Looking for respectful opinions about global warming

[Dan Robinson]

To me the 1.) evidence seems pretty solid, and 2.) respectable people with whom I have only one or two degrees of separation in the meteorology field are convinced, and I don't see any reason for them to be dishonest about it.

The problem we have right now is the absolute dystopia of information dissemination (social media and print/TV news media) that has muddied the waters between what is reasonable and what is utter hyperbolic clickbait. GW issue is so intertwined with politics now that I don't trust anything a major figure on either side says about it. IMO neither should anyone else. Published peer-reviewed papers are the only credible sources.

 

[Todd Lemery]

I realize now that the post I made to start this thread was a mistake and I do apologize to anyone who may have been insulted or irritated by it. I did not need to include a link that was sure to inflame people.
What I should have asked and was the root of my inquiry is the small section of my post that referenced the ice ages and medieval warm period. I sincerely was looking for opinions on the subject because I haven’t been able to find a concrete reason for the climate during these time periods. Also, if it’s relevant to today. I should have left the post at that without including an inflammatory link or anything else.
The post I made wasn’t well thought out and may have been asked the wrong forum. The reason I brought up sunspot activity was because I had recently come across papers pointing to that. ( no links here, google works for everybody) The sunspot activity made some sense to me, but I have a hard time believing much that I see.
This thread can certainly be closed as it’s teetering on an insult contest that nobody wins at. If it does stay open, I really do have a sincere interest why we had those significant changes in our past climate. I don’t have a PHD in anything and do value everyone’s opinion and articles or papers related to that. If the thread is closed, please PM me to share your thoughts or references. Thank you.

 

[rdale]

All of your questions are answered in the book I linked above. Please read that through your local library and then come back to ask more questions...

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

What ever happened to the global cooling/ice age scare from the late 70s early 80s? How did we flip to warming in just a blip on the universal timeline?

 

[rdale]

What ever happened to the global cooling/ice age scare from the late 70s early 80s? How did we flip to warming in just a blip on the universal timeline?

]

See the book.

For those who don’t want a full explanation of the topic, Skeptical Science has most of the answers. For example, there was no “ice age scare” in the 70s/80s. Most climate scientists said the cooling trend was ending.

https://skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm

 

[JamesCaruso]

Various posts that people have argued in this thread lead me to several comments.

1. Some talk about climate science warnings about global warming as having a political agenda. But there is an obvious political agenda on the other side, so at worst the notion of a political agenda is a two-sided street. Much of the science denial comes from people and organizations who have a big economic state in continued dependency on fossil fuels, because they are making a lot of money off fossil fuels. How people can't see that and only accuse those concerned about climate change of having a political agenda is beyond me. And there was research published in the American Journal of Sociology a few years ago showing that the linkage of views about climate science to political opinions occurred first among those on the right, only later and less so among those on the left.

John, from many chasing-related posts of each other’s that have been read, commented on and liked I think we are probably very similar as chasers and even beyond that; you are one of my favorite ST members, I get the sense you are a guy I would love to chase with and have a beer with. But I have to respectfully disagree, the left is driving the narrative that we all need to change our lives because of climate change. When you’ve got the left saying that climate change is the gravest threat to national security and a couple years ago Kamala Harris asking the nominee for *CIA Director* what his position is on climate change, that to me is an example of politicization and fanaticism. To me the right is only defending against using global warming as an excuse for government control and wealth redistribution. I won’t deny that the oil industry has a vested interest in fighting against this, but the average person on the right is not advocating on behalf of the oil industry.

Also there is a large group of people that acknowledges climate change but just believes it is part of natural cycles and not driven by man.

Now I hope we can still get that beer together one day and agree to disagreee

 

[John Farley]

John, from many chasing-related posts of each other’s that have been read, commented on and liked I think we are probably very similar as chasers and even beyond that; you are one of my favorite ST members, I get the sense you are a guy I would love to chase with and have a beer with. But I have to respectfully disagree, the left is driving the narrative that we all need to change our lives because of climate change. When you’ve got the left saying that climate change is the gravest threat to national security and a couple years ago Kamala Harris asking the nominee for *CIA Director* what his position is on climate change, that to me is an example of politicization and fanaticism. To me the right is only defending against using global warming as an excuse for government control and wealth redistribution. I won’t deny that the oil industry has a vested interest in fighting against this, but the average person on the right is not advocating on behalf of the oil industry.

Also there is a large group of people that acknowledges climate change but just believes it is part of natural cycles and not driven by man.

