SkepticLance

I don't feel that my original question has been answered. Bearing in mind that ocean temperatures have risen, on average, only 0.06 Celsius in 40 years, and warmer ocean temperature is the driver of hurricanes, how can such a small effect drive more, or more intense hurricanes? Apparently it takes 1 Celsius higher ocean temperature, compared to a smaller hurricane, to create a hurricane with 5% greater wind speed. What would 0.06 C do? I am not convinced that this change is sufficient to have a measurable effect on hurricane frequency or intensity. Changes in measurements of those parameters are, so far, within statistically normal variation. Is there a real change, and if so, how does it happen?

iNow What is your prediction as to sea level rise over, say, 100 years? Current rise is 3 mm per year. Even if that doubled as a 100 year average, that would only be 0.6 metres (2 feet) which the Dutch have shown can be coped with using dykes.

No problem, iNow. If they do not have religious studies, they don't teach it. Simple really. Just like you don't teach DNA structure in history class. If you don't have a biology class, you don't teach DNA structure at all. Ditto ID and religious studies.

Eccentric, you lucky dog! All I ever achieved was weird.

Intelligent design/creationism should indeed be taught at school. It should be a part of the religious studies curriculum, since that is where it comes from. Students need to be made aware, in no uncertain terms, that ID is an aspect of religion, not science. Evolution should also be taught, but as part of the science curriculum, since evolution is not religion, but science.

Just finished reading an editorial in New Scientist, in which the author suggests that towns like Galviston on the hurricane prone sea coast, should be abandoned rather than rebuilt. This struck me as rather a weird suggestion, since I think we can build protections that would keep up with any reasonably predictable increased sea level and hurricane risk. This led me to the question as to whether hurricane risk is actually increasing that much. While hurricanes have been a little more frequent and a little more severe in the last decade or so, there is no way to tell for sure whether this is due to anthopogenic global warming, or just a natural cycle. It seems to me that the degree of warming is simply too small. We have had an average warming of the ocean of 0.06 Celsius over the past 40 years. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6376/is_/ai_n28880042 And it appears that a sea water temperature increase of 1 Celsius contributes to a 5% increase in hurricane wind speed. A lot of global warming articles refer to global temperature increases of up to 5 Celsius in the next century or two, and say this will drive more terrible hurricanes. But that is air temperature, which does not affect hurricanes. It is increase in ocean temperature that is critical, and 0.06C is just too trivial to have much impact. Are the hurricane increase proponents just a bunch of theoretical catastrophe lovers, or is there something I have missed?

iNow Good quote. Science does include changes to scientific ideas, but such changes are mostly in mere nitty gritty detail. Changes to the basic ideas are rare. We can predict with a high degree of probability of being right, that science in 100 years will be built on our current understanding, which shall remain mostly unchanged. However, those who are alive then will share a wonderful expansion of the details of our current understanding. The idea of biological evolution, for example, will be unchanged, but our understanding of its detailed workings will be understood in much greater detail.

I have always thought of it in terms of orbits. Think of the Earth as orbiting a point in space a little in the direction of the moon. Now think of the Earth as 3 parts. 1. Inner bit facing the moon. 2. Middle bit, making up most of the Earth. 3. Outer bit facing away from the moon. If you change the speed of something in orbit, it changes its orbital position. If a satellite orbiting the Earth is slowed down, it falls towards the Earth. If a satellite is sped up, it moves outwards. The inner and outer part of the Earth tied together, and are forced by the Earth's gravity to travel at the same speed. This slows down the inner part, and speeds up the outer part, more than a natural orbit. The fact that the inner part travels too slow means it 'falls' towards the point in space that the Earth orbits - just as a satellite that is slowed down falls towards the Earth. The outer part is going faster than it should in pure orbit, which creates a centrifugal action pulling it outwards, just like a satellite being sped up moving outwards.

There is another possible explanation also, if the isotopes are radioactive at all. Radio-hormesis is somewhat controversial, but the idea has its advocates. This suggests that a slight increase in damage to genetic material by a slight increase in background radioactivity stimulates the genetic repair mechanisms, leading to lower cancer risk and longer lifespan. Not proved, though there is some impressive evidence. The problem is that we need to carry out experiments currently classed as unethical to prove it.

