Greg, now do you believe that Climate Change is real?

DonDaddyD

So? Greg, in view of the recent weather and the fact that we do seem to experience increasingly dramatic weather changes (the media refers to this as extreme - but we've not experienced an extreme change yet) do you believe that climate change (and global warming - yeah I'm throwing that into the discussion) is real?

And for all you other naysayers, do you believe it is real or is this just sensationalism from the environmentalist lot. Environmentalists, support the claim and defend your position.

Discuss.

With Poll.

[Ends]

walkingbootweather

Can I play and add an addendum?

If climate change is real is that necessarily a bad thing for everybody or might some benefit from a change in climate, sea level etc.?

TheStone

This is just bad weather. We've always had bad weather, we just didn't have 24hr news to fill.

Bikequin

Just as a point I don't think that many people don't believe in climate change - I believe the difference of opinion is on whether it is a change driven or expiated by human activity or not.

tgotb

DDD, do you now believe that LA was a doper?

DonDaddyD

Bikequin wrote:

Just as a point I don't think that many people don't believe in climate change - I believe the difference of opinion is on whether it is a change driven or expiated by human activity or not.

Did you see the above, I think Stone does not accept the notion of climate change.

TheStone wrote:

This is just bad weather. We've always had bad weather, we just didn't have 24hr news to fill.

Sure its bad weather, bought about by climate change, which is why weather of this nature is more (i) worse than the weather patterns around this time 10 years ago and (ii) more consistent i.e. happens more frequently.

DonDaddyD

TGOTB wrote:

DDD, do you now believe that LA was a doper?

Part of me still doesn't accept that he did. Even though he admitted he did. If all of them were doping does that mean he did - level playing field.

Also I don't accept that Linford took drugs or that Tyson raped that girl. There its been said.

ugo.santalucia

For a different perspective, nay I suggest a read of "Climate Confusion" by Roy W. Spencer?

He is a climatologist working in at the University of Alabama and I think he gives a rather un-biased picture of the all problem

greg66_tri_v2.0

Climate change - small "c" - is undoubtedly real. The climate is dynamic. That's its nature. Ice ages came and went. That's climate change, but not caused by us. Ever wondered why the dinosaurs were so big? Because the atmosphere contained a much higher percentage of oxygen back in the day. Now it doesn't. Climate change. Hell, it took a few million years, but that's the speed of climatic changes.

A label like "climate change" is about as useful as one like "warming sunshine". It's kinda what it does. Speed and cause are key. If it takes thousands, or tens of thousands of years for the climate to change without man-made interference, do we really think we can get that period down to a decade or so by working hard at it? Seems implausible to me.

Look at it this way. The climate on this planet is no different to what it was 5 years ago. Or 20. Or 100. Or even a 1000. The world's been industrialised for well over a century now. Were people 100 years ago wandering round in lighter clothes in winter? Of course not.

What we have now is bad weather. It's far too short term to consider climatic change - that is something that takes place and becomes the norm over years/decades.

Of course, it makes for great headlines. And more headlines. And provides a useful hook for a vast number of tax-raising or social engineering driven directives. Politicians love spending money and telling people what to do. What better way to do it than with the big "climate change" flag waving behind them?

As I understand it, we are getting this crappy weather because a particular airflow over the Atlantic has dropped south. Whereas it used to skip north of Scotland, now it's coming in over us. And it's bringing with it storms off the Atlantic which would previously have skirted north of us.

Is that change of airflow down to any man made cause? God knows. Find me a scientist who says "yes, here it is - proof positive that human activity has altered this air current" and I'll be impressed. Not least because he will be out on limb.

Sea levels? Meh. Look at the projections. It's something like 3 mm in the next 50 years. But use the expression "rising sea levels" and people think of the Houses of Parliament being under water. Silly.

