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Canadian permafrost thaws 70 years early

Threegoofs said:
I could, but won’t bother, because clearly, the scientists (and Greenpeace director!) already have made it clear.

Odd you still don’t understand my original point.
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You had a point?
 
Napoleon said:
What it does do is lead to debate, and yes this is an ongoing debate, in terms of the impact of human activities vs natural factors.
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Dude. In terms of the science, that debate is over, done, finished. Denying AGW is like denying that cigarettes cause lung cancer.


And that is something that is difficult to asses particularly when you don’t have all of the variables.
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*bzzt* wrong

Climate scientists have exhaustively researched and catalogued the variables. There are still some uncertainties about the impacts, but no real doubt and no real "missing variables" when it comes to the causes.


Right now, climate science suffers from using correlation and causation as interchangeable terms....
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*bzzt* wrong, that's just typical denier nonsense.


Using your cigarette example, a person can smoke 15 packs a day and never develop a single cancerous cell and an otherwise healthy non-smoker can develop lung cancer. So if a smoker develops cancer then the cigarettes could be causal or just correlative. You don’t know which without understanding and considering the other variables.
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Thanks for proving my point.

Given what we know about cigarettes and lung cancer, your claim is utterly irrational. We have tons of evidence which shows how and why cigarettes cause lung cancer (and numerous other diseases). This includes decades of research examining the rates of lung cancer for non-smokers, ex-smokers, regular light smokers, regular heavy smokers, and those affected by second-hand smoke. We also have lots of lab research which shows the mechanisms by which cigarette smoke causes cancer, including a full catalog of the 7000+ toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke. And yes, those epidemiological and empirical tests rule out the "other variables."

That also includes cataloguing the other leading causes of lung cancer -- e.g. exposure to radon, asbestos, diesel exhaust and other toxins -- and figuring out the frequency with which those exposures result in lung cancer.

I.e. squealing "correlation does not prove causation!" does not disprove actual science.
 
WCH said:
I thought it was the methane contained in the permafrost that posed a greater danger?
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Permafrost holds both methane and carbon. Both are a concern. Both were mentioned in the BBC article you quoted.
 
Sunsettommy said:
You glossed over the fact that a huge area of Permafrost dissipated in just a few thousand years, with no evidence of a huge disease wave showing up, realize that the ground in NEBRASKA was permanently frozen for around 35,000 years or so, yet when it thawed out, Humans who crossed the Alaska and Bering Straits bridges in the waning days of deglaciation didn't suffer from waves of diseases either despite all that potential of serious diseases lurking in the recently thawed ground.

The "dangers" are overblown since the PREVIOUS deglaciation that led into the Eemian interglacial period didn't have this disease wave either....
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I "glossed over" nothing. Just stating something that could turn out to add to the overall consequences of global warming. It may not be as disastrous as some would have us think, but it ain't gonna be a picnic, either.

35,000 years ago, were there humans in Nebraska? The Alaska land bridge migrations were 20,000 years ago. Anything that melted 15,000 years before that had long since done whatever it was going to do. Unless you think 15,000 years is "recent"? Or were you counting on me being unable to do the math?

:mrgreen:
 
Visbek said:
Dude. In terms of the science, that debate is over, done, finished. Denying AGW is like denying that cigarettes cause lung cancer.



*bzzt* wrong

Climate scientists have exhaustively researched and catalogued the variables. There are still some uncertainties about the impacts, but no real doubt and no real "missing variables" when it comes to the causes.



*bzzt* wrong, that's just typical denier nonsense.



Thanks for proving my point.

Given what we know about cigarettes and lung cancer, your claim is utterly irrational. We have tons of evidence which shows how and why cigarettes cause lung cancer (and numerous other diseases). This includes decades of research examining the rates of lung cancer for non-smokers, ex-smokers, regular light smokers, regular heavy smokers, and those affected by second-hand smoke. We also have lots of lab research which shows the mechanisms by which cigarette smoke causes cancer, including a full catalog of the 7000+ toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke. And yes, those epidemiological and empirical tests rule out the "other variables."

