Climate Change - Fact or Fiction

[LogicalFallacy]

Here is another point: the US Joint Chief of Staff (I think that's the title) has ordered military plans to be put in place for when climate change causes disruption to the extent the military will be needed. You know mass chaos because low lying areas are inundated causing mass exodus kind of thing.

 

If this is all hocus pocus false stuff why is the US military so interested. Commanders are making preparations to protect their bases. What For? https://www.americansecurityproject.org/climate-energy-and-security/climate-change/climate-change-and-u-s-military-basing/ 

 

Tell you what. Convince the Joint Chief head honcho that nothing is happening and get back to me when he has canceled military planning to do with CC.

[★ Citsonga ★]

[LogicalFallacy]

@Citsonga Hence the almost flippancy of my last post. I'm like if this is fake/not real/not a threat WTF is the US military worrying about it? This stuff can be researched.

[pantheory]

On 8/27/2019 at 6:05 PM, LogicalFallacy said:

Here is another point: the US Joint Chief of Staff (I think that's the title) has ordered military plans to be put in place for when climate change causes disruption to the extent the military will be needed. You know mass chaos because low lying areas are inundated causing mass exodus kind of thing.

 

If this is all hocus pocus false stuff why is the US military so interested. Commanders are making preparations to protect their bases. What For? https://www.americansecurityproject.org/climate-energy-and-security/climate-change/climate-change-and-u-s-military-basing/ 

 

Tell you what. Convince the Joint Chief head honcho that nothing is happening and get back to me when he has canceled military planning to do with CC.

 

As your link says, there were 2 acts of congress 2017 and 2018 telling the military to be prepared for events that could happen because of global warming. Of course without the directive from congress the military on its own must consider all conceivable possibilities that could threaten the military. All of the bases shown in blue on your link map, shown above, have always faced serious threats from hurricanes which have happened in all of recorded history. If global warming increases ocean temperatures then the frequency of devastating hurricanes on humanity will also increase. By the US congress directive the military will need more funding to enable the follow-through by the military to implement such a directive. Is the congress going to provide more funding to the military for this purpose? I think not, no matter which political party is in power. Instead they will want the military to decrease other military spending to accommodate this preparation which is what I expect will happen. Like the Boy Scouts, the military must be prepared no matter what happens, but one can guess that not much money will be spent in preparation for the event of global cooling. But the winters of 2019 and 2020 may be harbingers of ever colder winters and weather. 

 

https://nypost.com/2019/08/27/the-farmers-almanac-is-predicting-a-miserable-winter-2020/

 

Even so the military will be somewhat prepared because a much colder winter 2020 is presently being forecast for most of the world at least one year in advance and money must be spent in preparation to minimize probable damages to military installations.  This is a more imminent threat than global warming which may take decades, many scores of years, or maybe never happen at all to the extent presently predicted by many. Most solar scientists believe this global cooling is part of a solar cycle which will end within a year or two so this is probably what will happen.  But there is no certainty that these progressively harsher winters and colder year round temperatures will reverse to a progressively warming trend again. Solar activity is somewhat uncertain and history has shown that decreased solar activity has lasted decades of years, centuries, or sometimes many millennia. For instance, if there were ten more consecutive harsh world-wide winters like the winter of 2018-2019 then global cooling could become a prominent worry like "global warming" is now. This expectedly would cause world strategies to change to also consider and prepare for the possibility of long lasting and progressive global cooling.

 

https://www.almanac.com/news/astronomy/astronomy/solar-minimum-approaching-mini-ice-age

[LogicalFallacy]

I've a question: 2018 saw a solar minimum https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2018/09/27/the-chill-of-solar-minimum/ In 2019 NZ posted its warmest summer or a month in summer on record. July 19 was the warmest average on earth on record.

 

What happens during the next Maximum?

[midniterider]

2 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

Here is another point: the US Joint Chief of Staff (I think that's the title) has ordered military plans to be put in place for when climate change causes disruption to the extent the military will be needed. You know mass chaos because low lying areas are inundated causing mass exodus kind of thing.

 

If this is all hocus pocus false stuff why is the US military so interested. Commanders are making preparations to protect their bases. What For? https://www.americansecurityproject.org/climate-energy-and-security/climate-change/climate-change-and-u-s-military-basing/ 

 

Tell you what. Convince the Joint Chief head honcho that nothing is happening and get back to me when he has canceled military planning to do with CC.

 

That's a legit point. If it's horseshit, the government would not be involved...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project

 

So is the water nipping at their toes now or what? I do recall the military always talking about 'readiness' , kind of like advanced boy scouts. The ultimate preppers. 

