Topic: Discussion about Global Warming and Caribou and Arctic Tundra
Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
aside from wikipedia does anyone here have any good links or know of where I can find some to help me with a project I'm working on for ethics? Thank y'all. And while I'm at it why don't we discuss it as well, what are your thoughs on the probably effects of global warming on the tundra ecosystem? Are we screwed? Will the Polar Bears invade?
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The polar bears will not invade, they will die. They eat seals. They hunt seals by standing on top of the ice. Once the ice is gone, there will be no way to stand on it. There is virtually nothing else for them to eat on the arctic tundra. You can only live for so long on berries. I absolutely believe that global warming is happening and is a huge problem. What makes me sick is the people who are talking about how conveniant it will be when the north pole melts because then we can have shipping lanes. Great. If your city is still visible when the poles melt. ok sorry. Rant. Putting this subject into Google will immediately render you more results than you can handle, I imagine. TIME magazine just did a huge article on this, which you can probably check out online. It was really interesting, and scary. Really scary. I could rant about this for pages but I'll spare everyone that. Posts: 464 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I think it said in the Time magazine article that the north pole should be more than half melted by the year 2030 or so. That means that less than 30 years from now, the land mass of earth will be reduced...I don't know how much...maybe not that much...but maybe a lot. It's hard to estimate how much the oceans would rise I guess. But...how many of earth's biggest cities are [u]right on the ocean?[/u] Well anyway...I really suggest you find Time magazine somewhere... I looked at it on the website but you can only read the first paragraph or so without logging in. But the first paragraph does give you a pretty good idea.... Also, untold amounts of methane that have been locked in the permafrost of the arctic tundra for thousands of years are now being released into the atmosphere...which is really bad. I'm not exactly sure why, but I can assure you it's really bad. The melting of the permafrost should accelerate in the years too come as well. Of course this is all assuming we continue to put out as much waste as we are now...If we are to turn this around we need drastic politcal action, and we need to start immediately. Who knows when that's going to happen? This summer I'll be in Churchill, Manitoba, which is a small town in the arctic, on the Hudson Bay. I was there last summer too, but I think this summer we're really gonna get to it and do some sort of project about global warming...trying to figure out exactly what the effects have been in the arctic. The arctic is a place very near to my heart and I hope we will be able to have some effect. I can tell you more about that after it has happened. Posts: 464 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Melting of icebergs won't raise sea levels but melting of the land mass of the north pole will (like in antarctica).
Posts: 464 | Registered: Jul 2004
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When a land mass melts, I think that's called lava, which is a whole different warming problem Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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The Time article I believe Soara is referring to is by Jeffrey Kluger and titled, The Tipping Point. It was in the April 3, 2006 issue. Hope that helps.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Great. If your city is still visible when the poles melt.
Well, technically, the melting of the north pole ice won't raise sea levels.
The melting of the other large ice masses (Antartic, Greenland, etc.) will suck, though.
The melting of the arctic ice won't directly affect sea levels, but thermal expansion of the oceans do to rising temperatures which accompany melting arctic ice will lead to a rise in ocean levels. This is one point that the public media tends to miss. Once water that is warming than 4°C, it expands when its temp. increases. The percent change is relatively small, but when you consider how much water there is in the oceans it makes an enormous difference. Even if none of the polar ice melts, sea levels will rise appreciably as the planets temperature rises.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Hmm. That doesn't seem quite right. Melting the ice is one thing, but increasing the temperature of the ocean by four whole degrees beyond that again? I think that's a level of global warming that would only occur if some alien species used a giant magnifying glass to focus the Sun's rays on us. And in fact, going from 0 to 4, water actually decreases in volume. I rather doubt this would be enough to offset the ice from Greenland and Antarctica, though.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Not to mention that ice reflects 90% or so of the sun's energy, whereas (liquid) water absorbs about 90% or so. So the less ice there is (on land or on sea) the more heat the planet absorbs, the warmer it gets, the more ice melts. Repeat.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Great. If your city is still visible when the poles melt.
Well, technically, the melting of the north pole ice won't raise sea levels.
