Global Warming & Climate Change: The Phenomenon

[Peripart]

And it's a sad fact that message boards such as this give the impression that all opinions are equally valid, regardless of how much each poster has studied the evidence.

Well, I could argue that message boards like this allow us all to address the evidence, moan about some of it or, in my case, moan about how it's presented, which is mostly pretty poorly, IMO.

As for all opinions trying to appear equally valid - don't worry, I'm sure no-one takes the blindest bit of notice what I say. In any case, I'm only letting off steam, and don't fret, because that's only water vapour, which I'm pretty sure is carbon neutral (aaargghhh! another crappy "carbon" phrase...)

 

[tastyintestines]

Yeah, the un isn't a corrupt political organization. lol :laughing:

 

[Cavynaut]

and if our numbers are thinned out but such a large scale natural process, then in the long run it'll be good for us and for the planet.

Hands up all those who want to be 'thinned out' first!

 

[river_styx]

Sadly it's not that simple. Such a global change would certainly test the theory of Survival of the Fittest.

We are all just slaves to nature.

 

[Trevp666]

Governments were in fact remarkably reluctant to jump onto this 'bandwagon', and it was only the slow accumumumulation of scientific data that eventually persuaded many of them that humanity does have a problem that will not go away if we ignore it.
It is foolish, if not downright stupid, to assume that the huge consumption of fossil fuels over the last century or two has nothing to do with global warming.
And it's a sad fact that message boards such as this give the impression that all opinions are equally valid, regardless of how much each poster has studied the evidence.

Okay, I can agree with your points there. I could've phrased the 'bandwagon' thing differently I guess. I am bothered though that despite the reluctance of governments to repond to what is perceived as a growing problem, the reaction is taxation and legislation that also doesn't seem to have an effect (e.g. punitive fuel duties alone do not reduce road travel, just make it more expensive, and I see no evidence of investment of these monies in eco-helping initiatives).

And it is just an opinion as well. As was all the rest of my original post. People will agree with some, none or all of what anybody else says, regardless of proof or supporting facts. That's the benefit of just being a member of the general public and not an 'expert', I suppose, we can choose to believe what we like (a quick random look through some other threads and posts definitely confirms that!)

 

[Cavynaut]

We are all just slaves to nature.

Err...not completely, no. We can modify our environment. We've been doing so for long enough. And it is within our power to modify it again to mitigate the effects of global warming. It's just the will and the selfish nature of mankind which stops us from doing so.

Still, what does a few South Pacific islands matter when we can exercise our god given right to race around in something with more poke than a milkfloat?

 

[river_styx]

We are all just slaves to nature.

Err...not completely, no. We can modify our environment. We've been doing so for long enough. And it is within our power to modify it again to mitigate the effects of global warming. It's just the will and the selfish nature of mankind which stops us from doing so.

Still, what does a few South Pacific islands matter when we can exercise our god given right to race around in something with more poke than a milkfloat?

Can we modify our environment to prevent super-volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and mega-storms? At the moment the answer is no and I think weather manipulation is a long way off. And even if we were to have such machines what would they be running on, because it would take a tremendous amount of power to initiate such devices.

To be honest I don't race around anywhere and can't even drive.

 

[Cavynaut]

Well of course not. We can't stop catastrophic events such as earthquakes. But this thread isn't about catastrophes. It's about a gradual (but increasing) change, and even if the the human contribution to global warming is disputed, shouldn't we err on the side of caution and reduce our carbon dioxide emissions anyway? At the very least, it might just slow the change down and give the human race a bit of time to adapt.

 

[river_styx]

You're correct, the thread is called Global Warming and Climate Change. which leaves the subject open for a wider interpretation than simple asking if it's all manmade. Yet I have not stated once whether or not I believe is the cause or how much of an impact we are having. However, obviously, a species population of our size will have a large impact on the environment and this is what brings me to the point I have been making all along.
What I have stated is that it's my belief that the best resolution to the manmade situation is the decrease of the population and the single most efficient way to do that is by global natural disaster because the fact is that we are running out of resources and we are running out of room.

Global warming is thought to increase the frequency and strength of such things as tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons and the legendary mega-storm. Deserts are increasing in size and within a few decades some areas of the planet will be uninhabitable without the aid of bio-domes and genetically modified vegetation.
Sea levels rise in the northern hemisphere decreasing the amount of land and enhancing the problem of living space along with food sources. Famine will kill off millions along with disease and the enevitable wars that break out as we fight for control of what farmland is left. This doesn't even take into acount the civil chaos as food riots break out and the energy crisis kicks in.

