Al Gore, Global Warming, And The Burden Of Proof

**Hootad Binky** · 17-04-2008, 02:57 AM

The facts are that C02 and other greenhouse gases are rising, the poles are melting and warming and sea levels are rising, and no-one has yet come up with a better theory than global warming to explain it. Don't like the man-made hypothesis? Think the last 200 years of belching greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and rising temperatures is a coincidence?

Fine, then let's have a better theory, based on accepted facts. Nothing else can be taken seriously.

"Burden of proof" is required if you don't have a better theory.

**John L** · 17-04-2008, 04:23 AM

Originally Posted by Hootad Binky

The facts are that C02 and other greenhouse gases are rising,

Yes, CO2 has risen to 239 parts per MILLION. That's a HUGE percentage, isn't it? Do you honestly believe that 1 part CO2 to every 4,184 units is dangerous? And do you honestly believer that for every doubling of amount will equal a doubling of effect? Do you really believe this?

Originally Posted by an Opining Binky

the poles are melting and warming

The poles do this every year. But to think that they are getting worse, is just plain ignorance,..............or intellectual laziness. Let me go and check with my list of references in my global skeptics page, shall we?

Well let's start with this little piece of information. It seems like there is so much ice in Greenland this winter, that the population of polar bears are being forced to enter the towns in hopes of scrounging food. That's right, the added ice is making it hard for the bears to survive on their own.

And oh my, what about this.

2008: The year the world will cool down
Last updated at 16:44pm on 7th April 2008

The world will experience global cooling this year, according a leading climate scientist.

The head of the World Meteorological Organisation said La Nina - the weather phenomenon which is cooling the Pacific - is likely to trigger a small drop in average global temperatures compared with last year.

The prediction - which follows a bitterly cold winter in China and the Arctic - is prompting some sceptics to question the theory of climate change.

Or how about this little ditty?

Climate dissent grows hotter as chill deepens
By Christopher Booker
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 09/03/2008

Last week, virtually unreported in Britain, the extraordinary winter weather of 2008 elsewhere in the world continued. In the USA, there were blizzards as far south as Texas and Arkansas, while in northern states and Canada what they are calling "the winter from hell" has continued to break records going back in some cases to 1873. Meanwhile in Asia more details emerged of the catastrophe caused by the northern hemisphere's greatest snow cover since 1966.

In Afghanistan, where they have lost 300,000 cattle, the human death toll has risen above 1,500. In China, the havoc created by what its media call "the Winter Snow Disaster" has continued, not least in Tibet, where six months of snow and record low temperatures have killed 500,000 animals, leaving 3 million people on the edge of starvation.

So what is with all this Global Cooling? Anyway, Here is the Real Clincher my Leftist Friend.

Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling
Michael Asher
February 26, 2008

Click here for a larger image.

World Temperatures according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. Note the steep drop over the last year.
Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on. (Note: perhaps you should call home and check out the weather north of the lower 48 )

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70.

Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.

There is just so much refuting evidence to your ignorant assertion, that I would be here all day, so I will conclude with this one, and leave the rest for another time.

Global Warming? New Data Shows Ice Is Back

Tuesday, February 19, 2008 11:55 AM

By: Phil Brennan

Are the world's ice caps melting because of climate change, or are the reports just a lot of scare mongering by the advocates of the global warming theory?

Scare mongering appears to be the case, according to reports from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that reveal that almost all the allegedly “lost” ice has come back. A NOAA report shows that ice levels which had shrunk from 5 million square miles in January 2007 to just 1.5 million square miles in October, are almost back to their original levels.

Moreover, a Feb. 18 report in the London Daily Express showed that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than usual, challenging the global warming crusaders and buttressing arguments of skeptics who deny that the world is undergoing global warming.

The Daily express recalls the photograph of polar bears clinging on to a melting iceberg which has been widely hailed as proof of the need to fight climate change and has been used by former Vice President Al Gore during his "Inconvenient Truth" lectures about mankind’s alleged impact on the global climate.

Gore fails to mention that the photograph was taken in the month of August when melting is normal. Or that the polar bear population has soared in recent years.

As winter roars in across the Northern Hemisphere, Mother Nature seems to have joined the ranks of the skeptics.

As the Express notes, scientists are saying the northern Hemisphere has endured its coldest winter in decades, adding that snow cover across the area is at its greatest since 1966. The newspaper cites the one exception — Western Europe, which had, until the weekend when temperatures plunged to as low as -10 C in some places, been basking in unseasonably warm weather.

Around the world, vast areas have been buried under some of the heaviest snowfalls in decades. Central and southern China, the United States, and Canada were hit hard by snowstorms. In China, snowfall was so heavy that over 100,000 houses collapsed under the weight of snow.

Originally Posted by a further opining Binky

and sea levels are rising, and no-one has yet come up with a better theory than global warming to explain it. Don't like the man-made hypothesis? Think the last 200 years of belching greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and rising temperatures is a coincidence?

Fine, then let's have a better theory, based on accepted facts. Nothing else can be taken seriously.

"Burden of proof" is required if you don't have a better theory.

Yawn, Binky, the sea level has been rising for over 10,000 years. Didn't you know that? It has been rising because we came out of the last phase of the Pliestocene Ice age, that has been going on for over 2.3 million years. There are interglacial stages about every 100,000 years, just as the Serbian scientist Milankovitch forcast almost 75 years ago. His Milankovitch Cycles were right on too. As a physical anthropologist, I have studied the ice ages, as they pertain to early man, and I naturally assume that all of you would naturally know about ice ages, but on second though I know that this is not so. You should really go to the link and read about this series of ice ages.

