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  1. #126
    e^(i*pi) + 1 = 0 MannyIsGod's Avatar
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    How come you have such a ty understanding of the weather? If it snowed in dowtown San Antonio today, that wouldn't mean in the global warming argument.

  2. #127
    I Got Hops Extra Stout's Avatar
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    By the way, many of the same measures that help slow the rise in CO2 emissions also will help keep money out of the hands of people in the world who are trying to murder us.

  3. #128
    Retired Ray xrayzebra's Avatar
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    And then you have this. In face of the over 1 degree in temp
    rise in how many years???????????? Another phoney issue the
    liberals bring up to level the playing field.



    Monthly Weather Summaries









    MARCH
    Near-record cold in Alaska and abundant snow in the southeast
    Strong and widespread cold described March this year all across Alaska. Temperatures throughout the mainland were more than 8°F below average and the most extreme temperature departures of more than 16°F below average were observed in the central Interior. Areas along the Arctic coast and the southeast panhandle had relative warmth with temperature departures less than 8°F below average. The portions of the state that had extreme cold also received little in the way of precipitation as clear and sunny skies dominated. A location that received more than its fair share of snowfall was Juneau, breaking daily, monthly, and seasonal snowfall records. The vernal equinox, or time of year when daylight and darkness are approximately equal across the earth, occurred on March 20th. This a time of year in Alaska with rapid changes in daylight from day to day and large diurnal temperature ranges.


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  4. #129
    I Got Hops Extra Stout's Avatar
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    And then you have this. In face of the over 1 degree in temp
    rise in how many years???????????? Another phoney issue the
    liberals bring up to level the playing field.
    Is Alaska the entire planet? Is one month a long-term trend?

    I guess the next time the Spurs lose one game, we should conclude that they are a lottery team.

  5. #130
    e^(i*pi) + 1 = 0 MannyIsGod's Avatar
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    @ one month being any type of trend.

  6. #131
    Retired Ray xrayzebra's Avatar
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    When global average temperatures start decreasing over a long period of time, you will no longer be full of crap.
    Goes to show you. Global Average Temperatures are a
    myth. No such thing.

  7. #132
    Retired Ray xrayzebra's Avatar
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    @ one month being any type of trend.

    Manny keep the above quote in mind later on this summer
    when somewhere a new "high" is reported. Thank you!

  8. #133
    e^(i*pi) + 1 = 0 MannyIsGod's Avatar
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    Goes to show you. Global Average Temperatures are a
    myth. No such thing.

  9. #134
    Keith Jackson mookie2001's Avatar
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    but its cold right now!, explain that

  10. #135
    Keith Jackson mookie2001's Avatar
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    but its cold right now!, explain that
    ROFLROFL


    this is amazing, exactly one hour later



    http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/show...33&postcount=8

  11. #136
    I Got Hops Extra Stout's Avatar
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    Goes to show you. Global Average Temperatures are a
    myth. No such thing.
    Mathematics is a myth?

    Do you have Alzheimer's?

  12. #137
    Believe. efrem1's Avatar
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    With the Supreme Court decision mandating the EPA to include CO2 as a pollutant, I believe that one day, they will regulate how many children we will all have because we produce too much CO2. Welcome to the world of China and India being the new powers to be because we regulated our nation to death.

  13. #138
    W4A1 143 43CK? Nbadan's Avatar
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    With the Supreme Court decision mandating the EPA to include CO2 as a pollutant, I believe that one day, they will regulate how many children we will all have because we produce too much CO2. Welcome to the world of China and India being the new powers to be because we regulated our nation to death.
    It' gonna be cold as this Easter, record-breaking, and I can already hear it from the Anti-Global Climate Change crowd



    Modern societies are on the decline, but it's not because of the Government or even because of global temp. change, it's because of Urbanization. When women work, they have less babies, less babies means that that society starts to decline over time. In fact, I've seen studies that show that as urbanization spreads into countries like Africa, China and India, and other 'third-world-countries areas, the population of this Earth will decline, but by then it will be a different Earth.

