/sci/ - Science & Math

Humans are the only source of global warming. If humans went extinct tomorrow, climate would stay constant forever and never change again, just like it never ever changed before humans started emitting CO2.

>>6422310
Current warming, you bully

>>6422310

strawmen everywhere

>>6422314
>"strawmen everywhere"
Ignite strawmen. Combustion of straw is exothermic. Released heat causes global warming.
Contention proved, providing you are human.

>>6422307
The current warming probably is, as non-human causes of warming (increased solar radiation, significantly decreased volcanic activity) don't really seem to be happening right now.

>>6422325
Global warming skeptics wrong?

>>6422468
Anyone who's denies that it's happening certainly is.

Anyone who denies that we're the one's causing it causing it is making a claim that goes against the data we have.

>>6422307
>Is global warming mostly caused by human activity? Do we have proof?

97% of studies in the last 10 years on the subject seem to think so:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article

SUN CYCLES

>>6422307
Why is there such a disparity on global warming in /sci/? I was just reading a thread the other day where everyone was in agreement that we don't know if any of our climate models are correct, so we don't know if humans are the cause.

>>6422592
All of those posters were wrong.

>>6422592
Because that thread was based on the idea that "these models of climate change via human activity were disproven" means "all models of climate change via human activity as the primary cause are wrong". By the same logic, it's not NOT caused by humans, either, because most models of the current warming being natural have wound up debunked.

>>6422607
Well i'm glad most of the board seems to be sane, cause I was losing hope in that other thread.

>>6422545
So CO2 levels and mass extinctions are just coincidences?

Everyone is wrong.

The average temperature on the Earth is actually below absolute zero

I know because I read it on a blog

Why would anyone believe that climate change will lead to the collapse of civilization? An ice age might, but global warming?

>>6422704

Well, I believe it will be one factor that contributes to the collapse of civilization. There are many, many other things we have going against us, though, such as resource depletion and overpopulation.

>>6422704
Very few people do believe that.

It's gonna cause a lot of things we'd rather avoid, though. And we have enough on our plate as is.

>>6422708
Overpopulation is only a threat to civilization because it lowers standards of living which in turn makes war more likely. The Earth could support a LOT more humans if we all ate algae gruel.

>>6422722

>muh gruel

the problem is that in order to grow algae gruel, you would need to build thousands/millions of massive farms (probably vertical farms).

You would need petroleum or other fossil fuels to supply the necessary fertilizers, ship the food to people's houses, build the trucks to ship the food, pave the roads to move the trucks on, build the greenhouses/vertical farms to support the algae, mine the metals needed to build these buildings, drive the machinery needed to operate the mines, etc.

Most of those things can't be done with solar/wind, and even if they could, you still need fossil fuels in many of the steps required to build renewable energy plants. That's why peak oil/peak fossil fuels is such a shitty thing.

And without fossil fuels, the Earth's carrying capacity for humans is below 1 billion.

>>6422517
>"The Cook "consensus" study looked at about 12,000 publication abstracts. Of nearly 12,000 abstracts analyzed, there were only 64 papers in category 1 (which explicitly endorsed man-made global warming). Of those only 41 (0.3%) actually endorsed the quantitative hypothesis as defined by Cook in the introduction. A third of the 64 papers did not belong. None of the categories endorsed catastrophic” warming — a warming severe enough to warrant action — though this was assumed in the introduction, discussion and publicity material. That's right, a 0.3% "consensus."

>>6422615

>most models of the current warming being natural have wound up debunked.


OMFG, Computer models are now reality and nature is just measured against whether or not it agrees with a computer model....

The burden of proof is on the person who insists that things aren't natural. Reality is outside, not in your computer.

>>6422762
A 0.3% consensus on that specific model. 97% on human-caused climate change.

>None of the categories endorsed catastrophic” warming — a warming severe enough to warrant action
As defined by who? What scale of problems is considered acceptable to the person you're quoting?

>>6422636

Yeah, Climate Change theory is an established fact. The small details like every substantive prediction they've made has failed is completely irrelevant.

