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Global Warming

Discussion in 'The Guru's Pub' started by Steven Hone, Jun 11, 2007.

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Steven Hone Paolo the Gun

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Ok this is an issue which im sure you are sick of. However, here in ireland we are experiencing some of the warmest weather in recorded history for this time of year and very little snow in winter.

Is it related?

Just thought id post a related article here also

GIGANTIC ocean waves, spanning hundreds of kilometres from crest to crest, have been speeding up thanks to global warming, a new model suggests.

Geophysicists predict that as the ocean surface warms, these so-called planetary waves should speed up. To test this idea, John Fyfe and Oleg Saenko at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, modelled the changes to ocean wave patterns over the 20th and 21st centuries.

"We were really surprised at how quickly the ocean responded to temperature change," Fyfe says. According to the model, global warming has already increased the speed of the waves, but no one noticed because satellites have not been monitoring their speeds for long enough, he says. The model also shows that by the end of the 21st century, the waves will be a further 20 to 40 per cent faster compared with pre-industrial speeds (Geophysical Research Letters, vol 34, p L10706)
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As G8 countries try to hatch a plan to tackle rising CO2 emissions (see "Climate wrangles"), a global analysis of the effects that human activities will have on land birds is ruffling conservationists' feathers.

By 2050, up to 900 species of land birds could be threatened by climate change and habitat destruction through activities such as logging. By 2100, the number of bird species on the World Conservation Union's Red List of threatened species may more than double.

Walter Jetz from the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues mapped the distributions of all 8750 known land bird species against habitat changes predicted in several potential environmental futures in the UN's Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (PLoS Biology, vol 5, p e157). "Species in temperate regions will suffer mostly from climate change," says Jetz, "but in the tropics, where birds are especially diverse and have small ranges, land conversion such as deforestation will have an even bigger impact."

"The specialists confined to small areas don't cope well with habitat change, and this applies to many tropical bird species," agrees Bill Sutherland, a conservation biologist from the University of Cambridge.

By identifying fragile regions, Jetz hopes his work will help policy-makers become more proactive, with improved targeting of conservation efforts. "Protecting tropical forests is also a strong buffer against future climate change," he says.
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The recent increase in the number of major Atlantic hurricanes may just be a return to the norm after a period of unusually low storm frequency, say researchers.

Johan Nyberg of the Geological Survey of Sweden and colleagues used marine sediment cores of coral samples from the northeast Caribbean to build a proxy record of wind shear and sea-surface temperatures since 1730, and from this they estimated hurricane activity since that time.

High wind shear – the difference in speed and direction between low winds that blow close to the Earth's surface and winds that are higher up in the atmosphere – causes a decrease in rainfall, which generates denser coral. This is because less rain runs off the land into the sea, raising the water's salinity and affecting the way coral polyps build their skeletons.
Growth rings

Each year, the corals build a band of skeleton much in the same way as trees build rings, so by looking at cores taken from centuries-old coral Nyberg's team say they were able to reconstruct a history of hurricane activity in the region.

High wind shear is also associated with a reduction in hurricane activity, Nyberg says, because it breaks up the storm systems as they form. And, because high hurricane activity is associated with an increase in rainfall, it leads to less dense coral, he says.

The team found that the frequency of major hurricanes decreased gradually from the 1760s, reaching an all-time low in the 1970s and 1980s.

Since then, numbers of large hurricanes have started to climb again, leading to several very active hurricane seasons. Most notable amongst these was the summer of 2005, which culminated in the devastation of New Orleans in the US by hurricane Katrina (see Hurricane season refuses to blow over).

In 2005, Peter Webster of the Georgia Institute of Technology, US, published a study showing that the frequency of the strongest tropical cyclones has almost doubled globally since the early 1970s (Science, vol 309, p 1844).