[midniterider]

7 minutes ago, LogicalFallacy said:

I've a question: 2018 saw a solar minimum https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2018/09/27/the-chill-of-solar-minimum/ In 2019 NZ posted its warmest summer or a month in summer on record. July 19 was the warmest average on earth on record.

 

What happens during the next Maximum?

 

Armageddon, no doubt.  Hopefully I'll have a good reason to by a new shortwave radio in a few years when the sunspots peak out again. 

[pantheory]

On 8/27/2019 at 8:18 PM, LogicalFallacy said:

I've a question: 2018 saw a solar minimum https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2018/09/27/the-chill-of-solar-minimum/ In 2019 NZ posted its warmest summer or a month in summer on record. July 19 was the warmest average on earth on record.

 

What happens during the next Maximum?

 

The solar minimum can only be determined several years after the fact as activity increases again. Some are predicting the solar minimum will start next year 2020 as seen in a number of the links I posted.

 

https://watchers.news/2019/07/01/valentina-zharkova-on-the-upcoming-grand-solar-minimum/

 

"July 19 was the warmest average on earth on record."

 

This claim may be true but it certainly has been disputed.

https://www.drroyspencer.com/2019/08/july-2019-was-not-the-warmest-on-record/

 

Solar cycles are fairly predictable, about every 11 years, but there have been a number of exceptions. These are very long periods in history where the sun's activity decreased and no periodic solar cycle was identified. This has not happened in our days of modern solar telescopes so we really don't have a good handle on why this would happen or their predictability other than changing sunspot activity, which is related to magnetic solar storms. But we do know that long periods of decreased solar activity have historically occurred which was thought to be the cause of the little ice age in Europe, and could have been a major or contributing factor in the almost countless millennia long ice ages on Earth, the last one ending about 12,000 years ago. Even if it were predictable many years in advance,  if the sun's activity decreased there's really nothing we could do to prevent the next ice age onslaught. Geology has shown us that in the last million years or so glaciation has been the rule, and inter-glacial warming the exception.

 

http://www.winningreen.com/site/epage/59549_621.htm

 

 

[LogicalFallacy]

DATA!!

 

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/land-based-station-data/land-based-datasets/global-historical-climatology-network-monthly-version-4

 

Mooorrreee data https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts.txt

 

More Data https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/datatools/lcd

 

No I have no real idea what I'm looking at. My main point here is to show you can obtain datasets should you look hard enough.

[pantheory]

On 8/28/2019 at 4:33 AM, LogicalFallacy said:

DATA!!

 

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/land-based-station-data/land-based-datasets/global-historical-climatology-network-monthly-version-4

 

Mooorrreee data https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts.txt

 

More Data https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/datatools/lcd

 

No I have no real idea what I'm looking at. My main point here is to show you can obtain datasets should you look hard enough.

 

Yeah, data is the key. I believe global warming is real, even if the extent of it may have been exaggerated by many because that is what they were looking for. The question is more about the extent of man-made global warming. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. CO2 is a big stimulation to plant growth, the more of it in our atmosphere in general the faster and more prolific plants grow. Plants take up CO2 reducing the atmospheric percentage of it. To say that increased quantities of atmospheric CO2 would produce a lot more global warming is pure speculation, especially the exact extent of it. Such assertions cannot be backed up by experiment or history although many have made such predictions based upon potential CO2 predicted atmospheric ratios.

[disillusioned]

36 minutes ago, pantheory said:

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It contributes to global warming. CO2 is also a big stimulation to plant growth. The more of it in our atmosphere in general the faster and more prolific is plant growth.

 

In principle,  except that humans are also actively engaging in deforestation and driving desertification though other activities. All of these contribute to anthropogenic climate change,  not just the actual burning of fossil fuels. 

[wellnamed]

Random but related: I saw this article yesterday and the number kind of blew my mind (n.b. I have no idea how skeptical you should be of this data either :P)

 

Ethiopia plants more than 350 million trees in 12 hours

[disillusioned]

1 hour ago, wellnamed said:

Random but related: I saw this article yesterday and the number kind of blew my mind (n.b. I have no idea how skeptical you should be of this data either :P)

 

Ethiopia plants more than 350 million trees in 12 hours

 

Wonderful!

Enthusiasm tempered, of course by the following from the article: 

 "less than 4% of Ethiopia's land is forested, compared to around 30% at the end of the 19th century.

