Albedo

I’m chilled as a chilled thing Tony. Just been trying to get Mr P to make some of his posts a bit more independant of mine rather than quoting me all the time. As I explained earlier, I found it was leading my contributions to the thread rather than me leading my own contributions. That’s all. Turning into a full time job it was … Yours chillingly chilled, Paul.

Pumpy will take bits of this and attack. But this is an honest appraisal of the climate change thing for you Will. I appeal to Pumpy to calm down and allow others to get up to speed. This is not all about your view Pumpy. “To stay at a constant temperature, the Earth must radiate as much energy as it receives from the Sun. We receive this energy mostly as visible light, which warms the surface. The Earth re-radiates most of this energy back into space at night. A planet at our distance from the Sun, emitting the same total amount of energy as it receives, will have a temperature well below freezing. Then why is the actual average surface temperature higher, about 14°C? Infrared radiation re-radiating up from the surface is intercepted by "greenhouse" gas molecules in the lower atmosphere, and that keeps the lower atmosphere and the surface warm”. Fossil fuels (coal and oil) were in the ground…. We put them into the atmosphere in the form of…. You guessed it C02 amongst other things. The debate is about whether anthropogenic (man made) contributions to this melting pot (the atmosphere) can change our climate. Its that simple… that’s it in a nutshell….Not so hard aye. This debate has been raging for decades. You may have heard of the Kyoto Protocol (early 1990s). This was an attempt by governments of the world to agree on what to do about it. They agreed on some token targets for reductions of emissions but failed to act. America, Australia and others didn’t even agree to this. The doom scenarios referred to earlier in this thread are referring to the possibility that we have reached the stage where a certain amount of, climate change is inevitable. Bad for some places and less bad for others, but by no means the end of the world. As these predicted effects start to happen which is happening now (hard to prove cause and effect here), we are going to have to do something to stop further escalation of these events. What we do now will have no effect for decades so it’s a question of how bad do we want it to be… this is what the campaign group 350.org is about. .

This is me in 1979 somewhere on the west coast and hitching up to the Redwoods near San Francisco. No pics of the trees survive it seems but I still remember it. Not just the sheer size of them, but the smells and sounds of the place.

Pumpy you've missed my last point completely. Its there in black and white. And off you go again. Edit: Is that an old Entec? Mr LW woodlands .... good pic it makes a point.

I wanted my contribution to this thread to be about helping people to be informed about the issue so that they can make their own decisions. I know/knew quite a bit about it and a lot of people are confused so I thought I could help. That’s why I’ve been going on and on about bite sized chunks and minimizing links to lengthy articles. At first I thought you were helping Pumpy by pointing out some of the issues so that people could learn and make their own decisions. But it turned into a debate between the two of us that I felt was of no use to anyone in terms of my initial reason for contributing. I would like to take a step back and see if I can be of use in the way that I originally intended. I don’t give a damn which choice people make but I do care that folks generally make that choice from as informed a place as possible. I think you have a lot to offer in this respect because of your understanding of the issue although you are deeply entrenched on your side of things. I am being in some ways a ‘Devils advocate’ here, I’ve said at least once that although not a sceptic I am not convinced 100% either. That's not a bad thing as science kinda works this way...open to debate not dogma. I have said that I am somebody who is interested enough to get informed. It’s a massive and complex issue but there is nothing to stop anybody trying to get informed. That’s why I keep saying I’m happy to give pointers. I can arbitrate some of the BS that gets posted, because I have a pretty good picture of the arguments in my head. This could help the majority of interested people. I also think that we’re putting people off as they don’t want to come in to the debate at this level. There is a lot of misinformation out there funded by oil companies and such like. A good place for a thread like this to be would be some kind of honest appraisal of the arguments that are out there. So, Has anybody got any questions?

:001_smile:I was going to start a thread on this but thought it was too dangerous to do in the open on the internet. I guess I got a bit over excited that you said word for word what I have been thinking quite a bit of late. It boils down to not having enough work to pay for everything that has to be paid for. It came up the other day with regard to undercutting. In my view it doesn't follow that undercutting is taking place. Just a matter of affording and prioritising things. I was expecting flack and jumped the gun a bit there.

I will back you up 100% on this.

My post has hidden meaning for the OP. take it or leave it. Your post is however well written and quite correct swordsta

I learned to climb on the job without tickets. Do it with someone that knows what they are doing and you're fine... not on your own. I'm really tired of hearing from these paperwork waving individuals... we don't work in an office. Just don't die because the insurance won't pay out.

