In The News

[VillagePlank]

Yes we could take this out of context to hit the IPCC with,but it's not really very intelligent to do so.

Glad to you mentioned that, Iceberg.

Perhaps, you'd like to let the editors at Nature know, since the first paragraph of the abstracts says .... Controversy about the current state and future evolution of Himalayan glaciers has been stirred up by erroneous statements in the fourth report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change"

ie - the paper was written in the context of the IPCC comments about Himalayan glaciation.

Just pointing out that the Telegraph headline is very misleading.

A quote from my link:-

"Many of the Himalayan Glaciers are retreating at an accelerating rate (Ren 2006) and roughly 500 million people depend on the melt water from these glaciers (Kehrwald 2008)."

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2573&from=rss_home

So, because of something said in 2006, something said in 2011 is necessarily wrong? Isn't there oil there, or something?

Edited January 28, 2011 by VillagePlank

[Iceberg]

As far as I am aware they set out to see what the truth was about glaciers in the said region. They did not set out to hit the IPCC over the head, unlike some people who have taken it out of context for that very reason.

If you look at the results...(see the diagrams on the link I provided) you can easily see that in every region except for the one mentioned by the telegraph glaciers were in decline, in some locations the decline is vert obvious.In the one small area mentioned as "K" in the report it shows that slightly more glaciers are stable or expanding thanks to some very specific reasons which greatly limit the effects of warming (i.e much less basal melt and a covering which protects the surface), these would always be the last glaciers you would expect to melt or contract in any circumstance.

What the report clearly finds is that Glaciers in that part of the world are retreating......

This is one of the reasons why scientist sometimes like to keep things away from reporters and the internet as they are always taken out of context.

As far as I am aware the WWF and the IPCC did not mentioned anything for this one small specific area. Apart from the one erroneous statement which everybody admits was wrong.

I know why don't we find a statement in over 5000 pages of writing and keep going over it year after year....

[knocker]

I've posted this before but I still think it's a very good starting point when discussing glaciers world wide.

http://www.grid.unep.ch/glaciers/

[jethro]

Well we'll just have to differ then. I am open to convincing arguments, but haven't really heard any in favour of GM. Furthermore, I am quite surprised that while so many people try to forecast the future based on speculative ideas - much as we read on this forum about the moon and Jupiter and gravity causing sunspots etc - people cannot see a pattern that connects our very serious groundwater pollution, the introduction years ago of persistent pesticides, and the failure of politicians and expensive public institutions to protect the environment. This recent history, together with the advice of independent and disinterested scientists from across Europe that GM should not be introduced other than case-by-case and after extensive investigation, is quite sufficient for me - and many others I might add - to reject GM outright, at least for the moment.

Regarding minorities, I think you will discover upon reflection that most majorities, and indeed society in general, are nothing more than associations of minorities. They shift their allegiances ad hoc. I never yet saw a durable majority that didn't involve internal strife. Implying that because a particular view is in the monority in no way strengthens the arguments against that view.

Whilst I appreciate that ground water pollution is a serious problem, I don't think it is a new one. It is tempting to believe that prior to the development and introduction of modern pesticides, crops (both domestic and commercial) were grown in a pesticide free environment, that there was a balance of nature and organic gardening was the norm - that isn't the case. Going back to at least the mid 1700's and possibly earlier (but documentation is scarce), crops were treated with all manner of things which would inevitably have contaminated the ground water, the soil and the workers too. Arsenic, Mercury and Lead were in routine use along with many other more inventive/bizarre toxic concoctions.

My comments about majorities wasn't a political one nor was it one designed to imply that it is superior in anyway to a minority, it was simply a statement of fact - in the past people grew food because they had to, they had a family to feed and increasing their crop yield was vitally important.

Personally, I don't think we're in a position to reject GM outright. I agree careful and rigorous studies need to be made but that is happening and will be an on-going process. In the foreseeable future we need plans to produce more food, GM could play a vital role in that.

[VillagePlank]

As far as I am aware they set out to see what the truth was about glaciers in the said region. They did not set out to hit the IPCC over the head, unlike some people who have taken it out of context for that very reason.

