An inconvenient truth

[glatt]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Isn't there somebody (organization) that is the voice of reason, somebody that doesn't have an agenda?

Clearly a car guy, like the one who wrote the article in the first post, and oil companies, and politicians heavily supported by oil companies are going to have an agenda.

What is the agenda of Scientific American, other than to find the truth? I'm serious. I don't know of any agenda they would have. Do you?

[9th Engineer]

Problem is that every scientist is paid by someone somewhere who has an agenda. A company might not directly say "you will publish these statements as scientific fact", but they'll make it known that people who don't publish results that make them look good end up spinning their wheels. So most aren't lying, they're being forced to adopt the slant that pays the rent.

[Aliantha]

Some scientists are true to their beliefs. I think you'll actually find that very few are 'paid by the man' to say what they want said in fact.

I happen to know a few experts in the field of environmental management, and the true figures are frightening...hence my views I guess.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by 9th Engineer

Problem is that every scientist is paid by someone somewhere who has an agenda. A company might not directly say "you will publish these statements as scientific fact", but they'll make it known that people who don't publish results that make them look good end up spinning their wheels. So most aren't lying, they're being forced to adopt the slant that pays the rent.

Not all scientists work for companies.

My dad has reviewed grant applications for grants given out by the NSF. He's a college physics professor. He has no agenda. Not a political one anyway. His only agenda for the applications he reviewed was to make sure the area of science was worthwhile and that the money wasn't being wasted.

Who reviews NSF grant applications for the scientists doing climate research?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by glatt

Clearly a car guy, like the one who wrote the article in the first post, and oil companies, and politicians heavily supported by oil companies are going to have an agenda.

What is the agenda of Scientific American, other than to find the truth? I'm serious. I don't know of any agenda they would have. Do you?

Of course he's most likely bias, I stated that in the original post. What struck me is, it's the first nay sayer that sounded like he had a logical thought pattern, made a case with something besides volume to back it up.
I brought it here to find out where the flaws in the argument were, that I was missing, but I didn't get that. What I got was...... all the smart people think like me so you're wrong......and I'm not buying that.

I think there has to be flaws in his case or this would have been settled long ago, but I don't have the background to see them. That said, nobody has been able to counter with facts, only rhetoric. Considering it's a pretty small pool of people that really understand how much we don't know, I shouldn't be surprised.

I don't know what Scientific American's agenda might be, but what are there sources? Summations of peer reviewed papers? Published articles or interviews by scientists they respect? Scientists that have always helped them meet their deadlines? Scientists that belong to the right clique? I don't know, but I'm skeptical of all sides on this issue, especially when they're venturing opinions.

Maybe we should stop worrying and hand it off to Haliburton.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Question on approving NSF grants. When there are more applicants than money, who gets it? Known people with a track record? Based on the outline of the request, regardless of who it is....presuming they have reasonable credentials?

I wonder if your Dad is ever approached for favors...like, there's this young guy that I think has a future but he needs to get a grant to get his career started, kind of thing? Nothing dishonest or even unethical, just back scratching, old boy network, boosterism.

aside..That got me thinking about grants. I know some High School teachers that got grants (not NSF) every summer for the damnedest things. One girl spent the summer, living well in Boston, researching 11th century erotic poetry. Wrote a 3 page report, that nobody read, in exchange for a summer in Boston. English teachers can do that.

[WabUfvot5]

Climate change is incredibly complex. We really won't know what effect car emissions and oil have on it without hindsight. Asking some people to consume less fuel must be equivalent to asking them to sacrifice their first born in the name of Ólvrårg. If the cost of fuel gluttony is mass extinction then I'd prefer to err on the side of caution. It's not like there is 0 pollution from vehicle emissions anyway.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

Some scientists are true to their beliefs. I think you'll actually find that very few are 'paid by the man' to say what they want said in fact.
--snip--

What is more common is to have someone who is "paid by the man" to say what the man wants said, but who walks, talks and quacks like a scientist. But they're not scientists. And they're not ducks, either, but you're getting closer.

[sproglet]

Originally Posted by Hippikos

but the climate world is full of even bigger numbers. According to UNEP, the 7 billion tonnes of human-made CO2 pales into insignificance beside the 150 billion tonnes entering the atmosphere each year as a result of natural causes such as decay of vegetation, and the 750 billion tonnes already there.

As mentioned previously, this 'huge' natural contribution is part of the normal carbon cycle. Carbon reserves locked up in oil and coal fields have not been part of the natural carbon cycle for millions of years, it's only human intervention over the last couple of centuries that has introduced this additional load into the cycle. The fact that we are seeing the highest atmospheric CO2 levels in almost a million years should be causing concern, for all we know we may have passed the tipping point already.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Where is the proof that CO2 levels are the cause or even an indicator of Global Warming?

There is no 'proof' only correlation between atmospheric CO2 levels and average Earth temperature, the fact that intelligent people can use this information and make an educated guess that it may be a contributing factor towards our broken weather is good enough for me. Destructive testing is not an option when there's nowhere else to run.

Originally Posted by "xoxoxoBruce

I've only seen CO2 mentioned in the articles about core samples and articles about Methane Hydrate say it's frozen in/on the sea floor.

