More on hockey and climate change

[danno25nh 3]

, but we haven't heard John Smith publicly accuse Jack Brown of lying about his results. (And before anyone claims "Climategate," bear in mind that the original accusers were the ones who ended up being suspected of fraud.)

That would be professional suicide. Make that accusation and you ensure you never again get published, nor will you recieve funding.

It's not a conspiracy it's life in academia and the world of research grants.

You'll note I'm not siding with either camp. Just discussing why and how misinformation can and does get out there. Once our media puts their spin on anything fact goes out the window. The money lies with agreeing that mankind is responsible for global warming and bad weather.

[iceNsteel 0]

What's funny is I tend to look at it from the opposite view. I think that deniers tend to have a religious like belief, and reason matters little to zealots.

Haven't met anyone that's caught up in the issue that doesn't have a religious like belief regarding the subject.

I don't know your job but, generally speaking, you and I have to assume that just about everyone on this thread knows far less than the people who've undertaken the study of the planet's climate as a career, correct? What's in it for them to so overwhelmingly believe that the climate is changing negatively, and that our lifestyle has an impact on that? We could that argue that climatologists have undertaken a conspiracy, whereby they tacitly understand that the only way they get hired and retained is to lie that they believe the climate is changing. But does it really make sense that a guy would be willing to spend 60 days a year camping in the tundra to measure ice caps, then return home with fudged numbers just so he gets to go on his two-month vacation the following year? And wouldn't a portion of them still keep their jobs even if the climate wasn't changing?

There are several problems at work here. Being a climatologist does not free a person from the lack of objectivity shared by all human beings. In other words, climatologists have biases too. In fact, I would tend to strongly suspect that if you didn't have preconceived bias on the issue there wouldn't be much appeal to being a climatologist from the get go.

The other is simply money. Research science that generates nothing of any actual value is hampered by a staggering dependency on grant money. Most of the people offering the grant money have some very strong political and social views. End of the day if your findings aren't what they want they will find someone to "re-evaluate" the the subject.

One argument I've seen raised is scientists' computer models aren't proving to be accurate enough. How could they be? The weather forecast for my area has already proven to be wrong from just last night; how could we possibly expect computer models to be correct with a prediction going out one hundred years on possibly the most dynamic elements on our planet? But let's say their forecasts are 100% inaccurate. Would that have any bearing on whether climate change is occurring? No. They're independent of each other. All it would mean is scientists would need a better model of using today's measurements to predict future weather patterns.

X+25=Z Solve that equation. Oh wait, it can't be solved because there are too many variables. People keeping records of the weather isn't necessary new, but people keeping accurate data on the weather is pretty new. In the grand geological sense it's brand spanking new. Sorry, but accurate projections cannot be made simply because there isn't enough data.

However, while they couldn't conclude with 100% accuracy the comparison between the MWP and today, if you dig deeper into the report (http://books.nap.edu...1676&page=1), the presumption is two-fold: 1) there were areas of the globe that measured warmer, while there were also areas of the globe that measured colder; 2) the average of those areas is presumed to be less than today. But here's the more important question. Does the fact that there was a Medieval Warm Period or a Little Ice Age have any bearing whether the climate is changing today and human activity has affected it? Of course not, they're independent. I know people like to say, "But there was human activity then.....", but trying to compare 1/20 the amount of humans who used candles and campfires to today's society is ludicrous.

A presumption is never a part of good science to begin with, and there are yet more problems. People are often puzzled by all of the vineyard references to various places around London. The reason for this is during the MWP they were growing a substantial number of grapes in the area. Modern day, the climate is not idea for that. Or again, Greenland hosted sustained farming activity. It doesn't any longer, yet if it were warmer now it would that it should be possible.

At any rate, the point is during the history of the planet climate change has occurred at various times with no human intervention. There is no reason to assume that human causes are the sole, or even primary, causes of any modern day climate change.

