Actually, it is because of belief - in George Bush, and also the fundies - that this denial is happening.

2006=democratic win=impeachment=crash effort to save the planet.

I am not a conservative but there is a contrary report that says while this report is true, the mass of Greenland's glaciers is actually showing net increases.....smaller, denser glaciers.
Like Bush.....smaller and denser

But it's time to grow up and take notice that all the global warming news for the past few years has been bad.

Well, geez, Kevin, do we have to spell it out for you? That's just because science has a liberal bias. Scientists never tell us the good news, like the cell phones and power grid and the schools, oh, the paintings of the schools!

From CNN:

They tracked the speeds of the glaciers from space, using satellite data collected between 1996 and 2005.

When it comes to glaciers, I'd like to see a section of the curve a bit longer than nine years to see what kind of patterns we're talking.

It costs cash to read the original article, so maybe this has been covered.

Something to think about: If there is long-term large scale melting of the southern Greenland ice, it's more likely to screw up the ocean current conveyor system long before any serious ocean rise takes place. Bang--instant ice age.

It's really beyond belief that so many people are "still burying their heads in the sand over this."
--

Ha. Freudian slip x 2.

Those good Republicans in the midwest heartland - may very well be "...walking along the sea front on a nice summer day."

Meanwhile, those of us on the coasts will be "...burying their heads in the sand over this."

Fascists and criminals.. the Bush administration.

Brosz: You're right. No sense erring on the side of caution. Human population density and resource depletion may not have an effect on anything of consequence except a few habitability issues here and there.

In reality:
We must move more quickly to diminish negative human impact on the planet, especially our CO2 emissions. There is no question that we are in a gray area without sufficient research time, and may not have time to forestall general ecosystem collapse.

If there is long-term large scale melting of the southern Greenland ice, it's more likely to screw up the ocean current conveyor system long before any serious ocean rise takes place. Bang--instant ice age.

We're going to see a similar theme from conservatives about global warming and melting of the ice caps-- namely, "Ok, we finally admit that it is happening, but in the end, it won't matter."

The final stop along this journey will end with, "Ok, it is happening, we did cause it, it does matter, but there's nothing we can do about it."

I can think of one bright and shiny irony - Limbaugh's 8-figure coastal Florida compound will be underwater.

All we need to do is let tidal disasters befall all the low-lying areas on planet Earth, and everything will even itself out so that the Free Market can do its magic.

The conservative line is NOT that it is not happening... It is that "it is natural."

Hogwash to be sure, but a rather effective tool for dodging the human influence and hence the political solution.

Good to see your still working hard Kev. Seriously.

It's really beyond belief that so many people are still burying their heads in the sand over this.

These people have sand down there?

Boy, I hope I die before all of the bad stuff happens. George Bush and most other politicians in the Western world are hoping the same thing.

It looks as if there's an increasing chance that the world as we know it may end with a whimper rather than a bang—a slow roll into an ice age and/or other manifestations of the end of life as we know it. That would suit the so-called leaders of the U.S. (both parties, BTW) just fine. Eat drink and be merry. Tomorrow's another day. That's what I'm talking about.

The evening news said that if all the ice in Greenland were to melt, the seas would rise by 21 feet. Not likely to happen real soon, but 21 feet worldwide from an island as small as Greenland, I have to wonder. But that is not my concern.

My concern is all the water locked up in ice in Antarctica. Much, much bigger than Greenland, Antarctica has at least another magnitude of ice. And ice in Antarctica will be also melting as Greenlands does.

Sparko:

"erring on the side of caution?" I've heard that one before.

Interesting that "preemptive action" based on limited data seems to be a lot more attractive to liberals in ecological issues than political ones.

The kind of drastic approaches to "fix" global warming that I've seen proposed, of which Kyoto was only one, are not without their own consequences, mostly economic. Poverty kills more people on this planet than any environmental hazard does.

Regardless of what Kevin says, the opinions on this are not universally in one direction and scientific "consensus" is no less vulnerable to peer, financial and political pressure than anything else.

Someone slap Flanders. He's hysterical again.

Tbrosz, as someone with a background in oceanography, I can tell you and the other Scaifelings (and have done so over at /,) that you are dead wrong. A shutoff of the conveyor belt maketh not another ice age, it will make for some colder winters and warmer summers in Europe and possibly parts of North America. However, depending on how fast global mean temperatures rise, these colder winters may not be that cold.

The real problem is encapsulated by two words: Florida and Andrew. Q: How many times does a beach have to be hit by a goddamn hurricane for people to not try to live there? A: More than anyone can guess. As oceans reclaim coastline, there may or may not be catastrophic storms, but there sure will be a lot of people who don't want to pack up and leave. That means a lot of scuffles with each other and the government,a lot of property (and likely life) lost in the weather events that do raise the sea level, like hurricanes and winter storms, and that's in a wealthy country like the US. In short, a lot of human suffering.

Conservauthoritatians are fond of pointing out "natural variability", as though this notion had never occurred to climate scientists who say that we've got real anthropogenic warming on our hands. The reality is that climate science is speaking (when 24-year-old college dropout Bush stooges aren't muzzling it) clearly that we need to take some real steps to curbs this problem or the possibility of catastrophe goes from being remote to being likely. And the proposed measures needed to do this, while anathema to conservauthoritarians are actually not very intrusive: some taxes and some serious investment in different energy sources. Commence boohooing about Kyoto now.

Ya'll are forgetting James G. Watt. Its not that they think that global warming isn't happening. They just don't care. The end times are nigh, party on.

Screw you crybaby liberals. God gave us this planet to crap on. Who cares if my kids and grandkids contract skin cancer, and the planet becomes unlivable in 100 years? I'll be fat from my big tax breaks until the day I die, which will likely be years before everything truly becomes apocalyptic. I've got mine, so to Hell with you, just like the Republican credo says.

