Climate change- discuss

[will.morris]

Its seems to be that way haha and it is true that by having an opinion it means you'll never agree with everyone, but that doesn't mean theres a personal dislike between the parties.

 

Glad to hear it thanks bud

[teepeeat]

Good comments Will

An unfortunate human trait is that we make a decision about any particular issue based on 'facts' or whatever and then defend that point of view regardless of any new information.

We need to remember that science has only learned so much and there is a lot more to learn before we know how everything works, so we need to be adaptable in our views.

Human history is littered with the fall out of arrogant humans making decisions based on scanty information.

Human learning is like trying to get to the top of a mountain and just when we think we are getting to the peak we realise it is just another ridge with a good few more to the top. As we tackle each ridge it consumes us, it is all we can see and we lose sight of the bigger picture.

As things get more and more complicated we tend to get more easily lost in the limited detail and lose sight of the bigger picture and grasp at any handy 'facts' to steady ourselves.

I don't think our conscious minds are able or even designed to cope with it all. There is a lot more going on between our lug holes than many would like to admit (not enough facts about it probably ) and we need to harness intuition or what ever it is to guide us rather than a very limited set of facts.

 

As I said a few days ago, we are along for the ride and nature will decide what is going to happen to us while we are still arguing about it all.

[Pumpy]

Evening pumpy

 

I think that your first link just proves that the guy couldn't model the atmosphere in an actual 'greenhouse'.

 

The second link is quite good and interesting. The first bit being about furnaces and thermodynamics. The rest being an extrapolation to the actual atmosphere. So mostly as you say not empirical.

 

You do have a point though. Its all based on models as it involves predicting the effect in the atmosphere in the future. However there are all the empirical measurements from Mauna Loa in Hawaii for example, ice cores etc.

 

Mornin Albedo. Measurements from Mauna Loa have no historical context, all the reconstructions from proxies show Co2 rise lags temp rise by hundreds of years, this shows something else causes warming, and Co2 reacts to it as the oceans gas it off when they warm up, the IPCC have cause and effect the wrong way round.

 

Until recently climate change theory wasn't a big worry as the predicted climate change was deemed to be way into the future i.e. thousands of years

Depends what you call recent, the Romans were concerned about climate change and sustainability in 250AD, Thomas Jefferson raised climate fears in the 1700's, In the Australia of 1791 they were concerned about "the burning state of the atmosphere".

 

“The temperature of the winter season, in northern latitudes, has suffered a material change, and become warmer in modern, than it was in ancient times. … Indeed I know not whether any person, in this age, has ever questioned the fact.” —Noah Webster, 1758-1843 (founder- Webster’s dictionary). There are press reports from the 1930's warning of imminent global warming, during the 1970's the scare de jour was an imminent ice age.

 

Did we not start to get hot and bothered about it because the predicted effects started to actually occur much sooner than expected.

None of the current scaremongers predicted a 12 year temp plateau, the press clipping from 1979 I posted earlier did, that research points to a cyclical phenomena, which appears to be the reality. My reading about ocean cycles suggests we are entering a cooling period for at least the next 25 yrs, given the quiet Sun it could be longer.

 

Is there not a permafrost ice tundra in Russia somewhere that has reached its tipping point and is melting releasing methane, an even more potent greenhouse gas.

Since global warming/cooling climate cycles have happened throughout the history of the planet, the margins of Tundra must have expanded and contracted many times before, "tipping points" are unsubstantiated hype IMO, it didn't happen during the Roman warm period when it was much warmer, and it didn't happen in the 1930's when temps were comparable to now.

 

Also is it not accepted that it is these gases in our atmosphere at their current balance that keep the climate liveable in the first place.

No. "current balance" and "liveable climate" ? It's been a "liveable climate" for 250 million yrs or more, during which time it has been much warmer and much colder, Co2 has been much higher and much lower during that time, I think the atmosphere has been in flux the whole time, "current balance" must be put into the historical context of the 250 million+ yrs it's been "liveable".

 

If the sceptics alternative theory that its all natural cycles, is true then we are due another ice age... Do you have any empirical data as to where our ice age has gone?

Is it due, or overdue, or just round the corner? Who knows. If we are going to "mitigate" climate change, should we not mitigate for a cold climate too?

 

 

And Look... No links

 

me too

 

Don't get me wrong, I think we can change local climate, old farming practices (pre 1950 "green revolution") tell us to plant woodland to increase local rainfall, it's been shown that reforestation increases local rainfall within 20 yrs, it stands to reason that if we add up lots of local changes it will get global at some point.

