Articles on Climate Change

[Mlle. Zabzie]

I love my mother and she is usually a rational, sensible person about most issues. She has a blind spot the size of a tractor trailer though - she refuses to believe in climate change. I have tried "because science", but I've gotten back "well the weather doesn't seem any different than when I was a growing up". I've tried explaining that her experience isn't evidence and that the trends are longer and bigger than that (because science). I've also tried explaining that the scientific community's consensus is "climate change". She has responded that she thought the studies were debunked. After our latest round she's promised to actually read stuff on the subject. That's what I'm looking for here. I'm not a scientist at all, and I'd live to be able to cite her something like an article summarizing peer reviewed articles. Help from the Board Hive Mind? Thanks!

[Commodore]

Problem is if you are 18 years old or younger, you have lived your whole life without any warming. How long can that go on before the credibility of the warmists is damaged?

Another factor is the solutions always involve 1) confiscation/redistribution of wealth and 2) restrictions on human activity. Once you start advocating taking away people's wealth and freedom, the issue is no longer an academic exercise.

[Suttree]

Problem is if you are 18 years old or younger, you have lived your whole life without any warming. How long can that go on before the credibility of the warmists is damaged?

This either shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the topic or is a deliberate attempt at deception. Scientists do not cherry pick in that manner.

What about the last 15 years? This claim, too, is false, in two important ways: First, it actually has warmed over the past 15 years, and second, the past 15 years are themselves among the warmest in the past 130 years.

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/petergleick/files/2012/02/GlobalT-15yrs.png

But even these selections of time periods are cherry picking. What about the entire instrumental record going back 130 years – the period of time when scientists know that growing concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere have been piling up? Well, you look at the graph. The warming is unmistakable, despite the year-to-year ups-and-downs.

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/petergleick/files/2012/02/GlobalT-full.png

Finally even this is cherry-picking, because it turns out that the heat imbalance of the planet is not only measured by rising surface temperatures. Scientists now know that a massive amount of the extra heating effect is also going into melting ice (in the Arctic and Greenland and mountain glaciers) and also heating the oceans, and that even when surface heating slows, ocean heating continues. This next figure based on data from a 2011 paper by Church et al. shows that most of the heat actually goes into the oceans, not into rising surface temperatures.

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/petergleick/files/2012/02/Total_Heat_Content_2011.jpg

technical comment for those interested: anyone who understands the statistics of long time-series with internal natural variability also understands that we can see periods of time as long as 10 or 15 years with modest warming, followed by periods with higher-than-average warming – a dynamic confirmed by both models and by actual observations.]

The next time you hear someone say it isn’t warming, or it hasn’t warmed for “xx” years, or “it’s actually cooling,” remember: someone is trying to deceive you with cherry-picked numbers.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/02/05/global-warming-has-stopped-how-to-fool-people-using-cherry-picked-climate-data/

[MinDonner]

I have a good site for exactly that purpose bookmarked on my home laptop, I'll grab the link when I get home (if no-one beats me to it). On Bad Astronomy IIRC.

[Darth Visenya]

It is happening, I just don't particularly care if there is a climate disaster in 100 Years time when I'm long dead.

[kungtotte]

Since you got her to actually agree to read more on the subject, mind telling me how you did that? I keep having to be the voice of rationality in my extended family and at best I can only ever get them to agree to disagree :\

Why do people not want to know things?!

[S John]

It is happening, I just don't particularly care if there is a climate disaster in 100 Years time when I'm long dead.

Well, that's a healthy attitude.

[Maithanet]

Problem is if you are 18 years old or younger, you have lived your whole life without any warming. How long can that go on before the credibility of the warmists is damaged?

Another factor is the solutions always involve 1) confiscation/redistribution of wealth and 2) restrictions on human activity. Once you start advocating taking away people's wealth and freedom, the issue is no longer an academic exercise.

Yet another article about how climate change isn't happening with an unusual starting point of1997-1998? I am shocked SHOCKED I tell you.

Here are two articles about why that is incredibly poor science. Notice that these articles are specifically to debunk these exact kinds of misleading science that Commodore is peddling. Using 1997-1998 temperature spike as the "starting point" is incredibly disingenuous because those were more or less the hottest years ever recorded. Since then, as your graph indicates, that is the new normal. This doesn't prove that climate change isn't happening. It proves it IS happening.

[kungtotte]

Also it's "climate change", not "global warming".

We're in just as much trouble if it gets colder.

[Darth Visenya]

Well, that's a healthy attitude.

I find it hard to care about anything that doesn't directly affect me.

[kungtotte]

It does directly affect you. Just because you won't drown in a tidal wave caused by the poles melting doesn't mean pollution won't kill you.

[Maithanet]

I find it hard to care about anything that doesn't directly affect me.

The thought of your grandkids having a significantly lower standard of living doesn't affect you?

PS (it's not going to take that long).

[Mark Antony]

I find it hard to care about anything that doesn't directly affect me.

:D

[Darth Visenya]

The thought of your grandkids having a significantly lower standard of living doesn't affect you?

PS (it's not going to take that long).

If I'm being honest, then no, not really, if they actually existed at this point I expect I would feel differently.

[Commodore]

This either shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the topic or is a deliberate attempt at deception. Scientists do not cherry pick in that manner.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/02/05/global-warming-has-stopped-how-to-fool-people-using-cherry-picked-climate-data/

My point was if you want to justify policy changes or taxation/subsidization or (forced or voluntary) behavior modifications, it needs to be getting warmer and people need to feel negative effects of that warming. Too many people have not experienced warming and/or it's ill effects for them to prioritize it as a concern over say, being able to afford gas or heat their homes.

Also, predictive models would have more credibility if they didn't universally overshoot observational data

[awesome possum]

This either shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the topic or is a deliberate attempt at deception.

Meet Commodore. We've been trying to figure out which one of those it is for years now.

I'm leaning toward deliberate misunderstanding.

[Disturber of Peace]

As someone who plans to live for millions of years this issue very much concerns me.

Can you show some quality articles that predict how will climate change affect our planet practically?

[Jamie's left hand]

There are so many other environmental problems to look into as well as climate change, I hate how that's singled out be the single biggest threat to mankind. The single biggest threat to mankind is our dysfunctional western culture.

[S John]

I think the easiest climate change effect to visualize is the effect of melting polar and glacial ice. Most of the world's major cities are coastal and a sea-level rise of even a few meters would be a serious problem. There are low-lying agricultural lands as well so in addition to displacement we're looking at loss of arable land occurring at the same time as massive growth in human population. I saw a pretty good map for this recently, I'll see if I can find it later.

[MinDonner]

Here you go Zabz :)