Danish scientist: Global warming is a myth

Get him! He's a denier I tell you! Kill him before he can spread his evil lies!

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Scienc...obal_warming_is_a_myth/20070315-012154-7403r/

 

Well he does have a point, the temperature in Red Alert will be around 40 degrees different that that of Tripoli.

 

2 different issues

one problem with global warming is too many people fail to split it into its proper parts. its a 3 part question. first part is this, is the earth warming? second part is why. the third part is it really bad. many see supporting evidence that warming is taking place and jump right to "its all out fault". at present there is some evidence to support warming but it is not yet conculsive. the jury is still out. there is very little evidence to support the human causing of warming. besides it seems that mars' ice caps are melting now but how is that due to human activity? the last part seems to be assumed but there is past evidence that shows some worming is a good thing. the midevel warm period had temptures as high or higher that those supposed to mean the end of all according to algore and his buds. the only problem is that instead of ending life it improved the human condition. they grew oranges in paris, grapes in greenland, and crops in places in scotland where before nothing was grown. with the sudden abdunance of food the dark ages ended and the renasance began. world exploration and trade increased. central governments became possible.
its human to assume that everything will always remain the same forever but the earth does move, the seas rise and fall, rivers change courses, climate changes. this sort of thing has been going on since long before we were here and will continue long after we're gone.

 

Re: 2 different issues

There's enough to convince the vast majority of the world's climate scientists that climate change is not only happening, it is more than 90% certain that it's caused by human activities.

That's a red herring. No-one denies that Earth's climate has changed considerably in the past, before human activities could have had any effect. But what matters now is why it's changing, and changing so rapidly, now.

It may have been in the past, but (1) we are now looking at a considerably greater warming effect than anything seen in human history, and (2) we now have a large and complex civilisation based on the current pattern of climate, and the current sea levels. A vast number of people, as well as all of the world's ports and a huge amount of agricultural land, are close to sea level. If that rises significantly as a result of ice melt, that will be disastrous.

Quite true, but the worst-case scenarios suggest that we might not be around for much longer...

Predicting the consequences of the current warming trend is of course much more chancy than examining what's happening and why. Nonetheless, with the aid of the most powerful climate modelling computers available, some researchers have been projecting the likely outcomes, depending on how much hotter it gets.

One UK newspaper has been taking a close interest in the climate change debate and often features it - The Independent. Now I regard anything that newspapers say with caution, but this one is a quality paper often voted "newspaper of the year", and is well-known for tackling serious issues very well. They ran a special issue on climate change shortly after the IPCC report on climate change was published, and it makes for interesting reading.

First of all, as far as the current situation is concerned, the paper makes the following points (taken from the IPCC report):

CO2 in the atmosphere: before the Industrial Revolution, this was at about 278 parts per million. 50 years ago it was at 315 ppm, it is now at 382 ppm and is increasing by more than 2ppm per year, with the rate of increase accelerating. The current level of atmospheric CO2 is at its highest level for about 650,000 years, since when the range has been between 180-300 ppm. The target talked about by some scientists and politicians is to stabilise the level at 550 ppm (some think that would be too high, others think we can't manage that).

Increase in temperature: The IPCC report states that an increase in CO2 to 550 ppm would cause an increase in average global temperature of around 3ºC (minimum 1.5º, max 4.5º). The report looks at different scenarios depending on what action humanity takes to curb CO2 production. The low-end estimate, if we take all feasible measures, is an increase of about 1.8ºC by 2100 (min/max range 1.1-2.9ºC). The high-end estimate, if the world economy continues to grow and we do nothing to stop the current rate of increase in CO2, is for a 4ºC increase (range 2.4-6.4ºC).

The paper then goes on to give some examples of what different increases in temperature could mean by 2100, based on current climate models. Some key points:

+2.4 degrees: an increase of this magnitude would cause rainfall shifts which would turn the central US states into a dustbowl, from Texas to Montana. The Greenland ice cap will tip into irreversible melting (sea level increase about 7m/20-23 feet once it's all gone, which won't be until centuries later). About one third of all species on the planet face extinction.

+3.4 degrees: the Amazonian rainforest will disappear in flames, blanketing South America with smoke and leaving a desert behind it (the UK Met Office estimates this could start to happen by 2050). The entire Arctic ice-sheet will disappear each summer, with the North Pole ice-free for the first time in 3 million years. Shortage of fresh water will become an increasing problem in various parts of the world.

+4.4 degrees: sea level rises will displace about 100 million people. Much of the sub-tropics become uninhabitable. Deserts start to appear in southern Europe, triggering mass migration. More than half of wild species wiped out in the biggest mass extinction since the end of the dinosaurs. Release of methane hydrates from thawing Siberian permafrost adds substantially to the global warming gasses, accelerating heating further.

+5.4 degrees: sea level up by another 5 metres (16 feet) due to West Antarctic ice sheet breaking up. If these temperatures are sustained over a long period, then eventually all ice will disappear, causing a rise of 70m (200-230 feet) in sea levels. The consequences for human civilisation will be catastrophic, with agriculture collapsing and only the currently "cool temperate" regions being habitable.

+6.4 degrees - the "worst case" scenario, temperatures this high not seen for 100 million years: methane hydrates probably released from warming sub-ocean sediments, accelerating warming yet further. The oceans lose their oxygen and become stagnant, releasing hydrogen sulphide which destroys the ozone layer. Humanity reduced to a few survivors in polar refuges. Most life on the planet is exterminated.

As an illustration, at the end of the Permian period (251 million years ago) temperatures also increased by 6 degrees unusually rapidly (which means over a few thousand years). This wiped out 95% of life, leaving only one large animal to survive. The rate of increase we're are looking at now is much, much faster than that, giving life far less chance to adapt.

Something to ponder when considering whether or not it's worth trying to do something to curb the current rate of increase in CO2 levels...

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

is tony algore ?

"There's enough to convince the vast majority of the world's climate scientists that climate change is not only happening, it is more than 90% certain that it's caused by human activities."

not true. is spite of all the hype there is not a consesus amoung scientists with the exception of the fact that the climate is changing and that's only because it has always been changing. nothing new there.

"That's a red herring. No-one denies that Earth's climate has changed considerably in the past, before human activities could have had any effect. But what matters now is why it's changing, and changing so rapidly, now."

no its now a red herring. past changes offer evidence as to causes and effects. if past changes were not caused by humans why in hell must we assume that somehow this time it's different. again hard evidence is scarce to support your stand.

without quoting the rest of your post i would address some points.
1- greenland has already melted is the past [ remember the grapes growing there?] and guess what no damage.
2- your worst case dreams are nothing more than guesses. no hard evidence to support them but once again we do have hard evidence from the mideval warm period that casts doubt on the disaster model you pitch.
3- in spite of the hype the IPPC report is not the final word. so far all that has been released is a pre release summary which like all such critters is suspect sunce its a commonly used tool to sway and slant the reception of any report. yell fire long enought and early enought and by the time the report is released nobody will bother to read it and wil never know that it say's nothing of the sort. in any case the report is a creature born of PC and politics with very little hard science.
4- there is no hard evidence supporting the whole idea of greenhouse gasses. its just a supposion at present. blaming it for any of the several extinctions in history is just another supposion that lacks evidence.

as i stated right now we lack enough hard evidence to be able to support any of the climate change scenarios much less the disaster ones and certainly not the human action as cause ones. remember that just 30 yrs ago the cry was that we were heading into another ice age. given the past performance of fortune tellers on the subject of climate why do they deserve unquestioned credit now. hell they can't predict the weather next week with any accuracy so why do you believe what they say about the next century and beyond?

 

Re: is tony algore ?

Wrong. I suggest that you study the IPCC report which was signed up to by representatives of over 100 countries (including the USA). This states that the probability that the global warming trend is man-made is "more than 90%". And that was the final version of the report, after the scientists' version had been watered down a bit by the government representatives.

It has long been well known that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has a "greenhouse effect", causing a rise in temperature. I have already posted what has happened - and is still happening - to the level of CO2 in the atmosphere - it is now about double the figure it has been throughout history, and is rising fast. That's a fact. The principal reason for that is simply that human activities are producing more CO2 than the Earth's natural processes can soak up.

Greenland has been slightly warmer in the past, but the ice cap did not melt. If it melts (or just slides down into the sea - which is beginning to happen already), the average sea level will rise 20-23 feet. I needn't spell out what that will do.

In human pre-history, when people lived in mobile hunter-gatherer groups (about 95% of the time that modern humans have existed) changes in sea level wouldn't have mattered much - they'd just move to higher ground. With our modern, crowded society, such a sea-level rise would cause enormous upheaval and cost - it would be a disaster on a global scale.

They are not my dreams - nightmares, perhaps. They are the result of the most advanced climate models running on the most powerful supercomputers we have. They may or may not be right, but they are the best projections we have to work on, and they are soundly based in climate science.

Yes, it seems that the initial report has indeed been slanted, in that the scientists' report has been watered down by the government representatives. They excluded most of the references to the "feedback effect", which the scientists believe will significantly accelerate the rate of warming.

