What do you think about global warming?

It’s funny you ask, because in the last couple of weeks, a lot of new data has come out to show that the real world is NOT warming like the GW models have said it would. Sea levels have risen slightly, but their temperature has not, but ALL of the GW models said that they should have warmed. The mean temperature of the earth has actually not warmed up in the last 10 years and has in fact rather plateaued at around 1998 levels. Further, this winter was one of the coldest and had the most snow in years. None of this was predicted by global warming advocates. Since C02 levels have steadily increased during last ten years years, but global temperatures have not, one has to wonder why if there is a direct correlation between C02 and global temperatures hasn’t it shown up in the data of recent years.

I’ve always thought that EVEN if global warming was true, and I have my doubts, that the environment is too dynamic of a system to warm like the gloom and doom environmentalists claim. The new data seems to support that hypothesis. ie: As the atmosphere warms up, whether from greenhouse gas emissions or sunspot activity, more clouds are formed and they in turn block out some of the suns warmth cooling the earth.

I’d be very surprised if in the future, global warming is still considered the dire problem that it is today.

Just my humble opinion…

Actually, my reply did NOT confuse weather and climate at all. I ONLY used the snowfall in Montreal as an example of the general cooler temperatures that the WORLD experienced over the winter months this year. Although I can see how you would think that from the way I wrote my post.

I would note though, that weather IS a part of climate models, and none that I am aware of :) have predicted colder temps and more snowfall. They HAVE predicted stronger and more severe weather systems such as hurricanes though, but those are noticeably absent from real world conditions.

As for the references, there were two specific articles that I recall reading recently, one of which dealt specifically with the ocean temperature data and how it was surprising and confusing to the GW modelers as it did not show what they expected it too. I unfortunately did not bookmark either of those articles though and don’t have the time to find them right now. However I do promise that I will find them and either post them here or message you with them.

Again as a side note, I will say I am not an expert on GW, but like you I try to keep up on most of the relevant data. I will also admit that I am slightly biased as I said in my original reply; I have my doubts of whether or not GW is actually C02 based. With that said, the GW advocates my very well be right, but my personal interpretation of the data is that IF GW IS C02 based, then at the very least it is not as dire as most of the warnings claim.

As always, these are just my opinions and other users may choose to accept them or ignore them as they see fit.

Filetofspam,

I was going to mail you these links, but thought that since we were having this friendly debate in public, I’d add them here so others could read them as well and make up their own minds.

The first article I referred to on ocean temps can be found here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025

You’ll notice that the article itself doesn’t say specifically that the new data negates GW, but rather that it may just be a misunderstanding on the dynamics of the system by climatologists. However, taken from my view, I think it adds to the argument that the GW models are not correct.

The second article can be found here:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23411799-7583,00.html

and is a summary of an Australian Broadcasting Company radio interview of “biologist and senior fellow of … the Institute of Public Affairs”, Jennifer Marohasy.

In the second article Ms. or Mrs. Marohasy talks about the cooling or plateauing of global mean temperatures since 1998 and 2002 respectively and new data that has come from the NASA aqua satellite and how that new real world data doesn’t match the GW models.

I found both to be fairly interesting reads, and I’m sure that regardless of your opinion on the veracity of GW you’ll find the information contained in them to be food for thought.

Best regards,

-SN2S

When my mom went to college for a class she read a doomday book written in the 1960’s. It listed all the various ways mankind might render itself extinct. I read it 20 years after it was published and found that most of its predictions were inaccurate. Some of the things it warned about as grave dangers were no longer considered problems decades later while some of the things it only mentioned parenthetically turned out to be a crisis now.

Because climatology is an inexact science and because the difficulty of modeling it wouldn’t suprise me if decades from now we do discover that global warming isn’t as much of a problem as we suspected. It also wouldn’t suprise me if it turs out to be worse than some of the direst predictions.

I circle my wagons with the GW believers because the majority of climate scientists believe GW is real and man is a cause and because I observe more intellectual dishonest among GW skeptics.

FWIW, weather models do predict that certain areas will be colder as a result of climate change. Weather is so dynamic that one change can have far different results in different places.

don’t believe it b/c we would be in worse situations by now and nothing has really changed.

I don’t believe in global warming. I don’t know where liberals get that idea.

If you ask me I think its all rubbish I think the world just goes in cycles like some winters are bad and some are good some summers are brill and otheres arent

Global temperature is cyclical, right now its warming a bit, 40 years ago it was cooling. It’s done that for millions of years. up, down, up, down…

I doubt that a maximium effort/sacrifice would make a measurable change–the ecosystem is too vast in scope.

What really drives the continuing debate is the money. The pro GW community is seriously invested in costly “solutions” they want us to pay for–solutions that probably won’t accomplish anything. And the research grants! wow!

There is another view that Global Warming is actually a good thing. Agricultural production is hitting all time records and those of us living in colder climates are seeing much milder winters than we’ve been used to having. Are we really so sure its bad?

I think everyone should learn to recycle more often then most people do. Someone should come up with a way to make packages for food recyclable, and planting trees is also good. Did you know, that cow fart and burps let off Carbon in the air, which gets “trapped” causing more global warming? People should honestly just take care of our environment and stop worrying about other very minor things. Just now people are starting to care for the environment ever since the water-bottle fiasco and plastic bag fiasco started. its all just a blur.

They are interesting data points.

Ms Marohasy is a known GW skeptic and “free markety” advocate so I’m not sure that she is going to give the most objective analysis. In any controversy there is the danger of someone’s views being shaped by their ideology instead of the facts.

The NPR article doesn’t read as much into the data as the The Austrailian article.

for starters, we could get an environmentalist in office, and do our part in our own community to cut down on waste and pollution. I think getting the media involved in this “go green” movement is going to help a lot.