Is this as stupid as it sounds ?

[JoeG]

I don't know much about the global winter theory beyond remembering when it hit the news. At the time, I thought it basically said that if you trash the atmosphere with enough nukes you will totally upset the climate which seemed reasonable enough if you don't try to get into details like how many nukes would it take and how long would it last. I don't think I really viewed it as science as much as a"it could happen" story. It did seem kind of tailored to fit the times and scare folks into pacifism.

Sagan was a really smart guy with a talent for explaining science in an approachable enthusiastic manner. As I recall he did have some fairly strong liberal beliefs that came out of the background once he got more famous. It is hard to not end up being political once you have some success reaching people as all the activists are always looking for someone to carry the banner for them.

There is a saying biology that fits: "Successful systems attract parasites" kind of fits our political process as well doesn't it.

joe

[Solus]

If I remember correctly, the theory was that large amounts of dust or other debris would be sent high into the atmosphere and would block sunlight for a long time, causing a decrease in the global temps.

Ahh..I did remember pretty much correctly....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter

[tombogan03884]

The deal was that Sagan was given papers the KGB had written by a couple of Soviet scientists, the objective was to prevent the US from deploying intermediate range nukes in Europe where they would present a major obstacle to any potential Soviet invasion of Western Europe .
The scientific disinformation campaign was intended to lend credibility to the Soviet funded Western European "peace movement".

[mkm]

The funny part about this is that there was a great paper published in Science mag back in the 80's right around the time this all started called the Variable Sun. The researchers did a great job of matching various temperature measures for the last 2000 years against solar storm intensity and got a beautiful correlation.More solar storms means more energy from the sun which tracks with higher temperatures. Solar storms per year are on an 11 cycle that has other longer cycles added in to make the line unpredictable.

We had a highest ever peak in the 80's and a historic drought for 3 years around 2002. This is why we had high temps in the 90's with lower temps around 2005. I expect it will take about another 10 years for the gaps in the GW crap to get to a point where there will be actual debate.

I like solar power and electric cars, but I am offended that scientists chose to sacrifice good science to get their political way and scare people away from fossil fuels instead of doing the hard work of making the alternatives competitive.

Not saying you or this study is wrong.  I'm just going to give a friendly reminder that correlation does not equal causation.

As to climate change, I have trouble denying it's getting warming, but I don't think humans are the primary reason behind it.

[billt]

http://bayoffundy.com/about/highest-tides/

The tides in the Bay Of Fundy are among the highest in the world. Tides are about the only thing that interferes with the "water seeks it's own level" argument. And all tides are is an alternate source of gravity itself, (Moon, not Al Gore).

[Sponsor]

[tombogan03884]

http://bayoffundy.com/about/highest-tides/

The tides in the Bay Of Fundy are among the highest in the world. Tides are about the only thing that interferes with the "water seeks it's own level" argument. And all tides are is an alternate source of gravity itself, (Moon, not Al Gore).

I don't know about that.
I think his ass is fat enough to generate its own gravity.
It has its own zip code.

[JoeG]

Not saying you or this study is wrong.  I'm just going to give a friendly reminder that correlation does not equal causation.

As to climate change, I have trouble denying it's getting warming, but I don't think humans are the primary reason behind it.

Absolutely! One always needs a mechanism to clarify the relationship. Here are a couple of site if you are interested in pursuing this beyond the scope of this discussion. My point was more that the sun spot data was new and exciting at the time for those in climate research and it got ignored (in my opinion) due to the desire to have a socially relevent theory that dramatically increased funding, fame and feeling righteous. Scientists are people too!


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2093264/Forget-global-warming--Cycle-25-need-worry-NASA-scientists-right-Thames-freezing-again.html

http://www.paulmacrae.com/?p=34#more-34

BTW if you google it, the climate is not warming lately just the weather even the believers have had to admit that "the warming has been delayed"

Not to worry my guns still shoot in both hot or cold weather.

[Solus]

Interesting revelation about what the leading NASA proponent of Man Made Global Warming thought over the past few years...

http://www.wnd.com/2012/08/busted-leaked-emails-snag-global-warming-alarmists/

But in 2009, as the thermometer hit record lows in America, he and other climate scientists panicked in a flurry of emails: “Skeptics will be all over us – the world is really cooling, the models are no good.”

They lamented that Mother Nature was not cooperating with their predictions that global temperatures would smash heat records last decade. They blamed their miscalculation on sulfate emission trajectories and revised their forecast to show a cooling trend lasting until 2020.

Then, they predicted, global warming would return with a vengeance.

snip...

Then Trenberth dropped a bombshell: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t.”

He ended by admitting the global warming “data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.”