Global Warming/Climate Change 2

[Super Joe]

I was responding to YOUR comment that you find it impossible to imagine a conspiracy.

You find it impossible to address specific points since events exposed your Climate & financial theories. Quite ironic you've been reduced to a bumbler, misrepresent comments in order to evade the issue considering you spent years demanding posters stick to the issue during those conspiracy 'awaredness' campaigns. Let's try it again with the important parts you ommitted ...

I was responding [quoting mortgage fraud, cancer cures, WMD's & JFK, all of which never involved collaboration with China or Russia] to YOUR comment that you find it impossible to imagine a conspiracy [that involves China & Russia being recruited by the U.S. as active co-conspirators, despite apparent junk science, in a plan that has solutions on the table that will damage their economic growth

Sooo, that was the real question I posed a while back, you've avoided it twice by misrepresenting it, 3rd time lucky MrP... Do you really find this scenario possible?

As usual, you muddy the distinction between what I believe and the most extreme 'CT' views. I told you 2 years ago I don't see one group of 'elites'. So your points on that are bogus.

Bizzare claim to make considering I quoted directly from your own posts, and not other CT's views. Because I put them in blue italic text rather than using the system's quote brackets/boxes you must not have recognized them as your own posts... funny then you should describe them as 'the most extreme views'

1) Why did the Energy Tax legislation get kicked into touch?

the GAO could not quantify how much to charge companies for emissions. There was no valid formula for calculating the impact of individual emissions.
So no elite group with control over Congress, that had a plan devised to use the issue to tax the people to death just yet.

2) Why is the likes of China, and it's army of scientists who are ranked top in the world as a community, in agreement with the science if it's supposedly junk??

I thought all the climate data was coming from only 4 sources in North America and the UK? How far back does Chinese climate data go? Russian? If they are top ranked, besides the nice press releases, what scientific input have they provided?
Joint Statement by the Chinese & Russian Academy of Sciences: "It is essential that world leaders agree on the emission reductions needed to combat negative consequences of anthropogenic climate change."

You know the point wasn't have China curtailed anything yet, that's a red herring.

The National Geographic feature that made a mockery of your Chinese 5-year plans, made it clear that nothing could be achieved for 30 years. Possibly a 2% reduction in emissions. Which tells you all you need to know about the level of belief in China. What does make sense is China's move to clean fuel technologies to reduce its serious pollution problems.

More dead herrings. Your views on the level of belief among Chinese scientists/leaders is all very interesting, interesting but, alas, irrelevant to the question of whether the Chinese believe the science points to AGW. An overwhelming 'yes', is the answer.
Interesting you now try to associate China's pollution problems with their support over AGW science. I'm sure the Chinese authorities do not need to hide behind climate Change in order to convince their population of the need to clean up their pollution. And while blaming it all on pollution, spare a thought for all those other nations around the world who suffer from cleaner air, quote:
"There are no national or major scientific institutions anywhere in the world that dispute the theory of anthropogenic climate change. Not one."

The tax/tarrif/carbon criminal legislation came and went WITHOUT even getting into the House for a vote. Kicked into touch by the politicians the elite supposedly own.

Tell that to Europe and Australia.

Hmmm, is there any real need to tell Europe & Australia they are not the whole world? I'm sure they know already whether or not they are part of this non-existent global plot.

Not the full story. How much money did Gore and/or GS make before it went broke? They aren't stupid. As insiders they will have abandoned their positions or shorted the exchange before it went tits up. Does Gore look broke? Does Obama look broke?

Does this really boil down to nothing more than a hunch you have... 'pfff, they're bound to have made tons from this one before my theory went tits up. The evidence is stareing you in the face... Obama's Hugo Boss suit, he looks quite rich.'
"U.S. carbon trading volumes and prices dropped through the floor as a result of clear signals from Congress. Trading in carbon emissions credits was voluntary, CCX intended to be the hub of mandatory carbon trading established by a cap-and-trade law. But a funny thing happened on the way to the CCX's highly anticipated looting of taxpayers and consumers - cap-and-trade imploded. CCX's panicked original investors bailed out this spring, unloading it to the European Climate Exchange (ECX), for $600 million.
Stop bleedin' fibbing to us everytime a theory flops. They were all to make their 'billions' and 'trillions' once cap-and-trade became mandatory, but in the end Goldman's received just $60 million for their stake, they make more than that selling one property in their real estate division. Goldman's were one of the owners of CCX = they wanted Congress to pass the legislation -but- the legislation flopped and they sold it off cheap for $0.6 billion = Jewish bankers do not really have U.S. politicians by the balls.
Wasn't that why these guys were pushing Global Warming for all it's worth?

