An Inconvenient Truth

[WhatsMyName]

I like Gore's 10 Hottest Years shtick. He's the master of the Post Hoc fallacy (I'm sure Moving Tard would dig that).

[RadioFan]

'Nova' says global warming may be heating Earth faster than scientists expected

RITA SHERROW
World Television Editor
04/16/2006
Tulsa World (Final Home Edition), Page H6 of Television, Entertainment

Hot enough for you? Well, it's going to get hotter and even more confusing.

Global warming is being affected by global dimming, a relatively newly discovered phenomenon, according to scientists featured in a film airing on "Nova" called "Dimming the Sun," which airs at 7 p.m. Tuesday on PBS, channel 11.

The irony is that the very controls that have been put in place to reduce pollutants in the air -- the cause of global warming -- are causing the Earth's surface to cool in some places.

Global dimming refers to particles in the air that reduce the amount of the sun's energy reaching the Earth's surface. Those particles become surrounded by water droplets in the atmosphere, and those droplets gather to form clouds.

The clouds act like mirrors, reflecting part of the sun's energy back into the stratosphere, lowering the temperatures of the earth below.

It's a phenomenon that was markedly demonstrated in the three days following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

In those days following 9/11, virtually all commercial air traffic was grounded. Wisconsin climate scientist David Travis was struck by the unusual clarity of the sky during those days. For 15 years, he had been researching whether vapor trails or contrails left by aircraft were having a significant affect on weather.

Travis was study the temperature range, the difference between the highest temperature during the day and the lowest temperature at night.

Sept. 11 through 13 offered him an opportunity to test his theory.

What he found was a nationwide spike in temperature of 1 degree celsius or 2 degrees fahrenheit.

"This reflects lack of clouds, lack of contrails, warmer days, cooler nights -- exactly what we expected, but even larger than we expected," Travis says in the film,

The discovery of global dimming has caused scientists to realize they may have miscalculated how fast the climate is being shaped by global warming.

In other words, global dimming may be preventing the Earth's surface from heating up as fast as it would without the pollution in the air.

On the one hand, less pollution means cleaner air to breathe and fewer bad health effects on humans and other living organisms on the planet.

On the other hand, global dimming caused by smog or other pollutants may have given scientists a false sense of just how rapidly global warming is taking place -- and how much time is left to save the planet.

"I was surprised by his results," said Dr. Peter Cox in a recent phone interview from England. Cox is the program director for the Center for Ecology and Hydrology in Dorset, England, and is featued in the "No va" film.

His research focuses on modeling the interactions between the land surface and climate.

"I think the temperature difference was bigger than anyone would have expected to see. It is a very marked demonstration of the way in which pollution effects clouds and therefore the climate."

Dr. Gerald Stanhill, with the Agricultural Research Station in Israel, was among the first to discover that less solar energy was reaching the Earth's surface. In the '60s, his job was to measure solar radition, a factor important to measuring how much water crops would require.

In the 1980s, Stanhill updated his work and his results showed a stunning 22 percent drop in sunlight reaching the surface of the planet. His results were published but were largely ignored by the scientific community.

At about the same time in Germany, graduate student Beate Liepert noted the same thing was happening over the Alps. Both scientists' independent research revealed that the 1950s and the early 1990s the "level of solar energy reaching the Earth's surface had dropped 9 percent in Antarctica, 10 percent in parts of the United States, nearly 30 percent in one area of Russia and 16 percent in parts of the United Kingdom," according to the film.

Other researchers were looking the pan evaporation rate (how much water you have to add to a pan of water each day to keep it at the same level). Biologists Michael Roderick and Graham Farquhar in Australia confirmed a worldwide decline in the pan evaporation rate. The cause, as the film shows, is due to global dimming.

Scientists point to dimming as a phenomenon that could account for such dramatic climate changes as the decades-long drought across sub-Saharan Africa, a drought that resulted in massive famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s.

Knowledge of the imact of sun dimming is making the study of global warming more complext. After years of trying to clean up emissions into the air, the new information seems to indicate that without the pollutants, the earth would be heating up at a faster rate.

It's an irony that has stumped climate scientists. Sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don't proposition.

"Even with the issue of global dimming, there are still plenty of reasons to clear up air pollution," said Cox. "Air quality has an effect on human health. I don't think that anyone would argue with the fact that we want to take particulates out of the surface air because people can get ill. (By reducing emissions) we are doing a good thing.

"But the whip in the towel is we will have global warming faster than we thought," Cox said.

"We can't be sure that when we clean up the air that it won't be a lot hotter," he said. "But another reason to get rid of the pollutants is that those pollutants change rainfall patterns, cause acid rain and affects human health."

