Arguments about climate change

expat girl wrote:

not here, it wasn't. Isn't. -9 in Oxfordshire last night. Go figure. Usually, too, it is the end of January that is the coldest.

Yes, but what was the annual average for 2008 ?

The figures are not yet released but everyone seems to agree that 2008 was the coldest year of the millinium and in agreement with the cooling trend from about 1998.

I am happy to wait and see if the trend changes. No sign of it yet. The ice is back to where it was in 1979.

I consider the debate over for the time being. Obama will be seriously wedded to warming but he will be a joke within 100 days.

He is a joke alrady but I will be looking forward to a good cold snap for Jan 20.

youngdan wrote:

The figures are not yet released but everyone seems to agree that 2008 was the coldest year of the millinium and in agreement with the cooling trend from about 1998.

I am happy to wait and see if the trend changes. No sign of it yet. The ice is back to where it was in 1979.

I consider the debate over for the time being. Obama will be seriously wedded to warming but he will be a joke within 100 days.

He is a joke alrady but I will be looking forward to a good cold snap for Jan 20.

In other words, Youngdan has no actual evidence so is resorting to the usual "everybody seems to agree" weasel words.

In reality as usual youngdan shows no grasp whatsoever of what global warming is. Some years will be exceptionally cold, others exceptionally warm. What happens over one year or two is meaningless. What matters is the average and the average over decades and half decades is rising. That is a demonstrable fact. Youngdan's superficial attempts at analysis are comic. It is like trying to convince Irish people that because it did not rain between 10am and 11am on the 27th of July Ireland had a dry summer.

Take a hike you fool Papal.

Everyone on this thread have already agreed that we are in a 10 year cooling trend and along you come, not having read the thread , show yourself to be the fool you are.


The only thing that changes round here is your name.

Why don't you go away and read an economics book, home economics that is.

youngdan wrote:

Everyone on this thread have already agreed that we are in a 10 year cooling trend

To be more accurate, we are in a predicted ten-year cooling period, which is expected (by those who predict it) to temporarily mask the rising trend of climate change. Unfortunately, it's not alleviating that trend, but only masking it, so the reversion to the mean will be all the more unpleasant at the end of it. In theory, we could use the predicted stay of execution to prepare better for the reversion at the end of it - in practice, it will probably be used to justify inaction.

Does anyone, except of course the foolish Papal. disagree that we are in a ten year cooling trend ?. Of course not except for tin foil Papal.

The fact that 2008 was colder than each one since 2000 was a surprise to neither side of the argument.

youngdan wrote:

Does anyone, except of course the foolish Papal. disagree that we are in a ten year cooling trend ?. Of course not except for tin foil Papal.

The fact that 2008 was colder than each one since 2000 was a surprise to neither side of the argument.

Consider these two facts as a logical puzzle:

1. 2008 is the tenth warmest year since records began in 1850
2. 2008 is the coolest year so far in this (eight year old) millennium

What does that tell you about the other years in this millennium, and would it be a good way to illustrate the concept of 'relative'?

It tells everyone the same thing, we are in a cooling trend. This trend so far is a scant 10 years.

Now if this trend is 11 years duration then next year will see an increase. If this trend is 150 years duration then we will not be around to see the upswing.

Would you like to tell us when you expect this trend to end.

youngdan wrote:

It tells everyone the same thing, we are in a cooling trend. This trend so far is a scant 10 years.

Now if this trend is 11 years duration then next year will see an increase. If this trend is 150 years duration then we will not be around to see the upswing.

Would you like to tell us when you expect this trend to end.

Ah, no. This year is predicted to be part of a ten-year cooling period, as are (obviously) the next ten years. However, with a couple of exceptions, the ten warmest years on record are all in the last eight years, including 2008. That makes 2008 the coolest of the ten hottest years on record - not by any stretch a cool year, or part of any general cooling trend, in any absolute sense.

Sober up Ibis. are you after wallking home from the pub in the minus 8 degree temp back there.

youngdan wrote:

Sober up Ibis. are you after wallking home from the pub in the minus 8 degree temp back there.

Well, I'd say you can't argue with facts, youngdan, but I know you do...

Gentlemen, if you believe another poster to be foolish, that poster should be quite capable of revealing it themselves, without you having to resort to name-calling which contravenes the Charter (Mod)

I'm worried. Wasn't 2008 supposed to be part of the cool ten years ?
And its the tenth hottest since records began?

btw- when did records begin?

Send him over a cup of hot coffee. He is likely suffering from frostbite as well if nobody gave him a lift

arguing about the weather, how terribly irish

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

studiorat wrote:

arguing about the weather, how terribly irish

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

Some nice stuff in there.

This used to be thread on which we said things to eachother like "Tis a grand, soft day". Then they started on the climate change

If no one objects, I'll split the thread so that the climate change debate does not get in the way of serious gossip about the weather.

Indeed. It kind of reminds me of a scene in Zelig where the fight breaks out over the weather...

cactus flower wrote:

Gentlemen, if you believe another poster to be foolish, that poster should be quite capable of revealing it themselves, without you having to resort to name-calling which contravenes the Charter (Mod)

I'm worried. Wasn't 2008 supposed to be part of the cool ten years ?
And its the tenth hottest since records began?

btw- when did records begin?