One thin in particular that gets me about climate change science is the completely unscientific way in which anyone who questions the basic premise is branded a denier and hounded for it. Science is supposed to be about questioning, investigating and evaluating. Not joining the "I'm a dittohead too" club. Yet there any many things that are not understood about how the weather is driven, how climate is driven, and how our actions might affect either. That never seems to stop the outpouring of certainty from the climate change scientists. I always like to remember the late Victorian physicists: at the end of the 19th century, they reckoned they were pretty close to cracking the theory of everything. There was just this one like piece of the jigsaw that wouldn't fit. A piece that turned out to be quantum theory. So close. Yet not so close.

And in the end, why does it matter? All this crap about saving the planet for our children, blah blah blah. There are many things that distinguish humans from other species on the planet, and one of them is that we have the ability to control our environment. By which I mean construct buildings, live inside, control our atmosphere. If we do end up wrecking the planet, we (or our descendants) will all be living in eco-domed cities long before it happens.

So, open up your salvos, sandal wearers!

MrSweary

Climates change I believe.

DonDaddyD

I read it and I liked it Greg, I really did. But one thing didn't sit with me and maybe I'm not going to articulate this as well as you might.

You made the point, posed as a question, about people 100 years ago wearing lighter clothes in the winter. I would argue that they weren't they were probably wearing thicker clothing and certainly more layers. Why? World was colder. If we take London for example: with all the buildings, cars, electricity exhaust fumes, chimneys, it is arguably warmer now than it was 100 years ago. This is also demonstrated by being in London and then moving towards the M25 where it is more rural, it's colder. On a small scale there is a direct correlation between man made gases, fumes etc and the air quality in London. So one has to question what the impact of all that has on a global scale, remember there are more cars and industry than there has ever been and environments/ecology does have a tipping point.

I think it is too easy to simply deny Climate Change as the natural process of a changing climate when we know that we are introducing variables (man made) that weren't present over the past million years. It has to have an effect, what we don't know is how much of an effect - which might be what you just said.

tgotb

DonDaddyD wrote:

I read it and I liked it Greg, I really did. But one thing didn't sit with me and maybe I'm not going to articulate this as well as you might.

You made the point, posed as a question, about people 100 years ago wearing lighter clothes in the winter. I would argue that they weren't they were probably wearing thicker clothing and certainly more layers. Why? World was colder. If we take London for example: with all the buildings, cars, electricity exhaust fumes, chimneys, it is arguably warmer now than it was 100 years ago. This is also demonstrated by being in London and then moving towards the M25 where it is more rural, it's colder. On a small scale there is a direct correlation between man made gases, fumes etc and the air quality in London. So one has to question what the impact of all that has on a global scale, remember there are more cars and industry than there has ever been and environments/ecology does have a tipping point.

I think it is too easy to simply deny Climate Change as the natural process of a changing climate when we know that we are introducing variables (man made) that weren't present over the past million years. It has to have an effect, what we don't know is how much of an effect - which might be what you just said.

OK, I'll bite.

Greg's not denying (or affirming) man-made climate change. What he's actually saying is that there isn't a scientific case to support the current weather conditions being caused by any human actions. In other words he's being open minded and considering all the evidence.

Phrases like "it's arguably warmer", "it has to have an effect" seem rather less open-minded. Rigorous scientific research is what will convince me, not someone arguing from an almost religious position of "it must be like that because I believe it"...

For what it's worth, I do think we should be reducing carbon emissions, because a lot of research points to potentially significant climate change in the future if we don't. But to attribute our current bad weather conditions to human-induced climate change? Get real! If everything that happens in the weather is down to human intervention, how did a bunch of pre-industrial humans cause the little ice age?

rick_chasey

There's evidence to suggest climate change will cause weather like this to occur more frequently.

There's evidence to suggest the overall climate is changing - principally warming up i.e. Climate Change is occurring. There is evidence to suggest that this is caused or at least significantly accelerated by humans.

