Google Earth: how much has global warming raised temperatures near you?

[FiftyTwo]

My degrees are in electrical engineering and physics. They are not in climate science (and neither are yours), making us both equally qualified (or unqualified, if you like) to speak as a primary source on climate science. If a postgrad degree were all that is needed to be an authority on climate science, then anyone with a PhD in dentistry, criminology or graphic design would be qualified. Luckily for climate science, that is not the case.

Until a few years ago, there weren't any degrees in Climate Science.

Then the polys introduced them as a joke degree for losers (a bit like social science).

Have a look back through your cited experts and tell me one with a degree in Climate Science?

[attrayant]

No thanks, sparky. I'm not going to do your homework for you. If you've got a problem with my cites, bring them to the table and I will respond. Don't ask me to go re-qualifying all my sources.

[RickBradford]

Not knowing much about Hansen (aside from knowing what he's well-known for)

Hansen is very well-known for a number of things.

To begin with, he was the guy who started the whole "climate skeptics=Holocaust deniers=Nazis" ball rolling. Not my words, but his:

"The predominant moral issue of the 21st century, almost surely, will be climate change, comparable to Nazism ... "

Warming to his theme, he then advocated show trials for the highest-ranking offenders:

"CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual ... [they] should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature."

He then teamed up with Al Gore to produce the measured debating stance: "Clouds of a different sort signal an environmental holocaust without precedent. Once again, world leaders waffle, hoping the danger will dissipate. Yet today the evidence is as clear as the sounds of glass shattering in Berlin [Kristallnacht (1938) - Ed.]."

Many rants later, some of his scientific colleagues tried to restrain him:

"My dear colleague [NASA’s James] Hansen, I believe, has finally gone off the deep end... The global warming ‘time bomb,’ ‘disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity's control.’ These are the words of an apocalyptic prophet, not a rational scientist." -- Dr. Nicholas Drapela, Oregon State University.

Hansen is a hero and standard-bearer to many people -- for example, he legitimized legions of dim-bulb nitwits to feel good by throwing around terms like "deniers" to cover their lack of knowledge.

But not, perhaps, someone to rely on as a source for rational debate.

[boomerangutang]

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More down to earth: If deniers choose to deny that all but a few glaciers worldwide are losing bulk (and not regaining it) - they can continue to view such data with eyes crinkled shut. Yet the data is there for all to see. Glaciers are receding and lessening in mass. It's not a magician's trick, it's real. Last time I checked, ice melts when temps increase.

If you've got a better explanation, let us know.

OK, here you go, Glaciers are receding = part of the natural cycle, nothing to do with man.

Sometimes the world is covered in ice, sometimes there is none at all.

But you're supposed to stand elbow to elbow with your fellow deniers and state there's no warming trend. Are you slipping in your stance?

[3NUMBAS]

1 solid fact is that the jet stream has moved more north from its usual position over the UK and the atlantic ,it may be just some phenomenon that will correct itself or something more ominous but we wont know whats going on for a few more years yet.

what caused the jet stream to move is not clear yet.

very strange and uncold winter in the UK though, very wet too

[canuckamuck]

Here's an interesting article from a guy who became skeptical by working alarmist projections in reverse. He certainly seems to prove that positive climate feed backs are a fairy tale. And without them, no catastrophe. Oops.

Oh look, an article from Warren Meyer, the same person who owns the Coyote Blog. What is Meyer's background that gives him authority to speak on behalf of climate data?

I run a large small business...

My company runs parks and campgrounds...

I have been an entrepreneur in Phoenix, Arizona for ten years...

I worked from other people in companies as large as Exxon and as small as 3-person Internet startups.

I have an MBA from the Harvard Business School...

...and a mechanical engineering degree from Princeton University.

So... nothing.

I guess nothing wrong with the article so you had to attack the writer. You say he has no credentials yet he writes about climate change for Forbes, Graduated both Harvard and Princeton, and has a mechanical engineering degree, which is sufficient to be able to graph some data points, like any high schooler should be able to do.

And he gives you all the methodology he used right there in the article so you can do the math yourself and be his peer reviewer if you like.

When in doubt adhominem at will - It's the right thing to do.

