Eaarth

[t vago]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

I am not blind, and I am not rushing, thank you very much.

The scale of the profits from one day of oil companies completely swamps the "profits" that scientists could come by. I mean, scientists are either at endowed institutions, or they get grants; and they get paid, sure -- but where is the "profits"?

Accusing the scientists of just trying to get rich, is preposterous, and I'm sure they would find it insulting. They are scientists, and they are interested in working on figuring out how nature works, and why things are the way they are. They are not profit-driven. Oil companies, on the other hand are completely profit driven, and they make an immense amount of money.

So on balance, calling GCC a profit driven hoax is nonsensical, and stretches incredulity. It is some vague future profit vs a very real and very present profit making enterprise.

*******

Who came up with this "hoax"? Who is coordinating it? How does this explain the data? When was global climate change first hypothesized?

It's nice to see that you have a reading comprehension problem.

It (this hoax) represents a political power grab by the governments. How better to take power away from the masses and concentrate it among the ruling class, than to drum up some AGW scare and claim the only way to combat AGW is to pass horrendously restrictive legislation? That is also how AGW scientists get most of their funding, from governments through grants. If the government is insistent on pushing one side of this AGW debate, then of course they're going to deny research grants to people and institutions that might have questions about AGW.

And I like how you just give a pass to all of the sensational news outlets that just blindly report the pro-AGW side, while deriding the critics (if they happen to be mentioned at all) as loons. No, there's no objective reporting, there. Don't need objective reporting, right? It's settled science, right? Don't even bother to think that these guys might have some large amounts of money invested in companies that might benefit from AGW legislation being passed into law.

Don't you want to make me disappear now?

[user removed]

Originally Posted by cfguy2000

It is interesting to note that 390/310 gives us a 25.8% increase in that short period of time. That is alarming.

Earth's population:
1960 3 billion
2010 6.5 billion

116.6% increase in people versus a 25.8% increase in CO. That means as a percentage of population the per capita CO has gone down, at least that which is left in the atmosphere.

And how much has the foilage that absorbs CO has been reduced in those 50 years.

regards
Mech

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

So, how does this "hoax" work? I'm curious, please explain. When and who cooked it up? What are their motivations? How does it explain the data?

For the history of AGW I turn to AG Montford's excellent The Hockey Stick Illusion - recommended reading for both sides as it concentrates on the science and not the movement although Montford is from the skeptical side.

Personally I don't believe there was a conspiracy to create this scare, but there has been an attempt by as many as possible to climb aboard the gravy train.

Timescale -

First half of 19th century sees the gradual ending of the Little Ice Age.

1824 - Theory of gases first warming the atmosphere first put forward by Joseph Fourier.

1850s - John Tyndall builds on the theory and carries out some experiments to prove the effect.

End of the 19th century Svente Arrhenius quantifies the effect and first puts forward the theory that man's emissions may cause an effect. He suggests the effects would be beneficial to avoid future ice ages. He also linked CO2 to this effect.

He got a nobel prize, just like Gore - except his was for hard work and being clever, however this stuff is mainly ignored for a period of about 50 years.

1950 - 1970s Mauna Loa measurements of CO2 in Hawaii show an upward trend. Scientists get out the old theories for another go.

1977 WMO formed, holds a conference on climate where these theories are discussed. If you want to have a start to a conspiracy then it begins here I suppose.

1979 James Hansen publishes a scary paper predicting all sorts of nasties caused by global warming by the 1990s, most of which we are still waiting for.

1988 Hansen presents to the US Congress - its a very warm day and he talks about heating it up further.

Governments are scared enough to set up the IPCC - which is a joint organisation of the WMO and UN, well known democratic organisations free of any corruption or manipulation.

1990 - 2007 The IPCC Assessment reports describe more and more scary effects of AGW.

1998 - Hockey stick paper is published in 1998 which 'reconstructs' temperature back to 1200. It is followed by another one which goes the last 200 years to 1000. It shows no warming until 20th century and then sudden warming - no MWP, or LIA. It is used as the logo for the Third IPCC report, reproduced 13 times.

1998 - 2010 The start of the 'suppression' of disagreeing views (as described in the climategate emails) begins - peer reviews of unfriendly papers being overly critical, friendly pat on the back peer reviews of supporting papers.

Lots of other papers are published on the topic - funding follows AGW so anyone wanting funding for their research links it to AGW to secure it.

2006 - The Stern Report follows this up with a big, scary list of economic problems that are going to hit us if the AGW theory is proved correct.

2006 - An Inconvenient Truth - a film with 12 scientific errors which have to be pointed out if the film is shown in UK schools.

2007 - The Great Global Warming Swindle - a film in response to AIT starts to question whether the IPCC is independent or any of its conclusions are based on science and fact.

2004-07 - Reconstruction of the Hockey Stick paper is attempted. It is hampered by the lack of original data or a description of the original methods. When it is finally recreated it turns out that the model can be fed with random numbers and it will still produce a hockey stick. Behind the scenes the scientists are working to block any questioning of the 'settled science'.

