Global Warming & Climate Change: The Phenomenon

[rynner2]

Lethal gas may have to be stored under villages, says adviser
Ben Webster, Environment Editor

Millions of tonnes of potentially lethal carbon dioxide may have to be stored deep under towns and villages to prevent climate change, according to a senior government adviser.

The storage sites would have to be closely monitored to detect any leaks and an alarm system would be needed to warn nearby residents of the danger of asphyxiation. New bylaws might have to be passed prohibiting bedrooms on the ground floor because of the risk of CO2 poisoning as people slept.

Nick Riley, head of science policy at the British Geological Survey, was speaking at a Department of Energy and Climate Change briefing on the planned expansion of schemes to capture and store the carbon emitted by coal-fired power stations.

The Government is planning to subsidise several carbon capture and storage demonstration projects and next Tuesday will host a meeting on the issue in London attended by energy ministers from 20 countries.

Dr Riley, who advises the Government on carbon storage, said that the areas of Britain with suitable geology for carbon storage included parts of Dorset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Cheshire, Norfolk and Lincolnshire.

The proposed offshore storage sites in the North Sea and Irish Sea might not be practical for all the carbon produced by power stations, he said. “Onshore storage can be much cheaper because you don’t have the transport costs or the problem of building long pipelines, but then you have to persuade people it is safe.”

He said there was a risk that carbon injected into the ground under very high pressure could leak through bore holes or old mineshafts.

“The worst-case scenario would be a situation where people were unaware there had been a leak,” he said. “In particular weather conditions or in confined spaces, those people could suffer asphyxiation.”

etc...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 868896.ece

 

[KarlD]

It's interesting to see the phrase "climate change denier" has been coined to denegrade those who do not entirely agree with the prevailing viewpoint.
I have never once came across anyone who says that climate change is not happening, only people who have alternative theories as to what might be the driving forces of change.
Is there such a thing as a climate change denier i.e. someone who says that the climate is not changing?
From what I've read the viewpoint held by those who do not agree that man has a significant input to climate change tends to be that the Earth's climate has always be in a state of change, and always will be i.e the exact OPPOSITE of denying climate change.

The reason that 'Cimate change deniers' has become the insult of the moment is that climate change has become the next religion for some people and anyone who questions the orthodoxy is a heratic and must be burnt at the stake, but only in an enviromentaly friendly low carbon emission fire or course.
Its interesting that you become a denier if you even say climate change has been going on for ever long before there were even animals around on the earth.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

It's interesting to see the phrase "climate change denier" has been coined to denegrade those who do not entirely agree with the prevailing viewpoint.
I have never once came across anyone who says that climate change is not happening, only people who have alternative theories as to what might be the driving forces of change.
Is there such a thing as a climate change denier i.e. someone who says that the climate is not changing?
From what I've read the viewpoint held by those who do not agree that man has a significant input to climate change tends to be that the Earth's climate has always be in a state of change, and always will be i.e the exact OPPOSITE of denying climate change.

The reason that 'Cimate change deniers' has become the insult of the moment is that climate change has become the next religion for some people and anyone who questions the orthodoxy is a heratic and must be burnt at the stake, but only in an enviromentaly friendly low carbon emission fire or course.
Its interesting that you become a denier if you even say climate change has been going on for ever long before there were even animals around on the earth.

Such perfidious sophistry. Perhaps, people are just trying to be polite. The 'denial' is in the refusal to admit that the present, potentially catastrophic, climate change is man-made. It may be par for the course for the Earth, over geological time-spans, in the here and now, in the real World, it will probably be disastrous for humanity. I put the deniers right up there with the likes of the famous, former goalkeeper, whack-job, David Icke and his fantasy reptoids, only much more dangerous.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299426.stm

'Scary' climate message from past

BBC News website. By Richard Black, Environment correspondent, 10th Oct. 2009

A new historical record of carbon dioxide levels suggests current political targets on climate may be "playing with fire", scientists say.

Researchers used ocean sediments to plot CO2 levels back 20 million years.

Levels similar to those now commonly regarded as adequate to tackle climate change were associated with sea levels 25-40m (80-130 ft) higher than today.

Scientists write in the journal Science that this extends knowledge of the link between CO2 and climate back in time.

The last 800,000 years have been mapped relatively well from ice cores drilled in Antarctica, where historical temperatures and atmospheric content have left a series of chemical clues in the layers of ice.

But looking back further has been more problematic; and the new record contains much more precise estimates of historical records than have been available before for the 20 million year timeframe.

Sustained levels

The new research was able to look back to the Miocene period, which began a little over 20 million years ago.

At the start of the period, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere stood at about 400 parts per million (ppm) before beginning to decline about 14 million years ago - a trend that eventually led to formation of the Antarctic icecap and perennial sea ice cover in the Arctic.

The high concentrations were probably sustained by prolonged volcanic activity in what is now the Columbia River basin of North America, where rock formations called flood basalts relate a history of molten rock flowing routinely onto the planet's surface.

In the intervening millennia, CO2 concentrations have been much lower; in the last few million years they cycled between 180ppm and 280ppm in rhythm with the sequence of ice ages and warmer interglacial periods.

Now, humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases are pushing towards the 400ppm range, which will very likely be reached within a decade.

"What we have shown is that in the last period when CO2 levels were sustained at levels close to where they are today, there was no icecap on Antarctica and sea levels were 25-40m higher," said research leader Aradhna Tripati from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).

"At CO2 levels that are sustained at or near modern day values, you don't need to have a major change in CO2 levels to get major changes in ice sheets," she told BBC News.

The elevated CO2 and sea levels were associated with temperatures about 3-6C (5-11F) higher than today.

No doubting

The data comes from the ratios of boron and calcium in the shells of tiny marine organisms called foraminifera.

The ratio indicates the pH of sea water at the time the organisms grew, which in turn allows scientists to calculate the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere.

The shell fragments came from cores drilled from the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

According to Jonathan Overpeck, who co-chaired the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) work on ancient climates for the organisation's last major report in 2007, this provides a more accurate look at how past CO2 values relate to climate than previous methods.

"This is yet another paper that makes the future look more scary than previously thought by many," said the University of Arizona scientist.

"If anyone still doubts the link between CO2 and climate, they should read this paper."

The new research does not imply that reaching CO2 levels this high would definitely result in huge sea level changes, or that these would happen quickly, Dr Tripati pointed out - just that sustaining such levels on a long timescale might produce such changes.

"There aren't any perfect analogies in the past for climate change today or in the future," she said.

"We can say that we've identified past tipping points for ice sheet stability; the basic physics governing ice sheets that we've known from ice cores are extended further back, and... I think we should use our knowledge of the physics of climate change in the past to prepare for the future."

Averting danger

At the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, governments pledged to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations "at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system".

