"BEST" temperature record study surprises skeptics
Last month, a team of scientists from Berkeley called the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) group released results from research they did on the Earth surface temperature record. Though there have been numerous studies and time series created on surface temperature, they wanted to take an independent look at the data and create a new temperature record. What they found was surprising to some in the "skeptic" community, though not surprising to most climate scientists.
Dr. Richard Muller is the founder and scientific director of the BEST group, which is made up of physicists, statisticians, and climatologists. Though Dr. Muller has been described as a climate change "skeptic" and "denialist," he has an impressive and extensive curriculum vitae in physics, including being a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, and a MacArther Foundation Fellow, and the recipient of the National Science Foundation Alan T. Altman Award. His skepticism is evidenced most frequently in the press by his funding from the Koch brothers, who have made billions of dollars in the oil industry. The BEST project also accepted funding from Koch, among many other organizations, though the funders had no influence over methodology or results, which is almost always the case in peer reviewed science. The BEST group also includes Dr. Judith Curry, the chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, who has recently been vocal about the need for a more transparent scientific process, and more eyes on the data, especially when it comes to research on man-made global warming and the temperature record.
The BEST team was open with their hypothesis: they expected to find that, when using temperature stations that other organizations failed to include, the warming trend wouldn't be present, or at least not as dramatic. Their objectives are listed on their website (which also includes access to data and submitted papers), which include:
-- Merging land surface data into a raw dataset that's in a common format and easy to use
-- Developing new and potentially better ways of processing, average, and merging the data
-- Creating a new global temperature record
-- To provide not only the raw data and the resulting record, but also the code and tools used to get there, making the process as transparent as possible
Figure 1. Locations of the the 39,028 temperature stations in the Berkeley Earth data set (blue). Stations classified as rural are plotted on top in black.
The BEST project collaborators combined data from 15 sources that, wherever possible, did not include the tried and true data that the "big three" (NASA, NOAA, or HadCRU) used in their analyses, mainly the GHCN Monthly dataset, which is widely used because of its requirements that the each station in the data set have plenty of observations, no gaps, and no erroneous data. However, the BEST project was born to create a new global surface temperature record, and to "see what you get" if you use observations that other institutions have weeded out. BEST looked at data from 39,028 different temperature measurement stations from around the globe (Figure 1), and developed an averaging process to merge the stations into one record, which you see below in comparison to previous records that have been constructed.
Figure 2. Temperature time series from the big three: NASA Goddard Institute for Space Science (NASA GISS, blue), NOAA (green), and the Hadley Centre and Climate Research Unit of East Anglia (HadCRU, red) along with the results from the BEST project (black).
The result was a new land surface temperature series to be added to the well-cited records of NOAA, NASA, and HadCRU, in addition to some truly independent, amateur compilations. The new temperature record agrees with the records from "the big three," and agrees with them on a warming of 1°C since 1950. BEST also addressed concerns raised by the skeptic community about station bias and urban heat island effect. They conclude that the urban heat island effect does not contribute significantly to the land temperature rise, given that urban area is only 1% of the land area in the record. Also, they looked at the stations that Anthony Watts has reported as "poor" quality, and have found that they also showed the same warming as the stations that were reported as "OK." This helps to show that temperature stations were not "cherry picked" in previous studies for warming trends, but for honest station quality.
The addition of another (eventually) peer-reviewed temperature series is good, and more eyes looking at the data is good, but the result is not surprising. However, it might have changed the minds of some skeptics who have been wanting to see an analysis from scientists that they find trustworthy. I think Dr. Muller sums their results up nicely in his Wall Street Journal opinion article:
When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn't know what we'd find. Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that.
The BEST project has four papers out for review in various journals. Having released the results to the public eye before undergoing the scrutiny of peer review, they've also made some updates to the analysis since these papers were submitted, thanks to a peer review process of its own: the internet.
