Sunday May 27, 2012

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  • 0

    mareo2

    Two words: "hottest summer"

  • 0

    some14some

    Non-existent, capitalists conspiracy.

  • 0

    jinjapan

    i voted i don't know. although it seems as if there is global warming going on, it's difficult to say it's a "fact". around 1 billion automobiles. motorcycles. not to mention the tons of co2 factories spew out by the minute. & the over 1 billion cows gassing away & whatever else emits co2. all this, i would imagine, has some effect on the climate .

  • 0

    Mark_McCracken

    Here's a better question: What percent of global warming has been caused by man?

  • 0

    eigokun

    Humans are fascinated by doomsday stories. We came up with thousands of different ones and global warming is just the latest and popular version.

  • 0

    iowaosakadave

    What horridly worded answers.

  • 0

    nisegaijin

    Except for that temperature have been decreasing gradually since year 2000 or so. One odd hot summer in couple of regions doesn't mean crap. If I am not mistaken, California had one of the coldest summers on the record.

  • 0

    cleo

    Here's a better question: What percent of global warming has been caused by man?

    How is that a better question? Imagine the natural environment is a camel, and all the different factors affecting the environment are loaded onto the camel's back. Even under a full load, the camel somehow manages to keep going, until someone places one more factor - increased greenhouse gases, the last straw - on the camel's back and the poor beast collapses. What percentage of the load contributed to the collapse?

    If things were going OK until we came along and started spewing gases, and those gases tipped the balance, doesn't that make it 100% our fault?

    This poll sounds like it was written by a Creationist; Is evolution just a theory, or a proven set of facts? Well yes it's just a theory, but the evidence is pretty overwhelming.

  • 0

    Stoker

    It's both a theory and a proven set of facts. The word 'theory' doesn't mean 'guess'.

  • 0

    Beelzebub

    The question is should have used the term 'climate change'. Actually a lot of the questions I've seen in JT polls reflect a superficial understanding of the topics on which people's opinions are being asked, and therefore I don't put much stock in the replies.

  • 0

    Sarge

    Mother Nature will heat up or cool down the Earth as she pleases. Humans have to deal with it.

  • 0

    sabiwabi

    Climate has always changed, and will continue to do so. I chose "just a theory", but would have chosen "conspiracy" instead if it was available.

    Here is a good recent video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEmUS7PAWFw

  • 0

    Airion

    Sounds like a poll written by a global warming opponent. "Just" a theory is of course code for false. Meanwhile, no scientist who believes in man-made global warming would call it a set of "proven" "facts." The bar for supporting global warming in this poll is unreasonably, unscientifically, high.

  • 0

    utmost11

    global warming is indeed a conspiracy.

  • 0

    yokohamarider

    Humans can alter the weather? How long has this earth been around? To think that we can determine that we, in this span of 100 years of burning fossil fuels, can alter the weather patterns that have been changing for thousands of years, is ridiculous.

    Al Gore and his ilk are just trying to make money off this notion that we can somehow change the temperature by changing our behavior.

  • 0

    hoserfella

    yokohamarider - I think its safe to expand weather patterns 4.5 billion years, give or take.

  • 0

    Weasel

    Instead of using the word theory - need to use a word more like theorem, as used in mathematics.

  • 0

    iceshoecream

    Proven facts or just a theory that is all irrelevant. The right question to ask if you really think is a fact, or a theory, is "what am I going to(or can) do about it?".

  • 0

    mshimusa

    Why didn't we act earlier if global warming would pose serious threat to man-kind?

  • 0

    lostrune2

    Theory of Relativity, Theory of Evolution, whichever.

    Here are NASA's raw measurements of the whole Earth's average surface temperature every year:

    http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=36699

    http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=42392

    “There’s always an interest in the annual temperature numbers and on a given year’s ranking, but usually that misses the point,” said James Hansen, the director of GISS. “There’s substantial year-to-year variability of global temperature caused by the tropical El Niño-La Niña cycle. But when we average temperature over five or ten years to minimize that variability, we find that global warming is continuing unabated.”

    January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record. Throughout the last three decades, the GISS surface temperature record shows an upward trend of about 0.2°C (0.36°F) per decade. Since 1880, the year that modern scientific instrumentation became available to monitor temperatures precisely, a clear warming trend is present. In total, average global temperatures have increased by about 0.8°C (1.5°F) since 1880.

