Comments on: Icy Relations: Extreme-Weather Question Drives Wedge Between Climate Scientists

By: Record-Breaking Climate « Earth « Science Today: Breaking science news from around the world

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 16:46:20 +0000

[...] NASA climatologist James Hansen, who has been warning about climate change since the 1980s, had a controversial publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences earlier this month linking [...]

By: Heather

Heather — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 00:08:02 +0000

What makes this all laughable is that everything is accepted as proof global warming is happening and nothing is accepted as proof it is not happening.

If we have an unusually cold winter we are told this is not proof that global warming isn’t happening, that no one season of weather is proof that global warming is wrong……..

But when we have an unusually hot summer! All that changes and we have the media telling us the unusual hot weather is OBVIOUSLY due to global warming…………

Hot weather is proof of global warming, cold weather is proof of global warming, dry weather is proof of global warming, wet weather is proof of global warming…………… everything and anything is proof of global warming!

And when the data does not show the warming they predicted? They thought up “global dimming”. Go look that one up!

By: Mike Smith

Mike Smith — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 12:52:23 +0000

The silliness of some of the pro-global warming people is off the charts these days. The date of the earlier D.C. derecho was July 4-5, 1980. You can learn more about it here: http://www.wjla.com/blogs/weather/2012/06/d-c-derecho-midwest-to-east-coast-destructive-storms-16018.html

Record low temperatures occurred in Iowa this morning. By the standards of the catastrophic global warming crowd the global warming hypothesis must be invalidated because it is currently cold.

By: Ken Bowdon

Ken Bowdon — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 23:15:52 +0000

Geologists take the long view. Earth’s temperature has been extremely variable over the past 4 billion years boasting periods with little to no polar ice caps and periods when the earth was nearly an ice ball. The more recent past has seen variations with a series of ice ages and interglacial periods. There have been five cycles over the past 500,000 years each cycle has about 90,000 years of ice and a short interglacial warm period lasting anywhere from 5000 years to 10,000 years. Man can only claim to have had society for half of the last interglacial period which if the pattern of the last 500,000 years repeats, is nearing its end. See the link below to an article including a temperature graph of the Vostok ice cores. Patterns are what geologists look for. When you look at the cycles from the ice core data each cycle correlates very well from cycle to cycle. The temperature patterns repeat nicely. I can’t say what causes the cycles but there have been definite cycles of cooling and warming with the cold periods getting longer each cycle.

http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2010/07/14/ice-core-at-neem-approaching-greenland-bedrock/

By: Kennita Watson

Kennita Watson — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 22:23:13 +0000

There will continue to be controversy until it’s too late.

@scribbler, a human may cover a 2 foot square, but over the course of a year a human can denude over an acre of ground, and pollute many, many cubic yards of water and air.

By: Doug Allen

Doug Allen — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 18:51:41 +0000

After his rant, Julian Penrod asks… “deniers…” “Will they say what signs they consider absolute proof man mad climate change is occurring? Everywhere else I asked, I received no answers.”
Although attempting a conservation with fanatics such as Penrod and Galkowski is likely to result in only more rants, name-calling, and hystrionics , I’ll have a go for just this one round. Julian, please do your homework and you will learn that there has been only 20 years of global warming, 1978-1998, during the past 67 years of increasing CO2 emissions, and that those 20 years of signifiant warming were statistically the same as the warming in the 20th centrury which ended about 1942. Of course we all know there has been no global warming the past 15 years and that there has been no acceleration in sea level rise. Catastrophic events have not been quantified on a global scale until recently so it’s difficult to know if anything unusual let alone unprecedented is happening. There definitely has been no increase in U.S tornadoes and hurricanes.
So here is your answer from someone who is a liberal, a conservationist, and who teaches a course on climate change. Because the Hansen 1988 temperature model projections and 1990 IPCC model projections show little skill and because there has been no recemt warming despite incresing concentions of CO2, now up to almost 400 ppm, I am a “lukewarmer” who does not deny AGW, but who thinks your ravings (and Hansen’s) about CAGW and weather events are unhelpful, unscientific , and likely to create even more distrust of science and scientists. That distrust of science and scientists, not CAGW, is the tragedy we presently face, and you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. If we actually had global warming and sea level rise that came close to matching the Hasen and IPCC model projections, then, I would certainly show the level of concern that you now mistakenly have with no empirical evidence to validate it.

By: scribbler

scribbler — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 10:22:20 +0000

Pathetic…

By: voice of reason

voice of reason — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 03:55:36 +0000

On the contrary, we may take up little of the Earths space by ourselves, but our buildings, roads, infrastructure, etc. are significant. You must also remember our newfound ability to gather and alter (or simply relocate) naturally occuring chemicals at incredible rates. We can actually see the effect pollution has on the environment and ourselves. Not saying that we should shut down entire industries, but we should simply bear this in mind. “Environment” is not just some term people coined to give them an excuse to complain; it’s the world around you (source of your food, water, and air). By using fossil fuels, we have altered the carbon cycle of this planet. However, any effect we have would only last a few centuries, so life on Earth is not doomed You say these thoeries were invented and evidence was fabricated to benefit scientists and the feds, but denying them benefits companies. This can be argued either way.

By: Jan Galkowski

Jan Galkowski — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 03:42:16 +0000

@22-23-24, scribbler,

Ah, I see you are upset! Good.

It doesn’t matter whether or not the “public” does anything, or the “government” does anything. What matters is what is true. It’s one thing to admit the truth and, then, stupidly, because “the public” wants the feel of a vibrating engine between their legs, choose to do nothing, and it’s another thing to deny it is real.

It’s true. If people don’t want to protect their children’s and grandchildren’s futures, then that is in itself a comment upon them, and they deserve the ignominy they get.

Again, you did not argue the points, but offered distractions. So, they stand, unrefuted.

By: scribbler

scribbler — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 19:19:26 +0000

See, I’ve been through all this before. It was lead in gas which got the biggest attention. So called scientist said we were already past the “tipping point” and that all life was doomed. Sure, we ended up taking the lead out of the gas. Was there EVER a chance that all life on earth was doomed???

I answer such drivel with this: If you account for a two foot square for each human alive today, you can easily stand all 7 billion of us into a square, 35 miles to a side. Compare that tiny square with the total surface area of the earth and you can see why I am so skeptical that we do much at all to affect this ecosystem…