Substantive = clearly distinguishes from natural climate variability
Predictive = before-the-fact based on anthropogenic CO2 with a causal connection

>>6422793

As defined by the authors of the paper.

>>6422741
Human urine is an excellent source of... nitrates, is it? It would simply take a large initial investment in the infrastructure to collect human waste. It's just a matter of recycling the important chemicals. Nature is doing it right now after all.

Human population centers would exist around the things they need and therefore very little energy would need to be wasted on shipping.

I am of course simply arguing that it is possible for Earth to support a much larger human population if we all stop caring about our standards of living.

Overpopulation isn't completely a problem by itself. Overpopulation simply makes things worse in case of sudden economic "hiccups", "hiccups" like peak fossil fuels.

Honestly, regardless of whether or not global warming is caused by humans, I think we still should try to stop treating our planet like a trash can

>>6422783
>The burden of proof is on the person who insists that things aren't natural.
Except that's fucking wrong. There isn't any reason to assume that nature is the cause.

And I don't think you know what a model is. "Model" does not mean "computer model"; it's math that tries to predict the behavior of the real world. If it doesn't line up with what we observe in the real world, then the model is wrong.

So far, all explanations for non-human-caused warming have been contradicted by what we see in nature. The ones that have yet to be debunked all involve a human cause.

Well thousands (millions?) of species are going extinct
I don't think it matters if humans are causing it or not, we obviously need to do something about it

>>6422797
You again. "natural climate variability" doesn't mean anything when it doesn't line up with the factors that affect global temperature. Previous warmings had causes. The causes for those warmings aren't around to cause this one. Therefore, the logical conclusion is that this warming is caused by something other than previous causes.

Having a model that works with current data and may not work with future data is better than a model that doesn't even work with current data. All natural climate change models are the latter.

Humanity just has to realize that the Earth isn't as big as it used to be. We were given an adult pair of pants and we are finally growing into them, but if we eat much more cake then we are going to tear right through them.

>>6422835
I kind of like that analogy. I'm probably going to steal it.

>>6422814

It's not that simple. A large number of parameters have to be put into the computer program and can be tweaked according to a modeler's desires. So it's not just solving some equations, there's plenty of parametric assumptions built in. More to the point, these models only fit back to about 1975. They DO NOT explain the tremendous natural variability of say, the maunder minimum (little ice age) medieval warming period or the Roman warming period. And at the same time these models have failed to make accurate predictions for the last 17.5 years. The vast majority of them said that there would be significant temperatures increases, but that didn't happen. In short, these models do not explain significant natural climate variability and hence cannot "prove" that things are not natural.

BTW, for what it's worth, I actually talked to a climate modeler at a major NASA campus. He quit his group and moved to a new one that had nothing to do with climate modeling. Why did he quit? He felt like he was under tremendous pressure to "fudge things" to get the desired answer.

>>6422826

Wrong, see
>>6422851

>>6422856
>The vast majority of them said that there would be significant temperatures increases

There's your problem. The majority being wrong isn't evidence that the others are, too.

>They DO NOT explain the tremendous natural variability of say, the maunder minimum (little ice age) medieval warming period or the Roman warming period.
But they do. The causes of those warmings are attributed to solar output and low volcanic activity. Those causes can't be linked to current warming, because solar radiation is lower, and volcanic activity is higher than it was during other points in Earth's history with this amount of heating up.

>>6422314
>Strawmen
Where? He was just being sarcastic.

>>6422909

So how do you know that there was higher solar activity then than now? Are you going to tell me that if solar activity now was as high or higher than say, the medieval warming period, you wouldn't believe in AGW/Climate Change theory? I don't believe that for a moment. Nothing could falsify your belief.

And this:
>But they do. The causes of those warmings are attributed to solar output and low volcanic activity.

Then why do the models fail to explain this past variability?

>>6422909
>There's your problem. The majority being wrong isn't evidence that the others are, too.

The 97% majority, a number you guys are so fond of disagreed with the data. Those models that didn't miss were flat, temperature-wise, within error. This means that they didn't not distinguish from normal climate in a predictive way, meaning that provide no evidence that Climate Change/Global Warming theory is true.

>>6422909

Well here you are. A graphic of solar activity. And right now we're at a solar maximum. And the very low Maunder minimum? Right when it was really cold.

And what do the scientists say about this solar maximum. Here you are:

>"These records suggest solar activity has returned to Medieval Solar Maximum highs after a prolonged period of reduced solar activity."

From the abstract of "The medieval solar activity maximum", Authors: J. L. Jirikowic, P. E. Damon. There it is, solar activity is just as strong now as it was during the medieval warming period. Your unnatural Climate Change theory has been falsified.

Good night.

P.S. To those interested, watch now as the backtracking/insults/making excuses begins - illustrating that Climate Change theory is a secular religion.

>>6422968

The type of warming that would occur is due to the Earth moving closer to the sun (see Milankovich cycles), not because of solar activity. That type of warming occurs over geologic time frames of tens to hundreds of thousands of years, as shown in this graph, rather than in the several hundred years that climate change is currently occurring.

What does it matter? We have to ween ourselves off fossil fuels anyway.

>>6423020

Short answer: Because there are a lot of people that don't like being told to do things and immediately cry "Muh personal freedom!" when you tell them that, no, you can't buy your 3 MPG truck with Alaskan baby seal fur interior, and they won't be convinced otherwise.

Long answer: We have to ween ourselves off non-renewable fuels, but the process getting there will be long and painful due to the mass societal restructuring it requires (we are literally trying to eliminate the primary energy sources that society has used for the last ~150-200 years), not helped by the large number of selfish people who simply can't plan for anything longer than next week, let alone the next 100 years, and are perfectly fine with leaving the planet in a worse state than they got it for the next generation. Worst of all, it seems like no matter how much you remind them of all the possible benefits, they still seem to think we are just crazy nutjobs worrying about a crisis that will never come, even though there is mounting evidence that it is already happening.

>>6422968
corporate shill pls

> solar activity is just as strong now as it was during the medieval warming period
This is incorrect; solar activity is at a century-long minimum. Here are a list of publications that have independently confirmed:
Lee 1995
Krikova 2003
Krikova 2007
Wenzler 2006
Scafetta 2009
Krikova 2009

For further information, here is a good page which examines the comparison with the medieval warming period: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Medieval-Warm-Period-rhetoric-vs-science.html

> watch now as the backtracking/insults/making excuses begins - illustrating that Climate Change theory is a secular religion.
You're arguing against established fact on a science board. You might as well post a perpetual motion machine then say thermodynamics is a religion when people call out the bullshit.

>>6422307
>Is global warming mostly caused by human activity? Do we have proof?

>Do we have proof?

Proofs are for math. What we HAVE is overwhelming evidence for and very little evidence against.

I certainly wouldn't think that we could pump trillions of tons of gases into the atmosphere without consequences. Where do people think it goes?

>>6423067
Funny, I don't think individual liberty is subject to sustainability at all. It's a pretty common tendency to assume that everything must be a policy issue but I reckon the best approach is to do the research and then leave people alone to make their own decisions based on it. Of course you have a problem when people justify decisions by rejecting/denying evidence rather than deciding that the evidence isn't relevant.

>>6423496
Which part of "solar maximum" do you not believe, the graphic in
>>6422968
or the scientific reference
>From the abstract of "The medieval solar activity maximum", Authors: J. L. Jirikowic, P. E. Damon.
>"These records suggest solar activity has returned to Medieval Solar Maximum highs after a prolonged period of reduced solar activity."

BTW, fractions of a century is the wrong time scale when looking over a thousand of years; the causal coupling is not that tight. You're going from general solar strength over long time periods, to short time period comparisons. Yes, the very latest solar activity has been low, relative to the general maximum. Notice how it hasn't warmed in 17.5 years, and there's been a small cooling trend for about 10 years? I guess you do believe in natural climate change...

