Scientists scoff as climates run amok

Friday, May 28, 2004

Scientists scoff as climates run amok
Hollywood has a field day with global-warming theory

By LISA STIFFLER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

A frothing wall of water charges down the traffic-clogged avenues of Manhattan.

Snow flurries powder the huddled masses of New Delhi.

<snip>

The UW scientists agreed that climate change is real -- the world is getting warmer and man's consumption of fossil fuels most likely is driving it. Most researchers believe that when oil, coal and wood is burned it releases "greenhouse gases," including carbon dioxide that trap heat and warm the Earth. The gases can remain in the atmosphere for decades, meaning that fuel burned today can have long-lasting effects.

But the disaster that rocks the world at hyperspeed in "The Day After Tomorrow" isn't how the researchers see the change playing out.

First, there's no evidence to suggest that such cataclysmic changes could happen in the course of a week. At best, dramatic changes -- rapid melting of the ice caps or the freezing of vast stretches of continents -- are more likely to occur over centuries or at least decades. And if there was a quick switch, odds are it would be a warming, not cooling, they said.

More at this

...there are some scientists who believe we will see very little change over a long period and then, as we reach a tipping point, there will be a cascade effect as things collapse relatively suddenly. I'll see if I can find any of the articles.

We are seeing rapid change daily. The Artic Ice Cap is melting at an incredible rate and the "Perma Frost" in Alaska that has remained frozen for as long as we have had written history is now rapidly melting and causing major problems. Evidence is everywhere and being reported daily in scientific journals. It is amazing that over ninety percent of the scientific community is united in this and expressing great alarm and yet there are still some, mostly Republicans, who say there is no evidence of any such thing as global warming.

The jury is still out on both theories.

to fossil fuels -- and i think that by the planets standards you'd have to say that the climate has been changing fairly rapidly.
the only question remaining is how fast can it change -- certainly nothing like the movie. but i'm sure nature is holding some cards up her sleeve.

Both sides are in agreement that Global Climatic Change is occuring. The debate is over how, what we'll see, and at what rate. And that's how as in how is it actually working, not what is causing it...though there is still some discussion going on in that area as well.

You say no one is argueing the point that global warming is occuring just in what's causing it. Your first post led off with.....
"there are some scientists who believe we will see very little change"
:shrug: Some scientist have their heads up their behinds also.

Try rereading the post. It isn't saying what you seem think it is.

eom

on edit: doh! Noone = No one.........got it.

Damn freakin typos do, occassionally, confuse things.

Forget the theories

Use common sense

...and it doesn't prove anything, dosent' get funding, adn sure as hell dosen't make the government get on national TV and tell the country we need to sacrafice for the cause.

Their findings contradict the scientists you mentioned:

Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us

· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1153513,00.html

I guess 20 years is a long period to some scientists? I'll still hopefully be alive though.

Disaster film has scientists laughing

Slouched in their seats and munching popcorn, a group of climate scientists from the University of Washington pronounced their verdict on the Hollywood blockbuster "The Day After Tomorrow" with giggles and guffaws.

When star Dennis Quaid, playing a hunky paleoclimatologist, solemnly warns that a massive storm unleashed by global warming is going to plunge the Northern Hemisphere into a new Ice Age — within days! — the real experts nudge each other and snicker.

<snip>

There is a "small kernel" of scientific truth in the movie's plot, which blames melting polar ice caps for disrupting ocean currents that warm the northern latitudes, said Mike Wallace, director of the UW's Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean.

<snip>

What is surprising is the political heft the movie has acquired even before today's official opening.

Environmentalists and liberal activists have joined forces with former Vice President Al Gore to capitalize on the film and use it as a platform to criticize President Bush for resisting controls on greenhouse gas emissions

More at this

Once again, the media has decided to focus on the cheap
sensationalist angle and not the substance of the issue.
There is recent research indicating that the onset of an
ice age, which was previously thought to take on the order
of centuries, can happen as quickly as inside a decade.
Now that may seem to be slow compared to "a few days", but
the media is again ignoring the point that global weather
changes are capable of destroying civilization as we know it.

