Hmm, interesting article for the naysayers

[NBCintern]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13474997/

you can't dispute this great body. Remember, whatever feeds on a warm climate will tend to explode in energy re canes. JMHO

Earth warmest in at least 400 years, panel finds
National Research Council report undermines critics of 'hockey stick' data
This graphic, published in 2001 by the U.N.-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has been dubbed the "hockey stick" chart due to its shape.
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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

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Updated: 30 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Weighing in on the highest profile debate about global warming, the nation's premier science policy body on Thursday threw its weight behind controversial data and voiced a "high level of confidence" that Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, possibly even longer.

A panel convened by the National Research Council reached that conclusion in a broad review of scientific studies, reporting that the evidence indicates “recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years.”

The panel of top climate scientists told lawmakers that the Earth is running a fever and that “human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming.” Their 155-page report said average global surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rose about 1 degree during the 20th century.

The report was requested last November by the chairman of the House Science Committee, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., to address naysayers who question whether global warming is a major threat.

Last year, when the House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, launched an investigation of three climate scientists, Boehlert said Barton should try to learn from scientists, not intimidate them.

The Bush administration also has maintained that not enough is known about the threat to warrant new emission controls that the White House says would have cost 5 million Americans their jobs.

Many scientists tie warming temperatures to rising emissions of certain gases like carbon dioxide. While essential to survival, carbon dioxide has seen a spike as fossil fuels are burned by cars and factories, leading to concerns that it and other gases are exacerbating the greenhouse effect that keeps Earth warm.

“The numerous indications that recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia, in combination with estimates of external climate forcing variations over the same period, supports the conclusion that human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming,” the panel wrote.

'Hockey stick' debate
The research data criticized by warming skeptics was published in 2001 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that has led international warming research.

Climate scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes had prepared the graphic, concluding that the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it has been in 2,000 years. Their research was known as the “hockey stick” graphic because it compared the sharp curve of a hockey blade to the uptick in temperatures over the last 140 years, and the stick’s long shaft to centuries of previous climate stability.

The National Research Council panel concluded that the Mann-Bradley-Hughes research was “likely” to be true, said John Wallace, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Washington and a panel member. The conclusions from the research “are very close to being right” and are supported by even more recent data, Wallace said.

The panel looked at how other scientists reconstructed the Earth’s temperatures going back thousands of years, before there was data from modern scientific instruments.

For all but the most recent 150 years, the academy scientists relied on “proxy” evidence from tree rings, corals, glaciers and ice cores, cave deposits, ocean and lake sediments, boreholes and other sources. They also examined indirect records such as paintings of glaciers in the Alps.

Combining that information gave the panel “a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries,” the panel said in its report.

Overall, the panel agreed that the warming in the last few decades of the 20th century was unprecedented over the last 1,000 years, though relatively warm conditions persisted around the year 1000, followed by a “Little Ice Age” from about 1500 to 1850.

'Plausible' scenario past 400 years
The scientists said they had less confidence in the evidence of temperatures before 1600, but found it “plausible” that temperatures during the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer “than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium.”

They also considered the data reliable enough to conclude there were sharp spikes in carbon dioxide and methane, the two major greenhouse gases blamed for trapping heat in the atmosphere, beginning in the 20th century, after remaining fairly level for 12,000 years.

Between 1 A.D. and 1850, volcanic eruptions and solar fluctuations were the main causes of changes in greenhouse gas levels. But those temperature changes “were much less pronounced than the warming due to greenhouse gas” levels since the mid-19th century, the report said.

The National Research Council is part of the National Academies, a private organization chartered by Congress to advise the government on scientific matters.

[jasons2k]

IMO, this pretty much says it all:

"“The numerous indications that recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia, in combination with estimates of external climate forcing variations over the same period, supports the conclusion that human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming,” the panel wrote."

