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Westminster 'set to beat Holyrood' on climate change pledges

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Published Date: 07 October 2008
By Jenny Haworth
THE director of an environment charity thinks Westminster may be about to overtake Holyrood as having the most ambitious climate change bill in the world.
The UK committee on climate change yesterday advised the UK government to set a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. This would be 20 points higher than its current target of 60 per cent, and would match the Scottish Gov
ernment's target.

Adair Turner, the committee's chairman, also told Ed Miliband, the new Energy and Climate Change Secretary, that the targets should cover all emissions, not just carbon dioxide, and all sectors of the UK economy including shipping and aviation.

In contrast, the Scottish Government has left plans vague as to whether it will include international aviation and shipping in its climate change bill, which is due to come before parliament later this year.

Dr Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland, confirmed this could mean the UK government's climate change legislation was stronger than that of Scotland. He said: "Mr Salmond promised parliament at the start of this month that the Scottish bill would be more ambitious than the UK bill in 'in every respect'."

He added: "With a clear message from the climate change committee and a clear political commitment to produce the best climate bill in the world, the Scottish Government must now bring forward a bill that includes all of Scotland's emissions."

He said Scotland should be setting an example to the rest of the world.





Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 06 October 2008 9:48 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
 
1

,

07/10/2008 02:23:15
Comment Removed By Administrator
Reason:
2

,

07/10/2008 07:54:24
Comment Removed By Administrator
Reason:
3

fred bloggs,

Edinburgh 07/10/2008 08:04:09
Unfortunately you're both quite wrong.
4

eyeswide,

07/10/2008 09:28:13
Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu B.S. and a M.S. in geophysics at Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. Ph.D in geophysics at The University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA. Author: Is the Earth still recovering from the “Little Ice Age”? Director of the Geophysical Institute from 1986 until 1999, during which time the Alaska Volcano Observatory was established and Poker Flat Research Range was modernized. He went on to become the first director of the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) upon its establishment in 1998, and remained in that position until 2007. The same year, the building which houses IARC was named in his honor.

http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/misleading.php

"Certainly, global warming is in progress. However, in spite of their claim, not even the International Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) presents definite scientific proof that “most” of the present warming is caused by the greenhouse effect, as stated in their summary report. It is simply an assumption. Since the physics of the greenhouse effect of CO2 is well known, and since they thought that no other forcing function is likely to be the cause, the IPCC hypothesized that the warming from about 1900 was caused by it. They assembled a large number of scientists, mostly meteorologists and physicists (not necessarily climatologists who are really needed in climate research) and tried to prove their hypothesis based on supercomputer models. They have continued to do so, in spite of new evidence from some ice core data, which shows that the temperature rises tend to precede CO2 rises by about 1000 years, suggesting that the hypothesized relationship between the temperature and CO2 is reversed, namely that some of the past temperature rises may be the cause of CO2 rises. It is very unfortunate that the hypothesis has somehow become ‘fact.’"

5

seanie,

07/10/2008 09:43:16
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/01/sarahpalin.climatechange

"Two other contrarian scholars were cited. One was Syun-Ichi Akasofu, formerly director of the International Arctic Research Centre, in Alaska, who argues that climate change could be a hangover from the little ice age. He is a founding director of the Heartland Institute, a thinktank that has received $676,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998."
6

eyeswide,

07/10/2008 09:49:18
For the weak, pathetic invertebrates who continue to believe that CO2 is pollution and caused warming please don't bother attacking the Dr or trying to tie him to something you didn't like that he did before.

I will save you the trouble. He is retired.

So his opinion counts for nothing. Just like all of those who confront the "con"sensus and have realised that this tax exercise is now so entrenched, provides so much pork for the creatures in power and has so much inertia that whole economies are being sucked in and dried out.

You have won. The lunatics have taken over the asylum, closed the purse strings and hijacked the science.

Even when our infrastructure has seized up this coming winter and the lights go out you, and they, will never admit that, just maybe, nature had something to with it and CO2 nothing since about 22ppmv. The rickety bandwagon will roll on toward stagnation and debt. Fuelled by charlatans using lies for the benefit of, who exactly? Follow the money. Because the watermelons have made damn sure we cannot easily follow the science.