Also, it was the rising sea levels that led to the flooding of the Black Sea, around 5600BC, leading to the ancient story of "The Flood". In other words, the sea levels have been rising all this time, and unless we enter another ice age, the levels will continue to rise. So which so you want, a slowl rise in sea level, or a cold planet? I will take the former gladly.

**Hootad Binky** · 17-04-2008, 04:31 AM

Originally Posted by John L

I also believe in natural selection as well. I'm a physical anthropologist, so why shouldn't I?

Because, according to your logic, if it's a theory that must be disproven, it's not fair to put the burden of proof on Creationists, in the same manner it's not fair to put the burden of proof on skeptics of global warming.

I'm at work and will address the rest of what you posted later

**sabang** · 17-04-2008, 05:15 AM

^^ Very interesting post JL. I'll be interested to see the case for the opposition also.

The seperation of 'rising sea levels' from the overall global warming/ greenhouse gas argument is an angle I had not been previously aware of.

**Hootad Binky** · 17-04-2008, 05:36 AM

Greenland’s ice loss accelerating rapidly, gravity-measuring satellites reveal

August 10, 2006

AUSTIN, Texas—A new analysis of data from twin satellites has revealed that the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet has increased dramatically in the past few years, with much of the loss occurring primarily along one shoreline potentially affecting weather in Western Europe.

The loss of ice has been occurring about five times faster from Greenland’s southeastern region in the past two years than in the previous year and a half. The dramatic changes were documented during a University of Texas at Austin study of Greenland’s mass between 2002 and 2005.

more at:

Greenland’s ice loss accelerating rapidly, gravity-measuring satellites reveal | The University of Texas at Austin

Antarctic ice cap melting faster than first thought

January 15, 2008 12:00pm

study shows Antarctica melting faster than thought
Huge influx of fresh water could alter ocean currents
NASA geoscientist 'astonished' by alarming new data

The most comprehensive study to date of Antarctica's ice confirms growing concern that the ice cap is melting faster than predicted.

The implications are that the global sea level will rise faster than expected, while a huge influx of freshwater into the salty oceans could alter ocean currents.

Antarctica holds 90 per cent of Earth's ice.

According to the new findings, snowfall is topping up ice in the continent's interior and East Antarctic has held its own.

But West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula lost nearly 200 billion tonnes of ice in 2006 alone.

That is 75 per cent more than losses in 1996 and the equivalent of a global sea level rise of more than half a millimetre, claim international scientists led by NASA geoscientist Eric Rignot, also with the University of California, Irvine (UCI).

"Losses are concentrated along narrow channels occupied by outlet glaciers and are caused by ongoing and past glacier acceleration," the team wrote in the online edition of Nature Geoscience.

They based their conclusions on satellite data obtained in 1996, 2000 and 2006.

According to Dr Rignot, the results showed that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had underestimated the impact of polar melting in its predictions of possible sea level rises next century.

"Each time I look at some new data, I am astonished," he said.

Until now, it has been unclear whether snowfall in the interior kept pace with coastal melting, in terms of the overall mass of Antarctic ice.

But for Hobart glaciologist Ian Allison - with the Australian Antarctic Division and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre - the new findings settle the matter.
"This work suggests that the ice flow is accelerating," Dr Allison said.

more at:

Antarctic ice cap melting faster than first thought | NEWS.com.au

**Hootad Binky** · 17-04-2008, 06:01 AM

Greenland’s ice loss accelerating rapidly, gravity-measuring satellites reveal

August 10, 2006

AUSTIN, Texas—A new analysis of data from twin satellites has revealed that the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet has increased dramatically in the past few years, with much of the loss occurring primarily along one shoreline potentially affecting weather in Western Europe.

The loss of ice has been occurring about five times faster from Greenland’s southeastern region in the past two years than in the previous year and a half. The dramatic changes were documented during a University of Texas at Austin study of Greenland’s mass between 2002 and 2005.

more at:

Greenland’s ice loss accelerating rapidly, gravity-measuring satellites reveal | The University of Texas at Austin

Antarctic ice cap melting faster than first thought

January 15, 2008 12:00pm

Study shows Antarctica melting faster than thought
Huge influx of fresh water could alter ocean currents
NASA geoscientist 'astonished' by alarming new data

THE most comprehensive study to date of Antarctica's ice confirms growing concern that the ice cap is melting faster than predicted.

The implications are that the global sea level will rise faster than expected, while a huge influx of freshwater into the salty oceans could alter ocean currents.

Antarctica holds 90 per cent of Earth's ice.

According to the new findings, snowfall is topping up ice in the continent's interior and East Antarctic has held its own.

But West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula lost nearly 200 billion tonnes of ice in 2006 alone.

That is 75 per cent more than losses in 1996 and the equivalent of a global sea level rise of more than half a millimetre, claim international scientists led by NASA geoscientist Eric Rignot, also with the University of California, Irvine (UCI).

"Losses are concentrated along narrow channels occupied by outlet glaciers and are caused by ongoing and past glacier acceleration," the team wrote in the online edition of Nature Geoscience.

They based their conclusions on satellite data obtained in 1996, 2000 and 2006.

According to Dr Rignot, the results showed that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had underestimated the impact of polar melting in its predictions of possible sea level rises next century.

"Each time I look at some new data, I am astonished," he said.

