Arguments about climate change

youngdan wrote:

I follow the climate in North America and Europe.

So you feel informed enough to comment on global warming but only follow weather on part of the globe?

I don't blame you for not having heard about the fires, I know how poor the US media are on foreign news.

When the global warming gets to North America, then I will worry about it. In the meantime I will enjoy the ice age that has set in here this winter.

At the first sign of the sea level rising I will let ye know

cactus flower wrote:

youngdan wrote:

If you were making an observation about the Summer in Melbourne that is fine. But when you quote me it normally indicates that you are answering or refering to my remarks. Now clearly I am talking about the Independent article and you say that you wern't refering to the article or winter.

So don't quote and then rant on about nothing pertaining to the quotation or you will be put in the same bracket as the others.

Ibis is a broken record at this stage with his doom, gloom and fearmongering and reality does not impinge on him at all.

Papal who has wised up and quit for the moment does not read any posts but just prattles on.

You are right about one thing though, I know little of Melbourne. It is a location. I follow the climate in North America and Europe.

As regards fires. Stay back or you will be burned. Smokie the Bear told me that

Smokie would not have helped you down in Australia then. These fires were travelling faster that a motor bike in some places and no one was going towards them. Whole villages and towns have been burnt to the ground and the cars of people trying to get away burnt up before they had time to get out of them.

Nature is very powerful and sometimes all the good advice in the world can't help.

Cactus, why do you even bother arguing with dan? Few people on this site or on politics.ie take what he writes seriously. Most put him on ignore. Some people wonder if he isn't taking the piss, playing the role of a dumb Irishman in Amerikay with opinions on everything and knowledge about nothing. He cannot seriously be as misinformed on so many topics, can he? Maybe he is trying to be post-ironic! He makes George W Bush seem intellectual, which is quite an achievement. He could be the machine nation version of Ali G!

Very slack Papal, not your day I guess. Your timing as usual is perfect as today I have receieved many praises on the iseq thread.

The problem is, what I predict turn out to be fact with the result that I have a good few posters seeking my advice.

Those who ignored my advice lost a lot of money, now didn't they.

youngdan wrote:

Very slack Papal, not your day I guess. Your timing as usual is perfect as today I have receieved many praises on the iseq thread.

The problem is, what I predict turn out to be fact with the result that I have a good few posters seeking my advice.

Those who ignored my advice lost a lot of money, now didn't they.

Unfortunately, your experience and reliability as a trader and economic soothsayer doesn't mean anything in any other field.

shutuplaura wrote:

I don't blame you for not having heard about the
fires, I know how poor the US media are on foreign news.

Were
those fires started by arsonists or was that just bad reporting?

Regards...jmcc

ibis wrote:

youngdan wrote:

Very slack Papal, not your day I guess. Your timing as usual is perfect as today I have receieved many praises on the iseq thread.

The problem is, what I predict turn out to be fact with the result that I have a good few posters seeking my advice.

Those who ignored my advice lost a lot of money, now didn't they.

Unfortunately, your experience and reliability as a trader and economic soothsayer doesn't mean anything in any other field.

Unfortunately for me this statement is about 98% true. The 2% is the suspicion that I smell a rat on the financial side of things.

As regards climate change the jury is out. We have always had climate change obviousely. The only question is are we getting colder or hotter and whether CO2 due to mankind has any effect,

I and most in North America consider it the least of our problems and if this winter hasn't frozen the Artic then there must be very unusual water up there,

jmcc wrote:

shutuplaura wrote:

I don't blame you for not having heard about the
fires, I know how poor the US media are on foreign news.

Were
those fires started by arsonists or was that just bad reporting?

Regards...jmcc

Yes, the police are chasing a few firebugs. The use of psycological profiling suggests that it may very well be a member of the emergancy services - apparently arsonists like to show up and help out at a fire they have started.

youngdan wrote:

ibis wrote:

youngdan wrote:

Very slack Papal, not your day I guess. Your timing as usual is perfect as today I have receieved many praises on the iseq thread.

The problem is, what I predict turn out to be fact with the result that I have a good few posters seeking my advice.

Those who ignored my advice lost a lot of money, now didn't they.

Unfortunately, your experience and reliability as a trader and economic soothsayer doesn't mean anything in any other field.

