Comments on: What would you ask an expert on climate change?

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 15:23:23 +0000

Ah, excuse me. Global warming was predicted in the 1960s, it was already happening then, and it continued to happen and then it got worse.

As predicted.

By: Chris O'Neill

Chris O'Neill — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 09:41:33 +0000

J.T. Waldron:

Previously, mainstream media began the slow, tacit admission that global warming hasn’t manifested in the way it was so definitively predicted 10 years ago.

You are sadly mistaken if you believe that global warming was “definitively” predicted over a period of ten years because there is no way anyone can predict the effect of El Nino/La Nina 10 years in the future which can easily overwhelm the effect of rising CO2 in that period. All you can see is the noise and not the signal. Come back when you’ve considered a climatically and statistically significant period like 30 years.

By: elspi

elspi — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 03:10:25 +0000

@Jason Thibeault
“MY skepticism is solidified by the pompous orthodoxy that has become the Round Earth movement.”
I think you just won the intertubes.

@J.T. Waldron
“The irony is not lost on me.”

Is this your I-am-aware-of-all-internet-traditions bid for internet immortality?

By: J.T. Waldron

J.T. Waldron — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 19:00:51 +0000

The irony is not lost on me. Especially when responses to my comment do such a great job at illustrating my point. Thanks for the laugh this morning!

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 17:08:51 +0000

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/07/the_last_word_on_global_warmin.php

By: Jason Thibeault

Jason Thibeault — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 15:35:38 +0000

MY skepticism is solidified by the pompous orthodoxy that has become the Round Earth movement. It has become comedic. The laughable term “science vs. flat-eartherism” is a great example. You see, nothing in science that contradicts a round Earth can ever be called science. They must impose these mutually exclusive parameters as either science or flat-eartherism.

By: Southern Geologist

Southern Geologist — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 14:11:41 +0000

I find suggestion #2 above terrifying. Whether it’s the Mojave or the Sahara (and the fragile ecosystems therein) why are deserts almost always the first thing sacrificed to mitigating global warming?

By: Southern Geologist

Southern Geologist — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 13:35:09 +0000

MadScientist:

“I have no idea what you mean by “earth scientist”.”

“Earth science” is a pretty broad field (geology, climatology, physical geography, oceanography, etc.) so I can understand the confusion.

In this case, however, my money is on petroleum geologist.

By: MadScientist

MadScientist — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 08:49:21 +0000

@Lishui: Solar data? I can tell you know next to nothing about observing the earth and meteorology. The sun’s output has been measured by people for over 60 years (well, I’m not including the lenses used to burn a trace to show how often the sun was not behind a cloud – that goes back over 2000 years). For at least the past 50 years the radiance at the top of the atmosphere has been estimated from the ground, and over the last 30 years there have been measurements from space; in the past 20 years there have been a few very precise measurements made. The solar output is well constrained and it is not responsible for the observed warming since the industrial revolution. The information you’re asking for is out there and virtually all of what is relevant in the past 30 years is even available for free in an electronic format (if you go beyond that you have to look at paper copies), but you obviously don’t know where to look. I have no idea what you mean by “earth scientist”.

Now as for the concern about non-CO2 greenhouse gases – come on, the CO2 effect so far is small – the methane effect is insignificant even though it’s the next biggest one.

By: elspi

elspi — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 06:40:36 +0000

“My skepticism is solidified by the pompous orthodoxy that has become the Anthropomorphic Global Warming (AGW) movement. ”

Which part of “tell it to the arctic sea ice” do you not understand.

When the northwest and northeast passages are closed for a whole year (the way they were for almost all of the last 10K years) then you might have a point. Until then, you are just in denial.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/