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[Riverman]

Ian I could not agree more.Well said.This thread has begun to look a lot like the age old"how many angels can dance on the head of a pin"argument.

[TNAngler]

You insist we cannot know what our impact is, but at the same time you insist our impact is less than scientists claim.  Humans have long argued that we cannot alter the oceans or the atmosphere because they are so large and we are so small, yet science (and simple observation) has shown this is erroneous.  We now understand that dumping sewage and untreated industrial waste into the ocean may not be such a harmless act.  It does not take a scientist to realize that if greenhouse gases like CO₂ are responsible for our atmosphere retaining heat (natural Greenhouse Effect), and if we are producing more CO₂ today through the burning of fossil fuels (primarily coal and petroleum) than at any time in the Earth's past, while at the same time we are removing forest cover (responsible for converting a substantial amount of the atmospheric CO₂ to O₂) at an unprecedented rate, that we can indeed have a significant impact on the chemical composition of the Earth's atmosphere.  While one can be skeptical of the accuracy of computer models to predict future climates accurately, it is quite another to deny humans can have an profound impact on climate given what we do know about the Earth's natural cycles (carbon cycle, Water Cycle, etc) and about our present actions and contributions to them. 


https://www2.ucar.edu/climate/faq/how-much-has-global-temperature-risen-last-100-years

http://www2.ucar.edu/climate/faq#t2507n1345

Did you read my previous linked article?  It states that the increased winds have decreased global temperatures by up to .2 degrees since 2001.  That isn't shown on your chart.  Where the data comes from is important because a lot of the sensors have been put in locations that show increases because of what is around them (ie in the middle of a parking lot instead of in the country) because they didn't move with urban growth.

Also, your charts don't add up.  If CO2 is such the bad thing, the chart shows the warming starting in around 1910.  CO2 didn't start increasing until 1960.  So the temperature was increasing before the CO2 went up.  Looks like we were cooling before that.

Scientists have been trying to find out why the rate of global warming has eased in the past 20 years while greenhouse-gas emissions have surged to a record.

If you look at graphs showing stuff going back much further than 100 years, we have been a little hotter but it doesn't indicate a significant change in patterns.

[TNAngler]

Typically, people here seem to prefer attacking the person rather than the subject at hand. If you can't support your own premise with facts then attack the other guy on a personal basis rather than dispute his theories.

I think we can all agree that we've done damage to this planet and the damage needs to stop before it's too late. Whether or not the damage has caused global temperature changes means absolutely nothing. The ONLY thing that counts now is how can we prevent further damage to the planet.

I agree there has been damage done to this planet.  As Sandman just mentioned, dumping raw sewage into our oceans or Japan's disaster or all the crap that is getting into our water systems like pharmaceuticals and all that.  Stop that crap.  Focus our energy on that.  Focus our energy on making power sources that don't dump chemicals like mercury and heavy metals into our system.  Focus on the chemicals that create smog, CO, NO, SO2.  Focus energy on fixing the models so we know what the biggest culprit is.

CO2 is not the biggest culprit.  Current CO2 levels are just a little higher than the peak in previous years.  Compare that to Sandman's picture.  We are right about the 390 level.  Industry wasn't around for those previous jumps and yet they occurred naturally.  It isn't like jumps in CO2 level are new.  Current CO2 levels have been climbing since what, 20,000 years ago?  Cars today make CO2 because back in the 70s they proved it was bad for them to make CO.  Problem is, producing CO2 isn't good enough for the most extreme.  If all the cars put out was H2O, it wouldn't be enough because then we would be altering the humidity in the air which will affect plant life and animals.  A lot of the most vocal people will only be happy when you don't have electricity in your house, you don't burn anything, you don't drive anywhere and you aren't breathing.

Instead of running around like the sky is falling, fix what we know is broken for sure without relying on models that obviously aren't giving accurate results.    Man affects the environment obviously.  Make it so we aren't giving our kids cancer or destroying entire swaths of land by dumping chemicals on them.

