Can GW supporters provide proof that it exists w/o copy/pasting their answers?

Question

I don't support the GW myth... I live in the evergreen state of washington and it has always been green since my family moved here from san diego in 1990. We've had cold days, hot days, wet days, sunny days... but we accept it as changing of seasons. I know in san diego there's only 2 seasons, hot and just right.

Born in Manila, Philippines and lived there till I was 10 I know for a fact its hot and its been hot and humids since my parents can remember and my grandparents and so on. This GW click is born from one man and he's making a killing off it.

Before Al Gore and his doctor-mentary have anyone ever talked about global warming from your own personal conversations with your neighbors and community?

Dana: Looks like you didn't bother reading the part I was born in the Philippines... its hot there and always has and always will be. I was there for a vacation last summer and also the past new years holiday... and during the holidays it felt like august summer in vegas with 100% humidity!

You also added links that YOU did now write... please come with your own words or are your arguements based on what other feed you?

Answer 1

I know I'm only a hick but if you ask me, if someone really knows what he's talkin about he'd be able to explain it to someone else in his own words. That's why I like reading Trevor. Instead of just giving me a bunch of links he actually explains something.

Why don't somebody explain in his own words how Global Warming is proved. Let's take a simple example: how do you prove this 1 degree increase in temperature.

What is the margin of error? Don't tell me its less than a degree. You guys aint that precise even measuring the temperature of a city.

From my understanding, the measurement comes from a statistical measurement of temperatures in random parts of the world. Now can someone explain to me how accurate is that?

What are all the things taken into account when making these measurements? How often were they made? Were random locations changed and with what frequency? Did temperature variations within those locations taken into account? How about weather changes during a period of a week? A year?

Tell me how you got this 1 degree measurement. Just explain this one thing to my satisfaction how that proves your theory of global warming, in you own words.

Answer 2

The thing about global warming is that it's not about sudden, dramatic changes. Hollywood and the media like to go overboard sometimes - it sells newspapers and puts bums on seats. The reality is much more mundane.

It's possible to make GW sound dramatic by stating that temps are rising faster now then has ever before been known and they're rising nearly 200 times faster than the 10,000 years preceding the Industrial Revolution. These sound more dramatic than stating temps are currently rising by 0.0177 degress C per year, it doesn't sound much and it isn't much; it's just one degree C in 56 years.

These temp changes are barely noticeable to us humans. If tomorrow were to be 1 degree warmer than today you'd probably not notice it - and that's over just one day let alone 56 years. Whilst a degree or two here and there may not be significant to us in nature such changes are dramatic.

It's not correct to say that GW is born from Al Gore, he's a public figure who brought it to the attention of a great many people but his movie and book are the result of 100 years of science that came before. The first notion of global warming can be traced back to 1811 although back then it was only speculation. The breakthrough came in 1896 when the link between greenhouse gas emissions, the greenhouse effect and global warming was established by a Swedish chemist named Svante Arrhenius.

There's a detailed history of 'Global Environmental Change' here http://www.colby.edu/sts/st215/fleming_cambridge2003.pdf

It's certainly true that if you turn the clock back 20 years or so very few people had heard of global warming, back then it was something largely confined to the scientific community and despite the best efforts to bring the issue to the attention of politicians it fell on deaf ears. 1988 was the turning point and the first politician of significance to sit up and take notice was the then Prime Minister of the UK - Margaret Thatcher. The result was the first Earth Summit held in Rio De Janeiro in 1992, this was attended by no less than 172 countries including 108 heads of state. Global warming and climate change was now very much in the political arena.

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PS Thanks Harry (above) for the compliment. If you read this you may wish to post a question concerning the points you mentioned, if I see it I'll try and answer it - not here though as this is someone else's question.

Answer 3

I don't know if you are very young, but of course there has been mention of Global Warming long before Al Gore's documentary came along that brought the topic closer to the forefront. (I'm not sure if your "doctor-mentary" is insinuating that the facts and evidence have been doctored or something else like science developed by doctors?)

Now, what you are asking for is a bit difficult. You want answers, but do you only want answers from a scientist who has been studying or would paraphrasing be suitable in answering this question?

It seems ridiculous for you to assume that Global Warming doesn't exist because the Philippines are still as warm as everybody remembered or that Washington is still as green as it was in 1990 (I don't know where you live, but Washington is nowhere near as green as it was in 1990 and I've been living in Washington since prior to that date). I'm sure I could go out to somewhere near the Cascades and stake my claim on my own plot of land and not ever notice changes outside of my property and claim that the world hasn't changed over the next 10 years. I could even go visit Tonga, where my family is, just to make sure it is still hot every 15 years or so and assume that everything is kosher. That's not really going to determine at all whether the World climate is changing too well. It's also not going to be the most obvious changes all throughout the world. If I lived at the Polar Icecaps, I'd be telling you every day, "It's freezing over here!" while they melted away.

If you want to wait until there are definitely obvious climate changes, that's tough, but check sea levels as they continue to rise. That should be something that's happening regardless as to whether it feels like the climate is changing or not.

Answer 4

Sure, but.... You can't prove a scientific fact with words. It takes data and it takes calculations. That's how science works. It's not a debating society. That's why the scientific literature exists.

Obviously that can't be done in a Yahoo answer format. So I have to give you links to the data and the calculations, and you have to read them.

Summaries of the data and the calculations here:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
summarized at:
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

As an alternative, you can choose to believe the the guys who do that as a profession. I can't tell you all their positions in a few words, but they're here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

If you want something different, please show me how it's done. You can ask a question and provide 1000 characters of detail. Ask - Does this prove the theory of quantum mechanics?, and answer it in the detail.

