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Thank you for at least admitting that science is never settled.
The problem with the GW argument is that the whole thing is based on models. Models of a chaotic system can only give you an idea of what could happen, not what will happen. If you're at all familiar with the math of chaos, you'd know there are "bifurcation points"-- one value of an input factor can give more than one value of result. This is why weather forecasting is so inaccurate in general. It's hard enough to predict the weather tomorrow--impossible to predict it 20 yrs from now.
Another problem is that only so many factors may be put into the program and other factors, some of which are unknown, are left out. The contribution of cloud cover to weather is left out of many of the programs used to "prove" global warming (!!??) for instance.
BTW- EVERY prediction made by the warmists 20 yrs ago has proven to be wrong. At what point do you declare a theory wrong?
The prediction have been directionally correct and more often than not underestimated the impact. There is no real doubt that we are on a path that will cause substantial problems. While the precision desired for climate models poses a challenge, the fundamentals are quite simple, More atmospheric green house gases = Higher global temperature.
Think of this, if the climate science is wrong, we end up with a lot of energy conversion equipment that produces a cleaner environment. Not so bad.
If the climate deniers are wrong, we end up having a disrupted agriculture system, food shortages, expanded tropical disease footprints, significant sea level increases, more energetic storms. Not so good.
The scare tactic that climate mitigation is expensive is unsupported by the data. As a % of GDP, we spend very little on the subject.
More atmospheric green house gases = Higher global temperature.
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Absolutely wrong. As noted above, Atm [co2] has increased from 360ppm to 410ppm over the last 20 yrs, but temps have not increased at all. Are you going to sit inside and look at the models on your computer screen or are you going to step outside and measure the actual temperature?
The correct statement would be that co2 levels have a positive impact on temperatures, but other factors are more important, such as solar cycle (we're well into a very inactive period) and ocean cycles (AMO & PDO) in determining weather & climate.
Bad effects of warming? Like hundreds of people dying yearly from the cold and only occasional heat related deaths? Or increasing ag productivity from co2 fertilization and increased rain fall in a warmer climate? Warm weather is easier on your heart & bones. Why do you think people head south when they retire?
Is alternative energy production better for the environment and inexpensive? NO!. What most TreeHuggers don't realize is that coal/gas/nuclear power plants have to be kept running at 80% of capacity (without producing electricity) in order to be ready to come on line when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow. You can't get away with alternatives without back-up. You're still producing co2 (if you think that's important) when you're using alternatives as a major source of power. The industrial production of power via alternatives only exists at all because of massive govt subsidies & mandates..
Last edited by guidoLaMoto; 06-18-2017 at 12:58 PM..
Absolutely wrong. As noted above, Atm [co2] has increased from 360ppm to 410ppm over the last 20 yrs, but temps have not increased at all. Are you going to sit inside and look at the models on your computer screen or are you going to step outside and measure the actual temperature?
The correct statement would be that co2 levels have a positive impact on temperatures, but other factors are more important, such as solar cycle (we're well into a very inactive period) and ocean cycles (AMO & PDO) in determining weather & climate.
Bad effects of warming? Like hundreds of people dying yearly from the cold and only occasional heat related deaths? Or increasing ag productivity from co2 fertilization and increased rain fall in a warmer climate? Warm weather is easier on your heart & bones. Why do you think people head south when they retire?
Is alternative energy production better for the environment and inexpensive? NO!. What most TreeHuggers don't realize is that coal/gas/nuclear power plants have to be kept running at 80% of capacity (without producing electricity) in order to be ready to come on line when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow. You can't get away with alternatives without back-up. You're still producing co2 (if you think that's important) when you're using alternatives as a major source of power. The industrial production of power via alternatives only exists at all because of massive govt subsidies & mandates..
You are entitled to your own opinion. You are not entitled to your own facts.
True enough about facts....And you shouldn't cherry pick them, either. Your graph is a magnification of that little blip on the left hand side of this graph (time scale reversed from yours): we're getting colder in the long run, not warmer. The only unusual thing about recent years is how cold we got in the LIA and now we're just headed back up to the general downward trend line.
