Actual scientists looked at whether recent climate warming correlates with changes in the sun. The answer: no, it doesn’t.
Hey, maybe the denial crowd will take the study at face value. And then maybe flying monkeys will emerge singing out of my butt.
myiq2xu
What will they be singing?
myiq2xu
There is no such thing as global warming.
It’s just getting hotter.
cleek
i blame GW on the increased flatulent bloviations of wingnut gasbags.
jake
Ha, ha. You think those buttplugs give a damn about scientific inquiry?
“Wurl, them scientis iz prolly paid by Al Gore. Anyways, yew cain’t trust scientis ‘cos they don’t believe in the Lowerd. Now ya’ll ‘scuse me, I gotta take mah ins’lin fer mah sugar.”
The cool thing is both the RC and the SBC have taken up protecting the environment (about time), which might make mocking the idea of conservation a tricky business for the bobble heads. Go ahead Rush, make a crack about tree huggers and watch the boards light up.
4tehlulz
I was going to make a pithy comment comparing GCC deniers to Holocaust deniers, but I didn’t want to impugn the character of Holocaust deniers by doing so.
myiq2xu
I blame the Emperors Club VIP – them girls is hot!
TheFountainHead
I don’t think it’s a matter of denial and it’s disingenuous of anyone to use that phrase to lump all of us who are skeptical of the science of Global Warming together. Some of us are certainly in denial, and that’s silly. The Earth seems to have been measurably getting warmer for some time now, though the data gets suspect for fairly obvious reasons once you go back more than 100 years, and that’s being generous, scientifically speaking. Some of us are skeptical of the theory of anthroprogenic Global Warming, and have yet to see any real good science to support it. The simple fact is that there are so many variables in the study of climates that any one study of it’s aspects is going to come out with a “high margin of error” to use a pundit’s phrase. And there is still yet a third category of us (by us I mean those whom you would simply call a “denier”) who are willing to accept that it is warming, willing to even accept that we as a species may be causing or at least accelerating it, but who do not believe that we have nearly enough of a grasp of the science to accurately predict its consequences and as a result believe that the U.S. government should enter into any treaties or pass any legislation that could potentially cripple our economy (often to the advantage of some other economy) on the basis of studies whose predictions and hypothesis are flimsy.
I fall in the third category, though I’m certainly not convinced beyond a doubt that the cause of the Earth’s current climate change is anthroprogenic. So I see studies like this and I say, “Great. So what?” This study tells us nothing OTHER than that there seems to be no direct correlation between temperature change on the Earth’s surface and the hills and valleys of the Sun’s radioactive output. But what if there’s an indirect link? What if the changes in radioactive output is a trigger for some other climatological event which in turn IS directly correlated to changes in the Earth’s surface temperature? This study, nor any other study I’ve seen to date, can lock that down. The variables are simply too great and the potential cost of legislating against Global Warming too high. If my government is going to spend a $100 billion dollars on something or set economy crippling standards on our industries, let it spend $100 billion dollars on curing AIDS or cancer. or let it cripple our industries in the pursuit of alternative energy sources so we can free ourselves of dependency on dictators with oil. The benefits of either of those goals are clear, and the outcomes if we fail to act are equally clear. Not so with Global Warming, at least not scientifically speaking.
Thanks for reading.
RSA
From the article:
Fixed. Poor Lockwood; he thinks that time series analysis and analysis of variance are going to be easier for the climate change deniers to understand?
cleek
forgive my impertinence, but… what do you do for a living ? are you a climatologist ?
Punchy
Shorter Fountainhead: I’m too fucking stupid and lazy to read just about any scientific journal, ALL OF WHICH AGREE on the man-made effect of climate change.
To believe that people are STILL willfully earmuffing themselves on this issue is just sickening.
TheFountainHead
I am not. Are you? Are you refuting that climatological measurements from the early to mid 19th century are accurate and proliferate?
