global warming?

[thread-bear]

I did a search on atmospheric expansion as concerning global warming. Everything expands with heat,even you and me. I take the claims of world-wide destruction with a grain of salt. Climate change is undeniable,and has been going on from day one,with many causes. Regardless of whether you believe or not,I found this an entertaining back and forth. There was another site that was so technical,pro and con,that I think they were from another planet. lol. The truth matters to me, more than an endless stream of biased words from side 1 or side 2. I intend to further research this subject. http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2008/01/my-best-skeptic.html :tinfoilhat:

[cherokeeprogressive]

1. OOooooh!

You're in troublllllle!

Enjoy your stay! I won't even bother saying welcome to DU. And you already have your profile turned off...

[Motown_Johnny]

2. Welcome to DU..... but if you need to research climate change.........

Maybe you should just get a couple thermometers, a couple clear containers and some CO2 (breathing works)


Put both containers in the sun with the thermometers, increase the amount of CO2 in one of the containers.


End of research.


If you have trouble with it maybe a 2nd grader can help.

[YOY]

3. World wide destruction?

Slow melt buddy.

And yes it's real. So say scientist friends. The debate is over. Only those on the oil company's dole are still trying...can't help it...it's what they're paid well to do.

Now the level and speed of it? That's what the big kids are debating.

Oh...and it's called "Global Climate Change".

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Things expand with heat? No kidding?

Wow, you got it all figured out, Einstein.

[spin]

14. Ah, but water expands when it is cooled and turns to ice...

Water is peculiar. When most substances change from liquid to solid form, they shrink together, become denser, their molecules packed most closely together.

But when water changes from a sloshy liquid to solid ice, it expands, becomes less dense. Which is why ice floats to the top of your Coke, rather than sinking like a stone to the bottom.
http://www.word-detective.com/howcome/waterexpand.html

Damn good thing or we might not exist.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Just Saying]

6. I wonder if those who deny climate change

also give advice on open heart surgery. Why do people assume that they know better than the experts on this? Just because YOU don't understand it, doesn't me THEY don't.

[Speck Tater]

7. You got that wrong.

Global warming deniers don't give advice to doctors or surgeons, because global warming deniers don't believe in doctors and surgeons. They visit a witch doctor when they get sick. Real science is a cuss word to them.

[bertman]

Speck Tater, I hate to break this to you, but just this very afternoon I met my first

real, in-the-flesh global warming denier--and she is a NURSE.

I had minor surgery this afternoon. While I was sleeping off my anaesthesia in the recovery room, my wife was waiting beside my bed chatting with a very nice woman who was my recovery room nurse. I missed the conversation--for obvious reasons--but when we left the hospital, my wife informed me that the woman told her she did not believe in global warming. Neither of us could believe that such a nice, seemingly well-educated person could hold that belief. (Of course, she did tell me later where she lived--in a very small, rural farming hamlet an hour's commute from the hospital).

On another note, my wife got to educate the nurse about alternative healing. When the nurse removed my IV needle, she screwed up somehow and a big, dark bulge appeared on the top of my hand where the needle had been inserted. The nurse said "Uh oh, I messed up. You're gonna have a big bruise there tomorrow" and started putting pressure on the bulging spot. She then jumped up and ran to another part of the room to get some adhesive. When she got back and looked at my hand she said "Oh goodness, what did you do?" The spot had deflated and was turning skin color. She looked at me and my wife in disbelief. I looked at my wife, who was smiling innocently. I said to the nurse, "she reikied it." The nurse said "she did what?" Then my wife explained reiki to this woman who was quite astonished at what had transpired.

The funny thing is that my wife didn't even touch me. She was doing remote reiki from three feet away.

I just had to tell that story. I'm gonna get some good mileage out of that one. And every word is true.

[Speck Tater]

22. hehe. good story.

My otherwise intelligent youngest sister is a global warming denier. I just can't figure it out. She's also a Fuax News watching wing nut. Yet all her kids turned out to be sensible liberals. Go figure.

[bertman]

23. At least there's a happy ending to your story.

:-)

[spin]

8. Interestingly, the climate on Mars is also warming....

The planet Mars is undergoing significant global warming, new data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) show, lending support to many climatologists' claims that the Earth's modest warming during the past century is due primarily to a recent upsurge in solar energy.

****snip***

According to a September 20 NASA news release, "for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress." Because a Martian year is approximately twice as long as an Earth year, the shrinking of the Martian polar ice cap has been ongoing for at least six Earth years.

