[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

I see editorials on all those things caused by global warming like; coral reefs growing, coral reefs shrinking, cold spells, hot spells, fish catches rise, fish stocks fall, forest decline, forest expansion, glacial retreat, glacial growth, harvest increase, harvest shrinkage, snowfall increase, snowfall decrease, hibernation ends too soon, hibernation ends too late, rainfall increase, rainfall decrease... and we've got ourselves a one-size-fits-all issue we can all do something about, but where to start?

The first few dozens of pages were about how people settle for non-peer-reviewed articles for their evidence, since they're such a big step down from peer review. Editorials are at least as big a step further down from that. What will next week's "evidence" be, bar bathroom graffiti limericks? Bumper stickers? Drug-induced hallucinations?

Just because something seems to agree with you already doesn't make it a citable reference. Have some intellectual dignity, people.

[smacintush]

I thought this was fantastic.

No respectable scientist is a biased alarmist…nah.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Suzuki hasn't been a "scientist" for many many years; he's a spokesman and author for climate change and ecological impacts. As he ages he's been getting extremely vocal in his criticisms over current climate change measures taken in Canada as well as worldwide. I attended a lecture on seafood sustainability in 2006; he's pretty funny and mildly foul-mouthed in person.

In some respects, his concerns have merit. Canada already has experience with so-called "tar ponds"; that one is considered one of the world's great environmental disasters (people in Sydney Mines are literally living in it, a la Erin Brokovich).

Well, in Northern Alberta they're doing the exact same thing all over again, except this time it's in a relatively uninhabited place and no one looks at it too much. Yet. More and more rumblings are starting to be heard about nearby watershed contamination as well as abnormally high cancer rates in Aboriginal communities living downstream.

So. Do you blame the companies who deliberately take shortcuts in order to make billions, or do you blame the politicians who deliberately let them take shortcuts in order to keep the everyone happy? Or do you blame no-one at all and chalk human and ecological consequences up to the cost of business?

greg

[smacintush]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

Suzuki hasn't been a "scientist" for many many years; he's a spokesman and author for climate change and ecological impacts. As he ages he's been getting extremely vocal in his criticisms over current climate change measures taken in Canada as well as worldwide. I attended a lecture on seafood sustainability in 2006; he's pretty funny and mildly foul-mouthed in person.

Well if h is a former scientist then why should we listen to him? If there's one thing this thread has taught me it's that for a scientist's opinion to be valid he or she must be actively involved in current research. Isn't that what some of you have used to attack some of the posts here?

In some respects, his concerns have merit.

It's not his "concerns" that concern me. It's his suggestion.

And, does this really sound like a responsible statement to you?

You all think growth and [climate] change is normal. It's not.

I realize that this is out of context but it seems like an odd statement. Growth is not normal? And, though many people wanna argue about what is causing the current change in climate, the fact that climate does change naturally isn't in question is it?

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by smacintush 

Well if h is a former scientist then why should we listen to him? If there's one thing this thread has taught me it's that for a scientist's opinion to be valid he or she must be actively involved in current research. Isn't that what some of you have used to attack some of the posts here?

You're the one who posted the article, quoting from the most right-wing paper in Canada. I didn't see anyone using David Suzuki as a source to "prove" climate change.

It's not his "concerns" that concern me. It's his suggestion.

And, does this really sound like a responsible statement to you?

You ignored my ramble on how his "concerns" are closely related to his suggestion. Who should be responsible when human lives are lost because of actions authorized by government?

As to the viability of jailing politicians who ignore climate science, I know it simply won't happen from a legal standpoint. But Suzuki's an old man (probably over 70 now) and if he wants to make outrageous statements to his audience (and remember, we don't know how off-the-cuff they were), he can go ahead. Just like those 70-year-old former scientists claiming global warming isn't "real," it's a statement that doesn't deserve to be listened to.

I realize that this is out of context but it seems like an odd statement. Growth is not normal? And, though many people wanna argue about what is causing the current change in climate, the fact that climate does change naturally isn't in question is it?

Reading closely what the National Post wrote:

"You have lived your entire lives in a completely unsustainable period," he told students and fans. "You all think growth and [climate] change is normal. It's not.

There's no question that his initial statement is true; we have been living in an unsustainable period for some time, and I don't think anyone will disagree with that. But you're right; climate change is completely normal, and I know David Suzuki knows that as well (because not only is it a "basic concept" of climate science, but he talked about it during the speech I attended!).

I would be very interested in seeing a transcript, because the National Post inserted the "[climate]" portion. Was that insertion correct? In the context of his first sentence, he's talking about an "unsustainable period," from which "growth and change" would naturally follow – not of the climate, but of the "human period" itself. In fact, why would he be talking about "unsustainability," and then mention "growth" (obviously relating to the sustainability issue) and, randomly, "climate change?"

