Climate Change Debate

[visage]

We can only have this discussion if we reference absolute zero. Kelvin has the same gradient as Celcius.

Why? When talking about temperature difference you can use either. A change from 0C to 20C is exactly the same as a change from 273K to 293K. This is GCSE physics.

If you had gone to Buxton instead of Hazel Grove on Sunday your bollocks would have been more frozen compared to the later location.

Weather is not the same as climate. Thats pretty fundamental.

Are you seriously suggesting that we have a decent surface instrument record of Venus?

Yes. Not just from surface probes, but from the many orbiters that have been sent to venus over the last few decades - they're just as capable of measuring surface temperature as weather sattellites are when in orbit around the earth.

Did you consider that the temperature measurements in those hours and minutes might have bias due to atmospheric entry friction?

No, they wouldnt - the probes didnt plummet in free fall from space down to the surface - they'd have been destroyed. They all descended by parachute - meaning that any atmospheric heating would be negligible.

Do you understand that radiative absorption and reflection across spectra most definately keeps the planet at some kind of equilibrium? Albedo is most definately important, and on this ice, oceans and clouds must be the majors. A tiny adjustment to atmospheric CO2, which is a trace gas is unlikely to be important from a radiative point of view (Venus does not support this).

Unlikely to be? Based on what? We know for a fact that CO2 absorbs IR radiation strongly - much more strongly than other, more common gases in the atmosphere.

All man made of course /sark. The system dynamics are known to a point but that does not mean we can predict the future

Waffle.

I thought you guys had re-branded it to Climate Change.

Answer the point. How can you claim volcanoes contribute to an increase in average global temperatures when, following volcanic eruptions, global temperatures have been observed to drop?

Explain the radiative mechanism when the dark side of the earth is facing away from the Sun.

Is this the form your arguments are going to take now? Throw out random questions and hope to muddy the water?

Take a hot object, observe that it radiates in the IR band. Put the object in a darkened room - it continues to radiate IR.

That BBC video is famed for being ridiculous, it is a closed system (just like a greenhouse) and does not represent the atmosphere.

No-one claimed it did. What it does demonstrate is that CO2 absorbs IR, which is the thermal radiation by which heat flows away from the earth. Trap this heat, and you get warming. The more you trap, the warmer you get.

Boltzmann turned up again, have you ever taken a bicycle pump and blocked the outlet? Apply pressure, what happens?

The earth is a bicycle pump now? The heating comes from the behaviour of an ideal gas, where, put simple, pressure x volume is proportional to temperature. Again - you've raised an irrelevent point to cloud the issue.

You still haven't explained how radiation is trapped when molecules are free to distribute the energy (a good thing) unlike the elements of a greenhouse.

Because the radiation is scattered in all directions, including back downwards. Solar radiation comes in, warms the earths surface. The surface, in turn, emits IR radiation, some of which is absorbed by atmospheric CO2 and reemitted downwards, causing the atmosphere to be warmer than it would otherwise be.

Its actually a failure of the analogy to a greenhouse. A normal greenhouse works by restricting conduction and convection - warm air is trapped inside the greenhouse. The greenhouse effect, on the other hand, is caused by the trapping of IR radiation by atmospheric CO2.

 

[visage]

1) Insist all new homes built in britain, consists of roofs constructed with photovoltaic cells in place. Bang the cost on the mortgage and we're off and running.

There used to be a preferential rate for homeowners to sell generated electricity back to the grid, but the tories slashed the rate at which it paid, making it uneconomical.

2) on the babsis that Honda already have a perfectly working hydro car, and the problem is the storing and distribution of Hydrogen for use by motorists, and the refusal of poetrol companies to even consider a hydrogen , (or gas pump) at their current petrol stations, then why does the government not simply give them two years to achieve both, or suffer a continuing fine for every petrol station that does not offer the new alternative fuels.

Not a bad idea, TBH.

To me it seems climate change has been seized on by various governments around the world as a fabulous excuse to raise new, morally defensible taxes, that achieve little else except more cash in the government coffers.

There's actually a very good reason to adopt 'green' energy policies. Fossil fuels are running out, fast. And when resources get scarce, resources get pricey., Countries that transition themselves away from fossil fuels will hopefully avoid the economic catastrophe of the future price rises. And if we save the planet too, well that great, yes?

 

[visage]

A couple of new stories about a recent peer-reviewed paper on Climate Change by NASA's James Hansen:

http://t.co/mMgZuu4W

http://t.co/5rJxUoRi

Good reads. Of course, its all bunk, because they havent considered volcanoes. Or darkness. Or oceans. Or <insert random factor here>. Maybe HGW can give them some pointers.

