Is there enough proof of global warming to warrant drastic change?

[Smid]

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24036736-7583,00.html

[Sbane]

Depends on what you mean by drastic. I will give you that global warming is hyped too much but it is certainly a long term problem which we should start preparing for now. A very good way is to find an alternative to carbon based fuels. Coal is here to stay but weaning ourselves of oil would be a start.

[CARLHAYDEN]

There are two issues here:

First, is there a significant real long term increase in global tempratures (the evidence is at this time inconclusive, but this is probably not the case)

Second, if there is such an increase, how much of it is non-man made (i.e. solar activity, etc.)   

[Sbane]

There are two issues here:

First, is there a significant real long term increase in global tempratures (the evidence is at this time inconclusive, but this is probably not the case)

Second, if there is such an increase, how much of it is non-man made (i.e. solar activity, etc.)   

The answer to your first question is yes. The answer to the second question is a little tricky, but warming definitely has a man-made component to it which will only go higher if we continue increasing our carbon emissions at the current rate.

[Franzl]

Depends what you consider "dramatic change".

Global warming is real, without a doubt. Man is responsible for part of it, if not most of it.

Certain steps need to be taken, but I will concede that global warming, and the potential effects, have been misused by some people.

But denying a problem has never been a good first step towards solving it.

[??????????]

Global warming is a distraction used by the government as a updated means of separating us from our money.

[Franzl]

Global warming is a distraction used by the government as a updated means of separating us from our money.

tin foil hats anyone?

[??????????]

Global warming is a distraction used by the government as a updated means of separating us from our money.

tin foil hats anyone?

Like I said, I don't believe in global warming.

[War on Want]

Global warming is a distraction used by the government as a updated means of separating us from our money.

tin foil hats anyone?

[War on Want]

Global warming is a distraction used by the government as a updated means of separating us from our money.

tin foil hats anyone?

Like I said, I don't believe in global warming.

No care, you pretty much just said 95% of scientists are part of a conspiracy. I can understand being a little doubtfull about it but saying it is a conspiracy...

[Associate Justice PiT]

Global warming is a distraction used by the government as a updated means of separating us from our money.

tin foil hats anyone?

Like I said, I don't believe in global warming.

No care, you pretty much just said 95% of scientists are part of a conspiracy. I can understand being a little doubtfull about it but saying it is a conspiracy...

     Damn scientists & their conspiracies to help protect the environment.

     To clarify, I believe that there is more than enough reason to believe in global warming, though I disapprove of the extremes that many environmentalists take it to.

[Хahar 🤔]

Yes, of course there is.

[Franzl]

Global warming is a distraction used by the government as a updated means of separating us from our money.

tin foil hats anyone?

Like I said, I don't believe in global warming.

What does that have to do with believing in an enormous conspiracy?

It says quite a bit about you, though.

[Countess Anya of the North Parish]

Of course there is global warming but we can't just change everything. It will hurt the animals even more. Cause if we do then the enviorment changes then the animals don't have a chance to adapt.
As you can tell I love animals.

[Flying Dog]

Yes, of course there is.

[ottermax]

Does it matter?

Is it worth considering all the other harmful impacts of fossil fuels on our environment that impact us directly? If you don't care about global warming then do you not care about the increasing rates of asthma and smog? Do you not care about water pollution, the increasing number of at-risk species, and the destruction of pristine habitats? Our consumerist living has paved the way for only destruction, and global warming is the least of our worries if we don't start taking action against our buy-throw-away attitude.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I've spent so much time spelling out my views on this issue and everybody yawns and ignores me.

1)  The warming trend in global temperatures is inflated by land use changes and urban growth around the surface recording stations used to record temperatures.

2)  There are vast portions of the globe that are not covered by surface reports.

3)  A large chunk of the world's coldest areas has not been recorded since the demise of the USSR as the Russian government closed a large proportion of rural stations which had less "urban heat island" effect in order to save money, which drastically increased the weight of stations that have experienced such an effect.

4)  Satellite temperature measurements, which date back to only 1979, have not shown nearly the warming trend at any height in the atmosphere as the surface measurements taken by weather stations/weather buoys.

5)  The discrepancy between satellite measurements, which measure the entire atmosphere at a given altitude, and the surface stations has been growing at an increasing rate with the surface stations looking warmer and warmer.  It is no surprise that organizations that are pushing drastic changes in regards to climate change are using the incomplete, but longer time scale set of data from the surface stations.

6)  While scientists have ruled out many factors contributing to the current warming cycle, they are finding new factors every day that have wide reaching impacts.

7)  The models are crap.  They don't take into account ocean oscillations that distribute heat across the planet on multi-year to decades-long scales.  This "unprecedented" warming since 1975 also occurred during a time of unprecedented solar intensity and ocean cycles that were in their "warm" phases.  The last time period in which there was intense solar energy and warm ocean phases was from 1930-1945... a time period in which scientists were quite worried about shrinking glaciers and the shrinking polar ice cap and increased temperature.  I'll see if I can find some links to the paper published in the '30s lamenting a hotter future world.

The next 30 years will likely see a declining temperature as solar intensity has slowed dramatically in the past 2 years and is expected to remain low for the next 30 years.  This has also coincided with a switch to the cool cycle of the Pacific ocean.

