Alan Robinson

Well until recently I was a neutral spectator to the AGW debate. These last few months though I have taken a greater interest, and rather than repeat myself here, you might take a look at the climate science thread. The 1991 Norwegian Polar Institute paper by Jaworowsky is a very fine piece of work, well documented, and builds on wide scientific agreement. That paper really does question the whole validity of what people discuss these days, such as ice core data and the amount of CO2 we emit compared to the ocean's natural aspiration. Jaworowsky is adamant that ice does not preserve samples of air unchanged over long periods, and the oceans put out and soak up - what is it now - something in excess of 20 times the CO2 we can emit. Perhaps the figure is a little in error, but the principle is sound enough. As far as I can tell, nobody has yet refuted the Norwegian Polar Institute findings, and Jaworowsky, as late as 2007, calls the AGW claims the scientific scandal of his lifetime. The links to his work are over in the climate science thread. What I'd like to know is, why does the IPCC insist using methods that a great many scientists from before the beginning of the debacle showed to be questionable at best, and in the worst case, downright mistaken.

And understanding methane concentrations in the atmosphere that relies on ice core data. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14476389 I really don't understand why science proceeds like this when the Norwegian Polar Institute back in 1991 refuted the idea that air trapped in ice remains chemically unaltered. Jaworowsky's 1991 paper was unequivocal on this, and as far as I know, Jaworowsky hasn't been proven wrong since.

I really don't know much about what causes long-term changes in Arctic ice, other than it gets hotter and colder. I am one of those that tries to behave responsibly if I know something is questionable, but regarding what I don't know, I follow my conscience, wait, and see.

Autumn is a human artifice, and astronomically, it begins at the autumn equinox. Of course all plants react to the amount of light they receive, but it is certain that they react differently according to their species. I am presently planting out spinach that we will harvest next spring. This autumn, it will grow very slowly. I am also right now planting lettuce and two varieties of oriental brassica, and these will grow this autumn at a great pace until they are singed by frost.

I just wondered, is it a wide variety of species you have noticed? You see, I keep fairly detailed records about my kitchen garden, and so far this year events are occurring pretty much on cue. My onions for example flop over on almost the exact same date every year, and the broad beans start flowering very predictably. Parsley seed begins to drop off the plant round about the third week in August every year, despite the conditions. Maybe someone can enlighten me on this, but my suspicion is that the habits of many common species are to a large extent a reaction to changing daylength.

It is all well and good using various methods to predict the future based on the past, but climate science is presently unable to give a unified, coherent explanation of climate's causes. Apparently, our understanding is developing at snail's pace. It strikes me that science was quite happy to leave it there, until the global warming debate developed. As mentioned before, my suspicion is that despite their reticence on the subject, politicians were only too well aware of peak oil and the developing world economy, and finding themselves without an appealing practical vision for the future, decided to introduce to voters the idea that big changes were needed. We cannot go on burning fossil fuels, not because we are slowly running out and increasing numbers want to burn it, but because carbon dioxide is bad for us. Enter global warming, and enter science stage left with the controversy over hockey sticks. It doesn't end there though. If Jaworowsky's 1991 criticisms of ice core data - for example - have not been refuted, can anyone please explain to me why the IPCC insists on using methods that seemingly are quite inappropriate? What kind of science is that? I am not holding my breath. I doubt that in my lifetime science will throw very much more light on the combined effects of cosmic rays, solar cycles, stratospheric winds, ozone, complex ocean circulations, the amount of carbon dioxide in the oceans, aerosols, and indeed, just how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere contained in the past. With the current economic development, science funding is likely to be top of politicians' list of spending cuts, now that we have all become used to the idea that the future will be nothing like the past. Never mind. I'll just continue following Dr Samuel Johnson's advice, and predict rain when I see dark clouds.

I don't think it is quite that simple GW. For one thing, iron is absolutely not a suitable material for ships' hulls. Navigation in ice requires extra thick plain carbon steel, and for independent service in such remote regions, I'd like it normalized too. Secondly, though icebreaker assistance might not be necessary to get through, there is every chance of encountering nasties, such as a growler. I made the point a few days ago that IF the Arctic Ocean becomes more navigable, then I hope they don't simply allow unsuitable vessels to trade there. You never know when you might enter some grease ice or shuga that clogs up the saltwater cooling system intake. For this reason, ice-classed vessels have an extra seawater intake, deep down, and which is heated using main engine coolant. Propellers too need to be extra strong, and preferably much further below the surface than in a normal design. Ice can make mincemeat of a propeller. Ice accretion is yet another problem, and I'd have great reservations letting ships so far north whose design is determined by stability requirements - such as container carriers. I can just imagine a 10,000 TEU vessel, fully loaded, in an Arctic Ocean gale, with ice building up on all that deck cargo. Prudent mariners need no reminding of such issues, but then grasping owners don't always employ prudent mariners. "Time is money" I believe is their motto.

