Global Warming Debate

[poopdeckpappy]

Originally Posted by JohnRPollard

The Untied States Global Change Research Program just issued it's latest report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. :

June 16, 2009, 5:12 pm

From the Guardian:

Today’s release of the study, titled Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, was overseen by a San Francisco-based media consulting company…

The nearly 200-page study was scrubbed of the usual scientific jargon, and was given a high-profile release by Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren, and the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Jane Lubchenco.

Wow, that’s sure how I learned to handle a scientific report back when I was studying physics - scrub it of the science and give it to an activist PR firm! Do you need any more evidence that climate science has become substantially dominated by post-modernist scientists, where ideological purity and staying on message is more important than actually having the science right?


I saw a draft of this report last year, but I am still trying to download this new version. I expect to be sickened. Here is a taste of where they are coming down:

If today’s generation fails to act to reduce the carbon emissions that cause global warming, climate models suggest temperatures could rise as much as 11F by the end of the century.

11F is about 6.1C. I don’t know if they get this by increasing the CO2 forecast or by increasing the sensitivity or both, but it is vastly higher than the forecasts even of the over-apocalyptic IPCC. I think one can fairly expect two things, though — 1) More than 2/3 of this warming will be due to positive feedback effects rather than Co2 acting alone and 2) There will be little or no discussion of the evidence that such positive feedback effects actually dominate the climate.


Apparently the report will make up for having all the science stripped out by spending a lot of time on gaudy worst case scenarios:

That translates into catastrophic consequences for human health and the economy such as more ferocious hurricanes in coastal regions - in the Pacific as well as the Atlantic, punishing droughts to the south-west, and increasingly severe winter storms in the north-east and around the Great Lakes.

The majority of North Carolina’s beaches would be swallowed up by the sea. New England’s long and snowy winters might be cut short to as little as two weeks. Summers in Chicago could be a time of repeated deadly heat waves. Los Angelenos and residents of other big cities will be choking because of deteriorating air quality.

Future generations could face potential food shortages because of declining wheat and corn yields in the breadbasket of the mid-west, increased outbreaks of food poisoning and the spread of epidemic diseases.

This strikes me as roughly equivilent to turning in a copy of Lucifer’s Hammer in response to a request for a scientific study of the physics of comets.

[camaraderie]

Craig...why don't you post some facts instead of opinions?

For example...I read the above referenced reports first 15 pages today and while there is much to comment on...one scary story was how the ocean is acidifying and is projected REALLY get much worse causing all sorts of problems with coral and shellfish etc.
So I went to the footnote for that conclusion which turns out to be an 80 page study (heavily biased towards a presumption of global warming and relying on global warming theory) by the British Royal Society. What did they ACTUALLY measure????

Turns out that according to them the oceans PH since the start of the industrial revlolution (as opposed to since the start of atmospheric carbon rise...about a 100 year addition!!!) has been a change from 8.3PH to 8.2PH !!!! They present ZERO evidence that the trend to acidification has increased since 1950 or so when CO2 started to rise. They also admit that the PH of the ocean VARIES as much as +- .3 PH when measured around different parts of the earth!!
So...with this overwhelming evidence and computer models projecting global warming CO2 sequestration in the oceans...they claim the oceans will decline to 7.8 PH (more acidic) by 2100. Let's remember, those computer models have not predicted the last 10 years with anything approaching accuracy...let alone the next 90!!
And they call that science...and then they turn it into alarmist propaganda in plain language and foist it on an unsuspecting public.

I'm sure there will be hundreds more similar refutable points in the report, but it is gonna take some digging and some time.

[poopdeckpappy]

Two other avenues, one is to explore the motavations of Jerry Melillo, Melillo got $2.6 million from the NSF for studies being conducted in Duke Forest. http://face.env.duke.edu/pubpage.cfm?type=Grants&id=208 , He’s also a director of NEON, Inc. which looks like a front group for collecting even more NSF and other grant money.

Melillo’s current reason to exist is establishing that humans are wrecking the planet; in virtually every biography entry located on google, Dr. Melillo notes that his interest lies in the human effect on the planet

Originally Posted by Melillo

“I am interested in how human activities are altering the biogeochemistry of terrestrial ecosystems. My research includes studies of carbon and nitrogen cycling in a range of ecosystems across the globe including arctic shrublands in northern Sweden, temperate forests in North America, and tropical forests and pastures in the Amazon Basin of Brazil. I have become increasingly committed to studying the large-scale effects of global change on terrestrial ecosystems, including effects on the chemistry of the atmosphere and on the climate system.

I use a combination of field experiments and simulation modeling. Together with a number of collaborators, I am presently conducting soil warming experiments at the Harvard Forest in western Massachusetts and at the Abisko Research Station in Sweden to study the effects of warming on soil carbon and nitrogen dynamics, plant growth, and potential feedbacks to the climate system.”)

http://www.brown.edu/Research/ECI/people/jmelillo.html

he has moved on from “save the rainforests” to “humans are wrecking the planet.” not because that's where the science lead, but because that's where the grant money is


The other avenue is Jane Lubchenco herself, also said to have a hand in the report; She is a climate change activist who believes scientists are supposed to be political hacks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/science/earth/24prof.html

[camaraderie]

Good finds Pappy!

