The ' I NEED TO SCREAM' thread.

[biffvernon]

I will accept that a current warming trend dictates that obviously warm air globally has to be in the ascendancy over cold air

So hot air rises. Glad we've got that clear.

[West is Best]

Like I say, I'll run some numbers for you later: what I won't do is provde ANY interpretation, I'll eave that to you lot and let's see what we conclude. I'll then pass some observations afterwards, ONLY IF REQUESTED.

Yes - absolutely requested please! I'd love to debate the past 10 years in particular. Let's use Hadley though please.

[Slinky]

Just an observation not pro AGW or against.

When I first joined this forum 3 years ago (ish) and first got into a disscusion on GW I was very against GW I would mention climate cycles and bassically be shot down in flames and told i was being stupid that there was no such thing and that it was all down to us. Now days after reading thread after thread I cant deny that I am swayed by some o the AGW arguments, but am equally swayed by some arguments against, so I find myself sat on the fence trying to see the light. (am in danger of losing my point! so back onto it) Now climate cycles are excepted and people aknowedge that there is such a thing to an extent, 3 years back I was laughed at and told to sit back and accept the science. Science is ever changing always moving forward always pushing, I think people on both sides of the debate somtimes forget this and take the current science as fact when its not. There is a constant process of learning and moving forward on both sides. That is science!

Pointless post I know, but I was bored

[Essan]

Slinky, you're in danger of becoming a true sceptic

[Slinky]

Slinky, you're in danger of becoming a true sceptic

lol essan I know I will probably never have the understanding to understand lol It wont stop me trying though ;P

[laserguy]

Whether climate changes or not,it doesn't matter. It has always changed. Whether an individual believes it is human activity or natural causes which perpetuates climate metamorphosis doesn't matter. If it's natural,there's nothing to be done about it. If it's anthropogenic,there's nothing that can be done about it. We can all make token gestures but that's as nothing in the grand scheme of things. Heck,why is climate change always associated with disaster,anyway? From a purely selfish point of view I want a colder climate in the UK (which as we all know doesn't necessarily mean a colder world climate! ),but a rise in global averages would be a good thing in many ways which I would have thought are self evident. ALL the focus is on the very worst aspects of rising temps,NEVER on the positives.

Here's the real bottom line:

http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2656034.ece

Something amazing happened yesterday. I put the telly on to catch the news ( I watch nothing else,tv in my opinion is in the top 5 worst inventions ever! ) and whilst not on the broadcast news there was something on teletext about unprecedented rainstorms in Africa. Really,really huge,prolonged deluges which have caused widespread destruction. The story had an 'in focus' link which ran to five pages. The thing I found incredible,however, is the fact that at no point was global warming/climate change mentioned. I'm still trying to weigh that up,since here in the UK the sun's only got to be obscured by a passing cumulus mediocris to warrant end of world predictions. Well maybe not,but you catch the drift.

[Stratos Ferric]

...If it's anthropogenic,there's nothing that can be done about it. We can all make token gestures but that's as nothing in the grand scheme of things. Heck,why is climate change always associated with disaster,anyway? From a purely selfish point of view I want a colder climate in the UK (which as we all know doesn't necessarily mean a colder world climate! ),but a rise in global averages would be a good thing in many ways which I would have thought are self evident. ALL the focus is on the very worst aspects of rising temps,NEVER on the positives.

...

You've declared a hand there LG which I suspect many more on here share, and which rather inhibits objective assessment: 'you want a colder climate'. Is it any wonder you choose to be dubious about GW?

As to whether anything can be done? The mere fact that, if it is anthropogenic, means that since we started it we CAN choose to stop it, however, and again I suspect you share an attitude with many - the costs to you outweigh the benefits to us all. It is not insurmountability of the issue that will stop us addressing it, so much as pure and simple selfishness; the same motivation that makes us park in disabled spaces, throw litter out of the window rather than take it home, drive around with our car radios blaring, park on double yellow lines rather than park legally but further away...the list is endless.

As to positive effects, there would be some, but we're not playing with the thermostat on the central heating here. There is absolutely no argument that if you melt all the ice in Antarctica sea level rises significantly: forget about whether it's 50 feet or 150: if it were just 10m all of the following cities would be inundated: London, New York, Melbourne, Mumbai, Karachi, Tokyo, Osaka, Dhaka, Cairo, Kuwait, Calcutta, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Hull, Glasgow, Bristol, Liverpool, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Stockholm, St Petersburg, New Orleans, Miami...

Hastings is safe, if you live far enough inland; Peterborough becomes a barrier reef.

[Slinky]

Hastings is safe, if you live far enough inland; Peterborough becomes a barrier reef.