The melting of the other large ice masses (Antartic, Greenland, etc.) will suck, though.
The melting of the arctic ice won't directly affect sea levels, but thermal expansion of the oceans do to rising temperatures which accompany melting arctic ice will lead to a rise in ocean levels. This is one point that the public media tends to miss. Once water that is warming than 4°C, it expands when its temp. increases. The percent change is relatively small, but when you consider how much water there is in the oceans it makes an enormous difference. Even if none of the polar ice melts, sea levels will rise appreciably as the planets temperature rises.
And sea levels aren't the only effects of global warming. Wind currents are intertwined with tidal currents -- I believe I saw a report on the weakening trade winds just yesterday. (There's consideration that the North Atlantic Drift may weaken, which will have severe effects for northern Europe -- effectively reducing it to the sort of temperatures we'd normally expect at such latitudes.) Also, with the melting of the poles, the sea's salinity will drop drastically -- which is, put lightly, bad news for every sea-creature and ecosystem out there dependent on salt water.
And yet we still see brilliant satire like Pix's post. Partisanship boggles the mind.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
grrr some parts of my assignment are odd, I need to document the migratory pattern of arctic birds and how they contribute to the ecosystem. I can't seem to find much information on them, stupid little birds slowing me down.
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quote:As sea water freezes, the salt becomes more concentrated in the remaining unfrozen water. This is because the salt is forced out of the ice as the water freezes. The ice is composed only of water. The salt goes into the surrounding water. This makes Arctic water extremely salty, more so than most of the world oceans, causing it to freeze at a lower temperature.
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Hey Mr Squicky, Here's an Umbrella, Chicken Little.
Thing is, guys, if Jupiter is experiencing Global Warming, then it's obviously not humanity that's causing it, but increased solar activity. (assuming it's even happening which is unproved. Funding dries up for anyone who publishes a contridictory finding. There was a story about that on SlashDot a few weeks ago.)
So what you hand wringing panic mongers should concentrate on is Surviving it, not preventing it. Go buy up some rocky mountain land and a few years worth of food like those nuclear winter survivalists used to do back in the 80s. Ya know, back then we were all doing to die due to Reagan provoking the Soviet Union into a nuclear war.
And while you're there, you'll also be safe from the bird flu that's going to kill us all. And SARS (when was the last time you heard about SARS?)
Soooo tired of hearing environmentalists whining no matter where you turn....
quote:Thing is, guys, if Jupiter is experiencing Global Warming, then it's obviously not humanity that's causing it, but increased solar activity.
I agree with the first part, but what the heck are you talking about with the second part? Now, I'm not a Jovian climatologist, but I'd venture to guess that there are a great deal more than one plausible explanation for this.
edit: Yes, this post was really just an excuse for me to say "Jovian climatologist".
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
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Yes! I finally got past all the annoying research icky parts of the paper, no more caribou! Now on to Aldo's Leopold's Land ethics
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I just reread that post, and it sounds like I am mad.
Sorry about that, I just get tired of the same old false arguments going around. On both sides.
Planets ALL have their own weather trends, and are all different. Duh. I just fail to see the "obvious" connection, that's all. There could be a lot of different reasons that both planets are wraming...if in fact they both are, a claim I doubt due to the inherent difficulties of measuring a planets surface tempatures from a distance.
I doubt we know half as much as we think we do about any of the surrounding planets, to be honest.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Juxtapose: Not to mention that ice reflects 90% or so of the sun's energy, whereas (liquid) water absorbs about 90% or so. So the less ice there is (on land or on sea) the more heat the planet absorbs, the warmer it gets, the more ice melts. Repeat.
The amount of sunlight coming in at the poles is minimal, of course -- so the amount reflected by ice is minimal, too. However, ice is a great insulator, and the water underneath it contains a lot of heat, which the ice prevents from radiating into space. So loss of ocean ice serves to slow global warming.
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I don't know about Jupiter, but I did know that Mars is getting warmer, and is losing its polar (dry) ice.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Er. Pix, I'm not sure how extensively you've researched this, but Jupiter essentially is global warming. Did you bother to research what the planet's made of, or did you suddenly leap to the conclusion that if Jupiter's warming (and did you read the article you linked?), and if it's not human activity that's causing, obviously global warming is an environmentalist myth invented to... be... make... assault... something...?
Here's a snippet of the article you linked. What possible relationship can you draw between Jupiter's chaotic atmosphere and the marked increase in warming in Earth's relatively stable climate, even from the depth of your wild partisan blindness?
quote:Close look
Close inspections of Red Spot Jr., in Hubble images released today, reveal that similar to the Great Red Spot, the more recently developed storm rises above the top of the main cloud deck on Jupiter.
Little is known about how storms form on the giant planet. They are often described as behaving similar to hurricanes on Earth. Some astronomers believe that the spots dredge up material deep below Jupiter's clouds and lift it to where the Sun's ultraviolet light chemically alters it to give it a red hue.
The latest images could provide evidence that Jupiter is in the midst of a global change that can modify temperatures by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit on different parts of the globe.
The study was led jointly by Imke de Pater and Philip Marcus of University of California, Berkeley.
"The storm is growing in altitude," de Pater said. "Before when they were just ovals they didn't stick out above the clouds. Now they are rising."
This growth signals a temperature increase in that region, she said.
Marking change
The global change cycle began when the last of the white oval-shaped storms formed south of the Great Red Spot in 1939. As the storms started to merge between 1998 and 2000, the mixing of heat began to slow down at that latitude and has continued slowing ever since.
That said, I'm going to go out on a limb. What was the last science course you took, and in what stage of education was it?
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote:Also, with the melting of the poles, the sea's salinity will drop drastically
Is the sea ice at the north pole composed of fresh or salt water?
Fresh water, because salt water doesn't freeze. If you try to freeze salt water, you end up with fresh-water ice and some very very salty residue.
If all the polar ice melted (which would take a couple of centuries, for Antarctica; less for the North Pole), how would it change the oceans' salinity?
The volume of the oceans is 1.3x10^9 km^3 (http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/SyedQadri.shtml); the mass is 1.4 × 10^21 kg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceans). Given the different answers I got, I think 2 significant figures is right.
Total salt = current salinity x current water = (35/1000) x 1.4 x 10^21 kg = 4.9 x 10^19 kg
New salinity = total salt/new water = 4.9 x 10^19kg /(1.4x10^21 kg+1.3x10^18kg) = 34.67799 parts per thousand if we ignore significant figures; 35 if we do it right. 34.67799 is 99% of 35.
The salinity of the ocean varies from around 30%-40% (http://www.gpc.edu/~pgore/Earth&Space/salinity.html). That 30% would likely be at river mouths, which are very different from the deep; I suspect the 40% would be in places like the Red Sea. I do know that sea life thrives in both. I don't know what other effects altered salinity would have -- but we can be sure it's happened before, when the Earth went through changes earlier.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: kwea: Can we agree that Humans aren't causing changes in Jovian Climatology? (You're right, Squick, That's a good phrase =)
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Lalo, you're contrasting Jupiter's chaotic atmosphere with Earth's relatively stable climate; but weather and climate aren't really comparable. Weather is indeed chaotic, and climate is stable, at least in the short term; but Earth has chaotic weather, too. Arguing that chaotic weather makes it intractable to predict the cause of temperature changes blows a big hole in the middle of the anthropogenic global warming theory, if that argument is in fact true.
Maybe it is. Calculating heat transfers in Earth's atmosphere is a fiendishly difficult task: differences in cloud cover, humidity, albedo, specific heat, and wind patterns make it very tough indeed. Jupiter's climate would have to suffer many of the same complications.