In fact, I'd be more likely to say that "change" could be referring to "ecological change," i.e. what's happening in the world around us and how humans are changing the environment. That would make more sense in the context of what he's talking about (and besides, he's an environmentalist/ecologist anyway). It would be interesting to see that quote in its full context.

On the other hand, it could indeed have been "climate change" if he was talking about climate change in the span of the lifetimes he was speaking to. That could be one was of reconciling it; normally climate change as we've been seeing doesn't happen in the span of decades....

In the end, you've got to realize that this is an old guy giving a speech to a lot of people. Suzuki's very much an "off the cuff" speaker, so analyzing his every sentence might not be helpful....

greg

[Uncle Skeleton]

B.C. imposing carbon tax on all types of fuel

British Columbia introduces a consumer carbon tax on fossil fuels. At the end of the year, they add up the amount collected and reduce other taxes by that same amount. Also they give every citizen $100 up front for some reason.

Opinions?

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

British Columbia introduces a consumer carbon tax on fossil fuels. At the end of the year, they add up the amount collected and reduce other taxes by that same amount. Also they give every citizen $100 up front for some reason.

The $100.00 is an attempt to stimulate the economy and will end at some point. The "add up the amount collected and reduce other taxes by that same amount" will go away too. IMO, bait and switch.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

The "add up the amount collected and reduce other taxes by that same amount" will go away

Care to put a time limit on that open-ended prediction? If X amount of time goes by and the boogeyman doesn't materialize, do you ever admit you were wrong, or do you automatically distrust all changes to the tax structure, good neutral or bad? If the latter, how can taxes ever improve if they're never allowed to change?

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

Care to put a time limit on that open-ended prediction? If X amount of time goes by and the boogeyman doesn't materialize, do you ever admit you were wrong, or do you automatically distrust all changes to the tax structure, good neutral or bad? If the latter, how can taxes ever improve if they're never allowed to change?

If I had to guess, I'd say within 5 years the offset of other taxes to compensate for the carbon tax will go away. Because I believe the $100 is more or less a stimulative measure, this will likely go away after this year. Are you going to follow the story, determine I'm right, and come back in to say so?

I've never had a problem admitting mistakes, but I do in fact have a general mistrust for changes that include a new tax (particularly a carbon tax as you might have guessed) and "$100 up front for some reason." I think it's more or less a foot in the door of a new tax. You asked for an opinion. Speaking of open-ended; do you happen to have an opinion of your own on that article?

Certainly taxes are allowed to change, but I think you'd be hard-pressed in convincing me those changes constituted improvements to the scheme.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

Are you going to follow the story, determine I'm right, and come back in to say so?

I'll try to if you actually are right, yes.

do you happen to have an opinion of your own on that article?

Not really, I'm still on the fence about it. That's why I was wondering what people here might think about it.

Certainly taxes are allowed to change, but I think you'd be hard-pressed in convincing me those changes constituted improvements to the scheme.

If by "those changes" you're referring to "certainly taxes are allowed to change," doesn't that imply that the current tax system is the best one possible? Otherwise, what are you referring to?

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

If by "those changes" you're referring to "certainly taxes are allowed to change," doesn't that imply that the current tax system is the best one possible? Otherwise, what are you referring to?

Tell ya what, when you've decided what you think about the "changes" in taxes in British Columbia let me know. I'll get back to you.

[Uncle Skeleton]

I've decided. I like them.

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

I've decided. I like them.

I don't. Too often "change" in taxes equals more taxes. In BC it seems they are making a gesture to bring this new tax in without incurring "more taxes" short term, but I'm skeptical this will hold out long term.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Well how do you propose measures be taken to reduce GHGs and/or polluting emissions?

It seems to me you you can either measure emissions to some standard, and fine accordingly when those standards are broken... but while this might work alright with industry, there's no way it could be implemented on an individual level.

Oops gotta go

greg

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

Well how do you propose measures be taken to reduce GHGs and/or polluting emissions?

It seems to me you you can either measure emissions to some standard, and fine accordingly when those standards are broken... but while this might work alright with industry, there's no way it could be implemented on an individual level.

Oops gotta go

greg

Aren't we subsidizing oil companies? My preferred first step would be to stop doing that.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Just for some amusement, here's a video of David Suzuki on the Rick Mercer Report. It's pretty funny, I must admit. Rick Mercer is a funny, funny man.

Best Suzuki Quote Evar: "I'm gonna freeze my nuts off, man. The planet, hell, what about my nuts?"

greg

[Buckaroo]

Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age



Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

OK, so one winter does not a climate make. It would be premature to claim an Ice Age is looming just because we have had one of our most brutal winters in decades.

But if environmentalists and environment reporters can run around shrieking about the manmade destruction of the natural order every time a robin shows up on Georgian Bay two weeks early, then it is at least fair game to use this winter's weather stories to wonder whether the alarmist are being a tad premature.

