Ready for SS's 1st Great Debate?

[yotetrapper]

Pat said: <<<Likewise, the process of actually testing your hypotheses and then modifying them as needed depending on your results (or chucking them altogether for a substantially different hypothesis) is among the more objective things that humans are capable of>>

My non scientific mind is confused here. You are doing an experiment. You believe that the earth is warming each year. You test this theory with these hyposethsis... goldenrod is blooming later than it used to. First Frost is earlier. Snowfall is greater. Avg mean temperature is colder. Last frost is later. So you compare the nationwide current data on all of these things to data from 5, 10, 20, 40 and 100 years ago. And you find that on average, these dates and occurences are the same as they have been in those past years. So this does NOT support your theory. So, you throw all that out and start all over.

This is where I am lost. How is that objective?? You were starting to perhaps disprove global warming, but instead of going with it you tossed it because it didn't support your theory. IMHO that is not objective.

Maybe I read your statement above wrong and that is in no way what you meant. But if you can say it doesn't happen often in the scientific field, then I will have to say that on that, I will disagree with you.

 

[me&thegals]

For every scientist out there like Pat, who expresses his/her theories on why/how pollution DOES cause global warming, there is another with just as sound theories for why it does NOT cause global warming.

According to Scientific American:

"Climate change is "unequivocal" and it is 90 percent certain that the "net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming," the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) a panel of more than 2,500 scientists and other expertswrote in its first report on the physical science of global warming earlier this year. In its second assessment, the IPCC stated that human-induced warming is having a discernible influence on the planet, from species migration to thawing permafrost. Despite these findings, emissions of the greenhouse gases driving this process continue to rise thanks to increased burning of fossil fuels while cost-effective options for decreasing them have not been adopted, the panel found in its third report.

The IPCC's fourth and final assessment of the climate change problemknown as the Synthesis Reportcombines all of these reports and adds that "warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible, depending upon the rate and magnitude of the climate change." Although countries continue to debate the best way to address this finding, 130 nations, including the U.S., China, Australia, Canada and even Saudi Arabia, have concurred with it."

So, while it would be accurate to say that not EVERY scientist agrees that global warming exists and/or is influence by human activity, it's definitely not a 50:50 ratio going on here.

In contrast, at the Conference on Climate Change, there were about 200 scientists attending who were not fully persuaded on climate change and its relationship to humans.

Also, I would be curious to know about what Congress is pushing on you? Would anyone really be offended for the auto industry to use existing technology to develop cars with better gas mileage? For our government to develop high-speed rail travel? For wind farms to replace some coal-burning plants?

 

[reinbeau]

No one is denying the earth is warming. It does that cyclically. From this page:

The climate dynamic is much more complex than simply saying that CO2 rises and the temperature warms, Stott said. The complexities have to be understood in order to appreciate how the climate system has changed in the past and how it will change in the future.

CO2 rises after warming occurs. This is a perfect example of what I mean about 'science' being used to 'prove' global warming is caused solely by human activities. Al Gore used this in his mockumentary. It's a twisting of the data pure and simple to push an agenda where decisions will be made, laws will be passed, monies will be taken from us via taxes and fees and spent to ultimately not make any difference other than to line someone's pocket. It's so wrong-headed I just can't believe so many are diving head first into it.

Scientist: Earth Cooling, Not Warming:

A San Francisco-based scientist says that current solar activity strongly indicates that the earth is on the verge of a new ice age.

"Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh," warns Phil Chapman writing in The Australian. Chapman is a geophysicist and astronautical engineer who was the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut.

"The scariest photo I have seen . . . is at www.spaceweather.com, where you will find a real-time image of the sun from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory [SOHO], located in deep space at the equilibrium point between solar and terrestrial gravity," Chapman wrote, adding ominously that "what is scary about the picture is that there is only one tiny sunspot."

"This is where SOHO comes in," he explained. "The sunspot number follows a cycle of somewhat variable length, averaging 11 years. The most recent minimum was in March last year. The new cycle, No. 24, was supposed to start soon after that, with a gradual build-up in sunspot numbers."

That, he writes did not happen. "The first sunspot appeared in January this year and lasted only two days. A tiny spot appeared last Monday but vanished within 24 hours. Another little spot appeared this Monday. Pray that there will be many more, and soon."

Why? According to Chapman "there is a close correlation between variations in the sunspot cycle and earth's climate. The previous time a cycle was delayed like this was in the Dalton Minimum, an especially cold period that lasted several decades from 1790. Northern winters became ferocious: in particular, the rout of Napoleon's Grand Army during the retreat from Moscow in 1812 was at least partly due to the lack of sunspots."

