My belief in Global Warming is getting shaky

[REASON]

Originally Posted by engineerdude

Well, I started this thread a while back, I looked at the first few replies then I forgot about it. I was happy to see so many people sounding off, and having interest.

I treated global warming as sort of a hobby last summer, and I did some thorough research and literature reviews to try and figure this all out. I kept an open mind, and just looked at things from an analytical, scientific manner.

To sum up my findings, there is absolutely no scientific basis for the idea that people have anything to do with global warming. I have encountered many caring, concerned people who espouse anthropomorphic global warming, but not a one of them can actually back up anything they say with hard science. I am flabbergasted and disappointed that the Nobel people would be involved in this effort. And I now cringe whenever I hear lawmakers discussing possible solutions to what, as far as I can tell, is a purely imaginary problem.

I have scanned through the numerous replies and posts on this thread. To all of you who believe in the popular theory of global warming, please do me a favor:

Post one item of evidence that you have that is in favor of global warming. Don't write a book, and please don't list everything you believe in, just list them one at a time and give me a little time to read and respond. Based on my notes, current science debunks every thing I can find that people have put out in favor of man-made climate change. Please post an idea, and if I can't disprove it in a sentence or two, I would be very happy to be reassured that our civilization has not gone insane, that I have in fact missed something.

You have not provided any of your findings. You are simply waving your hands.

I have participated throughout this thread, and have read every post. There is a myriad of information supporting global warming that has been provided, little of which has been properly debunked if at all.

We have agreed that the climate models are not perfect and that it is difficult to account for all of the complex systems that are involved in the delicate balance that is our atmosphere.

But one thing that is well understood and supported by readings, is that the mean global temperature has been steadily rising at an accelerated rate over the last century, and something is causing it to happen. Can we agree on that?

Here is a chart from the Wikipedia article on Global Warming that denotes the temperature increase:



This graph has been presented numerous times in this thread.

I have asked those who reject AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) to provide an alternate explanation for the accelerated rate of average global temperatures if it is not being caused by the constant burning of fossil fuels, which is continually adding CO2, a known greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere. Only Turtle has done so with his couriousness relating to the potential impact of undersea volcanism. While that can constitute a perfectly legitimate scientific explanation, even he will openly admit that there just isn't enough evidence to conclude that volcanism of this type is what is causing the steep increase in temperature. Like any good scientist, he is continuing his investigation into it's plausibility.

But I don't believe Turtle is looking into underwater volcanism because he doesn't believe AGW is possible, he is doing so because it is something that must be ruled out if we are to be certain that AGW is actually occurring, and he isn't convinced that it has been properly considered in the atmospheric models since information is lacking.

The increase in atmospheric CO2 due to human activities is being thoroughly considered. Here is a chart that looks at the average increase in atmospheric CO2 levels since 1960:



While it is true that correlation does not constitute causation, the correlation between the increase in CO2 and the increase in temperature is striking, and it would seem foolish to disregard the idea that they are related.

So unless you are simply denying that the average global temperature is increasing at an accelerated rate, you must have an alternate explanation for the increase that is better supported by evidence, and which has convinced you to reject the data that has been assembled by the world's foremost climatologists working in behalf of the IPCC.

And as freeztar noted above, we would be more than eager to see it.

[engineerdude]

Please, before you guys thrash me, please at least read the responses I have made to your comments.

OK, in response to reason's post, where he showed a chart of temperature from 1860 to present, which he got from Wikipedia.

That chart is a very selective chart, which begins at the point our planet emerged from what is known as the little ice age. People use this particular time frame to make the record appear like a "hockey stick". Why start in 1850? People were still getting around by horse-and-buggy in 1850, and our oil addiction didn't even get going until the 1940's or later. We did not really start pumping carbon into the atmosphere until the 1950's - why did the temperature jump so much for the hundred years people were producing negligible CO2? The CO2 chart you show and the temperature data are clear uses of selective charting in an effort to mislead.

Here's a chart with a little longer time frame:

Image:2000 Year Temperature Comparison.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and here's one with an even longer time frame. Please note that this chart is backwards, our present day is on the left side.

CO2 vs Temperature: Last 400,000 years

The thing to garner from all these charts is that climate has swung widely over the geologic record, in period way before people learned how to light fires. Our current temperature is higher than average, but nothing that really stands out.

