Global warming is it our fault?

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Splog

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Apparantly now it's climate change :shrug: Is it just a nice little earner with all the new taxes?

Climate and weather are not the same thing :thinking:

So are we to blame? or is it a natural cycle of the planet? ... OK we pollute the Earths atmosphere and I have a problem with that :gag: but are we really damaging the planet as suggested? Is it really such a big issue and how much spin is put on it? and are we being conditionedto believe everything we are told regarding climate change / global warming :shake:

Personally I feel it's just a way of conditioning people to pay more for anything and too many people are suckered in :eek:

So what's wrong with a bit of warming up anyway :D
 
No, but it is Jeremy Clarksons fault :D
 
meh... I don't have any control over stuff, so I'm not going to get in a tizz. yes I recycle a bit, turn the tap off while I brush my teeth, turn lights off while I'm not in the room and don't have a car or go on holiday, but there's not a great deal more I can do personally, so I'm not gonna get in a tizz.
 
Actually, speaking as a meteorology guru, I actually avoid all this global warming talk in my favourite weather forum. You think it gets bad here in TP, it's even worse in that weather web site!
Whether the whole thing is a natural process, or man made, or something dreamed up to squeeze more money out of Joe Public or an as excuse for manufacturers to produce cheap & nasty products that has the life span of a fruit fly, global warming discussions is something I don't really get involved in.
Oh I'm happy to recycle as many things as I can and only use the car when absolutely necessary but that's because I have never liked waste and I can't afford to keep topping the car up with petrol (especially since petrol is now more dearer than champange!).
I will admit to being concerned about the growing human population and how we're eating into natural resources in the name of our life styles, especially since nothing is everlasting, that I'm very sure of.
So, in short, I'm not at all sure whether the world is warming up because of mankind or it's just part of nature. And for all we know, IF it is true that things are hotting up, it might be because the atmosphere is that much cleaner so therefore it's letting more sunlight shine through more easier, whereas fossil fuel pollution acted like a mirror when trapped in the atmosphere and reflected heat and sunlight away from the earth so our winters became colder - the winters of 1917, 1923, 1947 and 1963 springs to mind. Since the late 70's and early to mid 80s, our winters had lost their impact (oh we still do get the occasional snowfall but usually only in the form of two days events and then all gone on the third!).
There's so many variables, howevers and ifs & buts that I've given up trying to suggest whether global warming does actually exist and whether it's being caused by mankind.
 
I don't think it does any harm to recycle and switch lights off but i'm not doing it to stop global warming, i'm doing it because it's sensible.

we in the UK contribute 2% towards global emmisions so if we managed to reduce that by 50% the global effect would be chuff all.

It really annoys me when some 16 year old checkout girl looks at me like i'm Hanibal Lechter if I ask for a carrier bag as i'm killing the planet, of course it's nothing to do with M&S now making more profit because they can charge me 3p for a 1p carrier bag

We may have reduced our emissions by a dramatic amount in the last 20 years but it's only because all our industry has shut down and moved to China
 
We've got a 15 year old 4x4 which is quite juicy and apart from needing it for towing the horse box etc we are also taking the long term view that it is actually good for the environment. Bear with me on this one. Our contribution to global warming in the short term means that as temperatures rise less and less people will go abroad for their sunshine holidays thereby reducing the amount of aircraft polluting the atmosphere, and as we all know they are a huge contributing factor to the ongoing debate about climate change.

So by driving a thirsty 4x4 I am actually doing my bit for the environment.

Simples. :D
 
I had to laugh the other night when a protestor was on television going on about how he attends global warming conferences. When asked how he gets there, his reply was "erm.......well, I fly there!" That says it all.

I am not scientifically minded, but frankly as long as countries which produce the most pollutants, such as China, continue as they are then I don't think it will make a jot of difference what the UK does or doesn't do. As has already been mentioned, it's a convenient money-making scam for this government.
 
This sums it up for me.

global_warming.png


Reproduced with kind permission of XKCD.
 
pass. Id like to think its not a man-made issue, but im sure it is. what we really need to do is get nuclear and hydrogen power up and running so that when the oil does run out (2012..the Mayans knew..)we can go with that. My money is on shell or BP and a couple of major motor manufacturers already having a fully running and efficient hydrogen car waiting in the wings
 
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Carl V said:
As has already been mentioned, it's a convenient money-making scam for this government.
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This is one of my many problems with the whole climate change argument. If it really is 'the biggest threat facing mankind' (and it has been called this), why don't governments offer alternatives, instead of just taxing us to the hilt. Could all the billions given to the banks not have paid for every house in the country to be installed with solar panels, thereby vastly reducing both CO2 and heating bills for a large part of the population?

