Discuss.

Warmer waters = nastier hurricanes and himmacanes.
I'm sensing a connection.
Anyone else (on a non-political level, of course)?
==

I'm not sure a non-political discussion is possible.

Or at least, not one that will quickly become political.

As an example, let's see what happens if I answer your question:

Yes, it is real.

As a preface, it's important to remember that weather <> climate. There has been enough attention and honest to gosh scientific study and measurements that the scientific conclusions predicted years ago appear to be coming true. The end game forecasts are in doubt, but the planet's climate is changing, and not changing well. One cannot reasonably point to a single rainstorm or high temperature at Death Valley and say "See ! See " because of the prefaced point. Climate is a study of averages and trends, not peaks and valleys.

......for realz.......dude......no doubt.....

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_____________________________________

I reject your reality and substitute my own!

Makes sense to me.

I hate how it's become politicized, so that a discussion on a subject that, IMO, could have dire consequences for the entire planet has become taboo in some circles.

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Of course it is real. Few deny that except in this country. Mostly the deniers have morphed to doubting whether it is anthropogenic.

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

The evidence is showing that it is happening and at a rate faster than shown in the geological record. Projections from a number of different models are that this is leading up to greater variations in weather. So areas may experience at times higher or lower temperatures than they have seen in the recent past couple centuries. In the case of hurricanes, warmer water is going to help them grow and intensify faster, so the worst may end up being nastier than ones on record. Conversely, some years the disruption in weather patterns may give us a relatively quiet season for tropical storms and hurricanes.

I have a feeling the climate change deniers won't change their minds until the Earth erupts into a huge fireball at which point it will be too late to say we told you so.

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I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making
him carry me, and yet assure myself and others
that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his
lot by all possible means — except by getting off
his back. - Leo Tolstoy, novelist and Philosopher
(1828-1910)

Our climate has been in flux since day one. Been much warmer, and much cooler in the past than at present. I have no expectation that it will ever stop changing until long after our sun burns out.

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RE:up
Our climate has been in flux since day one. Been much warmer, and much cooler in the past than at present. I have no expectation that it will ever stop changing until long after our sun burns out.

But it's not that the climate isn't always changing, it's the reason that it's changing that matters and the speed and extent.

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2017 03:29PM by Speedy.

Climate change is a constant... we are definitely an impact in how it changes and how fast it changes. And we need to make some changes or going to be worse than already will be. But hope is real and it's far from over.

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OWC Larry
Other World Computing
[www.macsales.com]

The word for today is "terajoules":



^ Family photo of Harvey, Katrina, Andrew, and Irma. More complete and informative map at link above.

There has never been a higher level of artificial impact on the environment than there has been over the past 100 years. The earth's climate has been warming since the depths of last ice age. We've just helped to abnormally speed it up.

So a warmer, wetter earth (hotter and drier in some places) is inevitable. It's more a matter of the speed at which this occurs. Arguably, given sufficient time, now that we know what's ahead, humans and societies can adapt. But by speeding up the process by ignoring what's happening around us, we may not get that time.

Either way - whether we choose to work together to rein this in or we don't - things will not remain as they are now.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2017 03:56PM by bfd.

A Prophet of Doom sure can rake in the dough.

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The Phorum Wall keeps us safe from illegal characters and words
The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is the knowledge of one's own ignorance. -Benjamin Franklin
BOYCOTT YOPLAIT [www.noyoplait.com]
[soundcloud.com]

Well, I am not a denier. Of course there is climate change. There has always been climate change. There will be always be climate change. But do I think "climate change" equates with "anthropogenic global warming"? Absolutely not.

The ocean temps have been fluctuating for years and years. The ocean level has been rising an average of 1 inch every decade for the past 150 years, not the last 20 or 30 years. Weather has swung from at least two times in the history of the world when there has been no ice at all on the surface of the Earth to half the planet covered with ice a mile thick. Storms aren't getting stronger, there was just no recording of it before the late 1800s. After making predictions of larger and stronger storms just a few years ago, there weren't any major US land falling hurricanes for what, twelve years?

We know there has been faking or outright ignoring of data that refutes "climate change". Why? Money. Who wants to interrupt that gravy train? Billions are spent on "climate change". Many universities, colleges, companies, etc., are on that gravy train and who wants to stop that? So they report data that keeps the money coming in.

NOAA uses data from ground readings that aren't verified and NASA uses readings from satellites that aren't calibrated and are old. NOAA has already had to walk back claims of record temps.

