CONFIRMED: Global Warming 'Ended 15 Years Ago'

reply to post by agentedapixota


Can you specify what has changed between the species living then and the species living now? I can. Insects were larger and more abundant, owing to the warmer temperatures and the oxygen enrichment in the atmosphere. Otherwise, they were the same basic bugs we have now - cockroaches, spiders, scorpions, etc, all present even way back then, and nearly all having survived into the present day.

Most of the plants were the same as we have now, but again larger in many cases, and without the degree of biodiversity we have now owing to the speciation and radiation that has gone on in the intervening time. Lycopods? Check - they just grew to arborescent proportions back them. Sphenophytes? Check and ditto. Ferns? Yup. There was an astounding diversity of ferns - from trees to lianas to ground cover, and all the permutation in between,

Amphibians, rudimentary reptiles, fish, jellyfish - everything we have now except for mammals, which had not yet sprung from the reptiles. Out of all of that, the only things I can think of that went extinct are things like trilobites and seed-bearing ferns. There is no reason to think, from a biological standpoint, that an increase in CO2 and O2 would make extinctions happen - but there IS reason to believe that decreases would - it's happened before, for individual species. The mass extinctions of the past don't appear to correlate with the atmospheric CO2 levels - they appear instead to be cyclic and sudden.

If we burned every bit of fossil fuel we could find, all at once, we could still never approach the CO2 levels present in that lush environment, because a lot of it has been locked up in carbonate rocks, which don't burn very well. The fossil fuels would likely never re-enter the cycle without us burning them - they come from deep within the Earth, and don't walk back out into the light on their own.

More water? Of course. More FRESH water, as well as salt, but the salt would likely be more dilute due to the influx of fresh from the melting glaciers and ice caps - I don't know of anything that would introduce more salt to correct that. You understand how the hydrological cycle works I presume - higher temperatures evaporate more water into the atmosphere, which in turn condenses back out as rain, and the cycle repeats. Melting the glaciers and ice caps introduces more water into that cycle, and the temperatures drive the cycle harder. Sea levels would naturally rise, which in turn provides more surface area for evaporation.

The haline cycle in oceanic currents night be problematic for a while, but with sufficuent temperature increases, that can be overcome, and a new ice age wouldn't come dragging it's knuckles into the room.

Honestly, however, I'm pretty certain that mankind will never be able to burn enough carbon to get us back there - we would probably have to import carbon from space in order to replace the carbon in the cycle that is locked into carbonate rocks.

In conclusion, the plants and animals were pretty much the same as we have now, but with bigger size and lower diversity. They made up for those deficiencies by abundance brought on by atmospheric conditions - the same atmospheric conditions that people are trying to quash now. I'm just not seeing the down side to increased abundance - of water, of life, etc., but this is what the alarmists are trying to put a stop to. It makes me wonder if they have stock in Monsanto or something.

reply to post by ArMaP


Not too much more! Else we'll end up with a HUGE bug problem!

Carboniferous Period

O2 was like at 32 percent then. Makes bugs get big.

Originally posted by ClydeFrog42
reply to post by mbkennel

 

So... you dont believe that emissions from a volcano contribute to the atmosphere? You dont believe in methane leaks on the ocean floor, the natural & self-regulating CO2 sink that is 80% of the earths surface? You dont believe that the trees breathe CO2?

Yes, emissions from a volcano contribute to the atmosphere and these have been measured and quantified and in the modern period they are insignificant next to human emissions.

The carbon cycle is of course extremely important. And climatologists have been aware of this for many decades and investigate all sorts of aspects of it in tremendous detail and depth. You think that they haven't ever heard of carbon cycles and volcanoes?

There is an incorrect perception among many that the current scenario is just something drawn on a napkin and that the scientists in the field just somehow forgot to check any number of a zillion "obvious" things that a random snarky blogger figured out and "gotchaed".

In any other field of science this notion would be considered to be plainly idiotic, and yet for climatology it persists among too many.

(Of course the target of the more manipulative snarky bloggers isn't in fixing science, it's in convincing other naive poeple who make ignorant snap-judgements and giving them a reassuring and simple hook to hang their prejudices on. And who benefits from that?)

