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Doesn't the dim Earth sun paradox suggest net negative feedback for increases (and decreases) in temperature?

If so, we wouldn't have to do anything, besides reducing the greenhouse emissions (assuming the problem is anthropogenic).

And what about the idea that was thrown around sometime ago of pumping CO2 in old oil reservoirs? It was supposed to be cheap and effective.

M.

Makov wrote:The higher temperatures are not necessarily caused by man made global warming, but by a cyclical pattern of heating and cooling that has been going on for millions of years. For example, at the time of the dinosaurs, the average global temperatures were 10 degrees higher than today. Then it cooled down due to the impact that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, warmed up again, then an ice age, etc. The idea that we can so adversely effect the ENTIRE GLOBAL CLIMATE is absurd. As the the climategate scandal showed, all of the climate change "scientists" are merely fudging the numbers to support their "theory" without looking at past geologic data regarding global climate change. The world is getting hotter, so we MUST BE THE CAUSE!

The idea of man made climate change does not ignore historical temperature variation. The issue is not that temperatures are increasing and that this is something that’s never happened before, but that the present rate of increase is in excess historic trends. If you look at historical temperature changes you'll find gradual shifts measured over thousands of years, while we are looking at the same rates of temperature growth, only we’re measuring it in decades.

Your charge that scientists in the field are failing to look at historical temperatures is frankly ridiculous. I'm not sure if it is a result of you having failed to consider the issue fully, or if you have no experience with how research works. Either way, I can assure that climatologists are aware of historical temperatures (they're actually the ones doing the research into past temperatures). I can assure you that past temperatures are a vital part of their research, as they learn a lot about the possible effects of climate change by looking at how the Earth existed under various temperatures.

Your understanding of the climategate scandal is poor at best. Out of ten years of research a total of two emails were cited as evidence of disingenuous work, and both of those had to be taken out of context to give that impression. If you’ve read something that told you otherwise you should stop reading that source, because they’re lying to you.


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onlainari wrote:Whether climate change is man made or not is up for debate. Whether climate change is happening or not is rather one sided towards it is happening.

97% of climatologists active in the field state that climate change is happening and man made emission are the primary cause. Its very one sided.

The sulfur dioxide solution to global climate change is an uneasy one. It's not my goal to convince people in this thread it's the way to go. That would involve having available the data and models on me as well as me having some credibility. I don't have any of that.

Yeah, there are geo-engineering possibilities that could lessen the extremes. However, the climate, as you pointed out, is incredibly complex and right now we have only part of the picture of how it operates, our ability to fully predict the effects of geo-engineering is extremely limited. Our knowledge will have to advance considerably before anything could be undertaken with any real degree of certainty.


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mrwhoop wrote:Global warming is bull . The scientific community has several theories but summed up the earth goes through several warm and cool periods in its history and no one theory holds down well.

Actually there are dozens of individual cycles, some are interrelated but many operate independently of each other. There are likely more cycles to be found and still more to found out about the cycles we know of, but that is a long way from your argument that we don’t know what’s going on.

The range of cycles means you won’t give a neat rise in temperatures to match global emissions (something the climate change deniers cynically use constantly), but that doesn’t mean we don’t understand. It means you will continue to see cyclical temperature variations, but with a steady increase over those cycles.

Hell, even the magnetic poles have switched sides several times.

Yes, and they’ll keep switching for millennia to come. What’s that got to do with anything?

Based on ice records carbon levels are about level and really the only impact we have is pollution pollution. Y'know, acid rain and destroying water tables. The ozone hole also wasn't carbon emissions, it was CFCs so again chemical pollution.

How would ice records establish the only effect we’re having is on pollution? That makes no sense.

Really, humans can't kill the earth. To paraphrase George Carlin "If we ever started hurting the earth it would just shake us off like a bad case of fleas."

There are a wide range of possibilities between ‘human emissions do nothing’ and ‘human emissions will kill everything on Earth’. For example ‘human emissions are changing global temperature and this will lead to significant changes in global weather patterns, representing a massive cost to humanity as farming, power generation and transport infrastructure geared towards present temperature patterns will have to be rebuilt. It would cost considerably less to reduce global emissions than it would do to rebuilt infrastructure in a generation’s time, so we should start confronting the issue now.’

What caused you to consider the issue in only the two most extreme arguments? Did someone frame the argument to you in those terms, or is it something you invented yourself?

sebster wrote:
How would ice records establish the only effect we’re having is on pollution? That makes no sense.

Chemical composition of the ice. When water freezes it encapsulates a certain amount of the atmospheric gasses above it. From that we can determine what the chemical composition of the atmosphere was when the water was frozen.

That said, the ice cores taken from Antarctica show a lot of variation from location to location. Some show significant carbon variations, others show nearly none. Its likely a side effect of the fact that the atmosphere is not homogeneous.

