Global Warming - How Valid and Serious?

2020hindsight said:

PS -B- , if you think reading about the plight of Africa is hilarious,
have to say that ..
reading your posts that are written in that vein is starting to make me feel nauseous

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--B-- said:

PS 2020: i have never said the plight of africa is hilarious, i was clearly stating that it was your suggestion that africa is an example we should follow.

do you think having extremely low co2 emissions due to having extreme levels of poverty is a good thing 2020?

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explod said:

Wont matter about the poverty when we all burn up. I'm for the poverty if that is what it is going to take to fix things. Africa from since the trees were cut down have mostly been on the edge of poverty.

We need to live among the trees again.

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--B-- said:

oh sure.. better do it 'just in case' to huh? insurance and all that?

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explod said:

Just in case??? I am not a two bob each way type. Global warming is here. Last year 07 was the hottes and driest since records were kept.

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Why do you think wheat, corn. soybeans are at record prices? Shortage of supply due to increasing world drought.

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Ever increasing population, address the issues pal. We need to get our heads out of the sand by first realising we have a problem and 2 by then collectively looking at what we can do about it. Waiting without action will see us hit the poverty level and I do not want that any more than you do.

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--B-- said:

really? then you should have no problem posting a source to backup this claim?



increasing world drought? source please.



ever increasing population? i thought this was a thread about global warming?

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explod said:

Been there done that, regardless of source you will not believe same,

As in Cool Hand Luke ..."some people ya just cant reach"

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Anecdotal but actual experience. As a boy 55years ago on my Dad's farm our average rainfall was 30 inches every year. Always had tadpoles to take to school. Kids there now have never seen a from. Just west of Hawkesdale which is just north of Warrnambool in Victoria.

Used to shear sheep in Queensland in the 60s, transported them all out early 70's and have never been returned.

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explod said:

Anecdotal but actual experience. As a boy 55years ago on my Dad's farm our average rainfall was 30 inches every year. Always had tadpoles to take to school. Kids there now have never seen a frog. Just west of Hawkesdale which is just north of Warrnambool in Victoria.

Used to shear sheep in Queensland in the 60s, transported them all out early 70's and have never been returned.

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OPENING SESSION – 24 September 07
Mr. Rajendra Pachauri
Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Mr. Secretary General, President of the General Assembly, distinguished leaders of member states, ladies and gentlemen, I speak to you with a great sense of privilege and honor and at the outset I would like to salute the Secretary General for having organized this remarkable gathering of world leaders on an issue that all of us are deeply concerned about.

I'll present before you the key findings of the three Working Group reports that the IPCC has released. I might also mention that in mid-November this year we will be bringing out the Synthesis report which will complete the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC and the Synthesis report will be the most policy-relevant document that we would be presenting as part of this series.

To start with let me say that we, the human race, have substantially altered the Earth's atmosphere. In 2005 the concentration of carbon dioxide exceeded the natural range that has existed over 650.000 years.

11 of the warmest years since instrumental records have been kept occurred during the last 12 years and therefore climate change is accelerating. In the 20th century the increase in average temperature was 0.74 degrees centigrade; sea level increased by 17 cm and a large part of the Northern Hemisphere snow cover vanished.

Particularly worrisome is the reduction in the mass balance of the glaciers and this has serious implications for the availability of water; something like 500 million people in South Asia and 250 million people in China are likely to be affected as a result.

We also know that there are major precipitation changes that are taking place. In general in the
temperate regions there's an increase in precipitation, rainfall and snow, but in the tropical, subtropical and Mediterranean regions there is a decline. But all of this is also accompanied by an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme precipitation events: we have seen several of those in recent years.

Overall may I say that water scarcity is going to be affected and will increase in several parts of the globe.

