Global Warming Evidence Incontrovertible?

1. 61

   lady_love158posted 12 years ago

   http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/09/ … latestnews
   
   Apparently not according to this scientist who resigned from the American Physical Society over its use of the term. This idea that warming is "settled science" is nonsense! The fear being espoused by those that adhere to the warming theory like religious zealots is artificial and manufacturered simply for the purpose of advancing a political agenda as well as enriching a few of the well connected on the backs of the poor. This is further evidence of the lack of compassion by the left!

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   paradigmsearchposted 12 years ago

   Al Gore is gonna get you for this.

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3. 65

   Ralph Deedsposted 12 years ago

   If I read it correctly, the scientist didn't deny or say he didn't believe in global warming but merely objected to  the assertion that the science is incontrovertible. That's a significant difference.

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      kerrygposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Hmm, I got the impression that he's a genuine denier from the "amazingly stable" comment (which doesn't actually make much sense from a climate perspective - he is apparently unaware, for example, that the decades long megadroughts that struck western North America during the Middle Ages occurred during a period when temperatures were 1 or at most 2 degrees C higher than the present, so a difference of 0.8 degrees C is not insignificant), but he's a physicist, not a climatologist, and he got his Nobel prize for "experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in superconductors," so his opinion frankly does not carry much weight.

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4. 61

   Evan G Rogersposted 12 years ago

   If you want a REAL discussion about Global Warming - no hype - from someone that actually IS trustworth, then watch this video.
   
   It's fantastic, and I was enthralled the entire time.
   
   Enthralled by science.
   
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbR0EPWgkEI
   
   A Berkley scientist, Richard Muller, who helped develop the Nemesis Theory (which will soon be proven or disproven) discusses the REAL issues with global warming, how all the nonsense our politicians are saying really is mostly nonsense (he explains why with VERY sound evidence), and discusses the ClimateGate scandal: "I now have a list of Scientists whose papers I will never read".
   
   All in all, he comes to the conclusion that Global Warming IS real, but it's been WA~~~AY overhyped; and that our current "attempts" to curb it will be futile lest we change our methods.
   
   I HIGHLY recommend watching this video.

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      kerrygposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I'm heading to bed soon and don't really want to stay up an extra hour watching the video, but I notice that it was recorded in 2010 and may therefore be somewhat out of date:
      
      http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/04 … y-20110404
      
      I'll try to sit down and watch it sometime tomorrow.

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      1. 61

         Evan G Rogersposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Like I said - He isn't trying to hide anything.
         
         I have no problem if the science comes up one way or another: just be honest about it.
         
         Watch the video: it isn't just "GW isn't real" (in fact, it isn't that at all), it's "Driving a Hybrid is a waste of money, and so is energy subsidies".
         
         Seriously - watch the video. I know you think I'm cooky, but this is a very serious presentation about the scientific method that shouldn't be ignored.
         
         This Muller guy is a real scientist.
         
         PS - thanks for the article.

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            Ralph Deedsposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            He's among a tiny minority of scientists. Why do you believe this guy when 98 percent say we should be worried?

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            1. 61

               Evan G Rogersposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               ... he... is ... also ... worried...
               
               you didn't watch it, did you?
               
               LOL

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         Evan G Rogersposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Also, in the spirit of scientific integrity:
         
         "Muller said his group was surprised by its findings, but he cautioned that the initial assessment is based on only 2% of the 1.6 billion measurements that will eventually be examined."
         
         So, just be aware that it's not concluded yet.

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            kerrygposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Oh sure. It's still definitely a work in progress, but the initial findings are supporting the general consensus. Muller in the past has gone on about how the urban heat island and similar effects have contaminated the evidence and overstated the extent of warming, so I think even at this early stage in the process it's fairly telling that he's having to eat crow. I found it particularly interesting that (so far) the supposedly "bad" stations that should have been most affected by the urban heat effect appear to show lower increases than the good ones. It will be interesting to read his final results to see if that pattern holds.

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            1. 61

               Evan G Rogersposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               I'm not so sure that he's eating crow - he's doing responsible science.
               
