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Subject: ALIENS CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING - SERIOUSLY!
RockyMTNClimber    6/21/2007 12:30:31 PM
This is to put a final nail in the coffin of global warming. Man can not change the earth's tempurature. No evidence has ever or will ever compell science to say that. This is a silly notion played for political and religious resons. Below is a well thought out essay that everyone who believes in global warming, leprichans, and the stork that delivers babies should read. Check Six Rocky "Aliens Cause Global Warming" A lecture by Michael Crichton California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA January 17, 2003 My topic today sounds humorous but unfortunately I am serious. I am going to argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming. Or to speak more precisely, I will argue that a belief in extraterrestrials has paved the way, in a progression of steps, to a belief in global warming. Charting this progression of belief will be my task today. Let me say at once that I have no desire to discourage anyone from believing in either extraterrestrials or global warming. That would be quite impossible to do. Rather, I want to discuss the history of several widely-publicized beliefs and to point to what I consider an emerging crisis in the whole enterprise of science-namely the increasingly uneasy relationship between hard science and public policy. I have a special interest in this because of my own upbringing. I was born in the midst of World War II, and passed my formative years at the height of the Cold War. In school drills, I dutifully crawled under my desk in preparation for a nuclear attack. It was a time of widespread fear and uncertainty, but even as a child I believed that science represented the best and greatest hope for mankind. Even to a child, the contrast was clear between the world of politics-a world of hate and danger, of irrational beliefs and fears, of mass manipulation and disgraceful blots on human history. In contrast, science held different values-international in scope, forging friendships and working relationships across national boundaries and political systems, encouraging a dispassionate habit of thought, and ultimately leading to fresh knowledge and technology that would benefit all mankind. The world might not be a very good place, but science would make it better. And it did. In my lifetime, science has largely fulfilled its promise. Science has been the great intellectual adventure of our age, and a great hope for our troubled and restless world. But I did not expect science merely to extend lifespan, feed the hungry, cure disease, and shrink the world with jets and cell phones. I also expected science to banish the evils of human thought---prejudice and superstition, irrational beliefs and false fears. I expected science to be, in Carl Sagan's memorable phrase, "a candle in a demon haunted world." And here, I am not so pleased with the impact of science. Rather than serving as a cleansing force, science has in some instances been seduced by the more ancient lures of politics and publicity. Some of the demons that haunt our world in recent years are invented by scientists. The world has not benefited from permitting these demons to escape free. But let's look at how it came to pass. Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains. In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation: N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL Where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live. This serious-looking equation gave SETI an serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we're clear-are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice. As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involv
 
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RockyMTNClimber    I'm gonna miss him.....   7/13/2007 3:17:29 PM
 
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Jeff_F_F       7/13/2007 3:38:24 PM




Here is an indisputable fact: evironmentalists are alarmists and are frequently wrong. Here is the proof, a look at what environmentalists were panicing about a mere 30 years ago.



 



alternately, go to denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm





trouble with a calm and rational discussion of the facts and theories is that it puts joe public to sleep in about 60 seconds and gets nowhere fast.  running about screaming the sky is falling tends to work better at focussing some attention on the problem at hand.

That's exactly why people tune out scientists in general and environmental sceientists because they have become caloused to this suff. Sure it focuses everyone, but when your panic turns out to be wrong then people say "wtf were you screaming about you bunch of idiots," and next time they don't listen. Then there are the "problems" that turn out not to be problems and where the solutions get people killed, like switching from saturated fat to trans fat. This is a lot bigger than environment. It is a society wide problem. In any other profession other than science there would be lawsuits. Maybe it is time for lawsuits in science too. If people were accountable for the quality of their research they might start making sure they were right before running around screaming that the sky is falling.
 