My other favourite (after the revolution caused by the theory of plate tectonics) for a scientific idea that was plain wrong, is the cause of ulcers. Once thought to be due to stress. Now known to be an infection by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori. However, even though science continually polishes and refines its ideas with minor changes, to totally overturn an idea is rare. Science is like a building. Lay the foundations and then build on it. You may have to reshape the odd brick, but the building stands and grows. The value of science is in this growth. Science in 100 years will have wonderful new ideas and discoveries, but it will be built upon the foundations that we know to be 'correct' (ie superior models) today. And of course we have the purely practical value. From scientific knowledge comes technology and an increase in the standard of living and quality of life for all humanity.

A dildo is a peg (one of two) stuck in the side of a dinghy in place of rowlocks. Seriously! It's true.

A recent study suggests that free radicals are not the cause of ageing. Rather spoils the heavy isotope idea. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081201105711.htm

Joan of Arc, schizophrenics, and television mediums all hear voices.

iNow I have read the Hansen statements in three separate articles - two via email which were posted on this forum, and one in paper copy of New Scientist. What I said was true, and your denial does not change that. Hansen stated a 5 metre sea level rise as a definite belief - not just a vague opinion. iNow, What I said about politicisation of global warming ideas is also true. Claim and counter-claim. The fact that you appear to be one of the extremists and don't like being identified as such does not make what I am saying incorrect. The fact that several hundred professional climate scientists also state what I have said simply backs up my statement. And yes, we have already named many of them, so lets not do that yet again. Global warming has a certain amount of strong empirical data, and a lot of extrapolation and opinion. I am not arguing against the data, and neither are the sceptical climate scientists. We point out, however, where people go beyond data into areas without good evidence. And politics and self interest is behind a lot of these expeditions.

Out of the approximately 15,000 murders committed each year in the United States with a gun, normally less than 5 are done by a child. I don't think you can regard children committing murder as a major problem, in relative terms. Thus, even if you are wrong, it is not going to do a great deal of harm to treat the children differently to an adult. We know from other studies that exposing youth to adult offenders makes their offending worse. A recent study here in NZ showed that young offenders locked up with adults had a reoffending rate 7 times as high as those not locked up with adults. Based on this kind of hard data, I would say kids should be treated as kids, not adults, when looking at dealing with their crimes.

You need to be a little careful of claims about anti-oxidants. There is no doubt that a reasonable dose of a variety of antioxidants is good for health. Many food dogmatists have extrapolated from this fact to a belief that large amounts of some particular anti-oxidant will confer excessive health benefits. However, there is no credible scientific evidence to support this idea. The best approach to good health through diet is to embrace variety, While a small dose of flax seed may be useful, try to get a wide variety of antioxidants and other good nutrients through consuming a wide variety of fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Don't let other people's obsessions with any one food lead you into overdoing just one.

iNow Hansen expressed an opinion that was unjustified. He did not deny that it was an opinion, but he clearly stated that he believed it would come true. As an example of the kind of exaggerated stance on AGW, it is valid. Hansen is one who is prepared to make statements of pure opinion and pretend it is scientific. This is politics at its worst. Science should be above that sort of thing. I accept that global warming is real and human generated. However, there are extreme views, and those get a lot of publicity. An extreme view that is not supported by the science should not be expressed by scientists. Sadly, scientists are just as prone to political silliness as anyone else. insane alien. The references I was talking about were not referring to the western antarctic ice sheet. They were talking about Western Antarctica, which implies half the continent. That is misleading.

The name is a symptom of something much larger, and that is the politicisation of global warming. As many have pointed out on this and similar threads, there is a very right wing political movement that denies global warming. The deniers are, of course, quite wrong. What the same people tend to deny, though, is that there is a similar and opposite political movement that exaggerates global warming. Dr. Patrick Michaels, in his sceptical book The Satanic Gases, suggests that this movement is driven by scientists, bureaucrats, and politicians who are capitalising on AGW. Climate scientists who once would have been tucked away in obscure corners screaming for research funds that never come, are now seen as massively important world savers, and receive very large sums of research funding. If you do not think this is a corrupting influence, you are naive. Bureaucrats who have jobs at IPCC and similar organisations will fight for thir jobs and privileged positions, and politicians like Al Gore who have hung their hat on the AGW pole will never accept anything that might reduce their power and influence. AGW is real. Warming is real and human driven. However, many other aspects of this story are of much greater doubt. How catastrophic is it likely to be? How much time does humanity have to adapt? How accurate are predictions? It is to the benefit of climate scientists, bureaucrats and politicians to put the worst interpretation up. You only have to look at Dr. Stephen Schneider, who admitted deliberate exaggerations for publicity. Or Dr. James Hansen with his 5 metre sea level rise prediction before 2100. The use of the term Western Antarctica instead of the more accurate term Antarctic Peninsular is a symptom of the whole movement towards global warming exaggeration. While the global warming denialists are probably more wrong than the global warming exaggerators, they are both wrong, and should both be opposed in the interests of proper scientific accuracy.

