Global Warming Issues (Polar Bears)

[Alyrium Denryle]

What? Complex life exists just fine in lakes with minimal water exchange.

Because we stock them for the most part. Barring very particular cases lakes will eutrophicate and eventually fill with soil if there is no nutrient outlet. The ocean requires the great circulation to move nutrients from river deltas and up from the deapths, plankton etc. Without it, the ocean as we know it will die, and something much less full of life, and much less able to produce a large percentage of our oxygen will rise in its wake.

What? The earth is warmed by two sources; geothermal, which is evenly spread, and solar, which is proportional to latitude. An increase in solar input should increase temperature differences; the poles will warm up, but the equator will warm up more.

Air currents move heat away from the equator toward the poles IIRC. The empirical reality is, the poles are hit harder by warming. The lower latitudes will see more... chaotic effects from shifts in climate patterns due to changes in air and water currents than before they notice large temp differences.

[Gilthan]

Aren't worms hyper sensitive to the atmosphere, and if they go with a matter of generations several patches of once fertile land will be turned barren!

Wherever you heard that from, it is just a lie, likely from a source in the same vein as those environmentalists who claim nuclear waste will doom the world.

To wipe out worms via atmospheric toxicity, you'd need hundreds of times greater concentration of CO2 than would occur even if all the oil and coal in the world were used up. For an example of the overall picture, see how http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/212/13/v-a references the effect of CO2 at 19% concentration, about 500 times greater than the 0.04% in the atmosphere.

When some commercial greenhouses use CO2 enrichment to much increase plant growth, that doesn't turn the land inside barren, to say the least.

What about the shifting pressure of all of this new water from a melted continent onto to the tectonic plates of our planet that is likely going to result in a devastating increase in earth-quakes!?

Because the world was devastated by earthquakes some centuries ago when world sea levels were 0.2 meters higher than today during the medieval warm period? (It wasn't).

Because a very tiny fraction of a percentage point change in the cumulative pressure of thousands-of-meters-deep oceans causes earthquakes to skyrocket? (It doesn't).

CBS News actually tried to make the earthquake claim too, a classic level of honesty and accuracy in reporting (or rather lack of it, not that such is surprising when the vast majority of AP reporters share the same ideology):

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/ ... 1556.shtml

However, a fact check is trivially easy:

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/other/quake1.html



If you had said hurricanes, floods, or other natural disasters, that would have been a better argument but with fact-checking relevant metrics still easy.

Hurricanes:

http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical ... QUENCY.jpg



From floods to storms, all extreme weather events combined:

http://www.jpands.org/vol14no4/goklany.pdf



Looking at the past 100 years is a good way to get some idea of how much we are doomed (or not!) over the next 50-100 years before running out of cheap fossil fuels or switching away, better than assumptions with no grounding in history at all.

How bout the fact that the dwindling number of entomophily insects is going to have a terrifying impact on agriculture the world over!?!

Because milder, warmer winters from global warming are harmful for insects, like insects do better in cold arctic climates than towards the equator? No.

I wonder if you were joking during all the above, in which case congrats, as the real comedy is that everybody else took it seriously while never questioning or disputing the statements.

With that said, I can't resist pointing out that the decrease in bee populations that occurred a couple years ago, with widespread mainstream media articles blaming it on everything from global warming to cell phones, turned out -surprise, surprise- to be due to a virus, one of the pandemics that sweeps the population every few decades.

Their cute, cuddly, half-ton murder machines who sponsor coke-a-cola. Yet whenever I hear someone complaining about global warming melting a continent I am sure to have an appeal of "The Bears! The Penguins! THE MAJESTY OF A CONTINENT YOU'LL PROBABLY NEVER SEEEeEeeee."

Compared to some of the arguments above, polar bears are a relatively more valid global warming concern. Even so:

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news ... 1a9e5df868

If the polar bear is the 650-kilogram canary in the climate change coal mine, why are its numbers INCREASING?

The latest government survey of polar bears roaming the vast Arctic expanses of northern Quebec, Labrador and southern Baffin Island show the population of polar bears has jumped to 2,100 animals from around 800 in the mid-1980s.

As recently as three years ago, a less official count placed the number at 1,400.

The Inuit have always insisted the bears' demise was greatly exaggerated by scientists doing projections based on fly-over counts, but their input was usually dismissed as the ramblings of self-interested hunters.

As Nunavut government biologist Mitch Taylor observed in a front-page story in the Nunatsiaq News last month, "the Inuit were right. There aren't just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears."

Their widely portrayed lurch toward extinction on a steadily melting ice cap is not supported by bear counts in other Arctic regions either.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm? ... bb94ceb993

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations “may now be near historic highs.” The alarm about the future of polar bear decline is based on speculative computer model predictions many decades in the future.

Polar bears even survived the Holocene Climate Optimum when arctic temperatures were way higher (several degrees higher) than now, 8000 years ago, meaning the bears are a bit more adaptable than most people give them credit.

Over the past three decades, northern hemisphere sea ice has declined by around 2.7% per decade (although southern hemisphere sea ice has meanwhile actually increased by around 1.1% per decade):



However, 3 decades is like cherry-picking data, even if an artifact of when most monitoring began, not much to go on when some cycles can take 80 or 90 years. The recent northern hemisphere decrease has more to do with changes in wind/ocean currents (such as more of it blown into waters further away from the pole where, of course, it melts) than temperatures alone.

While that's a whole topic onto itself, here's one illustration (yes, one of hundreds of peer-reviewed articles counter to the more extremist claims about the magnitude and rapidity of AGW, even if the bulk of the funding in the field and the average ideology of most individuals probable to enter it is tilted differently):

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v3 ... 335a0.html

ATMOSPHERIC general circulation models predict enhanced greenhouse warming at high latitudes owing to positive feedbacks between air temperature, ice extent and surface albedo. Previous analyses of Arctic temperature trends have been restricted to land-based measurements on the periphery of the Arctic Ocean. Here we present temperatures measured in the lower troposphere over the Arctic Ocean during the period 1950–90. We have analysed more than 27,000 temperature profiles, measured by radiosonde at Russian drifting ice stations and by dropsonde from US 'Ptarmigan' weather reconnaissance aircraft, for trends as a function of season and altitude. Most of the trends are not statistically significant. In particular, we do not observe the large surface warming trends predicted by models; indeed, we detect significant surface cooling trends over the western Arctic Ocean during winter and autumn. This discrepancy suggests that present climate models do not adequately incorporate the physical processes that affect the polar regions.

There's reason to believe that a lot of the changes in currents are cyclical. Even temperatures themselves show a lot other than a linear trend if the data for the whole past 100 years instead of just the most frequentlypublicized past 30 years is looked at, due to the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation), AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation), etc:



http://www.intellicast.com/Community/Co ... =rss&a=128

Anyway, polar bear populations have been increasing (more than twice as many now as in the 1950s before conservation efforts began).

For them to die out due to global warming before we run out of oil and coal is merely a questionable claim based on chains of assumptions piled upon assumptions, by members of what is now a multi-billion-dollar, highly-motivated media and governmental industry (filled with many of the same environmentalists who showed their typical level of honesty when crippling nuclear energy's expansion in most western countries). I know skeptics are supposed to all be in the pockets of utility companies. Yet your average utility company has its revenue far more indirectly and more mildly affected by AGW-effect debates than individuals & organization who have their whole income source 100% determined by how well they can sell a story to the public. Such as this is typical.

Ocean acidification. Scares the shit out of me.

There is a slight average oceanic pH change misleadingly called "acidification." Even the IPCC only calculates a drop to around 7.8 pH by the year 2100, despite the IPCC making the questionable assumption that cheap fossil fuel supplies are never depleted, with a constant increase in CO2 emissions throughout the century. (Earlier thread). Neutral water is more "acidic" at 7.0 pH, while areas of the oceans where seawater mixes with rivers get much lower than 7.8 pH already. The slight pH change may have undesirable effects on some species, but it isn't something that should be scaring the shit out of someone, not turning the oceans lifeless.

Here it really helps if one has some basic knowledge not taught in most schools:

Temperatures and CO2 levels of earth's past history:

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carbo ... imate.html



See how CO2 levels were even 2000-5000+ ppm during much of the past. Such was way above the consequences of a future CO2 level like 500 or 600 ppm versus 390 ppm today, yet the bulk of oceanic life did and can live through increased CO2. The fundamental basis of the marine food chain, the top primary producer, plankton today isn't that different than it was millions of years ago.

(Incidentally, back during the Late Ordovician Period, CO2 levels were 12 times higher than now, many times higher than would be reached by mankind before running out of affordable fossil fuel deposits, with CO2's warming effect being so limited in magnitude compared to other factors that -surprise, surprise- such was an ice age).

Of relevance is that past geological history plus Henry's Law, where such as the amount of carbon dioxide getting dissolved in water is proportional to the partial pressure of the gas in the atmosphere above. (Of course, CO2 and the oceans thousands of meters deep is far more complicated than just calculating it for a glass of water, yet the overall picture of it being dependent on partial pressure in the atmosphere above remains).

To make soda drinks, we raise CO2 partial pressure to pressures such as 50-100 psi, such as 10000+ times more than the 0.0057 psi of CO2 in the atmosphere. With 10000 times the partial pressure, around 10000 times as much gets dissolved, making soda drinks have enough carbonic acid to be rather acidic.

