Those crazy liberal scientists, actually doing things to protect our environment

[Captain Chaos]

Quote by: AP Fri August 18, 2006 08:56 EDT GENEVA (AP) _ The atmosphere will take up to 15 years longer than previously expected to recover from pollution and repair its ozone hole over the southern hemisphere, the United Nations' weather organization said Friday. Thinning in the ozone layer _ due to chemical compounds leaked from refrigerators, air conditioners and other devices _ exposes the Earth to harmful solar rays. Too much ultraviolet radiation can cause skin cancer and destroy tiny plants at the beginning of the food chain. Scientists said Friday it would take until 2065, instead of 2050 as previously expected, for the ozone layer to recover and the hole over the Antarctic to close. ``The Antarctic ozone hole has not become more severe since the late 1990s, but large ozone holes are expected to occur for decades to come,'' ozone specialist Geir Braathen told reporters in summarizing a new report by the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. Environment Program. The report will be released next year. The ozone hole, a thinner-than-normal area in the upper stratosphere's radiation-absorbing gases, has formed each year since the mid-1980s at the end of the Antarctic winter in August, and generally is at its biggest in late September. Experts said they extended the projected recovery because chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, would continue to leak into the atmosphere from air conditioners, aerosol spray cans and other equipment for years to come. But there was cause for celebration, they said, noting a decline in CFCs in the first two atmospheric layers above Earth. ``The level of ozone-depleting substances continues to decline from its 1992-1994 peak in the troposphere and the late 1990s peak in the stratosphere,'' WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud said in a statement. Less of these chemicals are used every year, he said, after 180 countries in 1997 committed to reducing CFCs under the Montreal Protocal. ``This shows that the Montreal Protocol is effective and is working,'' he said. Last year, the ozone hole reached about 27 million square kilometers (10 million square miles) on Sept. 20 _ just below its largest size in 2003 of about 29 million square kilometers (11.2 million square miles), WMO experts said. Copyright ﾩ 2006 The Associated Press

Wow, evidence that reducing harmful emission might actually make a difference to the environment. Could this mean that environmentalists are actually right about some things?

[Sonart]

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Quote by: Captain Chaos Wow, evidence that reducing harmful emission might actually make a difference to the environment.

The operative phrase being "reducing harmful emissions". First you have to get enough people to actually understand that we're causing global warming (only the most die hard still refuse to believe it's actually happening) to start applying pressure on government and business to change the status quo.


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[gallo]

Quote by: Sonart only the most die hard still refuse to believe it's actually happening.

By that, do you mean our President and Secretary of the Interior? That seems to be the case.

[Sonart]

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Quote by: Gallo By that, do you mean our President and Secretary of the Interior? That seems to be the case.

And his Vice-President, the former CEO of Halliburton, an oil company among other things, and his Secretary of State, a former director of Chevron, and his Secretary of Commerce, a former oil and gas exec, and his Secretary of Energy, with long connections to the auto industry . And the 30% of Americans who, if Bush came into their homes and murdered their children, would still support him and swoon at his every word...

...and deny there's such a thing as global warming.

[xyzer]

How come the earth grew no warmer from 1998 to 2005 and the same or greater amounts of emissions continued to spew out into the atmosphere? Would that be some indication that the human effect is not so important as some alarmists would have us believe? Might it also be(perish the thought ) disprove the Gore theorists who don't know what end is up? Those who profit from scaring others?

How come after a record hurricane season in the Atlantic in 1995 there have been comparitively few so far in 2006? The psuedo experts claimed global warming caused the 05 problem..is it just as warm or cooler this year?

How come the hole in the ozone layer mysteriouly filled in even though we were pouring emissions into the air?

How come there have been long periods of warming and cooling on this good old planet over the eons? As a matter of fact haven't we been warming up over the past 10,000 years after a long Ice Age. There have even been periods of warming allowing the Norse to settle Greenland and name it several hundred years ago..and allowing Time Magazine to predictt global cooling in the early 1970s..

[xyzer]

Another How Come just reported..
BREITBART.COM - Greenland's glaciers have been shrinking for 100 years: study

It turns out the glaciers have been melting for over 100 years even before humans started spewing out ?dangerous? emissions.

