Quote from wien :

Fair enough. These threads just leave me all sarcastic and spiteful.

While water vapour is indeed a very strong greenhouse gas it also returns to the earth as rain within about a week (on average) of being released. CO2 needs between 50 - 200 years to do the same round trip. The vapour consentration of the air is also almost exclusively dependent on the temperature. Water vapour does not cause warming in itself, it's concentration just follows along as the temperature changes.

haha I know that feeling too well in this thread already. Cheers for clearing that question up, appreciated.

Quote from SamH :

So, in the simplest of terms, the whole of the world's eco-strategy is based on what is apparently bad, possibly falsely alarmist, science.

Woah there, Tex: dangerous generalisation spotted. You've just bagged a whole lot of branches of science and scientific research into a biodegradable disposal container because of a scandal in one institute in one country. The ecological strategy of countries doesn't revolve solely around climatology and surely climatology doesn't revolve around the CRU of the UAE of the DEFRA of the UK.

Quote from SamH :

Corporate emissions taxes, "Cap and Trade", carbon footprint-based taxes (air travel, car travel, fuel [home and car]), carbon credits.. there are lots of possibilities once you have instilled the belief that carbon emissions are a tangible commodity. I'm sure there are more, but these are some of the main ones in planning stages at the moment.

That's not a political goal - that's an economic goal at best.

Many of the ecotaxes are not just emission-based. However, being the way corporate logic works they are just dealt with as an extra cost and not an incentive to actually take a shot at devising a more sustainable (to use the trendy word for "not such a ****ed up mess") method of production.

Quote from mookie427 :

You called our views wrong and stupid, I have put up replying to your ignorance politely for long enough.

you might want to try with an insult that hasent been overused to the point where it has lost all its meaning and undermines your own credibility more than it does mine
calling someone a hypocrite in the forum and blog days of the interweb is the same a invoking godwin in the usenet days

Quote :

So by not even bothering to read the 9/11 thread you make the assumption that Sam is some loony conspiracy theorist?

again try reading next time
it was just to poiint out that i wont have seen his non cospiracy theory posts in there and a slight pointing out that even acknowledging the existence of these theories enough to write about them shows a certain propensity to conspiracy theories in general

Quote from SamH :

So, in the simplest of terms, the whole of the world's eco-strategy is based on what is apparently bad, possibly falsely alarmist, science.

at any rate the world eco strategy (whatever thats supposed to be considering how ununited the world is... even to a degree that some in here are apparently worried about buying energy from other eu members) would be based on the most cautious inducing predictions
i fail to see how caution is a bad thing considering no one really knows what exactly is going to happen

Quote from wien :

While water vapour is indeed a very strong greenhouse gas it also returns to the earth as rain within about a week (on average) of being released. CO2 needs between 50 - 200 years to do the same round trip. The vapour consentration of the air is also almost exclusively dependent on the temperature. Water vapour does not cause warming in itself, it's concentration just follows along as the temperature changes.

lets not forget the most important part
based on the weather ie short term climate (which as our fellow karting expert has pointed out is often near impossible to predict) water vapour can both act as a greenhouse gas or form clouds which being white reflect radioation as im sure you guys being british and all that will know that cloudy days are cool
to my knowledge the discussion which will be the stronger effect is still ongoing
and as i said previously that certainly implies that increasing our water vapour output dramatically is a bad idea (as are hydrogen cars in general but thats a different matter)

Quote from SamH :

Corporate emissions taxes, "Cap and Trade", carbon footprint-based taxes (air travel, car travel, fuel [home and car]), carbon credits.. there are lots of possibilities once you have instilled the belief that carbon emissions are a tangible commodity. I'm sure there are more, but these are some of the main ones in planning stages at the moment.

Quote from Shotglass :

entirely missing the reality that the vehicle they choose is completely irrelevant and that govemnment will always find a way to increase their spending money and their control

Quote from SamH :

[...] it's now evident that the science that has been performed is not the robust thing we've been led to believe it is[...]

I correct: "it's now evident that some of the science that has been performed is not the robust thing that you believed it was"
A large part of the public didn't react to this new 'scandal' because it wasn't a surprise to them.

Quote from SamH :

So, in the simplest of terms, the whole of the world's eco-strategy is based on what is apparently bad, possibly falsely alarmist, science.

