And whiel Im in the mood heres some more to chew over contrails-and-chemtrails
@sdfgeoff: There are plenty of reasons for someone or some organization to manipulate the presentation of facts so as to lean towards a particular conclusion. Sometimes people just don’t want to be proven wrong while other times there’s a financial interest at play. The Weather Channel for instance, apparently it was determined that ratings went up when a named storm was approaching, typically the National Weather Service only names storms that have the potential to cause severe damage, but after noticing ratings spikes the Weather Channel started to give names to weaker storms that the NWS did not name so as to make it appear more dangerous than it actually was in a bid to up their ratings.
I imagine this type of thing happens quite often in the news media and while I wouldn’t call it devious I would say it has rather negative repercussions. You know I hear a lot of climate change supporters in the media talk about the receding glaciers, pointing to it as proof of global warming and using the alarmist stance that “our children will never get to see these beautiful glaciers” and “once they’re gone they’re gone for good.” None of that is actually true to the best of my knowledge.
Like I said before the earth is currently in an ice age, the fifth ice age the earth has experienced in its brief lifetime. Ice ages are divided into alternating periods of warm and cool called inter-glacial and glacial periods. Glacial periods are named so because the planet cools and glaciers grow during these periods, during inter-glacial periods the glaciers recede. This is a perfectly normal cycle that has gone on for billions of years, long before humans existed.
Moreover, as your graph points out, during these periods the earth cycles through many smaller warm and cool periods. We are currently in a warm period, the last cool period, during the 1600’s-1800’s, was colder than average, became known as the ‘mini ice age’ and coincided with an abnormally long solar dormant period. During this abnormally cold period the glaciers actually began to grow, the very same glaciers we see receding today. Those glaciers the media are so worried about actually didn’t exist before the 1600’s, at least not since the previous glacial period.
@Everyone else: As for Geoengineering, truth be told the earth has always been undergoing geoengineering and for as long as humans have existed we have had a hand in that however big or small. It is only that for the first time we are becoming aware that we have an impact.
Imagine, if you will, during the early days of the planet when plants began to transform the planet into what it is today, what if they all of a sudden realized the impact they had on the planet and then tried to stop what they were doing? The amount of methane released from fecal matter has always had an impact on the ecosystem, the only difference is that for the first time in our planets history a species, humans, has become aware of this.
This type of thing happens all the time, the only reason no species ever became afraid of it is because they never knew about it, now that we know all of a sudden we’re afraid of it.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t clean up after ourselves, I think recycling is a great idea, but I don’t see the need to get all bent out of shape about it. If you believe we should clean our trash from the ocean then lend a helping hand, if you believe we should clean our trash out of the sky then lend a helping hand. If you don’t believe we should be doing those things then don’t bother yourself with it.
It’s not that big of a deal, really.
P.S. We are currently in an inter-glacial period the ‘normal’ thing for an inter-glacial period is that the glaciers recede. Best I can tell everything that is being called global warming or climate change is nothing more than part of the earth’s, or rather solar system’s, normal cycle.
So really I suppose the question is not whether humans have an impact or not, it’s whether we should try to ‘intelligently’ alter that now that we know that we’ve always had an impact. The question is, are we smart enough now that we can take the helm and direct the planet’s ecosystem ourselves?
Mind you, of course, we have not yet even cataloged all of the species on the planet, mapped the entire sea bed or fully understand how the earth’s core works.
P.P.S. One other thing that popped into my head. All of those universities and climate research organizations, have they been receiving extra funding due to this whole climate change scare? Do they have a financial interest in ‘sensationalizing’ climate change? Money talks and bullshit walks.
Last words free me on this subjects…
Im not the sharpest tool in the shed, but i think someone tell the Prof… we have landed on the moon.
I had to watch the video Five time and it still makes me giggle.
Care now Prof… dont let the cat out of the bag. 
You can formulate your own opinion.
Consensus is for the purpose of weeding out individual bias. If there is a strong argument that supports bias in the consensus, I haven’t heard it yet.
You bring up a good point and that might do well for those who have direct access to such data, however; people such as myself must rely on media outlets to tell us what, if any, is the consensus. The problem here is do those people reporting about the consensus have an individual bias to misrepresent the numbers? I say this because I’ve read numerous articles on the subject from both sides of the argument and I see climate change advocates reporting that there is a very strong consensus while articles coming from the disbelief standpoint report that there is very weak to no consensus at all.
Typically one might take the media outlets reputation into consideration when choosing which one to believe, but I find roughly equally ‘reputable’ media outlets are giving out conflicting information on the subject. So who does one believe?
Just for kicks I read one academic’s thoughts on the subject of consensus which I thought was funny. “Getting a consensus out of academics is a little like herding cats.” Forgive me, I can’t remember the name or article where I read that, just gave me a good chuckle.
P.S. As for herding cats he was implying that it was next to impossible. Cats just go their own way.
Okay very last Post.
I am a Robot. . . Bleep. bleep. Whizzz. pop!
