Climate Change & Global Warming

[ArabiaTerra]

Is the sea rising?

 

Using these datasets it is estimated that around 30% of the observed rate of rise over the satellite altimeter time period is due to ocean thermal expansion and 55% results from accumulated melting land ice. There is evidence that the land ice melt contribution has increased significantly over the past five years.

[ArabiaTerra]

This is bad, very, very bad.

[paulb]

yes sorry about that one too many curries.

[Medziotojas]

We are surrounded by umpteen potential catastrophes on a daily basis and I fear fearmongering only serves to supplement the coffers of the few.

 

That's not to say I don't believe we should tighten our belts and stop taking for granted the resources we rape and plunder unnecessarily.

[Carlos]

Earth's 9 lives

"They identified nine "planetary life-support systems" that are vital for human survival. They then quantified how far we have pushed them already, and estimated how much further we can go without threatening our own survival."

http://www.newscientist.com/special/ocean-to-ozone-earths-nine-life-support-systems

[ArabiaTerra]

More on the IPCC and their underestimation of sea-level rise.

[PJ of Hildisvik]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7405392/Electric-cars-and-40-new-nuclear-power-stations-to-meet-climate-change-targets.html

[paulb]

so your getting a nissen car then pj think a full hundred miles between charges. were would that strand you.

[Malachy]

Amusing paragraph about people's attitude to climate change in Charlie Brooker's column in the Guardian this week.

 

And we do the same with the environment: we fail to take painful measures in the present that could ease our existence in the future, because we think they're too arduous – unless you're a spluttering contrarian, in which case you think the whole climate change thing is a load of trumped-up phooey anyway, and that all scientists are shifty, self-serving exaggerators, apart from the brave handful who agree with you. Hey, I'm no scientist. I'm not an engineer either, but if I asked 100 engineers whether it was safe to cross a bridge, and 99 said no, I'd probably try to find another way over the ravine rather than loudly siding with the underdog and arguing about what constitutes a consensus while trundling across in my Hummer.

 

The full article is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/15/charlie-brooker-time

And worth reading, as he always is.

[PJ of Hildisvik]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7465370/Damage-to-peat-bogs-driving-climate-change.html

 

Don't build industrial windfarms on peat..."simples"

[ArabiaTerra]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7465370/Damage-to-peat-bogs-driving-climate-change.html

 

Don't build industrial windfarms gas plants anything at all on peat..."simples"

Fixed that for you. Your hypocrisy was showing.

[crofter]

Maybe not. Arctic seems to be freezing up nicely,

As for the "Arctic seems to be freezing up nicely", this is just rubbish. The ice area recovery is only just keeping up with 2007-08, the worst season ever recorded.

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png

 

 

Have you looked at that graph lately AT? Still freezing up nicely, I would say...

 

In fact, ice extent is almost back to "normal" - and in a winter which has been anomalously warm in the arctic. What is the explanation for that? The Arctic is warm and yet the sea ice just keeps on growing and growing!

[ArabiaTerra]

^^^^ You better watch out, Crofter, I got a right slagging last time I posted that graph. Too big for some people.

 

As far as your point goes, I would hardly call it "freezing up nicely". It is better than the worst year recorded but it's only manifested this in the last month or so. Prior to that and for most of the winter it was tracking the lowest year ever.

 

A late burst of freezing means that all the new ice you're so pleased about is thin, single year ice. This will melt all the more quickly when the summer melting season starts, so I would hardly call this grounds for optimism. And with El Nino conditions holding on in the Pacific, we're still on course for a record breaking warm year this year so it wouldn't surprise me to see record melting this summer.

[Gorgonzola Butt-cheese]

Whether it is a hot summer or not arctic sea ice is at present within the normal range as per records suggest , and it is in the normal range after billions of tons of fossil fuels of all descriptions having been consumed in the last couple of hundred years and also the great forests of western europe consumed as charcoal in the thousands before .

Some exsperts suggest we would be encased in a kilometre snow drift by now if we had not taken this action ?

A thing to remember about exsperts , x being an unknown quantity and a spurt being a drip under pressure .

Now you have moved on to but this summer is gonna be a hot un , ( maybe even as hot as 1976 , or one of those summers in the medieval warm period perhaps as some xspurts suggest !)

It all remains to be seen , come on cheer up its been the coldest winter in 30 year!

[euripides]

I think something important has been overlooked on this thread. I'm IT illiterate and don't know how to put the relevant quotes into my text, so I'll just type in the dates and authors: Malachy and GB-cheese, 3.3.10, hope folk don't mind srolling up the page.

Malachy is quite right to say that weather blibs like this cold winter don't contradict global warming theory. If you read the National GEographical article GB-cheese gives a link to in his post his example of high rainfalls in North Africa are actually a direct result of global warming and not the opposite, but a very interesting one. It seems that global warming hasn't led to the expansion of deserts as was forecast, some deserts are shrinking because the warmer air caused by global warming generates more moisture and produces higher rainfall. That's how I understand it, please correct me if I'm wrong.

It looks like this has taken the scientists by surprise. To me this means that nature reacts in ways that can't be predicted or forecast, quite an interesting development.