Science deniers like to claim that “they” forecast a new ice age back in the 1970s. The trouble is that “they” weren’t scientists — it was just a couple of articles in popular magazines. Climatologists never said any such thing. So the next time somebody says to you “yeah, well, who knows, since they were wrong about the ice age,” tell ’em to go stuff it.
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Splitting hairs. Who were Newsweek et al quoting and relying on in their stories I wonder?
I understand why the global-warming industry would want to fob the whole thing off as just a couple of “regrettable things published in the popular press,” but it doesn’t seem credible to me. Maybe I’m just too dense to understand all the subtlety and nuance.
Um. No. Attributing comments to scientists that were, in fact, made by some random pop-culture writers is not “splitting hairs.” Using those two articles as evidence that the scientific consensus now is 180° from what it was in the 1970s is fundamentally dishonest.
Read the two articles. As you can see, particularly the former piece, this is a case of uninformed writers taking disparate points from unrelated studies and using them to assemble a picture that was as clearly inaccurate then as it is now.
I am just shocked, shocked I tell you, that the right wing would lie and misrepresent facts.
+ Al Gore did say he invented the internet, right?
+ John Kerry did call the troops dumb, right?
+ Nancy Pelosi did insult Rice for bing single, right?
+ Social Security is going bankrupt, right?
The list is endless……..
Wow. Let’s see:
“I took the initiative in creating the Internet.”
-Al Gore
“Education — if you make the most of it and you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well,” said Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat. “If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”
-John “Botched Joke” Kerry
I don’t fully understand the whole Rice-Boxer deal, but I think most would agree it was an unusual remark for a self-styled feminist. Imagine, say, if a conservative had told Gloria Steinem that she would never know real sacrifice b/c she’s childless.
As for Social Security, um, if you think things are just fine, well, that’s your opinion and you’re welcome to it. You might wanna check the “Trust Fund” and see what’s in it though. Bush tried to get something done on Social Security, but the Dems demagouged it to death.
1971 Paper on Warming and Cooling Factors
There was a paper by S. Ichtiaque Rasool and Stephen H. Schneider, published in the journal Science in July 1971. Titled “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate,” the paper examined the possible future effects of two types of human environmental emissions:
greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide;
particulate pollution such as smog, some of which remains suspended in the atmosphere in aerosol form for years.
Greenhouse gases were regarded as likely factors that could promote global warming, while particulate pollution blocks sunlight and contributes to cooling. In their paper, Rasool and Schneider theorized that aerosols were more likely to contribute to climate change in the foreseeable future than greenhouse gases, stating that quadrupling aerosols “could decrease the mean surface temperature (of Earth) by as much as 3.5 C. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease could be sufficient to trigger an ice age!” As this passage demonstrates, however, Rasool and Schneider considered global cooling a possible future scenario, but they did not predict it.
Got that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
I still think it’s splitting hairs. There’s not much room between considering global cooling a possible future scenario, but not predicting it. Whatever.
Like I said earlier, I understand why it’s important now for the global warming enthusiasts to hide or downplay this previous speculation, but it’s all a little Big Brotherish and creepy.
I rest my case. The right wing misrepresents and twists things like a pretzel.
Yes, Al Gore took the initiative in the Senate to fund what became the internet. Just ask the early researchers involved. In no way did Gore say he actually invented the internet
Yes, John Kerry botched a joke and meant to say about bush you get us stuck in Iraq. In no way did he insult the troops as being uneducated. No politician is that stupid.
Faux News and right wing radio have been making a villain out of Boxer for her “who pays the price” exchange with Rice claiming assaults on her race and being single. In no way did Boxer challenge Rice on her race or marital status.
And finally, as long as there are employers and employees paying into a trust fund if will never be bankrupt as the right wing claims. If no changes are made, 73% of current benefits could be made to future retirees. In no way is SS bankrupt.
The right wing are serial liars and manipulators of reality and the truth. That is their modus operandi.
To Judge,
“Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet.”
Newit Gingrich
The Guardian(12/30/88): American computing scientists are campaigning for the creation of a “superhighway” which would revolutionise data transmission.