You are extrapolating from one group of scientists to all scientists in the same field.
An analogy: If I said "Gravity exists" based on the way my last cup of coffee tasted that does not invalidate proper scientists who said the same thing based on very profound and correct science.
Sorry for the harsh example, but that point was raised before. Please don't take offense.

Vain

new page, new links

business as usual at the BBC, acting as if the whole scandal hasn't happened...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8381317.stm

meanwhile over in the real world the article, and the press release, are ripped to shreds....

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/n ... limategates-michael-mann/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/200 ... the-medieval-warm-period/

Quote from wien :

I'd call the act of releasing into the atmosphere huge amounts of CO2 that would otherwise not be released "polluting", but it depends on context. Either way I haven't even used the word in this thread.

It's true the SO2 and other aerosols will produce a certain amount of cooling, either naturally via volcanic activity, or even anthropogenically, as emmited by industry. There's a fair chance that the Montreal Clean Air Act and other clean air laws have actually played their part in warming up the planet, by decreasing the amount of atmospheric aerosols being emitted. What's really ironic is that after all the acid rain scares and demonisation of SO2, that massive geo-engineering schemes are now being dreamed up which would aim to counter the observed warming by spewing enormous amounts of sulphur aerosols directly into the atmosphere again. It seems we have come full circle. Or as you say, it depends on context.

This seems to me one of the very negative effects of unabated climate change alarmism. When people are scared enough, they tend to do very stupid things. History confirms this time and time again.

BTW, if we could actually control the temperature of the earth, where would we set the thermometre? It's a big question. One of the things that annoys and frustrates me about the climate change thing is how a warming planet can only do 'bad things'. For the full list, see here!

I read something the other day where the researchers stated that a warming planet will make us all obese because we'll be eating more icecreams! This is how silly this is all getting. No-one's being funded to see what beneficial things may happen in a warming climate. It's all pure alarmism. But again history has shown that the warmer periods were the ones where civilization flourished, and the colder ones were the 'bad news' periods of starvation/wars etc. But we're being coaxed into believing that the 'proper' temperature we should be aiming for is around about ice age levels.

Not much going on in an ice age...

Quote from Electrik Kar :

I read something the other day where the researchers stated that a warming planet will make us all obese because we'll be eating more icecreams! This is how silly this is all getting. No-one's being funded to see what beneficial things may happen in a warming climate.

Agreed it's just getting laughable now. We only ever hear the bad things because that is what sells papers, this year apparently is the 5th hottest on record (?!?) yet we wouldn't hear anything about it if it turned out not to be.

If the planet does warm up, in the UK heat-related deaths will increase by 2000 but cold-related deaths will decrease by something like 12000.

Quote from Electrik Kar :

But again history has shown that the warmer periods were the ones where civilization flourished, and the colder ones were the 'bad news' periods of starvation/wars etc. But we're being coaxed into believing that the 'proper' temperature we should be aiming for is around about ice age levels.

while this may all be well and true ponder this
the only places where warmer period civilisations were recorded were in the colder regions of the planet not the allready arid ones

Quote from wien :

Fair enough. These threads just leave me all sarcastic and spiteful.

While water vapour is indeed a very strong greenhouse gas it also returns to the earth as rain within about a week (on average) of being released. CO2 needs between 50 - 200 years to do the same round trip. Any CO2 we release today will come in addition to the CO2 we released over the last 50 - 200 years, and that way it's concentration increases. The vapour consentration of the air is also almost exclusively dependent on the temperature. Water vapour does not cause warming in itself, it's concentration just follows along as the temperature changes.

Then what you are saying is that CO2 is a more harmful 'greenhouse gas' yet you say water vapour contributes more to a global warming ideal?.... Something isn't ticking in your brain man.

Quote from Vain :

You are extrapolating from one group of scientists to all scientists in the same field.

Actually, no. If I'm doing anything, I'm celebrating the fact that the field is likely to be widened to encompass the wider community of scientists in the climatological field, including those who have previously been marginalised as "denialists", despite their presentation of solid analysis of recorded data.

I'm not thinking this is the end of climatology at all. I'm thinking this is the beginning of some proper and rational research in climatology, with much more emphasis on actual data and much less emphasis on casting runes.

