Overhype on global warming

[Gray-Wolf]

Presumably then that will be why it's permanently summer at one pole whilst the sun never rises at the other will it? Perhaps, on reflection, you might ponder on why some of us on here are more inclined to listen to certain sources than others: being a "non-" anything clearly can't be relied on to add robustness to any argument if your foregoing logic is anything to go by.

It would have been quite possible to apply the crude logic used by the author to their plot of temperature and to have concluded in the mid 1980s that we were headed for an ice age. The fact that we have not exceeded (globally) the temperature reached in the late 1990s is hardly an argument for cooling, and most certainly not for the implicit hint of a cold winter to come in the last paragraph.

For a group of people (albeit biologists) claiming to protect scientific disciplines there's some fairly rough and ready science in there.

Hi S.F. for some folk there is only wisdom to be gained from hindsight, and only then if it can be used to predict 'future events/alignments'. Our climate ,and it's dynamic nature even before you add external forcings, is far too subtle and complex a beast to apply that methodology to and so when 'guides' are published folk treat them like they are meant to be 'Gospel' and pull holes in every flaw they find feeling this disproves everything (which, of course, it doesn't).

Ah well, each to their own I suppose!

[Stratos Ferric]

...Not sure I understand the bit about permanent summer at one of the poles. If a source of cosmic rays was approaching from say,the south,then that source would not vary. Though the effect may well be miniscule it would have a year on year effect. Obviously if cosmic rays were landing squarely at the equator then the effects would be equal at both poles?

The fact that we haven't exceeded the global temp of the late '90s is hardly a convincing case for ongoing global warming either.

Regards, LG.

LG, have you never studied the orbit of the planets in the solar system, nor pondered why we have seasons? For your suggestion to be valid one pole would need to be permanently facing the direction of incoming radiation, and the other permanently facing away. The earth, in its orbit around the sun, is subtended by around 23 degrees from the vertical. It is this tilt that causes the seasons and which accounts for the varying length of daylight during the year. The notion of cosmic rays constantly coming from "the south" is quite simply wrong (not that "south" has any sense anyway once you leave the earth's surface). The fact is, any incoming radiation from any static distant source will be spread more or less equally across the earth's surface during the year. It WILL vary day to day of course, because of the aforementioned tilt, but because this tilt is directionally constant during the earth's annual orbit around the sun parts of the surface that are eclipsed in one quadrant, are exposed in the opposite quadrant, and vice-versa.

The fact that we haven't exceeded 1998's high point globally is, at present, neither here nor there. At no point in the measured established record have new extremes been set back to back. All your argument there exposes is another flawed belief on your part which is that for the climate to warming globally each year MUST be warmer than the one that went before. That's like saying that for me to ne getting richer my bank balance must, every day, be more than it was the day before. Year to year climate oscillates around the mean; the thirty year mean (which levels out inter-annual fluctuations) is still rising. There will be some cause for those looking for cooling only when that long trend starts to turn down, and then stays there for 2-3 years.

[laserguy]

To be as close as makes no difference,the tilt of the Earth's axis is 23.45 degrees, or 23 degrees and 27 minutes. When I say 'south' I mean it figuratively, ie the intensity (or the reverse as the case may be) being the greatest at the south pole. Quite how any radiation emanating from a fixed point in space (whether it be from a quasar,remnants of an ancient supernova,black hole etc) can have an equal effect across the entire globe escapes me. Obviously the amount of radiation reaching the pole,be it north or south,would vary over the year as the Earth 'wobbles', but the radiation would nonetheless be concentrated at one pole and virtually absent at the other.

Asking whether I've studied the orbits of the planets or understand the seasons is really insulting my intelligence Stratos!

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Cosmic rays to affect the planet will rely on the solar magnetic field. The stronger the sunspot cycle, the less 'intrusion' of cosmic rays. We approach a minima in 25 years time...we'll see. Re the non linear warming well that to me favours natural warming. Like I say and maintain if CO2 was such a driver then year on warming 'should' be observed. It isn't such the driver as being pushed out. For example more CO2 should in the AGW camp inrease warmth, the fact that following years from a the record global temp year have been less warm indicate that other factors can and do override the CO2 signal. GW exists, I think CO2 does have a link but more as a consequence rather than causation but can stir the atmosphere.

BFTP