All the time this is happening the Earth carries on turning, life evolves to adapt and within a few hundred thousand years the remnants of mankind are face to face with another species which has most likely descended from us. The climate starts to cool again as the Co2 is taken out of the atmosphere by the billions of plankton which have thrived since the decline in pollution caused by the over population of the planet and the increased size of the oceans.

You see the planet is capable of saving itself and just because I do not hold the human race as the pinnacle or the last word in evolution does not mean I am against changing our wasteful, selfish ways.

 

[rynner2]

Long article....

Sea level rise: It's worse than we thought
01 July 2009 by Anil Ananthaswamy

FOR a few minutes David Holland forgets about his work and screams like a kid on a roller coaster. The small helicopter he's riding in is slaloming between towering cliffs of ice - the sheer sides of gigantic icebergs that had calved off Greenland's Jakobshavn glacier. "It was like in a James Bond movie," Holland says afterwards. "It's the most exciting thing I have ever done."

Jakobshavn has doubled its speed in the past 15 years, draining increasing amounts of ice from the Greenland ice sheet into the ocean, and Holland, an oceanographer at New York University, has been trying to find out why. Scientists like him are more than a little astonished at the rate at which our planet's frozen frontiers seem to be responding to global warming. The crucial question, though, is what will happen over the next few decades and centuries.

That's because the fate of the planet's ice, from relatively small ice caps in places like the Canadian Arctic, the Andes and the Himalayas, to the immense ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, will largely determine the speed and extent of sea level rise. At stake are the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people, not to mention millions of square kilometres of cities and coastal land, and trillions of dollars in economic terms.

In its 2007 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecast a sea level rise of between 19 and 59 centimetres by 2100, but this excluded "future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow". Crudely speaking, these estimates assume ice sheets are a bit like vast ice cubes sitting on a flat surface, which will stay in place as they slowly melt. But what if some ice sheets are more like ice cubes sitting on an upside-down bowl, which could suddenly slide off into the sea as conditions get slippery? "Larger rises cannot be excluded but understanding of these effects is too limited to assess their likelihood," the IPCC report stated.

Even before it was released, the report was outdated. Researchers now know far more. And while we still don't understand the dynamics of ice sheets and glaciers well enough to make precise predictions, we are narrowing down the possibilities. The good news is that some of the scarier scenarios, such as a sudden collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, now appear less likely. The bad news is that there is a growing consensus that the IPCC estimates are wildly optimistic.

etc...

All of which suggests we might want to start preparing. "People who are trying to downplay the significance say, 'Oh, the Earth has gone through changes much greater than this, you know, in the geological past'," says Pfeffer. "That's true, but it's completely irrelevant. We weren't there then." :shock:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... ?full=true

 

[rynner2]

Scientists warn carbon dioxide may soon make coral reefs extinct
Alok Jha guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 July 2009 19.22 BST

David Attenborough joined scientists today to warn that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is already above the level which condemns coral reefs to extinction, with catastrophic effects for the oceans and the people who depend upon them.

Coral reefs support a quarter of all marine life, including more than 4,000 species of fish. They also provide spawning, nursery, refuge and feeding areas for creatures such as lobsters, crabs, starfish and sea turtles.

This makes them crucial in supporting a healthy marine ecosystem upon which more than a billion people depend for food. Reefs also play a crucial role as natural breakwaters, protecting coastlines from storms.

Attenborough said the world had a "moral responsibility" to save corals. The naturalist was speaking at the Royal Society in London, following a meeting of marine biologists.

"A coral reef is the canary in the cage as far as the oceans are concerned," said Attenborough. "They are the places where the damage is most easily and quickly seen. It is more difficult for us to see what is happening in, for example, the deep ocean or the central expanses of ocean."

Global warming means warmer seas, which causes the corals to bleach, where the creatures lose the symbiotic algae they need to survive. Carbon dioxide also makes seas more acidic, which means the corals find it difficult to prevent their exoskeletons from dissolving.

"We've already passed a safe threshold for coral reef ecosystems in terms of climate change; we believe that a safe level for CO2 is below 350 parts per million," said Alex Rogers of the Zoological Society of London and International Programme on the State of the Ocean, who helped organise today's meeting.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen from 280ppm before the industrial revolution to around 387ppm today. Environmentalists say that any new global deal on climate must restrict the growth of CO2 levels to 450ppm, though more pessimistic scientists say that the world is heading for 550ppm or even 650ppm.

"When we get up to and above 450ppm, that really means we're into the realms of catastrophic destruction of coral reefs and we'll be moving into a planetary-wide global extinction," said Rogers.

