Environmental Science

[HDQQ]

Although I've always been an environmentalist and keen on moving to clean, renewable energy, I used to be a climate change skeptic. I used to think that a few years of rising temperatures coinciding with a rise in man-made CO2 emissions could well be no more than coincidence given that the global climate has always varied. Indeed, global temperatures did stop rising in the early 2000s but then they started going up again and the correlation with CO2 emissions looks more convincing with each hot year.

This graph sort of says it all:https://www.globalchange.gov/browse/multimedia/global-temperature-and-carbon-dioxide

I see that's pretty much the same as the graph in the previous post.

So if we are causing warming, the melting of that Antarctic and Greenland ice caps will cause sea levels to rise. A large proportion of the world's population lives in low-lying areas - e.g. a large part of London. A couple of metres rise in sea level and those areas will be uninhabitable or at serious risk of flooding. If temperatures continue to rise, the rate at which the ice caps melt will presumably accelerate too.

[grumzed]

Nick, here is a graph of CO2 vs global temperature in recent times..

https://www.climate.gov/sites/default/files/global_temp_vs_carbon_dioxide_graph_lrg.gif

You will note the high correlation between CO2 and temperature. No 800 year delay here. That particular phenomenon you referred to does exist and may also be occurring but not really noticably over the short term as can be seen from the ice core data (takes several hundred years); but that has nothing to do with the rise in temperature in this sort of timeframe.

[grumzed]

Oh dear, Nick, you know very well I meant Lawson was an anthropogenic climate change denier as opposed to what you thought, which was that he was someone who thought "use of coal was bad"! So I just missed being precise where you put him on the wrong side of the argument. I will not say "absolute rot" though!!

I never said that all the people interviewed were crackpots (I reserve that for Piers Corbyn who they did not interview for long) but just a tiny minority of those people who study the subject. It was not intended as a balanced view was it?

I did point you to the New Scientist's rebuttal of the arguments which I'm sure you can find via Google, but I don't think it would change your view.

[Nick]

Nick, Nigel Lawson was a prominent Climate Change denier!

Absolute rot! Show me a single person that denies the climate is changing?

I could point out the scientists who objected to thier interview being edited and shown as it was but I would have to go back to find the websites and I am sure it would have no effect on your views whatever.

The people interviewed were not crackpots you know, they were eminent scientists that had won awards in their field. One guy was the head of research stationed at the North Pole. Sounds like you're struggling to come up with answers, and like I said right at the beginning, you won't provide any science that proves anthropogenic global warming.

[grumzed]

Nick, Nigel Lawson was a prominent Climate Change denier! He was featured in the documentary that you admired.

I could point out the scientists who objected to thier interview being edited and shown as it was but I would have to go back to find the websites and I am sure it would have no effect on your views whatever. It was only one or two otherwise they searched out a few oddballs who took these contrary views.

Sorry I did not get back earlier but I lost the internet for a while. BT have been digging up the road to lay fibre at long last (they promised it "soon" about 10 years ago). My bitrate was over 11Mb/s (my contract only guarantees 6Mb/s) but it dropped to 5 then I lost it altogether. I called BT and they were going to send someone but then it eventually came back to about 7, so I cancelled the BT man as he would not have done anything. I'm not sure why it went altogether but I'm putting up with 7Mb/s (which is just OK) until I can get a direct fibre connection (more £££ of course).

[Nick]

The climate change debate was going on before Thatcher was even leader of the Tory Party.

Correct, but the debate was how to stop the Earth entering an ice age. 'Global Warming' was a new invention.

[HDQQ]

Nigel Lawson was involved because Maggie asked him to go out and find a reason to build nuclear power stations, and like a good boy he found evidence that coal was bad. The whole climate change movement started with Maggie as a guise to stop the unions, it was nonsense then and still is now.

As for editing, can you show any complaints from the scientists in the program?

The climate change debate was going on before Thatcher was even leader of the Tory Party.

[Nick]

Editing can do wonderful things in changing the theme of someone's answers to questions! And I am not at all sure why Nigel Lawson would have any grasp of the science at all. I think I will give up on this discussion and perhaps it gets to a point in these issues where, as the Simon and Garfunkel song (The Boxer) goes, "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest".

Nigel Lawson was involved because Maggie asked him to go out and find a reason to build nuclear power stations, and like a good boy he found evidence that coal was bad. The whole climate change movement started with Maggie as a guise to stop the unions, it was nonsense then and still is now.

As for editing, can you show any complaints from the scientists in the program?

[grumzed]

Editing can do wonderful things in changing the theme of someone's answers to questions! And I am not at all sure why Nigel Lawson would have any grasp of the science at all. I think I will give up on this discussion and perhaps it gets to a point in these issues where, as the Simon and Garfunkel song (The Boxer) goes, "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest".

[Nick]

It was very contraversial at the time because of there are quite a large number of falsehoods in it and some of the people interviewed complained because there comments were edited to present a different view from what they intended.

Not is this one, the contributors complained that their names were added to the IPCC report as contributors even though they didn't agree with the findings. The panel just said 'You contributed' so your name is being added.

