Global Warming

[dune]

[buctootim]

So? Lawson couldnt even get his own area of expertise right, remember the Lawson boom and crash? Trotting out Lawson and a Daily Express journo to rebut an overwhelming body of international opinion is frankly laughable.

[dune]

So? Lawson couldnt even get his own area of expertise right, remember the Lawson boom and crash? Trotting out Lawson and a Daily Express journo to rebut an overwhelming body of international opinion is frankly laughable.

 

Are you including the University of East Anglias Claimate research unit?

[badgerx16]

Badger I think it's best we agree to disagree. In time I will be proved right as scientists and governments back track. I hope you have the good grace to admit you were wrong.

If it ever came to pass I would, but as it won't I shan't have to.

[badgerx16]

Are you including the University of East Anglias Claimate research unit?

Did you forget that hotbed of Marxist conspiracies the Meteorological Office

[buctootim]

A comparatively junior resercher sent some unwise emails about how to spin some results. Is that what you are referring to?

[dune]

GREEN POLICIES PUT BRITAIN AT A GLOBAL DISADVANTAGE

 

IT is bizarre and outrageous that at a time of great national austerity enormous sums are being spent on the new religion of combating climate change.

 

Ministers are set to authorise spending of £150billion over the next two decades in the cause of cutting Britain’s carbon emissions. That would mean Britain spending more than Germany, France and Italy put together.

 

Were a mere fraction of this sum switched into higher education then there would be no need whatever to raise tuition fees, while damaging defence cuts could also be avoided.

 

According to climate change expert Professor Ian Fells the Government’s policy will see household energy bills going “up and up in a startling way”.

 

Yet one by one, all the most dire predictions of the global warmers are being proved incorrect. Along with warnings of disappearing Himalayan glaciers, we now learn that forecasts of huge rises in sea levels are also wide of the mark.

 

Anyone who has ventured outside recently will surely acknowledge that it now appears unlikely that 2010 will be remembered as an exceptionally warm year in Britain.

 

Committing the nation to clearing emission hurdles that other countries shy away from is putting us at a major competitive disadvantage. A more pragmatic approach is long overdue.

 

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/215966/Green-policies-put-Britain-at-a-global-disadvantageGreen-policies-put-Britain-at-a-global-disadvantage#ixzz18OwbmWto

[buctootim]

Did you forget that hotbed of Marxist conspiracies the Meteorological Office

 

Which is an agency of the MoD.

[Deppo]

Forget the left wing crap and look at the facts.

 

Every warming and cooling in recorded history is linked to Sun spots.

 

Middle ages warm period - increase in sun spot activity

 

18th Century little Ice age - decrease in sunspot activity

 

1970's (when global cooling was in the news) - decrease in sunspot activity

 

Now - Increase in sunspot activity

 

The next decade - It will get cooler as sun spot activity is decreasing.

 

We're going to be hearing some right crap over the next few years as Scientists/governments backtrack and try to distance themselves form the stupidity of believing in man made global warming..

 

Are we playing spot the one that isn't a fact? What do I win? It is interesting that your entire argument lies on something that you are trying to pass off as a fact. A lie, if you like.

Edited 17 December, 2010 by Deppo

[aintforever]

From http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/26399-sunspot-theory-of-global-warming/

 

Variations in the Sun's total energy output (luminosity) are caused by changing dark (sunspot) and bright structures on the solar disk during the 11-year sunspot cycle. The variations measured from spacecraft since 1978 are too small to have contributed appreciably to accelerated global warming over the past 30 years. In this Review, we show that detailed analysis of these small output variations has greatly advanced our understanding of solar luminosity change, and this new understanding indicates that brightening of the Sun is unlikely to have had a significant influence on global warming since the seventeenth century.

 

 

Looks like Solar irradiance has decreased over the past few decades and is poorly correlated with temperature trends over the last 100 years, and the trends are too small to have outweighed the anthropogenic signal especially from 1950 onwards (early century warming can be associated with higher magnitudes of solar forcing) . (Gilgen et al., 1998; Crowley, 2000; Stanhill and Cohen, 2001; Max Plank Institute, 2004; Foukal et al., 2006; Lockwood and Frohlich 2007; IPCC, 2007)

 

Moreover, we know from the IPCC TAR that night temperatures are increasing at a faster rate than daytime temperatures, which is inconsistent with a primary external influence from the sun and consistent with increase in greenhouse gases. Moreover, the troposphere is warming while higher layers (Stratosphere, mesosphere, theremosphere) are cooling, which again, is not consistent with the primary influence from the sun.