In terms of volcanoes and carbon cycle, you need only look at the singl e most important data set in this whole thing and just think a few moments about the implications.

en.wikipedia.org...

a) look at y-axis. ppm going from 315 to 385 in 50 years, so the change is signifcant in a planetary scale

b) look at slope, increasing (shallowly but it's going) quadratically up

c) look at the yearly variations, these are from the carbon cycle of plants growing in summer and dying in winter, combined with the fact that the Northern Hemisphere has more land than the Southern. That's a HUGE amount of carbon--the whole planet's biosphere is involved! And yet the size of the fluctuations is worth only a few *years* of the secular increase, meaning that human's change from fossil fuels is really big. (not shown, isotopic data which proves the increase is from fossil fuel)

d) look at what isn't there: signfiicant point spikes from volcanic emissions, which you would expect to occur in a Poisson process in time distribution, because eruptions are distributed randomly with power law sizes. When were big volcanoes, Mt St Helens, Pinatubo, Iceland.... do you see any spikes during those years? I don't.

So, conclusion from just three minutes of thought and looking at actual data is that the increase is significant next to background and even the yearly biosphere cycle and volcanoes are not large compared to the increase from humans. (By the way, if you add up all the known fossil fuel being burnt, the amount of carbon is even more than what we see in the atmosphere, much of the rest is going into the ocean, causing acidification, but the ocean's capacity to absorb more is declining so even with constant emissions per year the amount will go up, and there are in fact increasing emissions per year and maybe even an increasing rate of emission increase, actual emissions were larger than IPCC "worst case" scenarios)

Now, consider that actual scientists have been working on this for many decades and there are thousands of data sets and analyses looking at all sorts of deep issues.

I personally believe that understanding that one data set ought to be knowledge that every educated citizen should have.

But, you believe "tens of thousands of peer reviewed articles" that condemn human emissions?

Yes.

despite the lobby's and industries that fund most of that (widely inconclusive) research?

Virtually no lobbies or industries fund the basic scientific research which has occurred over 50 years which has lead to the current conclusion. Roger Revelle was funded by the US Navy (as with lots of other basic oceanographic researchers). It is nearly all 100% government money which is how all basic research has been funded on every scientific topic since 1945. The government does not have an interest in particular in being "pro" global warming and I am "pro" global warming as much as a microbiologist is "pro-anthrax". I believe in dealing with actual scientific reality of atoms and electromagnetism.

There are lobbies and industries which fund the denialist propaganda movement which has started in the USA about 15 years ago.

I've never heard of a Chinese solar company giving any substantial money to a climate research program.

And i assume you have read those tens of thousands of peer reviewed articles, for you to be pointing to them as evidence?

Hook, line... sinker?

No, but I have read some of them. They require some education to understand (I do have a PhD in physics but climatology is not my field). I have read the IPCC WG1 report. In particular, on the web, www.realclimate.org has generally the most accurate popularization (though it still takes some knowledge to fully understand). Please look at the index, and spend a few weeks to read if you really care.

reply to post by chrismicha77


I saw this on the news a couple of days ago except that scientist said it's been 10 years since global warming. The interviewer brought up the same facts you did and he wrote it off as normal temperature change, but who knows...

reply to post by Alien Abduct


Interesting graph. has anyone come up with an explanation for where the extra carbon came from that has never been in the cycle before in order to produce that alleged spike? if they can't come up with a source for the carbon, I'd be inclined to think the spike is an artifact. They can't claim it came from fossil fuels, because that carbon has been in the cycle before, without producing such a spike, so where did it come from?

ETA: Looking at the graph some more, I see that ALL of the CO2 spikes rose abruptly, in a cycle with an average length of 82 million years peak to peak, then gradually tapered back down, only to spike again abruptly. I wonder what caused those abrupt spikes before the invention of the SUV and the advent of mankind - or even mammals?

Originally posted by dAce24
reply to post by TrueAmerican

 

Well then,
I'm assuming ManBearPig isn't real either lol.

Oh he's real...very real
I love South Park. Nothing like a show that hates on everybody equally

Originally posted by ArMaP

Originally posted by nenothtu
people ought to worry more about the oxygen production, because of the fires.

Is there any excessive O2 production? If there isn't any we don't have any reason to worry.

To me, an asthmatic, I little more O2 in the atmosphere would be nice.

I personally think more O2 would be GREAT, bur we seem to be in the minority. Sure, it's a corrosive, and in too high a concentration over time will kill you dead, but half again as much as we have now would be a good thing, I would think.

The excessive O2 comes when the excessive CO2 stimulates plant production.

Originally posted by nenothtu
Sure, it's a corrosive, and in too high a concentration over time will kill you dead, but half again as much as we have now would be a good thing, I would think.

