Iceberg

It does sound plausible, but the earth is in a rough neutral/balanced state. The warming example you give could happen in the summer when there is a positive balance, the reverse would happen in the winter, with a negative balance. But it should balance itself out, otherwise the earth would be in a permanent state of massive warming.... It's interesting there could be a re-occuring positive feedback mechanism of some description wrt solar.. I should point out though that one hasn't been found yet, which is why I currently think the AGW theory answers it to more of a degree.

I believe what the graph shows is the main reason for the emergence out of the little ice age. As Peter has already pointed out during this century things have been pretty stable (remember we are talking about 0.1% or so.) 2005 was at least according to that graph a solar minimum, but the year was extremely warm again. Taking the considerate line that Solar is responsible for alot of the heating pre-1950 then why is solar then heating post 1950 to the extent it is today. ?. Unlike as is portrayed by some people I am more than happy to look at other points, as P3 has suggested some science points towards 20-40% of the warming being attributed to solar, even allowing for some of the more unusual solar theories how do we account for the warming this decade.? An interesting article on water vapour. http://www.environmentaldefense.org/docume...or_onepager.pdf It shows that water vapour is successfully being modelled and is responding well to CO2 forcing. There doesn't seem to be any missing factor such as solar fluctuations.

Afternoon one and all. Somebody previously posted up a graph which I believe said we were currently in the solar minimum. If this is so why have we had a near record year again , last year ?. BTW if any of my kids had to watch the CH4 program at school I would not be a happy parent and would be demanding a meeting with the head ASAP. With all due respect alot of the people on here who think the AGW theory broadly right have thought so for a very long time, well before the media and governments became interested.

I agree we need a careful considered environment in which to post. Unfortunately a TV docusoap thread isn't going to be a good starting point. Hopefully none of the silly from both sides, including me will migrate from this thread to the rest of the forum.

Mondy has to view himself as a victim, it's the only way he can continue to ignore everything that's said. Shame really because various people have tried to give out olive branches.....

Missed the comment about Africa, as far as I know and have read, NO AFRICAN NATION has ever been told to reduce it's co2 emissions or been told to limit there CO2 emissions by ANY UN or IPCC related body or organisation. A none starter really and another grossly untrue statement by the program.

A couple of quick points. 1. Are the AGw sceptics ever going to agree that somethink on this program is rubbish or just wrong.? Everytime this is proven they change tack and never admit anything. shame really. 2. This Funding issue is complete rubbish lot's of climate research is funded that is not related to AGW, Argo float measuring, understanding the artic and antarctic more, studies on the varied ecosystems we have in this country and mapping to show the species involved. etc etc. The amount of money that goes to direct AGW research is tiny. It's all about understanding our climate better.IF you support a premiership team, I will almost bet it gets more money to spend than AGW research in this country. The AGW theory is not perfect by a long way, it's constantly being adapted and changed as our understanding of the climate increases. Research in to the forcings on temperature are huge including solar (mostly solar) which is why we have so many studies, most people that conclude it's down to natural cycles site solar, the thing is no research has ever shown this. A lot of the reseach can't be replicated and even more of it is just plain wrong i.e Mr landscheidt. The graph in the program showing the lag between co2 and warming was just plain wrong. There is no lag between them of 800 years, there is a possible lag of 80 years on a time scale dating 450k. But this is due to the nature of the co2 (i.e it's natural and the postive forceback mechanisms.) Scientists have known about this lag for 20 years and have a tried, repeatable, accepted, peer reviewed answer for it.(conviently left out of the ch4 program !). Now programs and people make mistakes, Al Gore slipped up when he mentioned mossies. but this program is one long slide with errors that any A-level student in geology or environment science could identify.

