Fiction Fantasy and Falsehoods

About 15,000 years ago the last ice age was melting due to a millennia of early human cave dwellers test firing their volcanoes and traversing the countryside on fire breathing sport utility dinosaurs (SUDs), the volcanoes of the Cascade Mountain Range left lava and mudflows two miles thick. Because of global warming from the volcanoes and the SUDs, the Columbia River then cut a deep canyon through the lava, ash and mud. Gigantic floods up to 1,200 feet deep swept down the river corridor and scoured its cliffs. This created one of the world’s greatest disasters; a gorge that appears to have scarred the region forever leaving tributary streams hanging high above the river’s bed creating waterfalls so tall they are out of the reach of spawning salmon.

Therefore, it is time for the Inconvenient Truth supporters, socialist green political forces and doo-gooder control seeking environmentalists of today who really want to reverse the affects of global warming to pick up their hand held pick axes and shovels, start another millennia of reversing the actions of those early humans who test fired the volcanoes and fill in that dastardly ditch called the Columbia River Gorge, thereby helping to return the planet to pre-global warming status.

Steve,

Senator Smith is grudgingly taking his head out of the sand - and is beginning to accept the science - but he still refuses to accept any actions that will get us on the CO2 stabilization path that the science says is required to head off a climate calamity.

Mr. Smith is out of the mainstream - out of mainstream US, and mainstream Oregon thinking on global warming. But because of 2008, he may entertain the smallest of steps ( maybe, like Arctic drilling, where he votes for something that helps the environment when the vote doesn't matter, only to vote against it when it does matter).

I am already anticipating the 2008 campaign ads - I am confident his votes will be tailored for those, not to actually help mitigate global warming.

Funny how the IPCC report of 2001 left out the Medieval warming period (1000AD to 1400AD). Seems the sun got hot in that time period, just like it is now.

Mars' polar ice caps are melting, too.

I also am skeptical of any 'reports' that are released under the auspices of the U.N. Talk about a blatant bias.

I'm not saying humans are not responsible for global warming, I don't think we can change the environment as much as we have without effecting the ecosystem. However, natural forces are the majority reason for climate change.

The question is; how are we going to effect a worldwide population decrease in order to minimize our effect?

The question is; how are we going to effect a worldwide population decrease in order to minimize our effect?

Chris...mother nature will take care of the "population decrease", just like she always does.

Climate change. Who Knew? If only those creative folks during the Industrial Revolution would have just left well enough alone.

What I find most interesting in this report are the various emission scenarios - not necessarily their approach to more efficient technologies or emissions reductions per se, but the often critical role of aiming towards greater equity across nations and populations (eg the B1 or A1T emission scenarios).

It's fascinating stuff, and perhaps gets covered up in the midst of all the practical advice and chatter on turning off the lights and leaving the SUV in the garage. Of course, that's not say that the small stuff is insignificant.

It may not be necessary to achieve a Utopia - but that's going to have to be part of the aim in order to put global warming in its place. A challenge - as we all know - to say the least.

Mr. Alworth--I think you misunderstand; I definitely do not debate Mr. Karlock any longer, because I consider him insincere in trying to actually understand the science. Presumably he has the same opinion of me :-)

I highly recommend the PDF summary for policymakers linked in the original posting in this thread.

Oh, one last thing: something y'all can expect to hear, aside from the claim that any UN-linked panel cannot produce a competent report (I also wonder why this claim is made), is that the IPCC panel has suffered a bunch of resignations from people who have denounced the panel as biased and/or imcompetent. This claim takes up a lot of space in the blogosphere. However, as far as I know, the net total of some resignations is one.

The IPCC science report, the realization by many influential business leader that mandatory emission caps are necessary (see USCAP) and a more informed media, is already beginning to change the nature of the global warming debate from science to what to do about global warming. As congress begins consideration of global warming legislation we will be hearing less about global warming science and a lot more about "cap and trade", emission allowances, emission offsets, energy efficiency, biofuels and CAFE standards.

