Global Warming - interesting stuff

[coldcat 0]

Maybe you'll get confused with the opinions the journalist who writes the article about him inserts here and there in the article. Remember I told you let Professor William M. Gray answer you, not the person who wrote the article about him. But anyway if you want it more clear here is an interview with the professor:

http://www.discover.com/issues/sep-05/departments/discover-dialogue/

[bushpig 0]

interesting read that cc. Thanks. Seems to me that Prof Gray is refusing to progress with his field of research though, if that article is accurate. Sounds like the old "I know best, and new methods are crap" mentality.

[bushpig 0]

sorry, that was the first article, not the above one (haven't look at that one yet)

[moloneb3 0]

Mooloney thats a first!!

 

Anyways lads I think it is time to leave this topic. Basically the facts are this. Global warming is an hypothesis based on the interpretation of data. Data is a series of measurements designed to prove (or disprove an hypothesis). GOOD SCIENTISTS will use data for the purpose intended, and if it disproves an hypothesis then they will accept that and try to formulate or reformulate their hypothesis. So far we have, geoligically speaking, a minute amount of data collected but the general consensus is that the data is telling the SCIENTITS (I mean scientists) that the globe is on an upward temperature trend.

 

Galileo in the 15C hypothesized that the earth orbited the sun and was chastised by the catholic church as it went against popular belief!

 

In those days people didnt want to believe Galileo, today maybe they would! Maybe people want to believe the hysterical mass media. Alas Galileo was proved right and his ideas formed the basis of modern science. Which side is correct now? No one can say. Which side do you want to believe? Take your pick. The only reality is, if we pick the wrong side for too long the delay could be catastrophic.

 

Anyways lets relax in the forum, we are all snow lovers here (and I apologise for the cliche) but we need to chill out......I sound like Arnie in the Batman and Robin movie.

[coldcat 0]

I agree.

 

This is exactly what I wanted to avoid when I said I didn't want to turn this into a debate.

 

I just wanted to show the SJ community that there are other points of view on global warming within the scientific community.

 

But even more important than the truth is to respect other points of view, even if we don't understand them or share them.

 

Anyway, as mooloney said we are all snow lovers so if anyone is planning to be in Niseko round Xmas email me,I'd love to ski or ride together.

[Ocean11 0]

coldcat, I wonder if you can actually read. All the articles you're posting either do not support your assertions, or contradict them directly. When you feel a sense of discomfort in a discussion, it might be a sign that what you are saying can't be defended (if it could be, you'd probably do a better job of defending it. Do you understand now, the issue with the satellites? Do you understand now, that Antartica as a whole is not getting colder?).

 

As for being humble, I'll start when you start. As for my expertise, I have none. But I do make an effort to understand what I read, and to place it in a bit of context.

[Ocean11 0]

> But even more important than the truth is to respect other points of view, even if we don't understand them or share them.

 

Yes, Mr Stalin, you have a very intersting point of view about economics, civil society, and race, and I respect it.

 

What a load of nonsense. And boys, you have no control over whether you turn this into a debate or not. You unhumbly seem to imagine you can dictate how people are to respond to you posting stuff you can't defend.

[bushpig 0]

I have to admit, I find it strange that you want to "make" the sj community aware that there are other points of view, but don't want us to debate (discuss) them. I'm sure we were already all aware of these views cc, which is why you are responding with counter-argument, because we have seen these views before.

[Ocean11 0]

Relax Bushpig. Chill out.

[bushpig 0]

git

[coldcat 0]

Hey, I didn't say I don't want you to debate,it's your freedom. I just said that when I started this topic it was not my intention to start a debate about global warming.

 

Ocean11, honestly, I do read my sources before I post them. About the Antarctic, sincerely, I just don't see why your argument proves me wrong. Temperature is variable and is definitely not constant across the surface of the earth. The fact, that there are some parts of the antarctic (in the edges) that are indeed getting warm doesn't prove anything, since the vast majority of the antarctic is actually cooling down. And the truth about it is that scientist don't really know exactly why is cooling down. They have proposed some hypothesis but they are only hypothesis.

 

As for satellites, I apologise for providing information that wasn't accurate. Ocean11 you seem to have found sources clearly showing that it is a wrong fact, you said to "google it" which I did, and what I found seem to be reasonably credible,therefore I can't but thank you for providing that information.

 

Nobody has commented on the interview with Professor Gray who is arguably the world most famous hurricane expert.

 

Ocean11, I sincerely don't believe that what I'm saying can't be defended.

 

You said:

"Yes, Mr Stalin, you have a very intersting point of view about economics, civil society, and race..."

What do you know about my point of view on economics, civil society or race????

 

Bushpig if you had seeen this arguments before, then I am sorry, I sincerely believed that somebody would find the fact that there are other views on GW interesting.

[Ocean11 0]

> About the Antarctic, sincerely, I just don't see why your argument proves me wrong.

