Valid Debunk of Global Warming?

[Count Chocula]

To Lord MJ's question, even if he's right, and I'm not saying he is or that 10 years' cooling is a precursor to a longer cooling trend, this guy is taking the wrong approach. If you're building an argument based on data, it's always good to make sure your data is accurate. One meteorologist has examined 1,003 of 1,221 temperature recording stations in the United States for accuracy. 61% of the temperature sensors are placed within 10 meters of an artificial heat source. 8% of the temperature sensors are placed next to or above an artificial heating source. In short, 69% of the US global warming temperature sensors are in proximity to artificial heat sources! Oops.

Successful testing of a hypothesis depends on accurate and sufficient data. The ongoing debate about man's influence indicates to me that there's not enough accurate data to validate the hypothesis that our activities are influencing the rate of change in, to use the new phrase, "climate change." And this isn't a new debate, either: in the 1970s, the big climatalogical fear was global cooling. So, yeah, I think this prof's debunk of global warming is NOT valid. And not because he might be right, but because he's looking at insufficient data.

[Samuel]

Actually the climate was cooling due to all the shit we put in the atmosphere. Then we decided to stop dumping it into the atmosphere. Thanks Nixon! No really- one of the good things he did was the clean air act.

[Count Chocula]

Actually the climate was cooling due to all the shit we put in the atmosphere. Then we decided to stop dumping it into the atmosphere. Thanks Nixon! No really- one of the good things he did was the clean air act.

Buh-whaa? Tell me you're joking Samuel. I'm deconstructing your post as "too much smog = cooling" plus "reducing smog = warming" over a mere thirty year period. But, but, now it's cooling again and we've reduced pollution! What do we doooo?

What's that bright yellow thing in the second celestial sphere above us? That big yellow thing that's been less active over the past 10 years, and has active and quiet periods? Pay it no mind.

[Samuel]

I'm deconstructing your post as "too much smog = cooling" plus "reducing smog = warming" over a mere thirty year period. But, but, now it's cooling again and we've reduced pollution!

That is exactly what I am saying- there is a reason that global cooling was larger in scientific circles in the 70s and went away rom prominance.

What's that bright yellow thing in the second celestial sphere above us? That big yellow thing that's been less active over the past 10 years, and has active and quiet periods? Pay it no mind.

Except the sunspot cycle is constant and if temperature change was being caused by that we would be able to recognize the pattern on the temperature records. Its period is 28 years and it doesn't really correspond to the changes we are seeing.

[Count Chocula]

On a slight tangent: what's so bad about global warming? If the overall temperature rose 5 degrees Celsius, we'd have more carbon dioxide (good for plants), longer growing seasons (good for us), more water (from partially melted ice caps). Global warming graphs aren't asymptotic; there's no reason to believe that we're turning into Venus any time in the next million years. I don't see Florida weather up to North Carolina, longer growing seasons, or more grains as bad things. Plus, we'd use less fuel to heat our homes and buildings. Thoughts?

[loomer]

It causes weather instability and makes it too hot to grow things in, you know, places that aren't America. That's just two of the major issues. How do you not know this?

[Duckie]

Successful testing of a hypothesis depends on accurate and sufficient data. The ongoing debate about man's influence indicates to me that there's not enough accurate data to validate the hypothesis that our activities are influencing the rate of change in, to use the new phrase, "climate change." And this isn't a new debate, either: in the 1970s, the big climatalogical fear was global cooling. So, yeah, I think this prof's debunk of global warming is NOT valid. And not because he might be right, but because he's looking at insufficient data.

No it wasn't, you lying fuck. Read from right wing blogs much? Right wing sources are extrapolating that from a single hyperbolic media article from the 1970s. If that were a way to take the majority scientific opinion, cancer has been cured a million times and cold fusion is just around the corner.

If you actually search for the papers, you'll see that the vast majority of climatological scientists were discussing global warming, with a small minority concerned with global cooling that vanished by the end of the decade.

But you don't give a shit. Right wing sources deny global warming is real, so you repeat tired myths like the crichtonian heat pollution myth and the inexcusably stupid global cooling myth (which is something like "Darwin Recanted On His Death Bed", because even if scientists were wrong in the 1970s it doesn't impact if they're right now unless you're an idiot who runs his life by gambler's fallacy). And then you pooh-pooh the very idea that rising temperatures could hurt anything at all, proving you don't know anything about the subject in the first place.

