In Case You Doubted the Global Warming Consensus...

[Aramas]

... You could be on to something.

The most commonly reported statistic about the purported consensus on anthropogenic climate change is the 97% number. I've been reading about this statistic for a while and done some of my own investigation into how this conclusion came about. There have been a few different studies saying that agreement among climate scientists is nearly unanimous. A closer look at the methodology for the studies supporting this supposed consensus reveals a methodology that's utterly ridiculous or laughable. Some of the studies amount to a database search for specific keywords and recording the number of papers that result from that search. This method is something like googling and recording the number of hits. In other cases, like one I'm linking below, the author of the study delegated responsibility for the content of the study to a bunch of other people who could easily have biased the result.

Link: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/...a-real-survey/


In case you were wondering about the other studies concerning the supposed consensus, check out this link: http://www.populartechnology.net/201...efuted-by.html

So, in conclusion, the "consensus" about global warming isn't really much of a consensus. The reason why we don't hear much about the true lack of consensus in media is that many people involved in the scientific process have been corrupted by easy and plentiful government funding, provided that the scientists who accept that funding toe the line that politicians and social activists want. It's a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship: the politicians get to impose regulation that impedes social mobility, individual freedom, and gain more power for themselves, and the scientists who prostitute themselves for the cause get recognition for "fighting the good fight" and boatloads of money.

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...te-denial.html

Link: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wi...rticle/2608456

[Raver]

I believe in global warming as the evidence is clear that it is happening. However, I'm unsure about anthropogenic global warming. Is it the main cause, a secondary cause or are there several causes behind it? I think that is where the debate lies and it is nice to see articles that propose the idea that the scientific community is more divided than we think.

[Aramas]

I believe in global warming as the evidence is clear that it is happening. However, I'm unsure about anthropogenic global warming. Is it the main cause, a secondary cause or are there several causes behind it? I think that is where the debate lies and it is nice to see articles that propose the idea that the scientific community is more divided than we think.

Nir Shaviv of Hebrew University and Jan Veizer of Ruhr University proposed the idea that galactic cosmic ray flux was the ultimate driver of long-term climate change. I'll try to link the paper here so you can read it.

Link: http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimber...hanerozoic.pdf

And here's how I found out about the above claim:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...T0ayWTT48EFXIs

[rat200Turbo]

If I saw anything we could actually do to prevent it than maybe I would care more about the topic but even our very best efforts don't put a dent in the problem so...

[Aramas]

If I saw anything we could actually do to prevent it than maybe I would care more about the topic but even our very best efforts don't put a dent in the problem so...

It's true. Cutting emissions to what the dominant narrative says is necessary would end up resulting in the end of modern life. That would probably cause massive instability and widespread death, destruction, and chaos.

[rat200Turbo]

mass sterilization is probably the best solution but nobody will accept that.

[Aramas]

mass sterilization is probably the best solution but nobody will accept that.

It's already happening anyway. Look at the decline of male testosterone levels, sperm count and sperm health.

[Skepsis]

Face reality. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Emission rates far exceed the reabsorption rate. This will and is causing warming. It is physics. Contolled studies have proven that CO2 has such properties, but climate studies are much more complex. They aren't perfect and it is fine to criticize the methodology. Better studies will yield more accurate results, but the earth is warming. Physics predicts it, studies strongly support it.

Just because one doesn't like the facts doesn't mean it isn't true. This is why the fossil fuel industry feeds misinformation into the media, to misinform the public, so shit doesn't get fixed. They don't care about the future of civilization. They want $.

Even if we stopped burning all fossil fuels today, civilization would collapse, and the earth would continue to warm. The CO2 would take centuries to be reabsorbed. But, since we aren't stopping, it is just going to be that much worse.

Renewable energy can slow the effects down and prevent a collapse. Eventually we will run out of fossil fuels to burn anyways.

Humans will adapt and survive. Many species will go extinct, but some may flourish and new species will be created. Life will go on. This is all just a blip in the history of life on this planet.

[Aramas]

Face reality. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Emission rates far exceed the reabsorption rate. This will and is causing warming. It is physics. Contolled studies have proven that CO2 has such properties, but climate studies are much more complex. They aren't perfect and it is fine to criticize the methodology. Better studies will yield more accurate results, but the earth is warming. Physics predicts it, studies strongly support it.

