The New Global Warming Thread

[ScratchMonkey]

Our 20th century material existence has instilled an overwhelming sense of economic dependence, which in my opinion is even more overblown than many of the forecasted effects of global warming.

One important development of the 20th century was that a lot higher percentage of the population no longer worried about starving. Material wealth is a good thing.

My maternal grandmother likely starved during the Depression. My mom was too young to know for sure but thinks that's the case. So even as an upper middle class person, I'm only two generations removed from that threat.

[AMosely]

I accept the viewpoint that the human costs of environmental conservation are debatable. It is indeed a blurry line. As unrealistic as it is, I'm willing to make the sacrifice because I'd rather leave future generations with a healthy planet instead of a large bank account. For everyone else, I hope that energy independence through renewable resources will yield both.

[TheFatKidDeath]

"He described attending a meeting of top officials in which the subject of global warming was discussed. The other officials concluded that global warming was a liberal cause and dismissed it, he said.

“And I said to myself: ‘I realize why I’ve been invited. They want me to discuss the science because they obviously don’t understand the science,’ ” he said. “I was never invited back."

Not only is Global Warming some liberal plot, but it appears the Special Olympics is as well:

"And administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to the Kennedy family.

“I was specifically told by a senior person, ‘Why would you want to help those people?’ ” Dr. Carmona said.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/wa...urgeon.html?hp

[AMosely]

Dr. Carmona joins a list of present and former Bush administration officials who assert that politics often trumped science within what had previously been nonpartisan government health and scientific agencies.

Bill Hall, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the Bush administration disagreed with Dr. Carmona’s statements about political pressure. “It has always been this administration’s position that public health policy should be rooted in sound science,” Mr. Hall said.

While not surprising (this list keeps growing), it's infuriating. Not only is this administration utterly incompetent, they have the audacity to be belligerent about it. This only confirms where their loyalties lie - and that they aren't even willing to let public health get in the way.

The part about not attending the special olympics because of ties to the Kennedy family is really precious. These guys are just 100% ___holes.

[Dimmu]

Global Warming has become so seriously latly, and we pretty much have nothing we can do. When I woke up this morning, I saw something on the histroy channel (I think), and it was talking about the clouds made by jets, or planes, or something like that. They talked about how the clouds keep out ultra violet light or something.

[AMosely]

Global Warming has become so seriously latly, and we pretty much have nothing we can do. When I woke up this morning, I saw something on the histroy channel (I think), and it was talking about the clouds made by jets, or planes, or something like that. They talked about how the clouds keep out ultra violet light or something.

No, there's plenty that we can do, and there's probably a good deal that you yourself can do to reduce your own personal footprint on the planet.

The clouds made by aircraft are formed through condensation and are called contrails (condensation trails). These manmade clouds play a more significant role in the Earth's surface climate than previously thought. Oddly enough, it was the complete shutdown of North American airspace following Sept. 11 that provided the most conclusive evidence of this. http://www.uww.edu/marketingandmedia...trail_cli.html

Most scientists researching the climatological effects of contrails believe that it is actually offsetting the warming of the Earth's surface due to the reflective qualities of the manmade clouds.

[Nikolas]

Glad that I can do my part.

[Dimmu]

I'm really sad that Global warming has been neglected for years, and now we're trying to do something about it. It shows how lazy we can be, letting a problem develop over time, then once its a hassle, we try to do something about it; even though we can only do so little.

=[

[leejo]

It turns out that there was a Y2K bug, and I guess in retrospect it should be no surprise that it was more subtle than expected and involved a government agency, since business spent a gazillion on ancient COBOL programmers, testing, pagers, and drills leading up to Y2K and probably there wasn't much money left in the fed. budget for ensuring that Nasa's surface temperature data were accurate.

Anyway, I guess those of you who follow such things closely know that last week Nasa quietly revised its data for US temperatures (presumably without much political censorship of this critical scientific news) such that the hottest years on record are now from the 30s. No longer is 1998 the hottest on record, and only one year since 00 is in the top 10.

You can get the raw data here: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt

I just ran a quick excel formula on this data. Turns out the slope of the 5-year mean (excluding years with asterisks) from 1882 to 2004 is 0.000153806

WHOA!

The slope for the annual mean is -0.000208455, which implies that once these latest years are factored in, the 5 year mean will become negative too.

Is there cause for concern about global warming? Sure, I guess so. I'm glad there are so many people devoted to the science of learning more about our environment and the many variables that impact it. Is it a matter of irrefutable scientific proof that humans have caused this massive 0.000152806 up-tick over the last century, or this slight 0.000208455 decrease, depending upon whether you look at the annual or 5-year mean? It seems to me that the data suggests there is ample room for rational debate on that point. Is there evidence to justify drastic measures to avert certain catastrophe? Hardly. Is there any excuse for the media (who for, example, have recently run front-page stories calling those who disagree with human-induced global warming "well-funded naysayers who still reject the overwhelming scientific evidence of climate change") failing to report this development? None.

Please forgive the metaphor, but cooler heads usually do prevail.

[Lucky Shot]

But Leejo, Y2K has nothing to do with the temperatures at Detroit Lakes, MN monitoring station where their readings started to shoot up in 1998.



That can still be blamed on Air Conditioner Exhaust, similar to many other monitoring stations as the city grows up around monitoring stations.



Funny that even with many monitoring sites like this, they still couldn't make recent years the warmest.

Lucky Shot

[leejo]

That's some pretty bad urban sprawl in the background there, Lucky.

[Lucky Shot]

Understand that if you have 2 large air conditioner units blowing hot air onto a measuring station and it's going to be reporting warmer weather then actual.

Lucky Shot

[El_Gringo_Grande]

I just ran a quick excel formula on this data. Turns out the slope of the 5-year mean (excluding years with asterisks) from 1882 to 2004 is 0.000153806

Leejo, you missed your calling.

How many people can, with just one set of data and Excel prove that a subject as complex as global warming is really a non issue?

That degree of scientific insight is surely deserving of a Nobel prize.

[leejo]

Understand that if you have 2 large air conditioner units blowing hot air onto a measuring station and it's going to be reporting warmer weather then actual.

Lucky Shot

Si. And if you have a large former Vice President blowing hot air up a report's behind, it's going to be reporting warmer weather than actual, too.

[leejo]

Leejo, you missed your calling.

How many people can, with just one set of data and Excel prove that a subject as complex as global warming is really a non issue?

That degree of scientific insight is surely deserving of a Nobel prize.

Whatever, Captain Sarcastic. Apparently a lot of lemmings can run off a cliff based on bad data and remain convinced that they're the smart ones when the measurements turn out to be bogus.

Shall NASA weigh in?

"Unlike the surface-based temperatures, global temperature measurements of the Earth's lower atmosphere obtained from satellites reveal no definitive warming trend over the past two decades. The slight trend that is in the data actually appears to be downward. The largest fluctuations in the satellite temperature data are not from any man-made activity, but from natural phenomena such as large volcanic eruptions from Mt. Pinatubo, and from El Niño. So the programs which model global warming in a computer say the temperature of the Earth's lower atmosphere should be going up markedly, but actual measurements of the temperature of the lower atmosphere reveal no such pronounced activity."

From http://science.nasa.gov/NEWHOME/head...d06oct97_1.htm

Howzat?