[Sonart]

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Quote by: xyzer How come the earth grew no warmer from 1998 to 2005 and the same or greater amounts of emissions continued to spew out into the atmosphere?

Because, as y'all keep saying over and over and over and over, the climate fluctuates due to a variety of random variables. But like the stock market, which will rise and fall from month to month and year to year but always continues to trend upward, the climate fluctuates but continues to trend upward... dramatically. This century is the hottest in the past ten centuries, 1999 through 2004 were still among the 10 hottest years on record, and 2005 was the hottest year on record, according to NASA, and 2006 is shaping up to be the warmest year yet in the U.S.

Quote by: xyzer Might it also be (perish the thought ) disprove the Gore theorists who don't know what end is up? Those who profit from scaring others?

You mean like...

The American Meteorological Society
The National Weather Association
The American Geophysical Union
the National Center of Atmospheric Research
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
the U.S. Academy of Sciences
the Scripps Institute of Oceanography
The Woods Hole Research Center
and NASA?

It's a crack up to watch your knee jerk spazmotically, characterizing this as "Gore theorists". Al Gore is just the messanger. It's also that Gore, as he was with the Internet, was genuinely visionary about this, 20 years ahead of the curve, It galls you into near apoplexy, doesn't it, that Gore, whom your side so loved to ridicule, has gained national attention explaining what science has been telling us for years.

As to who profits, that would be the likes of the American Petroleum Institute, the Competitive Enterprise institute and the American Enterprise Institute or the Cato Institute, who are desperately trying to defend free-market corporate profits from regulation by muddying the water about the truth of global warming.

Sorta like Big Tobacco did a few years back.

Quote by: xyzer How come the hole in the ozone layer mysteriouly filled in even though we were pouring emissions into the air?

Because the hole in the ozone layer was not created by greenhouse gases, but by chloroflourocarbon gases (CFCs), which stopped being produced in the U.S. and Europe in 1996... 10 years ago. However, the hole ozone has not, as you suggest, "filled in".

Antarctic Ozone Hole Dying Hard
--"Despite widespread international reductions in ozone destroying chemicals, the Antarctic ozone hole will likely continue its annual appearance for another 60 years, say atmospheric scientists – 20 years longer than previous estimates."--

Quote by: xyzer How come there have been long periods of warming and cooling on this good old planet over the eons? As a matter of fact haven't we been warming up over the past 10,000 years after a long Ice Age.

Actually, based on historic climate fluctuations, we should be in a cooling trend right now. Global climate have been going through 75 to 100 thousand year Ice Age cycle for eons. In each case, at the bottom of the Ice Age, CO2 and temperatures spike dramatically over about a 10 thousand year stretch, and then almost immediately plunges back down, then fluctuates up and down, inveriably cooling back to the low point of an Ice Age, whereupon it shoots back up again in another cycle. Since the temperatures spiked back up to a high point 10,000 years ago, the climate should be cooling off again.



As it was after the Medieval Warming Period. What's often called the 'Little Ice Age' was simply a low point (in Europe and the northern hemispere) in what's been a long cooling trend that ended... (gasp) dramatically in the early 1900's, following the onset of global industrialization.

Quote by: xyzer How come after a record hurricane season in the Atlantic in 1995 there have been comparitively few so far in 2006? The psuedo experts claimed global warming caused the 05 problem..is it just as warm or cooler this year?

I remember joking with a friend last fall, during a discussion of global warming and the recent all time record 2005 hurricane season. "Just watch," I muttered cynically. "This summer we won't have any hurricanes at all."

25 years ago, when scientists first began modeling predictions about anthropogenic global warming -- predictions that have not only been correct but ahve actually underestimated the increases in global warming -- they predicted that increasing temperatures would, among other things, lead to increasingly severe weather events. This seemed to be born out in http://<b><u>2004 hurricane season, ...record</u></b>. When this was followed by 2005, which blew the records off the charts, it became perhaps too easy to tie it to global warming, even though climatologists cautioned that storm activity was difficult to predict. Especially when you consider that we're also experiencing records in such things as tornado activity.