 

Chopping down the worlds forests will change climate/weather patterns on a much bigger scale (the Sahara was forested and inhabited thousands of yrs ago). If we concrete over millions of acres to build cities it's logical things will warm up. I think the Co2 hype is a political cover for Peak Oil and energy decent. 15 yrs ago I used to think PO was an imminent threat, I did a lot of research, it was the impetus that got me going all "self sufficient" I've mellowed out a bit since then, PO collapse will take over 30yrs IMO, I think it already started, I don't think I'll live to see the end of the oil era now though.

 

Pumpy

Edited June 14, 2012 by Pumpy
formatting errors

[HCR]

Wow. Highly informative thread, and I feel like I've learnt a lot.

[Albedo]

Don't get me wrong, I think we can change local climate, old farming practices (pre 1950 "green revolution") tell us to plant woodland to increase local rainfall, it's been shown that reforestation increases local rainfall within 20 yrs, it stands to reason that if we add up lots of local changes it will get global at some point.

 

Chopping down the worlds forests will change climate/weather patterns on a much bigger scale (the Sahara was forested and inhabited thousands of yrs ago). If we concrete over millions of acres to build cities it's logical things will warm up. I think the Co2 hype is a political cover for Peak Oil and energy decent. 15 yrs ago I used to think PO was an imminent threat, I did a lot of research, it was the impetus that got me going all "self sufficient" I've mellowed out a bit since then, PO collapse will take over 30yrs IMO, I think it already started, I don't think I'll live to see the end of the oil era now though.

 

Pumpy

 

I think I have spotted a chink in your armour....

 

Deforestation/desertification will increase Temps during the day partly through an increase in Albedo. In order to maintain said increase how are you gonna stop that heat reradiating back into space at night.

 

You are gonna need something in the atmosphere to reflect some of that heat back to the earths surface to maintain the temperature rise.

 

Now what could that something be.... I think we may disagree here but we may get to the nitty gritty a bit quicker:001_smile:

[Pumpy]

Clouds, increased by said trees which could also reduce temps during the day, the finer details of cloud albedo are lost in the 5% error bands of the IPCC though, so we'll never get enough detail to be sure.

[Albedo]

Quick definition here.

 

Albedo is the ability of the earths surface to reflect or absorb solar radiation or heat from the sun. It’s a major positive feedback loop (define this one later) in climate change theory.

 

Ice is high albedo as it reflects well and darker stuff is low albedo as it absorbs well.

 

Melting ice caps decrease Albedo as the ability to reflect solar radiation back into space decreases with loss of ice.

 

You could argue that bare earth is darker than forest so you get a decrease... i.e. more absorption of solar radiation and temp rise.

 

I'm not sure if I got it the right way round in my above post as it needs to be a darker body, therefore a decrease to get a rise in temp through albedo.

 

So I think it should read 'decrease' in the above post for albedo to be a factor in temp rise. I typed a bit quick but the essential point stands mate.

[Albedo]

Clouds, increased by said trees which could also reduce temps during the day, the finer details of cloud albedo are lost in the 5% error bands of the IPCC though, so we'll never get enough detail to be sure.

 

I thought you might say clouds. These wee beasties mess up a lot of the modelling that goes on, for perhaps the reason you say... you're ahead of me with 5% error bands.

 

When I lived in Spain where its hot a lot of the time we used to pray for clouds and never saw any, so how can they be the answer?

 

Note...I've finally remembered to use a question mark:001_smile:

[Pumpy]

Albedo, are you saying it stays hot in the Sahara at night? If so you may be mistaken

 

Models models... "Climate models outperformed by random walks"

 

The climate models, by contrast, got scores ranging from 2.4 to 3.7, indicating a total failure to provide valid forecast information at the regional level, even on long time scales. The authors commented: “This implies that the current [climate] models are ill-suited to localized decadal predictions, even though they are used as inputs for policymaking.”……

 

what about a simple thermostat hypothesis, increased input to the system (most at the equator) creates more cloud, which decreases input into the system = less cloud = more input = more cloud ad infinitum, lags in this simple model occur as heat is trapped by the oceans, which return said heat after a lag time, making it difficult to correlate to the simple thermostat measurements somewhat, when the heat in the ocean is returned to the system equilibrium temp ranges increase for a time (and Co2 gasses off) until the heat is returned, whence equilibrium temp range decreases again.

 

If you look at the prevalence of El Nino (warm ocean cycle) and La Nina (cold cycle) over time, more El Ninos = warmer global average, more La Ninas = cooler global average, supporting the simple thermostat hypothesis somewhat. Further research along these lines

 

Pumpy

[Albedo]

I must admit that it is a bit worrying for those of us who expound the virtues of climate change theory that there are now two people here.. yourself 'Pumpy' and a guy called 'Peckerwoo' on this site.

 

Both are weather men or climate people by 'trade' or by donkeys years of self study. Both are climate change sceptics and both understand the arguments.

 

This alone warrants serious consideration.

 

edit: posted at same time, this is not my repost to the above question... I have to nip out now for a bit.