However, my chief problem is this assumption that the earth has always been the same, and always will be. The climate has constantly changed throughout the history of this planet, and has largely been much warmer than it is now. I don't doubt that human beings are having some effect on the climate, but I firmly believe it is being overstated, and co-inciding with a period of natural warming. Let's not forget, the last ice age only ended about 20,000 years ago, the earth is still warming from that.

Edit: Another thing to note is that it's called 'climate change' now instead of global warming, as they realised that large parts of the world, including norther europe, would end up cooler as a result of the mean rise in global temperatures.
 
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RichardC27 said:
If it really is 'the biggest threat facing mankind' (and it has been called this.
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That's the bit that gets me , why are we spending squiliions in Afganistan on a 'possible' terrorist threat & 2p on preventing / slowing climate change ?





Ps. I think climate change is a natural event, but we're probably speeding things up :thumbsdown:
 
the planet will always adjust, i am not arrogant enough to assume my time on this planet could 'destroy it'

Humans, also will adjust - we are an incredibly robust species

However, what do we want to adjust Too? Do we want to be mining rubbish tips because we didnt use our resources effectively

do we want to become pollutant monster, affected by many generations of exposure to petrol and toxic gases

Do we want to be sentient beings, or vermin

its up to us really, all hangs in the balance and i know which corner i am in.
 
It's a real problem.
The main issue in the determiniation is that climate change has become a political issue. When politics meets science there is fallout, as we have seen over the recent sackings/resignations of governement advisors relating to drugs.

So, the question becomes one of trust. The only models that accurately represent climate history are those that include both anthropogenic and natural factors, anyone who looks at climate records in detail can only come to one conclusion. Man influences climate.

The big question is, how is climate going to vary in the years to come, and thats where the intrusion of politics plays a part. The IPCC, for example, bases much of its data on the CRU (Climate Research Unit), a world leadering authority on climate change run out of the University of Norwich.

Now, it's not hit the news properly yet, but there is a serious scandal about to hit the fan. A number of leaked emails suggest that a certain ammount of bad science has been going on. Attempts to influence peer review, cover ups, refusals to allow others to access data. A less than rosy picture has been painted of some world renowened climate scientists from a unit that has a real influence on climate policy.

That said, they are not the only unit with influence, and they are not the only unit that is sounding warnings.

If you want to know anything about climate change, stop reading newspapers. It's a complete waste of time, articles written by sensationalistic journalists without a clue whats going on. Think back to the last newspaper article on a subject that you understood well and remember how many errors were in it.

The science to date says anthropogenic climate change is real and is going to cause us problems. The fallout from the recent revelations at the CRU will undoubtedly lead to increased scrutiny amongst the scientific community, what results will paint a clearer picture. You will not read about it in a newspaper, the best place to start is google scholar.
 
Well you did ask :D

ok. The only fact in this whole steaming pile is.....

Neither side has any "facts". Don't believe anyone who tells different. It ain't so. No-one has evidence that CO2 causes global warming, caused the little bit of warming at the end of the 20th century (And that`s what this stink is about).

Or it will cause some sort of runaway climate change catastrophe "sometime in the future".

That being said, the laboratory experiment (performed over 120 years ago and subsequently changed by the people who did it) that shows that CO2 "should" raise global T is valid IN A LABORATORY - that is, without all the other chaotic components of our atmosphere taken into account ( and NOT addressed by the models which are all the alarmist, hysterical, religious fruitcakes have in the end).

What the politicians rely upon is the IPCC reports and "peer reviewed" papers from formerly respected scientists.

What the leak from those same scientists main stronghold (do not fall for the "hacked by Russians" ******** - this was either a leak by someone extremely ****ed off that Phil Jones and all at CRU wouldn't respond to Freedom of Information requests or a simple whoopsie where the info compiled to comply with those requests was left out in the open - not hacked) shows is that these very few environmentalist communists ganged up on anyone who wrote papers showing the opposite of their "findings" tried to manipulate the "journals" where those papers are published and then called "peer reviewed" and were so "sure" of their science that they deleted information and emails that were asked for so that other scientists could check their data and results - the very basis of science - Is you result replicable by others using the same data?