The effect of CO2 as a greenhouse gas (plus methane, CFCs and other gasses), is well known, and has been for a very long time. It is pretty basic science.

The "new ice age" scare of 30 years ago occurred in the infancy of climate science as a subject, when a young researcher was comparing the warming effect of the increase in CO2 with the cooling effect (by blocking the sun) of the pollutant aerosols in the upper atmosphere. He concluded that the cooling effect would exceed the warming effect. This got a lot of publicity. However, about three years later he realised that he had made a mistake in his assumptions and published a retraction - which did not get much publicity.

Climate science now involves thousands of scientists around the world studying various aspects of it. It has been examined more intensely than just about anything else in recent years. As usual with the introduction of any new theory, the first theories of glbal wamring started with a small number of scientists putting forward the idea, with the majority being sceptical. What has happened over the last quarter century is that the evidence in support of climate change being caused by human activities has been building up, convincing more and more scientists until they became a majority. The case is now agreed to be so overwhelming that it has convinced almost all of them.

There have always been some who have resisted the idea, especially in the USA. At first they argued that there was no warming trend at all. When that became unsustainable they moved back to the position that there was some warming, but it was a short-term, regional effect. Later still they moved back again to the position that the climate is changing, but it's an entirely natural effect. Most of the remaining members of the steadily dwindling band of sceptics now seem to have retreated to the position that there is some human cause, but it's still mainly natural, and/or even if it isn't, we can't change it anyway so why bother doing anything? The projections on what could happen if we do nothing, which I posted earlier, should answer that question.

The deniers seem to be in the position that the tobacco companies held onto until recently. They kept yelling "there's no proof" when a link between smoking and cancer had been statistically proven decades before. When faced with the sort of consequences that our best projections are showing, you don't need 100% proof - just the "balance of probability" should be enough to stir people into doing something about it.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

Hes NOT a liar lol

 

ok here goes again. computer models are only as good as their basic programing and data. at present time we do not have models that can forecast basic weather accuracly beyoud a week or two. look at last year's hurricane forecast for the USA. something like 5 or 6 major storms to either hit or pass close to the US. how many came 0. anybody can come up with a model to "prove" anything. we still don't understand enough about the world's climate and its systems to make reasonable forecasts beyond the very near future.
the IPPC report is another scare and grab operation along the lines of koyoto. until the full report is released and undergoes peerr review its nothing more than a press release. there is not the agreement among scientists that is claimed by the sky is falling bunch. lots of well known knowledgable people either doupt human caused warming is a fact or are waiting for solid data. science is all about data and so far its is lacking.

as to the charge and title dinier its nothing more that a cheap attempt to both demean any opposition and make human caused warming appear as a fact. i refuse to accept the name or the thought process behind its use. call me a doubter perhaps.

just as with koyoto the whole thing stinks of a left wing, ecowako, steal the wealth, agenda. forget the blather and the scare and give me facts with good science behind them. them we can talk. i've seen too many scare stories in my life not to be able to spot one that is premature at best and phony at worst.

you mention many "facts" yet you brush off data that shows the sun has increased its output. why is that? perhaps because a small change in solor output will result in climate change here. just a small increase in output would explain warming very nicely and there goes the whole issue for you.

your rebutal about greenland and its references to "pre history" make me wonder about your basic knowledge of history. we're talking about 600 to a 1000 years ago. hardly "pre history" and there wern't too many hunter gathers wandering around europe then. like other warming doomsayers you try to ignore the midevil warm period since it contistutes proof that runs counter to your scary forecasts.

your predictions are at best guesses based on thin evidence and models of suspect accuracy. the ME warm period had temptures well into your doomsday range and as i said it was a pretty good time for us humans.

 

Don't you understand the difference between short-term fluctuations and long-term trends? The former are pretty well impossible to predict reliably, the latter can be identified.

House prices may go up and down month by month and even year by year, but the one thing you can be sure of is that in 20 years time houses are going to be worth a lot more.

To give a closer analogy, you can get warm days in winter and cold days in summer, but one thing that you can be sure of is that summer will, overall, be hotter than winter.

You are mixing up different processes here. There are basically three very different issues:

1 - The science which identifies what is happening to our climate and why, and makes projections of the future climate on the basis of understood process and trends. This is fairly solid now, and strengthening all the time. This is what the IPCC report is about.

2 - The predictions of what the consequences of of (1) will be for human civilisation. This is much more speculative, with a wide range of possible futures. The best look uncomfortable, the worst scary.