However specific instances of weather, extreme or otherwise, tell us very little about the state of the wider global climate. It's a bit like looking at a 10-10 match in the premier league and deciding that the premier league is tending to more goals per season for the past 20 years. If it is, those scores may be more likely, but an instance of a 10-10 score itself line doesn't say much about any trends.

rjsterry

You can't base a claim of climate change on one event - it's just a single point on the graph. The Stone is right: we have always had bad weather: there are accounts all the way back through history of great storms and flooding*. What you need to look at is the frequency of such events. Storms or rainfall events can be categorised as "once in X years" - so a 10 year storm is a relatively common occurrence and something you definitely need to plan for, while a 100 year storm is something that many people will never see. Insurance companies are finding that basing risk estimates on historical weather data is starting to become inaccurate, so what was a once in 100 years event is now happening more often.

*Some interesting stuff here. Another example of historic bad weather that I've read about: the Great Storm of 1287 almost destroyed New Romney in Kent, and you can still see evidence of the change in ground level from deposited silt with the church floor being a couple of feet lower than ground level. Nearby Winchelsea was completely obliterated and had to rebuilt on a new site.

greg66_tri_v2.0

DonDaddyD wrote:

I read it and I liked it Greg, I really did. But one thing didn't sit with me and maybe I'm not going to articulate this as well as you might.

You made the point, posed as a question, about people 100 years ago wearing lighter clothes in the winter. I would argue that they weren't they were probably wearing thicker clothing and certainly more layers. Why? World was colder. If we take London for example: with all the buildings, cars, electricity exhaust fumes, chimneys, it is arguably warmer now than it was 100 years ago. This is also demonstrated by being in London and then moving towards the M25 where it is more rural, it's colder. On a small scale there is a direct correlation between man made gases, fumes etc and the air quality in London. So one has to question what the impact of all that has on a global scale, remember there are more cars and industry than there has ever been and environments/ecology does have a tipping point.

I think it is too easy to simply deny Climate Change as the natural process of a changing climate when we know that we are introducing variables (man made) that weren't present over the past million years. It has to have an effect, what we don't know is how much of an effect - which might be what you just said.

Ok. Try this. What's the biggest greenhouse gas, both by volume and effect in our atmosphere?

Next: what percentage of the land in the world is covered by cities? What's the percentage of the total surface of the world?

jimmypippa

We can't attribute any particular extreme weather event to climate change but modelling suggests that such extreme weather events will become more common as the climate warms up.

We know how much extra CO2 we have been putting into the atmosphere. Basic physics says that this will trap more heat in the lower atmosphere. If you don't believe in global warming I'd say the onus is on you to explain why the extra heat isn't being trapped.

A simplistic analysis suggests that global warming is happening, and the vast majority of climate scientists believe it is - if a climate scientist could show it wasn't happening, their career would be made as loads of fossil fuel companies would be able to use that to remove restrictions on fossil fuel exploitation.

this site is quite a good blog on the subject

http://tamino.wordpress.com/

greg66_tri_v2.0

jimmypippa wrote:

We can't attribute any particular extreme weather event to climate change but modelling suggests that such extreme weather events will become more common as the climate warms up.

We know how much extra CO2 we have been putting into the atmosphere. Basic physics says that this will trap more heat in the lower atmosphere. If you don't believe in global warming I'd say the onus is on you to explain why the extra heat isn't being trapped.

A simplistic analysis suggests that global warming is happening, and the vast majority of climate scientists believe it is - if a climate scientist could show it wasn't happening, their career would be made as loads of fossil fuel companies would be able to use that to remove restrictions on fossil fuel exploitation.

this site is quite a good blog on the subject

http://tamino.wordpress.com/

Help me out with the basic physics.

Over the last, say, 30 years, by how much has the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere risen (we'll assume for now that is all due to industrial causes and, eg a larger population exhaling)?

What's the lower atmosphere in terms of an altitude? From that, what's the volume of air in the lower atmosphere?

How much heat energy will have been trapped in the lower atmosphere as a result of additional CO2 in it over the last 30 years?