Now, the main investigations by scientists are focussed on the warming, not the causes. This is why, in spite of nearly 100 billion dollars spent, there is ZERO evidence (you can't say "proof" in science because everything can be shown to be wrong if more data shows up) that CO2 (the target) has caused the warming (that stopped in 2002 and has dropped since then on the whole).

There is plenty of evidence that the earth goes through warming and cooling periods. There is some (although since the "leaks" were from the MAIN group of "scientists" who "produce" the evidence it may all be crap) evidence that the whole world warmed up from the end of the 70`s until the "warmest year on record" 1998.

This is why some of us are jumping up and down. This Copenhagen ******** is not about climate anyway - it is about a one world control system based on the gas we breath out that feeds our plants, it is only 4 molecules per 10,000 in our atmosphere, and it has been 20x that in the past (while the world was colder AND warmer than it is now). The gas which is vital to all life on earth, cannot rise above the levels we use in greenhouses (1200ppmv - parts per million [by] volume) because there is not enough stuff to burn on the whole planet to get it above that number - nuclear attack (and worse on hunter-killer) submarines' crews spend 3 months with the level of CO2 around the 8000ppmv to 11000 ppmv mark - some get a headache and never go back but (and ok they are fit young men all) the rest don't even notice. CO2 is in a direct relationship with O2 in our biosphere - if we burn all the fossil fuels we will get about 800ppmv and oxygen levels will remain at 20.9% of the air we breath. If we burn all the stuff that we can burn - all the trees, grass, animals, plus the 19x more life underground than above, then MAYBE the oxygen level will drop to 20.89%. Maybe.

The main problem is that no-one on our side of the fence has any evidence that natural cycles, producing natural variation, can account for the warming of the late 20th century either. DAMN IT!! :(

BUT. We are not the ones claiming the "CO2 did it" theory. It is not up to critics/skeptics to disprove someone elses' hypothesis (it is not a theory not matter how much the newspapers tell you - it is a guess) it is up to the people who suggested it to prove it is "likely" and they have not done that. That is why they use the tactics they do. Try to smear your opponent. If you don't have the facts attack the man. etc. This is why they like the term "Deniers" because it carries the overtone of those who deny what happened in the forties. This is why it always comes back to just one question to be asked. Everything else is a distraction.

OK. here is the most sarcastic and cutting rebuttal to "you are all bad monkeys and you are going to fry if you don't stop burning stuff - bad monkeys"

http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/

The sceptics handbook - well worth a read and she is right - the only argument is "Where is the evidence?" Show us and we will all go home. Simple as that.

Models are not evidence (funny but the same models that said the yanks would default on their credit cards before they failed to pay their mortgages and look where that went)

The best sites to see some real scientific peer review in action;

www.wattsupwiththat.com

www.climateaudit.com




What has come out of the ongoing investigation into the emails and data that has just turned up is:

Peer review is based on a mutual back-scratching chum club who only pass papers that agree with the agenda. Peer review is now as dead as a Dodo.

Climate science (which we all know is very young) is made up of a core of, very few, idealists who all talk amongst themselves to plot to harm their opponents and lie about their "facts" and methodology. T..ts basically.

The (once respected) scientists and scientific establishments who "agree" with the "science is settled" have either bought into the fraud or "just believed" the people charged with finding this **** out, informing the IPCC and continuing to search for some proof.

But then we knew all this.

The Marxist lawyers who run everything just love this chance to smash western democracy and they will try really hard next month even though the main two (Hadley CRU and NASA GISS) temerature products are the result of manipulated real data that was then "lost" so cannot be checked. Nice.

The USSR spent a massive part of its budget on subversion. The fruits of that spending are visible now. Greenpeace, WWF, Friends of the Earth, the Obamas, Blair, Merkel, Sarkosy, and all the rest - Marxist lawyers one and all.

Greenpeace the WWF and the others have lost the point of their existence - they took their eye off the ball and the rose to the top. Carbon trading allows the main (real) polluters to go about their business. Overfishing wont stop because of Cap and Trade. Carbon Exchanges do not provide drinking water and food for the poor of this world.

Controlling CO2 allows these T***s to interfere in every aspect of your life.
 
u8myufo, I'm sorry, but thats just not right. CO2 has a massive impact on climate, I'll go and dig out the relevant papers on CO2 and climate history over the likes of ice cores and dendrology if necessary. We can discuss the history of vulcanism on earth with reference to snowball earth for example.