What that level is has been the subject of intense debate down the years; but one figure currently receiving a lot of support is 450ppm.

On Tuesday, for example, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its prescription for tackling climate change, which sees concentrations of greenhouse gases peaking at the equivalent of 510ppm of CO2 before stabilising at 450ppm.

The Boxer-Kerry Bill, which has just entered the US Senate, also cites the 450 figure.

"Trouble is, we don't know where the critical CO2 or temperature threshold is beyond which ice sheet collapse is inevitable," said Dr Overpeck.

"It could be below 450ppm, but it is more likely higher - not necessarily a lot higher - than 450ppm.

"But what this new work suggests is that... efforts to stabilise at 450ppm should avoid going up above that level prior to stabilisation - that is, some sort of 'overshoot' above 450ppm on the way to stabilisation could be playing with fire."

Because of concerns about short-term sea level rise, the Association of Small Island States (Aosis), which includes low-lying countries such as The Maldives, Palau and Grenada, is pushing for adoption of the much lower figure of 350ppm.

But with concentrations already substantially higher, political support for that is scanty outside Aosis members.

[email protected]

 

[Spookdaddy]

...The 'denial' is in the refusal to admit that the present, potentially catastrophic, climate change is man-made. It may be par for the course for the Earth, over geological time-spans, in the here and now, in the real World, it will probably be disastrous for humanity...

Precisely. Phrases like 'climate change denier' are simply the product of lazy journalism (or possibly necessity, as 'those who would deny that man's influence on climate change is negative and at least partly avoidable and that therefore we should maybe do something about it', takes up a lot more column inches).

I'd be really interested to see if anyone can actually provide us with an example of someone on either side of the argument who has ever actually denied that climate change has occured throughout the life of the planet. If not, it's just another straw man.

 

[KarlD]

...The 'denial' is in the refusal to admit that the present, potentially catastrophic, climate change is man-made. It may be par for the course for the Earth, over geological time-spans, in the here and now, in the real World, it will probably be disastrous for humanity...

Precisely. Phrases like 'climate change denier' are simply the product of lazy journalism (or possibly necessity, as 'those who would deny that man's influence on climate change is negative and at least partly avoidable and that therefore we should maybe do something about it', takes up a lot more column inches).

I'd be really interested to see if anyone can actually provide us with an example of someone on either side of the argument who has ever actually denied that climate change has occured throughout the life of the planet. If not, it's just another straw man.

I think what rubs people up the wrong way is the 'oh we are saving the earth' attitude, it always reminds me of the modern parents in viz.When i hear that phrase I always think no you are just saving your sorry arse, the earth will be able to cope quite happily without you.

 

[rynner2]

Kilimanjaro's snows melt away in dramatic evidence of climate change
[pic]
Mount Kilimanjaro in June 2001 (left) and July 2009 (right). The satellite images show a vastly decreasing amount of snow
Hannah Devlin

The snows of Mount Kilimanjaro will be gone within two decades, according to scientists who say that the rapid melting of its glacier cap over the past century provides dramatic physical evidence of global climate change.

If the forecast — based on 95 years of data tracking the retreat of the Kilimanjaro ice — proves correct it will be the first time in about 12,000 years that the slopes of Africa’s highest mountain have been ice-free.

Since 1912, 85 per cent of the glacier has disappeared and the melting does not appear to be slowing down. Twenty-six per cent of the ice has disappeared since 2000.

The study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concludes that the primary cause of the ice loss is the increase in global temperatures. Although changes in cloudiness and snowfall may also play a role, these factors appear to be less important. Even intense droughts, including one lasting about 300 years, did not cause the present degree of melting.

The study, based on terrestrial and satellite photographs, shows the shrinking contours of ice at points between 1912 and 2007. The 12 sq km (4.6 sq miles) of ice coverage in 1912 contracted to 1.9 sq km by 2007, going from two large ice fields to a collection of several smaller, isolated patches.

In a second part of the study, scientists from the Ohio State University drilled down to the rock beneath the ice and extracted cylindrical crosssections, known as ice cores, at six different sites on the glacier. The cores, which were up to 49m (160ft) long, provided a record of the freezing, melting and precipitation patterns of the past 11,700 years.

Elongated bubbles in the surface layer of one of the cores indicated that extensive melting and refreezing had taken place in the past 40 years. In the past even extreme climate events had not led to substantial melting. A severe drought 4,200 years ago lasting three centuries left a 1in dust layer but no evidence of significant melting.

Radioactive dating techniques also showed that the ice was quickly thinning, as well as contracting in area. The Southern Ice Field had thinned by 5.1m between 2000 and 2007, and the smaller Furtwängler Glacier had thinned by 4.8m — 50 per cent of its total depth.

“There will be a year when Furtwängler is present, and, by the next year, it will have disappeared,” Lonnie Thompson, a paleoclimatologist at Ohio State University who led the study, said.

The melting of Kilimanjaro is part of a trend of glacial retreat throughout Africa, India and South America. Melting is occurring on Mount Kenya, the Rwenzori Mountains in central Africa, as well as on tropical glaciers high in the Andes and Himalayas.

“The fact that so many glaciers throughout the tropics and subtropics are showing similar responses suggests an underlying common cause,” Professor Thompson said.

He attributed the changes to increases in the Earth’s surface temperatures, which are exaggerated at high altitudes. Scientists predict that, even if no further significant warming occurs, all but the very highest of summits will eventually melt.

The melting of glaciers can be devastating for species who rely on snowy environments for survival. It can also have consequences for agriculture. Much of the river flow in glacial regions comes from melt water and glacial retreat is predicted to increase water scarcity.

The Met Office predicted this month that glacial retreats could lead to a 20 per cent decline in global agricultural productivity.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 900015.ece

 

[Peripart]

These forecasts get wilder and wilder, don't they?

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

These forecasts get wilder and wilder, don't they?

More like, it's the weather that gets wilder and wilder, whilst the forecasts get grimmer and grimmer.

 

[rynner2]

Climate change may push migrants to cooler Britain
Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor

THE government’s chief scientific adviser has warned that climate change could destabilise populations across Europe, potentially triggering a wave of migrants heading for cooler regions such as the British Isles and Scandinavia.

Professor John Beddington believes that, without deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, average temperatures could rise by about 6C by 2060 in countries including Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey.

This would make most cities unbearably hot in summer, while destroying agriculture and turning much of southern Europe into a desert. The result could be that millions of people will migrate northwards.

“It is going to be extremely unpleasant to live in southern Europe and may not be feasible for the current level of population so many people may need to move,” said Beddington. “Northern Europe will be a far more attractive place to live.”

Beddington’s comments are based on humanity failing to cut greenhouse gas emissions, now rising at 2%-3% a year.

