Forget Climategate: this ‘global warming’ scandal is much bigger

I can't believe people think there is still a debate. Let me make it clear...

It's a scientific fact that rising CO2 levels will increase temperature. It can be demonstrated in a lab. The debate is over.

Looking at past temperature data is not going to prove or disprove anything. The only reason scientists are looking at past temperature data is to build a model so we can better predict how fast or how slow the increase in temperature is going to be. It is NOT to prove if its going to happen or not (because its already proven that its going to happen).

Really, the debate ended long ago. Stop making these silly threads.

originally posted by: bbracken677
a reply to: mc_squared

The period you mention ended...you know what happened at the end, right?

50 million years ago was when the current ice age began.

The PETM did not slip into an ice age, it was followed by the Eocene Optimum, which was just as warm and lasted millions of years:



True it did peak around 50 million years ago, but here's what Wikipedia has to say about that part:

The transition from a warming climate into a cooling climate began at ~49 million years ago. Isotopes of carbon and oxygen indicate a shift to a global cooling climate. The cause of the cooling has been attributed to a significant decrease of >2000 ppm in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.

And before you chastise me for using Wikipedia, here's the source of that reference:

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over the past 60 million years

Yes, I am a geologist. Do you actually know what geologists do?

I am sure you published a wicked paper refuting your colleague's alarmist claims. Please link me to it and I will gladly read.

originally posted by: WeAre0ne
I can't believe people think there is still a debate. Let me make it clear...

It's a scientific fact that rising CO2 levels will increase temperature. It can be demonstrated in a lab.

You should read the whole thread - we actually covered this.

Apparently lab results don't count because they're not the real world (as if the same fundamental physics somehow change outside), and then when you produce the following real world data:





It doesn't count because the units on the x-axis are too confusing.


That's where the skeptics stand on this at least.

a reply to: mc_squared

I admit I didn't read the whole thread.

Tell me, what is the skeptic's reasoning behind CO2 acting different outside a lab? Do they think CO2 magically stops absorbing and emitting infrared radiation?

Or do they think the CO2 just magically disappears, and 1+1=1 and not 2.

a reply to: WeAre0ne

You'd have to ask them really Usually I find they just move the goal posts and change the subject somewhere along the following flow chart:

There is no warming -> There is warming but it's natural -> There is man made warming but it will be cancelled out by negative feedbacks -> There is warming but it's a good thing -> There is warming but there's nothing we can do about it anyway because China -> The data's all fake -> Look over there it's Al Gore in a private jet! -> It's not warming.

a reply to: PeterMcFly

Since a couple of years, the temperature have not rised a lot,

Not true at all. 14 of the warmest years on record have occurred in the last 15 years.

The odds of that being a 'natural' occurrence (i.e. not human caused) is 1/27,000,000. Yes: twenty seven million to one.

Why the increase in ice at the Antarctic?

The Antarctic is LOSING LAND ice. It is gaining SEA ice. We should be very worried about Antarctica losing land ice, because that is what will drive the rising sea level.

Is Antarctica losing or gaining ice?

Skeptic arguments that Antarctica is gaining ice frequently hinge on an error of omission, namely ignoring the difference between land ice and sea ice.

In glaciology and particularly with respect to Antarctic ice, not all things are created equal. Let us consider the following differences. Antarctic land ice is the ice which has accumulated over thousands of years on the Antarctica landmass itself through snowfall. This land ice therefore is actually stored ocean water that once fell as precipitation. Sea ice in Antarctica is quite different as it is ice which forms in salt water primarily during the winter months. When land ice melts and flows into the oceans global sea levels rise on average; when sea ice melts sea levels do not change measurably.

