BUZZ ALDRIN REJECTS GLOBAL WARMING FEARS

[PsychoSerenity]

Except how they make such confident predictions about a subject with huge unknowns, and with no track record whatsoever.

You keep saying that, but it just isn't true. They use historical natural experiments to test the models that create the predictions. They don't just keep fiddling with models until the give the results they want (as you keep saying).

Of course they do. How else could you construct a model? Are you claiming their models matched historical figures, first time every time?
I don't blame them for using this method. It's the only logical way to refine a model. How else could you improve a model? And eventually, they might get to a point where they could make good predictions.
It's a perfectly valid thing to do. What's not valid is to call what they've done a prediction.
If youve used historical data to refine your models, you shouldn't be surprised when your models match historical data.
By all means use modelling, but don't make extravagant claims.
Predicting the future is waaaaaaaaaaay harder than matching the past.

Again, you keep trying to make a point on this, but it's just nonsense. How do you think they make models in cosmology? Are you going to start saying that they're all useless too?

There's no comparison. You're as bad as Al Gore, and you're using his own silly tactic.

Sorry mistermack, it's my own fault; I forgot that I shouldn't take anything you say seriously.

[mistermack]

Guys, this is just an argument from authority!
Who cares what anyone's opinion is? What matters are the observed facts! - and those strongly indicate human causality in global warming.

At last. Someone who knows what facts strongly indicate that global warming has a human cause. You're just the person I've been looking for.
What are they? I'd be ever so grateful if you'd let me know.

[mistermack]

We're just abusing mistermack, that's why he's here.

I'm perfectly able to abuse myself, thank you very much.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

We're just abusing mistermack, that's why he's here.

I'm perfectly able to abuse myself, thank you very much.

Oh, we're always glad to help. There are always spots you can't reach.

[GreyICE]

Oh wow, okay, let me post this here, because every denialist seems to want to obfuscate. Stop me when any of this gets 'insanely complicated.'

Changes in heat tends to create changes in temperature. Therefore, if the temperature of the earth is to be stable in the long term, it must emit into space the same amount of heat it gains from the sun. The temperature of the earth is stable long term, as any change that was NOT stable, over billions of years, would result in either a near-absolute zero ice ball or a glowing ball of magma. What form does this heat emission take? Well, there's three forms of heat transfer, conduction (what happens when you touch a hot object), convection (what happens when a cool breeze blows over your skin), and radiation (how a fire warms you at night). Obviously, the earth isn't touching anything and there's no air in space, so radiation is the mechanism whereby the heat leaves the earth.

Stop me if you don't understand anything in that paragraph, I'll explain it.

Now, how does the earth emit heat? All objects do, we call it light. The hotter an object, the more light it emits, and the higher frequency - blue flames are hotter than red flames. The sun's emissions center in the visible spectrum (this is NOT a coincidence). The earth being considerably colder, emits mostly in the low infrared. The emission from the surface of the earth has to travel through the atmosphere, which absorbs and reemits light. The sun has to do this too, ozone blocks out its high frequency emissions, for instance.

Stop me if this makes no sense, I'll explain it.

CO2 has an absorption spectrum centered around earth's major emissions. Therefore when it absorbs and reemits the light, it scatters it back towards earth roughly 50% of the time. This reduces the amount of heat leaving earth's atmosphere. How does this effect earth? The temperature rises, because it is absorbing more heat than its emitting. Fortunately, this is self regulating, there will be a new mean temperature reached where the earth emits the same amount of heat that it used to (as hotter objects emit more).

Stop me if this makes no sense.

Now, if this all makes sense, explain to me why I need to model the WEATHER to figure this out.

[Beelzebub]

Guys, this is just an argument from authority!
Who cares what anyone's opinion is? What matters are the observed facts! - and those strongly indicate human causality in global warming.

At last. Someone who knows what facts strongly indicate that global warming has a human cause. You're just the person I've been looking for.
What are they? I'd be ever so grateful if you'd let me know.

OK, let's look at global temperatures (From here)...
2010, although we have 2 months to go, looks to be the warmest on record (over 131 years of data)
2005, second warmest year
2007, third warmest year
1998, 2002 and 2009 all tie for fourth place
2006, fifth warmest year
2003, sixth warmest year
2004, seventh warmest year
2001, eigth warmest year
2008, ninth warmest year

Do you see a trend here? No? well let's look at the decadal global temperatures then (From here)...
2001 - 2010 is significantly warmer than...
1991 - 2000 which is warmer than...
1981 - 1990 which is warmer than...
1971 - 1980 which is warmer than...
1961 - 1970 which is about the same as...
1951 - 1960 which is about the same as...
1941 - 1950 which is warmer than...
1931 - 1940 which is warmer than...
1921 - 1930 which is warmer than...
1911 - 1920

The two decades of the '50s and '60s do show a levelling-off (or even a slight decline, if you want to compare with the early '40s), but for the rest of the century there has been a steady rise in global temperatures. Now, 8 out of 10 seems pretty significant to me, although perhaps not to you?

Now, let's look at the CO2 levels (From here)
Although the record only goes back to the mid '50s, the trend is clearly rising - from around 315ppm in 1955 to around 390ppm in 2010
(Note that this is for Mauna Loa, which is in the middle of the Pacific ocean, far from industrial centres, so may (if anything) be an underestimate).

Now, there does look to be a correlation between CO2 levels, and temperatures. There doesn't appear to be a natural source for the increases in CO2 (Let me know if you have a natural source), and we know that we have been releasing CO2 into the atmosphere at an increasing rate (The emerging economies of China and India are becoming significant producers).
It would seem to be a reasonable conclusion, based on the observed temperatures and CO2 levels, that Humans are strongly implicated in Global Warming.