Although of far lesser magnitude, a similar principle applies with how much CO2 gets into the oceans now at 390 ppm CO2, versus if CO2 was to rise to some figure like 500-600 ppm before we ran out of cheap oil and coal or switched away, versus how such compares to the greater amount of CO2 that was in the oceans in past epochs.

The oceans had a lot more CO2 dissolved at times millions of years ago, and they had lower pH then than will be reached now.

A really accurate depiction of the effects of global warming would mostly be too mild, slow, subtle, and boring to make the news much at all. There is the effect of increased CO2 on plant growth, though, far from the only factor in the following but of some significance:



For world plant biomass in general:

http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/pns/doers/doer34/doer34.htm

[Vehrec]

Aren't worms hyper sensitive to the atmosphere, and if they go with a matter of generations several patches of once fertile land will be turned barren!

Wherever you heard that from, it is just a lie, likely from a source in the same vein as those environmentalists who claim nuclear waste will doom the world.

To wipe out worms via atmospheric toxicity, you'd need hundreds of times greater concentration of CO2 than would occur even if all the oil and coal in the world were used up. For an example of the overall picture, see how http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/212/13/v-a references the effect of CO2 at 19% concentration, about 500 times greater than the 0.04% in the atmosphere.

When some commercial greenhouses use CO2 enrichment to much increase plant growth, that doesn't turn the land inside barren, to say the least.

No, but there are other things that complicate the issue. For instance, grasses are using a type of photosynthesis that is very well adapted to low (I.E, current) CO2 levels and will not respond as well to elevated levels. Elevated temperature levels also can impede photosynthesis in much the same way that too much light causes the vital enzymes to grab onto the wrong compounds and fail to make anything of use but spend a lot of energy.

What about the shifting pressure of all of this new water from a melted continent onto to the tectonic plates of our planet that is likely going to result in a devastating increase in earth-quakes!?

Because the world was devastated by earthquakes some centuries ago when world sea levels were 0.2 meters higher than today during the medieval warm period? (It wasn't).

Because a very tiny fraction of a percentage point change in the cumulative pressure of thousands-of-meters-deep oceans causes earthquakes to skyrocket? (It doesn't).

*snip earthquake shit*

Where you might get earthquakes would be where the weight goes away, wouldn't it? So, on Greenland or the west antarctic, as unlikely as those two are to melt within our lifetimes.

If you had said hurricanes, floods, or other natural disasters, that would have been a better argument but with fact-checking relevant metrics still easy.
*snip graphics*

Looking at the past 100 years is a good way to get some idea of how much we are doomed (or not!) over the next 50-100 years before running out of cheap fossil fuels or switching away, better than assumptions with no grounding in history at all.

Hmm, that's funny. One of those looks like an awfully misleading doccument. Which is more likely, that there are fewer storms over the past century, or that they have been predicted and their effects mediated in increasingly successful ways? I'll give you a hint, compare the death toll and populations for Galvaston before it's famous hurricane and for New Orleans before it's. Then tell me which city had warning.

How bout the fact that the dwindling number of entomophily insects is going to have a terrifying impact on agriculture the world over!?!

Because milder, warmer winters from global warming are harmful for insects, like insects do better in cold arctic climates than towards the equator? No.

I wonder if you were joking during all the above, in which case congrats, as the real comedy is that everybody else took it seriously while never questioning or disputing the statements.

With that said, I can't resist pointing out that the decrease in bee populations that occurred a couple years ago, with widespread mainstream media articles blaming it on everything from global warming to cell phones, turned out -surprise, surprise- to be due to a virus, one of the pandemics that sweeps the population every few decades.

I think this may be another case of more extreme climate doing damage, as opposed to temperature swings.

Their cute, cuddly, half-ton murder machines who sponsor coke-a-cola. Yet whenever I hear someone complaining about global warming melting a continent I am sure to have an appeal of "The Bears! The Penguins! THE MAJESTY OF A CONTINENT YOU'LL PROBABLY NEVER SEEEeEeeee."

Compared to some of the arguments above, polar bears are a relatively more valid global warming concern. Even so:

*snip articles about bears*
Polar bears even survived the Holocene Climate Optimum when arctic temperatures were way higher (several degrees higher) than now, 8000 years ago, meaning the bears are a bit more adaptable than most people give them credit.

I feel compelled to point out that the Polar Bear was until recently one of those animals with no bag limit-or at least no reasonable one. Therefore, articles about increasing numbers since the 80s or 50s are by nature misleading.

Over the past three decades, northern hemisphere sea ice has declined by around 2.7% per decade (although southern hemisphere sea ice has meanwhile actually increased by around 1.1% per decade):

However, 3 decades is like cherry-picking data, even if an artifact of when most monitoring began, not much to go on when some cycles can take 80 or 90 years. The recent northern hemisphere decrease has more to do with changes in wind/ocean currents (such as more of it blown into waters further away from the pole where, of course, it melts) than temperatures alone.

While that's a whole topic onto itself, here's one illustration (yes, one of hundreds of peer-reviewed articles counter to the more extremist claims about the magnitude and rapidity of AGW, even if the bulk of the funding in the field and the average ideology of most individuals probable to enter it is tilted differently):

ATMOSPHERIC general circulation models predict enhanced greenhouse warming at high latitudes owing to positive feedbacks between air temperature, ice extent and surface albedo. Previous analyses of Arctic temperature trends have been restricted to land-based measurements on the periphery of the Arctic Ocean. Here we present temperatures measured in the lower troposphere over the Arctic Ocean during the period 1950–90. We have analysed more than 27,000 temperature profiles, measured by radiosonde at Russian drifting ice stations and by dropsonde from US 'Ptarmigan' weather reconnaissance aircraft, for trends as a function of season and altitude. Most of the trends are not statistically significant. In particular, we do not observe the large surface warming trends predicted by models; indeed, we detect significant surface cooling trends over the western Arctic Ocean during winter and autumn. This discrepancy suggests that present climate models do not adequately incorporate the physical processes that affect the polar regions.

There's reason to believe that a lot of the changes in currents are cyclical. Even temperatures themselves show a lot other than a linear trend if the data for the whole past 100 years instead of just the most frequentlypublicized past 30 years is looked at, due to the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation), AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation), etc:



http://www.intellicast.com/Community/Co ... =rss&a=128

Anyway, polar bear populations have been increasing (more than twice as many now as in the 1950s before conservation efforts began).

For them to die out due to global warming before we run out of oil and coal is merely a questionable claim based on chains of assumptions piled upon assumptions, by members of what is now a multi-billion-dollar, highly-motivated media and governmental industry (filled with many of the same environmentalists who showed their typical level of honesty when crippling nuclear energy's expansion in most western countries). I know skeptics are supposed to all be in the pockets of utility companies. Yet your average utility company has its revenue far more indirectly and more mildly affected by AGW-effect debates than individuals & organization who have their whole income source 100% determined by how well they can sell a story to the public. Such as this is typical.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Any increase in polar bears is because people have stopped shooting them. You critique people for extrapolating future climate patterns, and then go right ahead to extrapolate polar bears. So who's being hypocritical here?

Ocean acidification. Scares the shit out of me.

There is a slight average oceanic pH change misleadingly called "acidification." Even the IPCC only calculates a drop to around 7.8 pH by the year 2100, despite the IPCC making the questionable assumption that cheap fossil fuel supplies are never depleted, with a constant increase in CO2 emissions throughout the century. (Earlier thread). Neutral water is more "acidic" at 7.0 pH, while areas of the oceans where seawater mixes with rivers get much lower than 7.8 pH already. The slight pH change may have undesirable effects on some species, but it isn't something that should be scaring the shit out of someone, not turning the oceans lifeless.

Here it really helps if one has some basic knowledge not taught in most schools:

Temperatures and CO2 levels of earth's past history:



See how CO2 levels were even 2000-5000+ ppm during much of the past. Such was way above the consequences of a future CO2 level like 500 or 600 ppm versus 390 ppm today, yet the bulk of oceanic life did and can live through increased CO2. The fundamental basis of the marine food chain, the top primary producer, plankton today isn't that different than it was millions of years ago.

(Incidentally, back during the Late Ordovician Period, CO2 levels were 12 times higher than now, many times higher than would be reached by mankind before running out of affordable fossil fuel deposits, with CO2's warming effect being so limited in magnitude compared to other factors that -surprise, surprise- such was an ice age).

The sun was also much weaker back then. If CO2 is plotted with solar irradiation compensated for, the match to global climate change on geologic time is almost perfect. The only reason there could be an ice age in the Ordovician was because the sun was weaker-had the CO2 levels been lower, perhaps as low as today, earth history would have been very different. I note that at the beginning of that ice age there is a drop in the Ordovician carbon level, so wouldn't that be a very obvious trigger?

Of relevance is that past geological history plus Henry's Law, where such as the amount of carbon dioxide getting dissolved in water is proportional to the partial pressure of the gas in the atmosphere above. (Of course, CO2 and the oceans thousands of meters deep is far more complicated than just calculating it for a glass of water, yet the overall picture of it being dependent on partial pressure in the atmosphere above remains).

To make soda drinks, we raise CO2 partial pressure to pressures such as 50-100 psi, such as 10000+ times more than the 0.0057 psi of CO2 in the atmosphere. With 10000 times the partial pressure, around 10000 times as much gets dissolved, making soda drinks have enough carbonic acid to be rather acidic.