[Donnie Brasco]

Really

Arguing with a warmist about science is like suggesting to a creationist that Adam and Eve probably didn't ride to church every Sunday on the back of a dinosaur. (*sigh*)

I'm afraid that actual use of the actual scientific method is not on with these people.

There is SO much nonsense spewed in the name of science these days and so much fear-mongering is promoted with this jive that one really must ask oneself "Why?"

Science has been corrupted by politics.

In the case of Warmism, Geophysics a science that has been around as a discipline since just after WW II has been eclipsed by state-sponsored junk science.

Stalin did corrupted science to support ideology. Lamarkism supported ideology in that case. And although there were shreds of credibility in Lamark's theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, broadly speaking, the theory was only demonstrable and repeatable at very basic level.

The models and extrapolations from those models were corrupted by Stalin's political agenda.

There is a certain level of irony in play for me here on this board.

I am politically active in several forums and I strongly support several groups regarding topics banned from this board.

This principally an expat board serving and informing people living in Thailand or who have dreamed about doing so.

Discussion of the truth about most things is (unfortunately for one reason or another) irrelevant to the board's purpose.

Some opinions, principally those opinions which contradict the received wisdom imposed and accepted by the common herd are not entertained in forums like this one.

As I have said, Warmism is a religion supported by junk science and many people just accept it for various reasons.

The entire field of belief is crowded with similar unclear thinking.

Skeptics revisionists and those opposing any widely held belief system are not appreciated.

Heretics are not appreciated.

Regarding several tenets of received wisdom, the belief systems and groupthink they support and the behaviour they foster, I remain a heretic.

In the current geopolitical environment heresy brings peace of mind.

"Sometimes, 'fuggedabowdit' just means fuggedabowdit."

Edited March 9, 2014 by Donnie Brasco

[Scott]

Off-topic and inflammatory posts have been deleted.

[RickBradford]

More dramatic evidence of global warming from the NOAA (yes, Hansen's old regiment) where in the year to date, the network of weather stations have recorded 2561 record high temperatures!

They have also recorded 5536 record low temperatures during the same period, more than twice as many.

The US is trending colder than it was -- it must be global warming. Again. Man-made, of course, and catastrophic.

[NumbNut]

More dramatic evidence of global warming from the NOAA (yes, Hansen's old regiment) where in the year to date, the network of weather stations have recorded 2561 record high temperatures!

They have also recorded 5536 record low temperatures during the same period, more than twice as many.

The US is trending colder than it was -- it must be global warming. Again. Man-made, of course, and catastrophic.

Trending colder? Maybe the east coast of the US, not my home country

Source

[RickBradford]

Trending colder? Maybe the east coast of the US, not my home country.

Precisely. So the US is cold, Australia was hot, the UK has been wet, California has been dry, Bangkok had its coldest winter in 30 years, Moscow was both warm and wet in October, Tokyo has just seen record snowfall, Garmisch-Partenkirchen was rather short of snow this winter.

In fact, the sort of stuff that goes on somewhere round the world all the time.

And yet, the Alarmists wish to spin all of these events as out-of-control man-made global warming, and find ready support for their activism in the dim-bulb ranks of the environmental journalists of the legacy media.

[canuckamuck]

One season does not suggest a trend. And a trend still doesn't connect human produced CO2 to warming. The climate would be warming or cooling with or without us.

[RickBradford]

It is clearly Alarmist, as I wrote, to try and propose a link between all notable global weather events -- whether hot, cold, wet, or dry -- and 'global warming' because there is no evidence for such a link, as the IPCC has explicitly stated in its SREX report.

It is clearly Alarmist to press for "urgent and deep reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases" when it has been repeatedly shown that this is a futile, damaging and prohibitively expensive path to follow. And there isn't the slightest evidence that more carbon dioxide has caused more extreme weather.

It is clearly Alarmist, as well as stupid, to wail about how "our children and grandchildren will be having a great deal more difficulty dealing with it in decades to come" when we have no idea what climatic conditions will be like in the future or what economic and technical abilities will be available in the future.

[Tywais]

A post with no link to source and in violation of copyright/fair use has been removed.

[NumbNut]

A post with no link to source and in violation of copyright/fair use has been removed.

