Saturday, September 02, 2006
Latest Global Warming Debate Entry from Unreliapundit
Unreliapundit believes he's ready for another go-round on global warming. While he's pretty much retreading territory he's alredy lost in the past, I'll put his latest effort up again as an illustration of just how weak and pathetic his arguments are on the topic of global warming.
"planktopn and thew amazon sequester less co2 than they should according to models. the amazon has trees which are older than scienbtists figured; plankton in some regions of the seas absord less co3. this proves that the models the scientists use are a all wrong. hence their projections are all wrong."
Wow. All of science is wrong because estimates of some factors (that they knew were only estimates) have now been enhanced with better data. Using your logic, you'd similarly have to agree that, since estimates of the cost and duration of the war in Iraq were wrong, that the war is all wrong, not to mention current calculations and projections of GDP.
Certainly, the models have some degree of inaccuracy. Anyone on either side of the debate will acknowledge that. Science is all about making observations and drawing conclusions based on the data. As data gets better, conclusions get better. As you pointed out today scientists cut their best and worst case scenarios. Better modeling and better data give a narrower range of future possibilities.
"this year we are seeing fewer storms than last. if co2 is rising and if co2 increases increase the energy in the atmpsphere then this would be impossible."
Uh, no. You really don't understand how factors and weighting work do you? For example, let's say we have a pair of loaded dice that will roll double 6's 1/12 of the time instead of the normal 1/36. If you and I played craps with these dice and I knew they were loaded and you did not, I could continuously win a lot of money from you, since you obviously believe that they couldn't be rigged if they didn't come up 12 every time. Climate change is the same way. CO2 in the atmosphere is not the only factor driving global climate. There are still solar cycles. There are still other variations that drive effects. However, increased CO2 is one that is serving on average to drive the temperature higher changing the weighting. Thus, in normal variability, the peaks will be higher and the valleys not as deep, but it doesn't suddenly make them not exist. Also, as I've already noted the climate change is just another factor in hurricane season. While it is a factor, it is one of many, probably a relatively minor driving factor given the temperature increase we've seen to date.
"this is more proof that co2 is a boogeyman and that man-made increases are not a major input."
If you mean input to overall hurricane count, I agree, at least at this point. If you mean global temperature, I disagree, Once again, we are on course to have the warmest year (globally average speaking) on record. If your premise above was correct (more energy must ALWAYS equal more storms), that would mean that we would have to have more storms. Your premise is simply wrong. While there are a few climate scientists that currently claim that noted global warming is not mostly caused by man's release of CO2 into the atmosphere, I can't think of any that claim that global warming isn't actually happening since about 2001/2002.
"there are no scientific records which might prove whether plankton absorbed more or less twenty years ago, or had better iron uptake."
If we can't know, as you now seem to realize, then how do you explain your assertion, "so apparently plankton is the real culprit responsible for higher atmoshperic CO2 and not SUV's". You just admitted that you have no data to base this assertion on, so how can it be "apparent". You might as well have said that it is caused by fairy dust, since we have no data to prove or deny that either. There's no reason to believe that the iron content is different in these areas than it has been for quite awhile. Indeed, the paper you linked to says that they used 12 years of data to determine the lack of iron in "three large areas of the Pacific", so we know that it has been relatively stable over that period, while CO2 has been steadily increasing. I guess that totally destroys your theory, at least for the last 12 years.
"this also proves that the models are bogus. the models cannot account for the natural variables in co2 uptare."
They don't actually need to. As I noted in my last post (and you ignored), "We know how much CO2 man’s activities release into the atmosphere every year. We measure the level of CO2 in the atmosphere every year. The two correlate quite well." Unexplained variability exists, but is fairly small compared to what we can measure directly. You believe simultaneously that the CO2 we know that man is creating and releasing into the atmosphere magically vanishes AND that there is some as yet unmeasured, unobserved phenomenon that is causing global CO2 levels to rise. Very scientific.
