Global temperatures drop sharply, what will the global warming alarmist say?

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

These little anomalies don't jive with what we are seeing in the world around us. Sea levels rising steadily year over year, ice pack melting steadily year over year. Spring coming earlier and earlier year over year. The great barrier reef is beeing bleached dead by the rise in temperatures. You can't just ignore all of this.

These things are happening because of the long period of warmth. Our climate is very hot, even despite us no longer warming. These effects are greatly different depending on which pole you're looking at.

And to be clear, I do believe we should take care of the environment. I do think we should limit our CO2 release. However, I think we need to do in an economically viable manner and with a realistic approach that looks at the facts of the issue and not the alarmism.

You had said:

What on god's earth are you talking about? The earth isn't cooling.

My point was that the earth very well may be cooling. In fact over the past decade all the science points in the direction of cooling or stabilized temperature. And despite this information being available it's often buried and not presented by the media. I would wager most people don't know that our climate hasn't warmed for the past decade. If we were to walk out on the street and ask people what they thought the climate was doing they'd likely all say it was warming and some would even say they could even tell just through recollection of warmer summers compared to what they're used to. Which clearly is false.

All of this is directly the fault of the alarmism, the almost religious following of "scientists" and the absurd media. Just this week both CBS and MSNBC promoted a story regarding a study written by a man with zero credibility about how global warming was creating more earthquakes. We've seen the media do this with hurricanes, tornadoes, just about every natural disaster to date and they've been disproved. The man who wrote the study claims to be a professor at this university and released it under their journal:
Natural University
Previous journal entries by this man include viewing your aura, and my personal favorite.. his theory that global warming is literally going to make the earth explode.

Here is the CBS story. After people cried foul they eventually removed it without retraction.

“The most serious environmental danger we face on Earth may not be climate change, but rapidly and systematically increasing seismic, tectonic and volcanic activity,” said Dr. Chalko.

“Increase in the annual energy of earthquakes is the strongest symptom yet of planetary overheating. “

This is the garbage our media presents without thinking twice about it. They don't even seem to bother fact-checking or checking sources when it comes to global warming. The more alarmist, the better seems to be the motto. The whole thing is just absolutely absurd. They're blaming AP saying they got the story from them. AP is saying it wasn't theres. Nobody is taking responsibility for it.

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

These little anomalies don't jive with what we are seeing in the world around us. Sea levels rising steadily year over year, ice pack melting steadily year over year. Spring coming earlier and earlier year over year. The great barrier reef is beeing bleached dead by the rise in temperatures. You can't just ignore all of this.

No one is ignoring but htere's ample evidence that shows there are other SUBSTANTIAL causes to potential warming than simply CO2. In fact CO2 generally follows warming, not the other way around as Algore would have us believe. Some polar caps are melting at an alarming rate, but others are expanding at an equally alarming rate, somethign the global warming enviro crowd doesn't mention. Furthermore, the areas rapidly melting in the northern hemisphere sit over a volcanic hot bed...and guess what, no one wants to even attempt to see if its volcanic activity causing the melting...why? Are they afraid of the answers? They know there's been some signs of activity in the last 10 years or so but they've refused to actually do the deep see expedition necessary to check on potential volcanic activity.

The planet has definately gone through a warming period but how people attribute most of this warming to human activity is beyond me, especially when we know that just 2000 years ago the planet was as warm as it is today...there weren't 6 billion humans spewing CO2 into the atmosphere back then....we also know that the planet went through a cold period just a few hundred years ago and temperatures have been rising at a fairly steady rate sine then. We've had brief periods of temps rising drastically and dropping drastically and the last 8 or 9 years things have averaged sideways...virtually no gain in global temperatures. They could go back up for 2008 or continue flat or move down again. As evidence mounts it seems to point to solar activity and natural cycles controlling the temperature of the planet more so than man. Furthermore, warming has some huge positive side effects for a planet that has 6+ billion human lives.

[AMTR]

The real problem is most people are ignorant; they vote and watch TV news. Equally unfortunate is that many top universities seem to have replaced their scientists who are more interested in furthering socialist agendas rather than doing science. Mars and Jupiter are warming up; it was warmer during the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period than it is now. Assuming the sun is not going through a radical change in how it burns fuel, then the earth may or may not be due for another ice age or even warmer times. What is a fallacy preached by the buffoons is that CO2 is the culprit. Right now we need energy to feed close to 7 billion human beings, fuel to house these people, roads and trains to transport food to feed these people, fuel to produce food to feed and cloth these people, and power to pump water and light their homes. For the next 60 years, the fuel will be carbon based, period. Nuclear, wind, solar and bio-fuels will help, but will not replace carbon based fuels! Anyone thinking otherwise is a fool and condemning billions to a life of poverty and misery. It is that simple. If the earth should enter a cool down, more fuel will be needed.

Let us all remember the reason the United States is so dependent on carbon based fuel than Europe or Japan is because the same "fruitcakes" who are now screaming that we are destroying the earth are the same lunatics who stopped the United States from building as many nuclear reactors that power Europe and Japan now have. Now, the very same people are continually pointing to Europe’s lower CO2 production. Why anyone would listen to the loons in Hollywood or from the universities that opposed nuclear reactors is beyond me. These very same people supported immigration of tens of millions to the United States is beyond me. 40% of the U.S. population growth over the last 25 years has come from immigration. This means the United States, had it not been for the liberals opening the immigrant flood gates, would much less energy and produce less CO2. Hollywood and Kennedy’s immigration bill is responsible for most of the growth in U.S. energy consumption. Why are we listening to these people? They are continually wrong!

