BBC - The area covered by sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk for a fourth consecutive year, according to new data released by US scientists.

They say that this month sees the lowest extent of ice cover for more than a century.

According to our friends at FEMA:

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In addition to its recent seismic activity, Mount St. Helen’s is also growing the nation's newest glacier growing in its crater. Although the 1980 eruption that blew the top off Mount St. Helens also destroyed the 13 glaciers on the volcano's flanks, by 1982, the crater floor had cooled enough to allow snow to begin to stick. Now, even as the volcano stirs to life, the nation's newest glacier is growing between the lava dome and the crater's south wall.

At a time when most of the nation's glaciers are receding, this one has advanced as much as 135 feet annually, flowing downhill toward the blasted north edge of the crater encircling the neck of the lava dome. It is the only growing glacier in the contiguous United States according to the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory.

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[ 28 September 2005: Message edited by: writer ]

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The glaciers' accelerated speeds in Greenland suggest that the climate is warming up, at least in that region, Hamilton said from his office in Orono.

... Hamilton said it's thought that the glaciers are moving faster than ever because the ice is melting faster. When the ice melts, the water trickles from the glaciers' surface to the bottom, where it acts as a lubricant on the bedrock on which the glaciers slide.

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...we know that global temperatures and ocean circulation can, under the right circumstances, change abruptly -- in a decade or even less.

The paradigmatic example is the so-called "Younger Dryas" event, 12,800 years ago, when an ice dam collapsed, releasing an immense volume of meltwater from the shrinking Laurentian ice-sheet into the Atlantic Ocean via the instantly-created St. Lawrence River. This "freshening" of the North Atlantic suppressed the northward conveyance of warm water by the Gulf Stream and plunged Europe back into a thousand-year ice age...

...An ice-free Arctic Ocean has not existed for at least one million years and the authors warn that the Earth is inexorably headed toward a "super-interglacial" state "outside the envelope of glacial-interglacial fluctuations that prevailed during recent Earth history." They emphasize that within a century global warming will probably exceed the Eemian temperature maximum and thus obviate all the models that have made this their essential scenario. They also suggest that the total or partial collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet is a real possibility -- an event that would definitely throw a Younger Dryas wrench into the Gulf Stream...

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According to August 11 articles in the magazine New Scientist and the British newspaper the Guardian, a pair of scientists, one Russian and one British, report that global warming is melting the permafrost in the West Siberian tundra. The news made a little blip in the international media and the blogosphere, and then it disappeared.

Why should anyone care? Because melting of the Siberian permafrost will, over the next few decades, release hundreds of millions of tons of methane from formerly frozen peat bogs into the atmosphere. Methane from those bogs is at least twenty times more potent as a greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide that currently drives global warming. Dumping such a huge quantity of methane on top of already soaring CO2 levels will drive global temperatures to the upper range of increases forecast for the remainder of this century.

According to the most recent forecast by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), compiled in 2001, human industrial emissions are on course to raise global temperatures between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius by the year 2100. The IPCC models didn't account for methane releases from the Arctic, nor did they consider other natural sources of greenhouse gases that could be released by human activity. The agency judged Arctic methane releases to be a real but remote possibility, not likely to emerge for decades. Now we find that it could very well be happening today.

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A point we should bear in mind is that melting ice accelerates warming, because water absorbs more energy than ice (white ice reflects more solar energy into space). So it's a self-reinforcing cycle.

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This property is called albedo. Melting is dominated by contrasts in the albedos of snow and ice (0.1 to 0.9 depending on liquid content and surface impurities; usually towards the higher end) and open water (below 0.1) or melt ponds (0.2 to 0.4).

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Malin said images of Mars' southern polar cap showed that scarps formed there are retreating at "a prodigious rate" of about 10 feet per Mars year. Mars years are nearly twice as long as Earth years.

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[ 16 October 2005: Message edited by: Forum Goon ]

edited to add: Here it is!
As Polar Ice Turns to Water, Dreams of Treasure Abound

"It's the positive side of global warming, if there is a positive side," said Ron Lemieux, the transportation minister of Manitoba, whose provincial government is investing millions in Churchill.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/10/science/10arctic.html

[ 16 October 2005: Message edited by: Boom Boom ]

quote:

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...The Arctic is undergoing nothing less than a great rush for virgin territory and natural resources worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Even before the polar ice began shrinking more each summer, countries were pushing into the Barents Sea, lured by undersea fields of oil and natural gas and emboldened by advances in technology.

But now, as thinning ice simplifies construction of drilling rigs, exploration is likely to move even farther north...

...Claims of expanded territory are being pursued the world over, but the Arctic Ocean is where experts foresee the most conflict. There the boundaries of five nations - Russia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and the United States - converge, the way sections of an orange meet at the stem. (The three other Arctic nations, Iceland, Sweden and Finland, do not have coasts on the ocean.)

Under the Law of the Sea, countries that ratified the treaty before May 13, 1999, have until May 13, 2009, to make claims. Other countries have 10 years from their date of ratification...