Nyberg says that, when considered in the context of the past three centuries, this sudden burst of large hurricanes is simply a return to the norm.
Another angle

Not everyone agrees with Nyberg's conclusions. Kerry Emanuel, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US, and Tom Knuston, of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, say that sea-surface temperature could be the primary driver of whether or not Atlantic hurricanes form.

They both agree Nyberg's research shows a good reconstruction of wind shear in the north-eastern Caribbean over the past 270 years. But they are not convinced that this can be used to build a trend in hurricane activity.

James Elsner of Florida State University in the US also points out that Nyberg's study looks at corals in just one part of the Atlantic. "The north-eastern Caribbean is in the direct path of hurricanes today, but has it always been?" he asks. Elsner believes an increase in hurricane activity in that region could indicate a change in their direction, not an increase in overall activity in the Atlantic.

As for the inevitable question of whether climate change will bring more major hurricanes - that all depends on what happens to wind shear and sea surface temperatures, and which of the two factors turns out to be more important.
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IS THE American Southwest heading for a megadrought? A projection based on climate models suggests this could be the outcome as global warming alters the Pacific weather patterns that normally bring rain to the region (Science, vol 316, p 1181). Now tree rings are revealing just how dry things could get.

In a warren of rooms wedged under the University of Arizona's football stadium, the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research conjures up the past in more ways than one. It was here, in 1937, that astronomer A. E. Douglass established the science of dendrochronology after discovering a correlation between decreased sunspot activity and a narrowing of the growth rings in trees. Since then, generations of researchers have used tree rings to date wood and charcoal fragments from archaeological sites and to assess environmental changes across the centuries. That they are interrupted from time to time by fans cheering on the Arizona ...
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Climate experts have cast doubt on the conclusions of a new study predicting that a warmer world would lead to more rainfall - a contradiction of the prediction of most climate change models - which was based on just 20 years of data.

Climate models predict that as the planet warms, more water will be suspended in the atmosphere, because hotter air can retain more humidity.

However, this will not be accompanied by an equal increase in rainfall, according to the same models: for every degree of warming, atmospheric humidity will increase by about 7%, while precipitation will only go up by between 1% and 3%.

Frank Wentz and colleagues at Remote Sensing Systems in California, US, looked at satellite records from between 1986 and 2005 to see if the climate models' predictions of a correlation between increased temperatures and reduced rainfall bore out in reality.

During that time, average temperatures increased by 0.4°C. The satellite data allowed the team to measure the total water vapour in the atmosphere and precipitation. They found that over the two decades, both factors increased by between 1.1% and 1.2% - or roughly 6.5% for each degree of warming.
Too short a study?

"The satellite data for the last 20 years shows an increase in rainfall that is three times what the models predicted," says Wentz. "This represents one of the first tests of the models used for the predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The results show a significant discrepancy between model and observations."

Wentz and his colleagues admit that the reasons for the discrepancy are not clear. One possible explanation is that two decades is too short a time to detect a real trend, a criticism that has already been levelled at the study by several climatologists.

The increase in precipitation between 1986 and 2005 could have been greater than it will be when averaged over longer time scales.

Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at the NASA Goddard Institute points out that the 20 years studied were dominated by a couple of El Niño events, which increased precipitation during that time. "The trends are not really significant," he says. "I think some more work would be necessary to really pin their argument down."
Rain or humidity

"Two decades is a relatively short period of time for this type of analysis, but it is all we have," Wentz told New Scientist. While the 1997 to 1999 El Niño increased precipitation by 3%, models predicted it would only result in a 1.5% increase - it's "another example of the climate models under-predicting rain variability", he says.

Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, US, who was not involved in the study, is familiar with the satellite instruments used by Wentz. "It is not clear that the trend they are measuring is rainfall," he says.

The instrument measures the total amount of liquid water in the atmosphere, but does not give an indication of its altitude. If you don't know if it is falling, how do you know it is rain, asks Spencer. He believes that in a warming climate, warm air rising from the Earth's surface could hold liquid water in the atmosphere for longer.

