You remember the discovery of Ötzi the Iceman in a melting Austrian glacier back in 1991. I think back then temperatures had reached levels as warm as those 5000 years ago when he died to allow the glacier to melt and reveal his remains.

Back then was the time of Holocene Climate Optimum, which had the highest temperatures of the current interglacial period, recently average temperatures would have exceeded that level. Although during the Holocene Climatic Optimum it was probably only the Northern Hemisphere during summer that was warmer because of a different tilt in the earth's axis, which also resulted in dry grassland growing in what is now the Sahara desert.

I have to admit I am a bit of a skeptic on global warming. I do not deny greenhouse gases have been rising because of human activity and greenhouse gas levels are the highest in a very long time. Also temperatures since 1850 have risen by around on average 0.8-0.9C.

However when I look back at climatic history, even in the very stable Holocene period there are been periods when temperatures globally were around 1C warmer on average during Holocene Climate Optimum around 6000-3000 BC, as evidenced in the Vostok Ice Core in Antarctica. Also going back further to previous interglacial periods which have seen temperatures up to 2C warmer globally on average than now (interestingly enough CO2 were at levels similar to before the industrial revolution).

There were also the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age which were global rather then regional events, in the little ice age temperatures globally were around 1C cooler than today, however the medieval warm period was as warm or even warmer than today evidenced by analysis across the world (including tree rings) and the fact that the Norse were farming in Southwestern Greenland where the permafrost still exists today.

This was back when human contribution to greenhouse emissions was tiny. There are factors other than CO2 emissions contributing to Earth's climate, solar cycles, water vapor, Milankovitch cycles (which could be why the earth has gone into glacial and interglacial periods rather than changes in CO2 levels, which some believe occurs after the temperature change).

I am trending on the side of caution on this issue. While I support efforts to get the world off it's dependence on fossil fuels, I believe that the uncertainties and facts, do not justify the potential cost of denying economic development in the third world or decreasing living standards even in the developed world.

Al Gore, Live Earth Concert, and the Coming Surge of American Optimism (Brent Budowsky)

On July 7, 2007, Al Gore and a galaxy of entertainment superstars, a worldwide army of idealists, and 2 billion concerned

citizens from seven continents will take a stand on global warming that will advance a new political era of optimism and hope.

Sooner than people realize, Americans are going to be astonished and amazed at the rekindling of American optimism and the can-do attitude that good people who care passionately can make a difference.

In recent years American politics, culture and media have been so drenched in negativity, pessimism and civic poison that our institutions of political and media power have lost sight of the classic American spirit of can-do optimism.

On July 7 the Live Earth concert will fire a cannon of hope that will be heard around the world. It will be a moment for generations, a shared communion based on the ancient idea that every generation leaves a better world for the next.

July 7 will be a moment for 2 billion people linking arms, from nations that span the world, speaking languages heard on all the continents with a common voice and a common purpose.

Here in the United States the Live Earth concert will be be broadcast with three hours on prime-time NBC, all 13 hours on the Sundance Channel, a full seven hours on CNBC, and on XM Radio, to name a few places where the event can be shared.

Worldwide broadcasts on television, radio and the Internet will parallel this surge of hope. I expect exciting contributions from Air America, Nova Radio, and leading talk radio hosts and Internet sites that I will be writing about as July 7 approaches.

We live in an age where 70 percent of Americans refuse to offer approval to the president or Congress, to Democrats or Republicans.

We live in an age where Americans of all persuasions hunger and thirst for a new unity, a new spirit, a new optimism and hope that tomorrow can be better than today, that good people can make a difference, that elections matter and that civic life in America should be based on a shared patriotism.

From the entertainment superstars who will carry the banner to the grade-school children who will the carry the torch, July 7 will be a grand moment for action in the service of hope.

Americans want to move beyond a world where smut pollutes our planet and muck pollutes our politics. Americans want to regain that American spirit that has made America America, and made the American idea a true beacon for the world.

Al Gore deserves profound credit for taking a stand that makes him the champion of a Conviction-politics in America, and even more than Al Gore, the credit belongs to the young people like Bobby, a 10-year-old fifth-grader I met at the Sheryl Crow global warming concert recently in Washington.

All over America and the world there are kids and grandkids we can be proud of.