You need to read what I wrote again. I’m not saying that there’s no man-made Global Warming, I’m saying it hasn’t been proved by science. Just because the scientific community agrees on something does not mean that their science is necessarily sound or that they are right. I seem to remember reading somewhere that there was a time when the world’s scientists all agreed that the Earth revolved around the Sun. I’m actually willing to accept that we’ve hurt the Earth. Doesn’t mean I want Nancy Pelosi out there trying to save it.
Tim F.
What if there is an indirect link between, say, the Kosovo declaration of independence and Kevin Bacon? In fact, I BET THERE IS, and I bet that I can link them together in no more than SIX STEPS. Scientific!
Unless you can propose and actual model for how one can influence the other, and demonstrate that the connection is meaningful, then you’re wasting perfectly good pixels. The term we scientists use for that is ‘hand waving.’
TheFountainHead
Clouds.
Sun radiation has a direct correlation on Oceanic evaporation. This affects cloud formation. Cloud formation directly correlates to not only Earth’s surface temperature directly, but a whole host of other climatological trends. Show me a computer model that accurately reflects the role that clouds play in the heating up of the Earth’s surface and then we’ll talk.
r€nato
Indeed, we should wait until GCC is irreversible, then we can just throw up our hands and say, ‘oh well, nothing we can do about it now!’ guilt-free!
r€nato
why is it such a difficult concept for folks like FountainHead to wrap their brains around, that humankind has the power to affect climate on a global scale?
Joey Maloney
There’s another term we nonscientists use. It does involve the hand, and it does involve a motion somewhat similar to waving.
As the person proposing this hypothesis, wouldn’t that sort of be your job?
Tim F.
Fountainhead, you are beginning to irritate me. If nobody can show that the sun’s input has increased in any meaningful way then how can sun-spawned clouds have impacted the climate in a directional trend towards warming? Even your hand-waving needs work.
cleek
no. but neither am i trying to substitute my own judgment for those of people who actually do this stuff full-time.
i trust that people who know more about climatology, statistics and geology than i do will argue it out among themselves and come to a consensus about what the data says. and i know enough to know that i don’t know enough to say that they don’t know what they’re doing.
pretending i can dismiss the work of hundreds of people in a field in which i am not trained and do not work just because i have some half-baked ideas about things i only know about from articles i read in Scientific American seems like the height of hubris.
Punchy
Even shorter FountainHead: Just because they do rigorous studies, loads of statistical manipulations, and publish in peer-reviewed journals, doesn’t mean I have to believe it. Hey bitches, nobody’s “proven” gravity, either!
Climate troll?
peach flavored shampoo
Directly? Are you sure? Can you please provide a link to this? TIA.
4tehlulz
I blame Jewish physics.
joe
Ever see a “climate change skeptic” who was the slightest bit skeptical about reports that attempt to refute the scientific consensus on global warming?
I haven’t. If it only goes one way, it’s not skepticism. It’s faith.
TheFountainHead
Look, I’m not trying to troll here, and I’m not going to get into an argument about this with any of you, that would be a waste of both of our times. I think if you read my other posts here at BJ on other topics that I’m a fair-minded person and not outlandish in any way. That being said, all I’ve seen so far is arguments against whether or not I should buy into man-made global warming. That wasn’t really the crux of my argument and maybe it’s my fault for not making it clear enough. My point was less that the science of Global Warming is incomplete, and more that I don’t want anyone in my government (or anyone else’s) legislating based on computer models that have fluctuated WILDLY in their predictions over just the last five years. This isn’t a liberal thing or a conservative thing, it’s a “Where do we want our priorities to lie, with the things we understand in full or the things we don’t or can’t.” thing.
TheFountainHead
Not at all, for me, at least, Joe. There are bad studies on both sides, and incomplete conclusions on both. I’m saying it’s still not in stone one way OR the other.
