Talk:Climate change/Archive 3

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Ed Poor (talk | contribs) at 16:14, 5 April 2002 (I am quoting verbatim from a NASA website. What's YOUR bias?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Is there any consensus that the last ice age ended because of greenhouse gases? If not, then saying global warming is caused by greenhouse gases implies that the warming that ended the last ice age was a different phenomenon. It would be strange to say that the warming of the earth that ended the last ice age was not an instance of global warming.

This may be relevent since some people may claim that any global warming we are experiencing today is part of the broad historical trend that began thousands of years ago and is not a new, man-made development. So distinguishing between the naturally occuring climate change and any human-induced climate change may be desirable. - TS

I have a complaint about this article, in that I believe that it makes a very common mistake of mixing basic and uncontroversial scientific information with a decidedly normative view of the consequences of change. The article treats global warming as a bad thing, which it may well be, but it does so without a balanced presentation of the potential benefits. I think there's a natural and common tendency to assume that any change to the climate is bad, but this needs to be demonstrated, not assumed.

It is thought that the reduction in forested area has also played a factor, as forests convert these gasses back into organic materials.

reduction of forested area can cause global warming because large amounts of CO2 are produced by fire or degradation of organic materials. But, ancient forests like Amazonia in Brasil were in steady state before man arrived there. That is, the amount of CO2 produced was equal to the amount consumed. Growing forests like the ones in North America and Russia are consuming large quantities of CO2. And the destrution of equatorial forests is producing CO2. I think there is no mention in the IPCC reports to the destruction of forests as a cause of global warming, but I can be wrong.
some of the consequences in the article are not proven or are not major consequences or probable ones. For example, we do not know if polar caps are melting or will melt in the next one hundred years.

I think it's rather odd that the first paragraph seems to imply that global warming is a permanent, important problem, and then further down there is this: "There is no final consensus about existence of global warming. Temperature is changing all the time and there were hotter times in last thousand years, so it's unsure whether "global warming" is long-term issue or just a short-term fluctuation." If we're going to say the latter, we should say it earlier on. I'd work on this more myself but basically I don't want to get involved in a flame fest.  :-) --LMS

I'm not real happy with this (and some related) articles either and they're on my to do list, but they've been slipping a bit lately. --Pinkunicorn

I've moved the bits on the IPCC to later in the article since I think a discussion of what the phenomenon is believed to be should come before a discussion of who is studying it. --Koyaanis Qatsi

I added the bits about the IPCC because think we need to present what the phenomenon is as oposed to what phenomenon is believed to be and the IPCC is the only good source of information. This is a very controversial issue and I think we must present the facts, not the perceptions of the general public. joao

I would recommend restructuring the article so that it lists in order a) what it is, b) what is the evidence, c) what are the suspected causes, d) what are the suspected effects. Right now, these points are all scattered through the article in a confused and disorderly manner. - Tim

That sounds like a good suggestion, Tim. Joao, don't shout, please.  :-) I recognize that there is controversy about it; I just moved the info because I thought it made more sense to explain the topic before introducing whoever's studying it--for someone who doesn't know what the topic is, that approach is both distracting and uninformative. Tim's suggested approach seems the most logical. We should not forget to add dissenting opinions at the end, since the subject is controversial. --Koyaanis Qatsi

Sorry, I maybe wrong on my comment above. However, we must take into account that there several points of view. The point of view of:

  • the general public
  • a minority that believes there is no global warming
  • the (IPCC) scientists that collect facts and who believe gobal warming is hapening
  • other scientists that point to flaws in the IPCC work
  • economists who believe that does not pay to avoid global warming
  • people with a political agenda who use global warming to change society and to get into power.
  • people who believe that we must weigh both the costs and the benefits of climate change
  • people who believe that such a chaotic and uncertain systems such as long-term global weather patterns cannot be predicted with sufficient accuracy to justify a particular course of action.

I' m going to add more information from the IPCC report. Since english is not my native language I will have some dificulties integrating it in the structure suggested by Tim, so be free to edit everything I write.

Sure, that sounds fine. And actually you've listed some points of view I hadn't considered; we should probably add those also. --KQ

I just added a paragraph about the causes of climate change. Some of them can cause climate warming and some of them can cause climate warming. Its because the ones that cause climate warming are more important that climate change is happening. joao

Some scientists believe that there are benefits to agriculture in the Northern Hemisphere precisely because of longer growing season and higher CO2 concentrations. joao

Article on that here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/news/090501/1.html --KQ

I deleted the following since I think it is now included in the text:

There is no final consensus about existence of global warming. Temperature is changing all the time and there were hotter times in last thousand years, so it's unsure whether "global warming" is long-term issue or just a short-term fluctuation.