I interviewed young Bobby and asked him what he planned to do about global warming.

This young man has a plan. He is saving his allowance to buy energy-saving light bulbs to give to his friends, and collecting e-mail addresses from his classmates to add them to the Virtual Global Warming March.

Wherever he is on July 7, Bobby and his proud parents will be participating in the Live Earth concert along with idealists and activists from his generation, our generation and all living generations.

These kids are the present, the future and the hope of the world. It is their planet to inherit and our mission to leave a better world for them, and if we have failed too often, we can begin again, which is the message of Live Earth on July 7.

What makes America America is that our America is forever young, with an almost naive idealism, and a can-do spirit where a potential Nobel laureate can lead a great endeavor, where leading entertainers give generously of their time and passion, where 2 billion people can share a cause and 8-year-old kids can develop a plan.

Get ready for a reawakening of American optimism, idealism and hope.
Stay tuned.

This week's cover story in National Review.

Game Plan

It is no longer possible, scientifically or politically, to deny that human activities have very likely increased global temperatures; what remains in dispute is the precise magnitude of the human impact. Conservatives should accept this reality — and move on to the question of what we should do about it. This would put us in a much better position to prevent a massive, counterproductive intervention in the U.S. economy. By Jim Manzi

Originally Posted by Tristan

This week's cover story in National Review.

Game Plan

It is no longer possible, scientifically or politically, to deny that human activities have very likely increased global temperatures; what remains in dispute is the precise magnitude of the human impact. Conservatives should accept this reality — and move on to the question of what we should do about it. This would put us in a much better position to prevent a massive, counterproductive intervention in the U.S. economy. By Jim Manzi

And if we were as willing to throw $500 billion at building a thermonuclear fusion power alternative as were at Iraq, we might have a found a way to find an alternative, post-carbon power source that wouldn't require sending us back into the pre-industrial era.

My skepticism about global warming is basically Humean peppered by an incredulity that humans are so powerful as to be capable of substantially altering Mother Nature. I always smell Boomer hubris emanating from the much ballyhooed "scientific consensus" about global warming. I am still swayable by well-reasoned arguments, and Mike A. has come close to changing my mind. But every time my skepticism is shaken, I come across something like this (usual disclaimer about unauthorized reproduction):

"Read the sunspots The mud at the bottom of B.C. fjords reveals that solar output drives climate change - and that we should prepare now for dangerous global cooling.

R. TIMOTHY PATTERSON, Financial Post
Published: Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Politicians and environmentalists these days convey the impression that climate-change research is an exceptionally dull field with little left to discover. We are assured by everyone from David Suzuki to Al Gore to Prime Minister Stephen Harper that "the science is settled." At the recent G8 summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel even attempted to convince world leaders to play God by restricting carbon-dioxide emissions to a level that would magically limit the rise in world temperatures to 2C.

The fact that science is many years away from properly understanding global climate doesn't seem to bother our leaders at all. Inviting testimony only from those who don't question political orthodoxy on the issue, parliamentarians are charging ahead with the impossible and expensive goal of "stopping global climate change." Liberal MP Ralph Goodale's June 11 House of Commons assertion that Parliament should have "a real good discussion about the potential for carbon capture and sequestration in dealing with carbon dioxide, which has tremendous potential for improving the climate, not only here in Canada but around the world," would be humorous were he, and even the current government, not deadly serious about devoting vast resources to this hopeless crusade.

Climate stability has never been a feature of planet Earth. The only constant about climate is change; it changes continually and, at times, quite rapidly. Many times in the past, temperatures were far higher than today, and occasionally, temperatures were colder. As recently as 6,000 years ago, it was about 3C warmer than now. Ten thousand years ago, while the world was coming out of the thou-sand-year-long "Younger Dryas" cold episode, temperatures rose as much as 6C in a decade -- 100 times faster than the past century's 0.6C warming that has so upset environmentalists...

Climate-change research is now literally exploding with new findings. Since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the field has had more research than in all previous years combined and the discoveries are completely shattering the myths. For example, I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of all energy on the planet.

My interest in the current climate-change debate was triggered in 1998, when I was funded by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council strategic project grant to determine if there were regular cycles in West Coast fish productivity. As a result of wide swings in the populations of anchovies, herring and other commercially important West Coast fish stock, fisheries managers were having a very difficult time establishing appropriate fishing quotas. One season there would be abundant stock and broad harvesting would be acceptable; the very next year the fisheries would collapse. No one really knew why or how to predict the future health of this crucially important resource.

