Last decade warmest on record, indicators in decline

Well, look at it this way: now is the perfect time to invest in that Alaskan and Siberian real estate. Those melting ice poles will free up a lot of new space too. Sure, we might lose a few of the lower-sitting islands and coastal cities as they are submerged, but maybe we can build some new resorts on some previously ice-covered beaches in the Arctic.

We may lose some polar bears, cold water fish, and other at-risk species, but I bet Nature will cook up all kinds of new and interesting things in our new tropical zones across the planet. Giant reptiles and amphibians, possibly Godzilla. What an interesting time to be alive.

/end sarcasm.

Thanks to environmentalist your children will have clean air and water. Buy Alaskan property...

Mountains of data, report after report, virtually unanimous agreement - The planet is warming. Yes, it's a natural cycle - seems to repeat every hundred-thousand years or so. But - Mountains of date, report after report, virtually unanimous agreement - The primary accelerant in the warming trend is man - more specifically the virtually unbridled use of fossil fuels. We can certainly slow this down.

There simply are no credible reports that show otherwise.

BUT - If all of these people are wrong, if they are all crazy, if they are Chicken Littles, could any denialist anywhere tell me why we shouldn't be mounting an all out effort to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. We're running out of 'em. They're going to be gone. Your children and grandchildren won't have to worry about the unconscionable debt those heartless Dems are piling on them. They'll have chocked to death on the filthy air, they won't have potable water, and the soil will be poisoned.

Wait! Suddenly I see the truth. You're saving them from the awful debt by roasting them. How'd I miss that?

Yippee. It's hot this year. TAX, TAX, TAX, TAX everyone!!!

I will say one thing. It's been hotter than two rats @!$%#ing in a wool sock this Summer.

FRITZ

Allways felt that we are screwing this beautiful planet up. We are leaving our children a bleak mess

We, We, We......That's the problem. All the liberals believe WE have the power to change global climate when we can't even plug a hole.

yes the planet is warming but there is no proof that its warming because of our use of fossil fuels, the hottest decade on record they say? since 1870? WTF whats that matter 140 years is like spitting into the ocean in relation to how long the earth has been around, until i see PROOF that its because of man that the planet is warming then the whole charade that they make global warming to be is a joke, although i do agree with David Walker there is no reason not to get away from fossil fuels one way or another, they are running out and their are more efficient means of energy out there.

until i see PROOF that its because of man that the planet is warming

Show me PROOF that this is a natural cycle otherwise you are just someone standing in the middle of the road at night saying "oh, look at the pretty lights coming straight at me."

To ignore the obvious is to be a fool of the Darwin kind.

1.22 degrees f. That's how much they claim the temperature of the earth has risen since 1870. 1.22 degrees f.

Is it possible that the instruments being used now as compared to in the past may have a margin of error of at least 2 degrees? One of the great things about modern man is we do improve on technology.

I will go out on a limb and propose that they really do not have an explanation (which the honest ones have admitted) as to why we are seeing ice melts in specific regions.

I don't care what the scientists say or how much evidence they provide. No amount of science can slay a good GOP talking point....

(sarcasm)

Is it possible that the instruments being used now as compared to in the past may have a margin of error of at least 2 degrees? One of the great things about modern man is we do improve on technology.

considering the mercury thermometer was invented in 1714 and they're still state-of-the-art as far as temperature measurements go, I'd say "NO."

they have proof that these warming and cooling stages have happend before, they've been taking ice cores for years that show this occurance as well as evidence embedded in sedimentary rock and so forth, there is no PROOF we have caused this warming that is taking place now, just that a warming is occuring, your the person who goes into a theater and yells "Fire" for fun aren't you?

Cheezits, WRONG! The temperature record in ice cores has never indicated a change this rapid.

That's okay, the heating has further warped the anti-intellectual "minds" of the GOBP, Party of No.

They will never understand.

And that cannot be refudiated.

I always find it amazing that the naysayers will typically cite science and how the earth has cycled temperature for billions of years and at the same time deny the same science telling them that the earth is warming.

Wouldn’t it be prudent to do what you can just in case? There’s a lot of data that supports global warming. You can see evidence all around the planet. It’s like smoking, once you finally figure out that it causes cancer, it’s a little late to do anything about it.

oops

simply because they were invented in 1714 doesn't mean they were accurate as compared to today's standards or even then. ice core samples do not measure temperature to within 1.22 degrees.

If you are trying to prove man made global warming using ice core samples may not be the best evidence. It is no secret that the earth in the past has been much warmer than today.

The clear argument is whether or not humans are causing the earth to warm unnaturally. If humans are not causing the earth to warm then no matter what we do will make a difference. The "we pour X amounts of CO2 into the air" is not a valid argument. Although we do add to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere; there has been in the past far more CO2 than we have today. Of course there are more gases that effect atmospheric conditions that is lost in the general public argument. I guess CO2 is the easiest to seize upon that can be directly attributed to humans

Bottom line is no one can with any certainty say that 1.22 degrees f is absolutely verifiable beyond any doubt and be completely honest. Heck, I never said the err could not mean the earth has risen beyond 1.22 degrees f, only that the accounting must have a margin of error.

wizzard you miss the point i know i haven't disregarded the fact that the earth is warming, it is thats obvious, the problem is did we cause it or not, i really don't think we did as passin has said above, there have been periods of time that have had more CO2 in the atmosphere than today and there have been warmer periods in time, just because you all think that we caused this problem and its the end of the world doesn't mean the people who can take a broader view have to believe this bs, and btw all of you people hating on this global warming aren't you all using electricity at this moment and i'm sure drive cars hmmm those both use fossil fuels and may contribute to the so called 'problem' you bunch of hypocrites

Right on, Wizzard. The deniers have used every argument in their playbook to mislead the public. First, they denied the concept of global warming. When that didn't work, they tried to find contradictory data to refute it. That didn't work, so they attacked the credibility of climate scientists by proposing some sort of academic/liberal conspiracy. Well, that tactic failed miserably, so now their admitting Earth IS getting warmer but insist that its just a natural cycle.

See a pattern here? These people want to hide the truth from the public because they're only interested in protecting the insane profits of their oil & coal industry masters. They don't care about the planet, the well-being of people, or our children's future. It's just pure greed.

dysphoria; Alaska is having the second coldest summer ever the first coldest was in 2008....

So two out of our 3 last summers have very VERY COLD!!Sorry no warming here!! Please send some sun shine up here!!

AKRandy, I think that you already live where "the sun don't shine."

Exporting some from the Lower 48 will doubtfully improve your incurable condition.

Let’s look at the facts Last decade the warmest on record, Last June the warmest on record, more CO2 gas being pumped into the atmosphere every day. Ant idiot can see a correlation that is unless you are a conservative. It is the conservatives who deny science and prefer to wallow in ignorance and superstition. It is the conservatives who deny evolution, it is the conservatives who defeated the energy /climate bill and it is the conservatives who will be the ones to blame and the GOPee, The best thing about improvements in Health Care is that all the Climate –change deniers are going to live long enough to see how wrong they were but by than it will be to late but the world will known who to blame.

Maybe we can't sort out all the things contributing to global warming and assign an exact percentage of the blame to each. Maybe it's all man-made or maybe it's all due to natural cyclic causes. Regardless, it is happening and instead of arguing who/what is to blame, maybe we should start focusing on dealing with the significant consequences and setting up programs that deal with them in an efficient and effective manner. How many people have to be relocated, how many businesses, how much infrastructure is affected, how to deal with crop losses, how to deal with increased severe weather, how to deal with the droughts, how to deal with increased flooding, etc., etc., etc... So far, all the activity has been focused on assigning blame and damn little on dealing with the consequences.

C'mon, people.

Few deny that there are "natural" warming and cooling cycles with the Earth (Earth's tilt, geotectonic shifts, sunspots, etc.).

But, the point is, notwithstanding all of these variables, there is no question that human industrialization has rapidly and irreversibly hastened Global Warming.

So simple, even a Caveman can understand it.

For all of you naysayers of man's contribution to global warming and the lack of empirical evidence that mankind is accelerating a natural cycle I have but one question. Do you believe in God? There is virtually no evidence of a God that we can call upon, talk to, watch a miracle in progress nor do we have images, tape recordings or videos of God making the earth but we believe nonetheless. We believe because of all of the circumstantial evidence that a God exists which is what scientists are using to gauge and calculate global warming. There is no room for Monday morning quarterbacking in regards to either the state of our planet or the existence of God. If we are to believe that God is our maker then it stands to reason that we must acknowledge our contribution to global warming and do not need (nor have time for) longitudinal studies, graphs, charts, and more natural and man made disasters to tell us what we already know.

OK, here is my read of it, like it or not. Many things cause global warming/climate change and green house gasses. Volcanoes certainly do, elephant flatulence and cow and pig flatulence does too. Power plant exhaust, the exhaust that the energy creates we need to use to mine the coal and drill for oil, not to mention the transportation of these commodities. A growing world population calling for even more power plants and factories. Millions of gas powered cars and soon electric cars. And then there is the garbage dumps and the rotting materials in those, growing larger as the population grows larger. This list goes on and on, but you get my point so far. Just pointing out the problem in simple terms.

There is only one species on this earth that is smart enough, has thumbs and has the capacity to do anything to control this, humans. The big problem is as we create more pollution of all kinds, some we can see, others we can't see we have passed the point where nature can keep things in control by itself. It can clean the environment of erupting volcanoes, animal flatulence and other natural occurrences, but we are adding it faster than nature can handle it. As the world grows warmer, and it really doesn't take that much, you will see more snow where it doesn't snow much because it had been too cold to snow much but had never melted, at least totally so it piles up and creates glaciers. Because it is warming, that snow will now melt taking with it ancient glaciers with it. Naturally these do on a natural cyclical basis melt and grow. But now they are melting far faster than ever before in the history of the planet except when we may have been hit by mile sized meteors.

We got to this point because of several reasons. First, we didn't know until relatively recently what we were doing. We were working with old technology that we did not even think would one day cause problems and the big one is GREED. We know what the problem is, we have the technology to begin to reverse it but the third reason, the greed will be the hard one to over come. Which really makes no sense because with building up the cleaner energy technologies, industry has another avenue to generate greed beyond our wildest dreams. Call it economic evolution.

Now Americans should be embracing this technology. Why are we sending our treasure to nations that would rather see us gone if it wasn't for our need for oil? It makes sense to have clean air to breath and water to drink. This could allow us to use or medical resources more efficiantly and lower those costs. So whatever you think, climate change, global warming or just to have a clean enviroment for future generations we, as a society of humans, should be taking a closer look at what we inadvertantly do on our part of this problem.