The landlocked country is also suffering from the effects of climate crisis, with land degradation, soil erosion, deforestation, and recurrent droughts and flooding exacerbated by agriculture.".

[pantheory]

On 8/28/2019 at 10:24 AM, wellnamed said:

Random but related: I saw this article yesterday and the number kind of blew my mind (n.b. I have no idea how skeptical you should be of this data either :P)

 

Ethiopia plants more than 350 million trees in 12 hours

 

This is how I'm guessing that the "350 million tree plantings" might have come about. As to your link, the "tree plantings" was a politically motivated promotion, but certainly a good thing IMO regardless of the reason. The 350 million relates to how many seeds were handed out by the government in the 12 hour period of time. The article doesn't say if they were different kinds of seeds, and if so how many different types of seeds. To assure a tree comes up you need an adequate amount of water after seed planting which for the most part would depend on adequate rainfall, which may not happen for most of the seeds planted. Also you probably should put multiple seeds in one hole to assure that at least one of them sprouts, a prime example would be pine cone seeds.  This was not a government paid program; it seems from the link that it was mostly all volunteers. If you have somewhat loose soil you could draw a line with a stick maybe 50 yards long and drop in maybe 5,000 seeds, then cover them up,  all within maybe a couple of hours. How many of these seedlings will become trees is only a guess, but if only 350 thousand new trees resulted from this total effort, even that amount would be amazing and hard for me to believe for such a very short period of time using mostly volunteers who verbally expressed how many seeds they planted, with maybe no accounting for how many were really planted.

[Joshpantera]

On 8/26/2019 at 8:02 PM, Jane said:

Joshpantera:   I don't think theories of what happened 65 million years ago are scientific fact. They are just theories, like evolution.  It might have been like that, or not.  Basing everything on some ice in the arctic doesn't sound very scientific to me.  Theory is just that, it is NOT fact, until you can prove it. You will never be able to prove what happened 65 million years ago. Well, maybe some day they will invent some sort of new science, that we can't even imagine yet. But for now, theory is not fact.( It's like evolution and the beginning of life. Until someone can create life out of the molecules, and then breed either 2 species and get a new one, or breed the same and get a new one, evolution is only theory also.  Want to have a thread on that? )

 

First of all, you ought to read the link before trying to respond to it, Jane.

 

I know you probably feel ganged up on as the thread is aimed at trying to hammer out some other arguments you and LF were having elsewhere. So when Pantheory post links and raised the issue of global cooling in contrast to global warming, you just assumed that he was arguing with you, when he actually wasn't. Then when I reposted an old thread about ice core sample and looking at the big picture charting out the last 65 million years of global temperature variations, you assumed that I was talking about "what happened 65 million years ago," instead of an unbroken record of ice core data starting 65 million years and running through to today. It's also to do with the cooling trends, showing how temperatures were a lot warmer in the past than they are now during the natural variations in temperature, and other relevant data graphed out in charts. 

 

 

 

And then taking a closer look a chart based on the last 10,000 years: 

 

 

 

The over all trend is a cooling trend, which, relates to what Pantheory was calling attention to. Now to the right of the chart you'll see a small red line. The red line is an upswing in temperature.

 

That's the beginnings of an upswing in temperature during the modern industrial revolution heading towards the current era. In the past 10,000 years there have been warming periods (Minoan, Roman and Medieval) illustrated on the chart which were much warmer than today. The overall take away from the data has been that our modern warming trends do coincide with the industrial revolution, but at the same time represent small spikes in temperature during the course of a larger scale downward temperature trend. The down ward arch's on both charts describe the bigger picture. 

 

Now if we narrow the focus down even further from 65 millions years of temperature, then zoom in to 10,000 years of temperature, and then zoom in again down to a smaller focus on just the area to the right of the above listed graph, we find this general trend: 

 

 

 

Some of the arguments from the larger scale data perspectives and science (setting politics and special interest group propaganda aside) has been that the warming that has been experienced and documented is within a natural variation. And further, considering the larger trends and climate data from the ice core samples, it's entirely possible that future cooling can happen. And the down ward trend could continue despite the small spikes in temperature that are evident if we narrow down to 100 year period or so. 

 

But predicting the future is always a tricky business! Whether from science or religion. There's too many unknown variables at play in order to hammer down solid predictions at this time. 

 

 

 

Predictions depend on the input. And a lot of the input seems to have erred on the dramatic side.

 

Temperatures have risen, but not to the extent that many over dramatized models have predicted. Maybe I'm wrong. This is just something of an off the cuff take on putting it all together at the moment.

