Is global warming even real?

[billvon]

And those people will hear such arguments from deniers regardless of how people genuinely discussing issues edit themselves.

Yes, they will hear them. But if they then google what the deniers say, and it is complete bullshit, then their conclusion will likely be "hmm, another Internet idiot." If they google what the deniers say, and find the 1970 claims of ice age Armageddon, and Billy's claims that "about half of humanity [might] die in less than a month" they will think "hmm, they're right; those supposed 'climate scientists' do say some stupid things."

Most people are pretty good at detecting bullshit.

So editing actual discussion, in an attempt to prevent misrepresentation by deniers and the like, is vain.

But clearly stating facts, rather than supposition, is most certainly not in vain. Indeed, it is the ideal that we expect deniers to hew to, and the ideal that we should hold ourselves to as well.

So you are sure that such events are so very, very unlikely the possibility of them need not be even considered? You are completely sure of that?

Sure, they can be considered. We also might have a massive volcanic eruption that plunges us into 20 years of global cooling - and only our excess of CO2 will save us. That can also be considered, although that scenario is also very, very unlikely.

Now imagine what you would say to a denier who claims "if a volcano erupts, only CO2 will save us from extinction!" I suspect you might take issue with his remarks.

 

[Kajalamorth]

Yes, they will hear them. But if they then google what the deniers say, and it is complete bullshit, then their conclusion will likely be "hmm, another Internet idiot." If they google what the deniers say, and find the 1970 claims of ice age Armageddon, and Billy's claims that "about half of humanity [might] die in less than a month" they will think "hmm, they're right; those supposed 'climate scientists' do say some stupid things."

Most people are pretty good at detecting bullshit.

[...]

One of the biggest issues I have with environmentalist today is their usage of shock to scare people into action. Which for me at least, creates a sentiment of "it doesn't matter anyway. According to so and so we'll all die."

The cynicism is more dangerous to us than the deniers. Also for me it's quite overwhelming. But I get overwhelmed by pretty much anything.

 

[Billy T]

Billvon: Why is it you only discuss how deniers will react to posts and not, despite two prior requests, (Count this as No. three) any of the physic, evidence, etc. you brand as "absurd" ?

I have posted this: http://www.sciforums.com/threads/is-global-warming-even-real.143423/page-19#post-3288769
The most complete (only one to use and process what happen during the "great extinction" with such fine time resolution via the analysis of sea sediment cores every 1 cm). and did comment on it myself - Surely if it is "absurd in its conclusions", you should be able to give at least a hint why they are wrong.

 

[Trippy]

Billvon: Why is it you only discuss how deniers will react to posts and not, despite two prior requests, (Count this as No. three) any of the physic, evidence, etc. you brand as "absurd" ?

I have posted this: http://www.sciforums.com/threads/is-global-warming-even-real.143423/page-19#post-3288769
The most complete (only one to use and process what happen during the "great extinction" with such fine time resolution via the analysis of sea sediment cores every 1 cm). and did comment on it myself - Surely if it is "absurd in its conclusions", you should be able to give at least a hint why they are wrong.

I'd rather go bvy the peer reviewed authors I cited in my post, if it's all the same.

 

[Trippy]

Also...

This is the most complete SCIENTIFIC investigation yet done of the cause of the "Great Extinction"

Your video has nothing to do with the great extinction.

The great extinction occured at the end of the Permian. Your video discusses with the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (circa 55/56 MYA) not the end permian extinction (The great extinction, the great dying).

 

[Billy T]

...Your video has nothing to do with the great extinction. The great extinction occured at the end of the Permian. Your video discusses with the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (circa 55/56 MYA) not the end permian extinction (The great extinction, the great dying).

Thanks for the correction. Review of the video suggests he is speaking of the more recent one, not quite as large. (33% of marine creatures alive when it started were dead / extinct when it ended instead of 55% during the last part of the Perian" great extinction.

I can't make this informative wiki chart identifying many "extinctions" copy here from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian–Triassic_extinction_event

Text there confirms the "great extinction" was about 252 million ago and not 55 or 60 million years ago - the great thermal peak (about 13 C higher than today) due to three successive pulse of CH4 that my posted video spoke of. WiKi's chart refers to the video's event as the K - Pg event. Here is the chart/plot's text or caption:
"Plot of extinction intensity (percentage of genera that are present in each interval of time but do not exist in the following interval) vs time in the past for marine genera.[1] Geological periods are annotated (by abbreviation and colour) above. The Permian–Triassic extinction event is the most significant event for marine genera, with just over 50% "

If one is as ignorant as I am about paleo - event, this chart is very informative, but I doubt I can keep it in mind. I don't even know what the K or the Pg refer to. will search a little more to educate my self on the magnitude of the "die-off" of these events.

