What Is Causing The Warming ?

[Admiral_Bobski]

There is a link, but the link isn't a very strong one. The IPCC would have formed regardless of Thacthers thoughts on Coalmining. The link only really exists in Thacthers head rather than being a physical driver for the set up of the IPCC. The link is one of political expidency rather than factualality.

Would the IPCC have been formed though? The IPCC is essentially a political body, set up to establish the facts for dissemination to the politicians.

Without Thatcher, would climate change have even appeared on the political radar, so to speak? It's very easy, in retrospect, to say "of course AGW would have become an issue, because of how serious it is", but if politicians had left science (and especially the environment)solely to the scientists then would we have the IPCC now?

I'm not so sure that we would.

CB

[Iceberg]

It might make sense for a friendly MOD to put this into a seperate thread, but it is interesting.

I disagree re Thatcher, her 1988 speech and without her there would be no IPCC.

The UN and US's involvement in AGW as a global issue really started as far back 83 by 87, before Thatcher realised she could use it to reduce the power of coal. We had:

The 1985 WMO, UNEP Austrian conference.

The US EPA report can we stop a greenhouse warming ?.

A further worksop in 87 under the UN in Austria and a further one in 87 in Italy where the bones of the IPCC and a joint committee was really fleshed out. It was pretty much finalised with Reagan in October 87 with the First North American Conference on Preparing for climate change in Washington.

The momemntum was all there, before Thatcher made her speech, don't get me wrong she was very quick on the uptake and realised the political implications (at least her advisers did). But Coal mining in the UK really had nothing to do with the setup of the IPCC.

[Methuselah]

But, the Thatch was virulently anti-Environmentalist before the Greens started picking-up votes during '80s elections...So much so, that her overnight 'greening' was a surprise to many; her previous attempts culminating in a now-famous litterpick!

We really should be discussing this another thread, I think?

[pottyprof]

No pressure on the UK at all to clean up its act...

http://www.unece.org/env/lrtap/lrtap_h1.htm

Sorry.. I forget.. I know nothing.. I only worked in the sodding industry..

[Essan]

Maggie's speech at the opening of the Hadley Centre clearly states there had been concerns for sometime.

There were certainly concerns about imminent global warming due to CO2 emissions in the early 1974s - see, for example, Nigel Calder's Book The Weather Machine (the one that also popularised the idea of an imminent, sudden, ice age). Calder makes it clear that many scientists felt warming was more likely than further cooling.

[Devonian]

Here's a link worth reading, with regards to Thatcher and the IPCC: http://www.dailyreportonline.com/Editorial/News/singleEdit.asp?individual_SQL=9/20/2007@16725_Public_.htm

As a point of order, it is worth noting that in fact the IPCC was established in 1988, not "the 90s" as Dev has suggested. Its first assessment report was published in 1990, but it was set up in 1988 by the WMO and UNEP (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change).

Fair enough, my mistake.

This was the same year that Thatcher gave her speech to the Royal Society: http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=107346

The link between Thatcher and the IPCC is fairly direct - Thatcher was an advocate of environmental issues; Reagan was not. With our "special friendship", Reagan wanted to be seen to be on the same page as Thatcher with regards to environmental concerns, but he also wanted an organisation like the IPCC to slow things down a bit (after all, what could be better at stalling things than a committee?).

Thatcher wanted to move to nuclear power - there are likely various reasons for this, and certainly being dependent upon kowtowing to the miners to ensure a steady supply of fuel was one of these, but the need for cleaner energy sources was certainly a factor too, given her belief in protecting the environment. (And before anybody says anything, from Thatcher's point of view nuclear waste was far less threatening to the environment than sulphur and soot.)

So, yes - there is a link between the closure of the deep mines and the IPCC.

CB

But, the mine closures came first -right?

[Admiral_Bobski]

Fair enough, my mistake.

But, the mine closures came first -right?

Depends what you mean, really. The first mines were being closed before the foundation of the IPCC, but the last were closed in the early 1990s, after the foundation of the IPCC.