[Duckie]

Ghetto Edit- Also, Chocula thinks right wing media is valid debate- among climate scientists, there is as much consensus that anthropogenic climate change is real as there is among biologists about evolution. A few Behes are found, and some propose alternate methods and refinements of our current knowledge of the climate, sometimes find interesting things, but in the end no real scientist has ever unhorsed anthropogenic climate change.

The fact that millions of tons of CO2 are dumped into the atmosphere doesn't go away just because the Right has a problem with science and intellectuals when they say something they don't want to hear. Even if an alternate heating mechanism such as, say, cosmic rays were found to pick up some of the slack, anthropogenic climate change doesn't go away any more than discovery of DNA got rid of evolution- it got rid of the traditional theories, perhaps, but the fact of evolution remained.

That he repeats the stupid golden mean fallacy of "There is debate and it is unsolved" just like a good little Creationist climate change denier is itself alone, even without his other numerous errors packed into just 2 posts, enough of a reason to highlight his ignorance of science.

[bobalot]

To Lord MJ's question, even if he's right, and I'm not saying he is or that 10 years' cooling is a precursor to a longer cooling trend, this guy is taking the wrong approach. If you're building an argument based on data, it's always good to make sure your data is accurate. One meteorologist has examined 1,003 of 1,221 temperature recording stations in the United States for accuracy. 61% of the temperature sensors are placed within 10 meters of an artificial heat source. 8% of the temperature sensors are placed next to or above an artificial heating source. In short, 69% of the US global warming temperature sensors are in proximity to artificial heat sources! Oops.

You and Anthony Watts (the tool who runs that website) are fucking douchebags. You think the scientists who set up these stations don't take the surrounding environment into account when collecting data from these stations? They compensate for nearby heat sources. This particular point has brought up repeatedly by opponents of climate change and repeatedly debunked.

Anthony Watts claimed there were only "70" stations that were "ideal". Unfortunately, real scientists (NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, whose integrity he was smearing ) actually looked into his claim and proved it was a load of bullshit. Here's a graph of the "ideal" stations against the other "tainted" stations over time. If the local environment is adversely effecting the data collected from these stations, there should be a significant difference.


Hint: Notice how they are nearly identical?

Some guy made a video of this on youtube calling Anthony Watts out on his bullshit. Being a total tool, Anthony Watts tried to get the video taken down.

[Guardsman Bass]

To Lord MJ's question, even if he's right, and I'm not saying he is or that 10 years' cooling is a precursor to a longer cooling trend, this guy is taking the wrong approach. If you're building an argument based on data, it's always good to make sure your data is accurate. One meteorologist has examined 1,003 of 1,221 temperature recording stations in the United States for accuracy. 61% of the temperature sensors are placed within 10 meters of an artificial heat source. 8% of the temperature sensors are placed next to or above an artificial heating source. In short, 69% of the US global warming temperature sensors are in proximity to artificial heat sources! Oops.

You and Anthony Watts (the tool who runs that website) are fucking douchebags. You think the scientists who set up these stations don't take the surrounding environment into account when collecting data from these stations? They compensate for nearby heat sources. This particular point has brought up repeatedly by opponents of climate change and repeatedly debunked.

Not to mention that they have other ways of measuring the temperature (such as the satellite measurements), plus the oceanic measurements.

Successful testing of a hypothesis depends on accurate and sufficient data. The ongoing debate about man's influence indicates to me that there's not enough accurate data to validate the hypothesis that our activities are influencing the rate of change in, to use the new phrase, "climate change." And this isn't a new debate, either: in the 1970s, the big climatalogical fear was global cooling. So, yeah, I think this prof's debunk of global warming is NOT valid. And not because he might be right, but because he's looking at insufficient data.

That "big fear" amounted to a Newsweek article plus some stuff by Steve Schneider. The actual opinion in the Scientific Press and Community was essentially “…we do not have a good quantitative understanding of our climate machine and what determines its course. Without the fundamental understanding, it does not seem possible to predict climate…” Which, at the end of the 1970s, was increasingly becoming a perception that warming was occurring.

There's literally a wealth of data out there for you to look at, by the way - go read the IPCC Report, or, if you want it dumbed down, Real Climate is the best source I've seen.

Buh-whaa? Tell me you're joking Samuel. I'm deconstructing your post as "too much smog = cooling" plus "reducing smog = warming" over a mere thirty year period. But, but, now it's cooling again and we've reduced pollution! What do we doooo?