That also includes cataloguing the other leading causes of lung cancer -- e.g. exposure to radon, asbestos, diesel exhaust and other toxins -- and figuring out the frequency with which those exposures result in lung cancer.

I.e. squealing "correlation does not prove causation!" does not disprove actual science.
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You cannot treat the subject matter as unquestionable dogma and call it science. It is not scientific to claim that anything is beyond the possibility of revision or even revocation as more information becomes available. Science - real science - is never settled. Indeed, the scientific community doesn’t have the information required to accurately predict local climates most of the time let alone a system as complex as global climate. We are only beginning to scratch the surface to understand all of the variables on climate science. For example, it is only comparatively recently that research began on a variable as massive as the South Atlantic Anomaly. So if people have to place their bets on which has the greater impact - cow farts and gasoline or a gaping and ever growing defect in the Earth’s magnetic field - well, I’ll let the readers decide.

As for the cigarettes - you missed the point entirely. It’s not enough to say that something can be causal. That it can be does not support the claim that it must be in any particular instance. As I pointed out, there is not a 100% casual link between smoking and the development of lung cancer. There are other variables involved that must align to produce that outcome even for a smoker. If that doesn’t happen then even a heavy smoker will not develop lung cancer. And in order to establish a primary causal link between smoking and lung cancer in an individual all of those variables must be examined. The same goes for climate science. You cannot merely say that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and we’re releasing it so if the climate is warming it’s our fault. That doesn’t move anything beyond hypothesis - which is what AGW truly is.
 
calamity said:
You could read the article. It’ll tell ya.
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So just more shroud waving then. We've had plenty of that since this lucrative political agenda was invented 30 years ago yet we are still here
 
Napoleon said:
You cannot treat the subject matter as unquestionable dogma and call it science.
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Fortunately, that's not what I am doing. I'm simply aware that the scientific evidence of AGW is extensive and solid -- and that there is a long history of politically-motivated and unscientific denial of certain types of science (notably evolution, Flat Eartherism, the age of the Earth, cigarette smoking and numerous environmental issues).


Science - real science - is never settled....
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Please, spare us this denier bull****. The evidence is solid. There is no reasonable scientific doubt that human activity has caused the majority of warming since the start of the Industrial Age. Merely pointing out that "scientific evidence is not as certain as a deduction" is meaningless, because you're not actually presenting a single stitch of evidence to the contrary, and of course applying this criticism in a highly selective and self-serving manner.

I mean, really. Do you go around telling people "computers don't need electricity, because science is not settled!" or "human bodies don't actually have cells, because science is not settled!" or "the bridge we're driving across could collapse at any second, because the principles of physics employed by the engineers could be wrong, you don't know!"


Indeed, the scientific community doesn’t have the information required to accurately predict local climates most of the time let alone a system as complex as global climate.
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:roll:

More denier bull****, I see. Weather is not climate. Weather is chaotic; climate is not. That's why we have climate models developed decades ago that are still fairly accurate; that would be utterly impossible if climate was as chaotic as weather.


We are only beginning to scratch the surface to understand all of the variables on climate science. For example, it is only comparatively recently that research began on a variable as massive as the South Atlantic Anomaly....
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Climate scientists were talking about the South Atlantic Anomaly in the 1980s. E.g. 1981ApJ...244L.185W Page L185

The IPCC AR5 Physical Science report is 1,500 pages long -- and it's basically just a summary of the thousands of scientific studies relevant to the questions around climate change. We are well beyond "scratching the surface."


So if people have to place their bets on which has the greater impact - cow farts and gasoline or a gaping and ever growing defect in the Earth’s magnetic field - well, I’ll let the readers decide.
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Oh, really? So if your doctor suspects that you have cancer, should you just "let the readers" decide that, too? It's not like your doctor spent years getting advanced degrees, or has years of medical experience, or keeps up on the latest medical research, and knows how to actually read the research....


