David Bellamy or Al Gore?

[Hitcher]

There is no doubt the world's climate is changing. As it has done so throughout the world's existence. What is in doubt is the rate at which it is changing and whether it has anything to do with human activity.

And if the change has anything to do with human activity, whether or not that effect is reversible/treatable.

But forgetting about the rights and wrongs of the "climate change" argument, people should be encouraged to change their behaviours because that makes sense for a whole bunch of other reasons: such as economic, enviromental, cultural and social sustainability.

[Babelfish]

I just want to know how we're doing with the intergalactic spacecraft to blow this joint

[Eddieb]

Two hundred years ago, Londoners held fairs and markets on the Thames, as it was frozen solid. But the Romans, who documented everything, never recorded the Thames as freezing. In fact, they shifted the Roman capital of Britain from Colchester to London because of the great year-round river access.

I'm not going to get into the rights and wrongs of this whole argument, however the freezing of the Thames is often attributed (In London's own council provided info) to the building of bridges whose span width between supports caused the river flow to slow to such an extent that it would freeze over in the colder winters. As those bridges collapsed/burnt down/whatever and were replaced the advances in building technology allowed wider spans that didn't slow the river flow to such an extent, and hence it no longer froze over.

[Clockwork]

Presumably then, if the river is flowing faster but the catchment remains unchanged then the river level should be lower?

[davereid]

Hmm, global warming huh. A year or so ago I was working on a project installing temperature measuring equipment. We were sent "state of the art" CSi107 temperature probes from Campbell Scientific in the USA. The probes came with 3 sets of software, "standard", software for "electrically noisy environments" and software for "long cables" - anywhere more than 70 ft from probe to logger.

I dumped all 12 probes in a bucket of ice, and recorded all 12 probes every 5 minutes. using all 3 sets of software. Surprise, surprise, more than 2 degrees difference from highest to lowest probe from freezing to boiling point.

So, I'm sceptical about our ability to measure climate today to less than 0.5 degrees, nevertheless how we did it 100 years ago.

p.s. google csi107 - you will find its pretty common in the world for temperature measurement.

[Clockwork]

Or to put it another way.... if the river was running slower it must have been more prone to flooding?

[Clockwork]

Or to put it another way... why would anyone trust information diseminated from Red Ken's council?

[Jantar]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world...869000,00.html


Maybe someone should ask Bellamy what causing this.


There is no doubt that the earth has undergone climate change in the past. What is unprecedented is the speed that it is taking place. It is not about money, carbon credits or other such bullshit that those with heads in the 'bog' claim.

The article quotes Nature magazine. Nothing gets printed in that mag. untill the research has been subject to peer review.

Skyryder

Two things wrong with this:

Climate change in the past has happened very fast compared to any that we are seeing today, and temperatures have now been falling since the peak year of 1998. If increases in CO2 cause increases in Temperature, then why is it getting Cooler?

Nothing gets printed in Nature unless Nature sends it for peer review and it complies with their guidelines. There are many scientific papers showing that AGW is a myth that have been peer reviewed and still not published in Nature. However some have been in Nature, mainly because the main aim of the reaearch isn't AGW, but in reaching their conclusions they do undermine the idea of any CO2 caused warming.

[SPman]

Climate change in the past has happened very fast compared to any that we are seeing today,.............. If increases in CO2 cause increases in Temperature, then why is it getting Cooler?.

Where is it getting cooler? From a West Australian perspective, temperatures certainly are not getting cooler. People over here are genuinely concerned, espec. in the country and that is not based on any intellectual debate or political posturing - its based on lifetime observation and 150 years of records. It is demonstrably hotter and drier here than at any time in the last 150 yrs, with a noticeable increase in temps. and decrease in rainfall over the last 10 yrs. People are starting to talk and act 'climate change', because it is starting to seriously impact on them. It is not an abstract - it has to be lived with and in! eg - the local river was virtually dry this year for the first time in living memory - there has always been some water in it, even in the worst summers. The number of days , over 40 C, has gone from an average of 2-3, ten years ago, to the 9 we had last summer. Of course there will be anomalies - A cold snap, a wet week, but the trend s what matters, and, over here, the trend fits the predicted pattern. Climate, of course always changes. There is very seldom a fixed, standard, "normal" climate for any length of time. And what is "normal", anyway? If the temperature does climb 3-4 degrees, it won't hurt the planet, but it sure as hell will piss off and affect billions of people and if it forces us to rethink a lot about how 'civilised society' functions, and a realignment of priorities,then bring it on.

[Hitcher]

• Rage against waste and want.
• Just enough is plenty.
• Reject the limits of division and self interest.
• Seek freedom. Freedom from greed and from poverty, freedom to learn, freedom to share, freedom to wonder.
• Connect. Our capacity for supporting one another is humanity’s defining virtue.
• Draw strength from unity. Alone we are precious, together we are powerful.
• Take control. We are what we do.

