The ' I NEED TO SCREAM' thread.

[laserguy]

If you haven't already, ( I'm addressing everyone reading this,not individuals ),go back to earlier in this thread and see my postings on how I see the myth of global warming being inextricably tied in with dwindling resources. Then peruse today's news that a couple of hours ago,oil prices have hit a brand new peak. OPEC is saying that it cannot keep up with demand NOW,let alone a little down the line. Some people seem to have a Utopian view that oil will last long enough for us to develop an alternative,but that's not going to happen. Nothing will replace the versatility of oil,it's not just for shoving in cars,planes,trains and lorries,it's THE key to a vast number of industries. For all their lies and spin,governments aren't daft,they saw this coming many years ago and invented the situation we've become familiar with in an unlikely attempt to scare us into going easy with the oil. Now it looks like the entire pack of cards is going to come crashing down. Again,see the news. It's taken a long time coming but America is BROKE. I've said it before,but global warming is the least of our worries in the coming years. Fact is,however you look at it,a 2-3C rise in temps over 50-100 years (or whatever ) isn't in itself going to kill anyone. Conflict over resources most probably will.

To compound the situation,demand is going to surge even more as the cooldown takes hold. That's my opinion of course,but better pray that it does actually warm up,for obvious reasons. Maybe the current crisis will be resolved,but surely it is clear to everyone the slope we're on and it'll happen again and again with increasing frequency? Sorry to be a harbinger of doom but let's get 'global warming' into perspective and why exactly a rise of a couple of degrees is so disastrous. That's my take on it,anyway. Feel free to shoot me down in flames but the news is the news,there for all to see. Just like all the global warming stories of course. I've never denied that the events reported aren't real,just questioned the motives and the constant assurance that it's all our fault when clearly ( to me) it isn't.

[noggin]

I see that below zero months have been mentioned so I just thought I'd toss this fact in......

according to Hadley, there have been 27 of them since 1700, which is 29 out of about 15,912 months.

What rare beasts they are.

from 1700 to 1800 there were 11

from 1800 to 1900 there were 11

from 1900 to 2000 there were 7

We can infer whatever we like from these figures.

PS Laserguy....I'm not ignoring your post, but I have to dash off to work now and will read it in the morning.

[West is Best]

Yes, I'm a co-owner of the website. Which means b*gger all in terms what how right I am and you can be as rude to me as you like :o

I love this forum! Mad people we are! :blink:

[jethro]

Stratos:

There is a world of difference between reading about something and actually experiencing it. When it comes to growing seasons, they vary year on year; even taking the figures from the link you provided plants are on average coming into leaf 10 days earlier – wow, big deal. Taking the RHS figures, over the last 30 years the growing season (taken from both ends) amounts to an extra 24 days at most, far from being a devastating thing it actually benefits us and the growers.

As for the other link, you’re having a laugh aren’t you? How on earth can you hold up a garden in Trelissick as being an example? Firstly it is based on anecdotal or “squidgy” evidence – ok for Trelissick but not ok for my family farm records; that’s cherry picking where I come from. Secondly, every garden the world over has its own micro-climate. Thirdly, its not even anywhere near the CET zone, I grew up in the Cotswolds, prime CET area.

When it comes to debating or challenging Dev’s assertion that there had been no cold months since 1986, simply he is wrong. As West has pointed out there has been colder than expected and I actually said a cooler summer, not a cold August. If dates are to be chosen against which we make comparisons such as this then choosing an outlier or extreme is bizarre; it’s like holding up 1963 as the benchmark for average snow.

I have read and re-read the article about the President; it speaks in terms of absolute.

I’m not entirely sure of the meaning or purpose of your reference to trees so I will answer in horticultural terms. Trees have a broadly predetermined mature size and lifespan according to species. Whether or not they will be taller next year than this depends upon whether they are mature or immature specimens, whether or not they are receiving adequate nourishment and moisture for optimum growth, their situation and the weather. Some years they will grow more than others.

I have looked at the numbers, I just haven’t memorised them. The trouble with numbers, and only looking at a period that you or the METO define as being an average time span, means that often those numbers do not portray an overall picture. After all, climate studies are about long time spans, not 30 years or your favoured 10 years. There have been periods in this country and world wide, where average temperatures were as high as, if not higher than today, the 1930’s for instance. If we took the rolling average from that period to the current day then a very different picture would emerge. Yes, I know that Co2 has increased during that period and has in all likelihood contributed to the warming seen but it has not over-ridden natural drivers too. The popular misconception peddled wholesale is that our weather is as a direct result of the increase in Co2; that’s simply false. Your assertion that weather is getting more extreme as a direct result of climate change, I’m sorry but I simply don’t buy it. Where is your evidence for this? As for averages of cold events, again depends upon your chosen time span also true cold, more especially prolonged cold has always been a rarity in this country, we have a maritime climate.