And it's not just anecdotal evidence that is piling up against the climate-change dogma.

According to Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona -- two prominent climate modellers -- the computer models that show polar ice-melt cooling the oceans, stopping the circulation of warm equatorial water to northern latitudes and triggering another Ice Age (a la the movie The Day After Tomorrow) are all wrong.

"We missed what was right in front of our eyes," says Prof. Russell. It's not ice melt but rather wind circulation that drives ocean currents northward from the tropics. Climate models until now have not properly accounted for the wind's effects on ocean circulation, so researchers have compensated by over-emphasizing the role of manmade warming on polar ice melt.

But when Profs. Toggweiler and Russell rejigged their model to include the 40-year cycle of winds away from the equator (then back towards it again), the role of ocean currents bringing warm southern waters to the north was obvious in the current Arctic warming.

Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to "stock up on fur coats."

He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased.

It's way too early to claim the same is about to happen again, but then it's way too early for the hysteria of the global warmers, too.

LiveLeak.com - Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age

[el chupacabra]

so I have to know. Do people who consider gw a hoax, do you guys deny that adding CO2 to air traps heat?
When someone does this in a test tube is it just a magic trick to fuel a big conspiracy?

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by el chupacabra 

so I have to know. Do people who consider gw a hoax, do you guys deny that adding CO2 to air traps heat?
When someone does this in a test tube is it just a magic trick to fuel a big conspiracy?

I certainly don't regard gw as a hoax any more than gc, but I'm curious; do you deny that a large halogen light in the lab may have an effect as well? What about the settings on the thermostat? To relegate the complexity of climate science to nothing more than C02 in a test tube is a little fallacious at the core IMO.

*clarification for the natural climate change deniers, this is an analogy. I'm not suggesting that scientists in a lab are truly confounded by the effects of a thermostat and large halogen lamp. Popular media might be, but that's always a different story.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

No one does. The Sun is an integral part of climate science. Anyone will tell you that. That's why people study its radiation output and cycles and everything else.

greg

[Warren Pease]

My first thought about that article is wow, there is tons of anecdotal evidence (which it does well to report that it contains).

Just thought I'd mention that!

[Chongo]

Airlines hit back in green debate | Video | Reuters.com
video Weather Channel Founder Blasts Network; Claims It Is 'Telling Us What to Think'

TWC founder and global warming skeptic advocates suing Al Gore to expose 'the fraud of global warming.'

The Weather Channel has lost its way, according to John Coleman, who founded the channel in 1982.

Coleman told an audience at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 3 in New York that he is highly critical of global warming alarmism.

“The Weather Channel had great promise, and that’s all gone now because they’ve made every mistake in the book on what they’ve done and how they’ve done it and it’s very sad,” Coleman said. “It’s now for sale and there’s a new owner of The Weather Channel will be announced – several billion dollars having changed hands in the near future. Let’s hope the new owners can recapture the vision and stop reporting the traffic, telling us what to think and start giving us useful weather information.”



The Weather Channel has been an outlet for global warming alarmism. In December 2006, The Weather Channel’s Heidi Cullen argued on her blog that weathercasters who had doubts about human influence on global warming should be punished with decertification by the American Meteorological Society.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Does anyone here watch The Weather Channel? Honestly I can't grasp why it's even remotely relevant. Isn't the whole confusing climate with weather blunder kind of beneath you guys by this point?

Also someone please tell me how the airlines fit in. I can't watch videos here, and that first word of the post was the only part that sounds interesting.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

This Just In:™ the Weather Channel gets your weather wrong because of global warming alarmism blogs.

Nice!

greg

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

Does anyone here watch The Weather Channel?

No. The happy little porn muzak is easily too much for me within a couple of minutes.

Also someone please tell me how the airlines fit in. I can't watch videos here, and that first word of the post was the only part that sounds interesting.

The airline bit was really pretty softball. The URL claims they "hit back", but all the representative said is that they'd like to put airline's C02 emissions in proper context with the other, more major contributors. He started by mentioning that it is easy to target airlines, but it is only a "fraction" of the problem. A problem he agreed was very real and in need of solutions, while also trying to "contextualize" the airlines' contribution to the problem.

[Buckaroo]

What it comes down to is this: we have had millions of scientists and doctors working for hundreds of years on medicine, yet not one can cure the common cold. They are able to experiment on viruses, humans, animals and computer models, yet they CAN NOT cure the simple little iddy-biddy common cold virus. Even with billions of human subjects there is so much that mankind does not know about the human body.

Yet, within the last 20 or 30 years, a hundred or so wacko scientists, most (if not all) with a political agenda, have ONE single subject, NO real experience in even observing ONE single other world, or are able to conduct ONE single planetary experiment from beginning to end to prove their theory, use computer models (and will not allow ANYONE else to verify their computer model programming) have come to this BS conclusion that the earth is being heated by mankind because of a gas that every single human and animal produces, and every single plant on this planet must have to survive.