Why do glaciers hate America?

Kevin Drum >"...It's really beyond belief that so many people are still burying their heads in the sand over this."

No, it is their belief that Jebus will be along shortly & know who to Rapture by selecting the butts in the air

Really...

OK, maybe they are in denial because Global Warming threatens their trust funds

If you don`t like those choices then be like a ReThuglican & make something up

"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist thinks it will change; the realist adjusts the sails." - William Arthur Ward

"...and scientific "consensus" is no less vulnerable to peer, financial and political pressure than anything else."

Don't be silly. Not that scientists are always perfect, but science is based on data and evidence, not on votes, money, peer pressure, and wishful thinking because an SUV is a preferred fashion statement.

The time constant for the phenomenon is too large for us to focus our resources on solving the global warming problem, especially since we are in the middle of the Long War. If we don't win the Long War, it wouldn't matter that the ice caps are melting.

WARNING !!!

Here be actual climate scientists talking about, gasp, real data & science

"Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist." - John Maynard Keynes

Hi Eric E (or anyone else with the expertise),
Can you explain, if there's a simple and understood explanation, why hurricane strength apparently scales nonlinearlly with ocean temperature? If the Gulf has only risen a couple of degrees at most in the past few decades I wouldn't have expected a very noticable change in hurricane frequency and strength. But science is full of highly nonlinear relationships, like the Gulf Stream's dependence on temperature. Is this a more or less understood phenomenon at this point?

brosz: what part of global calamity and probable planetary death do you not understand? The science is in--it is just the timelines and our ability to delay catastrophe or head it off that is in question. It isn't rocket science, i.e. it is relevant. Some say we are passed the tipping point. Thanks for giving hope to pinheads and oil companies. This is not a political problem. It is a survival question.

Myron:

Don't be silly. Not that scientists are always perfect, but science is based on data and evidence, not on votes, money, peer pressure, and wishful thinking because an SUV is a preferred fashion statement.

Look up the recent history of stem cell research. The list of scientists who have falsified data in many fields is a long one. Why did they do it? As far as I can tell, not to get rich.

Also, if you think that one's general views have nothing to do with being published or funded in the scientific field, never mind winning the approval of fellow scientists, you're mistaken. Politics--in the general use of the term, not simple "Democrat/Republican,"--rears its head in almost every field of human endeavor.

Right now, someone who pushes a theory that supports human-caused global warming will get a much better reception in the general scientific community than someone who pushes ideas that do not. The attacks on Lomborg went far beyond simple criticism of his data.

Interesting that "preemptive action" based on limited data seems to be a lot more attractive to liberals in ecological issues than political ones.

Your opinions are so childish and fatuous they're not even interesting.

Many of us evaluated the limited data on Iraq and correctly concluded from it there were no WMD's, no ties to Al Qaeda, no imminent threat, and predictable sectarian warfare.

And there is much more data available relatively speaking on the climate issue.

With our being so devastatingly correct on Iraq you'd think you'd be willing to permit the possibility that you're wrong on the environment as well.

But not only are your inductive reasoning skills poor, you are also unwise.

the result of a warming trend that renders obsolete predictions of how quickly the Earth's oceans will rise over the next century, scientists said yesterday.

Herein lies a big problem - the models which underlie so much of climate science are too inaccurate and yet these very models are the basis for economic reform. These models don't accurately reflect the processes at work in the climate cycle and don't account for millenia long cycling. In short, they're not externally validated. This is why we keep getting "surprise announcement" like this one. While this is certainly a dramatic announcement, we really have no clue how reliable it is.

I take it that the reason liberals and/or environmentalists don't moot the question of proactive versus reactive measures is due to ideological limitations. IOW, is it better to take action now to slow antropogenic climate change or is it better to deal with the consequences is not entertained.

It would certainly help if the reformers would look at the question and had some grounding in economics. Considering that if the economic growth rate of the US was only 1% less over the last century, our GDP/capita would be the same as Mexico's the question of opportunity cost is certainly worthy of debate.

Further, the Kyoto exclusions of rapidly industrializing nations like China and India has political and economic consequences.

some taxes and some serious investment in different energy sources.

Which energy sources? Hydrogen? Nope, that's not a source of energy. Solar, wind, tidal, ocean thermal? Nope, they can't provide sufficient baseload power? Ethanol and bio-fuels? Nope, net energy losers. Coal? How are you going to sequester the emissions and are you prepared for the ecological devastation? Hydro? Which major rivers are still undammed? Nuclear? Go tame the anti-nuclear crowd. Space solar satellites? Good idea, but that requires an extensive orbital infrastructure that takes some time to ramp up? Fusion? I hear that it's only a decade away, though I've been hearing that for a couple of decades.

Poverty kills more people on this planet than any environmental hazard does. Posted by: tbrosz

Among environmental hazards, you need to include typhoons, floods, hurricanes, drought and fire. I think those have managed to cause a fairly large number of deaths. If their quantity isn't high enough to impress you yet, wait a bit.

If people believe that CO2 is harming the planet why do they produce such large amounts?

It would be very simple to stop producing CO2, just live the lifestyle of 90% of the population. No car, no AC, no air travel, no mass transit, no single family home, no food out of season, etc.

I think the best way for to get people to follow is to lead by example. Anyone out there willing to give up all the comforts of modern life to save the enviroment? Kevin?

Scientists shouldn't get to decide whether glaciers are melting. Democracy is on the march and we should all get to vote on it, unless you're a liberal in which case we don't care what you think and you should just get in line with the rest of us and let the (right) politicians decide what is best. That's what Jesus would do.

The time constant for the phenomenon is too large for us to focus our resources on solving the global warming problem,

That's the spirit! What have your grandchildren ever done for you anyway?

especially since we are in the middle of the Long War. If we don't win the Long War, it wouldn't matter that the ice caps are melting.

