Is global warming/climate change a crock?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

Fiero, many of the same people were saying we were doomed for an ice age back in the 70's. I don't know what we can do if we are the cause, and short of stopping life as we know it, it likely should have been done 30 years ago. There is no way of knowing exactly what is causing it, but climate modelling is a bit of a joke IMO, and I say that after taking 2 climatology credits in University and having an weather observors certificiate at one point in my life. I know how the weather is forcasted and collected, and I can tell you, there is a great unknown out there on what will happen 2 days from now. To forecast 10 years or 50 years hence is a lot more of a crap shoot....

---

Those same people you mention were the minority who chose to speak out to the public at that time. At that time most climatologists knew they were just identifying the factors and weren't willing to issue public warnings. It was all part of the process of reaching where we are today, with an actual consensus.

Its not forecasting weather its completely different and you should know that. Whether or not you have 2 climatology credits at University the actual climatologists are significantly more qualified than you to judge whether climate modelling is a joke or not...

Weather is the effect of the climate on us. So climate and weather are related and therefore if you know what's going to happen to the climate you should still be able to predict what the weather's going to be like within reason of course. Yes there are microclimates and places that will buck the trend. But when scientists are telling us that the planet is warming and then there are stupid amounts of rain in Northern Europe that they didn't predict then that suggests that they possibly have it wrong.

Climate modelling is a joke if they can't predict a MAJOR event like the wet weather in July. That wasn't a mere blip. It was a speedbump which they should have seen if they actually know what's going on.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daniel

Climate modelling is a joke if they can't predict a MAJOR event like the wet weather in July. That wasn't a mere blip. It was a speedbump which they should have seen if they actually know what's going on.

---

Again, climate and weather are two different things. Climate is the long-term average - weather is an event like we say in July.

Just because you say that doesn't mean it's true.

Weather IS the way that the climate manifests itself to us. I can't walk outside and see the climate. If the climate gets warmer then it has an effect on the weather. To say that the climate doesn't manifest itself in the weather is to totally disagree with the climate change arguments.

As I explained we're not talking about a microclimate or an event like flooding in one particular city. We had an event which affected the whole of Northern Europe which these people failed to predict........

If climate doesn't influence weather that much then why are scientists so worried about the effect of climate change on the weather? :rotflmao:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daniel

Or course. But as I said and you seem to have ignored. Not so long ago there were vineyards in the north of england and as we know vineyards tend to prefer warmer climates which the north of england still to this day doesn't really provide.

There is also the hockey stick controversy. How long has world temperature been shown to be rising so rapidly? How long have we been accurately measuring termperature? Roughly the same amount of time!?!?!?!?!?!?

As I said I do not doubt that there is warming happening. But I feel that climate study is in it's infancy and although we have lots of tools at our disposal do we nearlly know what the data means? Typically the more complicated an experiment the more data you need to draw a conclusion. Now if we were simply seeing if we could make gold our of plastic and you did whatever you did and made gold out of plastic then that's proof enough. But we're talking about something that's infinitely more complex than our level of current understanding and even if we have computer models they're only interpreting data in a way that we instruct them to.

A lot of theories that seem perfectly reasonable and have data to back them up have been disproven. Up until recently it was said that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light. Guess what! A few weeks ago this was said to have been broken. Of course it could all be smoke and mirrors but I suspect it's probably right.

As I think Mark said previously Einstein was considered a nut back in the 20's and then suddenly he turned everything on it's head and is now considered one of the great minds of the 20th century. Food for thought?

---

I did not ignore it. As I said in a previous post, there are vineyards right now in England. Evidently (I am still searching for confirmation) there is even one in Scotland.
This is a link to some vineyards in England and Wales. http://www.english-wine.com/vineyards.html

It is possible to grow grapes in cooler climates, however it is not commercially viable.

What hockey stick controversy? You need to do a little research on the hockey stick graph. If you do you will see that the results come from a wide variety of data.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daniel

What if in 20 years it doesn't exist?

Have you thought of that possibility?

