"Despite previous studies suggesting a warmer climate is already taking a bite out of Washington's snowpack, there's no clear evidence that human-induced climate change has caused a drop in 20th century snow levels, according to a new study by University of Washington scientists.
We can't see the global-warming signature in terms of a decline in snowpack," said Mark Stoelinga, the study's lead author, and a professor in the UW's Atmospheric Sciences Department."
Story here.
Bonus story: Ships stuck in Arctic ice. Here.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
UW Study: Diminishing Snow Pack Not Due to Global Warming
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52 comments:
My hope is that Phillip Mote--science guy for Christine Gregoire--gets fired.
What he has done is a science crime.
.
Notice what one of the study's authors says:
"We're in a place that is not going to warm up as quickly, eventually global warming will have a profound effect."
--
Also, note that the study has not yet been peer-reviewed. Peer review doesn't assure that a paper is correct, but it does pretty much assure that it isn't obviously wrong.
Oh, look, if it's a global warming story there's David to try and defend the global warming scaremongers.
Are we sure that David Appell is not part of the fawning butt-kissers that are following Guillermo Bradbury around the country preaching AlGore's stupid mantra?
> Oh, look, if it's a global
> warming story there's David
> to try and defend the global
> warming scaremongers.
It's just that I am for accurate and complete reporting, as you fail to realize the size and scope of the climate change problem. Every time some scientific result comes along that is favorable to your side, you highlight it as some kind of as proof against AGW. (Funny how you never mention the papers that come out weekly in journals all across the world -- including J Climate, where this paper has been submitted -- in agreement with AGW.
We should be happy if this result is true -- it will spare us the dangers of AGW a little longer than otherwise. But this result, if true, is hardly any proof against AGW, as its authors say, nor of its ultimate danger to the Cascade snowpack.
Note the following in the authors' conclusion section (p. 25):
"The implication is that, while there is little doubt that the Cascade Mountain snowpack will eventually suffer substantial losses due to global warming,
it may in fact lag other regions in feeling the effects of anthropogenic global warming, and statistically detectable losses that are specifically attributable to anthropogenic warming may not come for several decades."
Notice no response from the blog host, on the points of the article being pointed out by David.
Having someone who understands an issue, or someone who looks at the data from the opposite point of view, is a good thing in a discussion.
Otherwise what is the point?
It's just that I am for accurate and complete reporting, as you fail to realize the size and scope of the climate change problem.
Oh, stop lying, David. You've made your agenda very clear, and I quote:
You don't have the right to ruin the planet for the rest of us -- it doesn't belong to you.
Well, David, you don't have the right to dictate how other folks live their lives. Their lives don't belong to you.
I have present you with the following information on several occasions, and have yet to see you respond with accuracy and completeness to any of the assertions made by Evans, which once again are presented to you:
1. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.
2. There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming.
3. The satellites that measure the world's temperature all say that the warming trend ended in 2001, and that the temperature has dropped about 0.6C in the past year (to the temperature of 1980).
4. The new ice cores show that in the past six global warmings over the past half a million years, the temperature rises occurred on average 800 years before the accompanying rise in atmospheric carbon. Which says something important about which was cause and which was effect.
The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming.
Now, remember David: Evans wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.
FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data.
Evans says that your religion is bogus. How do you respond?
Please regale us with your vastly superior understanding of science, and do so in an accurate and complete manner. We, the Great Unwashed, breathlessly await your considered rejoinder.
David said about Victoria's comment
"It's just that I am for accurate and complete reporting, as you fail to realize the size and scope of the climate change problem. Every time some scientific result comes along that is favorable to your side, you highlight it as some kind of as proof against AGW."
------------------------------
Isn't this calling the kettle black. All you seem to do is quote the IPCC, which backs AGW and only allows peer review to the extent it agrees with their original AGW bias.
As for accurate and complete, you simply refuse to be complete, since you focus only on conflicting IPCC models and the last two centuries of the earth's history.
In Gore's words("Earth In Balance" preface xvi) humankind has a "bizzare focus on short term thinking". Is your focus long term?
As I pointed out once before, you fail to address the fact that CO2 has been rising rapidly since 17,000 yrs ago, as the retreat of the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets, as well as the Euro-Asian ice sheets, accelerated.
Since humans were hunter gathers until 10,000 yrs ago, the catalyst for this latest warming cycle was certainly not humans and is reflective of a normal geologic warming cycle. If there is a cause effect correlation, wouldn't it be that humankind arose as the result of global warming and not the reverse?
And you have also not addressed the point I raised earlier --- why are current CO2 levels only 5% of those of 500 million years ago, despite the earth's experiencing a number of warming, cooling and glaciation cycles. CO2 even with your "significant" increase of the past 200 yrs is still near a historic geologic low. Hardly a harbinger for catastrophe.
> I have present you with the
> following information on
> several occasions, and have
> yet to see you respond with
> accuracy and
> completeness to any of the
> assertions made by Evans
I covered this in detail on my blog:
http://tinyurl.com/6bz3wk
David Evans' "explanation" is completely unscientific and based on nothing rational at all.
Note that David Evans is not a climate scientist, just someone whose opinion you like. (Next week you will have someone else.) He was not trained in climate science. He has never published even one paper in climate science. That, together with the above, make him not very credible.
Peter wrote:
> IPCC, which backs AGW and
> only allows peer review to
> the extent it agrees with
> their original AGW bias.
The IPCC allows review by anyone. In recent years Lindzen, Singer, and Christy have all been members of the IPCC. I believe Steve McIntyre submitted comments for the 4AR.
> As I pointed out once before,
> you fail to address the fact
> that CO2 has been rising rapidly > since 17,000 yrs ago, as the
> retreat of the Laurentide and
> Cordilleran ice sheets, as well
> as the Euro-Asian ice sheets,
> accelerated.
1) CO2 levels were essentially flat for at least 1000 years before the Industrial Revolution.
2) The huge run-up of atmospheric CO2 in the last 150 years is easily distinguished as manmade (not natural) by studying its radioactivity, and its carbon and oxygen isotopes.
> If there is a cause effect
> correlation, wouldn't it be that > humankind arose as the result of > global warming and not the
> reverse?
The human species has existed for about 4 million years old.
Anthropogenic global warming has been around for ~100 yrs.
> CO2 even with your "significant"
> increase of the past 200 yrs is
> still near a historic geologic
> low. Hardly a harbinger for
> catastrophe.