Although the rapid temperature decline in 2007 coincided with the failure of cycle No. 24 to begin on schedule is not proof of a causal connection, Chapman warns that it is cause for concern.

"Disconcerting as it may be to true believers in global warming," he explains, "the average temperature on earth has remained steady or slowly declined during the past decade, despite the continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, and now the global temperature is falling precipitously.

"All four agencies that track earth's temperature [the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California] report that it cooled by about 0.7 C in 2007." This, he says is "the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over."

The article continues, follow the link if you'd like to read more.

There are things affecting us here on earth that we don't understand yet. The sun is a huge factor, yet no one really understands how it all works yet. Humans tend to believe that they're smart, science has it all figured out.....yet the Mother extends beyond our atmosphere, she's still ready to show us who is boss - and it isn't us.

Stop polluting the air we breathe, the water we drink, the earth we walk on. Because it's the right thing to do. But the planet will warm and cool despite our efforts.

 

[yotetrapper]

Record Cold Could Be Just Around The Corner - Years Of Cold Temperatures Just Ahead
John Herron, Monday 07 January 2008 -


Breakout your parkas and crank-up another SUV, according to new NASA measurements we're heading in to a period of solar activity (or inactivity) that could mean years of much colder temperatures. The last time this natural cycle occurred world-wide death rates doubled and perhaps millions starved or died from the cold. This time around could be just as bad.

Soon CO2 levels and global warming may be the least of our worries. In fact we may be wishing we really had warmed the environment. As we've stated several times humans can adapt to warmer temperatures, but colder temperatures cause massive crop losses and far higher death rates. Solar activity has been one of the primary drivers of climate change since our little planet was formed. Though current theories believe there are other causes for massive ice ages most scientists agree that solar cycles are behind many of the "mini-ice ages" and other climate changes the planet has experienced over the millennium. These mini-ice ages have had devastating effects on man's ability to survive.


We today confirm the recent announcement by NASA that there are historic and important changes taking place on the suns surface. This will have only one outcome - a new climate change is coming that will bring an extended period of deep cold to the planet. - Space and Science Research Center, (SSRC)
So is our current global warming connected to sun spot activity? Many think so.

But throughout the 20th century, solar cycles had been increasing in strength. Almost everyone agrees that throughout most of the last century the solar influence was significant. Studies show that by the end of the 20th century the Sun's activity may have been at its highest for more than 8,000 years. - Belfast Telegraph article
We have just begun what scientists call Solar Cycle 24 (SC24 started on Jan 4th, 2008). These sunspot cycles generally last about 10.7 years. It is widely believed (and confirmed in the NASA Long Range Solar Forecast, link below) that Solar Cycle 25 could be one of the weakest in centuries. This next cycle starts in 9-12 years. NASA had originally predicted SC24 to be stronger (thus warmer temperatures) than normal. But because SC23 lasted so long many scientists now believe that SC24 could also be colder than normal. History certainly agrees with this theory. If SC24 and SC25 turn out to be as weak (cold) as predicted we may experience record cold and crop losses like we haven't seen since the Dalton Minimum of 1790-1820 or perhaps even the Maunder Minimum of 1645 to 1715. Again, this will have devastating effects on the world climate where millions could die from starvation.



You can read a very informative presentation about these solar cycles with long range climate predictions here, this was given at the Lavoisier Conference in Melbourne Australia. This presentation also has wonderful examples of how minuscule the effects of CO2 are on global climate, some excellent charts showing the benefits of increased CO2 on plant production, and a comparison of CO2 to the effect of solar cycles. Well worth a read.

Changes in sunspot activity has a huge influence over climate. The following is from a NASA report:

A new NASA computer climate model reinforces the long-standing theory that low solar activity could have changed the atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere from the 1400s to the 1700s and triggered a "Little Ice Age" in several regions including North America and Europe. Changes in the sun's energy was one of the biggest factors influencing climate change during this period....During the Little Ice Age, access to Greenland was largely cut off by ice from 1410 to the 1720s. At the same time, canals in Holland routinely froze solid, glaciers advanced in the Alps, and sea-ice increased so much that no open water was present in any direction around Iceland in 1695. - NASA Report titled The Sun's Chilly Impact on Earth
"During the Maunder Minimum in the 17th Century there were hardly any sunspots at all. This coincides with a period of cooling known as the Little Ice Age." - Wikipedia - Sunspots