"it may very well be true that if trees in the amazxn are older than at any time in the past (due to a lack of cutting, disease, fires, etc) and if the plankton has less iron than ever before that these are the causes of any increase in atmospheric co2 and not man."
Once again, there is no evidence of this. You thought you read an article that said this, and I showed that it didn't actually say that. Now, you claim that it still might be true, even though no one who is actually involved claims this. The reason that scientists were wrong about the age of the trees was that the trees mature more slowly than they thought. There's really no mystery about why the estimates were made as they were and why they were wrong, as much as you'd like to invent one.
And seriously, "lack of cutting." Are you insane? "Between May 2000 and August 2005, Brazil lost more than 132,000 square kilometers of forest -- an area larger than Greece -- and since 1970, over 600,000 square kilometers (232,000 square miles) of Amazon rainforest have been destroyed."
"more proof: manmade co2 has steadily increased every year for the last 100 years but temps have not."
I addressed this above. No one ever claimed that CO2 and the greenhouse effect are the only factor in global temperature. I've repeated this many times, but you still seem to believe that there is some point here. In what would otherwise be a temperature valley, increased CO2 will mitigate at least some of that effect. It doesn't erase variability. Who ever claimed that it did? Arguing against points that no one ever made is commonly known as engaging straw men. You do this a lot. My salient points are often ignored as you charge and repeatedly beat the straw. I, on the other hand, try to highlight each of your "points" and address each in turn. Please point out if you feel that I have missed any.
"you, joe, are a dupe and a fool."
I appreciate your invective as a lack of substantial argument. Here's who I have on my side in this debate:
The US National Academy of Sciences
The Pentagon
The American Meteorological Society
The Union of Concerned Scientists
The American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Geophysical Union
and those are just the US organizations. I'll add the international organizations if you desire in my next post.
"thanks for demonstrating that here once again."
If you liked my demonstrations so much, then why did you delete them? I would think you'd post them on your front page, like I post my repeated smackdowns of you on my blog. I think you actually see the reality of who comes out on top in every one of our discussions. That's why you have tried to beg, coerce, and threaten me into not responding in the past.
"i find it fascinasting that, the left fears the bogeyman of manmade c02 (and want to enact draconian laws/taxes to stop try to dtop it) and claim that the bushies planned 9/11 (and that you want bush impeached and forces withdrawn from iraq) but that the left wants to appease the jihadoterrorist - a real breathing threat which openly avows to wipe us out and destroy our civilazation, and whch is takeing real measures to do just that."
For the record, I have never claimed that Bush or any American was involved in 9/11 or that terrorism is not a threat. I also do not recommend draconian laws/taxes to try and forestall global warming. You're sure punching the hell out of that straw. If only your actual arguments against points that I argued were as strong as those against points I never did.
"the reazl threat the left denies. it's only the fake threats the left focuses on."
Can you comprehend that there might actually be more than one threat that needs to be addressed at any time in history? I guess not. One threat at a time, please, that's all your brain can handle. Everything else must be fake.
fascinating. denial denial denial denial.
I couldn't have said it better myself. You deny obvious explanations in favor of undetected fantasies. You deny the repeated and consensus conclusions of scientists in favor of your own fevered faith-based conclusions. You deny even deny what you previously claimed. I'm glad you find it so fascinating.
"joe: prove to me that climate change is not natural. and that the climate change we see now is not caused by what caused it the many MANY times the earth has had climate change before."
What proof could I present that you would accept? As I remember, when I previously, repeatedly pointed out that you had miscalculated a percentage on one of your posts, you refused to acknowledge your error. The posted error still persists to this day, never corrected, even though your header boldly proclaims that you "correct disinformation". That was a math error, one that there was no question about, but still, you didn't accept it, faced with absolute and incontrovertible proof.
There is no amount of evidence that can ever prove something to someone who is as willfully and proudly ignorant as you are. I have disproven so many of your claims in the past that you clearly are unreachable. I respond so that people who read can see how wrong you are and judge for themselves which one of us makes more sense. Oh, and for fun. It is always fun to see you cry and run away, deleting the posts and locking the threads that have aggravated and beaten you so thoroughly :-)
Tags: Global Warming
"planktopn and thew amazon sequester less co2 than they should according to models. the amazon has trees which are older than scienbtists figured; plankton in some regions of the seas absord less co3. this proves that the models the scientists use are a all wrong. hence their projections are all wrong."
Wow. All of science is wrong because estimates of some factors (that they knew were only estimates) have now been enhanced with better data. Using your logic, you'd similarly have to agree that, since estimates of the cost and duration of the war in Iraq were wrong, that the war is all wrong, not to mention current calculations and projections of GDP.
Certainly, the models have some degree of inaccuracy. Anyone on either side of the debate will acknowledge that. Science is all about making observations and drawing conclusions based on the data. As data gets better, conclusions get better. As you pointed out today scientists cut their best and worst case scenarios. Better modeling and better data give a narrower range of future possibilities.
"this year we are seeing fewer storms than last. if co2 is rising and if co2 increases increase the energy in the atmpsphere then this would be impossible."
Uh, no. You really don't understand how factors and weighting work do you? For example, let's say we have a pair of loaded dice that will roll double 6's 1/12 of the time instead of the normal 1/36. If you and I played craps with these dice and I knew they were loaded and you did not, I could continuously win a lot of money from you, since you obviously believe that they couldn't be rigged if they didn't come up 12 every time. Climate change is the same way. CO2 in the atmosphere is not the only factor driving global climate. There are still solar cycles. There are still other variations that drive effects. However, increased CO2 is one that is serving on average to drive the temperature higher changing the weighting. Thus, in normal variability, the peaks will be higher and the valleys not as deep, but it doesn't suddenly make them not exist. Also, as I've already noted the climate change is just another factor in hurricane season. While it is a factor, it is one of many, probably a relatively minor driving factor given the temperature increase we've seen to date.
"this is more proof that co2 is a boogeyman and that man-made increases are not a major input."
If you mean input to overall hurricane count, I agree, at least at this point. If you mean global temperature, I disagree, Once again, we are on course to have the warmest year (globally average speaking) on record. If your premise above was correct (more energy must ALWAYS equal more storms), that would mean that we would have to have more storms. Your premise is simply wrong. While there are a few climate scientists that currently claim that noted global warming is not mostly caused by man's release of CO2 into the atmosphere, I can't think of any that claim that global warming isn't actually happening since about 2001/2002.
"there are no scientific records which might prove whether plankton absorbed more or less twenty years ago, or had better iron uptake."
If we can't know, as you now seem to realize, then how do you explain your assertion, "so apparently plankton is the real culprit responsible for higher atmoshperic CO2 and not SUV's". You just admitted that you have no data to base this assertion on, so how can it be "apparent". You might as well have said that it is caused by fairy dust, since we have no data to prove or deny that either. There's no reason to believe that the iron content is different in these areas than it has been for quite awhile. Indeed, the paper you linked to says that they used 12 years of data to determine the lack of iron in "three large areas of the Pacific", so we know that it has been relatively stable over that period, while CO2 has been steadily increasing. I guess that totally destroys your theory, at least for the last 12 years.
"this also proves that the models are bogus. the models cannot account for the natural variables in co2 uptare."
They don't actually need to. As I noted in my last post (and you ignored), "We know how much CO2 man’s activities release into the atmosphere every year. We measure the level of CO2 in the atmosphere every year. The two correlate quite well." Unexplained variability exists, but is fairly small compared to what we can measure directly. You believe simultaneously that the CO2 we know that man is creating and releasing into the atmosphere magically vanishes AND that there is some as yet unmeasured, unobserved phenomenon that is causing global CO2 levels to rise. Very scientific.
"it may very well be true that if trees in the amazxn are older than at any time in the past (due to a lack of cutting, disease, fires, etc) and if the plankton has less iron than ever before that these are the causes of any increase in atmospheric co2 and not man."
Once again, there is no evidence of this. You thought you read an article that said this, and I showed that it didn't actually say that. Now, you claim that it still might be true, even though no one who is actually involved claims this. The reason that scientists were wrong about the age of the trees was that the trees mature more slowly than they thought. There's really no mystery about why the estimates were made as they were and why they were wrong, as much as you'd like to invent one.
And seriously, "lack of cutting." Are you insane? "Between May 2000 and August 2005, Brazil lost more than 132,000 square kilometers of forest -- an area larger than Greece -- and since 1970, over 600,000 square kilometers (232,000 square miles) of Amazon rainforest have been destroyed."
"more proof: manmade co2 has steadily increased every year for the last 100 years but temps have not."
I addressed this above. No one ever claimed that CO2 and the greenhouse effect are the only factor in global temperature. I've repeated this many times, but you still seem to believe that there is some point here. In what would otherwise be a temperature valley, increased CO2 will mitigate at least some of that effect. It doesn't erase variability. Who ever claimed that it did? Arguing against points that no one ever made is commonly known as engaging straw men. You do this a lot. My salient points are often ignored as you charge and repeatedly beat the straw. I, on the other hand, try to highlight each of your "points" and address each in turn. Please point out if you feel that I have missed any.
"you, joe, are a dupe and a fool."
I appreciate your invective as a lack of substantial argument. Here's who I have on my side in this debate:
The US National Academy of Sciences
The Pentagon
The American Meteorological Society
The Union of Concerned Scientists
The American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Geophysical Union
and those are just the US organizations. I'll add the international organizations if you desire in my next post.
"thanks for demonstrating that here once again."
If you liked my demonstrations so much, then why did you delete them? I would think you'd post them on your front page, like I post my repeated smackdowns of you on my blog. I think you actually see the reality of who comes out on top in every one of our discussions. That's why you have tried to beg, coerce, and threaten me into not responding in the past.
"i find it fascinasting that, the left fears the bogeyman of manmade c02 (and want to enact draconian laws/taxes to stop try to dtop it) and claim that the bushies planned 9/11 (and that you want bush impeached and forces withdrawn from iraq) but that the left wants to appease the jihadoterrorist - a real breathing threat which openly avows to wipe us out and destroy our civilazation, and whch is takeing real measures to do just that."
For the record, I have never claimed that Bush or any American was involved in 9/11 or that terrorism is not a threat. I also do not recommend draconian laws/taxes to try and forestall global warming. You're sure punching the hell out of that straw. If only your actual arguments against points that I argued were as strong as those against points I never did.
"the reazl threat the left denies. it's only the fake threats the left focuses on."
Can you comprehend that there might actually be more than one threat that needs to be addressed at any time in history? I guess not. One threat at a time, please, that's all your brain can handle. Everything else must be fake.
fascinating. denial denial denial denial.
I couldn't have said it better myself. You deny obvious explanations in favor of undetected fantasies. You deny the repeated and consensus conclusions of scientists in favor of your own fevered faith-based conclusions. You deny even deny what you previously claimed. I'm glad you find it so fascinating.
"joe: prove to me that climate change is not natural. and that the climate change we see now is not caused by what caused it the many MANY times the earth has had climate change before."
What proof could I present that you would accept? As I remember, when I previously, repeatedly pointed out that you had miscalculated a percentage on one of your posts, you refused to acknowledge your error. The posted error still persists to this day, never corrected, even though your header boldly proclaims that you "correct disinformation". That was a math error, one that there was no question about, but still, you didn't accept it, faced with absolute and incontrovertible proof.
There is no amount of evidence that can ever prove something to someone who is as willfully and proudly ignorant as you are. I have disproven so many of your claims in the past that you clearly are unreachable. I respond so that people who read can see how wrong you are and judge for themselves which one of us makes more sense. Oh, and for fun. It is always fun to see you cry and run away, deleting the posts and locking the threads that have aggravated and beaten you so thoroughly :-)
Tags: Global Warming
# posted by Joe Yangtree @ 1:22 AM 