Just because one doesn't like the facts doesn't mean it isn't true. This is why the fossil fuel industry feeds misinformation into the media, to misinform the public, so shit doesn't get fixed. They don't care about the future of civilization. They want $.

Even if we stopped burning all fossil fuels today, civilization would collapse, and the earth would continue to warm. The CO2 would take centuries to be reabsorbed. But, since we aren't stopping, it is just going to be that much worse.

Renewable energy can slow the effects down and prevent a collapse. Eventually we will run out of fossil fuels to burn anyways.

Humans will adapt and survive. Many species will go extinct, but some may flourish and new species will be created. Life will go on. This is all just a blip in the history of life on this planet.

Face reality. CO2's power as a greenhouse gas is far exceeded by that of water vapor, which is eminently more abundant in the atmosphere than CO2. This is physics. Physics predicts it, and studies strongly support it -- unless the studies were funded by the government.

Just because one doesn't like the facts doesn't mean it isn't true. This is why the scientific establishment funded by the government feeds misinformation to the media -- to keep the grant money gravy train rolling. They don't care about the future of civilization. They want more $

We don't have to stop burning fossil fuels. Civilization will be fine as long as we don't let government ruin it.

Renewable energy is a child's playingthing. None of the renewable technologies in existence are robust enough to handle current energy demands.

"Humans will adapt and survive. Many species will go extinct, but some may flourish and new species will be created. Life will go on. This is all just a blip in the history of life on this planet."

[Skepsis]

Face reality. CO2's power as a greenhouse gas is far exceeded by that of water vapor, which is eminently more abundant in the atmosphere than CO2. This is physics. Physics predicts it, and studies strongly support it -- unless the studies were funded by the government.

Just because one doesn't like the facts doesn't mean it isn't true. This is why the scientific establishment funded by the government feeds misinformation to the media -- to keep the grant money gravy train rolling. They don't care about the future of civilization. They want more $

We don't have to stop burning fossil fuels. Civilization will be fine as long as we don't let government ruin it.

Renewable energy is a child's playingthing. None of the renewable technologies in existence are robust enough to handle current energy demands.

"Humans will adapt and survive. Many species will go extinct, but some may flourish and new species will be created. Life will go on. This is all just a blip in the history of life on this planet."

I can't disagree that water vapor is a greenhouse. This is a fact. However, it is not the underlying driving force of global warming. It does cause an additional increase in warming because increased temperatures allow more water vapor into the atmosphere, thereby, causing additional warming. If C02 concentrations were to decrease, the global temperatures would decrease as well, which would cause a decrease the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, which would cause additional cooling, and so on until equilibrium. Combine this with the fact that, unlike water vapor, most released CO2 can remain in the atmosphere until it is absorbed by the ocean in one to two hundred years. This takes a long time. There are some processes that take up CO2 so slowly that it would take hundreds of thousands of years for it to be naturally removed from the atmosphere. This means that warming effects will be occurring for a very, very long time.

I'm not sure what the argument against a ubiquitous government even means. There isn't a single, world government that is overseeing these studies. It reads like libertarian ideology and/or conspiracy theorizing. Much of the research is a combination of public and private universities, with government funding. So what? The data across the globe is huge and is one of the largest international scientific collaborations in history. The evidence all points to the same: 1)The average global temperature is increasing. 2)This is being caused by the large amounts of greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere.

We don't have to stop burning fossil fuels, but we do have to live with the consequences.

[at sirac son of sirac]

Global warming might be happening, but even among the scientists who say it is, what they say is that they are certain that humans are the main cause of the temperature rise, so really what they are saying is that the temperature will increase anyway regardless of human activity, just that humans are a part of the increase.

I'm inclined for the model that is supported by historical observations, that temperature of the earth varies naturally; it goes in cycles.

https://www.newscientist.com/article...cause-warming/

Here are some facts:
*Global temperature increased 1900-1940 when human CO2 activity was negligible.
*Global temperature decreased 1940-1970 theorized due to sulphates released by aerosols and volcanoes, which reflects sunlight (heat), particularly the Mount Agung eruption http://science.sciencemag.org/content/194/4272/1413. Volcanoes are natural occurrences.

