Climate: Time for some honest debate

[RandBlade]

“When it rains, it pours”. This saying has become rather appropriate in the debate over Anthropomorphic Global Warming (AGW). For years the debate over climate change has become more characterised by hot tempers than cold science: either portrayed with honest scientists united to warn us about the dangers of change our pollution is risking, versus dishonest/paid-for scientists backing industries with vested interests denying the risk; or scaremongering doomsayers out to warn the worst and always looking for one catastrophe or another. It depends upon your point of view.

Recently however there have been a surprising number of “-gates” regarding some science behind AGW. Leaked emails in November from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have led to allegations of manipulated data. The IPCC has had to admit to a mistaken claim that the Himalayan Glaciers would disappear by 2035. In addition sampling points that have been used to show changes in temperature have been shown to be inconsistent comparisons, with major changes to both the locations and number of sampling stations. Politically, too, the international summit at Copenhagen could not honestly be described as a success.

With all this coupled with the coldest winter in decades in many parts of the Northern hemisphere, it is hardly a surprise that the received wisdom of AGW is starting to be questioned. A survey of attitudes in the UK has shown a dramatic change since just last November, with now 26% believing that climate change is happening and is manmade, and 25% believing that climate change is not happening, a change from 41% vs. 15% in Nov ’09.

It is time for some more honest debate on the whole issue of climate change; neither resorting to name calling, nor trying to manipulate the data to support one side or another. The truth is there is some evidence to suggest temperatures are undergoing a long-term change; however, it is also true that such changes have happened regularly in the past - we are cooler now than we were less than a thousand years ago. Whether or not AGW is real is one of the biggest questions we need to understand – understanding can only happen in an environment of both open and honest debate.

[Hazir]

Well what can one say, if the 'humans did it' crowd is really right then you'd expect them to come up with information a little bit more solid than a non-verified report made by a student and some highly inaccurate observations by mountaineers.

The funny thing is that I am one of those people who thinks that people should treat this planet with respect and that we should try to limit our permanent imprints on the environment to a reasonable minimum. But by trying as hard as the 'ecologists' are trying right now they run the risk of people even starting to see moderate conservation as humbug. So indeed, we need a debate a lot more honest about what's going on. And maybe that should start by making clear what business interests are behind some of the loudest voices on both sides.

It all reminds me very much of the anti-nuclear campaigns of the 70s; very effective despite being very uninformed. I think that looking back we'd rather have to deal with the problems of nuclear wastes than the possibility of an irreversible warming of the atmosphere.

[Unheard Of]

With all this coupled with the coldest winter in decades in many parts of the Northern hemisphere, it is hardly a surprise that the received wisdom of AGW is starting to be questioned.

I haven't looked at the data, but I wonder how one winter fits in with the trends of the last few decades, and how the weather has been in the rest of the world. It would be short sighted to dismiss a long term climate problem based on short term weather.

[Loki]

I recall reading that something like half of the last decade was pretty mildly, though it depends on which indicator you use.

[Flixy]

I haven't looked at the data, but I wonder how one winter fits in with the trends of the last few decades, and how the weather has been in the rest of the world. It would be short sighted to dismiss a long term climate problem based on short term weather.

True, but combined with the climate-gates it increases a 'gut feeling' that it is all exaggerated.

[Nessus]

A survey of attitudes in the UK has shown a dramatic change since just last November, with now 26% believing that climate change is happening and is manmade, and 25% believing that climate change is not happening, a change from 41% vs. 15% in Nov ’09.

Well that's the critical UK vote accounted for

Should we perhaps perform all science by popular vote?

Does the electron really like the positive charges? Tune in this week on Big Science UK to find out!

[EyeKhan]

Yes, its time for deniers to be honest, lets have an honest debate. Let's stop legitimizing fake science and get on board. Let's finally and openly talk about the real choice the deniers and the rational are butting heads to make: short term, easy, economic gain at the expense of likely catastrophic medium / long term costs. A faustian bargain if I've ever seen one.