 

It doesn't exactly prove you wrong, you're right about that. But what careful reading of the article shows is that while the edges of Antarctica have been warming significantly, parts of the interior have been cooling on the surface due to loss of warming from wind. If you put that into the context of what the warming models acknowledge, that some parts will indeed cool in an overall picture of warming, you can see that the data for Antarctica is not an anomally that disproves the whole picture. And it isn't suitable data to be 'educating' people with about alternative 'science' on global warming. (FWIW, I spent a while translating the yearbook of the Japanese Antarctic expedition, and they don't seem to be afflicted by any doubts about GW.)

 

> Nobody has commented on the interview with Professor Gray who is arguably the world most famous hurricane expert.

 

 Quote:

Why is there scientific support for the idea?

 

G: So many people have a vested interest in this global-warming thing—all these big labs and research and stuff. The idea is to frighten the public, to get money to study it more. Now that the cold war is over, we have to generate a common enemy to support science, and what better common enemy for the globe than greenhouse gases?

That's barmy. The providers of solutions to global warming are all completely different actors from the players in the cold war. Terrorism has proved a far more saleable common enemy than greenhouse gases. If that's the level of this guy's political insight, then it's no wonder he doesn't get funding.

 

 Quote:

If you don’t know anything about how the atmosphere functions, you will of course say, “Look, greenhouse gases are going up, the globe is warming, they must be related.” Well, just because there are two associations, changing with the same sign, doesn’t mean that one is causing the other.

But one assumes the climate modelers do have a pretty sophisticated idea of how the atmosphere functions, and one assumes they can read 'signs' with a high degree of skepticism too. Presumably as scientists, they have reached their current conclusion through the application of skepticism.

 

> What do you know about my point of view on economics, civil society or race????

 

Nothing. I was referring to Mr Stalin's POV, which apparently I'm required to respect, even though I have good reason not to.

[coldcat 0]

First, I'll start with the antarctic what you say about winds is still just an hypothesis, something that scientist have had to come up with to explain something they still can't understand.

 

Ocean11, climate model software cannot exactly model the weather, the models are just at best an approximation and that's acknowledged by those who use them anyway. I know this because I have been involved in work with climate model software in order to predict Global Warming. If you research just a little you will know that they still have many shortcomings. In April of this year, it was discovered that the biggest and most trustworthy climate model software done to date which had been running for a while at the time on a distributed computing system all around the world had a big bug in it. The bug caused the earth in the model to warm many more degrees than it should have because scientists hadn't got right the level of sulphate in the atmosphere. The experiment had to be reset and all data collected for 2 months had to be thrown away.

 

Science has not understood climate completely yet, so how do you expect us to be able to create a software model to mimic it?

 

As for your other point, terrorism has proved to be a very good reason to get funds for war, but not to get funds for science.

[coldcat 0]

Lastly, I just said it's important to respect other people's opinions. Nothing to do with Stalin or whatever you are linking it with.

[NoFakie 45]

I'll just chime in to say that its plain wrong to say that the media is "hysterical" about global warming. It's like all those uber-rightists in the USA accusing the media of having a liberal bias. The easiest way to distort any debate is accuse your opponents of extremism and shift the perceived "center position".

 

All you get is one article every once in a while that quotes some study but inevitably ends in a "more research is needed"-type de facto belittling of whatever that study was. There is more reporting on lots of things, from interest rates to sport to the War on Terror to foreign holidays to celebrities.

[Ocean11 0]

coldcat, your experience with climate modeling software just shows that it's being improved accorded to standard scientific practice. I expect us to create a software model to mimic climate through trial and error, as you do. The fact that errors have been identified doesn't in any way invalidate the whole project, and Professor Gray has nothing of any substance to say on that matter by the looks of it.

 

Terrorism is funding lots of science. An uncle of mine is getting lots of funding for preparing responses to bio-terror. Lots of money is being spent on robot warfare and other science-based nonsense.

 

As for you just saying it's important to respect other people's opinions, I simply presented a reductio ad absurdem argument as to why it's important not to respect opinion that isn't worthy of respect.

[coldcat 0]

"Terrorism is funding lots of science. An uncle of mine is getting lots of funding for preparing responses to bio-terror. Lots of money is being spent on robot warfare and other science-based nonsense." Are we speaking the same language? Of course, terrorism will fund that type of science, but that's not the point. The point here is not bio-terror,or robo-soldiers... The point here is that climatologists and scientists in general whose field is not related to the war on terrorism or whatever you want to call it, have to find reasons to get funded. And terrorism is not one of them.

 

If climate models can be trusted in the future,then that's something good, but again, that's not the point, the point is they can't be trusted NOW and they are full of short-comings, so you can't base your conclusions on that.

 

Lastly, there's no opinion that is not worthy of respect, except some very extreme cases. You may agree or disagree, but respect is a must always.

[Ocean11 0]

> Are we speaking the same language?

 

Apparently not. I think Professor Gray's analysis of why climatologists argue for GW is barmy, and believe that there are enough scientists of integrity and without ulterior motives to merit measured confidence in their current conclusions.

