The huge East Antarctic ice sheet is gaining about 45 billion tons of water per year because the planet has warmed enough for snow to fall at the coldest place on earth.
Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth says human-emitted CO2 will boost the earth’s temperatures enough to melt the Arctic ice cap — and suddenly raise sea levels by 20 feet.
Phooey.
First of all, let’s understand just how cold the Antarctic is. Winter temperatures on its high, cold interior plateau range from 40 to 95 degrees F below zero! In the summer (December) it “warms,” with temperatures dipping only to 49 degrees F below zero — and sometimes rising within 25 degrees F of the melting point (32 degrees F). But even then, the ice reflects virtually all of the sun’s rays back out into space.
However, the world’s warming in the past 150 years has produced a change in Antarctica. The huge East Antarctic ice sheet, which contains nearly 90 percent of the world’s ice, has been thickening. European satellites measured the ice sheet’s thickness 347 million times between 1992 and 2003, and found it is gaining about 45 billion tons of water per year because the planet has warmed enough for snow to fall at the coldest place on earth.
The study, “Snowfall-driven Growth in East Antarctic Ice Sheet Mitigates Recent Sea-level Rise,” was led by Curt Davis of the University of Missouri, and reported in Science on June 24, 2005.
Thickening ice in the Antarctic, in fact, is just about offsetting the meltwater being released from the edges of the Greenland ice sheet — which has also been thickening in its center. This leaves us with a global warming sea level gain of about 1.8 millimeters per year — or 4 inches per century. The rise has remained constant during the 20th century despite the moderate 0.6 degree C warming of the planet.
In the movie, a whole Antarctic ice sheet shatters on Gore’s computer screen. In the real world, that isn’t happening. It is only the Antarctic Peninsula — 2 percent of the continent’s land area that sticks up toward the far-off equator — that is warming. It recently earned headlines by calving an ice floe as big as Rhode Island, not an unusual event.
But the East Antarctic ice sheet is more than 2,000 times bigger than Rhode Island, and the ice is two miles thick! John Stone of the University of Washington, reporting in Science on January 3, 2003, says the West Antarctic ice sheet has been retreating so slowly for the past 10,000 years that it still has not fully accommodated the end of the last Ice Age, and apparently still has about 7,000 years of ice to melt — and the East Antarctic ice sheet is melting even more slowly than that.
So. Al Gore says Antarctic melting will suddenly raise the sea levels by 20 feet, and the experts say 4 inches per century. Seth Borenstein, an AP science writer, did a column on June 27 headlined, “Scientists OK Gore’s Movie for Accuracy.” The dean of environmental studies at Duke is quoted as saying, “He got all the important material and got it right.”
Were they talking about the same movie I saw? Gore overstated the impact of global warming on the Antarctic glaciers by about 50-fold. Or did he mean that 7000 years was “sudden?” How can so-called scientists applaud his accuracy either way?
Global warming is a complicated subject, and it is very easy, as this author does, to pick and choose your statistics to “prove” just about anything you want. Yes, there are SOME places in the Antarctive where the ice sheet is thickening. The evidence for thickening of the ice sheet in Greenland is more problematic, but there is very strong evidence that the ice at the periphery is melting at an accelerating pace.
So what does it all add up to? And what’s a poor non-scientist to make of all these conflicting claims? It turns out that Congress, realizing the importance of getting reliable scientific judgments, addressed this problem 70 years ago by setting up the National Academy of Sciences. The NAS is charged with the responsibility of giving sober, careful scientific judgments on matters pertinent to public policy. They have issued a number of reports on global warming. None are as sensational as Gore’s movie. But they are unequivocal that human activities are increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, that this increased carbon dioxide is increasing global temperatures, and that there will be substantial changes in the weather because of this.
My own personal interpretation of the evidence is that the sea level will not rise by 20 feet in the 21st Century; a few feet seems more likely to me. But do not underestimate the consequences of this. It’s now pretty clear that global warming will cost us many trillions of dollars over the next century. Many, many trillions.
