Anybody here actually believe in all this Global Warming malarky?

[Glaucus]

You all make it sound like climate science is some sort of guessing game, a bit of a wheeze when in fact you have all read too much tabloid and hype nonsense regarding it.

How can you say this, we can't begin to cmpute all the factors taht go into the climate. Were only just now bring in fluid seas, In the advanced climate modeling. Let alone all the other facts that make up the complex system. Its easy to say one thing has an effect, but its taken out of context. With out the entire model, modeling everything you cann't see how it all interacts. some of the stuff we are just researching, yet alone starting to model them.

Also I love it the way newspapers every year say were having increased flooding. However most of the flooding around me is caused by building on floodplains, or diverting waterways. then they wonder why they have flooding. I would love to see a study of the impact of building on floodplaines and altering waterways and the link with increased flooding.

 

[Dirk]

How can you say this, we can't begin to cmpute all the factors taht go into the climate. Were only just now bring in fluid seas, In the advanced climate modeling. Let alone all the other facts that make up the complex system. Its easy to say one thing has an effect, but its taken out of context. With out the entire model, modeling everything you cann't see how it all interacts. some of the stuff we are just researching, yet alone starting to model them.

Also I love it the way newspapers every year say were having increased flooding. However most of the flooding around me is caused by building on floodplains, or diverting waterways. then they wonder why they have flooding. I would love to see a study of the impact of building on floodplaines and altering waterways and the link with increased flooding.

The studies are already in my friend. Most people will remember the floods in Europe a few years ago that devestated large tracts of land and displaced thousands of home owners. All caused, as you say, by building on flood plains. When a river has nowhere safe to overflow to it is inevitable that eventually something has to give.

It's obviously apparent to most people that human influence has had an effect on the biosphere, but what is more obvious is that more humans are living in perilous conditions caused mostly by the sheer number of people, and sheer ignorance of cause and effect that said people have effected against our green and pleasant land.

 

[Glaucus]

Intresting program on BBC4 right now till 1am about global warming, hes trying to pet in perspective with historical events... be intresting to see where this leads.

 

[Glaucus]

Heres something I didn't now, europe had a mini ice age between the fourteen and nineteen hundreads, every year in London they had a ice party, on the thames. Where the water was frozen feet thick. The last ice party was only in 1814.. ...

The Little Ice Age was a period of cooling lasting from the mid-14th through mid-19th centuries. This cooling, which has been confirmed by derived temperature readings from tree rings and ice cores as well as from historic data, brought an end to an unusually warm era known as the Medieval Warm Period, during which wine grapes were grown in England.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, during the period now referred to as the Little Ice Age, the Thames often froze over in the winter. This led to the first "Frost Fair" in 1607, complete with a tent city set up on the river itself and offering a number of odd amusements, including ice bowling. After temperatures began to rise again, starting in 1814, the river never again froze over completely.

Also greenland had little ice before it started cooling down in the fifteenhundreds (roughly the same time as the ice partys in london)

The Medieval climate optimum or Medieval warm period was an unusually warm period in history lasting from about the 10th century to about the 14th century.

During this time wine grapes were grown in Europe up to 300 miles north of their present northerly growing limit. Also during this time, the Vikings took advantage of ice-free seas to colonize Greenland and other outlying lands of the far north. The period was followed by the Little Ice Age, a period of cooling that lasted until the 18th century when the current period of global warming began.

Very intresting if anyone still up..

also dartmoor was hotter 3500 years ago that it is now..

Hockey stick graph

Definetley looks convincing, however they've only taken volcano, solar and greenhouse gasses into account, To me thats a fast oversimplifcation of a truley complex system...

Water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas , but water vapor's concentration in the atmosphere is highly variable (as high as 3% at 86 degrees F, and no more than about 1/2% at 32 degrees F) and was therefore left out of the NASA data table. Of all the greenhouse gases, water vapor has the largest impact on global temperature because of its relatively high concentration in the atmosphere (at 100% relative humidity at 95 degrees F, water vapor is over 100 times more concentrated than CO2), far outstripping the effects of methane and Carbon Dioxide combined (water vapor accounts for 2/3 of today's greenhouse gas warming). In fact, without the warming effect of water vapor, Earth would have an average temperature below freezing (this actually occurred at the end of the Precambrian).

This graph shows the changes in sea level over the past 30 million years. Note that the long-term trend shows an overall falling of sea level, but that the short-term trends are highly erratic. The point labeled 0M is today's sea level. The short-term curve over the most recent 1 million years is not shown here, but if it was it would show 10 excursions from the left side to the right side of the light blue area. Today's date is the top of the graph (Time=0).

can anyone explain this graph as my poor brain just doesn't understand it ( all the polarity and third cycle and stuff) :Confused:



Just a little snipet of infomation, this is only the tip of the climate complexity, and theres some people saying we have it all figured out and accounted for.

