Notice the trends between your Co2 graph & the Sunspot activity graph..?
A little more than just coincidence wouldn't you say ?
One could graph any number of variables that correlate roughly with the CO2 increases observed over the past few centuries. If a causative link can be established between the two, that's fine -- I suppose that if increased sunspot activity is linked to increased received solar radiation on earth, a case could be made.
There's more evidence to support the claim that the pollution we create is killing us than there is evidence to support the claim that we're all going to be fine. The Greenhouse Effect is not proven, but then again neither are a lot of things. You can't just pretend there's no effect until there's 100% proof positive that the effect meets criteria X, Y or Z.
This is basically a nit-pick, but the Greenhouse Effect is, by nearly any standards, "proven". Whether or not human activity is enhancing that effect (leading to "global warming") is obviously still being debated.
The major problem (and I think I'm agreeing with you here, bunge), as I see it, is that we obviously don't yet have a complete understanding of how our climate system works, yet we're injecting substantial amounts of known greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere. It seems unwise to be doing so without that understanding, whatever the consequences.
Quote:
Originally posted by Aquafire
Don't take this is personally, but you remind me of other scientifically "proven" theories of the past.
It wasn't very long ago that the vast majority of scientists believed in "Ether" ..the mysterious life force that made fire "alive" etc...( we have good olde Plato to thank for that one ).
How about Phrenology ? It led to Eugenic "Sciences" of race "purity" and the systematic slaughter of Jews by the Nazi's. This was a legitimate science & politically correct for the vast majority of believers of that era.
Or how about the use of Chemical agents like DDT to rid Africa & America of Mosquitoes...all perfectly legitimate science..
Aquafire: You consider Plato et al. "scientists"? I'm not sure that I'd characterize them in that way. How did their "theories" compare to scientific theories of the present-day? Are you sure they're comparable?
I suppose I should ignore the Nazi reference.
As for DDT, etc...the science behind those chemicals was legitimate, but the application of that knowledge (and of those chemicals) was not.
One could graph any number of variables that correlate roughly with the CO2 increases observed over the past few centuries. If a causative link can be established between the two, that's fine -- I suppose that if increased sunspot activity is linked to increased received solar radiation on earth, a case could be made.
And that is ALL I am saying...Ugluk
I don't mind you guys trying to "convert" me or even ridicule me. That's OK so long as you get your facts straight about my stated position.
Jumping up and down and calling me names just makes me laugh.
But once again, and for the record..I am a skeptic..not an anti-dilluvian who believes the earth made up of Nacho mountains & beer oceans ..( although I must admit it would be nice )
I believe that sources need to be questioned, no matter from where or from whom. I believe we have some effects but not as exaggerated as claim it to be.
I choose to put under closer scrutiny those things that other enviromentalists so glibbly believe to be true..without any thinking.
Ugluk, your absolutely correct in saying we still don't know everything, which BTW I never said we did.
The sun spot correlation is a fundamental case in point. Those same scientists only recently noticed the trends in their statistical data...So the jury is still out.
But the thing that really peeves me, is the billions of public dollars that are being squandered while there are people around the world who need our help now.
Perhaps you'd like to explain to millions of starving children living in "real" enviromental squallor across the globe, how their lives have been traded off by some enviromental pressure groups in the west?
I've seen it happen in my own geo-political backyard. Of course "enviromentalists" mean well & pack enough financial clout to sink most 3rd world countries. But the consequence is all too terribly real. For many of these unfortunate people, it ultimately means having no running water, proper piped sanitation or household electricity.... all because some enviromental pressure group was able to stop a local dam or power-house project from going ahead.
And for what ?
Some overly exaggerated belief in how big our impact is on the world enviroment ?
They are truly the invisible "victims" of much enviromental science.
Shame on us all.
Ps :
I apologize about the Nazi thing, It is not levelled at any of you personally..but even if gross, it does serve to illustrate the point I was making. Orthodox thinking..or what is believed by the vast majority does not of itself make a position more correct.
Perhaps you'd like to explain to millions of starving children living in "real" enviromental squallor across the globe, how their lives have been traded off by some enviromental pressure groups in the west?
