Where does Carbon really come from - Global warming issue

[BigRedBuster]

I'm not talking about 1997 and he didn't use the top of the spike in 1998.

 

One reason why analysts use trend lines on graphs is because the eyes can be deceiving when looking at them.

 

But why 1997? Why 1998? Because they fit closer to what you want the interpretation of the data to be. Look at 1995 or 2000. It's up from 2000 to now. That 1997 region was an anomaly that this guy specifically picked because it showed what he wanted it to show. The trend is up, and all of the data suggests that we are warming faster than most suspected we would. There is a mountain of climate change data (ice melt, temperature, CO2 ppm), ignore it if you will. I'm just afraid that by the time the deniers recognize the truth, it'll be far too late for us to do anything other than hope for the best.

 

Can you please explain what I want the interpretation to be?

[icedavis]

The top graph is from Rose’s article, but the bottom graph shows what happens when you display the data going back a few more years. See the difference? What he did is like measuring how tall you are when you’re 25, doing it again when you’re 30, then claiming human beings never grow. That’s a big no-no in science. You have to choose starting and ending points that fairly represent the data, as in the bottom graph. When you do, you very clearly see the trend that the Earth is getting warmer. In fact, hammering home how patently ridiculous this claims is, nine of the 10 hottest years on record have been since 2000.

 

The charts make sense but as a representative sample you also have to examine global temperatures on a larger scale to ensure there are no longer term affects. For instance: The "This" Chart appears to go from present day to mid-1970s. Is the trend upward? Sure but what if you expand that backwards another 50 years? Is is still an upward trend, is it as drastic, is it still 'representative'? What if you go back 100 years, 200 years, 500 years, 1000 years, 5000 years, 10,000 years, a million years?

 

You can get those charts so say damn near anything you want by limiting the amount of data to get the results you are looking for. Al Gore did. There are daily cycles, annual cycles (seasons), decade, century, 1000 year, 10,000 year, etc long cycles and for all we know this could just be part of those cycles. Are we coming out of a mini-ice age or going into a period of thermal maximum? This temperature departure isn't even out of the ordinary when/if you date back far enough.

 

You have to consider loooooong term data and represent it alongside the short term data and show that its not part of another anomoly so we can get the full pictures. If you are going to only consider human impact you most certainly HAVE to show data going as far back into human existance as possible to effectively show that current industrial human influence is having as dramatic effect as being claimed and rule out any anomalies from there. (edit: although, I don't think many will argue that industrial human influence is 'slight')

 

I didn't go through 5 years of calculus-based hell to try to get my meterology degree to be an expert on climate change. I wanted to forecast for the NWS. But I did learn that, sure, humans are having an impact and in order to truly understand what kind of impact we have to be given all the information (edit: some of which has been posted while I typed this out) . And any discussion (argument) I run across typically is leaving plenty of information out and/or the presented information is skewed. The problem then is, what exactly is 'representative enough' information.

 

Like the chain mail above states (maybe in not so accurate or questionable levels of magnitude), eruptions like that may or may not cancel out much of our efforts. Humans do have an effect and the population rate is only growing exponentially. At some point in the future we will naturally overwhelm the ecosystem we have (outside of industrialism), after which (in theory) pop. increase would stabilize or even go down because we can no longer sustain ourselves. We can't predict when volcanos will erupt or just how quickly populations will rise. Our efforts in the US, no matter how expansive, will only be negated by China until they go along with the program entirely. So there are good things happening that are often outweighed by bad things right now. Everyone needs to be on the same page.

 

The good thing though is the Earth has this amazing ability to balance those effects (we just don't know to what degree or truly for how long) and in the end It doesn't really matter if global warming exists or not. We know we have an affect to some degree and we have to do our part to sustain the ecosystem no matter the outside forces. We are destroying our habitat in many ways and we can only control what we can. We have to be able to live on this planet for the foreseeable future since there are not really any viable options going for us in space at the current time.

 

I am not a hippie tree hugger and I love a good steak (that comes from an animal that some would lead you to believe is single handedly destroying our ozone) and I also hypocritically on occasion do my part.

 

Oh, wait. Carbon comes from diamonds, or something like that.

Edited June 7, 2013 by icedavis

[Junior]

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page3.php

 

Using this ancient evidence, scientists have built a record of Earth’s past climates, or “paleoclimates.” The paleoclimate record combined with global models shows past ice ages as well as periods even warmer than today. But the paleoclimate record also reveals that the current climatic warming is occurring much more rapidly than past warming events.

 

As the Earth moved out of ice ages over the past million years, the global temperature rose a total of 4 to 7 degrees Celsius over about 5,000 years. In the past century alone, the temperature has climbed 0.7 degrees Celsius, roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming.

[icedavis]

http://earthobservat...rming/page3.php

 

Using this ancient evidence, scientists have built a record of Earth’s past climates, or “paleoclimates.” The paleoclimate record combined with global models shows past ice ages as well as periods even warmer than today. But the paleoclimate record also reveals that the current climatic warming is occurring much more rapidly than past warming events.

 

As the Earth moved out of ice ages over the past million years, the global temperature rose a total of 4 to 7 degrees Celsius over about 5,000 years. In the past century alone, the temperature has climbed 0.7 degrees Celsius, roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming.

 

Your follow up is quick and thorough. I am not necessarily disagreeing, just saying 'give the people the full picture' so we can understand scope and you are doing that well. Although, people should be quicker to ask for more information rather than just blindly agreeing or dispelling it. I don't necessarily care to read into it because it's a stupid argument anymore, we all just need to shut up and start putting up instead. I suppose these few sentences would have sufficed instead of that mondo post. Oh well.