To rephrase what I said in my last post, the mines weren't closed because of the IPCC - the link is not that direct, but at least some of the factors behind the decision to close the mines were the same factors that led to the foundation of the IPCC.

There's rather more to the closing of the mines than the sentiment that Thatcher was an evil, evil woman who hated the Miners (though I'm sure she wasn't too fond of Scargill...was anyone fond of Scargill?)

CB

[Iceberg]

Well temps continue to be very high with both MSU and UAH Satelite records recording the 2nd highest September on record. Still lots of data to come out for September though. It looks like we could well get the 2nd warmest second half of the year for some datasets though and possibly a top 5 year globally depending on what happens in Oct/nov/dec obviously.

From that you can gather there is no sign of cooling.

[Iceberg]

Here's a quick updated graph showing monthly temperature anomalies since 1890 according to the NCDC upto August.

The bottom one is the raw data, the top a 12 month moving average of the anomalies.

Also if global temps continue to remain high it will be interesting to see if we can break the 0.62 12 month record average over in the next year.

12 Month moving average attached.

[Iceberg]

ALL Global temperature datasets continuing the exceptionally high global temperatures making September the 2nd Warmest September on Record.

ENSO shows signs of moving out of it's weak state into Moderate, but is still in a weak state and so cannot explain the warming on it's own.

[Gray-Wolf]

Well I still think that you cannot raise GHG levels above their natural variance (as driven by our energy budget) of the past 200,000yrs (of ice core data) and not expect the excess GHG's to warm the atmosphere (in line with what GHG's do).

It may not be an instant response and natural climate drivers may well mask it's impacts at the start of it's influence (alongside man's pollutants also mitigating portions of the warming until they are recognised as 'Bad' and taken into hand) but ,once it's up there, it will do what it does.

In time, no matter 'what phase' 'what' is in , the fact that we have 400ppm+ ( a good 1/3 above recent natural variance) of a known GHG in our atmosphere will surely play out the way such levels have 'played out' in the past and no amount of whining will alter the GHG's properties or potentials.

[LomondSnowstorm]

claiming months to be the 'hottest on record' is rather misleading as 'records' refered to (at least the more official, least controversial ones) begin only 300-400 years ago during the little Ice age after which temperatures rose to the current level. Even 50,000 years is a very short time in terms of the history of the earth, so how can we establish that these changes are 'man-made' or 'unprecedented'?

[Iceberg]

Hi, I don't think anybody is saying that current temperatures are the highest they have ever been on earth, just exactly as you say over the past few hundred years they are exceptionally high, however for temperatures to rise we need a driver, declining solar activity for 10 years, a weak and recent El Nino, negative PDO etc etc don't really provide the answer IMO.

I would add the the record for sat only goes back 20-30 years, as well.

[Gray-Wolf]

We also know that the earth is well beyond it's maximum/optimum position for 'warming' and is in the position for the slow wind down to ice age mins (and had already been having just that impact in the northern polar region for the past 1,000yrs or so until the last 100yrs were the trend was halted and reversed)

So we have the long term 'Milankovich' drivers for cooling, we have the short phase cyclical drivers on earth (for cooling) , lowest solar outputs we have measured in the scientific age and yet we are warming....funny that don't you think?

Almost like our dwindling heat input is being held onto by some kinda magic blanket.......

[Gray-Wolf]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091030100020.htm

Hmmm , interesting find.Looks like if our methane does start seeping out of the melting arctic then it kiboshes any hopes of sulfate induced cooling by nicking the Hydroxyl that is needed to combine with the sulphur to make the light scattering sulfate.

The study also reveals that some aerosols combine together to amplify their heating potential.

I do hope the folk who actively dismiss the relevance of past climates ,that share our current (and predicted near future) GHG levels, as an indicator of where we are headed are correct in their refusals to accept such comparisons.

Should they prove to be misguided in such refusals (to compare such) it would increasingly appear (to me) that we will find ourselves in a very poor spot indeed by our continued introduction of both GHG's and aerosols into our environment.