Links and references:
Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature
BEST FAQ
BEST Press Release
Angela
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This map of air temperature anomalies at the 925 hPa level (approximately 3000 feet) for October 2011 shows unusually high temperatures over most of the Arctic Ocean (yellow shading) and unusually low temperatures over the eastern Canadian Arctic Archipelago and Greenland (blue shading).
That was too cute! I had to laugh!
Biggest jump ever seen in global warming gases
By Seth Borenstein, Associated Press Updated 11/9/2011 3:01 PM
WASHINGTON -- The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world's efforts are at slowing man-made global warming.
Pat Sullivan, AP
Output of carbon into the atmosphere increased 6% from 2009 to 2010.
The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.
"The more we talk about the need to control emissions, the more they are growing," said John Reilly, co-director of MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.
The world pumped about 564 million more tons (512 million metric tons) of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009. That's an increase of 6%. That amount of extra pollution eclipses the individual emissions of all but three countries --- China, the United States and India, the world's top producers of greenhouse gases.
Link:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/story/2011-1 1-03/huge-increase-in-global-warming-gasses/510650 82/1
You obviously neither watch Obermann like the other 6 people on the planet nor quiver upon hearing the words of Michael Moore or you would know the answer.
The main takeaway here is they are in the minority.
Gee...why isn't Obermann on MSNBC anymore?
A bit too hydrophobic maybe?
"Laughs heartily"
Isnt Hannity on?
O'Reilly taught me all there iz to now bout "tide' s as well.
Game Over for Planet Earth: The Month's Biggest Story You Never Read
While you were paying attention to Herman Cain, the Kardashians and the Penn State child sex abuse scandal, the U.S. Department of Energy administered last rites to the planet.
...
...the piece of the week, month, and arguably year should have been one that slipped by so quietly, so off front-pages nationwide and out of news leads everywhere that you undoubtedly didn't even notice. And yet it's the story that could turn your life and that of your children and grandchildren inside out and upside down.
On the face of it, it wasn't anything to shout about -- just more stats in a world drowning in numbers. These happen to have been put out by the U.S. Department of Energy and they reflected, as an Associated Press headline put it, the "biggest jump ever seen in global warming gases." In other words, in 2010, humanity (with a special bow to China, the United States, and onrushing India) managed to pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than at any time since the industrial revolution began -- 564 million more tons than in 2009, which represents an increase of 6%.
http://www.alternet.org/world/153092/game_over_fo r_planet_earth%3A_the_month%u2019s_biggest_story_y ou_never_read
388.92ppm
Atmospheric CO2 for October 2011
Preliminary data released November 4, 2011
(Mauna Loa Observatory: Scripps Institution of Oceanography)
co2now.org
I simply asked for the vision of the future in the eyes of a self proclaimed "you need to live this way" cartographer. Quite simple actually. No response,,,,, perhaps some have not actually thought about it I suppose?????????
Gotta start somewhere, eh?
Let's take a step backwards to get a more recent baseline to start :)
Hmmmmmm, I am using the same system now. I bought the upgraded model with a keyboard and a mouse. And yes, the printing process is no better than (Print Screen). WYSIWYG
This is probably off topic but I'll answer it anyway. I'm assuming you are talking about a "Master Caution" light that some but not all airplanes have. Other lights that indicate bad problems are the "Fire" and "Overheat" lights that most jets have for their engines.
The answer is that we don't always land the airplane immediately just because some light comes on. All aircraft have a set of procedures to perform depending on the malfunction involved. Typically, if the malfunction is serious, the last step says something like "land as soon as conditions permit".
Once you have a problem, it's best to land before you have two (like a 2nd engine failure).
To use a car analogy, if your "Check Engine" light comes on while you drive and the car is driving fine, it's probably safe to keep driving and get it checked out when it's convenient. If the "Oil" light comes on or your oil pressure drops to 0, you should stop immediately before you damage your engine. Airplanes aren't much different. It's just that stopping usually involves landing. It's so much more preferable than crashing;).