Aw, c'mon this is *one* unfair argument. If you are serious about it (and I very much doubt it), you should stop squandering your money on cinemas, games, beer and french fries and donate every penny of what you save to the third world. The western spending on armies, guns and weapons research eats several times what is spent on eco-projects, so don't blame environmentalists for the starving children in the Sahel.
Heck, just close the Hollywood studios and some million kids won't have to starve. Only this kind of argument is idiotic.
IF the greenhouse trend continues (regardless of what causes it), we all will be spending serious money to counter its effects, so every Euro spent now on CO2 reduction can save 10 Euros in the future if CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
As the amount of rum produced by Caribbean nations increases, so does the number of Minnesota priests.
I've seen plenty of evidence for sustained global warming over the past 100 years or so. I've seen plenty of evidence for global cooling and warming over the past 100 million years or so.
I've yet to see hard evidence of global warming caused by humans other than what could easily be spurious correlations (eg CO2 v global average temperatures) or bias measurement (eg not weighting the samples properly).
That's not to say that human civilization hasn't contributed to global warming, but anyone asserting that we have without doubt contributed to global warming is not being honest, or is mislead.
Older man: [through a bullhorn] Work! Work, children! We only have two more days until Earth Day! Work!
Clyde: Ah, excuse me? My daddy is a geologist and he says there actually isn't any concrete evidence of global warming.
Older man: That's not true. [waves his right forearm slowly to the right, palm out] Global warming is going to kill us all. [repeats the arm movement] The Republicans are responsible.
I've seen plenty of evidence for sustained global warming over the past 100 years or so. I've seen plenty of evidence for global cooling and warming over the past 100 million years or so.
I've yet to see hard evidence of global warming caused by humans other than what could easily be spurious correlations (eg CO2 v global average temperatures) or bias measurement (eg not weighting the samples properly).
That's not to say that human civilization hasn't contributed to global warming, but anyone asserting that we have without doubt contributed to global warming is not being honest, or is mislead.
Barto
Thankyou Barto. The clear light of reason prevails...at least in our neck of the woods...
Suddenly, I am an environmentalist for pointing out that global warming is not disputed by the vast majority of scientists?
And I have no argument with what you call the "less glamorous" science of oceanography - that is in fact my profession.
For the vast majority of real scientists, the fact of global warming is no longer an issue - it is now down to understanding effects and learning more about mechanisms.
Fish
edited to add - Barto, could you suggest what evidence *other* than correlative one could expect to find for anthropogenic causes of global warming? The very nature of the problem (like much of atmospheric and geologic science) is such that one cannot hope to run manipulative experiments to test theory. For global warming, the method has been to look for relationships between variables and try to control (through historical and geologic records) for possible artifacts. I think it is naive to think that global warming is at its heart a political issue...it is a scientific issue for most researchers studying it, and some minority of scientists (and a large number of non-scientists) turn it into a political issue. I think the best analogy is to creationism and evolution...there is essentially no controversy within science about that, but there IS a controversy in the general public.
And I have no argument with what you call the "less glamorous" science of oceanography - that is in fact my profession.
For the vast majority of real scientists, the fact of global warming is no longer an issue - it is now down to understanding effects and learning more about mechanisms.
Exactly..thankyou for stating my case Fishdoc...
Never said global warming isn't real. There is plenty of paleoclimatological evidence to support this.
But like I said, it is the quanta of our human influence that requires much more detailed scrutiny...
Ah, Aquafire...this is starting to resemble every argument I have ever had with a creationist (which is why I long ago gave that up). No need to misrepresent what I am saying...if you read my post before this one, you see me saying:
"The fact is, the overwhelming majority of climate scientists recognize that global warming is happening, and is related to anthropogenic activity. These are not by and large environmentalists, or advocates, but research scientists who study climate change." Sorry if leaving out the reference to anthropogenic influence the second time I said that confused you. (also odd that you took "research scientists" to somehow mean "environmentalists", when I was actually referring to oceanographers, geologists, chemists, and biologists).
This really is a non-issue for scientists. If you have a real interest in the issue, join the AGU, read the peer-reviewed journals, and learn what you can. I doubt that anyone will receive much enlightenment on the subject by arguing in the AI forums, and thankfully the people who actually STUDY this have reached a consensus.