Although of far lesser magnitude, a similar principle applies with how much CO2 gets into the oceans now at 390 ppm CO2, versus if CO2 was to rise to some figure like 500-600 ppm before we ran out of cheap oil and coal or switched away, versus how such compares to the greater amount of CO2 that was in the oceans in past epochs.

The oceans had a lot more CO2 dissolved at times millions of years ago, and they had lower pH then than will be reached now.

A really accurate depiction of the effects of global warming would mostly be too mild, slow, subtle, and boring to make the news much at all. There is the effect of increased CO2 on plant growth, though, far from the only factor in the following but of some significance:

Indeed, you are correct that increased CO2 can cause some plants to grow faster and larger. However, the secondary effects of climate change such as disturbances in rain distribution are likely to have a much larger limiting effect than CO2 especially on a global scale.

For world plant biomass in general:[/url]

[/quote] Oh, the Green revolution, isn't that what that is? Well, coupled with other farming improvements over the past century. I'm not sure how the second group got their measurements, so I'll need to ask around about their results. I see that it's not in any way related to actual measurements of biomass, just their models, and ones that seem about 20 years out of date.

[Gilthan]

Aren't worms hyper sensitive to the atmosphere, and if they go with a matter of generations several patches of once fertile land will be turned barren!

Wherever you heard that from, it is just a lie, likely from a source in the same vein as those environmentalists who claim nuclear waste will doom the world.

To wipe out worms via atmospheric toxicity, you'd need hundreds of times greater concentration of CO2 than would occur even if all the oil and coal in the world were used up. For an example of the overall picture, see how http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/212/13/v-a references the effect of CO2 at 19% concentration, about 500 times greater than the 0.04% in the atmosphere.

When some commercial greenhouses use CO2 enrichment to much increase plant growth, that doesn't turn the land inside barren, to say the least.

No, but there are other things that complicate the issue. For instance, grasses are using a type of photosynthesis that is very well adapted to low (I.E, current) CO2 levels and will not respond as well to elevated levels. Elevated temperature levels also can impede photosynthesis in much the same way that too much light causes the vital enzymes to grab onto the wrong compounds and fail to make anything of use but spend a lot of energy

On the contrary, even elevated CO2 and increased temperature in combination (a greenhouse-like environment) are of benefit. For instance:

http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/conte ... /48/6/1309

Perennial ryegrass swards were grown in large containers on a soil, at two N fertilizer supplies and were exposed during two years in highly ventilated plastic tunnels to elevated (700 µl l–1 [CO2) or ambient atmospheric CO2 concentration at outdoor temperature and to a 3°C increase in air temperature in elevated CO2. The irrigation was adjusted to obtain a soil water deficit during summer. The daily net C assimilation was increased in elevated CO2 by 29 and 36% at the low and high N supplies, respectively.

Here's an illustration of higher CO2 being of large benefit to C3 plants while C4 plants aren't harmed:



Actually the graph above even underestimates the benefit, as, for example, C4 species under water-limited conditions can benefit more from increased CO2.

For ambient CO2 versus doubled CO2 (although a full doubling is questionable, given that oil and coal may not be around cheaply forever), the following illustrates how peak productivity occurs at higher temperature when CO2 levels are increased, making elevated CO2 combined with higher average temperature and longer growing seasons have a synergistic effect on growth:



Particularly striking is how most plants naturally take advantage of increased CO2 (though such isn't surprisingly when common ancestors evolved during the lush, abundant higher-CO2 greenhouse world of the dinosaurs) by reduced stomatal conductances, since the pores no longer have to be as "open," so to speak, to get enough needed CO2. A side-effect is drastically reduced transpirational water losses, much increasing the efficiency with which water is used (a bonus to agriculture).

The rise in efficiency of water usage with higher CO2:

If you had said hurricanes, floods, or other natural disasters, that would have been a better argument but with fact-checking relevant metrics still easy.
*snip graphics*

Looking at the past 100 years is a good way to get some idea of how much we are doomed (or not!) over the next 50-100 years before running out of cheap fossil fuels or switching away, better than assumptions with no grounding in history at all.

Hmm, that's funny. One of those looks like an awfully misleading doccument. Which is more likely, that there are fewer storms over the past century, or that they have been predicted and their effects mediated in increasingly successful ways?

The AAPS medical journal article is not misleading, just showing the real world statistics.

Since the matter here is how people do, whether we should be terrified of global warming's effects, the death rates after usage of technology are what matters. We're not going to stop using technology, rather only getting more advanced technological capabilities in the future. Overall storms kill a relatively trivial portion of the public, decreasing if anything in deaths per million people, a trend seen throughout the past 100 years of global warming and going to be seen over the next 50-100 years too.

With that said, an earlier graph showed that also even the absolute number of hurricanes worldwide has not been increasing.

Their cute, cuddly, half-ton murder machines who sponsor coke-a-cola. Yet whenever I hear someone complaining about global warming melting a continent I am sure to have an appeal of "The Bears! The Penguins! THE MAJESTY OF A CONTINENT YOU'LL PROBABLY NEVER SEEEeEeeee."

Compared to some of the arguments above, polar bears are a relatively more valid global warming concern. Even so:

*snip articles about bears*
Polar bears even survived the Holocene Climate Optimum when arctic temperatures were way higher (several degrees higher) than now, 8000 years ago, meaning the bears are a bit more adaptable than most people give them credit.

I feel compelled to point out that the Polar Bear was until recently one of those animals with no bag limit-or at least no reasonable one. Therefore, articles about increasing numbers since the 80s or 50s are by nature misleading.

Given that the burden of proof is on those making claims that polar bears will go extinct, there is hardly good observational support for such when the number of bears continues to increase each decade. It is actually pretty impressive that polar bear numbers keep going up despite how the Canadians shoot 500 of them a year even now. Sure, bear numbers depend on variation in hunting levels as well as other factors, but the big picture is that they aren't dying out.

There is the effect of increased CO2 on plant growth, though, far from the only factor in the following but of some significance:

Indeed, you are correct that increased CO2 can cause some plants to grow faster and larger. However, the secondary effects of climate change such as disturbances in rain distribution are likely to have a much larger limiting effect than CO2 especially on a global scale.

<snip>

For world plant biomass in general:[/url]

Oh, the Green revolution, isn't that what that is? Well, coupled with other farming improvements over the past century. I'm not sure how the second group got their measurements, so I'll need to ask around about their results. I see that it's not in any way related to actual measurements of biomass, just their models, and ones that seem about 20 years out of date.

That's your assumption convenient for your environmentalist ideology. In contrast, actual historical observation is fact. So let's compare to what actual observation shows for whether net primary production (plant growth) has been increasing or decreasing under recent decades of global warming:



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12791990

Climate-Driven Increases in Global Terrestrial Net Primary Production from 1982 to 1999

Recent climatic changes have enhanced plant growth in northern mid-latitudes and high latitudes. However, a comprehensive analysis of the impact of global climatic changes on vegetation productivity has not before been expressed in the context of variable limiting factors to plant growth.

We present a global investigation of vegetation responses to climatic changes by analyzing 18 years (1982 to 1999) of both climatic data and satellite observations of vegetation activity. Our results indicate that global changes in climate have eased several critical climatic constraints to plant growth, such that net primary production increased 6% (3.4 petagrams of carbon over 18 years) globally.

The largest increase was in tropical ecosystems. Amazon rain forests accounted for 42% of the global increase in net primary production, owing mainly to decreased cloud cover and the resulting increase in solar radiation.

Satellites for measuring vegetation over all the millions of square miles worldwide of course weren't around earlier, resulting in the limited timeframe of the above.

Extending back before the modern era of worldwide satellite coverage, however, are local samples, like the example of this study:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_o ... 951a1323f0

The sustained increase in growth since 1990 in particular is unprecedented over the full length of the dataset (1840–2005 AD). These trends bear no relationship to regional temperature or precipitation variations and therefore are unlikely to be climatically induced. Disturbance effects from human activities are also unlikely as the study site lies in a remote forest area with difficult access. A plausible alternative hypothesis is that the enhanced growth reflects a fertilization effect due to rising CO2 in the global atmosphere. Based on the timing of individual tree responses, it is further hypothesized that the crossing of a CO2 threshold was responsible for the enhanced growth, and that this threshold may be age dependent (decreasing with age).

Of course, none of this would be surprising to anyone with (an unfortunately rare combination of) mathematical literacy, grasp of the most basic figures involved here, and the understanding that billions of tons of carbon emitted but appearing neither in the atmosphere nor the oceans can not simply vanish.

As pointed out before in the prior thread before, for an example of the most recent 1999-2009 period:

Worldwide CO2 emissions averaged around 27 billion tons a year during the past decade (on average 7 billion tons a year of carbon), which amounted to about 270 billion tons of CO2 added to the atmosphere. Meanwhile there was a measured increase in atmospheric CO2 levels of 19.4 ppm by volume, 155 billion tons by mass, an amount 57% of the preceding but only 57% of it.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/images/tbl3.jpg
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt
http://www.terrapub.co.jp/e-library/dod/pdf/0143.pdf

If one looks at where the other 115 billion tons went, it was a mix of uptake by the oceans and it going into increased growth of biomass (carbon fertilization from higher CO2 levels) / soil.

Approximately 18% (49 billion tons CO2, 13 billion tons carbon) went into accelerated growth of biomass / soil, and about 25% went into the oceans.

In other words, more than a billion tons of carbon a year (Pg C yr–1) gets consumed by the growing biosphere. To quote the more academic treatment of a study:

http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr2002/19/c019p265.pdf

The observed increase in the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is lower than the difference between CO2 emission and CO2 dissolution in the ocean. This imbalance, earlier named the ‘missing sink’, comprises up to 1.1 Pg C yr–1, after taking land-use changes into account . The subsequent assessments assume that this sink is caused by some natural changes in terrestrial ecosystems (Houghton 1996).

The simplest explanation for the ‘missing sink’ is CO2 fertilization. Stimulation of photosynthesis at higher CO2 concentrations is repeatedly observed in short-term experiments at the single leaf level. A number of biosphere models take this effect into account for calculating the natural terrestrial sink. The results of such calculations are normally in close agreement with the magnitude of the ‘missing sink’.

There are legions of studies showing the obvious effect of CO2 fertilization on plants (not that it takes a genius to figure out that the reason many commercial greenhouses spend money on CO2 enrichment equipment is because it works), but, for the sake of brevity, I'll resort here to just giving a sample:

Increasing atmospheric CO2 is recognized as a major aspect of global climate change that would have a significant impact on the productivity of major agricultural crops. Two field experiments were done, with the objective of quantifying the response of a short-duration rice (Oryza sativa) variety (BG-300) to elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide, in the low elevation, subhumid zone of Sri Lanka. <snip>

Grain yields of rice crops grown under elevated CO2 were 24 % and 39 % greater than the respective ambient treatments in the maha (January – March 2001) and yala (May – August, 2001) seasons. <snip> The results of this study demonstrate that elevated CO2 causes significant yield increases in rice, even when it is grown in warm, subhumid tropical climates.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/jour ... 1&SRETRY=0

[Darth Wong]

Well of course some of the CO2 output is taken up by the biosystem. In fact, the biggest hurdle faced by early proponents of the greenhouse warming theory was the arbitrary assumption by a large part of the scientific community that one hundred percent of any added CO2 would be taken up by the biosystem. If less than half of it was taken up by the biosystem, then the early theorists were correct.

[D.Turtle]

In the same vein: Of course there can be some positive effects of increasing CO2.

The question is if this is outweighed by the negative effects, or if the effects start becoming negative if CO2 levels rise enough.

According to the IPCC:

By mid-century, annual average river runoff and water availability are projected to increase by 10-40% at high latitudes and in some wet tropical areas, and decrease by 10-30%over some dry regions at mid-latitudes and in the dry tropics, some of which are presently water-stressed areas. In some places and in particular seasons, changes differ from these annual figures. ** D10 [3.4]
...
Over the course of this century, net carbon uptake by terrestrial ecosystems is likely to peak before mid-century and then weaken or even reverse,11 thus amplifying climate change. ** N [4.ES, F4.2]
...
Globally, the potential for food production is projected to increase with increases in local average temperature over a range of 1-3°C, but above this it is projected to decrease. * D [5.4, 5.6]
...
Studies in temperate areas have shown that climate change is projected to bring some benefits, such as fewer deaths from cold exposure. Overall it is expected that these benefits will be
outweighed by the negative health effects of rising temperatures worldwide, especially in developing countries. ** D [8.4]
...
Agricultural production, including access to food, in many African countries and regions is projected to be severely compromised by climate variability and change. The area suitable for agriculture, the length of growing seasons and yield potential, particularly along the margins of semi-arid and arid areas, are expected to decrease. This would further adversely affect food security and exacerbate malnutrition in the continent. In some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50% by 2020. ** N [9.2, 9.4, 9.6]
...
It is projected that crop yields could increase up to 20% in East and South-East Asia while they could decrease up to 30% in Central and South Asia by the mid-21st century. Taken together,
and considering the influence of rapid population growth and urbanisation, the risk of hunger is projected to remain very high in several developing countries. * N [10.4]
...
Production from agriculture and forestry by 2030 is projected to decline over much of southern and eastern Australia, and over parts of eastern New Zealand, due to increased drought and fire.
However, in New Zealand, initial benefits are projected in western and southern areas and close to major rivers due to a longer growing season, less frost and increased rainfall. ** N [11.4]
...
In Northern Europe, climate change is initially projected to bring mixed effects, including some benefits such as reduced demand for heating, increased crop yields and increased forest growth.
However, as climate change continues, its negative impacts (including more frequent winter floods, endangered ecosystems and increasing ground instability) are likely to outweigh its benefits. ** D [12.4]

So pointing out singular positive effects is useless. The question is overall impact - and that is negative.

Now, one or two separate points:
You quoted this article: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v3 ... 335a0.html arguing that there is no warming at the Artic. Interestingly enough, this article is from 1993.

Looking for example at the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Report (from 2004), we get the following:

Although some regions have cooled slightly the overall trend for the Arctic is a substantial warming over the last few decades. For the Arctic as a whole, the 20th century can be divided into two warming periods, bracketing a 20-year cooling period (approximately 1945 to 1966) in the middle of the century.

And yes there are explanations for that cooling period. Short version: Large output of Aerosols, and the decrease in the same following the Clean Air Act and similar stuff in other countries.

As for the Sea Ice extent in the Antarctic: That is only one part of the situation in the Antarctic. Most of the Ice is on the continent itself, and that is decreasing:

We use monthly measurements of time-variable gravity from the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite gravity mission to determine the ice mass-loss for the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets during the period between April 2002 and February 2009. We find that during this time period the mass loss of the ice sheets is not a constant, but accelerating with time, i.e., that the GRACE observations are better represented by a quadratic trend than by a linear one, implying that the ice sheets contribution to sea level becomes larger with time. In Greenland, the mass loss increased from 137 Gt/yr in 2002–2003 to 286 Gt/yr in 2007–2009, i.e., an acceleration of −30 ± 11 Gt/yr2 in 2002–2009. In Antarctica the mass loss increased from 104 Gt/yr in 2002–2006 to 246 Gt/yr in 2006–2009, i.e., an acceleration of −26 ± 14 Gt/yr2 in 2002–2009. The observed acceleration in ice sheet mass loss helps reconcile GRACE ice mass estimates obtained for different time periods.

Incidentally, Science is cool! I mean, sending up a satellite that measures the difference in gravity (in space!) in order to find out the mass-balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheets? Cool!

[Gilthan]

The question is overall impact - and that is negative.

As illustrated earlier, what has been seen so far in historical real-world data is a major increase in the productivity of the biosphere under CO2 enrichment and climate change over recent decades, billions of tons a decade of net growth, positive effects for agriculture and other biomass.

For there to be net negative effects (imaginary decrease rather than the observed increase in agricultural productivity, etc.) is based on debatable chains of assumptions stacked upon assumptions for the future. It is also partially a matter of subjective judgments for weighting the value or harm of various effects on different regions and on humans versus various species.

To give an example,that IPCC summary for political policymakers document goes on about one of the very top negative effects in the table SPM.1. being that "intense tropical cyclone activity increases" cause "increased risk of deaths, injuries, water-and-foodborne diseases; post-traumatic stress disorders."

Yet, one of the authors himself points out:

"I was disappointed that after more than two years carefully analysing the literature on possible links between tropical cyclones and global warming that even before the report was approved it was being misreported and misrepresented. We concluded that the question of whether there was a greenhouse-cyclone link was pretty much a toss of a coin at the present state of the science, with just a slight leaning towards the likelihood of such a link."

Outside of debates over whether trends are going slightly up, down, or neither, the big picture is precisely what hasn't been seen, no huge skyrocketing increase in hurricanes much harming human civilization:



In general, a good illustration of the strength of commonplace ideological blinders is the choice of proposed countermeasures.

Even under some estimates making high assumptions for water vapor and cloud positive feedback under some models (without which even doubling CO2 would merely raise temperatures by no more than about a single degree, with the Beer-Lambert Law for diminishing returns, with part of the spectrum overlapping with some wavelengths already much absorbed by water vapor, etc):

CO2 is a very weak agent of radiative forcing per ton. It takes 25-33+ tons of CO2 to cause as much warming as 1 ton of methane over a 100-year period. 1 ton of HFC 134a chlorofluorocarbon is a warming agent equivalent to 3400 tons of CO2 over a 20-year period. Likewise, powerful cooling agents orders of magnitude beyond CO2's effect per ton exist, like the effectiveness of aluminum oxide particulates with long residence times if submicron size delivered to sufficient stratospheric altitude.

In that context, focus on changing CO2 emissions to engineer the climate cooler basically minimizes the benefit to expense ratio by working with about the least efficient substance, even while it damages the biomass growth and boon to the food supply of CO2 enrichment. (That partially overlaps with measures that would be worthwhile regardless, like developing replacements for limited supplies of imported oil, but CO2 cap-and-trade would affect everything else too, from production of cement to shale oil, to the high expense of carbon-sequestering coal plants proposed to pump their CO2 underground).

An example is when the EIA estimated $1.4 trillion cumulative cost and 51 billion tons CO2 emissions reduction to cause a practically unnoticeable mere 0.07 degree change in temperatures of the year 2050.

As Edward Teller, a brilliant physicist known colloquially as the father of the hydrogen bomb pointed out:

Prospects For Physics-Based Modulation Of Global Change*

Edward Teller and Lowell Wood

University of California

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Livermore CA 94551-0808

It has been suggested that large-scale climate changes, mostly due to atmospheric injection of "greenhouse gases" connected with fossil-fired energy production, should be forestalled by internationally-agreed reductions in, e.g., electricity generation. The potential economic impacts of such limitations are obviously large: >= $10E11/year. We propose that for far smaller — < 1% — costs, the mean thermal effects of "greenhouse gases" may be obviated in any of several distinct ways, some of them novel.

<snip>

The starting point of the present paper is the widely-appreciated fact that increases in average world-wide temperature of the magnitude currently predicted can be canceled by preventing about 1% of incoming solar radiation – insolation – from reaching the Earth. This could be done by scattering into space from the vicinity of the Earth an appropriately small fraction of total insolation.

If performed near optimally, we believe that the total cost of such an enhanced scattering operation would probably be at most $1 billion per year, an expenditure that is two orders of magnitude smaller in economic terms than those underlying currently proposed limitations on fossil-fired energy production.

<snip>

Each of these scattering particles may be estimated to have an average mass of ~10E-15 gm (i.e., be ~0.12 microns in diameter and of unit density), so that the required quantity of them would imply a total mass of the scattering system of ~10E13 gms, or 10,000,000 tons. A mean stratospheric lifetime of each scattering particle of 5 years would imply a required injection rate of 2x10E6 tons annually, or a time-averaged injection rate of 60 kg/second, which is feasible to maintain e.g., with highly parallel exercising of existing fine-aerosol-dispersion technology.

img]http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/ ... e_Mass.gif[/img][/url]

Even though there appears to be overall loss of ice in Antarctica over the past hundred years (also for the past few thousand years, for that matter, since the last ice age), your graph is particularly poor, down to its mere 7 year period, so let's illustrate a bit of how the matter is more complicated.

Your data is from a method that has to be particularly corrected for the magnitude of post-glacial rebound, on a region where a satellite analysis of a different 11-year-period 1992-2003 gave a rather different estimate from satellite radar altimetry for overall Antarctic mass balance and thickness change over most of its area.

Depending on the density of the snow giving rise to the observed elevation fluctuations, the ice sheet mass trend falls in the range -5 – +85 Gt yr-1. We find that data from climate model reanalyses are not able to characterise the contemporary snowfall fluctuation with useful accuracy and our best estimate of the overall mass trend—growth of 27 +/- 29 Gt yr-1 —is based on an assessment of the expected snowfall variability. Mass gains from accumulating snow, particularly on the Antarctic Peninsula and within East Antarctica, exceed the ice dynamic mass loss from West Antarctica.

But, more importantly, let's focus on what we really care about, which is how sea level is affected. Measuring sea level changes is complicated, as tidal gauges in many regions have to be adjusted for the estimated effect of GIA (glacial isostatic adjustment ... post-glacial rebound) in some areas (still going on by relevant mm/yr amounts thousands of years after the last ice age), sediment compaction, etc. depending on the location.

However, combined data from a set of the most reliable tide gauges least subject to potential error in GIA offsets was analyzed to find the trend in the 20th century:

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=18509066
http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Holga ... olgate.pdf



It has its ups and downs, if a given short period of a few years is looked at. Yet, overall, over the whole 100 year period, what's noteworthy there is how close it is to a linear rate with little actual acceleration. (Actually, as the caption points out, it was a higher rate of about 1.91 mm a year average rise between 1903 and 1953, versus the slower average rate of 1.42 mm a year during the next 50 years).

If someone purchased a house on the average ocean coast back in the year 1950, the typical degree to which they were devastated by sea level rise 50 years later by the year 2000 was really no more than between 1900 and 1950. In fact, there's precious little really showing 2000 versus 2050 is going to be terribly worse than the tiny difference between 1950 versus 2000.

[D.Turtle]

Here once again we get into the problem of you misrepresenting what scientists actually said in order to knock down strawmen you set up.

For example, the IPCC says it is "likely" that increased CO2 emissions will lead to "Intense tropical
cyclone activity increases". Likely means a 66%-90% certainty at that time. Note, that this is a progection - not related to what has happened up to that time.

Looking at what the NOAA says about this topic:

i) It is premature to conclude that human activity--and particularly greenhouse warming--has already had a discernible impact on Atlantic hurricane activity.
ii) It is likely that greenhouse warming will cause hurricanes in the coming century to be more intense on average and have higher rainfall rates than present-day hurricanes.

Now, what evidence is there that leads to such a conclusion?

Observed records of Atlantic hurricane activity (e.g., Emanuel 2007) show a strong correlation, on multi-year time-scales, between local tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and the Power Dissipation Index (PDI) (Figure 1). PDI is a combined measure of Atlantic hurricane frequency, intensity, and duration. Both Atlantic SSTs and PDI have risen sharply since the 1970s, and there is some evidence that PDI levels in recent years are higher than in the previous active Atlantic hurricane era in the 1950s and 60s.

(Most)Global Climate Models currently do not have a high enough resolution in order to properly model storms. There have been some attempts, but they are still highly experimental. What they DO show however is a projected increase in SST. If the apparent correlation holds true, that will lead to higher PDI figures. This is not certain however, which is why there are numerous caveats and statements of uncertainty.

Even what you posted was the person complaining that they stated it is likely (66-90%) while he thinks it is "as likely as not" (ca 50%). A difference in degrees, not total disagreement of the entire argument.

But once again, this is only one of many different (mostly) negative effects of global warming. There are numerous others (observed and projected) that are even worse and a lot more certain. So even if they are wrong or overestimate in one area, the overall trend is unchanged.

As for your tangent on Methane and water vapor, I'll just post an old figure:
Large Image
Again, the important figures from that image:
Radiative Forcing (in W/m²) of
CO2: 1.66 [1.49 to 1.83]
CH3: 0.48 [0.43 to 0.53]
N2O: 0.16 [0.14 to 0.18]
Halocarbons: 0.34 [0.31 to 0.37]
Direct effect of Aerosols: -0.5 [-0.9 to -0.1]
Cloud albedo effect: -0.7 [-1.8 to -0.3]

So why the focus on CO2? BECAUSE IT HAS THE LARGEST TOTAL EFFECT!
And note that NEGATIVE sign at the Aerosols....

As for your objection about the Antarctica data: That satellite has only been online since 2003. Everything from before that is indirect measurements combined with educated guesses only. The kind of stuff you dismiss almost everywhere else... The satellite instead is able to DIRECTLY measure the Mass of the Antarctic Ice Sheet - thats why that fucking instrument was put there! To fill a hole that had existed before. And what does it show? Mass-loss of the Antarctic Ice Sheet.

As for your point about sea level rise. Once again I have no idea what the fuck you are arguing there. No one is saying the whole world will be underwater in 50 years. What they ARE saying is that sea levels will rise, which can lead to increased flooding etc. The extent to which it will rise is still largely uncertain, which is why more research has to be done in that area.

BUT, the uncertainty is mostly in the direction of things getting worse, and not better.

And no idea what that image you posted is supposed to prove (why the fuck would you look at the integrated sea level curve instead of the sea level itself?)

Here is the appropriate image of sea level rise from the IPCC:
Large Image
For the future, the projections are between 0.18 and 0.59 meters in sea level rise by about 2100.

So again, no one is saying that you have to move a 100 miles inland in order to have a beachfront property in 50 years. However, even that modest rise is enough to cause large damage to coastal regions and islands in secondary effect.

Overall, what you are doing is always the same: Pick and choose one area were there are (admitted!) uncertainties and try to argue that these uncertainties invalidate everything, because they are uncertain. Nothing of what you are doing invalidates the fact that the vast majority of effects are expected to be negative and that the vast majority of uncertainty lies in the direction of the effects being worse, rather than better.

As for the tangent on geo-engineering: I'm quite sure that there are minor, tiny, unimportant, negligible uncertainties involved when throwing millions of tons of stuff directly into the stratosphere. Much safer than simply reducing emissions.

[Erik von Nein]

As for the claim that polar bears aren't affected by sea ice loss Polar Bears International has this to say on the matter:

The main threat to polar bears today is the loss of their icy habitat due to climate change. Polar bears depend on the sea ice for hunting, breeding, and in some cases to den. The summer ice loss in the Arctic is now equal to an area the size of Alaska, Texas, and the state of Washington combined.

At the most recent meeting of the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group(Copenhagen, 2009), scientists reported that of the 19 subpopulations of polar bears, eight are declining, three are stable, one is increasing, and seven have insufficient data on which to base a decision—this is a change from five that were declining in 2005, five that were stable, and two that were increasing. During the meeting, delegates renewed their conclusion from previous meetings that the greatest conservation challenge to the polar bear is ecological change in the Arctic related to climate warming.

On May 14, 2008, the U.S. Department of the Interior reclassified the polar bear as a Threatened Species under the Endangered Species Act, citing concerns about sea ice loss. Russia lists the polar bear as a species of concern.

In areas where long-term studies are available, populations are showing signs of stress due to shrinking sea ice. Canada's Western Hudson Bay population has dropped 22% since the early 1980s. The declines have been directly linked to an earlier ice break-up on Hudson Bay.