To the original question:

The Earth has both heated up, and cooled down throughout its entire life. Therefore there exists a method to affect the climate. The question here is whether or not that method is within our realistic grasp in both temporal, and technical senses. I'm not qualified to answer that question (Damn it Jim! I'm a philosopher, not a scientist!), but it helps to be clear about what we're discussing.

sebster wrote:97% of climatologists active in the field state that climate change is happening and man made emission are the primary cause. Its very one sided.

Stop kidding yourself and have a look around. It is being debated.

His figure is correct.

But then just because something is agreed by the majority, does not make it "correct" (not that I am saying this is the case here, just that a lot of things have commonly been agreed to be the truth, only to have some later discovery show it all to be false).

And I had a brief look last night at information on the various contributions played by melt water Vs. expansion and could not immediately see anything as extreme a picture painted by the link given over the page. The contribution of expansion is certainly said to be greater than I expected it would be though, so I will examine the issue further.

As ever, consensus means...consensus.

onlainari wrote:Stop kidding yourself and have a look around. It is being debated.

"The strongest consensus on the causes of global warming came from climatologists who are active in climate research, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role."

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/01/19/eco.globalwarmingsurvey/

You are right that there is a debate. One side of this debate has the overwhelming majority of scientists active in the field, the other side has PR reps for energy companies and self-proclaimed skeptics with no training or field experience in climatology.

Dogma climatologists are simply not the only people debating this, his figure isn't very meaningful to the point that it is being debated. I never said that I don't believe his figure.

SilverMK2 wrote:But then just because something is agreed by the majority, does not make it "correct" (not that I am saying this is the case here, just that a lot of things have commonly been agreed to be the truth, only to have some later discovery show it all to be false).

True. But to what extent do you keep saying 'we don't really know because we've been wrong about stuff in the past' and do what extent do you set about building forward looking policy based on the overwhelming consensus of experts in the field?

sebster way to go on helping the climatologists PR though. /sarcasm

I have always believed that climate change is man made caused by increases in greenhouse gases and yet I feel alienated by you.

onlainari wrote:Dogma climatologists are simply not the only people debating this, his figure isn't very meaningful to the point that it is being debated. I never said that I don't believe his figure.

I've debated this issue a lot. I'm a logician, political scientist, and philosopher. Is my opinion relevant? Not outside of my ability to vote. Stupid people have stupid debates about things they don't understand.

onlainari wrote:Dogma climatologists are simply not the only people debating this, his figure isn't very meaningful to the point that it is being debated. I never said that I don't believe his figure.

There are two debates. There is a debate of substance, over facts, that's a debate engaged in at the scientific level, through publishing in scientific journals, assessed through peer review. And there's there is a political debate, built around message control and framing the argument.

You are right that the second debate is still going on.

onlainari wrote:sebster way to go on helping the climatologists PR though. /sarcasm

I have always believed that climate change is man made caused by increases in greenhouse gases and yet I feel alienated by you.

Dude, you told me to stop kidding myself. When I provide the figure you complain that I'm alienating you...

Numbers make people uncertain.

I felt alienated by your post at 16:59:35 not by your post at 19:43:27 where you provided a figure.

Your assertion that "when you provided the figure I complain that you are alienating me" comes with incorrect assumptions. It's you and your writing style, no room for me to be on your side, even if I want to be because of other reasons.

Just look at how you responded to me telling you this before, you bring up what you believe was an attack on you. There were other ways to handle it.

Personality changes are not my field of study, in fact what you do might even make you very successful.

onlainari wrote:I felt alienated by your post at 16:59:35 not by your post at 19:43:27 where you provided a figure.

Your assertion that "when you provided the figure I complain that you are alienating me" comes with incorrect assumptions. It's you and your writing style, no room for me to be on your side, even if I want to be because of other reasons.

Just look at how you responded to me telling you this before, you bring up what you believe was an attack on you. There were other ways to handle it.

Thing is, if people come in and say 'I'm not sure about this climate change thing because I heard a few arguments that seemed pretty solid to me' then I'll link a few pages debunking their claims and be very polite along the way.

But that isn't what we got in this thread. We got " The idea that we can so adversely effect the ENTIRE GLOBAL CLIMATE is absurd" from Makov and "Global warming is bull " from mrwhoop. Aggressive, poorly informed arguments should be dismissed as quickly as possible.

Personality changes are not my field of study, in fact what you do might even make you very successful.

I was responding to the tone of the debate as it existed.


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dogma wrote:Chemical composition of the ice. When water freezes it encapsulates a certain amount of the atmospheric gasses above it. From that we can determine what the chemical composition of the atmosphere was when the water was frozen.

That said, the ice cores taken from Antarctica show a lot of variation from location to location. Some show significant carbon variations, others show nearly none. Its likely a side effect of the fact that the atmosphere is not homogeneous.

Yeah, I know how they track atmospheric conditions. I'm wondering how those studies or any other studies establish that the only impact we have is on pollution.