21

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Anthropogenic Climate Change

« on: May 07, 2014, 11:06:43 AM »

I gotta side with PP.  You don't read post and are clearly so focused on your point that everyone is wrong.

The mere fact that I was agreeing with you when you smacked me down with a lecture on greenhouse gases THEN totally dismiss the idea of increased solar activity without evidence is just arrogance and ignorance.

What does your agreeing with me have anything to do with my response? It'd be the same either way. If someone tells me that Evolution (Darwin's Evolution) doesn't occur, because everything in life seems to be random, i'd give the same response to someone that said that Evolution is false because nothing in life is random. What would be addressed in both comments? Evolution is not random.

Your post suggests that AGW is caused by heat added to the atmosphere by humans. Again, this is a common misconception, which is why I addressed it in depth. The tldr was meant to discount the misconception that energy released by humans is causing agw rather than greenhouse gasses. This was a mistype.

On the discussion on if the energy from the sun is enough to cause current climate change, there are many papers describing research into whether this may be the case.

"Even for a reconstruction with high variability in total irradiance, solar forcing contributed only about 0.07°C (0.03-0.13°C) to the warming since 1950." - http://thingsbreak.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/anthropogenic-and-natural-warming-inferred-from-changes-in-earths-energy-balance.pdf

"We deduce that the maximum recent increase in the mean surface temperature of the Earth which can be ascribed to solar activity is 14% of the observed global warming." - http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0901/0901.0515v1.pdf

though there's many more studies involving this if you'd like to read further into the topic, which are linked below;

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/10/3713.full
http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/mpa/publications/preprints/pp2006/MPA2001.pdf
http://www.mps.mpg.de/homes/natalie/PAPERS/warming.pdf
http://ppg.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/23/3/309

Usually the data tells us that changes in energy from the sun over the past 100 years isn't enough to account for current warming.

22

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Coriolis Effect

« on: May 07, 2014, 04:44:13 AM »

What is "rotational speed"? If you mean how much time does it take for a point on the surface to spin once about the axis, then, yes, all points take one "day" to complete a spin. That speed, though, has nothing to do with the CE.

No one mentioned an axis, chap.

Are you talking about angular speed or linear speed?

Speed is not a vector variable.

Someone standing at the equator would travel 25,000 miles, or 40,000 kilometers in 1 day, relative to the center of the Earth. Someone standing 1 foot from the geological north pole would travel 2pi feet, or if standing 1 meter away, would travel 2pi meters, in 1 day. Therefore, difference in movement.

23

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Coriolis Effect

« on: May 07, 2014, 03:25:18 AM »

The Coriolis effect would only exist on a disc. It would not exist if the Earth were spherical because all points on a sphere are the same distance from the center, resulting in the same rotational speed.

This is incorrect.

24

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Anthropogenic Climate Change

« on: May 07, 2014, 02:47:11 AM »

Okay, so you acknowledge your point was bogus. I'm happy now.

Congrats, you proved 2+2=4. Very impressive.

Please present a source for this claim. Major dictionaries appear to disagree with you:
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/english_1?q=English
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/English?q=English
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/english

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/English
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/English
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/English?r=66

Right back at you. So far, you've been ranting about Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes, italicization, have been making (by your own admission) poorly-constructed arguments, and have been avoiding to back up your claims. Follow your own standard before you try imposing it unto others.

You brought up Star Trek. You brought up Sherlock Holmes. My "poorly-constructed argument" (again, please actually read the post) was a response to a poorly-constructed comparison you had made earlier.


Bye, thank you for your minimal contribution to this topic.

25

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Anthropogenic Climate Change

« on: May 07, 2014, 02:23:49 AM »

If they're meant to discount them, it'd be good if they made sense. If neither of us claims that there is only one possibility, then your attempt at discounting my statements was rather poor.

Again, it said "badly witted comparison" which could refer to a "badly made or constructed" one. Please read the actual posts before responding

If they're meant to discount them, it'd be good if they made sense. If neither of us claims that there is only one possibility, then your attempt at discounting my statements was rather poor.