Fe E
Hey Tim F, can I just ask a question? I know you do work at least in the near vicinity of climatolgy, so perhaps you can help me. What is the current consensus opinion on isotopic paleothermometers? When I took geochemistry in 1995 it seemed pretty well settled, but I only remember talking about O^18/O^16 ratios. I’ve just done a quick spot o’ teh googling and it looks like they’ve done a hell of a lot of research since then. Jeez, Sr/Ca, Mg/CO3^2-, forams oh my!
I sure wish there would’ve been more money in non-oil whore areas of geology, and that I were better at math; geochemistry is just so damned cool.
Sigh.
peach flavored shampoo
Computer model, eh? Silly computers, all graphy and confusing and colored and seemingly demonstrating the antithesis to your point. Perhaps the graphs and data and scientists and math all just fluctuate wildly.
TheFountainHead
Here’s another fun computer model from the same website. I mean, if we’re going to throw them around….
Tim F.
If that isn’t your argument then stop making it. In fact, it is fairly clear at this point that you were not making it clearly because you are not thinking about it clearly. We can help you with that, but to get there you have to stop trying to defend a silly point.
Actually they haven’t. Computer models from a long time back did a fairly good job of predicting where we are now at both large and medium scales; what has fluctuated wildly has been the climate itself, generally in the direction of outstripping the worst case predictions of the more conservative models.
As for legislation, I bet you are pleased to know that legislation prevents the local copper smelter from dumping carcinogenic waste in your drinking water. That is called legislation serving the public interest. If you disagree with the concept then I encourage you to go live in a free market utopia such as Haiti or Liberia for a while.
Tim F.
As I understand it most isotopic measurements are best used as relative measurements rather than absolute thermometers. So for example we can throw ten million years of strata into a blender and make an isotopic average reading, then measure individual layers to gauge deviation from the average with a pretty good degree of precision. I could talk a good deal about good old oxygen, but you already know about that, plus some more arcane approaches to detect the crustal origin of lava flows, paleocurrents, biotic productivity and so on, but the newer temperature measurements are outside of my training as well.
joe
That isn’t a computer model, Foutainhead. It’s historic data.
myiq2xu
All this smutty stuff is NSFW
Fe E
Thanks Tim. I was operating under the assumption that you could get absoltue temps–is that still the case with Oxygen?
Back when I was still dreaming of doing a job I loved I wanted to explore hot spot volcanism (so there’s your geochem/igneous petrology) but a quick scan of my parents estate revealed no fortune waiting to be passed on to little ol’ me and I decided I’d better actually pick a career that could keep the lights on and food in the fridge without requiring an inheritance!
I still like to pretend I am still a geologist every now and then however!
and myiq LOL :)
TheFountainHead
I’m aware. That was sort of my point regarding the original poster.
Punchy
That’s not a computer model. That’s called “data”, and it’s factual. Recorded. Studied. Compiled. Graphed. Slow down if I’m going too fast. The clouds may have messed with my typing speed.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Why so? There are sources for temperature data other than written records, such as ice cores. Why would those data be suspect?
Fe E
Wow, that was one hell of a run-on sentence.
Bask in its majesty–I command you!
TheFountainHead
You’re saying that a prediction of temperate increase TWICE that of what the IPCC guesstimated isn’t a wildly different prediction? Though I do agree with you that the climate itself has been a bit wily and unruly lately…must be why they employ weathermen all over the world.
Uhmm, Apples and Oranges? Carcinogenic waste is bad for everyone, everywhere, all of the time. Legislate against dumping it into the water supply is pretty much a no-brainer and fairly easy to enforce…here in the United States. Does congress enforce pollution laws in China?
TheFountainHead
See my above post and L2sarcasm.
Xenos
Fountainhead wins this argument as it is entirely a matter of misdirection. The more fundamental problem is the policy angle:
This is the nut of the argument: god forbid we let someone else take advantage of us while we dither around trying to take responsibility for things, like the hundreds of years’ worth of CO2 we have been pumping into the atmosphere as we have industrialized. One of the questionable assumptions that underly FH’s assertion that the risks of global warming are not greater for developed countries than developing countries.
