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Global Warming & Climate Change: The Phenomenon

The Mirror quotes Good Morning Britain”s Laura Tobin as saying that this coming summer for the UK will be close to dangerously hot.
 
When July and August come I would like to see what people are saying about the weather then.
 
Coal! Welcome back.

Bear in mind the GWPF is a lobby group founded by Nigel Lawson..
Thank you.

Indeed so, enchanged quite a few emails with him some years back. Nevertheless it's an intersting read - I don't deny the climate is changing, but I think we're some way from the 'we're all gonna die in ten years' scenario that is being pushed at us, and truthfully, if you want to change peoples' behaviour, setting attainable affordable goals is the way to go (along with leading by example).
 
Just saying the hottest last six years on record are :

2016
2019
2015
2017
2018
2014

It is concerning that the weather services of the U.S., the UK, and the EU all agree that this summer will be dangerously hot.
 
Good Morning Britain’s Laura Tobin issued a Met warning for a brutal summer.

The warning is from the Met because of La Niña patterns.
 
The Met Office doesn't give a long range forecast as such. It gives best case scenario, the probable scenario and a worst case scenario. The MetO also stress these scanarios are just probabilities and should not be taken as accurate.

For sensationalism the media often take the worst case scenario and treat it as a forecast, which it most definitely isn't.
 
I always look at any headline weather predictions in the "Daily Star" and assume the exact opposite. It has been far more accurate than any long range forecasts.
 

Climate change and farming driving insect decline​

News story

They're calling it the insect apocalypse. Half of all insects have disappeared from many areas thanks to climate change and intensive farming, and careful measures need to be taken if they're to be brought back. If the insects go, we all go.
 
A stalled high pressure area over India is baking the citizens with 110 F or 43 C.

People in India are finding it very hard to carry on normal lives.

Climate change is causing weak steer currents.
 
Scientists are a little puzzled that the La Niña event in the Pacific Ocean is over staying it’s welcome.

La Niña should have dissolved away in the past few months.

La Niña is the reason why Europe will suffer dangerous heat this summer.
 
We're doomed to down in Dublin and Cork but it's not just due to Climate Change.

Most Irish cities are coastal, with 40% of the population within 5km of the coast.

Recent flooding reinforces the need to understand how sea levels are changing around Ireland. Galway has become the place to be for journalists reporting on impending rough weather of late and we have become familiar with images of waves reaching forgotten cars on Salthill prom.

Future sea levels around the Irish coast depend on a combination of global and local factors. Global sea level rise is driven by climate change with another 1m of sea level rise predicted by 2150, if greenhouse gas reductions fall short of targets. However, new research has shown sea level rise in Dublin and Cork greater than expected from climate change alone, pointing to local exacerbating factors that need to be understood.

https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2022/0428/1294792-rising-sea-levels-dublin-cork-ireland/
 
The persistent La Niña will bake the western and central Canada this summer while the jet stream stalls out over eastern Canada to produce cooler temperatures.
 
An actual 30-year Professor of Meteorology - Richard Lindzen - at an actual, quality university - MIT - says:

Global warming: why you should not worry



maximus otter
 
An actual 30-year Professor of Meteorology - Richard Lindzen - at an actual, quality university - MIT - says:

Global warming: why you should not worry



maximus otter
It is very interesting, however a little research links him to oil and gas money:

"Richard S. Lindzen is former Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a position he held from 1983 until his retirement in 2013. [3], [76], [77]

Lindzen’s academic interests lie within the topics of “climate, planetary waves, monsoon meteorology, planetary atmospheres, and hydrodynamic instability,” according to his faculty profile at MIT. [3]

Lindzen is a former distinguished senior fellow at the Cato Institute‘s Center for the Study of Science. The Center shut down in 2019, and was no longer affiliated with Lindzen at that time. “It’s unclear when he left Cato, and [Spokeswoman Khristine] Brookes declined to comment on personnel issues,” E&E News reported. [2], [101]

The Cato Institute, a conservative think tank where Lindzen has also published numerous articles and studies, has received at least $125,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. In his 1995 article, “The Heat Is On,” Ross Gelbspan reported Lindzen charged oil and coal organizations $2,500 per day for his consulting services. [4], [5]