I don't know exactly what you mean by "the Long War" but your rhetoric reminds me a great deal of the sort of things we used to hear about the Cold War. Remember the Cold War?

It's questionable whether it's now true that

Poverty kills more people on this planet than any environmental hazard does.

but it wouldn't take much of a rise in the sea level to make it utterly false. Just check a topographical map of the planet.

Glaciers are disappearing all over. Large areas of Greenland are already free of ice. Things are changing fast.

Tango uniform: your denial of reality has been entered into the GOP book of life. I should warn you that that version of earth has a rapture occurring before we start using renewable energy sources and obsoleting Haliburton stock.

Tbrosz, the thing is, if scientists falsify data (rare), or just screw up their measurements (very common) other scientists will notice when they try similar experiments and get different results. The more important the question, the more experiments are conducted to confirm the results.

As a scientist (well, sort of - I'm a baby academic in the field of software engineering), I know science is not perfect. What gets published in the big journals sometimes depends on the personal biases of the editors. Fashionable areas attract all sorts of work of often dubious quality. But, eventually, the facts win out. Science's self-correcting mechanisms work better than in any other field; and, frankly, my own field suffers worst in the areas in which it differs from the classical sciences.

Note how seldom conservation is advanced as a solution, even though it's by far the quickest and easiest means of reducing energy use.

The attacks on Lomborg went far beyond simple criticism of his data.

The point is, simple critical evaluation of his data was enough to discredit his argument. Whether or not someone said something that hurt his feelings also is kind of irrelevant, isn't it?

tbrosz

"interesting that "preemptive action" based on limited data seems to be a lot more attractive to liberals in ecological issues than political ones."

man, this is an apples to oranges comparison and you know that. Disapointing. You shouldn't abandon your reason just to make a cheap shot. Actually tho, there is a kind of reverse correspondence going on: Not doing anything to address global warming likely causes consequences that we can't undo later. Similarly, invading Iraq preemptively seems to be causing similarly (but not quite as large scale, hopefully) hard-to-reverse consequences. But really, you're being petulant here. Stop.

"The kind of drastic approaches to "fix" global warming that I've seen proposed, of which Kyoto was only one, are not without their own consequences, mostly economic. Poverty kills more people on this planet than any environmental hazard does."

Your second point is true...right now. (Although poverty certainly makes environmental hazards more dangerous and more likely to affect your life.) What we're talking about is trying to keep it that way. It also isn't an either/or proposition, as you try to make it out to be. I do applaud your attention to world poverty, but it isn't the world's poor who are tanking up on SUVs. Anyway, this is where I come closest to agreeing with you, at least at the end. But this means it requires work, which the current administratin is discouraging, rather than encouraging.

"Regardless of what Kevin says, the opinions on this are not universally in one direction and scientific "consensus" is no less vulnerable to peer, financial and political pressure than anything else."

Scientific consensus is not invulnerable to these pressures, but it certainly is not as vulnerable as "anything else." And, scientific consensus is alot less vulnerable than the positions of individual scientists. Certainly you can find someone to disagree: absolute consensus on something that's this uncomfortable isn't likely to come until the disaster is here. But this is potentially an end-of-life-on-earth-as-we-know-it kind of issue. it's not one where our position needs to be crafted in regards to ideological positions regarding the sanctity of markets, the short term profits of major corporations or the political positions of those who already take it seriously.

need to include typhoons, floods, hurricanes, drought and fire. I think those have managed to cause a fairly large number of deaths.

Posted by: Mike on February 17, 2006 at 12:06 AM | PERMALINK

I think, you'd have to substantiate that the global warming measures proposed would have any impact on that though.

I think things started warming up pre-industrialization and people have always died from weather.

Some homeless froze to death in the recent Russian/Polish record winter.

The North East got a record winter.

Plus Bay Area snow.
http://www.ktvu.com/news/7117630/detail.html?rss=fran&psp=news

Global warming my foot!

When it comes to glaciers, I'd like to see a section of the curve a bit longer than nine years to see what kind of patterns we're talking.

I love it when layman pose such trivial issues to "debunk" what the PhDs say. It's so cute.

If conservatives want to freak out abaout an existential crisis, climate change seems a much more likely boogie man than terrorism. So why are they so uninterested in one, and so crybaby freaked out about the other?

It's a mystery.

Meanwhile, many civilizations have come, lasted much longer than ours, and then gone, mostly due to environmental catastrophe. Yet we think we are special, and immune. A hard rain's gonna fall...

badJim: Note how seldom conservation is advanced as a solution, even though it's by far the quickest and easiest means of reducing energy use.

Yes, there all kinds of things we can do right now that don't require us to impose hardship on poor people and actually have a net economic plus for ourselves. Perhaps, we could start by implementing those things first. For some reason, every time this possibility is brought up someone like tbrosz insists that the situation is too hopeless to even think about it.

need to include typhoons, floods, hurricanes, drought and fire. I think those have managed to cause a fairly large number of deaths.

You also need to include new, unknown diseases and disease vectors, caused by insects and other carriers able to populate territory previously denied to them, caused by insect predators dying out (eg, frogs), etc. The truth is, we just don't know how fucked we are going to get.

But enough about that. Tax cuts! I need a tax cut!

Isn't it Ronald Reagan who said that facts are stubborn things? The evidence stacks up and up and up--compiled by biologists, climate scientists, meteorologists, chemists--that the planet is heating up and heating up fast. The American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, and a special panel of the National Academy of Sciences have all concluded that, in all likelihood, that greenhouse gases are causing the planet to warm up.

It's pretty unlikely that all of these researchers in all of these disparate fields are simply motivated by partisan or ideological impulses. Now is the time for everyone--conservative, liberal, reactionary, progressive----to work together to find a solution to this problem.

