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

Richard wrote:
"Global warming? It's possible, even probable. Has the scientific community proved it yet? Not in my view."

Global warming is proven fact. Within the scientific community there is no debate.

What is being debated is the percentage of that warming resulting from different causes.

Your position seems to be somewhat analogous to the man falling over a 1,000 cliff saying "I didn't jump intentionally:" It no longer matters.

DA Morgan wrote "Oh poppycock. The planet does not think. It does not try. It does not attempt...

oh really. i did not say it thinks, but i did say that it is returning to normal. i use the word try, as when the next super volcano erupts, it will send us back into the deep of the ice age. the earth/sun relationship tries to maintain a ballance which puts in much warmer than it is.

...This planet is no more in a normal state of affairs 15 degrees warmer than it is 15 degrees cooler...

your lack of scientific understanding is showing quite baddly. if you check the geological records, you would see that the majority of the time the earth is 15 degrees warmer than it is now. when the amount of heat coming in is ballanced by the amount that is released then the earth could be said to be in its natural state. that will occur when the earth is 15 degrees hotter than it is now.


...Your political views do not trump the scientific reality that there is far more CO2 in the air than before and that its rise, and the temperature rise correspond with human use of fossil fuels...

your political views have no bearing on the truth. i have no political views as i can understand politics. i do understand science. yes the CO2 is higher and it will continue to go higher wiether or not humans pump co2 into the air. we are not the main sourse of co2. its the animal kindom, and volcanos. its the decay of plants, and its the very nature of the planet itself. Yes, humans are accelerating the increase, but we are not the sole cause of it. we are not even the primary sourse of it. mother nature herself is.

RicS
Junior Member
Member # 700

Rate Member posted March 26, 2006 03:41 AM
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G'day,

I've never posted here so if my post is out of line, please let me know.

15 Degrees warmer is the earth's natural state? Actually, the earth for the last 50 million years or so has generally been much colder than now and only and a couple of very rare occasions hotter. An "ice age" (glaciation) is inevitable given the cycles the earth has been in for 120,000 years or so and how the natural state in this ice age is to be a great deal colder in the Northern Hemisphere than the last 11,000 odd years.

considering that the current ice age as lasted for 2.1 of that 50 million and that there have been 12 eruptions of the major super valcanos during that time, each of which has led to a 600 thousand year (give or take) ice age, its not surprising that this short period should have an colder average tempature. what matters is that after each eruption the earth warms back up over the same time period.

if you want to calculate short term (in earth time) tempatures, try figuring out what happen the last time two major super valcanos erupted within a relative short time period. it cause the thermal runaway to be exceeded, leading to the freezing of the pacific ocean at the equator. it took 100 million year for the valcanos to pump out enough green house gases to over come the albeto (reflection of heat and other light energy) of the ice.

just so everyone knows, valcanos pump out two gasses, co2 and sulpher dioxide. co2 reacts with water to form a type of ferterlizing rain. sulpher dioxide reacts with water at that altitude to creat a ice particial that take decades for the majority of it to fall out. the clouds of sulpher dioxide ice can reflect the majority of the suns energy cause the world to fall into a deep ice age. if the tempature of the earth does not warm up enough before the next eruption, the second one can cause sufficent ice formation to develope to reflect enough energy that the world's tempature would continue to decrease, causing more ice. basically the reverse of what is happening now.

dehammer wrote:
"oh really. i did not say it thinks, but i did say that it is returning to normal."

There is no such thing as normal.

Hello DA Morgan,

I have a degree where my specialty was the study of the causes of flips between glaciations and interglacial periods. Since I also have a Masters and a Doctorate I suspect I could be included in the "scientific community". Do a search through Google on global warming and "myth" or any number of words suggesting skepticism and you will find a great many scientific papers written by scientists who appear to have some expertise in the subject who do not agree with global warming.

Just because newspapers start quoting global warming as a fact does not make it so. Even conclusions made in scientific studies do not necessarily mean much. It is the accuracy of the research that the paper presents that is important.

So I must respecfully disagree. While I am not capable of reading even more than a tiny fraction of studies being conducted, the ones that I have read often have conclusions that the study or the research does not satisfactorily support. Conclusions are opinions, not fact.

The views described here are actually interesting to read even if I do not agree with them, as most will not agree with my conclusions, since they are not based on fact either.

I can demonstrate an overall cooling of the northern hemisphere (or much more specifically for the northern hemisphare land masses away from oceans and cities where humans have continuiously been in habitation during that period) over the last 80 years from those records that are not affected by variables that cannot be corrected by solid science rather than guesswork. That research was done in the late 70s.

But even that research does not mean the northern hemisphere is not actually heating up. It could be that the heating is occuring above the arctic circle or over water but that would still require an explanation as to why the other land areas have been getting cooler, for which no one has seemed to come up with a rational explanation.

