Snowman - sorry, but you will have to argue your case here or not at all. I will not be following any of your links, or reading your further writing on the subject. Like most people, I am content to let the experts slug it out, and make my conclusions on what is available before me, including my reading and listening elsewhere. There is a universe of information out there, and I don't live on this website.

Nothing you have said so far has persuaded me that I should agree with your personal take on the evidence, selective as it appears to be, any more than I should agree with the Bush/Howard administrations and their business cronies, on the political context of the global warming debate. In any case, my interest in your postings is more to do with the way you aggressively argue your case. The harder you push, the less convincing you are.

And please stop demanding that I answer your loaded questions, I will not be responding. Even if you can't convince me, you haven't lost your battle Snowman, there are still a few who agree with you. You can all stand howling in the wind, its your choice. The rest of us, who are prepared to face reality, will just get on with trying to solve the problems that will face our children and grandchildren as planetary weather systems wobble off into unpredictable directions. Its already happening, look around you.

Gee, I bet Des is sorry he started this!!!

I grabbed your article Snowman not because it contradicted your statements per se. Rather that I believe it fairly clearly indicates that the "trend" is to a faster warming cycle over the past 100 years.

I think all contributors here would agree that climatology is an inexact and fledgling science and in the words of a famous Secretary of State, "we don't know what we don't know".

If you speak to National Parks and Wildlife in the Snowy Mountains you will find that their statistics on snowfall indicates a hugely declining trend; yet in any given season they can have a record dump. To me, the trend is more important than any specific year or month.

We may be entirely wrong in blaming our outputs for warming but if we are not wrong the consequences are disastrous. As Grace says our children and grandchildren will not look kindly on our response or lack thereof.

Maybe we should look at the positive outcomes of adopting major fossil fuel reductions; coal and oil will not last forever ( i will avoid another debate on how much reserves exist) and we may just find a clean renewable alternative that reduces CO2, general pollution et al.

I for one would like to see Sydney NOT looking like LA perpetually covered with smog.

Grace and Peter...

First you, Grace.

I don't know whether to thank you for showing me why the notion of global warming has been adopted or whether to be dismayed.

I really find it difficult to understand why anyone with an interest in a contentious issue would not want to look at the facts (in this case raw data) for themselves and form their own opinions rather than rely on the opinions of others.

I have offered you access to more data but you refuse to take me up on that offer and claim that I am being selective. Well how would you know that my data mentioned in this discussion is selective beyond being a subset of the most relevant of that larger pool of data?

As for the questions I asked you, I'm sorry but you made the comment about self-interested tripe and I have been asking you to back it up. It seems that you won't - or can't.

I see that you persist in saying that global warming is still happening despite my evidence - that you elect not to read - that temperatures have not exceeded a value from 1998.

Thanks again for the insight that you have inadvertently given me. It lends support to comments I've heard about people's opinions global warming being based solely on Faith, never on irrefutable evidence.



... and to you Peter,

Des is not the only one who might wish he never started this. I find it very time-consuming to respond especially when I need to find the exact data, look up bookmarked references, verify my thoughts and so on.

But you have to admit, I did post a warning on my last response to Des ;-)


The period for considering climate records is a tough one. The convention is 30 years but I agree, there are good reasons why that might be extended.

You choose 100 years and that's fine, but are you aware that global warming of 0.6 degrees occurred between 1912 and 1945, then cooling of 0.2 degrees from 1945 to 1970 and about 0.4 degrees since 1970 ? In other words of the often-claimed 1.0 degree warming last century, more than half of it occurred before much increase in carbon dioxide levels?

Maybe we should choose 1000 years because, after all, that is tiny in historical terms.

Based on the temperatures from Greenland's ice-core that would make the last 1000 years the coldest in the last ten thousand. Quite honestly, there's only been a three brief periods (about 150 years or less) when temperatures were equal to or less than what they were about 100 years ago when we were in a mini-Ice Age. For the majority of the last ten thousand years temperatures were at least one degree higher than today. (Search for "GISP" and "temperature" if you want to see for yourself - or ask me and I'll find a good reference to the raw data.)

I appreciate what you are saying about the risk of human-induced global warming but one of the basic principles of risk management is quantifying the risk. In this case the fundamental science is not well understood - the IPCC chairman admitted as much just yesterday - so it is not much help. We can see that the world has warmed in the past and it has cooled again, so we do know that warming is not a one-way event.