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi...ull/2010/113/2

Exclusive: 2009 Hottest Year on Record in Southern Hemisphere

By Eli Kintisch
ScienceNOW Daily News
13 January 2010

The United States may be experiencing one of the coldest winters in decades, but things continue to heat up in the Southern Hemisphere. Science has obtained exclusive data from NASA that indicates that 2009 was the hottest year on record south of the Equator. The find adds to multiple lines of evidence showing that the 2000s were the warmest decade in the modern instrumental record.


Southern Hemisphere temperatures can serve as a trailing indicator of global warming, says NASA mathematician Reto Ruedy of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, given that that part of the globe is mostly water, which warms more slowly and with less variability than land. Ruedy says 2009 temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere were 0.49°C warmer than the period between 1951 and 1980, with an error of +/- 0.05°C.

That makes 2009 the warmest year on record in that hemisphere. That's significant because the second-warmest year, 1998, saw the most severe recorded instance in the 20th century of El Niño, a cyclic warming event in the tropical Pacific. During El Niño events, heat is redistributed from deep water to the surface, which raises ocean temperatures and has widespread climatic effects. But last year was an El Niño year of medium strength, which Ruedy says might mean that the warmer temperatures also show global, long-term warming as well as the regional trend.

The data come a month after announcements by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and by the World Meterological Organization that the decade of the 2000s was warmer than the 1990s. (NOAA estimates that the decade was 0.54°C warmer than the 20th century average. The 1990s, by comparison, was 0.36°C warmer by their measure.)

Meanwhile, NOAA is expected to announce possible record highs in the tropics when it releases its final report on 2009 temperatures on Friday. "This is one of the coldest winters we've experienced in a while up here in the northern latitudes," says Derek Arndt of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina. "But we're piling up a lot of heat in the tropics."

And, then there's this - you can listen to it if you want to:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=123075836

Atmospheric Dry Spell Eases Global Warming

by Richard Harris

A new study helps explain why the planet didn't warm up dramatically over the course of the past decade, even though the gases that cause global warming increased dramatically.

Scientists have identified a surprising phenomenon 10 miles above our heads that explains part of this unexpected pause in warming.

"People very reasonably have asked me why is it that in the last decade, it just doesn't look it got that much warmer, when CO2 has continued to increase, and in fact has increased quite fast," says Susan Solomon at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo. So she set out to find an answer.

Scientists say they don't expect every year to be hotter than the one before because there's lots of natural variability in the climate. Tropical ocean patterns called El Nino and La Nina can have strong warming, or cooling, effects. The sun even gets slightly brighter or dimmer.

And now, Solomon pinpoints another cause in a study published online in Science magazine. It has to do with vapor way up high, in the stratosphere.

"There have been some surprising changes in stratospheric water vapor that have really packed a wallop as far as surface climate goes," she says.

Less Stratospheric Water Means Less Warming

It turns out that starting in the year 2000, a narrow layer of the stratosphere dried out quite rapidly. And water in the atmosphere traps heat, like glass in a greenhouse. So less stratospheric water means less warming.

"It's amazing that the stratosphere, which is so far removed from the surface, can exert such a big effect," Solomon says.

In fact, she calculates that the loss of water in the stratosphere has offset about a quarter of the warming that would otherwise have occurred.

"I hasten to say it is not the whole reason there has been so little obvious warming in the last decade, but I think it's probably part of it."

Solomon figures that the stratosphere is dry because there have been fewer towering thunderstorms in the tropics to push water up there.

A Temporary Remedy To A Long-Term Problem

Andrew Dessler at Texas A&M University says this is almost certainly a temporary state of affairs. "This can't keep cooling or offsetting carbon dioxide forever," he says. For one thing, the stratosphere can get only so dry. For another, the weather patterns that caused the stratosphere to dry out are bound to change. So this is clearly part of a shorter-term variation in the climate. Dessler compares it to the gyrations of the stock market.

"You've got day-to-day or month-to-month ups and downs, but there's this long-term trend, whether it's going up or down, and that's really what you care about — in the stock market and in the climate," he says.
Still, it's very useful to identify the factors that drive the short-term ups and downs. That way you aren't fooled into thinking that a temporary change is actually part of a long-term trend.

