Global Warming

[Sith Happens]

2 minutes ago, davenportram said:

noone does have a clue. Records don't go back far enough to model the change accurately enough. Its all best guesses. I'm sure we should be a coastal town by now given some of the claims of the 80's

Wouldnt mind a sea view myself.

 

[MK]

There seem to be quite a few people saying that records only started recently. Although this is true for weather records, scientist have been able to backdate the earths temperature and CO2 in our atmosphere for thousands of years and it all points to a significant increase beyond the norm for these cycles.

To all those who are saying that the earth moves in cycles and we are just on another one of these i recommend you watch this :

 

 

[Wolfie]

14 minutes ago, Paul71 said:

I am not sure i believe it. I remember reading that the planet is coming out of a mini ice age, so surely its going to get warmer as a result, including ice caps not having as much ice.

Maybe but it's the pace of the warming in the last 50 years that is so scary. They can track global temperatures back 800,000 years from ice cores and there has never been anything like the rapid changes that we are currnetly experiencing.

14 minutes ago, Paul71 said:

Also average temperatures are bound to be higher, it is always warmer in cities and cities are so much bigger now than they used to be when records started so of course more areas will have a higher temperature.

I dont doubt we are causing damage to the planet, cutting down the rain forests etc...but i do not believe the warming is purely down to man. We could say that actually trying to stop the warming could be more devastating if it is actually a natural occurance.

Why do people get hung up on this?. I have never seen it claimed that warming is purely down to man - and it doesn't matter. The fact is that the planet is heating up and it doesn't matter if it's 100% our fault or only 50% does it?. Shouldn't we still try & do something?.

14 minutes ago, Paul71 said:

It probably doesnt help that the messages sent by the so called experts seem to change weekly, one week it will mean the UK will have a climate like spain, then the following we wont and we will just get wet summers. Then we will get wet winters, then the next thing we will get freezing cold winters. What this tells me is...no one knows or has a clue what is going on.

But that's just inconsistencies about the effect of climate change on our weather from day-to-day because nobody knows that yet. None of the experts are seriously arguing any more that climate change doesn't exist.

 

Let's face it, the planet really doesn't give a ****. It was here for 4 billion years before man and it'll be here for another 4 billion years after we've long since wiped ourselves out. It'll just think it's had a bit of a hot flush in universal terms.

[davenportram]

1 hour ago, MK said:

There seem to be quite a few people saying that records only started recently. Although this is true for weather records, scientist have been able to backdate the earths temperature and CO2 in our atmosphere for thousands of years and it all points to a significant increase beyond the norm for these cycles.

To all those who are saying that the earth moves in cycles and we are just on another one of these i recommend you watch this :

 

 

maybe but some models have GHG 10 times the level they are now at some points in the Earths history.

[PodgeyRam]

3 minutes ago, davenportram said:

maybe but some models have GHG 10 times the level they are now at some points in the Earths history.

Yep, and do you know what happpened during some of those points in history - mass extinction events. When talking about global Climate Change - becuse that's what it is, climate change not warming - and combating it, we aren't really talking about if the Earth will survive. The Earth will be here long after we're gone and so will life most likely. This is about if our species will survive.

[davenportram]

4 minutes ago, PodgeyRam said:

Yep, and do you know what happpened during some of those points in history - mass extinction events. When talking about global Climate Change - becuse that's what it is, climate change not warming - and combating it, we aren't really talking about if the Earth will survive. The Earth will be here long after we're gone and so will life most likely. This is about if our species will survive.

no chance a species can reverse the climate change cycle. No chance at all.

[PodgeyRam]

4 minutes ago, davenportram said:

no chance a species can reverse the climate change cycle. No chance at all.

Never said anything about reversing it. Even though I think humans contribute to it, I doubt anything will change in terms of counteracting it. It's a fact of economics that as countries develop they begin to pump out more greenhouse gases, and with Africa and Asia becoming more and more developed any changes we make here would be offset over there. IT' also not helpful that these things tend to be part of complex feedback loops. As we release more GHG's,  more  icemelts, releasing methane that's been trapped there for thousands of years, making a bad problem worse.

 

Doesn't mean we shouldn't try though. If you'd said 100 years ago that people would be able to go to outer space you'd be laughed out of the room. There's always a chance. Hell, someone could come up with some amazing invention in the future and save us all.

[Highgate]

2 hours ago, Srg said:

So what you're trying to say is... global warming made you bald?

Unfortunately i'll have to blame genetics for that one...at least when the world does heat up, i'll be able to radiate heat from my head more effectlvely than others.

[Srg]

2 minutes ago, Highgate said:

Unfortunately i'll have to blame genetics for that one...at least when the world does heat up, i'll be able to radiate heat from my head more effectlvely than others.

You're at the forefront of renewable energy... personal solar panel and all that.

[Highgate]

18 minutes ago, davenportram said:

no chance a species can reverse the climate change cycle. No chance at all.

There will be a chance in the future possibly, with better technology.  Because climate responds to GHG quantities in our atmosphere, it is possible we will be able to use GHG like a thermostat, increasing their concentrations when we want to warm the planet up and reducing them when we need to cool the planet down. We would do this when other natural cycles are driving temperatures gradually in a direction we find uncomfortable....like would be the case during the next ice age.  But we are long way off being able, or being organised enough to do anything like that.

[davenportram]

11 minutes ago, Highgate said:

There will be a chance in the future possibly, with better technology.  Because climate responds to GHG quantities in our atmosphere, it is possible we will be able to use GHG like a thermostat, increasing their concentrations when we want to warm the planet up and reducing them when we need to cool the planet down. We would do this when other natural cycles are driving temperatures gradually in a direction we find uncomfortable....like would be the case during the next ice age.  But we are long way off being able, or being organised enough to do anything like that.

we dont have a valve in the atmosphere to let gasses out of unfortunately. Now that hole in the ozone layer could have come in handy - you know the scariest of scary things in the eighties that's never mentioned any more.

[Highgate]

5 minutes ago, davenportram said:

we dont have a valve in the atmosphere to let gasses out of unfortunately. Now that hole in the ozone layer could have come in handy - you know the scariest of scary things in the eighties that's never mentioned any more.

There are ways of drawing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, exposing unweathered rock, planting more forests, chemical scrubbing, ocean fertilization, and growing biomass burning it for energy..and capturing the carbon (a carbon negative technology).  But we haven't mastered any of these yet on a large enough scale.

[Wolfie]

1 hour ago, davenportram said:

we dont have a valve in the atmosphere to let gasses out of unfortunately. Now that hole in the ozone layer could have come in handy - you know the scariest of scary things in the eighties that's never mentioned any more.

That's because we stopped using CFC's in aerosols and fridges and now the hole is starting to shrink. If we hadn't acted, it would have got nasty. Go to the Falklands now and you have to wear high factor sunscreen even in winter because of the hole. 

"Curing" climate change will be a whole lot harder to do.

[eddie]

Idiots do not know the difference between weather and climate.

[eddie]

1 hour ago, davenportram said:

we dont have a valve in the atmosphere to let gasses out of unfortunately. Now that hole in the ozone layer could have come in handy - you know the scariest of scary things in the eighties that's never mentioned any more.

That's basically because we stopped spewing fluorocarbons into the atmosphere. Over the last 20 years, it has recovered to the extent that the hole is around 40% smaller than its peak level in the 1990's.

[SillyBilly]

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1103.4958v2.pdf

I personally think a lot more work needs to be done on correlating solar activity to effects on our climate. I have read up on the Maunder Minimum in the past (more out of interest) and I have yet to be totally convinced that the sharp decline in solar activity wasn't attributable to the significant global cooling of the time. The paper in the link is a recent publication, arguing for about a 20% causal effect on global temperatures from sun activity. It can be a controversial topic, most of the money is poured into science which confirms government narrative. Green technology is good for jobs and investment, global warming is also a great tax weapon in the hunt for money. I wouldn't forget that. I am a nuclear chemist and I know some pretty sharp people on both ends of the debate so its not an irrefutable fact for me. I sit on the fence generally as I don't know enough about it.