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Jeff_F_F    Calling garbage when I see it.   7/13/2007 5:36:06 PM
First of all I'm going to call out a point on the OISM study. I thought this wasn't right when I first saw it, but without evidence to the contrary I hade to go with it. The study claims that climate models predict that both surface temperatures and stratespheric temperatures will rise due to increased atmospheric CO2. Among the information in this document linked to by one of the many mythbuster sites previously posted states the opposite, which is agreement with my understanding and with common sense. Think about it this way if you pick up a hot pan it will burn you, but if you put a layer of insulation between you and the pan (like a potholder) it is just warm. For this reason, if additional CO2 was acting as an increasing insulating layer it would make sense that surface temperatures would increase while stratospheric temperatures would decrease because less heat would reach the upper atmosphere from the surface.
 
Now let's talk about the ground-based temperature record. While I'm still concerned about sampling locations the above referenced document has gone a long way toward resolving my concern. The above document discusses that some time there have been discrepancies between low atmospheric temperature surveys and surface surveys where the surface surveys were showing greater increases in temperature than the atmospheric surveys. Better analysis of the atmospheric data have corrected the problem. Or maybe it was better massaging... Like I say I'm still concerned and I've seen enough lousy science that I'm not about to assume that massaging of data just doesn't happen.
 
I'm reminded of Jay Gould's Mismeasure of Man where after demonstrating repeatedly that scientists come up with the data they want to come up with, he goes into a convoluted psychological theory to explain how this could be. I on the other hand am completely comfortable applying occam's razor and saying that scientists lie just like all of the rest of humanity. Unfortunately scientists have a community of other scientists who are so convinced that scientists are nearly incapable of deliberate falsehood (except for a few notable examples that were thoroughly discredited when they got caught) to support them through the process called peer review.
 
The problem with the surface temperature record is that most criticism of the so called "hocky stick" has focused on the "handle", while everyone assumes the "blade" is accurate, since it is directly measured. What if it isn't? What if the rise of temperatures is caused by people tending to record temperatures in the locations where it is most convenient to record temperatures, because until the last couple of decades no one saw the need to create an absolute record of temperature that was accurate to within a fraction of a degree. As a result the locations people measured temperature were locations with people. At first these locations were towns and small cities. Then those locations turned into larger cities. Today, many of those locations are part of major metroplexes.
 
Most of us are satisfied with a weather report that gives the temperature at the airport or downtown, and if the concrete tarmac or the heat island effect of the city means that the weather station is little bit hotter than the surrounding area a couple of degrees difference aren't a big deal to us. But when public policy starts to center on changes in average temperature of less than a degree, the stakes go way up.
 
 The other thing you will notice is that "present" means 1950. Since 1950, the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have gone up to about 370 ppmv - completely off this chart which goes back 420 thousand years. That is, the upper line has since continued well up to the right.


Temperature-CO2 concentrationhttp://www.sierraclub.ca/national/programs/atmosphere-energy/climate-change/vostok-ice-core.jpg" width=655 border=0>

Wow that is pretty compelling evidence that humans really have dramatically increased CO2 well beyond the limits of natural va
 
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Jeff_F_F    More holes in OISM   7/13/2007 6:47:16 PM
Notes on the methidology used by NASA GISS to develop their estimates of global temperature growth.
"We modify the GHCN/USHCN/SCAR data in two stages to get to the station data on which all our tables, graphs, and maps are based: in stage 1 we try to combine at each location the time records of the various sources; in stage 2 we adjust the non-rural stations in such a way that their longterm trend of annual means is as close as possible to that of the mean of the neighboring rural stations. Non-rural stations that cannot be adjusted are dropped."
 
So it looks like the GISS data is good, and since the GISS data matches pretty closely with the data record in the hocky stick, it is fair to assume that the hockey stick data was in fact corrected to account for the urban heat island effect.
 
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Herald1234    Greenhouse and false analogy.   7/13/2007 7:14:36 PM
First of all I'm going to call out a point on the OISM study. I thought this wasn't right when I first saw it, but without evidence to the contrary I hade to go with it. The study claims that climate models predict that both surface temperatures and stratespheric temperatures will rise due to increased atmospheric CO2. Among the information in this document linked to by one of the many mythbuster sites previously posted states the opposite, which is agreement with my understanding and with common sense. Think about it this way if you pick up a hot pan it will burn you, but if you put a layer of insulation between you and the pan (like a potholder) it is just warm. For this reason, if additional CO2 was acting as an increasing insulating layer it would make sense that surface temperatures would increase while stratospheric temperatures would decrease because less heat would reach the upper atmosphere from the surface.