Read that series of articles. The author addresses low, mid and high latitudes, N & S hemispheres separately and in composite: they're all the same, varying by fractions.
Which, BTW, brings up the disingenuous reporting of "changes in average temperatures." These are stated by Warmists as being fractions of a degree over so many years. Temperatures are reported in whole degrees. Fractions, therefore, are meaningless, being less than the observational error, ie- a change if less than 1deg is no change at all.
And while we're at it, can you explain what an "average world temp" is? Reporting stations are disproportionately located in NA (mainly the US) and Europe. There are only 2 or 3 stations above 70deg N or S latitude and 1800 Siberian reporting stations were closed down in the first several years after the fall of the USSR. Do you think that just possibley had something to do with the sudden, coincidental rise in world temps in the mid 1980s?
Guido, since 1940 global temperature has increase by 1°C. As an engineer I can deal with fractional degrees, but wanted to let you know that the problem has cleared your simplistic threshold.
You mean 1 deg +/- 0.5deg-- that means there's a 50% chance it's less than 1deg, ie meaningless.
In regards "since 1940"-- a fly on the surface of the Mona Lisa can't appreciate it's beauty. It's gotta step back and look at the whole picture. That's the point of the extended graphs I posted: your 100 yr graph is a blip lost as noise in the total picture.
Look up the Central Anglican Temp record. It's been kept at the same place in England since the mid 17th century-- longest single record available. Feed the data into one of those on-line sd calculators. You find that no year varied from the average by more than 2 sd, ie- yearly average temps are statistically unchanged over the past 350 yrs. at that location.
Satellite observations are accurate to less than 1deg and do cover almost the whole globe but are only available back to 1979--- corresponding to the beginning of the most recent 60 yr cycle of temps, ie- one could predict they would show warming for ~ 30 yrs then cooling for ~30 yrs. They do show that, only the warming was not nearly as great as that shown in the conventional weather station record. (BTW- that record is actively & repeatedly altered by govt agencies in the US & Brit to show progressively more warming. What's up with that? Science or politics?)
Climate change is often misunderstood as a package deal: If global warming is “real,” both sides of the debate seem to assume, the climate lobby’s policy agenda follows inexorably.
It does not. Climate policy advocates need to do a much better job of quantitatively analyzing economic costs and the actual, rather than symbolic, benefits of their policies. Skeptics would also do well to focus more attention on economic and policy analysis.
To arrive at a wise policy response, we first need to consider how much economic damage climate change will do. Current models struggle to come up with economic costs commensurate with apocalyptic political rhetoric. Typical costs are well below 10% of gross domestic product in the year 2100 and beyond.
That’s a lot of money—but it’s a lot of years, too. Even 10% less GDP in 100 years corresponds to 0.1 percentage point less annual GDP growth. Climate change therefore does not justify policies that cost more than 0.1 percentage point of growth. If the goal is 10% more GDP in 100 years, pro-growth tax, regulatory and entitlement reforms would be far more effective.
Scientific, quantifiable or even vaguely plausible cause-and-effect thinking are missing from much advocacy for policies to reduce carbon emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s “scientific” recommendations, for example, include “reduced gender inequality & marginalization in other forms,” “provisioning of adequate housing,” “cash transfers” and “awareness raising & integrating into education.” Even if some of these are worthy goals, they are not scientifically valid, cost-benefit-tested policies to cool the planet.
Good points, S&M, but your numbers are a bit off. According to the EPA estimates extrapolated to account for 1 stinking degree of cooling, it would cost the world $1.9 Quadrillion-- that's $1900 Trillion. Quite a cost considering the world GDP is around $74 Trillion per year.
That means the whole world would have to put everything it earns into efforts to reduce co2 emissions over the next 25 years to cool us by 1 deg--- and nobody would benefit by that cooling.
BTW- read the comments after the article. Many are very informative.
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