So, you ask, why is temperature higher now than it was before? Here's the answer:

Image:Carbon-14 with activity labels.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Again, modern time is on the left of this chart.

Basically, it seems that while the Earth's climate is complex, how warm it is mostly depends on how much solar radiation we receive. We are currently in a maximum for solar activity, which is a periodic thing the sun does.

Here's a link to a site that has a combined chart of solar activity, CO2 levels, and fossil fuel usage. It's on the first page near the bottom.

http://www.oism.org/pproject/GWReview_OISM600.pdf

[freeztar]

Solar activity does not account for everything.

For almost the entire month of February 2006 the sun was utterly blank. If Galileo had looked at the sun on his 442nd birthday, he would have been disappointed--no sunspots, no spin, no discovery.

What's going on? NASA solar physicist David Hathaway explains: "Solar minimum has arrived."

Sunspots come and go with an 11-year rhythm called the sunspot cycle. At the cycle's peak, solar maximum, the sun is continually peppered with spots, some as big as the planet Jupiter. But for every peak there is a valley, and during solar minimum months can go by without a single sunspot.

"That's where we are now--at minimum," says Hathaway.

Actually, we're at the beginning of the minimum. February 2006 was the first month in almost ten years with mostly no sunspots. For 21 of February's 28 days, the sun was blank. Hathaway expects this situation to continue for the rest of 2006.

NASA - Solar Minimum has Arrived

Solar variation can not account for all of the observable effects we've witnessed while observing climate systems.

[Essay]

Originally Posted by engineerdude

Here's a link to a site that has a combined chart of solar activity, CO2 levels, and fossil fuel usage. It's on the first page near the bottom.
http://www.oism.org/pproject/GWReview_OISM600.pdf

EDude! Cool that your serious about this stuff!
I have some neat points about the "CO2 follows temp change" thing, but later.
...and yes the solar stuff is detailed in the IPCC report... something like 'accounting for ~15% of observed warming.'
===

But... first let me go to your last link (above). Easily discredited...
(ordinarily I like to answer specifics, so this is for others' benefit; but you should know your sources).
===
...from historycommons.org....
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine
Profile: Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM)

"1998: Petition Calling on US to Reject Kyoto Protocol Employs Misleading Tactics
Frederick Seitz, a former tobacco company scientist and former National Academy of Sciences president, writes and circulates a letter asking scientists to sign a petition calling upon the US government to reject the Kyoto Protocol. The petition was authored by an obscure group by the name of “Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.” [Seitz, 1998] Seitz includes in his letter a report arguing that carbon dioxide emissions do not pose a threat to the global climate. The report—which is not peer reviewed—is formatted to look like an article from the esteemed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). ...."

"...is formatted to look like an article from the esteemed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)."
Gee, where have I seen this tactic still being employed (htp:/ww.oism.org/pproject/GWReview_OISM600.pdf...
hint, hint).
===

...and hey, look at the first graph on that link which concludes that glacier retreat started before large-scale fossil fuel usage.
What!? Look at the graph. It almost exactly matches! Admittedly the retreat line is narrower (attenuated) relative to the usage cumulation line, but....

They have almost the exact same shape and duration. The rate of change of slope for the retreat line is closely proportional to the usage line. They match almost exactly.

Except for the "smoothed average" that they've added, I can see no reason to say the two lines do not show a close linkage.
Does anyone else see that these two lines are not closely proportional?

~ Carry on (...back to specifics)!

[Flying Binghi]

Truly inconvenient truths about climate change being ignored

Heres somebody who doubts the IPCC -

Via Michael Duffy November 8, 2008

Last month I witnessed something shocking. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was giving a talk at the University of NSW. The talk was accompanied by a slide presentation, and the most important graph showed average global temperatures. For the past decade it represented temperatures climbing sharply.

As this was shown on the screen, Pachauri told his large audience: “We’re at a stage where warming is taking place at a much faster rate [than before]“.

Now, this is completely wrong.

Truly inconvenient truths about climate change being ignored - Michael Duffy

[engineerdude]

Originally Posted by freeztar

Solar activity does not account for everything.


NASA - Solar Minimum has Arrived

Solar variation can not account for all of the observable effects we've witnessed while observing climate systems.

The earth's climate is a complex thing, of course - cloud cover changes, volcanos erupt, all kinds of things happen here to affect the overall picture.

But solar radiation is the only external input we have, and it has been shown that the brighter the sun shines, the hotter the earth generally gets. And the sun has been shining brighter than average over the past century or so.

