Of course it is. You don't have to be actually present with a time machine and a thermometer. You can measure the rate of growth of oceanic plants in temperature-sensitive areas. You can examine archeological evidence in mountain passes that were only accessible during warmer time periods. And so on.
Temperature proxies such as this aren't reliable indicators after more than 3-400 years (I believe this is referenced in a number of places I linked to).
That's a rather strange argument, because that implies we can't use them as reliable indicators about global warming either. Here we go with the double standard again.
Why are you taking an opinion piece from the Times, written by someone whose primary credential (editor of New Scientist) dates from 1966 (After which he quit), as if it is more authorative than the current working scientists on the IPCC review board?
I'm not basing my argument on his article alone. I'm using his article as one of many individual opinions that, collectively, cast significant doubt on the popular political view of global warming as typified by the IPCC review board.
This man is a scientist, who is much better acquainted with the scientific establishment than you or I, and who knows how to read scientific documents. He is an excellent authority. There are many other authorities like him who share his opinion.
Moreso, I'd say a 90% chance of catastrophic environmental damage from a body which traditionally shies away from making such dire predictions, is itself indiciative of a need for action. Presumably you'd like the 100% 'earth totally ****ed' state before worrying yourself?
You're misinterpreting things. Again. The 90% figure is used to match patterns with other patterns. If two patterns differ by 10%, that's a significant statistical anomaly which implies that other models may be better fits.
I would, though, note that no global warming prediction has ever predicted uniform rises in termperature, but global rises.
The key claim, though is whether this is part of a regular cycle or not. More specifically, whether it is caused by humans or not.
On the subject of said article; (might I add how much I love these statements provided without any sort of reference to back them up?)
"The early arrival of migrant birds in spring provides colourful evidence for a recent warming of the northern lands. But did anyone tell you that in east Antarctica the Adélie penguins and Cape petrels are turning up at their spring nesting sites around nine days later than they did 50 years ago? While sea-ice has diminished in the Arctic since 1978, it has grown by 8% in the Southern Ocean."
On the subject of Adelie penguins, studies indicate the delay is due to warming; http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0403_060403_penguins.html
So migrant birds nesting earlier supports global warming, and Adelie penguins nesting later also supports global warming? I'm sorry, but that reeks of BS.
Increased sea ice in the southern ocean does not contradict global warming - in fact, it's supported by it; http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2005/sea_ice.html
"Typically, warming of the climate leads to increased melting rates of sea ice cover and increased precipitation rates. However, in the Southern Ocean, with increased precipitation rates and deeper snow, the additional load of snow becomes so heavy that it pushes the Antarctic sea ice below sea level. This results in even more and even thicker sea ice when the snow refreezes as more ice. Therefore, the paper indicates that some climate processes, like warmer air temperatures increasing the amount of sea ice, may go against what we would normally believe would occur."
So the proposed process is that warming leads to increased precipitation which leads to more sea ice. The problem is that Antarctica isn't warming, it's cooling.
http://www.cgfi.org/materials/articles/2002/feb_6_02.htmAccording to the Nature paper on Antarctic cooling, “Climate models generally predict amplified warming in the Polar Regions, as observed in Antarctica’s peninsula region over the second half of the 20th century.” However, the researchers found “Antarctic meteorological data demonstrates a new cooling on the Antarctic continent between 1966 and 2000, particularly during summer and autumn.” The researchers say that the McMurdo Dry Valleys, for example, have cooled about 0.7 degrees Celsius per decade during this period.
And it's not just Antarctica. Greenland -- which is in the northern hemisphere, if you weren't aware -- is also cooling:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2006/11/17/cooling-the-debate-a-longer-record-of-greenland-air-temperature/The extended surface air temperature record was constructed and analyzed by a group of researchers from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), and the aforementioned CRU (United Kingdom) and DMI (Denmark) (Vinther et al. 2006). In satisfying a major priority of the work, the temperature record clearly verifies ice core records for Greenland. A second priority of contextualizing the recent climate of Greenland has resulted in further complication of the global warming debate. As the popularized side of the debate has led us to expect, the authors found that the coldest year (1863) and the coldest decade (1810s) are early in the record, well before the ballyhooed warming of the 20th century. Problematic from a climate change standpoint is the fact that the two distinct cold periods that made the 1810s the coldest decade followed an 1809 “unidentified” volcanic eruption and the eruption of Tambora in 1815 – unusual geologic events that defined the climate. However, of greater importance is the fact that the researchers found the warmest year on record to be 1941, while the 1930s and 1940s are the warmest decades on record. This represents very bad news for climate change alarmists, since the warmest period was NOT the last quarter of the 20th century. In fact, the last two decades of the 20th century (1981-1990 and 1991-2000) were colder across the study area than any of the previous six decades, dating back to the 1900s and 1910s (Table 1). When examining the instrumental records of the stations it is apparent that no net warming has occurred since the warm period of the 1930s and 1940s (Figure 1).
