10-27-2004, 03:40 AM
Why do I get into these? Anyway, yeah I'm convinced global warming is happening. I am not convinced that man has had anything at all to do with it.
First we don't have a lot of actual reliable temperature data. 40 or 50 years is nothing on a geological scale. So we go based on other geological records (ice cores from glaciers and other stuff I don't know enough about). This data as best as we can tell shows a very cyclical pattern to the climate (not weather, climate). There are periods in the Earths history where it was much hotter than now and periods where it was much cooler. Some scientists even believe that we are still not fully out of the last ice age and that the average temperature still needs to go up a few degrees before we even get back to normal.
I've read about and seen several models that chew up a lot of time on supercomputers and fit the data we have nicely. When you heavily weight (i.e. overestimate) the effect of what man has done, they show that what man has done hasn't done much at all. That all the global warming is pretty much just what is happening, man accounts for at most a degree or two of average temp (which yes, is significant, but when you expect 5 to 10 degrees of change it isn't as significant as some think). I believe this side of the science, the support for it is stronger in my mind.
Of course the opposite has been shown. Many people believe that man has a huge effect. Again, I don't, given what we can tell from the millions of years of history and the patterns that were shown then.
Now, do I think we should be controlling what we do to the environment, yes. I would like to see us minimize the output of greenhouse gasses and other minimize other temperature effecting behaviors. But it isn't out of a concern for global warming, it is out of a concern for other factors one of which is a desire for "cleaner" energy usage.
As for my personal oberservations. This has been one of the coolest, temperature wise, summers that I remember. The last 2 winters have been pretty much average. The warmest winter I remember was in the 80's, as I was out barefoot on Christmas in Wisconsin since it was in the 70's, the rest of the winter was rather mild as well. The coldest winter I remember was also in the 80's as well. Every year has had something wacky with it. Of course without really having kept good data, and with how skewed past perception can get, I don't really trust any of that. So, six one way , half a dozen the other.
First we don't have a lot of actual reliable temperature data. 40 or 50 years is nothing on a geological scale. So we go based on other geological records (ice cores from glaciers and other stuff I don't know enough about). This data as best as we can tell shows a very cyclical pattern to the climate (not weather, climate). There are periods in the Earths history where it was much hotter than now and periods where it was much cooler. Some scientists even believe that we are still not fully out of the last ice age and that the average temperature still needs to go up a few degrees before we even get back to normal.
I've read about and seen several models that chew up a lot of time on supercomputers and fit the data we have nicely. When you heavily weight (i.e. overestimate) the effect of what man has done, they show that what man has done hasn't done much at all. That all the global warming is pretty much just what is happening, man accounts for at most a degree or two of average temp (which yes, is significant, but when you expect 5 to 10 degrees of change it isn't as significant as some think). I believe this side of the science, the support for it is stronger in my mind.
Of course the opposite has been shown. Many people believe that man has a huge effect. Again, I don't, given what we can tell from the millions of years of history and the patterns that were shown then.
Now, do I think we should be controlling what we do to the environment, yes. I would like to see us minimize the output of greenhouse gasses and other minimize other temperature effecting behaviors. But it isn't out of a concern for global warming, it is out of a concern for other factors one of which is a desire for "cleaner" energy usage.
As for my personal oberservations. This has been one of the coolest, temperature wise, summers that I remember. The last 2 winters have been pretty much average. The warmest winter I remember was in the 80's, as I was out barefoot on Christmas in Wisconsin since it was in the 70's, the rest of the winter was rather mild as well. The coldest winter I remember was also in the 80's as well. Every year has had something wacky with it. Of course without really having kept good data, and with how skewed past perception can get, I don't really trust any of that. So, six one way , half a dozen the other.
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.