Finally, we know that human activity led to air pollution in major cities. We know this because is was human intervention -- catalytic converters, unleaded gasoline, "add ons" to smoke stacks -- that measurably lowered the particulates in most cities over the past 30-40 years. If we were able to cause, then decrease, the pollution in the air via human activity, why is it so inconceivable to assume that our actions could have led to detrimental affects on our climate, especially given China and India (2.5B people between them) are joining the Industrial Age?

It's not inconceivable. Nor it is that we're merely experiencing one of the many changes to weather patterns that have occurred on the planet.

[Jason Harris 31]

No disrespect, danno, but you are waaaaaaaaaay off in where the money lies. I'll show you the math by giving you a quote from a climate researcher (apologies to the Dood for copying and pasting):

First, to do actual research in climate science typically requires a Ph.D., and that takes 5 or 6 years on average past the bachelor's degree. During that time a graduate student might make around $20k/year. That's not exactly the sort of money that you get rich off of. After that the climate scientist will probably take a post-doctoral research position, where he or she will make more than they did as a grad student, but way less than what a Ph.D. in industry would make, maybe $45k. Honestly, I would say that the majority of research is carried out by grad students and post-docs, although it may not be directed by them. Once fully ensconced in academia, the climate researcher will probably make $60k to $125K, with a few exceptional ones making more than $200K.

This is to be contrasted to someone that does not work on academic things like AGW, and instead goes to work in the financial industry in the field of weather derivatives. Those people start at $80K and can make up to $500K per year or more. Makes you wonder why researching AGW is supposed to be such a moneymaker.

Speaking for myself (being in a climate Ph.D. program), most of the cost is opportunity cost. I get paid a graduate assistant salary (about $22,000), my tuition and health insurance is paid. I think many top-notch universities are the same way, so the money it's costing me is what I'd be making if I were working instead of going to school. That amounts to more than $60,000/year difference, so it will cost me over a quarter million dollars in lost earnings. C'est la vie

Let's be generous and say that every climate researcher makes $100K per year, even though this guy says he only make $22K. The poll showing that 90% of climate scientists believed global warming is real claimed they found approximately 10,200 climate scientists listed in the American Geological Institute's Directory of Geoscience Departments. That adds up to over a $1B cottage industry, if we assume some of these people are getting paid five times more than they actually are. Either way, $1 billion is a lot of money, right? Sure, to most of us. But from 2002 to 2011, ExxonMobil gained $310.6 billion, Shell $203.9 billion, Chevron $151.8 billion and BP $146.9 billion despite its loss year because of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Those are profits, not revenues. It wasn't as easy to find information on coal companies, but four public US companies are profitable on annual revenues of $25 billion, while the Chinese coal industry is three times larger.

But those are only the revenues/profits for the industries; they also receive money from the government. A recent study of U.S. energy subsidies identified $72.5B in federal subsidies for fossil fuels between 2002-2008.

So, we have two sets of criteria to use what our courts refer to as the "reasonable person" standard. We have to ask whether we believe that 10,000 climate scientists, collectively making somewhere between $250M to $1B annually are ALL fudging the data to continue receiving their grants, or would we believe that the two industries that showed PROFITS of over $1 trillion this past decade are obscuring the science because they readily know that any forms of "greener" energy would undoubtedly cut into those profits.

So, do you think 10,000 people are lying or do you think two industries with at least $500B in annual revenues would like to protect their jobs?

Icensteel, I'm going to have to get back to your post later -- I have a toilet that's being fidgety!

[danno25nh 3]

Jason,

What you didn't mention is where the money comes from. You simply won't get grant funds if you don't come up with the answers that are expected.

Based on your writing style and methodology I suspect you are a student. It's great that you've listened to what you were taught and that you have passion and a good measure of research ability with respect to finding documents supporting your position.

Your example is of a student not of a lead researcher. This means your reference is flawed. I worked on a project developing an implantable medical device 15 years ago. I was not the lead researcher and I received little money. The very well respected lead researcher with a doctorate in biomedical engineering on the other hand made significantly more than your hypothetical $100k. It was made very clear to me what the outcome of our study would be before we implanted the device in the first pig. Simply put if it didn't work the money went away. This is reality not conjecture.

