Hi,
Wow, what a thread. The amount of different arguments that have been used to support or oppose various points of view is just amazing.
This is a thread that is impossible to really address because it cuts across way too many subjects all at once.
How about closing this thread off and starting threads that deal with any of the issues so they can be discussed rationally?
I've seen Vostok records being thrown in, the Mann et al Hockey Stick graph, various parts of the Holocene epoch being mentioned in respect to various temperatures and on and on. Oh and my favourite: satellite data needing to be "corrected" - I'm sorry but in my language that means "I don't like the data this has provided. It does not fit my theory so we'll have to come up with an excuse why it is faulty". Satellite data is currently compiled mainly by one man. It appears that he has done a marvellous job. I say that only for one reason. We finally have data that exactly matches another set of data on climate also collected by very accurate instruments. That is weather balloons. Before anyone enters this argument, I'm just throwing in one of the very great many arguments that have gone on in this thread to show how it could go off on another tangent. Not really to start a discussion about why satellite data, because it does not show global warming, is obviously wrong.
Just to show how impossible it is to rationally address so many issues at once, I'm going to try. See if a even one solitary person agrees with me.
Climate science, as it currently stands, is not a science. No self respecting scientist would put their name to pretty much anything published concerning Global Warming.
We know we are in a warmer period than the last glaciation. There is human evidence that suggests that it was rather hot around what is called the Bronze Age Warm Period. It was probably hot in the Roman Warm Period. It was very hot in the Medieval Warm Period, from the human records. It was very cold during the various parts of the Little Ice Age and now it is a bit warmer. By how much? Wouldn't have a clue and no one else who values scientific processes should either.
There is no way currently known to determine the temperatures of the Holocene period up to 1880 except in the very general terms I've just used. There is no way of knowing whether the world has warmed or cooled since 1880 except in the very general terms that it warmed up for a bit, cooled down again, warmed up, cooled down in the 50s a bit, cooled down again in the 70s until it warmed up unevenly around the world in the latter 70's and then warmed a bit but not by much from 1980 on.
This goes against pretty much every global warming study (and for that matter the various global cooling studies which were done in the 70s). Why don't we know anything other than those general terms? Because the science of world temperatures is so very badly flawed.
Tree rings do not show temperature at all. They show precipitation levels and CO2 effects plus stressors on the tree. Tree rings are great for telling when a fire occurred or a drought but not much else (oh, they are good for physicists to work out magnetic strength of the sun through Carbon 14 and a Beryllium isotope I don?t currently remember). Tree rings might be useful for general temperature estimates providing you know the precipitation records and stressors on the tree, and that is just impossible.
Ice cores tell you bugger all about climate. They do tell you a bit about pollution and once again a great deal about the suns magnetic forces. They also tell you fairly well when volcanic activity occurred and give a fair indication of the amount of activity but not much more. Use ice cores for CO2 levels and the science cannot be replicated in a laboratory. That makes it bad science. Physics studies on the methodology of interpreting ice cores have indicated that it all depends on where the cores are. They do tell you something about precipitation levels. The ratio of Oxygen 14 to 16 does not tell you the temperature in the past because the principal science has been shown to be unreliable. Ice cores only a couple of metres apart give wildly different results for Oxygen 14 to 16 ratios so that shoots done the Vostok records for one.
Just one example of ice cores to demonstrate just how unreliable they are Lonnie Thompson studied ice cores in the Andes. He took six cores. They gave quite significantly different results. He AVERAGED the results, with four out of the six cores showing the opposite to what the average showed simply because the other two had bigger variations in the other direction. Does anyone even remotely suggest this makes any sense at all. If ice cores were reliable how come the six cores were so different? How come the published result was actually the opposite to what the majority of the cores showed? Because it was not science to average the cores. It was not science to even suggest what the cores implied in relation to climate unless Mr Thompson was able to obtain consistent results in the cores. The fact that the cores are Tropical and the laboratory work done in the physics of ice cores suggest that even if the ratio of 16 to 18 reflects historic atmosphere, it relates pretty much fully to precipitation. Glaciers can grow in a climate that is warming. It all depends on the precipitation patterns.
Surface Air Temperature is probably the most incomplete bunch of data of anything man has recorded in a scientific endeavour. There is no standard for average. There is no accurate way of measuring urban effect. The British put their measuring devices under the eave of a building. The Americans in direct sunlight. The British very often forgot to swap sides when in the southern hemisphere. No one has ever suggested that the same measurements be taken, so the data collected varies from station to station. No one has standardised times for taking temperatures and when daylight savings came in no one thought that following daylight savings for data collection might not be the most sensible thing in the world.