Until now, it has been unclear whether snowfall in the interior kept pace with coastal melting, in terms of the overall mass of Antarctic ice.

But for Hobart glaciologist Ian Allison - with the Australian Antarctic Division and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre - the new findings settle the matter.

"This work suggests that the ice flow is accelerating," Dr Allison said.

more at:

Antarctic ice cap melting faster than first thought | NEWS.com.au

**Hootad Binky** · 17-04-2008, 06:16 AM

Originally Posted by Shitman

That hockey stick graph again

Is that their proof?

To construct the hockey-stick plot, Mann, Raymond S. Bradley of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Malcolm K. Hughes of the University of Arizona analyzed paleoclimatic data sets such as those from tree rings, ice cores and coral, joining historical data with thermometer readings from the recent past. In 1998 they obtained a "reconstruction" of Northern Hemisphere temperatures going back 600 years; by the next year they had extended their analysis to the past 1,000 years. In 2003 Mann and Philip D. Jones of the University of East Anglia in England used a different method to extend results back 2,000 years.

In each case, the outcome was clear: global mean temperature began to rise dramatically in the early 20th century. That rise coincided with the unprecedented release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the earth's atmosphere, leading to the conclusion that industrial activity was boosting the world's mean temperature. Other researchers subsequently confirmed the plot.

(Co2 isn't the only or the most powerful of man-made greenhouse gases, btw).

The work of Mann and his colleagues achieved special prominence in 2001. That is when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international body of climate experts, placed the hockey-stick chart in the Summary for Policymakers section of the panel's Third Assessment Report. (Mann also co-authored one of the chapters in the report.) It thereby elevated the hockey stick to iconic status--as well as making it a bull's-eye. A community skeptical of human-induced warming argued that Mann's data points were too sparse to constitute a true picture, or that his raw data were numerically suspicious, or that they could not reproduce his results with the data he had used. Take down Mann, it seemed, and the rest of the IPCC's conclusions about anthropogenic climate change would follow.

That led to "unjustified attack after unjustified attack," complains climatologist Gavin A. Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Although questions in the field abound about how, for example, tree-ring data are compiled, many of those attacking Mann's work, Schmidt claims, have had a priori opinions that the work must be wrong. "Most scientists would have left the field long ago, but Mike is fighting back with a tenacity I find admirable," Schmidt says. One of Mann's more public punch backs took place in July 2003, when he defended his views before a congressional committee led by Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, who has called global warming a "hoax." "I left that meeting having demonstrated what the mainstream views on climate science are," Mann asserts.

More recently, Mann battled back in a 2004 corrigendum in the journal Nature, in which he clarified the presentation of his data. He has also shown how errors on the part of his attackers led to their specific results. For instance, skeptics often cite the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warming Period as pieces of evidence not reflected in the hockey stick, yet these extremes are examples of regional, not global, phenomena. "From an intellectual point of view, these contrarians are pathetic, because there's no scientific validity to their arguments whatsoever," Mann says. "But they're very skilled at deducing what sorts of disingenuous arguments and untruths are likely to be believable to the public that doesn't know better."

Mann thinks that the attacks will continue, because many skeptics, such as the Greening Earth Society and the Tech Central Station Web site, obtain funds from petroleum interests.

(Surprise!)

"As long as they think it works and they've got unlimited money to perpetuate their disinformation campaign," Mann believes, "I imagine it will go on, just as it went on for years and years with tobacco until it was no longer tenable--in fact, it became perjurable to get up in a public forum and claim that there was no science" behind the health hazards of smoking.

As part of his hockey-stick defense, Mann co-founded with Schmidt a Weblog called RealClimate (RealClimate). Started in December 2004, the site has nine active scientists, who have attracted the attention of the blog cognoscenti for their writings, including critiques of Michael Crichton's State of Fear, a novel that uses charts and references to argue against anthropogenic warming. The blog is not a bypass of the ordinary channels of scientific communication, Mann explains, but "a resource where the public can go to see what actual scientists working in the field have to say about the latest issues."

more at:

Behind the Hockey Stick: Scientific American

**sabang** · 17-04-2008, 06:23 AM

If I read JL's argument correctly, sea levels would still rise independently of current global warming or cooling trends because the earth's latent rise in temperature since the last ice Ace naturally means a gradual melting of the vast polar ice deposits built up during that Ice Age.

This argument may well have merit- I certainly can't dismiss it out of hand.

It still leaves the question open of how much human activity via carbon and greenhouse gas emissions may, or may not, exacerbate this though. The earth got net colder in the last year or so- OK, but this does not debunk the net global warming trend over the past 150 years, which is scientifically verifiable.

So the question remains- how much is human activity responsible for this global warming?

And a new question is raised- given Polar Ice caps would be melting anyway (assuming this is the case), to what extent is human activity significant in this regard? To put it another way- the Caps are melting anyway. If we cause the process to be a bit faster, so what?

Interesting debate chaps. All I have to contribute is logical analysis, and an open mind.

**Hootad Binky** · 17-04-2008, 06:35 AM

Originally Posted by John L

my global skeptics page, shall we?

This is a link top a discussion board, not a scientific site with undisputed data.

Originally Posted by John L

And oh my, what about this

2008: The year the world will cool down
Last updated at 16:44pm on 7th April 2008

The world will experience global cooling this year, according a leading climate scientist.

The head of the World Meteorological Organisation said La Nina - the weather phenomenon which is cooling the Pacific - is likely to trigger a small drop in average global temperatures compared with last year.