I’ve been pondering on responses to my posts, yours and many made by others and I’m truly puzzled. My stance is, and always has been that yes the world is warmer in recent times but I question if our contribution of Co2 is the prevalent cause. How much is our fault? Why is that such a contentious issue?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Feel free to shoot me down in flames but the news is the news,there for all to see. Just like all the global warming stories of course. I've never denied that the events reported aren't real,just questioned the motives and the constant assurance that it's all our fault when clearly ( to me) it isn't.

Edited September 12, 2007 by jethro

[parmenides3]

Which still begs the question, jethro, who are you going to believe if you don't believe the science? Now you are older (Happy Birthday), surely you are wiser?

P

[Stratos Ferric]

Stratos:

1 - There is a world of difference between reading about something and actually experiencing it. When it comes to growing seasons, they vary year on year; even taking the figures from the link you provided plants are on average coming into leaf 10 days earlier – wow, big deal. Taking the RHS figures, over the last 30 years the growing season (taken from both ends) amounts to an extra 24 days at most, far from being a devastating thing it actually benefits us and the growers. ...

2 - As for the other link, you're having a laugh aren't you? ...Thirdly, its not even anywhere near the CET zone, I grew up in the Cotswolds, prime CET area.

...

3 - When it comes to debating or challenging Dev's assertion that there had been no cold months since 1986, simply he is wrong. As West has pointed out there has been colder than expected and I actually said a cooler summer, not a cold August.

...

4 - I have read and re-read the article about the President; it speaks in terms of absolute.

I'm not entirely sure of the meaning or purpose of your reference to trees so I will answer in horticultural terms. ... Whether or not they will be taller next year than this depends ... Some years they will grow more than others.

...

5 - I have looked at the numbers, I just haven't memorised them. The trouble with numbers, and only looking at a period that you or the METO define as being an average time span, means that often those numbers do not portray an overall picture. After all, climate studies are about long time spans, not 30 years or your favoured 10 years. There have been periods in this country and world wide, where average temperatures were as high as, if not higher than today, the 1930's for instance. If we took the rolling average from that period to the current day then a very different picture would emerge. Yes, I know that Co2 has increased during that period and has in all likelihood contributed to the warming seen but it has not over-ridden natural drivers too. The popular misconception peddled wholesale is that our weather is as a direct result of the increase in Co2; that's simply false. Your assertion that weather is getting more extreme as a direct result of climate change, I'm sorry but I simply don't buy it. Where is your evidence for this? As for averages of cold events, again depends upon your chosen time span also true cold, more especially prolonged cold has always been a rarity in this country, we have a maritime climate.

...

Jethro,

you beggar belief sometimes. Anyway, to some of your post above.

1 - Therefore we should dismiss all scientific papers that we read should we, because we didn't ourselves perform the experiment? Blind experience is of little value if it is not calibrated and measured. Tomorrow may feel colder than today without actually being colder, simply because it's windier, less humid, or both. Your farm records strike me as being based on loose experience NOT robust measurement. More amusing, elsewhere on these pages you deny GW; now you're admitting the growing season is 24 days longer (I'm amused that you point out the upside of this - precisely this argument was used by the orgon petition in the US to try to quell any action against GW). It isn't devastating for farmers of course, but it's fully a quarter of our average UK winter. Now tell me again, the climate isn't warming BUT winter is getting shorter...mmm, neat trick.

2 - And of course, whilst the CET zone has been warming, the rest of the country has been cooling has it? That paper was picked at random from the top of the Google list. What about the other one, referencing if I remember rightly a scientifi study of 500 species across Europe. Are you going to deny that one as well because it's not based in CET-land?

3 - 'As WiB said' hardly amounts to calling up the Pope in defence of Jesus. If you read my post this afternoon there are precise definitions for the use of 'cold' etc. relative to the norm. Dev's argument is perfectly valid, and I gave further endorsement of his argument. The use of 'coldest since' is a normal way of relating to the frequency of occurrence. You can try to slice the data however you like (perhaps if yoiu tried to do so, instead of imagining what you thing the numbers might say, you might be strangely enlightened, though I won't hold my breath) but the fact is, whether in absolute or relative terms there has not been anything remotely very cold since early 1986. Jan 1996 came in at 2.3, the coldest since. 1979, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1987 and 1991 also all included ayt least one month with an absolute average of 2C or less. No single month since then that low, nor a month relatively as cold compared to its own mean.

4 - You have answered my point without realising. You know trees will be bigger next year, because that is the way trees grow. You don't know by how much, you just know that they will. A warming climate is pretty much like that, though it can be more a case of two steps forward, one back.

5 - Lordy, lordy. The definition of climate norm used by the Met Office (and the world generally) is the thirty year mean. It's not a case of anyone on here cherry picking for convenience, that is the accepted benchmark. I do NOT have a preference for the ten year mean, though you have clearly got stuck in your head that I do, so can I diabuse you of that idea. What I HAVE SAID and did again this afternoon, is that in certain circumstances the ten year mean is a more meaningful benchmark, particularly when things are changing. You can either get your head around that or you can't.

Now, as to the climate in this country having been warmer in the past, or in the 30s...I give you the following, based on ACTUAL CET data. By making silly statements like this I'm afraid that to this reader you undermine much of the potential robustness of all else that you say. I am reminded of the exec who used to work for PanAm flying the world with other airlines, just to see what they were doing. He had regular routine. He would sit in his set and fold down the food tray, and check to see whether it had been cleaned, and 'if not, my mind wondered to whether or not the engineers responsible for keeping the 'plane in the air were equally careless'.

Statements like the one you've made are the equivalent, in terms of robust argument, of a very dirty tray.

I see no 'different picture' emerging. What I do see is a trend towards unprecedented warmth over the past 15-20 years.

If you're going to suggest that the climatic average is actually a million years then we might as well all go and section ourselves.

You then go on to suggest that I have attributed all extreme weather to warming: I don't believe I have, though I welcome you pointing out where I have. YOu suggest we are all saying AGW is the only player in town: many of us do NOT say this, we say it is simply one factor and that others may be at play, even the IPCC say the same.

Will you stop telling us what you THINK we've said and actually read what we HAVE written. To recap on my own behalf.

The climate is warming: that is a simple matter of fact as the plot above shows. Anybody would have to be completely stupid to argue with that, and any such argument would amount to suggesting that 1+1 = 4.

The likelihood is that, at the very least, the increase in rate of warming over and above previous warming instances is anthropogenic.

Other natural factors may be adding to the warming.

Warming does not mean that every month is warmer than the last one, every year warmer than its predecessor; however, the longer the rolling average used, the more this will APPEAR to be the case.

[VillagePlank]

now you're admitting the growing season is 24 days longer

Of a related nature, I went to see my parents, who live in rural North Wales, and spoke to a farmer who said that he no longer needs to store hay for the winter primarily because of climatic changes. Of course, I took the conversation to GW, and AGW, but he would none of it. he said that his Grandparents had exactly the same phenomena and that it'd lasted about ten years, then fluctuated back down again. Not scientific, but interesting, I thought, nevertheless.

[West is Best]

.I give you the following, based on ACTUAL CET data.

I see no 'different picture' emerging. What I do see is a trend towards unprecedented warmth over the past 15-20 years.

Except that chart stops at 2004. It would be very interesting to see something similar with a shorter baseline to include up to the present. I suspect the last 3 years whilst showing lots of extreme warmth have also thrown up some that don't fit the picture.

[Devonian]

Except that chart stops at 2004. It would be very interesting to see something similar with a shorter baseline to include up to the present. I suspect the last 3 years whilst showing lots of extreme warmth have also thrown up some that don't fit the picture.

I may misunderstand, but you seem to be saying that a warming trend isn't a warming trend if it contains the odd cool or even cold months?

[Osbourne One-Nil]

This thread is utterly astonishing...really, truly mind-boggling.

I know I have a very simplistic view on these things, but let's take the theory that global warming is a mechanism for reducing demand for dwindling fossil fuels. Why would "they" have to set up a highly complex lie which relied on measureable factors to reduce the demand for fossil fuels? Why couldn't it just be like every other commodity on the planet; the more scarce it is, the more expensive it is. That really is just plain barmy.

I remember back in the early 80s when you couldn't get a branded Rubik's Cube for love nor money. I don't remember hearing of impending global doom with convenient corresponding events, to stifle demand, but I do remember the price of them shot through the roof whilst the cheap ones from Woolies that you could take apart easily and reassemble solved were about £1.99.

[Devonian]

Stratos:

When it comes to debating or challenging Dev’s assertion that there had been no cold months since 1986, simply he is wrong.

Arrgghh - I DID NOT say that - so don't call me wrong. I've pointed that out once, you acknowledged that and now you've gone back on yourself by accusing me again . I said seriously cold and I meant seriously and I explained what I meant by seriously cold. Sheesshhh.

As West has pointed out there has been colder than expected and I actually said a cooler summer, not a cold August. If dates are to be chosen against which we make comparisons such as this then choosing an outlier or extreme is bizarre; it’s like holding up 1963 as the benchmark for average snow.

I know there have been cold months. But, unless I'm very much mistaken about maths, you don't get warming trends unless warmer months outweigh cold ones. C'mon we all know that's the case.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

This shows the precise problem with these sort of threads. No matter what evidence is offered, there'll always be something or someone who'll pick fault with it to the extent that it scarcely becomes worth the hassle.

