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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Rd232 (talk | contribs) at 20:49, 24 August 2005 (Archived some stuff). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.

This page is for discussing specific changes to the Global warming article. For general discussion of global warming, including new evidence that it is a hoax/conspiracy or that this time next Tuesday Waterworld will look like a documentary, please go to /General discussion.

Archive

• Alternate layout page is found at /temp.
• Talk:Global warming/OldTalk
• Talk:Global warming/OldTalk2
• Talk:Global warming/OldTalk3
• Talk:Global warming/OldTalk4
• Talk:Global warming/OldTalk5
• /Archive 1
• /Archive 2 (Dec 2004 - Jun 2005)
• /Archive 3

(new talk at the bottom)

Images

Nearly no images related to climatoly and global warming are represented at wikimedia commons. It is possible to transfer at least some of them? --Saperaud 03:17, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You are welcome to transfer any of mine across (I hereby give permission if it is required) but I'm unlikely to do it myself. William M. Connolley 08:35, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC).

"business opinion"

I've deleted the business opinion section again. These expressions of opinions by business leaders may be appropriate for a newspaper or news magazine, but not in an encyclopedia article. It is embarassing to see the businessmen groveling to be "politically correct", in order to improve their business prospects in the Kyoto ratifying countries, and to lobby for more funding of those programs which might benefit their companies. We have a separate page for Scientific opinion on climate change perhaps we need one for Unscientific opinion on climate change.--Silverback 06:59, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

Interesting. The main supporters of the skeptical view on global warming have been business and industry leaders and lobbyists. Now when a few of them begin to shift their positions in the face of accumulating evidence our wiki skeptics want to remove reference to the fact because they are embarassed by it? The bottom line $$ is always paramount to businesses, but the fact that they are accepting the reality and adjusting to it is significant. As the info is relevant here, prominent skeptics accepting the reality of the scientific evidence and taking responsibility for their role in the problem, it belongs here or prominently linked from here. -Vsmith 13:58, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, business leaders have probably been pressing politicians to consider impact on the economy of any attempt to mitigate global warming, and point to areas of doubt in the science. But I haven't been quoting their opinions on the science here. I haven't looked at the Kyoto article in while, perhaps they have been quoted there. I trust them more to know what the economic impact of a government policy will be, than to know what the economic impact of climate change will be. Hopefully they cite the literature on the latter.--Silverback 15:19, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

In some cases they can already see what the economic impact of climate change is, and trust the scientists when they say it's probably mostly anthropogenic. Rd232 20:06, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

images

The only images on here are....graphs. Now, seeing how that as soon sometime in the future (I hope), we get the problems with this article settled and nominate it for FAC, we'll probably need better images - more dramatic images, like one of those colour images where it shows the difference between Earth's warmth as a globe at one date, and on the other...ie. with purple being cool as red being hot, and maybe a screenshot of a climate model program showing how complex the factors are, and maybe an image that would serve both the greenhouse effect and the global warming article (and finally resolve the technicality that it doesn't really "trap" heat, for once and for all)...graphs are so...well not particularly helpful in illustrating the topic. -- Natalinasmpf 6 July 2005 11:09 (UTC)

Anyone have any public domain/free licensed images of the Antarctic ice sheets? I know that the ice sheets have been receding gradually over the years, and well, if there's a photo of them (anyone been there and taken photos?) and it would be just the thing to illustrate the concept for this article...and maybe rising sea levels (as well as Antarctic environmental issues while you're at it). -- Natalinasmpf 01:15, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Working towards FAC?

Given some new editors, and the apparent demise of the edit wars, its probbaly a good time to work towards FAC status, as noted above. Again, as noted above, this article has been fought into the ground for quite a long time. I've just made some edits which (as far as I'm concerned) are POV neutral but which hopefully contract it without losing anything vital, and may make it easier to read.

I know the science very well, but will freely admit to not being terribly good at writing comprehensible prose.

Its probably a good idea to do these things in bits, to avoid large reversions, so I'll stop for a bit to allow comment. I agree that most of the effects/mitigation can be moved out, and should be. I've moved some of it (in effect restoring some of the stuff that Rd cut and ZM restored).

Someone should check that useful text isn't being lost in the process, but I think it isn't.

At the end of my edits, the page was down to 43k. I'm aiming for 32k.

William M. Connolley 2005-07-06 16:12:10 (UTC).

Whilst we're in danger of making some progress, FAC is pretty ambitious! But hey, it's good to have goals in life. ;-) Rd232 6 July 2005 22:44 (UTC)

Maybe. But I think that there is an awful lot of interesting and valuable science in there, on a publicly-visible subject. All it needs is to be hacked into shape. William M. Connolley 2005-07-06 22:58:19 (UTC).

