Resisting Climate Hysteria

[trainspotter]

What about the Medieval Warming Period? (1000 BC to approx 1300 BC) Followed by the Little Ice Age? (1550 AD and 1850 AD)

 

[basilio]

What about the Medieval Warming Period? (1000 BC to approx 1300 BC) Followed by the Little Ice Age? (1550 AD and 1850 AD)

Check it out. Also worth looking at the comments which flesh out some of the misunderstandings associated with using this to attack current global warming.


http://www.skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period.htm
http://www.skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period-intermediate.htm

 

[Sean K]

Did we just have the coldest May in 40 years, or something?

Does global warming do that?

 

[trainspotter]

Check it out. Also worth looking at the comments which flesh out some of the misunderstandings associated with using this to attack current global warming.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/medieval-warm-period.htm

Hey basilio does this equate to the same as to what we have here on our globe right now? UK just had the coldest winter in 31 years. USA coldest winter in 25 years. Sydney coldest day in 30 years and Alice Springs coldest day EVER ... blah blah blah I could go on about the cold.

So to say that Medieval Warming Period was a "few" isolated places (as per the website you provided) is it not the same as we have now? Yes there are places that are warmer (Perth) BUT there is also places that are experiencing the coldest winters EVER recorded.

Firstly, evidence suggests that the Medieval Warm Period was in fact warmer than today in many parts of the globe such as in the North Atlantic. This warming thereby allowed Vikings to travel further north than had been previously possible because of reductions in sea ice and land ice in the Arctic. However, evidence also suggests that some places were very much cooler than today including the tropical pacific.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

Did we just have the coldest May in 40 years, or something?

Does global warming do that?

Agree Kennas,

The Alarmists cannot have it both ways.

Is it getting warmer, I ask, and over what timeframe?

gg

 

[basilio]

At the start of these discussions there is a differentiation between weather and climate. 2010 saw one of the warmest years on record around the world. But there were still plenty of examples of some individual cold events.

One month, one winter , one summer is not the same as the sum of maximum and minimum temperatures around the world. One of the interesting things about global warming has been the steady increase in minimum temperatures.

 

[trainspotter]

At the start of these discussions there is a differentiation between weather and climate. 2010 saw one of the warmest years on record around the world. But there were still plenty of examples of some individual cold events.

One month, one winter , one summer is not the same as the sum of maximum and minimum temperatures around the world. One of the interesting things about global warming has been the steady increase in minimum temperatures.

Thanks for the heads up on the difference between weather and climate.

 

[OzWaveGuy]

The alarmists still cannot answer the simplest question of all yet the entire case is based on it: Where is the observed evidence that CO2 by man drives temperatures? Sorry, snippets from propaganda sites don't cut it.

"Houston we have a problem"

 

[Smurf1976]

So to say that Medieval Warming Period was a "few" isolated places (as per the website you provided) is it not the same as we have now? Yes there are places that are warmer (Perth) BUT there is also places that are experiencing the coldest winters EVER recorded.

It would be naive in the extreme to believe that we have experienced and actually recorded the full range of natural variation in the weather since man has had thermometers.

It's quite likely that there has at some point been snow on the ground where Brisbane now stands and that Tasmania has had a week long heatwave with temps 40+ every day. Just because these events haven't happened since European settlement, doesn't mean they didn't happen some time prior to that and won't happen in the future. 223 years is nothing...

 

[trainspotter]

http://www.co2science.org/ for the real deal that the media does not care for.

But could the higher temperatures of the past four interglacials have been caused by higher CO2 concentrations due to some non-human influence? Absolutely not, for atmospheric CO2 concentrations during all four prior interglacials never rose above approximately 290 ppm, whereas the air's CO2 concentration today stands at nearly 390 ppm.

Combining these two observations, we have a situation where, compared with the mean conditions of the preceding four interglacials, there is currently 100 ppm more CO2 in the air than there was then, and it is currently more than 2 °C colder than it was then, which adds up to one huge discrepancy for the world's climate alarmists and their claim that high atmospheric CO2 concentrations lead to high temperatures. The situation is unprecedented, all right, but not in the way the public is being led to believe.

http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/prudentpath/ch1.php for the facts (according to them)

 

[Smurf1976]

About 1.5TW is produced from hydro and nuclear.

The remaining 14.5TW is generated by fossil fuels.

To stabilise atmospheric CO2 at 450ppm we need to reduce the amount of energy produced by fossil fuels to 3TW within 25 years.

We need to convert 11.5TW of energy production to renewable or non-CO2 generating methods within 25 years.

The numbers are a bit more complex than that...

Renewables generally have electricity as their output. That is, if we produce x amount of renewable energy then we usually measure it in the form of electricity. 1 GWh of renewable energy is actually 1 GWh of useful electricity into the grid.

Fossil fuels, on the other hand, are raw chemical energy. We lose 45 - 70% of that in the process of converting it to electricity (the variation is due to the fuel type and grade, ambient environmental conditions etc). So we put, say, 3 GWh of fuel into the power station and get 1 GWh of electricity out.

So to replace 2.5 to 3 TW of energy from coal with renewables, only requires that we produce about 1 TW of renewable electricity since the other 1.5 - 2 TW from coal presently ends up as wasted heat due to the inherent inefficiencies in thermal power stations.

It's worth noting that this introduces considerable complexity into energy statistics. For example, nuclear and hydro both produce comparable amounts of electricity and both have little other large scale usage. However, it is common to measure the heat value of the uranium, but to measure the electricity value of hydro. Now, given that nuclear power stations generally have very low conversion efficiencies, this overstates the true value of nuclear energy and understates the value of hydro (and other renewables).

Personally, I prefer to look at it in terms of common units. So, expressing the output of hydro or nuclear in terms of how much coal it saves rather than the heating value of the uranium or hydro-electricity.

 

[Sean K]

The alarmists still cannot answer the simplest question of all yet the entire case is based on it: Where is the observed evidence that CO2 by man drives temperatures? Sorry, snippets from propaganda sites don't cut it.

"Houston we have a problem"

This is the question isn't it.

The answer?

There is none.

If my foot has five toes, and a spider monkey has five toes, then I must be a spider monkey.

 

[Sean K]

It would be naive in the extreme to believe that we have experienced and actually recorded the full range of natural variation in the weather since man has had thermometers.

It's quite likely that there has at some point been snow on the ground where Brisbane now stands and that Tasmania has had a week long heatwave with temps 40+ every day. Just because these events haven't happened since European settlement, doesn't mean they didn't happen some time prior to that and won't happen in the future. 223 years is nothing...

Yep.

Brisbane and Tasmania were probably in slightly different places on the globe 14m years ago.

Like they will be in another 14m years.

Time to start preparing for the next 14m years imo.

Floating environmentally controlled self sustaining cities will be a start.

 

[Sean K]

It would be naive in the extreme to believe that we have experienced and actually recorded the full range of natural variation in the weather since man has had thermometers.

It's quite likely that there has at some point been snow on the ground where Brisbane now stands and that Tasmania has had a week long heatwave with temps 40+ every day. Just because these events haven't happened since European settlement, doesn't mean they didn't happen some time prior to that and won't happen in the future. 223 years is nothing...

Yep.

Brisbane and Tasmania were probably in slightly different places on the globe 14b years ago.

Like they will be in another 14b years.

Time to start preparing for the next 200 years imo.

Floating environmentally controlled self sustaining cities will be a start.

At some point we're going to spear into the Sun anyway.

I'm sure that's going to be a warming experience.

 

[Julia]

Could someone please remind me just why some warming is absolutely bad?

I can think of many countries which would enjoy more comfortable living if the temperatures were quite a bit higher, viz New Zealand, Canada, just as a couple of examples.

If it were actually to be real, perhaps I could go back to live in NZ which I'd like.