Now for my political commentary. I would love to know why Conservatives think they are always right and liberals are always wrong, lazy and the only people who smoke crack.

The last 2 years has seen more snowfall across the planet since the little ice age of the 1700's. Florida recieved the most snow on record this past January. South America is seeing snowfall in places that havent seen snow in living memory:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/20/cold-snap-freezes-south-america-beaches-whitened-some-areas-experience-snow-for-the-first-time-in-living-memory/

Dead Penguins are washing up in BRAZIL, its sooo cold in the southern hemishpere right now for thier winter:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38330746

Ocean temperatures right now are far below average. I live near Daytona Beach and the water temp at this time of year is supposed to be low-mid 80's, and its 78 degrees right now. Freezing for this time of year. The polar ice caps are growing at a rate faster than they melted, during the last Solar maximum of 1998-2001. There has been a record of little or no sunspots the last two years during this current solar minimum:

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum/

And back early this decade, when the man-made global warming lie began, nobody would dare speak of why the polar caps were melting on other planets like Mars, Venus, and Jupitor too:

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2003/07aug_southpole/

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming031307.htm

Now, onto the CO2 lie. Greenhouse gasses are those gasses which are LIGHTER than the rest of the air in the atmosphere and collect in the UPPER atmosphere, causing the blanket effect. This is why a helium baloon rises. Helium is a greenhouse gas. Now, CO2 is THE HEAVIEST GAS in our atmoshpere. Here is the composition of our atmosphere:

Nitrogen (N2): 78.084%

Oxygen (O2): 20.946%

Argon (Ar): 0.9340%

Carbon Dioxide: 0.0390% ...Thats right 39 one-hundreths of one percent.

CO2 is HEAVIER than all those other gasses and gravity does have an effect on gasses, so CO2 collects in the LOWER ATMOSPHERE, which is then utilized by plants. CO2 does NOT go into the upper atmosphere and therefore its IMPOSSIBLE for CO2 to be a greenhouse gas...it is actually a cooling gas. What does the fog from dry ice do? It flows out and heads straight for the ground and flows at ground level...it does NOT go up to the ceiling. If you get a foutain drink from 7-11 with no ice...your drink will still be cold, why? They pump CO2 into the syrup at the spout to make the soda fizzy and a side effect is a cold drink. If you open the spout on a CO2 tank to let it out, the whole top of the tank will freeze over.

So, what did we learn? The Earth is currently COOLING due to a deep solar minimum and that CO2 is NOT a greenhouse gas. Yet our State-run media will have you believe complete lies. I guess Orwell was right, ignorance is strength, war is peace, etc. Bass-ackwards.

The WORLD average temperatures have been dropping for the last 15+years. see http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/02/11/a-2000-year-global-temperature-record/ & http://www.factsandarts.com/articles/no-significant-global-warming-since-1995/

The WORLD Oceans heat content has been dropping for the last 15+years. see www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_Heat_Content

The present temperature rise is slower and is still 2 degrees C below the previous 4 temperature rises, during the last 450+K years of recorded world temperature. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record

Even Phil Jones has stated, "No significant global warming last 15 years."

Over the past 24 years, William Gray, 77, has become known as America's most reliable hurricane forecaster. He called Al Gore "a gross alarmist" about global warming and he doesn't know what he's talking about." see http://www.usatoday.com/weather/research/2007-04-09-gray-gore_N.htm?POE=WEAISVA

or Lord Christopher Monckton and his many interviews on global warming. see http://www.newsweekly.com.au/articles/2010feb20_cover.html

the problem is if you are wrong we are screwed. if you're right, all we did was raise awareness on a topic that should be a priority anyway..... i really hope you have kids, AC Robertson. poor ones with no money.

I have a question, Isnt every planet in our solar system warming? maybe those are man made also. lol 1 valcanoes eruption produces more greenhouse gas then we do in a year, or how about the biggest greenhouse gas Water, it produces more then we do by far, man produce mi-nute amout of green house gasses compared to the real producers of the gasses. i personally believe solar activity is causing warming to earth, but i also beleive we should stop poluting, and move torward a more healthy planet.

I'm sorry Good Luck, but you're completely wrong.

Firstly, increased snow is not inconsistent with global warming. Rising temperatures have increased global humidity by about 5%; more water vapor in the air, more rain and snow.

http://www.leif.org/EOS/2010GL043830.pdf

Second, I must confess I've done something very unfair. I actually READ the link you provided regarding dead penguins, and it says nothing about freezing conditions. The scientists interviewed found the penguins had died from starvation, likely due to overfishing.

Third, the planet is somewhat larger than your back yard, so if local water temperature is low on a given day, this has absolutely no relevance to global ocean heat content. The National Snow and Ice Data Center confirms that arctic ice extent is currently lower than normal, and ice loss continues to accelerate.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Fourth, it is irrelevant that CO2 is collecting in the troposphere (the part close to earth's surface) rather than the stratosphere (the part way out). It simply means that the surface warms faster than the outer atmosphere, which is actually worse than if CO2 collected further up.

Fifth, plants can't absorb all the CO2 produced by human emissions. If they could, CO2 levels wouldn't have increased by 40% over the last century. We also know that humans are responsible for the increase, as anthropogenic emissions have a distinct signature, a specific isotope that can be tracked.

http://www.bgc.mpg.de/service/iso_gas_lab/publications/PG_WB_IJMS.pdf

Sixth, your link regarding global warming on Mars specifically states that it is due to seasonal fluctuations in the level of CO2.

Seventh, your soda is cold because the machine is refrigerated, not because of CO2.

seriously your comparing the existence of god to global warming? and no i don't believe in god because there is no evidence what so ever of his existence despite the so called circumstantial evidence, which i can't even imagine what you say that is, says.

TJ,

Daughter with a Chem/Bio degree and a son who's wife is the Head Engr at the largest refinery in the USA. And two more that I'm going to be sending to college.

I have eight years of college and numerous tech degrees. We can all read charts and research papers and know political science when it is presented.

Where are you references to back your emotional responses???? Talk is cheap....

someone has to say it , its planet X coming closer to the sun, causeing our planets too warm get it right u nubs. lol hahahaha JK :)

We are in for a tremendous shift in climate that will stem from global warming, but will have the opposite effect - an ice age. The Atlantic conveyor current will soon shut down. No salty water will replace the 'fresh' water from the melting arctic ice cap and the resulting stagnation of the air flow generated by the Atlantic (and Pacific) oceans will prevent the mixing of the warm and cold air. The only warm places will be close to the equator.

This has happened many times before. We just hustled it along this time with the greenhouse gas effects. The conservatives better learn how to build igloos.

My god, now people won't take responsibility for their own actions but rather point fingers at people of the opposite political party. Politics need to stay out of this. Most of the time politicians have no idea what to do regardless of the political party. So, way to take this opportunity for us to unite and do something about it and just totally burn it down and spit on it like there's no tomorrow. The people who finger point are children that need to grow up. If you drive a car, have electricity in your home, and sleep in a warm bed at night, THIS IS YOUR FAULT TOO. Raising our national debt has actually saved our asses in the past...Great Depression...and helped us pull through and become a war machine for world war II. Many liberals do have radical ideas about changing the world and peace and love and all that. BUT, Republicans often shoot down science for the bible and all that is profitable. This is global warming people and in fact we are in a terrible position to change. 2012, dare I say it, here we come...

Has anyone ever heard of HAARP? This country alone has several ionospheric heaters through out the world. Check out dvds "Holes In Heaven" Advances in Nikola Tesla Technology, and "Chemtrails:The Story No One is Telling", I would have to say they work hand in hand. These chemtrails, (not Contrails because they quickly dissipate), break down rain clouds and the air stinks from their dispersal as if someone was burning trash and leave the sky occluded with nasty white outs. Senate Bill 601 is the latest on floor for Weather Mitigation and Development Policy Authorization Act. There have been 2 other bills in past not voted on for same crap. I'd have to say that by observation to the naked eye it doesn't matter to our policymakers either way passed or not to do their evil works. The people are played like a fine tuned violin and being led to the slaughter along with our children if we don't speak out on issues of this sort. You may want to read "Angels Don't Play This HAARP" Advances in Tesla Technology. Ask for it at the public library. Our weather has been messed with for quite sometime now, many years as a matter of fact. I hope that ignorance does not get in the way of exposing these idiots.

ronko,

"To ignore the obvious is to be a fool of the Darwin kind."

I'm not sure why you'd want to associate the word 'fool' with the name of Charles Darwin. Outside of its application to mankind, I don't think that any sane person opposes his theory of evolution, and those who do base their opposition on religious beliefs (which, conveniently, can't be proven). But you just go ahead and believe whatever you want to, regardless of conflicting evidence...

BTW, that's my working definition of 'fool' - what's your? I'll bet it doesn't take you long to get personal. :)

Oh for God's sake... these Global warming deniers just can't quit the habit of nursing at the tit of the "pornographers of propaganda" i.e. corporate sponsored so called Grass Roots movements, Republican talking point, FOX and friends, dimwits like Sarah and Right Wing Radio. I propose free land for these regressive - 20 ft under in what was formerly Miami and when they try to swim back to shore just push them back out again!

Global Warming is undeniable

Unless of course, you have $500 billion at stake in which case you just hire the same lobbying firms that defended leaded fuel, tobacco and asbestos then accuse the scientists who say Global Warming is undeniable of fudging the numbers and round it all out by saying that no one can really know or be sure of anything therefore we shouldn't do anything that would threaten the $500 billion you have at stake in the game.

The United States sends over $500 billion a year to the middle east to buy oil.

dysphoria; Alaska is having the second coldest summer ever the first coldest was in 2008....

So two out of our 3 last summers have very VERY COLD!!Sorry no warming here!! Please send some sun shine up here!!

Well there, I guess that makes it official... Alaska really is the center of the universe.

Note to all of you who believe your children's children will appreciate your political stance on global warming and it's causes: please be assured they will more than likely regret not having a opportunity to speak to you about your short sighted, narrow, self-serving lack of aid to any adjustments possible to the planet they are living in. They will wonder why, if you knew you were speeding towards a dropoff, why you didn't heed the warning signs along the way, but waited until you were at the brink before even bothering to turn aside, and especially trying to use their plight, whether hot or cold, for your own political agendas.

Or is it you don't even believe in a future earth and country beyond your own dying?

Amazing!!!

If after all of the publicity and earnest effort to advise the public and it's governance of the escalating severity demonstrated by thermal indicators, some people choose to remain resolute in their indifference, so be it, the rapid digress of hospitable environmental conditions conducive to the sustenance of life as we know it, continue to deteriorate with increasingly hostile effect.

David Wellman @ 1.37: my definition of a "fool" is one who when confronted with conflicting evidence of two different possible outcomes to an action chooses to ignore that the more dangerous of the two outcomes can possibly happen and plans accordingly (i.e. not at all), or they just plain don't think about what they are doing at all.

That sir, is my definition of a fool.

By Darwin Awards I mean those who chose to cull themselves from the human gene pool by not thinking their actions through to their logical conclusion. I present you with a list of many fools:

Darwin Awards

Now while I feel empathy for the families of those who chose to win an individual Darwin Award, I by no means am going to allow others to earn the entire human race a Darwin Award if I can at all help it.

The majority of the evidence leans heavily to the fact that mankind is accelerating global warming and we ignore it all at the peril of us all.

Deke Arndt, chief of the Climate Monitoring Branch at the National Climatic Data Center, noted that the 1980s was the warmest decade up to that point, but each year in the 1990s was warmer than the '80s average.

That makes the '90s the warmest decade, he said.

But each year in the 2000s has been warmer than the '90s average, so the first 10 years of the 2000s is now the warmest decade on record.

The new report noted that continuing warming will threaten coastal cities, infrastructure, water supply, health and agriculture.

The evidence is absolutely undeniable, so how can there still be people who deny global warming? (must be the same ones who believe the earth is flat)

If you disbelieve the global temperature of our planet is rising, Good Luck-1524703, just look at the graphs from this link. It's as plain as the nose on your face.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

you guys just don't get it, noone is denying that the planet is warming up and there is a global warming going on, its just some of us don't believe humans are causing it there is no proof of that at all really. continue to blame us if you want but what if YOU are wrong it its not us, then your going against your own beliefs when you want to stop the natural temperature change, you are all so quick to put anyone who doesn't believe in your ideas down you don't look at everything, its kind of sad

want but what if YOU are wrong

Then no harm is done... If human activity isn't contributing to global warming, then cutting down on those emissions by switching to cleaner technologies that are already available won't contribute either, ergo, no harm done. In fact, a lot of GOOD would be done anyway, as we would be keeping much more of our money, the economy would be spurred by that, and we wouldn't have half of our threats to national security because we would be energy independant. So what if YOU are wrong? Can you think of anything good that can come from staying hooked on oil? Anything at all? I sure can't.

Here's the thing though... out of ALL the natural cycles known, and all the other elements that go into the climate that we understand, all of them put together don't add up to anywhere near the level of warming that we are seeing right now. So how do you explain it?

I always find it amazing that the naysayers will typically cite science and how the earth has cycled temperature for billions of years and at the same time deny the same science telling them that the earth is warming.

While simultaneously claiming the earth is only 6000 years old. Ah, the conservative mind.

What short memories everyone has. It's easier to stick your head in that sand, isn't it?

Rememer when 4 out of 5 Doctors recommended we smoke Camel cigerettes? Had nothing to do with Lobbyists for the Tabbacco companies, did it? (Sarcasm) For years we were lied to that smoking wasn't bad for us. Why, Geez, maybe money and profits?

Now who do you think is behind the push to hide the "Real Facts" this time? Who do you think will try at all costs to hide that Global Warming warming actually is caused by fossil fuels?

Hmmmm, this is a tough one huh? And they have teammates too, from all around the world, and in our backyard too! Do ya think Big Oil and Coal Mining may have a little to do with the hiding of the true facts? Maybe they have some lobbyists fighting to keep their profits up? Just maybe, ya think?

I know, 5 out of 5 oil companies recommend we keep buring oil.....

Look into the background of the scientists in the forefront of the denial brigade, who have been trotted out by Big Oil to support its profits-driven position of denial.

You'll find that these are the same guys that were trotted out by the cigarette industry some years back to try to convince us that smoking was not harmful to our health.

And some of them EVEN STILL maintain that position.

To the clueless lot -- and, boy, there are quite a lot of you -- who think "thermometers are more accurate now" than they were in the early 1800s: WE STILL HAVE THOSE OLD THERMOMETERS. They are accurate, and we have verified it.

People with brains and an education understand that the principle upon which the early climate measurements were based -- the temperature-driven expansion of the element mercury -- has not changed in hundreds of years. (Actually, the behavior of mercury probably hasn't changed in the 14 billion year history of the universe, but I digress.)

Yes, we use different and more modern devices, but they're still calibrated to the properties of known physical reference standards. We know the records are accurate enough to distinguish with confidence between "hundredths of a degree."

Of course, (sigh) I realize that facts aren't going to get in the way of a good GnOP/rightwingnut talking point. Like their spiritual hockey mom, Sarah Palin, the clueless are quick to sneer at the "scientists" for being "all elitist and smart-alecky," but they're only too eager to use their own feeble grasp of rudimentary scientific principles to challenge the findings of experts who've been studying the Earth's climate their whole careers.

Sadly, "clueless" is not a strong enough word.

Claims now proven false include;

• an increase in CO2 precedes a temperature increase;
• current atmospheric levels of CO2 are the highest on record;
• and pre-industrial levels of CO2 were approximately 100 parts ppm lower than the present 385 ppm.

http://current.com/1s0ua4c

check out where they get there info from, i believe in global warming and in the comin ice age. i just dont believe, we caused it

Blackhorizon

Now that's funny! First thing I noticed on that site you say is proof, Countdown to the days Obama has left in office. Partisan, nah, couldn't be....LOL.

Of course there is no "Paid for" science out there, that has never happened before.

Let's go catch another healthy smoke...eh?

i will have one thanks, and what does that counter have to with the facts, why dont you do some reference checking instead of bashing . What is funny, is your pulling the left right card like all these other nubs. Check out the info they present and check the references to see if its viable info, quit being a forum monkey and be constuctive. Some of us would like to look at both sides of the info and grasp the bigger idea, take all evidence into affect not just one side, so plz lets see some facts and where they came from.

BH

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

And to be fair: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming

I choose to believe the majority of scientific communities, as opposed to the few renegade scientists.

Take any singular countries one scientific community, and it has more scientists and funding than the denial group as a whole world wide.

There will always be renegades in any field being different, some honestly, others with an agenda. I choose to believe the science field as a whole and not the renegades or the corporate sponsors.

I only pulled the left/right wing card, as it was in my face on that site you posted. If I were to post any links (which I did), I would post both sides of the debate with figures on how many scientists or communities believe in both sides. The world as a whole in the science community sides with the earth unnaturally warming because of humans.

On a side note, humans will be the 6th great extinction on this tiny little planet we call earth. Why we are helping that process along is beyond me. Agriculture was the start of that slide 1000's of years ago, the recent industrial age helped steepen the slope, ignorance will finish us off one day. But don't worry, most alive today won't suffer (too much), that could be generations away. So why worry about it, let's be selfish, have fun, don't worry about your great grandchildrens grandchildren

The debate over global warming science is over, and the verdict is in. The deniers offer vocal opposition, but there is not enough supporting data on their side of the argument (they have many) to justify their case.

Actually, I think this (announcement, not your post) is one of the most responsible comments I've heard on the subject in a few years.

Aren't we lucky the good folks at BP and Goldman Sachs have a solution for us?

Conservatives that aren't in denial have known for years that the climate is changing. Of course, Liberals that aren't in denial know that it would be much stranger if the climate weren't changing.

Temperatures have fluctuated throughout human history. I've heard that the warmest centuries were during the middle ages. I know that ice cover has been slowly receding for thousands of years, since the end of the last ice age. The Earth hasn't always had ice caps; the Earth hasn't always had water on the surface that wasn't frozen.

Now we are worried about what has always been happening around us. Perhaps that is a good thing; awareness of bacteria has led to great advances in medicine. Germophobia has not. The question temperature data presents us with, more fundamentally than "Did we cause this?" and "What are we going to do about this?" is "Should we do anything about this?"

People will suffer and die if things get warmer. People will suffer and die if things get cooler. People will continue to suffer and die if temperatures stay the same. The difference between death by hypothermia and death by heat stroke matters little once one is dead. I see little reason to change how the global economy works due to changes that probably would have happened whether we were here or not.

Perhaps, man should address, just in case the Earth is warming, does anyone wish to gamble with the future and possibly life itself, in case the unscientific naysayers are wrong! To gamble with the basic tenets of all life is a deadly gamble, the very basic laws that govern all life on the Earth. More consideration should be given as to what sits on the surface of the Earth and its impact on the climate.

If ecosystems regulate and moderate the climate inherently, what is on the surface of the Earth just has to scramble climate regulation, the atmosphere and all the life giving and sustaining systems, functions and cycles provided by the Earth's natural surface of the Earth, that which quickened life in the beginning -- the Earth's ecosystems and their biological diversity.

You know, I get darned tired of liberals (who can't seem to compete with many conservatives when it comes to financial success) take this I'm smarter than you dumba$$es approach. Yes, all indications are that the planet is getting warmer, yes, people undoubtedly are one of the causes, but, are people the only cause or the greatest cause? For example, see this web page:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html

I've always said that the planet has been warming up since the last ice age and isn't that true? We've been traking the weather patterns for an very small part of the total existence of the earth, what makes you think that we have figured out all of those patterns in just 140 years? Scientists also tell us that at some point the Sun will expand to a red giant and will envelop the earth's orbit. I'd be willing to bet that the decade that includes that event will be the warmest in the earths history.

Remember also that skepticism is an important part of the scientific process and that at one time most scientists thought that the earth was flat, that the sun revolved around the earth, and tha the heavenly bodies floated through an ether. All of those have been disproven.

So try to keep an open mind.

Could anyone decypher Skor's comment?

awwwwwww

skor's just a mudpie who cares very much about the environment.

doesn't mean he can present both sides of an issue

but good for him.

You know, I get darned tired of liberals (who can't seem to compete with many conservatives when it comes to financial success)...

oh well Mark, i was going to read your post but you started it with this nonsense first. I know there is no point to reading it cause it's all BS and conjecture anyway.

That being said, skor's comment is indecipherable too.

data exists that goes back much further than 140 years. for example ice cores can go back thousands and provide accurate co2 data. just because it's not in the form of the daily high and the daily low for every day of a year doesn't mean that the data isn't meaningful. no competent climate scientist is going to make climate warming assertions without more data than the last 140 years.

Mark

I think you didn't understand the theory. The tilt would make seasons in each hemisphere change but would not make a change in the whole planet. The heating is world wide.