Breathing O2 as I did once in the hospital gives some unexpected side effects, with some pains like those we get when we have the flu.

The excessive O2 comes when the excessive CO2 stimulates plant production.

But are the plants really producing more O2? As far as I see it, they are not doing extra work, as they have the same hours of sunlight they had before and have no reason to accelerate their production of O2.

Originally posted by ArMaP
Breathing O2 as I did once in the hospital gives some unexpected side effects, with some pains like those we get when we have the flu.

Being a corrosive, one would expect that, I suppose. I won't go into the whole "O2 causes rust" spiel, because I know you're pretty sharp, and likely already know that - and that burning stuff is just more rapid corrosion, and exploding stuff is just VERY rapid corrosion via really fast oxidization.

The excessive O2 comes when the excessive CO2 stimulates plant production.

But are the plants really producing more O2? As far as I see it, they are not doing extra work, as they have the same hours of sunlight they had before and have no reason to accelerate their production of O2.

No, not on an individual basis they aren't doing more work per hour or anything like that. The extra CO2 promotes production of more plants - or allows for it if you prefer - so that there are more individuals to do the work, resulting in a net gain of O2 production. At least that's how the theory goes to explain the overabundance of plants and oxygen in the days of the Carboniferous when carbon dioxide was also at astronomical levels as compared to the relative dearth in the modern world.

Originally posted by nenothtu
At least that's how the theory goes to explain the overabundance of plants and oxygen in the days of the Carboniferous when carbon dioxide was also at astronomical levels as compared to the relative dearth in the modern world.

But we are getting less and less plants all over the world, so I don't see how that can happen.

Originally posted by nenothtu
reply to post by Alien Abduct

 

Interesting graph. has anyone come up with an explanation for where the extra carbon came from that has never been in the cycle before in order to produce that alleged spike? if they can't come up with a source for the carbon, I'd be inclined to think the spike is an artifact. They can't claim it came from fossil fuels, because that carbon has been in the cycle before, without producing such a spike, so where did it come from?

ETA: Looking at the graph some more, I see that ALL of the CO2 spikes rose abruptly, in a cycle with an average length of 82 million years peak to peak, then gradually tapered back down, only to spike again abruptly. I wonder what caused those abrupt spikes before the invention of the SUV and the advent of mankind - or even mammals?

I'm glad to see someone else paid attention to Alien Abduct's graph and questioned it. I can somewhat answer you're query regarding how much of that spike is anthropogenic...

How science determines the difference of what's manmade CO2 and what's natural:

They measure the C13/C12 isotope ratios in atmospheric CO2. The difference of naturally occurring C13/12 isotope ratios and manmade C13/12 isotope ratios is 2.6% (manmade being 2.6% less C13). So based on those ratio differences, climatologists estimate that roughly 3% of the CO2 in our atmosphere is manmade and the remaining 97% is naturally occurring.

Thus, theoretically speaking, Alien Abduct's big ol' spike showing graph would then represent 3% of it being from man, while the remaining 97% of that spike would then, obviously, have to be naturally occurring if we are to go by what science is telling us about the isotope ratios to date.

So it's yet just another graph being misrepresented by the climatologists for the sake of dramatics and sensationalism... They show this graph, but forget to add in how much of that spike is anthropogenic and how much is natural.

Such is the standard modus operandi of this so-called "open and honest science".

Glad you all are having a good yuck about how the earth's climate is not changing. The overall scientific consensus regarding climate change has not wavered for the past 15 years. The decade of the 90's was the hottest recorded, a record only to be beaten by the the last decade. No ones is 100% sure if its all man-made or all natural or if we can do a damn thing about it - but one thing is for sure - its happening.

There is a 97-98% consensus in the climate scientific community that climate change is real and is caused in large part by humans. I think I'll listen to the experts over a tabloid from the UK.

Most of my experiences over the last decade just confirm what was predicted. Increased precipitation - anyone remember when the Missouri river flooded (from massive rain and snowfall) and entire towns were leveled last year? Or the fact that record high temps have been hit for a number of years out of the last decade.

The dead give away on this issue, aside from nearly 100% consensus in the climate scientific community (Just under 90% of scientists overall) which is pretty rare, is that energy lobbyists and industry advocates for free market think tanks are the ones behind all the reports on climate change denial and they generally have no basis in fact at all. Take this tabloid article linked for this thread for example - it is just factually incorrect in stating that 1997 was the end of rising world temperatures. Did anyone even bother to look at Met Office's web site before yelling that climate change is clearly a hoax based on a single article written by a tabloid?

www.metoffice.gov.uk...