 

And unfortnately we do have to base our conclusions on current scientific knowledge and always have had to. That's where judgement comes in. Some people like you and some Bush people want to postpone judgement endlessly, but the rest of us who have reached that concensus that you lament are not keen to do that.

[Rag-Doll 0]

>there are enough scientists of integrity and without ulterior motives to merit measured confidence in their current conclusions.

 

Good one Ocean - That pretty well sums up where people ought to be I reckon. If we could perhaps get a little more reasoned information and not be fed information that makes good copy but has little else to recommend it we'd find that there is less opposition to the notion. It might also mean that there would be a place for well founded contrary views in the discussion.

 

MW - I do think there is more than a hint of sensationalism to the way GW and climate events are reported these days. My, admittedly limited, perception is that just about any adverse climate event these days is blamed on GW. Droughts, floods, storms etc did occur in the past without GW, but it seems they can't occur now with GW being partly the cause.

[coldcat 0]

Professor Gray is a scientist of integrity and recognised world-wide as on of the most knowledgeable expert in hurricanes and climate sciences... at least he was until he started to oppose the current view on GW.

 

Professor Richard Siegmund Lindzen who is an atmospheric physicist and a professor of meteorology at MIT renowned for his research in dynamic meteorology is also a scientist of integrity. He has been a strong critic of anthropogenic global warming theories and wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in April wherein he not only contested media assertions that the Bush administration has been putting pressure on scientists to oppose climate change principles, but insisted that exactly the opposite is taking place: “Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse.”

[bushpig 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by coldcat:
Temperature is variable and is definitely not constant across the surface of the earth. The fact, that there are some parts of the antarctic (in the edges) that are indeed getting warm doesn't prove anything, since the vast majority of the antarctic is actually cooling down. And the truth about it is that scientist don't really know exactly why is cooling down. They have proposed some hypothesis but they are only hypothesis.

Not quite. They said the winds have decreased and it is that that they are trying to understand. They know why it is cooling: the winds. It is the mechanism behind the winds that they haven't pinned down yet.

 Quote:

Originally posted by coldcat:
Nobody has commented on the interview with Professor Gray who is arguably the world most famous hurricane expert.

The guy is obviously an expert in his field, but he doesn't give much reason in that interview to disregard GW altogether. All he really says is this: "But this is natural, due to ocean circulation changes and other factors. It is not human induced." OK, fine, but isn't the entire planet a system affected by all parts? What causes ocean currents to change? The GW theory presents one logical reason. What reason does Gray give for climate change? "This is natural". If you could find a detailed explanation from him of this process I'd be interested to read it.

 Quote:

Originally posted by coldcat:
Bushpig if you had seeen this arguments before, then I am sorry, I sincerely believed that somebody would find the fact that there are other views on GW interesting.

Sorry, I came across a bit strong on that one. I'm glad you brought this up cos it is an interesting topic.

[coldcat 0]

The explanation Professor Gray gives is that ocean circulation changes do occur naturally and have been occurring naturally for long before Global Warming.

 

The climate is by definition a changing phenomenon, regulated by cycles. We know little about the past of our planet but we do know that we've had ice ages and warmer periods than now long before human-induced global warming was around. Even in the past 50 years we've had cycles, until pretty much the 50's the earth started to warm, then from the 50's until the 70's it started to cool-down and hence all the Global Cooling hype, and from the 70's until pretty much now the earth is warming up again. Gray and those who are with him such as MIT professor Lindzen sustain that in about 20 years the planet should have cooled down itself again, as part of this natural cycle.

 

Now, you can say this is all a lot of bullsh**, and I'd say it is your right to say so. My physics teacher used to encourage us not to believe what he was teaching us unless we were convinced by it. If what I'm telling you doesn't convince you, then you should go ahead with what you find more convincing, science is not the church so we have the right to believe whatever we find more credible.

[coldcat 0]

And here is the source. It's an interesting piece of reading so I hope you enjoy it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2000/climate_change/1023334.stm

[bushpig 0]

thanks for the link. I'll have a look a bit later. I totally agree about everyone choosing the argument they find most convincing. I'm certainly open to the idea that GW isn't man-induced, but it is gonna take a bit to convince me.

[moloneb3 0]

Mr. Wiggles the reason I am saying about alarmism in the media is that now when I am subjected to CNN and 'American morning' it constantly refers to global warming, which about 1 year ago would not get a mention. This is why. I am all for highlighting global warming but scaring people seems to cause despair.

 

When I was watching Al Gores movie, at the end I felt like saying f*ck it, I am going to buy an SUV and fly all I want as we are bolloxed anyways. However, I decided that 1 person makes a difference and that is why I get annoyed with myself when I leave things plugged in. In the UK if people turned off and plugged out appliances it would cut energy consumption by 8% and using energy efficient lightbulbs in the UK would reduce CO2 by 2.3m tonnes per year. Thats 18-21% of the Kyoto protocols agreement i.e. a significant amount.

 

Basically, help and not hysteria works. I sense some hysteria coming on, which just makes people fall into a sense of despair and not caring. Telling people about the negatives is a soundbite, but people need to know that every little helps.