Present CO2 levels are the highest in about 0.8 Ma, and probably about 20 Ma.
Yes, CO2 on Earth has reached as high as 7000 ppmv 500 Ma ago. It's very difficult to see the relevance -- the continents were a lumped together back then. It was, literally, an entirely different planet. The mean surface temperature was ~+7C higher than today (=13F). Today's man, nonhuman animals, ecosystems, agriculture, and means of production could never survive in such a climate.
*grabs a large popcorn and watches* Hey Eileen... want some? It's the good-tasting low calorie stuff.
David said
"> assertions made by Evans"
This was not in my prior post and OK, I have to concede, I have no idea what you are talking about.
I made no assertion one way or another about David Evans, nor have I visited your blog (not that I would be adverse to visiting).
Regardless, you obfuscate, because you have still avoided the questions I posed directly to you.
Repeated -
As I pointed out once before, you fail to address the fact that CO2 has been rising rapidly since 17,000 yrs ago, as the retreat of the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets, as well as the Euro-Asian ice sheets, accelerated.
Since humans were hunter gathers until 10,000 yrs ago, the catalyst for this latest warming cycle was certainly not humans and is reflective of a normal geologic warming cycle. If there is a cause effect correlation, wouldn't it be that humankind arose as the result of global warming and not the reverse?
You also said -
"1) CO2 levels were essentially flat for at least 1000 years before the Industrial Revolution.
Nice try, but how about the other 16,000 years preceding which were characterized by rapid warming, which obviously you continue to ignore!"
David -
Every seventh grader (I have no idea where I ended up with seventh graders) knows your following statement:
"The human species has existed for about 4 million years old.
"Anthropogenic" global warming has been around for ~100 yrs."
Quotes are definitely mine. By the way, global warming has been around a lot longer than 100 years.
But you still avoid the last 17,000yrs of warming and the disparity between the beginning of the latest warming cycle and the ascent of humans! Until 10,000 yrs ago humankind would have no more impact on the climate than a deer or an auroch (oh yeah, all that prehistoric methane). I'm sure phytoplankton miss those Aurochs!
David, you said -
"Present CO2 levels are the highest in about 0.8 Ma, and probably about 20 Ma."
OK, but is that relevant in the long term history of earth? No short term thinking according to the founder of your movement --- Al Gore.
David, you said the following
"Yes, CO2 on Earth has reached as high as 7000 ppmv 500 Ma ago. It's very difficult to see the relevance -- the continents were a lumped together back then. It was, literally, an entirely different planet."
It's nice to see that you admit that there are other factors, actually multiple factors involved in affecting the climate. I was beginning to think you felt only CO2 was relevant, but as unscientific as lumping together of continents sounds, I'll take as an admission that CO2 isn't the only variable that impacts climate.
"Today's man, nonhuman"
Unsure of your reference here. Are you referring to extreme environmentalists?
David said
"The mean surface temperature was ~+7C higher than today (=13F). Today's man, nonhuman animals, ecosystems, agriculture, and means of production could never survive in such a climate"
And they would survive better with the return of the Cordilleran and Laurentide Ice Sheets and temperatures significantly below those of today?
David said:
"It was, literally, an entirely different planet."
David, you seem to dismiss the evolution of Earth and yes it was a different planet 500 million years ago; however, you fail to acknowledge one of the founding principles of Geology ---- Uniformitarism, which suggests the at the Earth was shaped by processes that are still in effect today.
You also ignore the fact that in the Geologic past, CO2 levels have been significantly higher levels than those of today through periods of global warming, global cooling and glaciation.
:-)
I love popcorn.
But without David who would read the details that back up the "other side".
Max,
Guess what, when the way you choose to live your life, impacts others, others do have a right to tell you how to live your life.
But anything you can do, with your life, and not impact anyone else, I agree you have the right.
Pete, I think I answered all your questions already, but I'll go over it again.
Of course I admit that CO2 is not the only factor that determines climate. I'm not an idiot.
Of course CO2 levels fluctuate naturally. Climate is a complex systems with many variables influencing many other variables.
Obviously the rise in temperature since about 17 Ka is not manmade.
I don't know the details about climate back then. The CO2 rise was probably triggered by the temperature rise coming out of the last ice age.
(To anticipate your next question: yes, sometimes temperature leads CO2, and sometimes CO2 leads temperature. Sometimes one kicks off the other and causes it to rise. Climatologists know all about this, and have explained it many times. Please read their explanation (start with RealClimate.org) before criticizing me.)
As I said, climate is very complex. The most important factors in some eras are not the most important factors in other eras. The factors of 17 Ka were obviously natural and they dynamics are not the same as today. Climate science isn't like physics, with its simple cause-and-effect.
CO2 levels have been essentially flat for 1000 years before about 1750.
The rise in CO2 since then has a manmade signature, i.e. it came from fossil fuels, which we know by studying its radioactivity, C13/C12 ratios, and oxygen isotopes. (It is also common sense. All that carbon we've been burning had to go somewhere. It'd be shocking if atmospheric levels *didn't* increase.)
I am not in any "movement." I'm a journalist, as I try my best to report on science accurately.
> you fail to acknowledge one of
> the founding principles of
> Geology ---- Uniformitarism,
> which suggests the at the Earth
> was shaped by processes that are > still in effect today.
Of course geological principles haven't suddenly been rescinded from nature. But geology is a science that deals with time scales of 10-5000 million years. Anthropogenic climate change is happening on the scale of decades and centuries. That's like comparing a bacteria to a human.
The decadal changes in CO2 and other GHGs that we're seeing today are several times anything ever seen for a long, long time. As I wrote, they are directly attributable to human activities.
To clarify, in my response to Pete when I wrote
> Obviously the rise in temperature
> since about 17 Ka is not manmade.
I meant the run-up in temperature coming out of the last ice age. The climate stabilized after that. Not the run-up in temperatures we saw last century.
Without David to state the opinion of the other side, we wouldn't have as much fun. I personally don't have the highest regard for the gentleman's integrity but it's time to watch the show. *hands you a tub of popcorn*
As to the thing about how you live your life impacting others, the butterfly fluttering its wings in China causing a tornado in Kansas maxim applies. We impact others practically in everything we do so by your reasoning, everyone is justified in teling you how to live your life. But there are categories of impact upon others that are not the business of others. What car you drive. Whether you eat fast food or an apple. Whether your food as trans fats or not. Not a single one of these things is the business of anyone else yet the government proposes that it has the right to impose its collective will on the way in which we do them. In the end, the AGW hypothesis is embraced so readily by many governments because it's an inroad into the right to regulate people, ostensibly for the good of the entire planet.