Yes, reducing carbon emissions is difficult. Yes, getting other countries on board is a real problem. But we can take simple steps to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions through conservation, and it would seem that massive subsidies for wind, solar, and yes, nuclear power would be in order.

Perhaps it is too late. But taking these steps (and moderating the oncoming calamity) would seem to be worth a shot. We owe it to our kids, anyway.

Tbrosz,
Scientists that lie (intentionally falsify data) are always looking for profit. Your example of the stem cell researcher fits that truism perfectly. He was using facilities and research monies to support a lavish lifestyle far beyond that of his peers. The long list of paid shills working for the tobacco industry, the logging industry, the chemical industry, and the pharmacuedical industry put paid to your idiot assertion that bad science is not the product of corruption.

Interesting that "preemptive action" based on limited data seems to be a lot more attractive to liberals in ecological issues than political ones.

By the way, this is below even your own low standards for creating meaningful sentences out of words arranged sequentially.

You disappoint me, Tom. I'm not angry - it's more like you're my teenage son, and the police just called to say you've been busted shoplifting or voting Republican.

So they bring you home and release you to me, and I just say "Tom, I'm not angry, but I am very disappointed." Then I shake my head in that slow, sad way we liberals have, that just drives men of action such as yourself completely crazy.

Then I put you up for adoption.

tbrosz, the effect of global warming on North Atlantic circulation is not that clear -- but the conjecture that we'll see the same response we saw during continental deglaciation (where fresh water inputs were 10 to 100 times larger and the overall climate was very different) is not supported by any scientists. There's a decent summary here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming#Shutdown_of_thermohaline_circulation.3F

The paper in question compared the last 10 years to a long term average calculated in previous papers -- i.e. E. Hanna et al., J. Geophys. Res. 110, D13108 (2004).

The major point of the paper was that models we use for prediction aren't taking full account of glacier dynamics. Their radar data suggests these models can't account for present rates of ice loss let alone predict the future:

The processes that control the timing and magnitude of glacier changes are, however, not completely characterized and understood at present. Glacier accelerations have been related to enhanced surface meltwater production penetrating to the bed to lubricate its motion (20), and ice-shelf removal (13), ice-front retreat, and glacier ungrounding (21, 22) that reduce resistance to flow. The magnitude of the glacier response to changes in air temperature (surface melting) and ocean temperature (submarine melting at calving faces) also depends on the glacier-bed properties, geometry, and depth below sea level and the characteristics of the subglacial and englacial water-storage systems (3, 20). Current models used to project the contribution to sea level from the Greenland Ice Sheet in a changing climate do not include such physical processes and hence do not account for the effect of glacier dynamics. As such, they only provide lower limits to the potential contribution of Greenland to sea-level rise. If more glaciers accelerate farther north, especially along the west coast, the mass loss from Greenland will continue to increase well above predictions.

They'll probably have a good summary for this paper on www.realcimate.org soon.

Joe,

Scientists that lie (intentionally falsify data) are always looking for profit.

How to reconcile this fracas concerning famed hurricane researcher, Dr. Landsea, to your hypothesis?

I am withdrawing because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized. In addition, when I have raised my concerns to the IPCC leadership, their response was simply to dismiss my concerns.

Isn't it Ronald Reagan who said that facts are stubborn things?

Actually, it was John Adams that said that. When Reagan tried to quote him he wound up saying, "facts are stupid things." Which has a certain poetry to it, also.

Re John Adams--I stand corrected.

Has anybody tried compiling all of these depressing scientific reports about global warming in one database that is easily accessible? I think it would be really a good idea to have a website with links (perhaps geographically sorted) to all of these articles. The massive weight of data showing that the planet was indeed warming up would serve to convince a lot of skeptics who would do things like point to a single big snowstorm in Maryland in March as evidence that global warming is a myth.

I hope this gets them to finally do something about global warming. I took out a second mortgage to buy CO2 credits and if Bush doesn't sign Kyoto I won't be able to afford my ACLU membership and the french wine I drink with my communist friends in the hot tub on cold winter nights.

Arthur -

knock yourself out

The conservative line is NOT that it is not happening... It is that "it is natural." Hogwash to be sure, but a rather effective tool for dodging the human influence and hence the political solution.

Since when are human beings not "natural"? In fact we're every bit as "natural" as slime molds or dolphins. Other species or organism classes have impacted global climate before -- the colonization of the land by green plants comes to mind. This time it's no different. It likely will get more difficult to support billions and billions of human beings on this planet, but I strongly suspect we're on the verge of a major downsizing of the earth's human population in the first place (all those child rearing expenses!), and in the second, our species will soon (say within the next two hundred years) be undertaking a sizeable emmigration into our solar system.

Y'all need to relax. Climate change is to liberals what terrorism is to conservatives: an excuse for despair, paranoia, hand-wringing, and trampling of individual freedoms.

http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/

Look at this graph, it is the Vostok ice core data, the premeir natural data set that confirms the general idea of glacial cycles over the last four or five glacial cycles.

Notice the current cycle. The current glaciation period is about 10,000 years late. We should be on the way down to ice cube earth. We are not. Why?

The ice age is triggeed by the build of of co2 gas, we assume, as this causes the melting of the last remaining ice, and turns off the warm water conveyer and sends us to freeze zone. For some reason, for the last 10,000 years we have not been able to the the co2 levels high enough to trigger the ice age. Why?

Mike:

That is interesting since your Bush administration has increased poverty in American each year it has been in power and neither you nor Bush have ever expressed any concern for them.

If someone lives in the U.S., they don't know crap about what real poverty is.

Indcidentally, there are billions of people out there who want their chance at the good life, and while you're selling Americans on driving smaller cars, they want a car--period. An environmentalist telling them to stick with the ox for the sake of Mother Gaea isn't going to sell very well.

