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Post by steve on May 2, 2009 15:24:33 GMT
Just to keep things on topic:
Some responses have explicitly answered the question. Some have bypassed the question by pointing out what they see as flaws in the hypothesis rather than by saying what they think the hypothesis is.
Extracting the bits from some people that answer the original post:
sigurdur thinks the AGW hypothesis is that CO2 is the only thing that drives climate, and that it's a hypothesis held by dumb people who ignore empirical evidence. Also he agrees with gettingchilly, whose reply implies he thinks the hypothesis predicts "significant" warming ("significantly" more than 0.5C this century), but that the hypothesis is now fixed in stone.
Reading between the lines, van thinks the AGW hypothesis requires that climate hasn't changed for the 3000 years before CO2 increased, and that it is based on a misunderstanding of radiation transfer.
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Post by gdfernan on May 2, 2009 15:46:52 GMT
This is an interesting post where people are stating their beliefs and understandings of terms in a polite manner.
As a climate "realist" my take is as follows.
The "dictionary" definition of AGW for me would be an increase in global temperature caused by human activity.
However, my understanding of AGW as it is used in the Liberal media and the Gore-Hansen Liberal activist types is as follows.
1. Catastrophic temperature rises of 4 - 6 C by any time from 2050 - 2100 due to CO2 release by human activity 2. Which in turn causes the ice caps to melt 3. Which in turn causes sea levels to rise by anything from 2 - 10 meters 4. Which in turn innundates the low lying areas of the world causing a loss of arable land.
5. (1) also causes changes to rainfall patterns, dessertification, malaria regions to expand, Katrina, Blackhawk down, changes the nut gathering habits of squirells etc.
All of these catastrophes lead to the need to alleviate Global Warming by
1. Shutting down the emissions of CO2 in the WEST (While letting the rest of the world go on pumping CO2 as they please). 2. Shutting down all currently available mass scale energy sources available to the west (Oil and Coal) thus making the West dependent on tinpot dictatorships for their energy needs. 3. Enhancing the authority of the UN through the IPCC. (As the UN grows stronger, and the tinpot dictatorships that control the UN General Assembly becomes ever more powerful, events like the anti-semite Durban conference will become commonplace) 4. Guilt manipulators such as Gore-Hansen will become increasingly powerful and able to extract wealth from productive sectors to channel to targeted sectors.
The ultimate result (whether intended by everyone in the bandwagon or not) will be the destruction of "small l" liberalism.
Of course within about 30 years, once the natural variations of climate become better understood, AGW will go the way "Population time bomb", "Running out of Natural resources", "Y2K" and the recent "Pandemic" scares. However, by that time "small l" liberalism would have been destroyed.
My take on AGW is that Human induced CO2 may cause a slight increase in temperature (under 1C), but it is not something that we need to change our lifestyles for (Of course there are lots of other reasons as to why we should do so, but AGW is not one of them).
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Post by tacoman25 on May 2, 2009 22:47:16 GMT
What is, specifically, the "AGW hypothesis"? Some possibilities, but by no means are you restricted to them: - that human activity has a net warming effect on climate - that human co2 emissions have a net warming effect on climate - that there will be (insert your figure here) warming by (insert your year here) In general terms, the AGW hypothesis is that human-caused CO2 increases have caused most of the warming since 1900, and that as more CO2 is added to the atmosphere, the globe will warm faster.
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jtom
Level 3 Rank
Posts: 248
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Post by jtom on May 2, 2009 23:43:59 GMT
And, Steve, I don't think any skeptics deny the thermodynamic characteristics of CO2, only it's impact on climate given its limitations and the enormous number of confounding factors and feedback systems. In fact, I suspect most skeptics don't even deny the possibility of an AGW component, but rather our ability to produce models any where close to being sufficiently accurate to justify the absolute predictions many (e.g., Hansen, et al) are making.
I think the bottom-line is that the Earth is going to get warmer - and the Earth is going to get colder - and in no predictable order. If governments wanted to spend a few tens of millions doing contingency studies (what would the impact be if temps went up X degrees? what changes would we need to ADAPT? Heat tolerant crops? Better irrigations systems? Desalinization plants? And what would the impact be if temps went DOWN y degrees? And are there things we could implement in an on-going basis that would help in either case, like better insulation, better water management plans?) then I would say go for it.
We need to be able to ADAPT to climate change. No matter what we do viz-a-viz the climate, Nature is going to rise up and slap us. So levying huge taxes in an effort to CHANGE the climate is just pissing in the wind.
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van
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Post by van on May 3, 2009 13:06:31 GMT
STEVE Unreading between the lines, I think it is constantly changing, look at fig 1 at the following . www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htmYou will notice Roman warm period and medieval warm period (Medieval Climate Optimum). Both periods which were warmer than today. In the old forum if you recall someone posted a link to a picture of a glacier in retreat showing graphically how warm it has gotten over the last 30 years. It was a barren landscape with not so much as a blade of grass growing yet to colonize the landscape. However there was a lone tree stump of what looked like at least 12" in dia. the remains of a wooded area that had since been scoured away by the advancing glacier in the past. Is that is not proof of a warmer climate in the past? Trees tend to grow in groups called Forrest and Forrest with fairly large trees don't grow overnight. If that kind of proof can't convince you that you are wrong then nothing will. PS If anyone has a link to that article please post it for Steve, Socold and the other AGWs
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Post by socold on May 3, 2009 14:21:52 GMT
STEVE Unreading between the lines, I think it is constantly changing, look at fig 1 at the following . www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htmYou will notice Roman warm period and medieval warm period (Medieval Climate Optimum). Both periods which were warmer than today. That graph says "Sargasso sea". It seems we are wasting our time measuring global temperature with satellites when we could just dip a thermometer into the Sargasso Sea to determine global temperature...