"You can often be confused with what looks like a trend, that may go on for a long time, but turns out not to be a trend," he says. "In the housing market, that's the problem in a nutshell. People saw it was going up and thought it was going up forever, but it wasn't."

The long-term trend of climate change is obvious. The past decade is the warmest since temperature record-keeping began (in fact, 2009 was one of the warmest years ever recorded). And that decade was hotter than the 1990s, the 1990s were hotter than the 1980s, and so on.

NOAA's Solomon says the science behind that long-term trend is well understood. Water in the stratosphere is not driving that trend, "but it's really helpful and fascinating, I think, to better understand the ups and downs that may go on from one year to another, from one decade to another. There's a lot more to understand there."

[Wraith]

Yes, its time for deniers to be honest, lets have an honest debate. Let's stop legitimizing fake science and get on board. Let's finally and openly talk about the real choice the deniers and the rational are butting heads to make: short term, easy, economic gain at the expense of likely catastrophic medium / long term costs. A faustian bargain if I've ever seen one.

Is it your opinion is that your side can't win on logic and facts alone, so you need name-calling and dishonesty?

[Loki]

Fake science = science that disagrees with his views.

[EyeKhan]

Is it your opinion is that your side can't win on logic and facts alone, so you need name-calling and dishonesty?

One might resort to name calling because this horse has been ridden, and beaten, so hard ad naseum that to say lets finally have an open and honest debate is ridiculous bordering on the absurd. But I'm not resorting to name calling when I juxtapose deniers with rationalism. Because deniers really are either irrational or cynical liers. I can't say ignorant anymore because the opportunity to inform yourself with actual science is just too complete to allow that out - the ignorant are willfully so which is itself irrationl. So I chose irrational to give the deniers here the benefit of the doubt vis a vis cynacism.

So, what have I been dishonest about? I posted two recent articles from one of the most respected science institutions in the world that directly contradicted the idea that recent cool winters means global warming isn't happening. Was I lying about the faustian bargain? Really? Those who say its too expensive, too hard on the economy, to do anything to mitigate global warming are effectively saying lets keep living the way we live now and spend no effort or cost to head off the disaster any rational person can see looming on the horizon. That is, lets buy a comfortable, risk free, profitable standard of living for the next few decades at the expense of the ecological disaster for the decades that follow.

Is it I've just been too harsh? What else is left? I've gone through this argument with the deniers in this community again and again and again backing my argument every time with solid, respected, easily comprehended science. No amount of evidence will satiate the denial. So now here it is again, a request for another open and, this time, more honest debate? Please. The underlying attack in that statement is as insulting as it is dishonest in how it implies previous debates have been these balanced lie fests. Hardly.

[Wraith]

That's a yes then?

[Nessus]

Is it your opinion is that your side can't win on logic and facts alone, so you need name-calling and dishonesty?

The problem is that there's a bunch of money-grubbing whores on the opposing side

So every time someone finds the teensiest problem in anything, anything at all, related to the analysis of the issue at hand

We have a shitstorm of affluent but retarded babies latching onto said problems like a creationist clings to the spinning tail of a bacterium

And heavens forbid someone hacks into someone's email, then it's a ClimateGate!

!!

And then you have the audacity to lambast someone whose side needs to resort to name-calling? Hurf!

[Ziggy Stardust]

There's been a mountain of research done over the last couple of decades. The issue has become so politicized that somehow believing that humans are influencing the climate has become left wing, and the believe that we aren't has become right wing. I guess it's the treehugger image. With the amount of research that has been done, and keeping in mind this political influence, it isn't surprising that scientists turn out to be human and wanted to play politics as well and went data-mining for some big numbers that would make the public go OooH!

If gravity had been this controversial, we'd have seen the same thing. Heck, just look at Evolution and the Creationist so-called scientists.

we are cooler now than we were less than a thousand years ago.

I like how you ask for honest debate and then throw this into the mix. Have you looked at this claim? Or are you simply parroting that what you've heard before?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...n-england.html

English wine production is once again thriving and the extent of the country's vineyards probably surpasses that in the so-called Medieval Warm Period. So if you think vineyards are an accurate indicator of temperature, this suggests it is warmer now than it was then.
The point is that historical anecdotes about the past climate, such as the claim that Greenland used to be green, or that Newfoundland (Vinland) was full of grapes, have to be treated with caution.
For starters, the accuracy of some historical claims is questionable: it is not clear that Vinland of Viking sagas refers to modern-day Newfoundland, or even that there really were grapes, for instance.
Even when historical records are accurate, their interpretation is not as straightforward as many assume. Take the frost fairs held in London when the River Thames in England froze over, which are sometimes hailed as proof of how cold it was during the so-called Little Ice Age (see We are just recovering from the Little Ice Age). The slowing of water flow by the old London Bridge is now seen as a crucial factor in the freezing of the river, which explains why the lower reaches of the river did not freeze in 1963, even though it was the third-coldest winter in England since 1659 and parts of the river upstream of London did freeze.


Growth bands and coral

To work out how the average global temperature has changed over the centuries, climate scientists need long-term records from as many different parts of the world as possible. Historical records do not provide this, which is why they have turned to other indicators such as growth bands in trees and corals.
These proxy records have their problems too: tree rings can reflect the effects of rainfall as well as temperature, for instance. The uncertainties also become greater the further back you look, as the evidence becomes sparser. And there are also very few proxies from the southern hemisphere, so most reconstructions are of northern hemisphere temperature only.
There are a dozen or so temperature reconstructions for the northern hemisphere that go back beyond 1600, including the so-called "hockey stick" (see Climate myths: The 'hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong). These studies suggest there were periods of unusual warmth from around AD 900 to AD 1300, but details vary widely in each reconstruction.


What matters most

In the southern hemisphere, the picture is even more mixed, with evidence of both warm and cool periods around this time. The Medieval Warm Period may have been mostly a regional phenomenon, with the extremes reflecting a redistribution of heat around the planet rather than a big overall rise in the average global temperature.
What is clear, both from the temperature reconstructions and from independent evidence - such as the extent of the recent melting of mountain glaciers - is that the planet has been warmer in the past few decades than at any time during the medieval period. In fact, the world may not have been so warm for 6000 or even 125,000 years (see Climate myths: It has been warmer in the past, what's the big deal?).
What really matters, though, is not how warm it is now, but how warm it is going to get in the future. Even the temperature reconstructions that show the greatest variations in the past 1000 years suggest up until the 1980s, average temperature changes remained within a narrow band spanning 1ºC at most. Now we are climbing out of that band, and the latest IPCC report (pdf format) predicts a further rise of 0.5ºC by 2030 and a whopping 6.4ºC by 2100 in the worst case scenario.

If we're going to have an honest debate, maybe it would be wise to check your claims and not just throw them out there as talking points.

That is politics.

edit: Here's something by the way that I've been wondering for a while. Some Sceptics (I really don't think most who call themselves sceptics are actual sceptic) demand 100% proof that AGW is real. If there isn't 100% evidence, they reason, that means that it's 100% not happening. Again, this smells of politics where issues are polarized into a monochrome spectrum.

Even with all the -gates out there as the OP calls them, can any sceptic honestly say there isn't any data that makes them step back and think that this issue has to be looked at in an impartial way, which the OP is rightly calling for, before making claims that it's all bunk? What right do the sceptics have to utter absolutist unsubstantiated claims while they demand an airtight case to prove them wrong?

[Khendraja'aro]

The problem is that there's a bunch of money-grubbing whores on the opposing side

So every time someone finds the teensiest problem in anything, anything at all, related to the analysis of the issue at hand

We have a shitstorm of affluent but retarded babies latching onto said problems like a creationist clings to the spinning tail of a bacterium

And heavens forbid someone hacks into someone's email, then it's a ClimateGate!

!!

And then you have the audacity to lambast someone whose side needs to resort to name-calling? Hurf!

