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SCI/TECH: Strongest Evidence for Global Warming is Fundamentlly Flawed

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posted on Oct, 15 2004 @ 05:43 AM
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The research of University of Massachusetts geoscientist Michael Mann has long been the strongest evidence that humans are the primary cause of global warming. His famous "hockey stick" graph which shows that our planet suddenly began to heat up 100 years ago, at the same time we began burning oil and coal, has been the strongest evidence of the environmental lobbies argument that global warming is not only real, but that it is our fault. However new research into the methods Michael Mann used to generate hs famous hockey stick graph by Canadian scientists Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick has shown that hs results were biased by the math he used to generate it.
 



www.technologyreview.com
Progress in science is sometimes made by great discoveries. But science also advances when we learn that something we believed to be true isn�t. When solving a jigsaw puzzle, the solution can sometimes be stymied by the fact that a wrong piece has been wedged in a key place.

In the scientific and political debate over global warming, the latest wrong piece may be the �hockey stick,� the famous plot (shown below), published by University of Massachusetts geoscientist Michael Mann and colleagues. This plot purports to show that we are now experiencing the warmest climate in a millennium, and that the earth, after remaining cool for centuries during the medieval era, suddenly began to heat up about 100 years ago--just at the time that the burning of coal and oil led to an increase in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.

I talked about this at length in my December 2003 column. Unfortunately, discussion of this plot has been so polluted by political and activist frenzy that it is hard to dig into it to reach the science. My earlier column was largely a plea to let science proceed unmolested. Unfortunately, the very importance of the issue has made careful science difficult to pursue.


Please visit the link provided for the complete story.


And so once again we are faced with a situation where flawed scence has been used to support the theories and hypothesis of those who believe that humans are causing the world to get hotter. While this new discovery does not mean that humans are not causing global climate change it does weaken the argument that we are. Unlike what most environmentalists want you to believe there is still no hard evidence that humans are responsible for global climate change. n the end this only means that more research must be done to determine f what we believe to be happening even is.

[edit on 15-10-2004 by mwm1331]

[edit on 15-10-2004 by mwm1331]



posted on Oct, 15 2004 @ 07:57 AM
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I've never been convinced that we are experiencing global warming.

I don't doubt that deforestation, and CO2 emissions have an effect - I just doubt we are able to accurately predict the long-term effect this is having.

Whatever we do the climate, the Earth's relationship to the Sun has a much more profound effect. Ice ages come and go with great frequency. They do much more to the climate than we do ourselves.



posted on Oct, 15 2004 @ 08:58 AM
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Let all buy SUV, invade iraq and bump up oil consumption...


Global warming is completely real!

I was wondering what was happening to my snow back in 1989, so don't tell me it aint happenin. It was 15 years ago and skiing back to the villages was becoming a luxury. The village in this case is north side at approx 1800 meters!!


Edit:SPELLING!!

[edit on 15/10/2004 by Corinthas]



posted on Oct, 15 2004 @ 10:07 AM
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One week they tell us that red meat is bad for you, then next it's the best thing that you can eat... same with chocolate. One week global warming is upon us, then next things are as they always are (or should be). The majority of our oxygen comes not from forrests, but from grasslands and from ocean plant-life (at least according to an article I once read in the university newspaper).

I think that this is just more evidence that EVERY scientific "finding" is little more than an educated guess and that we never really KNOW anything lol. How about the new "finding" that claims... oil may not be as limited in quantity as we thought...?
Pressure not fossils create hydrocarbons

I'm not singing praise and glory for pollution, but we need to remember that there have been doomsayers since civilization began.



posted on Oct, 15 2004 @ 10:44 AM
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For one, where is the reference? What journal did the Canadians publish in?

Secondly, one strike against one paper on global warming doesn't negate the phenomena itself.

That graph is the strongest evidence? Please. How about melting glaciers? How about Antarctica melting away? Greenland melting. Gee, I guess real empirical observation isn't worth squat anymore when some geeks found a math error in another geek's geekery. Nevermind ice cores that show a dramatic increase in CO2. Nevermind that nearly any method you choose shows that we are on a warming trend. That the Earth is getting warmer is not in doubt. What is in doubt is how much of an effect we've had in this process.

But whether or not we caused the problem is really besides the point, now isn't it? Our only concern at this point is how to make the environment more amenable to humans. If that involves reducing CO2 emissions, so be it. I don't see what the big deal is. We know oil reserves are being rapidly depleted, we know that oil is getting expensive (both in terms of extraction/processing costs and its political costs). We know that burning petroleum products makes unsightly and unhealthy pollution in our cities. What is the problem here? I don't see why the energy is spent in arguing an obvious point instead of thinking of a solution to the problem (whether or not it is our fault--though it is sort of hard to argue that the amount of CO2 we spew into the atmosphere each year is something that the Earth has seen yearly throughout its history before humans). Gee, like the world would really be terrible if we bothered to re-plant some forrests, switched to cleaner burning fuels, and reduced our use of fossil fuels. Why on Earth would that be so terrible?



posted on Oct, 15 2004 @ 10:49 AM
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Yes, the problem is exactly that. Sometimes scientific 'opinion' is confused with scientific 'fact'

You can prove some things conclusively through sound methods and practical experiementation, but when it comes to things like the Earth it gets a tad more complicated.

It's true than C02 emisions have increased since the industrial revolution - but that is only one component in an impossibly complex system.



posted on Oct, 15 2004 @ 10:55 AM
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I don't understand. Greenhouse gases are those which cause retention of heat. CO2 is a greenhouse gas (so is water when a vapor). Industry results in large emissions of CO2. Everyone agrees to that point at least right?

Now, does anyone dispute that industrial emmissions result in atmosphere concentrations of CO2 being higher than 'normal'? If so, what factor accounts for the elimination of the CO2 industrial input? I'm not saying that there can't be anything, but I'd like to know what that factor is supposed to be. It can be concentrated/absorbed by the oceans for example, but is that what people are claiming?



posted on Oct, 15 2004 @ 11:50 AM
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Nemesis: The sun's compainion proposed to be between 1 - 3 light years away.

Since the discovery of Nemesis it has been made possible that dinosaur extinction was due to meterorite showers pitched towards our inner solar system from this neighbour sun. Its effects leaving earth in a hemisphere of dust acting like a greenhouse, melting polar ice caps and causing an ice age.

It is not believed that nemesis could be to blame for our past ice ages for there have not been any comets involved. Humans would never have been subjcted to one of these meteorite mega-blast's if there is truth to Nemesis becoming further away with time. There would still be obvious effects on our inner solar system if these intimate attractions between suns continued to occur regardless of growing distance. But perhaps thats just it; a magnetic connection not strong enough to pull rocks hurling towards earth but strong enough to send the suns energy in the direction unattending to its solar system....



posted on Oct, 15 2004 @ 12:09 PM
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Originally posted by BirdsEyeView
Nemesis: The sun's compainion proposed to be between 1 - 3 light years away.

Since the discovery of Nemesis

There has been no discovery of nemesis. Its a hypothesis, one lacking sufficient evidence to suport it.

Its effects leaving earth in a hemisphere of dust acting like a greenhouse, melting polar ice caps and causing an ice age.

There was no ice age shortly after the dinosaurs died. Some have hypothesised that the impact from the -single- meteor in the yucatan (not a shower of dozens) threw dust into the air, blotted out the sun, and resulting in somethign like a "nuclear winter", but not an ice age.



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