Human Impacts on Climate
Adopted by Council December, 2003

Human activities are increasingly altering the Earth's climate. These effects add to natural influences that have been present over Earth's history. Scientific evidence strongly indicates that natural influences cannot explain the rapid increase in global near-surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century.

Human impacts on the climate system include increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons and their substitutes, methane, nitrous oxide, etc.), air pollution, increasing concentrations of airborne particles, and land alteration. A particular concern is that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide may be rising faster than at any time in Earth's history, except possibly following rare events like impacts from large extraterrestrial objects.


The global climate is changing and human activities are contributing to that change. Scientific research is required to improve our ability to predict climate change and its impacts on countries and regions around the globe. Scientific research provides a basis for mitigating the harmful effects of global climate change through decreased human influences (e.g., slowing greenhouse gas emissions, improving land management practices), technological advancement (e.g., removing carbon from the atmosphere), and finding ways for communities to adapt and become resilient to extreme events.

AGU (http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/policy/climate_change_position.html)

Climate Change Beyond Doubt: Karl, Trenberth Say
No Doubts Global Warming Is Real, U.S. Experts Say
Reuters News Service, Dec. 5, 2003

WASHINGTON - There can be no doubt that global warming is real and is being caused by people, two top U.S. government climate experts said. Industrial emissions are a leading cause, they say - contradicting critics, already in the minority, who argue that climate change could be caused by mostly natural forces.

"There is no doubt that the composition of the atmosphere is changing because of human activities, and today greenhouse gases are the largest human influence on global climate," wrote Thomas Karl, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center, and Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
"The likely result is more frequent heat waves, droughts, extreme precipitation events, and related impacts, e.g., wildfires, heat stress, vegetation changes, and sea-level rise," they added in a commentary to be published in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Karl and Trenberth estimate that, between 1990 and 2100, there is a 90 percent probability that average global temperatures will rise by between 3.1 and 8.9 degrees Fahrenheit (1.7 and 4.9 degrees Celsius) because of human influences on climate.
Such dramatic warming will further melt already crumbling glaciers, inundating coastal areas. Many other groups have already shown that ice in Greenland, the Arctic and Antarctica is melting quickly.

Karl and Trenberth noted that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have risen by 31 percent* since preindustrial times.
Carbon dioxide is the No. 1 greenhouse gas, causing warming temperatures by trapping the Sun's energy in the atmosphere.
Emissions of sulfate and soot particles have significant effects too, but more localized, they said.

*empirical proof in the form of Isotopic fossil fuel signature points finger at fossil fuel emissions{DMayes}


The Heat is Online Website (http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?id=4533&method=full)

Enough with the junk-science.

Temperatures are much the same. I detect no such change.

What evidence? Politically motivated "tree hugger" enviro wacko hearsay?

NASA data shows a slight cooling trend over the last several decades.

What so what if the world did warm? It's too cold anyways. I would like the planet to be warmer.

And I read that drought-induced wildfires burned far more acres, before humans interfered and thought them even managable. Occasional wildfires are the natural way that overgrowth and deadwood is cleared out of the forests it seems. And it's human interests that need to be protected from them, not the forests, as the forests have been shaped by wildfires. Wildfires out in remote wilderness, should be left to burn themselves out, I think, to avoid needlessly wasting taxpayer money to tame nature in wildlands where it isn't even needed. Perhaps we are really entering an ice age instead, judging by greatly diminished acreage burned and increased forestation?

If we think there are any more "heatwaves" than in the past, it is because we have become soft and spoiled rotten, in the frigid cold air conditioning now in most every building. It's a wonder all our ancestors didn't melt before air conditioning.

Enough with the junk-science.

Please stop trolling.

2003 third warmest year yet as global warming continues

GENEVA (AFP) Dec 16, 2003

Global warming continued through 2003 as Europe's hottest summer on record
helped fuel the third warmest year on record worldwide, international
weather experts at the UN said on Tuesday.

The UN's World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said in its annual
statement on the global climate that the rising average temperatures
helped generate exceptional drought, floods, hurricanes and typhoons.
Meanwhile, global insurers counted the cost of the impact of extreme
weather, as storm damage accounted for eight billion dollars in damage
claims in 2003, according to one of the world's largest re-insurance
companies, SwissRe.

"This year was very warm but it was not the warmest ever, very probably it
will be in third place among the warmest years," said Michel Jarraud,
deputy secretary general of the WMO.

"Temperatures since 1976 have progressed three times more than during the
20th century, so the rate of increase in temperatures is accelerating," he
added.

The global average temperature this year was expected to have risen by
0.45 degrees Celsius by the end of December, WMO said.

The warmest year so far was recorded in 1998, with a rise of 0.55 degrees
Celsius in global temperatures, capping the warmest century in the
millennium, according to the agency, which groups the world's national
weather forecasters.

The second warmest was 2002.

Average temperatures rose more sharply in the northern hemisphere in 2003
than in the southern hemisphere, with unprecedented highs in western
Europe over the summer, WMO found.

"In France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Britain and Spain, there
were an estimated 21,000 deaths linked to this heatwave, so it was really
something exceptional," Jarraud told journalists.

The heat also melted glaciers in Europe's mountain ranges twice as fast as
the record set in 1998, while the Arctic ice pack shrank in September,
approaching the record low of 5.3 million square kilometres (2.2 square
miles) set in 2002, WNMO said.


The five most costly disasters during 2003 happened in the United States
and Canada, and they were all weather-related, it added in a statement.
Each led to claims of more than one billion dollars.


The WMO's data on annual temperature change is based on an average of
temperatures between 1961 and 1990, which is used as a reference.

Satelite evidence of Global warming (http://eces.org/archive/ec/np_articles/static/98454960031881.shtml)

New Analysis of Satellite Data Provides Direct Evidence that Less Heat is Escaping into Space Due to Increase of Atmospheric Greenhouse Gases.
(3/14/2001)

Scientists has dispelled any lingering doubts about the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere Wednesday with new evidence from satellites orbiting the Earth. A comparison of satellite data from 1970 and 1997 has yielded what scientists say is the first direct evidence that greenhouse gases are building up in Earth's atmosphere and allowing less heat to escape into space. Evidence was also found of smaller increases in chlorofluorocarbons, refrigerants blamed for destroying the ozone layer that protects Earth from ultraviolet radiation.

"We've seen greenhouse gas increases that we can link to a change in outgoing long-wave radiation, which is believed to force the climate response," said Dr. Helen Brindley, an atmospheric physicist at Imperial College in London. The study was reported in the journal Nature and should finally silence critics not satisfied with the already large amount of indirect evidence for the greenhouse effect.

"We're absolutely sure, there's no ambiguity: This shows the greenhouse effect is operating and what we are seeing can only be due to the increase in the gases," said John Harries, leader of the research team at Imperial College in London. "It's actual measurements of what's coming out of the Earth. It's not from someone's computer simulation," added Richard Bantages, another member of the team.

"Because we know where in the spectrum certain greenhouse gases are observed, when we look at the changes between the two periods we can say that change is due to changes in CO2 or methane," Brindley said. "There has been quite a significant change over the past 30 years, particularly in methane." One of the most powerful greenhouse gases, methane, is emitted from landfill sites and disused mines.

The scientists took into account the influence of clouds and seasonal variations, so the changes they observed could only be explained by long-term changes in greenhouses gases, they said. "It's the first time that we have seen observationally that these changes are really having an effect on the radiative forcing of the climate," said Brindley. Radiative forcing is the measure of the climate effects of greenhouse gases.

Without significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, scientists estimate the Earth's temperature and sea levels will rise, leading to increased flooding and drastic climate changes. Industrialized nations agreed to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases under a plan agreed in Kyoto, Japan in 1997 but talks in the Hague in November to finalize details broke down.

Scientists have long suspected that carbon dioxide and other waste gases are increasing the trapping of heat close to Earth in what is called a greenhouse effect. In the new study, the researchers compared readings of infrared light from the Earth's surface and found less was escaping into space in 1997, specifically in the wavelengths known to be absorbed by greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and ozone.