Although climate was suspected to play a significant role in marine productivity, only since the beginning of the 20th century have accurate fishing and temperature records been kept in this region of the northeast Pacific. We needed indicators of fish productivity over thousands of years to see whether there were recurring cycles in populations and what phenomena may be driving the changes.

My research team began to collect and analyze core samples from the bottom of deep Western Canadian fjords. The regions in which we chose to conduct our research, Effingham Inlet on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, and in 2001, sounds in the Belize-Seymour Inlet complex on the mainland coast of British Columbia, were perfect for this sort of work. The topography of these fjords is such that they contain deep basins that are subject to little water transfer from the open ocean and so water near the bottom is relatively stagnant and very low in oxygen content. As a consequence, the floors of these basins are mostly lifeless and sediment layers build up year after year, undisturbed over millennia.

Using various coring technologies, we have been able to collect more than 5,000 years' worth of mud in these basins, with the oldest layers coming from a depth of about 11 metres below the fjord floor. Clearly visible in our mud cores are annual changes that record the different seasons: corresponding to the cool, rainy winter seasons, we see dark layers composed mostly of dirt washed into the fjord from the land; in the warm summer months we see abundant fossilized fish scales and diatoms (the most common form of phytoplankton, or single-celled ocean plants) that have fallen to the fjord floor from nutrient-rich surface waters. In years when warm summers dominated climate in the region, we clearly see far thicker layers of diatoms and fish scales than we do in cooler years. Ours is one of the highest-quality climate records available anywhere today and in it we see obvious confirmation that natural climate change can be dramatic. For example, in the middle of a 62-year slice of the record at about 4,400 years ago, there was a shift in climate in only a couple of seasons from warm, dry and sunny conditions to one that was mostly cold and rainy for several decades.

Using computers to conduct what is referred to as a "time series analysis" on the colouration and thickness of the annual layers, we have discovered repeated cycles in marine productivity in this, a region larger than Europe. Specifically, we find a very strong and consistent 11-year cycle throughout the whole record in the sediments and diatom remains. This correlates closely to the well-known 11-year "Schwabe" sunspot cycle, during which the output of the sun varies by about 0.1%. Sunspots, violent storms on the surface of the sun, have the effect of increasing solar output, so, by counting the spots visible on the surface of our star, we have an indirect measure of its varying brightness. Such records have been kept for many centuries and match very well with the changes in marine productivity we are observing.

In the sediment, diatom and fish-scale records, we also see longer period cycles, all correlating closely with other well-known regular solar variations. In particular, we see marine productivity cycles that match well with the sun's 75-90-year "Gleissberg Cycle," the 200-500-year "Suess Cycle" and the 1,100-1,500-year "Bond Cycle." The strength of these cycles is seen to vary over time, fading in and out over the millennia. The variation in the sun's brightness over these longer cycles may be many times greater in magnitude than that measured over the short Schwabe cycle and so are seen to impact marine productivity even more significantly.

Our finding of a direct correlation between variations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate indicators (called "proxies") is not unique. Hundreds of other studies, using proxies from tree rings in Russia's Kola Peninsula to water levels of the Nile, show exactly the same thing: The sun appears to drive climate change.

However, there was a problem. Despite this clear and repeated correlation, the measured variations in incoming solar energy were, on their own, not sufficient to cause the climate changes we have observed in our proxies. In addition, even though the sun is brighter now than at any time in the past 8,000 years, the increase in direct solar input is not calculated to be sufficient to cause the past century's modest warming on its own. There had to be an amplifier of some sort for the sun to be a primary driver of climate change.

Indeed, that is precisely what has been discovered. In a series of groundbreaking scientific papers starting in 2002, Veizer, Shaviv, Carslaw, and most recently Svensmark et al., have collectively demonstrated that as the output of the sun varies, and with it, our star's protective solar wind, varying amounts of galactic cosmic rays from deep space are able to enter our solar system and penetrate the Earth's atmosphere. These cosmic rays enhance cloud formation which, overall, has a cooling effect on the planet. When the sun's energy output is greater, not only does the Earth warm slightly due to direct solar heating, but the stronger solar wind generated during these "high sun" periods blocks many of the cosmic rays from entering our atmosphere. Cloud cover decreases and the Earth warms still more.