After a late start, we have now all the usual species in about usual quantities. The whites have certainly been in my patch of Quintal de Alsace cabbages! Funny enough, the whites are indifferent to oriental brassicas

I don't know about explanations, but I wouldn't like to have been a passenger if it was real. The vertical acceleration makes a space rocket take-off look like a tortoise taking a lazy stroll.

Over on this side of the North Sea there is no sign of autumn at all. What we have is a wetter than normal summer, a few degrees over the 1961 - 90 norm. The cereal harvest got underway pretty much as normal, though I notice there are still fields of standing oil seed rape. Interestingly, we do have many roadside trees that suffered terribly at the amount of rock salt spread about the roads last winter. Unlike the Danes I cannot recall the numbers - Danes love to quote statistics - but it was reported this spring that a great many trees might very well die, such was the level of roadside salt pollution.

Noiv, that pretty much complies with what I have tried to express in the climate science thread. I have also put that I cannot explain myself without becoming prolix, and it seems the APA has the same afflication..............that excerpt is hardly a summing up!

I have never held the view that imagination has no part in science, for it is of course vital, and yet it must be disciplined. Idiosyncracy must not be allowed to colour scientific investigation. If climate was amenable to scientific investigation, I should have thought that there would be by now a number of well established theories about various aspects of climate, and - one would hope - signs of their convergence towards some grand unifying theory of climate. At the risk of repeating myself, I am no expert on these issues, but what I can say is this; in fluid dynamics, viscosity plays a very complex role in the transition from laminar to turbulent flow. This is probably why weather forecasters these days use the methods they do. Equations of motion may be written for small elements of fluid, resulting in the so-called Navier Stokes equations (partial differential equations), but these have no known general solution, or at least they didn't when I was a student. The transition of laminar to turbulent flow cannot be investigated analytically. Our understanding of it is empirical. If climate science too is not generally amenable to mathematical analysis - which I suspect is the case - we have to ask how we may obtain empirical knowledge of climate's causes. Clearly, such investigations are extremely expensive and fraught with difficulty. Our empirical knowledge of what causes climate is patchy at best, and so we are left speculating on a topic that possibly like laminar / turbulent flow transitions cannot be addressed analytically. If this is the case, it would become those involved to simply say "we don't know yet, and we can't say when we might know".

Well no matter how hard I try, I cannot satisfactorily address this issue of beliefs and multi-faceted individuals in science without becoming excessively prolix. In my view, science needs an ethos similar to The Royal Marines, namely, it is not who we are that counts, it is what we do and how we do it. Thanks to the likes of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton, modern science left behind repressive belief systems, mumbo-jumbo such as Pythagorean number lore, and the pre-conditioned thinking of people like Thomas Aquinas. I thought that in science today, a hypothesis is an unsubstantiated product of human imagination. A scientific theory is a broader set of proven empirical laws that come together in a larger scenario than most hypotheses cover. Regarding climate science, it seems to me that there is a certain dogma about various hypotheses, which is due to the difficulty, if not impossibility of verification. In these circumstances there is much to be said for logical positivism. Faced with certain hypotheses, perhaps bordering on the metaphysical, why not ask how these various ideas could be acceptibly verified, supposing they happen to be true? What is the point of insisting something is the case, when it cannot be demonstrated to be factual? Perhaps this is why science has made great leaps and bounds in, for example, medicine. Engineering is also physical proof of much scientific postulation. When it comes to the likes of cosmology and relativity, it is far more difficult to present adequate evidence. Einstein - I believe - took his starting point in the Michelson Morley experiment, which was conducted down here on earth, and educationalists have since tried to teach students the principals of special relativity using "thought experiments" which, given the lack of perfect vaccum, do not coincide with the facts. Thought experiments, surely, are speculative, and what climate science needs is observable phemonena that verify hypotheses. Sadly, I think the task is too great for us within the foreseeable future.

