Global warming update!

Well we may not be able to predict every last effect but what we are trying to do is establish if we get warmer when we store more radiation [ energy]. I dont think its that hard to do and you have some links to follow.

The trouble is, none of the modelling they do based on that is at all able to provide an accurate prediction of the changes in temperature relative to the changes in concentration of gas in the atmosphere. Which suggests it’s really not all that direct a link in real life.

its not neutral its inaccurate

Jeez – does “changing” not include “increasing” in your dictionary? The concentrations of gases are changing, hence I don’t see what’s at all inaccurate about using that word.

t’s not really about egotism, it’s the fact that we don’t want people to die needlessly.

it’ll happen anyway as a species we’re gone, like all the others before us, everything we see around us now….will become extinct to. There is no need or needless there is just the endless charge to oblivion. we can’t cure death, we can’t make the world a happy utopia pickled in aspic with just the right number of people and the species we like, so that there is no famine, so that natural disasters don’t happen.

even if there were no humans at all, ever, all the species now on the planet will become extinct over geological time and replaced and on and on

we make no difference at all. in the slightest. whatsoever.

Care to provide a reference which proves that statement?

Part 1 – basic high school chemistry:

a) Combustion of petrolium: 2 C8H18 + 25 O2 = 16 CO2 + 18 H2O

b) Anaerobic degradation of organic materials in landfill: CH3COOH = CH4 + CO2

c) Oxidation of atmospheric dinitrogen in an internal combustion engine: 2 N2 + O2 + heat = 2 N2O (g)

Part 2 – High school geography / environmental science

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-10-2.html

Happy, Aracer?

it’ll happen anyway

Oh, ok then. Why haven’t you killed yourself yet?

its not neutral its inaccurate
Jeez – does “changing” not include “increasing” in your dictionary? The concentrations of gases are changing, hence I don’t see what’s at all inaccurate about using that word.

Well of course it does but, as all three gases were increasing ait looked like an attempt to avoid saying increasing. Technically the gas levels will always be changing as its not a constant but lets not get bogged down on this.

I am still none the wiser as to what you want as proof,

none of the modelling they do based on that is at all able to provide an accurate prediction of the changes in temperature

and yet all the inaccurate models predict rise and we do indeed have rises. They are not perfect nor accurate down to the N th degree but the broad thrust of the prediction remains true.

I think we can all accept models have a degree of inaccuracy but that does not mean AGW is false just that it is complicated and we lack complete knowledge about the exact effects – which is true of everything

For example not everyone who smokes gets cancer so the model cannot tell us who will get cancer from a group of smokers. i would not use this to conclude the message that smoking causes cancer [ increases you risk if getting cance rif we are getting pedantic] is untrue just because they cannot quantify which smoker or how many cigs need to be smoked.

Why haven’t you killed yourself yet?

funnily enough is you see the good bits and the bad bits of the year thread you’ll see that was a serious option. Not related to the fate of a spinning piece of rock with some monkeys on it though. Cock end.

and yet all the inaccurate models predict rise and we do indeed have rises.

Correlation, not causation. Lots of other stuff going on – far too much to suggest that the rises are definitely caused by the changes in the gas concentrations. Not when we have historic data showing decreasing global temperature with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations and vice versa.

I think we can all accept models have a degree of inaccuracy but that does not mean AGW is false just that it is complicated and we lack complete knowledge about the exact effects – which is true of everything

Let’s leave this debate on a point we agree on. The point I’m making here is that the impression the AGW fundamentalists often try to give is that we can tell exactly what will happen and that increasing the emissions by X will result in an increase of Y in the temperature. By extension that the most important thing to do is to limit the increase as much as possible, or try to decrease the emissions, and that they can predict what effect such a change will have. Where it might make more sense to devote our limited resources on ameliorating the effects of a change in climate which we can’t actually do anything meaningful to control.

Correlation, not causation

It has to be correlative. To carry out a causative study, we’d need several replicates of earth, changing only one variable at a time.