Can anyone guess how many billions Al Gore will make through his stake in 'Generation Investment Management' his very own carbon trading firm? How about how many zillions Obama will make from the Chicago Climate Exchange? Goldman Sachs, the squid choking the financial life out of America is its biggest shareholder. Talk about a snake under every rock.
No wonder these guys are pushing Global Warming for all its worth.

SHOREBANK, c/w Jewish backers, went under. Along with most of the other major Jewish bankers... Lehmans, Bear Stearns, Kuhn Loeb & Co, Salomon Brothers, Bache & Co, Merrill Lynch, August Belmont & Co and J&W Seligman & Co

'Went under' sounds so dramatic. Those poor bankers really suffered... http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? ... 513522[

From your article...
The chairman and CEO of Bear Stearns held 5.6 million shares at the time of its emergency sale to JPMorgan. At the then-current price of $10.84, he obtained $61 million for these shares. By contrast, at the peak stock price of $171.50, the same shares were worth $963 million. This amounts to a paper loss of over $900m. Similarly, the chairman and CEO of Lehman held, more than 10.8 million shares. When Lehman filed for bankruptcy, those shares became worthless. Compared to the peak stock price of $85.80, this amounted to a paper loss of about $930 million.
You posting this article is too funny in so many ways, and it deserves it's own thread I'll try and start one soon. It goes to the heart of the financial crisis and reveals some interesting insights based upon this research team's analysis of the salaries, bonuses and share dealings of the most senior CEO's in these two firms over the whole period 2000-2008.

SJ

[MrPlum]

More 'warming is causing cooling'.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 58928.html

[STEVE G]

More 'warming is causing cooling'.

Whatever you attribute it to, there certainly seems to be an inversion of temperatures between Europe and the far Northern arctic latitudes; here you can see the temperatures for the far north of Norway are way above average:
http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Svalbard/ ... stics.html

It hit +4C there yesterday and it was about -10C here!

[MrPlum]

Steve. Can you say categorically that the case for AGW is now proven? Or are the final conclusions still very much dependent on computer models and conclusions drawn by politically suspect bodies, whose future funding and employment depends on them reaching a particular conclusion and not 'nailed-down', observational data?

Because as much as I want to believe, it's difficult for me to get beyond vested interests, political chancers and controllers and the likely flaws in a 'science' that barely existed before money flowed in to influence it. When trillions are spent on warfare and Empire, that could be spent on new technologies, it's a bit of stretch to believe the almighty U.S. (from which these psycho-dramas continually spring) really cares about the planet.

We are basically being asked to believe that the greatest threat to mankind is plant food.

[STEVE G]

Steve. Can you say categorically that the case for AGW is now proven? Or are the final conclusions still very much dependent on computer models and conclusions drawn by politically suspect bodies, whose future funding and employment depends on them reaching a particular conclusion and not 'nailed-down', observational data?

Basic greenhouse gas theory was first experimentally demonstrated by John Tyndall in 1860 so the fact that more greenhouse gas will increase the earths temperature shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone. All the computer models are required to find out how bad it will be, not to see if it's happening and the difficulties come from the fact that the both climate and weather systems are very chaotic and extraordinarily hard to exactly predict but the fact that the world will gradually get warmer isn't in dispute by anyone who has seriously studied it in over two hundred years.
No scientist will ever say that anything is proven 100% but in this case they will normally give you in the region of over 90%.


Professor Mario Molina addressed the issue of uncertainties in a Select Commitee hearing in 2010:


Uncertainties in climate change science

There appears to be a gross misunderstanding of the nature of climate change science among those that have attempted to discredit it. They convey the idea that the science in question behaves like a house of cards: if you remove just one of them, the whole structure falls apart.
However, this is certainly not the way the science of complex systems has evolved. A much better analogy is a jigsaw puzzle: many pieces are missing, and some might even be in the wrong place, but there is little doubt that the overall image is clear, namely that climate change is a serious threat that needs to be urgently addressed. It is also clear that modest amounts of warming will have both positive and negative impacts, but above about 4 or 5 degrees Fahrenheit most impacts turn negative for many ecological systems, and for most nations.

