Originally posted by LogansRun

The ice shelf is but one of MANY factors that support the idea of GW. The ocean current is like the main engine for the regulation of planetary climate, and it is slowing. Large chunks of ice the size of small states are breaking free. Every year, when it re freezes, there is less and less ice pack. Polar bears, penguins and many other arctic creatures potentially face extinction if nothing is done. Bottom line, the Earth is warming up. Man's CO2 emissions are helping this to happen at a faster than normal rate. Just because you dont agree with it doesn't mean it isn't true. One other thing, the majority of anti GW research is funded by the very industries that are causing it to happen; i.e. coal, oil, gas, etc. There is really no debate on it anymore, the evidence is overwhelming. Some people prefer to keep their heads in the sand, this is scary as this affects EVERYONE on this rock.

Oh jesus...tell me something i don't know. But again, saying the ice is melting and braking off doesn't prove its global warming! It could be something completely different!

No debate? I think there is a perfect debate, because whilst global warming may actually exist, no one has yet proven that what we are experiencing is solely GW, or even GW at all!

Don't tell me about how it will affect us, i was thinking about global warming almost 9 years ago when i was 10, when everyone else couldn't care less.

Funny how one little media blitz on the subject in the last month or two has got everyones attention.

"its going to kill the planet", if said 10 years ago wouldn't even get a flinch from most people

"its going to kill our way of life", said today, and suddenly everyone is in a mode of fear...


I feel ashamed that so many people just go by what everyone else says (the consensus trance), it is really pathetic!

Originally posted by alphabetaone
Is it just me? Or does everyone seem to be missing Indy's point...to proclaim a global warming trend would be as misinformed as to proclaim a global cooling trend.

Whether short-term or long-term, climatological flucuations are normal across the globe.

It may become frigid in the tropics and arid in Seattle, however, from a CLIMATE standpoint, these types of Earth changes as indicated by ice core samples, sea sediment, etc. seem to be normal over many millenia. Our current Holocene is what seems to be out of place.

With that in mind, I often wonder are we, as humans, really ignorant enough to think, "hey ok! Mother Nature has leveled out for JUST us and no longer will she feel the need to normalize herself!"...to believe that the cataclysmic events that have plagued this planet since it's birth will just cease to function simply because WE are here? That CO2 in the vicinity of 500 PPM that existed millions of years ago (as opposed to the approx 390 PPM that we have now) was somehow brought on by some rogue alien society that decided to transport all of their vehicular exhaust from Planet Zero to Earth just to fool the Paleoclimatologists into believing that mankind could CERTAINLY not have created such an anamoly?

I clearly see Indy's point... I am of the belief that he's not saying that there is any trend at ALL...no "trend" has ended...I, however, choose to believe that what he's saying is the mindset of global warming should end though.


AB1

I've cast a WATS vote for AB1 for this post. Exaclty what I believe, and have tried to say a few times...just not as well.

Originally posted by shrunkensimon

Don't tell me about how it will affect us, i was thinking about global warming almost 9 years ago when i was 10, when everyone else couldn't care less.

Funny how one little media blitz on the subject in the last month or two has got everyones attention.


I feel ashamed that so many people just go by what everyone else says (the consensus trance), it is really pathetic!

Well then, that explains alot. For the record, I have been worried about the state of this planet far longer than 9 years, including global warming. It has taken 9 years to bring enough people into awareness to actually do something about it. Wake up, we live in the info age. 9 years ago, not as many people had info regarding global warming.

Originally posted by Indy

Credentials mean squat.

Not to me. You started this thread, and I asked you to back up your claims. Why should I believe you over people who make their entire careers out of studying this? Can you tell me why the tree in my back yard is blooming in January, and not just your opinion? This is your party man, I just want to know why you are throwing it. There is a lot of conflicting data. As I said, most of the research against global warming is funded by big oil, coal and energy interests, auto makers, etc. They are the ones with the most to lose if the public realizes the damage we are causing to this planet. So they can hire scientists too to cook the books in their favor. You want to talk about selective investigation, I suggest you start there. I am not saying that Global Warming is 100% mans fault, quite the opposite. I believe to some extent that we are naturally warming from the last ice age - that being said, I believe mans involvement is greatly speeding up the process. Oh, and credentials do mean squat - unless you work for the bush administrations group of environmental advisors who deny GW exists.

Originally posted by Regenmacher
Looks like the scientific community considers him a kook. He's a radiologist, not a climatologist, who has yet to publish that theory in a peer review journal:

You debate my link, a published article based on research, with a blog?
In which, they discredit that research yet dont allude to any credentials whatsoever of their own? I dunno...where's the jury when ya need one!

Originally posted by Regenmacher
That and water vapor levels rise "after" CO2 levels rise the atmosphere, not the other way around.

