Climategate

[photon]

A lot of graphs start well into the 1800's:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2011/

EDIT: Not saying that that means it started well into the 1800's, I don't think I've read anything that puts a specific year onto when it started, as you go back and as human CO2 emissions decrease the impact is going to get smaller until it becomes insignificant compared to other factors, so it's kind of like asking where red turns to orange on a spectrum.

[Tinordi]

Meh, I meant since we started recording temperature which was around 120 years ago. Once again, splitting hairs, the basic and important point stands.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Meh, I meant since we started recording temperature which was around 120 years ago. Once again, splitting hairs, the basic and important point stands.

It seems strange that "splitting hairs" is an acceptable practice one way but not the other.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by blankall

It seems strange that "splitting hairs" is an acceptable practice one way but not the other.

Explain where I've been splitting hairs?

[Gozer]

Originally Posted by blankall

You've clearly already dismissed the alternative hypotheses before even looking into them.

A rather lazy footing for such an unpleasant stance.

He is making a bold argument with the intention of defending it - if he was making a mealy-mouthed pseudo-argument then it may be a waste of time (as surely he would obfuscate or conflate his initial comments).

But he's putting it on a tee for you; swing.

Originally Posted by blankall

The fact you've taken the "Earth is warming" as a definite conclusion says enough.

Ah, and you don't....

Originally Posted by blankall

I believe that human induced global warming is probably happening

What's your point then?

Originally Posted by blankall

Am I open to new ideas? Absolutely. Should we be encouraging freedom of thought on the issue? Absolutely.

This adds nothing.

Originally Posted by blankall

Once again, it's not the content of the AGW crowd I disagree with, it's their methods and the hijacking of the scientific process.

He asked for two other theories - how that is "hijacking the scientific process" ?

[zuluking]

http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=1258

The ocean has been warming for approximately 100 years. How can that be?

[troutman]

Originally Posted by zuluking

http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=1258

The ocean has been warming for approximately 100 years. How can that be?

Roemmich believes the new findings, a piece of a larger puzzle of understanding the earth's climate, help scientists to understand the longer record of sea-level rise, because the expansion of seawater due to warming is a significant contributor to rising sea level. Moreover, the 100-year timescale of ocean warming implies that the Earth's climate system as a whole has been gaining heat for at least that long.

I don't see how the last sentence rules out man-made global warming as being a factor. Has the warming of the oceans accelerated? How were ocean temperature measured 100 years ago?

This is a new tact for denialists. Before some have argued that oceans are cooling.

http://skepticalscience.com/cooling-oceans.htm

[SeeGeeWhy]

I've never understood why we can't just look at this from the perspective that polluting the planet (atmosphere, earth or water) is a benefitial thing. Why do we have to draw a dotted line to a potential consequence that will be impossible to move to a solid line such as climate change in order to know that this is a bad thing and that we need to change how we live? Why not look at deaths of people related to lung disease and asthma in population centres that have horrible air quality and say "enough"? Senseless.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

I've never understood why we can't just look at this from the perspective that not polluting the planet (atmosphere, earth or water) is a benefitial thing. Why do we have to draw a dotted line to a potential consequence that will be impossible to move to a solid line such as climate change in order to know that this is a bad thing and that we need to change how we live? Why not look at deaths of people related to lung disease and asthma in population centres that have horrible air quality and say "enough"? Senseless.

Fixed.

But yes I agree 100%. Whether or not man made global warming is occuring there are infinite incentives to use less oil and pollute less, in general.

The answer to your question: because politics are involved.

[zuluking]

Originally Posted by troutman

Roemmich believes the new findings, a piece of a larger puzzle of understanding the earth's climate, help scientists to understand the longer record of sea-level rise, because the expansion of seawater due to warming is a significant contributor to rising sea level. Moreover, the 100-year timescale of ocean warming implies that the Earth's climate system as a whole has been gaining heat for at least that long.

I don't see how the last sentence rules out man-made global warming as being a factor. Has the warming of the oceans accelerated? How were ocean temperature measured 100 years ago?

This is a new tact for denialists. Before some have argued that oceans are cooling.

http://skepticalscience.com/cooling-oceans.htm

It doesn't rule out AGW as being a factor. I didn't say that. It does show warming of the ocean as having started long before AGW would have been a concern. Which begs the question, why? Not to mention the questions you've posed above as well.

