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Frozen Planet - 7. On Thin Ice
David Attenborough journeys to the poles to investigate what rising temperatures will mean for the people and wildlife that live there and for the rest of the planet.
David Attenborough journeys to both polar regions to investigate what rising temperatures will mean for the people and wildlife that live there and for the rest of the planet.
David starts out at the North Pole, standing on sea ice several metres thick, but which scientists predict could be open ocean within the next few decades. The Arctic has been warming at twice the global average, so David heads out with a Norwegian team to see what this means for polar bears. He comes face-to-face with a tranquilised female, and discovers that mothers and cubs are going hungry as the sea ice on which they hunt disappears. In Canada, Inuit hunters have seen with their own eyes what scientists have seen from space; the Arctic Ocean has lost 30% of its summer ice cover over the last 30 years. For some, the melting sea ice will allow access to trillions of dollars worth of oil, gas and minerals. For the rest of us, it means the planet will get warmer, as sea ice is important to reflect back the sun's energy. Next David travels to see what's happening to the ice on land: in Greenland, we follow intrepid ice scientists as they study giant waterfalls of meltwater, which are accelerating iceberg calving events, and ultimately leading to a rise in global sea level.
Temperatures have also risen in the Antarctic - David returns to glaciers photographed by the Shackleton expedition and reveals a dramatic retreat over the past century. It's not just the ice that is changing - ice-loving adelie penguins are disappearing, and more temperate gentoo penguins are moving in. Finally, we see the first ever images of the largest recent natural event on our planet - the break up of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, an ice sheet the size of Jamaica, which shattered into hundreds of icebergs in 2009.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... ramme-info
(Not an 'AGW' rant, but a factual description of what's actually going on.)
David Attenborough journeys to the poles to investigate what rising temperatures will mean for the people and wildlife that live there and for the rest of the planet.
David Attenborough journeys to both polar regions to investigate what rising temperatures will mean for the people and wildlife that live there and for the rest of the planet.
David starts out at the North Pole, standing on sea ice several metres thick, but which scientists predict could be open ocean within the next few decades. The Arctic has been warming at twice the global average, so David heads out with a Norwegian team to see what this means for polar bears. He comes face-to-face with a tranquilised female, and discovers that mothers and cubs are going hungry as the sea ice on which they hunt disappears. In Canada, Inuit hunters have seen with their own eyes what scientists have seen from space; the Arctic Ocean has lost 30% of its summer ice cover over the last 30 years. For some, the melting sea ice will allow access to trillions of dollars worth of oil, gas and minerals. For the rest of us, it means the planet will get warmer, as sea ice is important to reflect back the sun's energy. Next David travels to see what's happening to the ice on land: in Greenland, we follow intrepid ice scientists as they study giant waterfalls of meltwater, which are accelerating iceberg calving events, and ultimately leading to a rise in global sea level.
Temperatures have also risen in the Antarctic - David returns to glaciers photographed by the Shackleton expedition and reveals a dramatic retreat over the past century. It's not just the ice that is changing - ice-loving adelie penguins are disappearing, and more temperate gentoo penguins are moving in. Finally, we see the first ever images of the largest recent natural event on our planet - the break up of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, an ice sheet the size of Jamaica, which shattered into hundreds of icebergs in 2009.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... ramme-info
(Not an 'AGW' rant, but a factual description of what's actually going on.)
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Polar bear 'cannibalism' pictured
By Jonathan Amos, Science correspondent, BBC News, San Francisco
It is an image that is sure to shock many people.
An adult polar bear is seen dragging the body of a cub that it has just killed across the Arctic sea ice.
Polar bears normally hunt seals but if these are not available, the big predators will seek out other sources of food - even their own kind.
The picture was taken by environmental photojournalist Jenny Ross in Olgastretet, a stretch of water in the Svalbard archipelago.
"This type of intraspecific predation has always occurred to some extent," she told BBC News.
"However, there are increasing numbers of observations of it occurring, particularly on land where polar bears are trapped ashore, completely food-deprived for extended periods of time due to the loss of sea ice as a result of climate change."
The journalist was relating the story behind her pictures here at the 2011 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, the largest annual gathering of Earth scientists.
A paper describing the kill event in July 2010 has just been published in the journal Arctic. It is co-authored with Dr Ian Stirling, a polar bear biologist from Environment Canada.
etc...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16081214
By Jonathan Amos, Science correspondent, BBC News, San Francisco
It is an image that is sure to shock many people.
An adult polar bear is seen dragging the body of a cub that it has just killed across the Arctic sea ice.
Polar bears normally hunt seals but if these are not available, the big predators will seek out other sources of food - even their own kind.
The picture was taken by environmental photojournalist Jenny Ross in Olgastretet, a stretch of water in the Svalbard archipelago.
"This type of intraspecific predation has always occurred to some extent," she told BBC News.
"However, there are increasing numbers of observations of it occurring, particularly on land where polar bears are trapped ashore, completely food-deprived for extended periods of time due to the loss of sea ice as a result of climate change."