"The only way to get to 350ppm or below is not only to have major cuts in CO2 emissions but also to draw CO2 out of the atmosphere through measures such as geo-engineering."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... tenborough

 

[rynner2]

Climate denial 'astroturfers' should stop hiding behind pseudonyms online
To stop oil, coal and electricity companies inserting their views into the media by stealth, we need to make blog commenters accountable

When the Guardian launched its Comment is free threads, it was one of the most exciting developments in journalism I had ever witnessed. Suddenly, everyone could play....

The early discussions were invigorating, fascinating, thrilling. They forced me to smarten up my act, to try to close the gaps in my thinking, to consider the argument more carefully before setting it out...

There is still something of this in the threads: whenever I have the stomach to read all the way through them I find a few comments which teach me something new, introduce me to interesting stories and links, or force me to challenge and reconsider the things I have said. But such posts increasingly look like gems among dross.

On the Guardian's environment site in particular, and to a lesser extent on threads across the Guardian's output, considered discussion is being drowned in a tide of vituperative gibberish. A few hundred commenters appear to be engaged in a competition to reach the outer limits of stupidity. They post so often and shout so loudly that intelligent debate appears to have fled from many threads, as other posters have simply given up in disgust. I've now reached the point at which I can't be bothered to read beyond the first page or so of comments. It is simply too depressing. [Welcome to the real world! 8) ]

The pattern, where environmental issues are concerned, is always the same. You can raise any issue you like, introduce a dossier of new information, deploy a novel argument, drop a shocking revelation. The comments which follow appear almost to have been pre-written. Whether or not you mentioned it, large numbers will concentrate on climate change – or rather on denying its existence. Another tranche will concentrate on attacking the parentage and lifestyle of the author. Very few address the substance of the article.

I believe that much of this is native idiocy: the infantile blathering of people who have no idea how to engage in debate. Many of the posters appear to have fallen for the nonsense produced by professional climate change deniers, and to have adopted their rhetoric and methods. But it is implausible to suppose that this is all that's going on. As I documented extensively in my book Heat, and as sites like DeSmogBlog and Exxonsecrets show, there is a large and well-funded campaign by oil, coal and electricity companies to insert their views into the media.

They have two main modes of operating: paying people to masquerade as independent experts, and paying people to masquerade as members of the public. These fake "concerned citizens" claim to be worried about a conspiracy by governments and scientists to raise taxes and restrict their freedoms in the name of tackling a non-existent issue. This tactic is called astroturfing. It's a well-trodden technique, also deployed extensively by the tobacco industry. You pay a public relations company to create a fake grassroots (astroturf) movement, composed of people who are paid for their services. They lobby against government attempts to regulate the industry and seek to drown out and discredit people who draw attention to the issues the corporations want the public to ignore.

etc...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/g ... pseudonyms

 

[rynner2]

Here's something else for astroturfers and those 'reaching for the outer limits of stupidity' to get their teeth into...

The planet's future: Climate change 'will cause civilisation to collapse'
Authoritative new study sets out a grim vision of shortages and violence – but amid all the gloom, there is some hope too
By Jonathan Owen
Sunday, 12 July 2009

An effort on the scale of the Apollo mission that sent men to the Moon is needed if humanity is to have a fighting chance of surviving the ravages of climate change. The stakes are high, as, without sustainable growth, "billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilisation will collapse".

This is the stark warning from the biggest single report to look at the future of the planet – obtained by The Independent on Sunday ahead of its official publication next month. Backed by a diverse range of leading organisations such as Unesco, the World Bank, the US army and the Rockefeller Foundation, the 2009 State of the Future report runs to 6,700 pages and draws on contributions from 2,700 experts around the globe. Its findings are described by Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the UN, as providing "invaluable insights into the future for the United Nations, its member states, and civil society".

The impact of the global recession is a key theme, with researchers warning that global clean energy, food availability, poverty and the growth of democracy around the world are at "risk of getting worse due to the recession". The report adds: "Too many greedy and deceitful decisions led to a world recession and demonstrated the international interdependence of economics and ethics."

Although the future has been looking better for most of the world over the past 20 years, the global recession has lowered the State of the Future Index for the next 10 years. Half the world could face violence and unrest due to severe unemployment combined with scarce water, food and energy supplies and the cumulative effects of climate change.

And the authors of the report, produced by the Millennium Project – a think-tank formerly part of the World Federation of the United Nations Associations – set out a number of emerging environmental security issues. "The scope and scale of the future effects of climate change – ranging from changes in weather patterns to loss of livelihoods and disappearing states – has unprecedented implications for political and social stability."

But the authors suggest the threats could also provide the potential for a positive future for all. "The good news is that the global financial crisis and climate change planning may be helping humanity to move from its often selfish, self-centred adolescence to a more globally responsible adulthood... Many perceive the current economic disaster as an opportunity to invest in the next generation of greener technologies, to rethink economic and development assumptions, and to put the world on course for a better future."

etc...

http://www.independent.co.uk/environmen ... 42759.html

 

[ramonmercado]

Heres a puzzler from 55 million years ago.