[Jantar]

Where is it getting cooler? From a West Australian perspective, temperatures certainly are not getting cooler. People over here are genuinely concerned, espec. in the country and that is not based on any intellectual debate or political posturing - its based on lifetime observation and 150 years of records. It is demonstrably hotter and drier here than at any time in the last 150 yrs, with a noticeable increase in temps. and decrease in rainfall over the last 10 yrs. People are starting to talk and act 'climate change', because it is starting to seriously impact on them. It is not an abstract - it has to be lived with and in! eg - the local river was virtually dry this year for the first time in living memory - there has always been some water in it, even in the worst summers. The number of days , over 40 C, has gone from an average of 2-3, ten years ago, to the 9 we had last summer. Of course there will be anomalies - A cold snap, a wet week, but the trend s what matters, and, over here, the trend fits the predicted pattern. Climate, of course always changes. There is very seldom a fixed, standard, "normal" climate for any length of time. And what is "normal", anyway? If the temperature does climb 3-4 degrees, it won't hurt the planet, but it sure as hell will piss off and affect billions of people and if it forces us to rethink a lot about how 'civilised society' functions, and a realignment of priorities,then bring it on.

At this site: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/m.../tltglhmam_5.2
you can see the actual temperature anomalies as recorded by NASA since 1979.. they are split into monthly and 12 monthly running nmean for global, Northern and Southern hemispheres.

As you specifically mention Western Australia, here are the temperature records for Kalgoorlie, Esperance and Albany to 2002. No sign of warming there. http://www.john-daly.com/stations/kalgoorlie.gif

[Winston001]

In his documentary, Gore presented two graphs; one showing average temperature going back a few thousand years and another graph showing atmospheric CO2 levels going back to the same point. And yes, on the face of it, the graphs seem to bear a striking correlation. That is, until you begin to look a little closer and see that CO2 levels actually lag global temperature by a couple of hundred years. It would appear that atmospheric CO2 levels are dependent on global temperature, not the other round. This actually makes sense, as the ability of water to absorb CO2 is inversely proportional to its temperature.

For anyone interested in climate change, go to http://www.realclimate.org/ which is a site run by scientists. If nothing else, you'll get a sense for how complex climate data is.

Sanx - there is a specific rebuttal of the point you make - http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...-temp-and-co2/

A snippet:

"In Senator Barton's criticism of Gore he also points out that CO2 has sometimes been much higher than it is at present. That is true. CO2 may have reached levels of 1000 parts per million (ppm) -- perhaps much higher -- at times in the distant geological past (e.g. the Eocene, about 55 million years ago). What Barton doesn't bother to mention is that the earth was much much warmer at such times. In any case, more relevant is that CO2 has not gone above about 290 ppm any time in the last 650,000 years (at least), until the most recent increase."

[Winston001]

There are really three issues at stake here:

1 Climate change - manmade?

2 Climate change - normal and we may be just experiencing hysteria or a blip, soon to cool off,

3 Pollution. This is the biggie.

Forget about temperature etc, just think about how we are going to provide for increased billions of human beings in the near future. We are poisoning our environment. Here in NZ we are insulated with a sparse population and fresh water from the skies daily.

I was in India recently and while that country is doing well in technology and industry, the air and water pollution is going to overwhelm the people. It is incedibly bad. Same in south China apparently. The respective governments are doing what they can but they can't slow or stop development because each person is scrambling to get ahead so they can catch up to our lifestyle.

[Jantar]

For anyone interested in climate change, go to http://www.realclimate.org/ which is a site run by scientists. If nothing else, you'll get a sense for how complex climate data is.

Sanx - there is a specific rebuttal of the point you make - http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...-temp-and-co2/

A snippet:

"In Senator Barton's criticism of Gore he also points out that CO2 has sometimes been much higher than it is at present. That is true. CO2 may have reached levels of 1000 parts per million (ppm) -- perhaps much higher -- at times in the distant geological past (e.g. the Eocene, about 55 million years ago). What Barton doesn't bother to mention is that the earth was much much warmer at such times. In any case, more relevant is that CO2 has not gone above about 290 ppm any time in the last 650,000 years (at least), until the most recent increase."

For an opposing view to RealClimate try Climate Audit http://www.climateaudit.org/
or NZ Climate Science http://www.nzclimatescience.org/
Both site presented by real scientists

As for the claim that CO2 has not gone above about 290 ppm any time in the last 650,000 years That has been bebunked by a number of scientists. There has been some recent peer reviewed work by Beck that shows CO2 concentrations have been higher than present during recent history, I'll see if I can find an online reference for you.

[Jantar]

I have found Beck's paper as presented for peer review. http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/1...al_Methods.pdf

The points to note are the high readings of 480 ppm in 1828 and 470 ppm in 1942 with 24 individual readings all higher than the present. The paper also shows the points taken from the Antartic ice core samples, so the reader can see how the IPCC came to false conclusion that current levels are the highest seen in recent times.

Real Science not realscience for the true facts.