[Sandman]

Did you read my previous linked article?  It states that the increased winds have decreased global temperatures by up to .2 degrees since 2001.  That isn't shown on your chart. Where the data comes from is important because a lot of the sensors have been put in locations that show increases because of what is around them (ie in the middle of a parking lot instead of in the country) because they didn't move with urban growth.

No, you are correct, the chart by the NOAA shows a more modest decrease, but you have already stated you believe they are fudging the data to forward a government agenda of exerting more control over your life, so you can be skeptical of their research and throw your support behind the 10 scientists conducting the study that Alex reports on because they have no such hidden agenda.

Also, your charts don't add up.  If CO2 is such the bad thing, the chart shows the warming starting in around 1910.  CO2 didn't start increasing until 1960.  So the temperature was increasing before the CO2 went up.  Looks like we were cooling before that.

No, CO₂ accelerated after 1960, it was increasing before that (according to your own chart) and the Keeling curve starts in 1956 when the CO₂ levels were already over 315ppm (higher than the previous peak over 300k YBP) and it began accelerating in the late 1800s when the industrial revolution saw human caused increases in CO₂ levels.

If you look at graphs showing stuff going back much further than 100 years, we have been a little hotter but it doesn't indicate a significant change in patterns.

But we have never had CO₂ levels this high before (25% more than any other time in the last half a million years) and it doesn't show any signs of slowing down (quite the opposite if you have your way and we do nothing).

Current CO2 levels are just a little higher than the peak in previous years. Compare that to Sandman's picture.  We are right about the 390 level.  Industry wasn't around for those previous jumps and yet they occurred naturally.  It isn't like jumps in CO2 level are new.  Current CO2 levels have been climbing since what, 20,000 years ago?

I repeat: However, we have never had CO₂ levels this high before (25% higher than at any other time in the last half a million years is hardy "a little higher").


 

If all the cars put out was H2O, it wouldn't be enough because then we would be altering the humidity in the air which will affect plant life and animals. A lot of the most vocal people will only be happy when you don't have electricity in your house, you don't burn anything, you don't drive anywhere and you aren't breathing.

This is a logical fallacy (Red Herring) and and an appeal to emotion (fear) has no place in a constructive debate (these are tactics of politicians) and the last phrase is just nonsense.  The most vocal people would be happy if the electricity we used in your house was created in a clean sustainable way (ie: solar), and that if you did burn anything, it was burned as cleanly as possible .  You said it yourself, that the only reason the engines today have emission controls is because people vocally demanded it and the government (those bastards) made it a requirement.

Instead of running around like the sky is falling, fix what we know is broken for sure without relying on models that obviously aren't giving accurate results.    Man affects the environment obviously.  Make it so we aren't giving our kids cancer or destroying entire swaths of land by dumping chemicals on them.

Does inundating the land with sea water constitute "dumping chemicals"?  If the polar ice caps do melt as a result of man made global warming (and I realize that is a big IF for you), then the rising sea levels would do just that, forcing the relocation of hundreds of millions of people. I suspect that these people would rather we not wait until we are absolutely sure the sea is rising (it has indeed risen 19 centimeters this century or about 1.7mm a year and this rate has doubled to 3.2mm/yr since 1993) before we try to "fix" the problem (at which point it will be too late to stop the flooding of our grand-children's land by seawater). While there are other equally important man made impacts that we need to address, the presence of other harms, does not mitigate the harm of man made contributions to global warming.

[TNAngler]

I haven't read any of this Alex's research but I would be just as skeptical of her research as anybody elses.  You should review everything told you and never believe anything without validating it.   That is just good practical sense.

Did you not read all the stories coming out of that British department responsible for almost all of the global temperature readings?  Year, two years ago?  How they had taken data, "cleansed" the data before reporting it, and destroyed the original records?  How they had changed some things because it didn't show the warming they believed to be there?  Their own emails were released as part of the wikileak scandal.

Me and my uneducated self thought the whole constructive part of this debated ended days ago.

The South Pole cap is increasing.  The North pole's ice is on water.  Fill your cup with ice cubes then fill it with water to the very top.  When the ice cubes melt, is the water going to run all out of the glass onto the table?