On the other hand, don't be too quick to point out the so far quiet hurricane season. I'm reminded of Rush Limbaugh on his TV show, back in the mid-90's. When climatologists predicted massive California rains due to a large El Nino condition over the Pacific, Limbaugh came on his show and ridiculed the prediction. "Is it raining yet?" Limbaugh mugged...

...exactly one day before California was drenched in a non-stop series of massive rain storms, resulting in disastrous flooding and mudslides.

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[Sonart]

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Quote by: xyzer BREITBART.COM - Greenland's glaciers have been shrinking for 100 years: study

And... oddly enough... the rise in global temperatures starting rising dramatically about 100 years ago. How about that.

From your source...

--"The shrinking of the glaciers since the 19th century is "the result of the atmosphere's natural warming, following volcanic eruptions for example and greenhouse gases, created by human activities, which have aggravated the situation further," he said."--


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[Captain Chaos]

Well said Sonart...

Once again, you have squashed the doubters! I am impressed with your breadth of knowledge on this topic.

One thing I would like to point out...

Although this has been a quiet hurricane season, so far. The typhoon season has not exactly been quiet.

[xyzer]

This century is the hottest in the past ten centuries, 1999 through 2004 were still among the 10 hottest years on record, and 2005 was the hottest year on record, according to NASA, and 2006 is

Since most agree the earth has been warming(with some reversals) over the past several thousands of years and our world climatological records are limited to much less than a century your contention is just sort of ridiculous!

the rise in global temperatures starting rising dramatically about 100 years ago. How about that.

...Hey we didn't have the capability to measure global temps even 50 years ago! Who had the technology to measure world/global temperatures in past centuries? Ask your experts...What was the yearly average temp in Indonesia 50 years ago? How about the average temperature in Samoa 200 years ago? How about the temperatures in the North Atlantic 50 years ago?
Few deny that the earth is currently on a warming trend but to hypothesize that we are doomed because 2005 was the hottest year in a world that has only been measuring ocean and land temperature accurately in the past few years is lunacy.
Which gets me to to the ozone layer! There is another good one. We haven't had the wherewithall to appraise the ozone layer until very recently..ergo. We don't know what it has done in the past ..It's strictly conjectural theory. No proof. And yet opportunists like Gore predict doom without sensible proof and the ignorant fall into line.

Then the opportunists tie in the issue of human generated emissions as a causal factor in world climate fluctuations and there is no proof of this either. I cite the example of human caused emissions growing and yet the global temps are static for several years? This doesn't phase the believers..its just an anomaly they say..balderdash and nonsense. Prove it I say...I agree the earth has been getting generally warmer since the last Ice Age but It is a slow process and humans aint the cause! I'm a skeptic! You haven't squashed this doubter.

[Captain Chaos]

Xyzer...

Sonart's previous post already answered your doubts. You clearly failed to read what he said in detail. Either you have an emotional connection to your belief, and thus are unwilling to honestly consider the data presented to you, or you didn't bother to read it.

[xyzer]

Come on Chaos..? He didn't answer much of anything. 1. We haven't had the wherewithall to measure global temps until fairly recently..2. We haven't been able to assess the size, or lack of it, of the ozone layer until recently? 3. The claim that human emissions caused by fossil fuels are affecting world climates is un proven(you and the other blind believers ignore the fact that human emissions continued for upwards of a decade and global temps didn't go up) why?

The claims that one recent record hurricane season and an increase in tornado frequencies is some how related to emissions spewed into the air by humans and globasl warming is tenuous at best..records are being set all the time?

The fact that average global temp(inaccurately recorded over much of the time in question)has increased about 1 degree in the last century does not mean that it will increase more or less in the next century does it? What about the emissions of volvanos? Perturbations in the earths rotation around its axis, the position of the moon in relation to earth,sunspot activity,etc. don't they count in this equation?

In any case geological changes on the earth are remarkably slow by human standards..ergo there is no danger that we or our kids or their kids are in danger of being engulfed by rising ocean levels or that gigantic hollywood sized tidal waves will wash away New York City as we observe with horror and dread.