7

seanie,

07/10/2008 09:49:33
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11659

'Climate myths: Ice cores show CO2 increases lag behind temperature rises, disproving the link to global warming'

'The ice ages show that temperature can determine CO2 as well as CO2 driving temperature. Some sceptics – not scientists – have seized upon this idea and are claiming that the relation is one way, that temperature determines CO2 levels but CO2 levels do not affect temperature.

To repeat, the evidence that CO2 is a greenhouse gas depends mainly on physics, not on the correlation with past temperature, which tells us nothing about cause and effect. And while the rises in CO2 a few hundred years after the start of interglacials can only be explained by rising temperatures, the full extent of the temperature increases over the following 4000 years can only be explained by the rise in CO2 levels.'
8

eyeswide,

07/10/2008 09:50:42
John R. Christy Ph.D. Atmospheric Sciences, M.S., Atmospheric Sciences, B.A., Mathematics, Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. NASA's Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, Contributor (1992, 1994 and 1996) and Lead Author (2001) for the U.N. reports by the IPCC.
http://science.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/sppb/NSSTC-CSPAR_Colloquia/FAL-01/christy_bio.html

"Atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to increase due to the undisputed benefits that carbon-based energy brings to humanity. This increase will have some climate impact through CO2's radiation properties. However, fundamental knowledge is meagre here, and our own research indicates that alarming changes in the key observations are not occurring."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7081331.stm

9

seanie,

07/10/2008 09:53:19
http://www.heartland.org/

Rightwing, libetarian, free-market fruitcakes.
10

seanie,

07/10/2008 09:58:21
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores/

"At least three careful ice core studies have shown CO2 starts to rise about 800 years (600-1000 years) after Antarctic temperature during glacial terminations. These terminations are pronounced warming periods that mark the ends of the ice ages that happen every 100,000 years or so.

Does this prove that CO2 doesn't cause global warming? The answer is no."
11

eyeswide,

07/10/2008 10:01:04
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11659


"By Brad Martin

Thu Jun 26 05:54:50 BST 2008

Mr. Wilson, I have enjoyed your observations. They are right on the money.

To me, it is very simple. CO2 emissions are a great target for taxation and government regulation. They are $imply ea$y to mea$ure.

This is another case where the "new" in "NewScientist" means that they have abandoned the old scientific principles that don't serve them well when they need to manipulate a population. In this way, global warming activists have become more religious than scientific. The article's explanation is laughable."


I know scientist Ian Wilson - do you know journalist/watermelon/activist Catherine Brahic?
12

seanie,

07/10/2008 10:01:54
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/22/231145/76

"The current understanding of those cycles is that changes in orbital parameters (the Milankovich and other cycles) caused greater amounts of summer sunlight to fall in the northern hemisphere. This is a small forcing, but it caused ice to retreat in the north, which changed the albedo. This change -- reducing the amount of white, reflective ice surface -
led to further warmth, in a feedback effect. Some number of centuries after that process started, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere began to rise, which amplified the warming trend even further as an additional feedback mechanism...

...So it is correct that CO2 did not trigger the warmings, but it definitely contributed to them -- and according to climate theory and model experiments, greenhouse gas forcing was the dominant factor in the magnitude of the ultimate change."
13

eyeswide,

07/10/2008 10:03:58
We can see the agenda.

You must be the opposite of this "Rightwing, libetarian, free-market fruitcakes."

And you wonder why we rail against your type. Get a spine.


