The Great Global WArming Swindle

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No. You're making the same mistake as those who follow the dogma that man-made carbon dioxide emissions are the only cause of climate change. The video you linked to provided one side of an argument, but it was guilty, to some extent, of what it accused those on the other side of the debate of doing: presenting data selectively, then making inferences from incomplete evidence. Naturally, that's inevitable, to some extent, when scientists have to present things for public consumption, but it makes it all too easy to make something look convincing to those who are not capable of critical thought. I'm sure a proponent from the other side of the argument could tackle each of the points raised in that video and counter with evidence that supports their view of things, and make it all seem just as plausible.

As for glaciation, I don't think that's believed to be related to sun spots, but parameters of the earth's orbit around the sun that vary in a cyclical manner and affect the heat we receive from the it.

Misrepresentation of Carl Wunsch in the "documentary".

now THIS is something i wanted to see.

You did not pay attention to the video. First, all the ice core samples show that temperature leads CO2, thus CO2 can't be the cause, we are seeing the CO2 reacting to the change in the temperature. The video also states that CO2 isn't the primary greenhouse gas, but water vapour is and the water vapour is being driven by solar rays.

Please, CO2 is still a greenhouse gas whenever you argue it or not, so to attribute any excess amounts is still going to cause an effect. You do realize that Mars is 9F warmer than what it should be if it didn't have any CO2 in it's atmosphere. Despite the thin atmosphere, the nearly pure CO2 levels does trap in heat, and if you try to compare Earth's atmosphere to Mars, it's only ~1% in density to that of Earth's. Unlike Earth, Mars has no to little water vapor so explain how it could be that much warmer without water vapor as a factor?

Last edited by Nexus on 13 Mar 2007, 12:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

Besides to argue that nature produces more CO2 than us is flawed due to one reason alone. Calculate the amount of CO2 the trees and plants that convert CO2 back to oxygen, it'll almost be the same in counterweight to any natural event. Since human activity is occurring, we're decreasing the CO2 conversion to Oxygen process by deforestation and at the same time, add our own CO2 into the system. The math would say that would be a serious problem in the long term. Even if you don't believe in the warming aspect, oceans will become more acidic due to the CO2 levels anyway, so either way it's a problem regardless.

I could simply say the video you showed, SkaFather, is a bunch of lies without giving any evidence to the contrary. I could say it is not true because oil companies have funded this video. I could give sites of people saying how great and wonderful Al Gore is. I could also give videos of many scientists with big degrees and very passionate speakers. Yet I will not give any scientific data at all and cut out all the parts where scientists talk about chemistry. I would just show a couple of skewed graphs. If I did any of this, I would be making a documentary similir to the one you showed us.

The scientific method Requires skepticism and criticism. The best way to improve is to be challenged by someone. We would still believe that the sun is the centre of the universe without skepticism. I like the idea of going after theories everyone agrees with.
However, I prefer better arguments backed by scientific data.

Instead I will give facts of what does exist and let others come to their own conclusions.
Lenntech Carbon Dioxide Properties
Carbon Dioxide

Property Value
Molecular weight 44.01
Specific gravity 1.53 at 21 oC
Critical density 468 kg/m3
Concentration in air 370,3 * 107 ppm
Stability High
Liquid Pressure < 415.8 kPa
Solid Temperature < -78 oC
Henry constant for solubility 298.15 mol/ kg * bar
Water solubility 0.9 vol/vol at 20 oC

[spoil] Note there is more extensive information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dio ... n_the_past
[/spoil]
Carbon dioxide is found everywhere. We breathe out Carbon Dioxide and breathe in oxygen.

From Carbon Dioxide Variation Wikipedia
The longest ice core record comes from East Antarctica, where ice has been sampled to an age of 800,000 years before the present.[12] During this time, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has varied between 180–210 µL/L during ice ages, increasing to 280–300 µL/L during warmer interglacials.[13] The data can be accessed here.
As of January 2007, the earth's atmospheric CO2 concentration is about 0.0383% by volume (383 ppmv) or 0.0582% by weight.[6] This represents about 2.996×10[sup]12[/sup] tonnes, and is estimated to be (37.77%) above the pre-industrial average.[7]

To put things in perspective, if 383 ppm is 2.996×10[sup]12[/sup] tonnes then
300 ppm is 2.346e+12 tonnes. 2.996e12-2.346e12= 6.5e+11
That means there is an increase of 650,000,000,000 tons of Carbon dioxide from

