snowsure
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I am in contact with one of the authors of http://www.aosb.org/PDF/XIX.pdf (The Southampton study) to try and locate current research suggesting a reduction of the thermohaline circulation and the wider global impact of such an event.
I may come back empty handed though!
Well, not empty handed. I have received 2 pdf documents (current research) which may question your own standpoint on future events. However the documents are not for me to transmit. They are from "Nature" and "Science" magazine which you have to subscribe to, to view the articles! (All sounds very fishy I suppose but I am not at liberty to make them available.)
The abstract of the first is at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/312/5782/1929
The second is by Gabrielle Walker and published in Nature at http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060612/full/441802a.html
Sorry that I cannot offer any more than this. Peer reviewed articles are expensive! Perhaps if the research was made available freely then there would be no prejudice against new ideas!
SS
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Thanks for your artcle references, snowsure, they were interesting, but I don't understand how it shows that the NAD will shut down, which is what Dr. Sumner implied.
There is no current evidence that this is happening - what I have always said and, at the moment, it is true, despite what many would like to believe and despite what many write. Neither does it change anything I said about Dr Sumner's article. There was nothing whatsoever about her credentials on the article apart from being a vulcanologist and it is rather harsh to state that I was discrediting anybody(!). The article was certainly not written for a scientific audience.
If you can lead me to any actual evidence of an NAD shutdown, I'd really would be the first to be very interested to read it.
Paul
Hi Paul
Sorry for the unclear mention of "discrediting". It was not aimed at you but at the wider forum audience.
I am currently trying to locate some research that shows the opposite angle. As I mentioned several days ago, I have read about 90 peer-reviewed articles and a substantial amount point toward accelerated GW.
However, I offer http://cepsar.open.ac.uk/pers/r.a.spicer/pics/d39109.pdf as a document questioning the validity of current thinking. This was produced as a result of the OU climateprediction.net exercise. (The report date is 01/05 so perhaps current thinking is not questioned! )
I am in contact with one of the authors of http://www.aosb.org/PDF/XIX.pdf (The Southampton study) to try and locate current research suggesting a reduction of the thermohaline circulation and the wider global impact of such an event.
I may come back empty handed though!
Point taken about the scientific audience though. Perhaps more people (not you) should investigate the credentials of people rather than relying on the brief resumee on a web page.
Regards
SS
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Yes, maybe you are right and maybe her area of expertise stretches to being able to comment on the NAD, but it's stretching things and she hasn't any scope to give the full scientific story in that article. We can go into the ins and outs of this "The NAD is likely to shut down tomorrow" scaremongering, because we have time and licence, but all she can do is to try to write interestingly for the commission.
Unfortunately her interesting writing implies some scientific evidence which does not exist......yet!
Paul
Your comments are appreciated. However, I would like to share with you two sites that may question your last sentence.
http://www.essc.psu.edu/~bjhaupt/posters/i...ll/icp6msz.html
(Perhaps you could review the authors credentials before discrediting him.)
and
http://radiocarbon.ldeo.columbia.edu/research/deepwater.htm
snowsure
Thanks to Prof R Spicer and Dr Sumner of the Open University for help with the above.
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Janet Sumner is repeating the Hollywood end of GW producing a shutdown of the NAD/thermohaline circultion, snowsure. It is an almost flippant comment to illustrate her article on Glacial and Interglacial periods (she is a vulcanologist, not a climatologist). The article is not written for an academic audience, at all and I suspect she's thrown this in as a parting comment, to stimulate the reader into further thought (maybe, with a bit of luck!). It stimulates me to thinking; "why on earth did she say that", when the amount of scientific evidence for the Gulf Stream slowing, due to this extra melting, is precisely nil.
Paul
Dawlish
As a vulcanologist whose research area is environmental impact of volcanic activity, isn't D Sumner well placed to comment on such matters as climate change?
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SS,
GG theory is a matter of physics. Climate change is a branch of either applied physics which happens to have broader common relevance. Not sure, therefore, that the two are, as you seem to be suggesting, mutually inclusive.
SF
It is always nice to have you comment on one of my posts. I learn from our exchanges.
So tell me this:
Is GG and GW more to do with Geography than Physics? In the scheme of works for secondary education in England, it (climate) appears in Geography rather than Physics.
As far as the mutually incompatible side of the argument goes, if GHG were known of since the 1900's then a numpty would have noticed a link with GW. It is surely unthinkable to see that the GHG problem was acknowledged in the 70's without an interest in the climate, ergo an indication of GW occuring.
Your comments on the following are invited:
http://www.open2.net/landscapemysteries/big_freeze_p.html
especially the last paragraph. The author? Dr Janet Sumner, a research fellow at the Open University.