This is why everyone thinks you're a dumbass. What he was pointing out (and which is actually modeled and accounted for by the data) was that heavy aerosol pollution in the Developed World (and elsewhere) actually helped to mask the trend towards higher temperatures. When that shit was seriously cut back in the 1970s due to things like the Clean Air Act (both in the US and elsewhere), suddenly we were free to experience the whole effect of CO2-induced warming. It's not much different than if, say, a large volcanic eruption had emerged and kicked a whole large amount of dust into the high atmosphere.

As for the "cooling" part, that's a myth.

What's that bright yellow thing in the second celestial sphere above us? That big yellow thing that's been less active over the past 10 years, and has active and quiet periods? Pay it no mind.

Funny how you can't seem to marshal any actual data to support your opinions. As for solar forcing, the changes in solar output over the past 50 years have not corresponded to the change in temperature.

On a slight tangent: what's so bad about global warming? If the overall temperature rose 5 degrees Celsius, we'd have more carbon dioxide (good for plants), longer growing seasons (good for us), more water (from partially melted ice caps). Global warming graphs aren't asymptotic; there's no reason to believe that we're turning into Venus any time in the next million years. I don't see Florida weather up to North Carolina, longer growing seasons, or more grains as bad things. Plus, we'd use less fuel to heat our homes and buildings. Thoughts?

Since you obviously can't be bothered to do actually do any research on your own, here's the reasons why:

1. That temperature change is not uniform across the globe. Certain areas (particularly the Arctic) are warming up significantly faster than other areas. Particularly on the scale of time we're talking about (decades), that causes mass ecological disruption (plus sea level rises).

2. Temperature change has a whole ass-load of effects on everything from precipitation (particularly the frequency of droughts), to sea level, to other things. Mark Lynas points out in his book that fairly small temperature changes over the past tens of thousands of years have literally made the difference between the Great Plains being what they are today, to them turning into a bonafide desert.

3. The melting polar arctic cap is already displacing sea water, so all it does is potentially disrupt the North Atlantic Current (i.e. no more water for us). As for the melting land-based ice, that has a tendency to flow into the sea, where it raises sea levels (which also rise from higher atmosphere temperatures due to thermal expansion of the water). Since an enormous fraction of humanity lives within a few feet of sea level (and that's not counting things like rising sea levels getting into coastal groundwater supplies), you can see why this might be a problem.

[Patrick Degan]

On a slight tangent: what's so bad about global warming? If the overall temperature rose 5 degrees Celsius, we'd have more carbon dioxide (good for plants), longer growing seasons (good for us), more water (from partially melted ice caps). Global warming graphs aren't asymptotic; there's no reason to believe that we're turning into Venus any time in the next million years. I don't see Florida weather up to North Carolina, longer growing seasons, or more grains as bad things. Plus, we'd use less fuel to heat our homes and buildings. Thoughts?

You're an idiot. An overall i.e. mean temperature rise of 5 degrees celsius merely indicates a global average measure: the real problem being much wider local and seasonal variances which can and will wreak havoc on crops which cannot withstand temperature variances beyond a certain limited range. It's not as if the temperature everywhere is merely going to be up an extra five degrees year-round.

As for "more water" from melted ice caps and other sources of sea-level rise, there's this little interactive map showing which cities (or even small countries) will wind up underwater and to varying degrees depending upon the level of sea-rise.

[Mayabird]

Global dimming (the effect where our particulate pollution reflects back a significant percent of sunlight) is still pretty strong, to the effect of 20% dimming as compared to the late 1800s (as measured by evaporation rates at thousands of weather stations over decades) in highly industrialized areas even as we're trying to clean up our act. And we're still seeing a warming trend. It's been estimated that the global mean temperature would be a degree higher with the same greenhouse gas load but without the dimming.

And right now we're in a solar minimum (no sunspots, which means slightly less sunlight getting to us anyway before the dimming) and we're not seeing significant average cooling. If anything, the oceans this year are the hottest they've ever been measured, by which I mean they have the highest heat load.

Also, I can't believe that someone living on the coast in Florida thinks that melting glaciers making the sea levels rise would be a good thing. The sea level rise itself has been masked also partially by the huge number of reservoirs constructed over the past century - every little one pooling water adds up, to hiding a few inches of rise. Yet another "not very large but making it slightly less obvious" things.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

On a slight tangent: what's so bad about global warming? If the overall temperature rose 5 degrees Celsius, we'd have more carbon dioxide (good for plants), longer growing seasons (good for us), more water (from partially melted ice caps). Global warming graphs aren't asymptotic; there's no reason to believe that we're turning into Venus any time in the next million years. I don't see Florida weather up to North Carolina, longer growing seasons, or more grains as bad things. Plus, we'd use less fuel to heat our homes and buildings. Thoughts?

