State of the Union
- Thread starter GopherT
- Start date
- Status
And they are both mugging for the camera.
I was waiting for that phrase too, it didn't happen!
bountyhunter
- Joined Sep 7, 2009
- 2,512
That's because there are so many people who think that if the world's average temperature warms up by three degrees, it means every place on earth will just be three degrees warmer with no other changes.
"Climate change" is the only accurate term since, as 90% of the US has found out in recent weeks, very minor changes in jet stream patterns can plunge most of the US into the ice age.
And as far as 'climate change' goes. Isn't the planet still warming up FROM THE LAST ICE AGE. I mean, the glaciers covered almost 50% of the liveable surface area of this planet just a few thousand years before written history began and they took almost 20,000 years to get that way!
With a time scale like that, I imagine the year to year flux of temperature doesn't mean diddly. We slide from frozen ball of ice to about where we are now, and have done so many, many times before this last ice age.
To me, this is indicative of a CYCLE. We cool off, we warm up. Over and over and over again. The planet has been doing this all by itself for 100's of thousands of years. I am doubtful of the mechanism of fossil fuel production being our big problem maker in this cycle. I am placing my bets on THE SUN being responsible for our bouncing back and forth between ball of ice and the way it is now.
The sun is currently experience a very mellow, quiet period. Sunspot cycle is supposed to be peaking now and the surface of the star is absolutely devoid of sunspots. VERY quiet. WE ALSO are experiencing the coldest January in 100 years. I think this is very interesting corollary and I'm puzzled by the dogged resistance of critical thinkers to consider such things.
A single large volcanic eruption can put more 'Greenhouse' gasses into our atmosphere in a day than our entire industrial output can produce in several years. Yet some people are insisting that only MAN is responsible for this planets good weather fortunes. Man is undeniably arrogant, but also seems to be irresponsibly stubborn and blind to long term mechanisms. Blinded by the short term goals and day to day repetition of our fleetingly short lives to all the grandeur of these huge long term cyclical changes of this solar systems heat engine(sun) and the little rock, on whose surface we live and die so quickly.
I also don't think this is a political topic. It is a very scientific, economic, and fiscal one. $$$ concerns and power grabs by our elected leaders have turned this into a political concern, but nothing political will change the physical dynamics of our solar system and Earth's cyclical temperature variations. We simply do not have the historical depth of field to know how wide the year to year variation of global temperature deviates over the long stretches of time between ice ages. Nor do we know how much deviation in solar output varies over those time scales. The solar heating of this planet is also affected by the density of dust and gas in the areas our solar system travels through on its long orbit of the galactic center of the Milky Way Galaxy. So many long time scale factors are involved in the solar mechanisms of how our planets temperature is maintained that the puny short term length of 100 or 200 years is scientifically unfit for making any sound predictions about global temperature mechanisms. So far, we can determine that temperatures have not deviated so far as to kill ALL life on the planet at any time in the past, but they have come close. All of it WITHOUT any human contribution at all.
Now rest your eyeballs, and rap out a heated dissenting point of view if you must. You will not change my mind, but others might be persuaded to believe in human contributions being the only factor we should be considering. I mean, after all, we can't change any of the other deciding dynamics of this Earths warming and cooling cycles. Might as well make some $$$ deluding the populace that lowering a gas percentage currently measured in parts per million by a few percentage points can 'save our planet'.
Actually wish I'd thought of it. I wouldn't mind being rich and living the lifestyle of the guys who are profiting from this scheme. But then again, I'm just a critical thinker, not a crook.
With a time scale like that, I imagine the year to year flux of temperature doesn't mean diddly. We slide from frozen ball of ice to about where we are now, and have done so many, many times before this last ice age.
To me, this is indicative of a CYCLE. We cool off, we warm up. Over and over and over again. The planet has been doing this all by itself for 100's of thousands of years. I am doubtful of the mechanism of fossil fuel production being our big problem maker in this cycle. I am placing my bets on THE SUN being responsible for our bouncing back and forth between ball of ice and the way it is now.
The sun is currently experience a very mellow, quiet period. Sunspot cycle is supposed to be peaking now and the surface of the star is absolutely devoid of sunspots. VERY quiet. WE ALSO are experiencing the coldest January in 100 years. I think this is very interesting corollary and I'm puzzled by the dogged resistance of critical thinkers to consider such things.