A long-term study of the Southern Beaufort Sea population, which spans the northern coast of Alaska and western Canada, has revealed a decline in cub survival rates and in the weight and skull size of adult males. Such declines were observed in Western Hudson Bay bears prior to the population drop there.

Another population listed as declining is Baffin Bay. According to the most recent report from the Polar Bear Specialist Group, this population, shared by Greenland and Canada, may simultaneously be suffering from significant sea ice loss and substantial over-harvesting, putting the population at great risk of a serious decline.

Similarly, the Chukchi Sea population, which is shared by Russia and the United States, is likely declining due to illegal harvest in Russia and one of the highest rates of sea ice loss in the Arctic.

Some Native communities in Canada have been reporting increasing numbers of polar bears on land. Traditional hunters believe this indicates an increased population, although the increased presence on land may, in fact, be related to shrinking sea ice and changes in the bears' distribution patterns. Data is needed to understand the change. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service states, "In the declining polar bear population of Canada's Western Hudson Bay, extensive scientific studies have indicated that the increased observation of bears on land is a result of changing distribution patterns and a result of changes in the accessibility of sea ice habitat."

They're a group that collects any scientific data on polar bear populations.

[Gilthan]

Now, what evidence is there that leads to such a conclusion?

<snip>

You seriously thought you could refute the *global* graph of hurricane trends in my last post with an *Atlantic-only* graph?

You get a substantial increase only by looking at just one particular region's fluctuations over a few year period. Over the decades there has been simultaneous increase in some regions and decrease in others. If cherry-picking local data was how to do analysis (no!), I could disprove global warming by just choosing a local region that had cooling over the past century, as there is always regional variation in any part of the climate, from land to sea surface temperatures.

To add to the earlier *global* illustration, let's point out what a global study finds:

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2 ... 5881.shtml

Trends in global tropical cyclone activity over the past twenty years (1986–2005)

The data indicate a large increasing trend in tropical cyclone intensity and longevity for the North Atlantic basin and a considerable decreasing trend for the Northeast Pacific. All other basins showed small trends, and there has been no significant change in global net tropical cyclone activity. There has been a small increase in global Category 4–5 hurricanes from the period 1986–1995 to the period 1996–2005. Most of this increase is likely due to improved observational technology.

Also the local Atlantic sea temperature trend over the short few years at the end is as atypical as the rest compared to global temperatures instead. Variation between different regions is well illustrated over a longer 1950-2000 period in a Journal of Physical Oceanography paper:

Is the World Ocean Warming? Upper-Ocean Temperature Trends: 1950–2000.

For example, the IPCC says it is "likely" that increased CO2 emissions will lead to "Intense tropical cyclone activity increases". Likely means a 66%-90% certainty at that time. Note, that this is a progection - not related to what has happened up to that time.

Indeed it is far from 100% proven and not at all related to what has actually happened up to this time during the past hundred years of global warming. Personally, I like to look at the past 100 years to gain some historically grounded ideas of the next 50 years.

As Dr. Spencer of the UAH and project team leader of NASA's Aqua satellite radiometer program points out in a good summary of debate even on the very future temperature trend assumptions underlying such predictions:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-101/

Now, you might be surprised to learn that the amount of warming directly caused by the extra CO2 is, by itself, relatively weak. It has been calculated theoretically that, if there are no other changes in the climate system, a doubling of the atmospheric CO2 concentration would cause less than 1 deg C of surface warming (about 1 deg. F). This is NOT a controversial statement…it is well understood by climate scientists. (As of 2008, we were about 40% to 45% of the way toward a doubling of atmospheric CO2.)

BUT…everything this else in the climate system probably WON’T stay the same! For instance, clouds, water vapor, and precipition systems can all be expected to respond to the warming tendency in some way, which could either amplify or reduce the manmade warming. These other changes are called “feedbacks,” and the sum of all the feedbacks in the climate system determines what is called ‘climate sensitivity’. Negative feedbacks (low climate sensitivity) would mean that manmade global warming might not even be measurable, lost in the noise of natural climate variability. But if feedbacks are sufficiently positive (high climate sensitivity), then manmade global warming could be catastrophic.

Obviously, knowing the strength of feedbacks in the climate system is critical; this is the subject of most of my research. Here you can read about my latest work on the subject, in which I show that feedbacks previously estimated from satellite observations of natural climate variability have potentially large errors. A confusion between forcing and feedback (loosely speaking, cause and effect) when observing cloud behavior has led to the illusion of a sensitive climate system, when in fact our best satellite observations (when carefully and properly interpreted) suggest an IN-sensitive climate system.

Finally, if the climate system is insensitive, this means that the extra carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere is not enough to cause the observed warming over the last 100 years — some natural mechanism must be involved. Here you can read about my favorite candidate: the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

Even what you posted was the person complaining that they stated it is likely (66-90%) while he thinks it is "as likely as not" (ca 50%).

Whether global warming's effects like the reduction of temperature difference between the poles and equator increases or decreases total weather intensity,* a perhaps 50% chance of increase versus a 50% chance of decrease (nothing in climate ever staying exactly the same over decades) is hardly an indisputable stirring reason to necessarily go all-out already on crippling the growth in carbon fixation within the world's food supply from CO2 enrichment.

* (That's not entirely unrelated to a thought experiment example of considering the relative magnitudes of turbulent convective heat transfer on one planet with uniform temperature, versus an imaginary non-rotating planet with a side hot and another cold, even though, of course, real weather is much more complicated).

But once again, this is only one of many different (mostly) negative effects of global warming. There are numerous others (observed and projected) that are even worse and a lot more certain.

We've already gone over most of the main ones, like the slight millimeters a year sea level rise, to the debatable degree it is accelerated by the temporary next 50-100 years of emissions before the era of cheap fossil fuel usage ends. (The IPCC actually assumes that various emission scenarios go up forever in its modeling).

There are biased miscellaneous arguments like being terrified of more mosquitoes or higher air conditioning costs in some regions, when, in contrast, overall most of human civilization prefers warmer climates (like California) to colder climates (like Siberia). Back before the matter got politicized, historians invariably referred to times of warmer climate in positive terms. Such ranged from the Holocene Climate Optimum, to when the Romans were able to grow wine vineyards well in Britain, to the Medieval Warm Period when Greenland was relatively habitable for early Viking colonization, in contrast to the net harm of the Little Ice Age.

To give one example over a still longer timeframe, when the biomass of vegetation in northern Europe-Asia was reconstructed in a study, it was found to have grown to be 20% higher than now during the warm Holocene Climate Optimum 6000 years ago (a degree higher temperatures than modern-day), while it was 55% higher than now during the Eem Interglacial Optimum of 125000 years ago (when temperatures were 2 degrees higher).

Vegetation, phytomass and carbon storage in Northern Eurasia during the last glacial–interglacial cycle and the Holocene

Potentials for crop yields are related to how other biomass can do.

Anyway, most importantly, you have no quantitative metric or comparison supporting your assumption that these global warming effects even all combined (theoretical slight change in mortality from hurricanes, plus the number of millimeters of gradual sea level rise, etc) outweigh the huge observed increase in food production from CO2 enrichment. Almost nothing is more important than a sufficient food supply for human well-being. The fact is, the CO2 emissions of evil capitalist exploiters driving SUVs are substantially helping propel the continued increase in world agricultural productivity that keeps the expanding third-world population from starving.

To sum up much with a graph:



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12791990

Climate-Driven Increases in Global Terrestrial Net Primary Production from 1982 to 1999

All this flies in the face of a lot of popular perceptions. In contrast, among the portion of the U.S. population who want to take action against global warming, 56% of them say it is at least somewhat likely that global warming will destroy human civilization within the next century (though 56% of that portion amounts to a lesser 23% of the total population). That's the real level of knowledge or rather lack of it for the bulk of the AGW alarmist movement, no better than the worms and earthquake lies I was shooting down at the top of this thread.

And note that NEGATIVE sign at the Aerosols....

They're extremely inefficient and limited at negative radiative forcing compared to a smaller dispersion of different substances at higher altitudes, of uniformly optimal particle size and different composition, which is what happens when things are done by accident instead of intelligent, planned geoengineering.

And no idea what that image you posted is supposed to prove (why the fuck would you look at the integrated sea level curve instead of the sea level itself?)

Dictionary link for you: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/integrated

The integrated sea level curve is simply that obtained by combining readings from multiple tidal stations. Since that helps average out local errors, it increases accuracy.

Here is the appropriate image of sea level rise from the IPCC:
Large Image

You don't realize that such also depicts approximately a linear trend of near-constant rise rate for now versus 50 or even 100 years ago, showing a lack of major acceleration, not that much different from the other graph?

For the future, the projections are between 0.18 and 0.59 meters in sea level rise by about 2100.

So far it is on track for around the lower end of that range, as usual if one looks at past IPCC reports even on other topics like the 1988 temperature projections versus observations.

Guess how an around 0.2 meter rise over the 21st century would compare to the 20th century? There was a 0.17 meter sea level rise in the 20th century as pointed out in the earlier graph.

So again, no one is saying that you have to move a 100 miles inland in order to have a beachfront property in 50 years. However, even that modest rise is enough to cause large damage to coastal regions and islands in secondary effect.