I would like to know where the scientific proof is that an increase in CO2 levels are a "predictable event" with respect to global warming. Without an atmosphere, the earth would be a pretty different place but just what CO2 level changes does to the earth's climate is not a simple arithmetic progression. At some point CO2 will definitely cause cooling. When volcanos erupt in very major events CO2 increases dramatically but the earth cools. That might have nothing to do with the CO2 but rather other particulate matter. That was my point - thus far there is no scientific proof that CO2 especially with our current atmosphere will cause warming. Should you know of some research that suggests otherwise I would really like to be directed to it but thus far I haven't seen it. All assumptions relating to CO2 have been based on models.

And as to models, the room example made was a pretty good one. The earth however is so many times more complex than the room that simple equations such as suggested for the room have to be based on a guess or an estimate somewhere. I actually tested a model a while back and changed only a few assumed inputs by as little as a single percent and came away with answers that suggested major cooling or runaway heating.

I do have one major point that seems to escape politicians and conservationists. Let's say that global warming is a fact and is actually caused by humans. Would Kyoto fix it? Huh! It only bound the developed world. There is a limit to what could be done actually. You cannot simply create replacement hydrogen cars for every car that is on the earth. Actually hybrid cars and so called greenhouse friendly power creation have problems of their own.

Everybody assumes recycling paper is a great idea. Except it unlocks CO2 and takes six times the net energy to do than plantation timber creating new paper does. When all the sums are taken into account, the solution can end up contributing more to the original problem than the previous usage. Solar panels are another example. They need substantial usage of limited resources and quite high energy usage to create and the net effect seems to be negative.

Unless you are willing to kill and lock up the CO2 in the carcases all ruminant livestock in the world, a very significant greenhouse gas producer will not change at all.

I've yet to hear any suggestion that has a snowball's chance in hell of actually being adopted that might have some chance of reducing greenhouse gases. Cutting C02 emmissions for industry even by very large percentages would not do it (although it would have other positive effects such as less air polution - depending on what replaced it of course).

Here's a suggestion for a post. You are the world's dictator. Greenhouse gases are absolutely 100% the reason for global warming and there is no doubt at all that global warming is occuring. Fix it and stay in power. Assume you have the strength and stranglehold on the world on par with Hitler or Stalin. Might be an idea for a computer game actually!

dehammer:

I don't think so given these statements:

dehammer:

RicS:

Where did you read that? The effects of CO_2 can be predicted more or less from first principles. You know the properties of this molecule, its absorption spectrum. So it is relatively straightforward to calculate the effects this gas has. The cooling caused by volcanoes is due to the airosols that are blown into the stratosphere. Because there is no clouds and rain there, they stay there for a few years. CO_2 stays in the atmosphere for many hundreds of years.


Venus is actually a good example of the effects of CO_2 has as a greenhouse gas: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4335628.stm

Pay special attention to this:

See here for another extreme example of the greenhouse effect.

RicS wrote:
"I have a degree where my specialty was the study of the causes of flips between glaciations and interglacial periods. Since I also have a Masters and a Doctorate I suspect I could be included in the "scientific community". Do a search through Google on global warming and "myth" or any number of words suggesting skepticism and you will find a great many scientific papers written by scientists who appear to have some expertise in the subject who do not agree with global warming."

Response:
Point me to a peer reviewed journal or something in the citation index, published in the last 5 years, that indicates that planet's average temperature is not increasing.

I'll not debate what percentage of that warming has been created by human activity but I'll gladly debate that any serious science demonstrates a global temperature that is either static or decreasing.

I don't read the popular press for my information. But given that the majority here at SAGG can't visit my library here is as close as I can get to pointing you to the information I would like to see you refute.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

Thanks for the reference DA Morgan. Now are the graphs accurate? Very unlikely so and on top of that the graphs actually do not establish grobal warming at all but only that there was a cooling trend for half a century or so and that has since been reversed by a warming trend (and in some places overtaken by the warming trend but not by much).

I can present you with detailed analysis of data from 1922 to 1979 that actually does show the opposite to these graphs. Unfortunately, it is not in a form I can easily send. But I will find a site that has similar data if you like.

Have a look at the US data specifically. There are only a few places on earth where weather data has been recorded for prolonged periods in such a way as it can be assessed as strongly reliable or very reliable even if external factors may have acted over time to distort the temperatures. The US is one such area. But even in the US, there has been several changes in how the data has been collected, including the times. Thus, without correction, the data is not comparing "apples with apples". But even in the US, there has been several changes in how the data has been collected, including the times. Thus, without correction, the data is not not comparing "apples with apples".

If you look at the US graph, over the period shown, the net effect is actually that the average temperatures have been below average more than above average. The other problem is this graph - it would appear - uses 1880 as the base temperature. The late nineteenth century was colder than normal in the US. If you start from a low figure then you tend to end up with a graph going up. But that is not my opinion. It is the stated view of the authors of the very graphs you referred to.