Mark, I'm a liberal and I am smarter than you. I have multiple degrees in environmental engineering and I'm here to tell ya', the earth is getting warmer and we're doing it.

As far as skepticism being an important part of the scientific process, you're right, that's why the over 800 papers written on different topics concerning global warming are peer reviewed. Something the handful of studies "disproving" global warming, paid for by the petroleum industry, are not.

Ferrosynthesis, if that cycle had no effect on overall temperatures, how could it possibly cause ice ages and end them? You've forgotten about the interesting physical properties of water and how they relate to the temperatures common on Earth. The fact that water freezes at 0 degrees means that overall ocean temperatures cannot drop below 0 degrees (Less, actually, due to the effects of salt) without becoming ice first, and remember that it takes heat energy to convert ice to water. Keep in mind also that Newton's law of cooling indicates that heat transference is exponentially proportional to the difference in temperature between two mediums.

The combination of these two conditions means that water at 0 degrees and ice at 0 degrees will have similar effects on atmospheric temperature despite there being a large gap in heat energy between the two substances. It also means that if the Earth's temperature was a constant 1 degree for millions of years, no ice would ever form, whereas if 11 months out of the year the temperature was 0 degrees but one month was -1 degree, ice sheets would advance every year.

Hmm... I want to research this more. It's obvious that the orbital cycle causes ice ages to come and go, but the gritty mechanics of it is so interesting. I'll get back to you on why the cycle causes the Earth to warm and cool later.

The real issue is what percentage of the warming is due to humans, and what percentage of that is due to CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. Why do climate models not estimate this percentage, and instead claim 100% is due to greenhouse gases?

There are plenty of good reasons to pursue alternative energy sources irrespective of global warming (e.g. dependence on foreign oil, pollution). Start by transferring the $billions of subsidies currently given to domestic coal and oil companies to alternative energy companies / programs.

Besides, even if the U.S. eliminated all CO2 emissions, noncompliance by China and India would cause CO2 levels to continue to rise and negate the efforts of the U.S. and Europe. Raising our costs with cap-and-trade or carbon taxes will necessarily ship more manufacturing jobs overseas where labor and energy will be cheaper. This is a valid part of the overall debate.

There is still some reason to doubt the validity of the data, e.g. if temperature sensors are placed preferentially in heat islands (cities) or near air conditioning exhaust vents or asphalt parking lots - http://gallery.surfacestations.org/main.php?g2_itemId=1606. And total global sea ice levels are stable (less ice in the Arctic balanced by more in the Antarctic): http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/, and specifically this graph - http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg.

Alaska is having the second coldest summer ever the first coldest was in 2008....

So two out of our 3 last summers have very VERY COLD!!Sorry no warming here!! How do you explain that?

PS.Please send some sun shine up here!! Burrrrrrr

Meanwhile, snowfall was reported Thursday in at least twelve of Argentina’s 24 provinces including some unexpected spots such as the Atlantic seaside resort of Mar del Plata. The lowest temperature was recorded in the highlands of Jujuy, next to Bolivia, minus 22 C. Reported 16Jul2010, “the wave of cold air of polar origin is affecting the entire Argentine territory,” with temperatures in Patagonia of down to minus 11 C and in the country’s central and northern areas down to minus 5 C. The cold wave is expected to last with different intensity until next Tuesday.

The WORLD average temperatures have been FALLING for the last 15+years, along with the heat-content of the WORLDS Oceans. Global temperatures are on 115K to 125K+year cycles, this temperature spike is rising slower and still 2+degrees below, the last 4 temperature spikes. When man was not contributing ANY CO2....

If you moved the sun, to directly over Greenland, raise the average temperatures 2+degrees C, and stopped ALL new snow fall in Greenland. It would take 230+years to melt the average depth of glaciers and another 200+years to melt the thickest glacier.

Plus Antarctica is recording the highest levels of ice in recorded history. see www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2009/10/06/antarctic-ice-melt-at-lowest-levels-in... · Cached

joe mato, I am a conservative, however; the proof of global warming is not only contriversal, it is also, questionable. I agree that we all should be concerned about the earth, but; at this point the bigger pictures should be focused on,, that is" the here and now". If we allow our country to be "fundementally", consumed, by the mentality of the (60's), (peace, love, over whelm the system, kill the rebublic, (you know the "man" "pigs" etc.) we can find a better place, it's called communism. I do not know your age, however; I can only guess that you never had to learn history as it really was, and you got to spell anyway you wanted to.... Use a calcualtor in math class. Ok, let me quess, you can not spell, make change, understand the the constitution of the country you live in or even understand the financial obligation you voted for and promote.

Mark-337609, if you will read the NOAA article you link to, you will see that Milankovitch Cycles occur over periods of tens of thousands of years. The current warming has occurred in only 150 years, a rate far faster than can be accounted for by MC's.

Mark "are people the only cause or the greatest cause? For example, see this web page: "http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.htmlI did review the link and Milankovic cycles cause climate to change over tens to hundreds of thousand years. These climate changes are the result of changes in the shape of the orbit of Earth around the sun and also the change of the tilt of Earth over time. The cycle is often referred to as the Milankovic Cycle named after Serbian engineer and mathematician Milutin Milankovic who proposed the theory.http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/natural_causes_climate_change.html

Cities and industries have been built based on the sea level and climate of the last 10,000 years. AGW threatens that investment and worse.

Emissions of CO2 by human activities, including fossil fuel burning, cement production, and gas flaring, amount to about 27 billion tonnes per year (30 billion tons) [ ( Marland, et al., 2006) - The reference gives the amount of released carbon (C), rather than CO2, through 2003.]. Human activities release more than 130 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes--the equivalent of more than 8,000 additional volcanoes like Kilauea (Kilauea emits about 3.3 million tonnes/year)! (Gerlach et. al., 2002)

Monthly CO2 levels from Mauna Loa http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

Nobody,

You seem to know what you're talking about.

Oh for God's sake... these Global warming deniers just can't quit the habit of nursing at the tit of the "pornographers of propaganda" i.e. corporate sponsored so called Grass Roots movements, Republican talking point, FOX and friends, dimwits like Sarah and Right Wing Radio. I propose free land for these regressive - 20 ft under in what was formerly Miami and when they try to swim back to shore just push them back out again!

Conservatives that aren't in denial have known for years that the climate is changing. Of course, Liberals that aren't in denial know that it would be much stranger if the climate weren't changing.

You left one out... SCIENTISTS know that it's not that the climate is changing that is at issue, it is the rate of change being too rapid that is the issue.

I know that ice cover has been slowly receding for thousands of years, since the end of the last ice age.

Now we are worried about what has always been happening around us.

Not quite... you see, in the past the ice cover was SLOWLY receding... it is now RAPIDLY receding.

The earth is warming. Opposing the data is pointless and just drags out the inevitable. I guess I'm wondering why everyone wants to spend so much time and energy fighting about who's fault it is or isn't or if it's natural, or if it isn't. Losing th epolar ice caps will be pretty inconveinent but we could probably survive that alot better than the brutal ice age that would follow. Maybe if all the energy and dollars spent fighting about climate change was put into research on climate control we might get somewhere. maybe even (gasp) work together on something. Just last week I read about the invention of some highly effective CO2 scrubbers that ,unlike trees, wouldn't release carbon back into the atmosphere when they died (since they don't die). trials are looking good yet not alot is being said about them. Carl Sagan proposed climate control research in the 70's and offered some ideas but, as usual, they were largely ignored. Pretty sad since the guy was able to predict the climate of two other planets BEFORE we landed any kind of landers on them. Fighting about these things only takes away precious energy that could be used to solve them.

Losing th epolar ice caps will be pretty inconveinent but we could probably survive that alot better than the brutal ice age that would follow.

That's a Hollywood myth.

TheSteve-2087719, all great points! I too saw that article on the scrubbers, maybe there is hope, even with the nay sayers.

There will always be some that procrastinate and wait till its too late, then say, opps, maybe you were right, geez, sorry.... Then there are those who will never admit or aplogize for their screw ups, kinda like the 3 stooges in the previous administration, and their followers.

right below your comment under the name RickyBobby. Seems he picked an incredibly proper commenting handle!

PVperson,

Record cold temperatures hit several South American nations, including Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Chile, and Uruguay, leaving more than two dozen people dead. see http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2010/0720/Deadly-cold-snap-hits-Argentina-Uruguay-Chile

UN climate chief admits mistake on Himalayan glaciers warning - Times ...Other researchers and noted experts have raised their voices in support of Raina's conclusions. According to Himalayan glacier specialist John "Jack" Shroder, the only possible conclusion is that IPCC's Himalaya assessment got it "horribly wrong."

The report by Vijay Kumar Raina, formerly of the Geological Survey of India, seeks to correct widely spread reports that India's 10,000 or so Himalayan glaciers are shrinking rapidly in response to climate change. It's not true, Raina says. The rumors may have originated in the Asia chapter of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC's) 2007 Working Group II report, which claims that Himalayan glaciers "are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate." Evidently, the bogus reporting was based on measurements from only a handful of glaciers.

According to a report in the journal Science, "several Western experts who have conducted studies in the region agree with Raina's nuanced analysis—even if it clashes with IPCC's take on the Himalayas." The "extremely provocative" findings "are consistent with what I have learned independently," says Jeffrey S. Kargel, a glaciologist at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Many glaciers in the Karakoram Mountains, on the border of India and Pakistan, have "stabilized or undergone an aggressive advance," he says, citing new evidence gathered by a team led by Michael Bishop, a mountain geomorphologist at the University of Nebraska. see http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/himalayan-glaciers-not-melting

Sorry but the FACTS are hard to IGNORE......

AC Robertson,

Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay comprise about 2% of the planet's land surface. Global warming is a GLOBAL phenomenon, and when averaged together the global trend is up. You also seem to be ignoring this:

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1546

All-time heat records are being set over far greater areas of land than the five countries you reference.

In regard to the IPCC report stating a number of glaciers could be gone by 2035, that was recognized and corrected BY the IPCC months ago, so I'm not sure what you're beef is.

Trueofvoice,

According to listed reference the Antarctic ice levels and sea ice are at the highest levels ever recorded. The average temperatures have been dropping sense 1979. The largest ice mass in the WORLD, the fifth largest contitent, covered 98% with ice. see http://www.climate4you.com/Polar%20temperatures.htm & www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2009/10/06/antarctic-ice-melt-at-lowest-levels-in...

According to listed reference the WORLDS Oceans heat content has been decreasing for the last 15+years. Aprox 71% of the WORLD surface. see www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_Heat_Content

Last winter the coldest temperature records were being set all over the world. Jun & Jul 2009 were the coolest on record for LA & Chicago. Houston, TX hard the earliest recorded snowfall in 100+years. China, EU, and the USA had the largest amounts of snowfall last winter.