The reason "anthropogenic global warming" has had to be changed to the "climate change" moniker is because there has been only a slight amount of warming since CO2 levels started rising, not the huge increase we are lead to believe. And the fact that there is data out there that refutes what we are lead to believe means that the jury is not in yet. The science is not proven beyond a doubt yet people like me are excoriated for questioning it. All of the "climate change" crowd says the computer models tell us this. Well, if you have an agenda, and you have computer, and you pick and choose what data goes in to the computer, then you're going to get the result you want...
Am I saying that it's OK to keep dumping pollutants into the air and water? Of course not. But to say that because CO2 levels have been rising, then the temps is going up so much that it will turn us into another Venus in 20 years is absurd. There are so many factors that go in to making our weather what it is that to just make a blanket statement based on one single factor is absurd.
And it became political when certain politicians jumped on the band wagon and said we needed to tax gas and coal and oil and all other fossil fuels just to get re-elected.
Fact: There is no 100% irrefutable proof that just because CO2 levels have increased, the temps have increased at an alarming rate. They have not. That may be the "consensus" but 600 years ago every educated person knew that the Earth was flat and was the center of the Universe. That was the "consensus" back then...

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Heard their hit the other day and thought, "why haven't I remembered these guys?"

Disclaimer: This post is checked for correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Any attempts at humor are solely the responsibility of the author and bear no claim that any and all readers will approve or appreciate said attempt at humor.
My name is DP, and I approve this message.

"Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime."- Lavrentiy Beria

As a scientist, I always deal with possibilities vs probabilities.

It is far more likely that the climate change we are seeing is due to human activity than it is due to some natural phenomena.

The question is what do we want to do about these changes?

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billb
A Prophet of Doom sure can rake in the dough.

As can a lot of scientists.

Climate changes alright. Pace is probably (certainly? I haven't researched) faster than any other time? All I know is that I've always been, since a little whippersnapper enjoying God's creation in the wilderness, a very conservation minded person. Waste not, want not, live within ye means kind of boy. I know one thing, just because of air pollution, I could not live in China! Unbelievable! Everywhere I went there, you could see the air right in front of you!

Oh well, I wish the politicians weren't trying to gain from whatever is happening. That's all I'll say.

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That old man - he don't think like no old man...
Now I wouldn't want to be within 400 - 500 yards of one of them nuclear bombs when it goes off! WW1 Vet Old Man
"He's pinned under an outcropping of rock. Lucky for him, the rock kept the dirt from burying him alive."
If idiots could fly, this place would be an airport. And I'd be a TSA agent.
A bonified member of The Mystic Knights of The Sea, George P. Stevens, President. Andy Brown, Treasurer, Algonquin J. Calhoun, Legal Consultant.

The consensus of 97% of climate scientists agree that climate change is happening and that man made emissions are a major contributor to that change.

I'm not a climate scientist and neither are the vast majority of naysayers and yeasayers out there. The naysayers are not motivated by any scientific interest or understanding, rather they're motivated by ideology or FUD about imagined lost profits, which is a valid concern. The yeasayers are motivated by trusting the bulk of scientific experts in the field and worry about a sustainable future, which is basically FUD from the opposite direction.

The people are not all that different on each side, but with the very significant difference that one side is listening to the people with actual experience and expertise.

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sekker
The question is what do we want to do about these changes?

And that is where politics get heated.

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“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” -- François de La Rochefoucauld

"Those who cannot accept the past are condemned to revise it." -- Geo. Mathias

The German word for contraceptive is “Schwangerschaftsverhütungsmittel”. By the time you finished saying that, it’s too late

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GuyGene

Quote
billb
A Prophet of Doom sure can rake in the dough.

As can a lot of scientists.

Climate changes alright. Pace is probably (certainly? I haven't researched) faster than any other time? All I know is that I've always been, since a little whippersnapper enjoying God's creation in the wilderness, a very conservation minded person. Waste not, want not, live within ye means kind of boy. I know one thing, just because of air pollution, I could not live in China! Unbelievable! Everywhere I went there, you could see the air right in front of you!

Oh well, I wish the politicians weren't trying to gain from whatever is happening. That's all I'll say.

50 years ago, the same could've been said for the Los Angeles Basin - that situation changed dramatically, and we made the changes ourselves. Wasn't cheap, and it wasn't easy. But it was done.