"English" does not necessarily refer to the language itself. For example: English - noun - simple, straightforward language

Usually, simple language is taught first in schools would you not agree? It's bad practice to assume definitions of words.

I know you have, but what have I done?

Please refer to above posts. Also consider that you have not made any meaningful contributions in terms of data or issues concerning AGW, rather you have simply hawked on wording which should be implicit based on the context of the statements and the nature of this discussion.

Sorry, sweetheart, you don't decide who stays or leaves here.

Do what you will, just try to keep your posts mature and on-topic.

26

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Anthropogenic Climate Change

« on: May 07, 2014, 02:00:53 AM »

If you're not willing to back your claims up, then I won't waste my time with you. I now understand why others have largely abandoned this thread, and will follow suit.

If you like to pull out quotes, that were obviously meant to discount your statements, then ask me to back them up, then you obviously have a serious lacking in fundamental reading comprehension skills. This is why we teach English before we teach science. You've demonstrated that you do not have the skills nor the ability to contribute to any discussion on the sciences. If you have nothing meaningful to contribute to the discussion, then please, do leave.

27

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Anthropogenic Climate Change

« on: May 07, 2014, 01:42:12 AM »

I'm guessing your unwillingness to address the notation itself is an admission of the fact that you had it rather wrong. We're making so much progress, you're learning so much today!

Sherlock Holmes being a character has no bearing on Sherlock Holmes being a series.

Your notation was still wrong, Sherlock Holmes is not a series. Maybe it's a TV show in your country, but "Sherlock Holmes" does not refer to any series in the past. Granted, i did learn something today. Generally my writing is written, so underlining is usually something I always use, as it's generally done so in written work.

Which has nothing to do with your claim - that there is only one possible cause of global warming.

Have you actually read the document?

I don't know how one can quote incorrectly, but I guess I'll try again:

Quote from: pizaaplanet on May 05, 2014, 05:13:23 PM
Quote from: HHunter on May 05, 2014, 03:36:28 PM
"There's only one possibility, but it can't be, therefore aliens."
Please substantiate the following statement: There's only one possibility.
I made it big and pink for you so that you can hopefully see it. Now, please substantiate it or retract it.

It was clearly stated next to this that it's a "badly witted [comparison]."

Irrelevant.

Character =/ Series

28

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Anthropogenic Climate Change

« on: May 07, 2014, 01:34:33 AM »

Case Study

The Republic of the Maldives is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, home to about 400,000 people.



Image Source: Wikipedia

This island nation has an average elevation 1.9 meters, with it's highest elevation at 2.4 meters, is at risk to nearly completely disappear off the maps in 100 years. With rising sea levels, The Maldives has pledged to become carbon-neutral by the year 2019. Climate change is one of the largest issues of this archipelago-state. 



This state is of large international concern, since as the land will slowly become inundated, locals will lose their homes and livelihoods, and will be forced to become refugees.

29

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Anthropogenic Climate Change

« on: May 07, 2014, 01:20:31 AM »

Please substantiate this claim. To make your job a bit harder: it's quite easy to find academically-respectable sources which claim the very opposite of what you claimed.

you have yet to explain to me how Sherlock Holmes, a character, would be italicized under any of these definitions.

What's sad is:

1. I've given you scientific documentation demonstrating that with near certainty that anthropogenic greenhouse gasses are the primary cause of current global warming, yet you have yet to do your research.
2. You fail to correctly quote my "claim".
3. Sherlock is a character, sorry friend.

The only main source for global climate change is the sun.
The energy (heat) we put out isn't enough to alter the environment on a global scale. 

So the question that should be asked is: has the energy from the sun increased?
If yes, is it enough to cause climate change?