Research from the Met Office’s Hadley Centre recently showed how such emission levels might affect Europe’s climate.

“The research suggests global temperature rises could reach 4C between 2060 and 2100. However, this figure is misleading because it is an average,” he said.

“The sea would be slightly cooler while the land would be significantly warmer. Southern Europe could face rises of 6C, which would be a disaster.”

Beddington was unwilling to make predictions about the scale of any migration, pointing out that there were too many other factors to consider.

He has set up a panel of scientists to examine the issue. The Global Environmental Migration project will report late next year.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 908002.ece

 

[Peripart]

These forecasts get wilder and wilder, don't they?

More like, it's the weather that gets wilder and wilder, whilst the forecasts get grimmer and grimmer.

As I was only briefly visiting the board the other day, my post was perhaps a little short and tart, so I'll elaborate: what I was driving at was that while the reduction in the snow cover of Kilimanjaro has been well-documented over many years, the idea that it is caused by global warming is a bit wide of the mark. For over a century, the retreat of Kilimanjaro's snowy cap has been noted, and has previously been put down not to an increase in temperature, but to a reduction in precipitation. For a scientist now to claim otherwise will not advance climate study one bit, but rather, because it's a daft suggestion, will serve to undermine the arguments for man-made climate change.

To say:

The snows of Mount Kilimanjaro will be gone within two decades, according to scientists who say that the rapid melting of its glacier cap over the past century provides dramatic physical evidence of global climate change

is disengenuous, to say the least.

 

[ramonmercado]

Controversial new climate change results
http://www.physorg.com/news177059550.html

November 10, 2009 (PhysOrg.com) -- New data show that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of CO2 has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of CO2 having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now.

New data show that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of carbon dioxide has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of carbon dioxide having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now.

This suggests that terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans have a much greater capacity to absorb CO2 than had been previously expected.

The results run contrary to a significant body of recent research which expects that the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans to absorb CO2 should start to diminish as CO2 emissions increase, letting greenhouse gas levels skyrocket. Dr Wolfgang Knorr at the University of Bristol found that in fact the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has only been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, which is essentially zero.

The strength of the new study, published online in Geophysical Research Letters, is that it rests solely on measurements and statistical data, including historical records extracted from Antarctic ice, and does not rely on computations with complex climate models.

This work is extremely important for climate change policy, because emission targets to be negotiated at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen early next month have been based on projections that have a carbon free sink of already factored in. Some researchers have cautioned against this approach, pointing at evidence that suggests the sink has already started to decrease.

So is this good news for climate negotiations in Copenhagen? “Not necessarily”, says Knorr. “Like all studies of this kind, there are uncertainties in the data, so rather than relying on Nature to provide a free service, soaking up our waste carbon, we need to ascertain why the proportion being absorbed has not changed”.

Another result of the study is that emissions from deforestation might have been overestimated by between 18 and 75 per cent. This would agree with results published last week in Nature Geoscience by a team led by Guido van der Werf from VU University Amsterdam. They re-visited deforestation data and concluded that emissions have been overestimated by at least a factor of two.

More information: Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions increasing? by Wolfgang Knorr. Geophysical Research Letters, VOL. 36, L21710, doi:10.1029/2009GL040613, 2009.

Provided by University of Bristol

 

[Twin_Star]

We few, we happy few. I'm a bit late with this article, figuring that surely so interesting a piece would be seized upon by one side or other in this agreeable bagatelle of ours. It's long so i'm going to link most of it, with some highlights:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8299079.stm

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

[continues]

To confuse the issue even further, last month Mojib Latif, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years.

Twenty years of your tax dollars being spent on something that seems to be going backwards anyway ladies and gents. Gee whizz don't them Emperors new clothes look mighty fine, folks.

Both sides have very different forecasts. The Met Office says that warming is set to resume quickly and strongly.
It predicts that from 2010 to 2015 at least half the years will be hotter than the current hottest year on record (1998).
Sceptics disagree. They insist it is unlikely that temperatures will reach the dizzy heights of 1998 until 2030 at the earliest. It is possible, they say, that because of ocean and solar cycles a period of global cooling is more likely.

That last bit is just so anybody, should they ever feel the need, of wading through this whole thread can have a time-stamped prediction of future temperatures:

MET OFFICE SAYS BETWEEN 2010-2015 WE WILL HAVE 3 OF THE HOTTEST YEARS ON RECORD. other experts disagree. You read it here first.

Oh, and finally i'll leave you with an interesting article about Piers Corbyn, its fist-biting time again im afraid Petro

Tom Standage (the interviewer) sounds like a pretty reasonable guy from his website...

http://tomstandage.wordpress.com/about/

And now on with the show:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.02/weather_pr.html

Sitting in his office in Elephant and Castle, a seedy suburb of south London, Piers Corbyn admits he prefers to do his calculations by hand. It's not a matter of "religious opposition" to using computers; he simply gets a better feel for how his calculations are evolving.

As he explains his life's work to me, Corbyn is soft-spoken and patient, though he still looks every inch the mad professor: salt-and-pepper beard, tangled hair, wire-frame glasses, loud necktie, crumpled flannel pants, drip-dry shirt, and a manic gleam in his eye. He's surrounded by stacks of scientific journals and cardboard boxes jammed with books. The trash is overflowing. Charts and maps are taped to the walls. His desk is barely visible beneath heaps of paper.

Actually, one more thing: the Great Sunspot he talks about of 1947 has a picture here. It's a monster!!!

http://www.eaas.co.uk/astro_photos/Sun/ ... unspot.jpg

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

...

Oh, and finally i'll leave you with an interesting article about Piers Corbyn, its fist-biting time again im afraid Petro

Tom Standage (the interviewer) sounds like a pretty reasonable guy from his website...

http://tomstandage.wordpress.com/about/

And now on with the show:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.02/weather_pr.html

...

Very good. A bio on the fairly respectable journalist doing the interview, but not on the the guy doing the secret, untestable, magic weather prediction method.

Disingenuous to say the least. :lol:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Piers_Corbyn

Sourcewatch: Piers Corbyn

Piers Corbyn is a London-based meteorologist who claims that he has a system enabling him to predict the weather with accuracy months in advance. He claims that his "solar weather technique" uses "predictable aspects of solar activity—particle and magnetic effects from the Sun to make weather forecasts MANY MONTHS ahead." [1]

He keeps the details of his methodology for making predictions a secret, and has been criticized for making unfounded claims about the power of his predictions, even after they turned out to be inaccurate.

...

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

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

We few, we happy few. I'm a bit late with this article, figuring that surely so interesting a piece would be seized upon by one side or other in this agreeable bagatelle of ours. It's long so i'm going to link most of it, with some highlights:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8299079.stm

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

[continues]

To confuse the issue even further, last month Mojib Latif, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years.