The article didn't really state that Jupiter is getting warmer overall -- at least, if it did, I missed it -- but if so, that's the 3rd planet in the System we know to be getting warmer at the same time. Will we posit independent mechanisms for all 3 planets? It's hard to imagine what it might be on Mars: no industry, no life, no oceans, little variation in atmospheric composition, no vulcanism, only one big Hadley cell per hemisphere (Earth's have 3 cells). The only possible explanation I can find is increases in insolation -- which do correlate positively with the currently rising sunspot activity -- and of course insolation changes would of course affect all 3 planets.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I don't know about the planet as a whole, but the article did state that "Jupiter is in the midst of a global change that can modify temperatures by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit on different parts of the globe." Pix's point was that if a storm is developing on Jupiter, and the changes there are not man-made, then the changes happening on Earth must not be man-made either.
But comparing Jupiter to Earth is ludicrous. Not because both planets have chaotic weather, but because they're made up of entirely different substances, with entirely different types of atmospheres and entirely different reactions to solar energy. God help us if our planet's ever similar enough to Jupiter to make Pix's comparison plausible.
quote:Planetary composition
Jupiter is composed of a relatively small rocky core, surrounded by metallic hydrogen, surrounded by liquid hydrogen, which is surrounded by gaseous hydrogen. There is no clear boundary or surface between these different phases of hydrogen; the conditions blend smoothly from gas to liquid as one descends.
Jupiter's atmosphere is composed of ~90% hydrogen and ~10% helium by number of atoms. The atmosphere is ~75%/24% by mass; with ~1% of the mass accounted for by other substances - the interior contains denser materials such that the distribution is ~71%/24%/5%. The atmosphere contains trace amounts of methane, water vapor, ammonia, and "rock". There are also traces of carbon, ethane, hydrogen sulphide, neon, oxygen, phosphine, and sulphur. The outermost layer of the atmosphere contains crystals of frozen ammonia.[5][6]
This atmospheric composition is very close to the composition of the solar nebula. Saturn has a similar composition, but Uranus and Neptune have much less hydrogen and helium.
Jupiter's upper atmosphere undergoes differential rotation, an effect first noticed by Giovanni Cassini (1690). The rotation of Jupiter's polar atmosphere is ~5 minutes longer than that of the equatorial atmosphere. In addition, bands of clouds of different latitudes, known as tropical regions flow in opposing directions on the prevailing winds. The interactions of these conflicting circulation patterns cause storms and turbulence. Wind speeds of 600 km/h are not uncommon. A particularly violent storm, about three times Earth's diameter, is known as the Great Red Spot, and has persisted through more than three centuries of human observation.
The only spacecraft to have descended into Jupiter's atmosphere to take scientific measurements is the Galileo probe (see Galileo mission). It sent an atmospheric probe into Jupiter upon arrival in 1995, then itself entered Jupiter's atmosphere and burned up in 2003.
And your point about possible increased sunspot activity might be valid, particularly if there's a similar temperature increase among other planets (which I'd have to know more about to make my own judgements) -- but even if this change is attributable to solar activity, it certainly doesn't mean global warming (and global dimming) aren't also happening. And if the two are correlating at the same time, this can be a worse crisis than either would be alone.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I won't comment on what Pix meant by what s/he said; I didn't interpret as you did.
I'm having a little trouble following your last paragraph. "Even if [temperature increase in planetary atmospheres] is attributable to solar activity, it doesn't mean global warming ... aren't also happening." Global warming *is* temperature increase in planetary atmospheres, so of course it couldn't happen without itself (?). Maybe you meant earthly global warming v. Jovian and Martian global warming? "Correlating at the same time" -- ? Worse crisis -- Jovian and Martian global warming won't hurt us, so how will this make it worse --?
I wish we had info on Saturn and Venus in this regard.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I wish the American people could get straight answers instead of sensationalism and propaganda. The fact is, not a single person on this forum, unless you're a global climate researcher, and perhaps not even then, has a firm handle on global warming.
A close friend of mine is a professional atmospheric researcher. He has a PhD and frequently does studies for various governmental agencies. He can talk for hours, authoritatively, about global warming, and even he isn't sure to what extent humans are causing the current temperature changes and how severe they will become in the future.
Reducing pollution is always a positive. Discussing various causes of change and considering the possible factors is educational and possibly instructive, but I believe we are all best served by remembering that none of us knows for a fact any of the things we are discussing. None of us can see the future, and none of us understands all the variables.