I learned to climb with MrED, worked with him a lot over the years. He was born to it as his dad was a tree surgeon. He also has no fear gene and can be a bit nuts sometimes. I was doing a big macro years ago with him on the ground and he thought it was really funny to burn all the brash under the tree, smoked me out good and proper. I did a chog that was so big I got the saw stuck and didn't have the strength to push it over, he had to come up and sort it out for me:001_smile:

I mentioned 'forcing' and 'feedbacks' earlier... heres a quick explanation for anyone who's still awake. I don't like adding links but for anyone who wants to read further its from here Climate Feedbacks: Part 1 | Climate Change "A forcing is a change in some variable that alters the planetary energy budget (e.g., sunlight, CO2, volcanic eruptions) by modifying the incoming sunlight, the ratio of absorbed to reflected sunlight, or by changing the rate of outgoing longwave radiation to space; however, forcings themselves can be considered to be independent of the current climate (e.g., the sun doesn’t really care what is happening on Earth, and aside from possible subtle effects of an ice sheets weight on the land surface or something like that, volcanic eruptions don’t really care what the current climate is like either). Radiative forcings will be expressed as a surface temperature change only if they are large enough or persistent enough to overcome the large heat capacity of the ocean. Feedbacks, on the other hand, change only in response to an underlying climate trend and then further modify the radiative budget. This can amplify the initial forcing (positive feedback) or dampen it (negative feedback). The distinction also depends on the timescale; greenhouse gases for instance are generally feedbacks over millennia since the carbon cycle can easily be perturbed, by say, orbital changes while fossil fuel combustion is clearly a much faster process and is external to the climate system." Note to B101UK who is making thoughtful posts. When I said the loss of the gulf stream would put us on the same latitude as Canada. I didn't make myself clear. We are already on the same latitude but the gulf stream keeps us warmer than them.

Bugger I read your post twice and saw an aggressive tone then read it again and didn't see that tone at all. May have got you wrong here and here's me trying to keep the peace. Anyway the other readers have our arguments now so I'm gonna take a break. And yes I am being lazy. Sorry if I read You wrong mate Best Regards Paul

Ocean cycles: Predicted to lose the gulf stream in the UK = cooling Hence the name change for the media to climate change from global warming...puts us on the same latitude as Canada doesn't it? Lose the angry tone dude.. Your previous posts are not clear as to where you stand. Do you want the best of both worlds?

With regard to the ozone hole bit... I had to remember all the formulas for my Science degree... its as irrefutable as science gets. I used to walk around Brighton memorising all 4 pages of formulae... it did come up and I did remember it. Thanks for your usual considered response... just doing this bit for now reading the rest while I have my spag bol. A point thats been in the back of my mind is that we're coming at this from two different disciplines.....moi as an environmental scientist (by BSc) and you as a climatologist (clear that you are qualified BSc or not).

Is this flaming? consider yourself jumped on...Jees!

No ones getting flamed in this thread Marco, not everybody is gonna read it all and all its .....g links. You raise a good point. Personally I believe thats what BP Solar is for.... as in technology suppression, or at least making it expensive. There is a quote I've been wanting to put in at some point.... "The stone age didn't end for lack of stones" Edit: I don't know what flamed is, but if its bad I'll see it and I'll jump on them

Here's just one of those good points and quite a significant one at that.... Both myself and Pumpy could do worse than to read this one twice

I'm pleased that there is at least one person out there who is finding this thing useful. I think you made a couple of good points yourself, I'd like to say so every time someone makes a good point for or against but it ain't my thread and I'm in here too much already:thumbup1:

OK Pumpy so lets approach this from a different angle. You’ve put forward your 800 yr lag thing on temp rise and some science that says that C02 is not a significant enough factor to cause the predicted change. Also some stuff on the old ice ages natural cycles chestnut. All of which have arguments for and against which can’t be agreed. You do accept however that the atmosphere contains what it contains and that it is chugging along in the ways that you describe. I referred earlier to C02x as you may know this is shorthand for all greenhouse gasses including methane and water vapour. Anthropogenic methane emissions are just as important if not more so than C02 as methane is a far more important player in the atmosphere. Anyone seriously debating climate change theory will use C02x as a basis for all arguments as the other gases need to be included. What I’m getting at is that I’m spotting common ground here. The earths temperature would be a lot lower without these gases in the atmosphere, nobody disputes that. Neither do they dispute the mechanism by which these gases warm our atmosphere. The science of the ozone hole which is of award winning brilliance and provable by empirical data gained using stratospheric jets proves to the uninitiated that gases affect our atmosphere and climate. Your argument as a sceptic has to be that man made emissions can’t affect climate. Mine has to be that they can. Nobodys mentioned Milancovitch cycles, or sunspots this time around but these things are all covered in previous debates and are included in both theories for and against. Basically they don’t have the clout to cause ice ages or anything else, you need other feedback loops and forcings acting together. C02 is one of these other forcings that’s all, C02x makes it a bigger forcing. I would also point out that if the sceptics are right then there is no problem. Just keep on emmiting what you like. If Climate Change Theory is right, then we have a really big problem because whats done can’t be undone. That’s it.. that’s my latest argument, hope you’re not disappointed. I’m doing all this from memory by the way…. no links:001_smile:

I haven't given up yet mate, just acknowledging the quality of the opposition. I must go bang out a quick nine holes of golf just now. 'pon my return I may have a slightly new angle of attack. Its in my head at the mo'...hope it doesn't distract me from the golf:001_smile:

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.

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:

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.

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:

I use a ladder because I am getting old and I have smoked too many rollups and drunk too much beer. The very thought of hauling my but up a tree when I can walk.. makes me gasp for breath.... sets me arthritis off too:001_smile: