Is Global Warming real?

Martian Republic · 2007-03-14 14:22:38

We have records of Co2 going back to the 1860 or 1850 time period and they show increased and decreases of the Co2 over that time period. Matter of fact, there a period in 1880 where the Co2 was a lot higher than it is right now. Even back in the 1930 or so there were higher level of Co2 than it is right now.,

care to back that up with a reputable source? All graphs I've seen show quite a different picture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Glob … y_Type.png

No, I don't have any problem of backing it up.

http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2 … cience.pdf

Why, what the problem?

Al Gore is lier just like George Bush is and don't have any use for either one of them.

Larry,

Rxke · 2007-03-14 14:33:20

interesting.

No need to become confrontational, I was just asking a question. Thanks for the answer.

Rxke · 2007-03-14 14:49:17

You can find the original paper from where the graps originate (short version) here: http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/archives/003818.html (it's a .pdf)

Martian Republic · 2007-03-14 15:55:42

interesting.
No need to become confrontational, I was just asking a question. Thanks for the answer.

I didn't mean to come off appearing confrontational with you. Usually when I give my sources, the people that I give my sources to, aren't interested in them and generally deny that they are valid source at all. So some time I may blast off a little prematurely by expecting that from you.

"SORRY ABOUT THAT"!

Larry,

SpaceNut · 2007-03-14 19:43:05

The over all picture as seen at the wikipedia Image of Global Carbon Emission thou as taken over time show the CO2 levels, we should note that they are not stationary, and that doing ice cores only show what they were at the time of the snow fall.
You would need lots more global ice cores to prove effects all over and currently that is not possible.

RickSmith · 2007-03-15 03:03:32

The IPCC 4AR Summary for Policymakers is available here
This is a highly complex and specialized matter, even this so called summary is hard to read. To give but one example of how easy it is to be completely mislead by the alarmist media, let's take your statement below:
Here is something I'm worried about but which does not get the press that 5 meter rises in sea levels does...
Check page 7 of the above report, 2nd to last paragraph:
The total 20th century rise (Global average sea level) is estimated to be 0.17 [0.12 to 0.22] m.
Now look at the scenarios in table SPM-3 on page 13 and take the most extreme case - the A1FI scenario - that estimates a yearly increase of 5.9 mm which would add up to 0.59m over the whole of the 21st Century. The press has exaggerated the rise in sea level by a factor of ten! BTW the low end of all but one of the other scenarios would fall below the maximum estimated sea level rise (0.22m) that has already occurred in the 20C without any serious global consequences.
Furthermore both the way the IPCC has summarized the science and the "science" itself have been strongly disputed. The media have failed to do their job, they are not reporting on the facts, they are distorting them.

Hi Clclops,
Thank you very much for quoting the data!!! It makes a nice change and I really appreciate it.

The report is very careful to explain what it is measuring. The Sea level rises include the warming water (which takes up more space so it expands), Increased run off from Glaciers and the Greenland Ice Cap & increased run off from the Antarctic Ice sheet. (From Table SPM-1 on page 7.)

However, Table SPM-3 on page 13 which you mentioned has the following heading which you did not quote: Sea level rise (m at 2090 to 2099 relative to 1980 - 1999) : Model based range excluding future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow.

Most of the news reports I've seen that speak of sea levels rising 3 to 5 meters also talk about the break up of the Greenland or Antarctic ice caps. The model that says that the oceans will rise from 0.26 to 0.59 meters are explicitly excluding this possibility. The ice cap on Greenland (or Antarctica) breaking up is a "future rapid dynamical change to the ice flow."

Why are they excluding this chance? I am guessing here, but I think it is because it is very hard to say when it will happen. They don't know if it will happen in 30 years, 60 years or 150 years. With out knowing, they predict the trends that can be estimated with some precision and do not go into sudden, hard to predict shifts to the world status. I think this is good science.

From what I have seen, I think that there is a good chance that the Greenland ice cap is less stable than you might wish. I saw a discovery channel TV show on Global Warming and it showed this video of a small river of fresh water on the surface of Greenland flowing over the ice and then diving vertical into this well that goes straight to the bottom of the ice cap. As more fresh water squeezes under that ice cap, the whole thing becomes much less stable. There were also graphs showing the amount of fresh water under the cap and the fresh water steadily expanded over the decades that the scientists have been studying this.

The Antarctic ice sheet are likely to remain stable for some time. It is showing none of these dangerous indicators.

Now you may say, "Some times the media says, we will get this huge rising of sea level because of Global Warming" but they don't say that "...this includes melting Greenland and or the West Shelf of Antarctica". True. Very True.

It would be much better for the media to say: "Sea levels will rise 20 to 50 cm, unless Greenland melts in which case it will be 4 or 5 meters, and if part of Antarctica melts too then it will be another 4 or 5 meters."

However, I don't see that happening soon.

But I saw two editorials in my local papers in the last week that say that scientists are divided on if Global Warming is even happening. As the AAAS quote says above, this is not the case. Of the all the papers written by people in the field, (excluding ones by the oil industry et all), 100 percent said that we were experiencing global warming and that humans were very likely to be contributing to this. (Some expressed no opinion and are excluded from this percentage.) But no reports, NONE, said that they thought that we were not experiencing warming and that humans were not partially responsible for this. Do you know how rare it is to get hundreds of scientific studies and not to get some data or people who go against the grain?

So despite an almost unprecedented amount of agreement from scientists editorials and opionion makers are saying that scientists don't agree after all.

So I have some bones to pick with the media as well. I would call them the strangly inaccurate, complacent media.

Finally, to Terraform Mars is a process I see taking hundreds of years. I want human culture on Earth to be vibrant, in an healthy ecology, 100, 200 and even 300 years from now. Mars might well need Earth that long.

So I am disturbed when I see people say, "Oh, nothing much will happen for 50 years. That's longer than I will be around. Screw the future."

Admittedly it is rare for someone to take the long view like I do, but as people interested in Terraforming, I think WE should take the long view.

And my long view is that humans are killing so many species we are in the middle of a major extinction event. Climate Change & desertification will likely increase the number of species lost. It takes millions of years to get back this biodiversity, this is 'bio-capital' we are throwing away.

Here is another quote:

Continued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century that would be VERY LIKELY be larger than those observed during the 20th century.

In my home province of BC we have the pine bore beetle. It looks to cost us a couple billion dollars over the next few years because we have not had a winter cold enough to kill these bugs in over 2 decades. BC and Washington state are losing a huge amount of money from economically valuable species because we are not getting the cold winters we need.

If things are noticeable in the 20th century and are very likely worse in the 21st century what are things going to be like in the 22nd century? As I say, I take the long view.