Quote from xaotik :

Woah there, Tex: dangerous generalisation spotted. You've just bagged a whole lot of branches of science and scientific research into a biodegradable disposal container because of a scandal in one institute in one country. The ecological strategy of countries doesn't revolve solely around climatology and surely climatology doesn't revolve around the CRU of the UAE of the DEFRA of the UK.

Conceded in part. You're right about ecology and climatology being separated. My error. But I do think it's important not to understate the significant contribution to the current broad trend of political acceptance of AGW that the UEA CRU has made. Because it has boasted the largest and most comprehensive climate data mesh, and (it seems) overstated its accuracy and integrity, its conclusions - even though they haven't supported them with data - have been broadly accepted as current thinking, and are the basis for the assertions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Quote from xaotik :

That's not a political goal - that's an economic goal at best.

Many of the ecotaxes are not just emission-based. However, being the way corporate logic works they are just dealt with as an extra cost and not an incentive to actually take a shot at devising a more sustainable (to use the trendy word for "not such a ****ed up mess") method of production.

At the level of government that we're talking, I don't think you can distill economic and political goals so easily. All governments enjoy revenue generation, but it's the politics that drive the methods of achieving it. Politically, climate change policies are divisive, most especially in the US right now.

Quote from SamH :

Actually, no. If I'm doing anything, I'm celebrating the fact that the field is likely to be widened to encompass the wider community of scientists in the climatological field, including those who have previously been marginalised as "denialists", despite their presentation of solid analysis of recorded data.

I'm not thinking this is the end of climatology at all. I'm thinking this is the beginning of some proper and rational research in climatology, with much more emphasis on actual data and much less emphasis on casting runes.

The problem seems to be that the science of climatatology relies heavily on statistics, but climatologists don't seem to be interacting with the statistical community. Climatologists seem to be bumbling idiots at statistics. And that's where people like Steve McIntyre and others come in who are very good at statistical analysis, and that's why there's been such terror on the part of UEA CRU and others about letting these people in.

Quote from wien :

Would you please stop parroting this stupid line? Have you ever been off your own island? Half your neighbouring countries derive a significant portion of their energy from wind. In Denmark it was 20% the last time I checked. How do you match that fact with your statement? Are you talking out of your ass?

Well given they have to be backed up by conventional power they're mostly pointless! :smash:

Quote from wien :

Half your neighbouring countries derive a significant portion of their energy from wind.

Whenever I go to the East coast, the horrizon is full of them (or them under construction), so it looks like we're heading that way too. Of course if you werent so ignorant of such things you'd know that.

Quote from wien :

In Denmark it was 20% the last time I checked

Because they have lots of them, a ton of feathers weighs the same as a ton of bricks, but you have to have a lot more feathers than bricks to make a ton, just like how you have to have a lot more wind turbines than coal fired power stations to make up 20% of a nation's energy consumption. Just because its a sizeable portion dosen't mean its efficient.

Even if they do prove to be inefficient, they are at least clean.

Quote from BlueFlame :

Then what you are saying is that CO2 is a more harmful 'greenhouse gas' yet you say water vapour contributes more to a global warming ideal?

Ideal? Anyway, yep. That's exactly what I'm saying. Water vapour is a feedback contributor to warming. Since its concentration is almost exclusively tied to the temperature and it reacts to changes in temperature very quickly (within days), it does not cause changes in temperature in and of itself. It simply reacts to changes in temperature caused by other, slower, sources and exaggerates their effects.

So when we add CO2 to the atmosphere, CO2 that will stay around for up to 200 years, the greenhouse effect increases and the temperature goes up. This allows the air to hold more water vapour (which quickly evaporates from the oceans). This increases the greenhouse effect and causes the temperature to go up even more. A feedback of the initial CO2 release.

If we were to (artificially) add even more vapour at this point the air would not be able to hold it, and it would quickly fall to the earth as rain. Add more CO2 at this point and it would just add to the existing concentration, stay around for up to 200 years, increase the greenhouse effect, increase the temperature and add even more water vapour. Round we go.

Hence, CO2 causes warming, water vapour makes it worse.

Are you going to back up your claims wrt. volcanoes then? I got all excited when I saw you posted again.