I think we have done about as much damage as we can to everyone else's senses.  You and I will just have to agree to disagree.  I would just encourage you to seek out and read research that disagrees with what you think, think about it critically, and actually research anything before believing it.  Also, realize data can be spun any sort of way possible.

Have a Happy Valentine's day and make sure you get that woman of yours a good card, some flowers, and a nice gift.  Well, you better send an e-card though because actual cards leave too much of a carbon footprint.  And destroying flowers is just going to make the CO2 problem worse.  Forget the gift too.  Plastic flowers, wait, no.  You might as well just be mad at yourself and kick yourself down to the couch for the next couple nights.

[Sandman]

Did you not read all the stories coming out of that British department responsible for almost all of the global temperature readings?  Year, two years ago?  How they had taken data, "cleansed" the data before reporting it, and destroyed the original records?  How they had changed some things because it didn't show the warming they believed to be there?  Their own emails were released as part of the wikileak scandal.

Yes, and after eight committees investigated the allegations and published reports, finding no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct, the scientific consensus that global warming is occurring as a result of human activity remained unchanged.  It was nothing more than a well orchestrated smear campaign ahead of the Copenhagen Conference.

The South Pole cap is increasing.  The North pole's ice is on water.  Fill your cup with ice cubes then fill it with water to the very top.  When the ice cubes melt, is the water going to run all out of the glass onto the table?

The modest increase in Southern Sea Ice (250 000miles²) paled in comparison to the loss of the Northern Sea Ice (1.3 million miles²). 


As you so aptly point out there is a big difference between sea ice and land ice.  The sea ice in Antarctic, while growing in area last year, almost completely melts every year, while much of the northern sea ice usually stays all year.  The melting of the northern sea ice has larger implications because as it melts, more sunlight (normally reflected by the ice) is absorbed by the Arctic Ocean and increases global temperatures.



Furthermore, not all the ice in the north is sea ice (Greenland):
http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/ID/2311352233/?page=3

Moreover, while the maximum extent of the Antarctic sea ice has increased, the all important land ice (the ice cubes piled on top of those in your full glass analogy) is actually experiencing a net decrease (although not as quickly as Greenland) of about 70 Giga-tonnes per year or 1350 Gt since 1992 (Sheppard 2012) http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1183.

[TNAngler]

I don't want to open this debate back up but saw an article and quotes from one of the founders of Greenpeace that seemed to fit the debate and since it was on a website I doubt Sandman reads, I thought I would post it.  Note these quotes were made to the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/02/26/greenpeace-co-founder-no-scientific-proof-humans-are-dominant-cause-warming/

A co-founder of Greenpeace told lawmakers there is no evidence man is contributing to climate change, and said he left the group when it became more interested in politics than the environment.

Patrick Moore, a Canadian ecologist and business consultant who was a member of Greenpeace from 1971-86, told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee environmental groups like the one he helped establish use faulty computer models and scare tactics in promoting claims man-made gases are heating up the planet.

“There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years,” he said.

Even if the planet is warming up, Moore claimed it would not be calamitous for men, which he described as a “subtropical species.”

Skeptics of manmade climate change say there is no evidence the Earth is warming. A UN report on the scientific data behind global warming released in September indicated that global surface temperatures have not increased for the past 15 years, but scientists who believe climate change due to man is occurring say it has merely paused because of several factors and will soon resume.

The 2,200-page new Technical Report attributes that to a combination of several factors, including natural variability, reduced heating from the sun and the ocean acting like a “heat sink” to suck up extra warmth in the atmosphere.

Moore said he left Greenpeace in the 1980s because he believed it became more interested in politics than science.

“After 15 years in the top committee I had to leave as Greenpeace took a sharp turn to the political left, and began to adopt policies that I could not accept from my scientific perspective,” he said. “Climate change was not an issue when I abandoned Greenpeace, but it certainly is now.”

He could be completely wrong but from someone that used to be in the know to say it has become more about politics than the science means I am not the only one that believes that.  Ignore it as you wish.