Outside of publicity in the past couple of decades as the matter got politicized, next to nobody even noticed much effect of the 0.17 meter rise in the 20th century, nor would they an around 0.2 meter rise in the 21st century. A lot of people lived through most of the 20th century not even aware of it. Sea levels have been rising since the last ice age thousands of years ago, and, as the graphs show, any recent acceleration in the rate of rise is rather limited, mostly rather a near-linear trend.

As for the tangent on geo-engineering: I'm quite sure that there are minor, tiny, unimportant, negligible uncertainties involved when throwing millions of tons of stuff directly into the stratosphere.

Dr. Teller's calculations correspond to merely around 0.05 tons per square mile on average, proportionally like cooling a city-size area with a few kilograms. Ten million tons of submicron stratospheric dispersed particulates is a lot more efficient than ineffectually attempting but failing to reduce CO2 emissions by an expensive hundreds of billions of tons. (The Kyoto treaty accelerated reallocation of CO2-emitting industry to exempt countries like China, with what politicians promised at the time having little to do with overall results looked at years later, and even this new Copenhagen treaty is going to be similar).

The basic principle is actually rather straightforward. As a thought experiment, begin with an oversimplified analogy and then work towards reality. If earth was simply a perfect airless sphere of rock, it is easy to calculate that covering 1% of its 5.1E14 m2 area with, for instance, aluminum, would have mass requirements varying depending on average thickness, an excessive 5.1E11 cubic meters if 1mm thickness but a mere 2.6E8 m3 if half-micron thickness. To instead further approach reality, substitute Dr. Teller's more efficient scattering particulates averaging around 0.0007 cubic microns each, and it turns out, as he calculated, only a lesser mere 1E7 tons becomes needed, 2E6 tons a year with 5 year average stratospheric residence time.

A couple million tons sent up a year vastly beats the astronomically greater expense of so many billions of tons of cutbacks in annual CO2 emissions throughout all types of industry, and that's hardly much of an uncertainty. Whether the Lawrence Livermore National Lab publication's estimates like under 1% the cost are precise, they're in the ballpark. Monitoring effects is easy enough with such ramped up over time starting from a trivial initial level. We already know stratospheric dust can scatter and reflect sunlight to cause cooling, as seen by historical temperature drops immediately after volcanic eruptions powerful enough to reach the stratosphere. The difference here is not wastefully blowing out billions of tons of debris and gases only to have a tiny fraction reach stratospheric altitude and be the right particle size.

Actually, estimated the light-scattering effect of stratospheric dust is hardly more complicated than the whole complicated system of CO2 versus water vapor, cloud, biosphere, etc, etc, etc, feedbacks in global warming models. Yet you don't say sarcastically that "I'm quite sure that there are minor, tiny, unimportant, negligible uncertainties" in those models, even though those future-predicting models are the basis for trillions of dollars of expenditures if the Copenhagen treaty is effectual at reducing CO2. (Actually I expect it to be ineffectual and largely ignored by even the signatory nations in practice afterward anyway, like usual, but I'm considering the hypothetical).

Now the real argument against such geoengineering, and the principle reason, aside from ideological blinders, that it isn't done today is that there is no universal human agreement that such temperature reduction would be an overall positive effect, because, frankly, the observed effects of global warming have been rather limited ... except for the enormous increase under recent CO2 enrichment in the average net primary productivity of plants worldwide.

Polar Bears International has this to say on the matter:

<snip>

They're a group that collects any scientific data on polar bear populations.

They're an environmentalist advocacy group, a little like Greenpeace. A trend varying between different several-year periods is hardly much of a meaningful proof of impending extinction (considering the overall picture of 20000-25000 bears now unlike the 5000-1000 at the historical low point decades ago, since, while that is affected by hunting levels, the big picture is whether a large population of bears exists or not):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... rfacedlies

You'd never know it from all those sorry photos of sad polar bears, but global polar bear numbers have actually increased over the past 40 years. In 2001, the polar bear specialist group of the World Conservation Union found that of 20 distinct polar bear populations, one or possibly two were declining, while more than half were stable and two subpopulations were actually increasing. In its more recent study of 2006, the group found a less rosy picture, but not much less rosy. It discovered that of 19 polar bear populations, five were declining, five were stable and two were increasing; there wasn't enough data to judge the fortunes of the remaining seven populations. The global polar bear population has increased from around 5,000 in the 1960s to 25,000 today.

According to Mitchell Taylor, a Canadian polar bear biologist, these beasts are not nearing extinction: "Climate change is having an effect on the west Hudson population of polar bears, but really, there is no need to panic. Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct."

One of the "nine scientific errors" found in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, following a case in the high court last year, concerned his hysterical claims about polar bears. Gore said that a scientific study had found that polar bears were drowning because they had to "swim long distances to find ice". Yet the only scientific study that Gore's team could provide was one which showed that "four polar bears have recently been found drowned because of a storm."

Lomborg has pointed out that, while the global polar bear population has increased since the 1960s, there has been some decline in subpopulations since the 1980s - but this is most likely related to hunting. Every year 49 bears are shot by hunters in the west Hudson area alone.

[Erik von Nein]

First you will demonstrate how Polar Bears International is "a little like Greenpeace" and how their data is not only suspect because of that but that, especially since NOAA cited them for more information about polar bear well being. Second your own link says that EXACT SAME THING as the information from mine, so I don't even see how that is supposed to prove anything.

[Gilthan]

Part of the point of the earlier article is the multi-decade trend, though it also notes the continuing hunting in certain localities. Saying that polar bear numbers in some regions declined over a several-year period doesn't give as much overall info as their total population now (20000-25000 bears, multiple times higher than several decades ago) and the long-term data.

For solid evidence of polar bears being headed for extinction, you'd rather need to show in a specifically quantified manner first a decrease under 15000 bears, then under 10000 bears, and so on.

Frequently inaccurate counts were referenced in part of an article posted before, and the likelihood of environmental advocacy groups erroring on the side of overestimate is hardly as likely as their natural tendency to find and report less than the total number of bears:

The latest government survey of polar bears roaming the vast Arctic expanses of northern Quebec, Labrador and southern Baffin Island show the population of polar bears has jumped to 2,100 animals from around 800 in the mid-1980s.

As recently as three years ago, a less official count placed the number at 1,400.

The Inuit have always insisted the bears' demise was greatly exaggerated by scientists doing projections based on fly-over counts, but their input was usually dismissed as the ramblings of self-interested hunters.

As Nunavut government biologist Mitch Taylor observed in a front-page story in the Nunatsiaq News last month, "the Inuit were right. There aren't just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears."

Their widely portrayed lurch toward extinction on a steadily melting ice cap is not supported by bear counts in other Arctic regions either.

The service identifies six Arctic regions where data are insufficient to make a call on the population, including the aforementioned Baffin shores area.

Another six areas are listed as having stable counts, three experienced reduced numbers and two have seen their bears increase.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news ... 1a9e5df868

If your response to that is you think it is irrelevant because that is from 2007 while today is 2009, sorry, I don't base judgments on reports of sub-decade fluctuations, rather more meaningful statistics over a longer time period. If polar bear populations declined below the levels of the 1980s or back to the levels of the 1950s, then you'd have a better argument. They haven't.

[D.Turtle]

Frankly, Gilthan, my points seem to fly right over your head.

The problem with Global Climate Change is, that at the moment many (not all) of the secondary effects are not yet definitely statistically separable from noise or natural oscillations. However, the long lead times mean that we cannot wait until it is obvious that these secondary effects are caused by climate change, because then it will be too late to undo the damage. This is why we have to rely on models. Models based on physical laws. Models getting more and more complex. Models that make predictions/projections that can (and have been) verified. Models combined with observations can tell us where more research has to be done, etc. The point is: The long lead time of climate change means we cannot wait until we are 100% sure how exactly everything will work out. We ARE, however, at a point where we can say that with an extremely high likelihood human CO2 (among others) output is leading to, and will continue to, increased global temperatures, the effects of which will mostly be negative.

One of the areas that still has many open questions is the effect of rising Sea Surface Temperatures. The reason it is wrong to simply look at a global average, is that it misses the trends in certain areas. To quote one study:

Upward trends in the power dissipation index (PDI) in the North Atlantic (NA) and western North Pacific (WNP) basins and increases in the number and proportion of intense hurricanes (categories 4 and 5) in all tropical cyclone basins have been reported in recent studies. These changes have been arguably viewed as evidence of the responses of tropical cyclone intensity to the increasing tropical sea surface temperature (SST) over the past 30 years. Using the historical best-track datasets from 1975 to 2004, how the annual frequency, lifetime and intensity of tropical cyclones contribute to the changes in the annual accumulated PDI is examined. As the SST warmed in the NA, WNP and eastern North Pacific (ENP) basins over the past 30 years, the annual accumulated PDI trended upward significantly only in the NA basin, where the decreased vertical wind shear and warming ocean surface may have allowed more storms to form and to form earlier or dissipate later, increasing the lifetime and annual frequency of tropical cyclones. The moderate increase in the annual accumulated PDI in the WNP basin was primarily due to the significant increase in the average intensity. There are no significant trends in the accumulated PDI, average intensity, average lifetime, and annual frequency in the ENP basin.

So, there is a significant trend in the North Atlantic, a small trend in the Western Pacific, and no trend in the Eastern Pacific. The question then becomes why that is the case, etc. That is how science works. That is why there are many caveats, etc. But again, it is wrong to go from saying: "There are uincertainties" to "therefore we should not do anything."