The opposite occurs when the sun is less bright. More cosmic rays are able to get through to Earth's atmosphere, more clouds form, and the planet cools more than would otherwise be the case due to direct solar effects alone. This is precisely what happened from the middle of the 17th century into the early 18th century, when the solar energy input to our atmosphere, as indicated by the number of sunspots, was at a minimum and the planet was stuck in the Little Ice Age. These new findings suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change. By comparison, CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales.

In some fields the science is indeed "settled." For example, plate tectonics, once highly controversial, is now so well-established that we rarely see papers on the subject at all. But the science of global climate change is still in its infancy, with many thousands of papers published every year. In a 2003 poll conducted by German environmental researchers Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch, two-thirds of more than 530 climate scientists from 27 countries surveyed did not believe that "the current state of scientific knowledge is developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of greenhouse gases." About half of those polled stated that the science of climate change was not sufficiently settled to pass the issue over to policymakers at all.

Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us.

Meantime, we need to continue research into this, the most complex field of science ever tackled, and immediately halt wasted expenditures on the King Canute-like task of "stopping climate change."

R. Timothy Patterson is professor and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University."

(http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/f...db11f4&p=4)


Perhaps Mr. Butler or Odin can tell me which oil or coal company owns Dr. Patterson or why his skepticism is misplaced.

Pax,

Dave Krein '42

Originally Posted by David Krein

an incredulity that humans are so powerful as to be capable of substantially altering Mother Nature.

Isn't Argument by Incredulity a fallacy?

Originally Posted by David Krein

"Read the sunspots The mud at the bottom of B.C. fjords reveals that solar output drives climate change - and that we should prepare now for dangerous global cooling....

R. TIMOTHY PATTERSON, Financial Post
Published: Wednesday, June 20, 2007Perhaps

Snip...

Mr. Butler or Odin can tell me which oil or coal company owns Dr. Patterson or why his skepticism is misplaced.

Pax,

Dave Krein '42

That was an excellent summary of solar forcing. It ties the 11 year sunspot record with the cosmic ray forcing as clearly as I've seen it. It looks professional and rational.

The problem is see is in focusing on one forcing factor only. As I stated in my last major summary, there are four forcing factors one has to be aware of... solar forcing, greenhouse gasses, sooty sulfates, and glaciation. He has intensively studied a 5000 year record. For 4950 of those years, solar forcing would have dominated. I can't blame him too much for thinking solar forcing important. It is important, especially over the time frame he is most interested in. However, there are other factors which he covers not at all in his article.

My own last summary ended as follows...

On the other hand, the sun has been near the maximum output for a while. It is apt to start down at some point. We also haven't had a really big volcanic soot storm in a while. (Mount Saint Helens was small stuff in comparison to some of the historical explosions.) Some mountain or another could blow up, giving us a few cold years. There are definitely unknown factors that could come into play. It just seems irresponsible to count on it.

He refined my 'apt to start down at some point' to be 20 years from now, assuming the solar cycles behave as normal, and he pointed out that the solar cycles are kind of loose and variable. In 20 years, if one takes the rest of climate science seriously, and is not a pure solar forcing guy, we have more industrial CO2, methane release from the tundra, and we're dang close to melting the polar icecaps. When you get a combined sudden greenhouse release with vanishing icecaps, that is when you get the sort of very intense very rapid climate change he mentioned occuring in the record. Will a 0.1% dimming of the sun mean diddly squat under those conditions?

Dang if I know why he is focused on just one aspect of global climate science, other than solar forcing is the dominant factor in the 5000 year time slice his data gives him. He's dead on for solar forcing, though. About the time greenhouse and polar thawing are due to put us in a very bad place, the sun is about due to go dim. Thing is, I feel a lot more confident that humans will be emitting greenhouse gasses than I am that the solar cycles will behave as they do more often than not.

Aren't solar cycles on a small influence on Earth's climate, changing the mean temperature only by 1-2C.

To put things into perspective the Little Ice Age was the coldest period in last 10,000 years, yet globally temperatures were only 1C cooler on average than today and probably never been warmer than 1C at anypoint in the last 10,000 years.

