Believing In Global Warming

SEARCH BLOG: GLOBAL WARMING

From Future Pundit:

Poll Of Scientists Finds Support For Anthropogenic Global Warming

A lot of scientists think we are heating up the planet.

A group of 3,146 earth scientists surveyed around the world overwhelmingly agree that in the past 200-plus years, mean global temperatures have been rising, and that human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures.

Peter Doran, University of Illinois at Chicago associate professor of earth and environmental sciences, along with former graduate student Maggie Kendall Zimmerman, conducted the survey late last year.

The findings appear today in the publication Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union.

In trying to overcome criticism of earlier attempts to gauge the view of earth scientists on global warming and the human impact factor, Doran and Kendall Zimmerman sought the opinion of the most complete list of earth scientists they could find, contacting more than 10,200 experts around the world listed in the 2007 edition of the American Geological Institute's Directory of Geoscience Departments.

My comment to that post... be patient:

The vast majority of diet experts believe that caloric intake determines fat content. It seems like common sense until you evaluate body chemistry and learn that in order to have fat increased in fat cells, it must be driven by insulin. In the absence of insulin, the body does not increase fat supplies. Then you must ask the question: how many calories does it take to stimulate insulin production and you find that you have asked the wrong question. It is not fat or protein that triggers insulin production, but carbohydrates. So if you want to lose fat, don't eat carbohydrates.

Now, back to climate. The vast majority of scientists believe [or at least will concede that it seems logical] that adding CO2 to the atmosphere increases the heat content of the atmosphere [increased calories]. However, upon closer observation, it is noted that cold water holds more CO2 than warm water and by heating the water, large amounts of CO2 are released [try it with a carbonated beverage]. The increase of CO2 was an effect of heating, not a cause. More and more scientists are coming to the conclusion that both solar activity and ocean circulation are the primary drivers of climate oscillations... both long and short term. If you want to reduce CO2, you must reduce heating [insulin]; and if you want to reduce heating, you must have a less active sun and cold water ocean circulation [like La Nina].

Causation of bodily fat content and causation of climate variations are not necessarily obvious. CO2 is a by-product, not a cause of warming, which is a by-product of solar activity and ocean circulation patterns. Fat is a by-product of insulin levels which is a by-product of carbohydrate consumption. That's why you can have lower CO2 during periods of greater solar activity and have more heat and rising levels of CO2 during declining solar activity and have less heat [clarification: during the major change points in solar radiation due to the lagging effect of CO2 release and absorption - see here]. That's why you can eat more calories with fewer carbohydrates and not produce more body fat and that's why you can eat fewer calories and much more carbohydrates and produce more body fat.

As H.L. Mencken said:
There is always an easy solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.

Henry Louis Mencken (1880–1956)
“The Divine Afflatus,” A Mencken Chrestomathy, chapter 25, p. 443 (1949)

Correlation is not causation.

Since I don't have access to the survey data, I can't allow myself to make a snide comment on how 3,146 is not the vast majority of 10,200 because I don't know how many responded and how representative the respondents were of scientists in general [bias?].

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