DescentBB

Like the aging Haight Ashbury hippies clinging to their tie-dyed t-shirts, it would appear the global warming promoters are in the same league. No less than the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concurs:

\"Last Monday - on ABC Radio National, of all places - there was a tipping point of a different kind in the debate on climate change. It was a remarkable interview involving the co-host of Counterpoint, Michael Duffy and Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. Anyone in public life who takes a position on the greenhouse gas hypothesis will ignore it at their peril.

Duffy asked Marohasy: \"Is the Earth stillwarming?\"

She replied: \"No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years.\"

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 83,00.html

Here in Michigan this bright and sunny Easter Sunday, where the lasses should be wearing their Easter bonnets and spring finery, I'm afraid they'll first have to don insulated underwear beneath it all. With the temp only getting up to 35 deg. and the low tonight at 17 deg. I'm afraid they'll need insulated coats and leggings to boot. I'll contribute to the Carbon Footprint initiative by stepping out to shovel by hand the 9.6 inches of snow that fell in my area.

Anyways can we now put the Global Warming issue away? Perhaps in the same box where the tie-dyes are stored.

I'm embedding these to show how they are linked to current Australian politics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Marohasy
a senior fellow and director of the environment unit at the conservative Australian think tank the Institute of Public Affairs... She holds a PhD in biology from the University of Queensland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_ ... ic_Affairs
a right-wing, corporate funded think tank based in Melbourne. It has close links to the Liberal Party.... Its key policy positions include advocacy for privatisation, deregulation, reduction in the power of unions and denial of most significant environmental problems, including climate change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Party_of_Australia
In recent years, under John Howard, it has moved to a more conservative policy agenda.

...the Liberal Party is in opposition since losing the 2007 federal election...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian ... on%2C_2007
...Controversy arose over the Coalition's (ie: Liberal Party) climate change policy...,

The centre-left Australian Labor Party, defeated the incumbent centre-right coalition (Liberal Party) government

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer

a vocal supporter of intelligent design and is skeptical of the view that human activity is primarily responsible for global warming.

(also moving to E&C)

I'd like to see the source of these figures. Just saying \"it's cooled down\" isn't enough.


By the way, am I the only person that feels the issue of the hole in the ozone layer is being horribly overlooked in preference of Global Warming?

EDIT: actually, Wikipedia has a graph on this:

I don't know about you, but that really doesn't look like 'dropping' to me!
In fact, you can see specifically why she said '1998'. It was the middle of a scorching heatwave! And any other year before 2001/2002 is considerably lower than modern years.

Since I forgot how to link things, the following has a more interesting long term perspective:

http://www.madogre.com/images/gtemps2sq7.jpg

Considering how nearly all sources say that the global annual temperature is about 0 degrees Celsius, I'm highly suspicious of a graph that uses 14 degrees Celsius as it's mid-point.

Especially when a collection of other sources seem to have a much different impression.

The Australian wrote:Marohasy: "... What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite ... (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they're actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you're getting a negative rather than a positive feedback."

Duffy: "The climate is actually, in one way anyway, more robust than was assumed in the climate models?"

Marohasy: "That's right ... These findings actually aren't being disputed by the meteorological community. They're having trouble digesting the findings, they're acknowledging the findings, they're acknowledging that the data from NASA's Aqua satellite is not how the models predict, and I think they're about to recognise that the models really do need to be overhauled and that when they are overhauled they will probably show greatly reduced future warming projected as a consequence of carbon dioxide."

Duffy: "From what you're saying, it sounds like the implications of this could be considerable ..."

Marohasy: "That's right, very much so. The policy implications are enormous. The meteorological community at the moment is really just coming to terms with the output from this NASA Aqua satellite and (climate scientist) Roy Spencer's interpretation of them. His work is published, his work is accepted, but I think people are still in shock at this point."

Maybe the earth is flat after all, Mr. Gore?

“(The Liberal Party is Australia's main conservative party)”

Well that clears it all up.

