Global Warming/Strange Weather Patterns

Hi Coffeehouse,I'm going to go out on a limb here and state a personal theory. I'm a YEC, but please do not blame this "theory" on other YECs.I believe that Global warming has been occurring ever since the last ice age (which according to standard YEC doctrines was the ONLY ice age and was caused by the Flood some 4000-5000 years ago).Anyways, so my theory goes, that as the globe gets warmer more ice melts so the globe gets warmer and warmer faster (i.e., it accelerates) and the cycle continues until--like today--there is relatively little of the polar ice caps left (compared to how much there was during the climax of the Ice Age). Now there is so little left that it is getting hotter fairly quickly because there is not enough ice to counter the incoming heat.So, even if you don't believe that the last Ice Age was caused by the the Flood of Genesis, you might find some merit in this general idea of global-warming-is-caused-by-shrinking-ice-caps. Of course, then you might think there will be Ice Age cycles whereas I see the earth slowly becoming only hotter and hotter--never to see another Ice Age.This is not to say that I think air pollution is wonderful and doesn't harm the environment. I do however, believe that air pollution, while possibly causing a myriad of other serious environmental ills, has little or almost nothing to do with global warming when compared to the sun and diminishing ice caps.As a side note, I wonder if global warming is causing more and bigger hurricanes, torrential rains in California and summer-like winters in Florida (they were a lot colder when I was a boy and even colder when my dad was a boy), and any number of odd weather patterns. IOW, it's just going to get worse and pollution controls will have no effect on these particular things (but pollution controls might make breathing better, and breathing has become one of my favorite past-times).Just some thoughts.--TheLitThis message has been edited by TheLiteralist, 02-14-2005 02:49 AM

Hi, Lit, before we get into whether global warming exists, is cyclic, or is a terminal one-off, could you point out to me where the Ice Age (post Flood) is mentioned in Genesis?

Hi Nighttrain,If it is, I am unaware of it. That is the YEC model (as I understand it), though. Regardless of which model one uses to arrive at the previous Ice Age, there was one, and the resultant ice caps are shrinking. The YEC model would likely have a "terminal one-off" Ice Age (as you would need Flood-like circumstances to produce another), whereas the traditional model tends to view Ice Ages as cyclical. I suppose another difference in the two models would be in the rate (acceleration?) of ice-cap shrinkage.I thought global warming was fairly well established.I was more wishing to focus on the idea of sun-and-shrinking-ice-caps as the cause of global warming as opposed to production of "green house gasses" by human activities (not that I desire to see the environment trashed).Really, even then I suppose I just wish to hear different views on the idea because I am no expert on this matter and cannot defend my views on it.I have been thinking about the sun-and-ever-shrinking-ice-caps "model" for some time, and just wanted to see how some of the more informed felt about that as a causal factor for global warming. Should I be correct, this would dwarf whatever "greenhouse effect" our factories have.Air pollution would be bad for other reasons--mainly that we wind up needing to breathe the stuff; plus whatever pollutes the air most likely pollutes the environment in several different and horrible ways. (Just pointing this out in case someone thinks I am defending activities that cause air pollution. I am not.)--TheLit

I think niether the Ice Age nor Global Warming exist.While 10k years ago much of N. America and Europe were covered in ice, this was not a global climate, I mean the planet as a whole wasn't frozen. There's a theory that they were covered in ice because they were at a different longitudes than today, with respect to the magnetic north pole. Actually that the north pole was in north america. The new position of NA is from a global crustal displacement which placed NA where it is today and placed Antartica to the south pole at the same time. Most of the evidence for the Ice age is from NA with some from Europe and I don't know of any evidence of it in other continents.I think the weather is getting hotter as a result of natural fluctuations in the global mean temperature, not 'Global Warming'.Now, if I assume that both exist, I would say that your model seems more plausible than the affects of the greenhouse effect.For those people who believe that the Greenhouse Effect is causing Global Warming...Don't be afraid. We wont destroy the planet. The worse we'll do is make it uninhabitable for ourselves, allowing it to recoupe from what damage we have done. Heck, A giant asteroid blew off a whole chunk of the planet, forming the moon, and it recovered from that. I think the worse we could do is set off all the nukes at once, but some life would survive and we'd just be restarting evolution.

Call me selfish, but I really enjoy living. So that's not much comfort. I'm sure life will survive; I'm rather more concerned about the human species surviving. Based on what evidence?

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I think the weather is getting hotter as a result of natural fluctuations in the global mean temperature, not 'Global Warming'.
  —cath scientist

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Well a lot of scientists, like the 17,000 who signed the Oregon Petition against the Kyoto Protocol, might agree with you that the 'evidence' of greenhouse gasses causing global warming is scant.A look at this graph should make most rational thinkers scratch their heads and think: 1-If greenhouse gasses cause global warming, then why did the mean global temperature decline for nearly thirty years from 1940 to 1970? Shouldn't it have been increasing? Yet it declined nearly .2 degrees celsius.2-As to the global warming that has occurred since 1880, we are talking an increase of 0.6 degrees celsius. The mean temperature of the planet increasing by barely more than half a degree doesn't seem to be the environmental crisis it's advertised to be. And that is just the surface temperature folks. Not very compelling.3-Why isn't the atmosphere increasing in temperature? Since 1979 our satellites have measured ZERO increase in atmospheric temperature.4-What is the margin of error for this data? How accurate could measurements from manned weather stations in 1880 be? Within a tenth of a degree? Within a degree?5-How realistic is a computer model projection based on 120 years of climatological measurements? We're lucky if our local five day forcast is correct, but ten years out? Fifty years out? How accurate could those projections be? Just thirty years ago climatologists were predicting an ice age for goodness sakes.Does this mean we should ignore the data and do nothing at all? I'm not suggesting that. I am suggesting that we need to filter out the chicken little histrionics and focus on actual facts.I think the honest answer is that we just don't know what a .6 degree increase in global surface temperature means and pretending we do, one way or the other, is irresponsible science.This message has been edited by custard, 02-23-2005 22:05 AM

You are right about some things. As the polar ice caps melt, carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas, is released that was dissolved in the water before it originally froze. This is compounded by melting permafrost - as it warms, decomposition accelerates, releasing even more carbon dioxide. Also, nutrients are released from the decaying permafrost, which accelerate both decomposition rates and plant growth.A professor I once had, Dr. Schuur, recently co-led some research about this very subject. You can read an article about it here:http://www.napa.ufl.edu/2004news/arctictundra.htm

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Peter Vitousek, a professor of biological sciences at Stanford University, said the research is important. It’s long been thought that global warming would have two opposing effects on arctic soils, he said. First, it would increase the breakdown of soil organic matter, releasing carbon dioxide (the major cause of warming) to the atmosphere -- but second, this breakdown of soil organic matter would liberate nutrients from the soil and enhance rates of plant growth, thereby removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

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"This work demonstrated beautifully that there is another, even stronger, effect -- an increase in nutrients also enhances the breakdown or soil organic matter," he said. "Now we know that the overall effect of warming -- which is already with us, especially in the Arctic -- will be to release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, enhancing the likelihood of further warming.

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Your data sample is too narrow. Try this 1000-year composite of various analyses:Anyone can look at this and see that we're talking about real climate change, not some regular cycle. Which is another way of saying "I'm not going to accept any conclusion that predicts bad news." What if the Chicken Littles are right on this? Pretending that because we don't know everything, there's no reason to pay heed to what we do know is equally irresponsible science.

Wow, lots of pretty colors. Too bad that data is about as useful for predicting climate change as Nostrodamus' quatrains.1-Where did this data come from? (source)
2-Who collected it?
3-What quality control measures where taken to ensure accuracy?
4-Where were the measurements taken?
5-What device(s) were used to measure the temperature?
6-What is the margin for error?Give me a break. Ten to one your wikipedia graph is based on 'projections' and 'estimations' and not actual measurements. If a single scrap of that data was in any way reliable, it would have been presented in the Kyoto Protocol and would be cited right and left in scientific papers.Frankly I have my doubts about the data collected since 1880, and that's the most accurate data we have.Try again.

Caps? Gary, I thought the Ant-arctic ice cap was actually thickening, not melting.

My bad. You can read all about it here: File:1000 Year Temperature Comparison.png - WikipediaI don't know anything about the Kyoto Protocol. But each of these 9 reconstructions are data that have appeared and been cited in the scientific literature.I'm not trying to tell you you need to buy a Prius tomorrow. But there's considerably more data that suggests global climate change than you repeatedly suggest, which is funny, because you're the one accusing evironmentalists of obscuring the scientific literature on this. Nine different reconstructions of historical climate agree on a recent trend towards the warmer - in fact, the sudden reversal of a cooling trend lasting the first 800 years of the scope of these surveys. I don't see that that's something you can just dismiss with "well, they've been wrong before."

Saw a late night interview on TV with the Economics Adviser to Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation. He said there had been extensive and exhaustive consultations with Russia`s leading scientists about greenhouse gas and global warning. The consensus reached was that either it wasn`t happening, or the evidence was inconclusive. The Adviser said the sole reason they had for signing the Kyoto Protocol was to avoid trade sanctions, not to agree with GW predictions.

The Antarctic ice cap is melting. I think that some parts of it haven't melted yet, and they very well may be becoming thicker. The edges, however, are melting at an alarming rate.Here is a BBC article about it. A team of scientists working for the British Antarctic Survey has reported that the ice on the Antarctic peninsula is melting at a faster rate than before, and warmer waters are eroding the ice sheet at West Antarctica from below. The sea level worldwide is rising at a rate of about 2mm per year, and 15% of this increase is caused by melting Antarctic ice. Also, several large chunks of ice have broken off in recent years, including one the size of Long Island that was made the Astronomy Picture of the Day today.BBC NEWS | UK | Antarctic's ice 'melting faster' APOD: 2005 February 23 - Voyage of an Antarctic Iceberg

Frog,The source data in the Wikipedia graph is a 'reconstruction' which comes from "Proxy types [which] include tree rings, ice cores, corals, and historical documents."I'm sorry, none of those have been demonstrated to be particularly reliable in their own rights. The authors 'P.D. Jones, K.R. Briffa, T.P. Barnett' don't even mention HOW they reconstructed these temperatures and where they do show which proxy types are used, they aren't consistent. Some years use some proxy types, and some years use others - they aren't consistent.Regardless, this data does not support thewhen greenhouse gas argument which claims the increase of CO2 levels from INDUSTRIALIZATION are causing global warming. If anything, your graph demonstrates that the world has been experiencing a warming trend seven centuries BEFORE industrialization.Using your graph, I can easily argue that the affect of industrialization is negligible and global temperatures have been on the rise IN SPITE of man, not because of him.If you use the Wikipedia definition for Global Warming Theory, you'll see that "The current scientific consensus is that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities." By this criteria all the data collected before 1950 is irrelevant to the argument.Either way, the 1000 year graph, even if it could be trusted, does not support the argument that global warming is occuring due to the actions of mankind.So lets look at the last fifty years. The 2001 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report states

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"The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate"

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What the hell does that mean?If you look at the 'details' of the report we find the evidence is as follows:1-The global average surface temperature has increased over the 20th century by about 0.6CWhoop de do. 0.6 degrees. I'm terrified.2-Emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols due to human activities continue to alter the atmosphere in ways that are expected to affect the climateAlthough they don't say what these are.3-Confidence in the ability of models to project future climate has increased As I said, we can't predict the weather TEN DAYS in advance, let alone ten years. Computer models are extremely subjective - especially in a field like climatology where we barely understand what causes weather patterns let alone predict them. Even the IPCC admits

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The IPCC concedes that there is a need for better models and better scientific understanding of some climate phenomena, as well as the uncertainties involved. Critics assert that the available data is not sufficient to determine the real importance of greenhouse gases in climate change. Sensitivity of climate to greenhouse gases may be over-estimated or under-estimated estimated because of some flaws in the models and because the importance o some external factors may be misestimated.

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Read that last line again.Sensitivity of climate to greenhouse gases may be over-estimated or under-estimated estimated because of some flaws in the models and because the importance o some external factors may be misestimated.4-There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities And these would be...5-Human influences will continue to change atmospheric composition throughout the 21st century This is conjecture.And finally6-Global average temperature and sea level are projected to rise under all IPCC SRES scenarios Remember that line about how the computer models may misestimate factors? Well since 2001 the sea levels HAVE NOT risen any faster than they have since the last ice age.Scrutinizing the data and questioning the conclusions drawn by global warming proponents is not putting one's head in the sand and hiding from the inevitable, there is no compelling data to support global warming theory. At least none presented in the Kyoto Protocol and none that I can find.The emporer simply has no clothes.

Gary,thanks I saw similar articles. I was aware that the Antarctic peninsula was melting, but that is a tiny fraction of the entire polar cap. Satellite data reported by Ian Joughin, of the California Institute of Technology and Slawek Tulaczyk of the University of California(Journal Science), show the Ross ice cap is actually thickening.This is absolutely counter to what was predicted by the IPCC computer projections and seems to fly in the face of global warming theory.Additionally, I found the article you clearly states:

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"It is not known whether the melting is the result of a natural event or the result of global warming."

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Hardly a compelling for global warming.