Has climate change slowed down?

[m4v]

Society is slowly evolving towards one where we care more about environmentalism and sustainability, but it's a slow process.

People is more aware about the environment but still they aren't more willing to reduce their energy footprint than global warming deniers, they will support Greenpeace, demand to government to fix this mess, and promptly turn on the AC when back at home.

[Hal]

People is more aware about the environment but still they aren't more willing to reduce their energy footprint than global warming deniers, they will support Greenpeace, demand to government to fix this mess, and promptly turn on the AC when back at home.

I don't really think this is the right way to approach climate change, while reducing power use is nice on a personal level to save money, you can't really expect everyone to do it to save the world. It would certainly be nice if, as a species, we could cut our power usage enough to stop any climate change, but since a large part of the world is coming into the electronic age (at risk of sounding like something from the 90s) and we'll need to use a lot more power in order to advance technologically, it's unrealistic.

That being said, this thread kind of got crazy off topic. Everyone except for maybe one or two people who have refused to be persuaded in the past agrees that climate change is happening, so continuing to pound on the dissidents is fun, but not particularly useful. The OP mentioned something pretty interesting, I was also confused when reading it earlier today. Does anybody who knows more about this topic have any ideas on what could be absorbing so much energy/heat?

[DragonShadow]

How are those claims still around on the internet? They were all debunked ages ago.

Believe what you want. My grandfather designed computer processors for the Voyager probes and when he was young, the media was in a panic about global warming. When he was older and raising my dad, the media was in a panic about global cooling. The Earth's weather is cyclical, and our CO2 output is miniscule next to natural sources like volcanoes. Ask an older individual who was paying attention and you'll get the same information.

[Albert VDS]

13 Misconceptions about global warming

[N_las]

Believe what you want. My grandfather designed computer processors for the Voyager probes and when he was young, the media was in a panic about global warming. When he was older and raising my dad, the media was in a panic about global cooling. The Earth's weather is cyclical, and our CO2 output is miniscule next to natural sources like volcanoes. Ask an older individual who was paying attention and you'll get the same information.

It is so funny. You sound like a broken record of the internet from five years ago. All the things you say are so cliché. Like a creationist, talking about the second law of thermodynamics. Or a 9/11-truther talking about freefall.

[Darnok]

It is so funny. You sound like a broken record of the internet from five years ago. All the things you say are so cliché. Like a creationist, talking about the second law of thermodynamics. Or a 9/11-truther talking about freefall.

Right because there is only one way to make science... you have to agree with mainstream media

Learn more about Earth history, make your own research, and don't disagree with other people without arguments... DragonShadow is right it is cyclical, you just have to start listen older people not only TV.

Logic? Where is it?

1) So because there were plant and animal species that adapted to a warmer Earth long ago (and these species are now extinct), and the Earth is now cooler, with a new, different set of species adapted to a cooler planet, then if the Earth turned warmer again, none of these new species would go extinct? /facepalm

2) No one seriously believes that global warming will make Earth uninhabitable by itself. Even in the worst-case warming scenario, Earth remains a relatively verdant cornucopia of plants and animals. It's just that a few species around now might not be in the picture then.

3) The above assumes that Earth life does not face additional negative effects from humans.

4) The above is not a valid assumption. Global warming's real cost comes to human civilization. It could create some very expensive problems (cities swamped and even entire countries that must be relocate due to rising sea levels, for example), and reduce our ability to produce the food necessary for our overpopulated species. That in turn could lead us to take some very negative environmental actions to sustain ourselves. Humanity's reaction to global warming is likely to be more damaging to Earth's life than global warming itself.

1. Yes, species we know today will extinct some day because climate will change and there is no way we can stop it, it is called evolution Sir!

2. Fully agree, that is why we have to start to adapt instead of trying to fight with forces we are unable to stop.

3. Of course we have impact on Earth, pollution and forests devastation is issue.

4. Sir in this statement you deny entire human evolution! Humans are all over Earth not because 16.000 years ago they were trying to stop melting ice...

look at imgur.com/SbDsKpb but because they moved and adapted.

I know it is huge loss for single human to have to move away and leave his home, but ice melting won't happen in single weekend.