If human activity is producing such an alarming warming trend, what makes any of you think we can even begin to reverse it?

By show of hands, how many of you are ready to sign up for surgical sterilization? Our Malthusian population growth rates are the root cause of planetary degradation. What's really more important to you: your own disposable diaper wearing mini-me, or those helpless little polar bears stranded on melting ice berg?

Sure, it's asking for a bit more personal sacrifice than buying a Prius or biking to work. But is your procreation more important than the future of our planet?

Once we've got a tangible reduction in birth rates, we can go after all those elderly do-nothings that are consuming valuable resources without contributing anything to society. If we start whittling away at both side of the popluation continuum, we can make a difference.

By show of hands, how many of you are willing to start educating your grandparents on Oregon's Death with Dignity Law? Encourage them to move her for 6 months, and then help them through the process. It's for the good of their grandkids, and all that.

Their modesty is almost Swiftian, ain't it, folks?

OK, since you put my good name on your front page, lets a look at another side:

http://www.junkscience.com http://www.co2science.org http://www.climateaudit.org/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/05/nosplit/nwarm05.xml

Suppose we go for global CO2 reduction - are willing to go after the major sources first? (I hear, but have not verified, that these are China, India etc. Not the USA.)

Can we also look only at NET CO2 per country? (I hear but have not verified, that USA is mostly CO2 neutral due to re-forestation)

Oh, can anyone explain how we got out of the last ice age 12,000 years ago without global warming due to SUVs etc?

How do we reduce the MOST SIGNIFICANT greenhouse gas (water vapor)?

What would be the effect on future temperatures if man STOPPED all CO2 instantly?

Thanks JK (Someone who has built a model that PERFECTLY matched past stock market swings. And had ZERO predictive ability beyond predicting a continuation of the latest trend. How are the climate models proven different?)

SUVs are as relevant to the Global Warming discussion as 20th Century blackouts and internet porn are to human population growth over the last 2 million years. You can't ascribe causality (over a 2 million year period) to a trend that emerged in the past 100 years. We simply aren't that important.

Despite what the Global Warming Alarmists would have you believe, the fact remains that Carbon Dioxide levels were 900% higher just 300 million years ago. Well before the first Hummer rolled off the assembly line.

In terms of the Geological Time Scale it is difficult to comprehend just how recently humankind emerged from the shadows of obscurity.

If the history of Earth were condensed into 82.2 years (or 30,000 days), the emergence of Homo Sapiens occured 13 DAYS ago. In keeping with this scale, record human history began 2.7 HOURS ago. We simply haven't been here long enough to do the kind of damage that Global Warming alarmists would like us to believe. We're still the new kids on the block.

From the journal Progress in Physical Geography, Jonathan Adams, Mark Maslin & Ellen Thomas conclude: I. Broad climate variability; the background of oscillations on the timescale of tens of thousands of years

The most recent large climate oscillation spanning the last 130,000 years (130 ka) has been the subject of the most intensive study, because it offers a relatively detailed climate record from the land, from the oceans and from the ice cores. In the last few years, a considerable amount of new data on the warm period known as the Eemian (the last major interglacial) has become available (e.g. Pewe et al. 1997). This interval has seen the global climate system switch (Fig.1) from warm interglacial (similar to present-day) to cold glacial conditions, and back.

There is a 90 percent certainty the cause is fossil fuel emisions. The scientists have finished their job. Only fool waits for 100 per cent certainty of an impending and irreversible disaster. :::[Global Warming Watch]

emisions"? Learn to spell it before you lecture on it.

Science is never "finished"...It is constantly being refined, challenged, improved upon, and (frequently) turned on it's head by new data or research tools.

There is much greater political certainty than there is scientific certainty where anthropogenic climate change is concerned.

At least Oregon policy-makers are organizing to deal with global warming. It's in The Oregonion.