By how much will that heat energy have increased the air temperature of the mass of air that makes up the lower atmosphere over that period (again, ignoring heat absorption by land masses or oceans)?

I have no idea what the answer is. It might be 5 or 5*10^-15 for all I know. But basic physics should be able to tell us the answer, and (I assume) there is some empirical data against which to measure our calculations. How do they stack up?

rjsterry

Yes, it's water vapour, Greg, and yes, the seas are very large. CO2 still accounts for between a tenth and a quarter of the GH effect, so fairly significant. The land area on which 'man-made' CO2 is produced isn't really relevant. Whether or not we have an effect is not determined by how large the system is, but by how finely balanced it is, and whether there are any feedback loops (there are), which will have a magnifying effect on small changes.

greg66_tri_v2.0

I appreciate that, but ask yourself: why aren't we being implored to reduce our water vapour footprints? Why are those hydrogen buses considered to be good things?

itboffin

and since the beginning of habitable earth how many times has this happened?

exactly ...again us humans thinking we're all powerful universal conquering gods, clearly i am you lot not so much

rjsterry

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

I appreciate that, but ask yourself: why aren't we being implored to reduce our water vapour footprints? Why are those hydrogen buses considered to be good things?

We kind of are already: burning fossil fuels releases water vapour as well as CO2; that's why your boiler has a condensate pipe. I think hydrogen buses are more aimed at improving ground level air quality in heavily trafficked areas, rather than tackling GW.

There's some debunking of the water vapour argument here, but in essence we don't have much of an effect on the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere, but we do pump out a lot of CO2.

jimmypippa

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

jimmypippa wrote:

We can't attribute any particular extreme weather event to climate change but modelling suggests that such extreme weather events will become more common as the climate warms up.

We know how much extra CO2 we have been putting into the atmosphere. Basic physics says that this will trap more heat in the lower atmosphere. If you don't believe in global warming I'd say the onus is on you to explain why the extra heat isn't being trapped.

A simplistic analysis suggests that global warming is happening, and the vast majority of climate scientists believe it is - if a climate scientist could show it wasn't happening, their career would be made as loads of fossil fuel companies would be able to use that to remove restrictions on fossil fuel exploitation.

this site is quite a good blog on the subject

http://tamino.wordpress.com/

Help me out with the basic physics.

Over the last, say, 30 years, by how much has the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere risen (we'll assume for now that is all due to industrial causes and, eg a larger population exhaling)?

What's the lower atmosphere in terms of an altitude? From that, what's the volume of air in the lower atmosphere?

How much heat energy will have been trapped in the lower atmosphere as a result of additional CO2 in it over the last 30 years?

By how much will that heat energy have increased the air temperature of the mass of air that makes up the lower atmosphere over that period (again, ignoring heat absorption by land masses or oceans)?

I have no idea what the answer is. It might be 5 or 5*10^-15 for all I know. But basic physics should be able to tell us the answer, and (I assume) there is some empirical data against which to measure our calculations. How do they stack up?

I can't answer the heat question except indirectly - the moon, with no greenhouse effect has a mean surface temperature of 220K (-53°C) at the equator (according to Wiki). This should be about the same as the Earth (mean temperature is usually given as about 15°C). The difference is mostly due to the greenhouse effect. That doesn't answer your question - but then I am not a climate scientist and their models are quite complex; it does show how significant the greenhouse effect is.

Historically it looks as though the there were about 280ppm CO2 in the pre industrial age ( http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/lawdome.gif) It is now over 400ppm and rising at about 2ppm per year. According to the BBC it was 350ppm in 1993.

A 30% increase since the industrial revolution is significant.

As to the water vapour question - it doesn't stay in the atmosphere for very long as it tends to condense and fall as rain or snow, for example - CO2 persists for far longer.

jimmypippa

As well as this, we are now getting hints that the upper atmosphere is cooling. This is analogous to putting extra lagging round a hot water tank and finding the outside of the lagging is cooler but the inside is warmer.