(Before Solar radiation is brought up, let's remember that we are just emerging from one of the lowest periods of solar activity in the last 80 years (See here), yet we still see record temperatures, with no apparent slowing-down)

Edit: Fixed missing ')'

[mistermack]

Beelzebub, you've dashed my hopes. You were so confident, I thought you must have something. What you describe is warming. No argument there. And you describe a rise in CO2. No problem. What you've established is that CO2 has risen, and temperatures have risen. That's it. Where's the causal link?
Temperatures rose from about 1880 till 1948. Yet the rise of CO2 was absolutely miniscule. There was NO link. Then for the next 20 years, CO2 rose more quickly. But temperatures fell. Again there was no link.
Since then, CO2 has risen quickly, and temperatures have risen.
So there's been nearly 90 years of no observeable correlation between the two. Why should we link the two for the last thirty odd years?

What you are doing, is what christians do all the time. You are explaining any warming with CO2. It's like the god of the gaps. Any unexplained warming must be down to manmade CO2. Like anything we can't explain must be done by a god.

I want evidence for a god, and evidence for AGW. Not just something unexplained. All climate change has been unexplained up till now. Yet suddenly we're expected to accept it's fully understood.
Understanding might be improving, but it's not there yet by a long shot.

[mistermack]

Greyice, you outlined the greenhouse gas theory. Nobody's disputing it. The Earth would be much colder without it. But what you wrote was incredibly simplistic.
No mention of clouds for instance.
And you fail to mention that the earth has been warming and cooling drastically for millions of years, without the help of man. And that CO2 levels follow global temperatures, not the other way round, as proven by the vostok ice cores.
The global warming lobby argue that todays warm temperatures are a result of todays raised CO2 levels. That raised CO2 causes warming within just a few decades.
Evidence for that should be there in the ice cores. They show nothing of the sort.

[Santa_Claus]

Not sure if it helps, but it was a bit chilly around here today.

Just in case it was the Global Climate Change Pandemic I have sent an e-mail to Al_Gore@Climate_Creationist_Fuckwit.com.

[Robert_S]

Hey everybody, I just consulted a Ouija board. Romulus and Remus would like you all to know that they strongly resent Richard Dawkins' hijacking of the glory of the Roman Empire to promote the so-called evolutionary theory.

[Blondie]

:laughing my ass off:

Look at the Vostok icecore data for the last 400,000 years - specifically the graphs showing temperature change and CO2 levels. @ whoever the fuck thought they were proving something by starting from 1920.

Also Aldrin is too old. What the fuck does he know? He's probably senile or getting there.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Hey everybody, I just consulted a Ouija board. Romulus and Remus would like you all to know that they strongly resent Richard Dawkins' hijacking of the glory of the Roman Empire to promote the so-called evolutionary theory.

[PsychoSerenity]

And that CO2 levels follow global temperatures, not the other way round, as proven by the vostok ice cores.

Still not grasped the concept of feedback loops then? It's been explained to you plenty of times. Perhaps you should just except that you'll never have a good enough understanding of science to make meaningful comments on this sort of subject.

[Beelzebub]

Beelzebub, you've dashed my hopes. You were so confident, I thought you must have something. What you describe is warming. No argument there. And you describe a rise in CO2. No problem. What you've established is that CO2 has risen, and temperatures have risen. That's it. Where's the causal link?
Temperatures rose from about 1880 till 1948. Yet the rise of CO2 was absolutely miniscule. There was NO link. Then for the next 20 years, CO2 rose more quickly. But temperatures fell. Again there was no link.
Since then, CO2 has risen quickly, and temperatures have risen.
So there's been nearly 90 years of no observeable correlation between the two. Why should we link the two for the last thirty odd years?

What you are doing, is what christians do all the time. You are explaining any warming with CO2. It's like the god of the gaps. Any unexplained warming must be down to manmade CO2. Like anything we can't explain must be done by a god.

I want evidence for a god, and evidence for AGW. Not just something unexplained. All climate change has been unexplained up till now. Yet suddenly we're expected to accept it's fully understood.
Understanding might be improving, but it's not there yet by a long shot.

What is your source? I see lots of assrtions, but little in the way of referemces.
Here are the facts - CO2 levels have been rising since the 18th century! (See here and here. This is the paper referenced).
The rise in CO2 levels, and the rise in temperature is called a Correlation - we know, for a fact, that CO2 traps heat in the atmosphere, so a rise in CO2 levels should lead to a rise in temperatures - and guess what? This is exactly what we do see - this is just basic, basic physics.

You say that "there's been nearly 90 years of no observeable correlation between the two" - this is plainly untrue, Reality says this is untrue! The facts say this is untrue!, the evidence says this is untrue!

You claim that my position is like that of "christians"? What the heck are you on about? If you mean the anti-evolution creationists, then your position is way closer to them than mine. Note the similarities...

Creationists assert without evidence (Because they have none)
You assert without evidence (I have asked you before, but you have yet to put up anything - perhaps, like the creationists, you have none?)

[Blondie]

And that CO2 levels follow global temperatures, not the other way round, as proven by the vostok ice cores.

Still not grasped the concept of feedback loops then? It's been explained to you plenty of times. Perhaps you should just except that you'll never have a good enough understanding of science to make meaningful comments on this sort of subject.

Why don't you accept this challenge: Explain how feedback loops work and explain why the vostok icecore data shows global temperature increasing while CO2 is rapidly decreasing at times?

No links, if you please. Write it out yourself, references for your work would be good and appreciated. MLA style if you please.