Atmospheric scientists not involved in the study said the satellite data provide concrete confirmation that greenhouse gases are building up. Drew Shindell, an atmospheric physicist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said the research should end the debate over the greenhouse effect. "One of the main things that cause people to be skeptical of global warming is the lack of that real, definite connection between greenhouse gases and the planet getting warmer," Shindell said. "This really gives concrete evidence for the first time that greenhouse gases are changing the energy balance of the planet."

A report released in January by an international panel of climate experts predicted global temperatures could rise as much as 10.5 degrees over the next century, primarily because of pollution. American and European environmental officials, however, have not been able to agree on how to implement the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which calls for reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions. And U.S. President Bush has backed away from a campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide from coal-burning power plants, saying mandatory controls would lead to higher electricity prices.

In the British study, the researchers compared data from the Japanese ADEOS satellite, which produced about nine months of data starting in 1996, and NASA's Nimbus 4 satellite between April 1970 and January 1971. Only clear-sky readings of the atmosphere over the central Pacific were compared.

Bantages said the researchers plan to dig deeper into the satellite readings to see if the amount or type of clouds changed substantially between 1970 and 1997. Especially interesting are high cirrus clouds made up mostly of ice crystals. These allow the sun's rays to pass through to the Earth but block the infrared radiation being reflected back into space.






Satellite data reveals rapid Arctic warming

13:16 24 October 03

NewScientist.com news service

A NASA satellite survey of the Arctic has revealed just how rapidly the region is warming. The overall trend of rising temperature over the past 20 years is eight times higher than that recorded by ground measurements over the past century.
The satellite observations are vital because they can cover the whole Arctic, not just the regions accessible to researchers on the surface. The data also shows that summer sea ice cover is continuing its retreat.
"Climate is changing, the Arctic is changing rapidly, and it has significant effects on lower latitudes," said Mark Serreze, of the University of Colorado in Boulder, at a press conference on Thursday.
Climate models predict global warming will have its strongest effects in polar regions, making them a valuable laboratory to understand climate variations, says David Rind, of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

Uneven retreat
Serreze's analysis shows sea ice coverage in 2002 was the lowest in the 20 years of satellite observations. The retreat is uneven, showing up particularly in areas north of Alaska, where temperature data confirms the warming predicted by climate models. It is also consistent with reports that sea ice is growing thinner.
The analysis of Arctic surface temperatures was conducted by Josefino Comiso, of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and reported in the Journal of Climate. His data show that sea-ice temperatures during the summer - the most critical season for ice cover - increased 1.22°C per decade. The annual sea ice trend was smaller, 0.33°C degree per decade.
Although winters have cooled, that effect was more than offset by rising spring, summer and autumn temperatures, which combined to stretch the melt season by between 10 and 17 days. Annual land-surface temperatures increased most over North America - 1.06°C per decade - and rose 0.50°C per decade over Eurasia.

Feedback loop
The retreating summer sea ice has knock-on effects. The exposure of more open water, which absorbs more solar energy than ice, means further warming is likely. More ocean open ocean also means winds can build up stronger waves that are eroding Arctic coasts.
"There are communities in Alaska that are having to move their villages" to escape erosion of low-lying coasts, says Michael Steele, an oceanographer at the University of Washington in Seattle.


One push behind the warming is a natural cycle called the North Atlantic Oscillation. For the past 20 years, it has been stuck in a phase where low pressure over the Arctic is increasing heat transport from middle latitudes.
Part of the effect may be natural, but Serreze adds that there is growing evidence that human-caused changes in greenhouse gas and stratospheric ozone concentrations may shift the oscillation into the Arctic-warming mode.
That is evidence is unlikely to be welcomed by the US Bush Administration, which remains officially sceptical about global warming. But Rind warns the evidence shows rapid change now: "We can't afford to wait long times for technological innovation" to control greenhouse emissions.
Journal reference: Journal of Climate (vol 16, p 3498)

Jeff Hecht


New Scientist (http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994310)

http://www.taivaansusi.net/politiikka/linkola.gif

Put this man in power

Please stop trolling.

I don't think Pronatalist is a real person. More likely some sort of troll-bot.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/...lth/7721956.htm


2003 ties as world's second-hottest year

At 1.03 degrees higher than average, it seemed to continue a trend toward global warming.
By Seth Borenstein
Inquirer Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - It's cold comfort to people shivering in much of the United States right now, but 2003 tied for the world's second-hottest year, according to federal government data released yesterday.
The world's average temperature last year was 58.03 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. That's 1.03 degrees warmer than the 124-year world average.

The United States fared a bit better than many other countries in 2003. Americans experienced only the 20th-hottest year on record last year, with an average temperature of 53.7 degrees. That was nine-tenths of a degree warmer than normal.

Going into December, it looked as though 2003 would rank only as the world's third-hottest year, but a toasty final month tied the year with 2002 for second place since record-keeping began Jan. 1, 1880, said Jay Lawrimore, the global data center's climate monitoring chief. The hottest year was 1998, with an average temperature of 58.14.
The five hottest years on record all have occurred since 1997, and the 10 hottest since 1990. It has been 221 months since the world recorded a colder-than-normal month.

The consensus of most climate scientists is that the world is warming and will continue to get hotter because gases emitted from burning fossil fuels, such as coal and gasoline, are trapping heat from the sun.
Global temperatures increased 1 degree in the 20th century and probably will increase 2 to 10 more degrees by 2100, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group that includes many of the world's leading weather experts, predicted in 2001.

"Mother Nature keeps reminding us that [global warming] is going on," said Kevin Trenberth, the head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "The evidence never really comes out to contradict it, even though the man on the street says, 'It's bloody freezing out here.' "

Global warming may be playing a role in Americans' sense that January has been especially cold, Trenberth and Lawrimore said. Because winters have been milder in the 1990s and 2000s, cold snaps feel colder, as people are unaccustomed to them, they said.

[QUOTE=David Mayes]http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/...lth/7721956.htm

That's 1.03 degrees warmer than the 124-year world average.

I think you are missing a fundamental part of this equation in this entire thread and that is the problem of scale.

First, the earth is 4.6 billion years old. In that time, it has experienced some colossal changes both internal and external. Humans have only been a miniscule part of the earth's history. In fact if you were to put the entire earth history into a year, humans enter the picture on December 31 at 11:58. We are a mere blip to this ever evolving earth. And a 124-year trend would barely register in the long term. Let's not look at this using the human life span as a benchmark. It's at least an order of magnitude off the mark. Let's talk about 100,000 year and 1 million year trends.

Carbon Dioxide levels are on the rise and this is well documented. I don't think anyone can separate the human impact from the natural fluctation of atmospheric chemistry. At present I believe CO2 is somewhere near 300 ppm. During the Cretaceous (65 million years ago) period CO2 was at 3000 ppm, there were no ice caps but abundant life on land and in the ocean. Rising CO2 levels are not necessarily catastrophic. For example, more CO2 means happier grass and plants.

During the Cretaceous (65 million years ago) period CO2 was at 3000 ppm, there were no ice caps but abundant life on land and in the ocean.

Yeahhh, I wonder if this life adapted to it's environment, if this life developed with what was chemically present in the air at that time.

Rising CO2 levels are not necessarily catastrophic. For example, more CO2 means happier grass and plants.

No it doesn't TROLL.
Sorry, but your attempt to look knowledegable/intelligent has failed dismally.

It's the economy stupid.
It's the rate stupid.

Your treading on a VERY fine line Mr David Mayes. Read it: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=17461

Yeahhh, I wonder if this life adapted to it's environment, if this life developed with what was chemically present in the air at that time.



No it doesn't TROLL.
Sorry, but your attempt to look knowledegable/intelligent has failed dismally.

It's the economy stupid.
It's the rate stupid.

First, all life adapts to it's environment. It's how species evolve. The atmosphere was no different then than it is now with the exception of the CO2 levels. The atmosphere has changed very little in the past 3.8 billion years.

Secondly, I am not trolling. I was hoping to have an intelligent discussion about something I know a great deal about - geology. Obviously my search for intelligent life needs to take place elsewhere.