They ignore and refuse to even consider or even listen to other possible causes, such as the SUN is causing this problem. Sure mankind may be producing some extra CO2, and the Earth’s climate is changing slightly, but that does not mean they are related. As the North Pole is loosing ice, the South Pole is gaining ice.

The important thing to remember, everything changes. A few years ago, the wacko’s claimed calamity, disaster and even the end of the world as we know it because of Y2k, now it’s global warming, in a few years it’ll be some other wacko cause. Wacko’s are everywhere and you need to take everything they say with a grain of salt.

They do NOT know any thing that comes out of their mouth as fact. Absolutely everything they claim is based on guesses and assumptions. Whenever it is proven that their own data contradicts their statements, they outright ignore the facts and LIE.

The biggest proof of their lack of scientific objectiveness is the fact that they refuse to listen to other possibilities. They have a political agenda and will NEVER accept other scientific data. Instead of listening to other scientific data they slander and bad mouth anyone that disagrees with their assumptions.

The only fact is, they are full of BS, and anyone that believes them are fools and brainless. The global warming cause is a cult. A cult of people that need a cause, any cause, even if it causes more damage than good.

[peeb]

And another thing Buckaroo - I'm TIRED of hearing that nonsense about the Apollo Moon Landing - it's SO obvious that was faked.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by Buckaroo 

They ignore and refuse to even consider or even listen to other possible causes, such as the SUN is causing this problem. Sure mankind may be producing some extra CO2, and the Earth’s climate is changing slightly, but that does not mean they are related. As the North Pole is loosing ice, the South Pole is gaining ice.

You clearly haven't read anything in this thread.

That the sun is a possible responsible cause was a huge concern for many, many years. It still is a huge concern, and there's tons of ongoing studies on the subject. As of TO DATE, however, the conclusions drawn have been that while the sun was historically a main climate driver, that is no longer the case.

The biggest proof of their lack of scientific objectiveness is the fact that they refuse to listen to other possibilities. They have a political agenda and will NEVER accept other scientific data. Instead of listening to other scientific data they slander and bad mouth anyone that disagrees with their assumptions.

Amusing, considering your inability to absorb anything posted in this thread.



Just as an aside, I noticed USA Today has an article on the supposed "Global Cooling Scare" of the 70s that you like to bring up so often around here. I think the paper is here. I'd suggest you give it a look, if I wasn't certain that I'd merely be wasting my time.

greg

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by Buckaroo 

... yet they CAN NOT cure the simple little iddy-biddy common cold virus.

But they do all agree that we know it is caused by a virus. Just because climate scientists can't all agree on the way to "cure" global warming does not mean they don't know what's causing it.

Also, what makes you think the common cold is simple?

A few years ago, the wacko’s claimed calamity, disaster and even the end of the world as we know it because of Y2k...

Has it crossed your mind that the reason Y2K didn't cause a disaster is exactly because people warned us about it and so we spent $millions exhaustively scouring code to fix the problem in time?

They have a political agenda and will NEVER accept other scientific data. Instead of listening to other scientific data they slander and bad mouth anyone that disagrees with their assumptions.

You are such a brilliant parody of yourself! Check the title of this thread, and then have a chuckle at your own foibles...

[olePigeon]

BUCKAROO, PLEASE STOP POSTING IN THIS THREAD. YOU'VE MADE IT ABUNDANTLY CLEAR YOU DON'T HAVE A CLUE WHAT IS GOING ON.

YOU REFUSE TO SCROLL BACK A FEW PAGES TO READ THE ANSWERS THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN PROVIDED TO THE QUESTIONS YOU KEEP REPEATEDLY ASKING.

STOP POSTING THE SAME DAMN QUESTIONS, WE ARE SICK AND TIRED OF POSTING THE SAME DAMN ANSWERS.

[Buckaroo]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

BUCKAROO, PLEASE STOP POSTING IN THIS THREAD. YOU'VE MADE IT ABUNDANTLY CLEAR YOU DON'T HAVE A CLUE WHAT IS GOING ON.

YOU REFUSE TO SCROLL BACK A FEW PAGES TO READ THE ANSWERS THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN PROVIDED TO THE QUESTIONS YOU KEEP REPEATEDLY ASKING.

STOP POSTING THE SAME DAMN QUESTIONS, WE ARE SICK AND TIRED OF POSTING THE SAME DAMN ANSWERS.

Typical response from a cult follower. I'll bet you also belong to Scientology and you use to belong to the Hare Krishna. What's wrong, you didn't get enough?

The fact is. THERE IS NO PROOF. It is 100% assumptions. EVERY SINGLE WORD by the fake scientists are assumptions. Nothing has been proven.

