Pumpy

probably similar age to coal, carboniferous, 300 odd million yrs? however old they are, they won't do the old chainsaw any good

Here you go mate This meaningless green drivel, by environment guru: Scientist's U-turn on doomsday claim

With respect Albedo, no-one is attacking you mate, this is a discussion thread, we were asked to discuss, that's all I'm doing. I asked about the Ozone hole because you stated.... "Irrefutable" and "science" rarely belong in the same sentence, otherwise it has the potential to become dogma. Since you didn't answer my questions on ozone I did some reading. A quote from James Lovelock after Climategate bears repeating: "Years with large ozone holes are now more associated with very cold winters over Antarctica and high polar winds that prevent the mixing of ozone-rich air outside of the polar circulation with the ozone-depleted air inside, the scientists say. There is a lot of year to year variability, in 2007, the ozone hole shrunk 30% from the record setting 2006 winter......Van der A said natural variations in temperature and atmospheric changes are responsible for the decrease in ozone loss, and is not indicative of a long-term healing....As winter arrives, a vortex of winds develops around the pole and isolates the polar stratosphere. When temperatures drop below -78C (-109F), thin clouds form of ice, nitric acid, and sulphuric acid mixtures. Chemical reactions on the surfaces of ice crystals in the clouds release active forms of CFCs. Ozone depletion begins, and the ozone “hole” appears." from here So, it appears the ozone hole is a NATURAL phenomena. Further it seems the science was politicised for profit by Dupont as it was about to lose it's monopoly it's patented refrigerant gas. Hows that for irrefutable science? The similarities with global warming science should speak for themselves IMO. Nullius in verba. Pumpy.

Yeah, a lot of the alarmist rubbish is funded by big oil. e.g WWF, originally started by Royal Dutch Shell, it's worth looking at the WWF’s Vast Pool of Oil Money for some perspective on "green funding". More on the WWF here Did you miss a page mate?

Yes it does. Can you tell from the OP weather they're opposite or not?

Could be Viburnum acerifolium

correction, that was meant to be "can I" that's my dyslex6ia showing

if looks like an angry tone I'll have to use more smilies, I have a Bsc in smilies did it look like an angry tone because I forgot to sign off (my tea was ready). I can pick your expert opinion (not being sarky, I have no idea) How long has the ozone hole been a hole? Is there any evidence there was never a hole? What size is it now, compared to when they raised the alarm after they just found it, considering we've been using Duponts "ozone friendly" patented gas for decades, did it get substantially smaller? I want to start with historical context, what context do we have about before it was discovered? Pumpy:001_cool:

I think it's the amount/potential that's hotly disputed. Believe it or not, very little research has ever been funded to search for natural mechanisms of warming…it has simply been assumed that global warming is manmade. This assumption is rather easy for scientists since we do not have enough accurate global data for a long enough period of time to see whether there are natural warming mechanisms at work. Have you ever looked into the PDO and other ocean cycles? It strikes me as very coincidental that the PDO switched to positive in 1977, just then it started warming up, it switch back to negative 3 or 4 yrs ago, just as it all started to cool down again! I sat in a lecture yrs ago where the speaker told the story about Dupont making a killing on "ozone friendly" refrigerant gas, just before their patent on the old gas ran out the "ozone hole" was discovered, lucky for them eh It's not something I've studied though. Read my prior posts, that is not my position at all, it's much more subtle than that. It ain't a theory yet, after 30+yrs and untold billions spent on "science" it's still only a hypothesis The hypothesis keeps changing though eh, every time a solid sceptical argument is made on one part of the hypothesis we get an ad hoc tweak, it started off as "global warming" when it stopped warming it morphed into "climate change" it was even "climate disruption for a while. I posit the climate will cool off for the next 25 yrs because of the PDO, it may get a lot cooler when other ocean cycles switch negative too, no doubt some other ad hoc argument will come along to keep breathing life into the rotting corpse of global warming science. The best lies have some truth to them, that's why it's so hard to knock down, Climate Sensitivity is very low IMO, but there is some truth there, nowhere near as high as the IPCC make out, no way. I already linked that article showing fiddled temperature reconstructions, if that's what they have to do to keep the hypothesis alive, it's already dead IMO.

You gotta remember no-one is going to be able to prove or disprove CAGW in a few blog posts, it's futile really. On the other hand it is up to the proponents of the CAGW theory, (edit: sorry I mean hypothesis, it ain't a proven theory) to prove it beyond reasonable doubt before we do anything about it. The IPCC wrote an irking great big book in their attempt to prove it, if an hairy arsed ex matlot like me can punch so many holes in it that it starts to look like Swiss cheese, should we really be using it to justify taxing the global population, or to justify world government? (see UN agenda 21 if you doubt that world government thing) I think not!

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" 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

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.

