Re: Global warming meltdown

Matthew Winn wrote:

Matthew, I want to marry you. Any chance of your getting a sex-change?

On 21 Jun 2006 11:24:19 -0700, Sweevil <stephenoles@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
That's a magnificent tap dance, Matthew, but I'm still suspicious of
any theory that claims to be able to account for any and all data,
no matter what they may be. Some areas are cooling? Well, of
COURSE that's a result of global warming as well.

You talk about it as if the prediction of cooling was a "yeah, that
too" addition. It wasn't.

One of the essential elements of science -- one of the things that
makes it science instead of new-age mumbo jumbo -- is that science is
_predictive_. It makes claims that can be tested. When advocates of
global warming say that the cooling of some parts of the planet can be
accounted for they're not bluffing. They're stating that this is an
effect that had already been predicted.

(Incidentally there is no evidence that "increased temperature means
there is more energy driving weather systems" world-wide.

This isn't something that's open to question. The energy is there.
It doesn't just vanish into nothingness because it's politically
convenient for it to do so. We _know_ increased energy results in
more turbulent weather for the same reason we know that heating a
pan of water will result in more violent convection. If the energy
trapped by the atmosphere doesn't lead to more energy in the weather
then where does it go? Critics of global warming appear to ignore
this, as if the extra energy can be swept under some environmental
carpet. Sorry, but that's not science.

The atmosphere of Venus is 97% CO2 and the planet's much closer to
the sun, so it's hardly a reliable guide to what may be happening
to the earth.

Ignoring atmospheric effects and considering only insolation, the
average surface temperature of Venus should be around 53K higher
than Earth's. It's actually around 440K higher, a difference almost
entirely due to the greenhouse effect.

A planet where rain consists of sulphuric acid is not a very
good analogue to our own.

It's good enough when discussing the effect of the transparency of the
atmosphere on surface temperatures. We're talking about greenhouse
gases, not whether Venus would make a good holiday destination.

"Come to Venus, the planet with atmosphere!"

We certainly need to keep track of whatever warming may be occuring,
but I remain unconvinced that we know exactly why it is, or where it
may be heading. The catastrophic theories of today strike me as no
more plausible than the New Ice Age warnings of the 1970s. Chicken
Little hysteria sells newspapers and magazines, but I think even if
everything you believe is true, a small warming of the earth would
bring benefits to many areas too cold now for sustaining
agriculture.

That's the naïve view of global warming. You speak as if we can
expect a gentle warming of the environment. That's not what the
predicted effects will be, and it completely ignores the fact that
many ecosystems are vulnerable to even small changes in temperature.
It doesn't take much in the way of cooling to make a growing season
too short for crops to reach a harvestable maturity. It doesn't take
much in the way of increased or decreased rainfall to kill the crops
completely. It doesn't take much in the way of increased temperature
to allow a whole new range of pests to invade an environment that
lacks the natural cycle of predation to deal with it.

But somehow, critics of global warming assure us, it'll all work out
for the best anyway.

Ever notice how the scientists who speak out about global warming
never seem to be climatologists? Stephen Hawking is the latest (in
the same interview where he confesses he his attraction to Chinese
gals). Hawking has expertise in his own field, but his field has
nothing to do with climate.

But a scientific approach does give you the intellectual background
to weigh the evidence and judge the reliability of the arguments.
I've never made an intensive study of climatology but I do know about
the properties of carbon dioxide and the physics of energy transfer,
and I know that when it comes to predicting the effects of increased
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that advocates of global warming have
an approach that is a whole lot more scientific than that used by the
critics.



--
Mark Cipra
"I peel back those magnetic ribbons on people's cars that say 'God
bless America' and snip out the blank space and the 'b'. Probably this
is wrong of me."
Play Indiana Jones! Hide the "ark" in my address to reply by email.


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