Quote from 5haz :

Because they have lots of them, a ton of feathers weighs the same as a ton of bricks, but you have to have a lot more feathers than bricks to make a ton, just like how you have to have a lot more wind turbines than coal fired power stations to make up 20% of a nation's energy consumption.

I was contesting the argument that windmills don't make back the energy they cost to produce and erect until 14 years have passed. That is obviously ludicrous when countries like Denmark manage to get 20% of the energy they produce from windmills. You'd have to be seriously deluded to think most of that energy went towards producing and erecting wind turbines.

I didn't say a bloody thing about the relative efficiency of windmills compared other sources of energy, so why you felt the need to bring that up I have no idea.

Quote from boothy :

Well given they have to be backed up by conventional power they're mostly pointless! :smash:

and don't forget France is busy developing new nuclear reactors which is exactly what we should be doing...all this fannying about with wind turbines will leave us hopelessly underpowered when coal, gas and that lot eventually run dry and we will be left grovelling to the French for a cup of electricity.

Quote from mookie427 :

grovelling to the French for a cup of electricity.

Or to use their superior nuclear energy to power enormous fans pointed in your direction.

Quote from MadCat360 :

The Earth will continue to warm up and cool down just like it has for all of time. It may, possibly, get hot enough that one day the sea levels rise noticeably. Whoop dee frigging do. Go live on a hill if it scares you that much (it doesn't even have to be a big one, 5 feet will have you covered until the continent sinks into oblivion!). It won't get so hot that all life will be extinguished.

I wouldn't under-estimate the greenhouse effect, one can take a look at our neighbor planet Venus to see what it can cause. Even if it's further away from sun compared to Mercury, it's the hottest planet in our system (+460C) thanks to greenhouse gases. It has very thick atmosphere that consists mostly CO2 (carbon-dioxide) with small amounts of nitrogen. Planet itself is covered in clouds which reflect back most of the sunlight and daylight is much darker than on Earth, but radiation that gets through is not easily reflected back to space and thus results in high temperatures.

Quote from xaotik :

Or to use their superior nuclear energy to power enormous fans pointed in your direction.

they would do something like that to spite us, yes

With regards to sea-level increases, it's yet another arm of the man-made global warming lobby that has been severely overstated. Simple fact is there will be no major sea level rises, period. We in the UK should be more worried about the rate at which the south of the country is sinking into the Earth's crust, which, coincidentally over a century comes to almost exactly the lower estimate of how high sea levels could rise

Quote from wien :

You'd have to be seriously deluded to think most of that energy went towards producing and erecting wind turbines.

Nah, you have the wrong end of the 'bargepole', what Becky meant is that wind turbines produce energy which can be sold, but when you build wind turbines, it takes quite a while for the money made from selling the energy they produce to recoup the cost it took to build them in the first place.

Wien's a bit odd, I mean, lets be honest, he can't even spell Vienna for a start. :P

Quote from mookie427 :

Sack 'no longer credible' Mich ... n says IPCC climatologist

For anyone new to Michael Mann and his work, here's a great intro (entitled Caspar and the Jesus paper, by Bishop Hill). It's a long story (and lots of fun in a geeky, gossipy kind of way), but well worth reading as it parallels and re-inforces many of the findings now being revealed in the current email controversy.

Mann is the original author of the famous 'hockeystick' graph which the IPCC has been using as their main visual symbol to show that the late 20th C is the warmest period over the past 1000 years. The basic shape of the hockeystick has over time undergone slight revisions since the original, in various papers authored again by Mann and other researchers (including Keith Briffa, of the now Yamal controversy, another juicy story).

BBC - Enquiry into stolen climate emails

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8383713.stm


edit: It appears that Google has just censored the word 'climategate' from its autocomplete search feature. It used to be there (it was there today), now it's gone!

Hint: Al Gore is a senior advisor to Google.


If you go to microsoft's Bing.com the word 'climategate' shows second in the suggestions (after typing 'cli')

Quote from Electrik Kar :

BBC - Enquiry into stolen climate emails

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8383713.stm

Quote :

But Professor Sir John Houghton, chair of the IPCC's first science panel, said he would not support an inquiry as many of those demanding one were biased.

so, those biased towards climate change don't want anyone who may hold a different opinion being involved....