To a lay person, the graphs seem to be showing very conclusively that global warming has been a steady progression. But what they actually show is that there was a cooling trend and then a heating trend. That is not made clear anywhere in the explanations and so they are subject to misinterpretion by pretty much anyone that views them and sees graphs that trend upward.

The US graph is particularly interesting because it does not accord with the rest of the graphs. It is anomolous. Certainly it does seem to be trending up from about 1980 but it still stands in considerable contrast to the other graphs.

From 1980 onwards the method of recording data changed. It rapidly became computerised. It has been suggested that this has had an effect on just what is recorded. The lighting in small towns changed during the same period. Even, so the graph shows just what you would expect in a stable interglacial period of the earth. Fluctuations but no trend at all.

The problem is that the graph should show a very clear trend from about the 1940s in the US. It should show a rapid rise in averages. Since the heat sink effect has an observable and significant effect and even remote rural locations are effected by changes in local wind patterns etc caused by this in their region the change should be significant (the statistic for New York I last saw indicated a rise of 4 degrees for its average daily temperature when hourly temperature rates were used - the rise is 7 degrees when max and mins only are used).

The graphs represent the very argument I was making before. Sea temperatures have not been recorded consistently over the period most quoted. Land temperatures have been affected by other factors, mostly to do with expansion of cities and how they are now constructed and changes to the area around the weather stations even in very small towns, or even simple things like the change in times of the day that recordings were made.

Perhaps you could be so kind as to cite either raw data or research that shows global warming where the data used has been established with significant certainty to be consistent. Thus far, as I said, pretty much every small town on earth with good record keeping but significantly isolated from cities shows an average REDUCTION in temperature over the 20th Century, more in the first half of the century and less in the second but a reduction just the same.

Once again, I'm not saying that this means there is no warming. But it is interesting to look at the "proofs" used in this argument and immediately see a gaping anomoly and significant problems with just what data was used. Perhaps you, DA Morgan, are able to point out where my logic is faulty. I'd welcome that actually.

As to the graphs you specifically refer, the actual site from which you quote states that the US trend has been a cooling trend which is now being reversed. To realise just how far the graph is from raw data, and just how subject to interpretation it all is, I quote from the site the graphs were on:

"incorporation of corrections for time-of-observation bias and station history adjustments in the United States based on Easterling et al. [1996a], (2) reclassification of rural, small-town, and urban stations in the United States, southern Canada, and northern Mexico based on satellite measurements of night light intensity [Imhoff et al., 1997], and (3) a more flexible urban adjustment than that employed by Hansen et al. [1999], including reliance on only unlit stations in the United States and rural stations in the rest of the world for determining long-term trends. We find evidence of local human effects ("urban warming") even in suburban and small-town surface air temperature records, but the effect is modest in magnitude and conceivably could be an artifact of inhomogeneities in the station records. We suggest further studies, including more complete satellite night light analyses, which may clarify the potential urban effect. Nevertheless, it is clear that the post-1930s cooling was much larger in the United States than in the global mean. The U.S. mean temperature has now reached a level comparable to that of the 1930s, while the global temperature is now far above the levels earlier in the century."

I digress here and it has nothing to do with global warming so feel free to ignore it, assuming you actually are willing to read my stuff anyway.

I spent 25 years of my life in studying major incidents such as structural failures, engineering disasters and the like and being called upon to establish the real cause of such incidents. I was paid very well to be independant, unbiased. These events sometimes cost in the billions. Whether they involved predicted weather patterns, safety margin calculations, wind flows, civil engineering, metallurgy, hydrodynamics, aerodynamics, or whatever, what struck me over and over was how the experts (many being highly renowned scientists or engineers), as soon as they were participants in the incidents, showed enormous bias. All scientists are biased. That is why such a big issue is made of just how research is conducted. Double blind studies have been shown over and over to have been poluted by the researchers - mostly unintentionally - and thus it is particularly important with any research to very vigourously shake out any way that bias can creep in. Peer review, by the way, very rarely achieves this but it is certainly better than nothing. The best way to find errors or bias is to have someone with the opposite starting view review the research. I used to do this all the time when I had competing experts. They might not have been any more likely to be correct as the opposing side but there is nothing like an opposing view to show up faults.

When I first went to Uni I did a course that included the study of research methods and inherent flaws. To this day I remember a study presented that was deeply flawed but the results stood for several years. It was a study of socks! It was not done by a sock manufacturer but a University that had an obscure interest in running and foot damage. At the start of a marathon, the researchers approached participants in the marathon at random and asked if they could look at their feet at the end of the race and if the could determine the type of sock being warn. The study was looking at cotton vs synthetics and all the study was looking at was blisters and other observable foot damage at the end of the race. The assumption was that cotton would result in less damage. The results showed the opposite by a large percentage. The test was deeply flawed but as I said, the researchers didn't work it out and almost nobody that this research is explained to, works out the flaw until it is pointed out.

