What do you think of global warming?

To expect a human to predict what the weather will be like 10, 20, 50, 100 years from now is ridiculous. Humans are flawed and the little computer programs they write trying to predict the weather are a wild guess at what may happen with the Sun and the weather on Earth.

The latest in the news is the Sun is not doing what it's supposed too according to these scientist that are "perfect" in their predictions.

Deron.

I have not had as much fun watching (mostly media) people who do not understand how science works try to talk around something far outside their knowledge base since the great global cooling theory in the 1960's.

Really there is some very interesting real science going on to try to give real answers to the various questions raised. And I suspect, that the answers will not be what we are thinking now.

dancar, are you trying to deny that global warming is happening, or what?

You talk about mis-information when your statement, "[Al Gore] talked about carbon dioxide causing global warming in earth's history," is an example of mis-information. Either you didn't see the movie, or you were not paying attention. What Al Gore showed was evidence that increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere coincided with periods of increased temperatures on earth. He also talked about how CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas, and thus CAN be the cause of increased temperatures. But overall, his emphasis was that atmospheric CO2 correlates to historical increases in earth's surface temperature and not that CO2 was the cause.

Also, when Wikipedia relates climate change to global warming, it is because global warming IS the climate change that is actually happening on earth. To deny that climate change on earth today means global warming is to deny science - to deny the truth.

bocabikeguy, you pretty much sum up the questions and knows in your statement. CO2 is associated with many ( though not all) warm periods. The opposite is also true, high temperature is associated with many high CO2 periods. The questions is which leads and which lags and is one causing the other, or are they both caused by a 3rd factor.
If you like reading rather arcane research, look at some of the papers on ice cores and determining the age of the trapped bubbles. Using the data from different papers you can make a case for either CO2 or temp being the lead item.
I also recently read a shortend ersion of an solar study paper that proposed a method that revolved around the solar pressure on incoming dust. His correlations were better than the CO2 numbers. Does that make it right, no, but it does make it interesting.
The second question revolves around the human portion of the change. If the CO@ hypothsis ( spelling??) fails then the human input question becomes very different. Even if it is correct, there is still a large ongoing question as to how much people have and or can do.
And just to stir up the pot a little, read this:
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=569586&p=1

http://visforvoltage.org/forum/2652-interesting-global-warming-er-global-climate-destabilization-debate

I want everyone on this forum to swear a solemn oath to never fly in ANY jet that uses more fuel per passenger-mile than Al Gores private jet.

AND, furthermore, nobody should EVER eat more ENDANGERED Chilean Sea Bass than Al Gore served per person at his daughters wedding.

ALSO, I do hereby swear a solemn oath to NEVER buy a home that uses more electricity or water than Al Gores 25,000 square foot home (the big one, not the other two)

What is funny with all this talk about global warming, I recently read somewhere the opposite, that we are entering a phase where there is NO sunspots on the sun. Usually this means much cooler temperatures. Hope this helps. God Bless :)

Almost. The sun is just passing its solar minimum. In March, we saw our first sunspot of this cycle with the magnetic field reversed - so it's official. :) More sunspots to come means hotter weather.

The worlds ice caps and glaciers ARE melting at alarming rates. The past 10 years have had the highest average temperatures recorded since they have been keeping track of these things. Climate is complicated science, but I'd say there is a strong case we are in a serious warming trend, and that greenhouse gases are a part of the equation. A very large majority of scientist who are experts in this field agree on this.

They use references that talk about "climate change" and infer that to mean "global warming"

What precisely is your objection? And I mean be precise. Which reference? What is the specific claim you object to? I'm happy to dig into this, but I don't want to swat at reflections. I don't want to dig up of solid reports only to have you come back and say that those weren't the ones you don't like.

Atmospheric science is a huge field and it is difficult to summarize. Al Gore did about as good a job as anyone could, but to fit it into two hours he still had to resort to a fair amount of hand-waving. Wikipedia is not a bad place to start, but it is only a start. I live in Boulder and know a few atmospheric scientists. They tend to use the phrase "climate change" because it is more descriptive. If the models are right, some parts of the globe will warm, some will cool, some will get drier, and some wetter, and there will be year to year variations within the trends. So far the biggest problem with the models is they seem to be too conservative. The overall trend will be warmer, however. The media tends to use the phrase "global warming" because it is scarier. I can't blame them for this. Fear can be a good motivator. So can $10 gas for that matter.

You can sit back and enjoy the ride, though. Most of us will be dead before anything we do now makes any difference with respect to the climate. Think of it as a test of your altruistic intentions towards the next generation. What we can change is our reliance on foreign energy sources, smog, acid rain, and the other delightful things that go with burning fossil fuels.

I want everyone on this forum to swear a solemn oath...

I want you to swear an oath to study up on logical fallacies. Start with the Straw Man Fallacy, but by all means don't stop there.

