Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

The percentage of big storms in the North Atlantic has increased from 20 percent to 25 percent. The rise is much worse in the rest of the world, where millions of less fortunate people cannot flee the coast in SUVs on interstate roads.

Quote:

What caused the percentage of Level 4 and 5 hurricanes on earth to increase over the last 30 years?

Hypothesis: Global Warming

Incorrect hypothesis. The real hypothesis is:

Climate instability.

The problem isn't the rise in temperature as much as it is mucking with the weather patterns.

Cycloptichorn

Cyclo,

The climate of the various continents, indceed their very locations with respect to the planet's axis and equator, and the axis of the planet's magnetic field have never been stable - all this based on remarkably consistent findings in the geologic record. The variability of climate is greater than that due to continental drift - there are traces of at least three distinct ice ages in North America - since it was North America.

No one can deny the accumulation oif greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, or that they contribute to atmospheric warming. However it is far too early to forecast the ultimate effect even on the carbon cycle, much less the earth's climate, given all the other far more potent change factors also operating. The weight of the evidence does indeed suggest some very slight warming over the last century, however it is not clear either that it will continue or that it will have any net adverse consequences.

Steve (as 41oo) wrote:

religious certainty is what it is not George

... religious certainty is certainly what it is Steve.

Your devoted adherence to the truth of hypothesis upon hypothesis based on nothing more than the your opinion, and/or the opinions of others, is characteristic of devotion to strictly faithbased doctrines and systems of belief. Evidence to support my claim is provided by you, Steve, each and every time you claim something to be true without providing or having had provided some examples and evidence of its truth (e.g., your above post of your hypothesis absent examples and evidence).

Quote:

www.m-w.com
Main Entry: re·li·gion
Pronunciation: ri-'li-j&n

Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English religioun, from Latin religion-, religio supernatural constraint, sanction, religious practice, perhaps from religare to restrain, tie back -- more at RELY
1 a : the state of a religious <a nun in her 20th year of religion> b (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
2 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
3 archaic : scrupulous conformity : CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
- re·li·gion·less adjective

What caused the percentage of Level 4 and 5 hurricanes on Earth to increase over the last 30 years?

Hypothesis: Global Warming

What is causing Global Warming?

Hypotheses:
1. Increase in the sun's radiation that reaches Earth's surface.
2. Increase in the CO2 in the atmosphere.

What is causing the increase in the sun's radiation that reaches Earth's surface?

What is causing the increase in the CO2 in the atmosphere?

Dilemma: Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere increases the percentage of the sun's radiation that is deflected by the atmosphere away from Earth's surface; increasing CO2 in the atmosphere increases the percentage of the heat radiated from Earth's surface that is deflected back to Earth's surface.

Why are the polar ice caps on Mars melting?

Hypothesis: Increase in the sun's radiation that reaches Mars's surface.

What is causing the increase in the sun's radiation that reaches Mar's surface?

Like Earth, Mars has seasons that cause its polar caps to wax and wane. "It's late spring at the south pole of Mars," says planetary scientist Dave Smith of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "The polar cap is receding because the springtime sun is shining on it."

ican711nm wrote:

...
Dilemma: Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere increases the percentage of the sun's radiation that is deflected by the atmosphere away from Earth's surface; increasing CO2 in the atmosphere increases the percentage of the heat radiated from Earth's surface that is deflected back to Earth's surface.

Why are the polar ice caps on Mars melting?

...

Considering CO2 is a greenhouse gas it doesn't REFLECT the sun's radiation back into space. When you start with something that is so obviously wrong scientifically it punches holes in your entire argument.

www.gcrio.org/CONSEQUENCES/winter96/sunclimate.html
[boldface added by ican]

The Sun and Climate
by Judith Lean and David Rind
...
In global average, increases in greenhouse gas concentrations or in solar radiation bring warmer surface temperatures since they add energy to the climate system. In contrast, increased industrial and volcanic aerosols restrict the penetration of solar radiation to the Earth's surface and lead to surface cooling. A drop in the concentration of ozone in the lower stratosphere should also produce a net cooling at the surface. Changes in albedo that increase the planet's reflectivity will lead to cooling, and those that make it less reflective and more absorbing, to a temperature rise.
...
The Earth receives most of its direct heat from the visible and near- infrared spectrum of sunlight, retaining about 70 percent of what pours down on its day-lit hemisphere. The rest is returned, by reflection, back into the cold of space. A part of what the ground and oceans and lower atmosphere absorb also leaks outward through the atmosphere in the form of infrared radiation. The remaining fraction--trapped in part by greenhouse gases--sustains the habitable environment to which we are accustomed. Any variation in total radiation from the Sun will force an accompanying change in mean-surface temperature.
...

As for your Mars argument..

Quote:

Like Earth, Mars has seasons that cause its polar caps to wax and wane. "It's late spring at the south pole of Mars," says planetary scientist Dave Smith of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "The polar cap is receding because the springtime sun is shining on it."

