Climate Change & Global Warming

[crofter]

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.

 

Of course, you may be correct. I just couldn't resist having a little gloat!

 

More seriously, (and I'm genuinely puzzled by this) why are we seeing such big increases in sea ice, in both hemispheres, when the temps in both the Arctic and Antarctic have been warmer than average?

[Pleepsie]

A member of the House of Lords appointed to investigate the veracity of climate science has close links to businesses that stand to make billions of pounds from low-carbon technology.

 

Lord Oxburgh is to chair a scientific assessment panel that will examine the published science of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

 

Climate sceptics questioned whether Lord Oxburgh, chairman of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association and the wind energy company Falck Renewables, was truly independent because he led organisations that depended on climate change being seen as an urgent problem.

 

Lord Oxburgh has said that he believes the need to tackle climate change will make capturing carbon from power plants “a worldwide industry of the same scale as the international oil industry todayâ€.

 

The CCS Association has stated that carbon capture could become a “trillion dollar industry†by 2050, but this would happen only if governments made reducing emissions a top political priority. In an interview in 2007, Lord Oxburgh said that the threat from global warming was so severe that “it may be that we shall need . . . regulations which impose very severe penalties on people who emit more than specified amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphereâ€.

 

Can anyone guess what the 'findings' of the panel will be - I'm putting my money on (and into the pockets of carbon capture companies) them deciding that we humans are causing Climate Change, and in the words of the panel chairman I will find myself paying huge taxes because ' very severe penalties ' will need to be imposed in order to ensure that his company achieves its billions of pounds target.

[Carlos]

More seriously, (and I'm genuinely puzzled by this) why are we seeing such big increases in sea ice, in both hemispheres, when the temps in both the Arctic and Antarctic have been warmer than average?

I was reading recently of the influence of wind patterns in ice break up in the Arctic, with up to 1/3 of the variability in ice cover accounted for by the seasonal extremes of wind. I'd imagine that any lower ice cover from other factors generally means thinnner ice, which in turns means it is easier for any destructive winds to break up, and ends up showing more variability in the annual ice cover records?

[crofter]

I'd imagine that any lower ice cover from other factors generally means thinnner ice, which in turns means it is easier for any destructive winds to break up, and ends up showing more variability in the annual ice cover records?

 

That might explain it, if arctic temps were not so warm the area of the ice might not be much greater, but maybe thicker ice would form?

[Carlos]

I don't know much about the specific science and don't want to generalise, but I suppose the ice volume and ice thickness relationship is linked but not necessarily fixed, depening on quite a few things.

Air temperature, water temperature and overall effects of wind action would seem to be the main drivers of ice cover, but then you have local variation in time and location to each of those, with the combined effects maybe showing more variability than any single thing would suggest? Long term trends will become obvious in the long term, but the driving factors as always are likely to be combinations of effects acting together?

[crofter]

Long term trends will become obvious in the long term, but the driving factors as always are likely to be combinations of effects acting together?

 

Yes, I agree with that. Speaking about trends, the period they use in the big graph which AT posted and which I bumped back up on the previous page is 1979 - 2000. The current sea ice extent is within 2 standard deviations of this average, but if 30 years of data were used (1979 - 2009) it would be even closer to "normal" since the low values in the recent past would be included.

[sjeunson]

Long term trends will become obvious in the long term, but the driving factors as always are likely to be combinations of effects acting together?

 

Yes, I agree with that. Speaking about trends, the period they use in the big graph which AT posted and which I bumped back up on the previous page is 1979 - 2000. The current sea ice extent is within 2 standard deviations of this average, but if 30 years of data were used (1979 - 2009) it would be even closer to "normal" since the low values in the recent past would be included.

 

Yup they would. The problem being that 95.4% of the data sample will fall within 2 standard deviations. Being inside this limit isn't exactly challenging.

[PJ of Hildisvik]

Something for AT to pick at

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1260132/Russian-weatherman-strikes-blow-climate-change-lobby-announcing-winter-Siberia-coldest-record.html

[Gorgonzola Butt-cheese]

litres / tons of fuel not burnt anybody ?? the best advertisement wind power could have or the most damning evidence against them . Does anybody know the true answer ?

All other arguments are waffle in the face of this question.

[euripides]

GB-cheese, don't you think that if the fuel savings at the power station are significant VE wouldn't be shouting from the roof tops by now? Their silence on this subject speaks volumes.

You could post the question on their website and see what comes back. Good luck.

[skaterboy]

VE dont answer questions when the answers show them up to be full of poop

[ArabiaTerra]

Something for AT to pick at

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1260132/Russian-weatherman-strikes-blow-climate-change-lobby-announcing-winter-Siberia-coldest-record.html

Weather not climate.

 

(To the mods: Could I get a button beside the bold, italics, etc that just prints "weather not climate" at one click, I'm starting to wear out some of the keys on my new keyboard. Oh, and maybe you could look at a specific thread for those who wish to discuss the weather internationally, instead of cluttering up the "Global Warming thread?)

[PJ of Hildisvik]

AT ...didn't read the article then?, i bet if it was a warmer than average winter in Siberia you woud be shouting about it.

Double standards no?

[Carlos]

Well, the Canadian winter has been reported as 4C warmer than average........

http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/Canada+warmest+winter+ever+beyond+shocking/2666979/story.html

 

But yes, this one winter has little bearing on any climate change debate.

[ArabiaTerra]

AT ...didn't read the article then?, i bet if it was a warmer than average winter in Siberia you woud be shouting about it.

Double standards no?

Of course I didn't read it, it's in the Daily Heil for dog sake. There's nothing in that rag that even approaches the description of news.

Well, the Canadian winter has been reported as 4C warmer than average........

http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/Canada+warmest+winter+ever+beyond+shocking/2666979/story.html

Right back at ya, PJ.