    The whole Earth is currently on a warming trend** - that's a fact (NASA's measurements were done regardless of political administration, so it's the same for both Democrat presidents and Republican presidents). The causes, partial-causes, or non-causes of that warming trend though are currently theories (though that doesn't mean uneducated, unless ya wanna call Einstein's Theory of Relativity bunk).

    [** Trends don't mean the warmest ever, just the direction where it's going. Earth has geological periods in the past so warm the insects were gigantic.]

  • 0

    Zenny11

    Theory.

    Science states: "That findings will be considered as accurate("fact") till more or new data invalidates them."

    Findings will never give you facts only results/conclusions based on the currently available data.

  • 0

    Loki520

    Yes, those measurements were taken thru various political admin's. But the MANNER of those measurements have been questioned. Unless you are completely, stone-cold, color blind to the facts.... those that oppose the climate change crowd do so based on the flawed science used, not science itself.

    The data has been proven to have been manipulated to achieve a certain outcome. Measurements have been ignored, discounted, actually invented, etc... all to achieve the desired goal. That is NOT science. That's an agenda.

    The worse part is that they MAY be correct, but their methodology has created more doubters.

  • 0

    arrestpaul

    lostrune2 - “There’s always an interest in the annual temperature numbers and on a given year’s ranking, but usually that misses the point,” said James Hansen, the director of GISS. “There’s substantial year-to-year variability of global temperature caused by the tropical El Niño-La Niña cycle. But when we average temperature over five or ten years to minimize that variability, we find that global warming is continuing unabated.”

    Hansen changed from "impartial scientist" status to "activist/zealot" when he was arrested for protesting a nuclear power plant several years ago. NASA's GISS has been found to be a poor recorder of actual global tempuratures. They have malipulate the data to prove their expected results. GISS figures are consistantly higher than other agencies which show that GLOBAL temps peaked in 1998.

    On a GLOBAL basis, higher temps in Japan are offset by lower temps elsewhere. Ice melt at the Arctic is offset by ice increase at the Antarctic. AND looking at 5 or 10 years worth of temps is pointless. Hundreds of years would provide a better look but using thousands of years would be more accurate.

  • 0

    Thinker

    Of course, global warming is a fact. Only humans could affect changes in the earth's temperature whether hotter or colder. Didn't you know we also caused the ice age? In a few months, everyone will be complaining about how cold it is and that Al Gore is an idiot.

  • 0

    glycol57

    The problem with "global warming" theory is that it so quickly moved from the realm of bona-fide science and became a political issue instead. Scientific theories require solid evidence, careful argument, exacting procedure ... but "politics" works more by the rules of debate, where you persuade rather than "prove".

    The art of "persuasion" is one where it's OK to leave out facts that might hurt your cause, skew evidence, draw spurious conclusions, mangle logic, exaggerate one thing while shrinking away something else, even tell lies ... debate is NOT intended to lead to truth, just to get people on your side, get them to back your agenda.

    And so we've seen the "global warming" issue degenerate into absolute nonsense, sporting only the pretense of "science" at this point no matter which side is arguing at the moment. I don't think it's possible to draw the correct conclusions anymore, the issue has become too contaminated.

  • 0

    proudnippon

    not the most eloquently worded choices. Global warming is in no dispute. The causes of global warming however are.

  • 0

    Disillusioned

    Global Warming is a fact and is caused by the ever increasing amount of carbon in the atmosphere trapping the heat, however, it is not to be confused with climate change, which a natural phenomenon brought on by the cyclic changes in weather patterns and ocean currents, which can also be attributed to tectonic plate movement. The oceans control the earth's weather patterns and with the increased average temperature (due to global warming) the melting polar ice caps are disrupting the temperature of the oceanic currents, thus making the peculiar weather patterns of late.

  • 0

    arrestpaul

    Disillusioned - Global Warming is a fact and is caused by the ever increasing amount of carbon in the atmosphere trapping the heat,

    There are 2 heat sources affecting planet Earth. One is the sun and the other is the molten core. Everything else just moves the cold/heat from place to place. Record low and high tempuratures are reached somewhere on this planet every year. The ice caps are increasing in size and the planets GLOBAL tempurature hasn't increased since 1998.

  • 0

    neogreenjapan

    I've sen glaciers in Europe with my bare own eyes how much they have shrunk just in the past 10 years. I was shocked. At this rate all glaciers will be gone sooner or later which would be a great shame.

    I've heard due to all the concrete and the AC in Tokyo, the city temperature rises. Does this have anything to do with global warming?