This is a common misconception. Climate change suggested by AGW is not caused by heat that humans release. It's caused by the chemical properties of the gasses, such as Carbon Dioxide and Methane, that allow for increased absorption of energy from the sun into atmosphere and hydrosphere. Basically, when sunlight hits the Earth, a good amount is reflected. Some of it is absorbed by greenhouse gasses, such as CO2. Without these gasses, the Earth would be much cooler than it is today.

When you increase the proportion of the gasses in the atmosphere, it traps more energy from the sun. So the amount of energy from the sun is remaining relatively constant, it's simply the amount that your capturing. It would be sort of like trying to throw a ball through a hole. If you make the hole smaller, less balls you throw will get through. This would be like greenhouse gasses. The higher concentration of greenhouse gasses you have, the less energy will actually escape, and more energy will stay on the planet, leading to the planet warming.

tldr; The energy from the humans hasn't increased significant, greenhouse gasses are simply absorbing a larger percentage of the sun's energy. [Edits in bold]

I hope this helps.

30

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Anthropogenic Climate Change

« on: May 06, 2014, 11:58:29 PM »

Yes, the quote has been made famous by the author. Sherlock Holmes is a rather famous series of novels.

Sorry, but Sherlock Holmes is a character, not a series. Appearance of the same character in several books does not substantiate it as a "series".

Well, it's a good thing that I never claimed that.

You said it is from Sherlock Holmes. Please tell me what literary work from Doyle is called "Sherlock Holmes".

Ah, yes, because the notation style most popular in your country of upbringing is the only "correct" notation. Your ignorance continues to amuse, especially now that you combined it with ethnocentrism.

This notation is border-less.

I'm glad we agree. It's a shame that you had to do research before we reached this agreement. But hey, at least the educational purpose of this forum is being served. Very importantly, it's still a quote from a work of fiction, which does nothing to strengthen your argument. Quoting Holmes or Spock won't make you stop being wrong.

It doesn't take much education to learn that there is no litarary work from Doyle called "Sherlock Holmes". Being a quote from a work of fiction does not negate the validity of it.

I'm sorry, your claim was that greenhouse gases are the only possible cause of global warming. Please substantiate it, or admit that it was incorrect. Also, posting a graph without explaining its significance won't get you far.

I sourced the graph. It's from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. All relevant information is here. Do your own homework, I won't spoon feed you.

31

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Anthropogenic Climate Change

« on: May 06, 2014, 10:30:46 PM »

I don't see how this is on topic at all. The claim you made (by way of quote-mining a Star Trek episode) was incorrect, and you have already admitted it. What's the point of bringing this back up, especially given the overall low relevance of Star Trek to a real-world debate? What does it matter if someone did or didn't use a Star Trek quote in some context? It's Star Trek. It won't make your claim less wrong.

You also failed to properly attribute the quote. Originally, it comes from Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Of course, it would (not) be an ad hominem to point out that you should have known that from high school. But obviously, the contents of Sherlock Holmes are also not very relevant to a scientific debate, so the whole point about "reading the passage" is moot.

Sorry, but the term "made famous" does not imply that the person mentioned coined or created whatever said person or thing "made famous". Second, the quote is not from any book called "Sherlock Holmes", not to mention that you incorrectly notated this "piece" as a short story, or some sort of magazine. The quote is originally from The Sign of Four, a novel written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I was referring to the passage from which the quote originally came. Most of this would be known with a high school education, as it's typically considered canon.

On greenhouse gasses being the primary cause for recent warming:



Source: IPCC

32

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Anthropogenic Climate Change

« on: May 06, 2014, 09:51:48 PM »

The precautionary principle (not to be confused with a principal - the person in charge of the high school you should go back to) doesn't apply to this discussion. I am not claiming that global warming isn't harmful, I am simply asking you to substantiate your claim that all possible causes other than human actions have been exhausted.

You appear to have now admitted that this is impossible, thus rendering your use of a popular quote completely invalid. If that's the case, I'm quite happy with the outcome.

Never throughout this discussion have I claimed we shouldn't be addressing global warming - this is an assumption you made.

