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.
link please...
Some places will cool regionally while the average temp for the planet is increasing.
Quote:
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
no one who has followed the scientific effort to understand what has been is saying solar output fluctuations (ie sunspots) is not effecting the climate cyclically , how ever there are more powerful artifically created climatic forcers (I refer you the IPCC report if you want to know more).
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
i think Archy has pushed the correct button here.........i wonder why it so that we never hear from the Russians on these issues and why we have a poker face response from the Chinese, ....... their politics seem to be closely alinged with the views of those members expressed in these threads with the exception of Archy and me ofcourse.....but as an old sceptic. i never give a commie an even break cause he wont either !
Some places will cool regionally while the average temp for the planet is increasing.
no one who has followed the scientific effort to understand what has been is saying solar output fluctuations (ie sunspots) is not effecting the climate cyclically , how ever there are more powerful artifically created climatic forcers (I refer you the IPCC report if you want to know more).
Some places will cool regionally while the average temp for the planet is increasing.
no one who has followed the scientific effort to understand what has been is saying solar output fluctuations (ie sunspots) is not effecting the climate cyclically , how ever there are more powerful artifically created climatic forcers (I refer you the IPCC report if you want to know more).
The question is how much is natural and how much is man-made.
Until that question is settled, in my opinion, it is economically unsound to force carbon dioxide reductions
i think Archy has pushed the correct button here.........i wonder why it so that we never hear from the Russians on these issues and why we have a poker face response from the Chinese, ....... their politics seem to be closely alinged with the views of those members expressed in these threads with the exception of Archy and me ofcourse.....but as an old sceptic. i never give a commie an even break cause he wont either !
Maybe I'm tired and not thinking straight, but I can't follow your argument...
You're saying that you're anti-communist, but the communists support your views on global warming?
Maybe I've misunderstood?
PS I'm not here to push either barrow - just been following the thread with interest
The question is how much is natural and how much is man-made.
Until that question is settled, in my opinion, it is economically unsound to force carbon dioxide reductions
My .... my .... take a look at the IPCC report , the figures indicate > 95% of the climatic forcing is due to mankind's activities.
This has been settled rigorously using actual science and actual climate data.
No longer a question of if , it's , scientifically , a done deal (an overwhelming scientific concensus .
This was reported widely (everwhere).
You can of cause keep your head firmly buried in the sand if it is not something you want to hear . That will not make it go away.
Pta Arenas data shows climate swings. Bad Archy .... cherry pitching data .
You need more than one place's variation to show a global trend.
Your personal opinion of the IPCC report is noted and really does nothing to deminish or repudiate it.
I didn't say anything about a global trend: The trend is down: download the data and do a trend analysis. Remember in science you only need one example to disprove a hypothesis.
My .... my .... take a look at the IPCC report , the figures indicate > 95% of the climatic forcing is due to mankind's activities.
This has been settled rigorously using actual science and actual climate data.
No longer a question of if , it's , scientifically , a done deal (an overwhelming scientific concensus .
This was reported widely (everwhere).
You can of cause keep your head firmly buried in the sand if it is not something you want to hear . That will not make it go away.
Science is not about concensus: its about provable/disprovable facts.
There was a time when it was a done deal that the sun went round the earth and there was consensus and the Church backed it, but Foucault's experiment disproved the view.
I didn't say anything about a global trend: The trend is down: download the data and do a trend analysis. Remember in science you only need one example to disprove a hypothesis.
Ok , I've pulled the data and done some tending. Not that examining the temperature data for a single isolated station proves anything one way or an another. See my previous comments re local and regional counter trends while overall the trend globally is upward.
5 year and 10 year moving averages are the applicable trending instrument here.
See for yourself. The trend since the 70s is upward ... proves nothing in a global context.
Now if you have places all over the world who show a simultaneous cooling as you claim over the same period , you have a case , I will wait for you gather the data and show us your proof.
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 .....
Science is not about concensus: its about provable/disprovable facts.
There was a time when it was a done deal that the sun went round the earth and there was consensus and the Church backed it, but Foucault's experiment disproved the view.
Have you read the IPCC report in full ? (I have .... I suggest you take the time to visit the IPCC official site and download and read it, warning , it's not a light read and you require some scientific literacy to follow it).
I suspect are you just repeating what you read somewhere in a "climate change skeptic" blog .
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
I have two engineering degrees (BE ChE and BE CompE) both with H2, I would like to propose a Ph.D project "Correlation of Neolithic stone tools with the effects of climate change" , Can you get the paperwork started ?
I want to do lots of field work and simulations to prove my thesis that the development of stone tools correlated with climate change.
Have you read the IPCC report in full ? (I have .... I suggest you take the time to visit the IPCC official site and download and read it, warning , it's not a light read and you require some scientific literacy to follow it).
