What happened to global warming?

[Badjelly]

You can't tell me in earth's history that the planet has never heated up or cooled down before, what a load of shit.

(I know I shouldn't but...)

Has anyone ever told you that "in earth's history that the planet has never heated up or cooled down before"?

[mashman]

Exactly. My thoughts are that the money spent on tackling climate change would be better spent on developing technology which will enable us to live through the period of change - perhaps even comfortably!

Unfortunately that probably is where the AGW money is going and that's why it dissapears so quickly... R&D is a fucking expensive business... but we do actually already have the technology to deal with "Climate Change"... it's called fire and cardigans for when it's cold and togs for when it's sunny... anything in between and it wearers choice!

[Badjelly]

Totally agree, I read a book called "Not by Fire But by Ice" or similar very interesting. You can't tell me in earth's history that the planet has never heated up or cooled down before,....

Has anyone ever told you that "in earth's history that the planet has never heated up or cooled down before"?

No I didn't think so. Certainly not IPCC Working Group 1, who wrote a 66-page chapter on how the planet has heated up and cooled down before.

..., what a load of shit.

[spacemonkey]

What happened to it? Absolutely nothing. The planet is still cooling as it has been doing for the last 11 years.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/3142117...in-record-heat

Yep getting real fucking cold now.

[avgas]

and it has been constantly recycling itself over that whole time.

Damn spin cycle........never works properly

[Badjelly]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/3142117...in-record-heat

Yep getting real fucking cold now.

In a post on another thread...

http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/sh...1&postcount=70

...I've linked to a page that shows global average temperature vs time for the last 30 years from several different datasets, based on surface or satellite measurements.

In all of them you can see a sharp dip down in late 2007-early 2008 (I think) associated with the La Nina then and you can see the trace climbing up since the El Nino set in earlier this year.

Of course these are short-term fluctuations and no sensible person would base his ideas on climate on the latest wiggle in the time series. (Surely!) What's more important is the slower trend on time scales of a decade or more. This still appears to be going steadily up.

The fact that 2000-2009 will be the warmest decade in the instrumental record is old news, really. It's been pretty obvious that this would be the case for a few years now, even at the bottom of the trough in 2008.

[avgas]

how? carbon credits will stop global warming.... ok, or it may rape our already shitty economy?

Force people to plant trees.....I think its a bullshit way to go about it. And I am waiting for more specifics about the trading rate - but I am seriously considering it.
Considering kiwifruit is no even worth the shit is produces it could be a good side venture.
Of course when certain people realise that us kiwis can do carbon exchange in NZ and not ship the trading off-shore. Watch them attempt to shut it down.

[StoneY]

Bah humbug

Lost cause, im more concerened with our shrinking fisheries than what temperature the atmosphere is this month

People should get more concerned about sustainable resources than the temperature, IMO

[avgas]

..I've linked to a page that shows global average temperature vs time for the last 30 years from several different datasets, based on surface or satellite measurements.

Err that is using the same tactic as the warmist were using.
Recordings of 30 years, for a planet that has done this for 10^6 years......

....as effective as a Colmar-Bruntin Pole about "Most NZer's think John Key could beat Chuck Norris"

Core samples show that this type of thing heats and cools over a 120 year period.......so 30 years of samples is not worth a pinch of shit

[avgas]

People should get more concerned about sustainable resources than the temperature, IMO

Exactly - could not have said it better myself

[Jantar]

In a post on another thread...

http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/sh...1&postcount=70

...I've linked to a page that shows global average temperature vs time for the last 30 years from several different datasets, based on surface or satellite measurements.....

I didn't believe in sea level rise either until last time I was at a beach. Over a 5 hour period the water level rose about 1 meter. And for almost all of that 5th hour it stayed at or near its upper level. With such a high rate of rise, I got out of there real quick.

[Badjelly]

Err that is using the same tactic as the warmist were using. Recordings of 30 years, for a planet that has done this for 10^6 years......

It's not a tactic, it's a series of graphs of data, all documented, all open to examination, I believe. It was in response to posts from Jantar that said the planet had been cooling for the last 11 years. Pot, meet kettle.

If you care to look at some of the many other posts I have done on this site, you will see that I have consistently stated that the climate has varied hugely in the past. How could I not? It's basic background knowledge. I have pointed out that the IPCC has a 66-page chapter in the latest Working Group 1 report on climate variations on the past. This is obviously part of a very clever cover-up: hide the secret information in a document that's so long and technical no-one's going to read it.

For the last couple of million years we have been going through big glacial/interglacial variations, for the last 400,000 odd years on a 100,000 year cycle, previously on a 40,000 year cycle (I think, don't quote me). These cycles have involved huge ice sheets covering northern North America and northern Europe and then withdrawing. The ice locked up in these sheets has lowered sea level by more than 100 m as recently as 15,0000 years ago. Again, basic background knowledge, known to all Earth scientists. Incidentally, the variation in global average temperature between the peak and trough of these cycles was about 5 deg C, which doesn't sound all that much, does it?

There's been a lot of argument about whether the planet is now warmer than it was in the Medieval Warm Period. I don't care. (I think it has, probably. It's an interesting question, but it's not a crucial question.) As I understand it--and I got this from Jim Hansen--the global average temperature is still 0.5 C short of the warmest period in the current interglacial, approx 8000 years ago, and 1 C short of the peak of the previous interglacial, called the Eemian, 120,000 years ago. So here we have a prominent, outspoken global warming "alarmist" telling you it has been warmer in the not-so-distant past than it is now.

So if global warming to date hasn't produced unprecedented temperatures, why are Jim Hansen and I worried? Grab yourself a cup of coffee, I'll try to explain. First, the CO2 level in the atmosphere is unprecedented, higher than it's been for at least 800,000 years, probably several million. This is based on mainly on ice core data. Don't be distracted by Quasi's bullshit about CO2 fluxes being predominantly natural. The natural world kept CO2 between 170 and 280 ppm for a long, long time and since we started burning fossil fuels in big quantities it's been rising steadily and is now at about 380 ppm. We know where that extra CO2 came from (fossil fuel burning, mostly) and we know where it's going (the atmosphere and ocean, some recently to vegetation in the Northern Hemisphere). Second, we know CO2 (and other greenhouse gases: methane, N2O) change the radiative balance of the Earth and we can calculate the size of this effect. Third, from many different lines of evidence we know the sensitivity of the Earth's temperature to changes in radiative forcing. This sensitivity is usually expressed as the the change in equilibrium temperature for a doubling of CO2 and it's about 3 C; could be 2, could be 4, unlikely to be outside this range. So 30 years ago, when all these lines of evidence came together, a few people like Jim Hansen did the sums and said this accumulation of CO2 had to warm the planet eventually and ran some simple models. And now, 30 years later, the model projections turn out to have been right. The planet has warmed, the warming can't be explained by any other mechanism (PDO, Jantar? I'm sceptical), the pattern of warming can't be explained by any other mechanism. (I'll explain that more if anyone wants.)

So the recent warming is probably (very probably?) caused by the rise in greenhouse gases. And if that's true the future warming can be estimated and it might be a big deal. Several degrees. That would be unprecedented over at least the last few million years. We'd be experiencing conditions that occurred during the Miocene. Crocodiles in Alaska. Nothing wrong with the Miocene, I'm sure it was very nice (except for all those bloody crocodiles) but there might be a few transition issues.

But the warming won't happen immediately because of inertia: the thermal inertia of the ocean, which absorbs a lot of the extra heat and warms up slowly; and the economic inertia of humanity who aren't going to stop burning fossil fuels in a big hurry.

Now you may not accept all or any of this, and I'd love to hear your reasons, but please, please don't tell me that the climate has varied naturally in the past so current variations can't be caused by humans.

[Badjelly]

I didn't believe in sea level rise either until last time I was at a beach. Over a 5 hour period the water level rose about 1 meter. And for almost all of that 5th hour it stayed at or near its upper level. With such a high rate of rise, I got out of there real quick.

You're the one who's extrapolating short-term fluctuations, mate, not me.

[Pwalo]

Now you may not accept all or any of this, and I'd love to hear your reasons, but please, please don't tell me that the climate has varied naturally in the past so current variations can't be caused by humans.

So it might not be then. Thanks. it's good to see that you're keeping an open mind.

[Badjelly]

So it might not be then. Thanks. it's good to see that you're keeping an open mind.

Sorry, I don't quite understand what you're saying. So what might not be what then?

As to an open mind, I have biases. I try not to let them blind me to the truth. On the question of whether the moon might be made of green cheese, for example, I have never seen any evidence for this hypothesis, so, pending further evidence, I'm inclined to dismiss it out of hand. On the question of whether the recent warming might be largely unrelated to the recent anthropogenic input of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, I think that definitely has a higher chance of being true than the moon-green cheese hypothesis.