True. Onward and upward, as they say. Rd232 7 July 2005 06:22 (UTC)

Language

The language of the article needs to be edited so it is not so clunky. The presentation is also very poor. Rintrah 02:59, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Making the language less clunky is fine. Making it less technical probably isn't. There is a proposal to have a /Global warming (simplified) as a less technical intro. William M. Connolley 10:47:28, 2005-07-14 (UTC).

CO2 abbreviation

Uh, can we try to stick to using the word "carbon dioxide" whenever possible? It's more formal, looks better in print, and is in fact, easier to type then putting in subscript tags all the time. The only time the abbreviation should be used is when discussing chemical formulas, or reactions, or whenever it's being discussed about its chemical properties. Otherwise, it's a basic greenhouse gas. "Carbon dioxide" just aesthetically becomes better for describing that kind of property. At least for me...the key thing is that it looks more formal and the only times we should used abbreviations I believe, is when we're using extensively long names that have acronyms and sound awkward when being used repeatedly. However, in our case, I think "carbon dioxide" is sufficiently convenient to pronounce repeatedly not to warrant a constant abbreviation. -- Natalinasmpf 15:13, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Ext links

This article has a vast number of ext links at the end, accreted over years, many of dubious relevance or belonging mostly on sub pages (not just skeptical: do we really need so many UNFCCC type links?). I would like to prune them severely... William M. Connolley 20:08:14, 2005-07-29 (UTC).

Prune away - people can always make a case to replace them if they disagree. Guettarda 20:49, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely. However, where possible (or at least where useful) do move them to daughter articles (eg some might go to the work-in-progress politics of global warming). Rd232 21:16, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

uncertainties remain, and who is to say those emphasizing them are vested interests?

I just modified the vested interests paragraph, as terribly POV and undocumented. Uncertainties do remain, despite the consensus and even emphasized by vested interests within the consensus. After all, if uncertainties don't remain, why bother funding any more climate model research or development? Any name calling about "vested interests" should be documented and attributed within the text. It is not obvious for instance that oil companies have a "vested interest" in opposing global warming, after all, they also produce natural gas and compete against coal. They will probably benefit from global warming mitigation and from the reduced consumer resistance to price increases which stimulate conservation.--Silverback 23:41, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you changed it from "The uncertainties have in the past been exploited by politicians, corporations, and others with vested interests in opposing the activities needed to mitigate global warming; however, business opinion is increasingly changing to accept global warming as real and that action is needed. The scientific consensus is otherwise opposed by only a small minority of scientists." to

"Uncertainties remain and are emphasized by politicians, corporations, and others questioning the costs needed to mitigate global warming; however, businesses likely to benefit from Kyoto provisions are accepting global warming as real and that action is needed. The scientific consensus is questioned by a small minority of scientists and peer reviewed articles."

This has changed a paragraph that stood for some time into virtually meaning the opposite - you've effectively given the impression "ooh, everyone's worried about the costs and no-one wants to do anything except the people who will make moolah out of this global warming scam". Are you disputing that eg ExxonMobil has had a key role in business efforts to deny global warming and oppose action against? Do we really have to fill this paragraph with a hundred sources (eg ) you know perfectly well are out there in order to state what is well known? And your final sentence in your comment is totally speculative. Fuel emissions standards, carbon taxes, concerted renewable energy development and deployment? Rather less obviously in the oil companies' interests. Also, you wrote "businesses likely to benefit from Kyoto provisions are accepting global warming as real" - this is irredeemably POV, implying only, say, companies making wind turbines are accepting global warming. Also, the addition of "and peer reviewed articles" is POV editorialising. Finally, it isn't the "vested interests" paragraph, it's the "mitigation" paragraph. Stick to the point - it's not a place for skeptical editorialising. Rd232 07:27, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

are you suggesting that the supporters of the Kyoto scam are not vested interests? scientists who hope to shake down gullible governments for large grants. There is in fact no evidence to suggest that what is going on is not part of a natural cycle.--82.156.49.1 22:16, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Let me weight the evidence...anonymous Misplaced Pages user and Fred Singer on the one side, all G8 akademies of science and the IPCC on the other side...hm, seems to be about equal. Not!. --Stephan Schulz 23:13, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

what do you mean "all G8 akademies of science", and even if that is true, it doesn't make them right. And the IPCC is hardly an impartial party, they are a bunch of left wingers dreaming of a world (socialist) government. There is absolutely no evidence that what is going on is not simply part of a natural cycle that has always happened. --82.156.49.1 22:22, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

