Global Climate Change

[Dr. Lazarus]

posted on July 28th, 2008, 3:29 pm

Last edited by Dr. Lazarus on July 28th, 2008, 3:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Nice to meet you Mrs. Dom!!    The Night Lord has become a friend of mine.

We do, however disagree (on a few things) about this. With the greatest of respect (and I mean that sincerely), you did not offer any concrete argument, or much of an argument at all, in your post. It's not sufficient to simply say, "we're experiencing very rapid climate change, so there", or equivalent. You need to back it up with some facts. As I pointed out in an earlier post of mine, if you observe data on temperature collected from monitoring stations, on small (i.e. decade, year) scales, the fluctuations are enormous - the instantaneous gradient is large. However, the overall trend may be small or even flat.

You seemed to repeat again and again the claim, "things are bad, face up to it", but I don't see anything more than that. I also resent the implication that anyone who questions the status quo "just doesn't get it". Again you don't dig any deeper about the matter. There is a spectrum of quality when it comes to forging good arguments. Some attack the people (e.g. "you're stupid"), some go further and attack the stance ("you just don't get it"), but the best go further and explain why. You fall into the middle category.

Additionally, do you see the fallacy in claiming that "observing many parched worlds" means that we're heading the same way? I could observe pluto, but staring at the planet gives me no information about how likely it is that Earth is about to enter another ice age. The two situations are not even really related to each other. Moreover, climate disasters (desertification, tropical cyclones etc) are the symptom of warming whether or not humans are the cause of that warming.

I hope you dont mind me emphasising that you post was devoid of argument  . You would better defend your partner is you offered something solid, instead of, "it's an indisbutable fact", "it's a pretty bleak outcome" etc. etc. Put pen to paper and show me your side of the story. I posed questions in previous posts which were not really addressed (except to some extent by Dom). Now is your chance. Bear in mind that you've already lost points in my book by trying to say that anything can be an indisbutable fact. Even the simplest correlations in science have a real element of uncertainty associated with them. This is not to even consider the subtleties associated with the global climate system. I just read all of your paragraphs again to see if I was being unfair, but I still identify no argument other than "it's bad, wake up to the fact".

Finally, by raising the fact of your credentials (which I often do, but with caution), you invoke another fallacy - that credentials have anything to do with being right. An expert's credentials only add weight to the argument if the argument is right. If your argument is poorly contructed or absent, then it leads me to wonder what you have studied, and how good you were at it - not the outcome you expected when you made note of your expertise. I'm sure you're a good scientist, now go ahead and demonstrate that fact.

Please don't take offense at this; I would enjoy actually debating the points if they are raised, and if I have time. There are many things that I have not said here which I said in two previous posts, so there are plenty of points for you to challenge. But please challenge them!! 

Best Regards,

Laz 

posted on July 28th, 2008, 5:37 pm

Why not we know anof to almost predict wether with certainty. We know more than anoff to cents a threat like this with a grate deal of certainty.

Yes but if you had read past posts you would have read that this change is happening much much much quicker than one would have thought posable before Globule worming was discovered.

ignorance humm So you know more then the sinafic community on a hole and know beater them most countries government and know much better then popper thought.

opinion is allay biased thats the nachor of opinions......


If the dog is scratching then they are influence its life...........................

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on July 29th, 2008, 12:23 am

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on July 29th, 2008, 12:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

She did not want to repeat the same sentiments (she is also a bit more of a cynic than myself), as she felt that I had posted enough articles with credible data. Likewise, she does not have the time to write essay length responses, unlike myself, and she felt particularly goaded by the latest responder (Cairo1).

That being said… I have yet to see any solid data from you Laz that proves your assertions. I know that you can say that the burden of proof lies with me, but it seems more likely to say that I haven’t supplied you with enough proof yet to completely turn your view… which is a statement that is often thrown in the faces of evolutionists, climatologists, and astrophysicists (etc) alike. In view of that, I would definitely like to see those other statements you said that you haven’t brought up yet. As I already stated before, that one article you posted is not very credible (the math says something different than the article itself strangely enough)… and as I did more research into it, it became clear that the article (not the math) had actually made many of its statements up. Likewise, the math of the article was based mainly on assumptions, and, summed up, stated that it might be possible to doubt global warming if interpreted according to a “strength of correlation” with the sun’s variability… which was just determined to not affect the global climate change. . I know you had used that article to indicate that a consensus or research didn’t mean correctness… but that particular article was neither correct nor well researched. Although consensus may not mean truthness, going against the consensus doesn't mean that that consensus is wrong (sorry for using that same word so many times.).

You have mentioned “if you observe data on temperature collected from monitoring stations, on small (i.e. decade, year) scales, the fluctuations are enormous - the instantaneous gradient is large. However, the overall trend may be small or even flat.” However, how many years of data do you want to see to determine a trend? You are acting as if we are talking about a geologic “natural” phenomena, which takes far longer to “rise-up” and far longer to drop off. However, the very supposition that this is human caused causes this to become a fallacy. In fact, the nature of the current global warming means that you cannot have more data showing warming than about 150 years worth! We actually do have 150 years worth of instrument data, and millions and millions of years of data before that (of course, not on the yearly scale). This is enough to determine overall trends in ice age/warming events and average temperatures etc. We know when global temperatures began to shoot up above this mean and stay there long term. Do you want to wait another thousand years before conceding (if of course we determine that global warming occurred and it was due to humanity)? How many years worth of trends do you want to see? If you were at the beginning of the last interglacial period (140,000 ish years ago) would you recognize that a global warming was occurring? … or would you state that the variation is, while abnormal, just merely variation? The same approach you use to discredit global warming can be used in the way moving averages are computed: 10 years, 100 years, or even a thousand years of increasing temperatures can be proven to be just merely random variation based on the timescale you lay it on. 150 years of warming looks like nothing when you plot it on a timeline of 1 million years. However, that same reasoning works in favor of proving global warming as well. Over that time span, we see overall trends and we can predict them somewhat “accurately”. We can also calculate an average temperature and the predicted rate of increase of temperatures. Knowing all that, the current conclusion is… that global warming is occurring and that humans are causing and it (or among the conservative estimators, at least vastly accelerating it.). Of course you can say this is all conjecture… or you can go back and read the articles I posted and not just draw your own inferences from staring hard at the graphs. Statistically speaking—and yes we all need and must use statistics to live—we are living in a rapidly warming Earth.

Image:Instrumental Temperature Record.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is the last 150 years… taken completely out of context… sure you can say it is looking like it is dipping at the end and at many certain parts throughout (of course there is variation for many reasons), but surely you agree that overall it is going up? …And here is a conservative estimate of global warming from NOAA:  NOAA Paleoclimatology Program - Perspective on Global Warming - The End

And this gives a rather concise and precise summary of data and conclusions from NOAA: Global Warming Frequently Asked Questions
If you are wondering why I am not summing the information that is present, it is because then you can criticize the way it is presented: this way you can choose to read it and understand how the conclusions are drawn and presented. If you do not trust these sources (well, they have had Bush-administration run ins… so therefore you can only expect that some articles will present more conservative estimates than actual… possibly), than the only way I can ever hope to present data to you, is for you to become a climatologist and build the machines and record the data yourself.

This is also a pretty nice graph of over 150,000 years worth… of course it doesn’t show previous huge warming trends, but it obviously portrays that we are in one now. http://www.windows.ucar.edu/earth/clima ... t_NOAA.gif

You did say that you wanted questions to be answered and your statements to be challenged. I believe I have given reasons as to why your statements are incorrect … or at least misguided according to the data and articles I have cited. What questions do you still want answered? (Besides the obvious; is global warming occurring / are we causing it. I don’t think you will join me there yet). What things are you still unclear about? I was under the assumption (yes I just made an arse out of me) that I had answered your questions that you stated on the thread… could you clarify? Forgive me for leaving out anything today … I’m sure I will be able to state more tomorrow.

Oh and Shadow, lowly bacteria have a considerable influence on this planet, what makes you think 6.8 billion humans don’t?

posted on July 29th, 2008, 7:52 am

before [glow=blue,2,300]Globule worming[/glow] was discovered.

lol I can just see blue Glow Worms Now!!!

posted on July 29th, 2008, 11:36 pm

Please don’t take this as an offense Laz, and I am not sure what background/exposure you have had to statistics in general, but it may be a good idea to look at how interpolation, extrapolation, averaging, standard deviation, etc function in terms of statistics again before stating that you think the data for global warming has not proven anything.