As a perfect example, Pixiest completely forgot the Killer Bee swarms from Mexico. I think most of Texas is dead already. At least, that's what I heard once, so I believe that it's 100% true. It was confirmed by famous authority figures, whom you should all believe without question.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Will: You interpreted correctly. Global Climate Change(TM) (It's not "Global Warming" anymore) is happening on planets other than Earth. Therefore we must look at what else could be causing this. Given that Jupiter is wildly different from Earth, as Lalo so helpfully pointed out, pretty much the only thing we have in common is the Sun.
Lalo: I am well past school, but you're right in that my degrees are in Computer Science, not Environmental Science. If I had been in Environmental Science I could have gotten LOADS of grant money to study the effects of Global Warming (as it was called way back then) on the Benton County Blind Cave Crayfish. I could have just assumed Global Warming was going on and come to my conclusions from there. Junk Science for fun and profit! It woulda been perfect. Instead I got a job and produced stuff.
I noticed, however, you didn't question the credentials of those who agree with you.
Also, what's with the "Partisan" crack? Maybe you haven't noticed my angry posts about the Republicans lately? Or did you mean Libertarian partisan? I have problems with the Libertarian party too, they're just too insignificant to rant about.
MC: How could I forget the Killer Beeeeeeeeeeeeeees! Or the Fire Ants. They were supposed to kill everything in Texas too.
quote:The Bush administration has generally approached climate change as an area requiring further study, rather than action. Fortunately, they have followed through on their promises of study, and the first fruits of this have been made public this week.
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So, let me get this straight. On Earth, we've had twenty years of scientists shouting about global warming, and twenty years of people ignoring them totally or pooh-poohing the warning. And, of course, no single event on Earth, including El Nino and Katrina, could possibly have been made worse by human action. But you get one freaking storm on Jupiter, and suddenly OMG JUPITER IS wARMING ToO!? Talk about your selective data analysis!
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Given that Jupiter is wildly different from Earth, as Lalo so helpfully pointed out, pretty much the only thing we have in common is the Sun.
I'm trying very hard to put this mildly. The logic behind this statement is completely unsound.
The assumption you're making, that these somewhat similar phenomena must be based on a shared factor, is a transparent logical fallacy, so much so that I'm not sure what would be more embarassing: actually believing it or trying to sell such obvious nonsense to anyone over the age of 12.
This is particularly egregious because one of the things that Lalo pointed out was "Here's a big difference between Earth and Jupiter that people think is reponsible for the elevated temperatures on Jupiter." Even if you're not going to credit us with the ability for rational thought, you've gotta believe we can read, don't you?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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KoM: Let me speak to you, Atheist to Atheist, for a moment. (People of Faith, please don't be offended.)
We've had 2000 years of religeous folk screaming that we're going to hell if we don't convert. And people like Me and Thee pooh-poohing them.
Why are you so quick to dismiss one group who is trying to terrify you into submission, yet you cling to another group that's doing the exact same thing?
We've always had natural disasters. El Niño de La Navidad is named as such because it was named by the spanish explorers hundreds of years ago. It's not anything new. And Hurricanes? We've always had them too. Katrina was a disaster because it struck a major city, situated below sea level, with crappy dikes.
I'm not an anti-science person. I love science. Science gives us all the material comfort we have. When I was small I wanted to BE a scientist (a chemist actually.)
But, jeez, KoM.. Grow some skepticism. Global Warming is all about looting the public.
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So, squick, your assertion is that if it's happening here, and it's happening on Jupiter, it's just a coincidence?
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: No one seems to care about the delicate Jupiterian ecosystem.
There is absolutely nothing to suggest that there is a connection between what is happening on Jupiter and global climate change on our planet. The fact that there is a temporal correlation between the two does not suggest a common cause.
If Pix, you are claiming a common cause of the two you need to first come up with a valid hypothesis about what that common cause might be and second perform experiments which have the potential of disproving that hypothesis.
