Global warming really is happening... (well, duh!)

[badgerx16]

( duplicate )

Edited 2 January, 2014 by badgerx16

[badgerx16]

 

has reached an intellectual level I'm finding hard to stoop to. ........

 

Says the man who uses such constructive phrases as b0ll0x, nerd, wacko, and 'mental case', to counter differing opinion. Oh, and he also claims to be 'a f()ck sight smarter' than other posters.

[Sheaf Saint]

Rainforests have not been "trashed" to use your scientific term. The rate of deforestation is lower now than it has been for a long time and much of the deforestation in the world is down to the use of the land for pasture and growing soy beans for, you've guessed it, biofuels (Soy production has already destroyed 21 million hectares of forest in Brazil). I can understand someone being concerned that deforestation may reduce biodiversity, but to suggest that replacing forests with other crops may affect global CO² levels and thus our climate, by any meaningful measure is absurd.

 

Soy production is a large cause, but not the biggest cause. 91% of land deforested in the Amazon since 1970 is used for livestock pasture...

 

http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2004/02/02/000090341_20040202130625/Rendered/PDF/277150PAPER0wbwp0no1022.pdf

 

So when you consider that tropical wet forest has a higher biomass per hectare than any other type of ecosystem, and that vast areas of tropical wet forest (91% of an estimated 60 million hectares by 2001 in Brazil alone) are being cleared and replaced with grass, do you not imagine that is going to have some effect on the carbon cycle?

Edited 2 January, 2014 by Sheaf Saint

[Sheaf Saint]

Says the man who uses such constructive phrases as b0ll0x, nerd, wacko, and 'mental case', to counter differing opinion. Oh, and he also claims to be 'a f()ck sight smarter' than other posters.

 

And despite claiming to have a degree in chemistry, he refers to carbon dioxide as CO² instead of CO₂. I smell a rat

[Minty]

Still just about enjoy reading this thread, but it still amazes me that people like GM and Guided Missile think that (irrespective of their opinion or sources) they are likely to sway anyone with their constant abuse, name-calling and generally juvenile 'debating' tactics.

 

You'd think people who wanted to be taken seriously might treat the debate and it's participants with a bit more respect. The arrogance is astounding.

 

Anyway, back to you...

[buctootim]

The voice of reason from down under...

 

 

The author is a knock about comedian.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/maurice-newmans-flatearth-thinking-ignores-climate-change-facts-20140101-305h6.html

[buctootim]

Deforestation is not causing an increase in Carbon Dioxide. How can it!

 

However Deforestation is resulting in less Carbon Dioxide, caused by other means, being absorbed.

 

There is a subtle difference.

 

Actually its both. Growing timber absorbs CO2 and locks it up in the wood. If you clear the forest and either burn the wood or allow it to rot then the carbon which has been locked up in the forest for thousands or millions of years is released back into the atmosphere.

[Whitey Grandad]

Have you got any further with your cosmic ray theory yet?

 

I take no credit for the theory, but some small steps in understanding the process:

 

http://arstechnica.com/science/2011/08/cern-investigates-connection-between-cosmic-rays-and-clouds/

 

http://press.web.cern.ch/press-releases/2013/10/cerns-cloud-experiment-shines-new-light-climate-change

 

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/10/cern-experiment-finds-key-ingredient-for-cloud-droplets/

 

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

 

The theory even has a name: cosmoclimatology.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmoclimatology#Role_in_climate_change

 

Jasper Kirkby at CERN is the other loud proponent:

 

http://notrickszone.com/2013/05/19/cerns-jasper-kirkby-on-the-newest-unpublished-results-of-cloud-the-results-are-very-interesting/

 

 

It would seem that the results are 'interesting but inconclusive'. I suppose that means a whole new round of funding is required.

Edited 2 January, 2014 by Whitey Grandad

[Whitey Grandad]

Actually, IMO, they are not - deforestation and pollution of the oceans are part of the theory of AGW, as impacting these 'carbon sinks' reduces the ability of the planetary ecosystem to compensate for human action by removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

 

Yes, of course, I was mainly referring to the plastic junk part of it.

 

I am totally against the dumping of rubbish like this in the seas. I once saw a school of fish in Malaga harbour. One of them had swum into a clear plastic bag and obviously had no chance of swimming out backwards. It was heartbreaking.