Reality Check!…As long as Climate Change is a political issue, it will never be discussed correctly.

Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs.

And when do we hear that from a climatologist instead of a biologist. I love it when everyone who wears a white coat is a \"scientist\" and gets equal weight in a discussion.

Ford Prefect wrote:

Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs.

And when do we hear that from a climatologist instead of a biologist. I love it when everyone who wears a white coat is a "scientist" and gets equal weight in a discussion.

That’s a weak argument, considering all the people who are involved in this discussion. Including a certain politician, who wrote a book passing himself off as an expert.

Merosahay wrote:The meteorological community at the moment is really just coming to terms with the output from this NASA Aqua satellite and (climate scientist) Roy Spencer's interpretation of them.

Googled an article by him:
Global Warming and Nature's Thermostat
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D.

The Man himself (YouTube)

TIGERassault wrote:
I don't know about you, but that really doesn't look like 'dropping' to me!
In fact, you can see specifically why she said '1998'. It was the middle of a scorching heatwave! And any other year before 2001/2002 is considerably lower than modern years.

I'm no climatologist, but from these figures, it looks to me like the following quote...

"No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued.

... is a pretty good example of selective statistical interpretation.

Of all the charts I've seen these last oh.. 3 years, this is the first to make a steep clime like that.

I'd like to know where the data was gathered from and how it was being interpreted.

Duper wrote:Of all the charts I've seen these last oh.. 3 years, this is the first to make a steep clime like that.

Then I would like to note where YOU get your data from. The above's from HadCRU, and this is actually the one that shows the LEAST climb of all the major analyses. See the following graph in which the three major analyses are superimposed and put onto the same scale (from here).

Foil wrote:I'm no climatologist, but from these figures, it looks to me like the following quote ... is a pretty good example of selective statistical interpretation.

Exactly. Even more so since the difference only occurs if you use HadCRU (which does not include the arctic, which is the fastest warming spot on earth). If you look in the graph above, in both of the others (and also in the satellite measurements I believe), 1998 is not the hottest year anymore, but surpassed by 2005.

Duper wrote:Of all the charts I've seen these last oh.. 3 years, this is the first to make a steep clime like that.

I'd like to know where the data was gathered from and how it was being interpreted.

"This image shows the instrumental record of global average temperatures as compiled by the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia and the Hadley Centre of the UK Meteorological Office. Data set HadCRUT3 was used. HadCRUT3 is a record of surface temperatures collected from land and ocean-based stations. The most recent documentation for this data set is Brohan, P., J.J. Kennedy, I. Haris, S.F.B. Tett and P.D. Jones (2006). "Uncertainty estimates in regional and global observed temperature changes: a new dataset from 1850". J. Geophysical Research 111: D12106. doi:10.1029/2005JD006548. Following the common practice of the IPCC, the zero on this figure is the mean temperature from 1961-1990.

This figure was originally prepared by Robert A. Rohde from publicly available data and is part of the Global Warming Art project."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Inst ... Record.png for full page.


Also, my bad. So it wasn't 0 degrees, it was just a representation of a mean value.

Ford Prefect wrote:

Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs.

And when do we hear that from a climatologist instead of a biologist. I love it when everyone who wears a white coat is a "scientist" and gets equal weight in a discussion.

ditto! Isn't it funny how some people won't accept any evidence to be sufficient to prove warming, even when confirmed by hundreds of climate scientists? The same people, however, are so ready to believe anybody who tells that all is fine, even when it is a corporate shill speaking and when a quick look at the charts would reveal the claim it to be hogwash. And this is called skeptical thinking...

jeez . relax.

its also note worthy that we are coming out of an unusual cold \"snap\" that's lasted something like 300 years. depending on who you talk to.

mms://blackhawk.yc.edu/stream/BSA120/TheGreatGlobalWarmingSwindle.wmv

It's a big clip.

