Polar Ice sets new minimum

[Chris Knight]

I mean that it will eventually destroy us; but we have to remember that we can provoke it into reaction to our inputs and its reaction can be far bigger than anything we can imagine or cope with.

Basically I'm saying; the earth does have the last say....but whether it is catastrophic or merely moderating\regulatory depends on the extent of our abuse\respect for it.

You are saying that you don't know what you are really saying it seems! Do you really believe in "it"

It has a name "Gaia", some call it.

If I were you I'd be telling myself to shut up before I had said something that made me look stupid:) (apart from the goofy photo)

oops too late;)

Edited April 8, 2008 by Chris Knight

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

With an attitude like that....we're all heading to hell in a hand cart.

China's human rights record, its mass bulldozing of homes without consultation and rampant mass production for the majority of stuff which we DONT need to buy. Its a disgrace...and you are helping to fuel it.

My wife's partner is a very nice, warm friendly person. He has similar folk in his homeland...so what are you saying..punish them? Be careful PP that sounds like a 'tarnish all with the same brush' stance and you sailing too close to the wind with personal attack. I am sure many many would like to see the HR vastly improved so would many Chinese...but people have to survive and get on. This is a weather related forum and topic...not a political soap box.

Richard, I agree. Whatever we do that has affect on climate will ultimately be overridden with 'frightening' ease.

BFTP

Edited April 8, 2008 by BLAST FROM THE PAST

[VillagePlank]

So we're doomed then.

Nah, you are, though. Fortunately, I am building my interstellar spaceship, to be crewed by Elvis and Diana, so I'll be out of here, well before catastrophe hits.

[Gray-Wolf]

I'd agree with P.P. that our way of being is doomed. Humans, on the whole, abhor change and even more so if it is enforced change. The global population does have it's crew of forwards thinkers and planners but the majority of folk either live hand to mouth and never have the opportunity to plan ahead or are so closeted in their comforts that to take them away is akin to taking a rattle from a baby (and maybe has exactly the same emotional roots).

If I may be so bold as to predict the immediate future then I would say that as our impact on climate becomes ever more apparent (in both science and events) and countries promise to take action the populations will go on B.A.U. The govt. pledges will turn out to be so many paper tigers and by the time of the first major inundations and mass evacuations/Exodus's we'll still be demanding our PS3's ,I Pods and new motors (to drive on the 'new roads' currently in planning).

In Vietnam media crew wore jackets saying 'Non Com observer' and I feel , insofar a AGW is concerned, that I've been wearing mine for 20 years now.......at least here we're sorted for when the pooh hits the spinny thing.................

Edited April 8, 2008 by Gray-Wolf

[Mr Sleet]

I'm pretty sure the chart I posted shows a very strong link between CO2 and temp.

I didn't say it shows CO2 causes temp change

But very clearly it disputes your chart and contention that there is no connection at all between CO2 and temp

Essan, have you been a pedant all your life or do we have the NW forum to thank for that ?

Edited April 8, 2008 by Mr Sleet

[Essan]

No, I've always been a rather annoying pedant

[laserguy]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...99-7583,00.html

And also!:

http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002906.html

Best bit of this,as is often the case,are the comments following the main item.

[BrickFielder]

Well first off with sunspot decline due to the natural sunspot cycle we really should expect temperatures to moderate somewhat since 1998 so I find that a bit misleading. The height of the article is some work done by Roy Spencer on global warming who in essence is suggesting CO2 does warm the planet but as it warms weather patterns change to cool things down again.

Roy Spencer on Global Warming

Interesting he has some strong views on intelligent design as opposed to evolution as well.

Personally I have a lot of sympathy with what he is saying but I get the feeling that he also is too closely focused on cloud monitoring to see the big picture as well. Where he is picking up on a negative feedback and arguing that it somewhat changes the concept of how much CO2 will warm the planet he makes no mention that we may also be missing some positive feedback criteria from the equation.

For me it just proves that global weather modelling on long timescales needs a lot more work and increases my worry that we will focus solely on CO2 rather than a broad range of solutions to minimise our impact on climate( however much that is).

[SnowBear]

//

For me it just proves that global weather modelling on long timescales needs a lot more work and increases my worry that we will focus solely on CO2 rather than a broad range of solutions to minimise our impact on climate( however much that is).

This is what worries me too, all the fixation seems to be on CO2 and everything as a whole, in that process we could very well miss something very important elsewhere.

Edited April 8, 2008 by SnowBear

[bluecon]

Erm, no. :/

Do you think that you could stop putting words in people's mouths?

You ducked the question.

Should we exponentially increase taxes to appease the AGW proponents while China and the rest of the world exponentially increases their output of CO2 and pollution? Does that make one bit of sense?

Edited April 8, 2008 by bluecon

[NorthernRab]

You ducked the question.

Should we exponentially increase taxes to appease the AGW proponents while China and the rest of the world exponentially increases their output of CO2 and pollution? Does that make one bit of sense?

Yes, you're asking me whether our efforts should counter those of China's, shall we say, lack of effort? I wouldn't like to comment without a full complete knowledge of the situation as I really don't know what effect it would have on our economy. I think we need a few years of monitoring climate change, to really decide what we think is happening, as we are in qutie uncertain times at the moment. China should perhaps have to deal with climate change, as arguably other countries were not aware of the problem at the time of their industrial revolution. What do you think?

Edited April 8, 2008 by NorthernRab

[biffvernon]

Yes, you're asking me whether our efforts should counter those of China's, shall we say, lack of effort? I wouldn't like to comment without a full complete knowledge of the situation as I really don't know what effect it would have on our economy. I think we need a few years of monitoring climate change, to really decide what we think is happening, as we are in qutie uncertain times at the moment. China should perhaps have to deal with climate change, as arguably other countries were not aware of the problem at the time of their industrial revolution. What do you think?

When our per capita CO2 emissions are lower than Chin's and when we stop exporting our polluting maunfacuring industries but still enjoy the producs, then we might have a leg to stand on. In the meantime, it might be better to show leadership by example instead of pointing fingers.

[SnowBear]

This is what worries me too, all the fixation seems to be on CO2 and everything as a whole, in that process we could very well miss something very important elsewhere.

Just correcting above as it was quickly written earlier.

This is what worries me too, all the fixation seems to be on CO2 and not everything as a whole, in that process we could very well miss something very important elsewhere.

[kold weather]

Quite honestly I'd be worried if the global temps didn't drop compared to last year considering we just had one of the more powerful La Nina events of recent times.

as for the 1998 claim, well thats true no year has been warmer then that...BUT equally no year has come even close to getting el nino nearly as potent as that one...as soon we do the 1998 will get totally destroyed IMO. For now temps have dropped a touch thanks to la nina globally but heck thats to be expected.

Remember the 1998 was one of the strongest El Nino's in HISTORY---therefore the pacific was at its warmest ever as well so of course global tmeps would have been boosted as in response to this...the fact we came so close to breaking the record in a neutral year of 2005 stands out far more then this slight cooling thanks to a strong la nina.

Also the fact that we just about got into -ve temps globally at the start of this year with the combo of a prolonged solar min and a strong la nina is if anything not a great sign, if this happened in the 60's we'd have had global temps way below the normal.

Edited April 8, 2008 by kold weather

[Bobby]

as for the 1998 claim, well thats true no year has been warmer then that...BUT equally no year has come even close to getting el nino nearly as potent as that one...as soon we do the 1998 will get totally destroyed IMO. For now temps have dropped a touch thanks to la nina globally but heck thats to be expected..

As I said earlier, only a few data sets say 1998 was the warmest. Many others, including NASA and NOAA have 2005 as the warmest year globally ever recorded. Perhaps there is more talk about 1998 because it suits people's argument better, conveniently ignoring other data sets that say different.

I agree though, NASA's GISS have last year as the 2nd warmest ever, which I do find remarkable considering the La Nina and solar minimum. God help us if we have an El Nino and when the sun picks up.

Edited April 9, 2008 by Magpie

[kold weather]

Well to be fair Magpie we did have a moderate El Nino uptill April and it weren't really till Movember that the la nina got going so overall it probably would have equalled out as a neutral year, 2008 will likely be a la nina year however so this is the key year.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Just to clear things up and put another perspective onto this. The current solar minima is part of the Gleissberg 11 year cycle and so this current minima is not of great importance current temp wise as it is a minima of a recent high level sun activity so its effects are limited...but seem to be showing. What really counts is when the '11 year cycle' minima comes off the back of a very quiet maximia [Dalton magnitude] which is where we are heading ....then there will be a notable difference.

Re El Nino and what will happen if we get another big one soon...well IMO that is more unlikely now as we have entered the perturbation cycle where La Nina will 'dominate'. There will be El Nino epsiodes but less frequent and I would suggest a super strong one may not occur.

BFTP

[Thundery wintry showers]

This is what worries me too, all the fixation seems to be on CO2 and not everything as a whole, in that process we could very well miss something very important elsewhere.

I also think of that as a major issue. For starters, even if CO2 is the main factor, it's still worth addressing the other ones as well, plus in years to come we might make a scientific discovery that shows that some other factor was underestimated and turned out to be even more of an issue than CO2 (the IPCC reports, for instance, acknowledge large uncertainty ranges for certain other anthropogenic forcings).

To my mind, that's one of the big failings of many policies, not just nowadays, but throughout history- focusing on certain aspects of a problem and missing the bigger picture.

[PersianPaladin]

You are saying that you don't know what you are really saying it seems! Do you really believe in "it"

It has a name "Gaia", some call it.

If I were you I'd be telling myself to shut up before I had said something that made me look stupid:) (apart from the goofy photo)

oops too late;)

No...I know exactly what I am saying about the earth and its system. There may well be a symbiosis between us and it; however we must remember that we are more dependent on it than vice versa.

You are right about the "Gaia" terminology.

[millennia]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...99-7583,00.html

And also!:

http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002906.html

Best bit of this,as is often the case,are the comments following the main item.

You know, every so often a nugget pops into a discussion and seems to get overlooked. I'd advise a closer look at the second link. For the first time I can remember the BBC actually looked as though they might be trying to provide balance to the climate change debate and were subsequently brow beaten into watering down their article. Jo Abess actually wrote:

[Gray-Wolf]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...80415205350.htm

It would appear that the largest remaining ice shelf in the northern hemisphere is giving up the ghost. Ward Hunt has now fractured in 3 places since it became exposed to the open ocean in 2003/4. As we watch it's decay we should be mindful of the process and transferre this to the Antarctic fringing shelves which will suffer similar pneumatic degradation from the ocean.

[Paul]

Apologies, I've made a right mess of this and some other threads which were all based around latest trends and new reports. Instead of moving them into this forum as separate threads I've managed to merge them all together.

Please feel free to start fresh threads on any of the subjects within this one. I'll lock this now to stop any further confusion.