[Highgate]

1 hour ago, SillyBilly said:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1103.4958v2.pdf

I personally think a lot more work needs to be done on correlating solar activity to effects on our climate. I have read up on the Maunder Minimum in the past (more out of interest) and I have yet to be totally convinced that the sharp decline in solar activity wasn't attributable to the significant global cooling of the time. The paper in the link is a recent publication, arguing for about a 20% causal effect on global temperatures from sun activity. It can be a controversial topic, most of the money is poured into science which confirms government narrative. Green technology is good for jobs and investment, global warming is also a great tax weapon in the hunt for money. I wouldn't forget that. I am a nuclear chemist and I know some pretty sharp people on both ends of the debate so its not an irrefutable fact for me. I sit on the fence generally as I don't know enough about it.

Obviously variation in solar activity has a huge bearing on our climate, given that it's the source of nearly all our heat. That's not in doubt.  

What is also not in doubt is that GHG concentration in our atmosphere also drives our climate, and we have been increasing their concentration for more than a hundred years now all the while hoping that the laws of physics will take some time off, and the inevitable warming of the planet won't occur.   Either that or we are looking for some unknown negative feedback loop to kick in at a certain concentration of GHG and save us from ourselves. 

Seems like a risky policy to me. 

[Phoenix]

Off-topic, but I just read this in the Daily Telegraph on line.

Under the heading "UK weather: Britain hotter than Madrid this weekend as heatwave brings temperatures twice average for the time of year"

Emma Sharples, from the Met Office, said: “There’s a dividing line between north and south, with wintry conditions in the north but across the south a lot of cloud, and across the central swathe of the country some fairly heavy rain - so a bit of a north-south split.”

Scottish cities Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh can expect highs of just 5 or 6C - about average for the time of year - while temperatures in the south should reach double figures.

“The average maximum temperature for the UK in February is 6.6C and for England just over 7, so it will be almost double,” Ms Sharples said.

Really? 14C is twice as hot as 7C? I assumed they employed people with a scientific background at the Met office.

 

[SillyBilly]

56 minutes ago, Highgate said:

Obviously variation in solar activity has a huge bearing on our climate, given that it's the source of nearly all our heat. That's not in doubt.  

What is also not in doubt is that GHG concentration in our atmosphere also drives our climate, and we have been increasing their concentration for more than a hundred years now all the while hoping that the laws of physics will take some time off, and the inevitable warming of the planet won't occur.   Either that or we are looking for some unknown negative feedback loop to kick in at a certain concentration of GHG and save us from ourselves. 

Seems like a risky policy to me. 

So if we have a grand solar minima in 100 years time and pump out a load more GHG's we could almost have a net effect of 0 on global temps in a century? Just strikes me as a possibility. If we don't pump out GHG's we could have a global cooling with a downturn in solar activity?! I'm not convinced we know enough about the weight of balance in all these contributory effects to the climate. The only thing we do know is the climate constantly changes so we can either deal with it or become extinct.

 

[Highgate]

3 minutes ago, SillyBilly said:

So if we have a grand solar minima in 100 years time and pump out a load more GHG's we could almost have a net effect of 0 on global temps in a century? Just strikes me as a possibility. If we don't pump out GHG's we could have a global cooling with a downturn in solar activity?! I'm not convinced we know enough about the weight of balance in all these contributory effects to the climate. The only thing we do know is the climate constantly changes so we can either deal with it or become extinct.

 

Thats not the only thing we know, we also know that increasing GHG will always increase temperatures significantly in the absence of any major effect to counteract it.  Your policy would be to alter the composition of our planet's atmosphere, for us and future generations and hope that we are saved by a cooling effect from another source that is out of our control?