If you read what is probably the most important element of the realclimate.org article that you pointed out with respect to water vapor...it would have to be this:

When surface temperatures change (whether from CO2 or solar forcing or volcanos etc.),

Which also solidifies my position, BTW, on volcanism and Solar Radiation...all the while the article professing that Water Vapor is definitively the most important of the GHG's...Water Vapor reacts to changes of volcanic, solar forcing, or CO2... so to say that Water Vapor levels rise AFTER CO2 levels rise isnt a sound conclusion... a sound conclusion would be that ANY of those outside influences MAY affect Water Vapor level rise, or perhaps any ONE of them at increased intensity might cause Water Vapor level to rise.

Whichever the case, to conclude that CO2 is it! There's our enemy! Is about as solid as saying, oh I dunno.... Iraq has a stockpile of WMD that we should cap them off before they use em?? Hmmm was the only analogy I could think of at the moment.



AB1

Originally posted by LogansRun
Not to me. You started this thread, and I asked you to back up your claims. Why should I believe you over people who make their entire careers out of studying this?

Credentials do mean squat. Do you deny the rankings I posted are correct? This data comes from the WMO. They have credentials don't you think. The numbers are real. The difference is how you want to spin the headlines. If you are a sports team and your ranking goes from 1 to 3 to 4 to 5 to 2 to 6 would you say you are improving. Heck no. That is what the temps have done. They can spin away. Fact is the temps are trending downward. Plaster up any piece of paper you want. If the temps were trending upward when 1998 would have been passed up 5 or 6 times. But it hasn't been. The facts are facts. You have to weed through the misinformation that drives climate change science. IT is all about the money. I don't care what happened to your tree. Local weather doesn't equal global weather.

Also don't confuse ice mass with temperature changes. Ice mass is greatly effected my precipitation patterns and NOT temperature. If you get less moisture you will lose ice mass on a yearly basis. You can increase ice mass if temps go up because of precipitation. The mainstream media is banking on people now knowing the difference. It banks on people hearing warmest year on record and not reading through the story to see its actually the 6th warmest which is actually part of a cooling trend since 1998.

It is all about the money.

Originally posted by Indy

Originally posted by LogansRun
Not to me. You started this thread, and I asked you to back up your claims. Why should I believe you over people who make their entire careers out of studying this?

Credentials do mean squat. Do you deny the rankings I posted are correct? This data comes from the WMO. They have credentials don't you think.

I read the WMO link. Ya know what? Their conclusions state that there is something abnormal going on:

From YOUR link:

Averaged separately for both hemispheres, 2005 surface temperatures for the northern hemisphere (0.65oC above 30-year mean) are likely to be the warmest and for the southern hemisphere (0.32oC above 30-year mean), the fourth warmest in the instrumental record from 1861 to the present.

And this:

Globally, October 2005 was the warmest October on record, surpassing that of last year and June 2005 was the warmest June, surpassing that of 1998. Areas of significant warmth were widespread with large areas of Africa, Australia, Brazil, China and the United States showing significantly above-average temperatures. Much of the North Atlantic and tropical Indian Ocean were also significantly warm, along with the Gulf of Alaska. Sea-surface temperatures in the North Atlantic in 2005 are likely to be the warmest on record.

And this gem that blows your argument out of the water about the earth "cooling since 1998". That was the warmest year on record because of 2 things - global warming AND El Nino.
Again from your link:

The large-scale climate phenomenon El Niño can contribute to above-average warmth, as was the case with extremely strong 1997/1998 episode.


How bout one more to really nail this one in regarding the reduction of the arctic ice shelf:

Typically, September is the month with the least sea-ice extent in Arctic. By the end of September 2005, Arctic sea-ice extent dropped far below the average for the fourth consecutive year. It was about 20 per cent less than the 1979-2004 average, the lowest extent ever observed during the satellite record since 1979. Satellite information suggests a general decline of 8 per cent in end-of-September Arctic sea-ice extent over the last two and a half decades. Warmer-than-average Arctic temperatures and an early arrival of the sea-ice melt season are the main causes for the intensification of sea-ice decline in 2005.


Credentials mean alot. You might want to read thru your links that you provide to back up your statements to ensure that they actually back up your statements. I could pull dozens of other examples from the other links you provided as well. You see only what you want to see. I really suggest you do some more research. No offence, but I have been an advocate for environmental protection for most of my life. Global Warming very much exists. For someone to come here and post without one shred of valid info nor the credentials to back their opinion up, I really dont have any reason to believe what you post. It is all opinion. If you can find some better info to support your case, or show me how you know more that these scientists, please post it as I would love to read it.

I love the way you guys keep dancing around the facts. Are those global numbers not correct? They are correct. Global warming is supposed to be accelerating but the numbers don't back it up. There was a significant cooling trend in the 70's which most of us know about. There was the ice age fear. Then came the global warming of the 80's and 90's (ended in 1998). Based on when the cooling trend ended you are looking at around 20 years. It has been 8 years since the 1998 record and the ranking has moved DOWN 6 places. 8 years. That is almost half of that long warming trend where no progress was made. In fact ground has been lost. Man made global warming is a joke. No such thing exists. Natural global warming is at the end of the cycle. History says we are at the end. Only models which fail run after run say otherwise.

