Thongs are really serious in South America right now.

Peru declares cold wave emergency in 16 districts, 400+ people killed by cold related
effects:
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=361111&CategoryId=14095

In other news, aa new paper from de Jager on solar-planetary influence.
http://tinyurl.com/3yslx5o
Be quick, this link might not last long before the paywall clangs down.

Edited by tallbloke on 07/26/2010 18:16:59 MDT.

"The proponents of this hypothesis don't have anything much to back this claim up with as far as I can see. It's true that the atmospheric co2 level has risen and global temperature (mostly northern hemisphere) has risen too, but correlation doesn't prove causation, especially when temperature always changes before co2 level does. Also, the sun's activity level was well above it's long term average during that period too."

This is where you overstate your case, Rog. Considering the best of the brightest among the scientific community are in general agreement about AGW, it's mystifying that you can't see any evidence for it...at all. The entire scientific community must either be stupid or cynical considering they seem to find plenty of evidence for it.

But even so, you have to cap off this ridiculous statement with one of the easiest denialist claims to "refudiate". The bit about the sun's activity has been debunked so many times it's now almost vintage that you keep throwing it around. I could post the graph showing the sun's activiy levels vs. the temperature, but it's all over the web and any interested can find it themselves.

Btw, regardless of what's happening in Peru, it's hot as hell in the U.S. I find it amusing that when it's winter here, you point out the cold fronts, but when it's summer (and incredibly hot) you flee to the southern hemisphere...

"I find it amusing that when it's winter here, you point out the cold fronts, but when it's summer (and incredibly hot) you flee to the southern hemisphere..."

Well, we are still part of the *global* part of the climate discussion.

"Considering the best of the brightest among the scientific community are in general agreement about AGW"

Not sure about that. There sure were some buffoons high up in the eschelons of climate research who convinced a lot of folks to "agree". Doesn't mean the science was any good (in fact some of it was really dreadful). I could still go either way on the debate, due in part to those "brightest" folk's mishandling of so much.

Hi Rog

> Thongs are really serious in South America right now.
Yeah, I wear thongs all the time too.

Cheers

Lynn,

Curious--what exactly are you referring to re: buffons high up who convinced others to agree?

Please tell me you're not flogging the CRU canard...

Realclimate.org is a great resource for information.

Here's a bit on the solar-forcing theory which Rog has been discussing lately.

"Svensmark’s failure to comment on the lack of a clear and significant long-term downward GCR trend, and how changes in GCR can explain a global warming without containing such a trend, is one major weakness of his argument that GCR is responsible for recent global warming. This issue is discussed in detail in Benestad (2002). Moreover, the lack of trend in GCR is also consistent with little long-term change in other solar proxies, such as sunspot number and the solar cycle length, since the 1960s, when the most recent warming started."

An accompanying graph:



(For further information on the data and regression in this graph, which shows a fairly consistent solar output, visit here.

"Btw, regardless of what's happening in Peru, it's hot as hell in the U.S. I find it amusing that when it's winter here, you point out the cold fronts, but when it's summer (and incredibly hot) you flee to the southern hemisphere..."

This from Japan:

"A heatwave in Japan is being blamed for more than 60 deaths as more than 15,000 people have needed hospital treatment.

With temperatures soaring past 35 degrees in most of the country, sales of beer and air conditioners have skyrocketed.

But authorities say the heatwave has also caused at least 66 deaths.

Some died from heatstroke, while others drowned while trying to beat the heat.

More than 15,000 people have been treated for heatstroke in hospital.

Japan's meteorological agency is predicting the hottest summer in 100 years, with temperatures rising dramatically since the end of the annual rainy season earlier this month."

It wouldn't normally be this warm until August - and interestingly Tokyo's microclimate has changed since I left there in 2006.

"Meanwhile, some areas experienced thunder showers due to atmospheric instability caused by sinking cold air, including in Ishioka, Ibaraki Prefecture, where a record 86.5 millimeters of rain fell in the space of one hour in the evening, according to the agency."

But it's not all bad news:

"Japanese retailers are headed for hot summer sales of cheap beer and non-smell underwear, driven by above-average temperatures and consumers with fatter wallets, according to Deutsche Bank AG’s Takahiro Kazahaya.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency is forecasting the hottest summer in 100 years globally after a heat wave snaked into Tokyo last week via North America and Europe. Temperatures in the capital exceeded 95 degrees Fahrenheit (36 degrees Celsius), providing a boon for breweries including Kirin Holdings Co., garment makers and air conditioner manufacturers, Kazahaya said."

> With temperatures soaring past 35 degrees in most of the country,
Huh.
The author should try living in Sydney. 35 C is nothing special in summer.

Cheers

The author should try living in Sydney. 35 C is nothing special in summer.

The difference is the humidity. In Sydney even at 40º you can step into the shade and cool down. Here in Japan it is now daily 35º with 70% humidity. You can't step into the shade, relieve it with a beer (it will only make you sweat twice as much), expect the breeze to make a difference, or even breathe properly. And since traditionally the Japanese don't like to use air conditioners most of those deaths were among the elderly. I've been to the Sahara and stood in 45º heat, but never felt as hot as I do now in Tokyo. The humidity makes a giant difference. If it ever reaches 45º with this same humidity here you will have far more deaths than so far this year. Also, the article didn't take into account eh gigantic heat island effect of Tokyo, where temperatures in the concrete of the city went far higher than the national average. This is the kind of weather I recommend people backpacking to wear cotton. Synthetics will steam bath you to death.

If you want to know what it is like, turn on your shower to its hottest setting in a 35º temperature bathroom while direct summer sunlight is hitting you, let the shower run until the whole bathroom is so steamed up you can't see very well, then go about your daily business in the bathroom for the whole day.

The person who posted the above article, Arapiles, is from Australia and lived in Japan for a long time. There is good reason he posted the article (besides adding to the debate in this thread)

Edited by butuki on 07/27/2010 06:25:25 MDT.

I find it amusing that Rog continues to try to point to local cold spots in the midst of a global heat wave.

"Last month was the hottest June ever recorded worldwide and the fourth consecutive month that the combined global land and sea temperature records have been broken, according to the US government's climate data centre."

We are talking about global warming Rog. Pointing out a local cold spot in Peru or Australia is just FUD and completely irrelevant to the topic of global warming.

Well, I think you can read all the graphs and research you want, but when you visit different places in the world and see the glaciers almost completely gone, that is not just a short term trend. That's undeniable evidence that something is very big is happening. You don't have to be a scientist to know this, either.

I love a good debate, but for something as potentially cataclysmic to human life as global warming I think the stalling that all this is causing is foolish beyond measure. It's like someone who lives in an earthquake zone who refuses to make the extra effort to build his house to be safe in an earthquake, all the while insisting that there is no earthquake and therefore nothing needs to be done to protect his house. It's just plain foolish. That is why this thread is so frustrating. For some it might just be an intellectual exercise, but for those who take the warnings about global warming seriously all it does is obfuscate, not what might be there, but the need to get started doing something if things need being done. Isn't it better to do something environmentally beneficial and global warming turns out to be a false alarm than to do nothing and global warming turns out to be real?

"Huh.
The author should try living in Sydney. 35 C is nothing special in summer."

+1 what Miguel said - the humidity in Tokyo in August is often over 90%. 38C and 90+ % humidity is off the heat discomfort index.

Interestingly Tokyo's weather is changing - there never use to be thunder storms in summer, but now there are. Some sewer workers were drowned a couple of years ago because of the unexpected flash flooding.

"I love a good debate, but for something as potentially cataclysmic to human life as global warming I think the stalling that all this is causing is foolish beyond measure."

That's pretty much my view - even the Economist came to the view that since the costs of mitigation were far less than the potential long-term costs of global warming the rational thing to do was to take action, even if there were doubts about the science.

Here here!

Especially given that, warming aside, the burning of fossil fuels has many many other noncontroversial deleterious effects.

Oh, I know Rog's rebuttal is that he thinks we're focusing on a warming hoax to the detriment of the other environmental problems, but this is just hogwash. The people funding and advocating the global warming denialism have zero interest in environmental causes besides warming. Look at Inhofe and the other Republican denialists. I don't exactly see them clamoring to cut down on deforestation or working to solve the looming water crisis.