My local paper this morning published a similar story
which was syndicated from the LATimes, on how the "liberal"
moveon.org is using the movie's coattails as leverage.
So the story is now shifting from the actual (serious) topic
into sideshows designed to change the subject or worse,
'shoot the messenger'.

let them think this too! People are just as concerned about the environment.

(it's not really a review). It says the scientists agree global warming is real. They just laugh at the film saying that it could freeze vast swathes of the world in days.

They've played loose with the science and it will be fairly easy to discredit and that will lead people to doubt the greenhouse gas theory of global warming. However,if "Jaws" is a precedent, it will probably increase the number of people worried about global warming. I remember when it came out, a bunch of people were afraid to go diving or get in the water.

I heard a numerical modeler of ocean circulation speak a few months ago,a Dr. Rahmstorf, and his models seemed to indicate that increased precipitation would shift the circulation of the gulf stream resulting in a cooling of N America and Europe near the coast. It would not get cold enough for an ice age to begin. The rest of the country will still bake. The cooling will likely occilate over periods of decades between cooling and heating in this region (that should play havoc with their environment) Ramhmstorf also notes that his modeling work is all a hypothesis and the only way to absolutely test it is to let the event occur. http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/">(LINK)

Edit to correct spelling of Rahmstorf and add a link.

Let's hope folks get worried. Anyway you look at it people are talking about the environment.

Next up, Michael Moore ladies and gentleman.

about tree ring data correlated to Arctic and sub Arctic ice which strongly suggested a strong link between the global treadmill as it was called(a worldwide current acting as a heat exchanger) that was possibly responsible for a mini ice age in the first millennium that lasted a couple of centuries.
The point being , in regards to the movie, is that this shift may have occurred in as little as 2 years. One can laugh off the 1 week scenario of this film pretty easily but a (actually pretty minor) shift as described by these people would be catastrophic to W. Europe and N. America. I mean Charlotte NC with a climate like Winnipeg's sounds pretty serious to me.

that the way Sharks have declined in the last 20 years or so can in part be traced back to the scares of Jaws. i.e. it became acceptable to kill them out of fear. Sorry no link, or real proof, but if this was the case then the same view on Global Climate change can only be good.

...I bet some of THESE scientists are pretty well respected in their field:

Abrupt Climate Change
<http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/climatechange_wef.html>

Excerpt:

"Are we overlooking potential abrupt climate shifts?
Most of the studies and debates on potential climate change, along with its ecological and economic impacts, have focused on the ongoing buildup of industrial greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and a gradual increase in global temperatures. This line of thinking, however, fails to consider another potentially disruptive climate scenario. It ignores recent and rapidly advancing evidence that Earth’s climate repeatedly has shifted abruptly and dramatically in the past, and is capable of doing so in the future.

Fossil evidence clearly demonstrates that Earth's climate can shift gears within a decade, establishing new and different patterns that can persist for decades to centuries. In addition, these climate shifts do not necessarily have universal, global effects. They can generate a counterintuitive scenario: Even as the earth as a whole continues to warm gradually, large regions may experience a precipitous and disruptive shift into colder climates."

<http://www.firstscience.com/site/articles/gribbin.asp>

<http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/climate/climatefaq.jsp>

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3400
The Global Warming Hoax
by James K. Glassman (December 15, 2003)

Summary: The delegation met Wednesday with counterparts from Europe, and Inhofe and many of his colleagues were shocked at the Europeans' refusal even to consider scientific research that casts doubt on predictions of cataclysmic warming. "They just don't want to talk about the science," said Inhofe.

MILAN, Italy -- On many of the walls here at the Feira Milano conference center, site of the giant United Nations meeting on climate change, Green activists have posted flamboyant posters showing a picture of Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla), with a quotation from him: "Global warming is 'the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.'"

The idea being proffered by these sophisticates, of course, is that Inhofe is a typical American rube. Global warming a hoax! What a dope!

In fact, Inhofe is one of the best-informed Senators on the science and economics of global warming. And "global warming" -- as it's used by environmental extremists -- is indeed a hoax.