Trust the scientists. Evidence has grown year over year.

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Pam
Trust the scientists. Evidence has grown year over year.

Just remember, in the 70’s many of these same scientists were claiming we were headed for a new ice age. They even had schemes for solving the problem. Everything from spreading carbon black on the poles to throwing an atomic bomb down an inactive volcano to stimulate it to erupt.

97/100 dentists recommend Crest

---

The Phorum Wall keeps us safe from illegal characters and words
The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is the knowledge of one's own ignorance. -Benjamin Franklin
BOYCOTT YOPLAIT [www.noyoplait.com]
[soundcloud.com]

bfd, not the LA I saw 50 years ago when compared to the China I've seen in the past 15 years. No where in America has ever had air like China.

---

That old man - he don't think like no old man...
Now I wouldn't want to be within 400 - 500 yards of one of them nuclear bombs when it goes off! WW1 Vet Old Man
"He's pinned under an outcropping of rock. Lucky for him, the rock kept the dirt from burying him alive."
If idiots could fly, this place would be an airport. And I'd be a TSA agent.
A bonified member of The Mystic Knights of The Sea, George P. Stevens, President. Andy Brown, Treasurer, Algonquin J. Calhoun, Legal Consultant.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2017 05:16PM by GuyGene.

As a scientist, I always deal with observable facts, possibilities, probabilities and projections, all based on and checked by the first factor.

And in fact, natural processes and phenomena can and have, in the past, been much greater factors of our persistent climate changes. It is a nadir of human arrogance to believe that we can control climate and eliminate climate change altogether. We can limit the human contribution to the ongoing process, but there are very few workable ideas today, that actually could contribute to the solution.

No, neither "carbon tax", nor carbon tax trading is a solution to the anthropogenic aspect of climate change....

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PeterW

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Pam
Trust the scientists. Evidence has grown year over year.

Just remember, in the 70’s many of these same scientists were claiming we were headed for a new ice age. They even had schemes for solving the problem. Everything from spreading carbon black on the poles to throwing an atomic bomb down an inactive volcano to stimulate it to erupt.

Actually that was misrepresentation of research in the popular press, there had been a short period of cooling. There was no general consensus that this pattern would persist, or the consequences. And I doubt you can actually find any of "these same scientists" to actually quote.

The planet earth will be fine. It's the people on it that need to worry. We will eventually become extinct, while mother earth will still be around long after.

Earth is what, like 4 billion years old? How long has man, (and women!) been around? 100,000? 200,000 years? Maybe a little more?

If I were betting, my money would be on earth being around long after us hu-mons have run their course.

---

Mr. Lahey: A lot of people, don’t know how to drink. They drink against the grain of the liquor. And when you drink against the grain of the liquor? You lose.

Randy: What the @#$%& are you talking about?

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PeterW

Quote
Pam
Trust the scientists. Evidence has grown year over year.

Just remember, in the 70’s many of these same scientists were claiming we were headed for a new ice age. They even had schemes for solving the problem. Everything from spreading carbon black on the poles to throwing an atomic bomb down an inactive volcano to stimulate it to erupt.

Thanks for an excellent example. This is what scientists do, change their minds when improved data comes along. Ideologues and contrarians never do that, they just dig their heels in and defend their position, actively ignoring to any evidence to the contrary.

Or:

"In science it often happens that scientists say, “You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,” and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. It’s very rare that a senator, say, replies, “That’s a good argument. I will now change my political affiliation.”

- Carl Sagan

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Rick-o
The planet earth will be fine. It's the people on it that need to worry. We will eventually become extinct, while mother earth will still be around long after.

Earth is what, like 4 billion years old? How long has man, (and women!) been around? 100,000? 200,000 years? Maybe a little more?

If I were betting, my money would be on earth being around long after us hu-mons have run their course.

I'm pretty sure nobody gives a rat's ass about whether the Earth will be here 100K years from now. Rather, the rat asses are given for whether the Earth remains a comfortable place to live for us, our kids, and so on.

.....as real as the existence of granny pannies......

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_____________________________________

I reject your reality and substitute my own!

Deciding what to do is the next step.

We've gone through denial, and most of us are not at the despair stage - both behaviors that justify inaction.

There are scientific and economic solutions to help mitigate some of the known likely effects, and there are ways to do research to address those we do not have good solutions for.

And some of the current ideas will be wrong - based on incomplete current data/research/observations - or end up doing unexpected things.

