Don, Thanks for the reply.
I had a biology professor that was involved trying to get corn to in grow in Africa, his focus was what form of carbon they metabolize (it is related to the climate they live in). IE CAM, C4, or C3. Human crops are mostly C4 plants. We currently have famine in Africa, although it is true it is not world wide. I hope science can live up to future challenges. Perhaps, we unfairly concentrate on CO2 and forget some of the other gases human activity produces. CO for example. More study is needed and I hope NASA continues getting the funds to do so. Their data needs to be available to all, as I believe it is. Erik Erik,
CO2 may be responsible for the other 31 percent or other natural activities may be the cause. We have had several long term climate cycles in the past that have exceeded current warming.
I still think we have a lot to learn. My main concern is it has become a political football because so much is at stake. I think we need an open debate and the media needs to report both sides of the story and the government needs to be open to funding research that may call into question CO2 as the primary cause.
I think the science is far from settled and I remember the scare of the 70's as well. Paul Ehrlich (one of Al Gore's principal advisors) famously predicted the onset of mass starvation and famine during the 1970s and 1980s. Ehrlich famously lost a bet on this score with Julian Simon in no small part due to the work of Norman Borlaug who saved more lives than any person who has ever lived by developing varieties of wheat that were both high-yield and resistant to diseases.
"These new strains of wheat were introduced to developing countries along with modern production and farming techniques. Thanks to these innovations, Mexico became a net wheat exporter in the early 1960s. Over that decade, both Pakistan and India saw their wheat crop double, and they became self-sufficient wheat producers by 1968 and 1974 respectively. Because the wheat crops Dr. Borlaug cultivated have shorter and stronger stalks ("semi-dwarf"), they are able to prosper even in environments where the soil is poor and where longer stalks would wilt under the weight of extra grain. Dr. Borlaug's contributions have been credited with saving the lives of over 1 billion people and are the key ingredient in what is popularly known as the "Green Revolution." His work won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970."
We need to be open to continuing investigations of the climate wherever they may lead. A recent survey of climatologists found about 40 percent did not believe CO2 was the primary factor in global warming.
Don
-----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of erikhansen@TheBlueZone.net Sent: Sunday, March 08, 2009 10:45 AM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Darn Martians
Don,
I appreciate your posts as well as Rodger's, I have great respect for you both.
We have been at low solar activity so some cooling would be expected. Perhaps it should be cooler. It is matter of input vs output, it seems to be tipped toward less radiation being reflected back.
If the Sun is responsible for 69%, what is responsible for 31%? I will concede that the Sun is a major factor, but we have not seen a great increase only subtle. By the time that happens the game would be over.
My biology professors, in the 70's, thought man had altered the carbon cycles, outside of a global warming discussion.
Erik
It depends where you start your regression, but the last three charts from
your link show a leveling off and a decline for the last two to three years. Roy Spencer, Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama, when I talked to him last year did not claim a decline as does Lord Monckton but essentially no net global warming since 1998. The point is we have not had the runaway greenhouse effect projected by many in 1998. The recent leveling off and decline does correspond with the current solar minimum.
The NASA data also shows this see http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/
A recent article in Physics Today estimates that the Sun could account for as much as 69% of the increase in Earth's average temperature. See:
http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/opinion0308.pdf
-----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Josephine Grahn Sent: Saturday, March 07, 2009 6:34 PM To: utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Darn Martians
Don, Thank you for the link to Lord Monckton's graph. May I suggest this link for a fuller view of the meaning of the good Lord's graph, and the underlying data?
http://jhubert.livejournal.com/181274.html
Quoting "Don J. Colton" <djcolton@piol.com>:
By all global measures we have had no global warming for the last seven years. See http://icecap.us/images/uploads/monckton-global_warming_has_stopped.pdf
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