pantagrapher
Footballguy
Probability of El Niño up to 80%, and could be one of the strongest ones in decades.
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The Case Against Global-Warming Skepticism (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter NCCommish
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spreagle
Footballguy
Bigger news than the regular El Niño will be the lack of decline in Arctic sea ice this summer. The low point of Arctic is being predicted to be much higher than previous years. Some are saying it should be bigger news than the El Niño, because the El Niño will be come and gone, but the arctic ice will enter a several decade build.
The "melting ice caps" mantra is what galvanizes opinion on global warming, I got in a minor difference of opinion with a global warmer the other day and the first thing they bring up is the melting ice caps (disregarding that global sea ice is near normal levels). If the global warmists lose that talking point, and they will, it is over for them.
The "melting ice caps" mantra is what galvanizes opinion on global warming, I got in a minor difference of opinion with a global warmer the other day and the first thing they bring up is the melting ice caps (disregarding that global sea ice is near normal levels). If the global warmists lose that talking point, and they will, it is over for them.
How can they lose. It is climate change. It is always changing. If ice caps reduce we will all drown from rising sea levels. If ice caps expand we will enter an new ice age. Climate Change is the most awesome theory ever, as long as there is any change they can beat their chest and say, 'see I told you so!", eventhough they predicted the exact opposite.spreagle said:
Koya
Footballguy
What a sad, sad statement.spreagle said:
It's really about winning and losing talking points? Are you kidding me?
Regardless what your opinion may be, whether you are trying to be objective or you are stuck in ideological cognitive dissonance, we are literally talking about the future of our environment and there is at least a strong possibility of dangerous if not catastrophic change...
You want to flippantly blow that off? Even if you don't believe the science... Again, a sad state of affairs.
spreagle
Footballguy
I just want the truth about the magnitude of global warming to come out. Can't we both agree the truth is a good thing? If Arctic ice returns to above normal levels it would make the global warmists explain why it came back and force them to get closer to the truth. Just like they've been forced to admit the 1998/99 El Niño peak was not all due to CO2 and natural factors influence the climate. They never talked about natural cycles before then, it was all CO2, all the time.
Koya
Footballguy
Yes, I want the truth. And we won't get there by having one side and then the other dismiss each other offhand and revel in "winning" some stupid PR war.
It's disingenuous, and honestly in my opinion, it appears to come more from those who refute the mounds of scientific evidence that has come forth, although neither side is immune (my father is perhaps the worst I know as he jumps on any small thing that even remotely supports a far left agenda and gloats in stupid "victories" that serve only to agitate not get to any objective truth.
joffer
Footballguy
You should feel free to answer my last question to you, or you can keep spouting "the predictions were wrong!!!" over and over, even though they weren't.
Every single computer model predictions have been outside their margin of error. I am not sure how much more wrong you can be when most of the gloom and doom analysis is all based on these models.
ETA: What question?
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joffer
Footballguy
joffer
Footballguy
Bump again
joffer
Footballguy
More on these crazy, alarmist predictions
http://www.skepticalscience.com/comparing-global-temperature-predictions.html
http://www.skepticalscience.com/comparing-global-temperature-predictions.html
TheIronSheik
SUPER ELITE UPPER TIER
If the climate is always changing, wouldn't trying to stop it actually be Climate Change?
Your premise that failure of computer models to make accurate predictions does not discredit the theory is ridiculous. Anyone can make a best fit curve and come up with a theory to match past data. It is when they can predict and quantifiably prove the causation between greenhouse and temperature by eliminating/controling the other variables, is when there will be meat to their theory. Right now it is just a guess, and their models show their guesses are way high.
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Parrothead
Footballguy
what is the Earth's "optimum" temperature? Is it trying to get back to where it was in 3 million BC?
In 1990, the IPCC predicted temperatures would expect an increase by 0.3 C per decade (0.2-0.5C range being the min-max). So we should have seen about a 0.75C rise in temps (range 0.5-1.25C range). We have seen about a 0.25C increase, only a third of the expected incrase and only half of what they said the absolute bottom end would be. How great is that??
This is also from the 1990 IPCC Assessement Report:
New Paper “Weather And Climate Analyses Using Improved Global Water Vapor Observations” By Vonder Haar Et Al 2012
So in 1990, the IPCC was 100% certain, absolutely settled science, that the most important greenhouse gas would increase to further accellerate global warming. However, about 25 years of research by NASA has yet to show any increase in water vapor. The IPCC's main prediction which they were absolutely certain of and the leading driver to their prediction of global increases in temperatures, has been shown to be not true and they were wrong about. This is what they call "settled science"!