Now the predictions by climate scientists are talking about temperatures anywhere between 2-5C higher than today.

This is a chart of CO2 levels going back 600,000 years, CO2 levels have never exceeded 280 ppm in the whole of the 600,000 years. Now they are nearly 400 ppm.

Originally Posted by Tristan

This is a chart of CO2 levels going back 600,000 years, CO2 levels have never exceeded 280 ppm in the whole of the 600,000 years. Now they are nearly 400 ppm.

Yep. The CO2 levels are bouncing up and down with the ice age temperatures. At that time scale, Milankovitch orbital variations, glaciation and CO2 are causing large slow temperature changes as the ice ages come and go. The variations caused by solar forcing are so short in duration and small in magnitude as to not show up that much on that time scale.

5000 years is such a short time scale that Milankovitch orbital variations aren't a big factor, and CO2 variation would be very small until human emissions started taking off around 1950. Thus, in a 5000 year sample, solar forcing would seem to dominate.

On even larger time scales, continental drift and stellar arm radiation dominate Milankovitch. What is the most important single forcing factor depends very much on what time scale one is dealing with. This is why I'm dubious about looking at one time scale, deciding what force factor is most important, then throwing away all other forcing factors.

In response to David I ask what about this article causes you to question the GW consensus? The issue we are discussing in this thread is recent climate change, specifically a rising trend in temperature over the last 30 years. The article Dave cited presents no information on this topic. Why should irrelevant information affect how a rational person thinks about this problem? It shouldn't. So why does Dave, whose is a rational person, think it does shed light on the issue? Because it is presented in a way that looks like it is relevant. In other words it is misleading. When I see an article constructed so as to mislead, as this one has been, what am I supposed to think about the credibility of the author?

Now how is it misleading? Well, he talks about cycles and fish populations in a way as to give the impression that the sun exerts cyclical effects on the climate. He then states that the sun is the brightest it has been in 8000 years. Placing these two true statements in close proximity is intended to cause the uninformed reader to come to his own conclusion that the current warming today is the result of this high level of solar activity.

Now if the author's intent was not to deceive he could have said the sun reached the brightest level in the last 8000 years in the 1950's, and has remained around that level since then. This is also a true statement, but it provides a more useful (if your goal is to inform rather than mislead) description of what "today" means. Said this way, a nonexpert would not assume the post-1970 warming was caused by this this solar brightness.

Virtually everything written by skeptics are like this. They are constructed in a misleading fashion so as to get people who are not conversant with the science, to believe things that just ain't so.

The pro-GW people do this too when they present graphs showing cycles in CO2 and cycles in temperature for past ice ages to make the point that rising CO2 causes warming. Rising CO2 does cause warming, but not the warming they show in the graphs.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Virtually everything written by skeptics are like this. They are constructed in a misleading fashion so as to get people who are not conversant with the science, to believe things that just ain't so.

The pro-GW people do this too when they present graphs showing cycles in CO2 and cycles in temperature for past ice ages to make the point that rising CO2 causes warming. Rising CO2 does cause warming, but not the warming they show in the graphs.

I tend to agree. The 'skeptics' tend to focus on solar forcing only. Many warming warners writing for the general public focus on greenhouse only. A good size part of it might be the public's short attention span. This is a complex enough issue that one newspaper article or internet posting can't cover all the basics to inform, let alone to persuade. Thus, a good number of propagandists on both sides don't try. They publish just the facts convenient to their own position, and lie by omission and suggestion. Thus, any individual not willing to do the homework tends to just believe what his or her values suggest.

Assume that the sun is causing global warming. Even if that were the case, shouldn't we still be trying not to make matters worse? We can't help the sun, but we can help the situation by doing what little we can.

It's like living in a bad neighborhood: I can't help the gang graffiti on the building, but I can at least keep my room neat and clean and do that little bit for my quality of life.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I tend to agree. The 'skeptics' tend to focus on solar forcing only. Many warming warners writing for the general public focus on greenhouse only. A good size part of it might be the public's short attention span. This is a complex enough issue that one newspaper article or internet posting can't cover all the basics to inform, let alone to persuade. Thus, a good number of propagandists on both sides don't try. They publish just the facts convenient to their own position, and lie by omission and suggestion. Thus, any individual not willing to do the homework tends to just believe what his or her values suggest.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Those doing their homework also tend to believe what their values suggest. If you're trying to be "logical," you have to apply the same standards to both sides. Dismissing the concerns of skeptics because of their values makes no more sense than dismissing evidence because of the values of those presenting the evidence. Making "values" the main focus of the issue essentially results in a deadlock, not a win for either side.