[C4Casey]

The warming period which caused all this Global Warming hysteria happened over a 20 year period. A ten year period which has seen global temperatures drop slightly should therefore not be considered a small anomolie. In other words: How can you possibly call a ten year period of slight cooling "an anomolie" when a 20 year period of warming is the main basis for the current global warming debate?

[thatguyoverthere]

Originally Posted by imind

the reason its not being discussed is becuase its nonsense. this author first grabbed data from anthony watts blog listing weather data and then proceeded to discern for himself what this data meant, mis-attributing it to watts. watts then called to correct them and ask WTF and for whatever reason it took some eight hours for the author to amend his article, long after it was sent along the intertubes.




no. from the watts blog...

the 'erasure' was conjured by the author of the dailytech piece. furthermore, john christy, the one contrarians love to quote as being he who turned down the nobel prize, has also commented...

even he agrees and, as is the consensus view, this warming, the global mean temperature, not your fucking local weather (throws up in mouth), continues to rise. and yes, the consensus opinion is that humans are largely responsible for it.

I'd just like to point out for the record that three months have now gone by, and not one single solitary global warming denier has addressed iminds post.

This whole thread was based on this so-called "erasure", and now that this claim has been disproven by the very scientist used to make the claim, no denier has had the intellectual honesty to admit that they were wrong or to try and counter imind's post.

Interesting. That says a lot about how they approach the argument.

[Boerg]

Here's what it going to take to fix our problem:

DailyTech - IEA: $45 Trillion Needed to Combat Global Warming

Good op-ed on global warming

Global Warming as Mass Neurosis
July 1, 2008; Page A15
Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the mass hysteria phenomenon known as global warming. Much of the science has since been discredited. Now it's time for political scientists, theologians and psychiatrists to weigh in.

What, discredited? Thousands of scientists insist otherwise, none more noisily than NASA's Jim Hansen, who first banged the gong with his June 23, 1988, congressional testimony (delivered with all the modesty of "99% confidence").

But mother nature has opinions of her own. NASA now begrudgingly confirms that the hottest year on record in the continental 48 was not 1998, as previously believed, but 1934, and that six of the 10 hottest years since 1880 antedate 1954. Data from 3,000 scientific robots in the world's oceans show there has been slight cooling in the past five years, never mind that "80% to 90% of global warming involves heating up ocean waters," according to a report by NPR's Richard Harris.

The Arctic ice cap may be thinning, but the extent of Antarctic sea ice has been expanding for years. At least as of February, last winter was the Northern Hemisphere's coldest in decades. In May, German climate modelers reported in the journal Nature that global warming is due for a decade-long vacation. But be not not-afraid, added the modelers: The inexorable march to apocalypse resumes in 2020.

This last item is, of course, a forecast, not an empirical observation. But it raises a useful question: If even slight global cooling remains evidence of global warming, what isn't evidence of global warming? What we have here is a nonfalsifiable hypothesis, logically indistinguishable from claims for the existence of God. This doesn't mean God doesn't exist, or that global warming isn't happening. It does mean it isn't science.

So let's stop fussing about the interpretation of ice core samples from the South Pole and temperature readings in the troposphere. The real place where discussions of global warming belong is in the realm of belief, and particularly the motives for belief. I see three mutually compatible explanations.

The first is as a vehicle of ideological convenience. Socialism may have failed as an economic theory, but global warming alarmism, with its dire warnings about the consequences of industry and consumerism, is equally a rebuke to capitalism. Take just about any other discredited leftist nostrum of yore – population control, higher taxes, a vast new regulatory regime, global economic redistribution, an enhanced role for the United Nations – and global warming provides a justification. One wonders what the left would make of a scientific "consensus" warning that some looming environmental crisis could only be averted if every college-educated woman bore six children: Thumbs to "patriarchal" science; curtains to the species.

A second explanation is theological. Surely it is no accident that the principal catastrophe predicted by global warming alarmists is diluvian in nature. Surely it is not a coincidence that modern-day environmentalists are awfully biblical in their critique of the depredations of modern society: "And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart." That's Genesis, but it sounds like Jim Hansen.

And surely it is in keeping with this essentially religious outlook that the "solutions" chiefly offered to global warming involve radical changes to personal behavior, all of them with an ascetic, virtue-centric bent: drive less, buy less, walk lightly upon the earth and so on. A light carbon footprint has become the 21st-century equivalent of sexual abstinence.

Finally, there is a psychological explanation. Listen carefully to the global warming alarmists, and the main theme that emerges is that what the developed world needs is a large dose of penance. What's remarkable is the extent to which penance sells among a mostly secular audience. What is there to be penitent about?

As it turns out, a lot, at least if you're inclined to believe that our successes are undeserved and that prosperity is morally suspect. In this view, global warming is nature's great comeuppance, affirming as nothing else our guilty conscience for our worldly success.

In "The Varieties of Religious Experience," William James distinguishes between healthy, life-affirming religion and the monastically inclined, "morbid-minded" religion of the sick-souled. Global warming is sick-souled religion.

Global View - WSJ.com

[thatguyoverthere]

Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95

Good op-ed on global warming




Global View - WSJ.com

It's a terrible op-ed on global warming. And it looks like you're trying to derail your own thread. Care to address the fact that Imind's post destroyed the whole point of this thread? You can't counter his post with any evidence, you can't acknowledge that the initial article was wrong, and you can't explain why it took you over three months (AND COUNTING) before breathing WORD ONE about Imind's post.

Back to this op ed.

The first thing I like to do when I read an article like this, is to find out where the author went to school. I want to know his qualifications for passing judgement on the veracity of climate science.

After I find out where the author went to school, I like to find out what, if anything, those schools have to say about climate change, human activity, and the risks of inaction.