I moved some other parts of old text.

I changed the struture proposed by Tim above:

a) what it is




b) what is the evidence
c) what are the suspected causes
d) what are the suspected effects

and I added:

e) prediction of future trends

Now I think we need to add:

f) possible future effects
g) proposed solutions
h) economic analysis
i) political debate


joao

Information to add later to the article if needed

The IPCC analyzed the consequences of observed warming on the snow cover an ice extent, global average sea level , precipitation, cloud cover, El nino and extreme Whether events. IPCC reports that:

  • satellite data show a decrease of 10% of snow cover since late 1960s
  • There has been a widespread retreat of mountain glaciers in non-polar regions during the 20th century
  • Northern Hemisphere spring and summer sea-ice extent has decreased by about 10% to 15% since the 1950s.
  • it is likely that there has been about 40% decline in Artic sea-ice thickness during late summer to early summer to early autumm in recent decades and a considerably slower decline in winter sea-ice thickness.
  • tide gauge data show that global average sea level rose between 01. and 0.2 metres during 20th century
  • precipitation has increased over high latitudes of Northern Hemisphere and tropical land areas and decreased between 10 N and 30 N during the 20th century
  • heavy precipitation events increased by 2% to 4% in the high latitudes of Northern Hemisphere over the latter half of the 20 th century
  • cloud cover increased by 2% over mid to high latitude land areas of Northern Hemisphere
  • Warm episods of El Nino have been more frequent, persistent and intense since the mid 1970s compared with the previous 100 years.

deleted this information because I think it's not true that the oceans are releasing CO2. Oceans are absorbing CO2. However, this information can be added later under the correct context.

Many people believe that increased of concentrations of greenhouse gases (mostly CO2) in the atmosphere, which causes more of the energy radiated from the Sun to be absorbed by the Earth might be one of causes. But it could also be a result, as solubility of CO2 in water is smaller in high temperatures, so oceans are releasing more CO2 to the atmosphere as the temperature raises.

Oceans are not just water. It's a fact that in higher temperatures, solubity of almost all gases is smaller, and it becomes smaller quite fast. The only important exception is the hydrogen.

But there is life in oceans that might have opposite reaction to temperature and level of CO2 in atmosphere, therefore reaction of ocean waters != reaction of oceans.

And this version isn't NeutralPointOfView. --Taw

This is really shaping up well, Joao - and it's readable, too! --MichaelTinkler

Regarding the link to the Skeptical Environmentalist. I think that it would be in our best interests, considering NPOV, to have links to more information on both sides of the debate, but that is not what this is. This link does not go to an exposition, a paper, or even a summary of a book, but to a page whose main intent is selling the book. Isn't this really more of an advertisement than actual information? --Josh Grosse

I agree. Find or write a summary instead, or remove the link. --Pinkunicorn

The Kyoto Protocol can also be evaluated by comparing costs and gains. Several economical analyses were made that show that the Kyoto Protocol is more expensive than the global warming that it avoids.

what's the IPCC point of view on this?

I removed the italicized quote above from the main page, to keep the discussion here. --Pinkunicorn

However, the number of scientists expressing skepticism on the global warming issue continues to grow (see [Heidelberg Appeal]?, [Leipzig Declaration]?).

This is not NPOV. Who says the number of scientists expressing skepticism on the global warming issue continues to grow? They desagree about what? That there is no Global Warming? That Global Warming is not important? It's not antropogenic? Joao


However, data from weather satellites and balloon instuments show no warming whatsoever, which calls into question how well land station data has been corrected for the urban heat island effect.

Is this true? Joao

I agree with your comments, and have removed both texts in question. The first of those statements that you question is simply not true, and for the second one, see this web page:

http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/03/14/greenhouse.gases.02/

Concerning this sentence: "Scientists are divided on whether this is actually so, although some political groups insist that "the science is settled.""

My understanding is that the vast majority of scientists accept that global warming is in fact occuring and a problem.