BTW olePigion, I started this thread, and if I want to post in it once in a while I will. You don't have to read any of it, oh and I didn't ask one single question in the previous post. You still have your jaded glasses on from reading the GW BS, and all you are capable of is slandering the free. Take your jaded glasses off and see the light for once.

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by ShortcutToMoncton 

As of TO DATE, however, the conclusions drawn have been that while the sun was historically a main climate driver, that is no longer the case.

When exactly did the sun give up its rank as the main climate driver? Link?

[Warren Pease]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

When exactly did the sun give up its rank as the main climate driver? Link?

The sun is the main climate driver. If it went out tomorrow, no amount of CO2 in our atmosphere would keep us (better yet, the earth) from freezing immediately.

The point is to what degree does the suns variations affect the change that is currently occuring at this point in time. As far as I've read (links here and elsewhere in this sub-forum), the effect of the sun's variations in intensity/radiation/insolation/etc. accounts for between 5%-25% of the observed increase in temperatures. The rest of the warming can be attributed to the added positive feedback due to the presence of increased CO2, whose source is anthopogenic. Again, no amount of anthropogenic CO2 would do anything absent the suns energy.

The sun is at a it's 11-year minimum of activity (give or take a year), yet there is no decrease in global temperature trends? Certainly, it's a driver and a source, but if it were the primary or sole driver, why isn't there any appreciable decrease in global temps?

Despite buckaroo's claims, these things are taken into consideration, whether he chooses to see/believe it or not.

[Buckaroo]

Originally Posted by Warren Pease 

Despite buckaroo's claims, these things are taken into consideration, whether he chooses to see/believe it or not.

". . .into consideration . . ." Into their assumptions? Do you remember that big graph that Al Gore showed that represented the temperature variations along with C02 variations? Not only did he read it wrong, the whole chart was based on a million assumptions. IT WAS NOT FACT.

And he got it wrong.

Stop being sucked into the scam/cult.

People are being brainless because they assume the data is correct. They are not questioning the BS.

[Warren Pease]

Originally Posted by Buckaroo 

". . .into consideration . . ." Into their assumptions? Do you remember that big graph that Al Gore showed that represented the temperature variations along with C02 variations? Not only did he read it wrong, the whole chart was based on a million assumptions. IT WAS NOT FACT.

Actually, not having seen the movie, no, I don't remember... So you're saying it's not true that that CO2 follows temperature?

And he got it wrong.

If Gore's data is wrong AND he's mis-reading that data, isn't that like a double-negative?

[ShortcutToMoncton]

"lol"

[Buckaroo]

Originally Posted by Warren Pease 

If Gore's data is wrong AND he's mis-reading that data, isn't that like a double-negative?

EXACTLY. As clear as mud.

The data they collected is based on assumptions, and on top of that, he miss-read all of the assumptions.

It's all BS.

[Uncle Skeleton]

All science is based on assumptions, not the least of which is the assumption that empirically derived patterns, such as the "laws" of gravity and electromagnetism, are constant from one moment to the next. If you're going to ignore any discovery that is based on assumptions, you'll be a sorry character caricature indeed.

[Buckaroo]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton 

All science is based on assumptions, not the least of which is the assumption that empirically derived patterns, such as the "laws" of gravity and electromagnetism, are constant from one moment to the next. If you're going to ignore any discovery that is based on assumptions, you'll be a sorry character caricature indeed.

It's the magnitude of assumptions that GW is based on. It is horrible, and the scientists won't even open their programming models for review. Their computer models could be 3 lines.
Start
Print: "Goodbye World"
End Program

[Warren Pease]

Originally Posted by Buckaroo 

It's the magnitude of assumptions that GW is based on. It is horrible, and the scientists won't even open their programming models for review. Their computer models could be 3 lines.
Start
Print: "Goodbye World"
End Program

You make a compelling argument.

 

Geophysial Fluid Dynamics Laboratory - NOAA - flexible modeling system

Global Forecast Model developed at National Center for Environmental Prediction, National Weather Service

The Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) Download Page

Goddard Institute for Space Sciences - Model E

Los Alamos National Lab - The Parallel Ocean Program (POP)

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - OASIS 3

The google search was only 1% of the work I had to do to find that. The other 5 minutes was rote copy and paste.

If only there were some way to look at those wacko's code!

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Lies, lies, lies.

Sad, sad, sad.

greg

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by Warren Pease 

Geophysial Fluid Dynamics Laboratory - NOAA - flexible modeling system

From your link; "what is FMS?"
FMS does not include the determination of model configurations, parameter settings, or the choice amongst various options...
Based on only a cursory understanding of the data therein, I'm guessing the above could pose a problem for "those in the know" who'd like to analyze outputs. Since the latest release (Omsk version) appears to have been made available as recently as 8/15/2007 and the internal release notes as well as the internal links are hanging, I'm not able to verify much else. (in fairness, I'm using a 4 yr old Safari) *As an aside, I now have a new appreciation for anyone trying to keep up. The updates appear to occur every few months.

