Global Warming - How Valid and Serious?

[Wysiwyg]

To help everyone become conscious or to remind people of the GROWING WORLD POLLUTION PROBLEM (is that plain english??) a title like `global warming` is very helpful.Although I don`t believe it is happening now, the environmental damage and destruction from continued poor practices from big business and individual humans will be irreversible at some stage.
What is the price of economic growth with the present day government acceptance of burnt fossil fuel emissions.Pumping more into the atmosphere is the price.Australia to take responsibility for the emission it makes is a start that has to be made.Others will follow, other countries will be asked to reduce.Humans may be daft but when their lives/lifestyles are threatened they will smarten up.

Now how can we reduce burnt fossil fuel emissions?

 

[Pat]

How so? Do a google on 'penguin chicks dying+antarctica'
I got 9440 sites!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/wor...-penguins-frozen-death-freak-rain-storms.html

Sorry, the sarcastic symbol was to represent my post.

My point is that the media don't always take things out of context. Many species are vunerable to GW/warming of specific areas/CC (call it what you will) and it's not hype or misinformation.

I guess I’m no good at sarcasm and I hear that’s the lowest form of wit.

 

[Pat]

Hence the earth has lost control of its CO2 balance all on its own , 4 times in the last 400,000 years.

As to a sense of loss, after spending many years living remotely (in a swag) amidst our wonderful outback my sense of loss, although at first magnified (Alpine forests are now the the goldfields) was tempered by scales of time and the magnitude of the landscape......

I fully understand natural change and have limited but more knowledge of earth history than most people. I agree the warming/change/cooling is natural but I can't help think that this age of petro chemical crap is contributing in some way.
This is most certainly an assumption. Saying we are not having an effect is an assumption to.

 

[Pat]

jtb

Fantastic post. Thanks for your erudite and balanced view.


Pat,

I don't think it does.

E.g the British gu'mint. Shoves AGW down our throats at every opportunity and spends mot of its time dreaming up new environmental taxes.

Yet, it is building a new runway at Heathrow and adding a few lanes to the M25, both to facilitate additional carbon reliant travel. Eh???

Meanwhile, it is up to non-AGW focused folk to campaign against general pollution, litter and the preposterous level of supermarket packaging that clogs up our bins and landfill.

I think the AGW agenda detracts from real sustainability issues. It is anecdotal I realize, but it's what I observe

Wayne I agree 100% that we aren’t doing enough to live with Mother Nature.
The thing is we have the technology to not only stop our so called global warming, but stop most other pollutants.
Electric cars, hydrogen fuels, solar cells, it’s all here and now. Build your runways and Hwy's. But change what we use for energy.
Eg. Planes can’t really run off a battery eh?
Now if some smart mofo out there discovers a way to run a turbine using hydrogen. Then we got enviro friendly jets.
It's easy, just pump money into it instead of Iraq, Hmmm too late.
The money holds us back. Just not profitable yet to change.

 

[2020hindsight]

So much emotion here!

Let's be realistic here fellows. I may be a skeptic of the whole GW b---****, but LET'S assume once that it is true and indeed CO2 is the SOLE REASON for destroying the human civilisation if we don't reduce it in the future.

What can we do? etc .

Temjin
I'm gonna put the counter argument ...
Goes like this ....

Let's be realistic... Carbon trading (in whatever form) is gonna happen , with or without the approval of the detractors.

PS Detractors being a seriously small percentage in Australia

PS China and India will eventually do their bit - but hell it will be a hard pill for us all to swallow

 

[spooly74]

spooly , you say that "It should be the goal of the IPCC to find flaws in their model".
Sure they should constantly check and improve their model.

But hey, if their model is telling them something pretty alarming - then are you suggesting that , just because it's alarming, they should ignore it?

No not at all.
My point is that the model is not reliable enough (for me) to support the massive changes which are apparently necessary.
The IPCC`s 4th report gives a range of 2 to 4.5 degrees per doubling of CO2. Observed warming is at most 1.5C per doubling of CO2 if you assume that all warming was solely from CO2 forcing, which it simply couldn't be.