14

seanie,

07/10/2008 10:04:12
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/ccm/1007_co2.htm

CO2 as a Feedback and Forcing in the Climate System

"While the lag between temperature and greenhouse gas changes in the paleoclimate record is important in understanding the function of greenhouse gasses in the Earth's climate, and has helped in estimating the effects of CO2 concentrations on radiative forcing, it in no way discredits the conventional knowledge that CO2 is forcing recent changes in the Earth's climate."
15

eyeswide,

07/10/2008 10:05:47
Dr. Martin Hertzberg, a retired Navy meteorologist with a PhD in physical chemistry

A letter to USA Today from Dr. Hertzberg [ruthhertzberg@msn.com]:

As a scientist and life-long liberal Democrat, I find the constant regurgitation of the anecdotal, fear mongering clap-trap about human-caused global warming (the Levi, Borgerson article of 9/24/08) to be a disservice to science, to your readers, and to the quality of the political dialogue leading up to the election. The overwhelming weight of scientific evidence shows that the Gore-IPCC theory that human activity is causing global warming is false. For details see my article, "The Lynching of Carbon Dioxide", in the "guest authors" section of www.carbon-sense.com .

The difference between a scientist and propagandist is clear. If a scientist has a theory, he searches diligently for data that might contradict it so that he can test it further or refine it. The propagandist carefully selects only the data that agrees with his theory and dutifully ignores any that contradicts it. The global warming alarmists don't even bother with data! All they have are half-baked computer models that are totally out of touch with reality and have already been proven to be false.

Here is some of the latest data. From the El Nino year of 1998 until Jan., 2007, the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere near its surface decreased some 0.25 C. From Jan., 2007 until the Spring of 2008, it dropped a whopping 0.75 C. The National Weather Service just issued a Sea Ice Advisory for the Western and Arctic Alaskan Coastal waters for significant ice developing in the next 10 to 14 days, with sea surface temperatures some 2 to 8 C colder than last year. Such recent data is "just the tip of the iceberg" that is in process of sinking the Gore-IPCC ship of cards.

16

eyeswide,

07/10/2008 10:08:47
Douglass, David H., Benjamin D. Pearson, and S. Fred Singer, 2004. Altitude dependence of atmospheric temperature trends: Climate models versus observation, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L13208, doi:10.1029/2004GL020103, July 9, 2004
Abstract
As a consequence of greenhouse forcing, all state-of-the-art general circulation models predict a positive temperature trend that is greater for the troposphere than the surface. This predicted positive trend increases in value with altitude until it reaches a maximum ratio with respect to the surface of as much as 1.5 to 2.0 at about 200-400 hPa. However, the temperature trends from several independent observational data sets show decreasing as well as mostly negative values. This disparity indicates that the three models examined here fail to account for the effects of greenhouse forcings.
Of course when global warming is actually a religion, then of course all the scientific facts at one's disposal will not have one iota of an effect on the beliefs of the true believers."

17

seanie,

07/10/2008 10:09:43
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

"It seemed that rises or falls in carbon dioxide levels had not initiated the glacial cycles.In fact most scientists had long since abandoned that hypothesis. In the 1960s, painstaking studies had shown that subtle shifts in our planet's orbit around the Sun (called "Milankovitch cycles") set the timing of ice ages. The amount of sunlight that fell in a given latitude and season varied predictably over millenia, altering how long snow ands sea ice lingered in the spring, which crucially affected how much sunlight the surface absorbed. The fact that carbon dioxide levels lagged behind the orbital effect should have been no surprise, since a change in the temperature would change the gas level. For one thing, warmer oceans would evaporate out more gas. For another, as Arctic tundra warmed up it would likewise emit CO2 and methane. The ice cores now showed, as theorists had predicted since the 19th century, that a powerful feedback cycle was amplifying the effect of the cyclical changes in sunlight. Even a small change in the gas level would bring further changes in the global heat balance, which would in turn alter the gas level, which... and so forth. This suggested how tiny shifts in the Earth’s orbit had set the timing of the enormous swings of glacial cycles.

Or, more ominously, how a change in the gas level initiated by humanity might be amplified through a temperature feedback loop. The ancient ice ages were the reverse of our current situation, where humanity was initiating the change by adding greenhouse gases. As the gas level rose, temperature would rise with a time lag — although only a few decades, not centuries, for the rates of change were now enormously faster than the orbital shifts that brought ice ages"
18

eyeswide,

07/10/2008 10:10:04
Off to work.


http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/01/01/opinion/commentary/12_31_0418_00_59.txt

The worst part of the current debate is the fact that it is no longer a scientific debate but a political one. A scientist working in most universities today who argues against the politically correct point of view will see his grant money dry up, as well as his future if untenured. I find it also very curious that those opposed to globalization and the free market capitalism have such a convenient argument against modern industry and business.