At this time right or wrong climate research scientists are compelled to conclude a given answer.

Before you bring up peer reviewed documents. I peer review articles regularly including a recent article by the afore mentioned lead researcher in the implantable device experiment. It is not uncommon to pick your peer reviewers. I wouldn't dream of disagreeing with my former boss as it would indeed be professional suicide.

If you are a scientist you know these things. If you are a student who plans on a career in research you soon will. Good luck.

[jds 20]

I thought this was a discussion on how backyard rinks were becoming a thing of the past and not a debate on whether you buy into the idea of global warming or not.

[doodman 0]

Ok back to backyard hockey rinks

IF Canada is getting warmer, then more land will be usable...so people will be moving north and build their backyard rinks there :D

In this case climate change is a total positive as the vast land of Canada will become usable and millions of people can move there and easily be supported!

The same can be said for Russia, Greenland etc

[ambro 0]

The problem with climate change is simply we don't have accurate data from a long enough time frame reach any conclusions about long standing weather patterns. History is full of climate changes that obviously weren't caused by humans. During the Medieval warm period it was hot enough for grapes to be grown in England and the Vikings to colonize Greenland. Then it pretty suddenly ended with the little ice age. You can't say humans caused any of that because they simply didn't have the technology to affect the climate.

So 50 years of data might be something we're doing, and it could just as easily be one of the many naturally occurring changes in weather patterns the planet has experienced.

Problem with this argument is that there actually are methods to indirectly (and very accurately) measure what the actual temperatures were, up to a few hundred thousand years ago. Before people were around to record weather. So the fact that accurate records haven't been kept until very recently, doesn't matter.

The data available quite clearly shows a direct correlation between carbon dioxide levels (also indirectly measurable) and average global temperature. And the fact of the matter is, humans are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere like it's our job, and at an increasing rate. CO2 levels have not been higher in the history of earth than they are today, if you only consider the time when the earth has been habitable.

To those suggesting it is just part of natural climate cycling, it is possible that it plays a role. Global warming and cooling cycles do exist, but the average temperature has never increased at such a high rate as it has been in recent years. If we are in the midst of a natural global warming cycle, humans are just compounding it with the carbon release.

[doodman 0]

And by declaring CO2 a pollutant all people just by breathing are polluters. Incoming 'breathing' tax.

And still...after trillions of dollars and massive government power grabs, suppose we reverse the trend, the world is cooling! What then?

Wouldn't MANMADE GLOBAL COOLING be horrific as well?

[goblue9280 33]

And by declaring CO2 a pollutant all people just by breathing are polluters. Incoming 'breathing' tax.

And still...after trillions of dollars and massive government power grabs, suppose we reverse the trend, the world is cooling! What then?

Wouldn't MANMADE GLOBAL COOLING be horrific as well?

Honestly doodman, that has to be one of the most asinine responses in this thread. So we should do nothing because by doing something we might cause a new problem? Doctor: "I'm sorry sir, but we can't perform the heart transplant as there is a small chance your body will reject the organ and you will die." Patient: "But I'll die without it!" Doctor: "look on the bright side, it'll be cheaper."

We're talking about reducing carbon emissions that are an UNNATURAL result of post industrial revolution human activity. Reducing and/or eliminating these emissions would hopefully bring us back to a state of NATURAL climate change (you know, the one you and other deniers keep talking about.)

[ambro 0]

And by declaring CO2 a pollutant all people just by breathing are polluters. Incoming 'breathing' tax.

And still...after trillions of dollars and massive government power grabs, suppose we reverse the trend, the world is cooling! What then?

Wouldn't MANMADE GLOBAL COOLING be horrific as well?

You clearly are just grasping at straws here. The point isn't that CO2 in itself is a pollutant. There are natural sources of CO2 and there are unnatural ones, and with natural ones there is a balance. CO2 produced by humans, as well as every living thing, and that being released from ocean waters is generally balanced by that being absorbed by plants, algae, reabsorption by the ocean, etc. The point is there is a natural balance.

