Global Warming

Socrates

One of the techniques that Socrates would use in ancient Greece is to create imagery about a topic that was so grossly outrageous that it "forced" people to recognize the instability of their position.

Deep down at the core of the "Global Warming" debate is this notion that mankind is capable of controlling his environment. We have grown comfortable over the years that science could solve every problem. Essentially the entire Green Technology movement is based on the idea that by wiping our butts a little we can control the climate.

When you expose the futility of Climate Control over the longer span of time (the Climate Cycle) it "forces" someone to either think more deeply or to reject the debate and walk away.

We cannot easily alter the Climate Cycle.

...this is a fact. No matter what we do about CO2 we are still subject to the longer term Climate Cycle that gave us the last Ice Age and will give us another one eventually. Unless we could find some way to really control the effects of the sun (which is effectively impossible) we are going to have to accept that stability is nearly impossible.

It is somewhat interesting though.

One thinks of something like the catalytic converter in the automobile exhaust pipe. This was an invention that altered the way gasoline polluted (the visible type) without preventing the use of the fuel.

Logically it's unrealistic for us to try to control the climate... but as a "cartoon suggestion" it does achieve the goal of exposing the unexposed.

"The unexamined life is not worth living..."

The climate cycle has been utterly demolished by a much stronger force, and is essentially irrelevant for the entire future of human civilization on Earth.

I don't agree with this conjecture.

Based on historical values of CO2 our STANDARD DEVIATION from the Climate Cycle norms are not yet significant.

Also, since CO2 is known to always be a trailing indicator we do normally expect CO2 to be on a trajectory upwards even though the temperatures are beginning to cool. The oceans are the ultimate determinant of when the climate changes. The polar ice is melting rapidly as predicted by the Climate Cycle and we know from history that once the ocean currents stop we are on a long road to the next Ice Age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation

...wake me up when we get to 700 ppm.

Keynesian Economic Analogy

In a way what we are seeing in our economic space mirrors this climate debate.

Economically we went through a stock market bubble in 1999, followed by a housing bubble in 2005, and now a debt based government bubble today. After the end of each of these bubbles there is a crash and an attempt to return to a historical norm. A bubble is any time there is an excessive imbalance of value.

CO2 is today much like our deficit spending... trying to prolong the inevitable reversal that will come.

There is an irony that very often the left wing people that argue AGAINST CO2 (which acts as a favorable counter balance to the coming Ice Age) will then argue in favor of more deficit spending which acts as a counter balance to the economy reverting to the norm.

Just funny how counter cyclical thinking can be idealized differently depending on the group you associate with... :)

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CO2 generally is a counter cyclical influence in the normal Climate Cycle (so it always lags behind temperature) so for it to actually overwhelm the cycle it would have to be immense... much like the debt we've created trying to prevent the economy from falling. At some point unless MORE debt or CO2 is introduced into the various systems these systems will tend to self correct back to historical norms.

How The Climate Cycle Will Be Apparent

We are seeing record levels of snow in New York and this is the sort of thing that is likely to happen as the ocean currents begin to slow. Basically the ocean currents determine the distribution of the weather and if they change then places that were used to one climate will then be replaced with a new climate. Some places like that of Europe that have been overly dependent on an ocean current to keep them warm will find that without the current they will cool dramatically. Snow will become almost permanent in some areas that used to barely get snow. Over time the regions near the equator will get slightly warmer, but those areas near the poles will dramatically cool because the reflection of snow produces a huge difference in the rate of heat absorption.

This takes time...

One should not expect that climates will change in a season or even a decade, but eventually the areas that are now melting (the poles) will get a thin new layer of snow that will set the stage for the next cooling phase. While now we see methane levels spiking because of the melting of the permafrost, once the ocean currents stop circulating those permafrosts will again freeze up solid and the methane will again be trapped below the snow. Methane has an effect that is 25 times that of CO2 and so when that gets shut down it will have a dramatic effect. Methane also disappears quickly, so it's effect is rapid, dramatic and usually short lived.

CO2 is a lagging indicator as well as a milder climate influence. Compared to methane it's somewhat trivial, but it does have an effect. The primary way that CO2 recirculates through the earths systems is through the oceans. It takes a LOOOOOOOOOONG time for CO2 to become re-absorbed into the oceans, so we should expect this excessive CO2 situation we have now to linger for something like 30,000 years before completely disappearing. All during this time however we expect the climate to be cooling as the oceans will remain still. It would require dramatically higher CO2 levels to completely prevent the cooling that is to come.

It will only be after about 80,000 years of gradual cooling that we finally see the next Ice Age bottom and only then will the oceans start to circulate again. By then the ocean level will have DROPPED about 300 feet from where it is today as the water will have been converted to snow and ice. The cycle is in effect "acted out" with water, but it's the solar influences that actually determine the timing of the phases. Water acts as an "inertial device" in the system.

It's a long cycle to deal with...

Early Humans Adapted To Climate

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2011-01-27-early-humans-africa_N.htm

The discovery team suggests that the expansion took place during the ending of an Ice Age, when sea levels were lower, permitting rafting of the Red Sea. At the time, Arabia flourished under monsoon rains that produced savannahs rich with ibex and gazelles.

"Archaeologists working in Arabia have been looking for a site such as this for over 50 years, and, at last, they have found one," says archaeologist Jeffrey Rose of the United Kingdom's University of Birmingham, who was not on the study team. "This new evidence for a population living around the Gulf over 100,000 years ago casts serious doubt on the currently accepted "Late Expansion" model which argues our species did not emerge from Africa until 60,000 years ago," he adds, by e-mail.