A single large volcanic eruption can put more 'Greenhouse' gasses into our atmosphere in a day than our entire industrial output can produce in several years. Yet some people are insisting that only MAN is responsible for this planets good weather fortunes. Man is undeniably arrogant, but also seems to be irresponsibly stubborn and blind to long term mechanisms. Blinded by the short term goals and day to day repetition of our fleetingly short lives to all the grandeur of these huge long term cyclical changes of this solar systems heat engine(sun) and the little rock, on whose surface we live and die so quickly.
I also don't think this is a political topic. It is a very scientific, economic, and fiscal one. $$$ concerns and power grabs by our elected leaders have turned this into a political concern, but nothing political will change the physical dynamics of our solar system and Earth's cyclical temperature variations. We simply do not have the historical depth of field to know how wide the year to year variation of global temperature deviates over the long stretches of time between ice ages. Nor do we know how much deviation in solar output varies over those time scales. The solar heating of this planet is also affected by the density of dust and gas in the areas our solar system travels through on its long orbit of the galactic center of the Milky Way Galaxy. So many long time scale factors are involved in the solar mechanisms of how our planets temperature is maintained that the puny short term length of 100 or 200 years is scientifically unfit for making any sound predictions about global temperature mechanisms. So far, we can determine that temperatures have not deviated so far as to kill ALL life on the planet at any time in the past, but they have come close. All of it WITHOUT any human contribution at all.
Now rest your eyeballs, and rap out a heated dissenting point of view if you must. You will not change my mind, but others might be persuaded to believe in human contributions being the only factor we should be considering. I mean, after all, we can't change any of the other deciding dynamics of this Earths warming and cooling cycles. Might as well make some $$$ deluding the populace that lowering a gas percentage currently measured in parts per million by a few percentage points can 'save our planet'.
Actually wish I'd thought of it. I wouldn't mind being rich and living the lifestyle of the guys who are profiting from this scheme. But then again, I'm just a critical thinker, not a crook.
Hi.
I think the concern is down to the rate at which global temperature rises has increased dramatically very recently.
I believe it has taken something like 10000 years for the planet to increase in mean temperature by 5C (from data being retrieved from ice measurements at the poles), but it has taken only 50 years to rise 0.5C. Other increases by such a factor have taken place since the Pinedale glaciation, but at much slower paces.
Here's a graph showing a pretty curve.
Solar measurements, taken since the 70s, have showed that the sun's average output is continually decreasing.
However, I sometimes like to take the whole 'climate change' debate out of the argument for new sources of energy.
Even putting aside proven environmental effects such as acid rain, we have to think about other aspects. Personally, I think it is quite a shame that despite all of our amazing technology, ranging from the macro to the sub-atomic, we are all still dependant on burning stuff. Even the stuff we burn won't last forever. If we continue to put off investment into alternative energy, imagine the dangerous position we will be forced into if we ourselves are forced into research because no new wells have been discovered for 50 years. Once that bit of oil burns, which it will do someday, you need some alternative energy to take its place.
Personally, I think we should be exploring nuclear at this stage. The argument of safety is based on outdated technology - the USA has not built a nuclear reactor since three-mile island. Also, I feel that whilst wind technology isn't quite ready yet, it could have great potential given investment.
Who would say no to free electricity from their own wind turbine (private or industrial).
I see switching transport to be the biggest problem. Burning fuel is simply to convenient at the moment.
Anyhow,
Sparky
I think the concern is down to the rate at which global temperature rises has increased dramatically very recently.
I believe it has taken something like 10000 years for the planet to increase in mean temperature by 5C (from data being retrieved from ice measurements at the poles), but it has taken only 50 years to rise 0.5C. Other increases by such a factor have taken place since the Pinedale glaciation, but at much slower paces.
Here's a graph showing a pretty curve.
Solar measurements, taken since the 70s, have showed that the sun's average output is continually decreasing.
However, I sometimes like to take the whole 'climate change' debate out of the argument for new sources of energy.
Even putting aside proven environmental effects such as acid rain, we have to think about other aspects. Personally, I think it is quite a shame that despite all of our amazing technology, ranging from the macro to the sub-atomic, we are all still dependant on burning stuff. Even the stuff we burn won't last forever. If we continue to put off investment into alternative energy, imagine the dangerous position we will be forced into if we ourselves are forced into research because no new wells have been discovered for 50 years. Once that bit of oil burns, which it will do someday, you need some alternative energy to take its place.