The only hypotheses I've heard which might cause climate change on both Jupiter and earth would be 1. a change in the immisive power of the sun or some gravitational interaction between the two planets. The big problem with these two hypotheses is that they have been tested and disproven.
In fact the only hypothesis which explains the current global climate change on earth which has not been disproven is the green house effect.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote: In fact the only hypothesis which explains the current global climate change on earth which has not been disproven is the green house effect.
Well, without the green house effect we would not even be able to live on the Earth. But I still doubt your claim is true...
"Global Warming is accepted as fact by most of the scientific community. However, Greenhouse Warming is more controversial because it implies that we know what is causing the Earth to warm. Although it is known for certain that atmospheric concentrations of these greenhouse gases are rising dramatically due to human activity, it is less well known exactly how increases in these greenhouse gases factor in the observed changes of the Earth's climate and global temperatures." NOAA
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KoM, you do show a lot of sarcasm, but it obscures anything else you might have to say -- and that might be worth hearing.
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It's true that it's unsound to assume that because Earth's temp rises at the same time Jupiter's does, they must have a common cause. But if we admit this, we've undermined the argument that because Earth's temp rises at the same time CO2 does. Correlation *isn't* causality. True.
quote:The only hypotheses I've heard which might cause climate change on both Jupiter and earth would be 1. a change in the immisive power of the sun or .... The big problem with these two hypotheses is that they have been tested and disproven.
Wow, Rabbit -- that's a bold statement.
Actually, it's well known that insolation *does* vary; this is observed. We can also detect variations in insolation in history by the Carbon-14 content of tree rings, and by sunspot activity, which correlates well with insolation (the more sunspots, the hotter the sun).
Since we know this history of variability, we can see how it correlates with global temperature variations. It does indeed vary with insolation. No surprise there -- the heat in your house varies with how hot the heater is, too.
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Well, Pixiest, I don't know about you. But me, I think there is a difference between someone trying to scare me based on a book written by goat-herders, and someone trying to scare me based on peer-reviewed journal articles.
As for Katrina, etc, well, it's true that no single event can be attributed to global warming. I do not object to this argument. What I do object to, is that the people who make it, then turn around and say, based on one event on Jupiter, that Jupiter must be warming too.
As for 'looting the public', just who is it that is making such good money off this? I mean, if you were going to insist on scamming someone, there must be better-paying gigs around. Televangelist is very popular and quite lucrative too. There must surely be a market out there for Nigeria letters that are actually literate; after all, people apparently make money off really egregious ones. And of course there's the good old standby of writing a book marketed as fiction; usually pays much better than academic literature. Really, when you're accusing a huge segment of the world's scientists, in several different fields, of being conscious hoaxers, isn't it time to put on the brakes for a moment and apply your skepticism in the opposite direction?
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Actually, it's well known that insolation *does* vary; this is observed. We can also detect variations in insolation in history by the Carbon-14 content of tree rings, and by sunspot activity, which correlates well with insolation (the more sunspots, the hotter the sun).
Since we know this history of variability, we can see how it correlates with global temperature variations. It does indeed vary with insolation. No surprise there -- the heat in your house varies with how hot the heater is, too.
Will B, You completely misunderstood my point. Changes in insolation can cause climate change and have unquestionably have cause climate change in earth's past. The question is whether changes in insolation are responsible for the current changes in climate. I think that the science on this one is pretty unequivacable. The current changes in the earth's climate can NOT be explained by insolation.
quote:It's true that it's unsound to assume that because Earth's temp rises at the same time Jupiter's does, they must have a common cause. But if we admit this, we've undermined the argument that because Earth's temp rises at the same time CO2 does. Correlation *isn't* causality. True.
No! Because we have a clear hypothesis about how CO2 could be the cause of climate change on the earth. That hypothesis has been extensively explored for decades and is very sound.
Correlation alone would be insufficient to conclude a causal relationship but the key word in that phrase is alone. The theory that the current changes that are happening to the global climate are the result of burning fossil fuels, rest on far far more than a correlation between the two phenomena.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Will B, Because Global Climate change has become so politically charged in the US, and because the current administration is a primary detractor, I am sceptical of anything published by any US government agency on the subject. This is not an unfounded bias. The Bush administration has required the EPA to remove discussions of greenhouse warming from many documents.