Wouldn't it be more accurate, and NPOV, to change this sentence to, "Most scientists agree that global warming is occuring, although some political groups insist that "the science is unclear"" ? SR

It would be accurate, if you cited a poll of scientists, especially those studying the atmosphere. The phrase "science is settled" is, I believe, a political statement -- not a scientific one. If you find the source to be otherwise, I will stand corrected.
If you just read what the popular media report on this controversy, you get almost exclusively one side. The http://www.sepp.org site shows that the science is not settled and that substantial groups of scientists publicly disagree with the UN's report. Ed Poor

I disagree with recent changes to this articles. The article was previously written based on two main scientific sources: the IPCC reports and Lomborg's book. They represent good scientific sources and were used to represent the scientific debate. The view of the IPCC was used to represent the view "of the majority of the scientists" and Lomborg to represent "the critics". Both represented the last stage of the scientific debate. The article now changed: opinions, and not facts, are presented at the top of the article. I believe that controversial political issues should be moved to the end. This article was about Global Warming, now is about Anthropogenic Global Warming. I also disagree with this change. There are no "Global Warming advocates", because "Global Warming" is an observed trend, not a political cause. Global Warming is a fact. Anthropogenic Global Warming is under discussion and the majority of scientists favor the Anthropogenic Global Warming hypotheses. The previous version was NPOV by stating facts, this version is NPOV by attributing opinions, as if facts could be a matter of opinion. You can't say " Global Warming, advocates say, is a world-wide climatic phenomenon--the average global surface temperature increased over the last 150 years." because that is a fact, not just an opinion, in accordance with the evidence presented in the next paragraph. IPCC's Data was corrected for the urban island effect, so I don't see how someone can claim Global Warming doesn't exist.

Joao
I as well think that version 81 was better. Version 81 started with Global warming is a world-wide climatic phenomenon--the average global surface temperature increased over the last 150 years. Whether this increase is significant or not is subject to debate.
Now it begins with According to the global warming theory,... which sound strange. Temperatures have been measured for a considerable time and elementary statistics to do trends is known for a long time as well. So a global warming in recent times can be considered a fact. The questions is if it is significant or not.
I vote for reverting to version 81. --HJH


I also vote for the reversion -- Global Warming is a measured fact. ONLY the possible ramifications and causes are in debate (although with a majority of scientists believing that the warming is caused by human activity). maveric149

I agree with HJH and maveric149. I also want to point out to Ed Poor that my suggestion did not include the phrase "science is settled" (just look about one inch above what Ed Poor wrote). Science by definition is never "settled," but there are moments of consensus, and there are also statements of fact, theoretical models, or research questions that may have a tremendous amount of support within the scientific community. I do agree with Joao about the importance of distinguishing between facts and opinion -- however, a good article will report facts about opinion, such as Joao's statement of fact, "the majority of scientists favor the Anthropogenic Global Warming hypotheses." I think the last few comments reflect an emerging consensus over what would constitute ain informative NPOV article. SR

I think the new revision is very good -- it makes all the distinctions, and the fact that there is ongoing debate, very clearly and elegantly, SR

Someone deleted it, moments after I put it in (the one with the to-do notes), so I put it back. Please do not simply revert. Ed Poor

Sorry guys, but I think version 81 is much better. Statements like Global Warming, advocates say, is fact -- a world-wide climatic phenomenon -- the average global surface temperature increased over the last 150 years. are ridiculous. Measuring temperatures and do a trend analysis is not something which needs 'advocates' and 'opposers'.

The expression 'Global warming theory has 2000 hits in google, and 'global warming' has 600'000.' -- HJH

Ed Poor A quick search about whether the science is settled found:

While it is true that Undersecretary of State Tim Wirth said that "the science is settled," it is clear that there is not a broad scientific consensus that human activities are causing global warming.
Don’t take my own word for it:
The prestigious journal Science, in its issue of May 16th, says that climate experts are a long way from proclaiming that human activities are heating up the earth.
Even Benjamin Santer, lead author of chapter 8 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report admits as much.
Here is what Dr. Santer says:
"We say quite clearly that few scientists would say the attribution issue was a done deal."
Indeed, the search for the "human fingerprint" is far from over with many scientists saying that a clear resolution is at least a decade away.
Even the Chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr. Bert Bolin, says that the science is not settled. When told that Undersecretary of State Tim Wirth had said the science was settled, Dr. Bolin replied: "I’ve spoken to [Tim Wirth], I know he doesn't mean it."