And my long view is that we better get to Mars in a hell of a hurry and get it terraformed. Because in 200 years Earth is going to have a lot of hungry, battered people fighting for a lot smaller area of food production. The American bread basket will be a desert because the USA seems to be unable to regulate how fast they are pumping out their aquifers. 200 years from now (and the years leading up to it) look scary to me.

After 200 years, it is hard to say where we will be. But if we decide to burn all our coal, then in 300 years we will have CO2 levels higher than some of the extinction events thought to be caused by Hydrogen Sulfide eruptions.

I don't know about you but I don't want the human race to be gone in a half a millennium. I think that is where we are heading with this global warming.

There is a very good book called, "Collapse" by Jered Diamond which looks at a whole bunch of cultures that have over extended themselves beyond what their environment can take. Things fall apart very quickly: war, famine, plague and death.

Let us say that my 500 year prediction is alarmist. In 20 years we get fusion (even tho funding for it has been dropping) and it does not go the way of MHD (now Magnetoplasmadynamics) power-plants and fission power-plants. And let us further assume that China and India DON'T build tonnes of coal burning plants. Well in those cases we don't need to worry.

But I don't see any of those things happening. I am dismayed by the slow progress of fusion and I know damn well that fossil fuels are a VERY HIGH DENSITY ENERGY SOURCE. I have never seen any society anywhere, anytime in history, wean itself off a high density energy source.

And there are trillions of dollars to be made by the oil, gas and coal industries if they can delay the adoption of fission and fusion by just 50 years, 100 years, 200 years. There will be organized resistance to change.

The vast resistance I see to even the simple proposition that most scientists think that humans are warming the planet is an example. Currently in the poll I set up at the start of this thread, we have 1 person (me) who is very worried about Climate Change, 1 person who says "Ya, it's a problem but not for me. I'll let my grand kids deal with it." (What a sweety.) And the other 3 people say that they don't think there is scientific consensus, think it is a myth that there is even any EVIDENCE for global warming or are content to wait until scientists come around to their point of view!

Well folks, my claim is this. I think that historically the wealth & ability to go to Mars is pretty damn rare. I think if our current Western civilization collapses it will be a lot harder for these events to ever happen again simply because we have used up so many of the easily accessible oil deposits. (Which are a concentrated energy source par-excellence & you NEED easily accessible concentrated energy sources to develop a high tech-society.) The rate that species are dying off now is equal to during a major extinction event and that will increase for various reasons well into the 21st century. As eco-systems get simpler they get less stable. (This includes economically valuable species and food species which we are mono-culturing which makes them doubly vulnerable.) I think we could easily have a collapse of our civilization in 300 years. I think we could easily see the human species go extinct in 500 to 1000 years, IF we keep pumping CO2 into the air for another 200 years.

Now I am well aware that most people are not worried about these things. But you will understand why I am not much moved by people who say, "Oh, won't be a problem for another 50 years or 100 years. I just won't worry about it, 'cause I've got gasoline to burn."

Warm regards, Rick.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2007-03-15 05:05:14

India and China are growing polluters

cIclops · 2007-03-15 06:22:21

The report is very careful to explain what it is measuring. The Sea level rises include the warming water (which takes up more space so it expands), Increased run off from Glaciers and the Greenland Ice Cap & increased run off from the Antarctic Ice sheet. (From Table SPM-1 on page 7.)
However, Table SPM-3 on page 13 which you mentioned has the following heading which you did not quote: Sea level rise (m at 2090 to 2099 relative to 1980 - 1999) : Model based range excluding future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow.
Most of the news reports I've seen that speak of sea levels rising 3 to 5 meters also talk about the break up of the Greenland or Antarctic ice caps. The model that says that the oceans will rise from 0.26 to 0.59 meters are explicitly excluding this possibility. The ice cap on Greenland (or Antarctica) breaking up is a "future rapid dynamical change to the ice flow."
Why are they excluding this chance?

To reiterate, the summary report is hard to read and what is meant by "future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow" is nether explained or estimated. Hopefully these details will be presented in the full report.

Also note in table SPM-1 that the errors in the rise in sea level from the contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet and for the Greenland ice sheet (1961 – 2003) are greater than the estimated values. This is an an indication of the state of scientific knowledge of the subject.

Martian Republic · 2007-03-15 13:26:34

I have found more information on the temperature changes. It called the Great Global warming swindle - UK Channel 4. It a video of experts that exposes the lie that Co2 is causing Global Warming. Not only do they show that Co2 has absolutely no impact on causing Global Warming, they then turn around and show you what is actually causing the Earth to warm up and cool down. The video is probably about hour long. So if you have a dial up like I have, you might want to down load it during the night and watch it the next day, because it will take four to six hours to down load it. Of course if you have a cable link instead of a dial up, you won't have that problem and can watch it right now. Here the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XttV2C6B8pU

Larry,

noosfractal · 2007-03-18 19:14:24

The underlying report on which the IPCC summary claims to be based has been published here ...

http://www.junkscience.com/draft_AR4/

Also note in table SPM-1 that the errors in the rise in sea level from the contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet and for the Greenland ice sheet (1961 – 2003) are greater than the estimated values. This is an an indication of the state of scientific knowledge of the subject.

Bingo.

nickname · 2007-03-20 17:02:30

My oppinion...

C02 all BS.

Short answer (no)
Long answer ($$$)

Read the few papers you can find from people receiving little or no funding and you will be close to truth.

RickSmith · 2007-03-22 00:05:06

Bush team takes heat over global warming science - Accusations of meddling
By Lucy Sherriff
Published Tuesday 20th March 2007 16:09 GMT
The Bush administration has been meddling in climate research in a bid to downplay the importance of global warming, according to a memo released by the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
The committee held its second hearing on federal interference in climate change science on Monday this week.
In his opening statement, representative Henry Waxman said although it is too early to draw firm conclusions about the White House's conduct, "some of the information the committee has already obtained is disturbing. It suggests there may have been a concerted effort directed by the White House to mislead the public about the dangers of global climate change".
He said that science should inform policy, and that if the Bush administration had turned this policy upside down "through raw political pressure, then it set our country on a dangerous course".
A memo later released by the committee says that the documents provided by the Council on Environmental Qualify (CEQ) suggest the White House was systematically trying to minimise the significance of climate change.
It says there is evidence that Phillip Cooney, former chief of staff of the CEQ, and his staff made almost 300 edits to a 10 year strategy document either to emphasise scientific uncertainty (181), or to diminish the human role in global warming (113).
It also cites evidence that the White House "played an active role in deciding when federal climate change scientists could answer media questions about their work".
James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said he had seen a gradual politicising of science over the past quarter of a century, but that in 30 years in government he has "never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it has now".
He has previously accused political appointees within NASA of trying to censor him.
In his own testimony, Cooney describes his editing as part of "the normal review process" of documents moving between different agencies.
He writes: "I had the authority and responsibility to review the documents in question...and did so using my best judgement, based on the administration's stated research priorities...I understand that my judgement and the administration's priorities are properly open to review."
You can read the memo and all the written testimony here.
http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1214
®

The man in hot water, Phil Cooney, was appointed as Chief of Staff at the Council on Environmental Quality. This is the ministry charged with protecting the environment in the USA. Interestingly enough, Phil Cooney was a former lobbyist for the Oil Industry. He has no background in ecology, toxicology, meteorology (or any science background at all).

