Even NASA doesn't believe in man-made global warming (article)

dumb wrote:

in general, people with doctoral degrees in climatology, aerology, oceanography, hydrology, ecology, chemistry, statistics, applied mathematics and other related fields of study who work and publish in climate research

I have a master's in hydrology, and publish in climate research. Is it OK for me to be skeptical about the alleged impact of Carbon Dioxide, or do I have to defer to the PhD's who sell this snake oil.

It is my belief that climate is changing-for it to be static is as a ridiculous as saying the weather is static. It is also my thought that of all the human impacts on climate-agricultural irrigation is the most significant. In the US, about 1/2 of the Colorado River's flow is being diverted east across the rockies and irrigating farm land in the Platte and Arkansas River basins. Add to that the incredible irrigation flows being drawn from the Ogalalla Aquifer in Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. Before WWII-these states were dryland steppe-they are now irrigated corn fields. Injecting all that water into atmosphere has enormous impact on the climate of points east in north America. And similar efforts have occurred in parallel world wide over the last 75 years-that is how we feed the 2 billion or so people that have been added to the population. CO2 is a fart in a tornado.

I forgot to add, Marathon PR 2:27-1982

Master's Marathon PR 2:51 if that helps my climate credibility at all.

luv2run wrote:

The East Anglia emails damaged the credibility of the climate community when the folks were stating a need to keep opposition papers out of the journals. It happens in most fields why should this be any different.

I wonder whether, a couple of decades ago, the AMA tried to keep publications from the Tobacco Institute out of its journals? I'm not saying that it's justified, but I can understand why they would want to do so. Like global warming, it was a case where maybe 5% of entries had some legitimacy and deserved to be published. The other 95%, it was transparently obvious to anybody in the field, were simply about rehashing old arguments that had long since been settled and trying to make the public believe that there was still legitimate debate going on on the main issues. I feel that scientific journals should be about the progression of science; not political spin. The real problem is determining which is which.

jklasdjf wrote:

dumb wrote:

in general, people with doctoral degrees in climatology, aerology, oceanography, hydrology, ecology, chemistry, statistics, applied mathematics and other related fields of study who work and publish in climate research

I have a master's in hydrology, and publish in climate research. Is it OK for me to be skeptical about the alleged impact of Carbon Dioxide, or do I have to defer to the PhD's who sell this snake oil.

It is OK for anyone to be skeptical. For the most part nobody is suggesting otherwise

What the intelligent posters here are suggesting is that the petition referenced in this thread's title is of very little significance.

Oh, and if you want to come across as a reasonable, unbiased skeptic you might want to drop the use of phrases like "the PhD's who sell this snake oil."

You obviously don't model very often. The larger the system you're trying to model, the more sources for error. No one can deny that. However, to say that models and simulations are inherently inaccurate is extremely ignorant. How do you think NASA operates? You think they just shoot billion dollar rockets into space and hope for the best? Of course not. They model and simulate with incredible accuracy. Accurate enough to put people on the moon and land equipment on other planets.

Bobby1 wrote:

Most idiots obviously responded without reading the article. Anyone who has worked with simulations and models, you have to be a so called climate scientist, knows how inherently inaccurate they are. Models are only somewhat accurate in predicting things that have already happened. Predicating outside the data points is unpredictable.

Is it okay for me to be skeptical of your research? I agree that water vapor - both from warming temperatures as well as from irrigation projects you describe - would correlate with warming temperatures. At the same time, there are many land use changes caused by humans that would lead to less water in the atmosphere and cooling temperatures. Take for example the destruction of most of the World's rain forests and the conversion of the land into farmland. Less biomass in these regions is leading to less water in the atmosphere and cropland has a higher albedo than rain forest and thus reflects more of the Sun's energy back into space.

Furthermore, you claim that the irrigation in the Plains has "an enormous impact of points East in North America". It's funny then that the Eastern portion of the U.S. has seen far less temperature change than many other parts of the World where there has been little to no man-made irrigation projects. As I said earlier, the greatest changes in climate have occurred at high latitudes in the Arctic regions. I understand that climate is not a closed system, but you would think that if water usage patterns were the main cause of global warming, global warming's effects would be felt most pronouncedly immediately downwind from these irrigation works.

Thirdly, injecting more water into the atmosphere is different than injecting CO2, as water vapor doesn't remain suspended for decades, but rains out quite quickly once the atmosphere becomes saturated and most of that water makes its way to the oceans rather quickly. Of course, as the Earth's temperature rises, the atmosphere's saturation rate will increase, leading to more water in the atmosphere and warmer temperatures but the presence of water alone is not enough. Look at Antarctica. There's more water there than any other continent on Earth and yet it has one of the driest climates on Earth. I should reiterate here that I do think that the irrigation you describe is a contributing factor, but it's a stretch to say that it's more important than the increase in the composition of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

And, yes, of course the climate is changing, always has been and always will. The question is to what extent human activities are impacting this change.

Understood. I only made that post to point out that in 1997 no one was talking about global warming, even with evidence that temperatures were increasing significantly at a large number of weather stations. If I had presented the same project 10 years later I would have a received a much different reaction. It's a trendy topic.

jklasdjf wrote:

I have a master's in hydrology

Me too. Good seeing another hydro guy on here. My PRs are much worse than yours though.

I've always believed that climate doesn't change... we just add more data to the pile.

jklasdjf wrote:

It is also my thought that of all the human impacts on climate-agricultural irrigation is the most significant.

Here's a short excerpt from the IPCC report on this topic:

Absolutely-be skeptical of me. I am not suggesting that irrigation in the midwest is causing global climate change-I am suggesting -as you are as well with rainforests-that land use change has a large impact. An impact that can be-and should be- measured differently than average temperature. While yes, water is a greenhouse gas-a more humid atmosphere has a lot more enthalpy-or heat carrying capacity that has an impact on the climate beyond the greenhouse gas influence. Desert air cools at night-humid air not so much. Take a ride to the Imperial Valley in California. The area that is heavily irrigated will be 95 degrees at midnight in August. The unirrigated desert 50 miles north will be 70 degrees. These transformations in atmospheric enthalpy would tend to have some impact on global atmospheric circulation-an impact that is very difficult to model.

The problem I have with placing the blame squarely on CO2 is that mitigating it will cost trillions-and at the end of the day, it has not been demonstrated that this mitigation will cause much difference. For a few hundred billion, we can provide a clean drinking water supply to every human on the planet. And in the time I have started typing this post, I imagine at least 15 or 20 people have died of cholera. How many people have died from the supposed 0.1 to 0.5 degree average global temperature change in the last century?

I'm actually working on my master's in hydrology. Would you care to link to any of your research?

jklasdjf wrote:

...The problem I have with placing the blame squarely on CO2 is that mitigating it will cost trillions-and at the end of the day, it has not been demonstrated that this mitigation will cause much difference. For a few hundred billion, we can provide a clean drinking water supply to every human on the planet. And in the time I have started typing this post, I imagine at least 15 or 20 people have died of cholera. How many people have died from the supposed 0.1 to 0.5 degree average global temperature change in the last century?

OK, so now I see significant common ground with you. By all means, it does make sense to try to understand what can and cannot be done about major environmental issues, at what cost, and with what probable impact.

pwned

jklasdjf wrote:

The problem I have with placing the blame squarely on CO2 is that mitigating it will cost trillions-and at the end of the day, it has not been demonstrated that this mitigation will cause much difference.

The cause of global warming and mitigation of it's effects are two separate issues. It's reasonable, in my mind at least, to acknowledge anthropogenic CO2 as a significant driver to climate change and to simultaneously consider mitigation plans other than reduced CO2 emissions. In my opinion, that's inevitably where we're going to wind up anyway.

Citizen Runner wrote:

The cause of global warming and mitigation of it's effects are two separate issues. It's reasonable, in my mind at least, to acknowledge anthropogenic CO2 as a significant driver to climate change and to simultaneously consider mitigation plans other than reduced CO2 emissions. In my opinion, that's inevitably where we're going to wind up anyway.

I absolutely agree that CO2 has an impact-and a significant impact. There are other equally significant impacts that are not getting enough attention. More importantly, the way the forcings interact and feedback with each other is not understood. The atmosphere is the one of the most chaotic, unknown and unknowable systems in nature. To say that the science is settled is ridiculous.

Global warming is a perfect political hobgoblin. It is difficult to measure, difficult to disprove, and if true-will have horrendous consequences. The best part is, it requires a self appointed messiah to solve it. Any solution provided by the messiah is similarly difficult to measure, difficult to disprove-and the consequences rarely turn out to be that horrendous. The right has similarly perfect political hobgoblins.

Just going to ignore me?

I agree with the majority of what you've said your last few posts. While there is no doubt that heavily irrigated land is warmer at night, it is also often cooler during the day, due to the Sun's rays being absorbed by the water (and released at night) and also due to greater cloud cover. I still agree with you that the irrigation has a positive warming effect, just maybe not as much as you're suggesting.

As far as putting the blame squarely on CO2 emissions, I think that it is more politicians who are doing this than actual climate scientists, as it's politically expedient to motivating much of the population to make changes to their lifestyles. A warmer planet isn't going to be catastrophic for everyone. Hell, I live in the Canadian prairies and am kind of looking forward to warmer Winters and a longer growing season, even if there is an increased risk of drought. It could be very problematic for countries like Bangladesh, due to rising sea levels. Drought and increasing desertification are also major concerns for many heavily populated regions of the World. Also, regardless of whether you even think that CO2 plays much of a role in climate change, with rising oil and gas prices, it makes economic sense to invest in higher efficiency and alternative energy sources. The initial investment in new technology may be expensive at first but, if it's implemented responsibly, it should pay for itself over time.

You don't have to sell me on the benefits of providing clean drinking water abroad. You would only need to divert a small percentage of the military's costs into clean drinking water initiatives and I bet you'd see a lot more goodwill towards Americans abroad, reducing the need for homeland security. War usually does the opposite.

I'd love to see a poll taken. How many climate change deniers and supporters have a degree in the sciences (i.e., biology, chemistry, environmental science, earth & atmostpheric science, etc.)?

My guess is that anyone who has taken, at the very least, an intro biology course in the past decade realizes the mountain of evidence for climate change and the mole hill of evidence against it. Also, since climate change has become a political issue thanks to lobbyist groups like the Koch brothers, I'd predict a reasonably-defined party-line split between supporters and deniers. It's really ridiculous, because political ideology is useless when put up against scientific inquiry. Science is fact; politics is opinion.

used to be cool wrote:

Hell, I live in the Canadian prairies and am kind of looking forward to warmer Winters and a longer growing season, even if there is an increased risk of drought. It could be very problematic for countries like Bangladesh, due to rising sea levels. Drought and increasing desertification are also major concerns for many heavily populated regions of the World.

This is an important point: there will be some big winners (e.g. northern temperate land masses like Canada) and a lot of big big losers (e.g. equatorial population centers like Subsaharan Africa, India, Southern China, Brazil) in climate change.