Sorry it took me a few days to answer but I was traveling.
This was the best answer because it acknowledged the difficulty in defining exactly what the difference is. I'm a bit disappointed because I expected more from both sides of the group on this.
In researching this point, I thought NASA gave the most fair-handed definition of climate. Some scientists define climate as the average weather for a particular region and time period, usually taken over 30-years. It's really an average pattern of weather for a particular region. I think the two keys in this definition are "average" and "long term". So does a drought fit this criteria?
To me, a drought is still weather because the term is used to describe a relatively short term (say less than 5 years) departure in average rainfall totals for a region. If a drought remains in place long enough to affect the long term average(30 year), it ceases to be a drought because there is no longer a significant departure from the new long term average.
Still there is some minor debate even on this innocuous topic.
From the USGS:
Meteorological drought:
"A period of abnormally dry weather sufficiently prolonged for the lack of water to cause serious hydrologic imbalance in the affected area."
Agricultural drought:
"A climatic excursion involving a shortage of precipitation sufficient to adversely affect crop production or range production."
These are semantics for sure but if we can't even agree on whether a drought is weather or climate, how will we ever agree on whether the climate is changing or not?
The point was that as a pilot you don't wait until the plane is falling apart before you land (hopefully at least). Similarly, with the climate we have red lights flashing everywhere. We've done all the checks and red lights are still justified. The cost of landing the plane(stopping the carbon pollution/developing new energy sources) is much less than crashing the plane.
Sorry if it seemed like a leading pseudo clever question, I thought the connection was much clearer - but I have that problem when I write: it is clear in my head so I assume it is clear for others when I actually haven't expressed myself well. No cleverness was intended, it was meant to be a straightforward question.
Because one is an argument over a definition, the other is handled statistically. Statistics won't define a particular weather event as reflective of climate change or nto absolutly. Instead it will say that given a climate this weather event (lasting a certain number of days) is X percent likely. The measure of climate can be considered the cahnge in the percent chance that a given weather event will occur.
Or to be more pragmatic about the answer: because billions of people will die, trillions of dollars will be lost. In a weather event, hundreds and occasionally thousands of people will die and it may cost a few billions.
So I return to my answer: if you have to wait for an exact answer to a classification question, you have no business being a decision maker. Classifications are an artifact of language and mental tools, not something that nature cares gives a shout about.
From NSIDC: For average relative error, or error relative to other years, the error is approximately 20,000 to 30,000 square kilometers (7,700 to 11,600 square miles)
With this kind of relative error, citing differences of roughly 11,000 km2 is not statistically significant when comparing years. The differences will need to triple before they become significant. We will need to wait and see what the extent is at maximum before declaring any change over previous years.
It should also be noted that by their own admission, the NSIDC data underestimates the ACTUAL sea ice extent by 1 million km2 at it's minimum. That's an absolute error of almost 12% which shrinks as the ice sheet thickens and detection improves. With that kind of absolute accuracy, I question whether they should publish the satellite data for the minimum at all.
Two more points from the NSIDC:
Antarctic Ice Extent is Increasing since 2006
They grudgingly admit that Arctic Ice Extent has been increasing slowly since the 2007 minimum.
While these changes are small, they are statistically significant per the scientists collecting and publishing the data. The NSIDC also arbitrarily decided to use the average of 1978-2000 for future comparisons. This excludes the data points for 2001-2006 which obviously would bring the 30 year average down closer to the 2007 minimum making it less of an outlier. Finally in March of 2010 NSIDC charts show there was a significant presence of 3 year ice which was not present in 2008.
Since CO2 output has increased in each of the last 4 years, what mechanism or model can explain this short term (almost 4 year) regrowth of both Arctic and Antarctic Sea Ice Extent?