Ancient Climate-Change Event Puzzles Scientists
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/co ... 2009/714/2
By Phil Berardelli
ScienceNOW Daily News
14 July 2009

Carbon dioxide (CO2) gets a bad rep for contributing to global warming, and deservedly so. But scientists say they can't entirely blame the greenhouse gas for a curious spike in Earth's temperature 55 million years ago. New research reveals that something else also seems to have warmed the planet during that time, though no one's quite sure what it was.
Over the past couple of decades, researchers have been gathering data about a mysterious event known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). The data, derived from drill cores brought up from the deep seabed in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, show that the surface temperature of the planet rose by as much as 9°C within 10,000 years during the PETM, which itself started out warmer than our current world. Temperatures stayed at this elevated level for nearly 100,000 years.

On the surface, the culprit appeared to be CO2. For reasons unknown, atmospheric concentrations of the gas rose by about 700 parts per million, from 1000 ppm to 1700 ppm--more than four times higher than today's level of 385 ppm--during the PETM. That much of an infusion of the well-established greenhouse gas should have been plenty to spike temperatures.

But a new analysis doesn't fully support this scenario. Oceanographer Richard Zeebe of the University of Hawaii, Manoa, and colleagues ran carbon-cycle simulations of the oceans and atmosphere based on the data yielded by the sediment cores. They even simulated what would happen to global temperatures when they increased the atmosphere's sensitivity to doubling CO2 levels--to 2000 ppm--during the PETM. The most they could achieve was a warming of 3.5°C, they report online this week in Nature Geoscience. That means some other phenomenon must have pushed up temperatures by as much as 5.5°C, the team says. So at present, the unexplained warming represents a gap in understanding about what causes significant and rapid climate change.

"It's possible that other greenhouse gases such as methane could have contributed to the [PETM] warming," Zeebe says. It's also possible that the models are underestimating the climate response to CO2 increases. If that's the case, it "would mean our understanding of the climate system is incomplete," he says.

Zeebe's team is now looking at smaller warming events that occurred within several million years after the PETM. "We're currently trying to find out whether or not [they] were caused by the same mechanism," he says. The idea is to determine whether the PETM warming was unique "or a universal feature."

Geochemist Gabriel Bowen of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, applauds the work. "We've long had a hunch that something was fishy about the climate response during the PETM," he says. "This study puts the nails in the coffin of the idea that climate during the PETM responded to CO2 alone." Says Bowen, "The urgent challenge now facing us is to find out what was amplifying [temperatures] during this event and understand what it means for Earth's future."

 

[rynner2]

Revealed: the secret evidence of global warming Bush tried to hide
Photos from US spy satellites declassified by the Obama White House provide the first graphic images of how the polar ice sheets are retreating in the summer. The effects on the world's weather, environments and wildlife could be devastating
Suzanne Goldenberg and Damian Carrington The Observer, Sunday 26 July 2009

Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic have been released by the US military. The photographs, taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months.

The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week. President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanise Congress and the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

One particularly striking set of images - selected from the 1,000 photographs released - includes views of the Alaskan port of Barrow. One, taken in July 2006, shows sea ice still nestling close to the shore. A second image shows that by the following July the coastal waters were entirely ice-free.

The photographs demonstrate starkly how global warming is changing the Arctic. More than a million square kilometres of sea ice - a record loss - were missing in the summer of 2007 compared with the previous year.

Nor has this loss shown any sign of recovery. Ice cover for 2008 was almost as bad as for 2007, and this year levels look equally sparse.

"These are one-metre resolution images, which give you a big picture of the summertime Arctic," said Thorsten Markus of Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre. "This is the main reason why we are so thrilled about it. One-metre resolution is the dimension that's been missing."

Disappearing summer sea ice poses considerable dangers, scientists have warned. Ice shelves are used by animals such as polar bears as platforms for hunting seals and other sea creatures. Without them, they could starve. In addition, ice reflects solar radiation. Without that process, the Arctic sea could warm up even more. The phenomenon threatens to set off runaway heating of the planet, say climatologists.

The latest revelations have triggered warnings from scientists that they no longer have the funds to keep a comprehensive track of climate change. Last week the head of the US's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Professor Jane Lubchenco, warned that the gathering of satellite data - crucial to predicting future climate changes - was now at "great risk" because America's ageing satellite fleet was not being replaced.

"Our primary focus is maintaining the continuity of climate observations, and those are at great risk right now because we don't have the resources to have satellites at the ready and taking the kinds of information that we need," said Lubchenco, who was appointed by Obama. "We are playing catch-up."

