Author Topic: Climate Change  (Read 19499 times)

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Offline Fester

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Climate Change
« on: March 09, 2011, 11:22:30 pm »
It seems that Antartica is losing BILLIONS of tons MORE ice per year then even the most pessimistic forecasts were predicting.
Therefore exacerbating sea level rises every year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12687272

I hope you are all OK down there in Craig-Y-Don,  Rhos,   etc....!

Fester...
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Offline Merddin Emrys

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #1 on: March 09, 2011, 11:35:09 pm »
I'm not convinced at all, they have trouble predicting the weather for tomorrow let alone 50 years,
just something governments use to charge extra tax, especially fuel duty which is well beyond a joke now  :rage:
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Offline Ian

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2011, 07:16:23 am »
The evidence that global average temperatures are increasing is pretty well established, now, and the evidence that the CO2 component of our atmosphere has been similarly increasing for over a century is also established beyond doubt. What no one agrees on is the main cause of all this and the possible remedies. I think we have the tabloids largely to blame for the confusion that exists, fed by those with significant vested interests in allowing the world to warm.

The big worry for climatologists and chaoticians is that they don't know if there is a 'tipping point' for the atmosphere, beyond which point we might suffer a runaway greenhouse effect. If that were to happen, and no one knows for sure if it will, or how quickly it would occur, then the entire global population would have to embark on a migration that would make current levels look like day trippers to Barnsley. 
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.  ― Michel de Montaigne

Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes.

Offline Fester

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #3 on: June 10, 2011, 10:23:27 pm »
Maybe not climate change exactly... but see this article,

Snowden and the summit train terminus covered in snow on the 10th June !

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-13731216
Fester...
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Offline Ian

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #4 on: June 11, 2011, 08:35:10 am »
And global warming seems a fairly confirmed trend...
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.  ― Michel de Montaigne

Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes.

Offline Ian

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #5 on: June 15, 2011, 12:55:27 pm »
Well, they've finally confirmed what  New Scientist said last year: the sun appears to be moving towards a period of hibernation.  That could mean a protracted period of pretty cold winters..,.
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.  ― Michel de Montaigne

Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes.

Offline Fester

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #6 on: June 20, 2011, 08:55:53 pm »
The Foremost Scientists have concluded a new, and shocking report.

The oceans are in an appalling state, due to climate change... but also human activity.
We are moving towards mass extinctions of marine species, and MUCH quicker than anyone feared before.

See here   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13796479
Fester...
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Offline Merddin Emrys

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #7 on: June 23, 2011, 07:40:10 pm »
From another forum (classic car based) that I go on


 Green House Gases

One Volcano Exposes The Massive Carbon Scheme Fraud.... Where Does the Carbon Really Come From ?

Professor Ian Plimer could not have said it better!
If you've read his book you will agree, this is a good summary.

Okay, here's the bombshell.

The volcanic eruption at Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano, since its first spewed volcanic ash, in
just FOUR DAYS, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control
CO2 emissions on our planet - all of you.

And now with Iceland's Grimsvotn volcano erupting on May 21, 2011, it has been a losing battle.

Of course you know about this evil carbon dioxide that we are trying to suppress -
it's that vital chemical compound that every plant requires to live and grow and to synthesize into oxygen for us humans
and all animal life.
I know, it's very disheartening to realize that all of the carbon emission savings you have accomplished while suffering the
inconvenience and expense of: driving Prius hybrids, buying fabric grocery bags, sitting up till midnight to finish your kid's "The
Green Revolution" science project, throwing out all of your non-green cleaning supplies, using only two squares of toilet paper, putting a
brick in your toilet tank reservoir, selling your SUV and speedboat, vacationing at home instead of abroad, nearly getting hit every day
on your bicycle, replacing all of your 50 cents light bulbs with $10.00 light bulbs ... well, all of those things you have done have
all gone down the tubes in just four days.
The volcanic ash emitted into the Earth's atmosphere in just four days - yes - FOUR DAYS ONLY by that volcano in Iceland, has totally
erased every single effort you have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon.

And there are around 200 active volcanoes on the planet spewing out this crud at any one time - EVERY DAY.

I don't really want to rain on your parade too much, but I should mention that when the volcano Mt Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines
in 1991, it spewed out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire human race had emitted in all its years on earth.
Yes folks, Mt Pinatubo was active for over one year - think about it.

Of course I shouldn't spoil this touchy-feely tree-hugging moment and mention the effect of solar and cosmic activity and the well-
recognized 800-year global heating and cooling cycle, which keeps happening, despite our completely insignificant efforts to affect
climate change.

