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RolePlayInTheOC -> RE: Global Warming: Some good news (7/10/2006 1:32:58 PM)
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Links to all the scientific papers anyone could ever want:
World Climate Report
Here's one small sample:
"The spatio-temporal pattern of peak Holocene warmth (Holocene thermal maximum, HTM) is traced over 140 sites across the Western Hemisphere of the Arctic (0–180ºW; north of ~60ºN). Paleoclimate inferences based on a wide variety of proxy indicators provide clear evidence for warmer-than-present conditions at 120 of these sites. At the 16 terrestrial sites where quantitative estimates have been obtained, local HTM temperatures (primarily summer estimates) were on average 1.67±0.8ºC higher than present (approximate average of the 20th century), but the warming was time transgressive across the western Arctic. As the precession-driven summer insolation anomaly peaked 12–10 ka (thousands of calendar years ago), warming was concentrated in northwest North America, while cool conditions lingered in the northeast. Alaska and northwest Canada experienced the HTM between ca 11 and 9 ka, about 4000 yr prior to the HTM in northeast Canada."
And here's the reference for the above quote:
Kaufman, D.S., et al., 2004. Holocene thermal maximum in the Western Arctic (0 to 180W). Quaternary Science Reviews, 23, 529-560.
And here's another:
"So, what would it mean, if the reconstructions indicate a larger (Esper et al., 2002; Pollack and Smerdon, 2004; Moberg et al., 2005) or smaller (Jones et al., 1998; Mann et al., 1999) temperature amplitude? We suggest that the former situation, i.e. enhanced variability during pre-industrial times, would result in a redistribution of weight towards the role on natural factors in forcing temperature changes, thereby relatively devaluing the impact on anthropogenic emissions and affecting future predicted scenarios. If that turns out to be the case, agreements such as the Kyoto protocol that intend to reduce emissions of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, would be less effective than thought."
And here's the reference for it:
Esper, J., et al., 2005. Climate: past ranges and future changes. Quaternary Science Reviews, 24, 2164-2166.
And here's a third, from two GOVERNMENT scientists (the first paragraph is commentary from the Website, the second paragraph is the actual quote from the scientific paper):
The second observation on the relative impact of man vs. nature on temperature is given by United States Geological Survey scientists Timothy Cohn and Harry Lins in a paper appearing in Geophysical Research Letters, entitled “Nature’s style: Naturally trendy.” In this rather technical and mathematical work, the authors examine the role of long-term persistence in the temperature record and how it affects the significance of the temporal trend often drawn through the earth’s recent temperature history. Cohn and Lins conclude that the very real possibility that the natural climate system contains a high degree of long-term persistence means that the degree to which the temperature rise during the past century is of a natural vs. anthropogenic cause cannot clearly be determined. Specifically, they wrote:
" These findings have implications for both science and public policy. For example, with respect to temperature data, there is overwhelming evidence that the planet has warmed during the past century. But could this warming be due to natural dynamics? Given what we know about the complexity, long-term persistence, and non-linearity of the climate system, it seems the answer might be yes. Finally, that reported trends are real yet insignificant indicates a worrisome possibility: Natural climate excursions may be much larger than we imagine. So large, perhaps, that they render insignificant the changes, human-induced or otherwise, observed during the past century." [emphasis added - rp]
And here's the reference for it:
Cohn, T. A., and Lins, H. F., 2005. Nature’s style: Naturally trendy. Geophysical Research Letters, 32, doi:10.1029/2005GL024476.
Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) is a myth. In fact, it doesn't pass the laugh test. All predictions of impending doom come from computer models of the weather (GCM = General Circulation Model). However, none of these models extends back to the recovery from the last Ice Age, when the Earth heated up much more than it has in recent years. Therefore, none of them can exclude the possibility that whatever caused that sharp temperature rise is causing whatever much smaller temperature rise we're experiencing today. In the last Ice Age, there were glaciers in Illinois! The GCM's are still trying to get the last 20 years "right." How about the last 20,000? What the "Chicken Littles" are trying to do with the GCM outputs is like watching a car drive by a lonely road at 3:00am, and then, from that one observation, trying to predict peak traffic for that road the next day at Noon. As I said, doesn't pass the laugh test.
*meatcleaver* - Resources are not finite, because resources are not static. Uranium wasn't a resource 200 years ago. Human ingenuity will invent new ways to create energy, involving resources of which we can't even dream. Please see:
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=44
*philosophy* - "There are more things in heaven and earth, *philosophy*, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." What your overly simple post is missing is a quantitative cost-benefit analysis. How much will it cost us to shut down the Industrial Revolution (even if the Chinese would allow it)? And what's the risk if we don't? These are topics that ought not to be dismissed with simplistic comments about a 50/50 split.
*Lordandmaster* - YOUR quotes are both from Science Magazine (why am I not surprised?). Here's the start of an article from the World Climate Review site:
"Donald Kennedy, the Editor-in-Chief of Science magazine, lately seems more bent on setting science back rather than advancing it.
His editorial page rants on global warming are as predictable as the content of most of the climate change articles in his journal. It hasn’t been lost on many in the science community that he simply refuses to print any “perspectives” piece that doesn’t go along with his take on climate change. If other points of view are so uninformed, why doesn’t he let them out so that they can be held up to ridicule?
But now, observers of the global warming war are beginning to question Kennedy’s competence."
Please see the Website (cited above) for more detail. Their commentary was published on 1/20/06.
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