Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Global Warming

Daniel,

How to keep this civil when faced with your attacks is getting difficult for me to manage.

How would you like me to attack one of your papers without even bothering to read it. You've attacked the credibility of my research in 1979 without having any knowledge of what it really was, the methodology or pretty much anything else. That really is rather low.

And 1979 was not the beginning of science as we know it. Your dates as to personal computers are not even accurate. Actually I had a personal computer in either late 1979 or early 1980. Cannot quite remember the date. Personal computers were available from 1976 and such computers as TRS-80s were quite popular. It was the IBM PC that first appeared in 1981 but that is not the same thing at all.

Yes, it was difficult or time consuming to obtain data. I already mentioned that. But what difference does that make to whether a study had or has validity? The study was obviously defective because you couldn't simply go online and download huge quantities of data that you are now able to do? What rubbish! There might have been the odd transcription error but probably no more so than the data that is currently being used. It too was transcribed at some point from paper records.

The data went back 80 years. The same data is used in current studies except that the data includes records after 1979. The same statement still holds true. The problem was in locating accurate data. Data known not to have been corrupted by changes in record keeping methodology, equipment, the environment surrounding the equipment etc. That is true for the data whether it is easily downloaded in a comma deliminated file or is available only on paper.

You very specifically asked me to back up any comment I made by explicit references to URLs. Have a look at your previous comments relating to this and see just what you said, yet in response to the very same request made to you, you state:

"Well Archer studies do not walk up to your door, knock politely, and ask to be invited in.

Try a library.

Easy Life ... if you can't stand the heat ... either get out the kitchen or use Google."

Back up your arguments, Daniel, or you have demonstrated you are the worst type of scientist, one willing to criticise any theory that goes against you pet beliefs or the mainstream, but unwilling to even back up such criticisms with reference to any specific research.

Your comment on the theory relating to meteorite effects being "it is just a crackpot looking for attention." is simply appalling. Do you know this scientist? Have you read his research? The interesting thing is he only postulates the meteorite theory as one alternative that bears further investigation. A pretty reasonable thing to suggest. From his research that I have so far been able to read, he makes a number of interesting points and some quite valid arguments concerning just how big an effect intermediate clouds with significant reflectivity have on the earth's climate.

I can only suggest you attempt reasoned arguments with references to studies that support your views other than ?use Google? and actually do more than rubbish others? views if you really want people to do more than what is now happening and really consider what you believe to be right.


Regards

Richard

RicS wrote:
"How would you like me to attack one of your papers without even bothering to read it. You've attacked the credibility of my research in 1979 without having any knowledge of what it really was, the methodology or pretty much anything else. That really is rather low."

I did read the paper. What makes you think I didn't?
And I am not attacking your credibility ... but rather the statement that there is research that is indisputable.

I understand you are very proud of your work. I have been proud of mine too. But indisputable work that is approaching 30 years old in a field where the capabilities and technology have changed dramatically? Are you serious?

No one's work is indisputable. Einstein defined his Cosmological Constant as the biggest mistake of his life. Sure doesn't look that way today. If Einstein could make a mistake ... surely mere mortals such as us can too.

---------------------------------------------------------

Well took your advice Ricky boy. Googled around abit and didn't find much evidence that Mr Morgan has written any papers or done any serious science. In fact he teaches Oracle (badly...not my words) at Washington University but get this...

http://www.tdan.com/srs_04102005.htm

breaker, breaker - moderator here. This is a discussion about global warming, not whether someone can or can't teach SQL...

G'day Easy Life,

Actually, the quote you ascribed to me was actually Daniels. It was a quote from one of Daniel's posts which I actually objected to.

And I cannot understand your latest post at all. I must have missed something somewhere. While database theory is a terrific subject and one I'm coincidently interested in, having taught it myself, I don't see how it relates to global warming. Well actually I can.