So, Keith, I'll ask you again (I don't think you answered last time; if so, I missed it, sorry): did the US government have the right to regulate lead out of the gasoline you put in your car? And was this a good thing or a bad thing?
I answered 3-4 times but I suppose you never noticed. Anyway, my answer is yes but because lead is a substance that is unquestionably toxic when breathed in or consumed. The government has a right to require that a manufacturer's products be, at the very least, safe. Lead-laced gasoline does not qualify as being a safe product, especially since the lead is not a neccessary but unfortunate component of gasoline. But in the case of carbon dioxide, it is a beningn odorless colorless stable gas that is a natural byproduct of living respiration. It is neither toxic nor dangerous. Therefore, it doesn't fall under the government right/obligation to see that a company's products are safe. Therefore, the government has no business involving itself with the regulation of something that is harmless. You have the right to crow to your heart's content about how it hurts the planet; I'm not concerned about a popular scientific theory about the climate. What concerns me is that the government harbors the notion that I am its subject to be regulated and controlled for the alleged benefit of the planet. In the end, that notion is more harmful than any of the actually credible supposed results of the alleged AGW.
But Keith, there are some people (and industries) that are skeptical of the view that lead is very dangerous. See, for example, this Slate article:
http://www.slate.com/id/2100777/
About 5 years ago I heard a talk by Dr. Herbert Needleman (U Pitt), a pioneer in discerning the dangers of lead, at Rice University. He recalled how he was hounded and severely criticized for years by the paint and chemical industries. (Sound familiar?) He also complained -- and this was only 5 years ago -- that there were still forces seeking to influence government regulation of lead to allow more of it into common products.
So apparently not everyone agrees on exactly how dangerous lead is. Who then do you believe? The government? Industry? Activists? Scientists? (Which scientists?)
How did you (personally) decide that lead was dangerous?
--
PS: Just because CO2 is a natural product of respiration means little. It is, for example, toxic to humans at levels of about 5000 ppm and higher, and some people can begin to suffer discomfort at 1000 ppm. See the Lake Nyos disaster of 1986 (1700 dead).
And just because we exhale CO2 does not prove its safety. We inhale oxygen, but it is a highly explosive gas in other circumstances. We inhale nitrogen, but too much in your bloodstream will kill you.
The dose makes the poison.
Keith wrote:
> What concerns me is that
> the government harbors the
> notion that I am its subject
> to be regulated and controlled
> for the alleged benefit of the
> planet.
The government does this to you in dozens of ways every day. It requires you home to have indoor plumbing, for the sake of your society and the planet. It requires you properly dispose of your garbage, for the sake of society and the planet. It outlaws burning trash in your backyard, for the benefit of society and the planet. It requires a catalyct converter on your car, for the sake of you and the planet. It forbids you from dumping mercury wherever you might want, for the sake of society and the planet. It regulates sulfate emissions (via a cap and trade system) that raises the cost of your power, for the sake of society and the planet. It regulated CFC release, making your refrigerator more expensive, for the sake of society and the planet.
These are all restrictions on your freedoms. Why are you not railing against them? The consequences of excessive greenhouse gas emissions are just as dangerous as many of these--all important scientific bodies have now been convinced of this, including national academies of science, august scientific bodies like the AGU and APS, national governments, EPA scientists, even the the Bush administration, and the vast majority of the world's climate scientists and scientific journal editors. Even Bjorn Lomberg, Iain Murray, Richard Lindzen, and Pat Michaels agree there is a relationship between temperature and CO2, and that too much CO2 will negatively harm the planet.
I personally decided that it is dangerous because it is. Circular reasoning, I know, but I'm offering an inane response to an inane question.
David, you have a real problem with reading carefully. The careful reader will note the total absence of the word "society" in my statement. Said careful reader will also notice the word "alleged" in my statement. The absence of one word and the inclusion of the other renders the entire first paragraph of your response meaningless because it addresses something that was not said.
I don't rail against those regulations that directly target things that are unquestionably bad practices or dangerous although I maintain that they're too restrictive and not nearly as neccessary as people think they are (and had a long argument on the subject with Eileen at some point). As to the consensus you allege, nice try. National governments are irrelevant because they have a tendency to believe in and advocate views that are politically popular, not scientifically sound. As to the national academies and august organizations, I would appreciate the evidence you never like to offer. As to the names you tossed out, again, nice try. The first belief you cited ("there is a relationship between temperature and CO2") is unrelated to the second belief ("too much CO2 will negatively harm the planet") and neither of them show that the people you named agree with the AGW theory. Someone who believes that high CO2 manifests after high temperatures believes that there is a relationship between temperature and CO2 although they do not believe in AGW. Someone who believes that too much CO2 will harm the planet has an equivalent belief to "too much of (fill in the blank) will harm the planet" but this doesn't mean that they buy into AGW.
Anyway, I think I'll return to my popcorn with Eileen. It's been real but you're still a careless reader and you still don't go for proof-by-citation. Therefore, I'm uninterested in keeping up the broadsides with you.
Keith wrote:
> I would appreciate the evidence
> you never like to offer.
This evidence has been laid out in more exhaustive detail than for any other science problem that I can recall:
IPCC, 4th Assessment Report
WG1: "The Physical Science Basis"
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm
This document references all the relevant studies that have been done over the years. It goes into great detail, has handy summaries, and is written in a readable format with many figures and graphs. It was written precisely for people like you.
Have you read it?
Note that David Evans is not a climate scientist
Oh, and you are? Unlike you, Evans wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.
FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data.
Sorry, David, but he's much more credible than you.
I covered this in detail on my blog:
Um...that would be the one with no visitors, right? Which would be why you persist in trolling other blogs. And being just plain silly.
>> "Ice is on course to disappear
>> entirely from the North Pole this >> year?"
>
> Is this a fact, hypothesis or
> theory?
This was hyped by a British newspaper, and is probably going to be the case. Sea ice extent in the Arctic is currently 111.2% of last year's level.
So, the sea ice is disappearing?
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/cold-irony-arctic-sea-ice-traps-climate-tour-icebreaker/
Wrong again.
The Polar bears are all gonna die?
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1ea8233f-14da-4a44-b839-b71a9e5df868
Wrong again.
