Explain this Al Gore

The period 900 - 1200 AD has been called the Little Climatic Optimum. It represents the warmest climate since the Climatic Optimum. During this period, the Vikings established settlements on Greenland and Iceland. The snow line in the Rocky Mountains was about 370 meters above current levels. A period of cool and more extreme weather followed the Little Climatic Optimum. A great drought in the American southwest occurred between 1276 and 1299. There are records of floods, great droughts and extreme seasonal climate fluctuations up to the 1400s.

From 1550 to 1850 AD global temperatures were at their coldest since the beginning of the Holocene. Scientists call this period the Little Ice Age. During the Little Ice Age, the average annual temperature of the Northern Hemisphere was about 1.0 degree Celsius lower than today. During the period 1580 to 1600, the western United States experienced one of its longest and most severe droughts in the last 500 years. Cold weather in Iceland from 1753 and 1759 caused 25 % of the population to die from crop failure and famine. Newspapers in New England were calling 1816 the year without a summer.

The period 1850 to present is one of general warming. Figure 7x-1 describes the global temperature trends from 1880 to 1999. This graph shows the yearly temperature anomalies that have occurred from an average global temperature calculated for the period 1951-1980. The graph indicates that the anomolies for the first 60 years of the record were consistently negative. However, beginning in 1935 positive anomolies became more common, and from 1980 to 1999 the anomolies were between 0.2 to 0.4° Celsius higher that the average for the 119 year period of study.

www.physicalgeography.net...


If man is responsible for global warming then how the "heck" does such a genius as AL GORE explain the warming period between 750 and 1200 AD? Please I would encourage all to go see the greatest 'comedy" ever man............GORE on the big screen..............This could replace the Rocky Horror movie.......

What you said is well known, people tend to ignore it though because it's not alarmist enough.

Bad news is good news and look how many people love the Kyoto protocol, which of course does nothing about pollution but raises billions in

*AIR TAXES*

"Come on guys I'm totally for serial" `South Park- Al Gore

Global warming is a lot of hype seriously they found ancient palm trees under Antarcticas ice and evidence that the North Pole used to be a tropical climate.

Most scientists who probably disagree will not come forward either as they do not want the ridicule of not fitting in with the intellectual elites.

Ah the “Medieval Warm Period.”

There is actually no good evidence that the Medieval Warm Period was indeed a global warming period. In that region, there may have been places that did exhibit notable warmth, but it is warmer now and the temperature is rising faster than at any time in the last one or even two thousand years.

www.ncdc.noaa.gov...

The idea of a global or hemispheric "Medieval Warm Period" that was warmer than today however, has turned out to be incorrect

I’m not Al Gore BTW, but I felt I should try to “explain this.”

Originally posted by The_Doctor
seriously they found ancient palm trees under Antarcticas ice

Yes, palm trees from 33 million years ago. The Antarctic region seen warming while Cro-Magnons were running around in a cold (Colder than current temperatures) European climate.
www.ngdc.noaa.gov...

I.e. not global warming.

New Zealand scientists believe that the warming in that region was cause by "Wobbles" in the Earth's orbit.

Whether Global Warming is manmade or not is, ultimately, immaterial. Global warming seems like a certainty and it's coming -- environmental changes and all -- whether we like it or not. It's a typical part of coming to terms with great change that we go through a period of blaming. Democrats blaming Republicans, one nation blaming another or, on a different vein, we pretend that the problem does not exist.

I haven't seen Gore's documentary so I will reserve comment on that but I will say that by simply bringing the issue to the consciousness of Americans and the world, we might be able to proceed past the blame issues and start working towards developing new technologies and strategies to deal with the future.

An example of this is to recognize, for example, that the ocean levels will be rising. We know this is coming. The Southern ice packs are melting in Antarctica and this will, eventually lead to sea levels rising. It's a no brainer. So, in this light, we could begin planning the way our cities are situated along the coasts. We should be asking whether it's even prudent to rebuild New Orleans, for example, along the coast, along areas that will be under water. Why must we be subjected to discussions about inadequate levees when we should simply move New Orleans inland. For that matter, we should be looking at all of our coastal cities in anticipation of ecological change.

Originally posted by thermopolis
If man is responsible for global warming then how the "heck" does such a genius as AL GORE explain the warming period between 750 and 1200 AD?

Al Gore is not a climatologist, he is a politician, everyone recognizes this.

Here is more information on the events discussed:
www.agu.org...

Also here
www.co2science.org...

Where sunspot activity is discussed.