And I do wish I had a silver lining to this volcanic ash cloud but the fact of the matter is that the bush fire season across the
western USA and Australia this year alone will negate your efforts to reduce carbon in our world for the next two to three years.
And it happens every year.

Just remember that your government just tried to impose a whopping carbon tax on you on the basis of the bogus
"human-caused" climate change scenario.

Hey, isn't it interesting how they don't mention "Global Warming" any more, but just "Climate Change" - you know why?
It's because the planet has COOLED by 0.7 degrees in the past century and these global warming bull artists got caught
with their pants down.

And just keep in mind that you might yet have an Emissions Trading Scheme - that whopping new tax - imposed on you,
that will achieve absolutely nothing except make you poorer.

It won't stop any volcanoes from erupting, that's for sure...


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Offline Ian

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #8 on: June 23, 2011, 09:00:53 pm »
Great fun.  But if you want the facts, then read on...

Ian Plimer's approach to climate science in Heaven Earth is unscientific. He starts with his conclusion that there is no "evidential basis" that humans have caused recent warming and that the theory that humans can create global warming is contrary to validated knowledge from solar physics, astronomy, history, archeology and geology.

He accepts any factoid that supports his conclusion and rejects any evidence that contradicts his conclusion. For example, he blindly accepts EG Beck's CO2 graph. And remember Khilyuk and Chilingar? The guys who compared human CO2 emissions with natural C02 emissions over the entire history of the planet and concluded that human emissions didn't matter. As I wrote earlier:

    their mistake is so large and so obvious that anyone who cites them either has no clue about climate science or doesn't care whether what they write is true or not.

Plimer doesn't cite them once he cites them three times.

And what of evidence that contradicts his conclusion? For example, the fact that the stratosphere is cooling contradicts his theory that the sun is the cause of recent warming. What does Plimer say about this in a 500 page book with a 70 page chapter on the atmosphere? Nothing. It's not mentioned at all.

And look at Plimer's figure 3 that he presents to prove that CO2 doesn't cause warming because of all the cooling in the "post-war economic boom":



Plimer doesn't tell you the source of this graph, but it comes from Durkin's Great Global Warming Swindle and omits the last 20 years of warming. Even Durkin admitted it was wrong and changed it, but it lives on in Plimer's book.

Compare Plimer's Swindle graph with the one from the IPCC AR4 Summary for Policymakers below. Plimer doesn't print this but tells his readers that it "showed cooling for 100 of the last 160 years".




The problems with the Swindle graph were given wide publicity. It was one of seven major misrepresentations that 37 scientists asked Durkin to correct. On page 467 Plimer addresses their request claiming they did so because that deemed Swindle to present an "incorrect moral outlook", so he was well aware of what was wrong with the Swindle graph but used it anyway.

Here are the notes I made on some of the other problems with Plimer's book. These are nowhere near exhaustive -- this is just what leapt off the page and assaulted me.

Update: See also Ian Enting's extensive list

p11 No source given for figure 1 but is based on a graph in AR4WG1 Technical Summary. The massive drop in temperatures comes from using the temps for the first half of 2008 to represent all of 2008. It looks very different if you graph the actual 2008 temp, added in red below:



p14 Claims IPCC has no evidence to support its conclusion of 90% certainty that at least half of recent warming is anthropogenic. Nowhere does he even admit the existence of the evidence in Chapter 9 of AR4 WG1

p19 repeats Paul Reiter's false claims about the IPCC authors on the health effects of global warming

p21 Repeats SEPP smear of Santer

p22 Claims hockey stick is a fraud

p25 Figure 3 is infamous graph from the Great Global Warming Swindle. Graphs ends in 1987 but horizontal scale makes it look like it goes to 2000. Even Swindlers had to fix this one.

p26 Figure 4: Start point of graph is cherry picked to mislead

p87-99 claims hockey stick is a fraud and the NRC panel that vindicated it was a cover up.

p99 False claims that GISS was forced to withdraw claims about global temperature. Plimer confuses USA temperatures with the global ones.

p131 Figure 15 Dodgy sunspot temperature graph from GGWS. Ends in 1980, if continued sunspot-temp correlation goes away.

p198 claims Arctic sea ice is expanding

p198 claims drowned polar bears were actually killed by "high winds"

p198 claims polar bear numbers are increasing

p199 claims malaria is common in cold climates. No cite!

p209 Claims undersea volcanoes can have a profound effect on surface temps

p217 Claims Pinatubo eruption released "very large quantities of chloroflourocarbons, the gases that destroy the ozone layer." Cites Brasseur and Granier who actually say the opposite:

    after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, the input of chlorine to the stratosphere was probably small.

