lolGlobalWarming?

[eunhye]

Sorry for the long post and necro bump but some interesting things. This link has the entire data but doesn't site the references.
World Climate Report � A 2,000-Year Global Temperature Record

Here's the entire PDF on the study "A 2000-YEAR GLOBAL TEMPERATURE RECONSTRUCTION BASED ON NON-TREERING PROXIES"
NCASI Health Monitor

He's not in it to make money.

Several articles have appeared in Energy and Environment recently with results of considerable interest to us at World Climate Report. The first piece is by Dr. Craig Loehle who received his Ph.D. in mathematical ecology in 1982 from Colorado State University. He has published over one hundred papers in applied mathematics and ecology on topics that include statistical models, optimization, simulation, artificial intelligence, fractals, and wavelets. Among other accomplishments, he is the developer of “Global Optimization” which is a Mathematica application package that has been on the market since 1998. Dr. Loehle’s affiliation listed in the two articles is the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, Inc. In the second paper, Loehle is joined by J. Huston McCulloch of the economics department at Ohio State University. There is no evidence that their work is funded by anyone with any stake in the greenhouse – global warming debate.

Dr. Loehle believes tree rings are do not carry much weight in sighting climate changes.

There are dozens of very interesting ways to peer into the climatic past of a location, and Loehle included borehore temperature measurements, pollen remains, Mg/Ca ratios, oxygen isotope data from deep cores or from stalagmites, diatoms deposited on lake bottoms, reconstructed sea surface temperatures, and so on.

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/wp...oehle_fig1.JPG
Figure 1. Map of study sites used in the Loehle, 2007 and Loehle and McCulloch, 2008 studies

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/wp...oehle_fig2.JPG
Figure 2. Mean of temperature data for 18 data sets. The last point represents the period from 1966-1995. (from Loehle, 2007)

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/wp...oehle_fig3.JPG
Figure 3. Corrected reconstruction with 95% confidence intervals (from Loehle and McCulloch, 2008)

And just for reference, how many were old enough to know about people saying we were going into a global cooling in the 70s?

[Tristam]

Michael Mann published a tree-ring independent data set in september. for the past 1300 years, the conclusions are the same. I think if you look at Mann's paper, you'll find that Loehle was looking at a rather limited data set. It's very easy to overinterpret the MWP which could be a regional phenomenon if you don't have more data.

Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia — PNAS

Look at all the sites and methods they used, it's impressive, and it's why they got into PNAS (an excellent journal). They and others are NOT saying that there's great agreement with data pre-1200AD or so, but the rapid rise of the past four decades is indisputable. Your Loehle paper explicitly does not show the HAD CRU instrumental records, or anything related to recent warming.

Fig 2D is specifically the "tree ringless" data, it looks the same.
yawn.

So I'm not sure what the Loehle paper says in the context of the climate debate, was there a MWP? Maybe, not any consensus on that fact, but it's tough to say if it was more than a regional phenomenon and the limited data set they used dosen't seem to help matters. Beyond that it's fairly meaningless in the contest of recent warming.

As for the "global cooling" myth. Jeez freaking louise, I've already talked about that on this forum. There was a competing hypothesis that aerosol based cooling would compete with greenhouse gas warming to dominate man-made effects of climate change. Guess what, the debate was settled in the 70s, global warming is clearly prevailing. the global cooling model was reported by credulous journalists looking to hype something without honestly representing the facts. Don't take that to mean that scientists don't currently know what they're talking about.

[eunhye]

Look, I believe we all should play a part in helping to stop the degradation of this planet. Yet we have to look at it this way. The advancement of anything technologically "slick/fad-like" would not and could not have happen without destroying this planet. Hell, you folks I would assume have at least had 2 or 3 computers in your lifetime. Think about how much damaged you have caused when you play Final Fantasy or whatever. Gonna leave you with this article.

Global Warming

http://www.stanford.edu/~moore/Boon_to_Man1.gif

[melbufrauma]

I watched a thing on science channel i think talking about the shift in tides and how it is going to make ice storms alot worse and will make parts of north America be like Antarctica

[Tristam]

Look, I believe we all should play a part in helping to stop the degradation of this planet. Yet we have to look at it this way. The advancement of anything technologically "slick/fad-like" would not and could not have happen without destroying this planet. Hell, you folks I would assume have at least had 2 or 3 computers in your lifetime. Think about how much damaged you have caused when you play Final Fantasy or whatever. Gonna leave you with this article.