 

In short, The decrease in lower stratospheric temperatures is the result of decreased ozone concentrations at the tropopause and greater insulation by greenhouse gases in the troposphere. The lower stratosphere has cooled primarily due to ozone depletion, while the troposphere has warmed from the enhanced greenhouse effect.

 

The thermal profile of the stratosphere is the result of a balance between radiative heating and cooling rates due to greenhouse gases(ie CO2, O3, water vapor). The reason the stratosphere cools with increase of CO2 is the balance in the stratosphere is between absorption of solar radiation by O3 and cooling by infrared emission. As you increase CO2, there is radiative cooling, therefore, the stratosphere cools to come back into balance. Increase of greenhouse gases at the troposphere creates an increased temperature gradient so that anything below will generaly warm, while anything above will cool. This is also consistent with temperature trends at the mesosphere and thermosphere (see Lastovicka et al., 2006) and a comparison made by the study-

 

Quote

"The increase in global surface air temperature during the 20th century has been attributed mainly to the increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. In the upper atmosphere, the radiative effects of greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, become more pronounced and produce a cooling rather than a warming effect. This effect is demonstrated by the CO2-dominated atmosphere of Venus, where the troposphere is more than twice as warm as Earth's and the thermosphere is 4 to 5 times as cold "

 

 

Addition as well- numerous studies now demonstrate that over the last 60 years or so the anthropogenic signal is strongly detectable and overwhelms "natural" external forcings (Ammann et al 2007) and that if there was a strong solar forcing to come it would only be of more concern as the radiative physics behind more CO2 in the atmosphere is well known.

 

Much is known about the physics of climate change, and this paradigm, developed from many parts of science over the decades, has repeatedly proven to be successfully predictive as well as explanatory with high confidence. Much work remains to fully understand paleoclimatic templates (such as "tipping points" or abrupt climate change), feedbacks, and to assess possible implications for the future, but the foundations for this work are remarkably solid.

[buctootim]

GREEN POLICIES PUT BRITAIN AT A GLOBAL DISADVANTAGE

 

IT is bizarre and outrageous that at a time of great national austerity enormous sums are being spent on the new religion of combating climate change.

 

Ministers are set to authorise spending of £150billion over the next two decades in the cause of cutting Britain’s carbon emissions. That would mean Britain spending more than Germany, France and Italy put together.

 

Were a mere fraction of this sum switched into higher education then there would be no need whatever to raise tuition fees, while damaging defence cuts could also be avoided.

 

According to climate change expert Professor Ian Fells the Government’s policy will see household energy bills going “up and up in a startling way”.

 

Yet one by one, all the most dire predictions of the global warmers are being proved incorrect. Along with warnings of disappearing Himalayan glaciers, we now learn that forecasts of huge rises in sea levels are also wide of the mark.

 

Anyone who has ventured outside recently will surely acknowledge that it now appears unlikely that 2010 will be remembered as an exceptionally warm year in Britain.

 

Committing the nation to clearing emission hurdles that other countries shy away from is putting us at a major competitive disadvantage. A more pragmatic approach is long overdue.

 

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/215966/Green-policies-put-Britain-at-a-global-disadvantageGreen-policies-put-Britain-at-a-global-disadvantage#ixzz18OwbmWto

 

£7billion pa to offset Britains current £10billion pa deficit in oil and gas, predicted to grow each year. I would have thought that apart from the economics adding up you would think reducing dependency on the fuzzy wuzzys was a good thing.

[dune]

Did you forget that hotbed of Marxist conspiracies the Meteorological Office

 

This winter was supposed to be mild, last summer was supposed to be a "barbeque summer".

 

What happened?

[badgerx16]

Dune, find some REAL science to support your argument - I am afraid that anonymous Daily Express junior hacks really have zero credence.

[dune]

£7billion pa to offset Britains current £10billion pa deficit in oil and gas, predicted to grow each year. I would have thought that apart from the economics adding up you would think reducing dependency on the fuzzy wuzzys was a good thing.

 

Why is it that left wingers are allowed to post racist comments?

 

If I or any right winger did the same we'd be banned.

[badgerx16]

This winter was supposed to be mild, last summer was supposed to be a "barbeque summer".

 

What happened?

They have admitted that beyond about 2 days they are only about 40% accurate, and have stopped trying to 'forecast' in the longer term completely. This winter has a long way to go yet, let's wait and see.

[badgerx16]

Why is it that left wingers are allowed to post racist comments?

 

If I or any right winger did the same we'd be banned.