Pandora wrote: ditto! Isn't it funny how some people won't accept any evidence to be sufficient to prove warming, even when confirmed by hundreds of climate scientists? The same people, however, are so ready to believe anybody who tells that all is fine, even when it is a corporate shill speaking and when a quick look at the charts would reveal the claim it to be hogwash. And this is called skeptical thinking...

How about the hundreds of scientist (climatic) that don't agree with global warming? And please don't use "confirmed" in this discussion.
And I suppose Algore is not a shill either?

woodchip wrote:How about the hundreds of scientist (climatic) that don't agree with global warming? And please don't use "confirmed" in this discussion.
And I suppose Algore is not a shill either?

You must be referring to the ones that were paid to say that.

grizz wrote:mms://blackhawk.yc.edu/stream/BSA120/TheGreatGlobalWarmingSwindle.wmv

It's a big clip.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_ ... ng_Swindle
it's a big pile of ★■◆●

The Scientific opinion on climate change seems pretty clear to me.

With the July 2007 release of the revised statement by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, no remaining scientific body of national or international standing is known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate.

People should get out of denial and move on to ask what to do about it.

Enter the Left…The Sky is Falling, The Sky is Falling!
Enter the Right…Sky?…What Sky?…I Don’t see any Sky!

I’m getting sick of this crap, I don’t want to screw up the planet…but then again I don’t want to get raped by some unnecessary Carbon tax…or some such!

Where’s the truth…I don’t trust either side!

Good link Grendel, but I don't think even that will be enough.

I think the only way for Republicans to actually believe is for Ronald Reagan to stand his dead body up out of the coffin and say it exists.

Good heavens people, you can't dump billions of tons of toxic chemicals into the air and not think that it's doing something. Quit thinking one dimensionally, as in \"global warming means everything gets warm and cozy. but it's cold outside today so it must not exist\"...

They should never have used the word 'warming'. And Al Gore should not have gotten involved. Because, as it seems, there is no way for a politician to actually care about something right guys? Sorta like Jimmy Carter and habitat for humanity...

There's plenty of propaganda from both sides to go around. The truth is in the data, and as Gren pointed out, your best bet for finding the most accurate data is the peer-reviewed data from the scientific community.

Zuruck wrote:They should never have used the word 'warming'.

Well, that would be more correct though. The pollution keeps more heat in the planet. The melting ice is only the resultant, which is whats causing the radical change of climates and winters that get colder dispite the annual temperature rising.

IIRC they called it Global Warming back when they thought the main problem would be melting ice caps and thus rising sea levels. But then they realized that one of the first things to happen would be the halting of the Gulf Stream - which would plunge Europe into an ice age putting billions of people at risk of starvation.

Thus calling it Global Warming seemed inaccurate - as the most devastating problems caused would be a European ice age. \"Warming causes an Ice Age?\" - To reduce confusion to the layman they started referring it to as the more intuitively accurate Global Climate Change instead.
On the average temperatures are rising - but during the process heat moves around, and some places will get a lot colder first. I'm not sure why i'm bothering explaining this, everyone should already be familure with all of this by now. Right?

roid wrote:IIRC they called it Global Warming back when they thought the main problem would be melting ice caps and thus rising sea levels. But then they realized that one of the first things to happen would be the halting of the Gulf Stream - which would plunge Europe into an ice age putting billions of people at risk of starvation.

Thus calling it Global Warming seemed inaccurate - as the most devastating problems caused would be a European ice age. "Warming causes an Ice Age?" - To reduce confusion to the layman they started referring it to as the more intuitively accurate Global Climate Change instead.
On the average temperatures are rising - but during the process heat moves around, and some places will get a lot colder first. I'm not sure why i'm bothering explaining this, everyone should already be familure with all of this by now. Right?

Actually Roid, that's the first I've heard of that. I've seen a lot of the general rhetoric (both sides mind you) and I've never heard a chain of evens laid out to that conclusion. Definitely interesting. Thanks!

Everyone should watch An Inconvinient Truth

Zuruck wrote:Good heavens people, you can't dump billions of tons of toxic chemicals into the air and not think that it's doing something.