The climate which has changed over the millions of years is talked about in the video as just the fact that the "earth changes constantly." That is true, the earth has changed its climate since it formed 4.3 billion years ago. However, the change we are talking about has taken place over less then 250 years, not millions. Also the huge increase in Carbon Dioxide in comparison with the past is phenominal. The movie also stated that upper atmosphere doesn't change much in temperature, so what? Measure the content of the atmosphere and you will notice a change. Also, the atmosphere is very cold. Finally the idea that solar radiation is the main cause of global warming is the results of massive errors in graphs.
Stephen Shneiders findings
I think that solar radiation can be contributor of climate change,
Evidence supporting solar radiation has an effect on climate
however, it is much smaller then the affect of C02.


The graphs in the movie were flawed, look at these.
Underneath I have also displayed the sources for the data of each graph.


Data Sources
(blue) Vostok ice core: Fischer, H., M. Wahlen, J. Smith, D. Mastroianni, and B. Deck (1999). "Ice core records of Atmospheric CO2 around the last three glacial terminations". Science 283: 1712-1714.
(green) EPICA ice core: Monnin, E., E.J. Steig, U. Siegenthaler, K. Kawamura, J. Schwander, B. Stauffer, T.F. Stocker, D.L. Morse, J.-M. Barnola, B. Bellier, D. Raynaud, and H. Fischer (2004). "Evidence for substantial accumulation rate variability in Antarctica during the Holocene, through synchronization of CO2 in the Taylor Dome, Dome C and DML ice cores". Earth and Planetary Science Letters 224: 45-54. DOI:10.1016/j.epsl.2004.05.007
(red) Law Dome ice core: D.M. Etheridge, L.P. Steele, R.L. Langenfelds, R.J. Francey, J.-M. Barnola and V.I. Morgan (1998) "Historical CO2 records from the Law Dome DE08, DE08-2, and DSS ice cores" in Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A.
(cyan) Siple Dome ice core: Neftel, A., H. Friedli, E. Moor, H. Lötscher, H. Oeschger, U. Siegenthaler, and B. Stauffer (1994) "Historical CO2 record from the Siple Station ice core" in Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A.
(black) Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii: Keeling, C.D. and T.P. Whorf (2004) "Atmospheric CO2 records from sites in the SIO air sampling network" in Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A.



The reconstructions used, in order from oldest to most recent publication are:

(dark blue 1000-1991): P.D. Jones, K.R. Briffa, T.P. Barnett, and S.F.B. Tett (1998). "High-resolution Palaeoclimatic Records for the last Millennium: Interpretation, Integration and Comparison with General Circulation Model Control-run Temperatures". The Holocene 8: 455-471. DOI:10.1191/095968398667194956
(blue 1000-1980): M.E. Mann, R.S. Bradley, and M.K. Hughes (1999). "Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties, and Limitations". Geophysical Research Letters 26 (6): 759-762. DOI:10.1029/1999GL900070 (pre-print)
(light blue 1000-1965): Crowley and Lowery (2000). "Northern Hemisphere Temperature Reconstruction". Ambio 29: 51-54. Modified as published in Crowley (2000). "Causes of Climate Change Over the Past 1000 Years". Science 289: 270-277. DOI:10.1126/science.289.5477.270 (data available from NCDC : [2])
(lightest blue 1402-1960): K.R. Briffa, T.J. Osborn, F.H. Schweingruber, I.C. Harris, P.D. Jones, S.G. Shiyatov, S.G. and E.A. Vaganov (2001). "Low-frequency temperature variations from a northern tree-ring density network". J. Geophys. Res. 106: 2929-2941. DOI:10.1029/2000JD900617
(light green 831-1992): J. Esper, E.R. Cook, and F.H. Schweingruber (2002). "Low-Frequency Signals in Long Tree-Ring Chronologies for Reconstructing Past Temperature Variability". Science 295 (5563): 2250-2253. DOI:10.1126/science.1066208
(yellow 200-1980): M.E. Mann and P.D. Jones (2003). "Global Surface Temperatures over the Past Two Millennia". Geophysical Research Letters 30 (15): 1820. DOI:10.1029/2003GL017814.
(orange 200-1995): P.D. Jones and M.E. Mann (2004). "Climate Over Past Millennia". Reviews of Geophysics 42: RG2002. DOI:10.1029/2003RG000143
(red-orange 1500-1980): S. Huang (2004). "Merging Information from Different Resources for New Insights into Climate Change in the Past and Future". Geophys. Res Lett. 31: L13205. DOI:10.1029/2004GL019781
(red 1-1979): A. Moberg, D.M. Sonechkin, K. Holmgren, N.M. Datsenko and W. Karlén (2005). "Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data". Nature 443: 613-617. DOI:10.1038/nature03265
(dark red 1600-1990): J.H. Oerlemans (2005). "Extracting a Climate Signal from 169 Glacier Records". Science 308: 675-677. DOI:10.1126/science.1107046
(black 1856-2004): Instrumental data was jointly compiled by the Climatic Research Unit and the UK Meteorological Office Hadley Centre. Global Annual Average data set TaveGL2v [3] was used.
Documentation for the most recent update of the CRU/Hadley instrumental data set appears in: P.D. Jones and A. Moberg (2003). "Hemispheric and large-scale surface air temperature variations: An extensive revision and an update to 2001". Journal of Climate 16: 206-223. DOI:10.1175/1520-0442(2003)016<0206:HALSSA>2.0.CO;2