If you want to see whats really going on go to junkscience.com.
In a nut shell it is way to early to talk about global changes. Most of the change in temperature on the earth comes from the sun emitting more energy. CO2 fills the oceans and when underwater volcanoes heat the water the gases suspended in the water is released. For you liberals neither of these is a man made process. And by the way past ice ages were preceeded by an increase in CO2.
The real problem here is the media-driven frenzy on this issue. It is a perfect place for a liberal, psuedo-intellectual to hang his hat…and most reporters fall under that category. Al Gore seeks only to assure his place in history by being known as the founder of the anti-global warming movement….apparently as a result of his failure to be recognised as the founder of the internet. The preception by voters, as a result of the media barrage on global warming, is such that audiences laugh when an elected official says the entire global warming movement is junk science. And the old adage that perception equals reality is, if we are not careful, going to cost our nation millions of jobs and potentially unprecedented economic hardship.
Frank, the evidence for changes in the solar constant does not support the claim that current changes in temperatures are due to that. The claims you make about underwater volcanoes are without foundation. And no, past ice ages were not preceded by any increase in carbon dioxide concentrations. There has been some interesting discussion of the correlations between CO2 and atmospheric temperatures, but the basic physics has not been in question for 150 years.
During the 1970′s junk-scientists were predicting an Ice Age that would leave us panting for any global warming we could find. Now 30 years have past and we are to believe by next week people will be frying eggs on the sidewalks of Minnesota in December. It is utter nonsense. The earth has it’s cycles inside greater cycles and even greater cycles. No scientific evidence for global warming. Both the American and Russian federation of Sciences have signed a petition stating such. It is the Liberal’s fascination with death and communism that is the prime mover of such dimentia. The Left thinks if they scare people enough we will curse the factories where capitalism thrives and agree to the aborting and euthanasia of every poor and undesirable the world is cursed with. The Culture of Death redux.
Joseph, your claims about the “imminent ice age” fad in the 1970s are a good example of how the public can readily misunderstand how science works. Here’s what really happened:
One scientist — just one — had an idea suggesting that the earth would cool off. Most scientists dismissed his idea because it violated what was known about global temperatures. As far back as the nineteenth century, scientists had realized that the greenhouse effect was a significant factor, and the fact that humanity was burning lots of fossil fuels and releasing lots of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere established strong theoretical reasons to believe that the earth would soon begin warming. However, we didn’t have good enough data to measure such an effect, so right up into the 1990s global warming was considered a theoretical likelihood unsubstantiated by data. Only in the 1990s did we start getting enough data to substantiate the theoretical expectations. There were still lots of fine points to work out regarding various forcing agents, the effects of aerosols, and so forth. This required years of hard work with computer models, trying out lots of possibilities, comparing their predictions with data coming in from the field, and improving them.
But back in the 1970s, the feeling was that global warming was a strong but unsubstantiated expectation. So when this chap came along predicting global cooling, the VAST majority of scientists were skeptical. The theory had a few interesting points to it, but there was no solid evidence in support of it. The attitude of most scientists was “an interesting possibility, but pure speculation at this time”.
However, that’s not what the public reads. The newspapers got ahold of this story and ran it for its sensation value. They’d put up a quote from the first scientist, arguing that we’d all freeze to death in the dark, and then they’d put up a boring quote from some respectable scientist saying that the preponderance of evidence did not provide compelling reasons to give high levels of credence to the hypothesis — and most people had skipped ahead to the comics before they finished the article.
Thus, that story you describe existed only in the minds of the press and a gullible public. In the minds of the great majority of scientists, it was a non-starter.
How would you react if someone were to take the most extreme, outrageous, bigoted statement from some fringe snake-waving Christian and use that single statement to condemn all Christians as loonies? That would be grossly unfair to the huge majority of Christians, and I would object to it, and I object to your doing the same thing to scientists.