Our early ancestors when confronted by something as difficult to cross as an ocean would simply not attempt it most of the time. It was only because of the Climate Cycle where at the bottom of the Ice Ages the ocean levels were so low that making land crossing opened up as a possibility.

Humanity is so deeply interwoven with the Climate Cycle and yet the recent climate debate had at one time nearly ignored it.

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The "bottom line" on this discovery is that:

The accepted story was that man left Africa in this last Climate Cycle (60,000 years ago) but now they think that humans left in a previous cycle, possibly a previous Ice Age before this last one.

Midwest braces for ‘historic’ winter storm

http://www.landlinemag.com/todays_news/Daily/2011/Feb11/20411/20411-02.shtml

The National Weather Service, the Federal Emergency Management Administration, and governors of the Midwestern states are telling residents and travelers it’s time to hunker down before a “historic” winter storm hits.

In Missouri, Gov. Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency in advance of a winter storm expected to blanket most of the state in 18-24 inches of snow. The Missouri Department of Transportation is already warning against travel – even for professional drivers – on all interstates, except the southeastern most part of Interstate 55.

The National Weather Service is warning travelers about potentially “life threatening” conditions in Illinois and Indiana. The NWS warned that travel will become virtually impossible across the region.

The storm is expected to deliver heavy snow and possibly ice accumulation that will be followed by high winds and bitter cold.

“The winds deserve special mention. They are expected to be sustained at 15 to 30 mph with gusts to 60 mph. They will reduce visibility, cause snow to cover previously-plowed lanes, and will make handling high profile vehicles difficult,” MoDOT cautioned in a media advisory.

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Things like this certainly argue for the "Climate Cycle" being in control. Maybe one can argue that overall the CO2 levels are high, but when we keep getting these cold winters and heavy snows it tends to make the "straight line... um... hockey stick" warming idea seem too simplistic.

Grownups Against Snow Proliferation (G.A.S.P.)

http://www.wickedlocal.com/stoughton/opinions/columns/x1916607419/SNYDERS-STOUGHTON-Snow-more-We-mean-it

Hi, I’m Mark, the president and founder of Grownups Against Snow Proliferation (G.A.S.P.). We are working to bring back Global Warming. You see, we embraced former Vice President Al Gore when he said the “Earth had a temperature.” We believed him. We sold our Miami Beach and Myrtle Beach properties and bought everything we could in Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont and north of the border in Canada. We figured that in just a few decades, our frozen tundra would become warm and sunny all year round. Think Hawaii without the exorbitant airfare and the sky-rocketing prices. We looked forward to November at York, Maine; December in Sandwich on Cape Cod; January in Calgary, Canada; and February in Stowe, VT. It seemed like the best of both worlds. The lovely cozy towns, the down-to-Earth residents, the small town feel, and the warmth of Global Warming, keeping everyone toasty and comfortable. No more huge expenses for natural gas or oil to heat homes. With Global Warming, and the love of a good woman, homes will be naturally hovering around 70 degrees, all year round.

But, we wondered. Would we miss the four seasons? Would we long for the beauty of a winter’s snowstorm? At our last board meeting, G.A.S.P unanimously decided that members will not miss the youthful exuberance of the children who embraced the winter season. We won’t miss the snow at all. Maybe the kids enjoyed Snow Days, sledding, skiing, snowboarding, and snowball fights, but the grownups in our group can do without it. In fact, Irwin, a youngster at only 55, said the only snow he missed was the shaved ice in his snow cone. I concur, and do miss the grape snow cones of my youth. As a grownup, we realized that Snow Days cost us money. We had to work, no matter what the weather. All of us were “essential employees,” and we worked in the dreaded private sector, so we had to come in rain, sleet or snow - or we wouldn’t get paid.

The GASP Real Estate Trust invested millions in these wonderful New England properties in the hopes of cashing in on the Global Warming phenomenon. But, something went wrong, Global Warming got cancelled, and Climate Change became the newest theory endorsed by scientists who were collecting federal money to study the planet... (more)

Safe, are you really trying to suggest that snow in the winter somehow disproves global warming????

Science is the process of creating theories and then testing which theory best matches the data. At first we saw Newtons simple theory of F=MA and that lasted for a very long time before Einstein pointed out that when you approach the speed of light it "breaks". The alternative theory "reduces" to the simple theory at normal speeds.

Climate Change, Climate Cycle, Global Warming, are different theories that attempt to match the data for the climate that we actually see.

The Climate Cycle has "within it" the subset of "Global Warming" and "Global Cooling".... if you understand set theory then you understand what I'm saying here.

Climate Change is sort of a non-defined term because it's simply a "wildcard" that allows any change in the climate to fall within the definition. It was sort of a cop out term that was invented because to admit the Climate Cycle would back too far away from the "human caused" aspect of a changing climate. The people that invented the Climate Change phrase didn't want to give up intellectual power.

Global Warming is a wonderful phrase because it invokes this idea of something unexpected and out of control. It completely hides the Climate Cycle and the people that first pushed the idea were using it to exploit an agenda that included things like control of power plants. (Cap and Trade)

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So what about "Snow"?

Well you have to think of the theories and what data is expected from them. Record snowfall and cold winters at a time when there is global warming seems a contradiction, but I can see it fitting into either theory.

In the end it comes down to:

WHAT THEORY BEST MATCHES THE DATA?

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PS: Funny cartoon !!!