We also know that there are issues of concern with regard to food security because a number of crops that the human race is dependent on are likely to see a decline in yield and productivity.
Some regions are more vulnerable than others. The Arctic region is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe. Sub-Saharan Africa already under a lot of stress will also be impacted by stress induced by climate change and I might say Africa as a whole will probably see 75 to 250 million people being affected by water stress by the year 2020 and that is round the corner. Small island states, as we have already be reminded by his Excellency the Secretary General, are under threat of sea level rise and would be affected by storm surges and cyclones even before there is the reality of submergence.

Asian mega deltas, as we've been told, are extremely vulnerable and this includes a number of cities in Asia which are very heavy in terms of population density. Several coastal regions are under threat of coastal flooding.

There are some systems that are also vulnerable: coral reefs, tundra, boreal forest and we have
assessed in the IPCC that 20 to 30 percent of plant and animal species are in danger of extinction if temperature exceeds 1.5 to 2.5 degrees centigrade.

Projections for this century tell us that at the lower end of feasible trajectories, we have a best estimate of 1.8 degrees centigrade as the increase in temperature by the end of the century and at the upper end of feasible scenarios we get 4 degrees centigrade. The inertia of the system that we have is such that climate change would continue for decades and centuries even if we were to stabilize the concentration of gases that are causing this problem today, which means that adaptation is inevitable.

But let me emphasize that adaptation alone will not do. We need to bring about mitigation actions to start in the short term even when benefits may arrive in a few decades. And there are huge co-benefits from mitigation action in terms of energy security, in terms of local environmental benefits. The cost of adaptation and impacts, I might mention, will keep going up as the global temperature goes up.

As far as mitigation is concerned the costs are going to be much lower than what was anticipated
earlier. If we stabilize the concentration of these gases at 445 to 490 parts per million of CO2
equivalent which will give us an equilibrium increase, limit the equilibrium increase to 2 to 2.4
degrees centigrade, that will cost the world less than 3 per cent of the GDP in the year 2030. This
means that the prosperity that we would normally achieve by 2030 may be postponed by a few months at the most.

And as the honorable Secretary General has told us, we have up to 2015 if we want to stabilize at that level, after which we will have to ensure that emissions go down substantially.

There are several measures that we have assessed in terms of policy actions: incentives for technology development; a price on carbon is absolutely crucial. Technology by itself will not do unless there is a pricing framework that ensures that low carbon technologies are developed and disseminated on a large scale. Investments in energy infrastructure have to be in a manner that is going to be climate-friendly because these investments will serve society for a long time to come. Lifestyle and behavioral changes are important and in very simple terms that means the use of walking, cycling, all of which will make human beings healthier and so also the planet.

Ladies and Gentlemen, my time is up and I would say: so is also the time up for inaction. I would like to end my presentation with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi, a great leader well, ahead of his time.

Gandhi said: "A technological society has two choices: first it can wait until catastrophic failures
expose systemic deficiencies, distortion and self-deceptions. Secondly, a culture can provide social checks and balances to correct for systemic distortion prior to catastrophic failures". May I submit, it is time for us to move away from self-deception and go on to the second of these two choices. Thank you very much.

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Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review. Briggs, a visiting mathematics professor at Central Michigan University and a Biostatistician at New York Methodist Hospital, has a new paper coming out in the peer-reviewed Journal of Climate which finds that hurricanes have not increased number or intensity in the North Atlantic. Briggs, who has authored numerous articles in meteorological and climatological journals, has also authored another study looking on tropical cyclones around the globe, and finds that they have not increased in number or intensity either. Briggs expressed skepticism about man-made global warming fears in 2007. "There is a lot of uncertainly among scientists about what's going on with the climate," Briggs wrote to EPW on December 28, 2007. "Most scientists just don't want the publicity one way or another. Generally, publicity is not good for one's academic career. Only, after reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing scientists skeptical of man-made climate fears to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet," Briggs explained. "It is well known that weather forecasts, out to, say, four to five days, have skill; that is, they can beat just guessing the average. Forecasts with lead times greater than this have decreasing to no skill," Briggs wrote. "The skill of climate forecasts---global climate models---upon which the vast majority of global warming science is based are not well investigated, but what is known is that these models do not do a good job at reproducing past, known climates, nor at predicting future climates. The error associated with climate predictions is also much larger than that usually ascribed to them; meaning, of course, that people are far too sure of themselves and their models," he concluded.