I suspect are you just repeating what you read somewhere in a "climate change skeptic" blog .
what happened to wall st? did you all recover your loses on tuesday,and are now back to spending up big again on the climate fashion thing?
what happened to wall st? did you all recover your loses on tuesday,and are now back to spending up big again on the climate fashion thing?
No personal losses here .... my investments and savings are in good shape. My roll-over is still growing (I opted for a concervative investment roll over account when I took my money).
Some of us , who actually understand the science involved and who have actually taken the time to inform ourselves (ie by reading the IPCC report and following the scientific literature wrt climate change) have formed the opinion that :
1) climate change is THE PRIME ISSUE for the 21st century and we no longer have the luxury available to us of taking the wait and see position (ie do nuffin , business as usual attitude) and it may even now be TOO LATE avoid huge issues that are consequence of climate change , this could be existential for us.
2) climate change is more important an issue that what is happening to Wall Str , so what if some fat cats go broke , and some banks and insurance companies go broke , it's happened before , mankind survived it.
3) Propping up failing financial companies is stupid , these companies should be allowed to go under .
4) climate change is more important than the so called War on Terror, money waited on this would be better spent on more productive persuits like (say) :
a) accelerating the H2 cycle for vehicles
b) clean coal and ultra clean coal technologies
c) distributed micro power generation systems with trigeneration
Oh and the big gum tree in my front yard that I planted as a sapling 27 years ago gets a hug regularly ....
Last edited by Ian Robinson; 03-10-2008 at 12:56 PM.
Ian I find your 2nd point interesting “so what if some fat cats go broke, and some banks and insurance companies go broke” and so on.
I am not one for propping up fat cats, banks or insurance companies, and I will say from the start that I think their own greed has brought them to this place that they are now in. Unfortunately it has also brought the rest of us along with them.
I don’t think anyone has a problem with a few companies failing, and going broke. But when many companies go broke all at once... that is a different issue.
Currently there is a shortage of cash in the market. Companies that used to run of large deficits (for what ever reason) are now finding they can no longer get the credit to fund those deficits. In the best case they will be very short on funds for a very long time. Having to cut non essential (profitable) research, and programs. In the worst cast they will go bankrupt, taking with them any companies they in turn lend to and so on. This will lead to major layoffs. In short taking further money out of the market, and in turn causing more companies to fail due to the lack of available cash.
The question is how long before this starts to occur, and how quickly will it go once it does occur? (leading to the question of how quickly can a government react once it does occur to prevent it, which we all know is very slowly)
Now if it does occur, with a high portion of US companies failing or severely restricting their spending. Does this really not affect us? Do you believe they won’t call on their overseas branches to prop them up, in turn restricting out local economy. How many of our companies are now owned by the US? They will in turn cut costs to raise funds for the US, which essentially comes to cutting jobs.
So when we are out of work, with a severe restriction on spending, both personal and companies, and a significant reduction of tax inflowing to the government. Who will have the funds to spend on Clean Coal research and the like? Who will be able to afford to fix the climate when we (as a country) are broke and struggling to feed ourselves? The next question is how long once this does occur, before it naturally sorts its self out? 5 years, 10 years, 20 years? Can the environment afford to be put on hold for that long while the world goes through an economic slump?
While I am not in favour of propping up the fat cats that created this problem, or the greedy banks, I am in favour of fixing it before it gets worse. Otherwise we won’t be able to fix other issues such as the environment.
With all that said, I don’t believe just handing over large sums of cash to the market is the correct solution, at least not without safeguards to stop the banks (and associated fat cats) just ripping into it and leaving us in the same position in 2 years time etc. I for one would put limits on executive payouts, say $10,000 per year of service max and so on...
Personally , the only form of bailout that I would see aa acceptable would be for the government to nationalise the failing business (banks , insurers) and for the assets of the managers and all those responsible to be confiscated ,and for them to prosecuted (full force of the law) and imprisoned , and banned for life from ever holding management positions.
It is stupid to take the risk off them , but let them keep on doing the samemo samemo without regulation.
A recipy for the same happening again , and again.
A moratorium on house repositions should also be imposed where victims look like loosing their homes.
Spotted this , Bush Jr , the USA's first communist president ?? >
Some of us , who actually understand the science involved and who have actually taken the time to inform ourselves (ie by reading the IPCC report and following the scientific literature wrt climate change)
There are many of us, who understand the science involved and who have taken the time to inform ourselves , by reading the IPCC report and have followed the scientific literature, in my case since 1964, who do not accept the IPCC's conclusions.
I'll defend Ian terminology - it is accurate and benefits from not being a cliche.......
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.] Of course, 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...
Nevertheless "Climate Change" is a cliche.
The question is not whether changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels lead to temperature changes, but to what extent.
The question is not whether increases in global temperatures are man made , but to what extent.
Until these questions are answered with data, not models with dubious feedback mechanisms, we are in no position to assess the economics, let alone to be able to say "doing nothing will cost a whole lot more"
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.
, Bush Jr , the USA's first communist president ?? >