Source: http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/senate.htm

Yes, but what does "science is settled" mean? No global warming proponent claims that we know have perfect scientific knowledge of global warming -- there are still lots of uncertainties and areas needing investigation. All people who say "the science is settled" mean is that the science is sufficently settled to justify taking action now. So, the science may well be settled in the sense that they mean, and at the same time not be settled in the sense in which Santer & Bolin are saying it is not settled. -- SJK

I don't believe taking action is justified now, and I'm not sure the Wikipedia should take that view either. According to my extensive reading on BOTH SIDES of the issue, neither of the claims that (A) global temperature is rising or (B) that a global temperature rise would be bad for humans has been "sufficiently settled" to justify taking action now. Would you agree that both A and B should be proven (at least to your own satisfaction) before we took action? Ed Poor

I have some suggestions to make here:

  • present scientific discussion in the beggining of the article, political discussion at the end.
  • scientific discussion should not have arguments based on autority, but arguments based on data, observations and scientific interpretations. All obvious political motivated arguments should be removed from the top of the page.
  • political arguments should be presented after a clear analysis of the political motives of all agents involved. The paragraph about "Undersecretary of State Tim Wirth"should not be were it is because he does not present a scientific argument, but a political one. He does not talk about temperatures and trends, he uses an argument of autority. He has no scientific reputation to defend, he is a politician. He is not an expert and he doesn't submit his ideas to his peers.

I also think that the issue "science is settled?" should be solved by presenting what is solved and what is not solved. The articles now says that Global Warming exists and, unless someone presents a good argument against the IPCC data it should continue to say so. The articles says that Antheopogenic Global Warming is under discussion, and say why is under discussion and what are the arguments of both sides.

There are a lot of scientific arguments that were disproved in the past but are still used by politicians. Examples of such arguments must be presented in the political section of the article, not in the scientific one. Joao


Joao, the points at issue are:

  1. How much global warming is there?
  2. How bad is this for people?
  3. What are people doing to contribute to global warming?
  4. Who should do something about this problem -- and what should they do?

I would like to see the article address all these issues. I don't think the IPCC should be the single source. It is a UN organization, and the UN is dominated by political bias.

I am not going to "revert" to my preferred version, as that goes against consensus. But I do hope we can work together to make the article neutral. -- Ed Poor

Well, Ed. I reverted to version 81. That was already a consensus. Then you began your work of unbalancing the article which was quite good in my view. You then began againg reverting to your version piece-wise, so that it is difficult to track what's going on really.

Trying to sum up: The article needs more content.

  • Basic facts - there surely is some publicly available data for the last 150 years and for the last 300 years.
  • Possibilites of interpretation -
  • Risk evaluation
  • Polictical positions - (including not so promiently perceived things)
  • Discussion on action or non-action

The article needs reals research which is real work. Not just inserting here a advocates say and there a not settled statement and anihilating by principle. It is a matter of perception. Talking about politics: The fears have to be named. There is no problem if the article gets longish. --HJH

Probably due to an edit conflict, parts of the talk page were deleted. I reverted to version 55.

Ed Poor: My suggestions are not in contradition with your goals. I'm not proposing that IPCC be the single source. Some of the scientific arguments come from Lomborg's book and are critical of the IPCC work. We should present the IPCC data, methods and scientific arguments, not the IPCC opinions and political arguments. We should contradict the IPCC data primarily by presenting competing data, not by presenting political arguments. I'm just saying that Global Warming is, primarily, a scientific issue and should be discussed, primarily, with scientific arguments.Joao

Fixing edit conflicts, I hope, with all comments from version 55 through 59. Ed Poor

Someone seems determined to label IPCC as a "scientific" source and SEPP as "political". This is not NPOV. Actually, both are scientific organizatioins, each taking opposite sides in the controversy over whether global warming theory has been proven. I therefore changed the extermal link headings to "Favors" and "Opposes".

Unlike evolution, in which there is scientific consensus, global warming is a theory which has not been proven adequatly. Most reporting about it assmues that it has been, and scientists who say otherwise have been marginalized.

I spent hours going through the article, pointing out questions that should be answered and inserting facts with references, and discussing the article here on the talk page. Yet twice my work has been deleted, apparently on the grounds that my sources aren't credible.

I see nothing wrong with stating that some scientists disagree over how much the urban heat island effect distorts evidence for global warming, or that some researchers feel that satellite and weather ballon data should also be considered.

So, please do not simple revert to a previous version and delete sentences containing ideas you disagree with, when those ideas are properly attributed to scientists.