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[ 16 October 2005: Message edited by: Contrarian ]

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..."The conclusion must be that many species are shifting at an inappropriate rate, out of synchrony with their food sources, and this must in the end be detrimental.

"The point has often been made that temperatures have increased before in the Earth's past; but the rate now is 100 times greater...

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The Alps are falling apart.

Maybe 50 million environmental refugees by 2010; this link has been posted in other threads.

David Suzuki Foundation gives Canada a poor grade:

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...Canada's international reputation as a boy scout on environmental issues has been in decline for well over a decade, and now a new report ranks it 28th out of 30 OECD countries on key indicators such as cutting greenhouse gas emissions and smog.

The damning report was commissioned by the David Suzuki Foundation, an environmental group based in Vancouver, and prepared by a team of scientists at Simon Fraser University. It found that Canada was the worst or second worse performer in the OECD on eight of 29 environmental indicators including per capita production of volatile organic emissions, one of the main components in smog, per capita generation of nuclear waste and energy use per unit of GDP...

...Why is Canada such a laggard? The report says geography and climate may be factors. It is a big, cold country; it takes a lot of energy to ship goods from city to city and to keep homes warm in the winter. However, the study, one of several to have condemned Canada's commitment to green issues in the past few years, says poor public policy has also played a role...

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NY Times - In their long and frustrated efforts pushing Congress to pass legislation on global warming, environmentalists are gaining a new ally.

With increasing vigor, evangelical groups that are part of the base of conservative support for leading Republicans are campaigning for laws that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which scientists have linked with global warming.

In the latest effort, the National Association of Evangelicals, a nonprofit organization that includes 45,000 churches serving 30 million people across the country, is circulating among its leaders the draft of a policy statement that would encourage lawmakers to pass legislation creating mandatory controls for carbon emissions.

Environmentalists rely on empirical evidence as their rationale for Congressional action, and many evangelicals further believe that protecting the planet from human activities that cause global warming is a values issue that fulfills Biblical teachings asking humans to be good stewards of the earth.

"Genesis 2:15," said Richard Cizik, the association's vice president for governmental affairs, citing a passage that serves as the justification for the effort: "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it."

BBC - lobal greenhouse gas emissions will rise by 52% by 2030, unless the world takes action to reduce energy consumption, a study has warned.

The prediction comes from the latest annual World Energy Outlook report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Sorry: just couldn't let Makwa declaim alone.

quote:

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...The scientists say that rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gases are increasing humidity, which in turn amplifies the temperature rise.

This is potentially a positive feedback mechanism which could increase the impact of greenhouse gases such as CO2...

...An increased concentration of water vapour is just one of the feedback mechanisms which could change or amplify the progress of human-induced global warming.

Others include:

* melting of ice, leading to a greater absorption of sunlight
* the conversion of forests from net absorbers of carbon dioxide to net producers
* the release of trapped methane from permafrost...

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Earth's warming climate is estimated to contribute to more than 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses each year, according to the World Health Organization, a toll that could double by 2030.

The data, being published today in the journal Nature, indicate that climate change is driving up rates of malaria, malnutrition and diarrhea throughout the world...

...Climate change can contribute to such diseases as diarrhea, malaria and infectious illnesses in a number of ways. In warmer temperatures the parasite that spreads malaria via mosquitoes develops more quickly, for example, and a 2000 study conducted in Peru found that when the periodic El Nio phenomenon boosted temperatures there, hospital admissions of children with diarrhea increased exponentially.

Researchers have also documented an association between rising temperatures and deaths stemming from air pollution, since warmer, sunnier days trigger atmospheric reactions that worsen harmful smog....

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[ 25 November 2005: Message edited by: Southlander ]

We are saved!

[ 25 November 2005: Message edited by: Southlander ]

More climate change disasters:

glaciers melting in the Himalayas:

quote:

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...Eventually, the Himalayan glaciers will shrink so much their meltwaters will dry up, say scientists. Catastrophes like Ghat will die out. At the same time, rivers fed by these melted glaciers - such as the Indus, Yellow River and Mekong - will turn to trickles. Drinking and irrigation water will disappear. Hundreds of millions of people will be affected.

'There is a short-term danger of too much water coming out the Himalayas and a greater long-term danger of there not being enough,' said Dr Phil Porter, of the University of Hertfordshire. 'Either way, it is easy to pinpoint the cause: global warming.'...

...'A glacier lake catastrophe happened once in a decade 50 years ago,' said UK geologist John Reynolds, whose company advises Nepal. 'Five years ago, they were happening every three years. By 2010, a glacial lake catastrophe will happen every year.'...

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...The revelations, which follow the announcement that the melting of sea ice in the Arctic also reached record levels this summer, come as the world's governments are about to embark on new negotiations about how to combat global warming.

This week they will meet in Montreal for the first formal talks on whether there should be a new international treaty on cutting the pollution that causes climate change after the Kyoto protocol expires in seven years' time. Writing in The Independent yesterday, Tony Blair called the meeting "crucial", adding that it "must start to shape an inclusive global solution". But little progress is expected, largely because of continued obstruction from President George Bush...