[Sandman]

I don't want to open this debate back up but saw an article and quotes from one of the founders of Greenpeace that seemed to fit the debate and since it was on a website I doubt Sandman reads, I thought I would post it.  Note these quotes were made to the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/02/26/greenpeace-co-founder-no-scientific-proof-humans-are-dominant-cause-warming/

He could be completely wrong but from someone that used to be in the know to say it has become more about politics than the science means I am not the only one that believes that.  Ignore it as you wish.

Ok, so this one guy, someone with an axe to grind with one particular environmental group, says there is no evidence that humans are the dominant cause of global warming in the last 100 years.  He, himself, offers no scientific evidence to back up his claim, he just basically says that all the scientific evidence cited in that 2200 page Technical Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change mentioned in the same article simply doesn't exist ...and you want us to include him on your side of the debate? Sure.

Oh, and here is George Monbiot's take on Moore (warning, if you like Moore, you must hate Monbiot):

So what do you do if your brand is turning toxic? You hire the Canadian public relations consultant Patrick Moore. Moore runs a company based in Vancouver called Greenspirit Strategies, which has developed “sustainability messaging” for logging, mining, lead-smelting, nuclear, biotech, fish-farming and plastics companies(17,18). He is a clever rhetoritician, skilled at turning an argument round. He is seen by some environmentalists as the most brazen of the spin doctors they face.

He has described clearcut logging as “making clearings where new trees can grow in the sun”(19). He has suggested that sea lice (which spread from farmed salmon to wild fish, often with devastating effects) are “good for wild salmon”: as the fish can eat the larvae(20). He has justified gold-mining operations which have caused devastating spills of sodium cyanide by arguing that “cyanide is present in the environment and naturally available in many plant species”(21). But his greatest asset to the companies he represents is this: Patrick Moore was one of the founders and leaders of Greenpeace.

From that 2200 page IPCC Technical Report:

The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have
increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. Carbon dioxide
concentrations have increased by 40% since pre-industrial times, primarily from fossil fuel
emissions and secondarily from net land use change emissions. The ocean has absorbed
about 30% of the emitted anthropogenic carbon dioxide, causing ocean acidification (see
Figure SPM.4). {2.2, 3.8, 5.2, 6.2, 6.3}

Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident from the increasing greenhouse
gas concentrations in the atmosphere, positive radiative forcing, observed warming, and
understanding of the climate system. {2–14}

You can be skeptical if you like.  The scientific evidence is there.  Like a child closing his eyes and imagining that everything disappears, ignoring the evidence doesn't really make it go away.  Your argument that Anthropogenic Global Warming is a conspiracy created by the world's governments to simply exert more control over your life just doesn't hold water (at least not as much as the melting global Ice Caps hold).  I would like nothing more than for all the scientists to be proven wrong and for the Earth to somehow miraculously absorb all of our harmful inputs and balance itself so that our grandchildren do not have to live with the consequences of our selfish indifference, so that we can go on blithely burning fossil fuels.  You may not like Al Gore, you may even believe he is a crack pot, but you have to give him credit for the choosing a title for his documentary that speaks volumes.  Accepting that human activity is a major contributing factor in Global Warming is inconvenient.  It would be much easier to be skeptical and ignore the evidence. I just do not think that is a very reasonable and responsible way to approach the current state of the global climate trends. 

[TNAngler]

Yeah, I will take my cues on how to live life from a guy that preaches one thing and then does the completely opposite.  The guy who talks about how we should live small with houses only as big as we need but forget his, what, 6 mansions?  That we should commute as little as possible while he flies around in his own private jet.  That we should reduce our carbon footprint while he produces as much carbon as a small town.  Oh, and we should all purchase carbon offsets, something he is very heavily invested in and stands to make a fortune if that becomes required.  Al Gore is a mooch, a liar, and scam artist.  This is the guy you listen to?  No wonder.

Your comment about sea lice (which spread from farmed salmon to wild salmon) is deceiving.  You make it seem like there was no sea lice prior to farmed salmon.  Sea lice spread from salmon to salmon.  Salmon farms probably hurt the situation.