Try and tell me this is the warmest year ever when right now its 6 degrees farenheit outside with a 15 degree windchill. And last week I had 3 snowdays, the first 3 in two years. Did I forget to mention the -25 degree weather in the northern Midwest?


Later
T

Post all the studies that you want... The fact remains that we definitley have not been around long enough to come to a formal conclusion as to whats happening... We can not ever predict the weather all that well. I mean, a century of watching the skies....ok... but there is still room for randomness.... Even some new physicists are challenging that the speed of light is not a constant....

Secondly, I am not trolling. I was hoping to have an intelligent discussion about something I know a great deal about - geology. Obviously my search for intelligent life needs to take place elsewhere.
Princess, don't waste your time with David. When you consider the level of scientific arguments he uses (see the thread "Is global warming and environmental concer?) you will stop losing your time with David Mayes, because he claims to be GODLIKE, and have an UNDISPUTED Greenhouse Gases theory - that has not been able to explain.

Go to other more interesting threads, or create a new one, especially if you have knowledge in geology, that would make an interesting debate. An example: "Is petroleum a "fossil fuel?". How was it formed, and why it keeps forming?

But please, avoid David Mayes as the Black Plague

To add to the confusion, some scientists predict that the first stages of global warming could actually induce local ice-ages in parts of the world as the gulf-stream heat turbine is shut down due to melting polar galciers lowering the salinety of seawater, preventing the transport of warm equatorial water towards the north and south.

this has happened in the past. The fact that you experience very cold winter right now in the USA and Canada might actually be a sign of global warming! But it sure doesn't feel like it :D

If man induced global warming is of real significance (wich is still disputed, as we can see in this clash of the titans thread) than parts of countries with a land climate , like siberia would profit from the global warming, but coastal areas, living by the grace of the gulfstream, ireland, the USA east-coast could be screwed by Mr. Freeze, wich in turn would lead to increased fossile fuel use to keep your hands warm.

Vortexx, that the warming of the entire planet might cause deep cold spells and polar waves is like <b>cooling your favourite beer ... in the oven.</b> Or making water boil in a pan for getting ice cubes for your whisley.

The notion of "global warming" being able to provoke deep cold waves and freezing temperatures is the result of Mother Nature not wanting to cooperate with climate computerized models. "Scientists" then resorted to this outlandish (and last try) to keep scaring poor people into believing the warming will be catastrophic.

They have not explained the mechanism for these cold spells or why warm temps can bring cold temps. And the scare of the Gulf Stream shutting down has also been disproved. Scares are disappearing in these cold days...

We have taken hundreds of temperature charts from all over the world (rural areas, and some cities too), plotted the trends, and found that only about 10% of the records show a natural warming trend (about 0.5º C to 1º C, well within natural variances).

About 35% of the records show no warming at all, and about 55% show a significant cooling trend. So there must be some mysterious records - not available for us, and used only by the IPCC - that must necessarilly show a terrible warming (more than 10º C) in order to compensate all those hundreds (thousands?) of stations that show a cooling trend, or simply, no trend at all.

I will post some of those graphs, and the list of stations already plotted.

2003 third warmest year yet as global warming continues

"In France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Britain and Spain, there
were an estimated 21,000 deaths linked to this heatwave, so it was really
something exceptional," Jarraud told journalists.


Most of those deaths ocurred in France. France does not provide air conditioning in retirement homes, hospitals, or nursing homes. During August, the month that most of the deaths ocurred, the majority of young people who normally care for the elderly go away on holiday (Paris is mostly closed and deserted at this time.) Smoking is rampant in France and is the direct cause of most respiratory diseases. So to recap, there was a heat wave, and a lot of sick elderly smokers died due in part to their own lifestyle, and also because the younger generation was unprepared and or unwilling to properly support the elderly. So do not go and throw this statistic around, it is bunk. A lot of elderly would also die in the USA in Florida if they did not have air conditioning etc. Here we see how France failed to care for their elderly. I suspect that French politicians are trying to spin the losses of onto GW. Go figure, they have to get reelected.
I agree that GW is ocurring, BTW, I just disagree as to exactly how much we are causing and what we can do to better our situation. I disagree on spending any money until we know that data (we should fund a lot more climate research.)
Finally, just look at the time window you provided, from around 1960-2000. Too narrow. Climate change occurs over hundreds and thousands of years. if you look at the long term trend, the warming looks a lot less like human caused. Recent discoveries regarding the sun and how it actually cycles the amount of energy it puts out fills a large gap in the GW mystery, lending less credbility to a large human influence. Further, a medium sized volcanic eruption places more greenhouse gasses and particulates into the atmosphere than humanity can produce in decades. So the issue is not clear at all, and admittedly extremely complex.

Quasi, the French incident had other causes besides global warming, but it is the warming trend that was the "straw on the camel's back". This is only one example of situations around the world that exist at a tipping point, where the influence of one factor among many makes the difference between life and death. Look at Africa, for instance, drought caused by lack of rain leads to refugees, which leads to political unrest, which leads to the neglect of other problems like AIDS. There are many situations around the world like this, subject to cascading and unpredictable effects. The earth will survive, life will survive, but human societies will suffer. We are more dependent on climate than most people think, just look at how important the weather report is on TV. Wait until the Atlantic Ocean freezes over, then there will be no more doubt something significant is happening. The upper atmosphere is already thinning, causing satellites to slow down at a slower rate than 10 years ago. The human influence must be significant, there is simply no way we can change the earth and atmosphere as much as we have without any effect whatsoever!

First, when discussing GW, you have to look at trends of over 500 years, preferably the longest possible data set. I contend that last summer was a statistical outlier, just as gamblers have winning streaks. It happens, especially in an extremely complex chaotic system such as the climate. I also continue to contend that the deaths were the direct result of a) The vacation culture of France and their unwillingness to protect the elderly, and b) The choice of those who died to smoke tobacco cigarettes. Further, spending large amounts of money to extend the lives of elderly smokers is probably a waste of public health dollars. People freely choose to smoke, so they should accept responsibility. If families want to install air conditioners for their grandparents so be it. Oh, I forgot, they went on vacation for the entire month of August.
As for Africa? What a mess. There are many problems, most of them social which is directly linked to education and their poor economy. Many natural resources are only benefitting a handful of dictators, as opposed to using the funds to improve their society. Although there is enough food to feed everyone on the planet, and food supply is increasing, malnutrition is the undisputed number one cause of death of human beings (by a huge margin.) Poor sanitation, lack of clean drinking water can be said to be the second direct cause. Underlying this is economic, educational, and apathy towards corruption. To further muddy the waters, religious groups are forbidding the use of contraceptives to halt the spread of HIV infection. Big problems, no easy solutions, and money alone will do nothing. Maybe our governments can focus on that for a while instead of silly, irrelevant issues like a constitutional ban on gay marriage in Massachusetts? How selfish, how stupid that the only thing the big three religions can agree on is that homosexuals should not be allowed to have a civil, non religious marriage, when religious zealots are butchering unarmed women and children in the streets. Apparently that is not a "crisis," but two gay men who might even have adopted children should not be allowed to be married. What a world we live in.

Beware the profits of doom.

There are those that fear change and those that embrace it.

How about embracing our new artificial world.. We have done very well so far and it would be suicide for us to stop our rampage. Remember, our world will die no matter what we do.

I say bring it on. We are human and we will survive.

Beware the profits of doom.

There are those that fear change and those that embrace it.

How about embracing our new artificial world.. We have done very well so far and it would be suicide for us to stop our rampage. Remember, our world will die no matter what we do.

I say bring it on. We are human and we will survive.

Are you implying that humans are not natural, and that therefore what we do is somehow artificial? How did we get here then? Also, the environment is improving across the board. Please elaborate.

I say bring it on. We are human and we will survive.

I'm no fan of the global warming gloom and doom rhetoric, but I beg to differ with the above statement. The fossil record is littered with speicies who could not adapt to changing environments (whether it be cooling or warming). We are much less adaptable than all those other species due to our current lifestyle. When is the last time you relied on hunting and gathering techniques for providing a meal? Can you build your own shelter out of trees and leaves? Most of us (myself included) wouldn't know how to survive without the comforts of modern society. There are literally millions of species who have failed to survive climate changes and they weren't nearly as pampered as humans.