Cox's hope is that this "Nova" film," which aired in the U.K. last year, will at least inform people about the issues.

As for those who still consider global warming as some hypothetical danger, Cox is adamant.

"I think there is tremendous consensus that recent climate warming is real and is due to human activities, particularly the emission of greenhouse gases that hold heat close to the Earth's surface," Cox said.

"I think even President Bush is coming around to that view. The whole issue about self interest in politics -- that's a separate thing. As far as the scientific community goes, 99.9 percent of the community would say humans are changing the climate," he said.

----------

Anybody see Nova tonight? I had to work late and missed it. Will try to catch it on a rerun.

[PSUFAN]

Yep, I saw it. It was very interesting. Global dimming has kept the temperature down. Without pollution, the globe would have been measurably hotter.

One really interesting part was a study that one of the scientists did during the aftermath of 9/11, as briefly mentioned above. As we all know, commercial flights were cancelled for a few days. The scientist was able to measure a distinct warming over North American skies, due to the lack of jet vapor trails for that period.

With or without global dimming, whoever is at fault, the Earth is getting hotter, and it is going to change the landscape in ways that will be hard for us to measure today.

[M2]

Yep, I saw it. It was very interesting. Global dimming has kept the temperature down. Without pollution, the globe would have been measurably hotter.

One really interesting part was a study that one of the scientists did during the aftermath of 9/11, as briefly mentioned above. As we all know, commercial flights were cancelled for a few days. The scientist was able to measure a distinct warming over North American skies, due to the lack of jet vapor trails for that period.

With or without global dimming, whoever is at fault, the Earth is getting hotter, and it is going to change the landscape in ways that will be hard for us to measure today.

Yep,

My major was Climatology



m2

[M2]

specializing in the wind's effect on small metal pipes?

Only for Yom Kippur.



m2

[Cicero]

'Nova' says global warming may be heating Earth faster than scientists expected

Anybody see Nova tonight? I had to work late and missed it. Will try to catch it on a rerun.

Nova? As in Casanova?

[Bizzarofelice]

As far as the scientific community goes, 99.9 percent of the community would say humans are changing the climate," he said.

See this, mvscal?

[Bizzarofelice]

just an inside joke between me and mvscal from a couple months ago

Me: 99.9% of scientists are on board with Global warming
mvs: where did you get that number?
Me: The outrageous number is me saying almost everyone. I don't know the exact #.
mvs: You don't know the number? You fuckdick idiot. You don't rate. Shut up, queer.

[Jerkovich]

Oh ya, I can believe there was 'real' science to back up those claims.

[Bizzarofelice]

Oh ya, I can believe there was 'real' science to back up those claims.

What the fuck do you know? Do your family a favor and taste a bullet.

[Goober McTuber]

Oh ya, I can believe there was 'real' science to back up those claims.

What the fuck do you know?

He knows how to suck-start a high-end chain saw. That should count for something.

[Uncle Fester]

All of the major coastal cities underwater?

Sounds good to me.

[PSUFAN]

In those days following 9/11, virtually all commercial air traffic was grounded. Wisconsin climate scientist David Travis was struck by the unusual clarity of the sky during those days.

What a total crock of shit. I guess we're just supposed to forget that the morning of 9/11 was also crystal clear long before any planes were grounded.

Douchebags...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/contrail.html

He wasn't just "struck" by it, he and others studied atmospheric conditions during those days.

David Travis of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and two colleagues measured the difference, over those three contrail-free days, between the highest daytime temperature and the lowest nighttime temperature across the continental U.S. They compared those data with the average range in day-night temperatures for the period 1971-2000, again across the continguous 48 states. Travis's team discovered that from roughly midday September 11 to midday September 14, the days had become warmer and the nights cooler, with the overall range greater by about two degrees Fahrenheit.

[PSUFAN]

As far as the scientific community goes, 99.9 percent of the community would say humans are changing the climate," he said.

See this, mvscal?

That isn't the issue, Bizzy. The issues are how much, is it for the better or for the worse, and would changing our ways do any good?

Exactly. Pollution has been greatly reduced in Western industrialized nations. India and China are a different matter. They will be forced to reduce pollution at some point.

[Bizzarofelice]

India and China are a different matter. They will be forced to reduce pollution at some point.

Yeah because the dot heads don't already bathe in a chemical slicked river, and China has three birds left after the population ate the rest.

[Uncle Fester]

mvscal wrote:
So what? 99.9% of the "scientific community" used to believe the world was flat.

