the hysteria just does not stop

[casstony]

While sitting in a waiting room today I read an article about the new large scale fusion reactor being built in France. Unlike previous efforts this one is predicted to be large enough to produce greater energy output than the input; 50MW in for 500MW out I think they said, so long as the 100 million degree plasma doesn't escape it's magnetic containment. How cool would it be to be working on that experiment - could solve our energy problems in a few decades.

[MarkN]

Well, what do we have here? Oh, a couple more pretty graphs.

I hope the attached doc. comes through OK. Pasted to a Word file to cut out superfluous matter. The letter itself is whole.

Note the list of signatories. Are these people all dills?

(Oh dear, Sen. Bob Brown's name is not among them! Must be worthless.)

Mark.

[Argonavis (William)]

Originally Posted by MarkN

Well, what do we have here? Oh, a couple more pretty graphs.

I hope the attached doc. comes through OK. Pasted to a Word file to cut out superfluous matter. The letter itself is whole.

Note the list of signatories. Are these people all dills?

(Oh dear, Sen. Bob Brown's name is not among them! Must be worthless.)

Mark.

No they are not dills. They have looked at the evidence, and no doubt like me found that there was none.

I would like to take an historical trip back to James Hansen’s testimony to the US Congress in 1998, specifically to the graph on the last page titled “Annual Mean Global Temperature Change”. Both Observed temperatures and Scenarios A, B and C are presented.

Scenarios A, B and C were incorporated into WG1 of the IPCC. Scenario A was if the world did nothing about its emissions of plant food (CO2). The other scenarios covered lower emission levels of CO2, where the world agreed to limit its emissions under international treaty.

So what has happened? Our industrial civilization continues to emit increasing quantities of plant food, and the temperatures have been observed as follows.

If there was ever a hypothesis that CO2 is the main driver of temperatures under a “green house” scenario, it has well and truly been falsified.

Yet the caravan of hysterical activists and opportunists continues. We have a government here is Australia that wants to introduce a tax on plant food, something we all breath out 30 times a minute.

The temperatures are not increasing, the ice isn’t melting, the glaciers are not retreating, and the seas are not rising (except for what you would expect in line with our retreat from the last ice age). The real evidence for anthropocentric global warming was always ambiguous at best.

Carl Sagan popularized the green house scenario. He also popularized the “nuclear winter” scenario. Gulf War I falsified the latter hypothesis. The atmosphere behaves in ways that is not fully understood.

I believe that the damage that Hansen has done to the credibility of science and its influence on public policy will be irretrievable. In fact it will be catastrophic.

We have had 400 years of progress following the Enlightment, we are in the age of genuine miracles, not pretend ones, and we face the challenge of maintaining a rational approach in the face of increasing beliefs in fundamentalist religion, voodoo and pseudo science. Celebrity scientists who sprout outrageous speculation do not help this process.

[sjastro]

Any armchair expert can glean the Internet and produce data to support their own prejudices (and I am referring to both sides of the debate).

I put much more credibility on the opinions of climate scientists.
http://stats.org/stories/2008/global..._apr23_08.html

Regards

Steven
http://users.westconnect.com.au/~sjastro/small

[Argonavis (William)]

Originally Posted by sjastro

Any armchair expert can glean the Internet and produce data to support their own prejudices (and I am referring to both sides of the debate).

I put much more credibility on the opinions of climate scientists.
http://stats.org/stories/2008/global..._apr23_08.html

Science isn't done by survey, although I appreciate what you are trying to convey. I prefer to make up my own mind based on the evidence.

Surveys themselves are subject to abuse. This survey is reporting on "do you believe" rather than "is there solid evidence for".

The survey reports "Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century." This is not surprising. These are human beings who are influenced by the popular culture, just like everyone else.

The earth's average global temperature is believed to have increased by 0.4 °C ± 0.6 °C over the last 100 years. The error bars are bigger than the movement! There is also numerous factors affecting the accuracy of these measurements. Most of these increases were prior to the 1950's. These numbers are subject to much debate.

The real issue is that the data is ambiguous, the science uncertain, and the future unknown.