A quick Google for 'Frozen Tundra' might change your mind. If the Siberian, Ukrainian and Alaskan Tundra begins to thaw (as it shows signs of already doing) then we really are fucked I'm afraid.

[JayMcGee]

There was a article on the Beeb news the other night about the Siberian tundra and permafrost de-icing. As it does so, it gives off high ratios of Ammonia and methane, adding fuel to the global-warming fire.

[bluesdave]

Source: National Center for Atmospheric Research Date: September 14, 2006

Changes In Solar Brightness Too Weak To Explain Global Warming

Changes in the Sun's brightness over the past millennium have had only a small effect on Earth's climate, according to a review of existing results and new calculations performed by researchers in the United States, Switzerland, and Germany.

The review, led by Peter Foukal (Heliophysics, Inc.), appears in the September 14 issue of Nature. Among the coauthors is Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. NCAR's primary sponsor is the National Science Foundation.
"Our results imply that, over the past century, climate change due to human influences must far outweigh the effects of changes in the Sun's brightness," says Wigley.

Reconstructions of climate over the past millennium show a warming since the 17th century, which has accelerated dramatically over the past 100 years. Many recent studies have attributed the bulk of 20th-century global warming to an increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Natural internal variability of Earth's climate system may also have played a role. However, the discussion is complicated by a third possibility: that the Sun's brightness could have increased.

The new review in Nature examines the factors observed by astronomers that relate to solar brightness. It then analyzes how those factors have changed along with global temperature over the last 1,000 years.

Brightness variations are the result of changes in the amount of the Sun's surface covered by dark sunspots and by bright points called faculae. The sunspots act as thermal plugs, diverting heat from the solar surface, while the faculae act as thermal leaks, allowing heat from subsurface layers to escape more readily. During times of high solar activity, both the sunspots and faculae increase, but the effect of the faculae dominates, leading to an overall increase in brightness.

The new study looked at observations of solar brightness since 1978 and at indirect measures before then, in order to assess how sunspots and faculae affect the Sun's brightness. Data collected from radiometers on U.S. and European spacecraft show that the Sun is about 0.07 percent brighter in years of peak sunspot activity, such as around 2000, than when spots are rare (as they are now, at the low end of the 11-year solar cycle). Variations of this magnitude are too small to have contributed appreciably to the accelerated global warming observed since the mid-1970s, according to the study, and there is no sign of a net increase in brightness over the period.

To assess the period before 1978, the authors used historical records of sunspot activity and examined radioisotopes produced in Earth's atmosphere and recorded in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. During periods of high solar activity, the enhanced solar wind shields Earth from cosmic rays that produce the isotopes, thus giving scientists a record of the activity.

The authors used a blend of seven recent reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperature over the past millennium to test the effects of long-term changes in brightness. They then assessed how much the changes in solar brightness produced by sunspots and faculae (as measured by the sunspot and radioisotope data) might have affected temperature. Even though sunspots and faculae have increased over the last 400 years, these phenomena explain only a small fraction of global warming over the period, according to the authors.

Indirect evidence has suggested that there may be changes in solar brightness, over periods of centuries, beyond changes associated with sunspot numbers. However, the authors conclude on theoretical grounds that these additional low-frequency changes are unlikely.

"There is no plausible physical cause for long-term changes in solar brightness other than changes caused by sunspots and faculae," says Wigley.

Apart from solar brightness, more subtle influences on climate from cosmic rays or the Sun's ultraviolet radiation cannot be excluded, say the authors. However, these influences cannot be confirmed, they add, because physical models for such effects are still too poorly developed.

The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research under primary sponsorship by the National Science Foundation. Opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by sproglet

A quick Google for 'Frozen Tundra' might change your mind. If the Siberian, Ukrainian and Alaskan Tundra begins to thaw (as it shows signs of already doing) then we really are fucked I'm afraid.

Thank you. This is a new one on me, I'd never heard of the methane in the permafrost, only in the sea where a combination of cold and pressure kept it captured.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by bluesdave

Source: National Center for Atmospheric Research Date: September 14, 2006

Changes In Solar Brightness Too Weak To Explain Global Warming~ huge snip

The brightness of the sun may not have changed, but what it falls on sure has. Countless square miles of Walmart parking lots, asphalt roofs, suburban lawns, concrete highway, you get the picture. A far cry from the trees, bushes and tall grass of not that long ago in the Earths time-line.

I've noticed a local phenomenon that storms, both winter and summer, don't hit Philadelphia as hard as they do the suburbs. They seem to split and go around both sides of the city, merging again after they pass. As a matter of fact the point where the storms from the south or southwest would merge back together, usually gets the highest precipitation.

My own, non-scientific, can't back it up, probably occurred to me in an altered state, theory, is that the city is giving off so much heat there is a constant column that is strong enough to part the storms, many times.

The question remains, Is the CO2 that we produce the principle culprit, or a pisshole in the snowbank of the change in climate? Just a small part of the whole boxcar load of pressure we've put on Mother Nature?

[Clodfobble]

I remember reading about a study once that found that statistically it rained more on the weekends than during the week. The theory was this was due to the lack of commuters putting off car exhaust on the weekends, but they couldn't prove that part of course.

[xoxoxoBruce]

You mean commuters?