Since this is now on topic, let's take the pilot analogy one step further. One of the most dangerous malfunctions an airplane can have is a landing gear issue. You put the gear handle down and the little red light says your wheels are not locked like they should be. You know you have a problem but you have no idea how serious it is. Is it just a bad sensor or is the gear going to fold when you touch down? There is no way to tell until you land. What do you do?
The first thing you do is make a radio call to nearest big runway with good CFR (Crash Fire Rescue) and tell them you're coming. Then you orbit until almost all the gas is gone in your fuel tanks (fire prevention). Finally, once you've decided that there is nothing you can do about the gear light, you make the smoothest landing you have ever made in your life. Once you are on the runway, you don't make any turns. You just stop straight ahead. Assuming the gear held up, you step out onto the runway, bend over and kiss the ground.
To bring this home to climate debate the checklist goes like this.
1. Pray
2. Burn up all the fossil fuels
3. Suck it up in 2100 when the temp hits 120 in Chicago.
4. Hope your great grandkids learn from your mistake and don't hate you for it.
I'm not advocating the approach above but it fits with the pilot analogy. It's also what the human race is most likely going to do unfortunately.
When comparing direct dates on a calendar in different years, you are absolutely correct; the margin of error is such that it's foolish to arrive at any conclusions as long as thosee differences are within the margin of error. However, when averaging the difference over a six-week period as I did, those errors are smoothed out, and it's perfectly legitimate to claim, as I did, that the slope (trend) of ice recovery over the past month-and-a-half has definitely been at a slower pace than it was in 2007.
In the case, one should diregard the absolute numbers and instead look at year-to-year comparisons, as any underestimation (or overestimaton) of extent (or area, or volume) will have been present in previous years. IOW, even if the yardstick is off, so long as the same yardstick is used, valuable comparisons can be made.
Dealing now with the Arctic Sea ice (I'll talk about Antarctic Sea ice below): I don't think it's fair to say they "grudgingly" admit that ASI extent has been increasing. The page to which you linked notes that neither 2008 nor 2009 saw extents as low as those seen during 2007--and that was written in October 2009, well before the 2010 or 2011 minima--then goes on to state the following:
"Even though the extent of Arctic sea ice has not returned to the record low of 2007, the data show that it is not recovering. To recover would mean returning to within its previous, long-term range. Arctic sea ice in September 2008 remained 34 percent below the average extent from 1979 to 2000, and in September 2009, it was 24 percent below the long term average. In addition, sea ice remains much thinner than in the past, and so is more vulnerable to further decline. The data suggest that the ice reached a record low volume in 2008, and has thinned even more in 2009. Sea ice extent normally varies from year to year, much like the weather changes from day to day. But just as one warm day in October does not negate a cooling trend toward winter, a slight annual gain in sea ice extent over a record low does not negate the long-term decline."
And, again, that was written in the fall of 2009.
As explained above, there's been no regrowth of ice in the Arctic Sea. However, around Antarctica, there has been (except near the Antarctic Peninsula, the southernmost tip of the ridge that comprises the Rockies and the Andes). And that confounds many lay people. "If the oceans are warming, how is there more ice around the South Pole?" they logically ask.
First, remember that the two poles are, well, polar opposites. The Arctic Sea is an ocean surrounded almost entirely by land, while Antarctica is land surrounded entirely by ocean. And it's high land, too; much if the surface is two miles above sea level. Therefore, the conditions and mechanisms that dictate climate at each are very different. Winds affect the two areas differently, as do ocean currents, as well as long-term cycles like the PDO. One major differencem however, lies in the area of albedo and insolation: in the Arctic Sea, as ice melts, more water is exposed, and that exposed water is dark and, thus, able to be heated by the summer sun. In Antarctica, on the other hand, the summer sun may burn with equal intensity, but the two mile-thick icecap reflects much more of the sun.
Read here for a great rundown of those differences.
- - - - - - - - - -
To summarize: in 2011, ASI volume was the lowest that's ever been recorded, and MYI was also at a record low in extent, area, and volume. And ice recovery this year has--so far, at least--occurred at a slightly slower pace than it did after the 2007 minimum.
reverses
this.