3 - The political decisions about what action to take to minimise the problems. This is very much a political issue, and is where the Kyoto agreement comes in. Personally, I am not happy with the "carbon trading" provisions of Kyoto. They allow rich companies and countries to pay a fine to continue polluting, whereas what we should be doing is reducing the pollution.

We're not talking about "the sky is falling" arguments here - we're talking about the first issue I numbered above. And the vast majority of climate scientists now believe that the current warming trend is primarily due to human causes.

'Fraid not. That's been examined and factored in. The most generous serious estimate I've seen puts the effect of the current increase in the sun's output as accounting for 30% of the current warming trend - most put it nearer to 10%. The rest is down to human causes.

Are you suggesting that the Greenland ice cap disappeared then? If so I suggest that you need to brush up on some history.

Nobody has ever denied that temperatures have fluctuated within human history. What is happening now, however, is different. If you look at the hard facts presented in the IPCC report, the levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere haven't been as high as they are now since our ancestors were swinging from the trees. And they are accelerating rapidly.

We're in the position of people in a vehicle with very poor brakes which has just started to roll down a long, ever-steepening hill. Sure, we're not travelling very fast at the moment, so what is there to worry about? But if we just sit there and do nothing, we'll soon be travelling too fast for the brakes to be able to stop us. That's the problem with climate change, once it gets going, it has huge inertia.

Let me put it another way - suppose you lived in a house which had a huge tree overhanging it. And nearly all of the foresters who came to look at it warned you that it was dangerous, and likely to fall on your house one stormy night. What would you do? Say; "well, there's absolutely no proof that it's going to happen, and one of the foresters thought it might not, so I'm not going to do anything about it."?

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

geez tony ...dont be such an allarmist ...if the tree smashes our house ..why then we just move to another house ...venus mabey , its really big ,and ...i hear its swarmng with beautiful women ...the atmosphere can be seen as half full of co2 ... (very bad ) .........or, MABEY ....its half empty!!! ...(see isnt that better???)...think positive ...bad news is for pessimists and worrie worts....the future looks bright and warm as a summer breeze....

 

woody:
Not Venus. My ex-wife went back there after our divorce.
Or was she from PLUTO?
I always forget.

Tim

 

Reminds me of one of the suggestions for the 'catch-phrase' on Indiana's new motor-vehicle license plate:

120 million years tidal-wave free

Tim

 

does the word islam mean peace ?

george bush said islam was a religion of peace ..some have claimed that the arabic word islam actually means peace ,others say it means subjegation ..as in to submit to the one true god ....some say that word jihad acually means ones search for personal salvation , others claim it refers to a holy war of oppresion and either death, slavery or conversion for the nonbelivers.
the muslims think of mohamid as the perfect man .other scholars have said the the prophet was a brigand and robber who rellished and endorsed slaughter, rape and slavery and was a pedophile to boot
though one can read the koran in english or other languages muslims say it is not a really correct translation because only those who understand some ancient form of arabic (which almost no one knows anymore) can actually comprehend the true meaning in the koran ..some sceptics claim this is but one of maney smokescreens which are part of a grand deception aimed by design (tarquie ..SP? ) to lull nonbelivers into complacency ..muslims often claim the quran came direct and unedited straight from the mouth of god ,word for word ..some recent western scholars say that the very earliest texts in existance were written in bagdad and not arabia some 200 years after the death of mohammed
..some in the west like to point out that islam is benign and it is only a few extremists who are the problem ,others will tell you that islam itself is very much the root of the problem and by definition there is no such thing as a moderate muslim as the koran does not abide any deviation and all moderates will have their heads lopped off as quickly as any christian ,few or hindu when muslim power reigns supreme some day ......
is islam ok..is it just like any other great religion , should we be no more concerned with muslims than say ,hindus ,budhists or christian fundamentalists ???

 

majorwoody, is this in the correct thread? :-?

 

dang.. no ricky this was supposed to start a new thread ,i wondered where my islam thing got off to...can you or someone move it to a new thread (members area ) so i dont have to start all over ...does islam mean peace ? ...was the title i had ...i think a invalid session got me somehow.....

 

No, you were hit by the Tanks in World War 2 Jihad group.

Of course islam means peace. Anyone who says different will get his head chopped off.

 

Global Warming is Not a Crisis, or at least that was the debate on NPR:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... Id=9082151

 

global warming

The true cause of Global Warming!!!

 

You can't trust them damn Polar Bears!

Incidentally, Polar bears are apparently victims of global warming. More are being found drowned because they are having to swim out farther to find prey and aren't able to find ice floes to rest on, as they usually do.

 

global

It looks to me as if it's 'Newcastle Brown' that they are supping, so, possibly they are in the Tyne!!!