---

Sure, but it is happening now. I am pretty confidant. There are a few issues that might slow it down, such as peak oil or a large volcanic eruption.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daniel

You're suggesting that all people who do studies which don't agree with popular concensus and so on are biased. Is this the case? Who knows!

Is it natural? Is it not? Who knows? No one can say for certain. Not like I can go outside and measure the temperature and say without a doubt that it is 16 degrees celsius exactly. As I said it's a theory and as we all know theories are not fact. We don't know that it's going to get worse. As has been shown many times there really is very little correlation betwen CO2 levels and temperature. There have been times of extreme cold where CO2 levels have been through the roof.

What is an extreme weather pattern? Does weather necessarily follow predefined patterns? We would like it to but it never seems to and these models never seem to predict events such as the hugely abnormal weather patterns in the UK and the rest of Northern Europe. We're not talking a microclimate here. We're talking about a huge part of the world that had totally unexpected weather. Food for thought?

Your body is not a climate. A climate is extremely complicated. If lots of people smoke and have lung problems and the ones who don't smoke don't have problems then that's quite easy to understand. But we don't have another planet to test this theory on ;)

I never said lets ignore a possible problem. You are putting words in my mouth ;)

---

Nuclear physics is a theory but it doesn't stop it nuclear power stations working. There comes a time when a theory is significantly ratified for it to be used as a fact. The theory of man made global warming HAS reached this level. If it is proven wrong then that is OK but any alternative theories have a long way to go before reaching this level. Another thing is that carbon dioxide levels are only causing the climate to change this time, other times it was other things. I cannot understand why can believe that factors can change the climate yet not believe that greenhouse gases can despite the fact that of all the known factors it is the one rising significantly at a rate that would cause a temperature rise similar to the one that is occurring even with all other factors considered. Scientists and Governments are so sure about this that they are willing to invest large amounts of money. The only reason you don't know for sure is that you have not critically examined every relevant study in detail. Considering the interdisciplinary nature of climate research it is beyond the means of any one person to do that as no one really posesses all the necessary knowledge. The discovery and acceptance of man made climate change one of the greatest scientific achievements in mankinds history. Its a shame that the main opposition seems to be one that promotes a disbelief in the scientific method and of scientists as well as the idea that of promoting ideas for the current global warming that are generally ignorant.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daniel

I agree. Biofuel is merely another way of releasing CO2. Just like electric cars. Something is burnt to fuel it. So unless the power behind it is clean then it's useless. Biofuels are going to come from Brazil and what are they going to do? Cut down forest (carbon sinks) and create cleared land which when ploughed will absorb more heat from the sun and contribute to the problem. Yeah good one you short sighted environmentalist plonkers! I consider myself someone that cares about the environment. We recycle, compost, have a wormery and recycle when possible even though the local council makes it hard (they don't recycle cardboard ffs!) and I get pissed off when I buy a packet of something and it's sealed in a celophane wrap, has a stiff plastic base and inside the biscuits or cakes or whatever have individual wrapping. I think that by not being wasteful in this way, turning heating on when a jumper could suffice, not buying a new car every three years and so many other things. If there is this problem and it is caused by us we need to really look deeply at the full implications of the technology we are going to use to combat this and not go for the "Lada Samara" solution which is cheap, seems nice at the time but ends up costing more in the long run and doesn't actually solve the problem.

---

Biofuels is more a solutions for a liquid fuel crisis (peak oil). However it is less damaging to the environment than fossil fuels. That is of course if fossil fuels are not used to make the biofuels. The best options for biofuels are not the ones involving food crops. That plan is just shortsighted.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daniel

Just because you say that doesn't mean it's true.

Weather IS the way that the climate manifests itself to us. I can't walk outside and see the climate. If the climate gets warmer then it has an effect on the weather. To say that the climate doesn't manifest itself in the weather is to totally disagree with the climate change arguments.

As I explained we're not talking about a microclimate or an event like flooding in one particular city. We had an event which affected the whole of Northern Europe which these people failed to predict........