In my above post, I was trying to flame propagandists on both sidesl. Two sentences early were targeted one at each faction. The rest holds true applied to propaganda writers on both sides. There are propaganda posts on both sides. If one wants to believe what one wants to believe, one can find propaganda pieces to support one's position. All one has to do is ignore the propaganda pieces from the other side, and ignore the longer and harder to read serious writing.

But you have to have done your homework to recognize a propaganda piece for what is is. Very few seem ready to put that much effort into it.

To keep it simple, anything which is 'solar forcing' only or 'greenhouse gas' only is apt to be a one sided propaganda piece. Each individual fact within such pieces might possibly be true -- not always of course -- but the whole won't be comprehensive or balanced.

The distinction Mike makes is that a lot of the 'skeptic' pieces are not only one sided, but also deliberately misleading.

A while ago, there was a post that a number of planets are warming in the solar system, and implied that there must be a common cause. I chased it down a bit, and found the leading theories for each example of warming is entirely different. In brief...

Every once in a while, Mars has a planet wide dust storm, which coats everything in a white dust. White reflects light. The planet gets cooler after the global storm. Slowly, wind gusts blow the dust off dark surfaces, and things get warmer again. When things get warm enough... there is a planet wide dust storm. Thus, unless there has just been a big dust storm which is causing sudden cooling, Mars is always warming up, storing energy for the next big global storm. These cycles take 3 or 4 martian years, which are a bit longer than Earth years.

Pluto is getting warmer. It has an elliptical orbit. It is closer to the sun than usual just now. The sun warms things up if one gets closer to it.

Saturn has a confusing warm spot near its south pole. What is causing this is not well understood at all. However, warming from the sun warms things more at the equator than the poles. When one has an unexpectedly warm pole, how is it solar?

One of Jupiter's moons has a geyser at the south pole. Vaporized water is being ejected well clear of the planet. There must be a heat source. Mind you, in a vacuum, water vaporizes off rather easily. Still, the article referenced by the 'system wide warming' article clearly said that no way was this particular effect solar. The propagandist referenced an article that said the opposite of what he was claiming it said in the reference. The leading theory is that tidal shifts are causing fiction causing the heat. Weird stuff.

But the 'skeptic' propagandist was implying that there was a common cause. We have dust storms, tidal effects, an uneven orbit, and the poorly understood inner workings of a gas giant. How can there be a common cause? The propagandist was being deliberately misleading. If one doesn't do one's homework, one can get suckered in. How many people did their homework on this one? How many took the propaganda piece as a justification for clinging to what they were already inclined to believe?

One of the ways we can make big reductions in greenhouse emissions is massively improved energy efficiency. The increased efficiency in automobiles is a success story, cars today are 60% more energy efficient than they were in the 1970's. That was due to government regulations requiring cars be more efficient. Cars still remain as affordable or even more affordable today than they were in the 1970's.

Imagine the kind of gains we can make if governments were to put in strict energy efficiency mandates across the board.

The increase in greenhouse emissions since 1800 would be more than enough to account for Earth coming out of the Little Ice Age. However given that CO2 levels have skyrocketed to levels not seen in probably millions of years, the Earth's temperature should have skyrocketed in last century. It is probably been all those particles coming out of factories which give the skies of the Northern Hemisphere their grimness which has prevented temperatures from rising further.

Originally Posted by Tristan

The increase in greenhouse emissions since 1800 would be more than enough to account for Earth coming out of the Little Ice Age. However given that CO2 levels have skyrocketed to levels not seen in probably millions of years, the Earth's temperature should have skyrocketed in last century. It is probably been all those particles coming out of factories which give the skies of the Northern Hemisphere their grimness which has prevented temperatures from rising further.