Global Forecast Model developed at National Center for Environmental Prediction, National Weather Service

GFS is global numerical weather prediction model, which is run four times a day and produces forecasts up to 16 days in advance.
ESRL : PSD : Models: GFS While this model is generally understood to lose considerable resolution after 7 days, I found it refreshing that they offer the source for this code to the public and encourage users to "contribute to a Wiki, provide feedback, and submit improvements to the code." What you immediately learn from the first two links you provided is that there are a host of models used in parallel with one another. You know there's scientific methodology behind this, but this methodology is less than clear and is this that has many scrambling for FOI requests.

The Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) Download Page

From the "An Overview of the CCSM project" link at the top of the page, they are looking forward to some pretty major (what they call "ambitious") improvements over the next five years such as;

• increasing computer power, both in the U.S. and abroad, that can support more elaborate and more sophisticated models and modeling studies, using increased spatial resolution and covering longer intervals of simulated time;
• improved understanding of many of the component processes represented in the CCSM, including cloud physics; radiative transfer; atmospheric chemistry, including aerosol chemistry, boundary-layer processes, polar processes, and biogeochemical processes; and the interactions of gravity waves with the large-scale circulation of the atmosphere;
• improved understanding of how these component processes interact;
• improved numerical methods for the simulation of geophysical fluid dynamics; and
• improved observations of the atmosphere, including major advances in satellite observations.

Again, this is not an indictment against the scientific community as these are all healthy objectives to sound methodology. It is only meant to temper the degree of certainty found in the arguments of the natural climate change denier. After all, it is the above datasets that those critical of climate science often invoke in their own arguments. Why? Because scientifically, they are very good arguments.

Goddard Institute for Space Sciences - Model E

The f90tohtml from this link used to convert fortran source files into a hyperlinked web site was developed by Brian Fiedler, Rafal Jabrzemski, and Chris Hudgin at the School of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. I thought I recalled an earlier problem of using meteorologists in climate change expertise, but I digress. This, made portable to them by Gavin, among others. Couple of issues with this coding;

• From one who is actually trying to use the code you sourced; There are about 20 of these codes, more or less. The actual models in the codes vary considerably from code-to-code and as a function of time with a given code. The GISS ModelE code is the NASA versions of GCMs... Basically there is a notable lack of detailed documentation for either the theoretical models, numerical solution methods, and especially the contents and purpose and structure of the routines in the code.
• From another user (same link);
  Here’s an interesting fragment from the sea ice subroutine-
  
  C**** pond_melt accumulates in melt season only
  if ((J.gt.JM/2 .and. (jday.ge.152 .and. jday.lt.212)) .or.
  * (J.lt.JM/2 .and. (jday.ge.334 .or. jday.lt.31))) then
  pond_melt(i,j)=pond_melt(i,j)+0.3d0*RUN0
  end if
  "Note that the “pond melt season” is defined as the months of June and July … I wonder if anyone has notified the sea ice that the pond melt can only accumulate in June and July."
• From another user (same link);
  "After ten minutes of browsing through the documentation and code, I could not continue. The code is rife with “scaling” adjustments to fit observations or “known” conservation limits. The change list is full of discoveries having significant impact on various elements. In spite of these “corrections”, and the admitted way-off results; see (http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/notye...sen_etal_2.pdf), this model is considered to be one of the best-available models."
• Interestingly, Gavin responds(again, same link); "These codes are what they are - the result of 30 years and more effort by dozens of different scientists (note, not professional software engineers), around a dozen different software platforms and a transition from punch-cards of Fortran 66, to fortran 95 on massively parallel systems... The level of software engineering support for Numerical Weather Prediction models for instance, is an order of magnitude ahead of what is available for us... Finally, the public version of our code is around 3 years old now, and is not what is used in production runs today. This will be updated at some point soon."
• Another user asks; "Does this mean that the model runs in the IPCC’s AR4 are based on models whose source code is not available to the public?"

Then answer is yes.

Los Alamos National Lab - The Parallel Ocean Program (POP)

From having read the data and arguments in this thread, you might know some others would take issue with you on the fact that POP's genealogy ends in 1996. That's 12 YEARS AGO!!!
FYI, the "bugs" link for the code on this ocean circulation model is dead as well as the "about us" link. From reading the link, POP and the Los Alamos sea-ice model (CICE) have been adopted as the basis for the ocean and sea ice components of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM). Some noteworthy issues with CCSM;

• From a link of users in this community; restart problem with COMPSET C [Archive] - CGD Forum
• "I have filed an internal bug report for the CCSM3.0 "C" compset exact restart problem. Something I should have pointed out to you right at the outset of this post is that the "C" compset, as configured "out of the box" in CCSM3.0, is not suitable for scientific experimentation. The CCSM documentation alludes to this, in the Introduction of the CCSM3.0 User's Guide, section 1.5, albeit somewhat indirectly.
  