Blair falls into line with Bush view on global warming

By Geoffrey Lean and Christopher Silvester

Published: 25 September 2005


Tony Blair has admitted that he is changing his views on combating global warming to mirror those of President Bush - and oppose negotiating international treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol.

His admission, which has outraged environmentalists on both sides of the Atlantic, flies in the face of his promises made in the past two years and undermines the agreement he masterminded at this summer's Gleneagles Summit. And it endangers talks that opened in Ottawa this weekend on a new treaty to combat climate change.

The U-turn will inevitably bring accusations that he has, once again, sold out to Mr Bush, just at the time that the US President is coming under unprecedented pressure to change his policy in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Last week the UK Government's chief scientific advisor, Sir David King, said that global warming might have increased their severity.

Over the past two years Mr Blair has consistently claimed global leadership in tackling what he described as "long term, the single most important issue we face as a global community" and has stressed that it "can only properly be addressed through international agreements". President Bush repeatedly expressed anger at his position.
Sharing a platform with the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, in New York this month, Mr Blair confessed: "Probably I'm changing my thinking about this", adding that he hoped the world's nations would "not negotiate international treaties".

This contradicts his assertion in a speech a year ago - which drew a private rebuke from the Bush administration - that "a problem that is global in cause and scope can only be fully addressed through international agreement".

It also denies what his ministers claimed to be his main achievement on global warming at Gleneagles. He had succeeded in getting all the leaders except Mr Bush to sign up to negotiating a successor to the Kyoto treaty, and in arranging a meeting between the G8 and leading developing countries to discuss it.

But instead of endorsing agreed limits on the pollution that causes climate change, Mr Blair told this month's meeting at the Clinton Global Initiative that he was putting his faith in "developing science and technology" - precisely Mr Bush's position.

He justified his change of heart by saying that countries would not negotiate environmental treaties that cut their growth or consumption - another of the President's main contentions. But in another speech last April he said it was "quite false" to suppose that environmental protection would inhibit growth.

Last night, Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth, called the Prime Minister's volte-face "unbelievable": "Having failed to practise what he preaches, he is now changing his preaching to match his practice."

Thomas, It would seem to me that trying to help third world countries become more productive negates any savings in energy use, but does exactly the opposite. More wealth means the use of more energy.

blatham wrote:

George, we've all noticed, uses 'special interests' as the typical modern american rightwing derogation. That is, his usage of the derogation includes, for example, all women, all folks who do not share his notions of proper christian theology, folks who don't share the burden of being white, etc. The Petro Chemical Industry, however, isn't a 'special interest', it is something else, perhaps a natural and infallible thing growing inevitably out of god's thigh, like the pope.

You must have been reading posts from a different George than I have. From the posts by the George I have read, I got away with a different impression. He does appear to think that NOW, NAACP, and PfAW are entitled to no more respect than lobbyists for the petrochemical industry are. He also doesn't seem to buy into their ever-present insinuation that they embody all women, all blacks, and civil rights respectively. I agree with George on both points. Blatham, whom I consider a friend, refuses to make that distinction, in chorus with too many other. I am losing patience with the blind ideological and partisan stupidness which this shows.

I would return the rest of blatham's compliment too, but I'll save myself the typing and my readers the bother of re-reading this particular compliment.

roger wrote:

I think it was, McTag. The storms are either consistant, or at least, not inconsistant, with global warming.

The wording in the paper is "not inconsistent", which is a fairly weak wording. If you read the paper itself, you will notice how guarded and cautious the overall tone is.

Quote:

We deliberately limited this study to the satellite era because of the known biases before this period (28), which means that a comprehensive analysis of longer-period oscillations and rends has not been attempted. There is evidence of a minimum of intense cyclones occurring in the 1970s (11), which could indicate that our observed trend toward more intense cyclones is a reflection of a long-period oscillation. However, the sustained increase over a period of 30 years in the proportion of category 4 and 5 hurricanes indicates that the related oscillation would have to be on a period substantially longer than that observed in previous studies.

We conclude that global data indicate a 30- year trend toward more frequent and intensehurricanes, corroborated by the results of the recent regional assessment (29). This trend is not inconsistent with recent climate model simulations that a doubling of CO2 may increase the frequency of the most intense cyclones (18, 30), although attribution of the 30-year trends to global warming would require a longer global data record and, especially, a deeper understanding of the role of hurricanes in the general circulation of the atmosphere and ocean, even in the present climate state.

Source (PDF)

Language as weak and guarded as this leaves plenty of room for George and myself to be unpersuaded, and for the last three American presidents' official position that "we don't really know enough yet to draw policy conclusions." I really see no need to ascribe religious or malicious partisanship motives to global warming doves like us. Claims as cautious as the article's are consistent with our view too. But some people confidently assert that their conclusions from the article is the only one that's plausible and intellectually honest. And I do see a lot of zeal in that insistence. Call it ideological, call it religious -- a rose by any other name ...

Sigh...how do I get you to read some books on my shelf rather than yours? You are allowed the equal sigh on your side of the conversation.

What the hell do you expect me to do?