Global freezing

[charangohabsburg]

Climate change in the seventies (due to air pollution).
Now, which studies do we believe?

However, I'm not tempted to buy those old newspaper articles.

[simonm]

Don't believe any of them.

The problem with the current climate religion is that too many people are "harvesting" tax-payers money with the new religion. Denying man-made global warming is not allowed as it could restrict the flow of cash.

The question that is rarely posed is "what is climate"? Without a definition of climate, then how can you know it has changed?

The planet earth has been around for quite a while. If we look at the geological record of "the weather" or "the climate" over say the last few million years, then it is probably fair to say that an ice-age is "due" but "due" in this case might mean something like within the next 5,000-10,000 years. Could start this year but might take bit longer too.

The climate change industry is based on the pretty incomplete weather stats gathered in the last 100-120 years. Not much of a sample to base "scientific" predictions on.

In general we are making such a dog's dinner of our ecological niche in other ways that the "climate change" industry is barking up the wrong tree - we could well be effectively extinct before that particular aspect makes any real difference to our species.

[Dekka]

...on the other hand...

[simonm]

Giving this a bump.

World population
3 billion 1959
6 billion in Oct 1999
Current about 7.4 billion, say 7.5 in Oct 2015
9 billion sometime between 2025 and 2030?

With that kind of population increase CO2 levels don't matter a damn. Climate doesn't matter much at all.

The half million or so migrants/refugees that have crossed the mediterranean in the last 2 years or so are the just the beginning. If we can't handle these numbers, what will we do when it is 5-10 million in one year? From the poorer bits of Asia to Oz is a bit longer of a hop but the numbers will increase the same way. The world in 2025 is going to be a pretty nasty place.

Paul Colinvaux's book "Why big fierce animals are rare" published in 1980 (cheaply available used) is a great read on the whole Darwinian background to how and why we are f*#!ing ourselves and our eco-niche.

[kiwigeo]

The climate change industry is based on the pretty incomplete weather stats gathered in the last 100-120 years. Not much of a sample to base "scientific" predictions on.

Not quite true.....climate change studies are not purely based on historical weather records. There is a host of other historical data which gets fed into climate studies.

Ice cores from Antarctica and other localities contain bubbles of air which are preserved atmospheric samples. Paleomagnetic studies give us a record of the wanderings and flipping of the earths poles over time (both related to climate change). The geological rock record provides many other means of tracking climate change over long periods of time....eg sediments such as black shales deposited in anoxic environments, chemical isotope ratios in fossilized organism hard parts, "red bed" aeolian deposits laid down in arid environments, lake varve studies....and the list goes on.

Climatic change manifests itself in phenomena that operate at many different scales in both a spatially and temporal sense. This is something that many people fail to comprehend....the fact that a short term dip in temperatures on the east coast of Australia doesn't mean the whole planet is entering an ice age.

[kiwigeo]

...on the other hand...

Spot on

[kiwigeo]

The planet earth has been around for quite a while. If we look at the geological record of "the weather" or "the climate" over say the last few million years,

Weather is a subset of climate. There is a big difference between the two in terms of time scale and also temporal extent. There are also other differences....eg local geography (eg proximity to large water mass or mountains) can control local weather while it has little or no effect on global climate change.

Unfortunately humans generally think in terms of their local "world" and on a timescale that equates to their life span (less than 100 years). It's always a problem I come across when discussing Geology with my friends.....they just cant get their heads around the vast time scales I operate on in my science.

[kiwigeo]

Climate change in the seventies (due to air pollution).
Now, which studies do we believe?

However, I'm not tempted to buy those old newspaper articles.

As a scientist I tend to put more credence in peer reviewed scientific papers than newspaper articles. It's always interesting to read a newspaper article that reviews a scientific paper and then go and read the paper itself and discover what information has been "cherry picked" by the journalists.

It may be news to some but science is dynamic......as new data comes to light the theories change. Look at evolution.....people think the Darwinian theory of gradual change through time is still the current thinking. Most people who waffle on to me about the failings of evolutionary theory have never heard of the theory of Punctuated Equilibrium (= step like evolutionary change through time)...even though it's been around for at least 30-40 years.

