Arctic's geological record
 

popular account of the recent article in the journal Science

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-arctic5-2009sep05,0,3388515.story

I don't think it'll be popular w/the right wing majority on PARF...where I predict this thread will end up residing. :)

(Make your predictions now how this thread will end up!)

To be honest, I don't believe that humans have directly influenced the climate to the extent stated. This is just the first bit of evidence that says we might have an effect. But I still await more studies and results before I'll end up changing my opinion.

Of course humans have an effect. Six BILLION of anything is going to have an effect. It takes a lot of resources (food, energy, etc.) to raise human beings.

We certainly can be MUCH better about our use of resources and impact on our planet - but I don't agree that it should be forced. Encouraged, sure. Used as a locus of new innovation, sure.

I'm not going to get any more political than that, but I do think anyone who thinks that the activities of BILLIONS of human beings don't have an adverse impact on our planet is in denial, or perhaps huffing glue.

what is interesting is that the anthropogenic warming effect is just about 2x the cooling effect from natural events

If I read it correct, it sounds like we may have saved the earth for plunging into another ice age! Cool, We did good!

Ya know, there are better ways to state your position than with attacks.

• Human released CO2 is far less than natural sources:
  
  Quote:

  The consumption of terrestrial vegetation by animals and by microbes (rotting, in other words) emits about 220 gigatonnes of CO2 every year, while respiration by vegetation emits another 220 Gt. These huge amounts are balanced by the 440 Gt of carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere each year as land plants photosynthesise. Similarly, parts of the oceans release about 330 Gt of CO2 per year, depending on temperature and rates of photosynthesis by phytoplankton, but other parts usually soak up just as much - and are now soaking up slightly more. Ocean sinks Human emissions of CO2 are now estimated to be 26.4 Gt per year, up from 23.5 Gt in the 1990s, according to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in February 2007 (pdf format). link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11638-climate-myths-human-co2-emissions-are-too-tiny-to-matter.html

• CO2 isn't the only greenhouse gas:
  
  Quote:

  A simplified summary is that about 50% of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapour, 25% due to clouds, 20% to CO2, with other gases accounting for the remainder. link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11652-climate-myths-co2-isnt-the-most-important-greenhouse-gas.html

• CO2 has been shown to lag behind temperature rises in the past
  http://www.newscientist.com/data/ima...1640-1_800.jpg

Just using these three quick hits, there is enough arguing evidence against Human CO2 emissions as being the primary source for climate change. This is why I'm still not decided which side has the better argument. There just isn't enough data yet and the earth cycles (carbon sinks, sun activity, etc) are so complicated that correlation is difficult between causes and coincidences.

This NYTimes article is extremely weak. It hints that the wobbling of the orbit is the only thing that affects the temperature of the planet but that is far from the truth. CO2 emissions are just as incomplete a picture as looking at only the orbit's wobbling.

this is not in that article, though I suspect it may be true.

6 Billion is a lot of anything, and geologic time is spread out enough that it is tough to get a good look at it.

The world's climate is getting colder and we are entering an ice age.
There. It's on the internet now so it must be true. Where's my grant money?

BTW over the past decade the earth's climate has cooled, not gotten hotter. Unfortunately there's very little profit in admitting that.

I'm sure you would love to give us a full dissertation on the limitations of relying on ice core samples for estimating past temperatures...

So why does Randy keep posting blatantly partisan political garbage in general OT?

Here's what I don't like about the writers attempt to convince me:

The Arctic is now 600,000 miles farther from the sun than it was in AD 1, and temperatures there should have fallen a little more than 1 degree Fahrenheit since then.

Instead, the region has warmed 2.2 degrees since 1900 alone, and the decade from 1998 to 2008 was the warmest in two millenniums,




Why not tell me the difference from AD 1 to now - not part of his analysis from AD1 to now and the other part from 1900 to now.

After years of writing annual reports for the corporation that I worked for, I discovered that you can manipulate data simply by stating things in a way that is convenient and supports your argument.

If we are 600,000 miles away now - what is the difference from then to now - It's a simple question.....

600000/92955800=.00645 We've moved out .6% further from the sun. If the article mentioned .6% versus 600,000 miles it wouldn't nearly have grabbed your attention. Though since there should have been an ice age begun by now, our presence on this earth has had a balancing effect here. No longer will we cycle into high temp and low temp spells. Pat yourselves on the back everyone, we could all be buried under feet of snow if not for the foresight of some industrialists centuries ago.

the NYT article - as I stated above - is just a summary of the research article posted in the scientific journal

so you need to read that if sufficiently interested

as usual, legion is trying to throw up a smoke screen for his own belief system

So you won't address the limitations of ice core samples? :rolleyes:

I'm surprised. SmileWavy

It should be possible to discuss the scientific aspects of global warming without involving politics or religion.

Hahaha, what should be and what is are two different things John my friend.

Like when someone posts a politically-biased article in general OT specifically for the purpose circumventing such a discussion? :rolleyes:

It's almost as if you aren't allowed to argue with Randy, he must be right. I mean, it's not like global warming proselytizers try to shut down debate on the topic by falsely claiming consensus, use questionable and statistically unsound methods, or cherry-pick data, events, and studies that support their conclusions while ignoring those that do not.

"Someone's" post:

"popular account of the recent article in the journal Science"

Specifically for the purpose circumventing such a discussion? :rolleyes:

Troll.

The point is...the ice cap is almost gone...and it will create some very ugly things.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neXB1XzMu7Y&feature=related

Why worry about it, polar shift is 250,000 years over due and when it happens thats the end of us all. Polar shift happens every 1/2 million years and its been close to 750,000 since the last one, all life ceases to exsist and the world gets covered in ice, no sunlight penitrates the dust cloud that covers the earth for hundreds of years. I don't sweat the global warming or CO 2 levels, its just sweating the small stuff

magnetic pole shift has NOTHING to do with temps
yes the poles do shift and a compass will point the wrong way
but the air and sea temps willnot change as a result

and all life has never died in any event

btw global warming is real but our star is quiet resently
there has been no sun spots for some time now
so the sun is now not quite as hot as normal

the sun will go back to normal in a year or three and
then the warming trends will resume

my understanding is that all the causes of variations in climate over the last 4 B years are not perfectly known

I have not seen magnetic pole shift offered as a cause tho. Last tome I read on this related continental drift as a likely major cause.

This is all over time spans of 10 to 500 million years of course, not the relatively short span of centuries that we see now.

re extinction - it is possible that all life on Earth was rendered extinct early on, but we have no way to determine that. There has not been a complete extinction within the last ~ 4 B years tho, we are certain of that. The ver worst extinction was caused by a mutation that unleashed a highly poisonous gas -- oxygen.

Of course, the life forms and their evolutionary progeny that survived LIKE oxygen... and they are the ones that get to write history.