The prediction - which follows a bitterly cold winter in China and the Arctic - is prompting some sceptics to question the theory of climate change.

You left out this bit from the same article:

However, the World Meteorological Organisation insists that this year's cooling has nothing to do with global climate change.

In fact, this year's temperatures could still be way above the average - and it is possible that 2008 will exceed the record year of 1998 because of global warming induced by greenhouse gases.

Must go home now, will address all your other links later

**Hootad Binky** · 17-04-2008, 06:39 AM

Originally Posted by sabang

If I read JL's argument correctly, sea levels would still rise independently of current global warming or cooling trends because the earth's latent rise in temperature since the last ice Ace naturally means a gradual melting of the vast polar ice deposits built up during that Ice Age

Which have increased dramatically in the 20th century...

Originally Posted by sabang

given Polar Ice caps would be melting anyway (assuming this is the case)

They are melting, that is the case - check the links I provided: links to NASA and scientists and reputable scientific journals (not blogs and discussion boards)...

**sabang** · 17-04-2008, 06:50 AM

Originally Posted by Hootad Binky

Quote: Originally Posted by sabang given Polar Ice caps would be melting anyway (assuming this is the case) They are melting, that is the case - check the links I provided: links to NASA and scientists and reputable scientific journals (not blogs and discussion boards)...

Yes, they are melting- no argument there. By 'assuming', I meant assuming JL's supposition that they would be melting anyway is true, how significant is our accelerating of this natural trend?

**John L** · 17-04-2008, 08:03 AM

Originally Posted by Hootad Binky

Greenland’s ice loss accelerating rapidly, gravity-measuring satellites reveal

August 10, 2006

AUSTIN, Texas—A new analysis of data from twin satellites has revealed that the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet has increased dramatically in the past few years, with much of the loss occurring primarily along one shoreline potentially affecting weather in Western Europe.

The loss of ice has been occurring about five times faster from Greenland’s southeastern region in the past two years than in the previous year and a half. The dramatic changes were documented during a University of Texas at Austin study of Greenland’s mass between 2002 and 2005.

more at:

Greenland’s ice loss accelerating rapidly, gravity-measuring satellites reveal | The University of Texas at Austin

Antarctic ice cap melting faster than first thought

January 15, 2008 12:00pm

study shows Antarctica melting faster than thought
Huge influx of fresh water could alter ocean currents
NASA geoscientist 'astonished' by alarming new data

The most comprehensive study to date of Antarctica's ice confirms growing concern that the ice cap is melting faster than predicted.

The implications are that the global sea level will rise faster than expected, while a huge influx of freshwater into the salty oceans could alter ocean currents.

Antarctica holds 90 per cent of Earth's ice.

According to the new findings, snowfall is topping up ice in the continent's interior and East Antarctic has held its own.

But West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula lost nearly 200 billion tonnes of ice in 2006 alone.

That is 75 per cent more than losses in 1996 and the equivalent of a global sea level rise of more than half a millimetre, claim international scientists led by NASA geoscientist Eric Rignot, also with the University of California, Irvine (UCI).

"Losses are concentrated along narrow channels occupied by outlet glaciers and are caused by ongoing and past glacier acceleration," the team wrote in the online edition of Nature Geoscience.

They based their conclusions on satellite data obtained in 1996, 2000 and 2006.

According to Dr Rignot, the results showed that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had underestimated the impact of polar melting in its predictions of possible sea level rises next century.

"Each time I look at some new data, I am astonished," he said.

Until now, it has been unclear whether snowfall in the interior kept pace with coastal melting, in terms of the overall mass of Antarctic ice.

But for Hobart glaciologist Ian Allison - with the Australian Antarctic Division and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre - the new findings settle the matter.
"This work suggests that the ice flow is accelerating," Dr Allison said.

more at:

Antarctic ice cap melting faster than first thought | NEWS.com.au

Obviously someone is fooling someone here. I wonder how almost everything I have read states just the opposite. Here is one of them.

Recent cold snap helping Arctic sea ice, scientists find
Last Updated: Friday, February 15, 2008 | 10:17 AM ET
CBC News

There's an upside to the extreme cold temperatures northern Canadians have endured in the last few weeks: scientists say it's been helping winter sea ice grow across the Arctic, where the ice shrank to record-low levels last year.

Temperatures have stayed well in the -30s C and -40s C range since late January throughout the North, with the mercury dipping past -50 C in some areas.

Satellite images are showing that the cold spell is helping the sea ice expand in coverage by about 2 million square kilometres, compared to the average winter coverage in the previous three years.

"It's nice to know that the ice is recovering," Josefino Comiso, a senior research scientist with the Cryospheric Sciences Branch of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, told CBC News on Thursday.

"That means that maybe the perennial ice would not go down as low as last year."

Canadian scientists are also noticing growing ice coverage in most areas of the Arctic, including the southern Davis Strait and the Beaufort Sea.

"Clearly, we're seeing the ice coverage rebound back to more near normal coverage for this time of year," said Gilles Langis, a senior ice forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa.
Winter sea ice could keep expanding

The cold is also making the ice thicker in some areas, compared to recorded thicknesses last year, Lagnis added.

"The ice is about 10 to 20 centimetres thicker than last year, so that's a significant increase," he said.

If temperatures remain cold this winter, Langis said winter sea ice coverage will continue to expand.

But he added that it's too soon to say what impact this winter will have on the Arctic summer sea ice, which reached its lowest coverage ever recorded in the summer of 2007.