 

[conundrum]

Wapor vapour is not a forcing but a feedback, in other words c02 levels effect waper vapour levels in the atmosphere.

It is noted and discussed here:


http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=220

 

[Pickers]

Wapor vapour is not a forcing but a feedback, in other words c02 levels effect waper vapour levels in the atmosphere.

It is noted and discussed here:


http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=220

..must...resist...urge...to...comment...on...forcing...efect.. of...water...vapor.
(I'd only repeat myself because I've linked to numerous published papers on the subject only to be ignored... ho hum.)

Incidently the mini ice age (northern hemisphere) corresponds to a perdiod in solar history known as the "Maunder Minimum". It is indeed true that we are only recently comming out of this so warming was due to the effects of the sun... No doubt conundrum will dispute this with a reference from his fav website (which incidently none of his referenced links yet are from published papers. Infact they are all just having a pop at published papers <yawn>)

Its difficult to know for sure because the sun spot miniumum ended around the time of the industrial revolution... Hence major arguements about which is to blame for rising temperatures... Some people (for some reason that only god knows) phoo phoo the solar activity. Being a scientist - I can't.

 

[conundrum]

OK then pickers. I have in fact email someone who is a leading climate scientist regarding your assertion regarding cosmic rays and solar activity being the primary culprit in climate change. Here is what he says regarding your link.

=============================================================
There is a serious literature that discusses solar effects on climate -
unfortunately, the page you've found is not among them.

The only evidence offered is a vague correlation of LIA and MWP with C14
(which has some merit), and a correlation of cloud amount to cosmic rays
(which has none).

You can see a pretty good debunking of this particular analysis in papers
by Peter Laut (an erstwhile 'colleague' of Svensmark at DMI):

http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/DamonLaut2004.pdf

(and references therein - particularly Laut (2003)).

It is conceivable that cosmic rays affect clouds (and so I wouldn't want
to preclude a mechanism and real evidence for it emerging), but so far the
evidence for it is extremely weak and convincing only to those who have
already made up their minds.
===========================================================

The evidence so far is extremely weak so your assertion is at the presednt time far from fact. Far further from fact that human made climate change.

So there you are, you are talking rot really I have suspected all through this thread.

 

[Pickers]

OK then pickers. I have in fact email someone who is a leading climate scientist regarding your assertion regarding cosmic rays and solar activity being the primary culprit in climate change. Here is what he says regarding your link.

=============================================================
There is a serious literature that discusses solar effects on climate -
unfortunately, the page you've found is not among them.

The only evidence offered is a vague correlation of LIA and MWP with C14
(which has some merit), and a correlation of cloud amount to cosmic rays
(which has none).

You can see a pretty good debunking of this particular analysis in papers
by Peter Laut (an erstwhile 'colleague' of Svensmark at DMI):

http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/DamonLaut2004.pdf

(and references therein - particularly Laut (2003)).

It is conceivable that cosmic rays affect clouds (and so I wouldn't want
to preclude a mechanism and real evidence for it emerging), but so far the
evidence for it is extremely weak and convincing only to those who have
already made up their minds.
===========================================================

The evidence so far is extremely weak so your assertion is at the presednt time far from fact. Far further from fact that human made climate change.

So there you are, you are talking rot really I have suspected all through this thread.

My word man... can you not read? I have NEVER commented on it being the primary source of global warming. Infact I've said the opposite - where we cant know what the primary culprit is.

As for contacting said scientist - I have no idea what "link" you and he are referring to... My references from nature and space science review journals are in fact, "serious literature" - as as yet you appear not to have read them. Any websites I posted mearly collate a few figures and (agreeably) are not conclusive. As for the guy's last comment, I use it as proof positive that he won't deny its possible. Hence WE CANNOT SAY WHAT IS HUMAN AND WHAT ISN'T! Which is excatly my point that you insist on twisting into tripe such as "cosmic rays are to blame".
I would e-mail my current lecturer who has published articles on the solar variation theory, but I really dont wish to bring him into a debate where I am accepting all possibilities.

All through this thread I have been using one example that I researched for a short period to put together a seminar. Maybe this factor has now been disproved, or still ignored - I can't (and won't) say for sure. The simple point I am striving to make, is your headstrong "we know how much is human induced" is wrong. There is a multitude of factors that are so interlinked in such a complex way that such a conclusion is unfounded.

 

[Slackjaw190]

There is no evidence that global warming actually exists. However what the theory behind it is, is that the rate in which the global temperature is increasing is far faster than has previously been experienced on record. Every 50 years or so the earth goes through a cycle of getting warmer and cooler. During the 80's/90's the earth was expected to begin a cooling period but instead it has continued to get warmer. The "Green house effect" also seems to be warming the earth quicker than pervious large variations in the earth’s climate like the ice age and that is what scientists are basing their theory on.

It could just be a neural change just its happening a lot quicker than any climatic change known of.

