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I agree. I have heard numerous people talking about this who work in scientific fields, and so far I have not heard one support Gore or his theory.
I don't suppose you'd be including scientific creationists or anything? Maybe some Discovery Institute types? In any case, for contrast, search out the official position statements of any well-known scientific group or association. I bet you can find at least one that agrees that, even though it's not his theory at all, Gore might be on to something here...
MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.
FACT: Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures. Average ground station readings do show a mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8C over the last 100 years, which is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas ("heat islands"), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas ("land use effects").
There has been no catastrophic warming recorded.
MYTH 2: The "hockey stick" graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature decrease for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.
FACT: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average global temperature" has been rising at the low steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare.
The "hockey stick", a poster boy of both the UN's IPCC and Canada's Environment Department, ignores historical recorded climatic swings, and has now also been proven to be flawed and statistically unreliable as well. It is a computer construct and a faulty one at that.
MYTH 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.
FACT: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased. The RATE of growth during this period has also increased from about 0.2% per year to the present rate of about 0.4% per year,which growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years. However, there is no proof that CO2 is the main driver of global warming. As measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically through solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming surface layers of the earth's oceans expel more CO2 as a result.
MYTH 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.
FACT: Greenhouse gases form about 3 % of the atmosphere by volume. They consist of varying amounts, (about 97%) of water vapour and clouds, with the remainder being gases like CO2, CH4, Ozone and N2O, of which carbon dioxide is the largest amount. Hence, CO2 constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. While the minor gases are more effective as "greenhouse agents" than water vapour and clouds, the latter are overwhelming the effect by their sheer volume and – in the end – are thought to be responsible for 60% of the "Greenhouse effect". Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.
MYTH 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.
FACT: Computer models can be made to "verify" anything by changing some of the 5 million input parameters or any of a multitude of negative and positive feedbacks in the program used.. They do not "prove" anything. Also, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of properly including the effects of the sun, cosmic rays and the clouds. The sun is a major cause of temperature variation on the earth surface as its received radiation changes all the time, This happens largely in cyclical fashion. The number and the lengths in time of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which are CO2. Solar radiation interferes with the cosmic ray flux, thus influencing the amount ionized nuclei which control cloud cover. MYTH 6: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.
FACT: In a 1996 report by the UN on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft. Here they are:
1) “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”
2) “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man–made causes”
To the present day there is still no scientific proof that man-made CO2 causes significant global warming.
MYTH 7: CO2 is a pollutant.
FACT: This is absolutely not true. Nitrogen forms 80% of our atmosphere. We could not live in 100% nitrogen either. Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is. CO2 is essential to life on earth. It is necessary for plant growth since increased CO2 intake as a result of increased atmospheric concentration causes many trees and other plants to grow more vigorously. Unfortunately, the Canadian Government has included CO2 with a number of truly toxic and noxious substances listed by the Environmental Protection Act, only as their means to politically control it.
MYTH 8: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes.
FACT: There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that supports such claims on a global scale. Regional variations may occur. Growing insurance and infrastructure repair costs, particularly in coastal areas, are sometimes claimed to be the result of increasing frequency and severity of storms, whereas in reality they are a function of increasing population density, escalating development value, and ever more media reporting.
MYTH 9: Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are proof of global warming.
FACT: Glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for hundreds of years. Recent glacier melting is a consequence of coming out of the very cool period of the Little Ice Age. Ice shelves have been breaking off for centuries. Scientists know of at least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. It’s normal. Besides, glacier's health is dependent as much on precipitation as on temperature.
MYTH 10: The earth’s poles are warming; polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level rising.
FACT: The earth is variable. The western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer, due to unrelated cyclic events in the Pacific Ocean, but the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder. The small Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica is getting warmer, while the main Antarctic continent is actually cooling. Ice thicknesses are increasing both on Greenland and in Antarctica.
Sea level monitoring in the Pacific (Tuvalu) and Indian Oceans (Maldives) has shown no sign of any sea level rise.
Interesting, so your only response is to attack the creditability of them and not once answer to the facts of the issue. I hope you know that the above "facts" listed are not some secret research. They are common knowledge facts that even a 1st year science student would know and understand.
Now, if you really want to discuss the issue, by all means pick something above there and contest it. That way, we can leave unethical debate tactics to the suits in Washington and get down and dirty with the science of the issue.
This is what many have been saying the problem is with scientific issues. Someone objects to something that the mob mainstream has worshiped as truth and then they attack everything BUT what the person is actually saying. This has been made political, nothing more. All of the common personal attacks of a political issue is apparent. Your source contests nothing of the science, only aspects which attempt to discredit the person.
Do you deny what the quotes are saying? If so, please explain.
The first one below is purely there in all its means. You can look at ALL of the data and do the math yourself if you so choose. By all means, show me where it is wrong. I think you might have a hard time finding this one on wiki. You might actually have to get your hands dirty.
Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics
Quote:
Abstract: The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier 1824, Tyndall 1861 and Arrhenius 1896 and is still supported in global climatology essentially describes a fictitious mechanism in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist.
Nevertheless, in almost all texts of global climatology and in a widespread secondary literature it is taken for granted that such mechanism is real and stands on a firm scientific foundation. In this paper the popular conjecture is analyzed and the underlying physical principles are clarified. By showing that (a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 degrees Celsius is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified.