Yes, the Earth's surface has warmed a bit over the past century, but is that warming caused mainly by humans or by natural cycles? And can changes in human activity -- specifically reductions in carbon-dioxide emissions -- have anything more than a tiny effect on temperature? The answers to those questions, which are at the heart of the Kyoto Protocol and other attempts to force cuts in energy use, are simply unknown.
(snip)

Most life forms go out with a whimper, pseudo-scientists and stenographers posing as journalists are also diminishing while finding smaller crowds to listen to their bilge.

If these folks want to be believed don't you think they would be smart to also denounce the avowed liar of G.W.Bush and his pandering others who also want to perpetuate false information. Most people like to hang around people that are similar to them (especially morally)

http://www.anomalist.com/commentaries/pseudo.html
On Pseudo-Skepticism

A Commentary by Marcello Truzzi*

Over the years, I have decried the misuse of the term "skeptic" when used to refer to all critics of anomaly claims. Alas, the label has been thus misapplied by both proponents and critics of the paranormal. Sometimes users of the term have distinguished between so-called "soft" versus "hard" skeptics, and I in part revived the term "zetetic" because of the term's misuse. But I now think the problems created go beyond mere terminology and matters need to be set right. Since "skepticism" properly refers to doubt rather than denial--nonbelief rather than belief--critics who take the negative rather than an agnostic position but still call themselves "skeptics" are actually pseudo-skeptics and have, I believed, gained a false advantage by usurping that label.

In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded. The true skeptic takes an agnostic position, one that says the claim is not proved rather than disproved . He asserts that the claimant has not borne the burden of proof and that science must continue to build its cognitive map of reality without incorporating the extraordinary claim as a new "fact." Since the true skeptic does not assert a claim, he has no burden to prove anything. He just goes on using the established theories of "conventional science" as usual. But if a critic asserts that there is evidence for disproof, that he has a negative hypothesis --saying, for instance, that a seeming psi result was actually due to an artifact--he is making a claim and therefore also has to bear a burden of proof . Sometimes, such negative claims by critics are also quite extraordinary--for example, that a UFO was actually a giant plasma, or that someone in a psi experiment was cued via an abnormal ability to hear a high pitch others with normal ears would fail to notice. In such cases the negative claimant also may have to bear a heavier burden of proof than might normally be expected.

Critics who assert negative claims, but who mistakenly call themselves "skeptics," often act as though they have no burden of proof placed on them at all, though such a stance would be appropriate only for the agnostic or true skeptic. A result of this is that many critics seem to feel it is only necessary to present a case for their counter-claims based upon plausibility rather than empirical evidence. Thus, if a subject in a psi experiment can be shown to have had an opportunity to cheat, many critics seem to assume not merely that he probably did cheat, but that he must have, regardless of what may be the complete absence of evidence that he did so cheat and sometimes even ignoring evidence of the subject's past reputation for honesty. Similarly, improper randomization procedures are sometimes assumed to be the cause of a subject's high psi scores even though all that has been established is the possibility of such an artifact having been the real cause. Of course, the evidential weight of the experiment is greatly reduced when we discover an opening in the design that would allow an artifact to confound the results. Discovering an opportunity for error should make such experiments less evidential and usually unconvincing. It usually disproves the claim that the experiment was "air tight" against error, but it does not disprove the anomaly claim.

Showing evidence is unconvincing is not grounds for completely dismissing it. If a critic asserts that the result was due to artifact X, that critic then has the burden of proof to demonstrate that artifact X can and probably did produce such results under such circumstances. Admittedly, in some cases the appeal to mere plausibility that an artifact produced the result may be so great that nearly all would accept the argument; for example, when we learn that someone known to have cheated in the past had an opportunity to cheat in this instance, we might reasonably conclude he probably cheated this time, too. But in far too many instances, the critic who makes a merely plausible argument for an artifact closes the door on future research when proper science demands that his hypothesis of an artifact should also be tested. Alas, most critics seem happy to sit in their armchairs producing post hoc counter-explanations. Whichever side ends up with the true story, science best progresses through laboratory investigations.
(snip)

been funded by energy companies - which makes the conclusions just a little suspect.