In Antarctica, sea ice grows quite extensively during winter but nearly completely melts away during the summer (Figure 1). That is where the important difference between Antarctic and Arctic sea ice exists as much of the Arctic's sea ice lasts all the year round. During the winter months it increases and before decreasing during the summer months, but an ice cover does in fact remain in the North which includes quite a bit of ice from previous years (Figure 1). Essentially Arctic sea ice is more important for the earth's energy balance because when it increasingly melts, more sunlight is absorbed by the oceans whereas Antarctic sea ice normally melts each summer leaving the earth's energy balance largely unchanged.

a reply to: PeterMcFly

So the warming cause cooling... Sorry but I don't buy that!

OK, first remember that 'warming' is a shorthand way of saying that 'energy is being retained in the system' - more energy means warmer. 'Warming' is a word that people can relate to.

Now, global warming refers to the GLOBAL AVERAGE temperature. It doesn't imply that the temperature never falls below freezing anywhere on Earth ever again (at least not in the near future), it says that the overall average temperature is rising. As already explained, warmer air means more water vapor in the air. Furthermore, if the average winter temperature in the Arctic rises from, say -20 degress centigrade to -15 degrees centigrade, water is still going to freeze. Winter storms will still come down from the Arctic and cause blizzards. Since there is more water in the atmosphere, the blizzards will be heavier. Since there is more energy in the system, the storms will be fiercer - low pressure areas will be lower, high pressure areas will be higher. Stronger storms reach higher into the atmosphere where there is colder air and brings it down to the surface (summer hurricanes in the tropics regularly have hail). So yes winter storms may well be colder and stronger.

And what about the increased albedo of this increased ice surface? Is it not a negative feedback?

Yes it is, however Antarctic sea ice completely melts before summer even begins and provides no benefit. See the discussion in the link in my post above.

a reply to: rnaa

So every other time the temps have gone up or down have been "natural" ?

Really now, I guess only in the here and now can it be UNNATURAL.

Let us know when the sea levels rise measurably so we can feel the fear, cause it has not risen anywhere I can see, and I work right on the ocean.

I am not arguing that things are changing, or that man can be contributing, but to the fact that you "Warmers" think you know exactly what is going on.

What utter garbage,
The only place that any excess water in the atmosphere can influence the global average temperature (whatever that is supposed to mean) is in the troposphere where according to the hypothesis ( not yet a theory that requires imperial evidence I.e. Not models) this increased water vapour provides a forcing factor to increase the energy retention ( you got something right at least) already increased by the higher level of carbon dioxide.
Now carbon dioxide increasing will increase the energy of a system this is basic physics, what the warmers don't like and hence have to introduce the forcing from water and clouds ( which aren't handled well by the models btw) is that the relationship is logarithmic NOT linear. We have already had 0.8 degrees in the past 150 years so another doubling will produce not much more .ie. the more carbon dioxide the less warming each doubling produces NOT more ......this is again simple physics and not in dispute.

Now if we follow that part go look for the tropospheric hotspot produced by this increased water vapour which according to the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming must be there to produce the warming. Kevin Trenberth an IPCC lead author tried and NASA even launched satellites they were convinced would find it.....NADA ZILCH NICHTS RIEN, it's simply not there.

So when the hypothesis is not matched by reality what do they do, change the name to global climate disruption which doesn't require tropospheric hot spots, unfortunately for them the latest IPCC document doesn't support that either wg. 1 and wg3 said so. The summary for policy makers said so but that is written by green politicians and WWF and green peace and not the scientists , hence everyone reads that and not the science. The science of the IPCC is good the policy is rubbish and the connection is entirely political and not driven by a crushing end to save the planet from uncontrolled carbon dioxide liberation, which without water vapour amplification ( they can't tax clouds guys) is simply not a threat to anyone..... Don't believe me go read the report , NOT the summary the whole report....

The goal of the profiteers when it comes to Global warming is one and only one.

Read my lips They don't give a crap about global warming, the next ice age, (that one will come before the global warming) pollution, population or the littler children and animals

They only care about how to concoct another scheme to involved the entire financial world system to create a Ponzi scam for the benefit of the Banking system.

People needs to stop fighting about who is right or wrong.

Earth will do what has done for millennia and we can not stop it no matter what the scammers say we either survive or die, plain and simple just like species before us.

