Whitey Grandad

They're called Milankovitch cycles which have long been thought to cause the ice ages but the position of the continents is also important. To get a big ice age you need a land mass located at one of the poles so that the snow that falls there stays there.

There are all sorts of wobbles. Precession of the axis, nutation, variations in eccentricity. It's only the presence of the moon that keeps it relativley stable. Without a big satellite like the moon and a giant planet to hoover up the asteroids, life on earth would never have evolved because we would have been frozen, fried or squashed long before now.

Charlize Theron in the Dior ad when she is walking away from camera. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix-DAUMiyzo or maybe this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq9_4USpBU4&feature=related

For we sunworshippers this is an interesting site: http://www.spaceweather.com/ There is an unusual solar transit further down which caught me out. Scroll down and click on 'the movie'.

It is remarkably quiet at the moment. We should be building up for lots of sunspots in 2010 and 2011 but they are late arriving. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/15/sunspot-lapse-exceeds-95-of-normal/ Not quite unusual yet but it is at the extreme of expectations.

Possibly related to the Maunder Minimum, a period of relatively quiet solar activity. We are coming to the end of an interglacial period which has lasted for about 10,000 years and they tend to last about that long so we may need the CO2 to delay the next ice age. Interesting bit from the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/understanding/iceage_01.shtml 'in the context of the history of the planet, this is not a normal period... ...more average conditions would be significantly warmer' 'Throughout the history of the Earth it has been unusual to have one polar ice-cap; it is unique for us now to have two of them.' My sympathies are with Bjorn Lomborg. Whatever the possibilities or causes of global warming, we should be spending the money on dealing with it rather than trying to fight it.

Can we have temperatures before 1850 please?

I have every sympathy for Eurostar. These trains have been running for 15 years with scarcely a problem when suddenly five break down so there must have been something specific about the conditions. If the faults cannot be recreated then it is a devil of a problem to try to fix.

Point taken. I think that Greenland samples will be more indicative than the North Pole which is too transitory. The Greenland icecap goes back way further.

Thank you for a more balanced answer. There is considerable debate as to whether CO2 is a leading or lagging indicator, but there are a number of alternative hypotheses which are impossible to evaluate because we can only work with the paramters that we are given. It is not possible, or desirable, to perform experiments on a global scale (although some would say that is exactly what we are doing). In my book solar activity is the more likely culprit.

They always say that, don't they. 'It's for your own good' "They came to take me away, but there was no one left to speak up for me."

What locals might they be at the North Pole? Are you ITK with Santa???

Ice at the poles will not say anything much about conditions in the tropics. It's all part of the overall picture from which we can infer what has probably/possibly/conceivably happened in the past. The world has got a bit warmer in the last couple of decades until about 10 years ago, but that does not a greenhouse make. There are two separate issues here: Is the world getting warmer? - probably. It has been lately but it isn't at the moment. Is this caused by mankind burning fossil fuels? - some groups think that it might be and say that we ought to stop in case it is. The current 'climate' is reminiscent of the religious witchhunts and crusades. The talk is of 'denial' instead of 'disagreement' and anyone who dares to raise a question is howled down and called a retard. The scientific community is full of opinionated people who will manipulate figures to get the results they want and this goes back to lord Kelvin and beyond. Where were you in Svalbard? I was at Ny Ǻlesund in June and I got the impression that we weren't really welcome. This was their research station and they didn't want a load of tourists tramping around it. Lots of talk about 'delicate plants' and staying on the main pathways yet you could see where they had all been joyriding on their skidoos.

Those were Russians in polar bear suits.

Now, now. Measurement of ice at the poles does not tell us if the world is heating up or not, only what has happened at the poles.

Who took the photo? Did you have a long ladder?

:smt023 I have, 79° north. There was lots of ice and stuff and all sorts of frozen things. But I don't think it proves anything. I've got the same stuff on the road outside my house.

'scientists believe' is another way of saying 'nobody knows'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7888301.stm

I don't, but if I did, I couldn't. It's not just railways stations, it's a whole catalogue of public buildings.

And just to balance the debate... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/4029837/Global-warming-Reasons-why-it-might-not-actually-exist.html

They've heard of it but it's a question of how much correction is applied, and on what basis. Whichever way you look at them the figures have been 'adjusted'.

I agree with you. Nobody even knew there was a hole until satellite measurements found it. The vast majority of the CFCs came from scrapping air-conditioning systems in american cars, which is easily avoided. I always thought that the ozone in the upper atmosphere was caused by the ionising solar radiation.

Unlikely I agree, but somebody like him. Plus Hoolahan would be cup-tied in the JPT.