"I think this is probably the most accurate measurement of liquid water ever made," says Spencer, "but I question the physical interpretation" that there has been more precipitation.
Improved accuracy

Spencer has himself expressed views that the scale of global warming may not be as bad as predicted. In the early 1990s, he participated in experiments led by John Christy, also of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, which suggested that the lower troposphere was cooling, not warming.

Both scientists later admitted their measurements were faulty (see Sceptics forced into climate climb-down).

Christy says he is now working with Wentz on a new project using improved satellite instruments. Unlike the previous generation of instruments, these ones are able to gauge the relative altitude of raindrops.

Journal reference: Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1140746)
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Steven Hone, Jun 11, 2007

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JohnMaclane Ancient Guru

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its super serial

JohnMaclane, Jun 11, 2007

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blue5 Banned

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It has been 33-35 degrees where I'm from for the last 2 months. Its insane. I definitely think there is a problem with global warming and humanity's input into the crisis.

Talking about global warming... Although I hope for pleasant conversation on this, I know a flame war will erupt eventually in the thread.

blue5, Jun 11, 2007

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UG_PL Banned

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"President Bush has a plan. He says that if we need to, we can lower the temperature dramatically just by switching from Fahrenheit to Celsius" --Jimmy Kimmel, on fighting global warming

UG_PL, Jun 11, 2007

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alma Master Guru

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blue5 said: ↑

It has been 33-35 degrees where I'm from for the last 2 months. Its insane. I definitely think there is a problem with global warming and humanity's input into the crisis.

Talking about global warming... Although I hope for pleasant conversation on this, I know a flame war will erupt eventually in the thread.
Click to expand...

qft :grab:

alma, Jun 11, 2007

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Steven Hone Paolo the Gun

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A proper discussion would be preferred really.

Steven Hone, Jun 11, 2007

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Joey Ancient Guru

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hmmmm. Here in England it's been pretty normal. But then again I'm only 24 and the Earth is 4.5 billion years old.
In the 70's everyone was scared of Global Cooling... in the 80's it was the ozone layer (which is clearly up nicely - if there was even a problem with it in the first place, they really have no idea) and everyone getting skin cancer and now it's CO2 and global warming.
So YES!..... I'm getting sick of it.
Don't waste money on fuels and electricity... advocate the free energy sources like solar and wind and so on.... then just forget about all this crap. By saving your money you are effectively doing all you can. Wasting resources is just a practical matter. We aren't going to all drown in a deluge here. the Earth's heating up.... it'll take while.. it has little to do with us.... and it's inevitable.

Joey, Jun 11, 2007

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InGen Master Guru

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Im not sure what to make of global warming...the earth was a much hotter and unstable place millions of years ago when the dinosaurs ruled. So why cant this just be another evolution of our planet?

InGen, Jun 11, 2007

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Classic Satch Banned

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InGen said: ↑

Im not sure what to make of global warming...the earth was a much hotter and unstable place millions of years ago when the dinosaurs ruled. So why cant this just be another evolution of our planet?
Click to expand...

Here we go again. I agree with you. Any global warming is most likely just part of a natural warming and cooling cycle. In fact, the effects of sunspots are far more likely to have an impact on any variations in global temperatures than a minuscule rise in CO2 concentrations. To think that just a mere 150 years after the Industrial Revolution that we are having such a drastic impact on temps is flat-out ludicrous, regardless of what that idiot Al Gore and his clueless minions think.

[FONT=Verdana, Times]So what, then, is one to make of this alleged debate? I would suggest at least three points.[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Times]
[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Times]First, nonscientists generally do not want to bother with understanding the science. Claims of consensus relieve policy types, environmental advocates and politicians of any need to do so. Such claims also serve to intimidate the public and even scientists--especially those outside the area of climate dynamics. Secondly, given that the question of human attribution largely cannot be resolved, its use in promoting visions of disaster constitutes nothing so much as a bait-and-switch scam. That is an inauspicious beginning to what Mr. Gore claims is not a political issue but a "moral" crusade.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Times]
[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Times]Lastly, there is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition. An earlier attempt at this was accompanied by tragedy. Perhaps Marx was right. This time around we may have farce--if we're lucky.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Times]Mr. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at MIT. [/FONT]

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008597

Dr Gareth Jones, a climate researcher at the Met Office, said that Dr Solanki's findings were inconclusive because the study had not incorporated other potential climate change factors.
"The Sun's radiance may well have an impact on climate change but it needs to be looked at in conjunction with other factors such as greenhouse gases, sulphate aerosols and volcano activity," he said. The research adds weight to the views of David Bellamy, the conservationist. "Global warming - at least the modern nightmare version - is a myth," he said. "I am sure of it and so are a growing number of scientists. But what is really worrying is that the world's politicians and policy-makers are not.
"Instead, they have an unshakeable faith in what has, unfortunately, become one of the central credos of the environmental movement: humans burn fossil fuels, which release increased levels of carbon dioxide - the principal so-called greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere to heat up. They say this is global warming: I say this is poppycock."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/18/wsun18.xml

The fact is, global warming alarmists are not scientists, they are propagandists. Instead of trying to incorporate solar-magnetic effects into their models, the alarmists regard the solar-magnetic theory of warming as a competitor to their preferred greenhouse gas theory. As evidence for the impact of cosmic radiation on clouds continues to roll in, the alarmists are still concocting excuses to ignore this mechanism that undercuts their preferred conclusions.
NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt recently justified leaving cosmic radiation out of NASA models on the grounds that the effect is not needed. “[T]here is no obvious need for ‘new’ or unknown physics to explain what [is] going on,” he explains to science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle (at Pournelle’s website). Earth to NASA: it isn’t enough to tweak your model to fit the historical temperature record. You have to fit ALL the data, including the evidence that cosmic radiation produces cloud cover. If you leave out a real effect, your model is WRONG. Warming that ought to be attributed to solar activity gets misattributed to greenhouse gases, and whatever predictions you make on the basis of those exaggerated warming effects are lies.
These lies are intentional. The goal is to have a grounds for demanding the curtailment of human activity. That is the founding stone of environmental religion. Environmentalists see man as displacing nature, and in this contest, they side with nature. As the self-appointed representatives of a natural world that cannot speak for itself, they see all human impacts as by definition bad, and the interdiction of human impacts as necessarily good, regardless of whether the pretext for curtailing human activity is honest or dishonest.

http://www.rawls.org/Global_warming_omitted_var.htm

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Classic Satch, Jun 11, 2007

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alma Master Guru

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300 million people (guess from where), which is the 5% of the world population consume 25% of the world oil production. I'll do my best in saving money and energy but these numbers are not encouraging, without considering China and India which are growing sooo fast.
Peace.

alma, Jun 11, 2007

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alma Master Guru

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Classic Satch said: ↑

Here we go again. I agree with you. Any "supposed" global warming is most likely just part of a natural warming and cooling cycle. In fact, the effects of sunspots are far more likely to have an impact on any variations in global temperatures than a minuscule rise in CO2 concentrations. To think that just a mere 150 years after the Industrial Revolution that we are having such a drastic impact on temps is flat-out ludicrous, regardless of what that idiot Al Gore and his clueless minions think.

http://www.rawls.org/Global_warming_omitted_var.htm
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And Santa Claus do exist!

alma, Jun 11, 2007

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Classic Satch Banned

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alma said: ↑

And Santa Claus do exist!
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Al Gore probably thinks so!

Classic Satch, Jun 11, 2007

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eRa` Ancient Guru

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It's often forgotten that there were periods in worlds history where it was a lot warmer on the whole globe than it is now (and even when the temperature rises by about 3° Celsius). Guess what, the planet is still here! As far as I know we are currently in a "cold" phase with an incoming ice age around the corner (in some hundred thousand or million years).

