Global Warming - don't wait up!

That was a hell of a lot of effort to explain oscillations within a sine wave however to claim this is an indication of a repeating cycle is somewhat misleading.

We all know of the cyclic patterns to global warming but what seems to be missing is an explanation of the trends in the wavelength and amplitude of said sine wave. It is more important to know whether a trend is stable and repeatable than it is to just harp on about the trend.
 
I really liked the bit about the data having been "finessed", it fits in with what I've always thought, perfectly.

"The likelihood of "expert opinion" being unbiased is inversely and exponentially related to the amount of research money the researchers can get out of it".
 
The problem with the global warming argument is that there appears to be no rational middle ground, it has become the same as politics or religion in that sense and this guy is the director of 3 mining companies so you will excuse me if I am not entirely convinced of his impartiality.

I would also be interested to see some evidence of the claims that CO2 levels have been 1000 times higher in the past and the sea levels were 5000 feet higher as the best I can find was an estimate that 20 million years ago CO2 levels may have been sustained above 400ppm and sea levels were 75-120 feet higher.

So I will counter his argument with this...

Last Time Carbon Dioxide Levels Were This High: 15 Million Years Ago, Scientists Report

ScienceDaily (Oct. 9, 2009) — You would have to go back at least 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels on Earth as high as they are today, a UCLA scientist and colleagues report Oct. 8 in the online edition of the journal Science.


"The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today — and were sustained at those levels — global temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are today, the sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland," said the paper's lead author, Aradhna Tripati, a UCLA assistant professor in the department of Earth and space sciences and the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
"Carbon dioxide is a potent greenhouse gas, and geological observations that we now have for the last 20 million years lend strong support to the idea that carbon dioxide is an important agent for driving climate change throughout Earth's history," she said.
By analyzing the chemistry of bubbles of ancient air trapped in Antarctic ice, scientists have been able to determine the composition of Earth's atmosphere going back as far as 800,000 years, and they have developed a good understanding of how carbon dioxide levels have varied in the atmosphere since that time. But there has been little agreement before this study on how to reconstruct carbon dioxide levels prior to 800,000 years ago.
Tripati, before joining UCLA's faculty, was part of a research team at England’s University of Cambridge that developed a new technique to assess carbon dioxide levels in the much more distant past — by studying the ratio of the chemical element boron to calcium in the shells of ancient single-celled marine algae. Tripati has now used this method to determine the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere as far back as 20 million years ago.
"We are able, for the first time, to accurately reproduce the ice-core record for the last 800,000 years — the record of atmospheric C02 based on measurements of carbon dioxide in gas bubbles in ice," Tripati said. "This suggests that the technique we are using is valid.
"We then applied this technique to study the history of carbon dioxide from 800,000 years ago to 20 million years ago," she said. "We report evidence for a very close coupling between carbon dioxide levels and climate. When there is evidence for the growth of a large ice sheet on Antarctica or on Greenland or the growth of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, we see evidence for a dramatic change in carbon dioxide levels over the last 20 million years.
"A slightly shocking finding," Tripati said, "is that the only time in the last 20 million years that we find evidence for carbon dioxide levels similar to the modern level of 387 parts per million was 15 to 20 million years ago, when the planet was dramatically different."
Levels of carbon dioxide have varied only between 180 and 300 parts per million over the last 800,000 years — until recent decades, said Tripati, who is also a member of UCLA's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. It has been known that modern-day levels of carbon dioxide are unprecedented over the last 800,000 years, but the finding that modern levels have not been reached in the last 15 million years is new.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the carbon dioxide level was about 280 parts per million, Tripati said. That figure had changed very little over the previous 1,000 years. But since the Industrial Revolution, the carbon dioxide level has been rising and is likely to soar unless action is taken to reverse the trend, Tripati said.
"During the Middle Miocene (the time period approximately 14 to 20 million years ago), carbon dioxide levels were sustained at about 400 parts per million, which is about where we are today," Tripati said. "Globally, temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer, a huge amount."
Tripati's new chemical technique has an average uncertainty rate of only 14 parts per million.
"We can now have confidence in making statements about how carbon dioxide has varied throughout history," Tripati said.
In the last 20 million years, key features of the climate record include the sudden appearance of ice on Antarctica about 14 million years ago and a rise in sea level of approximately 75 to 120 feet.
"We have shown that this dramatic rise in sea level is associated with an increase in carbon dioxide levels of about 100 parts per million, a huge change," Tripati said. "This record is the first evidence that carbon dioxide may be linked with environmental changes, such as changes in the terrestrial ecosystem, distribution of ice, sea level and monsoon intensity."
Today, the Arctic Ocean is covered with frozen ice all year long, an ice cap that has been there for about 14 million years.
"Prior to that, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic," Tripati said.
Some projections show carbon dioxide levels rising as high as 600 or even 900 parts per million in the next century if no action is taken to reduce carbon dioxide, Tripati said. Such levels may have been reached on Earth 50 million years ago or earlier, said Tripati, who is working to push her data back much farther than 20 million years and to study the last 20 million years in detail.
More than 50 million years ago, there were no ice sheets on Earth, and there were expanded deserts in the subtropics, Tripati noted. The planet was radically different.
Co-authors on the Science paper are Christopher Roberts, a Ph.D. student in the department of Earth sciences at the University of Cambridge, and Robert Eagle, a postdoctoral scholar in the division of geological and planetary sciences at the California Institute of Technology.
The research was funded by UCLA's Division of Physical Sciences and the United Kingdom's National Environmental Research Council.
Tripati's research focuses on the development and application of chemical tools to study climate change throughout history. She studies the evolution of climate and seawater chemistry through time.
"I'm interested in understanding how the carbon cycle and climate have been coupled, and why they have been coupled, over a range of time-scales, from hundreds of years to tens of millions of years," Tripati said.
In addition to being published on the Science Express website, the paper will be published in the print edition of Science at a later date.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091008152242.htm
 