The author of this article (and those who commissioned him) resorts to a petty tactic: he seeks to undermine the overall credibility of an important work (Gore’s movie) by attacking the legitimacy of one lesser part, and then concluding that because the lesser part was not 100% correct, the whole work is “phooey.” I call methods “shameful phooey.”
Kudos to Chris Crawford for his intelligent, honest comments above.
“Joseph”: Thanks for “It is the Liberal’s fascination with death and communism that is the prime mover of such dementia.”
I’m still laughing.
Anybody read anything lately about global “cooling”. Probably not, because such studies are not being funded by the government, and the reason they’re not is because Leftist, anti-capitalist academia lobbies for grants to study, guess what . . . Leftist, anti-capitalist “dementia” in order to lend them academic credibility. That which gets funded gets studied, just like “the next ice age” studies of the ’70s, when the academy was in transition from pursuing truth to advocating “death and communism”, as Joseph observes.
One more thing. I used to work in a movie theatre when I was in college, and I noticed that movies were like Popular Science/Mechanics magazines: you can bet that if you saw an idea in one of them, it wasn’t going to happen.
G. of Sedona, perhaps you missed my comment #6, in which I explained the confusion over global cooling. If you have any material to add to that, I’d love to see it.
Your suggestion that the Bush Administration is in some sort of unholy cabal with the evil leftists of academia certainly doesn’t jibe with Administration statements about global warming. Do you think that George W. Bush is really a secret Leftist anti-capitalist? ;-)
Chris Crawford: What comment #6? Comment 6 was written by Jeff Harper. A search of the word “cool” produced only my post and your reply.
I didn’t say “George Bush”, I said “the government”. Government consists of more than George Bush. In this case, I’m sure Bush was not going to veto the Defense funding he wanted just to stop a few million dollars to fund inconsequential (at least on his watch) “dementia” that was inserted into the budget. If we looked hard enough, we’d probably find a lot of “pork” in the budget that doesn’t line up with his stated position; might even find federal funding to study the social effects of providing sandals for gay ex-nuns with a foot-fetish. Unfortunately, this is the nature of “log-rolling” and compromise.
I have noticed that when Clinton compromised, he was an “artful statesman” and not a “secret right-wing capitalist”.
Alright I am not a scientist, and I don’t know how many of you are. However, the one thing that keeps coming to my mind regarding global warming is this. If the temperatures rise, is’nt the result, increased evaporation of the oceans and all other bodies of water? Then does’nt the evaporation become clouds? Does clouds block out sunlight, resulting in cooler temperatures? Once the clouds can longer hold any more condensate, does it not fall back to earth? Am I missing something here.
First, is there any subject Chris C. claims to not be an expert in?
whats funny about chris’s assertion is that yes, maybe the world’s climate will costs us trillions of dollars. So what? We barely understand weekly weather in the most advanced, industrilized nation on earth now much less the global climate scheme. Since man made industrial excretions have only been around for barely over a 100 years now we have been paying to alter our climate inside our dwellings and where we live and work for that amount of time. The necessity to do so does not mean the climate is changing but that we are living where there are harsh climates to begin with. Winters in the NE, Summers in the South. Along the coastlines and in Alaska. Places and times which the normal human shell does not cope very well with the extreme temperatures. So yes, we will pay to alter the temperature of the environment no matter what. Since the first flintstones were rubbed together sapiens have been paying some price to alter the climate somehow.
As far as sun activity goes we know more about that than we do the possibility that man has anything at all to do with global climate change.
Here is an excerpt from NASA’s own sunspot lab: Dr. David H. Hathaway, david.hathaway @ nasa.gov
Although sunspots themselves produce only minor effects on solar emissions, the magnetic activity that accompanies the sunspots can produce dramatic changes in the ultraviolet and soft x-ray emission levels. These changes over the solar cycle have important consequences for the Earth’s upper atmosphere.