However, the fossil fuels we have just started to use in the past 100 years contain carbon that has been stored over a few million years. And we're releasing it all into the atmosphere, pretty much at once considering the timescale you have to compare it to. It is unnatural, and strongly disrupts the balance.

And yes, manmade global cooling would definitely be horrific. However, your hypothetical situation is unrealistic. If you actually knew anything about the topic, you would understand that there is no way to do that. Spend all the money in the world and it will not happen. At best we would mitigate the warming effect caused by humans, and the earth's natural warming/cooling cycles would resume as they were. But the carbon levels are so high, and still increasing, that the effects might turn out to be irreversible. There are so many variables involved it is difficult to predict. That is why hardly any of the 'projections' ever agree with one another on what the temperature will be in 10, 25, 50, 100+ years.

By the way, I think you are somewhat missing my point. I'm not declaring the end of the world is near, all completely due to our fossil fuel abuse. I'm just stating that the trend is there, it's obvious, and those who think it's a hoax or whatever just don't understand how it works. Plain and simple. I'm also not implying that there is no feasible solution to the problem. I wouldn't be surprised if within the next 30 years some elaborate system is developed that would be able to pump CO2 from the atmosphere through it and sequester it into something harmless, or even a precursor that could be reconverted into the fossil fuels we all know and love.

[DarkStar50 679]

No one has to believe scientists if they want to. After all, they are human. However, no one can refute nature. Nature is changing. Don't believe nature is changing? Well, animals are migrating NORTH to areas they previously would never enter and plants are also moving NORTH in their ability to adapt to a changing climate.As these actions occur, eco-systems change. Some for better and some for worse. No, "you can't deny Mother Nature."

[Jordan 13]

A couple of key points folks:

1) the arctic ice extent is shrinking. The ice is neither conservative nor liberal http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

2) the temperatures are rising. There is nothing left to debate here. http://data.giss.nas...s_v3/Fig.A2.gif

3) CO2 is not in and of itself a pollutant. It is however, a greenhouse gas, which as its' concentration rises, more of the sun's heat is reflected back into our atmosphere causing warming...this is matter of physics not opinion. Cyanide is poison, yet it naturally occurs in the earth...

4) There are significant tipping points from which we can never return. For example: if the temperatures rise such that the permafrost in the arctic melts, methane will be released in large concentrations. We will never be able to reign that back in. Methane, is a very powerful greenhouse gas.

5) Albido. This is the term for the natural reflection of the sun's rays by the snow and ice (which are shiny white). As the snow and ice melt, there is less reflectivity and we further warm.

6) Scientific funding fallacy. The fact is that being a scientist is a really crappy way to get rich. There is much more money available from the oil companies/interests (ie see Koch brothers). Don't you think that a multi-trillion dollar industry would disprove global warming if they could?

7) Cognitive dissonance. When facts are presented which are uncomfortable, we as humans tend to look for ways to disbelieve them. Some people will simply never accept the science. People still smoke cigarettes....

8) You need to go to the core science, and the core data...which are all readily available. You can easily learn enough to decide for yourself. If you instead choose to learn by reciting political opinion and rhetoric, you will be lost forever.

I probably won't post on this topic again, as it is generally fruitless.

[Jason Harris 31]

Danno, I appreciate the compliment, but my college days ended nearly thirty years ago. My only science was as a Political Science major, although that it where I first learned the concept of Use It Or Lose It in organizational funding. Whatever knowledge I've accrued since then comes from reading the daily news, something I've done since the third grade.

Global warming is not a recent entry into the news. Small articles about global warming, el nino, the ozone layer and climate change would be tucked inside the newspapers going back into the Eighties. There'd be a blurb about the hole in the ozone layer getting larger, and how that might impact us. Or there'd be an article about temperatures rising and scientists wondering whether human activity was having any impact. In short, they'd be news stories without any controversy or politics.