That was because the thick multi-year ice pack that survives a summer melt has been decreasing in recent years, as well as moving further south. Langis said the ice pack is currently located about 130 kilometres from the Mackenzie Delta, about half the distance from where it was last year.

The polar regions are a concern to climate specialists studying global warming, since those regions are expected to feel the impact of climate change sooner and to a greater extent than other areas.

Sea ice in the Arctic helps keep those regions cool by reflecting sunlight that might otherwise be absorbed by darker ocean or land surfaces.

And here is another abstract, Antarctic ice grows to record levels & Over 500 scientists published studies countering global warming fears: Antarctic ice grows to record levels

Or take this article about the ice shelf on Greenland. In other words, it's cyclical.

Current Melting Of Greenland's Ice Mimicks 1920s-1940s Event

ScienceDaily (Dec. 13, 2007) — Two researchers here spent months scouring through old expedition logs and reports, and reviewing 70-year-old maps and photos before making a surprising discovery: They found that the effects of the current warming and melting of Greenland's glaciers that has alarmed the world's climate scientists occurred in the decades following an abrupt warming in the 1920s......................................

And as for arctic ice melt, that too is cyclical, and now we know that it is caused by switching oceanic currents AND wind patterns. This NASA paper so states it.

Nghiem said the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. "Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic," he said. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.

"The winds causing this trend in ice reduction were set up by an unusual pattern of atmospheric pressure that began at the beginning of this century," Nghiem said.

And this chart shows that arctic ice is righ back up to normal again.

And here, Antarctic Ice: the Cold Truth

**John L** · 17-04-2008, 08:12 AM

Originally Posted by Hootad Binky

Mann thinks that the attacks will continue, because many skeptics, such as the Greening Earth Society and the Tech Central Station Web site, obtain funds from petroleum interests.

(Surprise!)

As I clearly showed earlier, the Hockey Stick has been proven to be a fraud. Got that: A FRAUD! that is why the latest IPCC report did not post it in the report. It's A FRAUD!

The "Hockeystick" :The Global Warming Scandal of the Decade,By Michael R. Fox, Ph.D.

I have more if you are too lazy to back track to my earlier post.

Oh, and typical 'boiler plate' innuendo. If any group takes money from any group, it is used against them, regardless the facts. As the saying goes, if you can't refute the evidence, you demonize the character of the messenger. But it is perfectly alright for your guys to take FAR MORE from the government, which has been forced from the citizen's back pockets, in order to pay for all this scare tactics.

Typical of the Left, because you are into "feelings" instead of "Logic". Is anyone surprised?

"As long as they think it works and they've got unlimited money to perpetuate their disinformation campaign," Mann believes, "I imagine it will go on, just as it went on for years and years with tobacco until it was no longer tenable--in fact, it became perjurable to get up in a public forum and claim that there was no science" behind the health hazards of smoking.

As part of his hockey-stick defense, Mann co-founded with Schmidt a Weblog called RealClimate (RealClimate). Started in December 2004, the site has nine active scientists, who have attracted the attention of the blog cognoscenti for their writings, including critiques of Michael Crichton's State of Fear, a novel that uses charts and references to argue against anthropogenic warming. The blog is not a bypass of the ordinary channels of scientific communication, Mann explains, but "a resource where the public can go to see what actual scientists working in the field have to say about the latest issues."

more at:

Behind the Hockey Stick: Scientific American

Mann is upset because he has been exposed by other scientists, and doesn't like for his ox being gored. Nice try you genius. Must be all that cold weather you have been having to go through up there in western Canada, right?

**John L** · 17-04-2008, 08:20 AM

Originally Posted by sabang

Originally Posted by Hootad Binky

Quote: Originally Posted by sabang given Polar Ice caps would be melting anyway (assuming this is the case) They are melting, that is the case - check the links I provided: links to NASA and scientists and reputable scientific journals (not blogs and discussion boards)...

Yes, they are melting- no argument there. By 'assuming', I meant assuming JL's supposition that they would be melting anyway is true, how significant is our accelerating of this natural trend?

Actually, they are growing as of now, not melting. That is why the link I gave earlier shows that one village in Greenland is having to cope with too many polar bears. They are forced to mooch from the humans because the ice sheets are too thick for them to make a living out on the ice.

I can only point you to the Accumulated Global Warming Skeptic's Guide, over at my site, Ai-Jane. it is HUGE in the amount of links I ahve accumulated, and it is easy to be overwhelmed. But it is about as extensive as you will find anywhere, and I have spent hundreds of hours gathering all the information, divided into different topics. Check it out.

**John L** · 17-04-2008, 08:31 AM

Originally Posted by sabang

^^ Very interesting post JL. I'll be interested to see the case for the opposition also.

The seperation of 'rising sea levels' from the overall global warming/ greenhouse gas argument is an angle I had not been previously aware of.

Sabang, sea levels have been rising for thousands of years. At one time, man could litterly walk across the Bering straits. The sea level was so low, that the Black Sea was not there. It used to be a large lake, where it is now believed that agriculture and civilization originated. As the sea rose, it crossed the Bosperous and flooded the basin, causing the largest forced dispersion of humans in history. That is where the tale of the Gread Flood originated.

Almost all of cave art has been destroyed by rising sea levels, and all the coastal archaeological sites are under water. As an anthropologist I keep up with this, and am happy that undersea archaeology is finally beginning to take off.