New Paper “Weather And Climate Analyses Using Improved Global Water Vapor Observations” By Vonder Haar Et Al 2012
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TheIronSheik
SUPER ELITE UPPER TIER
We are throwing money away that could otherwise be used to feed people, educate people or, hell, even insure people. Billions and billions of dollars wasted on this.
BustedKnuckles
Footballguy
Just stuff i found on the net...feel free to discredit all of these ideas
- Improved fuel economy: One wedge would be achieved if, instead of averaging 30 milesper gallon (mpg) on conventional fuel, cars in 2054 averaged 60 mpg, with fuel type and distance traveled unchanged. Given recent advances in hybrid and electric vehicle technology, this is a very plausible wedge.
- Reduced reliance on cars: One wedge would be achieved if the average fuel economy of the 2 billion 2054 cars were 30 mpg, but the annual distance traveled were 5000 miles instead of 10,000 miles.
- More efficient buildings: One wedge is the difference between pursuing and not pursuing known and established approaches to energy-efficient space heating and cooling, water heating, lighting, and refrigeration in residential and commercial buildings.
- Improved power plant efficiency: One wedge would be created if twice today’s quantity of coal-based electricity in 2054 were produced at 60% instead of 40% efficiency.
- Substituting natural gas for coal: One wedge would be achieved by displacing 1400 gigawatts (GW) of baseload coal power with baseload gas by 2054. Givenrecent natural gas price decreases, this is another very plausible wedge.
- Storage of carbon captured in power plants: One wedge would be provided by the installation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) at 800 GW of baseload coal plants by 2054 or 1600 GW of baseload natural gas plants.
- Storage of carbon captured in hydrogen plants: The hydrogen resulting from precombustion capture of CO2 can be sent offsite to displace the consumption of conventional fuels rather than being consumed onsite to produce electricity. One wedge would require the installation of CCS, by 2054, at coal plants producing 250 million tons of hydrogen per year (MtH2/year), or at natural gas plants producing 500 MtH2/year.
- Storage of carbon captured in synthetic fuels plants: Large-scale production of synthetic fuels from carbon is a possibility. One wedge would be the difference between capturing and venting the CO2 from coal synthetic fuels plants producing 30 million barrels of synthetic fuels per day.
- Nuclear power: One wedge of nuclear electricity would displace 700 GW of efficient baseload coal capacity in 2054. This would require 700 GW of nuclear power with the same 90% capacity factor assumed for the coal plants, or about twice the nuclear capacity currently deployed.
- Wind power: One wedge of wind electricity would require the deployment of 2000 GW of nominal peak capacity (GWp) that displaces coal electricity in 2054 (or 2 million 1-MWp wind turbines). This would require approximately 10 times the current (as of 2010) deployment of wind power by mid-century. Note that global wind power deployment increased from approximately 40 GW in 2004 to 158 GW in 2009.
- Solar photovoltaic power: One wedge from photovoltaic (PV) electricity would require 2000 GWp of installed capacity that displaces coal electricity in 2054. This would require approximately 100 times the current (as of 2010) deployment of solar PV power by mid-century. Note that global solar PV power deployment increased from approximately 3 GW in 2004 to 20 GW in 2009.
- Renewable hydrogen: Renewable electricity can produce carbon-free hydrogen for vehicle fuel by the electrolysis of water. The hydrogen produced by 4 million 1-MWp windmills in 2054, if used in high-efficiency fuel-cell cars, would achieve a wedge of displaced gasoline or diesel fuel. However, use of renewable energy to power electric vehicles is more efficient than powering hydrogen vehicles with hydrogen produced through electrolysis from renewable power.
- Biofuels: One wedge of biofuel would be achieved by the production of about 34 million barrels per day of ethanol in 2054 that could displace gasoline, provided the ethanol itself were fossil-carbon free. This ethanol production rate would be about 50 times larger than today’s global production rate, almost all of which can be attributed to Brazilian sugarcane and United States corn. The potential exists for increased biofuels production to compromise agriculturaly production, unless the biofuels are created from a non-food crop or other source such as algae oil.
- Forest management: At least one wedge would be available from reduced tropicaldeforestation and the management of temperate and tropical forests. At least one half-wedge would be created if the current rate of clear-cutting of primary tropicalforest were reduced to zero over 50 years instead of being halved. A second half-wedge would be created by reforesting or afforesting approximately 250 million hectares in the tropics or 400 million hectares in the temperate zone (current areas of tropical and temperate forests are 1500 and 700 million hectares, respectively). A third half-wedge would be created by establishing approximately 300 million hectares of plantations on non-forested land.
