are there still any climate sceptics out there??? It's only 5mins...

[????]

ps

[JustinSmith]

???? Wrote:

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> What's your favourite place in SE22 by the way?

Why are you asking this?

[????]

You've just moved here...not gonna set the CIA on you or anything.

[JustinSmith]

JustinSmith Wrote:

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> ???? Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > What's your favourite place in SE22 by the way?

Can you explain why you ask this question please?

[mockney piers]

He's just wondering why you picked this particular website.

I have to say I tried to welcome you as I don't like seeing new posters attacked, but you have a very curious manner of debate. You've dismissed masses of scientific research with a logical fallacy based upon your simplistic conclusion that boils down to A is difficult so C must be difficult and therefore both are wrong. Even though having hotter drier summers, wetter autumns and colder wetter (or snowier) winters in britain has long been touted as a possible consequence of climate change due to global warming.

You retaliate by undermining posters, something you complained about in your own thread even though most were asking perfectly legitimate questions, if occassionally a bit aggressively; I may avoid the lecture now ;)

btw 'huguenot' and '????' are legitimate posters, locals and have no connection to big pharma orthe health industry in general.

Anyway, back to sensible debate.

[Huguenot]

Nothing legitimate about me, I'm not even Huguenot. He's dead in the bath.

For those confused by Justin, who has no favourite places.... 'weather' is a series of datapoints. Lots of them, all over the world,as I'm sure you can imagine. 'Climate' is a line of best fit, it's an 'aggregate' of weather.

As an engineer and an investigative healthcare practitioner, Justin knows this.

Hence his comments on this thread are deliberately disruptive, and against his core beliefs. One has to question his motives for... well you know, the 'L' word.

[Timster]

I thought Justin was a sports masseuse?

I had hoped to generate some sensible comments from the climate change doubters - references to credible articles or scientists that dispute the substance of the consensus opinion that man-made CO2 is responsible for what all the evidence points to is an unprecedented rise in temperatures over the last 100 years.

All I got was - "well they don't know if it will snow in February, how can know what the climate will be like in 50 years" - childish nonsense rather than reasoned debate. I really think this issue should be debated because it has been assumed by the government that everyone accepts man-made climate change is a fact when reasonable people want to see the evidence. But there doesn't seem to be anyone on the doubters' side that can construct a reasoned argument against the consensus opinion - and I really would love to see one. Not just conspiracy theories and deluded rants.

[EDOldie]

This sort of thing Timster?

A compilation of paleoclimate records from lake sediments, trees, glaciers, and marine sediments provides a view of circum-Arctic environmental variability over the last 400 years. From 1840 to the mid-20th century, the Arctic warmed to the highest temperatures in four centuries. This warming ended the Little Ice Age in the Arctic and has caused retreats of glaciers, melting of permafrost and sea ice, and alteration of terrestrial and lake ecosystems. Although warming, particularly after 1920, was likely caused by increases in atmospheric trace gases, the initiation of the warming in the mid-19th century suggests that increased solar irradiance, decreased volcanic activity, and feedbacks internal to the climate system played roles.

[Timster]

er no. it's unattributed and makes no reference to any scientific studies or evidence to support its thesis and is completely out of context. and, i'm not sure if you've realised this, but its conclusion seems to be that after 1920 global warming was caused by "atmospheric trace gases" (one of which is CO2).

[EDOldie]

No, exactly. It is completely meaningless, out of context as you say, and can mean anything anyone wants it to. The point is that we can't have the sort of discussion you suggest as none of us. Apart from Huguenot clearly, has the specialist knowledge to conduct the debate. What we can discuss is the reasons we might believe that mankind is causing climate change or not.

My point is we don't know for sure, hence the scientific debate, and that this argument is being manipulated for everything except saving the planet.

[Timster]

Well I don't disagree that these issues are being manipulated for political purposes but I entirely disagree that we can't have a sensible debate. The question is who do we belive - the scientific community (which as far as I can tell is of one mind on this) or the Daily Express (see today's front page - the fact that it's snowing means they're having us on about global warming).

I don't believe the scientific consensus can be attributed to political convenience or self-interest. The non-doubter's side of the argument is backed up by what, as far as I can tell, is the view of the vast majority of scientists (experts in the field and others). The doubter's views seem to have no basis other than a mistrust of the political establishment. But I really would review my position on this if I could be pointed in the direction of serious scientific studies that seriously undermine the generally accepted postion on global warming being caused by man-made CO2 emissions.

[silverfox]

Point of information

The only thing that is generally accepted is that man-made CO2 emissions are a contributory factor to global warming, although I accept it's easy to lose sight of this given the global warming lobby's messages. There are others factors as well including natural cycles.

The man-made emissions side of the equation allows us to do something to minimise it's effects. What we do, and how successful we will be, is however an unknown variable.

[HAL9000]

For Timster - an alternative view: Thermal pollution causes global warming

[Huguenot]

HAL9000, you brought up this one before, and it's still not an alternatve view. You misread it then, and you still misread it now.

He is quite clear in his observations that the Earth on current energy expenditure patterns will reach an equilibrium 1.8 degrees hotter than it is now.

He states that this is partly a consequence of turning stored chemical energy into heat as a consequence of burning fossil fuels: that is explicitly what he refers to in the term 'thermal pollution'.

This is man-made climate change.

He does point out that a reduction in CO2 emissions will not solve global warming in isolation, but did anyone imagine it would? He certainly does NOT suggest that a reduction in CO2 emissions is misguided, but points out that reducing carbon dioxide emissions through sequestration will not be a reasonable solution if we are continuing to change the thermal equilibrium through energy consumption patterns.

Effectivey he's saying "we must do more to combat man made climate change than simply addressing CO2 emissions".

[silverfox]

You see, this is a case in point Huguenot. If a clever guy like Hal9000 has misinterpreted this paper what chance do mere mortals like us stand?

If the author was effectivey saying "we must do more to combat man made climate change than simply addressing CO2 emissions" then why the hell didn't he say it in plain English. Spit it out man!

I pity the old grannies too frightened to put their electric blankets on tonight, or boiling a kettle for a hot-water bottle, in case the Copenhagen mob snowball them to death for heating up the planet.

[HAL9000]

I don't think I've misread it - I think you may have misread it or, perhaps, misunderstood my reason for citing it :)

In any event, I?m playing Devil?s Advocate here in so far as it satisfies Timster's criterion by discounting the build up of atmospheric CO2 as a cause in favour of man-made heat dissipation - which includes so-called non-CO2 emitting energy sources such as, for example, nuclear power stations.

[Huguenot]

That's where you misread it HAL9000, it absolutely does NOT discount atmospheric CO2 as a cause - it simply makes on observation an additional cause of climate change.

It's a great paper, and great for addressing a novel argument for renewable energy as opposed to nuclear.

The reality is that to avoid road traffic accidents you need to both slow down and pay attention. To argue for one of those concepts does not negate or discount the other. That's kind of simplistic.

[Timster]

All the things that Huguenot has said plus it's over 6 years old which is quite a long time in terms of climate change science. The 'scepticism' it refers to in the scientific community has not been borne out by events since and the work that has been done to counter claims that increases in CO2 emissions cannot of themselves explain global warming. I would be interested to know what the author's views are now. So I am afraid it doesn't represent the current views of a respected scientist substantively undermining the consensus - it's one paper by one guy written 6 years ago suggesting that nuclear power could cause as many problems as non-renewables.

Also, to correct Silverfox, it is very much the consensus that CO2 emissions are the key contributory factor that explains why we have seen increases in global temperatures that cannot be explained by natural cycles.

All this is dealt with in the Royal Society "Facts and Fictions" paper I linked to earlier.

[HAL9000]

Huguenot Wrote:

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> That's where you misread it HAL9000, it absolutely

> does NOT discount atmospheric CO2 as a cause

A mere 2% is implicitly attributed to 'all other greenhouse gases' - an insignificant amount within the context of this discussion. I quote:

"The main absorbers of infrared in the atmosphere are water vapour and clouds. Even if all other greenhouse gases were to

disappear, we would still be left with over 98% of the current greenhouse effect. Another reason to scepticism ..."