Bret Stephens - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by Link

Bret Stephens was born circa 1974 and grew up in Mexico City.[2] After graduating Middlesex School, Stephens went to the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics.[3]

Looks like Middlesex School has fallen for the alarmism:

MIDDLESEX SCHOOL

Originally Posted by Link

Assessing Arctic Climate Change and Global Warming
Harvard Professor James J. McCarthy
5/22/2007

Having directed Harvard’s nearby Museum of Comparative Zoology from 1982 to 2002, Professor James J. McCarthy has long been a helpful friend and resource to Middlesex students, particularly those enrolled in the course called “The Environmental Science Consortium” (now “Advanced Placement Environmental Science”). But on May 15, 2007, the entire school got to hear from one of America’s leading climatologists when Professor McCarthy came to Assembly to explain the science behind global warming and to assess the possibility of slowing or reversing the trend of rising temperatures that has accelerated over the past 30 years.

The Artic is of special interest to scientists, Professor McCarthy began, because climate change happens fastest there. “From plankton to polar bears,” he said, “we can see changes at all levels of life. These creatures are like the ‘canaries in the coal mine’ – but we are stuck in the mine.”

Describing the “greenhouse effect” as “an amplification of a very natural process,” Professor McCarthy showed various climate models which have indicated that increasing amounts of greenhouses gases affect temperature more significantly than other potential causes, such as volcano eruptions or variations in the Sun’s energy. Satellite photos taken between 1979 and 2003 clearly illustrate the effect of rising global temperatures, with Arctic ice visibly diminishing over this period of time. As Professor McCarthy summarized, “The debate is not about the science, but what we should do about it.”

As the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Biological Oceanography at Harvard, Professor McCarthy has served and serves on many national and international planning committees, advisory panels, and commissions relating to oceanography, polar science, and the study of climate and global change. Most recently, he was one of the lead authors on the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Professor McCarthy holds faculty appointments at Harvard in the department of organismic and evolutionary biology and the department of earth and planetary sciences. Additionally, he is the head tutor for degrees in environmental science and public policy and is the master of Harvard’s Pforzheimer House. A graduate of Gonzaga University, he completed his Ph.D. at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Through examining samples of ice taken from the Arctic depths, climatologists have estimated that that the polar ice cap has retracted before, some 129,000 to 116,000 years ago, probably due to an orbital change. “We have not reached the point of no return,” Professor McCarthy stated. “To end on a positive note,” he added, “most of what we’ve learned about this problem has been learned in your lifetime….You don’t need a magic technology to change it. We just need the will to charge ahead and do what we know will make a difference.” Professor McCarthy encouraged students to be informed citizens and stressed, “It’s your generation that can make a big difference.”
...

Here's the first link that comes up when you search for "climate change" on the University Of Chicago's website. Fairly alarmist, if you ask me:

Climate Change: A Catastrophe in Slow Motion

Originally Posted by Link

Climate Change: A Catastrophe in Slow Motion
R.T. Pierrehumbert
*
I. INTRODUCTION
The word catastrophe usually brings to mind phenomena like tsunamis,
earthquakes, mudslides, or asteroid impacts—disasters that are over in an instant
and have immediately evident dire consequences. The changes in Earth’s climate
wrought by industrial carbon dioxide emissions do not at first glance seem to fit
this mold since they take a century or more for their consequences to fully
manifest. However, viewed from the perspective of geological time, human-
induced climate change, known more familiarly as “global warming,” is a
catastrophe equal to nearly any other in our planet’s history. Seen by a geologist
a million years from now, the era of global warming will probably not seem as
consequential as the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs. It will, however,
appear in the geological record as an event comparable to such major events as
the onset or termination of an ice age or the transition to the hot, relatively ice-
free climates that prevailed seventy million years ago when dinosaurs roamed the
Earth. It will be all the more cataclysmic for having taken place in the span of
one or a few centuries, rather than millennia or millions of years.
...

And finally,the London School of Economics. Surely they too haven't fallen for this "mass hysteria phenomenon"?:

Introduction - The Grantham Research Institute - LSE

Originally Posted by Link

Introduction

Human-induced climate change is occurring and could impose enormous costs on economies and societies if we persist with ‘business as usual’. This is the consensus view of climate scientists. It is much less certain, however, that our economic, social and political systems can respond to the challenge. After all, climate change is “market failure on the greatest scale the world has seen” (Stern Review, 2006). Will governments, businesses and individuals change their policies and behaviours to create low-carbon economies, and to adapt to the impacts of climate change that we cannot avoid?
...

Seems like every single place that this author studied academics has fallen for the global warming alarmism. I wonder how that feels? To be smarter than every place you went to school? I assume he received perfect grades.

Now to the op ed itself. This op-ed is not good. It's misleading. I'm noticing a pattern in this following claim, and I can't find any current scientific research that confirms it:

Originally Posted by wsj op ed

The Arctic ice cap may be thinning, but the extent of Antarctic sea ice has been expanding for years.

For the second time on this forum, I'm calling you guys on this. I guess I'll make a separate thread about it soon, especially since so many of you deniers like to describe Antarctic ice as expanding at an "alarming" rate. From what I can find, the latest experiments by NASA show that Antarctic ice is decreasing.

JPL.NASA.GOV: News Releases

Originally Posted by Link

NASA Mission Detects Significant Antarctic Ice Mass Loss
March 02, 2006

The first-ever gravity survey of the entire Antarctic ice sheet, conducted using data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace), concludes the ice sheet's mass has decreased significantly from 2002 to 2005.
...