It reminds me of the current situation with the honey bees. At this point, there is no debate that 70% of the honey bees have died. There also isn't any debate whether this would be catastrophic to agricultural production if the losses continue. Where there has been debate, however, is over the causes. Some believe chemicals are killing the bees, some think it's radiation, some think it's poor nutrition, some think global warming is fostering growth of adversarial fungi and mites. But, because this isn't a political issue, the scientists are able to convene anonymously and stump for their side. Ultimately, we can expect one side is going to become the dominant argument. At that time, we can also expect that special interests will be hired by impacted industries in an attempt to confuse the science, but intuition suggests that the differing views actually helps the science, because each side wants to be proven right. In the end, however, most will have to concede that another side raised enough evidence to prove their point, although we know there will be stragglers (or even saboteurs) who will hold out.

And, based on my memory of reading about climate change, I bet if we went back and reread the chronology of the climate change argument we'd find that's the same pattern that happened during its debate, with the only difference being the scientists have finally reached near unanimity that it has occurred and a overwhelming consensus on why. This never started out as a political issue, but it's obvious it has become so as affected industries realized they would lose billions if they lost the argument. Consequently, the few counterarguments that remain are human nature and nature nature.

The human nature argument essentially says that thousands of scientists have fudged the numbers because they are either too scared of the retribution for disproving their superiors or, worse, because they're all basically frauds. I've known of other instances like yours where the subordinate researchers felt compelled to back up the lead researcher or risk losing their jobs. A similar thing happens with CFO's, who are strongly persuaded to fudge the numbers by the CEO. But the nature of science is to try to be the first. The first to prove something or the first to disprove something. A sub researcher from Duke, spending two months a year in the tundra to measure the polar caps, couldn't care less about hurting the feelings or professional reputation of the lead researcher from UCSD. In fact, if his research disproves thirty years of alarmist articles, he now becomes one of the most famous and well paid academics in his field. But that isn't what happened; instead, we've had thirty years of increasing consensus among the scientists

But what really gets me about the human nature argument is it ignores one of the most basal of all human nature -- greed! We know Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms committed dozens of illegal acts that led to our economy cratering four years ago. We know the largest coal mine in West Virginia ignored EPA directives, resulting in carcinogens leeching into the water tables, and, more importantly, 29 miners dying in a mountaintop explosion. We know BP and other oil companies have pushed through offshore drilling applications even when they know they don't have the capacity to protect against spills. We've had Enron, Worldcom and Tyco. Just look up the word Monsanto and "fraud."

All that and we're to assume that the thousands of scientists who have presented evidence that our planet has been heating up at an unprecedented rate are liars or fraudsters? But the 3% of scientists who disagree, many of whom have been shown to be taking money directly from the very companies that would lose BILLIONS of dollars if resolutions were enacted to curtail the problem, are just concerned citizens trying to prevent the oligarchic reach of climatologists run amok?

Again, our court system uses the reasonable person standard. So what should the reasonable person assume? Ten thousand liars or multi-billion dollar greed?

Finally, the nature nature argument? It says that warming periods and cooling periods have occurred while humans have lived on the earth, and that some places have been hotter in the past. That's right. Some places have, but the National Research Council concluded the average of the entire planet one thousand years ago is not hotter than the average of the planet over the last 30-50 years. But even if they were, it doesn't preclude whether the activity of today -- when we have seven (versus the 1700's) to twenty (versus the 900's) times the humans, and an infinitely greater amount of heat producing activity compared to candles and campfires -- could have put us above what the natural state of the planet would have been.

[doodman 0]

Honestly doodman, that has to be one of the most asinine responses in this thread. So we should do nothing because by doing something we might cause a new problem?

All of your asinine 'sky is falling' baloney required the response. Just TODAY there are THREE studies released blowing all your climate change hysteria out the door. It's studies I find like these that make me a SKEPTIC.

"You clearly are just grasping at straws here. The point isn't that CO2 in itself is a pollutant. There are natural sources of CO2 and there are unnatural ones, and with natural ones there is a balance. CO2 produced by humans, as well as every living thing, and that being released from ocean waters is generally balanced by that being absorbed by plants, algae, reabsorption by the ocean, etc. The point is there is a natural balance."

