geelhoed Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 In the film "The Great Global Warming Swindle" Timothy Ball was labelled as being from the University of Winnipeg's Department of Climatology despite no such department existing. Another evidence of the corruption of Martin Durkin! Ball himself is sueing other professors for discretiting his work so that he is no longer asked to speak at meetings an no has no income. Sorry but these kind of 'scientists' don't impress me.... The claims of a out of work climatlogist that earns his living by public speaking has a lot to gain with the publicity. A bit like the arguments pages ago that said scientists are paid by governments to hype up GW, no? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter pan Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 Bottom line for all this, is now we dont believe anyone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geelhoed Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 @peter pan Correct! This is the right scientific mindset! Don't believe anything, verify everything! GW is too complex to be explained to the (laymen)public. As are quite a lot of things actually. This is why only conclusions are published to the general public. -CO2 heats up the earth -The ozone layer protects us from skincancer -Driving too fast is dangerous -etc etc Obviously things are more complicated than that and when different scientist sum up different effect it can appear as if things are completely different. Since further increasing CO2 concentration would increase temperature more and even faster it is good that it is taxes so that the public thinks about the consequences of their actions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pistonbroke Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 Don't worry , I'm sure the men of science will find a solution soon Latest I heard is they are trying to resurect Flash Gordon to save the planet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve_m Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 Don't worry, Tony Bliar is on the job, he's going to appoint an army of environmental inspectors who will audit your house for you. So that's GW solved then, or is this another tax on you when you sell your house.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peter pan Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 Steve dont forget the Energy Performance Certificate required (apparently from 1st June 2007, but may be put back to October) for any house (old or new) put up for sale after the above mentioned date/s. More Expense! yummy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gromit Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 QUOTE GW is too complex to be explained to the (laymen)public. As are quite a lot of things actually. Well thats telling us, better crawl back under our stones safe in the knowledge that the people in power really do know what their doing and that their doing it for our best interest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Keene Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 GW is too complex to be explained to the (laymen)public. As are quite a lot of things actually. Well thats telling us, better crawl back under our stones safe in the knowledge that the people in power really do know what their doing and that their doing it for our best interest. Wasn't just me then... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilb Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 GW is too complex to be explained to the (laymen)public. As are quite a lot of things actually. Well thats telling us, better crawl back under our stones safe in the knowledge that the people in power really do know what their doing and that their doing it for our best interest. Now, now Gromit, don't speak to the clever man like that, to be honest if the best example of a complex system is flow through a pipe, I know that he does not understand it, much simpler to ignore the obvious and come up with a theory that will make the governments happy as they have something to tax – more tax = more investment in research As we all know it’s the squeaking wheel that gets the grease. I am sure I could find a graph of some sort to explain this - where is Dave Gorman when you need him? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pistonbroke Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 GW is too complex to be explained to the (laymen)public. As are quite a lot of things actually. Well thats telling us, better crawl back under our stones safe in the knowledge that the people in power really do know what their doing and that their doing it for our best interest. Wasn't just me then... anyone else ! Humble pie for tea Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Man On The Clapham Omnibus Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 Throughout history there have been people who 'know' and are 'certain'. They are often wrong - alchemists come to mind. In their day, they were the boffins. To paraphrase George Orwell's 'Animal farm': "Donkeys live for a long time". Geelhoed, I have nothing but respect for learned scientists so please don't think otherwise. However, I would dearly love to have you and 'Turbobloke' (Bernard Abrams - an environmental consultant) from PistonHeads cloistered together in a library where each could turn up their respective sources and see who comes out 'alive'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelcoombs Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 The whole programme now on line here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boomy Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 I think all this GW stuff is something to do with where earth is positioned in space and where it is going to. You know what i mean - they say we are currently zooming along and are entering a danger zone area, one which had some rather devastating effects on us last time. There, i figured it all out.You can all rest easy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pistonbroke Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 Just looked out the window ..... A star in the east ........ must be an omen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghtwscc Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 I think that one of the biggest problems with the C4 programme is that it didn't explain how our understanding of climate change has developed, what the evidence for and against the impact of CO2, sunspots, etc on climate is, and what the uncertainties are. Have to admit that it’s been a while since I studied climate change in any detail but, from what I can remember, here’s a potted history which may be of help / interest……….. The existence of climate change and periodic glacials / inter-galcials was first recognised circa 150 years ago by geologists studying sedimentary deposits, however the causes were not really known until 1976 when James Hayes, John Imbrie and Nicholas Shackleton presented their famous paper titled, “Variations in the earth’s orbit: Pacemaker of ice ages”. They demonstrated that climate changes recorded in the geological record could be correlated with changes in the earth’s orbit around the sun, and hence the amount of solar radiation received. The earth’s orbit around the sun varies in 3 different ways, with 3 different periodicities. These are termed Milankovitch cycles (after the Yugoslavian scientist who discovered them). Changes in the earth’s orbit around the sun have been the primary control on long term climate change for the last few million years. Over longer time scales other factors such as continental drift have also been important, but that’s a whole other can of worms! However, there was a problem…….the change in solar radiation received in response to variations in the earth’s orbit was calculated to be very small, and not thought to be sufficient to cause the observed glacial / inter-glacial cycles. It was concluded that something must be ‘amplifying’ the signal and a variety of theories were proposed. This part of the potted history becomes somewhat more vague as my memory fails me, but basically people observed from ice cores (which trap and seal bubbles of atmospheric gas within them) that atmospheric CO2 and methane (that are both known to trap the sun’s heat) gas concentrations varied in proportion to temperature – which can also be estimated from ice cores and deep sea sediments using geochemical techniques. CO2 (and to a lesser extent methane) were proposed as key amplifiers, along with other things such as changes in reflection of solar radiation by ice sheets and clouds. Ultimately it has been proposed that amplification of the effects of changes in the earth’s orbit takes place through a variety of mechanisms and feedbacks. For example as the earth received more solar radiation ice would begin to melt, there would be less reflection of the sun’s radiation by the newly exposed bare rock compared with the earlier ice, resulting in increased warming and more rapid ice melt, further reducing reflection of solar radiation and so on and so forth in a positive feedback loop. Melting permafrost and development of new peat bogs would release further CO2 and thereby also amplify the effect of changing solar radiation on climate. Ice core and sea bed sediment records revealed that climate has always been changing. In fact climate has been unusually stable for the last ~2000 years, i.e. most of written human history, thereby giving a false general impression that climate is non-evolving. People then started to look ahead and wonder how climate may change in the future. Milankovitch theory revealed that we should be moving towards a new glaciation which its safe to say not many people fancied, but someone kindly pointed out that since we are busy adding CO2 to the atmosphere then actually things may be OK and we may not enter another glaciation. Of course people then realised that we might go too far the other way and global warming due to production of CO2 was recognised as a potential problem. People started to look into CO2 cycles, estimated future atmospheric CO2 concentrations and began to model the effects – which takes us to where we are present day. Although it is generally agreed that CO2 is a major control on climate, there are still many issues and uncertainties with the many processes that affect climate, CO2 cycling, feedback loops, and geological records. For example, with regards to geological records of temperature Vs atmospheric CO2, if CO2 is the main amplifier driving the climate system then changes in atmospheric CO2 should always precede changes in temperature. However, they don’t. Sometimes they occur afterwards, or at the same time. There are a number of reasons by which these issues are explained. For example, there is often a degree of error in dating of ice cores, and while atmospheric CO2 concentrations may be about the same around the entire globe, the more regional temperature changes recorded in ice cores may not fully reflect the global changes and hence tie up with the ice cores. Another problem is that CO2 is soluble in water, and the solubility changes with temperature. Therefore it is no surprise that atmospheric CO2 tends to mirror temperature changes in ice cores because as the earth and oceans warm CO2 is released and vice-versa. However if atmospheric CO2 concentrations were merely a product of global temperature change then they should always lag behind temperaature in the ice core logs……. which of course sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. The only real way to work out the impacts of CO2 on climate is to build computer models that try to simulate what happens when CO2 concentrations are changed. However, this is not easy because there are so many processes and feedbacks that need to be considered. These processes operate at different rates, and under different conditions, which is why there is so much research in trying to understand these processes and parameterise climate models. So although it is generally accepted that CO2 is a key control on climate, it is difficult to say X amount of CO2 leads to Y climate. Although changes in the earth’s orbit, most likely amplified by greenhouse gases and other factors, explain climate changes over periods hundreds of years or more, they do not explain all of the changes observed over shorter time scales, for example decadal timescales. I’m not really au fait with the history behind relating sun spots to changes in climate, but basically people realised that over the last few tens of decades there has been a strong relationship between the numbers of sun spots (these can be thought of as storms on the sun) observed by astronomers and climate. However, I don’t believe that there is any evidence which links changes in solar activity to climate over longer time scales simply because there are no records of solar activity other than human observations – although I may be wrong! As ever, for some strange reason you always end up with a few extremists – in this case those who only consider CO2 to be important and those who only consider changes in solar activity to be important. In reality CO2, solar activity and a myriad of other processes and feedbacks are important. Hope this is of some use, not patronising, and vaguely accurate! If you want to find out more I’d suggest having a look at “New views on an old plant. A history of global change” by Tjeerd H.Van Andel – Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-44755-0 – an interesting read, well written, not too expensive and not to hard to get your head around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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