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Another view, often held by skeptics of global warming, is that much of the temperature increase seen in land based thermometers could be due to an increase in urbanisation and the siting of measurement stations in urban areas [4][5]. However, these views are mainly presented in "popular literature" and there are no known scientific peer-reviewed papers holding this view.[15]

The Fourth Assessment Report from the IPCC (2007: p.244) says the following.

Studies that have looked at hemispheric and global scales conclude that any urban-related trend is an order of magnitude smaller than decadal and longer time-scale trends evident in the series (e.g., Jones et al., 1990; Peterson et al., 1999). This result could partly be attributed to the omission from the gridded data set of a small number of sites (<1%) with clear urban-related warming trends. In a worldwide set of about 270 stations, Parker (2004, 2006) noted that warming trends in night minimum temperatures over the period 1950 to 2000 were not enhanced on calm nights, which would be the time most likely to be affected by urban warming. Thus, the global land warming trend discussed is very unlikely to be influenced significantly by increasing urbanisation (Parker, 2006).

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2020hindsight said:

Smurf -
Not everyone has mountains like Tassie lol

I mean they'd have trouble using hydro in Holland m8 -
Although I suppose they could pipe the sea through the dykes with a turbine and generator in there somewhere

but what to do with the bludy salty water? lol

The answer?
BAN AIR CONDITIONERS !!
Let the message sink in .

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--B-- said:

oh please. so you have no source? i would sincerely like to see the source of your claim?

it wasnt an unbacked claim was it?



excuse me if i dont consider your anecdotal evidence of a couple of experiences in Australia as evidence of "increasing world drought"

if you wish to make such wild claims you can expect to be asked for evidence. having zero evidence doesn't exactly add weight to your arguments re: global warming either.

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Smurf1976 said:

1. Dams . I'm thinking in the Australian context mostly. Plenty of suitable pumped storage sites in NSW, Vic and Tas. Qld has quite a bit of potential too.

2. As for the air-conditioners, my first question is "why?". What is this supposed to achieve? A reduction in Summer peak demand sure, but Winter peak would go up

3. IMO air-conditioning along with lighting is simply a very visible target. Air-conditioning because of the Summer peak demand and lighting because it's what most people naturally associate with electricity. ... Only in offices, shopping centres etc are they are large component of total consumption.

4. If we're going to ban anything then appliances on standby,...... household coffee machines that stay hot 24/7 and the like are far more blatant energy wasters than a properly used air-conditioner.

5. In a cold climate, installing an air-conditioner is the single most effective thing the householder can do to cut their emissions.

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There is also a guide to assessing the evidence. In the articles we've included lots of links to primary research and major reports for those who want to follow through to the original sources.

Can we trust the science?
• Chaotic systems are not predictable
• We can't trust computer models of climate
• Many leading scientists question climate change
• It's all a conspiracy
• They predicted global cooling in the 1970s

Is the sun to blame?
• Global warming is down to the Sun, not humans
• It’s all down to cosmic rays

Does CO2 cause warming?
• Human CO2 emissions are too tiny to matter
• CO2 isn't the most important greenhouse gas
• Ice cores show CO2 increases lag behind temperature rises, disproving the link to global warming
• Ice cores show CO2 rising as temperatures fell
• The cooling after 1940 shows CO2 does not cause warming

What happened in the past?
• The 'hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong
• It's been far warmer in the past, what's the big deal?
• It was warmer during the Medieval period, with vineyards in England
• We are simply recovering from the Little Ice Age