CO2 has indeed been labeled a 'health hazard' by the EPA: an unelected out of control power abusing/grabbing government agency. Google it and read through the pages and pages of articles about it. Then tell me I'm grasping at straws.

Because I disagree with you doesn't mean I haven't done my homework.

[Jordan 13]

***Just TODAY there are THREE studies released blowing all your climate change hysteria out the door. It's studies I find like these that make me a SKEPTIC.***

Please post links to these, "ahem" studies...

[doodman 0]

Penguin doom and gloom is a farce: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120413145303.htm

Bering Sea Ice at record levels: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/04/11/bering_sea_ice_cover/

Asian Glaciers putting on mass: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17701677

these 3 were all linked in one article rreleased today.

Talk about asinine-glaciers gaining mass blamed on warming...

[Jason Harris 31]

Are you aware that, except for a blip with Gerald Ford, every President since Eisenhower has been more conservative than his predecessor in the same party? That means The Socialist is more conservative than Clinton, who was more conservative than Carter, etc. What it also means is you need to go back 50 years to find evidence of that point during which we had a more "out of control power abusing/grabbing government." You can check out voteview.com for the analysis, or watch less Fox New for a healthier sanity....

You also need to dig further beyond the titles of the articles.

New technology allowed them to count more Penguins than expected. So? That only means their previous count was too low. The author of the study was thrilled to find more penguins than expected. but said, "Whilst current research leads us to expect important declines in the number of emperor penguins over the next century, the effects of warming around Antarctica are regional and uneven. In the future, we anticipate that the more southerly colonies should remain, making these important sites for further research and protection."

One of the reasons that warming is regional around Antarctica, per the US National Snow and Ice Data Center mentioned in your second link, is the geography: "Antarctica and the Arctic are reacting differently to climate change partly because of geographical differences. Antarctica is a continent surrounded by water, while the Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land. Wind and ocean currents around Antarctica isolate the continent from global weather patterns, keeping it cold. In contrast, the Arctic Ocean is intimately linked with the climate systems around it, making it more sensitive to changes in climate.....Most of Antarctica has yet to see dramatic warming. However, the Antarctic Peninsula, which juts out into warmer waters north of Antarctica, has warmed 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) since 1950. A large area of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is also losing mass (85% of the Larsen B ice shelf according to this article last week: http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/13361255/antarctic-ice-shelf-shrinks-by-85pc/), probably because of warmer water deep in the ocean near the Antarctic coast. In East Antarctica, no clear trend has emerged, although some stations appear to be cooling slightly. Overall, scientists believe that Antarctica is starting to lose ice, but so far the process has not become as quick or as widespread as in Greenland (30% more summer melt per the USNIDC)."

In your third article, the authors of the study said they didn't understand why one area showed glaciers putting on mass in one region when the trend is other regions are losing mass: "Late last year, the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (Icimod) released data showing that across 10 regularly studied glaciers, the rate of ice loss had doubled since the 1980s."

Yet, if you've read articles over the years, all of this makes sense. Something that become known in recent years is scientists originally debated how to alert the public about the numbers trending the wrong way. They weren't sure whether to refer to is as "Global Warming" or "Climate Change." Given that all the yahoos say whenever there's a snowy winter, "Yeah, where's your Global Warming now??? Ha ha ha!" it's obvious the scientists should have had more faith in the intelligence of most news watchers and referred to it as Climate Change, because Climate Change addresses the fact that we're experiencing more extremes of weather due to warmer oceans. In other words, it's quite possible that particular regions can be showing warmer temperatures than normal, while others are colder than normal.

It's the average numbers over the planet that are trending negatively.

[doodman 0]

READ the articles and think. There's fatal flaws in each.

I'll give you one example: They've only got data on 10 (TEN!) out of 54,000 glaciers! That's less than one percent. Could we please get data on at least 1%? How the hell are we spouting all this science when we've such little data?

'Penguins are doomed!' but we didn't count em

'Earth's melting!' but we've measured less than 1%

Quit being a sheeple and think man.