  14. #139
    W4A1 143 43CK? Nbadan's Avatar
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    Speaking of Colorado...

    The driest periods of the last century — the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and the droughts of the 1950s — may become the norm in the Southwest United States within decades because of global warming, according to a study released Thursday.

    The research suggests that the transformation may already be underway. Much of the region has been in a severe drought since 2000, which the study's analysis of computer climate models shows as the beginning of a long dry period.

    The study, published online in the journal Science, predicted a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest — one of the fastest-growing regions in the nation.

    The data tell "a story which is pretty darn scary and very strong," said Jonathan Overpeck, a climate researcher at the University of Arizona who was not involved in the study.

    Richard Seager, a research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University and the lead author of the study, said the changes would force an adjustment to the social and economic order from Colorado to California.

    ...

    The researchers tested a "middle of the road" scenario of future carbon dioxide emissions to predict rainfall and evaporation. They assumed that emissions would rise until 2050 and then decline. The carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere would be 720 parts per million in 2100, compared with about 380 parts per million today.

    The computer models, on average, found about a 15% decline in surface moisture — which is calculated by subtracting evaporation from precipitation — from 2021 to 2040, as compared with the average from 1950 to 2000.

    A 15% drop led to the conditions that caused the Dust Bowl in the Great Plains and the northern Rockies during the 1930s.

    Even without the circulation changes, global warming intensifies existing patterns of vapor transport, causing dry areas to get drier and wet areas to get wetter. When it rains, it is likely to rain harder, but scientists said that was unlikely to make up for losses from a shifting climate.

    Kelly Redmond, deputy director of the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno, who was not involved in the study, said he thought the region would still have periodic wet years that were part of the natural climate variation.

    But, he added, "In the future we may see fewer such very wet years."

    Although the computer models show the drying has already started, they are not accurate enough to know whether the drought is the result of global warming or a natural variation.

    "It's really hard to tell," said Connie Woodhouse, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Arizona. "It may well be one of the first events we can attribute to global warming."

    The U.S. and southern Europe will be better prepared to deal with frequent drought than most African nations.

    For the U.S., the biggest problem would be water shortages. The seven Colorado River Basin states — Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and California — would battle each other for diminished river flows.

    Mexico, which has a share of the Colorado River under a 1944 treaty and has complained of U.S. diversions in the past, would join the struggle.

    Inevitably, water would be reallocated from agriculture, which uses most of the West's supply, to urban users, drying up farms. California would come under pressure to build desalination plants on the coast, despite environmental concerns.

    "This is a situation that is going to cause water wars," said Kevin Trenberth, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

    "If there's not enough water to meet everybody's allocation, how do you divide it up?"

    Officials from seven states recently forged an agreement on the current drought, which has left the Colorado River's big reservoirs — Lake Powell and Lake Mead — about half-empty. Without some very wet years, federal water managers say, Lake Mead may never refill.

    In the next couple of years, water deliveries may have to be reduced to Arizona and Nevada, whose water rights are second to California.
    LA Times

    Invest in water rights.

  15. #140
    Retired Ray xrayzebra's Avatar
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    The sky is falling, the sky is falling, we are going to die...read on

    My Way

    .


    Panel: Global Warming a Threat to Earth


    Apr 6, 7:16 AM (ET)

    By ARTHUR MAX

    (AP) Director of WWF's Global Climate Change Programme Hans Verolme talks to the media during a press...
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    BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - An international global warming conference approved a report Friday warning of dire threats to the Earth and to mankind - from increased hunger to the extinction of species - unless the world adapts to climate change and halts its progress.

    Agreement came after an all-night session during which key sections were deleted from the draft and scientists angrily confronted government negotiators who they feared were watering down their findings.

    "It has been a complex exercise," said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

    Several scientists objected to the editing of the final draft by government negotiators but in the end agreed to compromises. However, some scientists vowed never to take part in the process again.

    The climax of five days of negotiations was reached when the delegates removed parts of a key chart highlighting devastating effects of climate change that kick in with every rise of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, and in a tussle over the level of scientific reliability attached to key statements.