What is happening now?
• Mars and Pluto are warming too
• Antarctica is getting cooler, not warmer, disproving global warming
• Polar bear numbers are increasing
• The lower atmosphere is cooling, not warming
• The oceans are cooling

What is going to happen?
• Warming will cause an ice age in Europe
• Higher CO2 levels will boost plant growth and food production
• Hurricane Katrina was caused by global warming

Why should I worry?
• It's too cold where I live - warming will be great
• We can't do anything about climate change

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Most modellers accept that despite constant improvements over more than half a century, there are problems. They acknowledge, for instance, that one of the largest uncertainties in their models is how clouds will respond to climate change. Their predictions, which they prefer to call scenarios, usually come with generous error bars. In an effort to be more rigorous, the most recent report of the IPCC has quantified degrees of doubt, defining terms like “likely” and “very likely” in terms of percentage probability.

Indeed, one recent study suggests that the feedbacks in climate systems means climate models will never be able to tell us exactly how much warming to expect. However, there is no doubt that there will be warming.

Given the complexity of our climate system, most scientists agree that models are the best way of making sense of that complexity. For all their failings, models are the best guide to the future that we have.

Finally, the claim is sometimes made that if computer models were any good, people would be using them to predict the stock market. Well, they are!

A lot of trading in the financial markets is already carried out by computers. Many base their decisions on fairly simple algorithms designed to exploit tiny profit margins, but others rely on more sophisticated long-term models.

Major financial institutions are investing huge amounts in automated trading systems, the proportion of trading carried out by computers is growing rapidly and a few individuals have made a fortune from them. The smart money is being bet on computer models.

Of course, in some ways financial markets are much trickier to model than the climate, depending as they do on human behaviour. What's more, trading based on computer models alters the nature of the very thing you're trying to predict.

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A simplified summary is that about 50% of the greenhouse effect is due to water vapour, 25% due to clouds, 20% to CO2, with other gases accounting for the remainder.

Water cycle
So why aren't climate scientists a lot more worried about water vapour than about CO2? The answer has to do with how long greenhouse gases persist in the atmosphere. For water, the average is just a few days.

This rapid turnover means that even if human activity was directly adding or removing significant amounts of water vapour (it isn't), there would be no slow build-up of water vapour as is happening with CO2 (see Climate myths: Human CO2 emissions are tiny compared with natural sources).

The level of water vapour in the atmosphere is determined mainly by temperature, and any excess is rapidly lost. The level of CO2 is determined by the balance between sources and sinks, and it would take hundreds of years for it to return to pre-industrials levels even if all emissions ceased tomorrow. Put another way, there is no limit to how much rain can fall, but there is a limit to how much extra CO2 the oceans and other sinks can soak up.

Of course, CO2 is not the only greenhouse gas emitted by humans. And many, such as methane, are far more powerful greenhouse gases in terms of infrared absorption per molecule.

While methane persists for only about a decade before breaking down, other gases, such as the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), can persist in the atmosphere for hundreds or even tens of thousands years. Per molecule, their warming effect is thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide. (Production of CFCs in now banned in most of the world, but because of their ozone destroying properties, not greenhouse properties.)

Double up
But the overall quantities of these other gases are tiny. Even allowing for the relative strength of the effects, CO2 is still responsible for two-thirds of the additional warming caused by all the greenhouse gases emitted as a result of human activity.

Water vapour will play a huge role in the centuries to come, though. Climate models, backed by satellite measurements, suggest that the amount of water vapour in the upper troposphere (about 5 to 10 kilometres up) will double by the end of this century as temperatures rise.

This will result in roughly twice as much warming than if water vapour remained constant. Changes in clouds could lead to even greater amplification of the warming or reduce it – there is great uncertainty about this. What is certain is that, in the jargon of climate science, water vapour is a feedback, but not a forcing.

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2020hindsight said:

One for you Wayne... on water vapour.

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11652

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