I wonder why people in Australia care about it so much.

I should also that most CO2 doesn't immediately settle after it goes into the atmosphere. It lingers in the atmosphere for a very long time, so to say temperature rise before CO2 rise = CO2 caused by warming is flawed. Most of the CO2 is in the higher atmosphere than on the ground due to the fact that wind currents would disperse it and atmospheric convection cycles would force most of it upwards as heated gas. The ice cores would only reflect the amount of settling CO2, not the actual CO2 in the atmosphere at the same time of temperature reading. I should add that it slowly rises and that's why plants don't suffocate at all, not to mention if wild life lives inside the forests, then there's always enough CO2 to go around.

The reason why is because climate change threatens the Great Barrier Reef, as the ocean temperatures rise and become more acidic, it'll cause more bleaching to the corals, killing all the local life along with it due to starvation, overheating, suffocating or high acidity levels. So essentially not only it'll be a big ecological disaster to loose it, Australia will also loose a lot of tourism money also. Drought is another reason, but as for the drought? I doubt climate change attributed to all of the drought itself, it just made it worse than expected, not to mention el nino is partly to also blame for that too.

Last edited by Nexus on 13 Mar 2007, 12:49 am, edited 3 times in total.

Probably because Australia is hit hard.

Climate Action Network for Australia
"recent studies by CSIRO suggest
that there could be a 20 percent drop in annual rainfall over the southwest by 2030, and a 60
percent drop by 2070."
"It ispredicted that increased temperatures will alter crop seasons, increase dairy and beef cattle heat stress, and introduce new pest and disease occurrences. Climate change will also decrease the area of arable lands currently used for agricultural production."

Not from the same site, you can find information that the "bleaching" of the Coral Reef can be linked to climate change.

like Nexus said.
Again he is ahead of me

Sorry if I'm hogging all the attention

But anyway, I've been a stanch climate change believer since I was a child, not to mention I've been monitoring satellite images, radar images and weather charts around Australia for years now. I've also been monitoring solar flare and sun spot activity for the last two years also along with USGS earthquakes and reading all sorts of news items on climate events. All I can say is that, I've noticed quite a few serious changes to satellite activity over the last few years, and I've noticed no serious relation to sun spot activity to weather events (even if you factor in a delay). However I have definitely noticed earthquake activity relating to active sun spot activity.

Surprisingly I don't believe humanity has caused anything out of the ordinary climate wise, because naturally these violent climate events would have happen over a course of tens of thousands of years, all that human activity has done is sped up the clock super fast, which is still quite dangerous. The reason why it's dangerous is because the more violent the warming trend is, the more violent the cooling trend that will be likely following it. People should be thinking ahead on this issue.

I don't really like how people attribute global warming as a purely human caused event, because it always happens, just never this fast. I acknowledge solar influence because Mars is also acting strange, however the warming progress on Mars is much slower than what's happening on Earth, so humanity activity has to be blamed for the extra big push it's given to the warming trend.