To me, they contradict themselves by making this point. If it's unprecedented for only 400 years, or even several millenia, considering the earth is 4.5 billion years old, how can this possibly support a "conclusion" that "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming"? This doesn't take into account the rapid warming and cooling before 400 years ago and new evidence that shows the earth has warmed and cooled in the past much more rapidly than today.

A classic case of "causal oversimplification".

[curtadams]

"in combination with estimates of external climate forcing variations over the same period"

We are here with extensive intrumentation all over the earth. Global temps are pretty simple physics - measure what's going in, measure what's going on. Greenhouse gases have changed a LOT - and the warming we are seeing is exactly what greenhouse gases do, both in quantity (1 degree C so far) and in character (more at night than in the day, more at low altitudes than high, more at high latitudes than low, more in winter than summer). Plus it's all happening as the Milankovitch cycles continue sliding toward an ice age. The only other thing that has changed is sulfate aerosols - and that's us too. Nothing else has changed much.

I'm puzzled that so many people find it hard to believe a blanket makes you warmer.

[MGC]

So, what caused it to be so warm hundred or thousands of years ago before humanity started burning fossil fuels? Any history of a warmer Earth before the Industrial Revolution proves that the current warming is just a natural cycle.....MGC

[curtadams]

So, what caused it to be so warm hundred or thousands of years ago before humanity started burning fossil fuels? Any history of a warmer Earth before the Industrial Revolution proves that the current warming is just a natural cycle.....MGC

Not in the least. We can and do cause all sorts of things that happen naturally - forest fires, landslides, floods, and global warming. Just because it can happen without us doesn't mean we can't make it happen too. It's a total nonsequitur to say breached dams don't cause floods because floods happen in the absence of dams.

Several different things affect global temps - notably insolation, greenhouse gasses, and continental locations. In recent times, interglacials have always started with a combination of high insolation at high latitutides combined with relatively high greenhouse gas levels. http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/images/Vostok.jpg Current high-latitude insolation is rather low, as you'll note, so we should be sliding back into an ice age. A little counter is good and the 30 ppm of extra CO2 pre-industrially was doing a very good job. However, the astronomical levels of CO2 in the atmosphere now are already going to push us to the very limits of ice age interglacials and it's not stopping there.

In a nutshell, the things influencing global temps now are the same as they've been for over a million years. It's just that we've driven one of them far, far beyond it's natural limits and the consequence will be temps far beyond their natural limits.

[gigabite]

"in combination with estimates of external climate forcing variations over the same period"

We are here with extensive intrumentation all over the earth. Global temps are pretty simple physics - measure what's going in, measure what's going on. Greenhouse gases have changed a LOT - and the warming we are seeing is exactly what greenhouse gases do, both in quantity (1 degree C so far) and in character (more at night than in the day, more at low altitudes than high, more at high latitudes than low, more in winter than summer). Plus it's all happening as the Milankovitch cycles continue sliding toward an ice age. The only other thing that has changed is sulfate aerosols - and that's us too. Nothing else has changed much.

I'm puzzled that so many people find it hard to believe a blanket makes you warmer.

I'm puzzled...THAT WITH ALL THE TECHNOLOGY AVAILABLE TO HUMANITY THAT THERE IS NOT ONE THERMOMETER ANYWHERE OUT THERE IN NEAR SPACE TO DIRECTLY MEASURE THE TEMPERATURE COMING IN.

[curtadams]

I'm puzzled...THAT WITH ALL THE TECHNOLOGY AVAILABLE TO HUMANITY THAT THERE IS NOT ONE THERMOMETER ANYWHERE OUT THERE IN NEAR SPACE TO DIRECTLY MEASURE THE TEMPERATURE COMING IN.

We have lots of measurements all over the earth of incoming solar radiation. There's a whole field working on that. Were you thinking of convection or conduction? They don't happen - space is a vacuum.

[bvigal]

I've no doubt the earth's temperature is warmer, and that mankind has contributed. Why the higher temperature in this global ball of gases, freely moving all over the globe, has caused increased numbers and intensity of cyclones in only one ocean basic is, I think, the big debatable issue at S2K.

Just looking at the slash and burn practice on vast forested acres, rain forests, and cropland in the last 10 years gives one reason to worry, and those are in 3rd world countries where no one will stop it, ever! And into that, add the exploding industrialization in the Far East, with total disregard for every type of polution control, and the global problem does indeed become disheartening.

All of which has a larger effect than all the emissions from everything in USA and Europe combined. I'm really tired of all the US-bashing (most of it coming from inside the US - an election year, of course), as if we are responsible for all this. There are factories and cars spewing emissions all over the globe, and very few countries have done any more than the US to successfully reduce it. Here in the islands, our cars come direct from Japan, and they have no catalytic converters! In how many places today are they required?

But that's really not the point. Mother Nature can massively overpower man's efforts. One active volcano with ongoing emission can put out more SO2 than all the cars in a big city. And there are plenty of those all over the globe, all the time.

Do I think we shouldn't care? Of course not. I just think when studies are done, the results sometimes tend to lack global perspective, even when "the globe" is the topic.

[gigabite]

We have lots of measurements all over the earth of incoming solar radiation. There's a whole field working on that. Were you thinking of convection or conduction? They don't happen - space is a vacuum.

YEA, SURE I REALIZE THAT, ONLY THAT THE INTERPRETATION OF LAW OF PHYSIC CHANGE AND SO THE REDUCTION OF THAT INCOMING RADIATION DATA IS ALWAYS SUBJECT TO PERIODIC REVIEW. A DIGITAL THERMOMETER COULD REALLY END THE DEBATE OF IRRADIATION VERSES LUMINESCENCE WITH A GLANCE.

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

Lets see if 2006 can steal the first place prize for heat this year? I wish there was a thread keeping monthly updates on this.

[x-y-no]

So, what caused it to be so warm hundred or thousands of years ago before humanity started burning fossil fuels? Any history of a warmer Earth before the Industrial Revolution proves that the current warming is just a natural cycle.....MGC

We've been over this one before ...

Does the fact that forest fires occur naturally prove that no forest fires are caused by man? No? So why would the fact that the Earth has been warm in the past prove "that the current warming is just a natural cycle?"

It doesn't.

In fact, the existence of past extremes is bad news for those who wish to argue that man cannot cause a serious climate perturbation, since what the existence of those past extremes really proves is that it's possible for a forcing to perturb the climate in very extreme fashion.

[MGC]

And, we shall go over it again. I can't understand why the AGW crowd insists on throwing out the Earth's past climatic record. It has been warmer and colder many times than now without human's help. Humans had no roll in past warmer Earth's. IMO, global warming is politically driven, plain and simple. The forest fire analogy or any other analogy don't prove or disprove squat. I don't believe that humanity can cause a significant climatic perturbation. Forces that control the Earth's climate, primarily the Sun are far beyond our control. I also find it funny that scientist are trying to prove the Earth is warming using ice cores.....MGC

[x-y-no]

And, we shall go over it again. I can't understand why the AGW crowd insists on throwing out the Earth's past climatic record.

HUH???? Who the heck is "throwing out" anything? Paleoclimatology is a huge part of the field of research on global warming. Your claim here is beyond absurd.

It has been warmer and colder many times than now without human's help. Humans had no roll in past warmer Earth's.

Yes. And your point is?

Once again I'll ask: does the fact that forest fires occur naturally "prove" that humans cannot cause forest fires? No? Then why would the fact that climate has varied in the past "prove" that humans can't change the climate?

It's a complete nonsense argument, MGC. All that is proved by the history of extreme variations in climate have happened in the past is that such variations are possible - and that supports the argument for AGW (since it demonstrates that it is possible for some forcing to perturb the climate significantly, and thus the forcings we are introducing can do so) rather than detracting from it.

