There are those who try to use the Bible to say that we should not worry about our impact on the environment... Well, there is a passage in there about being a good steward of the Earth.
I guess my point is people make it a matter of belief. Well, believe what you want. The fact is GHG's lead to global warming. Temperature of Venus > Temperature of Mercury. Why? GHG's. Also, Temperature on backside of Venus (night) ~= Temp on front side (day) Why? GHG's. Seems the debate is silly, and probably comes from large corporations and their propaganda aimed at protecting profits.
milkweed, none of those sites have much to say about the global variability today. No one is pretending that local factors don't exist (like the Arctic Oscillation), and the IPCC certainly isn't claiming climate is reducible to what CO2 is doing, only that turning up CO2 to explain current temperature rise works and is consistent with the evidence.. I have no problem with scientific skepticism, I do have a problem with deceit. You have not done this, but it is easy to find places that do (Durkhin's swindle video, OISM, Inhofe's blog) Really, I have followed this topic for a while, and typically don't spend time debating with people on blogs and forums, but there are no new arguments out there- the sun is doing it, CO2 lags temperature, mid-century cooling, Medieval times, conspiracy, models suck, water vapor, "CO2 makes up a small amount of the atmosphere, and other nonsense which is supposed to discredit global warming. I assure you that the tone in the scientific community is much different than that of the blogosphere on the subject. I really am not sure why you are so bent on finding things which are supposed to say otherwise.
But they DO have something to say about the global variability today: "The Nature study suggests there's more behind it than global warming because the air a couple miles above the ground is warming more than calculated by the climate models." "This year, the sea ice around Antarctica grew to its largest extent since satellite observation began in 1979—whereas the Arctic arrived at record minimum—meaning present climate change is a far different scenario." "But this research does argue for a different path to global warming in the past, which means that estimates of the planet's sensitivity to various levels of CO2 based on measurements from the Ice Age may be flawed, Stott argues. "We are a long way from refining the climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 [that] is going to take place in the next 100 years," he notes." As far as my interest, thats probably longer than I could write efficiently in a forum post, but heres a rough outline. Science has to be right. Any time science makes proclamations that turn out to be incorrect, the backlash is magnified expoentially compared to when business is wrong, politicians are wrong, religions are wrong, etc. It degrades the influence science has in the above lower standard portions of influence areas. (hope that makes sense once its posted) Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It diverts attention and money from other areas. Bird flu is a good example. Dont get me wrong, I know eventually some flu is going to mutate and create some kind of pandemic. But there is an equal chance that it will be some other flu combination of H#N# that isnt being focused on with this research money. And I have read some about the earlier epidemic (1918) showing up in pigs first (hence its being known as swine flu). Anyways, the point being once it jumps is when the real vaccines will be produced. I am watching from the sidelines, the proposals being tossed about (such as kyoto) and seeing an agenda that reflects a redistribution of source rather than a reduction in source. I live in a state that is promoting ethanol excessively, with all of its cascading effects for limited gain. And finally nothing being talked about reflects the real issue. Too many people competing for limited resources.
I don’t see how this paper will in any way upset scientific understanding- the atmosphere will respond to changes in energy sources and sinks by carrying energy and water vapor around; increase of the atmospheric northward transport of heat and moisture is shown to also provide artic amplification even without ice-albedo feedbacks (Graversen 2006). The Arctic Oscillation is, and is expected to effect arctic climate conditions. Clouds are, and are expected to effect the Arctic. Other regional factors are there, and this study is NOT introducing some big unknown factors, only emphasizing the role of atmospheric transport. It is interesting, but not incredibly meaningful. If you want to run a model using "All forcings" and working with altitude, under the time consideration of the study, you can do so (and you'll see plenty of amplification aloft during the summer months): (http)data.giss.nasa.gov/modelE/transient/climsim.html Our understanding of anthropogenic global warming has a remarkably solid foundation, even though questions still exist regarding feedbacks, clouds, el nino, etc. This is not unique to climate science, and those who apply this logic only to climate science are simply working with preconceived notions, or some strange version of how science works. There are a lot of gaps in figuring out how evolution operates, the properties of electrons, the mysteries of our solar system, etc- but evolution, electrons, and solar systems still exist no matter how much you want to stretch what we don't know.
And our understanding of climate change is in its infancy compared to the study of evolution. And any scientist who studies our sun would not declare it an absolute for the whole of the universe. The temperatures rise before CO2 levels rise and they fall before C02 levels fall. CO[sup]2[/sup]s impact on temperature is minimal and most likely insignificant on the whole of global climate.
That's odd. By ordinary physics, CO2 in the concentrations that exist should be having a large effect. Why isn't it, according to you ?
