weather eater

That did cross my mind, glasses and tables in all directions.

I think you miss the point TWS is not in the AGW camp at least not in the way you are in the anti AGW camp, all he is saying is he believes that climate is influenced by many factors one of which is CO2 and he like many climate scientist's think this is may be a crucial factor in our present climate, which it may or may not be true But at this point of time and with our depth of knowledge it is a reasonable argument and theory (note I say theory not fact because it is not an undisputed fact) It is not unreasonable to say that AGW is a valid theory any more than it would be unreasonable to suggest that CO2 is not as important as the IPCC would have us believe. He is also willing to say he could be profoundly wrong and that the tools and data we are using are not by any stretch good enough and maybe profoundly flawed . In fact I would suggest he borders on agnostic re climate change and his mind is open to the fact that the picture is incomplete As far as I can see most of the members on these threads are decent people and deserve respect for their views Lets debate the issues and get away from black and white circular arguments and I'm right you're wrong. Tamara and I hope she forgives me if I am wrong, is firmly in the camp of CO2 is not as important as the IPCC make out, that is a fair and valid opinion and she uses some good arguments to make her case and draws attention to other factors which may be far more important but its also fair to question those arguments. Personally I think CO2 maybe influencing the climate in a major way, Why because CO2 is a greenhouse gas and we have released into the atmosphere over the last 150 years or so, billions of tons of CO2 that were laid down over a long period of time and stored under the earth for billons of years I find it doubtful that this is not effecting our climate the question is how much, I would be delighted to be wrong and say so. It is also true to say that CO2 as Tamara has pointed out, has been in the atmosphere in higher concentrations than we see in today’s climate but it would also be true to say that the climate has also been estimated as substantially hotter maybe as much as 6 degrees, although that also may be open to debate and rather simplistic because other factors would come into play, ocean circulation comes to mind when dealing with say the cretaceous period and increased volcanism might also have a dimming effect, the difficulty of understanding past climate I think shows the difficulty of future climate modelling, if you are unsure how climate behaved in the past its difficult to model for the future. Within the context of debate it is reasonable and indeed necessary to question the data and the way that data has been interpreted by the climate models, and its not unreasonable to question the motives of some of the scientist's involved, on all sides of the debate. What I think defiantly unreasonable is to label all the scientist's or members of this forum who believe either in CO2 being a major player in our climate or support the idea that it is a possibility that it might be, of having their snouts in the trough or being condescending as you do. Some may be condescending but I Don’t see TWS as one of those, just frustrated at being misinterpret. And that’s the problem on any forum, being misread or interpreted and I think this is what frequently happens at times on the climate threads. If we were all face to face I’m sure that these problems would be rare indeed . For Tamara and TWS I don’t think their positions are as far apart as it might appear by the tone of their posts.

I appreciate that VP and maybe I should have sent you a PM this morning to clarify what you meant. In truth I am better read in the area of climate history than in the theory’s of climate change its why I don’t dismiss the idea of natural cycles and I think that people underestimate how dramatic they can be, what seems harder to ascertain is the trigger mechanism for those changes and dates for when changes occur. The medieval warm period depending on who you read is said to have ended in 1315 that year and for the following two the summers were incredibly wet and the winter of 1317/18 was bitterly cold, but we did not jump straight from the medieval warm period to the little ice age rather the climate became far more unpredictable. For your research I wonder if we can find how far back records for carbon 14 go as there is a correlation between C14 and sunspot activity, low sunspots high C14, a tree ring analysis for C14 the De Vries fluctuation matches almost exactly with the Maunder Minimum.

I had forgotten just what a rude person you are, And I don’t sit in with the pro AGW or the anti AGW camps I am a true sceptic, what I thought and I guess wrongly was that this exercise was to put some meat on bones and avoid the endless circular discussions that go on elsewhere I did not realise it was just an excuse to fit evidence around a pre-conceived conclusion, AGW is a myth. The fact that I don’t feel at this point of time that I have nothing constructive to add does not mean that I don’t understand what is being said. and I would suggest you adopt a less dismissive and patronising tone and remove your head from where it appears to be.