[buctootim]

I am totally against the dumping of rubbish like this in the seas. I once saw a school of fish in Malaga harbour. One of them had swum into a clear plastic bag and obviously had no chance of swimming out backwards. It was heartbreaking.

 

The amount of junk we release into the sea is just staggering. Basically you can dump anything you like 12 miles from shore. On some beaches, such as Kamilo in Hawaii there are literally more plastic particles than sand.

Edited 2 January, 2014 by buctootim

[View From The Top]

Says the man who uses such constructive phrases as b0ll0x, nerd, wacko, and 'mental case', to counter differing opinion. Oh, and he also claims to be 'a f()ck sight smarter' than other posters.

 

He's clearly not smarter, just more of a c**t.

[bridge too far]

Yes, of course, I was mainly referring to the plastic junk part of it.

 

I am totally against the dumping of rubbish like this in the seas. I once saw a school of fish in Malaga harbour. One of them had swum into a clear plastic bag and obviously had no chance of swimming out backwards. It was heartbreaking.

 

That reminded me of this article I saw recently

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-25491389

[Verbal]

Rainforests have not been "trashed" to use your scientific term. The rate of deforestation is lower now than it has been for a long time and much of the deforestation in the world is down to the use of the land for pasture and growing soy beans for, you've guessed it, biofuels (Soy production has already destroyed 21 million hectares of forest in Brazil). I can understand someone being concerned that deforestation may reduce biodiversity, but to suggest that replacing forests with other crops may affect global CO² levels and thus our climate, by any meaningful measure is absurd.

 

Still, I think it is time for me to leave this playpen. The level of informed debate by the posters responding to me, has reached an intellectual level I'm finding hard to stoop to. Just plain lazy, uninformed and ignorant responses based on superstitious scare stories ...

 

I don't think you'll find many scientists quibbling with the term "trashed" in the context of the destruction of primary rainforest habitats worldwide. And if you were to travel just a little bit and seen some of it for yourself, as I have in Borneo for example, you might also wonder at your uselessly complacent attitude.

 

As I say, I doubt your scientific credentials, or ability, but it seems I must also doubt your ability even to follow an argument. I was not suggesting replacing forests "may affect global CO2 levels" - didn't say it, didn't imply it, didn't even think it. I was merely responding to your frankly bizarre implication that rainforests were "unhealthy" before the recent rise in global CO2 levels - and that their (that is, rainforests', for your benefit) ability to act as carbon sinks is diminished by their widespread destruction.

 

So do be careful to read - although I expect your irrational explosions are in some way cathartic for you.

[Guided Missile]

I was merely responding to your frankly bizarre implication that rainforests were "unhealthy" before the recent rise in global CO2 levels - and that their (that is, rainforests', for your benefit) ability to act as carbon sinks is diminished by their widespread destruction.

 

So do be careful to read - although I expect your irrational explosions are in some way cathartic for you.

I think you are the one that needs to read more carefully. No where have I posted or implied that "rainforests were "unhealthy" before the recent rise in global CO₂ levels". I stated that increasing CO₂ levels would increase the health of rainforests.

 

Read this paper, although I doubt your comprehension skill will cope, so a brief synopsis is that the authors used meta-analytic methods to summarize and interpret more than 500 reports of effects of elevated CO₂ on woody plant biomass accumulation. Both total biomass (WT) and net CO₂ assimilation (A) increased significantly at about twice ambient CO₂.

 

Frankly bizarre? I don't think so...although I do agree that the destruction of the rainforests will reduce their capacity to assimilate CO_2, (that's obvious), although replacing them with grass or soybeans would offset this very minor reduction. A reduction in biodiversity is the main effect of cutting down trees and replacing with farmland. What I find more bizarre is the blind assumption that slight global increases in CO₂ levels is a bad thing for the planet. It's good for plants...

 

Still, I expect you will continue to believe whatever the Guardian writes, without taking the effort to read the evidence and make up your own mind, so I'll leave you and the rest of the herd to your ad hominem fallacies...

[badgerx16]

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:/www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/C7F/7E/ch_25_reversing_emissions.pdf

 

Go to Figure 25.1 on page 2.

[badgerx16]

The rate of deforestation is lower now than it has been for a long time

 

I thought you'd left the 'playpen'.

