General Climate Discussion

[Holden McGroin]

Ehemm Holden, read up, for there are living trees TODAY that are more than 4000 years old. Close to 5000, with the oldest living one with a root system some 9500 years old, and that one is well in the northern hemisphere....
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080414-oldest-tree.html

OK, I thought Bristlecones were 2 to 3 K, it turns out that they are 5K

Tree rings from fossilized trees also exist, all the way to 70 million years ago, as well as leaf and animal fossiles.
I have found some, that are millions of years old and of course show without a doubt a completely different climate.

Ok, and how do we date these? C14? Because C14 has a 1/2 life of 5730 yrs, if we measure the amount of C14 in something and compare it to living organisms, we can estimate the year it died.  Estimate. RCDating relies on the constant level of carbon in the atmosphere, and the farther back we take it, the less precise it becomes.

Tree trunks are also excavated.
Seeds are also sometimes excavated giving an idea of ancient flora. That will tell you where things rank in the Hotter, colder, or roughly equal department.

How old are they?  Is 'roughly' equal +/- 1C or maybe 2?C

In my area in the medieval warming period there are claims of barley growing. Only anecdotes so far, however the description of the fields is pretty good. Then barley growing worked no more untill the 20th century, and in the last 10 years it's gone warm enough for wheat and corn.
My point is that biology as a whole tells you a lot about climate, and it's childish to claim that you can trust nothing but the termometer data of recent years (which gets debated here anyway). One has to look at everything, not just this:
(Image removed from quote.)

I keep an open mind.  I did say in a previous post (just one or 2 up) that we can make some educated guesses about the ancient climate by the "vines in New Foundland"  But I am skeptical about somebody who divines ancient climate with a +/-  0.5 C error.  I find that precision suspect.  I drew pump performance curves in one of my first jobs out of school and I know how much precision we could muster with something we could go out and measure and test again and again.  It wasn't all that precise.



+/- 0.5 C ?
 

[Holden McGroin]

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[Jackal1]

And Jackie, "MMGW?" as a topic will probably never make it past the "There is no GW

Yep. You are correct.
MMGW has been shot completely out of the water.
Now only a very few have changed to Climate Change, but are still clinging to the plastic statues. The naive and Dooomsdayers. The money rats are hanging to the side of the life raft though.
Climate Change is a pretty fair bet since it has done so since recorded history began.
Here`s your sign.

[lazs2]

angus.. what you are doing is taking a few warm years and saying... "at the rate we are going"   we are doomed!   If you took one cold winter and projected that we would all be meatcycles.

So why do you worry now?  we have always had quick rises and falling of temp in the half to one or two degree range.   it is no big deal.   Nothing man made about it back then and nothing significant about it now.

You claim to be in the middle camp.. so, what do you think is happening and why?  What do you think we can and, more importantly, should, do about it?

lazs

[Angus]

Okay, I'll tell you my thoughts.
First, my look at it:
We are in a warming trend. It's not linear, but accelerating. And this corresponds to what has been constantly predicted for some 20 years.
Second, search for reason:
We are mankind, and we are able to stupid things to the environment. Our input into GW is only bound to warm. Just a question of how much.
Third, The consequences:
Well, it really doesn't take a long time of this to carry on to make quite some woopsies to mankind.
Fourth, What can we do:
Well, if we have a finger in this, we must look into that our own doings are also accelerating. There was a very good lecture on how numbers stack up somewhere above in the thread. So, what we can do, is mend our ways, so we won't be putting an increased weight on to GW. And this is partially why I belive that the most die-hard denialists of GW come from the USA....4% of mankind using 25% of the energy or something in that size, that's bad....
Fifth, Consequences II, what if GW is not a problem. MMGW a hoax, and all is honkey-dory?:
Well, we're going to screw ourselves in about the same time as GW would do to us,  - resource-vise. There is no way our "line" is going to be able to carry on as it does....

[lazs2]

Angus..  so it would appear that despite what you have said in the past..   You believe that a major part of this pleasant and harmless warming trend we are in is man made and....

That the reason it is man made is because we use energy?   that could only mean that you buy into the Co2 BS... unless there is something specific that you think we are doing to heat up the entire planet other than Co2?

The good news is that if you do believe it is man made Co2 then we have already done about as much damage as we can...  The effects diminish past a certain point.. even if you believe the alarmists.

But.. I am interested..  Just what do you think we are doing that is causing this current pleasant warm spell?

lazs

[Angus]

LOL,you get me wrong.
I belive it's warming, and we have a part in it. It's just the question HOW MUCH?
And I think we're probably going to run out of carbon before we hit the jurassic age.
Running out of fuel is something that our modern civilization is not prepared for, nor is it prepared for violent swings in climate.
Simple enough I think....

