[at-l] On Global Warming

[spiriteagle99 at hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Rusty asked:
>Some thoughts and questions that may bring along comments:  Has anyone on 
>this list done any research on the cycles of warm and cold over the eons?

I seriously doubt that anyone on at-l has done any serious research in this 
direction. But you?ll find lots of opinions.

>Could it be that the acceleration of the present warming has more to do 
>with the natural cycle of things than some of us think?

Yes, it?s possible. But you won?t get a lot of support for the idea.  Too 
many people have too much invested in the concept of anthropocentric warming 
to admit the possibility.  OTOH, Just last week I mentioned a study for 
which Jim Hansen was one of the Principal Investigators that admitted that 
25% of observed warming was due to Solar variations.  Which then blows past 
GCM model results out of the water.

Funny thing ? there was also a recent study that proclaimed that the Solar 
energy input to the Earth was not equal to the radiated energy.  Duuh.  Not 
sure who paid for that one, but what a colossal waste of time and money that 
was.  If the radiation input/output were equal, there would be no life on 
Earth.

>Do not the geologists say that we are in a geological age warm cycle?

Yes.  Been there for a long time.

>How much are we humans to blame for the acceleration as opposed to natural 
>events [el-Nino, volcanic ash, or other ocean currents?

There are no answers to this.  There are those who believe the 
?acceleration? is due entirely to humans.  There are those like Tim Barnett 
from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who are attempting to 
determine the answer to your question.  There are also some who question 
whether humans have any effect.  I?ve never bought into that view, but I 
have serious problems with the view that humans are THE MAJOR influence, 
much less that we?re the ONLY influence as some would have you believe.

>I'm convinced by all kinds of data that we are warming and have some 
>responsibilities for it.  But, how much is our [humanities] fault?

Jim Bullard?s references are good ? but slanted.  Read them ? but take them 
with a grain of salt because they all present only one side of the story.  
None of them, for example, reference the study I mentioned. None of them 
explain glacial melting.  None of them examine the effects of a weakening 
planetary magnetic field with (as of several years ago) a tear the size of 
Canada.  There are a dozen or more other factors that are not considered in 
the present GCM?s (General Circulation Models ? aka climate computer 
models).  One of the many reasons for the failure to include those factors 
is the sheer lack of computing power available.  NOAA has been working to 
assemble a supercomputer farm that will provide sufficient computing 
capability ? but to my knowledge that computing facility is not yet 
operational.

Bottom line ? there are many, many questions yet to be answered before the 
extent of human culpability can be even reasonably estimated.

So ? in spite of Weary?s ?confidence? in my ability to answer your question 
? I CAN answer it.  And the answer is:  There is no answer.  Someday there 
may be, but not yet.

Keep in mind that there?s a lot of utter nonsense floating around out there 
masquerading as ?science.?  And that the science community is infected to an 
even greater degree than the hiking community by massive political battles.

To quote a line from of one of JimB?s references:
>And the debate continues... and will continue to continue.

Hmm ? I?m gonna get some flak for this, so let?s short-circuit some of that. 
  I?ve spent 40+ years working with the spacecraft programs that have 
provided much of the data for both sides of the Great Climate Debate.  For 
the first 35 years, I was the operations engineer for many of the science 
instruments that have provided the temperature and chemical composition data 
? in particular, for EVERY version of the Infrared Interferometer 
Spectrometer, Thematic Mapper and Multispectral Scanner that ever achieved 
orbit.   Just don?t believe the crap about the MSS (Multispectral Scanner) 
being the first version of the Thematic Mapper ? it wasn?t.  There is truly 
some real garbage on the Web.

I was also THE liaison to the science community (nobody else wanted that 
job).
I worked here: http://www.nimbus-sat.org/history/foreward.htm
And here: http://geo.arc.nasa.gov/sge/landsat/landsat.html
And here: http://terra.nasa.gov/
And here: http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Now ? if anyone has more extensive direct experience with the science 
community, I?ll happily listen to your views, experiences, opinions, etc.

Walk softly,
Jim


http://www.spiriteaglehome.com/