It will take many years, so the sooner people realize that spending money on CO2 filters is WRONG and start to think about building towns in safer areas the better for us all.

As for food production, what today is field that can produce lots of food, could be under few meters of ice during ice age, and same thing is going to happen in future.

What today is just sand where only grass can grow, during climate change it can become great area for food production.

[78stonewobble]

Well, I think you can't say global warming / change doesn't exist, with a chart that shows global warming / change. *lol*

In any case I don't think we know the full story yet, there is or obviously have been a correlation between co2 concentrations and temperature in the past. How this is gonna affect the world is quite hard to predict. We won't know, if any of the prediction models are accurate, til after the fact, sooo ...

Still we know enough that we should be very weary of emitting that much co2 and other greenhouse gases. IMHO.

[magnemoe]

How are those claims still around on the internet? They were all debunked ages ago.

The arguments about global cooling was debunked years ago obviously enough, that it was a scare 50 years ago about a risk for a coming ice age is also well published. Remember reading about it then I was a kid in old magazines.

Yes this was probably mostly an media issue, some scientists come up with some scary news, media love bad news as it sells papers, the scientists got a lot of publicity.

issue died down then the next scare fad pops up, still its intetesting that it came up during decade where it got colder.

[Kulebron]

I have an easy test for alarmist climatologists: make a falsifiable forecast and let it be confirmed. Scientific process is: observe nature => make a theory if current theories don't explain the observations => check if theory is confirmed with more observations, or make a forecast and verify it. If a theory is so far correct, it will be confirmed. I'd like to see a comparison of alarms of 1990s/00s and current situation.

So far, I've been at a press conference of a climate-change climatologist, and all he could predict was "weather changes will be greater in magnitude". He denied global warming, because in many areas, in the last decade, climate was cooling (my area data). But the "bigger magnitude" is too vague to test, essentially a Russel's teapot: you can claim any big storm or any temperature extremity as a confirmation of this theory. (On Earth, there are thousands of microclimates, and if you watch carefully all of them, eventually you'll find extremities here and there.)

So, untill I see a confirmed forecast, like "average temperature at point X will be Y", for a reasonable number of points, I consider antropogenic climate change climatology a pseudoscience, like string theory or torsion fields.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Kulebron

[magnemoe]

As I understand it isn't that global warming has slowed down, just that there's something absorbing a lot of heat and scientist have no clue what it is. Once whatever that's taking the heat gets saturated we'll see temperatures climb at faster rate.

What should this be? something suddenly start soaking up a lot of heat, oceans absorb heat in weeks during seasons where you have 30 degree or more average temperature changes, 2-3 degree change would not affect this.

More probably solution who also fit well with data from the last 100 year is that you have decades long natural variations in climate, on top of this you have global warming and an natural temperature increase at least in the early part of 20 century from the end of the little ice age. The huge jump in temperature at the end of the 20 century was mostly an natural effect, we currently have an cooling effect overlaying global warming.

How large is the global warming faction? we don't know but it has to be less than the natural variation or you could not get cooling trends.

[Fingal]

our CO2 output is miniscule next to natural sources like volcanoes.

I just want to emphasise that this is massively incorrect:

http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/archive/2007/07_02_15.html

Gas studies at volcanoes worldwide have helped volcanologists tally up a global volcanic CO₂ budget in the same way that nations around the globe have cooperated to determine how much CO₂ is released by human activity through the burning of fossil fuels. Our studies show that globally, volcanoes on land and under the sea release a total of about 200 million tonnes of CO₂ annually.

This seems like a huge amount of CO₂, but a visit to the U.S. Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) website (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/) helps anyone armed with a handheld calculator and a high school chemistry text put the volcanic CO₂ tally into perspective. Because while 200 million tonnes of CO₂ is large, the global fossil fuel CO₂ emissions for 2003 tipped the scales at 26.8 billion tonnes. Thus, not only does volcanic CO₂ not dwarf that of human activity, it actually comprises less than 1 percent of that value.

[DeepOdyssey]

Global warming doesn't exists... look at last 400.000 years

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Vostok_Petit_data.svg

Less dust, more sun rays hitting the crust, more infrared produced in atmosphere. Aerosols and dust might be one of the deciding factors why we see warming currently. They are all time low as we can see on the chart. Forest fires on global scale are very rare in anthropological era.