It's time to roll up our sleeves and get working on this. But I'm someone who believes in the human spirit and ingenuity (and is one reason I love the space posts here at MRF).

If that's political, I'm sorry.

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Just remember, in the 70’s many of these same scientists were claiming we were headed for a new ice age. They even had schemes for solving the problem. Everything from spreading carbon black on the poles to throwing an atomic bomb down an inactive volcano to stimulate it to erupt.

Thanks for an excellent example. This is what scientists do, change their minds when improved data comes along. Ideologues and contrarians never do that, they just dig their heels in and defend their position, actively ignoring to any evidence to the contrary.

Yeah, no. The myth of the global cooling trend was way overplayed in the media. Those forecasts were in part based on predictions of run away air pollution the aerosols of which would reflect heat. But the predominate forecasts were for warming:

"Summary
So global cooling predictions in the 70s amounted to media and a handful of peer reviewed studies. The small number of papers predicting cooling were outweighed by a much greater number of papers predicting global warming due to the warming effect of rising CO2. Today, an avalanche of peer reviewed studies and overwhelming scientific consensus endorse man-made global warming. To compare cooling predictions in the 70s to the current situation is both inappropriate and misleading. Additionally, we reduced the SO2 emissions which were causing global cooling. The question remains whether we will reduce the CO2 emissions causing global warming." [skepticalscience.com]

It's real. The main point I make is that it's not the change (because the climate has always and will always change), it's the current rate of change. It's not as fast has being hit by a meteor, but in geologic time terms it's virtually the same.

IMHO, I think most people that are inclined to disagree with the consensus are not motivated by a mistrust of the science as much as mistrust of the proposed solutions, solutions that seem to disrupt established social, cultural and economic institutions founded on a hydrocarbon economy.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2017 06:07PM by Acer.

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Buzz
Anyone else (on a non-political level, of course)?

Physical reality doesn't give a damn about politics…

Anywho, this starts at 20,000 BCE so keep scrolling and watch carefully. If it's based on accurate data, it's difficult to conclude anything other than AGW:

[xkcd.com]

[edmhdotme.files.wordpress.com]

---

"Hillbilly at Harvard"
Honky-tonk Country and Bluegrass
Founded in 1948 by Pappy Ben Minnich
Saturdays 9am - 11am Eastern
WHRB-FM, Cambridge, MA
Streaming at [www.WHRB.org]
Be there!
The HAH weblog: [hillbillyatharvard.wordpress.com]

Topical weblog: [walkingcreekworld.wordpress.com]

On the river in Saxonville.

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mrlynn
[edmhdotme.files.wordpress.com]

What is/are an "Alamists"?

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

....from....Alabama.....

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_____________________________________

I reject your reality and substitute my own!

Certain people want us to keep burning fossil fuels for whatever reason. Perhaps they like CO2 because it's yummy. But burning things, especially finite things, doesn't seem like the smart thing to do unless you are a seller of things to burn and can buy other people who will then do things so you can keep selling things to burn. CO2 in the air is skyrocketing - for whatever reason. Do we really want CO2 to keep skyrocketing just so we can keep burning things?

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

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Speedy
Certain people want us to keep burning fossil fuels for whatever reason. Perhaps they like CO2 because it's yummy. But burning things, especially finite things, doesn't seem like the smart thing to do unless you are a seller of things to burn and can buy other people who will then do things so you can keep selling things to burn. CO2 in the air is skyrocketing - for whatever reason. Do we really want CO2 to keep skyrocketing just so we can keep burning things?

coal rolling, baby! f*** yeah!

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Hurts like a bastid...

I'm impressed there are 39 responses and this hasn't been kicked over to the other side. Good going, people.

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And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Western Massachusetts

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Speedy

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mrlynn
[edmhdotme.files.wordpress.com]

What is/are an "Alamists"?

And who created and published that graphic? I have seen lots of graphs that purport to display valid interpretations of data from various sources, and they turned out to be totally bogus.

No. It's just a story. You don't have to bother with it. Just don't tell your grandkids I told you to ignore it.

Don Easterbrook:
[www.youtube.com]

Ivar Giaever:
[www.youtube.com]

Global warming has become a new religion.

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Buck
Don Easterbrook:
[www.youtube.com]

Ivar Giaever:
[www.youtube.com]

Global warming has become a new religion.

