News for anyone interested in Global Warming.

I know you all already kow Im not for the Kyoto accords or any of that other global warming stuff, but I never really said why. The reason is that I have known all along that the theories and computer modles were very very far from complete and accuyrate. I also knew/know that they do not take into account many major weather related issues and are in fact just basicly bad science. Here is an article that may help support my views.

Obviously it is only one report but it is a good read and shows some good science.

Extreme cold over South Pole reveals global warming models are wrong

AUCKLAND (AFP) Sep 10, 2002
A discovery that it is much colder over the South Pole than believed has exposed a major flaw in the computer models used to predict global warming, a new scientific paper claims.
US scientists based at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station say they have measured the temperature of the atmosphere 30 to 110 kilometres (18 to 68 miles) over the pole and found it is 20 to 30 degrees Centigrade (68 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit) colder than computer models showed.

Various models are used to predict global climate and some assumptions have had to be made, including air temperatures over Antarctica.

Chester Gardner, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois, Weilin Pan, a doctoral student at Illinois and Ray Roble of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research writing in the American Geophysical Union Letters say the models are wrong.

"Because of the obvious challenges, until now, the only temperature data we have had from either the North or South Poles has been from surface measurements and weather balloons that don't go any higher than about 20-30 kilometres (12-18 miles)," Gardner told AFP.

The researchers used a laser radar system from the South Pole to make the first measurements of the temperature higher up and found it was much colder than assumed.

Global warming could be caused by greater concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) which is a strong absorber of infrared radiation.

In the lower atmosphere CO2 absorbs the heat. While CO2 also emits heat other CO2 absorbs it. In the thinner stratosphere and mesosphere, much of the heat emitted by CO2 is radiated into space and so in the upper atmosphere the primary affect of CO2 is cooling.

"Thus as CO2 levels continue to rise in the atmosphere, we expect the lower atmosphere to continue warming while the upper atmosphere ... will cool."

During winter Antarctica receives little sunlight and its atmosphere is sealed off by a vortex of winds preventing warmer air from lower latitudes travelling to the pole.

"As a consequence the region cools to very low temperatures in winter, primarily by radiation of heat into space."

In May, June and July the stratopause was considerably colder than model predictions. The greatest difference occurred in July, when the measured stratopause temperature was about minus 17 degrees C (0 degrees F) to about 4 degrees C (40 degrees F) predicted by the models.

"Current global circulation models apparently over-predict the amount of down-welling, because they show warmer temperatures than we observed," Gardner said.

Their measurements will be a baseline for future temperature studies.

"We believe a major flaw in current models is the way they account for compressional heating associated with down welling over the polar cap in winter," Gardner said.

"Of course you and I are really not interested in what happens above the South Pole. We do care about what happens where we live. Models can help predict those changes due to rising CO2 levels but only if we believe they give accurate results.

"Our South Pole measurements will help the modellers and theoreticians better understand the atmosphere and incorporate that understanding in their models, making their future predictions more accurate."

I still have yet to see any real hard scientific proof that man has a significant impact on global warming, but at least with these kinds of guys doing the research and not fudging the numbers I can at least respect their work.

[skywalker]

I agree (sacrilege! ), I don't agree with Global Warming theories, but I do think pollution is a major problem. We should be cutting down all the poisons we spew into the atmosphere. It sucks to breathe it and acid rain does do damage.

My 2 cents.

Mark

I completely agree with you on that too Mark [img]smile.gif[/img] One of the key reasons Im am so PRO-technology is that can allow us to reduce and in some cases eliminate all together the things we put into our atmosphere and our water. I am all for reducing emmissions and waste, I just want to see it done in a reasonable way without crippling anyones economy or for it to become a "wealth" redistribution plan which is how I view the Kyoto accords.

[ 09-12-2002, 11:30 AM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

[Grojlach]

Awg, every few months there's a new investigation about the environment, and they're all contradicting one another... I'd prefer to be on the safe side, however. We could all believe the most optimistic reports and not pay too much attention to environment, only to figure out 30 years later that those reports weren't exactly realistic views and we doomed ourselves by neglecting necessary changes... I personally prefer taking the most negative reports very seriously while finding out 30 years later the situation wasn't that nearly that bad. At least you still have decent circumstances to live in then...

[ 09-12-2002, 11:41 AM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

[Suzaku]

Perhaps you misunderstand what Global Warming is. It is the definitive average warming of the climate, not just regional rises and fluctuations of temperature. It is the world average temperature recorded throught the world around the year. And yes, it is rising. And if u refuse to believe that, then maybe this will; C02 concentrations in the atmosphere are HIGHEST in the past 42000 years, by examination of polar ice layers on studying the past accumulation of snow and climate samples.

