From: session@seq.uncwil.edu (Zack C. Sessions)
Subject: Re: Global Warming, again (was Re: Media bias)
Keywords: bias
Organization: Univ. of North Carolina @ Wilmington
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 04:16:34 GMT

kjun@typhoon.atmos.colostate.edu (Pat Fitzpatrick) writes:

||The graphs CLEARLY show a warming trend, an increase of about 0.5 degrees
||Centagrade. Granted, 0.5 degrees C isn't a whole hell of a lot, but it
||only takes a few degrees of increase of average temperature to influence
||global weather patterns, and thus global climate.
||
||The graph also shows that the increase is increasing. The data also shows
||that the 1980s was the hottest decade on record and that 1990 (and since then
||1991) were the hottest years on record.
||
||Yes, I can unequivocably say the Earth is warming.
|
|Atmospheric scientists do not share your optimism (er, pessimism)

Umm, pardon me. Do you care to cite some evidence of this claim?

I am not exhibitting either optimism or pessimisim. I am merely quoting the
evidence printed in respected scientific journals. Generate your own
optimism (or pessimism) yourself, based on the REAL data.

|"Warming" has been below the minimum predicted -- and within - the expected
|range as the world recovers from the "little ice age" that bottomed out 200
|years ago. Most warming has been in the Southern Hemisphere. Northern daytime
|temperatures are falling!

Below the level predicted is welcome news. However it IS on an upward
trend. Daytime vs. nightime temps is a non-issue.

|Nor do carbon dioxide levels explain the temperature record. Nearly all the
|warming occurred before 1940, when human-generated CO2 was 25% of what it is 
|today. From 1938 until 1976, temperatures dropped damatically as CO2
|emissions skyrocketed.

Sorry, you are not reading the graph very well. It shows that global temps
flucuated with a slight upward trend from 1856 to 1920, but since 1920
they have virtually skyrocketed, to use your term.

|The global warming theory  remains popular not because it is supported by
|evidence, but because it is simple. By contrast, weather -- and thus the many
|factors climate models fail to understand - is complex. It is easier to 
|understand how the theory might be true than to perceive why it is false.

You do not appear to understand the difference between meteorlogy (weather
forcasting) and climatology (long range foregcasting).

|You see, Zack, you are thinking linear. This is the mistake most people
|without a science background make. Actually, weather (and life in general)
|is nonlinear. If the weather was linear, we could predict the weather to
|infinity. If life was linear, we could predict the stock market, people's
|emotions, etc...

We are not predicting weather, we are predicing long range climate changes.
There IS a difference.

fwiw, my background is NOT "without science". It is is ALL science.

|It is difficult to explain the concept of nonlinearity to someone without a
|science and math background (I warned you, Zack -- you are in over your head)
|but I wil try. Say you have a current of water. Place a balloon containing
|a liquid of lighter density so that it floats, and watch what happens. It will
|wiggle off to some direction. Try it again, but this time it will wiggle off
|in another direction. You can try this as much as you want, but you will
|never be able to duplicate the same pattern.

Let me remind you, I was formerly a Math/Physics double major with a darn
goor GPA, up to the juniour level. I am NOT without a math an science
background. This is the SECOND time you have made such an accusation without
basis. Please backup your assertions! I am not "over my head". You are not
"over my head". Make some SPECIFIC statements rather than general
accusations!

(btw, I know what what "Brownian Motion" is, yes I have also taken a year
of college level chemistry.)

|A conference was held here at CSU in May in which hundreds of atmospheric
|scientists attended. Of course there are lots of disagreements about
|various theories among them, including Global Warming. However, during
|one of the open forums, the question was posed:
|
|"How many here think, without a doubt, that global warming is occurring?"
|
|NOT ONE PERSON RAISED THEIR HAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
|
|So you see, Zack, the top atmospheric scientists do not share your view.

First, you are being very arrogant to think that the conference was atteneded
by "the top atmospheric" scientists. Also, the question posed was extremely
limited in its scope. If you want some cites as to surveys of REAL top
atmosperhic scinetists, let me know, I have them. [Do you read
sci.environment? You really should.]

|Finally, about Science magazine. you are right, this is one of the better
|science magazine for laymen. However, for real insight on Global Warming,
|I challenge you to read these journals instead:
|
|1) Bulletin of the AMerican Meteorological Society
|2) Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences
|3) Monthly Weather Review
|
|These will show the true complexity of the theory, not little blurbs
|present in typical peasant magazines and newspapers.
|
|Good hunting!

Science is a "typical peasant magazine"? GET REAL!! It is THE magazine for
scientific issues. #1 and #3 are metoerological in nature and this have
not credibility in the global warming issue as it is a CLIMATOLOGY issue.
-- 
Zack Sessions
sessions@seq.uncwil.edu
University of North Carolina at Wilmington
"Good health is merely the slowest form of dying."
Xref: sparky alt.activism.d:2401 alt.rush-limbaugh:2913 talk.politics.misc:34927