Only by GHG's/aerosols total inability to perform, in the ways our science shows us they do, can we assume we are safe from the excesses that those paleo-climates had.

[Admiral_Bobski]

So we have the long term 'Milankovich' drivers for cooling, we have the short phase cyclical drivers on earth (for cooling) , lowest solar outputs we have measured in the scientific age and yet we are warming....funny that don't you think?

Woah, woah, woah there, cowboy! Lowest solar outputs we have measured in the scientific age? Let's just have a quick look at that comment, shall we?

According to spaceweather.com the average solar minimum is 485 days. This solar minimum has lasted 744 days - 259 days, or around three-quarters of a year, over the average.

Prior to this solar minimum we have had fifty years or more of the highest solar outputs ever measured.

Over those fifty years we have had four or five solar cycles, each with a minimum that lasted around the average. Do you seriously expect this solar minimum to have had any kind of dramatic impact after only three-quarters of a year?

CB

[laserguy]

Prior to this solar minimum we have had fifty years or more of the highest solar outputs ever measured.

One more time and with feeling " it's the sun what did it" . Question now is,what's the sun going to do (or not),next? Never mind,regulating the global CO2 'allowance' will put him in his place.

[Methuselah]

We also saw some of the NH's coldest winters during that period of high Solar activity?? So, if we now go on to see some of the very mildest ones, I'll not be at all surprised...

[Gray-Wolf]

Over those fifty years we have had four or five solar cycles, each with a minimum that lasted around the average. Do you seriously expect this solar minimum to have had any kind of dramatic impact after only three-quarters of a year?

CB

So the arctic warming (and reversal of Milankovich driven cooling) can be explained in terms of solar output for the latter 1/2 of the observed period of warming?

You know what my next question will be don't you?

Edited November 2, 2009 by Gray-Wolf

[stewfox]

claiming months to be the 'hottest on record' is rather misleading as 'records' refered to (at least the more official, least controversial ones) begin only 300-400 years ago during the little Ice age after which temperatures rose to the current level. Even 50,000 years is a very short time in terms of the history of the earth, so how can we establish that these changes are 'man-made' or 'unprecedented'?

I too dont like the phase 'on record', although of course it could be literally true. ie for the period we have been recording such things

With Artic ice you often hear the lowest ice extent on record rather then the last 30yrs etc or since we have been measuring it.

However I do appreciate give the Earth is over 5 billion yrs old any 'records' are unlikely to be beaten in our life time.

I do also appreciate we cant wait a billion yrs to see if there man made

[Gray-Wolf]

I just wonder what has driven science to establish , beyond all doubt, that our tinkerings with pollutants whose impacts we have measured (in the lab, on the planet and on other planets) when it is all for nought and we should just 'wait and see'.

Maybe we wrongly named ourselves 'Homo Sapien Sapien'.......lol

.......then again.......

[jonboy]

'Beyond all doubt' I don't think so GW

[Methuselah]

Natural cycles/variations ⁺/_- anthropogenic influences - beyond reasonable doubt?? :winky:

[Admiral_Bobski]

So the arctic warming (and reversal of Milankovich driven cooling) can be explained in terms of solar output for the latter 1/2 of the observed period of warming?

You know what my next question will be don't you?

I didn't say that, Gray-Wolf, and I think the arctic warming can only be explained by a combination of factors. Only a fool would claim that it is caused by one factor and one factor alone.

The point of my post was to highlight yet another spurious comment by you.

CB

[Gray-Wolf]

I didn't say that, Gray-Wolf, and I think the arctic warming can only be explained by a combination of factors. Only a fool would claim that it is caused by one factor and one factor alone.

CB

In all probability true C=Bob.

Foolish indeed to deny the impacts of the many minor, short term peturbation cycles, that we are now aware of but what of the thing that drives our recent records beyond the 'norm' of the past 'X' thousands of years?

Maybe only a fool would deny the probability that human waste and destruction can be seen as the 'novel item' ,in this global system, that can be seen to posses the potential to drive the change we see above and beyond recognised natural 'peturbation cycles'?