VP the LI page is really good and very interesting I think the lack of posts maybe because of the technical aspects of the thread rather than lack of interest. if I thought I had something relevant to say on it I would and I think that goes for many.

They are provided they make it clear that what is being expressed is an opinion and not a fact, to many on both sides of the argument have tried to disguise opinion as fact, the most common statement at this point of time is that AGW is a myth, actually its a theory and thus neither fact nor fiction. The question that governments have to address is what are the consequences of doing nothing if the theory turns out to be true, is it better to act now or wait to see what happens and how serious are things likely to get if we don’t act. Its a bit like the swine flu situation, it might amount to very little the scientific advice is that there is a real danger of a pandemic if that happens and governments have failed to act in advance they will be accuses of ineptitude and failing to heed the warnings of the scientists. Rightly or wrongly the scientific consensus at this point of time is that AGW is not a myth, that may change indeed the questioning of that theory seems to be becoming more rigorous. Its worth saying also despite the often heated exchanges on this site I doubt whether any members would be unhappy if AGW turned out to be a myth, most of us want to see cold winters.

Herein lays the problem, you say the fudging of data is rife in climate science but climate science is more than just about AGW, climate science is about climate past present and future, I take it that you don’t think the data on past climate is fudged or data that supports natural cycles being the prime driver of climate or data that may prove AGW is a myth is fudged, only the data that supports AGW is fudged. I also presume that you think the reason for this is because any climate scientist that supports AGW theory is in the pay of money grabbing governments and business men and any that don’t are fair honest and would never take money to tell untruths. I have no doubt that we have much to learn and that work is needed to improve climate modelling but to suggest that any scientist who doesn’t share your point of view as some kind money raking fraud is just stupid and does nothing for debate and the search for the truth. As an idea it might be wise for the mods to remove any posts that use the terms deniers, warmists and any other emotive terms plus any other posts that demean members intellects just because they see things differently.

Yep it would be nice if we could move on from the premise that the science is settled in support of one theory or the other, the truth is there is much that we don’t know about the influence on our climate of the sun, CO2, and any number of other factors. The Leaky Integrator thread is very interesting and better reading than the constant black and white discussions that go on in the other two threads, general and politics and while I have yet to make a comment on the leaky thread its only because I don’t feel that I have any thing useful to add at the moment.

Does that include the ones who advocate natural cycles.

Which one was it who scoffed all the pies. is there just the one.

The papers are now on the trail of a possible future global cooling this from today’s independent http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/...ll-1674630.html The next few years will be interesting, so many variables and gaps in our knowledge to fill over the next few years, My own view is that both factors are at work but would be more than happy to find out that natural forcings are the main driver in our climate.

I hate to be pedantic but isn’t that what was said last year, hale winter and all that, and yes it turned out to be colder than recent winters but memorable it was not, in fact pretty average at least for us and northern Europe. Put it this way I use a motorbike to get to a lot of my work, I live at nearly 200m about 8 miles from Buxton reputedly one of the snowiest towns in Britain, I only left the bike at home about 4 times this winter. Tundra nobody would like to see more than I, that its all a natural cycle and AGW is all myth I love cold and snowy winters and I like to see someone so sure of things, but the one thing I've learnt about climate is that nothing is that predictable and that next winter whether cold or mild will not settle the argument 2015 has been mentioned a fair amount recently and a clear and significant cooling trend leading up to that point is what I would like to see if CO2 driven AGW is to be debunked. As for artic ice, while updates are interesting the maximum summer melt will be the real talking point.

And what if successive doctors kept telling you the same thing.

Sorry pass that one past me again, what all of them or just selected ones that don't agree with you. lets be clear here, climate scientists and paleoclimatologists are working on both AGW and natural cycles, computers have been used to study both future and past climate. You cannot have it both ways either the analysis’s of past and future climate by climate models is deeply flawed or it is not, if the models are flawed then neither argument has any validity and all that is being expressed on these pages is opinions not facts and if the models are not deeply flawed then both natural cycles and AGW are at play. I rather think this is what most of the experts in this field believe and have indeed factored in natural variations into their analysis. personally I find it hard to take seriously somebody who describes professional scientists who have spent years trying to make head or tale of a very complex natural system as misguided and blinkered because their professional view differs from his own amateur one.

Which one, or do you mean climate scientist's in general aren’t climate scientist's behind the theory’s of natural cycles as well.

If that is the case then the same could be said of our knowledge of natural cycles, patchy, vague, potentially flawed and not enough detailed data to be accurate. so the same junk in junk out argument would apply. Says who, and what method did they use to find this out or is it just a scientific theory arrived at by use of a climate model.

While even the sceptics admit there has been warming could they please provide evidence of cooling, not just a levelling out of global temperatures. I don’t mean predictions of cooling or so and so are back tracking from their predictions of warming etc, they are no more relevant than predictions of warming. As I say regardless of what you believe the causes to have been, nobody can deny that the planet has warmed. As a believer in both natural cycles and AGW I’m not interested in the claim and counter claim of CO2 vs. natural variations predictions for the future, I have witnessed the warming I would like to see hard evidence of genuine cooling.

Seems to be a lot of back slapping on this thread based on a cooling that has yet to occur, yes we have seen a levelling off in regards of global temperatures but as yet I've seen very little evidence of a genuine cooling, maybe that will come, but the scientific evidence on all sides of this issue are so clouded with doubt, this coupled with the need for several years of evidence that cooling is occurring in a sustainable way, leads me to suggest that congratulations would be better put on hold. To use an analogy, the car is moving at 60mph the fact that over the last couple of miles is hasn’t got any faster is not evidence that its slowing down, even if you were to say its now doing 55mph that doesn’t suggest the brakes are on in any meaningful way. I have to say as well that the idea that AGW theory is some sort of conspiracy is just palpable nonsense and frankly an insult to many decent and honest members of the scientific communities who struggle with this complex and difficult subject. It rather suggests a paucity of irrefutable contrary evidence by the sceptics at this point of time. As somebody who is a sceptic on all angles of this issue I see far to many unjustifiable told you so posts, a lack of real debate and to many posts, especially from the anti's with links to web pages which are high on conspiracy theory's and derogatory rhetoric towards proponents of AGW but with little reliable scientific evidence to demonstrate their own theories. Its all very well to say that AGW theory has holes in it, frankly given the complexity of the subject not to mention the vast time scales involved in the study of earths climate it would be rather odd if it did not, however any study of the planets climate is going to be patchy and that’s true for theory’s about climate cycles, the fact that theory’s of natural cycles have been around longer than AGW theory does not give them more validity and certainly does not refute the idea that both might be in play.

Ho hum not so much scepticism as lets not worry about it and hey we cant afford it and if prof Dyson believes that GW is bunk what does he need to CO2 sucking super trees for, could it be that Mr Dyson is not so much one of the finest minds on the planet but at 85 going a bit batty.

Thank you Chris I did indeed read them, of course the trouble with all this stuff from both sides of the argument is that it is made up of data which can be used to present whatever answer you want as indeed Mr Carter rightly points out, unfortunately this is being done by both sides of the debate and leaves the true sceptic (by that I mean somebody who really is unsure who to believe) none the wiser. If we look at a small section of climate history the little ice age, there is still much debate over dates and areas effected about 1650 seems to be a popular start date but others put it much earlier when the climate began the change from the medieval warm period, also location seems to play a part in defining when the LIA began making it at times a local rather than global event. The point being when I hear people say the science behind AGW is not settled or misinterpreted or even just plan wrong the same applies to the science behind natural cycles as I pointed out in my earlier post, my own view is that it’s a combination of the two. The consensus of opinion is that we are entering into a cooling period and we have indeed seen a levelling off in global temperatures but as yet I see no true fall, thus it seems to me the next few years are crucial to those that maintain that natural cycles are the important factor behind the warming, the warming that all sides of the debate agree has happened. Of course science in relation to climate and climate history is an on going learning curve and that leads in my mind to major doubts over the credibility of the arguments from both camps on the climate thread. My worry is that in-action on the possible implications of climate change will lead us to digging a hole that it might be impossible to get out of if the AGW camp are right. And indeed the more I’ve read about Natural cycles the more worried I become as there seems to a growing consensus amongst paleoclimatologists that the earths climate can shift very quickly indeed in response to drivers we don’t yet understand thus it becomes less important as to whether CO2 is the driving factor behind climate change but whether its contributing to it in a substantial way. In other words the dangers of AGW are being enhanced by natural cycles rather than negated.