If you look at the results...(see the diagrams on the link I provided) you can easily see that in every region except for the one mentioned by the telegraph glaciers were in decline, in some locations the decline is vert obvious.In the one small area mentioned as "K" in the report it shows that slightly more glaciers are stable or expanding thanks to some very specific reasons which greatly limit the effects of warming (i.e much less basal melt and a covering which protects the surface), these would always be the last glaciers you would expect to melt or contract in any circumstance.

What the report clearly finds is that Glaciers in that part of the world are retreating......

This is one of the reasons why scientist sometimes like to keep things away from reporters and the internet as they are always taken out of context.

As far as I am aware the WWF and the IPCC did not mentioned anything for this one small specific area. Apart from the one erroneous statement which everybody admits was wrong.

I know why don't we find a statement in over 5000 pages of writing and keep going over it year after year....

Woah - slow down soldier. The IPCC report was mentioned in the abstract It's the scientists who brought it up, not me. And certainly not

some sloppy internet reporting or crap journalism; although, clearly, Booker only reports one side of a complex story.

I feel I must repeat again: the paper is written in the context of the IPCC error- the mention of it here, is NOT out of context.

Now, one can take this one of two ways: (i) interested scientists who are after the truth (ii) Evil denialists who are out to destroy middle-England and all it stands for and that we must therefore rise up and save them from themselves.

My vote is for (i)

[Iceberg]

Yes your right VP, but it's important to get the context of the mention of the IPCC right. In these kinds of things the context in the paper is not the context that was mentioned in your first post on the subject and not in the context as mentioned in the Telegraph. The incorrect IPCC statement which everyone agrees was incorrect needed looking into to uncover what is happening and this is a study that tries to do that.

Another way of putting the research and arguable more accurate is that glaciers in the Himalayan are on average in retreat except for a small area of glaciers which have very indervidual charecteristics making them more resistant(but probably not immune) to melting trends which very much supports the majority, consensus and IPCC views on Glacial retreat in that region.

There is no popular held belief that ALL glaciers in the Himalayans will be gone in 35 years.....

[PersianPaladin]

Yes your right VP, but it's important to get the context of the mention of the IPCC right. In these kinds of things the context in the paper is not the context that was mentioned in your first post on the subject and not in the context as mentioned in the Telegraph. The incorrect IPCC statement which everyone agrees was incorrect needed looking into to uncover what is happening and this is a study that tries to do that.

Another way of putting the research and arguable more accurate is that glaciers in the Himalayan are on average in retreat except for a small area of glaciers which have very indervidual charecteristics making them more resistant(but probably not immune) to melting trends which very much supports the majority, consensus and IPCC views on Glacial retreat in that region.

There is no popular held belief that ALL glaciers in the Himalayans will be gone in 35 years.....

Yup, it's very misleading...as I already said.

[sunny starry skies]

And the key thing about the Karakorum glaciers is their debris cover (really high, steep mountainsides tend to have that sort of effect on glaciers- lots of debris), which protects the ablation area from mass loss and frontal retreat like you would see on a 'normal' glacier.

Advance/retreat is not the best marker of glacier mass balance change under those circumstances. As ever it is enlightening the way some like to highlight trivial and acknowledged errors to make a point, when the bigger picture very clearly shows otherwise. VP, I think that was the reason your first post on the topic was not reasonable, I'm sure you understand the narrow scope of the acknowledged IPCC error, and the context within which it lies, that the vast majority of glaciers around the world are retreating.

[knocker]

The increased frequency of drought observed in eastern Africa over the last 20 years is likely to continue as long as global temperatures continue to rise, according to new research published in Climate Dynamics.

This poses increased risk to the estimated 17.5 million people in the Greater Horn of Africa who currently face potential food shortages.

Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of California, Santa Barbara, determined that warming of the Indian Ocean, which causes decreased rainfall in eastern Africa, is linked to global warming. These new projections of continued drought contradict previous scenarios by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicting increased rainfall in eastern Africa.

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2690

[Gray-Wolf]

The increased frequency of drought observed in eastern Africa over the last 20 years is likely to continue as long as global temperatures continue to rise, according to new research published in Climate Dynamics.

This poses increased risk to the estimated 17.5 million people in the Greater Horn of Africa who currently face potential food shortages.

Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of California, Santa Barbara, determined that warming of the Indian Ocean, which causes decreased rainfall in eastern Africa, is linked to global warming. These new projections of continued drought contradict previous scenarios by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicting increased rainfall in eastern Africa.

http://www.usgs.gov/...cle.asp?ID=2690

There are those who will seek to 'airbrush' the climatic dynamics in favour of 'Political ineptitude' though?

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/climate-extremes-put-sceptics-in-hot-seat-20110128-1a8bj.html

Hmmmm?

Edited January 28, 2011 by Gray-Wolf
Ahem

[osmposm]

.....Glyophosphate is the new scoundrel, if we do not mention farmers that spray their rape with it, the consultants who recommend it, and the manufacturers. And regarding the consultants who recommend this poison, my best friend's brother, an agricultural consultant, died recently with horrendously scarred and disfigured legs, which the doctors suggested was a result of wandering for year after year through crops sprayed with this stuff.....

Jeez. When will people wake up Probably not before it is too late.

Um, I suppose you mean glyphosate - I don't normally pick people up on typos and spelling, but you do repeat the misnomer elsewhere; you are clearly a highly literate man, and to be frank it doesn't help the plausibilty of your case when you don't seem to know the name of the thing you're up in arms about.

I'm surprised by the doctor's suggested diagnosis for your friend's brother's horrendous disfigurement. While Glyphosate may possibly be not quite as innocuous as the manufacturers maintain, it is certainly a great deal less problematic than many other herbicides that it has replaced. It has been around for nearly 40 years now, and I have never heard any reports of physical effects remotely like those you describe - this is a far from adulatory discussion of the chemical http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/Actives/glyphosa.htm , and even they don't mention anything like that. The worst that the Wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate (which discuss its toxicity at some length) can come up with is "Dermal exposure to ready-to-use glyphosate formulations can cause irritation, and photo-contact dermatitis has been reported occasionally; these effects are probably due to the preservative Proxel (benzisothiazolin-3-one). Severe skin burns are very rare."

I'm also hard pressed to understand why a professional agriculturist would have regularly walked through fields freshly treated with it - you are specifically advised not to allow it to sit on naked skin, I believe. Did he regularly wear shorts, or are you saying he pushed his way through plants wet with it, and it soaked through his trousers? And do you really mean he walked through "crops sprayed with this stuff"? If so, it must have been a GM crop (or something woody, like apple trees) otherwise it would have been killed, surely? What country did he work in, I wonder, and on what sort of crops? All most perplexing, but perhaps I'm being dense.

Edited January 29, 2011 by osmposm

[Gowon]

More peer-reviewed studies now show how our current warm period is not unprecedented -

In closing, it is instructive to note that even with the help of the supposedly unprecedented anthropogenic-induced increase in the atmosphere's CO2 concentration that occurred over the course of the 20th century, the Current Warm Period has not achieved anywhere near the warmth of the MWP or RWP, which suggests to us that the climatic impact of the 20th-century increase in the air's CO2 content has been negligible, for the warming that defined the earth's recovery from the global chill of the LIA -- which should have been helped by the concurrent increase in the air's CO2 content -- appears no different from the non-CO2-induced warming that brought the planet out of the Dark Ages Cold Period and into the Medieval Warm Period.

Here's the link - http://www.co2scienc...s/V14/N4/C2.php

And here's the full paper - https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/HoloceneClimate+Optimum10-d/CleggHuFengShengetal10-6000yrSummerTVar-SouthCentralAlaska.pdf

Edited January 29, 2011 by Higrade

[BornFromTheVoid]

More peer-reviewed studies now show how our current warm period is not unprecedented -

In closing, it is instructive to note that even with the help of the supposedly unprecedented anthropogenic-induced increase in the atmosphere's CO2 concentration that occurred over the course of the 20th century, the Current Warm Period has not achieved anywhere near the warmth of the MWP or RWP, which suggests to us that the climatic impact of the 20th-century increase in the air's CO2 content has been negligible, for the warming that defined the earth's recovery from the global chill of the LIA -- which should have been helped by the concurrent increase in the air's CO2 content -- appears no different from the non-CO2-induced warming that brought the planet out of the Dark Ages Cold Period and into the Medieval Warm Period.