 

"In the last 40 years close to 20% of the Amazon rainforest has been cut down..." - http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/last-of-amazon/

 

"Brazil says the rate of deforestation in the Amazon increased by 28% between August 2012 and last July," http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-24950487

 

but to suggest that replacing forests with other crops may affect global CO² levels and thus our climate, by any meaningful measure is absurd.

 

Not sure of the direction of this point, but I reckon that chopping down a 300 foot tall tree and replacing it's 'footprint' with a couple of square yards of grass won't balance the carbon cost.

Edited 3 January, 2014 by badgerx16

[buctootim]

I think you are the one that needs to read more carefully. No where have I posted or implied that "rainforests were "unhealthy" before the recent rise in global CO₂ levels". I stated that increasing CO₂ levels would increase the health of rainforests.

 

Read this paper, although I doubt your comprehension skill will cope, so a brief synopsis is that the authors used meta-analytic methods to summarize and interpret more than 500 reports of effects of elevated CO₂ on woody plant biomass accumulation. Both total biomass (WT) and net CO₂ assimilation (A) increased significantly at about twice ambient CO₂.

 

Frankly bizarre? I don't think so...although I do agree that the destruction of the rainforests will reduce their capacity to assimilate CO_2, (that's obvious), although replacing them with grass or soybeans would offset this very minor reduction. A reduction in biodiversity is the main effect of cutting down trees and replacing with farmland. What I find more bizarre is the blind assumption that slight global increases in CO₂ levels is a bad thing for the planet. It's good for plants...

 

Still, I expect you will continue to believe whatever the Guardian writes, without taking the effort to read the evidence and make up your own mind, so I'll leave you and the rest of the herd to your ad hominem fallacies...

 

Your reasoning is childlike. You want something to be true - so to you it is true - except its not.

 

http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/2009/12/which-plants-store-more-carbon-in-australia-forests-or-grasses/

[Guided Missile]

I used to wonder how the population in North Korea got brainwashed, but now I know...

[badgerx16]

I used to wonder how the population in North Korea got brainwashed, but now I know...

 

Personal experience ?

[No 2 to Maybush]

Some New Year levity for all the Climate Change Nazis out there....

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03SWGkxt72A&feature=youtu.be

[buctootim]

I used to wonder how the population in North Korea got brainwashed, but now I know...

 

 

They're not brainwashed - they know their resident weirdo is spouting bull****. The parallels are uncanny.

Edited 4 January, 2014 by buctootim

[Twiggy]

Not sure if this has been posted - as I really cant be bothered to read up (mostly because it's making me angry) but I suggest everyone watches this:

 

http://www.upworthy.com/one-guy-with-a-marker-just-made-the-global-warming-debate-completely-obsolete-7?g=2&c=ufb2

 

This guy is a genius. Yes he believes in climate change - but he's taken a step back from that to make this video. And makes a very very good point - and his "extremes" are not as extreme as you might think.

[Whitey Grandad]

Not sure if this has been posted - as I really cant be bothered to read up (mostly because it's making me angry) but I suggest everyone watches this:

 

http://www.upworthy.com/one-guy-with-a-marker-just-made-the-global-warming-debate-completely-obsolete-7?g=2&c=ufb2

 

This guy is a genius. Yes he believes in climate change - but he's taken a step back from that to make this video. And makes a very very good point - and his "extremes" are not as extreme as you might think.

 

Well, I did as you suggested and watched it. What a load of claptrap, I have never seen such flawed logic since Ponzi schemes started. The left column has the same cost but the top has global depression and the bottom has a smiley face, it's the same cost so you should expect the same outcome, you idiot, (I kept shouting at the screen). He also assumes that taking action is going to make a difference, which it won't, and that there's no ice age hovering around the next corner. Add in global depression to the bottom left and the only box with a smiley is the top right.

 

The debate has many degrees of complexity and simplistic logic such as this reminds me of the Bible classes when I was a kid.

 

Thanks for posting the link, if anything it confirms my beliefs.

[Saint George]

heh, I had a good lol at the Guardian this morning when I read this http:// http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/06/my-short-legal-kerfuffle-with-the-guardian-and-spiritofmawson/#more-100612 ...Seems they're not so keen to be seen flying the "Spirit of Mawson" aka "ship of fools" flag anymore...wonder why?...LMAO!