But those behind the financial scam of global warming will reap the financial benefits for the time being.

The rest are nothing but suckers.

originally posted by: marg6043
The goal of the profiteers when it comes to Global warming is one and only one.

Read my lips They don't give a crap about global warming, the next ice age, (that one will come before the global warming) pollution, population or the littler children and animals

They only care about how to concoct another scheme to involved the entire financial world system to create a Ponzi scam for the benefit of the Banking system.

Where is the evidence for this extraordinary claim and libel?

How is that going to work? Get a physics or geology undergraduate, get excellent grades, work hard, get into top graduate schools, work your ass off for $28,000 a year for 5-7 years, assuming you're even a standout in grad school and get into a lab with excellent funding. Then you work really tough, and spend many late nights on your computer trying to figure out why your code is failing, and then try to write a couple of papers, go to conferences (if you're lucky) on shared accommodations and pay for food yourself and put up a poster that you hope somebody important will think is really awesome. Then slave for 1.5 years with a huge thesis around your neck, and then squash it through. You haven't been laid in two years. Half of you give up right here, and then the other half get a postdoc. You fly out somewhere you aren't fond of (not many choices) and live in a efficiency apartment and spend your days going back and forth into the lab and doing the same stuff, except now you have to think up groundbreaking new experiments and theories on your own, and start to write grant applications (less than 7% success rate, 1% for newbies like you in your position). Then you get really serious and if you haven't had a breakdown and you're a genius, you even get a paper in _Nature_, for which you did most of the work and the idea, and the senior author (head of the lab/department) is interviewed by the BBC. Now, you're qualified for your next postdoc! Repeat the move. Many more late nights, some more papers, and maybe an ocean trip on a research vessel. Wrangling satellite data which is corrupted. Blah. And if you haven't given up here, after two more years you can try to apply for an assistant faculty position! Yay, you're only one of 150 applicants, all of whom have postdocs and degrees from great schools, and you're facing worldwide competition. Success, you get a job at some moderate size school! Repeat everything above, plus add all your supervisory work, and your teaching load, and even higher pressure to get grants!

And somebody imagines that all the while, you and everybody else has been FAKING data and theory on absolutely everything, just so some hypothetical SOMEBODY ELSE, SOMETIME IN THE INDEFINITE FUTURE, is going to start up a financial scam, AND PAY YOU NOTHING.

Wow, that sounds like a truly awesome life plan!

Thousands must have signed up for it, and it's so compelling that the 95% of scientists who are thrown out on the meantime, none of them ever has any evidence of this massive cheating and fakery which is supposedly pervasive, all motivated for these future scammers.

By the way, cap and trade for sulfur emissions credit was extremely successful in the USA and viewed as a good free-market oriented solution to collective pollution problems.

Global regulation on emissions was also quite successful to reduce the threat of the ozone hole expanding over Antarctica.

originally posted by: bbracken677

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: bbracken677

Given that in past interglacial periods carbon has risen along with temperature, and yet we are led to believe that ALL the increase since industrialization is attributable to man.

The vast majority, yes. But lets say you're right. Let's say that CO2 levels are rising because temperatures are rising. What's causing temperatures to rise? Is the Sun getting hotter? How much?

I have much respect to you, Phage, based on numerous other posts, but this is just plain disappointing.
It is a given that as temperatures rise, co2 levels also rise due to our oceans storing co2 when cooling and then releasing co2 when warming. This is not an hypothesis, this is a fact. Quite verifiable.

Indeed it is verifiable. Quite verifiable. And if you actually measure what's happening NOW, you find

* Oceans are warming
* Oceans are storing MORE, not less, CO2

These are the actual current facts. What's up with that? Oh, there is something missing in your model, namely the large emission of CO2 from previously sequestered fossil sources by human activity!