Here's the link - http://www.co2scienc...s/V14/N4/C2.php

And here's the full paper - https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/HoloceneClimate+Optimum10-d/CleggHuFengShengetal10-6000yrSummerTVar-SouthCentralAlaska.pdf

Pretty interesting. Only had a brief read through it, but considering it was mainly based on July temperatures for a lake in Alaska, that conclusion seems to be going a little too far don't you think?

[Gowon]

Pretty interesting. Only had a brief read through it, but considering it was mainly based on July temperatures for a lake in Alaska, that conclusion seems to be going a little too far don't you think?

I don't see why it should be a problem.

I think this paragraph explains why it's only July Temps.

Analysis of midge (chironomid, chaoborid, and ceratopogonid) assemblages has proven effective for reconstructing summer temperature (Battarbee et al., 2002). Midge larvae are highly sensitive to summer lake-water temperature, which reflects air temperature in lakes without strong thermal stratification, and fossil midge assemblages preserved in lake sediments have been applied to quantify temperature changes (e.g., Walker et al., 1991;Levesque et al., 1994; Brooks and Birks, 2001; Larocque andBigler, 2004; Porinchu et al., 2009). Midge transfer functions of July temperature and other variables were recently developed for Alaska and adjacent regions (e.g.,Walker et al., 2003; Barley, 2004;Barley et al., 2006) and used to elucidate millennial-scale climatevariation during the late-Quaternary (Kurek et al., 2009). As with other midge-based temperature reconstructions, applications of this temperature transfer function may be hampered by the small range of Holocene variation relative to the statistical uncertainties of the transfer function. However, a number of studies from high altitude and high-latitude lakes in various regions have demonstrated the reliability of midge assemblages for quantitative reconstruction of Holocene temperature changes (e.g., Seppä et al., 2002; Heiri et al., 2003; Larocque and Hall, 2003; Rosenberg et al., 2004; Chase et al., 2008).

Edited January 29, 2011 by Higrade

[Gray-Wolf]

Hmmm?

If that is so why was I 'shouted down' two years ago for pointing us to a study of a lake, on Ellesmere Island(now drained through melting of the ice sheet holding it in place?), which showed the opposite of this?

The MWP certainly didn't make it to Ellesmere island (or the lake would have 'drained then?) and the life forms that were rapidly arriving there pointed to a warming not seen within the rest of the 11.5 thousand year record?

Odd that?

[osmposm]

Yes, it's a very interesting study indeed, Higrade - thanks for bringing it to our attention. But though it is undoubtedly another important piece in the jigsaw, BFTV's point is fair: is it reasonable to extrapolate from it that temperatures globally (and over the entire year) must have followed the same pattern, and suggest that it is de facto proof that the planet overall is not as warm as it was during the Medieval & Roman Warm periods?

Edit: just seen G-W's simultaneous post. Yup, that's the problem - two bits of evidence from two different locations showing different things. Taken in isolation neither is proof of anything in the wider picture.

Edited January 29, 2011 by osmposm

[Gray-Wolf]

Meanwhile, a new study, by the University of California and Potsdam have found that half of the glaciers in the Karakoram range are growing. This is, of course, contrary to the popularly held belief, espoused by the World Wildlife Fund, and which made it into last IPCC report, that suggests that the glaciers only have 35 years left.

Here

Besides, skiing in Yorkshire kind of has a apoplectic ring to it don't you think?

Odd that V.P.?

The environment Minister Jairam Ramesh is also the chappie who funded their (ex) space agency boss to produce a paper (not yet peer reviewed but widely quoted on the dinialsphere Blog sites) showing it is 'cosmic rays' wot done it and CO2 is a bit part player?

As I said of that it seems my turn to wear the 'Skeptiks Hat' seeing as this is one of the developing nations currently playing 'catchup' with the developed world but falling foul of CO2 emissions targets.......case of 'nothing to see here'?

Edited January 29, 2011 by Gray-Wolf

[Gowon]

http://autonomousmin...finally-nailed/

I wonder what else they've lied about!