As for the cigarettes - you missed the point entirely. It’s not enough to say that something can be causal. That it can be does not support the claim that it must be in any particular instance. As I pointed out, there is not a 100% casual link between smoking and the development of lung cancer. There are other variables involved that must align to produce that outcome even for a smoker....
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:roll:

And again, all you're doing is showing your own ignorance and denial. We have more than enough information to know that if a smoker develops lung cancer, there is no rational doubt that smoking was a key causal factor in developing that disease. For example, the second leading cause of lung cancer in the US is exposure to radon. Guess what? We also know that if you have a smoker and a non-smoker who are both exposed to radon, the smoker is 25 times more likely to develop lung cancer than the non-smoker.

More to the point is that claiming "you can get lung cancer from radon, too!" does not refute the solid scientific research which shows the causal links between smoking and lung cancer.
 
Visbek said:
Fortunately, that's not what I am doing. I'm simply aware that the scientific evidence of AGW is extensive and solid -- and that there is a long history of politically-motivated and unscientific denial of certain types of science (notably evolution, Flat Eartherism, the age of the Earth, cigarette smoking and numerous environmental issues).
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Please cite some of this Scientific evidence that is extensive and solid?
CO2 levels have increased, that is solid.
Average Temperatures have increased, that too is fairly solid, within about .2 C.
How much forcing warming is a result of said CO2 increase, is purely theoretical.
How much feedback warming will result from the perturbation of the forcing warming, is far less certain.
 
longview said:
Please cite some of this Scientific evidence that is extensive and solid?
CO2 levels have increased, that is solid.
Average Temperatures have increased, that too is fairly solid, within about .2 C.
How much forcing warming is a result of said CO2 increase, is purely theoretical.
How much feedback warming will result from the perturbation of the forcing warming, is far less certain.
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When the **** are you gonna read the IPCC?
 
Threegoofs said:
When the **** are you gonna read the IPCC?
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WOW, you think the IPCC has any evidence as to CO2 forcing levels or feedback levels,
You really have drank the koolaid!
 
Visbek said:
Fortunately, that's not what I am doing. I'm simply aware that the scientific evidence of AGW is extensive and solid -- and that there is a long history of politically-motivated and unscientific denial of certain types of science (notably evolution, Flat Eartherism, the age of the Earth, cigarette smoking and numerous environmental issues).



Please, spare us this denier bull****. The evidence is solid. There is no reasonable scientific doubt that human activity has caused the majority of warming since the start of the Industrial Age. Merely pointing out that "scientific evidence is not as certain as a deduction" is meaningless, because you're not actually presenting a single stitch of evidence to the contrary, and of course applying this criticism in a highly selective and self-serving manner.

I mean, really. Do you go around telling people "computers don't need electricity, because science is not settled!" or "human bodies don't actually have cells, because science is not settled!" or "the bridge we're driving across could collapse at any second, because the principles of physics employed by the engineers could be wrong, you don't know!"



:roll:

More denier bull****, I see. Weather is not climate. Weather is chaotic; climate is not. That's why we have climate models developed decades ago that are still fairly accurate; that would be utterly impossible if climate was as chaotic as weather.



Climate scientists were talking about the South Atlantic Anomaly in the 1980s. E.g. 1981ApJ...244L.185W Page L185

The IPCC AR5 Physical Science report is 1,500 pages long -- and it's basically just a summary of the thousands of scientific studies relevant to the questions around climate change. We are well beyond "scratching the surface."



Oh, really? So if your doctor suspects that you have cancer, should you just "let the readers" decide that, too? It's not like your doctor spent years getting advanced degrees, or has years of medical experience, or keeps up on the latest medical research, and knows how to actually read the research....
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All I’m going to say to all of this is that if you think we know and understand the impacts of all of the variables - particularly without controlled testing - and consider something beyond revision or reproach then you don’t know what science is. If this were the 19th century I’d have no doubt you’d be raging that miasmas are “settled” science too.