Here is a devastating critique on a small section of the report by scientist/professor Roger Pielke Junior. It seems like the sections on hurricanes & other weather related disasters actually CITE his work and turn it around 180 degrees to say something he didn't say at all!! Here is his critique which I think is devastating to the integrity of the entire report even as a non-scientific document.
Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: Obama's Phil Cooney and the New CCSP Report

Even more interesting is Pielke Jr.'s take on WHY his work was misrepresented:
" One answer might lie in the fact that Evan Mills was a co-author of the report (p. 159). Do you think that had anything to do with it? His list of consulting clients is positively Phil Cooney-esque. Here are a few businesses and organizations that he lists under Consulting & Advising in his resume:

* Armstrong/Energyn (US)
* Barakat, Howard & Chamberlin, Inc. (US)
* Better Energy Systems (UK)
* Ceres (US)
* CMC Energy Services (US)
* Integrated Process Technologies (US)
* Investment Research, Inc. (US)
* Teton Energy Partners (US)

So a person responsible for misrepresenting science in a government report has ties and presumably financial interests with companies that have an interest in climate policy outcomes? No, couldn't be. Could it?

For those wanting a more rounded picture of extremes in the United States, here is what an earlier CCSP report concluded about extreme events in the United States, but which was uncited by this new CCSP report in this paragraph:

1. Over the long-term U.S. hurricane landfalls have been declining.

2. Nationwide there have been no long-term increases in drought.

3. Despite increases in some measures of precipitation (pp. 46-50, pp. 130-131), there have not been corresponding increases in peak streamflows (high flows above 90th percentile).

4. There have been no observed changes in the occurrence of tornadoes or thunderstorms

5. There have been no long-term increases in strong East Coast winter storms (ECWS), called Nor’easters.

6. There are no long-term trends in either heat waves or cold spells, though there are trends within shorter time periods in the overall record.

[ssneade]

look to the sun for your answer, my boys. the sun.

little to no spots or flares lately.

gonna be cooling down soon enough.

when the earths temperature rises, is it just coincidental the activity on the suns surface is higher than normal?

how did those gw gurus manage to overlook in their studies a chunk of ice the size of california?

just another socialist plot to help destroy OUR nations economy!!!!!!!!!!

[craigimass]

Hmm, I didn't know we had astronomers and climate scientists on staff....
Somehow, those thousands of experts must have missed that simple point.

Actually, you do have one thing right. The Oil boys did help destroy our nations economy by making certain that we did not develop the technologies of the future. So now we are buying Solar Cells from China and Solar thermal plants from Israel, etc.......

Everyone who has studied it (except end of world types) has found that our current oil-based economy is NOT sustainable. That means it cannot go on....

Global warming or not, that does not change.

[ssneade]

omygosh craig, are you a conspiracy theorist as well as a bed wetter? was 911 an inside job too?

[erps]

Actually, you do have one thing right. The Oil boys did help destroy our nations economy by making certain that we did not develop the technologies of the future. So now we are buying Solar Cells from China and Solar thermal plants from Israel, etc.......

You mean we're getting our energy needs at the lowest price? OMG, that's awful!

Everyone who has studied it (except end of world types) has found that our current oil-based economy is NOT sustainable. That means it cannot go on....

so then we'll switch, when it's cheaper to do so rather than trying to get the last couple of drops of the cheap stuff out of the earth.

Nobody is stopping you from getting your energy from more expensive sources, but my guess is that you're burning gas or diesel anyway.

[WanderingStar]

Can some of you nuts actually make this warming fantasy come true?
Cause it's cold.

[craigimass]

Originally Posted by erps

so then we'll switch, when it's cheaper to do so rather than trying to get the last couple of drops of the cheap stuff out of the earth.

That attitude worked out well for the American car companies! They will switch to more efficient cars....when people stop buying the existing models, right?

Ok, even though I can BS on any subject, Energy is my life calling and work...I have made my living in the field for over 30 years.

So, a little education for you....

Changing directions in something like energy takes DECADES. You don't wake up one day and say "oh, oil is now $5 so we will head in another direction".

As one example, it is estimated that the Prius is about 10 years ahead of other competitors in hybrid cars.

It is EXACTLY the attitude of "we'll fix it later" that get's us in so much trouble! That means passing on the problems to your and my children, and it also means we end up dead last in the race of nations.

This cannot be solved by brute force. It takes time. All of the new programs that are finally being put into place now will take 20-30 years or more to come to full fruition. A side benefit may be less CO2, but the main benefit is less pollution, more stable prices, less tearing up of the landscape (coal mines), etc.

Global Warming or not, man made or not, there is no downside to harnessing technology and intelligence to meet our energy needs.

The attitude of "we want the cheapest price all the time" is just like saying "My kid has the money to buy a lot of candy bars, so therefore it must be good for him to buy and eat them". Not true.