Climate research nearly unanimous on human causes

Geoff
Geoff: Climate research nearly unanimous on human causes, survey finds
Of more than 4,000 academic papers published over 20 years, 97.1% agreed that climate change is anthropogenic
-- Guardian, Thursday 16 May 2013

So, does everyone who opposes majority opinion on a scientific matter consider themselves to be a genius rather than a lunatic?

Because there is a test for that.
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CoIin
CoIin: Hi Geoff

Without meaning to detract from the gravity of the situation, and at the risk of stating the obvious, I'd just point out that if these results have been arrived at using identical/similar techniques, or, even more insidiously, using different techniques all of which contain a common implicit but erroneous assumption, then we shouldn't be surprised that the conclusion is unanimous; all we've learned is that no mistake was made in the calculation process.

To make a slightly facetious analogy, the locals here are big on fortune telling, and I often hear "Three different fortune tellers all told me that I mustn't go abroad this summer. It's a bad time to travel. They can't ALL be wrong."

Well, I've no idea what methods these guys use, but if they're all referring to the same Fortune Telling Manual which they bought at the same New Age store then we should be no more impressed by 1000 confirmations than one.

Or what if thirty pupils in a class independently measure the length of a football field using various techniques (some measure it directly, some use trigonometry, etc) and all agree on a result of 100 metres +/- 0.1%. . But then the redfaced schoolteacher confesses that the metre-stick he gave them is actually a yard-stick.

Similarly, we often hear the religious bragging about the voluminous evidence for the historicity of their pet prophet - "We have over a thousand manuscripts!!". Well, obviously, if these manuscripts are all based on the same original source, your evidence doesn't amount to 1000 exhibits; it amounts to one!

So, getting back to the issue at hand, I've no idea what techniques are used. Can you enlighten us, please?
(Edited by CoIin)
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Aura
Aura: Seriously, more than 4000 papers, over 20 years and you expect the methods, computer models and instruments to remain the same?
While I can appreciate the devils advocate approach, that seems a little far fetched.
But of course I wouldn't want you to take my word for it


I agree with this guy, that's one hell of a conspiracy.
Even lori will be impressed.
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CoIin
CoIin: Well, I'm not trying to be argumentative, and I certainly don't know enough about climatology to comment on that particular area, but the claim "97% of scientists can't be wrong" is clearly absurd.

Virtually 100% of the scientific community endorsed Newtonian mechanics for two centuries. We're now told it's wrong.

Virtually 100% of the scientific community endorsed the wave theory of light in the 19th century. We're now told it's wrong.

Should I go on?
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Aura
Aura:
I could open up google and find the real theory but I'm a bit tired and I don't feel like it so I'm going with Alpha Centauri's version of it called "virgin planet" You need crude tools to make refined tool to make fine tools and so on The more sophisticated your tools the better and faster your new tools will be. The kind of improvement we see now in a couple of years in the kind of instruments needed but especially computer models, make the comparison a little obsolete. I would dare state that ten years now can certainly equal 100 years of 19th century time when it comes to sensitivity of our instruments and calculations. It still holds true that yes the apple does indeed fall towards earth. And yes the mercury does indeed creep a little higher every year. CO2 is indeed reaching high levels and farting cows or not, erupting volcanoes or not, cars and factories are dumping a shit load of it into the atmosphere.
This isn't about the rules of physics or the mechanics of the universe, this is about observations made and the cause of why we are seeing what we see.
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Mask Of Dionysus
Mask Of Dionysus: Through all my years of Education, the strongest method of learning for me is by observation.

Almost twenty years ago, when 'climate change' and/or 'global warming' never spilled from lips, i went to a lecture on Climate. The speaker was serious and forceful for, what he was saying was of dire importance. The Earth was changing and man is to blame. At one point, he gave a broad spectrum of things - those living in Nordic areas will feel the effects first. How some areas will freeze, others will bake and others will sink.

Fast forward to present. I live in a Nordic Area. Canadian weather has stopped being Canadian weather. From getting snow in October, now we get snow in Jan...maybe. 40C in the summer is de regeur at present. Something thought preposterous in the past.

All people from Nordic regions I have spoken to communicate the same things. It is people not in these regions that are having a very difficult time accepting and owning it.
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sebtheanimal
sebtheanimal: in 1979 everybody was in panic over global cooling
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Mask Of Dionysus
Mask Of Dionysus: yeah but they were all stoned
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sebtheanimal
sebtheanimal: True. The current data states we've crossed 400ppm of carbon dioxide. I see us making a lot of dry ice in the future. Water vapor is responsible mainly for trapping heat in the atmpsphere. We're all still stoned today
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Mask Of Dionysus
Mask Of Dionysus: Point taken LOL
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duncan124
duncan124:
" anthropogenic " was invented around 1885-90 the web says and involved Pavlov. As what happen next in Germany was a kind of mass movement I think it is more of a publishing idea then geographic.

The scientific question of is the world changing temperature was raised about the same time, and a prediction made based on evidence that the world would get hotter as it has done.

There was another more confusing scientific idea that people altered the temperature themselves in a mass movement sort of way.

After thinking about it I think Geoffs question should have been posted in the Religion forum




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Aura
Aura: http://tinyurl.com/chk2tfx
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Mask Of Dionysus
Mask Of Dionysus: i do not need to read academic crap...........i will say again, "CRAP"

I don't need that because i am living it. I don't need to READ about my life.
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Corwin
Corwin: Here's the simple explanation of how we are a major cause of Global Warming.
First of all, we do know that CO2 is a major greenhouse gas, and we understand why.

These Fossil Fuels we burn originate from a time in Earth's history when the Globe did have a somewhat higher average temperature... back when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
The atmosphere was much higher in CO2 levels (which we can determine with core samples dating to that time), there were no ice-caps for millions of years, and as a result ocean levels were much higher.
Over millions of years, this CO2 was absorbed by the lush vegetation (and subsequently by the animals who ate it) that existed in these vast expanses of jungle. This vegetation became layers of strata in the Earth's crust, and as this happened the CO2 was slowly scrubbed out of the atmosphere, and was tucked underground in what are now vast oil and coal fields.

With a lower CO2 level in the atmosphere the Earth transformed into the cooler place we recognize now... with ice-caps, lower sea-levels, and the occasional ice-age every hundred thousand years or so.
But now, by digging up all this prehistoric oil and coal, and burning it, we are taking all that CO2 that took millions of years to tuck underground, and releasing it back into the atmosphere (where it came from to begin with).

Once we put it all back, it will be no surprise that the Earth's climate will return to the way it was the last time it had all that CO2 in the atmosphere.... like say during the Cretaceous Period.... no ice-caps, warmer average global temperature, and higher sea-levels.

This isn't necessarily the end of the world... we're not altering the climate into a dooms-day scenario of "runaway greenhouse effect".... we're just returning it back to the way it once was millions of years ago.
But it will suck donkey-balls for all those cities that reside on the present-day coastline... good idea to start planning to rebuild about 30 meters above our present sea-level.
Rebuilding New Orleans is a bad idea.
And probably no point in trying to reverse it... we've already let Pandora out of the box... and that CO2 was bound to find it's way back up sooner or later... maybe not for millions of years, but one day.
(Edited by Corwin)
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duncan124
duncan124:
They are called CLOUDS dude.

You might have noticed on cloudless nights there can be a frost.

Duh!
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Corwin
Corwin: Most of the energy from the sunlight that hits the Earth is reflected back into space... CO2 has a property that prevents some of the infra-red (heat) from reflecting back out into space, like a thermal blanket. The more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more infra-red (heat) is retained in the atmosphere.

This is known as the "Greenhouse Effect"... I learned about this in grade-school before anybody had even coined the term "Global Warming".

Water vapor (and yes, as the form of "clouds" ) does this as well, but is a much more consistent greenhouse gas than what we are doing unnaturally.... and although water-vapor and methane have more effect per ppm to the effect, the main greenhouse gas "in question" (if you've read the title of this thread) that retains heat in our atmosphere is CO2....
.... Humans have been producing it in spades over the last century.
(Edited by Corwin)
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Bumpa
Bumpa: Sorry Corvin, wrong again Mate.
Yes CO2 is a greenhouse gas, water vapour absorbs energy in exactly the same way, just at a different frequency. However you are correct about how clouds prevent frost.
Probably the most potent greenhouse gas is ozone as it absorbs energy in the ultra violet spectra. Others include CFCs NO2 SO2. I'd recommend a little book called the Greenhouse Trap by Jonathon Daly, it explains about the various gases frequencies very well with diagrams. Water Vapour has a much wider range of spectra so it can absorb far more energy than CO2, there is also far more of it.
Damn good thing too! Without the "greenhouse effect" the earths mean temp would be about 15 deg colder than it is right now, not very conducive to life except in the tropics.
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Corwin
Corwin: It's all so clear to me now... I have been taught everything wrong... there has been a giant conspiracy that began at least 40 years ago, of scientists lying to everybody, and ensuring that school-children learn everything wrong.... so that decades later down the road they could invent the idea of Global Warming and get rich from those lies.

Good thing there is you and two other guys who know the truth, or else they might have gotten away with it.
-----

Oh hey... do you have one of those groovy Mystery Solving Vans like they had on Scooby-Doo?
Because that would be cool... you could drive from country to country, tearing the masks off of all of those imposter scientists.
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Bumpa
Bumpa: As the guys who first formulated the enhanced greenhouse theory are all in their 40's I doubt they published it 40 years ago. And PLEASE read my posts more carefully Corvin. I never said CO2 wasn't a greenhouse gas, I said it was, along with others but it was not the most effective one. And yes, you have been taught wrong
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Corwin
Corwin: Yup...... and Bigfoot is real... and flying saucers are real... and the Loch Nesse Monster is real... and the Moon is made of cheese...
... <---- and if I keep making this face, it's going to stay this way.
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Bumpa
Bumpa: My wife says if I argue with an idiot, it only makes 2 of them. Just go back and check what I actually wrote Corvin.
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Corwin
Corwin: I know exactly what your saying.... you're saying that 97.1% of all the scientists in the world are either idiots, or they're lying to us... and if I believe what 97.1% of scientists believe, then I am an idiot too.

I get that.

Go write your book.

(Edited by Corwin)
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Bumpa
Bumpa: 97.1% of scientists huh?
Try about 30%
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Corwin
Corwin: Did you read the original post?

"Climate research nearly unanimous on human causes, survey finds
Of more than 4,000 academic papers published over 20 years, 97.1% agreed that climate change is anthropogenic"
-- Guardian, Thursday 16 May 2013
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Bumpa
Bumpa: I was referring to scientists in 2013, anthropogenic enhancement has largely been discredited now
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Bumpa
Bumpa: Hey Corvin I'll make you a challenge.
You give me a specific aspect of climate change you think is anthropogenic and I'll prove you wrong.
You up for it?
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