If climate doesn't influence weather that much then why are scientists so worried about the effect of climate change on the weather? :rotflmao:

---

Try reading that again to see if it makes any sense now that it's written down.

Climate is the long term average and variations of the weather. We know that this is the wettest summer "on record" as we have measuring systems and records that go back about 400 years in the UK. Now tell me how we can infer whether or not the UK had rain/weather events such as we recently have experienced before records began? Tree rings / C14 records only tell us about the climate, i.e. how the seasons or the yearly "average weather" or climate affected the living beings at that time. It doesn't tell us that all the rain in that particular year fell in one day and it was beautiful sunshine for the rest of the year, nor does it tell us that it drizzled non-stop for 365 days. They're called "weather forecasts" and not "climate forecasts" for a reason.

Back to my original point - climate modelling is just that - simulating changes in the parameters that define air temperature, sea temperature and so on in order to better understand what happens if such events were to occur. These simulations do not account for the day-to-day variations in climate, i.e. what we defined as the weather, and only give mean estimates within certain percentage errors. Modern supercomputers can barely forecast the weather for a week in advance as the parameters that affect the development of weather systems are inordinately complex. Climate modelling, in contrast, is much easier due to the recorded information that we have, and our (reasonable) understanding of the local (i.e. Earth-bound) parameters that affect the climate.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rah

I did not ignore it. As I said in a previous post, there are vineyards right now in England. Evidently (I am still searching for confirmation) there is even one in Scotland.
This is a link to some vineyards in England and Wales. http://www.english-wine.com/vineyards.html

It is possible to grow grapes in cooler climates, however it is not commercially viable.

What hockey stick controversy? You need to do a little research on the hockey stick graph. If you do you will see that the results come from a wide variety of data.

---

Wide variety of data. So you're saying that it's a different set of data to the set of data that we're basing historic "observations" on? We once had different scales for carbon dating which we used and then we discovered that these were wrong. As I said we've only been measuring the temperatures with exact instruments for a historically short period of time....... It's not good science to base historic observations on what we "think" of course it's better than nothing but it's not fact.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daniel

Just because you say that doesn't mean it's true.

Weather IS the way that the climate manifests itself to us. I can't walk outside and see the climate. If the climate gets warmer then it has an effect on the weather. To say that the climate doesn't manifest itself in the weather is to totally disagree with the climate change arguments.

As I explained we're not talking about a microclimate or an event like flooding in one particular city. We had an event which affected the whole of Northern Europe which these people failed to predict........

If climate doesn't influence weather that much then why are scientists so worried about the effect of climate change on the weather? :rotflmao:

---

Climate is the probability of something happening. For example when people talk about 10 year floods or 100 year floods.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mikeall

Nuclear physics is a theory but it doesn't stop it nuclear power stations working. There comes a time when a theory is significantly ratified for it to be used as a fact. The theory of man made global warming HAS reached this level. If it is proven wrong then that is OK but any alternative theories have a long way to go before reaching this level. Another thing is that carbon dioxide levels are only causing the climate to change this time, other times it was other things. I cannot understand why can believe that factors can change the climate yet not believe that greenhouse gases can despite the fact that of all the known factors it is the one rising significantly at a rate that would cause a temperature rise similar to the one that is occurring even with all other factors considered. Scientists and Governments are so sure about this that they are willing to invest large amounts of money. The only reason you don't know for sure is that you have not critically examined every relevant study in detail. Considering the interdisciplinary nature of climate research it is beyond the means of any one person to do that as no one really posesses all the necessary knowledge. The discovery and acceptance of man made climate change one of the greatest scientific achievements in mankinds history. Its a shame that the main opposition seems to be one that promotes a disbelief in the scientific method and of scientists as well as the idea that of promoting ideas for the current global warming that are generally ignorant.

---

The thing is like I said if the number of dachshunds increased at the same rate as the rate of increase in temperature then we could reasonably assume that dachshunds are the cause of global warming.

The argument that sceptics use is that we don't truly understand the climate yet so we can't just come out and say it's CO2 and not look into other possible causes. That's all I'm trying to put across.

Daniel, scientific fact implies an element of doubt you don't need to keep repeating it. A scientific fact must be capable of being proved wrong otherwise it isn't science.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daniel

The thing is like I said if the number of dachshunds increased at the same rate as the rate of increase in temperature then we could reasonably assume that dachshunds are the cause of global warming.

The argument that sceptics use is that we don't truly understand the climate yet so we can't just come out and say it's CO2 and not look into other possible causes. That's all I'm trying to put across.

---

Therefore the sceptics are portraying climatologists wrongly, as the have looked into other possible causes and have quantified the warming effect of CO2 on a basic level and the predictions match the current level of warming.

computer modelling of anything uses formulas and conclusions allowed to it by it's human programer. In short, if a certain conclusion is never programmed in as a possibility, then it can never be reached.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fiero 5.7

In a way the tobbaco example is a good one. Yes people who smoked coughed and many died from lung diseases however, smoking has never been proven to be the exclusive cause of theses diseases. I'm not saying smoking is healthy or that smoking will not harm you. What I am saying is that people that don't smoke are afflicted with these same diseases. Also ignored is that many of the people also spent a life time in heavy industries breathing chemicals, coal dust, ash, and silica particles, etc. In the US, the tobbaco companies didn't lose the lawsuits over health issues, they lost them when it was proved they were "juicing" their products to make them more addictive. I don't think anybody here disputes the climate is changing, the dispute is over whether we are the cause, a factor in the cause i.e., speeding up what would occur anyway, or completely innocent of all charges. If additional taxes are to be taken to deal with climate change I feel the money would be better used to help people and animals adapt to the changes as they come instead of trying to prevent what you can't stop. China is often cited as a major emissions player and they are going to do what they want. They are large enough and militarily strong enough to pretty much shrug off any sanctions you may care to hit them with.

---

The tobacco example is a great one. In fact some of the PR firms involved with shedding doubt onto health effects of smoking are involved with shedding doubt about climate change.

How do people or animals adapt to climate change? Look at some of the effects:
If the sea levels rise as predicted we will see many millions of people driven off their land by the ocean. Where do these people go? How do you replace the valuable crop lands that will be submerged? A few nations are already feeling the effects of the rising sea levels. Not to mention what it will do to many cities and infrastructure.

The ocean is getting more acidic. This is a direct result of increasing CO2 levels. What does this mean? any invertebrate sea creature will have a much harder time calcifying its exoskeleton once the PH of the ocean drops to a certain level. This is not something that corals or shellfish can readily adapt to. It just does not chemically work. So thats an entire ecosystem destroyed.

Bad news to for you anyone living in the UK. AGW predictions show you getting much much colder.

Just some of the bad news.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Andrewmcm

Try reading that again to see if it makes any sense now that it's written down.

Climate is the long term average and variations of the weather. We know that this is the wettest summer "on record" as we have measuring systems and records that go back about 400 years in the UK. Now tell me how we can infer whether or not the UK had rain/weather events such as we recently have experienced before records began? Tree rings / C14 records only tell us about the climate, i.e. how the seasons or the yearly "average weather" or climate affected the living beings at that time. It doesn't tell us that all the rain in that particular year fell in one day and it was beautiful sunshine for the rest of the year, nor does it tell us that it drizzled non-stop for 365 days. They're called "weather forecasts" and not "climate forecasts" for a reason.

Back to my original point - climate modelling is just that - simulating changes in the parameters that define air temperature, sea temperature and so on in order to better understand what happens if such events were to occur. These simulations do not account for the day-to-day variations in climate, i.e. what we defined as the weather, and only give mean estimates within certain percentage errors. Modern supercomputers can barely forecast the weather for a week in advance as the parameters that affect the development of weather systems are inordinately complex. Climate modelling, in contrast, is much easier due to the recorded information that we have, and our (reasonable) understanding of the local (i.e. Earth-bound) parameters that affect the climate.

---

Well it's not been confirmed that this has been the wettest summer because there are different ways of measuring. Rainfall is measured in more places now than ever before. But it is up there with the wettest summers ever. So was it wetter now than in the past? Quite possibly. All we know is that is was wet!

As I said the climate manifests itself in the weather that we experience. Why is it that scientists used climate change to explain the summer when you're saying that there's no relationship?

I'll be perfectly honest and say that I don't think scientists really know how a climate operates and what triggers, tipping points and factors we're dealing with. Something is happening and CO2 has been latched onto as an indicator because it seems to be rising sharply at the same temperature is rising.

I'd hate to see the polar bears have a rough time of it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daniel

As I said the climate manifests itself in the weather that we experience. Why is it that scientists used climate change to explain the summer when you're saying that there's no relationship?

---

That is not my point at all. A change in climate necessarily points to a change in the average weather. I'm suggesting to you that having a "wettest summer on record" may be a spike in the overall average for the year - look at April, it was 27 degrees and everyone thought we were in for a major drought. Wait until the figures come out for 2007 to see if it was a "wet" year or a "hot year", and how that correllates to the overall climate in the past 10-20-50 years and then we can start to compare this year with the overall change in the planet's climate.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mikeall

Nuclear physics is a theory but it doesn't stop it nuclear power stations working. There comes a time when a theory is significantly ratified for it to be used as a fact. The theory of man made global warming HAS reached this level. If it is proven wrong then that is OK but any alternative theories have a long way to go before reaching this level. Another thing is that carbon dioxide levels are only causing the climate to change this time, other times it was other things. I cannot understand why can believe that factors can change the climate yet not believe that greenhouse gases can despite the fact that of all the known factors it is the one rising significantly at a rate that would cause a temperature rise similar to the one that is occurring even with all other factors considered. Scientists and Governments are so sure about this that they are willing to invest large amounts of money. The only reason you don't know for sure is that you have not critically examined every relevant study in detail. Considering the interdisciplinary nature of climate research it is beyond the means of any one person to do that as no one really posesses all the necessary knowledge. The discovery and acceptance of man made climate change one of the greatest scientific achievements in mankinds history. Its a shame that the main opposition seems to be one that promotes a disbelief in the scientific method and of scientists as well as the idea that of promoting ideas for the current global warming that are generally ignorant.

---

The thing is you can observe nuclear physics. You can have a reactor and you can monitor it and you can understand the substance at work and what is being done to it and how it will react. Just like you predict what goes on in a microclimate when you know what factors are being applied. The thing is that the earth is not as simple as one mountain range and the effects that it will have on a nearby deep valley. It's complex and to think that we've got it right with our first assumption of how it works with only a few years of data is a bit presumptuous. That's all I'm suggesting. It's amazing the strength with which the enviro-stazi put their views across as being near enough to being proven fact.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mikeall

Therefore the sceptics are portraying climatologists wrongly, as the have looked into other possible causes and have quantified the warming effect of CO2 on a basic level and the predictions match the current level of warming.

---

Yes but that's my point. We've not been studying it for long enough to actually draw any reasonable data from it.

Scientists simply seem to "debunk" theories by simply proving that another theory seems to be explaining it better.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daniel

Wide variety of data. So you're saying that it's a different set of data to the set of data that we're basing historic "observations" on? We once had different scales for carbon dating which we used and then we discovered that these were wrong. As I said we've only been measuring the temperatures with exact instruments for a historically short period of time....... It's not good science to base historic observations on what we "think" of course it's better than nothing but it's not fact.

---

Wide variety means the data comes from a variety of sources. I understand that you are raising issues that you feel are not understood by scientists, but maybe if you do a little research into the matter it might help you better understand the situation we are in. At the moment it just feels as though every time I reply on a subject you move on to the next one without acknowledging the point made. Maybe with a little research you can find the answers yourself.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rah

The tobacco example is a great one. In fact some of the PR firms involved with shedding doubt onto health effects of smoking are involved with shedding doubt about climate change.

How do people or animals adapt to climate change? Look at some of the effects:
If the sea levels rise as predicted we will see many millions of people driven off their land by the ocean. Where do these people go? How do you replace the valuable crop lands that will be submerged? A few nations are already feeling the effects of the rising sea levels. Not to mention what it will do to many cities and infrastructure.

The ocean is getting more acidic. This is a direct result of increasing CO2 levels. What does this mean? any invertebrate sea creature will have a much harder time calcifying its exoskeleton once the PH of the ocean drops to a certain level. This is not something that corals or shellfish can readily adapt to. It just does not chemically work. So thats an entire ecosystem destroyed.

Bad news to for you anyone living in the UK. AGW predictions show you getting much much colder.

Just some of the bad news.

---

They didn't shed doubt, they merely pointed out, correctly, that smoking was not the exclusive cause of these diseases. Thats not doubt, thats fact.

This reminds me of the cell phone radiation thing. Some researchers belive the increased radiation is dangerous and some say it isn't. I guess what you chooses to believe is based on how much you love your cell phone. Of course, as more people start falling over dead with brain tumors, the backlash against the cell companies will start, just like it did on tobbaco.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Andrewmcm

That is not my point at all. A change in climate necessarily points to a change in the average weather. I'm suggesting to you that having a "wettest summer on record" may be a spike in the overall average for the year - look at April, it was 27 degrees and everyone thought we were in for a major drought. Wait until the figures come out for 2007 to see if it was a "wet" year or a "hot year", and how that correllates to the overall climate in the past 10-20-50 years and then we can start to compare this year with the overall change in the planet's climate.

---

Yes but scientists have come down and said that the wet summer was down to climate change. Now if we knew that CO2 was having this effect and if we know the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and what the effects of climate change will be then surely we know the implications of this "change" then surely there's a cycle there. We know there's an excess of CO2 in the atmosphere, the temperature rises because of it and this causes something. Now if so soon after the event we can put it down to global warming then why did models not at least suggest this as a possibility? Why not? Because we don't know how the atmosphere works.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fiero 5.7

They didn't shed doubt, they merely pointed out, correctly, that smoking was not the exclusive cause of these diseases. Thats not doubt, thats fact.

---

They were not pointing out holes in the science. They knew from research conducted themselves from the 40's that smoking was bad for you and caused many health problems. They are criminals responsible for many deaths and counting.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daniel

Yes but that's my point. We've not been studying it for long enough to actually draw any reasonable data from it.

Scientists simply seem to "debunk" theories by simply proving that another theory seems to be explaining it better.

---

1st paragraph I simply think you're wrong. You haven't been studying it. Climatologists have. You are not qualified to decide whether its been studied long enough (neither am I), climatologists and statisticians are.

2nd paragraph: Yes that is how scientific progress works.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rah

They were not pointing out holes in the science. They knew from research conducted themselves from the 40's that smoking was bad for you and caused many health problems. They are criminals responsible for many deaths and counting.

---

I smoke and don't view them as criminals nor do I hold them responsible for me starting smoking. I started smoking because I tried it and liked it, and yes the warnings were on the packs then. The only person responsible for my smoking habit is me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daniel

The thing is you can observe nuclear physics. You can have a reactor and you can monitor it and you can understand the substance at work and what is being done to it and how it will react. Just like you predict what goes on in a microclimate when you know what factors are being applied. The thing is that the earth is not as simple as one mountain range and the effects that it will have on a nearby deep valley. It's complex and to think that we've got it right with our first assumption of how it works with only a few years of data is a bit presumptuous. That's all I'm suggesting. It's amazing the strength with which the enviro-stazi put their views across as being near enough to being proven fact.

---

I take that as a compliment ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rah

Wide variety means the data comes from a variety of sources. I understand that you are raising issues that you feel are not understood by scientists, but maybe if you do a little research into the matter it might help you better understand the situation we are in. At the moment it just feels as though every time I reply on a subject you move on to the next one without acknowledging the point made. Maybe with a little research you can find the answers yourself.

---

As I said I'm at work doing a job and I barely have time to reply to your posts and even less time to go around the internet and gather evidence and verify it's authenticity and consider any possible bias.

The thing that irritates me is that I point out that scientists have been wrong in the past and I merely suggest that they could be wrong now and there are certain patterns like historic high levels of CO2 and lows in temperature that conflict with this and rather than actually prove this incorrect you merely go on about why you're right rather than proving that you're not incorrect. DO you see my point? I'm merely trying to say that it's possible that CO2 is not the only factor in the warming of the planet that is currently occuring.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daniel

Yes but scientists have come down and said that the wet summer was down to climate change. Now if we knew that CO2 was having this effect and if we know the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and what the effects of climate change will be then surely we know the implications of this "change" then surely there's a cycle there. We know there's an excess of CO2 in the atmosphere, the temperature rises because of it and this causes something. Now if so soon after the event we can put it down to global warming then why did models not at least suggest this as a possibility? Why not? Because we don't know how the atmosphere works.

---

Sky news, ITV news and newspapers may say that the rain is due to climate change but dig a bit deeper and you'll find that it's due to the fact that the Gulf Jet Stream moved too far South this year, giving the UK and Northern Europe lots of rain, and Southern Europe scorching temperatures. It's happened before, and it'll no doubt happen again.

As to whether or not it's due to climate change - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6911918.stm and http://www.reading.ac.uk/about/newsa...ses/PR6880.asp, with Reading's meteorolgy department being one of the best in the UK (having known a few PhD students from there).

[quote="Daniel"]Well it's not been confirmed that this has been the wettest summer because there are different ways of measuring. Rainfall is measured in more places now than ever before.


you're having a laugh, aren't you, by any standard it has officially been the wettest summer ever.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mikeall

1st paragraph I simply think you're wrong. You haven't been studying it. Climatologists have. You are not qualified to decide whether its been studied long enough (neither am I), climatologists and statisticians are.

2nd paragraph: Yes that is how scientific progress works.

---

No that's not how science works :rolleyes: If a scientist says that oranges are a factor in global warming and you prove that apples are a factor in global warming it doesn't mean that oranges don't have an effect on global warming.

I actually worked for a statistics company in Australia in a part time role and got to see the results of the project I was working on and told about the meanings and implications even though I wasn't involved in interpreting the data and conclusions that were drawn from the project in the first month weren't imediately held up as fact until the project had run for a good year or so and a full cycle of data had been gathered and studied. Do scientists have data gathered from weather balloons from the last ice age? Or the last period of warmth from ocean buoys? No they don't! We didn't just survey people from one part of the city on one weekend of the year and claim that this was accurate data and in a climate sense that's what scientists are doing at the moment.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mikeall

I take that as a compliment ;)

---

You'd be wrong.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jim mcglinchey

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daniel

Well it's not been confirmed that this has been the wettest summer because there are different ways of measuring. Rainfall is measured in more places now than ever before.


you're having a laugh, aren't you, by any standard it has officially been the wettest summer ever.

---

---

No. The metoffice site said that they are currently trying to confirm against records at the moment :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daniel

As I said I'm at work doing a job and I barely have time to reply to your posts and even less time to go around the internet and gather evidence and verify it's authenticity and consider any possible bias.

The thing that irritates me is that I point out that scientists have been wrong in the past and I merely suggest that they could be wrong now and there are certain patterns like historic high levels of CO2 and lows in temperature that conflict with this and rather than actually prove this incorrect you merely go on about why you're right rather than proving that you're not incorrect. DO you see my point? I'm merely trying to say that it's possible that CO2 is not the only factor in the warming of the planet that is currently occuring.

---

How about this: I acknowledge that scientists in the past have been wrong. I also acknowledge that scientist could be wrong with the present situation. However science of the past and science today are two different animals. Comparing scientist now to the scientist who thought that the world was flat or that Einstein was crazy are completely unfair and laughable.