    There was little doubt about the science, which was based on 29,000 sets of data, much of it collected in the last five years. "For the first time we are not just arm-waving with models," Martin Perry, who conducted the grueling negotiations, told reporters.

    The United States, China and Saudi Arabia raised the many of the objections to the phrasing, often seeking to tone down the certainty of some of the more dire projections.

    The final IPCC report is the clearest and most comprehensive scientific statement to date on the impact of global warming mainly caused by man-induced carbon dioxide pollution.

    It said up to 30 percent of the Earth's species face an increased risk of vanishing if global temperatures rise 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above the average in the 1980s and '90s.

    Areas that now suffer a shortage of rain will become even more dry, adding to the risks of hunger and disease, it said. The world will face heightened threats of flooding, severe storms and the erosion of coastlines.

    "This is a glimpse into an apocalyptic future," the Greenpeace environmental group said of the final report.

    Negotiators pored over the 21-page draft meant to be a policy guide for governments. The summary pares down the full 1,500-page scientific assessment of the evidence of climate change so far, and the impact it will have on the Earth's most vulnerable people and ecosystems.

    More than 120 nations attended the meeting. Each word was approved by consensus, and any change had to be approved by the scientists who drew up that section of the report.

    Though weakened by the deletion of some elements, the final report "will send a very, very clear signal" to governments, said Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate official.

    The summary will be presented to the G8 summit of the world's richest nations in June, when the European Union is expected to renew appeals to President Bush to join in international efforts to control emissions of fossil fuels.

    This year's series of reports by the IPCC were the first in six years from the prestigious body of some 2,500 scientists, formed in 1988. Public awareness of climate change gave the IPCC's work unaccustomed importance and fueled the intensity of the closed-door negotiations during the five-day meeting.

    "The urgency of this report prepared by the world's top scientists should be matched by an equally urgent response from governments," said Hans Verolme, director of the global climate change program of the World Wide Fund for Nature.

    "Doing nothing is not an option," he said.

    During the final session, the conference snagged over a sentence that said the impact of climate change already were being observed on every continent and in most oceans.

    "There is very high confidence that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases," said the statement on the first page of text.

    But China insisted on striking the word "very," injecting a measure of doubt into what the scientists argued were indisputable observations. The report's three authors refused to go along with the change, resulting in an hours-long deadlock that was broken by a U.S. compromise to delete any reference to confidence levels.

    It is the second of four reports from the IPCC this year; the first report in February laid out the scientific case for how global warming is happening. This second report is the "so what" report, explaining what the effects of global warming will be.

    European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said the report will spur the EU's determination to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

    "The world needs to act fast if we are to succeed in stabilizing climate change and thereby prevent its worst impacts," Dimas said in a statement.

    For the first time, the scientists broke down their predictions into regions, and forecast that climate change will affect billions of people.

    North America will experience more severe storms with human and economic loss, and cultural and social disruptions. It can expect more hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves and wildfires, it said. Coasts will be swamped by rising sea levels. In the short term, crop yields may increase by 5 to 20 percent from a longer growing season, but will plummet if temperatures rise by 7.2 F.

    Africa will be hardest hit. By 2020, up to 250 million people are likely to exposed to water shortages. In some countries, food production could fall by half, it said.

    Parts of Asia are threatened with massive flooding and avalanches from melting Himalayan glaciers. Europe also will see its Alpine glaciers disappear. Australia's Great Barrier Reef will lose much of its coral to bleaching from even moderate increases in sea temperatures, the report said.

    ---

    AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report

    =========================================

    Oh, shucks, maybe not......read on.....



    Forecaster Blasts Gore on Global Warming


    Apr 7, 2:55 AM (ET)

    By CAIN BURDEAU

    (AP) Dr. William Gray, a top hurricane researcher, answers questions during an interview in New Orleans,...
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    NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A top hurricane forecaster called Al Gore "a gross alarmist" Friday for making an Oscar-winning do entary about global warming.

