Re: [Phys-l] Climate skeptic convinced by data. Was: Re: Mike Mann _The hockey

[curtis osterhoudt <flutzpah@yahoo.com>]

Responses in-line.




> ________________________________
> From: Anthony Lapinski <Anthony_Lapinski@pds.org>
> To: phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu 
> Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2012 1:59 PM
> Subject: Re: [Phys-l] Climate skeptic convinced by data. Was: Re: Mike Mann     _The  hockey
>
> Yes, we can't do anything about the Sun and its energy output. It affects
> the Earth much more than anything humans have ever done or will ever do.


Of course. it keeps Earth in orbit, provides an energy and entropy input, etc., and has done for a damned long time, and will probably continue doing so for a damned long time.

> The timeline for global warming does correspond with the industrial age,
> but there is no direct proof of causality. We'd have to wait hundreds of
> years for more data. We do have core samples and tree rings which
> correlate with sunspot numbers and show amounts of CO2, etc.
>
> I brought in politics because this really has become a political debate
> when governments put regulations on air quality, automobiles, etc. But
> since the main cause of global warming is the Sun, then these laws are
> really meaningless.


Let me see if I've got this straight. My body has a mean temperature over my lifetime of about 310 Kelvins, with some perhaps slow first-order trend, and various small deviations up and down throughout the course of a year, day, etc. I certainly shouldn't object to being dunked in ice water for a day, or having a high fever for a week, because those are just little wiggles on top of a lifetime average.