The first line of the article which is titled "Decline in solar output unlikely to offset global warming"

New research has found that solar output is likely to reduce over the next 90 years but that will not substantially delay expected increases in global temperatures caused by greenhouse gases.

Looking just a little bit further we see

'greenhouse gases are the glaringly obvious explanation' for 0.56C (1F) warming over the last 50 years. “Despite the fact people say global warming has stopped, the new data, added onto existing data, gives us the greatest evidence we have ever had,”

The number one factor on if someone "believes" in climate change or not - is political affiliation.

Yup, political party is the key factor that determines "belief" in a proven science. Disgusting that people can't think and look at data for themselves. We are living in an age of ignorance.

Originally posted by JAY1980
After reading this thread I fully believe humanity as a whole isn't intelligent or advanced enough to make any solid conclusion on whats going on with the enviornment.

Humanity as a whole? No. Scientists who study the environment? YES, they are absolutely intelligent/advanced enough.

I imagine the whole earth being flat vs round debate was very similar to this one. I tend to believe that the sun has alot more effect on climate than our CO2 emissions. But do believe our CO2 emissions have an effect, now if it's big or small thats the real question.

Yes, those who know (via ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE) that the Earth is round are similar to those who know that AGW is absolutely real. Those who believe that the world is flat are exactly like deniers- making up their own bogus science to falsely legitimize what they want to believe.

The sun is CENTRAL to climate, HOWEVER, CO2 is CENTRAL to the greenhouse effect. As for the CURRENT warming, there is NO evidence of natural causes/cycles causing it and an ABUNDANCE of evidence suggesting that human emissions of CO2 are causing it. The sun's irradiance has DECREASED over the last few decades while warming has accelerated, guess what else has accelerated at the same rate? CO2 EMISSIONS/atmospheric concentrations.

But am going to refuse to get pulled into this debate, because it's not going anywhere. Thats why I believe we just don't have enough good information to back one theory over another. A simple google search proves this, the information and data thats available clearly shows there are 2 sides to this. The data is most likely being manipulated from both parties. Thats what should be pissing everyone off is the fact the information presented is so bias toward one theory or another. The scientific community should be ashamed of this... This goes against everything they stand for.

It's not a debate. It's science versus lies, period. I've researched this issue far more than anybody you've probably ever met, and I have looked at all the denier arguments and the denier websites, and what I've found is ALL of them are false and ALL of them are backed up, somehow, by fossil fuel companies/money. FOLLOW THE MONEY. The money trail of global warming denial leads back to the fossil fuel industry and right-wing think-tanks. If you follow what ACTUAL CLIMATOLOGISTS/ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICISTS are studying, you'll find that virtually NONE of them doubt the existence of AGW. In FACT, they really stopped doubting it in the 70's. This whole false debate has been PROVEN manufactured by Exxon, Western Fuels, Koch Industries, etc. because they've hijacked our government/media with their dirty oil money. It's as simple as that. READ THESE, they speak for themselves:


www.exxonsecrets.org...


www.greenpeace.org...


www.skepticalscience.com...

Originally posted by nenothtu
reply to post by Alien Abduct

 

Interesting graph. has anyone come up with an explanation for where the extra carbon came from that has never been in the cycle before in order to produce that alleged spike? if they can't come up with a source for the carbon, I'd be inclined to think the spike is an artifact. They can't claim it came from fossil fuels, because that carbon has been in the cycle before, without producing such a spike, so where did it come from?

ETA: Looking at the graph some more, I see that ALL of the CO2 spikes rose abruptly, in a cycle with an average length of 82 million years peak to peak, then gradually tapered back down, only to spike again abruptly. I wonder what caused those abrupt spikes before the invention of the SUV and the advent of mankind - or even mammals?

edit on 2012/1/31 by nenothtu because: (no reason given)

Yeah I noticed those spikes occurring abruptly then receding slowly also. And looking at the graph it isn't hard to imagine that the spike in question could be mostly natural although it is a nasty spike.

As the someone pointed out the paper presented by the OP states that scientists will have a better idea of whats what after about 15 years from now (don't ask me why).



-Alien

Yeah...it really is impossible to deny that the earth has been warming over the past decades and that man made emissions plays a part in it. I don't understand how someone can call it climate change? LOL When we have a hot day during the summer or a warmer day than yesterday, I don't tell my family, "Wear shorts the weather is going to be ...um...changed today...um changed from yesterday!" No...I tell them "It's going to be WARMER today." LOL

Originally posted by CranialSponge

Originally posted by nenothtu
reply to post by Alien Abduct

 

Interesting graph. has anyone come up with an explanation for where the extra carbon came from that has never been in the cycle before in order to produce that alleged spike? if they can't come up with a source for the carbon, I'd be inclined to think the spike is an artifact. They can't claim it came from fossil fuels, because that carbon has been in the cycle before, without producing such a spike, so where did it come from?

ETA: Looking at the graph some more, I see that ALL of the CO2 spikes rose abruptly, in a cycle with an average length of 82 million years peak to peak, then gradually tapered back down, only to spike again abruptly. I wonder what caused those abrupt spikes before the invention of the SUV and the advent of mankind - or even mammals?

I'm glad to see someone else paid attention to Alien Abduct's graph and questioned it. I can somewhat answer you're query regarding how much of that spike is anthropogenic...

How science determines the difference of what's manmade CO2 and what's natural:

They measure the C13/C12 isotope ratios in atmospheric CO2. The difference of naturally occurring C13/12 isotope ratios and manmade C13/12 isotope ratios is 2.6% (manmade being 2.6% less C13). So based on those ratio differences, climatologists estimate that roughly 3% of the CO2 in our atmosphere is manmade and the remaining 97% is naturally occurring.

Thus, theoretically speaking, Alien Abduct's big ol' spike showing graph would then represent 3% of it being from man, while the remaining 97% of that spike would then, obviously, have to be naturally occurring if we are to go by what science is telling us about the isotope ratios to date.

So it's yet just another graph being misrepresented by the climatologists for the sake of dramatics and sensationalism... They show this graph, but forget to add in how much of that spike is anthropogenic and how much is natural.

Such is the standard modus operandi of this so-called "open and honest science".

Its nice to see someone putting forth and breaking down/crunching numbers. What is it then? I mean the data (graphs like these and such) is obviously pointing toward climate change. I don't think that climate change is even a debate anymore.

It seems the only debate is weather humans are having a significant impact on the spike in temp. And, within this debate 98 percent of scientists take the side that humans are indeed having a significant affect on this climate change.

Whats the deal here? Are they just jumping ship?
Why would most of our scientists be interpreting the data this way?

Are they all so blatantly wrong?

-Alien

With all due respect. If we are all driving vehicles which fill the air with pollutants then what do we honestly think will happen?

One thing I know is that each year more cars are produced for more people being born each day so in my opinion. The problem is going to get alot worse

Originally posted by Alien Abduct

Yeah I noticed those spikes occurring abruptly then receding slowly also. And looking at the graph it isn't hard to imagine that the spike in question could be mostly natural although it is a nasty spike.

As the someone pointed out the paper presented by the OP states that scientists will have a better idea of whats what after about 15 years from now (don't ask me why).



-Alien

The cyclical nature intrigues me. I'm ruminating on a notion of why the gradual decline takes place that I won't go into here - I can U2U it to you if your interested, but it's pretty rough at the moment - but what really piques my interest is what mechanism causes the sudden and dramatic increases more so than the gradual decreases. Something causes that, and that something appears to be running in cycles of roughly 82 million years - or a combination of cycles that reach a perfect phase match every 82 million years or so. Whatever it is, it's not people - we have only been around for the last 120,000 to 4 million years, depending on who's talking and where they draw the line between "people" and "other". Even taking the biggest time estimate, that amounts to only the final 5% or the last cycle.

Now the time periods I'm most familiar with out of all that are the last 500,000 years, and the period from about 360 million years ago up to the global rain forest collapse at the end of the Carboniferous around 290 million years ago. Most of what I'm thinking is based upon those time spans, and I'm going to have to dig a little more in depth into the intervening periods in order to see if that pattern holds true through them as well. In any event, I've not got an explanation for the sudden increases in CO2, and THAT is what I want to know.

The last spike in the sequence - the current one - begs the question of WHERE that extra carbon came from, since according to that graph it has never been present on the planet before, and so can't be put down to CO2 release from fossil fuels. It's never been present to have been bound into the fossil fuels for a release now.

reply to post by TrueAmerican


I find it funny how the title says "CONFIRMED" as if a single newspaper article can determine that warming ended.

Some people are so desperate to dismiss what is happening all around them.

Keep living in denial. I've seen too many "Where's winter?" threads on here to know that ignorance continues its' ugly march as people continue to live in a cave.