In the report that is linked to above there is evidence of threats made to scientists who wished to speak an inconvenient truth. (Reprimands and budget cuts to their work and their colleagues work.) Sad reading really.

Bizarrely, this [20% cut to NASA's Earth Science budget] is happening just when NASA data are yielding spectacular and startling results. Two small satellites that measure the Earth's gravitational field with remarkable precision found that the mass of Greenland is now decreasing by about 150 cubic kilometers of ice per year and the West Antarctica by a similar amount. The area of the ice sheets with summer melting has increased markedly, major ice streams (portions of the ice sheet moving the most rapidly towards the ocean and discharging icebergs) have increased doubled in flow speed, and the are of the Arctic Ocean with summer sea ice has decreased 20 percent in the last 25 years.
One way to avoid bad news: stop the measurements! Only hitch: the first line of NASA mission is "to understand and protect our home planet." Maybe that can be changed to "...protect special interests' backside."

It is no wonder with this sort of lying going on by appointed public officials that people seem to think that there is not a scientific consensus on Climate Change.

Also of vital interest as it contradicts Tom's assurances:

The data shows that the Earth's climate has considerable inertia, due especially to the massive oceans and ice sheets. Yet the climate can change dramatically on century time scales and even on decadal and shorter time scales.
The evidence confirms a predominance of positive feedbacks that amplify climate response on short time scales, these feedbacks including increasing atmospheric water vapor and decreasing sea ice cover as the planet becomes warmer. However, the data also indicate the presence of feedbacks on decadal, century and longer time scales. These feedbacks include movement of forest and other vegetation poleward as the climate warms, increasing net emissions of greenhouse gases from the ocean and biosphere, and decrease in the area and brightness of ice sheets.
The predominance of positive feedbacks, along with the inertia of the oceans and ice sheets, has profound practical implications. It means that if we push the climate system hard enough it can obtain a momentum, it can pass tipping points, such that climate changes continue out of our control. Unless we begin to slow down the human-made climate forcings, there is the danger that we will create a different planet, one far outside the range that has existed in the course of human history (References 7, 8, 9).
It is because of these climate feedbacks and the inertia of the ocean and ice sheets that the global warming problem differs fundamentally from the problem of conventional air pollution (Reference 12). By the time the public can clearly see the existence of climate change, there is momentum in the system for a great deal of additional change. As a result we are probably already very near, if not beyond, the dangerous level of interference with atmospheric composition. ...

Dr. Hansen also questions the constitutional legality of the actions of the Executive Branch on this issue as the research is publicly funded by the congress (not funded by the executive branch) and therefore the public has the right to the uncensored information.

Warm regards, Rick.

RickSmith · 2007-03-22 02:29:54

For whoever voted for the last choice on the pole would you like to do a calculation on how long it would take for the Greenland ice cap to melt if all the power from the sun when into melting the ice in Greenland? I havn’t done it yet, I think it would be fun.

Hi John,
The sun produces so much energy that it would take less than a second to flash the entire mass of the Greenland ice sheet from a solid block of ice to a plasma. Goes to show the power of a fusion reactor 150 million km away. Or perhaps you just meant the energy of the sun that hits the Earth? That is a harder problem which I will do for you to 2 significant decimal places.

The sun produces a tremendous amount of energy - 1300 Watts / m^2 at the Earth's orbit. (One Watt is a joule of energy each second.) (This information I got from page 71 of "Entering Space" by Robert Zubrin.)

The diameter of the Earth is 12.756.3 km. Thus the area of the light and heat intercepted (assuming the earth is a sphere) is 1.278 E8 km^2

Thus the energy intercepted each second is: 1.66 E17 Joules !

The volume of the Greenland ice sheet is approximately: 3.57 E18 cubic meters.

The Enthapy of Fusion of water is: 335.5 kj / kg.

(One cubic meter of ice is about equal to one tonne. 2 sigs, remember.)

So the ice masses about 3.57 E 21 kg and will require 1.20 E21 kj of heat to melt it.

1.2 E21 kj = 1.2 E24 joules of energy are needed.

1.2 E24 joules / 1.66 E 17 joules per second = 7.22 E 6 seconds.

So we will need 7.22 million seconds of the suns energy (which hits the Earth) to melt the Greenland ice sheet. This is equal to 8.35 days. ( Call it 1.2 weeks ).

This is the answer to your question.

Now someone might claim that I'm pulling a fast one on you. That is just what is needed to MELT the ice. But the ice has to be warmed to 0 C first.

I found it hard to get the temperature of the deep ice (mainly because it varies). How ever a very interesting article on Ice Cores on Wikipedia suggests to me that -20 C might be a good temperature for deep Antarctic ice. To be safe, I will assume that all the ice is at -40 C (this is almost certainly too cold since a significant fraction of the ice is close to 0 C & in any case the Greenland ice is not as cold as that of Antarctica.) Anyway, using the Specific Heat Capacity for ice and assuming VERY cold ice:

2.114 joules / gram / kelvin we get 2.114 E6 j tonnes (x 40 K ) joules per tonne (1 tonne = 1 cubic meter) of Greenland Ice; this equals 8.456 E7 J / m^3 for very cold Greenland ice.

So 3.57 E18 m^3 of ice * 8.456 E 7 J / m^3 (specific heat) = 3.02 E26 joules.

3.02 E 26 J / 1.66 E 17 J/sec = 1.82 E 9 seconds to warm the ice.

This is ~21,000 days or 5.76 years.

(By the way, if any one can find a good average temperature for deep Greenland ice please let me know & I will recalcuate this & edit this post. Give references.)

So if some loudly challenges your 1.2 week figure you can point out that if you want to warm the ice to melting it will take a few more years of the sun's energy. It is important to be accurate in these debates.

So you are right John, when you look at the next 200 or 500 years a trivial amount of time is needed to melt the ice cap to nothing.