Do you wake up every morning and say to yourself "Today, I will try to top the stupidity that I spewed yesterday."

As others have pointed out, that five degrees of warming is not universally applied across the globe. Much of the increased heat content will go into the oceans, causing them to A) Expand, and B) Provide more energy for tropical storm formation. Thermal expansion of the top of the water column, along with the added volume of water from those melting ice caps will eventually (possibly rather quickly) fuck over everybody who lives on the coast. Big Easy? We hardly knew thee. Florida? Wouldn't wanna be ya. Bangladesh? Gonna be a mess. And all those people who will be displaced by rising sea levels will have to go somewhere, meaning more arable land will be consumed and turned over to human habitation. And, while the warming oceans will provide more energy for storms, the warming atmosphere will tend to cap this development, making the storms that do develop far more severe.

And while you might not think "Florida weather up to North Carolina" is a bad thing, imagine what that sort of heat would do to states in the Sun Belt, or California, or to the Grain Belt. Most simulations indicate that warming will shut down the North American Monsoon, which will place the West and Southwest into perpetual drought and provide a springboard for desertification to drive a return to the Dust Bowl conditions of the 1930s in the Midwest and Great Plains.

The above effects will be symptomatic of a general drying of the tropics (evidence of previous episodes triggered by warming episodes have been found in ice cores and cave stalagmites.) This will also negatively affect food production in the rest of the world, and stress the areas of vegetation which you're hoping will soak up the excess CO2.

No, even five degrees of warming will not be a pleasant thing to experience.

[Alyrium Denryle]

On a slight tangent: what's so bad about global warming? If the overall temperature rose 5 degrees Celsius, we'd have more carbon dioxide (good for plants), longer growing seasons (good for us), more water (from partially melted ice caps). Global warming graphs aren't asymptotic; there's no reason to believe that we're turning into Venus any time in the next million years. I don't see Florida weather up to North Carolina, longer growing seasons, or more grains as bad things. Plus, we'd use less fuel to heat our homes and buildings. Thoughts?

*blinks*

I hate to jump on the dog pile... But...

If the overall temperature rose 5 degrees Celsius, we'd have more carbon dioxide (good for plants)

A good chunk of the worlds algae would die because the ocean would acidify and they dont handle low Ph very well and a 5 degree temp change in a few years does not leave a whole lot of room for Natural Selection to occur. More tolerant species may or may not take over so O2 production may or may not plummet. Oh and coral would die

The rising sea levels will not only flood the coasts (like where you live), but would impinge on ground water and basically salt the earth. Say good bye to a lot of low lying but otherwise well above sea level forest.

River systems would become brackish farther up stream than they are now, killing the ecosystems that exist in those areas.

All of this will negatively impact not only nature, but US. We will cause a mass extinction faster than the one we currently are. And we are talking about something as bad as the Permian extinction here... which by the way had the same fucking mechanism.

longer growing seasons (good for us)

No. More chaotic weather patterns. Droughts in some areas tropical storms in others. Temperature does more than make for a longer summer you fucking retard.

more water (from partially melted ice caps)

Yes. For the few brief hours that the water melting off the ice caps forms a freshwater lense on the ocean. Then it just mixes in, desalinates those ocean, and sinks the nice warm currents that keep europe from being an ice box.

[Mayabird]

Forgot to mention, spread of warmer temperatures means that tropical disease vectors (like malaria-carrying mosquitoes) also can spread.

Also something I just asked Ben, incidentally. The difference between the last ice age and now in mean temperature terms was a couple degrees Celsius. Compare the wildly different climate from then and now. We're talking about a potential temperature change twice that. Try to think about that, if you are capable of thinking.

[Count Chocula]

Mea culpa. I'm currently an idiot WRT the effects and will learn more before again posting on the topic.

[Guardsman Bass]

Mea culpa. I'm currently an idiot WRT the effects and will learn more before again posting on the topic.

Well, that makes you better than about 90% of the "skeptics" out there, who generally ignore the rebuttals and keep on trucking.

Like I said, check out the Real Climate blog I linked to. It's a blog operated by some scientists actively involved in climate research, and they pretty much discuss everything under the sun related to global warming.

[Themightytom]

As for "more water" from melted ice caps and other sources of sea-level rise, there's this little interactive map showing which cities (or even small countries) will wind up underwater and to varying degrees depending upon the level of sea-rise.

Well the Red Sox will need scuba gear but actually my area wouldn't be too badly affected.

until The South starts to migrate up here.

[Pablo Sanchez]

I'm curious. Does the mere posting of a video of a speech or a conference on YouTube automatically render whatever was said invalid or beneath contempt?

There's nothing wrong with using media to popularize ideas, but when you do it in lieu of the usual intellectual channels you raise the suspicion that your idea won't stand up to professional, peer-review scrutiny. The fact that Ayn Rand published Objectivism in the form of novels for the popular market doesn't itself disprove Objectivism's status as a serious philosophy, but on the other hand its pretty clear that she did so because Objectivism could never have withstood critique by the philosophical community (as indeed it hasn't). Any functional intellectual or scientific community necessarily has structures that are designed to subject work to peer review and stop shoddy work from getting into circulation. When somebody says "Fuck all that" and bypasses peer review and appeals directly to people who aren't equipped to determine the truth of their theories, it usually means their theories are full of shit. I mean, if this guy's study actually proved anything, it would have blown the lid off the whole climatological community, and, given the prominence and importance of the global warming issue, shortly thereafter appeared on a lot of front pages.

Global warming doubters, creationists, and others have this concept of scientists forming some kind of conspiracy around their favorite ideas, which is utterly nonsensical and opposed to reality.

[Guardsman Bass]

I'm curious. Does the mere posting of a video of a speech or a conference on YouTube automatically render whatever was said invalid or beneath contempt?

There's nothing wrong with using media to popularize ideas, but when you do it in lieu of the usual intellectual channels you raise the suspicion that your idea won't stand up to professional, peer-review scrutiny. The fact that Ayn Rand published Objectivism in the form of novels for the popular market doesn't itself disprove Objectivism's status as a serious philosophy, but on the other hand its pretty clear that she did so because Objectivism could never have withstood critique by the philosophical community (as indeed it hasn't). Any functional intellectual or scientific community necessarily has structures that are designed to subject work to peer review and stop shoddy work from getting into circulation. When somebody says "Fuck all that" and bypasses peer review and appeals directly to people who aren't equipped to determine the truth of their theories, it usually means their theories are full of shit. I mean, if this guy's study actually proved anything, it would have blown the lid off the whole climatological community, and, given the prominence and importance of the global warming issue, shortly thereafter appeared on a lot of front pages.

Global warming doubters, creationists, and others have this concept of scientists forming some kind of conspiracy around their favorite ideas, which is utterly nonsensical and opposed to reality.

To be fair, in Ayn Rand's case she clearly wanted it to be both a philosophy and a popular idea to be understood by the masses, so the novel form makes sense (plus she was a writer by profession). Creationists are pretty notorious for the above, though - and when Cold Fusion was first announced, one source of skepticism was the fact that the "finders" went straight to the press rather than submitting it for peer review.

[Erik von Nein]

A good chunk of the worlds algae would die because the ocean would acidify and they dont handle low Ph very well and a 5 degree temp change in a few years does not leave a whole lot of room for Natural Selection to occur. More tolerant species may or may not take over so O2 production may or may not plummet. Oh and coral would die

Not only that but increases in acidity leads to decreased abilities to form calcium carbonate shells, as they are literally being melted off the species creating them. Not only does that mean possible (probable, I'd say) extinction of those species, but also the prime method of sequestering carbon in the oceans, making the problem of acidification worse.

[Pablo Sanchez]

To be fair,

I don't consider it in my rational self-interest to be fair to Ayn Rand.

in Ayn Rand's case she clearly wanted it to be both a philosophy and a popular idea to be understood by the masses, so the novel form makes sense (plus she was a writer by profession).

In the same way you could say that Gavin Menzies wanted his books to be both history and a popular story to be understood by the masses, so his total avoidance of historical academia and mass publishing makes sense. That doesn't change the fact that his conclusions are garbage. If you call something history, if you call something philosophy, if you call something science, and you refuse to participate in the established processes of review, then you're probably bullshitting.

[RRoan]

As for "more water" from melted ice caps and other sources of sea-level rise, there's this little interactive map showing which cities (or even small countries) will wind up underwater and to varying degrees depending upon the level of sea-rise.

There's also this map as well, which is a bit more flexible. You can't see anything close-in due to the scale, though.

[Bluewolf]

Given how some cities may be totally underwater, I wonder how we will cope with such an idea. I mean would we simply move cities back by building on higher ground, make bigger flood barriers etc?

[Narkis]

Rich countries would probably follow the Netherlands solution. Poor ones would have to relocate.