The first evidence that millions of tons of a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere from beneath the Arctic seabed has been discovered by scientists.
The Independent has been passed details of preliminary findings suggesting that massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface as the Arctic region becomes warmer and its ice retreats.
Underground stores of methane are important because scientists believe their sudden release has in the past been responsible for rapid increases in global temperatures, dramatic changes to the climate, and even the mass extinction of species. Scientists aboard a research ship that has sailed the entire length of Russia's northern coast have discovered intense concentrations of methane – sometimes at up to 100 times background levels – over several areas covering thousands of square miles of the Siberian continental shelf.
In the past few days, the researchers have seen areas of sea foaming with gas bubbling up through "methane chimneys" rising from the sea floor. They believe that the sub-sea layer of permafrost, which has acted like a "lid" to prevent the gas from escaping, has melted away to allow methane to rise from underground deposits formed before the last ice age.
They have warned that this is likely to be linked with the rapid warming that the region has experienced in recent years.
Methane is about 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide and many scientists fear that its release could accelerate global warming in a giant positive feedback where more atmospheric methane causes higher temperatures, leading to further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane.
The amount of methane stored beneath the Arctic is calculated to be greater than the total amount of carbon locked up in global coal reserves so there is intense interest in the stability of these deposits as the region warms at a faster rate than other places on earth.
Orjan Gustafsson of Stockholm University in Sweden, one of the leaders of the expedition, described the scale of the methane emissions in an email exchange sent from the Russian research ship Jacob Smirnitskyi.
"We had a hectic finishing of the sampling programme yesterday and this past night," said Dr Gustafsson. "An extensive area of intense methane release was found. At earlier sites we had found elevated levels of dissolved methane. Yesterday, for the first time, we documented a field where the release was so intense that the methane did not have time to dissolve into the seawater but was rising as methane bubbles to the sea surface. These 'methane chimneys' were documented on echo sounder and with seismic [instruments]."
At some locations, methane concentrations reached 100 times background levels. These anomalies have been seen in the East Siberian Sea and the Laptev Sea, covering several tens of thousands of square kilometres, amounting to millions of tons of methane, said Dr Gustafsson. "This may be of the same magnitude as presently estimated from the global ocean," he said. "Nobody knows how many more such areas exist on the extensive East Siberian continental shelves.
"The conventional thought has been that the permafrost 'lid' on the sub-sea sediments on the Siberian shelf should cap and hold the massive reservoirs of shallow methane deposits in place. The growing evidence for release of methane in this inaccessible region may suggest that the permafrost lid is starting to get perforated and thus leak methane... The permafrost now has small holes. We have found elevated levels of methane above the water surface and even more in the water just below. It is obvious that the source is the seabed."
The preliminary findings of the International Siberian Shelf Study 2008, being prepared for publication by the American Geophysical Union, are being overseen by Igor Semiletov of the Far-Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 1994, he has led about 10 expeditions in the Laptev Sea but during the 1990s he did not detect any elevated levels of methane. However, since 2003 he reported a rising number of methane "hotspots", which have now been confirmed using more sensitive instruments on board the Jacob Smirnitskyi.
Dr Semiletov has suggested several possible reasons why methane is now being released from the Arctic, including the rising volume of relatively warmer water being discharged from Siberia's rivers due to the melting of the permafrost on the land.
The Arctic region as a whole has seen a 4C rise in average temperatures over recent decades and a dramatic decline in the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by summer sea ice. Many scientists fear that the loss of sea ice could accelerate the warming trend because open ocean soaks up more heat from the sun than the reflective surface of an ice-covered sea.
Well, now the game has been called because too few of the challengers knew the rules of the game. The opponent will be left unchallenged.
In this program Amy speaks with Josh Fox, whose documentary about fracking, "Gasland," was nominated for an Academy Award, and play an excerpt of his new video about the possible impacts natural gas fracking could have in the Delaware River Basin.