Some of the attacks on here are way over the top IMO. Firstly if you believe that Maggie was responsible for the AGW thoery taking hold then your a few screws loose of flatpack IMO. The temp/co2 issue, do you honestly believe that 1000's of scientists have looked at the graph and never noticed before this lag, but suddenly CH4 come along and notice it. Bl**dy hell fantastic journo's there do you think they questioned an 18 year old Environmental student. Do we really think that nobody noticed this and didn't think to question it. But then the sceptics obviously think that all of these scientists are in the pay of the mad bad governments just to give them an excuse to raise taxes. On to the stupidity of the bias of the IPCC, yes the scientist wanted to remove his name becuase he didn't get what we wanted, it still didn't change the fact the he still argued and contributed to it, notice CH4 were still happy to say he was an IPCC contributor. As to the threat of legal action, he could simply have been a loud mouthed yank who threated legal action in the first statement he made to them, we just don't know but if you want to take one person's word as gospel (somebody who has lied in the past I might add), then so be it. CH4 made some interesting prog's about the faking of the moon landings, aliens and the face on mars, very entertaining and I would put this is the same vain. I've got a feeling when this program is repeated the sceptics will say that it's another piece of evidence in the GW debate, if they want more evidence they could lauch a school competition and get 11-14 yo to write a short article on why GW is wrong. I am sure that would last them for years. Funny how all the people that thought this a fantastic real life program have ignored this, the truth is almost all the program was rubbish, wrong and misleading in the extreme. Matt

Matt's going to Bed he's got to get up bl**dy early in the morning for a bl**dy 2 hr meeting in London.

But there is no science, not even the authors of the piece of research into solar emissions and clouds claims it accounts for the warming.... That's quite true but it's not peer reviewed and the similar studies at 20-30 sites don't back it up. Data in the last 5 years certainly doesn't back it up. The program was basically sour grapes, the sceptics are all white as white the evil AGW supports all in league with Maggie and her millions. The sceptics are hounded and get nowhere, but somehow they all manage to keep there jobs at universities. It was almost a spoof documentary I wonder whether C4 are really taking the left trouser leg out of the sceptics interviewed....

ahhh yes, it's obvious that the developed world is using the AGW theory to limit development for Africa, it's nothing to do with corrupt governments, exploitation, trade barriers in farming etc. The IPCC report does not say that the MWP was warmer than today. Also interesting that they think all climate scientists have been brought and corrupted by money..... As for the sun thoery, they should put there money were there mouth is and release it in a peer reviewed paper, but I forgot the science is flawed so they can't and instead peddle it in books, newspapers and media outlets. There is room for a program giving the other side's view but this isn't it Yet !.

Very disappointed so far, lack of science is very frustration. At least it's brought out all the good old discredited sceptics like Cristy. A few untrue's such as the comment about the limiting of the developing world and Africa. The bit about the MWP was just wrong, the good old argument that climate is always changing. Anyway it will please people that value talk over science.........

I am glad the program is on, lets see if I can find anything good to say about it later. Matt

Another thing to add. Think of greenhouses gases as a rainbow, each colour/band represents a different gas. Each band will absorb a slightly different frequency of Longwave radiation with a small overlap between them, hence the band of water vapour although by far the largest band doesn't block a lot of heat, again hence the importance of the smaller quantities of GHG like CO2.

It might be worth saying that the heat level is constant/balanced because only so much absorbsion can take place by the Greenhouse layer.

Nobody is saying that people that don't believe in AGW are ignorant. And I feel that we really need to move away from this right/wrong black/white argument, nobody is saying that anybody is wrong to not agree with the AGW theory. It's a theory you can agree and disagree as you like. Just felt I needed to make myself clear above just in case we get any more statements of it's not fair. But If you claim x,y,z i.e GW is due to natural cycles then's it's quite right for somebody to challenge that statement. If we argee that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that might cause warming, how should we go about measuring the effects of our increase in CO2 ?

Head and sand come to mind but..... The IPCC has proved consistantly wrong, in that it has erred on the side of caution and underestimated the effects of AGW. Sorry forgot the thread title so will restrain myself.....

The difference between the AGW theory and the likes of Newton etc is that back then we went through the Age of Enlightenment, we are nolonger in that Age as the basics fundamentals are now know and agreed. "So far the prediction models have proved to be wildly in the wrong so is it fair to argue/challenge that it's premature to say that the science linking human CO2 to GW is undeniable, undesputeable? That really is the jist of the thread in a nutshell." Only in the mind of a true sceptic :blink: . The IPCC said that it was very likely not 100% likely. Nobody argues that's it's undeniable, undesputeable. This is whether the sceptics really lose IMO rather than arguing the science they build up these straw men, knock them down and then claim an important victory. BTW has anybody a reference to a piece of Peer reviewed science in the last 2/3 years which does not in some way support the AGW theory.?

Souce of funding does not matter as long as the science is peer reviewed at the end of it, rather than released as an un-peer reviewed paper, I think this is where funding does come into it.