Not really, but following self proclaimed experts on climatology whose backgrounds are in anything but that area has. Let's see, Easterbrook is a geologist and Glaever is a physicist. As a geologist Easterbrook has examined and lists a selective group of data on warming that supports his thesis, but ignores the vast majority of data available.

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DP
The ocean temps have been fluctuating for years and years. The ocean level has been rising an average of 1 inch every decade for the past 150 years, not the last 20 or 30 years.

I'd be curious where you're getting the 1 inch figure from for the past 150 years. Incidentally, the accelerated warming of the climate seems to coincide with the start of the industrial revolution (unless that fact has changed recently).

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DP
Weather has swung from at least two times in the history of the world when there has been no ice at all on the surface of the Earth to half the planet covered with ice a mile thick.

The weather extremes you've described took millions of years to occur. You can't compare that to what's going on now, that's taking only decades to happen. This is a very common mistake in the opposition argument.

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DP
Storms aren't getting stronger, there was just no recording of it before the late 1800s. After making predictions of larger and stronger storms just a few years ago, there weren't any major US land falling hurricanes for what, twelve years?

Yes, they are getting stronger, we've been keeping records long enough to know that. And just because they haven't been making landfall, doesn't mean they haven't been occurring (many have just gone out into the Atlantic to become 'fish spinners'). Also, have you thought of the possibility that climate change might disrupt the formation of these storms (though they require warm water, they also require stable atmospheres....I've observed a lot of storms try to develop only to get disrupted by wind shear...which to me is a sign of increased energy in all levels of the atmosphere). None of what you said in this portion of your post is an argument against (anthropogenic) climate change.

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DP
We know there has been faking or outright ignoring of data that refutes "climate change". Why? Money. Who wants to interrupt that gravy train? Billions are spent on "climate change". Many universities, colleges, companies, etc., are on that gravy train and who wants to stop that? So they report data that keeps the money coming in.

This is a common point against climate change. The implication being made is that the billions spent on studying climate change is essentially producing fake results for the sake of financial gain. With as much money is at stake for them, you would think the fossil fuel industry would have even more money then to fund studies to produce fake data that disproves climate change (and they've tried, but none has passed the scientific peer review process). So this whole argument is a sham, and one I've heard repeated many times Science is not a popularity contest. By and far, it is a method of coming to the truth, that is much more accurate than other methods. When you have people studying climate change on this scale, no conspiracy can keep the truth from being known (if that truth, as is being asserted by the argument you put forth, is that there is no climate change).

Science has never been a gravy train. That's crazy. It's incredibly difficult to get money for needed scientific research in all fields. We don't even pay scientists what we should. Research doesn't produce marketable products. Research can be used by industry to produce marketable products, but it's within those industries where money can be made. Fortunately many scientists are more motivated by the work than money.

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Buck
Don Easterbrook:
[www.youtube.com]

Ivar Giaever:
[www.youtube.com]

Global warming has become a new religion.

Complete with justifications of Faith.
my faith is better than your faith
there's money and influence to be made in faith
always has been
Since at least the Pharaohs anyway.

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The Phorum Wall keeps us safe from illegal characters and words
The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is the knowledge of one's own ignorance. -Benjamin Franklin
BOYCOTT YOPLAIT [www.noyoplait.com]
[soundcloud.com]

Quote
mrlynn
[edmhdotme.files.wordpress.com]

This is a perfect example of not-science masquerading as science. It looks impressively "scientific" to the extent that the folks who use this as an argument won't bother to actually study it. Besides that, no source is given for the data, and the word "alarmists" in the title show it to be entirely agenda-driven. This graphic has zero credibility whatsoever.

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I can't find anything from the "alarmist" graph that matches the graph in this one from Wikipedia. For one thing, the wikipedia graph is showing only +1.5 degrees at the most at 8K years. The Alarmist graph is showing +6. Something's not right.


[en.wikipedia.org]

Alarmist graph from above:





Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/09/2017 04:20PM by Acer.

Quote
Buck
Don Easterbrook:
[www.youtube.com]

Ivar Giaever:
[www.youtube.com]

Global warming has become a new religion.

It takes very little googling to find out that 1) Easterbrook's presentations misrepresent IPCC reports and commonly display false data that he is unable to document when challenged, and 2) Almost every climate prediction he has made over the decades has proven false.

Giaever is a physicist with no training or research record in climate science or geology. He simply spouts common myths of the climate change deniers.

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"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion." (1987) -- Carl Sagan