It would be good if you had a grasp of how scientific data is generated before you started criticising it.

Oh, and do you understand my chemistry lesson, or do I need more references?

we make no difference at all. in the slightest. whatsoever.

funnily enough is you see the good bits and the bad bits of the year thread you’ll see that was a serious option

Fair enough, my post was not intended to offend as I am unaware of the state of mind of most STW posters. This is a thread about AGW after all.

MOST people who make the ‘we’re all inconsequential’ argument aren’t suicidal, so I’m trying to point out that whilst saying ‘let everyone die, it’s only natural’ is a valid academic standpoint, it isn’t particularly palatable for most people.

It doesn’t matter – just live life and stop worrying about global warming

Extinction level events occur every few million years and we can’t prevent that. 65 million years ago approx 70% of plant and animal life was believed to be wiped out at the end of Cretaceous period by some event. Life carried on and the earth recovered.

Global warming if it is even happening is just one of many things that could have an impact on human and other life on earth. Humans need to put more effort into space exploration rather than pissing around trying to ‘save the earth’

Live long and prosper

Live long and prosper at the expense of many other less fortunate or privileged people in developing nations

I think that’s what you meant to say.

70% of plant and animal life was believed to be wiped out at the end of Cretaceous period by some event. Life carried on and the earth recovered.

Yes, but.

The rate of extinction we’re experiencing now is pretty much as we’d expect from a massive event like that which is scary considering many people aren’t even aware of it.

And it’s not due to some massive force of nature, it’s us being selfish and terribly inefficient. I don’t like the idea of just brushing off mass extinction of hundreds of thousands of species as being par for the course of me getting steak every week or having my lovely new Ipad.

we make no difference at all. in the slightest. whatsoever.

In terms of the time we’ve been around, and the tiny, tiny time since say 1300, we’ve had a mahoosive effect. Species can adapt to the odd meteorite, ice age or super volcano but not a complete removal and degradation of their physical habitat on a global scale.

Humans need to put more effort into space exploration rather than pissing around trying to ‘save the earth’

You ain’t going faster (or anywhere near) the speed of light so it’s completely pointless. And if we could, every time you went on a journey you’d end up hundreds of years away from when you started so you’re family, friends etc would be dead. Also, you’d be well behind with the gossip/latest niche.
Also, the cost of doing that – in order to go to completely inhosptibale planets with nothing of any use or interest would be umpteen times greater than just sorting our sh** out and living within our limits – there’s loads of cheap potential for reducing impacts.

Erm no

I’m an advocate of doing what the **** I like as something bigger and badder will get us all in the end and it wont give a monkeys if we are ‘developed’ or not.

Besides most developing nations are the worst polluters.

Honestly don’t get your knickers in a twist about pollution and green issues. In a few million years it won’t matter.

Mafiafish. Lots of good points there.
But when a super volcano goes off there isn’t much you me or bambi can do about it.

Mega, that’s true but if cavemen can get through it we should be alright shouldn’t we? Of course if it upsets agriculture it’ll be a right pain in the arse for millions of people.

As for worrying about green issues.. I just see it as common sense, yes it’s an added expense but it means we can keep on supporting a growing population without it catching us out in a big way at some point. e.g. if we were all veggies we could support c.20-32bn people, so plenty of potential there. In the end we just use too much stuff, if 7bn of us lives like a US citizen we’d need 5 planets, like a UK citizen 3ish, global average is 1.6 and a Bangladeshi is 0.3. So from that we can see the massive potential for developing countries to increase consumption so long as we sort ourselves out. (Considering the USA and Europe will skew that 1.6 from a lower figure in a big way) Rockström et al 2009 did a really good paper on this type of stuff – places where we’re well within limits and those where we;re exceeding them – identifying where efforts are best placed and where we can let ourselves go a bit to compensate. Summarised here

Ta will take a read of that.

thing is there are a small number of very selfish people, unfortunately they have disproportionate power and influence- only by running the world to benefit , not exploit, can these issues be addressed– trotsky was right , only a worldwide revolution can save humanity …nos da

mega – Member

I’m an advocate of doing what the **** I like as something bigger and badder will get us all in the end and it wont give a monkeys if we are ‘developed’ or not.

Honestly don’t get your knickers in a twist about pollution and green issues. In a few million years it won’t matter.

We owe everything we have to the people that went before us. What sort of ****s do we have to be to leave less to our kids?

nihilistic crap from mega man– not sure he really thinks much-if he does then there is a problem,but yep , the concious will always carry the torch of enlightenment..

fluck –i’m sounding like an old hippy 😯

Honestly don’t get your knickers in a twist about pollution and green issues. In a few million years it won’t matter.

No, but in 30 or 40 it might. I have kids, I don’t want everything to be shit for them. Hells bells, I’ll still be alive then. I don’t want to see millions plunged into suffering and everything I love trashed.

Doing whatever you feel like is selfish. Most human beings consider that to be a bad thing.

I’ll still be alive then.

mystic moley –you been sneaking a peep into the future–naughty boy..

Erm no

I’m an advocate of doing what the **** I like as something bigger and badder will get us all in the end and it wont give a monkeys if we are ‘developed’ or not.

Excellent – please take a walk to the middle of Afghanistan and start writing some graffiti about prophets. Take a video camera too so it will give us all a giggle.

Besides most developing nations are the worst polluters.

I think the plane has gone so far over your head you didn’t see it. 1) They do our pollution for us by making crap we buy. 2) developed nations could quite easily help developing nations skip the dirty step of industrialisation – it just takes political will

Honestly don’t get your knickers in a twist about pollution and green issues. In a few million years it won’t matter.

With a few less people who share your selfish attitudes around, and it won’t matter much sooner either.

But when a super volcano goes off there isn’t much you me or bambi can do about it.

Just a thought. How about you don’t worry about that then, but try a little harder about considering the consequences of things we can control. Pollution and destruction of habitat being obvious examples.

The ban hammer has been used to curb some posters’ lack of control during this debate. If you can’t contribute without losing your temper and throwing insults about then please go away.

Well the sun came up this morning and most of us are still here. Nice to be able to express an opinion without personal insults being thrown which is why STW is an interesting place

mega– your ‘comments’ were designed to provoke i hope, not really your ‘thoughts’ ??

I’m still here (wonders who got banned), the sun is indeed up and shining through the windows, who needs central heating eh?

developed nations could quite easily help developing nations skip the dirty step of industrialisation – it just takes political will

Indeed – and this is exactly the sort of thing which gets forgotten in the rush to build more windmills in order to try and limit our direct CO2 emissions.

Correlation, not causation. Lots of other stuff going on – far too much to suggest that the rises are definitely caused by the changes in the gas concentrations

What like my smoking an cancer example – they cant tell me how many inhalations before someone gets cancer, they cannot tell me how many more will die if 100 million folk start smoking so is that correlation rather than causation? It would also bring us back to the first point about you explaining how increasing the concentrations of the greenhouse gases by mans actions wont lead to increased temperature- saying its complicated is not an explanation.
Why no comment on the smoking example – thats complicated , has an equally poor model , is correlation [ we know the fumes are cancerous but dont know if its linear – do you choose to not accept that smoking causes cancer?

The point I’m making here is that the impression the AGW fundamentalists often try to give is that we can tell exactly what will happen and that increasing the emissions by X will result in an increase of Y in the temperature

They dont what they face is a powerful and politically motivated lobby group who go all out to misrepresent , befuddle and confuse the public abut what the scientists are saying. As for AGW fundamentalist when we are into the realms of using lazy slurs like that for the consensus view of the scientific community [ no credible scientific organisation disputes AGW] then I stop debating.

