inconvenient Truth does a nice job of compiling the evidence from many independent sources. For those who want to know the source of where many of the statistics come from, I recommend reading the book. The evidence is compelling, and I would much rather err on the side of doing what we can WHILE we can, rather than waiting until it's too late. To me, that's common sense.

 

[Tuco]

The evidence is compelling, and I would much rather err on the side of doing what we can WHILE we can, rather than waiting until it's too late. To me, that's common sense.

Well said. I do wonder though how come scientists can tell me what the patterns were 20 million years ago but still can't figure out what next Monday will look like accurately

 

[giggy]

You know your at an elite harvard cocktail party when people think al gore's book has no political agenda. Not saying its a bad book, but come on - maybe a little teenie bit of political agenda?

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Thanks, but you haven't yet cited your source that proves that 99.9% of climate scientists believe the theory. I thought it was closer to 50/50.

As a PhD climate scientist with 35+ years experience in academics, having carried out research on glacial fluctuations and paleoclimate change on numerous continents and mountain ranges on our planet, having worked many field seasons in both the Arctic and Antarctic, and having published over 50 lengthy peer-reviewed journal articles on glacial and climate fluctuations, I take full responsibility for being the "source" of my statement. But, better is Beverly's fine post above with links to the IPCC source that I identified earlier, which summarizes the consensus of over 1200 climate scientists that humans are mostly reponsible for the global warming of the past century. I also earlier provided a link to the RealClimate.org site, where climate scientists try to summarize recent findings in climate science in layperson's language and answer climate questions posed to them. I know of only three climate skeptics who publish in peer-reviewed scientific journals, so 1197/1200 = 99.75% (so I exaggerated a little).

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Global Cooling Theory was not based on the idea that we'd eventually cool down due to cycles, but due to the same human activity that is now blamed for theorized unnatural warming. Combustion of fossil feuls was theorized to lead to blocking of solar heat, causing the planet to freeze.QUOTE]

I do not know of any peer-reviewed journal article from then or now that states the above conclusion; if you have a source, please do share. Certainly burning high-sulfur coal creates sulfate aerosols that increase atmospheric albedo, hence causes cooling, but this effect is negligible (i.e., less than 1%) compared to the increased greenhouse effect caused by carbon loading of the atmosphere by burning the same coal.

 

[Roxi]

I am not saying that all of the global warming is or isn't our (humanity's) fault. It could be. It might be. Hell, it most likely is.

That's not the point. Regardless of what's causing global warming (many factors contribute), it's happening. While we may not have control over everything that contributes, there are things humans can do to help slow the process, and work toward possible solutions, instead of contributing to the problem.

We're talking about the health of the planet we ALL live on. Arguing whether or not the issue is political is a waste of time. So is waiting for everyone to agree that global warming is the result of human activity, or natural causes, or a combination of the two. There are things we do have control over, and can do to help the situation instead of making it worse.

 

[Gris]

I stand by my point: correlation does not imply causality...

Are you serious? This view would require us to throw out much of modern medicine (that which is epidemiologically based) and science!