Apologies Tywais, here's the source to that earlier article I posted from the ABC news:-

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-10/climate-council-reports-record-breaking-summer/5309060

This report has come from the Climate Council, a crowd-funded body re-established after the new federal government in Australia abolished it.

Here's a link to their About page:-

http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/about-us

And here's a link to their FAQ page:-

http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/faqs

Edited March 10, 2014 by NumbNut

[NumbNut]

One season does not suggest a trend. And a trend still doesn't connect human produced CO2 to warming. The climate would be warming or cooling with or without us.

Only one season? Nope:-

Source

[NumbNut]

It is clearly Alarmist, as I wrote, to try and propose a link between all notable global weather events -- whether hot, cold, wet, or dry -- and 'global warming' because there is no evidence for such a link, as the IPCC has explicitly stated in its SREX report.

It is clearly Alarmist to press for "urgent and deep reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases" when it has been repeatedly shown that this is a futile, damaging and prohibitively expensive path to follow. And there isn't the slightest evidence that more carbon dioxide has caused more extreme weather.

It is clearly Alarmist, as well as stupid, to wail about how "our children and grandchildren will be having a great deal more difficulty dealing with it in decades to come" when we have no idea what climatic conditions will be like in the future or what economic and technical abilities will be available in the future.

Clearly alarmist? These are the recorded facts mate, this is what happened last summer across Australia. Nothing is going to change that, no matter how much you whinge. I admit their projections are another matter, but it's interesting how you cling to them to dismiss the whole report.

As to carbon dioxide, these blokes have got something to say about that:-

http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-co2-enhanced-greenhouse-effect.htm

It is clearly denialist, as well as dopey, to bury your head in the sand when evidence is there that changes are happening.

[Scott]

An inflammatory post has been deleted.

[RickBradford]

These are the recorded facts mate, this is what happened last summer across Australia.

You continue to miss the point by a country mile.

The point is not whether it was very hot in Australia last summer or very cold in the US last winter, or very wet in the UK or very dry in California.

The point is the tiresomely repetitive efforts of Alarmists to link these events to catastrophic man-made climate change. Such a link is rejected by the IPCC, the UK Met Office and many others in the business.

Fortunately for the Alarmists, most MSM journalists have the scientific discrimination of a blob of ice-cream and the attention span of a mayfly, so the Alarmists can continue to dish out this nonsense uncontested and almost continuously.

The death knell of the Great Barrier Reef has been sounded a dozen times, yet it continues to prosper. The media continue to faithfully report every new coral disaster, without bothering to check the facts. They are so clueless that they haven't even spotted that all the alarms have been proved wrong, and even worse, that almost all the alarms have come from the same individual.

[attrayant]

...in the year to date, the network of weather stations have recorded 2561 record high temperatures!

Yes but one of them's in a parking lot, so all that data is rubbish.

[NumbNut]

These are the recorded facts mate, this is what happened last summer across Australia.

You continue to miss the point by a country mile.

The point is not whether it was very hot in Australia last summer or very cold in the US last winter, or very wet in the UK or very dry in California.

The point is the tiresomely repetitive efforts of Alarmists to link these events to catastrophic man-made climate change. Such a link is rejected by the IPCC, the UK Met Office and many others in the business.

Fortunately for the Alarmists, most MSM journalists have the scientific discrimination of a blob of ice-cream and the attention span of a mayfly, so the Alarmists can continue to dish out this nonsense uncontested and almost continuously.

The death knell of the Great Barrier Reef has been sounded a dozen times, yet it continues to prosper. The media continue to faithfully report every new coral disaster, without bothering to check the facts. They are so clueless that they haven't even spotted that all the alarms have been proved wrong, and even worse, that almost all the alarms have come from the same individual.

Forget about the MSM, they're a joke in Oz (unless you prefer your News Limited that is). Anyways, here's a link from the Aussie government for you:-

http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/outlook-for-the-reef/climate-change/how-climate-change-can-affect-the-reef

Have a read, climate change is definitely affecting the reef. To suggest otherwise shows your ignorance.

[RickBradford]

Without reading that report, I'l bet that the notorious Ove Hoegh-Guldberg is one of the main authors. The man has considerable previous.

1998: Hoegh-Guldberg warns the reef is under pressure from global warming, and much has been bleached white. (Wrong. OHG admitted later that the reef made a “surprising” recovery.)

1999: OHG claims warming will so heat the oceans that mass bleaching of the reef would occur every second year from 2010. (Wrong again. The reef’s last mass bleaching occurred in 2006.)

2000: OHG claims “we now have more evidence that corals cannot fully recover from bleaching episodes such as the major event in 1998” and “the overall damage is irreparable”. (Wrong yet again. In 2009 he said he was “overjoyed” to see how much the reef had recovered; the Australian Institute of Marine Science says “most reefs recovered fully” from the 1998 bleaching.)

2006: OHG warned high temperatures meant “between 30 and 40 per cent of coral on Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef could die within a month”. (Wrong once more. He later admitted this bleaching had “a minimal impact” and his team was “genuinely surprised/relieved about how quickly some of these coral colonies had recovered”.)

2007: OHG warns that temperature changes were again bleaching the reef. (Nope, wrong again, the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network the next year reported no net decline in coral cover over the previous four years. JCU researcher Professor Peter Ridd says the reef is in “bloody brilliant shape”)

So when OHG comes out recently with: “The Great Barrier Reef will be irreversibly damaged by climate change in just 16 years...", you would expect any intelligent person to be somewhat skeptical about his claims.

But when OHG comes out shouting: “Repent! For the end of the reef is nigh!”, the journalists trail behind, questioning nothing, repeating everything.

In such ways are global warming myths propagated.

EDIT: I had to check -- OHG is one of the authors. I win my bet.

Edited March 10, 2014 by RickBradford

[NumbNut]

Without reading that report, I'l bet that the notorious Ove Hoegh-Guldberg is one of the main authors. The man has considerable previous.

1998: Hoegh-Guldberg warns the reef is under pressure from global warming, and much has been bleached white. (Wrong. OHG admitted later that the reef made a “surprising” recovery.)

1999: OHG claims warming will so heat the oceans that mass bleaching of the reef would occur every second year from 2010. (Wrong again. The reef’s last mass bleaching occurred in 2006.)

2000: OHG claims “we now have more evidence that corals cannot fully recover from bleaching episodes such as the major event in 1998” and “the overall damage is irreparable”. (Wrong yet again. In 2009 he said he was “overjoyed” to see how much the reef had recovered; the Australian Institute of Marine Science says “most reefs recovered fully” from the 1998 bleaching.)

2006: OHG warned high temperatures meant “between 30 and 40 per cent of coral on Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef could die within a month”. (Wrong once more. He later admitted this bleaching had “a minimal impact” and his team was “genuinely surprised/relieved about how quickly some of these coral colonies had recovered”.)

2007: OHG warns that temperature changes were again bleaching the reef. (Nope, wrong again, the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network the next year reported no net decline in coral cover over the previous four years. JCU researcher Professor Peter Ridd says the reef is in “bloody brilliant shape”)

So when OHG comes out recently with: “The Great Barrier Reef will be irreversibly damaged by climate change in just 16 years...", you would expect any intelligent person to be somewhat skeptical about his claims.

But when OHG comes out shouting: “Repent! For the end of the reef is nigh!”, the journalists trail behind, questioning nothing, repeating everything.

In such ways are global warming myths propagated.

EDIT: I had to check -- OHG is one of the authors. I win my bet.

What are you talking about... that link I posted was to five separate studies under the general heading 'How Climate Change Is Effecting The Reef', on the Australian Government's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority's web page.

There are five studies in all;

The Great Barrier Reef Vulnerability Assessment,

Extreme Weather,

Impacts of Ocean Acidification on the Reef,

Impacts of Rising Sea Temperatures on the Reef, and lastly

Impacts of Sea Level Rise on the Reef.

Little bit of reading for you there.

[Gulfsailor]

Is this thread about GLOBAL warming / climate change, or AUSTRALIAN warming / climate change?

[Donnie Brasco]

Well yeah, that too.

Hell, THEY don't give a fiddler's fork now do they ;-?