               There's no crow to eat if you are conducting responsible science. There's just "changes to previous ideas".

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      kerrygposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Okay, taking notes as I'm watching. Here are my comments.
      
      The cloud cover thing (if cloud cover increases by 2% over the next 50 years, there will be no global warming), is one reason that forest conservation and, more importantly, reforestation is so utterly critical to stopping global warming. Trees make rain, but first they make clouds. In fact, there's a rather interesting alternative theory that we wouldn't even be experiencing the current warming if we'd stuck to burning  fossil fuels and left the forests alone.
      
      I dispute his claim that nobody wants China to cut its emissions in a significant way. It's very well understood at the grassroots level that they must, it's just when you get into international diplomacy that people start chickening out and refusing to make demands, since China has most of the world in its pockets right now.
      
      I also strongly dispute his claim that nothing we as Americans do matters. We're still lead in per capita emissions and unlike China, our investment in clean energy and other mitigation strategies has been negligible. China has made major investments in clean energy, to the point that they're being accused of deliberately pricing American companies out of the business (the $535 million we lost with Solyndra looks pretty piddly next to the $30 billion the Chinese development bank gave to its top solar companies in the last year alone.) They've also made major investments in reforestation, though I wouldn't consider these as successful. We're fast losing our leadership position and appear to be rolling over and letting other countries take it, instead of putting up a fight.
      
      He's semi-correct that many of the conclusions of the latest IPCC report (from 2007) are considered to be roughly the scientific equivalent of believing that the Earth is flat. That's how fast climate science is moving right now. The problem is, the overwhelming majority of new information has found that the effects of climate change are likely to be faster and more severe than predicted in the 2007 report. The Himalayan glaciers error is actually one of the few that's gone the other way. For example, as recently as 2007, most scientists thought the Arctic wouldn't be ice free in the summer until sometime around 2100. Then came 2008, when Arctic ice levels did an excellent impression of a brick getting tossed off the Empire State Building. Now most scientists think the Arctic is likely to be ice free in summer (barring a supervolcano or a sudden dramatic drop in solar irradiance) by the 2020's, 2030's at the outset, and possibly even as early as 2015-2018.
      
      The fact that the warming up to 1957 can't be attributed to humans is common knowledge among people who actually pay attention to the science.
      
      The 0.4 C stuff is where my earlier "out-of-date" comment comes in. He's now in tentative agreement with the general consensus that it's been more like 0.6-0.7. Which sounds much more insignificant than it actually is, as I pointed out in an earlier comment, especially when you factor in the ~30-40 year lag between when CO2 is emitted and when it actually starts affecting the climate.
      
      More out of date stuff - 2010 has since been confirmed to be either tied for warmest or second warmest, depending on whether you go off the NOAA, NASA, or Met data.
      
      Maybe I'm missing something with his criticism of changing the model, but if you change the model (i.e. by fiddling with the climate sensitivity figure you use) in a way that more closely reproduces what actually happened, then you've made it more accurate, not less, so yes, if it then proceeds to show more global warming, that means there is a greater chance that there will be more global warming than there was when you were using your old model that couldn't reproduce what was actually observed.
      
      Al Gore is not a climate scientist, so why the emphasis on his claims? It's obnoxious. Climate scientists admit the uncertainties in predictions of increased hurricanes (actually increased severity of hurricanes - the number of hurricanes is generally predicted to decline) and tornadoes (research into possible links between tornadoes and global warming is still at much too early a stage to make definite predictions).
      
      Muller misquotes the ClimateGate emails here. "Mike's trick" and "hide the decline" actually refer to two separate issues, so conflating them like he's doing here doesn't make any sense.
      
      More or less agree with him on clean energy, though I'm not a big fan of nuclear. I have mixed feelings about subsidies. On the one hand, no modern energy form except coal has ever moved into widespread use without them, so if we're going to subsidize something, it makes sense to subsidize the clean ones rather than the dirty ones. On the other hand, I'd be equally satisfied with phasing out energy subsidies entirely, since the huge disparity between the amount of subsidies given to fossil fuels versus clean energy is one of the main reasons clean energy is perceived as too expensive.

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