The message
from Terry Fields contains these words:
I don't suppose you noticed that the CO2 column in that graph also had
two or three other effects added on top - just happening to give the
whole thing a taller column than it would otherwise have had.
If you had bothered to read all of what I wrote in a previous piece you
would have been aware that I had noticed they had stacked all the well
understood greenhouse gases in one column.
Why didn't they do that with the cooling mechanisms - is it because
they look like outweighing the CO2 column? Nah, no-one would ever
mislead people like that.
I didn't find it misleading in the least. However I would have found
what you suggest misleading as it would mask, for instance, the
differing role of O3 at differing heights and completely bugger the
picture of anything that worked across the divide.
So that's all right then, even if we don't know any of the mechanisms
or how they might or might not interact.
You are misrepresenting the case again. A low level of understanding is
not a complete lack of understanding which is what you keep on
pretending is the situation.
Also, o-one has yet answered, let alone respond to, several other
points I made.
Roughly these we
- Why the last ice age ended, and whether those mechanisms are in
place and functioning
Try google.
If you are saying the Google can turn up the answers, then post them.
I haven't the time or the inclination to search out something that most
scientists seem to think has been resolved and which you would
undoubtedly rubbish if I posted it.
- Why the Global Wamers chose 1960 - 1980 for their baseline, knowing
it covered an unusually cold period
Is it? Did they? Are you sure it just isn't the last two decades at time
things started looking serious?
If what you allege is true why didn't they pick 1900 - 1920 which was a
whole lot colder. 1960 - 1980 was as much unusually cool as 1935 - 1945
were unusually warm. Even picking 1950 - 1970 might have given a lower
base line.
You are supposed to have read the Met Office publication, which I
maintain shows a graph of forcing mechanisms which they claim very
little understanding of and for which you claim rubbishes any case I
am trying to make, yet you seem not to have noticed the graph on page
25 that would not only answer your questions, but also show I was
correct.
I was looking at a more easily available graph which is much less
distinct. The page 25 graph certainly does not show that the period 1960
- 1998 was unusually cool. 1950 - 1960 might not be marginally cooler as
I originally thought but the decline over the period 1950 - 1980 is
minimal compared to the steep increases 1920 - 1945 and 1974 - 2004. And
you will note (and disregard) that the base line of this graph is the
temperature at the end of the 19th century.
And, if you plot the Met Office's own figure of 0.37 degC on the Met
Office's own graph, it would show you that the expected temperature
difference for this year is below the maximum value shown; that is,
the planet might be cooling even by the Met Office's own data; and is
certainly about the value for the late 1990s, implying a peak in value
between 2000 and now. An inconvenient truth, perhaps.
There is too much year on year variability to make any prediction for
the future on the basis of just one year and dubious to make one even on
several.
"Met Office forecast for global temperature for 2008
Global temperature for 2008 is expected to be 0.37 °C above the
long-term (1961-1990) average of 14.0 °C, the coolest year since 2000,
when the value was 0.24 °C."
Isn't 2008 being influenced by a La Nina event which is generally
accepted to depress the annual average just as a El Nino event increases
the annual average.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporat...r20080103.html
But note that temperatures fell from 1945 - 1970 (Met Office figures)
so the prediction of a rise of 0.37degC is from an unusually low
figure. Pick a different range, and you could also find the planet is
cooling. Why didn't they pick, say 1980 to 2000? Is it because that
would show the planet as cooling?
There you go again. Unusually low to describe a level that is well above
average for the period 1861 - 1980.
And do tell me when they first adopted the period 1960 - 1980? Lb to a
pinch of salt it was well before 2000 so your suggestion of 1980 - 2000
is preposterous.
PS: the graph I referenced gave very little weight to the effect of
clouds. I suggest you look up the research that was done of the days
post 9/11, when no aircraft flew in the airspace over the US, and
climatologists took the chance to measure something that would have
been otherwise impossible. But this time, you can look it up yourself,
and form your own opinion; I've given you enough to go on. Note I
haven't said which side of the debate, if any, it supports.
Thank you but I am already aware of the con trails evidence.
In that case you will doubtless find that the effect of clouds is
greater than anyone has forecast - supporting the case that water
vapour has a far greater effect than CO2, and is not man made, rather
harder to tax, and not subject to human control.
Would that be daytime clouds you are on about or night time clouds?
And would you be arguing that water vapour works in the same direction
as clouds or in the reverse direction?
Which is more or less what I've been saying all along.
No, what you have been claiming all along is that CO2/global warming is
a myth and anything that doesn't support that claim is badly researched
rubbish or worse.
--
Roger Chapman