Global warming dirt-carbon peril models are wrong, say boffins

Re: There's alwas the possibility....

>>Could it be that if it wasn't, then we probably wouldn't be here in the first place?

Good (and oft' posed) question, while there's obviously no actual answer for this question, you must take two things into account when considering the possiblities;

1. Some species have died out

2. As the population and useof resources increase we have a greater impact on the environment.

Number 1 is often dismissed as, "Well dinosaurs could hardly be in control of their fate, could they?" meaning that they couldn't have protected themselves from environmental issues as they had no control of their environment, while this is true, does this mean we do? and if we do have control of the environment (make it better) then we obviously can make it worse.

Number 2 is the big unknown that people fuss about, while it's almost predictable that every few months somebody will come of with [yet] another fact that may affect the environment and turns out to have a minor (or no) effect, this is because, yes the world won't jump two degrees if you buy strawberries that were grown in a heated glasshouse, it's the cumulative effect that we just can't predict, but it's just common sense to do something that has less impact on the environment (no matter how minor).

That sounded...

Too much like you're interested in science - prepare to be turned in to the authorities, you enemy of nature!

Good book that - though of course I read it, many years ago, on my palm pilot rather than on paper.

ttfn

Science, for a change

But its fair to say that the majority of science reports that are published in the mainstream media are heavily biased, regardless of subject. Even if global warming is of purely human origin, most of the research I have seen only covers a miniscule area/ test sample, and then expanded to predict global meltdown next year. The sad fact is that very few scientists are truly unbiased, and try to make fact fit their beliefs. This works for both the pro-global warming and naysayer camps. People get pissed off when they see half-baked research, or misquoted research, used to fit personal belief rather than accurate science.

The first piece I saw on it was back in the 80's, and it confidently predicted that by the turn of the millenium the UK would be reduced by a few small islands made from Snowdonia, the Penines and the Scottish Highlands.

Doesn't need to be a conspiracy.

Seen stuff like this before. It will be published. People will talk about it a bit. It will be forgetten. Chances are that there _might_ be similar follow-up reasearch somewhere, but probably not. I'm not suggesting that there is a conspiracy, or trying to work out the reason why things have happened the way they have, I'm just remembering what I've seen.

The overwhelming opinion that I form is that the climate change models have a number of inconsistancies in them (the model says one thing, but reasearch papers say another). We really don't know that much about how the climate works. Also what the climate is doing now, it has done cyclicly several times in the past, long before man's industrial or automobile revolutions.

As for Clarkson, he is humerous to watch occasionally, just like squirals that eat fermented fruit.

Cover up?

Well, the proof is in the pudding. What really matters is that this work and its effects on the science are openly discussed in the next IPCC report. We'll have to wait and see, but I'm not holding my breath.

Unfortunately the IPCC reviewers appear to have a tendancy to sideline anything that dilutes their climate change message and replace it with some alarmist nonsense about glaciers.

Slightly more complex conclusion...

Actually most of "them" present their findings with regard to anthropogenic climate change in terms of a balance of probabilities. This bit of research is good news, as far as it goes. However the balance of probability remains is that human activity is affecting the climate. Combine that with the precautionary principal and it is rather to early to say "Oh that's OK then we don't need to change the way we do business."

You're missing the point

One of the problems the doom mongers have is that even their worst case theories can only come up with a change of a fraction of a degree over decades. It doesn't matter if you look at it from the point of view of their political masters taxing us for carbon usage or their own ongoing funding, nobody is really going to panic over half a degree over 50 years. However if they add in some positive feedback loops then they can claim a few degrees over the same period.

This latest research takes away one of their positive feedback loops and effectively reverses it. The fact that life has survived this long would suggest that there must be negative feedback loops in operation within the whole climate system otherwise once the temperature rose in the past it would have kept going up. It didn't it rose a bit then came back down. Take for example the period during the viking expansion known to some as the "little climactic optimum". During that period history tells us the weather was warmer to the extent that the coast of Greenland really was green. The extended period of warm weather greatly aided the Viking expansion. If the possibly discredited theory of increased soil enzyme activity were true then the temperature would have kept on going up and up back then, but it didn't.

Incorrect

The fear, and many of the predictions, is of a "tipping point" where the amount of CO2 we've added to the atmosphere causes heating that causes CO2 production by nature to increase, causing more heating, that causes CO2 production by nature to increase etc. etc. This is called runaway warming.

Knock on effects then include the salinity of the ocean being reduced due to ice melting, ice melting causing shifts in major currents like the gulf stream, increased water vapour accelerating heating, desertification changing weather patterns, extreme weather events, sea level rises and more. For this to be consistent with historical records, this would have to somehow lead to an ice-age (there are various ways to get there).

If increased warming due to increased anthropogenic CO2 emissions does not cause as much increase in CO2 production as predicted then the models are not correct even to within their error limits, and runaway warming is less likely. It's an interesting result.

Money

Dunno about looking silly, but now there are carbon trading schemes in existence there's real money involved and lots of it. Carbon trading may or may not have been an ingenious way to create value out of something that had no intrinsic value, but if there is real money involved anyone on the receiving end is going to be vigourously defending it.

If we could convince enough people that there was value in used cigarette butts and chewed chewing gum, imagine how clean the streets would be.

But what life?

Assuming man-made global warming is a real affect (which I have an open mind on), the argument that there will still be life on Earth at the end of it all offers little comfort.

If human activities do actually lead to extreme and continuing climate change, either we will decide to stop at some point, or the changes will force us to. Wars over scarce resources will disrupt civilisation, industry will cease, the population will die out etc etc. Maybe there will be a global nuclear war for good measure.

Whatever, there will still be life at the end of it, just not necessarily human life. I am playing devil's advocate here, but under this model gaia won't save us, it will kill us for the good of the planet.