Also major issues are:
The recording of the temperatures. British and US ships historically used different recording methods https://www.newscientist.com/article...perature-blip/ Today, areas which are already warming the most are monitored, and not the temperature neutral areas. This means that the data scientists are working on cannot be relied upon, regardless of the methods applied to the data.

[Aramas]

Global warming might be happening, but even among the scientists who say it is, what they say is that they are certain that humans are the main cause of the temperature rise, so really what they are saying is that the temperature will increase anyway regardless of human activity, just that humans are a part of the increase.

I'm inclined for the model that is supported by historical observations, that that the temperature of the earth varies naturally, it goes in cycles.

https://www.newscientist.com/article...cause-warming/

Here are some facts:
*Global temperature increased 1900-1940 when human CO2 activity was negligible.
*Global temperature decreased 1940-1970 theorized due to sulphates released by aerosols and volcanoes, which reflects sunlight (heat), specifically the Mount Agung eruption http://science.sciencemag.org/content/194/4272/1413. Volcanoes are natural occurrences.

Also major issues are:
The recording of the temperatures. British and US ships historically used different recording methods https://www.newscientist.com/article...perature-blip/ Today, areas which are already warming the most are monitored, and not the temperature neutral areas. This means that the data scientists are working on cannot be relied upon, regardless of the methods they apply to the data.

Your first paragraph is a bit confusing. Do you mean that humans are not the main cause? If not, your paragraph seems self-contradictory the way it's phrased.

[at sirac son of sirac]

Your first paragraph is a bit confusing. Do you mean that humans are not the main cause? If not, your paragraph seems self-contradictory the way it's phrased.

What most scientists say, something like 95% is that humans are the main cause of global warming. So what that means is that the earth is warming anyway, but that scientists think humans are contributing to that warming. In other words: They think the temperature is increasing but it's not caused by human activity alone.

[Aramas]

What most scientists say, something like 95% is that humans are the main cause of global warming. So what that means is that the earth is warming anyway, but that scientists think humans are contributing to that warming. In other words: They think the temperature is increasing but it's not caused by human activity alone.

Did you even read my first post?

[at sirac son of sirac]

Did you even read my first post?

The studies you linked are by semi-professionals, 'Anthony' as he's called is a retired TV meterologist. The reality is that the overwhelming number of scientists at the United Nations say that, "it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century"

Here's a list of other studies, not just the one carried out by John Cook, who by the way isn't a climate scientist either but a cognitive scientist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survey...climate_change

The debate isn't about whether most scientists agree, the debate is about if the data they are using is useable, which was the main thrust of my post, that and also to question how much of an impact man is having on any warming. You're right to think that a lot of the promotion of global warming being anthropogenic might be caused for political and business reasons.

[Adam Strange]

There was a discussion about Global Warming recently. Lots and lots of posts, lots of contributors, many points of view, much evidence brought to bear. I don't think anyone changed their minds.

Funny how that works.

As for looking for a consensus, I don't think you can even get one with respect to the question, "Is the Earth flat?"

Which was also a discussion here recently. Much debate, much evidence, same result.

There is an effect called the 27% Crazification Factor, which states that 27% of the population is basically batshit crazy and will believe anything. Anything at all, the crazier, the better. Whenever you find more than 73% of a group agreeing on something, you can be certain you are not looking at a representative section of the population.

[at sirac son of sirac]

There was a discussion about Global Warming recently. Lots and lots of posts, lots of contributors, many points of view, much evidence brought to bear. I don't think anyone changed their minds.

Funny how that works.

As for looking for a consensus, I don't think you can even get one with respect to the question, "Is the Earth flat?"

Which was also a discussion here recently. Much debate, much evidence, same result.

There is an effect called the 27% Crazification Factor, which states that 27% of the population is basically batshit crazy and will believe anything. Anything at all, the crazier, the better. Whenever you find more than 73% of a group agreeing on something, you can be certain you are not looking at a representative section of the population.

Most people like the idea of a pandora's box. My own opinion is that global warming is probably happening, but that mans impact - anthropogenic - is over-estimated and over-stated.

[Adam Strange]

I've read that most TV meteorologists don't believe in global warming.

This has got to be due to their solid grounding in Atmospheric Physics and the many peer-reviewed research papers they've written on the subject.

One interesting fact is that most Americans did believe in global warming, until an advertising campaign funded by the Koch Brothers (who own some of the most polluting industries in America) set about discrediting scientists and sowing the seeds of mistrust and doubt.
Every additional year that they can dump their waste into the public stream is another year of profit.

Jay Gould said it best: "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half."

[at sirac son of sirac]

I've read that most TV meteorologists don't believe in global warming.

This has got to be due to their solid grounding in Atmospheric Physics and the many peer-reviewed research papers they've written on the subject.

Let's not forget the cutting edge climate computer program simulations they're constantly producing in between commercial breaks.

[at sirac son of sirac]

Anyway for the debate, it's a fact that most scientists agree that climate change is real, but what i'd like to know is a more definitive answer on how much is man made, ie anthropogenic, and how much is natural.

[Raver]

Anyway for the debate, it's a fact that most scientists agree that climate change is real, but what i'd like to know is a more definitive answer on how much is man made, ie anthropogenic, and how much is natural.

I think this pretty much nails the crux of the matter. Global warming is obviously happening so they should prove it without a shadow of a doubt that it is anthropogenic.

If they had the science down pat and figured out exactly how much of it is based on anthropogenic causes and how much of it isn't then we can leave this an open and shut case.

Hearing faulty statistics like 97 percent of climate scientists agree it is man made is misleading as it's a faulty figure repeated ad verbatim mindlessly when the reality is most scientists are not sure of how much of it is man made or not.

The failure to do this is what leaves some people skeptical. I know CO2 can cause global warming, let's see how much of it is actually man made and how much of it isn't.

The fact that you cannot even debate this subject without ridicule by most people and that you are automatically pigeon holed into a broad ridiculed category demonstrates how effective the propaganda has been.

[Tigerfadder]

it make sense that if you burn up old fossil you end up with more carbon in the atmosphere than what is natural for this time. but how that effect so there are more catastrophic weather idk how

https://climate.nasa.gov/system/reso...1116-768px.jpg

https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/

[Adam Strange]

it make sense that if you burn up old fossil you end up with more carbon in the atmosphere than what is natural for this time. but how that effect that so there be more catastrophic weather idk how

Catastrophic weather is a function of the amount of heat in the atmosphere. More heat means more energy for higher winds, more evaporation means more rainfall, etc.

The greater heat in the air comes from increased CO2 in the atmosphere. The CO2 acts sort of like a blanket, which lets sunlight in but does not let heat out.

Here is how CO2 and methane do this. Most of the energy that hits the Earth comes from the sun in the visible band of the spectrum. The amount of energy from the sun in the ultraviolet and the infra-red is much less than what strikes the earth in the red-blue bands.
The air is transparent to sunlight in the red-blue band. Sunlight comes right in and warms the oceans and the ground.

Everything that is warm radiates infra-red radiation. This is why infra-red cameras can see heat sources (including people, who look like light bulbs in the the infra-red). The heat sources radiate their heat outward, just like a fire does, and almost all of this heat ends up going straight back up into space.

However, the air is not entirely transparent in the infra-red. Some gases appear black at those wavelengths, and CO2 and methane are among those gases. The more CO2 there is in the air, the blacker the air gets in the infra-red, and the less transparent the air becomes.

When the air becomes black, the heat from the oceans and the land, which normally would have just radiated back into space, instead hits this black blanket of air and stays close to the ground and heats the air, which results in higher air, land, and ocean temperatures, and bigger and bigger storms.

Imagine an airport terminal. People come in at a steady pace, like sunlight. Normally, they leave through the doors at an equally steady pace (back onto space). However, let's add something which slows their exit from the terminal. Perhaps it is Homeland security or something, whatever. The result is that more people get stuck in the terminal (higher temperatures) until they can fight their way out the doors. Same number coming in, same number eventually leaving, but more people are stuck inside the terminal and as they bounce off each other, they are much more upset than they were before.

[at sirac son of sirac]

Also this thread has made me read about meteorologists training and entry level qualifications, thanks for that.

[Tigerfadder]

@Adam Strange make sense, not the people and airport terminal but the rest xd

[Adam Strange]

@Adam Strange make sense, not the people and airport terminal but the rest xd

The airport terminal comparison was a stretch, because I didn't want to get into the increase of radiative power as the fourth power of temperature, thermal equilibrium, and scattering coefficients. But the comparison is not actually wrong, and so is not the worst analogy.

[Tigerfadder]

The airport terminal comparison was a stretch, because I didn't want to get into the increase of radiative power as the fourth power of temperature, thermal equilibrium, and scattering coefficients. But the comparison is not actually wrong, and so is not the worst analogy.

Ya its good. I just dislike crowded terminals I guess.

[Tigerfadder]

So all the stuff we are burning in our cars and such is apparently 130,000 TWH/year. Collectively. Im not entirely sure what that equals but it be a big bonfire i bet. Like a few active volcanoes perhaps?

https://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels/

[Adam Strange]

So all the stuff we are burning in our cars and such is apparently 130,000 TWH/year. Collectively. Im not entirely sure what that equals but it be a big bonfire i bet. Like a few active volcanoes perhaps?

https://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels/

It's a lot of energy. Here's how to think about it.

http://www.science20.com/the_hammock...tprints-180610

[at sirac son of sirac]

It's a lot of energy. Here's how to think about it.

http://www.science20.com/the_hammock...tprints-180610

What bugs me about global warming is the steps taken to counter-act it. For instance, at my place of employment, paper towels in the toilets have been replaced by hand driers. Well, I suppose this is more about protecting the environment than global warming, but it all seems related, ie trees aren't cut down which helps global warming, the trees and paper towels aren't transported by air and road preventing the use of fossil fuels. But then I think, what if I want to wash my face in the toilet, I can't do that now because there's no paper towels to dry my face.

Surely, the electricity the hand driers use aren't good for the environment, and, a more useful thing to do would be to turn off the companies logo outside the building that's lit up 24 hours a day, or turn it of during the day and just leave it on at night.

[Tigerfadder]

Cutting down trees are not necessary bad for the carbon since they pick up carbon from the atmosphere. They are basically made out of carbon. So the sum there is zero.

[at sirac son of sirac]

Cutting down trees are not necessary bad for the carbon since they pick up carbon from the atmosphere. They are basically made out of carbon. So the sum there is zero.

I thought they ate carbon in the form of carbon dioxide and gave out oxygen. So therefore helped with the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

[Tigerfadder]

I thought they ate carbon in the form of carbon dioxide and gave out oxygen. So therefore helped with the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Ya, they eat the carbon from the atmosphere and when they die they eventueally turn into oil that get down in the ground or Co2 again if they burn. But if you grow a tree and burn it down the net sum of Co2 in the atmosphere is 0.

[at sirac son of sirac]

Ya, they eat the carbon from the atmosphere and when they die they eventueally turn into oil that get down in the ground or Co2 again if they burn. But if you grow a tree and burn it down the net sum of Co2 in the atmosphere is 0.

It depends on where those trees are https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...ts-cool-earth/

[Tigerfadder]

It depends on where those trees are https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...ts-cool-earth/

I wonder if solar cells have a cooling effect...

[Tigerfadder]

It depends on where those trees are https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...ts-cool-earth/

So there is this dubble effect. We burn up fossil and cut down rain forrest.

[Tigerfadder]

So I made some calculations. If we burn 130,000 TWH/year (some is made into plastics etc but lets say negligible). One barrel of oil is 1,700 kilowatt-hours. That is 7.64705882 × 10^10 of them. Thats 209508460/day. Crazy.... 33311845140 liters. If we made a lake of it be 0.0333118451 km^3.

maxresdefault.jpg

[Milo]

Not looking to argue. I'm going to leave this here since it addresses the topic on a tangent.



Yale Climate Opinion Maps – U.S. 2016

[Socionics Is A Cult]

It’s Cold Outside. Cue the Trump Global Warming Tweet.

Record High Temps vs. Record Low Temps

[Pookie]

Physics. It's a duh situation. Of course it's a thing.

All argument is based on what a given person believes the other persons pretense is. Which means it's largely idealogical, which means if you catch yourself arguing a side and the other person just "doesnt seem to hear what you're saying" or "isnt listening" you'll ultimately end up ahead if you bet every time on you being the idiot of that conversation.