IMO, global warming is politically driven, plain and simple.

Yes, you've offered that opinion many times, but you've offered nothing substantive that I've seen to support that opinion.

The forest fire analogy or any other analogy don't prove or disprove squat.

It wasn't meant to prove or disprove anything - it was meant to illustrate that the fact something can occur naturally has no bearing whatsoever on whether that same thing can be caused by man. You claimed that past climate change absent human influence "proves" that the current warming is a natural cycle. My point was to illustrate your logical fallacy.

I don't believe that humanity can cause a significant climatic perturbation. Forces that control the Earth's climate, primarily the Sun are far beyond our control.

And now we're back to raw, unsupported belief. The physics behind radiative heat balance really isn't that complicated. Can you explain why you would "believe" that this simply doesn't function in the real world?

I also find it funny that scientist are trying to prove the Earth is warming using ice cores.....MGC

Why would that be funny? Ice cores are one useful type of record of atmospheric conditions in the past. Why on Earth wouldn't one use every record availble in nature? I'm very confused by this comment.

Jan

[MGC]

Well, if the Earth was warmer without the alledged influence from humans in the past, than in my logic, the current natural warming episode, which started several hundred years ago, has nothing to do with recent human activity. Now, had the Earth never been this warm in the past, then I concur the GW crowd would have a very strong argument that humans are indeed influencing the climate. I believe in simple cause and effect. Since an event has occured in the past dictates that it will happen again. Do you not believe there will be another ice age? I do......MGC

[gigabite]

... prove the Earth is warming using ice cores.....MGC

The Ice Core Record goes back a million years. It is used to track the relationship between oxygen 16 and oxygen 18 there is more oxygen 18 locked in the ice during an Ice Age. Sediment cores go even farther back and a rough history of Earth’s climate has been formed for the last 65 million years from a relatively few samples.

The point at issue here are the issues that cause the swing. To do that hypothesizes are formed about the data and are tested using a current understanding of physic. When the Greenhouse Gas hypothesis was formed it was believed that luminescence was the major factor in surface heat on earth. Now the new understanding (which is actually the old understanding) is taking hold and it relates surface temperature of earth to the Solar Constant, which by the way isn’t constant. It has been increasing noticeable over the last decade, but it should drop of some as New Sun Cycle gets going.

This cycle is forecast to have a considerable peak which could relate to some cold wet winters in 2011 2012.

[x-y-no]

Well, if the Earth was warmer without the alledged influence from humans in the past, than in my logic, the current natural warming episode, which started several hundred years ago, has nothing to do with recent human activity.

Why? Does every phenomenon neccesarily have only one cause? Your reasoning makes no logical sense.

Now, had the Earth never been this warm in the past, then I concur the GW crowd would have a very strong argument that humans are indeed influencing the climate.

Actually, if the Earth had never been this warm in the past, I'd say that would be a very strong argument that the climate is so inherently stable that human forcing would be unlikely to be able to perturb it significantly. The fact that it has varied quite extremely in the past tells us this isn't so, and therefore we ought to be concerned about the perturbation we are creating.

I believe in simple cause and effect. Since an event has occured in the past dictates that it will happen again. Do you not believe there will be another ice age? I do......MGC

Of course there will eventually be another ice age - and another and another. But that doesn't have any bearing on the trouble we are causing ourselves in the relatively short term (i.e. the next few centuries.)

[x-y-no]

The point at issue here are the issues that cause the swing. To do that hypothesizes are formed about the data and are tested using a current understanding of physic. When the Greenhouse Gas hypothesis was formed it was believed that luminescence was the major factor in surface heat on earth.

Luminescence?

Sorry, but no. Luminescence never had anything to do with it.

Now the new understanding (which is actually the old understanding) is taking hold and it relates surface temperature of earth to the Solar Constant, which by the way isn’t constant. It has been increasing noticeable over the last decade, but it should drop of some as New Sun Cycle gets going.

