Global warming anybody?

Climate change will go on forever, it will never be balanced.

Agreed Scientific explanations for the previous cycles please.

Scientific evidence to show that warming will be bad for the Earth please?

Climate change will go on forever, it will never be balanced.

Probably true but that does not mean we cannot and are not affecting it

Agreed Scientific explanations for the previous cycles please.

have you considered googling these questions or doing your own background reading?
Start with milankovitch cycles and take it from there
google that and read up

Scientific evidence to show that warming will be bad for the Earth please?

The meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs was not bad for the earth in the sense that [ in earths timescale] it was little more than a scratch – it was pretty bad for the dinosaurs that became extinct though.
Better questions please

To be honest mate…there’s such a rich and well known scientific literature on this that if you re genuinely interested in the topic you are wasting your time asking about it on a mountain biking blog.

If by some remote possibility you are genuine in wanting to find out more and you understand some of the science works..then start with IPCC WG1 Fourth Assessment report…which is an overview of the science up until 2007. The 5th Assessment report will be out in a few months time that’ll cover the developments in science up to end of 2012.
.

If you have no background in earth sciences .which Is a fascinating topic even for amateurs …jump into one of the open university courses.

You’ve missed the cut off to be a reviewer for 5th Assessment Report now….anyone in the world could be a reviewer. You may want to drop IPCC a line if you want to be on the 6th assessment report review panel for 2017/18 though.

All life forms effect climate, always have always will; we are not seperate from nature.

I cannot find any agreed information on the previous cycles. We have very very little actual data on climate as far as I can see. (I will continue to read up some more.)

The dinosaurs were also effecting climate but it didn’t matter a jot because they got wiped out by something else. Your point please?

The dinosaurs were also effecting climate but it didn’t matter a jot because they got wiped out by something else. Your point please?

Well you asked me what global warming would mean to the earth and I answered your question. If you dont understand the point of answers as simple as that then probably best to give up now tbh as it is more complicated than the point of that

Ps Good luck finding some information on the Internet on global warming – Amazing how little information there is out there on this

theocb – Member
All life forms effect climate, always have always will; we are not seperate from nature.

That’s quite a bold statement…and I suspect it would have been unlikely to have been true for over 1 billion years of earths history…when there was very little life

Frames of reference are important when talking about “climate” exactly what climate cycles do you mean and when

I cannot find any agreed information on the previous cycles. We have very very little actual data on climate as far as I can see. (I will continue to read up some more.)

As I said the IPCC should be the 1st place that anyone starts – specifically for Paleoclimate they have a whole chapter – ith references and stuff. It’s a click away at

https://www.ipcc-wg1.unibe.ch/publications/wg1-ar4/ar4-wg1-chapter6.pdf

The other chapters are worth a read too.

If this is too deep Open University courses cover Earth history very well

Exploring Science (Course S104) is the start point

Small amounts of data do not necessarily mean big conclusions can’t be drawn from them…context and understanding is important too.

Who would think you could figure out that the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation effectively shut off at the end of the last ice age, just by looking at dead beetles in peat bogs in Scotland and the Lake District.

Fill your boots – both are better ways of spending your time than scanning cut and paste memes from political attack blogs

The earth won’t care one bit if it gets warmer or colder. It’s a lump of rock, it doesn’t really give a crap.

However, if millions of people start to die from droughts or floods then personally I’ll be quite sad, as will a lot of people. Especially if there was something we could have done to avoid it.

I asked for scientific evidence that warming is bad for the earth. I’m sorry but the extinction of most dinosaurs is not evidence of such a thing.

Please don’t mock me mate. Your not so perfect.

millions of people start to die from droughts or floods then personally I’ll be quite sad

On the upside, it’ll have a positive impact on the housing shortage.

theocb – Member
I asked for scientific evidence that warming is bad for the earth. I’m sorry but the extinction of most dinosaurs is not evidence of such a thing.

Please don’t mock me mate. Your not so perfect.

What do you mean by “bad” and what do you mean by “earth”?

and why should your definitions of those terms be what motivates the international political response…or otherwise to anthropogenic climate change rather than anyone elses

I thought we were still in an ice age of sorts? Gwaelod. I am genuinely interested and will read more. I am struggling to see the doom that is portrayed. There is doom in warming, cooling and maintaing a rich environment for humans to thrive. Which do I choose? I think a bike forum is about my level if you all think your to clever to discuss this on a bike forum then don’t 8)

A nice summary…

http://www.newscientist.com/special/climate-knowns-unknowns

theocb – Member

Please don’t mock me mate. Your not so perfect.

You’re.

asked for scientific evidence that warming is bad for the earth. I’m sorry but the extinction of most dinosaurs is not evidence of such a thing.

Well as I pointed out in my answer

The meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs was not bad for the earth in the sense that [ in earths timescale] it was little more than a scratch

The point being it is not bad for the earth in the sense that the earth will survive but it may be bad for the inhabitants of the planet like the meteor strike was. Its a bad question as no one is claiming global warming will “harm as in kill” the earth but it will impoact on us and most other life forms on the planet. The large lump of rock we inhabit will be fine. Tbh the earth would be fine if we destroyed all life with chemical and nuclear attacks what with it being an inanimate rock orbiting a star.

Please don’t mock me mate. Your not so perfect.

Its a really rubbish question and you fail to have realised my answer explicitly agreed with the point you just made

Really go read up you have been given advice on where to gather information so please do so.
Ignorance is not a great ally in a science debate.

I am not perfect but I do have bsic grasp of this subject and

I am struggling to see the doom that is portrayed. There is doom in warming, cooling and maintaing a rich environment for humans to thrive.

What dooom is there in maintaining a rich environment for humans to thrive?

I think a bike forum is about my level if you all think your to clever to discuss this on a bike forum then don’t

we will discuss but if you want to learn you need to actually read the stuff that people provide as answers to your questions

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/spm.html

impacts on the environment

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spm.html
synthesis report – summary basically

Please read
I am sure you will be able to find some denier websites if you wish to read their “take” on the facts

I am not perfect but I do have bsic grasp of this subject and

a pretty shaky grasp of typing skills 😉
Dictionary extension for firefox

theocb – Member

I asked for scientific evidence that warming is bad for the earth. I’m sorry but the extinction of most dinosaurs is not evidence of such a thing.

food production may be affected by changing climate/weather.

diseases/pests may move into new habitats – affecting food production.

malaria may move into new areas.

deserts may grow larger.

etc.

no-one really knows exactly how things will go, but it’s potentially not good.

the earth however, will be fine.

things that live on the earth could be in for a rough ride.

Flounces 8)

theocb – Member
I thought we were still in an ice age of sorts? Gwaelod. I am genuinely interested and will read more. I am struggling to see the doom that is portrayed. There is doom in warming, cooling and maintaing a rich environment for humans to thrive. Which do I choose? I think a bike forum is about my level if you all think your to clever to discuss this on a bike forum then don’t

There’s no beating about the bush some of this stuff is complex…and when the blokes who really know their stuff about it simplify it down, inevitably important parts get lost, or are easily misconstrued.

are we still in an Ice age? It depends on what you mean – most geologists who deal with this sort of thing would say yes…they work to a definition of an Ice Age as being a time in Earths History with Ice persisting throughout the year at both poles (some use just Ice at one Pole as a definition), within that Ice Age there will be times when the ice descends towards the equator (what most of the general public would percieve as an Ice Age), and retreats back towards the pole ( the current period at least since about 10000 years ago)…Easrth Scientists would refer to this as an Interstadial (fancy word that means intermittent stage) within the ice age).

The cycle of Ice Ages on Earth themselves is driven by periodic wobbles of the earth during its orbit around the sun…this series of Wobbles was identified donkeys years ago by a couple of blokes called Milankovich and Croll and they are refered to as milankovich Cycles.

in essence the earth wobbling on its axis as it goes around the sun, alters the distribution of sunlight that falls on earth very subtly…sometimes this is enough to mean that during some european summers snow has managed to persist throughout the whole summer, and year by year snow cover extends…this process is amplified by snow being white – which reflects sunlight back into space more efficently than the brown or green ground it covers up, and ultimately by changes in the way carbon moves into and out of different parts of the earths ecosystem into the atmosphere.

During interstadials the process operates slowly in reverse.

For long periods of the earths history Ice ages didn’t happen – the earth was too warm for the initial ice formation to begin during the “colder” milankovich phases – but there is some good evidence during deep geological past for extensive Ice cover (and milankovich cyclicity within that cover) – but the underlying cause of very old ice ages may not have been Milankovich.

But – looking at the big picture – Changes in the earths climate have always happened – continents drifting around affect the distribution of heat, and block off and open up ocean basins to different warm and cold currents – evolution of land plants changed the atmosphere completely to one which was of completely different character to the one that went before…but these sorts of changes take millions or billions of years to play out. Orbital Forcing (milankovich cycles) drives the climate over 10s or 100s of thousands of years, at shorter time scales there are fluctions in ocean patterns and volcanic eruptions that can drive changes, and intrinsic “wobbles” in the way air moves around the atmosphere can affect the climate over scales from a few years to weeks.

Different cycles over different time scales

a large amount of concern re man made climate change is that most of human civilisation has grown up under a period of remarkable stability in climate terms since the end of the last ice age. And whilst people say climate has always changed….to a large extent…civilised humans with elaborated food chains based on monocultured crops and major cities at sea level or semi desert areas haven’t ever really experienced it, or when small populations have experienced them in prehistory…they haven’t done very well.

It sounds as if everyone should read IPCC and Met Office reports as it would affect both sides of the debate. Rather than drilling dogma, ramming categorical conclusions or substituting weather and climate to suit whatever agenda is under discussion, there is plenty of admission about the level of understanding of the drivers of climate change. Previous threads on this subject have involved lots of comments such as – the consensus is clear, look at the facts etc. When the reports themselves indicate just how much further work is required especially in relation to the balance between natural and man-made factors.

As one example, both the IPCC and Met Office admit further work is required to understand why current models have overstated rising temperatures. The MO talks openly about the need to understand ocean effects (the biggest effect, possibly) better so that we can decide whether the (1) forcing effects of man-made factors is overstated, or (2) oceans are merely storing temp and this will be released later in line with previous forecast (3) etc….

And as for reading, it would be nice if the charts presented often were described accurately. They are global anomalies against average temperatures of differing time spans (US studies appear to be longer than MO ones). They are based on samples that “continue to improve” in quality and comprehensiveness. And yet how often is the quality of the sampling discussed (and its impact) or the differences that exist if you use constant sample date (no surprise which way that skews the results)?

From the Met Office

Decadal forecasting is an extremely challenging area of research, not least because long-term comprehensive observations of the ocean do not exist to help us understand how the global oceans behave over annual, decadal and longer timescales. But decadal forecasting is immensely valuable, scientifically, because it represents a stringent test of how well the model simulates natural variability and also how well it captures the longer term anthropogenic warming trend.

Sounds like, “keep an open mind and bear with us, we are working on it”…

In terms of their application for climate change policy and to underpin other decision-making, decadal forecasts provide guidance on how near-term trends in global warming are likely to evolve in the next few years and what role natural variability may play.

Well we can all take a view on how helpful they have been/will be….

Of course, it boils down to probabilities. It MIGHT be down to our overconsumption, it might not. If we cut down, and it’s not, then no harm done. If we don’t cut down, and it is, then we’re in the shit.

Sounds like Pascal’s Wager then mol!

🙂

yes indeed THM predicting what the impacts of the warming will be is fraught with difficulty as indeed it would be were we to try and predict the impact of a 1 million more smokers
However the fundamental model re AGW or smoking causing cancer is sound
You dont accept this [ I assume given your posts] so you are careful to do posts like this.

