I find it interesting how when I went to see a lecture by a so called expert on climate and global warming the evidence he presented me was a picture of the united states in 2060 or so with water overflowing the coast. It seems to me like the climate models of these people like Al Gore rely highly on speculation.

http://alignment.hep.brandeis.edu/Hashemi/Climate/

So it's impossible for there to be more agreement among measurements during the period with the richest data than during periods with poor data? I'm not a climatologist and just skimmed the link, but this but struck me as not making much sense.

I also know that the vast majority of climatologists aren't in dispute about whether global warming is occurring. It seems people just don't want to accept the idea due to its association with the democratic party and Al Gore.

Assume the globe is warming. BFD. It's every little nuance after that that is in dispute. You don't even know what awful things happen as the globe warms VS all the good things that happen. Start there. Get back to me.

Impact on rising sea levels are disputed? California sinking could be a good thing?

BTW, InTheDark, you still haven't explained to me how average global temperature is a "chaotic system" or non-linear.

Um, we know that climate shifts have been responsible for mass extinction events in the past, for one thing.

I give up. More Kool Aid.

Three times I considered straightening you out on that but I'm 100% certain you lack the skill set to understand.

Yeah but maybe itll be something gross that gets extincted like spiders or the editorial board of the nation

For the GOP it would be a great thing.

Care to support your hypothesis with facts? Pure opinion belongs in politics forum.

I'll assume it's not a point of major importance then. Elements of climate are chaotic, but things like greenhouse gasses can predictably change the average climate. So it might make sense to say there are chaotic and non-chaotic elements of climate?

Here is a "Global Warming Link" that is worthwhile:

http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/

The introductory blub:

"Climate Change Science

USGS Earth Surface Dynamics Program

The earth's surface does not exist in a static, unchanging "natural" condition interrupted only by the work of humans, but instead it is a dynamic system of which humans are a part. Knowledge about changes to the Earth's surface and the underlying processes that induce them has enormous impact on how society responds to these changes and, ultimately, the cost of responding to change. USGS Global Change Research activities strive to achieve a whole-system understanding of the interrelationships among earth surface processes, ecological systems, and human activities. Activities of the program focus on documenting, analyzing, and modeling the character of past and present environments and the geological, biological, hydrological, and geochemical processes involved in environmental change so that future environmental changes and impacts can be anticipated. "


Then click on the related links and delve into the world of actual Science.


-Zeno

see article linked in OP. lol i thought that was the whole point of this thread, are u missing something? it basically proves that the current climate models are irrelvant due to standard variation in earth tempature over 100 year cycles.

I agree with this.

This Foal dude has major problems with basic logic...
And he hurts the Global Warming cause MUCH more than he helps it.

hey now. explanation please... I'm a sensitive boy and tend to think I'm pretty strong on logic if nothing else.

If I came off as trying to "debate" ITD over the use of the word "chaotic" I'm not. I originally thought average global climate was not considered a "chaotic system" since it can be graphed linearly and predicted in certain ways etc, but I'm perfectly ok with being wrong. I just wanted him to explain it to me so I'd know how it's relevant to whatever point he was making.

This is the guy who said that Darwinism means the strong should kill the weak. I wouldn't be too worried about his opinion of your logic.

I can see the temperature of a particular area being a function of the general state of the climate, and I can see climate being a "chaotic system" based on my limited knowledge, so that might do the trick. Even if temperature represents a linear trend now, it's impossible to foresee how complex climate changes may influence that trend, and we certainly aren't justified in indefinitely extrapolating it.

But this strikes me as a side issue. And if we could easily quantify the energy input and energy output of the planet then it's possible we could take a more thermodynamic approach (overall, the vast majority of the energy absorbed by the system ends up as heat, and a calculation of a simple equilibrium might work in theory).

Eh I should have phrased the question better. I should have asked what you thought was the most compelling argument from this man.

This article is quite bad and would not pass peer review in a remotely respectable journal. He uses some rather cliche arguments such as this one:

"Because 1934 is the hottest year, does that mean the world is cooling down? We don't think so."

Extrapolating global trends from what happens in the US is quite possibly the worst thing you could do. If you go to NASA you will see this image that clearly shows that global warming occurs at the north pole first:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/



It's been explained before on this forum but the US is going to be one of the last regions to warm up. Just about every paragraph in that link has similar errors. You can decide if these are innocent mistakes or not.

Oh and I forgot to point out that it shows 1934 is nowhere near the hottest year globally.

LOL, what has he said that is even remotely controversial? I admit I don't know much about climate science (if I had to bet I would go with the majority of top scientists as I would do in any field except for my own) but his statements seem obviously true to me. Systems can have high frequency oscillations that are unpredictable (or at least VERY hard to predict) while at the same time have very easy to predict low frequency behavior.

I thought awhile back about doing something like this also. I think the problem is that you have to know quantities like heat capacities to a very accurate degree
and it is just to hard to get resonable estimates for such a large system.