By the way Al Gore had absolutely nothing to do with gathering the data and developing the science behind global warming. Thousands of scientists did that.

EDIT HARRY READ THIS:

The reason that the temperature measurements are more accurate than you think is that they are based on averaging a large number of measurements over time.

Think of it like this. If I measure a runner going around the track with a stopwatch, how accurate will that be? But if I ask 1000 people to measure him with a stopwatch and average the results, how accurate would that be?

The generally accepted error for recent global temperature measurements is about 0.05 C. I could say more, but then I'd have to post a link .

3DM - Of course I'm a professional degreed (hard) scientist. Give me a break.

Answer 5

I agree with you, cutting and pasting takes no thought, so how about this ...

... I will give you information that has already been established as fact so you can check it out for yourself, no need to read through 100 different links or reading a patchwork quilt of quotes. Okay?

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Marine biologists have been measuring the average temperature of the oceans for decades, unrelated to global warming. They have been measuring temperatures and currents etc to try to understand the marine ecosystem. That data is available to anyone through many university or government websites. They report the average temperature of the oceans has risen 1degreeC in approximately 50 years. The figures vary from .7 degrees to >1degee and the time varies from 30-50 years ... with the magnitude of the numbers we will be dealing with, it doesn't really matter.

What does a 1degC increase in ocean temperature mean?

Well the heat in the ocean feeds the water cycle which creates weather patterns all over the world. Living in the Pacific Northwest you must have heard of "The Pineapple Express", the continuous pattern of storms that start near Hawaii and end up in your area. If I recall correctly the amount of rain you got in that area last spring was almost "biblical" (almost a straight 40 days and 40 nights of rain) so you have experienced the effect. Now let's do the math.

There are 326,000,000 cubic miles of water on Earth;

It takes 1 calorie of energy to raise 1 cubic centimeter of water 1degC;

to convert cubic miles to cubic centimeters you multiply by (5280ft/mi X 12in/ft X 2.54cm/in)^3 =
4168181825440580 cubic centimeters/cubic mile
[thats a big number!];

the definition of the explosive power of a one megaton bomb is 1X10^15 calories/Mt

NOW, so far all the information I have given you are accepted constants, no one can argue they don't exist, they are in the dictionary. So if you do the math for yourself a 1 degreeC rise in ocean temperature = 326,000,000 X 4168181825440580 / 10^15 = 1358827275 megatons

What does that mean?

It means 1.3 billion one megaton atom bombs for each one degree rise. That energy will be expressed in the short term as severe weather events, in the long term as climate change.

Computer modelled projections show the trend continuing, +5degC in 50-100 years. That is the equivalent of an atomic bomb for every man woman and child currently on Earth (population approx 6 billion)

Don't quote me and don't link to my answer ... go find out for yourself if I'm lying or not. The data required to make an INFORMED DECISION is out there!

EDIT:

For information regarding how the one degree was measured and determined, they have used everything from ships at sea to ocean based weather stations (BIG solar powered buoys!) to satellite thermography. Records of ocean temperature have been kept for over 100 years. Various organizations from universities to NASA to navy ships would be providing the raw data. The primary user and compiler of that data is the Hadley Center of the UK Met (Weather) Office. They also have a cute little spinning globe that illustrates my point very well.

So after saying I wouldn't use any links I end up having to use one. Oh, well.

Answer 6

I don't suppor the GW myth either (whatever that is). I do support the GW science.

It's not called "Washington Warming" or "San Diego Warming" for a reason. It's called "Global Warming" because it's a temperature increase averaged over the entire world, as you can see here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png

Looking at isolated localities doesn't tell you anything. If you really want to, you can listen to what some island nations are saying about it. Fiji, for example:

"Mutani says the tides are higher than normal in her 70 years on the island, and the tides are coming through the mangroves into the village."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10983906

And Tuvalu:

"We face many threats associated with climate change," Pita said to the U.N. "Ocean warming is changing the very nature of our island nation. Slowly our coral reefs are dying through coral bleaching. We are witnessing changes to fish stocks. And we face the increasing threat of more severe cyclones. With the highest (land) point of four meters above sea level, the threat of more cyclones is extremely disturbing."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10950375

Or Alaskans:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10865980
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10865977

I can go on, but hopefully you see my point.

*edit* obviously you didn't read the part where I said a person's experiences in an isolated localized area are meaningless. Despite that, I answered your question.

You don't want to hear the science behind global warming. You don't want to hear answers to your question. You dismiss reports from any island other than the Philippines (and from Alaska). Next you'll ask me to answer in the form of a Haiku or it won't count.

Why ask the question when you're so closed-minded that you're going to ignore the answers? If you refuse to believe that global warming is caused by humans then fine, but stop wasting my time by pretending you're open-minded about it. Just put your fingers back in your ears and stick your head back into the nice warm sand.

Answer 7

That's a valid question, and I think Harry has done a good job in asking for a specific to illustrate the mumbo-jumbo that alarmists are trying to sell the rest of the world.

And Bob plugs away:
"Sure, but.... You can't prove a scientific fact with words. It takes data and it takes calculations. That's how science works. It's not a debating society. That's why the scientific literature exists."

How science works? Fess up. Do you have a degree in science? (And no, I will not accept "political science".) Science does NOT work that way. You don't "prove". You don't have "scientific fact". You support your hypothesis (words) with data and calculations. The analysis of this data and the conclusions that are drawn are VERY dependent on words, the language and terminology that is used.

Answer 8

Born and raised in Manitoba.Spent time across western Canada in my43 years and seen the weather change every year.Good years,bad years(farming wise)cold hot,and all in between.If the planet is warming it's not happening here or in Washington or San Diego or in..