The journalist was relating the story behind her pictures here at the 2011 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, the largest annual gathering of Earth scientists.
A paper describing the kill event in July 2010 has just been published in the journal Arctic. It is co-authored with Dr Ian Stirling, a polar bear biologist from Environment Canada.
etc...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16081214
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rynner2 said:
So now Polar bear cannibalism is due to Man Made Global Warming?
The intrepid reported reports " there are increasing numbers of observations of it occurring... "
Aye, perhaps there are increasing numbers of intrepid reporters observing it?
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A worrying development:
Canada to withdraw from Kyoto Protocol
Canada will formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the minister of the environment has said.
Peter Kent said the protocol "does not represent a way forward for Canada" and the country would face crippling fines for failing to meet its targets.
The move, which is legal and was expected, makes it the first nation to pull out of the global treaty.
The protocol, initially adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, is aimed at fighting global warming.
"Kyoto, for Canada, is in the past, and as such we are invoking our legal right to withdraw from Kyoto," Mr Kent said in Toronto.
He said he would be formally advising the United Nations of his country's intention to pull out.
He said meeting Canada's obligations under Kyoto would cost $13.6bn (10.3bn euros; £8.7bn): "That's $1,600 from every Canadian family - that's the Kyoto cost to Canadians, that was the legacy of an incompetent Liberal government".
He said that despite this cost, greenhouse emissions would continue to rise as two of the world's largest polluters - the US and China - were not covered by the Kyoto agreement.
"We believe that a new agreement that will allow us to generate jobs and economic growth represents the way forward," he said.
Mr Kent's announcement came just hours after a last-minute deal on climate change was agreed in Durban.
Talks on a new legal deal covering all countries will begin next year and end by 2015, coming into effect by 2020, the UN climate conference decided.
"The Kyoto Protocol is a dated document, it is actually considered by many as an impediment to the move forward but there was good will demonstrated in Durban, the agreement that we ended up with provides the basis for an agreement by 2015."
He said that though the text of the Durban agreement "provides a loophole for China and India", it represents "the way forward".
Canada's previous Liberal government signed the accord but Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government never embraced it.
Canada declared four years ago that it did not intend to meet its existing Kyoto Protocol commitments and its annual emissions have risen by about once third since 1990.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16151310
A bad and selfish precedent, that I fear will be followed by others.
Canada to withdraw from Kyoto Protocol
Canada will formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the minister of the environment has said.
Peter Kent said the protocol "does not represent a way forward for Canada" and the country would face crippling fines for failing to meet its targets.
The move, which is legal and was expected, makes it the first nation to pull out of the global treaty.
The protocol, initially adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, is aimed at fighting global warming.
"Kyoto, for Canada, is in the past, and as such we are invoking our legal right to withdraw from Kyoto," Mr Kent said in Toronto.
He said he would be formally advising the United Nations of his country's intention to pull out.
He said meeting Canada's obligations under Kyoto would cost $13.6bn (10.3bn euros; £8.7bn): "That's $1,600 from every Canadian family - that's the Kyoto cost to Canadians, that was the legacy of an incompetent Liberal government".
He said that despite this cost, greenhouse emissions would continue to rise as two of the world's largest polluters - the US and China - were not covered by the Kyoto agreement.
"We believe that a new agreement that will allow us to generate jobs and economic growth represents the way forward," he said.
Mr Kent's announcement came just hours after a last-minute deal on climate change was agreed in Durban.
Talks on a new legal deal covering all countries will begin next year and end by 2015, coming into effect by 2020, the UN climate conference decided.
"The Kyoto Protocol is a dated document, it is actually considered by many as an impediment to the move forward but there was good will demonstrated in Durban, the agreement that we ended up with provides the basis for an agreement by 2015."
He said that though the text of the Durban agreement "provides a loophole for China and India", it represents "the way forward".
Canada's previous Liberal government signed the accord but Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government never embraced it.
Canada declared four years ago that it did not intend to meet its existing Kyoto Protocol commitments and its annual emissions have risen by about once third since 1990.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16151310
A bad and selfish precedent, that I fear will be followed by others.
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100% of Italian scientists who recently analysed the Turin shroud say it's real and could only be replicated with lasers and other giddy stuff.
OMG that makes global warming Gods fault!
Or the consensus is wrong...you decide.
OMG that makes global warming Gods fault!
Or the consensus is wrong...you decide.
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kamalktk said:
Luckily we dont really have to blame anyone, since there has never been a period when earth wasn't experiencing climate change (aslo previously known as global cooling, followed by global warming).
My how the invisible magician is sniggering from above.
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If global warming, formerly known as global cooling, now known as climate change was not natural, it would help consolidate political power for the few in government and in charge of policies and taxation.
In other words, it allows governments more rights to involve themselves in economic activities in the hope that they would save the world.
And you know how politicians are always saving the world.
But hey, lets not question this.
In other words, it allows governments more rights to involve themselves in economic activities in the hope that they would save the world.
And you know how politicians are always saving the world.
But hey, lets not question this.