Pretty much right, as far as I can gather. Well... Solar forcing alone would have created the Little Ice Age, and a recovery. Human greenhouse might have aided the recovery somewhat, but I'd credit the bulk of the Little Ice Age event to solar variation.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Originally Posted by The Grey Badger

Assume that the sun is causing global warming. Even if that were the case, shouldn't we still be trying not to make matters worse? We can't help the sun, but we can help the situation by doing what little we can.

It's like living in a bad neighborhood: I can't help the gang graffiti on the building, but I can at least keep my room neat and clean and do that little bit for my quality of life.

I think a lot of people have said that already, myself included. The issue that I have with all this is that making global warming the focus of the debate itself might "make matters worse."

Add me to the list, if I'm not on it already. Arguing for the right to be right ignores the need to argue for a solution. If the effort to win the argument impedes or precludes progress towards the necessary solution, skip that step and move on.

Originally Posted by Tristan

One of the ways we can make big reductions in greenhouse emissions is massively improved energy efficiency. The increased efficiency in automobiles is a success story, cars today are 60% more energy efficient than they were in the 1970's. That was due to government regulations requiring cars be more efficient. Cars still remain as affordable or even more affordable today than they were in the 1970's.

Imagine the kind of gains we can make if governments were to put in strict energy efficiency mandates across the board.

AND it would reduce our dependency on foreign oil. Or any oil, for that matter.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I tend to agree. The 'skeptics' tend to focus on solar forcing only. Many warming warners writing for the general public focus on greenhouse only. A good size part of it might be the public's short attention span. This is a complex enough issue that one newspaper article or internet posting can't cover all the basics to inform, let alone to persuade.

It's more than that. GW is a hard issue technically. It's much, much harder to grasp than say peak oil. I am working on a simple model for GW that can (with some effort) be understood and actually done (in part) by interested laymen such as yourself. It doesn't demonstrate global warming, rather it represents the issue in a form simple enough to manipulate (with some effort).

For example I can use it to quantitate the cosmic ray effect from a theoretical standpoint and obtain a result that agrees well with an empirical approach. Assuming a "pure" lamba of 0.3 like Lord Monckton does I find that the 0.5 "consensus" value simply falls out of the math. It flows naturally from a quite reasonable assumption that increases in temperature produce an increase in average atmospheric water content proportional to the increase in vapor pressure associated with higher temperatures.

I handle clouds in a "grade school" approach (all arithmetic) that works surprisingly well for such a simplistic treatment. The model proves nothing, how can it when far more sophisticated models are being used today without complete agreement from the skeptics? But it does represent how the science works and the extreme logical contortions and wishful thinking one has to use to deny the reality of the greenhouse effect in recent warming.

As a result of the (considerable) effort I have put into producing this model I now feel I have a real command of the science.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Those doing their homework also tend to believe what their values suggest.

No that's wrong. If you have ever done any natural science you would have experienced the pleasure when unexpected results "fall out" of the math and the data.

It is this convergence, things fall out that start to make a coherent picture, that is the power of science. This why the study of the saeculum has been so troubling to me. After years of study, very little has fallen out. That so little has fallen out strongly suggests that there is nothing there. It's like UFOs'. If UFOs were supposedly tracked by the primitive radar technology of the 1940's, why hasn't the reality of UFOs been nailed down by the far more powerful detection methods available today? The simplest (and IMO best) explanation is that UFOs don't really exist

The same thing is true of the saeculum. At one time I thought I had detected it using a more powerful tool than what S&H had employed. It turns out I had used the tool incorrectly. Careful repetition of the observation has conclusively shown that no saeculum was detected. After years of study, the saeculum has remained like UFOs, just at the edge of detection.

In contrast, my recent study of global warming has been highly convergent. As I increase the power of my investigative tools, the picture becomes clearer, the doubts fall. The reality of the phenomenon emerges after only five months of study in a way that the saeculum has failed to emerge after nearly a decade of study.

I can say with confidence that the reality of anthropogenic climate change is [i]at least/i] twenty times more certain that the reality of the saeculum.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

No that's wrong. If you have ever done any natural science you would have experienced the pleasure when unexpected results "fall out" of the math and the data.

Not necessarily. Not everyone shares scientific values. In America, it is not uncommon to find people with significant values in three broad areas: science, politics and religion. Different people hold different Truths to be more self evident. The sort of satisfaction you or I get out when a new Truth falls out of the math and data is not shared by all.

