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Climate Change Is Man Made

Started by Solitary, April 17, 2014, 04:06:00 PM

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Solitary

Quoten analysis of temperature data since 1500 all but rules out the possibility that global warming in the industrial era is just a natural fluctuation in the earth's climate, according to a new study by McGill University physics professor Shaun Lovejoy.

The study, published online April 6 in the journal Climate Dynamics, represents a new approach to the question of whether global warming in the industrial era has been caused largely by man-made emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Rather than using complex computer models to estimate the effects of greenhouse-gas emissions, Lovejoy examines historical data to assess the competing hypothesis: that warming over the past century is due to natural long-term variations in temperature.

"This study will be a blow to any remaining climate-change deniers," Lovejoy says. "Their two most convincing arguments - that the warming is natural in origin, and that the computer models are wrong - are either directly contradicted by this analysis, or simply do not apply to it."

Lovejoy's study applies statistical methodology to determine the probability that global warming since 1880 is due to natural variability. His conclusion: the natural-warming hypothesis may be ruled out "with confidence levels great than 99%, and most likely greater than 99.9%."

To assess the natural variability before much human interference, the new study uses "multi-proxy climate reconstructions" developed by scientists in recent years to estimate historical temperatures, as well as fluctuation-analysis techniques from nonlinear geophysics. The climate reconstructions take into account a variety of gauges found in nature, such as tree rings, ice cores, and lake sediments. And the fluctuation-analysis techniques make it possible to understand the temperature variations over wide ranges of time scales.

For the industrial era, Lovejoy's analysis uses carbon-dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels as a proxy for all man-made climate influences - a simplification justified by the tight relationship between global economic activity and the emission of greenhouse gases and particulate pollution, he says. "This allows the new approach to implicitly include the cooling effects of particulate pollution that are still poorly quantified in computer models," he adds.

While his new study makes no use of the huge computer models commonly used by scientists to estimate the magnitude of future climate change, Lovejoy's findings effectively complement those of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), he says. His study predicts, with 95% confidence, that a doubling of carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere would cause the climate to warm by between 2.5 and 4.2 degrees Celsius. That range is more precise than - but in line with -- the IPCC's prediction that temperatures would rise by 1.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius if CO2 concentrations double.

"We've had a fluctuation in average temperature that's just huge since 1880 - on the order of about 0.9 degrees Celsius," Lovejoy says. "This study shows that the odds of that being caused by natural fluctuations are less than one in a hundred and are likely to be less than one in a thousand.

"While the statistical rejection of a hypothesis can't generally be used to conclude the truth of any specific alternative, in many cases - including this one - the rejection of one greatly enhances the credibility of the other."


Take that deniers!  :dance: Solitary
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

Gawdzilla Sama

We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

ApostateLois

So who caused the really high global temperatures in the time of the dinosaurs?
"Now we see through a glass dumbly." ~Crow, MST3K #903, "Puma Man"


Mermaid

Quote from: ApostateLois on May 04, 2014, 02:02:28 PM
So who caused the really high global temperatures in the time of the dinosaurs?
Natural climate change.

The EPA has a good page on natural vs anthropogenic climate change.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/causes.html
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

Mandingo

#5
Who cares what or who caused it? It can't be undone anyway. So why waste vast amounts of time and energy on answering â€" squabble over â€" that question? That won't change or solve anything. While that time and energy should be invested in developing ways to deal with the consequences of global warming and sea level rise.

80% of the world's population â€" that's almost 6 billion people! â€" lives within 100 miles of the coast. The great majority of those will be forced to move to higher ground â€" including their infrastructures.
I suggest we concentrate on solving that problem.

Munch

Mankind could do with being nuked anyway. Not to sound like a genocidal lunatic, but the human species is far to wide spread across the planet, and having grown so intelligent to know how to use the worlds resources, it hasn't grown intelligent enough to know how to sustain those resources as a whole species.

I think mother nature will do some good and cut down the human species. The only downside will be so many other animal species dying out before that happens, but hey, at least the roaches will survive and life will start anew.
'Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners' - George Carlin

AllPurposeAtheist

QuoteHis conclusion: the natural-warming hypothesis may be ruled out "with confidence levels great than 99%, and most likely greater than 99.9%."

Only 99.9%? Well obviously the science isn't all in then. As long as there's a .00001% chance of it being a hoax.... Do we really know people die from cancer? Some people might die from car wrecks.  :snooty:
All hail my new signature!

Admit it. You're secretly green with envy.