Thanks jethro. You actually put down what it is that concerns me. Perhaps Landscheidt's solar predictions are the most successful - for the time being - but it is the atsrology, Maria Thun moon planting calendar, Steineresque bio-dynamic mumbo-jumbo thing that links with Landscheidt, and you might be surprised just how prevalent mysticism is in Germanic culture. Each to his or her own, but I pay no credence to those that entertain groundless ideas handed down to them from antiquity. Just out of interest and maybe off topic, is this http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8008167.stm Well, it just goes to show we cannot trust all we read, even on the BBC. Steiner did NOT pioneer bio-dynamic horticulture at all. He knew nothing about growing plants, and yet the whole Demeter thing uses a few days of Steiner pontificating on cosmic rays, antlers, and earth spirits (fairies at the end of the garden as you put it). It is a cult, just as astrology is a cult belief. Shame for Landscheidt, but I don't consider his dabbling in mysticism the same thing as Issac Newton's alchemy.

Here's another piece of Danish work in Greenland. http://www.dmi.dk/dm...ydvestgroenland After several paragraphs of background information, the article goes on (excuse the language style, the article is somewhat vernacular, and I have tried to retain the style): To understand temperature variations one must take the bigger picture. The maritime environment over the fishing banks in south and west Greenland is to a large extent affected by water from elsewhere (Nah, I'd never have believed it!); warm and saline water from the Irminger current. This comes to the area as a side-current to the North Atlantic Drift cold polar water, less saline, from the Arctic Ocean via the East Greenland Current These two masses of water first meet in the northern Irminger Basin and Denmark Strait, after which they pass south along Greenland's east coast. After passing Cape Farewell, the Irminger water slides beneath the polar water. These two masses of water become mixed on their way, and it is therefore the relative strength of the two currents which determines hydrographic conditions over the fishing banks to the south and west. Consequently, changes in the North Atlantic circulation have a significant effect on sea temperatures. The main feature of 2011 observations is the persistently high salinity and corresponding high temperature seen in deeper water to the west of the shelf. This indicates that the Irminger Current continues to transport much water around southwest Greenland. This affects not only fisheries, but according to recent research also glaciers. That relatively low surface temperatures were recorded simultaneously further to the northwest, can only be attributed to the extent of last winter's ice, and a normalization of temperatures can be expected in the course of the summer. **************** Nice glossy photos, but not particularly enlightening is it? Never mind, but take a look again at the map they provide showing the North Atlantic Ocean and some currents. See how big Scotland has become! Maybe those Danish folk are emulating the Commissioners of the Northern Lighthouse Board in times gone by in taking an annual cruise.

Here's yet another crystal ball contribution to the Artcic ice discussion. http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-14408930 If ever there was a contradiction in terms, this is it; "Driftwood cannot float across the water, it has to be ferried across the ocean on ice, and this voyage takes several years, which means that driftwood is actually a signal of multi-year sea ice in the ocean and it is this ice that is at risk at the moment" said Dr Funder." I am sorry, but that is pure nonsense. For one thing, it is called driftwood because it drifts about in the sea, that is, carried along by current. Secondly, there is no sea ice in the sub-tropics and topics, yet there is plenty of driftwood. I have personally seen it in Sri Lanka and Alabama, quite large logs littering beaches. These were not flotsam or jetsam, but trees that had fallen into rivers and washed out to sea. I know that some tree species are denser than 1025 kg/m3, greenheart and basralocus for example, but freshly fallen spruce and larch float even in fresh water. Maybe this nitpicking of mine doesn't detract from Dr Funder's main theme, but he should know that stating such innacuracies hardly helps his cause.

What would you give to go into space? In my case, the question needs turning around............what would i give NOT to go into space. I cannot conceive a more hostile environment for Homo sapiens. I am staying home. In any case, even if I was intrigued by what must be a beautiful sight - I make do with photos - I find space tourism a repugnant thought. What an utter waste of precious resources in a finite world, just so a few people with more money than they need can go up there for a look.

I am afraid this sort of thing seems to me more metaphysical than scientific. Mike, Mr Hawkins ideas surely cannot be classed as a theory as they haven't been tested, leaving them a hypothesis. Suppositions that cannot be tested surely belong to the metaphysical rather than the scientific, don't they?

Well I was becoming increasingly comfortable reading Jaworowsky until the very end, when he pushed the wrong button with me by mentioning Landscheidt. I cannot take seriously anyone that would pay astrological beliefs credit when they cannot otherwise explain things. Why would Jaworowsky bring Landscheidt into the discussion at the very end, even if only by passing mention? If I do not understand something, or concerning that of which I am ignorant, I simply say "I don't know". This is why since childhood, concerning religion, I have declared myself an agnostic, and not atheist. Landscheit, as far as I can tell, continued a centuries-old line of rather extreme thought in German culture that can be traced through the likes of Guido von List all the way back to the Teutonic Knights. Rudolf Steiner (I apologize for bringing him up once more) was - I'd say - another manifestation of Germanic mysticism. Landscheidt rant over. Anyway, having read in this forum that climate science is "settled" and beyond dispute, I found this. http://en.wikipedia...._global_warming. Clearly, climate science is anything but settled, and Jaworowsky's numerous and damning criticisms of the ice core evidence has, as far as I can see, not been refuted. Moreover, Jaworowsky's comments strengthen my own suspicions about financing research and the influence of politicians. According to Jaworowsky, the IPCCs work is instigated politically, and he is indignant that certain people in publishing have lost their employment due to their insistance on publishing scientific papers (Soon among others) that state contary views to the IPCC. I was aghast to read the comments made by Tim Wirth and Richard Benedick, both men with positions of great influence in US politics, namely "even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy", and "a global warming treaty must be implemented even if there is no scientific evidence to back the (enhanced) greenhouse effect". The more I read of this whole business, the more I feel that many scientists have virtually prostituted themselves. As with engineering, if science has a somewhat contemptible reputation, it cannot surprise that interest among young people for science has dwindled for decades, and they'd rather appear on Britain's Got Talent.

Has anyone here come across this before? Jaworowsky, Segelstad and Hisdal of the Norwegian Polar Institute, a paper from 1991. http://www.co2web.info/np-m-119.pdf Clearly, developments since this paper was written signify its content is disputed, but I wondered, has it been refuted? I cannot conceive that a body such as the Norwegian Polar Intitute could publish such a document as this, and at the same time be completely wrong. If it turns out they were wrong, on just parts of their findings, then I conclude modern science is all at sea. Nonetheless, the Norwegian Polar Institute continues with ice core work, and on its web page about climate research, states that (my translation) Isen med sine luftbobler er et klimaarkiv som «fanger» atmosfærens gasser og gir oss kunnskap som går 900 000 år tilbake i tid.............namely............air bubbles in the ice constitute a climate archive that captures atmospheric gases, providing information going back in time 900,000 years. Was it F Scott Fitzgerald that said "I have one standpoint until I take another" ? Perhaps not.

frogesque..........."even less certain is if we can do anything about it." Very well put Sir or Madam. Interesting reading jethro, not least because the author explains to a certain extent what he believes to be happening. I find that refreshing, as it indicates the person has advanced from the point of observing possible links, to considering whether or not they are plausible, unlike so much else we read in the common media. Given the case of Henrik Svensmark, it is fair to say that science is divided about global warming. I recall seeing a video clip from a conference where a certain prestigious scientist - British incidentally - vehemently tore into Svensmark, and told him in a most rude manner to "read the books". Now I should know better than to expect all scientists to work loyally together in the cause of science - take Isaac Newton and John Flamsteed for example - and we should be clear that scientists are people like the rest of us, with all our human weaknesses. Nonetheless, if everyone could agree and get together, what would it take to investigate and properly test this cosmic ray / solar wind hypothesis? Obviously, most experimentation and data collection would have to be conducted in space. Who is going to fund such work? Given the most thorough program was carried out, and we discovered that the solar wind and cosmic rays are in fact very significant factors in deciding Earth's climate, how would that benefit us? Wouldn't we also have to carry out most extensive research of the oceans too, in order to combine the various components of the climate? This is an immense task that few, if anyone is about to pay for given that the dividends are dubious at best. It seems to me that avant-garde physics is largely metaphysical, speculating on issues that - as far as we can tell today - we are unlikely to gain clarity over. Perhaps this is latter-day logical positivism, but why not instead approach the immensely demanding issue of climate by asking what would we do if we actually understood what is going on? If we could confirm that the solar wind and cosmic rays have a significant combined effect on our climate, what would we do about it? Maybe here we already have the answer to the difficulties with climate science. Unless we can see the utility of knowing something, then why bother looking into it. Of course, there will always be people that, for various reasons, will put forward their ideas. It has always been so. Ever since Pericles made his magnificent funeral oration in Athens, philosophers have fed us with a load of metaphysical tripe, leading in the end to science going one way, and philosophy the other. With the exception of Socrates and Diogenes, and maybe a few other lesser-known thinkers, philosophy has been an activity for a few wealthy, priveleged people. Even Kant had the patronage of the local clergy who helped him mix with the nearest town's gentry, rather than stay at home and help his father make saddles. Philosphy, after 2500 years, has done little to change the lives of ordinary people. Science risks going the same way too. Why is so much funding going to, for example, the Large Hadron Collider, and why are we developing a European GPS system? Until the lion's share of humanity get together and beat out for themselves a shared vision for the future, there is little prospect of us obtaining a genuine, unifying theory of climate.My long-range forecast for the science of climate is for more of the same.