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[ 21 November 2005: Message edited by: Contrarian ]

Hell, if Mount St. Helen's errupts again it puts more CO2 into the environment than what the USA dumps in a year.

quote:

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Originally posted by Briguy:
It's called observational evidence.

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That won't do it, sorry. Just because A and B occur together you can't say A is causing B. If that's so I'm going to drive fast and keep my hair brown, and never get old... Actually lots of people think like that!

All this right-wing logic reminds me of a Seinfeld episode where Kramer wanted to see how far a car could go on an eighth of a tank of gas. We'll just keep on polluting as we scream out the window.

quote:

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Originally posted by scooter:

Hell, if Mount St. Helen's errupts again it puts more CO2 into the environment than what the USA dumps in a year.

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People keep repeating this kind of "fact", but is it true?

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Carbon Dioxide

Present-day carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from subaerial and submarine volcanoes are uncertain at the present time. Gerlach (1991) estimated a total global release of 3-4 x 10E12 mol/yr from volcanoes. This is a conservative estimate. Man-made (anthropogenic) CO2 emissions overwhelm this estimate by at least 150 times.

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The total amount of carbon dioxide released by volcanic eruptions each year is 31 million tons.

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- There is no longer any credible scientific controversy that I'm aware of whether global climate change is happening, right now. It is.

- It's a little fuzzier whether human activity is the root cause, but at the very least, we're adding to it.

- If we take action, and we're mistaken & the human component is insignificant, no harm done. The economic oxen gored are more than offset by such things as burning less fossil fuel & reforestation, both worthwhile goals in their own right.

- If we DON'T take action, and human activity IS significant, we've brought about a catastrophe.

It's all about the downside - taking real steps to curb global warming would have little or no adverse consequence even if we're wrong, doing nothing could be disastrous, and at the very least continues to harm the environment.

[ 24 November 2005: Message edited by: dwday ]

quote:

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Originally posted by RP.:
Yukoner, that's probably worth a bannination.

(Can't say I'm not guiltily amused.)

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quote:

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Originally posted by dwday:
...It's a little fuzzier whether human activity is the root cause, but at the very least, we're adding to it.

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The climate scientists DO know that the cause is human activity.

RealClimate explanation:

quote:

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...In summary, we know that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is entirely caused by fossil fuel burning and deforestation because many independent observations show that the carbon content has also increased in both the oceans and the land biosphere (after deforestation). If the oceans or land had contributed to the rise in atmospheric CO2, they would hold less carbon. Their response to warming may be real, but it is less than their response to increasing CO2 and other climate changes for the moment...

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An earlier RealClimate article on the topic.

IPCC report; showing the consensus opinion:

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...Before the Industrial Era, circa 1750, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration was 280 ± 10 ppm for several thousand years. It has risen continuously since then, reaching 367 ppm in 1999.

The present atmospheric CO2 concentration has not been exceeded during the past 420,000 years, and likely not during the past 20 million years. The rate of increase over the past century is unprecedented, at least during the past 20,000 years.

The present atmospheric CO2 increase is caused by anthropogenic emissions of CO2. About three-quarters of these emissions are due to fossil fuel burning. Fossil fuel burning (plus a small contribution from cement production) released on average 5.4 ± 0.3 PgC/yr during 1980 to 1989, and 6.3 ± 0.4 PgC/yr during 1990 to 1999. Land use change is responsible for the rest of the emissions...

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Edit; this was a bit too harsh, as I guess Southlander doesn't understand what the sidescroll problem is or how it's caused.

[ 25 November 2005: Message edited by: Contrarian ]

Current levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere are higher now than at any time in the last 650,000 years.

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"We find that CO2 is about 30% higher than at any time, and methane 130% higher than at any time; and the rates of increase are absolutely exceptional: for CO2, 200 times faster than at any time in the last 650,000 years."

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[ 24 November 2005: Message edited by: Doug ]

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No, it's not fuzzy; the consensus is that humans are the root cause.

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Originally posted by Contrarian:
Would a moderator please edit Southlander's posts on November 18 at 5:21 and 5:22 pm to get rid of the sidescroll? Southlander has refused to edit her own posts.

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Long URLs are not wrapped so people with small computer screens have to use scrollbars to move things horizontally. This is an immense pain.

1. Click the edit button for that post [paper and pencil icon]

2. You will have a text box lwhich includes the link: [URL = http:// link address .htm] and more text here beside the last set of brackets[/ URL] [I've added some spaces in various places so this text does not becomr a link in my post]

3. Do not delete anything between [URL= and .htm] but do delete most of the text between .htm] and [/ URL]

Another time, when you use the URL button, copy the link into the box and hit OK; then in the second box, do not copy the link, just type in a word or two. It gives you a chance to editorialize. This should work unless you have a really really long link; then you could use tinyURL

[ 25 November 2005: Message edited by: Contrarian ]

Dwday, you convinced me, thank you for a logical and well though out answer.
but as for doing something - I'll probably just feel a bit guiltier when I take the car out, and I bit happier when I bike to work, and buy local stuff.

