Entire Antarctic Shelf splitting away from Continent.

[BridgeTroll]

I am not missing the point.  I understand the point.  What I am saying is you are using mixed data.  Over the past 100 years we have extremely accurate data.  Yes?  We can all agree.  I also agree that tree ring and such data are accurate for what it is.

My problem is this...

You are comparing averages of extremely accurate data from the past 100 years.. to inferred and relatively accurate data for THOUSANDS of years.  A tree ring will give you a good estimate of the climate for a given year but that data cannot compare at all to accurate modern weather observation.

[BridgeTroll]

And all that I am saying is that plenty of doubt... for me at least remains.  Did a large chunk of ice break off from Antarctica 6000 years ago?  Who knows?  Did the arctic ice cap thaw for a short decade 7000 years ago?  My problem is with the certitude with which the information is presented and that "deniers" or "doubters" such as myself are derided as dupes of "big oil" or some such...

In addition it sometimes seems as if the GW'ers have so much invested into the theory that any information contrary to the theory is quickly attacked as heresy...

[gatorback]

Bridge, dont take my words out of context it is completely beneath you--leave that to the river.  Irrespective of the error if it is 5% or 50%, if the trend is up or down it is up or down; and lsince the industrial revolution the trend is up.

[BridgeTroll]

Irrespective of the error if it is 5% or 50%, if the trend is up or down it is up or down; and lsince the industrial revolution the trend is up.

Wow... okay.  Thank you... you have just summed up the entire science of weather prediction.

[Ocklawaha]

Got to add my two crazy cents worth here...

I was completely sold on the idea that this was some stupid anti-industrial, anti-rail, anti-coal, anti-American, anti-Christian plot. "Global Warming" HA!

It might not be well known here, but I also hang tight to some deep south Protestant Roots and religious beliefs.

This is what the pastors have been saying every since the Popular Science Magazine of about 1970 came out with a series on "THE NEW ICE AGE" that was susposed to be just around the corner. Any day in fact. Supported by all sorts of readings.

As "proof" the pastors generally taught that the world would end in fire. WAR, Drought, Starvation, Desertification, and all the sundry plagues, nukes, animal mutations-attacks, and chemical disasters we can cook up.

Couldn't be an ICE AGE!!

Has to be heat!

Then NO! Can't be heat, that's a liberal - socialist - commie plot to sell out America's remaining industrial might. We are the "Godly Nation." The protector of the Jews. The lovers of man kind...

Then one day I had a historic epiphany!!

If it's going to end like that, then OH MY GOD - HERE WE ARE ladies and gentlemen. HEAT! Warming! Climate change. Wars, Iran Nukes, N. Korean Nukes, Russian rogue Nukes in God knows where, desertification on a grand scale. Shrinking green belts in most of the world.

Sorry to my Pastors, but I sort of think this FITS THE MOLD.

If so, Mr Dare is not a nut job, rather a voice in the wilderness...

OCKLAWAHA

[gatorback]

Irrespective of the error if it is 5% or 50%, if the trend is up or down it is up or down; and lsince the industrial revolution the trend is up.

Wow... okay.  Thank you... you have just summed up the entire science of weather prediction.

Once again it's CLIMATE not weather! And thank you. I do what I can.

[BridgeTroll]

Once again it's CLIMATE not weather! And thank you. I do what I can.

Dammit!!  I meant climate!   I stand corrected... on the typo/misstatement...

[jandar]

Bridge, dont take my words out of context it is completely beneath you--leave that to the river.  Irrespective of the error if it is 5% or 50%, if the trend is up or down it is up or down; and since the industrial revolution the trend is up.

And since the Industrial Revolution, we have gone from the Maunder Minimum to the Modern Maximum in Solar Activity.

The Modern Maximum corresponds almost perfectly to the warming period since the industrial revolution.



Look at how there are more observed sunspots starting in the 18th century. The same exact time that the industrial revolution started.
Did our puny coal fired, steam powered machines cause more sunspots?

[downtownparks]

Jandar. [sarcasm]There is NO substantiating proof that the sun has ANY effect on the temperature of the earth. Stop your anti-environmental misinformation campaign, and get on board already!!![/sarcasm]

[downtownparks]

As an aside, anyone know when the last solar flare was?

[Charleston native]

According to NASA, the last maximum solar flare occurred in 1989.

[downtownparks]

I read somewhere not too long ago that the sun has been unusually quiet in the last 18 months. Here is one, but its not the one I read a few months ago.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/13/where-have-all-the-sunspots-gone/

[jandar]

Perhaps even more alarming, is how scientists are noticing a corelation between sunpots and droughts.

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/1217/1

Now geographer Robert Baker of the University of New England, Armidale, in Australia, has linked solar magnetic activity to Earth's climate--at least regionally. Using sunspot counts and Australian meteorological data, as well as NASA satellite data for more recent years, he tracked sunspots and rainfall in Australia from 1876 to 2006. In this month's issue of Geographical Research, Baker reports that the amount of rainfall in most regions of the country tracked the 22-year magnetic cycle almost exactly. "It was unbelievable," Baker says. At the height of magnetic activity, rainfall across most of the country was plentiful. At the other end of the cycle, many of those same regions experienced severe droughts. The findings are particularly compelling, Baker says, because even though the lengths of the magnetic cycles are not precise and can vary by several years, the rainfall patterns followed them.

[gatorback]

Jandar did somebody spike your cornflakes?  You don't seriously think "our puny coal fired, steam powered machines cause more sunspots?"  LOL.  I think what you are really getting at is some relationship to climate change and sun spots.  I would love to examine more then 400 years of sun spots data and compare that with ice core samples and tree rings.  Do we have more then 400 years of sun spot data?

[downtownparks]

If thats true, Jandar, that is alarming because from what I have been reading, the sun is unusually quiet right now, as it relates to its magnetic activity.