The shrinking is substantial. According to Michael Malin, principal investigator for the Mars Orbiter Camera, the polar ice cap is shrinking at "a prodigious rate."
http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/17977/Mars_Is_Warming_NASA_Scientists_Report.html

[Motown_Johnny]

9. we don't have enough info on the long term climate on Mars to make any assumptions

this may be normal...

It could be the end of an ice age. There have been an asteroid collision that kicked up some dust and cooled the planer. We can't be sure.


we just don't have the same amount of data that we have compared to our own climate.

[spin]

11. I don't believe we have enough data on the sun...

to form any real conclusions as to if it is responsible for the climate change we see today.

Solar satellites may provide important data that may confirm or disprove the theory that changes in the output of the sun warms and cools our planet. Still the database will take many years to formulate.

My contention is that we have to be careful of "junk science". One hundred years from now, scientists may look back on our theories of global warming as mere false conjectures based on too little data.

But I'm far from opposed to our efforts to reduce pollution and move away from fossil fuels. I grew up in a small Ohio town in the sixties that had numerous factories belching out nauseous gasses at an unbelievable rate. When you drove by them in the summer, you had to roll up your windows. People that worked in these factories said that the fumes would eat the paint off their cars in the parking lot.

I joined the Air Force and served my tour of duty in Mississippi and Cape Cod. Beautiful pollution free environments compared to that small town in Ohio.

When I left the service, I returned to Ohio. When I got a new drivers license, I got a free map of Ohio. On the back was a picture of a factory belching smoke and the words underneath the picture were, "Pollution is not a dirty word in Ohio". I decided right then and there to move to Florida.

Occasionally I would return to my home town to visit relatives. I remember one time we went to a tennis court to play a couple of games. We were right next to a coal fired electric plant and when the wind shifted and blew the smoke across the tennis court, I had to quit playing.

So, we may be wrong on what is causing climate change. But the effort to move to cleaner energy is critical to preserving our quality of life. Our theories on global warming may someday be considered bullshit, but in this case the end may justify the means.

[lapfog_1]

12. That's been debunked over and over.

There has been no recorded increase in output of solar radiation in recent years (when compared with other sun cycles).

We have satellites in space with, like, data recorders and stuff.

(me, I'm a former NASA scientist).

[spin]

19. From a NASA web page...

The Sun and Global Warming

Of the many trends that appear to cause fluctuations in the Sun’s energy, those that last decades to centuries are the most likely to have a measurable impact on the Earth’s climate in the foreseeable future. Many researchers believe the steady rise in sunspots and faculae since the late seventeenth century may be responsible for as much as half of the 0.6 degrees of global warming over the last 110 years (IPCC, 2001). Since pre-industrial times, it’s thought that the Sun has given rise to a global heating similar to that caused by the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If the past is any indication of things to come, solar cycles may play a role in future global warming.

****snip****
How the Earth’s climate reacts, however, depends on more factors than just greenhouse gases. For instance, some scientists expect that low-level stratocumulus clouds may decrease. Both changes would add to the heating, since an increase in cirrus would trap more infrared, and a decrease of stratocumulous would reflect less sunlight. Such cloud cover changes would intensify global warming. In contrast, an increase of sulfate aerosols created by pollution would likely reflect more sunlight and perhaps also make clouds more reflective, thereby countering global warming especially near pollution sources.

Sunspot cycles may sway global warming either way. If long-term cycles in solar radiation reverse course and the Sun’s spots and faculae begin to disappear over the next century, then the Sun could partially counter global warming. On the other hand, if the average number of spots rises, the Sun could serve to warm our planet even more. As to the shorter-term 11-year cycles, they may dampen or amplify the affects of global warming on a year-to-year basis.


http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SORCE/sorce_04.php

The other big problem scientists face is too little data. Even in instances when solar energy measurements are accurate, researchers often don’t have enough information with which to draw conclusions. Building models to forecast long term trends, in particular, requires a tremendous amount of past data on those trends. At this time, scientists only have roughly twenty years of satellite data on the Sun —an equivalent of just two 11-year cycles. Most of the data researchers do have on the Sun are for TSI. Relatively very little data have been gathered on the spectral changes in the Sun. Scientists haven’t determined with precision how the fluctuations in the Sun’s output of visible wavelengths differ from near infrared or from ultraviolet. The dearth of spectral data presents another serious obstacle for climate modelers since distinct wavelengths are absorbed by different components of the Earth’s climate system, which react differently with one another as their energy levels change.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/SORCE/sorce_05.php

[lapfog_1]

20. And yet, there isn't any RECENT evidence of "abnormal"

output at any spectrum, either from the Kitt Peak Solar observatory or from Ulysses (which is now, sadly, defunct).

