(can of worms alert) Globe hasn't warmed in the last 16 years 76

[beej67]

Worth a read. One significance of the article to me is the 'skeptic' isn't a loon, she's the head of the EAS department at Georgia Tech.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html



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[zdas04]

I love the quote

Others disagreed. Professor Judith Curry, who is the head of the climate science department at America’s prestigious Georgia Tech university, told The Mail on Sunday that it was clear that the computer models used to predict future warming were ‘deeply flawed’.

I heard a "scientist" on TV this weekend defending the use of computer models as "evidence" of AGW, his arguments were so lame that even a sympathetic interviewer smelled blood in the water and cut him off to change the subject. "Carbon taxes" are showing up progressively more vividly as "wealth redistribution". Biggest problem right now is social momentum--too many people accepted the old info and won't consider emerging data.


David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[zdas04]

I saw one funny picture in the referenced article (I guess the Daily Mail just can't completely abandon their roots). The picture I've attached has a number of plumes, but the caption

Damage: Global warming has been caused in part by the CO2 emitted by fossil fuels. This image shows smoke billowing out of a power station

Is just too funny. The plumes are condensation of water vapor off of cooling towers. If the temperature and relative humidity support that much condensation, then I would be that a large amount of the "smoke" from the two actual smoke stacks is also condensation.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[beej67]

Quote makes my skin crawl. "Georgia Institute of Technology," thank you very much.

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[TomDOT]

David - water is a greenhouse gas too

 

[zdas04]

It is indeed. I think the number is something like 98% (by mass) of so called "Greenhouse Gases" are water vapor (the picture I attached above, must be a good thing since the "smoke" is water vapor that has condensed to liquid water droplets). I keep waiting for a greenie to recommend tarping the oceans to reduce that "Greenhouse Gas".

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[rconnor]

I'd suggest reading the article below from the Met Office in response to this. It cleans up some errors made by the Daily Mail and provides more context.

http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/

 

[beej67]

Sounds like he's taking the "too early to tell" route in his response. Which was what a lot of other people on the other side of the fence had been saying in prior years.

People in this issue like to play the "us vs them" argument game, but in truth there are a wide range of positions most people fall on.

1) The globe isn't warming
2) The globe is warming, but man's contribution to the warming is insignificant.
3) Man is significantly warming the globe, but through a variety of means, and there's no good way to stop it.
4) Man is significantly warming the globe, entirely through CO2 emissions, but halting it would be too expensive / impossible.
5) Man is significantly warming the globe, entirely through CO2 emissions, and carbon trading / Kyoto would solve the problem.

I personally think 1) and 5) are both ridiculous positions to take, and find myself settling around 3).



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[jgailla]

I'd go with 6), Man is significantly warming the globe, at least somewhat through CO2 emissions, and there are some good ways to limit CO2 emissions, although it's unlikely because politics is involved. I suppose that's the same thing as 3), but I'd be happy if our cynicism was misplaced. Not likely, though.

 

[zdas04]

I'll go with "0) The climate is changing. The climate has always changed. The climate will always change. It is the height of arrogance to assume that we can either measure, predict, or impact that change with real time running. We are having great difficulty 'predicting' what the climate did 50 years ago and whether particular gases in the record are leading indicators or lagging indicators."

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[patprimmer]

I will go with 3.5

The globe is probably warming and Man is probably playing some part in that warming. Some actions by man might help to slow the rate.

A great deal of study is required by people with no vested interests.

An investigator reporting an alarming situation is a way to ensure tenure and therefore is a vested interest.

An investigator working in an entirely public funded situation with guaranteed tenure no matter what (well short of criminal activities) is a no vested interest situation (well minimised vested interest when potential for promotion is considered). While in the past such situations where often quite inefficient, they where also less corrupted. I think user pays mentality has all but eliminated independent research.

Regards
Pat
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[MintJulep]

3.6 the globe may be experiencing climate change and man may be contributing but spewing garbage into the atmosphere is stupid for other reasons too.

 

[zdas04]

MintJulep,
You just have to define "garbage". Is water vapor "garbage"? Carbon dioxide? Methane? I would say that all of these things are a part of life (every oxygen breather on the planet exhausts considerable quantities of water vapor, CO2, and CH$ every minute of every day) that have been demonized by the practicers of the religion of AGW.