In a species versus nature battle, nature always wins. If someone can name an advanced species that has fought the battle of a changing Earth and won, I'd like to hear about it.

Are you implying that humans are not natural, and that therefore what we do is somehow artificial?You have missed the point. Artificial means: Made by humans. It does not mean humans are unnatural.
the environment is improving across the board. It depends on your definition of improving. I prefer to say the environment is changing, as it has done, is doing, and will continue to do till there is no world.
When is the last time you relied on hunting and gathering techniques for providing a meal? Can you build your own shelter out of trees and leaves? Most of us (myself included) wouldn't know how to survive without the comforts of modern society.We are social animals with (as far as we know) the most advanced culture in the history of the universe. Its true humans find it hard to survive on their own. No one would leave a baby alone in the wilderness, even for a few hours yet, that baby requires at least 7 years help to survive, even in the richest environments.
We developed our culture to counter our individual weakness. This collaborative power gives us the ability to live and thrive in about every environment the Earth has to offer.
If someone can name an advanced species that has fought the battle of a changing Earth and wonHumans have. Ice ages, hot periods, massive environmental cataclysms that have destroyed uncounted species, we take it in our stride and continue to grow. We live in deserts were there was once rainforest. We live on land were there was once ocean.

As long as we have a source of power we will survive. Hands up any species that has learnt how to use fire. We are unlike anything that has ever lived and to use the past to predict the future is a mistake.

Human instinct. Elaborately polished with culture, to survive at all costs.

yup, and last but not least the collaborative power to PREVENT disasters like global warming, maybe not bring it on, but leave it alone?

Sorry Vortexx, but "disasters" like global warming <b>cannot be prevented.</b> It is like preventing the Tambora or Krakatoa from erupting, or the El Niño from occurring every four to seven years.

Mankind is not powerful enough as to fight geological forces. We should focus on real everyday problems, more at reach as famines, and misery in developing countries -instead of losing time and resources in imaginary climatic dangers.

Yes the planet is getting warmer but when the earth has gone throught ice ages and catastrophies great enough to wipe out life of an entire era, it is hard to believe that humans are having any lasting effect on the earths natural cycle of cooling and warming. when a volcano errupts it spues more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than an entire industrialized does in a year.

Contrary to the global warmers' computer predictions, the concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the most important among the man-made greenhouse gases, were out of phase with the changes of near-surface air temperature, both recently and in the distant past. This is clearly seen in Antarctic and Greenland ice cores, where high CO2 concentrations in air bubbles preserved in polar ice appear 1,000 to 13,000 years after a change in the isotopic composition of H2O, signaling the warming of the atmosphere. <font size=1> (Z. Jaworowski, T.V. Segalstad, and N. Ono, 1992. “Do Glaciers Tell a True Atmospheric CO2 Story?” The Science of the Total Environment, Vol. 114, pp. 227-284.)</font>
<p>
This simply means that CO2 increase lags the temperature increase by 600 to 800 years, according to some studies, <font size=1> (E. Monnin et al., CO2 Atmospheric Concentrations During the Last Glacial Termination, <i>Science</i> in http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/291/5501/112#F1 )</font> and other say from 1000 to 13.000 years, depending of periods and eras. But one thing is for sure: <b>temperature increases causes the CO2 levels to go up, not the reverse</b>, as the IPCC and its cohorts of warmers claim. See graph by Monnin et al:
<p><center>
<img src=http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol291/issue5501/images/large/se4909065001.jpeg width=500>
</center><p>
In ancient times, the CO2 concentration in the air has been significantly higher than today, with no dramatic impact on the temperature. in the Eocene period (50 million years ago), this concentration was 6 times larger than now, but the temperature was only 1.5º C higher. In the Cretaceous period (90 million years ago), the CO2 concentration was 7 times higher than today, and in the Carboniferous period (340 million years ago), the CO2 concentration was nearly 12 times higher. <font size=1>(C.J. Yapp, and H. Poths, 1992. “Ancient Atmospheric CO2 Pressures Inferred from Natural Geothites,” Nature, Vol. 355, No. 23 (Jan.) pp. 342-344.)</font>
<p>
When the CO2 concentration was 18 times higher, 440 million years ago (during the Ordovician period), glaciers existed on the continents of both hemispheres. At the end of the 19th Century, the amount of CO2 discharged into the atmosphere by world industry was 13 times smaller than now. <font size=1>(T.A. Boden, P. Kanciruk, and M.P. Farrel, 1990. TRENDS '90: A Compendium of Data on Global Change (Oak Ridge, Tenn.: Oak Ridge National Laboratory), pp. 1-257)</font>
<p>
But the climate at that time had warmed up, as a result of natural causes, emerging from the 500-year-long Little Ice Age, which prevailed approximately from 1350 to 1880. This was not a regional European phenomenon, but extended throughout the whole Earth. <font size=1>(W. Soon, and S. Baliunas, 2003. “Proxy Climatic and Environmental Changes of the Past 1,000 Years,” Climate Research, Vol. 23, pp. 89-110.)</font>
<p>

>> They have not explained the mechanism for these cold spells or why warm temps can bring cold temps.>>


Just in case people do not realise

Over 700 million gallons of oil is estimated to be released into the environment per year.
http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/peril_oil_pollution.html

Over 1 billion gallons of oil has been spilled over the last 10 years.
The amount of petroleum products ending up in the ocean is estimated at 0.25% of world production, about 6 million tons per year. Oil spills account for only about five percent of the oil entering the oceans. The Coast Guard estimates that for United States waters sewage treatment plants discharge twice as much oil each year as tanker spills.
http://alsocup.homestead.com/AlsocupAbsorbentsOilFaxTheNeed.html

The above works out to be something like 16,500 tons of oil a day spilled onto the surface of the oceans.

So what effect does oil on water have on the environment.

Oiled water causes two major environmental effects :-

Oilly water does not drag on the movement of air as much as clean water. The wave height at sea is reduced and therefore the wind speed can correspondingly increase.

Oil on water reduces evaporation of sea water, with the consequent reduction in cloud mass, and therefore rain fall... What will be seen re the temperature is a wider range from max to min... as the air get dryer, the temperature spread becomes more 'desert like'.

This layer of oil was first noted back in the 1930's, identified as pertoleum oil.. by the micro layer marine bilogists..... the oil layer is ubiquitous.

The oil is coming from sunken oil tankers, it is draining from cities into all the rivers, it is falling out of the sky from industry, cars....

What will come of it??? -----> ice age!!!!


>> In ancient times, the CO2 concentration in the air has been significantly higher than today, with no dramatic impact on the temperature

Quite right Edufer, in the beginning the Earth started as a hot bed of noxious gases, H2S, CH4, NH3, CO2, etc...... LIFE came, and it made water and detoxified the environment, and from then on there was temperature stability
Water is the moderator here, clouds, and humidity keep/have kept the average temperature of the surface of the Earth reasonably constant.

I wonder how much oil has been seeping into the ocean through thousands of cracks in the Earth's crust in seabeds, deep in the oceans. As there are submarine volcanoes, there are also natural oil seepings from the crust. Oil was surfacing the Earth since the beginnig of history, (Greeks and ancient peoples used it as fuel for their lamps, and more recently, oil ruined crops in Oklahoma back in the 1850s, when it surfaced by itself). It then started the whole thing.

I think the amount of oil spilled in the ocean is neglible - compared with the vast amounts of water in the oceans. And don't forget that oil, as any organic substance, is degraded naturally by bacteria or other processes in nature. It will take longer than a piece of paper or a banana piel, but it finally degrades.

Another observation: it was known among the sail ship sailors - back in the 1800s - that dumping oil (whale oil, then) in leeward (where the wind is not blowing) used to calm down waters and facilitate boarding the ship in rough waters. But I guess that for making the same efffect on huge tracts of oceans, we'd need an absurd amount of oil for achieving the same effect.

