Interesting Weather Record Set Today

[Tim Smith]

But 300 months, 25 years, 1/4 century, is a small amount of time considering life on earth has been here for millions of years and changes have been recorded in epochs. A 25 year cycle with only a degree of change is not that significant in the grand scale of things.

I could say were are in a period of global drying now, we have less than 3 inches of rain this year since Feb based on my rain gauge. I could even make a fancy chart to show it to folks. But everyone around me is getting more rain.

If that were the only data available your comment might be useful. But this is only one trend among a great number of trends that show a long period of warming. Reference the graph posted earlier in this discussion for a start.

If you like, I can drag up the tree ring data and ice core data and whatever else we need.

I shouldn't have to make that point if you were serious about this at all. But you're not.

[Tim Smith]

Tim you keep moving me around like a target. I accept global warming, at my age it is hard not to. That's not where my denial lies however. My problem is with how much of it is attributed to mankind, because that should be the focus of the strategy to cope with it. If we find that we have been barking up the wrong tree, it could get as ugly as starving people can get.

We keep seeing this graph that is said to explain all, yet the lines don't really start to stay in sync until about 1970, about the same time we started to attacked this problem?

One might conclude that if we have nothing to show for 40 years of effort we might be on the wrong track!

You're still inconsistent, Wayne. If people are irrelevant to global warming then why bother doing anything at all.

...and if you're looking for an R2 of 1.00 in any biological process that just doesn't happen. As has been pointed out (over and over and over and over) there are many processes that affect climate. The amount of particulates in the air was repressing temperatures until we cleaned most of them up, for instance.

http://www.seas.harv...n-united-states

The trends respond to all the drivers but over the long haul the carbon trend matches up best.

[Tim Smith]

But wait OF -- when I said it was an infinitely complex situation, you laughed it off. As if it was so obvious from the single graph that global warming was causing the CO2 levels to go up -- or was it the other way around? Didn't the discussion end there? Look -- when you make a two-axis graph, you can stretch or squeeze an axis to make any generally upward sloping line fit another. That is clearly what was done on that graph. If I had the data for global temperature handy, I could probably fit the DJIA to it.

The scale of those graphs is completely irrelevant. You measure the fit of two lines with statistics like least squared means, not graphs. That's a mathematical equation, not a visual representation. The scale of the graphs does not matter, but the mathematical strength of the fit does.

If you're trying to make the point that correlation doesn't establish causation, sure. That's true. But strong inference is how this work is done. In environmental science on large scales like this correlation is all you have. You load up the relevant variables, run the numbers and see what falls out as the strongest correlates among the many that might be involved. Among the potential drivers such as sun activity, particulates, celestial drivers and the rest, during this era, the strongest correlate with temperature rise has consistently been CO2.

Those forcing variables are in figure 5 here:

http://www.skeptical...correlation.htm

If you can find another driver you can build another hypothesis. Good luck with that.

[Tim Smith]

This leads me to the meat and potatoes of the thought, could at least some of the increased "greenhouse gases" be due to an increase in animals and humans and a decrease in plants (that is elementary science).

Am I saying that this outways the emmision problem ... hardly, but it is a thought that doesn't get discussed much.

I don't know much about the plant/animal ratio or if that can even be addressed with historical data, but one thing that feeds into your question are the dynamics discussed here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores

That is that CO2 is more of an amplifier of other warming patterns. In other words it causes about half the warming in the interglacial periods, but doesn't initiate the warming trends. The amount of CO2 cycling through the biota, for instance harnessing huge amounts of carbon that had been underground for hundreds of millions of years, would certainly affect that. Maybe the number of animals relative to plants does too, but in this case, the animals are using vastly more carbon than other animals ever did before.

So this may all work as a positive feedback loop. Slightly warmer temps lead to more CO2 which raise the temperature more etc.

The methane and other greenhouse gasses frozen under the Arctic permafrost are an example of this. As the Arctic warms, the gasses are released which accelerate the warming more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_release

[ColdWaterFshr]

Good grief. Didn't Phil make it perfectly clear about having not discussing climate change, politics, etc. Kill this thing.

Lets get back to arguing what a waste of money elk in Missouri are.

[Tim Smith]

Good grief. Didn't Phil make it perfectly clear about having not discussing climate change, politics, etc. Kill this thing.

Lets get back to arguing what a waste of money elk in Missouri are.

I've talked to Phil about this several times.

He'll ax it if he so chooses.

Feel free to discuss what you like..

...and as usual, once the data's on the table, someone tries to kill the conversation.

That pretty much sums up the whole debate.

[OzarkFishman]

Hate to speak for Phil ...

I would assume if we talk as adults and don't attack each other, then he would let it go.

I would even venture a guess that every thread that received the big X has MANY personal attacks.

[ColdWaterFshr]

Unless Dr. Tim Smith has a distinguished background in global climatology . . . . he's just another in a long line of armchair pseudo-scientists who keeps googling for research on the ole inner-net. And then burping it up on a fishing website and hoping for support. Fascinating stuff.

[OzarkFishman]

CWF,

Have you read any of his stuff or gone to any of the links???

It doesn't matter what side you are on, science is fun to study and learn. Make judgements on validity yourself, but to talk anyone down for trying to further themselves through personal research on the internet is a little ridiculus.

I am sure that I share some opinions with both of you, the difference right now is PROOF.

Not trying to get between any little tiffs on this board ... but numbers, science and a little common sense go a long way (don't read into that and think that I am saying that you do not have common sense, that is not what I am implying).

[Wayne SW/MO]

You're still inconsistent, Wayne. If people are irrelevant to global warming then why bother doing anything at all.

No, again, in my eyes everything is geared toward man generating an abundance of CO2. The money is going to grease palms more than anything else and the track record reflects it. I've said before the system simply isn't addressing the problem to solve it, but to exploit it. Where's the progress in the holy graph?

Is it acceptable in the scientific community now to hold research from anyone who might find fault with it? Is it acceptable to replace lost data arbitrariy? Do you, or would you? EA isn't addressing children who should be seen and not heard.

I want to see things being done to at least soften the blow for my descendents when we realize we can't roll back the clock.