Disaster

[The PIT]

Stable isotopes!

http://www.skepticalscience.com/its-not-us.htm

Cheers

[Yorkshiresnows]

No, YS...For there not to be a human element, however small, someone must show that manmade CO₂ is somehow different from its natural counterpart: i.e. that it's not a GHG.

Hi Pete,

You misunderstand the point I was trying to make.

I know that Co2 is a greenhouse gas ...... its just a very weak one ...... water vapour is the key. The IPCC rely on this feedback and assume its all positive to calculate and get their models to show the impacts of ..... greenhouse gas emissions.

Folks often go on about Northern hemisphere extremes and I agree that we are a warmer world than 20-30 years ago ... thats a given. Its just that there are too many people (and the usual suspects) who will jump on any given event and cry AGW.

There is big heat in Eastern Europe, there is big cold in the Antarctic and Southern Hemisphere ... there's even been one of the coldest summers in the Arctic since the 1950's ........... but no .... we concentrate on the big heat and folks shout ..... see .... more proof of the effects of greenhouse gases.

That's all.

Y.S

[Ladyofthestorm]

Hi Pete,

You misunderstand the point I was trying to make.

I know that Co2 is a greenhouse gas ...... its just a very weak one ...... water vapour is the key. The IPCC rely on this feedback and assume its all positive to calculate and get their models to show the impacts of ..... greenhouse gas emissions.

Folks often go on about Northern hemisphere extremes and I agree that we are a warmer world than 20-30 years ago ... thats a given. Its just that there are too many people (and the usual suspects) who will jump on any given event and cry AGW.

There is big heat in Eastern Europe, there is big cold in the Antarctic and Southern Hemisphere ... there's even been one of the coldest summers in the Arctic since the 1950's ........... but no .... we concentrate on the big heat and folks shout ..... see .... more proof of the effects of greenhouse gases.

That's all.

Y.S

Dev Im still working my way through this apparent mound of evdience about global warming. The bit I cant get is how come the IPCC can seperate the human from natural so easily.... or do they? Did anyone find that 2009 BBQ summer yet?

YS I totally agree.... the IPCC models just arent clever enough to take into account subtle but very important feedback processes, and that isnt surprising because there were 52 sciientists and 17 diplomats..... can I continue slating IPCC, they made several claims of potential impact based on unpublished papers.. al retrated..... you can tell these guys dont get my vote of confidence cant you:diablo: grrrrrrrr.

Further more havent 2008 and 2009 been our coolest years for a while....what will the say when 2010 follows suit?Has someone told the polar bears yet that they dont need to get on there swimming gear.

Carbon dioxide only contributes to around 10% of greenhouse gases, about 5% of that is from human activity.... Water vapour is by far the biggest greenhouse gas. Nearly all this water is natural Carbon dioxide increases come before increases in temp. It isnt CO2 levels that impact on climate change, but the effect of the solar cycles.... now this is where strong correlations exsist.... makes sence doesnt it?

The earlier parts of the holocene have in fact been warmer than today....

[stewfox]

Jethro - did you look at some of the links I posted earlier? - that was the point of that earlier post: we don't have to wait for new evidence, as we already have substantial meteorological datasets for many countries round the world. These datasets show the increasing tendency towards warm temperature records over cold ones (in 2010, for national records the ratio is 17:1), and the datasets already cover many decades. There's a similar tendency towards large precipitation events, to be expected if there's more water vapour in the atmosphere.

I had to go back and look at the links, clearly 17:1 its end game :unsure:

The links show 2:1 which you expect in the USA given the locations of stations and recent weather over there in the last few years.

Also it might be an idea to look at 2010 at the end of the year rather then the hight of summer. (although it does conceed near the end 3:2 is the ratio for 2010 after a number of unseasonally warm yrs)

Also Pakistan has experienced dozens of worse floods in the last 300 yrs

Anyway 17:1 is up there with Polar bears sitting on a bit of ice

Edited August 11, 2010 by stewfox

[Methuselah]

Stable isotopes!

http://www.skepticalscience.com/its-not-us.htm

Sorry guys, I didn't remember that until I'd gotten home...

Hi Pete,

You misunderstand the point I was trying to make.

I know that Co2 is a greenhouse gas ...... its just a very weak one ...... water vapour is the key. The IPCC rely on this feedback and assume its all positive to calculate and get their models to show the impacts of ..... greenhouse gas emissions.

Folks often go on about Northern hemisphere extremes and I agree that we are a warmer world than 20-30 years ago ... thats a given. Its just that there are too many people (and the usual suspects) who will jump on any given event and cry AGW.

There is big heat in Eastern Europe, there is big cold in the Antarctic and Southern Hemisphere ... there's even been one of the coldest summers in the Arctic since the 1950's ........... but no .... we concentrate on the big heat and folks shout ..... see .... more proof of the effects of greenhouse gases.

That's all.

Y.S

No probs, mate...

[sunny starry skies]

Stewfox - 17 countries have set national high temperature records in 2010, one country set a low record - the 17:1 ratio for this year is perfectly real and has nothing to do with polar bears. Indeed it may be worth waiting until the end of the year, but I don't think the ratio is going to change a great deal, unless a large number of Southern Hemisphere countries have some remarkable cold in the next month or so. Guinea isthe only country to set a national low temperature record in 2010. The US data shows the local temperature record ratio steadily increasing in favour of high temperature records over the last 40 years. These decadal averages are pretty robust. Please don't try and twist the numbers!

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1569 - 17 national high temperature records in 2010.

http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2009/maxmin.jsp - US maxima outpace minima in recent decades.

Ladyofthestorm - 'barbecue summers' refer to now-dumped seasonal weather forecasts which never had much reliability. Climate is entirely different, so best not to use the old strawman.

How to separate human from natural - try explaining away these factors:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-fingerprint-in-global-warming.html

Also:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/More-evidence-than-you-can-shake-a-hockey-stick-at.html

Contrary to what some might have you believe, there's very good evidence that these changes are a direct consequence of our adding CO2 to the atmosphere. Your numbers on the contribution of human CO2 are also incorrect - see:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas.htm

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-vapour-feedback-or-forcing/

Water vapour is a feedback, not a forcing - if you instantaneously doubled the water vapour in the atmosphere, it would all rain out in a couple of weeks, so it has no long-term effect. If you double CO2, it's not reabsorbed for centuries, and meanwhile the raised temperature results in more water vapour in the atmosphere, as shown below:

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/urban-wet-island/

Which leads us to expect higher temperatures and more extreme precipitation events, and more "disasters"...

sss

[Devonian]

Dev Im still working my way through this apparent mound of evdience about global warming. The bit I cant get is how come the IPCC can seperate the human from natural so easily.... or do they? Did anyone find that 2009 BBQ summer yet?

...

Carbon dioxide only contributes to around 10% of greenhouse gases, about 5% of that is from human activity.... Water vapour is by far the biggest greenhouse gas. Nearly all this water is natural Carbon dioxide increases come before increases in temp. It isnt CO2 levels that impact on climate change, but the effect of the solar cycles.... now this is where strong correlations exsist.... makes sence doesnt it?

The earlier parts of the holocene have in fact been warmer than today....

There's a misunderstanding here.

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution atmospheric CO2 concentration has risen from around 270ppm to around 385ppm. 5% of that rise would be around, what, less then 10ppm? Now, we've burnt a lot of fossil fuels, and the calculations show we've added more than your <10ppm CO2 to the atmosphere - infact we've burnt enough fossil fuel to have added double the amount seen - this is the straightforward maths and chemistry of how much CO2 you get from buring the amount of fossil fuels we've burnt. So, what you state is, I'm afraid, not right - and you can ask people like Lord Monckton, Dr Roy Spencer, Anthony Watts and Steve McIntryre (all of them noted, fierce even, AGW sceptics) and they would agree with me.

So where does this 5% figure come from? Well, to the best of my understanding, it's the figure for the human contribution to the amount of CO2 in the whole carbon cycle but, that is not just the atmosphere, the whole carbon cycle!. Infact we've added about 30% to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. The rise in CO2 is our doing and that is not worth arguing about.

The early holocene. Yes, it was warm, perhaps a litle warmer than the present time, perhaps not. Not only CO2 concentration forces the climate, otoh, CO2 concdoes force the climate.

Edited August 12, 2010 by Devonian

[pottyprof]

New Scientist has a level headed report regarding the Russian temperatures.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19304-is-climate-change-burning-russia.html?page=1

It's nice to see articles like this that talk probabilities but also point out, that at the moment, there is no proof that this event is anything to do with climate change.

[Schnee]

Very interesting article. Here's another interesting article about the Russian Heatwave:

http://modernsurvivalblog.com/current-events-economics-politics/poison-air-in-russia/

Edited August 12, 2010 by Stelmer

[Yorkshiresnows]

There's a misunderstanding here.

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution atmospheric CO2 concentration has risen from around 270ppm to around 385ppm. 5% of that rise would be around, what, less then 10ppm? Now, we've burnt a lot of fossil fuels, and the calculations show we've added more than your <10ppm CO2 to the atmosphere - infact we've burnt enough fossil fuel to have added double the amount seen - this is the straightforward maths and chemistry of how much CO2 you get from buring the amount of fossil fuels we've burnt. So, what you state is, I'm afraid, not right - and you can ask people like Lord Monckton, Dr Roy Spencer, Anthony Watts and Steve McIntryre (all of them noted, fierce even, AGW sceptics) and they would agree with me.

So where does this 5% figure come from? Well, to the best of my understanding, it's the figure for the human contribution to the amount of CO2 in the whole carbon cycle but, that is not just the atmosphere, the whole carbon cycle!. Infact we've added about 30% to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. The rise in CO2 is our doing and that is not worth arguing about.

The early holocene. Yes, it was warm, perhaps a litle warmer than the present time, perhaps not. Not only CO2 concentration forces the climate, otoh, CO2 concdoes force the climate.

Hi Dev,

Agree with most of the above.

Co2 is a greenhouse gas ...... but, by the IPCC own's data, then doubling the Co2 concentration from pre-industrial to around 480-540 ppm would on its own only increase global temperatures by 0.6 to 1.0 degrees C.

Its the whole feedback system that is currently poorly understood and modelled in just one way (positive), relying on an associated increase in water vapour content of the atmosphere to generate the really scary projections. Should any of this be incorrect, or there is an associated increase in low cloud formation, then you would get a much reduced effect due to reduced absorbance of solar energy into the ocean layers.

None of these possibilities along with solar input or cyclical PDO / AMO conditions form part of the IPCC climate modelling work (or at least up until 2007 when the last assessment report was published).

A change in global cloud cover of just 1% could account on its own most of the warming seen in the past 1-200 years.

We've gone round the houses several times on this so I will not re-open old arguments, but just exactly how sensitive the climate is to greenhouse gas emissions is the controversial bit of the argument.

Could be very sensitive .... and we should all worry ....... or not.

Y.S

Edited August 12, 2010 by Yorkshiresnows

[Gray-Wolf]

To me it appears that the initial 'impacts' of the GHG forcings are easily masked by 'natural cyclical' climate patterns. As time passes the GHG Forcings will break free of the 'natural' and start to force changes in it. In the Arctic we are told 'warming' is happening a lot faster than the rest of the planet and so the impacts of that 'warming' are also easier to see.

The new 'Arctic Amplification' is being studied to gauge the extent of it's impacts on the circulation across the northern hemisphere and the impacts this imparts to circulation further south.

Over time the impacts being studied in the Arctic will spread south.

The time for 'waiting' to see impacts was over as soon as we could see the start of the Arctic Amplification taking hold. Some folk may not wish to acknowledge this event as significant but when we look back it will be the obvious 'start point' for the 2nd phase of warming i.e. the changes in global circulation driven by the extra energy now within the system.

I would urge folk to watch the Arctic over the months of Oct,Nov,Dec and see for themselves if thing are acting 'different' to what we are accustomed to.

[mesocyclone]

Nicely balanced peeps on this forum!

There are greater disasters out there that the news hasnt picked up on, that our governement has cast aside and that we as high energy, high demand consumers prefer to bury our heads in the sand and pretend it doesnt exsist. I will come back to that.

Whilst there will always be an enhanced greenhouse effect , it will never be as much as what the media or our people in power will have us believe or indeed brainwash our children with at school. Im a sceptic of this whole climate change by humans lark.... there are other factors such the positioning of the earth in relation to the sun (the Milankovic theory), volcanic activity, solar activity, the complex relationship between the melting of icecaps, salinity of salt water, and the impacts this has on the oceanic ciculation. Its barely understood. I havent even touched on the biological aspect of global warming, like photosynthetic bacteria etc.

There is not a scientist on this planet who could possibly pinpoint global warming to human causes and they have known this for 20 years and more.

BUT there is one thing that concerns me, it isnt the climate change debate, there is a much bigger natural disaster out there, its now happening as swiftly as any flood or any wildfire, it will creep up on us and then it will be there.....

Waste and our glut need for everything. Its poisoning our water, soils and land, its turning fertile soil into dust. Its devasting our biodiversity (the next cure for cancer), and while we attack the environment in such a way, it cannot defend itself against mother natures often unpredictable fury. Take the pakistan floods, the reasons while the water is going over the land instead of into the soil is becuase of the amount of deforestation taken place. Once where there were woods and fields now there are roads and houses, once these valleys flooded quite naturally now the water has nowhere to go but over the tops of humans. Then there is the toxic aspect, how many of you have bought a new computer before the other one broke? Bought a new fridge freezer, Plasma TV, new games console... what did you do with the old ones? Africa is being slowly poisoned by our high consumer demans, that need for everything. What does the government do to stop that? Nothing... too many taxes to be collected from it. In the case of the Russia wildfires.... dare I say it, the introduction of drought resistant crops, such as genetically engineered, selectively bred varieties of corn. Now this is great in a society where we throw away bread every day, but look at that impact it has.... now soil is being cultivated when it never used to be, this crop is able to withstand tinder box conditions where as in the past it would have wilted long long ago and nowits the perfect fuel for the wildfire. One lightening strke and the wholelot goes up.

We impact on the environment but not in the way the so called experts would have many of us believing. In fact they are taking us away from the real issues and problems of waste and the need for sustainable living by talking about global warming.

Id like to see a real effort being made, by getting companies that make white goods, to make them last for 20 years and not the 3 or 4 if you are lucky. Companies punsihed over over packaging.... my bug bear... Im at the stage where having bought my packets of cereal I will leave the cardboard box in the store.... Indiviual people and communities becoming more sustainable. Solar panels a whole lot cheaper than what they are, and people encouraged to erect wind turbines and make there homes energy effcient as possible. I want to see footpaths built and VAT taken off of bicycles..... I want the end of BOGOF on non essential items. I now buy all of my childrens clothes off of ebay, they will be looked after and then put back onto ebay for reselling. I want to see the end of building houses on floodplains, the red tape associated with building on land that is perfectly positioned except for the moans, motives and whims of planners and those sitting in quangos.

Then the media and those in power can come back and discuss global warming with me.

Some very well raised points.

People really do need to understand the conspiracy at work here. So many things should be done to enforce the responsibility of the companies producing the waste to deal with it. As you said, far to much money involved for that, turn the other way.

The fact one of the greatest plants known to man (hemp or cannabis) remains controlled and criminal punishments are issued for its cultivation is beyond me. If anyone doesn't know its benefits here's a few films i found very enlightening.

Run from the cure

We need this madness of government to stop, it is very clear they work for big business and not real people.

Meso

[PersianPaladin]

It's the sun wot did it.

Keep burning all those lovely fossil fuels and making BP, Exxon, Shell, etc rich and powerful. And anyhow, we're heading for a big oil shortage in just a few years..so burn away and lets finish the disaster that we started eh? Might as well? Screw all those poor lazy people...

Edited August 13, 2010 by PersianPaladin

[BornFromTheVoid]

Some very well raised points.

People really do need to understand the conspiracy at work here. So many things should be done to enforce the responsibility of the companies producing the waste to deal with it. As you said, far to much money involved for that, turn the other way.

The fact one of the greatest plants known to man (hemp or cannabis) remains controlled and criminal punishments are issued for its cultivation is beyond me. If anyone doesn't know its benefits here's a few films i found very enlightening.

Run from the cure

We need this madness of government to stop, it is very clear they work for big business and not real people.

Meso

Completely agree with that.

Hemp is one of the most versatile and beneficial plants on the planet, it's such a pity that the whole pathetic "drug war" has ruined it's potential.

I met Rick Simpson from Run From The Cure in Prague last January at the cannabis cup. Genuinely nice guy and talks a lot of sense.

Here's another video to add on the benefits and whole dirty propaganda war being used against hemp over the last century or so.

The Union

Edited August 13, 2010 by NaDamantaSam

[Gray-Wolf]

Keep it illegal ,make the baddies rich and criminalise the sick that's what I say!!!:unsure:

[jethro]

I think the question of legalising hemp/cannabis has nothing to do with climate change or disasters. It's a valid debate but perhaps better suited to the serious discussions part of the forum.

Please stay on topic peeps.

[mesocyclone]

I think the question of legalising hemp/cannabis has nothing to do with climate change or disasters. It's a valid debate but perhaps better suited to the serious discussions part of the forum.

Please stay on topic peeps.

I would argue against that statement.

Considering Henry Fords first car was built from natural fibers including hemp and run from hemp oil.

Then there is all the plastics made from oil that are non biodegradable which could be made from hemp oil and would be degradable.

It loves co2 and eats it all day long so would help balance the so called problem of co2 overdose.

Of course I can't forget the paper industry which could 100% turn to hemp and stop cutting down our tress that take 60 years rather than 6 months to grow.

Added to all this is the benefit to soil as it enhances the soil and doesn't need to be planted somewhere else the next season and doesn't need pesticides like cotton does, yes all your cotton clothes can be replaced with a better quality fiber that does less damage to our Eco system.

This is a few of the "climate related issues" of banning the right to use this plant.

Of course the medical use of it is for another forum but not the environmental uses.

I would say a lot of disasters have been caused by the loss of this gift from mother earth. A plant that feeds clothes and shelters you being thrown out like a useless waste product. The modern world stumps me with its sheer ignorance.

[Gray-Wolf]

Well at least science is taking serious the prospects of AGW driving more and more extreme events (Pakistan/Chinese floods, Russian drought etc) and are meeting in Colerado to duscuss setting up early warnings for such events in future

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/15/climate-change-predict-next-disaster

I do believe we can start to know that our forced warming is now influencing such events and ,in some cases, helping promote them.

[PersianPaladin]

A looming oxygen crisis and its impact on our oceans « Climate Progress

http://climateprogre...ing-boris-worm/

As one reader comment says: -

"I can understand the basic human need to deny bad news. I understand the psychology that fuels the denial machine. I can now fully appreciate the almost pathological need to deny AGW.

If this is true then we should be deeply concerned."

Edited August 16, 2010 by PersianPaladin

[Methuselah]

A looming oxygen crisis and its impact on our oceans « Climate Progress

http://climateprogre...ing-boris-worm/

As one reader comment says: -

"I can understand the basic human need to deny bad news. I understand the psychology that fuels the denial machine. I can now fully appreciate the almost pathological need to deny AGW.

If this is true then we should be deeply concerned."

I think you are right about the psychology of denial there, PP...

[Gray-Wolf]

Sadly our data on 'blooms' only goes back to 78' and look at the denialists approach to the Arctic Sat. record......not long enough blah, blah.......so we'll have none (as with polar ice) before they concede that this may be above and beyond 'natural variation'.

Sadly the world at at the mercy of these goon's who will take personal decisions in an instant yet demand 100% surity before they will accept the global issues man is driving!

[jethro]

I see we're still a long way from discussing things amicably around here GW, I was always told you catch more bees with honey than vinegar, hectoring almost always has a negative impact and result.

[Gray-Wolf]

I see we're still a long way from discussing things amicably around here GW, I was always told you catch more bees with honey than vinegar, hectoring almost always has a negative impact and result.

Just take a peep at the Antarctic Arctic thread if you cannot find truth in my observations J'.

[VillagePlank]

Sadly our data on 'blooms' only goes back to 78' and look at the denialists approach to the Arctic Sat. record......not long enough blah, blah.......so we'll have none (as with polar ice) before they concede that this may be above and beyond 'natural variation'.

Sadly the world at at the mercy of these goon's who will take personal decisions in an instant yet demand 100% surity before they will accept the global issues man is driving!

WRT to the bolded bit: I think Tamino posted some good posts on ensuring that enough data is available before making a statistical call.

This is a problem that seems to go on 4e4. Some cherry pick the most recent temperature data and say that it is evidence of the end of global warming. Others, pick up other factors, such as sea-ice, and claim that there is enough data available to make a call.

In reality - we never have enough data. NEVER; and on that basis, alone, we must make a judgement call based on whatever (objective) evidence we can find.

Consider the Box-Jenkins modelling strategy. Here we need to ensure, before we start that we have a constant variance, remove seasonal differences over the time period chosen, amongst other things, in order to be able to create even the simplest model. According to here you'd need at least 50 time periods to be able to achieve this. So if you're looking at decades it's 500 years, if you're looking at annual it's 50 years.

The point is: you can never have too much quality data - and a lack thereof, is always a problem.

Edited August 18, 2010 by VillagePlank

[weather eater]

I was going to post this as an answer in the Polar ice extent thread, but it’s a bit of topic so better to put it in here.

I think people are mistaking what I'm saying. There is no doubt in my mind that we are affecting the pole, and its obvious that much more needs to be done to lessen our impacts, I am not an AGW denier. I do however think we are reading to much into freak weather events at this point of time. Climate scientists are themselves saying that pinning the effects of AGW on individual weather events is hard to quantify. When reading the climate change thread, I’m interested in the science, not hyperbole, or speculation about tipping points.

In terms of weather events AGW, and the summer ice melt our best measure for UK climate is the medieval warm period. At times during that period both winter and summer ice extent must have been much reduced, I have provided a wikipedia link here, mainly because of the difficulty of finding a site without an agenda (In other words I don’t have the time to trawl through endless pages only to find the data has a bias, I hope this one does not)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period

But did this warmer period lead to an increase in the frequency and strength of weather events, certainly droughts and flooding were a feature in certain parts of the globe, here’s a link.

http://sites.google.com/site/medievalwarmperiod/

And more here about Herbert Lamb, and how the both the LIA and the MWP have to be viewed with caution when comparing them to today’s climate and the influence on climate of modern society.

http://sites.google.com/site/medievalwarmperiod/Home

It also details how neither the LIA or the MWP were global events, a fact that rather surprises me as I’m not sure how that occurred given that climate is an interlinked system. Maybe someone could provide a link as to what the controlling drivers were at that time. I guess that sequences of positive and negative AOs and NAOs must have played a part, but why did they come about.

Of great interest is just how varied the Uk climate was during the MWP, a long period of sustained warmer weather it was not, just how varied is explained in the above link.

Given the difficulties of making sense of the data, both modern and historical, it comes of no surprise to me that many people remain deeply sceptical of AGW theory. While the evidence seems overwhelming for the bulk of the science community, for the layman or the interested amateur it can be a minefield of mind bending complexity.