Statistics is basically the anchoring point of scientific observation, and to state that just because you think that the data points exhibit a certain amount of variability does not mean that a trend is not present. For example, look how we determine recombination lines (the spectra of star forming regions or planetary nebulae for one). We use radio telescopes to take individual “snapshots” of the radiation and then average all the snapshots to get a better graph… which still ends up something like this : Recombination line Spectra . This is hardly as clear as you personally would like it, am I right Laz? For those of us not trained in this branch (including myself), it is very difficult to tell exactly where the peak is of each element (HII for example). Still, this is considered extremely precise, and almost an exact science. Yet (I realize this is making an assumption) you would probably have me believe that it would be very difficult to determine where a peak lies (after all, the bump where carbon is supposed to occur is really small right?), or where a trend emerges (as when you discuss how it is too early to determine if there is a trend for the current climate)… and what that noise in the background actually means. Measuring climate change is probably not as exact as measuring spectra… but we use the same methods to determine trends and determine what is noise, and there is by far enough data to predict what will occur.

At the moment it just appears as if you want every observation to match point for point the best fit curve, and that really never happens in scientific observation. To presume so would change the very nature of how we draw conclusions: we simply never could determine anything with relative security for even something as exact a science as molecular chemistry.

posted on July 30th, 2008, 5:55 pm

Hey guys not sure I should stick my noes into your heated debate. (lets hope one of you doesn't chew it off  ) Anyway I have read most of what was written and I don't think it makes any difference(Not that it isn't all very interesting). I don't think anyone here can conclusively prove one way or anther whether what we call global warming is being caused by man or whether its part of a natural cycle but do you really want to risk it? What if global warming is caused by man and we do nothing and the earth ends up in some out of control, spiral killing all life on it True that's only one side of the coin, so what if we do nothing when global warming is part of a natural cycle? We save a bit of money on fuel by riding our bikes and a bit of money from the utility bills by turning off our lights. Personally I think I'll play it on the safe side.

Still most of the argument is about whether Global warming is actually there or not and really thinking about it I have to say I'm not sure, which worries me more than knowing for definite because it means that people are more likely to sit on the fence than actually doing something.

posted on July 30th, 2008, 6:16 pm

because it means that people are more likely to sit on the fence than actually doing something.

Best place to be, if the waters do rise at least your up high!!!

posted on August 15th, 2008, 10:04 am

No offense to anyone. But these expert’s debates always leave me more confused than I feel I should be. But seeing as miss dom is the only expert who specializes in this area who is here on this forum, I think I’ll put more wait on her arguments. Unless of course one of you happens to be another specialist in that particular area of planetary sciences.

posted on August 15th, 2008, 10:39 am

You don't have to be a expert to see what's happening.

posted on August 15th, 2008, 12:59 pm

I don't believe we have enough info, and should stop making assumptions, as assumptions are the mother of all...screw ups.

posted on August 15th, 2008, 8:56 pm

Let me brake it down for you:

We can ether air on the side of causation and if we are wrong we will have crated cheeper tech and more jobs.

If what to much longer and we are wrong we are going to face a dooms day sunario and that will be end game.

Witch will it be?

posted on August 16th, 2008, 1:02 am

So it's in my best interest to believe what you say, because converting our power generation to something other then fossil fuels would be a quick, easy, and job producing thing to do.

and of course if I should simply ignore you and other liberals, we will die in some sort of horrific doomsday scenario.

So I have this summed up correctly?

posted on August 16th, 2008, 7:17 pm

Well if you see me as a libral thats a problom right thare I am not a libral I am a guy with ideas that fit onder what is called libral.

If you dont understand what I am saying then you are so polerized that eny thing you here or see is seen thow a huge all incompasing filter about what is ok for me to bleeve.

John McCain avicates globule worming pervention dose that make him a liberal?

posted on August 16th, 2008, 7:20 pm

I didn't ask that, I didn't ask any of that. I simply wanted a yes or a no.