The scientific community is of course aware that the current understanding of the science of climate change is far from perfect and that much remains to be learned, but enough is known to estimate the probabilities that certain events will take place if society continues with “business as usual” emissions of greenhouse gases. As expressed in the IPCC report, the scientific consensus is that there is at least a 9 out of 10 chance that the observed increase in global average temperature since the industrial revolution is a consequence of the increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases caused by human activities. The existing body of climate science, while not comprehensive and with still many questions to be answered, is robust and extensive, and is based on many hundreds of studies conducted by thousands of highly trained scientists, with transparent methodologies, publication in public journals with rigorous peer review, etc. And this is precisely the information that society and decision makers in government need in order to assess the risk associated with the continued emissions of greenhouse gases. I would like to emphasize that policy decisions about climate change have to be made by society at large, and more specifically by policymakers; scientists, engineers,
economists and other climate change experts should merely provide the necessary information.
In my opinion, even if there is a mere 50% probability that the changes in climate that have taken place in recent decades are caused by human activities, society should adopt the necessary measures to reduce greenhouse emissions; but here I am speaking as an individual, not as a scientist.

In fact, recent scientific studies have pointed out that the risk of runaway or abrupt climate change increases rapidly if the average temperature increases above about 8 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Certain so-called “tipping points” could then be reached, resulting in practically irreversible and potentially catastrophic changes to the Earth’s climate system, with devastating impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity. These changes could induce severe flood damage to urban centers and island nations as sea level rises, as well as significantly more destructive extreme weather events such as droughts and floods, etc.

[Homer]

Basic greenhouse gas theory was first experimentally demonstrated by John Tyndall in 1860 so the fact that more greenhouse gas will increase the earths temperature shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone.

Except to those who know that there is no way a simple physics model that explains lab data would unquestionably work in the messy uncertainties of a planet and it's atmosphere. Still waiting for it to be verified. Still waiting for the AGW alarmists to support 'solutions' that don't further the left's objectives which existed before they got behind AGW.

[STEVE G]

Except to those who know that there is no way a simple physics model that explains lab data would unquestionably work in the messy uncertainties of a planet and it's atmosphere. Still waiting for it to be verified.

The way that the atmosphere works as a whole is not so messy as what happens within it and to calculate the net temperature change based on the constituent parts is not nearly as complex. The way that the whole system reactes to this is of course different but the fact that you add more energy to the system will of course change the environment.
The temperature of the surface of Venus was calculated to a reasonable degree of accuracy using similar greenhouse theory physics many years before probes actually went there.

Still waiting for the AGW alarmists to support 'solutions' that don't further the left's objectives which existed before they got behind AGW.

Solar panels fell in price by about 50% last year; which side of the political divide do they fall on?

Falling solar prices good for climate, bad for firms
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/ ... LT20120201

[Homer]

Still waiting for the AGW alarmists to support 'solutions' that don't further the left's objectives which existed before they got behind AGW.

Solar panels fell in price by about 50% last year; which side of the political divide do they fall on?

The solutions I was referring to are ones to decrease the amount of solar energy reaching the planet or parts of it, not ways to use less electricity.

[Homer]

Good day to see the AGW bias at your favorite news sources. Did they report that glaciers are losing 150 billion tons of ice a year? Or did they report that the 150 number is one tenth the number created by the IPCC (U.N. agency) a year ago?

Did they link to the study, say who wrote it, what institution they were part of, the name of the satellite technology that produced the new numbers, or anything that would allow readers to google for more info? Did they say the U.N. numbers are bad in part because the scientists took samples only at the lower ends of lower glaciers, the ones that melt the most? Any first year college science student knows that using non-random samples is junk science, and using samples taken at times and places so as to be most likely to confirm one's preconceptions or agenda is fraud.

Bristol University glaciologist Jonathan Bamber, who was not part of the research team, told the Guardian that such a level of melting was practically insignificant.

"The very unexpected result was the negligible mass loss from high mountain Asia, which is not significantly different from zero," he told the Guardian. <- Link for that? Why? You wouldn't follow it.

[STEVE G]

PASADENA, Calif. – In the first comprehensive satellite study of its kind, a University of Colorado at Boulder-led team used NASA data to calculate how much Earth's melting land ice is adding to global sea level rise.

Using satellite measurements from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), the researchers measured ice loss in all of Earth's land ice between 2003 and 2010, with particular emphasis on glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica.