But the simple truth is that almost all the sea rise has already occurred, because the ice shelves have melted as the latest stage of the Pleistocene came to an end. And the worst thing is that we are soon due to start entering the next round of ice age in the near future, and that is something we DON'T want to happen.

A warm planet is good for humans, and a cold one is bad. It's that simple. Man originated out of Africa, where it was warm. Does that tell you something? All this hyperventilating about how Global Warming is destructive and our fault is almost complete balloney. IT'S THE SUN that's causing all this warmth.

**Hootad Binky** · 17-04-2008, 09:51 AM

Originally Posted by John L

I wonder how almost everything I have read states just the opposite

How are these excerpts from your article the "opposite:"

Originally Posted by cbc article

But he added that it's too soon to say what impact this winter will have on the Arctic summer sea ice, which reached its lowest coverage ever recorded in the summer of 2007.

That was because the thick multi-year ice pack that survives a summer melt has been decreasing in recent years, as well as moving further south. Langis said the ice pack is currently located about 130 kilometres from the Mackenzie Delta, about half the distance from where it was last year.

The polar regions are a concern to climate specialists studying global warming, since those regions are expected to feel the impact of climate change sooner and to a greater extent than other areas.

Etc., etc.

Also, you're citing regional variations, overall, the world's temperature continues to rise. The planet is heating up. That, my friend, is a fact.

As you stated before, climate is unpredictable, non-linear, the effect being to create more weather extremes, which of course could include stormier weather in some areas, colder weather in some areas, hotter weather in others.

This is also from one of your links (again):

Harder Rain, More Snow
Meteorologists See Future of Increasingly Extreme Weather Events

February 1, 2006 — While raising average global temperatures, climate change could also bring more snow, harder rain, or heat waves, meteorologists say. Computer models based on climate data from nine countries indicate every place on the planet will be hit with extreme weather events, including coastal storms and floods.

ORLANDO, Fla.-- f you don't like the weather now ... Just wait, huge changes could be in store. Some scientists predict severe weather events will be even more extreme over the next few decades -- more snow, harder rain, and hotter heat waves.

People everywhere are noticing the changes in climate. Susan Decker, from Broomfield, Colo., says, "It seems warmer. Not as cold. We don't get the snow anymore." Rob Topolski, from Paducah, Ky., says, "We also don't have not nearly as much snow as we used to in Kentucky." Abbie Pumarejo, from Augusta, Ga., says, "It just seems like every summer gets a little bit warmer."

Gerald Meehl, from the Climate and Global Dynamics Division at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (N-CAR) in Boulder, Colo., tells Ivanhoe, "We see the biggest increase in heat waves in the Pacific Northwest where we don't presently have heat waves."

Computer models based on nine different countries' climate data indicate every country will be hit with climate change throughout this century. Meehl says: "If extreme heat bothers you that can be a problem. It could affect your utility bill. You might have to think about getting air conditioning if you don't have it."

The potential effects are far reaching; the computer models have accurately simulated past weather events and now some experts believe these simulations of future climates are likely to be correct. Scientists, however, disagree on what can or should be done, but know something needs to be done.

N-CAR scientists expect the average global temperature to increase by three degrees over this century. Three degrees may not seem like a large amount, but in a heat wave, a three-degree difference could be dangerously hot for more people and create one-foot higher storm surges.

Harder Rain, More Snow -- Meteorologists See Future of Increasingly Extreme Weather Events

The weather everywhere isn't just going to heat up like turning up a thermostat in a house! There are the effects of seasons, of moisture, precipitation, ocean currents etc. (which by the way are very sensitive to melting fresh water from polar areas)...

Current Melting Of Greenland's Ice Mimicks 1920s-1940s Event

ScienceDaily (Dec. 13, 2007) — Two researchers here spent months scouring through old expedition logs and reports, and reviewing 70-year-old maps and photos before making a surprising discovery: They found that the effects of the current warming and melting of Greenland's glaciers that has alarmed the world's climate scientists occurred in the decades following an abrupt warming in the 1920s......................................

you left out these parts

:

Their evidence reinforces the belief that glaciers and other bodies of ice are exquisitely hyper-sensitive to climate change and bolsters the concern that rising temperatures will speed the demise of that island's ice fields, hastening sea level rise.

...The fact that recent changes to Greenland's ice sheet mirror its behavior nearly 70 years ago is increasing researchers' confidence and alarm as to what the future holds. Recent warming around the frozen island actually lags behind the global average warming pattern by about 1-2 degrees C but if it fell into synch with global temperatures in a few years, the massive ice sheet might pass its “threshold of viability” – a tipping point where the loss of ice couldn't be stopped.

“Once you pass that threshold,” Box said, “the current science suggests that it would become an irreversible process. And we simply don't know how fast that might happen, how fast the ice might disappear.”

Greenland 's ice sheet contains at least 10 percent of the world's freshwater AND it has been losing more than 24 cubic miles (100 cubic kilometers) of ice annually for the last five years and 2007 was a record year for glacial melting there.

This work was supported in part by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation and Ohio State.

Originally Posted by John L

And as for arctic ice melt, that too is cyclical, and now we know that it is caused by switching oceanic currents AND wind patterns. This NASA paper so states it.

Yup, contributing factors

Not disagreeing with you there

Originally Posted by John L

And here, Antarctic Ice: the Cold Truth

...where I found this:

Downward trend, no?

