Originally posted by Hortlund
Actually what I said was that we are sure that an increased amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere leads to global warming. What you are talking about is the effect of said warming...that is the thawing of the permafrost, releasing methane into the atmosphere.
Im not really sure what you think is "debatable" here?
[/b]What's debatable is cause and effect. In most historical records it appears that CO2 rises during or after a global warming trend is identified. It doesn't precede the change. In other words, there's absolutely no indication that increased CO2 (or other "greenhouse" gasses) caused the change.
Ten years ago.
I believe you're being facitious as 10 years is an infinently tiny amount of time compared to global climate cycles.
No, its not just the reporting. By looking at historical records we can also confirm that it is more common now than 10 years ago, or 50 years ago, or how far back the reliable historical records go (depends on city/area/nation).
"Reliable historical records" is reporting. Again, consider what you call "reliable" reports. Things such as differences between a weather station report now and it's historical reporting can be misleading. For instance, many reporting stations in the New York area were originally in the country far from the city. Now, due to expansion they are actually in built-up areas and it has been well known for many years that built-up areas produce heat islands which distort the "historical" reporting. Even so, this doesn't get to the point now does it? The global climate is getting warmer, this data does nothing at all to prove that man is the cause (with the exception that it does prove the existance of man-made heat islands"). Besides, if you really want to go back to historical records check out what the Vikings said about Greenland when they first populated it. It was actually green, they had farms and a thriving community there...of course until the Little Ice Age covered Greenland with a sheet of ice.
Here you are adding your own qualifiers and then arguing against your own position. Normally that type of argument is called a strawman, and generally such type of behavior on a forum is frowned upon.
Now there's a load of non-sense if ever I saw one. There is neither a false or exagerated fact in my statement. The statement is qualified by the use of the word "probably" because there is no absolute proof, it's just a likely and logical supposition based upon the facts as we know them at this time. This is something you globalwarminologists don't seem to understand since anything you claim is proof becomes "fact" and anything you deem to be a "fact" is proof. The Earth is warming. Man creates CO2, ergo, man is creating global warming. False logic such as this is a common technique on your part. Oh, and please follow your own rules of the forum before foolishly trying to detract from the discussion with your accusations.
Example, yesterday it snowed in Rio de Janeiro. It is the first time that snow has been recorded there since 1918. That is an example of extreme weather.
It snowed in Tampa in the late 1970's probably for the first time in a century also and it was hardly "extreme". Your own inability to follow the logic of your own facts is wonderful. Did it ever occur to you that your own statement demonstrates that the recent snow in Rio proves this is a non-sensical argument FOR man-made climate change? I'll help you out....it snowed in Rio in 1918. Does that help?
Fascinating...yet completely irrelevant since you are arguing against your own strawman.
As I already mentioned, perhaps you should look up the meaning of the word "strawman". What you really mean to say is that you have no intelligent answer so you'll just attempt to attack the credibility of the other person.
LOL no ****? So you mean average temperature is not a constant?
Given the lack of quality in your argument I believe I was correct in pointing out what should have been an obvious fact to most of us since you are apparently unaware of it.
We note that the average surface temperature has risen. It has risen if we look at it on a 5 year scale, a 25 year scale or a 50 year scale.
Just as we would expect given that the planet, on average (yeah...there's that word again) has been warming for 700 years. This of course is based on the record of multiple centuries, not a 5, 25 or even 50 year scale.
Like I said in an earlier post, the likelyhood of extreme weather increases when the climate changes. Hotter than normal summers, colder than normal winters, drier than normal droughts or wetter than normal rain-periods are all examples of that.
Please quote your sources that prove all this. Given the indisputable fact that the press and globalwarmingologists favor hysteria over a calm and deliberative study please don't use press reports, especially when they use quotes from globalwarmingologists.
The observations we have taken span several hundred thousand years (ice cores)
And all that they prove is that the Earth both warms and cools. There is nothing at all unique in the ice cores relative to this warming period as compared to others with the exception that they have proven that rapid and drastic changes in the Earth's climate can, and have occurred. Of course, one of those inconvienient facts is that those rapid and drastic changes occured before the industrial revolution. Actually, the large scale drastic change that have occured happened before you can identify a civilization of man. Hard to see how there's any evidence there that proves that man "did it", seems just the opposite to me but then I'm not hysterical (although you have had me laughing a few times).