I think it is mis-information, politics, with a mix of paranoia.

Maybe all we need to cool down that global warming is a

Grandpa Chas S.

dancar loves fox news.

Controlled by the Bush Administration.

http://www.youtube.com/user/11thhouraction

.

Damn good movie. $6

If all the GW cheerleaders were smart, they would take their life savings and invest it in air conditioning companies. They would get richer with each passing year as the temperatures went up :)

Al Gore is sure making a killing.

Deron.

I just thought of something, the GW scientist that are guessing at the weather 50 years from now need to predict what the Sun will be doing then. Turns out the Sun is not doing what they say it's supposed to be doing right now, did they forget to predict that? According to this article in Science Daily the observations of the Sun show that it is not doing what they predicted. Go figure. Man they have the best computer models and the smartest scientist.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080609124551.htm

Deron.

Wow

"that's all I have to say bout that"

Turns out the Sun is not doing what they say it's supposed to be doing right now, did they forget to predict that?

I've been watching the sun's activity for about 25 years now - it's doing exactly what it should be and is right on time for new sunspot activity. Each cycle is not going to be exactly 11 years.

The most common smokescreen put up by corporations that try to protect the activities they profit from at the expense of public safety is to claim that their opponents have some sort of profit or political motive in trying to save people or save the world. The Tobacco companies famously did this, and the energy companies are doing it now.

4. Finding more references about climate change versus global warming.

You keep trying to pretend that climate change is NOT global warming. This is a rhetorical trick to obscure what is actually happening.

7. What is bad about global warming? Found one references that says if sea levels rise .5 meters than 6 million inhabitants of country ABC are at risk. I'm sorry but if country ABC can't muster up a berm of 3 feet tall over a 50 year period then maybe natural selection should take place. More of the same with the dire consequences of global warming. The polar bears will survive just fine if we leave them alone.

What you say might be true if the ocean were a placid lake, but it's not. If the mean ocean level rises 3 INCHES, then the flood plain models change so much that half of all coastal area construction projects would be disallowed or dramatically altered. Changing the ocean level 3 FEET would destroy cities. This idea that, "wouldn't it be nice if it were a little warmer" ignores how sensitive the earth's ecosystem is and the extent to which catastrophic weather events can change our lives.

Some of the etc... that I'm concerned about:

Closer, but work with me here. You're still pretty all over the map, and I need just one thing. Part of what you say leads me to think that you believe in climate change and global warming you just are not persuaded as to what the results will be, but other things you say contradict this. So what do you want to talk about? Arctic sea ice? Survival of polar bears? Correlation between atmospheric CO2 and temperature? Man-made versus natural contributions to climate change? The effects of rising sea levels? The uneven quality of Wikipedia? I can hand wave answers to all your objections. For example if you think researchers are doing it for the money, you clearly have no idea how poorly they are paid. The money motivated ones rapidly gravitate towards industry where the salaries are about triple. But I don't want to hand wave. I want to talk science. I want to dig up and show you good research paper on the topic of your choice. You just have to give me a narrow enough topic to begin the search.

It is also possible that you have a misunderstanding of how science works. Most research papers are extremely narrow in focus such as isotope ratios in ice cores taken in Greenland yielding temperature estimates over a few hundred years. Then someone else drills deeper or in a different place and adds more data. Then someone else does the same thing in Siberia. Other research teams look into deep ocean sediments, Canadian tree rings, or Irish peat bogs. For the last few years we have data on global sea temperatures. (Wish we had those going back a few centuries.) Occasionally someone will look at a stack of these papers and start drawing some general conclusions. The great thing about this is there is so much data from so many different sources that are in agreement that the general conclusions are easily supportable. The problem is naysayers can cherry pick a few studies that don't correlate and attempt to cast doubt. Naysayers are useful within the scientific community because they keep everyone on their toes. They aren't so useful when they grab a couple of factoids and run off the Fox News.

So now do you have a better idea what I'm asking for? I am good at digging up research, but I need a place to start.

Turns out the Sun is not doing what they say it's supposed to be doing right now, did they forget to predict that?

I've been watching the sun's activity for about 25 years now - it's doing exactly what it should be and is right on time for new sunspot activity. Each cycle is not going to be exactly 11 years.

So how do you explain the little ice age? They blamed that on 50 years of the Sun not doing what you say it should do (according to your 25 years of observing), you know, follow the 11 year cycle it is supposed to follow. Right now they say the Sun is 2 years behind schedule and all the king's men have no clue.

Deron.

I want to talk science. I want to dig up and show you good research paper on the topic of your choice. You just have to give me a narrow enough topic to begin the search.

If you want to dig:
if one has been written yet; a review of ice core CO2 leveles and ages ( with appropiate error values for time and levels). Jackpot would be one that talks about how the age was determined.
Historic temperature data from the same time period as the review article from as few proxies as possible. Again with appropiate error values.