JOSH FOX VIDEO - In this Video Josh Fox explaining the critical nature of this event
Overwash12, I believe that this will at least partially answer your question:
"The continental shelf off of the coast of Siberia is the widest continental shelf in the world, extending 1,200 kilometers offshore. This shelf is very shallow, with an average depth of only 100 meters, and from it arises many islands including Wrangel Island, Novaya Zemlya, and the New Siberian Islands. The Siberian shelf is characterized by near-shore sand bars and ice gouges. Despite its shallowness, little is known about the topology of most of this vast shelf, but the floor of its encompassing seas; the Kara, Laptev and East Siberian Seas, are marked by deep canyons and ridges, likely formed by current erosion."
I obtained this information from this site - Interesting reading
Link
Josh is Joshing again!
The top panel of this figure shows the number of open water days for the approximate 75 kilometer (46.6 mi) coastal zone along the Beaufort Sea (data for each year and linear trend). The bottom panel shows the average annual coastal erosion rate for three periods, 1979-1999, 2000-2007 and 2008-2009.
Sea ice loss and coastal erosion
Declining sea ice in the Arctic has led to increasing erosion rates along the coast of the Beaufort Sea over the past fifty years, according to a new study led by Irina Overeem of the University of Colorado Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR). Their study used a wave model driven by sea ice position and wind data.
As the period of open water on the coast of the Beaufort Sea has increased, so has the mean annual erosion rate, the study showed. From 1979 to 1999, the average erosion rate was 8.5 meters (27.9 feet) per year. The average rate over the period 2000 to 2007 was 13.6 meters (44.6 feet) per year, while the rate for the last two years of the record, 2008 to 2009, was 14.4 meters (47.2 feet) per year.
With a longer open water season, ocean water warms more and waves eat away at the coastline. The sediments comprising the coastal bluffs are locked together by permafrost%u2014hard frozen ground with a concrete-like consistency. As the waves lap at the permafrost, they also help to thaw it, making the ground much more vulnerable to erosion.
Link
Permafrost is the permanently frozen lands of the far north and Antarctica.
Seafloors never freeze.
I am sure he is talking about the methane ice on the seafloor.
:)
I must apologize; I don't think I've been clear enough in defining the things I talk about. In this instance, by "warming", I mean that the biosphere--that is, the livable areas of the planet--overall register higher on the thermometer than they did a decade ago. Here, look at this chart from one of your heroes:
(By the way, disregard that squiggly black line; as Spencer himself says, "The 3rd order polynomial fit to the data (courtesy of Excel) is for entertainment purposes only, and should not be construed as having any predictive value whatsoever". I'll say; I have the entire data set, and can tell you that particular trendline was chosen intentionally to downplay the rise. To "hide the incline", as it were. A true linear trendline shows a pretty remarkable rise in temperature over the graph's lifetime.)
By the way, my only idol is Justin Bieber; that boy can rock the house like no other before him. (Not.)
The Empty Chamber
Thx WUWT !
So Watts (and his sycophants) assume that the dearth of Republicans for a climate change briefing is because they've become "enlightened"?
Right...
So far as the lack of media, my guess is that they were busy out watching Americans wrest back control of the nation from the corporate thieves who stole it.
How funny it is to see your responses.
Yes, the media is fixated on a few hundred who have definitive issues with maladaptive behavior.
How many of them are engineering, business, or NON-Liberal arts based?
Take a peek.
Do you see Anarchists, drug addicts, and on and on....... That is not America Bro!
Tell us,,,,,what does that world you want us to get to, in your opinion, really look like ?
Seems you don't want to convey that part of your equation. Are there caves involved? :)
I am reminded of those who could not understand why the bacteria did not survive in the dish when they were provided all the nourishment needed to survive.
What made them perish?