EO News: Antarctic Ice Loss Speeds Up, Nearly Matches Greenland Loss - January 23, 2008

Originally Posted by Link

Nasa News Stories Archive

January 23, 2008

ANTARCTIC ICE LOSS SPEEDS UP, NEARLY MATCHES GREENLAND LOSS

Ice loss in Antarctica increased by 75 percent in the last 10 years due to a speed-up in the flow of its glaciers and is now nearly as great as that observed in Greenland, according to a new, comprehensive study by NASA and university scientists.
...

I'm still searching for those folks that say Antarctic ice is expanding at an "alarming" rate. Any help? I'd like to see what they say as well as check their qualifications, and then I'll see what the academic and/or scientific institutions where they study/studied/worked/work have to say about climate change.

Originally Posted by thatguyoverthere

It's a terrible op-ed on global warming. And it looks like you're trying to derail your own thread. Care to address the fact that Imind's post destroyed the whole point of this thread? You can't counter his post with any evidence, you can't acknowledge that the initial article was wrong, and you can't explain why it took you over three months (AND COUNTING) before breathing WORD ONE about Imind's post.

Back to this op ed.

The first thing I like to do when I read an article like this, is to find out where the author went to school. I want to know his qualifications for passing judgement on the veracity of climate science.

After I find out where the author went to school, I like to find out what, if anything, those schools have to say about climate change, human activity, and the risks of inaction.

Bret Stephens - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Looks like Middlesex School has fallen for the alarmism:

MIDDLESEX SCHOOL



Here's the first link that comes up when you search for "climate change" on the University Of Chicago's website. Fairly alarmist, if you ask me:

Climate Change: A Catastrophe in Slow Motion



And finally,the London School of Economics. Surely they too haven't fallen for this "mass hysteria phenomenon"?:

Introduction - The Grantham Research Institute - LSE



Seems like every single place that this author studied academics has fallen for the global warming alarmism. I wonder how that feels? To be smarter than every place you went to school? I assume he received perfect grades.

Now to the op ed itself. This op-ed is not good. It's misleading. I'm noticing a pattern in this following claim, and I can't find any current scientific research that confirms it:



For the second time on this forum, I'm calling you guys on this. I guess I'll make a separate thread about it soon, especially since so many of you deniers like to describe Antarctic ice as expanding at an "alarming" rate. From what I can find, the latest experiments by NASA show that Antarctic ice is decreasing.

JPL.NASA.GOV: News Releases



EO News: Antarctic Ice Loss Speeds Up, Nearly Matches Greenland Loss - January 23, 2008



I'm still searching for those folks that say Antarctic ice is expanding at an "alarming" rate. Any help? I'd like to see what they say as well as check their qualifications, and then I'll see what the academic and/or scientific institutions where they study/studied/worked/work have to say about climate change.

What?

Global temps have dropped off, 2007 saw the steepest decline in temps on record. Antarctica ice is expanding while northern ice is decreasing, those are facts...not sure what your'e so bent out of shape over...you're the one that seems to pick and choose facts. It was a great op-ed, just because youd isagree withs omeone's conclusions doesn't make them shitty or their writing.

I also love how the debate has now shifted to "climate change" since more and more evidence seems to point toward normal temperature fluctuations on the planet and more and more evidence points towards this warming trend being nothing that we haven't encountered before...so they change the wording, now its climate change. Great...

As arctic ice melts, South Pole ice grows | csmonitor.com

Antarctic Sea Ice Sets Records in Oct. - by James M. Taylor - The Heartland Institute

USATODAY.com - Researchers find Antarctic ice is thickening

Current Understanding of Antarctic Climate Change: The Pew Center on Global Climate Change

All four of these are decent the last one is pretty good it explains how prevailing winds may be helping to expand sea ice.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95

What?

Global temps have dropped off, 2007 saw the steepest decline in temps on record. Antarctica ice is expanding while northern ice is decreasing, those are facts...not sure what your'e so bent out of shape over...you're the one that seems to pick and choose facts. It was a great op-ed, just because youd isagree withs omeone's conclusions doesn't make them shitty or their writing.

I also love how the debate has now shifted to "climate change" since more and more evidence seems to point toward normal temperature fluctuations on the planet and more and more evidence points towards this warming trend being nothing that we haven't encountered before...so they change the wording, now its climate change. Great...

As arctic ice melts, South Pole ice grows | csmonitor.com

Antarctic Sea Ice Sets Records in Oct. - by James M. Taylor - The Heartland Institute

USATODAY.com - Researchers find Antarctic ice is thickening

Current Understanding of Antarctic Climate Change: The Pew Center on Global Climate Change

All four of these are decent the last one is pretty good it explains how prevailing winds may be helping to expand sea ice.

Antarctic ice shelf 'hanging by thread': European scientists - Yahoo! News

PARIS (AFP) - New evidence has emerged that a large plate of floating ice shelf attached to Antarctica is breaking up, in a troubling sign of global warming, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Thursday.

....
The Antarctic peninsula -- the tongue of land that juts northward from the white continent towards South America -- has had one of the highest rates of warming anywhere in the world in recent decades.

...........
Wilkins Ice Shelf is the most recent in a long, and growing, list of ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula that are responding to the rapid warming that has occurred in this area over the last fifty years," researcher David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said.
"Current events are showing that we were being too conservative, when we made the prediction in the early 1990s that Wilkins Ice Shelf would be lost within 30 years. The truth is, it is going more quickly than we guessed."
In the past three decades, six Antarctic ice shelves have collapsed completely -- Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Larsen B, Wordie, Muller and the Jones Ice Shelf.

Seems like alot of contradictory information to me.

[ballz2wallz]

Ah yes, contradictory evidence towards global warming theories. All the more reason global warming alarmists need to cool it. (pun intended!)