And over at FOX news, they covered the UN report by saying that "some" of the global warming was created by humans. The report says 90%, and FOX says "some".

I wonder if FOX reports that the world is flat, or if they report is has "some" flat spots.

There isn't really a debate at all, we just need to find ways to reduce, eliminate, and mitigate what we do that creats global warming. Most of it isn't rocket science.

If there were even moderate incentives, my sunny side of the State could do a lot with home based solar. I have moderate income, but retrofitting my house to run 90% solar / 10% grid is just one step out of my reach financially. A good loan program, or a meaningful tax credit - even spread out over 10 years - could be what it takes to get increasing numbers of us to use solar and wind alternative power sources. It costs about $10,000 per house to go "off-grid" with a system that does not compromise the use of power in a house. The pay back is no power bill, in my case a full return in 11.9 years.

I would love to see Oregon take the initiative in actually doing something about this instead of talking about it, or engaging in silly debates regarding how flat the world is, or if global warming exists.

Jeff Alworth: As to the deniers, I think it's not worth continuing the "debate." JK: “deniers”. “believers”. This is religion, not science.

Jeff Alworth: it's not only scientists who agree, but the vast majority of regular people. JK: Sorry, people who consult their daily horoscope don’t count in a rational argumnent.

Jeff Alworth: The folks who don't believe it's happening and/or caused by humans have now become a small minority increasingly reliant on conspiracy theories to make their case. The debate's over JK: The folks who don't believe in GOD have now become a small minority increasingly reliant on conspiracy theories to make their case. The debate's over

Thanks JK

Damn, I just can't resist, I guess :-)

Karlock: Oh, can anyone explain how we got out of the last ice age 12,000 years ago without global warming due to SUVs etc?

Yep, it's called long-term cyclic variability in global climate, aka Milankovitch cycles. The Earth has been going in and out of ice ages for several million years now. The record from various paleoclimatic indicators (ice cores, ocean sediments cores, etc.) bearing on this issue is enormous. The Milankovitch cycles are driven by astronomical factors--subtle changes in the Earth's orbital parameters and the tilt of the Earth's axis relative to the ecliptic (the average "plane" of the solar system). Also of critical importance, owing to the effect on oceanic circulation, is the configuration of the Earth's oceans and continents, which have changed through time because of continental drift (plate tectonics). For example, the closure of the Isthmus of Panama in (relatively) recent geological time radically affected climate.

What would be the effect on future temperatures if man STOPPED all CO2 instantly?

The same global climate models disparaged in the next comments could address this. In fact, I'm certain that modelers use their models in this predictive mode. How else would they be making statements about future probably changes in temperature, distribution of precipitation, and so on??

(Someone who has built a model that PERFECTLY matched past stock market swings. And had ZERO predictive ability beyond predicting a continuation of the latest trend. How are the climate models proven different?)

I can't quite follow Mr. Karlock's point here, but he indirectly is getting at a central point of Earth science, namely, that it's to a large extent a historical science, just like biology. Of course, the global climate models are not schemes where investigators blithely "tune" parameters and then "match" model results to experiments. The models use as an initial condition (starting point) global climate at some point in the past--as best as we can reconstruct it using paleoclimatic indicators--and then computationally march forward in time.

Being neither omniscient nor supernaturally powerful, with a cosmic laboratory at our disposal, we don't get to run a series of laboratory-like experiments with global climate. Unless Mr. Karlock can suggest an alternative that climate scientists have missed, the only reasonable tools we have at our disposal for making predictions are the models that do a good job with past climate (as mentioned above).

Sorry, I evidently botched the HTML formatting on this hyperlink to a NOAA web page about Milankovitch cycles

There sure is a lot of noise on this blog; for some reason, climate change is a magnet for flat-earthers.

Anyways, the state should be making some real progress on reducing carbon in this years agenda. The Governor, through his inititatives, has already laid a strong foundation for meeting the state's CO2 reduction goals - adopted the tailpipe emission standards, endorsed the Renewable Energy Standard, and completed the Carbon Allocation Task Force findings that a carbon cap on Oregon's utilities reducing emissions by 2020 will actually save Oregonians money on their electricity bills because of increased energy efficiency.

These important steps will be addressed and/or passsed by the 2007 Oregon Legislature, and will position Oregon for the the largest business opportunity of the 21st century - clean energy.

lin qiao: Being neither omniscient nor supernaturally powerful, with a cosmic laboratory at our disposal, we don't get to run a series of laboratory-like experiments with global climate. ... the only reasonable tools we have at our disposal for making predictions are the models that do a good job with past climate (as mentioned above). JK: And that is a fatal flaw. The models cannot be tested. PERIOD.

The ability to match past climate is no more convincing than my model’s ability to PERFECTLY match past stock market performance.

The fatal flaw in both is that for a model to work you must include all variables and correctly weigh them If you miss an important variable, you will mis-weigh others to make it march history, but you will unknowingly sacrifice predictive power, depending on the importance of the missing variable.

The model cannot be reliable until you actually include, correctly weighted, all significant variables. And you have to be able to prove that you have done this. The foregoing is not possible at this time and therefore the models are not proven reliable. PERIOD. This is a fatal flaw that few people talk about. It totally destroys the usefulness of these models.

Just as a sample of the hysteria around this topic, remember last years predictions of a devastating hurricane season coming? Turned out that ZERO, NONE, NOT ONE hurricane reached USA land. The sky is falling crowd was completely wrong.

Beware Professor Harold Hill with a fancy new computer.

Thanks JK

In the opening remarks Jeff Alworth boldly exclaimed. “it's happening and we caused it.”

So then can anybody say without a doubt, or even without a 90% doubt that we humans created the global warming that formed the Columbia Gorge?

Can anybody say without any doubt that natural occurrences like the volcanoes of the world do not affect global warming and we humans are the reason why they are erupting?

Can any body say without a shadow of doubt erupting volcanoes that spew loads of pollutants into the atmosphere and onto the landscape have less of an affect on global warming than is done by we humans?

And then there is the evidence of Palm Trees that has been found under one of the polar caps – can anybody say without doubt this discovery is not evidence of previous global warming and we humans caused that too?

Global Warming is happening however the “we caused it“ phrase appears to only have a very microscopic influence compared to the bigger picture of natural occurrences

Karlock: And that is a fatal flaw. The models cannot be tested. PERIOD.

The fatal flaw in both is that for a model to work you must include all variables and correctly weigh them If you miss an important variable, you will mis-weigh others to make it march history, but you will unknowingly sacrifice predictive power, depending on the importance of the missing variable.

Right then, I think we've gotten to the heart of Mr. Karlock's objection. He fundamentally objects to the entire way that historical sciences like geology and biology conduct business. Of course, these sciences have their parts that are more like the ideal laboratory sciences--molecular biology and geophysics, say. But Earth history only happens once.

The global climate models attempt to include the physics, chemistry, oceanography, hydrology, etc. that the modelers believe are important and believe they can represent correctly using empirical constraints. How else would Mr. Karlock like them to be constructed?

As Mr. Karlock knows, science is a self-correcting enterprise. He worries, entirely reasonably I might add, that you must include all variables and correctly weigh them. If you miss an important variable, you will mis-weigh others to make it march history, but you will unknowingly sacrifice predictive power, depending on the importance of the missing variable. And of course the people who construct the climate models fully realize this, and do their damnedest to include all the variables. They refine the models as the geophysical data improve, as computing power imcreases.

As Mr. Karlock also knows, the folks who build the models are very careful to explain the uncertainties in both the inputs and the outputs. They run one computational exercise after another with slightly different (but reasonable) inputs to see how the outputs vary. This is entirely standard scientific procedure.