Climatology has become a data mining operation. The information is loaded into a computer and simulations are the output. This is much more data than any individual can comprehend. The researchers are essentially forced to trust the data.
The media is the farthest thing from trustworthy. The researchers on the other hand are just doing their jobs. Their jobs don’t rely upon the outcome of the simulations or the consensus as certain media outlet$ would have you believe.
Some might suggest that the fossil fuel industry is the cause of such strong denial in the media however it’s more likely factory farming. It is the cause of deforestation and the increases of methane in the atmosphere. It’s Monsanto and their partners… again.
I agree that there are certain industries that have a financial interest in denying man made climate change and that gives reason to find their arguments suspicious. At the same time so too are there industries that have a financial interest in pushing the acceptance of man made climate change.
There are those that stand to benefit financially on either side. So if the foresting, farming and oil industry’s interest in the matter make that side suspicious then so too does the sulfur mining and alternative energy industry’s interest in the matter make the other suspicious.
@atr1337 What about the researchers? Do you think that they are funded by these captains of alternative energy industry? These people tend to be publicly funded.
Just listen to the experts.
If you want to see real scientific debate on climate change and related issues then you coudl do worse than go to the Real Climate blogwhihc is inhabited by real working clmate scientists and their like who actually present and debate the data.
OK one more and Im done.
If your interested in climate change data then you will no doubt be interested in sea ice extent as a possible indicator of climate impacts. This chart from NSIDC is really interesting. You can chart and compare arctic sea ice extent across the years. As an interesting example select the three most recent years and then randomly select another three consective years from the decades before 2000. Compare and contrast. Absolutely no doubt that something quite significant is going on with arctice sea ice. You will have heard clmate change sceptics say ah yes but what about Antarctic sea ice - on which I refer you the Real Climate blog I linked to earlier which has some excellent summaries of the issues impacting on Antarctic sea ice.
Few serious scientists now disupte the existence of anthropogenc warming. The dispute is now more about detailed mechanisms and processes, how fast they will happen, what their impacts will be and (from a political point of view) what the hell we can do about it.
If you dont “believe” in climate change then you either havent read enough of the actual science or your sticking your fingers metaphorically in your ears and shouting la la la la.
@Blonder: I would agree with you, but again there are problems that arise when determining who to trust. For one, the alternative energy industry and the oil industry alike do hire their own researchers to either bunk or debunk climate change in the same way the tobacco industry hired their own researchers to debunk the adverse health effects of tobacco.
Moreover you have authors of climate reports claiming that their findings were altered by interested parties to suit their own interests. Take a look here:
Top climate expert’s sensational claim of government meddling in crucial UN report
According to Harvard professor Robert Stavins, one of two lead authors of the UN’s key climate change report, or rather according to the author of this article supposedly quoting Harvard professor Robert Stavins, three quarters of their climate report was changed or deleted by “all the main countries and regions of the world” who insisted on changes in a late night conference in Berlin.
Now I’m not saying this proves that climate change is or is not a farce, neither am I saying that it proves there are conflicts of interests. It simply adds suspicion to the argument.
@Bunc: Two things here. Technically climate change does exist and always has, the earth’s temperatures are in a constant state of change. We are currently in an inter-glacial period of the earth’s fifth ice age and receding glaciers is a staple of inter-glacial periods. I really don’t understand why someone would point to melting ice as proof that climate change is man-made when that ice has always melted during inter-glacial periods long before man ever existed. The ice should be melting, if it weren’t melting then that would be more likely a sign that something is off.
Moreover I’d have to say that the climate change advocates tend to do more name calling than so called ‘deniers,’ but in my experience people who resort to name calling are simply trying to conceal a failing argument. Maybe this current climate change is caused by man-kind, I don’t know, but I think there are some serious and legitimate questions here that no climate change advocate has ever answered, and when presented with these questions instead of answering simply starts calling the other side stupid without giving any actual reasoning.
P.S. Now that linked article leaves a lot to the imagination too. For one when the professor says “all the main countries and regions” I suppose I am to assume he means just those that were present at that particular meeting, I imagine not every single country was represented there as they usually are not. Moreover the article doesn’t go into great detail about what exactly was changed or deleted.
Really it adds suspicion to pretty much any and all UN reports not just UN climate reports. This is because of the negotiation factor. At the UN in order to get other countries on board with any particular resolution, course of action or otherwise the countries need to negotiate with one another, this usually, I believe, waters down whatever is being negotiated so that it meets the interests of the majority. Not all of which are from particularly reputable governing bodies.
Personally I don’t find any governing body to be particularly reputable, but that’s neither here nor there for this matter. You have to imagine that when you ask any given person on the planet they’d probably find at least a few parties present at that meeting not reputable in their opinion.
From the article “He[Professor Stavins] said almost all of them[nation representatives] made clear that ‘any text that was considered inconsistent with their interests and positions in multilateral negotiations was treated as unacceptable.’”
