| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Captain Compassion" |
| Date: |
03 Jan 2008 12:07:51 AM |
| Object: |
Has global warming stopped? |
Has global warming stopped?
David Whitehouse
http://www.newstatesman.com/200712190004
Global warming stopped? Surely not. What heresy is this? Haven’t we
been told that the science of global warming is settled beyond doubt
and that all that’s left to the so-called sceptics is the odd errant
glacier that refuses to melt?
Aren’t we told that if we don’t act now rising temperatures will
render most of the surface of the Earth uninhabitable within our
lifetimes? But as we digest these apocalyptic comments, read the
recent IPCC’s Synthesis report that says climate change could become
irreversible. Witness the drama at Bali as news emerges that something
is not quite right in the global warming camp.
With only few days remaining in 2007, the indications are the global
temperature for this year is the same as that for 2006 – there has
been no warming over the 12 months.
But is this just a blip in the ever upward trend you may ask? No.
The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the
same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has,
temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are
not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory
behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is
happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend
hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly.
In principle the greenhouse effect is simple. Gases like carbon
dioxide present in the atmosphere absorb outgoing infrared radiation
from the earth’s surface causing some heat to be retained.
Consequently an increase in the atmospheric concentration of
greenhouse gases from human activities such as burning fossil fuels
leads to an enhanced greenhouse effect. Thus the world warms, the
climate changes and we are in trouble.
The evidence for this hypothesis is the well established physics of
the greenhouse effect itself and the correlation of increasing global
carbon dioxide concentration with rising global temperature. Carbon
dioxide is clearly increasing in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s a
straight line upward. It is currently about 390 parts per million.
Pre-industrial levels were about 285 ppm. Since 1960 when accurate
annual measurements became more reliable it has increased steadily
from about 315 ppm. If the greenhouse effect is working as we think
then the Earth’s temperature will rise as the carbon dioxide levels
increase.
But here it starts getting messy and, perhaps, a little inconvenient
for some. Looking at the global temperatures as used by the US
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the UK’s Met Office
and the IPCC (and indeed Al Gore) it’s apparent that there has been a
sharp rise since about 1980.
The period 1980-98 was one of rapid warming – a temperature increase
of about 0.5 degrees C (CO2 rose from 340ppm to 370ppm). But since
then the global temperature has been flat (whilst the CO2 has
relentlessly risen from 370ppm to 380ppm). This means that the global
temperature today is about 0.3 deg less than it would have been had
the rapid increase continued.
For the past decade the world has not warmed. Global warming has
stopped. It’s not a viewpoint or a sceptic’s inaccuracy. It’s an
observational fact. Clearly the world of the past 30 years is warmer
than the previous decades and there is abundant evidence (in the
northern hemisphere at least) that the world is responding to those
elevated temperatures. But the evidence shows that global warming as
such has ceased.
The explanation for the standstill has been attributed to aerosols in
the atmosphere produced as a by-product of greenhouse gas emission and
volcanic activity. They would have the effect of reflecting some of
the incidental sunlight into space thereby reducing the greenhouse
effect. Such an explanation was proposed to account for the global
cooling observed between 1940 and 1978.
But things cannot be that simple. The fact that the global temperature
has remained unchanged for a decade requires that the quantity of
reflecting aerosols dumped put in our atmosphere must be increasing
year on year at precisely the exact rate needed to offset the
accumulating carbon dioxide that wants to drive the temperature
higher. This precise balance seems highly unlikely. Other explanations
have been proposed such as the ocean cooling effect of the
Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation or the Atlantic Multidecadal
Oscillation.
But they are also difficult to adjust so that they exactly compensate
for the increasing upward temperature drag of rising CO2. So we are
led to the conclusion that either the hypothesis of carbon dioxide
induced global warming holds but its effects are being modified in
what seems to be an improbable though not impossible way, or, and this
really is heresy according to some, the working hypothesis does not
stand the test of data.
It was a pity that the delegates at Bali didn’t discuss this or that
the recent IPCC Synthesis report did not look in more detail at this
recent warming standstill. Had it not occurred, or if the flatlining
of temperature had occurred just five years earlier we would have no
talk of global warming and perhaps, as happened in the 1970’s, we
would fear a new Ice Age! Scientists and politicians talk of future
projected temperature increases. But if the world has stopped warming
what use these projections then?
Some media commentators say that the science of global warming is now
beyond doubt and those who advocate alternative approaches or indeed
modifications to the carbon dioxide greenhouse warming effect had lost
the scientific argument. Not so.
Certainly the working hypothesis of CO2 induced global warming is a
good one that stands on good physical principles but let us not
pretend our understanding extends too far or that the working
hypothesis is a sufficient explanation for what is going on.
I have heard it said, by scientists, journalists and politicians, that
the time for argument is over and that further scientific debate only
causes delay in action. But the wish to know exactly what is going on
is independent of politics and scientists must never bend their desire
for knowledge to any political cause, however noble.
The science is fascinating, the ramifications profound, but we are
fools if we think we have a sufficient understanding of such a
complicated system as the Earth’s atmosphere’s interaction with
sunlight to decide. We know far less than many think we do or would
like you to think we do. We must explain why global warming has
stopped.
David Whitehosue was BBC Science Correspondent 1988–1998, Science
Editor BBC News Online 1998–2006 and the 2004 European Internet
Journalist of the Year. He has a doctorate in astrophysics and is the
author of The Sun: A Biography (John Wiley, 2005).]
