[AstralTraveller (David)]

Originally Posted by Archy

There is some strange thinking here: "Climate change" is a cliche for "human induced global warming" so to say "whever you think climate change is man caused or not" is not logical.

"the cost of doing nothing about it will make the current little economic cuffuffle look like a picnic .... so it is something that must have a very high priority" What is the evidence that doing nothing will have serious economic impacts. Carbon and carbon dioxide are not pollutants: It may surprise some to learn that plants use carbon dioxide to live. So more carbon dioxide leads to more flora, more flora to more fauna etc...... so that life is more sustainable, not less. The relationship between carbon dioxide and atmospheric warming is not linear, but logarithmic. Global temperatures and sea levels have not risen by anywhere near the amount predicted by past models.. The conclusion is that those models are wrong.

Incidently: look at the temperature of Puenta Arenas, the city nearest the South pole. Its temperature is going down, not up.

As we all have an interest in astronomy, I assume that we all are to a lesser or greater extent interested in what is happening beyond earth's atmosphere. The solar wind, I read the other day, has slowed down and, apparently, this causes more insolation. I don't know the extent of the increased insolation, but it must have some contribution to rises in global temperatures.

The debate about the extent of global warming, whether it has gone beyond what has been observed in the geological record, and to what extent it is man made, and what its economic consequences might be, is not over, no matter what the politicians of green, pink, or watermelon varieties say.

I am suspicious that many who espouse global warming are academics looking to stay in employment: I cannot regard them as disinterested observers, but as people who consume my tax dollar to promote a cause that will cause me financial loss if their advocacy prevails.

Archy

Archy,

I'll defend Ian terminology - it is accurate and benefits from not being a cliche.

Of course photosynthesis is not a surprise to me. There are currently long term experiments in progress to estimate the effect of such CO2 fertilization. Sorry, but I don't know any results. I do know there is a good argument that some of the denudation of the landscape during the last glacial maximum was due to CO2 starvation, though decreased rainfall was the major factor. On the other hand many marine organisms are sensitive to increases in CO2. I believe the reasons are: for creatures with shells the deposition of the aragonite (CaCO3) is inhibited by the decreased pH; for fish etc it inhibits the removal of CO2 from their bloodstream.

The amount of energy trapped by CO2 certainly doesn't increase linearly with CO2 concentration and I can believe it's a log function. However the climatic response to CO2 increase in certainly more complex. That is why I have real problems with people who tell me they know what will happen. They don't. What we do know is that CO2 concentrations are increasing and that this will trap more outbound IR radiation. Other factors may swamp this for a time but it is hard to believe it can have no effect in the long term. The geological record it quite clear that CO2 increase does warm the climate.

At the moment we are at sunspot minimum and so the insolation is at a minimum. Some people are trying to claim that that is the reason why temperatures are rising slower than predicted. I don't accept that. As I recall, there is no statistical correlation in the instrumental record between temperature and the 11 year sunspot cycle. [I should be more certain of this than I am, given that I knew the person who did the study and went to his supervisor's retirement party this afternoon. If I get a chance I'll look it up next week.] Ofcourse, if solar output decreased for an extended period, such as during the Maunder Minimum, then we would expect temperatures to fall much as they did during the Little Ice Age.

Doing something about potential human-induced climate change may be a waste of money. The trouble is, if the predictions are correct doing nothing will cost a whole lot more. Personnally I think that moving to more efficient technologies will be worth the effort no matter what happens. On the other hand I recognise the damage that can be done to scientific credibility by crying 'wolf'.

This leads me to you last paragraph, which is an unfortunate case of playing the man and not the ball. I'll take it as read that I know more scientists, and specifically earth scientists involved in palaeo studies and climate studies than you. To suggest that even a small number of them would falsify results for any reason is to misunderstand their psychie completely. What I do see happening is, becasuse of the funding climate, people trying to show that their research proposal (for research that they would do in any case) is relevant to the understanding of climate change or its effects. Sometimes they draw such a long bow that it cracks me up. I haven't yet seen the study of Neolithic stone tools termed relevant to understanding the effects of climate change but they're getting there .....

Oh dear is that the time...

Good night,
David