[bonyetty]

Society is slowly evolving towards one where we care more about environmentalism and sustainability, but it's a slow process. If you don't believe me, then you have no idea with what reckless disregard people 100 years ago treated this planet with. The question is, will society evolve to the point where we are good stewards of the Earth before it's too late? Also, is society capable of evolving to the degree necessary? I think that it is, but I think the changes necessary might break forum rules about discussing religion. I guess to put it nicely, people need to start caring about Earth, life, and conservation the way they currently care about God.

Here here! It is difficult to rationalize with the irrational.

[CaptainKipard]

Believe what you want.

No. Scientifically and logically literate people do not start with a conclusion. At the very least they trust those who devote their lives to following the evidence wherever it leads them. At most they do their own research and face reality regardless of what they want to be true.

You know how sometimes people just think they're talking about you? It happens when they can't imagine anyone thinking in terms other than their own. So really all you did there was betray your own confirmation bias. You can be sure that scientists don't do that. They are trained not to do that, but equally importantly they have personality traits that prohibit them from doing that.

At the very least use some common sense. Who in their right mind would want a catastrophy to be true!

My grandfather designed computer processors for the Voyager probes and when he was young,

This has nothing to do with anything and I suspect you already know this. It's insulting to everyone for you to even bring this up, as if designing computer processors somehow gives your grandfather or you any credibility in this context. Who talks like that? What on earth were you thinking?

the media was in a panic about global warming. When he was older and raising my dad, the media was in a panic about global cooling.

"The media" is irrelevant. You realise that people in the media are very mediocre minds, right? You do realise that they don't know even enough to ask the right questions of those who do know something, right? For you to bring up this weird monolithic concept of "the media" is no better saying "My friend bob says the earth is flat". No one cares. Go to the source.

The Earth's weather is cyclical,

It's very difficult to argue with people who can't even use words properly, let alone trot out these ambiguous red herrings.

Please learn the difference between weather and climate.

and our CO2 output is miniscule next to natural sources like volcanoes.

Where are your sources? What do you mean by "miniscule". You can't just use vague terms like this without any context in a scientific discussion. You probably read this on a blog or something. Why do you let average and below-average people interpret scientific findings for you? Go to the source.

Ask an older individual who was paying attention and you'll get the same information.

LOL, no. I'd rather ask a scientist. You know? The people who don't profit from misinformation and actually care about what's true.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Cpt. Kipard

[Albert VDS]

I remember 25 years ago the ground would be frozen in the middle of November, now we are lucky if there is any frost in January/February.

[Sky_walker]

Something from the World Space Week 2014:

What is Earth's greatest threat?

My personal opinion is that in the short to medium term, it is ignorance on the part of humanity. In the longer term, extraterrestrial hazards such as asteroids prevail.

~ Weslie Joe Viddaurri

[AngelLestat]

OMG, to those that still denied global warming please look the video that Albert VDS is showing, it has all the data very well resume in 6 min.

The problem is that you are too lazy to research your own opinions and check if they are right. But you dont have any trouble to spend time defending that kind of crap.

That is the main reason why humanity is doom. People who don't question their own ideas because is more easy to choose a stream and follow it.

13 Misconceptions about global warming

Nice video, but omits the real consequences that this may have.

For example if temperature rise only 3 degress, the chain reaction of global warming became a lot harded to stop, because in that point the co2 would be only a tiny effect in the big picture. A lot of extra sunlight would be absorb instead reflected, a lot of methane would be released to the atmosphere, more water vapour and many others effects would make all this harded to stop it.

The local weather would change in many places, so this mean a good area for cultivation may cease to be, this mean that a city can not sustain by it self, people needs to be relocated, also infrastructure, this mean extra money would be needed in a world where it can not feed their current grow in popullation.

[lajoswinkler]

I can not believe anyone on a KSP forum who visits "The Science Labs" has so little brain matter in the skull that leads him to claim the measured phenomenon doesn't exist.

It's almost equal to evolution deniers.

Today we've got not only a measured thing, but also a total consensus that we're the ones to blame for the situation. Saying the phenomenon doesn't exist is ridiculous.