All, I think, will agree if the temperature were to again rise 13 C most land creatures would be extinct.

 

[Billy T]

I'd rather go bvy the peer reviewed authors I cited in my post, if it's all the same.

I agree. The NASA summary link you gave in post 363 is excellent. In post 370, I quoted part of it for those who may not read; However, I did not find anything refuting the video or even conflicting with the video's conclusion that the ~13 C higher temperatures that three methane pulses made* ~55 million years ago can occur AGAIN.

If I missed it, please quote text that is in conflict with the video based on sample of sediment cores taken every centimeter covering the period of the great temperature rise (~55 YBP)

* by adding 8C to the already 5C higher temperature. Here is the video I refer to:

"Boiling" in the title refers to violent up-welling CH4 bubbling, not 100 C water.

 

[Trippy]

Thanks for the correction. Review of the video suggests he is speaking of the more recent one, not quite as large. (33% of marine creatures alive when it started were dead / extinct when it ended instead of 55% during the last part of the Perian" great extinction.

The video explicitly states they are referring to the PETM, not the end Permian extinction.

Text there confirms the "great extinction" was about 252 million ago and not 55 or 60 million years ago - the great thermal peak (about 13 C higher than today) due to three successive pulse of CH4 that my posted video spoke of.

Of course it confirms what I was saying.

WiKi's chart refers to the video's event as the K - Pg event.

No. The K-Pg event is a different event, the K-Pg extinction used to be called the K-T extinction and was the extinction that included the dinosaurs.

"Plot of extinction intensity (percentage of genera that are present in each interval of time but do not exist in the following interval) vs time in the past for marine genera.[1] Geological periods are annotated (by abbreviation and colour) above. The Permian–Triassic extinction event is the most significant event for marine genera, with just over 50% "

The End Permian extinction resulted in the extinction of 96% of Marine species, 70% of Terrestrial Vertebrates, 57% of all families, and 83% of all geenra.

If one is as ignorant as I am about paleo - event, this chart is very informative, but I doubt I can keep it in mind. I don't even know what the K or the Pg refer to. will search a little more to educate my self on the magnitude of the "die-off" of these events.

You need to look for the right information first.

The K-Pg event occured at the end of the cretaceous.
The event you're referring to is related to the Paleocene - Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM).

 

[Billy T]

To TrippyThanks again, but I'm too old and have no need, or interest, normally to fill my mind with the names and dates of these ancient events and periods. I.e. probable if I refer to them again, I may get them confused/ mixed up again. I will at least recognize the Paleocene - Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) as fact that earth was once only 55million years ago ~13C hotter than now, due very likely to burps of methane is important now that CH4 is with three times higher concentration than any time in prior 800,000 years (or more - no data) and increasing still, even with a temperature rise slow down or haitus.

 

[Billy T]

Thanks to Trippy I now know what fastest ever temperature rise was called, so am searching for more on it. Last, graph "e", is the global temperature. Red line the cumulative effect (Slowly falling as even CO2 does not last forever in the air) and black line is the rate of release.

The authors find that the maximum PETM rate of emission for organic carbon as the source is equivalent to 6.2 billion tonnes of CO2 per year, and for methane as the source, 1.1 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. For comparison: 2010 human-carbon emissions were 30.6 billion tonnes. So if organic carbon was the source, current emissions are almost 5 times faster than the PETM, and if methane, current emissions are rising 27 times faster.

Read summary, quoted from same source, below the graphs too.

We humans have embarked on a global warming experiment. Here are some useful lessons from the past:

•The rapid pulse of PETM CO2 followed by rapid warming (figure 2e) indicates high climate sensitivity.
•CO2 does indeed appear to have a long atmospheric lifetime.
•Ocean acidification (of the deep sea at least) can occur even under conditions of CO2 release much slower than today.
•Present acidification of the ocean is far greater than the PETM, and is probably unprecedented in the last 65 million years.

Whether the plants and animals upon which humans depend can survive the present rapidly changing environment remains to be seen.