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...but I'm sure there wasn't a consensus a ice age was only years away...
It did fill the media (newspapers and TV), so the attempt to create interest existed. Whether it was embraced by a majority of the population or not surely mirrors the reception of GW today!
Time will tell.
However
seems contradictory; Either climate change was of interest (ghg theory) or it wasn't.I don't think climate change was much of interest at all then (I'm just old enough to remember). Also, ghg theory is both long estsablished and accepted - therefore it would not be crackpot in the 1970's.It can't be both.
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I'm not sure what you are getting at. My comment, an observation culled from 20 years or more going to this area, is just that an observation not, as you seem to suggest, a forecast of what will happen in the future.
John
John
There is no malice in my post. On re-reading, I can see how it could mis-represent my intent. Sorry for any confusion.
I linked your obvious knowledge and intellect regarding the climate with your statement that it could always snow above 6000ft and assumed that this was fact, not just a mere observation. If it were fact then your 2 comments would be incompatible.
I have kept a weather diary since 1994 and note rare events such as the snow in Mannlichen (rare in that it has not happened before whilst I have been monitoring it). It may be that it has snowed in mid July at, say, Murren whilst Mannlichen stayed snow free thus keeping your observational theory intact.
I am a micro-global recorder of weather events. As such, I know that July 11th 2004 was the coldest July day on record for several UK locations. It helps me keep a bit of perspective!
For anyone wanting to look at part of the Alps above 6000ft, click on http://www.swisspanorama.com/
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yep its the Jungfrau.
It can snow above about 6000ft anytime of the year, quite common in June, the early part, less so in July or August but it does happen. Its a beautiful area, fell in love with about 40 years ago.
j
Is the above expected to change with the advent of GW?
Will this anytime-snowfall level rise, thus making the snow line recede?
If so, then the above statement goes against GW, doesn't it?
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lovely thought provoking post snowsure
Why thank you John!
I assume your image is of the Jungfrau. Beautiful area. They had some major snow at Mannlichen 2 years ago on the 11th July. Quite unusual and thought provoking!
Snowsure
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On the contrary, noggin, I'm fascinated by the subject. I have been arguing that the crackpots on Iceagenow should be ignored for a long time. It is not just me, in the scientific community, that thinks very little of the site and there is no wonder!
Paul
Just playing devils advocate here.
Imagine that it is the 1970's and the internet is alive and well. The consesus is that the ice-man cometh. You see, tucked away in the deepest recesses of the world wide web, a site called globalwarmingnow.com
On it, people speak of an impending run away warming cycle due to greenhouse gases, perhaps as a throw-back to the industrial revolution.
Someone then dares to call them crackpots and suggests that it is a site for people who just want to see warming events because they enjoy summer.
Does it sound ridiculous?
Boot, other foot, etc, etc.
PS this type of historical consideration is called "Counterfactual history" so do not discredit the technique please.
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...There isn't a scrap of evidence for underwater volcaonoes increasing in their output and, as snowbear correctly and knowledgeably points out, there would, almost certainly, have been a corresponding increase in the output of continental volcanoes which would have been well documented by the USGS and would have everyone in the world rightly worried. We're not. It very, very probably ain't happening...
...Again, it is real pinch of reality territory. There is nothing to say that underwater volcanoes are certainly not responsible for ocean warming and therefore Global Warming; but weigh up the possibilities of it being correct before telling us of the consequences of it being correct, is what I'd say to Bob Felix - and others on the edge of scientific reality.
Paul
It is always good to read your posts Dawlish as they appear to be laced with incisive comments. However you have left just a little gap there by saying everyone in the world would be worried.
GW is a real phenomena and I know plenty of people who are not bothered by it.
You have not factored in apathy, the true cause of global problems.
Also you have failed to factor in politically influenced scientific research (or politically influenced ignorance.)
Other than that, it is nice to see this old-chestnut explored again!
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Having studied many of the peer-reviewed articles on climate change and the causes of it, my opinion has now changed. My standpoint was one of "GW will cause GC thus ending this inter-glacial."
I have always assumed that it is AGW coinciding with, and forcing, natural cycles.
However, now that I have arrived at an opinion that GW will not cause GC, I do not feel as though anything is resolved. Instead of freezing to death I assume that we will all die due to flood, fire or plague.
Glad I spent all my time researching this!
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OP that is a pretty poor piece of supposed argument:
1. It very nearly constitutes simple ad hominem abuse (an attack on an individual who propounds an argument as opposed to a refutation of the argument itself;
2. The second half of the emboldened sentence does not bear any link that I can see with the first half and arguably contradicts it.