Previous threads on this subject have involved lots of comments – such as the consensus is clear, look at the facts etc. When the reports themselves indicate just how much further work is required especially in relation to the balance between natural and man-made factors.

No that is not the case they accept that the forcing factor currently is man but accept that explaining the consequences in terms of say extreme weather or ocean currents is complicate and needs further understanding – you are bright enough to know you are over egging the pudding here to serve your own view [ trying to not say you are lying as you will accuse me of playing you and not your argument but what you say is just not true. They are unambiguous on the degree of certainty they have about it being AGW They can account for natural forcing factors and give you the value for them and also give you the value for AGW as well. Disingenuous at best lies at worst

I dont think [ seeing as you are quoting them] scientists deny the complexity iof modelling or making predictions but they are all still emphatically stating that AGW is occurring and yet you fail to mention this when you comment and Allude that it is especially in relation to man made v natural

there is next to no debate within the scientific community just like with gravity or evolution and to suggest otherwise [ or that they are debating whether it is man made v natural] is just not accurate at all.

keep an open mind and bear with us, we are working on it”.

sounds like the explicitly mention AGW in it and accept the modles need further work. They ar enit open in the sense they dont know they are ipoen in the sense they struggle to predict

Its hilarious to witness an economist dismiss another science for its inability to predict future events 😉

molgrips – Member
If we cut down, and it’s not, then no harm done. If we don’t cut down, and it is, then we’re in the shit.

Pretty much what I meant in my post on page 1.

I just wish we’d concentrate on the stuff that matters most; reversing the deforestation of the planet for example, and not scrapping a perfectly good old car to replace it with a new one that will use more resources over the lifetime of the vehicle.

I think the point with the fluctuating temperatures and CO2 levels is that we are accelerating the change now more than at any time in history, and introducing CO2 into the atmosphere at an alarming rate. This CO2 remains there for some 30-40 years which is why we need to act now. There’s a wonderful little film going round called Chasing Ice that shows this really well.

I think even the experts realise that more clarification of data is needed but they are doing something about this. Nasa have a great little project going on you can read about it here:
http://climate365.tumblr.com/

and not scrapping a perfectly good old car to replace it with a new one that will use more resources over the lifetime of the vehicle.

No-one’s pushing that as good policy though.

EDIT: at least, no-one who knows what they are talking about.

Unfortunately the scrappage scheme has already happened. 🙁

Yeah that was for the benefit of the car industry, not the environment.

Junkyard – Member
there is next to no debate within the scientific community just like with gravity or evolution and to suggest otherwise [ or that they are debating whether it is man made v natural] is just not accurate at all.

Are you a scientist involved in one of those fields?

I know with regards to gravity that there are a number of competing models so I am quite surprised about that.

No I am not involved in any of these areas personally
there is a competing model for evolution namely creationism as well but there is still a consensus
No I am not an expert on gravity but I used it because I knew there were competing models[ most accept Einstein though as the consensus] but are there not some fringe models where very few agree/support. I suspect it has moved on somewhat since I last read up on it in any great detail.

Al scientists know there is rarely unanimity in science – evolution perhaps being the only example I can think of

The broader point is that the lay person seems to attack consensus as if its a closed shop rather than fact based or else suggest there is a huge debate over AGW within the scientific community and there is not one on AGW
Neither is true
If I used bad examples to explain this then I apologise

Junkyard – Member

No I am not involved in any of these areas personally

No I am not an expert on gravity but I used it because I knew there were competing models[ most accept Einstein though as the consensus]

If I used bad examples to explain this then I apologise

Sorry didn’t mean to sound like I was having a pop at you.

I thought you meant gravity in general (e.g. quantum gravity, ToE/unification, m-theory, loop-q etc) rather than relativity.

nah I am well aware [ well except for the maths bit] about the problem gravity poses in a ToE and no offence was taken
Were we to debate gravity[ in your sense] I would be the one asking the questions though.

I would be the one asking the questions though.

Same here, I’m no expert – just (try to) follow it because I find it interesting.