While researching these calculations, I found a few interesting facts:

If ALL of the Greenland ice cap melts the seas will rise 7.2 meters. (Why the huge variation of estimates of the amount of sea level expected to rise in the next 100 or 200 years? Likely because people expect most but not all of the ice to melt.)

If the Antarctic ice sheet melts the sea level will rise about 61.1 meters.

(This is pretty bleak if you consider how much farm land will be destoyed if the sea level rises only one meter.)

In Greenland, 40% of the ice is currently being lost by calving from glaciers. In Antarctica 80 to 90% of the loss is from calving.

Greenland has 1.7 E6 km^2 of ice and in Antarctica this is about 14 E6 km^2. Both ice sheets average slightly more than 2 km thick.

The places where I got my figures from are below.

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookin … slide.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_sheet

http://edmall.gsfc.nasa.gov/99invest.Si … d-ice.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_heat_capacity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_e … _of_fusion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core

Warm regards, Rick.

RickSmith · 2007-03-22 02:39:27

This is from MediaLens which watchdogs mass media:
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/07/0313 … da_the.php

March 13, 2007
PURE PROPAGANDA - THE GREAT GLOBAL WARMING SWINDLE
The Scientists Are The Bad Guys

On March 8, Channel 4 screened The Great Global Warming Swindle, a documentary that branded as a lie the scientific consensus that man-made greenhouse gasses are primarily responsible for climate change.

The film was advertised extensively on Channel 4 and repeatedly previewed and reviewed in newspapers. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Christopher Booker declared:

“Only very rarely can a TV documentary be seen as a pivotal moment in a major political debate, but such was Channel 4's The Great Global Warming Swindle last Thursday. Never before has there been such a devastatingly authoritative account of how the hysteria over global warming has parted company with reality.” (Booker, ‘A turning point in climate change,’ Sunday Telegraph, March 11, 2007)

Peter Hitchens commented in the Daily Mail:

“If you were worried about those snaps of polar bears clinging to melting ice-floes, sentenced to a slow death by global warming, you may now relax. They'll be fine. Channel 4 has paid in full for its recent misdemeanours by screening, last Thursday, the brilliant, devastating film The Great Global Warming Swindle.” (Hitchens, ‘Drugs?’, Daily Mail, March 11, 2007)

Doubtless like many who saw the film, the Financial Times’ reviewer was left bewildered:

“Not so long ago, the venerable David Attenborough on the Beeb was telling us that human-driven global warming was real and was coming for us. So that was settled. Now Channel 4, like a dissident schoolboy, is scoffing at the old boy's hobbyhorse and I don't know what to believe.” (’Slaughterhouse three,’ Financial Times, March 10, 2007)

The film opened with scenes of wild weather and environmental disaster accompanied by dramatic captions:

"THE ICE IS MELTING. THE SEA IS RISING. HURRICANES ARE BLOWING. AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT.

“SCARED? DON'T BE. IT'S NOT TRUE."

This was immediately followed by a series of equally forthright talking heads:

"We can't say that CO2 will drive climate; it certainly never did in the past."

“We imagine that we live in an age of reason. And the global warming alarm is dressed up as science. But it’s not science; it’s propaganda.”

And:

“We’re just being told lies; that’s what it comes down to.”

The commentary added to the sense of outrage: “You are being told lies.”

This was indeed superficially impressive - when several experts make bold statements on the same theme we naturally assume they must be onto something - but alarm bells should already have been ringing. This, after all, was ostensibly a film about science - about evidence, arguments, research and debate. Why, then, the language of polemic and smear?

The remarkable answer is provided by the film’s writer and director, Martin Durkin:

"I think it [the film] will go down in history as the first chapter in a new era of the relationship between scientists and society. Legitimate scientists - people with qualifications - are the bad guys. It is a big story that is going to cause controversy.

“It's very rare that a film changes history, but I think this is a turning point and in five years the idea that the greenhouse effect is the main reason behind global warming will be seen as total bollocks.” ('“Global Warming Is Lies” Claims Documentary,’ Life Style Extra, March 4, 2007; www.lse.co.uk/ShowStory.asp?story=CZ434669 U&news_headline=global_warming_is_lies_ claims_documentary)

Compare and contrast this with the aim as described in a letter sent by the makers of the film, Wag TV, to Professor Carl Wunsch, a leading expert on ocean circulation and climate who subsequently appeared in the film:

“The aim of the film is to examine critically the notion that recent global warming is primarily caused by industrial emissions of CO2. It explores the scientific evidence which jars with this hypothesis and explores alternative theories such as solar induced climate change. Given the seemingly inconclusive nature of the evidence, it examines the background to the apparent consensus on this issue, and highlights the dangers involved, especially to developing nations, of policies aimed at limiting industrial growth.” (http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/papersonl … l4response)

Wunsch comments:

"I am angry because they completely misrepresented me. My views were distorted by the context in which they placed them. I was misled as to what it was going to be about. I was told about six months ago that this was to be a programme about how complicated it is to understand what is going on. If they had told me even the title of the programme, I would have absolutely refused to be on it. I am the one who has been swindled." (Geoffrey Lean, ‘Climate change: An inconvenient truth... for C4,’ The Independent, March 11, 2007; http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/ climate_change/article2347526.ece)

We will hear more from Wunsch in what follows.

Deeply Deceptive

The film presented viewers with an apparently devastating refutation of the "theory of global warming". And these were not picky, esoteric criticisms. Durkin insisted that the world’s climate scientists are guilty of the most fundamental error imaginable: increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is not the cause of higher temperature, as the experts claim. Quite the reverse: increasing atmospheric CO2 is itself the result of rising temperature.

As evidence for this contention, Durkin argued that global surface temperature dropped dramatically between 1945-1975, at a time when CO2 emissions were rapidly rising as a result of the postwar economic boom. According to Durkin, if CO2 emissions were responsible for increasing temperature, then temperature should not have fallen between 1945-1975. Clearly, then, some factor other than CO2 emissions must have caused the subsequent global temperature rise.

But Real Climate, an internet site run by climate scientists, such as NASA’s Dr Gavin Schmidt and Dr William Connelley of the British Antarctic Survey, describes Durkin’s discussion of the 1945-75 period as “deeply deceptive”. (Real Climate, March 9, 2007; www.realclimate.org/index.php/ archives/2007/03/swindled)

In this section of the film, Durkin focused heavily on a graph depicting temperature changes. The graph, Real Climate comments, “looks rather odd and may have been carefully selected”. It appears to show a dramatic cooling between the 1940s and 1970s. But try flipping between the film’s version of the global temperature record (shown above left) and the temperature plot that normally appears in the scientific literature (shown above right) The supposed cooling looks rather less evident in this second graph.