You do neither yourself nor your arguments any justice by such poor posts...
Regards
ACB
Do any of OPs arguments regarding cooling events on the Asian continent have any merit in your opinion? I think that they challenge the fact that GW may have caused a warmer winter event in North America. ie It is purely a shifting of climate "bands" that we are witnessing.
Can anyone answer why?
If you can and it is not refuted by the scientific community then you have solved it. If not, it remains conjecture.
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ACB's post was excellent and I don't really think, with all due respect, you've dealt with his points adequately; although you have made a couple of valid ones.
7. NAD shutdown would be pretty bad news for UK PlC. Fortunately I think it's as likely as being able to walk to the moon.
2. There is no proven causal link between snow cover and temperatures, although Metcheck do persist in using the idea. But more to the point, snow cover high up may occur, but places lower down would experience less cover and, geographically, that means less landmass snow coverage (lower areas would see snow cover spread over a wider surface area). This is not abstract. Excellent snowfall in the Rockies this year, but places which normally have snow cover for 3 months over wide areas had zilch (eg the Calgary plain).
I didn't attempt to adequately deal with his points, I just wished to add a caveat to them.
Thank you for keeping your comments non-personal as that contributes to a useful debate.
Point 7 is not your finest hour though. How possible is it to walk to the moon? How likely is a NAD slowdown? Do the 2 equate?
Also point 2 appears to ignore the albedo effect. Or have I miss-read your comments?
Valid points otherwise.
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This ice age-cometh nonsense is becoming tedious as it is not backed up by either logical argument or empirical data...can we please take on board the pertinent points made ad nauseam:
1. one average to slightly cooler winter/early spring in the Uk does not indicate of itself a change to the 1940-1975 colling, still less "The little Ice Age" much less the next ice age.
2. Increased snowfall in high latitudes/mountainous areas in the mid-latitudes may often result from milder winters [warmer air, all else being equal, can carry more moisture which, providing the warming is not utterly catastrophic, will mean a tendency to increased snowfall], as opposed to colder winters.
3. Take at the very least a continental and preferably a hemispheric and not a parochial national/regional view of winter weather.
4. Do not fall into the trap of quoting, out of context, a weeks severe weather in Florence/Athens/Vallodolid or wherever as evidence of anything except the fact that even southern Europe (esp if inland/at altitude) can experience sever spells in some winters.
5. Although debate rages as to the appropriate length of time to measure climate change in human/historical time one or two or even a handful of cold winters whilst interesting proive very little as to long term trends.
6. A little intellectual humility never goes amiss (i.e. qualify assertions, admit contrary evidence and avoid grandstanding absolute assertions: they only invite ridicule from those who are a somewhat wiser).
7. Finally may we please stop the nonsense of wishing the North Atlantic Drift to disappear: first it would bring about a very damaging change to the economies of northern and north western Europe; and secondly, notwithstanding point one, it would be unlikely to bring about a climate similar to Labrador: we would still be an island(s) as oppsed to being part of as vast continental landmass stretching to the high arctic.
Regards
ACB
1 - A blip may be that. However it may be the start of a change of trend, a point of inflexion.
2 - Increased snowfall will increase the planetary albedo thus affecting the amount of warming experienced.
3 - If my car bursts into flames there is no sense in looking at my neighbours - or all the streets - cars and seeing if it is a general or specialised event. My car is still on fire!
4 - Freaky things happen (GW?)
5 - See point 1
6 - Good point for all sides to consider.
7 - This contradicts with some other comments on this excellent forum. i.e. "The NAD is a bit-player in the global climate machine." (Not my sentiment.) Will a major NAD decrease cause major or minor economic problems?
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Snowing in Doncaster.
There is no lying snow for it to add to but the Met Office have upgraded their Severe weather warning this morning to include areas of South Yorkshire that lie East of the A1.
100% Cloud cover here so the first significant snow event of the winter looks as though it is starting.
Global Warming
in Space, Science & nature
Posted
As I may have mentioned on one of my other posts, there is current peer-reviewed research regarding global cooling however it is not yet public-domain stuff so the laymen of this world do not know what they do not know (Courtesy of D.Rumsfeld).
I still think that many people lack a degree of relativity regarding climate change. It is such a highly subjective concept that it will never be agreed upon. Pretty much like when the weather presenters say "It is going to be horrible tomorrow" and then preceed to show frost and fog (a very nice weather type for some people.)
Show me a model from 5 years ago that predicted the last 5 years weather patterns with 100% accuracy and then I will assume that it will be accurate for the next few years. I await the proof.
On a slightly different note, can we not precipitate the CO2 out of the atmosphere with some sort of chemical bomb? Any advances on that are appreciated.
SS