[thatguyoverthere]

Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95

What?

Global temps have dropped off, 2007 saw the steepest decline in temps on record. Antarctica ice is expanding while northern ice is decreasing, those are facts...

Yes, but how are you hoping that people interpret those facts? I see you as hoping that people will look at those facts and say that since it's cooler one year, that there is no overall warming trend. That if ice is growing, it must mean it's not getting warmer.

Global temps have dropped off, 2007 saw the steepest decline in temps on record. Antarctic sea ice is expanding. Surely you weren't quoting those facts to prove that the climate is warming, were you?

Anthony Watts, the source for the scientific data that is the basis for this entire thread, says that this temperature drop does not eliminate the warming we've seen in the last 100 years.

Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95

not sure what your'e so bent out of shape over...

I'm sorry I wasn't clear on that. Let me summarize it for you.

1. Your thread was based on a misinterpretation of the data, and this is confirmed by the scientist who gathered the data.

2. This misinterpretation of the data was also confirmed by a scientist who is often trotted out by the skeptics as scientifically authoritative.

3. All of this was pointed out to you by Imind over three months ago, and to date you have not countered or even acknowledged it.

I'd like to exchange views and hopefully understand your thought processes on the subject, but frankly, it's difficult and I freely admit to often being frustrated when I discuss this subject with folks who share what I assume to be your position.

Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95

you're the one that seems to pick and choose facts.

That's funny, I see you as doing the exact same thing. You chose to believe in a misrepresentation of scientific data. When confronted with that misrepresentation, you chose to ignore it. You also chose to ignore the 2006 and 2008 NASA studies as well as the story of the Wilkins ice shelf cited by WickedLou above.

I'd like to have a productive discussion if possible, and I hope to not ignore any substantial arguments or information presented to me. I asked for links that support your argument, and thankfully you've provided them (at least they partially support your argument. I'll address them in my next post.)

Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95

It was a great op-ed, just because you disagree with someone's conclusions doesn't make them shitty or their writing.

The author of the op-ed presumed to tell us what is or isn't science. Isn't it reasonable then to question his scientific credentials? Every institution of higher learning where this fellow presumably learned science seems to accept the concepts that the climate is changing, human activity is contributing, and we might want consider mitigating it if possible. Why did he come to a different conclusion? Is he smarter than all the places he went to school combined? Perhaps it is possible, but unless his grades were perfect every single time, I doubt it.

Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95

I also love how the debate has now shifted to "climate change" since more and more evidence seems to point toward normal temperature fluctuations on the planet and more and more evidence points towards this warming trend being nothing that we haven't encountered before...so they change the wording, now its climate change. Great...

Bush administration propaganda is partially responsible for this change of wording.

Memo exposes Bush's new green strategy | Environment | The Guardian

Originally Posted by link

Memo exposes Bush's new green strategy

* Oliver Burkeman in Washington
* The Guardian,
* Tuesday March 4, 2003
* Article history

The US Republican party is changing tactics on the environment, avoiding "frightening" phrases such as global warming, after a confidential party memo warned that it is the domestic issue on which George Bush is most vulnerable.

The memo, by the leading Republican consultant Frank Luntz, concedes the party has "lost the environmental communications battle" and urges its politicians to encourage the public in the view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of greenhouse gases.

"The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science," Mr Luntz writes in the memo, obtained by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based campaigning organisation.

"Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly.

"Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate."

The phrase "global warming" should be abandoned in favour of "climate change", Mr Luntz says, and the party should describe its policies as "conservationist" instead of "environmentalist", because "most people" think environmentalists are "extremists" who indulge in "some pretty bizarre behaviour... that turns off many voters".

Words such as "common sense" should be used, with pro-business arguments avoided wherever possible.

The environment, the memo says, "is probably the single issue on which Republicans in general - and President Bush in particular - are most vulnerable".

A Republican source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said party strategists agreed with Mr Luntz's conclusion that "many Americans believe Republicans do not care about the environment".

The popular image is that they are "in the pockets of corporate fat cats who rub their hands together and chuckle manically [sic] as they plot to pollute America for fun and profit", Mr Luntz adds.

The phrase "global warming" appeared frequently in President Bush's speeches in 2001, but decreased to almost nothing during 2002, when the memo was produced.

...

To be fair, this apparent change in wording is also partially a reflection of the public's growing understanding of the issue.

In scientific and academic circles, the term climate change as referring to anthropogenic global warming has been around for quite a while, and is certainly nothing new.

Both terms were used in 1979:

Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was established in 1988:

IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

IMHO, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other. Who calls it what and who started it is just a distraction that keeps us from discussing other, more important aspects of this issue.

This post is too long, so I'll address your links below in the next post.

[thatguyoverthere]

Thanks for posting these links.

Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95

As arctic ice melts, South Pole ice grows | csmonitor.com

Antarctic Sea Ice Sets Records in Oct. - by James M. Taylor - The Heartland Institute

USATODAY.com - Researchers find Antarctic ice is thickening

Current Understanding of Antarctic Climate Change: The Pew Center on Global Climate Change

First of all, I couldn't find on a single one of those links where the growth of expanding Antarctic sea ice was characterized as "alarming" or any term similar to that. Could you quote those for me, please? Thanks very much.

The one from the Heartland institute... I'll have to take a second look at their scientific claims.

The USA Today article cited research produced before the 2006 and 2008 NASA studies linked earlier in the thread. Nothing in the USA Today article countered the concepts that the climate is warming, human activity is contributing, and the risks of inaction are substantial.

The Christian Science Monitor one was very interesting, and I appreciate you linking to it.