**Hootad Binky** · 17-04-2008, 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by John L

As I clearly showed earlier, the Hockey Stick has been proven to be a fraud. Got that: A FRAUD! that is why the latest IPCC report did not post it in the report. It's A FRAUD!

Do you mean the C02 part of the graph? How about the planet-heating-up part? I got my hockey stick from Scientific American website, which I presume is also a fraud and found this article in Nature, the journal that first published Darwin's Origin of the Species and reads:

Academy affirms hockey-stick graph

Access : : Nature

It refers to these findings, when the National Research Council reported:

"It can be said with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries. This statement is justified by the consistency of the evidence from a wide variety of geographically diverse proxies."

NRC - The National Research Council

Originally Posted by John L

if you can't refute the evidence

The evidence is not in dispute! The data is clear and self-evident: the planet is heating up, the poles are melting at ever-increasing speeds, sea levels are rising. Unprecedented temperatures hotter then at least the last four centuries have been confirmed by the National research Council, as well as indisputably high levels of C02 and other man-made greenhouse gases; many of the links you provided said exactly that!

To say nothing of the gargantuan amounts of methane, a much more potent greenhouse gas than C02, still trapped in under oceans and in global Arctic permafrost:

Runaway Methane Global Warming

The accelerated global warming described in article 1 could lead to a runaway methane global warming effect due to the release of methane currently trapped in unstable methane hydrate deposits in the arctic that could be destabilised by accelerated global warming effects.

We know there are extensive methane hydrate and permafrost deposits all around the world. We have evidence that we are at the beginning of a period of global warming that is probably being made worse by the continuing build up of CO2 in the atmosphere due to fossil fuel burning. Recent computer modelling incorporating the feed back effects of global warming that has already occurred suggests that by about 2050 we may start to loose the beneficial effects of the Amazon rain forest as a carbon sink. This could lead to temperature rises of 5 to 8 degrees centigrade by 2100. This would be uncharted territory and no one really knows at present how the world's environmental systems would change but we now have the evidence from the geological past. On the basis of this evidence global warming can lead to methane releases which once started would escalate. This would be the worst possible thing to happen because once started there would be no way of stopping a runaway methane global warming event. We CAN reduce our CO2 emissions from fossil fuels but we COULD NOT reduce methane emissions once they started, huge natural forces would take over and change our world. This would probably result in the melting of the Antarctic icecap which would raise sea levels by 50 metres and would completely change the climates of the world.

Runaway Methane Global Warming

Warming hits 'tipping point'

It's a frozen peat bog the size of France and Germany combined, contains billions of tonnes of greenhouse gas and, for the first time since the ice age, it is melting.

A vast expanse of western Siberia is undergoing an unprecedented thaw that could dramatically increase the rate of global warming, climate scientists warn today.

Researchers who have recently returned from the region found that an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres - the size of France and Germany combined - has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.
The area, which covers the entire sub-Arctic region of western Siberia, is the world's largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.

Warming hits 'tipping point' | Environment | The Guardian

and the Global Dimming Effect of airliner contrails than keep Earth slightly cooler than it should be: this was proven during 911 when temperatures across the US rose when the nation's skies were free of contrails.

In the early 21st century, it's become clear that air pollution can significantly reduce the amount of sunlight reaching Earth, lower temperatures, and mask the warming effects of greenhouse gases. Climate researcher James Hansen estimates that "global dimming" is cooling our planet by more than a degree Celsius (1.8°F) and fears that as we cut back on the pollution that contributes to dimming, global warming may escalate to a point of no return. Regrettably, in terms of possibly taking corrective action, our current understanding of global dimming has been a long time in the coming, considering the first hints of the phenomenon date back to 18th-century observations of volcanic eruptions. In this slide show, follow a series of historic events and scientific milestones that built the case for global dimming. Click on the image at left to begin.—Susan K. Lewis

NOVA | Dimming the Sun | Discoveries in Global Dimming | PBS

Originally Posted by John L

you demonize the character of the messenger.

With labels like "ignorant" and "Leftie" and "lazy," right?

I agree it's happened before, however, and I also agree it also contributed to previous mass-extinctions

**John L** · 17-04-2008, 10:30 AM

As the saying goes, "Figures don't lie, but liars figure"? cherry picking will nto get you to the point you wish to reach. As stated by the the NASA article, it is the changing oceanic currents AND wind currents that determine Arctic ice levels.

And further you do not dispute the articles that state that the ice levels of Antarctica are back to where they were.

Also, you are aparently not aware that the global temperatures(in toto) are lower than 1998, which is the THIRD, not first, highest temperature of the last century. You even refuse to say anything about the fact that this last winter has been cold enough to lower the world average temperature by .7degrees C, which eliminates most of the temperature gain for the preceeding century.

Nice try, and all the ROTFLing will not change that. Remember all this as the solar activity continues to degrade and the planet continues to cool toward another mini-ice age by 2030. Let us see you laughing in five years time.

**John L** · 17-04-2008, 10:32 AM

Originally Posted by Hootad Binky

Originally Posted by John L

As I clearly showed earlier, the Hockey Stick has been proven to be a fraud. Got that: A FRAUD! that is why the latest IPCC report did not post it in the report. It's A FRAUD!

Well I got my hockey stick from Scientific American, which I presume is also a fraud and found this article in Nature, the journal that first published Darwin's Origin of the Species and reads:

Academy affirms hockey-stick graph

Access : : Nature

It refers to these findings, when the National Research Council reported:

"It can be said with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries. This statement is justified by the consistency of the evidence from a wide variety of geographically diverse proxies."