Here's an article that supports me on that solar activity is happening, but what's happening on Earth is simply too fast to be purely solar influence:

http://www.livescience.com/environment/070312_solarsys_warming.html

Last edited by Nexus on 13 Mar 2007, 1:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

the warming process is slower on mars...could that possibly be due to energy loss in transit from the sun to mars and ours might be accelerating due to our closer proximity?

and never said climate wasn't changing....it always changes...

and with regards to speeding up the process....we're not very big. even our biggest pollutants are not very big. the earth, on the other hand, is very big and very resilient. the reason why i'm extremely skeptical of us being to blame for a phenomena that naturally occurs is because most of humanity is full of technophobes and people who grew up in a culture of guilt (i blame this almost solely on the prevalence of religion and guilt-based religions like christianity). so yeah....i'm very skeptical. not to mention that the black part of the chart that mithrandir provided....the last part of measuring co2....that was done in hawaii....for some reason, i think you're gonna get a higher sample of co2 in the air when you're close to volcanos that spew out massive ammounts of co2. it's like measuring the levels of carbon monoxide in the air by sampling the air immediately by the exhaust of a running car....but of course, that's assuming the sample is taken where the study originates from.

That was taken from Mauna Loa, which is located in Hawaii.
However, that is only one station among many.
Earth System Research Laboratory

I should point out that volcanoes usually release more Sulfur dioxide than CO2, and since SO2 reflects UV radiation back into space before it can be absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, it basically counterweights the CO2 effect of volcanoes. Also volcanoes release ash which also acts as a global dimming agent as it blocks out all light if dense enough. Basically what I'm trying to say is that, the CO2 effect of volcanoes would be grossly exaggerated if you don't factor in all the gases which counteracts it's effect. That's the key issue here, usually all natural mechanism have a counterweight to their CO2 emissions, even if they're bad, and the only thing that really doesn't is human activity.

The interesting thing is that, people talk about the mini ice age in the 60's, and yet don't state two obvious reasons why it could have happened. Bare in mind about the nature of sulfurous gases, and consider what was a common pollutant in those times, you guessed it, sulfurous gas impurity by cars, industries, etc. Another contender of causing the mini ice age is a obvious one, and that was nuclear testing. The amount of wind blast would have forced enough dust into the atmosphere to impact the climate slightly, but probably a smaller margin compare to sulfurous gases. I came to this conclusion when I noticed that when nuclear testing was phased out in treaties and industries were forced to clean up; the mini ice age basically stopped and it continued to warm up according to climate graphs. I looked at graphs regarding nuclear testing history and usage of aerosols, etc and they confirm my suspicions. My take on this is that, human activity was counteracting the effects of their CO2 emissions so efficiently, it was in fact overruling the impact of CO2, causing a cooling trend to the climate. Basically it's been accumulating for a long time, and lucky for us, pollution back in the 60's postponed what is happening now. I'm not suggesting it's a good idea to start adding sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere as a counterweight to CO2 emissions, because there are two nasty problems with it, one it's quite hazardous to breathe in and two it causes acid rain.

With those things all in mind, after a sum of time, CO2 has been accumulating but it's effects were masked. Another thing to consider strongly is deforestation, even if human CO2 emissions are small compared to other natural events, by destroying vegetation we're decreasing Earth's CO2 intake capacity, and therefore the more forest that is destroyed, the more bigger our impact will start to become.

Another thing to think about is how human CO2 emission differ to other events. Think about this, all natural events like wildfires, volcanoes, etc all emit large amount of CO2 at one go or last for months and years, however they don't happen frequently enough to cause CO2 levels to reach beyond a certain point of 300ppm in climate history, and that's a threshold. Human activity on the other hand is contributing small amounts, but there's a problem here, unlike natural events our emissions are continuous and slowly rising, giving nature no time to recover from the CO2 surge, scrub the CO2 out fast enough or adapt to it.

It's like having a tap and a glass of water to fill a funnel (imagine the tap as human activity, the glass is a major natural event). If try to fill it up with a glass, it'll be more dramatic but it'll drain out before another glass can be added. Where as if you have a tap on a high enough speed, you'll find that the rate of water flowing into the funnel would eventually overwhelm it and it'll fill up beyond it's brim.

Last edited by Nexus on 13 Mar 2007, 2:07 am, edited 2 times in total.

the page states that the observatory is located by a volcano....so my statement stands on that point....i'd say a better point of an observatory would be in nebraska or somewhere more neutral for gathering such information. or do you mean that summation of the information was produced in hawaii but the information was gathered and summed together from various points in the world?

Has somebody tagged a few CO2 molecules to determine if they do, in fact, stay suspended in the atmosphere before they settle?