#19 cedarford “That mean temperatures have risen each decade since the 1770s, save two decades of cooling attributable to massive volcanic eruptions, is indisputable, with solid recorded data.”
Absolutely correct, and utterly devoid of meaning. In 1200 AD it was warmer than the present. Vikings were growing grapes in Greenland. It then proceeded to get colder. The temp record you speak of reflects the natural climactic recovery from the little ice age where temperatures plummeted from the medieval warm period.
Do not reference the hockey stick. The blade is unimportant, but the shaft is a lie; it wipes out the medieval warm period. It is also incorrect, based almost entirely on a questionable dendrochronology study of a species of pine where the premise is that ring width is strictly a proxy for temperature and not moisture. Remove this particular data set from hundreds of other historical data sets, and no stick.
See here for a mathematical deconstruction that the layman can follow: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4428
Meanwhile UAH and RSS are doing great satellite work showing that some of what has been modeled is in the ballpark but some key assumptions aren’t correct. The science isn’t perfect. You will see claims that isotopic ratios of C12/C13 or atmospheric CO2 prove that fossil fuels contribute as claimed. And so they do. However, what isn’t trumpeted is that this ratio is about 3%. Worse, the lifecycle of atmospheric C02 is in dispute. Some claim it lasts decades, others, 5 years. Why this is interesting is that it’s widely known that the oceans absorb and emit CO2 as part of the natural cycle. It works as last-in-first-out (LIFO.)
This part, I’ll go slow and use a crayon: what the above means is that the 3% figure essentially includes *all* of man’s contribution since the industrial revolution. Does man contribute via burning fossil fuels? You betcha. But at 3% this isn’t something I’m inclined to get my knickers in a twist about. There are reports that bovine flatulence contributes more greenhouse gas (i.e. methane.) There are also reports that suggest man’s land use changes change the surface temps as well (cf http://www.surfacestations.org for more info.) This suggests that man changes the planet, but it’s not necessarily your SUV doing enough of the job to get excited about, and that’s what a great deal of this environmentalist “warming” nonsense is all about anyway. Note that the $25B automaker bailout plan has been knocked silly by the democrats who are insistent that the entire enchilada is spent on green stuff (electric cars, batteries, etc.) Not that ABC wants to report THAT.
Somehow I’m not sure how discussing this without me cheerleading for the Gore team makes me an anti-scientific ignorant type, but there you go.