2009 - Leak (or hack depending on your point of view) of thousands of emails from UEA / CRU. The leaks show scientists colluding to suppress desenting views, avoiding FOI requests (illegally as it turns out), and giving their own papers a friendly peer review.

2010 - Three enquiries, none of whom bother to talk to the subjects of these emails or the people who put forward the FOI requests, conclude the scientists are innocent. In the meantime the ICO concludes that they are not but they cannot be prosecuted because of the timescales.

1998-2010 - the Earth decides not to cooperate and warming stops. Maybe its funding request was rejected.

[user removed]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

Earth's population:
1960 3 billion
2010 6.5 billion

116.6% increase in people versus a 25.8% increase in CO. That means as a percentage of population the per capita CO has gone down, at least that which is left in the atmosphere.

And how much has the foliage that absorbs CO has been reduced in those 50 years.

regards
Mech

In the 1960 to 2010 time period the worlds car population has grown 800% while the CO has only grown by 25.8%. Based on the population increase (116.6%) as well as the increase in the number of vehicles, as well as other sources of carbon, you could argue that mitigation has already been effective, although the trend has been upwards.

I wonder if there is any data on the percentage coverage of foilage that would absorb CO and how much that may have changed in the same 50 year time period.

regards
Mech

[Arragonis]

PS - I forgot to mention in my summary that Monbiot (aka Moonbat) thinks God is not on the AGW side. I think I mentioned that before.

[NeilBlanchard]

Right, Mr. Svente Arrhenius in 1896 pegged it -- that humans burning fuel causes warming.

Did the laws of nature change since then?

[NeilBlanchard]

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Right, Mr. Svente Arrhenius in 1896 pegged it -- that humans burning fuel causes warming.

Did the laws of nature change since then?

You are mixing theories and laws again.

The bit where he demonstrated the greenhouse effect is a proven fact, confirmed by experiments, most of which had been done before. His refinement was to attempt to accurately quantify the effect - including feedback. This latter factor is important as this is often the thing that is enhanced in many models used to predict the future.

The second part is that he suggested (i.e. formed a theory) that human activity may create enough emissions to affect the climate. He didn't know how much would be needed or what the effect would be or what other factors would come into play and how much they affect anything.

We still don't. We know more than he did but not everything. Models include assumptions to make them work. And those assumptions often drive the results not hard knowledge and real simulation.

However in other news, looks like the Vikings can go back.

Greenland ice sheet flow driven by short-term weather extremes, not gradual warming: UBC research

Sudden changes in the volume of meltwater contribute more to the acceleration – and eventual loss – of the Greenland ice sheet than the gradual increase of temperature, according to a University of British Columbia study.

The ice sheet consists of layers of compressed snow and covers roughly 80 per cent of the surface of Greenland. Since the 1990s, it has been documented to be losing approximately 100 billion tonnes of ice per year – a process that most scientists agree is accelerating, but has been poorly understood. Some of the loss has been attributed to accelerated glacier flow towards ocean outlets.

Now a new study, to be published tomorrow in the journal Nature, shows that a steady meltwater supply from gradual warming may in fact slow down glacier flow, while sudden water input could cause glaciers to speed up and spread, resulting in increased melt.

“The conventional view has been that meltwater permeates the ice from the surface and pools under the base of the ice sheet,” says Christian Schoof, an assistant professor at UBC’s Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences and the study’s author. “This water then serves as a lubricant between the glacier and the earth underneath it, allowing the glacier to shift to lower, warmer altitudes where more melt would occur.”

Noting observations that during heavy rainfall, higher water pressure is required to force drainage along the base of the ice, Schoof created computer models that account for the complex fluid dynamics occurring at the interface of glacier and bedrock. He found that a steady supply of meltwater is well accommodated and drained through water channels that form under the glacier.

“Sudden water input caused by short term extremes – such as massive rain storms or the draining of a surface lake – however, cannot easily be accommodated by existing channels. This allows it to pool and lubricate the bottom of the glaciers and accelerate ice loss,” says Schoof, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Global Process Modeling.

“This certainly doesn’t mitigate the issue of global warming, but it does mean that we need to expand our understanding of what’s behind the massive ice loss we’re worried about,” says Schoof.

A steady increase of temperature and short-term extreme weather conditions have both been attributed to global climate change. According to the European Environment Agency, ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet has contributed to global sea-level rise at 0.14 to 0.28 millimetres per year between 1993 and 2003.

“This study provides an elegant solution to one of the two key ice sheet instability problems identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in their 2007 assessment report,” says Prof. Andrew Shepherd, an expert on using satellites to study physical processes of Earth’s climate, based at the University of Leeds, the U.K.

“It turns out that, contrary to popular belief, Greenland ice sheet flow might not be accelerated by increased melting after all,” says Shepherd, who was not involved in the research or peer review of the paper.

The research was supported by the Canada Research Chairs Program, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences through the Polar Climate Stability Network.

[NeilBlanchard]

Watch the videos I posted -- the Greenland melts and all the other objections have been studied and answered. These scientists are thorough and smart people.

[Arragonis]

The paper I linked to is brand new.