- Agricultural soils management: When forest or natural grassland is converted to cropland, up to one-half of the soil carbon is lost, primarily because annual tilling increases the rate of decomposition by aerating undecomposed organic matter. One-half to one wedge could be stored by extending conservation tillage to all cropland, accompanied by a verification program that enforces the adoption of soil conservation practices that work as advertised.
Can't we just tax people to death so they no longer can afford to heat their homes? That seems to be the #1 solution offered up.
Ditkaless Wonders
Footballguy
I say that since people cause climate change that we need to reduce the number of people. Let's start by not trying to medically save those who cannot afford to save themselves. Obamacare causes global warming!
msommer
Footballguy
Earlier in the thread it was mentioned that higher CO2 levels would increase yield of plants. Unfortunately this will reduce nutrients in the crop per new research.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27308720
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27308720
Koya
Footballguy
What kills me is the nonchalant attitude the doubters / deniers seem to have.
Let's for arguement's sake that indeed there is no warming or climate change, at least not as predicted. Is working toward a more renewable energy and energy independent status a bad thing? I can understand if there is excess regulation that hurts business, but it's not the end of the world IF the scientists are wrong.
Now, let's for arguments sake say that the deniers are wrong, and there is some warming / change as predicted. Depending upon how server, that COULD be the end of the world, at least for low lying areas, god knows what happens if there is more drought, less food, more strife.
That's what is so frustrating. If one is playing political games and they are wrong life goes on, if the other is playing political games and they are wrong, we are ####ed.
Let's for arguement's sake that indeed there is no warming or climate change, at least not as predicted. Is working toward a more renewable energy and energy independent status a bad thing? I can understand if there is excess regulation that hurts business, but it's not the end of the world IF the scientists are wrong.
Now, let's for arguments sake say that the deniers are wrong, and there is some warming / change as predicted. Depending upon how server, that COULD be the end of the world, at least for low lying areas, god knows what happens if there is more drought, less food, more strife.
That's what is so frustrating. If one is playing political games and they are wrong life goes on, if the other is playing political games and they are wrong, we are ####ed.
Working towards renewable energy is a good goal. It is the redistribution of wealth, taxing business so they have to relocate, and taxing energy so people can not longer afford it that blows.
Koya
Footballguy
I can understand that perspective and touched upon that. But there seems to be a disconnect between any recognition that IF all this science is right, we are really, really in trouble from those on the denial side of the equation.
Nothing being proposed is going to make an ounce of difference according to their own models.
I'm somewhat agnostic, but am a big believer that we need to invest in alternative energies. I believe that nuclear is a path we should have been on for the past 4 decades...Keystone has lower emissions than transporting by rail..I'm also a believer in holistic range management as was potentially curb AGW.
I also think we need to devise mitigation plans to respond to actual warming. We aren't going to deny the third world their industrial revolutions or have much sway over India and China. Assuming the science has settled, the US alone is not going to be able to affect AGW.
BustedKnuckles
Footballguy
Sand
Footballguy
Exactly - we are a 300million person country in a 7 billion person world. Even though we consume more per capita the rest of the world is striving to catch up. Many of these humans will use what is the most available to use, and by and large that is fossil fuels. Nothing we do will make a dent. We have to find something that is attractive to every human on the planet.
Seriously, dump the useless billions being wasted on GW research and funnel it into fundamental efficiency increases in current technologies (turbine efficiency increases would be HUGE) and carbon free energy research.
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Antarctic sea ice hits 35 year high
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/09/23/antarctic-sea-ice-hit-35-year-record-high-saturday/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/09/23/antarctic-sea-ice-hit-35-year-record-high-saturday/
Lutherman2112
Footballguy
Is it truly incredible that sea ice is increasing in Antarctica while continental ice is decreasing?
msommer
Footballguy
Esa's Cryosat mission detects continued West Antarctic ice lossBy Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News, San Francisco
Continue reading the main story Related StoriesWest Antarctica continues to lose ice to the ocean and this loss appears to be accelerating, according to new data from Europe's Cryosat spacecraft.
- Mission to understand huge glacier
- Antarctic flood produces 'ice crater'
- Sea-level rise finally quantified
The dedicated polar mission finds the region now to be dumping over 150 cubic km of ice into the sea every year.
It equates to a 15% increase in West Antarctica's contribution to global sea level rise.
Cryosat was launched in 2010 with a radar specifically designed to measure the shape of ice surfaces.
And the instrument's novel design, scientists believe, is enabling the European Space Agency satellite to observe features beyond the capability of previous missions.
The new study, presented here in San Francisco to the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, confirms the usual suspects to be involved in the increased ice loss.
They are Pine Island, Thwaites and Smith Glaciers.
These major glaciers and their associated tributaries drain the interior of West Antarctica, taking its mass into the Amundsen Sea.
The ice near to their grounding lines - the places where the ice streams lift up off the land and begin to float out over the ocean - is now thinning by between four and eight metres per year.
"Interestingly, Smith Glacier is thinning fastest," said study leader Dr Malcolm McMillan from the UK's Nerc Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM).
"It's smaller but its thinning rate is roughly double that of Pine Island or Thwaites, which tend to get all the headlines because they have such huge catchments," he told BBC News.
In a recent major review of all satellite data, scientists concluded that ice losses from West Antarctica pushed up global sea levels by some 0.28mm a year between 2005 and 2010.
The new Cryosat data picks up from the end of that period, and suggests the contribution has risen still further.
Cryosat's double antenna configuration allows it to map slopes very effectively
However, the mission's researchers caution that some of the increase may simply be the result of Cryosat's exceptional radar vision.
With two antennas slightly offset from each other, the spacecraft's instrument is tuned to sense not just the height of the ice but the shape of its slopes and ridges.
This interferometric observing mode, as it is known, makes Cryosat much more sensitive to details at the edges of the ice sheet - the locations where thinning is most pronounced.
"Cryosat's new mode was designed with the express purpose of detecting changes in coastal regions of the polar ice sheets and, although this first glimpse confirms the design is a roaring success, sadly, it reveals also that there has been no let-up in the rate of ice loss from West Antarctica," added Prof Andy Shepherd of Leeds University, a co-author on the study.
"Nevertheless, it's important to take care when interpreting these measurements.
"Although some of the changes are due to increased ice thinning, others are related to Cryosat's capacity to observe previously unseen terrain and, of course, three years is a very short period for detecting trends.
"The longer we are able to fly this exceptional mission, the more certain we will be about making comparisons to the past."
msommer
Footballguy
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27381010
Nothing can stop retreat' of West Antarctic glaciersBy Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News
Thwaites Glacier is a huge ice stream draining into the Amundsen Bay
Continue reading the main story Related StoriesKey glaciers in West Antarctica are in an irreversible retreat, a study team led by the US space agency (Nasa) says.
- Big glacier's retreat 'irreversible'
- Data to expose 'sleeping ice giant'
- Satellite detects Antarctic ice loss
It analysed 40 years of observations of six big ice streams draining into the Amundsen Bay and concluded that nothing now can stop them melting away.
Although these are abrupt changes, the timescales involved are likely measured in centuries, the researchers add.
If the glaciers really do disappear, they would add roughly 1.2m to global sea level rise.
The new study has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, but Nasa held a teleconference on Monday to brief reporters on the findings.
Prof Eric Rignot said warm ocean water was relentlessly eating away at the glaciers' fronts and that the geometry of the sea bed in the area meant that this erosion had now entered a runaway process.
Continue reading the main storyAnalysis David Shukman Science editor, BBC News
West Antarctica is one of the least accessible parts of the planet and it takes a huge effort to research the changes under way there. Nearly a decade ago, I joined a flight on an old US Navy patrol plane that made a gruelling 11-hour round trip from the southern Chilean city of Punta Arenas to Pine Island Glacier, which lies among the glaciers featured in these latest studies.
There was no possibility of landing and, if the worst were to happen, there was no-one close enough to offer any kind of rescue. This is research at its most daring. On board was a team from Nasa whose instruments were measuring the elevation and thickness of the ice below us. Even at this stage, it was clear that the glacier, far larger than anything you might see in Europe or North America, was speeding up.
Now the scientists have the benefit of repeated flights, copious satellite images and data from field trips. There is still a lot they do not understand about the pace of change and therefore the speed with which the melt will contribute to sea level rise. But the more detailed the research, the sharper the picture of rapid change.
"We present observational evidence that a large section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has gone into a state of irreversible retreat; it has passed the point of no return," the agency glaciologist explained.
"This retreat will have major consequences for sea level rise worldwide. It will raise sea levels by 1.2m, or 4ft, but its retreat will also influence adjacent sectors of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet which could triple this contribution to sea level."
The Amundsen Bay sector includes some of the biggest and fastest moving glaciers on Earth.
Pine Island Glacier (PIG), over which there has been intense research interest of late, covers about 160,000 sq km, or about two-thirds the area of the UK.
Like the Thwaites, Smith, Haynes, Pope, Smith and Kohler Glaciers in this region - the PIG has been thinning rapidly.
And its grounding line - the zone where the glacier enters the sea and lifts up and floats - has also reversed tens of km over recent decades.
What makes the group vulnerable is that their bulk actually sits below current sea level with the rock bed sloping inland towards the continent.