Thanks for that Chris, just looked him up, seems he has a few iffy connections including these people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Public_Affairs and that makes him suspect to my mind, do you know of any others who are proven free of political agendas. As soon as the words right wing or left wing think tank appear I suspect bullsh*****

It was not a foot of snow, full stop I was there, but it did jam the city up, mainly because of people going home early and clogging the roads up so the gritters couldn’t get through. My favourites all in Norfolk, 78/79 snow New Years Eve, after leaving the pub a crowd of us went to the local police station and challenged them to a snow ball fight, building an igloo big enough to fit 3 or 4 teenagers in comfortably and trying to tunnel our way through snow drifts 5/6 feet high. 81/82 hitchhiking my way home in a blizzard with the A11 down to one carriageway and just getting home before the drifts closed the road altogether, 87 was pretty good in Norwich as well. Can’t say I've seen snow of any real note since then. a couple of moderate falls up here this year but nothing special.

Firstly a good debate all round, but I have to agree with this post, if you set out a proposition whether it be natural cycles or AGW you must exhibit evidence to make your case. I would still like to know if any paleoclimatologists are sceptics and if not why not because surely their knowledge is central to the debate. As I understand it much evidence of sudden climate shifts is now coming to light outside of known climate cycles and there is much debate on what was the driving force behind those shifts, also we have no idea how much forcing is necessary to tip us into a sudden climate shift it seems to me to be likely that our actions could tip the balance if they go on unchecked and it is possible that they have already done so, time as ever will tell.

Do you mean you don’t agree with the science or dispute the interpretation of the mathematics involved, because I can find even with a quick internet search reams of information on how CO2 drives global warming and if you believe that science to be wrong or inadequate what are your qualifications to make that call. As far as I can see the important thing here is not what’s driving GW but are CO2 emissions making a substantial difference in escalating that warming. If you believe that the driving force behind the warming that we have seen is natural fluctuations in the planets climate, can you prove this is the case because if you can’t then your case has no more validity than the proponents of AGW have for theirs. I also repeat the question I posed earlier how many of the experts in natural climate fluctuations are sceptics, I have a sneaky suspicion that its not many of them. In truth the problem for all sides of the debate is the paucity of the time scale in relation to the earths climate that accurate data is available for, we can loosely access past climate by ice core etc and we know that sudden climate shifts do happen but we can only speculate on the driving forces behind those shifts. It is always worrying when man starts to meddle in things he does not understand clearly, especially when dealing with potentially chaotic systems.

An excellent point, for the open minded viewer of the climate change threads the for or against augments are a deep turn off, what we have are any number of people with an entrenched view point looking for evidence to justify that view point, nobody is willing to face the idea that both man made and natural forcings may be both at play, as I have said before many of the scientists who are convinced by the AGW argument are experts in climate change and that includes natural forcing, indeed many of them are the source of what we know about natural forcing. It could also be said that the evidence we have for natural forcing is sketchy, we have no true long term record of sun spot activity it may well have been completely different 1000 years ago, most of our information about past climate change comes from ice cores, geology, tree rings pollen deposits etc. What would be interesting to know is how many Paleoclimatologists are AGW sceptics they after all the are the most expert in past climate.