We agree: the data really does appear to be coming in. We see nothing to detract from our hypothesis of localised warming over the North Atlantic caused by obscene energy wastage in Europe and the USA. Buy lots of woolly jumpers, and be prepared to migrate. If our hypothesis is correct, kiss most European nations goodbye. Russia won't be happy either. The USA will not be too badly affected as the Laurentide sheet won't reach very far south of the Canadian border...
Gordon Edwards,
Coordinator.
Wow, I happen to live in Europe
Good to know this is all just eco-fundamentalist hogwash and the WA Environment guys don't believe in it...
" Recent computations ( e.g. Vinnikov, 1999 ) closely duplicate the onserved reduction of the mean annual ice extent. However, close inspection reveals disturbing discrepancy: Models show impacts in winter and observations show ice retreat in summer. As we expect from basic physical reasoning, the largest effects of greenhouse warming should be seen in the absence of solar radiation when thermal infrared radiation dominates the surface energy balanc. ie in winter. The calculations by Vinnikov et al ( 1999) and Manabe et al ( 1992 ) indeed show show the largest sea ice signal in winter. An expanation of this summer/winter discrepancy has not been offered so far. The absence and presence of sea ice, and its thickness, depend on very small differences between large fluxes of energy. Minor changes of the assumptions albedo, snow cover, cloudiness and cloud radiative properties, ocean heat flux, and other factors, may have large effects on the computed ice cover and require a model precision that remains to be attained."
Dr Norbet Untersteiner. Professor of Atmospheric Sciences: University of Washington..
Uh....you DO realize that Dr. Untersteiner believes that global warming is real and is caused in large part by anthropogenic inputs of greenhouse gases, don't you?
This is exactly what I am talking about...scientists are trying to improve their models of the mechanisms behind global warming, but those who do not understand the details can take comments out of context (Dr. Untersteiner is talking about the need to improve our models) and sugget that this somehow means the overall theory is being questioned.
Another similarity to the creationist arguments, and another reason I have to force myself to quit rising to the bait.
I think there's a huge difference between the creatonist/evolution argument, where an entire basic theory is being challenged (and there is direct evidence for the body of, if not the details), and this, where the scientific community agrees that the warming seems to be occurring (wonky urban data sources still a problem though), but the *whys* are still in question, and require much much better models than we currently have to even begin to answer.
Simply put, we haven't a serious clue how much of an effect we're having on the natural cycles of the planet. We may be driving the process at this point, or we may be casually riding piggyback on other processes we don't see yet.
We can guess, and we can speculate, and we can model... and right now, any one of them is about as good as any other.
(I consulted for the EPA in climatological modeling for two years - it's amazing to listen in on the conversations about error measures and assumptions behind the various models...)
And now, I bow out and leave this to the expert debaters.
A good point, Kickaha, but I cannot entirely agree.
Yes, there are error measurements involved, but as an oceanographer who regularly attends conferences on climate change, I can say that those who believe we may be "riding" a natural cycle are VERY few and far between. Truly, despite your misgivings about the lack of precision in the estimates (which I will agree with), the overall picture is reasonably clear. It is akin to the estimates of fishery yields and sustainability etc - everyone KNOWS that the actual numbers are bounded by huge error bars, but the mass of estimates pointing in the same direction lend confidence to the overall picture.
Uh....you DO realize that Dr. Untersteiner believes that global warming is real and is caused in large part by anthropogenic inputs of greenhouse gases, don't you?
This is exactly what I am talking about...scientists are trying to improve their models of the mechanisms behind global warming, but those who do not understand the details can take comments out of context (Dr. Untersteiner is talking about the need to improve our models) and sugget that this somehow means the overall theory is being questioned.
Another similarity to the creationist arguments, and another reason I have to force myself to quit rising to the bait.
Fish
I am beginning to think you are "rocks in the head" scientists. You are of a mind set that sees me as a disbeliever in global warming...hello ? wakey wakey..hand on snakey...I never said that.
The reason that I put up Professor Untsteiner is exactly because he sees problems arising from the modelling and notes serious dicrepencies.
