800,000 years, and this is the highest concentration yet of CO2. no new comfort, despite deeper drills.
[quote]knewsom wrote:
800,000 years, and this is the highest concentration yet of CO2. no new comfort, despite deeper drills.
[/quote]
Yeah I read it. The calcium carbonate thing is pretty disturbing too. the whole world almost depends on those little critters to survive.
Global warming, Obesity, Rich-Poor divide, War, Terrorism. People just arguing about it (like here on forums) without doing crap about it… Me included. I hate to be a pessimist, but I’m being realistic: Its a pretty bleak outlook.
Will the greatest irony of man be, that he brings about judgement day for himself?
God is so clever…
Sorry If I’m scaring you guys lol.
Pardon me, but how is this “scary”?
Nevermind, I forgot that our entire race is committing suicide by not driving hybrid cars. My bad.
Fact: There is a correlation between historical CO2 levels and general climate as shown by ice core samples.
Question: Does this mean that the CO2 levels caused the climate change, or was the increase in temperatures caused by, I don’t know, the sun maybe? And the CO2 level increases happened as a matter of it being released by glacial melts, volcanic activity, and feedback mechanisms in the ocean which reacted on account of the warming until it was compensated for?
The fact that we have artificially high atmospheric CO2 due to human activity just means that we have higher CO2. Why haven’t we all burned up to a crisp by now? I mean, if we look at how the CO2 has increased on a percentage basis since the industrial age, and the relationship of CO2 to climate really is that of causation, then how the hell did global cooling occur in the 70’s?
Obviously, if the temperatures dropped even a little bit in the face of a continual rise in CO2, then there is some other agent acting in the climate drama besides the greenhouse effect. Also, the global temperature rise we’ve seen since 1990 has slowed down, again, pointing to some more complexity in our climate besides Global Warming directly due to the presence of CO2.
I’m not scared.
Loth,
The more unknowns you throw on the pile the more concerned you should be.
No, I’m not saying this or that is proven, but not knowing doesn’t mean we are safe either.
[quote]Shoebolt wrote:
knewsom wrote:
800,000 years, and this is the highest concentration yet of CO2. no new comfort, despite deeper drills.
Yeah I read it. The calcium carbonate thing is pretty disturbing too. the whole world almost depends on those little critters to survive.
Global warming, Obesity, Rich-Poor divide, War, Terrorism. People just arguing about it (like here on forums) without doing crap about it… Me included. I hate to be a pessimist, but I’m being realistic: Its a pretty bleak outlook.
Will the greatest irony of man be, that he brings about judgement day for himself?
God is so clever…
Sorry If I’m scaring you guys lol.[/quote]
That would truly be the greatest irony of them all. Perhaps it will be.
“I pray for tidal waves”
“LEARN TO SWIM!”
[quote]vroom wrote:
Loth,
The more unknowns you throw on the pile the more concerned you should be.
No, I’m not saying this or that is proven, but not knowing doesn’t mean we are safe either.[/quote]
I hear ya pal, but I was trying to stay on topic for once. 
I personally am pretty sure I know what primarily causes global temperature shifts: sunlight. Followed second by greenhouse gases. After our many debates here where I would break the liberal party line and support the idea that we aren’t all going to die because of Buicks, I started really investigating this phenomenon.
Check this shit out:
Now here we have a phenomenon which explains far more fully what we have witnessed in our climate variations since we started keeping track of it. The data is very reliable, verified by satellite, etc.
Of course greenhouse gases have an effect, but stuff that blocks sunlight – I think this is common sense, myself – is going to matter a lot more, short term and long term. Notice that Europe started to heat up when they got rid of the aerosol in their local atmosphere. Notice that areas subjected to air pollution are generally cooler (Western US vs. Eastern US). When air traffic was halted right after 9/11 for three days, there were no exhaust contrails cluttering up the sky, and temperatures rose for those three days.
What would be the cause of nuclear winter if I ever got into the Oval Office and decided to blow up the Middle East after a drinking binge? Would it be the increase in greenhouse gases from all those nukes going off everywhere? No… it’s the particulate matter in the atmosphere which blocks the sunlight, right?
[quote]vroom wrote:
Loth,
The more unknowns you throw on the pile the more concerned you should be.
No, I’m not saying this or that is proven, but not knowing doesn’t mean we are safe either.[/quote]
Not knowing means we don’t know. Panic is up to the individual, but you might as well worry that the moon will crash into the Earth.
If you look at the actual science behind “Global Warming” (and you have to really look for it, cause nowadays it’s become a political issue, and bias is everywhere) there’s actually very little to go on.
The media hypes everyting out of proportion, environmentalist are always announcing imminent catastrophes that somehow never happen. Like Peter crying wolf, they eventually lose any credibility.
For example, I remember reading at the end of last year and at the beginning of this one that the 2006 hurricane season was expected to be worse, or at least as bad as the 2005 one. Due, of course, to Global Warming. USA Today wrote, in March 2006:
“We have reason to fear that 2006 could be as bad as 2005,” Jan Egeland, the undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs who coordinates U.N. emergency relief, told Reuters last week.
