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pottyprof

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Posted
  • Location: Swallownest, Sheffield 83m ASL
  • Location: Swallownest, Sheffield 83m ASL

This is the place to discuss environmental disasters and the potential problems, both long and short term, natural and man made. This is not the place to talk politics but the place to talk of solutions and effects. Have we learned anything from an historical point of view and can we deal with future problems?

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Posted
  • Location: South Yorkshire
  • Location: South Yorkshire

The Gulf oil disaster. The horror of it and some of the consequences are plain for all to see. Can't watch those news pictures of birds covered in oil,dying. The images I've seen are burnt onto my retinas. Heartbreaking,and that's just the damage that's obvious. Don't know what else to say....

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

A very visible reminder of the scale of the damage we can inflict on our 'life support' system. I wish more folk would realise that we damage Ocean,land and air with our lust for comfort and that we cannot continue without incurring costs (you don't pooh on your own doorstep now do you?).

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Posted
  • Location: Swallownest, Sheffield 83m ASL
  • Location: Swallownest, Sheffield 83m ASL

There is a problem with the dispersant that BP have been using on the oils slick. Also looks like there is a problem with others too.

As arguments rage over how to clean up the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, an examination of toxicity tests reveals flaws in the data used to determine the safety of dispersants.

The US Environmental Protection Agency and BP have locked horns over the toxicity of the dispersants being used to break up the oil spewing from the Deepwater Horizon well. Now, New Scientist has learned that huge variability in the safety test results submitted by different manufacturers makes it very difficult to judge which of the available dispersant chemicals poses the least threat to marine life.

Taken from here... http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19053-doubts-over-safety-tests-on-gulf-oil-dispersants.html

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Posted
  • Location: G.Manchester
  • Location: G.Manchester

A very visible reminder of the scale of the damage we can inflict on our 'life support' system. I wish more folk would realise that we damage Ocean,land and air with our lust for comfort and that we cannot continue without incurring costs (you don't pooh on your own doorstep now do you?).

I think I'm pretty much fully aware of those things. Will it ever change before we do something unrepairable? I doubt it.

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Posted
  • Location: South Yorkshire
  • Location: South Yorkshire

A very visible reminder of the scale of the damage we can inflict on our 'life support' system. I wish more folk would realise that we damage Ocean,land and air with our lust for comfort and that we cannot continue without incurring costs (you don't pooh on your own doorstep now do you?).

GW I think you may find this most interesting.

http://www.helium.co...d-kill-millions

Also I'm in total agreement with your post,you may or may not be suprised to hear - but note that it has nothing whatsoever to do with,specifically,CO2 and climate change!

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This is the place to discuss environmental disasters and the potential problems, both long and short term, natural and man made. This is not the place to talk politics but the place to talk of solutions and effects. Have we learned anything from an historical point of view and can we deal with future problems?

Have we learnt anything from a historical point of view? It doesn't look like it does it? From what others have posted if we are fighting pollution from oil spills with more pollutants then that's just adding to the problem, surely?

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Have we learnt anything from a historical point of view? It doesn't look like it does it? From what others have posted if we are fighting pollution from oil spills with more pollutants then that's just adding to the problem, surely?

3 eyed porpoises and Humpty backed manatee here we come...........we are turning into a Simpson's movie......

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3 eyed porpoises and Humpty backed manatee here we come...........we are turning into a Simpson's movie......

There's a lot more depth to the Simpsons than some people realise at times.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Swallownest, Sheffield 83m ASL
  • Location: Swallownest, Sheffield 83m ASL

Here's an article from Intel, who have built a super computer for the National Center for Atmospheric Research based in Boulder, Colarado. They are modelling The gulf oil spill. It's not looking good at all further doen the line from here.

http://scoop.intel.com/2010/07/intel-supercomputer-tracks-bp-oil-spill.php

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Hmmmm, who needs a model with 'cane season forecast as it is?

EDIT: Not that I don't value models as 'guides' you understand......I mean ,how do we get out 'forecasts' anyhow?

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

The same regions being held up as a "sign of the global warming tide turning...." are now burning away as wildfires devour the heat/drought ridden areas of the Russian Federation.

Roll on the cold eh?

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Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

The Russian Wildfires have blanketed Moscow with an acrid smog 6 times above normal safe levels for pollution.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100807/hl_afp/russiaheatwavefires

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Posted
  • Location: Ramsgate, Kent
  • Location: Ramsgate, Kent

Hi all,

The fires in Russia are unreal, really is a big event happening here.

http://jotman.blogsp...-in-russia.html

Also came across this, caused by a cold front??

1 million dead fish

Then we have all the historic floods that have been happening around the world this year. Does look like a tipping point is being reached.

Crazy times....

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Posted
  • Location: 4 miles north of Durham City
  • Location: 4 miles north of Durham City

His last sentence is only partially correct.

Too many people are using too much stuff; yet these people represent a minority of the worlds' population.

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

1 million dead fish

Then we have all the historic floods that have been happening around the world this year. Does look like a tipping point is being reached.

Crazy times....

If AGW are to cause a see-sawing of extreme weather.....which it is......Russia is a point in question with records low temps over winter being replaced with record high temps this summer.

As ever folk will counter with "you can't take individual events as indicators of...." but when so many of these 1 in a hundred year/once in a lifetime type of events become so common place what are you to think?

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Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl

So it's ok to cite last winter as cooling then? What about the SH winter this year or the vast volumes of snow in places like China? Shall we use the growing glaciers on Mount Washington as evidence of cooling and a return to an ice age? If we take record low temperatures in the USA as evidence for cooling we'd all better buy a shovel and start stocking up now.

http://www.iceagenow.com/Record_Lows_2010.htm

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

So it's ok to cite last winter as cooling then? What about the SH winter this year or the vast volumes of snow in places like China? Shall we use the growing glaciers on Mount Washington as evidence of cooling and a return to an ice age? If we take record low temperatures in the USA as evidence for cooling we'd all better buy a shovel and start stocking up now.

http://www.iceagenow...d_Lows_2010.htm

Well it'd better hurry up and freeze as thousands are currently dying in the floods sweeping Pakistan/China and Asia..........now what could cause lots of 1 in a hundred year events to cluster together like this? If it's not snow it's drought/heatwave/floods.

Pretty busy planet over the last year folks!!!

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Posted
  • Location: East Anglia
  • Location: East Anglia

Well it'd better hurry up and freeze as thousands are currently dying in the floods sweeping Pakistan/China and Asia..........now what could cause lots of 1 in a hundred year events to cluster together like this? If it's not snow it's drought/heatwave/floods.

Pretty busy planet over the last year folks!!!

But hardly for the first time, I have a good few books about past weather events and it seems likely that we are seeing nothing unusual, in the types or frequency of extreme weather events. Personally I think the constant reporting of these events as definite evidence of GW, is doing more harm than good, by making the public more sceptical and more blasé and frankly bored of the subject.

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Posted
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Location: Edinburgh

Frequency of extremes is a measurable property though. In a given stable temperature/precipitation record, you expect to see roughly the same number of record maxima and record minima. Over time, you would also expect that the total number of record maxima/minima would decline with time as it gets harder and harder to beat the highest/lowest extreme value. This is not the case with a temperature/precipitation record that is recording a trend. In such a case you expect the number of record maxima to significantly outnumber the number of record minima. This is what is being observed worldwide:

http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2009/maxmin.jsp

http://climateprogress.org/2010/07/05/heat-wave-global-warming/

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1569&tstamp=#commenttop

For example, the Jeff Masters comment has 17 national high temperature records broken in 2010 up to 6th Aug, and only one low temperature record broken. The cold snap of last winter broke no national low temperature records in Europe or the USA. It brought some record snowfalls, which are entirely to be expected in an atmosphere with more water vapour and energy to play with.

Now we can all kid ourselves that the collection of events that have been considered unprecedented (such as Russian heat, Pakistan floods, US floods and heat, etc etc) are happening by chance, but the statistical analysis for temperature extremes shows the trend, and the exceptional precipitation events, wildfires etc are entirely consistent with predictions in a warmer world. If we have all this with 0.8C warming, where will 2-4C take us?

Meanwhile the major national media outlets such as the BBC steadfastly refuse to make the connection between the extreme weather and anthropogenic global warming. At some stage, people will have to wake up to the fact that increased frequency of extreme weather such as that we are seeing is not only a prediction of global warming, it is also the principal immediate manifestation of that warming.

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Posted
  • Location: Longlevens, 16m ASL
  • Weather Preferences: Hot sunny summers, cold snowy winters
  • Location: Longlevens, 16m ASL

Frequency of extremes is a measurable property though. In a given stable temperature/precipitation record, you expect to see roughly the same number of record maxima and record minima. Over time, you would also expect that the total number of record maxima/minima would decline with time as it gets harder and harder to beat the highest/lowest extreme value. This is not the case with a temperature/precipitation record that is recording a trend. In such a case you expect the number of record maxima to significantly outnumber the number of record minima. This is what is being observed worldwide:

http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2009/maxmin.jsp

http://climateprogress.org/2010/07/05/heat-wave-global-warming/

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1569&tstamp=#commenttop

For example, the Jeff Masters comment has 17 national high temperature records broken in 2010 up to 6th Aug, and only one low temperature record broken. The cold snap of last winter broke no national low temperature records in Europe or the USA. It brought some record snowfalls, which are entirely to be expected in an atmosphere with more water vapour and energy to play with.