 

3 ice breakers lmao

[Saint Paul C]

A pioneering climate scientist with decades at Harvard and MIT, Lindzen sees his discipline as being deeply compromised by political pressure, data fudging, out-and-out guesswork, and wholly unwarranted alarmism. In a shot across the bow of what many insist is indisputable scientific truth, Lindzen characterizes global warming as “small and ... nothing to be alarmed about.” In the climate debate — on which hinges far-reaching questions of public policy

 

what-catastrophe?

[badgerx16]

A pioneering climate scientist with decades at Harvard and MIT, Lindzen sees his discipline as being deeply compromised by political pressure, data fudging, out-and-out guesswork, and wholly unwarranted alarmism. In a shot across the bow of what many insist is indisputable scientific truth, Lindzen characterizes global warming as “small and ... nothing to be alarmed about.” In the climate debate — on which hinges far-reaching questions of public policy

 

what-catastrophe?

 

A Grauniad counter piece :

 

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/jan/06/climate-change-climate-change-scepticism

 

Some response to comments by Lindzen ;

 

http://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptic_Richard_Lindzen.htm

[Whitey Grandad]

A Grauniad counter piece :

 

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/jan/06/climate-change-climate-change-scepticism

 

Some response to comments by Lindzen ;

 

http://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptic_Richard_Lindzen.htm

 

A lot of the rebuttals on that Skeptical science bit are very subjective. What is this 'tipping point' they keep talking about? It hasn't happened yet in 4.5 billion years of earth's history.

[aintforever]

A pioneering climate scientist with decades at Harvard and MIT, Lindzen sees his discipline as being deeply compromised by political pressure, data fudging, out-and-out guesswork, and wholly unwarranted alarmism. In a shot across the bow of what many insist is indisputable scientific truth, Lindzen characterizes global warming as “small and ... nothing to be alarmed about.” In the climate debate — on which hinges far-reaching questions of public policy

 

what-catastrophe?

 

It's funny how the sceptics now think "man's influence on climate change is small" where as a few years ago it was all supposed to be a load of nonsense.

[Whitey Grandad]

It's funny how the sceptics now think "man's influence on climate change is small" where as a few years ago it was all supposed to be a load of nonsense.

 

I don't think the sceptical viewpoint has ever changed.

[Guided Missile]

I don't think the sceptical viewpoint has ever changed.

A few years ago "climate change" was called "global warming". In the 70's it was called "global cooling". Hopefully soon it will be called "normal long term climate variations, which mankind has very little influence over"...

[aintforever]

I don't think the sceptical viewpoint has ever changed.

 

There's been a massive change over the past couple of decades. People, and our governments inparticular, are begrudgingly accepting what some scientists were saying 30 or 40 years ago, and what virtually all scientists are saying today.

 

It's like the tobacco industry finally admitting that "cigarettes might cause some cancer".

[Guided Missile]

Interesting article from a couple years ago from Matt Ridley:

"In Beijing (in November, 2012) an alliance of scientists called Oceans United will present the United Nations with a request for $5 billion a year to be spent on monitoring the oceans. High among their concerns is ocean acidification, which `could make it harder for animals such as lobsters, crabs, shellfish, coral or plankton to build protective shells'.As opinion polls reveal that global warming is losing traction on the public imagination, environmental pressure groups have been cranking the engine on this `other carbon dioxide problem'. `Time is running out' wrote two activists in Scientific American in August, `to limit acidification before it irreparably harms the food chain on which the world's oceans - and people - depend.'

 

The trouble is, a shoal of new scientific papers points to the conclusion that this scare is based on faulty biochemical reasoning, unrealistic experiments and exaggeration.

We have been here before. In 1984, acid rain was the environmental scare of the day. As the science correspondent of The Economist, I wrote: `Forests are beginning to die at a catastrophic rate. One year ago, West Germany estimated that 8% of its trees were in trouble. Now 34% are...that forests are in trouble is now indisputable.' Experts told me all Germany's conifers would be gone by 1990 and the Federal Ministry of the Interior predicted all forests would be gone by 2002.

Bunk. Acid rain (though a real phenomenon) did not kill forests. It did not even damage them. Scientists eventually admitted that forests thrived in Germany, Scandinavia and North America during the 1980s and 1990s, despite acid rain. I was a gullible idiot not to question the conventional wisdom I was being fed by those with vested interests in alarm.

 

Talking of vested interests, the European Project on Ocean Acidification (EPOCA) is now a consortium of over 100 scientists from 27 institutes and 9 countries. This last summer it funded 35 scientists to spend six weeks in the Arctic studying the problem, `assisted' by Greenpeace's ship Esperanza. Think how little incentive the scientists would have to say `sorry, lads, we realize it is a not much of an issue after all'.

Start with a few facts. The oceans are not acid but alkaline, with an average pH of about 8.15 (0-7 being acid, 7-14 being alkaline). But they vary both in space and time, Arctic seas being less strongly alkaline than tropical, and some bays and reefs being actually acid because of underwater volcanic emissions. The dissolution of carbon dioxide in the oceans may lower the pH slightly to about 7.9 or 7.8 by the end of the century at the worst - still alkaline.

Environmentalists like to call this a 30% increase in acidity, because it sounds more scary than a 0.3 point (out of 14) decrease in alkalinity, but no matter. It is still well within the bounds of normal variation over space and time: the pH of the water intake at the Monterey aquarium varies by almost twice as much as this every month. The difference between the pH of the seas off Hawaii and Alaska is greater than this.

 

Enough numbers. Try chemistry. The scary reasoning rests on the argument that lower pH will mean less dissolved carbonate in the water. But a new paper from scientists in North Carolina proves what many scientists have long suspected, namely that corals and other species do not use carbonate as raw material to make their shells; they use bicarbonate. And dissolving carbon dioxide in water actually increases bicarbonate concentrations.

This may explain why study after study keeps finding that far from depressing growth rates of marine organisms, high but realistic levels of carbon dioxide either do not affect them or increase them. By far the most important calcifiers in the oceans are plankton called coccolithophores, which account for about a third of the total marine calcium carbonate manufacture. There is now strong evidence that coccolithophores are growing faster and larger as a result of human carbon dioxide emissions. Stands to reason if they use bicarbonate.

 

Studies of oyster sperm, cuttlefish eggs, juvenile sea stars, coral polyps and krill all point to the same conclusion: damage only occurs when carbon dioxide levels reach ludicrous levels, not expected for many centuries. A new study of plankton concluded: `Thus, both of the investigated coastal plankton communities were unaffected by twenty-first century expected changes in pH and free CO₂."

Acid rain...now there was a scare that even sounded scary. Not quite as scary as nuclear winter, but still scarier than global warming.

Edited 8 January, 2014 by Guided Missile

[buctootim]

Interesting article from a couple years ago from Matt Ridley:

Acid rain...now there was a scare that even sounded scary. Not quite as scary as nuclear winter, but still scarier than global warming.

 

Hmm. Who to believe? A piece by a Lord who was Chairman of Northern Rock 2004-07 when it made its bad decisions, caused Britain's first run on a bank for 150 years and went bust - or the UN, US EPA and almost everybody else? Tricky.

 

Just FYI Ocean acidification is important mainly for creatures which make their shells from dissolved calcium. A few points difference in ph means they cant make the shell. People and other animals like shellfish.

 

http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-ocean-acidification/

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/ioc-oceans/priority-areas/rio-20-ocean/blueprint-for-the-future-we-want/ocean-acidification/

http://www.epa.gov/acidrain/effects/forests.html

Edited 9 January, 2014 by buctootim

[Sheaf Saint]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/jan/09/global-warming-humans-not-sun?CMP=fb_us&commentpage=1

 

Global warming is being caused by humans, not the sun, and is highly sensitive to carbon, new research shows

New research reinforces human-caused global warming and a climate that's highly sensitive to an increased greenhouse effect

 

I won't post the whole article, as no doubt there will be some who have already decided that because it is in the Guardian, it must be leftist claptrap and won't bother reading past the first paragraph. Suffice to say it cites three recently published papers which reinforce the IPCC claim of 95% probability that climate change is a result of human activity.

 

The first paper used two extremes of natural variability in their models and states "...we investigate two extreme cases of the plausible temporal structures of the internal variability, and we find that the anthropogenic signal is robust and significant."

 

The second paper presents the findings of a study of the sun's influence on climate variability over the last millennium. It states that the sun is only likely to have caused around 15% of the observed warming over the last 300 years, and concludes "Over the twentieth century, anthropogenic forcings dominate with GHGs (Greenhouse Gases) the largest forcing, offset by the effect of anthropogenic aerosols and land use changes"

 

The third paper looks at the pattern of cloud formation due to increased levels of water vapour in the atmosphere, and rebukes the contrarian claim that increased cloud cover would reflect more heat away from the atmosphere and offset the warming effect of known positive feedbacks that are accelerating climate change. You can view an interview with one of the authors

[Saint Paul C]

This made me chuckle

 

[Guided Missile]

The first paper used two extremes of natural variability in their models and states "...we investigate two extreme cases of the plausible temporal structures of the internal variability, and we find that the anthropogenic signal is robust and significant."

To anyone with a brain, the computer models that the IPCC uses are b0ll0x (that's scientific jargon for "unreliable when compared to real data")

 

The graph shown above, based on a version published by Dr Ed Hawkins of Reading University on his blog, Climate Lab Book, reveals that actual temperatures are now below the predictions made by almost all the 138 models on which the IPCC relies.

 

 

Read more here

[Minty]

This made me chuckle

 

 

It was only a matter of time before someone who doesn't understand the polar vortex/jet stream issue created something like that to try and point score.

 

Took longer than I thought though...

 

Where did you find it?

[TopGun]

It's disappointing that Guided Missile is so blinded by the stats that he chooses to use. I admire GM for his views on most other subjects.

 

It's telling that the UK government department responsible for these issues is named DECC - the Department for Energy and Climate Change. That isn't just a waffle name, it's recognition that the vast majority of qualified scientists in the UK and abroad accept that man made clime change is occurring.

 

I undertake work on a regular basis for many of the energy generating companies in the UK. Every one of them is agreed with the consensual scientific evidence that carbon emissions generated by electricity production contributes to a global warming effect.

 

DECC and the electricity generators choose not to employ people like James Delingpole for good reasons. They deal with the likely scientific facts rather than the ****** (did I really say that) perpetuated by deniers like Delingpole who lack any objectivity or peer-related scientific knowledge to claim otherwise.

[Guided Missile]

It's disappointing that Guided Missile is so blinded by the stats that he chooses to use. I admire GM for his views on most other subjects.

The stats "I choose to use" reveal that actual global temperatures are now below the predictions made by almost all the 138 models on which the IPCC relies. This is after decades of this organisation, the scientists they consult and the governments they advise, peddling the same message, costing the taxpayer billions and failing to admit their models are, to quote Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology "Not fit for purpose". All I'm saying is look at the evidence. The above graphs are fairly easy to read and I bet a pound to a pinch of sh! t the trend of actual global temperatures being way lower than the models, will continue for decades to come.

 

Copyright GMDRS (Guided Missile Department of Real Science) - That isn't just a waffle name, it's recognition that the vast majority of qualified scientists in the UK and abroad have failed to predict the current 20 year (and counting) halt in global warming.

[dubai_phil]

So does this mean Nigel Calder was right all those years ago?

 

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/nigel-calder-6/the-weather-machine-2/

 

A very greatly expanded version of a 120-minute program made for public television, The Weather Machine discusses the possibilities of a new ice age in our lifetime. We are probably at the end of a warm period, since a cooling trend has been noted around the Earth -- in fact, for 95% of the past million years, the planet was much colder than we've experienced it. Most importantly, recent droughts in the Soviet Union, China, and Northern Europe, frost in Brazil, and floods in Canada have lowered the world's grain reserves until world famine is a clear danger. The weather is getting worse; the wind has changed gear. Calder discusses (with many illustrations) our present climatic oddities in the context of past centuries, points out possible causes for the changes (from the behavior of polar ice sheets to Earth's orbit around the Sun 10,000 years ago which is affecting present-day weather patterns), details the current state of meteorology, reveals new discoveries about the ice ages and outlines the threats for tomorrow. About 90,000 years ago, the warm Earth plunged overnight (in about a century) into a cold that had the full severity of an ice age and lasted for 1,000 years. Calder is not optimistic; our 30-year warm spell from 1920-50 was quite exceptional. ""Any natural change of climate is far more likely to be for the worse than for the better."" Nor does he believe that man's venal nature will rise above drought, disaster and snowblitz. The pictures are as striking as the text.

Edited 11 January, 2014 by dubai_phil

[Sheaf Saint]

The stats "I choose to use" reveal that actual global temperatures are now below the predictions made by almost all the 138 models on which the IPCC relies.

 

Below most of them, but consistent with some of them. They can't all be correct can they. Yes your graphs show the black line of observed temperatures as being towards the very lower end of the predicted range, but in all three it is still within the predicted range.

 

Copyright GMDRS (Guided Missile Department of Real Science) - That isn't just a waffle name, it's recognition that the vast majority of qualified scientists in the UK and abroad have failed to predict the current 20 year (and counting) halt in global warming.

 

Oh it's twenty years now is it? Here was me thinking the entire skeptic argument was based on the notion of no warming since 1998 (which is demonstrably false anyway) but now you reckon there has been no warming now since 1994? Please show us the data which support this.

[Guided Missile]

Meanwhile, a hilarious piece in The Spectator, here...

 

Yes, yes, just to get the obligatory ‘of courses’ out of the way up front: of course ‘weather’ is not the same as ‘climate’; and of course the thickest iciest ice on record could well be evidence of ‘global warming’, just as 40-and-sunny and a 35-below blizzard and 12 degrees and partly cloudy with occasional showers are all apparently manifestations of ‘climate change’; and of course the global warm-mongers are entirely sincere in their belief that the massive carbon footprint of their rescue operation can be offset by the planting of wall-to-wall trees the length and breadth of Australia, Britain, America and continental Europe.

 

But still: you’d have to have a heart as cold and unmovable as Commonwealth Bay ice not to be howling with laughter at the exquisite symbolic perfection of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition ‘stuck in our own experiment’, as they put it. I confess I was hoping it might all drag on a bit longer and the cultists of the ecopalypse would find themselves drawing straws as to which of their number would be first on the roasting spit. On Douglas Mawson’s original voyage, he and his surviving comrade wound up having to eat their dogs. I’m not sure there were any on this expedition, so they’d probably have to make do with the Guardian reporters. Forced to wait a year to be rescued, Sir Douglas later recalled, ‘Several of my toes commenced to blacken and fester near the tips.’ Now there’s a man who’s serious about reducing his footprint.

 

 

But alas, eating one’s shipmates and watching one’s extremities drop off one by one is not a part of today’s high-end eco-doom tourism. Instead, the ice-locked warmists uploaded chipper selfies to YouTube, as well as a self-composed New Year singalong of such hearty un-self-awareness that it enraged even such party-line climate alarmists as Andrew Revkin, the plonkingly earnest enviro-blogger of the New York Times. A mere six weeks ago, pumping out the usual boosterism, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that, had Captain Scott picked his team as carefully as Professor Chris Turney, he would have survived. Sadly, we’ll never know — although I’ll bet Captain Oates would have been doing his ‘I am going out. I may be some time’ line about eight bars into that New Year number.

 

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[Guided Missile]

Below most of them, but consistent with some of them. They can't all be correct can they. Yes your graphs show the black line of observed temperatures as being towards the very lower end of the predicted range, but in all three it is still within the predicted range.

I think scientific reality is wasted on you...talk about clutching at straws.

[Guided Missile]

Oh it's twenty years now is it? Here was me thinking the entire skeptic argument was based on the notion of no warming since 1998 (which is demonstrably false anyway) but now you reckon there has been no warming now since 1994? Please show us the data which support this.

....and if you squint at the graph of actual global temperatures since around 1990, from the University of Reading data, above, you may be able to claim an increase of around 0.1C, well within the confidence limits of the measurements. You're not very good at this science stuff, are you? You sound more like Michael Fish after the storm of 1987.

 

 

[Sheaf Saint]

I think scientific reality is wasted on you...talk about clutching at straws.

 

Not really. Interpreting data from graphs is something that is taught in GCSE science. It is you that seems to be struggling with it in this case.

 

Look again at those graphs you posted and please give me a simple yes or no to the question: is the black line of observed temperature data within the range of predictions?

[Sheaf Saint]

....and if you squint at the graph of actual global temperatures since around 1990, from the University of Reading data, above, you may be able to claim an increase of around 0.1C

 

And if you care to actually look properly at the graphs, instead of seeing only what you want to see, you will notice that the temperature anomaly in all of them is greater than 0.1C. The first two, which show data up to last year, actually points to an increase of around 0.4C. Which kind of p*sses on your claim of a 20-year halt in warming doesn't it?

[Guided Missile]

The first two, which show data up to last year, actually points to an increase of around 0.4C. Which kind of p*sses on your claim of a 20-year halt in warming doesn't it?

You do realise that the graphs are plots of temperature anomaly? That is the difference between the long-term average temperature and the temperature that is actually occurring. If you can now stop dribbling and think about that sentence you may also realise that your GCSE calculation includes the period when the temperature anomaly was negative, i.e. you're adding a negative figure to your supposed increase in long term average temperature. Kind of p!sses on your credibility, doesn't it? "Actually points to an increase of 0.4^oC"?

[Polaroid Saint]

1850-1870

Level of carbon dioxide gas (CO2) in the atmosphere, as later measured in ancient ice, is about 290 ppm (parts per million).

Mean global temperature (1850-1870) is about 13.6°C.

 

2012

Level of CO2 in the atmosphere reaches 394 ppm.

Mean global temperature is 14.6°C.

 

This GRADUAL INCREASE in global temperature has happened at a time when the planet should be DECREASING in temperature due to various natural occurrences, primarily oceanic oscillation, polar wander, tectonic shift and decreased solar activity (current {11 year} solar cycle 24 is the least active on record and cycle 25 is predicted to be worse, the 200 year solar cycle is the least active {ergo coolest} since the Little Ice Age).

 

All the readings (not 'evidence' or 'stats', just plan old readings off of instruments n that) show that every time the earth has come out of an ice age, CO2 goes up (well, duh!), rapidly self propelling more CO2 until a gradual decline to a new ice age. We SHOULD be entering a period of cooling, and if you wish to support the 'all natural causes' argument, this is very odd, as it appears we are not cooling. So what's stopping, or at least tempering, the expected cool down? What has changed on Earth in the last 11 thousand years that might buck the global trend of some 56 million years? Could human civilisation be an influence?

 

It's not just CO2 of course. Other Green House Gases are rather vital to the whole thing. Methane from livestock for example. There are some very controversial theories, although recently supported by some excellent research from the University of Bristol, that Mankind has been influencing (dare I say 'changing'?) the global climate for millennia. The correlation between humans starting to clear land, plant paddy fields, developing irrigation and turning to agriculture (between 8000 and 5800BC) to the jump in CO2 and Methane recorded from 8000 years ago, is certainly worth exploring further.

 

Are those green house gas/CO2/temperature levels casual or causal? That's a fair area of debate, as historical records of civilisation are not as accurate as scientific measurements; although anyone who knows the rough dates of the growth of human civilisation, the industrial revolution and things like natural methane expulsion and the normal time-span of the global carbon cycle would be wise to at least consider a causal relationship.

 

Global Warming is a funny old term as it confuses many normal people, so I prefer Climate Change. You can then at least try explain how heating up the central surface diameter of a sphere which has fluids around it can cause other areas on the surface to flow colder while others flow hotter. Basic convection science. Then again I think I might have just lost any of you who have bothered to read this far. Let's just say; its weather innit?

 

Humans have burnt fossil fuelsand radically altered the biodiversity of the planet steadily for 30 thousand years and have now started to do so rapidly. In addition, in a convergent trend, the earth's climate cycle does most assuredly, appear to have altered and a shift away from the old ice age cycle is developing.

 

And, really, whether or not you choose to differentiate between 'man made' or 'natural' matters not one jot. (Personally, logically, I see humanity as PART of the natural history of this planet, who can it not be?): it IS happening.

 

Now, let's just agree on that and start building cities under the sea, giant domes to live under and massive solar thermal arrays in the desert, yeah?

[Guided Missile]

Just to settle the debate, I can now release a brand new set of graphs which indicate that the degree of global warming that is 97% likely to occur between now and 2050 is approximately 0.15^oC. Although the model has not yet been peer reviewed, the author, Guided Missile, has a degree in Chemistry and many years experience in environmental modelling.

I am sure we can all agree that the projected increase conforms well with the global data collected over the last 25 years and that the projected increase in temperature spells the end for the human race. Despite my confidence in the projections my research has shown, a grant of £100,000 a year would be needed to predict exact figures on the global death toll from the dangers that carbon emissions will cause.

[Sheaf Saint]

OK GM, I made the mistake of looking at the difference in the anomaly figure (from around -0.25 to around 0.15 which is 0.4). However that does not detract from the fact that the graphs still show a rise in temperatures which contradicts your claim of no warming for the last 20 years. I would still like to see the data you are basing this assertion on please. I would also still be interested to read you response to the question of whether or not the observed data figures in the graphs are within the predicted range of the models.

 

As for your updated graphs, if I was to submit an assignment with a 'line of best fit' (Ha!) that was as far off as yours, my tutor would return it to me and order me to do it again.