An Inconvenient Thread: Causes and Effects of Global Warming

Perhaps you should do research before you blindly disregard information.

The CDIAC is a United States government organization, not United Nations. Its numbers only happen to be in the UN database. The UN organization, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, actually has a lower figure for the US in 04, about 5,987,984,000 metric tons. And this US Department of Energy PDF indicates that the figure is something like 5,973,000,000 metric tons (page 10.) They're all in the ballpark of 6 billion tons, though.

 

Oh so not believing ever thing they are saying or buying ever thing they are saying is blindly disregarded them.

 

No, but waving away information solely because it comes from a United Nations source is "blindly disregarding" it.

Because that's what "The UN I'm not really going to take the world of a group that dose not have a good record on a lot of things." says to me. It says you took a look at the UNdata page, decided it was wrong/untrustworthy purely because it was a United Nations source, and didn't look further to find that the data was, in fact, from an American organization. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You're free to question data (and conclusions) all you want, but at least back up those questions with something more meaningful than "it's from the UN."

 

I'd like to say this for the record so that it doesn't get confused again: Volcanoes decrease global warming. They do not increase it at all.

[image=http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q191/Darth_Verrick/ModeledForcingResponse.jpg]

Check out the green line for Volcanoes. Note that it actually decreases global warming by about 0.15 degrees Celsius.

However, you shouldn't disregard information without actually looking at what that information says and analyzing it.

No one is saying to get rid of carbon. That would be a bad thing. We just need to keep things in moderation.

 

I think you need to be more careful as to what that says. As it doesn't say if volcanoes increase or decrease global warming, it only shows that according to the models, just looking at volcanic activity would expect a decrease. It doesn't say that volcanoes decrease global warming. Or increase. It doesn't address if its an increase or decrease in volcanic activity doing that.

 

Actually, the science stands behind the collected evidence. Volcanoes release Sulfate, which increases the albedo of the atmosphere. This counteracts all CO2 released by the volcano and then some.

 

No, my point was that the evidence you provide via that graph doesn't address the conclusion. I'm not saying that there's not evidence for it, just that the graph you provided is not evidence for the conclusion that volcanoes cause a drop in temperature.

 

They show that volcanoes have caused a drop in temperature. Add that to the science, and one can reasonably state that volcanoes do cause a drop in temperature.

 

It looks like the graph itself is based entirely on hypothetical forecast modeling, not on actual historical data. And the whole issue of correlation versus causation is not addressed in this graph either. That's not to say that the conclusion is wrong, just that this graph alone doesn't provide much support for the conclusion.

 

Not "looks like". It's precisely that. Vivec, read the side of your graph and it shows that these are "modeled forcing function" effects of each component. To be useful as evidence, one would have to have a high degree of confidence that the models are correct. Do you know how many of the models in use today have a greater than 90% confidence interval (a normal standard for statistical analysis when attempting to demonstrate correlation) with observed data, per chance?

 

Hypothetically speaking, maybe its a lack in volcanoes causing the drop in temperature? It shows that volcanic activity levels we've had would be expected to lead to lower temperatures, but it never clarifies if that is an increase of volcanic activity, or a decrease in volcanic activity.

 

Here's an explaination for the lowering of temeratures. Now, it seems to me to be damage control as the cooling has already started and this seems like a "prediction."

How can you legitamately "predict" something that has already started.

Man-made global warming=myth.

 

Er, they say the cooling would be temporary.

``If we don't experience warming over the next 10 years, it doesn't mean that greenhouse-gas warming is not with us,'' Keenlyside said in an interview. ``There can be natural fluctuations that may mask climate change in the short term.''

I'd have to do further research, but it sounds like they're saying that the natural ocean cycles would conceal or temporarily reduce the effects of carbon dioxide emissions on climate change in the short term. Though warming would "win" in the end.

Also, you can predict the progression of an event, even after it's started. They're not predicting that it will happen, they're predicting how it will happen.

 

It sounds to be like they are buying themselves 10 years of global warming behavour while the Earth is busy proving that there is no global warming.

That's what it sounds like to me.

 

Want to slow global warming? No problem. Got a spare #45 trillion in your sock?

lol.

 

Now this is what I'm talking about. No one giving this namby-pamby 5% decrease crap. 50% decrease! Yes!

Because, if you buy into some of the hype, it seems like a 5% decrease amounts to nothing (or maybe delaying the outcome for a few hours).

But a 50% decrease, that's the ticket!


On a more serious note...

What I'm asking here is what I've asked before: what needs to be done to save the world?

If decreasing man-made greenhouse gas emissions by 5% will reverse (or drastically slow down) global warming, then what does that say about the idea that global warming is mostly man-made? What does it say about the supposedly dire situation that we are in?

Conversely, if 5% isn't enough to reverse (or drastically slow down) global warming, then why are we pussy-footing around for? Why aren't there calls for a 50% or 75% decrease in greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade or so? Are we doomed, and just pretending that we're doing something about it?

 

Yeah. That's kinda how I feel about it.

Personally, I'm not exactly moved by the AGW postulation. But that's a scientific question, not a political one. So let's just stipulate that it's all true. If that's the case, what should we do?--that's a political question.

If you accept the theories as presented, then you can't stop it. It's going to happen. Your best hope is to delay it by a decade or so (even cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050 would only delay the inevitable by about 50 yrs or so). In that case, one needs to evaluate what it would cost (and I don't just mean in dollars) to achieve this delay and compare it what it would cost to adapt to the inevitable.

This is the first time I've seen anyone actually do a real cost analysis for dealing with AGW. $45,000,000,000,000 over 40 years.

Ok. Who's going to pony up? Time to put our money where our mouths are. Assuming that the US covers 25% of the annual bill (we're responsible for 25% of the greenhouse gases, so that only seems fair), we'd be averaging about $9,000/per American/yr. Piece of cake. Why isn't everyone volunteering for this?

 

Just so we're clear, the climatologists are not united around this conclusion, though it was printed in Nature has had a lot of attention in the media. The NASA GISS folks in particular seem skeptical.

 

You pretty much have to be a martian to believe in anthropogenic global warming.

[image=http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IMAGES/CARTOONS/toon060308.gif]

 

That really doesn't indicate anything though. Its seperate situations.

 

Stuff like this is why we have not made as much progress as we could have during the past few years. It's the equivalent of putting one's fingers into one's ears and loudly singing "La la la la la!"