First.Aspect

Greg, basic physics can tell you how long a kettle will take to boil. The maths is a bit more complex when you've got three phases of water all at different temperatures in various blobs all over the world, surrounded by a complex mixture of gasses and particulates whirling around at various speeds, heated by a fluctuating heat source, all of which mutually interact, the state of most of which can't be directly measured.

So the best one can do is to model, based on assumptions. In the case of climate, many assumptions on top of each other. Hence, there are quite wide ranges in the resulting estimates. That not to say that the science is "wrong" however.

I think you are mistaken about the scientific debate. There was a debate, but its pretty much over. Its moved on to how much [man made] climate change is there going to be and what will is cause, not is there any. Those who pretend that the "is there any" debate is still ongoing are increasingly looking like Zarquonists discussing theology at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Oh, wait, he turned up in the end... need another analogy.

Initialised

Winter 2009-10 Pretty bad snow lasted longer than usual.
Winter 2010-11 Similar to previous year, weeks of snow.
Winter 2011-12 normal winter a bit of snow, didn't last long.
Winter 2012-13 cold temperatures lasted until may, there was no Spring.
Winter 2013-14 Abnormally high amounts of rain, frequent storms.

Winters getting longer and colder is consistent with predictions (similar but less condensed) on which The Day After Tomorrow is based. However, localised cooling of North West Europe is also consistent with the reduced solar activity we've been experiencing as the sun approaches a Solar Minimum (similar to the Mini-Ice Age of the 1600s). This may negate anthropogenic climate change to a degree.

greg66_tri_v2.0

rjsterry wrote:

There's some debunking of the water vapour argument here

JIMMYPIPPA wrote:

this site is quite a good blog on the subject
http://tamino.wordpress.com/

The internet is a great resource, there is lots of very useful stuff on the internet, but seriously guys, WTF are you doing pulling these rabbits out of their hats? These sites do the pro-AGW cause very little credit in my view. They are just a collection of snippets. I have no idea whether they are right, wrong, or somewhere in the middle, but what I am sure of is that they are unreliable: they're a collection of assertions that are lined up in row to support the point that they want to make.

jimmypippa wrote:

I can't answer the heat question except indirectly - the moon, with no greenhouse effect has a mean surface temperature of 220K (-53°C) at the equator (according to Wiki). This should be about the same as the Earth (mean temperature is usually given as about 15°C). The difference is mostly due to the greenhouse effect. That doesn't answer your question - but then I am not a climate scientist and their models are quite complex; it does show how significant the greenhouse effect is.

Historically it looks as though the there were about 280ppm CO2 in the pre industrial age ( http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/lawdome.gif) It is now over 400ppm and rising at about 2ppm per year. According to the BBC it was 350ppm in 1993.

A 30% increase since the industrial revolution is significant.

As to the water vapour question - it doesn't stay in the atmosphere for very long as it tends to condense and fall as rain or snow, for example - CO2 persists for far longer.

Woah there. You told us basic physics provided the answer. But then you say you can't explain the basic physics and in fact it's all a question of understanding complex models that climate scientists use.

This doesn't help your cause: you claim it's all very simple, but when asked to explain it you say you can't because it's all very complex.

I'm not sure really if you are serious with your references to the moon, and statements that water vapour doesn't stay in the atmosphere for very long. As to the first, the earth has an atmosphere. The moon doesn't. To say that the difference between their average surface temps is down to greenhouse gases seems bizarre to me. As for the water vapour, didn't you draw diagrams for O Level Geography showing water falling to the ground over land, running out to sea, and rising back into the atmosphere to form clouds?

As for the CO2 increase since the industrial revolution, why hasn't the climate changed since then? Perhaps a more direct question: What is the "climate" in this discussion, how has it changed over the last 200 years, and how is that change material?

greg66_tri_v2.0

First Aspect wrote:

So the best one can do is to model, based on assumptions. In the case of climate, many assumptions on top of each other. Hence, there are quite wide ranges in the resulting estimates. That not to say that the science is "wrong" however.