According to listed reference the Greenland ice fields are increasing in thickness. The largest island in the WORLD is covered 81% with ice that is on average over 2 miles thick. see icecap.us/images/uploads/Ice_Core_Sites_In_Greenland_Show_Snow_Levels_Rising.pdf ·

Try basing your knowledge on something other than a blog.....

AC Robertson, your link regarding Antarctic Ice refers to sea ice extent, which is increasing due to increased precipitation, i.e. more water vapor means more snow. Arctic sea ice continues its record retreat. http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ArcticSeaiceVolume/IceVolume.php

Once again, I must point out that global warming is a GLOBAL phenomenon. Winter 2009-2010 was the fifth warmest on record. http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100316_globalstats.html

I must also point out (once again), that increased snowfall is entirely consistent with global warming theory. Global humidity has increased 5% due to rising termperatures. More water vapor, more rain and snow.

I strongly encourage you to try and understand the science.

Trueofvoice,

The world surface is 510,066K sq miles. The worlds oceans, Antarctica, and Greenland compose of 341,494,109 sq miles. ALL of these are decreasing in heat content, and have been for the last 15 years.

The world temperature cycles are 115K to 125k+years long. And you are bragging about ONE 6 month period as justification. Ha! Ha!

Give me you explanation of why the sea ice is decreasing in the Arctic which is only 14,056K sq miles or 2.7% of the world surface area. or like you said earlier, "Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay comprise 0.4% of the planet's land surface. Global warming is a GLOBAL phenomenon" Your numbers were off by a factor of 5X, maybe you need to understand MATH.

here is mine. During the early 1990's a string of undersea volcanoes were discovered along the Gakkel Ridge. seehttp://iceagenow.com/Volcanoes_in_Arctic_Ocean.htm or http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/5589 The Arctic Oceans is almost a closed lake, with very little mixing with the world oceans. The ice is melting due to rising water temperatures, exhibited by the lack of ice above the volcanic ridge. Direct sunlight is 1K watt per meter sq and it takes one average day at 0 degree C to melt 1" of solid ice. But the Arctic NEVER receives direct sun light....

AC Robertson,

You're making my point for me. "Temperature cycles" as you call them, last tens of thousands of years, but the heating currently observed has happened in only a century. This is a rate ten times faster than any previous increase we are aware of.

You continue to insist that since a few places were cold last winter, global warming cannot be occurring, yet you continue to ignore the link I provided showing that record temperatures are being set over a significant part of the GLOBE. I'll try again.

Here we find record temperatures in nine countries, and a helpful temperature anomaly map, where blue shows us areas that are unusually cold, while red shows us areas that are unusually hot. Notice how the red predominates?

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/paper/gistemp2010_draft0601.pdf

Here we have a paper nicely summarizing that the warming observed since 1979 has continued into this year unabated.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/paper/gistemp2010_draft0601.pdf

There is no model skeptics have produced that can fully explain the changes we are seeing in the earth's climate. Not one. Only models which include anthropogenic CO2 can account for the warming.

I'll wait for you to produce peer-reviewed research demonstrating that undersea volcanoes are heating the earth's oceans, because no scientist has. Nor does your link provide any numbers we can independently investigate.

P.S.

You might try to drop the condescending tone if you're actually interested in a discussion.

Well, I got back just what I expected from all of the liberals.

To the person that said I didn't understand the theory behind the link that I posted, wrong. If you read carefully it does not say that the change in tilt will be exactly offset by the opposite seasons, it depends upon how much the land masses (which are not equally distributed) are exposed to the sun versus the oceans. The land masses absorb more of the sun's heat and so if they receive more sun exposure, then the planet gets warmer.

Its laughable that someone posed that they are smarter just because their field of expertise is in this area. That misses my point, that there have been many instances throughout our history where the majority of people like you are 100% sure they have the answer and then someone like Einstein comes along and disproves all of those beliefs. Also, I admitted that we are definately having some impact on the climate, but are we the only cause, NO, are we the primary cause, ??

Okay, I understand the point about the ice cores, but that alone does not give us a complete picture of the past climate. Lets look at some other things that we know. We know that ice once covered most of the North American continent and that ice reflects more sunlight than land masses and so the more ice cover we have the less tendency for the planet to warm. Some scientists have hypothecized that we could reverse the warming by simply reflecting more of the sun's heat with reflective roofs or by covering a pretty small portion of the exposed land mass with a reflective substance. So imagine a situation where the more than half of North America was covered by white (or blueish) snow and ice, wouldn't that have reflected much more of the sun's heat than any man-made effort could hope to accomplish? So then, during that time, before mankind, what cause the planet to warm up?? It seems to me that based on our present science that the planet should have gotten colder instead of warmer.

Take the opposite. We also know that much of North America was once covered by great inland lakes or oceans. So it is probably likely that during that time there was much more liquid water on the planet versus the frozen water located at the poles. So at that point in time, again before mankind's influence, the planet was much warmer than it is right now. So what casued that??

Another piece of evidence, the ice cap on Mars is shrinking. What is causing that, as far as we know there are no people on mars so it can't be caused by anything except natural causes.

From my perspective, the jury is still out.

Mark-337609,

One, You continue to argue that Milankovitch Cycles are responsible for the planet's current warming trend, while ignoring that MC's act over periods of tens of thousands of years. It is not possible for an MC to heat the planet by one degree in only 100 years.

Two, land does not absorb more heat, the earth's oceans do. Land heats up more quickly because it has a lower specific heat capacity than water.

Three, you've made an important point. The earth should have gotten colder. It should be getting colder now because we're in an historic solar minimum. But it isn't, it continues to get warmer despite the natural forcings. Only anthropogenic CO2 can account for this.

Only anthropogenic CO2 can account for this.

Look at this graph first:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide.png

How do you figure? CO2 is a very weak greenhouse gas. Can you please tell me how the planet was in a massive glaciated ice age 150 million years ago and several times since when the Atmospheric CO2 levels were over 4000ppm? In fact, the Cambrian Period, when CO2 levels were approximately 7000ppm was surrounded by 2 great ice ages. CO2 levels were much higher than today's 387ppm.

http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc98/8_29_98/bob1.htm

You can't say that CO2 can affect temperature now but it didn't in the past. CO2 is CO2..it is the exact same gas with the exact same properties since the dawn of time.

BTW, the Nitrogen Cycle is the next fad for the environmental alarmists.

Wow, you jump to conclusions.

My real and only points are these:

1. The planet has been warmer than it is now and it has been colder. What caused those changes in temperture? Until we know, how do we know one of those factors is not contributing to the warming of today?
2. Just because a majority of scientists say something is so does not make it so. That fact has been proven over and over again throughout our history.
3. I did not say that Milankovitch Cycles were the primary cause of the warming, I was just pointing that out as an example that there are other ideas out there. I said in the beginning that humans have definately warmed the planet, but how much?

You are correct, 100 years is not much time, up against the life of the planet 5,000 years or even 100,000 years is not much time, so what makes you think that we know it all by reviewing this brief history?

True, most of us will live to a ripe old age before we turn ripe, but as far as predictions that never come true may be because the alarm was loud enough to cause people to take action, much like the Y2K scare 10 years back. All the computers in the world were supposed to choke and died at the stroke of midnight, so many of us made a tidy chunk of change performing software upgrades before the event. Y2K sailed on by without a whimper. Will we be so lucky with Global Warming?

H1N1 never happened? What are you talking about? Plenty of people got H1N1. Maybe not as much as predicted but it still existed and was an epidemic. And these scientists are not telling us to worry for OUR lives and well-being, but the lives of our CHILDREN, their children and their children after that. Your family, my family.

With H1N1 there were only predicitons and ways to prepare. Y2K was a scare, with no facts to back up their computer crashing hunches. Global warming is real, with facts and data and scientists across the world trying to warn us all. Take heed.

It is trying to prove a negative. The H1N1 would have been MUCH worse without the vaccine, but you will never convince "not with my money" conservatives. They need a complete pandemic with millions of deaths and then they would say "someone should have done something", just not with their tax dollars, they hate taxes worse than death.

The H1N1 was less than predicted because the immunizations were much higher than normal and people who didn't get sick also didn't infect other people. The awareness worked.

Scientists have to work with the available data, unlike internet posters who can say anything without an ounce of supporting evidence.

Remember the H1N1 flu scare from last year? Never happened.

That may be the most idiotic comment I have read in my life. Did you happen to get your head out of your ass long enough to visit a hospital? In Evansville, IN, the hospital was closed to anyone under the age of 17 because of all the children in the hospital that had been infected with H1N1. I fail to see how the death of 300 people 'never happened'.

Don't count H1N1 as over quite yet. The Spanish flu went around in 1917 as a relatively mild form of influenza only a "normal" number of people died , then in 1918 as the Spanish flu then in 1918-1919 as a much deadlier third version went around. Then in 1920, an outbreak of encephalitis was linked to the Spanish flu.

Few numbers were kept for the first trip around since it did not seem to be out of the ordinary, but in the three subsequent waves over 33% of all humans on the planet were infected and 3% of all humans died.

There is a significant chance that we have only seen the opening shots of H1N1 (the Spanish flu was also H1N1.)

I'll bet my money on the vaccines. I have little use for Luddite thinking and even less for people who "know" things in which they have no expertise or training.

There has not been any serious debate on man-made global warming in over 40 years. For the last 10-15 years, the debate has centered, not on whether it is a fact or whether man has contributed hugely to it, but whether a "tipping point" has been reached that puts it beyond the reach of "ordinary" human actions. Most scientists seem to be coming to a firm consensus that for the next 100-150 years that there is little that can be done to reverse global warming, especially as methane takes over as the primary global warming gas.

Even Exxon stopped funding the hundreds of deniers and web sites that purported to "disprove" global warming by inserting false and misleading information into the public debate.

The bottom line is that the generation just being born will hate us all for what we have called down on them.

a h1n1 disaster was not predicted, it was "cautioned about" for the lack of a better term. it was highly transmissable (spread easily from person to person) and was pandemic (present worldwide) the only thing that was missing that kept h1n1 from being as bad as warned was the third leg: VIRULENCE (that is, for those who catch it, very deadly) the 1918 swine flu that was tracked down to fort riley kansas, had all three of those components in spades. it killed 3% of the world's population, between 50 and 100 million, more often killing the young and healthy.

the virulence of a virus is not completely known until it is in full bloom. by then it's too late to ramp up prevention, and you get what you get.

i'm sure you would have been the first one on the bash the government bandwagon because appropriate known prevention measures were not fully implemented and 9.25 million of your friends and relatives were dead.

just like a tornado warning. most don't affect hardly anyone at all.......but it you didn't get a warning..........and needed it........