Click here for large version


Scientists have been telling us for several years now that CO2 acts as a "blanket" over the earth trapping heat that would otherwise escape in to the atmosphere. To some extent that may be true, but to what extent?. CO2 only accounts for approximately 6.2% of "greenhouse" gasses (with most of the remainder being water vapor) and man only contributes about 3.4% of the total CO2 (with the rest being produced by nature). With man only contributing about 1/4 of 1% of all greenhouse gasses it is hard to see where our contribution would have caused much of the warming we've seen. Especially since new research shows that increasing levels of CO2 have a diminishing warming effect (a classic bell curve). CO2 levels have been increasing over the past decade but global temperatures have remained constant (actually they've fallen a little) over the same period. If CO2 had such a strong effect over climate we should have seen corresponding increases in temperature. This has not been the case.

The chart below shows changes in carbon-14 concentration in the Earth's atmosphere, which serves as a long term proxy of solar activity. Note the present day is on the left-hand side of this figure.


-- Data from United States Geological Survey (USGS)


Solar activity very closely matches not only recent global temperature changes by historical changes for the past 1100 years. e.g. Maunder Minimum was an extremely cold period, the Medieval Max was extremely warm period (when the Vikings not only colonized Greenland but were able to grow crops there). Especially note the very high carbon-14 concentrations of recent years and you'll understand why the earth has warmed recently (hint, its the big bright yellow ball in sky).


In 2007, hundreds of people died, not from global warming, but from cold weather hazards.... Since the mid-19th century, the mean global temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. This slight warming is not unusual, and lies well within the range of natural variation. Carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere, but the mean planetary temperature hasn't increased significantly for nearly nine years...South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year 1918. Dozens of homeless people died from exposure. In Peru, 200 people died from the cold and thousands more became infected with respiratory diseases...Unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007. Johannesburg, South Africa, had the first significant snowfall in 26 years. Australia experienced the coldest June ever. In northeastern Australia, the city of Townsville underwent the longest period of continuously cold weather since 1941. In New Zealand, the weather turned so cold that vineyards were endangered....In April, a killing freeze destroyed 95 percent of South Carolina's peach crop, and 90 percent of North Carolina's apple harvest. At Charlotte, N.C., a record low temperature of 21 degrees Fahrenheit on April 8 was the coldest ever recorded for April, breaking a record set in 1923. On June 8, Denver recorded a new low of 31 degrees Fahrenheit. Denver's temperature records extend back to 1872.
Recent weeks have seen the return of unusually cold conditions to the Northern Hemisphere. On Dec. 7, St. Cloud, Minn., set a new record low of minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit. On the same date, record low temperatures were also recorded in Pennsylvania and Ohio...Extreme cold weather is occurring worldwide. On Dec. 4, in Seoul, Korea, the temperature was a record minus 5 degrees Celsius. Nov. 24, in Meacham, Ore., the minimum temperature was 12 degrees Fahrenheit colder than the previous record low set in 1952. The Canadian government warns that this winter is likely to be the coldest in 15 years. - The Washington Times (link below)
The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming the greenhouse effect. - Has global warming stopped? by the NewStatesman
THE STARK headline appeared just over a year ago. "2007 to be 'warmest on record,' " BBC News reported on Jan. 4, 2007. Citing experts in the British government's Meteorological Office, the story announced that "the world is likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007," surpassing the all-time high reached in 1998. But a funny thing happened on the way to the planetary hot flash: Much of the planet grew bitterly cold.
Stock up on fur coats and felt boots!" advises Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and senior scientist at Moscow's Shirshov Institute of Oceanography. "The latest data . . . say that earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012. - The Boston Globe
Sorokhtin dismisses the conventional global warming theory that greenhouse gases, especially human-emitted carbon dioxide, is causing the earth to grow hotter. Like a number of other scientists, he points to solar activity - sunspots and solar flares, which wax and wane over time - as having the greatest effect on climate. "Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change," Sorokhtin writes in an essay for Novosti. "Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind." In a recent paper for the Danish National Space Center, physicists Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen concur: "The sun . . . appears to be the main forcing agent in global climate change," they write. Even though atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to accumulate - it's up about 4 percent since 1998 - the global mean temperature has remained flat. That raises some obvious questions about the theory that CO2 is the cause of climate change. - The Boston Globe
Today's climate change consensus is that man-made greenhouse gases are warming the world and that we must act to curb them to reduce the projected temperature increase estimated at probably between 1.8C and 4.0C by the century's end. But throughout the 20th century, solar cycles had been increasing in strength. Almost everyone agrees that throughout most of the last century the solar influence was significant. Studies show that by the end of the 20th century the Sun's activity may have been at its highest for more than 8,000 years. Other solar parameters have been changing as well, such as the magnetic field the Sun sheds, which has almost doubled in the past century.- the Belfast Telegraph (link below).
For the past 100 years solar cycles have been strong and temperatures increased throughout the period. But now the solar tides are changing and man may be in for some truly rough and cold times ahead.