First, let me again reiterate the point that this is not the place for the use of ad hominems. This is not the Youtube comment section, if you'd like to resort to this sort of childish dribble, i'd suggest you argue your points somewhere else. This is the second time I've had to make this clear, i hope participants on this thread understand that such antics have no place here.

Back to the topic, name one time that quote has been used to refer every single possibility that is available. Understanding the connotation of this phrase is much more important than the denotation. If you had actually taken the time to read the passage from which this quote is taken, maybe you'd better understand this.

On another note, lets just walk through where the energy in the atmosphere comes from.

We have the most obvious source, which is, as you all may guess, the sun. Then we have heat from inside the earth, being released by the decay of radioactive elements and from tidal friction caused by the moon and sun. The energy from inside the earth keeps the interior molten, however, its effect on global air temperatures is rather negligible compared to the sun, and does not vary greatly. So for the most part, energy from the sun is what causes fluctuations of the planet's atmosphere, and different conditions on the planet can create vastly different atmospheric outcomes.

There are mainly three different Earth-centered reasons for climate change, involving the Earth and it's position and orbit in space. These is eccentricity, obliquity, and precession. Increasing eccentricity (how elliptical the orbit is) will result in more extreme seasons. Obliquity is the tilt of the earth's axis. Our current obliquity is 23.4 degrees. Obliquity determines how extreme (or not extreme) the seasons will be. Precession is the direction of the tilt, and doesn't have much of an effect on climate. All three of these occur over long periods of time, and therefore cannot be credited with recent warming.

I'll stop teaching about causes for climactic change. You can take a textbook for a day and figure it out. The sun's cycles have not made a significant change in energy output, enough to change the climate so drastically.

The only variable that has changed significantly is greenhouse gasses.

33

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Anthropogenic Climate Change

« on: May 06, 2014, 04:30:37 PM »

Pizza have you ever taken any sort of medication or prescription?

Very mature. Please refer to the forum rules. Depending on your intent, this is either a personal attack or an instance of off-topic posting.

You're wrong on both accounts. This was meant to be the opening point for introducing the Precautionary Principal into this discussion, which is fundamental to the AGW issue. The point of medications and prescriptions is that, using your logic, if we cannot rule out every single potential cause of an issue, like a fever, then we should not execute a remedy plan, like prescription medicine.

Let me also remind my counterparts that ad hominems (not referring to you on this one Pizza) have no place in any discussion, scientific or otherwise, and that participants should refrain from making knee-jerk assumptions.

Back to the Precautionary Principal, this is a principal that is utilized in public policy decisions that involve hazards to humans and the environment. Examples of usage of this principal include the banning of CFCs, the banning of apple imports from the USA to Europe, and utilization of safety equipment in the operation of nuclear power plants.

The burden of proof lies upon the entity that claims that the substance or situation is safe, or the concentration that exists or is being utilized is safe. No one ever said that action shouldn't be taken on ozone because all the possibilities weren't discounted. We didn't have to prove that magical ozone-consuming unicorns weren't eating all of the ozone in the atmosphere. When hazards are involved, demanding to discount every possibility, even unknown possibilities, is absurd.

Anyways, nothing in the scientific is certain. All possible causes for any phenomenon cannot be discounted. However most science, included AGW, has been advanced to a point where we can say for near-certainty that equations and situations will always apply under certain circumstances. All scientists understand this, there is no need to argue for it, it's a given fact of the scientific community.

Now, taken the precautionary principal, once again, I ask you to identify a possible cause for the recent warming other than CO2, as the burden of proof, for all intents and purposes, is on you.

34

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Anthropogenic Climate Change

« on: May 06, 2014, 03:37:52 AM »

Name some.

I don't need to, and I already explained why this is a bogus request to make. Please don't waste my time.

Unless you can substantiate that no other possibilities exist (n.b. not that you failed to find any), you have no point.

Pizza have you ever taken any sort of medication or prescription?