Personally, I think we should be exploring nuclear at this stage. The argument of safety is based on outdated technology - the USA has not built a nuclear reactor since three-mile island. Also, I feel that whilst wind technology isn't quite ready yet, it could have great potential given investment.
Who would say no to free electricity from their own wind turbine (private or industrial).
I see switching transport to be the biggest problem. Burning fuel is simply to convenient at the moment.
Anyhow,
Sparky
Nice graph. The one that looks like a 'hockey stick' and was strongly contested. The one that when questioned as to data sources was discovered that the raw data could not be produced. It had been destroyed in some unlikely way.
Quote:
The George C. Marshall Institute alleged in June 1998 that MBH98 was deceptive in only going back to 1400: "Go back just a few hundred years more to the period 10001200 AD and you find that the climate was considerably warmer than now. This era is known as the Medieval Warm Period." It said that "by 1300 it began to cool, and by 1400 we were well into the Little Ice Age. It is no surprise that temperatures in 1997 were warmer than they were in the Little Ice Age", and so if "1997 had been compared with the years around 1000 AD, 1997 would have looked like a rather cool year" rather than being the warmest on record. It said that the Medieval Warm Period predated industrial greenhouse gas emissions, and had a natural origin.
Again, the data of a mere few hundred years cannot ever provide a true picture of the long term cycles of heating and cooling that take place.
For those who like graphs:
from this page. feel free to look over the other linked documents from the page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wegman_Report_fig_4.5_p_34.png
manipulated data, or factual data. Neither one can conclusively provide a true picture of the cooling and warming trends, nor can it give insight into the possible scale of deviation which occur between these long term cycles. The time scales are simply to short to be statically significant. All we know for SURE is the two extremes are Ice age and no ice age. What happens between these two ends of the curve and how much deviation occurs between are variable and due to mechanisms we cannot fathom as yet.
Quote:
The George C. Marshall Institute alleged in June 1998 that MBH98 was deceptive in only going back to 1400: "Go back just a few hundred years more to the period 10001200 AD and you find that the climate was considerably warmer than now. This era is known as the Medieval Warm Period." It said that "by 1300 it began to cool, and by 1400 we were well into the Little Ice Age. It is no surprise that temperatures in 1997 were warmer than they were in the Little Ice Age", and so if "1997 had been compared with the years around 1000 AD, 1997 would have looked like a rather cool year" rather than being the warmest on record. It said that the Medieval Warm Period predated industrial greenhouse gas emissions, and had a natural origin.
Again, the data of a mere few hundred years cannot ever provide a true picture of the long term cycles of heating and cooling that take place.
For those who like graphs:
from this page. feel free to look over the other linked documents from the page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wegman_Report_fig_4.5_p_34.png
manipulated data, or factual data. Neither one can conclusively provide a true picture of the cooling and warming trends, nor can it give insight into the possible scale of deviation which occur between these long term cycles. The time scales are simply to short to be statically significant. All we know for SURE is the two extremes are Ice age and no ice age. What happens between these two ends of the curve and how much deviation occurs between are variable and due to mechanisms we cannot fathom as yet.
The data used in his specific graph is freely available from the Hadley Met Centre.
Furthermore, I believe that it is widely accepted that the Earth is warming at an accelerated rate - the uncertainty is the cause/s.
Are you aware of the basic mechanics of the jet stream?
Outrage does not make something true or untrue. Copernicus was still right, despite 'outrage'.
Climate change will indeed always be with us. However, we are treading a new boundary between a species that simply exists off of its ecosystem, to one that could potentially manipulate it. It is not arrogant to think at all that we could affect it. We already do, in ways which are very visible.
But still, as I say, take out the whole climate change factor altogether.
Why shouldn't we invest in alternative energy? It cannot be denied that there is a finite amount of oil and that one day we will either have to stop using it, or choose not to use it.
Be it nuclear, wind, sea or whatever, surely it cannot be argued that it would be better not to invest in these cleaner technologies?
Surely research needs to be done now, whilst we have plenty of oil to back it up with?
- Status
