My point was that even if it is entirely man-made, the world is not going to co-operate to sort it out in time. Nothing will stop the Chinese building more dirty power stations, and nothing will stop people expecting to be able to fly all over the world on holiday. Therefore all that matters is coping with the consequences. The argument as to whose fault it is, if anyone's, is over.
I'd like to see British money spent in forestalling British problems, not wasted in pathetic attempts to be "green" while the rest of the world goes on enjoying itself.
|
Therefore all that matters is coping with the consequences. The argument as to whose fault it is, if anyone's, is over. I'd like to see British money spent in forestalling British problems, not wasted in pathetic attempts to be "green" while the rest of the world goes on enjoying itself.
Cliff,
It's very refreshing to hear another point of view on this subject, and having now heard it I tend to agree with you.
I found the website tinyurl.com/2lhull very interesting. The following extract I found particularly interesting. "Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect (4). Interestingly, many "facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold."
--
L\'escargot.
|
Careful with this sort of thing, chaps. There's a lot of bad and pseudo-science out there that would love to 'disprove' the CO2 hypothesis. Check the references at the end of that water vapour article and see how many, like the one from Pat Michaels, are from 'researchers' with known neo-con political affiliations and who have received funding from vested fossil fuel interests.
The public at large is, to be blunt, scientifically illiterate and gets its information from newspapers that can't report science without using the word 'boffins'. This leaves people open to being manipulated by those with political or economic motives - look at the way the truth went out of the window over MMR, when anyone who could read a scientific paper could see there was nothing in it. (And don't get me started on 'intelligent design'!) The vested interests are many times greater here, and compounded by an understandable reluctance among individuals to change habits they find necessary or convenient. But don't be fooled into clinging to stuff like this from people who want to make money out of your credulity. Science is a community effort, not a collection of individuals, and the scientific community is as sure as reasonably can be that (a) the world is getting warmer, and (b) human-generated CO2 is a significant factor in that.
|
>>... The public at large is, to be blunt, scientifically illiterate ... Science is a community effort, not a collection of individuals,
i.m.o. - if you have an open mind, then one of the easiest to digest and well written articles on the gloabl-warming issue is at:
www.engr-sci.org/history/climate/20ctrend.htm
|
|
|
Careful with this sort of thing, chaps. There's a lot of bad and pseudo-science out there that would love to 'disprove' the CO2 hypothesis. Check the references at the end of that water vapour article and see how many, like the one from Pat Michaels, are from 'researchers' with known neo-con political affiliations and who have received funding from vested fossil fuel interests.
I would have thought anyone publishing a scientific document would make sure that they had sufficient irrefutable proof of their hypothesis, to avoid the embarrassment of being publicly proved wrong.
--
L\'escargot.
|
I would recommend this site for anyone interested
www.junkscience.com/
|
If anyone says anything about climate scientists "ignoring" water vapour, they're being deliberately disingenuous. Or to put it more bluntly, they're lying in an attempt to muddy the waters.
The amount of water vapour in the atmosphere is determined by temperature. If you increase the heat, more of the sea evaporates, so there's more water vapour. If you lower the heat, it condenses again.
All computer models for climate prediction include water vapour in their calculations, as it's totally intrinsic to the greenhouse effect.
But you could dump umpteen squillion tons of water vapour in the atmosphere now and it would have no medium or long-term effect - the excess would all condense out and the atmosphere content would go back to the equilibrium level for the current temperature.
So, water vapour is "ignored" in as much as all the H2O being spat out by your cars doesn't matter in the slightest. But it is not ignored in that warming due to any other factor, such as CH4 or CO2, will cause more H2O vapour to enter the atmosphere from the oceans, increasing the greenhouse effect.
I wish all you car addicts would stop latching on to every piece of junk pseudo-science you see that tries to reassure you that somehow thousands of scientists have made some sort of massive cock-up or conspiracy.
|
In 1998, the German Meteorologisches Institut Universitat Hamburg and Forschungszentium surveyed a wide spectrum of climatological scientists.
67% of Canadian climate scientists "rejected the notion that any warming due to human activity is occurring", along with 87% of German climate scientists, and 97% of American climate scientists.
The famous letter on Global Warming published a few years ago with all of those signatures of scientists was filled with names from biology, archeology, genetics, etc... but less than 10% were climate scientists, and they represented less than 10% of the climate scientists who had been personally asked to sign (only a small percentage were asked, as the majority of the field had already publicly stated their disbelief).
Much has been made of the .5° C rise on global average temperature in the 20th century... but ask yourself this... why did that occur between 1890 and 1940, when 80% of the increase in atmospheric CO2 occurred after 1940?
Global average temperature dropped .2° C between 1940 and 1970, and rose less than .3° C by 1990, to less than 1° C above 1940... and has stabilized since then.
Do you remember 1975, when Science magazine on March 1, Newsweek on April 28, and Wildlife International in July all declared that the Earth's climate was cooling down, and that we were going to enter a new ice age caused by pollution... especially carbon emissions?
Hardly sounds like CO2 is really what it is claimed to be, now is it?
Those scientists who actually make their living studying the climate agree there is nothing man is doing that is really affecting global climate in any way... and that the warming is a result of natural processes we have no control over.
Specifically, by the early 1990s the general consensus among the climate scientists was that the temperature changes were directly linked to the solar sunspot cycle!
|
.. Much has been made of the .5° C rise on global average temperature in the 20th century..
midlifecrisis:
all the points you raise are covered/answered at
www.engr-sci.org/history/climate/index.html
www.engr-sci.org/history/climate/20ctrend.htm
now as a man in your profession who must keep an open mind and must surely weigh up the facts rather than porkies, perhaps you will look at some if not all the details on that web site.
|
|
And there's an awful lot of 'porkies' coming from the 'doomsday' brigade. The only difference is that if you challenge them, you're treated like you're a holocaust denier!
|
|
I keep on saying it - it doesn't matter what the cause is, human or natural, or whether scientists are right or wrong. I simply look out of my window, and listen to worldwide reports of hurricanes and floods etc , and realise that something is wrong. I am more interested in someone doing something about mitigating these phenomena than I am in finding out what has caused them. I don't expect anyone to stop them, because that in my view is now impossible.
Just stop arguing and start saving up for flood defences. Oh, and decide which new crops are going to be worth growing on our hotter but diminishing pastures.
|
This morning I had my own lesson in how weird things are at the moment. My daughter is coming up to three and has strong views about wearing a coat. She is always complaining about being hot and would rather not wear one. Today there is a heavy frost on the ground and she refused to wear a coat. I took her to the window and showed her the frost on the car and told her it was ice. Then I took her to the freezer and took out a bag of peas and showed her the same frost and let her feel how cold it was. It occurred to me that she simply has not seen frost at all this winter until today and had no idea what it was or what it did. Last week it was 11 degrees at 8am. In the North of England.
Given this weirdness, which has crept up on us over the last 2 decades, I think we should stop arguing. We should try to find out what is going on but in the mean time it is idiotic to continue as we are given that one of the candidates for the cause is our behaviour. It's like continuing to smack yourself over the head with an iron bar while you try to work out why you have a headache. You may also have a brain tumour that is causing the headache, but the iron bar is a candidate for sure. And before anyone invokes Chinese powerplants again: those powerplants are there because of us. We do not operate independently. We are buying the stuff China is making and we (rich nations) are the primary source of demand for that energy.
|
It's totally pointless to quote surveys from 1998, even if they are sound. Unless of course you're trying to deliberately mislead.
A great deal of progress in the understanding of the climate have been made in the 9 years since then. There is far less uncertainty. We now have a far better idea of what's going on, and pretty much every new discovery makes the situation look worse than previously thought.
A proper site on the subject is
www.realclimate.org/
This has a handy index with a thread discussing each of the contrarian talking points, such as the water vapour nonsense, here
www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/ind.../
|
|
.... all the H2O being spat out by your cars doesn't matter in the slightest.
Doesn't the water produced add to the total amount of water sloshing about?
--
L\'escargot.
|
Doesn't the water produced add to the total amount of water sloshing about?
True, yes it does. And the combustion also reduces the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. But there's so much water and oxygen in the biosphere already that those effects are relatively insignificant.
But there's very little CO2 in the atmosphere, so our CO2 releases have a significant proportional effect. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is now nearly 40% above pre-industrial levels.
|
|
|
|
I wish all you car addicts would stop latching on to every piece of junk pseudo-science you see that tries to reassure you that somehow thousands of scientists have made some sort of massive cock-up or conspiracy.
There are very few subjects in this life that any of us actually know anything about with any certainty. I personally know nothing whatsoever about global warming. If I read something that appears to have come from an authoratitive source then I tend to believe it, but that's as far as it goes.
--
L\'escargot.
|
My take on global warming is this:
Scientists have a model for how increasing CO2 in the atmosphere would lead to global warming.
Burning fossil (or other ) fuels creates CO2 which dissipates into the atmosphere.
What we don't know is how much of the recent trend in rising temperatures is due to rising CO2, to other causes like the Earth's crust warming slightly in places, or just a natural variation.
But clearly it would be wise to take the precautionary approach ane reduce carbon emissions anyway.
We knew long ago that CFC's were thought to cause global warming and they were banned in the 1980's but the cumulative effect was likley to peak years after tha ban - so could we still be seeing the long shadow of the CFC effect?
I've said on here before that the inescapable social / environmental crisis looming before us is the running out of fossil fuels. This will happen and as demand increases that scarcity is brought ever nearer.
So at least as we lay up our cars until we can find the next few litres of biodiesel, we'll at least be able to say that global warming is in reverse!!!
|
"Scientists have a model for how increasing CO2 in the atmosphere would lead to global warming."
And what would really foul up that hypothesis would be if those scientists are correct who believe that rising CO2 levels were a result of increased temps. I have seen graphs somewhere that suggest that over the last few million years CO2 increases follow temp rises and don't precede them.
Amazing isn't it how scientists always say "we used to think, but now we know that.......", until the next batch come along with some new ideas and say "a few years ago we used to think....., but now we know that........."
--
Phil
|
Amazing isn't it how scientists always say "we used to think, but now we know that.......", until the next batch come along with some new ideas and say "a few years ago we used to think....., but now we know that........."
I'm not sure I'd call it "amazing". It's only natural that the process of advancement of knowledge and technology is ongoing. At any one time you have to make statements based on such conclusions that current technology allows or dictates.
--
L\'escargot.
|
>>Amazing isn't it how scientists always say...
Yes, because that is the scientific method. As L'escargot said above, we don't *know* anything - the world didn't come with an owners manual!! So, we have to feel our way, and build up the picture as we go. Some people mistakenly look to scientists for definitive answers - really all there is in an incomplete (albeit clearing) picture.
We can do nothing, and wait for a more complete picture, (by which time, it may be too late) or act on the best available evidence now. As there is potentially much more to lose by not acting, I don't think there is much of a case for not going ahead with all of the measures we currently have at our disposal. To paraphrase the old Labour party saying - If we can afford to fight wars in the middle east, surely we can afford to do some more work to safeguard all of our futures (even if that work is as futile as the Millenium blister, sorry, dome! - it isn't a total loss).
Number_Cruncher
|
"As L'escargot said above, we don't *know* anything - the world didn't come with an owners manual!!"
That was my point - so why don't scientists say "We used to think......, but now we think......"? instead of "now we know........"
--
Phil
|
>>"We used to think......, but now we think......"?
It's a fair point Phil, but, I think that's exactly what most scientists do say - conclusions sections of papers are usually either extremely carefully worded, or completely absent, replaced by a concluding remarks section.
Number_Cruncher
|
|
As long as we feed the rising economy of the likes of China, whatever we in our attempt to stop "global warming".............if it were true......... won't make one iota of difference.
|
Like everyone else I know nothiing of global warming apart from what I read. But common sense seems to tell me that if you burn off all the carbon fuel which has takem countless million of years to accumulate in a couple of hundred years we should expect changes in climate.
On that basis alone I think we are now reaping the whirlwind.
|
>>As long as we feed the rising economy of the likes of China, whatever we in our attempt to stop "global warming".............if it were true......... won't make one iota of difference.
In Hong Kong they have polution controls on all vehicles and have reduced emissions, but smog has risen from one day in 10 in 2002 to one day in 5 now. Why? The dirty factories in China.
tinyurl.com/2ut2e3
If this is happening in China how long before their pollution, along with other major polluters, have a majoe effect on the planet. What ever efforts we make to reduce polltion in this country will be swamped by others who do not care a jot.
Dalglish
Your link to the Met Office was very interesting. However I still cannot understand why surface temperatures between 1940 and 1975 dropped, before resuming rising again. If we associate global warming to human activity, then why was there this drop for such a long period. I doubt if it can be attributed to WWII and its aftermath. Personally I still believe that there are too many factors affecting the Earth's temperature that have not been included in the models suggested so far. I do not deny that man might have made a small change, but I do not think man is the sole cause in the Earth's temperature rise.
--
Roger
I read frequently, but only post when I have something useful to say.
|
One idea put forward about the dip in temps between 1940 and 1975 was due to the increased amount of pollution causing additonal water vapour to held in the air which then reflected more of the suns radiation back out. This is just my vague memory of it, I'm sure someone else on here must know about this and be able to explain it correctly.
|
One idea put forward about the dip in temps between 1940 and 1975 was due to the increased amount of pollution causing additonal water vapour to held in the air which then reflected more of the suns radiation back out. This is just my vague memory of it, I'm sure someone else on here must know about this and be able to explain it correctly.
There has been a recent New Scientist article about it. Sulphates I think, not water vapour. It was the theory that supported the panic about the approaching ice age in the 70s, now thought to be much outshadowed by warming from other effects.
The suggestion in the article was that the cold spell lost Hitler the war when the exceptional cold stopped his forces at the gates of Moscow.
|
"Scientists have a model for how increasing CO2 in the atmosphere would lead to global warming." And what would really foul up that hypothesis would be if those scientists are correct who believe that rising CO2 levels were a result of increased temps. I have seen graphs somewhere that suggest that over the last few million years CO2 increases follow temp rises and don't precede them.
On the contrary - that rather suggests that we're in big trouble. The human injection of CO2 into the atmosphere is raising temperatures. And if, as the geological record and other research suggests, the raised temperatures lead to the spontaneous global release of more CO2, then you've got runaway global warming. This is currently the main concern.
|
|
|
|
|
|