[Kulebron]

I can not believe anyone on a KSP forum who visits "The Science Labs" has so little brain matter in the skull that leads him to claim the measured phenomenon doesn't exist.

It's almost equal to evolution deniers.

When you're applying emotions to a rational question, it's harmful. This leads you to oversimplifying the questions and counterarguments. Nobody argues that climate got warmer over last 300 years. Nobody argues that burning fossil fuels is a temporary solution and non-renewable.

Questions that sceptics make are too subtle and scientific for wide public to even understand.

Question 1: can climatologist predict anything so that their knowledge and theories be scientific? Any proof? What are climatologists' proven measurable forecasts?

Question 2: proof of correlation and causation of warming in any model tests? We do see the warming, which coincides with human industrial age. But what was Middle age warm period caused by then?

Let's leave apart the whole question of research and review methodology and paid research.

Instead of answers, I see attempts to oversimplify things like yours, or "do you want Amsterdam to submerge?!" and narrowing the field: "look it's warming last 200 years!" "don't you acknowledge our hockey stick?" while the true questions are hidden, like why medieval climate was so warm.

[Sky_walker]

That's a very much fault of the events in US where what should be scientific debate became nearly purely political debate and a matter of "faith" - discussed in terms of "I believe" or "I don't believe".

Consequences of the events there are now putting stress not only on global awareness of the environment, but also on popular trust to the scientists or heck: even value people put in logic and reason as plenty of the misinformation from the US climate change argument radiates to other disciplines all across the globe (sad disadvantage of globalization)

[Darnok]

I can not believe anyone on a KSP forum who visits "The Science Labs" has so little brain matter in the skull that leads him to claim the measured phenomenon doesn't exist.

It's almost equal to evolution deniers.

Today we've got not only a measured thing, but also a total consensus that we're the ones to blame for the situation. Saying the phenomenon doesn't exist is ridiculous.

Insulting people is best way to show you got big brain and agruments

Doesn't exist and it is not caused by human activity are two different things.

I have posted image that is showing Europe from ~16.000 years ago and look how much lower was ocean level back then.

After all ice from poles is melted oceans are going to rise a bit more than we can see today, but does that means we have to spend bilions $ to stop it?

Of course not, because it is huge waste of money.

We should spend that money to build new towns far from oceans, find new areas for fields and most of all research better enegry sources.

Instead of adaptation global bs movement suggests that spending money will help... it is like hundreds of years ago when people thought that making sacrifices from other humans or animals is going to help them and bring rain or sun, by and pleasing gods or spirits.

You are trying to fight with melting ice, but that ice on pole is anomaly, because for most of the Earth's life there was no ice on poles, so you can stop it.

No civilization from level 0 (zero), that it's main power source are fossil fuels, is able to terraform entire planet. For now it is simple we must adapt or we will die!

Western countries shouldn't make stupid regulations and punishments that are only slowing down poor countries, humanity should burn as much oil and coal as it can to push research of new energy sources faster. Any regulations are only slowing down that process.

[Creature]

That's a very much fault of the events in US where what should be scientific debate became nearly purely political debate and a matter of "faith" - discussed in terms of "I believe" or "I don't believe".

You know, scientists are like fairies. Every time someone says "I don't believe in science!" somewhere a scientist drops dead.

[magnemoe]

I can not believe anyone on a KSP forum who visits "The Science Labs" has so little brain matter in the skull that leads him to claim the measured phenomenon doesn't exist.

It's almost equal to evolution deniers.

Today we've got not only a measured thing, but also a total consensus that we're the ones to blame for the situation. Saying the phenomenon doesn't exist is ridiculous.

No its no question that global warming is an real effect, neither that the co2 levels has increased.

On the other hand the models and predictions is pretty much junk, high chance that the favored models uses the rapid temperature increase 1980-2000 as baseline, kind of the opposite of no temprature increase in 15 year so its no global warming. Most outside of IPCC will not change their predictions as it would be bad business.

An its no consensus, if you look at various predictions for 2050 the span is so large that we could just as well get cooling

[Sky_walker]

Every reputable prediction I seen excludes probability of cooling in a long-term perspective.

[Kulebron]

Why look at 2050 and wait? We can just raise the documents from 1990s and check their predictions for today.