[Peter Ward]

[quote=Argonavis;344973
The real issue is that the data is ambiguous, the science uncertain, and the future unknown.[/quote]


You know I almost put this sort of sillyness in the same brief as the 9/11 event was faked.

Good debate here:

http://environment.newscientist.com/.../earth/dn11462

and gives a pretty good rundown on the data complexities.

also Wiki gives a nice summary here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change

Wow....and we are to believe due to lone poster on ISS there is no data or consensus....

[Peter Ward]

Argo's stance also reminds me of this very off beat, but very funny animation....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkayHv1nuoM

Cheers
Peter

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Argo's stance also reminds me of this very off beat, but very funny animation....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkayHv1nuoM

Cheers
Peter

Tu she!

I don't believe smoking causes lung cancer either

[Karls48 (Karl)]

“Believe, personally believe, based on current scientific evidence” – I used to believe in Santa long long time ago. It looks like that some of today’s scientists become politicians.
The scientist either know that CO2 is causing global warming or they believe it is. There is a huge difference between believing and knowing.

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by Argonavis

Science isn't done by survey, although I appreciate what you are trying to convey. I prefer to make up my own mind based on the evidence.

Surveys themselves are subject to abuse. This survey is reporting on "do you believe" rather than "is there solid evidence for".

If the survey question is in a "do you believe" format (as most survey questions are), the answer is obviously in the same format.

That point aside, "In 1991 only a minority (41%) of climate scientists agreed that then-current scientific evidence “substantiates the occurrence of human-induced warming,” compared to three out of four (74%) today." This is a much more definitive statement.

Originally Posted by Argonavis

The survey reports "Ninety-seven percent of the climate scientists surveyed believe “global average temperatures have increased” during the past century." This is not surprising. These are human beings who are influenced by the popular culture, just like everyone else.

They wouldn't be scientists then. When is scientific modelling and the conclusions generated based on fads.

Incidentally. "Five percent of climate scientists say they have been pressured by public officials or government agencies to “deny, minimize or discount evidence of human-induced global warming,” Three percent say they have been pressured by funders, and two percent perceived pressure from supervisors at work.

Just three percent report that they were pressured by public officials or government agencies to “embellish, play up or overstate” evidence of global warming: Two percent report such pressure from funders, and two percent from supervisors."

Let's assume all these scientists have been influenced, that still leaves a large percentage with unadulterated opinions.

Originally Posted by Argonavis

The earth's average global temperature is believed to have increased by 0.4 °C ± 0.6 °C over the last 100 years. The error bars are bigger than the movement! There is also numerous factors affecting the accuracy of these measurements. Most of these increases were prior to the 1950's. These numbers are subject to much debate.

This gets me back to my original post. The NASA GISS data posted by Bert shows a very different picture.

Originally Posted by Argonavis

The real issue is that the data is ambiguous, the science uncertain, and the future unknown.

The issue for me has been whether global warming is a natural or human induced event. The Greenhouse effect predicts that the temperature of the lower stratosphere would decrease where as increased solar activity would have an opposite effect.

Measurements indicate that the temperature is decreasing hence I've made up my mind.

Regards

Steven

[MarkN]

The Greenhouse effect predicts that the temperature of the lower stratosphere would decrease where as increased solar activity would have an opposite effect.

Oh, that's really good Steve. Whatever happens confirms your theory. Talk about two bob each way!

Something a few people should read:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf.../climatechange

Mark.

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by MarkN

The Greenhouse effect predicts that the temperature of the lower stratosphere would decrease where as increased solar activity would have an opposite effect.

Oh, that's really good Steve. Whatever happens confirms your theory. Talk about two bob each way!

Something a few people should read:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf.../climatechange

Mark.

Mark,

I'm profoundly honoured that you should think it's my theory but it's basic atmospheric physics that's been known for a long time.

When solar activity is constant, the temperature of the lower stratosphere is determined primarily by heat radiated into space from the Earth's surface. If there is a greenhouse effect, this inhibits heat flow into the lower stratosphere resulting in decreasing temperatures.

If on the other hand solar activity is on the rise and there is no greenhouse effect, the temperature of the lower stratosphere will increase.

Sorry but no bets are being taken either way.

http://www.wunderground.com/educatio...to_cooling.asp

Regards

Steven