Thread: Greenhouse gases.....grizzle time

All this means is that you can't take our limited day by day impressions of weather over a hot summer and claim that global warming is a coming.... It may be, (and if I were a tundra dweller, I'd say ..."Bring it on!") but one hot day don't prove anything.

Well, there was a concensus reached by a group of climate scientists - the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - back in 2001. They decided that the Earth IS warming and also that there is enough evidence to say that they are fairly certain it is caused by increases in greenhouse gases:

Although not fully settled, the current consensus from the official scientific communities on climate change is that recent warming is largely human-caused.

According to the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is 66% to 90% certain to have been due to radiative forcing from increases in greenhouse gas concentrations.

But then I suppose it depends on whether you think they are an unbiased group, or whether they have been put together because they support the theory.

God help me, I listen to ABC News Radio too much. Last week Australia's leading climatologist (He went to school for it and everything) was being interviewed. He told of his earlier reluctance to make climate predictions for too far in the future, as he didn't know what deus ex machina (my term) would appear to ruin the prediction.

Now, however, he feels the situation is so dire that he is quite comfortable making a 100 year prediction because he feels that no one will be alive then to prove him wrong. Bummer man or what?

Greg

There is another aspect that is not yet considered here in this debate.

If the global warming does raise the earth temperature and as a result some of the polar ice melts and that raises the sea levels by say 300mm we are not greatly affected, sure some of our beaches will disappear but who cares.

However large areas of Europe will be under threat of the rising sea levels. This is of major concern over there and already the EEU is reluctant to trade with the countries that don't comply with the Kyoto agreement.

It may well be that in the near future when the EEU has sorted out the problems of admitting the new eastern European member nations that they will refuse to trade with us.

There is already great pressure for this to happen and Australia has already seen some exports to Europe curtailed because of our failure to ratify Kyoto. Notwithstanding little Johnie throwing $100M away again on something that will not work we may well be dragged into complying for financial reasons.

As they say " Its a brave new world we live in and it may not last much longer."

Originally Posted by Sturdee

There is another aspect that is not yet considered here in this debate.

If the global warming does raise the earth temperature and as a result some of the polar ice melts and that raises the sea levels by say 300mm we are not greatly affected, sure some of our beaches will disappear but who cares.

Pete dont worry, its only them Dutchies......

Just kidding....

Al

Originally Posted by ozwinner

Pete dont worry, its only them Dutchies......

Just kidding....

Al

AND the Pacific islands and atolls. We may get to beat the AllBlacks again!!

It's just a tad more complicated than that (as I'm sure you are quite well aware Al); where would the extra water come from - the polar ice caps. Given that the north pole is really quite thin, the one could reasonably expect it to come from Antarctica where the ice is miles deep in places.

What would that do to ocean currents? I don't think anyone is quite sure, but as the whole planet is a large thermal engine, I think it reasonable to assume that the changes would be significant, and not necessarily very nice for us as we've become accustomed to the present situation.

Cheers!

Originally Posted by silentC

Well, there was a concensus reached by a group of climate scientists - the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - back in 2001. They decided that the Earth IS warming and also that there is enough evidence to say that they are fairly certain it is caused by increases in greenhouse gases.

Then of course there lies, damned lies and statistics

>

Originally Posted by SMH Today

THE world has already passed the point of no return on global warming, and efforts to slow it may already be doomed, one of Britain's best-known environmentalists says.

In what The Independent described as the bleakest assessment yet of the effects of climate change by a leading scientist, Professor James Lovelock said billions would die by the end of the century, and civilisation as it is known would be unlikely to survive.

"The few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic, where the climate remains tolerable," Professor Lovelock wrote in the newspaper.

Professor Lovelock, who in the 1970s coined the Gaia thesis that the Earth was a single organism, called on governments to start making preparations for a "hell of a climate," in which by 2100 Europe and southern Australia would be 8 degrees hotter than they are today.

The scientist makes his predictions in a new book, The Revenge of Gaia, which argues that the feedback mechanisms that used to keep the Earth cooler than it would otherwise be are now working to amplify warming caused by human CO 2 emissions.

"Sadly I cannot see the United States or the economies of China and India cutting back in time and they are the main source of CO 2 emissions."

Professor Lovelock is a controversial but respected scientist who gave a briefing on global warming in 1989 to the then prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. Two years ago he caused a furore in the environment movement by urging greens to embrace nuclear power to reduce global warming gases.

Originally Posted by Grunt

Because if you were dead you wouldn't use electricity and therefore wouldn't generate greenhouse gasses. Last time I looked you were alive.

If he were dead he would be giving off CO2 as he rotted so you can't win even if you die.

Yes, but it's the same C02 that you were given when you were born. We are just recycling all of them molocules.

Originally Posted by Grunt

Yes, but it's the same C02 that you were given when you were born. We are just recycling all of them molocules.

OMG. Where have those molecules been? Will one of Grunt's ... umm ... you know whats, come back as a boil on the Prime Minister's bum?:eek:

Richard

Originally Posted by Daddles

OMG. Where have those molecules been? Will one of Grunt's ... umm ... you know whats, come back as a boil on the Prime Minister's bum?:eek:

Richard

Feet??

Al :confused:

Originally Posted by Studley 2436

A good one is the way the so called hole in the greenhouse layer is growing. They took the measurements downwind from Mt Erebus which is spewing cholrine into the atmosphere. From this they said gee gosh cars make CO2 which then bonds with the Ozone O3 making carbon monoxide and oxygen and no ozone we will all die of skin cancer!

Studley

Actually, this is a common misconception which never really seems to be made clear when people are telling us about problems with our atmosphere. The hole in the ozone layer is a completely separate topic to the greenhouse effect.

The ozone layer helps protect us against UV radiation and O3 can be destroyed by things such as chloroflourocarbons (not CO2), which used to be used as propellants in aerosols.

CO2 and various other gases can act like the glass in a greenhouse - they allow radiant light energy from the sun to enter the atmosphere but then trap the heat energy from the earth (which is at a different wavelength) from escaping back into outer space. The earth is virtually a closed system in terms of particles but not in terms of energy. Unless the same total amount of energy is allowed to escape the earth as falls on it, the earth will either gradually heat up or cool down.

We can die from skin cancer by being fried due to a decreased ozone layer without necessarily leading to global warming.

I can remember when we were heading for an ice age (the fifties )
Margaret Thatcher invented Global warming to get rid of all the coal miners.!