As to dumping industrial waste, that activity is seriously stupid and the people who have sought short term gains by doing it have behaved counter to the best interests of both society and themselves. I have been working industry responses to EPA regulations and have had occasion to review the EPA database of violations to Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. As best I could tell from the database the number of enforcement actions labeled as "significant" has dwindled to a very small number in recent years (even as the EPA has lowered the threshold for "significant" several times). The days of burning rivers and melting statues is decades behind us according to the EPA.

As to "waste", I have a hard time with that one. When I think of the billions of ergs of energy expended every weekend to transport sports fans to a meaningless sporting events called NFL Football (or Rugby, or Soccer, or NASCAR) I have to wonder how long before the waste police shut down professional sports. One man's "waste" is another man's "recreation". I have a really hard time with people who claim the moral high ground about "waste" because they drive an electric vehicle (that just happens to require the burning of more fossil fuel than my Land Rover). But like the Mayor of the City of London said on Top Gear "the electricity to charge the batteries comes from the plug".

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[rconnor]

Option 0) Our society lives in an infinite growth paradigm on a planet with a very finite amount of resources. We feel that we've evolved past the "predator-prey" problem and can have our consumption grow exponential without consequence. However, the reality is that we've just delayed and amplified the effect of a "prey" shortage. It will come, whether it's a shortage of clean water, cultivatable land, energy supply, or environmental issues caused by our consumption, we will at some point feel the squeeze. We already are and it only gets more serious.

This is sometimes the point that is lost in the GW/AGW/CAGW debate; both sides do (or should) agree that conservation and more careful consumption is required. However, where people differ is on how much of a life-style shift they are willing to accept. The problem is, the need for and magnitude of these shifts is forever growing regardless if you are willing to accept them or not (and I'm not just talking about CAGW, you can pick any of the above resource issues as your primary concern).

 

[dawei87]

Option 42 there is a group of school children from an ultraadvanced alien race in a faraway solar system that amuse themselves by projecting a hyperconcentrated micrwoave beam onto our planet like a magnifying glass over an ant hill.

 

[CastMetal]

rconnor,

While humanities exponential growth following the industrial revolution has made the limitations of our resources apparent, this growth trend has fallen off. Most of the industrialized worlds fertility rates are below rate of replacement and data released last year from the UN suggest we have reached "peak child" that is the number of children in the world will not grow if we continue our current trend and human population will top out around 10 Billion. So look on the bright side we only need 66% more resources by ways of efficiency, expansion, new technology, conservation by 2050. Should be easy right?

A good talk from a founder of gapminder.org on this topic for those interested.

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies.html

Comprehension is not understanding. Understanding is not wisdom. And it is wisdom that gives us the ability to apply what we know, to our real world situations

 

[ScottyUK]

But like the Mayor of the City of London said on Top Gear "the electricity to charge the batteries comes from the plug".

He's an asshole. And a Tory. He probably reads the Daily Mail to learn about smoke coming out of cooling towers. These pricks are in charge of my country.

 

[SteelPE]

CastMetal,

That was something that I was going to say. I remember seeing a program on time this discussed that most of the industrialized world was actually starting to see negative population growth. I believe this is a problem in countries in Europe and Japan. They said that the US wasn't necessarily having the problems because of all the immigration.

ScottyUK,

I will trade out leaders for yours. I thought two of them were going to duke it out last night.

 

[beej67]

We solved the exponential growth problem with the birth control pill. Lots of heavily industrialized nations, such as Russia, now have the opposite problem - population decline which deadens economic growth. As other third and second world areas catch up to the first world West, the population issue will plateau. The fundamental issue is standard of living is still climbing, so the amount of resources used per individual is still climbing. It's hard to say what sort of changes will happen with that in the 21st century, and it's rather silly to bet on such predictions.



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[GregLocock]

...and that is where it suddenly gets very nasty. I certainly don't have any obvious right to tell an Indian person or a Chinese person or an African person that they cannot have a car, a fridge, or an air conditioning unit, or another child, even though I have had access to those for the whole of my adult life. The most sensible approach is for the first world nations to develop low impact efficient versions of current or better technology, for deployment worldwide. The great news is that we are sort of doing that, the bad news is that 7 billion *50% (say) resource usage is still an awful lot more than 1 billion*100%+5 billion*10%. So things will probably get worse before they get better.


There are far higher priorities than variations in global temperatures, and they are better dealt with case by case than by random moral panics.




Cheers

Greg Locock


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