Plate tectonics is another good example where a theory has changed over time as more data becomes available. The concept of PT was thought up by Wagner back in the early 20th Century but really wasn't fully accepted until as late as the 1970's. When I started my Geology degree in NZ during the mid 70's I was still being taught geosyncline theory. It took 50 years for the technology to become available to prove without a doubt that plate tectonics was valid.....I'm talking about technologies such as paleomagnetic techniques, satellite imagery, oceanic drill hole programs, GPS etc.

[kiwigeo]

The question that is rarely posed is "what is climate"? Without a definition of climate, then how can you know it has changed?

From NASA:

Weather is basically the way the atmosphere is behaving, mainly with respect to its effects upon life and human activities. The difference between weather and climate is that weather consists of the short-term (minutes to months) changes in the atmosphere. Most people think of weather in terms of temperature, humidity, precipitation, cloudiness, brightness, visibility, wind, and atmospheric pressure, as in high and low pressure.

In most places, weather can change from minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day, and season-to-season. Climate, however, is the average of weather over time and space. An easy way to remember the difference is that climate is what you expect, like a very hot summer, and weather is what you get, like a hot day with pop-up thunderstorms.

From the IPPC:

Climate Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the ‘average weather’, or more rigorously, as the statistical description interms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. These quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation, and wind. Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system. The classical period of time is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

[kiwigeo]

The planet earth has been around for quite a while. If we look at the geological record of "the weather" or "the climate" over say the last few million years, then it is probably fair to say that an ice-age is "due" but "due" in this case might mean something like within the next 5,000-10,000 years. Could start this year but might take bit longer too.

When talking about "ice ages" you need to clearly define your terminology.

The "ice age" you refer to which ended about 10500 BCE is actually more correctly termed a "glacial". An ice age is a longer period of cold temperature in which ice sheets cover large parts of the Earth. Glacials and Interglacials refer to shorter period cold and warm periods within a longer ice age. Right now we're within an interglacial within the ice age that started around 2 million years back. It's generally agreed amongst scientists that an ice age doesnt end until the Arctic, Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets cease to exist.

Note as well as their being differences on a temporal scale there are also differences in terms of areal extent when talking about ice ages and glacials. During the last glacial, glaciation was restricted to mainly the Northern Hemisphere....ie it wasn't a world wide event.

You will find that generally it is the lay community that has the problem with definitions and terminology rather than the scientific community.

[kiwigeo]

Did someone fart?

[charangohabsburg]

Did someone fart?

I guess yes, but as everybody is trying to avoid CO2 taxes no one would admit he did.

[simonm]

The climate change industry is based on the pretty incomplete weather stats gathered in the last 100-120 years. Not much of a sample to base "scientific" predictions on.

Not quite true.....climate change studies are not purely based on historical weather records. There is a host of other historical data which gets fed into climate studies.

Ice cores from Antarctica and other localities contain bubbles of air which are preserved atmospheric samples. Paleomagnetic studies give us a record of the wanderings and flipping of the earths poles over time (both related to climate change). The geological rock record provides many other means of tracking climate change over long periods of time....eg sediments such as black shales deposited in anoxic environments, chemical isotope ratios in fossilized organism hard parts, "red bed" aeolian deposits laid down in arid environments, lake varve studies....and the list goes on.

Climatic change manifests itself in phenomena that operate at many different scales in both a spatially and temporal sense. This is something that many people fail to comprehend....the fact that a short term dip in temperatures on the east coast of Australia doesn't mean the whole planet is entering an ice age.

Indeed, this is the point I was making.

The "climate change industry" ignores all this and focuses mainly on the last 50 years or so. The geological/historical record is not really considered. Shock horror headlines are preferred - much more lucrative for business and for demagogues. The total focus on CO2 has diverted public opinion completely from all the other issues connected with our wholesale spoilage of our ecological niche.

For what it is worth I also studied in one of the last bastions of geosyncline theory in the British Isle way back when.

[seeaxe]

+1 on the cartoon for me.

The "climate change industry" ignores all this and focuses mainly on the last 50 years or so. The geological/historical record is not really considered. Shock horror headlines are preferred - much more lucrative for business and for demagogues. The total focus on CO2 has diverted public opinion completely from all the other issues connected with our wholesale spoilage of our ecological niche.

Hmmm.... lucrative industry you say....