Mainly however I have problems with the data itself and with such fundamentals of data sets as in GIGO. Pretty much all global warming models rely on datasets which I tend to think are about as accurate as asking those in church in front of the assembly if they have ever had an affair and publishing the data indicating that church goers have an extremely low rate of adultery. Might not be a great analogy but the best my soggy brain could come up with at short notice.

But you also pointed out a mistake I made. I did a search on Mr Morgan and wrongly pegged him as a professor. But I still do not believe that one's qualifications should preclude them from a discussion such as this. But it would be useful to do more than rubbish other's opinions.

I think I understand you in that you are suggesting that if someone is shown to make fundamentals in one area of discussion they are likely to do so in another area. I'm not sure I completely agree.


Regards


Richard

Well I appreciate that RicS,

My point is that Mr Morgan seems to make a habit of knocking people down here and at the same time contributes little in terms of ideas, or in fact anything positive. He arrogantly acts as if he's the judge of what's right and wrong, and uses any means (foul or fair) with which to do it. Example...his latest ridiculous bout of chronological snobbery. Is research now to be split into BC and AD (Before Computer and After Desktop)? He just seems to have it whatever way he wants it. And yes, that was my point. If someone can?t do what they do for a living properly, then why would we place any credence in what passes for one of their interests? An expert on Global Warming he?s not, but he knows without doubt that the consensus is correct. In his world, if something racks up enough peer reviews then its gospel and hard reality?whereas we all know that what was fact yesterday may be lunacy tomorrow and vice versa. Just a little humility from him and all would be forgiven.

Easy.

Not knocking people down. Insisting that there be precision of language and references of support.

Most of what purports to be original thinking at SAGG is canned dogma purchased from the local talk radio station.

G'day Easy,

I did like your last line. "Just a little humility from him and all would be forgiven".

Having been subjected to severely critical and quite personal attacks on a forum several times, I know what it is like when discussions get personal. The attacks were because I was a moderator on a pain site a while back and actually changed some of the groupings for the forum. Seems that this was such a serious affront that I actually received a death threat.

So back to global warming, hopefully.

I have a few references relating to data and, imho, how biased some major studies have turned out to be but I'm attempting to get a better look at some of the underlying data before posting here. That is if there is still any interest at all.


Regards

Richard

DA Morgan, Why dont you post some of your works for us to see.. help break us out of our "canned dogma purchased from the local talk radio station" mentality.. while I am not able to speak for everyone here, I am sure a few of us would be interested in reading it.

With every rebuttal I have made in regards to some of your postings that I perceive as being questionable in accuracy, I have asked for who, what, where and whys of studies you have used to provide you with your POV.. while you have not made any logical replys on any of my inquiries, you did give me nice LINKS TO NASA AND PBS.. thank you.

Well Put RicS.. there are so many places to look and some really good theories, everything from pole reversal to Tectonic plate movements.. yet we do not have enough geological data to point at any one avenue and be certain of that causes..but, we do know factually, there has been many very quick and sxtreme changes to the weather globally.

I do think there are far more than just a few reasons for global changes in weather patterns, and thinking that mankind is the cause, is nothing more than junk science at it's most refined level.

We know very little about this planet, or any other planet for that matter, pointing fingers at "this is the cause" or "that is the cause" with no foundation of facts is politics and/or junk science.. or the ultimate beast, a melding of the two.

Archer wrote.

there are so many places to look and some really good theories, everything from pole reversal to Tectonic plate movements.. yet we do not have enough geological data to point at any one avenue and be certain of that causes..but, we do know factually, there has been many very quick and sxtreme changes to the weather globally.

yes but interesting enough, if you check most of the times of the extream weather changes, youll find a super valcano had eruipted just before that happen.

the scince for it has been proven multiple time.

valcanos spew out tons of sulpher dioxide. sulfer dioxide reacts with water in the upper atmosphere to for ice crystals that are lighter than water. they stay in the upper atmosphere for decades, with a gradual (i believe logrythmic{?} curve) decrese in amount. all lava has about the same percentage of sulfer to magna. super valcanos put out about 1000 time to 10000 times as much as a normal valcano. that means when the largest erupts it will cover the earth with a cloud cover for as much as 30 years, with winter below. the amount of sunlight reflected will gradually drop allowing more of the sunlight to reach the earth. the longer the cloud cover last, the more of the earth is covered with snow. once the cloud cover disappages its the snow that reflects the sun's energy.

the point the earth is in there is no equalibriam between the sunlight and snow cover. if the snow is extensive enough, it will cause a graduall freezeing until the ocean freezes over. if the snow cover is not extensive enough, it will gradually melt. there are only two points of equilbram. full ice coverage, or none.

Well. I'm doing a research on the extinction in polar bears. I've read many articles about this and apparently global warming takes an extremely big part in all this. I would just like to know HOW global warming affects the extinction of polar bears.

Warmer temperatures, less ice, less places the polar bears can travel in search of food, bears starve, extinction.

Please tell me that in your research you saw something of this??

Bears hunt on the ice pack to get to seals, less ice pack less seals. (wow)

Well yes. I saw something like this in my research. Just like how the global warming starts in the Arctic region. Pollution? Chemical waste? Waste Management? Ozone Layer Depletion?

Global warming does mean well, global. The temperature worldwide is warnming so therefore the Antatctic made never need to make it;s own pollution but is affected nonetheless.

the thing is that the polar bears evolved during a ice age, just like us. they will evolve to a warmer capable species or they will dies. that is the way of life, the way its been for billions of years.

dehammer wrote:
"the thing is that the polar bears evolved during a ice age, just like us. they will evolve to a warmer capable species or they will dies. that is the way of life, the way its been for billions of years."

Absolutely true. And when they become extinct as the proximate result of mankind's artificially changing the planet ... we will be responsible ... well irresponsible actually but what the heck difference does it make? After all ... we are god's chosen people. This is god's plan. Let the bodies sort themselves out. We are in no way, shape, or form dependent upon or inter-related with anything else on this planet.

I hope they write this on our tombstone.

Hi all.

Volcanos.
Hate to say this but "super" volcanos have not been responsible for ice ages. Multiple major volcanic eruptions have been present seven out of ten times at the end of interglacial period but that is a world of a different to ice ages. I believe that there is only one interglacial period in this current ice age that corresponded to a single volcanic eruption.

There is even the problem of whether the end of an interglacial period is the reason for the volcanic eruptions or the eruptions aid or cause the end of the interglacial period. It would well be that the glacial and snow and ice retreat and the heating of surfaces that were perma-frost etc actually induce volcanic activity. It sounds far fetched but the evidence is certainly not conclusive that it is the other way around.

Volcanos do cause cooling. Mt St Helens had a slight effect on the mid latitudes of the northern hemisphere for around three years. But I haven't seen any evidence that single volcanic eruptions cause ice ages. Ice ages are most commonly caused by plate tectonics. The balance of land to sea in the hemispheres tips to the point that an ice age is appropriate.

Polar Bears.
Yeah, sure, polar bears are going extinct because of global warming that is either 30 years old or maybe 80 if you really fudge the figures. Sorry, it just doesn't happen that way. Polar bears evolved to their modern form many hundreds of thousands of years ago and - without particular expertise in polar bears - I'm guessing they were not a great deal different for between 2 million and 10 million years.

As to seals, these are just part of a polar bears diet but a really important part. Less ice actually means more seals but I won't go into the reasons why warmer conditions mean more seals. Less ice means the seals will travel further north, not that there will be less of them. And actually from what I understand, polar bears need breaking pack ice to easily catch seals. They do not hunt in packs at all. Males are solitary. Females may have cubs but large groups only get together in areas of abundant food supply but not to hunt in any pack. I would suggest global warming is not at all relevant to how many seals individual polar bears are able to catch and eat.