The globe is going to warm.  I don't think there is anything we can do to stop it.  We are coming out of the little ice age, it is supposed to warm.  Like I have said before, create a model that accurately predicts anything 5, 10 years out and I will listen.  Until then, they have no credibility. When are you going to stop believing their models when they can't produce one that works?  Can't even really produce one that is close.  Scientific evidence would require them being able to test a hypothesis, coming to a conclusion, then testing that conclusion and getting accurate results.  If they can't produce accurate results then it is not scientific evidence.  I realize you want them to be right and want to believe what they say and what you do is going to help when really you would be better off spending your time walking the river picking up trash.  If believing this makes you feel good, then go for it.  Just don't force me to change what I do because it fits into your belief of how things work.  Change what you do, fine.  Don't force it on others.

And once again, I'm done.  Reply as I know you will.

[Sandman]

Of course I am going to reply to your misdirection.

Yeah, I will take my cues on how to live life from a guy that preaches one thing and then does the completely opposite.  The guy who talks about how we should live small with houses only as big as we need but forget his, what, 6 mansions?  That we should commute as little as possible while he flies around in his own private jet.  That we should reduce our carbon footprint while he produces as much carbon as a small town.  Oh, and we should all purchase carbon offsets, something he is very heavily invested in and stands to make a fortune if that becomes required.  Al Gore is a mooch, a liar, and scam artist.  This is the guy you listen to?  No wonder.

I never said that, I told you you can think him a crackpot if you want.  I said to give him credit for a good title for his documentary.  By the way, the size of his own carbon footprint does not disprove his message, it just makes him a hypocrite.

Your comment about sea lice (which spread from farmed salmon to wild salmon) is deceiving.  You make it seem like there was no sea lice prior to farmed salmon.  Sea lice spread from salmon to salmon.  Salmon farms probably hurt the situation.

It was not my comment, it was Moore's comment that the sea lice from fish farms, which Moore owned at one point in his career (if he doesn't still own one), is good for wild salmon because they can eat the larva.  I never commented anything on the topic.

The globe is going to warm.  I don't think there is anything we can do to stop it.  We are coming out of the little ice age, it is supposed to warm.  Like I have said before, create a model that accurately predicts anything 5, 10 years out and I will listen.  Until then, they have no credibility.

No credibility at all?  Really?

Frequently Asked Questions
FAQ 9.1 | Are Climate Models Getting Better, and How Would We Know?
Climate models are extremely sophisticated computer programs that encapsulate our understanding of the climate system and simulate, with as much fidelity as currently feasible, the complex interactions between the atmosphere, ocean, land surface, snow and ice, the global ecosystem and a variety of chemical and biological processes. The complexity of climate models—the representation of physical processes like clouds, land surface interactions and the representation of the global carbon and sulphur cycles in many models—has increased substantially since
the IPCC First Assessment Report in 1990, so in that sense, current Earth System Models are vastly ‘better’ than the models of that era. This development has continued since the Fourth Assessment, while other factors have also contributed to model improvement. More powerful supercomputers allow current models to resolve finer spatial detail. Today’s models also reflect improved understanding of how climate processes work—understanding that has come from ongoing research and analysis, along with new and improved observations.
Climate models of today are, in principle, better than their predecessors. However, every bit of added complexity, while intended to improve some aspect of simulated climate, also introduces new sources of possible error (e.g., via uncertain parameters) and new interactions between model components that may, if only temporarily, degrade a model’s simulation of other aspects of the climate system. Furthermore, despite the progress that has been made, scientific uncertainty regarding the details of many processes remains.

An important consideration is that model performance can be evaluated only relative to past observations, taking into account natural internal variability. To have confidence in the future projections of such models, historical climate—and its variability and change—must be well simulated. The scope of model evaluation, in terms of the kind and quantity of observations available, the availability of better coordinated model experiments, and the expanded use of various performance metrics, has provided much more quantitative information about model performance. But this alone may not be sufficient. Whereas weather and seasonal climate predictions can be regularly verified, climate projections spanning a century or more cannot. This is particularly the case as anthropogenic forcing is driving the climate system toward conditions not previously observed in the instrumental record, and it will always be a limitation. Quantifying model performance is a topic that has featured in all previous IPCC Working Group I Reports. Reading back over these earlier assessments provides a general sense of the improvements that have been made. Past reports have typically provided a rather broad survey of model performance, showing differences between model-calculated versions of various climate quantities and corresponding observational estimates. Inevitably, some models perform better than others for certain climate variables, but no individual model clearly emerges as ‘the best’ overall. Recently, there has been progress in computing various performance metrics, which synthesize model performance relative to a range of different observations according to a simple numerical score. Of course, the definition of such a score, how it is computed, the observations used (which have their own uncertainties), and the manner in which various scores are combined are all important, and will affect the end result.

Nevertheless, if the metric is computed consistently, one can compare different generations of models. Results of such comparisons generally show that, although each generation exhibits a range in performance, the average model performance index has improved steadily between each generation. An example of changes in model performance over time is shown in FAQ 9.1, Figure 1, and illustrates the ongoing, albeit modest, improvement. It is interesting to note that both the poorest and best performing models demonstrate improvement, and that this
improvement comes in parallel with increasing model complexity and an elimination of artificial adjustments to atmosphere and ocean coupling (so-called ‘flux adjustment’). Some of the reasons for this improvement include increased understanding of various climate processes and better representation of these processes in climate models. More comprehensive Earth observations are also driving improvements.
So, yes, climate models are getting better, and we can demonstrate this with quantitative performance metrics based on historical observations. Although future climate projections cannot be directly evaluated, climate models are based, to a large extent, on verifiable physical principles and are able to reproduce many important aspects of past response to external forcing. In this way, they provide a scientifically sound preview of the climate response to different scenarios of anthropogenic forcing.

So the new models definitely are not perfect, but they are getting better.  To suggest that if the model is not perfect, it lacks all credibility is just wrong.  You can have confidence in the future predictions of a model, if it is able to reproduce past patterns with some degree of accuracy, and the new models have done this better than you let on.

Confidence in climate model projections is based on physical understanding of the climate system and its representation in climate
models, and on a demonstration of how well models represent a wide range of processes and climate characteristics on various spatial and
temporal scales (Knutti et al., 2010b). A climate model’s credibility is increased if the model is able to simulate past variations in climate,
such as trends over the 20th century and palaeoclimatic changes. Projections from previous IPCC assessments can also be directly compared
to observations (see Figures 1.4 and 1.5), with the caveat that these projections were not intended to be predictions over the short time
scales for which observations are available to date. Unlike shorter lead forecasts, longer-term climate change projections push models into
conditions outside the range observed in the historical period used for evaluation.

[Sandman]

When are you going to stop believing their models when they can't produce one that works?  Can't even really produce one that is close.

Did you read that technical report?  The models are a lot closer than you are letting on.  Are they perfect? No?  They are very complex and every time you add a new variable to make it more accurate, you increase the possibility of an error.

Scientific evidence would require them being able to test a hypothesis, coming to a conclusion, then testing that conclusion and getting accurate results.  If they can't produce accurate results then it is not scientific evidence. 

Again, there is scientific evidence (reproduced results supporting the hypothesis) that the climate is warming at an unprecedented rate (the last 15 years aside, the trend in the last 100 years is still on the upward swing), and there is scientific evidence that there is 30% more CO₂ in the atmosphere today than at any time in the last 800 000 years, and there is scientific evidence that the CO₂ levels have increase by 40% in the last 40 years.  Now can you think of any other natural factor that has under gone as dramatic a change as these over the last 100 years? Hmm? Human population is increasing as dramatically (exponentially) in the last 100 years.  No, you are right, it is just a coincidence.  Humans can't possibly have anything to do with these changes.  While correlation does not equal causation, when you also factor in what we know about the relationship between CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere and radiative forcing, and the relationships between human activity and the Carbon Cycle, the conclusion is pretty clear.

It is unequivocal that anthropogenic increases in the well-mixed greenhouse gases (WMGHGs) have substantially enhanced
the greenhouse effect, and the resulting forcing continues to increase. Aerosols partially offset the forcing of the WMGHGs and
dominate the uncertainty associated with the total anthropogenic driving of climate change. 

I realize you want them to be right and want to believe what they say and what you do is going to help when really you would be better off spending your time walking the river picking up trash.

Unlike you, it seems, I can do both.

If believing this makes you feel good, then go for it.  Just don't force me to change what I do because it fits into your belief of how things work.  Change what you do, fine.  Don't force it on others.

I am not forcing anything on anyone.  I am simply making a point with the hope that you might see that perhaps you too should support the reduction of the burning of fossil fuels, the investment into more sustainable energy sources, and the promotion of less harmful human practices.

[RalphH]

The globe is going to warm.  I don't think there is anything we can do to stop it.  We are coming out of the little ice age, it is supposed to warm.  Like I have said before, create a model that accurately predicts anything 5, 10 years out and I will listen. 

The Earth is not coming out of a 'Little ice Age'. Anyone can google the phrase to see what it refers to. It was not global and it ended about 150 years ago.

There many models & theories that predict behaviours accurately over much longer periods than 5 to 10 years. All theories of the Universe & Cosmos clearly do this with astonishing mathematical accuracy. Climate models are problematic in that the system itself is chaotic. However the same is true of the Economy - a chaotic system yet it's behaviour can be accurately predicted over the long term in that markets tend to evolve in predictable ways.

[sandy999]

There is enough scientific data to suggest global warming. The polar ice caps is a fraction of what it was decades ago.

I agree that about the Artic and the Polar caps-BUT-look at the weather in many other parts of the world such as our east coast, down south of us just for example. Closeing the Coquihalla highway for so long. I know here in the lower mainland this has been the worst winter for many years. The wind has not let up here in Vedder Crossing now for weeks.

[TNAngler]

The Earth is not coming out of a 'Little ice Age'. Anyone can google the phrase to see what it refers to. It was not global and it ended about 150 years ago.

There many models & theories that predict behaviours accurately over much longer periods than 5 to 10 years. All theories of the Universe & Cosmos clearly do this with astonishing mathematical accuracy. Climate models are problematic in that the system itself is chaotic. However the same is true of the Economy - a chaotic system yet it's behaviour can be accurately predicted over the long term in that markets tend to evolve in predictable ways.

It doesn't have to be global to lower the global average temperature.

You are right that accurate models like the Universe and Cosmos are easy to predict with extreme accuracy because they are ordered.  Like you said, the system for climate is chaotic, or at least to our understanding currently it is.  Maybe in the future we will understand all the inputs enough to more accurately predict a lot of it.  Who knows.  I disagree that long term markets are predictable though.  They are predictable if there are no unpredicted shocks to the system.  Go back 20 years ago and look at any financial prediction you can find.  I bet you would have a very hard time finding one that predicted the collapse of 2008.  Heck, find one in 2006 or 2007 and you still wouldn't see it.  If they were there, they were considered darn near impossible.  Only people who were trying to make a buck were predicting it or saying they predicted it (which many others had been doing for decades).  Most of those have made further predictions that have been far off from the truth.  Hindsight is 20/20 and looking back everyone can see the indicators of why it happened and that it was coming.  These shocks to the system lower everything and then usually things return back to the growth pattern previously but long term predictions would be way too favorable.

Again, this is the type of predictive modeling that I do for a living.  We try and figure out what possible extreme shocks might occur and how things will react but there is just no knowing.  We do the best we can and if we get fairly accurate over the first couple years we pat ourselves on the back.  Some big shocks might come that we listed as a possibility but to actually say they were thought to be anything more than one of a couple thousand possible paths would be completely inaccurate.

[TNAngler]

Add to those economic predictions new technologies that come along that swing things upward.  There was no way 50-60 years ago that any model would have predicted the benefit computers and the internet and all of that has given companies.  Heck Al Gore hadn't even invented the internet yet.  In the next 50 years, will there be another huge technological advancement to push us forward or will we be with the same technology and only going forward at the typical path?  Without being able to answer that, you cannot say the long term prediction is very accurate.