p281 Claims alpine glaciers are not retreating. Cited source actually says that glacial retreat is not accelerating.

p286 Claims the IPCC has "no evidence" to support its statement that glaciers are retreating.

p322 Cites Morner on Maldives.

p325 Says that even if we burn all fossil fuels we won't be able to double atmospheric CO2.

p349 the hockey stick is "infamous"

p366 Claims climate sensitivity is 0.5C. No footnote!

p367 Confused about by the fact that the Earth warms the atmosphere and asks how this means GHGs can cause warming. How does he think a blanket works?

p370 Claims 98% of GH effect is H2O. No footnote!

p371 Claims climate sensitivity is 0.5C. No footnote!

p376 Claims that if temperature measurements are rounded to the nearest degree, the average of many measurements is only accurate to the nearest degree.

p377 Claims that surfacestations.org proves that temp measurements have a warming bias

p378 Implies that surface record does not include measurements in the oceans

p381 claims molten rocks significantly warm ocean. No cite!

p382 "In fact, satellites and radiosondes show that there is no global warming.[1918]" Woohoo! at last a cite. Trouble is, it says exactly the opposite of what Plimer claims

p382 claims hockey stick is a fabrication

p388 claims no such thing as an average temp, citing Essex and McKitrick nonsense

p391 claims Hadley Centre has shown that warming stopped in 1998. Hadley says:

    Anyone who thinks global warming has stopped has their head in the sand.

p391 claims IPCC ignores 2/3 of the cooling effect of evaporation citing Wentz et al, but Wentz says no such thing

p413 claims volcanoes produce more CO2 than humans. No cite! This one was in GGWS. Plimer's a geologist. You'd think he would at least know something about volcanoes.

p420 figure 52 is Beck's bogus CO2 graph

p421 claims only 4% of CO2 in atmosphere is from humans. No cite!

p425 claims anthropogenic CO2 produces only 0.1% of global warming. No cite!

p425 claims IPCC have exaggerated CO2 forcing 20 fold.

p437 "Chapter 5 of IPCC AR4 (Humans Responsible for Climate Change) .. is based on the opinions of just five independent scientists". Wrong chapter number, chapter title, and it has over 50 authors.

p442 claims Lysenko parallels the global warming movement

p443 repeats Monckton's claims about An Inconvenient Truth without mentioning that most were rejected by the court

p444 claims IPCC reports are written by just 35 scientists who are controlled by an even smaller number

p452 cites Oregon petition

p452 cites Peiser's false claims about Oreskes

p467 claims that the 38 scientists who asked Durkin to correct the errors in GGWS did so because that deemed it to present an "incorrect moral outlook". One of the error that they wanted Durkin to correct was the bogus graph that Plimer puts on page 25.

p474 claims hockey stick is dishonest

p477 quotes Khilyuk & Chilingar whose thesis is that humans aren't responsible because our CO2 emissions, measured over the history of the planet, are less than that of volcanoes. Also cited on p479 and p492.

p484 claims IPCC AR4 WG1 SPM "showed cooling for 100 of the last 160 years"

p485 claims Montreal Protocol used precautionary principle to ban CFCs but we didn't ban chlorination even though chlorine destroys ozone!!! [Not in the stratosphere it doesn't]

p486 misrepresents Revelle

p486 cites false WorldNetDaily claim that Gore buys offsets from himself

p487 cites Melanie Philips as an authority on the hockey stick, asserting it is the "most discredited study in the history of science"

p472 claims Pinatubo emitted as much CO2 as humans in a year. No cite! And obviously wrong if you glance at Mauna Loa data.

p472 termite methane emissions are 20 times potent than human CO2 emissions. No cite!

p492 false claim that DDT ban killed 40 million
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.  ― Michel de Montaigne

Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes.

Offline Quiggs

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #9 on: June 24, 2011, 12:18:04 am »
 OUCH !  :D
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Offline Ian

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #10 on: June 24, 2011, 08:48:20 am »
Climate change is happening; that's pretty well established. What's not so well established is exactly what's causing it, but people like Plimer do sensible debate and consideration no favours. 

There are several natural issues occurring which do affect CO2, and they're not limited to volcanic emissions.  Methane from cows and other mammals is a significant factor, but we do know that warming is probably the biggest threat we face. The real fear is that the warming effect becomes 'runaway';  a situation which coul lead to the release of compacted Methane deposits which - for now - are safely ensconced at the bottom of deep oceans. However, it is happening now, to a small degree. It also seems sensible, quite apart from any fear of CO2 increases, if we invest in as much renewable energy production as possible, since our demand for electricity seems insatiable (it is) and inexorably growing. And we do know our atmosphere is a fragile thing, and human activity - especially with the emergence of China and India's huge industrialisation processes - is certainly a factor in the increase of CO2.