The same effect of spreading oily sustances on water was used to fight mosquitoes, back in history, until the greens found that wetlands were abnormally important and prohibited the sue of kerosene for fighting the pest. The oil on the water didn´t last very long, but was enough to stop the mosquito larvae from breathing. What cleared the oil, kerosene, etc, from the surface? I don`t know, but lakes and ponds were clean againg on the next day.

We must keep a sense of proportion and measures. The world is huge. Internet makes it look small, but nevertheless, internet will not make distances smaller if you are a survivor in a plane crash in the Sahara desert, and you must walk back home...

Compared with Earth, we are microscopic, just nothing. Just miserable fleas lost in the mattress of ignorance.

It is late in the night (or early in the morning?) down here, and I have to hit the sack. Bye now.

Check out this story.....

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/climate-04g.html

Well the oil spill released today is over and above natural seepage... consequences ???

The link to: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/climate-04g.html provided an article from which I have extracted the following:

<dir><font color=blue>Atmospheric Water Clusters Provide Evidence Of Global Warming

“The greenhouse effect is caused by molecules that absorb infrared radiation released from the Earth's surface, trapping heat in the atmosphere. Water acts as a greenhouse gas because it is one of the molecules that can absorb infrared radiation and cause warming.”

"The prediction that higher order water clusters (trimers, tetramers, and pentamers) are present in the atmosphere is significant because it shows that these entities must be considered as key players in atmospheric processes." </font></dir>
Something that has been known by scientists from long time ago, is that the most important among ”greenhouse gases” is <b>water vapor</b>, which is responsible for about <b><font color=red>96 to 99 percent of the greenhouse effect.</font></b> Among the other greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, CFCs, N2O, and O2), the most important is CO2, <b><font color=red>which contributes only 3 percent to the total greenhouse effect.</font></b> The man-made CO2 contribution to this effect may be <b><font color=red>about 0,05 to 0,25 percent.</font></b>

Water vapor makes clouds, which are perhaps the most important factor of climate control. Clouds act as climatic thermostats, and cloud formation is governed primarily by cosmic radiation. The quantity of cosmic radiation coming to the Earth from our galaxy and from deep space is controlled by changes in the so-called solar wind. It is created by hot plasma ejected from the solar corona to the distance of many solar diameters, carrying ionized particles and magnetic field lines. Solar wind, rushing toward the limits of the Solar System, drives galactic rays away from the Earth and makes them weaker. When the solar wind gets stronger, less cosmic radiation reaches us from space, not so many clouds are formed and it gets warmer. <b>When the solar wind abates, the Earth becomes cooler.</b>

Thus, the Sun opens and closes a climate-controlling umbrella of clouds over our heads. Only in recent years have astrophysicists and physicists specializing in atmosphere research studied these phenomena and their mechanisms, in the attempt to understand them better. Perhaps, same day, we will learn to govern the clouds.

The Hamilton team's findings were published in the March 3 issue of the <i>Journal of the American Chemical Society</i>, what should make us suspicious about why has this been “republished” in February 18, 2004, as an evidence of global warming. There is <b><font color=red>no need to insist on global warming</font></B> – we know and all scientists agree on that Earth’s temperature has increased due to a rebound from the Little Ice Age, <b><font color=red>an age that has not been left behind yet</font></b>. We are still to reach the level of 1,5º C higher than today, the same temperatures that existed on Earth for 300 years during the <b>Medieval Warm Period </b>or, as scientists used to call it, <b>The Small Climatic Optimum</b>. Because they deemed those temperatures to be the best for all living matter, as they produced the best conditions on Earth for species survival.

Warming is not in doubt – what’s in doubt are the amount of warming predicted, and the extent and quality of the envisioned consequences – catastrophic, or highly beneficial, or simply none.

But the sinking of the Kyoto Protocol last December in Milan, has caused an explosion of hysterical propaganda in order to put pressure on governments for ratifying the infamous treaty. We have seen that with the unbelievable clumsy story of the “Pentagon Report” published by the British <b>The Observer</b> and <b>The Guardian</b> – clear examples of yellow press. What came out of the story now is that:

(1) There is no such “pentagon Report”,
(2) The story was not kept hidden for 4 months – it was published by Fortune magazine almost a month before The Observer “got it”.
(3) The story was written by two “science fiction” writers (one of the Peter Schwartz wrote the script for the film “War games”, where a kid got inside the ballistic missile control computer.
(4) An aging (82 years-old) adviser in the Defense Dept., Andrew Marshall (he is still permitted to play around with phones, Xerox machines, and computers in his little office at the Pentagon) asked Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall for a scary story for himself. He later sent it to <b>The Observer</b> as if it <b>had been suppressed by the Pentagon</b>, giving the tip to Greenpeace and other lunatics of the kind.

And now people believe that the <b>whole Pentagon</b> has warned Bush about the impending disaster of climate change, and he better ratify the treaty or else. People really believe that the <b><font color=red>science fiction story has scientific validity</font></b>. People believe it can happen in 20 years, in spite that the authors clearly state in their disclaimers and caveats, that <b><font color=red>their report is a work of fantasy, and it has not a single possibility of becoming real.</font></b>

If this is not a dishonest manipulation of the press, <b><font color=red>in order to fool and cheat on people with false information</font></b>, then what is?

Well the oil spill released today is over and above natural seepage... consequences ???How have you (or someone) determined what natural oil seepages are? Is there a worldwide survey on this subject? We may know the amount of oil spilled by tankers, and other sources of oil contribution to oceans. But how can we determine nature`s contribution?

Consequences? Who knows? I think nobody can tell for sure - they can design any kind of scary scenarios, but when it comes to scientific basis, most beautiful theories fail to prove themselves right - as the case of catastrophic climate change, or ozone depletion.

Hi Edufer

>> How have you (or someone) determined what natural oil seepages are? >>>

Nobody does know, analytical records only go back so far (1930), so at best guess, we have to assume natural seepage is a background constant. We do know we are adding to this layer of oil. Half life for this oil is from 100 days to many years.

>> Is there a worldwide survey on this subject? >>>

There basically has been no investigation of this subject, as far as my researches have shown.
If it is significant ( as I am sure it is) then the politics of oil, will surely suppress any work in thiis area.

I suppose we will just have to wait for the consequences.... but "global warming" and the "greenhouse effect" are definite myths. I agree solar influences have a precipitating effect, but the serverity of what we feel is dependent upon the initial conditions. I expect this layer of oil is setting the initial conditions, and setting them definately not in the favour of evaporated water.

I expect such consequences such as El Nino to become more severe.

As for "ordinary weather", I expect it to become more extreme.

:)

It is a sad thing that the moderator chose to erase all offending posts by David Mayes. Tristan, you should remember that <b>"Stick and stones may break your bones, but words will never harm you..."</b> (or something like that).

I have never taken offense from personal attacks by David Mayes - sometimes I just lost my patience with his unbelievable distorted way of reasoning, and presenting non proved data as real accepted facts.

I'll surely miss David and his weird way of trying to make a point.

I have invited (challenged) a character by the name of Sore Throat, to keep discussing the issue of global warming in this thread and forum. I am doing it, because I have been banned/censored from that thread because his theory of global warming was falling in pieces, and his authority in that forum was jeopardized.

He is a believer of the "chemtrails" matter (planes spraying substances over the USA to control global warming). I don't think he will have the guts to come to a scientific forum to expose his arguments - but, who knows? I might be wrong, after all.

I suggest that people in this forum pay a short visit at the forum I was participating, and see the level of the science being presented there:

http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb/Forum14/HTML/000094-10.html

What a load of rubbish. I don't think we'll see any of those fellows over here. I'm sure they'd rather stay in their little incestous world where their nonsense is rarely challenged. They would be restricted to the pseudoscsince forum anyway, and I don't waste my time there.

Mind you, while I don't unhesitatingly accept global warming theory, I'm certainly not a confident sceptic.

I feel that one issues like these, you need to view the opinions like a pontillist painting. When a consensus emerges from qualified scientists, it is probably correct. But climate is a very complicated issue, so there is always the possibility of error.

When a consensus emerges from qualified scientists, it is probably correct.
You are right, Repo man, but consensus is difficult to determine as real if you are counting people raising their hands in a “church.“ By “church” I mean that all Christians will reach a consensus that they are on the true religion, Muslims will reach a similar consensus in their mosques, Jews in their synagogues, and so on.

The consensus mentioned by the IPCC and the followers of the catastrophic global warming theory, is their own consensus – not the consensus of the scientific community. The disagreement among scientists in this issue is so big, that you could say there are about five or six “schools of thought” on Earth’s climate.

But the overwhelming consensus in the scientific community is <b>“we don’t know enough about climatic science as to be able to make accurate predictions on climate change”. </b>

And when you don’t know enough about something, you cannot jump into conclusions as fast and as steadfastly – and arrogantly - as the IPCC and its cohort of scientists worried with their jobs making handsomely paid climatic research. Did you know that the US spends more than 4 Billion dollars a year in this kind of useless research? Don’t you think that kind of money would be better spent in education or opening jobs for the unemployed?

Edufer states:I have invited (challenged) a character by the name of Sore Throat, to keep discussing the issue of global warming in this thread and forum. I am doing it, because I have been banned/censored from that thread because his theory of global warming was falling in pieces, and his authority in that forum was jeopardized.

He is a believer of the "chemtrails" matter (planes spraying substances over the USA to control global warming). I don't think he will have the guts to come to a scientific forum to expose his arguments - but, who knows? I might be wrong, after all.

I suggest that people in this forum pay a short visit at the forum I was participating, and see the level of the science being presented there:

http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb.../000094-10.html

I too encourage readers to visit the thread "Anthropogenic Induced Climate Instability" at:

http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb/Forum14/HTML/000094.html

A reasonable indicator of accelerating changes in global climate can easily be seen in the melting of the world's glaciers and permafrost.

I'd be interested in seeing if Edufer will again tak the position of "65% of glaciers advancing in the world."

http://www.chemtrailcentral.com/ubb/Forum14/HTML/000084.html


To that I would counter:

http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update32.htm
Glaciers and Sea Ice Endangered by Rising Temperatures

Janet Larsen

By 2020, the snows of Kilimanjaro may exist only in old photographs. The glaciers in Montana's Glacier National Park could disappear by 2030. And by mid-century, the Arctic Sea may be completely ice-free during summertime. As the earth's temperature has risen in recent decades, the earth's ice cover has begun to melt. And that melting is accelerating.

In both 2002 and 2003, the Northern Hemisphere registered record-low sea ice cover. New satellite data show the Arctic region warming more during the 1990s than during the 1980s, with Arctic Sea ice now melting by up to 15 percent per decade. The long-sought Northwest Passage, a dream of early explorers, could become our nightmare. The loss of Arctic Sea ice could alter ocean circulation patterns and trigger changes in global climate patterns.

On the opposite end of the globe, Southern Ocean sea ice floating near Antarctica has shrunk by some 20 percent since 1950. This unprecedented melting of sea ice corroborates records showing that the regional air temperature has increased by 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1950.

Antarctic ice shelves that existed for thousands of years are crumbling. One of the world's largest icebergs, named B-15, that measured near 10,000 square kilometers (4,000 square miles) or half the size of New Jersey, calved off the Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000. In May 2002, the shelf lost another section measuring 31 kilometers (19 miles) wide and 200 kilometers (124 miles) long.

Elsewhere on Antarctica, the Larsen Ice Shelf has largely disintegrated within the last decade, shrinking to 40 percent of its previously stable size. Following the break-off of the Larsen A section in 1995 and the collapse of Larsen B in early 2002, melting of the nearby land-based glaciers that the ice shelves once supported has more than doubled.

Unlike the melting of sea ice or the floating ice shelves along coasts, the melting of ice on land raises sea level. Recent studies showing the worldwide acceleration of glacier melting indicate that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's estimate for sea level rise this century—ranging from 0.1 meters to 0.9 meters—will need to be revised upwards. (See table of selected examples of ice melt from around the world.)
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update32_data.htm

On Greenland, an ice-covered island three times the size of Texas, once-stable glaciers are now melting at a quickening rate. The Jakobshavn Glacier on the island's southwest coast, which is one of the major drainage outlets from the interior ice sheet, is now thinning four times faster than during most of the twentieth century. Each year Greenland loses some 51 cubic kilometers of ice, enough to annually raise sea level 0.13 millimeters. Were Greenland's entire ice sheet to melt, global sea level could rise by a startling 7 meters (23 feet), inundating most of the world's coastal cities.

The Himalayas contain the world's third largest ice mass after Antarctica and Greenland. Most Himalayan glaciers have been thinning and retreating over the past 30 years, with losses accelerating to alarming levels in the past decade. On Mount Everest, the glacier that ended at the historic base camp of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first humans to reach the summit, has retreated 5 kilometers (3 miles) since their 1953 ascent. Glaciers in Bhutan are retreating at an average rate of 30—40 meters a year. A similar situation is found in Nepal.

As the glaciers melt they are rapidly filling glacial lakes, creating a flood risk. An international team of scientists has warned that with current melt rates, at least 44 glacial lakes in the Himalayas could burst their banks in as little as five years.

Glaciers themselves store vast quantities of water. More than half of the world's population relies on water that originates in mountains, coming from rainfall runoff or ice melt. In some areas glaciers help sustain a constant water supply; in others, meltwater from glaciers is a primary water source during the dry season. In the short term, accelerated melting means that more water feeds rivers. Yet as glaciers disappear, dry season river flow declines.

The Himalayan glaciers feed the seven major rivers of Asia—the Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Salween, Mekong, Yangtze, and Huang He (Yellow)—and thus contribute to the year-round water supply of a vast population. In India alone, some 500 million people, including those in New Delhi and Calcutta, depend on glacier meltwater that feeds into the Ganges River system. Glaciers in Central Asia's Tien Shan Mountains have shrunk by nearly 30 percent between 1955 and 1990. In arid western China, shrinking glaciers account for at least 10 percent of freshwater supplies.

The largest aggregation of tropical glaciers is in the northern Andes. The retreat of the Qori Kalis Glacier on the west side of the Quelccaya Ice Cap that stretches across Peru has accelerated to 155 meters a year between 1998 and 2000—three times faster than during the previous three-year period. The entire ice cap could vanish over the next two decades.

The Antizana Glacier, which provides Quito, Ecuador, with almost half its water, has retreated more than 90 meters over the last eight years. The Chacaltaya Glacier near La Paz, Bolivia, melted to 7 percent of its 1940s volume by 1998. It could disappear entirely by the end of this decade, depriving the 1.5 million people in La Paz and the nearby city of Alto of an important source of water and power.

Africa's glaciers are also disappearing. Across the continent, mountain glaciers have shrunk to one third their size over the twentieth century. On Tanzania's Kilimanjaro, ice cover has shrunk by more than 33 percent since 1989. By 2020 it could be completely gone.

In Western Europe, glacial area has shrunk by up to 40 percent and glacial volume by more than half since 1850. If temperatures continue to rise at recent rates, major sections of glaciers covering the Alps and the French and Spanish Pyrenees could be gone in the next few decades. During the record-high temperature summer of 2003, some Swiss glaciers retreated by an unprecedented 150 meters. The United Nations Environment Programme is warning that for this region long associated with ice and snow, warming temperatures signify the demise of a popular ski industry, not to mention a cultural identity.

Boundaries around Banff, Yoho, and Jasper National Parks in the Canadian Rockies cannot stop the melting of the glaciers there. Glacier National Park in Montana has lost over two thirds of its glaciers since 1850. If temperatures continue to rise, it may lose the remainder by 2030.

In just the past 30 years, the average temperature in Alaska climbed more than 3 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit)—easily four times the global increase. Glaciers in all of Alaska's 11 glaciated mountain ranges are shrinking. Since the mid-1990s, Alaskan glaciers have been thinning by 1.8 meters a year, more than three times as fast as during the preceding 40 years.

The global average temperature has climbed by 0.6 degrees Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit) in the past 25 years. Over this time period, melting of sea ice and mountain glaciers has increased dramatically. During this century, global temperature may rise between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius, and melting will accelerate further. Just how much will depend in part on the energy policy choices made today.


Be sure to look at the table,

SELECTED EXAMPLES OF ICE MELT AROUND THE WORLD
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update32_data.htm


********************************************

From Other Sources


Mark A.J. Curran, et al., "Ice Core Evidence for Antarctic Sea Ice Decline Since the 1950s," Science, vol. 302 (14 November 2003), pp. 1203-06.

De Angelis and Skvarca, "Glacier Surge After Ice Shelf Collapse," Science, vol. 299 (7 March 2003).

Mark B. Dyurgerov and Mark F. Meier, "Twentieth Century Climate Change: Evidence from Small Glaciers," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 97, no. 4 (15 February 2000), 1406-11.

Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Earth Sciences Directorate, "Global Temperature Anomalies in .01 C," http://www.giss.nasa.gov/data, updated January 2001.

IPCC, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis; Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability; and Mitigation. Contributions of Working Group I, II, and III to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press). Text and summaries of each report available at http://www.ipcc.ch.

W. Krabill et al., "Greenland Ice Sheet: High Elevation Balance and Peripheral Thinning," Science, vol. 289 (21 July 2000), pp. 428-30.

Thomas V. Lowell, "As Climate Changes, So Do Glaciers," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 97, no. 4 (15 February 2000), 1351-54.

M.C. Serreze, et al., "A Record Minimum Arctic Sea Ice Extent and Area in 2002," Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 30, no. 3 (2003), pp. 1110-14.

Lars H. Smedsrud and Tore Furevik, "Towards an Ice-Free Arctic?" Cicerone 2/2000.

Lonnie G. Thompson, et al., "Kilimanjaro Ice Core Records: Evidence of Holocene Climate Change in Tropical Africa," Science, vol. 298 (18 October 2002), pp. 589-93

WWF, "Going, Going, Gone!: Climate Change and Global Glacier Decline," news report, 27 November 2003.

LINKS

Global Land Ice Measurements from Space http://www.GLIMS.org

Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado http://instaar.colorado.edu

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change http://www.ipcc.ch

National Snow and Ice Data Center http://www-nsidc.colorado.edu

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change http://www.unfccc.de

World Glacier Inventory http://nsidc.org/data/glacier
_inventory/index.html

World Glacier Monitoring Service http://www.geo.unizh.ch/wgms

Worldwatch Institute Climate Resource Center http://www.worldwatch.org
/topics/energy/climate

**********************************************

It should be noted that Edufer is a proud supporter of the infamous "Global Warming Petition", which states

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth. "

I'll be quite interested in the caliber of discussion at this particular forum.

I think it would be fine for this discussion to continue. I just hope that the ad hominem attacks can be kept to a minimum, or avoided altogether.

Edufer, the IPCC may very well have an agenda. But as I stated a long time ago in this thread, many of the scientists who are on the other side of the issue are funded directly or indirectly by the fossil fuel corporations. Their objectivity is rather questionable as well.

At times it is like listening to the defense and the prosecution in a trial. They may both exaggerate their case in order to convince a jury. They will both present facts that help their client, and leave out ones that do not.

At this time, I think the evidence for a warming climate is convincing. What is less clear is whether it is caused by humans in any significant way, or at all.

Repo Man, you are absolutely right. I don’t think there is someone among the ‘warming skeptics’ that denies the warming Earth has been experiencing since the Little Ice Age of the 1400s through 1700s. What ‘skeptics’ are against is:

1) the catastrophic magnitude of the warming;
2) that is human induced;
3) that the 20th century was the warmest in a millennium,
4) that increasing CO2 levels are to blame; and
5) that Earth’ climate will increase more than 2º C in the future;
6) that most world’s glaciers are “melting” as a consequence of this small warming.
7) that the warming has caused the increase of storms, hurricanes and tornadoes, or the increase of insect borne diseases, amount of droughts, floods, etc.

That’s what skeptics are, more or less, against. They (I agree) say that:

1) The warming observed is not catastrophic at all, as it has happened before during the Medieval Warm Period, prior to the Little Ice Age;
2) that the increasing CO2 levels adds almost nothing to the radiative forcing of the atmosphere, whose main driver is water vapor;
3) that the main climate driver has been shown to be the Sun (who else provides the heat?) and its variable cycles, with an astonishing high correlation with rises and drops in global temperature – mainly through their well known Minima (Maunder, Spoerer, Dalton Gleissberg, etc).
4) that glaciers response to temperatures vary according to their sizes and special characteristics (if they are calving, mountain, valley or polar glaciers), and as many glaciers are retreating, many are advancing, and doing it fast as Norway’s glaciers and some big ones in Patagonia (Chile and Argentina).
5) that CO2 increase lags temperature increase by 600 to 800 years, according to many accepted and peer-reviewed studies (I will provide their links). This means that temperature has casued the CO2 ti increase, not the other way around.
6) that the envisioned temperature increase and CO2 increase will be beneficial, not detrimental, and
7) there is no hurry to go into such drastic measures of the Kyoto Protocol, whose consequences would be much worse.
8) that the climate issue has been highly politicized and the process of peer review in climatic science has become a biased and corrupt one.

-------------
I would advise to the newly arrived member of this board, Sore Throat, that for showing respect to older members, try to follow the non written laws of courtesy and keep his <b>“copy and paste”</b> restrained to a minimum: the link to a web page, the title and perhaps a short description or abstract of the study, and some medium (not oversized) images.

Press releases are not welcome in this board, as they are not scientific – and are too lengthy and boring. We are interested in discussing our personal views on a subject, making our own provision of opinions and views, mentioning studies and scientists, of course, but in a brief manner.

Anyhow, welcome aboard, Sore Throat, and try to keep your sarcasm and mocking down.

As Sore Throat hasn't provided more evidence of global warming - beyond a press release - I will provide a brief excerpt about the Petition Project sent by Dr. Frederick Seitz to those 17,000 scientists to sign.

This is what US Senator James M. Inhofe (R-Okla) said about the Petition Project, severely despised and ridiculed by Mr. Sore Throat. It starts with:

<dir><b>THE SCIENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE</b>
Senate Floor Statement by
U.S. Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla)
<b>CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS</b>
July 28, 2003

As chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, I have a profound responsibility, because the decisions of the committee have wide-reaching impacts, influencing the health and security of every American.

That’s why I established three guiding principles for all committee work: it should rely on the most objective science; it should consider costs on businesses and consumers; and the bureaucracy should serve, not rule, the people.</dir>
And somewhere in the long statement says:
<dir>Many other scientists share the same view. I mentioned several of the country’s leading climate scientists earlier in this speech. In addition, over 4,000 scientists, 70 of whom are Nobel Prize winners, signed the so-called Heidelberg Appeal, which says that no compelling evidence exists to justify controls of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

I want to repeat that: over 4,000 scientists, 70 of whom are Nobel Prize winners, signed the so-called Heidelberg Appeal, which says that no compelling evidence exists to justify controls of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

I also point to a 1998 recent survey of state climatologists, which reveals that a majority of respondents have serious doubts about whether anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases present a serious threat to climate stability.

Then there is <b>Dr. Frederick Seitz</b>, a past president of the National Academy of Sciences, and a professor emeritus at Rockefeller University, who compiled the Oregon Petition, which reads as follows:

<b>“We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

“There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”</b>

Again, that was Dr. Frederick Seitz, a former past president of the National Academy of Sciences. The petition has 17,800 independently verified signatures, and, for those signers holding the degree of PhD, 95% have now been independently verified. Environmental groups have attacked the credibility of this petition based on one false name sent in by green pranksters. Several names are still on the list even though biased press reports have ridiculed their identity with the names of famous personalities. They are actual signers. Perry Mason, for example, is a PhD Chemist.</dir>

In other forums, Sore Throat has been laughing at me, presenting me as a "loner", the only person in this whole wide world that does not believe in "catastrophic global warming". It seems that it is not only me who is highly "skeptical" about the warming hoax, but there are some tens of thousands of serious scientists that share my views.

what do you guys think about the posibility that global dimming has been effecting the global warming numbers? that they are counteracting each other?
What might be causing global dimming? might it be the same greenhouse gasses that are blamed for global warming?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1108853,00.html

To start with, I must confess I was not aware of this “global dimming”. After reading about this in the Guardian and other places, I consider this a new twist of the “human induced global warming” thing. As nobody has seen in his neighborhood the famous “warming”, and is forced to believe in it because the cataract of press releases and media coverage on a tremendous hoax, the “warmers” had to resort to different names and schemes for keeping the money flowing in.

However, the information on the “dimming” is scarce and confusing. I must warn you against what appears in The Guardian, The Observer and similar “yellow papers”. They were the ones who promoted the ludicrous blooper of the “Pentagon Report Warns Bush”. So perhaps a detailed analysis of what the Guardian gave us could lead us to a better understanding:<dir>“Ohmura's results suggested that levels of solar radiation striking the Earth's surface had declined by more than 10% in three decades. --- That began to change in 2001, when Stanhill and his colleague Shabtai Cohen … the available evidence together … records showed … amount of solar radiation … Earth's surface had gone down by between 0.23 and 0.32% each year from 1958 to 1992.”</dir>OK, there is some discrepancy between what Ohmura and Stanhill give as reduction on “radiation”, Ohmura says +10%, Stanhill goes from 0 6.9% to 9.6%. I would say Stanhill analized more data than Ohmura, so he might be closer to the truth, whatever it could be.<dir>“Solar radiation is measured by seeing how much the side of a black plate warms up when exposed to the sun, compared with its flip side, which is shaded. It's a relatively crude device, and we have no way of proving how accurate measurements made 30 years ago really are. "To detect temporal changes you must have very good data otherwise you're just analysing the difference between data retrieval systems," says Ohmura”</dir>Then what they are measuring is not Solar radiation but merely infrared radiation. The black plate gets heated and the temperature is measured on both sides, a really crude and primitive way of measuring radiation. That way you leave out UV, X-rays. Gamma, etc, as longer radiation as radio waves.

The term dimming seems to be related to “brightness” or the amount of visible radiation, that is, grossly between 400 to 800 nanometers wavelength. How this dimming can be measured by comparing heat from the faces of a black plate, that only reflect infrared radiation, is something beyond my understanding, and neither the article nor the scientists have explained how they infer their conclusions.<dir>“The 2001 article written by Stanhill and Cohen sparked Farquhar's interest and he made some inquiries. The reaction was not always positive and when he mentioned the idea to one high-ranking climate scientist (whose name he is reluctant to reveal) he was told: "That's bullshit, Graham. If that was the case then we'd all be freezing to death."</dir>What makes some sense to me. If you read the paper by Dr. Theodor Landscheidt, “Solar Wind near Earth: Indicator of Variations of Global Temperature”, at. http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/Calen/SolarWind.html you will get a clear view of what solar radiation means to Earth, and what we could expect from the present reduction of solar radiation we are experiencing. According to Landscheidt, we will enter into a Double Gleissberg solar minima, equal to the Double Maunder, Spoerer, and Dalton minima of the 1450 -1700s, that plunged Earth into the infamous Little ice Age.

Then the article goes into saying: <dir>“The missing radiation is in the region of visible light and infrared - radiation like the ultraviolet light increasingly penetrating the leaky ozone layer is not affected.” … “That means something must have happened to the Earth's atmosphere to stop the arriving sunlight penetrating. The few experts who have studied the effect believe it's down to air pollution.” … “The effect on photosynthesis, and so on plant and tree growth, is more complicated and will probably be different in various parts of the world. In equatorial regions and parts of the southern hemisphere regularly flooded with light, photosynthesis is likely to be limited by carbon dioxide or water, not sunshine, and light levels would have to fall much further to force a change.”</dir>The second paragraph implies that humans are responsible of the “global dimming”, although they don’t state it clearly and directly.

And the first and third speaks about two opposing things: the radiation missing is in the visible bandwidth of the spectrum, while they imply that photosynthesis would be affected, though they don’t know how much. Well, photosynthesis is a process driven mostly by UV radiation, and while visible light contain no UV radiation, the radiation coming into any living room from the outside contains some amount of UV radiation (it fades color in photographs and fabrics, but you would never get a get from it). The same happens to the jungles, with the light coming from blue skies or cloudy skies. The diffuse lighting entering the jungle through the canopy of high trees contain a lot of UV radiation, enough to fulfill the photosynthesis requirements, but would not give you a tan or a skin cancer.

This means that there could be a great reduction in “visible” light but, as UV radiation is not affected, there will be not problems for crops or plants, or the vegetal life, or the marine phytoplankton, or anything that depends on UV radiation for living. After all, UV radiation is not so bad at all – without it, there would be no life on Earth!<dir>“Global warming itself might also be playing a role, he suggests, by perhaps forcing more water to be evaporated from the oceans and then blown onshore (although the evidence on land suggests otherwise). "If the greenhouse effect causes global dimming then that really changes the perspective," he says. In other words, while it keeps getting warmer it might keep getting darker.” … “But Farquhar had realised that the idea of global dimming could explain one of the most puzzling mysteries of climate science. As the Earth warms, you would expect the rate at which water evaporates to increase. But in fact, study after study using metal pans filled with water has shown that the rate of evaporation has gone down in recent years. When Farquhar compared evaporation data with the global dimming records he got a perfect match. The reduced evaporation was down to less sunlight shining on the water surface.”</dir>This is pure scaremongering, surely in order to get more money for futile research on stupid, useless issues. See what’s all about “Water evaporation”, and judge for yourself:

http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/INGLES/co2science.html

<dir>Evaporation Data Refute Claims of Global Warming

Reference
Peterson, T.C., Golubev, V.S. and Groisman, P. Ya. 1995. Evaporation losing its strength. Nature 377: 687-688.

What was done
The authors derived five regional trends of pan evaporation from data obtained from 746 homogeneous reporting stations in the United States - (1) Eastern US, (2) Western US - and 190 such stations in the former Soviet Union - (3) European, (4) Middle Asian, (5) Siberia - for the last half of the 20th century. The US data employed were averages of mean daily pan evaporation from May to September, while the data from the former Soviet Union were for months when there was no ice in the pans.

What was learned
All of the regions exhibited downward trends in pan evaporation over the last half of the 20th century, with four of them (all but the Middle Asian region) registering significance at the 99% level or better.

What it means
In the words of the authors, "the downward trend in pan evaporation over most of the United States and former Soviet Union implies that, for large regions of the globe, the terrestrial evaporation component of the hydrological cycle has been decreasing." They also note that this observation "corresponds well with both decreases in maximum summer temperatures over these regions and a decrease in growing-season degree-days over the Siberian and European former Soviet Union." Speculating on the cause of these related trends, the authors suggest "increases in cloud cover, especially low cloud cover," since "pan evaporation has been decreasing and is correlated negatively with cloud cover ... for the five regions."

Clearly, these related decreasing half-century trends in pan evaporation, maximum summer temperatures, and growing-season degree-days are all just the opposite of what would be expected in the climate alarmists' illusionary world of "unprecedented" global warming. But, they are just what would be expected in the real world of observed contemporaneous reductions in solar radiation reaching the planet's surface. Hence, we can only conclude, as the data always force us to conclude, that the unprecedented warming so highly hyped by those who yearn for adoption of the Kyoto Protocol is nothing more than, well, nothing.”</dir>
I feel global dimming is a new twist of the global warming hoax. It is just a preliminary analysis, though. It needs some more study of the issue, but I can recognize in this subject many tricks used by the lobby of scaremongering “scientists” looking for a new scare to keep milking the governmental cow.

Global dimming

>> The few experts who have studied the effect believe it's down to air pollution

That would be correct, certainly it is not due to more real cloud, but what I call pre-cloud, ie mist in the atmosphere, not enough to create dense clouds, could be to blame... this gets precipitated at night and reforms in the day.

Evaporation down ? that is interesting, I wonder if tap water or distilled water is used for the test ?
This result makes no sense to me....