Climatic Change

[mashman]

It would just be refreshing if laymen were willing to admit they don't actually have the first clue about what they are talking about. Instead we have people engaging in the debate with a delusion that they have the answer and that there really isn't anything to discuss. It would serve them better to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.

It would be refreshing if the scientific community actually did something scientific to put the questions that a layman may have to rest. As it stands it's just he said, she said... Even when they were discussing climate change a few years ago, the NZ oceanographer said that he didn't believe in "global warming" as he couldn't find any evidence of it (no i can't find the source but it was a televised event)... the others on the panel essentially told him to shut the fuck up and sit down... Perhaps the scientific community should spend some time explaining what they're trying to do instead of ignoring some very valid questions...

[Winston001]

.....

4. FORGET GLOBAL WARMING. THERE'S ANOTHER MORE URGENT ISSUE. Global man made pollution has killed and continues to kill many people. Most people in the urban areas are getting sick or at least have a lower quality of life due to pollution. I'm surprised nobody talks about this. If we as a society continue to burn fossil fuels as much as we currently do, pollution will kill or sicken us all long before the petrol runs out or the weather gets so warm that we end up drowning. This is a much more immediate danger and I'm surprised it has been so ignored in the last few years in the favour of global warming.

Exactly. I have posted this many times here - the real issue is Pollution.

However the Climate Change/Global Warming debate is directly linked to pollution. It is not a separate issue. Releasing CO2 and complex hydrocarbons into the environment is harmful to the biosphere which we live in and need.

[Winston001]

Nothing to do with Global warming etc. etc. etc.

Have to disagree. Ocean acidification is directly linked to pollution of the environment through vast releases of CO2. It dissolves with seawater and lowers the ph which destroys shellfish, coral etc. CO2 is a greenhouse gas so reducing its production by man helps the environment.

[Maha]

Its the re-occurring natural evolution of Mother Earth.
Its happened several times before and things will get a little crazy again in another few 100,000 years.
Planet Earth is just having a clean out, natures enema if you will.

[Matt Bleck]

what makes me laugh is all the people who believe it is real have nothing to say when I ask the question.... "so what are you doing to help stop it?"

[Jantar]

Have to disagree. Ocean acidification is directly linked to pollution of the environment through vast releases of CO2. It dissolves with seawater and lowers the ph which destroys shellfish, coral etc. CO2 is a greenhouse gas so reducing its production by man helps the environment.

Oceanography is outside my area of expertise, but I have noted this:

From: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten...T&fdate=%2F%2F

Measurement of boron isotope compositions in species of planktonic foraminifera that calcified their tests at different depths in the water column are used to reconstruct the pH profile of the upper water column of the tropical ocean. Results for five time windows from the middle Miocene to the late Pleistocene indicate pH-depth profiles similar to that of the modern ocean in this area, which suggests that this method may greatly aid in our understanding of the global carbon cycle.

Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1RJ, UK.

I am unable to find historic ph data to actually calculate any trend. maybe you can point to it. All the peer reviewed articles I have found are predictions, but dont show the current value or past values.

[Subike]

How long have we had the internet?
Information can be transfered to almost any riegion of the civalised world within seconds of the event being reported upon.
Thus we hear of floods, earthquakes, droughts, wars etc the day they happen.
As recent as 50 years ago it could take a week for information about a flood in the middle if the sahara desert to reach our new papers.
Now it would take 50 seconds for us to read about such an event, even to the point of being able to see it happening live .
Does the sunami on Xmass day ring a bell?
My point?
The transfer of information is now so fast, that we can see what is happening anywhere in the world as soon as its happens.
This gives the false appearance of an increase of these things, when really a lots of natural events are happennig at the same pace they always have. we just didnt know how often before.
Add to this that the money makers of the world know this, use it to entrap us into believeing the world is coming to an end, because we caused it.
thus we have to fund them to find the solution to a problem that does not exist. And we will never really know the truth either way, it will be hidden behind other agenders, the fat cats dont care about anything other than the gold in their treasure vaults.

[peasea]

If the world is going to get warmer I'm going to get into air conditioning.

Global warming is a natural thing, like ice ages coming ad going etc, we'll get around it but what we will have trouble getting around is the fucking taxes they'll throw at us to "save the planet". Yawn, sick of hearing about it.

[Str8 Jacket]

Well, I think OVERPOPULATION is the "real" problem. Never mind an ETS, how about a carbon tax on children?

Hell no, just think of how much extra we'll have to pay too beneficiaries just to cover that tax!!

[george formby]

In our lifetime, say the next 50 years, poverty, disease, water & food shortages, on going pollution & energy crises will affect us most. More realistically, people fighting to get away from these issues will cause the problems. Actual climate change, getting colder or warmer is well beyond our control, whether we are at fault or not. The chance's of a natural catastrophe are growing by the day. Geologically, the last 50'000 years have been eerily quiet. No major asteroids, volcanoes or earthquakes. On a volcanic scale, Lake Taupo is small, the whole of Yellowstone national park in the U.S. is one active (very) crater. It's 100's of kilometres across.... Mount St Helens is a fumarole for a volcanic area even bigger. Ferk.
Make love, ride your bike, love your kids & live well.
It could all go tits up any minute, don't sweat it.

[george formby]

How long have we had the internet?
Information can be transfered to almost any riegion of the civalised world within seconds of the event being reported upon.
Thus we hear of floods, earthquakes, droughts, wars etc the day they happen.
As recent as 50 years ago it could take a week for information about a flood in the middle if the sahara desert to reach our new papers.
Now it would take 50 seconds for us to read about such an event, even to the point of being able to see it happening live .
Does the sunami on Xmass day ring a bell?
My point?
The transfer of information is now so fast, that we can see what is happening anywhere in the world as soon as its happens.
This gives the false appearance of an increase of these things, when really a lots of natural events are happennig at the same pace they always have. we just didnt know how often before.
Add to this that the money makers of the world know this, use it to entrap us into believeing the world is coming to an end, because we caused it.
thus we have to fund them to find the solution to a problem that does not exist. And we will never really know the truth either way, it will be hidden behind other agenders, the fat cats dont care about anything other than the gold in their treasure vaults.

I agree, the media barrage is mis-leading. Allegedly we absorb as much information in one day as a person who died 100 years ago would have been exposed to in their whole life. I find that staggering even if it is only half true.

[Mikkel]

It is one of the driest places on earth with average precipitation over the continent at less than 50 mm per annum. That isn't No precipitation, just very little. A surface area of 13829430 km^2 and 50 mm of precipitation means that that the glaciers have to calve an average of 6.9 * 10^11 cubic meters of ice each year just to stay in balance.

Good point Your estimate for glacier calving doesn't factor in sublimation though

My meteororolgy reference books are at work, and I'm at home right now. But this goes right back to Met 101, and the formation of the Hadley Cells. It isn't the temperature of the atmosphere itself that sets off movement and turbulance, but the temperature gradient between adjacent air masses. The Hadley cells are the means that the atmosphere uses to redistribute energy through the atmosphere. Warm air rises in the equatorial regions, and falls at around 30 degrees latitude. It rises again at 60 degrees latitude and falls in the polar regions. The result is easterly winds at the equator, duldrims in the tropics, westerly winds in the roaring 40s and easterly again as latitudes become polar. The greater the temerature differential the stronger these winds will be. Note that all the global warming models predict warming will take place fastest in the polar regions and at high altitudes.

So, would you assume, in the case of global warming, that during said warming:
a) Temperature differentials increase.
b) Temperature differentials decrease.
c) Temperature differentials stay the same.
d) It doesn't matter, it's just a conspiracy and we do not need to know more!
?

It would be refreshing if the scientific community actually did something scientific to put the questions that a layman may have to rest. As it stands it's just he said, she said... Even when they were discussing climate change a few years ago, the NZ oceanographer said that he didn't believe in "global warming" as he couldn't find any evidence of it (no i can't find the source but it was a televised event)... the others on the panel essentially told him to shut the fuck up and sit down... Perhaps the scientific community should spend some time explaining what they're trying to do instead of ignoring some very valid questions...

Oh, I agree completely. The debate has become too heated and too much personal prestige and political attention has been vested in it. As a result the debate is, as was observed earlier, taking on the appearance of a religious schism more than a reasoned search for truth. Alas, most research is funded by governments and as a result are not at all isolated from political influence.

As for researchers ignoring valid questions - sometimes it is ok to reserve your judgement until you know more. If anyone indeed knew what was going on and could prove it there wouldn't be much of a debate really. There was an american president who once said something along the lines of: "Please give me a one armed scientist. Just so he can't say on the other hand."
If this stuff wasn't very complicated there wouldn't be anything to talk about really. But it doesn't help the debate that Joe Bloggs turns it into his personal crusade by with religious zeal spamming the ether with ill-informed opinions. As for questions, there are no dumb questions - but there are difficult questions which can not be answered at the moment. Truth be told, if people were, just ever so slightly, better at asking questions instead of believing that they have the answer we could be doing a whole lot better.

Its the re-occurring natural evolution of Mother Earth.
Its happened several times before and things will get a little crazy again in another few 100,000 years.
Planet Earth is just having a clean out, natures enema if you will.

Indeed, the climate does change by itself. However, that fact does not preclude that humankind may have some influence on climate change.
And no matter what influence humankind may have upon climate change, it is still important to understand to what extent climate change (man made and/or natural) may impact upon the way we live our lives.

[Badjelly]

Have a look at the actual data, and you will see that the climate is changing. It always has and always will. At present we appear to be in a period of global cooling. We have been cooling for around 10 years, and that is likely to continue for a further 15 - 20 years.

Hi Jantar

I've been meaning to respond to your statements about recent global cooling, but haven't got around to composing a decent response. All I'll say for now is that the cooling (if any) in the last decade certainly hasn't been very large:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki...ure_Record_png

And has left the noughties as the warmest decade for quite a while.

Now, why do you think cooling will occur for a further 15-20 years?

[centaurus]

I agree, the media barrage is mis-leading. Allegedly we absorb as much information in one day as a person who died 100 years ago would have been exposed to in their whole life. I find that staggering even if it is only half true.

It is true that we absorb much, much more information than any of our ancestors have in their lives. However, the problem is whether the percentage of real/true info is greater than before. I suspect that even though we get so much info today, most of it is tainted/biased/tweaked/faked so a very small portion of it is actually accurate and reliable. We are not much closer to the truth than our parents or grandparents were when it comes current events or debates.

[Badjelly]

It would be refreshing if the scientific community actually did something scientific to put the questions that a layman may have to rest. As it stands it's just he said, she said...

So let's assume that, hypothetically, the scientific community(*) did something scientific to put the questions that a layman may have to rest. They might ... I don't know ... write a big fucking report summarising the science and update this report regularly, and also write a whole bunch of books putting it in less technical language. And maybe some blogs. Then, hypothetically, let's assume some other people came along and argued the toss about everything the scientific community had said. Let's say, hypothetically, that some of the arguments made some sense and the rest were complete and utter bollocks. Then, in this hypothetical situation, a member of the public would look at all this and wouldn't be able to judge the arguments him/herself without a lot of study, and probably not even then. So it would be just he said, she said. Hypothetically.

(*)I think the word "community" gets way overused these days. Your choice, not mine.