As a truck mechanic if I made them broke instead of work I would be out of job (quick). The astro-turfing of the green revolution started almost the day it did. It is so easy to figure out the juxtapose that it's stupid (most second grade children can do it by instinct) These false prophets that have these vested interests stick out like a sore thumb. Thier conservative bent that portrays the things they want to preserve and tear down gives them away every time.

CANCUN | WTO ON THE RUN 14.09.2003 16:25
Cancun WTO 9/14 update - WTO Talks Collapse! We Win!!


WTO Meetings collapse Almost an hour after the official announcements from the developing countries the jubilant atmosphere within the convention center is continuing. Delegates and NGO representatives are regarding this as a victory of the developing world and many can be found embracing each other with teary eyes. Manifestaciones Cancun contra la OMC / Cancun WTO Protests News From The Streets in Cancun / Noticias desde las calles de Cancun Inside Castle Gray Skull, Last Minute Fights Over WTO Ministerial Text The draft text that was released yesterday has been strongly condemned by third world countries and NGO's. Late last night a number of countries were brought in to a late night green room meeting which started sometime after midnight and lasted about 5 hours. The US and EU are trying to break down the G21's resistance and tear apart the coalition which has been keeping the negotiations focused on Ag and Development issues. Unidad para derribar la fortaleza / Unity Brings Down the Fortress As many as 10,000 people attended today's march and rally to demand the end of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and to commemorate the death of South Korean farmer and activist, Lee Kyung-hae, who took his life in protest against the WTO's agricultural policies. When the march came to the police barricade at kilometer Zero, the heavily constructed mega-fence was largely dismantled by an all female activist crew with an anarchist security cordon, and finally tumbled by a Korean-led contingent of hundreds of other activists. La OMC a punto de colapsar / WTO talks on verge of collapse El vocero de la OMC Keith Rockwell esta realizando una conferencia de prensa en donde ha confirmado que solamente un acuerdo de ultimo momento puede salvar la conferencia ministerial. WTO spokesperson Keith Rockwell is currently holding a press conference during which he confirmed that only a last minute compromise can save the Ministerial
(snip)
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/topic/corporatedominance/feature/archive11.shtml

Progress is being made, these idiots they installed in the White House may turn out to be a good thing, in the long run.

And there isn't something weird going on? WA averages one tornado a year and we've had more than one a week for the last month. While it isn't the kind of rapid change seen in this movie, it is very weird and points out that the weather IS changing.

How long before these occur in a densely populated area? We've been lucky so far. People here are not used to or prepared for this kind of weather. We need to take this seriously, even if the movie is an exaggeration.

Twisters, record rain pelt area

:hi:

Saturday, May 29, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.

NW storms lack key ingredient for forming tornadoes: sticky air

By Paul Queary
The Associated Press

OLYMPIA — Washington state already has had far more than its tiny yearly ration of tornadoes.

But twisters here are still rare and comparatively weak, and meteorologists say there's no disaster-movie weather shift in progress to transform the Northwest's placid drizzle into the big, sometimes deadly storms of the Midwest.

Two funnel clouds touched down in Washington on Thursday, bringing the total for the calendar year — and the past month — to five. That's well over the yearly average of 1.8, according to the National Weather Service

<snip>

Yesterday, the weather service said it had received reports of several "cold-air funnel clouds" north of Seattle — near Everett's Paine Field, Snohomish and Anacortes. There were no reports of damage, and the National Weather Service office in Seattle said it had not confirmed that any had reached the ground — the requirement for qualifying as a tornado, said meteorologist Gary Schneider.

The unstable weather yesterday was the result of a "convergence zone" — a typical weather pattern in Western Washington when storm systems from the Pacific Ocean split as they swirl both north and south of the Olympic Mountains and then collide in the central Puget Sound region, Schneider said.