This cycle is forecast to have a considerable peak which could relate to some cold wet winters in 2011 2012.

Here's the global temterature record since 1880:



Care to point out for us where the signature of the 11-year solar cycle is in that graph?

[curtadams]

The point at issue here are the issues that cause the swing. To do that hypothesizes are formed about the data and are tested using a current understanding of physic. When the Greenhouse Gas hypothesis was formed it was believed that luminescence was the major factor in surface heat on earth. Now the new understanding (which is actually the old understanding) is taking hold and it relates surface temperature of earth to the Solar Constant, which by the way isn’t constant. It has been increasing noticeable over the last decade, but it should drop of some as New Sun Cycle gets going.

This cycle is forecast to have a considerable peak which could relate to some cold wet winters in 2011 2012.

The ice cores are unequivocal that the biggest influence is greenhouse gases. Insolation has a much weaker effect, although it seems to set up these CO2-temp feedbacks. This is also true today. Notably, while solar irradiance was going up in the 1940s-1970 global temps were pretty stable but now that irradiance is stable temps are soaring. Of course this is exactly what's predicted by AGW, due to the spike in sulfates peaking in the 70's against a background of constantly rising CO2. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... w-decades/ Of course solar variation makes a difference, it's just largely swamped by atmospheric changes.

[gigabite]

The Greenhouse Gas hypothesis is based on how gas is affected in a greenhouse hence the name. The glass used for a greenhouse works as a selective transmission medium for different spectral frequencies, and its effect is to trap energy within the greenhouse, which heats both the plants and the ground inside it. This warms the air near the ground, with photons and this air is prevented from rising and flowing away.

That is not the case with the earth first the gas mix is always changing. The main culprit of the Greenhouse Gas Scare was the hydro fluorocarbons they are about gone now.



The earth surface temperature graph posted above of the temperatures for the last 200 years is bogus. The data that is based on has such a small range and domain that even the plot of the data for the last 20 years is eschewed

This is a plot of the plot of the temperature of the front lens of the SOHO satellite it measures heat not light and it is somewhere between here and the Sun. Please notice the heat is going up there also.



None of this is to say that there is not global warming; the fact is the Greenhouse Gas Hypothesis seriously understates the problem because it is basically wrong.

[MGC]

Front page of Parade magazine in today's (6/25/06) Sunhearald newspaper: "How Climate Change Affects You Right Now"

After reading this article by Eugene Linden, I feel doomed. The first paragraph states "scientist say the climate is changing in ways that could produce many more superhurricanes, as well as extreme floods, droughts and heat waves that could threaten our way of life." Further down....."A recent Duke University study found that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has led to out-of-control growth of poison ivy" (he is joking right?) "Mosquitoes love the warmer weather and are celebrating by bringing infectious diseases to new places." The author saves the coup-de-gras for last..."Climate has destroyed past civilizations" "An abrupt shift to drought in Mesopotamia 4,200 years ago probably spelled the doom of the Akkadian culture" "Others see the fingerprints of climate in the collapse of the Mayans around 900 AD and the end of the Norse expansion into the New World in the 14th century." (the author fails to mention that the climate turned too cold for the Norse to grow crops in the New World).

Like I've posted before, the GW crowd uses scare tactics to attempt to influence people and politicians. This article by Linden is just further proof. Linden's statement that climate has destroyed past civilizations is false. The Akkadian civilization failed because the Akkadian failed to adapt, as did the Norse and Mayan. What caused the drought that did the Akkadian's in 4,200 years ago? Did the Akkadian's cause the climate to change? No, nature did. Did the Norse force a climate change that quickly occurred that force them to abandon Labador and Greenland because the climate cooled? No, nature did. Nature, not man will determine the climate. Nature has done so in the past and will do so in the future. The chicken littles of the world are wasting there breath with me. I am and continue to be convinced that the current warming phase that began hundreds of years ago is natural........MGC