The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Terry Fields wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Terry Fields wrote:
No proponent of 'global warming' has exer explained why the planet
oscillates between cold and warm states; the best they can do is claim
that human activity is 'partly' to blame and 'might' accellerate
'global warming'.
Oh, you can't have been listening. Ther are many mecahnisms of localised
psitive feedback. to name buta few

- methane hydrate in the oceans released at a certain temperature along
with CO2 to exacerbate warming.
- polar ice that extends further south and acts as a reflector to
exacerbate global cooling.
- increased desertification causes loss of plant cover, thus reducing
the ability to sink CO2.

Thats 3 positive feedback mechanisms

That's three *potential* local feedback mechanisms, none of which is
man-made.

Who is to say the one isn't balanced by another?


1/. They are not potential, they are actual. The only doubt is how much
effect they have.

Which may well support my point too.

2/. You cannot balance two positives..they are on the same side of the
scales.

You can if one of the positives is decreasing, for example
desertification being replaced by vegetative growth elsewhere, or the
oceans never reach the methane hydrate release rate so the mechanism
never takes place. That's why I said it was 'potential'.

Has anyone calculated how much global warming is taking place due to
the receding ice-cap, your second mechanism above? It may be a key
mechanism, and is point against the 'global warming'case

I am beginning to doubt your ability to understand science at all.

You may be natural, but your qualification as a philosopher seem to be
in doubt.

Then there are the impacts on global air and water circulation patterns,
that causes localised changes that may in fact be contrary to the
average global movement of temperature.

As to what triggers these changes, it can be solar activity, volcanic
activity meteorite impact or burning lots of stuff.

I believe that 17000 scientists work on 'global warming', but the case
for it is made by about a tenth of that number.
Whatever you want to think, the fact remains that CO2 is a strong infra
red absorber, and an excess of it in the atmosphere will reduce
re-radiation of heat at night.

No-one has disputed that, and in any case I never said it.

Never said what? I made no assertions about what you said, merely
pointed out that the greenhouse effect is largely based on what the lay
public term 'scientific fact'

Oh, sorry, I was arguing science, not Daily Mail reporting.

You are now conflating night-time/daytime effects with 'global
warming', much in the same way as weather is so conflated.

Whatever you want to think, there is absolutely no doubt that
atmospheric CO2 is increasing, and that the amount its increasing
correlates extremely well with world consumption of carbon based fuels.

But that proves nothing. It is merely an observation, like the outside
temperature here is 14 degC.

Science never *proves* anything. I am more convinced you don't
understand science and its methods at all.

A nice shift of ground, but perhaps it reveals your own lack of
understanding.

I am constructing a chain of logic. Man burns fuel, fuel makes CO2. Co2
is an infrared absorber, ergo man causes changes in the infra red
absorption of the atmosphere, which, given that the incident sunlight
is in the visible, but the main heat loss is in the infra red inevitably
leads to a greater retention of heat by the planet.

Now, do you disagree with that?

See above about conflating issues.

Sure it iognores the levels of incident radiation and a plethora of
other effects, but that is always has been and always will be the main
thrust of the anthropogenic climate change argument.
Do you refute that that is a valid chain of logic based on factual data?

See above about conflating issues.

There was an ice-age in place about 20,000 years ago, whereby the
Salutrians paddled in their kayaks from the south of France to mid
north America, along the edge of the ice-cap. The science that backs
this up is indisputable and it is not a supposition.

That isn't science: science is about the construction of hypotheses and
the testing thereof. That is factual data, as nears as we can have
'facts;' about the past.

Don't know much about the Salutrians, do you? Or science for that
matter. Otherwise you'd never have said something as silly as that.

In case you miss the point again, it's this: there was an ice-age, at
a time with a miniscule amount of people on the planet. The ice-age
went away. Humans didn't contribute anything to that. What made the
planet warm up, and why are those mechnaisms not operating now?

Before you answer, I raise a similar question, based on your three
mechanisms, below.

Subsequently, the planet warmed and the ice receded. But with probably
only a million people on the planet, living a subsistence lifestyle,
there was no human input whatsoever to the warming of the globe.

So what warmed the globe then, and why isn't it operating now?

The sun, stupid. The are fluctations in solar output, and there are
other issues..the magnetic flux variation of the world which affects the
way the solar wind goes, and volcanoes and other causes of dust can be
triggers..what is more worrying, is that it seems now, from temperature
data on a long timescale, that the climate 'flips' between various
states: ther eare positive feedback elements in there, and changes can
be rapid and large once certain thresholds are reached.

So by from own statements, an earth that's covered in ice (reflecting
solar energy), too cold to release methane hydrate from the sea, and
with not a lot of vegetation due to said ice caps to soak up CO2, and
lower levels of atmospheric CO2 so people were cold at night, the
planet was doomed to remain frozen. So, in your humble opinion, what
caused the subsequent warming? And why doesn that not apply today?

What is in contention, are the other complex interrelated mechanisms
that come into play when temperatures start to change. Some of these are
broadly negative feedback, acting to stabilise temperatu others are
positive feedback mechanisms, exacerbating the initial inputs.

Refining these parts of the global model is where climatology is right
now: Arguing about whether its happening at all, or if it is, its not
our fault, is just a political and economic issue.

Possibly; but if CO2-led 'global warming' is a flaky issue - and I've
touched on some of those above - it might not matter.
Not at all. You statement is about as sensible as saying that maybe its
the rain that causes the clouds, as all the rain evoporates and forms
clouds.

I'm afraid that's an evasion.
Not at all. We are talking cause and effect: Just the samae. Is CO2 the
result or the cause, of global warming?

The horrifying possibility that is looking stronger by the minute, is
that in facts its both.

Which leads to a nightmare positive feedback scenario. CO2 causes
temperature rise: that leads to release of CO2 from the oceans, and
plant destruction, leading to more CO2 and less being 'fixed' and the
climate rushes along to a point where seal levels rise, most land plant
life is extinguished, along with most animal life, reaching a new
balance where marine photosynthsesis and e.g. shellfish abound, laying
down carbonates and organic muds that sink, form rocks, and remove CO2
gradually..over the next ten million years or so.

Of course if it gets too hot, there would be a permanent Venus like
cloud cover and most life would cease..

Thank heavens that CO2 isn't the only player, and that other players
(that have been little researched) act to cool the planet. See, for
example, the Met Office web site.

The evidence is that CO2 lags 'global warming', and no-one now takes
that part of Al Gore's alarmist film with any seriousness.

That is not proven. Its more disinformation.

His graph was just plain wrong, the 800-year lag that he forgot to
mention isn't now challenged by anyone. Except by you?

I wish I could find the reference that said the planet had cooled by
0.7 degC in the last 12 months - a rise of that magnitude would have
been trumpeted from high buildings by the supporters of CO2-led
'global warming'; instead of the current deafening silence.
Annual variations of that order of magnitude are statistically
insginificant: plenty of mechanisms within the models can account for
that. My guess is that arctic ice has melted to a huge extent, and
dumped a load of cold water elsewhere than the poles.

Stop guessing. So far, I haven't guessed anything, but reported the
science.

No, you have reported a lot of pseudo scientific opinion.

Will you tell the Met Office? Let me know what they say.

Consider a bowl of water with an ice cube in it. At the start, you have
a lot of warm water and one cold spot. The ice cube. 'Average' (by area)
temperatures are high. The cube melts, lowering the average temperature.
But in fact the total heat in the system has increased due to absorption
from the room..

Only if the bowl is below room temperature. If the room's at 4 degC
and the bowl at 50 degC, there certainly won't be any net absorption
from the room.

That was the assumption. Stop raising straw men. You know what I mean.
If you dont know, you are a bigger fool than you appear to be.

I don't know what you 'mean', I can only read the words you write, and
som poor;y string together.

If we measured the total heat in the ecosphere, rather than the average
temperature, it might be a very different story.

No, what we need to do is quantify all the effects.

Not if we are trying to establish whether global warming is a fact or
not. We need to measure *total heat*, which may absolutely NOT
correspond to average surface temperatures of the earth at all.

Well, good luck. According to another poster, funding isn't an issue.
So let us know how you get on.

All that melting ice doesn't cool the sea surface temperature at all. It
goes way down deep, and does things like drive the gulf stream.
Stellites dont measure deep sea temperatures..

So far only one is
known with any degree of certainty; there are many others that are
known but unexplored, and possibly some currently unknown.

To focus on the one is essentially fraudulent.

I agree, when someone is dying of cancer, it is fraudulent to not focus
on the splinter in his left toe. That could after all - to a completely
unscientific mind- easily be the cause of death....

Never heard of septicaemia?

In the final analysis, you need to really answer three or for questions
honestly to yourself.

1/. Is the world getting warmer: The answer is yes, it is. To a level we
haven't seen before probably in human history. Geologically, its been
this hot before, if not hotter, but what lived on earth then doesn't
live on Earth now. Largely.

Getting warmer on what sort of timescale? Your day/night variations?

What has 'human history' got to do with it?

2/. Is the effect likely to be a minor and slow one? the answer is no it
isn't: all the historical evidence shows that climate change happens
swiftly over decades, not over centuries.

So, having identified the rate at which things happen, could you state
what the mechanisms were, e.g. for the last ice-age, which was
essentially people-free?

3/. Irrespective of whether its man made or not, is this something we
should be trying to do something about or not? The evidence suggests
that if we don't, we are in for a tough time irrespective of the cause..

ITYM *some* evidence. Not all evidence points just one way. Some
'suggest' something else.

4/. Are the current ecological and green movement and the government
measures that are being proposed effective and likely to solve the
problem? The answer is they are as much use a throwing a cupful of water
at a volcano.

They are designed to raise taxes, nothing more.

In fact, ecobollox is a smokescreen, designed to lull the public into a
sense of security, because the governments have less clue than anyone
how to proceed. Its also a handy source of taxes.

Quite. As I said at the start.

However, because ecobollox is bollox, does not imply that global warming
on a vast scale isn't happening: And whether or not mankind is
implicated in it, is utterly irrelevant in the decisions on whether we
should in fact attempt to do something about it.

If we don't know what the key mechanisms are, we can't even say
whether we could do anything about them.

Suppose, just suppose, the key mechanism is sunspot activity. There is
no method of controlling sunspots, so anything else is palliative,
second order at best.

Carbon emissions will come down, simply because the global costs of
carbon fuel are now exceeding the costs of alternatives - especially
nuclear power.

Such costs are falling. You are clutching at straws.

Plus, it has been calculated that at the level of $120 a barrel, other
methods of oil production become economically viable, such as oil from
shale. There is one oil-shale deposit in the US that could supply them
with about 200 years of oil, at current rates. It was manifestily
obvious that as current oil prices rose above $120, they wouldn't stay
there for long.

The current worldwide recession - probably a decade of stagnation in
economic terms - buys us a decade or so of time to find alternative
energy sources. Managing climate in a micro or macro scale is not beyond
our abilities. The task is to identify the most efficient way to achieve
it.

The key is the understanding of what mechanisms are critical, and to
date only one has been researched to any great extent. We are
stumbling about in the dark. Unplugging my mobile phone charger (as a
£half-a-million government newspaper campaign suggested last year)
will accomplish precisely nothing.