There is no measurable variable that I can find that seems to have any predictive value for global temperature other than the sun. And it is a pretty much dead-on predictor.

My goal in this thread is not to espouse any new theories though, and I only have a couple second-hand charts to back up what I say. My goal is to debate existing popular theories of global warming. I put forth the solar-idea to debunk the idea that no one has any competing theories as to why the glaciers melted.

[engineerdude]

Originally Posted by Essay

EDude! Cool that your serious about this stuff!
I have some neat points about the "CO2 follows temp change" thing, but later.
...and yes the solar stuff is detailed in the IPCC report... something like 'accounting for ~15% of observed warming.'
===

But... first let me go to your last link (above). Easily discredited...
(ordinarily I like to answer specifics, so this is for others' benefit; but you should know your sources).
===
...from historycommons.org....
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine
Profile: Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM)

"1998: Petition Calling on US to Reject Kyoto Protocol Employs Misleading Tactics
Frederick Seitz, a former tobacco company scientist and former National Academy of Sciences president, writes and circulates a letter asking scientists to sign a petition calling upon the US government to reject the Kyoto Protocol. The petition was authored by an obscure group by the name of “Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.” [Seitz, 1998] Seitz includes in his letter a report arguing that carbon dioxide emissions do not pose a threat to the global climate. The report—which is not peer reviewed—is formatted to look like an article from the esteemed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). ...."

"...is formatted to look like an article from the esteemed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)."
Gee, where have I seen this tactic still being employed (htp:/ww.oism.org/pproject/GWReview_OISM600.pdf...
hint, hint).
===

...and hey, look at the first graph on that link which concludes that glacier retreat started before large-scale fossil fuel usage.
What!? Look at the graph. It almost exactly matches! Admittedly the retreat line is narrower (attenuated) relative to the usage cumulation line, but....

They have almost the exact same shape and duration. The rate of change of slope for the retreat line is closely proportional to the usage line. They match almost exactly.

Except for the "smoothed average" that they've added, I can see no reason to say the two lines do not show a close linkage.
Does anyone else see that these two lines are not closely proportional?

~ Carry on (...back to specifics)!

Hiya

Please either prove or disprove what I am saying - who cares where a chart comes from, as long as it is correct? Try to show that the chart is wrong, that the data has been manipulated, whatever, but don't simply try to cast doubt without any basis.

I will state again that using the charts Reason has posted are basically contributing to fraud. Guess why his temperature chart starts in 1850 but his CO2 chart starts in 1960? Because those charts show what he wants it to. A chart of CO2 levels from 1850 to present would show levels hitting around 400 ppm in 1857 and in 1942. There was a sharp decrease in atmospheric CO2 between 1942 and 1960, and now it is picking back up again. Reason's chart starts at the bottom of the cycle, and using a chart of the complete cycle would show that current CO2 levels, while high, are just part of a natural upswing.

Here's one link to data supporting this. There are many, this was just the first one in my bookmarks:

The Real History of Carbon Dioxide Levels

I personally think that people are probably adding a bit to the CO2 levels, but I also think that when the Earth decides someday that CO2 levels need to drop no number of SUV's are going to prevent it. And, as previously posted, CO2 is a trace gas and has no predictive value for global temperature (someone needs to try and prove me wrong on that!).

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by engineerdude

Here's a link to a site that has a combined chart of solar activity, CO2 levels, and fossil fuel usage. It's on the first page near the bottom.

http://www.oism.org/pproject/GWReview_OISM600.pdf

Originally Posted by Essay

But... first let me go to your last link (above). Easily discredited...
(ordinarily I like to answer specifics, so this is for others' benefit; but you should know your sources). …

To continue with Essay’s advice to “know your sources”, it’s important, I think, to consider what the OISM is, and who comprise it, and what their beliefs are, and what other groups it is affiliated with or sympathetic toward

OISM appears to be primarily an advocacy organization for claims such as the one linked to in post #???. It consists of 8 people, 2 of who are dead. It’s headed by Arthur B Robinson, a biochemist. Robinson is signed the petition “A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism”, and appears to be sympathetic to the goals of the Discovery Institute, a group well known for attempting to promote skepticism toward science in general in order "reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions", and specifically, with opposing the idea of biological evolution in favor of religious creation stories, and promoting such movements as Intelligent Design.

As someone who likes and promotes materialistic worldviews, I dislike the goals and methods of the Discovery Institute, the OISM, and similar groups, and approach any publication by these groups with great wariness and skepticism.

The most sound advice I think I can offer (and which I think I sorely need to follow myself) is to gain more knowledge about climate modeling. In my experience, nearly all science enthusiasts and opponents know of the existence of such models, but few of us have practical experience with them. Without the knowledge gained from such experience, we must resort almost entirely to reliance statement by widely acknowledged and self-proclaimed experts and credible organizations. This reliance makes us vulnerable to manipulation by groups pursuing agendas with which many of us would not agree, such as creationism.

[Zythryn]

Originally Posted by engineerdude

But solar radiation is the only external input we have, and it has been shown that the brighter the sun shines, the hotter the earth generally gets. And the sun has been shining brighter than average over the past century or so.
...
My goal is to debate existing popular theories of global warming. I put forth the solar-idea to debunk the idea that no one has any competing theories as to why the glaciers melted.

Regarding the text I bolded, where has this been shown?
It is well accepted that if the earth receives more radiation from the sun it will warm, but simple brightness doesn't take into account the entire radiation reaching the earth.
Measurements made over the last 30 years show no appreciable change in the irradiation from the sun welcome to pmodwrc.

This is a very valid place to look for a cause for the increase in temp. But measurements seem to rule it out.

Debate is good, but the theory that has stood up to the most tests and predictive ability is that CO2 is a big part of the cause.

As for CO2 lagging temp in the past, that is a very valid point as well. To me it indicates that CO2 increase was a positive feedback in past events.
Since it is increasing first, I would suggest it is a driver this time. CO2 is much more potent a greenhouse gas than water vapor. And, its concentration in the atmosphere can be altered while that of water vapor is can only be altered as the temp changes. So CO2 is capable of being a driver, while water vapor is not (although it can be a positive feedback).

[engineerdude]

Originally Posted by Zythryn

Regarding the text I bolded, where has this been shown?
It is well accepted that if the earth receives more radiation from the sun it will warm, but simple brightness doesn't take into account the entire radiation reaching the earth.
Measurements made over the last 30 years show no appreciable change in the irradiation from the sun welcome to pmodwrc.

This is a very valid place to look for a cause for the increase in temp. But measurements seem to rule it out.

Debate is good, but the theory that has stood up to the most tests and predictive ability is that CO2 is a big part of the cause.

As for CO2 lagging temp in the past, that is a very valid point as well. To me it indicates that CO2 increase was a positive feedback in past events.
Since it is increasing first, I would suggest it is a driver this time. CO2 is much more potent a greenhouse gas than water vapor. And, its concentration in the atmosphere can be altered while that of water vapor is can only be altered as the temp changes. So CO2 is capable of being a driver, while water vapor is not (although it can be a positive feedback).

I would love to debate the effects of the sun on global temperatures - maybe start a new thread on it? I think there is vast evidence to show a direct correlation between sun activity and the earth's temperature. But I am trying to stay on point for this thread, which is to discuss pop-global warming theories.

As for CO2 being more potent than water vapor as an infra-red absorber - I agree. But there is virtually no CO2 in our atmosphere (400 ppm is pretty close to zero) and there is a whole bunch of water vapor (10,000 ppm).

For an example, spend an evening in south Florida, where with all the humidity there is probably 20000 ppm of water vapor in the air. The sun sets, and the temperature drops very little, just a few degrees. Then go out in the desert at sunset, where water vapor concentrations are 2000 ppm - the temperature drops from 100 degrees to 50 degrees in just a few minutes. CO2 levels are about the same for both places, but they behave vastly different, and are totally correlated to the amount of water vapor in the air.

Some people claim that CO2 acts as a feedback mechanism, that concentrations of it cause other gases to act differently and it can cause a cascade effect. I cannot find any science that actually backs this up, and the geologic record clearly shows that high levels of CO2 have never kept the world from cooling down and low levels have never kept the planet from warming up. Atmospheric CO2 levels are mostly based on how warm the planet is.

The essence of a feedback mechanism is that if we take two mechanisms, call them A and B, that changes in one produces changes in the other. The mechanisms can either dampen each other or they can produce an explosive effect. The ice records show that overall historic temperature has changed quickly at times, and CO2 levels do not change until hundreds of years later. How can CO2 affect climate if concentration does not change until after temperature is done changing?