Twenty years of your tax dollars being spent on something that seems to be going backwards anyway ladies and gents. Gee whizz don't them Emperors new clothes look mighty fine, folks.

Both sides have very different forecasts. The Met Office says that warming is set to resume quickly and strongly.
It predicts that from 2010 to 2015 at least half the years will be hotter than the current hottest year on record (1998).
Sceptics disagree. They insist it is unlikely that temperatures will reach the dizzy heights of 1998 until 2030 at the earliest. It is possible, they say, that because of ocean and solar cycles a period of global cooling is more likely.

That last bit is just so anybody, should they ever feel the need, of wading through this whole thread can have a time-stamped prediction of future temperatures:

MET OFFICE SAYS BETWEEN 2010-2015 WE WILL HAVE 3 OF THE HOTTEST YEARS ON RECORD. other experts disagree. You read it here first.

...

I'm pretty sure that this one has been covered here before, however, here's a piece from the Real Climate website, that covers it, with a graph.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/a-warming-pause/

A warming pause?

Real Cimate dot org: stefan @ 6 October 2009

The blogosphere (and not only that) has been full of the “global warming is taking a break” meme lately. Although we have discussed this topic repeatedly, it is perhaps worthwhile reiterating two key points about the alleged pause here.

(1) This discussion focuses on just a short time period – starting 1998 or later – covering at most 11 years. Even under conditions of anthropogenic global warming (which would contribute a temperature rise of about 0.2 ºC over this period) a flat period or even cooling trend over such a short time span is nothing special and has happened repeatedly before (see 1987-1996). That simply is due to the fact that short-term natural variability has a similar magnitude (i.e. ~0.2 ºC) and can thus compensate for the anthropogenic effects. Of course, the warming trend keeps going up whilst natural variability just oscillates irregularly up and down, so over longer periods the warming trend wins and natural variability cancels out.

(2) It is highly questionable whether this “pause” is even real. It does show up to some extent (no cooling, but reduced 10-year warming trend) in the Hadley Center data, but it does not show in the GISS data, see Figure 1. There, the past ten 10-year trends (i.e. 1990-1999, 1991-2000 and so on) have all been between 0.17 and 0.34 ºC per decade, close to or above the expected anthropogenic trend, with the most recent one (1999-2008) equal to 0.19 ºC per decade – just as predicted by IPCC as response to anthropogenic forcing.

Figure 1. Global temperature according to NASA GISS data since 1980. The red line shows annual data, the larger red square a preliminary value for 2009, based on January-August. The green line shows the 25-year linear trend (0.19 ºC per decade). The blue lines show the two most recent ten-year trends (0.18 ºC per decade for 1998-2007, 0.19 ºC per decade for 1999-2008) and illustrate that these recent decadal trends are entirely consistent with the long-term trend and IPCC predictions. Even the highly “cherry-picked” 11-year period starting with the warm 1998 and ending with the cold 2008 still shows a warming trend of 0.11 ºC per decade (which may surprise some lay people who tend to connect the end points, rather than include all ten data points into a proper trend calculation).

Why do these two surface temperature data sets differ over recent years? We analysed this a while ago here, and the reason is the “hole in the Arctic” in the Hadley data, just where recent warming has been greatest.



Figure 2. The animated graph shows the temperature difference between the two 5-year periods 1999-2003 and 2004-2008. The largest warming has occurred over the Arctic in the past decade and is missing in the Hadley data.

If we want to relate global temperature to global forcings like greenhouse gases, we’d better not have a “hole” in our data set. That’s because global temperature follows a simple planetary heat budget, determined by the balance of what comes in and what goes out. But if data coverage is not really global, the heat budget is not closed. One would have to account for the heat flow across the boundary of the “hole”, i.e. in and out of the Arctic, and the whole thing becomes ill-determined (because we don’t know how much that is). Hence the GISS data are clearly more useful in this respect, and the supposed pause in warming turns out to be just an artifact of the “Arctic hole” in the Hadley data – we don’t even need to refer to natural variability to explain it.

Imagine you want to check whether the balance in your accounts is consistent with your income and spendings – and you find your bank accounts contain less money than you expected, so there is a puzzling shortfall. But then you realise you forgot one of your bank accounts when doing the sums – and voila, that is where the missing money is, so there is no shortfall after all. That missing bank account in the Hadley data is the Arctic – and we’ve shown that this is where the “missing warming” actually is, which is why there is no shortfall in the GISS data, and it is pointless to look for explanations for a warming pause.

It is noteworthy in this context that despite the record low in the brightness of the sun over the past three years (it’s been at its faintest since beginning of satellite measurements in the 1970s), a number of warming records have been broken during this time. March 2008 saw the warmest global land temperature of any March ever recorded in the past 130 years. June and August 2009 saw the warmest land and ocean temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere ever recorded for those months. The global ocean surface temperatures in 2009 broke all previous records for three consecutive months: June, July and August. The years 2007, 2008 and 2009 had the lowest summer Arctic sea ice cover ever recorded, and in 2008 for the first time in living memory the Northwest Passage and the Northeast Passage were simultaneously ice-free. This feat was repeated in 2009. Every single year of this century (2001-2008) has been warmer than all years of the 20th Century except 1998 (which sticks out well above the trend line due to a strong El Niño event).

The bottom line is: the observed warming over the last decade is 100% consistent with the expected anthropogenic warming trend of 0.2 ºC per decade, superimposed with short-term natural variability. It is no different in this respect from the two decades before. And with an El Niño developing in the Pacific right now, we wouldn’t be surprised if more temperature records were to be broken over the coming year or so.

Update: We were told there is a new paper by Simmons et al. in press with JGR that supports our analysis about the Hadley vs GISS trends (sorry, access to subscribers only).

Update: AP has just published an interesting story titled Statisticians reject global cooling, for which they “gave temperature data to four independent statisticians and asked them to look for trends, without telling them what the numbers represented”.

Seems not everybody agrees with the Global Cooling analysis, including NASA. So, even the BBC can get it wrong, or at least, skewed, sometimes. Of course, there are those who say that, along with faking the lunar landings, the LCROSS impact, hiding alien artefacts on other planets and covering up alien UFO encounters, NASA is in on the whole Global Warming Conspiracy, too. :lol:

 

[rynner2]

Long article:

It was the Sun wot done it. Or was it?
A sharp drop in solar activity could soon tell us how much mankind and the Sun are responsible for warming the planet
Stuart Clark

.....


During the 20th century, solar activity rose steadily, as did the amount of industrial gases being pumped into the atmosphere. With both quantities rising, it has been impossible to distinguish between them. Now, that has all changed.