1850!

ibis wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Gentlemen, if you believe another poster to be foolish, that poster should be quite capable of revealing it themselves, without you having to resort to name-calling which contravenes the Charter (Mod)

I'm worried. Wasn't 2008 supposed to be part of the cool ten years ?
And its the tenth hottest since records began?

btw- when did records begin?

1850!

Were they kept in anything like the same way as they are now?

Yes, indeed it is a grand morning, although there is still a very hard frost here.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5458013.ece

It seems to be pretty chilly over there in Bulgaria. Minus 15 degrees centigrade. The Bulgarian version of Ibis is probably opening up a polar bear farm.

Anyway a hero has arrived. Putin has decided to reduce some carbon footprints. This is great news because emissions will be reduced and maybe Poland will give back the 15 million to Ireland that was paid for carbon credits.

Hopefully Putin will just shut the gas off for good and then there would be no need for carbon taxes.

Everybody is happy. Even I am happy. I have decided to turn down my thermostat by the amount of warming over 150 years. That is 0.4 degree.

Still toasty but we all must sacrifice

Hmm. If you were as smart as you're smart, you'd be smart.

i'm kinda with youngdan on this.

we are looking at the changes in climate and automatically assuming humans are to blame. in the 1600s were humans to blame for the little ice age. in 1000ad what about the warm period (greenland had grapes ffs!)
around 400 ad it was much colder and around 100bc-100ad it was warmer.

perhaps climate change is due to:
divine intervention
solar activity
volcanic activity
interglacial cycles.

zakalwe wrote:

i'm kinda with youngdan on this.

we are looking at the changes in climate and automatically assuming humans are to blame. in the 1600s were humans to blame for the little ice age. in 1000ad what about the warm period (greenland had grapes ffs!)
around 400 ad it was much colder and around 100bc-100ad it was warmer.

perhaps climate change is due to:
divine intervention
solar activity
volcanic activity
interglacial cycles.

There is no such automatic assumption! Climate research in the Seventies suggested things were changing. Research in the Eighties confirmed that global temperatures were probably rising, and people started looking for mechanisms. By the Nineties, the consensus had settled on a greenhouse mechanism as the most probable mechanism. The only major source of additional greenhouse gas input was found to be human industrial emissions. Quantifying the likely effects of that, and one by one testing and eliminating the effects of other variables like solar cycles, volcanic activity, and the long-term glacial-interglacial cycles had shown that the culprit is, with better than 95% certainty, human emissions. No assumption was made, except by over-zealous tree-huggers.

ibis wrote:

zakalwe wrote:

i'm kinda with youngdan on this.

we are looking at the changes in climate and automatically assuming humans are to blame. in the 1600s were humans to blame for the little ice age. in 1000ad what about the warm period (greenland had grapes ffs!)
around 400 ad it was much colder and around 100bc-100ad it was warmer.

perhaps climate change is due to:
divine intervention
solar activity
volcanic activity
interglacial cycles.

There is no such automatic assumption! Climate research in the Seventies suggested things were changing. Research in the Eighties confirmed that global temperatures were probably rising, and people started looking for mechanisms. By the Nineties, the consensus had settled on a greenhouse mechanism as the most probable mechanism. The only major source of additional greenhouse gas input was found to be human industrial emissions. Quantifying the likely effects of that, and one by one testing and eliminating the effects of other variables like solar cycles, volcanic activity, and the long-term glacial-interglacial cycles had shown that the culprit is, with better than 95% certainty, human emissions. No assumption was made, except by over-zealous tree-huggers.

zakalwe, you might want to check out the BBC's recent climate change series "Earth: The Climate Wars" * for an entertaining and informative look at the history ibis mentions above.

It also highlights the use of smokescreens and obfuscation by deniers, the funding and incentives behind them, and how practically nobody (including governments) wanted to hear what the science was unravelling.

"Earth: The Climate Wars" episode 1

Quote :

The Battle Begins. Episode 1. Dr Iain Stewart traces the history of climate change from its very beginning and examines just how the scientific community managed to get it so very wrong back in the Seventies. Along the way he uncovers some of the great unsung heroes of climate change science, and introduces us to a secret organisation of American government scientists, known as Jason, who wrote the first official report on global warming as far back as 1979.

Earth: The Climate Wars Fightback. Episode 2.

Quote :

Dr Iain Stewart investigates the counter attack that was launched by the global warming sceptics in the 1990s. At the start of the 1990s it seemed the world was united. At the Rio Earth summit the world signed up to a programme of action to start tackling climate change. Even George Bush was there. But the consensus didn't last. Iain interviews some of the key global warming sceptics, and discovers how their positions have changed over time.

Earth: The Climate Wars, Episode 3 (final ep)

Quote :

New Challenges: Having explained the science behind global warming, and addressed the arguments of the climate change sceptics earlier in the series, in this third and final part Dr Iain Stewart looks at the biggest challenge now facing climate scientists. Just how can they predict exactly what changes global warming will bring? Its a journey that takes him from early attempts to model the climate system with dishpans, to
supercomputers, and to the frontline of climate research today: Greenland.

Did someone merge the Weather with the Climate thread??

Ay di mi !!!!

I'm in the middle of moving the climate stuff together - where you and ibis and youngdan should have been having this hilarious discussion - and returning the weather thread to its original glory.