The Global Warming Discussion Thread

True. Droughts & flooding happen around here.

This last drought has been pretty extreme, though. According to this describing the current event "as the most severe drought in the last 1200 years";  and this stating "the recent California drought is of unprecedented severity, especially given the relatively modest duration of the drought."

Then there's this : "Quantile mapping allows for a closer correspondence between instrumental and tree ring PDSI probability distributions and produces return periods of 700–900 years for the 1 year 2014 drought. Associated cumulative 3 and 4 year droughts, however, are estimated to be much more severe. The 2012–2014 drought is nearly a 10,000 year event, while the 2012–2015 drought has an almost incalculable return period and is completely without precedent."

I'd call that pretty extreme.  

These people scientists use a variety of paleoclimatology research techniques like tree-ring width records across the Northern Hemisphere.

From the USGS Paleoclimate Research page "Past climates are reconstructed from a variety of geologic and biologic archives that preserve climate proxies, or evidence of past climate and environment. Examples of archives include terrestrial or aquatic sediments, ice cores from glaciers and ice sheets, tree rings, corals, and packrat middens. These archives contain climate proxies, which are physical, chemical, or biological features that provide information on past climate and environment (such as sea level, air and ocean temperature, atmospheric composition, and precipitation)."


The scientist are the first ones to admit the difficulty. "It is difficult to separate human and natural influences on climate." 

My experience with scientists has revealed that you're more likely to find public nudity among a gathering of scientists than pride and arrogance.  They're the first to say, "There's probably someone in this room who knows more about this than me..."  and "I could be wrong, but the latest research shows... ."

C'mon, RMA - you said "this is nothing extreme, we had droughts before" and I countered "yeah, but the research shows this one was extreme."  I gave scientific papers as a source backing my statement.  You come back with a "theories" rebuttal.

You do know that the word "theory" means something very different in lay language than it does in science, right? "A scientific theory is an explanation of some aspect of the natural world that has been substantiated through repeated experiments or testing. But to the average Jane or Joe, a theory is just an idea that lives in someone's head, rather than an explanation rooted in experiment and testing."  (from Scientific American) 

It constantly amazes me how many folks use their computers to disparage science; computers that are based on electronic theory .  

Besides, when it comes to climate science, I'd rather trust folks like this:

www2.usgs.gov/climate_landuse/clu_rd/paleoclimate/images/chesapeakebay.jpg

Than this:


'Cause, ya know, Teddy and Trumpy know so much more than NASA, USGS, the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, etc. ,etc. etc.

So there!  

One more point: these two paragraphs of yours are statements of faith. It is what you believe ABOUT scientists.

They are not statements of fact.

Already, your argument has articles of faith seeping in.

Just thought I'd point that out.

I am a skeptic, and I am a skeptic of everyone. I trust no human, nor should anyone. While I give more weight to people who have put in the effort...as I have said elsewhere in the past day...I do not automatically believe them just because they may have "Dr." in front of their name.

1) I never mentioned consensus.  I just pointed out some Institutions.
2) Faith is belief without proof.  There is plenty of proof in the BASIC climate science, as opposed to the APPLIED science.  There is a distinction between applied and basic science, as I'm sure you know.

If you want to conflate scientific findings with faith, I don't know what to say.


You can start with Joseph Fourier in 1827 "Remarques Générales Sur Les Températures Du Globe Terrestre Et Des Espaces Planétaires" Scientific American
Eunice Newton Foote "On the Heat and Sun's Rays"  in 1856  and from Smithsonian
John Tyndall's 1872 Contributions to Molecular Physics in the Domain of Radiant Heat: A Series of Memoirs
Svante Arrhenius' 1896 "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air Upon the Temperature of the Ground"

Wilmot H. Bradley in 1920 discovered how lake beds could show climate cycles
In 1937 A. E. Douglass established the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona.
Cesare Emiliani founded paleoclimatology and paleoceanography in the mid 1960's.

This science is old. Challenged time after time, and proven again and again.
This is not something invented by modern liberals or some invented  political agenda against capitalism or big business or conservative interests.  It began in 1827, for God's sake.

In 1938 Guy Stewart Callendar discovered that global warming could be brought about by increases in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide due to human activities, primarily through burning fossil fuels.The Callendar Effect

Then in 1955 there's Hans Seuss' Carbon-14 isotope analysis showing that CO2 released from fossil fuels was not immediately absorbed by the ocean. Carbon Dioxide Exchange Between Atmosphere and Ocean and the Question of an Increase of Atmospheric CO2 during the Past Decades

Charles David Keeling's Keeling Curve (1960) from Scripps Institution of Oceanography-Mauna Loa Observatory

Syukuro Manabe and Richard Wetherald's Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere with a Given Distribution of Relative Humidity(1967) and On the Distribution of Climate Change Resulting from an Increase in CO2 Content in the Atmosphere (1979)

John Sawyer published the study Man-made Carbon Dioxide and the “Greenhouse” Effect in 1972.

I search and search for scientific research and findings that disprove basic climate science.
Other than blogs and manufactured uncertainty foisted by groups like the CATO Institute or the Heritage Foundation (that confuse and conflate the basic science with the advanced, predictive applied science), I can find no verified, peer-reviewed, agenda and disparagement -free sources that accomplish this.

Check out the papers I linked.  Look for terms like "denier", "liberal", "conservative", "alarmist", etc.  There are none.  That is a good sign.
And I don't see where Fourier, Foote, Tyndall or Arrhenius could have some sort of agenda against "big oil" (since big oil didn't exist then) or an agenda or bias for some sort of "wealth redistribution" given the era in which they did their research and made their discoveries. These are the findings and discoveries that are the basis of climate science.
They didn't tailor their findings around a belief or bias; they did pure research and published their findings. 

If you can find proof of some sort of bias, or agenda, or belief on behalf of these scientists, I would be interested to know. Sincerely. I am more than willing to change my mind, or be wrong.
In fact, for the sake of future generations, I hope I am.

My feelings about climate change really come down to this. It doesn't matter whether I believe in it or not. I'm concerned about what happens if we ignore what's going on and do nothing and that results in a worsening of the condition. That scares me and it doesn't scare me for myself. It scares me because my daughter will have to live in the world that's coming. 

One more thing...

I don't care, on a practical level (I do care on a philosophical level, which is a different issue, but I digress), what other people believe. I am not responsible for what others believe.

However...when those beliefs affect public policy, then we start to have problems.