That was the prediction. 2006 isn’t over yet, but we’ve had 8 months of it. Compare for yourself:
Long and boring, yes, but you should arrive at the conclusion that 2006, as far as hurricanes go, is as of yet a lot milder than 2005. Or 2004. Or 2003. In fact, it’s below the yearly average for hurricanes since we’ve been gathering that data.
So, if 2006 is going to be as bad as 2005, the next 4 months are going to have to be nearly one hurricane after the other. Ernesto petered out pretty lamely before hitting the coast. It’s not looking good for those predictions.
Has the media reported on those failed predictions? Of course not. Scaremongering is great for ratings; mea culpas, much less so.
Pookie,
My point was that the more complex it is the less chance we have of unravelling the issue and simultaneously getting it right.
Basically, we screw up everything the first time… and if it’s complex, we have to find a lot of ways to screw up before we really learn how it works.
[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
Pardon me, but how is this “scary”?
Nevermind, I forgot that our entire race is committing suicide by not driving hybrid cars. My bad.
Fact: There is a correlation between historical CO2 levels and general climate as shown by ice core samples.
Question: Does this mean that the CO2 levels caused the climate change, or was the increase in temperatures caused by, I don’t know, the sun maybe? And the CO2 level increases happened as a matter of it being released by glacial melts, volcanic activity, and feedback mechanisms in the ocean which reacted on account of the warming until it was compensated for?
The fact that we have artificially high atmospheric CO2 due to human activity just means that we have higher CO2. Why haven’t we all burned up to a crisp by now? I mean, if we look at how the CO2 has increased on a percentage basis since the industrial age, and the relationship of CO2 to climate really is that of causation, then how the hell did global cooling occur in the 70’s?
Obviously, if the temperatures dropped even a little bit in the face of a continual rise in CO2, then there is some other agent acting in the climate drama besides the greenhouse effect. Also, the global temperature rise we’ve seen since 1990 has slowed down, again, pointing to some more complexity in our climate besides Global Warming directly due to the presence of CO2.
I’m not scared.[/quote]
I don’t know where you get your information, but I’m a biology undergraduate, and if you study the carbon cycle you’ll realise how vast the implications of a carbon imbalance between the soil/atmosphere is.
[quote]Shoebolt wrote:
I don’t know where you get your information, but I’m an ecology undergraduate, If you study the carbon cycle you’ll realise how vast the implications of a carbon imbalance between the soil/atmosphere is.[/quote]
Okay, you’re studying the ecology, that’s great. Does the constant rise of atmospheric CO2 levels account for cooling during the 70’s, or the slowdown of Global mean temperature rise in the past five years? You know the Keeling curve, right? Why hasn’t global temperature risen in proportion to it?
[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
Shoebolt wrote:
I don’t know where you get your information, but I’m an ecology undergraduate, If you study the carbon cycle you’ll realise how vast the implications of a carbon imbalance between the soil/atmosphere is.
Okay, you’re studying the ecology, that’s great. Does the constant rise of atmospheric CO2 levels account for cooling during the 70’s, or the slowdown of Global mean temperature rise in the past five years? You know the Keeling curve, right? Why hasn’t global temperature risen in proportion to it?
[/quote]
Ecology is not my field of study, but you sure seem to be clamoring to find some reason to avoid acknowledging the fact that we may be causing irreparable damage to our ecosystem that your grandchildren may pay dearly for.
Perhaps you can explain why I should avoid taking note or action that could possibly have the slightest chance to change this. Please be specific. My field is biology, not Keeling curves.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Perhaps you can explain why I should avoid taking note or action that could possibly have the slightest chance to change this. Please be specific. My field is biology, not Keeling curves.[/quote]
A higher CO2 concentration in the atmosphere means that the atmosphere can store more heat; that’s what being a greenhouse gas means.
The Keeling curve is simply the observation of seasonal fluctuation of CO2 levels in Mauna Loa over many years. It shows a steady linear rise in average CO2 levels since the '60’s.
Observed temperatures have not conformed to the linear rise in greenhouse gases like CO2 in the atmosphere, therefore there is more at work here.
If it is shown that greenhouse gases play a minor part in climate shift, then shouldn’t we be worrying about the bigger picture? All those IPCC models have failed for some reason, right? Could it be that they have been skewed far too much towards the “importance” of atmosphereic CO2 levels?
My point is that there are bigger fish to fry here, if we are really serious about finding a stop to future global warming, and not just trying to scare people into buying hybrid cars and funding ultraliberal science projects.
And just to stir the pot a little bit, the graph above shows recorded sunspot activity over the past 400 years.
The times denoted as the Maunder Minimum and the Dalton Minimum were cold as a witch’s tit in a brass bra, scientists even go so far as to call them “mini-ice ages”.
Notice that modern times show the highest sunspot activity ever, which we call the Modern Maximum. The difference this time being that we will have a nice buffer of greenhouse gases (whether we like it or not) to face the next cycle of decreased solar activity. Some scientists even think that the increased CO2 might protect us from the next ice age. Of course, I am of the opinion that we should be wary of going overboard with this “safety blanket” and heating up too much before we need it.
I guess the argument here is how much is too much? A bunch of folks I’ve debated so far in the past think that we are already overdoing it.
[quote]pookie wrote:
vroom wrote:
Loth,
The more unknowns you throw on the pile the more concerned you should be.
No, I’m not saying this or that is proven, but not knowing doesn’t mean we are safe either.
Not knowing means we don’t know. Panic is up to the individual, but you might as well worry that the moon will crash into the Earth.
If you look at the actual science behind “Global Warming” (and you have to really look for it, cause nowadays it’s become a political issue, and bias is everywhere) there’s actually very little to go on.
The media hypes everyting out of proportion, environmentalist are always announcing imminent catastrophes that somehow never happen. Like Peter crying wolf, they eventually lose any credibility.
For example, I remember reading at the end of last year and at the beginning of this one that the 2006 hurricane season was expected to be worse, or at least as bad as the 2005 one. Due, of course, to Global Warming. USA Today wrote, in March 2006:
“We have reason to fear that 2006 could be as bad as 2005,” Jan Egeland, the undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs who coordinates U.N. emergency relief, told Reuters last week.
That was the prediction. 2006 isn’t over yet, but we’ve had 8 months of it. Compare for yourself:
Long and boring, yes, but you should arrive at the conclusion that 2006, as far as hurricanes go, is as of yet a lot milder than 2005. Or 2004. Or 2003. In fact, it’s below the yearly average for hurricanes since we’ve been gathering that data.
So, if 2006 is going to be as bad as 2005, the next 4 months are going to have to be nearly one hurricane after the other. Ernesto petered out pretty lamely before hitting the coast. It’s not looking good for those predictions.
Has the media reported on those failed predictions? Of course not. Scaremongering is great for ratings; mea culpas, much less so.
[/quote]
Well since “Global Warming” caused the increase in frequency and severity of Hurricanes, how is this possible?
[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
A higher CO2 concentration in the atmosphere means that the atmosphere can store more heat; that’s what being a greenhouse gas means.[/quote]
Store? You may want to reword this paragraph.
Guys, enough political silliness.
Everyone knows that if a hurricane forms and it travels over hotter waters, then it can extract more energy from those waters and become more intense.
As to the vagaries of how many hurricanes will form and whether or not each will travel across warm waters, who the hell knows.
You may want to, but you can’t discount the concept behind warming, warmer waters and hurricane strength over those warmer waters just because it doesn’t appear to be a year with many hurricanes.
However, yes, big media harping on next year being worse than last (last year) was certainly fear based, because it gets viewership – not because it is politically motivated.
knewsom,
I find that drilling information interesting.
It reminds me of studying the rings of felled trees.
Further, I approve of looking for hard facts.
It’s unfortunate that hard-core nutcases like al “armageddon” gore is your “champion” on this issue.
I’m very interested in getting some facts.
With persuasive evidence, it would be much easier to convince people to change behaviors.
However, al gore screaming “armageddon” at every opportunity makes those of us who don’t swallow bobblehead propaganda less likely to listen.
JeffR
[quote]vroom wrote:
Well since “Global Warming” caused the increase in frequency and severity of Hurricanes, how is this possible?
Guys, enough political silliness.
Everyone knows that if a hurricane forms and it travels over hotter waters, then it can extract more energy from those waters and become more intense.
As to the vagaries of how many hurricanes will form and whether or not each will travel across warm waters, who the hell knows.
You may want to, but you can’t discount the concept behind warming, warmer waters and hurricane strength over those warmer waters just because it doesn’t appear to be a year with many hurricanes.
However, yes, big media harping on next year being worse than last (last year) was certainly fear based, because it gets viewership – not because it is politically motivated.[/quote]
What is political about pointing out the drastic decrease in hurricanes this year?
[quote]doogie wrote:
What is political about pointing out the drastic decrease in hurricanes this year?[/quote]
Using it to argue that “global warming” has no effect on hurricanes is the political portion…
The numbers by themselves are just numbers of course.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Everyone knows that if a hurricane forms and it travels over hotter waters, then it can extract more energy from those waters and become more intense.[/quote]
Ok. But not only has there been a below average number of hurricanes this year (in fact, if I’m reading the data correctly, Ernesto was to be the first) but none of the previous tropical storms of the year appears to have “extracted more energy the waters and become more intense…” None of the pre-September 4 storms managed to make it to hurricane status; and you already know about Ernesto, since he was on TV.
I’m not using that example to discount GW; I’m trying to show that 1) There is a lot we don’t understand about GW, both in causes and effects;
-
The media hypes every prediction out of proportion, yet remains silent when these turn out to be crap; and
-
“Doing something” just to do something, when you don’t understand the problem correctly can lead to a lot of uselessly wasted resources.