Climate Change - countering the sceptics.

Diomedes71 · Post by **Diomedes71** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 2:36 am

Hi B2B.

climate change is real,

Skeptics don't really disagree here, it is to miss our point.

the time and chance spent on skeptics, is like purposefully putting up a dirty not a clean coal company. why do either

Reason dictates that we listnen to others, to draw your conclusions without exercising your powers of reason is folly.

at least it wouldn't hurt anybody

This kind of sentiment has no place in argument.

Regards

mark black · Post by **mark black** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 3:00 pm

On 3 October 2008, Ed Miliband was promoted to the cabinet with the portfolio and responsibility for the newly created government department, the Department of Energy and Climate Change as its Secretary of State after being moved in the cabinet reshuffle whereby previously he was Cabinet Office Minister.

Mr Miliband appeared on BBC news to announce that the UK target for greenhouse gas emission reductions would rise from 60% by 2050 to 80%. When asked why he replied that it is right to be guided by the science.

The UK currently produces about 2 or 3 % of its electricity from renewable energy sources - and there are something like 25 million cars on the roads. These are relevent facts omitted from his analysis - and so, again, it is an abuse of science by politics to increase a target they cannot realistically achieve. This is cloud cuckoo land science - but politics as usual.

mb.

Diomedes71 · Post by **Diomedes71** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 8:18 pm

Mark,

The Good Lord would not have provided us with such ample quantities of good forrestry and fossil fuels if he did not intend for us to make good use of it. Before moving on to clever Neuclear technology...
Of all the millions of species he has seen wiped out I can only sumise the relative few that we have eliminated where in his grand plan.

On a more serious note
May be if we overt 'man made' global warming the sun just warms us up to a greater temperature as it has done many times before? May be it would mean slowing third world development, delaying feeding humanity and reducing poverty ...all for nothing.

Regards

mark black · Post by **mark black** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 12:21 am

Diomedes71,

Halleluja, I have seen the light:

'Here's a wheeze' thought God, when designing the world, 'I'll place a complex hydrocarbon compound just beneath the surface, let it bubble up here and there so they are sure to find it. I'll reveal different faces to different people's and deny them a common language, so they are sure to build seperate societies each functionally addicted to this compund before they are able to realize A) that it's finite, and B) that it causes climate change.'

God wants us dead - and who are we to screw up his grand plan? Yeah, let's no worry about it. It's all fated and destined to be. I mean, we could apply renewable energy technology worldwide and solve the energy crisis and climate change in one truly intelligent move - but that's clearly not what God wants for us, so let's sing his praises as fire and brimstone rain from the sky - secure in the knowledge that we shall continue to live in heaven though extinct here on earth. Amen.

mb.

Diomedes71 · Post by **Diomedes71** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 1:50 pm

Hi Mark,

Halleluja, I have seen the light:

Interesting how you don't comment on my more serious point though.

Regards.

mark black · Post by **mark black** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 2:27 pm

Diomedes71,

Oh, that was a serious point? That is interesting. I thought it was just a turn of phrase - used to indicate an apparent change in your basis of analysis when really it was run on. The first part of your post invokes the question of fate - and then the second part of your post says what if something really bad is fated anyway? Hence all the helpless in the face of our destiny hooha in my reply - which despite the tone, makes an entirely serious point. I could have simply said: it's not the sun. Solar activity is at it's lowest for decades and the planet is still warming - but less fun for you and for me, don't you think?

mb.

mark black · Post by **mark black** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 2:39 pm

From the OP:

6. CLIMATE IS MAINLY INFLUENCED BY THE SUN
Sceptic
Earth history shows climate has regularly responded to cyclical changes in the Sun's energy output. Any warming we see can be attributed mainly to variations in the Sun's magnetic field and solar wind.

Counter
Solar variations do affect climate, but they are not the only factor. As there has been no positive trend in any solar index since the 1960s (and possibly a small negative trend), solar forcing cannot be responsible for the recent temperature trends. The difference between the solar minimum and solar maximum over the 11-year solar cycle is 10 times smaller than the effect of greenhouse gases over the same interval.

mb.

Diomedes71 · Post by **Diomedes71** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 4:02 pm

Mark,

I'm sorry but you fail to deal with my argument because I refer to the larger scale cycles which are exibited by the wobble in the orbit of the earth around the Sun. Which we are due to incurr the heating from around now.

Regards

mark black · Post by **mark black** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 8:16 pm

Diomedes71,

I don't know a great deal about it. I can only suppose that it is factored into the calculations made by scientists - for if it wasn't, some bright spark like you would bring it up.

What I would say is that if we are due to incur this heating from now - then it can't be responsible for the warming seen to date - and so, it makes it more important that we control the anthropogenic effect.

Besides that, what about energy? We can't keep using fossil fuels - they are finite. We have to turn to renewable energy irrespective of the motive provided by climate change. And according to you - solar power is about to become an even more effective solution.

mb.

