TonyG

One thing you seem to have omitted from this is that when there were no ice caps there was a lot more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

OllyK

And no humans, factories or cars!

hedgehog

The ice is disappearing?

I would ask you to check the references in the following posts or links, I don't wish to repost them all in this thread:

http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/showpost....0&postcount=74

http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/showpost....98&postcount=1

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten...ract/1115356v1

http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/showthrea...ight=antarctic

In these you will find a range of peer reviewed scientific papers produced by climate scientists, rather than the papers produced by journalists from where most people get their so called "information" on climate change. You will note that they indicate increasing ice in the Antarctic and Greenland.

From what I can recall the area of the world under forest is actually increasing very slightly year on year and certainly in developed countries forest is seeing a significant increase for specific references to primary sources on this take a look at "The Skeptical Environmentalist" by Prof. Bjorn Lomborg, it is well worth a read.

FlightMan

Thats an average.

The Artic is 3 degrees warmer now, than in 1880.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

The Fox glacier in New Zealand is also getting bigger - record snowfalls in recent years


...and when stoneage man wandered the shores of the UK it was almost tropical - definately bikini weather (image of Rachel in One Million Years BC!)

hedgehog

Which bit of the Arctic is warmer? Also what state was the Arctic Oscillation in during 1880?

Rigor, et al (Climate, 2002) note that changes in Arctic climate are linked to changes in the Arctic Oscillation and as I'm sure you are aware it has been doing this for a very long time.

In an earlier paper, supporting this position, Rigor, et al (Climate, 2000) note:

"During fall, the trends show a significant warming of 2C/decade over the coasts of Greenland, near Iceland, and in Siberia but a cooling of 1C/decade over the Beaufort Sea and Alaska during fall.

During winter, the trends show a significant warming of up to 2C/decade in eastern Greenland and Europe and 2C/decade over Eurasia, extending north over the Laptev Sea; however, a cooling trend of 2C/decade is shown over the Beaufort Sea and eastern Siberia extending into Alaska. The cooling trend over eastern Siberia is significant.

During spring, a significant warming trend of 2C/decade can be seen over most of the Arctic.

Summer shows no significant trend."

As you can see it is much more complex than "the Arctic is warming" and it would appear to be entirely explained by the AO (Arctic Oscillation). The AO is, as the name implies, nothing at all to do with you or me and it will continue long after we are gone.

Naurzbaev, et al (2002) produced a temperature proxy for northern (i.e. Arctic) Russia and noted that "the warmest periods over the last two millennia in this region were clearly in the third, tenth to twelfth and during the twentieth centuries." They also noted that the warmer periods in the third and tenth centuries were warmer than the period in the twentieth century and that it would appear that Arctic temperatures peaked in the 1940s.

You should also note that in the 1920s temperatures in some costal areas of Greenland rose by as much as 6 degrees C despite there being no significant increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration. Chylek, et al (2004) comment that "since there was no significant increase in the atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration during that time, the Greenland warming of the 1920s demonstrates that a large and rapid temperature increase can occur over Greenland, and perhaps in other regions of the Arctic, due to internal climate variability such as the NAM/NAO [Northern Annular Mode/North Atlantic Oscillation], without a significant anthropogenic influence."

So, you and I are not melting the Arctic.

scunnered

iTrader: (1)

So the question is; Global warming, truth or fiction.
Well the answer to that question may well be true. The real question however should be, Is mankind to blame, and if so, is there any way to reverse it.
That is the myth of global warming. What the politicians and scientist fail to mention is the fact the the planet wobbles on its axis. Each oscillation takes a few thousand years. This is what causes the ice age, or the UK to be sub-tropical.
Anyway, if greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide is causing global warming, is that such a bad thing? I don't think so. Its a fact that the trees and plants etc,thrive on CO2, and they give off oxygen. So, the more CO2 there is, the more crops can be grown (especially if the climate is a bit warmer). The more crops there are, the less starvation in the world. So global warming and greenhouse gasses are a good thing really, as it benefits mankind.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

I could not agree more

As someone has already said - the CO2 contribution from man is massive AND tiny compared to natural geological and biological events.

lozgti

Agree on the post about seasons merging in to one dull drizzly season.

Nothing will ever pursuade me to buy a Toyota Prius or a Honda Insight though.

TonyG

Only if the land is actually capable of growing crops. If the Arctic melts, not too much of a problem as it's ice floating on water. If the Antarctic and Greenland ice melts, up go the sea levels. Less land to grow things on. Also the change in weather patterns might change what is now arable land into arid semi desert.