We need some heavy-duty technological solutions, including nuclear and all the other alternatives, if we are going to manage a whole planet that wants a middle-class lifestyle.

***

craigie:

...Then I put you up for adoption.

Not bad. Four paragraphs of insult without ever actually saying anything. You might have beaten Gregory's old record.

***

ranaurora:

Another factor in Greenland is the recent increase in ice thickness in the center of the land mass. Paper on that here.

Does anyone have a reference on Greenland ice conditions during the Medieval Warming when Vikings were colonizing it?

...our species will soon (say within the next two hundred years) be undertaking a sizeable emmigration into our solar system.

What, as you blow 'em out your ass?

So we'll emmigrate from one fucked up planet to any one of a group of planets not that well-designed to support human life anyway. On our massive fleet of cargo spaceshiops, carrying all we need to supoport life on in hostile environments across the solar system.

In 200 years - based on our extensive experience of putting a few men and some golf balls on the moon for a few hours.

All those challenges, difficulties blithely dismissed with a "Y'all need to relax"!

Beautiful.

Or we could use less carbon-polluting energy.

Hmmm, let me think about that...

Thanks for the heads up.

Wait a second...Iguanadon is saying that climate change may result in the death of billions of men, women, and children, but he bemoans the fact that this impending crisis will be used as justification to trample people's rights. Hey, the only things I'm asking for are mandatory improvements in automobile mileage, subsidies for fuel-efficient mass transit, and massive subsidies for the wind, solar, and nuclear industries. In the grand scheme of things, the right to manufacture a gas-guzzling vehicle and the right to deny the government tax monies that would go to build a windmill or atomic power plant are fairly trivial freedoms.

A massive emigration is out of the question. It's too expensive. How many billions will it cost to send a handful of men to Mars, under current NASA plans?

our species will soon (say within the next two hundred years) be undertaking a sizeable emmigration into our solar system

Maybe Xenu will blast us into space with hydrogen bombs.

Matt:

I've seen lots of graphs from the ice cores, including that one, and while it's obvious that CO2 and temperature are related, nobody has yet shown for sure, given the uncertainties in the data, which drives the other. Still, I could imagine more astronomical reasons that might result in a regular 10,000 year cycle in temperature, than I can for creating a 10,000 year cycle in CO2 emissions.

So, all you folks want to sit at the top of the glacial cycle forever? It is hotter than hell, been that way for 10,000 years. It is like we have been stuck at summer and winter won't come. If winter never comes, then spring never comes and we are screwed. Where do you folks want to set the thermostat?

We could try for mid-glacial period. That is an erratic period, but stable enough that we can set the temperature at 2 degrees cooler and stay there.

Then, sitting at midpoint, we can control the carbon and methane cycle and make small adjustments. Waddya say? Come on you chickens. It is easy, I can do, just give me a sledge hammer, a book of matches, and point me to the gas pipelines.

Tbrosz--

You're right to say that a lot of people in the developing world want lifestyles that generate a lot of carbon emissions. That still doesn't excuse us in the USA from making efforts to reduce our CO2 emissions, and from finding new technologies that will allow more people to live lifestyles that are both low-emission and middle-class.

Did anybody read the Malkin piece?
The short summary: Some scientists in the Philippines say that land around Manilla Bay is sinking rather than the water rising. There she says that Al Gore is full of 'it'.

Short rebuttal: Won't the subsidence of land be made even worse if the sea rises also? And I know Al Gore has worked on other ecological issues, like watershed management, and related issues. There is such a thing as working on two problems, and many natural effects have multiple causes.

Tbrosz -
You're right to say that a lot of people in the developing world want lifestyles that generate a lot of carbon emissions.

And Tbrosz is a member of the 5% that uses up 25% of the planet's resources.

The great catch with development - they can develop, grow rich and be just like us!

No they can't - not without tbrosz having less.

tbroz,

The orbital inclination cycles set the phase of the glacial period, but they generally are considered to weak to drive us up to the top and back down. Temperature rises very rapidly, then drops gradually, as does the carbon. So, there is an amplifying function going on, as the orbital periods are composites of sine functions.

Obviously the shutting down of the Atlantic conveyer prevents warm ocean circulation, but that is only one part. I have a theory, wanna hear it?

Put your money where your mouth is, huh?
OK
All florescent lighting
One car that gets around 34mpg for a family of 6
Lifestyle reworked to limit car use to about 20g of gas a month (not easy)
7.5 kw of solar panels on the roof of an all electric home
(for about the cost of a second car)
Planted nine trees in the yard in the last three years (the garden used to be an asphalt parking lot)
You don't have to give up a "modern" lifestyle to reduce your individual net CO2 production to a small fraction of the US average.
You just have to change your priorities.
Are you willing to continue to be a slave to your own convenience; or are you going to live responsibly?

That's right. I'm laying a guilt trip on the average American. A richly deserved one. Excuses or attacks on me for writing this are open admissions of base selfishness.

Current US energy consumption standards of behavior are the equivelent of a thug walking into a birthday party stealing the cake and most of the dinner and shitting on the kitchen table before he leaves.

I will give you all another hint.

In North America, today, our co2 budget, over all, is near zero, including our oil use. Other continents are net emitters of co2.

I will tell you why our co2 budget is near zero, and you all can shoot me in the face, though I am not a lawyer.

Our co2 budget is close to zero because we were the first to use steam in a large scale and the first to use oil onm a large scale.

Why?

Tbrosz, yes, when you increase temps you can get precipitation further inland and at higher elevations. Some areas that were pretty high and dry get an increase in precipitation. That is part of Rignot's rather comprehensive survey. His satellite radar interferometry shows ice volume increases in 7 of 33 glaciers in 2000 and 4 of 33 in 2005. However, the rest are decreasing in volume. It's not that complex.