Anome
Bibliomancer
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- Left, and to the Back
So how does the fact that most governments do no more than pay lip service to environmental causes fit into your little conspiracy theory, there?
It's interesting that there's this vast conspiracy to control us all using the threat of global warming that has in many ways achieved very little due to running contrary to the people who are usually assumed to be trying to control us all.
Or is it a power struggle? Are the environmental scientists making a bid to takeover as the world rulers from big business, the oil companies, and world governments?
It's interesting that there's this vast conspiracy to control us all using the threat of global warming that has in many ways achieved very little due to running contrary to the people who are usually assumed to be trying to control us all.
Or is it a power struggle? Are the environmental scientists making a bid to takeover as the world rulers from big business, the oil companies, and world governments?
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Politicians, in a case like this, can only work with what science provides - if that gives them a bandwagon to jump on, so be it.
And science says that 2011 was the second warmest year ever in the UK.
And there's a lot of evidence that this warming is not natural - including the fact that global cooling (once widely predicted on astrophysical grounds) is NOT happening. AGW is still the prime suspect.
And science says that 2011 was the second warmest year ever in the UK.
And there's a lot of evidence that this warming is not natural - including the fact that global cooling (once widely predicted on astrophysical grounds) is NOT happening. AGW is still the prime suspect.
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Only the second warmest? Proof that Global Warming has stopped, of course. :lol:rynner2 said:
Cochise
Priest of the cult of the Dog with the Broken Paw
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Pietro_Mercurios said:
Of course
Not that the UK's weather tells us anything at all about the Earth's climate as a whole, given its driven almost entirely by the Gulf Stream and resulting Atlantic weather systems. That was something I had brought home to me very clearly when I lived for a while in Connecticut, which although being significantly nearer the equator actually has much colder winters because it gets the opposite effect (Is it the 'Labrador Cold Current' or have I just made that up?).
I do seem to recall someone saying that one of the effects of global warming might be a colder British Isles because the Gulf Stream would lose some of its force.
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As I've said before, the biggest problem with global warming is the fact that we live in a closed system, where increasing quantities of greenhouse gasses are trapping more of the Sun's energy. This means two things:Cochise said:
1. There's more energy in a very complicated system, changing the system to a new state. This means that the system will become increasingly unpredictable with more extreme events in the form of extreme weather variations.
2. we don't know whether the the whole present, very complicated and interdependent system, might reach a point where it will suddenly collapse, catastrophically, to a more stable entropic state.
Chaos theory and catastrophe theory at work in the largest experiment ever conducted by humanity.
AngelAlice
bemused & saddened observer
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- 762
Haven't ventured here for a while, but I stumbled on this article, and felt a sort of duty to pass it on, as, if even slightly true, it's something that should be getting discussed...
Whole article is here, and I strongly advise reading it before jumping to tell us about what Sourcewatch says about the website
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202007/GWHoaxBorn.pdf
You have to wonder if - nightmare scenario - AGW is the way they've chosen to make 'the unthinkable thinkable'. I mean, if we are all coralled into believing we have to let half the world's population starve to death in order to save the environment then even decent people, like those who post here, tend to get on board and ask no questions don't they?
Is this why so much of the media and intelligentsia is backing 'action' on AGW? is this why the US State Department pays half of the IPCC's budget?
I really really hope it's all a conspiracy-theory too far, and we'll all be laughing about it somewhere down the line
:?
Whole article is here, and I strongly advise reading it before jumping to tell us about what Sourcewatch says about the website
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202007/GWHoaxBorn.pdf
You have to wonder if - nightmare scenario - AGW is the way they've chosen to make 'the unthinkable thinkable'. I mean, if we are all coralled into believing we have to let half the world's population starve to death in order to save the environment then even decent people, like those who post here, tend to get on board and ask no questions don't they?
Is this why so much of the media and intelligentsia is backing 'action' on AGW? is this why the US State Department pays half of the IPCC's budget?
I really really hope it's all a conspiracy-theory too far, and we'll all be laughing about it somewhere down the line
:?
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My immediate reaction to that was "Horsefeathers!", but I thought I'd better dig a little deeper. Wiki has a page on Margaret Mead, but annoyingly it does't even mention the conference on “The Atmosphere: Endangered and Endangering”!
No doubt I could google about for more info, but frankly the premise as stated in the quote above is so ridiculous I don't want to waste my time. Getting people frightened about global warming as a policy for genocide? And in 1975 many people still expected another ice age, so global warming might well have fallen pretty flat as a reason for any kind of action, had the data ever since not continued to support AGW.
An alternative view is that if the data for AGW in 1975 was already so strong that many people were convinced by it, why would it be necessary to 'big it up' by conspiratorial means?
Now there are people concerned with human population growth - I am one of them, and started a thread on it, here:
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39958
And although I agree that population growth is the cause of AGW, the growth itself is scary enough, while GW, in some cases, is not scary at all:
Climate 'benefits' for UK farming
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6225827.stm
Any 'genocide' that occurs in years to come is more likely to be due to the direct effects of Climate Change, rather than to some unlikely conspiracy.
So, all in all, I'm sticking with "Horsefeathers!", even if they do make me sneeze.
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We had another link to the same, or a closely related website, from someone else recently. Naming no names. Since the claims made then were also of an extravagant nature, my spidey senses started tingling, so I checked out sources. Apparently, it links back to the Lyndon LaRouche organisation. A politician for whom the nomenclature, 'wingnut', might have been minted.rynner2 said:
The very largest pinches of salt may be required.
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- Jul 31, 2001
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- 5,823
Well if the world population keeps growing at the present rate it seems inevitable unless we invent warp drive and find other worlds to live.wembley9 said:
- Joined
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- 54,631
Some people are still thinking about Ice Ages...
Carbon emissions 'will defer Ice Age'
By Richard Black, Environment correspondent, BBC News
Human emissions of carbon dioxide will defer the next Ice Age, say scientists.
The last Ice Age ended about 11,500 years ago, and when the next one should begin has not been entirely clear.
Researchers used data on the Earth's orbit and other things to find the historical warm interglacial period that looks most like the current one.
In the journal Nature Geoscience, they write that the next Ice Age would begin within 1,500 years - but emissions have been so high that it will not.
"At current levels of CO2, even if emissions stopped now we'd probably have a long interglacial duration determined by whatever long-term processes could kick in and bring [atmospheric] CO2 down," said Luke Skinner from Cambridge University.
Dr Skinner's group - which also included scientists from University College London, the University of Florida and Norway's Bergen University - calculates that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 would have to fall below about 240 parts per million (ppm) before the glaciation could begin.
The current level is around 390ppm, and other research groups have shown that even if emissions were shut off instantly, concentrations would remain elevated for at least 1,000 years, with enough heat stored in the oceans potentially to cause significant melting of polar ice and sea level rise.
The root causes of the transitions from Ice Age to interglacial and back again are the subtle variations in the Earth's orbit known as the Milankovitch cycles, after the Serbian scientist Milutin Milankovic who described the effect nearly 100 years ago.
The variations include the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit around the Sun, the degree to which its axis is inclined, and the slow rotation of its axis.
These all take place on timescales of tens of thousands of years.
The precise way in which they change the climate of the Earth from warm interglacial to cold Ice Age and back every 100,000 years or so is not known.
On their own, they are not enough to cause the global temperature difference of about 10C between Ice Age and interglacial. The initial small changes are amplified by various factors including the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as warming begins, and absorption of the gas by the oceans as the ice re-forms.
It is also clear that each transition is different from previous ones, because the precise combination of orbital factors does not repeat exactly - though very similar conditions come around every 400,000 years.
The differences from one cycle to the next are thought to be the reason why interglacial periods are not all the same length.
Using analysis of orbital data as well as samples from rock cores drilled in the ocean floor, Dr Skinner's team identified an episode called Marine Isotope Stage 19c (or MIS19c), dating from about 780,000 years ago, as the one most closely resembling the present.
The transition to the Ice Age was signalled, they believe, by a period when cooling and warming seesawed between the northern and southern hemispheres, triggered by disruptions to the global circulation of ocean currents.
If the analogy to MIS19c holds up, this transition ought to begin within 1,500 years, the researchers say, if CO2 concentrations were at "natural" levels.
As things stand, they believe, it will not.
The broad conclusions of the team were endorsed by Lawrence Mysak, emeritus professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who has also investigated the transitions between Ice Ages and warm interglacials.
"The key thing is they're looking about 800,000 years back, and that's twice the 400,000-year cycle, so they're looking at the right period in terms of what could happen in the absence of anthropogenic forcing," he told BBC News.
He suggested that the value of 240ppm CO2 needed to trigger the next glaciation might however be too low - other studies suggested the value could be 20 or even 30ppm higher.
"But in any case, the problem is how do we get down to 240, 250, or whatever it is? Absorption by the oceans takes thousands or tens of thousands of years - so I don't think it's realistic to think that we'll see the next glaciation on the [natural] timescale," Prof Mysak explained.
Groups opposed to limiting greenhouse gas emissions are already citing the study as a reason for embracing humankind's CO2 emissions.
The UK lobby group the Global Warming Policy Foundation, for example, has flagged up a 1999 essay by astronomers Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, who argued that: "The renewal of ice-age conditions would render a large fraction of the world's major food-growing areas inoperable, and so would inevitably lead to the extinction of most of the present human population.
"We must look to a sustained greenhouse effect to maintain the present advantageous world climate. This implies the ability to inject effective greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the opposite of what environmentalists are erroneously advocating."
Luke Skinner said his group had anticipated this kind of reception.
"It's an interesting philosophical discussion - 'would we better off in a warm [interglacial-type] world rather than a glaciation?' and probably we would," he said.
"But it's missing the point, because where we're going is not maintaining our currently warm climate but heating it much further, and adding CO2 to a warm climate is very different from adding it to a cold climate.
"The rate of change with CO2 is basically unprecedented, and there are huge consequences if we can't cope with that."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16439807
Carbon emissions 'will defer Ice Age'
By Richard Black, Environment correspondent, BBC News
Human emissions of carbon dioxide will defer the next Ice Age, say scientists.
The last Ice Age ended about 11,500 years ago, and when the next one should begin has not been entirely clear.
Researchers used data on the Earth's orbit and other things to find the historical warm interglacial period that looks most like the current one.
In the journal Nature Geoscience, they write that the next Ice Age would begin within 1,500 years - but emissions have been so high that it will not.
"At current levels of CO2, even if emissions stopped now we'd probably have a long interglacial duration determined by whatever long-term processes could kick in and bring [atmospheric] CO2 down," said Luke Skinner from Cambridge University.
Dr Skinner's group - which also included scientists from University College London, the University of Florida and Norway's Bergen University - calculates that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 would have to fall below about 240 parts per million (ppm) before the glaciation could begin.
The current level is around 390ppm, and other research groups have shown that even if emissions were shut off instantly, concentrations would remain elevated for at least 1,000 years, with enough heat stored in the oceans potentially to cause significant melting of polar ice and sea level rise.
The root causes of the transitions from Ice Age to interglacial and back again are the subtle variations in the Earth's orbit known as the Milankovitch cycles, after the Serbian scientist Milutin Milankovic who described the effect nearly 100 years ago.
The variations include the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit around the Sun, the degree to which its axis is inclined, and the slow rotation of its axis.
These all take place on timescales of tens of thousands of years.
The precise way in which they change the climate of the Earth from warm interglacial to cold Ice Age and back every 100,000 years or so is not known.
On their own, they are not enough to cause the global temperature difference of about 10C between Ice Age and interglacial. The initial small changes are amplified by various factors including the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as warming begins, and absorption of the gas by the oceans as the ice re-forms.
It is also clear that each transition is different from previous ones, because the precise combination of orbital factors does not repeat exactly - though very similar conditions come around every 400,000 years.
The differences from one cycle to the next are thought to be the reason why interglacial periods are not all the same length.
Using analysis of orbital data as well as samples from rock cores drilled in the ocean floor, Dr Skinner's team identified an episode called Marine Isotope Stage 19c (or MIS19c), dating from about 780,000 years ago, as the one most closely resembling the present.
The transition to the Ice Age was signalled, they believe, by a period when cooling and warming seesawed between the northern and southern hemispheres, triggered by disruptions to the global circulation of ocean currents.
If the analogy to MIS19c holds up, this transition ought to begin within 1,500 years, the researchers say, if CO2 concentrations were at "natural" levels.
As things stand, they believe, it will not.
The broad conclusions of the team were endorsed by Lawrence Mysak, emeritus professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who has also investigated the transitions between Ice Ages and warm interglacials.
"The key thing is they're looking about 800,000 years back, and that's twice the 400,000-year cycle, so they're looking at the right period in terms of what could happen in the absence of anthropogenic forcing," he told BBC News.
He suggested that the value of 240ppm CO2 needed to trigger the next glaciation might however be too low - other studies suggested the value could be 20 or even 30ppm higher.
"But in any case, the problem is how do we get down to 240, 250, or whatever it is? Absorption by the oceans takes thousands or tens of thousands of years - so I don't think it's realistic to think that we'll see the next glaciation on the [natural] timescale," Prof Mysak explained.
Groups opposed to limiting greenhouse gas emissions are already citing the study as a reason for embracing humankind's CO2 emissions.
The UK lobby group the Global Warming Policy Foundation, for example, has flagged up a 1999 essay by astronomers Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, who argued that: "The renewal of ice-age conditions would render a large fraction of the world's major food-growing areas inoperable, and so would inevitably lead to the extinction of most of the present human population.
"We must look to a sustained greenhouse effect to maintain the present advantageous world climate. This implies the ability to inject effective greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the opposite of what environmentalists are erroneously advocating."
Luke Skinner said his group had anticipated this kind of reception.
"It's an interesting philosophical discussion - 'would we better off in a warm [interglacial-type] world rather than a glaciation?' and probably we would," he said.
"But it's missing the point, because where we're going is not maintaining our currently warm climate but heating it much further, and adding CO2 to a warm climate is very different from adding it to a cold climate.
"The rate of change with CO2 is basically unprecedented, and there are huge consequences if we can't cope with that."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16439807
Cochise
Priest of the cult of the Dog with the Broken Paw
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2011
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wembley9 said:
Most people believe climate change is happening (and indeed it clearly has always happened if our history, archaeology or geology is to be believed). The debate is whether the current changes are unusual, and if so to what extent and in what way human activity may be contributing. I've recused myself from discussing the pro's and con's, however.
There is also the fact that human activity can and does create local environmental difficulties, occasionally on a disastrous scale (the US dust bowl in the 30's, for example) and no doubt if there was a conspiracy such as the article moots then they would integrate such events into the narrative.
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- Aug 7, 2001
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An about-face?
Forget global warming - it's Cycle 25 we need to worry about (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again)
By David Rose
Last updated at 5:38 AM on 29th January 2012
The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.