Mammoths were pretty much the same for more than a million years. They went extinct during the last glacial period. It was actually the coldest period of the cycles between glaciations and interglacial periods. You certainly could not blame any type of warming for their extinction. Actually a great many large beasts went extinct in that 10,000 to 20,000 time frame, including a wombat like creature in Australia about 15 feet tall. (And that one really goes against climate change issues because Australia is very much immune to climate change of the extent that would threaten larger animals no matter whether it is a glaciation or interglacial period. It does not get covered with snow or ice nor does the climate dramatically change with world warming). None of these beasts went extinct because of warming.

Polar bears have managed to survive many periods of warm periods. Even in the middle of the warmest interglacial period, you still have ice over the Antarctic and over the North Pole and pack ice in the high northern latitudes. If it retreats so do the polar bears, and the seals. Indeed, if there is a late summer polar bears have real problems, food wise.

Polar bears, however, have the same problems that buffalos had. Man. More humans have entered their domain and for a while the only way that confrontation ended was with a gun shot. Now they are protected in most places and, at least from the Discovery program I saw about a month or so ago, their numbers have increased. Because of man's slaughter of their species, if there was further warming, they may actually go extinct but that would not be the fault of global warming. The effect of warming has happened to them many times before. It will be the fault of man killing too many of them previously for sufficient to survive the climate change.

With each climate change and movement of the plates, there are winners and losers. It is actually staggering just how many species of higher vertebrates have gone extinct over the last 40 to 50 million years. But it is also amazing just how many new species have evolved to fill the niche left behind by the extinctions.

Some species will get a reprieve from going towards extinction if there is a further period of warming before the next glaciation. So for many animals further warming will be a good thing.

Global warming - Not global!
I study the cycles of glaciations and interglacial periods. I have a pretty good understanding of the climate for major regions during both and during the transitions. Global warming is very much not a global thing just as global cooling with the current continental positions is a northern hemisphere phenomenon.

The tropics have a complex mechanism that limits the temperature ranges. Even at the most extreme of the interglacial periods, the tropics do not increase in temperature. Indeed, there is some evidence that they may cool a bit because of the warming actually creates a greater cloud cover for the tropics.

Global warming affects the mid latitudes but even then not uniformly. The oceans turn over. The currents running north or south from the equatorial areas have a massive effect on the climate of pretty much all countries in the world. Western Europe and Britain would be pretty bleak places but for such currents.

Major warming events will cause some areas to be much hotter, some areas to be a little hotter and most of the southern hemisphere to be not a great deal changed.

The biggest effect for humans is sea levels. This crap about a few millimetres average difference because of ocean expansion is just that, crap. The difference between ocean heights between a glacial period and an interglacial period as between 80 and 120 metres (about 240 to 380 feet). The average world temperature difference is only a few degrees. A three or four degree average increase in world temperatures would mean a major rise in sea levels.

Interesting range of topics currently. These are my two cents (which probably are not even worth that).

Regards
Richard

Actually RicS ... well said.

This stuff about millimeters is pure rubbish. The melting of Greenland's glaciers alone will cause more damage than the value of the entire world economy.

RicS, sorry but that was way to vague and rambling to quote exactly, but from what i understand of what you wrote, the plates move a lot ever few thousand years back and forth. i dont understand how that is possible. from everything ive ever seen the plates move at a (geologically time frame) steady rate. (that is not to say that they can stay relatively motionless for a decade and move 50 feet in a few hours, that means over a 100 thousand years they will move relatively the same amount.)

how then does the movement cause the ice age.

another point is that you claim that during the ice age the sea lvl goes up and down depending on how much ice there is. please fit this together with the idea that when there is less sea and more land, it will cause a ice age. i mean if the ice age cause the drop in sea lvl, how does the drop in percentage of sea to land creat the ice age.

as far as the ice ages causing a major drop in sea lvl, i do agree, as i also agree with the fact that that the polar bears forefathers were around 10 million years ago, as they are the same as the grizzles and black bears forefathers. i disagree that they would be in the ice cap outside of a ice age, as there would not be a ice cap for them to be on 10 million years ago. for the permian basin to be under sea, almost all the ice in the world would have to be melted, and i dont believe the rockes are high enough for there to be enough ice to matter. in fact i dont know if there is any moutain in the western hemesphere that would have ice on it year round. there would not be enough ice in the world for polar bears and seals of the variety we know of to exist. there would likely be other variants that would take their place (as you pointed out too) and something resembling the ones we know of would likely evolve from them in the next ice age.

Hi Dehammer,

Tectonic plates move quite slowly. ?Faster? continents move around 6cm per year (a bit over two inches).

The problem is in terminology, not in what I wrote. Ice ages are just that, ages. They are generally in the millions of years. The one we are in is well over a million years old. There is some argument about when it started but a million plus will get you no arguments at all.

Ice ages are greatly affected by plate tectonics. Over even a million years or so, the continents move sufficiently to change ocean current patterns. Over longer periods, the position of the continents greatly affect geological climate. In the last several million years, our planet has become northern hemisphere land mass predominant. That was the balance I was referring to - not any change in the overall earth ratio of land mass to sea coverage. The current positioning of the plates also led to a huge single ocean - the Pacific. These movements do indeed cause ice ages.

Plate tectonics do not change the ratio of land to sea by a great deal. I looked at what I wrote and this was not what I said at all. Subducting plates do reduce land mass somewhat but there are also considerable forces uplifting other plates or portions of them. I am not an expert on plate tectonics but it was part of my studies for climatology. As best as I understand it, the ratio of land mass to ocean areas has not changed a huge amount in the last 50 or so million years.

Within that ice age we have two quite distinct periods. One is warm and one is cold (relatively speaking for the northern hemisphere). The warm periods are called interglacial periods and the cold periods are called glaciations. The current ice age "settled down" to oscillations of about 20,000 years for glaciations and 5 to 10,000 years for interglacial periods about 120,000 years ago.

There is a small change in the exposed land masses depending on whether the world is in a glacial or interglacial period. Additionally land masses are generally measured not by what is actually above sea level at the time but by the mass extending to the edge of the continental shelf but that is a technicality to this discussion. There are cold periods even outside of ice ages, although their effects are not as pronounced.

Plate tectonics has absolutely nothing to do with glaciations or interglacial periods or the causes of transitions between each.

There is some theories relating to volcanic activities and the coverage of snow, perma-frost etc, but these theories are subject to considerable debate as to whether they are valid and relate to glaciations and interglacial periods - not ice ages.

Aside for the reasons for ice ages, pretty much everything I was talking about related to glaciations and interglacial periods. The rise and fall of sea levels is quite large between these two periods and happens in very short time frames (geological time wise).

In this current ice age there has not been a time when the poles melted completely. That has happened in the more distant geological past but interglacial periods in this ice age do not denude the planet of ice, either on mountains or at the poles. Actually it is pretty rare within the geological times when the earth has had vertebrates that the ice caps disappeared.

Most glaciers that are around today are remnants of the last glaciation. This has been a long interglacial period (about 11,000 years) yet the glaciers still remain. So the point about there not being any ice isn't really valid, either for mountain ranges or for ice caps.

At the highest levels of warming, there is still considerable ice at both the north and the south poles. There are still vast regions of perma-frost. The difference is just how far south (because the effect is pretty much completely in the northern hemisphere) these extend. In the worst part of a glaciation, full blown glaciers reach well into continental US and snow and ice covers most of the US. In the warmest periods you still have snow and ice well into the US. We are not that far below the warmest period within this ice age and Canada still remains a pretty much ice covered area. Even three degrees warmer (the maximum predicted increase in world temperatures under the more extreme global models) and this remains the case. It is just further north and in summer the retreat of ice is more pronounced.

The reason I suggested models that predict an average temperature increase of three degrees as being extreme is just how dramatic this really is. The average temperature during this interglacial period for the world is around 13 degrees Celsius. This sounds low to those living in temperate climates but you have to take into account winter temperatures, and the very large areas of the planet that most humans would call cold for most of the year. If you live in a temperate area where the average summer daytime temperature (over the entire summer) is 24 degrees Celsius the average winter temperature would generally be below 0 degrees Celsius (the night temperatures being for longer proportions of the 24 hour day and often a great deal colder than 0). There are many temperate areas where day temperatures during winter are below freezing quite often.

The hottest temperatures for the tropics are around 36 degrees Celsius and about 28 degrees Celsius in the cooler season. Even then night time temperatures are going to be 30 in the hottest period and between 16 and 20 in the milder period. Average all that out and you end up with about 26 to 30 for the tropics.

But percentage wise the tropics are not a lot of the earth's surface. And the colder areas have much more extreme ranges. There are large areas of the planet that experience average temperatures below -20 and actually reach -50 or so.

Anyway, the average is much lower than most people would guess and surprisingly, the best estimate of the average temperature during a glaciation (say 17,000 years ago) is around 9 or 10 degrees Celsius. The models that suggest world temperature changes of 3 degrees really are extreme. That would put the world on par with the warmest period of earth's history (at least for any time after the oceans formed) and the position of the land masses just will not support that unless you change the protective layer of the earth dramatically. Such a huge increase in average temperatures would have profound effects on heat circulation of the planet, almost certainly setting off major cooling events. While "The Day after Tomorrow" might have been science fiction, increasing world temperatures through changes in gases, really does change patterns of ocean currents, not to mention cloud formation, density etc. Warmer temperate areas mean greater evaporation, which means that you actually end up with more clouds, most of which would be of the highly reflective type. Even without salinity changes affecting near continent currents (the trigger for the glaciation event in the movie), a really significant warming trend is likely to trigger changes that could well reverse the warming.

The total heat equation for the earth in its current configuration seems to support a cooler climate than we currently have. It does not seem to need very much at all to kick off the end of an interglacial period. These periods are not oscillations around a point which would be a steady state but rather relatively stable periods that achieve reasonable equilibrium relating to heat transfer from the equatorial regions to the poles. The triggers for the switch are not understood at all. Volcanos accompany some of them. Solar radiation could well be a factor but 11,000 years ago we were not in a position to measure solar activities. We do know that the sun's output is not constant at all and has cycles that include short ones of a few years and long ones of hundreds of years. There certainly could be cycles in the thousands of years and it could well be that the trigger could be when you get a combination of several cycles. If that is the reason for the change between glaciations and interglacial periods then a cycle within the sun - that we have yet to measure because it is longer than our study of the sun - could occur and plunge us back into a full blown glaciation and the whole debate about human effect on global warming would be pretty mute. Actually, we haven't had any sustained volcanic activities for a while. Even a short period of some really major volcanic eruptions and back we go to a glacial period.

If either of these were the case then I for one really do hope that man has managed to shift the balance towards global warming by a little bit. Maybe that will allow more of us to survive the inevitable return to a glaciation.

And even if humans were deliberately trying to destroy our earth we just do not have the ability to change the mix of gasses above the earth by large percentages. Even the very worst case scenarios of carbon dioxide build up relate to quite small percentage changes to the total mix of gasses above the earth. The percentage increase of carbon dioxide might be large but carbon dioxide does not make up a significant percentage of the gasses that surround the earth. Funnily enough, about all humans are currently able to do if they really wanted to change the world climate would be to induce a glaciation. A nuclear war is quite likely to do that because it mimics the effect of sustained major volcanic activities (but quite aside from the cold killing off most of humanity it also would not be a pleasant place to live, what with the radiation clouds and the like, acid rains).