Hmmm I think you will find Peterborough would become a seaside city

mute point really though

[laserguy]

Please don't make personal assumptions from my observations,Stratos! I've often stated that I live a 'green' lifestyle through choice ( my last job was eight miles away and I often walked there and back ),I recycle,use low energy bulbs,I'm very careful with litter,etc,etc, and utterly despise any disrespect to our world and to people around us and the 'throw away attitude' so prevalent these days. I'm not necessarily dubious about GW,just AGW. Changing my attitude won't change anything because at the risk of sounding 'holier than thou', I've nothing to improve upon. I can't help thinking that you probably see me as a shellsuit clad,back to front baseball capped type. Oh,the truth is so far removed! Whisper it,but I'm more the bearded hippy from the flower power generation whose prize possession is Jethro Tull's 'Live in '73' LP. Ahem...

Anyway,Antarctica is growing,not shrinking. You'll need to advise me on this Stratos,but in the extremely unlikely event of Antarctica exhibiting rapid melting,why would it be so bad? At around 4C water expands,( hence why pipes burst in cold weather ),so when ice melts the volume actually shrinks from it's frozen state,does it not? Seeing as the vast bulk of the ice is submerged anyway wouldn't it actually result in a lowering of sea levels? Yes I understand how a rise of worldwide sea temps would cause expansion too but how do you see it all balancing out in the event of such a scenario?

I know it's a very passive attitude but the point of my post,and I've often said this, is although it certainly wouldn't hurt us morally to live a 'green' lifestyle and would result in a much better UK ( which seems to me to be rapidly going down the pan in manifold ways,but that's another subject ), our very best efforts are,or very soon will be totally swamped by the antics of developing nations with regard to the effects of CO2 emissions whatever one's stance is on their effects on climate. I get your point on areas being innundated with water,but the flipside of that is many currently barren areas would become fertile again. It seems to me to be a matter of great re-organisation and relocation.

Regards,LG.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

At around 4C water expands,( hence why pipes burst in cold weather ),so when ice melts the volume actually shrinks from it's frozen state,does it not?

Until it reaches 4º when it starts expanding again perhaps? Anyway, isn't the vast majority of ice locked on land, and therefore not even in an ocean?

[pottyprof]

There is absolutely no argument that if you melt all the ice in Antarctica sea level rises significantly: forget about whether it's 50 feet or 150: if it were just 10m all of the following cities would be inundated: London, New York, Melbourne, Mumbai, Karachi, Tokyo, Osaka, Dhaka, Cairo, Kuwait, Calcutta, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Hull, Glasgow, Bristol, Liverpool, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Stockholm, St Petersburg, New Orleans, Miami...

Hastings is safe, if you live far enough inland; Peterborough becomes a barrier reef.

But this is a big question mark for me. Sea levels are not rising as fast as predicted and surely with the rate of melt in the Arctic we should have seen more of an increase than we have. Where's the water going?

[Osbourne One-Nil]

Tewkesbury and Gloucester.

[pottyprof]

Thank you for clearing that up OON... Seems there is a simple explanation afterall...

[laserguy]

Until it reaches 4º when it starts expanding again perhaps? Anyway, isn't the vast majority of ice locked on land, and therefore not even in an ocean?

Point taken about water expansion. Didn't know there was land under Antarctica though,which comprises around 90% of the world's ice,does it not?

[Osbourne One-Nil]

Aye...it's bigger than Europe I believe.

[Slinky]

Tewkesbury and Gloucester.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

But this is a big question mark for me. Sea levels are not rising as fast as predicted and surely with the rate of melt in the Arctic we should have seen more of an increase than we have. Where's the water going?

But isn't it simply that when sea-ice melts, it doesn't increase sea levels, but when ice-caps on land melt, then it's introducing new water to the oceans?

[laserguy]

Aye...it's bigger than Europe I believe.

Yes,just a bit. But Europe isn't covered with ice...yet!

[pottyprof]

But isn't it simply that when sea-ice melts, it doesn't increase sea levels, but when ice-caps on land melt, then it's introducing new water to the oceans?

Yes I see what your saying but the ice has been gowd knows how many metres thick with several thousand years of snow on top of it..

[Osbourne One-Nil]

But the volume of melt water must be less than the volume of water displaced whilst it's ice.

I think this is all getting too technical and a bit like the Open University.

[pottyprof]

The density of sea water is different to fresh water (snow)...........

I think you're right.. My head is starting to hurt..

[Red Raven]

The density of sea water is different to fresh water (snow)...........

I think you're right.. My head is starting to hurt..

try an experiment - get a glass of salty water and add an icecude or 2 to it, mark where the height of the water line is and check agian when the ice melts. it will be the same!

[Nick F]

Nick F – As far as the CO2 argument for kick starting stratospheric cooling, I won't dispute the science of that and I accept the truth in it, but the levels of CO2 were higher than now earlier this century and yet it didn't stop the 1940s seeing a big turnaround in return to cold winters (and years) after some record mild years/seasons during the 1930s? Is it not conceivable that the 1930s equivalent of net weather was having a similar (albeit un modernised and un computerised!) debate then to the one's on here now? Again I have to repeat, I am not suggesting there has not been a warming trend but a period post 1988 coinciding with a time when many on this forum have become more alive to weather and climate patterns and caught up too in the GW/AGW hype - are any of us, however technically knowledgeable we are, qualified to suggest that things as they are, are here to stay?

