AGW Supporters always ignore this question

[MSimon]

The Spanish/American War, and World War I should have been avoided too.

The S/A war was a case of jingo fever and the desire to liberate the downtrodden. Jingo fever didn't catch on.

As for WW1. Had we gotten in sooner we might have had more say at the peace thus preventing WW2. The "no vindictive peace" idea was the one good thing Wilson tried. The brilliant Euros were not about to take advice from a bunch of provincials though.

[alexjrgreen]

For the record, this isn't from the Koran - it's from the Hadith collected by Bukhari (52:177)

Makes no essential difference. It is Holy Writ.

31 The LORD said to me, 'See, I have begun to deliver Sihon and his land over to you. Begin to occupy, that you may possess his land.'

32 Then Sihon with all his people came out to meet us in battle at Jahaz.

33 The LORD our God delivered him over to us, and we defeated him with his sons and all his people.

34 So we captured all his cities at that time and utterly destroyed the men, women and children of every city. We left no survivor.

Deuteronomy 2:31-34 (New American Standard Bible)

[Luzr]

The fact that we exist proves that it cannot be.

Yeah, tell me the stories about "positive feedback".....

[MSimon]

For the record, this isn't from the Koran - it's from the Hadith collected by Bukhari (52:177)

Makes no essential difference. It is Holy Writ.

31 The LORD said to me, 'See, I have begun to deliver Sihon and his land over to you. Begin to occupy, that you may possess his land.'

32 Then Sihon with all his people came out to meet us in battle at Jahaz.

33 The LORD our God delivered him over to us, and we defeated him with his sons and all his people.

34 So we captured all his cities at that time and utterly destroyed the men, women and children of every city. We left no survivor.

Deuteronomy 2:31-34 (New American Standard Bible)

Yes. But the only people still following that fundamentally are some Christians. The Jews have 3,000 years of common law between themselves and the texts. Something most Christians and seculars are unaware of.

OTOH I think it was Christmas day where some Muslim was trying to blow up a plane load of infidels. And it was Jan. 6th or 7th that another guy was ranting on a plane about killing Jews.

It matters not what is in the books. (I have Muslim friends who are against Sharia) What matters is what people think they should do about it.

You might want to study the history of the ME in WW2. The Austrian Corporal worked to turn endemic Jew hatred in the area to his advantage. Which is how Mein Kampf (minus some unfortunate passages) first got translated into Arabic.

[KitemanSA]

I won't dispute that Methane is a positive feedback. I simply point out that it's effects are completely swamped by the far more massive quantities of water vapor which is a negative feedback effect.

My argument has always been simple. The Spectrographic absorption of water indicates it OUGHT to be a positive feedback mechanism.

The fact that we exist proves that it cannot be.

Water VAPOR is a significant positive feedback mechanism.

The thing is, it doesn't stay vapor. It condenses onto microscopic solid particles called "dust" in the stratosphere and become minute liquid droplets called "clouds" and these things called clouds are a negative feedback mechanism. Lucky us, no?

[Diogenes]

The fact that we exist proves that it cannot be.

Yeah, tell me the stories about "positive feedback".....

Fair enough. The Earth's Surface is 3/4ths water.

The Diffusion of water into air increases with temperature.

More Temperature equals more Water vapor.

Water Vapor has a very large Spectrographic absorption, far more than Methane, which is more than Co2. (see previous spectrograph)

Water Vapor is a far better greenhouse gas than is either Methane OR Carbon Dioxide.

More Water Vapor in the Air absorbs more heat causing a hotter atmospheric temperature. Higher Temperature causes more Water Vapor which causes more heat absorption which causes more water Vapor and so on.

The System ought to run away with itself and only stabilize at a temperature far too hot to sustain life.

That doesn't happen. (We can tell because we exist.)

This proves water MUST oppose (rather than aid) an increase in temperature.

The way it does this is by forming clouds which reflect sunlight away from the planet. The hotter the atmosphere gets, the more clouds form , and the more sunlight is reflected. The system has negative feedback, and is therefore pretty stable.

That's why I don't worry about a runaway greenhouse effect.

[CaptainBeowulf]

Diogenes - I think you and I are basically in agreement on Iraq. Commanders on the ground prioritized what to protect as best they could with the number of troops they were given, although they should have had more (it's an old saw that generals always want more troops, but in this case it wouldn't have been unreasonable to have had more available).

MSimon - good point about the side that makes least mistakes wins. That's a point that I think much of the public in America (and Britain and Australia and, in terms of the Afghanistan campaign, also Canada... and also some of the European continental countries, but their politics can be quite different) forget right now. There's an expectation that our campaigns should be perfect, and if something goes wrong, it's evidence of evil right-wing military-industrial conspiracies. I suppose some leftists would always believe that anyway. But the current course of things in Afghanistan and Iraq suggests to me that our campaigns are working, albeit slowly, but that we have to keep on making fewer mistakes than the enemy. Dropping the ball and pulling out unilaterally would be making a big mistake.