There were extensive viking plane table surveys of the ice cap in the years 984 and 1062. There might be a link to them here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period

"Some scientists in the Philippines say that land around Manilla Bay is sinking rather than the water rising"

It was the local Phillipino scientists who have studied the sinking problem for years who bitched about that crying little baby Al Bore. They bitched because they knew the real problem was overuse of underground water around Manilla, not rising sea levels.

Arthur:

When you get down to it, even if CO2 and global warming didn't exist at all, there are still many excellent reasons to get past burning hydrocarbons for energy. For one thing, petroleum is too damn useful in industry to waste pushing cars around.

Conservation is only going to go so far. I don't have the numbers, but if someone does, the math should be pretty easy. Assume that pretty much all the recommended conservation ideas are enacted. Higher car milage. Mandated housing standards. Super light bulbs in every fixture. Limits on everything. Huge taxes on just about anything you can think of. The works. Now, how much energy is the U.S. using? Divide it by the population. Take that number down. This is the energy required for a member of an "enlightened" civilization to maintain a reasonably decent standard of living. Assuming the economy is still alive, of course.

Now, how much energy would be used by the whole world if everyone on the planet was using that amount?

Ouch.

Somewhere, something's going to have to be done on the production end, and I don't think "Mr. Fusion" is going to pop up anytime soon.

No one alternative energy solution is going to do the job by itself. We're going to need all of them, each used where appropriate. Including nuclear.

Off to bed. Global warming or not, we've got frost here in California, and I've got to warm up the car in the morning to give my kid a ride to school. And yes, it's too far to walk.

"Since when are human beings not "natural"? In fact we're every bit as "natural" as slime molds or dolphins."

Iguanadon is right! Polio and smallpox are totally natural! What were we thinking trying to eradicate them? Is there still time to release some smallpox into the wild, holding our breath while we wait to see it if thrives? I hear TB is making a comeback, heaven be thanked.

If "natural" global warming is occurring, we should just lie back and enjoy it. We shouldn't engage in unaesthetic and non-cool initiatives that we might lose. No, we MEANT to do that.
/sarcasm

WTF difference does it make whether global warming is "natural"? Shouldn't we try to determine what the effects are, and whether we can and should influence it? That's how we look at diseases like the Avian flu.

Hell, uranium is natural. Why keep the Iranians from letting it free?

Brosz is quick to argue that since X doesn't solve everything it's off the table. Nice move.

Whatever happened to the idea of "second-best tomorrow"? In other words, whatever we can do cheaply and quickly, we should. As a first step to mitigate the damage.

We've got frost in San Francisco of all places too.

But for the topic, Conservation _and_ efficiency are tools to use to slow things down while we work on better cures.

And for the ground subsidence: Yes, the sea levels have not risen much. _YET_.

So to summarize:
Subsidence in Manilla bay - problem today.
Sea level rising globally - problem in the future.

Having one problem does not negate the other.

Tangoman,
I read the dust up in SA. I don't understand where you see how it doesn't fit. I don't recall that he was accused of falsifying data (his interpretations of it were rather imaginitive). And, I seem to recall that he had taken work ($) from oil industry backed foundations (the articles were awhile back so I don't remember all the details).

I've followed climate research since the 70's and the evidence at first was sparce and the conclusions pretty erratic. By the early 80's though, CO2 driven warming was already the clear trend. As the proponents of cooling and dynamic equilibrium became fewer and fewer (because the persuadable switched sides), the remaining sceptics became more shrill and began to be courted by industry. The honesty stubborn aren't fired, but do occasionally resign, and some are still doing government and acedemic research with dogged determination.
Dr. Landsea was taken to task for beating the bleached bones of a long dead horse. If he had had anything new to bring to the argument, he might have found SA more receptive.

Iguanadon sez: Since when are human beings not "natural"? In fact we're every bit as "natural" as slime molds or dolphins. Other species or organism classes have impacted global climate before -- the colonization of the land by green plants comes to mind. This time it's no different.

Iguanadon needn't make such a strained analogy to prove his or her point. Industrial civilization isn't so much like plant evolution as it is like every other human civilization heretofore: it set in motion a cycle of intensification of production followed by ecological decline followed by (hopefully) technological change to compensate for said ecological decline. The cycle goes on and on until technology can't keep up with the rate of ecological decline, then the civilization in question falls apart.

Global warming differs from other instances of ecological decline in that is happening on a global scale, and that, if you think about it a bit, it quite startling.

It's very interesting that the idiots like tbrosz are so enamored of datamining as applied to spying on Americans, even though the techniques and assumptions of datamining, when compared to the methodologies of climate science, are more like those of astrology.

But when the infinitely more rigorous climate science is used to in discussions of global warming, they want incontrovertible proof that the work is airtight, based on quantum mechanical model of the behavior of the oceans and the atmosphere.

What idiots. Why do you guys encourage them?

Any comprehensive solution is going to require considerably less use of energy than the American norm. New energy sources aren't going to work on a global scale without that. We can immediately reduce our CO2 production and our dependence on foreign oil by increasing energy efficiency standards across the board.

We've got to develop alternative energy sources, but we're unlikely to see a near term payoff for anything, except wind and a little bit of solar. Conservation can deliver large savings immediately. A heavy tax on fossil fuel use, for example, could reduce consumption several percent per year.

It would be bad news for Ford and GM, addicted as they are to truck sales, but a further increase in gas prices might actually make people more inclined to buy new, more efficient cars.

Poverty kills more people on this planet than any environmental hazard does.

Christ, that's a stupid thing to say, considering that in much of the Third World poverty is directly tied to environmental factors, such as increasing desertification, for example, wiping out arable land in Africa and Asia, or flooding/typhoons/monsoons/hurricanes etc. devastating coastal areas and disrupting local patterns of life, or the drying up of inland seas in Central Asia. As farmers and fishermen become less able to make a living from the land their forced to migrate to the cities, where they join the swelling ranks of the desperately poor.

