Coldest, wettest summer on record here

It is not the short term CO2 emissions rate that really determines the intensity of the greenhouse effect. Its the total buildup. Some models predicted that even if the world stayed at 1992 levels (not going to happen as developing countries increase their energy consumption) the amount of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere will lead to slowly rising sea levels for the next century at least. Any over that will increase the intensity and duration of the climate effect. That is why climate change is potentially so dangerous, these gases can stay in the atmosphere for so long that even if we stopped emissions completely, it would still take decades for the full positive effect to be felt.

Absolutely true. What I find disturbing is that while the public is so busy debating whether climate change is real and man made, we are not even preparing ourselves for the possibility that it could be true. Proving it is a far smaller task than deciding what steps humanity should take to deal with the problem, and I assure you it will feature years of international political drama regardless of when we decide to have that debate. I'd rather keep our diplomats busy now and get something resembling a plan in place, so that if worst comes to worst we can start working on it right away. If it turns out its beyond our control, well its better to have a plan and not need to use it, then to need one and have over 190 countries squabble over who needs to do what and who should pay for it.

The logic behind spending 2.4 billion dollars to study a lifeless, dead planet  as opposed to spending the money on preventing the Earth from becoming the same totally escapes me. None of us alive today plan on going to Mars, but do plan on an extended stay on Earth.

If global warming is such a huge concern, perhaps the scientific community should get their priorities straight. 

I didn't jump into this thread for a debate, only to voice my opinion.

The two have nothing to do with each other. The "scientific community" does the research, not the funding.

It is a major concern, and doing nothing is not an option. Since politics can't be discussed here, and nothing seems ever to be resolved by discussing topics, I'll just leave with a simple thought.

Imho, what's at issue isn't whether the earth is in a warming or cooling cycle. It's probably in the former.

What is worthy of thought is that man and his enterprises are accelerating and accentuating these changes. I can't see how people can't accept this as true. But, continue on... 

They don't?   http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/090414-rockets-ozone.html

Climate change happens.  My suspicion is that man's impact on climate change is potentially measurable but 'clinically insignificant'.

I believe that the "Education INDUSTRY" uses scare science to drum up grant money.When someone who is supposed to be an authority tells you "the world is going to end unless we do something about this!" you write your congressman or newspaper editor and before long presto! tax money to study the dangers of X

Money to prevent space rocks from wiping out all planetary life.....money to prevent solar storms from wiping out all planetary life.....money to prevent ice from melting and wiping out all planetary life.....money to prevent volcanoes from wiping out all planetary life.....money to prevent <insert natural phenomenon here> from wiping out all planetary life.....etc

Carl Sagan has written: “Even a succession of professional scientists—including famous astronomers who had made other discoveries that are confirmed and now justly celebrated—can make serious, even profound errors in pattern recognition.”[1] There is no reason to believe that climate scientists (alarmist or skeptic) are exempt from this possibility.

 From False Alarm:  http://www.paulmacrae.com/

If it weren't collectively bullshit, I might care whether man is contributing or not.  The atmosphere is opaque to infrared, in a matter of feet.  The idea that we're all going to die from heat because it blocks 7% of the infrared half an inch sooner is just absurd.  The atmosphere does, and always has contained enough carbon dioxide to completely block that narrow band of infrared coming in and leaving, multiple times over.

CO2 covers the scant area between 12 and 14 microns, a small fraction of the total Infrared coming in, and blocks it entirely a few percent of the way through the atmosphere.  Mankind, in it's entire existence, has created less than resides in the atmosphere, and a scant fraction of what we create has potentially been added.  Nearly all of it is reabsorbed by the increased health in the flora.  Warmer climates lead to more life cycle production.  The ocean itself stores and releases CO2 based on temperature.  With the latest climbing temperature, we saw a correlating increase in CO2, the current falling trend is equally mirrored.  CO2 levels have dropped off and shown reductions the last few years.

Venus?  It's not hot because of CO2.  They like to reference the black ball temperature, it just doesn't make sense for it to be that hot!  Perhaps if it had a bit more vigorous rotation...  The actual blackball surface temperature of Venus is nearly 700K, on one side.  The center of the facing side would be far hotter, an area where solid rock combusts.  Venus has massive volcanic activity, much like a newly formed planet would.  It didn't get there because of a greenhouse effect.  It started out on fire just like this one did, the difference is it stayed that way.

The final nail in the coffin?  CO2 absorbs more infrared at higher pressure.  Not only does it rise when heated, taking that trapped heat to a higher level just like any other gas, it also bounces more up than it does down.  Just like any other gas.  We panic over our contribution to a greenhouse gas that accounts for a few percent of a few percent of a few percent, and it actually cools the earth.  CO2 accounts for the only wide band of infrared that doesn't make it past the stratosphere.

It's just a bogus theory pushed by politicians looking for an excuse to tax oil companies.  They've been the devil for decades now, universal scapegoat and punching bag for dirt bags in office the world round.

So, the solution is 4X-loving forumites with no background is scientific data analysis to think themselves more knowledgeable than those 'misguided/lying' climate scientists?