Legislation has already been laid before Congress by Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee, calling for government funds to help establish the new network, which scientists say they can have working within five years, at a cost of Dollars 400 million.
Washington Post (8/1989)
Legislation has already been laid before Congress by Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee, calling for government funds to help establish the new network, which scientists say they can have working within five years, at a cost of Dollars 400 million.
WAPO (March 21, 1999):
David J. Farber, a professor of computer science at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the early players in the Internet, said that along with the importance of his legislative initiatives, Gore popularized the emerging medium worldwide. Gore aligned himself with high tech long before every lawmaker boasted of his or her personal Web site. He helped popularize the term “information superhighway,” drawing on the symbolism of his father’s hand in creating the interstate highway system.
Vinton G. Cerf, a senior vice president at MCI Worldcom and the person most often called “the father of the Internet” for his part in designing the network’s common computer language, said in an e-mail interview yesterday, “I think it is very fair to say that the Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the vice president in his current role and in his earlier role as senator.”
The co-author of a history of the online world, “Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet,” agreed. Katie Hafner said people have been haggling over the true beginnings of the network for decades. “As we all know, there are many paternity claims on the Internet. That’s a given, because it’s so successful. But there are so many people who did at least one pivotal thing in either creating the network, or encouraging the use of the network, or bringing the network to the public — and Gore was one of those people.”
Hey Judge this might be too complicated for you, but climate scientists still look at aerosols, particulates and the role they play in climate forcing.
There are several new studies (thats right new, science is a cumulative process, one generation builds on the work of the previous generation). Many studies have shown that as we clean our air through stronger regulation and as aerosols decrease that the effects of global warming will be amplified.
That in fact, there is a sort of global cooling going on, cause by aerosols , and it is actually masking the effects of Global warming.
I wonder, with what other of the sciences are you so willing throw out the consensus?
Are there some things in quantum physics you don’t agree with . . . the biological and medical sciences . . . are you really pissed off that some of those meds work, because they used evolutionary biology to figure them out?
@ Jon:
I think I’ve got it now. Al Gore DID invent the Internet and I’m some sort of troglodyte creationist. Thanks for all that.
This fits in pretty well with the whole doublethink/censorship motif:
The Weather Channel’s most prominent climatologist is advocating that broadcast meteorologists be stripped of their scientific certification if they express skepticism about predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming. This latest call to silence skeptics follows a year (2006) in which skeptics were compared to “Holocaust Deniers” and Nuremberg-style war crimes trials were advocated by several climate alarmists.
Heh.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=32abc0b0-802a-23ad-440a-88824bb8e528
Waldo, I am a little older than you. I remember. Your reference is splitting hairs.
Climate scientists, as we know them today, are a new profession. Climate models are new. In the not too distant past, we did not have computers with the horsepower to simulate the weather.
Anyway, because of the heat island effect (look it up on the EPA’s web site), the media has switch gears. With all our asphalt parking lots and house tops, it is far easier to convince people of global warming. Where they live, it is getting warmer.
Nonetheless, I still find one of the ice age theories interesting. If you have observed maps of the north pole, you may have noted that the Artic Ocean is almost completely surrounded by land. In addition, this ocean is located at an extreme latitude, and covered over with ice. Since scientists have geological and fossil evidence periodic ice ages, they wondered about the water source for all the ice that formed the glaciers. Except for the fact it is frozen over, the Arctic Ocean is a good candidate. That begs a question. What would cause the ice to melt?
Let’s start from a glacial period and assume an open Artic Ocean. Scientists posed the proposition that because so much of the water in earth’s oceans gets tied up in glacier ice during an ice age, the dropping sea levels would reduce the amount of warm water that could get into the Artic Ocean (saw this in a text in high school). When that happened, the Artic Ocean froze over and the heavy snowfall stopped. Without fresh snow, the glaciers receded. On the other hand, when the glaciers had receded sufficiently and enough ice had melted, the rising oceans would increase the amount of warm water flowing into the Actic Ocean. Then the snow would start again.