NRC - The National Research Council

Originally Posted by John L

if you can't refute the evidence

The evidence is not in dispute! The data is clear and self-evident: the planet is heating up, poles are melting and ever-increasing speeds, sea levels are rising. Many of the links you provided said exactly that!

Originally Posted by John L

you demonize the character of the messenger.

With labels like "ignorant" and "Leftie" and "lazy," right?

Sooo, again you were too intellectually lazy to bother reading the links showing the Hocky Stick to be a fraud? Why am I not surprised? You are not only dishonest, but a lazy one at that.

**Hootad Binky** · 17-04-2008, 11:09 AM

Originally Posted by John L

As the saying goes, "Figures don't lie, but liars figure"? cherry picking will nto get you to the point you wish to reach. As stated by the the NASA article, it is the changing oceanic currents AND wind currents that determine Arctic ice levels.

And rising temperatures and further rising temperatures from lack of the albedo effect (lack of snow cover).

Originally Posted by John L

And further you do not dispute the articles that state that the ice levels of Antarctica are back to where they were

The links you provided showed Antarctica was melting!

Originally Posted by John L

Also, you are aparently not aware that the global temperatures(in toto) are lower than 1998, which is the THIRD, not first, highest temperature of the last century. You even refuse to say anything about the fact that this last winter has been cold enough to lower the world average temperature by .7degrees C, which eliminates most of the temperature gain for the preceeding century.

I've already disproved these posts in previous posts on this thread, using your own links.

Btw, you still haven't explained what "proof of innocence" means

**Hootad Binky** · 17-04-2008, 11:12 AM

Originally Posted by John L

Originally Posted by Hootad Binky

Originally Posted by John L

As I clearly showed earlier, the Hockey Stick has been proven to be a fraud. Got that: A FRAUD! that is why the latest IPCC report did not post it in the report. It's A FRAUD!

Well I got my hockey stick from Scientific American, which I presume is also a fraud and found this article in Nature, the journal that first published Darwin's Origin of the Species and reads:

Academy affirms hockey-stick graph

Access : : Nature

It refers to these findings, when the National Research Council reported:

"It can be said with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries. This statement is justified by the consistency of the evidence from a wide variety of geographically diverse proxies."

NRC - The National Research Council

Originally Posted by John L

if you can't refute the evidence

The evidence is not in dispute! The data is clear and self-evident: the planet is heating up, poles are melting and ever-increasing speeds, sea levels are rising. Many of the links you provided said exactly that!

Originally Posted by John L

you demonize the character of the messenger.

With labels like "ignorant" and "Leftie" and "lazy," right?

Sooo, again you were too intellectually lazy to bother reading the links showing the Hocky Stick to be a fraud? Why am I not surprised? You are not only dishonest, but a lazy one at that.

I read every link you posted; most agreed with my position. I've clearly demonstrated that. The others were links to Conservative blogs.

By "fraud" I presume you mean that everything on the graph was false, or some of it was in dispute?

By definition, then, Nature article and the National Research Council 2006 report I cited are also "a fraud."

Yes or no?

**stroller** · 18-04-2008, 02:24 PM

Originally Posted by John L

Yes, CO2 has risen to 239 parts per MILLION. That's a HUGE percentage, isn't it?...

Lets be a little more scientific here.
It is the amount and speed of increase, not the percentage in relation to the whole which is relevant here.

Originally Posted by John L

Oh, and typical 'boiler plate' innuendo. If any group takes money from any group, it is used against them, regardless the facts. As the saying goes, if you can't refute the evidence, you demonize the character of the messenger. ...
Typical of the Left, because you are into "feelings" instead of "Logic". Is anyone surprised?

Yes, I am surprised you haven't noticed that this tactic is widely used, regardless of political orientation and has nothing to do with "feelings".

Haven't you used it yourself extensively to discredit the IPCC, with an extaordinary amount of 'emotion' in your posts, in other forums?

**blackgang** · 18-04-2008, 02:35 PM

Lavoisier Group - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

**John L** · 19-04-2008, 06:35 AM

this little article also highlights the fact that today's climate is not as warm as the AGW True Believers would have us believe. In fact, there are more than a few times in the past, during this latest inter-glacial, where the temperatures were warmer.

World's oldest tree discovered in Sweden
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 2:01pm BST 17/04/2008

The world's oldest tree has been found in Sweden, a tenacious spruce that first took root just after the end of the last ice age, more than 9,500 years ago.

The tree has rewritten the history of the climate in the region, revealing that it was much warmer at that time and the ice had disappeared earlier than thought.

It had been thought that this region was still in the grip of the ice age but the tree shows it was much warmer, even than today, he says.

That's right, it was warmer then than it is today, in spite of what the doomsayers would have you believe. The Roman Warming Period, as well as the Medieval Warming Period, were also warmer. Mass extinctions, as well as hard times for humans then did not occur, so why should they today?

**stroller** · 19-04-2008, 02:24 PM

Originally Posted by John L

this little article also highlights the fact that today's climate is not as warm as the AGW True Believers would have us believe.

Hmm, and how warm do those mystical "True Believers" attempt to make us believe it is today?

I haven't come across any claims that the Scandinavian region has never had hotter summers and warmer climate than today, and you failed to show in which way, if any, the findings mentioned in the article impact on present climate change theories.

Thread: Al Gore, Global Warming, And The Burden Of Proof

Thread Tools

Display

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

Posting Permissions