Maybe. But I don't think that Watts is directly responsible for his readers. ;)
Oss, not for nothin but this past makes you sound like a lunatic.
I am not certain what Nea would envision for our future world. I am not even sure that I would be able to envision our future world, even if I had my say now. I can envision what our future world would like, if you have your say now. - Link
Drunk, IMHO. It's common enough with our conservative friends late in the day.
Theory: Global Warming is causing the methane trapped in ice at the seabed to melt.
This theory shows an extreme bias as AGWT being the cause of everything. Methane comes up from the sea floor in thousands of places around the globe. It is released by tectonic activity (shaking), rock or sand slides, or simply because the pressure has built up enough to overcome the water pressure. Methane gas releases off the Florida coast have been blamed as a possible cause for the Bermuda Triangle disappearances all the way back to the 50s and 60s.
It is conceivable that global methane releases are the cause and not the effect of global warming. Methane is 21 times more effective as a greenhouse gas vs CO2. Methane leaking up from the Arctic seabed is certainly adding to the greenhouse gas effect globally. Atmospheric methane levels have spiked since 1980 just like CO2.
I'm not discounting this scientist's theory. I'm just pointing out that it is a theory and nothing more. The finding of methane releases from the arctic seabed may be meaningless. They may have been happening undetected for thousands of years depending on the conditions of the seabed there. Just because this scientist discovered them during a period of global warming does not mean the two are linked.
See, gotlieb, it's this sort of reasoning from first principles that make me want to label you a denialist. Maybe fantasist would be better, as you're just making stuff up.
But let me ask you this: Do you think the large international team of scientists working on this, to say nothing of the major funder, the National Science Foundation, are complete idiots?
You might consider reading up on the East Siberian-region methane deposits before spouting off on this subject again.
Oh yes: "It is conceivable that global methane releases are the cause and not the effect of global warming." No, it isn't, unless you know nothing about the radiative properties of methane relative to the other climate forcings and feedbacks.
Are you serious? I thought you were coming on here with the voice of reason.
The argument you make essentially applies to anything: "It is just a theory that if we land with full fuel tanks and no landing gear that we will catch on fire. Planes have landed like that before."
You wouldn't do land a plane that way and you know it. So why, when there has been no anecdotal or otherwise evidence of this phenomena in the past, its occurance has been predicted as part of global warming theory and now is has been observed, do you discount that red light on the dashboard so quickly?
How many red lights do you need before you stop syaing "It's just a theory." EVERYTHING is just a theory, including the fact that this "may have been happening undetected for thousands of years". But given the evidence, what do you believe?
You know how decision matrixes work (or decision tree) where each possible action is listed and then each action gets is paired with possible outcomes/states in the future along with the costs/consequences of each action. For me, global warming isn't 100% but it is above 95%. Consequences (cost) of inaction are catostrophic. Consequences of action are actually a benefit not a cost. So for me there is not question but immediate and drastic action needs to be taken.
But how is it for you? What are the values in your decision matrix for this question?
Too much heat did.
stops this.
If your tunnels can stop denialism, then they are truly a valuable thing.
They can prove fossil fuels change climate on a global scale.
I see you've fallen victim to the Fox-ian folly of trying to dehumanize the OWS patriots as a way of dismissing them. Good luck with that. But just so you know, it's not "a few hundred", but rather tens of thousands. And the numbers are increasing.
I've responded several times with the basics of what I'd like the world of the future to look like. But in summary (so as not to bore everyone):
--A world in which the mindless pursuit of profit isn't both the primary motivation behind everything that gets done and first and foremost on the minds of those writing the laws;
--A world run led by people who have a least the slightest bit of vision and are therefore capable of seeing that our present political and evironmental course is untenable;
--A world in which differences in cultures, races, religions, and personalities are accepted and encouraged, instead of being cause for fear and warmongering;
--A world in which learning and education are valued and available to everyone;
--A world in which science and scientists are respected, not ridiculed.
Those things are a start, anyway.
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