In the past 12 months solar activity has fallen to levels unseen since the 1920s. Sunspots have become rare sights and for three quarters of this year the Sun has been spot-free. According to one study if the trend continues at its current rate, the Sun will lose its ability to produce sunspots by 2015. That would take it back to its condition in the latter 17th century, when hardly any sunspots appeared for 70 years — and Northern Europe underwent the worst years of the so-called Little Ice Age.

Winter scenes from this period were romanticised by artists such as Brueghel painting frost fairs and hunting scenes. But was the 17th century sunspot crash responsible for the Little Ice Age or a coincidence? Could we now find ourselves plunged into a similar freeze if the sunspots do not return?

The answer to the latter is, presumably, yes if the Sun is solely responsible for climate change; no if the mainstream is correct and solar influence is negligible. With this in mind, tonight in Bruges, I am chairing a public debate for the sixth annual European Space Weather Week between world authorities on solar variability who represent all sides of this discussion and have differing opinions about the Sun’s influence on climate. Topping the agenda is the sunspot crash and the opportunity that it presents. The plunging solar activity level will effectively remove the solar influence on climate change. If we are vigilant and honest about any slowdown in warming, its amount will tell us exactly how much the Sun was contributing.

The smart money is on the level of solar contribution being somewhere between the two extremes. In other words, both solar activity and industrial gases play a role. There is credible scientific work that ascribes up to a third of current warming to solar influence. Studies show that the Earth’s temperature mirrored solar activity until the 1980s. Then the number of sunspots stabilised but the temperature continued to rise. In other words, something overtook the Sun as the primary driver of the Earth’s temperature. That is generally thought to be industrial gases.

Now the test can be made. It is time for all sides to put away the rivalry and begin to work together. Observations must be made, experiments performed and all data must be published, not cherry-picked. This golden opportunity to reach consensus must not be squandered.

...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 919256.ece

 

[rynner2]

Climate change: temperatures to increase 6C by end of century
World temperatures are on course to rise 6C by the end of the century because of global warming, a major British study has forecast.
By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Published: 6:40AM GMT 18 Nov 2009

Emissions of CO2 have increased by almost a third over the last decade and the Earth is gradually losing its ability to absorb the harmful gas, according to scientists.

"The global trends we are on with CO2 emissions from fossil fuels suggest that we're heading towards 6C of global warming," said Professor Corinne Le Quere of the University of East Anglia, who led the study

Researchers at the UEA and the British Antarctic Survey measured levels of pollution from a global network of monitoring stations.

Since 2000 emissions have been rising by an average 3.4 per cent every year, compared to one per cent in the 1990s.

Much of the increase is from developing countries like China and India that have seen a doubling in emissions since 1990 and now pollute more than the rich nations. Cheap coal, that overtook oil as the most polluting fossil fuel for the first time in 40 years, is also a problem.

The pollution equates to 1.3 tons of carbon per head for each person on the planet and increases atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide to 385 parts per million, up 38 per cent from pre-industrial levels.

Professor Le Quere said the situation could get worse as the world loses the ability to absorb greenhouse gases in natural "carbon sinks" like oceans and forests.

The report, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, found that over the past half century the average "airborne fraction" of carbon remaining in the atmosphere had probably increased from 40 to 45 per cent because the oceans were less able to absorb the greenhouse gas.

"The only way to control climate change is through a drastic reduction in global CO2 emissions," she warned.

However an earlier study by Dr Wolfgang Knorr, from the University of Bristol, found no evidence the world is losing its ability to absorb carbon. The study, published in Geophysicial Research Letters, found only tiny fluctuations in the amount being absorbed despite the massive hike in emissions over the last 50 years.

Professor Knorr said the two studies showed how difficult it is to calculate how much carbon dioxide is being absorbed by the Earth. Although his results showed no difference for now, he said the oceans may lose their ability to soak up carbon in the future.

"Our apparently conflicting results demonstrate what doing real science is like and just how difficult it is to accurately quantify such data," he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/enviro ... ntury.html

 

[Twin_Star]

Very good. A bio on the fairly respectable journalist doing the interview, but not on the the guy doing the secret, untestable, magic weather prediction method.

Disingenuous to say the least. :lol:

Look, i'm not in the pay of Piers Corbyn here Pietro, i just think there's something interesting, maybe even fortean about the guy. I know your position in this matter, christ if i lived behind the Polders i'd be shitting bricks too I admit he seems a bit oddball, but he got the UK storms of 17-19 nov dead on. on his 100 day forecast

http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews09No85.pdf

truth is, i didnt buy his forecast in late august so ive got no idea if his figures stack up. heck, i just like the guy.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Very good. A bio on the fairly respectable journalist doing the interview, but not on the the guy doing the secret, untestable, magic weather prediction method.

Disingenuous to say the least. :lol:

Look, i'm not in the pay of Piers Corbyn here Pietro, i just think there's something interesting, maybe even fortean about the guy. I know your position in this matter, christ if i lived behind the Polders i'd be shitting bricks too I admit he seems a bit oddball, but he got the UK storms of 17-19 nov dead on. on his 100 day forecast

http://www.weatheraction.com/docs/WANews09No85.pdf

truth is, i didnt buy his forecast in late august so ive got no idea if his figures stack up. heck, i just like the guy.

Storms predicted for sometime, spread over several possible dates, in mid-November.

Amazing. Truly, a candidate for Fortean study, not unlike Uri Geller.

November Storms

It's cold outside tonight
We both hide in a blanket by the window
Watch the wind blow
Watch the tree tops shivering
Your breath is warm on my neck
Lets watch the storm and forget all the other people in this world

It's so easy living life behind this glass
When it rains outside just close the blinds and laugh

I'll be by you, you'll be by me too
We'll get through everything
We'll get through everything
I'll remind you, you'll remind me too
We'll remember everything
November storms can bring

It's only 6pm we're lost again
It seems too late out when the clouds came
When the rain drums on the shingles overhead
I'll hold you tight till you sleep
The fire light's all we need
Let's pretend the power's all gone dead

It's so easy living life behind this glass
When it rains outside just close the blinds and laugh

I'll be by you, you'll be by me too
We'll get through everything
We'll get through everything
I'll remind you, you'll remind me too
We'll remember everything

November storms
November storms can bring
Can bring you back to a place where you can tell you are clean
And the only things you need are the things that are free
I need your laugh, your heartful sighs
I'll never leave your side

I'll be by you, you'll be by me too
We'll get through everything, we'll get through everything
I'll remind you, you'll remind me too
We'll remember everything, November storms can bring
Ronnie Day

Storms Of November

Just wait till November, the old sailors say
It's a terrible time of the year
If you wish to travel across Georgia Bay
You will have reason to fear

There's a danger when water and sky become one
And the fog makes you blind as can be
When the earth starts to tremble, a man wants to run
For the Storms of November are all that is fearful to me.