So the fact that oceans are warming and the effect that has on solubility of carbon (if we take your hypothesis) means that in the future, global warming will be even worse because the absorption rate of CO2 into the oceans will slow down with increasing water temperature, and therefore more of the emissions will be adding to the atmosphere at an even faster rate (to add on top of the continuing increase in emission RATE, not just concentration!) will be in the atmosphere to increase the greenhouse effect at an ever higher pace.


The scientists who do this for a living for many decades haven't overlooked anything stupid. There's some delusion that otherwise smart people have that there is some "gotcha"---- "One weird trick oceanographers hate!" --- that they, genius in service to the world, has figured out that all of the scientists never thought of or tested.

It just ain't so.

(When in fact these are usually ideas which have been checked and refuted decades ago)

originally posted by: Deharg
What utter garbage,
The only place that any excess water in the atmosphere can influence the global average temperature (whatever that is supposed to mean) is in the troposphere where according to the hypothesis ( not yet a theory that requires imperial evidence I.e. Not models) this increased water vapour provides a forcing factor to increase the energy retention ( you got something right at least) already increased by the higher level of carbon dioxide.
Now carbon dioxide increasing will increase the energy of a system this is basic physics, what the warmers don't like and hence have to introduce the forcing from water and clouds ( which aren't handled well by the models btw) is that the relationship is logarithmic NOT linear. We have already had 0.8 degrees in the past 150 years so another doubling will produce not much more .ie. the more carbon dioxide the less warming each doubling produces NOT more ......this is again simple physics and not in dispute.

Yes, it's not a doubling of the total greenhouse effect, but it's still quite significant enough, and the people who do this for a living know the driving force with concentration at current conditions very well, and it is exactly measured by satellites.

The known physics of CO2 has been in the forecasts for many decades, and was the obvious part to start in the beginning of this research 5 decades ago.

a reply to: mbkennel

Dude, seriously?

What holds more gas, a hot ocean or a cold ocean? Look it up, do not take my word for it. Check the science.


As oceans warm, they release co2 that is stored in them. This is not my hypothesis, this is simple physics.

Here is a link that addresses those properties:

Almost exactly half of the carbon dioxide put into the air by our burning of fossil fuels is absorbed by the ocean. Carbon dioxide dissolves in cold water near the Arctic and Antarctic. When the cold water sinks deep into the ocean in winter, it carries the carbon dioxide away from the atmosphere. Many years later, the water is gradually pulled closer to the sea surface by mixing in the ocean. When it gets to the surface in warm areas it releases the carbon dioxide back to the air. This process allows the ocean to store great quantities of carbon dioxide for many centuries. We call this the physical pump that takes carbon dioxide out of the air.

oceans co2


Oh, and I am not missing anything ... several times in this thread I have posted man's contribution of 37-40 billion tons of atmospheric carbon a year. I have also referenced natural sources of atmospheric co2 at 770 billion tons a year. I fail to see your point unless you just missed those posts....

If you look at periods of glaciation vs interglacial periods one quite noticeable detail is the consistent increase in atmospheric co2 during interglacial periods until global cooling sets in, at which point co2 levels begin to decrease. In every case temperature changes at the boundaries lead the co2 changes by 800-1400 years. In other words, when global warming sets in at the end of glaciation, temperatures rise, and THEN co2 begins to rise a few hundred or a thousand years later. When global cooling sets in, at the end of glaciation, co2 levels begin to drop, 800-1400 years after temperatures begin to drop.

This is due to warming and cooling of the oceans and their overall ability to store co2. Temperature is not the only factor, of course. Atmospheric levels of co2 will, of course, affect the uptake.

Then there is the biomass... it also stores co2, in the ocean as well as on land. The more co2 available the more the biomass will grow and use/store more. Phytoplankton plays a huge part in this.

a reply to: bbracken677

Dude, you know there’s simple data out there that shows the warming oceans are taking in more CO2 right?


www.pmel.noaa.gov...


It’s common knowledge that the world’s seawater currently acts as an overall carbon sink. Your own link even has a handy graphic in another chapter that breaks down the overall flux, and then says this –

Thus burning of fossil fuels is a source of CO2 and the ocean is a sink of CO2.

Yet your logic is so oversimplified, circular and backwards at the same time. “Warming oceans release CO2, therefore increasing CO2 must be a result of warming oceans”. What you ignore (even though you actually mentioned it yourself except only in passing) is that the overall flux depends on relative concentration to begin with.

Equilibrium dictates that warming oceans will not act as a carbon source if the atmosphere is already oversaturated relative to the ocean. So meanwhile back over here in the real world:

Today, the average pCO2 of the atmosphere is ~7 ppm higher than the global ocean pCO2. This small air–sea difference, when spread across the entire surface of the ocean, is sufficient to account for the oceanic uptake of anthropogenic CO2.

Source

The whole concern with a warming ocean though is that, as it continues to warm, its ability to act as a strong sink mitigating anthropogenic CO2 will dampen. The Ocean’s Carbon Balance:

However, as water temperature increases, its ability dissolve CO2 decreases. Global warming is expected to reduce the ocean’s ability to absorb CO2, leaving more in the atmosphere…which will lead to even higher temperatures.

aka a Positive Feedback.

It’s amazing though how much you continue to dismiss these fundamental facts and just plain common sense with the wave of a hand, but then insist on lecturing everyone here with primitive concepts that the rest of us are already way past.

a reply to: mbkennel

Whoops sorry - I should've read your whole post and realized you already addressed much of this before I posted my own response above. Oh well, you can lead a climate skeptic to water, but you can't make him face the fact there's more CO2 in there now than there was before I guess...

Also:

There's some delusion that otherwise smart people have that there is some "gotcha"---- "One weird trick oceanographers hate!" --- that they, genius in service to the world, has figured out that all of the scientists never thought of or tested.

Therein lies the rub. I have found this in virtually all my debates with so-called skeptics. It's all about ego. They are not at all interested in honestly questioning the science for the sake of truth or integrity. They are simply interested in convincing themselves they're smarter than the scientific establishment, and so the entire internet may bow down in awe of their unrecognized genius.

a reply to: grey580

My favorite trick of the climate scammers is when they put their "registered"
thermostats near heat shedding devices like AC units and incinerators.

Climategate 2.0

originally posted by: Entreri06

You couldn't get 97% of the worlds scientific community to lie..... It's a math issue really. Co2 holds more heat then O2 or nitrogen. So more CO2= more heat. Every year has gotten hotter then the last. It's insane to think adding elements to our planets "system" won't have an effect.

It's crazy to think all the worlds science communities are in a vast conspiracy to pass a carbon tax in America...

Now saying that a carbon tax won't help and will be squandered and stolen is 100% fair probubally 100% accurate!!!

But that doesn't change the math.... Nor does it change the massive conspiracy it would take to fool 97% of the worlds scientists.

We Americans always think we are so special. Aka all the worlds media outlets are in a massive conspiracy to discredit American conservatism and Fox News... It's laughable.

The 97% of scientists bit is a lie itself.

Some of the people listed as scientists are not scientists, and
there has been plenty to come forward and state clearly what is
actually going on.

This is a disinformation campaign that is being waged by multiple
nations, and there is plenty of information from the hacked emails
to show they are altering the data and lying their backsides off.

Great Global Warming Swindle

a reply to: ParasuvO

So every other time the temps have gone up or down have been "natural" ?

Please show me where to look for a period when the temps or CO2 have gone up (or down) that much in, say, a 50 year time span and I'll try to find out whether it was mostly human caused or mostly natural caused.

These might help you understand the difference between man-caused and natural:

How do human CO2 emissions compare to natural CO2 emissions?

How do we know that recent CO2 increases are due to human activities?

a reply to: mbkennel

Sugar I was born in the 60s, already went to school and college and raised two children, yes I lived during the Ace age scaremongeringthat one didn't stick for the profiteers, obviously telling people that they are going to died of heat and pollution is sticking better.

When you get older and look back to what goes around you like I have now, you will understand how profiteers and scammers duped good hard working people like you.