Unfortunately for me this statement is about 98% true. The 2% is the suspicion that I smell a rat on the financial side of things.

I appreciate both your honesty and your suspicions. Of course there are people making a profit out of it, but there are people who make a profit out of hurricanes - that doesn't mean they cause them. What I can tell you as someone who trained as a scientist, and who has been following this thing for at least 25 years, well before it became fashionable, is that here the profit is following the science, not the other way round.

youngdan wrote:

As regards climate change the jury is out. We have always had climate change obviousely. The only question is are we getting colder or hotter and whether CO2 due to mankind has any effect,

And - I know I keep saying this - the jury is not out. They came back in quite a few years ago now.

youngdan wrote:

I and most in North America consider it the least of our problems and if this winter hasn't frozen the Artic then there must be very unusual water up there,

It's warmer water, that's all:

Quote :

As is typical during mid-winter, sea ice extent increased overall in January; maximum monthly extent is expected in March. However, January ice extent remained well below normal compared to the long-term record. Ice extent averaged for January 2009 is the sixth lowest January in the satellite record. Also of note is that from January 15 to 26, ice extent saw essentially no increase; an unusual wind pattern appears to have been the cause.

Source

Well if it is warmer water I wish some of it would float down this way.

The winter has been cold. So now I await to see if we get a scorcher of a Summer or if this 10 year, or whatever lenght, will continue. I think the debate is to be surpassed by economic conditions.

youngdan wrote:

Well if it is warmer water I wish some of it would float down this way.

Sadly, it's only warm for Arctic water...

youngdan wrote:

The winter has been cold. So now I await to see if we get a scorcher of a Summer or if this 10 year, or whatever lenght, will continue. I think the debate is to be surpassed by economic conditions.

I suspect you're right about the latter, but it would frankly be foolish. "A stitch in time saves nine" is good wisdom.

As to the former, there's a good article on the question here. Couple of quotes from it:

Quote :

Was 2008 the coldest year this century or the tenth-warmest on record? Surprise—it was both! What that means may depend on whom you choose to listen to.

If you happen to follow the public debate on climate change, you might we aware that, in some circles, 2008 is being viewed as the definitive end of global warming. After all, it marks a decade where temperatures have trended downwards, and an especially cold start to the year was heralded as "wiping out a century of warming." So, it might come as a surprise to learn that, now that the year's numbers have been crunched, NASA's Goddard Institute and the UK's Climactic Research Unit rank 2008 as the 9th and 10th warmest year (respectively) in the 150 years or so humanity has been keeping careful track of these things.

The facts are that 2008 was cooler than the last few years, but warmer than most in recent history, which lends itself to spin based on the predilections of the person talking about it. But some of that spin specifically plays upon the widespread innumeracy of the public, which isn't well prepared to separate trends from short-term variability, or recognize when certain figures are selectively chosen. We'll try to separate out some of these in a way that will hopefully help readers make a bit of sense out of the conflicting noise.

Of course, when you think about it, there's no conflict whatsoever between the coolest year of the century and the tenth-warmest on record. The century is only 10 years old, after all. jmcc (on p.ie) argues that the coolness of 2008 means that we're now on a downward trend, which is one of the saddest things I've heard in a while (apologies to jmcc) - like arguing that the little upturn at the end of this graph meant everything was going to be good for the Icelandic krona:

jmcc is held in high esteem by very many so without getting embroiled I would remind everyone of one of the oldest sayings of investing, that is The Trend is your Friend.

Nobody knows how long a trend will continue so the idea is to ride it until it changes. It could change tomorrow or it could be a long term winner.

The argument now would be to show us where this 10 year trend is changing. If politicians are going to be asking for money they will need to show actual high tempertures and not predictions.

youngdan wrote:

jmcc is held in high esteem by very many so without getting embroiled I would remind everyone of one of the oldest sayings of investing, that is The Trend is your Friend.

Nobody knows how long a trend will continue so the idea is to ride it until it changes. It could change tomorrow or it could be a long term winner.

The argument now would be to show us where this 10 year trend is changing. If politicians are going to be asking for money they will need to show actual high tempertures and not predictions.