The economic pain of change will be massive, so we’d better be very sure it is necessary.

 

[2020hindsight]

The economic pain of change will be massive, so we’d better be very sure it is necessary.

which incidentally flies in the face of Nicholas Stern and Ross Garnaut, who both claim that it's more expensive to wait that to act

 

[Doris]

exactly - but the deniers will twist that to say that the penguins are freezing to death, so let's warm things up a bit

You always give me a laugh as you think outside the square!

A strange and sad event to be sure. But this shows the delusional leaps of logic that people are making.

* One weather event does not prove or disprove anything.

* There may have been incidences of precisely the same thing in the last 10,000 years that humans haven't been on the continent to observe.

* It may never happen again, or at least infrequently enough to have no long term effect

Yet "they", in a most unscientific leap of faith, will have the penguins extinct in ten years in order to sensationalize the story.

That's intellectual dishonesty of the most disgraceful variety and I thought you as a teacher would have seen right through it. Very bad show.

Your belligerence is conducive to fostering a more interactive thread!

Yes. The science teacher in me demands evidence and not just presumptions and hypothesizing.

The Antarctic is 98% ice and is considered a desert because of the lack of precipitation.

Your comments came before my #1088 post.
The link I quoted also said:

In the past five years, torrential rains have become increasingly common there. We saw Adelie penguin chicks shivering during nearly six days of continuous storms.

If it had been snow, like in the old days, their down would be perfectly equipped to cope. But they can’t take rain. It’s like wearing a down jacket that gets soaking wet.

At night, the temperature would dip and the next morning we’d find them dead from hypothermia.

Other marine creatures like seals in the Antarctic are born with fur, but penguin chicks have nothing to protect them.

Penguins' food (krill) moves south because of warmer waters making the poor birds waddle farther, at a mile an hour.
Ice breaks up and the penguins are forced into the water; the under developed chicks don't survive.

"Penguins are going about 60 kilometers [37 miles] farther to find food than they did a decade ago,"

In 2006 she visited the seasonal sea-ice home of the penguin colony featured in the 2005 movie March of the Penguins. The region was uncharacteristically ice free.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/07/080702-endangered-penguins.html

Doris,

Read it and weep. http://www.emporia.edu/earthsci/student/fitch1/abrupt_e.html

Why would you find pleasure in my weeping?

I was quoting what local people told me in Costa Maya and Belize last year.

Your excellent site gives one of the three theories for the Mayan demise although the cores from the lakes give logical evidence of climate change as do the cores taken from the Antarctic.

The Maya Civilization existed in some form from 2000 B.C. to A.D. 1500 on and near the Yucatán Peninsula of southern Mexico and northern Central America.

The Mayan priests were brilliant in using the past to understand the present and the present to understand the future. The Mayan calendar is considered to be more accurate than the Gregorian one that we use.

Mayan historians wanted to create a calendar that could be used to record history for centuries. This led to the Long Count calendar. The Long Count incorporates an era called the Great Cycle, which lasts approximately 5,125.36 years. The idea that the world is on its way to an end comes from the Long Count:

A Mayan historian began recording events on both the Long Count and Gregorian calendars. Scholars then compared the dates on both calendars and confirmed the beginning of the current Great Cycle as August 13, 3114 B.C., making the end of the fourth Great Cycle ”” December 21, 2012.

Theorists believe this is the day that the world will end, and all living things on earth will die.

However, the Mayans themselves don’t actually believe that the world is going to end at the end of this cycle. In fact, they believe that it’s a time of great celebration and luck when the planet lasts through a full Great Cycle. After all, we’ve made it safely through three other Great Cycles, and the world is still turning.

What makes this cycle so different, some believe, is that it ends on a winter solstice. The sun will align with the center of the milky way. This particular event happens only every 26,000 years or so.

Mel Gibson's 2006 movie Apolcalypto had an extreme focus on violence and its complete exclusion of the Maya's brilliant advances in art, science, mathematics and astronomy.