• "Although CCSM3.0 can be run "out of the box'' for a variety or resolutions and component sets, it must be stressed that not all combinations of component sets, resolution and machines have been tested or have undergone full climate validations."
• "I posed your questions to the NCAR ocean scientific staff, and here's their reply:
  The compset 'C' configuration in the CCSM3.0 release is "use at your own risk".
• "The NCAR ocean section does not endorse the ocean forcing scheme which results from configuring compset C out-of-the-box. Users of compset C must be prepared to address the issues of ocean forcing on their own without support."

This, just to give our audience a full appreciation of the complexities involved with modeling and model validation. Again, to temper the certainty evident around here.

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - OASIS 3

Some noted "cons" with this model from its primary user community;
prismenes.org
- Cost for IPCC scenarios alone 320,000 Euro
- More efficient Coupler is required especially for high resolution scenarios (made available in updated OASIS4, but only to the GEMS community.)
- Poor performance in parallel applications
– Implementation of exchange via a root process
- Poor Search Algorithms
– not efficient for larger fields,
– ONE transformer process for interpolation

If only there were some way to look at those wacko's code!

I personally don't regard them as "whackos", but I might question the degree of certainty inherent among the more popular extrapolations and exactly how these models are used in accordance with one another. These are not trivial problems. One thing is certain, the scientific community is much more open and honest about these limitations than most others.

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by Warren Pease 

The sun is at a it's 11-year minimum of activity (give or take a year), yet there is no decrease in global temperature trends? Certainly, it's a driver and a source, but if it were the primary or sole driver, why isn't there any appreciable decrease in global temps?

You may be biased against evidence that in fact suggests there is a decrease in global temperature because of our point in the sun's minimum, 2007-2008. I'm not denying the longer trends, but this does take some time. Afterall, it is only March 2008. We may regard new information differently.

Despite buckaroo's claims, these things are taken into consideration, whether he chooses to see/believe it or not.

buckaroo appears frustrated to me. I wouldn't blame him too much. You would agree that there is at least as much zeal from those who would engage him.

[Buckaroo]

If it isn't one thing it's another.

Another good example of Science turned political agenda:

Series of blunders turned the plastic bag into global villain - Times Online

Series of blunders turned the plastic bag into global villain
Alexi Mostrous
Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims.

[tie]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

From the "An Overview of the CCSM project" link at the top of the page, they are looking forward to some pretty major (what they call "ambitious") improvements over the next five years such as;

• increasing computer power, both in the U.S. and abroad, that can support more elaborate and more sophisticated models and modeling studies, using increased spatial resolution and covering longer intervals of simulated time;
• improved understanding of many of the component processes represented in the CCSM, including cloud physics; radiative transfer; atmospheric chemistry, including aerosol chemistry, boundary-layer processes, polar processes, and biogeochemical processes; and the interactions of gravity waves with the large-scale circulation of the atmosphere;
• improved understanding of how these component processes interact;
• improved numerical methods for the simulation of geophysical fluid dynamics; and
• improved observations of the atmosphere, including major advances in satellite observations.

Again, this is not an indictment against the scientific community as these are all healthy objectives to sound methodology. It is only meant to temper the degree of certainty found in the arguments of the natural climate change denier. After all, it is the above datasets that those critical of climate science often invoke in their own arguments. Why? Because scientifically, they are very good arguments.

Your major criticism of the model is that the scientists would like to improve it? God forbid.

I'm so relieved you don't consider trying to improve science "an indictment against the scientific community." You are admirably open-minded, ebuddy.

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by tie 

Your major criticism of the model is that the scientists would like to improve it? God forbid. I'm so relieved you don't consider trying to improve science "an indictment against the scientific community." You are admirably open-minded, ebuddy.

Good to see you're still here. Just checkin'. Those critical of climate science hype often invoke these points in their arguments. Why? Because scientifically, they are very good arguments. Maybe not for you, but you don't seem very interested in science.

[Buckaroo]

AIM Report: 2002 Report # 15 - SCIENCE FOR SALE: THE GLOBAL WARMING SCAM

SCIENCE FOR SALE: THE GLOBAL WARMING SCAM

It's Not About the Science

The dirty secret is that global warming is driven more by the search for funding than the search for scientific truth. "Big science" was adrift in the early 1990s, like many other beneficiaries of the Cold War, and was desperate to sustain its federal funding. Global warming had all the key attributes of the next big cause. It could be used to frighten the politicians and the public, using threats of catastrophic consequences to extract billions of dollars for research to prevent it. The science was immature, and the door was wide open to all sorts of proposals and projects by scientists promising solutions. High-performance computers were the tools, and the projects promised to be long-term and career-sustaining. Getting funds was easy. As MIT Professor Lindzen has noted, "saving the planet" had a nice ring to it and seemed to portend big bucks at the end of the global warming rainbow.