[TGHusker]

IceDavis: I can sum up what you are saying in one word - stewardship. We, as humans, can all do a better job of being better stewards of the planet. I disagree wt the fringes of both sides of this - The Al Gore - scare everyone side and the head in the sand that says nothing is happening. The planet has a marvelous way of 'covering' for our mismanagement but as you note - we don't know what the tipping point is - outside of a nuclear war. I do believe there are those elements who push the issue for a political power grab. But until China and India get our board, we, as a nation - and a few other industrialized countries, would be doing all of the sacrificing and burdening industry for little results. The USA has made great improvements since the 1960s in pollution and carbon emissions - I remember smog and water pollution alerts all of the time in the late 60s and 70s.-

 

One thing govt can do and be good at is to give incentives for the development of new technologies - like a hydrogen car - I believe the concept would be a car that runs on water basically. I bet a mix of incentives wt industrial free market know how will solve this problem within the next 50 - 75 years.

[carlfense]

Volcanoes emit around 0.3 billion tonnes of CO2 per year. This is about 1% of humanCO2 emissions which is around 29 billion tonnes per year.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming-intermediate.htm

[Junior]

The classic global warming graph from 2001. Notice anything around 1900, when we really started to use fossil fuels?

 

[TGHusker]

JR where you getting your graphs? On your 140 year graph, i wonder what explains the decline from about 1948 to about 1968 wt a small rise around 1960. From 1978 or so we have the sudden, continued rise until the leveling begins around 1998?? Interesting.

[Landlord]

I REALLY THOUGHT MY CONTRIBUTION TO THIS THREAD WOULD GO SOMEWHERE

[TGHusker]

I REALLY THOUGHT MY CONTRIBUTION TO THIS THREAD WOULD GO SOMEWHERE

That is a scientific given - butt gas is a major source!!

[Someone]

This is a great thread. Most of the key aspects of dishonesty are on display.

 

1. Cherry Pick'n Data

 

True or False: "released data showing that there has been no statistically significant stock market change for almost 12 years between April 1997 and April 2009."

 

2. False Context

 

If your Dr. told you five years ago to lose weight and as a result you went from 275 lbs to 270 lbs. and then you took a 4 day cruise, that cruise ship "in just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control" your weight if you gained 4 lbs. on the trip.

 

"Of course you know about these evil calories that we are trying to suppress - it’s that vital energy unit that is required for us humans and all animal life.

 

I know, it's very disheartening to realize that all of the calorie savings you have accomplished while suffering the inconvenience and expense of drinking bud light, getting diet coke with your Big Mac Extra Value Meal, trying sushi that one time, parking one row futher away from the office front door, cutting back at the Val's Buffett to either brownies or blondies but never both ...well, all of those things you have done have all gone down the tubes in just four days.

 

3. Factual Errors

 

The fossil fuels emissions numbers are about 100 times bigger than even the maximum estimated volcanic CO2 fluxes.

 

4. "Deliberate Ignorance"

 

Abe Lincoln made it a crime to sell the army a bunch of rations that--while you might not be 100% sure that they are spoiled and not fit to eat--you have enough brains that it would be foolish for you to assume they where not spoiled. Deliberate Ignorance in posting false things to a message board isn't a crime, but just because something isn't illegal doesn't mean you should do it.

[Junior]

JR where you getting your graphs? On your 140 year graph, i wonder what explains the decline from about 1948 to about 1968 wt a small rise around 1960. From 1978 or so we have the sudden, continued rise until the leveling begins around 1998?? Interesting.

 

That graph is a pretty standard climate change graph from 2001 (partly why you see the leveling as the graph doesn't go past 2000). I'm not sure I can hazard a guess as to the decline in the 40s. Perhaps the end of the dust bowl era (depending on when exactly the decline starts)?

 

I couldn't say specifically where I got it from this particular time. It is a widely used one, though, and is known as the hockey stick graph. It was produced by Michael Mann and has been the subject of much effort by deniers to discredit him and it.

http://www.theatlant...plained/275753/

 

http://www.forbes.co...ongdoing-again/

 

Once again, Dr. Michael Mann and other climate scientists have been investigated by a third party to see if there was any wrongdoing in the “Climategate” scandal. And once again, they were cleared of any wrongdoing. They had been previously cleared by an International Panel of Scientists last year, by a panel at Penn State, and have been cleared by various other agencies as well. This time, the investigation was conducted by theNational Science Foundation, and you can read the report in full here. Like the other investigations, the NSF found no evidence of falsifying data, manipulation of data, or destruction of data by Dr. Michael Mann or any of the climate research scientists based at the University of East Anglia.

 

Another interesting stat:

 

http://grist.org/news/if-youre-27-or-younger-youve-never-experienced-a-colder-than-average-month/

 

If you were born in or after April 1985, if you are right now 27 years old or younger, you have never lived through a month that was colder than average. That’s beyond astonishing.

[huKSer]

If you were born in or after April 1985, if you are right now 27 years old or younger, you have never lived through a month that was colder than average. That’s beyond astonishing.

 

If you were born in or after April 1985, January 1998 if you are right now 27 15 years old or younger, you have never lived through a(n) month that was colder than average. undefeated Husker football season. That’s beyond astonishing.

[tschu]

I'll read this thread at a time when I've got nothing better to do and can better tolerate my brain exploding

 

The earth's average temperature has risen at a much, much greater rate over the last 150 years than it ever has at any point in its history, as best we can tell. The cause is not hard to extrapolate.

[tschu]

"Climategate" was wrong, but it was mostly an attempt by scientists to protect idiots from their own stupidity, that's all. It obviously was wrong and massively backfired