That much I follow, but assumptions feeding off each other leading to wide ranges in resultant estimates doesn't suggest that the science is reliable, either.

It's trite to say it, but when something is understood, theorists can predict how something will behave in particular conditions, and experiments will confirm that behaviour. We don't seem to be terrinnly close to that level of understanding when it comes to the climate.

In a slightly paradoxical way, a bit more diffidence in presentation might add weight to climate projections.

rick_chasey

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

First Aspect wrote:

So the best one can do is to model, based on assumptions. In the case of climate, many assumptions on top of each other. Hence, there are quite wide ranges in the resulting estimates. That not to say that the science is "wrong" however.

That much I follow, but assumptions feeding off each other leading to wide ranges in resultant estimates doesn't suggest that the science is reliable, either.

It's trite to say it, but when something is understood, theorists can predict how something will behave in particular conditions, and experiments will confirm that behaviour. We don't seem to be terrinnly close to that level of understanding when it comes to the climate.

In a slightly paradoxical way, a bit more diffidence in presentation might add weight to climate projections.

To be honest, just because a bunch of people on a bike forum can't explain the detailed science behind working out if man made climate change is occurring or not doesn't really mean anything.


There's a pretty large body of science that suggests that a) climate change is occurring and b) man is contributing and/or accelerating the process in a significant way.

It shouldn't be up to those who figure 'if the broad consensus seems to be that it's likely, then it probably is" to prove to the sceptics - it should be up to the sceptics to prove the body of science wrong with their own science.

Doing some half arsed 'common' sense arguments off the back of a postcard doesn't do anything.

The answer to the OP is as I said in my previous post. It's a single datapoint - which can't prove anything on its own.

rick_chasey

Enjoy this surprisingly heavily referenced wikipedia article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific ... ate_change

I'll stick with the broad scientific consensus.

tgotb

Rick Chasey wrote:

It shouldn't be up to those who figure 'if the broad consensus seems to be that it's likely, then it probably is" to prove to the sceptics - it should be up to the sceptics to prove the body of science wrong with their own science.

Really? If no-one questioned the "broad consensus" we'd still believe we were living in a world at the centre of the universe with the heavens revolving around us.

Questioning the general consensus and demanding evidence helps us to evaluate the constant stream of conflicting information and figure out which of the conflicting views presented to us are likely to be closest to the truth. Merely parroting other people's views on the basis that "lots of people say it so it must be true" seeks to maintain the status quo regardless of whether it is actually correct, and adds no value whatsoever to an intelligent debate.

rick_chasey

TGOTB wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

It shouldn't be up to those who figure 'if the broad consensus seems to be that it's likely, then it probably is" to prove to the sceptics - it should be up to the sceptics to prove the body of science wrong with their own science.

Really? If no-one questioned the "broad consensus" we'd still believe we were living in a world at the centre of the universe with the heavens revolving around us.

Questioning the general consensus and demanding evidence helps us to evaluate the constant stream of conflicting information and figure out which of the conflicting views presented to us are likely to be closest to the truth. Merely parroting other people's views on the basis that "lots of people say it so it must be true" seeks to maintain the status quo regardless of whether it is actually correct, and adds no value whatsoever to an intelligent debate.

The evidence is there. Go ahead and question it. Just ask people who actually are providing the evidence and the science. I haven't done the science, why ask me to prove it to him and then pick holes when i don't get it exactly right, because, let's face it, I'm not educated enough in that particular field of science? If he wants the answer, go looking for it.

Unless he doesn't want to incase it proves his scepticism wrong, in which case, fine.

you know what I mean.

it's an easy position to go 'No, no, not convinced. Need more evidence. No no. I'm still not convinced.". Actually being a bit more proactive about it is a little harder and more constructive.