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The problem with the global warming argument is that there appears to be no rational middle ground, it has become the same as politics or religion in that sense and this guy is the director of 3 mining companies so you will excuse me if I am not entirely convinced of his impartiality.

I would also be interested to see some evidence of the claims that CO2 levels have been 1000 times higher in the past and the sea levels were 5000 feet higher as the best I can find was an estimate that 20 million years ago CO2 levels may have been sustained above 400ppm and sea levels were 75-120 feet higher.

So I will counter his argument with this...

Last Time Carbon Dioxide Levels Were This High: 15 Million Years Ago, Scientists Report

ScienceDaily (Oct. 9, 2009) — You would have to go back at least 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels on Earth as high as they are today, a UCLA scientist and colleagues report Oct. 8 in the online edition of the journal Science.



15 million years ago. And was that carbon dioxide level man-made, then?
 
I see you are still playing silly buggers.
As has been explained climate change is cyclic which would indicate that the earth has been here multiple times before but that isnt the issue given that we all accept cyclic climate patterns, the question is whether mans intervention has led us to reach this point quicker than would have been achieved by the normal cycle and have CO2 levels peaked as they would have in previous cycles.

I would suggest that if the cycle is shortening and the amplitude is increasing then we have problems.
 
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Did any of you guys download the OLD copy of David MacKay's Sustainable energy without the hot air we were talking about a year ago? I have copied over the old version with a new one and wan't to see if there were any changes.

This climategate thing is getting nasty, blown out of all proportion of course, but the scientists are losing their cool, turn to 2:30 in the second video! no wonder with guys like Morano don't you just want to.....http://www.the-daily-politics.com/2009/12/climategate-newsnight-4th-dec-2009.html

Potholer54 does a wonderful job of pointing out some of the most glaring contradictions and outright Denier stupidities in the claims being made about the CRU emails. http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/crude-hack-why-cant-johnny-denier-read/#more-7476
 
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Has anybody ever stopped to consider that just maybe this is a phase the earth goes though every hundred thousand years or so?
You know kinda lie the ice ages
 
Has anybody ever stopped to consider that just maybe this is a phase the earth goes though every hundred thousand years or so?
You know kinda like the ice ages
Depends, and it seems the numbers who are against global warming and follow the 6000 year timetable of creationism are quite similar. Thus, they really can't go back 100,000 years.

Heard an argument against it the other day because it was in the 30s in Houston. On the other hand, just a few days earlier it had been in the 70s in Cleveland. Doesn't seem to indicate anything either way, really...
 
Your telling me we can't go backward 100,000 years on out own planet, but we can tell how the entire universe was made?
Whats wrong with that picture?
 
Your telling me we can't go backward 100,000 years on out own planet, but we can tell how the entire universe was made?
Whats wrong with that picture?
I'm just trying to talk from the other point of view, who says we can't go back 100,000 years but that Global Warming is a pattern over thousands and thousands of years. Doesn't necessarily indicate my own personal view.
 
wow, this is a great article, but you would never see a huge movie this, like he said theres nothing to profit out of. Our society as a planet has accepted global warming as a fact, to say otherwise is to make you instantly uncredible. I should do my 10 page research paper on this, that would be a interesting topic
 
Did any of you guys download the OLD copy of David MacKay's Sustainable energy without the hot air we were talking about a year ago? I have copied over the old version with a new one and wan't to see if there were any changes.