Now we can all kid ourselves that the collection of events that have been considered unprecedented (such as Russian heat, Pakistan floods, US floods and heat, etc etc) are happening by chance, but the statistical analysis for temperature extremes shows the trend, and the exceptional precipitation events, wildfires etc are entirely consistent with predictions in a warmer world. If we have all this with 0.8C warming, where will 2-4C take us?

Meanwhile the major national media outlets such as the BBC steadfastly refuse to make the connection between the extreme weather and anthropogenic global warming. At some stage, people will have to wake up to the fact that increased frequency of extreme weather such as that we are seeing is not only a prediction of global warming, it is also the principal immediate manifestation of that warming.

Only you can make that inference though, the planet has never had a constant climatic state, we are in a warming period but that does not automatically make it AGW. In fact I think the BBC is all too ready to blame all sorts of weather events on AGW with out offering a shred of evidence to back it up.

I guess some of us still have an open mind and are looking for all possabilities/causes whereas others have already made up their minds despite protestations to the contrary.

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Posted
  • Location: Near Newton Abbot or east Dartmoor, Devon
  • Location: Near Newton Abbot or east Dartmoor, Devon

Only you can make that inference though, the planet has never had a constant climatic state, we are in a warming period but that does not automatically make it AGW. In fact I think the BBC is all too ready to blame all sorts of weather events on AGW with out offering a shred of evidence to back it up.

I guess some of us still have an open mind and are looking for all possabilities/causes whereas others have already made up their minds despite protestations to the contrary.

Why is it that, almost without exception, people who go to university to study climate think as SSS does? Why is that? Do people who've not studied climate at university know more about climate than those that have?

I think an open mind is good. Indeed I find it hard to take lectures (and three sentence post on NW are not lectures <_<) from those who dispute AGW about how only they are open minded - it's codswallop. I keep my mind open to the likely hood people like SSS are right.

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Posted
  • Location: East Anglia
  • Location: East Anglia

I have to say I think the media do try to report all unusual weather events as down to GW, and I think that is a mistake. They would be better advised to listen to what the science has to say on a case to case basis. However the long term trend in average temperature/precipitation

has a tendency to slip under the radar because its not an instantly exciting weather news event.

SSS while the Russian heat and the Pakistan floods are rare events they are not unprecedented and no weather events happen, or have ever happened by chance and nobody with any knowledge of climate thinks they do. We should be careful to stick with the facts and not spill into hyperbole its far to serious an issue to allow it to become a Hollywood movie script. To pin my colours to the mast, I have very little doubt that man is impacting on climate in a major way and it may be that some extreme weather events that we have seen are linked to that, but I do think it’s a major mistake to engage in hyperbole over each and every case. We have seen what the result of that approach is with increasing public apathy towards what is potentially a major catastrophe for humanity.

The publics attention when it comes to news stories can be very short lived, take the situation of a few years ago when we were told after a especially active hurricane season that as the world continued to warm we would see much more of the same, what has happened is that the public quickly got disinterested because that has not happened on a timescale that has held their attention. And lets be honest that season may well have been just an active one and nothing to do with GW, we could say it was a likely contributing factor, but nobody can be certain.

What is a tad annoying in the climate threads is an attitude that you must be in one camp or another and if you are positioned on one side of the debate or the other you must tow the party line, hook, line and sinker, its no wonder that debate on here is so often fractious.

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

w.e., Hi!

Suppose AGW were real. how would you recognise it's impacts?

We are told that we are to expect more 'extreme weather events' (Cold,Hot,Floods,Droughts) so how will we measure this occurring?

To me , and this is just me speaking you understand, I'd expect more frequent record breaking weather events around the globe. I'd expect 1 in a hundred year events to become more like 1 in a decade event.

Again, just me here, I'd rather think that through the 80's/90's and noughties we have seen just such a change starting to happen. If you look back through news archives you'll find plenty of instances of "once in a lifetime" events cropping up only to repeat within this 30yr period. Of course this could be statistical were it just one event (i.e. just cause the odds are once every hundred years doesn't mean that it can't happen the day after) but when it's across all event types and across all nations surely you have to suspect that this is beyond 'coincidence' and something else is driving their frequency?

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