 

[conundrum]

Yes there is evidence that global warming exists beyond reasonable doubt now and Pickers assertion that we cannot know is wrong !!!!!

 

[Pickers]

Yes there is evidence that global warming exists beyond reasonable doubt now and Pickers assertion that we cannot know is wrong !!!!!

You know what? Lets agree to disagree. I will not hold a discussion with a person who puts words in people's mouths and then "e-mails an expert" with stuff that they misinterpreted/ignored (another example is above - we do know that there is global warming, but I am tired of stressing we cannot know the CULPRIT). Or someone who consistantly ignores very simple questions.

I get a very real feeling of being baited, and I'm not going to bite anymore.
My final comment - there is politics in science, and you conundrum have displayed it in action.

I've never added someone to my ignore list before because I don't agree in blocking another person's comments (I'd rather just skip over them), but I am going to have to here for my own sake.

 

[dirtydog]

Yes there is evidence that global warming exists beyond reasonable doubt now and Pickers assertion that we cannot know is wrong !!!!!

I think Pickers is right actually, and at least he's tried to present a balanced argument as to why, rather than acting hysterical and being insulting as you've done throughout the thread when someone has disagreed with you

 

[Mellownatts]

I find it quite hard to believe that global warming does not exist, i'm sure the earth does go through cycles constantly but the recent natural disasters all point to Global warming and the scenarios make sense.

 

[dirtydog]

the recent natural disasters all point to Global warming

Even though we've had such natural disasters for millenia..

 

[Mellownatts]

Even though we've had such natural disasters for millenia..

But take for example the hurricanes in the states, worst year on record, granted records haven't been kept for millenia but it shows things are getting worse.

 

[Pickers]

The emergence of homo-sapians (modern human) was about 100,000 years ago. To all intents and purposes we could well be still 'on the up' of the current interglacial period. The last interglacial peak was around 125,000 years ago, meaning that humankind has only just completed (or close to completing) one complete cycle of glaciation. It comes as no surprise that weather could change like we have never seen before.
Again the question rides on whether the disasters we are seeing are one of our footprints, a natural occurence of the major cycle, or the superposition of several cycles (from sources including galactic, solar, and earth contirbutions) currently hypothesised. We have yet to complete one orbit of the milkyway galaxy - period estimated at maybe 200-250 million years.

 

[dirtydog]

granted records haven't been kept for millenia

I rest my case. The earth is millions of years old.

 

[GordyR]

Yes there is evidence that global warming exists beyond reasonable doubt now and Pickers assertion that we cannot know is wrong !!!!!

The only person that has made any outright assertion here is you. Pickers stated that we "can not be sure of the main cause".

You on the other hand have asserted that "we know for a fact that humans are the main influence".


Suppose I were to email the very same scientist you did and present him with your assertion and ask "do we know for a fact that humans are the main influence in global warning?" What do think his reply would be? It would likely be no we do not know for a fact.

With all due respect I honestly think you have little grasp or understanding of what you are reading. Pickers has asked you repeatedly what your qualification to comment on this subject is yet you have refused to answer.

 

[b (thats it)]

I think Pickers is right actually, and at least he's tried to present a balanced argument as to why, rather than acting hysterical and being insulting as you've done throughout the thread when someone has disagreed with you

Exactly what I was thinking. We cannont even imagine all the variables involved in climate change. Sure you've got models based on several variables or all the ones you know of, and it "proves" your point. But then there are other variables that are not included but which do affect climate change. We can not incorperate every possible varriable into models, let alone all the "important ones" which people dissagree which are important and which are not. As soon as you believe you have a model that incorperates everything, somthing else is discovered which changes it, possibly to a great degree. We can never know everything, let alone understand it all, and because of this models are in my opinion fundementally flawed, especially when used in such important things such as global warming where they can possibly totally missrepresent the situations

 

[Beren]

Bleagh tried this post three times now *grr* Work Computers *grr*

Purely personal opinion but I look at it like this.

The earth is getting warmer, pretty much accepted fact afaik.

We are putting out a significant ammount of CO2, enough that we are contriuting to the overall level if only by a % or so.

I accept that the earth is in a generally cyclical system of warming and cooling. We can't be entirely sure what affect we are having and what is due just to the natural cycle sunspots etc. My only worry is that in a lot of systems it doesn't take an awful lot to destabalise them. I do accept though that this is just my worry not anything I could back up, because it seems that no-one can conclusively.

Slightly off topic but my main problem with the emissions is that in built up areas they do pose great health risks. We do now know that an awful lot of breathing related illness is caused by air pollution. We also know that oil is a finite resource (not going to start a peak oil whinge) again I have no idea when it will start causing us problems but it makes sense in my mind to at least be looking at other ways of providing power.

So do I think Global Warming is a problem? Yes on three fronts, Environmental, health, and economic. We only have definite proof of the health risks, growing proof of the Environmental risks, and some limited research (by not the best sources...) of the economic risks.