What you also have to realise is that there are literally thousands of people who's jobs rely on there being a climate issue. If they wake up one day and say there is no problem then they are all out of work, so of course they are going to built climate models that prove it.

[grumzed]

Sheepy, there are certainly not very many people as bright as Stephen Hawking. There is always doubt which is why new ideas are called "theories" that are utilised and acted upon as the best available information until proven wrong.

I looked at some of the film, Nick, and I vaguely remember it from the time it was first aired. It was very contraversial at the time because of there are quite a large number of falsehoods in it and some of the people interviewed complained because there comments were edited to present a different view from what they intended. I just found a New Scientist critique which is fairly spot on. It does present an alternative view but does not emphasise what a minority view this was from a world of expert opinion. With enough funding from vested interest sources people can make a plausible presentation of almost anything they want to promote. And we are now in a world with "alternative facts". This film is not quite that but is presenting a view from the perspective of a very small minority of experts in the field and of some that are just claiming to be experts.

[Sheepy]

There is a new trend in the world for people losing trust in expert opinion. This may be due to social media and also by some politicians to cherry pick to suit their own views.

The world is full of dodgy experts as trotted out daily, who on the whole try and blind us with science and try and make that force opinions on others, because when you actually break it down, that is all they are, opinions, which on the whole politicians take up as gospel if they see full pockets for them and their chums. Real Scientists like the sadly departed Stephen Hawking always realise real Science always has an element of doubt and discovery is always ongoing.

[Nick]

Nick, I accept that the CO2 is a product of warming but it does not follow that it is not also driver of warming as it is a greenhouse gas. It can be both, and then result in a positive feedback loop which is only naturally broken by some other feature that occurs when the temperature reaches a sufficiently high number. If left unchecked this could be at a point, as in past times, when the sea level has risen by several metres and the ice caps have gone. At least when this happens all the people displaced by the sea level rise can live on the land vacated by the ice I suppose!

The effect of the fast rise in CO2 has a fairly quick response in temperature, as can be seen in the last 100 years or so. Unless something is done now the sea temperature will start to rise and release more CO2 albeit with an 800 year time lag. In fact the average sea temperature has risen by an average of 0.13DegC per decade over the last 100 years.

We are also at the furthest point from an Ice Age, so naturally the temperatures have risen. Lets see what the good people of Earth are thinking of in a few thousand years when Europe is under a mile and a half of ice.


https://youtu.be/oYhCQv5tNsQ

[grumzed]

Nick, I accept that the CO2 is a product of warming but it does not follow that it is not also driver of warming as it is a greenhouse gas. It can be both, and then result in a positive feedback loop which is only naturally broken by some other feature that occurs when the temperature reaches a sufficiently high number. If left unchecked this could be at a point, as in past times, when the sea level has risen by several metres and the ice caps have gone. At least when this happens all the people displaced by the sea level rise can live on the land vacated by the ice I suppose!

The effect of the fast rise in CO2 has a fairly quick response in temperature, as can be seen in the last 100 years or so. Unless something is done now the sea temperature will start to rise and release more CO2 allbeit with an 800 year time lag. In fact the average sea temperature has risen by an average of 0.13DegC per decade over the last 100 years.

[Nick]

Nick, as far as I can see, without extensive research, the CO2 lag behind temperature rises in the past is not in contradiction with the present situation. It is also true that CO2 is a "greenhouse gas" and reduces the radiated heat (infra-red) and therefore reduces radiative cooling. Also the current rapid rise in temperatures tracks the industrialisation of the planet very well over what is, from a geological perspective an exceedingly short time. Much less than 800 years.

This is not my specialisation, and I'm guessing neither yours, so I am to a large extent on relying on other's analyses of data and what those who have studied these issues in the detail required. But a note that a quite good precis is this New Scientist article:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11659-climate-myths-ice-cores-show-co2-increases-lag-behind-temperature-rises-disproving-the-link-to-global-warming/

There is a new trend in the world for people losing trust in expert opinion. This may be due to social media and also by some politicians to cherry pick to suit their own views. Generally, though, this is not a sensible thing to do as I expect you would agree. This has particularly come to light with the rise of those who believe the many conspiracy theories propagated by Donald Trump and the supporters of Qanon, ideas that the Clinton's ran a Paedophile ring and hosts of other false ideas. Most experts in the field of climatology (not just a small majority) think that the rise in global temperatures is due to man made emissions of greenhouse gases, particularly CO2. And, from what I understand I have no reason to doubt that they are right and we should take it seriously because the consequences of not doing so are quite heavy (especially for those living not very much above sea level).

The fact that CO2 lags temperature means it is not the driver of warming, it is a product of warming.

The 800 year lag is down to the oceans as it takes them 800 years to respond to temperature changes. If the temp rises, the sea gives off more CO2. It it cools then the sea absorbs CO2, that is why there is such a long lag: The sea's are basically giant capacitors.

The ice core records show the temperature at the time and how much CO2 was in the atmosphere at the time.