Greenhouse warming, while a component of climate change, is smaller than Al Gore would have you think, and I think there are other more pressing reasons to make drastic changes to our lifestyles.

[Boris]

Like I said, I don't believe in global warming.

not really a question of belief. More of a utilization of the scientific method to derive conclusions. I guess one could "believe" one side over the other (whichever happens to best suit one's political views), but that's pretty anti-intellectual.

[Boris]

I've spent so much time spelling out my views on this issue and everybody yawns and ignores me.

Problem is that most people here (including myself) don't actually understand this issue or the science behind it beyond that one Futurama animation. It would help us if you could site sources that validate your positions though

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I don't know and I don't care*. But I do know that pollution isn't very nice and that oil won't last forever. Those seem like reasonable reasons in themselves.

*Quite an exaggeration actually, but, meh...

[CARLHAYDEN]

I've spent so much time spelling out my views on this issue and everybody yawns and ignores me.

1)  The warming trend in global temperatures is inflated by land use changes and urban growth around the surface recording stations used to record temperatures.

2)  There are vast portions of the globe that are not covered by surface reports.

3)  A large chunk of the world's coldest areas has not been recorded since the demise of the USSR as the Russian government closed a large proportion of rural stations which had less "urban heat island" effect in order to save money, which drastically increased the weight of stations that have experienced such an effect.

4)  Satellite temperature measurements, which date back to only 1979, have not shown nearly the warming trend at any height in the atmosphere as the surface measurements taken by weather stations/weather buoys.

5)  The discrepancy between satellite measurements, which measure the entire atmosphere at a given altitude, and the surface stations has been growing at an increasing rate with the surface stations looking warmer and warmer.  It is no surprise that organizations that are pushing drastic changes in regards to climate change are using the incomplete, but longer time scale set of data from the surface stations.

6)  While scientists have ruled out many factors contributing to the current warming cycle, they are finding new factors every day that have wide reaching impacts.

7)  The models are crap.  They don't take into account ocean oscillations that distribute heat across the planet on multi-year to decades-long scales.  This "unprecedented" warming since 1975 also occurred during a time of unprecedented solar intensity and ocean cycles that were in their "warm" phases.  The last time period in which there was intense solar energy and warm ocean phases was from 1930-1945... a time period in which scientists were quite worried about shrinking glaciers and the shrinking polar ice cap and increased temperature.  I'll see if I can find some links to the paper published in the '30s lamenting a hotter future world.

The next 30 years will likely see a declining temperature as solar intensity has slowed dramatically in the past 2 years and is expected to remain low for the next 30 years.  This has also coincided with a switch to the cool cycle of the Pacific ocean.

Greenhouse warming, while a component of climate change, is smaller than Al Gore would have you think, and I think there are other more pressing reasons to make drastic changes to our lifestyles.

Actually, that was an informative and thoughtful post!

[Countess Anya of the North Parish]

I am sorry Snowguy716 you are right. Thanks for writing your thoughts out. I am sure everyone appreciates it.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Here is a graph of the satellite temperatures with the CO2 concentration overlaid on it since 2002.

This is a very biased source, but the information in the graph is correct.  Of particular interest has been the sudden downturn in global temperatures since the new year began.



Below is a graph of the number of days with no sunspots for the solar minimum we are currently in (red) and the last solar minimum in early 1996 (blue).

The solar sunspot cycle is a cycle that last approx. 11 years where the sunspots, areas of intense magnetic activity on the sun's surface which are actually dark (thus the spot) but produce more energy, wax to a peak, and then wane.

The last cycle, number 23 since measurements began in the mid 1700s, peaked in 2000/01 and has been waning since.  The solar scientists originally predicted the new cycle, 24, to begin in late 2006.  As a cycle progresses, the spots form at higher latitudes and work their way towards the solar equator as the cycle goes on, so 2 cycles can be going at one time.

There were no cycle 24 sunspots, however, until January of 2008, a full 18 months after the forecast beginning.  To date there have only been 4 spots that were assigned to cycle 24, at a time when solar scientists thought the sunspot number would be around 80.  The smoothed number for July was approx. 0.8, well below the 80 that "should" have been occurring by now.

Some solar scientists think this is normal and that cycle 24 will begin to ramp up.  Many others think this is more reminiscent to cycles that occurred during the 19th century which were much slower to start and generally much weaker.  THis also coincided with falling global temperatures.  A few scientists believe this is a significant slowing of the sun not seen since a nearly spotless period in the 17th century, at the peak of the little ice age.

Either way, the conveyers on the sun that foretell solar activity have slowed to a record slow crawl and we haven't seen a cycle 24 sun spot since April, while we've only been seeing a smattering of old cycle 23 spots near the equator since.

[Countess Anya of the North Parish]

Nice graph, that explains a lot.

[dead0man]

Snowguy, we disagree on a lot (we agree on a lot too, but tell anybody), but I must say, you do a great job on the global warming issue.  Thank you for your input.  You could easily be a puppet like many others, but you've obviously done your research past what the Al Gore's of the world preach to you and came up with a reasonable position on the subject.  We need more people like you on your side of the aisle.  Again, thank you.