On Jun 25, 4:19 am, "Reginald P. Smithers III"
wrote:
Chuck Gould wrote:
On Jun 24, 11:22?am, "Calif Bill" wrote:
"Chuck Gould" wrote in message
roups.com...
On Jun 22, 2:31?pm, Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
Temps in the low '60s, reasonable humidity, winds NNW at 10,
occasional rain showers...
Man, this Global Warming is wonderful!
Heh, heh, heh...
Just got back from Alaska.
On one leg of our cruise ship vacation we motored up Endicott Arm,
(east of Juneau) and got up fairly close to the Daws glacier. (Got to
hand it to the Captain, I would never have thought anybody would
attempt to run a vessel of that size up through a snakey fjord filled
with ice bergs, but he did).
A lot of the passengers on this cruise seemed to hail from the south
and the midwest. Every time a whale would spout or somebody would spot
an eagle, a dolphin, etc there would be a chorus of oohs and aahs and
cameras would be snapping madly. (The scenery was a lot like Puget
Sound or SW BC, only a lot less populated, so it wasn't quite as
stunning or surprising for residents of the Pacific NW).
While stopped in sight of the glacier, one of the ship's Norwegian
officers gave a lecture over the PA system about glaciers. How they
form, why they're blue at the bottom, how many there are, etc.
Everybody listened with at least moderate interest until the officer
began mentioning the number of glaciers that have retreated
substantially or disappeared in Glacier National Park during the last
several years. You would have thought he had announced, "We support
Hillary for president." The crowd got pretty lippy. Comments like "Who
the hell is up on the bridge, Al Gore?" (and some worse) were
frequently heard. It was pretty obvious that the negative reaction was
*political*, not scientific.
The telling moment, for me, occured when the officer mentioned that
"as recently as 10,000 years ago much of the earth was covered by a
sheet of ice." Once person standing immediately behind me grumbled
"Not according to the Bible!", and another bystander confirmed that
sentiment by stating, "I guess it all depends on what you believe."
Indeed. As always, a solid belief or disbelief is unlikely to be
swayed by anything as trivial as actual evidence- on either side of
the question.
What was interesting was the Eagle Glacier outside Seward, AK. There are
markers as you hike the trail to the glacier of where the face was over the
years. From 1917-1926 was the major retreat. Maybe 300 yards. Tells me it
is not all mankinds fault.- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
It's normal for individual glaciers to advance and retreat. Always has
been, for millions of years.
What is so unusual about current global climate conditions is that
nearly all glaciers are receding at once. Many are disappearing
entirely, and no new glaciers are appearing to take their place Yes,
there *are* exceptions to the prevailing conditions of glacial
retreat, just enough to prove the rule.
I don't know how much of it, if any, is mankind's fault--- but the
results will definitely be mankind's problem. Nobody is well served by
side-tracking this scientific concern into an "us vs. them" political
snot fight. If things come down as they well might, nobody is going to
be spared the consequences simply because he or she voted for the
prevailing candidate in the most recent election.
Chuck,
I was following up on SWF's statement that 50% of scientist did not
believe that there was Global Warming. I thought it was the opinion of
the vast majority of climatologist that global warming was a fact, and
the only controversy was the cause of global warming. I found this
interesting article on the "Global Warming Controversy". It seemed to
be a fairly unbiased review of the differences of opinion. There seems
to be more scientist than i realized who question the accuracy of the
statistics concerning global warming in relationship to historical data.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_...g_controversy- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
We can't possibly be reading the same article.
Lead statement in the item you linked:
"The existence of a rise in average temperatures since the mid-19th
century is not disputed. The controversy focuses on the specific
causes of the recent warming, and concentrates on the warming after
World War II; the likelihood and magnitude of future warming; and
whether additional warming would be harmful or beneficial."
****
Another statement in the item you linked (under Scientific Concensus)
"The American Association of Petroleum Geologists is the only
scientific society that rejects the predominant opinion.[19][20]"
*************************
And then there's this account of a person who reviewed 928 scientific
opinions on the subject, was initially rebuked by another reviewer,
and how the rebuking reviewer has apparently backed off once the
desired publicity and talking points were generated:
(The supposed de-bunker retreated to a position stating, "Yes there is
a overwhelming majority of scientists in agreement on globl warming
issues, but it is far from unanimous".... When was the last time,
except in a murder trial, that *everybody* had to agree before the
position of the majority could be found credible?)
From your site:
"A 2004 essay by Naomi Oreskes in the journal Science reported a
survey of abstracts of peer-reviewed papers related to global climate
change in the ISI database.[21]. Oreskes said:
Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by
controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major
uncertainties in the science. Such statements suggest that there might
be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the
reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case. The
scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Oreskes stated that of the 928 abstracts analyzed, "Remarkably, none
of the papers disagreed with the consensus position". Benny Peiser
claimed to have found flaws in her work, writing
" Oreskes, a professor of history, claims to have analyzed 928
abstracts on global climate change, of which 75% either explicitly or
implicitly accept the view that most of the recent warming trend is
man-made. When I checked the same set of abstracts [plus an additional
two hundred found in the same ISI data bank], I discovered that just
over a dozen explicitly endorse the "consensus," while the vast
majority of abstracts does not mention anthropogenic global warming.
[22] "
In order to include only "hard science" papers rather than opinion
pieces or editorials, Oreskes excluded the Social Sciences Citation
Index and the Arts & Humanities Citation Index and set the search to
include only Articles, while Peiser searched for all document types in
all indices,[23][24] and the interpretation of the remaining parts of
his attempted refutation is further disputed.[25] In a later op-ed
piece in Canada's National Post, Peiser makes no further reference to
his review [26].
Peiser also stated:
" ...the overwhelming majority of climatologists is agreed that the
current warming period is mostly due to human impact. However, this
majority consensus is far from unanimous.[24]"
************************************************** *************************
According to the site you linked, your initial impression that most
scientists are in general agreement about global warming is probably
more accurate than a revised impression that the scientific ranks are
split 50-50 or so on this issue. Unless, of course, 50% of the
scientists belong to the American Association of Petroleum
Geologists. :-)