19

eyeswide,

07/10/2008 10:13:17
It is cold already. More of this on the way.


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080924-solar-wind.html

National Geographic News. September 24, 2008

"Speaking yesterday at a NASA teleconference, scientists refused to draw conclusions from their observations, especially with respect to whether the changes are influencing Earth's climate. "That area of science is in the realm of speculation at this point," said Nancy Crooker, a researcher at Boston University.

There is evidence of the sun causing short-term impacts on Earth's weather. The so-called Maunder Minimum, a time of low solar activity, lasted from about 1645 to 1715. During this time, access to Greenland was largely cut off by ice, and canals in Holland routinely froze solid, according to NASA. Glaciers advanced in the Alps, and sea ice increased so much that no open water flowed around Iceland in the year 1695."

20

Alternative (High-Octane) Fuel Head,

Edinburgh 07/10/2008 10:28:17
For christs sake! With the economy on a downward spiral and large financial institutions collapsing round their ears, have this moronic, stupid labour government got nothing better to concern themselves with than the ridiculous King Canute politics of "climate change"?

The climate is driven by WATER VAPOUR, not by people driving their cars around.
21

Alternative (High-Octane) Fuel Head,

Edinburgh 07/10/2008 10:32:38
Seanie,

If you love CO2 so much and think that it has such an impact on a future Armageddon, why don't you go and breath some in?

That would have two benefits. firstly, you would be doing your bit for "global warming" and secondly, we wouldn't have to suffer your drivel any more.
22

seanie,

07/10/2008 10:36:09
Dr. Martin Hertzberg? His speciality was explosives, not weather or climate, and the following reveals him to be a crank.

"Here is some of the latest data. From the El Nino year of 1998 until Jan., 2007, the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere near its surface decreased some 0.25 C. From Jan., 2007 until the Spring of 2008, it dropped a whopping 0.75 C."

First off, taking comparisons from a year average to an individual month is itself statistically invalid, particulalry when cherry-picking an exceptionally hot year such as 1998. Why? Because the data is 'noisy'. The natural scope, month to month and year to year, considerably exceeds the the scale of the undelying warming trend.

http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/dept/0108_globaltemp.htm

"Over the past eight years, Earth has warmed 0.025 degrees C per year according to GISS, and 0.014 degrees C per year according to HadCRU, so GISS shows slightly faster warming than over the long-term trend of 0.018 degrees C per year, and HadCRU shows warming slightly slower."

So the long-term warming trend is 0.018 degrees. Let's look at the Hadcru global monthly figures.

http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/monthly

You only have to look at the first column of figures. Just as an example you can see that between February and March of this year there was a difference in temperature of 0.257 degrees. That alone demonstrats why picking any individual month for purposes of comparison is, at best, incompetent because the 'noise' of monthly fluctation far exceeds the kind of trend we're talking about.



23

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 07/10/2008 10:37:14
#8 eyeswide

You have been posting numerous comments asserting the opposite of "Certainly, global warming is in progress." in recent months, so I suppose the above is progress of sorts.

However, Akasofu shows little sign that he understands the scientific process in the above incoherent article. The IPCC has never claimed to have "definite proof" about the relationship between greenhouse gases and climate, nor would anyone with an understanding of science. He is merely using a straw-man argument. As for the silly canard about temperature rise preceding CO2 rise, that has been answered many times. His whole article is a shambles of misunderstandings, untruths and false arguments.

