Global warming

Surely not too bad if they are all plonked around the Thames Estuary, would only need a distribution system to serve London and the S/SE. I'm assuming those Norf of London are a bit better off in the water stakes.

Maybe I'm underestimating it a bit though!
 
sink 50 m boreholes, millions of them, and run water courses along them .......... where there is a will there is a way. admittedly, it wont replace the rate we are stripping the aquifers but it will slow it down.

not to do this will result in them being sucked dry in a few years, when that happens the lack of water in them will remove the capillary action in the chalk .......... then these sponges will loose the capability of accelerated filtration - or something .........
 
By coincidence I received this today:

Ben Lovejoy wrote about Global Warming, it's long but quite interesting.

"Let's begin by drawing a distinction that often gets lost in media coverage of the subject ...

Global warming is the established fact that the planet is getting warmer.

Man-made global warming is the theory that man's activities are responsible for the planet getting warmer.

The two are often treated as if they were a single claim. Let's begin by looking at the fact of global warming ...

The scale of global warming: separating fact from hysteria

There are almost as many estimates of the rate of warming as there are proponents of the theory. If we're to have a sensible debate about the matter, our first task is to find an estimate from an authoritative source. I started with the BBC website, which cites the Met Office as its own authoritative source, so I shall do the same.

Let's see what the Met Office records as the rate of global warming since 1850 (when reliable temperature records began):



The scales chosen for the graph make the running mean look quite steep, but let's look at what is being shown here. In the 156 years since reliable records began, the increase in the global average near-surface temperature is ... 0.7C.

Ok, you say, but that's an average over a long period. What we're interested in, surely, is the current rate in our industrialised world, with all those millions of cars and plane journeys? Obviously the industrialised nations are not going to keep adding cars and planes at the same rate, but the developing nations will join in, so if indeed global warming is man-made (a claim we shall examine in a minute), it's fair to expect the trend to continue.

Now, this is all going to be rather crude, based on physical measurements of the above graph, but it will be close enough to make the general point. Let's measure some scales on the graph:



Now let's extrapolate 100 years, and measure the temperature increase predicted by extrapolating from the very steepest part of the graph:




Now, we all accept the butterfly wings concept - that even small changes can have unpredictably large effects - but this is a rather different picture from the hysterical predictions made by some of the more extreme 'environmental groups'. I'll explain later in this article why I put 'environmental groups' in inverted commas ...

The causes of global warming

Not even the most apocalyptic scientist would dream of claiming that man's impact on global warming (if it exists at all) is the only cause of global warming. There are two key known natural causes: naturally-occuring meteorological phenomenon, and solar activity.

Meterological phenomenon

The best-known of these is El Nino - or, to give it its full name, the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The Met Office describes ENSO as "the largest influence on the year-to-year variability of the Earth's climate" - a claim which is easily demonstrated, as we'll see in a moment.

El Nino is the Spanish for "little boy", a reference to the birth of Jesus, because it is typically first felt around Christmas. Indeed, based on the strength of the current ENSO, the Met Office is already predicting that 2007 will set new temperature records in the summer.

The strength of ENSO is measured by the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI). The theory says that there will be a strong correlation between SOI and mean surface temperatures, with temperature changes lagging approximately six months behind the SOI. So let's look at some NASA data and see how the theory pans out:




While there is some deviance during the Pinatubo El Nino, I think it is pretty clear that the Met Office is correct in its assertion.

Now, some so-called 'environmentalists' like to give the impression that El Nino is yet more evidence of man-made climate change, so I think I ought to knock that one on the head before we go any further.

The earliest recorded description of the phenomenon by the name El Nino was by Captain Camilo Carrilo at a Geographical Society conference in Lima in 1892.

The phenomenon itself predates the naming by some margin. NASA reports that major ENSO events occured in 1790-93, 1828, 1876-78 and 1891. The BBC guide to El Nino reports archeological evidence suggesting that the phenomenon has been around for about 15,000 years.

All-in-all, it appears fairly safe to conclude that El Nino isn't caused by mums doing the school run in their 4x4s.

