Climate Facts To Warm To

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Climate facts to warm to

Christopher Pearson | March 22, 2008

CATASTROPHIC predictions of global warming usually conjure with the notion of a tipping point, a point of no return.

Last Monday - on ABC Radio National, of all places - there was a tipping point of a different kind in the debate on climate change. It was a remarkable interview involving the co-host of Counterpoint, Michael Duffy and Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. Anyone in public life who takes a position on the greenhouse gas hypothesis will ignore it at their peril.

Duffy asked Marohasy: "Is the Earth stillwarming?"

She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years."

Duffy: "Is this a matter of any controversy?"

Marohasy: "Actually, no. The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued ... This is not what you'd expect, as I said, because if carbon dioxide is driving temperature then you'd expect that, given carbon dioxide levels have been continuing to increase, temperatures should be going up ... So (it's) very unexpected, not something that's being discussed. It should be being discussed, though, because it's very significant."

Duffy: "It's not only that it's not discussed. We never hear it, do we? Whenever there's any sort of weather event that can be linked into the global warming orthodoxy, it's put on the front page. But a fact like that, which is that global warming stopped a decade ago, is virtually never reported, which is extraordinary."

Duffy then turned to the question of how the proponents of the greenhouse gas hypothesis deal with data that doesn't support their case. "People like Kevin Rudd and Ross Garnaut are speaking as though the Earth is still warming at an alarming rate, but what is the argument from the other side? What would people associated with the IPCC say to explain the (temperature) dip?"

Marohasy: "Well, the head of the IPCC has suggested natural factors are compensating for the increasing carbon dioxide levels and I guess, to some extent, that's what sceptics have been saying for some time: that, yes, carbon dioxide will give you some warming but there are a whole lot of other factors that may compensate or that may augment the warming from elevated levels of carbon dioxide.

"There's been a lot of talk about the impact of the sun and that maybe we're going to go through or are entering a period of less intense solar activity and this could be contributing to the current cooling."

Duffy: "Can you tell us about NASA's Aqua satellite, because I understand some of the data we're now getting is quite important in our understanding of how climate works?"

Marohasy: "That's right. The satellite was only launched in 2002 and it enabled the collection of data, not just on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapour. What all the climate models suggest is that, when you've got warming from additional carbon dioxide, this will result in increased water vapour, so you're going to get a positive feedback. That's what the models have been indicating. What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite ... (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they're actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you're getting a negative rather than a positive feedback."

Follow the link. Read it all.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

*sigh* It amazes me that so many people just don't care to actually get to the truth of the matter.

[ttogreh]

Oh, I care. I just find it irrelevant to the over-arching truth; whether or not CO2 will affect climate on a global scale, almost everything else that comes out of a tailpipe will kill you dead.

Al Gore and his climate change cronies may be pulling a fast one, but in the end, it really doesn't matter. A blogger friend of mine's mother died due to an acute asthma attack. She grew up motherless, more than likely, because of ground level ozone.

I care about the environment. The climate will change no matter what. Mercury killing the potential of inner city kids... that can be averted.

If I have to go along with a lie to save lives and increase the energy security of my country... so be it.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

The end justifies the means?

[Troy Spiral (13)]

I care, i'm just involved in 9000 things when i logon to DGN at any one time that not everything gets attention.

I've still not really studied the subject and journalist stories quoting specific experts are long something to be suspicious of since journalists are known for having no clue and picking "experts" rather than doing overal in-depth reporting which is nessisary. Not that I'd ever be an expert but we need an overall understanding of the underlying concepts to really make sense of the various stories, not something one can acquire from journalists per-se and not something acquired in an evening or two of "real science" reading.

I've not really looked into it very much. But i do hear a lot of cute sound bites and one-off stories that don't convince me much either way. Especially when it almost always comes down party lines. Al Gore fans automatically assume climate change its true, rush Limbaugh fans automatically assume its BS. Neither viewpoint gives me much reassurance.

Once i got to the "the truth is never reported" part in that article i stopped reading. Not to say its wrong in its eventual conclusions, just that sort of conspiracy theory stuff is just wrong. This stuff is CONSTANTLY reported (apparent contradictions to global warming) all day and all night. My dad, who does follow global warming (and is strongly in the Rush camp) every 2 or 3 days has some new factoid that he saw on TV or heard on the radio that goes along with this contrarian type idea. Maybe not on Nightline, but we don't live in a 3-network world anymore. Once i hear "THEY" are keeping the truth from us i tend to zone out since i know its not true. I can find 10 different media outlets at any one time, of totally polar opposite opinions in many cases.

The end justifies the means sub-point:

The ends scale with the means i think, they don't necessarily justify them. The lesser of the evils or the greater of the goods is often a difficult judgement call and requires bending of some ideology we might hold at times. If we take an iron-clad opinion and divorce it from its actual effects i think that's a bad recipe. Compromise is inevitable to some degree if any progress is to be made on many subjects.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

Compromise is inevitable to some degree if any progress is to be made on many subjects.

There is more truth is that line than in anything I have ever read about Global Warming.