 

If we only focus in narrow (100 years or so) time scales then we still see temperature rise. Not as dramatic as predictions have alleged. But it's spiked up during the industrial revolution. It's still arguable whether or not it's within natural variation. And the bigger trends have shown small spikes and drops in temperature, as the general trend has been an overall decrease in temperature where the ice core samples are concerned. 

 

And we've seen melting ice reports in recent years followed by conflicting reports of ice gains. Both in the arctic and antarctic. The Greenland Ice sheet has shown both increase and decrease: 

 

 

There's a hell of a lot going on with this issue if you toss aside the political glasses and only look at it as a scientific issue. Hopefully the above explanation clarifies what we were actually talking about. 

[pantheory]

On 8/26/2019 at 5:02 PM, Jane said:

"Joshpantera:   ............................ But for now, theory is not fact.( It's like evolution and the beginning of life. Until someone can create life out of the molecules, and then breed either 2 species and get a new one, or breed the same and get a new one, evolution is only theory also.  Want to have a thread on that? )"

(embolden added)

 

Jane, I'm calling your bluff, if that's what it was concerning your quote embolden above: "Want to have a thread on that."  We have had lots of discussions here in the science section about the extent of evolution being fact. I would bet dollars to donuts that the primary criteria of evolution, natural selection, is as certain as we could ever be about any theory, in that there is a mountain of evidence to support it. Anyone asserting that natural selection could be wrong would be dancing on my toes, but not in a good way. Yes, the beginning of life is just theory, but evolution via natural selection is indisputable IMO. Although I have agreed with a number of things that you have said concerning climate change, anyone disputing natural selection will have almost no scientists in the field asserting the possibility that natural selection could be wrong.

 

So go ahead and start a new thread about the theoretical aspects of evolution if you wish,  but you must take off your political glasses because IMO it can take away from what you are saying in the eyes of many. For instance your posting about Obama buying a mansion, was unrelated to the climate discussion.

 

Do you want to start this "evolution is only theory" thread,? But in any event , if you do not respond to this posting then I will know that you were only bluffing by your posting above

[disillusioned]

22 hours ago, pantheory said:

"Joshpantera:   ............................ But for now, theory is not fact.( It's like evolution and the beginning of life. Until someone can create life out of the molecules, and then breed either 2 species and get a new one, or breed the same and get a new one, evolution is only theory also.  Want to have a thread on that? )"

(embolden added)

 

Jane, I'm calling your bluff if that's what it was concerning your quote embolden above "Want to have a thread on that."  We have had lots of discussions here in the science section about the extent of evolution being fact. I would bet dollars to donuts that the primary criteria of evolution, natural selection, is as certain as we could ever be about any theory, in that there is a mountain of evidence to support it. Anyone asserting that natural selection could be wrong would be dancing on my toes, but not in a good way. Yes, the beginning of life is just theory, but evolution via natural selection is indisputable IMO. Although I have agreed with a number of things that you have said concerning climate change, anyone disputing natural selection will have almost no scientists in the field asserting the possibility that natural selection could be wrong.

 

So go ahead and start a new thread about the theoretical aspects of evolution if you wish,  but you must take off your political glasses because IMO it can take away from what you are saying in the eyes of many. For instance, your posting about Obama buying a mansion was unrelated to the climate discussion.

 

But if you wish I will start the evolution thread, OK? If you do not respond then I know you were just bluffing

 

Agree with this entirely. We can discuss evolution any time. As long as we stick to the evidence, I think there's only one possible conclusion.

[Joshpantera]

@Jane

 

All of this is given in the spirit of trying to be helpful. I'm sure you realize that christians come here making claims like, "evolution is just theory." If people come here to this community making these kind of claims, rest assured many members will respond to it and reveal all of the problems involved, which, are actively made by christian apologist's trying to poo poo science and discovery that conflicts with their biblical beliefs. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

 

Quote

A scientific theory is an explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can be repeatedly tested and verified in accordance with the scientific method, using accepted protocols of observation, measurement, and evaluation of results. Where possible, theories are tested under controlled conditions in an experiment.^[1][2] In circumstances not amenable to experimental testing, theories are evaluated through principles of abductive reasoning. Established scientific theories have withstood rigorous scrutiny and embody scientific knowledge.^[3]

 

When apologist's or anyone starts off with an, 'oh, it's just a theory' mantra, they've already lost whatever it was they started off trying to demonstrate. Because they're trying to use a well established scientific theory interchangably with a definition of theory as just an idea, or personal speculation of some type. It's not a good way to go into debating scientific issues. 