You just can't catch a break, can you David? All of your global doom and gloom prophesies are dropping.
And the best you can do is claim that the person who wrote the freaking carbon accounting model for Australia isn't "credible".
Well, I put a lot more stock in his credibility than yours, David.
And now you and your fellow True Believers face yet another test: the Court of Public Opinion has reviewed your arguments, and those of your opponents. They recognize climate change as a natural set of cycles that do not involve human activity. Your belief system has been tried, and found wanting.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4474202.ece
It's time for you to find a new "cause" to root for.
The fork has been stuck into AGW, and it's done. The pendulum of science has already begun to swing away from you. And while this will upset political activists and socialists who believe that they somehow have the right to dictate the conditions under which other people will live (this time in the name of "saving the planet"), that's going away as well.
Max,
Guess what, when the way you choose to live your life, impacts others, others do have a right to tell you how to live your life.
Guess what? You're wrong.
Do you live in a condo association, where other people get to tell you how to paint the unit? I can see that you don't live in North Korea, where your view might be popular.
Perhaps you should consider moving there, where your outlook on freedom and responsibility would be welcomed.
Max:
No, David Evans "explanation" for the correlation between AGHGs and 20th century temperatures is not credible. I don't care whether he's a climate accountant (in fact, his PhD is in EE, and he has never done any publishable work in climate science) or the King of Sweden -- wrong is wrong. His "explanation" that it's all just "luck" is unscientific, and, frankly, laughable.
Max, as a member of modern society, government *does* have the right to tell you how to live part of your life. Kick and scream and deny it if you want, but it happens to you every day, and is a binding condition of living here. A great many of your potential actions are forbidden by government, for the good of society and/or the planet. It is already so and will be independent of anything to do with curtailing global warming.
Your civil and constitutional rights have been restricted and taken away more by the Bush administration in the last 7 years than anything any climate activist has ever proposed. But instead of focusing on wiretapping, corporate collusion with government, imprisonment without habeus corpus, or the president's "right" to torture you in secret, you're upset because you might have to pay $2 more a month for clean electricity. That's extremely short-sighted and foolish.
It's interesting to note, David, that under the Constitution, the government has "authority" and "power" but only the citizens have "rights". The government lacks the "right" to do absolutely nothing; as an entity that was traditionally viewed as a force to be tightly controlled, the writers of the Constitution took very special care to avoid giving it any rights. The government has the power to do a few things and the authority to do a few more things but it has no right to do anything.
Actually, that's entirely false, David. The right of habeas corpus has never extended to those that you claim it was taken from. The "warrentless wiretapping" is more benign than Clinton's Echelon program and is still subject to judicial review. Private entities have always colluded with government so Bush has nothing to do with the practice. Lastly, there is no credible documentation of "torture" whatsoever beyond harmless stressing techniques. Your attempt to make the Bush administration a whipping boy to distract from the totalitarian intentions of governmental AGW believers is utterly absurd.
Frankly, it'll be vastly more than $2 a month with the current policy direction. Inadequate forms of green power generation will make simple electricity more expensive and the deemphasis of supplying critical fuel needs instead of pursuing pies in the sky will combined with electricity expenses to make everything dramatically more expensive. The Bush Administration couldn't do more harm to our civil liberties and basic freedom if it tried.
Keith: I'm not interested in arguing constitutional semantics. Save that for your pow wows and bonfires. For all practical purposes, the government can compel you to do a great number of things, all of which impinge on your theoretical freedom, some quite significantly. You know it as well as I do.
Your claim that there is no evidence of "torture" tells me pretty much all I need to know. It's akin to your earlier denial that modern CO2 in the atmosphere is of human origin.
Funny, though, how all these people keep coming out of the US military penal system all say they were tortured -- isn't it?
You are exactly the kind of fool the Bush administration is counting on -- hardheaded, impervious to evidence, scared shitless that some terrorist is going to blow up your mailbox, and willing to grant the government any power if they will just protect you.
And yet you recoil in fear and anger that your electricity might be generated from the sun and not fossil fuels.
You are locked in chains, and complaining only that someone is blocking the sunlight from the window of your cell.
--
You're a smoker, right?
I'd expect as much.
David
You said -
"Of course I admit that CO2 is not the only factor that determines climate. I'm not an idiot."
If I gave in some way suggested I felt you are an idiot, I apologize because that was certainly not my intent.
I would suggest you are very well schooled in certain aspects of climate science. But I would also suggest is you come across as singularly focused on CO2/GW and you definitely have made up your mind and are an unequivocal advocate of AGW.
In one of your prior posts you stated,
"The increases in CO2 over the last 30-200 years are certainly human caused -- there is absolutely zero doubt about that. (Study its radioactivity, or its C13/C12 ratio, or simply graph the human production of CO2 over that time.)
Its correlation to global warming is also firmly established."
And I guess one of my major problems and concerns with your viewpoint is the statement of "simply graph the human production of CO2 over time", which is quite a simplistic suggestion, especially when multiple variables are involved in climate. This statement simply reinforces my feeling that you overemphasize one variable, CO2.
But where I would differ with you and obviously despite my several posts haven't communicated my position well, I guess; I strongly question the correlation between CO2 and Global Warming.
You mentioned c12/c13 and oxygen isotope studies earlier and the same techniques have been used on fossil plants and shells to establish whether or not a correlation exists between warming climate and CO2 over Phanerozoic. The correlation between the two variables distinctly breaks down, in the Miocene epoch, in the Ordovician and the Triassic periods.
The correlation also obviously breaks down over the longer 500 million years, since complex life first appeared.
You certainly are accurate in stating, "Climate science isn't like physics, with its simple cause-and-effect." And I think your direct linkage of CO2 and Global Warming as a cause-effect phenomena is at best a hypothesis, and hasn't yet withstood the scientific test of time and peer review.
Ulimately this disparity may be resolved one away or another, but I think it is premature to suggest that the debate is over.
It is interesting that you are a journalist, and I guess I would ask why you wouldn't be interested in bringing out both sides of the issue more. You seem to have concentrated most of your time researching the last 2,000 yrs +/- and it doesn't sound like you have spent alot of time researching CO2/climate history before that. I guess it interests me that you would dismiss anything that preceded the industrial age, as irrelevant, especially if it ultimately challenges or confirms your current beleifs.
