metalblue said:
Damocles said:
SWP's back said:
Damocles already stated on the thread that where the funding arises is not relevant as any possible bias from the scientists having accepted funding is unfalsifiable.
Damocles also said that the peer review process is designed to lessen bias in every experiment.
The only possible conclusion that global warming skeptics can come to, is that there's a vast conspiracy involving many of the governments of the world, almost ALL of the climate scientists, many of the data gatherers, many of the solar scientists, many of the geologists and this is carried out in secret as a way of earning tax revenues that they presumably couldn't get from from any other means (because taxes only exist because of environmentalism).
The above conclusion is not the thinking of a sane person.
Question for you Damo...the carbon cycle is natural, man has put this into imbalance by adding more carbon than can be naturally dealt with by the planet, that's a given. Now my question (and it might be a very stupid one) is: do rising sea levels increase the amount of carbon the planet can "absorb"? and if so do we know to what extent?
You've asked a difficult question because, as with any other complex system, there's numerous things to consider. In the very simplest (simple enough to almost irrelevant) possible terms, yes, more sea means that more carbon will be absorbed. However, warmer seas also mean that carbon absorption rate drops.
The rate of absorption of human made carbon in the oceans is dropping already.
If enough ice melted, this would all be academic anyway. If we lose the ice caps, we're pretty much fucked even if we stop all pollution on the spot. It's not just the rising of sea level due to surface ice reentering the ocean that's the concern here, it's that ice reflects sunlight back out into atmosphere whereas water absorbs it and heats. The planet would start absorbing sunlight that it used to send back into atmosphere and the whole planet would heat accordingly.
There's also the point of salinity of the gulf stream and other ocean currents which control all of our weather systems, including heating the island that we currently inhabit (known as thermohaline circulation).
There's evidence to
support the idea
that this is already happening. The confidence in the data from that isn't at a level where anybody can say either way at this point, and there's much research yet to be done.
The lack of ice caps would have cause the planet to heat by several degrees, which would severely impact the ecosystem and human lifestyles. The North Pole completely melting wouldn't really effect sea levels that much because there isn't a HUGE amount of ice there (the concern here is the heat reflection thing mentioned earlier), but a melting of Greenland would be significant and if Antarctica goes (a continent that's twice the size of Australia and averages 7,000 feet thickness of ice) then we're all fucked and sea levels rise by 200 feet. That means Manchester would be 70 feet under water. Sea level rises are about the size of 111 Piccadilly or No 1 Deansgate, globally.
A complete stop of thermohaline circulation is an extinction level event.
I know that people like to bury their heads in the sand about things until it's something that cannot be denied any more. This is just how human psychology works.
Most of them don't do their research into it in any meaningful way, don't attempt to understand the issues or what they are reading. They try to negate it with conspiracies, or anecdotal arguments, or even by using data incorrectly to draw false conclusions.
Three years ago I stated on here that I was not yet convinced that climate change is a man made event. I've spent three years reading the science; not the coverage in the Daily Mail or the Guardian but peer reviewed scientific papers. I didn't cherry pick the odd data piece here or there but read everything that I could find in the journals, and asked a qualified friend to help me understand parts which were beyond my comprehension. I've done the legwork in understanding the issue and only ask others to do the same and see what conclusions that they come to. I'm now at a place whereby I'm convinced that climate change is a man made event.