swansont Did I not make myself clear? It is the use of the misleading term 'West Antarctica' when they mean the relatively tiny part of Antarctica that is the Antarctic Peninsular. If I said that eastern USA was subtropical, when I meant the Florida Peninsular, people would think I was talking about everything east of the prairies. To say 'West Antarctica' leads to the misconception that people are describing half of the entire continent. While those 'in the know' will appreciate what is meant, those documents are read by an awful lot of other people - as witness the fact that we are discussing them now. How many people who are not part of the clique would realise that 'West Antarctica' refers to only a tiny part of the entire continent? The use of the term 'West Antarctic' instead of the more sensible and more scientifically accurate term 'Antarctic Peninsular' is obviously very misleading.

iNow knows I am right, and does not want to defend the indefensible.

iNow The reference you just posted shows the same piece of lying hypocrasy. "The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is also showing some signs of thinning." . The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is, in fact, a very tiny fraction of all the ice in Antarctica, and represents just that on the Antarctic Peninsular. Using the term "West Antarctic" makes it sound much more ominous than it really is, and implies half of Antarctica is affected instead of a rather small fraction. Why do so called reputable scientists have to be so bloody deceptive?

Swansont According to http://www.ifremer.fr/ifrtp/pages/API%202007-2008/API/125.pdf obtaining an accurate mass balance of water/ice movement and the contribution to sea level rise is very difficult. They suggest that current sea level rise is 60% due to thermal expansion. The residue is melting ice. However, how much of that melting ice is from various different sources is hard to determine. Their estimate is 0.9 mm per year from melting mountain glaciers and ice melt from Antarctica and Greenland. An earlier article I read in New Scientist suggested that most of the non thermal expansion was mountain glaciers. However, it looks as though the estimates are little better than educated guesses. This applies to your other reference on Greenland ice melt. There is so much error factor in the estimates of amount of water melting compared to snow precipitating that I cannot take any estimate too seriously. The big objection I have is to those who talk of severe ice melt in West Antarctica, without actually explaining that West Antarctica is just the peninsular and its base, which is a tiny fraction of the whole of Antarctica. I regard that kind of statement as political chicanery - essentially a more subtle form of misdirection - otherwise known as a lie.

There is a lot of nonsense written about Antarctica and global warming. We tend to get those with political agendas talking about East and West Antarctica, as if the continent was divided in two. This is a deliberate attempt to mislead. Antarctica, in the vast bulk of its continental mass, is cooling. The cooling is trivial, but still cooling. This means more ice, rather than less on its continental land mass. Again, the amounts are relatively trivial. However, the Antarctic Peninsular, which is a tiny part of the continent as a percentage, is warming. Sea ice around the peninsular is melting rapidly, and a small amount of the ice on the land portion is also melting. The peninsular is contributing to sea level rise, though to a limited extent since it is a relatively small area of land. The main continent is contributing to the reverse, though also to a minor extent, since the cooling and precipitation both are small. Overall, any contribution Antarctica makes to sea level rise is small or non existent.

Randi's testing has to be flexible, since the prize is for ANY genuine psychic ability. However, whatever the supposed ability, it has to be demonstrated under scientifically rigorous conditions that prevent fraud. So far the success rate is zero. Every would-be psychic has been shown to be either merely self-deluded, or a deliberate fraud.

To Mr Skeptic Re James Randi's test. To give an example : Uri Geller claims to be able to bend spoons using the power of his mind alone. Randi has urged him to take the test for the million dollar prize. When Geller learned that he would not be able to use his own, pre-prepared spoons for the bending, he declined. Of course, Randi utterly annoyed Geller several decades back by adding Geller's tricks to his stage magician's act, and showing that a stage magician, through trickery, could do everything Geller claimed to do with psychic abilities.