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How can "the worst effects be behind us" when we're still dumping an ever-increasing amount of CO2 into the air? It's not as if every ton added beyond some point has zero effect, you know... Additionally, even if the temperature only goes up a few degrees, it can still have profound effects upon the climate and thus upon human civilization.
It never ceases to amaze me how the deniers are perfectly willing to play Russian roulette with human civilization if the alternative is their Hummer being more expensive to gas up and adding some solar panels to the roof.
That's just it.
As CO2 levels increase, the warming effect of additional CO2 does indeed appear to approach zero.
And when you have facts, not theory, present them that man is warming the planet.
We're hearing more and more about our pending global El Niño. NOAA now says the odds are 70 percent that we'll have an El Niño event develop by this summer
"There is a good chance we will see a global temperature record this year or next if a substantial El Niño event takes hold."
That's bad news for climate skeptics. After all, by now we've all heard the claim that global warming has "stopped" or is "slowing down."
As we've explained before, this misleading assertion relies heavily on the fact that the year 1998 was a very, very warm year, due to a strong El Niño event. If you cherry-pick the beginning of your time series, and start with a very hot year, you can make it look as though global temperatures aren't rising so fast. But the reality is that, as the World Meteorological Organization notes, "each of the last three decades has been warmer than the previous one, culminating with 2001-2010 as the warmest decade on record."
But as soon as the globe sets another temperature record, the global warming "slowdown" talking point becomes a lot less compelling. At that point, climate skeptics will have a few options: Either they can finally accept the overwhelming body of evidence that global warming is real, or they can come up with a new cherry-picked counter argument. Want to guess which one they'll choose? Will 2014 Be the Hottest Year on Record? | Mother Jones
As CO2 levels increase, the warming effect of additional CO2 does indeed appear to approach zero.
Which explains why Venus, with a dense atmosphere of almost entirely CO2, has a surface temperature hot enough to melt lead - even hotter than Mercury, right? Hmm...
Sure, maybe things will work out and everything will be fine, but keep in mind what we're gambling with - and we don't have to come close to "turning Earth into Venus" to really bugger up our civilization.
Again, look at the Dust Bowl for a good example of how small screw-ups on humanity's part can really mess things up climate-wise (and food-wise) on a much grander scale. Also, look into the Little Ice Age and Year Without a Summer to see how little change it takes in our climate to produce far more serious results.
I'm not saying "Duh, tax everyone!" to fix the problem - obviously, that's a stupid idea. But it is equally stupid to pretend that nothing is wrong and everything will "work out fine" just because some dolts want to use taxes to "fix" the problem. Neither random taxes nor ignoring the problem are going to help our civilization in the long run.
The lack of warming over the past 17 years notwithstanding rising co2 and the complete lack of evidence of a causal relationship between warming and co2 show that co2 has little if anything to do with warming.
The lack of warming over the past 17 years notwithstanding rising co2 and the complete lack of evidence of a causal relationship between warming and co2 show that co2 has little if anything to do with warming.
There is NO evidence of a "lack of warming" over the past 17 years. Maybe things aren't warming up as fast as some models predicted, but claiming that means there's "no warming" is like claiming that a house that burns down slower than expected is "not burning down."
The lack of warming over the past 17 years notwithstanding rising co2 and the complete lack of evidence of a causal relationship between warming and co2 show that co2 has little if anything to do with warming.
There is no pause....
As we've explained before, this misleading assertion relies heavily on the fact that the year 1998 was a very, very warm year, due to a strong El Niño event. If you cherry-pick the beginning of your time series, and start with a very hot year, you can make it look as though global temperatures aren't rising so fast. But the reality is that, as the World Meteorological Organization notes, "each of the last three decades has been warmer than the previous one, culminating with 2001-2010 as the warmest decade on record."
As we've explained before, this misleading assertion relies heavily on the fact that the year 1998 was a very, very warm year, due to a strong El Niño event. If you cherry-pick the beginning of your time series, and start with a very hot year, you can make it look as though global temperatures aren't rising so fast. But the reality is that, as the World Meteorological Organization notes, "each of the last three decades has been warmer than the previous one, culminating with 2001-2010 as the warmest decade on record."
There is NO evidence of a "lack of warming" over the past 17 years. Maybe things aren't warming up as fast as some models predicted, but claiming that means there's "no warming" is like claiming that a house that burns down slower than expected is "not burning down."
As for CO2 not being a greenhouse gas... please do better research before making such claims. Venus would be a good place to start...
Quote:
Originally Posted by sanspeur
There is no pause....
As we've explained before, this misleading assertion relies heavily on the fact that the year 1998 was a very, very warm year, due to a strong El Niño event. If you cherry-pick the beginning of your time series, and start with a very hot year, you can make it look as though global temperatures aren't rising so fast. But the reality is that, as the World Meteorological Organization notes, "each of the last three decades has been warmer than the previous one, culminating with 2001-2010 as the warmest decade on record."
No, one high data point in 1998 does not explain the fact that the average temperature of the Earth has not warmed in 17 years. And if we want to talk about cherry picking dates, warmers always pick 1880 because it works out best for them. They ignore the fact that the Earth's warming and cooling cycles oscillate of hundreds of years, with this oscillation currently in an upswing and actually cooler than previous ones. Plus, even if there was no "pause" in the past 17 years, the exponential increase in CO2 combined with the "slow-down" in global temperatures shows that the Earth's temperature changes are independent of CO2 n the atmosphere.
As for Venus, the reason it is hotter than the Earth is 1) it's closer to the sun; 2) its atmosphere is almost 100 times thicker than that of Earth's; 3) its rotation rate is extremely slow; and 4) the planet has a retrograde rotation. Saying Venus is hot because it has a high concentration of CO2 is like saying that twinkies make you fat because they are yellow - where both might be independently true, one does not cause the other. And just to be clear, let's bring up another planet since Venus keeps coming up. We would not want to cherry pick Venus. Mars also has an atmosphere of almost 100 percent CO2, yet it's so cold that it is essentially uninhabitable. There are many things that cause a planet to warm and cool - CO2 is not one of them.
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