 

[HAzelGroveWolf]

Well all this highbrow, engineers versus scientists is soemwhat boring as well as confusing to us mere mortals.

IF and i say if, because i simply don't know, and the only models i worked with had great tits, IF we are responsible for climate change and governments are serious about saving the planet, why not.......

1) Insist all new homes built in britain, consists of roofs constructed with photovoltaic cells in place. Bang the cost on the mortgage and we're off and running.

2) on the babsis that Honda already have a perfectly working hydro car, and the problem is the storing and distribution of Hydrogen for use by motorists, and the refusal of poetrol companies to even consider a hydrogen , (or gas pump) at their current petrol stations, then why does the government not simply give them two years to achieve both, or suffer a continuing fine for every petrol station that does not offer the new alternative fuels.

To me it seems climate change has been seized on by various governments around the world as a fabulous excuse to raise new, morally defensible taxes, that achieve little else except more cash in the government coffers.

If you wish to reply to my post, please do so in norma; standard english, and keep the gobbledygook heavyweight stuff for yourselves. I would hate to see you wasting valuable energy.

That is a very good summation of the political motivation. One problem, you need energy to extract and store hydrogen from the only abundant source, water, to turn it back into guess what.......water. As always the green solutions to a non-existant problem do not work. I can play hard ball on energy efficiency issues. On that subject, PV and wind power are hopelessly inefficient and probably deliver no net benefit.

 

[Hereford Wolf]

I apologise for being personal, but I'm sorry Hazelgrove - but you come come over in your posts as an arrogant know it all.

Now I'm sure I am wrong and you are a very pleasant person - but you need to think how you come over to other members. You are passionate about the subject but I cannot read your posts because of your attitude.

If you want to spread the word....do it so people will want to get involved. If I was talking to you and you spoke to me the way you post...I would be walking away.

 

[HAzelGroveWolf]

There's actually a very good reason to adopt 'green' energy policies. Fossil fuels are running out, fast. And when resources get scarce, resources get pricey., Countries that transition themselves away from fossil fuels will hopefully avoid the economic catastrophe of the future price rises. And if we save the planet too, well that great, yes?

Cobblers, shale gas/oil, conventional gas/oil, development of technologies that actually work will get us through the next few hundred years. The scaresity is driven politically through reluctance to permit the necessary infrastucture. Good technologies do not need significant subsidy.
There are better ways of utilising coal and nuclear technologies available in the short term. It is the 'green guilt complex' that is wrecking the economy. Economies thrive on low cost fuel not burdensome goverment bureauracy and taxation.
Carbon dioxide isn't a pollutant or threat and is potentially beneficial for argriculture in an expanding world population.

 

[HAzelGroveWolf]

I apologise for being personal, but I'm sorry Hazelgrove - but you come come over in your posts as an arrogant know it all.

Now I'm sure I am wrong and you are a very pleasant person - but you need to think how you come over to other members. You are passionate about the subject but I cannot read your posts because of your attitude.

If you want to spread the word....do it so people will want to get involved. If I was talking to you and you spoke to me the way you post...I would be walking away.

I'm sorry if you take it that way. If we were face to face the conversation would most likely have a different timbre simply because of a more rapid feedback mechanism. For the record I've been assertive in some respects but mostly to challenge issues which are not examined in influencial parts of the mainstream media. I'm sure Vis is happy to carry on. I'm examining a hypothesis which I see as flawed, at no point have I said that I have the answers. This is the essence of debate especially in engineering circles, few get wound up because a good brainstorm might yield a solution.

 

[HAzelGroveWolf]

Good reads. Of course, its all bunk, because they havent considered volcanoes. Or darkness. Or oceans. Or <insert random factor here>. Maybe HGW can give them some pointers.

I invite comments on this view:

http://judithcurry.com/2012/05/11/the-bias-of-science/

Hansen has been challenged on numerous occasions and is more activist than academic scientist. http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/97-of-rocket-scientists-say-that-hansen-is-incompetent-and-destroying-nasa/

 

[HAzelGroveWolf]

Yes. Not just from surface probes, but from the many orbiters that have been sent to venus over the last few decades - they're just as capable of measuring surface temperature as weather sattellites are when in orbit around the earth.

For which I posted temperature data supporting my view.

No, they wouldnt - the probes didnt plummet in free fall from space down to the surface - they'd have been destroyed. They all descended by parachute - meaning that any atmospheric heating would be negligible.

So the frictional braking was unimportant before the parachutes deployed?

 

[nimrod]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18120093

not surprising as I recall watching a programme about 20 years ago where a scientist modelled the impact of methane trapped in the ice being released to catastrophic effect in terms of global warming. effectively he modelled it taking climate change beyond the tipping point in terms of our ability to do anything about it. let's hope he was being overly pessimistic.