Additional References:
Changes in the Suns Surface to Bring Next Climate Change - by the Space and Science Research Center.

NASA Long Range Solar Forecast - Solar Cycle 25 peaking around 2022 could be one of the weakest in centuries. See the NASA link above on what this may mean for the climate.

"Can the Sun save us from global warming?" - by the Belfast Telegraph. Includes a very good time-line showing the correlation of historic temperatures and sun spots.

Dalton Minimum

Maunder Minimum

Wikipedia "Little Ice Age"

"Year of global cooling" by The Washington Times.

"Br-r-r! Where did global warming go?" - The Boston Globe. This article contains a number examples of record cold temperatures.

Can the Sun save us from global warming? the Belfast Telegraph

The Past and Future of Climate - by David Archibald. An excellent presentation and predictions about solar cycles and their effect on our climate. Also comparisons of how little CO2 can effect the climate.



________________________________________


Global Warming? New Data Shows Ice Is Back

Tuesday, February 19, 2008 11:55 AM

By: Phil Brennan




Are the world's ice caps melting because of climate change, or are the reports just a lot of scare mongering by the advocates of the global warming theory?


Scare mongering appears to be the case, according to reports from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that reveal that almost all the allegedly lost ice has come back. A NOAA report shows that ice levels which had shrunk from 5 million square miles in January 2007 to just 1.5 million square miles in October, are almost back to their original levels.


Moreover, a Feb. 18 report in the London Daily Express showed that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than usual, challenging the global warming crusaders and buttressing arguments of skeptics who deny that the world is undergoing global warming.


The Daily express recalls the photograph of polar bears clinging on to a melting iceberg which has been widely hailed as proof of the need to fight climate change and has been used by former Vice President Al Gore during his "Inconvenient Truth" lectures about mankinds alleged impact on the global climate.


Gore fails to mention that the photograph was taken in the month of August when melting is normal. Or that the polar bear population has soared in recent years.


As winter roars in across the Northern Hemisphere, Mother Nature seems to have joined the ranks of the skeptics.


As the Express notes, scientists are saying the northern Hemisphere has endured its coldest winter in decades, adding that snow cover across the area is at its greatest since 1966. The newspaper cites the one exception Western Europe, which had, until the weekend when temperatures plunged to as low as -10 C in some places, been basking in unseasonably warm weather.


Around the world, vast areas have been buried under some of the heaviest snowfalls in decades. Central and southern China, the United States, and Canada were hit hard by snowstorms. In China, snowfall was so heavy that over 100,000 houses collapsed under the weight of snow.


Jerusalem, Damascus, Amman, and northern Saudi Arabia report the heaviest falls in years and below-zero temperatures. In Afghanistan, snow and freezing weather killed 120 people. Even Baghdad had a snowstorm, the first in the memory of most residents.


AFP news reports icy temperatures have just swept through south China, stranding 180,000 people and leading to widespread power cuts just as the area was recovering from the worst weather in 50 years, the government said Monday. The latest cold snap has taken a severe toll in usually temperate Yunnan province, which has been struck by heavy snowfalls since Thursday, a government official from the provincial disaster relief office told AFP.


Twelve people have died there, state Xinhua news agency reported, and four remained missing as of Saturday.


An ongoing record-long spell of cold weather in Vietnam's northern region, which started on Jan. 14, has killed nearly 60,000 cattle, mainly bull and buffalo calves, local press reported Monday. By Feb. 17, the spell had killed a total of 59,962 cattle in the region, including 7,349 in the Ha Giang province, 6,400 in Lao Cai, and 5,571 in Bac Can province, said Hoang Kim Giao, director of the Animal Husbandry Department under the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, according to the Pioneer newspaper.


In Britain the temperatures plunged to -10 C in central England, according to the Express, which reports that experts say that February could end up as one of the coldest in Britain in the past 10 years with the freezing night-time conditions expected to stay around a frigid -8 C until at least the middle of the week. And the BBC reports that a bus company's efforts to cut global warming emissions have led to services being disrupted by cold weather.


Meanwhile Athens News reports that a raging snow storm that blanketed most of Greece over the weekend and continued into the early morning hours on Monday, plunging the country into sub-zero temperatures. The agency reported that public transport buses were at a standstill on Monday in the wider Athens area, while ships remained in ports, public services remained closed, and schools and courthouses in the more severely-stricken prefectures were also closed.


Scores of villages, mainly on the island of Crete, and in the prefectures of Evia, Argolida, Arcadia, Lakonia, Viotia, and the Cyclades islands were snowed in.


More than 100 villages were snowed-in on the island of Crete and temperatures in Athens dropped to -6 C before dawn, while the coldest temperatures were recorded in Kozani, Grevena, Kastoria and Florina, where they plunged to -12 C.


Temperatures in Athens dropped to -6 C before dawn, while the coldest temperatures were recorded in Kozani, Grevena, Kastoria and Florina, where they plunged to -12 C.


If global warming gets any worse we'll all freeze to death


_________________________________________


Proposed Climate Tampering Could Kill Millions
John Herron, Wednesday 05 March 2008
Some scientists are so convinced that man-made global warming is now unstoppable and harmful that they are proposing to artificially tamper with the atmosphere to "fix it". If we truly are heading in to a period of low solar activity (cooling), as NASA and many others have predicted, this god like action to slow "global warming" could kill millions from cold and starvation.

We try to avoid fear mongering here and base our arguments on science. Historically science has generally been used to counter ignorance and prejudice, today science is often used to justify political correctness, to gain social acceptance or as a means to gaining power and wealth. When used incorrectly science can cause ignorance and prejudice. When science losses its built in skepticism it can be nearly impossible for the average person to know what to trust. We can find no better reason to fear the current politically tainted scientific community then the current push towards "geoengineering" to "fix" our climate.

As has been reported here in previous articles there have been several studies that say even if we cut CO2 emissions to zero the planet will continue to warm. The latest study claims we'll continue to warm for the next 500 years. No one believes we can cut our CO2 emissions to zero anytime soon and with reports like this one "China's 2030 CO2 Emissions Could Equal the Entire World's Today" it would hardly be worth other developed countries even trying. Not that we believe any of the malarkey about a planet doomed by CO2 but there are many on the left and some vocal scientists that do. This unfounded fear and the media's mass-hysteria is very dangerous. Cooling the planet at a time that we're heading in to a Dalton or Maunder Minimum level of solar activity could be disastrous!


OVERSEAS trips may become a once-in-lifetime experience and car travel needed to be cut by 80 per cent if we have any hope of avoiding "dangerous" climate change, experts say....The car is doomed, Associate Professor DamonHonnery said. Our calculations show that not even the best combination of fuel efficiency, hybrid and electric cars, alternative fuels and car pooling could provide the reductions needed to meet the 2050 targets for avoiding dangerous climatic change, he said. "Car travel 'cut by 80 per cent'"
An article by Science Daily titled "Can We Offset Global Warming ByGeoengineering The Climate With Aerosols?" suggests scientists are seriously considering releasing sulfate aerosols in to the stratosphere to scatter incoming solar energy before it is "trapped" in the lower atmosphere by greenhouse gases. This measure would increase "global dimming" and reduce the amount of light and solar energy that reaches the planet. A related proposal is to actually burn sulfur in the stratosphere and thus create a haze that would block sunlight. A known side effect of this method is an increase in acid rain. No one knows what other side effects may result from these two measures but some scientists are so convinced that global warming is going to doom the planet that they feel any action that helps reduce warming must be better than no action at all.

Ocean iron fertilization, also known as the "Geritol solution", involves seeding the oceans with iron to increase phytoplankton populations. The thought here is that the iron will encourage phytoplankton growth and the phytoplankton will suck up the CO2 as part of photosynthesis. This proposal is thought to be one of the least expensive methods of mitigating global warming. However it is fraught with danger and irony (hah, this is the is the first time I've seen the word irony being used ironically). For one thing no one is sure if the process is safe to the environment or if iron fertilization would even work on such a large scale. It is also possible that the additional phytoplankton growth would produce enough methane (also a greenhouse gas) to offset the CO2 absorption. Oh, theIRONy ? Environmentalists and some states actually sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to get CO2 classified as a pollutant. By encouraging phytoplankton growth to use CO2 for photosynthesis they are essentially admitting that CO2 its self is a necessary fertilizer for plant life. Plants flourish under increased CO2 levels. Our current atmospheric CO2 levels is about 380ppm, millions of years ago when plant and animal life was far more abundant and diverse than it is today CO2 levels were as high as 7,000 ppm! On the good news front one company that was about to begin testing of this method, Planktos has suspended operations saying "the company has been forced to indefinitely postpone its ocean fertilization efforts once intended to restore marine plant life and generate ecological offsets for the global carbon credit market". They complained of strong opposition from environmental groups such as the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and others for their inability to obtain investment capital. But a company called Climos just received $4 million in venture funding to plow ahead.