Just some objections concerning the whole issue.
From the interview of Henrik Svensmark, director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen in the July 2007 Discover magazine. Sponsored by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. :
Quote:
A couple of questions:
In 1996, when you reported that changes in the sun's activity could explain most
or all of the recent rise in Earths temperature, the chairmain of the UN Intergovernmental Panel called your announcement "extremely naive and irresponsible". How did your react?
I was just stunned. I remember being shocked by how many thought what I was
doing was terrible. I couldn't understand it because when you are a theoretical
physicist, you are trained that when you find something that cannot be explained,
something that doesn't fit, that is what you are excited about. If there is a
possibility that you might have an explanation, that is something that everybody
thinks is what you should pursue. Here was exactly the opposite reaction. It was
as though people were saying to me, "This is something that you should not have
done". That was very strange for me, and it has been more or less like that ever
since.
Nichoman who is the Science Operations Officer (SOO--Chief Scientist) Lead Forecaster at NOAA/NWS restating the politics surrounding the GW debate that are NOT supported by the facts, particularly challenging the UN IPCC report wrote:
Quote:
As an atmospheric physicist, your comment "The overwhelming consensus from the worlds most respected climate scientists is that CO2 is the primary cause of global warming." is incorrect.
First, The IPCC latest report is not DIRECTLY written by scientists, it is written by political government panels who edit and routinely have changed WITHOUT PERMISSION individual scientists contribution inputs (normally half to two pages). That is why hundreds of my colleagues have stated they refuse to participate in any future IPCC report.
Second, The IPCC report is incomplete, it emphasizes only radiative component and leaves out or grossly simplifies other major processes of earth-atmosphere-sun energy budget. This makes for more advocacy than good, sound science.
Third, greenhouse gas theory is straightforward. H2O (which is grossly handled and incomplete by our models) is ~65-95+ percent (most view closer to 90-95%) of all warming. CO2 contribution is calculated to be 2 to 30 percent (most lean toward ~2-10 percent). Others (methane, etc) are ~.1 to 5 percent...current consensus closer to 1 percent or less.
Most important are observations, CO2's absorption window is 12.5 to 17.5 microns which per Planks law (actually Wien's Displacement) is in the -5 to -40C range. Vertically...this means temps at 5 to 45K above the ground should be getting much warmer. Per three different observational networks...THEY AREN'T. This FALSE WARMING is caused by our models handling of moisture...which have a poor handling because of H2O’s complex and powerful thermodynamic and radiative properties (H2O is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2). Our models have no skill in handling moisture, all my associates and colleagues agree on this because of the data. BTW…work daily with all the world most powerful supercomputers and models…they make pretty and seductive graphical pictures to the reader…but w/r/t nature…they’re output is unreliable on many scales.
Finally we have high confidence on the amount of incoming and outgoing energy the earth receives and emits from thousands of direct observations and this provides 25 to 32C warming by greenhouse gases. So strict greenhouse theory suggests a doubling of CO2 to 560 ppm (which is unlikely because of the unrealistic IPCC residence times used) comes to a warming by some math of ~.3-.6C. The problem we have is the complex energy budget within the earth-atmosphere system which can’t be directly measured because of quantum physics radiative theory.
The media "hype" in this area is source of concern for us. My (and others) concern is the damage being done to our credibility. Climate Change is still not a mature science...we need good quality research and politics and fear has no place.
Now here is the thing. You can dislike the source all you like, I understand not wanting to "believe" it at face value. I can also understand not wanting "to take their word for it" when some might be funded by oil companies or whatever conspiracy theory company is on the list atm.
I am not asking you to "believe" them, I am merely asking you to refute the information they provide. If it is so "wrong" as you might say, it should be fairly easy to right?
I mean, on the first link of research, since all of the data is there, you should easily be able to find a hole in their conclusion right? And as for the first post I linked on this issue a couple posts above, if they are in error, such as statements about common understanding of Co2 or the various other areas, you easily be able to point out the flaw right?
If you can not, or are not willing to, then I can only assume you lack any real understanding of the issue and are putting "blind faith" into your own sources in a way you claim you can not accept the information I provide.
I am not saying everything said on either side of the issue is absolute fact, rather I am saying that the conclusions made by those who support man made global warming are inconclusive. It is up to them to provide a solid theory as to its existence. They have not, they have a hypothesis, and a very very weak one at that supported by data that in no way could conclude anything. So please, explain to me the facts of the issue.
He would rather throw mud to dis-credit, and does not like facts.
A common tactic today it seems. It has been a while since I have been in college, but if I remember right from my debate and logic classes, attacking the source without looking at the information is high on the list of "unethical" conduct. Maybe thats changed these days. Then again, what am I saying, science is being thrown out the window in favor of political opinion so I guess it would be pretty naive to expect someone to follow an ethical line of discussion as well.
Interesting, so your only response is to attack the creditability of them and not once answer to the facts of the issue.
In an era that may be perhaps best characterized by the degree of disinformation that abounds within it, credibility-testing is de rigueur. Friends of Science has long measured poorly on that scale.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nomander
I hope you know that the above "facts" listed are not some secret research. They are common knowledge facts that even a 1st year science student would know and understand. Now, if you really want to discuss the issue, by all means pick something above there and contest it.
I'll go you one better. I'll contest the entire FOS article in one fell swoop...
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