 

[HAzelGroveWolf]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18120093

not surprising as I recall watching a programme about 20 years ago where a scientist modelled the impact of methane trapped in the ice being released to catastrophic effect in terms of global warming. effectively he modelled it taking climate change beyond the tipping point in termspos of our ability to do anything about it. let's hope he was being overly pessimistic.

These are examples of potential feedback effects if the GHG hypothesis is indeed correct. Feedbacks could be negative or positive, the net effects of all processes are important. Water vapour in the atmosphere dwarfs all other supposed GHGs in content and supposed effect. Looks to me like you were duped by the self confessed bias of the BBC on this subject.

 

[nimrod]

These are examples of potential feedback effects if the GHG hypothesis is indeed correct. Feedbacks could be negative or positive, the net effects of all processes are important. Water vapour in the atmosphere dwarfs all other supposed GHGs in content and supposed effect. Looks to me like you were duped by the self confessed bias of the BBC on this subject.

yawn. hardly, i was commenting on a programme i saw twenty years ago. i'll certainly never be duped by your sad pretence that you know what anybody else is ever thinking.

 

[HAzelGroveWolf]

yawn. hardly, i was commenting on a programme i saw twenty years ago. i'll certainly never be duped by your sad pretence that you know what anybody else is ever thinking.

You took the line of the BBC's Roger Black. Black's MO is to cherry pick. The BBC does not, by its own admission, accept anything that contradicts the carbon dioxide hypothesis, nor does any mainstream political party. I find that to be a dangerous situation given the powers engendered.
I commented on your trust of the BBC and an inability to consider science beyond what you are fed by the media. Think about the properties of water vapour and where it has come from, for example. Extend that to every massive part of the Earth system.
You certainly will not find much in the 3% of 380ppm of atmospheric CO2 that has been attributed to man.

 

[nimrod]

You took the line of the BBC's Roger Black. Black's MO is to cherry pick. The BBC does not, by its own admission, accept anything that contradicts the carbon dioxide hypothesis, nor does any mainstream political party. I find that to be a dangerous situation given the powers engendered.
I commented on your trust of the BBC and an inability to consider science beyond what you are fed by the media. Think about the properties of water vapour and where it has come from, for example. Extend that to every massive part of the Earth system.
You certainly will not find much in the 3% of 380ppm of atmospheric CO2 that has been attributed to man.

err, you do understand that if someone posts a link on an internet forum it does not follow that they believe everything or anything that is written in it don't you?

your conclusions about other people are consistently bizarre. do you recall telling me i'm anti-nuclear when i'm certainly not? did you ever apologise for that exchange or is it not in your character to ever do that?

 

[HAzelGroveWolf]

err, you do understand that if someone posts a link on an internet forum it does not follow that they believe everything or anything that is written in it don't you?

your conclusions about other people are consistently bizarre. do you recall telling me i'm anti-nuclear when i'm certainly not? did you ever apologise for that exchange or is it not in your character to ever do that?

I'm sorry if we wound up at cross purposes. No offence would ever been intended, a clarification of your position would be welcome.

 

[nimrod]

I'm sorry if we wound up at cross purposes. No offence would ever been intended, a clarification of your position would be welcome.

...but not for the insults. we're not at cross purposes, you throw a lot of attitude around and then claim you intend no offence? you can't surely mean that, do you read your posts? I've said before, when we were actually agreeing on something, that I'm not going to engage with you given your attitude. do you think anything has changed?

For the other posters, recent issues in the drive to keep the lights on. Citibank recently reported on the likely costs and tariffs of new nuclear build - not pleasant reading. Yesterday the Gvt said nuclear wouldn't be given a blank cheque. In which case at the prices quoted here (£166/mwh all risk costed), they might not get built.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/08/nuclear-britain-edf-idUSL5E8G8FQ620120508?feedType=RSS

Most of the companies capable of building nuclear have pulled out of bidding to build more. One still considering it is EDF, the 83% French STATE owned utility. We, of course, thanks to political dogma in the 1980's, have no state owned utility. This position even prompted a headline in the Sunday Times a couple weeks ago entitled "France will decide whether our lights stay on". Now I don't altogether hold with that headline, but what a shitty position for the country to be in.

 

[visage]

Damning data here:

At this rate the arctic will be ice free in summers from about 2050 onwards. Its quite impressive that some lefty conspiracy is powerful enough to actually melt all the ice at the North Pole, isnt it?

 

[Kenny]

pffft you made that yourself using Paddy and Excel...............

 

[visage]

pffft you made that yourself using Paddy and Excel...............

I asked paddy to de me a graph and he came up with this:

 

[visage]

BTW, original data was from here: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm