Global Warming

[mkemse]

I recently emailes a Local Meteorologist on this subject, and her thouhts and feeling were that "Weather, and Meterology, is NOT an exact Sience anymre then Any Science is exact, it all speculative and everyone will have their own onpion, a great example ofthis is John Coleman Founder Of The Weather Channel amd Former Vice Prsident Al Gore, Gore as it is know firmily believes in Global Warming, Coleman on the other hand has state he seems no specific data inidcating that Golbal Warming Exists.
I am NOT taking side on this, but there remarks and what our local Meterologist told me, make me believe that everyonei n the world has their views on the subject, but until this secience becomes exact, all opnions are just those, opnion,s and everyo e is going to have their own, which I repsect

[Ozme52]

16 inches will hurt, but it's not going to cause a major relocation that will displace nations... more likely nationally internal migrations. But very few nations will be asked to absorb another nation's population. Maybe a few small islands.

This Google Sea Levels Map is slick... Reset it to 1 meter (appr 39 inches) and watch how small the impact is likely to be. Then set it to 1/2 meter.

[Ozme52]

I recently emailes a Local Meteorologist on this subject, and her thouhts and feeling were that "Weather, and Meterology, is NOT an exact Sience anymre then Any Science is exact, it all speculative and everyone will have their own onpion, a great example ofthis is John Coleman Founder Of The Weather Channel amd Former Vice Prsident Al Gore, Gore as it is know firmily believes in Global Warming, Coleman on the other hand has state he seems no specific data inidcating that Golbal Warming Exists.
I am NOT taking side on this, but there remarks and what our local Meterologist told me, make me believe that everyonei n the world has their views on the subject, but until this secience becomes exact, all opnions are just those, opnion,s and everyo e is going to have their own, which I repsect

Do you mean a meteorologist or the weather girl? Because the newscasters are just about the least well informed on the topic of weather. They read what the national services send them and most would switch to the news or entertainment desks in a flash if asked.

[mkemse]

the person I spoke with is a Meteorologist and is certified by the AMS she is not just a weather lady reading the weather, as a matter of fact she also has a Master Megree in Meteorolgy
I also spoke with Another Lady, same respone and she in only 1 off 11 woman in the world Certified by the AMS to Broadcast WEather as a Meteorolgist on TV, so to answer you question both I spoke to are certified by the AMs and not just Weather Women reading reports given, but like they both said it is NOT an exact Science and those who say this or that about Global Warminig are simply expressiing their views til more specific Scientific Data is available on the Subject. As they bith said "No Science is exact as of now"

[mkemse]

Do you mean a meteorologist or the weather girl? Because the newscasters are just about the least well informed on the topic of weather. They read what the national services send them and most would switch to the news or entertainment desks in a flash if asked.

No, The Lady I spoke with is a Meteorologist and is certified by the AMS she is not just a weather lady reading the weather, as a matter of fact she also has a Master Megree in Meteorolgy
I also spoke with Another Lady, same respone and she in only 1 off 11 woman in the world Certified by the AMS to Broadcast Weather as a Meteorolgist on TV, so to answer you question both I spoke to are certified by the AMs and not just Weather Women reading reports given, but like they both said it is NOT an exact Science and those who say this or that about Global Warminig are simply expressiing their views til more specific Scientific Data is available on the Subject. As they bith said "No Science is exact as of now"

[mkemse]

Do you mean a meteorologist or the weather girl? Because the newscasters are just about the least well informed on the topic of weather. They read what the national services send them and most would switch to the news or entertainment desks in a flash if asked.

This was her reply to me on the subject as a Meteorologist Cerified by the AMS

Global Warming is still a theory.

My personal opinion (and that is all it can be, because we do not know enough to call anyone's opinion fact) is that humans have changed our world. Of course. My scientific knowledge tells me however that the sun controls our earth no matter what. We have had warming trends between ice ages before - but we don't know how warm it got...we only have detailed climatologically records for the last 120 years. We are so tiny in the big scheme of things. To think that the universe and whatever may be beyond that is going to change because of our actions is odd.

That being said, conservation and sustainability is incredibly important - and that is something no one can debate.

[ThisYouWillDo]

16 inches will hurt, but it's not going to cause a major relocation that will displace nations... more likely nationally internal migrations. But very few nations will be asked to absorb another nation's population. Maybe a few small islands.

This Google Sea Levels Map is slick... Reset it to 1 meter (appr 39 inches) and watch how small the impact is likely to be. Then set it to 1/2 meter.

If we look at (say) 5 cities that will be flooded by a 1 metre rise: Groningen, Leuuwarde, Alkmaar, Lelystad and Westland, they will by themselves produce a population of 540,000 that will have to be relocated. In addition, there will be hundreds of other cities, towns and villages needing to be looked after.

Furthermore, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Den Haag (combined population of 1,807,000 - over 10% of the country's total population) will have become low-lying offshore islands. They will lose their inhabitants rapidly.

Even places like Antwerp (population 461,000) will have become costal towns, possibly liable to flooding.

Just taking those places into account and disreagrding the rest, we are looking at the need to relocate almost 20% of the population: 2,808,000 people. That's using today's population figures, not projected populations in 2100

However, it must be borne in mind that the Google map does not appear to account for sea defences, which are bound to have a mitigating effect, but I still think the best option for the Dutch would be to move inland.

Even if they tried to contain the migration within their own borders, without proper control and planning, civil strife is sure to erupt.

Am I being so outrageous to call for people to take control of their own destiny? They won't be able to do it by themselves.

TYWD.

[tired.of.vanilla{DJ}]

Okay so late into this disscusstion, but here is my two cents.
My father is a retired meteorologist from the US Air Force. He says and has shown me great examples that basically, we can't say what is causing the icecaps to melt. We can't say it's cars or factories or any of the other big pollutions, because we have just plain not be studying it long enough. They just plain have not been recording weather for very long...So how can we say it is human's fault.
For example...last summer tickled me. They had a bit on the news about global warming and how horriblely dry and hot it was. Then the weather came up and it showed that we did not quite beat the old reacord in the 40's. HA! So what happened then? What about the dust bowl of the 30's here in the US and Canada? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl for those who might not remember this from school. That was a horrific hot dry period in our history. Was it caused by pollution, well no of course not. There was not even as much as there was in the 80s....and yet we had no repeat of a dust bowl then.
And yes...the earth cycles. Hot, temprate, cold, over and over again. Quite frankly the earth is not here for our Pleasure. She is not our submissive to be whipped into serving us best. She will do as she pleases. We are not her prioirty. She will one day kill us like the dinosaurs, like the creatures of the IceAge, and like the first buggies to crawl on her shores. That is her option.
*oooo sorta dips it's toes into my religion really*
So yes, stopping polution and the rape of natural resourses is good, and we need to do it. It's only respectful and right. But will that make a difference...not to the warming of the earth no. We can either adjust as a race, or we can die. I suggest we stop breeding so many mouths to feed, protect and charish what we have, and start being more flexible.

[js207]

If we look at (say) 5 cities that will be flooded by a 1 metre rise

Now try with less exaggerated estimates (or tell me why you think I, or anyone else, should take your 'American University' figures over the IPCC's; I suspect their only appeal is that they make for a nastier Doomsday scenario for those of a Chicken Little persuasion) and factoring in at least a token effort at mitigation over the next century: it beggars belief for you to assert the Dutch will simply sit on their hands until they drown or get displaced! Say, a 30cm rise, with a 30cm increase in sea wall height ... oops, bang goes your disaster movie.

Your "misdirections" really aren't a positive contribution to anything. Nor is flapping about what might theoretically happen a few thousand years from now, since none of us will ever know that or be affected by it in any way! If reality and plausibility don't fit your scenario, it's pretty clear that one of them is defective and needs to be revised.

[TomOfSweden]

Oz, I'm with you on polution should lead to global cooling. I'm not claiming this. I'm on this assuming that there's some critical bit of information I'm missing. If people who've dedicated their lives to this don't believe it any more, (it was abandoned in the 70'ies) then I'm sure it's my info that is faulty, and not the global warming theory.

[ThisYouWillDo]

Now try with less exaggerated estimates (or tell me why you think I, or anyone else, should take your 'American University' figures over the IPCC's; I suspect their only appeal is that they make for a nastier Doomsday scenario for those of a Chicken Little persuasion) and factoring in at least a token effort at mitigation over the next century: it beggars belief for you to assert the Dutch will simply sit on their hands until they drown or get displaced! Say, a 30cm rise, with a 30cm increase in sea wall height ... oops, bang goes your disaster movie.

1. Not a film producer. But remember that 12.5% of Holland is already below sea level - some of it 20 feet below sea level (I've checked my figures). So if existing sea defences are breached by even half a centimetre for any significant time, the consequences could be profound.

2. Do what you like with American University's data, it's your university - you'll know what its academic standards are like better than I would.

3. The estimates I gave in my last post were based on a 1 metre rise. I cannot vouch for their accuracy, and I can find no data on a smaller rise.

I did point out that the predicted population shifts paid no attention to existing sea defences, let alone future ones. But Holland is already pushing its luck and has been flooded several times where existing defences were breached. There's a limit to what can be done, and the North Sea is not a calm lake - it's a wild sea.

4.

Your "misdirections" really aren't a positive contribution to anything. Nor is flapping about what might theoretically happen a few thousand years from now, since none of us will ever know that or be affected by it in any way! If reality and plausibility don't fit your scenario, it's pretty clear that one of them is defective and needs to be revised

Whatever.

So far as I'm aware, no-one here is an expert on global warming (or cooling). So we use the opinions and data we come across that we feel support our arguments. I do - you do - Ozme does - we all do. Those figures have all been put in the public domain by people who (should) know better than us, and we are entitled to rely on them until they are proved wrong.

And we can be fairly certain about what will happen in a few thousand years by what has happened before. Whether that's relevant or not is a moot point.

But my mistakes are mine, and I acknowledge them when I make them.

=========

tired.of.vanilla: So yes, stopping polution and the rape of natural resourses is good, and we need to do it. It's only respectful and right. But will that make a difference...not to the warming of the earth no. We can either adjust as a race, or we can die.

This is all I'm trying to say: why does everyone over there prefer to die rather than co-operate?

TYWD

[Thorne]

I found an item in this mornings paper which is pertinent to this. I can't find the exact item online for some reason, but it says:

"There's a natural cause that might account for much of the Arctic warming, which has melted sea ice, ice sheets and glaciers ... a natural and cyclical increase in the amount of energy in the atmosphere that moves from south to north around the Arctic Circle."

While trying to find this online I came across this: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318686,00.html

What I found particularly interesting was #10: "In a report to Congress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency revealed greenhouse gas regulation to be quite the fool’s errand. In estimating the atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases 90 years from now under both a scenario where no action is taken to reduce manmade emissions and a scenario where maximum regulation is implemented, the estimated difference in average global temperature between the two scenarios is 0.17 degrees Centigrade.
For reference purposes, the estimated total increase in average global temperature for the 20th century was about 0.50 degrees Celsius."

The general theme seems to be that nobody really knows what the hell is going to happen. You'd do just as well with Nostradamus or Revelations as your climate forecaster as you would with Al Gore and his cronies.

[DungeonMaster6]

There's an article in the Jan 14 addition of the Washington Post, front page:

Head line; ESCALATING ICE LOSS FOUND IN ANTARCTICA

First paragraph: Climactic changes appear to be destablizing vast sheets of western Antarctica that had previously seemed relatively protected from global warming, researchers reported yesterday, raising the prospect of faster sea-level rise than current estimates.

The article is too long to print it all out, but if this is true along with what's happening in Greenland, the earth could be in for a vast change, maybe not in our lifetime, but at some point our world could be inundated. This is not a myth or a government conspiracy.

[ThisYouWillDo]

A propos Dungeon Master's posting, and earlier discussion about the fate of low-lying countries such as the Netherlands as a result of global warming, I was watching a light satire programme on TV last night. It was a repeat from a long time ago: several years. In it, the announcer said something to the effect that global warming is happening. We don't know quite what will happen, nor when. The only thing we know for sure is Holland's gonna get f^cked!

TYWD

[TomOfSweden]

I got this e-mailed to me by a friend, (guy I know) who's a researcher at Oxford university. This site, which is run by climate researchers at Oxford is leading a rebellion among researchers there and around the globe.

http://climateprediction.net/

Their claim is that researchers are now being steam-rolled by politicians into uncritically accepting the IPCC report as gospel, no matter what. Dissent is growing and a large number of researchers reject parts of it.

It's as if our two options on this are ...:

1) to latch onto one climate Bible at a time and brand non-believers has heretics/multinational corporations/ignorant

or

2) reject any environmental policies, on the grounds that scientists can't agree about everything.

Granted that tax payers money is used to implement environmental policies and the average voter is a moron who cannot understand issues not dealing with absolutes...but to take the reality of politics and pretend like it makes sense in the real world... and on top of that force it on researchers...is according to the researchers at Oxford..what is happening.

Just because there is disagreement about details doesn't mean global warming isn't happening. Their point is that if we don't grant researchers money to attack the IPCC report, we won't know how accurate it is. Above all, they think it is wrong scaring people about stuff we aren't sure about.

The fact that releasing carbon dioxide from fossil fuels will in some way shift the balance and is best avoided, is a no brainer. But from that infer that we need to live in fear of the coming tsunamis and dramatically rising sea levels ... is a bit premature.

People like drama so news is dramatic ... but it's always good to know that a drama ... is only partly reality.

It's a very educational site...and don't forget that its written by real climate researchers.

[ThisYouWillDo]

Absolutely ...

Hey ... what am I saying? I'm no moron - I just don't have the time or the specia1ist knowledge to understand all issues completely. So I trust the sources that make sense to me, and (God help me!) the politicians who run this world.

If I get whipped up into a frenzy about something, then at least the exercise will do me good.

TYWD

[TomOfSweden]

he he. Well I've been swaying to and fro in this issue this last year. I've gone from claiming ignorance, to fully accepting the IPCC report, to now, with accepting most of the IPCC report. For me this is exciting times. The fog of ignorance still lies thick on the battlefield of research.

But no matter what the outcome, there's still things we can do. Like shift to nuclear power which is both good for the environment, global warming and industry. So while we're waiting for a final result, we can at least urge our politicians to push ahead with what we do know is a positive initiative. So we're not completely lost out here.

[Thorne]

But no matter what the outcome, there's still things we can do. Like shift to nuclear power which is both good for the environment, global warming and industry. So while we're waiting for a final result, we can at least urge our politicians to push ahead with what we do know is a positive initiative. So we're not completely lost out here.

The only problem with this is that a large percentage of voters, at least in the US, are dead set against nuclear power, and the politicians are more concerned about appeasing them and garnering their votes than they are in actually DOING something about the issue.
Sure, big business and corporate hacks don't like making changes, especially if they might affect the bottom line. So you can't entirely trust them. And politicians will say whatever the polls agree is the right thing to say, regardless of what the truth is. And let's be honest: a lot of them are bought and paid for before they ever get into office. So, while there's no guarantee that any particular scientist might not have an agenda, when a large number of apparently unrelated scientists tell you that things are not necessarily what they seem to be, you have to at least admit that they might be right!
Let's face it, you would have to be a fool not to admit that global warming is occurring. But there is far to much uncertainty out there to determine how much of it is caused by man. Some of it, certainly. But there have been warming cycles in the past which were definitely NOT caused by man. There have also been ice ages, also not caused by man. There are natural processes out there which we are barely beginning to recognize, much less understand, which tend to counterbalance much of the changes which are occurring.
So do what you feel is right. Promote nuclear power, drive cleaner vehicles, turn off your air conditioner. Just don't do it because some numbnuts politician is trying to scare you to death.

[ThisYouWillDo]

Numbnuts says, "Do this ..."

Dickhead says, "Do that ..."

Ordinary blokes like you and me don't know who's right of wrong. So we're paralysed by ignorance, or we support one or the other on gut feeling. We might try to understand the issues, and debate them in the pub or on these boards, but, no matter how sensible we try to be, it's all flatulence, supported by flimsy evidence in the latest edition of the Washington Post, or Panorama, or some website we've just found (no offence intended, Tom).

We worry over whose fault global warming is. What difference does it make? We wonder if we can stop it, or slow it, but all we really know is that we don't have a clue; and we won't be helped by those in control, partly, because they have been "bought" or they put party loyalty before true national interest, and partly because they don't know any more than we do. They are told what to do by "experts" from industry and academia whose priorities are profit and reputation. Truth, when it arrives, comes a poor 3rd - if that.

o0O0o

I find it hard to accept that nuclear energy is good for the environment when you look at what happened at Three Mile Island, or at Chernobyl, where, over 20 years later, there's still an exclusion zone of hundreds of square kilometres where wildlife is still being damaged by the effects of contamination, and is apparently spreading up the food chain. Animals are being poached within the zone and consumed by humans.

When you consider how many countries there are now using nuclear power and the others which are contemplating it, and you compare their safety standards with those of USA and Russia, which are both demonstrably capable of failure, one wonders where and when the next "Chernobyl" will be and how much damage it will cause. What can go wrong inevitably will go wrong, and Chernobyl ain't as bad as it can get.


TYWD

Sorry bout that, but I'm listening to Leonard Cohen ...

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

[Thorne]

I find it hard to accept that nuclear energy is good for the environment when you look at what happened at Three Mile Island, or at Chernobyl, where, over 20 years later, there's still an exclusion zone of hundreds of square kilometres where wildlife is still being damaged by the effects of contamination, and is apparently spreading up the food chain. Animals are being poached within the zone and consumed by humans.

When you consider how many countries there are now using nuclear power and the others which are contemplating it, and you compare their safety standards with those of USA and Russia, which are both demonstrably capable of failure, one wonders where and when the next "Chernobyl" will be and how much damage it will cause. What can go wrong inevitably will go wrong, and Chernobyl ain't as bad as it can get.

Chernobyl was a major disaster, no question, and it was pretty close to as bad as it can get. Not really surprising when you consider that it was engineered by the Soviet Union, a system not noted for its concern for the people.

But 3 Mile Island, while scary, was NOT a disaster. The system worked there, the leakage was absolutely minimal and the safeties stopped any real problems. I read somewhere once that the exposure received by those who worked at the facility and those who lived nearby, was actually less than the average normal exposure that citizens of Denver receive from solar radiation. Yes, it could have been worse, and mistakes were made. But it was far from cataclysmic.

[TomOfSweden]

I find it hard to accept that nuclear energy is good for the environment when you look at what happened at Three Mile Island, or at Chernobyl, where, over 20 years later, there's still an exclusion zone of hundreds of square kilometres where wildlife is still being damaged by the effects of contamination, and is apparently spreading up the food chain. Animals are being poached within the zone and consumed by humans.

Let's stop all use of pesticides just because DDT proved to be bad? Three Mile Island belongs to the group of reactors known as Generation I, Chernobyl belongs to Generation II, and is more specifically known as a CANDU reactor. Guess how many is in use today? All nuclear rectors in use in the west are Generation III and are far more safe. There have been no incidents with any of them. The worst that has happened is a controlled shut down because of a faulty indicator. But many new advances have come, and any new reactors will be labelled generation IV and are even safer than the safe ones we have today. They only thing that is different between the generations is the safety. Output is the same.

There's always the same deal with technology. It only develops if it's being used. If we are to be free from accidents we'll also be free from progress. This will be more pronounced and accidents will be more serious as energy technology gets more efficient. It's in the nature of the business.

There's also positive effects of Chernobyl. It's aided archaeology, carbon dating techniques and ecology research very much. There's some good with the bad.