It did happen. But thankfully, the case-fatality rate was overall lower than that for the previous seasonal influenza strains.

I never said that global warming was not real. If they have thermometer readings going all the way back to 1870 I am sure that the Earth is warmer.

Unless you live in Bangladesh you are not going to get flooded out. Do any of you worry warts live in Bangladesh?

Do not listen to scientists making predictions becasue they are always wrong and will just make you unhappy for no good reason.

It is too bad if some glaciers are melting in Peru. Boo hoo for Peru. But what is anyone going to do about it?

Let me tell you straight out, my friends, the maximum number of people who can live here without devastating the environment is four billion people. Right now we have live seven billion people and the number is climbing.

The *only* problem we have is population. Every other single problem that you see from global warming to fishing for too many tuna comes from the population problem.

I cannot even imagine a way to bring the population back down to four billion or less. But is enough disasters and diseases happen close enough together perhaps the Earth can.

I know that sounds harsh and to some of you gentler souls it may even sound sick.

No need to offend anyone but back when the population was just four billion the world was a much better place.

The intense overcrowding and the intense competition for limited resources is not good for anyone.

I am no Einstein and a person who makes their living studying people and the Earth may say that I am dead wrong. Maybe the Earth does have a decent carrying capacity far above four billion people. I have just not yet seen it.

Ricky Bobby, good to know you have absolutely no concern for the people of Bangladesh, even though Americans are disproportionately responsible for their plight.

And scientists are always wrong? I guess that means gravity doesn't exist, electric lights don't work and earth really is flat.

Truevoice,

I have a lot of concern for the people of Bangladesh. That is why I am the one who brought them up in the first place. I think the people of Bangladesh should all move to India. India is not perfect but at least it is not going to be under water anytime soon.

we can relocate the people of bangladesh to arizona they won't have to go thru customs or anything.

Oh for God's sake... these Global warming deniers just can't quit the habit of nursing at the tit of the "pornographers of propaganda" i.e. corporate sponsored so called Grass Roots movements, Republican talking point, FOX and friends, dimwits like Sarah and Right Wing Radio. I propose free land for these regressive - 20 ft under in what was formerly Miami and when they try to swim back to shore just push them back out again!

There is no difference between being a global warming denier or a global warming cheerleader. The globe is warming either way you look at it.

And the reason that the globe is warming and species are going extinct either from predation or loss of environment is simply just that there are about three billion too many people here.

Nothing is going to change. Nobody really wants to change anything. You will never here anybody who means anything in a position of authority even dare to mention human population and what it means.

The elephant in the room is the growing human population. You will never hear President Obama or Sean Hannity or Miley Cyrus or Rush Limbaugh of the Pope of Rome or Ron Paul or anybody else mention that fact in a serious way.

If you could find a way to lower the human population footprint on the environment then all of your problems would start to go away.

Global warming? Too many people

Greenhouse gases? Too many people

Cutting down trees? Too many people

Overfishing the seas? Too many people

Water shortages? Too many people

Sooner of later Bangladesh and Holland and Venice are all going to go underwater and somebody in power is going to have the courage to say something about too many people on too small of a planet. Maybe not next week or next month or even next year but it is coming.

I have a lot of faith in science and engineering and chemistry and all of that sort of good stuff. But you have to understand something here. We are still living on the telephone and the automobile and the airplane and the electric company that your great great granparents had a hundred years ago. The personal computer and the cell phone and the internet are really the only things that have even happened in the past century. So to think the science and technology and going to fix everything and give us clean renewable energy and recycling and an entire better way of living is a false dream. We are still living on coal mines, for Pete's sake.

Who do you think uses a lot of energy? UPS? FedEx? Google (servers)? WalMart? If there was a better and cheaper and cleaner way to make a very large amount of energy than to burn coal or natural gas in an electric generating plant do you not think that somebody would not be using it?

That roof on the big brown UPS truck or that big white FedEx truck is a pretty big flat unused area, is it not? If they could put solar panels on that big old unused roof part of the truck and get even a tiny bit of usable energy out of it do you think they are too dumb to do just that? They are not dumb at FedEx and UPS. They have studied that. It is just that all of the solar energy collected in a day would not move that big old truck one hundred feet.

And think about wind energy. Imagine the Kraft or Del Monte or Green Giant or Campbell's owns some big giant farm somewhere in the midwest? An industrial farm that size uses a lot of energy, don't you think? And they have all the room in the world to set up some windmills and capture some free renewable clean energy and no neighbors to @!$%# about it. So why do they not do just that? Because they do not like windmills? Because they do not like the idea of free energy? Because they are all stubborn and stupid? Because they like buying diesel fuel for diesel generators? No, not exactly. It is just that the cost of a single windmill or a hundred windmills or a thousand windmills would never be paid back by the little bit of electricity that generate.

Guess all the birthers are to blame, huh? Instead of giving them unlimited time on cable tv, we should be sterilizing them...just a thought...just putting that out there...oh, I know, make them move to Bangladesh...that will fix em good....

Not so. It comes down to good decision making. It would suck to spend a lot of cash trying to cut back on CO2 emmissions only to find out the associated reduction in temperature is minimal and that global warming is more natural than man made. It would suck even more to realize we don't have any time or resources left over to relocate populations and/or build sea walls to hold back the rising ocean because we focused all our efforts on cutting emissions. In short, less knee-jerk reaction and a little more planning could save us a lot of trouble down the road. Just because it's popular and sounds good doesn't mean it's the most effective use of our limited resources.

Ahetch:

You are right! I am a right winger (with a BS and MS in earthsciences), and yes I am here to say that any warming we are experiencing is part of a natural cycle that has been going on for millions of years.

Spider

Some of the warming is a natural cycle, and some of it isn't. I live in the Phoenix area. We have a major heat island issue. Ten years ago we could see storms on the evening news break-up when they hit the Phoenix area. Now only super storms get through. I can't see any local government concern about it. They are far too busy power-grabbing, posturing and competing for the limited tax payer dollars still available to look to the future. If we cannot even get our acts together locally, global action is a joke. To me, on the surface, cap and trade, Al Gore and 'buy a Prius' are jokes. Get rich schemes for the elite, 'feel good' schemes for the righteous. We had to fight our HMO to get solar panels on our roof in Phoenix. That is reality.

A BS and MS in "earth sciences"? From where? A Christian fundamentalist college?

spider, even the conservatives are now admitting that climate change has at least some human-made components that are at least contributing to the problem.

I highly doubt you have a legitimate undergrad degree -- let alone a graduate degree -- in earth sciences.

MichaelBo & krell67:

Yeah, you're right; I made up the degrees just so I could get a rise out of a couple of of know it all a_holes!

I think we all knew that, speidi, but thanks for the confirmation. (BTW, sorry to hear about your breakup.)

spidie is probably telling the truth about the B.S....pretty sure he's full of that...

Shouldn't you be over at the other vine, whining about the judge gutting Arizona's attempt at autonomy?

no. i'm certain the district court's ruling will be reversed by either the circuit ct or supreme ct.

Nate

it's climate change. Have you noticed the lake doesn't freeze over like it used too?

The snow will become more intense as the warm water hits the air.

Just because you get snow doesn't mean this is not happening.

Don't be a simpleton.

Nate: Buffalo in winter does not equal GLOBAL/365.

My understanding is that climate change is causing more extreme weather -- higher highs, lower lows, more severe storms -- but that the general trend is warmer.

i drive by lake erie everyday on my way to work. for the first time in 14 years the entire lake was completely frozen over. if you don't believe me, check it out for yourself.

http://www.entertainmentandshowbiz.com/lake-erie-frozenlake-erie-frozen-2010-for-the-first-time-in-14-years-erie-gets-completely-blanketed-by-ice-2010021736740

I told you (#2) there'd be some idiot claiming that since it was cold where they live this winter, the climate therefore can't be warming! Thanks for making my day, Nate.

Why, because Gleeny told you so? It's funny how educated people rely on facts and Republicans rely on Glenn Beck and other Fox news people to tell them "The Truth." Facts are facts, you and all the other idiots who rely on Fox to tell you what is going on, ignore any and all facts that don't go along with what Fox tells you. I can't stand sheep.

i was referring to a claim that the lake hasn't frozen over.

neither denied nor acknowledged climate change.

just said that it would be welcomed here if it is true.

Johndor you should avoid making such elitest comments, it really does not reflect well on you. By the way, I agree that the earth may be experiencing some warming but I disagree that most of it is caused by man.

AK-370432, thanks for mentioning climate change. A lot of people don't get the difference between climate change and global warming. Global warming is the increase in average temperatures around the globe. Climate change happens for many reasons. Global warming is interacting with the climate, creating climate changes.

I once lived in the Buffalo area and I would imagine that milder winters would be pretty welcome. But one of the results of global warming on climate change is that some areas may temporarily get much colder, and others much warmer, some much dryer, and some much wetter. One of the results of melting arctic ice, which reflects light and heat back into space and cools the planet, will be a much, much hotter planet overall. As the ice melts it releases methane gas, accelerating the process.

Even the poles may be too hot to live near. Certainly, we will go through whatever resources those parts of the globe have to offer pretty quickly.

Conversely, the effect of global warming and climate change on thermohaline circulation may cause the start of a new ice age.

No one really knows how fast temperatures will change or what will happen. It is a big and complex planet.

Bottom line, it will be a different world. One of the things that people don't talk about much in re: the Dust Bowl was the dramatic increase in spider and tarantula populations. There are not many tarantulas up by Lake Erie now, but that could easily change. I know that killer bees are an increasing problem in the Southwest, and are moving north.

It is really astounding that so many people have no idea of what is climate and what is weather. The bottom line is that you will never be able to look out your window and see climate in any form. Weather, yes, but climate, no!

Oh for God's sake... these Global warming deniers just can't quit the habit of nursing at the tit of the "pornographers of propaganda" i.e. corporate sponsored so called Grass Roots movements, Republican talking point, FOX and friends, dimwits like Sarah and Right Wing Radio. I propose free land for these regressive - 20 ft under in what was formerly Miami and when they try to swim back to shore just push them back out again!

Tank Carson,

Where did they teach you to cut and paste? Something you picked up on the short bus?

Nate,

Winter 2009-2010 was cold in North America because of a strong negatice Arctic Oscillation.