Visbek said:
And again, all you're doing is showing your own ignorance and denial. We have more than enough information to know that if a smoker develops lung cancer, there is no rational doubt that smoking was a key causal factor in developing that disease. For example, the second leading cause of lung cancer in the US is exposure to radon. Guess what? We also know that if you have a smoker and a non-smoker who are both exposed to radon, the smoker is 25 times more likely to develop lung cancer than the non-smoker.

More to the point is that claiming "you can get lung cancer from radon, too!" does not refute the solid scientific research which shows the causal links between smoking and lung cancer.
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You’re still missing the point. What the science shows is that smoking can increase the probability that the person will develop lung cancer, but that probability is still relatively low. The vast majority of smokers - even heavy smokers - never develop lung cancer. So if a smoker develops lung cancer it’s because they were susceptible or predisposed to that outcome for other reasons and smoking may just be incidental. It is not nearly as deterministic as you are painting it here.
 
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longview said:
WOW, you think the IPCC has any evidence as to CO2 forcing levels or feedback levels,
You really have drank the koolaid!
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Its reviewed that evidence.

And those people (who know what theyre talking about, unlike random anonymous ex engineers with no background in the field) are pretty confident in their findings.
 
Threegoofs said:
Its reviewed that evidence.

And those people (who know what theyre talking about, unlike random anonymous ex engineers with no background in the field) are pretty confident in their findings.
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Perhaps you can cite where they cite that evidence?
 
Napoleon said:
All I’m going to say to all of this is that if you think we know and understand the impacts of all of the variables - particularly without controlled testing - and consider something beyond revision or reproach then you don’t know what science is. If this were the 19th century I’d have no doubt you’d be raging that miasmas are “settled” science too.
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:roll:

Got a tip for you, my friend: In the 19th Century, they didn't have access to the type of equipment, data, or extensively tested theories that we do today. Climate scientists have extensive data and research tools, including but not limited to:
• Devices to measure the amounts of various GHGs in the atmosphere
• Measurements of solar activity and solar irradiation
• Measurements of ocean circulation, CO2 levels, pH etc
• Temperature and sea level stations all over the world
• Satellites gathering all sorts of data, including atmospheric temperatures, surface temperatures, sea levels, ocean depths, glacier extents and thickness, rivers running underneath glaciers, etc
• Advanced computers that can analyze and model mind-bogglingly huge datasets
• Proxy data that goes back millions of years
• Direct empirical proof that increases in CO2 cause increases in surface temperatures (First Direct Observation of Carbon Dioxide’s Increasing Greenhouse Effect at the Earth’s Surface | Berkeley Lab)
• And yes, they do in fact run tests which inform us about climate change in controlled environments (e.g. CLOUD | CERN)

Unsurprisingly, they use all of these tools (and lots more) to determine not only how climate change happens, but what it's doing to our environment right now. I.e. this is not just theoretical anymore, we have evidence of impacts right here and right now.

Thus comparing the state of climate science today, to the state of science circa 1850, is ignorant to the point of being ludicrous. If anything, the dogmatic position here is those who categorically refuse to accept the science, based on motivated reasoning -- which results in absurdly weak arguments like "science is never settled, therefore we can't possibly know that AGW is true!" or "there are variables!"


You’re still missing the point. What the science shows is that smoking can increase the probability that the person will develop lung cancer, but that probability is still relatively low. The vast majority of smokers - even heavy smokers - never develop lung cancer. So if a smoker develops lung cancer it’s because they were susceptible or predisposed to that outcome for other reasons and smoking may just be incidental. It is not nearly as deterministic as you are painting it here.
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:roll:

Yet again!!! The point is that "the existence of natural causes of lung cancer does not refute the claim that smoking causes lung cancer." Read that sentence carefully. I did not write that "every smoker will get lung cancer." I did not write that "there are no other causes of lung cancer." Even the statement "most smokers don't develop lung cancer" does not refute the claim that "smoking causes lung cancer."

Yeesh.
 
Visbek said:
:roll:

Got a tip for you, my friend: In the 19th Century, they didn't have access to the type of equipment, data, or extensively tested theories that we do today. Climate scientists have extensive data and research tools, including but not limited to:
• Devices to measure the amounts of various GHGs in the atmosphere
• Measurements of solar activity and solar irradiation
• Measurements of ocean circulation, CO2 levels, pH etc
• Temperature and sea level stations all over the world
• Satellites gathering all sorts of data, including atmospheric temperatures, surface temperatures, sea levels, ocean depths, glacier extents and thickness, rivers running underneath glaciers, etc
• Advanced computers that can analyze and model mind-bogglingly huge datasets
• Proxy data that goes back millions of years
• Direct empirical proof that increases in CO2 cause increases in surface temperatures (First Direct Observation of Carbon Dioxide’s Increasing Greenhouse Effect at the Earth’s Surface | Berkeley Lab)
• And yes, they do in fact run tests which inform us about climate change in controlled environments (e.g. CLOUD | CERN)

Unsurprisingly, they use all of these tools (and lots more) to determine not only how climate change happens, but what it's doing to our environment right now. I.e. this is not just theoretical anymore, we have evidence of impacts right here and right now.

Thus comparing the state of climate science today, to the state of science circa 1850, is ignorant to the point of being ludicrous. If anything, the dogmatic position here is those who categorically refuse to accept the science, based on motivated reasoning -- which results in absurdly weak arguments like "science is never settled, therefore we can't possibly know that AGW is true!" or "there are variables!"



:roll:

Yet again!!! The point is that "the existence of natural causes of lung cancer does not refute the claim that smoking causes lung cancer." Read that sentence carefully. I did not write that "every smoker will get lung cancer." I did not write that "there are no other causes of lung cancer." Even the statement "most smokers don't develop lung cancer" does not refute the claim that "smoking causes lung cancer."

Yeesh.
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Are not numbers wonderful things!
From your citation, And the actual publication.
They found that CO2 was responsible for a significant uptick in radiative forcing at both locations, about two-tenths of a Watt per square meter per decade. They linked this trend to the 22 parts-per-million increase in atmospheric CO2 between 2000 and 2010.
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now we have to go to the actual publications methods section to get where the 22 ppm started and stopped.
http://asl.umbc.edu/pub/chepplew/journals/nature14240_v519_Feldman_CO2.pdf
369 to 392 ppm. and 11 years.
.2 Wm-2 per decade X 1.1 decades is .22 Wm-2 increase while CO2 increased from 369 ppm to 392 ppm.
The equation used by the IPCC is 5.35 X ln(CO2_H/CO2_L), so to get the multiplier from Feldman's data the
reverse equation would be .22 Wm-2 /ln (392/369)=3.638,
So the forcing of 2XCO2 based on the observed data is 3.638 X ln(2)= 2.52 Wm-2.
But the amount of calculated forcing from 2XCO2 is 3.71 Wm-2,
Feldman's sensor covered out to 20 um, and so would have picked up any heating above about -80C.
Perhaps the empirical proof is not as strong as you think!
 
Threegoofs said:
I could, but I see little return in doing Your homework.

You can easily find it, since you’re apparently interested yet simultaneously ignorant of its existence.
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No homework involved, you cannot back up your claim!
 
longview said:
No homework involved, you cannot back up your claim!
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:lol: hardly. :roll:

As temperatures started to rise, scientists became more and more interested in the cause. Many theories were proposed. All save one have fallen by the wayside, discarded for lack of evidence. One theory alone has stood the test of time, strengthened by experiments.

We know CO2 absorbs and re-emits longwave radiation (Tyndall). The theory of greenhouse gases predicts that if we increase the proportion of greenhouse gases, more warming will occur (Arrhenius).

Scientists have measured the influence of CO2 on both incoming solar energy and outgoing long-wave radiation. Less longwave radiation is escaping to space at the specific wavelengths of greenhouse gases. Increased longwave radiation is measured at the surface of the Earth at the same wavelengths.

These data provide empirical evidence for the predicted effect of CO2.

How do we know more CO2 is causing warming?
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It's not hard to know these things, not with a world of knowledge at everyone's fingertips. In fact, there no longer is any excuse at all for people to be ignorant jackasses.
 
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