This climategate thing is getting nasty, blown out of all proportion of course, but the scientists are losing their cool, turn to 2:30 in the second video! no wonder with guys like Morano don't you just want to.....http://www.the-daily-politics.com/2009/12/climategate-newsnight-4th-dec-2009.html

Potholer54 does a wonderful job of pointing out some of the most glaring contradictions and outright Denier stupidities in the claims being made about the CRU emails. http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/crude-hack-why-cant-johnny-denier-read/#more-7476


That video is awesome, I am sure that is the same guy that writes gaming reviews for Escapist magazine though and he is damned funny.

That being said I would have to check the facts if Limbaugh or Beck told me the earth was round and water wet as those two idiots couldn't lie straight in bed and why do they all have to shout does it lend some level of credence to their argument?
 
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I'm just trying to talk from the other point of view, who says we can't go back 100,000 years but that Global Warming is a pattern over thousands and thousands of years. Doesn't necessarily indicate my own personal view.

true, but then I don't believe either view that the scientists present me, and I am dam sure smart enough to NOT believe Al Gore.
What I believe is the earth has a natural way of fixing itself and and WILL do so, weather or not were here to see it.

But then all my life I have recycled, not because of the environment, but because its just the logical thing to do.
 
I have no doubt that life on the earth will carry on irrespective of what man does with the environment. Even if the climate flips into a warmer phase, natural selection will allow new species to evolve and adapt to replace the old. The issue is a slightly more selfish one. Man is causing the current bout of warming and it will cause problems for the species which currently exist including man.

The argument that the climate has always changed and it has been warmer in the distant past is not disputed. This is caused by the well known Milankovich cycles which are astronomical effects regarding the earths position and orientation relative to the Sun. However these operate on very long timescales of 10s of thousands of years. The probability that these (or the sun itself) has caused the current warming is negligible, since it has been too rapid after a period of stability, the earth is not in such a phase, and we know for a fact that greenhouse gases which we have been emitting en mass trap heat. We build instruments which rely on this effect to work, indeed it would be baffling if the earth wasn't warming. To believe otherwise is mass delusion, no doubt provoked by ulterior motives. Like it or not, because of these reasons, you can be reasonably sure that man is causing the current bout of warming. The rate it will continue to happen, and how to combat it (if at all) provokes more rational debate in my opinion.
 
How to combat it is easy, and simple, build a machine that will remove the green house gases from the atmosphere, and DO NOT put man made green house gases in the atmosphere, of course that means we go back into the middle ages, but giving the current global suiation that might not be such a bad thing.

The hard part would be designing and building the machine
 
I have no doubt that life on the earth will carry on irrespective of what man does with the environment. Even if the climate flips into a warmer phase, natural selection will allow new species to evolve and adapt to replace the old. The issue is a slightly more selfish one. Man is causing the current bout of warming and it will cause problems for the species which currently exist including man.

The argument that the climate has always changed and it has been warmer in the distant past is not disputed. This is caused by the well known Milankovich cycles which are astronomical effects regarding the earths position and orientation relative to the Sun. However these operate on very long timescales of 10s of thousands of years. The probability that these (or the sun itself) has caused the current warming is negligible, since it has been too rapid after a period of stability, the earth is not in such a phase, and we know for a fact that greenhouse gases which we have been emitting en mass trap heat. We build instruments which rely on this effect to work, indeed it would be baffling if the earth wasn't warming. To believe otherwise is mass delusion, no doubt provoked by ulterior motives. Like it or not, because of these reasons, you can be reasonably sure that man is causing the current bout of warming. The rate it will continue to happen, and how to combat it (if at all) provokes more rational debate in my opinion.

really a period of stability, evidence says that it was a couple of degrees warmer just a thousand years ago, that was called the medivel warm period, were parts of GREENLAND was farmable, then the little ice age came, and it was a couple of degrees colder than it was now, that ending the mid 1800's, temperatures flaucuate massively, if you look at the evidence its there, but you dont here about that becuase it doesnt sell, and doesnt get scientific grants, also the debate isnt over, unlike alot of people think.
These are quite long, but VERY good, with real scientist interviews to show evidence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpWa7VW-OME
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpWa7VW-OME
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BJrdSRDVlQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf6C0cMq3RU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkSmdaLkd60&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlSSwErKWQs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efxToyX5cPw&fe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGZ1bHo6jR0&feature=relatedature=related
 
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