97% of climatologists believe in man-made global warming

[Chris]

I feel compelled to once again note that there is no way to get an estimate of what CO2 levels were globally 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, or 600,000 years ago from ice cores. I think that people really need to make the distinction between what investigators believe based on informed assessment of what's in ice cores and what is known to be fact.

The reason is that an observation of a CO2 concentration in an ice core is one element of the population "all CO2 concentrations occurring at all points in the Earth's atmosphere at that time." To have an unbiased estimate of, say, the mean CO2 concentration at the time, you'd need a probability sample of that population. You'd need randomization. Also, to have a relatively small standard error around the estimate, you need a relatively large sample size. An ice core observation is one observation that is taken at that point because the's where it's possible and convenient to take it. And even if they took a million ice cores and were able to take a million readings from the same time, they'd just have a very large sample that was not collected so as to assure an unbiased estimate.

In any case, 600,000 years represents about 2 1/100ths of one percent of the tenure of life on this planet. It is not, when taken in context, a long time.

600,000 years is not a long time?

This is how lame the deniers are.

They are forced to argue that 600,000 years is not a representative sample.

Unbelievable!

of 3+ billion?
it's not.
keep swinging, kirky.

Fuck you, punk.

 

[del]

600,000 years is not a long time?

This is how lame the deniers are.

They are forced to argue that 600,000 years is not a representative sample.

Unbelievable!

of 3+ billion?
it's not.
keep swinging, kirky.

Fuck you, punk.

that's the the kind of well reasoned answer you're famous for, chrissie.

keep swinging.

 

[Chris]

of 3+ billion?
it's not.
keep swinging, kirky.

Fuck you, punk.

that's the the kind of well reasoned answer you're famous for, chrissie.

keep swinging.

No problem.

I'm going to be here all day.

 

[del]

Fuck you, punk.

that's the the kind of well reasoned answer you're famous for, chrissie.

keep swinging.

No problem.

I'm going to be here all day.

what a shock.
i guess if you post enough, eventually you'll post something intelligent by accident.

 

[Chris]

that's the the kind of well reasoned answer you're famous for, chrissie.

keep swinging.

No problem.

I'm going to be here all day.

what a shock.
i guess if you post enough, eventually you'll post something intelligent by accident.

You are describing yourself.

 

[del]

No problem.

I'm going to be here all day.

what a shock.
i guess if you post enough, eventually you'll post something intelligent by accident.

You are describing yourself.

keep swinging.

 

[Chris]

what a shock.
i guess if you post enough, eventually you'll post something intelligent by accident.

You are describing yourself.

keep swinging.

No problem.

 

[Old Rocks]

The problem is not whether or not an individual human could survive in the Cambrian, probably not, but rather whether or not our present society, with 7 billion people, can survive and adrupt climate change.

Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises

 

[Meister]

the problem is not whether or not an individual human could survive in the cambrian, probably not, but rather whether or not our present society, with 7 billion people, can survive and adrupt climate change.

abrupt climate change: Inevitable surprises

the sky is falling.....the sky is falling

 

[del]

The problem is not whether or not an individual human could survive in the Cambrian, probably not, but rather whether or not our present society, with 7 billion people, can survive and adrupt climate change.

Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises

oh, the horror, the horror!!

 

[SpidermanTuba]

(CNN) -- Human-induced global warming is real, according to a recent U.S. survey based on the opinions of 3,146 scientists. However there remains divisions between climatologists and scientists from other areas of earth sciences as to the extent of human responsibility.

A survey of more than 3,000 scientists found that the vast majority believe humans cause global warming.

Against a backdrop of harsh winter weather across much of North America and Europe, the concept of rising global temperatures might seem incongruous.

However the results of the investigation conducted at the end of 2008 reveal that vast majority of the Earth scientists surveyed agree that in the past 200-plus years, mean global temperatures have been rising and that human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.

The study released today was conducted by academics from the University of Illinois, who used an online questionnaire of nine questions. The scientists approached were listed in the 2007 edition of the American Geological Institute's Directory of Geoscience Departments.

Two questions were key: Have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures?

About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second.

The strongest consensus on the causes of global warming came from climatologists who are active in climate research, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role.

Surveyed scientists agree global warming is real - CNN.com

Further proof of the massive worldwide conspiracy of graduate students and former graduate students to take over the world.

 

[JohnStOnge]

600,000 years is not a long time?

This is how lame the deniers are.

They are forced to argue that 600,000 years is not a representative sample.

Unbelievable!

I was not referring to the issue of having a "representative" sample when I made the statement of 600,000 years. I was pointing out that, taken in context of beliefs about the age of the planet and the tenure of life on it, 600,000 years is not a long time in relative terms. It's believed that life started on this planet about 3.5 billion years ago. 600,000 years is about 0.019 percent of that interval. 600,000 years to 3.5 billion years is as about 1.6 hours is to a year.

However, since you mentioned the issue: Whether or not a sample is "representative" in terms of allowing for an unbiased estimate of a population parameter like an average has absolutely nothing to do with sample size. If I collect a true random sample of a population that consists of two elements that is a "representative" sample in those terms. If I collect a million elements without any kind of strategy for making it a probability sample that is not "representative" in those terms.

 

[KittenKoder]

I feel compelled to once again note that there is no way to get an estimate of what CO2 levels were globally 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, or 600,000 years ago from ice cores. I think that people really need to make the distinction between what investigators believe based on informed assessment of what's in ice cores and what is known to be fact.

The reason is that an observation of a CO2 concentration in an ice core is one element of the population "all CO2 concentrations occurring at all points in the Earth's atmosphere at that time." To have an unbiased estimate of, say, the mean CO2 concentration at the time, you'd need a probability sample of that population. You'd need randomization. Also, to have a relatively small standard error around the estimate, you need a relatively large sample size. An ice core observation is one observation that is taken at that point because the's where it's possible and convenient to take it. And even if they took a million ice cores and were able to take a million readings from the same time, they'd just have a very large sample that was not collected so as to assure an unbiased estimate.

In any case, 600,000 years represents about 2 1/100ths of one percent of the tenure of life on this planet. It is not, when taken in context, a long time.

600,000 years is not a long time?

This is how lame the deniers are.

They are forced to argue that 600,000 years is not a representative sample.

Unbelievable!

Compared to more than 6 billion ... it is really just a fraction of data required to make accurate assessments of climate shifts. That is only .01% of the time we know the earth must have existed ... and then we think it may have been around even longer.

 

[JohnStOnge]

There is very little variation of CO2 content in the atmosphere. .

Ok, I took some time to look into it and I guess that depends on subjective opinion about what "very little" is. I went and looked at some CO2 levels I used 2006 because it was a year in which there were data from two continuous monitoring stations I wanted to use available. I found an instance in which a "continuous" CO2 measuring statement near the South Pole registered a daily average of 377.70 ppb while one in Hungary registered a daily average of 427.80 ppb on the same date (2/3/2006). That's a difference of about 50 ppb on that day. I was going to do a simple thing to see what kind of prediction interval you'd get trying to predict CO2 in Hungary from CO2 in Antartica but when I did a correlation it was very low (0.027). Basically, that means that knowing what the CO2 was at the Pole station during 2006 would've been of no value in predicting what CO2 was on the same day at the Hungary station within the context of that one year period.

Using the day by day differences you could say that you could be 95 percent confident that on any given day the Hungary station concentration would be between 3 ppb lower and about 36 ppb higher than the Antarctic station concentration. Also, you can see that the CO2 concentrations at the Hungary station are higher in winter (Nov-April average 398) than in summer (May - October average 384) while there's almost no difference between seasons at the Antarctic station so you'd know the difference on any given day during May - October is likely to be smaller. But the magnitude of CO2 concentration at the Pole station does not, per say, provide benefit within the context of an annual period in knowing what the concentration in Hungary will be.

If I'd use a long enough period I'd get a "significant" correlation because there has been a trend over multiple years at both stations towards higher levels. But it would still be a weak correlation and knowing the CO2 concentration at the Antarctic station would still be of limited value in knowing the concentration at the Hungarian station.

It's possible climatologists and/or meteorologists could improve things by knowing planetary circulation patterns, etc., and/or considering additional variables. But I think that their knowledge of what was going on 600,000 years ago is in no way comparable to their knowledge of what's going on now. I think there is defintely some error associated with trying to make a statement about the entire planet hundreds of thousands of years ago with a CO2 estimate based on an ice core.

On the other hand I doubt that the error in and of itself would be close to large enough to compromise the statement that the concentrations are higher now than they were 600,000 years ago. But I don't think it's the only source of error. It's just one component.

There is no way they can validate their assumptions, as reasonable as those assumptions might appear, about how gases trapped around 600,000 years ago will behave over that time frame. You can do a google search on "sources of error in ice core data" and see that they must do things like correct for gas exchange in snow, etc. What they're doing is modeling a scenario that occured 600,000 years ago. There's no way they can possibily see how concentrations of gasses in a local atmosphere as measured at a given time will compare to concentrations measured 600,000 years later in a bubble of that atmosphere that was trapped in ice.

Like everybody else, I tend to go ahead and believe what people who study the distant past have to say about it. Most of the time it doesn't matter anyway. It's just interesting. But I think that when it becomes important we all should realize that the beliefs they have are not backed by the same level of certainty one would have with situations in which things can be directly supported by controled experimentation or even one in which things can be subject to comprehensive observation.

 

[Chris]

John, it really doesn't matter what happened in the past. The only thing that matters is what is happening now.

And what is happening now is that we have increased atmospheric CO2 by 40% in the last 200 years.

 

[KittenKoder]

John, it really doesn't matter what happened in the past. The only thing that matters is what is happening now.

And what is happening now is that we have increased atmospheric CO2 by 40% in the last 200 years.

Okay .. first you tried to use the past to justify the fear, now you are saying that it doesn't matter ... and you wonder why so many are seeing through this idiotic fear now.

 

[Chris]

John, it really doesn't matter what happened in the past. The only thing that matters is what is happening now.

And what is happening now is that we have increased atmospheric CO2 by 40% in the last 200 years.

Okay .. first you tried to use the past to justify the fear, now you are saying that it doesn't matter ... and you wonder why so many are seeing through this idiotic fear now.

Attacking me will not change the facts.

Nice try, however.

 

[del]

John, it really doesn't matter what happened in the past. The only thing that matters is what is happening now.

And what is happening now is that we have increased atmospheric CO2 by 40% in the last 200 years.

such a buffoon. old rocks is gonna cry himself to sleep now.

 

[Chris]

John, it really doesn't matter what happened in the past. The only thing that matters is what is happening now.

And what is happening now is that we have increased atmospheric CO2 by 40% in the last 200 years.

such a buffoon. old rocks is gonna cry himself to sleep now.

Hey Morton, how's it going?

 

[del]

John, it really doesn't matter what happened in the past. The only thing that matters is what is happening now.

And what is happening now is that we have increased atmospheric CO2 by 40% in the last 200 years.

such a buffoon. old rocks is gonna cry himself to sleep now.

Hey Morton, how's it going?

sober up and come back later, kirky.