I like how he puts "scientific community" in quotes. :)

And comparing the science used to study global warming
with that used in 1500 by the flat earthers? :) :)

Ignorance is bliss, I guess.

It's no wonder why mvscal rides Dubya's nuts. Intellectually,
they're two peas in a pod.

[Uncle Fester]

I'm sure the army of scientists studying it will be swayed by your short, declarative sentences.

[PSUFAN]

If you think any meaningful conclusions can be drawn from examining three days of clear weather, you're a fucking moron or a propagandist.

The only meaningful conclusion attempted is that contrails play a role in global dimming. That conclusion is beyond reproach.

What underlies that conclusion is the real issue...whether if at this stage global dimming is having positive or negative effects on the earth's climate...

[PSUFAN]

And comparing the science used to study global warming with that used in 1500 by the flat earthers? :) :)

Yes the methodology or lack thereof is comparable.

What the fuck do you know about it? You're so steeped in spin that you can't even understand that the argument has moved past whether the globe is warming or not.

[Mike the Lab Rat]

So what? 99.9% of the "scientific community" used to believe the world was flat.

Actually, that favorite line isn't backed by any documented proof.

Turns out that the concept that most of the world bought into the earth as flat was invented by post-Enlightenment folks to describe just how "bass-ackward" people used to be before the Scientific Revolution. There's no indication historically to give any data that supports the widespread acceptance of the flat earth.

I remember being told as a kid that Columbus "helped prove" that the Earth was round, when the fact was that everyone in Europe at the time already knew that it was. We all got fed a bunch of hooey in elementary school.

That was my "little science tidbit".... now you may resume your global warming debate....

[Uncle Fester]

“...all experiments to demonstrate that the earth moves at all have failed. All seem to indicate the earth does not move at all. There is much evidence that the earth is young and cannot possibly be millions, much less billions of years old... The Bible does not say that the earth is at the center of the universe. But, anyone looking up can see that the sun, planets and stars are moving. Galileo argued that this motion was relative, that really the earth was spinning and it only looks like these other objects move. But, both the observations and the Bible indicate quite strongly that the earth does not move. If that is so, then the rest of this “stuff” must be moving.”

-The Creation Science Association for Mid-America

The Bible and "observations?" Yep, the methodologies used by FlatEarthers and those studying global warming are exactly the same.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Greg, look at my thumb.

[Jerkovich]

I'm sure the army of scientists studying it will be swayed by your short, declarative sentences.

No shit. It is amazing how many 'experts' are on this board in almost every subject.

[PSUFAN]

There is absolutely nothing we can do to influence that.

Not true. Were ALL pollution to cease tomorrow, global warming would undoubtably hasten.

[Uncle Fester]

Is see no difference between the Bible and computer simulations. The are both faith based approaches.

I take it you're not big on weather forecasts.

[Dinsdale]

Oh ya, I can believe there was 'real' science to back up those claims.

Laws of Thermodynamics. First day of physics class. Sorry you missed it.


And I've been a believer in the FACT that is human-caused glabal warming for about 20 years. I also understand that I'm a part of an "ecoSYSTEM," and it would be best not to do the experiments on every living thing on the planet.

But, I'm also basing things on FACTS, and people who attempt to politicize this issue seem to always skip over a certain question:

So...what happens when you heat large bodies of water?

While a dramatic increase in global temps...those same temps that 88 and the "I can do no wrong crowd try to spin so badly(you say a "0.1 degree increase," I say "that's about an 8% deviation from the global average in one year, and the average has gone up 33% in the last few decades"...anyhoo, while a large temp increase may have some serious repercussions (notice I said "may?" This is also one of those pesky FACTS, regardless which side of the fence you sit.), the hand-wringers don't seem to be catching on to this, and insist ocean levels will rise 8,000,000 feet, or whatever it's supposed to do.

Science review: As air warms, it holds ___________ water?

A) More

or B) Less

???


Yet, I never seem to hear anybody bring this up in the discussion...just "the ocean will rise 5000 feet when the icecaps melt."

So much chest pounding and ignorance on both sides.

[Uncle Fester]

I take it you're not big on weather forecasts.

They are notoriously inaccurate.

Random and uncertain elements are involved in all computer simulations. This does not automatically invalidate the data they produce or make them the scientific equivalent of Biblical quotations. Jesus Fukking Christ in a chicken basket.

Computer simulations are employed in everything from Astronomy to Zoology and their use is hardly "faith-based."

Or maybe when I plan my weekend picnic I should peruse Leviticus instead of the Weather Channel.

Your problem is that since your limited, crimped little nuggets of scientific knowledge are all built on a shaky foundation of political ideology, you assume the same is true for everyone else.