Holy Ghost

i don't know if any of you caught that "krakatoa" docudrama a few weeks back.

there was one telling line in the voiceover - that krakatoa, when it pumped over 30 million tons of sulphur straight into the atmosphere and the jetstream in just 24 hours, would affect the world's climate "well into the 20th century".

does the primary answer to global warming lie there i wonder? is the 'warming' we are experiencing now simply global climate returning to 'normal' levels having purged itself?

not that it means anything, my gut feeling is that global climate is so profound and such a big machine that it is, by and large, beyond the capability of man to change in all but the smallest sense. that having been said, such small changes can still create problems...

Leslie

As crispduk says, it is a valid point to make that we are only a small blip in time.

I personally see a big difference in the winters and summers we get now and as I remember in my childhood. That is not that long ago and I was wondering why there has been such a marked change in the actual weather betwwen then and now.

I do think that the politicians have leapt on the bandwagon and used it as an excuse to extract crippling taxes from us all but its not surprising I suppose since they are mostly inveterate liars and need to keep up their living standards!

Les

OllyK

I think that's been covered, the Earth has been getting warmer for the last 10,000 years or so since the last ice age. There was a blip in that trend recently due to Krakatoa etc and now things are returning to the previous path of warming.

hedgehog

You can take a look at various temperature records Les and see if you are right. The Central England Temperature record can be a bit tricky to get access to but there are secondary sources about which show it well, such as this graph:

http://www.teachandlearn.net/sec/sci...1000006374.pdf

You can easily see from this graph why the hand wringers often use that very cold year about 1880 as the date from which it has got a lot warmer!

The following also plots rainfall and temperature to give you some idea if the weather is getting worse, as it notes there has been a change in the yearly pattern of rainfall but the average amount is pretty much unchanged:

http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/CET-EWP.htm

There is some concern that the Central England record may have a bit of the heat island effect going on so some people prefer the record from Armagh which is more rural:

http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Armagh_an.htm

There is also a rainfall graph for Armagh:

http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps...emp-Precip.htm

They are all worth a look if only for your own entertainment.

Holy Ghost

precisely. i question the very idea that man has any impact significant on climate.

we can look at micro-data - say the last 200 years - but that tells us nothing about the mega-cycle climate trends that are beyond both human record or civilisation. i think there's a huge amount of supposition going on to serve one or another political agenda and it makes me hugely sceptical.

the truth of the matter is, we do not know and we do not have even a milli-fraction of the data to judge. the emperor really does have no clothes. how can one try to fix a machine when a) we don't have the haynes manual and b) don't know if the machine has a fault in the first place.

to be honest, humanity will go the way of the dinosaurs anyway. we can't alter that fact and so does one really give a toss? be nice to your neighbour, re-discover a conscience and don't take the pi55 out of the planet is about as good as it gets.

our existing knowledge suggests that earth has a track record of schisms and events that periodically wipe out and/or change life and that these things are unavoidable and inevitable. extinction and regeneration is a natural state of a planet that is far bigger and more complex than any one species that inhabits it. i'd have thought that the asian tsunami was the perfect illustration in our lifetimes so far. and how about a decent meteor strike? or a face-off with an itinerant black hole? that'd put all this in perspective.

personally i'd say the proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons technology in the hands of the unhinged and uncontrolled genetic interference represents a much greater and immediate threat.

[ramble over]

harvey

iTrader: (48)

Michael Chrichton makes a great point. With between one and two billion people dying of starvation every day, an Aids epidemic in Africa and many other global challenges - climate may just not quite deserve the funding it is getting today based on some hysterical outcries of some rubbish scientists.


Life is full of ****: Dreamweaver/Corradoboy/Olly K summed it up for me.

Holy Ghost

i agree. some people can't see the wood for the trees it appears.

hedgehog

I think this is an excellent line that sums the situation up well. Of course we all have to be conservationists but we can't allow those with a political agenda to control us to achieve their aims. The DDT/malaria thing is an excellent example of this as some hand wringer wrote a popular book which resulted in DDT getting banned. Currently about 2.5 million people die each year of malaria and most of those deaths would have been avoided if DDT had remained legal. In fact some suggest that malaria would have been totally eliminated a long time ago. Many countries are looking at going back to DDT and while there is no question that it can have a rare adverse effect some figures I've seen suggest that if it hadn't been banned then total DDT deaths would number in the hundreds. As it is 2.5 million people a year die because some hysterical nutter wrote a book.

I believe that Al Gore has just made a film telling us how doomed we are because of man made global warming. If Al had really wanted to do something for humanity then he might have donated the money the film cost to provide food and water to those in Africa but where is the political gain for him in that? For me that just about sums up man made global warming: it is an excuse for crackpots to get exposure and control.

SJ_Skyline

We're all doomed - or so the BBC would have us believe

a1oku

its all a load of bollox.motorists are hammered and taxed and all the rest of it while the MOD waste millions on fuel every year in their fuel polluting planes and tanks and all the punters are encouraged to go to spain or some equally vile holiday resort thus using thousands of gallons of fuel and its all ****e.fine the climate may be changing....and??? who gives a damn???enjoy.get the thong out and enjoy.but please dont grow a beard,get jesus boots and start hugging trees cause youre being conned.the major way to stop all this crap is to stop all unnecessary flights,ban fuel guzzling 'defence' vehicles, see recent articles about ministers using RAF flights for 'official' business, and enjoy your scoobies!!!