  • 0

    SamuraiBlue

    @ arrestpaul

    The source of heat is not the problem, it's the increasing insulator known as green house gas that you keep on evading that is the problem. They act like a blanket trapping heat within the atmosphere which rises the temperature.

  • 0

    smithinjapan

    "The ice caps are increasing in size..."

    Classic.

  • 0

    KnowBetter

    Only reason this poll is popping here is due to this year's hotter than normal summer in Japan. Mean while back home I here they had a very normal super NICE summer. Last year it was a bit brutal in July but then again knee jerk reactionaries only look at the last few years. Blame the Sun, Cosmic rays and things far beyond our control for "Global Warming". Blame ourselves for localised smog, bad water, etc. Don't be Al Gore puppets!

  • 0

    Farmboy

    Just answering the question. It's a fact, not a theory, that temperatures are up. It may be a theory what caused it, but not that it's happening. 1998 was a spike, but the trend is up. This isn't about Al Gore, George Bush, or any person, just about thermometers. There was funky data in one instance, but measurements are happening in many places for many years. The globe is hotter. Deal with it.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Satellite_Temperatures.png

  • 0

    Carcharodon

    The sun controls our existence and its not a lightbulb perpetually set at 60w - it fluctuates and a infinitesimally small change for the sun can have massive repercussions for earth, like ice ages. The sun is releasing 100 billion Hydrogen bombs of energy every second, even though only the tiniest smidgen of that energy that reaches earth -one hours worth is more than the total energy generated by human kind in one year. Humans - as impressive as we are, are like a firecracker next to a H-bomb.

    "Global warming" well now that's a curious thing. Whether humans are exacerbating the suns natural cycle, well I guess that analogous to leaning over the side of a speedboat and 'helping to paddle'.

    The most important thing is pollution - not global warming, if pushing this Global warming wagon, helps get pollution under control, gets the sky blue again around the world and fish swimming in the oceans then I can 'go along' with it. The means justifies the end in this case.

  • 0

    arrestpaul

    SamuraiBlue - The source of heat is not the problem, it's the increasing insulator known as green house gas that you keep on evading that is the problem. They act like a blanket trapping heat within the atmosphere which rises the temperature.

    The Earth is not encased in a actual glass greenhouse. There is a greenhouse "effect" that protects this planet from becoming another dead planet like Venus or Mars. That same "greenhouse effect" existed when this planet was a lot hotter and colder than it is today. "GLOBAL warming", as described by the IPCC, is still an unproven theory.

  • 0

    linro

    Well what ever the theory is we still need to clean up but the sun spots are also course for global warming!!

  • 0

    arrestpaul

    Starviking - Really, has the data actually been proven to be manipulated? Or has a well-funded campaign cherry-picked quotes to give the impression of manipulation?

    Yes, it has been proven.

    NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies—known as GISS—was forced to admit it committed an egregious error when it publicly claimed October 2008 was the warmest October in history.

    http://www.heartland.org/publications/environment%20climate/article/24359/WarmestOctoberClaimWasWrongNASAAdmits.html

    This latest episode is not the first time that GISS, under the authority of Hansen, has operated in an opaque manner. In 1999, GISS data showed the 1930s US temperature to be considerably warmer than that of the 1990s. But the current version shows the 1930s adjusted to a much lower level.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/19/nasagisscockup_catalog/

  • 0

    arrestpaul

    smithinjapan at 01:29 PM JST - 7th September

    "The ice caps are increasing in size..."

    Classic.

    And up-to-date. 3rd April 2010 - The amount of sea ice covering the Arctic dramatically increased last month, reaching levels not seen at this time of year for nearly a decade. Returning ice - after years of declining cover - has astonished climate scientists who blamed unusually cold weather over the Bering Sea. Researchers said they recorded the most ice in March since 2001 - and that the cover is approaching long-term average levels for the first time in ten years.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1263207/Increase-Arctic-ice-confounds-doomsayers.html

  • 0

    arrestpaul

    Starviking - first, the greenhouse effect is caused by greenhouse gasses, which we have been pumping into the atmosphere since the dawn of the industrial age.

    There was a huge increase in manufacturing between 1945 and 1972. The GLOBAL tempurature dropped creating the "claims" of an impending ice age.

    Two - no one said the Earth was encased in an actual glass greenhouse.

    Just claifying the issue.

    Three - of course the 'greenhouse effect' has existed for a long time, but the major factor in large climate changes in the past has been changes in the Earth's orbital position - not greenhouse gasses.

    Not greenhouse gasses????? Doesn't that undermine the IPCC claim that man-made CO2, a greenhouse gas, is responsible for GLOBAL warming and climate change?

  • 0

    linro

    Do you consider global warming just a theory or a proven set of facts?

    Just a theory? Ummmm which one?

    A proven set of facts? Ummmmm which

    I don't know? the 2 above

  • 0

    Loki520

    StarViking,

    Yes... it's been proven. And NOT only massaged by Hansen, but by others as well.

    CRU tosses out valid 5 Sigma data, making it appear warmer (on the average) than it actually is.

    GISS has changed past years temp data. If the data was wrong in 1998, all datasets using that data, which is all of them, are also wrong.

    NOAA/NCDC has had seriously bad issues with the quality control of their data. Data that is "2", instead of "-2" makes a huge difference in an dataset.

    So forth and so on. I could go on, but I assume there is eventually a character limit.

    While climate change IS occurring, we may never know to what extent it is actually happening. The data-sets are corrupted, the "science" behind it is agenda and fund driven, and as that data gets used to "prove" other data, there is very little chance of the "science" being "settled".

    Yes... the data has been PROVEN false. Not to say CC isn't happening... just that these a$$holes have kept us from determining the reality of how much, etc. And each time any of the data is proven false, and there has been quite a few times, it only makes it seem less likely that "man-made" is the problem.

  • 0

    arrestpaul

    Starviking - So basically there was an error - which was caught because GISS made the data immediately available to the public. Not much of a manipulation!

    So basically activist Hansen's GISS got it wrong again and someone else had to point it out to them, again.

    Starviking - Also, as has been recently pointed out - sea ice extent is not the be-all and end-all of Arctic and Antarctic climate measurements: ice has a third dimension, thickness counts! And guess what? The Polar Science Center of the University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory indicates that the volume of Arctic sea ice is dropping precipitously

    Would volcanic activity have any effect on ice?

    Buried under thick ice and frigid water, volcanic explosions are shaking the Arctic Ocean floor at depths previously thought impossible, according to a new study. Using robot-operated submarines, researchers have found deposits of glassy rock—evidence of eruptions—scattered over more than 5 square miles (15 square kilometers) of the seabed.

    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080626-arctic-volcano.html

  • 0

    Loki520

    Good try to spin "error" into anything other than "wrong".

    The "errors" were discovered only after the datasets were made public so those "competitive" scientists could review them.

    A house (AGW) build on a shaky foundation (incorrect data sets) is no place to live, regardless of whether that foundation is the result of an "error", wrong data, or bad procedure.

    Check out http://wattsupwiththat.com/category/climate-data/ for some honest appraisal of available climate data.

  • 0

    Mittsu

    i am amzed at the number of "I don't knows". Given the strong opinions one always finds on JT that seems like way too many.

  • 0

    tokyochris

    Arrestpaul:

    And up-to-date. 3rd April 2010 - The amount of sea ice covering the Arctic dramatically increased last month, reaching levels not seen at this time of year for nearly a decade. Returning ice - after years of declining cover - has astonished climate scientists who blamed unusually cold weather over the Bering Sea. Researchers said they recorded the most ice in March since 2001 - and that the cover is approaching long-term average levels for the first time in ten years.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1263207/Increase-Arctic-ice-confounds-doomsayers.html

    I wouldn't take what the dailymail report as being gospel if I were you...

  • 0

    arrestpaul

    tokyochris - I wouldn't take what the dailymail report as being gospel if I were you...

    But did they get the facts wrong?

  • 0

    arrestpaul

    Starviking - First of all, it seem like these people can never do right by you - either they have "covered something up", or they've made a mistake. To your mind this is equally bad, but the truth is that everyone makes mistakes - but honest people own up to them and move on.

    NASA’s GISS announced October 2008 was the hottest October on record. It has been discovered that they were wrong. It turned out to be yet another glaring data error.

    What caused this major blunder? According to the UK’s Telegraph, a detailed analysis of the GISS data found that the reason for the “freak figures” was that “scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all.” Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

    Finally a GISS spokesperson tried to explain the error by claiming that the GISS does not have the resources to “exercise proper quality control over the data they receive.”

    Yet last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s.

    Here’s a quote from Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey: The admission from GISS that they can’t verify their source data when reaching to conclusions should embarrass scientists throughout the profession, as verification of data is absolutely necessary before reaching any conclusions. Without that, GISS may as well be studying the entrails of goats to make predictions about the future climate.

    http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/262415

  • 0

    Ah_so

    Bad question.

    All science is theory. No scientist, in any situation where there is more than one variable, can call something a "proven fact", just highly probable based on the data available.

  • 0

    arrestpaul

    Starviking - Your stuff seems to be storms in teacups from people with no scientific experience, but with a desire to push an agenda and sell more newspapers. A more honest distillation of all the stuff you've posted on the GISS "Hot October" error would be:

    "Scientists make an error, then correct it."

    Hardly headline material.

    Hahahaha... It doesn't matter why Hansen's NASA GISS is wrong only that they have been repeatedly wrong. Do they intentionally release faulty findings, do they not have the resources to exercise proper quality control or are they just incompetent?

    How many times would you personally use an accounting firm that repeatedly screws up your business ledgers. How many countries should restructure their economies to regulate man-made CO2 if man-made CO2 can't be proven to cause GLOBAL warming?

    Before Hansen's GISS worries about validating Russian data, they should be concerned with validating their own data.

  • 0

    realist

    The theory of man made Global Warming is just that - a theory. Most of it is invented by leftist governments and the leftists in the UN, EU, and Environmentalist groups for political purposes. In short - one big LIE.

  • 0

    arrestpaul

    Starviking - Actually, the source of the errors is important - if it's GISS data directly, then that could point to a possible organisational problem (or maybe just a mess-up), if it's data over which they have no direct control, like say Russian data - then there's little they can do until something shows the foreign data to be in error.

    You say 'repeatedly wrong' - I've only see reference to the 2008 October Russian data - what other instances of error are there?

    In Janurary 2010, Judicial Watch finally obtained internal documents from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) related to a controversy that erupted in 2007 when Canadian blogger Stephen McIntyre exposed an error in NASA's handling of raw temperature data from 2000-2006 that exaggerated the reported rise in temperature readings in the United States. Judicial Watch had to force Hansen's GISS to release this data through the Freedom of Information Act because Hansen doesn't like to share data with skeptics.

    http://pr-canada.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=158457&Itemid=65

  • 0

    realist

    "Theory" in the case of Anthropogenic Global Warming, means something without basis in realist. Same as evolution, really.

  • 0

    realist

    reality, not realist!! ;)

  • 0

    arrestpaul

    Starviking - yet again you provide information that actually does not help your case.

    My "case" is that activist Hansen's NASA GISS repeatedly releases garbage. Whether it's done because of incompetence, activism or fraud doesn't change that. Wrong is wrong and GISS can't seem to get it right.

    Several "skeptic" organizations have had to use the courts to force the release of "activist" data. The IPCC guess-timations of global warming tempuratures have ALL exceeded actual recorded temps. Oops. Well, just ignore that glaring mistake and keep demanding world-wide regulation of the 2-3% of the worlds CO2 that is man-made and keep calling for the redistribution of wealth from industrial nations to 3rd world countries.

    Volcanic activity under the Arctic wasn't discovered until recently. It wasn't considered as a possible explination of melting sea ice. It is only dismissed by the activists. Volcanos causing ice to melt! How absurd.

    Tell me how can changes in 2000-2006 temperature data swap 1934 with 1998?

    You'll have to ask activist Hansen or GISS. Appearently they found more than one error. Probably a lot more.

  • 0

    arrestpaul

    Starviking - I don't think you've made your case for 'repeatedly' releasing garbage. You've a few cases of small errors caught over a decade -

    Few cases = repeatedly.

  • 0

    realist

    Currently 45% here think Global Warming is just a theory, not based on sound evidence, and 46% believe it is factual. Add to those figures the 9% of people who "don`t know" and you get a majority of people who are considered to be "Skeptics!" Thats the best news I have heard today, and in a long time.

  • 0

    realist

    Im shocked, but delighted, to revisit this Thread and see that "Global Warming Theory" now appears to be the majority opinion here, and elsewhere. The whole charade has had a lot of bad press recently around the world. People seem to be waking up to the reality that the whole thing is a big scam, without basis in facts. There are scientists out there who have been manipulating aqnd ignoring data, so that it supports there political agenda. We all need funds to live on, these misguided "scientists" are no exception. Maybe now we can all move on, and put this nonsense behind us. CO2 gases are not evil, they are necessary for the survival of the Planet, and of Mankind. We need more, and not less, CO2 gases in the atmosphere. Of course, we wont get World Governments admitting they were wrong, but I hope they drop their plans for "carbon taxes" and other such drivel.

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