A report in Science today with more evidence of human activity causing the problem:

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There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today than at any point during the last 650,000 years, says a new study that let scientists peer back in time at greenhouse gases that can help fuel global warming.

By analyzing tiny air bubbles preserved in Antarctic ice for millennia, a team of European researchers shows how people are dramatically influencing the buildup of these gases...

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Science is also reporting that sea levels are rising faster now than in the past. What is really disturbing here is the scientist's argument for doing nothing about it. It's not clear whether he has just given up or whether he is looking for Bush's next excuse for doing nothing.

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...The analysis showed that during the past 5,000 years, sea levels rose at a rate of around 1mm each year, caused largely by the residual melting of icesheets from the previous ice age. But in the past 150 years, data from tide gauges and satellites show sea levels are rising at 2mm a year...

...According to Prof Miller, there is little chance of slowing the rising tide caused by global warming. "There's not much one can do about sea level rise. It's clear that even if we strictly obeyed the Kyoto accord, it's still going to continue to warm. Personally, I don't think we're going to affect CO2 emissions enough to make a difference, no matter what we do. The Bush administration should stop asking whether temperatures are globally rising and admit the scientific fact that they are, but then turn the question around politically and say: 'We can't really do anything about this on any kind of cost basis at all'," he said...

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[ 25 November 2005: Message edited by: Contrarian ]

CO2 'highest for 650,000 years'

BBC - Current levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere are higher now than at any time in the past 650,000 years.

That is the conclusion of new European studies looking at ice taken from 3km below the surface of Antarctica.

The scientists say their research shows present day warming to be exceptional.

quote:

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...This positive carbon cycle feedback to climate will require lower emissions to meet the same stabilization goal. “If we want to achieve stabilization at all, we need to move our economic decisions in that direction and reduce carbon emissions substantially. We’ll have to reduce emissions even more to account for carbon cycle feedbacks.”...

...What is up for discussion are questions such as, How much will climate change over the next century? Is there a “safe” amount of climate change? How much do we need to limit emissions so as to avoid dangerous climate impacts?...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Contrarian:
So Transplant are you channelling me or am I channelling you?

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...First of all, the results demonstrate clearly that the relationship between climate and CO2 that had been deduced from the Vostok core appears remarkably robust. This is despite a significant change in the patterns of glacial-interglacial changes prior to 400,000 years ago. The 'EPICA challenge' was laid down a few months ago for people working on carbon cycle models to predict whether this would be the case, and mostly the predictions were right on the mark. (Who says climate predictions can't be verified?). It should also go almost without saying that lingering doubts about the reproducibility of the ice core gas records should now be completely dispelled. That a number of different labs, looking at ice from different locations, extracted with different methods all give very similar answers, is a powerful indication that what they are measuring is real. Where there are problems (for instance in N2O in very dusty ice), those problems are clearly found and that data discarded...

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quote:

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Originally posted by Southlander:

That won't do it, sorry. Just because A and B occur together you can't say A is causing B. If that's so I'm going to drive fast and keep my hair brown, and never get old... Actually lots of people think like that!

Convince me the CO2 increse is causing the increase temperature. Please.

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quote:

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Scientists say they have measured a significant slowing in the Atlantic currents that carry warm water toward Northern Europe. If the trend persists, they say, the weather there could cool considerably in coming decades.

Some climate experts have said the potential cooling of Europe was paradoxically consistent with global warming caused by the accumulation of heat-trapping "greenhouse" emissions. But several experts said it was premature to conclude that the new measurements, being described in the Dec. 1 issue of the journal Nature, meant that such a change was already under way...

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...It will take some time to integrate the findings of this study with other evidence of changes in North Atlantic ocean circulation, including the changes seen in salinity, changes in the so-called Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) (see e.g. Knight et al, 2005 and references therein) and other indicators of Atlantic climate change (e.g. Dickson et al, 2002). Right now, there isn't an obvious synthesis of what these disparate studies are telling us...

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[ 30 November 2005: Message edited by: Contrarian ]

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There appears to be a concerted and systematic effort by some individuals to undermine and discredit the scientific process that has led many scientists working on understanding climate to conclude that there is a very real possibility that humans are modifying Earth's climate on a global scale.

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Contrarian, the quote above is from one of the sites you linked to above which you used to support the greenhouse gas theory of climate change.

I'd like to point out that even the SCIENTISTS themselves will only claim that there is a "very real possibility" that climate change is being affected by humans.

Sheesh, some of you need to take a pill. I didn't see anyone in this thread advocating burning tires or driving Hummers or killing bunny wabbits. I think we all know that pollution is bad, but if you want to discuss climate change or any other scientific proposal perhaps you'd consider opening your mind to alternative theories and ideas? If you want to stop climate change then this suggestion becomes a prerequisite.

quote:

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I'd like to point out that even the SCIENTISTS themselves will only claim that there is a "very real possibility" that climate change is being affected by humans.