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. 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. 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. 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. 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". 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? 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

OK mate, I can follow that lot, here's the rub though... it's all modelling, i.e. theoretical, non of it is empirical. Empirical data are data produced by an observation or experiment. Here's an empirical example... "greenhouse theory disproved a century ago" Here the theory is expanded, partly empirical "Limits on the Co2 Greenhouse Effect" (warning the maths makes my head hurt, so I'll link the empirical bit below) This is a discussion paper that uses well established engineering methods for the calculation of radiant heat transfer in the atmosphere (based on measurements) Conclusion (pdf warning) Beyond 200 ppm, the Leckner curves indicate that there is a negligible change in emissivity and hence a negligible change in forcing. That is: Above 200 ppm atmospheric concentration of CO2 there is no increase in the greenhouse affect due to CO2, and changes to human emissions of CO2 will have no affect on climate. Not sure how I can simplify that lot, stick with the experiment from a century ago it's quite simple, if anyone can simplify the rest, I'm all ears

I've been into weather forecasting most of my life (sailor), I read a lot on climate before it was politicised, if you have a body of knowledge from before 1980 you realise the IPCC threw the whole body of accumulated knowledge under a bus. I only know a bit, really, I am humbled daily on this subject by many scientific bloggers, I consider myself a lightweight on this subject. Climate science is largely science by press release IMO, they put out some scary headline paper, it's picked up by a compliant alarmist media and travels the world in hours, it takes years in some case to even get the data to reproduce the results, which are very often spurious, but by that time another ruck of scary headlines have been put out, no-one remembers the original paper or cares about it, it did it's job the day the headline was created. A recent example was the "peer reviewed" Gergis et al 2012 paper "Evidence of unusual late 20th century warming from an Australasian temperature reconstruction spanning the last millennium" it was supposed to be a new temperature reconstruction for the IPCC AR5 (the latest IPPC draft due next year) The scary press release went global in hours, bloggers pulled it to pieces in days they stuck at it highlighting glaring errors, so much so the paper has been "put on hold" it should have been retracted there and then, no doubt it will see the light of day again. What they did was get a bunch of temperature proxies, filter the lot to pick reconstructions that fitted their preconceived notion of what the graph should look like, and omit the ones that didn't fit their notions, this is called omitted variable fallacy, bloggers have since looked at the omitted data, the graph from law dome (a high resolution ice core from Antarctica) hit my screen this morning, it is quite remarkable as it shows higher temps than the 20th century during the last 2000 yrs, clearly the MWP was global. Clearly this graph was inconvenient for the warmist cause. I've seen hundreds of similar shenanigans over the years. Don't use Wiki for climate science, it has a bunch of gatekeeprs patrolling to keep sceptic science out, it's a saga in it's self, just one chapter of the revisionist propaganda that is todays climate science. I have to stick to logic, my alarm bells started to ring in the early 80's when they started to claim a warmer global climate, warmer poles, would mean more storms, this is illogical from the get go. Most of the energy gets into the system at the equator, most of it leaves at the poles, it is the difference in temperature between the equator and the poles that causes weather patterns and storms, the more the difference the more the energy flow, the more prevalent extreme weather, if the poles are warmer it should mean less storms, and it does if you bother to check global storm numbers, but here we hit a snag, data has not been collected globally for very long. This means you need some historical perspective, globally, before you can start to make a judgement about changes, when you start to look for the historical evidence you soon realise climate always changed, it's been warmer in the recent past (Romans growing grapes in Yorkshire) and colder (Thames ice fares on the frozen river). Global "average temperature" is another silly idea IMO, when it's summer in the NH, it's winter in the SH. Only half the planet is getting energy from the Sun at any one time, the other half is losing energy at night, even if you could accurately measure global temps, what use is an average to anyone? Min global temp can be -50 and max can +140 at the same time, an average is meaningless IMO. When you start to look at long temperature graphs from many parts of the world, where you can get at the raw unadjusted data you see "climate scientists" have been revising past temps down and recent temps up, there can be no justification for revisionist science IMO, it's a crock of propaganda. Pumpy

If you're hiring kit, I'd be looking at a walk behind flail mover for that grass.