Ignore the evidence which is right in front of you and try to continue on a monthly event or an event in one area of the world. That is why GLOBAL averages are taken over an entire year not just one region for one month. And GLOBAL averages are down.

"For someone to come here and post without one shred of valid info nor the credentials to back their opinion up, I really dont have any reason to believe what you post. It is all opinion. If you can find some better info to support your case, or show me how you know more that these scientists, please post it as I would love to read it."

Do you deny those numbers I posted? Don't dance around the question. Don't try bringing up unrelated points. The question is very simple. Do you dispute the 1998, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 rankings? Do you deny the numbers issued by the WMO? The numbers are correct. 1st is a higher ranking than 2nd is it not? 2nd higher than 3rd right? 3rd higher than 4th correct? I'm sorry if basic rankings like this shoots down a decade if deception and makes more sense than fuzzy math. Unless of course you want to tell me that 2nd is a higher rank than first and fourth is higher than second. Please humor me.

[edit on 1/25/2007 by Indy]

Honestly,

Considering NONE of us were around during any periods of great climatic shift, I think instead of arguing over numerical models whose accuracy can only be speculative at best, the BEST answer lies in the same as war....hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

Any extreme climatic shift, be it cooling or warming, will have adverse effects, so it's only proper that OUR solution would be to prepare and treat mother Earth as we should have from the start...with respect. Start using our resources wisely (irrespective of the climate).

All we really CAN do, is wait and see what WILL happen with the climate...no one KNOWS, and we will survive no matter the outcome.

Maybe global warming HAS stopped, and maybe it's only just started...mother nature has thrown so many curves at us in the past, I'm sure she has no aversion to doing so again.

We, with calculators in hand, pocket protectors on, glasses taped, and brown striped pants riding too high would all be punching furiously at our keyboards while a tsunami pulls out the land from under us, or a glacier pushes us up against a wall.... not for me!! Either route she takes I wont spend it arguing over insignificant numbers that may or may not be applicable.


AB1

Quote:
"Which was, of course, exactly my point...with so many points to take into account, something as miniscule (especially when on average it encompasses in the vicinity of .05% to .25% of the overall Greenhouse Gasses) as CO2 can not POSSIBLY be the major cause."

Sorry to burst your bubble but this is simply not true. CO2 makes up more like about 90% at least of greenhouse effect. Co2 levels are about .05% of the earth's atmosphere, not greenhouse gases, big difference. You got this from that article in the journal you linked to? It's just simply wrong, that article was in a magazine that also has an article about science by Lyndon Larouche, not much credibility there I'm afraid. Anyway, Regenmacher already debunked this guy's credentials, but in addition he can't even get his facts straight, he's a looney.

Now back to the topic at hand: Indy, you have yet to answer my questions from page 1. I just don't understand how you can say that the ice age is coming with the information you have presented and I must say, subsequently apparently misinterpreted. It seems your hypothesis is based on a few years of cooling temps, which have now been debunked by Regenmacher as well. You have to look at long term trends, that's all there is to it. Scientists have been studying this since the '60's. I know because I was a teenager then. Even then, they hadn't conclued that an ice age was coming, as someone else on this thread stated. It was a big conflict between the global warming side and the ice age side - I'm talking scientists here, not lay people. But even then, the overwhelming evidence said global warming and the ice age advocates were in the minority. We've had 40 more years to learn more about it and there's no debate any more in the scientific community: it's been established that GW is real, it's here and it's much worse than anyone thought.
All you have to do is travel or look at some pictures of other places to realize how drastic this change has been. ShrunkenSimon, haven't you noticed taht the grass is brown in summer over there in the UK? Well, when I was there back in 1969, the summers were always very green and cool. Now, London feels like Palm Springs and everything is brown, at least last time I was there. Many other places have gone thru similar drastic changes.
I have been studying GW ever since the '60's when it first was talked about. That's about 40 years of study and observation of the changes our planet is going through. It's not even debatable any more that humans are the major cause. And yes the earth has natural cycles, but humans are making it far worse and our CO2 emissions are a major cause. We have also been rapidly destroying our forests, the lungs of the earth, so we have far less forests to help balance the CO2 levels. Read James Lovelock for further info on this.
And, Indy, you have yet to explain what your understanding of GW is, I'd like to hear that.

alphabetaone,

Reducing anthropogenic effects is still a win, even if we miscast global warming. I also see denying risk is utterly stupid and is what seperates man from monkeys. Just cause you're not in agreement with any data and think meteorological models are inaccurate, even though many are time tested and have been proven otherwise, is no reason to be yelling it's call crap and bury the head. Dismissing the data doesn't make it go away, and many of us are futurists and like to speculate.

ATS is the place to toss ideas around ideas and discuss them, otherwise there's not much reason to be here....deny ignorance, not embrace more of it.



[edit on 25-1-2007 by Regenmacher]