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quote:

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Originally posted by beaver:
...For every Real Climate website or Science article you link to there is an equally credible website/article claiming the opposite...

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Likewise Science is peer-reviewed; find a peer-reviewed magazine that disputes what it has published on climate change.

[ 30 November 2005: Message edited by: Contrarian ]

quote:

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There are a few skeptics (mostly funded by the fossil fuel lobby) who still claim there is no problem

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Yep, well I'm not necessarily discussing those that claim there is "no problem." I'm just suggesting that there is room and indeed there is a necessity for the discussion of alternative theories and ideas.

Sorry for butting in, but when I read this thread and felt some of the attitudes toward those that were remotely interested in this discussion I got a bit peeved.

Contrarian, my phrase "claiming the opposite" was hastily worded. I am sure there are a few scientists out there who claim that the world is cooling and that CO2 is actually good for the atmosphere (and I will try to find them), but that isn't why I'm interested in this. What I meant really, was "proposing alternative theories." And yes, there are lots of them in peer reviewed journals including Science. As Buffy says: My bad.

As soon as I get a chance I will dig up some articles for you. For a start here is one I linked to on the other discussion about climate change:

From BBC on the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

quote:

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The sun is currently at its most active for 300 years.

That, say scientists in Philadelphia, could be a more significant cause of global warming than the emissions of greenhouse gases that are most often blamed.

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[ 30 November 2005: Message edited by: beaver ]

quote:

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Yep, well I'm not necessarily discussing those that claim there is "no problem." I'm just suggesting that there is room and indeed there is a necessity for the discussion of alternative theories and ideas.

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Including those at the other end of the spectrum:

quote:

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Scientists in this section accept the observations of rising temperatures, but conclude it is too early to ascribe any cause to these changes, man-made or natural.

Richard Lindzen, MIT meteorology professor and member of the National Academy of Sciences:
"We are quite confident that [the] global mean temperature is about 0.5 degrees Celsius higher than it was a century ago ... [but] we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to carbon dioxide or to forecast what the climate will be in the future."

Robert C. Balling, Jr., director of the Office of Climatology and an associate professor of geography at Arizona State University:
"At this moment in time we know only that: (1) Global surface temperatures have risen in recent decades. (2) Mid-tropospheric temperatures have warmed little over the same period. (3) This difference is not consistent with predictions from numerical climate models."

This group believe the Earth is warming but mostly due to natural processes:

Scientists in this section accept the observations of rising temperature, but conclude that natural causes are primarily to blame.

Willie Soon, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics:
"... there's increasingly strong evidence that previous research conclusions, including those of the United Nations and the United States government concerning 20th century warming, may have been biased by underestimation of natural climate variations. ... In other words, natural factors could be more important than previously assumed".

Sallie Baliunas, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics:
"[T]he recent warming trend in the surface temperature record cannot be caused by the increase of human-made greenhouse gases in the air".

Frederick Seitz, retired, former solid-state physicist, former president of the National Academy of Sciences:
"So we see that the scientific facts indicate that all the temperature changes observed in the last 100 years were largely natural changes and were not caused by carbon dioxide produced in human activities."

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quote:

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The scientific opinion on global warming, as expressed by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is that the average global temperature has risen 0.6 ± 0.2°C since the late 19th century, and that "most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities". The IPCC further proposes that temperatures may increase by 1.4°C to 5.8°C between 1990 and 2100.

This view is held by the vast majority of climate scientists and those doing research in closely related fields;

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Lindzen and Balling are two of the most notorious global warming skeptics:

But you haven't commented on my point that discussing alternatives doesn't make someone a rabid polluter, right winger, or a generally bad person.

You also haven't commented on my (more important) point that it is a scientific necessity to discuss and investigate alternative theories. Lindzen has taken an alternative stance because he felt morally obligated to and I personally hope there are a lot more scientists like him.

So if you'd get a little less cryptic and tell me what you think of my comments I'd be grateful.

quote:

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Originally posted by beaver:
...As soon as I get a chance I will dig up some articles for you. For a start here is one I linked to on the other discussion about climate change...
From BBC on the American Association for the Advancement of Science....

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And where's the follow-up since 1998? I guess scientists examined that theory and decided it was not worth much.

As for your listing climate change skeptics, it's not enough to list them, you need to know what they are saying and if they have any credibility.

Here's information about the first guy on your list, Lindzten:

quote:

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...Ross Gelbspan reported in 1995 that Lindzen "charges oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services; his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels, and a speech he wrote, entitled 'Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus,' was underwritten by OPEC." ("The Heat is On: The warming of the world's climate sparks a blaze of denial," Harper's magazine, December 1995.) Lindzen signed the 1995 Leipzig Declaration...