Cheers Albedo, yeah I'm sure we'll get into your namesake I don't dispute Co2 is a "greenhouse gas" or that it provided a bit of warming. But it's absorption bands are narrow windows compared to water vapour, and Co2 absorption is logarithmic, meaning most of it's warming potential was already there in the first few hundred parts per million, a few hundred more parts per million won't make much difference at all, only a fraction of the initial minute boost it already gave. Water vapour is much more of a major player as a "greenhouse gas" it gets up to 40,000 ppm and has a much wider absorption window, 4 or 5 hundred ppm Co2 pails to insignificance IMO. A shift in cloud cover at the equator by only 2% would account for all the CO2 we ever pumped out since 1900. When the IPCC talk about cloud cover in AR4 the error bands are about 5%, bit too convenient IMO. New scientist drank the CAGW kool aid yrs ago, I got so tired of the BS I stopped my subscription in 2001, see how they talk about carbon 14, besides there are other sources, not to mention the flaws in the original paper, see how they talk about "between 1850 and 1954" handy cutting off there, but they forget to mention there was insufficient Co2 raise by 1954 to make the sums add up, even the IPCC says CAGW didn't start until 1950. All the maths for the Co2 argument gets way involved, it's based on the Stefan Boltzmann equation, thermodynamics, where they measure the IR coming off a black body, they then translate this to the earth, which in case anyone missed it is not a black body! I can post links to scientists who dispute even this, the conversations go on forever, makes my head spin, I find the logic comparing water vapour enough without the thermodynamic head ache. Yeah, teepeeat said enough really, and don't even get me started on GM crops, which look like the solution to the "too many people" meme too, rats fed on that shyte produce fewer young by the 2nd generation, and become infertile by the 3rd generation! First generation show signs of increased stomach lining cell growth under the scope, that's when they fired the researchers who wanted to publish the results, who knows what else it'll do. There are solutions to most of the problems, weather Co2 is an issue or not, Regenerative Agriculture builds soils, locks up long chain carbon molecules deep down and produces nutritious food with natural methods. Some of the proponents have jumped on the climate change bandwagon, call it carbon farming, I call that subsidy farming; regardless the methods are the best way forward IMO. We have to go back to mixed farming, it's the only way to keep the nutrients on the farm, and build the soil again. check out Joel Salatins work, search on polyface farms, he increased topsoil by 18" in 6 yrs, once you get a good depth of healthy microbe rich topsoil you can start pasture cropping in rotation, amazing stuff Pumpy

The ice cores tell us Co2 follows temperature by hundreds of years, therefore logically the rise in Co2 is a result of warming, not a cause. Tree rings are a circus, I read the climategate emails, we are still waiting for the data for Manns Hockey Stick graph, a good book on the subject is The Hockey Stick Illusion by Andrew Montford, I've yet to see a credible rebuttal. Tree rings can be useful, but not they way the Hockey Team uses them measuring ring widths, there are too many other things effect tree growth besides temperature as most folks here can attest to. Tree rings might be more use if they use isotopes instead, this article from before the science was politicised seems very apt, it was about a science paper from 1979 which predicted the warming, and the cooling off we are now experiencing, it goes on to predict further cooling, which is more of a worry for me as cold is not good for food production, or humans in general, warm is good. Careful when going off on assumptions. I would pass the pepsi challenge with most folks here on carbon footprints, I could loosely be described as an environmentalist, currently studying Regerative Agriculture with the aim of becoming a consultant. Just because I am sceptical of the IPCC science don't think I'm not a tree hugger I know about environmental issues, climate change is not one IMO, soil erosion is by far a more concerning issue, followed by biodiversity/woodland loss, and then pollution, in that order. I am further along the lifestyle path described by Tony Croft above, but that'd be off topic People tend to get too emotional about this subject, I'd say step back a bit, I think it is because the media plays on emotions, that's called propaganda in my book Pumpy

I know, I've been looking for it myself for 25 years, couldn't find it, which is one reason I am a sceptic. What are the main reasons convince you?

Starting the debate with al Gore is a bad plan, there were 35 factual errors in his film, 9 of them were proven in a UK court. What is the empirical evidence Co2 causes global warming?

I live in a wetland so I know your pain, I can't do much about it besides a screen door, I did research it anyway a few yrs ago As Treequip said, fish would be good, also encourage dragon flies and damsels, they tend to like clean water so it might be worth cleaning the moat up, you can add specific aquatic/pond plants to encourage them to lay eggs, the larvae/nymphs will eat mosquito larvae. There are outdoor traps that have multiple lure mechanisms, Co2, IR, heat etc. the bigger ones cover an acre but are pretty pricey, the couple I looked at were over £500 I have no idea how effective they are. Mosquitos will also breed in wet leaf litter, bung a load of chickens in the wood, they'll scratch up the leaf littler and eat the larvae too, mine seem to love catching them flying. Besides that you're into fogging chemicals, seen it done in Columbia, nasty stuff IMO, I don't know if it's even legal here, might be best speaking to a pest controller or someone with a weed-killing licence who can ask the chemical suppliers about products & regs. Pumpy

I agree with Lovelock on many things, not a big fan of his Nuclear stance. Are you disagreeing with this eminent scientist or just expounding forum etiquette for quoting? Climate always changed, it's the one constant you can rely on... ...along with tax

James Lovelock backs down on climate alarm

Root Blades for an angle grinder came up in conversation last year, have a chat with Dave at the Kettering Husqvana centre, I can't remember what they were called, google brings up the Austsaw Rootmaster Blade and I know it wasn't them HTH.

Thanks for the clarification catweazel, I was probably reading old threads, then got lost on the EA pages until my head hurt! Yeah, PM for details hazzygawa, I see it more as mutual back scratching than a kind offer, I spent over a grand on logs last year when I couldn't process my own after doing my back in, and trying to keep up with mulching everywhere that needs it would be a full time job cutting & chipping it all myself