Other wacky ideas under consideration include artificial trees, giant space mirrors, painting city buildings / roads white, etc., etc. Some of these ideas are scarier than others as some are easy to undo. However the earth warms over time and once we spend a trillion dollars on a space mirror and cool the earth 5C it will take time to rewarm the oceans, it will also be so embarrassing that it could take decades to convince politicians to scrap such an expensive system. Painting all buildings and roads white would take far longer to undo. Ocean fertilization has unknown consequences and could trigger a chain of events that could go on for decades.

Those on the left will always try to manage or nanny any perceived problem. Rather than letting nature work the way nature has worked for millions of years they will spend trillions to try to manage, or control, it like they do everything else. Social Engineering of people has been practiced by them for years, now "Geoengineering" of the planet is being proposed so that they can manage the climate and weather. Helping to drive all of this is the Carbon Credit market. Carbon Credits are basically blackmail money paid by corporations to "offset" their CO2 emissions by paying money to companies that claim to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Companies currently do this for public relations, in the future they may be required by law.

Based on long established patterns of solar cycle activity NASA has already predicted that "Solar Cycle 25 peaking around 2022 could be one of the weakest in centuries." The global warming theory of CO2 caused warming has no history on its side, in fact proxy records (such as ice cores) show that warming has always proceeded CO2 releases by 800-1500 years. On the other hand solar cycle influence on climate has thousands of years of measured evidence and millions of years of proxy evidence to back it. As we've previously reported solar cycle activity closely matches periods of cooling and warming. Because modern tools for measuring the sun have only existed for a few short decades scientists have yet to pin point the exact solar mechanism that causes these warming and cooling cycles. Satellites, advanced telescopes, x-ray observations, etc. just weren't available during the Dalton Minimum, much less the Maunder Minimum. Some scientists believe that the reducedirradiance of a solar minimum could not cause the temperature variations that occur during a Maunder type minimum, or even the slight warming we've seen in the past 100 years. But just because scientists don't understand the mechanism doesn't mean that it isn't occurring. The historic proxy evidence is clear that when solar activity is low so are temperatures, the correlation was noticed over 200 years ago. The famous astronomer William Herschel first noticed the anticorrelation between the price of wheat and the number of sunspots visible on the Sun in 1801. Many others have noticed the correlation over the years as well.

Above: In red, NASA's David Hathaway's predictions for the next two solar cycles and, in pink, Mausumi Dikpati's prediction for cycle 24. Solar Cycle 24 (SC24) is already starting off much weaker than Hathaway predicted and will probably end up cooler than SC23. This will likely have grave consequences for SC25 and produce even colder temperatures than predicted.

Let us all hope that politicians and scientists don't jump on the politically correct mass-hysteria bandwagon and "geoengineer" us in to a colder and more deadly future.

Additional References:
"Can We Offset Global Warming By Geoengineering The Climate With Aerosols?" by Science Daily

"Climate-Cooling Plan Goes Up in Dust" by Discovery Magazine - plans to inject sulfates uniformly in equatorial regions, at all longitudes, at a constant rate over time.

"Geoengineering Firm Sequesters $4 Million" by Wired Magazine

Wikipedia - Mitigation of Global Warming

Wikipedia - Planetary Engineering (and Geoengineering)

"Cooling the Planet" - Technology Review, published by MIT

 

[patandchickens]

My non scientific mind is confused here. You are doing an experiment. You believe that the earth is warming each year. You test this theory with these hyposethsis... goldenrod is blooming later than it used to. First Frost is earlier. Snowfall is greater. Avg mean temperature is colder. Last frost is later. So you compare the nationwide current data on all of these things to data from 5, 10, 20, 40 and 100 years ago. And you find that on average, these dates and occurences are the same as they have been in those past years. So this does NOT support your theory. So, you throw all that out and start all over.

Well, first, you do not test a theory, really, not in anything like the sense that you test a hypothesis. A theory is just something that has some reasonable weight of evidence accumulating behind it so far. A bunch of related hypotheses are likely to *suggest* a theory, but the theory is only 'testable' insofar as if it implies/generates hypotheses that can be tested. If a number of 'em turn out to be false, or even if just one hypothesis that's really CRUCIAL to the theory ends up getting roundly rejected by good evidence, then you would abandon or severely modify that theory and you might in a casual sense say 'oh, we rejected that theory in favor of this new one'.