Why? Because all this data was not collected for anyone to create an average temperature of the world or even to compare temperatures over time except for the local area so the newspaper can write ?Hottest day in 123 years.? ?Most rain ever recorded in a single day?. The temperatures were taken for agricultural purposes and so that weather predictions could be made for a day or two ahead. So the locals had some idea of whether they needed trousers or shorts (or five parkas or whatever). It's only been since the 70's that anyone has even suggested that all this wildly different data, recorded and tallied numerous different ways, might be a way of telling the temperature for a big chunk of the world or the whole world.
There is no way of measuring just how much the data has been affected by modernisation of equipment. SAT records don't show much of anything. Ocean water temperatures show zero warming if you rely only on records taken at the water surface by such entities as the British Navy when they ruled the ocean waves. They liked to record such things. It is only when you introduce data from engine inlet temperature recording that the data goes really out of whack.
The Antarctic is shrinking two dimensionally and increasing substantially three dimensionally. I trust the three dimension figures much better because they are done by satellites.
Greenland is shrinking if you follow one of the worst examples of bad scientific methodology I have ever seen (and the one that everyone quotes). It is not shrinking in another study which seems to have had a better methodology but was still not perfect.
Tornadoes have been increasing in number because of technology. No other conclusion can be drawn from it. Hurricanes have increased in the Atlantic following a significant lull. There is certainly evidence to indicate there have been worse hurricane seasons within the period of human habitation of the area. And as to the number of hurricanes being a record that comes down to technology improvements in recording hurricanes that never make landfall and would not even have been named in 1950. Despite that increase in technology, Pacific Hurricanes (called typhoons or cyclones) have dropped in number.
Sea levels. Australia is perhaps the best place to do a long term study. It has three very big oceans lapping at its shores. It is politically stable and the records should have no bias. Pity that is not true for the government organisation that played with their own figures to suggest the sea level was rising. The organisation is the CSIRO and they used two stations for a brochure on global warming, out of the 23 around Australia with long term records to assert not just that the sea level was rising but that it was due to global warming (and even those two were arguable). Use all 23 and you get nothing at all. Worse, you get a fall in sea level over the last 80 odd years if you take into account subsidence due to water extraction and the subsidence amount is something that has been accurately measured during that time.
Have I missed anything at all relating to Global Warming?
If you wish to argue Global Warming, how about sticking to one subject per thread and know your subject please or ask questions. In a forum like this, rather than everyone stating views as if they were the people who write the papers, remember all scientific learning comes from observation or being taught. If I give an opinion on a study, I?ve read the study, not the abstract and, if it can be obtained, I?ve looked at the data. But that?s me because I actually studied Climatology in the 70s and still am.
There is currently only 60 PhDs in Climate in the US. It is not a subject that you will find a lot of people that have been doing it for their careers. Dr Hansen, the director of the Goddard Institute has a degree in physics and astronomy not in climate or earth sciences.
Use the forum to learn. I sure have even from those that disagree with me the most. Understand the science and look at what physicists have determined by repeatable and verifiable lab experiments. That includes problems with tree rings, ice cores, arguments about satellite data and a few other things that are actually quite critical.
Yes, I did miss something. Glaciers. They are shrinking. Europe, South America, US and Africa have shrinking glaciers. Pity that 70% of the total glaciers in the world are expanding and the ones most often quoted have been shrinking and lost large percentages of their masses well before the world started warming from the last effects of the Little Ice Age.
There, now I've probably annoyed absolutely everyone because I've had a go at pretty much every major global warming argument, not because I disagree with any of them but because I'm one of those picky people when I study science, I need my science to follow established scientific methods. I sound like a rabid supporter of the anti-global warming camp but actually I don't (I was offered a rather well paid contract with a right wing enterprise but declined - that's me declaring my pecuniary interests - I'm currently not paid by anyone although I have been working on the promise of a grant that has not yet been finalised. It is with one of the most pro-global warming entity that probably exists).
By the way, nothing I've said suggests that global warming isn't a fact or that CO2 doesn't raise world temperatures by some factor, only that you cannot use bad science and appallingly bad methodologies to prove anything.
Richard