There isn't a ten year cooling trend, youngdan. This is up to date - including 2008 - and it's observation, not prediction or model:



The so-called trend is the little downturn of the five-year average at the end. That's why I likened this to the upturn at the end of the krona graph. Calling it a trend rather ignores the fact that 2008 is still hotter than every year before 2001, and assuming it indicates a reversal of the long-term trend when it isn't yet as large as the downturn in 1990 is frankly risible.

If that was an exchange rate graph, and I asked you to call me out the long-term trend, what would it be?

Is that graph from the IPCC ibis and how often does it get measured?

Do you know how often atmospheric CO2 is sampled?

Auditor #9 wrote:

Is that graph from the IPCC ibis and how often does it get measured?

No, it's from NASA (source), and it's a combined graph of instrumental data, so the measurements are, at the finest level, nearly continuous, as weather station records are.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Do you know how often atmospheric CO2 is sampled?

No, I'd have to check - but these are temperature graphs.

It is not an exchange graph but if it were I would look to place a bet on it rising. I would wait till the downward zig had turned into a zag though. In this case I would wait until the graph turned up to .6 and then I would place my bet. If it never got to .6 I would not have the bet placed.

In the situation that it did get to .6 and the bet was on then my worry would be that it would turn against me. I would place what is known as a Stop Loss Order at say 0.4. This authomatic sell at a bearable loss would remove the problem of me admitting to myself that I had made a mistake. The inability to admit mistakes kills investors.

So if it gets to 0.6 then the trend is most likely up and I would wait for that to be my buy signal. I would not buy at the moment because the line is down and the plan would be to wait.

I would be looking at the 5 year mean facing down as another reason to hold off.

My feeling if this were a stock would be the money was made on it but it is not a stock it is a deviation from the mean of temperture and I know that unless there is a nuclear winter the downside is capped at about a degree and unless the ozone burns up or the greenhouse gases jump to about 30% the upside is limited as well.

I am not in the least worried about a raging greenhouse effect and see nothing to cause me to worry

youngdan wrote:

It is not an exchange graph but if it were I would look to place a bet on it rising. I would wait till the downward zig had turned into a zag though. In this case I would wait until the graph turned up to .6 and then I would place my bet. If it never got to .6 I would not have the bet placed.

In the situation that it did get to .6 and the bet was on then my worry would be that it would turn against me. I would place what is known as a Stop Loss Order at say 0.4. This authomatic sell at a bearable loss would remove the problem of me admitting to myself that I had made a mistake. The inability to admit mistakes kills investors.

So if it gets to 0.6 then the trend is most likely up and I would wait for that to be my buy signal. I would not buy at the moment because the line is down and the plan would be to wait.

I would be looking at the 5 year mean facing down as another reason to hold off.

A complex answer! Still, in general you see what I would see there, which is an overall rising trend, not, as some have claimed, the start of a sustained fall - the data isn't there to support that.

youngdan wrote:

My feeling if this were a stock would be the money was made on it but it is not a stock it is a deviation from the mean of temperture and I know that unless there is a nuclear winter the downside is capped at about a degree and unless the ozone burns up or the greenhouse gases jump to about 30% the upside is limited as well.

I am not in the least worried about a raging greenhouse effect and see nothing to cause me to worry

So, continuing the analogy, if you knew that the best models available to you (and no-one else) - models that matched very well past performance - suggested that there wasn't an upper limit to the rise, and that the driver for the rise was still there (and accelerating), what would you say that trend line would do?

By the way, there's no need for greenhouse gases to "jump to 30%". The effect of very small amounts of CO2 is very large, just as it only takes a very small amount of dye to colour water. Again, that's a measurable effect - we can say exactly how much extra radiation is absorbed per ppm of CO2 (first measured by Arrhenius in the 1880s).

The big word there is IF. In that case I would do very well to remember another wise old saying. If it is too good to be true then it probably is.

I am sticking to my tactic. I will wait till it hits 0.6 and then jump in. I will not be greedy because that contravenes another market saying. Bulls make money, bears make money but pigs get slaughtered.

One thing about the market, you might lose money but you will have a million wise old saying pointing out why you lost money.

youngdan wrote:

The big word there is IF. In that case I would do very well to remember another wise old saying. If it is too good to be true then it probably is.