It aroused curiosity about the demise of the Mayans and The 2012 Theory

Information on the calendar:
http://www.civilization.ca/civil/Maya/mmc06eng.html
http://www.maya-portal.net/

Have a look at the clip on 'The 2012 Theory':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5MS5Odp2qQ&feature=related

This is their reference site:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10mar_stormwarning.htm?list862664

Wouldn't it be ironic if current solar storms were the cause of GW...!

 

[Wysiwyg]

Thanks for this Wys ....

Not sure about Anna Bligh's long term green credentials -

I mean, Bob Carr (ex NSW Premier) was seriously green deep down. Anna Bligh ...mmmm maybe - guess I'll owe her an apology if she turns out to be genuine, but the Qld treatment of the Traveston Dam question (average depth about 2metres or less even when full) when other options half the plan area and a quarter the disruption to farmland were available is a bit of a worry

I see what you mean there 2020, the bulk of Australias coal is in Queensland and one of the major exports and will be for the longer term.It`s all go for infrastructure in Brisbane with a duplication of the gateway bridge (the big one) and a tunnel underneath the river presently under construction.Gearing up for the southerners drift north.lol

Jobs jobs jobs ... expansion, more, bigger, better et cetera.Makes the world go around, with a bit of gas and a bit of coal and a bit of uranium.

And lots more vehicles on the road.

The vision ...

Smart State is the Queensland Government’s vision of a state where knowledge, creativity and innovation drive economic growth to improve prosperity and quality of life for all Queenslanders.The vision is for Queensland to develop into a knowledge-based economy and diversify its traditional economic base of mining and agriculture.

You can`t stop the wheel but you may slow it down.

 

[2020hindsight]

It`s all go for infrastructure in Brisbane with a duplication of the gateway bridge (the big one) and a tunnel underneath the river presently under construction.Gearing up for the southerners drift north.lol

and we're re-marking the Pacific Highway between Sydney and Bris - three lanes north, one lane south

 

[Naked shorts]

It`s all go for infrastructure in Brisbane with a duplication of the gateway bridge (the big one) and a tunnel underneath the river presently under construction.Gearing up for the southerners drift north.lol

The southerns are already up here, I see "victoria - on the move (to queensland)" license plates fairly regularly now. And the infrastructure in Brisbane is a bit behind, its been long past due since we needed these advancements, one they are done, we need a duplication of coronation drive, riverside express way and the whole Gold Coast highway.

Before Brisbane, I came from Melbourne and now, Im ready to move to Sydney..

 

[Smurf1976]

Well I wish this global warming would hurry up a bit around here (Tassie).

Damn cold outside right now, was down to about zero last night and the forecast top for tomorrow is 7. And that's with stong winds too - just to make sure there's no chance of keeping anything warm.

Maybe I'll have to join the rush to Qld. Or at least get them to burn all that coal faster and warm the planet up a bit. ::

 

[2020hindsight]

I think (who knows for sure) that the sceptics are starting to admit that the Arctic is losing ice bigtime....

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/ice_sheets.html

Here is NASA's opinion of the loss of ice in Antartica as well ...

The survey shows that there was a net loss of ice from the combined polar ice sheets between 1992 and 2002 and a corresponding rise in sea level. The survey documents for the first time extensive thinning of the West Antarctic ice shelves and an increase in snowfall in the interior of Greenland, as well as thinning at the edges. All are signs of a warming climate predicted by computer models.

 

[spooly74]

I think (who knows for sure) that the sceptics are starting to admit that the Arctic is losing ice bigtime....

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/ice_sheets.html

Here is NASA's opinion of the loss of ice in Antartica as well ...

Measuring observations is easy.

Whats causing it?

The IPCC`s 4th report gives a range of 2 to 4.5 degrees per doubling of CO2. Observed warming is at most 1.5C per doubling of CO2 if you assume that all warming was solely from CO2 forcing, which it simply couldn't be.

Are there climate models that accurately predict this year's climate change?

if a model cannot predict past and present ... it is flawed

To quote Johnny-five ....need more input

 

[2020hindsight]

Measuring observations is easy.