The fun part is that the same money-grubbing whores act as if money invested into saving the climate disappears into nothingness.

When in fact it is used to build up a whole new industry. And saves money in the long run. And such things.

The problem: Just like education, it's long-term. And that doesn't fit into the economists mind since their theories don't yield results beyond the next month anyway, thus they're intellectually incapable of acknowledging such things.

[EyeKhan]

That's a yes then?

Well if you'd read my reply you'd know that I specifically said I was not name-calling. And you might have seen the request for you to clarify where the dishonesty was. Your attacks carry a lot less weight when you don't apparently know what you're attacking. But that's par for the course among the deniers you're defending, so.

[GGT]

Virginia GOP Uses Blizzard to Spread Climate Lies

— By Kate Sheppard| Fri Feb. 5, 2010 10:54 AM PST

Wintry weather is hitting Virginia and Washington, D.C. today, with an expected snowfall of two feet (or more!). This has presented an opportunity for the Virginia GOP to exploit confusion over climate change, with new ads running in the state targeting Reps. Rick Boucher and Tom Periello for supporting cap-and-trade legislation.

The ads mock Boucher and Periello because they "think global warming is a serious problem for Virginia"—so serious they voted to "kill tens of thousands of Virginia jobs just to stop it." The ad features images of falling snow, stuck cars, and weathermen, and urges viewers to call the congressmen "and tell them how much global warming you get this weekend. Maybe they'll come help you shovel."

The willful ignorance about the difference between "weather" and "climate" aside (not to mention the fact that it's supposed to snow in winter), there's perhaps a more important issue here: Virginia's new governor, Bob McDonnell, also thinks climate change is a problem. As Blue Virginia points out, McDonnell recognizes that planet-warming emissions are "a real concern" and "we need to find ways to be able to reduce" them.

Nonetheless, the Virginia GOP sees a blizzard as the perfect time to start the mid-term elections battle with lies and opportunism:

<video removed by user>

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2...d-climate-lies


msnbc showed the ad yesterday, but I can't find it now

[Ziggy Stardust]

I can't wait to hear from these people come summer. "Oh blimey! It's warm! I guess Global Warming is true after all"

Must be a bitch to have to change your opinion every 6 months.

[wiggin]

The fun part is that the same money-grubbing whores act as if money invested into saving the climate disappears into nothingness.

When in fact it is used to build up a whole new industry. And saves money in the long run. And such things.

Honestly I'm not really opposed to trying to rein in climate change, but I have to disagree with this one. Sure, the 'climate change' industry will make some people (and some countries leading in the industry) a lot of money. But the overall impact on productivity will most certainly be lower, since these solutions are inevitably more expensive and less efficient than current technologies (e.g. the cost/MW of coal power compared to various renewable resources). Granted, these models don't take into account externalities - costs to the environment and such that may make the tradeoff worth it. But on a strict analysis of just the cash, there's no doubt you're wrong.

[EyeKhan]

Honestly I'm not really opposed to trying to rein in climate change, but I have to disagree with this one. Sure, the 'climate change' industry will make some people (and some countries leading in the industry) a lot of money. But the overall impact on productivity will most certainly be lower, since these solutions are inevitably more expensive and less efficient than current technologies (e.g. the cost/MW of coal power compared to various renewable resources). Granted, these models don't take into account externalities - costs to the environment and such that may make the tradeoff worth it. But on a strict analysis of just the cash, there's no doubt you're wrong.

Inevitably? No doubt? The only thing I don't doubt is there's no basis for absolutes here.

[Nessus]

Honestly I'm not really opposed to trying to rein in climate change, but I have to disagree with this one. Sure, the 'climate change' industry will make some people (and some countries leading in the industry) a lot of money. But the overall impact on productivity will most certainly be lower, since these solutions are inevitably more expensive and less efficient than current technologies (e.g. the cost/MW of coal power compared to various renewable resources). Granted, these models don't take into account externalities - costs to the environment and such that may make the tradeoff worth it. But on a strict analysis of just the cash, there's no doubt you're wrong.