Even before her warning, scientists were saying that America, the world's scientific superpower, was virtually blinding itself to climate change by cutting funds to the environmental satellite programmes run by the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Nasa. A report by the National Academy of Sciences this year warned that the environmental satellite network was at risk of collapse.

In February, a Nasa satellite carrying instruments to produce the first map of the Earth's carbon emissions crashed near Antarctica only three minutes after lift-off.

The satellite would have measured carbon emissions at 100,000 points around the planet every day, providing a wealth of data compared to the 100 or so fixed towers currently in operation in a land-based network.

The NOAA is under additional pressure to provide environmental data because of the re-emergence of the El Niño climate phenomenon, where warming of the tropical Pacific causes heatwaves, droughts and flooding around the world. June's land and sea surface temperatures were the second hottest on record, and scientists are predicting this will be the warmest decade in recorded history. The last major El Niño was in 1998, the hottest year in recorded history.

The Obama administration has already taken steps to tackle America's flagging scientific lead. The president's economic recovery plan allotted $170m (£100m) to help close the gaps in climate modelling. The NOAA is seeking an additional $390m in its 2010 budget to upgrade environmental satellites, and help make data more available to researchers and government officials.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... istration#

 

[Twin_Star]

Yeah, i know this won't change anyone's opinion, but us astro-turfers and flat-earthers need to stick together. A long article from the Spectator follows. Ian Plimer sounds like a total dude...

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine ... rick.thtml

James Delingpole talks to Professor Ian Plimer, the Australian geologist, whose new book shows that ‘anthropogenic global warming’ is a dangerous, ruinously expensive fiction, a ‘first-world luxury’ with no basis in scientific fact. Shame on the publishers who rejected the book

Imagine how wonderful the world would be if man-made global warming were just a figment of Al Gore’s imagination. No more ugly wind farms to darken our sunlit uplands. No more whopping electricity bills, artificially inflated by EU-imposed carbon taxes. No longer any need to treat each warm, sunny day as though it were some terrible harbinger of ecological doom. And definitely no need for the $7.4 trillion cap and trade (carbon-trading) bill — the largest tax in American history — which President Obama and his cohorts are so assiduously trying to impose on the US economy.

Imagine no more, for your fairy godmother is here. His name is Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at Adelaide University, and he has recently published the landmark book Heaven And Earth, which is going to change forever the way we think about climate change.

‘The hypothesis that human activity can create global warming is extraordinary because it is contrary to validated knowledge from solar physics, astronomy, history, archaeology and geology,’ says Plimer, and while his thesis is not new, you’re unlikely to have heard it expressed with quite such vigour, certitude or wide-ranging scientific authority. Where fellow sceptics like Bjorn Lomborg or Lord Lawson of Blaby are prepared cautiously to endorse the International Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) more modest predictions, Plimer will cede no ground whatsoever. Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory, he argues, is the biggest, most dangerous and ruinously expensive con trick in history....lots more at link

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Yeah, i know this won't change anyone's opinion, but us astro-turfers and flat-earthers need to stick together. A long article from the Spectator follows. Ian Plimer sounds like a total dude...

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-maga...osed-the-great-climate-change-con-trick.thtml

...

Here's a link to a scientific refutation of Plimer's new book, based on the mathematics, from another Australian, the mathematician, physicist and climate change expert, Ian G. Enting:
('From 1980 to 2004 he worked in CSIRO Atmospheric Research, primarily on modelling the global carbon cycle.
He was one of the lead authors of the chapter CO2 and the Carbon Cycle in the 1994 IPCC report on Radiative Forcing of Climate.
Enting has published scientific papers, on mathematical physics and carbon cycle modelling, and a monograph on mathematical techniques for interpreting observations of CO2 and other trace gases.')

http://www.complex.org.au/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=91

I'm not sure if Enting is a 'dude', but he doesn't appear to be a member of a think tank that takes money from the likes of Philip Morris, or Monsanto, unlike Plimer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_plimer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Public_Affairs

This quote, from the Spectator piece, may give a clue to where Plimer's really coming from. More of a case of Plimer providing what he thinks they want to hear, rather than of trying to find out, what is the truth of the matter?

http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-maga...osed-the-great-climate-change-con-trick.thtml

...

But surely Aussies of all people, with their bushfires and prolonged droughts, ought to be the last to buy into his message? ‘Ah, but the average punter is not a fool. I get sometimes as many as 1,000 letters and emails a day from people who feel helpless and disenfranchised and just bloody sick of all the nonsense they hear about global warming from metropolitan liberals who don’t even know where meat or milk comes from.’

