Global Warming Is Real

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[font="georgia, times new roman, times, serif"][color="#000000"]Richard A. Muller is a very respected physicist from Berkely. He's also famous as one of the very few real scientists who has any real doubt that global warming is real and human caused. Or at least he was. I remember reading a while ago in a WSJ editorial where he admitted that his program had definitively demonstrated that global warming was real but he refused to speculate as to what role, if any, humans played in the phenomena. But now his research is completely and even he can't deny that the evidence for human caused global warming. What. A. Shock. This would almost imply that there isn't actually a massive and global conspiracy to trick the God-fearing Americans into believing in global warming because scientists hate SUVs.[/color][/font]

[b] [i][size=4]The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic[/size][/i][/b]


[b] [i][size=4]By RICHARD A. MULLER[/size][/i][/b]

[b] [i][size=4]Published: July 28, 2012[/size][/i][/b]
[color=#000000][font=georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif][size=1]
[i][size=4]CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.[/size][/i][/size][/font][/color][color=#000000][font=georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif][size=1]
[i][size=4]My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the [url="http://berkeleyearth.org/"]Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature[/url] project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases.[/size][/i][/size][/font][/color][color=#000000][font=georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif][size=1]
[i][size=4]These findings are stronger than those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations group that defines the scientific and diplomatic consensus on global warming. In its 2007 report, the I.P.C.C. concluded only that most of the warming of the prior 50 years could be attributed to humans. It was possible, according to the I.P.C.C. consensus statement, that the warming before 1956 could be because of changes in solar activity, and that even a substantial part of the more recent warming could be natural.[/size][/i][/size][/font][/color][color=#000000][font=georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif][size=1]
[i][size=4]Our Berkeley Earth approach used sophisticated statistical methods developed largely by our lead scientist, Robert Rohde, which allowed us to determine earth land temperature much further back in time. We carefully studied issues raised by skeptics: biases from urban heating (we duplicated our results using rural data alone), from data selection (prior groups selected fewer than 20 percent of the available temperature stations; we used virtually 100 percent), from poor station quality (we separately analyzed good stations and poor ones) and from human intervention and data adjustment (our work is completely automated and hands-off). In our papers we demonstrate that none of these potentially troublesome effects unduly biased our conclusions.[/size][/i][/size][/font][/color][color=#000000][font=georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif][size=1]
[i][size=4]The historic temperature pattern we observed has abrupt dips that match the emissions of known explosive volcanic eruptions; the particulates from such events reflect sunlight, make for beautiful sunsets and razzle dazzle the earth’s surface for a few years. There are small, rapid variations attributable to El Niño and other ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream; because of such oscillations, the “flattening” of the recent temperature rise that some people claim is not, in our view, statistically significant. What has caused the gradual but systematic rise of two and a half degrees? We tried fitting the shape to simple math functions (exponentials, polynomials), to solar activity and even to rising functions like world population. By far the best match was to the record of atmospheric carbon dioxide, measured from atmospheric samples and air trapped in polar ice.[/size][/i][/size][/font][/color][color=#000000][font=georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif][size=1]
[i][size=4]Just as important, our record is long enough that we could search for the fingerprint of solar variability, based on the historical record of sunspots. That fingerprint is absent. Although the I.P.C.C. allowed for the possibility that variations in sunlight could have ended the “Little Ice Age,” a period of cooling from the 14th century to about 1850, our data argues strongly that the temperature rise of the past 250 years cannot be attributed to solar changes. This conclusion is, in retrospect, not too surprising; we’ve learned from satellite measurements that solar activity changes the brightness of the sun very little.[/size][/i][/size][/font][/color][color=#000000][font=georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif][size=1]
[i][size=4]How definite is the attribution to humans? The carbon dioxide curve gives a better match than anything else we’ve tried. Its magnitude is consistent with the calculated greenhouse effect — extra warming from trapped heat radiation. These facts don’t prove causality and they shouldn’t end skepticism, but they raise the bar: to be considered seriously, an alternative explanation must match the data at least as well as carbon dioxide does. Adding methane, a second greenhouse gas, to our analysis doesn’t change the results. Moreover, our analysis does not depend on large, complex global climate models, the huge computer programs that are notorious for their hidden assumptions and adjustable parameters. Our result is based simply on the close agreement between the shape of the observed temperature rise and the known greenhouse gas increase.[/size][/i][/size][/font][/color]
[color=#000000][font=georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif][size=1][left][i][size=4]It’s a scientist’s duty to be properly skeptical. I still find that much, if not most, of what is attributed to climate change is speculative, exaggerated or just plain wrong. I’ve analyzed some of the most alarmist claims, and my skepticism about them hasn’t changed.[/size][/i][/left][/size][/font][/color]
[color=#000000][font=georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif][size=1][left][i][size=4]Hurricane Katrina cannot be attributed to global warming. The number of hurricanes hitting the United States has been going down, not up; likewise for intense tornadoes. Polar bears aren’t dying from receding ice, and the Himalayan glaciers aren’t going to melt by 2035. And it’s possible that we are currently no warmer than we were a thousand years ago, during the “Medieval Warm Period” or “Medieval Optimum,” an interval of warm conditions known from historical records and indirect evidence like tree rings. And the recent warm spell in the United States happens to be more than offset by cooling elsewhere in the world, so its link to “global” warming is weaker than tenuous.[/size][/i][/left][/size][/font][/color]
[color=#000000][font=georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif][size=1][left][i][size=4]The careful analysis by our team is laid out in five scientific papers now online at[url="http://berkeleyearth.org/"]BerkeleyEarth.org[/url]. That site also shows our chart of temperature from 1753 to the present, with its clear fingerprint of volcanoes and carbon dioxide, but containing no component that matches solar activity. Four of our papers have undergone extensive scrutiny by the scientific community, and the newest, a paper with the analysis of the human component, is now posted, along with the data and computer programs used. Such transparency is the heart of the scientific method; if you find our conclusions implausible, tell us of any errors of data or analysis.[/size][/i][/left][/size][/font][/color]
[color=#000000][font=georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif][size=1][left][i][size=4]What about the future? As carbon dioxide emissions increase, the temperature should continue to rise. I expect the rate of warming to proceed at a steady pace, about one and a half degrees over land in the next 50 years, less if the oceans are included. But if China continues its rapid economic growth (it has averaged 10 percent per year over the last 20 years) and its vast use of coal (it typically adds one new gigawatt per month), then that same warming could take place in less than 20 years.[/size][/i][/left][/size][/font][/color]
[color=#000000][font=georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif][size=1][left][i][size=4]Science is that narrow realm of knowledge that, in principle, is universally accepted. I embarked on this analysis to answer questions that, to my mind, had not been answered. I hope that the Berkeley Earth analysis will help settle the scientific debate regarding global warming and its human causes. Then comes the difficult part: agreeing across the political and diplomatic spectrum about what can and should be done.[/size][/i][/left][/size][/font][/color]

[cmotherofpirl]

Climate change is real, global warming not so much, because currently the earth is COOLING: [url="http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/05/31/sorry-global-warming-alarmists-the-earth-is-cooling/"]http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/05/31/sorry-global-warming-alarmists-the-earth-is-cooling/[/url]

[Anomaly]

Interesting, but
1- He's from Berkely, so he's probaly intoxicated on THC.
2- It's supporting him and his daughter. A good gig.
3- He hasn't included much ocean temperature data.
4- A little too heavy on coorelation to conclude causation.
5- Posted by Hasan, whose observed behavior is decidedly trollish.

[4588686]

[quote name='Anomaly' timestamp='1343663868' post='2460241']
Interesting, but
1- He's from Berkely, so he's probaly intoxicated on THC.[/QUOTE]

You're not stupid.

[QUOTE]2- It's supporting him and his daughter. A good gig.[/QUOTE]

And it's funded in large part by the Koch Foundation. You're argument, besides being technically invalid, is also practically ridiculous.
[QUOTE]3- He hasn't included much ocean temperature data.
4- A little too heavy on coorelation to conclude causation.
5- Posted by Hasan, whose observed behavior is decidedly trollish.
[/quote]

Blah blah blah. This is typical of deniers. Full of kicking up dust with no substance. If you have an actual critique of the study's methodology or then let's see it. Right now your throwing up dust in the form of vague potential criticisms of a dumbed-down newspaper summary.

[url="http://berkeleyearth.org/results-summary/"]http://berkeleyearth...esults-summary/[/url]

Edited July 30, 2012 by Hasan

[4588686]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' timestamp='1343663854' post='2460240']
Climate change is real, global warming not so much, because currently the earth is COOLING: [url="http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/05/31/sorry-global-warming-alarmists-the-earth-is-cooling/"]http://www.forbes.co...rth-is-cooling/[/url]
[/quote]
No, it is not. Easterbook is a real scientist, but his views do not represent the scientific consensus on this issue. And the study, by a prominent skeptic and funded by the Koch Foundation, was intended to address the few holdouts left in the scientific community. As any one who doesn't have a vested interest in the overwhelming consensus being wrong might have guessed, the evidence demonstrates pretty definitely that the climate, on aggregate and over time, is getting warmer.

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1343664706' post='2460245']
Blah blah blah.
[/quote]

Your face!!

[4588686]

[quote name='HisChildForever' timestamp='1343665893' post='2460253']
Your face!!
[/quote]

You win this round. But I'll be back. I always come back.

[HisChildForever]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1343666279' post='2460254']
You win this round. But I'll be back. I always come back.
[/quote]

[sixpence]

Come on now... the phrase been "climate change" since at least 2007.

[arfink]

What I find troubling (and perhaps this is just because of the scope of the article) is that little mention is given to how we can determine what amount of our known CO2 increase is from humans and what isn't. I'm quite sure that burning gigawatts worth of coal does produce a large amount of CO2, but how does it compare to other sources of CO2 on the planet?