Just because technology has developed at the cost of the environment doesn't mean it has to continue that way.

And that article is hilarious.

[eunhye]

No it doesn't.

Would you rather Al Gore focus more so on Carbon Taxing? or more on creating more efficient solar panels? How about more arguments on if global warming exists or doesn't exist? I am willing to donate my PS3 power to figure out a way.

[Tristam]

No it doesn't.

Would you rather Al Gore focus more so on Carbon Taxing? or more on creating more efficient solar panels? How about more arguments on if global warming exists or doesn't exist? I am willing to donate my PS3 power to figure out a way.

I would like to see more of a focus on applied physics and materials science towards energy needs. I don't think Carbon Taxes will work because corruption will always find a way and no developing countries will ever cap their emissions anyway. I really think the solutions will come through research and innovation, changing how we generate and manage energy in cost-effective ways. There may be a future in carbon sequestration, who knows, but there is no way the carbon future can continue, for reasons both of environment and limited resource depletion.

I think the global warming argument is done, humans are changing the atmosphere, this has an effect on the mean average global temperature. It's indisputable. There are people who argue against these simple facts for ideological reasons, but the scientific community has moved on. We're trying now to predict the effects as they relate to species conservation, disease management, and human infrastructure, and getting a rough idea of how the climate will change as predicted by models is a good step. Now we can evaluate the changing climate in the context of the models and continue to collect data which will help us refine and adjust models to make better predictions.

[zoobernut]

I would like to see more of a focus on applied physics and materials science towards energy needs. I don't think Carbon Taxes will work because corruption will always find a way and no developing countries will ever cap their emissions anyway. I really think the solutions will come through research and innovation, changing how we generate and manage energy in cost-effective ways. There may be a future in carbon sequestration, who knows, but there is no way the carbon future can continue, for reasons both of environment and limited resource depletion.

I think the global warming argument is done, humans are changing the atmosphere, this has an effect on the mean average global temperature. It's indisputable. There are people who argue against these simple facts for ideological reasons, but the scientific community has moved on. We're trying now to predict the effects as they relate to species conservation, disease management, and human infrastructure, and getting a rough idea of how the climate will change as predicted by models is a good step. Now we can evaluate the changing climate in the context of the models and continue to collect data which will help us refine and adjust models to make better predictions.

Don't you mean changing the rate at which the atmosphere is changing? The atmosphere would have done this with or without us, the change would have happened. We are changing the rate of warming. I am all for being cleaner and helping the environment to help humans but maybe we should realize that we cannot stop it even if we were perfect and had 0 impact on the environment. Really what are we going to do once we have 0 emissions in the world and it is still getting warmer? Then if we make it through that what are we going to do despite our environmental efforts when the climate becomes colder and colder?

[Tristam]

Don't you mean changing the rate at which the atmosphere is changing? The atmosphere would have done this with or without us, the change would have happened. We are changing the rate of warming. I am all for being cleaner and helping the environment to help humans but maybe we should realize that we cannot stop it even if we were perfect and had 0 impact on the environment. Really what are we going to do once we have 0 emissions in the world and it is still getting warmer? Then if we make it through that what are we going to do despite our environmental efforts when the climate becomes colder and colder?

Actually, due to photosynthesis, the CO2 content of the atmosphere had been gradually decreasing for the past 300 million years or so, so we're actually reversing a trend.

In terms of climate, yes there are climate patterns that humans cannot change, but they occur extremely slowly. One would expect that we're headed towards the end of an interglacial period geologically but there's no telling how much longer until the next ice age. On an even longer timescale the world will be in the midst of an ice epoch until antarctica gets its fat ass out of the south pole so it doesn't impede the movement of warm water and build up snow on land.

But these aren't the timescales that concern us, what is concerning is the pace of change happening now and its effect on humanity.

[zoobernut]

Except that humans have lived through at least one or more ice ages so with respect to humans the natural cycles of the global climate are on a time scale that relates to us just not anyone alive today. But if you think about it that way, even the human sped up global warming is on a time scale that does not directly effect anyone alive today as it will still take a while before reaching catastrophic levels.

[Zigma]

didn't read thread much but whoever says global warming is BS, i'd like for them to tell me why it's 60 degrees in December here in NYC..

[Jer]

Ignoring the issue with climate change, there's always outliers. It snowed in Missouri in May this year.