I note you take great comfort from Akasofu's qualifications and position. You should not. A good friend of mine was made a professor in the science faculty of a prestigious Scottish university about a decade ago, yet he would be the first to admit that his grasp of science is tenuous. His usefulness was in administration and good interpersonal relationships. In scientific terms he is little more competent than the average layman: that is frequently the case, particularly in N America.
24

Alternative (High-Octane) Fuel Head,

Edinburgh 07/10/2008 10:39:14
Seanie,

Will you please shut up and go away. We are all fed up with your incessant propaganda and do not wish to read a copy of every stupid word writen about this fairy tale.
25

Alternative (High-Octane) Fuel Head,

Edinburgh 07/10/2008 10:40:11
...and Slioch

Are you two joined at the hip or something?
26

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 07/10/2008 10:47:09
For clarity, my comments at #27 followed on from eyewide's at #8 - I forgot to update, and therefore did not see the many responses since. Thus they are a little superfluous to Seanie's informative contributions.
27

seanie,

07/10/2008 10:53:44
However that's not all. Here's the Hadcru Annual data;

http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/annual

The temperature anomaly for 1998, the hottest yeat according to the Hadcru dataset?

"From the El Nino year of 1998 until Jan., 2007, the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere near its surface decreased some 0.25 C."

He's not only making a completely invalid comparison, but he's getting his facts wrong too.

The comparison between 1998 and January 2007 is statistically invalid, but if you do compare them you find that January 2007 is warmer.

Not altogether suprising since it was the warmest January ever recorded according to both the Hadcru and GISS data.

So when this retired explosives expert says;

0.515 degrees above the mean.

And looking at the monthly figures i posted before what was the anomaly for January 2007?

0.632 degrees above the mean.
28

Resolutions,

07/10/2008 10:57:14
I see Eyeswide is into supercharged mode again re postings. I do wonder at his comment about a retired academic. This is definitely ageism - ie after you retire, your work/opinions are superfluous!
Bye bye Darwin, Baird, Fleming, etc etc!
How ridiculous!

No matter whether you agree, disagree, prove otherwise, or prove is true -everyone has the right to be considered. By this attitude you devalue your contributions completely.
29

seanie,

07/10/2008 10:58:24
Last post got mangles somehow;

However that's not all. Here's the Hadcru Annual data;

http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/annual

The temperature anomaly for 1998, the hottest yeat according to the Hadcru dataset?

0.515 degrees above the mean.

And looking at the monthly figures i posted before what was the anomaly for January 2007?

0.632 degrees above the mean.

So when this retired explosives expert says;

"From the El Nino year of 1998 until Jan., 2007, the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere near its surface decreased some 0.25 C."

He's not only making a completely invalid comparison, but he's getting his facts wrong too.

The comparison between 1998 and January 2007 is statistically invalid, but if you do compare them you find that January 2007 is warmer.

Not altogether suprising since it was the warmest January ever recorded according to both the Hadcru and GISS data.





30

seanie,

07/10/2008 11:04:10
The GISS data;

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt

The global temperature anomaly for 1998?

0.57 degrees above the mean.

The global temperature anomaly for January 2007?

0.85 degrees above the mean.

Again the figure for January 2007 is warmer than that for 1998.

I think Dr. Martin Hertzberg, the retired Navy meteorologist with a PhD in physical chemistry, should stick to fireworks.
31

seanie,

07/10/2008 11:05:53
"The climate is driven by WATER VAPOUR, not by people driving their cars around."

Tell us again about global warming being down to Continental Drift. I could do with a chuckle.
32

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 07/10/2008 12:03:05
What is apparent from the above, and numerous other entries, is that neither Eyeswide nor Alternative (High-Octane) Fuel Head have the remotest understanding of science nor the ability to critically evaluate what they read. Their major concern appears to be a selfish fear that their taxes may be effected: they show no concern about the future of life on Earth, let alone scientific rationalism.

As Seanie has shown, the Dr. Martin Hertzberg article that Eyeswide pointed to in #19 was riddled with demonstrable and obvious errors, as was the Akasofu article (#8) and the NY Times article (#22). On the other hand, the National Geographic News. September 24, 2008 article, (see #23) is reasonable, though it would have been greatly improved by an explanation of how little have sunspot variations influenced climate in recent times.
33

seanie,

07/10/2008 12:39:59
#23 "It is cold already."

Compared to what? Even with the influence of a strong La Nina, temperatures at the start of the year were above the 1961-90 mean. And globally the summer was pretty warm. There's still a chance of 2008 scraping into the top ten warmest years on record though it'll probably just miss out.