But some climate sceptics blame the sun, our solar orbital patterns and a lot more.  What is true, however, is that the current sun spot cycle hasn't started - and it's five years late.  If the sun is entering a less active phase - which it might be - then we will get less radiation from it and this might alleviate the gradual warming process.

Another complicating (some might say fascinating) factor is our solar orbit. We all know winter occurs at our perihelion (closest point to the sun) in the Northern hemisphere, when our axial tilt effectively decreases solar radiation by about 7%, but the Earth's orbit is also subject to other changes, and a chap called Milanković mathematically theorized that variations in eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession of the Earth's orbit determined climatic patterns on Earth through orbital forcing. One thing he worked out is that the Earth endures several quasi-periodic variations over long period of time, which may well contribute to the changing climate.

It's worth looking at, and the full details are here. However, we do know CO2 is a major contributor to climate change, as is Methane, and other worrying factors are starting to emerge, which have nothing to do with human activity.  Probably the most worrying is the emergence of massive magnetic anomalies in the Souther hemisphere, where it appears that our magnetic poles are preparing to swap.  Prior to swapping, however, they reduce the effect of the magnetosphere, which has the effect of increasing the amount of seriously dangerous high-energy particles reaching the earth - and us. Together with a gradual shift in thinking towards the Catastrophism schools of thought, it might be that the film 2012 wasn't that wide of the mark...
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.  ― Michel de Montaigne

Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes.

Offline DaveR

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #11 on: June 24, 2011, 09:38:48 am »
Given that we've known for many years that we need to eradicate our dependence on fossil fuels, I'm still amazed that all new houses and commercial buildings are not required to have solar panels and other forms of green energy generation fitted as standard.

Offline Ian

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #12 on: June 24, 2011, 11:34:04 am »
That surprises me, too. If it were to be mandatory for all new building, then the price of solar panels would plummet, and a lot of existing buildings might acquire them.
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.  ― Michel de Montaigne

Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes.

Offline SteveH

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #13 on: December 02, 2018, 11:16:56 am »
This thread has not been used for awhile,.......... Time for an update, try this BBC article with some of the latest information.

Climate change: Where we are in seven charts and what you can do to help

Representatives from nearly 200 countries are gathering in Poland for talks on climate change - aimed at breathing new life into the Paris Agreement.

The UN has warned the 2015 Paris accord's goal of limiting global warming to "well below 2C above pre-industrial levels" is in danger because major economies, including the US and the EU, are falling short of their pledges.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46384067

Offline Ian

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #14 on: June 27, 2019, 10:14:27 am »
The ecological footprint of humanity is enormous and beyond Earth’s carrying capacity. Recent human activities have resulted in the loss of half the world’s forests, wetlands, grasslands, and mangroves; loss of 12 million acres of forest each year; annual use of 50% more resources than Earth can sustain; appropriation of ¼ of the planet’s total daily photosynthetic output and ½ the available freshwater; thousands of species extinctions; loss of half of the number of all vertebrates and invertebrates; runaway climate change, with rising seas, acidic oceans, spreading desertification, and melting ice caps; water and air pollution in every corner of the world; and most of the land surface of the Earth converted to human purposes.

In addition, the socioeconomic condition of civilization is in decline, with world population expected to reach 11 billion by the end of the century; severe and growing economic inequality; 800 million people living in extreme poverty and hunger; millions of refugees displaced by environmental disaster; 16,000 children under the age of five dying each day due to preventable causes; a billion people without basic sanitation and clean drinking water; more people enslaved than at any time in human history; many failed and fragile states; thousands of nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert; rising mental illness and extremism; and growing global insecurity.

The current trajectory of global decline points toward a catastrophic immediate future for civilization and the biosphere in the Anthropocene. If current environmental trends continue, the planet will be virtually unlivable for humans and perhaps ½ of all other species by 2050, certainly by 2100 – in fact, for many people and species, in many places, it already is.

This then, is the Anthropocene.  It is inevitable that the current Anthropocene era will evolve into an ecologically sustainable era – which can be called the “Ecocene.”  The current trajectory of environmental and social decline cannot continue much longer.  Indeed, the Anthropocene will be gone in the blink of geologic time. The real question is: what will be left of the biosphere at the dawn of the Ecocene, e.g. what species, including H. sapiens, will survive the Anthropocene evolutionary bottleneck?

Full text Here
« Last Edit: June 27, 2019, 01:02:20 pm by Ian »
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.  ― Michel de Montaigne

Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes.