650,000 Years of Carbon Dioxide Can't Be Wrong

LessBread · 2005-12-03T13:30:58

New research published today shows that levels of greenhouse gases are higher today than they have been in the last 650,000 years, adding more evidence to support the idea that human economic activity is producing global warming. Core Evidence That Humans Affect Climate Change Quote: An ice core about two miles long — the oldest frozen sample ever drilled from the underbelly of Antarctica — shows that at no time in the last 650,000 years have levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane been as high as they are today. The research, published in today's issue of the journal Science, describes the content of the greenhouse gases within the core and shows that carbon dioxide levels today are 27% higher than they have been in the last 650,000 years and levels of methane, an even more powerful greenhouse gas, are 130% higher, said Thomas Stocker, a climate researcher at the University of Bern and senior member of the European team that wrote two papers based on the core. The work provides more evidence that human activity since the Industrial Revolution has significantly altered the planet's climate system, scientists said. "This is saying, 'Yeah, we had it right.' We can pound on the table harder and say, 'This is real,' " said Richard Alley, a Penn State University geophysicist and expert on ice cores who was not involved with the analysis. ... Here are a few other sources for the story. Bern researchers drill deep into climate history Old bubbles back global warming theory Sea level rise doubles in 150 years Do you think this additional information will convice skeptics? What more information do you think will convince them? Do you think this information will prompt any policy changes in the USA or other countries? What questions does this new information raise for you?

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Started by LessBread November 25, 2005 02:04 PM

174 comments, last by Eelco 18 years, 4 months ago

BerwynIrish

337

November 29, 2005 11:35 AM

Quote:Original post by Eelco
i agree that more than correlation exists. however, the title 'Core Evidence That Humans Affect Climate Change' is outright wrong. this icecore shows nothing but correlation. this core is not the core evidence.

I was wrong in that corellation did indeed enter the thread by way of a relatively reasonable discussion of the title of the article. However, the 'corollation' characterization quickly got picked up and used as a straw man against the article itself and seemingly against human-induced climate change in general by the posters I was making reference to earlier.

Vasant56

190

November 29, 2005 11:54 AM

Quote:Original post by BerwynIrish
I appreciate that you can own up to a mistake, but you're the victim of yet another con. Corollations only entered the discussion because certain people were allowed to get away with falsely maintianing that the conclusions in question were arrived through corollation. Reread polly's post on the previous page if you still don't understand why this is wrong.

I'm confused on how I was "conned".. I was replying directly to polly's claim.

polly

532

November 29, 2005 12:08 PM

Quote:So..
Bob got kicked in the balls. (A)
Bob's balls started to hurt. (B)

A implied B.
Which is sound.

However:
Bob got kicked. (A)
Bobs balls hurt. (B)

A doesn't nessesarily imply B.

It doesn't prove that bob got kicked in the balls.

I hope you understand.

I understand this logic is fubar. [grin]

Seriously, your second statement:

Quote:Bob got kicked [in the balls]. (A)
Bobs balls [after the event] hurt. (B)

Completely ignores the fact that an existing body of knowledge is available, which states that, for most cases, pain following a kick in the balls can be directly linked as an after-effect of the kick in the balls.

Thats sort of skating around my point, which is that science (inc. the theories surrounding global warming) does not work on correlation alone. Correlations are only part of the picture, used to provide evidence for an existing theory. Scientists do not go around looking for random correlations and then come up with theories to fit them. That would be crazy.

I've said this in previous threads on global warming: How come I never hear you "It's only a correlation" guys ever complain that the link between contracting HIV (a virus) and developing AIDS (an immune deficiency syndome) is only a correlation?

Jon

polly

532

November 29, 2005 12:17 PM

Quote:Original post by BerwynIrish
I was going to post the exact same thing, but the tactic you describe is just so ignorant that I assumed somebody else must have debunked it earlier and I missed it (there was really too much mind-numbing nonsense in this thread for me to have the patience to scour it for an instance of said debunking). I hope that the use of this ridiculous tactic, along with the glaring omission of the basic fact that I have bolded in your post, will further help people wake up to the fact that they need to be very wary of these "let's keep a cool head and not upset the status quo" types. They appearantly are good at presenting an air of objective level-headedness (not to me, but I see others constantly buying into the pretense), but there is an agenda at work and they will misrepresent reality to further it.

I don't know. I tried to read the whole thread, but maybe it did get debunked and I simply missed it.

I see this sort of flawed thinking every single time a thread on this subject is posted.

Jon

LessBread

1,415

Author

November 29, 2005 02:32 PM

Quote:Original post by Diodor
Quote:Original post by Eelco
but that thing about boiling oceans is interesting, i never heard of that. ill look it up, do you have any links worth checking out?

Google for methane hydrates, methane catastrophe, permafrost melting.

I dropped a link to methane catastrophe earlier - but links don't contrast well in this new design - the color needs to be changed.