The funny thing is, my experience has been, even when a flaw in research is pointed out, the investment in the researh is usually so high by this point that very rarely means the conclusions are altered or the flaw is properly considered. Now think of the investment those that believe in global warming have in their beliefs. It truly is huge. The bias likewise is likely to be huge. Since I have no great investment in global cooling or warming, I think I am currently fairly unbiased, which has allowed me to fairly easily find flaws in major studies. Just as with the graphs used by DA Morgan. They don't do what they appear to do. They do not establish a global warming trend at all. The authors actually state this elswhere on the site, while still indicating their firm belief in global warming. But the graphs have the appearance of showing a distilation of data with a very clear trend. Feel free to quote any other site with global warming studies and I'd be happy to point out flaws. I wish I could agree with DA Morgan but thus far not one study, whether peer reviewed or not, cannot easily be demonstrated to have utilised invalid data, had a flawed methodology, or some other serious error. I would like to see a single study where the authors actually attempted to eliminate the errors well known in other studies but I haven't seen one yet.

RicS wrote:
"Now are the graphs accurate? Very unlikely...."

RickS ... I am not one who is impressed by volume.
And most certainly not impressed by someone who claims to have a PhD and thinks "Very unlikely" refutes peer reviewed work performed by many PhDs including many of my colleagues here at the University of Washington.

RicS further wrote:
"I spent 25 years of my life in studying major incidents such as structural failures...."

Let me remind you that at the top of this page your wrote: "I have a degree where my specialty was the study of the causes of flips between glaciations and interglacial periods."

Now if you can reconcile 25 years of engineering into structural failures with a degree in the study of interglacial periods, without the use of an attorney, I'd like to hear all about it.

I'm not buying what you're selling. From where I sit you have discredited yourself.

Rics,

check the wiki article .

DA Morgan, I am one that is not particularly impressed by attacking the veracity of someone who disagrees with your point of view(to paraphrase your last post somewhat).

The point I made related to underlying data. The Goddard institute's words were used and they specifically indicate problems with their data. It was your reference. I was just looking at how those graphs were created. If you would like, discuss that.

As to my qualifications or not, this is a general forum for discussion. If you don't like my point of view, say so and perhaps refute it. Show me that the data is accurate. And the data was almust certainly not peer reviewed by the way, only the paper that was presented which summarised the data. The underlying raw data was not made available.

You are right, I do not have a degree in engineering or aeornautics or pretty much any of the fields I consulted in. I DO NOT have a PHd. I have four degrees in quite dissimilar fields and a JSD. What I do have that allowed me to consult on so many disimilar fields is an enquiring mind, access to the best in their fields to consult with and a skill at being able to look at often complex issues and collect and collate the evidence until a cause or causes could be established. None of this is particularly relevant to global warming but since my world has shrunk to little more than a room and a computer, I tend to ramble on a bit (actually a lot). My background is only relevant in that I have been used to looking at issues where experts' views were often contradictory or false. It tends to lead to a large dose of skepticism at any expert pronouncement taken at face value. That was the simple point I was making, however poorly I did it.

The fact that one of my degrees was a Science degree with a particular interest in climate change in recent geological history only means this type of forum would attract my attention, not that I used it for work. I didn't. Big deal! How does that discredit me?

The fact is that the Wiki global warming site and the Goddard Institute site use graphs that summarise data that has been deliberately changed (in an attempt to correct known defects in the data, not for sinister reasons) or is subject to significant problems because no one has recorded even local temperatures consistently and without the influence of man made variables being introduced over time. The use of this data is fundamental to the argument that there even is global warming.

There are a number of experts greatly concerned about just how the temperature figures are used. They just are far fewer than those that simply accept the general principal of global warming or man made global warming. Number imbalance has never, in the history of science, been a good indicator of just who's view is more likely to be correct.

I'll go back to the point that the Goddard Institute made although their graphs I believe give a somewhat misleading impression. The overall temperature change in the US over the last century has been a negative. That is the US has been cooler in the last century than the thus far known average. It certainly shows that there have been two cooling trends in the early part of the century and in the 50s and 60s and similar warming trends most notablably in the last part of the century but it also shows the hottest US temperature year was not recently but 1934, according to their own graph.

The graphs show up an anomoly between the US and the rest of the world. That anomoly is generally what those that study data would have the greatest interest in. Either there is a natural reason why the US differed from the rest of the world or the algorithms used to adjust the rest of the world figures were less accurate.

I'll finish now. I did believe this was a forum to discuss global warming, not to attack those that did not agree with you. I really would like to see any counter to my argument but I guess this is not the right forum.

Thank you for your time to those that replied to me.