The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.
Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.
Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.
Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers of sunspots seen at their peak.
We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call ‘Cycle 24’ – which is why last week’s solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further south than usual. But sunspot numbers are running at less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the 20th Century.
Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona – derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun’s surface – suggest that Cycle 25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still.
According to a paper issued last week by the Met Office, there is a 92 per cent chance that both Cycle 25 and those taking place in the following decades will be as weak as, or weaker than, the ‘Dalton minimum’ of 1790 to 1830. In this period, named after the meteorologist John Dalton, average temperatures in parts of Europe fell by 2C.
However, it is also possible that the new solar energy slump could be as deep as the ‘Maunder minimum’ (after astronomer Edward Maunder), between 1645 and 1715 in the coldest part of the ‘Little Ice Age’ when, as well as the Thames frost fairs, the canals of Holland froze solid.
Yet, in its paper, the Met Office claimed that the consequences now would be negligible – because the impact of the sun on climate is far less than man-made carbon dioxide. Although the sun’s output is likely to decrease until 2100, ‘This would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08C.’ Peter Stott, one of the authors, said: ‘Our findings suggest a reduction of solar activity to levels not seen in hundreds of years would be insufficient to offset the dominant influence of greenhouse gases.’
These findings are fiercely disputed by other solar experts.
‘World temperatures may end up a lot cooler than now for 50 years or more,’ said Henrik Svensmark, director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at Denmark’s National Space Institute. ‘It will take a long battle to convince some climate scientists that the sun is important. It may well be that the sun is going to demonstrate this on its own, without the need for their help.’
He pointed out that, in claiming the effect of the solar minimum would be small, the Met Office was relying on the same computer models that are being undermined by the current pause in global-warming.
CO2 levels have continued to rise without interruption and, in 2007, the Met Office claimed that global warming was about to ‘come roaring back’. It said that between 2004 and 2014 there would be an overall increase of 0.3C. In 2009, it predicted that at least three of the years 2009 to 2014 would break the previous temperature record set in 1998.
So far there is no sign of any of this happening. But yesterday a Met Office spokesman insisted its models were still valid.
‘The ten-year projection remains groundbreaking science. The period for the original projection is not over yet,’ he said.
Dr Nicola Scafetta, of Duke University in North Carolina, is the author of several papers that argue the Met Office climate models show there should have been ‘steady warming from 2000 until now’.
‘If temperatures continue to stay flat or start to cool again, the divergence between the models and recorded data will eventually become so great that the whole scientific community will question the current theories,’ he said.
He believes that as the Met Office model attaches much greater significance to CO2 than to the sun, it was bound to conclude that there would not be cooling. ‘The real issue is whether the model itself is accurate,’ Dr Scafetta said.
Meanwhile, one of America’s most eminent climate experts, Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said she found the Met Office’s confident prediction of a ‘negligible’ impact difficult to understand.
‘The responsible thing to do would be to accept the fact that the models may have severe shortcomings when it comes to the influence of the sun,’ said Professor Curry. As for the warming pause, she said that many scientists ‘are not surprised’.
She argued it is becoming evident that factors other than CO2 play an important role in rising or falling warmth, such as the 60-year water temperature cycles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
‘They have insufficiently been appreciated in terms of global climate,’ said Prof Curry. When both oceans were cold in the past, such as from 1940 to 1970, the climate cooled. The Pacific cycle ‘flipped’ back from warm to cold mode in 2008 and the Atlantic is also thought likely to flip in the next few years .
Pal Brekke, senior adviser at the Norwegian Space Centre, said some scientists found the importance of water cycles difficult to accept, because doing so means admitting that the oceans – not CO2 – caused much of the global warming between 1970 and 1997.
The same goes for the impact of the sun – which was highly active for much of the 20th Century.
‘Nature is about to carry out a very interesting experiment,’ he said. ‘Ten or 15 years from now, we will be able to determine much better whether the warming of the late 20th Century really was caused by man-made CO2, or by natural variability.’
Meanwhile, since the end of last year, world temperatures have fallen by more than half a degree, as the cold ‘La Nina’ effect has re-emerged in the South Pacific.
‘We’re now well into the second decade of the pause,’ said Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. ‘If we don’t see convincing evidence of global warming by 2015, it will start to become clear whether the models are bunk. And, if they are, the implications for some scientists could be very serious.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z1kqDmIjrO
(Temperature graphs on page)
Forget global warming - it's Cycle 25 we need to worry about (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again)
By David Rose
Last updated at 5:38 AM on 29th January 2012
The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.
The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.
Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.
Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.
Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers of sunspots seen at their peak.
We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call ‘Cycle 24’ – which is why last week’s solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further south than usual. But sunspot numbers are running at less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the 20th Century.
Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona – derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun’s surface – suggest that Cycle 25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still.
According to a paper issued last week by the Met Office, there is a 92 per cent chance that both Cycle 25 and those taking place in the following decades will be as weak as, or weaker than, the ‘Dalton minimum’ of 1790 to 1830. In this period, named after the meteorologist John Dalton, average temperatures in parts of Europe fell by 2C.
However, it is also possible that the new solar energy slump could be as deep as the ‘Maunder minimum’ (after astronomer Edward Maunder), between 1645 and 1715 in the coldest part of the ‘Little Ice Age’ when, as well as the Thames frost fairs, the canals of Holland froze solid.
Yet, in its paper, the Met Office claimed that the consequences now would be negligible – because the impact of the sun on climate is far less than man-made carbon dioxide. Although the sun’s output is likely to decrease until 2100, ‘This would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08C.’ Peter Stott, one of the authors, said: ‘Our findings suggest a reduction of solar activity to levels not seen in hundreds of years would be insufficient to offset the dominant influence of greenhouse gases.’
These findings are fiercely disputed by other solar experts.
‘World temperatures may end up a lot cooler than now for 50 years or more,’ said Henrik Svensmark, director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at Denmark’s National Space Institute. ‘It will take a long battle to convince some climate scientists that the sun is important. It may well be that the sun is going to demonstrate this on its own, without the need for their help.’
He pointed out that, in claiming the effect of the solar minimum would be small, the Met Office was relying on the same computer models that are being undermined by the current pause in global-warming.
CO2 levels have continued to rise without interruption and, in 2007, the Met Office claimed that global warming was about to ‘come roaring back’. It said that between 2004 and 2014 there would be an overall increase of 0.3C. In 2009, it predicted that at least three of the years 2009 to 2014 would break the previous temperature record set in 1998.
So far there is no sign of any of this happening. But yesterday a Met Office spokesman insisted its models were still valid.
‘The ten-year projection remains groundbreaking science. The period for the original projection is not over yet,’ he said.
Dr Nicola Scafetta, of Duke University in North Carolina, is the author of several papers that argue the Met Office climate models show there should have been ‘steady warming from 2000 until now’.
‘If temperatures continue to stay flat or start to cool again, the divergence between the models and recorded data will eventually become so great that the whole scientific community will question the current theories,’ he said.
He believes that as the Met Office model attaches much greater significance to CO2 than to the sun, it was bound to conclude that there would not be cooling. ‘The real issue is whether the model itself is accurate,’ Dr Scafetta said.
Meanwhile, one of America’s most eminent climate experts, Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology, said she found the Met Office’s confident prediction of a ‘negligible’ impact difficult to understand.
‘The responsible thing to do would be to accept the fact that the models may have severe shortcomings when it comes to the influence of the sun,’ said Professor Curry. As for the warming pause, she said that many scientists ‘are not surprised’.
She argued it is becoming evident that factors other than CO2 play an important role in rising or falling warmth, such as the 60-year water temperature cycles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
‘They have insufficiently been appreciated in terms of global climate,’ said Prof Curry. When both oceans were cold in the past, such as from 1940 to 1970, the climate cooled. The Pacific cycle ‘flipped’ back from warm to cold mode in 2008 and the Atlantic is also thought likely to flip in the next few years .
Pal Brekke, senior adviser at the Norwegian Space Centre, said some scientists found the importance of water cycles difficult to accept, because doing so means admitting that the oceans – not CO2 – caused much of the global warming between 1970 and 1997.
The same goes for the impact of the sun – which was highly active for much of the 20th Century.
‘Nature is about to carry out a very interesting experiment,’ he said. ‘Ten or 15 years from now, we will be able to determine much better whether the warming of the late 20th Century really was caused by man-made CO2, or by natural variability.’
Meanwhile, since the end of last year, world temperatures have fallen by more than half a degree, as the cold ‘La Nina’ effect has re-emerged in the South Pacific.
‘We’re now well into the second decade of the pause,’ said Benny Peiser, director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. ‘If we don’t see convincing evidence of global warming by 2015, it will start to become clear whether the models are bunk. And, if they are, the implications for some scientists could be very serious.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z1kqDmIjrO
(Temperature graphs on page)
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- Aug 21, 2009
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Perhaps the most mind bending quote the Met Office has ever come out with, if they have indeed said that. :shock:
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Never quite grasped the concept of the 'greenhouse effect?Scunnerlugzzz said:
It's the Daily Mail though, I'd like to see this story reported somewhere a bit more reliable, first.
We do have scientists with new sensitive measuring instruments coming out with alarming new predictions based their interpretations of readings from these new instruments. I would expect a certain amount of variation until real consensus on what the readings actually mean is achieved.
If it is true about these Solar cycles, that means a lot more variable factors to be considered. I expect a lot more chaos and uncertainty in both predictions and in changing climate patterns around the Globe.
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- 54,631
Here's a Met office statement:
Decline in solar output unlikely to offset global warming
23 January 2012 -
New research has found that solar output is likely to reduce over the next 90 years but that will not substantially delay expected increases in global temperatures caused by greenhouse gases.
Carried out by the Met Office and the University of Reading, the study establishes the most likely changes in the Sun's activity and looks at how this could affect near-surface temperatures on Earth.
