# Global Warming progressing far faster than previously thought **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 17, 2014, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056 "2014-01-17T13:47:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/341 "2014-02-03T17:21:29Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > That was the same mistake Al Gore made, and it’s wrong still. The ice core records show when the oceans warm, the CO2 level in the atmosphere increases. not the other way around. > > How can anyone still not know this? For about the first five or six hundred years. Then the carbon cycle, once initiated, drives the climate – as it always does – for the next ten thousand years. How can anyone still not know this? > [@FXMastermind](#): > > Also, “cyclical natural forcings which are known and well-understood”, you should write a paper then, since you are the only one who knows this. No, [Milutin Milanković](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles) knew it, too. And now everyone knows it except, apparently, you. In particular, the carbon cycles are well understood. And so is the disruption we are wreaking on that cycle. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/342 "2014-02-03T17:25:02Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > That was the same mistake Al Gore made, and it’s wrong still. The ice core records show when the oceans warm, the CO2 level in the atmosphere increases. not the other way around. Richard Alley (Paleoclimate expert) reported that you are wrong, the latest data shows that that lag is not what you think. > **[Climatologist Richard Alley Explains Why CO2 Changes Lag Temperature Changes](https://grist.org/article/climatologist-richard-alley-explains-why-co2-changes-lag-temperature-change/)** > > In his talk to thousands of scientists this week at the American Geophysical Union, Dr. Richard Alley, perhaps the best communicator of all climatologists today, offered a simple metaphor to explain how changes in levels of carbon dioxide in the... > [@](#): > > It’s important because this fact seems to challenge the cause and effect linkage between CO2 and global temperatures. To explain why this matters, Alley opened his talk by quoting from an angry letter about Alley to the university for which he works, Penn State. The alum said that for his work on global warming, Alley “should be dealt with severely,” and pointed to the lag between changes in the levels of CO2 and changes in global atmosphere as the “shameful” part of Alley’s argument. > > Here’s Alley’s counter-example. If he was to overspend on his credit card, his credit card company would delightedly raise the interest rate he is charged on the debt he owes. This would in not too long a time raise the amount of total debt he owes the company. But nonetheless, the overspending would come first, and so one could argue that the raise in the rate of interest lags the change in the level of debt. By this way of thinking, a rise in interest does not lead to a rise in total debt. > > But as anyone who has ever dealt with debt knows, the interest rate is in fact “the big control knob” on the amount of debt an individual owes, in another of Alley’s wonderfully simple metaphors. > > Similarly, changes in C02 track changes in global temperatures extremely well, but don’t necessarily precede changes in temperature. They lag, slightly, as a rise in interest payments slightly lags overspending. This doesn’t change the fact that interest on debt, more than any other factor, controls the amount of total debt, and CO2, more than any other factor, controls global temps… > [@FXMastermind](#): > > How can anyone still not know this? We wondered about that before, but it is clear that you remain an ignorant on the explanation, even though it was made years ago. > [@FXMastermind](#): > > Also, “cyclical natural forcings which are known and well-understood”, you should write a paper then, since you are the only one who knows this. Richard Alley did so also and in his talks he pointed at other research that confirms what he reported, there is now very little lag to explain. > **[Carbon Dioxide the Dominant Control on Global Temperature and Sea Level Over...](https://skepticalscience.com/Carbon-Dioxide-the-Dominant-Control-on-Global-Temperature-and-Sea-Level-Over-the-Last-40-Million-Years.html)** > > Key Points: > [@](#): > > [Foster & Rohling (2013)](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/01/03/1216073110) examined time slices of paleo data covering the last 40 million years to uncover the details of this carbon dioxide-sea level relationship. Surprisingly, they found a consistent and robust relationship between carbon dioxide and sea level irrespective of other contributing factors. As \*\*wolfpup \*\*would say, keep 'em coming! It is good to show evidence to all about who is really pushing ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/343 "2014-02-03T17:46:06Z")
BTW, y’all might be freezing up north, but it’s **still** unseasonably warm in Florida. Never before have I had to run the AC in February. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/344 "2014-02-03T18:06:25Z")
Goddamn right, it’s global warming. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/345 "2014-02-03T18:13:55Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > BTW, y’all might be freezing up north, but it’s **still** unseasonably warm in Florida. Never before have I had to run the AC in February. And over here in Arizona NPR reported that seven of the city’s 10 hottest years have come since 2000. Experts say the Valley’s ‘heat island’ effect and climate change may be to blame… But more ominously, no rain on the whole month of January. The whole west is experiencing a very severe drought and there are already some areas in California where water will be cut off if no rain comes soon. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/346 "2014-02-03T18:23:36Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > BTW, y’all might be freezing up north, but it’s **still** unseasonably warm in Florida. Never before have I had to run the AC in February. You know the drill, doncha? Too cold = Natural variations or AGW Too hot = AGW ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/347 "2014-02-03T18:59:14Z")
When faced with “unusual” weather, go to the climate data. Is Florida warming up for February? [Not according to the 20 year data](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?year_last=2013&month_last=12&sat=4&sst=3&type=trends&mean_gen=02&year1=1994&year2=2013&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=250&pol=rob) [Ten year data says yes](http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/nmaps.cgi?year_last=2013&month_last=12&sat=4&sst=3&type=trends&mean_gen=02&year1=2004&year2=2013&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=250&pol=rob) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/348 "2014-02-03T19:01:09Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > You know the drill, doncha? > > Too cold = Natural variations or AGW > Too hot = AGW Nah, that is just more ignorance; all the records, cold or hot, are compared to see what the trend is. [http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2014/02/climate-in-2013-in-the-u-s-and-in-context/?utm\_source=rss&utm\_medium=rss&utm\_campaign=climate-in-2013-in-the-u-s-and-in-context](http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2014/02/climate-in-2013-in-the-u-s-and-in-context/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=climate-in-2013-in-the-u-s-and-in-context) > [@](#): > > What we saw in 2013 > > Last year’s weather was notable in part because, for the first time in 20 years, the U.S. broke more cold weather records than hot ones. Specifically, there were 28,800 cool weather records broken or tied and 26,100 warm records broken or tied, according to the NOAA report. > > Which is not to say that is the case across the whole globe: Australia in 2013 experienced its hottest year on record, with an average temperature more than 2 degrees F higher than the 1961-1990 average, NOAA reported. > > In context > > Scientists predict that in the U.S. and across the globe, record-breaking high temperatures will resume, again outpacing the number of record-breaking low temperatures. > > As Climate Central climate writer Andrew Freedman — soon headed to a new climate beat with [mashable.com](http://mashable.com) — has explained, in the past decade, record-breaking local heat records have been falling far more often than record colds. Ordinarily, one would expect cold records to occur about as frequently as hot records. But between 2000 and 2009, new hot records across the U.S. were about twice as common as cold records. > > So does the fact that the U.S. set quite a few cold records in 2013 disprove the apparent warming trend? > > Not to the scientists who spend their lives studying climate and weather issues. As Penn State University climate scientist and National Academy of Sciences member Richard Alley put it in a recent Yale Forum webinar, “Climate doesn’t make weather go away.” > > “We’ve only warmed the world one degree so far, and one degree — sometimes a record is set by two or three, so it has not even totally made record lows go away,” he said. “We still have many more record highs than record lows, but they haven’t completely gone.” ---
**Author:** ![psikeyhackr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/97f17d/32.png) [@psikeyhackr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psikeyhackr)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/349 "2014-02-03T19:36:28Z")
Conducting uncontrolled experiments on the only known habitable planet is such fun. 😃 psik ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/350 "2014-02-03T19:46:50Z")
> [@psikeyhackr](#): > > Conducting uncontrolled experiments on the only known habitable planet is such fun. 😃 Yep! “Let’s take the carbon that’s been out of the carbon cycle for a few hundred million years, sequestered deep in the earth since the Cretaceous or before, and dump it into the atmosphere at the rate of more than 30 billion tons of CO2 a year and see what happens. What could possibly go wrong”? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/351 "2014-02-03T19:56:35Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > That was the same mistake Al Gore made, and it’s wrong still. The ice core records show when the oceans warm, the CO2 level in the atmosphere increases. not the other way around. > > How can anyone still not know this? Because it’s [wrong](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ3PzYU1N7A&list=PL82yk73N8eoX-Xobr_TfHsWPfAIyI7VAP). > [@](#): > > Also, “cyclical natural forcings which are known and well-understood”, you should write a paper then, since you are the only one who knows this. I’m sorry, have you even read the peer-reviewed literature in the last decade or so? ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/352 "2014-02-03T21:53:15Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > For about the first five or six hundred years. Then the carbon cycle, once initiated, drives the climate – as it always does – for the next ten thousand years. Complete nonsense, and easily shown to be false in the extreme. It’s exactly that sort of pseudo scientific rhetoric that makes all climate proclamations suspect, because seriously, if anyone is that deluded about climate, how can you believe them about anything? Freeman Dyson: [Climate Change Predictions Are “Absurd”](http://bigthink.com/devils-advocate/freeman-dyson-climate-change-predictions-are-absurd) Don’t get the wrong idea, I don’t question physics or science, I question \*\*your \*\*claims. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/353 "2014-02-03T21:59:07Z")