I don't see this study as "a new tact for denialists." Is it not legitimate science?

[blankall]

Originally Posted by zuluking

It doesn't rule out AGW as being a factor. I didn't say that. It does show warming of the ocean as having started long before AGW would have been a concern. Which begs the question, why? Not to mention the questions you've posed above as well.

I don't see this study as "a new tact for denialists." Is it not legitimate science?

There are two kinds of people in this world:

1) Those that vehemently say that AGW is the only possible explanation and must vehemently attack all information/people who challenge that view in any way; and

2) Deniers.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by zuluking

It doesn't rule out AGW as being a factor. I didn't say that. It does show warming of the ocean as having started long before AGW would have been a concern.

When would have AGW become a concern? It was identified as a potential problem at least 100 years ago.

http://new.globalwarmingart.com/imag.../Arrhenius.pdf

Arrhenius’s paper (1896) is the first to quantify the contribution of carbon dioxide to the greenhouse effect (Sections I-IV) and to speculate about whether variations in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide have contributed to long-term variations in climate (Section V). Throughout this paper, Arrhenius refers to carbon dioxide as “carbonic acid” in accordance with the convention at the time he was writing.

Contrary to some misunderstandings, Arrhenius does not explicitly suggest in this paper that the burning of fossil fuels will cause global warming, though it is clear that he is aware that fossil fuels are a potentially significant source of carbon dioxide (page 270), and he does explicitly suggest this outcome in later work.

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm#S1

I don't know when mad-made CO2 became a significant factor. The last link suggests:

As seen in hundreds of thousands of measurements analyzed by three independent groups, it began a steady rise in the 1970s. That was just when greenhouse gas levels reached a level high enough to be important:

[photon]

Originally Posted by zuluking

It does show warming of the ocean as having started long before AGW would have been a concern.

Well

a) So? Are other factors not allowed to operate in the absence of the influence of AGW? Of course not. So inferring a contradiction with the question "The ocean has been warming for approximately 100 years. How can that be?" is fallacious.

b) CO2 levels were rising through the 1800's (the industrial revolution beginning 1750), so a portion of the warming in the past 100 years being due to AGW isn't impossible.

[zuluking]

Originally Posted by photon

Well

a) So? Are other factors not allowed to operate in the absence of the influence of AGW? Of course not. So inferring a contradiction with the question "The ocean has been warming for approximately 100 years. How can that be?" is fallacious.

b) CO2 levels were rising through the 1800's (the industrial revolution beginning 1750), so a portion of the warming in the past 100 years being due to AGW isn't impossible.

a) I'm not suggesting that factors can or cannot operate in the absence of AGW. However, ocean warming has been used as a supporting factor for AGW. If my inference is fallacious due to your criteria, then the correlation drawn between ocean warming and AGW must be fallacious as well.

b) The amounts of CO2 levels being emitted during the 1800's versus the last half of the 1900's are not comparable. There should not be consistent ocean warming if CO2 were the dominating factor. It is not impossible, but improbable.

[zuluking]

Very cool study on the impact of supernova activity on biodiversity also tying in plate tectonics and climate variability.

http://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press...arth-to-thrive

[calculoso]

CBC: Dinosaur flatulence may have led to global warming

Sauropods may have produced more methane gas than all modern sources combined

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/st...e-methane.html

[Notorious Honey Badger]

Originally Posted by calculoso

CBC: Dinosaur flatulence may have led to global warming

Sauropods may have produced more methane gas than all modern sources combined

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/st...e-methane.html

I had to check this article 3 times to make sure it wasn't the onion.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by calculoso

CBC: Dinosaur flatulence may have led to global warming

Sauropods may have produced more methane gas than all modern sources combined

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/st...e-methane.html

The major flaw with this theory is that they don't take into account the gasses released by the plants that the dinosaurs eat as they decompose. They also don't take into account the CO2 that plants absorb as they grow new material to replace the material eaten by the dinorsaurs.

Humans on the other hand release new CO2 that was previously being stored in the Earth.

[calculoso]

Originally Posted by Notorious Honey Badger

I had to check this article 3 times to make sure it wasn't the onion.

Damn vegetarians ruining it for the rest of us...

[Tinordi]

Heartland Institute equates murderers to believes in climate science in new billboard campaign, summarily loses corporate sponsors:

http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0508-h...statefarm.html