Hi Tamara, I'm no expert on AGW, but I'm sure you are aware that CO2 is not the only significant GH gas that is contributing to AGW. Methane is a big player too - I believe its increase over the last 50 years has been greater than CO2 - though it doesn't last as long in the atmosphere so doesn't have the lasting effect, but it traps more heat (I think it's 20 times more than CO2) - so is likely to bring sudden increases in warmth if levels rise significantly. Not to mention the other GH gases being increased by man such as Nitrous Oxides and the Chlorofluorcarbons.

If what you say is true about anomalous warmth over Europe now being a major spoiler then explain how the same neutral dominated AO winter 05/06 produced deep cold pooling which produced record low temps in Moscow and severe cold in eastern europe during Jan 06? The winter as a whole as WIB has detailed above was below average anyway, despite the ‘near miss’ from the east – but how much further below average could it realistically have been? Should the classic synoptic set-up prevalent when the A0/NAO turned negative in February 05 (as recently as the end of the previous winter to this) allied itself at the same time as that Jan 06 cold pooling, then the potential would have been delivered with change. In the event the required -AO/NAO synoptics to advect the cold air south and west to us arrived at the end of February 06 when the most intense cold pooling had largely dissipated.

As we have heard many a time, there will no doubt be blips in the general warming trend around the globe particularly in continental interiors which are much less influenced by the maritime effect and the rising SSTs. Eastern Europe and Russia were indeed very cold in Jan 06, though Moscow did not break any record low temperature in January 06, it dropped to -30C, the lowest since the winter of 1978/79, Though granted, Eastern Siberia did see a record low temp set during Jan 06, so the cold wave was certainly rather notable there, but for Eastern Europe and West Russia it was severe but not record breaking. The thing I've noticed though over the last 10 years is any intense cold which develops over Russia really struggles to get much further West than the old iron curtain, and I generally put this down to the increase in upper zonal westerlies over Northern Europe and higher SSTs in the NE Atlantic (which may have feedbacks with each other anyway) which prevent the retrogression of intense cold from Russia that we used to see more often and with more intensity coldwise pre-1988.

And by dint of that it would indeed be your proof that warming has moved the baseline upwards to the point where such cold is not achievable in development and thus available to provide well below average winter synoptics. This is clearly still not the case and the time for change is still perfectly wide open. Should the warming trend have eradicated the appearance of such cold pooling then I would be much more inclined to accept yours and others argument about how much things have moved on. It can't be both ways - on the one hand if it is accepted that significant cold can still penetrate Greece due its position near to land (which I accept although it has always been the case) then why is the fact that UK has not seen this cold (yet) indicative of something greater to do with an overall warming trend?

I agree that the very cold weather we aspire to see each winter won't be totally eliminated yet by the rising Global temps, I'm sure many don't deny that we will see cold winters occasionally for a while yet in the UK, perhaps colder than 05/06 but maybe only as cold as 95/96, but the gap between each below average UK winter is clearly growing bigger and bigger now with AGW.

There was no polar airmasses evident throughout the summer and it still managed to record just below average.Yes, under the same prevailing global summer pattern heat transferred into south eastern europe as I repeated a few times in my own post but why is significant heat occuring here or elsewhere round the world more significant than any significant cold that occurs round the world?

But there were Polar airmasses present over the UK occassionaly this summer, not the cold Nerlies, but we dipped North of the PFJ on quite a few occasions mainly rPm air masses over us when the jet went South (and it was rather way South for the time of year too) - perhaps Pm airmases too, just not in a cold Northerly of arctic circle origin which is unusual anyway.

I will accept that a current warming trend dictates that obviously warm air globally has to be in the ascendancy over cold air but in terms of perspective there are still many other examples of cold records that have been broken elsewhere in the world, despite warmth being in the ascendancy during the period under discussion but these appear to be considered insignificant or allowed to pass quietly by whilst every warm record is hugely significant and everyone must sit up and take notice because of GW/AGW.

Trouble is, there's been alot more warmth records being broken around the world than cold within the period under discussion, so this is why it is every bit significant to sit up and take notice.

[pottyprof]

try an experiment - get a glass of salty water and add an icecude or 2 to it, mark where the height of the water line is and check agian when the ice melts. it will be the same!

I agree.. But during the 80's and 90's we were told that there would be huge rises in sea levels because of all the melting ice in the Arctic. Is there any wonder that people are confused with this GW stuff? Somebody cocked up. Was it the media or the scientists? It's mistakes like this that make people doubt what is happening.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

That was back in the 80s and 90s though. Water's different now...has been since privatisation.