1. Gases are not solids. They do not have the same heat transport behaviors as a solid. A barrier channeling or refraction  property is not the same as a frequency absorption frequency change mechanism.
2. Venus is a hellhole. We have to ask and find out WHY.

Herald
 
 
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Jeff_F_F       7/14/2007 8:39:46 AM
Nevertheless, if you have a system with a fixed amount of heat entering the system and some form of heat transport out of the system to a radiator and then reduce the amount of heat transport out of the system to the radiator, the system is going to get hotter and the radiator is going to get cooler.
 
In the case of the pan analogy the system that is receiving the heat entering it is the pan and the heat transport out is your hand, the freaking oven mitt is reducing the amount of heat transported out so the amount of heat reaching your hand is less, so it feels cooler.
 
In the case of the planet there are several "radiators" heat can potentially radiate directly away from the surface into space. Heat can also be absorbed by the various layers of the atmosphere and then part of that energy can be radiated into space. Other heat can be transported via convection into the upper atmosphere and then radiated into space.
 
All I'm saying is that contrary to what the OISM claims, most models DO NOT show both the upper atmosphere and the surface increasing, they show the temperature of the surface increasing and the temperature of the upper atmosphere decreasing because less heat is getting transported out of the system overall.
 
The actual physics are enormously different than a solid insulator, but the overall effect is similar enough that I figured the analogy might help increase understanding of why the models predict this and why OISM is A) lying when they say the models predict that the upper atmosphere will get warmer--they don't and and haven't for as long as I've been aware of the debate which is a long time. B) lying when they say that the upper atmosphere getting cooler proves that the surface temperatures recordings are incorrect. 
 
They are also either negligently ignorant or deliberately lying when they claim that the presence of data collection stations in urban areas automatically invalidates the data being used to determine recent warming trends. The urban data is adjusted and either they should have checked but didn't (negligence) or knew it was but decided not to include that fact (lying by omission).
 
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Herald1234       7/14/2007 9:30:15 AM
Nevertheless, if you have a system with a fixed amount of heat entering the system and some form of heat transport out of the system to a radiator and then reduce the amount of heat transport out of the system to the radiator, the system is going to get hotter and the radiator is going to get cooler.
 
 
In the case of the planet there are several "radiators" heat can potentially radiate directly away from the surface into space. Heat can also be absorbed by the various layers of the atmosphere and then part of that energy can be radiated into space. Other heat can be transported via convection into the upper atmosphere and then radiated into space.
 
All I'm saying is that contrary to what the OISM claims, most models DO NOT show both the upper atmosphere and the surface increasing, they show the temperature of the surface increasing and the temperature of the upper atmosphere decreasing because less heat is getting transported out of the system overall.

Because the Earth surface reflected and the radiant heat meets an impedence (absorption and frequency shift to a LOWER quantum energy state] mechanism. That is why the expected temperature you describe I  EXPECT and why a "greenhouse effect" is not only predictable in light of that data but should be the expected result or there is something fundamentally wrong with  what we think we understand about electromagnetic influence. HEAT is a kinetic component of electromagnetism. If you trap light in the lower atmosphere it is supposed to get HOT. If the gas in the upper atmosphere has less opportunity[fewer atoms per cubic  per cubic centimeter] to interact with the photons streaming through it then it will have less ability to HEAT up. It is less OPAQUE to light[photons] and other forms of particles zipping through it.

Surprising to apparent common sense; it also means it is a lousy heat radiator at altitude as it doesn't have as many possible emission events[atoms] from photon or other particle absorption events per cubic centimeter as it would at sea level. DENSITY matters. You will also find to your distress that certain elements and compounds also are reluctant emitters after they absorb high energy photons, preferring to release the absorbed energy later in such a form as it is locally kinetic with just the right {lower frequency-longer wavelength ) energy to be reabsorbed inn the lower atmospher. Such an element is carbon and so is that pesky compound, carbon-dioxide.