"Disdain for the sun goes with a failure by the self-appointed greenhouse experts to keep up with inconvenient discoveries about how the solar variations control the climate. The sun’s brightness may change too little to account for the big swings in the climate. But more than 10 years have passed since Henrik Svensmark in Copenhagen first pointed out a much more powerful mechanism.
..."
Firstly, I believe already mentioned this as a less significant contributor than greenhouse gas emissions.
And my point was that there are studies that suggest that they are
more significant contributors than greenhouse gas emissions.
Back up that 'significant amount of scientists' argument.
Anyone can do that fairly easy by looking up the
list on Wikipedia.
Also, the recorded trends show a clear and increasing warming of the climate.
Recorded trends are inconclusive.
http://friendsofscience.org/index.php?ide=4Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures. Average ground station readings do show a mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8C over the last 100 years, which is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas ("heat islands"), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas ("land use effects").
There has been no catastrophic warming recorded.
You're misinterpreting my comments again. I said that there is no need to take action right now, at this very point in time. If we have 100 years to wait, we can afford to take a little time to study the phenomena more. If we're already past the point of no return, then there's no point in doing anything anyway. My point was that, whichever you believe, there is no need to take action immediately.
And what if we're right bloody next to the point of no return? - which is exactly what the scientists are warning.
We're not. The earth was much hotter at the time of the dinosaurs and life got along just fine. There's no imminent catastrophe. You said yourself you don't believe it's imminent ("not this century, probably, but in time for our grandchildren").
Indeed. What reputable scientific body releases their conclusions first, then waits three months to release the data that backs it up?
Why not? Ever heard of an abstract?
This is far from an abstract. It is a
summary for policy makers. Meaning that it is meant to be relied upon in order to
set public policy. For that, relying on conclusions without data to back it up is plainly irresponsible.
Actually, previous IPCC reports have committed significant statistical errors:
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=12088
I can already note a significant error in that page - it totally ignores the emissions of nations outside europe and North America.
So, North Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, and Argentina are now located in Europe and North America?
It seems to me that by accusing me of not reading your articles, you're attempting to conceal the very opposite -- that you're not reading my articles.
There is absolutely no scientific debate that greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere have increased (280 ppm pre-industrial revolution to ~370ppm as of 2001)
You're confusing data with conclusions. If by greenhouse gases you mean carbon dioxide and other industrial pollutants, that's rather evident. Where the disagreement appears is when scientists attempt to draw conclusions from that data.
That, and you're quoting a website run by an organization with an Exxon lobbyist and a General Motors executive on its board.
And you're quoting a document published by an organization with global warming advocates on its board. Good thing we both know how to determine sources.
Oh, and see this for a rebuttal to Castles - http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2006/01/27/castles-and-henderson-again/
And Castles provided his own
rebuttal to that.
Frankly....I'm bored. I've been reading all your stuff and it's biased, from unreliable media sources carrying an agenda and presented as absolute fact when a good 10 mins webhunting provides a rebuttal.
Projecting, are we?
As one last point, I'd note this quote from chris Landsea "We certainly see substantial warming in the ocean and atmosphere over the last several decades on the order of a degree Fahrenheit, and I have no doubt a portion of that, at least, is due to greenhouse warming. The question is whether we're seeing any real increases in the hurricane activity." He went on to say "with the Atlantic hurricanes in particular, they're due to changes both in the ocean as well as the atmosphere. Just changing the ocean where it's a little bit warmer isn't sufficient. ".
He's presenting a balanced viewpoint. He sees warming, but doubts that it has significant effect on the weather. That should indicate that he's a reputable source. His primary concern is the politics and procedures of the IPCC.
Oh, and re: the Hummer - reason.com is funded by the likes of ExxonMobil, BP Amoco, Americal Petroleum Institute, Daimler-Crystler, Ford, etc - scarcely a reliable source for information on which are polluting vehicles. And its source - Art Spinella, a president of a marketing company called CNW Marketing Research (which does lots of work for car companies). So that makes it 2 financially motivated, biased sites you've cited now. See why I'm tired?
Who else is going to make a serious effort to refute the global warming evangelists' claims? Global warming advocates have repeatedly and consistently demonstrated their willingness to fudge scientific data and claim consensus where none exists. They're certainly not going to want to reveal the flaws behind their own reasoning.
One final point. The reliability of a study is determined by the methods and practices they use. Not by their point of view. A biased agency is capable of performing a balanced study, but an unbalanced study is worthless whether it comes from a biased or unbiased source.