Someone with strong religious values might get the same sort of feeling after reading holy writ. I am reminded of a Catholic mass ritual, where after reading the gospel, the priest will say "Thanks be to God" and kiss the book. From certain perspectives, this is a proper response to revealed Truth. This is often totally sincere. For some, a religious truth, received from a religious source, might be as profound and significant as finding an equation that fits the data. Some will never get a thrill out of an equation.

Values are in part a structure for understanding the world, and for manipulating the world. Those with sufficiently divergent values might totally lack and disrespect each other's methods and emotions. I wouldn't expect someone whose prime values are political or religious to understand the joy, significance and truth of science. I would rather, instead, expect them to find excuses to maintain without question their political or religious beliefs, no matter to what degree this forces them to close their eyes to observation, experiment and calculation.

Which is why, to a great degree, I take exception to the 'global warming science is a religion' meme, or the accusations that I am an Inquisitor. Some people who do not share and understand scientific values can only evaluate scientific values and discipline in terms of how they themselves think. Depending on what values they hold to, this can of course be entirely misleading and inadequate.

But it is hard to project how people with other values think and feel about things. Too many people don't try. It is far easier to demonize, to assume those who do not share one's values are irrational, evil, stupid, or otherwise unworthy of consideration.

Is anyone interested in reviewing an article I am working on about Global Warming. The article is long and requires some effort on the reader to follow the math and do some of the calculations for themselves.

What I am looking for is comments on clarity and what else I need to add in order of a non-expert to be able to follow the the work (and do some of it for himself or herself ir they want to). The document is a Microsoft Word document that I would email to you as an attachment.

If interested, send a personal message to me.

Thanks

Mike Alexander (mikebert)

The "skeptics" just lost thier favorite talking point.

'No Sun link' to climate change

By Richard Black
BBC Environment Correspondent


A new scientific study concludes that changes in the Sun's output cannot be causing modern-day climate change. It shows that for the last 20 years, the Sun's output has declined, yet temperatures on Earth have risen.

It also shows that modern temperatures are not determined by the Sun's effect on cosmic rays, as has been claimed.

Writing in the Royal Society's journal Proceedings A, the researchers say cosmic rays may have affected climate in the past, but not the present.
"This should settle the debate," said Mike Lockwood, from the UK's Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, who carried out the new analysis together with Claus Froehlich from the World Radiation Center in Switzerland.

This paper re-enforces the fact that the warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity
Dr Piers Forster

Dr Lockwood initiated the study partially in response to the TV documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, broadcast on Britain's Channel Four earlier this year, which featured the cosmic ray hypothesis. "All the graphs they showed stopped in about 1980, and I knew why, because things diverged after that," he told the BBC News website.
"You can't just ignore bits of data that you don't like," he said.

Warming trend

The scientists' main approach on this new analysis was simple: to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature, which has risen by about 0.4C over the period.

The Sun varies on a cycle of about 11 years between periods of high and low activity. But that cycle comes on top of longer-term trends; and most of the 20th Century saw a slight but steady increase in solar output.
However, in about 1985, that trend appears to have reversed, with solar output declining.

Yet this period has seen temperatures rise as fast as - if not faster than - any time during the previous 100 years.

"This paper re-enforces the fact that the warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity," said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment of climate science.

Cosmic relief

The IPCC's February summary report concluded that greenhouse gases were about 13 times more responsible than solar changes for rising global temperatures.

But the organisation was criticised in some quarters for not taking into account the cosmic ray hypothesis, developed by, among others, Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen of the Danish National Space Center.

Their theory holds that cosmic rays help clouds to form by providing tiny particles around which water vapour can condense. Overall, clouds cool the Earth.

During periods of active solar activity, cosmic rays are partially blocked by the Sun's more intense magnetic field. Cloud formation diminishes, and the Earth warms.

Mike Lockwood's analysis appears to have put a large, probably fatal nail in this intriguing and elegant hypothesis.

He said: "I do think there is a cosmic ray effect on cloud cover. It works in clean maritime air where there isn't much else for water vapour to condense around.

"It might even have had a significant effect on pre-industrial climate; but you cannot apply it to what we're seeing now, because we're in a completely different ball game."

Drs Svensmark and Friis-Christensen could not be reached for comment.