RicS wrote:
"I am one that is not particularly impressed by attacking the veracity"

I didn't intend to indicate a lack of veracity ...rather a lack of credibility.

RicS wrote:
"I'll go back to the point that the Goddard Institute made although their graphs I believe give a somewhat misleading impression. The overall temperature change in the US over the last century has been a negative."

Global warming is about the global temperature. What is the point of bringing up the temperature in the US?

As I said above ... you lack credibility. Pointing out your PhD, as though it had some bearing on the question was an attempt to leverage expertise in one domain as expertise in another. Sort of like Paris Hilton giving her opinion on depletion of fisheries stocks.

You are entitled to your opinion but express it as an opinion. When you start trying to refute the work of experts in the field you should come prepared to meet the challenge I put to you, one that you ignored, which is to provide references to peer reviewed work that refutes what you claim is not correct.

The most important work to date has been the proven rise in ocean temperatures not the temperature of your home town. The ice in Greenland is not melting due to a temporary regional anomaly.

DA Morgan. Thank you for your reply. It was appreciated. I'm happy to continue this discussion as long as you are or it doesn't annoy other forum members. It is interesting as long as it does not get particulary personal. I greatly respect someone willing to stand up for their collegues and for their views.

I disagree with you concerning credibility. If I got personal I could do exactly the same thing and attack your credibility. For a forum such as this that would be totally out of place. I too have varied interests and believe all that is needed for a rational, vigourous discussion is an enquiring mind and sufficient intelligence to understand the principals of what is being discussed, not necessarily high education qualifications in the particular field. Some of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time have been achieved by those that had no qualifications in the field they made the breakthrough in.

Questioning methodology is far from a task lacking in credibility. Scientific principals and the history of science (another field I enjoy but am no expert in) demonstrates that without dissent and a willingness to vigourously scrutinise accepted scientific principals almost nothing would have been achieved. Even as late as the 80s a simple doctor and a scientist suffered severals years of scorn and outright derision from the scientific community because they were willing to challenge a very accepted view in medicine because the evidence, when looked at closely, did not support that accepted view. They won the Nobel price last year. In my opnion, rather belately. Many people live much better lives today or are alive because of these two men. I'm not saying I'm in that league at all. Far from it. But any accepted view really does need close scutiny and someone willing to stick their hand up and say "Where is your proof?" and not accept "Everyone agrees that it is so, including numerous peer reviewed papers" If they are really willing to be condemned and be referred to as lacking credibility or suffer personal attacks they can take the next rather crutial step and ask, if relevant: "But is your underlying data accurate because if it isn't you have built a huge structure on a rather flimsy base".

It may be that the data is perfectly accurate but it certainly deserves to be scrutinised. There are those that have written papers that really do disagree with the underlying data and have some research to back it up cannot even get published right now? This is not opinion. One is a friend. Try and get the raw data to carry out research with a known position questioning the current conventional wisdom and see how far you get. That is not good science. That is bad politics. And yes, I know: "Where is my proof?" I will do some research on the net to locate people that I can quote. I can't quote my friend because he/she is currently worried about the funding they currently have.

Actually whether the US is overall a negative in warming is relevant. Continental US is a big place (and if you believe the arguments relating to humans and global warming the US is far out of proportion one of the major contributors). Surely this would tend to mean that the effect would show up locally in the US. The figures also hold true for those areas of Canada that have had the same sort of studies done. That means a big part of the northern hemisphere landmass has cooled over the last century, overall (actually that is a bit misleading in itself, the actual rate of cooling is not much) - according to the Goddard institute and peer backed research, as well as others.

Please tell me how else you determine whether the earth temperature has been rising? It is my opinion you have to look at accurate historic temperature measurements. If you disagree with that logic, please inform me where my logic is flawed.

The US is one place where the data is good for a long time. Canada is another place. Australia, too, has very good records, as does New Zealand, some Pacific Islands, some parts of India (thanks to the British keeping very good records over the dominions when they had it and India retaining the same principal). Ireland and England have records but not complete. Europe's records are not good due to the impact of world wars and other factors. The same for Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. For instance, the cooling in the 70s was subject to "political" recording and reporting. Asia's records, including China also have problems. Africa has some good records but not enough or in large areas. All of this is opnion, based on research I did in the 70s trying to get the data that is very similar to that that could be used to prove or disprove global warming. We were aiming for only 100 points over the Northern Hemisphere with small towns unaffected by human created affects on weather or recording and went to the trouble of actually researching each location down to who took the readings, where the recording equipment was located and what had changed around the equipment. We wanted a lot more but in those days just getting 80 odd years of daily temperatures for one place was a major task. The records were mostly on paper. Even 100 meant a lot of data entry. We could not find 100 points in the northern hemisphere that were not in the US. Aside from Australia (which is also a large land mass and is also closely accords with the US statistics and is an overall negative although there is a bit of a difference between the hottest and coldest periods due to El Nino, El Nina, Southern Ocean turnover and the like) we could not find even a single "uncontaminated" site for large sections of the world. Even in the US, most sites we considered good canditates turned out to have had some even that contaminated the records.

It might take me a few days because of my condition but I will locate other peer backed research for other parts of the world that also show negatives, if it will assist DA Morgan or anyone else on this forum that has any interest.

DA Morgan, all you have thus far presented, is opinion. You have not backed it with any peer reviewed research or any other research. The only reference you have made is to the Goddard institute's graphs. Critisising a graph is an opinion but it is based on fact, facts that were provided by the institute that provided the graph. That is very different to saying "I think there is no global warming". Indeed, I do not think that at all. My opinion is there has been global warming. My full opinion is that that warming reversed a serious trend towards a significant cooling period. Whether that was simply fluctuations within our interglacial period, I have no idea, nor do I have any research except some quite out of date stuff to back it up.

Now it is my turn to ask. What proven rise in ocean temperatures? That is an opinion unless you back it up with reference to research. The same standard you require of me. Unless you do you are simply quoting a news report or a summary of a paper that is very new and scrutiny by other experts will not have occurred yet. Oh, and there is a very big distinction between peer review and scrutiny. Whilst you know very well how a paper is published, I will comment for any other interested reader my view on the process. To have a paper published, the publisher sometimes but not always refers the paper to others in the field to read and review. Just as in the cold fusion "breakthrough", peer review does not mean the reviewers agree with what is writen, only they believe it worthy of publication or cannot find a significant flaw in the logic flow or the general principals of science.

The last paper I was involved in that was published was reviewed and was published. It was an unproven theory (proven about 8 years later) but deemed worthy of publication. I would suggest that, for instance, a paper on the toxicity of environmental chemicals would also be published if the research seemed correct. The interviews with those that suffered or their families, the blood tests conducted, or whatever else that was done, would not be made available and there could be significant faults in that data but peer review would not detect it. It is my opinion but I have considerably little less faith in peer review as the basis for whether something is right. Many many papers are published that turn out to have involved fraud. You can do your own research on that one because it is so easy. You probably can quote me known examples. Most involved in academic fields know of examples of frauds.

As I will endeavour to provide you with appropriate references (and anyone else on this forum interested in the discussion), it would be nice if you didn't provide opinion without reference to specific research. The latest research, as best as I understand (my opinion completely) is based on modelling from very little real data. It may be completely valid but that is not the same as showing research over a period of more than say 50 years showing a rise in ocean temperatures over a substantial area in all regions of the arctic or antarctic (then of course, with the antarctic you have the fluctuations due to ice sheet calving which occurs periodically but that is another issue).

Finally DA Morgan, you wrote: "The ice in Greenland is not melting due to a temporary regional anomaly" How do you know this? Where is your reference?

By the way, I'd rather refer to you by your name than "DA Morgan" or Dr Morgan or whatever. My name is Richard, if you would like to use the same courtesy.

RicS wrote:
"If I got personal I could do exactly the same thing and attack your credibility."

And you'd be absolutely correct if I was expressing a personal opinion and no so labelling it. But as I recall I posted something expressing the opinions of experts in the field.

RicS wrote:
"It may be that the data is perfectly accurate but it certainly deserves to be scrutinised."

No disgreement from me here.

RicS wrote:
"Please tell me how else you determine whether the earth temperature has been rising? It is my opinion you have to look at accurate historic temperature measurements. If you disagree with that logic, please inform me where my logic is flawed."

I agree. The determination has been made through numerous methods. Some that involve historical temperature records. Some that involve historical records of ice coverage. Some that involve satellite data. But the most critical, IMO, is the change in the temperature and salinity of the oceans.

If you are looking for the research work it has been published in peer reviewed journals, including Science, and there are a huge number of web references easily found with Google.
Use the following criterion:
"Water temperature" and "Global Warming"

Finally:
http://www.washington.edu/home/peopledir/
Enter "Daniel Morgan"
Press [Search]
I am rather easy to find.

G'day Daniel and any other interested forum member,

Actually using your search criteria will get you a vast amount of opinion from such super reliable sources as Greenpeace and little else. It will not get you access to data, which has always been my point. You asked me to provide peer reviewed research to back my points. I am actually compiling this and will provide it. I ask you to do the same.

I'd be interested to know why your opinion is that water temperature and salinity is the key issues to determining global warming. What makes you think this is a reliable indicator that the EARTH is undergoing global warming.

Satellite data is next to useless because it has such a small window (only in the context of arguing global warming mind you - it is extremely important for a great deal of other studies). It can tell you with great accuracy what is happening this year or for the last short number of years but all that tells you is that right now what the temperatures are and where the ice and snow coverage is. Unless you have something to compare it with, you have no way of knowing what is "normal" or "average". And I'm not using normal here in the sense that the earth has some intrinsic normal state. It does seem that within glaciations and interglacial periods the earth fluctuates around a mean that over time it tends to return to but the fluctuations have patterns that can be in the thousands of years but since interglacial periods and even ice ages are transitory things themselves, there does not appear to be a "normal" state for the earth.

Historic ice coverage is a misnomer, if the desire is to study the extent of ice sheets over time rather than where ice has remained for relatively long periods. A great deal of ice covers the earth and leaves no record. 30cm of ice over Florida for only a few months will destroy all civilisation but even if it remained for say ten years, if you looked a thousand years later, you'd find no evidence of it unless you looked at the human records and most of the time when studying ice cores there is no such luxury. What ice that is studied is only in areas where the ice has remained for substantial times. Ice coverage in the mini ice age, whilst substantial, left almost no record at all. Before that there was a very warm period for a while and once again the massive retreat left no record and there were not even humans who recorded such things to observe them. Such things can be infered from ice cores and the polutants they trap but such inference provides clues only, no hard data.

IMHO, change in water temperature and salinity is a very good warning mechanism to study for potentially catastrophic events of short onset or you are studying short term events such as changes in fish populations in particular regions, but to prove or disprove global warming, it is next to useless, again IMHO. The Atlantic ocean "turns over" at the rate of around 10,000 cycles. That means that, depending on the depth and proximity to fresh water runnof, the measurements that are made have an echo in them of what happened 10,000 years ago.

The Pacific is particularly notorious for fluctuations in temperature and salinity, not due to what's going on above the water surface but what is going on within the ocean itself. The Pacific actually creates climate to some extent. Temperature and salinity shift around its vast basin in cycles that include ones with an average length of three to eight years, fifty or so years, and several thousand years.

Regards

Richard

Accuracy of Water Temperature Measurements cont.

This is a quote from research by Uni of Alabama and and UK met (Differential trends in tropical sea surface and atmospheric temperatures since 1979 published Geophysical Research Letters 2001 http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2001.../1999GL011167.shtml) regarding accurate water temperature readings as they relate to sea temperatures. You can go to either sites to read the full studies, which is pretty detailed.

"The authors looked at the tropicswide difference between the sea water temperatures and upper air temperatures not only from the satellite data but from balloons and global weather maps. All three records indicated the tropical air between the surface and five miles actually cooled at a rate of about 0.05 degrees C per decade, while the sea water was warming by about 0.13 degrees C per decade."

The disparity is clearly a problem for those that rely on such data to "prove" global warming.

The study is interesting because it also looks at just how water temperature figures have been gathered and such things as whether this is a good indicator of air temperatures.

I rather like the summary of this study because it is precisely on point to Daniel's suggestion that water temperatures are the key to determining global warming. To quote some more:

"The supposed link between sea surface temperatures and air temperatures is an integral part of both the historic surface temperature record and the computerized models used to predict what Earth's climate might do in the future.

Because reliable low-level air temperature data from over the oceans are more scarce and more difficult to assess than water temperatures, scientists monitoring Earth's climate have used sea surface temperatures as a proxy for air temperatures, assuming that the two rise and fall proportionally.

"We found that in the short term, they go up and down essentially simultaneously," said Christy. "Over the long term, however, we start to see differences.""

And just how bad are the long term records. Again I quote from the study:

"By comparison, much of the historic sea water temperature record was generated by military and commercial ships, which recorded the temperature of sea water as it was taken aboard as an engine coolant. While calculated into the temperature record as sea "surface" temperatures, most modern ships draw in cooling water from as much as ten meters below the surface."

Now this is not a study that was designed by those that do not agree with global warming. Far from it, the authors still conclude that they was a warming trend of about 0.06 degrees per decade in the tropics but the study was one that was specifically aimed at looking at just how accurate modelling was for global warming studies using very accurate measurments both above and below the water. Since 0.06 degrees is not a great deal and the measurements only go back 20 years (pretty much the same as for satellites which show an overall warming trend of 0.045 degrees per decade for that period) all anyone can conclude from this is for twenty years the earth has warmed a tiny bit. Since we know it cooled substantially twice in the last century (although by how much there is nothing accurate enough to really say), such warming really is an indication of nothing other than proof of a warming fluctuation, IMHO.


Regards

Richard

Richard,

I understand your point that global warming may be a warming fluctuation of the earth and not entirely influenced by humanity's industrialization. Whether or not we are the first cause of the situation, do you agree that humanity does influence and contribute to accelerated warming? I think you did state somewhere that you do agree.