Maybe he was putting it in terms you might understand

[dune]

They have admitted that beyond about 2 days they are only about 40% accurate, and have stopped trying to 'forecast' in the longer term completely. This winter has a long way to go yet, let's wait and see.

 

Yet you believe them about climate change over the coming decades and centuries. How strange.

[dune]

Maybe he was putting it in terms you might understand

 

So forum rules don't apply when it's a left winger making racist comments?

[badgerx16]

Yet you believe them about climate change over the coming decades and centuries. How strange.

They are not the fount of that particular knowledge stream ffs. My understanding is based on 2 main foundations; the first is the raft of scientifc research and sources concerning this process; the second is that I feel I am qualified to assess this information and form an educated opinion, given I have 4 science A levels and a science degree.

[buctootim]

Im not left wing Dune. Centrist to soft right if anything. Clearly I am to the left of you, but even thats hard to judge, what with you being in orbit and all.

[badgerx16]

So forum rules don't apply when it's a left winger making racist comments?

That's up to the mods.........

[dune]

Talk us through this graph badger. Explain to us why the blue line's correlation to the red line is pure co-incidence.

 

[dune]

Im not left wing Dune. Centrist to soft right if anything. Clearly I am to the left of you, but even thats hard to judge, what with you being in orbit and all.

 

So you're centre right and therefore it's ok for you to be racist?

[buctootim]

So you're centre right and therefore it's ok for you to be racist?

 

As Badger said, I was putting it in terms you recognise, not terms that I do.

[dune]

They are not the fount of that particular knowledge stream ffs. My understanding is based on 2 main foundations; the first is the raft of scientifc research and sources concerning this process; the second is that I feel I am qualified to assess this information and form an educated opinion, given I have 4 science A levels and a science degree.

 

But they are supposed to be pretty good at predicting the weather, are they not? They are recognised as a respected body in their field, are they not?

 

 

I put it to you that if they can't, in your own words, predict the weather 2 days ahead then scientists can't predict the weather in a decade or a centuries time.

[buctootim]

Talk us through this graph badger. Explain to us why the blue line's correlation to the red line is pure co-incidence.

 

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11650-climate-myths-global-warming-is-down-to-the-sun-not-humans.html

[dune]

As Badger said, I was putting it in terms you recognise, not terms that I do.

 

So you can use racist terms in this context. I see. I didn't realise this was allowed. Please accept my apologies.

[buctootim]

But they are supposed to be pretty good at predicting the weather, are they not? They are recognised as a respected body in their field, are they not?

 

 

I put it to you that if they can't, in your own words, predict the weather 2 days ahead then scientists can't predict the weather in a decade or a centuries time.

 

Knowing that traffic increasaing by 1% a year leads to more cars on the road doesnt mean that is a reliable indicator of how many cars will be coming down your road on any particular tuesday morning. BIG difference, HUGE, between long term trends and individual local occurnces.

[Verbal]

But they are supposed to be pretty good at predicting the weather, are they not? They are recognised as a respected body in their field, are they not?

 

 

I put it to you that if they can't, in your own words, predict the weather 2 days ahead then scientists can't predict the weather in a decade or a centuries time.

 

Your presumably wilful misunderstanding of climate change science is so fundamental as to render it impossible to engage with you in any sensible way. You're judging climate change science - all the complexities of atmospheric chemistry - by sticking your head out the window, and looking at the weather.

[buctootim]

So you can use racist terms in this context. I see. I didn't realise this was allowed. Please accept my apologies.

 

Go on Dune. Report me for being racist. Everyone, including the mods Im sure, appreciate healthy doses of irony and hypocrisy.

[dune]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11650-climate-myths-global-warming-is-down-to-the-sun-not-humans.html

 

So do you deny that there is a correlation between sun spot activity and climate. In other words do you deny facts?

 

Have you ever wondered how the climate changed before the industrial revolution?

[dune]

Your presumably wilful misunderstanding of climate change science is so fundamental as to render it impossible to engage with you in any sensible way. You're judging climate change science - all the complexities of atmospheric chemistry - by sticking your head out the window, and looking at the weather.

 

Read the thread.

[dune]

Go on Dune. Report me for being racist. Everyone, including the mods Im sure, appreciate healthy doses of irony and hypocrisy.

 

I won't report you. I accept your apology.

[buctootim]

So do you deny that there is a correlation between sun spot activity and climate. In other words do you deny facts?

 

Have you ever wondered how the climate changed before the industrial revolution?