The total global ice mass lost from Greenland, Antarctica and Earth's glaciers and ice caps during the study period was about 4.3 trillion tons (1,000 cubic miles), adding about 0.5 inches (12 millimeters) to global sea level. That's enough ice to cover the United States 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) deep.

"Earth is losing a huge amount of ice to the ocean annually, and these new results will help us answer important questions in terms of both sea rise and how the planet's cold regions are responding to global change," said University of Colorado Boulder physics professor John Wahr, who helped lead the study. "The strength of GRACE is it sees all the mass in the system, even though its resolution is not high enough to allow us to determine separate contributions from each individual glacier."

About a quarter of the average annual ice loss came from glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica (roughly 148 billion tons, or 39 cubic miles). Ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica and their peripheral ice caps and glaciers averaged 385 billion tons (100 cubic miles) a year. Results of the study will be published online Feb. 8 in the journal Nature.

Traditional estimates of Earth's ice caps and glaciers have been made using ground measurements from relatively few glaciers to infer what all the world's unmonitored glaciers were doing. Only a few hundred of the roughly 200,000 glaciers worldwide have been monitored for longer than a decade.

One unexpected study result from GRACE was that the estimated ice loss from high Asian mountain ranges like the Himalaya, the Pamir and the Tien Shan was only about 4 billion tons of ice annually. Some previous ground-based estimates of ice loss in these high Asian mountains have ranged up to 50 billion tons annually.

"The GRACE results in this region really were a surprise," said Wahr, who is also a fellow at the University of Colorado-headquartered Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. "One possible explanation is that previous estimates were based on measurements taken primarily from some of the lower, more accessible glaciers in Asia and extrapolated to infer the behavior of higher glaciers. But unlike the lower glaciers, most of the high glaciers are located in very cold environments and require greater amounts of atmospheric warming before local temperatures rise enough to cause significant melting. This makes it difficult to use low-elevation, ground-based measurements to estimate results from the entire system."

"This study finds that the world's small glaciers and ice caps in places like Alaska, South America and the Himalayas contribute about 0.02 inches per year to sea level rise," said Tom Wagner, cryosphere program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "While this is lower than previous estimates, it confirms that ice is being lost from around the globe, with just a few areas in precarious balance. The results sharpen our view of land-ice melting, which poses the biggest, most threatening factor in future sea level rise."

The twin GRACE satellites track changes in Earth's gravity field by noting minute changes in gravitational pull caused by regional variations in Earth's mass, which for periods of months to years is typically because of movements of water on Earth's surface. It does this by measuring changes in the distance between its two identical spacecraft to one-hundredth the width of a human hair.

The GRACE spacecraft, developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and launched in 2002, are in the same orbit approximately 137 miles (220 kilometers) apart. The California Institute of Technology manages JPL for NASA.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/featur ... 20208.html

[PeteC]

19 February 2012 Last updated at 14:53 GMT

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17088154 (photos and related stories)

'Jacuzzi vents' model CO2 future
Jonathan Amos By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News, Vancouver

A UK scientist studying volcanic vents in the ocean says they hold a grave warning for future marine ecosystems.

These vents have naturally acidified waters that hint at how our seas might change if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to rise.

They are conditions that would make it harder for corals and similar organisms to make the hard parts in their bodies.

Dr Jason Hall-Spencer's work suggests our oceans could lose perhaps 30% of their biodiversity this century.

The Plymouth University researcher has been presenting his latest findings to a major conference in Vancouver, Canada.

"I am investigating underwater volcanoes where carbon dioxide bubbles up like a Jacuzzi, acidifying large areas of the seabed, and we can see at these vents which types of organisms are able to thrive and which ones are most vulnerable," he told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Dr Hall-Spencer treats the vents like a time machine. As he swims towards them, the pH level of the water falls and he can use particular locations to simulate what the open ocean will be like in the decades ahead if emissions of atmospheric CO2 go unchecked and much of the that gas is absorbed into sea.

"What we see as you swim along a gradient of carbon dioxide, up to levels we expect for the end of this century, is diversity loss.

"As you go along that gradient, species drop out of the system," he told BBC News.

"It's not all calcified species - ones with hard shells or skeletons - which drop out; there are other organisms with soft bodies which drop out as well.

"This CO2 is a stressor. Some organisms can adapt but there're only a few species that can handle it. If I extend the gradient up to the year 2100 - that represents a 30% loss in biodiversity."