So no, Mr. Karlock, of course the results are not absolutely certain. Absolute certainty is impossible. (Can Mr. Karlock know exactly when an electronic device he designs and builds is going to fail because he had the bad luck to use a defective microchip, say?) The global climate models being used now represent a few decades of effort on the part of many people to come up with the best tool for the job. Mr. Karlock's objection is that because these models are not perfect and infallible, they cannot be trusted at all. That's equivalent to saying that his electronic designs are worthless because occasionally a part fails.

If Science has the predictive capability to tell us how much warmer the earth is going to be 100 years from now, can they also estimate what benefit may accrue from cutting CO2 emissions in half? Is that benefit worth the economic costs it will impose on society?

Given that previous warming periods were followed by cooling periods (and eventual return to widespread glacial coverage of the Earth), what impact will C02 reductions have on hastening the arrival of the next glacial period?

Is there estalished scientific consensus as to when the next glacial period is likely to begin?

"No doubt"? "90& certainty" "The tipping point has occurred" "vast majority of regular people" "The debate's over"

Wow, if you say so. Proof positive Blue is a cult.

"a small minority increasingly reliant on conspiracy theories"

Proof positive Jeff has never read the other side.

and never will.

If Science has the predictive capability to tell us how much warmer the earth is going to be 100 years from now, can they also estimate what benefit may accrue from cutting CO2 emissions in half? Is that benefit worth the economic costs it will impose on society?

I would argue that is hardly a scientific question at all. Seems entirely like an issue of economics and scociology, say.

Given that previous warming periods were followed by cooling periods (and eventual return to widespread glacial coverage of the Earth), what impact will C02 reductions have on hastening the arrival of the next glacial period?

Recently there was actually a short item, or maybe a letter to the editor, in Eos, weekly newsletter of the American Geophysical Union, in which someone was making the argument that human-induced warming would delay the onset of the next ice age.

Is there estalished scientific consensus as to when the next glacial period is likely to begin?

Some articles bearing on that: here's one; another; another. You can do a lot of web searching....

1. "Is the benefit worth the economic cost?" is surely a political, economic, and philosophical/socialogical question.

2. The preface to the above question isn't political, it is purely scientific: If Science has the predictive capability to tell us how much warmer the earth is going to be 100 years from now, can they also estimate what benefit may accrue from cutting CO2 emissions in half?

3. If the same models which predict 3 degrees of warming (over the next century) can't predict what impact a halving of C02 emissions might have, it seems unlikely that global C02 reductions will be politically viable. Why make the effort without having x% probability of producing a more favorable outcome?

from Lin Qiao's first link (above):

And now perhaps you begin to see the scope of the problem. In addition to incorporating a terrestrial biosphere and polar ice, which both play a large role in the reflectivity of solar radiation, one has to accurately parameterize mixing that occurs on centimeter to tens of centimeter scales in the ocean. And one has to produce long coupled global climate runs of many centuries! This is a daunting task but is necessary before we can confidently rely on models to predict future climate change.

Our knowledge about past climate change is limited as well. There are only a handful of high-resolution ice core climate records of the past 100,000 years, and even fewer ocean records of comparable resolution. Better definition of past climate states is needed not only in and of itself, but for use by modelers to test their best climate models in reproducing what we know happened in the past before believing model projections about the future. We are not there yet, and progress needs to be made on both better data and improved models before we can begin to answer some critical questions about future climate change.

Are We on the Brink of a 'New Little Ice Age?'
February 10, 2003 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute By Terrence Joyce, Senior Scientist, Physical Oceanography and Lloyd Keigwin, Senior Scientist, Geology & Geophysics

Researchers always tell you that more research funding is needed, and we are not any different. Our main message is not just that, however. It is that global climate is moving in a direction that makes abrupt climate change more probable, that these dynamics lie beyond the capability of many of the models used in IPCC reports, and the consequences of ignoring this may be large. For those of us living around the edge of the N. Atlantic Ocean, we may be planning for climate scenarios of global warming that are opposite to what might actually occur.