Whats causing it?

let's take it step at a time spooly
you agree that both poles are melting ?

 

[2020hindsight]

Spooly, I’m guessing you studied applied maths –
so a typical book is spun into the air about it’s axis of maximum moment of inertia – i.e. the front of the book is spinning in a plane - is it stable? – yes?

so a book is spun into the air about it’s axis of minimum moment of inertia – i.e. the top of the book is spinning in a plane - is it stable? – yes?

Finally a book is spun into the air about it’s axis of intermediate moment of inertia – i.e. the binding (tries to) spin in a plane - is it stable? – no. – first impression is that it’s chaotic.

Yet – knowing exactly the way the book starts its motion at time zero permits you to calculate ( theoretically) the exact position of the book as it twists and turns…. (personally I found that one a real eye-opener at Uni) . So what appears chaotic is not really.

Another example is a building subjected to a known earthquake – what will be the shape of that building at time t when it has been subjected to an El Centro EQ.(treated as a standard ? Again, at first impression chaotic, but totally calculable (provided you know all the properties).

(PS even if not perfectly calculable, you get it roughly right – and good enough for practical purposes).

Pinball is shot into a pinball machine (without pushing the machine around) – predictable? – yes – provided the various spring constants etc are all quantified.

Earth’s climate ? – bloody difficult to know all the properties of the model (I concede) – but still , it’s not impossible. (and certainly not impossible to get it roughly right)

Of course predicting future sunspot activity etc gets into the crystal ball stuff - but the probability that it's about to build up again from a recent 2006-7 low to a peak at about 2012, - according to an 11 year cycle that Galileo discovered (for chyssake) seems a reasonable assumption (surely)

 

[spooly74]

Spooly, I’m guessing you studied applied maths –

Not in school

Earth’s climate ? – bloody difficult to know all the properties of the model (I concede) – but still , it’s not impossible. (and certainly not impossible to get it roughly right)

Of course predicting future sunspot activity etc gets into the crystal ball stuff - but the probability that it's about to build up again from a recent 2006-7 low to a peak at about 2012, - according to an 11 year cycle that Galileo discovered (for chyssake) seems a reasonable assumption (surely)

I would say it`s almost impossible to produce an accurate climate model.
My beef is with the co2 debate, they clearly have their input and predictions wrong here.....and now we have to pay a tax??

There seems to be some dispute over when solar minimum has occured, but yes, solar forcing is soon to increase with the cycle.

 

[IFocus]

Those that don't believe in GW seem to have some great backing similar to what the tobacco industry had.

With friends like Exxon-Mobil you ............

Who is behind climate change deniers?

When the tobacco industry was feeling the heat from scientists who showed that smoking caused cancer, it took decisive action.

It engaged in a decades-long public relations campaign to undermine the medical research and discredit the scientists. The aim was not to prove tobacco harmless but to cast doubt on the science.

In May this year, the multibillion-dollar oil giant Exxon-Mobil acknowledged that it had been doing something similar. It announced that it would cease funding nine groups that had fuelled a global campaign to deny climate change.

http://www.watoday.com.au/opinion/who-is-behind-climate-change-deniers-20080802-3ou6.html?page=1

 

[--B--]

Those that don't believe in GW seem to have some great backing similar to what the tobacco industry had.

With friends like Exxon-Mobil you ............

ahh this old doozy. anything brought up to discredit the AGW "science" is funded by the evil oil companies..

yet the billions behind the AGW hype is apparently all 'good' money?

does the fact that supporting the green agenda with billions of dollars in funding is always worth a swag of votes at election time mean anything at all??

does the fact that many 'scientific organisations' exist solely to research AGW and therefore it is 100% in their interests to further propagate this hype mean anything?? (not to mention they are usually propped up by funding mentioned above)

 

[Rafa]

regardless of people's opinion on global warming...

if a megacorporation like exxon stop funding groups whose sole purpose is to deny climate change, that pretty much signals the end of the road for the anti global warming science.