David you said
"Of course geological principles haven't suddenly been rescinded from nature. But geology is a science that deals with time scales of 10-5000 million years. Anthropogenic climate change is happening on the scale of decades and centuries. That's like comparing a bacteria to a human"
First, I would suggest the Geologic Principal of Uniformitarism does state that the processes of today are the same that shaped the earth in the past. But it also states that those processes do not necessarily operate at the same speed or intensity as they have in the past.
The rapidity of a change can still reflect a normal geologic process.
But what I found really interesting about your analogy in the statement above was your analogy, "like comparing a bacteria to a human"
Not only is the bacteria the most successful life form in Earth's history, but cyano-bacteria literally created the atmosphere some 4 billion yrs ago. So was this a Freudian slip and an admission that mankind isn't going to have significant impact on the atmosphere? Sorry, I couldn't resist.
I remember seeing some stories in The Oregonian in recent years predicting doom for the Cascade snowpack and glaciers on Mt. Hood due to AGW.
Soooo, I was curious to read what The O had written, and I went to their archives and found an article titled:
WARMING STUDY FORECASTS SKIMPY CASCADES SNOWPACK
11/21/2002 by David Hill
"Scientists say a rigorous but conservative examination of a global model has dire consequences for the region.
If global warming models are correct, snowpack in the Cascades will plummet by more than half by 2050, reducing river flows and reservoir levels enough to place strain on the needs of the region's hydropower system, salmon recovery effort and expanding population."
The article goes on to give all kinds of dire statistical predictions based upon the "most conservative" climate models, so the consequences could, of course, be much worse ;)
BUT, digging deeper into the same article:
"The study did not take into account the effects of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a phenomenon in which the climate flip-flops between wet-cool and dry-warm phases about every 20 years. The oscillation is a fundamental driver in the region's climate, but it is not well understood or employed in computer models."
So the PDO is understood well enough that scientists recognize that the PDO "is a fundamental driver in the region's climate", but it's not understood in some other unknown way, so they'll just ignore it as far as our climate models are concerned. Or, perhaps the PDO was going to get in the way of the desired climate model result.
Anyway, this last passage seems to give some validation to our today's news about the non-relationship between so-called AGW and Cascade snowpacks - even though the headline was meant to scare the bejeezus out of all of us.
"Constitutional semantics" as you call them are what actually matters. That the government has taken a power upon itself doesn't put the question of whether it has the authority to beyond the realm of discussion.
A point you've still not tried to dispute in any meaningful way although I thoroughly explained the flaw I percieved in the C13/C14 assumption. As with that, I challenge you to provide this evidence you believe exists. Then explain how the administrators of prisons like Gitmo could miraculously make any proof of torture vanish into thin air with nosy members of Congress and the press snooping around by invitation.
Well, Al Quaeda is not a stupid collection of terrorists. They know that if they sing the same story, tell the same big lie, people who want to believe them will believe them. Wasn't it Hitler that observed that the people can be more easily deiceved by a single big lie than dozens of small ones? You're proving his point. You snidely remark that the Bush Administration relies upon guillible idiots like me (although not a single characteristic you ascribe to me is even slightly plausible much less true) but I'd like to point out that terrorist practictioners of the big lie technique rely upon people like you who'll believe what they want to believe and see only what they want to see. As of 2006, more than 1000 journalists, 77 congressmen, and 99 congressional staffers have visited Gitmo. I've yet to hear of a single one of these over 1100 people providing testimony to back up your beliefs. Amazing how your vaunted evidence crashes and burns upon the simplest examination. Magical even.
David, as much pleasure as I'm sure you take alleging your own special view of what I say and believe (quite apart from any facts, evidence, or mild resemblance to the truth), I consistently oppose most every exercise of government power that intrudes upon my freedoms. I can swallow government interference that effectively prevents damage from being done to me (i.e. getting twitchy over toxic chemicals spewing from smokestacks) but I don't go any further than that. You're making desperate attempts to arm-twist me into admitting that government regulation is good thing and now you try to pin me with the admissions you're so desperate to drag out of me. Words just don't quite cover the level of duplicitous hypocrisy this sort of trick requires. Suffice it to say, if you had any substance to what you're saying, you wouldn't need to be sneaky.
Well, David, freedom is not an external truth. It exists within individuals and those who wish to be free are free. I'm already free as much as the government allows and free of the obligation to believe in pure fantasy about the sins of the Bush Administration and humanity in general. I invite you to enjoy the same freedom, even though I know you love your chains of belief far too much to accept the offer.
And no, I'm a teetotaler and a nonsmoker. Try again, genius.
David,
No, David Evans "explanation" for the correlation between AGHGs and 20th century temperatures is not credible. I don't care whether he's a climate accountant (in fact, his PhD is in EE, and he has never done any publishable work in climate science) or the King of Sweden -- wrong is wrong.
Which is, after all, exactly my point regarding your fascination with the AGW belief system. That you cling desperately to the belief system doesn't make it right. Wrong is still wrong.
Having failed to address the ships trapped in the arctic sea ice that isn't supposed to be there (as you, yourself, have stated previously), and having failed to address the fact that polar bear population data show more bears than at any time in recent history (which is again entirely at odds with your belief system), and having failed to address the fact that people are now discounting your belief system in steadily increasing numbers, you now seek to deflect and dodge and wiggle off by making ridiculous political claims:
Max, as a member of modern society, government *does* have the right to tell you how to live part of your life. Kick and scream and deny it if you want, but it happens to you every day, and is a binding condition of living here. A great many of your potential actions are forbidden by government, for the good of society and/or the planet. It is already so and will be independent of anything to do with curtailing global warming.
Your civil and constitutional rights have been restricted and taken away more by the Bush administration in the last 7 years than anything any climate activist has ever proposed. But instead of focusing on wiretapping, corporate collusion with government, imprisonment without habeus corpus, or the president's "right" to torture you in secret, you're upset because you might have to pay $2 more a month for clean electricity. That's extremely short-sighted and foolish.
And then you turn right around and claim that you're not interested in political semantics. That's very odd, David, for as a professed writer, you should know full well that words have meaning.
And then, like a good little "progressive", you resort to ad hominim attacks and profanity, because as a recent study has demonstrated, that's what "progressives" do.
Liberals are more than 12 times likely to use profanity than conservatives on the web.
Well, let's take a guess: conservatives tend to think things through, while libs tend to function essentially from emotion. Conservatives have little need for resorting to profanity, while in the case of "progressives", profanity and spittle are essentially the only tools they have.