I am just an interested amateur, but it seems to me the science of climate is an enormously complex affair that touches upon oceanography geography atmospheric studies the sun volcanic activity and tectonics That list in not exhaustive, and furthermore, each is a specialist subject in its own right. Just what sort of specialist is required to bring all these together into a unified are of study is beyond me, but I suspect - unfortunately - it requires someone with people skills. It also seems to me that while science understands fully a number of principles, there is still an awful lot it doesn't understand. The problem science has is a little related to peak oil, in that all the easy stuff has been discovered and is now being utilised by technology, and what remains to be discovered is difficult to get at and expensive to utilise. This explains what I consider the diminishing level of technological and scientific innovation in recent decades.

I shall be the first to post this stuff in a climate science thread to stop cluttering this Arctic ice thread .............only.......I can find threads about volcanoes, earthquakes, climate in the past, sunshine, the atmosphere, UFOs, what the latest findings are and what's in the news, but not a specific climate science thread. With the exception of UFOs and earthquakes, I'd have thought the rest were all sub-topics of climate science, and if we shift the discussion to one of them, we'll be committing the same grave sin as we are here. Any suggestions anyone as to where all these different sub-topics of climate science can come together for discussion?

Thanks for that jethro. I was in fact turning over in my mind why a single set of atmospheric CO2 measurements from Hawaii should be thought representative of the entire atmosphere, and then I visited biomind.de, only to find that the method of determining atmospheric CO2 content is disputed. Now Ernst-Georg Beck, I see, is also into alternative medicine, which to my conservative way of thinking counts against him; but I have to say, his point of view seems very convincing. Apparently he thinks the IPCC analysis of ice core samples not the best method of establishing historical CO2 levels, and certainly, his description of CO2 variations according to locality seems most plausible. What strikes me most though, is the difference between the historical CO2 curves in biomind.de and wikipedia. It can hardly surprise that there is much discussion among laymen when there is so much contradictory information for them to refer to.

Something niggled me about CO2 at concentrations below 300 ppm being a heat sink, and above 300 ppm being a heat source. I couldn't see why that should be. Well I finally finished wading through the discussion, which incidentally wasn't very mathematical in my view. Never mind. What did strike me though was scienceofdoom's posting of March 8th 2010 at 9:04PM, where he or she suddenly decides to let us know that in deriving the curve you kindly posted, the lowest experimental starting point was in fact 280 ppm. There is therefore no basis at all from what I read to assume that below 300 ppm CO2 gives a negative radiative forcing. This discovery therefore contradicts what I put a few days ago, namely that based on CO2 levels in 1900, that carbon dioxide must have been moderating whatever it was that was raising the global temperature. Furthermore, though I found no quoted figures, scienceofdoom insinuates that the experiment's highest ppm was 1000, and not 1600. It just goes to show what a little investigation reveals. This curve was derived by the IPCC. I should have thought that venerable body would have made plain its limitations, but then maybe they did, and the curve above is drawn by someone who simply plotted f(X) = 5.5ln(X/Xo) without knowing the function's domain. Notice that if both X and Xo = 300, then f(X) = 0, and incidentally, the discussion doesn't touch upon why the ratio X/Xo is relevant. It is simply taken for granted that it has merit, though what merit I cannot say yet. My conclusion is simply that before about 1950, carbon dioxide wasn't causing the atmosphere to heat. The reason I put 300 ppm as a lower limit for the experimental data's validity is arbitrary, but from my work with parametric cubic splines, and also describing data sets using mathematical functions, I'd say the extreme hold points of such a data set cannot be relied upon, and certainly, extrapolation is most unreliable.