It should be in the top 15 though.
34

Alternative (High-Octane) Fuel Head,

Edinburgh 07/10/2008 14:29:15
#35:

When you actually get yourself educated and post something that is actually your considered opinion rather than the "work" of others, I might find time to answer you.

Until then, shut up and go away. I bet you have one of those nerdy, droning voices and are into Star Trek to boot.
35

Resolutions,

07/10/2008 14:39:50
#38 Translated that means I take it, that

'I cannot be bothered educating myself on this subject so that I can form an educated opinion even when I am given umpteen links to follow up, to find out'

Suggest that you go away and educated yourself and stop showing up your inadequacies.
36

truthsleuth,

07/10/2008 14:43:27
Alternative (High-Octane) Fuel Head

You name identifies you

What 'own work' can you use?

I suggest you and your fellow airbrained petrolheads put your heads in the sand just a little deeper rather than keep on repeating you mantra its becoming boring.

Lets hear just what your 'prejudices' are based upon then we may be able to refer you to a suitable psychiatrist who may be able to help you.
37

seanie,

07/10/2008 14:51:06
http://news.scotsman.com/entertainment/C4-climate-change--film.4309916.jp

#12 Alternative (High-Octane) Fuel Head

'Continental drift is probably the most significant factor in a changing climate, yet none of the eco-nutters even mention it. I wonder why? Could it be that continental drift would explain much of what they are observing and as such it would blow their arguments out of the water?'

Comedy gold.

38

seanie,

07/10/2008 15:43:44
"The National Weather Service just issued a Sea Ice Advisory for the Western and Arctic Alaskan Coastal waters for significant ice developing in the next 10 to 14 days, with sea surface temperatures some 2 to 8 C colder than last year. Such recent data is "just the tip of the iceberg" that is in process of sinking the Gore-IPCC ship of cards."

If Dr. Martin Hertzberg, the retired explosives expert, is interested in the latest data on Arctic sea ice he could look here;

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2008/aug/global.html#seaice

"According to the National Snow and Ice Center, the August 2008 Northern Hemisphere sea ice extent, which is measured from passive microwave instruments onboard NOAA satellites, was below the 1979-2000 mean. This was the second least August sea ice extent (21.4 percent below the 1979-2000 mean) since records began in 1979, behind 2007. Sea ice extent for August has decreased at a record rate of 8.7 percent per decade since satellite records began in 1979."
39

eyeswide,

07/10/2008 18:10:15
#32 Resolutions - I was getting my retaliation in first:

"ie after you retire, your work/opinions are superfluous!
Bye bye Darwin, Baird, Fleming, etc etc!
How ridiculous!"

My sentiments exactly. Yet this is just ONE way the warm-mongers go for the man and NOT the ball.

I was being sarcastic - not too good at it, it would appear.

Attack the man and ignore the message.

40

seanie,

07/10/2008 19:00:53
You yourself said "follow the money", so it seems perfectly reasonable to point out that Syun-Ichi Akasofu "is a founding director of the Heartland Institute, a thinktank that has received $676,500 from Exxon Mobil since 1998."

As to what he said, well, the other links provided show he doesn't know what he's talking about.

And the explosives expert? Talking drivel as well.
41

eyeswide,

07/10/2008 19:00:57
#(too many to list) seanie

Yeah, the jet stream has cost me a few bob this year. But I learned something from it. "It's an ill wind...."

And this, about temperature taking:

http://www.capgo.com/Resources/Temperature/TempHome/TempMeasurement.html

Arctic sea-ice extent:

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png

...seem to show that the rebound is stronger than the last few seasons and that the dreaded "record" low was averted this year. I doubt we shall hear about any record recovery.


Here is a link to continental drift and climate:

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html

42

eyeswide,

07/10/2008 19:01:07


Google- plate tectonics Alfred Wegener Milutin Milankovitch ice age continental drift

Wegener was ahead of his time, controversial and was denied tenure because of his ideas but was posthumously vindicated. Sounds like some scientists that refuse to support AGW, or offer alternative theories.