More importantly, from Krikova 2009, Fig. 6, see attached. Things were much stronger than in the Maunder minimum, and stronger than a century ago. YOUR OWN REFERENCE says you're wrong.

my warning:
>To those interested, watch now as the backtracking/insults/making excuses begins - illustrating that Climate Change theory is a secular religion.

and you said:
>You're arguing against established fact on a science board. You might as well post a perpetual motion machine then say thermodynamics is a religion when people call out the bullshit.

The lames excuses indeed... "referencing a scientific paper showing that we are at a solar maximum = a picture of a perpetual motion machine." Whatever. I think that wins a trophy for the biggest strawman argument of the year. More importantly, science says we're at a long term solar maximum, so you point out short term minima which correspond to the pause in warming and slight cooling of the last decade. How irrelevant to the general argument. And then you resort to arguments from authority like "established fact on a science board "-- sounds like a religion to me.

>>6424928

By the way, things fit even better when you don't fudge the data.Measured temperatures in blue. Reported temperatures in red.

Skeptical? Look at the NOAA website for their "stepwise differences" (temperature changes):
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_pg.gif

Specious arguments:
>>6424928
+ data fudging = pseudo-science

>>6424946
Your
>Specious arguments:
as I show here:
>>>6424928 (You)
>+ data fudging = pseudo-science

>>6423515

Nonsense, the whole "proof" works like this:

1. We assume they a climate modeler has perfect knowledge of climate and then makes a computer model.
2. Said model does not predict past temps unless it includes anthropogenic CO2. "Proving" global warming.
3. But said model fails to correctly predict new temps and said model doesn't even predict natural climate variability prior to 1975.

But the theory is true even if the model is false! Says the Climate Change believer, even though the model doesn't work. Somehow the model shows the modeler's perfect knowledge of climate which shows that current temps are anthropogenic. Why? I guess its those secret models they keep in the back room...

That's right. A failed model, replete with countless assumptions and parameters, proves climate change, but the modeler's science is still true even though his scientific theory has just failed a fundamental test.

Climate change theory has never made a single, substantive correct prediction
>>6422797
Only ad hoc, after the fact, "predictions," So they substitute computers for physical reality.

Oh, and changing the temperature data always helps to make things look scary and unnatural. Example from the NOAA is given here:
>>6424946

Don't you deniers know nuthing? The earth's climate is delicately balanced, like a knife balanced on its point. One little increase in CO2 and it will fall over. That will be the end of civilization, of humanity, of everything! So don't exhale!

And pay no attention to the fact that the fossil fuels were once CO2. Or that ice caps at the poles and on mountain tops never reached the top of the atmosphere, as high as water vapor can rise.

I thought it just came down to basic chemistry.

Like we knew the earth was a lot hotter back then, and burning fossil fuels of the plants (that weren't kicked out into the atmosphere, because they didn't decay normally, unbalancing the 1:1 ratio) brings it all back to early earth conditions, right?

No.

A ton of biological, atmospheric, solar, and even geological variable go into the equation.

Considering we are relatively just coming out of an ice age, the answer is no.

We are using up the Earth's Oxygen supply, however.

>>6423496

One other thing. You've really got to stop relying on the pseudo-skeptical science treehouse boyz.

To say they are disingenuous and distort things is to say things in as nice a way as possible.

OP check this out: http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/climate-evidence-causes/
anyone else interested in learning the current scientific consensus on climate change might want to start here as well. they held a live q&a and published a separate written one after. very enlightening.

after reading this, it seems quite clear that these scientists are all working on quit reliable information. humans are affecting the climate. we already have, and we need to reduce our current CO2 output or things will continue accelerating.

>>6426800

The information is not reliable, see for example:
>>6424946

And the "consensus," ain't.

>"The Cook "consensus" study looked at about 12,000 publication abstracts. Of nearly 12,000 abstracts analyzed, there were only 64 papers in category 1 (which explicitly endorsed man-made global warming). Of those only 41 (0.3%) actually endorsed the quantitative hypothesis as defined by Cook in the introduction. A third of the 64 papers did not belong. None of the categories endorsed catastrophic” warming — a warming severe enough to warrant action — though this was assumed in the introduction, discussion and publicity material. That's right, a 0.3% "consensus."