And please do not label as "political" groups whose scientific views you disagree with.


Ed Poor

IPCC was labeled as "scientific" because lots of scientific data in the article comes from the IPCC. I intended to use SEPP has a political source, not scientific, so I labeled it as "political". It's not important if an organization is political or scientific, what is important is the kind of data you can extract from it. IPCC data is very good, and I doubt you ever found such good data elsewhere.

On the other hand, the satellite and weather ballon data issue is an important one. However, we need a very good and updated source because the issue evolved over the years. You can read about it here:

http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/faq/iheard.html

Two main points:

  • satellite data is not expected to agree with surface data
  • satellite data was recently corrected and now shows a warming trend.

As to the sentence:

«««Another source says disagrees, saying that well-controlled surface thermometer data for the United States show no warming trend since about 1940, once "urban heat-island" effects are removed. «««

This could be important, but we need to understand first why the global data from the IPCC disagrees. Maybe there are very good explanations. We can't just trow atributed paragraphs to the article. We must understand whats going on.

«««Furthermore, proxy temperatures, as deduced from tree rings, ice cores, etc., show no perceptible warming trend in the past 60 years. (Source: SEPP [1]) «««

This could also be important, but I doubt it. Tree rings and ice cores have a low resolution. That's why they don't show a perceptible waming. They can't.

Let's keep this sentences in the talk page until we understand them better.Joao

«««Another source says disagrees, saying that well-controlled surface thermometer data for the United States show no warming trend since about 1940, once "urban heat-island" effects are removed. ««« 

Accordingly to the IPCC reports, this sentence is probably true. But, unfortunatly, it is a falacy. The authors choose the data to fit their goals. The sentence is true only for the United States and only to that period. 1940 was a extraordinarily hot year and the United States warmed less than other parts of the world since 1940. Joao

Thanks for the note about the weather baloon data. But what I really would like to see is data of different weather stations included in the article so that people can paste them into an excel sheet to play around with and come up with their own interpretation. Not just second hand talk about figures. It would be nice to have about 12 weather stations around the globe situated in the country side to avoid the heating effect within large cities. I think year and mean value of the temperature would already be something. Does somebody know a source where we could get reliable data? -- HJH

How do you select the 12 weather stations? There are weather stations for all flavors. I believe that the IPCC data comes from all weather stations available, and people still argue about them. You can find some data here:

http://www.co2science.org/temperatures/temps.htm

I don't know if it is reliable. Joao

I moved down the following text Some researchers believe that temperature data from satellites and weather balloons should also be taken into account; these show no warming whatsoever since 1979. (Source: SEPP) . I tried to look up this claim on their web site but I did not find it. If somebody finds it and considers it a valuable source I'd ask to clearly state the source and put the text in question back. -- HJH

The statement on the global warming entry about "Whether this increase is significant or not is subject to debate." is too vague to be informative. What does "significant" mean? Does the sentence mean "Some people don't care?" Does it mean "We can't say exactly how the climate has changed and will change because of global warming (other than the increase in temperature), and thus can't say exactly what its effects on weather, crops, etc., are, and thus can't say exactly what its effects on the economy, on society, and other species will be, and since different people have different priorities, and because changing the activities which have generated so much greenhouse gas would require massive global political and economic change, people argue about whether the known harm of restricting our behavior now outweighs the potential harm of global warming"?

Because that would be my guess. But as it stands the statement seems to just be stating a truism about politics and the unknowability of the future. --TheCunctator

One of the things that is under debate is precisely the meaning of "significant". "significant" is an intentionaly vague word in the beginning of the article. It's an introdution. If you read th article you will understand a little more what it means. Joao

The "significant" sentence was important to balance the introdution of the article so that people don't get the wrong idea from the start. There are some doubts about the importance of Global Warming and that must be clear from the start. Maybe that sentence should not be removed. Joao

Let's clarify that the term global warming often refers to the theory that anthopogenic global warming contributes a substantial percentage of warming (and say what that percentage is estimated to be). I think this is clearer than just saying the "significance" is being debated. Ed Poor

Is Global warming controversy really necessary? If you think it is, a lot of information from sources bias would be relevant there also, currently it is very incomplete (I wouldn't want to move sources bias, I think it's a good precedent to have it below the article). Personally I think the two articles should be integrated, at least for the next few years when the whole subject is so unstable.