I am sticking to my tactic. I will wait till it hits 0.6 and then jump in. I will not be greedy because that contravenes another market saying. Bulls make money, bears make money but pigs get slaughtered.

One thing about the market, you might lose money but you will have a million wise old saying pointing out why you lost money.

The main difference, with a market, is that all the traders in the market are trying to second-guess the market and the other traders. Climate is simpler in that respect - it's just a physical model, so it's a lot more like modelling ballistics than psychology.

Time will tell. The point is academic as Ireland is in full scale collapse. Whatever carbon they were allowed will not be surpassed. Maybe the Poles will give back the money. Nobody here cares a whit about it except the powerfull and how can it be different there.

People are going to be angry and good luck to the Greens next election.

Quote :

Nasa’s first spacecraft dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide and global warming crashed into the ocean after failing to launch today.

The satellite failed to separate from its rocket, resulting in it not reaching orbit and coming down in the Pacific Ocean near Antarctica, the space centre said.

Launch managers described the incident as a “huge disappointment”. A Mishap Investigation Board is now looking into what went wrong.
...

It was to map the globe once every 16 days for at least two years, monitoring carbon dioxide levels.

In so doing, it was hoped it would build up a picture of regional distribution of the greenhouse gas, seasonal variation of both human and natural sources and how
carbon dioxide sinks react.

In its mission statement, Nasa said the satellite would provide information that could “help policymakers and business leaders make better decisions to ensure climate stability and retain our quality of life”.

http://www.breakingnews.ie/World/eyauaumhauau/

Twould have been a handy tool to see how CO2 was changing in the atmosphere as things were changing down here.

Now we'll just have to stick to the guessing ...

There's a nice post from ibis from page 9 of this thread...

ibis wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

It's the "tipping point" theory ibis, is it ? The crystallisation of ice happens very quickly apparently and this might happen in the case of climate change - it is argued.

It's more that it's a very large and very complex system. Our models of it, while not perfect, make it obvious that pumping more heat into the system doesn't simply warm the whole thing like it was a homogeneous piece of jelly. The Earth is a heat engine, and the heat of both sunlight and tectonism/radioactive decay is expressed through the circulation of the atmosphere and oceans, driving the evaporation of water and its precipitation.

If you add energy in the form of heat to the climate system, it doesn't simply get warmer, it also gets faster and more erratic - more extreme weather events, unusual heatwaves, unusual cold spells, drought, flood. Each bit of the global climate has multiple possible stable states, as does the climate overall. Adding energy allows the climate to flip between states more readily.

This is the normal state of climate:



It oscillates somewhat, because it's a system that incorporates its own feedback, and so it wobbles around a bit. In fact, if we were to look closely, we'd see that there's a number of micro-states it can be in - El Nino, La Nina, etc. Still, it's stuck in a particular wobbly loop.

Now, if we add energy to that system:



The wobble in the system grows - the uncertainty of what the system will do in response to its immediately previous state if you like. In the diagram, you can see that the climate now flips back and forth between two major patterns. So the system is now in a much bigger, and much more wobbly loop.

You can think of it as hitting a hoop to keep it spinning. It spins with a certain amount of wobble. Hit it harder, and the wobble increases.

Clearly, if we continued forcing the system even harder, it could flip over one of the two big peaks into a totally different climatic system altogether. The peaks (they're tipping points, in fact) are asymmetric, though - if we went over to Alternate Climate B, we'd have a hard time getting back again.

This is why youngdan's folksy cleverness about the weather being cold so completely misses the point. He still thinks it should all just get warmer, and that's not what climatic forcing does.

Auditor #9 wrote:

There must be some models as to how that might happen though and plenty of indicators that we should be looking at/for.

Yes, but unfortunately we're mostly finding out how bad things are just as they get bad.

Auditor #9 wrote:

How soon would we know that this recession was affecting CO2 in the atmosphere though ? How often do they measure it ? Or are we looking at ocean temperature data or what ?

It's continually monitored, both as atmospheric concentrations, and as output from polluting industries. The basics are pretty simple, though - if it takes X tons of CO2 to make Y tons of product, and factories are making half as much Y as a year ago, we can safely say there's less emissions.

Propaganda? Naivety? Ignorance? The truth?

Might be that Americans are still not seeing the idea of 'Climate Change' ....