>>6426796
>OBSERVABLE EVIDENCE IS STOOPID! YOU ARE STOOPID! ASKING QUESTIONS IS STOOPID! DISAGREEING WITH ME IS STOOPID

Okay.

>>6424928
1) CO2 (and other gases that we add like methane) is greenhouse gas
2) In the past two centuries, we raised the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by more than a third due to our use of fossil carbon.
3) Therefore, we humans have a non-negligible effect on the current climate evolution.

Disprove this line of reasoning.

>>6426810

No one is saying we have no effect. I'm saying that its relatively weak and that CO2 doesn't drive climate.

>/sci/
>in charge of believing in science
>in charge of not being retarded

I have an interesting couple of questions.
1) What is the global temperature of the earth?
2) What is the global temperature of the moon?
In other words, how much does the "greenhouse effect" contribute to the earth's temperature?

I don't really like the term "greenhouse effect" because greenhouses are used more in warm climates to prevent predation and no one in a cold climate wants to live in a greenhouse. They are too hard to heat, too many windows.

>>6426823
Why not? Even if we took your sunspots thesis at face value, how does that make a statement about CO2 being a supposedly weak greenhouse gas, and the AGW being minor?

lemme see. Air pressure is about 101kPa. That's like, divided by 9.81 N/kg, 1,296 kg/m^2 of atmosphere. CO2 is about 400 parts per million. Multiplied, that gives about 4.12 kg of CO2 per square meter. Dry ice has a density about 1.5 times that of water. So all the CO2 would be about 2.75mm thick, if compressed. So how much insulating can you get out of less then an eight of an inch thick layer? What's its R value?

>>6426877

Oh boy, this has gotten a little nuts. I didn't make a sunspot thesis (though it probably is a good one.)

This guy said that solar activity was low and I provided references to show that it wasn't low... (as a long term average)
>>6422909

But let's turn to your question about CO2. To understand it lets start with the base case and work from there. As the base case, assume no feedback either positive or negative. Draw a graph (in your head or on paper). The y-axis denotes changes in mean global temperature, the x-axis denotes change in CO2 concentration.

What is the shape of the graph?

>>6426990
>>6426877

asserted that traditionally solar activity is the big driver of climate. He's probably correct. I took the ball and ran with it...

>>6424946

This graph comes from climate conspiracy loony Steven Goddard.

http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/a-consistent-pattern-of-data-tampering-across-the-planet/

http://reallysciency.blogspot.ca/p/who-is-steven-goddard.html

>>6427026

Wow, ad hominem.

The graph DATA come from the NOAA.
Check the reference given with the post of the graph.

>>6427026

And here is a gif depicting and comparing two temperature graphs from NASA GISS, 1999 and 2008. I suppose you would refer to them as conspiracy loons.

>>6427042
Have you ever considered there are good reasons for reanalysing data or are you just working on the assumption that change means fraud?

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha00510u.html

>>6427033
>>6427042

>Wow, ad hominem.

Is it still an ad hominem if it's literally true?

http://www.principia-scientific.org/breaking-new-climate-data-rigging-scandal-rocks-us-government.html

Now you're just repeating the same wrong things, but in different ways.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/surface-temperature-measurements-advanced.htm

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.html#QUAL

>>6427065
The changes are very convenient. They are always tilting the graphs in an upward manner. The probability of this happening by chance is essentially zero.

Here's the documented alterations. See:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_pg.gif

Pure coincidence the temperature gradient is almost always being increased by all those changes, huh? Changed by people whose continued salaries depend on public belief in a looming catastrophe.

See attached graph which shows changing temperature data.

Data sourced here:
pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1999/1999_Hansen_etal_1.pdf
pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1981/1981_Hansen_etal_1.pdf
Data.GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: Analysis Graphs and Plots

>>6427090
The refs:

pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1999/1999_Hansen_etal_1.pdf
pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1981/1981_Hansen_etal_1.pdf
Data.GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: Analysis Graphs and Plots

refer to another graph of data changes, attached here.