Solar activity

Imagine the strident tones of 'environmental groups' if the Earth's temperature were to increase not by 0.7C or 1.4C in 100 years, but by between 3C and 5C in just 20 years!

They would want planes grounded, cars banned, hairspray production stopped ...

Well, NASA reports that gas-content measurements of the Greenland ice cores show that exactly that rate of increase occured. Approximately 200,000 years ago. So, uh, probably not due to me doing a few extra laps of the Nurburgring, then ...

The most convincing explanation for long-term climate change is found in solar activity. The sun's energy output varies over time in what are known as solar activity cycles. The average length of these cycles is 11 years, but they vary from around 9.5 years to around 12 years.

I couldn't find any Met Office data, so I went to the closest source I could find: the Danish Meteorological Institute.

The solar cycle theory of global warming predicts that there will be a strong correlation between the average values of the Northern Hemisphere Land Temperature (shown on the graphs below as T) and the length of the solar cycle (shown as L). So, let's see how well the theory stacks up:



Looks pretty good to me. In fact, it looks like a better match than any of the predictions made based on man-made global warming theories.

If you want to go further back in time, estimating temperature from tree-ring analyses and solar activity from observations of auroral displays, the correlations look equally good:



As the pattern can be seen as early as 1575, I would suggest that we can probably rule out the impact of too many chavs making no-frills flights to Malaga.

Man-made global warming

When you look at the twin impacts of solar cycles explaining long-term temperature changes, and naturally-occuring meteorological phenomenon like El Nino explaining shorter-term ones, there isn't really much left to explain about why we're experiencing global warming.

There are two main objections to the theory of man-made global warming. First, none of the models have proven very successful at prediction - at least, until they start adding 'correction factors' after the event (I wish Camelot would allow me the same leeway in adding post-result 'correction factors' to my lottery numbers). Indeed, most of the predictions have proven less successful than a random number generator.

Second, even if human activity does make some kind of contribution to global warming, it is clear that the effects are dwarfed by naturally-occuring phenomenon. If indeed we are headed for global disaster in 2000 years time, it won't have much to do with our puny little contribution to climate change.

We are talking about spending trillions of pounds, and causing massive disruption to the way in which we live our lives, to achieve the climatological equivalent of rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic.

Why do I refer to 'so-called environmentalists'?

An environmentalist is someone who cares about the quality of our environment. I am an environmentalist, though the word has been so successfully hijacked that I would never describe myself as such outside of the context of this article.

The reality of most of the so-called environmentalist groups is that their agenda has nothing to do with climate change. Organisations like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace are today mostly packed with members whose real objection is to capitalism and a materialist lifestyle. They would like us to return to some mythical Golden Age of simple living.

The astronomer Patrick Moore was a co-founder of Greenpeace. Here is what he has to say about the organisation today:

"There were always extreme, irrational and mystical elements within our movement, but they tended to be kept in their place during the early years. Then in the mid-Eighties, the ultraleftists and extremists took over. After Greenham Common closed and the Berlin Wall came down, these extremists were searching for a new cause and found it in environmentalism. The old agendas of class struggle and anti-corporatism are still there, but now they are dressed up in environmental terminology."

Some of them make no bones about their true agenda. Maurice Strong was the Secretary-General of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) - better known as the Earth Summit. Here's what he said there:

"Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?"

Seems incredible? You can google for the phrase and take your pick of 135 sources.

And that's just one example of hundreds of what these people will say when they let their guard down. If you want to conduct an enlightening experiment, go and talk to a FOE or Greenpeace activist, give the impression of being sympathetic and then listen to the things they will be telling you within 20-30 minutes.

So next time the government tells us it is introducing yet another motoring tax for the good of the planet, a campaign group tries to make us feel guilty for enjoying a long weekend in Prague, or an 'environmentalist' tries to convince us that we are morally derelict for daring to own a car, we might want to challenge them to deal with a few 'uncomfortable truths' of their own."


http://www.nurburgring.org.uk/benlovejoy/index.html | Global warming Copyright © Ben Lovejoy 2007
 
I am with you 100% in not believing man has accelerated the rate of a cyclical phenomena now called global warming /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif
 
GLOBAL WARMING - - BRING IT ON /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

just had a thought ! - if global warming means warmer winters then we wont need heating which will reduce carbon thingys - problem solved - is it not ? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
It's the problem with the internet - some Johnnie spouts about a subject he probably knows little about, and before you know it, it's folklore.
 