On Friday, July 11, I wrote to all the scientists quoted in the article for clarification (isn't the Internet wonderful?) about Antarctic ice increasing or decreasing. So far (three days later), one NASA scientist has replied to me in some detail.

From how she explained it to me, the Christian Science Monitor article refers to sea ice, which is apparently very different than land based ice, which was the focus of the 2006 GRACE measurements and the 2008 Rignot study. From what I gather, sea ice cover is water that freezes in the sea and is usually just a few meters thick. Land ice is formed from piled up snow that turns into ice and is usually hundreds of meters thick. While Antarctic sea ice cover has increased about 11 thousand square kilometers per year since 1979, it seems to be worth noting that this has been significantly outpaced by reduction of Arctic sea ice cover, which has been declining roughly 45 thousand square kilometers per year in the same time period. Apparently, she says these results showing Antarctic sea ice expansion don't disagree with the GRACE or Rignot studies because those two studies concern land ice instead of sea ice cover.

I also asked specifically if she thought the expansion of Antarctic sea ice was any cause for concern or alarm. She said no, and that this expansion likely won't continue for much longer.

(If you are interested in reading her reply, let me know and I will ask her for permission to reprint it here.)

Also, if you have any links where scientists describe the expansion of Antarctic sea ice cover as "alarming" (or any term similar to that), I'd very much like to look at them.

Finally, the Pew Center link...

Current Understanding of Antarctic Climate Change: The Pew Center on Global Climate Change

See, this is why your thinking is such a mystery.

Holy crap, dude. That Pew Center link that you posted says that part of the reason there is cooling in the Antarctic is the ozone hole... caused by human activity!

Seriously, what point were you trying to make with that link? If you were trying to imply that the globe isn't warming, or human activity isn't contributing to changes in climate, or that it's not a problem, that website doesn't help you in the least.

Originally Posted by link

Current Understanding of Antarctic Climate Change

Current Understanding of Antarctic Climate Change
Fall 2007

At a time of dramatic warming and rapid sea ice decline in the Arctic, Antarctica has cooled slightly and sea ice has increased around it. Recent scientific progress in understanding how two distinct processes affect Antarctic climate reconciles these seemingly contradictory trends at the Earth’s poles. In a nutshell, the difference arises from (1) a weak response to increasing greenhouse gases and (2) a cooling effect of the stratospheric ozone hole—both unique to the southern hemisphere.

That is not to say that the southern hemisphere is exempt from global warming. As in the north, the southern hemisphere as a whole has warmed over the past half century, but at a slower rate than in the north (Trenberth et al. 2007). The southern hemisphere has much less land surface and more ocean surface than the northern hemisphere; ocean surfaces warm more slowly than land because more energy is required to heat water, and because ocean mixing transports much of the heat downward away from the surface (Parkinson 2004; Levitus et al. 2005). In fact, the signal of human-induced ocean warming has been detected to a depth of at least 700 meters (Barnett et al. 2005). As in the north, southern-hemisphere warming has been greater at mid-latitudes than at the equator, but the high latitudes around Antarctica have cooled over the past four decades (Chapman and Walsh 2007; Parkinson 2006). Because Antarctica occupies only five percent of the surface area of the southern hemisphere, there is no contradiction in this relatively small region cooling as the hemisphere warms overall. Antarctica is among a minority of regions with unique local climate conditions that currently override the global warming trend, although this situation is likely to change in the future if greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise (Shindell and Schmidt 2004).

In spite of a moderate overall cooling trend, recent Antarctic climate change results from a mix of countervailing signals. A rapid net loss of sea ice occurred during the 1970s, followed by a slow gain. The geographic distribution of sea ice has changed, with the east gaining and the west losing sea ice. The gains and losses are each larger than the overall trend, indicating a high degree of variability and change in the Antarctic sea ice (Parkinson 2006). Scientists were surprised to discover recently that the land-based Antarctic ice sheet, which stores 60 percent of the earth’s fresh water—the equivalent of 70 meters (228 feet) of sea level rise—has been losing slightly more ice each year than it is gaining (Shepherd and Wingham 2007). Most of the ice loss is from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the margins of which lie in the ocean (Velicogna and Wahr 2006). Warming of the ocean appears to be eroding this ice sheet at its edges (Shepherd et al. 2004; Rignot and Kanagaratnam 2006). Reaching northward from West Antarctica into the mid-latitudes, the Antarctic Peninsula has experienced the most dramatic warming in the region (Chapman and Walsh 2007; Turner et al. 2005). In a preview of the possible consequences of ice sheet erosion by the warming Southern Ocean, the Larsen B ice shelf, which was attached to the peninsula, disintegrated suddenly in February 2002; as a result, the land-based ice behind the shelf began to flow more quickly into the sea (Scambos et al. 2004). Scientists infer that widespread warming in West Antarctica could lead to many such events in the future, potentially leading to dramatic acceleration of global sea level rise (Alley et al. 2005). Clearly, the Antarctic climate is not changing monotonically in a single direction.

Still, while every other continent on Earth has experienced a clear warming trend over the past five decades (Trenberth et al. 2007), Antarctica—the fifth largest continent—has shown no clear trend
(Chapman and Walsh 2007). There are several key differences between the Arctic and the Antarctic that act in concert to explain the climatic departure between the two regions. Two of the most important factors are the predictably weak warming signal in the Antarctic compared to the Arctic, and the cooling effect of the human-induced stratospheric ozone hole above Antarctica.