    "He's one of these guys that preaches the end of the world type of things. I think he's doing a great disservice and he doesn't know what he's talking about," Dr. William Gray said in an interview with The Associated Press at the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans, where he delivered the closing speech.

    A spokeswoman said Gore was on a flight from Washington, D.C., to Nashville Friday; he did not immediately respond to Gray's comments.

    Gray, an emeritus professor at the atmospheric science department at Colorado State University, has long railed against the theory that heat-trapping gases generated by human activity are causing the world to warm.

    Over the past 24 years, Gray, 77, has become known as America's most reliable hurricane forecaster; recently, his mentee, Philip Klotzbach, has begun doing the bulk of the forecasting work.

    Gray's statements came the same day the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change approved a report that concludes the world will face dire consequences to food and water supplies, along with increased flooding and other dramatic weather events, unless nations adapt to climate change.

    Rather than global warming, Gray believes a recent uptick in strong hurricanes is part of a multi-decade trend of alternating busy and slow periods related to ocean circulation patterns. Contrary to mainstream thinking, Gray believes ocean temperatures are going to drop in the next five to 10 years.

    Gore's do entary, "An Inconvenient Truth," has helped fuel media attention on global warming.

    Kerry Emanuel, an MIT professor who had feuded with Gray over global warming, said Gray has wrongly "dug (his) heels in" even though there is ample evidence that the world is getting hotter.

  16. #141
    Retired Ray xrayzebra's Avatar
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    Mathematics is a myth?

    Do you have Alzheimer's?
    Nope and I can read. I just don't read the same crap as
    you. The following article pretty much describes you and
    a bunch just like you.


    Global warming argument has serious flaws
    By: S. Lee Whitesell
    Posted: 4/4/07
    In this piece, I will commit a number of heresies. The Inquisitors of the Church of Ecology know where to find me. Let them come: I remain armed with the First Amendment and a proud tradition of liberty.

    In order to more effectively commit heresy, I will explicitly enumerate the doctrines of New Environmentalism, which is the religion of the Church of Ecology. Please note - I do not suggest that these are the views of everyone who believes global warming is a concern. They are, however, common among activists, socialist politicians and the news media. I explicitly reject all but the first.

    The first is that global warming is occurring. This is the organizing principle of the Church. They do not even bother arguing the point. I know this from experience. You might think you had questioned the existence of Canada.

    Innocent skeptics - the sort who are unfamiliar with the debate and so do not know their own heresy - are treated with a sort of patronizing charity. They are gently, but firmly, informed that there is no such possibility and that the Oracle of Science has spoken. The Church is willing to tolerate this class of persons so long as they stay out of policy discussions.

    [B]Informed skeptics have a different approach: They maintain that the 0.6 (yes, that's zero point six) degree increase in average temperature over the past century is no cause for assuming it will continue. In fact, we conservative types tend to remember history a little better - and we remember the 1970s global cooling scare.[.B]

    Seriously, search the archives of The New York Times, Newsweek or the Christian Science Monitor.

    Finally, the scientific skeptics are relegated to the extremes and no one may hear their heresies. For example, how many of you know that some scientists actually question the validity of the very concept of a "global temperature"? These are real scientists at major universities (in Europe, no less) and they seriously contend that an average global temperature is like "calculating the average number in the phone book."

    The second doctrine is that this warming is unnatural and we are to blame. The Church is forced to participate in this discussion, though it likely seeks to categorize it with the first as an unarguable and foregone assumption. There are a few major problems with this claim.

    First, there is no good way to tell if the warming is unnatural, as climate change is a major part of any planetary ecology. In the words of one eminent biogeologist, "The system requires no external driver to fluctuate by a fraction of a degree."

    This warming period may be natural. It may also be temporary. In the next decade, we may see global cooling. Or perhaps temperatures will remain relatively stable. This isn't just Hume's problem of induction writ large. The Church's acolytes are making seriously problematic inferential assumptions - which is to say, there is no good reason to believe temperatures will continue to rise.