Its not me who is a fundamentalist here – I am simply following the evidence . if you can shwo how the increased greenhouse gas concentrations dont lead to forcing then i am happy to see your evidence and I suspect you will get a noble prize to boot.
Good luck

Nihilism gets us nowhere.

Why bother because in a 100 years none of us will be alive to worry about it.
Why bother because in a million years our species will probably be extinct
Why bother becuse in a billion years the Sun will have boiled the world oceans
etc etc.

The fact is we are probably the first generation of humans who are knowingly making the world worse. And lots of us want to carry on ignoring this fact and pretend everything will be okay.

Exactly richmtb
Seize the day and live for now.

Regardless of what we do or don’t do it won’t be ok in the long run for our species so enjoy life now. Dont go out of your way to pollute.

How about kids? ive got two, am i allowed any more or will they use up too much of earths resources?

drivel

Dont go out of your way to pollute.

So we agree after all

Zokes, indeed we do and probably always have done despite all the noise that tries to prevent us. So:

Greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect are necessary and natural conditions for human survival – accepted
Current levels may/may not be at optimum level – accepted, I believe
There is a relationship between temperature and CO2 – accepted
it’s a re-enforcing system rather than a simple causation one – accepted by some?
CO2 rises lag temperature rises – debated
CO2 rises them amplify temperature change and increase its diffusion – debated
Hence, majority of GW (the variance) occurs after CO2 rises – accepted
Increases in CO2 levels are caused by natural (release from oceans etc) and man-made reasons – accepted
Relative importance of natural versus man made factors – debated
The latest Met Office release indicates that cooling natural forces are countering warming man made ones – accepted?
The Met Office stresses that man made activities are still having a warming effect – accepted?

So attempts to reduce man-made effects are important – accepted. Are they the principal factor behind LT average weather trends – not accepted. To what extent do they affect the variance – the current debate!

The interesting thing about the Met Office stuff is that it focuses on surface warming measurements when the bulk of warming takes place in the oceans. To which they indicate that a lot more further work is required to aid our understanding and hence, by their own admission, scientific knowledge lags as our understanding of the oceans remains very limited. So scientists bring me neatly back to Bertrand Russell and a rejection of dogmatic force feeding of causes of GW – debated!!!! 😉

One thing not many people truly understand the concept of is the various “step” events, that we don’t know the true trigger points for. In particular methane release from permafrost and the oceans that will be caused by temperature rises. The trouble is, we don’t quite know how much the temperature needs to rise to trigger these events, or how bad (ranging from bad though very bad all the way to catastrophic). Consequently it’s not much of a surprise that models aren’t perfectly accurate, as the extent to which these step events will be triggered by what temperature is very much up for debate

the interesting thing about the Met Office stuff is that it focuses on surface warming measurements when the bulk of warming takes place in the oceans.

The worry is that as we don’t really understand the effect the oceans are having, we could be stumbling towards a cliff edge we don’t know is there.

The oceans are currently a carbon sink – the biggest one in fact. We know this because we know how much carbon is going into the atmosphere and we know how much atmospheric CO2 is increasing by.

The figure don’t match, CO2 levels are actually rising much slower than they should as the oceans are absorbing a lot of it.

If this stops happening or if the oceans become a source of carbon then we are well and truly ****. The trouble is we have no real idea of when or if this will happen.

I haven’t got time to read all of this. Has anyone produced any evidence that disagrees with all the scientists? Or, should I continue believing all of the peer-reviewed studies?

I haven’t got time to read all of this. Has anyone produced any evidence that disagrees with all the scientists? Or, should I continue believing all of the peer

Nope. Mega doesn’t give a deck about anyone but himself, thm is a sceptic, rather than a denier, aracer didn’t do chemistry at school. I think that’s just about got it covered

And lots of us want to carry on ignoring this fact and pretend everything will be okay.

Actually, most of us want other people to solve the problem so we can carry on as we are.

It’s this marvellous age of no accountability we’re living in – everything is someone elses fault or someone elses job to sort out 😀

Thanks, that’s what I thought 🙂