What does that mean? The cold polar air is typically trapped by a wind pattern known as the Arctic Oscillation. During the past winter the Arctic Oscillation weakened, hence the term "strong negative. When the Oscillation weakened, that cold polar air was allowed to slide south over North America.

The planet isn't actually cooling, the way heat is distributed across it momentarily changed.

We have a hodge-podge of temperature records (most incomplete) from locations covering a portion of the 30% of the earth covered by land and only going back just over a century. Check www.surfacestations.org for a clue how unreliable these records are.

From this we can deduce that the earth goes through cycles of warming and cooling. We are just guessing as to why and how. It appears to be some combination of orbit, solar activity, volcanic activity, cloud cover, atmospheric gases and other still unknowns. Based on this some people want to make the gas carbon dioxide (CO2) a pollutant and regulate it. Never mind that no life can exist without it. Forget that CO2 has been much higher when temps were much lower and lower when temps were higher.

There is also multiple sources of evidence that directly contradict your statement. They are also "undeniable". I totally reject your claims and those of the railroad engineer running the IPCC.

I HAVE A SOLUTION! I use caps because all I see is whiners and no problem solvers here. Of course, we can do it the way the dems want and it will cost us a fortune of money that we don't have or we can use a simply switch to a 4 day work week or telecommute more often, at least until cold fusion or some other new energy source is invented. Telecommuting is a no-brainer.

Steve, I am all for telecommuting. I see no reason to concentrate people in big expensive office spaces that cost a lot of money to heat and cool, when it is just as easy to work from home and monitor employee activities on their computers and phones remotely. They are doing it in the office space anyway.

Yes, it would cost a lot of money to deal with the problem now. It will cost a great deal more to not deal with it. Look at how much BP is shelling out because it cut corners. There is such a thing as being penny wise and pound foolish.

Surfbird

I have never seen an "undeniable" piece of evidence that global warming was not caused by human action. What evidence of that type do you have?

Ferrosynthesis II

The ice age/temperature cycles of the world are approximately 115K to 125K+years long. The current temperature spike is rising slower and was 2 degrees C lower than the max height obtained during the last 4 out of 5 highs. When man was not emmitting any CO2.

Going back 150+years tells you that man-kind may have moderated the high temperature spike. Normally exhibited by the graph for 450,000+years. If man-kind had been adding to the earths temperatures, then the graph would have shown a higher & faster spike in temperature, than when man was not here. Not exhibiting the lower temperature levels, currently shown. Presently the WORLD Temprature averages and WORLD Oceans heat content have been dropping for the last 15+years. see www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_Heat_Content

Remember that this graph has been duplicated at two different sites in Antarctica, EPICA and Vostok. This should validate the findings, unless the methods used to obtain the temperature are in error.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ice_Age_Temperature.png

Climate changes over millions of years can be much larger and have different causes (e.g., continental drift) compared to climate changes on a centennial time scale.http://www.ipcc.unibe.ch/publications/wg1-ar4/faq/wg1_faq-6.2.html

Much warmer times have also occurred in climate history during most of the past 500 million years, Earth was probably completely free of ice sheets (geologists can tell from the marks ice leaves on rock), unlike today, when Greenland and Antarctica are ice-covered. Data on greenhouse gas abundances going back beyond a million years, that is, beyond the reach of antarctic ice cores, are still rather uncertain, but analysis of geological samples suggests that the warm ice-free periods coincide with high atmospheric CO2 levels. On million-year time scales, CO2 levels change due to tectonic activity, which affects the rates of CO2 exchange of ocean and atmosphere with the solid Earth.http://www.ipcc.unibe.ch/publications/wg1-ar4/faq/wg1_faq-6.1.html

Surfbird, your criticism of the surface temperature record fails to explain why the satellite record matches it so closely.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Satellite_Temperatures.png

AC Robertson,

Your link to NOAA is dead, so I have no idea what point you're trying to make. Your assertion that the planet has warmed just as quickly during past interglacials is simply false. The current rate of heating is unprecedented excepting the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, during which huge quantities of CO2 were suddenly released into the atmosphere, resulting in a mass extinction.

The fact that earth has had warmer periods is irrelevant. What matters is the current warming. What you are essentially arguing is that it's ok to saw through the tree branch you're sitting on because other branches broke before you got there.

Of course, that is an increasingly larger choir...

JustAThought,

The international choir is growing dramatically, not shrinking. You are just referring to Americans. Americans tend to be less cosmopolitan and less educated and follow science far less than in other countries.

@Chris: Why do you think Americans are less scientific than other countries? We still produce the majority of breakthroughs in science and technology...and only make up 4.2% of the world population. Also 9 out of the last 10 major innovations in health and medicine have come from where? You guessed it....all of us stupid people in the US. And Fashion...please. I travel to Europe and Asia on a regular basis.....they listen to American music from the 80's and wear clothes that went out of style here in the 90's. PLEASE...quit putting down Americans.

You could stop talking for one ...

Vote Democratic so that we can get the global warmong deniers out of office.

How about we leave our windows open with the a/c on one day a week?

M1keM1lls, what an individual can do is small (unless you live in Germany and have to deal with the trash-police. They are dead serious about personal energy saving habits and recycling).

If we target counties and municipalities on their activities we can realize some big savings and create major changes.

For example, ARRA supports Transit Investments for Greenhouse Gas and Energy Reduction (TIGGER) which sends out grants to support projects that reduce energy emissions at the city and county level.

How do you spell Hypocrite? Al Gore.

Steve, pay attention to the message, not the messenger.

It's true that Al Gore jets around and lives in a big house. I do find that annoying. But I spell Hypocrite: R-e-p-u-b-l-i-c-a-n. On way more issues than just this one. Larry Craig, John Vitter, Ted Haggard, Rush Limbaugh, and oh, so many more. If hypocrisy annoys you then surely, you don't heed or vote for anyone claiming to be a right-wing, family values conservative.

But Al Gore is the Nobel Prize winning poster child. If he can't take it seriously and change his life style, then why should any of us follow like sheople. And his new book is a laugh. He actually has a super-imposed hurricane off the coast of Florida spinning clockwise. I'm not a meterologist, but I do know low pressure systems rotate counter clockwise. Oh...he also had the mountain peaks of Cuba (Elevation: 6476) under water, but not Denver. What an idiot....no wonder people question validity of MMCC.

I dont doubt theres more going on then they are telling us. I know for sure they wont tell the public squat until its undeniable.

The good news is, the deniers are in a minority, so it doesnt matter what they think. Let them cry about cap and trade, it wont do them any good. And they can call us all names, so they will be happy anyway. They love calling people names almost as much as their money.

Ummm.....this was tongue-in-cheek, right.....considering what you said, you won't have a choice, nor will anyone else, you just stated the reason for your extinction, so what's to be glad about?

First off, who is Glen Beck and why is he getting mentioned so much?

Is Glen Beck in charge of global warming or global cooling?

Second off, life has already become a lot less pleasant and a lot more expensive since I was younger. So there is no change in that. The rate of change may be getting greater but the delta is pretty much the same.

I totally agree that the Maldives are pretty much a lost cause. Those people had better start making plans to move to Indonesia or somewhere high and dry.

Most of us do not go to the opera or the symphony all that often these days. So the best thing we see in terms of human endeavor and accomplishment is the motion picture. And the best motion picture ever was The Godfather from way back in 1972 when a movie ticket cost a dollar. So ever since 1972 the world has been going downhill and getting more expensive in the bargain.

We cannot bring back 1972 and we cannot save the Maldives. We can only continue to have children we do not even need and use science to live longer until the whole world becomes unlivable for anyone.

The tipping point in terms of quality of life and decency of life was way back at four billion people which may have more or less when the Godfather movie was made. We are so far beyond the tipping point in terms of quality of life now that it is almost like splitting hairs as to the next really bad thing to happen.

Will the last polar bear die off before the last of the Maldives gets swamped? Which high mountain range will be the first one to lose its last glacier?

When the last large animals die off (elephant, rhino, hippo. lion, tiger, buffalo, giraffe, and a host of others) will anybody really care or by then we will only be concerned with our own survival?

That's the ultimate end game. Population reduction, via genocide, and guess who get's to decide? Power mongers in the one world government scheme.

A Ha! I was wondering when the right wing loons would start coming out of the woodwork. 'Fess up CR, you really believe global warming is a hoax, don't you?

Zerro... Don't think I said anything about global warming being a hoax. I said global warming would be used against the earth's population, by those in power. How does that make it a hoax?

Population reduction is a very good idea because it would result in a better quality of life for those people who are born. The non people who are never born would not miss a thing.

And genocide it not the answer. Sterlization is not the answer either. The answer is choice.

Who are the most well know and well paid and popular and adored women in America today? Hmmm... lemme think here....

Oprah Winfrey

Jennifer Aniston

Paris Hilton

Alicia Keys

and how many kids to they have between them? You could go on to include Beyonce and Janet Jackson and Jessica Simpson and so on and so forth. A lot of good old gals and very few if any kids. So it can be done and it is a valid choice.

Carlos, I tend to agree on being deliberate. I think the first thing we should do to combat global warming has nothing to do with climate chage and everything to do with economics and global politics. It is for us to replace our imported oil with natural gas over a 10 year period. This will free us from dependence on the global oil industry dominated by OPEC, have a huge positive effect on our trade balance, and create jobs and wealth in the US. And as a bonus, will significantly reduce our emissions of greenhouse gasses since natural gas releases only about 40% the CO2 as petroleum per unit of energy. For increasing our energy supply we should focus on non fossil fuels including nuclear, wind, solar, and geothermal and increase our energy efficiency at the same time. As this scenario unfolds our understanding of the relation between CO2 emissions and climate will improve and we can modify our plans accordingly.

joe mota,

We produce most of our own oil (if you do not subtract what we export.) Canada is our biggest supplier, followed by Mexico, then Venezuela, then Nigeria. The OPEC countries do not export that much oil to the U.S. Because of the countries involved, there is only a very tiny import/export imbalance created by oil.

I agree with the rest of what you have said except that methane is the future gas that will give us the most problems. It is a much more serious greenhouse gas.

Carlos, I read on another vine, "Everybody is entitled to their opinion. But if it is based on ignorance, they aren't obliged to express it."

Nothing personal -- but you're not a scientist in this field -- so your opinion is just less valuable. Think about it -- is your opinion on particle physics as valuable as a scientist in that field? Or Astronomy? I have worked in this field. My father was once Dean of the university department in the email scandal. My stepfather is a professor of palaeoclimatology.