Without knowing more details of how Durkin may have manipulated the data plotted in his graph, it is difficult to comment on the presentation. What we can say is that Durkin’s "four decades of cooling", implying a relentless temperature drop over 40 years, is not an accurate description of the trend over this period. There was some cooling for +part+ of this time but also some plateauing, with fluctuations up and down.

But why did the temperature not simply rise in line with the post-war increase in greenhouse gas emissions?

In fact, as is well-known, the absence of a global rise in temperature between 1945-75 is explained by the release of large amounts of industrial pollutants, called sulphate aerosols, into the atmosphere. These particles have a braking effect on global warming, known as “global dimming”. By shielding some of the incoming solar energy, sulphate aerosols mask the underlying warming effect generated by rising levels of CO2. By the 1980s, however, stronger warming had exceeded this masking effect and global temperature has since continued to rise. As Real Climate notes, by failing to explain the science behind this phenomenon the programme makers were guilty of “lying to us by omission.”

The Ice Cores

The film repeatedly gave the impression that mainstream science argues that CO2 is the sole driver of rising temperatures in the Earth's climate system. But this is not the case. Climate scientists are well aware that solar activity plays a role, though a minor one at present, as do long-term periodic changes in the Earth's orbit, known as Milankovitch cycles. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Milankovitch_cycles)

The point is that there is a vast body of evidence that very strongly supports the hypothesis that greenhouse gas emissions, of which CO2 is the most important, are primarily responsible for recent global warming. The 4th and most recent scientific assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes:

"Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely [.i.e. probability greater than 90%] due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations." ('Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis,' Summary for Policymakers, IPCC, February 2007, page 10; www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf)

We then come to one of the film's most misleading arguments. Antarctic ice cores show that rises in levels of CO2 have lagged 800 years behind temperature rises at specific times in the geological past. This, argued Durkin, +proves+ that CO2 cannot be responsible for global warming - instead global warming is responsible for increasing levels of CO2. But this was a huge howler.

What Durkin's film failed to explain was that the 800-year lag happened at the end of ice ages which occur about every 100,000 years. (See: www.realclimate.org/index.php/ archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores)

Scientists believe that the end of an ice age is likely triggered when the amount of heat reaching the Earth rises as a result of a periodic change in the Earth's orbit around the sun. Jeff Severinghaus, Professor of Geosciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, explains why the rise in CO2 initially lags behind the temperature rise:

"The reason has to do with the fact that the warmings take about 5000 years to be complete. The lag is only 800 years. All that the lag shows is that CO2 did not cause the first 800 years of warming, out of the 5000 year trend." (Real Climate, 'What does the lag of CO2 behind temperature in ice cores tell us about global warming?’, December 3, 2005; www.realclimate.org/index.php /archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores/)

The best current explanation for the lag of 800 years is that this is how long it takes for CO2, absorbed by the ocean in an earlier warm period, to be "flushed out" at the end of an ice age. Once that CO2 has been released into the atmosphere its heat-trapping properties as a greenhouse gas lead to even stronger warming: an example of positive feedback. (See Caillon et al., 'Timing of Atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic Temperature Changes Across Termination III,' Science, 14 March 2003: Vol. 299. no. 5613, pp. 1728 - 1731)

Professor Severinghaus summarises:

"In other words, CO2 does not initiate the warmings, but acts as an amplifier once they are underway."

Durkin’s analysis, then, was way off the mark.

The film’s claim that solar activity might account for recent warming is also without credibility. In September 2006, the Times reported the latest findings from researchers writing in the top journal, Nature:

“Scientists have examined various proxies of solar energy output over the past 1,000 years and have found no evidence that they are correlated with today's rising temperatures. Satellite observations over the past 30 years have also turned up nothing. ‘The solar contribution to warming... is negligible,’ the researchers wrote in the journal Nature.” (Anjana Ahuja, ‘It's hot, but don't blame the Sun,’ The Times, September 25, 2006)

The film's other scientific claims can be similarly dismissed. Carl Wunsch - who, as discussed, appeared in the film - comments:

“What we now have is an out-and-out propaganda piece, in which there is not even a gesture toward balance or explanation of why many of the extended inferences drawn in the film are not widely accepted by the scientific community. There are so many examples, it's hard to know where to begin, so I will cite only one: a speaker asserts, as is true, that carbon dioxide is only a small fraction of the atmospheric mass. The viewer is left to infer that means it couldn't really matter. But even a beginning meteorology student could tell you that the relative masses of gases are irrelevant to their effects on radiative balance. A director not intending to produce pure propaganda would have tried to eliminate that piece of disinformation.” (http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/ papersonline/channel4response)

For further help in understanding the weakness of the film’s claims, see the following resources:

Real Climate, 'Swindled',
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar … 3/swindled

Campaign Against Climate Change, including a rebuttal to the film by Sir John Houghton, who chairs the Scientific Assessment Working Group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: http://portal.campaigncc.org/node/1820

Royal Society: Facts and fictions about climate change:
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=4761

“I Was Duped” - Déjà Vu?

Many readers will be aware that Durkin has previous ‘form’. In 1997, Channel 4 broadcast his three-part series, Against Nature, which suggested present-day environmentalists were the true heirs of the Nazis. (See George Monbiot, ‘The Revolution Has Been Televised,’ The Guardian, December 18, 1997; www.monbiot.com/archives/1997/ 12/18/the-revolution-has-been-televised/)

Several interviewees who appeared in the film felt they had been misled about the programme-maker’s agenda. Responding to complaints, the Independent Television Commission (ITC) found that the editing of interviews with four contributors had "distorted or misrepresented their known views". (Geoffrey Lean, ‘Climate change: An inconvenient truth... for C4,’ The Independent, March 11, 2007; http://news.independent.co.uk/ environment/climate_change/article2347526.ece)

In addition, the ITC found: "The interviewees had also been misled as to the content and purpose of the programmes when they agreed to take part." (Paul McCann, ‘Channel 4 told to apologise to Greens,’ The Independent, April 2, 1998)

Ten years on, it appears that history may have repeated itself. In his letter of complaint to the film-makers cited above, Carl Wunsch writes:

“I have some experience in dealing with TV and print reporters and do understand something of the ways in which one can be misquoted, quoted out of context, or otherwise misinterpreted. Some of that is inevitable in the press of time or space or in discussions of complicated issues. Never before, however, have I had an experience like this one. My appearance in the ‘Global Warming Swindle’ is deeply embarrassing, and my professional reputation has been damaged. I was duped---an uncomfortable position in which to be.

“At a minimum, I ask that the film should never be seen again publicly with my participation included. Channel 4 surely owes an apology to its viewers, and perhaps WAGTV owes something to Channel 4. I will be taking advice as to whether I should proceed to make some more formal protest.” (http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/ papersonline/channel4response)

Eight of the scientists in the film - John Christy, Paul Reiter, Richard Lindzen, Paul Driessen, Roy Spencer, Patrick Michaels, Fred Singer and Tim Ball - are linked to American neo-conservative and right-wing think-tanks, many of which have received tens of millions of dollars from Exxon.

Greenpeace provides a fascinating online ’map’ detailing how Exxon funds these climate sceptics. Go to: http://www.exxonsecrets.org/ index.php?mapid=831 (click ‘Launch’ then click ‘skip intro’)

In his book, Green Backlash, environmental journalist Andrew Rowell noted that Fred Singer has also attacked scientific and environmental stances on other green issues such as ozone, acid rain, automobile emissions and even whaling. Singer has worked for companies such as Exxon, Shell, Arco, Unocal and Sun.

According to the Environmental Research Foundation, a non-governmental organisation:

“For years, Singer was a professor at the University of Virginia where he was funded by energy companies to pump out glossy pamphlets pooh-poohing climate change.” (Quoted, Sharon Beder, Global Spin, Green Books, 1997, p.94)

Rowell wrote that a quarter of Patrick Michaels’ research funding was reportedly received from companies such as Edison Electric Institute, the largest utility trade association in America. Michaels’ magazine, World Climate Review, was funded by the Western Fuel Association and a video produced by him was funded by coal companies and distributed by the Denver Coal Club. (Rowell, Green Backlash, Routledge, 1996, p.143)

Both Singer and Michaels represented the fossil fuel lobby’s Global Climate Coalition and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a leader in global warming scepticism.

Journalist Ross Gelbspan noted that in May 1995, Richard Lindzen and Patrick Michaels were hired as expert witnesses to testify on behalf of Western Fuels Association, a $400 million consortium of coal suppliers and coal-fired utilities. Gelbspan said of Lindzen:

“I don't know very many supporters of Mr Lindzen who are not in the pay of the fossil fuel lobby. Dr Lindzen himself, his research is publicly funded, but Dr Lindzen makes, as he told me, $2,500 a day consulting with fossil fuel interests, and that includes his consulting with OPEC, his consulting with the Australian coal industry, his consulting with the US coal industry and so forth. That's not to say Dr Lindzen doesn't believe what he says, but it is to say that he stands in very sharp distinction to really just about virtually all of the climate scientists around the world.” (Tony Jones, ‘Journalist puts global warming sceptics under the spotlight,’ Australian Broadcasting Corporation, March 7, 2005; www.abc.net.au/lateline/ content/2005/s1318067.htm)

Journalist George Monbiot wrote of Philip Stott:

“Professor Stott is a retired biogeographer. Like almost all the prominent sceptics he has never published a peer-reviewed paper on climate change. But he has made himself available to dismiss climatologists' peer-reviewed work as the ‘lies’ of ecofundamentalists.” (Monbiot, ‘Beware the fossil fools,’ The Guardian, April 27, 2004; http://environment.guardian.co.uk/ climatechange/story/0,,1829315,00.html)

Paul Driessen is a fellow at two right-wing think tanks in the US, which are part of the Wise Use movement. One of the think tanks is headed by Ron Arnold, who has spent the last twenty years attacking the environmental movement. His fellow director is a fundraiser for America's gun lobby. The list goes on...

By contrast, Greenpeace spokeswoman Mhairi Dunlop said her organisation had been interviewed by Durkin but none of the material had been included in the film:

"They interviewed us but I guess what we said didn't fit in with the [story] they were peddling." (McCandless, op. cit)

Following the film’s broadcast, Professor Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society - the government-sponsored academy of sciences for the United Kingdom - has said that many factors contribute to global warming but it is clear that emissions of "greenhouse gases," particularly CO2, are to blame for most of the current temperature rise. Rees added:

"Those who promote fringe scientific views but ignore the weight of evidence are playing a dangerous game. They run the risk of diverting attention from what we can do to ensure the world's population has the best possible future." (Ibid)

On March 11 the Observer published a letter from a group of climate scientists responding to Durkin’s film:

“This programme misrepresented the state of scientific knowledge on global warming, claiming climate scientists are presenting lies. This is an outrageous statement...

“We defend the right of people to be sceptical, but for C4 to imply that the thousands of scientists and published peer-reviewed papers, summarised in the recent international science assessment, are misguided or lying lacks scientific credibility and simply beggars belief.” (Alan Thorpe, Natural Environment Research Council, Brian Hoskins, University of Reading, Jo Haigh, Imperial College London, Myles Allen, University of Oxford, Peter Cox, University of Exeter, Colin Prentice, QUEST Programme, letter to the Observer, Sunday March 11, 2007;
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/ letters/story/0,,2031117,00.html)

Viewed from one perspective, Channel 4 has done a huge public disservice in spreading absurd and mendacious arguments guaranteed to generate confusion. This at a time when a fragile momentum is building on the need to take urgent action on the very real threat of catastrophic climate change.

But from another perspective it may well be that this film does for climate scepticism what Tony Blair’s “dodgy dossiers” did for the pro-war movement ahead of the invasion of Iraq. Wildly distorted propaganda often does have a powerful initial impact. But stretched beyond a certain point of unreality, it also has a tendency to turn on, and bite, the propagandists.

Durkin’s grandiose prediction that his film “will go down in history” will surely prove correct, although perhaps not for the reasons he imagined.

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Simply amazing.
Warm regards, Rick.

nickname · 2007-03-22 11:25:15

RickSmith,

I question the wisdom of any deep ice sheet melting over any short period of time.

At a constant 10c 24/7/365 it would take a hundred years to melt to the ground of Greenland.

People tend to forget that 0.1c is the melting point of snow, but ice melts very slowly above 0c due to the ice temperature below.
A similar effect happens in the permafrost.

If Greenland began to melt, then larger accumulations of snow in polar regions in winter would be the result due to a higher percentage of humidity globally.

Facts like a single mid size volcanic eruption emits a hundred years worth of human activity greenhouse gasses, or a single large wildfire a similar total.

In my opinion human activity is so minor on climate change on earth as to be non noticeable.
Well other than the species extinctions we are causing burning and paving things.

noosfractal · 2007-03-22 16:49:45

Let's have a look at the "consensus" on melting ice sheets ...

http://www.junkscience.com/draft_AR4/Ch … _FINAL.pdf

there will not be substantial ablation [melting] in Antarctica, all studies for the 21st century find that Antarctic SMB changes contribute negatively to sea level, owing to increasing accumulation [of snow]

I'll just reemphasize that: all studies find that Antarctica will grow, not melt, through at least 2100.

The only other important contributer to sea level is Greenland. Table 10.6.1 shows the results of 7 studies. 5 of the studies show a tiny contribution (~ 0.02 mm yr-1 K-1). One, with a non-standard climate model that de-emphasizes precipitation increase due to rising temperatures, finds a larger contribution (~ 0.10 mm yr-1 K-1). One, with a very high resolution grid (100 times the others) finds a negative contribution (~ -0.10 mm yr-1 K-1).

So, small, totally swamped by Antarctica, and possibly negative.

But what's the uncertainty in these estimates? How much do we really know?

Computing ice-sheet surface mass balance using four high-resolution AGCM simulations with the scaling technique of Huybrechts et al. (2004), see Section 10.6.4.1, indicates systematic uncertainties of ±60% for Greenland and ±40% for Antarctica
...
We include a further uncertainty of 20% of the Greenland ablation [melting] to allow for uncertainty in the parametrisation (Church et al., 2001).

I suggest that at these levels of uncertainty, the only fair use for these estimates is to rule out alarmist claims that the ocean will rise by 70 meters.

Why does commercial media trumpet alarmist claims and ignore the little that we actually know? At least there is no uncertainty in the answer to that question.

RickSmith · 2007-03-22 20:06:01

RickSmith,
I question the wisdom of any deep ice sheet melting over any short period of time.
At a constant 10c 24/7/365 it would take a hundred years to melt to the ground of Greenland. ...

Hi Nickname,
John Creighton asked if all the sun's energy was concentrated on Greenland how long would it take to melt. Usually I don't answer other people's homework / do calculations for them but I was curious and so I worked it out.

1.2 weeks to melt that much ice. A much, much more approximate value of 5.75 years to warm unrealistically cold ice to 0 so it is ready to melt.

Of course I KNOW that not all the sun's energy is going to Greenland. However, I was surprised how low those numbers actually were.

You quote 100 years to melt G.'s ice cap at 10c. I would be interested in seeing your calculations. The advantage, of course, of me showing all calculations and where I get my data is that trivial to double check me. Peer review & questioning assumptions is the essence of good science.

People will take what you say more seriously if you show your calculations / sources.

Warm regards, Rick.

RickSmith · 2007-03-22 20:15:59

I have found more information on the temperature changes. It called the Great Global warming swindle - UK Channel 4.
Larry,

Hi Larry,
You have said some really, truly, remarkable things in several of your posts.

I found the "Great Global Warming Swindle to be amazing, and did some searches and found an article talking about the accuracy of it. Which I posted in full above to save you from having to search thru the URLs.

I was hoping that you would comment on this critism of this show you recommend as an accurate view of this very important subject.

A number of people have taken exeception to this data of yours.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar … 3/swindled

I found this line of particular interest:

Eight of the scientists in the film - John Christy, Paul Reiter, Richard Lindzen, Paul Driessen, Roy Spencer, Patrick Michaels, Fred Singer and Tim Ball - are linked to American neo-conservative and right-wing think-tanks, many of which have received tens of millions of dollars from Exxon.

Further information on how Exxon is funding those opposing global warming can be found here.

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/ index.php?mapid=831
// (click ‘Launch’ then click ‘skip intro’)

Perhaps you would like to comment on why Exxon is spending hundreds of millions of dollars opposing the Koyto accord?

When the quality of your sources is so truely awful, it makes everything that you say seem doubtful at best.

Regards, Rick

RickSmith · 2007-03-22 21:16:03

RickSmith,
At a constant 10c 24/7/365 it would take a hundred years to melt to the ground of Greenland.

Hi Nickname,
Something else occurred to me. As I have made clear in previous posts I am taking the long view. Will the extinction event that is now started, accelerate? Will civilization survive? Will, by 2200, we have large scale H2S eruptions?

Saying that something will take 100 years does not make me say, "Oh, 100 years. I won't worry then." What it makes me say is: "Only 100 years!" I've had training as a geologist and I consider planetary changes in deep time.

Warm regards, Rick.

RickSmith · 2007-03-22 22:13:58

Hi all,
The Royal Society has published a paper on Climate Change. It can be found here:

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/trackdoc.asp?id=1630&pId=4761

There was a nice discussion of the 2003 European Heat wave, (it was probably the hottest summer in Europe since at least 1500 AD). It has been estimated that the heat wave caused 22,000 to 35,000 deaths over what would have occurred in a cooler summer.

There is a very nice discussion of how hard it is to apply climate change to individual weather events and statistical trends in climate variability in page 10 of the above document.

See also:
Sahar, C., Vidale, P.L., Luthi, D., Frei, C., Haberli, C., Liniger M.A., and Appenzeller, C. 2004. The role of increasing temperature variability in European summer heatwaves. Nature, volume 427, pages 332 - 336.

Stott, P., Stone, D.A. and Allen M.R. 2004. Human contributions to the European heatwave of 2003. Nature, volume 432, pages 610 - 614.

I need not say, I hope, that Nature is one of the top scientific periodicals on the planet.

Warm regards, Rick.

Martian Republic · 2007-03-22 23:53:14

I have found more information on the temperature changes. It called the Great Global warming swindle - UK Channel 4.
Larry,
Hi Larry,
You have said some really, truly, remarkable things in several of your posts.
I found the "Great Global Warming Swindle to be amazing, and did some searches and found an article talking about the accuracy of it. Which I posted in full above to save you from having to search thru the URLs.
I was hoping that you would comment on this critism of this show you recommend as an accurate view of this very important subject.
A number of people have taken exeception to this data of yours.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar … 3/swindled
I found this line of particular interest:
Eight of the scientists in the film - John Christy, Paul Reiter, Richard Lindzen, Paul Driessen, Roy Spencer, Patrick Michaels, Fred Singer and Tim Ball - are linked to American neo-conservative and right-wing think-tanks, many of which have received tens of millions of dollars from Exxon.
Further information on how Exxon is funding those opposing global warming can be found here.
http://www.exxonsecrets.org/ index.php?mapid=831
// (click ‘Launch’ then click ‘skip intro’)
Perhaps you would like to comment on why Exxon is spending hundreds of millions of dollars opposing the Koyto accord?

When the quality of your sources is so truely awful, it makes everything that you say seem doubtful at best.
Regards, Rick

I would like you to do an investigation of Prince Phillip, Queen Elisabeth husband and the Green movement going back as far the 1960 or so. Prince Phillip set up the environmental movement for the express purpose of putting out these scare stories and bulling the rest of the world into accepting what he wants, because of environmental reasons. Al Gore won't won't tell you this and the real reason that he says he environmental and say he supports the cause, is because he works for Prince Phillip and not because he really believe what he is saying.

I am not saying that you should take everything that they say in the "Great Global Warming Swindle", but should look at it, think about it and check it out to see if it true. But, just about everything that Al Gore has ever said about environmentalism is lie and it can be proven to be a lie too.

If you want to ask the question:does the Great Global Warming Swindle come closer to what the truth is than what Al Gore is saying?

yes!

Does the Great Global Warming Swindle give all the contributing reason why we have Global Warming?

No!

There are several other reason that the temperature changes, the sun goes through a cycle every eleven years or so, the Earth has an elongated orbit and is tip at 23% and there are several other cycles which are short like few year to long term hundreds of thousand of years.

I look at what a person has to says and then look to see if what there saying is true or not. I am going to get into there so called political persuasion or whether there being call, liberal or conservative or something else unless they choose to make a big deal of it.

Larry,

John Creighton · 2007-03-23 00:33:22

RickSmith,
I question the wisdom of any deep ice sheet melting over any short period of time.
At a constant 10c 24/7/365 it would take a hundred years to melt to the ground of Greenland. ...
Hi Nickname,
John Creighton asked if all the sun's energy was concentrated on Greenland how long would it take to melt. Usually I don't answer other people's homework / do calculations for them but I was curious and so I worked it out.
1.2 weeks to melt that much ice. A much, much more approximate value of 5.75 years to warm unrealistically cold ice to 0 so it is ready to melt.
Of course I KNOW that not all the sun's energy is going to Greenland. However, I was surprised how low those numbers actually were.
You quote 100 years to melt G.'s ice cap at 10c. I would be interested in seeing your calculations. The advantage, of course, of me showing all calculations and where I get my data is that trivial to double check me. Peer review & questioning assumptions is the essence of good science.
People will take what you say more seriously if you show your calculations / sources.
Warm regards, Rick.

I am also surprised you got such a short period of time. When you say all of the suns energy I presume you mean the solar flux that reaches Greenland from the sun. I presume you multiplied the flux of the sun by the area of Greenland by the cosine of the average angle at which the tangent plane to Greenland intersects the tangent of the sphere which is centered at the sun intersects Greenland.

Interesting that you chose 10 degrees Celsius. What is the average temperature at Greenland. I know the next step I would do. I would subtract the blackbody radiation given off by Greenland from the energy it absorbs by the sun to get the net melting energy. Perhaps that is what you did for your 10 degrees Celsius calculation. The next question is how much precipitation does Greenland get and is the energy it takes to evaporate snow the same as the energy it takes to evaporate ice per mass? Is the energy it takes to heat the ice up to zero degrees before it melts worth considering or is that negligible?

RickSmith · 2007-03-23 01:25:32

I would like you to do an investigation of Prince Phillip Queen Elisabeth husband and the Green movement going back a far the 1960 or so.

Do you mean "as far"? I charge $65 an hour US funds. I will accept payment in advance, minimum 16 hours work. For that amount I will provide a report of my findings.

I would rather be posting article on Terraforming but I have been destracted by some of the things people are saying about Climate Change. I spent more time than I wanted finding a really nice expose' of your must see TV show. I confess I don't feel like spending a bunch of my own time learning about Prince Phillip.

Prince Phillip set up the environmental movement for the express purpose of putting out these scare stories. Al Gore won't won't tell you this and real reason that he says he environmental cause, is because he works for Prince Phillip and not because he really believe what he is saying.

Al Gore is working for Prince Phillip. Wow. Those darn British.

I am not saying that you should take everything that they say in the "Great Global Warming Swindle", but should look at it, think about it and check it out to see if it true.

When you first recommended that other people check this show out on YouTube you didn't say that people shouldn't 'take everything that they say'. Perhaps you should check your sources better?

By the way, your sentence above is a remarkably weak refuation of a major attack on your position. You do know that, right?

If you want to ask the question does the Great Global Warming Swindle come closer to what the truth is than what Al Gore is saying?

After wading thru your murky syntax, the answer is no.

The question I wanted to ask was: "Perhaps you would like to comment on why Exxon is spending hundreds of millions of dollars opposing the Koyto accord?"

I look at what a person says and then look to see if it true or not. I am going to get into there so called political persuasion or what there being call, liberal or conservative or something else.

Ok, I have read the above 4 times and I can't figure out what you are saying. As I have said before I am a rationalist. I have been reading about science for better than 30 years, have a science education. I have taught math and physics. I understand scientists; I respect scientists and honor rational debate.

You find a bogus documentary, which real scientists say deliberately misrepresented their views. A bunch of 'experts' hired by Exxon's millions talk about Climate Change citing dubious evidence which contradict what reputable scientists everywhere are saying. Some of the statements in this bogus documentary are clearly false given my own knowledge of science which makes me even less likely to believe anything it says. Furthermore, I know that the Canadian government having to spend thousands of dollars repairing roads because the permafrost is melting, the pine beetles are doing hundreds of millions of dollars damage to my provinces' economy because we have not had a cold winter in 20 years and I have barely seen a white christmas for 25 years. (When I was a kid they happened most of the time.) I am seeing plenty of evidence with my own eyes that the Vancouver area is warmer in the last decade than any other time I can remember.

Now you want me to chuck this evidence and learn the 'truth'. Prince Phillip started up a bogus environmental movement to scare people. I thought that the major factor in crystalizing the environmental movement was widespread pollution, mass die off of birds because of DDT and the book, "Silent Spring". But no, it was that evil master mind Prince Phillip.

Well duh! And I thought Exxon not wanting to lose billions of dollars was easy to believe.

I have reached the end of my patience on this subject. I really don't think I am going to bother to follow your request (or order) to waste more of my time researching Prince Phillip or any other hot topics you have found.

For an interesting read, you might want to pick up: "The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" by Carl Sagan. If nothing else, it would teach you how to construct arguments that are more likely to be taken seriously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Demon-Haunted_World

Finally, your ignoring the strong attack on this "documentary" you STILL expouse, does not impress me. That in itself is sufficient grounds, I feel, for me to ignore anything you say. You are, of course, free to disagree with my views on this or any other matter.

Sincerely, Rick

noosfractal · 2007-03-23 01:47:18

http://www.junkscience.com/draft_AR4/Ch … _FINAL.pdf

IPCC says ...

Using the "we're doomed" HadCM3 model and under a "we burn all the oil" (4xCO2) scenario, it takes 1000 years for Greenland to lose 50% of its ice volume and 3000 years to be reduced to 4%, with a peak contribution of ~ 5 mm/yr to sea level.

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#49 2007-03-23 01:47:18

Re: Is Global Warming real?

#50 2007-03-23 02:09:14

Re: Is Global Warming real?

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