The cooling period in question was I believe due to a number of forcings, partly pollution (thought to have been caused partly by the mass industrialization after the and during the second world war). If you want scientific papers, which from the tone of your post above your not likely to believe anyway I'd suggest visiting the IPCC website first as this negative forcing in included in many of their predictions including AR4. Other factors are natural cycles (yes they do exist !), natural PDO cycles etc favoured cooling at this point in time (in the same way they favoured warming before this and after this). Also solar forcings during this period helped to bring temps down. This is where it backs up the theory that current warming is not natural. With all respect your memory might be failing you with the 70's Ice age thoery. Firstly it was a new fashionable theory It had very little scientific study behind it and our understanding of Climate was in it's infancy. The body of scientists that agreed with the theory was nothing like the number of scientists that now agree with AGW, there was nothing like the IPCC either. It was basically a small group of 20-30 scientists (mostly British) which was then pounced on by the Media, many other scientists viewed it with interest but nothing more. I'd suggest reading the thread on the history of the AGW theory, then you might see that the AGW theory has over 100 years of science behind it. Science and Scientists work with levels of confidence, not facts that's left to School children looking at books. I know alot of people have a problem with the way the media represents AGW, but this is not the fault of the Scientists or the IPCC or even the theory, like most things in life I would say try and view the world without letting the media bias you too much. But as you say whether you want to let the media effect you too much is up to you.

I've delibrately stayed away because that was the wish of the author. Would not make sense in the view of friendship to start a thread where the Pro AGW's me included can express any concerns they have with the AGW argument. ?, it's current predictions and the way it's manipulated by the Media. For starts I think there is a good chance that the warming we have experienced so far is partly enhanced by Synoptic changes, caused by stratospheric cooling, again a by product of AGW, if this is true we can expect the warmer to have peaked for the next decade or so.

I do a few things, upgraded all bulbs to low energy ones, reduced heating (saving over £200 pounds so far.) Run with a cheap high mpg car. etc. I don't however do a great deal of recycling and here's why. My office is currently getting rid of a whole load of computers and they are recycling them, the old units will get shipped to india where the components will get stripped off, the old boards will then be sold on to a much smaller unit in India, where they will try to remove the solder, copper etc. How will they do this, well the custom is to employee children between 7-12 yrs old to dip the boards into acid to lossen the valuable bits. Notice none of these children are over 12, quite simply it's because they don't live that long........... Only do recycling if you are bloody sure that a) it doesn't take more energy to recycle than not to and you know the entire chain of the recycling !. You are much better reducing your consumption in the first place. Having three young kids the nappy issue bothered me as well, Waitrose do a very good nappy that fully decomposes, be carefull to buy the same nappy bags as well though !, they also do wipes. Expensive but worth it.

It does seem like a bit of a slippery slop (no pun intended !). Increase slippage of the Major iceflow into Ross increases stress leading to more cracking and fractures. Increase basel slippage of Ross and it's protective areas. Increase meltwater on the surface of Ross leading to more drainage down the increasing cracking and fractures. More weakening etc. The only thing that's really going to reverse it is a decade or so of less precip and less summer melting (like that's going to happen), and in the meantime things will only get worse, still up in the air though what worse is. Matt

I am still trying to find more about it GW, like you. It seems like everything else in Nature, these large icesheets are very fragile, you get the feeling that they can stand a few years of increase warming or increased precip through a stronger South polar Jet, but can they withstand 10-20 years of this in a row........

New day, new evidence. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6364577.stm Giant "blisters" containing water that rapidly expand and contract have been mapped beneath the Antarctic ice sheet. The results, published in the journal Science, show that some areas fell by up to 9m (30ft) over just two years. "We didn't realise that the water under these ice streams was moving in such large quantities, and on such short time scales," said Dr Helen Fricker of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, and one of the authors of the paper. "We thought these changes took place over years and decades, but we are seeing large changes over months." The results are important for understanding how the Antarctic Ice sheet, which contains nearly 90% of the world's ice, may respond to global warming and how much it may contribute to sea level rise. I wonder what happens when these rivers grow by a) increase speed of ice movement and B) greater warming ? Maybe a Larsen mark 2. Finally http://www.igsoc.org/journal/53/180/ If you've got a bit of spare money or just want access to the latest papers a very good site. Matt