Now I hope we can still get that beer together one day and agree to disagreee

I would like to have beer with you as well, but we might need to avoid climate change as a topic of conversation. I deeply believe that climate change is the biggest threat we face to our national security, and I do not think it is helpful to use terms like "the left" to label or discredit those with whom you disagree. The most immediate threat to my safety where I live is wildfire, most certainly not "illegal immigrants" or Iran. And the risk of wildfire is greatly enhanced by climate change. Add to that floods and all the other things that have been worsened by climate change, and you have far more Americans who have been negatively impacted than is the case as a result of anything else considered a national security threat. I could just as well as what you say about "the left" say that "the right" is driving the narrative that we don't have to change anything, when the science suggests that our safety is greatly threatened by what is happening in our climate, and that we are contributing greatly to it. Discussions about climate change will be a lot more productive when everyone stops using political labels to demonize those with whom they disagree.

 

[JamesCaruso]

I would like to have beer with you as well, but we might need to avoid climate change as a topic of conversation. I deeply believe that climate change is the biggest threat we face to our national security, and I do not think it is helpful to use terms like "the left" to label or discredit those with whom you disagree. The most immediate threat to my safety where I live is wildfire, most certainly not "illegal immigrants" or Iran. And the risk of wildfire is greatly enhanced by climate change. Add to that floods and all the other things that have been worsened by climate change, and you have far more Americans who have been negatively impacted than is the case as a result of anything else considered a national security threat. I could just as well as what you say about "the left" say that "the right" is driving the narrative that we don't have to change anything, when the science suggests that our safety is greatly threatened by what is happening in our climate, and that we are contributing greatly to it. Discussions about climate change will be a lot more productive when everyone stops using political labels to demonize those with whom they disagree.

John that was a very nice response. Anyway I just wanted to say that I did not intend to use political labels to discredit or demonize, I intended only to respond to that one thing in your bullet point #1 where you cited the AJS study on which “side” had first linked views on climate change to political opinions (“...there was research published in the American Journal of Sociology a few years ago showing that the linkage of views about climate science to political opinions occurred first among those on the right, only later and less so among those on the left.”) Because that citation included mention of “right” and “left”, I was just using the same terms to give my opinion of the state of that linkage today. That’s not science so we can have different opinions on it - but I know we shouldn’t get into it here, again was just responding to that particular point without intending to discredit, demonize or offend. John I suspect we actually would be able to talk about just about anything over a beer without any problems

 

[Jeff Wright]

See the book.

For those who don’t want a full explanation of the topic, Skeptical Science has most of the answers. For example, there was no “ice age scare” in the 70s/80s. Most climate scientists said the cooling trend was ending.

https://skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm

It did make it into the zeitgeist with this film: Quintet (film) - Wikipedia
Worse was Art Bell's book (The Coming Global Superstorm) which turned into THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. I think that did more harm than good.

What worries me are the recent seismic movements:
Strange waves rippled around Earth. Now we may know why.
Peru’s mysterious ‘boiling river’ that burns animals to death

I don't think Earth has a last gasp of flood basalt left in it--but something bigger than Laki in 1789--that could reset everything.

I've heard it said that where weather is like trying to find an electron in its shell--climate is like electronics--more graspable. Still not quite as easy as ballistics associated with, say, an asteroid's trajectory--but even there, the Yarkovsky effect can throw things off.

You are always subject to the latest data.

Still, it is odd to see tornadoes in Cape Cod
Video: Man survives wild ride on sailboat during tornado on Cape Cod

 

[John Farley]

James Caruso, Just to clarify a little, I think my reference to the sociology article (actually turns out it was The Sociological Quarterly, not AJS) using the terms "the right" and "the left" was a little different than your statement that "When you’ve got the left saying that climate change is the gravest threat to national security and a couple years ago Kamala Harris asking the nominee for *CIA Director* what his position is on climate change, that to me is an example of politicization and fanaticism." But just to clarify, one point of the article was that the political polarization on climate change, i.e. linkage of views on climate change to political views, occurred first and more sharply among political conservatives and Republicans than among Democrats and liberals. In 2001, there was an 18 point difference between liberals and conservatives on the belief that global warming had already begun, which ballooned to 44 points by 2010. And as shown in the graph below excerpted from the article, this was mostly due to a shift among conservaties. Among liberals, the percent believing this rose from about 67% to 75%, but among conservatives, it fell from 49 percent to 30 percent - so an 8 point shift among liberals but a 19-point shift among conservatives. You can see this in the graphs below - much more shift among conservatives than among liberals

FIGURE 4. Percent of Americans Who Believe the Effects of Global Warming Have Already Begun to Happen from 2001–2010, by Political Ideology and Party Identification.