[Uncle Fester]

So computer simulations are 1) faith-based, and 2) products of "wishful thinking?"

You're an idiot. Your contribution to this thread is Frodoesque.

[Goober McTuber]

Or maybe when I plan my weekend picnic I should peruse Leviticus instead of the Weather Channel.

You should probably just call Dinsdale.

[Dinsdale]

We can't assert that humans are causing warming for the simple FACT that we don't what caused earlier fluctuations in temperature.

Wow.

Serious question -- have you been under a rock for the last several years? Seriously.

While we don't know for FACT what caused radical fluctuation in the earth's climate, we have made some amazing breakthroughs in technology over the last decade(sup the computer on your desk), and using today's technology, scientists now have very strong evidence to indicate that every major period of a radical deviation from "average" climate was caused by a catastrophic event to the earth's crust.

Even if you have to lie...PLEASE TELL ME YOU KNEW?

Dumbass.

What's now (barely, at this point) up for debate, is if 6 billion little worker bees spending all day, every day CONVERTING THE EARTH'S CRUST AND PROCESSES TO HEAT, while adding an extra insulating layer as a byproduct, is in line with other catastrophic events over the eons.


Keep on keepin on with your "science," dude.

[Uncle Fester]

Imagine how much time has been wasted by all those pilots, ship captains, high school driver's ed students, and the millions of others who utilize computer simulations.

Check the throttles? Lower the flaps? Bullshite!

Hep me, oh Lord, land this 747...

[M2]

So computer simulations are 1) faith-based, and 2) products of "wishful thinking?"

When you have as many unknown variables as climate simulations do, that is the bottom line. They're just blindly guessing.

... and these are?

Please don't come back with "unknown"!

Your idiot factor today has already climbed to "known" levels, and the pea that sits on the top of your shoulders will pop if you keep up with this pace.


m2

[Uncle Fester]

mvscal wrote: When you have as many unknown variables as climate simulations do, that is the bottom line. They're just blindly guessing.

Baloney.

There are just as many unknown variables involved in formulating weather forecasts, military battle strategies, space flights, winning poker hands, etc., and computer simulations are used all the time.

A while back you yourself were berating the people of New Orleans for not evacuating the city. The hurricane showed up on radar and the computer simulations provided a pretty good idea of where the storm would hit land. Everyone who stayed to ride out the storm based on wishful thinking and faith in God was a dumbfuck, remember?

Your objections to the science employed in the Global Warming debate are strictly political.

[M2]

I would love to see how much "greenhouse gas" this Indonesian sumbitch is contributing to the atmosphere right now. I bet its kicking Exxon's ass.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060418/ap_ ... _volcano_3

And I'm sure the discovery of 12 new volcanos in 2001 on the Gakkel Ridge directly underneath the Arctic circle have no impact at all on the temperature either.

Do you roll outta bed with your wife's crack pipe in your ass?

Seriously?



m2

[Dinsdale]

I suspect that climate change occurs on such a slow scale

33% temp increase post-industrial revolution says what?


Dunno about overall "greenhouse gases," but the #1 source of toxic (sulpher dioxide and whatnot) in the state of Washington last year was Mt St Helens...by a ways.

[PSUFAN]

I tend to beleive that its a good idea not to pollute the air and water because it makes it smell and taste bad.

Add to that the following: as wetlands and wildlife areas are depleted, as they have been in the Everglades, for example, biodiversity suffers. All wildlife plays a role in the foodchain, in climate, and with shift in landscape. Polluting Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades has wrought measurable chaos in Florida - do you agree?

[Goober McTuber]

Sorry, that turd doesn't float.

Eat more fiber.

[Uncle Fester]

Yet, despite the fact that they are far more ambitious in scale with an astronomically larger number of variables, we are supposed to believe that climate simulations are spot on, right?

Sorry, that turd doesn't float.

No one is asserting that climate simulations are "spot on, right." Simulations are simply tools, a part of the larger picture. Climatology is a science like any other.

[mothster]

pardon me while i dumb it down for us simpletons.......

vile filth spewing from tailpipes and smokestacks is a good thing?

thank you

[BSmack]

pardon me while i dumb it down for us simpletons.......

vile filth spewing from tailpipes and smokestacks is a good thing?

thank you

And don't light that cig!

sin

Jimmy Meds Health Insurance Bill

[Uncle Fester]

I think it is an insane idea to beleive that we have to protect every species from extinction, and that man's role on the Earth is to prevent change.

What's even more insane is declaring war on the environment, making it an abstract that we are not a part of, often trashing it for the benefit of a quick buck for a select few. That's mankinds' legacy to date.