While this is not the be all end all in sunspot as causing so called global warming it does indicate they do have a profound effect on the earth’s atmosphere. As far as man made Co2 affecting anything one volcanic reuption put out more co2 and so called greenhouse gasses in a few minutes than all of man’s supposed emissions.
Heck, the soil in the Sahara puts out more C02 and methane than man does in daily activity.
So chris c and al gore and Elf and the rest are wrong, man does not cause the sun to rise and heat the earth.
I’ve been reading a book called 1421 which claims a Chinese fleet sailed around the world from 1421 to 1423.
While he was comparing maps from that era to current coastlines to determine the routes they
took he ran into some problems. He found the answer (be patient this does tie into global warming) when he
discovered sea level has risen from 4 to 8 feet since then, depending on which expert you believe. I found
it interesting because it wasn’t a book about climate but it seems clear the sea level has been rising from 1 to 4 mm
per year long before man’s industry had an effect. He also went over evidence you could sail around Greenland at
that time which you can’t do now due to ice. FYI.
G. of Sedona, I’m sorry, I got the number wrong. My comment is number 7 in the list. On my browser, your first comment is #9. My comment #7 follows immediately after #6, a spamming comment. Are you able to identify it from this information? If so, have you any reaction to my comment #7?
Mike, your thoughts are right on the money. Yes, if global temperatures rise, we will get more evaporation from ocean surfaces and more water vapor moving through the atmosphere. This means that the weather will be more energetic — more and bigger storms. However, the particular effects on any particular location can be complicated. For example, we expect less soil moisture in the American Great Plans because higher average temperatures will keep the water vapor in the air, depleting soil moisture. And yes, with more water vapor in the air, we’ll get more aerosols (clouds) and therefore less sunlight reaching the surface. So, do the effects cancel out? That has been the subject of intensive research for the last 15 years, and the answers have been coming back that, all in all, we will still get increasing temperatures. The temperature increases will be greatest at the poles and least at the equator.
Dean asks if there is any subject that Chris C claims not to be an expert in. Actually, I don’t claim to be an expert in anything, I just report the facts as I know them. If I’m wrong, by all means correct me. In any case, I don’t ask anybody to accept anything I say merely because I say so. It’s all out there; I’m just providing summaries of information that is readily found. If you want to know more, I can try to find some references for you.
I am pleased to learn that you agree with me that global warming will cost us trillions of dollars. I now ask, if global warming will cost us trillions of dollars, and we can avert it by spending billions of dollars, would it not be a good idea to spend the money to avert it? In truth, the actual cost/benefit equation is unknown, so I am speaking hypothetically. But my question remains: are you willing to consider this as a cost/benefit problem?
I don’t think that anybody is denying that sunspot activity affects the earth’s atmosphere. What I deny is that the solar constant is increasing, and that this explains the observed temperature increases. There is simply no evidence whatsoever that changes in the solar constant are behind the observed increases in temperature. If you have such evidence, please present it.
It is true that natural processes — not just volcanic eruptions but many other processes as well — make larger contributions to the global carbon cycle than manmade contributions. But these natural processes have been constant for thousands of years while the human contribution has increased sharply. The fact that human activity is smaller than natural activity does not eliminate human activity from consideration. A single embezzling cashier at a store can bankrupt the store even though that cashier’s thefts amount to a small portion of the store’s overall cash flow.
I am very surprised by your claim that the Sahara desert releases more CO2 and methane than humanity. How much does it emit? What’s the source and what’s the mechanism?
Your comment #14 baffles me. Are you suggesting that I deny the role of solar radiation in the thermal balance of the earth?
Kendall, I don’t think we should place too much emphasis on the speculations of that book. While it is true that the Chinese navigations in that period were impressive, the author’s claim of circumnavigation is not accepted by many people. At the very least, his suggestion that sea level has risen by 4 to 8 feet in six hundred years seems hard to believe given what we know about other things. If it were so, most historical cities would be under water now, and the Netherlands wouldn’t exist.