Yet, of course, you have claimed that it is others who resort to name-calling and so forth, when it is clear that you are the one who tends to engage in such behavior when you can't get your way.
And Keith has responded to your provocations with admirable restraint, without stooping to your level of "discourse"; providing additional facts that - as is so often the case - you fail to address (much less refute).
Pete wrote:
> And I guess one of my
> major problems and concerns with
> your viewpoint is the statement
> of "simply graph the human
> production of CO2 over time",
> which is quite a simplistic
> suggestion, especially
> when multiple variables are
> involved in climate. This
> statement simply reinforces my
> feeling that
> you overemphasize one variable,
> CO2.
Please read what I wrote before you criticize me. I gave *several* scientific reasons that prove the runup in CO2+ is anthropogenic. For some reason you chose to ignore all of them and focus on the last, throw-away one. I know full well that correlation is not causation. But actual measurements *do* imply correlation. The latter is just a guide.
Pete wrote:
> And I think your direct linkage of > CO2 and Global Warming as a
> cause-effect phenomena is at best a > hypothesis, and hasn't yet
> withstood the scientific test of
> time and peer review.
Fourier discovered the greenhouse effect in 1824.
Arrhenius quantified it in 1896.
Modern climate science has confirmed this again and again.
I think I will believe these learned men before I believe you, who doesn't even sign his last name, and who gives no reason to doubt the fact that CO2 is a GHG except to say it isn't.
Pete wrote:
> It is interesting that you are
> a journalist, and I guess I
> would ask why you wouldn't be
> interested in bringing out both
> sides of the issue more.
I do bring out both sides of an issue, when it's relevant. But journalistic balance does not mean spending 50% on one idea and 50% on its opposite. It means accurately reporting on what the scientific community thinks about the subject. And, whether or not you or anyone else here likes it or not, the climate science community overwhelmingly agrees that the AGW hypothesis has been proven. Go to conferences, read the journals, talk to scientists -- I do -- and you will find overwhelming agreement with the AGW hypothesis. The skeptical views, whenever I have investigated them, just do not hold up. Scientific truth gets sorted out over time -- in climate science, in physics, in biology, in medicine, in any science -- and then people more on and build on that. People are building on AGW. A few op-eds in the Wall Street Journal or think tanks funded by ExxonMobil do not undo decades of detailed science by thousands of scientists.
> You seem to have concentrated
> most of your time researching the > last 2,000 yrs +/- and it doesn't > sound like you have spent alot of > time researching CO2/climate
> history before that.
I have spent time. Not a lot of time. Journalism is about the present, and people care far more about our present climate than that of 200 Ma ago. And the eras you keep harping on are essentially disconnected from the present era -- that's why many scientists have taken to calling today's era the anthropocene. Sure, some of the science is the same. But many of the causative factors -- anthropogenic GHGs, land use changes, etc. are not. They are completely new. Analogies only go so far.
Klockarman, I don't see how that 2002 O headline scares the "bejessus" out of anyone. You must be easily scared. It was trying to report the science that was known at the time. That was six years ago. A long time in a field that is getting so much attention. Naturally details will change. The 2002 study said the PDO wasn't considered. That was accurate. They probably did not have the computing power then, or had to make other assumptions along with the knowledge of the time. So what? By the way, this latest result from U Wash is hardly the final word. It hasn't even been peer-reviewed. No other scientists I've read have even commented on it. Science is not done in a flash. It is a slow, back-and-forth process that takes years. Maybe this paper is right. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's only partially right. Maybe we'll have better data in 6 years, and faster computers models. Science is not some simple black-and-white process. No science is, and it never has been. Not enough people understand this, especially in this day and age.
Keith wrote:
> A point you've still not tried
> to dispute in any meaningful way
> although I thoroughly explained
> the flaw I percieved in the
> C13/C14 assumption.
Keith, are you saying that you *haven't* yet written your finding up and submitted it to any scientific journal yet, or applied to discuss it at conferences, or went on the seminar circuit? What are you waiting for and why are you wasting your time arguing with some silly science journalist? Your finding that the run-up in CO2, CH4, and other levels of GHGs is *not* of human origin is ground-breaking and of enormous significance to the field! Really, it will overthrow decades of work done by hundreds of scientists. They need to know, quickly, about your discovery. Places like the AAAS's ScienceExpress exist specifically to get important results like this out to the scientific community as soon as possible. I encourage you to write up your paper and submit it there pronto.
What are you waiting for?
Keith, it is strange how you try to come off as some hard core libertarian, and yet you swallow whatever your government tells you on a subject like torture. Read Human Rights Watch. Read the recent British MP report saying that US officials are no longer believable on the subject of torture. The use of waterboarding has been thoroughly documents, and stress positions, and dogs, and nakedness, and the extra-judicial transfer or prisoners to compliant countries. Several people have been released by the US government and said they were tortured.
I'll thank you not to sneer, David. This isn't about proving anything to the world. This is about me repeating a challenge I read of to the assumptions about the C12/C13 ratios to someone who claims to have significant understanding of the subject. This is about said someone not taking the question seriously enough to make any attempt to answer it. If you're incapable of building a case with citation and answering a credible challenge respectfully, please don't pretend that I ought to take you seriously.
Oh, Davey!
I keep telling you this, and it obviously takes a long time to sink in:
You don't get to make the rules.
So you can take your tired old characterizations back over to your blog (which nobody visits, but where you do get to set the rules).
By that I mean I think I will believe these learned men before I believe you, who doesn't even sign his last name, and who gives no reason to doubt the fact that CO2 is a GHG except to say it isn't.
What is it with you, anyway? What makes you think that you can troll other blogs and attempt to set rules on the use of screen-names?
Your level of arrogance is simply amazing.
I do bring out both sides of an issue, when it's relevant.
Oops, Davey, caught you in yet another lie. You never bring out the other side of a discussion; you're all about the belief system of AGW, all the time. Although if that isn't working for you, you jump off into a totally unrelated issue in a desperate attempt to distract.
What motivates you to troll other folks' blogs when you've got absolutely zero credibility is clearly your problem - not ours. Most sane folks who pursue your belief system would note that they've been busted several times over, and simply return to their mom's basement.
But that's all right, you're an entertaining guy. It's amusing to poke holes in your belief system, then watch as you unload on folks for dissing you.
We're around, and we can throw the remarks that you've made to others right back at you. It's amusing to watch you whine, then run away when you're faced with verbatim comments that you've made.