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[NumbNut]

Is this thread about GLOBAL warming / climate change, or AUSTRALIAN warming / climate change?

We're part of the world are we not?

We're also a part of the world were the last seven years out of ten have been the hottest since records began. That is not addressing the subject of this thread?

A part of the world were climate change is happening before our eyes. This is not an abstract anymore, it's real.

To argue otherwise is to ignore the facts that are freely available in the public domain.

[RickBradford]

So, delving into the first Reef report, we find this straight off the bat:

"Global climate change is a virtual sword of Damocles hanging over the very heart of the Great Barrier Reef."

".. we must work together to find solutions. For without solutions .. all life is in peril."

Overblown, emotive, self-serving and inaccurate hype, the hallmark of the outraged Left/Green activist. What chance is there that the report will be balanced after a mission statement like that?

Meanwhile, back in the world of science, there is increasing support for the idea that solar minima (such as the one the planet is experiencing now) do indeed lead to colder conditions across large areas of the globe.

The American Geophysical Union has been saying this for a while, and another recent study adds to that:

".. ocean-atmospheric response to solar output minima may help explain the notoriously severe winters experienced across Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries, .. leading to extensive crop failures and famine as corroborated in the record of wheat prices during these periods. t blocks the warm westerly winds ... allowing cold Arctic air to flow south bringing harsh winters to Europe, such as those recently experienced in 2010 and 2013."

The idea that the Sun can affect global climate has previously been taboo in polite climate circles, but has proven impossible to ignore.

[NumbNut]

Well yeah, that too.

Hell, THEY don't give a fiddler's fork now do they ;-?

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Sorry to disappoint you Donnie, but thinking Australians DO give a fiddler's fork.

That report I linked to earlier was generated by the Climate Council of Australia, a formerly government funded body that was forced to shut it doors after the present conservative government won office and stopped its funding.

In the most successful crowd sourcing campaign to date in Australia, they've been able to open their doors again. Here's a link to their About page:-

About After thousands of Australian's chipped in to Australia's biggest crowd-funding campaign, the abolished Climate Commission has relaunched as the new, independent Climate Council.

We exist to provide independent, authoritative climate change information to the Australian public. Why? Because our response to climate change should be based on the best science available.

We're a fast growing group of people made up of expert Councillors, staff, volunteers and supporters. Together we are doing everything we can to spread independent and accurate information on climate change.

More info? See our FAQ's

Source

[NumbNut]

Blah blah blah blah blah blah

Meanwhile, back in the world of science, there is increasing support for the idea that solar minima (such as the one the planet is experiencing now) do indeed lead to colder conditions across large areas of the globe.

The American Geophysical Union has been saying this for a while, and another recent study adds to that:

".. ocean-atmospheric response to solar output minima may help explain the notoriously severe winters experienced across Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries, .. leading to extensive crop failures and famine as corroborated in the record of wheat prices during these periods. t blocks the warm westerly winds ... allowing cold Arctic air to flow south bringing harsh winters to Europe, such as those recently experienced in 2010 and 2013."

The idea that the Sun can affect global climate has previously been taboo in polite climate circles, but has proven impossible to ignore.

So tell me Rick... why have the last seven years out of ten been the hottest years in Oz since records began? Please, enlighten me!

[RickBradford]

So tell me Rick... why have the last seven years out of ten been the hottest years in Oz since records began? Please, enlighten me!

That's a task I wouldn't wish on the Lord Buddha himself, but here's something to think about.

The entire planet has been exiting the Little Ice Age for the past 160 or so years and been getting gently warmer all along since then* (a total of about 0.8C during that time).

If you drew a graph of this from 1850 on the left to 2010 on the right, you would see a line gradually sloping up from left to right. Now, whereabouts on that graph would you expect to find the highest temperatures? At the right-hand side, i.e very recently? Correct.

Which is why the statement that "the last 10 years have been the hottest, that implies man-made climate change" is perhaps the most meaningless and innumerate statement made in this field, which is why it tends to be uttered by activists, journalists, politicians and bureaucrats, since scientists know it is nonsensical.

*It's actually been wiggling about a bit, due to cyclic factors -- in 1974, there was a worldwide panic about global cooling, which was eerily similar to the wailing we see today about global warming.