Similarly, education by 2010 was tied to views about global warming among liberals, but no longer among conservatives - rejection of global warming by then was the dominant view across all educational levels. Again showing the polarization came mostly from the conservative side. So, at the least, you have to agree we cannot blame the politicization of this issue just or mostly on the liberals! Now if you can stand all this, yes, we could probably talk about any topic over a beer! ;-)

Here is the reference to the article: Aaron M. McCright & Riley E. Dunlap (2011) The Politicization of Climate Change and Polarization in the American Public's Views of Global Warming, 2001–2010, The Sociological Quarterly, 52:2, 155-194, DOI: 10.1111/j.1533-8525.2011.01198.x

 

[Dan Robinson]

John, do you think that early shift may have been purely reactionary to Gore, et al taking up the cause on what, at the time, seemed to be a distinctly political platform? I'm curious if the paper tries to discern a cause for that rather than just showing the gap itself.

 

[John Farley]

Don't know - I am not sure that would explain one side shifting more than the other. In the paper, they do attribute the shifts to positions of political elites on both sides, but don't really try much to explain why there was more shift on one side than on the other. IMHO a shortcoming of the paper, although the actual numbers are very interesting.

Also interesting - the journal has every article since 1960 online for subscribers and for members of the Midwest Sociological Society (which publishes the journal), and this is the second-most downloaded article in those 59 years.

 

[rdale]

John, do you think that early shift may have been purely reactionary to Gore, et al taking up the cause on what, at the time, seemed to be a distinctly political platform? I'm curious if the paper tries to discern a cause for that rather than just showing the gap itself.

I absolutely believe that was the primary cause. Conservatives hate Gore, and this was his platform.

That's the only difference I can find from the decade prior when conservatives were totally fine with losing the aerosol hair spray to save the ozone hole.

 

[Robert Edmonds]

I'll chime in here...

My background is I have a PhD in Astronomy for studying Mars atmosphere. During my graduate school days I used what were global climate models for Mars. So I have some background in having to understand radiative processes for planets.

The science is quite settled that warming will/is occuring. I welcome debate as to the effects, but let me explain why the atmosphere will/is warming.

We can all agree that over the long term energy in must equal energy out with a planet. The energy going into a planet is from sun light at visible wavelengths. The light that is absorbed must be re-emitted back to space. This light that is absorbed at the surface is re-emitted at IR wavelengths. In IR wavelengths the sky is not at clear. The light as it is attempting to travel back to space is often absorbed by the atmosphere because the atmosphere is not transparent in much of these wavelengths. What is occuring with global warming is the atmosphere is becoming less and less transparent. To counter the lack of efficiency the temperature gradient must increase towards space. Now remember the energy in must equal the energy out. This means where light finally does escape to space, at the top of the atmosphere, the temperature must remain fixed. Since the gradient has increased though that means the (average) surface temperature has gone up.

What causes the atmosphere to become less transparent at IR wavelengths. One is to increase what are called greenhouse gases. These are gases that absorb in the IR. Nitrogen and oxygen don't, but CO2 and water vapor (and methane) do. Most CO2 absorption lines are already optically thick. That is wavelengths that these gases are most effective the gas already catches most of the light. That's not to say increasing the concentration has no effect, you can broaden the absorption wings (like what is occuring with CO2). You can also broaden the line by increasing the temperature as well. Gas like methane is not optically thick that's why you hear it is a more potent greenhouse gas, because more methane directly deepens the absorption line.

What I have described is what is called a gray atmosphere model. This simple 1d description explains warming. We have GCMs that incorporate more effects, these also predict warming.

This process that explains temperatures of the atmosphere on Earth, are also used to explain temperatures on other planets, like Mars that I studied. So to summarize, we have simple models that explain heating, with physics verified from multiple planets, we have complicated 3d GCMs that show similar heating, and we have observations supporting that warming. That's a pretty solid position to stand on in science.

 

[Gary Latimer]

What I have described is what is called a gray atmosphere model. This simple 1d description explains warming. We have GCMs that incorporate more effects, these also predict warming.

Thank you Robert for providing what (in my opinion) is an ACTUAL response to what is not a simple question to answer without folks digging their heels in with dogma and hysterics when the topic of climate change pops up.

Since this is your area of expertise, and since you’ve replied with a solid explanation, could you possibly add to it a bit with the following in mind:

1. Could Earth be Warming as a result of non-human causes, such as volcano activity, wildfire activity, etc?

2. Could the Earth be Warming as a result of human and non-human activity in regards to deforestation?

3. Are there any plausible solar anomalies or cycles that could be causing a temporary or cyclical period of Warming on earth?

4. Are astronomers seeing ANY signs that other planets in our solar system are also experiencing overall “warming” trends?

I think your expertise and response to those questions above may help others in forming their opinions. Once again I thank you for such a nice, level-headed reply! Cheers