Interesting GW video by the founder of the Weather Channel

[Slydel]

Not here to spark a serious debate since a lot of what he talks about I have heard before. I do find it interesting that the meeting in Denmark was not a discussion if global warming is actually occurring but more on how to deal with it. Climategate was not taken into account nor other possible causes of Global Warming such as natural fluctuations in climate or global land use changes. I found it humorous that the local weekly paper stated that 2009 was not a record-breaking year for northern Michigan, yet if you were to read the article, this July was the coldest July on record in northern Michigan with an average temperature of 62.3 F. My wife and I went to the beach on lake Michigan with our daughter to play in the sand on July 3rd. The high for the day was ~50 F. We were all wearing winter coats and hats because of the temperature and wind. Maybe Michigan is getting colder while the rest of the world is getting warmer because of wind and ocean current changes? Here goes the link: http://www.kusi.com/home/78477082.html?video=pop&t=a

Edit: link did not seem to work the first time I posted. Sorry about that.

[justintempler]

Re: Interesting GW video by the founder of the Weather Chann

...this July was the coldest July on record in northern Michigan with an average temperature of 62.3 F....

While on the other side of the US.......

The warmest July on record in Las Vegas with an average of 107 degrees and half of the normal rainfall for the month didn't help. This is a race against the worsening drought. A race against population growth and a race against running out of out of water in Las Vegas.

http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=6944663

That's why annecdotal evidence is worthless...

John Coleman is an interesting character.
http://climateprogress.org/2007/11/1...imate-experts/

Are meteorologists climate experts?
November 14, 2007
No, or I should say, not inherently.

The question arises because Weather Channel founder John Coleman wrote a recent article claiming global warming is “the greatest scam in history.” [Not! Everyone knows the greatest scam in history is the whole moon-landing nonsense.] But I digress. Coleman writes:

I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with numerous scientists. I have studied. I have thought about it. I know I am correct. There is no run away climate change. The impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not in peril. I am incensed by the incredible media glamour, the politically correct silliness and rude dismissal of counter arguments by the high priest of Global Warming.

Oh well, then, case closed. A weatherman read a bunch of papers and thought about them.

In fact, one of the climate scientists I interviewed for my book told me:

Meteorologists are not required to take a course in climate change, this is not part of the NOAA/NWS [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Weather Service] certification requirements, so university programs don’t require the course (even if they offer it). So we have been educating generations of meteorologists who know nothing at all about climate change.

Asking a meteorologist to opine on the climate — or even the cause of recent extreme weather – is like asking your family doctor what the chances are for an avian flu pandemic in the next few years or asking a mid-West sheriff the prospects for nuclear terrorism. The answer might be interesting, but not one I’d like to stake my family’s life on.

As but one example of how meaningless it is to read a few scientific papers — especially the wrong ones — consider what Coleman said on CNN’s Glenn Beck:


When I looked at the hockey stick graph … it showed a steady lying (sic) temperature throughout the millenium and then a sudden rise, I knew that that was incorrect. I knew it couldn’t possibly be. … And I found out it was bogus science. It wasn’t real. The numbers had been massaged. The whole thing had been created.

Uhh, no. The scientific literature is very clear — the hockey stock is not bogus science. Indeed, the nation’s most prestigious scientific body, the National Academies of Science, has issued a pretty definitive statement about this, Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years, which is discussed here. Here is New Scientist on the myth the hockey stick graph has been proven wrong.

[Aside: I played the video twice, and it does sound like "lying" but I think what he meant was "declining".]

You don’t need to be a climate scientist to talk about climate science — but you do need to have a thorough grounding in the actual scientific literature, as opposed to just the (much smaller, and rarely peer-reviewed) denier literature. If you insist on repeating long-debunked denier myths — attacking the hockey stick, and the like — then you lose all credibility. So in the debate between ThinkProgress and Newbusters, I am, no surprise, with my (big) sister site.

One last point. Coleman says:

In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be obvious. As the temperature rises, polar ice cap melting, coastal flooding and super storm pattern all fail to occur as predicted everyone will come to realize we have been duped…. I strongly believe that the next twenty years are equally as likely to see a cooling trend as they are to see a warming trend.
To anyone who believes such nonsense — I am quite happy to make a large bet that the temperature in the next decade will be higher than this decade (and that the temperature in the decade after that will be still higher). Any takers?

If you like conspiracies John Coleman is your man.

[justintempler]

By the way..

There was 2 founders for The Weather Channel and John Coleman left years ago. and despite his position at KUSI-TV in San Diego
"Mr. Coleman is not currently on the American Meteorological Society's list of Certified Broadcast Meteorologists"

The Weather Channel has their own statement about Global Warming online (and it doesn't agree with John Coleman)

The Weather Channel position on Global Warming:
Is global warming a reality? Are human activities causing it? The Weather Channel's position on climate change

http://climate.weather.com/info/stat...l-warming.html

[Veganpunk]

All of this global warming debate reminds me of the Futurama episode where they have too much trash and send it in space only for it to come back as a meteor, and they have to make another one to destroy the first one. Basically we'll keep talking about it until it's too late.

[sgreger1]

Yah California has been freezing lately but the newest talking point is that Global Warming actually causes extreme global cooling first and THEN warms everything. I'm not a meteorologist so I can't say whether that's true or not.

The whole world has been colder this year, including (ironicly) Copenhagen as well as much of europe but this years weather isn't a good way to guage a longterm trend.

As always anyone, including climate scientists, who disagree will be called a conspiracy theorist, but Justin is right in saying that the guy in reference here is a meteorologist and not exactly qualified to make official opinions on global climate trends.


Al Gore won't debate anyone, at Copenhagen they won't allow any testimony that is contrary to their already firm position, and their measure they are proposing will not actually limit any C02 but instead make a way for the biggest polluters to buy off their ability to pollute as opposed to just taxigg the highest poluters to make them want to go green. They already have a political agenda they are basing off of what would have been a ligitimate green movement, so there is probably no stopping it. This is why debate is not allowed and one day magicly there was just a concensus and anything to the contrary is a conspiracy theory.

I wonder what these people's views were about Y2k lol, good thing we didn't give 100 billion $ a year to developing countries to go "high tech" to avert y2k, which of course was mainly hype. But surely, this is different.

[Slydel]

I found that the information from the Weather Channel - from the link that Justin posted - contained a halfway decent description of possible causes to global warming. Not too bad really, but you can still read bias from the website. Examples:

"However, it is known that burning of fossil fuels injects additional carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This in turn increases the naturally occurring "greenhouse effect," a process in which our atmosphere keeps the earth's surface much warmer than it would otherwise be."

"the more the planet warms, the fewer "winners" and the more "losers" there will be as a result of the changes in climate. The potential exists for the climate to reach a "tipping point," if it hasn't already done so, beyond which radical and irreversible changes occur."

Anyone know if this information is from a climatologist from the Weather Channel or is it written by a meteorologist or worse a PR guy.... or taken from Wikipedia? What terrible things have occurred that are definitely linked to global warming? What is the quantifiable "tipping point"? If the temperature does increase will not "fossil" fuel consumption go down or level out considerably since we will not need as much fuel to heat our homes during the winter (though I do see increased electric use during the summer). Has the average temperature actually increased this decade. I am referring to the fact that oceanic temperature has not increased this decade. It has been a while since I read this but I think that it was on the NOOA website.

Why have they not considered that urbanization and land usage are more likely the major culprit? Is not carbon dioxide a trace element in our atmosphere (0.04%)? Is not 95% of carbon dioxide released in the atmosphere occurring naturally? Why don't we have an initiative to plant more trees to capture CO2? The carbon from CO2 becomes part of the wood structure (Shell Oil has been promoting this for years). The assumption that warming will cause more "losers" is just that, an assumption. One thing that is not considered is that the increased cost to consumers may be, probably will be, enormous at every level, while the reduction of atmospheric CO2 will be negligible. It will have little effect at reducing global warming assuming that CO2 is the main contributor of increased global temperature. I want a better, cost-effective, and non-destructive solution/alternative to the use of "fossil" fuels. I don't want excessive price increases for energy which are not effective like current solar energy technology, worthless wind power, and the most evil of them all corn-based ethanol (what was our government thinking with this stupid idea?). We will need a solution in the next century, but the methodology used by our current kakistocracy is absurd.

[sgreger1]

Why have they not considered that urbanization and land usage are more likely the major culprit?

I'll tell you why Slydel, because the objective is not to save the planet or actually fix the problem. It is instead to perpetuate the problem but somehow profit off of it.

Deforestation, the doubling of the population every generation, lacking recycling technology etc all play a massive role in how we ar ehurting the earth. The reason why they have latched onto C02 as the evil culprit of global destruction?? Because it is abundant and every business in the world have some carbon footprint, therefore if they demonize the carbon, they can tax it, regulate it.This gives them the ability to tax/regulate nearly everything under the guise of "we're saving the planet".

Meanwhile cap-and-trade has not only been proven to be very inefective at stoping anything, but is just a way for the biggest poluters to get away with more polluting. Assuming AGW is the manbearpig people are claiming it to be, there have got to be smarted innovative ways to fix it than just creating a carbon currency for big companies to trade around and forcing people to buy carbon credits to offset their mere existance (since we breath C02).


I saw a shower system concept that used bio-tech by having plants algae or something under the bathtub that will eat the bad stuff out of the water so it can be re-used. This is what i'm talking about. We can solve the worlds hunger problem, the earth's alleged climate problem, and many other things if we would quit it with the politics and start spending our time and resources to developing cool ways to engineer our way out of this mess via technology.

[justintempler]

I found that the information from the Weather Channel - from the link that Justin posted - contained a halfway decent description of possible causes to global warming. Not too bad really, but you can still read bias from the website....

Are you trying to say John Coleman's piece wasn't biased?

You made an "appeal to authority" by invoking Weather Channel founder John Coleman.

If you want to take an indepth examination of the claims John Coleman makes then this link is just for you.

This is only the preface of a very very long piece examining the claims of John Coleman

John Coleman
The founder of the Weather Channel has researched whether or not global warming is human caused; and determined that it is not. Well, there's an old joke that goes like this: "You know why the call them weathermen? ... They don't know whether it'll rain or not."

Preface: To all concerned,
It is not my intention to impugn the integrity of Mr. John Coleman. For his own reasons he has taken a stand on a highly controversial issue, that seems to be based on his beliefs rather than the relevant science on the subject of climate.


However, it is my intention to impugn the integrity of his argument. It is grossly misleading and confusing many people. There is a big difference between weather and climate. Weather is short term, and studied largely by meteorologists. Climate is long term and studied largely by climatologists.


This I believe is an important distinction to the debate, as it gives proper perspective to the general understanding one group may have vs. the other.


We should all be concerned with getting to the truth of all matters of importance. We should all be humble enough to admit when we make mistakes; and we should all be responsible for the stands we take on issues of import to the common good.

In the following materials I examine Mr. Coleman's arguments and apply reason to the science as well as reference to the relevance of the data and the arguments. It is my hope that this helps not only Mr. Coleman understand the bigger picture of climate vs. meteorology, but that it helps all that are confused by the disinformation that is being bandied about as fact to undermine the relevant understanding.

The question is about the truth of the data and what it means pertaining to climate... And the truth is all that matters.

While I have done a fair amount of research on the arguments, I must admit I could be wrong as well, in any assertions I have made. It is best that anyone reading this article examine the evidence and relevant understanding in order to get closer to the truth of the matter at hand. It certainly involves all of us, one way or another.

John P. Reisman
... /snip/...

continued here: http://www.uscentrist.org/about/issu...t/john_coleman

[Slydel]

I believe that global warming has occurred and may continue to occur. I do not necessarily believe that it is caused by man. There is a correlation between CO2 concentration and increased global temperature. There are also theories and extrapolations (can you believe it, extrapolations!) based on temperature and CO2 data: an equation or set of equations based upon one variable, CO2 concentration increase caused by man, which comes from the burning of fossil fuels and biomass degradation caused by human activity. I just don't see how anyone could possibly use CO2 concentration data and then reliably extrapolate future temperatures without taking into account other variables that could be affecting climate change. I see this as a problem because the variance would have to be quite large because other variables, in a world of infinite variables, are not taken into account. No matter, if we take the CO2 and global temperature predictions as gospel, and the temperature continues to rise, the outcome of the temperature increase can not be defined nor predicted because there are again an infinite number of other variables that can not be taken into account. Can we predict or define the following will happen due to increased temperature and truly ascertain that global warming is the cause of: reduction of polar bear population, increased number of hurricanes, more violent storms, loss of crops due to too much rain or too little? As someone that has actually performed multi-variable experiments, it is very hard to determine the effects of a variable as the number of variables increase. Most of the time the majority of possible variables are held constant so meaningful data and X, Y1, Y2, and Y1Y2 relationships can be obtained. How can a meaningful equation be obtained when other variables can not feasibly be held constant or are not included in the equation? I believe that the system is too complex to grasp and too complex to predict that we all will be "losers" because of it. Many that are extreme pessimists, or shall I say those that have a cautious view of GW, are already profiting from it. That is not even the worst part of GW. Those that are profiting from it are more than willing to enslave the world populace through environmental regulation and taxation. I am sorry if I offend, but the world is here for us to use. We should all be good stewards of the land and make sure we keep it clean/healthy for future generations. I believe that there is a lot of debate about GW because the science behind it is flimsy and both sides believe that there is a lot to lose if their side does not prevail.

[CM]

IMO its natural thing, we're just speeding it up.

Ironic, they speak about climate-change and travel by private-airplanes and meet up in huge hall with tables(wood)+alot of structure (metal=factories). And they drank water from bottles wtf? (Oil!!!=CLIMATE CHANGE) Roflmao. They dont give a shit because they know it aint true.

[justintempler]

I believe that there is a lot of debate about GW because the science behind it is flimsy and both sides believe that there is a lot to lose if their side does not prevail.