How is that objective?? You were starting to perhaps disprove global warming, but instead of going with it you tossed it because it didn't support your theory. IMHO that is not objective.

I'm sorry yotetrapper but I do not think I understand you at all here.

Is it (grasping at straws) a question of *what* exactly is thrown out when data disagree with hypothesis? It is the HYPOTHESIS that's thrown out, yotetrapper, NOT the data!!!!!!!!! You would never 'thrown out' data unless they turned out to be fraudulent i.e. made up, hoaxed. Although you might look at the METHODS by which certain data were produced (and you properly do this *before* using them to test a hypothesis, btw, not after, although second thoughts afterwards are much better than nothing) and decide that the data don't really have much, or anything, to say about the hypothesis you really intended to test.

(For example, if you want to know "does substance X, in such-and-such a doseage, cause increased deathrates in chickens?". If you test this hypothesis in commercial broilers, which have, what, about a 6 week lifespan before getting shrinkwrapped, your data may indicate no significant difference in mortality or age at death between the treatment and control groups. THis is perfectly fine methodology if what you care about is commercial broilers. OTOH if what you care about are backyard flocks where chickens typically live for two, three, six, twelve YEARS (not months), then it is obvious that the aforementioned study just doesn't have much of anything to say about the issue. Finding no difference in mortality or age-at-death in the broiler study might lean you very very very slightly towards guessing maybe it doesn't have an effect, at least on *somewhat* longer time spans, but overall you would have to say Hey, we really really don't know, this dataset just doesn't even come close to testing our backyard-flock hypothesis.)

If the substance *is* associated with a higher mortality in broiler flocks, and the rest of the study methodology is good i.e. does not introduce unintended biases or confounding factors, then you would reject the hypothesis that Substance X is harmless to broilers. And you'd logically expect it would probably not turn out to be harmless in backyard flocks either, although you would want to remember that maybe there are other complications you don't yet know about (like maybe it is vastly more harmful to grotesquely obese chickens than to 'normal' ones) so the prediction for backyard chickens remains an extrapolation - a reasonable guess - not anything you've actually studied per se.

Furthermore, if there have been 5 studies that've found Substance X does not increase broiler death rate, and 1 study that finds it *does*, things get more complicated. Either the difference is due to some methodological difference - and 'difference' can be as subtle as what strain of broilers was used, or the temperature they were grown at, or what exactly they were fed - or it is just statistical 'noise' (which is a very potent part of the natural world but unfortunately impossible to pin down except by inference from LARGE numbers of LARGE studies). In this situation, there is some legitimate question as to what the data really mean... objectively, several different explanations are roughly equally likely. When this happens. different people are going to have different PERSONAL JUDGEMENTS of what the likeliest reason is. This is the limit of where 'objectivity' can take you - when it comes to interpreting uncertainties or deciding what to do, that isn't science per se, that is each person's own 'thing'.

I give the above example to try and give some idea of why scientists quite legitimately DO disregard, or sort of 'downgrade' in their importance, various datasets or studies; and thus why it is reasonable to expect legitimate disagreement over some points, even when everybody is being as logical and bias-shucking and objective as possible.

The big thing about science is, in science you would rather learn you are wrong so you can change your ideas and hopefully get gradually more right overall.

I have no idea if this helps clarify, at all

Pat

 

[patandchickens]

Guys, you can play ping-pong all you like ("global warming!" "global cooling!" "this article!" "that article!") and it will get you nowhere constructive.

We live in a fiendishly complicated world, which is additionally full of statistical uncertainties, and there are always multiple, often-opposing processes that determine any particular outcome.

(I.e., nearly everything in the world is a great big ol' game of tug-o-war between multiple, sometimes quite numerous, invisible opponents who push and pull each other as much as they push or pull on the rope, plus which they wobble and stumble and hop in unpredictable ways as they do all this).

We can't predict the weather TWO DAYS FROM NOW IN ONE TOWN with particularly unerring accuracy; what kind of idiot would think that projections about the whole friggin' WORLD, YEARS OR DECADES from now are likely to be more than a shot in a dark with (at best) a dim flashlight?????

I mean, really.