Once the voyagers came on a run from the woods
The canoes that were loaded with fur
Now the ships are like giants, and loaded with goods
Cause just weeks when the sea starts to stir

For the waters are driven by one straight from hell
And a fury takes over the sea
And the waves are like mountains, boy, mark my words well
The storms of November are all that is fearful to me.

They say she's a woman, this ship that I serve
She's a queen and a temptress to me.
With my mind and my muscle and all of my earth
I'll not give her up to the demon who lives in the sea.

Just wait till November, the old sailors say
It's a terrible time of the year
If you wish to travel across Georgia Bay
You will have reason to fear

For the waters are driven by one straight from hell
And a fury takes over the sea
And the waves are like mountains, boy, mark my words well
The storms of November are all that is fearful to me.
The storms of November are all that is fearful to me.
John Denver

:lol:

 

[ramonmercado]

Is global warming unstoppable?
http://www.physorg.com/news178178343.html
November 23rd, 2009 in Space & Earth / Environment

In a provocative new study, a University of Utah scientist argues that rising carbon dioxide emissions - the major cause of global warming - cannot be stabilized unless the world's economy collapses or society builds the equivalent of one new nuclear power plant each day.

"It looks unlikely that there will be any substantial near-term departure from recently observed acceleration in carbon dioxide emission rates," says the new paper by Tim Garrett, an associate professor of atmospheric sciences.

Garrett's study was panned by some economists and rejected by several journals before acceptance by Climatic Change, a journal edited by renowned Stanford University climate scientist Stephen Schneider. The study will be published online this week.

The study - which is based on the concept that physics can be used to characterize the evolution of civilization - indicates:


Energy conservation or efficiency doesn't really save energy, but instead spurs economic growth and accelerated energy consumption.

Throughout history, a simple physical "constant" - an unchanging mathematical value - links global energy use to the world's accumulated economic productivity, adjusted for inflation. So it isn't necessary to consider population growth and standard of living in predicting society's future energy consumption and resulting carbon dioxide emissions.

"Stabilization of carbon dioxide emissions at current rates will require approximately 300 gigawatts of new non-carbon-dioxide-emitting power production capacity annually - approximately one new nuclear power plant (or equivalent) per day," Garrett says. "Physically, there are no other options without killing the economy."
Getting Heat for Viewing Civilization as a "Heat Engine"

Garrett says colleagues generally support his theory, while some economists are critical. One economist, who reviewed the study, wrote: "I am afraid the author will need to study harder before he can contribute."

"I'm not an economist, and I am approaching the economy as a physics problem," Garrett says. "I end up with a global economic growth model different than they have."

Garrett treats civilization like a "heat engine" that "consumes energy and does 'work' in the form of economic production, which then spurs it to consume more energy," he says.

"If society consumed no energy, civilization would be worthless," he adds. "It is only by consuming energy that civilization is able to maintain the activities that give it economic value. This means that if we ever start to run out of energy, then the value of civilization is going to fall and even collapse absent discovery of new energy sources."

Garrett says his study's key finding "is that accumulated economic production over the course of history has been tied to the rate of energy consumption at a global level through a constant factor."

That "constant" is 9.7 (plus or minus 0.3) milliwatts per inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar. So if you look at economic and energy production at any specific time in history, "each inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar would be supported by 9.7 milliwatts of primary energy consumption," Garrett says.

Garrett tested his theory and found this constant relationship between energy use and economic production at any given time by using United Nations statistics for global GDP (gross domestic product), U.S. Department of Energy data on global energy consumption during1970-2005, and previous studies that estimated global economic production as long as 2,000 years ago. Then he investigated the implications for carbon dioxide emissions.

"Economists think you need population and standard of living to estimate productivity," he says. "In my model, all you need to know is how fast energy consumption is rising. The reason why is because there is this link between the economy and rates of energy consumption, and it's just a constant factor."

Garrett adds: "By finding this constant factor, the problem of [forecasting] global economic growth is dramatically simpler. There is no need to consider population growth and changes in standard of living because they are marching to the tune of the availability of energy supplies."

To Garrett, that means the acceleration of carbon dioxide emissions is unlikely to change soon because our energy use today is tied to society's past economic productivity.

"Viewed from this perspective, civilization evolves in a spontaneous feedback loop maintained only by energy consumption and incorporation of environmental matter," Garrett says. It is like a child that "grows by consuming food, and when the child grows, it is able to consume more food, which enables it to grow more."

Is Meaningful Energy Conservation Impossible?

Perhaps the most provocative implication of Garrett's theory is that conserving energy doesn't reduce energy use, but spurs economic growth and more energy use.

"Making civilization more energy efficient simply allows it to grow faster and consume more energy," says Garrett.

He says the idea that resource conservation accelerates resource consumption - known as Jevons paradox - was proposed in the 1865 book "The Coal Question" by William Stanley Jevons, who noted that coal prices fell and coal consumption soared after improvements in steam engine efficiency.

So is Garrett arguing that conserving energy doesn't matter?

"I'm just saying it's not really possible to conserve energy in a meaningful way because the current rate of energy consumption is determined by the unchangeable past of economic production. … If it feels good to conserve energy, that is fine, but there shouldn't be any pretense that it will make a difference."

Yet, Garrett says his findings contradict his own previously held beliefs about conservation, and he continues to ride a bike or bus to work, line dry family clothing and use a push lawnmower.

An Inevitable Future for Carbon Dioxide Emissions?

Garrett says often-discussed strategies for slowing carbon dioxide emissions and global warming include mention increased energy efficiency, reduced population growth and a switch to power sources that don't emit carbon dioxide, including nuclear, wind and solar energy and underground storage of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning. Another strategy is rarely mentioned: a decreased standard of living, which would occur if energy supplies ran short and the economy collapsed, he adds.

"Fundamentally, I believe the system is deterministic," says Garrett. "Changes in population and standard of living are only a function of the current energy efficiency. That leaves only switching to a non-carbon-dioxide-emitting power source as an available option."

"The problem is that, in order to stabilize emissions, not even reduce them, we have to switch to non-carbonized energy sources at a rate about 2.1 percent per year. That comes out to almost one new nuclear power plant per day."

"If society invests sufficient resources into alternative and new, non-carbon energy supplies, then perhaps it can continue growing without increasing global warming," Garrett says.

Does Garrett fear global warming deniers will use his work to justify inaction?

"No," he says. "Ultimately, it's not clear that policy decisions have the capacity to change the future course of civilization."

Source: University of Utah

 

[Yithian]

There's a good analysis here:
http://www.devilskitchen.me.uk/2009/11/ ... under.html

In a nutshell:
edit: image removed as it was slightly too large. Follow the link for a nifty diagram.