If it actually works that way, it must be tough on the polar bears, but I guess they survive somehow. Let’s hope we do too.
Global climate change deniers attempt to cast doubt on global warming by saying that scientists said we were going to have a global freeze soon. As you read here, no such scientists ever made such claim. That’s “splitting hairs”?
If I say that “scientists” say that homosexuality is contagious but, in fact, that’s a claim only made by people of questionable sanity, is it “splitting hairs” to quibble with me? If I claim that “scientists” believe that gravity can only be explained as being Touched by His Noodly Appendage when, in fact, no such scientists believe that, would that be “splitting hairs”?
Judge,
Great you give us a link to a clearinghouse for Inhofe, awesome.
The very same Inhofe who got caught red handed completely misrepresenting, distorting, and twisting the work of Stanford climatologist Stephen Schneider, and meteorologist Tom Wigley.
I am lvoing it . . . Judge did you notice how all those links in that page are all self-referential, like one big circle jerk! But I suppose that is because the big meanies have suppressed all the dissenting voices.
Re: your previous post
You’re a funny guy. You definitely have the, “move the goal posts, if that fails reset to begining” argument style down pat.
Huh, you said that I said Al Gore invented the Internet . . .. Ah . . . I see, I think I got it now: according to you by defending with indisputable facts the leadership position that Gore took in establishing the Internet , I am in fact defending the premise that Gore is the sole inventor of the Internet. By the way, a preposition that he never stated . . . who knew I was so devilish!?
Must be, because of the help I am getting from the Climate Scientist Cabal.
Oh and I apologize for my implication that you are some “sort of troglodyte creationist” . . . I believe that I succumbed to temptation, your example of smear thy enemy with the straw man, pejorative generalizations, is so alluring, one can not resist.
See I just assumed that someone in the face of such solid scientific consensus (for every Richard Lindzen and every kooky Russian scientist saying that sun flares are causing global warming, there are 100 scientists to proving them wrong . . . but it seems you and Inhofe like your science a la cart . . .
Anyway, I am awfully sorry it is really hard not to make these generalizations about you when you use the almost verbatim arguments that ID proponents use when they claim victim hood by the hands of the scientific establishment.
William Connelly, a climate modeller specialising in Antarctica, has made it a hobby to gather everything that was written about global cooling at the time.
Here is his challange:
“Was an imminent Ice Age predicted in the ’70’s? No
If you can find me a reference saying otherwise, I’ll put it here.”
http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/
You can view his blog @ http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/about.php
But the RealClimate post Waldo links to is the best primer.
Are you a global warming skeptic? fancy some easy money? Then see /betting on climate change
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_M._Connolley/betting_on_climate_change
Hmmm… Global climate change deniers? Is a global climate change denier something like an unbeliever or a heretic? Would you very much mind if I prefer to think of myself as a Doubting Thomas? At least theory has it that Thomas was saved.
Anyway, I suppose I did not make myself clear. I too much enjoyed passing on the ice age theory. Like the global warming theory, the ice age theory sort of makes sense, but it too is rather difficult to test.
In the 70’s, we did not have the computers and the programs that climatologists use today. Simulation models, whether they are accurate or not, do make predictions. That results in much of the difference in today’s global warming scare versus yesterday’s global cooling scare. With their climate models (that is, computer models of the worldwide weather), climatologists can make predictions. Fortunately, these predictions have not been accurate in predicting global warming.
As you should know, there are two substantial problems with any computer program. One is that you have to know what equations to put into it. The second is that you have to have good data for your computations.
Because the earth’s weather systems are so complex, we still have a lot to learn. So the equations are lacking. Consider that we did not discover the El Nino – La Nina effect in the Pacific Ocean until the 80’s. Supposedly, this effect on the world’s weather is only surpassed by the weather effects engendered by the tilt of the earth’s axis.
We also lack useful data because we did not begin collecting global data until recently. The time period over which we have been collecting global data did not begin until the launch of our first weather satellites. Given what the geologic and fossil data suggests about the length of the earth’s weather cycles, the time since the beginning of the space age is too small a period for us to have collected sufficient data.
There is also one other aspect of the Global Cooling scare that is worth considering. The suggestions that “we” were responsible for Global Cooling were muted. For the most part, the advocates did not presume to think we controlled the weather; no one was put to blame. So unlike the Global Warming scare, Global Cooling did not become a “cause” save the world from evil industrialists and global climate change deniers.
@Jon
Who cares where I got it from if it’s true? You’ve got a prominent climatologist advocating stripping his colleagues of their credentials if they have the temerity to disagree with the theory of global warming. Deal with it. It would be funny if it wasn’t so typical of the left’s response to dissent.
@Judge
First of all how do you know it is true, you got it from a, let us say “intelligence source”, who has been caught red handed willfully distorting the truth. I suppose you learn from example, though, some of your biggest heros have been caught doing the same thing.
What are you going to do now, accuse Al Gore of saying he invented the internet . . . oh wait you were wrong about that, hmmmmmm.
Secondly, if it is true, so what. IF someone is teaching things that are false and they are in a position of authority, should you let them continue to teach false things.
Now, of course you are ok with politicizing science, so you are ok with that.
“if it wasn’t so typical of the left’s response to dissent.”
This is hilarious, considering that I have personally experienced and been witness to righties like yourself accusing people like me of being a traitor or hating America,(for opposing the Iraq invasion), or my favorite having an anti-human agenda . . . not to mention the numerous other “agendas” you yourself like to accuse people of having.
Quite frankly it is starting to become quite boring.
Citizen Tom,
First of all you again represt the false “global cooling” scare. Do you not understand the differance between a couple of studies looking into the cooling affects of arousals (re: http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/) and thirty years of developing consinsouse amoung thousands of climate scientis
” these predictions have not been accurate in predicting global warming.”
actually:
* under modeled greenhouse gas warming, the warming at the surface should be accompanied by cooling of the stratosphere and this has indeed been observed
http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/MSU/msusci.html
* as well as surface temperatures warming, models have long predicted warming of the lower, mid and upper troposphere even as satellite readings seemed to disagree. But it turns out the satellite analysis was full of errors and on correction, this warming has been observed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Satellite_Temperatures.png
* models expect warming of ocean surface waters as is now observed
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/275/5302/957
* models predict an energy imbalance between incoming SW and outgoing LW radiation. This has been detected
http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/news/2005/story04-28-05.html
* models predict sharp and short lived cooling of a few tenths of a degree in the event of large volcanic eruptions and Mount Pinatubo confirmed this.
* models predict an amplification of warming trends in the Arctic region and this is happening
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/2005cal_fig3.gif
Have at it:
CRU temperature trend:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
NASA GISS temperature trend:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
Satellite readings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_measurements
Radiosondes:
http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/temp/angell/angell.html
Borehole analysis:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/pollack.html
Glacial melt observations:
http://nsidc.org/sotc/glacier_balance.html
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=129
Sea ice melt:
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20050928_trendscontinue.html
Sea level rise:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
Proxy Reconstructions:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/paleolast.html
Permafrost is thawing:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg18725124.500
All of these completely independent analyses of widely varied aspects of the climate system lead to the same conclusion: the Earth is undergoing a rapid and large warming trend.
As far as your argument concering El Nino, very strange . . . what do you mean?
I will quote Gavin Schmidt of NASA,
Let’s be clear what it is we are talking about. Basically we are discussing the climate sensitivity to increased CO2 (or increased radiative forcing in general). All models show this is positive – and that is independent of the model formulation or the individual trajectory. It is also shown to be positive from paleo-climate analysis, observations of the 20th Century change, the response to volcanoes – all independently of the models. Theoretically, it is obvious why blocking the escape to space of long-wave radiation must warm the surface, in the same way that damning a stream must lead to an upstream increase in stream level. The only question is how large an effect it will be. Models (of all different sorts) say 2.1 to 4.4 deg C for a doubling of CO2, observations say 1.9 to 4.9 with a best guess of around 3 deg C. (see this recent paper: http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frcgc/research/d5/jdannan/GRL_sensitivity.pdf)
This sensitivity is what you get for a specific radiative forcing change and it doesn’t much matter how that forcing happened. So uncertinaties in the methane or carbon budget don’t come in to the calculation at all. There may be unknown unknowns, but as Jule Charney said way back in 1979 – “We have tried but have been unable to find any overlooked or underestimated physical effects” that could reduce the warming. Nothing so far has changed that conclusion.