Dear Flat Earther--your "return address" is a web page on Campylobactor infections. Huh.

Dear More Data--If you ever encounter any scientific endeavor in which more data would not be a nice thing, please let me know. Also, if you ever meet an ethical scientist who doesn't lay out for the reader all the uncertainties and errors, let me know about that, too.

It would be really nice if science had some sort of scriptural Revealed Truth. Instead we've got to find it for ourselves.

Sigh.

Dear More Data/Best Part:

Another tidbit from thoat Woods Hole newsy item I suggested a link to (not a refereed journal article, obviously):

Evidence has mounted that global warming began in the last century and that humans may be in part responsible. Both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the US National Academy of Sciences concur. Computer models are being used to predict climate change under different scenarios of greenhouse forcing and the Kyoto Protocol advocates active measures to reduce CO² emissions which contribute to warming.

A really cool thing to do (I see you're already a specialist, but others may like to know) is pretending you're interested in a topic--in the present case, the science of climate (which is complicated as hell) and then playing gotcha games, intentionally taking things out of context, and so on.

HOT DAMN, quoting snippets out of context really IS addicting!

YOUR LINK (not mine) was written by two scientists saying that we don't have the necessary data on how changing ocean salinity, glacial melting, increased evaporation/solar reflection, the mixing of cold and warm ocean currents, may interact with each other. They also suggest there exists some likelihood of a natural return to equilibrium (ushering in the next ice age)...Snd that doesn't concern you?

Let's read their closing paragraph again:

...that these dynamics lie beyond the capability of many of the models used in IPCC reports, and the consequences of ignoring this may be large. For those of us living around the edge of the N. Atlantic Ocean, we may be planning for climate scenarios of global warming that are opposite to what might actually occur.

A couple of years ago, I went to a friends house where he made a presentation on why cholesterol is not the problem for heart health that conventional medical wisdom says it is. As someone who has been unhappily taking statin drugs for several years, I found his presentation interesting and hopeful.

My friend gave me a book written by an MD from some Scandinavian country laying out the myths of cholesterol. The author examines the major heart studies to date making the cholesterol-heart disease link (including Framingham) and lays it out how the central conclusion of these studies is wrong - that there is a causal link between high cholesterol and heart disease. The author cites several "articles" that he and others had written for major medical publications. I found his arguments around the science compelling as I did his argument that a herd mentality among scientific researchers on cholesterol began to develop in the 50's and accelerated to the present day. I don't like taking drugs so I eventually quit taking my lipitor.

A few months later I started having second thoughts on betting the farm on this guy and so began to look a little further. What I found was the scientific literature cited to counter the "cholesterol myth" were letters to the medical journals. I found nothing that was peer-reviewed, the gold standard in scientific literature. Once I discovered that, I became very uncomfortable basing a possible important decision on my health on a few letters and opinion pieces written to medical journals. Eventually I decided to go back to the statins.

My point is this: The Scandinavian doctor might be right. The consensus on cholesterol may be wrong...it may be the herd mentality and a great money-making opportunity for the drug companies. But where is the peer-reviewed scientific literature in opposition? Similarly, where is the peer-reviewed literature contesting anthropogenic global warming? Its my understanding that a recent survey of close to 1000 peer-reviewed articles on the subject found not one article that disputed the notion of human caused global warming.

And even if well-reasoned arguments can be made to the contrary, do I want to make the personal and political judgement to ignore the possible consequences of global warming and climate change. For me, the answer is no, not given the growing scientific evidence and apparent consensus among climate scientists. (And if I am wrong on the apparent consensus, then I would a reference to some peer-reviewed articles in a respected scientific publication that contests this view.)

The question is...what do we do about it? That's the conversation I would like to see on Blue Oregon and more importantly, among the everyday working folk who would be most affected by a transition away from fossil fuels.