This is a geometry, say scientists, that invites further melting and further retreat.
The new study includes radar observations that map the underlying rock in the region, and this finds no ridge or significant elevation in topography that could act as a barrier to the glaciers' reverse.
"In our new study, we present additional data that the junction of the glaciers with the ocean - the grounding line - has been retreating at record speeds unmatched anywhere in the Antarctic," said Prof Rignot.
Recent European Space Agency satellite data has also recorded the glaciers' thinning and retreat
"We also present new evidence that there is no large hill at the back of these glaciers that could create a barrier and hold the retreat back. This is why we conclude that the disappearance of ice in this sector is unstoppable."
The researcher, who is also affiliated to the University of California, Irvine, attributed the underlying driver of these changes to global warming.
This, together with atmospheric behaviours influenced by a loss of ozone in the stratosphere, had created stronger winds in the Southern Ocean that were now drawing more warm water towards and under the glaciers.
Dr Tom Wagner, the cryosphere program scientist with Nasa, said it was clear that, in the case of these six glaciers, a threshold had been crossed.
"The results are not based on computer simulations or numerical models; they are based on the interpretation of observations," he told reporters.
"And I think this is an important point because this sometimes can get lost on the general public when they're trying to understand climate change and the implications."
Prof Rignot and colleagues put no real timescales on events, but a paper released by the journal Science to coincide with the Nasa media conference tries to do just this.
It does include computer modelling and was led by Dr Ian Joughin, a glaciologist at the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory. The study considers the particular case of Thwaites Glacier.
In the model, Dr Joughin's team is able to reproduce very accurately the behaviour of the glacier over the past 20 years.
The group then runs the model forwards to try to forecast future trends.
This, likewise, indicates that a collapse of the glacier is inevitable, and suggests it will most likely occur in the next 200 to 500 years.
Prof Andy Shepherd, from Leeds University, UK, is connected with neither Rignot's nor Joughin's work.
He told BBC News: "[Joughin's] new simulations are a game changing result, as they shine a spotlight on Thwaites Glacier, which has until now played second fiddle to its neighbour Pine Island Glacier in terms of ice losses.
"There is now little doubt that this sector of West Antarctica is in a state of rapid retreat, and the burning question is whether and how soon this retreat might escalate into irreversible collapse. Thankfully, we now have an array of satellites capable of detecting the tell-tale signs, and their observations will allow us to monitor the progress and establish which particular scenario Thwaites Glacier will follow."
Prof Shepherd said the EU's newly launched Sentinel-1a radar satellite would have a unique capability to assess the glaciers' grounding lines.
"As soon as the satellite reaches its nominal orbit, we will turn its eye on Thwaites Glacier to see whether it has indeed changed as predicted."
Money, power, control. It is all about taxing, regulating, and carbon-trading schemes which they are heavily invested in.
Koya
Footballguy
The scientific community is in on this grand conspiracy? Most if the other advanced nations? Do you really think they are LOOKING for excuses to tax and regulate? Gonna need to see some fairly hard evidence here to ignore what still spears to be an absolutely overwhelming amount of data that says we are on the verge of some very damaging effects.
jonessed
Footballguy
You don't?I'm on board with preparation for possible changes. That seems the realistic and prudent course.
The same bodies that demand decisive action also point out that there is very little we can do about it.
I definitely think there are governments and organizations using this to push regulation and taxes onto people that really aren't going to deter global warming much, if at all. Most things devolve back into money and power. To believe that this is the one true altruistic movement seems naive. There are a lot of people getting wealthy off of this.
That doesn't mean they are wrong, but I tend to take the latest, greatest catastrophe that needs immediate conforming and funding with a grain of salt. Playing with energy costs is a big deal economically. We need to be prudent and balanced with our decision-making.
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Not the scientific community, but the IPCC board.....absolutely. The other advanced nations are all for solutions if it means sticking it to the US. Once it comes and takes a bite out of their wallet, they start singing a different tune.
Gr00vus
Footballguy
pantagrapher
Footballguy
Yeah, awful. But he doesn't dispute the findings, just the way they come across in headlines (even the story I linked makes it clear what kind of timeline we're talking about here). And the key point is that what's occurring now, if the scientific observations are correct, is irreversible.
Seems he disputes that it's related to man made global warming when he notes the ice loss has been happening for centuries.
TheIronSheik
SUPER ELITE UPPER TIER
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/meteorologist-lennart-bengtsson-joins-climate-skeptic-think-tank-a-968856.html
Lennart Bengtsson decides to go to work for the dark side
Lennart Bengtsson decides to go to work for the dark side