Global Warming is not an output of computer models, it is an observation. The following diverse and numerous empirical observations lead us to the unequivocal conclusion that the earth is warming.
At least we agree it’s getting boring.
People on different sides of issues will interpret identical facts differently. I take the words of Kerry and see him denigrating the intelligence of those who defend us; others see the same words and insist he messed up a joke about the president. No one’s right; no one’s wrong.
I guess the thing that pisses me off is the left’s arrogant presumption that they are correct, and so it’s OK to send a few uncooperative scientists to the modern equivalent of reeducation camps if they won’t toe the party line on global warming.
“I guess the thing that pisses me off is the left’s arrogant presumption that they are correct”
Whoa, whoa. Um, the left is far from having a monopoly on that one. I actually think that people on the predominant left (not the mythical “Left” that some people seem to think controls the “MSM”) tend to pride themselves on being able and willing to actually look for facts, examine their own held beliefs in light of those facts (as opposed to staying in the dark), and possibly change their opinion as a result.
I actually honestly think that a good number of people on both sides of the political/ideological number line are like that. But, I also think that there is a higher percentage of people like that that make up the more leftward leaning (absolutely no data to back that up, just “personal communication”).
Bush is a great example. The guy seems totally unwilling (or incapable?) of incorporating new realities (for lack of a better term) into his thought process. It’s like Colbert was right – he’ll think the same thing on Wed as on Mon, no matter what happens on Tues. To continue the total tangent (at the risk of staying off topic for this particular blog – sort of), flip-flopping (as accused in the 2004 election) is really just taking a look at information that may not have been available at the time of the original statement of opinion and then incorporating it into current thought.
That’s why you can’t fault people who supported the war in Iraq originally (acting on the information they were given by supposedly reliable sources in the administration) but no longer do (acting on what we know now to have been total crap information).
But to say the left makes arrogant presumptions of correctness, and imply that the right does not, is just kind of blind. You seem like a smart, inquisitive guy, Judge. I just hope you don’t fall into the trap of polarization that the political careerists want us all to drown in.
Sorry for running off at the keyboard a bit. Just sayin’.
Waldo if you are out there, there is a post that didn’t take because your filters thought it was spam . . . lots of links.
You are correct in one sense:
“people on different sides of issues will interpret identical facts differently. I take the words of Kerry and see him denigrating the intelligence of those who defend us; others see the same words and insist he messed up a joke about the president. No one’s right; no one’s wrong.”
Though, I would say that in real life people are inarticulate all the time and say things that could be interpreted in one way or the other, we usually give them time to say what they mean.
In the case you sight, there was profit advantage (power) to possible distort what Kerry said.
But we will never solve some of these disputes, its like trying to pull ourselves up by our shoe strings.
But somethings just are not open to interpretation . . . the biggest problem is that the right and to some extent the left has completely politicized the science on this issue, science is science, you do not get to throw out the results you do not like because they challenge your beliefs (for instance say, a belief that the individual is supreme no matter what and the individual should have nothing whats so ever restricting his rights to self-determination, and all of this environmental baloney is just a way for nannies to try to restrict the individual)
And it does not help the debate to say over and over again that the practitioners of that science (ignoring their qualifications, rigor of their work) are just part of the larger liberal or left agenda.
hmmmm, my “01/18/2007 6:53 pm #” made more sense when I wrote it than it does now that I read it . . . I must have cut and pasted wrong.
And in the second sentace I comicaly use the word arousals insead of the word I meant: aerosols
I meant to say before I put forward my second list of quotes, that Global Warming is not based on Models but observable phenomena and empirical data.