Ed, since you're a member of the Unification Church, can you tell us a little more about the church's involvement in SEPP? History, current financing, personal relationships between SEPP / church members, church internal distribution of SEPP materials etc.? Is the relationship so well-disclosed that we can remove the attribution to Stauber&Rampton? -- Eloquence

I know of no involvement between the church and SEPP. There is no history, no financing, none of the hundreds of people I know in the church have even heard of SEPP (and church members tend to be about as much in favor of global warming and other environmental theories as the general public), and I have utterly failed at getting anyone to read SEPP materials. In short, there is no relationship except in the quoted claim by S&R. (If you'd like to type in a passage from their book proving otherwise, I'd be much interested. I'd be happy -- well, prompt anyway! -- to correct any mistatements I've made.)
However, I do recall that Prof. Singer had attended a science conference (see ICUS) put on by the Interational Cultural Foundation (ICF), a church-related project. ICUS is concerned with two themes: unity of the sciences, and the theme of values in science. Rev. Moon gives the keynote address at the conference, but participants are free to present papers from any point of view they wish; there is no orthodoxy to which presenters are required to conform. And ICUS staff are predominantly church members (or were up until the late 1980s when I stopped following ICUS so closely).
I would be surprised if ICF or any other church-related organization were to support SEPP, as advocacy is not something Rev. Moon is really into. (Aside from advocating that people repent of their sins, of course!) As far as I know, the only link between Singer and Moon is that Singer presented a paper at an ICF science conference. Harvard's Arther Jensen also gave a paper (on his race/IQ theories), but the church certainly doesn't agree with Jensen's racial views.
In general, Rev. Moon's leadership method is the opposite of micromanagement. He asks someone to take responsibility for an area of concern, and just sits back and waits for reports (a slight oversimplification, but that's the gist of it). There are no secret organizations and no front groups, for two reasons.
The primary reason is that our church's aims are entirely above board: we are trying to build the kingdom of heaven on earth, a society based on honesty, purity and unselfishness. There is no dishonest way to bring about honesty, and no impure or self-serving way to bring about purity and unselfishness.
A practical (though secondary) reason, which some short-sighted low-level church leaders have chosen to learn the hard way, is that given the PR climate and the label of "cult" which the media has stuck on us any attempt to downplay our connections with prominent people must inevitably backfire. Either the media pounces on the "link" and uses it to discredit the person or his project, or the person bails out to forestall such a media attack.
A bit longwinded, but I hope I have answered your question. -- Ed Poor

Thanks for the information, Ed. I'll dig a little and try to track down S&R's primary source, and also see what else I can find about SEPP-church-relationships. Could take a few days, though. -- Eloquence

The article states:

People who favor the global warming view claim SEPP to be politically biased.

Could we get the names of some of these people? Otherwise, the sentence should be removed.

I agree that it should be removed if no further attribution is provided. Even then, we may want to keep bias discussion separate. -- Elo

I removed the entire paragraph containing the "claim...to be...biased" sentence, and I agree that the bias discussion should be separate. -- Ed Poor

Let's remove all "political" discussion and objections from the article. Global warming should simply state the case for global warming, tempered only by responisible scientific objections, including objections based on statistical analysis. If public policy organizations (such as my beloved SEPP) or "tainted" organizations such as junkscience.org (linked to a convervative think tank) have objections, let there be a separate article.

Someone pointed out to me that an encyclopedia is not a forum for scientific debate. That should be left to science journals.

Thus I propose eliminating the division of scientific and political links, and the lengthy section on claims and counterclaims of bias. Just have the IPCC plus (if all agree) Lomborg's skeptic site, and remove Greenpeace, SEPP and so on. Political commentary is not relevant to science.

Hello, again, my objective scientific friends! I have been surfing a lot in recent weeks to find out what research has been done.

Basically, the predictions of the IPCC have not been borne out by the facts, and therefore should either (A) be dismissed as mere advocacy or (B) still be included but not made the sole "scientific" source. In particular, any claim they make that "scientists agree" with their views should be labeled with phrases such as, "According to the IPCC . . ." or "Scientists working with the IPCC agree . . ."

Dr. Roy Spencer, Senior Scientist for Climate Studies, NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, points out two facts:

  1. According to the IPCC's own theories (climate models), the troposphere should be warming at least as much as the ground; yet,
  2. Weather balloon and satellite data show the troposphere warming only at the rate of 0.03 degrees C per decade (from 1979 to 1998), which is only 1/6th of the IPCC prediction.

