Shadow1980 said:
thranx said:
what are the agencies? please link me to non NOAA temperature data. or temperature data that hasn't had to go through "adjutments".
Well, how about NASA or CRU?
As for harping on "adjustments"...
http://www.skepticalscience.com/surface-temperature-measurements-advanced.htm http://www.skepticalscience.com/understanding-adjustments-to-temp-data.html
I'm all for the hard work scientist put into this, but as you said its a complex system, very complex.
We understand much of how the climate functions. The difficulty is in predicting the exact degree and effects of warming. There are a range of predictions, ranging from relatively mild (but still costly) to severe and averaging somewhere in the middle. A lot of what we might expect in the future depends largely on the future trajectory of anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
In fact i would say so complex with so little data (at least reliable data past 50 years out) that to make massive changes to society over incomplete data is absurd and stupid.
Those "massive changes" you speak of are feasible with current technology and need not involve crashing the economy or making everybody reduce their per capita energy consumption to third-world levels and ride bicycles everywhere. We could begin phasing out coal right now and replace it with nuclear, which would serve as a stopgap as we further develop renewables and get them to provide electricity more reliably and cheaply. Electric cars are getting cheaper quickly, and at the rate things are progressing sub-$25,000 EVs with 200+ mile ranges should be readily available in less than a decade. There's no excuse for developed and newly industrialized countries to cease getting the bulk of their energy from fossil fuels within the next 10-20 years. Even ignoring the potential consequences of global warming, reducing global usage of fossil fuels will be a net gain considering the various other harmful effects of fossil fuel pollution, which are more immediate than the effects of warming. If we continue doing nothing and stay the course, the risk of a worst-case scenario increases. Where are we going to draw the line? Two degrees of warming? Three? Five? When it comes to global average temps, each degree makes a big difference. Or do you think we can just keep pumping CO2 into the atmosphere indefinitely and it'll have no effect even if we get to 1000ppm? Prudence would dictate that we overhaul our energy economy, as both an insurance policy just in case the worst-case projections are possible and as a way of eliminating other deleterious effects of fossil fuel usage. We have to means to do so without bankrupting us or reducing our standards of living.
When the science is good enought to actually predict something that happens i will take notice.
Short of an unacceptable and avoidable outcome like the Maldives being submerged beneath the Indian Ocean, is there really anything that'll convince you? The science is just as good as the science in every other field, yet nothing satifies the denialists.
Until than its incomplete, and being used to make econimc changes that arent needed. ON top of that I still see nothing on sun spt activity and solar flares and how they factor that into their adjusted and weighted temp data. I mean the sun, the source of all heat on the surface on the earth, not being factored in or talked about is pretty absurd. The sun goes through high and low activity.
Do you really think the scientists are too stupid to factor in the influence of the sun, that they just forgot that big ball of plasma in the center of the solar sytem existed? Average solar irradiance has been on a slight downward trend the past few decades, exactly the opposite of what we would expect if the sun was responsible for the current warming trend.
PLease someone show me some predictions that have come through, show me the floods, show me the ice caps being gone, show me the dead oceans,
Because one wrong prediction, even one that's an outlier compared to most other predictions, means the entire theory is invalid, right? Which I guess would mean these guys have a valid point.
You want some predictions that have come true? Here's a good start.
And we also keep seeing a bunch of other things we'd expect to see if AGW theory was correct, including rising temperatures:
Shrinking polar caps:
And retreating mountain glaciers. There's many different lines of evidence indicating a warming world, and there's more than sufficient evidence to suggest that we're the primary cause. The data is readily available for you to go look up. There is a chance, however slight, that things could get bad enough to where waiting to fix things will be far more costly (monetarily and otherwise) to fix than trying to fix it now. This isn't fantasy. This isn't make believe. This isn't some left-wing plot. It's real science, just as real as the science that makes GPS possible (though even that doesn't keep some people from denying general relativity).
show me the end of the world
The scientific consensus never suggested the "end of the world" was imminent. And at this point, it seems that you're just intent on offering a caricature of the scientific consensus. You've called the science "alarmist" (though claiming that switching away from fossil fuels could destroy the economy is somehow not alarmist). You've insinuated that the temperature records are unreliable if not outright fraudulent. You keep using sources written by or derived from the writings of people who outright reject the scientific consensus and who are almost always non-scientists. I honestly do not think anything will convince you. If the entire scientific community has failed to do so, then I doubt I'll be able to, since I'm referring to the exact same science that you refuse to believe. This is my last reply to you on the subject. I'll let others deal with any other claims you might proffer in the future, as I've devoted more time and energy to this thread than I really wanted to.
|
|
I'm not respoding to everything here as there's a lot to go through, but why would you use nuclear as a stop gap when it's already the superior form of energy supply, it's cheaper than renewables, despite the industry drowning in obscene regulations, it's reliable, unlike 'renewables' and it's not had any real development for near 30 years due to the uninformed and uneducated public having a massive panick attack due to Chernobyl and demading no more nuclear, despite the fact that Chernobyl has only caused 58 deaths (IIRC), and nuclear in general is the cleanest form of mass energy and is the safest form of ALL energy? Also how in any economic situation would it be ideal for India and China to stop using fossil fuels in 10-20 years? Even if both countries do go ahead with their plans for Nuclear, they're still 5/6 decades away from having enough energy production from nuclear for even todays use (especially India as they're focusing on trying to figure out Thorium, due to how abundant the element is in the country). Finally, even if we burned all the known fossil fuels we know of we'd only hit around 580ppm, and if you didn't know, but CO2 is regressive in its effect, so for each extra part of CO2 it has a lesser effect on warming as the next, so we're pretty much already past the worse, simply because once shale is done in 50/60 years oil and gas prices will be monstrous, and hopefully by then LFTR will have been acheived.
KLAMarine said:
Groundking said:
KLAMarine said:
Groundking said:
I've yet to see how the environment is becoming more hostile towards us, the warmer more CO2 rich environment lets us grow more food than ever before, ...
|
A warmer enviroment will also mean a drier environment. Sure your plants have plenty of CO2 to breathe but they'll also be struggling to get their necessary water.
|
No it doesn't at all, a warmer environement leads to a wetter environment as the processes of evaporation and evapotranspiration and so on act much quicker due to the atmosphere having a greater capacity for water vapour in the air, and the warmer temperatures being able to evaporate the water quicker and more easily... Like this is basic science, how do you not know this?
|
Actually, it's a little more complicated than that. In other words, a warmer environment does not automatically mean a wetter environment. It depends on the location being considered: with respect to the United States, the Southwest will actually experience drier conditions and the Northeast will experience wetter conditions. This is according to the UK's Met Office: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/l/5/USA.pdf pages 61-62
The Met Office has similar reports for other parts of the world: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-guide/science/uk/obs-projections-impacts
I should also add that a warmer environment or wetter environment does not necessarily mean higher crop yields. Too little water is bad for plant growth as is too much water. Crop fields are susceptible to droughts and they are equally susceptible to floods so when you post
Groundking said:
the warmer more CO2 rich environment lets us grow more food than ever before, ...
|
I feel I must urge caution by adding that crop yields are a bit more complicated than that.
Groundking said:
The NOAA takes their data from the GISS, who massage and manipulate their data to get a warming trend
|
This is quite a heavy accusation. Care to elaborate?
|
Well if you're going to criticise my initial statement the way you did do you not see the hypocrisy? And yes I know that the distrubution of rain will change, but overall the climate will be wetter, so again your initial statement is wrong. Also we'll be able to grow more food, as food production further north will become far more productive, as the north is warming the most, leading to a larger proportion of land that's productive. And yes, but we've already seen crop yeild improve with the warming environment (granted there are other things that help.)
Thranx has already talked about how the GISS are massaging their data to pause bust on page 23 (?), but basically because they're measuring anomalies for the temperature (not just raw temperature data, this is an attempt to help clear the error of taking temperature reading) they have to have a methodology to do this, so instantly EVERYBODY is manipulating their data, just based on their methodology.