Mandingo

Quote from: Solitary on May 17, 2014, 05:15:46 PM
Even if we didn't die of natural causes we would sill have a 300 year life span. Solitary

Only those that have excellent swimming skills might. The rest will drown or get killed in the stampede to higher ground.

Hydra009

Quote from: Mandingo on May 17, 2014, 11:43:41 AM
Who cares what or who caused it? It can't be undone anyway. So why waste vast amounts of time and energy on answering â€" squabble over â€" that question? That won't change or solve anything. While that time and energy should be invested in developing ways to deal with the consequences of global warming and sea level rise.

80% of the world's population â€" that's almost 6 billion people! â€" lives within 100 miles of the coast. The great majority of those will be forced to move to higher ground â€" including their infrastructures.
I suggest we concentrate on solving that problem.
Something should be done regardless.  But the notion that humanity is in no way responsible for this global problem should be openly and frequently challenged for two reasons.  1)  It is a manifestly untrue.  2)  It hinders any solution by denying both the problem and the reason for the problem, giving policy-makers excuses to not act.  And it goes without saying that knowing the cause of the problem is a big part of fixing it.

AllPurposeAtheist

The rub not even addressed is we live in democracies for the most part and half of our democracy doesn't want to play ball meaning millions of people in the US alone ARE going to lose their homes and the opposition here, the GOP is going to hold every single one of them hostage yo get what they want before anything gets done at all.
They seem to be willing to let cities go under water, farmland go to waste, countless homes and property burn and so on so they can bank all of the money in the entire safety net. That's what this is about.
All hail my new signature!

Admit it. You're secretly green with envy.

Mermaid

I have apparently missed a new angle on climate change.

There is an alarmingly large number of people (including a childhood friend of mine) who believe that "vaccine enthusiast" Bill Gates has admitted to lobbying for/funding large-scale spraying of "sulfate particles" from airplanes in an attempt to mitigate the effects of climate change. These particles are meant to reflect the sun's energy back into space instead of allowing it to reach the ground.

http://csglobe.com/bill-gates-admits-chemtrails/
QuoteBill Gates backs climate scientists lobbying for large-scale geoengineering ( Chemtrails )

Geo-engineers are finally coming out of the “chemtrail” closet, as reports are now emerging about deliberate plans in the works to dump untold tons of sulfate chemicals into the atmosphere for the purported purpose of fighting so-called “global warming.”

The U.K.’s Guardian and others are reporting that a multi-million dollar research fund, which just so happens to have been started and funded by Microsoft founder and vaccine enthusiast Bill Gates, is being used to fund the project. A large balloon hovering at 80,000 feet over Fort Sumner, New Mexico, will release the sulfates into the atmosphere within the next year.

The stated purpose for this massive release of toxic sulfate particles is that doing so will allegedly reflect sunlight back into the atmosphere, and thus cool the planet. But many environmental groups and advocates of common sense are decrying the idea as dangerous, and one that could result in permanent damage to ecosystems all across the globe.Sulfate particles are toxic, though, and constitute the very same type of ambient particulate matter (PM) that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers to be a noxious air pollutant. Deliberately spraying the skies with tiny particles composed of any material, for that matter, is hazardous both to respiratory health in humans and animals, as well as to water sources, soils, and other delicate environmental resources.

    “Sulfate particles from acid rain can cause harm to the health of marine life in the rivers and lakes it contaminates, and can result in mortality,” says an online water pollution guide (http://www.water-pollution.org.uk/health.html). A University of Washington (UW) report also explains that sulfate particles “contribute to acid rain, cause lung irritation, and have been a main culprit in causing the haze that obscures a clear view of the Grand Canyon.”

Blocking the sun with reflective particles will also deprive humans of natural sunlight exposure, which is a primary source for naturally generating health-promoting vitamin D in the body. So once again, Bill Gates is at the helms of a project that seeks to control the climate in artificial ways using toxic chemicals, an endeavor that is sure to create all sorts of potentially irreversible problems for humanity and the planet.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

Mermaid

Posting that made my head hurt.
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

Mandingo

Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on May 17, 2014, 11:39:25 PM
The rub not even addressed is we live in democracies for the most part and half of our democracy doesn't want to play ball meaning millions of people in the US alone ARE going to lose their homes and the opposition here, the GOP is going to hold every single one of them hostage yo get what they want before anything gets done at all.
They seem to be willing to let cities go under water, farmland go to waste, countless homes and property burn and so on so they can bank all of the money in the entire safety net. That's what this is about.

Either they die or you die.
You choose.

Berati

Quotevaccine enthusiast Bill Gates

So this now passes as an insult in the United States? :wall:
Carl Sagan
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."