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For the next one on your list, Balling:

quote:

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...According to Harper's, Balling has recieved more than $200,000 from coal and oil interests over the past six years. Specific incidences include significant levels of funding since 1989 from the Kuwaiti government, foreign coal and mining corporations and Cyprus Minerals Company (totalling $72,554). (Kuwait has opposed the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)...

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And Baliunas:

quote:

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...A darling of the anti-climate movement, Baliunas has been a central scientist in the fight against action on climate change. She is used by virtually all of the Exxon-funded front groups as their scientific expert.

Baliunas' principal areas of interest include solar influence on climate change, the ozone layer and global warming. Baliunas views sunspots at the cause of climate change rather than carbon dioxide. Her articles are often tagged with the caveat: "[Baliunas''] remarks represent her own opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics."...

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You wrote:

quote:

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...Okay, so the popular theory is greenhouse gas...

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If you seriously want to consider alternate theories, spend time on Realclimate where they discuss many theories and explain how they judge them.

Realclimate page of articles on sun-earth connections.

Realclimate page on various myths.

Realclimate critique of article pushing celestial causes of global warming.

quote:

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...Some final remarks
It is a normal, essential and very valuable part of science to develop and present alternative hypotheses, even if they appear unlikely at first, go against the mainstream, or turn out to be wrong later. Without this process, there would be no progress in science. Hence, any attempt to find an alternative explanation for the ongoing global warming is to be welcomed.

However, to facilitate this process, science has developed a culture with certain rules and standards for scientific discourse. These rules include, for example, that all relevant data are shown: if I want to make a credible case for any hypothesis, I must not hide parts of a data set which do not fit my hypothesis. Rather, I need to discuss them. In a scientific paper, a selective or misleading graph may be of little consequence (except for the author's reputation), as scientific readers are familiar with the further data and the previous scientific discussions, so they can easily judge the merits of an argument. However, it is in our view more serious and ethically questionable when such selective and misleading use of data is made in a press release: an example from a media release by Veizer / Ruhr University is discussed here.

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quote:

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Okay, so the popular theory is greenhouse gas. I think we all know that. (And the earth used to be flat, and headaches were caused by evil spirits, and the universe was believed to have been created in seven days. Just cause it's popular...)

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quote:

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Written by Steven Milloy
Thursday, December 01, 2005

The 11th annual meeting of global warming enthusiasts in Montreal isn’t turning out to be a very happy event. Even though this is the first opportunity for the burgeoning global climate bureaucracy to celebrate the full implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, the realities of science, economics and politics are raining on its parade.

First, a new study published this week in the journal Nature (Dec. 1) turns global warming alarmism on its head. British researchers reported that the ocean current responsible for the tropical winds that warm Europe’s climate has decreased by an estimated 30 percent since 1957. The headline of the New Scientist report (Nov. 30) on the study nicely captured its import, “Failing ocean current raises fear of mini ice age.”

That conclusion, however, doesn’t jibe at all with the reality of European climate, which began warming 200 years ago and is now setting the modern records for warm temperatures that the pro-Kyoto crowd likes to hyperventilate about. The European Environment Agency, in fact, claimed on Nov. 29 that Europe is currently facing the “worst” warming in 5,000 years with 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004 being the four hottest years on record.

While temperatures can only go up or down at any given moment, global warmers seem to want to have it both ways so that any change in climate, regardless of direction, can be attributed to human activity.

The British newspaper The Independent, for example, reported in its Nov. 30 article about the Nature study that “the real evidence does point to a possible one degree Centigrade cooling over the next two decades.” But the newspaper reported in another same-day article that, “the [record hot] summer of 2003 was triggered by global warming caused by man-made emissions of greenhouse gases.” Such contradictory reporting casually ignores the reality that greenhouse gas emissions can’t simultaneously cool and warm Europe.

The second paragraph of The Independent’s article on the Nature study stated, “Disruption to the conveyor-belt mechanism that carries warm water to Britain’s shores was the basis of the Hollywood disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow.” But two paragraphs later, however, the paper noted “Scientists say such predictions are fantasy.”

It’s cooling. It’s warming. It’s disaster. It’s fantasy. Whatever “it” is, it can’t be comforting to the Kyoto believers in Montreal who seem to think they know for certain whether and how human activity impacts global climate.

A more sober reality, though, is that whatever slight impact humans might have on the climate, it is too small to measure – a point made in a study just published by Swiss researchers in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews (November 2005).

The study reviewed prior efforts to reconstruct global temperatures of the last 1,000 years. It concluded that natural temperature variations over the last millenium may have been so significant that they would “result in a redistribution of weight towards the role of natural factors in [causing] temperature changes, thereby relatively devaluing the impact of [manmade] emissions and affecting future predicted [global climate] scenarios.”

“If that turns out to be the case,” the researchers stated, “agreements such as the Kyoto protocol that intend to reduce emissions of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, would be less effective than thought.”

So senior U.S. climate negotiator Harlan Watson was on very firm ground when he stated this week in Montreal that, “I reject the premise that the Kyoto-like agreement is necessary to address the issue.”