Diomedes71 · Post by **Diomedes71** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 10:27 pm

Hi Mark,

I'm sorry I loose a great deal of respect for you here. You are telling me you are un-aware of the - (and i'm not bothering to look it up, and i'm no memory man) - there is a 100,000 year cycle in temperature variation on the eath which predicts/ fits the ice core data and has been corrolated with pertabations in the eaths orbit. This ice core data shows over millenia that the earth has indeed many times been hoter than it is today. This ice core data is un-contested and the theory as far as I know it is largely un-contested also. 17years ago when I was at university studying geology in the course of my mining studies this ice core data was presented to me by my geology teacher and it was his justification for ignoring these iminant G.W. concerns. It wouldn't surprise me if he was now arguing the contrary on £150K salary for some body or other studying the 'effects' of man made G.W. - you catch ma drift man! Your dead right about self interest and greed being a powerful force! Unfortunately you have failed to PROVE that this greed is UNCONTROLABLE....obviously i do not mean prove in the mathamatical sense only in the cogency sense.

Regards

mark black · Post by **mark black** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 8:58 am

Diomedes71,

The astrophysicist Milutin Milankovitch first proposed that cyclical variations in certain elements of Earth-Sun geometry can cause major changes in Earth's climate. The main variables are eccentricity, obliquity, and precession.

Eccentricity refers to the changing shape of Earth's orbit around the Sun, which varies from nearly circular to elliptical over a cycle of about 100,000 years.

Obliquity refers to the angle at which Earth's axis is tilted with respect to the plane of its orbit, varying between 22.1 degrees and 24.5 degrees over a 41,000-year cycle.

And precession is the gradual change in the direction Earth's axis is pointing, which completes a cycle every 21,000 years.

"Because there are several components of orbital variability, each with lower frequency components of amplitude modulation, there is the potential for unusual interactions between them on long timescales of tens of millions of years," Zachos said. "What we found at 23 million years ago is a rare congruence of a low point in Earth's eccentricity and a period of minimal variation in obliquity."

The result of this rare congruence was a period of about 200,000 years when there was unusually low variability in the planet's climate, with reduced extremes of seasonal warmth and coldness. Earth's orbit was nearly circular, so its distance from the Sun stayed about the same throughout the year.

In addition, the tilt of Earth's axis, which gives rise to the seasons, varied less than usual. In other words, the tilt doesn't always vary between the same extremes in its 41,000-year cycles; the obliquity cycle itself varies in amplitude over a longer period of about 1.25 million years. Similarly, the eccentricity cycle peaks every 400,000 years.

The combination of a low-amplitude "node" in the obliquity cycle and a minimum in eccentricity would have caused only several degrees difference in summer temperatures at the poles, but it was probably enough to allow the Antarctic ice sheet to expand, Zachos said.

Zachos's collaborators on the paper were Nicholas Shackleton and Heiko Pälike of Cambridge University, Justin Revenaugh of UC Santa Cruz, and Benjamin Flower of the University of South Florida.

The researchers obtained detailed climate records for the late Oligocene and early Miocene by analyzing sediment cores drilled out of the ocean floor. Cutting through layers of sediments laid down over millions of years, such cores contain a chronological record of past climates written in the chemistry of fossilized shells left behind by tiny marine organisms. Oxygen isotopes in the shells, for example, reflect ocean water temperatures and the amount of ice trapped in glaciers.

In the 1970s, scientists using these techniques obtained the first good evidence in support of Milankovitch's theory, almost 50 years after he had proposed it.

According to Zachos, researchers are still trying to get a handle on the relationships between climate cycles and orbital variations. Since most of the research has focused on the past 5 million years, the new paper is valuable because it looks at a more distant window in time when conditions on the planet were different.

In the period they examined, the late Oligocene and early Miocene, Zachos and his collaborators found evidence of several climate cycles with frequencies corresponding to the Milankovitch cycles.

But the correspondence of the orbital anomaly with the transient glaciation event at the boundary between the two epochs is especially interesting, Zachos said. The climate system seems to have undergone a fundamental shift at this boundary, which also marks a major break in the paleontologic record.

"I'm not sure everyone will be convinced that the orbital anomaly alone is responsible," Zachos said. "But the congruence of those orbital cycles is a very rare event, and the fact that it exactly corresponds with this rare climatic event is compelling."

mark black · Post by **mark black** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 10:52 am

Diomedes71,

If I have correctly identified the argument to which you refer - but cannot be bothered to look up - pardon me if I had difficulty identifying it from the references you have made so far. You initially talked about the sun warming up. I've checked your latest suggestion agianst this graph showing: "Curves of reconstructed temperature at two locations in Antarctica and a global record of variations in glacial ice volume."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ice_ ... rature.png

There does seem to be some support for a 100 thousand year cycle, from the peak at 400,000 years ago. But it's not clear-cut. According to this cycle, the temperature should have reached it's lowest point about 50,000 years ago, but it didn't. Instead the temperature continued to fall for another 15-20,000 years, before skyrocketing almost mid-cycle. This to my mind reduces the suggestion that eccentiricty is the key factor.

What the graph does seem to show is that rapid and huge increases in global temperature occur. If we look at the indicator for 150,000 years ago - the average global temperature seems to rise from -minus 6 degrees to plus 4 Celcius in a matter of 2-3,000 years - then after such a rise, the temperature repeatedly falls away over the course of the next 100,000 years or so.

Milankovitch describes cycles for eccentricity, obliquity and precession, both long and short term - that might possibly explain the 15,000 year delay in warming, but while all this speaks against orbital variability as you describe it - it doesn't in any way rule out the possible significance of an anthropogenic effect.

mb.

Diomedes71 · Post by **Diomedes71** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 2:22 pm

hi Mark,

but cannot be bothered to look up - pardon me

and forgiven...

- it doesn't in any way rule out the possible significance of an anthropogenic effect.

First, I never rule out any anthropic effect, you see if you can find me doing so!
Second, I can't rule out the possibility of little pixies dancing a jig on the dark side of the moon at this instance but it would be a weak counter point raise this to somebody who propounds this.
Third... given the above a - possible explination b - the above probability we are heading for a warming anyway(man made or not) c - given all the vested interests d- given the CO2 lags any previous heat rises e - given mankinds destruction is nowhere near even probable due to these heat rises(we can argue here) - I choose not to panic about it, but see the great sacrifice we ask for of the third world in 'waiting' for economic development by slowing there industrialisation which we already have. Please do not counter with you don't espouse this, because in the real world to reduce our carbon foot print demands this.

Regards

mark black · Post by **mark black** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 6:13 pm

Diomedes71,

I don't know how you look at this information and come to these conclusions. You say I choose not to panic about it because:

the above probability we are heading for a warming anyway (man made or not)

We could be looking at natural warming plus three or four degrees from the anthropegenic effect - which would just about fry the world to a crisp.

given the CO2 lags any previous heat rises

We haven't discussed it, but it's irrelevant. Ancient ice-cores do show CO2 rising after temperature by a few hundred years - a timescale associated with the ocean response to atmospheric changes mainly driven by wobbles in the Earth's orbit. However, the situation today is dramatically different. The extra CO2 in the atmosphere (35% increase over pre-industrial levels) is from human emissions. Levels are higher than have been seen in 650,000 years of ice-core records, and are possibly higher than any time since three million years ago.

given mankinds destruction is nowhere near even probable due to these heat rises

Are you kidding? Google 'Sea of Galilee' - that's a water shortage, due to climate change, effecting the Israelis and Jordanians right now. It's a powder-keg wating to explode - and that's just the tip of iceberg. What happens when people can't grow enough food? They go to war - and it's not just Israel that has nuclear weapons.

In conjunction with the finite nature of fossil fuel reserves, which is a hard fact, all this suggests that the rational motivation is to implement renwable energy technology worldwide. But in capitalist terms the rational motivation is to continue with the use of fossil fuels - even regress to use of coal, as oil and gas run short.

It's absolutely ridiculous to say:

the great sacrifice we ask for of the third world in 'waiting' for economic development by slowing there industrialisation which we already have.

There are a billion people starving to death as a result of a capitalist distribution of resources. What makes you think it's going to get any better?

You continue:

Please do not counter with you don't espouse this, because in the real world to reduce our carbon foot print demands this.

Over the past dozen posts you've been wrong about every point you've made - so it's not for you to be telling me in what terms I should, or should not reply. In this you are wrong also. I'm not suggesting that the developing world delay development, but that humankind adopt a global solution to a global problem, and provide a sustainable energy basis for human civilization. In this way agriculture, manuafcture, distribution and construction can be undertaken using energy sources that have little or no environmental cost.

mb.

Diomedes71 · Post by **Diomedes71** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 9:01 pm

Mark wrote

There are a billion people starving to death as a result of a capitalist distribution of resources. What makes you think it's going to get any better?

HOW WAS CHILD LABOR REDUCED IN TODAY’S DEVELOPED COUNTRIES?
Four main changes took place:

economic development that raised family incomes and living standards
widespread, affordable, required and relevant education
enforcement of anti-child labor laws (along with compulsory education laws)
changes in public attitudes toward children that elevated the importance of education

Life expectancy rose rapidly in the twentieth century due to improvements in public health, nutrition and medicine. It's likely that life expectancy of the most developed countries will slowly advance and then reach a peak in the range of the mid-80s in age. Currently, microstates Andorra, San Marino, and Singapore along with Japan have the world's highest

In 1848 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and four other women invited the public to the First Women's Rights Convention to discuss expanding the role of women in America. At the end of the two days, 100 people made a public commitment to work together to improve women’s quality of life. While women have achieved greater equality with the vote, property rights, and education, the revolution continues today.

AS FOR END OF THE WORLD DUE TO LACK OF WATER .....

WHAT'S YOUR TIME FRAME MARK...... HELL WE'VE SEQUENCED 10's of thousands of human genes, Move electrons around in common computer at over 2,000,000,000 time per second. Send remote controlled cars to Mars, grow human hearts in pigs, smash matter anti matter in cyclotrons,, Genetically engineer allsorts, .... In short... IF THE LAWS OF PHYSICS DON'T PROHIBITIT WE CAN DO IT....