I have no idea whether there are other cultures (past or present) that have more effective cultural traditions for dealing with uncertainty -- although I would guess that there almost have to be, since we live in a time of great assurance and safety and lack of uncertainty, compared to nearly everyone else nearly every time and place else. But I have to say, our culture on the whole sucks like a Hoover at comprehending and coping with uncertainty.

You don't have to know something for sure (or for pretty sure) in order to be able to decide what to do.

But there are much better ways of deciding what to do than just picking what's most short-term convenient for you or what's most intellectually stylin' (according to your politics, tastes in contrarianism etcetera). Popular tho that is these days.

The majority (n.b. before you get your knickers all in a knot - not all) of the we-should-NOT-take-this-global-warming-business-seriously arguments that I have seen, and see here too, seem worryingly aimed at narrowing the field to this: "Has it been proven humans are warming the earth? No. Even if they are, is it plausible to think that other factors could happen in the future to counterbalance that? Yes. Therefore, you know all of the things that people have proposed we do to try to counter any human effect on climate (which incidentally, doing them would cause inconvenient change in my lifestyle)? I reject them all and do the happy smog-and-cheetos dance, hahahahaha."

Even if there are very good OTHER reasons to do those self-same things.

If you really want to know what I think, I think that what the human race needs is a good ol'fashioned decimation -- or worse -- to knock some sense back into it, preferably one that destroys all petroleum reserves. And yet at the same time, and more strongly, I feel that it is irresponsible to wish for that or even just to sit back and let it happen, because anything other than a "The Stand"-type epidemic (which is realistically just not gonna happen) would damage too much of this planet too badly and lastingly to be fair to any of the other ten or hundred MILLION SPECIES that we share our turf with, not to mention our eventual descendants if any.

I think it is our responsibility to TRY, despite personal inconvenience. And to err on the side of caution, out of respect for our descendants and the other 50 million or so species that we share this planet with.

Plus it builds character


Pat

 

[reinbeau]

The majority (n.b. before you get your knickers all in a knot - not all) of the we-should-NOT-take-this-global-warming-business-seriously arguments that I have seen, and see here too, seem worryingly aimed at narrowing the field to this: "Has it been proven humans are warming the earth? No. Even if they are, is it plausible to think that other factors could happen in the future to counterbalance that? Yes. Therefore, you know all of the things that people have proposed we do to try to counter any human effect on climate (which incidentally, doing them would cause inconvenient change in my lifestyle)? I reject them all and do the happy smog-and-cheetos dance, hahahahaha."

Not one person here who isn't buying into the GW religion has mouthed anything similar to 'do the happy smog-and-cheetos dance, hahahahaha'. Well, maybe the original poster, but none of the rest, myself included. Unfortunately there are those out there who do feel that way, but they're going to be polluters no matter what. Joe six-pack isn't going to be bothered by any of it unless it gets in the way of his watching NASCAR on saturday afternoon ensconced in his easy chair, Budweiser in hand and butt hanging out of his mouth. That description doesn't seem to apply to the thinking people on this board or on any other board where we've discussed these issues.

As for some global catastrophe happening and knocking the human race back a few notches, I can see it happening, and heck, it may be just around the corner. May be the best thing that could happen, in a way, if the survivors smarten up. But bad things have happened in the past, huge bad things like the plague, massive earthquakes, etc. and things just seem to go on as they go, eventually. It'll have to be something global, perhaps one of those asteroids will finally hit us. Who knows? That's what the human race's problem is, we truly have so little control over the whole picture that we are constantly trying to control what we think we can. And nature, or if you believe, God, or the universe laughs.

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

 

[hoosier]

I remember in the mid-seventies when there was a study that said the earth was cooling and entering another ice age. Then, ten years later, the earth is warming and we have a global warming problem.............
I believe in using as little as possible and recycling all I can.
Does anyone really think the government can solve anything???

 

[reinbeau]

No, but they can sure screw things up and we end up paying through the nose to meet all of their new rules, mandates, taxes, fees, etc.

If you hear "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" you know you are in big trouble!

 

[Beekissed]

And nature, or if you believe, God, or the universe laughs.

I, for one, believe but I don't think God is exactly laughing about our ignorance. I think it brings him great sorrow. As a believer, I don't have to worry myself over all these proposed natural disasters, at all. I have the faith and comfort knowing that God will take care of me regardless. But I do know it is prophesy, and its in the Bible, that all this would happen. It says the Earth, and the creatures on it, will groan for His coming.

Now, I don't wish to start a theologic controversy here...those are the worst kind! I just really feel sad for the people who worry so much about the uncertainty of the future. From what is stated in the Bible, God feels the same sorrow over the folly of mankind.