 

[rynner2]

Climate change: Gulf stream collapse could be like a disaster movie
Scientists predict an ice age could be provoked in a matter of months
Robin McKie, Science Editor The Observer, Sunday 29 November 2009

The next Ice Age could take only weeks to engulf Britain. Scientists say the last great disruption to the Gulf Stream 12,800 years ago took only a couple of months to trigger a massive plunge in temperatures across Europe.

"It was as if Europe had been shifted 20 degrees north and Ireland moved to Svalbard," said Bill Patterson of Saskatchewan University.

In the Hollywood blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, an Ice Age was set off in a single day when the Gulf Stream was disrupted. "That is silly," said Patterson. "It couldn't happen that quickly. However, previous estimates that it would take decades to switch off the Gulf Stream are not backed by our work. It could happen in a couple of months."

The Gulf Stream carries tropical heat from the Caribbean to northern Europe but is already being disrupted by meltwater pouring from the Arctic as global warming intensifies. One day it may switch off completely, say scientists.

Such an event occurred 12,800 years ago when a vast lake – created from melting glaciers at the end of last Ice Age – overflowed and poured into the north Atlantic, blocking the Gulf Stream. Europe froze – almost instantly, said Patterson.

His team analysed mud samples from Lough Monreagh in Ireland and discovered layers of white sediment made up of calcite crystals from algae. "Then abruptly the sediment turned black. This stuff contained no biological material." In other words, all life in the lake had been extinguished in less than three months. "It was very sudden," added Patterson, "and it could happen again."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... -hollywood

 

[Mythopoeika]

A new ice age?
Great! All we have to do to keep the ice in check is burn more fuel! Man-made global warming will save us.

 

[rynner2]

Major sea level rise likely as Antarctic ice melts
By Richard Black
Environment correspondent, BBC News website

Sea levels are likely to rise by about 1.4m (4ft 6in) globally by 2100 as polar ice melts, according to a major review of climate change in Antarctica.

Conducted by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), it says that warming seas are accelerating melting in the west of the continent.

Ozone loss has cooled the region, it says, shielding it from global warming.

Rising temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula are making life suitable for invasive species on land and sea.

The report - Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment - was written using contributions from 100 leading scientists in various disciplines, and reviewed by a further 200.

SCAR's executive director Dr Colin Summerhayes said it painted a picture of "the creeping global catastrophe that we face".

"The temperature of the air is increasing, the temperature of the ocean is increasing, sea levels are rising - and the Sun appears to have very little influence on what we see," he said.

SCAR's report comes 50 years to the day after the Antarctic Treaty, the international agreement regulating use of the territory, was opened for signing, and a week before the opening of the potentially seminal UN climate summit in Copenhagen.

etc...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8387137.stm

See also: Rising seas: A tale of two cities
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8369236.stm

 

[Twin_Star]

The front page of the Daily Express caught my eye this morning, its not a paper i usually take, but i was happy to go online and copy and paste this piece onto ftmb for free. It's time for me to dust off those pompoms for my favourite voice in the wilderness, ladies and gentlemen i give you Ian Plimer:

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/143573

THE scientific consensus that mankind has caused climate change was rocked yesterday as a leading academic called it a “load of hot air underpinned by fraud”.

Professor Ian Plimer condemned the climate change lobby as “climate comrades” keeping the “gravy train” going.

In a controversial talk just days before the start of a climate summit attended by world leaders in Copenhagen, Prof Plimer said Governments were treating the public like “fools” and using climate change to increase taxes.

He said carbon dioxide has had no impact on temperature and that recent warming was part of the natural cycle of climate stretching over ­billions of years.

Prof Plimer told a London audience: “Climates always change. They always have and they always will. They are driven by a number of factors that are random and cyclical.”

His comments came days after a scandal in climate-change research emerged through the leak of emails from the world-leading research unit at the University of East Anglia. They appeared to show that scientists had been massaging data to prove that global warming was taking place

The Climate Research Unit also admitted getting rid of much of its raw climate data, which means other scientists cannot check the subsequent research. Last night the head of the CRU, Professor Phil Jones, said he would stand down while an independent review took place.

Professor Plimer said climate change was caused by natural events such as volcanic eruptions, the shifting of the Earth’s orbit and cosmic radiation. He said: “Carbon dioxide levels have been up to 1,000 times higher in the past. CO2 cannot be driving global warming now.

“In the past we have had rapid and significant climate change with temperature changes greater than anything we are measuring today. They are driven by processes that have been going on since the beginning of time.”

He cited periods of warming during the Roman Empire and in the Middle Ages – when Vikings grew crops on Greenland – and cooler phases such as the Dark Ages and the Little Ice Age from 1300 to 1850.

And he predicted that the next phase would cool the planet.

Climate change is widely blamed on the burning of fossil fuels which release greenhouse gases such as CO2 into the atmosphere, where they trap the sun’s heat.

The talks at Copenhagen are expected to find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally.

But Professor Plimer, of Adelaide and Melbourne Universities, said that to stop climate change Governments should find ways to prevent changes to the Earth’s orbit and ocean currents and avoid explosions of supernovae in space. Of the saga of the leaked emails, he said: “If you have to argue your science by using fraud, your science is not valid.”

The CRU’s Professor Jones has admitted some of the emails may have had “poorly chosen words” and were sent in the “heat of the moment”. But he has categorically denied manipulating data and said he stood by the science. And yesterday he dismissed suggestions of a conspiracy to alter ­evidence to support a theory of man-made global warming as “complete rubbish”.

But mining geology professor Plimer said there was a huge momentum behind the climate-change lobby.

He suggested many scientists had a vested interest in promoting climate change because it helped secure more funding for research. He said: “The climate comrades are trying to keep the gravy train going. Governments are also keen on putting their hands as deep as possible into our pockets.

“The average person has been talked down to. He has been treated like a fool. Yet the average person has common sense.”

But Vicky Pope, head of Met Office Climate Change Advice, said: “We are seeing changes in climate on a timescale we have not seen before.

“There clearly are natural variations. But the only way we can explain these trends is when we include both man-made and natural changes to the climate.

“We have also seen declines in summer sea ice over the past 30 years, glaciers retreating for 150 years, changing rainfall patterns and increases in subsurface and surface ocean temperatures.”

And as the war of words between the rival camps intensified, leading economist Lord Stern dismissed the sceptics as “muddled”.

Lord Stern, who produced a detailed report on the issue for the Government, said evidence of ­climate change was “overwhelming”. He accepted that all views should be heard but said the degree of ­scepticism among “real scientists” was very small.

Lord Stern, as a poster on another thread has finely illustrated, is a carbon trading baron, so his opinion of climate change deniers (CCD) is worth not a lot in my eyes. Let's hope that by the end of next week the world wild life fund, greenpeace and the RSPB - led by a spirited Commissar Brown, naturally - can have put a temperature rise embargo on all the relevant parties; to whit Mr John "Jack" Frost, Ms Summer Wind, and Mssrs El Nino and El Nina, and can then march on to finish the job King Cnut started over 1000 years ago, namely to stop the tide from coming in...

 

[Timble2]

..Lord Stern, as a poster on another thread has finely illustrated, is a carbon trading baron, so his opinion of climate change deniers (CCD) is worth not a lot in my eyes......

Prof Plimer is a director of several mining companies, these have a vested interest in not being taxed for their enviromental impact, on that rationale you should treat Plimer's opinions with equal distain.

 

[SHAYBARSABE]

Professor Plimer said climate change was caused by natural events such as volcanic eruptions, the shifting of the Earth’s orbit and cosmic radiation.

And on the side, he scripts movies for the Syfy Channel, yes?

 

[Timble2]

Professor Plimer said climate change was caused by natural events such as volcanic eruptions, the shifting of the Earth’s orbit and cosmic radiation.

And on the side, he scripts movies for the Syfy Channel, yes?

I saw 2012 on Monday, I hope his science is a bit better than that...

 

[rynner2]

Climate scientist James Hansen hopes summit will fail
James Bone in New York

Dr Hansen believes that a Copenhagen deal would be counterproductive
A leading scientist acclaimed as the grandfather of global warming has denounced the Copenhagen summit on climate change next week as a farce.

James Hansen, the director of Nasa’s Goddard Insitute for Space Studies, told The Times that he planned to boycott the UN conference because it was seeking a counter-productive agreement to limit emissions through a “cap and trade” system.

“They are selling indulgences there. The developed nations want to continue basically business as usual so they are expected to purchase indulgences to give some small amount of money to developing countries. They do that in the form of offsets and adaptation funds.” he said.

Dr Hansen, 68, the fifth of seven children of an Iowa farmer, joined Nasa after taking his PhD to study Venus but changed course when he realised that man-made emissions were choking the atmosphere on his own planet.

He was one of the first voices to raise the alarm about rising global temperatures in the early 1980s, forecasting correctly that the planet would warm in the coming decades.

Next week he publishes his first book, entitled Storms of my Grandchildren, warning that “our planet, with its remarkable array of life, is in imminent danger of crashing” and declaring, “It is our last chance”.

He decries the cap and trade system envisaged by governments trying to “seal the deal” at Copenhagen as ineffective in stemming carbon emissions. Under such systems, governments set limits on overall emissions and polluters trade quotas among themselves.

“The fundamental problem is that fossil fuels are the cheapest form of energy. As long as they are, they are going to be used,” he said. “It’s remarkable. They refuse to recognise and address the fundamental problem and the obvious solution.”

etc...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 941974.ece

 

[rynner2]

It's worrying how doubters and deniers have jumped on to Climategate as if if was conclusive proof of something, rather than (probably) a propaganda attack based on a wilful misinterpretation of illegally acquired emails. (I've noticed this all over the web recently - knee-jerk reactions to the least straw that might save their preconconceptions.)

But the beeb has come up with this excellent animated account of the climate change data:

An animated journey through the Earth's climate history
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci ... 386319.stm

(Text only version here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/sci ... 393855.stm )

This suits my 'preconcoceptions'!

 

[rynner2]

Perhaps this thread should be elsewhere - Global Warming is old science, not new science!

Copenhagen climate summit: gloomy Swede Svante Arrhenius saw chill wind of change
The crisis that holds every nation in its thrall has the most unlikely origins, says Geoffrey Lean
Published: 8:00PM GMT 04 Dec 2009

It all began with a very depressed Swede. On Christmas Eve, 1894 – devastated by the collapse of his marriage to his lovely assistant, Sophia – Svante Arrhenius, a 35-year-old physicist, decided to take his mind off his troubles by tackling a complicated mathematical problem. So he sat down to work out what the effect of different amounts of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases” would have on global temperatures.

The gigantic sum took him a year – he often laboured for 14 hours a day. He worked with an obsession worthy of many of the protagonists in today’s great global warming slanging match – which reached fever pitch this week after the publication of hacked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit.

By the end, Arrhenius had estimated that doubling the amount of the gas would cause global temperatures to rise by 5C-6C. Extraordinarily, that is almost exactly the conclusion reached by today’s scientists, armed with superfast supercomputers – which has led to the giant climate summit, to be attended by more than 100 heads of government, that opens in Copenhagen on Monday.

In fact, the science of global warming is even older than Arrhenius – who later won a Nobel Prize for entirely different research. It stretches back to 1824 when a French physicist, Joseph Fourier, discovered the “greenhouse effect”, whereby gases in the atmosphere trap heat like the glass in a conservatory. And 37 years later, an Irish physicist, John Tyndall, identified carbon dioxide as one of its causes.

Despite all the lurid claims that a handful of present-day scientists have contrived to hoax the world and all its governments, this basic science has not been successfully challenged in nearly 200 years. It would be surprising if it had been, for it accords with the very laws of physics.

Solar radiation passes through the atmosphere, as through glass in a greenhouse, to warm the earth. Much of it is reflected back as slow-moving infra-red radiation – and most of this gets absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, principally water and carbon dioxide, heating the world further. If it were not for this aerial duvet, the earth would be 20C colder, making it uninhabitable.

It is logical that increasing the amount of these gases will cause greater warming, like adding a blanket to the duvet. And since the Industrial Revolution, humanity has dug, squeezed and pumped half a trillion tons of carbon in coal, gas and oil from beneath the surface of the Earth, burnt it, and released it as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is inconceivable that this would not increase the warming effect and, indeed, it has done so.

All this – though you could be forgiven for not noticing amid the excitement of the last week – is accepted by all but the most extreme, or ignorant, of the sceptics. Lord Lawson, for example, told a House of Commons committee over two years ago that it was “fairly clear” that “man-made emissions, largely carbon dioxide, have almost certainly played a considerable part in the 0.7C warming over the 20th century as a whole”.

And the sceptics’ latest hero, Tony Abbott – who was this week elected to be Australia’s leader of the Opposition and then promptly torpedoed the Government’s global warming legislation – confesses: “I think climate change is real and that man does make a contribution.” He did, it seems, once call it “absolute crap”, but now entertainingly disowns this as “not my most considered opinion”.

etc...

But the reason that the debate is so heated is because it is not scientific at all, but political and economic. Combating climate change would involve guiding the world economy away from its increasing, two century-long dependence on fossil fuels. There are many reasons why this should be beneficial even economically – and why it would have to be done even in the absence of climate change – but it is not surprising that it raises high emotions.

Happily, perhaps, Arrhenius never knew what he had started. “It is unbelievable,” he later ruminated, “that so trifling a matter has cost me a full year.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenh ... hange.html