Leslie

How do you know they are "rubbish scientists" harvey?

I certainly agree that it is seriously unfair that we motorists are getting hammered financially for causing what they say is 10% of atmospheric pollution when not only are aircraft spraying it into the troposphere "in spades" with tax free fuel, but the lying politicians are allowing the airports to expand by enormous proportions so that aircraft pollution can more than double, and still tax free!

What a bunch of hypocrites!

Les

Trout

iTrader: (1)

It was actually a quote from my earlier post however harvey chose not to accredit it.

The 'rubbish scientists' I was referring to were the Canadian group that produced data that was used by many agencies and researchers that temperature changes were significant and recent. Indeed a hockey stick graph.

The reason why they are 'rubbish' or at least deeply misguided is that when the model was fed with randomly generated computer noise as opposed to climate data - the model produced exactly the same result.

Feed the model with any data - traffic, population, burger sales and the resuls are the same.

PS And just for clarity the material that I am referring to from Michael Crichton may be in the novel - but I have not read that - it is from a teleconference with him that I attended.

hedgehog

One interesting aside to the scientific debate is the position that some journals are taking on the matter. The British science journal Nature is following the government line that we are all doomed and so will not accept any papers which appear to directly contradict that line, though my view is that their position has softened recently. They refused to publish the paper that debunked the Mann "hockey stick" for example on the pretext that it was too complex for their readers!! Discussion of another example may be seen here:

http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/20....html#comments

I must say that the Crichton book is the worst constructed and written piece of rubbish that I have ever had the misfortune to encounter, though the science that is included is sound. I've no idea who the target audience is but can only assume that they are expected to have an IQ in single figures. Does anyone know if the rest of his books are like this?

Peanuts

iTrader: (15)

mrs Peanuts has a degree in tree hugging, so against my better judgement this subject has been the topic of conversation over many dinners

The climate is cyclical, the question is to calculate which group of cycles we are presently in, the past reminiscences of some of the older types is a little questionable as well. A definate case of rose coloured ********* methinks, I was around in the seventies, I remember TWO snowy winters, and NO white Christmas'.
I remember snow in March a couple of times and even in late April in about 77/8.
Hardly concrete season definaitions then, even back then.

My own personal view is that I like to try to lead a fairly green life, I recycle, harvest as much rainwater as possible, buy fresh produce to reduce packaging blah de blah, I feel good for it but it impacts my life in other ways, I eat fresh meat and veg every day so my diet is better, we harvest rainwater, less is used from the main, the bill is lower, recycling is just as much effort as launching it to landfil and our recycling bin is emptied more than the normal bin, so our rubbish doesnt build up.

I see sense in trying not to rape the planet of all its resources, but I doubt either I nor any of my family for a good few generations will see the effect of others doing so.

MickWrx

Millions of years ago, what are now the poles were deserts, the Uk was under water and near the equator, after forming from magma rising from the beneath mantal.

The planet has and is always on the move, the plates slowly move and what are land masses now, will again be sea bed only to be eventuall pushed under the mantal, melt into the magma and resurface another 100 millions year later.

All the scientist know that climate and see levels, land levels, have changed over the millennnia, in all cases like the story of the UK. Climate has also changed over the millions of years the earth was in the making, the truth is the earth is still in the making and climates will change, land masses will be born and lost either to the sea or under the plates

At some stage in the future the plates will have moved over one another, everything we have built will have been forced below the mantal, regenerating as magma, climate will of destroyed us if weapons have not by then.

And in another 100 million years, just maybe something will emerge from a gene pool. Evolve into something that thought it was the first inteligent thing to live on this wonderfull planet. and start to build

hedgehog

Then it will engage in archaeology, start digging up wind farms and realise why we went extinct.

shooter007

corradoboy youve nailed it my thoughts exactly i thought i was alone in my findings /beliefs (being an havid reader do,es help i guess)

OllyK

I agree that we shouldn't take the mickey and we do have rain water recycling in place. We don't recycle much in the way of waste when we can get benefit from burning it, plus I'm still not convinced that it is either economically viable or indeed for the most part whether it is beneficial to the planet.

jbryant

^^^^ Exactly what he said ^^^^
Joolz

Leslie

I don't necessarily disagree with you Rannoch, butc I was curious at the weather changes I have seen over the years since I was a nipper. I don't have the qualifications or the resources to be able to come to an opinion.

I thought the label "rubbish" was a bit unfair, misguided is at least a bit more polite.

I do agree with Peanuts that it is sensible to take a responsible attitude to disposal of waste and also how we use the Planet's resources.

Les