re: Media rushes to remind everyone that 1 extremely cold event doesn't debunk global warming

And you rush to complain about the media. Congrats. You were first

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If you are going to make a bold claim and demand trillions of dollars in mitigation efforts from the world economy, you better be well past just making a coherent claim or just having a model that says so.

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No one is saying one model and a decent hypothesis is enough.

We know how greenhouse gases work. We know even modest increases in CO2 concentration traps more heat. We have model after model, as imperfect as they are, showing sea level rise and potentially more drought and high precip events. Maybe it's not time to throw trillions at a problem we don't know the full extent of and the exact impact of rising CO2 concentrations to temperature, but getting to a point to start talking a gameplan and additional research dollars to carbon capture/transformation (CO2 + some non-fossil fuel energy = liquid fuel type deal), modeling, and let's say modern nuclear power isn't a bad idea based on the evidence presented.

It's not like it's politically or economically viable for developing economies to just cut fossil fuel consumption, we're going to have to lead the way on technological solutions and we're going to need to think about who and what might need to be relocated in the future assuming the sea level rise keeps on going.

There's a lot of room between throw trillions at it now and do nothing.

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I am skeptical how much impact we can really have because all human CO2 emissions amount to something like 0.1% of the global greenhouse gas total.

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It's a trace gas, but it's the most abundant trace gas by a long shot. Of all the trace gases, CO2 makes up around 94% of them ( NCSU Climate Office - Atmospheric Comp). I'll note, water vapor isn't included in these numbers since it varies from location to location and due to seasonal differences and makes up a much bigger chunk than all the trace gases combined.

Taking NOAA's CO2 concentration from around 1960 - 2010 (pulled off a graph, the numbers are going to be rough), there's been about a 77 ppm increase at the Mauna Loa observatory. Trend is pretty much linear, and with the AMO going negative through a large chunk of that time, it's hard to argue that's just a result of higher ocean temps.

So we're talking a roughly (very rough) 20% increase in 50 years, in the most abundant greenhouse gas that doesn't have it's concentrations tied to temperature and pressure considerations. It might be some 10x smaller of concentration vs water vapor overall, and the result of what humans have put into the air around 50x smaller. That's still far greater than 0.1% of all greenhouse gases.

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In light of the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation, it is possible that in 10 more years we are going to be in the midst of global cooling like we saw in the 70s. The start of the global warming hype has coincided with the warm stage of the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation, and we might be on the tail end of that warm cycle.

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Granted, it's perfectly reasonable to suggest the extent of the current observed warming looks exaggerated considering the positive phase of the AMO. Just like 2016 jumps out as the warmest on record thanks to the big El Nino. That being said, it doesn't seem to track the temperature record overall.



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I wouldn't try to publish this in a paper or anything, but not a great correlation. Just looking at the 1990s with the AMO firmly lower and global temperatures increasing.



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CO2 concentration tracks better (though not pulling a R^2 = 1 or anything).

Look, I'm not dismissing factors like the AMO on temperature. I'm just noting it doesn't really explain the temperature trend that well. It's never one factor when you're dealing with such a complex system. It's hard to ignore the correlation of temperature to increasing CO2 levels, especially when there's not something else to explain it and the fact we know more CO2 will yield higher temperatures. The extent, that's worth discussion. The potential impacts even more so since it's model forecasted. What I don't see is how to explain the warming trend without a decent contribution from human emissions of CO2.

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Climate Change is very real, and it's a very real problem, and you're stupid to think otherwise.

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Great argument, you changed my mind.

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It’s climate change and it’s pretty indisputable.

However, the cause is disputable.

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It is pretty well documented that bovinopromorphic flatulence is corelated to polar bears drowning from a lack of sea ice.

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It’s climate change and it’s pretty indisputable. 

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When has the climate not changed?

It's what the climate does. Ice ages, warming periods, repeat.

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But you idiots on both sides keep treating it like a political team sport

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Exactly. The first casualty in war is the truth and this is a political war. I'm sure there is some objective science on this somewhere but it's become completely obscured in the shrapnel and clouds of smoke. Neither side is interested in what is actually happening.

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“The basics — it’s getting warmer on average, there are more anomalous highs than anomalous lows and there is more intense rainfall — covers 90 percent of the cases,” Schmidt said.

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My suggestion is to just ignore the media. Really, JUST IGNORE THE MEDIA.

MSM pushing their extreme socialist agenda.