Lindzen has described ExxonMobil as “the only principled oil and gas company I know in the U.S.” [6]

In addition to his position at Cato, Lindzen is listed as an “Expert” with the Heartland Institute, a member of the “Academic Advisory Council” of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), and an advisor to the CO2Coalition, a group promoting the benefits of atmospheric carbon dioxide. [58], [59], [62]

Fossil Fuel Funding

As part of a March 2018 legal case between the cities of San Francisco and Oakland and fossil fuel companies, Lindzen was asked by the judge to disclose any connections he had to connected parties. [94]

In response, Lindzen reported that he had received $25,000 per year for his position at the Cato Institute since 2013. He also disclosed $1,500 from the Texas Public Policy Foundation for a “climate science lecture” in 2017, and approximately $30,000 from Peabody Coal in connection to testimony Lindzen gave at a proceeding of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commissions in September 2015. [98]"


https://www.desmog.com/richard-lindzen/
 
It worth reading this article through - note it does NOT deny there is climate change, almost no-one does this, however, as a cheap shot at anyone who wants to discuss the actual data, it's effective.

https://unherd.com/2021/11/the-great-climate-change-fallacy/

Relating to the IPCC's original mission, in 2010:

....So four “representative concentration pathways”, RCPs, were developed: RCP 2.6, 4.5, 6.0 and 8.51. They were, roughly speaking, a highly optimistic scenario regarding emissions, two middling scenarios, and a highly pessimistic one. RCP 8.5 was there as a realistic worst case. Even at the time, it was viewed as unlikely. But two unfortunate things confused that picture.

First, of the four RCPs, only 8.5 imagined a world with no climate policy. And second, its authors described it as “a high-emission business as usual scenario” – meaning that it was at the high end of emissions for business as usual, but which was taken to mean in some quarters that high emissions were business as usual.

So RCP 8.5 became synonymous with “business as usual”. There are dozens of studies published every year describing it as such: this one says that “Business-as-usual will lead to super and ultra-extreme heatwaves in the Middle East and North Africa”. It is a mainstream part of climate science.

The article makes the point that one of these original scenarios developed by the IPCC (12 years ago) is still being used to deliver messages, the one related to their worst case scenario 'RCP8.5':

RCP 8.5 is not business as usual, though; it’s an unlikely worst case. This means a large fraction of the public debate on climate change mitigation is driven by an increasingly implausible scenario, which was unlikely when it was proposed, and is even less so now.

In fact, due to reductions in emissions and changes in energy policy, we're now looking at...

...we’re probably looking at a situation of 3°C warming above pre-industrial levels,

...which, while not ideal, is not the 'we're all gonna die' scenario continually trotted out. The plain fact is, that the 'hopeless' message will have the opposite effect on general behaviour, as it's seen as a something no-one really has any control over. A more measured (and truer) message will probably have a far larger effect on the general population.

So my question is: why, given this well established backfire effect, do the powers that be persist in telling us 'we're all gonna die', unless we all give up our cars, electricity and economic stability?
 
Is his data accurate and correct?
From my perspective he makes some valid points, but somewhat avoids the central issue of the trillions of tons of C02 and methane we have sent us into our atmosphere in a short space of time (whilst of course benefitting from living in an industrial and postmodern era). I'm in my 50s and Spring has got earlier (ask any farmer!) and frost and snow days fewer, so change is happening right here as the planet warms. Then there are the alarming droughts, wildfires and floods taking place in Australia and Canada on a scale not seen before.

I do not believe everything the climate crisis lobby come out with, they are pursuing a political agenda in many cases, but our planet is warming, we are partly responsible and have accelerated this, and there is also sadly a mass extinction underway.
 
From my perspective he makes some valid points, but somewhat avoids the central issue of the trillions of tons of C02 and methane we have sent us into our atmosphere in a short space of time (whilst of course benefitting from living in an industrial and postmodern era). I'm in my 50s and Spring has got earlier (ask any farmer!) and frost and snow days fewer, so change is happening right here as the planet warms. Then there are the alarming droughts, wildfires and floods taking place in Australia and Canada on a scale not seen before.