[Jackal1]

I belive it's warming, and we have a part in it. It's just the question HOW MUCH?

No. The question was, just what exactly do you believe we are doing?

[lazs2]

not sure that I "get you wrong".. don't get you at all.    If you think we have something to do with this current pleasant warm spell but don't think Co2 is the reason and don't think that it will matter anyway and can't come up with any way to stop whatever we may or may not be doing to maybe change an undermined amount of the global climate....

Then you would appear to be one of the denniers..  Or at least..  you should not care until the time that you can pinpoint what we are doing to affect whatever and come up with some idea of what can be done.

It would seem to me that the current algore religious group and it acolytes would be working at cross purposes to you.. they have chosen a path that is a dead end and are not looking for real reasons and causes but stuck on Co2.

lazs

[avionix]

And I think we're probably going to run out of carbon before we hit the jurassic age.

Carbon forms the backbone of biology for all life on Earth.

How are we going to run out of carbon?  All living life is carbon based.  When we die and decompose, carbon is released back into the earth.  My questions again, is how are we going to run out of carbon?

[Angus]

As pleasant as the warm spell is for me, it's not so for all, and my big smile will disappear if this extrapolates.
And again, I don't think it's just the CO2, it's many more factors, including methane and especially vast changes on the earths surface.
So, I don't rank as a total CO2 beliver, and I find it sad that the discussion is perhaps overshadowing more important things like methane, deforestation and such, as well as the total effect of your "comfy" warming.
So, Jackal, what we are doing is ...screwing up....
Tell me, as things are going, what do you see here in 250 years????????

[Angus]

Carbon forms the backbone of biology for all life on Earth.

How are we going to run out of carbon?  All living life is carbon based.  When we die and decompose, carbon is released back into the earth.  My questions again, is how are we going to run out of carbon?

We're running out of the fossilized carbon which once was in the atmosphere, and we are now bringing back through fuel usage.
Clear enough?

[avionix]

We're running out of the fossilized carbon which once was in the atmosphere, and we are now bringing back through fuel usage.
Clear enough?

   

So are you saying that by my breathing, I am depleting carbon? 

[Mister Fork]

Three points.

1. How old is meteorology as a weather science? Nuclear science is older.  So we have climate scientists using models to predict warming of our weather, yet our local meteorologists can't accurately predict the weather a week in advance.  I'm guessing our local guys they wished they had the climate scientists models. So do I.
2. How long have we as a intelligent species, been scientifically tracking weather? Chinese did it, so did the Greeks and Egyptians. As a pure science? 30-40 years.  Yet we're making predictions of 1-2 Celsius increases over 50 years, yet in the 70's they were screaming the possibility of another ice age. Wow, that's a reversal.
3. How do we know, without a doubt, that the current warming trend is not cyclical - every 100, 1000, 10,000, or even every 50,000 years? Heck, lets go every 500,000 years?  We don't.

Proper scientific research results are ALWAYS based on causation
I.E. Stanford U: 2 x 10L canisters of compressed Hydrogen. 1 x 10L canister of compressed Oxygen. Both 99.999% pure. Added 2 parts H to 1 part O. Test Results: H2O. Experiment was done in a 15C closed and sealed environment at 2pm every other day. Test repeated 100 times over a period of 200 dayss.  Yale U also confirms experiment results. As does Oxford.  Accuracy of experiement is 99.999% percent probable based on causation resutls.
Climate scientists are basing their results on correlation.
Scientific group (paid for by XYZ Environmental NPO and European Enviro Group), take Arctic icefield measurements for past 10 years. Take temperature readings for 10 years. Take CO2 readings from high altitude  for 10 years - take older measurements done with less accuracy from previous 30 years.  Icefield is returning less and less each year in the arctic for the past 10 years.  CO2 emissions is also reaching record levels. Arctic temperatures hitting records (from past 100 years). Because arctic ice is melting, and CO2 emissions are at record levels, and record temperatures for past 50 years - we think it must be the CO2.  Accuracy of experiment is less than 1% probably based on correlation results.  Further study is needed. More $$$ is needed. 

True scientists cringe when they we see science like this. Since when is it ever acceptable to make profound judgments based on correlation?  Weather science MUST be based on causation, not correlation - leave that to the psychologists. True scientific method of research AND discovery is 99.9999999% based on causation.

[Sabre]

Well, looks like this thread is steamrolling right along.  Let's push this baby to 2,000 replies! Anyone know the AH BBS record for most replies to a thread?

Oh...yeah...I agree with Mister Fork.  We should not be making drastic changes to the world economy based on correlation and simulation.