Global warming

where?


that is all

[G]

Apparently the northern Ice shelf will completely disappear this year for the first time ever.....5 years sooner than they had predicted.

This increase in water and the fact that ocean currents have changed due to new previously frozen channels being created......is the cause for nothing but rain rain rain.......


But I agree, its all complete balls....the world has natural cycles every thousand years (see previous ice ages etc)

Can you imagine if Gordon Brown was about when the world was just one big continent and started breaking up to form what we have now.......what the hell would he have blamed that on lol

As far as i'm concerned it's regarded as Global Readjustment as G said there are natural cycles and believe it or not we are technically still in an iceage.

Here we go again

Yes, global warming has been hyped. A bit. But why is it we're so ready to dismiss global warming as mere hype and yet we accept the frenzied diatribe the Daily Express spouts out as if it were gospel?

I am not a climate scientist (hands up here who is. Anyone?) so today I'm going to have to rely on Wikipedia a bit:

The average global air temperature near the Earth's surface increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the hundred years ending in 2005. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes "most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (man-made) greenhouse gas concentrations" via an enhanced greenhouse effect. Natural phenomena such as solar variation combined with volcanoes probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950 and a small cooling effect from 1950 onward.

So the worlds pre-eminent scientists have concluded that natural variations probably had a small warming effect up to 1950 and actually had a small cooling effect since 1950. Yet temperature is slowly creeping up.

Anyone put their hand up to being a climate scientist yet? Anyone? No-one? Ok, moving on, lets look at the people who do think there is something to global warming:

These basic conclusions have been endorsed by at least thirty scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries. While individual scientists have voiced disagreement with some findings of the IPCC, the overwhelming majority of scientists working on climate change agree with the IPCC's main conclusions.

So here we have thirty different acadamies of science, including those of all major industrialised countries saying one thing - but we're ready to dismiss all that as hype? Why? What secret knowledge do you have that trumps the professional careers, the years of study and experience of thousands of scientists worldwide? Please don't tell me your trump card was a pullout section in the Daily Express.

Let me put it another way. Lets say I go to the doctor because my leg's hurting a bit. The doc takes a look at it and says "yep, it's broken, going to need a cast". I say "nah, it's just a flesh wound, an elastoplast will be fine". Then lets say I hobble round thousands of doctors worldwide, lets say I go to 30 different teaching hospitals and set up seminars on my poorly leg. When every one of those teaching hospitals, and 95% of the individual doctors all say "it's definitely broken, you're going to need a cast", I can't really take the evidence of the 5% who say "nah, that's not broken, we can fix it with voodoo and breathing excercises" and say that proves my point. To put it another way, I wouldn't have a leg to stand on

Originally Posted by MiniMatt

So here we have thirty different acadamies of science, including those of all major industrialised countries saying one thing - but we're ready to dismiss all that as hype? Why? What secret knowledge do you have that trumps the professional careers, the years of study and experience of thousands of scientists worldwide? Please don't tell me your trump card was a pullout section in the Daily Express.

Nope, a much higher authority. The President of the United States. With all his advisors, he must be right - no?

good work minimatt

Originally Posted by Ed

Nope, a much higher authority. The President of the United States. With all his advisors, he must be right - no?

[the_lone_wolf]

Originally Posted by MiniMatt

The average global air temperature near the Earth's surface increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the hundred years ending in 2005. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes "most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (man-made) greenhouse gas concentrations" via an enhanced greenhouse effect. Natural phenomena such as solar variation combined with volcanoes probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950 and a small cooling effect from 1950 onward.

DISCLAIMER: THIS REBUTTAL MAY OR MAY NOT BE MY OPINION...

soooooooo

how accurate were temperature measurements in 1905? down to a hundredth of a degree? how were the measurements taken? where are the sensors? on the outskirts of towns that used to be villages that are growing into cities and increasing the area of the associated local warming phenomena? 0.18 is 25% of 0.74degrees, where else do globaly far reaching changes get based on statements with a 1 in 4 error?

the doctor analogy is flawed because we know far more about broken legs than we do about climate mechanisms.

global warming is just another thing to get worked up about, the 80s had communists, the 00s have terrorism and global warming...

any anyway, what's the big deal about the consequences anyway? rising sea levels mean we'll be able to finally wipe london off the map. when the gulf stream stops flowing i'll buy a bigger coat for winter - i don't think we've been around for thousands of years by moaning and hand wringing whenever a problem came up

right... that should liven up the thread

[G]

Originally Posted by MiniMatt

Let me put it another way. Lets say I go to the doctor because my leg's hurting a bit. The doc takes a look at it and says "yep, it's broken, going to need a cast". I say "nah, it's just a flesh wound, an elastoplast will be fine". Then lets say I hobble round thousands of doctors worldwide, lets say I go to 30 different teaching hospitals and set up seminars on my poorly leg. When every one of those teaching hospitals, and 95% of the individual doctors all say "it's definitely broken, you're going to need a cast", I can't really take the evidence of the 5% who say "nah, that's not broken, we can fix it with voodoo and breathing excercises" and say that proves my point. To put it another way, I wouldn't have a leg to stand on

A broken leg can be physically seen and is a complete change from what is physically meant to be in the potential 100year life cycle of a human.

History....not 'scientific assumptions' shows that over the millions of years of earth life, the climate has CONSTANTLY changed, and temperature fluctuated from silly highs to silly lows, the earth has been almost entirely covered in water...and then almost entirely covered in Ice.

You cant control that or try to make up reasons for it happening....its a natural occurrence, scientist need to really get a life and concentrate on more important things. The problem is that there is so many of them and the goverment is willing to pay for them so they give them the answers they want so they keep getting funding.

Ok the doctor analagy was to illustrate the point that I'm not a doctor and as such it would be ludicrous of me to contradict the advice of thousands of doctors. Similarly, I'm not a climate scientist and as such I'm going to need some pretty strong evidence to start contradicting their professional area of expertise. Ok, put it another way, whose opinion carries more weight on legal matters? Mine or Ed's? I'm a curious amateur on legal matters, I like to think I know enough to get me into (or keep me out of) trouble - yet Ed's a lawyer - if I'm going to contradict Ed's professional area of expertise and his years of training I'm going to need to do something other than just say "nah, he's talking rubbish".

People raise the "earth's climate has constantly changed over millenia" and somehow assume that climate scientists hadn't actually thought of that. It's not a trump card, it's already been taken into account.

As to the accuracy of measurements I'll be honest I don't know. Again, I've enough faith in the scientific process to assume that professional scientists won't suddenly go "doh! he's got us there! oops, sorry everyone!". I'm assuming there are other ways besides historical archives to get such data as well, after all - as people have pointed out - we know with some accuracy temperatures on the earth millenia ago, and thanks to mineral deposits, ice core sample and tree data and the like we can tell the exact atmospheric composition millenia ago.

And why does it matter? Well apart from famine, war, disease, pestilence and death on a scale so large that the phrase "biblical" does no justice, I guess the danger is that we add "man made" temperature rises to "natural" temperature rises and cross a balance point beyond which the process becomes a runaway train and we end up with an atmosphere like Venus.