Let's be honest: they know what they're talking about a lot better than we do - and they have peer reviews, conferences, and spend  a lot of time facing criticism and re-verifying data and conclusions so they won't have to shy away from this criticism. The only reason anyone think there's a 'debate' here is that the consequences of the climate-change discoveries are alarming, and will affect our quality of life in extensive ways.

Carl Sagan had "some" science background.

Bonus points for a correct answer!  If I were a scientist in the field of climatology, I would be employed by?

Who cares about AGW enough to put up?  Damn near nobody.  As a result, the only people funding this enterprise in deceit are the energy companies getting the shaft, and the governments giving it to them.

An alternative outlook for you.

Climate scientists are a bunch of college professors with majors in fields they can't get real job with.  Their only outlet in life is to get other brainless idiots fresh out of highschool to take the same pointless courses they did.  How do they accomplish this?  Convince people they're relevant.

You've simply sided with the ones that have the most money, attributing honesty to people that have turned commercially worthless educations into a comparatively secure financial status by telling politicians exactly what they want to hear.  That mankind will doom the planet and they have to tell us all what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.  It's for our own good after all.

College professors are a lot like lawyers, many of them are the economic equivalent of a parasite.

NEVER bite the hand that feeds you.......and keep in mind many of the peers (now ostracized for biting hands) disagree over man's impact

Al Gore science.....you know.....the one where you insist there's a problem then invest in all those companies that will make money off "fixing" the problem.

not sure I'd insult the parasites like that.....

I'm into logic and common sense.

It stands to reason that pumping a natural environment full of unnatural junk will ultimately harm it.

Pump your body full of chemicals and garbage and eventually it'll catch up to you.  You could be dead or look like Keith Richards.

Pump the planet full of chemicals and garbage and eventually it won't be able to take it anymore.  Imagine the earth as keith richards.  /shudder

The earth is pretty resilient, moreso than the species that live on it.  It'll likely recover after a couple million years.  Some day alien archeologists will dig up human bones and they'll be like, remarkable, this species appears to have had some degree of intelligence but they destoryed their own habitat essentially committing mass suicide!

I dunno man, all science and history of climate aside, common sense dictates that you can only punch something so many times before it'll break.  So the options are, stop punch so hard, stop punching entirely, or accept the consequences of the breaking.

It's unlikely anything really remarkable will happen out of all of this in our lifetimes, right, so who gives a shit?

A very sound point of view. 

You know, one way or another our grandkids and great grandkids will find out, so why should we argue.

In this case, chemicals and garbage is being applied to a natural life cycle gas.  It's plant food.  If we produced twice as much, it would still be plant food.

I'm all for valid scientific research into whether something is bad or not, dumping various chemicals for instance.  Some of them are pretty nasty.  There's stuff that lasts centuries before breaking down and is toxic to this or that critter.  Finding out and dealing with issues is a good thing.

Global warming isn't.  It's just the latest in a long line of attempt to put the oil industry under the control of the politicians.  They went after them for pollution when it was feasible, but now the plants we operate and the cars we drive are so clean that even the most prolific offender of the 60's isn't more than a trace element.  The fossile fuel industry now has a negligible footprint on the environment.  They need a reason to take them over because they don't currently have the ability to get it done.  The academia, in return for a living well above average, has provided it.

I have no problem with having a contingency 'plan'.  Problem is, the 'warmists' want to implement one now, involving billions of dollars changing hands, having no clue whether it will make a dime's worth of difference to the climate.  Implementing one now will, on the other hand, make considerably more than a dime for the plan's beneficiaries and enablers.  The science has a long, long way to go before we can determine, with any reasonable degree of likelihood, whether CO2 really matters.  If that becomes clear, we really need to look carefully at the cost/benefit of any attempt to prevent, mitigate or circumvent CO2's effect.  Efforts at 'prevention' may be far, far more costly to earth's societies than efforts directed at mitigation and accommodation.  So far, the only 'plans' involve artificial carbon credit trading schemes which, at least so far, move a lot of money around and increase energy costs, without changing CO2 production rates much, if at all.

Edit:

THIS Carl Sagan? :http://climatecrocks.com/2011/09/05/carl-sagan-on-global-warming/

Yeah, he does, and he warns about climate change -  although I am not exactly sure that using someone from another field against more than 95% specialist is relevant in any way - he's not famous for his climate data analysis skills.

This is the wrong attitude. If you saw the original Total Recall featuring mutants with 3-breasts you would understand the need to colonize Mars ASAP.

I thought that's why we sent Curiosity to Mars. There was another reason?

Politicians have more in common with felons than any other vocation, yet I'm the conspiracy theorist for holding their "scientists" on the same level as the oil company's.

Another thing I find hard to understand is the folks who sit in front of computers and decry technology. Yet another oxymoron.

Disappointing.

You're willing to settle for just three?

Where's the entrepreneurial spirit, eh?

Wait - psychoak rejects global warming? Could there be a better case for it?

Ain't that the sad truth.  And we have to look to them to 'save' us?

Unless you can come up with a better way for collective decision making. I hear the guys behind the pirate party in Germany eventually want to go back to direct Democracy (i.e. something like allowing citizens to vote on legislation directly) via the internet. I'm not sure if the results would be any better though, given how citizens initiatives in places like California have sometimes turned out.