> [@psikeyhackr](#): > > Conducting uncontrolled experiments on the only known habitable planet is such fun. 😃 > > psik > [@wolfpup](#): > > Yep! “Let’s take the carbon that’s been out of the carbon cycle for a few hundred million years, sequestered deep in the earth since the Cretaceous or before, and dump it into the atmosphere at the rate of more than 30 billion tons of CO2 a year and see what happens. What could possibly go wrong”? Who was conducting an experiment? I mean, the phrase is nice for a rally full of ignorant schoolchildren, but no experiment in any shape of form. In what way was it an experiment except in the most tortured of analogies? 30 billion tons sounds like a BIG NUMBER, but since the Earth naturally produces 750 billion tons, i.e. 25 times as much, it doesn’t sound that big. You could rephrase it in a less alarmist way by saying that humans have increased CO2 production by 4%. Heck, 4% may be enough to cause a lot of damage and disrupt all sorts of cycles, but you **30 BILLION TONS** would’ve played better somewhere else. BTW, the other option to the “experiment”, i.e. not burning stuff, is living in conditions you don’t consider even remotely accpetable for your enemies. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/354 "2014-02-03T22:00:35Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Complete nonsense, and easily shown to be false in the extreme. It’s exactly that sort of pseudo scientific rhetoric that makes all climate proclamations suspect, because seriously, if anyone is that deluded about climate, how can you believe them about anything? > > Freeman Dyson: [Climate Change Predictions Are “Absurd”](http://bigthink.com/devils-advocate/freeman-dyson-climate-change-predictions-are-absurd) I have literally no idea why you would link this article. None. Come on, tell me - what relevance to _anything_ does it have? ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/355 "2014-02-03T22:02:12Z")
None of this current bullshit has anything to do with the topic. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/356 "2014-02-03T22:03:26Z")
You know why every goddam topic about anything climate related turns into an argument about IF global warming is actually happening? Do you know why? (and that, like most everything else, is actually off topic) ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/357 "2014-02-03T22:09:43Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > You know why every goddam topic about anything climate related turns into an argument about IF global warming is actually happening? > > Do you know why? > > (and that, like most everything else, is actually off topic) Because ignorant people, who think they understand the issue more than the experts, come in and shit on the rug? ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/358 "2014-02-03T22:36:23Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Complete nonsense, and easily shown to be false in the extreme. Please do. Please show me the scientific evidence that my description of CO2 driving the transition from glacials to interglacial periods is wrong. I look forward to it. I’ll be here. It’s one of the most fundamental basics in paleoclimatology. Denying it implies CO2 isn’t a GHG. You can post your flat-earth theories at the same time as you post your theories about that. > [@FXMastermind](#): > > Freeman Dyson: Climate Change Predictions Are “Absurd” Joanne Supernova, Kid Ljungqvist, and now Freeman Dyson. You’ve hit the trifecta, but keep 'em coming! 😃 [http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2007/08/15/201772/freeman-dyson-climate-crackpot/](http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2007/08/15/201772/freeman-dyson-climate-crackpot/) > [@FXMastermind](#): > > Don’t get the wrong idea, I don’t question physics or science, I question \*\*your \*\*claims. No worries, I don’t have the wrong idea. So far on this board, every single thing I’ve seen you post on matters of climate science has been flat-out wrong, and has been shown to be so. Sometimes humorously so. I suppose having you questioning my claims should be considered a compliment. Tell us again about how water vapor is a climate “forcing”. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/359 "2014-02-03T22:47:06Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > 30 billion tons sounds like a BIG NUMBER, but since the Earth naturally produces 750 billion tons, i.e. 25 times as much, it doesn’t sound that big. You might want to consider the fact that the carbon cycle is a balance, and until industrialization has been absorbing as much as it’s been emitting, which is why CO2 levels were extremely stable for a thousand years before industrialization, and shot up like a skyrocket in modern times. Your bogus numbers rather overlook the fact that in this delicate balance of the carbon cycle, the atmospheric CO2 content has shot up by 37% over the pre-industrial level, putting it definitively at the highest level by far in at least 1.2 million years and more likely the highest level in the last 15 million. It’s at 400 ppm and has demonstrably never exceeded 300 ppm in all the ice age cycles since the MPT 1.2 million years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2014, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056/360 "2014-02-03T23:16:53Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > None of this current bullshit has anything to do with the topic. Yes, but you just posted essentially a video blog from a random physicist with no credentials in climatology, no climate research, no published papers in the field, and who is prone to spouting incredibly dumb shit like " Carbon emissions are not a problem because in a few years genetic engineers will develop “carbon-eating trees” that will sequester carbon in soils". At least with Ljungqvist you have the excuse that he’s actually publishing in the peer-reviewed journals (it’s just that his work is crap and everyone’s known it for quite a while); I literally can conceive of no reason why you’d cite Dyson other than naive, “he’s a scientist, he must know what he’s talking about” fervor. Christ, is the barrel _that_ empty? That sweet bribe money really is sinking in to _all_ the scientists, isn’t it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/global-warming-progressing-far-faster-than-previously-thought/679056.md?page=19)