More here:

when that ice age ended about 12,000 years ago- around 10,000 BC.

as sea levels rose, a lot of once habited areas were inundated by floods, leading to the flood myths in almost every civilization, leading to the Judeo-Christian Noah myth.

:scared:


Graph showing a 450,000 year record of carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the earth's atmosphere. This record was compiled from analyzing bubbles of fossilized air trapped in ice cores. The fossilized air shows the levels of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere throughout this 450,000 period. The last 100-150 years of the 20th Century show a significant rise in CO2.

(snip)
The overwhelming majority of scientists agree: earth's temperature has risen during the past century But is it due to man's use of fossil fuel energy? And if so, how can we prevent the catastrophic results that some scientists predict if global warming continues?

In "What's Up with the Weather?" NOVA and FRONTLINE join forces to investigate the science and politics of one of the most controversial issues of the 21st century: the truth about global warming.

The program charts how scientists agree on many key issues underlying global warming: so-called "greenhouse gases" such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane trap radiation from the sun, thereby warming the earth. Worldwide measurements -- taken from trees, ice cores, coral reefs and air--show the concentration of these gases has increased by one-third since the Industrial Revolution. And, scientists also agree that the earth's surface temperature has increased one degree Fahrenheit over the 20th century (see graphs).

But a fierce debate centers on whether this warming is a natural phenomenon or the result of man's burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil, which increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. This NOVA/FRONTLINE report interviews leading scientists, policymakers and fuel industry representatives with sharply different viewpoints.
(snip)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/warming/

The point is not to soothe people watching disaster fancies by making it sound almost innocuous. Small increments of change, hot or cold, that affect the food supply, disease, ecological balance, coastlands and islands(where most of world's pop. lives could cost billions of lives never mind economic ruin and instability. If it happens slowly would the loss of billions of lives prematurely stretched out over decades predominantly in poorer countries be acceptable or sustainable?

Where's the dramatic fun or impact of that? Using the reaction to an exaggeration of the worst case scenario is a sneaky way to spin scientists into appearing to say things will be kind of OK, thereby doing the work of right wing quacks and Exxon advertising better than they could themselves. Tornadoes? They can spin you even faster into the opposite frame of mind.

False comfort.

He was trying to talk seriously about climate change, and she kept interrupting him with little digs and sarcastic remarks. Finally, she asked him snidely if he would be driving his hybrid car to the theater to see the film, and he responded, "No, I'll be riding my bicycle." :D :thumbsup:

He's my hero. If anyone can help the dubmed-down kids in this country want to learn science, it's him. Hell I'm a post-grad-edumacated adult and I learned things when I watched his show.

Welcome to the DU HippieCowgirl!! :toast: :party: :bounce: :hippie: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

What a terrific response. This guy is on top of it.

And even it it isn't. It's our duty to promote it anyway. It's just too bad it's a FOX film. Why can't liberals make the money?

This is such a case. The planet follows warming and cooling cycles on its own. The most we are doing is increasing that rate at which this happens slightly. It certainly is not this dramatic display which I saw just hours ago that completely fudges the science of it to scare the unsophisticated masses into believing we are doomed in the very near future.

It may be overly dramatized in this movie, but there may still be long term disastrous consequences. I loved it.

------------------------------------------------------

(snip)
There's a chance, however, that the film's depiction will set the bar too high. That is, if the reason we're supposed to worry about global warming is that it will first send a tidal wave over the Statue of Liberty and then lock it forever in an ice cube, anything less will seem ... not so bad. When, in fact, the more likely horror stories happen a little more slowly -- and a little farther away from the Hollywood hills and the Manhattan canyons. For instance: The World Health Organization estimates that the spread of mosquitoes in a warmer, wetter world will cause malaria and dengue fever to explode. The deaths won't come all at the same time, and they won't involve people who look like Dennis Quaid, but they'll be plenty real. And consider the latest statistics from the Earth Policy Institute, which note steep rises in grain prices as a direct result of harvests lowered by massive heat waves in the last few years -- again, results that are less sensational but likely to be equally tragic
(more)

http://www.gristmagazine.com/soapbox/mckibben050404.asp