    An Internet news journal reported the following about the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, which has maintained the world's longest continuous worldwide record of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels: In 2002 and 2003 there were "recorded increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide of 2.43 and 2.30 ppm (parts per million) respectively … Did human industrial output somehow increase 55 percent during those two years, and then decline by that amount in 2004? Of course not. For the record, (the scientists) concluded that the fluctuation was caused by the natural processes that contribute and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."

    The third and final doctrine is that this warming will cause catastrophe. Therefore, we are both technologically capable and morally required to act. This is perhaps the most absurd.

    First of all, even if you suspend disbelief and accept the other doctrines of the Church, it seems a little silly to respond with more human intervention in the environment - and these are just such the actions proposed. Like in 1975, when "scientists" suggested covering the ice caps with soot to curb their growth.

    The claims are designed to elicit compassion. For example, the claim that the world's poor will suffer the worst. Millions of impoverished Africans will be plunged into the depths of famine. Barely self-sustaining regions of the world will see their stability totter with the rapid decrease in crop viability and fresh water supplies. Disease, they tell us, will overtake poor areas of the world, and currently "sanitized" regions will see the re-introduction of old diseases.

    These claims are nothing more than rampant speculation. What about the regions of the world currently in drought or famine? Why don't we suppose that these regions will benefit? What about very cold regions of the world, where agriculture is currently impossible? Will these regions become fertile?

    Even if warming is happening, even if it is the fault of humans, it is dangerously unclear what the effects of this warming will be.

    The actions that environmentalists want us to take are draconian, to say the least. Implementing these policies is particularly bad for the poor and amounts to the same sort of backwards socialist class warfare as Marxism-Leninism, Maoism or, for that matter, European Socialism.

    The Church of Ecology has planted its flag in science. This so-called science is really a dogmatic political stance that is probably wrong and extremely dangerous in its implications.

    The "political necessity" of dealing with impending doom means that objectors to this must be controlled or silenced, their views marginalized. Anti-action politicians must be thrown out of office and dissident scientists must be discredited or disenfranchised - or worse, jailed. Sane people may not disagree.

    The Church's inquisitions have already begun.



    Information from - The Patriot Post, Science Daily, United Press International © Copyright 2007 Signal

  17. #142
    needs a margarita
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    Apologies if this was already posted...

    Preeminent Hurricane Researcher Calls Al Gore "a gross alarmist"
    Last Update: Apr 7, 2007 8:27 AM

    http://www.woai.com/news/local/story...51e30dc&rss=68


    By CAIN BURDEAU, The Associated Press
    NEW ORLEANS - A top hurricane forecaster called Al Gore "a gross alarmist" Friday for making an Oscar-winning do entary about global warming.

    "He's one of these guys that preaches the end of the world type of things. I think he's doing a great disservice and he doesn't know what he's talking about," Dr. William Gray said in an interview with The Associated Press at the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans, where he delivered the closing speech.

    A spokeswoman said Gore was on a flight from Washington, D.C., to Nashville Friday; he did not immediately respond to Gray's comments.

    Gray, an emeritus professor at the atmospheric science department at Colorado State University, has long railed against the theory that heat-trapping gases generated by human activity are causing the world to warm.

    Over the past 24 years, Gray, 77, has become known as America's most reliable hurricane forecaster; recently, his mentee, Philip Klotzbach, has begun doing the bulk of the forecasting work.

    Gray's statements came the same day the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change approved a report that concludes the world will face dire consequences to food and water supplies, along with increased flooding and other dramatic weather events, unless nations adapt to climate change.

    Rather than global warming, Gray believes a recent uptick in strong hurricanes is part of a multi-decade trend of alternating busy and slow periods related to ocean circulation patterns. Contrary to mainstream thinking, Gray believes ocean temperatures are going to drop in the next five to 10 years.

    Gore's do entary, "An Inconvenient Truth," has helped fuel media attention on global warming.

    Kerry Emanuel, an MIT professor who had feuded with Gray over global warming, said Gray has wrongly "dug (his) heels in" even though there is ample evidence that the world is getting hotter.

    Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

  18. #143
    I Got Hops Extra Stout's Avatar
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    Gray is probably right that the uptick in hurricanes is more related to the normal variation in hurricane frequency over a 30-year period, than it is to global warming.

  19. #144
    Retired Ray xrayzebra's Avatar
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    Now it is my turn. Can you do Math. Read on and get a little
    more education on global temperatures.

    Source: University of Copenhagen
    Date: March 18, 2007

    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 geneous 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.

    Reference: C. Essex, R. McKitrick, B. Andresen: Does a Global Temperature Exist?; J. Non-Equil. Thermod. vol. 32, p. 1-27 (2007).

    Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University of Copenhagen.

  20. #145
    I Got Hops Extra Stout's Avatar
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    Finally, the scientific skeptics are relegated to the extremes and no one may hear their heresies. For example, how many of you know [B]that some scientists actually question the validity of the very concept of a "global temperature"? These are real scientists at major universities (in Europe, no less) and they seriously contend that an average global temperature is like "calculating the average number in the phone book."
    Probably what this joker is referring to, is the uncertainty about how exactly to measure global temperatures in order to calculate a mean. Where is it measured? Should it be it at the surface, or at some point "x" meters above the ground?

    How often should readings be taken? Every 8 hours? 4 hours? 15 minutes? 1 second?

    The lack of standardization means that absolute surface air temperatures from one station to another are difficult to compare. All that can really be compared are anomalies.

    And whaddya know, anomalies are the very thing we are trying to measure in this case.

    But please feel free to find another antediluvian reactionary website to quote.

  21. #146
    Retired Ray xrayzebra's Avatar
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    You mean like the University of Copenhagen. What a
    reactionary place that is!

  22. #147
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    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.)
    But in either example, anomalies in the observed temperatures are going to show up as anomalies in the averages, no matter how they are calculated. So anomalies can be observed and they are statistically relevant, even if the absolute temperatures are not.

  23. #148
    I Got Hops Extra Stout's Avatar
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    You mean like the University of Copenhagen. What a
    reactionary place that is!
    You didn't actually read my post, did you?

  24. #149
    Retired Ray xrayzebra's Avatar
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    You didn't actually read my post, did you?
    You didn't actually read what the good Professor said,
    did you? Average global temps are absolutely meanless.

  25. #150
    I Got Hops Extra Stout's Avatar
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    You didn't actually read what the good Professor said,
    did you? Average global temps are absolutely meanless.
    Let's try to explain it to you this way. In the USA, there is a calculation for average GDP per capita. But this calculation is absolutely meaningless to me as a measure of how well I am doing, because I do not live in the average of the United States of America. I live in Houston, TX, which has its own local wage scale. And not only that, but the cost of living is different here from, say, in Los Angeles, or rural West Virginia.

    So there are different ways the averages are calculated. Some just take per capita GDP. Some take "Purchasing power parity" based upon local incomes versus local costs of goods. But since not everybody buys the same things from region to region, those measurements are inexact.

    And we also know that at times, the economy in one part of the U.S. can be doing great, while another part stinks. Right now Texas is doing OK, while Michigan is in free-fall collapse. In the 1980's, most of the country was booming, while Texas was in the oil bust.

    So, because the system is so complex, there is no mathematically rigorous means for determining how the economy is doing in the United States.

    So does that mean if the government reports the economy is growing 5%, that the report is meaningless? If unemployment goes up or down, that is irrelevant? Of course not. The changes in these factors, which provide an estimate of how the economy is doing, paint us a picture.

    Nowhere in Dr. Andersen's article did he say that the global warming debate is "political" rather than "scientific." That was inserted by the journalist. What Dr. Andersen said was that a better method was needed to calculate changes in global temperature, based upon a more rigrous model taking into account non-equilibrium thermodynamics (which happens to be his specialty).

    I don't have a problem with that assertion. The only thing I would dispute is the notion that depending on what averages one uses, one could calculate that the earth is cooling. While that might be true in the hypothetical, there is no such example provided, and it implies that there is in fact a scientifically valid such means of doing so, which he may not have meant.

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