"Wegener's friends left his body as they found it and built an ice-block mausoleum over it. Later they erected a 20-foot iron cross to mark the site. All have long since vanished beneath the snow, inevitably to become part of the great glacier itself. It is a most fitting resting place for this remarkable man who devoted so much of his life to the study of that remnant of the last ice age and whose vision of moving continents provided the key to the mysteries of more ancient glacial epochs."




43

seanie,

07/10/2008 19:13:02
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/news/warming_goes_on.html

"Anyone who thinks global warming has stopped has their head in the sand. The evidence is clear – the long-term trend in global temperatures is rising, and humans are largely responsible for this rise."
44

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 07/10/2008 19:38:24
#46 eyeswide

I was studying the works of Wegener over forty years ago. Your comparing of him with "scientists that refuse to support AGW" is a disgrace and a calumny, excused only by your manifest inability to understand the simplest scientific concepts or unwillingness to investigate the simplest pieces of data.

Seanie's dissembling of the ludicrous garbage churned out by Dr. Martin Hertzberg, to which you approvingly posted earlier, is just the latest illustration. Anything, anything at all, that seems to tell you what you thirst to hear is believed by you, and you cannot even manage to do the simplest check on the claims made. Had you done so you would have immediately noticed his figures were completely bogus. (assuming you are capable of addition and subtraction, that is)

And thereby hangs a tale. Because Eyeswide is by no means alone - there are millions of people around the world who do not want to believe in the truth of AGW, and they are easy meat for charlatans like Hertzberg. In effect, it doesn't matter how nonsensical the garbage that people like Hertzberg write is: if it tells people like Eyeswide what they want to hear then he will believe it.

All that is available to people like Seanie and myself is to continue to provide scientifically rigorous information and explanation in the hope that, eventually, rationality will triumph over the paranoid delusions of people like Eyeswide.
45

eyeswide,

07/10/2008 19:43:54
To the elitist scumbags-

As I have stated before:

We need to stop pollution and CO2 ain't it.

No-one will be able to tend to the Earth when our economies are broken.

Stewardship always follows wealth. The rich nations are cleaning up after themselves (and having less children), maybe not as quickly as we/you would like but it is happening.

The first thing to suffer when the money runs out is the environment.

This is why carbon taxes are morally wrong, bad for the planet and a fraudulent excuse to enrich our uncaring foes such as Gore, Hansen and now the politicians whose chops are slavering in anticipation of their slice of the pie.

I find it difficult to beleve that ANY scientist cannot see this charade for what it is, especially one who doesn't rail at; "In scientific terms he is little more competent than the average layman: that is frequently the case, particularly in N America." - such as Mann (Yale) or Hansen(NASA) or "one of the world's leading experts on climate change" Dr Rajendra Pachauri (Economist)

I am actively seeking a list of the "leading climate scientists" who DO believe in AGW hence the paucity of references above.

46

eyeswide,

07/10/2008 19:59:14
Tackle the ball - not the men.

Present to us the engineering quality papers that show that CO2 has the effect upon the atmospheric, sea or land temperatures that the IPCC and others claim.

A paper of similar quality on the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere would be much appreciated also.

Give us the science we crave o masters.

But not one mention of rc, tamino, desmogblog, newscientists, yaleclimate whatever, or any of the proven agenda driven denizens of such dark anti-progressive, anti-human places.

Science will need a whole generation to recover from the witches and warlocks who have hijacked it and are drinking _your_ blood.

It is not up to us to disprove the theory - that responsibility rests on the shoulders of its proponents.

It is enlightening that the most vocal luddites are completely unwilling to enter a debate.

Tells me several somethings.




47

seanie,

07/10/2008 20:08:17
No attempt to defend Dr. Martin Hertzberg's nonsense.

That tells me something too.

You don't have the slightest concern for factual accuracy or the truth. Anything that remotely agrees with your preconceptions is fine, no matter how untrue.
48

seanie,

07/10/2008 20:42:17
"Science will need a whole generation to recover from the witches and warlocks who have hijacked it and are drinking _your_ blood."

And that tells me you're a wingnut.