By the early 1990s, there was a convergence between the proponents of big science and the left-oriented activist community. Many of the Left's old myths and socialist dreams had collapsed with the demise of the Soviet Union, and many seized on global warming as another path to reining in Big Business and reducing the standard of living and comfort level of the average American. Global warming also offered another avenue for leftists to continue their "blame America first" campaign. Advocacy groups constantly reminded citizens that it is the U.S. that is largely to blame for greenhouse emissions. For example, a newly released study by Environmental Defense blames the U.S. for generating 25% of the world's carbon dioxide and says that American cars and light trucks alone emit more carbon dioxide than almost all the other nations of the world combined. Environmental Defense says driving a car, especially an SUV, is the most egregious sin one can commit from a pollution standpoint. Since Americans have demonstrated they won't cut emissions on their own, big government will have to step in and impose curbs and controls on autos and industry in general. Clearly, advocacy groups and lobbyists had found a new hot-button issue to support their fund raising.

Global warming fanatics found powerful allies in the Democratic Party, and especially then Senator Al Gore. Government control and public opinion were the levers needed to implement the global warming agenda. Activists would need to capture key policy jobs in those federal agencies with science portfolios, like the Energy Department, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and NOAA. Once secured, these jobs would give activists control of the key levers of influence over the scientific community-research grants and federal funding of national labs and universities. They knew that they could always buy scientists who would turn out scientific studies and research reports that would help them shape and mold public opinion.

The Clinton/Gore Legacy

The Clinton/Gore victory in 1992 opened that door. President George H.W. Bush's refusal to personally attend the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and his reluctance to accept binding agreements on carbon dioxide curbs gave the Clinton/Gore team another issue in their campaign to show that "President Bush was out of touch with the people and their daily concerns."

Once in power, Al Gore, a strident environmentalist, began to remake the government bureaucracy in his image. His life experience in Washington had taught him the value of the old Washington truism, "personnel is policy." He established a White House Climate Change Task Force and placed his former legislative aide, 29-year old Kathleen McGinty, in charge of a new White House Office on Environmental Policy. He put her on the National Security Council, the new National Economic Council, and the Domestic Policy Council as a symbol of the importance of environmental policy in the Clinton White House. McGinty would be in charge of seeding the government bureaucracies with "greens" and was reputed to have an enemies list of Bush holdovers. Former NASA chief scientist Robert Watson, a Gore favorite, became associate director in the White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP). Gore brought in other "green" lawyers and lobbyists to populate the new White House positions.

He installed his former legislative director, Carol Browner, as the new EPA administrator in 1993. Under Browner, EPA became the central coordinator of the federal global warming campaign, dispensing funds through a variety of inter-agency committees and programs. At the Defense Department, the position of Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Environmental Security was established, and the CIA established a task force to apply national technical means (satellite collection platforms) to monitor world environmental issues. Tim Wirth, a former Democratic senator from Colorado, became Undersecretary for Global Affairs at the State Department. He led all U.S. negotiations on climate change. As a senator, Wirth had proclaimed that it didn't matter if the science of global warming was right or wrong, the economic and environmental policies would be right for America.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

2002 just called. It wants its rebuttals back.

[Warren Pease]

Politicians move into town and they bring their friends with them?

Throughout the article, I expected to find evidence of all this money that was flowing through, but they don't even mention any figures, just a handful of people who now had gov't jobs, and not even a mention of the scam promised in the headline.

The Budget for the EPA in 2008 is the lowest it's been since Bush took office, yet this year is only 3% smaller than the 1998 budget of $7.4 billion, the pinnacle of Gore's apparent reign of influence over Washington. The NSF has a 2008 budget of $6 billion; only a fraction of that goes to climate science.

The easy counter is to point out the $10 billion earned in the last quarter by Exxon, only one of many oil companies. Multiply that by 4, add in all the other oil companies and you will have an idea of where the big money and influence really is. The US gov't subsidizes oil companies to the tune of $6 billion annually.

If you think $8 billion can buy a lot of influence then imagine what $3,298 billion could buy.

[Warren Pease]

@ebuddy, thanks for taking part in the process which some people here claim doesn't exist. I don't have the expertise or knowledge to try and counter each of your points, but the point remains, the code is there and is available for criticism/improvement.

Unfortunately the climate and weather modelling research programs don't enjoy the same level of participation and testing as do other open-source programs (you really should try Firefox btw) Each iteration improves upon the previous. Maybe if they had more money they could maintain the code in a more timely fashion. And i don't mean to suggest that these programs are anywhere as simple as a web browser.