Besides which, Australia’s economy is peculiarly vulnerable to the effects of climate change alarmism. ‘Though we have 40 per cent of the world’s uranium, we don’t have nuclear energy. We’re reliant mainly on bucketloads of cheap coal. Eighty per cent of our electricity is coal-generated and clustered around our coalfields are our aluminium producers. The very last thing the Australian economy needs is the cap and trade legislation being proposed by Kevin Rudd. If it gets passed, the country will go broke.’

...

 

[rynner2]

Here's a link to a scientific refutation of Plimer's new book, based on the mathematics, from another Australian, the mathematician, physicist and climate change expert, Ian G. Enting:
'(From 1980 to 2004 he worked in CSIRO Atmospheric Research, primarily on modelling the global carbon cycle.
He was one of the lead authors of the chapter CO2 and the Carbon Cycle in the 1994 IPCC report on Radiative Forcing of Climate.
Enting has published scientific papers, on mathematical physics and carbon cycle modelling, and a monograph on mathematical techniques for interpreting observations of CO2 and other trace gases.)'

http://www.complex.org.au/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=91

Good to see a solid refutation of Plimer's book. The point-by-point approach is good, and backs up my gut feeling that Plimer is sticking his fingers in his ear ears and singing La-la-la-la.

His basic idea seems to be that, in the long term, climate change has happened before, and will happen again, and therefore any current changes are nothing to do with us, so we can ignore them and carry on as usual.

Well, the human race may all be dead in a million or a billion years, but that's no reason not to do whatever we can to make things better here and now. It doesn't bother me much (at my age), but I'd like to think this generation has done what it can for future generations.
But for many we may have already left it too late:

Climate change to force 75 million Pacific Islanders from their homes
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/enviro ... homes.html

(Still, plenty of room for 'em in Australia, eh? )

 

[Twin_Star]

As one poster points out in the comments section below this graph: "The global carbongeddon train screams past us at the speed of.....0" lol

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress. ... _jun09.png

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

As one poster points out in the comments section below this graph: "The global carbongeddon train screams past us at the speed of.....0" lol

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress. ... _jun09.png

What does the graph actually mean? Apart from showing a gradual, but significant, upward trend for temperatures, since 1979 and the only apparently anomalous oscillations between the warming effects of El Ninó, in 1998 and the corresponding cooling effects of La Niña, in 2009, out in the Pacific, as previously predicted?

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

Watts' blog may have one a web award for top science blog, but that probably only shows the deep levels of Climate Change-denial in the US of A.

Here's a link to another graph, that covers a slightly longer period:
http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/files/2008/03/global_seasonal_temps_1950-2008.jpg

From this site:
http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2008/03/24/cooling_from_la_nina/

We can play with graphs and statistics, all we like, but really its up to proper scientists to work it out for us. If that means that there are a few scientists out there, who say different, for whatever reasons, good and bad, that doesn't detract from the fact that there are an awful lot of scientists on the one side the argument and apparently a much smaller number on the other, some of whom only appear to be scientists and are obviously there to make up the numbers and add confusion.

Global Warming and Climate Change aren't things that are out there in the distant future, they are already happening. If the effects in Norther Europe seem relatively inconsequential, that doesn't mean that the effects won't be severe elsewhere, or more extreme in the comparatively near future.

:?

 

[rynner2]

It's also worth remembering that air temperature alone is not a complete measure of global warming. Water has about 4 times the specific heat of air (S.H. measures the energy it takes to raise the temperature of, say, a kilogram of the substance by one degree Celsius): this means the oceans can absorb huge amounts of energy without their temperature rising very much.

There's also something called the Latent Heat of Fusion, which measures the amount of energy absorbed when ice turns to water with no change of temperature - i.e. ice at zero degrees C becomes water at zero degrees C. This is some 80 times higher than the specific heat of water - i.e. it takes 80 time the energy to melt a given amount of ice as it does to subsequently warm the resulting water from zero degrees to one degree C.

When you look at the shrinking glaciers and sea ice, you then realise that a lot of energy is being absorbed for very little rise in temperature as the world 'warms'. But when all the ice is gone - watch out!

 

[Ginando]

Why has global dimming seemingly ceased to be an issue in relation to climate change discussions? It seemed to be a significant issue when it first was brought to the publics attention with research into temperature change and/or solar energy changes over North America following the grounding of aircraft after 9/11?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/program ... rans.shtml

and the program itself http://www.documentary-film.net/search/sample.php

Has this phenomenon been discredited or is it simply a side issue? I did my usual quick search and there seems to be little recent info on the topic. However if we believed the revelations in the above program, and the phenomenon has not gone away, why isn't it being discussed as part of the overall issue of climate change?