--
If you disagree with the theories and dogmas of Marxism or Scientific Socialism
then you are a tool of Capitalist interests. If you disagree with the theories
or dogmas of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming then you are a tool of
Capitalistic interests. Notice a pattern here? -- Captain Compassion
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to
escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. -- Marcus Aurelius
"...the whole world, including the United States, including all that
we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark
Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights
of perverted science." -- Sir Winston Churchill
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net
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| User: "Steve" |
|
| Title: Re: Has global warming stopped? |
03 Jan 2008 03:55:49 AM |
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On Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:07:51 -0800, Captain Compassion
<daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net> wrote:
Has global warming stopped?
David Whitehouse
http://www.newstatesman.com/200712190004
Global warming stopped? Surely not. What heresy is this? Haven’t we
been told that the science of global warming is settled beyond doubt
and that all that’s left to the so-called sceptics is the odd errant
glacier that refuses to melt?
Aren’t we told that if we don’t act now rising temperatures will
render most of the surface of the Earth uninhabitable within our
lifetimes? But as we digest these apocalyptic comments, read the
recent IPCC’s Synthesis report that says climate change could become
irreversible. Witness the drama at Bali as news emerges that something
is not quite right in the global warming camp.
With only few days remaining in 2007, the indications are the global
temperature for this year is the same as that for 2006 – there has
been no warming over the 12 months.
Actually, the temperatures have flattened out over the last ten
years.....
"I was a Senate Page for two years when I went to HS in Maryland. Why is
that hard to believe?"
--Milt.Shook
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.politics/msg/45a41b2be7278eed?&q=senate+page
"Actually, I did misspeak on that one. One year in the House and one
year in the Senate."
--MilT.Shook
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.society.liberalism/msg/06a060ef017bf1a0
No one has ever been both a Senate and a House page and no one has ever been a page for five years.
NOTE: Cox was fired in 1973.. Gingrich was first elected in 1978...
Archibald Cox was as fair a man as there ever was; THAT IS WHY NIXON FIRED
HIS *****!! Spark, I would think you'd do more reading during your month in
exile. I was a page for someone on the judiciary committee at the time,
and none other than Bob Dole said that Archie Cox was a "fine man"...
--Milt.Shook
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.politics/msg/bb35672e77b8808a
"I was a page when Newt first
started, and I thought he was an ***** then, and I've been waiting for
soething to change my mind. Nothing yet.."
--Milt.Shook
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.society.liberalism/msg/23e7664bf86121dc
.
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| User: "Kurt Lochner" |
|
| Title: Re: Has global warming stopped? |
03 Jan 2008 04:48:59 AM |
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"crayon" <semencanyon@tamponbay.rr.com> whined along with:
"crappin' impaction" <daranc@charter.net> quoted:
Has global warming stopped?
David Whitehouse
[..]
Actually, the temperatures have flattened out [..]
Actually, no, the temperatures have not 'flattened out"..
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=22
"Sadly, in recent years we have become accustomed to a ritual
in which the publication of each new result on anthropogenic
climate change is greeted by a flurry of activity from
industry-funded lobby groups, think tanks and PR professionals,
who try to discredit the science and confuse the public about
global warming.
An example of this is the article _Polar Bear Scare on Thin Ice_
by industry lobbyist Steven Milloy, featured on Fox News. Milloy
claims in his polemic that the ACIA "debunks itself" based on
one graph of the 1,200-page study. This graph shows the evolution
of Arctic temperatures over the past century, and the fact
(well-known to climatologists) that in the 1930s similarly warm
temperatures where reached in the high Arctic as at present.
Milloy concludes from this that both warmings are due to a natural
cycle.
Scientifically, this argument holds no water: it is simply not
possible to draw conclusions about the causes of climate variations
by just looking at one time series. Only considering the time series
of Arctic temperature, it is impossible to tell what the cause of
the 1930s warming was, what the cause of the recent warming is,
and whether both have the same cause or not. Milloy’s specious
argument is a characteristic example for a method frequently
employed by "climate skeptics": from a host of scientific data,
they cherry-pick one result out of context and present unwarranted
conclusions, knowing that a lay audience will not easily recognise
their fallacy."
--Just another example of what an easily led 'tard you are, crayon..
_____________________________________________________________________
Canyon <parkie_u_wish@nospam.yahoo.com> Wed, 05 Mar 2003 05:30:30 PST
news:<qmtb6vodv9005boe1989tdlb9g58olcegl@4ax.com>
"Blacklisting is a FORM of free speech."
--
Canyon <parkie_u_wish@nospam.yahoo.com> Wed, 05 Mar 2003 05:35:10 PST
news:<6tub6vojate0fvduv9v3kfue43run87d4a@4ax.com>
"...and what does a democracy have to do with being fired
for your political beliefs anyway. I once fired a guy
because of the bumper stickers on his car parked in my
parking lot."
--
Canyon <stevencanyon@nospam.yahoo.com> Wed, 26 Feb 2003 17:11:30 GMT
news:<i4tp5v4c5ulhakvei4hnb3d42119an64sl@4ax.com>
"I never made any claims I couldn't back up...."
--
Canyon <parkie_u_wish@nospam.yahoo.com> Wed, 26 Feb 2003 19:59:42 GMT
news:<rg6q5vgq29cerpocl3poac2iv3q00qq6uk@4ax.com>
"I don't need to back anything up, you moron, cause unlike
yourself, my self image is not dependent on what others
think about me."
--
Steven Canyon <Gall@dog.soldiers> Tue, 13 Aug 2002 13:57:10 GMT
news:<jc1iluog2emtkjqso8ob0diubt5tdri42v@4ax.com>
"I have no need to demonstrate what I know,[..]"
"MY self image is very secure...."
--
Canyon <stevencanyon@nospam.yahoo.com> Wed, 26 Feb 2003 17:08:28 GMT
news:<u3sp5vc0nhsdj4fboqpoh92cs18lrfdotk@4ax.com>
"[..] my ego isn't even slightly effected by what others
might think of me."
.
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