Simon, specifically who are these people making all this money out of climate change?
How much do you think they are making, say compared to what the world spends on air travel in a day?
Who do you think is paying for all of the research into climate change - governments or business??
Supposing someone gave you all the money they were supposedly making out the issue and you had to decide what to spend it for the good of the planet, what would you do with it?

also......

With that kind of population increase CO2 levels don't matter a damn. Climate doesn't matter much at all. The half million or so migrants/refugees that have crossed the mediterranean in the last 2 years or so are the just the beginning. If we can't handle these numbers, what will we do when it is 5-10 million in one year? From the poorer bits of Asia to Oz is a bit longer of a hop but the numbers will increase the same way. The world in 2025 is going to be a pretty nasty place.

IMHO its not climate change driving migrants across the Med or the Torres Strait, its all about tomatoes.

The world is ALREADY a pretty nasty place for a good 75% of the worlds population, but especially if you are a Sierra Leonian tomato farmer. Tomatoes grow very well there, but in return for loans from the IMF and similar "free market" funders, they have been forced to get rid of any import controls. The EU subsidises exports of its products and for years have given a huge subsidy to Italian tomato growers who as a result grow far more tomatoes than the EU can possibly consume, so they can export them to get the subsidy .

Guess where they export their tomatoes to? Amongst other places, Sierra Leone, and sell them below the production cost of the local farmers, who have all pretty much gone out of business. How are the Italians able to produce at such a low cost? Well, its a very labour intensive business and they have a supply of very cheap labour - guess where they come from? - illegal migrants, including out of work tomato farmers from Sierra Leone, who paid under the table, if they are paid at all, live and work in conditions that were supposed to have been abolished with the end of the slave trade. (Sounds like I'm making this up doesn't it, but I got most of this from a critical review of EU subsidy of tomatoes carried by the US government - how's that for hypocrisy). China has now entered the market and is producing tomatoes faster then the EU and shipping them to Sierra Leone also! Those guys must really like tomatoes.

The developed nations, the EU and Italy in particular generated this problem, repeated across myriad other industries, and the migrants are paying the price, often with their lives. I doubt we are blameless in the southern hemisphere either. I feel much sorrier for them than I do the Italians for that matter Kiwis and Ockers. At least down our way the pitiful handfuls that we accept get treated semi-decently, at least in NZ. Can't speak for the West Island!

So if the developed world is going continue to screw over the developing world (and you can bet it is) so it can prop its own industries up at their expense then you can expect more economic migration. Check out where the tomatoes come from next time you come across a can in the supermarket, people. In NZ they come from Italy. They are undercutting our local producers too.

All of that's got nothing to do with climate change. (The carbon footprint of shipping them from Europe to NZ/Sierra Leone etc. probably does though.)

Which is a bugger because I really like tomatoes, and its winter in NZ and I cant grow my own yet. I don't like feeling responsible for worldwide misery when I'm eating my brekkie, so being a good kiwi (resident at least) I thought I would buy local and stick to Watties at twice the price. However, on research I find that some of the ingredient tomoato paste in the iconic Watties Tomato Ketchup, (an essential food group for all Kiwis) is imported from California

No easy answers. Think global and act local - grow your own veggies!!!! Might not save the planet but at least you wont be putting some poor bastard in another continent out of a job.

Cheers

[kiwigeo]

While there are some scientists directly involved in climate research and being paid for it.....an even larger number of scientists who fully or in my case partially support the concept of human induced/accelerated climate change don't make money out of it. I'm a very good example of same..........one could in fact argue that I have a vested interest in not supporting climate change....I work in the oil and gas game.

[seeaxe]

As we are talking about, or at least I am...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/ ... rning.html

Perhaps I am a bit focused on this because I'm currently sitting on a coral atoll in the North Pacific. All of the land here (except the garbage dump) is generally less than 3m above sea level. King tides wash over it now. 50,000 people could be looking for a new home just from here, in the next 50 years.

majuro_atoll_large[1].jpg (16.89 KiB) Viewed 23164 times

Scary stuff. Well I'm scared, you lot can please yourself.

There will be the usual lobby that says people (like me for instance) are overreacting. I hope they are right. Nevertheless I would be a bit silly not to at least consider what might happen if he is right, wouldn't I?