My statement on insolation is based on peer reviewed scientific literature.
Consider the following abstract from the "JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 108, NO. A5, 1200, doi:10.1029/2002JA009753, 2003
Can solar variability explain global warming since 1970?"
quote:The magnitude of the Sun's influence on climate has been a subject of intense debate. Estimates of this magnitude are generally based on assumptions regarding the forcing due to solar irradiance variations and climate modeling. This approach suffers from uncertainties that are difficult to estimate. Such uncertainties are introduced because the employed models may not include important but complex processes or mechanisms or may treat these in too simplified a manner. Here we take a more empirical approach. We employ time series of the most relevant solar quantities, the total and UV irradiance between 1856 and 1999 and the cosmic rays flux between 1868 and 1999. The time series are constructed using direct measurements wherever possible and reconstructions based on models and proxies at earlier times. These time series are compared with the climate record for the period 1856 to 1970. The solar records are scaled such that statistically the solar contribution to climate is as large as possible in this period. Under this assumption we repeat the comparison but now including the period 1970–1999. This comparison shows without requiring any recourse to modeling that since roughly 1970 the solar influence on climate (through the channels considered here) cannot have been dominant. In particular, the Sun cannot have contributed more than 30% to the steep temperature increase that has taken place since then, irrespective of which of the three considered channels is the dominant one determining Sun-climate interactions: tropospheric heating caused by changes in total solar irradiance, stratospheric chemistry influenced by changes in the solar UV spectrum, or cloud coverage affected by the cosmic ray flux.
The conclusion of these scientist is consistent with the conclusions of the Intergovernment panel on climate change and nearly all scientists involved in this field of study.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Well, if NASA's giving us bad data, there's quite a cover-up going on.
And we can squelch all scientific investigation very effectively by dismissing anyone who provides information that doesn't fit our theory of choice. NASA shows centuries of data confirming the link between insolation changes and global temperatures; NASA's suspect because they may have been tampered with by Bush. A scientist who provides inconvenient data is suspect: he's bound to have funding either from a corporation or from the feds. If we go this route, then we can't *help* but find that all non-suspect information points the same way, regardless of what's true.
There's a better way. We could go with the practice of hypothesis generation and attempts at disproof -- that is, scientific method.
Now, when I say scientific method, or science, these are two things I don't mean: assertions with the word "scientific" tacked on, and scientific consensus.
People often tell me that things like auras or whatnot are scientific; of course that's not what I mean.
And it's going to take more than the newly popular scientific consensus idea, too. I understand why journalists like it: it's easier than following the reasoning, and you get to pick the experts. But consider what scientific consensus has gotten us:
* In the 1800's, Ignaz Semmelweis showed that surgeons who wash their hands have fewer patients dying from infection. Even after that, scientific consensus was that there was no point in washing the hands.
* In the 1900's, Alfred Wegener showed very good evidence of continental drift; scientific consensus rejected his theory until the 60's or so.
* There was very good evidence for the comet explanation of the K-T event, but until the 80's or so, scientific consensus rejected it, and even now paleontological circles minimize it, although they can no longer dismiss it.
* Everyone knew that language learning in children is done with a blank slate, and there is no universal underlying grammar, until Noam Chomsky showed otherwise.
And what happens when science, rather than scientific consensus, makes a mistake? Someone does an experiment, and corrects it. Consider the Michelson-Morley experiment. Science is self-correcting. Scientific consensus is not.
Scientific consensus is reliable in cases where the evidence is strong -- that is, it's reliable precisely in cases where it isn't needed! It's an impediment to science, not a tool. It's a tool rather of journalism, and not a sound one.
People can say over and over that their theory is sound and competing theories have been disproved; a very common debating tactic outside science, unfortunately. In science, we don't debate; we hypothesize, observe, and disprove. Given science's tremendous accomplishments, I think this would be the best course.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
i handed in my paper woot, but keep going on guys this is interesting.
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