I think the facts Dr. Spencer points out should be included in the article.

Another fact to be mentioned is the global warming models predict less Antarctic ice, while a recent study found a large increase.

In fact, I think the article should be re-titled as the global warming hypothesis. There is not enough agreement between theory and observation for an encyclopedia to take sides.

In sum, the article should stop taking the "science is settled" viewpoint put forth by many advocates, and start taking an objective view or at least the NPOV.

I look forward to cooperating with Joao (sp?) and others.

-- Ed Poor

Ed, your last edit introduced the words "catastrophe" and "catastrophe proponents". These words were not in the article before. Are they NPOV? Who uses these words? In general, your last edit did not improve the article at all. I suggest you change it, or else someone will come around and revert it back to the previous version. AxelBoldt

You are right about this, Axel. I did introduce the term catastrophe and I should indicate who uses the term. I am at a loss, because global warming seems to be used both in the sense of a any temporary but significant increase in average global temperature as well as the theory that average global temperature will continue to rise indefinitely, leading to catastrophe. I thought I was making things clearer. Apparently, not. Would you prefer the term global warming hypothesis or global warming theory? Or must we announce in the beginning of the article that global warming means both (A) any of several temporary warming trends and (B) the currently (supposedly permanent) warming trend?
I'm willing to cooperate. Just give me something I can work with, Axel. --Ed Poor

There are data at [1] showing that the past 23 years have seen global cooling of -0.06 degrees centigrade per decade. Would anyone familiar with the IPCC prediction care to comment? --Ed Poor

Some comments about the article:

  • The article lost its initial structure. Scientific observations, scientific prediction and political opinions were placed in diferent parts of the article.
  • Old IPCC prediction (before 2001) do not represent the best data available.
  • is it true that the "The IPCC ignores temperature measurements from weather balloons and satellites"?
  • is it true that IPCC have not revealed their correction method[of the urban island efect]?
  • it's a bad idea to mix:
    • data from land stations
    • data from satelites
    • data from IPCC (old) predictions

They have diferent meanings and they can't be compared without a proper analysis.

  • global warming science and debate evolved very fast and everything prior to 2000 is probabily too old to be acurate.

Joao

Thanks for your attention to this article. It's much too big an issue for me to handle by myself.

Some of the information I have contributed may be out of date. It's unusual for me to get scientific articles less than 3 years old: they get sent out for review, etc., first. Then there's the publishing lag.

http://www.arxiv.org is the physics preprint server. Excellent resource for the latest papers. Vicki Rosenzweig

Probably our essential difference is that I believe predictions should be compared against all the facts (i.e., temperature observations). So I see past predictions of the IPCC (made in 1990 or 1995, say) to be relevant. Also, I think no one source of data should be relied upon, if what we are trying to do is determine whether global warming is really true.

But if there is some scientific, public policy, or ideological source that says that satellite or weather balloon data should be disregarded in favor of land stations, please add this to the article.

Ed Poor

Comparations bettwen data and predictions doesn't prove that the dat is wrong, it proves that the models used are wrong. In the first part of the article you are discoussing data, not prediction. Predictions must be discoussed later in the article.

IPCC predictions changed with time. That's interesting and deserves its own section in the article, but doesn't prove that the data is wrong or that the new (2001) predictions are wrong.

You are mixing old predictions, that are irrelevant now, with new predictions and experimental data.

Satellite or weather balloon data shouldn't be disregarded, but this kind of data is representative of 8km of troposfere, and can't be compared with land measurements. Satellite and land data have to be diferent. Thats natural.

Joao

Maybe the article needs revision into (1) a section on the historical temperature record, followed by (2) hypotheses which seek to explain the historical record and predict future temperatures.

I support any revision you want to make, provided you include the scientific references which contradict the public-policy organizations' viewpoints.