I like your point that the Earth has no normal state because it is in constant flux between glacial periods and interglacial periods. It makes a clear picture of the fact that a natural condition of the earth as a place conducive to the habitation of humanity is only transitory.
But, I think you'd have to admitt that we should do everything in our power to extend this transitory period for as many human generations to come as possible.
I also like the picture you paint of the complexity involved to measure and predict anything on Earth because of the great degree of variables. It fills me with appreciation towards the complexity of this planet and reminds me of how our doctors fight the same battle in measuring and understanding the complexity of the human body in order to encourgage health and bring balance back to a fascinating system. Our scientists today who study global warming are like doctors to our Earth, don't you think?

G'day Justine,

Your post was much appreciated. Thank you.

My opinion, and it is opinion, not based on extensive research (something I have not done for almost 30 years in this field and my studies were to do with the interglacial period boundary and its approach), is that the earth is going through a warming period but in climate terms that period has been just too short to draw any conclusions at all. But as to human effects, I'm afraid I think we have negligible if any effect.

I recall a professor of mine, pointing out to someone who had a tendency to blame humans for pretty much any major weather event, that the last major volcanic eruption produced something like 700,000 times as much air polution as humans have ever produced. CO2 was specifically mentioned and again the volcano was blamed for CO2 emmissions greater than all human endeavours. And, no to those that wish to argue with those figures, I actually do not know where they they came from. I have seen research into volcanic activity that does show massive outputs and so have no reason to doubt my professor's pronouncements either.

The biggies in climate change on the earth seem to be changes in cycles in the sun and volcanic activity. In geologic time, the biggies also include the location of earth masses and the development of a gaseous layer above the earth. Both processes have been changing pretty much ever since there has been free water on the earth's surface and continue to change.

If there was about to be a glaciation and it was going to happen fast (that was what really interested me, the evidence that suggested that transitions between glaciations and interglacial periods could be as little as three years - this was and remains a particularly controversial view) I would say that all nations should do everything they could to stop it or about 98% of human life would cease in about 5 years. Aside from painting large expanses of the artic regions with black dye, I actually cannot think of much that humans could do, however, just as I'm at a loss to suggest anything that could be done, assuming humans wish to remain living in a modern society to prevent global warming if it is our fault.

But global warming overall I applaud and rejoice in. Global warming is why I'm typing here and you can read and write. Had this current ice age not occurred humanoids would not have developed. Had this ice age not settled into a pattern of glaciations and interglacial period of quite small frequency then civilisation would never have occurred. Thus it is global warming we have to thank for our very existence.

The historic evidence does suggest that we are at the end of an interglacial period. It will soon end (in earth time, not human time) and the earth will return to its more usual state within an ice age - most of the northern hemisphere land masses covered with at least snow. Ironically global warming could trigger the end and cause just such a catastrophe for humans and if we were foolish enough to take drastic steps to end the perceived global warming then the same thing could occur (and at present I cannot think of anything that humans could do which would do this short of nuclear explosions designed to duplicate the effect of volcanic eruptions).

This is what makes the whole thing so problematic. Whatever humans do has some effect on some scale. We kill animals and plants and thus are responsible for bio diversity loss. We cut down rainforests but then to really complicate things there are studies that show rainforests are not really terribly important to the overall health of the planet and what replaces them is probably more beneficial depending on what you define is beneficial.

As to current human knowledge in relation to the complex, we haven't even scratched the surface. Climate is incredibly complex and taking the melting of glaciers or ice cap calving or sea temperature variations and attempting from these or even hundreds of other things that we have studied and attempting to make a whole earth model just ignores the limited knowledge we actually do have.

Justine, I like your medical analogy because so much of medicine has had accepted wisdom shown to be completely false. Medicine has come a long way, and I'm alive today because of it but even something as fundamental as pain cannot be explained. The best theory has little basis in the known body structure, it just seems to be the best fit for observations. We don't know how memories are stored, only to some extent where. We don't know why a number of medicines used actually work.

I would say that those that are studying global warming are very much like doctors to our earth but doctors in the nineteenth century. They at least understand what the equivalent of germs are and that hygeine is important but haven't built up enough knowledge to really do big things.

Richard

RicS wrote:
"Actually using your search criteria will get you a vast amount of opinion from such super reliable sources as Greenpeace and little else."

Come on Richard that's nonsense. I found the links to NASA and NOAA using google.

Surely you've learned to filter search results.

If you wish to engage in hyperbole then by all means do so ... alone. If you want to discuss the results of numerous studies performed by researchers worldwide then do so and I'll join in.
Right now what I see is that you've got your mind made up and have no intention of considering that you arrived at an incorrect conclusion.

Statements such as:
"Historic ice coverage is a misnomer"
Are personal opinion grounded in what? Certainly not a degree in engineering. Those who teach at my university, and whose expertise is in the field, have a very different view of the situation.

As I said before ... if you want to dispute the results of research studies do so by pointing to areas where the theories conflict with observations or show how the observations are invalid. Pontification is not a substitute for a URL.

PS: A 1979 study is of close to zero value. Try references to work done during the current millenium. ;-)