> - it simply makes on observation an additional

> cause of climate change.

Where is that said? The word 'additional' is used seven times, not once in respect of warming caused by CO2.

[Huguenot]

That's a deliberate misinterpretation, the author is observing correctly that the atmosphere is a greenhouse effect, and lucky for life on earth. No-one with any sense disputes it. It's about change.

The author emphatically does not say that the recent additional 2% has no warming effect. Straws, camels backs etc. He just doesn't say it HAL9000.

His argument is that thermal pollution will deliver 1.8 degrees rise in its own right. You're seeing ghosts in the machine. Anti-greenhouse gas arguments are neither explicit or implied.

[HAL9000]

Huguenot Wrote:

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> That's a deliberate misinterpretation,

How can a direct quote be a deliberate misrepresentation?

> the author is observing correctly that the atmosphere is a greenhouse effect ...

That's not in dispute - at all.

> The author emphatically does not say that the

> recent additional 2% has no warming effect.

I quoted him directly - he goes on to say:

"Increasing concentrations of gases, aerosols, and humidity into the atmosphere will increase the Earth?s albedo. This would mean that less solar energy reaches the Earth?s surface and thus less OLR [outgoing long-wave radiation] to be emitted. Therefore, the Earth?s effective temperature should decrease."

Thereby justifying my position.

If you can't find a quote therein to support your interpretation - fair enough, I'm content to leave it at that: the report is sufficiently clear to speak for itself and, anyway, I only cited it in the role of Devil's Advocate.

As silverfox has pointed out, if supposedly clever folks can't agree on the interpretation of a straightforward eight-page scientific paper....

[HAL9000]

Just to follow up on the thermal pollution case and avoid further misinterpretations:-

I've found a very recent (2009) paper by the same author (Bo Nordell): Global energy accumulation and net heat emission that clarifies the issue and justifies my interpretation of the earlier paper.

To summarise: the latest figures attribute only from 5.5% to 26.5% of all global warming to either atmospheric CO2 and/or natural variations in solar intensity and/or the underestimation of net heat emissions, "which means that almost all of global warming would be explained by net heat emissions" (direct quote from Appendix B, page 14).

[Huguenot]

Ah good, if he clarifies his point then all well.

I note that he's sprepared to attribute upo to 26% of global warming to CO2 - that doesn't seem to me to be discounting the effect of CO2. There's not an intelligent scientist in the industry who would argue that CO2 is solely responsible for warming.

My point that arguing to gain a higher profile for one cause does not negate the other influences still stands.

I like his logic. It appeals to basic physics. I can see that he doesn't have a broad constituency supporting his caculations, and wonder whether the reason is that he over estimates the figures?

I think his point about "gases, aerosols and humidity" is infuriatingly generalist. It's well known that aerosols would have a cooling effect, and that the combination of global warming systems PLUS the general clearing of pollution will result in faster global warming than originally predicted.

However, to talk abut gases when the atmosphere IS gas is slapdash.

[Huguenot]

Incidentally, I mentioned earlier that one of the hghly concerning 'unknowns' was the release of methane from frozen undersea beds as the temperatures changed over a very small range.

Methane is 20x more warming than CO2

Coinciding with some of the smallest arctic ice coverage in recent history, measurements in Russia are starting to pick up this feedback.

Methane releases

To reassure people, this isn't the beginning of the end, it's seasonal stuff - but it does demonstrate that this effect can take place.

Edited for speling

[HAL9000]

Methane is the wildcard. A catastrophic release of undersea calthrate deposits and/or thawing permafrosts could trigger a positive feedback loop (i.e. "tipping point") that would precipitate a rapid, extinction-scale warming event.

Given the potential consequences, it's surprising how unquantified this risk remains - in the public domain, at least.

Research in this area is almost entirely undertaken by or sponsored by governments. Could it be classified: there are plenty of reasons why it might be?