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van
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Post by van on May 3, 2009 14:33:03 GMT
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jtom
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Post by jtom on May 3, 2009 14:48:53 GMT
Sounds good to me Socold. It would eliminate the problems with the placement of monitoring equipment, resolve the urban heat problem, and remove the excuse for "Hansen Adjustments".
As long as the measurements were consistent and averaged out over time, it should be representative of the changes in the typical climate.
After all, how many thermometers and body orifices do you use when you take your temperature?
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Post by socold on May 3, 2009 15:22:39 GMT
Being a proxy for that region doesn't make it a proxy for the globe.
I've just been reading through the Petition Paper document. It's not just figure 1 that has a logical flaw in it. Figure 2, figure 3, figure 4, figure 5...well lets just say I haven't found one yet which doesn't.
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Post by nautonnier on May 3, 2009 16:49:38 GMT
Being a proxy for that region doesn't make it a proxy for the globe. I've just been reading through the Petition Paper document. It's not just figure 1 that has a logical flaw in it. Figure 2, figure 3, figure 4, figure 5...well lets just say I haven't found one yet which doesn't. SoCold I think we are aware that you wouldn't agree with this paper. But I am interested in what you call 'logical flaws' in a simple graph. So how about giving us the benefit of your logic and describing the failures of logic to us? Enquiring minds would like to know.
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Post by icefisher on May 3, 2009 17:49:01 GMT
Being a proxy for that region doesn't make it a proxy for the globe. It would be a problem to use a single location as a proxy over a short period of time, but even regional differences are going to converge on the primary source of climate change over time. We are aware of regional shifts of 30 years or so, but at some point those regional differences unless driven by some regional feature are going to approximate the primary source of global warmth. There can be exceptions so a single proxy isn't a real strong indicator, but its better than no proxy. You could argue though that the Sargasso sea may have failed to pickup a recent driver like CO2. . . .but the flip side of that argument is CO2 hasn't sufficiently warmed the globe yet to override natural variations. . . .nor apparently to even come close. The real risk of a long term proxy is to measure what it purports to measure, namely the temperature of the Sargasso Sea. But its ignorant to blow off a longterm regional indicator simply because its regional. Seems about as ignorant as suggesting increasing CO2 is going to dissolve the worlds corals and shellfish while ignoring that CO2 drives both ocean acidity and bicarbonates and ignoring these types of animals thrived during times of higher CO2 levels than today.
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van
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Post by van on May 3, 2009 18:06:05 GMT
I guess the logic flaws he sees are that the graph showes that temps were both hotter at times and colder at times. And according to his logic it can't be both. And as we all know, its only man that can change the climate.
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Post by sigurdur on May 3, 2009 20:07:01 GMT
This is what I mean by empirical evidence that AGWers just plain want to ignore. Yes, the study was from a regional area. The point is that alll regional areas succumb to long term changes and only validate what is happening globally. In studying global climate I have found that when it is warmer humanity benefits. When it is colder, humanity suffers. The cause of said warming and cooling is being learned, and maybe in another 100 years our understanding of said causes will have improved. As it is, our actual understanding of climate is infant at this time. It is exciting for this old man to learn.....
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Post by socold on May 3, 2009 21:18:14 GMT
Being a proxy for that region doesn't make it a proxy for the globe. I've just been reading through the Petition Paper document. It's not just figure 1 that has a logical flaw in it. Figure 2, figure 3, figure 4, figure 5...well lets just say I haven't found one yet which doesn't. SoCold I think we are aware that you wouldn't agree with this paper. But I am interested in what you call 'logical flaws' in a simple graph. So how about giving us the benefit of your logic and describing the failures of logic to us? Enquiring minds would like to know. The logical flaw in the first figure is the assumption that one region is representative of the globe. The same is done in figure 3 and more They say temperature doesn't correlate with hydrocarbon use. Well it does correlate 1960s onwards. I guess they are saying if two metrics don't correlate fairly well for an entire record, they don't correlate at all. Okay fair enough but that will come back to bite them. We know that global temperature record looks different than the arctic temperature record. You should be able to see where this is going. In particular temperature by 2000 isn't simply as high as in 1940 in the global record, it's higher: Compare the global temperature record with the solar trend they have used. By their own standards it doesn't correlate. But they never look at this. Not one of their graphs compares their solar trend with global temperature. Look what they do in figure 5: So they compare the arctic and US temperature records with the solar record. But they don't compare the global temperature record with it... An oversight, or something else?
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Post by socold on May 3, 2009 21:23:34 GMT
Being a proxy for that region doesn't make it a proxy for the globe. It would be a problem to use a single location as a proxy over a short period of time, but even regional differences are going to converge on the primary source of climate change over time. But how much time? Could one region be warmer than another for 200 years? The greenland and antarctic temperature ice core temperature records don't match up perfectly. Those types of animals, but not the same species. Today's species in today's oceans are adapted for higher pH. Drop the pH sharply and many of the current species will not be able ot adapt in time. [/quote]
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