[Tristam]

Except that humans have lived through at least one or more ice ages so with respect to humans the natural cycles of the global climate are on a time scale that relates to us just not anyone alive today. But if you think about it that way, even the human sped up global warming is on a time scale that does not directly effect anyone alive today as it will still take a while before reaching catastrophic levels.

I suppose the best comparison I can think of concerning the rate of change is that the warming trend we are experiencing now is 4x the rate at which an ice age enters an interglacial according to Milankovich cycles. The climate sensitivity of the earth generally allows for rapid exit from ice ages and slow declines back into them, so this warming trend is indeed very rapid.

[zoobernut]

Yes but you are still ignoring the point I was making completely. I agree that global climate change is being effected by humans however everything you post and so many of the really strong global warming advocates around seem to completely ignore every other factor involved.

If you want to make an informed decision on a line of action and if you want to figure out what is really going on in the global climate it is very short sighted to ignore all of the natural trends and changes in the global climate.

[Piroth]

you know whats funny?, rise the temp enough to completely melt the polar ice caps and it would throw the earth into an ice age

[Tyche]

didn't read thread much but whoever says global warming is BS, i'd like for them to tell me why it's 60 degrees in December here in NYC..

For the same reason it snowed in Vegas and Texas. The weather is fucking crazy. Global warming isn't as much of an issue as a significant climate shift.

[Cow_k]

Incoming "The Day After Tomorrow". I wouldn't be thrilled... I live in the frosty north...

[Tristam]

Yes but you are still ignoring the point I was making completely. I agree that global climate change is being effected by humans however everything you post and so many of the really strong global warming advocates around seem to completely ignore every other factor involved.

If you want to make an informed decision on a line of action and if you want to figure out what is really going on in the global climate it is very short sighted to ignore all of the natural trends and changes in the global climate.

Part of the contention that I've been trying to make in this thread is that we DO understand many of the natural trends and cycles that underlie natural climate change. Milankovich cycles, solar activity cycles, el nino/la nina, so on and so forth. Part of proving that humans cause climate change through atmospheric gas changes (apart from first principles), is proving that the other factors are not responsible for current trends. This has been done, which is why I'm saying that the "debate" is over.

I think what you might be doing is confusing "cycles" with "forcings." Forcings, for example, are secondary effects due to climate change which have a further effect on climate. You're correct that we don't understand entirely how positive and negative forcings will come into play, for example how much cloud cover will change as a result of increased moisture in the atmosphere, and what the eventual albedo effect will be in terms of reflecting energy.

But that's going to be part of making the models better, not changing the well established principle that humans are causing climate change. Now that we have models, we can make predictions about forcings such as ocean CO2 content, cloud cover, sea rise, etc. As long as we observe and monitor these things, we will eventually understand them better as well.

[zoobernut]

Part of the contention that I've been trying to make in this thread is that we DO understand many of the natural trends and cycles that underlie natural climate change. Milankovich cycles, solar activity cycles, el nino/la nina, so on and so forth. Part of proving that humans cause climate change through atmospheric gas changes (apart from first principles), is proving that the other factors are not responsible for current trends. This has been done, which is why I'm saying that the "debate" is over.

I think what you might be doing is confusing "cycles" with "forcings." Forcings, for example, are secondary effects due to climate change which have a further effect on climate. You're correct that we don't understand entirely how positive and negative forcings will come into play, for example how much cloud cover will change as a result of increased moisture in the atmosphere, and what the eventual albedo effect will be in terms of reflecting energy.

But that's going to be part of making the models better, not changing the well established principle that humans are causing climate change. Now that we have models, we can make predictions about forcings such as ocean CO2 content, cloud cover, sea rise, etc. As long as we observe and monitor these things, we will eventually understand them better as well.

You still don't get it. Humans are not causing climate change they are effecting the rate of climate change. I know it is semantics but it is an important distinction when you are arguing against other people about global climate change.

[Tristam]

You still don't get it. Humans are not causing climate change they are effecting the rate of climate change. I know it is semantics but it is an important distinction when you are arguing against other people about global climate change.

what? No humans are directly causing climate change. Absent human CO2 in the atmosphere, one would predict global cooling right now. The added CO2 is a direct cause of global warming and it's not semantics, this absolutely, positively would NOT be happening right now without the effects of the industrial revolution.

More to the point, CO2 DIRECTLY influences the amount of energy the earth receives from the sun.