As for your comments on government.... Where'd you go to school and how old are you? You couldn't be more wrong.

[AfftonDad 88]

Are you aware that, except for a blip with Gerald Ford, every President since Eisenhower has been more conservative than his predecessor in the same party? That means The Socialist is more conservative than Clinton, who was more conservative than Carter, etc. What it also means is you need to go back 50 years to find evidence of that point during which we had a more "out of control power abusing/grabbing government." You can check out voteview.com for the analysis, or watch less Fox New for a healthier sanity....

Can you please point me to the section of voteview.com that backs up this statement? Thanks.

Edit:

BTW... I'm not claiming that it doesn't exist... I just couldn't find it (I admittedly didn't look very long)

[goblue9280 33]

Penguin doom and gloom is a farce: http://www.scienceda...20413145303.htm

Bering Sea Ice at record levels: http://www.theregist..._sea_ice_cover/

Asian Glaciers putting on mass: http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-17701677

these 3 were all linked in one article rreleased today.

Talk about asinine-glaciers gaining mass blamed on warming...

1. What does getting a more accurate count of the number of emperor penguins tell us about how they are responding to climate change?

2. Typical denier article, take one small section of a news release and try and turn it into something it's not. Here's the actual news release from the NSIDC, notice the section right before the Bering Straight section which gives details on the overall Arctic ice extent, it reads:

"March 2012 compared to past years

Arctic sea ice extent for March 2012 was the 9th lowest in the satellite record, but the highest since 2008 and one of the highest March extents in the past decade. Including the year 2012, the linear rate of decline for March ice extent over the satellite record is 2.6% per decade."

and check out the accompanying graph: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2012/04/Figure3.png

and the opening line of the release: "Arctic sea ice reached its annual maximum extent on March 18, after reaching an initial peak early in the month and declining briefly. Ice extent for the month as a whole was higher than in recent years, but still below average."

3. Notice these two sections from the 3rd article you linked: "The reason is unclear, as glaciers in other parts of the Himalayas are losing mass - which also is the global trend." and "Right now we believe that it could be due to a very specific regional climate over Karakoram because there have been meteorological measurements showing increased winter precipitation; but that's just a guess at this stage."

So one instance of possible regional weather overcoming the global climate change trend is enough to disocunt the entire theory? That's no different than the idiots who everytime there's a cold swing in Arkansas say "so much for climate change."

[Jordan 13]

doodman

I notice that you get your "science" from denier sites.

The three things that you posted refer to studies that are in no way conclusive about anything. Try reading actual science.

[Jason Harris 31]

Can you please point me to the section of voteview.com that backs up this statement? Thanks.

Edit:

BTW... I'm not claiming that it doesn't exist... I just couldn't find it (I admittedly didn't look very long)

It took me a while to find it also, and I have to apologize because my memory was off slightly. I had seen the graphs on a TV show about a month ago and thought the host had said "every" President has been more conservative than his predecessor, but the truth is it's "most" have more conservative, and the trend shows Presidents overall becoming more conservative over the last 35 years. Here's the link: http://voteview.com/blog/?p=317

In the graph, the center line is, well. the center, so moving up shows more conservatism and moving down shows more liberalism.

I think the middle two graphs of this page (http://voteview.com/blog/?p=284) are more telling, because they show the polarization of Congress and the Senate, which the author of the graphs contends is the most it's been since the end of Reconstruction.

The graphs kind of back up something I've been saying for a couple of years now. If we think of 1 as Left, 5 as Center, and 9 as Right, for the first five years of my adulthood I was probably a 5.5, but since then I've shifted slightly to the left to be about a 4.5. But, because today's Republicans have shifted so far to the right, it creates the illusion that the center has moved to the right, even though most of the people in the center vote the same way on the issues as they would have twenty years earlier.

READ the articles and think

Wait, are you being serious??

It's fairly obvious that you didn't read the articles fully, or you would have noticed that one of the authors (the blogger) took his quotes out of context, and that each of the articles presented information that argued against your point.