So to address your comment specifically -- yes, we do know very well what temperatures were, certainly going back 100's of thousands of years, and more broadly, going back millions, ultimately (with greater margins of error) back to the earliest times. Since the 19th century (17th in Europe) certainly we have measured *local weather* using mercury thermometers. Perhaps the error is about a degree -- albeit partly random error such as reading error so averaging many readings reduces that further.

Now, going back thousands of years, of course we don't have thermometers using mercury. But we have tens of other thermometers. Tree rings. Stalagtite isotope ratios - and those in bones -- my research was in snails 20,000 years ago buried beneath lake sediments. The ratios of certain isotopes reliably correlate with other measures -- averaging over years, they get very accurate. Ice cores. Isotopic ratios of trapped gases. Traces in ancient sediments. That's just the last interglacial. We *know* this stuff. Question our bias -- although that's offensive, frankly -- question what to do or whether do react at all -- but you don't have the credibility to question the science. You just don't. I'm sorry.

I don't have time or space to address all the other ignorant -- but in some cases well meaning -- incorrect comments in this thread. One general comment though. Again and again you see a basic misunderstanding. WEATHER is not CLIMATE. They have little correlation except at the extremes. Even meteorologists think they can comment on CLIMATE but they have little more credibility, than you.

Please forgive me if this seems like a personal attack -- you just happened to be a convenient person to reply to -- my issue is with depressing ignorance.

Dan

Dan are confident in your conviction, you make interesting points and I am sure you are confident in your conviction. Attacking the credentials of those who disagree is a tactic of pedants who may or may not have facts on their side. Aside from that you might agree that the conventional wisdom of today was heresy just a few years ago and today's facts could and probably will be ridiculed by future pedants. I would maintain as a person with advanced education I am capable of reading and I am capable of forming an opinion and if I choose not to blindly accept of a group of scientists who may or may not be correct in their predictions. Assuming I have no scientific training because I don't agree with you made the old adage of spelling assume real. I do have training in science and my science is confined to treating human beings and the facts are changing just like the climate. It is offensive to say no one should have an opinion without meeting your criteria, who in the hell do you think you are?

I'm saying not all opinions are equally valuable. (Yours, with scientific training, is certainly more valuable *in this context* than the average layperson, but less than that of someone competent in the field.) Nor am I saying that experts should be blindly followed.

I'll try to reword my argument. Your and my opinion on what skin disease someone may have -- not very valuable. Yours and mine on dairy farming or 17th century dance -- presumably, not very valuable. Is that offensive?

Does it matter how valuable our opinions are? Certainly, if you're trying to figure out why someone's sick. My opinion would be rather worthless. Not entirely worthless though. I wouldn't "blindly" accept the expert's words. Nobody should accept an expert's advice on anything important without question. I might weigh their credentials or experience. I might compare it to the broad consensus among his peers.

I could reasonably have an opinion that the brain surgeon is not qualified, or is biased, or irritating, or difficult, or erratic, or that given the advice it is not worth the cost of the surgery despite his advice to do it. I might be more qualified to tell whether someone has a bias. We can all do those things. That's all reasonable. But if I stack my opinion on how to do brain surgery up against his, the burden of proof on me to justify that is very heavy. And that's important -- if it's my brain getting the surgery.

I could run through a similar example with the machanic that works on my car, and so forth.

I think most people would agree with me so far. So why is climatology different? Why does everyone these days have an opinion and stack it up next to people who made their careers studying it? One reason is because accepting what these scientists observe and what they advise stands to affect our lifestyles a great deal.

That's reasonable. Your, my, an expert's opinion on what choice we should make, given the evidence and its evaluation by those who have studied it carefully, are all just as important. Hey, it's my pocketbook. It's the climate *I* live in. Maybe it's better to me that we get warmer than I pay for cleaner energy. That's not a dumb view -- it's not mine personally, but it's quite reasonable.

But if you challenge the interpretation of the evidence, and haven't studied it in detail, and had your theories systematically compared to others that have, no, that's not valuable.

Who can disagree with that?

Dan

Carlos I just re-read your comment and you said you are a scientist who treats human beings. So perhaps your opinion on skin diseases is actually rather interesting. I should have chosen a better example. The economics of the South Sea Bubble. The novels of Tsarist Russia. How photosynthesis works at the molecular level.

I don't have valuable opinions on those things.

Dan

amen

What people are worried about is not whether in some distant time we'll be growing oranges in Alaska, it's whether their grandchildren, because of our inaction, have to live in a world where millions of people are suffering and starving and dying in resource wars due to catastrophic changes in weather patterns and resulting failure of our agricultural systems. The potential consequences to humanity of runaway global warming are, in fact, dire. We don't know what the chance is that this potential will be realized, but it is stupid to ignore it along with other, less dire, but still unpleasant outomes...Our understanding of climate grows every year, and at this point, the outlook is getting worse every year.

The BEST explanation I have read as to why all this "algore" bull@!$%# is exactly that...........bull@!$%#. I suppose "statistical significance" no longer applies to any democrapic cause or pseudo science. Temperature studies over 150 years that show small changes can be extrapolated to 250,000 years to show BIG changes...................No Problem? I suppose Fred Flintstone is responsible for the end of dinosaurs. Global warming and cooling has and will continue to happen no matter WTF we do. Clean air and water are very important but this is just a scam.

uncle tim, if you're born in 1947, it's time for you to roll over and die.

I was born in 1947 as well......and I plan to be around to annoy you for the next 25 years.

Yes, Dave, and from the sources I've read, solar radiance has not varied greatly over the last 150 years, which is the time period over which some climatologists claim to have seen a marked and increasing warming of the earth. In fact, due to a singularly extreme drop in solar radiance over the last 11 year cycle, one might expect cooler, not warmer weather.

So, as I have asked before, if the sun's radiance is a relative constant and there are no other known, external factors, to what causes can you attribute the Earths warming climate?

Volcanic eruptions typically have the potential to cause short-term cooling of the global climate, but only if their are sufficiently powerful, and the ejected material has a high sulphur content.

Oceanic cycles can affect us, but are utimately rooted in the sun's radiance, meaning the waters of the ocean do not of themselves create heat.

To me, that leaves only human activity, which is not an egotistical conclusion. Levels of CO2 and other green house gases are known to have increased in the last 150 years, almost in lock step with human activities typically linked to these gases, such as the use of fossil fuels.

It doesn't please me. I'd be thrilled if tomorrow some creditable scientist or group of scientists proved it all to be a hoax, or an honest mistake.

reduction of ozone layer and ice caps which reflect sun.....

@Dman: Do you really think we measured Solar Variance in 1870? 1900? 1910? What are the sources you have read? I'd like to read them as well.

Jeff - Asked and answered:

Direct irradiance measurements have only been available during the last three cycles and are based on a composite of many different observing satellites.^[17][18] However, the correlation between irradiance measurements and other proxies of solar activity make it reasonable to estimate past solar activity. Most important among these proxies is the record of sunspot observations that has been recorded since ~1610. Since sunspots and associated faculae are directly responsible for small changes in the brightness of the sun, they are closely correlated to changes in solar output.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation

What that all boils down to is that we can infer the amount energy emitted by the sun through the historic recording of the incidence of sunspots, which modern studies have shown closely parallels variations of the suns brightness.

BTW: Over the last decade, the one which has just been declared the warmest on record, we have been in the midst of protracted and deep drop in the suns radiance. And this is known through direct scientific measurement.

So... I'll ask my question again:

If solar radiance has not varied greatly in the last 150 years, and we can uncover no other external factors which would influence climate, to what can we attribute the warming climate except human activity?

Dave evidently does not wish to answer. Would like to give it a shot?

No, Kodiak - some parts of the U.S. had an inordinately cold winter last year. This proves conclusively that the world is actually getting colder.

...or is it logically incorrect to infer the general from the particular?

No, the heck with logic. The planet is definitely not warming.

dman - nice. glad to see someone still beats that denial drum loud and proud. you should broaden your definition of what it means for the planet to be affected by man, in terms of climate anomalies, to go beyond "hot". global warming causes unseasonably cold weather too.

m-o-r-o-n.....

tj - maybe you should look up the definition of sarcasm in the d-i-c-t-i-o-n-a-r-y and work on your reading comprehension.

t-w-i-t...

This comment is coming from, as you call me, a semi-literate, uneducated dolt. I have a B.S. in Earth Science and was a meteorologist in the U.S. Navy. Now that I have debunked your silly characterization, the likely cause is that nuclear furnace 93 million miles away. Unlike what most of you global warmers, I believe that man's impact is negligible. The sun does not produce a steady amount of energy, so it follows that we will see variations from time to time. They will come at varying times and certainly will not be predictable. I do not believe that there is a worldwide conspiracy of scientists. I do believe that the global warming advocates are the noisest and tend to get coverage from the mind numbed robots in the journalist community.

Because at this point, any reputable scientist that ventures a scientific estimate of the causes and their relative impact will be the victim of a shouting campaign by millions of semi-literate uneducated dolts who are intent on promoting their ideological positions without regard to the search for truth.

Can you provide documentation that this is the reason that "reputable scientists" can't say what the cause is?

Or is it that they really just don't know.

You have A B.S. in science and you the word "believe" to support your reasoning!!!

No wonder we need more H1B visa.

The so-called "skeptics" just don't want to see their taxes go up. That explains most of the resistance to the (obvious) scientific evidence. They'd drive the whole human race over a cliff if they thought they could save a few bucks on their taxes.

Wow! A navy weatherman says global warming is bunk?! Whew! I feel so much better now, because weathermen are never wrong. As a matter of fact, at Faux News, they're at the very tippy-top of the science hierarchy thingy.

Now that I have debunked your silly characterization, the likely cause is that nuclear furnace 93 million miles away.

Dave, it is only a likely cause if you can associate some supporting evidence, such as a rise the sun's output which closely (or even slightly) parallels the rise in global temperatures.

The sun does not produce a steady amount of energy, so it follows that we will see variations from time to time.

Yes, but over time is the sun's output trending upwards, downwards or remaining steady. Everything I've read indicates that solar irradiance has been relatively steady over the same period during which we see the modern rise of global tempeartures. You offer no supporting evidence of thour thesis.

Do you have any creditable evidence that solar irradiance had increased in the last 150 years?

Money and power.

actually, money and power are the reasons for denying global warming is real..... look no further than Bush coining it as "climate change." Much like the Estate Tax is the Death Tax... typical GOP

Um.....to make money off the rest of us idiots who buy into the human guilt, white guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt. You are being managed my friend. Get a clue.

maybe they are still drilling, baby, drilling.... they are SO lame.

Another long reach from the grave by Woodrow Wilson?

LOL.