I do not believe everything the climate crisis lobby come out with, they are pursuing a political agenda in many cases, but our planet is warming, we are partly responsible and have accelerated this, and there is also sadly a mass extinction underway.
So, is his data accurate and correct?
 
Yes, we have changed the way we measure things as technology has evolved.

Yes, we have post-Glacial shift going on here in the UK.

It isn't what he says, it what he doesn't.
I'll take that as a yes. So it's not as bad as popularly supposed then.
 
Hottest/Coldest/Windiest/Sunniest/Rainiest blah blah blah 'on record'.....

Okay.....so how far back does your record go?
I find that mostly the alarmism usually conveyed by these sorts of reports is down to the fact that either the period with which current data are being compared to, is limited deliberately to just a certain period to support whatever point is being put forward (eg - 'since 1950'), or we find that the officially measured record only goes back as far as when records were actually being kept accurately with reliable equipment - usually no further than the early 1900s, or late 1800s, sometimes a bit further, depending on what you're measuring, and with what.
Before that the 'records' are 'observational', as in they depend upon observations made by the amateur, or 'armchair' expert (Victorian gentleman explorers with too much time on their hands and a yen for travel), and/or by looking at a historical record that has been laid down naturally in stuff like 'tree rings', 'glacial deposits', 'geology' and the like. We find that from looking back through those naturally created records there have been many periods in history (and 'pre-history') in which the current highest/lowest etc were exceeded many times.

The use of the phrase 'on record' therefore, without clarification of the period referred to, renders whatever else is said worthless.

i.e.
Yesterday was the longest, hottest, coldest and sunniest, May day on record!
(my record starts on January 1st 2022)
 
Hottest/Coldest/Windiest/Sunniest/Rainiest blah blah blah 'on record'.....

Okay.....so how far back does your record go?
I find that mostly the alarmism usually conveyed by these sorts of reports is down to the fact that either the period with which current data are being compared to, is limited deliberately to just a certain period to support whatever point is being put forward (eg - 'since 1950'), or we find that the officially measured record only goes back as far as when records were actually being kept accurately with reliable equipment - usually no further than the early 1900s, or late 1800s, sometimes a bit further, depending on what you're measuring, and with what.
Before that the 'records' are 'observational', as in they depend upon observations made by the amateur, or 'armchair' expert (Victorian gentleman explorers with too much time on their hands and a yen for travel), and/or by looking at a historical record that has been laid down naturally in stuff like 'tree rings', 'glacial deposits', 'geology' and the like. We find that from looking back through those naturally created records there have been many periods in history (and 'pre-history') in which the current highest/lowest etc were exceeded many times.

The use of the phrase 'on record' therefore, without clarification of the period referred to, renders whatever else is said worthless.

i.e.
Yesterday was the longest, hottest, coldest and sunniest, May day on record!
(my record starts on January 1st 2022)
Yes, it's amazing how statistics can be used to bend an argument.
 
Yes, it's amazing how statistics can be used to bend an argument.
Does anyone recall the Met Office putting out old records for digitising early in the lockdown?

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-...2022/rescued-victorian-rainfall-data-released

Record-breaking Victorian weather has been revealed from millions of archived rainfall records.


Record-breaking Victorian weather has been revealed after millions of archived rainfall records dating back nearly 200 years were rescued by thousands of volunteers during the first Covid-19 lockdown.

Worth a read through, but also, great effort by the general public there. :hoff:

Notable details uncovered by Rainfall Rescue volunteers include:

  • The driest year on record is now 1855 (786.5mm), thanks to the new data
  • For many regions, the driest May on record was May 2020 (England 9.6mm), when some volunteers were still helping confirm the Rainfall Rescue transcriptions. In doing so they shifted those records back to May 1844 (England 8.3mm)
  • November/December 1852 were confirmed as exceptionally wet months – December 1852 now being the third wettest month on record in Cumbria (364.9mm) and November 1852 being the wettest month on record for large parts of southern England. Floods are known to have occurred in a number of locations at this time, and are known as the Duke of Wellington Floods as they started around the time of his state funeral in London
 
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