As predicted by climate models, the southern hemisphere has warmed less than the northern hemisphere. The warming has occurred predominantly during the winter, and even Antarctica has warmed slightly during the winter, despite its average cooling across all seasons (Chapman and Walsh 2007). Winter is the time of year that climate models show the largest response to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. So, even though the warming signal is weak, the seasonal pattern is consistent with the human-enhanced greenhouse effect. Since Antarctic winters are much colder than necessary to freeze seawater, a little wintertime warming is insufficient to induce large-scale losses of sea ice without concurrent warming during the summer. In an experiment using a climate model to simulate global sea ice change over a century as a result of increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases, antarctic sea ice decreased by only 10%, while arctic sea ice decreased by 60% (Parkinson 2004). It is not surprising, therefore, that Antarctic sea ice has not mirrored the rapid decline of arctic sea ice.

But Antarctica is cooling and antarctic sea ice is expanding—something more than regionally weak global warming is afoot. That other factor is the ozone hole in the upper atmosphere (stratosphere) above Antarctica. Over the past four decades, the southern Westerlies—a ring of wind that encircles the southern hemisphere between 30° and 60° latitude—have become more intense and have moved closer to the South Pole in an ever-tighter ring around Antarctica. Whenever the Westerlies intensify—regardless of the cause—Antarctica tends to cool because surface air pressure inside the ring decreases (Marshall 2006). This is called adiabatic cooling and is the same reason that the temperature drops as one climbs a mountain. Although scientists are just beginning to study the physical mechanisms by which changes in the stratosphere affect ground-level climate (Baldwin et al. 2007), observations and model results both indicate that the greater amount of stratospheric ozone depletion over the South Pole compared to mid-latitudes has caused the southern Westerlies to shift poleward and intensify (Gillett and Thompson 2003; Shindell and Schmidt 2004). Since ozone depletion is strong over Antarctica but weak over the Arctic (Solomon et al. 2007), this strong cooling effect is unique to Antarctica.

To summarize, surface warming from the greenhouse effect is weaker in the southern hemisphere than in the northern hemisphere, whereas cooling from stratospheric ozone depletion is stronger in the south than in the north. Consequently, the Arctic has warmed dramatically, even as the Antarctic has experienced a small cooling trend. Climate models reproduce this pattern when they are driven by both greenhouse gas increases and stratospheric ozone depletion (Gillett and Thompson 2003; Shindell and Schmidt 2004). Hence, the present cooling of Antarctica is consistent with the rest of the Earth’s surface warming in response to rising greenhouse gas concentrations.

The stratospheric ozone layer filters out harmful ultraviolet radiation from incoming sunlight. To protect public health and natural ecosystems, an international treaty—the Montreal Protocol—is phasing out the release of ozone-depleting chemicals to the atmosphere. According to climate models that correctly simulate the current cooling trend in Antarctica, if greenhouse gases continue to rise as the ozone layer recovers in future decades, the warming effect of greenhouse gases will begin to outweigh the cooling effect of ozone depletion (Shindell and Schmidt 2004). The result would be widespread warming in Antarctica, with attendant declines in sea ice and accelerated loss of land-based ice, with the latter contributing to accelerated sea level rise.

Where on that link, where on that SITE, does it say that the climate isn't changing? Where does it say that human activity isn't contributing? Where does it say it isn't a problem and that there aren't risks if we don't attempt to mitigate our contribution? From what I see when I look around the site, it says quite the opposite.

Global Warming Basics: The Pew Center on Global Climate Change

Originally Posted by link

Global Warming Basics

The scientific community has reached a strong consensus regarding the science of global climate change. The world is undoubtedly warming, and the warming is largely the result of emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from human activities.

Science & Impacts: The Pew Center on Global Climate Change

Originally Posted by link

Science & Impacts

Climate change poses an extraordinary challenge that demands immediate action. Human activity is a primary cause of the growth in emissions that results in global warming, and the Pew Center strives to increase awareness regarding the science and impacts of this critical problem.

Why would you quote that Pew Center link to support your position unless you wanted people to glance at it and say "Well, if sea ice has increased around Antarctica, that means global warming is a bunch of bs because ice doesn't grow when it gets warmer."?

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Originally Posted by AMTR

Assuming the sun is not going through a radical change in how it burns fuel, then the earth may or may not be due for another ice age or even warmer times.

What's Wrong with the Sun? (Nothing)

Originally Posted by Article

Stop the presses! The sun is behaving normally. So says NASA solar physicist David Hathaway. "There have been some reports lately that Solar Minimum is lasting longer than it should. That's not true. The ongoing lull in sunspot number is well within historic norms for the solar cycle."

The Sun is fine; go about your business.

[imind]

Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95

No one is ignoring but htere's ample evidence that shows there are other SUBSTANTIAL causes to potential warming than simply CO2.

nobody is denying other factors affect our climate, as its a complex system. but manmade co2 is also affecting to a great extent.

In fact CO2 generally follows warming, not the other way around as Algore would have us believe.

i don't know why you contrarians insist on bringing al gore into the discussion. i haven't seen anyone cite him as a reliable source. at any rate, it is known, as was predicted some 20 years ago, that co2 follows warming. co2 takes existing heat and amplifies it. a good essay, citing studies to substantiate it, can be found here.

Some polar caps are melting at an alarming rate, but others are expanding at an equally alarming rate, somethign the global warming enviro crowd doesn't mention.

as has been pointed out, and there is nothing 'alarming' about these increases. it is not mentinoed because it is arguably not newsworthy, as some potential increases, though temporary, was predicted, again almost 20 years ago. as to why this is happening, see here and here for well cited explanations.

Furthermore, the areas rapidly melting in the northern hemisphere sit over a volcanic hot bed

evidence?