It's simple cause and effect.

Most people don't understand cause and effect.

A lot of people don't understand that drugs that make you 'high' by giving you temporary insanity are in any way related to less-than-temporary insanity. I really don't expect those people to consider that gases can interact with heat.

Testiculese wrote:Most people don't understand cause and effect.

Then what was the "cause and effect" when the earth had global warming prior to man being the cause?

No, I mean that most people flat out can't understand cause and effect.

Build your house in Tornado Alley
Tornado destroys house
Moron on TV: \"Why'd my house go away?\"


Though to be fair, in this case, it's not so clear. The climate change is natural. We are coming out of an ice age. The heat melting the water and affecting the ocean salinity and the Gulf Stream might just be a hiccup like a snowstorm in March is a hiccup on the way to Summer. The amount of crap we're throwing into the atmosphere isn't helping a bit, but I can't tell to what extent it is affecting the rate of climatic change. I've not seen a study of how much emissions we are outputting, what kind of emissions they are, what are the natural bindings of the emissions, how heavy are the emissions (would any float out of the atmosphere naturally? Would any sink in the oceans and be reabsorbed naturally? How much, roughly?)

woodchip wrote:Then what was the "cause and effect" when the earth had global warming prior to man being the cause?

What era of 'global warming' do you mean here?

Testiculese wrote:I've not seen a study of how much emissions we are outputting, what kind of emissions they are, what are the natural bindings of the emissions, how heavy are the emissions.

It varies greatly from gas to gas. CO2 is really the only emission worthwhile monitoring, because the sheer variety of pollutants makes it too hard and too fruitless to try to monitor any of them except the biggest.

woodchip wrote:Then what was the "cause and effect" when the earth had global warming prior to man being the cause?

What kind of logic is that? Do you seriously propose that there can be only one reason for a warming climate?

Testiculese wrote: I've not seen a study of how much emissions we are outputting, what kind of emissions they are, what are the natural bindings of the emissions, how heavy are the emissions (would any float out of the atmosphere naturally?

I think we know quite well what we are outputting, and even though CO2 is not the worst emission-wise, it is the one substance with the biggest impact on climate. For instance, we know that its reflective properties are such that it reflects light coming back from the earth's surface, but not light coming from the sun, thereby effectively trapping heat in the atmosphere (i.e. the greenhouse effect). This is known for more than 100 years now.

Recent recordings from satellite show that the light coming back from the earth in the last 30 years or so has indeed decreased exactly at the CO2-captured wavelenghts. We also know that CO2 goes up to the troposphere. Consistent with the heat-trapping function of CO2, the warming occurs below this height, but not above. These findings rule out that a natural factor such as the sun or change in the earths orbit is the reason for the warming, because then there should have been more light reflected back from the earth, and.the warming should have occurred in all layers of the atmosphere.

Would any sink in the oceans and be reabsorbed naturally? How much, roughly?)

We know that CO2 is captured to a large extent by the oceans, and that his has prevented its biggest impact so far. We don't know how much the oceans can take, though, and two studies at the end of last years indicate that the rate with which the ocean absorbs CO2 is now half of what is was previously, suggesting that a limit is near.

[edited for clarity]

Just to point out, CO2 getting absorbed by the water could (I don't know for sure,) affect marine life. All life on Earth is important to all other life. This could be a worse scenario because we don't understand marine life as well as land based life, and so don't know how it will affect us as well as we should.

and that same marine life exude a lot of CO2. Water.. water vapor is also considered a green house gas.

It should also be noted that excess cloud cover is known to cool the earth.

Alter-Fox wrote:Just to point out, CO2 getting absorbed by the water could (I don't know for sure,) affect marine life. All life on Earth is important to all other life. This could be a worse scenario because we don't understand marine life as well as land based life, and so don't know how it will affect us as well as we should.

yes, as I understand it coral reefs in particular are at risk from further CO2 increases, and are already dying in masses.