It found that the most likely outcome was that the Sun's output would decrease up to 2100, but this would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08 °C. This compares to an expected warming of about 2.5 °C over the same period due to greenhouse gases (according to the IPCC's B2 scenario for greenhouse gas emissions that does not involve efforts to mitigate emissions).
Gareth Jones, a climate change detection scientist with the Met Office, said: "This research shows that the most likely change in the Sun's output will not have a big impact on global temperatures or do much to slow the warming we expect from greenhouse gases.
"It's important to note this study is based on a single climate model, rather than multiple models which would capture more of the uncertainties in the climate system."
The study also showed that if solar output reduced below that seen in the Maunder Minimum - a period between 1645 and 1715 when solar activity was at its lowest observed level - the global temperature reduction would be 0.13C.
Peter Stott, who also worked on the research for the Met Office, said: "Our findings suggest that a reduction of solar activity to levels not seen in hundreds of years would be insufficient to offset the dominant influence of greenhouse gases on global temperatures in the 21st Century."
During the 20th Century solar activity increased to a 'grand maximum' and recent studies have suggested this level of activity is at or nearing its end.
Mike Lockwood, an expert in solar studies at the University of Reading, used this as a starting point for looking at the most probable changes in the Sun's activity over the 21st Century.
Met Office scientists then placed the projections into one climate model to see how they may impact temperatures.
Professor Lockwood said: "The 11-year solar cycle of waxing and waning sunspot numbers is perhaps the best known way the Sun changes, but longer term changes in its brightness are more important for possible influences on climate.
"The most likely scenario is that we'll see an overall reduction of the Sun's activity compared to the 20th Century, such that solar outputs drop to the values of the Dalton Minimum (around 1820). The probability of activity dropping as low as the Maunder Minimum - or indeed returning to the high activity of the 20th Century - is about 8%. The findings rely on the assumption that the Sun's past behaviour is a reasonable guide for future solar activity changes."
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releas ... t-research
I can't find anything about global warming having stopped, however.
Decline in solar output unlikely to offset global warming
23 January 2012 -
New research has found that solar output is likely to reduce over the next 90 years but that will not substantially delay expected increases in global temperatures caused by greenhouse gases.
Carried out by the Met Office and the University of Reading, the study establishes the most likely changes in the Sun's activity and looks at how this could affect near-surface temperatures on Earth.
It found that the most likely outcome was that the Sun's output would decrease up to 2100, but this would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08 °C. This compares to an expected warming of about 2.5 °C over the same period due to greenhouse gases (according to the IPCC's B2 scenario for greenhouse gas emissions that does not involve efforts to mitigate emissions).
Gareth Jones, a climate change detection scientist with the Met Office, said: "This research shows that the most likely change in the Sun's output will not have a big impact on global temperatures or do much to slow the warming we expect from greenhouse gases.
"It's important to note this study is based on a single climate model, rather than multiple models which would capture more of the uncertainties in the climate system."
The study also showed that if solar output reduced below that seen in the Maunder Minimum - a period between 1645 and 1715 when solar activity was at its lowest observed level - the global temperature reduction would be 0.13C.
Peter Stott, who also worked on the research for the Met Office, said: "Our findings suggest that a reduction of solar activity to levels not seen in hundreds of years would be insufficient to offset the dominant influence of greenhouse gases on global temperatures in the 21st Century."
During the 20th Century solar activity increased to a 'grand maximum' and recent studies have suggested this level of activity is at or nearing its end.
Mike Lockwood, an expert in solar studies at the University of Reading, used this as a starting point for looking at the most probable changes in the Sun's activity over the 21st Century.
Met Office scientists then placed the projections into one climate model to see how they may impact temperatures.
Professor Lockwood said: "The 11-year solar cycle of waxing and waning sunspot numbers is perhaps the best known way the Sun changes, but longer term changes in its brightness are more important for possible influences on climate.
"The most likely scenario is that we'll see an overall reduction of the Sun's activity compared to the 20th Century, such that solar outputs drop to the values of the Dalton Minimum (around 1820). The probability of activity dropping as low as the Maunder Minimum - or indeed returning to the high activity of the 20th Century - is about 8%. The findings rely on the assumption that the Sun's past behaviour is a reasonable guide for future solar activity changes."
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releas ... t-research
I can't find anything about global warming having stopped, however.
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Pietro_Mercurios said:
Not quite grasped the concept of the Sun's importance on climate?
To suggest that man made CO2 is more important to climate than the Sun is patent nonsense.
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You're making the, 'either/or', mistake. The Sun is the ultimate source of most of the energy on Earth, however, how much of that energy gets trapped in the Earth's ecosystem makes a big difference to the Earth's climate. It's not either the Sun, or CO2 having an effect on climate, it's the Sun's effects, increased, due to the insulating effects of greenhouse gasses, like CO2. If there were no CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere, the planet would be an ice ball. Too much and it would look like Earth in Waterworld.Scunnerlugzzz said:
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Pietro_Mercurios said:
Please see the original quote from the Met Office.
the impact of the sun on climate is far less than man-made carbon dioxide
No it is not.