Edited January 29, 2011 by Higrade

[knocker]

http://autonomousmin...finally-nailed/

I wonder what else they've lied about!

"The Met Office is completely discredited". Get real. As a matter of interest what else do you think they have lied about and the reasons behind the lies?

[Interitus]

More peer-reviewed studies now show how our current warm period is not unprecedented -

In closing, it is instructive to note that even with the help of the supposedly unprecedented anthropogenic-induced increase in the atmosphere's CO2 concentration that occurred over the course of the 20th century, the Current Warm Period has not achieved anywhere near the warmth of the MWP or RWP, which suggests to us that the climatic impact of the 20th-century increase in the air's CO2 content has been negligible, for the warming that defined the earth's recovery from the global chill of the LIA -- which should have been helped by the concurrent increase in the air's CO2 content -- appears no different from the non-CO2-induced warming that brought the planet out of the Dark Ages Cold Period and into the Medieval Warm Period.

Here's the link - http://www.co2scienc...s/V14/N4/C2.php

And here's the full paper - https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~wsoon/HoloceneClimate+Optimum10-d/CleggHuFengShengetal10-6000yrSummerTVar-SouthCentralAlaska.pdf

Important to note that the quote is from an anti-AGW website NOT the conclusion of the peer-reviewed article which just confirms the obvious - the temperature has always fluctuated. But that does not necessarily mean the effect of increased CO2 has been negligible.

The real conclusion in the article states

"The Moose Lake TJuly record is of limited value for assessing anthropogenic warming in the context of the long-term natural variability because of the relatively coarse temporal resolution and potential impacts of human activity on the lake chemistry"

Also that the current Alaskan warming appears less than previous periods "contrasts with previous high-resolution temperature reconstructions from Alaska. For example, 20th century climate was among the warmest periods of the past two millennia on the basis of d18O data from Farewell Lake (Hu et al., 2001; Fig. 4D), and a summer temperature increase of 2.0 C over the past 150 years was inferred from a biogenic silica (BSi) record from Hallett Lake (135 km west of Moose Lake) (McKay et al., 2008)"

Interesting article, crap website.

[Gray-Wolf]

http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article881453.ece/Get-used-to-the-weather-...

Hmmm .... "soon to confirm" the connection between AGW and the extreme flooding/droughts across the globe eh?

[Gowon]

"The Met Office is completely discredited". Get real. As a matter of interest what else do you think they have lied about and the reasons behind the lies?

The Global Warming Policy Foundation - http://www.thegwpf.org/uk-news/2297-mps-slam-secretive-climategate-probes.html

[Gowon]

http://www.timeslive...-to-the-weather-...

Hmmm .... "soon to confirm" the connection between AGW and the extreme flooding/droughts across the globe eh?

It's unbiased which is good to see.

This is part of the problem.

Among the chief concerns are the rising number of human settlements, both up-market developments and townships, built on river flood plains and therefore vulnerable to flash floods.

Themba Dube, senior manager of climate services at the South African Weather Service, said while the overall trend pointed towards long-term changes, it was too soon to say whether the latest floods were the direct result of human-induced climate change.

Peter Lukey, chief director of air quality management in the Department of Environmental Affairs, said although climate change was a possible cause of the extreme weather, "it is not possible to link specific extreme weather events to climate change directly".

The bit I've underlined says it all.

He said: "Seasonal forecasters said as early as August that there was a likelihood of it being extremely wet (in December/ January). If we can't deal with climate variability, then how will we be able to deal with climate change? It irks me that so much attention is given to long-term climate change while people are drowning now because of climate variability. We should be looking at more imminent time-scales. The future is now."

[Alan Robinson]

Um, I suppose you mean glyphosate - I don't normally pick people up on typos and spelling, but you do repeat the misnomer elsewhere; you are clearly a highly literate man, and to be frank it doesn't help the plausibilty of your case when you don't seem to know the name of the thing you're up in arms about.