You guys are steeped in the propaganda of people who prophecy doom for profit, power or bragging rights..make alarming conclusions without solid scientific evidence. Shame on you

[xyzer]

By the way I remember reading in Time Magazine in the early 70s that the past decade plus had been much cooler and some scientists were predicting global cooling...rather than warming!!!! Immediately we began reading about the coming Ice Age and the danger inherent it it?..You know the drill..the same nonsense you believe today! I guess P.T Barnum was right when he said "there is a sucker born every minute"!

[Captain Chaos]

Quote by: Xyzer 1. We haven't had the wherewithall to measure global temps until fairly recently

Tree rings, corals, and ice cores - as one of his charts stated.

We haven't been able to assess the size, or lack of it, of the ozone layer until recently?

We have good models that predict that CFCs will harm the ozone layer. Furthermore, we have measured it long enough to get some idea of trends. And, lo and behold, the trends and the model predictions best fit the hypothesis that CFCs are contributing. The reduction in the size of ozone hole also fits the model, with the reduction of CFC emission. It really makes sense to believe that the best-fit explanation is likely to be true.

3. The claim that human emissions caused by fossil fuels are affecting world climates is un proven(you and the other blind believers ignore the fact that human emissions continued for upwards of a decade and global temps didn't go up) why?

I will quote Sonart on this:

Quote by: Sonart Because, as y'all keep saying over and over and over and over, the climate fluctuates due to a variety of random variables. But like the stock market, which will rise and fall from month to month and year to year but always continues to trend upward, the climate fluctuates but continues to trend upward... dramatically.

Look at the charts he posted, they explain this issue quite clearly. You can have local fluctuations within a larger general rise.

The claims that one recent record hurricane season and an increase in tornado frequencies is some how related to emissions spewed into the air by humans and globasl warming is tenuous at best..records are being set all the time?

Two recent record hurricane seasons, not one.

Such a thing cannot be definitively tied in to global warming - as Sonart also stated:

Quote by: Sonart When this was followed by 2005, which blew the records off the charts, it became perhaps too easy to tie it to global warming, even though climatologists cautioned that storm activity was difficult to predict.

That doesn't mean global warming was not a cause, just that it remains an unknown.

Quote by: Xyzer The fact that average global temp(inaccurately recorded over much of the time in question)has increased about 1 degree in the last century does not mean that it will increase more or less in the next century does it?

No, the fact that we continue to pollute our atmosphere is what means the temperature will continue to rise.

In any case geological changes on the earth are remarkably slow by human standards..ergo there is no danger that we or our kids or their kids are in danger of being engulfed by rising ocean levels or that gigantic hollywood sized tidal waves will wash away New York City as we observe with horror and dread.

No, the waves were busy washing away New Orleans.

And tell the nation of Tuvalu that rising ocean levels are not an immediate problem.

Geological changes are SUPPOSED to be slow by human standards - yet that is no longer the case. The polar ice is reducing at a frightening rate.

Quote by: Xyzer You guys are steeped in the propaganda of people who prophecy doom for profit, power or bragging rights..make alarming conclusions without solid scientific evidence. Shame on you

Whose opinion would you believe, that the evidence is solid?

[Sonart]

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Quote by: xyzer Since most agree the earth has been warming (with some reversals) over the past several thousands of years and our world climatological records are limited to much less than a century your contention is just sort of ridiculous!

Warming according to whom??? Who is this "most agree" that you speak of?

As I pointed out, traditional fluctuations show a dramatic rise - around 10,000 years - from the bottom of an Ice Age to a peak, whereupon it drops off dramatically over the next 20,000 years or so. We've already reached that high point 10 to 6 thousand years ago. With some fluctuations, we have been in a consistant cooling trend ever since... as historical fluctuations would suggest. And yet again, you fail to explain how the sudden recent and dramatic warming just coincidently coincides exactly with the onset of global human indurstrialization compounded by the human population explosion.

Quote by: xyzer ...Hey we didn't have the capability to measure global temps even 50 years ago!

Actually, we have 'official' global temperature records going back 150 years, but regardless, we now have the means to reconstruct global temperatures, through ice cores, tree rings, sediments, etc. etc. etc.

Quote by: xyzer Then the opportunists tie in the issue of human generated emissions as a causal factor in world climate fluctuations and there is no proof of this either.

There is a great deal of proof. That seems to be the point that escapes you.

Global warming 'proof' detected - BBC
Scientists claim final proof of Global Warming - The Times
Report: Proof of Global Warming - Pew Center on Global Climate Change

Quote by: xyzer I cite the example of human caused emissions growing and yet the global temps are static for several years?

Cite a scientific source that says this negates the dramatic, overall warming trend of the past hundred years, or how the hottest year on record, 2005 - and 2006 being on the track for a new record - suggests temperatures are static.

Quote by: xyzer Prove it I say...I agree the earth has been getting generally warmer since the last Ice Age but It is a slow process and humans aint the cause! I'm a skeptic! You haven't squashed this doubter.

There's nothing slow about the current anomoly. In geological terms, the recent rise in temperatures has happened blindingly fast.

Quote by: xyzer By the way I remember reading in Time Magazine in the early 70s that the past decade plus had been much cooler and some scientists were predicting global cooling...rather than warming!!!!

Don't you guys ever tire of bringing up this old strawman? It was Newsweek Magazine, and it was essentially correct, based on two factors we now understand. One is the 70-80 year Gliessburg Solar Cycle, in which temperatures began declining around 1940, then began climbing again in the mid '70s. In fact, by historical precedents, the global temperatures should have declined much more dramatically during that period, rather than just leveling off.



The other factor was Global Dimming, a process by which particulate pollution -- aerosal particles -- absorbed solar energy and reflected it back into space. This 'diimming' trend has reversed, since developed nations have reduced the amount of particulate pollution, including the U.S. Clean Air Act. In a paradoxical feedback loop, the more we reduce this form of pollution, the less global dimming acts to counter greenhouse caused global warming.

Not to mention, xyzer, that the 'Ice Age' scare stemming from the Newsweek article, a single article based on a single scientific paper, lasted a couple of years, at most. Global Warming has been the subject of intense study for the past 25 years.


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[xyzer]

This says it all

That doesn't mean global warming was not a cause, just that it remains an unknown.

Now we are talking! We just don't know. We just hypothesize!
Even your chart shows an estimate of temps rising drastically.Whats the source for this forecast?

[xyzer]

There's nothing slow about the current anomoly. In geological terms, the recent rise in temperatures has happened blindingly fast.

There you go again? If we haven't been able to correctly measure Global temps until just recently how do we know it happened blindly fast?
Im suggest you guys are up to your armpits in cornflakes. Too many tree rings and the like to prove anything by the scientific method...which doesn't includ models based on conjectural evidence.

[Captain Chaos]

Quote by: xyzer There you go again? If we haven't been able to correctly measure Global temps until just recently how do we know it happened blindly fast? Im suggest you guys are up to your armpits in cornflakes. Too many tree rings and the like to prove anything by the scientific method...which doesn't includ models based on conjectural evidence.

This is not a rebuttal.

Are you trying to claim that the archaeological methods for measuring past average temperatures are inaccurate?

[Sonart]

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Quote by: xyzer There you go again? If we haven't been able to correctly measure Global temps until just recently how do we know it happened blindly fast?

That's just stupid. Simply because they've only recently been able to measure historic global temperatures doesn't mean they can't measure them now. They can.

Quote by: xyzer Im suggest you guys are up to your armpits in cornflakes. Too many tree rings and the like to prove anything by the scientific method...which doesn't includ models based on conjectural evidence.

Right. And according to the tobacco industry, science hasn't proven that smoking is harmful. I suppose that means that NASA, the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, the National Climate Data Center, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Academy of Sciences, MIT and the Scripps Institute are up to their arms in cornflakes too. After all, what's the accumulated body of scientific knowledge, combined with 25 years of research and collected data, when compared to the American Petroluem Institute and the overwhelming evidence that it just doesn't sound right to you.

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[xyzer]

Here is the latest bit of conjecture by a ?scientist?..
United Press International - NewsTrack - Russian scientist predicts global cooling

This guy suggests another little Ice Age is just around the corner. He mentions solar fluctuations as a source of climate change. Just a good a theory as you can dredge up sonart

The corn flakes are rustling again...