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it is the new pseudo-intellectual movement that tries to ignore the merits of peer review in favor of out-of-context charts and graphs that encourages such an irresponsible stewardship for the earth we live in.

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We have the Bush administration to thank for that. They have completely politicized virtually every area of government including traditionally off-limits areas such as FEMA, intelligence gathering and science-related policy to ensure that the party line always prevails at the expense of competence.

They start with the result they want, then retro-engineer the facts to fit the desired policy.

The republican's corporate paymasters in big business want this issue to be debated and appear in doubt as long as possible so that the game can go on longer. Money will hire the fringe scientists who are willing to say that Climate Change is not real. Just as a wealthy defendant can hire an articulate expert witness to testify in his defense even though the concensus of those experts is against him.

Understand that you cannot convince these people through reason. They are not operating on that level. They are operating in survival mode. They see this issue as a threat to their green paper rectangles or "survival tickets". Try talking a monkey into being reasonable when he is convinced you are taking away his last coconut.

It won't work.

It never does.

Birthing a new scientific paradigm requires getting past the old guard which is totally entrenched and invested in another world view. It almost always takes longer than one generation.

The dinosaurs must die off in order for progress to unfold.

We will march (or maybe swim ) over their dead bodies to Progress.

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Go to a fucking library man. Any big library should have it. Fuck, do an academic search premier for it.

Or are you not in college? Do you even have a degree?

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Has the global temperature been decreasing, as a trend, since 2000, or has it been increasing?

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It is generally assumed that the atmosphere and the oceans have grown warmer during the recent 50 years. The reason for this point of view is an upward trend in the curve of measurements of the so-called 'global temperature'. This is the temperature obtained by collecting measurements of air temperatures at a large number of measuring stations around the Globe, weighing them according to the area they represent, and then calculating the yearly average according to the usual method of adding all values and dividing by the number of points.

Average without meaning

"It is impossible to talk about a single temperature for something as complicated as the climate of Earth", Bjarne Andresen says, an an expert of thermodynamics. "A temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system. Furthermore, the climate is not governed by a single temperature. Rather, differences of temperatures drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, thunder, etc. which make up the climate".

He explains that while it is possible to treat temperature statistically locally, it is meaningless to talk about a a global temperature for Earth. The Globe consists of a huge number of components which one cannot just add up and average. That would correspond to calculating the average phone number in the phone book. That is meaningless. Or talking about economics, it does make sense to compare the currency exchange rate of two countries, whereas there is no point in talking about an average 'global exchange rate'.

If temperature decreases at one point and it increases at another, the average will remain the same as before, but it will give rise to an entirely different thermodynamics and thus a different climate. If, for example, it is 10 degrees at one point and 40 degrees at another, the average is 25 degrees. But if instead there is 25 degrees both places, the average is still 25 degrees. These two cases would give rise to two entirely different types of climate, because in the former case one would have pressure differences and strong winds, while in the latter there would be no wind.

Many averages

A further problem with the extensive use of 'the global temperature' is that there are many ways of calculating average temperatures.

Example 1: Take two equally large glasses of water. The water in one glass is 0 degrees, in the other it is 100 degrees. Adding these two numbers and dividing by two yields an average temperature of 50 degrees. That is called the arithmetic average.

Example 2: Take the same two glasses of water at 0 degrees and 100 degrees, respectively. Now multiply those two numbers and take the square root, and you will arrive at an average temperature of 46 degrees. This is called the geometric average. (The calculation is done in degrees Kelvin which are then converted back to degrees Celsius.)

The difference of 4 degrees is the energy which drives all the thermodynamic processes which create storms, thunder, sea currents, etc.

Claims of disaster?

These are but two examples of ways to calculate averages. They are all equally correct, but one needs a solid physical reason to choose one above another. Depending on the averaging method used, the same set of measured data can simultaneously show an upward trend and a downward trend in average temperature. Thus claims of disaster may be a consequence of which averaging method has been used, the researchers point out.

What Bjarne Andresen and his coworkers emphasize is that physical arguments are needed to decide whether one averaging method or another is needed to calculate an average which is relevant to describe the state of Earth.

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argues that a chart showing a decade of cooling isn't valid because "everything isn't simple cause and effect".

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joker_man said:
You actually think a decrease in "global temperature" of the last 8 years or so has any bearing on the validity of global warming theory?

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Data from cores drilled in polar ice sheets show a remarkable correlation between past glacial–interglacial temperature changes and the inferred atmospheric concentration of gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.

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joker_man said:
Everything isn't simple cause and effect. There are too many variables for the earth to behave that way.

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I realize that there are way too many variables for it to be that simple, and clearly I'm making a general statement. My point is that the Sun is the Alpha and Omega of climate change and the Earth is simply a system of interacting variables that respond, in the complex way that they do, to the increased and decreased solar output of the Sun.

In fact, I believe that they are expecting the Earth to experience more cooling this year, due to a strong El Nina or whatever. Of course, I'm assuming that such storms are simply the result of the complex system that is Earth responding to the decrease in solar output from the Sun.

If your article invalidates the usage of the global temperature, then what exactly do supporters of anthropogenic climate change base their conclusion that global warming is occuring upon?

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If your article invalidates the usage of the global temperature, then what exactly do supporters of anthropogenic climate change base their conclusion that global warming is occuring upon?

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