You aren't really, as you described yourself, a silly science journalist.
You're just a silly writer with an exaggerated sense of self importance.
And gee - didn't you just say just a couple of nights ago that Keith: I'm not interested in arguing constitutional semantics. Save that for your pow wows and bonfires.
And yet, here you are, bringing it up again:
Keith, it is strange how you try to come off as some hard core libertarian, and yet you swallow whatever your government tells you on a subject like torture. Read Human Rights Watch. Read the recent British MP report saying that US officials are no longer believable on the subject of torture.
If you can't get people to go with your belief system on AGW, David, then you figure it's a good idea to duck and swerve, and try to change the topic, isn't that about it?
Ohh! Let's blame Bush!
There's one heck of a rational, scientific approach. If you can't convert them, then try to baffle them, eh?
You truly are an endless source of amusement, but I don't think you're winning many converts.
So, your belief is that I should swallow your evidence-free beliefs because Human Rights Watch and a British MP support it. Sorry... the nature of the evidence matters, not the seriousness of the accusations. If these things have been documented as well as you claim, you must have a convincing array of citations to prove this. I await a shred of your evidence, David.
Yup. Several people who've been released by the US Government claimed, before an audience that would blindly believe them, that they were tortured. I'm so impressed. If this is the best you can do, David, I'm not the one that needs to dig their head out of the sand. Care to name names of these "several people"?
No Keith, I'm not suggesting you swallow anything I say. I'm suggesting your analyze it all it detail, both sides -- instead of reflectively rejecting certain claims because they don't pass your naive standards of acceptance, because it came from some "leftist" organization that you think hates America.
You're what -- 26 years old? You have a lot to learn. You'll see.
Keith: interview any one of the many people who have been waterboarded by the US government. Listen to their detailed stories. Get waterboarded yourself. Watch Christopher Hitchens. Then come back and tell us what you have to say.
As I said, you are a sad libertarian for believing what your government has to say. You are exactly the kind of rube they are counting on.
PS: Hey, haven't you published that C14/C13 paper yet???
You're what -- 26 years old? You have a lot to learn. You'll see.
Well, David - you may be older, but certainly no wiser.
Duck, dodge, avoid any discussion unless you view it as an opportunity to preach.
Max, why don't you concentrate on defending your hero David Evans, instead of perpetually and always denigrating people in personal terms? Ideas are all that matter. So put up.
Oh, really? That's such an ingenious analysis, David. I state that the nature of the evidence instead of the seriousness of the accusation is what matter and you accuse me of rejecting an argument because it's from a leftist source. At no point did I mention leftists or the particular view of Human Rights Watch yet you somehow read a cricism of HRW in what I said. You must be so brilliant that you can attack arguments that are never even made! Once again, David, you demonstrate a marked inability to read.
I'm not sure how old you are, David, but you could take some lessons from a teenager. Say, in how to read what is there instead of what you imagine to be there. It's pitiful how often I have to tell you to read more carefully and you still manage to derive arguments out of thin air, read what isn't written or implied, and build an entire edifice of arguments on top of something that was never said. How is it even possible to respond to me on even the most basic level if you cannot or will not read what you're responding to?
And once again, you fail to pass the laugh test of a 24-year-old. I ask you to name names and you respond by telling me to interview the people whose names you won't even provide. Am I supposed to magically pick the list of people you claim have been waterboarded out of your brain? NAME NAMES if you're going to snidely demand that I seek certain people out to learn the truth. Otherwise, admit that you've got nothing. Christopher Hitchens... is that someone who you claim has been waterboarded? Or just a journalist or opinion columnist you believe in?
And you're a sad scientist for assuming information streams without evidence. Do you have any evidence to suggest that I derive my opinions of the legitimacy of your beliefs from the government? Or are you so desperate to make me out to be a drone that you ascribe my beliefs to whatever source proves your ignorant assumptions? I cannot believe I'm having this conversation with someone who's older than me and who holds an advanced degree.
PS: Have you bothered to read my words yet?
Keith, I am expecting you to *read*, and not just listen to Rush Limbaugh. You clearly have not been exposed to any information in opposition to your rosy view of American government. I have no interest in detailing a complete list of those who have been tortured by the US government -- those lists are easily accessible in the references I gave you. I know you like to pretend you have to have every little thing spelled out for you, but I'm expecting you to go and do some research for yourself, read more than right-wing blogs, and expose yourself to some information you might not like.
Sure, I could lay this all out for you, if I took 2 or 3 hours and crossed every t and dotted every i. But, you're just not worth it. I have better things to do with my time, and esp with someone who has shown they will stoop to asking the stupidest question without taking even 10 minutes to read the existing literature on a problem.
-=-=-
I was wondering to which journal you sent that paper disproving the human link to today's carbon dioxide? J Climate maybe? JGR? Really, science needs to know about your stunning result. Or do you only blather on blogs?
David, are we on the same planet? What "references" are you claiming to have given me, exactly? Let's review:
"Watch Christopher Hitchens" - I'm guessing you expect me to research who this man is and find some way of watching him. You helpfully omit everything except his name. This doens't count as a serious attempt to cite a source.
"Read Human Rights Watch" - Is this an organization or a publication?
"British MP report" - Which one? Who's the author? What's the specific title?
And that disposes of your list of references. Now, do you have these names or are you blowing smoke?
David, if you want to prove a point, YOU prove a point. I have no responsibility to prove your point for you because you are skillful at being snide. Cite your references or admit that you're bankrupt; it's that simple.
Clever you, David. You've turned your deficit of proof into an indictment of me. It takes a singularly dishonest person to achieve that; you deserve your well-earned plaudits. As for who is a waste of whose time, I rather think you are a waste of mine as you cannot be bothered to read carefully or demonstrate that you're not making up facts out of thin air or that your proof passes the laugh test.
I'll deign to respond to your juvenile mockery when you deign to show me that my proposition is incorrect. Oh, that's right... you don't even know what the proposition IS anymore. But by all means, don't let a pesky little thing like facts to get in the way of your sneering.
I need to pop some more popcorn before I finish reading this.
Don't bother. I made extra. *offers a large tub of popcorn, thus far unbuttered and unsalted so you can flavor it to your tastes* Semper paratus. ^_^
David:
Max, why don't you concentrate on defending your hero David Evans, instead of perpetually and always denigrating people in personal terms? Ideas are all that matter. So put up.
When it comes to "perpetually and always denigrating people in personal terms" you, yourself, are hands-down tops at it.
Would you like me to post more examples of your work in that regard?
Thought not.
Now, did I ever, at any time, state or even infer that David Evans is "my hero", as you so impersonally put it?
Well golly gee, David, it looks like I never did any such thing. I did, however, note that he wrote the protocols for Australia, and that you can lay claim to no activity of similar magnitude.
Moreover, David, whatever makes you believe that I somehow have to "defend" him? From what, indeed, should I be defending him?
Your snarky comments denigrating him and calling his views "laughable" don't constitute anything more than childish behavior on your part; am I being called upon to "defend" him from that?
If anybody needs to do any "defending" around here, David, it would be you:
When I post a verbatim quote from you and then observe that I've caught you out in yet another lie, I would expect to see an attempt at defending yourself from such a vile accusation. However, you make no such attempt, because you can't. That's because it's neither vile, nor an accusation. It's rock-solid truth and you know it. So what do you do?
Why, you dance around, completely ignoring the challenge, and instead attempt to muddy things up with silly demands, such as calling for me to "defend" my "hero".
It's amusing to watch you dance and squirm, always attempting to obfuscate; always attempting to bring the great unwashed masses into the holy light offered only by the AGW belief system.
And as always, when challenged, David, you respond in the same tired old manner:
Sure, I could lay this all out for you, if I took 2 or 3 hours and crossed every t and dotted every i. But, you're just not worth it. I have better things to do with my time, and esp with someone who has shown they will stoop to asking the stupidest question without taking even 10 minutes to read the existing literature on a problem.
Do you have that on a boilerplate so that you can simply paste it in?
Now, what was that you said to me, David? Oh yeah, it went like this:
Max, why don't you concentrate on defending your hero David Evans, instead of perpetually and always denigrating people in personal terms?
Looked in a mirror lately, David?
David, I in no way am disparaging you, nor am I denigrating you.
You do that all to well, as I've mentioned before, on your own.
You have all the scientific credibility of the average banana slug, and you have established yourself in that regard completely absent any assistance from others.
Don't blame me, or anybody else, for your own foolishness, David.
David said
Please read what I wrote before you criticize me. I gave *several* scientific reasons that prove the runup in CO2+ is anthropogenic. For some reason you chose to ignore all of them and focus on the last, throw-away one. I know full well that correlation is not causation. But actual measurements *do* imply correlation. The latter is just a guide.
CO2 is up 30%
Mean surface temperature up from 14.4 to 15.4 degees C since 1865( much of increase in early 1900's likely solar induced - Mathez/Webster);
The the slight decline from 1998 to 2007 (see below)
Oops, then 2008 per NASA, Hadley Center - anomaly of minus .6 degrees C
Model Projections (1998 - NCAR; 2001 IPCC) +3 - 9F degrees F increase in next century, 2.5 - 10.4 degrees F by 2100, respectively.
1998/2001 - 2007 Actual anomally minus .1 degree C
And then there was NPR article recently citing the fact that NASA mobile ocean robots had discovered no realization of projected oceanic warming over the past 5 yrs.
So where are your massive temperature increases?
But oh I forgot, now we are told by the global warming community to believe that the celestial stars have alligned just right and now all global warming is on temporary hold for the next decade.
-------------
"Fourier discovered the greenhouse effect in 1824.
Arrhenius quantified it in 1896.
Modern climate science has confirmed this again and again.
I think I will believe these learned men before I believe you, who doesn't even sign his last name, and who gives no reason to doubt the fact that CO2 is a GHG except to say it isn't."
You can beleive who you want, that is the benefit of living in a free country. Regardless, you are also free to agree or disagree with anyone else. Hopefully, it remains that way and we aren't muzzled at some point due to excessive CO2 expression, or more likely taxed.
Thank you for refreshing my memory on the scientific history of the Greenhouse effect and putting words in my mouth.
I am well aware of the envelope of greenhouses gased on the planet that provide the envelope of life, including the by far donminant gas, H2O, and CO2. I am also aware of the interaction of the Sun, Atmosphere, Troposphere, as well as other factors.
There are also regulatory systems in place --- the carbonate-silicate cycle --- the biotic cycle that pull your precious CO2 out of system. Massive amounts of carbon have been deposited over millions of years, are locked within the lithosphere exclusive of fossil fuels, which I beleive are less than 1% of the total.
It is a complex system and your perceived massive temperature increases are not materializing. Nor have long term historical geologic trends support a strong relationship between CO2 and global warming. And the past is the key to the future.
---------------
"Sure, some of the science is the same. But many of the causative factors -- anthropogenic GHGs, land use changes, etc. are not. They are completely new."
Mankind is new. Changes to the system are not. Carbon is subject to constant recycling.
"I do bring out both sides of an issue, when it's relevant. But journalistic balance does not mean spending 50% on one idea and 50% on its opposite. It means accurately reporting on what the scientific community thinks about the subject. And, whether or not you or anyone else here likes it or not, the climate science community overwhelmingly agrees that the AGW hypothesis has been proven. Go to conferences, read the journals, talk to scientists -- I do -- and you will find overwhelming agreement with the AGW hypothesis. The skeptical views, whenever I have investigated them, just do not hold up. Scientific truth gets sorted out over time -- in climate science, in physics, in biology, in medicine, in any science -- and then people more on and build on that. People are building on AGW. A few op-eds in the Wall Street Journal or think tanks funded by ExxonMobil do not undo decades of detailed science by thousands of scientists."
It seems that whenever someone mentions scientists who are either opposed to or undecided about AGW you have a point of readily dismissing their credentials. If the scientists are associated with the Wall Street Journal or Inhofe (Dec 2007 release of 400 scientists questinoning AGW) you impugn their integrity. Many scientists from prominent institutions have yet to form a strong opinion on AGW, but have done work on the topic. If it isn't supportive of your AGW community do you readily dismiss because it's irrelevant?
If its Exxon or their scientists you question their motives above and suggest they undo decades of detailed science. But can't one say the same about Government, Government Agency and Government supported scientists?
Did you question Enron's motives involving Kyoto? Boone Pickens and GE, new found friends of the AGW community want to cover the world with aesthetically unappealing, but enviromentally safe wind turbines (unless you are a bird of prey, in which case you may get sliced and diced). Aren't you a little suspicious of their motives and their scientific grasp.
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