Exactly...

Very well said. I have been following the issue as a writer for a couple of years now and this is an excellent summary. Might add the fact that a research paper out last week in the US confirmed that sea levels rose slightly faster in the early part of last century than in the latter part, and that there is absolutely no increase in the rate of sea level rise as yet. So no need to hurry the anti-fouling before the tide comes in.
 
It's a big download, but it's worth waiting for. Lots of good stuff here. FWIW I used to be somewhat on the sceptical side, you know, "researchers get more funds if a case can be made that there's something to worry about..", but after listening to a number of talks by Professor David King and others (based on exactly this sort of rigorous data) I've revised my views. It seems to me that the overwhelming bulk of the evidence clearly points to man's activities as being the most likely driver of the current warming tendency, with the high rate of burning fossil fuels being by far the biggest culprit.

Accepting this, and concluding that the likely outcome is undesirable, implies that some fairly radical behavioural shifts will be necessary. Whether government (the current set of chancers or any other) will have the political appetite for more radical steps than just posturing around the margins is highly doubtful, however.
 
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It's the problem with the internet - some Johnnie spouts about a subject he probably knows little about, and before you know it, it's folklore.
========================================
You must be talking about Bliar and Mugger Brown
 
the Met Office is already predicting that 2007 will set new temperature records in the summer.
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An old mate, who has been in Oz and Papua New Guinea for the pasr 50 years rang me just before Christmas - said they'd had the coldest summer in S. Queensland - it was then only 28 deg, since records began and I told him that we had been told that we had the hottest summer since records began! Can we draw any conclusions about the future?
 
Thanks for that link Brendan. It does indeed take a while to load but well worth it when it does. It is clearly a very complex and interesting subject and one that perhaps any non-scientific reader would get bored with before the end but it is in fact written in a very unbiased and clear way for those who are interested enough.
The previous very plausable but entirely non-scientific article is discredited by the facts (and I am sure that they are facts) stated within it.
Notably that:
1. The argument that recent global warming is a result of a natural cycle, is rubbish as the trend of this cycle is actually towards another ice age. These longer term cycles are mainly due to minor changes in the earths orbit. There are shorter term cycles evident too due to other factors but even these cannot be seen to correlate with what is actually happening now.
2. Shorter term fluctuations fom 1950 to today are certainly not caused by increased solar activity as the previous article suggested as the sun has been stable during that time. That is just pseudo-scientific misinformation. (Bollix)
3. To suggest that the increased CO2 has had a minimal effect on temperature as the previous article also inferred has no scientific basis either.... it has had a significant effect, and it has been proven that there is a direct correlation between man made CO2 emissions and actual global warming.

However the general trend on the forum generally seems to be to reject scientific evidence and climb on the band wagon that this is yet another government conspiracy. If you are of a mind you can come to the conclusion that it is not happening, or more to the point if it is happening it is not our fault and therefore we don't need to worry. It's very convenient and much more comfortable to think so. After all if Princess Di was killed on the orders of Prince Philip and little green men were actually discovered at Roswell, why not? It's much more fun to be radical. Wading through the real data is not as much fun at all......
 
BoatMike,

I think most people's gripe is less to do with rejection of the science, and more to do with the fact that the government(s) have chosen to 'tinker' with the issue rather than face it head on.... and largely by taxing middle income England as a soft target..... there is a general sense amongst certainly my friends, that they need to either deal with it properly (which wouldn't be pleasant, but would at least be fairly impacting) or at acknowledge that they aren't treating it seriously and its just a backdoor taxation opportunity...

As an example.... why should we be taxed out of our cars while chav central still trots off to Costa del Sol on a plane every year?, Why should we pay congestion charges, when half of chav central can't even be bothered to tax and insure theirs and hence no chance of tracking them down to claim the fines, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc
 
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