As far as previous warming periods, there have been many periods in which global climate has warmed. Climate can be driven by orbital forcing mechanisms, such as changes in obliquity, eccentricty, etc. None of those factors explain the current warming trend, which 'just happens' to coincide with man-made increases in global atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

Originally posted by Nygdan
[Al Gore is not a climatologist, he is a politician, everyone recognizes this.

A politician who has been in the House and Senate for approximately 15 years and also 8 years as the Vice President. What did ALGORE do in all that time in public office to help his cause?

I can't believe this is still being argued, but maybe that's because I'm overly optimistic about the learning ability of the average human being.

That global warming is occurring and is at least partially human-caused has become pretty much the consensus of the scientific community, but hey, questioning and dispute are what science is all about, right? Still, you need to find the right and reputable sources.

I mean, there are industries with lots of money whose short-term profits face serious challenges from any action that might actually lower greenhouse-gas emissions, and they put out a lot of garbage. For that reason, you can't trust just any old thing on the net.

What you can trust, though, are peer-reviewed, responsible scientific journals. So I'm going to present this challenge to those who think global warming is a bunch of hype.

Please link for us articles from the following sources that make your point for you:

Nature (British umbrella scientific journal.)

Science (U.S. answer to Nature, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.)

Any peer-reviewed journal of climate science.

Any article from those sources can be trusted, not necessarily to be accurate, but at least to be honest and genuinely in service to science -- as opposed to the corporate-funded rubbish that is all over the place out there.

Originally posted by Two Steps Forward
I can't believe this is still being argued, but maybe that's because I'm overly optimistic about the learning ability of the average human being.

I think that comment right there should end this foolish thread once and for all

As far as previous warming periods, there have been many periods in which global climate has warmed. Climate can be driven by orbital forcing mechanisms, such as changes in obliquity, eccentricty, etc. None of those factors explain the current warming trend, which 'just happens' to coincide with man-made increases in global atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

REPLY: true, all of the above have a cause and effect. GW is happening as it has throughout history. A proponent of human caused GW claimed the earth hasn't been this warm for 400 years. Unfortunately, this was long before humans had the capability to cause it.

Solar activity, water vapor in the atmosphere, and their relation to the rotation of the earth on it's axis (closer or further from the sun) is what causes it. That mans industrial development happened to coincide with the warming from those occurances is pretty much just that; a coincidence.

Recent data from the TYROS-2 satellite, spanning 27 years, shows a

no such thing as GW.
its a cover up-
i can prove this u see. its like this.
go into yer garage and close the door.
turn the car ON. and sit there for 10 hours.
er hhhmm
Wait
Luckly we can do this OUT side huh.
turn car on and drive like the other 4billions people do in the world.
see no effect. dosent do a thing. we dont add to anything.

btw this Might sound bad but its a rather good anolagy.
if a person goes Cr*p once a day and it weighs 1 lb thats like normal.
now lets add that up.
theres roughy 7 billion people going number 2 everyday.
thats 7 billion pounds of cr*p a day
thats 2268 billion pounds a year
But we have no effect on the earth cause
our cr*p dont stink

If it's not happening then why are the (re)insurance companies panicking over global climate change?
It's happening. I've talked to enough scientists to hear the latest evidence. It's happening.
And there isn't much we can do about it.

by benevolent tyrant:
An example of this is to recognize, for example, that the ocean levels will be rising. We know this is coming. The Southern ice packs are melting in Antarctica and this will, eventually lead to sea levels rising.

REPLY: The following is related in some aspects, although I have to find my data on the icecaps, which I'll post here later:

As glaciologist Keith Echelmeyer of the University of Alaska's Geophysical Institute noted in September 1997 ( when Vice President Albert Gore made an issue of glacier recession in Glacier National Park): "To make a case that glaciers are retreating, and that the problem is global warming, is very hard to do. The physics are very complex. There is much more involved than just the climate response." Echelmeyer pointed out that, in Alaska, some large glaciers continue to advance in the very same areas where most are retreating.

The AP story doesn't say (and perhaps the Meier research paper doesn't say either) how the rate of glacier recession varied over the last century. If recession was initially rapid and then slowed, then it is very likely the result of the rapid rise in temperature between 1860 and 1940 as the Earth recovered from the Little Ice Age--and not from any global warming due to higher concentrations of CO2.

And indeed there is some evidence of that. [Added July 7, 2005] The IPCC report Climate Change 2001 (p.128) -- based mainly on data from the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich, Switzerland -- noted that until 1940 major mountain glaciers aroung the world were retreating. After 1940, however, about half of these same 20 glaciers stopped retreating and some were advancing.

What do over 2,600 climate scientists have in common?

2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and other environmental scientists (so far) have signed a petition saying that global warming hysteria is pseudoscientific baloney. They've been joined by an additional 5,017 chemists, biochemists, biologists, and other life scientists, and over 10,000 other scientists, attached to major universities and research organizations around the world. Yet if you went by what "environmental" activist groups like Greenpeace, Sierra Club, or the so-called "Environmental News Network" tell you, you'd think this petition, and others like it, never existed.

What do over 2,600 climate scientists have in common?

The Oregon Petition reads, in its entirety, as follows...

"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.'

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

The petition was put together by Dr. Frederick Seitz, the former President of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Thousands of qualified scientists have signed it, and more are signing all the time.

Oregon Petition?

en.wikipedia.org...

The term "scientists" is often used in describing signatories, but the petition [7] did not require signatories to have a degree, or a degree in a scientific field, or to be working in the field in which the signatory had received a degree. The signatory was not asked to provide the name of his/her current or last employer or job. The distribution of petitions was relatively uncontrolled: those receiving the petition could check a line that said "send more petition cards for me to distribute".

In 2005, Scientific American reported: [8]

Scientific American took a sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition —- one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers – a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community.
One newspaper reporter said, in 2005:[9]

In less than 10 minutes of casual scanning, I found duplicate names (Did two Joe R. Eaglemans and two David Tompkins sign the petition, or were some individuals counted twice?), single names without even an initial (Biolchini), corporate names (Graybeal & Sayre, Inc. How does a business sign a petition?), and an apparently phony single name (Redwine, Ph.D.). These examples underscore a major weakness of the list: there is no way to check the authenticity of the names. Names are given, but no identifying information (e.g., institutional affiliation) is provided. Why the lack of transparency?

timlambert.org...

I can't snip more-relevant-than-the-rest portions here. It's all good. Read it.

Two Steps Forward: Wiki???? Where practically anyone can edit it? Anyway, when Scientific American vets the entire list, including the 10,000 scientists, etc, then we'll have something to discuss. Remember, I agree GW is happening, but not the human caused (less that 2%) part, and not to the extent some claim.

Originally posted by zappafan1
Two Steps Forward: Wiki???? Where practically anyone can edit it?

Did you read the second link?

Anyway, when Scientific American vets the entire list

Guess you didn't.

They did.

The point here is that the Oregon Petition was mailed out to hundreds of thousands of people with degrees in any science whatsoever, even a BS in a field completely unrelated to climatology. Most of those who signed the petition were not scientists in the sense of people with advanced degrees practicing science, and still fewer were climate scientists.

What's more, the wording of the petition itself was very different from what was in the accompanying article. The petition does not state in effect, "I don't believe that global warming is human caused," only "I don't believe -- or anyway I'm not totally certain -- that we're facing complete catastrophe as a result."

As worded, I would have signed that petition myself. I'm NOT completely certain, beyond any doubt, that we're facing catastrophe or the end of civilization as a result of global warming. But I AM totally convinced that global warming is occurring, that it is at least in part caused by human release of greenhouse gases, and that the results overall will be bad. And they COULD be catastrophic.

The petition, in other words, says one thing, but it's hyped to say something else, something stronger. It's also hyped to be more authoritative than it really is, based on who signed it.

I'm more than willing to accept that global warming may be in a good part the result of natural change, but it's undeniable that human activity is contributing to produce a lot more gases and compound the greenhouse effect. Even if global warming was 70% due to natural causes and 30% due to human activity, it would be irresponsible to use that data to say "Well, this is just another natural cycle, we're not responsible, we can keep on doing what we've been doing and who cares about the future, as long as I can still drive my SUV!"

Such an attitude completely ignores the other impacts human activity (and especially driving gas guzzlers) can have on us - how many kids nowadays have asthma and severe allergies by the time they're 3 years old? How come some people who live in big cities for years have to have their lungs treated for accumulation of fluids due to allergic reactions?

I think that studies like the one mentioned in the first post are dangerous if they are used as a way to avoid responsibility and just go back to doing what we've been doing, oblivious to the consequences.

As the Beatles song goes... "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see".

You have voted Two Steps Forward for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have two more votes this month

Good info Two Steps.

Oraganizations with an Agenda (various energy ones) will go to great lengths to try and discredit GW and sway opinion, even if it means cooking data or misrepresenting it.

I mean, havent most credible climatologist already reached a concensus that humans are playing a role in GW? What do proponents of GW have to gain anyway? A cleaner earth? More efficent energy sources? Less dependence on oil?
Seriously, even if GW is a sham, if it results in a healthier life for us and the planet, preach on Al!