[pantheory]

21 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

@Jane

 

All of this is given in the spirit of trying to be helpful. I'm sure you realize that christians come here making claims like, "evolution is just theory." If people come here to this community making claims like this, rest assured many members will respond to it and reveal all of the problems involved with making these sorts of claims, which, are actively made by christian apologist's trying to poo poo science and discovery that conflicts with their biblical beliefs. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory

 

When apologist's or anyone starts off with an, 'oh, it's just a theory' mantra, they've already lost whatever it was they started off trying to demonstrate. Because they're trying to use a well established scientific theory interchangeably with a definition of theory as just an idea, or personal speculation of some type. It's not a good way to go into debating scientific issues. 

 

Yeah, I totally agree. When it comes to evolution, such an assertion IMO is simply based upon little understanding of the theory, and that they probably have religious bendings.  But when it comes to some theories in modern physics,  I might tend to agree with them; it's only theory

[Joshpantera]

4 hours ago, pantheory said:

 

Yeah, I totally agree. When it comes to evolution, such an assertion IMO is simply based upon little understanding of the theory, and that they probably have religious bendings.  But when it comes to some theories in modern physics,  I might tend to agree with them, it's only theory

 

Seriously, though. I think we can see a distinction between something like evolution and theories in physics which are hypothetical to much greater degrees. Something like inflationary theory and corresponding infinite replication paradox. That doesn't seem nearly as firmly grounded as something like biological evolution. 

 

Thoughts? 

[trashy]

On 8/27/2019 at 8:05 PM, LogicalFallacy said:

Here is another point: the US Joint Chief of Staff (I think that's the title) has ordered military plans to be put in place for when climate change causes disruption to the extent the military will be needed. You know mass chaos because low lying areas are inundated causing mass exodus kind of thing.

 

If this is all hocus pocus false stuff why is the US military so interested. Commanders are making preparations to protect their bases. What For? https://www.americansecurityproject.org/climate-energy-and-security/climate-change/climate-change-and-u-s-military-basing/ 

 

Tell you what. Convince the Joint Chief head honcho that nothing is happening and get back to me when he has canceled military planning to do with CC.

The military cares when a politician cares. Obama initiated a lot of this, Trump is ending a lot of it. Comes and goes with political whim.

[Joshpantera]

11 minutes ago, trashy said:

The military cares when a politician cares. Obama initiated a lot of this, Trump is ending a lot of it. Comes and goes with political whim.

 

One nonsensical point about all of this is the slow, slow, movement of sea level rise if future predictions are even accurate to begin with.

 

We're not talking about Hollywood style, "The Day After Tomorrow," or tidal waves crashing down immediately submerging entire coastlines. That might interest the military and marshal law. But that's not anything to do with the science involved with trying to determine future sea level rise. Slow rising sea levels would slowly alert people to the fact that it is happening giving years and years of forewarning as ocean levels slowly come up to the sea walls and coastal dunes of the current coastlines. Condos would likely be condemned at some point, and then professionally razed as the coastlines shift and evolve. New regulations would likely be put in place prohibiting the building of beach front properties.

 

The point being that from a scientific standpoint free and clear of politicalization the panic levels are pretty unfounded. How hard is evacuating an Island or coastal community over, say, a 100 year period? 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise

 

 

Sea level observations between 1993 and November 2018.

 

 

[Joshpantera]

FYI, I'm not sold on the correlation between climate change and hurricanes. As far as I can tell they remain within natural and expected parameters as concerns size, strength, and frequency. 

 

But we are now approaching the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season and currently have this to deal with over the next several days: 

 

 

[midniterider]

3 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

. How hard is evacuating an Island or coastal community over, say, a 100 year period? 

 

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-24/why-indonesia-is-shifting-its-capital-from-jakarta-quicktake

 

I guess we'll see. 

[Joshpantera]

2 hours ago, midniterider said:

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-24/why-indonesia-is-shifting-its-capital-from-jakarta-quicktake

 

I guess we'll see. 

 

You raised another point about the sea level rise issue. The point being that not all circumstances are due to sea level rise, but other factors. And in some cases, like this one, the land is sinking down: 

 

As well as bursting at its seams, the city is sinking. Two-fifths of Jakarta lies below sea level and parts are dropping at a rate of 20 centimeters (8 inches) a year. That’s mostly down to the constant drawing up of well water from its swampy foundations.

 

There's a lot of contributing factors depending on the area in question....