If sea levels rise we could lose the entire state of Florida and major coastal cities on both coasts. If that does not involve ‘crippling our economy’, then I don’t know what will. FH seems awfully confident that Kyoto (or a Kyoto-like agreement) would be worse for our economy than a 40 food sea level rise.
RSA
That’s the nice thing about doing science: if you have a good idea and can support it, you can submit it for peer review and get it published. To a first approximation, scientists don’t care who you are or where you’re from–just do the work and demonstrate they’re wrong. It can make you famous, if you’ve proved enough people wrong.
TTT
Fountainhead, your dislike of proposed climate policy does not equal a weakness in the peer-reviewed climate science.
The inability to understand that difference–the belief that only things that should be true actually are true–is in turn what separates “skeptics” from “deniers.”
Birdzilla
There are now some who are saying were heading for another little ice age like we were suppost to be having in the 1970s
tBone
Do you oppose the recent mandate for compact fluorescent lightbulbs?
Whether you “buy in” to anthropogenic warming or not, would you agree that reducing the amount of crap that we spew into the atmosphere is a good thing? That alternative energy sources will have a whole host of ancillary benefits that have nothing to do with climate change? That devising strategies for dealing with rises in sea level and changing climate patterns might be a good idea, just in case?
Just trying to determine what, exactly, you’re afraid will happen if we start taking climate change seriously on a policy level.
TheFountainHead
Where does this doomsday scenario come from? Do we know that sea levels will rise by even a tenth of that much? I’ve never seen a legitimate hypothesis of such.
And you all seem to be seeing my rejection of the conclusions drawn from the data as a rejection of the data (or how it was brought to existence) itself. There ARE bad studies on both sides. However, there is a lot of data that indicates the Earth is warming, far more than there is data to indicate it isn’t. Fine by me, but how you then turn that into a long-term prediction for the world’s climate is subject to conjecture and there’s the rub.
TheFountainHead
Absolutely not. There are clear benefits to this law and I oppose no legislation that has the clear goal of energy independence for the United States. No argument on that front whatsoever. If we can clean up our act and improve our standing in the world economy at the same time, then awesome.
Punchy
Ha ha! Perhaps someone needs to show Fountainhead that ice becomes liquid water when it melts. I suppose since the Earth will be warmer, that all that extra water will just evaporate into clouds. It all hinges on the clouds, bitches….CLOUDS.
Buck
Is this a bullshit statement?
The problem I have is that supposedly all scientists agree that global warming is a problem that man can solve and then you read where other scientists disagree and I can’t figure out who the real scientists are and who the bogus scientists are and I have a problem accepting that the belief in man made global warming is what separates a real scientist from a bogus scientist.
I admire you for making your opinion known FH. But I knew you were going to get eaten alive when you made it.
When the topic is global warming the best thing to do is read the post, nod your head and then move on to look at pictures of Spitzer’s girlfriend.
orogeny
FH,
Just a few quick references.
Look here , or here or here.
A 40-foot rise is sea level is probably outside the current predictions, but a 4-5 meter rise is considered quite possible. A 20′ foot rise in sea level would be devastating to most of our major coastal cities and our economy…far more damaging than the effects of reducing our CO2 output. In addition, the technologies and industries created in our quest to reduce those levels could very possibly end up being a net gain for the economy, but only if we stay on the cutting edge. If we sit on our hands and let the rest of the developed world take the lead, we lose that window of opportunity.
rawshark
Right wing shill. Gotta keep the profits going. Why stop them if China isn’t going to?
Dude, seriously? Antarctic ice and the ice in Greenland is not in the water right now. If it melts it will enter the oceans and raise sea level. It will also effect salinity levels which is a whle different issue.
orogeny
Buck asks:
Yes…
The Bray & Storch survey was rejected by Science magazine when it was submitted in 2004 because it was performed on the web with no means to verify that the respondents were climate scientists or to prevent multiple submissions. The survey required entry of a username and password, but this information was circulated to a climate skeptics mailing list and elsewhere on the internet.