The issue is that C02 is not the prime driver of climate. The prime driver is, and always will be, the Sun. There are of course many other factors involved which is where the difficulty lies in determining what impact humanity is having on climate. El nino and La nina spring to mind as natural cycles that have a major influence on climate in the short term.

Your reference to the temperature falling from 2002 shows a misunderstanding with the presumption that climate should continue to rise unabated if anthropogenic climate change is real. I mentioned a few factors that would have influence already, but we can look to increased sun spot activity or variations in the earths orbit for temporary cycles.

To flatly state that there is zero evidence of climate change is fallacious. You can even ignore global temperature and simply go and look at ice data from the poles, where ice is melting at unprecedented levels.

Also, peer review dead? you must be joking, what could be a better system? Peer review is not perfect, never claimed to be, and is always vulnerable to a group of dishonest individuals. If you can arrive at a better method of removing bias from a study you can go get a nobel prize. The issue is the politicisation of a scientific matter.

Regarding your links to peer reviewed sources, I would be inclined to direct people to the Royal Society. http://royalsociety.org/
 
There are two ways to look at it, two attitudes to take.

The first is 'sod the planet, sod the future', we'll use whatever resources we want, we'll pollute the atmosphere, the seas, the land, we'll strip every natural resource until there's nothing left, we wont care about the countless other species that we are eliminating in their thousands. I mean, this is our planet to do with what we want yeah? Then eventually we'll die out and the planet can then slowly recover over the next few hundred million years.

Or, we can accept that we need to change so that this amazing planet is saved from us, and that we are saved from ourselves. What we are doing is unacceptable and unsustainable.

As photographers we should be aware more than anybody about the beauty of the planet (except those weirdos who just do portraits :wave:) and we also know how it's becoming increasingly difficult to find somewhere that has been untouched by man. We look at this place a lot more closely than the average person.

Global warming, climate change, isn't the only challenge but it's probably the most important right now, the most important in the history of mankind. We ARE changing the climate. The only question is by how much. Will it be 5 degrees over the next 100 years? Or ten degrees? Anything over a couple of degrees will be catastrophic. It's a predictive science, although there is also historical edidence to, and that's why people have a problem getting to grips with it, they want firm evidence but they'll only get that when it's too late.

If you're really unsure that it's an issue, think of it this way. We generate around thirty billion tonnes of CO2 just from the burning of fossil fuels every year. A ton of CO2 is about the volume of an average house. That's a hell of a lot of CO2 that we're re-introducing into the atmosphere. We know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that is very basic science. We know that atmospheric CO2 concentrations are increasing way above any 'natural' variations and we know that higher CO2 concentrations means higher temperatures. So really it's absurd to think that we're not having an effect on the climate.

Take a look at the atmosphere...

1z38pcx.jpg


...it's not an infinite space that we can pollute to our hearts content without any repercussions. It's actually very thin but it protects us, it gives us life. It's amazing really. Hundreds of millions of years of evolution of the planet has got us to this point, and in the space of a couple of hundreds of years we could be destroying it all. Makes me angry to be honest.

OK, I'd better switch me PC off, save some leccy :)
 
We should note, we can't screw the planet. The planet will continue along just fine 10 degrees warmer than it is now.
 
Hacker said:
So by driving a thirsty 4x4 I am actually doing my bit for the environment.

Simples. :D
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Colin, I like your logic :thumbs:

Flash In The Pan said:
If it is, who was responsible for the last ice age? :shrug:
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Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, also known as Ice Age 3, is a 2009 3-D computer animated film. It is the third installment of the Ice Age series, produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed by 20th Century Fox.

:thumbs:

Squawk said:
We should note, we can't screw the planet. The planet will continue along just fine 10 degrees warmer than it is now.
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Mother nature always sorts out these blips one way or another :thumbs:
Whether or not we will be here to see her try is another matter :cool: :D
 
I suspect that climate change is natural, but human activity on a vast scale is probably a big contributory factor, and resources are being consumed at an incredible rate. Conferences are convened, and politicians propose "solutions" which, of course, will require further increases in taxation, but no-one seems to be suggesting population control. Too sensitive?

Just to put this into perspective, the global population was probably just under 1 billion in 1800. It rose to about 1.5 billion by 1900. My father was born shortly after that (I'm 56) and it has now approaching 7 billion. That's an increase of around 5 billion people in 4 -5 generations, despite the impact of the two world wars, the flu epidemic in 1918 and various other diseases, such as smallpox, that were largely eradicated during the C20th.

I'm think that continuing population growth, and the ever increasing demands for resources and energy, will have a far more devastating impact than climate change.
 
Spot on Martin. What the green people forget is that there are too many people around. We could stop global warming tomorrow but would be screwed anyway as sooner or later there will not be enough space, food, water or resource to live. Climate change is natures way of controlling population.

I think green taxes are a con. IF climate change is the problem they claim they would tax meat production as that is the biggest pollutant of co2. I woulnt like it, but would be better than taxing me to fly or drive somewhere or for not recycling. Also surely by turning off street lights we could save on emissions?
 
dab66 said:
T
Anything over a couple of degrees will be catastrophic.
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How, exactly will it be 'catastrophic'? It will change things, obviously, but for many plants and animals it will be a huge boost to them. The planet is constantly changing. Unfortunately, the changes happen so slowly that we as humans cannot perceive them. The reasons it will be 'catastrophic' are that it will cause many humans a bit of a problem and make things harder for us.

One animal that is always used as a symbol of climate change is the polar bear, with many people saying that if global temperatures rise all the ice will melt, and they will become extinct. Now, this is probably true, but in turn, other types of bears (and other animals) will be able to extend their ranges northwards, and if we could come back in a few million years, we would see that they have evolved into something else entirely. Animals go extinct, it is a natural process, otherwise we would all be dodging woolly mammoths and dinosaurs on the way to work every morning. 99.9999999% of everything that has ever lived on the earth is extinct, and one day humans will join that list.
 
RichardC27 said:
How, exactly will it be 'catastrophic'? It will change things, obviously, but for many plants and animals it will be a huge boost to them. The planet is constantly changing. Unfortunately, the changes happen so slowly that we as humans cannot perceive them. The reasons it will be 'catastrophic' are that it will cause many humans a bit of a problem and make things harder for us.

One animal that is always used as a symbol of climate change is the polar bear, with many people saying that if global temperatures rise all the ice will melt, and they will become extinct. Now, this is probably true, but in turn, other types of bears (and other animals) will be able to extend their ranges northwards, and if we could come back in a few million years, we would see that they have evolved into something else entirely. Animals go extinct, it is a natural process, otherwise we would all be dodging woolly mammoths and dinosaurs on the way to work every morning. 99.9999999% of everything that has ever lived on the earth is extinct, and one day humans will join that list.
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:withstupid: :thumbs:
And we as humans think we are clever enough and have the power to stop that happening. Without getting off the topic too much, we might well be able to clone humans in the future to save man from becoming extinct :shrug: but imo by doing that then we are actually contributing to upsetting the ballance. Warming, freezing, floods, famine, man likes to think he can control everything, sorry to dissapoint people but there aint nothing to match mother nature :D
 
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u8myufo said:
:shrug::D
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/i...c-ice-melt-at-lowest-levels-in-satellite-era/
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Tell you what, why don't we do some actual research rather than taking a blog at face value?

First, lets find the source. Turns out to be this
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL039186.shtml

Then lets look at the abstract in full, rather than the small section quoted in the blog

abstract said:
A 30-year minimum Antarctic snowmelt record occurred during austral summer 2008–2009 according to spaceborne microwave observations for 1980–2009. Strong positive phases of both the El-Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Southern Hemisphere Annular Mode (SAM) were recorded during the months leading up to and including the 2008–2009 melt season. The 30-year record confirms that significant negative correlations exist at regional and continental scales between austral summer melting and both the ENSO and SAM indices for October–January. In particular, the strongest negative melting anomalies (such as those in 2008 and 2009) are related to amplified large-scale atmospheric forcing when both the SAM and ENSO are in positive phases. Our results suggest that enhanced snowmelt is likely to occur if recent positive summer SAM trends subside in conjunction with the projected recovery of stratospheric ozone levels, with subsequent impacts on ice sheet mass balance and sea level trends.
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I have highlighted the appropriate section of text from the article.
Note what the goal of this particular letter is. The goal of this letter is to highlight the roles that ENSO (El-Nino Southern Oscillation) and and SAM (Southern Annular Mode) play on short term ice melt, and to highlight that in recent summers (Oct-Jan in the southern hemisphere) there has been a positive Sam trend.

This article does not say anything about total ice melt at the antarctic, it discusses a short period of the year and the goal of doing so is to highlight the variability caused by two of the natural cycles on earth, in particular El-Nino which I mentioned earlier, and SAM. The goal of this paper is the better understand the mechanisms at work that influence antarctic climate.

The blog you linked to says that NASA has been quiet about this paper. There is a reason for that, the paper doesn't make any loud noises worthy of attention for climate change, and it certainly doesn't say what the author of that blog wants it so say.

I suppose I should have been more specific about "the poles" though, since data does suggest (and has for a long time) that temperatures in and around the antarctic are relatively stable. Lets look instead at the north pole, at the arctic.

And now I must admit I am struggling to choose an article. There are literally hundreds, in the peer reviewed literature, documenting sea ice retreat. Let's pick a few examples.

http://psc.apl.washington.edu/linds... 2009 JClim - 2007 follows thinning trend.pdf

R. W. LINDSAY, J. ZHANG, A. SCHWEIGER, M. STEELE, AND H. STERN

Published in the journal of climate.

Title of the paper is "Arctic Sea Ice retreat in 2007 follows thinning trend. "

Let's start with this one, which shows data up to 2007 and shows not just ice coverage and temperature for a given period of each year, but shows maximum arctic ice retreat for every year from 1980 onwards, and compares it with ice retreat from the area before.
The purpose of the paper is to discuss the extremely low sea ice coverage in 2007 and show that far from being a one off the 2007 ice retreat was only slightly lower than would be predicted by the previously seen trend. I draw attention in particular to the graphs on page 4.

To save everyone the effort of wading through a fairly dense paper I would suggest that those inclined to do so jump to page 10 and just read the discussions/conclusion, which is the summary given by the article authors.

Further, i wish to highlight this section from the discussion.

paper said:
While the
amount of ice volume melt and ice export in summer
2007 were higher than normal, they were not greatly
different from what might be expected based on the
trends over the last 20 yr. Thus, the unusual retreat of
the sea ice was preconditioned by decades of gradually
warming temperatures and the replacement of older ice
by younger ice, resulting in a thinner ice pack.
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The authors then go on to discuss a wide range of reasons for the change and cite various other articles which the curious around here may like to read.


The second paper I wish to highlight I unfortunately can't get full access to as I don't have a subscription, but you can read a summary of the article published by the journal here.

http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/prrl/2009-19.html

The reason I am keen to site this particular article is the subject matter is exactly that at hand. The title of the paper is
"Thinning and volume loss of the Arctic Ocean sea ice cover: 2003–2008" published in the Journal of geophysical research-oceans.

I'll highlight this paragraph from the summary provided
summary said:
In recent years, however, the amount of ice replaced in the winter has not been sufficient to replace summer ice losses. This leads to more open water in summer, which then absorbs more heat, warming the ocean and further melting the ice. Between 2004 and 2008, multi-year ice cover shrank 42 percent, or 1.54 million square kilometers (595,000 square miles) — nearly the size of Alaska’s land area.
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Hmm, I realise this is not a science board so I am not inclined to keep citing articles, but for anyone interested I recommend searching for the phrase "arctic annual mean ice extent" or else "arctic ice thickness" in google scholar to see what the science is actually telling us.

So no, I don't have my ears covered, I search the peer reviewed literature and form my conclusions based on the papers themselves.

That is why I am annoyed at the apparent dishonesty of the people at CRU, because it may be that some articles have been supressed. The articles/data that have been published show anthopogenic climate change, a trend to warming, and ice loss.
 
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Brilliant post. Thank you.

I think one of the major problems is we don't want to take this seriously as laymen because the thought that climate change is true and our raping of the planet could be a major contributing factor terrifies us to the core. It's far easier and safer to listen to the oil company shills who spread misinformation and shout down the vast majority of scientists when they tell us what#s in store unless we change.

The problem is it may not only be too late, but it may be that we could never have halted it. We've definitely speed up the process though...

Squawk said:
Tell you what, why don't we do some actual research rather than taking a blog at face value?