P.P.S. Wasn’t there an episode of The Simpsons where Mr. Burns blocked out the sun so he could force the inhabitants of Springfield to buy more electricity? I suppose reflecting sunlight wouldn’t bode terribly well for solar panels.
Some people just believe what they want.
The fact the you as you admit “don’t know” or that you have doubts does not mean that there ARE significant doubts about the basics of anthropogenic climate change. It simply means that you are not a climate scientist, have insufficient scientific understanding of the topic and havent yet seen enough of the evidence. ( I assume you are capable of being convinced by evidence - there are some people shockingly who are not). As to your suggestion that there “unanswered questions” the answer is yes and no. I have yet to see ANY question raised by anyone looking to deny anthropogenic warming which hasnt been either properly answered - with evidence - or shown to be based on misrepresentation of data etc.
If you take the time to read through that Real Climate blog you will find almost all denier claims addressed there quite specifically - with detailed references either to the evidence or to peer reviewed and published studdies which provide the evidence.
There are unanswered questions as there are in any field of science , and , given taht climatology is a cutting edge scientific endevour there are some big unknowns. However these are not generally about the core mechanisms about how anthropogenic climate change is caused but tend to be about specifics like “how will impact this part or that part of the globe” and so on.
Your comment that climate change is always happening is of course quite trivially correct. However there is overwhelming evidence that the PACE OF CHANGE in the climate and , in particular, the pace and extent of the rise of greenhouse gases is quote unprecedented in the record.
I do you the courtesy of assuming that you’re an intelligent person which is why I suggest that you read the material on Real climate IN DETAIL before making pronouncements on a subject which you have clearly insufficiently studied to be able to draw proper conclusions
I’m suggesting that I’m not seeing any evidence to suggest that anyone else has sufficiently studied the subject. Truth be told climate scientists have been calling for increasing global temperatures for over a decade now and in that time those predictions have not only failed to materialize, but actually the opposite has happened. The globe has been cooling ever since 1998.
Why is it that I hear warming supporters continue to claim record high global temperatures when that is not at all true. Historical graphs show that we haven’t come anywhere near setting any records, moreover current global average temperature measurements show that the globe entered a sharp cooling phase reminiscent of the 1400’s start of the mini ice age sometime around 1998.
Why claim that receding glaciers are a sign of man-made global warming when in reality it is a sign that the globe is in an inter-glacial period and has been for over 14,000 years. Glaciers recede during inter-glacial periods, why are warming supporters claiming this is abnormal when it’s actually quite normal?
Last I read climate scientists have been scrambling to figure out why the globe is not warming as they believe it should. The last theory was that the heat was getting locked up in the earth’s oceans, but recent studies on the theory have proven it false. So, where’s the heat? Why are you telling me that the globe is getting warmer when the data is telling me the globe is getting colder?
Regardless of how sufficient my research has been these questions arise and have not been answered by your linked web-site or by any article I’ve read. So really I guess the question is, earth’s average temperature readings say the globe is cooling, you say the globe is warming, why should I believe you over the data?
From this graph listing global average temperatures from 2500 B.C. to 2040 A.D. you can see that global average temperatures for this warming cycle peaked in 1998. Compared to previous cycles if this warming cycle were to rebound from its current dip into cool temperatures it still seems unlikely that it would reach the highs experienced back in 1100bc.
Where are those record high temperatures we’ve been experiencing? The peak in '98 is maybe only half way to the peak in 1100bc and didn’t even reach the peak in 1300ad. Two of the last three peaks were higher than our current peak, the one in 1100bc possibly twice as high.
Here’s something interesting I noticed here though. When you look at the warm periods there isn’t much of a pattern here, some warm periods are warmer than others yes, but look at the cold periods? Each successive cooling period is colder than the last, if this trend continues then the next cooling period would be more severe than the last one which was severe enough to be dubbed the “Little Ice Age.” Forgive me, I’ve been calling it the mini ice age.
If you can’t keep it in context, then you need new sources.
Jeez
! You post a graph with no scales on it and expect a debate about the science! LOL. Check out soem of the properly graphed data and then we might debate. I give up, you clearly have no interest in the real science. Im outta here as Im nnot going to waste more time on this thread.
Just to note, there are plenty of examples where the reality of today’s climate fails to match the models.
The overall rate of warming is a lot lower than what was projected for unchecked emissions and the sea ice extent is not even close to hitting zero over the Summer (which should’ve been the case for several years now if they were to be correct).
Also, we now have a much more important metric for sea ice which is the total volume (bottomed out around 2010-2012 and is now rising).
This graph clearly shows that we have not come close to hitting any record highs. It clearly shows that temperatures have been falling since 1998 not rising. It clearly shows that successive cooling periods have been more and more severe. The graph shows everything pertinent to this discussion.
Moreover when you consider that cooling periods have been becoming more and more severe it would suggest that the next cooling periods will be more severe than the last if that trend continues. That would suggest that pumping sulfur into the air to artificially cool the globe could very easily be a major mistake making the next cooling period even more severe than it is already on track to be.