At the moment far more is known about the risk of you being hit by a bus on the way to work - you going to work, not the bus - than is known about global warming. If you consistently adopted the precaution principle (as it is sometimes called) then you wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. Of course not getting out of bed might risk something falling on you.

Yes, this is heading in a nonsensical direction but this is what happens when we take a precautionary approach even to KNOWN risks.

Science does not yet know enough about climate in order to properly assess the risk of change or to consider possible counter-action. The argument that carbon dioxide is the cause is very weak - but in the absence of any other obvious suspects I can see the attraction to accuse it.

In closing, I completely agree with you with your thoughts on pollution. I don't want to see anywhere look like LA. I've also visited or experienced several smoggy places and I have to admit, the temperatures always seem warmer there. Maybe the petro-chemical smog and the steam thrown into the atmosphere are the principal causes of the local warming.

You could well be correct that warming has a human cause but maybe it is via a different substance (or substances) than you think.

cheers

John

I absolutely agree that it may not be CO2 but perhaps Methane or CO (carbon monoxide from petro chemical sources).

I also agree that perhaps the climate is not on a warming cycle in the grand scheme of things; measured over 100's or thousand's of years.

The problem is as Grace commented, that most of us don't have the time to research every article written and analyze every data set collected. This leaves us with having to rely on generalist articles in forums such as Online Opinion and robust discussion in this specific forum.

We rely on enthusiasts such as Snowman and Des to distill the data down to pertinent facts. Ultimately, however, elected goverments will make the decisions based on their assessments of those facts (and public opinion). If we don't trust the government then bad luck...

Global warming caused by CO2 is an unproven theory that has about as much credibility as the existence of god. Both seem to exist in the minds of only the ignorant and gullible. Also, why is it that the major proponents of climate change are the ones who are anti-american and anti-capitalist. No one seems to mention that the two most populated nations on earth, India and China, and whose industrialised outputs will soon exceed that of all the western nations combined. And those nations are exempt from Kyoto. That immediately brings into question the credibility of Kyoto and the claims of the henny penny climate change advocates.

Greenhouse gas warming from human waste output is not possible on this planet.

The facts are:

1. The second Law of Thermodynamics predicts that Climate Changes (hereafter referred to as Climate Catastrophes) add energy to the quasi closed thermodynamic Biospheric syatem. Global Warming is a result of thermodynamic decay or the loss of energy from the Biosphere. If Climate catastrophes are the result of Global warming they will also negate it. In other words on this planet, which has such a diversity of energy inputs to its Biopsphere, you cannot have a global warming greenhouse gas scenario caused by anthropogenic means.

2. What you can have on this planet is a transistor base current like effect by humans on huge global energy currents which whilst they are in progress of cleaning up any greenhouse warming are diverted by OUR activities to populated areas. If humans create high entropy sinks along polluted coastlines for low entropy energy currents ... they WILL come.

3. It is impossible to quantify the energy inputs to the Biosphere. Stainforth et al from the Exeter conference MUST do this for their models to be vailid. This is why there predictions are WRONG. All we know is that nothing that 6 billion people can do will have much of an effect on the Solar and Geothermal inputs that exist. Except redirect their effects in accordance with the principle of least action (Hamilton's Principle) .. towards our own cities and towns.

A reminder of the scope of the second law of thermodynamics and why dynamic models are so overrated:

It does not matter how a system changes in detail. We look at it in the beginning and (note) its initial state. It may have temperature, mass, volume, phases, electrical, biological, chemical, hydrualic, pneumatic, geologic or mechanical characteristic properties. Applying the laws of thermodynamics correctly, we calculate the final condition of the system with new (different final) values for its characterictic properties. What happens during the transition although interesting, does not need to concern us. This overall approach is not by choice: even a tiny bacterium is already such a vastly complex system that modern science cannot explain or predict what goes on during transitions. Further, experience teaches us that this general endpoint thermodynamic problem solving technique yields acceptable results.

If we can't explain or predict what goes on inside a bacterium, how can scientists see fit to pontificate about global warming outcomes in the far more complex quasi closed thermodynamic system of the Biosphere.