The U.S. stance angered the Montreal revelers. “When you walk around the conference hall here, delegates are saying there are lots of issues on the agenda, but there’s only one real problem, and that’s the United States,” a Greenpeace International spokesman told the Associated Press.

But the U.S. isn’t the “real problem” for global warmers – reality is.

First, the available scientific data simply don’t add up to their desired conclusion that humans are harming global climate. Next, even if we were to forsake science and consider a position of “erring on the side of caution,” the economic cost – 2 percent or more of global economic productivity – is a steep and certain price to pay for extremely uncertain, and potentially negative, consequences.

Finally, the Kyoto protocol itself has been a colossal flop. European signatories to the treaty aren’t meeting their current emissions reduction targets, aren’t likely to in the future, and are looking for ways out of their commitments.

Even Kyoto’s knight-in-shining armor, UK prime minister Tony Blair, in what has been dubbed the “Blair Switch,” has embraced the latter two points. In September, Blair announced that he had given up on climate change treaties because, “The truth is, no country is going to cut its growth or consumption substantially in light of a long-term environmental problem.”

Especially if that “problem,” so far as we can tell after several decades and many billions of dollars of research, is entirely unproven.

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Here's information about the lobbyist Steve Milloy Link here

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Founder and Publisher, junkscience.com
Adjunct Scholar, Cato Institute Columnist, FoxNews.com Director, Advancement of Sound Science Center/Coalition.

One of the primary purposes of his website, junkscience.com, is to "debunk" environmentalism....

...Though Milloy denies ever having been a lobbyist, Milloy shows up in federal lobbying registration data for 1997 as having expenditures on his behalf, indicating his firm, the EOP Group, believed him to be an active lobbyist. The same federal records indicate Milloy represented the American Petroleum Institute, FMC Corp, Fort Howard, International Food Additives Council, and Monsanto. Interestingly, according to these records, Milloy lobbied for Monsanto on the subject of "food safety and labeling," which is lobbyist speak for "biotech foods." (Center for Responsive Politics, Lobbyist Database) According to the Washington Representatives, Milloy was still registered as a lobbyist with the EOP Group in 1999, with the American Petroleum Institute and FMC Corp listed as clients. (1999 Washington Representatives)...

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And here is lots more:

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He has spent his life as a lobbyist for major corporations and trade organisations which have poisioning or polluting problems...

...The Junkscience web site was supposedly run by a pseudo-grassroots organisation called TASSC (The Advancement for Sound Science Coalition), which initially paid ex-Governor Curruthers of New Mexico as a front. Milloy actually ran it from the back-room, and issued the press releases. Then when Curruthers resigned, Milloy started to call himself "Director" (Bonner Cohen - another of the same ilk also working for APCO - became "President")

Initially all of this was funded by Philip Morris, as part of their contributions to the distortion of tobacco science, but later they widened out the focus and introduced even more funding by establishing a coalition -- with energy, pharmaceutical, chemical companies. TASSC's funders include 3M, Amoco, Chevron, Dow Chemical, Exxon, General Motors, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lorillard Tobacco, Louisiana Chemical Association, National Pest Control Association, Occidental Petroleum, Philip Morris Companies, Procter & Gamble, Santa Fe Pacific Gold, and W.R. Grace, the asbestos and pesticide manufacturers.

TASSC was then exposed publicly as a fraud...

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However, I sometimes read his junkscience.com site and suspend my disbelief. I really do hope that he's actually right, no matter his motives. If he's wrong, then we are, not to put too fine a point on it, screwed.

[ 02 December 2005: Message edited by: Mandos ]

(and thanks to PW, too)

[ 02 December 2005: Message edited by: Briguy ]

Wow, who's the fool?

You seem to be putting a lot of words in a lot of people's mouths. I for one did not present any theory as a replacement for yours.

MY ONLY POINT WAS AND STILL IS THAT SCIENCE DEMANDS SCRUTINY, OR ELSE IT ISN"T SCIENCE, IT'S DOGMA. If scrutiny scares you, than you shouldn't be trying to discuss science, which deals in probability, not certainty. Even your RealClimate bible says that. Every major acceptable scientific theory undergoes scrutiny. Even gravity, which we as yet don't fully understand.

And no, I am not a rabid right wing industry lover. I am not advocating burning tires, SUV's or killing bunny rabbits. I simply thought this was a discussion, not a tyranny.

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So if I'm understanding you, Contrarian, Briguy etc. you believe that the greenhouse gas theory of climate change should be treated as a fact and ALL OTHER research should be discarded and not discussed.

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The greenhouse effect is a scientific theory that is and should be subject to scientific scrutiny. The trouble is that the skeptics in general don't publish in peer-reviewed journals; they just get media coverage which presents the issue as two sides, when in fact there is a range of thought, even though the vast majority of scientific thought is in agreement with the IPCC consensus, which has strengthened over time. If it is weakening now, it isn't weakening on the side of the skeptics, who usually aren't given the same scrutiny as those who agree with the consensus. It is not a question of alternatives to the greenhouse theory (as it is accepted even by virtually all of the skeptics that greenhouse gases do warm the earth and by all climate scientists that there are a number of causes of climate change which often interact), but what the impact of adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere has been and will be, given positive and negative feedback. You have been suggesting that there is a good possibility there is no impact, but the vast majority of climate scientists believe that that is unlikely, verging on very unlikely, merely for the warming that has already occurred. Given what we already know in a scientific sense about the greenhouse effect, adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere is still a bad idea.