It is certainly true that there have been some significant changes in global temperatures in the last thousand years. There was a warm period around 1000 AD that permitted the Vikings to settle in Greenland. Then there was the Little Ice Age starting in around 1400. But these changes are distinguishable from the current bout of global warming.
Please, Dean, let’s not get personal. I don’t question your age, background, education, or employment because I prefer to discuss issues, not personalities. Let’s not get into name-calling.
You suggest that global warming is a natural phenomenon that man has no control over. We do have control over CO2 emisssions, and CO2 emissions are increasing the greenhouse effect, which is increasing global temperatures. The basic physics of this has been known for 150 years and is not in question. And the evidence, as judged by the great majority if climatologists as well as the National Academy of Sciences, is now compelling that anthropogenic global warming is a reality. If you reject so august a group as the National Academy of Sciences, is there anybody whose opinion you respect?
If I have misquoted you, I apologize; I have asked on several points for you to clarify your statements but you have not responded to my requests.
You seem to think it self-evident that the Sahara Desert should emit CO2 and methane. I do not. Your suggestion that I use Google to search for soil and CO2 emissions is of little help; searching on ‘soil’, ‘CO2′, and ‘emissions’ yields 11,000,000 hits. Adding ‘Sahara’ to the search list reduces it to 66,400 hits, and none of the first ten refer to the Sahara desert. The problem I have with your suggestion is that soil emissions of CO2 and methane are derived from decomposing organic matter. Inasmuch as there is essentially zero decomposing organic matter in the Sahara Desert, your comment seems nonsensical to me. However, if you can clarify this point, I would appreciate it.
Chris,
I found the 4 to 8 foot rise unbelievable myself but here is a link to a book by a member of the Proudman Oceanic Laboratory of Birkenhead in England. Sorry it is so long. You could also just google proudman oceanic laboratory of birkenhead england sea level. I didn’t read all of the link but it seems the rate of change may be differerent but sea level changes have occurred throughout earths history.
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=OZTO0qmqxk0C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&sig=z1OA0t0QdAsfHqgYLtQ59tan9jU&dq=%22Warrick%22+%22Climate+and+Sea+Level+Change:+Observations,+Projections+…%22+&prev=http://scholar.google.com/scholar%3Fq%3Dauthor:%2522Warrick%2522%2Bintitle:%2522Climate%2Band%2BSea%2BLevel%2BChange:%2BObservations,%2BProjections%2B…%2522%2B%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D
The Kyoto Protocol failed because it was based on junk science. The West understood what it was: Liberal propaganda. The Kyoto Treaty only affected The West. Third-world countries, China, and India would have no restrictions placed on them. No Arab countries either. The old Kremlin huggers trying to stop freedom and development again fearing people and progress. Al Gore’s movie has been panned by every impartial scientist. Only the Left’s Mengele’s appear to chant, “Dat, Ya!” I think if we spent billions of dollars on developing poor countries, firing amoral academes, and giving every child in this country the means to own private property at the age of majority we’d find ourselves a much happier nation. If the liberals are so intent on stopping people from allowing the sun to set us ablaze in our shoes, why don’t you all collectively hold your breath for a year. We’ll conduct some clinical trials and report our findings at some future date.
Yes or not, it would not go without taking Gore with it. I don’t sing but I’ll try. He’s an ex, he’s a child, he’s a lairing lair, he’s an idiot… chorus!
So we know that man made CO2 in no way contributes to global warming because it is less than a miniscule amount of any co2 emissions the earth puts out naturally. We know that the we are receiving more heat from our Sun, a proven fact that NASA even supports. So are we even heating up for a long term heat wave? Hard to say because around the world, several places that have been termed hot spots have been cooler than normal and 50 – 100 year temperature averages are remaining in place. So how does a charlatan like Gore get so many people to believe his lies? Is it because he targets the children? The mentally inept? Those who live off emotion based thought? Because I will admit people like gore and EDF, ELF, Greepeace, Club sierra convince an awful lot of people that we need to spend money on something that is not really even happening. Whateve they are they are good salesmen.
Gore is such a loser/idiot.
Kendall, thanks for the reference. Yes, I have seen a number of predictions of much higher increases in sea level. I consider them completely plausible, but prefer not to use them in public discourse because the substantiation for them is not as strong as I would like. There are a great many possibilities here, and some of them are truly horrific. It is entirely possible that we could get a dramatic change of some sort, especially if we get changes in ocean circulation, such as the alteration of the Gulf Stream. But I am reluctant to press these scenarios in public discourse because they remain at the upper end of the range of possible scenarios. I prefer to confine myself to the stuff that is strongly established and beyond reasonable objection, the kind of stuff that most scientists agree with as the minimum.
Dean, you continue to state falsehoods. I don’t have the exact figures for manmade production of CO2, but you are clearly wrong in stating that they are insignificant. The data show an increase in atmospheric CO2 from about 250 ppm to more than 300 ppm already, and the curve has a large second derivative: it’s getting worse fast. You are just flat, plain wrong here.
You are also incorrect in your interpretation of the data on solar radiation. The output of the sun has shown no secular change in centuries. Indeed, basic stellar structure theory shows that you can’t get significant changes in radiative output because the mean free path of a photon in the solar core is measured in microns — it takes centuries for a newly produced photon to reach the surface! This effect averages out any variations in solar output.
You are also incorrect in stating that global temperatures are not increasing. Yes, there are a few places where we see some cooling. But the overall trend over the globe as a whole has clearly and unquestionably been shown to be upward.
The reason people are growing worried about global warming is simple: the evidence shows it to be so. It has nothing to do with salesmanship and everything to do with a willingness to consider the evidence.
Okay, I am still no scientist, however, has not the earth been in a constant trend of warming since the last ice age? If our meteorologist cannot predict the day to day weather with any amount of certainty, how then can scientist determine anything reliable regarding the cause of global warming. I think that the current crop of scientists determinations as to what is causing this phenomenon are arrogant at best, and therefore no more than a theory like evolution. I know that some believe that evolution is an absolute science. It is just a theory. The causes of global warming are just theorizing. That is not to discount it completely; just to say that alternative theories need to be considered. Science is not absolute. It is only as good as the facts it can present. To think that we have all the facts would be to say that science is finite. We know all there is to know.
By the way I believe that we are in a cycle of global warming. As to the causes I do not know. Will it reverse? Probably. Can we control it? Unlikely. Do I want my science from politicians? No. Do I want my politics from movie stars? No.
Politicizing science does not make for good science.
Oh, for the the days when the earth was flat.
Mike, you’re right about the politicization of science — but it’s in the other direction. The scientists, by themselves, have been saying with increasing certainty that global warming is a very real problem. The Bush Administration has been muzzling them, burying their reports, and in at least one case, rewriting a scientific report to change its meaning.
Look, if you have made up your mind about this and reject science, then no amount of scientific reasoning will alter your beliefs. I have no desire to browbeat you into believing something you don’t want to believe. If you are willing to consider reason, I will answer your questions and objections. But if you are not, then let’s just leave it at that.
You seem to have fulfilled your own prophecy Chris. As you stated, ” Global warming is a complicated subject, and it is very easy to pick and choose your statistics to “prove” just about anything you want.” I Could not have said it any better.
It would seem that your “science” is the only acceptable science.I do not think that you have won any converts here, but would give an c+ on effort.
You are beginning to show your true colors.
I did consider your reasoning and found it wanting.
I am glad you do not chose to attempt to “browbeat” me into believing what you believe.
Just because you chose to “believe” something does not make that belief fact.
If the majority of a group of individuals, let’s say Americans, believe in a Judeo-Christian God, according to your reasoning, God must be a fact.
If you have irrefutable proof of your science, not just your “beliefs”, it might be interesting to consider.
You may have well said you “feel” your science is the truth. It it would have been as valid as your beliefs.
No, I cannot offer irrefutable proof of global warming. Then again, I cannot offer irrefutable proof of relativity or quantum mechanics, either. This is science, not mathematics; there is no such thing as irrefutable proof of anything in science.
I will point out, however, that you can provide no irrefutable disproof of global warming. And the evidence you can proffer against global warming is much weaker than the evidence I can offer in its favor.
Will sea levels rise 20 feet as Gore predicts?
Lets wait around and find out.
What you dimwits don’t realize is that if sea levels rise even a foot it’s a big deal. This is the one single issue that is genuinely not a matter of left versus right, unless the conservatives of this world truly have descended into a complete la la land of self-deception and denial.
Man made atmospheric warming is a fact. The climate change that will happen as a result is to some extend avoidable if certain changes to the world’s infrastructure are put into action now. No doubt that will get in the way of some industries making even larger profits than they do now, Boo Hoo. Bill me!
Mr. Crawford, your comments above were for the most part well reasoned and accurate summaries of the information you had at hand. I would ask you to consider the following paper from the JPL. In it they report measured variations in the sun’s energy output of .o8 percent within a single month (equivalent to a 10 Kelvin change in temperature). Link to: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov and get release 1980 0941.
That photon speculation is not verified by observation.
Rivertrader, I was unable to locate the paper from the information you provide. I believe I know what you are talking about. What you are describing are tiny changes in solar radiative output arising from activity in the photosphere. To put it in a grossly simplified manner, these are due to sunspot activity. Yes, you do get that kind of change, but it’s not secular change. That is, it might go up by as much as 0.08% one month and then go down by the same amount the next month. The sun as a whole does not heat up or cool down on anything like so rapid a time scale.
What you refer to as “photon speculation” is just old-time statistical mechanics plus stellar structure. It’s been around a long time and, no, there aren’t any astronomers who doubt the theory at this level. Don’t get me wrong — stars show lots of variability. If you want to talk about cyclical variations, we’ve got tons of that, with periods running from a few hours to months. However, these are not secular changes such as we need to explain global warming via solar forcing. To get that kind of change, you need some completely different mechanisms, and here is where you run into problems.
First of all, until we understand what causes the cyclical ice ages, any global climate research should be focused on understanding that, and on preventing the next one. Sure, global warming could potentially cost a lot of money for moving cities away from a rising sea (which humanity has done over and over since the last ice age [though not as much recently, as the warming and melting is very slow now]). However, in any plausible scenario, an ice age would wipe out 99+% of humanity due to lack of food and fresh water. We don’t know how many humans there were before the last ice age, but there were less than a million after. To someone with objectivity, taking steps to stop global warming is just stupid.
Second, for years I wondered, listening to the global warming hype, when I would hear someone would mention the fact that increased CO2 is fantastic for plants (and liberals LOVE plants), and that warming itself is beneficial for plants, and that global warming means more global percipitation and more global fresh water, which is fantastic for plants animals and people! So global warming means more food for the hungry and more water for the thirsty, and lusher rainforests, and faster recovery of deforested forests. So I waited and waited, and then finally, a couple months ago I saw it! It was an AP article, based upon a “scientific study.” It was covered by nearly all the major outlets — even National Geographic. It said… it said… (you won’t believe me, but it’s true, you can search for it) it said… “Study: Global Warming Causes More Poison Ivy”. Yes, these crack researchers, funded by Federal Tax dollars I bet, apparently discovered that poison ivy grows better with higher CO2 levels! It’s a crazy freakin world we live in, man. A crazy freakin world.