I find it interesting that you trust science in every other area of your life but the one that you don't agree with, you have a problem with it.

NASA can get us to the moon and back but when it comes to global climate change you'd have us believe they don't have a clue what they are talking about.

I'm not going to twist your arm, believe whatever you want.

[sgreger1]

What he means by flimsy is that they are not able to predict or adequately observe all the many factors that go into climate change. They make comments like the sun does not have a significant effect on temperatures etc.

The science is just not there yet to be able to accurately predict what 50 years from now will look like. Especially when they refuse to factor in everything we know. Instead we hear that ice is melting in one place, but no mention of how glaciers are growing in another.

We are in a natural earth cycle, whether we contribute or not is irrelevant, because we know the earth will cool and warm even if humans did not exist. As far as humans are concerned, we will survive, we always do. We've been through worse with less technology to make it easier. And as far as nature, it will go on like it always has and it will maintain it's balance like always. If it can survive millions of years of crazy changes, volcanoes, continental drift, meteors etc, it will survive this.

Lets look at this and see it for what it is, natural change, sans all the political and end of the world crap.

[justintempler]

I swear it's like talking to a brick wall. :evil:

I'm 53 years old and I heard all the same arguments about the link between and smoking and cancer. Deny! Deny! Deny! It isn't proven. Let's do another study. We don't know all the facts yet. But maybe if we just add a filter it'll be safer, Or how about we'll just make a light cigarette, poke some holes in the filter...........

You'll never have 100% scientific consensus, you can always point to a minority to make the case against the majority. Unlesss you want to pretend it's some big global conspiracy, there already is a scientific majority agreement that global warming is happening that can't be accounted for by natural cycles. The link is there, 7 billion people burning carbon is causing global warming.

And it doesn't make a bit of difference if you don't believe it because an increasing population is going to forced to make the shift from carbon fuels anyway and if we sit on our asses long enough the Chinese are going to take the green jobs before we even realize what hit us.

I rather spend the money for fire insurance and not need it then to have a fire and not have any insurance.

[sgreger1]

I swear it's like talking to a brick wall. :evil:

I'm 53 years old and I heard all the same arguments about the link between and smoking and cancer. Deny! Deny! Deny! It isn't proven. Let's do another study. We don't know all the facts yet. But maybe if we just add a filter it'll be safer, Or how about we'll just make a light cigarette, poke some holes in the filter...........

You'll never have 100% scientific consensus, you can always point to a minority to make the case against the majority. Unlesss you want to pretend it's some big global conspiracy, there already is a scientific majority agreement that global warming is happening that can't be accounted for by natural cycles. The link is there, 7 billion people burning carbon is causing global warming.

And it doesn't make a bit of difference if you don't believe it because an increasing population is going to forced to make the shift from carbon fuels anyway and if we sit on our asses long enough the Chinese are going to take the green jobs before we even realize what hit us.

I rather spend the money for fire insurance and not need it then to have a fire and not have any insurance.

But what if you're already a trillion dollars in debt, would you still get the fire insurance? Would you spend 100 billion a year to buy fire insurance for the developing houses on the other end of the block, when you can't even afford your own mortgage?


Your argument is like me saying that in 4 billion years the sun is going to cool down and start to expand and destroy earth, so we need to set up a space tax program so that we can fly to other planets before that happens, and on top of that we need to spend 100's of billions a year on other countries space programs as well. Meanwhile millions our citizens are starving and without work our housing, and all the green's can think about is how to burn up that sweet biofuel in their cars instead of feed people.



No one is saying we shouldn't get away from oil, but do you see this movement being used by the gov to get away from oil? Oh they want to build some wind farms etc, but they can't even do that because the enviro-nazis are saying that the large spaces required for solar or wind farms will kill the native species. They figure it will be better to set up a new tax as opposed to spending the money on reforming the gas companies or research and developement for alternate fuel sources.

[sgreger1]

I swear it's like talking to a brick wall. :evil:

I'm 53 years old...

No, I will not get off your lawn





Lol, thought i'd share this too. Kind of silly but still funny regardless of your stance:

"Two Fairbanks businessmen are still so annoyed by former Vice President Al Gore's stand on global warming that they have commissioned another "Frozen Gore" ice sculpture for display in front of a liquor store. This year's version features Gore blowing smoke -- but only when a truck exhaust is connected. Businessmen Craig Compeau and Rudy Gavora say they'll commission the sculpture annually until Gore comes to Fairbanks to debate climate change. "Before we start carbon taxing ... let's try and educate ourselves," Compeau said. The Frozen Gore Web site also has pictures of last year's creation."

And of course they needed some hot air to produce the smoke he blows from his mouth, but absent of a big rig exhaust all they could find was Sarah Palin.