In the long, long run, we'll run out of oil (OLOL NEVAH GUNNA HAPPEN SAID IT IN TEH 70S TOO!11), and we as a species will have to re-structure our whole food and goodies distribution network to revolve around some other power source

Might not be what Khenny meant, but the point remains

[Khendraja'aro]

Honestly I'm not really opposed to trying to rein in climate change, but I have to disagree with this one. Sure, the 'climate change' industry will make some people (and some countries leading in the industry) a lot of money. But the overall impact on productivity will most certainly be lower, since these solutions are inevitably more expensive and less efficient than current technologies (e.g. the cost/MW of coal power compared to various renewable resources). Granted, these models don't take into account externalities - costs to the environment and such that may make the tradeoff worth it. But on a strict analysis of just the cash, there's no doubt you're wrong.

Soo, research into lower consumption of vehicles makes them less efficient?

Weird logic, that.

In the long, long run, we'll run out of oil (OLOL NEVAH GUNNA HAPPEN SAID IT IN TEH 70S TOO!11), and we as a species will have to re-structure our whole food and goodies distribution network to revolve around some other power source

Might not be what Khenny meant, but the point remains

Well, that too. But that's soo long term, it'll blow the economists' collective minds. Who came up with this crap of gauging the worthwhileness of an action by the quarterly reports anyway?

[Illusions]

I can't find it with a Google search, otherwise I'd post it myself, otherwise I'm surprised no one has posted that wonderful satellite image that wasn't released until recently...

I also don't really see what you're trying to accomplish. An open and honest debate by people not directly connected with actual climate research, only having access to the same data everyone else has is going to do what exactly? Determine definitively whether or not human created climate change is actually occurring? This should be a rousing success...

[Ziggy Stardust]

I can't find it with a Google search, otherwise I'd post it myself, otherwise I'm surprised no one has posted that wonderful satellite image that wasn't released until recently...

Little more information please?

Googling for related terms yielded:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...administration

[Loki]

The problem is that there's a bunch of money-grubbing whores on the opposing side

So every time someone finds the teensiest problem in anything, anything at all, related to the analysis of the issue at hand

We have a shitstorm of affluent but retarded babies latching onto said problems like a creationist clings to the spinning tail of a bacterium

In contrast to the money-grubbers on your side? Or is every supporter a noble pursuer of knowledge?

[Nessus]

In contrast to the money-grubbers on your side? Or is every supporter a noble pursuer of knowledge?

Tut tut, smacking me with manicheanism? Though I suppose I opened the door on that.

And pray tell what kind of vast conspiracy of money grubbing looms on my side? Research grants and patents for car engines that run on water?

[EyeKhan]

In contrast to the money-grubbers on your side? Or is every supporter a noble pursuer of knowledge?

Right because the Great Climate Science Conspiracy has made thousands of scientists world-wide into billionaires, standing toe to toe with their evil Corporate Oil and Coal peers. And because studying the climate wouldn't get any funding otherwise.

[Nessus]

Right because the Great Climate Science Conspiracy has made thousands of scientists world-wide into billionaires, standing toe to toe with their evil Corporate Oil and Coal peers. And because studying the climate wouldn't get any funding otherwise.

I wonder if the guy in France who thinks he's the descendant of Christ is on the side of climate change. That'd cement Loki's position that climate change proponents are the Knights Templar trying to rule the world all over again.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Great, a thread about honest debate ends up blaming 'the other side' of trying to make money out of the process.

Someone please say something about the Snow in Washington disproving AGW and we're done

[Nessus]

DUDE. The first rule of Fight Club is DON'T TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB! What the fuck are you thinking?

Did you read that article that argues that Tyler Durden is Hobbes and Jack is Calvin? That was fun. Though you're probably too old to have known Calvin & Hobbes

[Ziggy Stardust]

Ok ... I'm going to ... no I already do, I hate myself for saying this since I might well be the second most chatty person here, but shouldn't we try to keep the chattiness in the chatty side of the forum?

I'm so going to get my ass chewed by LoveliNess for that