Top Skeptic, Prominent Scientist Agree on Likely Global Warming Scenario by 2050

CO2 and Climate ^ | May 9, 2004 | Patrick Michaels

[.cnI redruM]

You can't trust the IPCC. They are paid to produce models which demonstrate global warming. They are not paid to produce models that accurately effect the state of the climate. They are a part of an industry that pays them for a specific product.

They serve the environmental movement and those who support it's beliefs as a customer. They therefore are expected to produce results that conform to the desires of the environmentalists. If the truth contradicts, what the UN Environmental Programme needs to get more funding and generate more interest, the truth will set them free of their jobs.

[.cnI redruM]

You can't trust the IPCC. They are paid to produce models which demonstrate global warming. They are not paid to produce models that accurately effect the state of the climate. They are a part of an industry that pays them for a specific product.

They serve the environmental movement and those who support it's beliefs as a customer. They therefore are expected to produce results that conform to the desires of the environmentalists. If the truth contradicts, what the UN Environmental Programme needs to get more funding and generate more interest, the truth will set them free of their jobs.

(I meant to ping you as well when I sent this SV. A penny for your thoughts on the scientific objectivity of the IPCC.)

[FBD]

"While those are certainly important, so is the composition of the atmosphere (which we are changing) and land surface cover. Some recent research indicates that land surface changes dating back to the beginning of agriculture, a couple thousand years ago, may have significantly affected climate."

So what.
One large meteor strike, one large volcanic eruption, one large solar flareup, etc, will have more influence on our atmosphere, than a thousand years of man's influence.

This global warming bloviation is all about trying to restrict OUR private property rights. Do you believe the U.S. should sign the Kyoto treaty, restrict property rights, or regulate the type of vehicle (IE SUV's) we can drive, etc, in the name of "saving the planet"?

[bmwcyle]

The beach will be closer!!!!

[FBD]

oops, Sorry-I just read your post, in which you acknowlege that the "Kyoto Plan/Protocol is useless as written."

IMO, we have far more important things in life than worrying about the planets temperature changes.

I spend a lot of time in the ocean, friend, and I've seen temp changes of 10 degrees from one day to the next, just because of up welling. I get a little tired of chicken little scientists who have an agenda of obtaining more govt. funding, and in the process, lining their own pockets with these taxpayer funded studies. Hey; if we humans can't affect atmospheric conditions......than who needs the study? See the agenda?

You science guys that look at this planet as if it were some little biosphere bubble, are so narrowly focused, that you can't see the forest for the trees.
-> Which, btw, we have more of today than anytime in history, thanks to modern firefighting techniques.
Regards

[cogitator]

One large meteor strike, one large volcanic eruption, one large solar flareup, etc, will have more influence on our atmosphere, than a thousand years of man's influence.

We can't do anything about circumstances and events that are out of our control. If we got hit by a meteor large enough to cause global climate change, climate change would be the least of our problems. As for volcanoes, change your adjective "large" (Kuwai, Tambora, Krakatoa, Katmai and Pinatubo were "large") to "supermassive" and then you can talk about effects lasting more than a couple of years. Solar flares cause problems; there would have to be a significant change in the total luminosity of the Sun to have a major climate impact. (On that note, you might look up the science fiction story "Inconstant Moon" by Larry Niven.)

This global warming bloviation is all about trying to restrict OUR private property rights. Do you believe the U.S. should sign the Kyoto treaty, restrict property rights, or regulate the type of vehicle (IE SUV's) we can drive, etc, in the name of "saving the planet"?

No.

I believe we should respond appropriately.

Appropriately means first recognizing that there is a situation requiring a response. I believe that the scientific understanding of the climate changes occurring now is at that stage. The second step is formulating appropriate response strategies. In my opinion, that is what we -- the United States, other countries -- should be doing now. As more data is gathered, as the science continues to improve, selection of the final set of response strategies to implement will be facilitated. Implementation is the third step. Evaluation of the implementation effectiveness is the fourth step; modifications to the iniitial implementation would be the fifth step. And so on.

[cogitator]

I spend a lot of time in the ocean, friend, and I've seen temp changes of 10 degrees from one day to the next, just because of up welling.

Have you ever seen a coral bleaching event?

Coral Bleaching and Mass Bleaching Events

Do you think that we should be concerned about these events? The increasing incidence of such events? The possible cause of this increasing incidence? The rapid decline of many of the world's coral reef areas?

If you think there is reason for concern here, then we may agree about a lot more than you think we do.

[RightWhale]

They are not paid to produce models that accurately effect the state of the climate.

If they are deliberately skewing their models by introducing spurious factors, there will be an outcry in the scientific community sooner or later. It would be a huge scandal comparable to the N-ray scandal.

[.cnI redruM]

I doubt it. The modern scientific establishment is too fundamentally dishonest and politicized to expose them.

[Final Authority]

Just think, if you live within about 100 feet altitude from the oceans you might be able to retire with water front views. Also, with oil running out, global warming doesn't seem to be too bad. Hey, just think of the savings when one doesn't have to buy oil to heat with.

I also thought, wouldn't this be a solution to over population, as most of the worlds population live in port cities? Seems to me that the liberals would be all for population control.

In reality, nobody truly knows what will be 50 years from now let alone, next week. If they did they would be at the casino or race track.

[WOSG]

Excellent article.

It's the wrong question to ask "is there global warning?"
The right question to ask is 'what is the real impact and effect, and how can you be sure the predictions are real?'

The science has been exagerrated and politicized on the IPCC so that impacts and models are made to be worse than reality.

[RightWhale]

The modern scientific establishment is too fundamentally dishonest and politicized

They are always enthusiastically trying to trip each other up. There is one rule in this game: you must be able to defend your assertion.

[Landru]

"(On that note, you might look up the science fiction story "Inconstant Moon" by Larry Niven.)" Cogitator

And I'm suppoised to enter into a serious discussion with this one, eh?

No thanks my friend, but don't let that stop you.

...sounds like you've time to kill. :o)

[.cnI redruM]

Back when the IPCC was sending out classroom kits in 1996, they were claiming that the Earth was warming at a rate of 6C/ Century. Those kits are still out there being used in high school classrooms all over the US. I guarantee you that the refutations of these wild claims made it no further than very densely-worded and technical AGU Journals.

[cogitator]

The right question to ask is 'what is the real impact and effect, and how can you be sure the predictions are real?'

I agree with your statement. Glad you liked the article.

[RightWhale]

I look at science as a thing in itself, and those who do science as scientists. Educators, politicians, publishers, greenies, all these people on the periphery of science are not scientists and are not doing science. Science is being used for other ends, no doubt about it. The climate models are good, I think, and I know a little about them, but that they are being used for something other than science is a reflection on some educators, politicians, publishers, and greenies rather than on scientists or science.

[kidd]

Hansen says his biggest concern is the potential for a large rise in sea-level. Yet empirical evidence shows that the rate of sea-level rise over the course of the 20th century (during which there was about 0.75ºC of warming) was about 1.8 mm per year

I am wondering what is the source of Hansen's information. The most detailed report I've read on sea level change have concluded that a significant measurement of sea level change will not be obtained until 2030. Previous reports of sea level changes did not account for changes in land elevation due to tectonics, and were complicated by sea level changes due to such effects as El Nino.

[cogitator]

If they are deliberately skewing their models by introducing spurious factors, there will be an outcry in the scientific community sooner or later.

That would depend on what you mean by "spurious". The IPCC has described its modeling procedure pretty well; the upper-range estimates have been obtained by taking out some negative feedback factors in some models. They evaluate a range of models to come up with a range of climate scenarios, and then the evaluate the consequences of those possibilities.

The media alarmists tend to glom onto the worst-case scenarios and present them as if they were the likeliest scenarios -- which isn't the case. But "moderate changes" don't make stories that lots of people will read. So there really isn't a scandal here (nor is there a deliberate attempt to skew the science) -- the name of the IPCC game is to evaluate the broadest possible set of circumstances, and then propose various ways to address different sets of circumstances.

Of course, members of the IPCC community have seized upon particular aspects of the reports and used them to push their own agendas. Not much can be done about that.

[.cnI redruM]

While I will admit that there is a philosophical appeal to washing one's hands of the grubby strap-hangers and practicing science from a moral standpoint of altitude and distance, there is a point where rubber meets the road. The findings of scientists go through a process of data reduction similar to what happens when an empiricist actually measures something. That data has to be changed in form several times, before that data can be useful to the people fronting the $$ to acquire the information.

A scientists bears a personal moral responsibility for what happens to his data, with his name and prestige staked to it, once it gets published in a refereed journal. If the scientist turns a blind eye or doesn't deign to concern himself with what the lesser beings do with that scientific truth, that scientist is morally and professionally negligent.

I believe that the field of environmental science in particular, and much of science in general, has been overrun by people who intentionally and professionally misuse data to procure political and social propaganda. The scientist who watches that happen and then fails to throw the big red BS flag, has performed a regrettable error of omission.

[cogitator]

Hansen's SciAM article does not have those numbers. Michaels quoted them from somewhere else. Hansen expresses a concern about potential destabilization of the large ice sheets and relates this to the current amount of radiative forcing in the Earth climate system. Michaels argues around what Hansen is saying in the article; the current rate of sea level rise is minimal (and confirmed by satellite altimetry), but increasing temperatures could initiate a major change whose outcome could still be centuries in the future. Quoting:

"The main issue is: How fast will ice sheets respond to global warming? The IPCC calculates only a slight change in the ice sheets in 100 years; however, the IPCC calculations include only the gradual effects of changes in snowfall, evaporation and melting. In the real world, ice-sheet disintegration is driven by highly nonlinear processes and feedbacks. The peak rate of deglaciation following the last ice age was a sustained rate of melting of more than 14,000 cubic kilometers a year—about one meter of sea-level rise every 20 years, which was maintained for several centuries. This period of most rapid melt coincided, as well as can be measured, with the time of most rapid warming. Given the present unusual global warming rate on an already warm planet, we can anticipate that areas with summer melt and rain will expand over larger areas of Greenland and fringes of Antarctica. Rising sea level itself tends to lift marine ice shelves that buttress land ice, unhinging them from anchor points. As ice shelves break up, this accelerates movement of land ice to the ocean. Although building of glaciers is slow, once an ice sheet begins to collapse, its demise can be spectacularly rapid. . . . These considerations do not mean that we should expect large sea-level change in the next few years. Preconditioning of ice sheets for accelerated breakup may require a long time, perhaps many centuries."