Global Warming

[BoyBlue_1985]

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.

Four years ago I stated on here that I was not yet convinced that climate change is a man made event. I've spent four 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.

My friend did climate change for his degree and came to the conclusion that climate change was a never ending earth cycle which had been sped up by man but is in no means man made. I would be pretty sure he used proper research in this and got a 1st for his work. I can ask for his work if you would like to read it

 

[Damocles]

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.

Four years ago I stated on here that I was not yet convinced that climate change is a man made event. I've spent four 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.

My friend did climate change for his degree and came to the conclusion that climate change was a never ending earth cycle which had been sped up by man but is in no means man made. I would be pretty sure he used proper research in this and got a 1st for his work. I can ask for his work if you would like to read it

Because hes correct. Climate change is a cycle of the Earth that takes hundreds of thousands of years. The climate change that has occurred in the past few decades was created by man instead of natural events. You can always link me to his work though.

Think of it this way, if an athlete goes from bulky to ripped over the course of a long period, you can say that its probably natural. If an athlete goes from bulky to ripped in six weeks, you can be pretty sure that hes on the gas.

 

[stonerblue]

i'd rather accept peer reviwed scientific knowledge than some bloke on the internet.

 

[blueinsa]

Is it not the case that political interference is widespread on these papers at present?

 

[BulgarianPride]

We already have electrical storage in many capacities
<a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage</a>

It may well help but we still need to generate the energy to store it in the first place

I am talking about electricity and at the moment that is not a reality.

I can imagine it would be largely impossible to store electricity. Then again scientist love to prove the impossible (and often do)

To store electricity we need to convert it to some other form of energy, i.e chemical or mechanical. The conversion from one to other is not perfect and so there would be loss, converting it back generates more loss of energy. The goal is to decrease the amount of energy lost in the conversion process.

As an example, imagine you have an electrical motor connected to a wheel suspended from the ground. When you have power you increase the speed of the wheel by using the electrical motor, converting electrical power into kinetic energy. When the power to the electrical motor is cut off, the wheel continues to move, due to its kinetic energy, and now we can convert this kinetic energy back to electrical energy. Electrical motors are pretty efficient , around 95%, but the problem with this is friction. With this there will always be loss, power in can't be equal to power out, as friction is hard to eliminate.<br /><br />-- Wed Jul 11, 2012 10:19 am --<br /><br />

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.

Four years ago I stated on here that I was not yet convinced that climate change is a man made event. I've spent four 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.

My friend did climate change for his degree and came to the conclusion that climate change was a never ending earth cycle which had been sped up by man but is in no means man made. I would be pretty sure he used proper research in this and got a 1st for his work. I can ask for his work if you would like to read it

Because hes correct. Climate change is a cycle of the Earth that takes hundreds of thousands of years. The climate change that has occurred in the past few decades was created by man instead of natural events. You can always link me to his work though.

Think of it this way, if an athlete goes from bulky to ripped over the course of a long period, you can say that its probably natural. If an athlete goes from bulky to ripped in six weeks, you can be pretty sure that hes on the gas.

But what if the athlete has been dieting for 20 weeks, and you've only seen him in the last six weeks?

 

[Skashion]

Meh, why worry about it. The livelihoods of people hundreds of years in the future might be affected but fuck 'em. I never liked 'em anyway.

 

[BlueTG]

A natural cycle that has slightly been sped up and elongated by man made substances etc, covered it in Geography A levels last year, there are always arguments for and against it, but thats the basic overview I take on it.

 

[Damocles]

Is it not the case that political interference is widespread on these papers at present?

Not really, no. There are thousands of papers released every year on the subject and its surrounding fields. The peer review process applies to all equally.

A natural cycle that has slightly been sped up and elongated by man made substances etc, covered it in Geography A levels last year, there are always arguments for and against it, but thats the basic overview I take on it.

There's almost no argument against it from qualified people. The scientific consensus is very clear.

But what if the athlete has been dieting for 20 weeks, and you've only seen him in the last six weeks?

What you've done there, is taken an analogy used to simplify something into literal terms without thinking it through. There is no analogous term in climate science for "what if you haven't seen him for six weeks after a 20 week diet". You are either saying that we haven't long term climate data, which is false, or that climate changes over very short periods of time which is also false. What you have said makes no analogous or literal sense.



The problem with this idea of "well, it's always happened" ignores several things:

1. No data supports a climate change in as short a period of time any time in climate history.
2. The ideal that the world "naturally" changes its own climate is false. The climate changes because something has forced it to. Man is currently the major forcing in the changing of the climate. All of the other historical forcings (ranging from asteroids, to volcanoes, to redistribution of the energy cycle) all went away or the Earth remained permanently warmed or cooled. I'm not that keen on humanity disappearing or the Earth permanently warming or cooling.
3. The idea that thousands of scientists, people who know the ins and outs of the climate cycles and spend their 8 hour work day working on it, haven't already considered this and ruled it out is a bit daft when you think about it. Thousands of people from all areas of scientific inquiry, of all nationalities and cultures all around planet Earth aren't just going to think "shit, we never considered that before!"

As I say, look into it yourselves.

 

[malg]

Unfortunately, as there is so, so, so much money in this climate change stuff you will absolutely never convince me that 'outside' influences have nothing whatsoever to do with it. Where there's money, you can be damn sure you'll find corruption. I read far too much Private Eye! And the more people try to convince by saying 'trust the scientists' the more sceptical I get.

I agree with the bloke above - it won't affect me so I probably don't give a shite. I'm more concerned about getting a job, or City winning another trophy next season, or Silva signing a new contract.

 

[BulgarianPride]

Is it not the case that political interference is widespread on these papers at present?

Not really, no. There are thousands of papers released every year on the subject and its surrounding fields. The peer review process applies to all equally.

A natural cycle that has slightly been sped up and elongated by man made substances etc, covered it in Geography A levels last year, there are always arguments for and against it, but thats the basic overview I take on it.

There's almost no argument against it from qualified people. The scientific consensus is very clear.

But what if the athlete has been dieting for 20 weeks, and you've only seen him in the last six weeks?

What you've done there, is taken an analogy used to simplify something into literal terms without thinking it through. There is no analogous term in climate science for "what if you haven't seen him for six weeks after a 20 week diet". You are either saying that we haven't long term climate data, which is false, or that climate changes over very short periods of time which is also false. What you have said makes no analogous or literal sense.

Come on now, post the long term data. I'd like to see it compared to the current data we've got and see if there are any sampling variations.

and also post the driving factor for the previous climate changes.