First, lets find the source. Turns out to be this
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL039186.shtml

Then lets look at the abstract in full, rather than the small section quoted in the blog



I have highlighted the appropriate section of text from the article.
Note what the goal of this particular letter is. The goal of this letter is to highlight the roles that ENSO (El-Nino Southern Oscillation) and and SAM (Southern Annular Mode) play on short term ice melt, and to highlight that in recent summers (Oct-Jan in the southern hemisphere) there has been a positive Sam trend.

This article does not say anything about total ice melt at the antarctic, it discusses a short period of the year and the goal of doing so is to highlight the variability caused by two of the natural cycles on earth, in particular El-Nino which I mentioned earlier, and SAM. The goal of this paper is the better understand the mechanisms at work that influence antarctic climate.

The blog you linked to says that NASA has been quiet about this paper. There is a reason for that, the paper doesn't make any loud noises worthy of attention for climate change, and it certainly doesn't say what the author of that blog wants it so say.

I suppose I should have been more specific about "the poles" though, since data does suggest (and has for a long time) that temperatures in and around the antarctic are relatively stable. Lets look instead at the north pole, at the arctic.

And now I must admit I am struggling to choose an article. There are literally hundreds, in the peer reviewed literature, documenting sea ice retreat. Let's pick a few examples.

http://psc.apl.washington.edu/linds... 2009 JClim - 2007 follows thinning trend.pdf

R. W. LINDSAY, J. ZHANG, A. SCHWEIGER, M. STEELE, AND H. STERN

Published in the journal of climate.

Title of the paper is "Arctic Sea Ice retreat in 2007 follows thinning trend. "

Let's start with this one, which shows data up to 2007 and shows not just ice coverage and temperature for a given period of each year, but shows maximum arctic ice retreat for every year from 1980 onwards, and compares it with ice retreat from the area before.
The purpose of the paper is to discuss the extremely low sea ice coverage in 2007 and show that far from being a one off the 2007 ice retreat was only slightly lower than would be predicted by the previously seen trend. I draw attention in particular to the graphs on page 4.

To save everyone the effort of wading through a fairly dense paper I would suggest that those inclined to do so jump to page 10 and just read the discussions/conclusion, which is the summary given by the article authors.

Further, i wish to highlight this section from the discussion.



The authors then go on to discuss a wide range of reasons for the change and cite various other articles which the curious around here may like to read.


The second paper I wish to highlight I unfortunately can't get full access to as I don't have a subscription, but you can read a summary of the article published by the journal here.

http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/prrl/2009-19.html

The reason I am keen to site this particular article is the subject matter is exactly that at hand. The title of the paper is
"Thinning and volume loss of the Arctic Ocean sea ice cover: 2003–2008" published in the Journal of geophysical research-oceans.

I'll highlight this paragraph from the summary provided


Hmm, I realise this is not a science board so I am not inclined to keep citing articles, but for anyone interested I recommend searching for the phrase "arctic annual mean ice extent" or else "arctic ice thickness" in google scholar to see what the science is actually telling us.

So no, I don't have my ears covered, I search the peer reviewed literature and form my conclusions based on the papers themselves.

That is why I am annoyed at the apparent dishonesty of the people at CRU, because it may be that some articles have been supressed. The articles/data that have been published show anthopogenic climate change, a trend to warming, and ice loss.
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There's no such thing, all you have to do look in archives over the last 200 years and they had drought, floods, every types of climate change and there wasn't any electricity, cars, planes etc Global warming was invented for one purpose only and that's a way of taxing people to get money that governments have wasted/lost/spent/given away.
And what's with Gordon Brown pledging billions to save the planet and help 3rd world countries and then giving Cumbria 1 million to sort stuff out? Charity begins at home.
The people of Cumbria have paid taxes etc into this country and go to work etc not sit on their A***** waiting for for Europe to give them a hand out. Last night there was a 90 yr old grannie on Tv crying at Cumbria because her home was totally wrecked by the floods and she had lost all her memories (she had been an engineer in the war making tank parts) it was sickening to see how she's ended up and there's idiots moaning about recycling carrier bags? FFS
 
The23rdman said:
Brilliant post. Thank you.

I think one of the major problems is we don't want to take this seriously as laymen because the thought that climate change is true and our raping of the planet could be a major contributing factor terrifies us to the core. It's far easier and safer to listen to the oil company shills who spread misinformation and shout down the vast majority of scientists when they tell us what#s in store unless we change.