35

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Anthropogenic Climate Change

« on: May 05, 2014, 11:47:01 PM »

This is only correct assuming you've exhausted all possibilities. You haven't.

Name some.

36

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Anthropogenic Climate Change

« on: May 05, 2014, 07:36:28 PM »

Let me start off with a quote made famous by Leanord Nimoy.

"If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains – however improbable – must be the truth."

Secondly, you've avoided the question.

Lastly, it fits the math. Climate models work because they've been tested by using past variables to gain accurate results of past temperatures.

In addendum, please be constructive and actually suggest what may forces could be causing a spike in the temperature record during the Anthropocene.

Also, if you'd rather argue with badly witted comparisons, so be it. You've basically weakened your argument to the level of "There's only one possibility, but it can't be, therefore aliens."

37

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Coriolis Effect

« on: May 05, 2014, 03:46:27 AM »

So, once again, the FE'ers just make stuff up and try to pass it off as evidence.  I would expect no less. 

Actually, I have always believed it not to exist. I can find no evidence at all, from swirling plug holes to smoke spires to air travel to oceans currents to Felix Baumgartner's jump. Anywhere you expect to be able to observe Coriolis for yourself, it seems to be completely absent.

Coriolis effect doesn't directly affect small scale-systems, though they can be indirectly affected. Tornadoes don't almost always spin counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere because of the force from the Coriolis effect, but it inherits its spin direction from the spin of the system which the tornado is apart of, which is spinning a certain way because (for larger systems) of coriolis, or because the storm inherited the spin from a larger airflow.

On ocean currents, there are many forcings on them that will make Coriolis not as much as a forcing compared to the other forcings.

And Thork, can you explain the why the spins of large weather system reflect what is suggested by the Coriolis Effect?

38

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Anthropogenic Climate Change

« on: May 05, 2014, 03:24:38 AM »

Ok, i'll walk everyone through with what this graph means, for any who do not understand it.

First of all, this graph was constructed by taking temperature records from 13 different proxies around the world. There's data collected from Greenland, Africa, Europe, Antarctica, and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The records from these temperatures are then average together to form a trend line.

The trend line is important in that it not only represents a trend, but it is the Average heat energy the Earth is receiving at any given time. This means that from what we see on the graph, often it isn't the amount of energy that the Earth is absorbing that changes much, but the sequestration of the energy across the planet. Thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, so when a certain amount of energy enters a system, this will be all the energy that system has.

Therefore, changes in local temperatures, as shown on the graph, more the most part, do not represent a change in the total amount of energy absorbed by the planet.

So, to summarize, this means that the trend line is the relative amount of energy the Earth is receiving. With this information, we can better analyze the graph and the repercussions thereof.

This graph shows a massive increase in the amount of energy that the Earth is absorbing over the past 200 years. This rate of increase is so large that it cannot be represented accurately on the larger graph, which is why there is an arrow pointing to the current state of the world's average temperatures, and a smaller graph showing recent proxy information. There are no atmospheric forcings, besides greenhouse gasses, that can be credited with these recent massive increase.

Or maybe there are. Can you name some?

39

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Anthropogenic Climate Change

« on: May 04, 2014, 12:04:52 AM »

Thork, do you understand why the trend line is not as wild as the different data points?

40

Science & Alternative Science / Re: Anthropogenic Climate Change

« on: May 03, 2014, 05:28:44 AM »

Look harder. See the arrow labelled 2004?  The one above the 0 line?

You can have a trend of 10,000 years and then pick out one warm one. That's ridiculous. The trend line is normalised so it doesn't bounce. And then you pick out a bounce. That's like picking out an individual point on a scatter graph.

The issue is that the trend line is not supposed to bounce. It's supposed to be averaged out. The bounce at the end of the time period is highly uncharacteristic of any behaviors of the averages temperatures for the past 10,000 years. The only major temperature change that is comparable to the sudden change we see in contemporary times is at the end of the last glacial period. It's actually quite steeper.