Also, our western civilisation won't stop global warming, or the part that is man made, when China, India etc. keep growing at their current speed. Their main goal is to maintain economy growth, and not environmentalism. You sure can stop driving your car, but that will be not the big deal when China builts another coal power plant. This whole discussion is totaly hyped by the media and the politics and out of control imo.

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eRa`, Jun 11, 2007

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Classic Satch Banned

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This whole discussion is totaly hyped by the media and the politics and out of control imo.
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You hit the nail on the head.

Classic Satch, Jun 11, 2007

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alma Master Guru

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Classic Satch said: ↑

Al Gore probably thinks so!
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I don't think the sun spot theory is scientifically supported and worldwide considered as the co2 emission one...please don't put this topic in a political point of view, it's a global problem and I don't think Al Gore has any influence on it.

alma, Jun 11, 2007

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Steven Hone Paolo the Gun

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2012 - Our sun is in line with the centre of the galaxy for the first time in 26,000 years.

The Myans predict bad things for that year (Though their records do not end on this year the certainly indicate a catastrophoe)

Steven Hone, Jun 11, 2007

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iamtheoneneo Banned

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whether global warming is or isnt our fault ,at the end of the day we as humans waste so much resource wise that this is a good thing that people are finally recycling and thinking more about the planet we live in.
because thats what its about at the end of the day, oil and other materials arent going to last forever so we need to not waste it now and to think more about are actions and what they generally do to the planet.

im also sick of people who are clearly clueless on this issue effectively saying that we dont need to do anything.
Its people like this that would happily sit back and watch as water levels rise, oil materials decline, rainfall increases at the wrong times in the year, and ecology systems get destroyed and then when its all finshed and the world is screwed will come out and say 'oh maybe we could of done something'

at the end of the day its not about weather you agree or disagree with scientists and media hype , its your duty as part of the world to help keep it reasonably together and at the end of the day for not to waste liberally. ie its really not that hard to recycle! and it does alot to help the environment.

iamtheoneneo, Jun 11, 2007

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blue5 Banned

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Yep its started.

Al gore's commentary on the situation showed what was known for quite a while. People deny it simply because it would mean that their convenience is costing something. Its pretty easy to think a problem developing somewhere is not someone's fault or concern because they are not living there. Every country has to take responsibility.

Every scientist worth their salt will tell you that its accelerated considerably over the last century. All the fuel burning and pollution thats occurs would not be having an effect? Thats just wishful thinking. Of course once the damage is done, " "sorry" can't buy curry", as the saying goes in my country.

blue5, Jun 11, 2007

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Classic Satch Banned

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alma said: ↑

I don't think the sun spot theory is scientifically supported and worldwide considered as the co2 emission one...please don't put this topic in a political point of view, it's a global problem and I don't think Al Gore has any influence on it.
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I wasn't approaching it from a political angle, Al Gore is. Anyway, I was just having some fun in regards to that lying blowhard. Please read the provided links, they refute the hogwash coming from the sky-is-falling nutcases.

Last edited: Jun 11, 2007

Classic Satch, Jun 11, 2007

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Classic Satch Banned

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blue5 said: ↑

Yep its started.

Al gore's commentary on the situation showed what was known for quite a while. People deny it simply because it would mean that their convenience is costing something. Its pretty easy to think a problem developing somewhere is not someone's fault or concern because they are not living there. Every country has to take responsibility.

Every scientist worth their salt will tell you that its accelerated considerably over the last century. All the fuel burning and pollution thats occurs would not be having an effect? Thats just wishful thinking. Of course once the damage is done, " "sorry" can't buy curry", as the saying goes in my country.
Click to expand...

Sheesh, does anyone even bother to read the links I provided? There is no, zip, zero, nada evidence that conclusively links human activity to a recent rise in global temperatures. Facts blue5, facts are the key, not buying into the ridiculous hysteria propagated by the media and the eco-nuts.

Classic Satch, Jun 11, 2007

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