The problem is it may not only be too late, but it may be that we could never have halted it. We've definitely speed up the process though...
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Thanks.
The problem here is that science has to be disseminated to the public. The public at large are ignorant of science. That is not a criticism, it is an acceptance of reality. The vast majority of scientists are ignorant of other branches of science because they don't study them, there is too much information out there for anybody to be an authority over multiple disciplines.

However, the findings of science are important to the masses and so have to be presented somehow. This means newspapers and television, and now we have a problem. People get bored easily, we live in a world where everybody wants instant gratification and yes/no answers.

Science doesn't work like that, and indeed you will never hear a scientist talk about proofs, definitives, definitely. They don't do it, because it's not responsible. Instead they assign levels of confidence and predictions with ranges. Actually they might do it, but only when forced to by the media. You won't find it in a journal anywhere.

The warming of the planet is predicted to be between 2 and 6 degrees by the end of the century, given to a given confidence level. This isn't a guarantee of what will happen, it is a statisitcal analysis of the data examined when fed into a climate model. It's the best we have available.

Is it true? Dunno, wait till the end of the century to find out. What it is is a true representation of the information we do have.

But tell that to the general public. Warming of 2-6 degrees is a huge range in relative terms (why not -2 to 2, say?). The majority are not interested in discovering the reasons. They don't want to know about the factors discussed here (El Nino, La Nina, SOM, NOM etc), sun spot activity, orbital variations, feedback loops, thermahaline circulation and what not.

The truth is that the earth is complex, extremely complex, indeed far more complex than any models we have right now. But, the models are what we have, and the models tell us that the earth is going to warm to levels that will bring problems.

Couple the difficulty of explaining this information to the public at large with the association of politicians with the science and trust gets flushed down the toilet. I dislike politicians as much as the next guy, and I particularly dislike their stance on climate. Everyone knows (...) politicians lie for their own ends, once associated with science the public at large are instantly skeptical, and rightly so.

People seem to fall into one of two camps. Either acceptance of global warming, or denial. I doubt whether 2% of the public have ever read a peer reviewed article from a recognised journal, and yet they speak with far greater certainty than the leading climatologists on the matter.

I'm just a layman, I have no pretentions of being a scientist, but I know enough to know what my limitations are. I do read the peer reviewed literature where possible (some of it requires a subscription), though I confess my reading is usually linked to evolutionary biology as I find it fascinating.

The only justified conclusion as of right now, based on the peer reviewed literature, is that the world is warming and humans are partly responsible. This might be wrong, and all scientists would agree with that as they would about any other aspect of science, but that is the way the evidence points and I follow that evidence.

As mentioned before, if the CRU scandal really does turn out to be a scandal I will be the first to re-assess my position.
 
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Claymore said:
There's no such thing, all you have to do look in archives over the last 200 years and they had drought, floods, every types of climate change and there wasn't any electricity, cars, planes etc Global warming was invented for one purpose only and that's a way of taxing people to get money that governments have wasted/lost/spent/given away.
Click to expand...

Indeed, you could probably go back a few centuries and there would have been similar occurences of extreme weather, I dare say. I've always suspected the government is making a nice little earner out of all this with taxes of one sort and another.

I'm not really sure what to believe from climate change 'experts' frankly. I remember about four years ago when we had a heatwave, some guy was on TV predicting that long, hot, dry summers would be a regular occurence thanks to global warming. The following year we had a lousy summer, nothing but rain and drizzle! And the last couple of summers haven't been much better either.

The point is I'm sure this has always happened. Some summers warm and sunny, others colder and damp, and the same goes for winters - some years are mild, others are more severe.
 
Carl V said:
Indeed, you could probably go back a few centuries and there would have been similar occurences of extreme weather, I dare say. I've always suspected the government is making a nice little earner out of all this with taxes of one sort and another.

I'm not really sure what to believe from climate change 'experts' frankly. I remember about four years ago when we had a heatwave, some guy was on TV predicting that long, hot, dry summers would be a regular occurence thanks to global warming. The following year we had a lousy summer, nothing but rain and drizzle! And the last couple of summers haven't been much better either.

The point is I'm sure this has always happened. Some summers warm and sunny, others colder and damp, and the same goes for winters - some years are mild, others are more severe.
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Remember that you have to look at periods in the order of decades and on a very large scale to get a true picture. As you rightly point out there are numerous drivers of climate and many natural cycles that can have influences that last 10 years in some cases. Sunspot activity runs to an 11 year cycle, for example.
 
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