:)
49

seanie,

07/10/2008 21:10:05
What does the Royal Society have to say?

http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?tip=1&id=6230

Misleading argument 1: ’Climate change is nothing to do with humans’

"Any increases in the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere mean that more heat is trapped and global temperatures increase - an effect known as 'global warming'. We know from looking at gases found trapped in cores of polar ice that the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are now 35 per cent greater than they have been for at least the last 650,000 years. From the radioactivity and chemical composition of the gas we know that this is mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels, as well as the production of cement and the widespread burning of the world's forests. The increase in global temperature is consistent with what science tells us we should expect when the levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increase in the way that they have."
50

seanie,

07/10/2008 21:11:22
http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?tip=1&id=6777

Misleading argument 2: ’CO2 not responsible for global warming’

"Carbon dioxide only makes up a small amount of the atmosphere, but even in tiny concentrations it has a large influence on our climate.

The properties of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide mean that they strongly absorb heat a fact that can be easily demonstrated in a simple laboratory experiment. While there are larger concentrations of other gases in the atmosphere, such as nitrogen, because they do not have these heat trapping qualities they have no effect on warming the climate whatsoever.

Water vapour is the most significant greenhouse gas. It occurs naturally, although global warming caused by human activities will indirectly affect how much is in the atmosphere through, for example, increased evaporation from oceans and rivers. This will, in turn, cause either cooling or warming depending on what form such as different types of clouds the water vapour occurs in.

Humans have been adding to the effect of water vapour and other naturally occurring greenhouse gases by pumping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through, for example, the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. Before industrialization carbon dioxide made up about 0.03 per cent of the atmosphere or 280ppm (parts per million). Today, due to human influence it is about 380ppm. Even these tiny quantities have resulted in an increase in global temperatures of 0.75ºC (see misleading argument 1)."

51

seanie,

07/10/2008 21:12:18
http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?tip=1&id=6231

Misleading argument 3: ’rises in CO2 occur after global warming, not before’

It is true that the fluctuations in temperatures that caused the ice ages were initiated by changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun which, in turn, drove changes in levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is backed up by data from ice cores which show that rises in temperature came first, and were then followed by rises in levels of carbon dioxide up to several hundred years later. The reasons for this, although not yet fully understood, are partly because the oceans emit carbon dioxide as they warm up and absorb it when they cool down and also because soil releases greenhouse gases as it warms up. These increased levels of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere then further enhanced warming,
creating a positive feedback'.

In contrast to this natural process, we know that the recent steep increase in the level of carbon dioxide - some 30 per cent in the last 100 years - is not the result of natural factors. This is because, by chemical analysis, we can tell that the majority of this carbon dioxide has come from the burning of fossil fuels. And, as set out in 'misleading argument 1 ', carbon dioxide from human sources is almost certainly responsible for most of the warming over the last 50 years. There is much evidence that backs up this explanation and none that conflicts with it.

Warming caused by greenhouse gases from human sources could lead to the release of more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by stimulating natural processes and creating a "positive feedback", as described above
52

eyeswide,

08/10/2008 09:07:27
Your continuous wielding of the Royal Society tells me you are lost to the propaganda and you deserve everything you will most assuredly get if those people continue to stifle the science.

They are not our the side.

There is a deep malaise in science as practiced by the people at the RS. They pursue a slash and burn philosophy. Heretics must die.

But the truth always comes out.


53

seanie,

08/10/2008 09:50:14
Heretics must die? You've missed you medication haven't you.

Anyway, I must cnosfess to an error.

I had previously predicted that the denialists would end up blaming evil pixies for Global Warming.

Little did I realise it wa actually down to witches and warlocks.

ROFLMAO
54

eyeswider,

11/10/2008 15:12:12
Hard to blame something non-existent on anyone, or anything.

We may have caused a "tiny, tiny" warming. Nice.

CO2 is not the culprit.

I quite like being the "heretic" and don't care that Hansen, Mann, Gore, the BBC, Wikipedia, RS and other fonts of propaganda want me dead.

Hansen was glad when Reid Bryson died - just goes to show how sick some of these per-verts are.


 

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