Ed Poor

The article talks about "catastrophe proponents" and claims that the term "global warming" is used to refer to the catastrophic effects of higher temperatures. I don't think this is NPOV. Further down, the article is more neutral. Many people are concerned about Global Warming because of possible harmful effects, not because of a global catastrophe. AxelBoldt

I don't think "possible harmful effects" is a strong enough term, but on the other hand "catastrophe" is too strong. Perhaps a 2-mile-diameter asteroid hitting the earth would cause a catastrophe. What term do you prefer? Ed Poor

[[Ed Poor]: I was checking links and found to my dismay that the URL for the following is missing. I'm pretty sure the info is correctly cited, but the URL is definitely wrong:

  • The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 1995 estimate of average global warming at the surface until the year 2100 is +0.18 °C/decade. Climate models suggest that the deep layer measured by the satellite and weather balloons should be warming about 30% faster than the surface (+0.23 °C/decade). None of the satellite or weather balloon estimates are near this value. (Source: Science News 14 August 1998)

From the text:

The main evidence for global warming comes from thermometer measurements from land stations all over the world since 1860. The data shows that the average surface temperature has increased by 0.6±0.2 C during the 20th century. Most of the warming occurred during two periods: 1910 to 1945 and 1976 to 2000. (Source: IPCC).
The trend line for NOAA data from 1979 to 2001 shows only a tiny amount of global warming (0.06 degrees centigrade per decade), which contradicts the IPCC prediction of 0.4 degrees per decade. Moreover, the R-squared coefficient of the trend line is too small to indicate a significant trend. The data from these measurements are not even mentioned in their report, leading opponents to charge the IPCC with political bias.

What the hell! You can't compare surface temperature readings with satalite data that measures the temperature of the troposphere!!! This is like trying to compare a volvo with the Space Shuttle. Besides, data from these satellite readings have to pass through the stratoshpere, the mesophere the exoshpere and probably the I-can't-remember-sphere. Each of these layers of the atmosphere have very different thermal properties, and can introduce variations and errors in any data obtained from photons passing through them (in the same way as Earth-based telescopes find it difficult to obtain crisp images and data from the observations of the night sky). One thing that has always been consistant with all my geology, geography, biology and remote-sensing classes, is that if a ground measurement is in contridiction to a aerial or satalite measurement then you first question the remote measurement (and in this case different things were being measured to begin with - thus making a valid comparison darn near imposible!). The author who placed these satellite data in the article obviously has the remote sensing/ground measurement concept reversed. I don't have time now, but I will strongly quallify all the satellite data soon. BTW, the term "global warming" is outdated and missued -- Most climatologists now speak of "global climate change" - since many areas will actually experience seasonal cooling because of increased cloud cover and some areas might even face prolonged cooling due to the possible slowing or even shutting down of deep-sea currents. --maveric149

A belated reply to Maveric:

Dr. Roy Spencer, Senior Scientist for Climate Studies, NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, points out two facts: (1) According to the IPCC's own theories (climate models), the troposphere should be warming at least as much as the ground; yet, (2) Weather balloon and satellite data show the troposphere warming only at the rate of 0.03 degrees C per decade (from 1979 to 1998), which is only 1/6th of the IPCC prediction.

Ed Poor, Friday, April 5, 2002

Can someone explain what "(a reduction of 0.15 in 2 C warming by 2100)" means? 0.15 in 2?

It means that global temperature will increase 1.85 degrees with Kyoto and 2 degrees without.user:Joao

Also, "proponents of global warming" is misleading--at least if used to mean "people who argue that global warming is real and is a problem." A proponent of global warming would be in favor of a warmer globe, not opposed to it. (This is particularly relevant because there seem to be some people arguing that a warmer planet would be neutral if not good, though this may be more a matter of "we don't care about global temperatures, just let us keep burning fossil fuels" than of actively wanting to warm the earth.) Vicki Rosenzweig

It's ironic that someone would say I was twisting the facts, when apparently the same person took a 0.01 degree cooling and "tweaked" into a 0.04 degree cooling. The larger cooling figure is plainly marked "unadjusted trend".

The scientific figures I quoted from the NASA web site are pasted below:

  • Weather balloon trend (Angell/NOAA) -0.07 deg. C/decade
  • Unadjusted satellite trend: -0.04 deg. C/decade
  • Weather balloon trend

(Parker, UK Met Office): -0.02 deg. C/decade

  • Our Adjusted Satellite Trend: -0.01 deg. C/decade
  • Wentz-estimated adjusted satellite trend: +0.08 deg. C/decade

I don't believe I'm the one with the "ideological bias" -- actually I'm the one who is quoting scientist Dr. Roy Spencer. If you think he has an ideological bias, fine: say so. But the NASA website saw fit to publish his article. I think your dispute is with NASA or the NOAA, not with me. I am just faithfully reporting what the scientists say.

Have a nice weekend. Ed Poor, Friday, April 5, 2002

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