The planet has definately gone through a warming period but how people attribute most of this warming to human activity is beyond me,

honestly, if this is the case, i must question whether you have actually looked for the science that tells us this, and as its presented, the argument is fallacious. if you have read the evidence and disagree with, please post why and cite your sources.

especially when we know that just 2000 years ago the planet was as warm as it is today...there weren't 6 billion humans spewing CO2 into the atmosphere back then....

link?

They could go back up for 2008 or continue flat or move down again.

very unlikely they will go down. as mentioned previously, many things affect climate. el nino in 98 caused temps to soar, for instance. but the affects of our output have not yet been fully realized. all things being equal, every year, even if our output ceases completely this year, the temp will increase.

As evidence mounts it seems to point to solar activity and natural cycles controlling the temperature of the planet more so than man.

it absolutely does not. there is much certainty that irregular solar activity cannot be responsible for this warming. pardon my giving you 11 links to digest, but much has been said about it here. again, its well cited.

Furthermore, warming has some huge positive side effects for a planet that has 6+ billion human lives.

i've read a paper that have suggested it might be, but nothing conclusive. got a link?

[MTdream]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

Antarctic ice shelf 'hanging by thread': European scientists - Yahoo! News



Seems like alot of contradictory information to me.

been a while since I jumped in...

but the article that you post as "contradictory" is where the alarmists continue to get themselves into intellectual dishonesty...

Your article is referring to a small chunk of ice, on the smallest part of antarctica...The part the patron saint al Gore continues to use...

The arctic peninsula or the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) which represents less than 10% of the Eastern Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS).
There is no debate from anyone that the EAIS is expanding...and there is no doubt that the WAIS is shrinking...Antarctica contains roughly 90% of the global ice, and WAIS is less than 10% while the balance...call it 80% is expanding...

but the Alarmists continue to scream the Antarctic is shrinking...which is intellectually dishonest...yet technically correct, if footnoted as the WAIS portion of the Antarctic Ice sheet...but it never is...

Similar to how it was used in this debate...

But sorry, no contradictory stuff on the arctic ice sheet if you understand the differences, the facts, and the illusion trying to be created...

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by MTdream

been a while since I jumped in...

Welcome back Excellent post.

[imind]

Your article is referring to a small chunk of ice, on the smallest part of antarctica...The part the patron saint al Gore continues to use...

you speak of intellectual dishonesty in one breath, then mention gore in the next. pathetic.

but the Alarmists continue to scream the Antarctic is shrinking...which is intellectually dishonest...yet technically correct, if footnoted as the WAIS portion of the Antarctic Ice sheet...but it never is...

for those unfamiliar, a PRATT list is a list of arguments that have been refuted a thousand times (Point Refuted A Thousand Times), and is filled with creationist arguments against evolution. looks like one is sorely needed for the contrarians.

Originally Posted by JaJae

...Excellent post.

[MTdream]

Originally Posted by imind

you speak of intellectual dishonesty in one breath, then mention gore in the next. pathetic.

for those unfamiliar, a PRATT list is a list of arguments that have been refuted a thousand times (Point Refuted A Thousand Times), and is filled with creationist arguments against evolution. looks like one is sorely needed for the contrarians.

ummm, well I am not sure where to take your points...are you suggesting that I think Al Gore is intellectually honest?

and you totally lost me on your pontification on PRATT

[imind]

Originally Posted by MTdream

ummm, well I am not sure where to take your points...are you suggesting that I think Al Gore is intellectually honest?

some contrarians seemingly love, when 'refuting' the science of AGW, to bring al gore into the discussion, when al gore isn't cited as a source. IOW, al gore is used as a strawman.

Originally Posted by MTdream

and you totally lost me on your pontification on PRATT

contrarians also love to point to, as evidence against AGW, the ice gains in antarctica, when it was predicted almost 20 years ago of its potential.

The arctic peninsula or the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) which represents less than 10% of the Eastern Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS).
There is no debate from anyone that the EAIS is expanding...and there is no doubt that the WAIS is shrinking...Antarctica contains roughly 90% of the global ice, and WAIS is less than 10% while the balance...call it 80% is expanding...

the problem is not the loss of ice, for the sake of the loss of ice, the problem is what happens to the water as it melts.

but the Alarmists continue to scream the Antarctic is shrinking...which is intellectually dishonest...yet technically correct, if footnoted as the WAIS portion of the Antarctic Ice sheet...but it never is...

the problem i see with the contrarian argument is that you seem to be arguing not against the science, but rather against the medias presentation of it (and trying to equate the two), as all the arguments are of that nature. the al gore strawman, the picking apart of news stories that don't accurately reflect the science and claiming victory when these mistakes are 'refuted', and your claim that the WAIS is never footnoted. i don't know what you're reading. whenever i've read about the antarctic ice, they've always clearly referred to it, or the region specific to the story.

begin arguing against the science (well, before you do that, you're going to actually have to read it), and this discussion will become more honest.

your suggestion that the "alarmists are screaming the antarctic is shrinking" is not reflected in that article. while the WAIS was not specifically mentioned, the portion that is melting certainly was, several times, with geographic specific locations supporting it. the very first sentence tells you what is being reported on. from the article...

New evidence has emerged that a large plate of floating ice shelf attached to Antarctica is breaking up...

Wilkins Ice Shelf is "hanging by its last thread" to Charcot Island...

list of ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula ...

In the past three decades, six Antarctic ice shelves have collapsed completely -- Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Larsen B, Wordie, Muller and the Jones Ice Shelf.

tell me, which part of the article is incorrect or misleading?

But sorry, no contradictory stuff on the arctic ice sheet if you understand the differences, the facts, and the illusion trying to be created...

what illusion is that, exactly? the illusion of presenting the WAIS as a "small chunk" of ice? the wilkins shelf alone is over 16,000 sq km.