It was the scientific equivalent of a political poll posted on Free Republic.
TheFountainHead
I’m very capable of understanding the effect of melting land ice on the level of the oceans, globally. However, what often gets left out of these arguments is the fact that we’re not talking about significant melting of this land ice that’s happening now. We’re talking about melting that would begin to occur circa 2100 assuming nothing else changes in the next century in out understanding of the climate, the climate itself, or our species’ interaction with it. Going back 92 years in the other direction puts us at the advent of the automobile and decades from the existence of the computer. My point is that if we haven’t kicked our addiction to oil by 2100 or even 2050, we’re all fucking doomed as a species ANYWAY!
I knew I was going to get lambasted for bringing up an unpopular view in the liberal blogosphere. I am not a conservative shill, and most of you know that. I’m not a corporate shill for that matter. I am, however, someone who believes in having priorities and setting out to convince others in them for the right reasons. We don’t need to get off of oil and coal because six hundred years from now Florida will be gone (as if that’s an objectively bad thing) we need to get off of oil and coal because it’s in limited supply and most of it is being sat upon by people who fucking hate us, and so long as we have to use what they use it puts us at a disadvantage. Legislate that!! Put that in a memo to the world! Don’t scare Americans into thinking that if we don’t sign an ambiguous, un-enforceable treaty in Japan or Malaysia that the world is going to flood and their children will drown! Pass legislation that has goals that can be met and rules that can be enforced! Get old cars off the road and pass huge tax-breaks for families that buy hybrid cars. Get congress to pass a bill that says to NASA: For every new energy technology you develop we’ll fund another satellite. Create a government funded agency, make it’s sole purpose the reconstruction of America’s infrastructure to provide for a future without oil.
I’m with you every step of the way until you attempt to pass legislation that penalizes our economy for continuing to use the only source of energy it has available to it at the moment.
Face
FAIL. Your point, originally, was that you felt the science behind GCC was crap. Now, asked to explain, you’ve simply moved the goalposts. This is as disingenuous a debate topic as there ever was.
Yet you just said:
I give up. Until I can get a coherent read on what you’re advocating, I’ll just be pointing out the inconsistencies.
orogeny
FH,
If we pass the kind of legislation you discuss, meeting Kyoto standards would be a walk in the park. Legislation that gets us off coal and oil, with goals and enforceable standards to be met, gets old cars off the road and gives huge tax breaks for fuel efficient cars and earmarks research money for new non-polluting technologies would be a huge step in the right direction. Problem is, the deniers, folks like James Inhoff would fight that kind of legislation tooth and nail…
orogeny
Somehow I lost part of my last post:
Problem is, the deniers, folks like James Inhoff, would fight that kind of legislation tooth and nail…and until your last post, that’s where I thought you stood as well. I’m confused.
tBone
I’m with you right up until you say “penalizes our economy.” There are hundreds of cities all over the US who have committed to meeting the Kyoto protocols by 2012. They’re saving money by installing more efficient lighting, switching their public fleets to hybrids, etc. Are their economies being penalized?
Dealing with climate change has the potential to significantly reward our economy. There are vast opportunities for new techologies, new industries, and new entrepreneurs who are forward-thinking enough to grab the reins.
I’m not saying it will be a completely pain-free process, but I think the fear-mongering is completely overblown. And if it somehow turns out that the vast body of scientific opinion on climate change is wrong? We have a cleaner, more power-efficient country that isn’t wholly dependent on the Middle East to feed our energy jones.
Grumpy Code Monkey
It’s a worst case scenario if both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets let go completely.
There are two sources of worry. One is increased melting within the glaciers themselves, which lubricate their movement along the ground, allowing them to advance faster. The other is the breakup of the ice shelves off the coast (such as the Larsen B ice shelf in Antarctica a couple of years ago). The ice shelves serve as a buttress against the glaciers, slowing the flow of ice from land into the sea. If the ice shelves disintegrate enough, then the flow of ice into the sea will increase faster than that it’s replaced, causing sea levels to rise.