The oceans are thought to have absorbed up to half of the extra CO2 put into the atmosphere in the industrial age
This has lowered their pH by 0.1
pH is the measure of acidity and alkalinity
It ranges from pH 0 (very acidic) to pH 14 (very alkaline); 7 is neutral
Seawater is mildly alkaline with a "natural" pH of about 8.2
The IPCC forecasts that ocean pH will fall by "between 0.14 and 0.35 units over the 21st Century, adding to the present decrease of 0.1 units since pre-industrial times"

At the end of last year, Dr Hall-Spencer published his findings on one volcanic vent site off Ischia Island near Vesuvius. But at this meeting, he reported soon-to-be-published data gathered at other volcanic vents in Europe, Baja California and Papua New Guinea. They all show the same outcomes as at Ischia.

"What's strange is that we see some organisms really up-regulate their physiology to try to cope with conditions - they grow faster. But it's like us panting for oxygen at high altitude - they're struggling.

"And in the summer, when temperatures are high, these organisms that are struggling just die. And that's very problematic because of course carbon dioxide not only acidifies seawater, but it is increasing the temperature of the atmosphere. And those two things combined are a double whammy."

The world's oceans have already absorbed a third to a half of the CO2 produced by humans, principally by the burning of fossil fuels, over the past 200 years.

This has resulted in a reduction of the pH of seawater by 0.1 units on the 14-point scale. If emissions of CO2 continue to rise as forecast, there could be another drop in pH up to perhaps 0.4 units by 2100.

These are changes that are occurring far too fast for the oceans to correct naturally, said Dr Richard Feely with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa)

"Fifty-five million years ago when we had an event like this (and that took over 10,000 years to occur), it took the oceans over 125,000 years to recover, just to get the chemistry back to normal," he told BBC News.

"It took two to 10 million years for the organisms to re-evolve, to get back into a normal situation.

"So what we do over the next 100 years or 200 years can have implications for ocean ecosystems from tens of thousands to millions of years. That's the implication of what we're doing to the oceans right now."

[STEVE G]

WASHINGTON - Leaked documents from a prominent United States conservative think tank show how it sought to teach schoolchildren scepticism about global warming and planned other behind-the-scenes tactics using millions of dollars in donations from big corporate names.

More than US$14 million (S$17.6 million) of the money used by the Chicago-based Heartland Institute would come from one anonymous man, according to the leaked documents prepared for a meeting of the group's board.

Heartland is one of the loudest voices denying man-made global warming, hosting the largest international scientific conference of sceptics on climate change. Several of its documents were leaked this week to the news media, showing the planning and money behind its efforts.

Heartland said some of the documents were not accurate, but declined to be more specific.

As detailed in the papers, Heartland's plans for this year included paying an Energy Department consultant US$100,000 to design a curriculum to teach schoolchildren that mainstream global warming science is in dispute, even though it is a fact accepted by the US federal government and nearly every scientific professional organisation.

Five government and university climate scientists contacted said they were most disturbed by the school project, fearing the teaching would be more propaganda rooted in politics than peer-reviewed science.

Businesses and other interests often offer free curriculum materials to financially strapped schools, hoping that teachers will use them and help disseminate their views or promote their products.

The documents reveal that Heartland also pays prominent global warming sceptics more than US$300,000 a year and plans to raise US$88,000 to help a former television weatherman set up a new temperature records website.

The institute said in a statement that "the authenticity of those documents has not been confirmed".

However, no one the Associated Press contacted said the budget or fund-raising documents mentioning them were incorrect. AP
http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC120 ... change-war

[STEVE G]

"Funding for selected individuals outside of Heartland.
Our current budget includes funding for high-profile individuals who regularly and publicly counter the alarmist AGW message. At the moment, this funding goes primarily to Craig Idso ($11,600 per month), Fred Singer ($5,000 per month, plus expenses), Robert Carter ($1,667 per month), and a number of other individuals, but we will consider expanding it, if funding can be found."
http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.de ... rategy.pdf

[RoboCop]

I would like to know how many of you drive cars or ride bikes? How many of you live in houses burning power or live in tents? How many of you have saved an endangered species in threat of dying? How many of you would rather argue on the internet than actually go out and seek justice for those who need it? I'm a new member to this forum but I've got a wisdom to share to those who actually want to use it for a POSITIVE purpose...

[sargeant]

Nice to see Honolulu Jimmy is back and being banned ad nauseum