I'm surprised by the doctor's suggested diagnosis for your friend's brother's horrendous disfigurement. While Glyphosate may possibly be not quite as innocuous as the manufacturers maintain, it is certainly a great deal less problematic than many other herbicides that it has replaced. It has been around for nearly 40 years now, and I have never heard any reports of physical effects remotely like those you describe - this is a far from adulatory discussion of the chemical http://www.pan-uk.or...es/glyphosa.htm , and even they don't mention anything like that. The worst that the Wiki article http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Glyphosate (which discuss its toxicity at some length) can come up with is "Dermal exposure to ready-to-use glyphosate formulations can cause irritation, and photo-contact dermatitis has been reported occasionally; these effects are probably due to the preservative Proxel (benzisothiazolin-3-one). Severe skin burns are very rare."

I'm also hard pressed to understand why a professional agriculturist would have regularly walked through fields freshly treated with it - you are specifically advised not to allow it to sit on naked skin, I believe. Did he regularly wear shorts, or are you saying he pushed his way through plants wet with it, and it soaked through his trousers? And do you really mean he walked through "crops sprayed with this stuff"? If so, it must have been a GM crop (or something woody, like apple trees) otherwise it would have been killed, surely? What country did he work in, I wonder, and on what sort of crops? All most perplexing, but perhaps I'm being dense.

Could be I've taken it from the Danish literature. They do often spell things a bit differently, and even call things something completely different. Take potassium for example. They call it kalium, which corresponds to the chemical symbol for it. I might also have made a persistent and simple spelling mistake. Never mind, you got the gist of it.

The man in question was Danish, and worked in Denmark all his life. He visited farmers and advised them on - among other things - when and what to spray with. By the way, I am not suggesting gly phosphate was the cause of his disfigurement for he was in contact with numerous products, but his doctor apparently suggested the condition of the skin on his legs was directly related to his work, as he had seen nothing quite like it before that could be attributed to reasonably well-known complaints. He died of cancer aged about 80, the details of which I didn't ask, but his sister-in-law, a retired nurse, is fairly blunt in saying the whole business was related to argricultural chemicals.

I think however you miss my point. The manufacturers of numerous pesticides informed the Danish authorities over decades, that first this product, then that, do not persist more than a short while, and there was therefore no threat to groundwater (Denmark, except Copenhagen, is largely dependent on groundwater rather than surface water). We knew however about 20 years ago this was not the case, because our groundwater here in Bjerreby became contaminated, and the local water company were compelled to install exceptional purification equipment. Since then, agriculture has suggested not spraying within 2 metres of watercourses, yet they still do; they promised to reduce the volumes of pesticides being spread, and yet last year saw the biggest volume since records began; the government has promised year after year to do something yet have done nothing, and now, 40% of all Danish wells are contaminated, some so seriously they cannot supply water any longer. In consequence, the influential Danish Society for Protection of the Natural Environment is now demanding a complete ban of pesticide use in agriculture, for they feel their previous soft approach has completely failed.

In light of this, I think you will see your comments metaphorically speaking amount to what sailors call a luffing contest.

By the way, there was recently a scandal in the UK, where allotment tenants received manure from farmers, which turned out to be contaminated with aminopyralid, or whatever it was called - I'll look it up if you insist - which was a herbicide that was used in hay fields. The horses ate it, it passed through their system, and reached a considerable number of allotments, where it killed off a lot of plants. There followed a big hoohah about it, and yet all that has happened is "greater control will be used to assure the product's proper use". Now oddly enough aminopyralid is not approved for use in Denmark where I live, but guess what, the Danish gardener's groups warn of gly phosphate finding its way through horses to compost, where it can do considerable damage in the kitchen garden. before this I had considered asking the farmer down the road if I could have a bit of rape to make liquid fertiliser with - it is normally a good green manure - but knowing the persistence of gly phosphate, I think I'll give rape a miss and stick to nettles from the wood instead.

As someone commenting on aminopyralid mentioned, "anyone for DDT while we consider this stuff, or asbestos, or a fag? They were all considered safe in their time".

Edit; aminopyrAlid, not aminopyrOlid.

Edited January 30, 2011 by Alan Robinson

[Gray-Wolf]

We have had issues with sheep dip being dumped up in the disused quarries above us which ,once the drums rust and rupture, finds it's way into the spring water supplies. I've also known of a couple of chaps who have been impacted by extended exposure to the stuff....not good.