"I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes." - the Laughing Man

LessBread

1,415

Author

November 29, 2005 02:50 PM

Quote:Original post by Eelco
the envirnoment we evolved in ranged from the african savannah to living with the world covered half in glaciers. im not sure the word equilibrium is in order.

Have we been talking about atmostpheric levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases or not?

Quote:Original post by Eelco
first of all, id rather not push back the clock at all.

but that thing about boiling oceans is interesting, i never heard of that. ill look it up, do you have any links worth checking out?

Context makes a difference. I saw Diodor's comment and I thought boiling water not volcanic vents. Hot Vents, Hydrothermal Vent Tube Worms, Hydrothermal Environments on the Ocean Floor.

The genomes of bacteria such as these hold great interest for evolutionary biologists seeking insight into the earliest life on Earth. It is hypothesized that life originated in a high-heat, low-oxygen environment like that most suited to A. aeolicus ...

Quote:Original post by Eelco
an argument seemingly aimed at introducing elementary school children to the subject. we know a lot of other effects DO intervene, such as the greenhouse potential of gasses saturating when virtually no light of that wavelength leaves earth any longer anyway, more evaporation meaning more clouds meaning much less light reaching earth, radiative emission being strongly superlinear with temperature, i could go on for a while.

extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. i suppose brushing aside anything that might contradict your theory is extraordinary proof in some way, but not a positive one.

I don't think their argument was aimed at elementary school children. You can think of it as the introductory section to a book. Their point probably wasn't to convince uber skeptics like yourself but simply to put forward the idea.

Quote:Original post by Eelco
boiling oceans, no, but any realistic scenario seems managable for us as a species.

If we start making adjustments now, but if the methane in the permafrost and on the ocean floor starts to sublimate... A methane catastrophe is abrupt because it can be initiated by a major submarine landslide, which can happen in a matter of days or even hours, or by the venting of vast quantities of seafloor methane over a period of decades. These events can take place in a geological eyeblink. Additional slumping and/or venting can continue for centuries to millennia.

"I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes." - the Laughing Man

coldacid

755

November 29, 2005 03:00 PM

Is the only data available the CO2 levels of 650,000 years ago and the levels today? Or did the core sample actually show the levels for the entire span of time? For certain, it wouldn't be a straight-up line, but at the same time, the most change probably came from between 1800 and the early 1920s. I doubt that since the 1920s the levels of CO2 have grown anywhere as dramatically as they did during the industrial age.

Chris 'coldacid' Charabaruk – Programmer, game designer, writer | twitter

Vasant56

190

November 29, 2005 03:05 PM

Original post by polly

Quote:Bob got kicked [in the balls]. (A)
Bobs balls [after the event] hurt. (B)

Completely ignores the fact that an existing body of knowledge is available, which states that, for most cases, pain following a kick in the balls can be directly linked as an after-effect of the kick in the balls.

What are you trying to conclude in the above argument? Bob got kicked in the balls. His balls hurt. If you get kicked. You get hurt. There's no "correlation", it's posteriti knowledge (matter of fact).

Quote:

Thats sort of skating around my point, which is that science (inc. the theories surrounding global warming) does not work on correlation alone. Correlations are only part of the picture, used to provide evidence for an existing theory. Scientists do not go around looking for random correlations and then come up with theories to fit them. That would be crazy.

Agreed. But my argument was that broad correlations on their own can't be used to prove a point.

Quote:
I've said this in previous threads on global warming: How come I never hear you "It's only a correlation" guys ever complain that the link between contracting HIV (a virus) and developing AIDS (an immune deficiency syndome) is only a correlation?

Jon

HIV = human immunodeficiency virus
AIDS = Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome

HIV a virus that destroys the immune system.
AIDS is a collection of infections caused by the lack of immune system caused by HIV.

HIV is, by definition, the cause of AIDS, so it obviously isn't a correlation.

Tron3k

660

November 29, 2005 03:22 PM

Will global warming wipe out the human race? No.
Will we all personally be dead by the time it happens? Yes.

I rest my case.

“[The clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man” - Thomas Jefferson

coldacid

755

November 29, 2005 03:29 PM

Quote:Original post by coldacid
Is the only data available the CO2 levels of 650,000 years ago and the levels today? Or did the core sample actually show the levels for the entire span of time? For certain, it wouldn't be a straight-up line, but at the same time, the most change probably came from between 1800 and the early 1920s. I doubt that since the 1920s the levels of CO2 have grown anywhere as dramatically as they did during the industrial age.

By the way, my point, which I forgot to state, is that our major work in climate change is done, and we're just seeing the effects of the previous 150 to 200 years now. Give it a while without further booms in human adjustment of greenhouse gasses, and things will settle back into a happy equilibrium.

Chris 'coldacid' Charabaruk – Programmer, game designer, writer | twitter

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