Flanders: Look up the recent history of stem cell research. The list of scientists who have falsified data in many fields is a long one. Why did they do it? As far as I can tell, not to get rich.

And you know why you're able to look up the recent history? Because those scientists had to submit those falsified results to peer review, where other scientists were able to examine the data and determine it had been falsified. There is no such process in politics -- in fact, quite often the opposite applies, with the loud lie driving out the quiet truth.

Joe,

You're mixing and matching all sorts of different stories and attaching them to Dr. Landsea, who is still a highly respected climate scientist working for NOAA.

Well look, the time to try to fix this was years ago. We've already lost this battle, so since the hosue is burning down right this moment and we can't get out why not party for the few minutes we have left?

daCascadian beat me to the umpteenth time to post a link to RealClimate.org.

There is a real simple way to determine if published papers are coming from shills or not. Peer-Review. Sound scientific research always undergoes stringent peer-review. While not perfect, it weeds out most all the nefarious research.

oh and McA: Apparently your head can only operate in binary mode, so whenever you see the phrase "global warming", just replace it with "global climate change" (an oversimplification, but it may nudge you in the right direction). You continue to display your ignorance as to how climate systems work; let me just say it slowly for ya: they are C...O...M...P...L...I...C...A...T...E...D. Actually, why don't you just stfu when you obviously have no clue as to what you are talking about.

We got flooded some 9,000 years ago, leaving large cities under 300 feet of water off of the coasts, especially around India and China.

So, were these ancient peoples putting too much greenhouse in the air?

Guys, there is no point in arguing the science with tbrosz. He's a complete layman on this subject, and yet his hubris lets him think he has all the answers.

It's actually quite funny. It's like the TV repairman telling doctors how to do medicine.

tbrosz has an ideological position -- he'll selectively analyze data to prove it.

On the other hand, if you speak to people that actually know what the hell they are talking about, you will overwhelmingly (probably about 9 to 1) hear one story: global warming is real and human caused. All recent data points have painted a grimmer picture than we imagined.

Those people know what they are talking about. tbrosz, Bush, Limbaugh, Crichton, et al.: they don't have a fucking clue what they are talking about. Pat them on the head and ignore them.

"cute Republican" *pats on head*

Stefan: There is no 'long list' of scientists who falsfied data in Stem Cell Research. Tbrosz is just winging it. One Korean scientist and multiply that by ten to be generous, and even then the list is 'long' only in the idiot's fantasy.

Simp,

Sound scientific research always undergoes stringent peer-review. While not perfect, it weeds out most all the nefarious research.

Are you aware of how many climate research papers that get published are simply reports on running a computer model?

Take a look at this paper published in Nature that got a huge amount of press in the media - Extinction risk from climate change:

The approach has been validated by successfully predicting distributions of invading species when they arrive in new continents and by predicting distributional changes in response to glacial climate changes

To further compound the utter lack of utility the researchers commit a compositional fallacy.

I think that the model falls apart logically when it is extended beyond what is known. The model was validated so that we knew that parts of the whole X have characteristics A, B, C and then extended to the conclusion that therefore the whole X must have characteristics A, B, C. They validated their model against very specific situations and then they extend it to determine extinction rates, when extinction issues weren't part of the validation procedure.

How an article like this passes peer review is beyond me. I don't consider that to be science. It's simply a computer run with some data. It's quite possible to have a Garbage In - Garbage Out outcome to this kind of research. Yet, this paper passed peer review and was published in a very prestigious journal.

I come back full circle to the first comment I made in this thread, this subject of Kevin's post is that computer models were incorrect in predicting a phenomona that is described by real measurable data.

"global warming is real and human caused."

So, then explain why the glacial period is late in arriving. If you believe that co2 spike and temp rise, go together, to trigger the next glacial cycle, then look again at the Vostok ice core data and explain why CO2 level did not keep rising on schedule some 10,000 years ago? It seems very real to me on the ice core data that the glacial cycle tried, but failed to get co2 levels up to the melting point (or temp depending on you view of the chicken and egg).

http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/

O ye global warming deniers, do ye not yet hear the call of energy independence? Or would you rather we expend further blood on subjugating the infidels whose lands provide the oil we depend upon?

An additional reason to rally behind the president's proposal to increase American biofuels capacity. Everybody made fun of his inclusion of "switchgrass" in the SOTU, but the time is ripe (so to speak.)

Alternative fuels are touted by the enablers of our addiction. They tell us that we don't have to do anything right now, and our children will be able to run their Hummers on hydrogen.

They've put just about as much thought into that promise as they have into dealing with the national debt.

Who in his right mind would trust these guys?

TangoMan, you speak very authoritatively. It's funny, considering how your writing betrays your complete ignorance of what climate scientists are doing with their computer models, how they make them, and what they are good for.

Teece,

Devastating comeback. Ouch. I await enlightenment. I'm particularly interested in the predictive validity issues. You may also want to address experimental design issues pertaining to researchers creating the models and then feeding their own data in and also validating the results.

The evening news said that if all the ice in Greenland were to melt, the seas would rise by 21 feet. Not likely to happen real soon, but 21 feet worldwide from an island as small as Greenland, I have to wonder. But that is not my concern.

The glaciers of greenland rise a mile above sea-level. So if the surface area of ~250 Greenlands equals ocean area, which I doubt, you'd get that sort of level increase, assuming equal density between the ice and seawater.

In some ways, an ice-free Arctic ocean would be handy. Lots of shipping lanes would open up, and it would be easier to drill for oil all over the place. Too bad about the polar bears, but all they wanted to do was eat us anyway.

I'm particularly interested in the predictive validity issues. You may also want to address experimental design issues pertaining to researchers creating the models and then feeding their own data in and also validating the results.

TangoMan says climate science is bunk. The computer models are bunk. Climate scientists practice voodoo. You don't understand how this crap can even get past peer review.

You're understanding of what they are doing with their computer models is childish.

I've known climate scientists. They have a solid discipline, they know what they are doing, working on a very hard problem.

Show of hands: who thinks it's more likely that TangoMan is just ignorant? Who thinks the entire field of climatology is really a scam based on crap? Yup, that's about what I thought.

Give me a break, buddy.

Actually, the cutting edge of global warming is expected to be the rapid disappearance of fresh water for drinking and irrigation. It seems that too many of us depend on upstream glaciers for our very existence.

Teece,
I have the lattest talking point from Patrick Michaels and I am willing to use it.
Your feeble attempts to interfer with my thread highjacking by way of copious amounts of irrelevant data and name dropping makes me laugh. I am invincible and paid handsomely by my Tech Central Station handlers. If 40% of Americans do not believe in so called 'global warming' it must not be true.

Teece,

When you're in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging. Building strawmen arguments doesn't help your credibility either. Appealing to popularity is just a sad spectacle.

TangoMan says climate science is bunk. .Climate scientists practice voodoo.

I do? Please provide a citation. There's plenty of good climate science, and some computer models qualify, but there is a lot published that doesn't qualify. The problem is discerning the good from the bad, especially for policymakers.

You're understanding of what they are doing with their computer models is childish.

Another devastating comeback, right on top of the last one you shot across my bow. Funny thing though, you completely avoided the questions I asked of you and your responses are wholly devoid of content.

I've known climate scientists.

I bet you used to have a girlfriend in Canada too.

Give me a break, buddy.

I'll tell you what, you take a look at the output from these 10 models which represent the differences between Growing Degree Days (GDD) for 6,000 years ago and present-day with the one on the lower right representing the same GDD difference inferred from pollen and you tell me which one is the most accurate. Bonus points awarded if you can tell me how the other 9 models differed and why their outcomes are so varied.

Teece,

Do you really feel that you need to resort to impersonation? Tsk, tsk.

Look up the recent history of stem cell research. The list of scientists who have falsified data in many fields is a long one. Why did they do it? As far as I can tell, not to get rich.
Look up the recent history in climate change research. The list of scientists that have corroberated the conclusions is thousands of times larger than any other single area of study in history. Why did they do it? As far as I can tell, not to get rich.

tbroz, I am amazed by your ability to consistently produce unsubstantiated opinion. You never, ever, cite reference or show even minimal understanding of how basic reasoning functions.

Something to think about: If there is long-term large scale melting of the southern Greenland ice, it's more likely to screw up the ocean current conveyor system long before any serious ocean rise takes place. Bang--instant ice age.

Posted by: tbrosz
What a dolt you are.

Practically speaking, if you're in a hole, once you're deep enough that your shovelsful of dirt don't reach the surface, further digging tends to build a either a shallow ramp providing an easy horizontal exit or lots of loose dirt in your hair and under your feet.

Blog that metaphor!

Kevin, the argument really isn't over whether or not it's happening--even conservatives who aren't god-like wingnuts believe the evidence that it is. It's whether it's happening because of something man did, which implies man can stop it from happening. My husband, who is something of an expert and certainly not a rightwing fanatic, says it's likely a combination of the two: natural and unnatural forces at work.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't stop it from happening further, of course. But posing the argument as simplistic as you do here really doesn't serve either side.

(Sorry if this has been hashed out already in comments; I'm late to this thread.)

I'll tell you what, you take a look at the output from these 10 models which represent the differences between Growing Degree Days (GDD) for 6,000 years ago and present-day with the one on the lower right representing the same GDD difference inferred from pollen and you tell me which one is the most accurate. Bonus points awarded if you can tell me how the other 9 models differed and why their outcomes are so varied.
I just looked. Those mean nothing to me because there is no explanation of what is portrayed, why it is portrayed, no link to anything.
If you care to give me something with which to evaluate those pretty pictures, I will, butr I suspect that you do not have a clue what you are talking about because that is the most ludicrous attempt to look 'scientific' because it is so painfully meaningless.
If you really know what is empirical data, then show me, or quit wasting space. That is such a typically feeble attempt to 'pretend' because you wouldn't try to post such obviously lacking ... evidence of something?
If you really know what you are talking about, then prove it.

That wasn't Teece - why don't you bring your vast scientific knowledge over to Prometheus. We always welcome those in search of the truth.

As we can see, real climate change deniers don't dispute the theory* or the evidence* or the implications* of global warming. They merely claim that we can't, and shouldn't, try to do anything about it.

* except when they do

mikmik,

Glad you looked at the Brown University models. They're all modeling the same phenomona. Compare the range of results from that process to a different computer modeling process, like nuclear explosion modeling. See here for information on code validation experiments:

Simulations provide far more diagnostic information than a nuclear test does. Using models of the physical processes that occur in a nuclear detonation, a computer can calculate variables such as temperature and pressure for any point in the calculational space of the simulated explosion with high spatial resolution—from the time the virtual bomb goes off (or before) to any time later.

[ . . . . ]

But these stunning displays pose a daunting question: do they show what will really happen? A simulation is only as good as the equations, algorithms, and computer hardware that go into it, no matter how striking the display. If the computer models are wrong, inappropriate, or incorrectly implemented or executed, the simulation will be flawed—which is unacceptable for stockpile stewardship.

The difference here is that the nuclear modeling is validated and is reliable. There is far too little work like this in climate modeling and instead we get a report like Kevin mentioned, which highlights the fact that observational data contradicts what the computer models predicted and too often the news stories are about what some model predicts will happen in the future and when you read the research there is very little effort expended on validation and reliability issues.