Another factor is the relative lack of massive volcano eruptions, which eject a great deal of material into the upper atmosphere, creating a global cooling effect. You can look at global average temperature charts for the last 25+ years and see the impact of some of the moderate sized volcanoes, like Pinatubo.

But the point is, and I've heard many climate scientists say this (because it always comes up), there simply isn't any evidence to back up a claim that solar activity is causing the current measured rise in polar temperatures.

This is simply another canard being thrown out to make people question that the rise of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere is playing havoc with the earth's ability to maintain it's albedo.

The last point... think of the earth as a large test tube. We are running experiments on that test tube while we are still DEPENDING on it to feed and shelter us... all 7 billion of us. This would seem to be a bad thing to do... or is it that the solar output is ALSO causing a rise in measured amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere (which would be a neat trick)?

[spin]

21. The bottom line for me...

I expressed in post #11 of this thread, where I discussed growing up in a environment contaminated by factory pollution.

Pollution is a major problem we have to address whether or not it causes global warming. There is no doubt that pollution causes environmental damage. We have many ways to generate energy with little or no pollution.

But I worry that we have turned global warming into a pseudo religion and like most religion it can be misused to generate profit for the religious hierarchy (in this case big corporations). The carbon cap and trade idea has to be carefully implemented to avoid burdening our citizens with a hidden tax that can destroy our recovery from our current economic woes.

In his budget, Obama included a "cap-and-refund" proposal that puts a strict limit on pollution that causes global warming and uses a permit auction to make large companies pay for the right to pollute. The cap on emissions will increase the price of fossil-fuel-based energy to encourage efficiency and new technologies. To protect consumers from rising prices, Obama's plan refunds the revenue from the auctions directly to the American people through a tax credit.

****snip****

Most carbon cap plans are set up to fail because they reward energy companies with permit giveaways and fail to compensate consumers for increased electricity bills. One such proposal hit the Senate floor last year, only to collapse under the weight of too much spending and not enough protection for the middle class. Obama's cap-and-refund plan avoids these mistakes.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/mar2009/db20090310_825431.htm

I favor universal health care for all under a single payer system. I feel we will get heath care reform but what we will end up with is a half assed system that is inferior and far more expensive then what exists in other developed nations. It often seems that the officials we elect fail to represent us, but instead bow to kiss the feet of the corporate elite.

I also fear that the big corporations will be able to take the global warming issue and turn it to their advantage and their profit and at the same time stifle new technology that threatens their survival . The middle class will end up bearing the burden of increased costs. Obama has a good plan, but compromise might end up hurting the middle class and preserving the profit of the big corporations. If this happens, the Republicans will seize the opportunity and gain support to regain power in Congress. If consumers see a dramatic increase in their electric bill and higher prices at the gasoline pump they may choose to vote the Republican party back in. That we definitely do not need.

We can change our technology to benefit both this country and the world. Solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear power and tidal energy all offer cleaner energy and we need to foster their development. At the same time, we have to be careful of schemes that allow developing nations such as China to continue pumping out enormous amounts of pollution that overcome any reductions in our own pollution.

If we develop clean energy technology, we can profit as a nation by selling it to developing nations and benefit our world environment. If we are not careful the cap and trade idea will only benefit the big corporations and impose a financial burden on our citizens that will ruin our economy and do little to reduce the impact of pollution on our world's environment.

My fear is that we will use questionable assumptions gathered from too little data generated over too short a time to justify a policy that will hurt the average citizen for the benefit and profit of large corporations.

As I stated Global Warming is being turned into a religion and like in most religions questioning is regarded as sacrilegious.

I believe that the Global Warming religion may lead us to make serious mistakes that do little to alleviate the problem of pollution but will merely enhance the bottom line of the powerful and influential.

Science can be misused by those in power for their benefit.

[Statistical]

24. Well it is possible

or is it that the solar output is ALSO causing a rise in measured amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere (which would be a neat trick)?

The largest source of sinked (removed from atmosphere) CO2 on the planet is the oceans. As temperatures rise their ability to hold CO2 is reduced and it is released into the atmosphere.

So IF (not saying it is) changes in solar activity is heating the earth (even a small amount) it could radically change the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Even worse it can reach a self fulfilling cycle. Sun warms oceans which release CO2 which increase greenhouse affect warming oceans releasing more CO2, etc.

[lapfog_1]

25. Yes, this is a possible feedback loop.

But it's the initial rise in CO2 that causes global climate change.

There isn't any evidence TO DATE that the ocean are emitting CO2, however there is plenty of evidence that they can no longer absorb more of it. That's different than saying the oceans are causing a RISE in atmospheric CO2. It's far more likely that they are no longer HIDING the problem.

[NickB79]

27. The problem is that ocean pH levels have been falling, not rising

http://www.google.com/search?q=ocean+acidification&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

If solar activity was causing CO2 release and the current spike in atmospheric CO2, you would expect the ocean's pH levels to be increasing as carbonic acid levels drop. They are doing the opposite though.

[Statistical]

28. Good point. n/t

[johnaries]

10. You're kidding, right? This is now like Creationism vs Evolution.

On the one hand, you have every single expert in the world with hard-core evidence in hand yelling and screaming THIS IS REAL!. On the other hand, you have some folks whose research is paid by Exxon-Mobile (who, by the way, also once said that cigarette smoking is good for you when their research was paid by Phillip-Morris) who are saying... who cares what they say? Their research does not follow any logical scientific method.

In the meantime, every prediction the "Global Warming" scientists is coming true. The Ice Cap is melting. Sea levels are rising. Local Weather is becoming more erratic. Glaciers are retreating.

If someone says "it's going to rain" and you look down and see rain puddles and your clothes getting wet - are you still going to question them?

Oh, I guess you will.

[lapfog_1]

15. Actually, it's worse than that.

Every prediction IS coming true, but the schedule is a *lot* faster than the prediction.

If we want to "solve" global climate change, we'd better get on the stick and damn well do it. Like by 2020 or 2025 at the latest, and that would be a 0 point CO2 emissions. The earth based positive feedback loops (methane from permafrost) are already kicking in, once those really get going, it won't matter one tinkers damn if we stop burning fossil fuels or not. We are toast.

[lapfog_1]

13. Truth, you can't handle the truth.

There is Global Climate Change and man is the primary cause (possibly the sole cause).

That is the truth.

Everyone that I worked with at EOSDIS and the DAO says so, without a single scientist saying otherwise.

EOSDIS - Earth Observation System, Distributed Information System

DAO - Data Acquisition Office

(branches of the MTPE - Mission to Planet Earth, NASA)

[Maru Kitteh]

16. Pssssst...... Sara Palin sucks loose moose members

Boo!





Come back to the thread....




Is this you?

[shanejfilomena]

18. we hate her tooo

on july 3rd we set a 15 foot bonfire and celebrated her announced resignation.
we could have recalled her-----but we have to live with her.

so , in the interest of Justice by a financially harmed people : the people began a financial assualt on state government . Ethics complaints. the defense has to be paid by their own money, not the state.

so to force the people that are side lining the fact that we are the working poor, we hit them hard in the pocket to wake them up to what things are costing.

so next time they will take the unimportant complains of prices a little more seriously.

[shanejfilomena]

17. the wooly mammoth

while it is true that the hole in the ozone layer was mapped by mistake by a plane scanning for something else, it does not change the facts.

the climate is changing : true ,it does this naturally, we sped up the process. False , that we can stop it now.

what we can do is take measures to decrease our "help"..however, the Russian Federation and other countries are continuing to contribute to the decline of the planet by mining processes that fuel OUR (American) needs .

How is that for a kick in the butts?
those precious electronics you crave are mined metals in places described as the most contaminated on earth with air pollution so bad a New Yorker would not be able to withstand them.

so .....stop and smell the roses..enjoy the world you know.

Here we have melting Ice fields exposing areas not seen in millions of years..politicians do not talk about climate change : the see it and feel it. we see our world melting away .

you?.....you world has been the same for those millions of years, you would have to go far away to find proof and your politicians know that. so they talk like your an idiot, hope you believe them, they can afford to build for the future...you can not, unless you fire them and order the government to divert the money to building for that future.......

but they know you will not, you feel powerless, they have money and made the government so big it intimidates you .

your power is the same tool that made that government : your vote.

your power is the same one they used to get your vote : campaign for support.

get with it or die trying.

[thread-bear]

26. Did anybody even go to the site?

First of all,I'm not a global warming denier,neither am I a global warming believer. It's not a religion to me. It should be about science. I wasn't surprised to see the "proven science" argument by people that don't have a clue about the science. I read magazines,too. To those that professed expertise,I welcome your input,delivered in a way that MOST Americans can understand it. That's what it will take to convince the majority of Americans to fork over their income to wall street for a problem that it may be too late to fix anyway. If you are convinced that the damage inflicted by global warming can be stopped by various measures,stop calling me an idiot, and convince the American public that you are right. Otherwise,all the laws that might be passed will simply be overturned. By the way,I have enjoyed my stay on DU. This is one of many issues that a lot of people respond to emotionally. I understand that. I also expect a little more from most of the posters here.