 

[Walter L. Wagner]

Thanks to Trippy I now know what fastest ever temperature rise was called, so am searching for more on it. Last, graph "e", is the global temperature. Red line the cumulative effect (Slowly falling as even CO2 does not last forever in the air) and black line is the rate of release.Read summary, quoted from same source, below the graphs too.

We humans have embarked on a global warming experiment. Here are some useful lessons from the past:

•The rapid pulse of PETM CO2 followed by rapid warming (figure 2e) indicates high climate sensitivity.
•CO2 does indeed appear to have a long atmospheric lifetime.
•Ocean acidification (of the deep sea at least) can occur even under conditions of CO2 release much slower than today.
•Present acidification of the ocean is far greater than the PETM, and is probably unprecedented in the last 65 million years.

Whether the plants and animals upon which humans depend can survive the present rapidly changing environment remains to be seen.

BillyT: Way back in 1967 a chemistry professor advised then that a big challenge facing us would be the increasing CO2 level in the atmosphere from fossil fuel. Very little has been done about it. I'm promoting solar panel for energy production, now that the price has come way down. I was promoting nuclear energy (which still works, but with problems). You've been promoting ethanol from cane in Brazil (where it is very economical). Any other suggestions on how to get us off the fossil-fuel teat; and how to soak-up the CO2 (other than absorption in the oceans, which causes acidification)? Personally, I believe full-tilt on solar panel might work.

 

[Billy T]

In the PETM the heat {about 13C hotter than now, 56 million years ago.} drove tropical species toward the Poles, and animal and plant species from all continents could cross land bridges and blend together. Hoofed running animals, the ancestors of horses and deer, showed up. A little bit later, perhaps as the climate got wetter again and the forest canopy began to close over the more open land that had favored the runners, the first true primates showed up.
Humans, along with every other primate living today, are descended from a PETM primate. During the PETM itself a strange thing happened to some mammals: They got dwarfish. Horses shrank to the size of Siamese cats* ... After 56 million years primates, then the size of mice* or rabbits, are directing the show. They have tamed other descendants of the PETM—horses, cows, pigs, sheep—and spread with them around the planet. They have moved beyond agriculture to a mode of living that, while infinitely varied, is almost invariably powered by fossil fuels. …

Fossil fuel burning has released more than 300 billion tons of carbon since the 18th century—probably less than a tenth of what's still in the ground or of what was released at the PETM. That episode doesn't tell us what will happen to life on Earth if we choose to burn the rest. (Global emissions set another record last year.) Maybe there will be a burst of evolutionary innovation like the one that gave rise to our primate ancestors; maybe this time, with all the other pressures on species, there will be mass extinctions.
The PETM merely puts the choice in long perspective. Tens of millions of years from now, whatever becomes of humanity, the whole pattern of life on Earth may be radically different from what it would otherwise have been—simply because of the way we powered our lives for few centuries.

* As I have frequently noted, the Bible is correct:
“The meek {mice} will inherent the earth.” They have large surface to volume ratios and spend the heat of the day in their underground burrows. Unlike during the PETM, CO2 is now being released five times faster and CH4 about 27 times faster. Thus our human decedents will not have time to shrink by evolutionary selection down to say a foot tall and survive as the horses, etc. did in the PETM which lasted about 150,000 years.

BTW: The quoted text notes that "Global emissions set another record last year." No need to qualify that by the date - its going to be true for at least the next four decades as China and less developed parts of the world "progress."

 

[iceaura]

So you say this:

If they google what the deniers say, and find the 1970 claims of ice age Armageddon, and Billy's claims that "about half of humanity [might] die in less than a month" they will think "hmm, they're right; those supposed 'climate scientists' do say some stupid things."

and then this:

Most people are pretty good at detecting bullshit.

Aside from your own counterexample - that people cannot tell that deniers are bullshitting if when they Google they find Newsweek alarmism from forty years ago or one of Billy T's science forum posts -

Citation needed. As evidence to the contrary: The Republican candidates for Pres and Veep have won a majority of the 35 - 65 white male vote consistently for a generation now. Do I need to list their names, or review their campaign rhetoric ? That would include climate change denial, btw, along with supply side economic policy, teaching creationism in biology class, giant lasers in space to shoot down missiles, fencing off the entire southern land border of the country, WMDs in Iraq under the new Hitler of our time, "Mission Accomplished" swooning over W's masculinity, and so forth.

Of course white males aged 35 - 65 are not "most people", so their majority gullibility in the face of cartoon level bullshit is perhaps averaged out by large majorities of good common sense in other demographic groups. Is that your contention?

But clearly stating facts, rather than supposition, is most certainly not in vain. Indeed, it is the ideal that we expect deniers to hew to, and the ideal that we should hold ourselves to as well.

Among the facts on the table are various possibilities and risks, including (as far as I have seen argued against rather then dismissed reflexively) a non-zero and uncertainly estimated chance of a runaway CH4 feedback warming of some significant duration and severity. Are we to ignore them?

Now imagine what you would say to a denier who claims "if a volcano erupts, only CO2 will save us from extinction!" I suspect you might take issue with his remarks.

What issue, exactly, would I take with that? That it would take more than one volcano? That the CO2 won't help much if the sunlight is actually blocked?

 

[billvon]

Among the facts on the table are various possibilities and risks, including (as far as I have seen argued against rather then dismissed reflexively) a non-zero and uncertainly estimated chance of a runaway CH4 feedback warming of some significant duration and severity. Are we to ignore them?

Not at all. Nor should we ignore the possibility than an asteroid could hit the Earth and sterilize it tomorrow, or that a nanotechnology experiment could get out of hand and reduce us all to goo. And indeed it pays to scan the skies for asteriods and place safeguards on nanotechnology experiments.

However, stating that about half of humanity will die within a month from the impending asteriodal impact would be irresponsible.

What issue, exactly, would I take with that? That it would take more than one volcano? That the CO2 won't help much if the sunlight is actually blocked?

I think you would take issue with a denier who claimed that, and therefore claimed that our CO2 emissions are the only things that will save us - and we will die without them.

Or perhaps not; perhaps you would be fine with that. If so, we have different standards for accuracy.

 

[iceaura]

However, stating that about half of humanity will die within a month from the impending asteriodal impact would be irresponsible.

Discussion of the probability that an asteroid large enough to kill half the people will strike the earth in the near future is sound, sensible, common, ordinary behavior among the interested. Some people think it's very likely - these people are not told to shut up because they provide ammunition for lying deniers.

I think you would take issue with a denier who claimed that, and therefore claimed that our CO2 emissions are the only things that will save us - and we will die without them

The question was this: "What issue, exactly, would I take with that?".

 

[Billy T]

Unfortunately, denial is a human defense mechanism, especially when confronted with adverse circumstance one can do nothing about, like AGW. When someone, with some qualifications publishes a paper that states there is no problem most people commenting on it are grateful, gushing with praise in their comments on the paper. In the case of the paper I quote below, about 30 commentators were such and only one pointed out (and explained) why the paper was totally wrong. He was of course personally attacked by the others who ignored his facts.

The level of scientific and even logical thought in the US masses has sunk so low that a simple, but false, argument that helps support a denier’s POV is accepted as true and a more complete and accurate consideration of a complex problem is rejected, often by attack on the messenger telling the truth.

This human characteristic is a large part of why no steps are being taken to avoid 100s of millions from dying if current ever increasing use of fossil fuels continues. As sugar cane based alcohol is better in many ways than gasoline, it is really sad mankind prefers to go on down the known road to great disaster.

The ratio of the percentages of water to methane is such that the effects of CH4 are completely masked by H2O. The amount of CH4 must increase 100-fold to make it comparable to H2O. Because of that, methane is irrelevant as a greenhouse gas. {the bold is in the original}

 

[billvon]

Discussion of the probability that an asteroid large enough to kill half the people will strike the earth in the near future is sound, sensible, common, ordinary behavior among the interested. Some people think it's very likely - these people are not told to shut up because they provide ammunition for lying deniers.

If someone with a science background said that the end was imminent due to an asteroid strike, and hence we didn't need to worry about oil depletion, climate change, pollution etc then yes, I would consider that irresponsible. (I would not "tell them to shut up" however; that is a strawman.)

The question was this: "What issue, exactly, would I take with that?".

If you do not take issue who claim that climate change is a good thing for mankind, then I stand corrected.

 

[Billy T]

Its a year old, but things have just gotten worse. Text is current.

Wildfires, water rationing and snow-free mountaintops are all becoming the new norm in California. The Golden State is experiencing the most severe drought on record, and research suggests the conditions will only worsen in the coming decades.

"Climate change is going to lead to overall much drier conditions toward the end of the 21st century than anything we've seen in probably the last 1,000 years," said Benjamin Cook, a climatologist at the NASA Goddard

 

[cosmictraveler]

What does this tell us?

 

[river]

What does this tell us?

Climate change