And before you go on about CO2 not being the only factor in the warming of the planet, I completely agree with you. There are many other gases such as methane, cfc's, hfc's that are affecting AGW. CO2 is just the primary one. And it is a FACT that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere. In fact CO2 concentrations are higher n ow than in the last 30,000 years.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rah

How about this: I acknowledge that scientists in the past have been wrong. I also acknowledge that scientist could be wrong with the present situation. However science of the past and science today are two different animals. Comparing scientist now to the scientist who thought that the world was flat or that Einstein was crazy are completely unfair and laughable.

And before you go on about CO2 not being the only factor in the warming of the planet, I completely agree with you. There are many other gases such as methane, cfc's, hfc's that are affecting AGW. CO2 is just the primary one. And it is a FACT that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere. In fact CO2 concentrations are higher n ow than in the last 30,000 years.

---

Well I don't know if AGW is the right term because we don't yet know whether it is caused by us or not. Yes you can reasonably draw the conclusion by drawing parallels between CO2 and temperature as the graphs seem to match but as I said it doesn't prove it because long term observations which means gathering data through the same methods to prove the thesis.

The original point of my thread was that scientific explanation seems to follow a strange bit of weather these days rather than preceding it. I understand that climate and weather are not going to track in exactly the same way but if scientists are going to claim that climate change is caused by CO2 and that this is going to have specific effects on the weather that we have then these events should to a certain extent be "easy" to predict and I'm not one of these people who blames the weatherman because I go somewhere for a weekend and it rains because he didn't get it right. I understand from doing meteorology for a year at university that it's a complex thing and not easy to predict.

I know the reason for the unseasonal weather was the movement south of the jet stream which is usually much further north. I just find it funny that IF this is caused by global warming then why didn't they know it was going to happen? The jet stream doesn't just go south on a whim. There are factors at work here and if I'm being told that the weather in the world is going to change in dramatic and scary ways because of global warming but they can't predict such behaviour in what is a relatively stable atmospheric current. I think people want it to rain a certain amount of days in a year and be warm for a certain amount of days and cold for a certain amount of days and if it doesn't fit into this then there's something wrong :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Andrewmcm

Sky news, ITV news and newspapers may say that the rain is due to climate change but dig a bit deeper and you'll find that it's due to the fact that the Gulf Jet Stream moved too far South this year, giving the UK and Northern Europe lots of rain, and Southern Europe scorching temperatures. It's happened before, and it'll no doubt happen again.

As to whether or not it's due to climate change - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6911918.stm and http://www.reading.ac.uk/about/newsa...ses/PR6880.asp, with Reading's meteorolgy department being one of the best in the UK (having known a few PhD students from there).

---

This doesn't count in any way as a valid argument but I'm sitting in their 24hour computer room at the moment because the library just shut. I should be doing work really not discussing this...

Everyone should read this skeptic or not:

http://www.earthlights.org/skeptical.html

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Daniel

I know the reason for the unseasonal weather was the movement south of the jet stream which is usually much further north. I just find it funny that IF this is caused by global warming then why didn't they know it was going to happen?

---

I would presume that climate change predictions are not intended to be any use for forecasting a summer's weather in that way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mikeall

This doesn't count in any way as a valid argument but I'm sitting in their 24hour computer room at the moment because the library just shut. I should be doing work really not discussing this...

Everyone should read this skeptic or not:

http://www.earthlights.org/skeptical.html

---

Is the use of my post in highlighting that article to do with the links I had provided and how they do not pass through the peer-review process, or are you suggesting that I do not understand scientific method?

The academic peer-review system is not as well-balanced and as fair as some people may suggest. As I've posted elsewhere in this thread, attempting to publish ideas that contradict your reviewer's work does not go down very well. I know of a few academics who have established their own journals in order to get information out, as other journals would not touch it. Whether that was due to their work being garbage or innovative I don't know, but it has happened.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BDunnell

I would presume that climate change predictions are not intended to be any use for forecasting a summer's weather in that way.

---

But if one of the keystones of the belief in global warming and it's effect is unseasonal weather then surely if global warming markers are there then it goes into long term forecasting..... I'm not talking day to day stuff like the fog I had this morning. I'm talking major weather events.

Surely if they can in retrospect put it down to global warming then there were indicators before the event happened?