I don't understand why everyone is so alarmed about the prospect of Global Warming. I am looking forward to it, and think there will be many benefits from it. Lower heating costs, more areas opened for agricultural development, shipping lanes across the north pole. Why should we believe this liberal drivel about how "awful" it's going to be? Time for a new perspective. I'm all ears.

--GREG--

lin qiao: The global climate models attempt to include the physics, chemistry, oceanography, hydrology, etc. that the modelers believe are important and believe they can represent correctly using empirical constraints. How else would Mr. Karlock like them to be constructed? JK: There are some things that we don’t know how to do at all and some things that we think we know how to do and, in reality, don’t. I put climate modeling in the latter category for the foreseeable future for the reason stated.

lin qiao: As Mr. Karlock knows, science is a self-correcting enterprise. He worries, entirely reasonably I might add, that you must include all variables and correctly weigh them. If you miss an important variable, you will mis-weigh others to make it march history, but you will unknowingly sacrifice predictive power, depending on the importance of the missing variable. And of course the people who construct the climate models fully realize this, and do their damnedest to include all the variables. They refine the models as the geophysical data improve, as computing power imcreases. JK: We agree on the premise, disagreeing only on the modeler’s ability to understand their own models and their limitations. I think it almost certain that they overestimate the accuracy and underestimate the very real possibility that they have missed something important.

A good case in point is the “club of Rome” report on coming shortages of just about everything including food. We still have food and are using less farmland that back then. That was from the 1970s (an early misuse of the computer).

Then there was the Baby Boom’s prediction that the world population was careening our of control. I still run into people that do not know that the populations of most European countries are shrinking.

lin qiao: As Mr. Karlock also knows, the folks who build the models are very careful to explain the uncertainties in both the inputs and the outputs. They run one computational exercise after another with slightly different (but reasonable) inputs to see how the outputs vary. This is entirely standard scientific procedure. JK: And I argue, that the testing is within the assumption that they know all of the inputs and have their weights correct. Suppose that the sun turns out to vary and that was not in the models. Then they would have to over weigh something else to make up for that. Since they didn’t know that the sun vary, it is not in the model and the varied outputs are entirely consistent with expectations. You can always match the past exactly.

lin qiao: So no, Mr. Karlock, of course the results are not absolutely certain. Absolute certainty is impossible. JK: Absolute certainty is not the question. The question is what is the real certainty, not the certainty in the judgement of the modelers who may just have biased view of their baby.

We should not forget DISCOVER OCTOBER 1989, Page 47: Stephen Schneider of the National Center for Atmospheric Research described the scientists' dilemma this way: "On the one hand, as scientists, we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but-which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but; human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might. have.This `double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both." (bold added - Schnider is now editor of a peer reviewed journal, Climate Change.)

lin qiao: The global climate models being used now represent a few decades of effort on the part of many people to come up with the best tool for the job. Mr. Karlock's objection is that because these models are not perfect and infallible, they cannot be trusted at all. JK: No, the accuracy of the models only becomes more than a lab exercise when politicians and some scientists advocate re-ordering society based on the models. Such re-ordering will hurt a large number of people and that is unforgivable unless we are DAMN certain - which, almost certainly, in reality, we are not. They just think they are.

Thanks JK

Is there anything we can do to accelerate Global Warming in the Midwest? Because it's butt cold out here!

They just like to alarm people because that way they have control over the unscrupulous masses. Pretty soon a new fad will come onto the scene and they'll be cramming that down our throats too. All hail the liberal overlord dictators.

JK: This is just so incredible, I have to share it. It is most of an article found on realclimate.org, a web site run by (or for, or something) the creator of the hockey stick and global warming advocate.