Global warming is not only in the atmosphere. As MagiK said, pro-technology is
stuff like nuclear reactors right? You know what thermal pollution comes out of those suckers right? The ocean water is used as coolant, and as a result gets warmed, and thrown back into the ocean, and ppl think it's fine because the ocean is so huge. Now ocean temperatures are rising world-wide due to this kind of actions.

You can't deny the basic actions, now it's up to you to decide whether you want to ignore and run from these problems, or face them and fix them for our comtinued existance. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's happening out there...

Originally posted by Suzaku: Perhaps you misunderstand what Global Warming is. It is the definitive average warming of the climate, not just regional rises and fluctuations of temperature. It is the world average temperature recorded throught the world around the year. And yes, it is rising. And if u refuse to believe that, then maybe this will; C02 concentrations in the atmosphere are HIGHEST in the past 42000 years, by examination of polar ice layers on studying the past accumulation of snow and climate samples. Global warming is not only in the atmosphere. As MagiK said, pro-technology is stuff like nuclear reactors right? You know what thermal pollution comes out of those suckers right? The ocean water is used as coolant, and as a result gets warmed, and thrown back into the ocean, and ppl think it's fine because the ocean is so huge. Now ocean temperatures are rising world-wide due to this kind of actions. You can't deny the basic actions, now it's up to you to decide whether you want to ignore and run from these problems, or face them and fix them for our comtinued existance. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's happening out there...

You are right, everything we do will have a result, but on a global scale, all the heat pollution of all the nuclear reactors in the world doesnt even compare to a single geothermal event called a volcano. Hot springs, geothermal vents above and below sea level, sunlight all have bigger impacts than man, because they are ALL much larger in scope. Mans total wattage output is miniscule compared to the total hitting it every day just from the sun. I don't mind working toward cleaner cheaper energy sources and fission reactors are not good mostly because of their wastage. Solar is better but is years away, so is fusion. Unless we kill of 4 or 5 billion of the 6 billion of us around you are just gonna have to face the fact that we do have to deal with the fact that we do have some impact.

(and if you want to reduce world population I heartily invite you to take steps to reduce it...say sterilize yourself, and if you are in an extreme fit over "over population" Im pretty sure you could lead with a demonstration of dedication and leave the ranks of the living [img]smile.gif[/img] By the way I limited myself to replacing me and my wife, then had myself sterilized so I walk the walk.)

No one is running away, there is just a choice of being chicken little running around being reactionary and alarmist about things, or you can behave in a more rational way and realize that we have cleaner industry than we did 200 years ago when millions of tons of soot was sprayed into the atmosphere from dirty innefficient coal burning.

As for being agenius about what ius happening out there, there ARE a great many indicators that what is happening out there (re global warming) is a completely natural thing. The only problem is...if it is completely natural no one gets huge government grants and payoffs from industry to go away, no one gets to try and coerce huge cash payments to their favorite cause. You might want to look into why the founder of Green Peace left the organization some time.. I found it a very revealing and telling read.

[ 09-12-2002, 01:01 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

[Lox]

That article is an obvious example of the conservative media conspiracy telling only the part of the story they want to tell. jk

Interesting article. I guess we can't always put our trust in scientists. Maybe we should put our trust in mad scientists. We may not be safer, but it would be a lot more interesting [img]smile.gif[/img]

But seriously, I think Grojlach is right. It's best to err on the side of caution.

[Attalus]

I have studied the computer weather predicting models, and found it fascinating that they have to re-set them every so often, because they tend to slip into so called "white world" conditions, where the temperature averages, I think, zero to minus 10 Celsius. In other words, ICE AGE. Some scientists are puzzled that we have not had an ice age for longer than average. A beneficial effect of global warning?

The only thing I wanted to do with the article is to demonstrate that most of the so called science that is being spouted by the really radical eco-types is not based on real science at all but on theories and gueses on incomplete modles.

On a telnet talker that I go to, we have 2 meteorologists, who seem reasonable and admit that they can't even predict tomorrows weather with better than 66% accuracy most of the time and that the highend weather modeling doesn't account for small things like..say mountain ranges or the great lakes.

Yes the temps may be going up, but there are indications that a temperature rise is the pre-cursor of a glacial period. The temps rise, melt the ice caps faster and faster dumping fresh water into the oceans and totaly whacking the deep ocean thermal convection currents which disrupt the gulf stream and keep it from sending heat north and causing northern climes to suddenly go cold while the equator keeps most of the heat energy....really good reading on this stuff if you want to study it. There is an analagous convection current for the southern hemisphere too but I dont know the current names.

Originally posted by MagiK: (By the way I limited myself to replacing me and my wife, then had myself sterilized so I walk the walk.) [/QB]

What in hell ever gave you the idea you needed to be replaced????????????
Although, if the process of sterilization made you walk the walk, you may have a case for a malpractice suit...