What I mean that all the national academies of science of the G8 states (+those those of Brazil, India and China) have jointly issued a statement accepting the IPCC position and urging action. See e.g. . These are some of the most respected scientific organizations on earth, including the US National Academy of Sciences, and the British Royal Society. No, that does not prove that they are right (there is no strict proof in science). But what makes you qualified to question the consensus? Have you even read and understood one peer-reviewed scientific paper (i.e. not pop-science or self-published propaganda from some institute) on the topic? --Stephan Schulz

Whatever your opinions Stephen, please don't bite the newbies and take care not to engage in personal attacks. Dragons flight 23:47, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not trying to attack anybody. I really want to know on what basis 82.156.49.1 forms his (or her) opinion that merrily discards the scientific consensus. --Stephan Schulz 00:18, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

The skeptics see a lot of discrepancies among models and between the models and the data that indicate that the error bars should be larger than the consensus is admitting, at least in their conclusions. The people running/forming the IPCC consensus compounded the problem by exagerating the current warming with their hasty whole hearted adoption of the hockey stick. Current warming is comparable to the warming that occurred a thousand years ago, and has been signficantly exceeded in geological time frames. The "consensus" then compounded their credibitility problems by presuming to make policy recommendations like reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Such recommendations really are outside their field of expertise, human impacts are better assessed by economists and rather than being focused on the "cause", mitigation might be a far less expensive "solution" in terms of human impact. Furthermore, the consensus appears to be pressing for hurried decisions with expensive near term impact, when economics suggest that by focusing on growth, we will have exponentially more wealth and technology to deal with the problem in the future, when we actually will have a better grasp on its magnitude, and perhaps cheaper solutions technologically.--Silverback 19:12, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Sigh... and so we go round the same pointless circles... the current warming is greater than that seen in the past, all versions of the record show that... as for "hasty whole hearted adoption", lets hear you condemn the skeptics for their "hasty whole hearted adoption" of the S+C record, now admitted even by S+C to have been *wrong*, shall we? William M. Connolley 19:53:34, 2005-08-22 (UTC)

If by "seen in the past" you mean in a historical time frame, I agree, but I stated it was comparable, we've been warming for more than a century and it is only on the last decade that we have exceeded the temperature a millenia ago, and given the error bars in the temperature proxies even that is uncertain, but the trend is certainly there. It may seem unfair, but the burden of proof is not on the skeptics, they have the easy job, the consensus was correctly criticized for being unable to explain the satellite data and the residual balloon discrepency. Now they are in better agreement, but the discrepencies are still great enough to call into question the range of IPCC predictions. Perhaps the injustice in the burden of proof is compensated by the greater funding and employment on the "believer" side. The skeptics can get by with far fewer people and less funding for research. Model the clouds better, model the data better, and couple the ocean better, and better incorporate direct and indirect solar influence and the error bars should go down. Do all that and even if the predictions come in at the high end of the range, the Kyoto treaty may still be completely ill advised and a tremendous waste of human wealth and potential. It just ain't fair! I hope you agree that it is fair to demand better science when hundreds of billions of dollars are being committed on the predictions. This is more than an admittedly interesting academic exercise. --Silverback 20:13, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

BTW, the US alone spends $400bn per year on defense - and whilst a fair chunk of the federal budget it's not all that much of GDP. The Pentagon had a report about the potential security implications of climate change; maybe that's how to get the issue taken seriously enough to spend more money on it than on, say, subsidising the production of a drug that kills millions every year (tobacco). Rd232 21:02, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Risk = probability * impact. And the sooner we start switching, the easier and cheaper, and the less likely to pass tipping points where negative feedbacks turn positive. There are also equity considerations - if anthropogenic GW is true then today's generation is screwing future ones (and within future generations, especially the poorest countries and people) by refusing eminently affordable action. Arguments about uncertainty could easily be interpreted as a suggestion to focus on solutions that have other benefits beside combatting global warming - eg energy conservation (saves money), fuel efficiency (saves money and dependence on foreign oil), supporting urban public transport (saves air pollution), spending as much on renewables R&D as on coal/oil/gas research (level playing field) etc. But most of the time sceptics take it as an argument to do nothing... almost as if they were starting with their conclusion... Rd232 20:56, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

the consensus was correctly criticized for being unable to explain the satellite data - no, the consensus was incorrectly critizied, as we now found out. The criticism was (arguably) justified, but certainly not correct. But there are many more serious problems in your argument. It seems as if 100 researchers do research into climate change, and 95 reach the conclusion that there is significant, dangerous, human-caused global warming, you just say "No wonder the GW believers dominate the field - look how many more there are...". The reason why the "believers", as you call them, are greater in number (and possibly in funding) is that most honest and competent scientists, after looking at the evidence, end up in the "believer" camp. Its an effect of the situation, not the cause. Finally, I agree that the discussion about the mechanisms and magnitude of global warming is a different one from the one about what to do about it (the first is independent of the second, but of course not vice versa). But then you should be honest about it: Do you doubt global warming, or do you oppose Kyoto (and similar approaches)? Rejecting global waming because you do not like Kyoto is not a valid position - it is analog to "Evolution has to be wrong, because it caused Hitler!". And the second discussion probably does not really belong to this page, anyways.--Stephan Schulz 20:40, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

No, I don't doubt global warming, and I do oppose Kyoto and similar approaches. I don't think we have a good handle on how much of the warming is anthopogenic and how much is natural variation including unrealized climate commitment, and I also don't think we have a good enough handle on how the climate responds to anthropogenic CO2 forcing. I still think temperature climbs at or below the low end of the IPCC predictions are just as likely as the center or the other extreme of the predictions, i.e., the error bars on the predictions are still larger than the public is lead to believe. I also believe the net effect of warming may be beneficial for humanity, and any negative effects are likely to be cheaper to mitigate than prevent. Human productive and technological progression is probably more non-linear than the climate itself, given the dramatic technological changes in the last two centuries and in my own life time. The rise of middle classes, strong educational systems and double digit economic growth in the two most populous countries in the world bodes well for wealth and technology creation. Not only will future technology make novel solutions to global warming possible and more affordable by means other than reducing greenhouse gas emissions, they will also advance and make more affordable the reduction in those emissions.--Silverback 05:36, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Would you care to quantify the error bars on those predictions? (Or address my point above about investing in solutions with other benefits?) Rd232 10:53, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

It is difficult to quantify what you don't know. If we understood the discrepencies, they wouldn't still exist. There is still a 50% differential just in the temperature increases shown be the satellite data, 0.17C vs 0.12C increases per decade. The understanding of cloud physics in the models is still poor, there are a lot of differences between the models in their predictions of precipitation changes resulting from different co2 forcing scenerios, etc. The current IPCC range of predictions is just the range of results from the models running different forcing scenerios.

I think investing in solutions with other benefits makes considerable sense, some are obviously just going to happen as the market responds to increased oil prices. The latest US energy bill funds research and incentives deployment of alternative energy sources, nuclear electricity generation, and ports for the import of Liquified Petreleum Gas. The latter may be coming too late, unfortunately, as natural gas prices are driving many generating plants to switch to coal, and nuclear takes too long to come online and the US currently doesn't even have any under construction. The only thing the market and oil prices seem to be doing that is counter productive, is that it is incentivising the switch to coal. Any subsidies, cannot get too far ahead of market feasibililty of the technology, they should only be used to get over that initial hump of production scale, otherwise they are probably wasting funds that would be better spent on further research. Subsidies that don't make economic sense, would probably be better invested in economic growth or research, so that the resources exist to exploit better opportunities in the future. Compact flourescents already make economic sense. LEDs may make sense in the near future. Opportunities to divert solar radiation or the solar magnetic field with materials deployed at the stable point between the Sun and the earth should be investigated. They may be feasible and allow finer tuned control of the climate for a few 10s or 100s of billions of dollars at some point in the future. Far less than what a Koyoto type solution on a scale that really did something would cost.--Silverback 11:45, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Global warming opponents

In the interest of understanding the other side's view and quantifying their participation in the global warming debate, I have created: List of scientists opposing global warming consensus. It is intended to eventually provide a comprohensive list of scientists actively opposing the central tenets of the IPCC consensus. Help in filling out the list would be appreciated. Dragons flight 21:42, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

Error Found in Satellite Data

Scientists Find Errors, Satellite Data Now Matches Balloon Data . In a nutshell, the satellites were drifting in orbit and increasingly reporting night-time temperatures as daytime data. Once the drifts were detected and measured, and the data adjusted, the satellite data now measures a temperature rise consistent with balloon data. Simesa 15:02, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

These papers are an important result, that partially resolve a discrepency that a lot of skeptics were pointing to. While satellite data now show more warming and better agreement with other measurements, it is still not as much as the climate modelers predict should be there.--Silverback 07:48, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

I'm sure we all look forward to the skeptics who loudly proclaimed the disparity now going back and saying "ah yes, we were wrong to rely on this dataset, GW is really happening". William M. Connolley 13:56:31, 2005-08-20 (UTC).

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