 

[rynner2]

World will warm faster than predicted in next five years, study warns
New estimate based on the forthcoming upturn in solar activity and El Niño southern oscillation cycles is expected to silence global warming sceptics
Duncan Clark guardian.co.uk, Monday 27 July 2009 15.39 BST

The world faces record-breaking temperatures as the sun's activity increases, leading the planet to heat up significantly faster than scientists had predicted for the next five years, according to a study.

The hottest year on record was 1998, and the relatively cool years since have led to some global warming sceptics claiming that temperatures have levelled off or started to decline. But new research firmly rejects that argument.

The research, to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, was carried out by Judith Lean, of the US Naval Research Laboratory, and David Rind, of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The work is the first to assess the combined impact on global temperature of four factors: human influences such as CO2 and aerosol emissions; heating from the sun; volcanic activity and the El Niño southern oscillation, the phenomenon by which the Pacific Ocean flips between warmer and cooler states every few years.

The analysis shows the relative stability in global temperatures in the last seven years is explained primarily by the decline in incoming sunlight associated with the downward phase of the 11-year solar cycle, together with a lack of strong El Niño events. These trends have masked the warming caused by CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

As solar activity picks up again in the coming years, the research suggests, temperatures will shoot up at 150% of the rate predicted by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Lean and Rind's research also sheds light on the extreme average temperature in 1998. The paper confirms that the temperature spike that year was caused primarily by a very strong El Niño episode. A future episode could be expected to create a spike of equivalent magnitude on top of an even higher baseline, thus shattering the 1998 record.

The study comes within days of announcements from climatologists that the world is entering a new El Niño warm spell. This suggests that temperature rises in the next year could be even more marked than Lean and Rind's paper suggests. A particularly hot autumn and winter could add to the pressure on policy makers to reach a meaningful deal at December's climate-change negotiations in Copenhagen.

Bob Henson, of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, said: "To claim that global temperatures have cooled since 1998 and therefore that man-made climate change isn't happening is a bit like saying spring has gone away when you have a mild week after a scorching Easter."

...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... ster-study

 

[Twin_Star]

Piers Corbyn is the long-range weather forecaster much maligned by the UK Met office for not explaining exactly how he makes his predictions. Well, obviously they would like to know, so they can nick his procedure. This is in light of their long range forecast in Spring that the UK was in for a Barbeque summer. His initial prediction appears to be more accurate than theirs, which they have today amended because they were basically wrong.

http://www.weatheraction.com/pages/pv.a ... 10&fsize=0

Anyway, here's his weatheraction website, and ive linked to his take on the whole Global Warming - sorry "climate change" - conspiracy. Yes yes PM, another lone voice, crying out in the wilderness and obviously in the thrall of tobacco, alcohol, arms maufacturers and the oil industry. Let's save that argument for another day shall we

http://www.weatheraction.com/pages/pv.a ... 10&fsize=0

 

[rynner2]

Piers Corbyn says:

This 'Climate wars' production is a shameful and desperate effort from the BBC's 'green religion department' to shore up the failing theory of CO2 driven Global Warming and Climate Change.

Why focus an attack on the BBC rather than the IPCC? Another case of shooting the messenger?

Oh yes!

They resort to the green zealots blogging method of personal innuendo rather than discussing the issues - 'Smear or belittle the messenger if you don't like the message'

and then goes on to say

The attacks on what the Global Warmers deem as 'solar theory' are the product of disgraceful dishonesty which marks the integrity of the scientific establishment at its lowest level since the Papal Inquisition.

Pot calling kettle black?

That sort of language counts as a rant, in my book, and doesn't deserve much consideration. Rants go down well with an already converted congregation, but are a turn-off for the uncommitted.

 

[Twin_Star]

Hmm, whilst i agree he may have sections that are a bit "ranty", it doesnt detract from the fact that his organisation has hit 85% accuracy on severe weather events in the last 5 years whereas the Met Office has accurately predicted, err, none. If you were a betting man, which of those two horses would you put your hard-earned on?

If you liked that, then you will love this:

http://www.weatheraction.com/pages/data ... change.ppt

Please, try to look past the garish colours and focus on the facts as he states them. I have posted on this thread passim that the relationship betwixt Sol and Terra may have more to do with climate than many in the GW/CC (global warming/climate change - ooh, a nice new accroynm) camp have previously inferred. Your link to the article above goes some way to showing that a few - dare i call them mavericks - are now giving this relationship longer shrift, but not enough. I am not playing devils advocate for the sake of it! I genuinely believe that the newly-sprung up "industry" of GW/CC is misleading the developed world's taxpayers into scaring dollars/euros/pounds/sheckles out of us because they can. The US cap and trade programme is just the largest of these. Predictably, no-one can say what the temperature will be in 10-15 years time but if the facts dont follow the computer models, what will the general populace then have to say about scientific orthodoxy? Stones CANNOT fall from the sky, as any fule no

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Piers Corbyn is the long-range weather forecaster much maligned by the UK Met office for not explaining exactly how he makes his predictions. Well, obviously they would like to know, so they can nick his procedure. ...