I think the thing that bugs me the most, and which I can see bugs this scientist also, is the fact that global warming's science is used to support really stupid ideas that are not scientifically based or even grounded in common sense. I am concerned that many people assume that life on Earth will be utterly incapable of adapting to a few degrees worth of temperature difference. I'm not at all convinced that is the case.

Finally, I am concerned that so much energy gets spent on counter-productive and extremely expensive "fixes" to this problem instead of focusing on the easiest way to deal with the problem: eliminate coal-fired electricity production by replacing it with something more efficient. Higher efficiency is the only way to deal with this. You cannot expect the world to cut electricity consumption far enough to just not need coal any more. We need to find ways to *replace* coal.

Solar and wind simply cannot ever replace coal on their own. They are not "always on" and providing baseline power would be impossible. Peak power production from such energy sources would need to be wasted without proper storage, which would be economically infeasible for a global scale. It's quite simply impossible. We have a great many other options that do not produce huge amounts of CO2 which can also produce practical quantities of electricity. Why aren't people implementing them?

[4588686]

[quote name='arfink' timestamp='1343667343' post='2460263']


I think the thing that bugs me the most, and which I can see bugs this scientist also, is the fact that global warming's science is used to support really stupid ideas that are not scientifically based or even grounded in common sense. I am concerned that many people assume that life on Earth will be utterly incapable of adapting to a few degrees worth of temperature difference. I'm not at all convinced that is the case.[/QUOTE]

I don't know exactly what you mean here but if you're talking about how people attribute a warm winter and particularly hot summer like this past year to climate change then I agree. As to the few degrees. Of course life on earth will not be destroyed but a few degree rise. But those few degrees can cause serious global catastrophe depending on where we are talking about. If 20 million people in Bangaladesh get displaced by climate change, as may very well happen, then that is going to be a huge issue. A massive issue. And that is just one region (albeit a particularly extreme case of climate change's impact on humanity). Droughts. Water wars. These are all things that will probably be severely exacerbated by climate change. That's not for sure. We're just talking in probabilities. But having a serious discussion on the cost benefit analysis of halting climate change, or more realistically, the degree to which we are willing to stop it, is a very different one from pretending that climate change is not occurring and that humans are not the cause.

[QUOTE]Finally, I am concerned that so much energy gets spent on counter-productive and extremely expensive "fixes" to this problem instead of focusing on the easiest way to deal with the problem: eliminate coal-fired electricity production by replacing it with something more efficient. Higher efficiency is the only way to deal with this. You cannot expect the world to cut electricity consumption far enough to just not need coal any more. We need to find ways to *replace* coal.
[/quote]

We do. But that's not going to happen if people just full stop pretend that burning vast amounts of coal isn't a serious problem.

[arfink]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1343667863' post='2460265']
But having a serious discussion on the cost benefit analysis of halting climate change, or more realistically, the degree to which we are willing to stop it
[/quote]

That is what I am talking about.

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1343664706' post='2460245']
You're not stupid.

Please don't overestimate my cerebral functions. But still a good Berekley joke.[/quote]



[quote]And it's funded in large part by the Koch Foundation. You're argument, besides being technically invalid, is also practically ridiculous.[/quote]

I read that and never thought they self-funded or did it for free. See, somebody is paying him and his kids expenses. Still a nice gig. Especially how he qualifies his study as a work in progress and would like more funds to continue. I do like aspects and approach, generally. Great appeal to a number of fund contributors. Not necessarily bad, but not completely altruistic.




[quote]Blah blah blah. This is typical of deniers. Full of kicking up dust with no substance. If you have an actual critique of the study's methodology or then let's see it. Right now your throwing up dust in the form of vague potential criticisms of a dumbed-down newspaper summary. [/quote]

I'm not denying anything. I read the article, visited their site, read part of their study, and read theirFAQ. He is pretty open and clear a out not having ocean data and raises questions himself regarding co2 and causation.
Blah blah blah my Johnsonville brat. I'm not smart enough to need to respond with a substantive critique of his methodology unless my sixth grade science teacher fills out the form so I can peer review.
[quote]
[url="http://berkeleyearth.org/results-summary/"]http://berkeleyearth...esults-summary/[/url] [/quote]
Did you visit this site too?

Edited July 30, 2012 by Anomaly

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1343665582' post='2460252']
No, it is not. Easterbook is a real scientist, but his views do not represent the scientific consensus on this issue. And the study, by a prominent skeptic and funded by the Koch Foundation, was intended to address the few holdouts left in the scientific community. As any one who doesn't have a vested interest in the overwhelming consensus being wrong might have guessed, the evidence demonstrates pretty definitely that the climate, on aggregate and over time, is getting warmer.
[/quote]Except for the fact the data says it is cooling....

[fides' Jack]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' timestamp='1343663854' post='2460240']
Climate change is real, global warming not so much, because currently the earth is COOLING: [url="http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/05/31/sorry-global-warming-alarmists-the-earth-is-cooling/"]http://www.forbes.co...rth-is-cooling/[/url]
[/quote]

Thanks for the link! Very informative.