America : Good while it lasted

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Originally posted by Rilthyn
A one minute video that is essential viewing for anyone that actually fears the hockey stick graph, or just wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Hockey Stick Graph vs. Ice Core Data

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This is the updated post from wattsupwiththat site (a blog written by Anthony Watts, a broadcast meteorologist), the origin of the youtube video posted by Rilthyn.

A few comments:
1) the video displays the past temperature of green land only. So it is not a depiction of global temperature. A given land mass can have much higher rate of fluctuation in temperature because of changes in weather/wind patterns etc.

2) To construct any notion of past global temperature, the data must be treated and manipulated to allow combination of the data sets that are obtained from different sources using different methodologies. So, it will not be as simple as charting a bunch of numbers with gnuplot. Something that this video does not.

3) It has nothing to do with AGW which is the notion that the increase in global temperature is rapid and is due to human activity. In other words, AGW has two components: A) The rate of increase is large. B) It cannot be explained if you exclude CO2 added by man. The video or graphs do not address any of the two.

4) It does not contradict the original "hockey stick" paper, as far as I can see.

Edit:

P.S: I must add that natural causes have created large rates of increase in global temperature in the past. For example see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoce...hermal_Maximum. But as far as I know those have been accompanied by great extinction events, as well as other negative impacts of GW such as rising sea levels, or ice-free poles.

Deniers...cherry picking?

Srsly?!

More on point 4 of my previous post.

Compare:
Hockey stick graph from wikipedia, depicting a global temperature
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ipcc_large.jpg

The graph from wattsupwiththat blog, depicting temperature in greenland only.

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpre...im_image11.png

As the picture says, the red lines are from real thermometers. Drawing them with the rest of the data is essentially the "nature trick" mentioned in the "climategate".

P.S: Is it possible to resize the images that I link? They are annoyingly and needlessly huge.

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Originally posted by Xywalan
P.S: Is it possible to resize the images that I link? They are annoyingly and needlessly huge.

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Not that I know of. The easiest solution is to just link to them, rather than embedding; there doesn't seem to be a way to hide the tag.

However, since the image has been posted to Wikipedia, there's an additional "bonus feature": Wikimedia gives you a thumbnail. So you can do something like this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ipcc_large.jpg


Clickable thumbnail!

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Originally posted by Xywalan

Compare:
Hockey stick graph from wikipedia, depicting a global temperature

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Uh, actually it is not a global temperature, it says right there in big letters at the top of the graph.

NORTHERN HEMISPHERE.

This graph fails to note the Medieval warming period, which even the bullshit artist Al Gore had to acknowledge, in a seriously diminished form.

In summary

1. Carbon is not bad, it is a building block of life. Carbon levels have been many, many times higher than they are today without catastrophe.

We are currently at about 380ppmv, and as much as that may make some people brown their pants, carbon levels have been many times higher for much of the last 550 million years, with that in mind, some of you may have noticed that the world did not end. Link.
2. Global temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations have been correlated, but we know for sure that the temperature was the cause and the concentration was its consequence, not the other way around.
It is one of the cornerstone lies of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth to pretend that it is carbon dioxide which controls temperature.
Don't drink the Kool Aid.
3. The hockey stick graph doesn't need contradicting. If you show global temperatures with the start point being immediately after the Medieval warming period, and the end point being around 2000, before the warming stopped then you will get a hockey stick. Set your start point anywhere else, as seen in that video, and you will see in a larger context what is really happening, fuckall.
4. Saying that change cannot be explained if you exclude CO2 added by man is true only if you also exclude a number of other factors, namely that the climate is in constant flux, without human influence, not to mention that little thing called the sun.
5. Sea ice levels have returned to their 1979 level. Link.
6. The Earth has not warmed in the last decade.

Now, to sit back and watch the doublethink.

Rilthyn - you posted two links. The first link is meaningless. The second link was debunked. You also went on to make a couple of assertions and threw in some insults.

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1. Carbon is not bad, it is a building block of life. Carbon levels have been many, many times higher than they are today without catastrophe.

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I don't think you know what you're talking about. Do you mean carbon dioxide levels have been many times higher (in the atmosphere) than they are today? How do you draw your conclusion that increase CO2 levels wont lead to sea rises or mass extinctions. The graph doesn't tell us anything about that.

You say "Sea ice levels have returned to their 1979 level" Your link states (if you go back to the article instead of the graph)

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Based on satellite observations, the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center reports that the amount of sea ice on the planet is the highest in 29 years, when satellite record-keeping began.

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The Arctic Climate Research Centre said this in response:

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In an opinion piece by George Will published on February 15, 2009 in the Washington Post, George Will states “According to the University of Illinois’ Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.”
We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979. This decrease in sea ice area is roughly equal to the area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma combined.
It is disturbing that the Washington Post would publish such information without first checking the facts."

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It's just plain rude to post lies like this.

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Originally posted by Rilthyn
I
2. Global temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations have been correlated, but we know for sure that the temperature was the cause and the concentration was its consequence, not the other way around.

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Actually, the causality is very well understood. Higher CO2 concentrations lead to higher temperatures in a very straightforward way. No serious scientist (in fact no scientist I have ever heard of) is disputing the optical properties of CO2.

I can explain why the CO2 causes higher temperatures, but will not do so unless requested.

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Originally posted by Snrrub
I can explain why the CO2 causes higher temperatures, but will not do so unless requested.

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You might be able to explain why, but that will not make you correct. In fact, empirically, you would be wrong.

This is a graph showing CO2 levels in the Phanerozoic. This is another link for a more simplified graph showing also the average temperatures.

I posted the first one to show there is a little variation in the various models, with only one model out of the five showing fairly stable CO2 levels throughout the past 600 million years. Considering it is a vast minority, I won't be discussing it here (I don't know enough about ecology, climate or geology to question either model).

In only two eras in the past 600 million years have there been a direct correlation between CO2 levels and temperatures (In the end of the Permian and in the late Cenozoic, which is pretty much the present). That raises a very good question as to the general effect of CO2 on global temperature. Notice that in the Ordovician, during one of the most severe ice ages in the planet's history, CO2 levels were 4,000 PPMs higher than today, which is about ten times higher.

The point in this is to say that in my opinion, tectonic activity (both the moving of continents and volcanic activity), along with ocean currents (directly connected to the locations of continents) and solar energies, have a far greater impact on global temperatures. CO2 levels MAY have a slight effect on this, but the geological facts don't support this.

That is not to say I don't want, for selfish reasons, this planet to be a cleaner and nicer place to live in, but you have to wonder who is gaining from this industry and how sincere are his intentions.

@Jidoe

Ugh, the link you posted seems to contain material from junkscience.com. Normally, I don't shoot the messenger but Steven Milloy (the owner of Junk science.com) is one of the few GW deniers who is known to have strong ties to various lobbyists and is not trustworthy by any measure. He is basically a puppet to spread propaganda for the protection of corporate interests. For example, he tries to refute scientific evidence on health hazards of secondhand smoking.

Now, I don't want to ignore the content of your post so I'll try to find a more trustworthy source for the information that you posted.