... Yes yes PM, another lone voice, crying out in the wilderness and obviously in the thrall of tobacco, alcohol, arms maufacturers and the oil industry. Let's save that argument for another day shall we

...

Secret weather prediction techniques? Most of Corbyn's claims unverifiable. Gosh! I am impressed... not.

An excerpt from the Wikipedia entry about Corbyn.

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

...

Forecasts for 2008

At the end of 2007 , WeatherAction predicted that temperatures in January could plummet to -17C in the Midlands, and that the average temperature for January would be close to freezing. This prediction was dismissed by the Met Office in a Guardian article on 2 January [22]. After an unsuccessful start to a severely cold January predition, Mr. Corbyn blamed the incorrect forecast on an undefined 'procedural error,' but insisted that the second half of the month would be very cold, specifically the period 21-27 January, where he stated on his website:

""The period and forecast maps for the very cold ‘dipole’ patterns 15-21st Jan will probably be shifted later to 21st- 23rd Jan. Some exceptionally strong blizzard conditiuons (sic) and very strong cold winds are likely in this period. An ongoing similar situation with widespread heavy snow, strong winds and blizzards will continue 24th- 27th Jan."[23]

The period 21-23 January continued very mild for the country as a whole, but with a brief colder interlude for Scotland and the far north of England, with some snow in the Highland and Pennine Mountain regions, not out of the ordinary for January. [24]. The Met Office run Hadley Observation Centre had the CET from the 1-22 January running at 6.4C, or 2.8C above normal for the time of year. This made it highly unlikely that Corbyn's very cold January forecast would come to fruition.

The final CET for January 2008 ended up over 3degC above the standard reference average making the predictions for a cold Jan very poor. In fact it ended up being one of the warmest Januaries since records began.

Response to media criticism

Following criticism of Weather Action's forecasts in The Times and The Guardian, in particular from journalist Paul Simons, Piers Corbyn banned the use of any extracts of them in any articles unless they were approved by Corbyn. In addition the above newspapers and any publication which carried articles by Paul Simons were also explicity forbidden from quoting them.[25]

...

Not very impressive.

--- --- --- --- ---

Hmm, whilst i agree he may have sections that are a bit "ranty", it doesnt detract from the fact that his organisation has hit 85% accuracy on severe weather events in the last 5 years whereas the Met Office has accurately predicted, err, none. If you were a betting man, which of those two horses would you put your hard-earned on?

...

Mostly, only according to Piers Corbyn and his own Website. Since this guy apparently refuses to let his methods, or predictions be 'peer reviewed', why should we take what he has to say any more seriously, than Uri Geller, who is also in the prediction business?

The worst kind of publicist is a self-publicist.

 

[rynner2]

...his organisation has hit 85% accuracy on severe weather events in the last 5 years whereas the Met Office has accurately predicted, err, none

No doubt the Met Office would disagree with those figures!

But the UK Met office is not reponsible for the CC theory all by itself. The 'I' in IPCC stands for International, because the IPCC is made up of many climate experts from around the world. And, knowing that the difficulty of getting committees to agree on things is very high, the fact that they have agreed a consensus statement to the effect that the climate is changing must be taken seriously.

The few mavericks who disagree with this consensus either need to produce some killer data to refute it, or examine their own theories again to see what flaws they may contain. I'll always listen to contrary data (and there always is contrary data), but so far all that has been put forward has been shown to be either wrong or wrongly interpreted.

It's also worth remembering that there are some 'mavericks', within the IPCC, who think that GW will be worse than predicted - and maybe they will be proved right! :shock:

So for the present, the best thing for us non-experts to do is listen to what the IPCC has to say, as that represents the middle-of-the-road option.

 

[liz_beth]

Good Tunes going to help the climate!

There is a great new album called Rhythms Del Mundo Classics coming out August 11th that goes to a great cause! Album proceeds benefits the environmental nonprofit organization Artists Project Earth, which raises awareness and funds for climate change projects and for disaster relief efforts .

It features The Killers’ covering “Hotel California”, The Rolling Stones, “Under The Boardwalk”, Fall Out Boy and John Mayer’s interpretation of “Beat It”, and lots of other AMAZING covers. So whether you’re a “green” activist or just love great music, this album is definitely worth checking out!

Grab your copy here…http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B002CVQAY0

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

I know, the Post above looks like Spam, I should move it to announcements.

I'm sure it's a worthy cause though.

p_m

Until facts prove otherwise, of course.