We NEED that reradiant mechanism to work so that the Earth stays stably warm.  A superconductive radiative property in a gas will kill us.

Herald
 
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RockyMTNClimber    IPCC v. Another Perspective   7/14/2007 10:44:19 AM

I apologize for clicking and pasting here but I do not want to substitute the good professor's words. He makes a case for more research and some moderation in the tone ot the rhetoric surounding the global warming debate. Dr. Scott is an Emeritus Professor at the University of London. Good scientists are reviewing and debating within their own circles about this topic. The "evidence" is not in and the jury has not even been seated yet.

Check Six
Rocky

The article may be viewed at: ht***tp://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=2938762&page=1

 

Global Warming Is Not a Crisis

Debate: Time to Sound the Alarm Bells?

 
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RockyMTNClimber    CO2 & Temperature   7/14/2007 11:08:55 AM
 
Jeff points out above that there appears to be a connection on the graphs posted between the rising CO-2 levels and the measured temperature of the earth. Jeff is not the only one who has noticed that the relationship does not seem to hold together despite the dramatic increase of CO-2 in the atmosphere in the last century. Dr. Richard Linzen, MIT scientist also pointed out the all too casual relationship that CO-2 levels appear to have on the measured temperatures in a July of 2006 Wallstreet Journal Opinion Journal article. Quoting from the Doctor's article:
 
ht***tp://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008597

"There is also little disagreement that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have risen from about 280 parts per million by volume in the 19th century to about 387 ppmv today. Finally, there has been no question whatever that carbon dioxide is an infrared absorber (i.e., a greenhouse gas--albeit a minor one), and its increase should theoretically contribute to warming. Indeed, if all else were kept equal, the increase in carbon dioxide should have led to somewhat more warming than has been observed, assuming that the small observed increase was in fact due to increasing carbon dioxide rather than a natural fluctuation in the climate system. Although no cause for alarm rests on this issue, there has been an intense effort to claim that the theoretically expected contribution from additional carbon dioxide has actually been detected.

Given that we do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change, this task is currently impossible. Nevertheless there has been a persistent effort to suggest otherwise, and with surprising impact. Thus, although the conflicted state of the affair was accurately presented in the 1996 text of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the infamous "summary for policy makers" reported ambiguously that "The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." This sufficed as the smoking gun for Kyoto.

The next IPCC report again described the problems surrounding what has become known as the attribution issue: that is, to explain what mechanisms are responsible for observed changes in climate. Some deployed the lassitude argument--e.g., we can't think of an alternative--to support human attribution. But the "summary for policy makers" claimed in a manner largely unrelated to the actual text of the report that "In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations."....."
 
"...Even more recently, the Climate Change Science Program, the Bush administration's coordinating agency for global-warming research, declared it had found "clear evidence of human influences on the climate system." This, for Mr. Easterbrook, meant: "Case closed." What exactly was this evidence? The models imply that greenhouse warming should impact atmospheric temperatures more than surface temperatures, and yet satellite data showed no warming in the atmosphere since 1979. The report showed that selective corrections to the atmospheric data could lead to some warming, thus reducing the conflict between observations and models descriptions of what greenhouse warming should look like. That, to me, means the case is still very much open." ..."
 
What Doctor Linzen points out to us is the obvious. The climate models are not adequate to predict global temperatures and should not be relied upon to set policy.  There remains no evidence that man is influencing the global temperature, ZIP.
 
Check Six
 
Rocky
 
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Herald1234       7/14/2007 11:30:50 AM
Plain language explanation.

http://andrew.cmu.edu/user/golan/datavis/img/maps/datavis_earth_at_night.jpg">

Human footprint on the range.

That energy[waste heat] has to go SOMEWHERE.

If it is infrared radiation, the Earth's atmosphere traps it by absorption in the troposphere. We've known that since 1898.

Herald

 
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