>>6427073
>http://www.principia-scientific.org/breaking-new-climate-data-rigging-scandal-rocks-us-government.html

I never said that there wouldn't be official excuses for changing the data. The ad hominem comes when you referred to Steven Goddard as a conspiracy loon.

And if you really insist on calling anyone loons, it the pseudo-skeptical science treeehouse boyz. I seen them flat out lie... distort, cherry picking etc. all why repeating their mantra, "this is science, this is science," so that people actually say they're talking science. But i digress.

Now look at this:

A climategate email talking about re-writing the temperature history, what do you know!

What a coincidence. Climate "scientists" talked about changing the temperature history and surprise! the history changed. "Let's erase that inconvenient warming..."

>>6427090
> Pure coincidence the temperature gradient is almost always being increased by all those changes, huh? Changed by people whose continued salaries depend on public belief in a looming catastrophe.
NASA isn't the only climatologic institution in the world just FYI.

>>6427108

And here the go again, talking about erasing that inconvenient cooling... (so that everyone would forget about the Global COOLING scare that failed so badly).

>>6427111
Didn't say they were.

>>6424928
>>6423496
We are at "solar maximum". However, the sun is not behaving like it "should". Basically solar activity is lower than it should be for a solar maximum period. I watch spaceweather reports every day and have been keeping up with this. I'll refer you here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTiL1q9YbrVam5nP2xzFTWQ

Prepare you anuses for a mini ice age. Don't say you weren't warned.

I believe there is a climate change going on but I doubt humans have any kind of huge impact on it.

>>6428368
No one wants to hear it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABBb4dge-ak

>>6427108
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-emails-climate-jones-chinese

noice

Step one: The climate is chaotic and unpredictable
Step two: Therefore i know that adding CO2 will have no effects

>>6426810
Not him, but 3 obviously does not follow from 2.

2 only suggests an effect, it could still be negligible.

The sun is the main driver of our climate. CO2 is not some scary boogie man, the more CO2 we have the greener and more lush our vegetation can grow. Besides human CO2 contribution epically fails in comparison to how much CO2 is given off in mere moments by a Volcano erupting...

>>6428656
BS

>>6422797 and a slew of other posts:

You are my hero! Thanks for your contributions, they're always very enlightening.

>>6428656
Not sure if strawman or false-flag.

>>6428399

Wow! Instead of reading the actual emails, just read an official "rebuttal by people who have money/power in keeping the official story true."

It reminds by of the story of a husband who was caught by his wife in bed with another woman.

"There's no one but me in this bed," the husband protested. "Who are you going to believe, me or you lying eyes?"

>>6428368

Yup, we'll probably have 30 years of cold... I can hardly wait.

>>6428656

Except we're cutting down all the trees, so much for all of that CO2 absorption

>>6428710

I'll gamble on this not being facetious.

Thanks, I've followed this for a very long time.

>>6428648

Exactly.

Global warming is merely an increase in a calculated global temperature. Presumably this global temperature is some sort of average of readings of actual temperatures at specific points or it is an average of inferred local temperatures.

We know the urban heat island effect is real. When grass and trees are replaced with concrete and asphalt, the temperature of that area rises, possibly because plants and bare ground are moist and evaporation has a cooling effect.

So you can expect that as more areas become urbanized there will be an increase in a calculated average of temperature.

>>6430518
Derp, climate scientists already take the urban heat effect into account

>take the urban heat effect into account
What does that mean, exactly?

>>6430540
Don't just write down the answer. You got to show the math.

>>6422307
pol pls go >>>/pol/

>>6430606
Did you just, perhaps inadvertently, call AGW/CC pseudoscience?

Regardless, if a topic is relevant enough to be published in scientific journals, surely it's relevant enough to be posted on /sci/. None's forcing you to participate or even read.

>>6422310
bait

What bugs me about global warming is that the models didn't predict the increase in antarctic sea ice. The data seems hard to find when it goes against global warming but back when it supported global warming, like 2011, the data was front page news.