You see, there is this little problem that, in the past, CO2 has risen AFTER 800 years of warming, making CO2 NOT the cause of warming. Check out this explanation:

At least three careful ice core studies have shown that CO2 starts to rise about 800 years (600-1000 years) after Antarctic temperature during glacial terminations. These terminations are pronounced warming periods that mark the ends of the ice ages that happen every 100,000 years or so.

Does this prove that CO2 doesn't cause global warming? The answer is no.

The reason has to do with the fact that the warmings take about 5000 years to be complete. The lag is only 800 years. All that the lag shows is that CO2 did not cause the first 800 years of warming, out of the 5000 year trend. The other 4200 years of warming could in fact have been caused by CO2, as far as we can tell from this ice core data.

The 4200 years of warming make up about 5/6 of the total warming. So CO2 could have caused the last 5/6 of the warming, but could not have caused the first 1/6 of the warming.

It comes as no surprise that other factors besides CO2 affect climate. Changes in the amount of summer sunshine, due to changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun that happen every 21,000 years, have long been known to affect the comings and goings of ice ages. Atlantic ocean circulation slowdowns are thought to warm Antarctica, also.

From studying all the available data (not just ice cores), the probable sequence of events at a termination goes something like this. Some (currently unknown) process causes Antarctica and the surrounding ocean to warm. This process also causes CO2 to start rising, about 800 years later. Then CO2 further warms the whole planet, because of its heat-trapping properties. This leads to even further CO2 release. So CO2 during ice ages should be thought of as a "feedback", much like the feedback that results from putting a microphone too near to a loudspeaker.

In other words, CO2 does not initiate the warmings, but acts as an amplifier once they are underway. From model estimates, CO2 (along with other greenhouse gases CH4 and N2O) causes about half of the full glacial-to-interglacial warming.

from: realclimate.org/index.php?p=13

Of course, another possibility is that CO2 comes out of the oceans as the oceans warm due to something unknown (maybe the sun?)- just like the fizz comes out of a carbonated drink when it gets warm. Occam’s razor anyone?

Thanks JK

Ha ha, here we go again. I think, populace wide, that denying human-caused GW has about run its course, although certain energy corporations will continue to fund "scientific" work to minimize the problem. On the other hand, I think Jim Karlock is correct that we are unlikely to do much about GW, at least until oil gets too expensive to burn. Humans are greedy, lazy, self-deluding, weak-brained, and irresponsible. If anyone can cite an example of our species successfully making change of the magnitude that would be needed to end GW - before the disaster hits, I mean - I'd love to have my optimism restored. Otherwise, I will ready myself for the nastiness to come and try to look on the bright side: Portland will likely have more sunshine and my home near the Willamette River may become beach front property on the future Willamette Sound.

Tom Civiletti: Ha ha, here we go again. I think, populace wide, that denying human-caused GW has about run its course, although certain energy corporations will continue to fund "scientific" work to minimize the problem. JK: Did you miss the fact that the above article came from the pre-emminent PRO MAN- CAUSED global warming web site run in conjunction with Dr. Mann, the climate “scientist” that created the “hockey stick”?

It says that CO2 lags global warming by 800 years, then tries to claim that CO2 causes the later stages of warming. It seems to me that you must agree with the guy that created Al Gore’s main piece of evidence, the hockey stick, on the FACT that CO2 DOES NOT START the global warming cycle or cause the first 800 years. We can agree on that, then disagree with the second part to the claim.

Tom Civiletti: On the other hand, I think Jim Karlock is correct that we are unlikely to do much about GW, at least until oil gets too expensive to burn. JK: Or by then we’ll all agree on the first half of the above claim: CO2 does not cause the first 800 years of global warming, then disagree that CO2 constitutes to the later stages of warming.

Tom Civiletti: ....Portland will likely have more sunshine and my home near the Willamette River may become beach front property on the future Willamette Sound. JK: BTW, did you know that the effect of CO2 is non-linear, each incremental increase in concentration, causes a smaller increment of warming because it absorbs in narrow bands which saturate and have no more effect.

Thanks JK