 

Did you even read the article? otherwise you wouldnt be asking the question. Yes climate changes. Something needs to happen to cause it to change. Volcanic eruptions. sudden releases of subterraean methane. Industrial production of ghgs. Its not a tricky concept.

 

Actually what I find odd is that climate change sceptics rarely dispute that one volcano going pop on the other side of the world (Krakatoa) could create a year without summer. Yet six billion people cutting down forests the size of Wales each year and burning long buried fossil fuels will have no effect at all.

Edited 17 December, 2010 by buctootim

[dune]

Did you even read the article? otherwise you wouldnt be asking the question. Yes climate changes. Something needs to happen to cause it to change. Volcanic eruptions. sudden releases of subterraean methane. Industrial production of ghgs. Its not a tricky concept.

 

Why didn't you mention sun spots?

 

Why do you deny the correlation?

[Verbal]

Read the thread.

 

I have. your contributions are as usual deeply depressing.

[buctootim]

Why didn't you mention sun spots?

 

Why do you deny the correlation?

 

So you didnt read the article, otherwise you would have seen much of it deals with the specious sunspot argument. I dont know whether you are trolling, psychologically fixed or just not very bright - but clearly you arent open to having your opinion altered by learning anything new so I guess we're done here.

[dune]

SOLAR PROBE WARMS HOPES OF CLIMATE CHANGE SCEPTICS

 

 

 

THE sun’s impact on the climate on Earth may work in the opposite way to what has previously been believed, a study suggests.

 

Climate change sceptics last night seized on the results to suggest our understanding of global warming may have to be reconsidered.

 

Until now it has been assumed that when solar activity – like sunspots and dramatic solar flares – is in a reduced phase it leads to less warming of the Earth.

 

But the new research, which focuses on a three-year period between 2004 and 2007, suggests the contrary may be true.

 

As solar activity waned at the end of one of the sun’s 11-year cycles, the new data shows the amount of energy reaching the earth at visible wavelengths rose rather than fell.

 

Scientists believe it may also be possible that during the next up-turn of the cycle, when sun activity increases, there might be a cooling effect at the Earth’s surface.

 

During the past century, overall solar activity has been increasing. If the new findings apply to long as well as short time periods, this could translate into a small degree of cooling rather than the slight warming effect shown in existing climate models.

 

This would effectively turn received wisdom on its head.

 

Climate change sceptic Christopher Monckton said last night: “You really have to look at a much bigger timescale, not just three years. But we know there’s a very close correlation between changes in temperature of the earth’s surface and solar activity.”

 

Lord Monckton added: “The conclusion this report comes to is consistent with the growing movement among solar physicists that the sun has a much greater effect on climate change than the straight-forward measurable changes in its output would lead us to suspect.”

 

 

UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom said: “This report further guides us to the logical conclusion that solar activity was responsible for the Minoan, Roman and Medieval warm periods and the little Ice Age, the fact that uninhabited planets in the solar system are warming and cooling cyclically and why there has been no global warming for 12 years, an unchallenged fact.

 

“Politicians and big business really must reappraise the rather unlikely scenario that climate change is due to man-made CO2 emissions.”

 

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/203989/Solar-probe-warms-hopes-of-climate-change-scepticsSolar-probe-warms-hopes-of-climate-change-sceptics#ixzz18PBV92Z8

Edited 17 December, 2010 by dune

[dune]

Here's a brilliant video from the UKIP website...

 

http://www.ukip.org/content/latest-news/1364-lord-monckton-on-climate-change

[angelman]

Methane is a hydrocarbon - ie its made up of molecules formed from hydrogen and carbon atoms. Nitrogen is a different element, one cant turn into the other, as the alchemists who tried to make gold from lead found out.

 

You are incorrect. Maybe you should do a bit of googling....

[buctootim]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/21/climate-scientists-christopher-monckton

[buctootim]

You are incorrect. Maybe you should do a bit of googling....

 

No its correct. You need to take a basic chemistry course. C14 makes up less than 1 part per trillion of atmospheric carbon.

Edited 18 December, 2010 by buctootim

[Sheaf Saint]

Dune, you really, really don't get it do you. I must confess that I do not have a degree in climate science, or anything close to that, but the long and short of the whole argument can be summed up with two basic facts....

 

Fact 1. Air with an increased CO2 content retains more heat. This is scientifically observable and cannot be disproved.

 

Fact 2. Human activity is pumping MILLIONS OF TONNES of CO2 into the atmosphere every year.

 

Even someone as narrow-minded as you, who just loves to take every opportunity he can to sidetrack any important issue into a rant about socialism, cannot in all conscience try and claim that carrying on as we are is anything other than a very bad idea. Something tells me that you are going to try though.

[badgerx16]

You are incorrect. Maybe you should do a bit of googling....

Where's the evidence for your claim about ALL carbon in the trapped methane being C14 & therefore now, according to your statement, all the atoms being Nitrogen ?

[jawillwill]

Go outside now. Measure the temperature and report back with your findings. Do the same again in 6 months and report back again. And then tell me you don't believe in global warming. Conclusive proof my friends.

[Thorpe-le-Saint]

Dune, you really, really don't get it do you. I must confess that I do not have a degree in climate science, or anything close to that, but the long and short of the whole argument can be summed up with two basic facts....

 

Fact 1. Air with an increased CO2 content retains more heat. This is scientifically observable and cannot be disproved.

 

Fact 2. Human activity is pumping MILLIONS OF TONNES of CO2 into the atmosphere every year.

 

Even someone as narrow-minded as you, who just loves to take every opportunity he can to sidetrack any important issue into a rant about socialism, cannot in all conscience try and claim that carrying on as we are is anything other than a very bad idea. Something tells me that you are going to try though.

 

Don't let facts confuse the issue Bexy, do you know nothing of dune's work?!?

[badgerx16]

Go outside now. Measure the temperature and report back with your findings. Do the same again in 6 months and report back again. And then tell me you don't believe in global warming. Conclusive proof my friends.

That's all well and good, but any kiwi or ocker members will find out there's an ice age on the way.

[badgerx16]

Methane is a hydrocarbon - ie its made up of molecules formed from hydrogen and carbon atoms. Nitrogen is a different element, one cant turn into the other, as the alchemists who tried to make gold from lead found out.

You are incorrect. Maybe you should do a bit of googling....

No its correct. You need to take a basic chemistry course.

This has been bothering me, mainly because it's about 30 years since I did degree level organic chemistry, and it didn't seem to make sense, ( the bits on this thread, not the degree modules ). However, with a bit of digging, I think what will happen to the 1 in a trillion radioactive methane molecules, CH4, is that the C14 nucleus will decay, ( a neutron emits an electron (a beta particle)) and the carbon turns into a nitrogen atom. A consequence is that the newly formed nitrogen atom can not make any of the chemical bonds that carbon does, so the hydrogen atoms are released. Second, when the C14 decays, the beta particle is emitted with an energy of up to 154,000 electron volts (154KeV). That literally blows the nitrogen right out of the molecule; chemical bonds have an energy of about 30 to 40 electron volts and it takes only about 10 to 20 eV to strip an electron off of an atom. This ejection of the newly formed atom is termed the "Szilard-Chalmers Effect". I think that as a consequence, the four 'orphaned' hydrogen atoms will reform as two H2 molecules.

 

( And on that note, it's time for bed ).

Edited 18 December, 2010 by badgerx16

[buctootim]

This has been bothering me, mainly because it's about 30 years since I did degree level organic chemistry, and it didn't seem to make sense, ( the bits on this thread, not the degree modules ). However, with a bit of digging, I think what will happen to the 1 in a trillion radioactive methane molecules, CH4, is that the C14 nucleus will decay, ( a neutron emits an electron (a beta particle)) and the carbon turns into a nitrogen atom. A consequence is that the newly formed nitrogen atom can not make any of the chemical bonds that carbon does, so the hydrogen atoms are released. Second, when the C14 decays, the beta particle is emitted with an energy of up to 154,000 electron volts (154KeV). That literally blows the nitrogen right out of the molecule; chemical bonds have an energy of about 30 to 40 electron volts and it takes only about 10 to 20 eV to strip an electron off of an atom. This ejection of the newly formed atom is termed the "Szilard-Chalmers Effect". I think that as a consequence, the four 'orphaned' hydrogen atoms will reform as two H2 molecules.

 

okay - so I was right about 999,999,999,999 parts per trillion. Thats not a bad hit rate

[angelman]

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2009/April/23040902.asp

Petrenko's team collected and dated tonnes of ice - melting it in a vacuum to ensure it didn't become contaminated by modern air - to extract tiny amounts of trapped methane. Carbon-14 is all but absent from clathrates, having decayed away over the millenia since the ancient methane hydrates formed, so the researchers knew that levels should decrease in response to warming if these were the main source of the gas. Instead, carbon-14 levels increased over time, pointing to a younger source - wetlands.

 

The ration of carbon-14 to carbon-12 is about 1 in a trillion.

 

Anyway, too late to write anything, but here is an interesting watch if you can find the time