You know your attempting to talk down to someone whose partner is a marine biologist and who is on numerous committees deeply involved in enviromental issues..( both local & global )
Please don't patronize me Fishdoc it is unbecoming.
And further more implying that I or any one else who doesn't have your take on scientific "proof" is a creationist is just beneath contemptable.
ok, I really AM wasting my time here, but one more time....
1. I never said that those who disagreed with anthropogenic causes of global warming WERE creationists. Perhaps you should re-read my posts. I said the arguments were similar.
2. I am not sure why your partner being a marine biologist has any bearing on the argument. Hopefully, if he or she IS a scientist, you will learn a little more about reading the primary literature and using that to make your decisions.
3. The link you provided shows that two (2) scientists feel that anthropogenic inputs are not as important as other scientists believe. Note that they still consider human inputs to represent fully one third of the warming, however.
Re-read my posts, and you will see that I never claimed it was unanimous (in fact, I am puzzled that you would think that digging up two researchers who disagree with the consensus would in any way surprise me, since I already stated that it was merely the vast majorit, not all, who believed global warming was anthropogenically caused).
Ultimately, just like arguing with creationists, I recognize this will serve no purpose. Those who are determined to cling a priori to a particular worldview will always find evidence to support their opinion, and ignore anything that undermines it. Thankfully, in science, we look at the complete body of evidence and make decisions based on what the evidence suggests, not what we want it to be.
Best of luck with supporting whatever it is you want to believe,
Comments
Originally posted by Aquafire
Notice the trends between your Co2 graph & the Sunspot activity graph..?
A little more than just coincidence wouldn't you say ?
One could graph any number of variables that correlate roughly with the CO2 increases observed over the past few centuries. If a causative link can be established between the two, that's fine -- I suppose that if increased sunspot activity is linked to increased received solar radiation on earth, a case could be made.
Originally posted by bunge
There's more evidence to support the claim that the pollution we create is killing us than there is evidence to support the claim that we're all going to be fine. The Greenhouse Effect is not proven, but then again neither are a lot of things. You can't just pretend there's no effect until there's 100% proof positive that the effect meets criteria X, Y or Z.
This is basically a nit-pick, but the Greenhouse Effect is, by nearly any standards, "proven". Whether or not human activity is enhancing that effect (leading to "global warming") is obviously still being debated.
The major problem (and I think I'm agreeing with you here, bunge), as I see it, is that we obviously don't yet have a complete understanding of how our climate system works, yet we're injecting substantial amounts of known greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere. It seems unwise to be doing so without that understanding, whatever the consequences.
Originally posted by Aquafire
Don't take this is personally, but you remind me of other scientifically "proven" theories of the past.
It wasn't very long ago that the vast majority of scientists believed in "Ether" ..the mysterious life force that made fire "alive" etc...( we have good olde Plato to thank for that one ).
How about Phrenology ? It led to Eugenic "Sciences" of race "purity" and the systematic slaughter of Jews by the Nazi's. This was a legitimate science & politically correct for the vast majority of believers of that era.
Or how about the use of Chemical agents like DDT to rid Africa & America of Mosquitoes...all perfectly legitimate science..
Aquafire: You consider Plato et al. "scientists"? I'm not sure that I'd characterize them in that way. How did their "theories" compare to scientific theories of the present-day? Are you sure they're comparable?
I suppose I should ignore the Nazi reference.
As for DDT, etc...the science behind those chemicals was legitimate, but the application of that knowledge (and of those chemicals) was not.
Originally posted by Aquafire
WDon't take this is personally, but you remind me of other scientifically "proven" theories of the past.
Don't worry, I'm a fact. I am scientifically proven.
Originally posted by bunge
Don't worry, I'm a fact. I am scientifically proven.
Scientifically proven what ?....to reduce dandruff...
Originally posted by ugluk
Re: sunspots
One could graph any number of variables that correlate roughly with the CO2 increases observed over the past few centuries. If a causative link can be established between the two, that's fine -- I suppose that if increased sunspot activity is linked to increased received solar radiation on earth, a case could be made.
And that is ALL I am saying...Ugluk
I don't mind you guys trying to "convert" me or even ridicule me. That's OK so long as you get your facts straight about my stated position.
Jumping up and down and calling me names just makes me laugh.
But once again, and for the record..I am a skeptic..not an anti-dilluvian who believes the earth made up of Nacho mountains & beer oceans ..( although I must admit it would be nice )
I believe that sources need to be questioned, no matter from where or from whom. I believe we have some effects but not as exaggerated as claim it to be.
I choose to put under closer scrutiny those things that other enviromentalists so glibbly believe to be true..without any thinking.
Ugluk, your absolutely correct in saying we still don't know everything, which BTW I never said we did.
The sun spot correlation is a fundamental case in point. Those same scientists only recently noticed the trends in their statistical data...So the jury is still out.
But the thing that really peeves me, is the billions of public dollars that are being squandered while there are people around the world who need our help now.
Perhaps you'd like to explain to millions of starving children living in "real" enviromental squallor across the globe, how their lives have been traded off by some enviromental pressure groups in the west?
I've seen it happen in my own geo-political backyard. Of course "enviromentalists" mean well & pack enough financial clout to sink most 3rd world countries. But the consequence is all too terribly real. For many of these unfortunate people, it ultimately means having no running water, proper piped sanitation or household electricity.... all because some enviromental pressure group was able to stop a local dam or power-house project from going ahead.
And for what ?
Some overly exaggerated belief in how big our impact is on the world enviroment ?
They are truly the invisible "victims" of much enviromental science.
Shame on us all.
Ps :
I apologize about the Nazi thing, It is not levelled at any of you personally..but even if gross, it does serve to illustrate the point I was making. Orthodox thinking..or what is believed by the vast majority does not of itself make a position more correct.
Originally posted by Aquafire
Perhaps you'd like to explain to millions of starving children living in "real" enviromental squallor across the globe, how their lives have been traded off by some enviromental pressure groups in the west?
Aw, c'mon this is *one* unfair argument. If you are serious about it (and I very much doubt it), you should stop squandering your money on cinemas, games, beer and french fries and donate every penny of what you save to the third world. The western spending on armies, guns and weapons research eats several times what is spent on eco-projects, so don't blame environmentalists for the starving children in the Sahel.
Heck, just close the Hollywood studios and some million kids won't have to starve. Only this kind of argument is idiotic.
IF the greenhouse trend continues (regardless of what causes it), we all will be spending serious money to counter its effects, so every Euro spent now on CO2 reduction can save 10 Euros in the future if CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
I've seen plenty of evidence for sustained global warming over the past 100 years or so. I've seen plenty of evidence for global cooling and warming over the past 100 million years or so.
I've yet to see hard evidence of global warming caused by humans other than what could easily be spurious correlations (eg CO2 v global average temperatures) or bias measurement (eg not weighting the samples properly).
That's not to say that human civilization hasn't contributed to global warming, but anyone asserting that we have without doubt contributed to global warming is not being honest, or is mislead.
Older man: [through a bullhorn] Work! Work, children! We only have two more days until Earth Day! Work!
Clyde: Ah, excuse me? My daddy is a geologist and he says there actually isn't any concrete evidence of global warming.
Older man: That's not true. [waves his right forearm slowly to the right, palm out] Global warming is going to kill us all. [repeats the arm movement] The Republicans are responsible.
Barto
Originally posted by Barto
I've seen plenty of evidence for sustained global warming over the past 100 years or so. I've seen plenty of evidence for global cooling and warming over the past 100 million years or so.
I've yet to see hard evidence of global warming caused by humans other than what could easily be spurious correlations (eg CO2 v global average temperatures) or bias measurement (eg not weighting the samples properly).
That's not to say that human civilization hasn't contributed to global warming, but anyone asserting that we have without doubt contributed to global warming is not being honest, or is mislead.
Barto
Thankyou Barto. The clear light of reason prevails...at least in our neck of the woods...
And I have no argument with what you call the "less glamorous" science of oceanography - that is in fact my profession.
For the vast majority of real scientists, the fact of global warming is no longer an issue - it is now down to understanding effects and learning more about mechanisms.
Fish
edited to add - Barto, could you suggest what evidence *other* than correlative one could expect to find for anthropogenic causes of global warming? The very nature of the problem (like much of atmospheric and geologic science) is such that one cannot hope to run manipulative experiments to test theory. For global warming, the method has been to look for relationships between variables and try to control (through historical and geologic records) for possible artifacts. I think it is naive to think that global warming is at its heart a political issue...it is a scientific issue for most researchers studying it, and some minority of scientists (and a large number of non-scientists) turn it into a political issue. I think the best analogy is to creationism and evolution...there is essentially no controversy within science about that, but there IS a controversy in the general public.
Originally posted by fishdoc
And I have no argument with what you call the "less glamorous" science of oceanography - that is in fact my profession.
For the vast majority of real scientists, the fact of global warming is no longer an issue - it is now down to understanding effects and learning more about mechanisms.
Exactly..thankyou for stating my case Fishdoc...
Never said global warming isn't real. There is plenty of paleoclimatological evidence to support this.
But like I said, it is the quanta of our human influence that requires much more detailed scrutiny...
"The fact is, the overwhelming majority of climate scientists recognize that global warming is happening, and is related to anthropogenic activity. These are not by and large environmentalists, or advocates, but research scientists who study climate change." Sorry if leaving out the reference to anthropogenic influence the second time I said that confused you. (also odd that you took "research scientists" to somehow mean "environmentalists", when I was actually referring to oceanographers, geologists, chemists, and biologists).
This really is a non-issue for scientists. If you have a real interest in the issue, join the AGU, read the peer-reviewed journals, and learn what you can. I doubt that anyone will receive much enlightenment on the subject by arguing in the AI forums, and thankfully the people who actually STUDY this have reached a consensus.
>comment: Hi, there is new data in considering the IPCC forecasts. You
write (http://www.ecwa.asn.au/info/climate2.html):
>"IPCC forecasts of temperature changes in polar regions have been
incorrect._ They predicted that global warming effects would be felt first
at the poles because CO2 exerts its greatest warming effect in cold air._"
>Now check this out (www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2003/1023esuice.html):
>"Recently observed change in Arctic temperatures and sea ice cover [...]
shows that compared to the 1980s, most of the Arctic warmed significantly
over the last decade,"
And their reply was:
"A 30-year satellite record of sea ice in the two polar regions reveals
that while the Northern Hemisphere Arctic ice has melted, Southern
Hemisphere Antarctic ice has actually increased in more recent years" by
Earth Science News at NASA Greenbelt - Nov 11, 2003
(http://www.spacedaily.com/news/icebergs-03d.html)
We agree: the data really does appear to be coming in. We see nothing to detract from our hypothesis of localised warming over the North Atlantic caused by obscene energy wastage in Europe and the USA. Buy lots of woolly jumpers, and be prepared to migrate. If our hypothesis is correct, kiss most European nations goodbye. Russia won't be happy either. The USA will not be too badly affected as the Laurentide sheet won't reach very far south of the Canadian border...
Gordon Edwards,
Coordinator.
Wow, I happen to live in Europe
Good to know this is all just eco-fundamentalist hogwash and the WA Environment guys don't believe in it...
" Recent computations ( e.g. Vinnikov, 1999 ) closely duplicate the onserved reduction of the mean annual ice extent. However, close inspection reveals disturbing discrepancy: Models show impacts in winter and observations show ice retreat in summer. As we expect from basic physical reasoning, the largest effects of greenhouse warming should be seen in the absence of solar radiation when thermal infrared radiation dominates the surface energy balanc. ie in winter. The calculations by Vinnikov et al ( 1999) and Manabe et al ( 1992 ) indeed show show the largest sea ice signal in winter. An expanation of this summer/winter discrepancy has not been offered so far. The absence and presence of sea ice, and its thickness, depend on very small differences between large fluxes of energy. Minor changes of the assumptions albedo, snow cover, cloudiness and cloud radiative properties, ocean heat flux, and other factors, may have large effects on the computed ice cover and require a model precision that remains to be attained."
Dr Norbet Untersteiner. Professor of Atmospheric Sciences: University of Washington..
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/essay_untersteiner.html
Actic summer time the puzzling summer of 2003
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/essay_untersteiner2.html
This is exactly what I am talking about...scientists are trying to improve their models of the mechanisms behind global warming, but those who do not understand the details can take comments out of context (Dr. Untersteiner is talking about the need to improve our models) and sugget that this somehow means the overall theory is being questioned.
Another similarity to the creationist arguments, and another reason I have to force myself to quit rising to the bait.
Fish
I think there's a huge difference between the creatonist/evolution argument, where an entire basic theory is being challenged (and there is direct evidence for the body of, if not the details), and this, where the scientific community agrees that the warming seems to be occurring (wonky urban data sources still a problem though), but the *whys* are still in question, and require much much better models than we currently have to even begin to answer.
Simply put, we haven't a serious clue how much of an effect we're having on the natural cycles of the planet. We may be driving the process at this point, or we may be casually riding piggyback on other processes we don't see yet.
We can guess, and we can speculate, and we can model... and right now, any one of them is about as good as any other.
(I consulted for the EPA in climatological modeling for two years - it's amazing to listen in on the conversations about error measures and assumptions behind the various models...)
And now, I bow out and leave this to the expert debaters.
Yes, there are error measurements involved, but as an oceanographer who regularly attends conferences on climate change, I can say that those who believe we may be "riding" a natural cycle are VERY few and far between. Truly, despite your misgivings about the lack of precision in the estimates (which I will agree with), the overall picture is reasonably clear. It is akin to the estimates of fishery yields and sustainability etc - everyone KNOWS that the actual numbers are bounded by huge error bars, but the mass of estimates pointing in the same direction lend confidence to the overall picture.
Fish
Originally posted by fishdoc
Uh....you DO realize that Dr. Untersteiner believes that global warming is real and is caused in large part by anthropogenic inputs of greenhouse gases, don't you?
This is exactly what I am talking about...scientists are trying to improve their models of the mechanisms behind global warming, but those who do not understand the details can take comments out of context (Dr. Untersteiner is talking about the need to improve our models) and sugget that this somehow means the overall theory is being questioned.
Another similarity to the creationist arguments, and another reason I have to force myself to quit rising to the bait.
Fish
I am beginning to think you are "rocks in the head" scientists. You are of a mind set that sees me as a disbeliever in global warming...hello ? wakey wakey..hand on snakey...I never said that.
The reason that I put up Professor Untsteiner is exactly because he sees problems arising from the modelling and notes serious dicrepencies.
You know your attempting to talk down to someone whose partner is a marine biologist and who is on numerous committees deeply involved in enviromental issues..( both local & global )
Please don't patronize me Fishdoc it is unbecoming.
And further more implying that I or any one else who doesn't have your take on scientific "proof" is a creationist is just beneath contemptable.
But like you I won't rise to the bait...8)
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/climate-03s.html
Do you think these scientists are whacky "creationists" ?
You see, it's really not as clear cut as you'd like to think it is..
8)
1. I never said that those who disagreed with anthropogenic causes of global warming WERE creationists. Perhaps you should re-read my posts. I said the arguments were similar.
2. I am not sure why your partner being a marine biologist has any bearing on the argument. Hopefully, if he or she IS a scientist, you will learn a little more about reading the primary literature and using that to make your decisions.
3. The link you provided shows that two (2) scientists feel that anthropogenic inputs are not as important as other scientists believe. Note that they still consider human inputs to represent fully one third of the warming, however.
Re-read my posts, and you will see that I never claimed it was unanimous (in fact, I am puzzled that you would think that digging up two researchers who disagree with the consensus would in any way surprise me, since I already stated that it was merely the vast majorit, not all, who believed global warming was anthropogenically caused).
Ultimately, just like arguing with creationists, I recognize this will serve no purpose. Those who are determined to cling a priori to a particular worldview will always find evidence to support their opinion, and ignore anything that undermines it. Thankfully, in science, we look at the complete body of evidence and make decisions based on what the evidence suggests, not what we want it to be.
Best of luck with supporting whatever it is you want to believe,
Fish
Point blank..
A) I believe global warming is a real phenomena.
C) The evidence imputing human activity as the MAJOR cause of global warming is highly questionable.
That's all there is to it...
I'm off to catch a wave...see ya..mate
8)