Furthermore, many environmental issues are so inextricably bound up with carbon output (rising asthma rates, acid rain, rising mercury levels in alpine lakes, dependence on unstable foreign governments, etc) that their solution is the same as the proposed solution for global warming, namely, cutting back on fossil fuels and moving towards alternative energy issues. So how exactly is the focus on solving warming through carbon reduction harming efforts to solve these environmental issues.

Rog suffers from a myopic cognitive dissonance.

And, yes, it's a little frustrating.

Edited by Rezniem on 07/27/2010 11:30:23 MDT.

this is why Im a skeptic:
religion/Catholic modern media
original sin materialism/consumerism
indulgences carbon offsets/capNtrade
apocalypse apocalypse
guilt guilt
man alienated from world(garden) man alien/virus to world

Just smells from beginning to end.
Add in the fact that we, as the public can not have any faith that researchers/political organizations can be objective and honest. Scientist/politicians have long lost most of their credibility (i.e.fraudulent pharmaceutical/nutritional research is the norm ect)

That said this SHOULD not have any effect on the environmental movement because there are real easily demonstrable problems that need to be addressed on a local level all over the world. I think GW is a distraction from the real work that needs to be done because its comfortably abstract and distant- and comes down party lines. Unlike the car in our driveway and the chem plant in town.

Not a very convincing argument, Brian.

That same argument could have been used to justify Holocaust denialism or against nuclear disarmament. (I refuse to believe in any apocalyptic-sounding scenarios ever, therefore I refuse to believe that nuclear annihilation is a threat or that the Nazis are gassing people by the millions!) Not convincing at all.

Also, science isn't monolithic. Science doesn't "lose credibility" because some scientist somewhere acted in bad faith. In fact, only science can reveal when bad actors fudge the science. Science is a process that is ever qualifying itself, every moving toward the truth, and always open to more and new evidence. You can only point out bad science through good science, so there's a bit of a problem with your dispersion of all scientists.

I myself am quite astonished at what science has accomplished. Pharmaceutical companies have extended our life beyond what most people thought possible just a half century ago. HIV-positive people with access to medical care are now living out their normal lifespans in many cases. Cancer patients have the greatest chance of survival than they have ever had. It's amazing and astonishing, and not in the least overshadowed by some bad actors in the field.

But I'd like to point out that you just repeated the cognitive dissonance I pointed out.

How exactly is global warming taking away from the other environmental issues? Aren't the other issues also caused by carbon output? Isn't fossil fuel addiction responsible for acid rain, rising mercury levels, increase in asthma rates, dependence on unstable foreign governments? So isn't the solution to global warming *also* the solution to many other environmental ailments?

"Scientist/politicians have long lost most of their credibility."

Politicians are definitely lacking, at least at higher levels of government.

But it's completely ridiculous to state that scientists have long lost most of their credibility. Are you aware of all the science happening right now? I know lots of scientists and all they really care about is advancing their little corner of science.

all too aware.
"I know lots of scientists and all they really care about is advancing their little corner of science."

And how do propose the layman public separate the wheat from the chaff? Information is mediated and the public is too busy making a living to do independent research to find out for themselves. Besides Ive heard this argument sooo many times from people just to hear them utter radical political nonsense later on after trying to portray themselves as middle of the road.
Im not really trying to convince anyone to belive or not to belive- but I do wish people would would put their energy into solving problems instead of trying to convince people of their theorys. Its all moot

"That same argument could have been used to justify Holocaust denialism or against nuclear disarmament. (I refuse to believe in any apocalyptic-sounding scenarios ever, therefore I refuse to believe that nuclear annihilation is a threat or that the Nazis are gassing people by the millions!) Not convincing at all."

This just plain insulting on the highest level.
and im not even going to respond to it further than Im am here. But this kind of talk in a scientific discussion which should welcome skepticism and debate is the perfect example of what is wrong with the GW movement.

Brian, I don't even know what your response has to do with my point, but I'll leave ya to your whatever you are talking about that apparently makes sense to you.

Back to fun n' insults with graphs!