You can lead a horse (or a pony in WiB's case) to water...

[Devonian]

Actually it's not a month I'd call wintry. It certainly wasn't all that snowy by memory, at least until 01st March. Unless my memory fails me it was incredibly cold on a largely bone dry easterly. Which is why it's seldom mentioned on here. But it's such a cold outlier that it's a bit mad imho to use it as a base of reference you know. I mean it was even colder than February 1963.

Which, to repeat myself for the umpteenth time, was why I used the word 'seriously'.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Stratos's data only goes up to 2004, so the CET for 2005: 10.5, CET for 2006: 10.8, warmest on record.

If you added the most recent data it would merely underline the trend.

[Bobby]

Stratos's data only goes up to 2004, so the CET for 2005: 10.5, CET for 2006: 10.8, warmest on record.

If you added the most recent data it would merely underline the trend.

Very true. In fact has there been a warmer 2 years in the whole of the CET? Don't think there has. This year is also a virtual certainty to be comfortably above average, combined with all the records broken in these last 2 years, plus last year being the warmest ever year in the UK, to suggest there may be a cooling trend in these last 2 or 3 years is truly baffling.

And in fact, even if the last 2 or 3 years were below average, they would mean absolutely nothing in regards to our climate, as climate is taken over 30 years.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

I knew we'd agree on something.

[snowsure]

This thread is akin to a car crash where 2 groups who disagree on which way to go and then cause a pile-up. I am now rubber-necking whilst learning nothing about the accident that is beneficial to me (save for the fact that 1 person went the wrong way, to the consternation of the other driver!)

The thread asks quite clearly "What should I be thinking about GW?" Well, I hope that you find that it is impossible. It divides the world into 2 camps. The most eloquent camp will probably convince most people!

[Osbourne One-Nil]

Yeah, but one camp is right and the other is nuts.

[Stratos Ferric]

Stratos's data only goes up to 2004, so the CET for 2005: 10.5, CET for 2006: 10.8, warmest on record.

If you added the most recent data it would merely underline the trend.

Does it? Which data? Those plots run throught to the end of 2006.

[Devonian]

I found the CET ranked by coldest via the Hadley Centre. I've divided the record into rough tenths (of 35 places) and plotted each month of the last three years as a number between 1 (the warmest tenth) to 10 (the coldest tenth) and then added 1986 (for comparison - it's the last really cold year* in the record). I make no claims as to whether I've made mistakes or not - but I hope I haven't.

Funnily enough, cold years have warm months and warm years cold months - the warmest and coldest tend to have more of each - odd that...

For me the trend is obvious, the coolness peaked in July '07 and a rapid warming to the anomaly is obvious for August ...

* Please, no debate about what really, cold or year mean

Edit: there is a spurious purple column - it's just my mistake, I'd made a start on 2003...

Edited September 13, 2007 by Devonian

[Osbourne One-Nil]

If that final sentence doesn't entice Weather Beaten back to the forum, nothing will.

[noggin]

Seeing as this is a very "current" thread, I thought I'd chuck these 500 scientists in....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1811

It's natural cycles, y'know.

[Gray-Wolf]

Whenever and where ever I read the 'before 1940' line I know that folk are being a little less than honest with their supposed 'data'.

It is widely accepted that industrial processes/the advent of jet travel led to 'global dimming' and only the clean air acts (from the 1960's onwards throughout most of the 'developed world') arrested and reversed the 'dimming'.

Try for yourself! take a chart (since 1850) of the temp rise. Remove 1940-1980 and check out the gradient of the temp change. Strange that eh????

[West is Best]

Does it? Which data? Those plots run throught to the end of 2006.

Yes but the baseline is far too long SF, at least to show meaningfully if there has been any correction. I think what we need is a 10 year baseline with all the months plotted against the mean for 1996-2005. It would just be interesting to see if there are any signs that all is not (quite) going according to the warm up script, that's all. I'm due a lesson in Excel so if I get time I'll see if I can whip one up later.

However, I'd also like just to point out for the record that the title of the thread was about the need to scream and, for myself, I just wished to register my disquiet at a lot of the nonsense that has been appearing in the media, and the barefaced insouciance of some in the scientific community for blaming both hot dry summers and soaking deluge ones on the same cause. Disingenuity doesn't even come close to describing some of the posturing on this. Ulitmately it brings the science of GW into massive disrepute, and that should be of real concern.

OON - if you don't like it you don't have to join it. No-one is forcing you to enter the debate. It's a free forum, afterall, so you can dip in and dip out of threads and stay away from others.

Edited September 13, 2007 by West is Best

[memories of 63]

Tamara,

Phew, what a missive. Well written and well done