Quoting from the Working Group 2, Chapter 19 from the IPCC Report:

General conclusions include the following [19.3].
• Some observed key impacts have been at least partly attributed to anthropogenic climate change. Among these are increases in human mortality, loss of glaciers, and increases in the frequency and/or intensity of extreme events.
• Global mean temperature changes of up to 2°C above 1990-2000 levels (see Box 19.2) would exacerbate current key impacts, such as those listed above (high confidence), and trigger others, such as reduced food security in many low latitude nations (medium confidence). At the same time, some systems, such as global agricultural productivity, could benefit (low/medium confidence).
• Global mean temperature changes of 2 to 4°C above 1990-2000 levels would result in an increasing number of key impacts at all scales (high confidence), such as widespread loss of biodiversity, decreasing global agricultural productivity and commitment to widespread deglaciation of Greenland (high confidence) and West Antarctic (medium confidence) ice sheets.
• Global mean temperature changes greater than 4°C above 1990-2000 levels would lead to major increases in vulnerability (very high confidence), exceeding the
adaptive capacity of many systems (very high confidence).
• Regions that are already at high risk from observed climate variability and climate change are more likely to be adversely affected in the near future by projected changes in climate and increases in the magnitude and/or frequency of already damaging extreme events.

In the end, the reasoning for mitigating Climate Change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions is quite simple: The Earth's biosphere is a very complex system. Complex systems can react in very chaotic and unpredictable ways when suddenly subjected to large changes. We can live quite well with the way it currently is, so we should do everything to make sure it stays that way instead of trying to mitigate the damage by inducing even larger changes. That is why the reduction of GHG output is preferable to geo-engineering. Maybe when we don't need Earth anymore we can try and experiment with it. But as for now, I think the Ozone Hole gives a good illustration as to why we should be careful.

Oh, one last thing: Populated islands disappearing has nothing to do with rising sea levels at all...

[Vehrec]

Part of the point of the earlier article is the multi-decade trend, though it also notes the continuing hunting in certain localities. Saying that polar bear numbers in some regions declined over a several-year period doesn't give as much overall info as their total population now (20000-25000 bears, multiple times higher than several decades ago) and the long-term data.

For long term survival, you want as many populations at as high a level as you can, yes? So why are you arguing that total population is more important than any indications of effective population or sub-populations?

For solid evidence of polar bears being headed for extinction, you'd rather need to show in a specifically quantified manner first a decrease under 15000 bears, then under 10000 bears, and so on.

Oh, I see what you are saying. You hold that we don't have to worry about any species being in decline until 50-60% of it's population is already gone. Well, that's very helpful! Given that only a 30% decrease is projected for the next 50 years, we're looking at nowhere near enough dead bears to trip your sensors.

Frequently inaccurate counts were referenced in part of an article posted before, and the likelihood of environmental advocacy groups erroring on the side of overestimate is hardly as likely as their natural tendency to find and report less than the total number of bears:

Frequently inaccurate counts are a fact of life when you're trying to survey an animal with a range this large and a population this widespread. What I find disturbing is your tendency to attribute deceptive motives to these groups. Maybe they are being dishonest, but this should not be your null hypothesis.

The latest government survey of polar bears roaming the vast Arctic expanses of northern Quebec, Labrador and southern Baffin Island show the population of polar bears has jumped to 2,100 animals from around 800 in the mid-1980s.

As recently as three years ago, a less official count placed the number at 1,400.

The Inuit have always insisted the bears' demise was greatly exaggerated by scientists doing projections based on fly-over counts, but their input was usually dismissed as the ramblings of self-interested hunters.

As Nunavut government biologist Mitch Taylor observed in a front-page story in the Nunatsiaq News last month, "the Inuit were right. There aren't just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears."

Their widely portrayed lurch toward extinction on a steadily melting ice cap is not supported by bear counts in other Arctic regions either.

The service identifies six Arctic regions where data are insufficient to make a call on the population, including the aforementioned Baffin shores area.

Another six areas are listed as having stable counts, three experienced reduced numbers and two have seen their bears increase.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news ... 1a9e5df868

If your response to that is you think it is irrelevant because that is from 2007 while today is 2009, sorry, I don't base judgments on reports of sub-decade fluctuations, rather more meaningful statistics over a longer time period. If polar bear populations declined below the levels of the 1980s or back to the levels of the 1950s, then you'd have a better argument. They haven't.

Ok, here's why the article is irrelevant. It isn't scientific, it's an editorial. It admits that this population has gone unmeasured since the 1980s. Therefore, any relatively recent decrease would be concealed by the overall population increase since the 1980s. It's not clear to me why we should simply ignore changes in Polar Bear numbers and habitat until their total populations fall below the figures from several decades ago, just because you say so.

[General Trelane (Retired)]

Gilthan seriously quoted a National Post article as proof that polar bears are doing just fine and dandy? ROFLMAO!

The National Post is highly biased to promote business, and obfuscating discussion on climate change is one of their core strategies. Their bias is obvious in their choice of wording in the final sentence of the referenced bear article, which states, "But while Prime Minister Stephen Harper has embraced the religion of climate change and vows to combat it with billions of new dollars, the bear facts suggest the challenge facing our great white symbol may be more about too many bears than too little ice."

The article itself mentions "the latest government survey", but it doesn't reference where to find the data. And in contending that bear numbers are up, they limit themselves to "the vast Arctic expanses of northern Quebec, Labrador and southern Baffin Island," which really isn't all the vast compared to all of Canada Arctic expanses and pointedly exlcudes Western Hudson Bay. This smacks of cherry-picking the data at best.

[Erik von Nein]

So, aside from the article being dodgy (to say the least) it doesn't contradict anything in the link I posted. Wee. It's even more amusing when he's saying that the data gathered for the polar bear summit isn't useful because it covers a small time period, whereas the data he posted covers a small time period. It shows a change from the 1960s, sure, but it's still taken from the same time period as the data from the summit.

Anyway, the main thrust of the article was that sea-ice melts threaten polar bear health, as demonstrated with the Hudson Bay example. Their health diminishes as food sources and living space diminish. Not that hard to figure out, really. So, when more artic sea ice melts they have the choice of starving, moving into more competitive living areas, or moving onto land. Not exactly conducive to good health.

Gilthan, you also ignored my call for demonstarting how Polar Bears International is "a little like Greenpeace." Weird, that.

[frogcurry]

Oh, one last thing: Populated islands disappearing has nothing to do with rising sea levels at all...

I would refrain from blaming water level rises for the disappearance of this island, simply because the sea level increase required to permanently cover a non-tidal island (which would need to be the case for human inhabitation) would have to be too significant. The sunderban is a tidal delta. I'm not able to find its tidal range or whether this island was sufficiently downriver to be in the tidal basin proper, but it probably was and so should have a minimum height for inhabitation of a metre or two above midrange sea level. Thats far too large a height to flood by sea level increases.

I'd suggest that the island probably sank due to subsidence, most likely due to unsustainable levels of freshwater extraction for agriculture, industry and drinking. India is drinking its aquifiers dry based on recent data (this - not climate change - is probably India's biggest environmental threat right now, and quite worrying), and considerable land height loss can result from this (Venice's current flooding problems are reportedly due to extraction by industrial plants in the early 20th century). The soil inflow to the delta has probably also dropped a lot nowadays as India's agriculture and waterway management modernises and eliminates the annual silt inundations.

In short, this one particular example is probably not good to add to the climate change debate as there are too many questions about the causes.

[D.Turtle]

The sea level doesn't have to rise so much in order to submerge an island: the increased erosion does most of the work, but yes, as a singular example it probably is worthless.

[Edi]

In case anyone wants to take a look at the effects of increased CO2 from a point of view that has nothing to do with temperature measurements as such but with the thermal emission and absorption properties of it, go here and scroll down to post 30 in that thread (post numbers are at the top of each post, marked "Post x of y total").

The guy who makes that argument, BradAd23, is an astrophysicist by profession, so he knows his stuff and he sticks to very simple basic physics, everything of which has been observed. There's no refuting that argument on the actual effects unless you have the ability to change the laws of physics. The only thing that could be questioned is magnitude of the effect, which can take some time to manifest due to the Earth's internal temperature redistribution mechanisms such as sea currents. Which is what D. Turtle referred to earlier with his mention of long lead times.

Brad's followup later in the thread is also great reading.

[JBG]

Gilthan, I have two problems with your analysis.

The hunting bans on polar bears is significant with regard to their populations though they are booming with current trends.

And the graph of agricultural output is just that. In that case, as always, correlation is not causation. If one looks at wheat in the US, Canada and the US for example, industrialised agriculture supported by mostly state institutions dedicated to better farming practices and better (as in the rust resistant strains developed here by Farrer) strains account for much of that increase. The boom in 20th century agriculture has no relation to CO2 concentrations unless one talks of commercial greenhouses.

[Tanasinn]

To be honest, I'd rather they focus the ad campaign on the human effect. A great number of people couldn't seem to give a blue fuck about some animal they'll never see living in a borderline-wasteland they'll never visit. This constant focus on the stupid fucking bears just gives leverage to the folks trying to belittle the effect of global warming ("Oh no, not the POLAR BEARS! What will we do without THOSE?").