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Every major acceptable scientific theory undergoes scrutiny. Even gravity, which we as yet don't fully understand.

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You have been suggesting that there is a good possibility there is no impact,

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PLEASE show me where I suggested this?

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They have already considered your idea and discarded it

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PLEASE show me this "idea" you claim I've presented? I only tried to show that there are other ideas out there, and suggested that you might be a little less unfair to others who are interested in discussing them.

I'll ask nicely again, please stop putting words into other people's mouths.

[ 03 December 2005: Message edited by: beaver ]

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Originally posted by DrConway:
Just to chuck a wrench into the discussion Solar activity does apparently have an effect on climate, as evidenced by the Maunder Minimum, a period when there were almost no sunspots and the sun got a bit bigger (and thus cooler, since as the surface area of a stellar object rises the energy output per unit area drops).

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And beaver, go back to that same post and read the last quotation. Scientists know that theories have to be tested. But the people arguing against a theory have to be honest to be credible, and the climate change skeptics are dishonest.

Edit: here's Realclimate on the Maunder minimum:

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...Therefore, it is not yet possible to draw firm conclusions about solar activity changes during the last 400 years based on these data. To conclude, depending on the applied 10Be record different histories of the sun have been inferred. The 14C tree ring record does not confirm the 10Be record from Southern Greenland and the assertion that recent solar activity levels are exceptional. Alternative estimates of the history of the Sun are not yet good enough to be used as independent checks.

Therefore, in the view of the uncertainties and the conflicting data it doesn’t seem to be appropriate to make uncritical and sensational claims about the history of the sun. As long as the differences between the 10Be records are not understood, conclusions based on only one of these records should be treated with caution. Atmospheric 14C concentrations, on the other hand, are much less sensitive to a climate influence during the last 1000 years and, therefore, can provide good estimates of the history of the sun. However, the disagreement between 14C-based solar activity and group sunspot number (Muscheler et al., 2005) should remind us that the variations of the solar activity are not yet completely understood.

Regardless of any discussion about solar irradiance in past centuries, the sunspot record and neutron monitor data (which can be compared with radionuclide records) show that solar activity has not increased since the 1950s and is therefore unlikely to be able to explain the recent warming

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[ 03 December 2005: Message edited by: Contrarian ]

In any case, human acceleration of the rise of CO₂ content in the atmosphere most certainly is not going to help matters. But the sun needs to cooperate, too.

[ 03 December 2005: Message edited by: DrConway ]

[ 03 December 2005: Message edited by: Contrarian ]

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PLEASE show me where I suggested this?

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Incidentally, I suspect this is a secondary effect, but what about the changes to the air pressure on Earth by introducing more carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, only about half of which is absorbed into the oceans every year?

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WASHINGTON - The world has suffered more than 200 billion dollars in economic losses as a result of weather-related natural disasters over the past year, making 2005 the costliest year on record, according to preliminary estimates...

...Munich Re, one of several leading re-insurance companies that have warned repeatedly over the past decade that global warming posed serious threats to the world's economy...

...other highly unusual or even unprecedented weather events recorded during the past year. These suggest the Earth's climate is changing in ways that are generally consistent with predictions...

...Hurricane Vince, for example, was the first hurricane on record to approach Europe, making landfall in Spain in October...

...And in July, a weather station in Mumbai recorded 944 mm of rain in 24 hours, the greatest and most intense precipitation event ever recorded in India...

...economic losses attributable to weather-related disasters have risen much more steeply than those caused by earthquakes, according to records since 1950...

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[ 07 December 2005: Message edited by: Contrarian ]

We are using up most of the fertile land.

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..."Except for Latin America and Africa, all the places in the world where we could grow crops are already being cultivated. The remaining places are either too cold or too dry to grow crops," said Dr Ramankutty...

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Greenland glaciers melting fast:

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...Two of Greenland's largest glaciers are retreating at an alarming pace, most likely because of climate warming, scientists said Wednesday. The other glacier, Helheim, is retreating at about 7 miles a year — up from 4 miles a year during the same period...

...Global warming is frequently blamed for retreating glaciers around the world. The rapid retreat of Greenland glaciers suggest that climate change is a factor, Hamilton said...

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It's interesting; they go on to talk about the Columbia glacier in Alaska, a tidewater glacier which is melting, they think, not because of global warming but due to a slow warming trend over 500 years and some seawater pressure.

Edit, I thought there was something about this; up near the top of the thread, the same guy Hamilton talking about it in September.

[ 08 December 2005: Message edited by: Contrarian ]