 

[bandicoot76]

when i first left school there was a recession on and a serious lack of jobs available, i made ends meet by being paid minimum wage to help local farmers plant trees, funded by a govt scheme similar to landcare.... i planted thousands of seedlings, possibly even hundreds of thousands of the lil buggers...

my guess is that ive contributed more to carbon sequestion than every one of the pro AGW posters on here combined, and i'm a sceptic!... if you feel so strongly about the problem then do something PRACTICAL about it rather than blah blah blah... the total electricity you use to post your views on here probly added 20tn of carbon into the atmosphere... just in an attempt to convert ppl who dont share your view!

if carbon cate flew over with a $1million cheque for landcare projects she would have been much more respected in the community than pissing on about a new tax! to say its a tax only on polluters is complete bollocks! the costs of ALL taxes get passed down the line and end up getting paid by the consumer... and if not in this case then where is the dis-incentive that promotes the use of less power? and compensation fixing the shortfall??...lol...yeah right... what a totally retarded concept!!!!!

furthermore... the ONE AND ONLY practical (and 100% renewable) industry that produces a material made of captured and stored carbon is the timber industry... which the 'green' groups are against!!.... go figure!

 

[tothemax6]

I keep wondering about a couple of questions.
If we do nothing what will a world population of 9 billion do for energy and who goes hungry?
If we do nothing what will drive us to discover other other energy sources.
If we do nothing what will the wars look like in the battle for energy?
If we do nothing what happens if the oceans acidify.
Is there anyone here who believes oil will not run out?
Is there anyone here who believes coal or nuclear power will plant crops?
How can what we do today i.e. world growth in resource use continue with a population of 9 bil.
If we do some thing who will die?

If we 'do something', particularly 'throttle CO2 emissions', people will suffer. I have said this time and time again (and always been ignored), but since GDP and energy consumption are interwoven, and Australia gets is energy from carbon (coal), throttling CO2 output throttles GDP/capita (i.e. life sucks more).
If countries like China or India did this, yes many many people would die. You cannot support a nation of 1billion people whilst simultaneously contracting the energy supply. Every aspect of an economy depends on the energy supply - when you start throttling transport and machinery usage (due to energy limitations), this does flow down to reduced sow and harvest quantities. One could argue thus that for Australia to do this is plain masochist, for Asia to do this would be murderous.

Regarding other energy sources, we already 'do this' (what is even with the 'do nothing' mantra anyway? I don't know about you guys, but I 'do things'). Energy sources are sought out because: energy sources save labour, and increase rates of action (more production for less effort). Thus logically, the most productive energy source requiring the least effort is used first. There are many situations in which this source is not coal, but not most situations.

There is a false and bizarre belief that the only concern in carbon emission reduction is 'whether or not global warming is happening'. This is so insane it boggles the mind. The biggest concern is what carbon emission reduction would do to our lives.

To sum up the Australian carbon tax debate:
"Your car is broken"
"OK sure it might be broken"
"I offer to fix your car"
"OK, how will you do that"
"I will pour mustard on it"
"That is insane"
"You are a broken car denier".

 

[Wysiwyg]

Herd size control will come one way or another. Shutting down the biosphere will do this.

 

[OzWaveGuy]

Now for some fun, since the alarmists cannot find real CO2 evidence and some like to post colourful charts....it's time for a Pop Quiz: Which column out of all the atmospheric gases shows the % volume of CO2 produced by man....


Here's the Atmospheric Gases of earth by % Volume....Can you see which column shows man made CO2? (hmmm, I know which one the alarmists are pointing to)




Lets zoom in a little - Here's the same chart, this time showing only the first 5% on the Y axis. See it yet?




Lets zoom in a little more - now showing only the first 1%




Still can't see it? Lets zoom to 0.1%. Did you guess it yet?


If not, perhaps Carbon Cate could educate us all

 

[basilio]

Very pretty OZzie. You must have been quick reading through all those papers on how/why man produced CO2 is a critical factor in climate change.

Obviously pretty pictures are more interesting. Do you think you should share your observations with all those dimwits who write that xhit on the effect of CO2 on climate ?