Climate Change & Global Warming

[Medziotojas]

^Perhaps of interest:

 

Tree planting in Shetland

[Deorccwen]

^ Thanks for the link to the tree-planting thread: very interesting!

[ArabiaTerra]

This is a good way of putting it:

I'm pretty tired of the skeptics claiming that they are being "silenced" by a giant "conspiracy" for which there is no evidence.

Really, all they need to do is state their alternative hypothesis clearly :

 

Taking squillions of tons of stored carbon out of the ground, converting it into a known greenhouse gas, and putting it into the atmosphere in a geological eyeblink will have no effect on the climate.

 

..and then provide a body of peer-reviewed evidence to support this hypothesis.

 

I won't hold my breath.

[Skunnered]

If we keep burning oil until it finally runs out, does anyone know how much CO2 will be in the atmosphere by then?

[ArabiaTerra]

This should give you some idea.

[Deorccwen]

A really interesting and sensible approach (IMHO - I'm not any kind of scientist let alone a climate scientist!), but it will never be implemented until governments (not just our own) can see beyond their current popularity and the next election. Or until so many people recognise that climate change is a real and serious issue that government action to abate it becomes popular.

 

Problem is, it's hard to persuade people who've grown up in relatively comfortable circumstances that a drop in their standard of living is necessary. And even harder to persuade people who live in impoverished conditions that they should not aspire to the standard of living which most people in the west take for granted. Particularly hard to justify the latter while we insist on high living standards for ourselves!

[Medziotojas]

Problem is, it's hard to persuade people who've grown up in relatively comfortable circumstances that a drop in their standard of living is necessary.

 

AT included. No offence intended, but I'm with Malachy on this one.

[Deorccwen]

ME included! I'm well aware of the research, but it's hard when there's so much out there for the taking, and the misery it causes elsewhere/long term climate effects are more or less invisible to the naked eye...

[Medziotojas]

Sorry, bit nippy today. Everybody should drastically change the way they live in order to survive; only some of AT's past posts have suggested otherwise.

 

We can maintain our current standard of living if we build a windfarm, for example.

 

duck and cover ... run ...

[Deorccwen]

^No need to apologise: I wasn't taking offence, just acknowledging personal responsibility. Just worded it badly, and now I hope you haven't taken offence!

[Medziotojas]

Yeah, we broke it (the planet that is), and we need to fix it.

 

No offence intended or taken.

[Njugle]

We can maintain our current standard of living if we build a windfarm, for example.

 

duck and cover ... run ...

You might well you scoundrel....

http://img1.jurko.net/avatar_11933.gif

 

 

Hmm. Thinx about making bomber emoticon.

[Pleepsie]

An international team of scientists has used the latest electro-magnetic induction equipment to discover that the Arctic ice is in fact "twice as thick" as they had expected, says Christopher Booker....

 

...Meanwhile, up in the Arctic, after yet another delay for bad weather, the hapless Catlin trio, sponsored by an insurance firm which hopes to make money out of alarm over global warming, continue their painful progress towards the distant North Pole, measuring the ice with an old tape measure and assuring Prince Charles by satellite telephone that it is "thinner than expected".

 

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5301082/Climate-change-The-elements-conspire-against-the-warmists.html

 

1 Ice cap , 2 groups of scientists and two wildly differing measurements. Could we be going to see claims that we are entering another ice age plastered over the papers in the near future?

[ArabiaTerra]

An international team of scientists has used the latest electro-magnetic induction equipment to discover that the Arctic ice is in fact "twice as thick" as they had expected, says Christopher Booker....

 

...Meanwhile, up in the Arctic, after yet another delay for bad weather, the hapless Catlin trio, sponsored by an insurance firm which hopes to make money out of alarm over global warming, continue their painful progress towards the distant North Pole, measuring the ice with an old tape measure and assuring Prince Charles by satellite telephone that it is "thinner than expected".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5301082/Climate-change-The-elements-conspire-against-the-warmists.html

1 Ice cap , 2 groups of scientists and two wildly differing measurements. Could we be going to see claims that we are entering another ice age plastered over the papers in the near future?

Hmmm, I can't comment on the "twice as thick" claim as Booker give no link or reference to where he got it. As far as the claim that the ice extent is above the average since 1979 goes, this_is_a_lie. From the website of the National Snow and Ice Data Center I got the following:

Sea ice extent averaged over the month of April 2009 was 14.58 million square kilometers (5.63 million square miles). This was 710,000 square kilometers (274,000 square miles) above the record low for April in 2007, and 420,000 square kilometers (162,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average.

You should be careful when quoting anything from Booker, as he is a well known denier, distorter and liar when it comes to climate science. Basically, if you read what he says and then assume the opposite is true then you won't be far off the mark.

Today I am launching a new and much-coveted award. It will be presented to whoever manages, in the course of 2009, to cram as many misrepresentations, distortions and falsehoods into a single article, statement, lecture, film or interview about climate change.

 

My first nomination for this award is...Christopher Booker!

 

In his latest column for the Sunday Telegraph, Booker manages six and a half clangers: pretty good going in fewer than 900 words.

Here's the full article.

 

Edit: Oh yeah, when it comes to comparing ice thickness measurements between some guys in a plane with some kind of fancy new electronic scanner and some guys actually on the ice measuring it with a ruler, I'll go with the ruler every time.

[Pleepsie]

^^^

 

 

Electro-magnetic induction equipment has been in use for many years and is used extensively.

 

The Caitlin trio:-

They are using sophisticated scientific equipment to survey the ice in order to establish baseline data for later comparison to establish the effects of climate change on the ice.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/16/weather-arctic-climate-change

 

but as it broke down they resorted to the old tape measure.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/may/08/catlin-arctic-survey-poles

We had our last hot food several days before the re-supply plane came. Up until then, Pen and Martin were carrying on with the ice drilling, but one evening they came back in so weak and wobbly we knew that they just had no energy left and it would be dangerous to continue.

 

Now what are the chances of someone making an error with the figures when they are in such a weakened state. Pretty high I would say.

 

I went to the website of the National Snow and Ice Data Center I notice you didn't put these bits from the article in :

 

Arctic sea ice extent declined quite slowly in April; as a result, total ice extent is now close to the mean extent for the reference period (1979 to 2000).

 

The decline rate for the month of April was the third slowest on record.

 

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/