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The Earth’s climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 7,000 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these changes are attributed to very small changes in the Earth’s orbit changing the amount of solar energy the Earth receives.
The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is very likely human-induced and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented in the past 1,300 years.
Earth-orbiting satellites and other technological advances have enabled scientists to see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate on a global scale. Studying these climate data collected over many years reveal the signals of a changing climate.
Certain facts about Earths climate are not in dispute:
* The heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated in the mid-19th century. Their ability to affect the transfer of infrared energy through the atmosphere is the scientific basis of many JPL-designed instruments, such as AIRS. Increased levels of greenhouse gases must cause the Earth to warm in response.
* Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show that the Earth’s climate responds to changes in solar output, in the Earth’s orbit, and in greenhouse gas levels. They also show that in the past, large changes in climate have happened very quickly, geologically-speaking: in tens of years, not in millions or even thousands.
I don’t know what you guys are all blabbering about. The earth was created 8000 years ago so whomever came up with 800.000 years of data is clearly demented, …right?
Or are we claiming intelligent design here? Then it’s all a holy joke?
All sounds like a massive ideological conflict of interest to me….
The answer is so simple. If we can still email in 20 years, there was clearly no global warming. I’m going to hibernate now.
🙂
The funny thing is we’ll hear every blizzard that global warming is a farce, yet nobody said anything during the brutal heat waves we had this summer.
Bobbo
It is a simple matter of measuring the gas’ absorption spectra in both visible and IR regions. If it’s largely transparent in visible but absorbs light in IR, it’s going to display “greenhouse gas” behaviour.
I can’t figure out what #5 is trying to claim. I also don’t see any data in the post.
1. Denial – “I feel fine.”; “This can’t be happening, not to me.”
2. Anger – “Why me? It’s not fair!”; “How can this happen to me?”; “Who is to blame?”
3. Bargaining – “Just let me live to see my children graduate.”; “I’ll do anything for a few more years.”; “I will give my life savings if…”
4. Depression – “I’m so sad, why bother with anything?”; “I’m going to die… What’s the point?”; “I miss my loved one, why go on?”
5. Acceptance – “It’s going to be okay.”; “I can’t fight it, I may as well prepare for it.”
Blind==well thank you. We have 100% partial agreement and have independently concluded that the NASA data link provided by dismal is nonsense. Good to see a scientific consensus forming on this conclusion.
Ha, ha. I just went back to look at the link. There is no additional data just as you say. Just dismal’s summary which when read carefully actually is a direct contradiction of its self.
Poor dismal. Dismal==what is your ox in this dog fight? Why do you care and why do you pick the most idiotic side? Sense of humor is doubtful.
Bobbo of the mixed metaphor
Ox in a dog fight? Think I’m betting on the ox.
For those that dont get this comment…
I would like a Atmospheric comparison of ALL gases…NOT just CO2..from the many PAST references to NOW.
But that could be impossible. AS there are gasses that COULDNT be measured from the past. ALL of these measurements are for HEAVY/neutral buoyancy gasses. Gases that MIX in the air from the BOTTOM to the top of the atmosphere, and those that SIT on the surface. These can be absorbed into the soil and ICE and sampled, OR can be brought down by RAIN and moisture.
There are TONS of gasses in our atmosphere, the List is very long. AND MANY of them have increased since mankind has gotten to the industrial era’s.
#59 bobbo who mistakenly has his head in the oven not the freezer said, “Hee, hee. Positive correlation between smarts and refusal to admit a mistake. Only stupid people make progress.”
Hee hee? Are you sexist as well as dogmatist? Why not her her? Better yet, “her hee!”
I cringe at your rhetoric. You know damned well I have apologized for being in error when I WAS in error. Here I am not. Whenever a scientific paper presents graphic analysis of findings, it will declare the parameters of the graph. Without those declarations the graph is nonsense. Much like your trolls. My comment was directed to the dodos above who declared, incorrectly, that the Y axis was not zero therefore the graph was defective.
“bill for it as followup visit” Silly Bobbo. You know I don’t bill for my services. And the patients certainly get what they’ve paid for. Reminds me, though, of a class in med school. Surgery, IIRC. I did something and muttered, “Ooops!” The prof was all over me saying, “You never say ‘Ooops’ around a patient. You say, “Ahhh, that’s better.” He also later told me that when you get a real bitch of a patient and are in danger of losing your cool, look that bastard right in the eye, smile and calmly say, “You know, you’re one patient I’ll always remember.
Now if you have further issues with what I said, well all I can reply is, 🙂 “You’re one poster I’ll always remember.” Now, please excuse me. I have an early airplane to catch in the morning. By afternoon, I’ll be back in my nice little apartment and have had at least a couple of hot showers.
My carbon footprint gets larger and larger…
ECA–entirely accurate comment (I have to assume) so what ya gonna do? Say climate change is too complicated for us to study==or go with the best data and assumptions you can muster?
What ya gonna do?
# 68 ECA said,
ECA you have given an excellent list of many of the variables that make climate modeling so difficult. Add in some other factors like the atmosphere isn’t well mixed or uniformly heated or at constant temperature and it gets more complicated. Then remember the atmosphere is kind of lumpy with things like soot, dirt and clouds swirling around.
We have discussed previously the reliabilty of those mixed data sets in terms of expected accuracy and coverage.
If you want to use high quality data with good coverage, you have about 60 years of earth’s history to look at.
If you want to use good quality data with spotty global coverage, you have about 150 years of data you should legitimately use.
If you want to use data of much lower quality and poor global coverage, you have a data set that goes back about 500 000 years. It’s a small data also.
No way, no how should you be combining all this data into one big data set and pretending it’s all of equal utility then doing your analyses of it.
A scientist must assume these three data sets are not comparable to each other until reasonably shown that they are.
Folks who use models are trying to match some set of complicated algorithms to a set of past data. There is the nub of the “scientific” debate in the global warming issue. Will the current models prove to be accurate predictors of future events?
That is not an easy thing to get one’s arms around. No way to really know for sure until the future happens. So you back run the model. Say plug in 1950 data and see how it predicts the #s that were measured in 1980. Proof? Well not really because the model was built using that data so it’s circular logic and would be expected to give a good match. So the argument over global warming will probably continue for some time because the earth isn’t going to give us the truth for a while.
Bobbo, it is called negative feedbacks. If there is negative feedbacks from the warming caused by CO2, then there is not ‘no warming’, but little warming.
Dr Roy Spencer has gone a step further and argued that it is natural changes in climate that has changed the temperatures, and not the other way around.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/07/my-global-warming-skepticism-for-dummies/
So, the theory you deniers and “its too hard” and we don’t have perfect data types are advancing is that hoomans can pump trillions of tons of co2 into the atmosphere and it should have no effect on the climate?
Have I got that right bunky?
Blind==check me on this, but if in 500 years the ocean level is 300 feet higher than today, and the Atlantic Conveyor System has shut down, and Europe is covered in Ice, that STILL WILL NOT “PROVE” the climate models. The system is still just too complex and there are still more variables and imperfect data sets. Still just a theory, still just the best science we have.
Can’t prove co2 because their is no control group.
Not to beat a blind horse after I’ve jumped off a cliff before I counted my crows.
Bobbo My friend furiusly dog paddling in all that melted ice water
That is exactly correct. You would have pretty convincing evidence that your model was working pretty weel though. But proven exactly doesn’t happen in science. No certitude.
My main take on this has been that we need to look at how the data sets have been combined, analyzed and presented before we try to make conclusions on what it means.
I have no opinion about whether man made global warming is signifcant.
I think there is pretty convincing evidence that the earth has been getting warmer since the height of the last ice age about 30K years ago (all that melted ice). I also think the evidence is convincing that atmospheric CO2 concentrations have risen in the last 150 years.
Blind–seems to me you have everything except the god-smacking conclusion. What do you “need” one way or the other?
Bobbo, My Certainty Obsessed Friend
I do not need anything. I’m not a climate modeler. I have no dog in that rodeo.
I only care that folks collect and use reliable data in a responsible way.
“Intelligent” Humans FOUL THEIR OWN NEST !!!
Doesn’t matter, when the Humans DIE OFF, some other organisms will predominate …
Blind–well, you are identifying “reliable data” and “responsible use” as the dogs in your car wash. You might be blind to your own assumptions, or lying, or embarassed, or all sorts of things.
But lets just take it as a given that the data is not good enough to be called reliable and that all data will be used irresponsibly from time to time. So, whats your conclusion? AGW or not? Can’t Tell? Let’s do nothing until better data/models is secured?
Are you still waiting for better fossils to show evolutionary changes over time or has the spotty record been firmed up enough for you?
Ah Bobbo My dear ambiguous and uncertain friend you said
“all data will be used irresponsibly from time to time”
Alas you could not be more correct on that one. But that still does not mean we have to like it when we see it done!
But what is one, who has no horse in the dog fight, or ox in that rodeo or even a dog to be gored somehow, to do?
Well Blind==you are intentionally avoiding the question(s) and bailing water INTO your sinking ship. Amusingly:
But what is one, who has no horse in the dog fight, /// afoot
or ox in that rodeo /// a spectator
or even a dog to be gored somehow, /// Michael Vick on parole
to do? /// Go with the best science available and let the idiots dither about it not being perfect.
Bobbo , My dear uncertain friend
Well done, well done.
Most witty. Hats off.
You made me smile.
Thank you and my compliments!
ECA,
I totally agree, I call it all a red herring. And recently posted about it on my blog at http://smokefilledworld.com
ethanol–nice blog. Close question as to which is worse: being poisoned today by profligate chemical use or having the human population crash 300 years from now from AGW. I don’t think the issues are as lopsided as you present, or arguably may be lopsided against you. For sure, there is no reason not to pursue both issues instead of pursuing neither.
Receipt of federal funding alone does require a private individual to provide Constitutional Rights as you argue for. Where are the rights of that recipient? If you want the law changed, then change the law but saying the current law should have a different impact than it actually does is disingenuous at best.
#70-71
Thank you..
But I would go back as Far as 150-200 years, and gather data then.
But would also look at Previous data to seek MAXIMUMS..its been estimated that CO2 has been as high as 4 times CURRENT levels and about 1/2 as high as current levels.
Higher levels were GREAT when we have the trees around and the plants LOVED IT.
I try to suggest people THINK of the earth as a balloon. WE have a certain PRESSURE on this planet. and it dont change much. What changes is ON THE EARTH. WE can only saturate the AIR to a certain point, with STUFF. MOST wont STAY in the air. It lands in the OCEAN and LAND areas..CO2 is needed…LETS FIND WHAT ISNT needed in the air. FIND its source. CHANGE IT.
I can give you 1 area to look at.
Corp manufacturing SENT OUT of this country HAD to find a NEW place to go. Those pollutants DIDNT STOP. The regulations in the USA STOPPED.
As an ACTUAL scientist, what I find interesting about this report isn’t the CO2 levels; it’s how the temperature doesn’t match the expectations.
NASA may tout this as evidence of climate change, but in reality it’s the total opposite.
Throughout the later period, where CO2 levels are OFF THE SCALE, temperatures have risen and fallen. Not just risen.
So in effect, the CO2 rises have NOT created the effects as predicted and therefore the results are confusing for those who predict a CO2 based warming.
What it’s showing very clearly is that CO2 doesn’t have a cummulative effect on climate… and as STATED CLEARLY in IPCC 4, most of the effects of CO2 have already been felt.
IPCC 4 clearly states for 0.8c of the expected 1.0c rise has already occurred.