Also, I do enjoy reading all the global warming discussion in these general threads. I more or less fall in with the people who think that increased carbon levels from human activity may raise the temperature a bit over what it would otherwise be. However, that may not even be enough to cancel out a cooling trend from, say, decreased solar activity. I also agree with the statements that we just don't know enough to say what will happen. I'd rather not see the economy trashed by prematurely going "carbon-neutral"; rather, I'd like to see heavier investment in things like fusion to develop the technologies we need to replace oil while we still have a lot of it to burn.

For the record, I've known "liberals" who agree with "good for the environment" policies because it makes them feel good, but who can't be bothered to sort out their recycling from their trash and just throw everything in the garbage. Surprising that an evil right-winger like myself who doesn't automatically subscribe to global warming actually recycles, disposes of hazardous waste properly, and avoids wasting electricity when it doesn't massively inconvenience me.

[KitemanSA]

Surprising that an evil right-winger like myself who doesn't automatically subscribe to global warming actually recycles, disposes of hazardous waste properly, and avoids wasting electricity when it doesn't massively inconvenience me.

Why surprising? Conservatives... conserve. Seems utterly sensible to me.

[CaptainBeowulf]

I forgot to use the sarcasm tags

[alexjrgreen]

The Jews have 3,000 years of common law between themselves and the texts.

Muslims have 1,000 years of common law between them and their texts. If they trouble themselves to study it.

OTOH I think it was Christmas day where some Muslim was trying to blow up a plane load of infidels. And it was Jan. 6th or 7th that another guy was ranting on a plane about killing Jews.

And according to B'tselem, in January 2009 Israeli forces killed 252 children under 16 in Gaza.

It matters not what is in the books. (I have Muslim friends who are against Sharia) What matters is what people think they should do about it.

So quoting other people's religious texts out of context probably isn't going to help...

You might want to study the history of the ME in WW2.

I'm British. My friends' fathers were there.

The Austrian Corporal worked to turn endemic Jew hatred in the area to his advantage. Which is how Mein Kampf (minus some unfortunate passages) first got translated into Arabic.

Not pretty.

[alexjrgreen]

A more positive approach: Daughters for Life.

[seedload]

BTW, what size is your smoothing filter? how many years?

Well, as I look at this more, the filter is definitely the reason for that wierd time period of uptick. I was basically smoothing over the entire series, which created an uptick in the middle of the series - a paradigm shift.

I have changed to using 1/4 of the series as my smoothing parameter which is creating much different results. I like 1/4 because it is consistent with the obvious multidecadal oscillations of temperature.

This is basically a flow of conciousness. I am trying to actually get a handle on this stuff myself. Increase my understanding. Do some independent verification. I think looking at the changes in rate of change vs overall temperature is interesting and I haven't seen this done before.

None of this is nearly ready for prime time. Feedback is welcomed.

The humps in the third graph of temperature velocity are the oscillation. As others have noted, the size of the humps seem to be getting bigger (especially if you consider three humps), indicating that warming is increasing in velocity (something other than PDO). Quantifying the differences in these humps seems like a logical next step.

Other things I note, the final graph of CO2 acceleration looks scary for doomsday AGW guys. But, since I am basing the smoothing on the apparent 32 year temperature oscillation period, that end of the graph is really not smoothed well for CO2. Use finer smoothing ( 1/8 ) and that acceleration is actually going down at the end.

[Josh Cryer]

Why did ppm drop in the 80s? Recession?

[choff]

I read somewhere that the name Iran comes from 'land of the Aryans' and the name was changed from Persia because of Nazi influence in the '30s.

Somewhere else I read that at least half the Jews now living in Israel are descended from Jews living in ME countries. They left in a 2 year period around '47. Another sizeable number of Israeli Jews come from the old Soviet Bloc, maybe a quarter? They got exiled by the Communists after the '73 embargo in a show of sympathy with the Arab cause. The number that came from Europe after WW2 wasn't that big, and the rest were always living there with the Arabs for centuries. Israel could be said to be a Muslim creation more than a Jewish one.

The horse lobby still had residual clout in the U.S. until at least the early stages of WW2.

[MSimon]

Somewhere else I read that at least half the Jews now living in Israel are descended from Jews living in ME countries. They left in a 2 year period around '47. Another sizeable number of Israeli Jews come from the old Soviet Bloc, maybe a quarter? They got exiled by the Communists after the '73 embargo in a show of sympathy with the Arab cause. The number that came from Europe after WW2 wasn't that big, and the rest were always living there with the Arabs for centuries. Israel could be said to be a Muslim creation more than a Jewish one.

This is essentially correct.

One minor deviation. Soviet release of Jews (and those pretending to be Jews) was due to American Jewish pressure. And American government co-operation. The government idea was to emphasize the nature of the USSR as one vast prison. Which it was.

Let me add that the Sephardic (Arab Jews) influence on Jewish culture is now so great that Ashkenazi (European Jews) pronunciation of Hebrew is now out of favor in Jewish culture. I'm getting used to it. Slowly.