There’s enough volume in Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets that if both were to slide into the ocean, the entire Florida peninsula would be submerged. If either one goes, about half the peninsula winds up under water.
The question is whether one or both ice sheets will let go, and the extent.
From here.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Wait, what? You mean the only cheap source of energy, surely.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Tell me MYIQ, what’s a little boy like you doing with big boy smut like this?
TheFountainHead
Okay, my last post didn’t make it through the intartubes, so this will be staccato style:
Face: No, the science isn’t crap, the conclusions drawn from it are suspect. Though there is some awful science on both sides. My point about the legislation is that Kyoto is putting the horse before the cart. Pass the legislation to change our energy policy and our infrastructure and Kyoto becomes moot. Meanwhile, Kyoto is un-enforceable and ambiguous and ptoentially detrimental to global trade.
orogeny: See above and also the issue of deniers: They of course will deny the conclusions drawn by science because they’re still arguable. You have to attack this from the energy angle and not the “ZOMG, teh Oceans are coming!” angle. Put the proverbial gun to their heads: “If we stay dependent on oil, the terrorists win.”
tBone: Of course, many places globally have done much to improve themselves and they should be a model for us going forward, however, you;re talking about places with better per-capita’s than us and small scale infrastructure improvements, not global energy policy and technology changes, which is what is needed. The pains of trade agreements being affected by legislation that essentially makes an end-run around market forces and gives everyone who doesn’t meet those standard an advantage are different than a city putting in a natural gas metro line.
GrumpyCode: The scenario is fine so long as you mention that we’re talking nearly a hundred years before any of this really starts to become a reality and the source of our energy is a much more immediate problem and potentially negates the other, so why try and use it as leverage? Oh, and yes, I meant only source as in only source that is cheap enough to be currently viable in the global economy. Wind power will never be a back-bone energy source in my opinion, hydro-electric is not prolific enough, and solar still faces some huge cost restrictions. Nuclear is at least the stop-gap answer if not the long term one, but there are some political/environmental ramifications there that have all but killed it in committee.
Face
Says who? Other than oil-funded cranks?
Says who? Other than you? Please show us a peer-reviewed journal that questions man-made climate change. Please.
At which point it’s irreversible. And probably accelerating. At which point, your great grandkids will be cursing you out. Rightfully so.
HyperIon
that would depend on how large the sea level increase is. your scenario requires VERY large increases.
according to the climate models i have seen discussed, the largest uncertainty in predictions DOES relate to the clouds. under some circumstances they promote T increase, under others they promote T decrease. the models need to get better at, um, modeling cloud effects.
SoulCatcher
It’s already been shown the helping the environment helps our economy. Here’s a list of companies in California that saved $$$ while reducing carbon emissions, etc.
http://www.environmentcalifornia.org/reports/global-warming/global-warming-reports/greening-the-bottom-line
I can’t find the link now but there was a report from a few months ago about a study that shows that California’s statewide move to focus on protecting the environment has helped generate millions for their struggling economy.
Any notion that our economy will be *hurt* by protecting the environment is utter nonsense. There’s real world data that completely contradicts those claims.
TenguPhule
The rest of the world will kill us long before the drowning starts.
Once food cycles get disrupted by Global Climate Instability to the point that nations starve, the bombs will start dropping.
TenguPhule
Irony of the Day.
rawshark
How can we do that when folks like you won’t let the discussion happen.
As long as you play the ‘there are doubts’ game the right wins because they represent business interests which don’t want to make changes. Changes effect profits, not the health of the economy, their profits. We all know what’s going on but since some feel whatever happens is inevitable why stop making money in the meantime?
They’re arguable in the same way that the Apollo moon landings are arguable. Bias can effect your opinion when you don’t really understand science.