A personal experience over half a century: When I was a kid we had to dig out our neighbours, who lived in a house that was in a depression, making tunnels in the snow and relieving their doors from the pressure... Consistently, over as many years as I can remember... The whole winter thing changed pretty badly, with less and less snow, warmer temperatures and generally a mush of a climate. Talking with an elder generation, they could confirm, coupled with deforestation - micro-climate of Zagreb (then YU, now Croatia), for instance, changed a great deal.... More snow again now, I would say... but it's still a mush, not a consistent Continental climate, where I was borne... Anecdotal, over a course of a century - but a bloody significant change, let me tell you! And I checked it everywhere I went, speaking to my seniors, as well as my generation and all agree about the drastic change! Of course, the causes - that's a different story... Science is the least s**tty clue to it all we have... But the way it functions today a good part of it is neither independent, nor omniscient (that is universal, of course, it being Science, a Man's product, hence limited, however much inter-generational). What should be done in order to unravel the mysteries of "concluding/thinking processes" of various groups of scientists is - you guessed it - follow the interests... Never mind the conspiracy theories but rationally, see who's connected to which interests. Loadsa scientists are sold souls, some even believe in the s**te they babble and so on... On the level of the system, this unholy alliance (pushed by neo-cons/neo-libs) of capital and education/research is a seriously worrying trend that needs to be reversed!!! In the UK, for instance, tobacco industry sponsoring an Ethics chair, at one of the major Universities? Orwell is spinning in his grave quite wildly...
I agree the world is warming. It appears to continue to warm right up to the start of the next glacial period. My point is that I do not fully accept that man is mostly responsible for this warming. I also strongly despise the cash cow/gravy train machine that has appeared, whose sole purpose seems to convince us that we should be taxed into saving the planet. All of this seems to have begun with "An Inconvenient Truth" and now the ball is rolling so fast no one seems to dare to question "The consensus" any more. There is other information which is not being considered. Looking at past events there would appear some correlation between sunspot activity and global temperatures. The events were the Maunder and Dalton Minima. No one has found the relationship between sunspots and cooling events but there appears to be one and it's completely excluded from the AGW argument. Just because something is not understood is no reason to ignore it. Einstein himself introduced such a thing in his work, the "Cosmological constant". It fell out of favour but has been revived again into the standard model. Know one really knows what it is either, just like the Solar minima and global cooling. There is also the media hype where they wrongly associate weather events with climate change. Recent examples are Storm Sandy, US drought, a larger than normal Arctic melt (which was due to an unusual storm pushing ice south). Scientists are also using media to hype AGW. This is a Climategate email associating a weather event with climate. This is not how scientists should behave, this is not science. To some it would appear that they have already decided they are right about AGW beyond doubt.
That is simply not correct, as I already wrote! There are many vehement critics of the "green" stance, for whatever reasons... Many in the "science" world! There is no consensus! Full stop! There is a strong consensus in the neo-con/neo-lib oriented "scientific world", which is usually "strongly supported" by the "industry", in that that this is all a myth and that we are somehow absolutely innocent. Which is crap! They can not say that with a straight face any more than the other side's claim of absolute guilt solely on Mankind! (There I agree with you! That would be another religion! I.e. absolute knowledge on either side...) But you have to be a wee bit more careful how you phrase these things, else one might think you are with those who are now creating a "scientific consensus"... and you seem to be weary of a "consensus"... Just like me... (Just a joke, I saw you're laughing at that "option", too... )
Perhaps I just need to calm down a bit, RaymondTH riled me a little calling me out to produce a 100 year temperature record. Yes, it would be wrong to argue either way and yes we ought to be more careful with our planet than we are at the moment. If we could do that and not make the Al Gores of this planet rich in the process I would be extremely happy.
Look at the arrogance of science/technology - an example of their "deep knowledge" and the usual "there is no firm evidence that xyz is harmful in any way..." From some disaster to yet another even worse disaster - that was supposed to have been the remedy to the previous horror story?!? And until we close the bastards down, they keep ploughing on... Like here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20877804 Seriously... Have you ever REALLY thought of and felt what we are doing to the bloody planet?!? YAYKS!!!
I know this is not going to go down well but here's the news. 2012 was the second wettest on record. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20898729 So, I created a graph of the UK rainfall from the UK met office website, Dec 2012 is not in this dataset yet. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/datasets/Rainfall/date/England.txt Ok, so it may we second wettest but looking at the last 102 years the trend seems to be, 1910 was wetter than now, then it rained less 50 years ago and now it's getting back to how it was in 1910. I can't really see anything exceptional in the long term. No need to panic! The BBC do not mention Climate Change at all but The Guardian has an article in their Climate Change section. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/03/2012-uk-second-wettest-year This is entirely the point I'm making. Most people will just accept the way the Guardian has presented these facts. And in my opinion looking at the data it is a deliberate lie to include it in the Climate change section, not that it's the second wettest ever which I accept. p.s. I just spotted something. BBC says the record is 6.6 mm short of the record set in 2000. Year 2000 had 1093.3 mm rain but they say 2012 had 1330.7 mm rain which is a difference of 237.4 mm.
Ever see what happens when you put hot food in a bowl and close it. Global Warming is real the reason is not so clear.
@tamilabi - It's a poll thread. That's your opinion then fine. Oops. I have to admit an error. I analysed the England dataset for rainfall and not the UK one. I have also included Northern Ireland and Wales which do show an increased upward trend. Analysing Northern Ireland and Wales it appears these regions are receiving more rainfall than normal. Added Scotland which shows a large increase. So everybody not in Northern Ireland, Wales or Scotland doesn't seem to have very much to be concerned about.
You will see increased precipitation in certain places especially places affected by major ocean currents like the Labrador current which influences England's weather a lot. But my guess is you will see the Earth start to cool from this year onward.
I do not believe global warming is man made .... I think the earth warms and cools in cycles and this has more than likely been going on for eons, a whole lot longer than man has been here and even longer then any records have been being kept of earths cycles. I also believe that the earth has gone through multiple ice ages and we are probably coming due for another, I believe ice ages are sort of like earths "self cleansing", when the polar ice caps get dangerously close to disappearing I believe we will be hit with another ice age and the cycle will start all over. Those of you who think global warming is man made ...... of coarse humans do not help but don't be so arrogant to think that we alone can destroy the atmosphere and earth, EARTH will get rid of us before that EVER happens. Remember, we just rent this planet and we can be dropped like a bad habit in an instant.
I would have thought that is being humble and careful.... but hey... apparently the nuclear devices, biological, chemical and all other assortment of weapons, never mind the good ol' industry and its horrors... are not enough to even start thinking about it...
The other point to consider is that during the 60' to the 90's there were many changes to land use. Flood plains became housing estates or were protected from the rivers by barrages and turned into farmland. This didn't really cause any problems as this time frame had less than average rainfall. Now of course when the rain returns Global Warming is blamed without any reference to the problems being caused by change of land use. I know the issue is the second largest annual rainfall but would this have been so prominent without the floods? And nothing like an example to prove my point. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/gr.../New-homes-will-be-built-on-flood-plains.html http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/9964955.Concern_over_floods_at_Fulford_homes_site/ http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/features/nowhere-to-hide-from-this-toll-of-misery-1-5268172 So if they build on a flood plain then they remove a natural safety valve which can prevent flooding further downstream. This can cause flooding where none existed before. I ask you... what will get the blame then? I think I've said enough now so in summary. Is Global Warming happening? Yes. Is it man-made? No, it is mainly natural variation with a non significant man-made constituent.
I can agree with that. All the scientific sources I have seen and studied do not show a clear evidence that it is man made. From where does all the energy come? From our sun. And it’s far more plausible that the initial cause comes from such a sun (distance) cycle. But human's behavior has an influence on nature and its condition. And such an ‘initial cause’ and all the complex effects which are related are influenced by human behavior on earth. So the fact that we massively burn fossil fuels can also lead to a more pronounced global warming. To me far more important are current pollution and exploitation of the nature. Global warming has degenerated to a political matter. Ice is melting that is a fact and we will be forced to live with the consequences. Is it actually important to know if it is manmade or not? We should stop to burn fossil fuels, but not because it is responsible for global warming. We should stop it because we are disturbing a natural balance and we will feel what happens when they end. A new awareness has to be cultivated. The awareness that we only can take from nature what we are willing to give back to her. Plants grow and take their energy from the sun (photosynthesis). They get their organic carbon from CO2. When burnt they release the ‘sun’ energy and release CO2 again. We are that clever to understand that natural cycle. But we are too stupid to switch over to it, to renewable energies. Instead of we burn the ‘stored sun energy’ aka fossil fuels until they end and create an imbalance or better said a situation we cannot evaluate. Stored energy which had been stored at a time where there were no humans yet. The role and effect of CO2 cannot be determined yet. Nobody ever before had burned fossil fuels massively. Fact is that we join every day organic carbon to oxygen and the CO2 will be spread where it physically is attracted. It are the atmosphere and the oceans. And not all balances are reacting at once, it can last hundreds of years until a massive effect can suddenly take effect. We discharge a natural accumulator without to recharge it. That cannot work forever.
I absolutely believe that Global warming is a whole lot nicer than Global Cooling. It is not man made m8s cheers
Get rid of your personal issue with science! Foundations of science are to have firm evidences|results first before talking / upsetting the apple cart. It is different at politics and Philosophy where one can talk without to have them. One can get the impression that their only intent to talk is to hear themselves talking... It are always the 'capitalists' (ego's) who prevaricate to get own benefit. No matter if scientist or not. I rather can find those at politics. This morning I have heard on the radio that the year 2012 in the US had been the warmest ever recorded, can that be confirmed?
@Yen - This news is the result of the USHCN dataset which shows 2012 as the warmest ever. We should remember that the US is 6.6% of the Global land mass and 2% of the world area (best estimates I could find) when comparing to the Global situation. But guess what as well? This dataset is also the result of adjustments which seem to favour more recent years getting warmer.. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/smoking-gun-that-ushcn-adjustments-are-fraudulent-2/ Cause of the adjustments? http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/hansen-the-climate-chiropractor/ Notice that before the adjustments 1934 was the hottest at approx +1.5C and 1988 looks like +0.8. After the adjustments 1934 is cooler than 1988. Had these adjustments not been made then 2012 would be about the same as the non adjusted 1934. And according to this memo from James Hansen he confirms 1934 was warmer than 1998. Therefore how can 2012 be higher than the previous record of 1998 when 1934 was higher? http://www.judicialwatch.org/files/documents/2010/783_NASA_docs-1.pdf (Chrome doesn't work for me, try IE).
Echhh... Good ol' Yen and his "My field is best, never mind all the rest!" mantra, which seriously strangely mixes with "Have no ego!" mantra... A bit of a collision, I would have thought - but hey... it's just me, a Philosopher, so what do I know... The next thing you know is we'll have to ask for permission from a Scientist to talk... But that does NOT mean scientists are arrogant at all... So, a response in the same arrogant tone, see if you like it... No, it is your personal bias(!!!) that is not letting you see the ABC, the bleeding obvious!!! Learn elementary methodology: scientists and science as such already have/has all manner of presumptions, entering a cut-out of reality they "investigate". The Q is: how do we check and double-check those and are we aware of them, are we honest enough to acknowledge them and have them in mind at all times - as we "investigate" and "experiment" - that those are there and they must be constantly taken into consideration! Else you have a religion!!! Keep showing your prejudices and ignorance of Philosophy... In Philosophy the situation is fundamentally the same! In Politics, however, one can have myriad of prejudices without ever having a reality check, for as long as one breaths, if one yells out loud enough not to hear others... Something some scientists are very good at, by the looks of it all... The aforementioned arrogance (and ignorance of) science('s foundations)... Why should they listen to anyone, if they are the Religion of the present...???? You mean, something similar to you never hearing anything critical about science, esp. if it comes from Philosophy? Unless, of course, it's your very own "philosophy"... My, my, what a mess... Worthy of an arrogant scientist, "uniformed" in Philosophy and of course - not interested in learning anything from it... "Ego" precedes both Capital(ism) and Science... but not "politics" the way you understand it, it seems - that is always there! However, the point I made is that the "alliance of Capital and Science" is the deadliest we have ever created, so it must be the most policed and carefully overseen of any of our creations!!! Methodically speaking, though: every type of "science" you can think of has its "politics", its "agenda", its presumptions, its own set of values from which it acts. But your prejudices and ignorance will never let that on board, will they? You will never critically examine those, will you? And you keep banging on about Science as if it is a Holly Grail! It ain't! Perhaps they have been burning too much fossil fuel?
You've started to assign arrogance to science. And that is what I call your issue. Arrogance can be found everywhere. This assumes that you know it better than those scientists. Or that there is / was pure intent to manipulate 'others' in your opinion. The former cannot be true you have not the knowledge to evaluate it. And if the latter should be true then it is no more science, it is the intent of an ego to manipulate. And since it's all about money I've posted capitalist. To me the deadliest alliance is Capital and ego. And that as synonym for god. This alliance is found through all professions. And since science is based on that alliance some scientists are affected by it, that is not the question. A scientist would never develop a cure for a disease 'only' a few humans are suffering from! So is that bad science or simply a side effect of capitalism???
I just wonder what it is going to take to get busy with the solutions or even debating the solutions if some of you are so deeply entrenched in the denier camp that you ignore even that what is in front of your faces .. This is starting to remind me of the gun control debate in the U.S. where simple facts like the U.S. is 5% of the worlds population and owns 50% of the worlds guns seems to have little influence on some for sensible gun control .. I can give no credence to what some post here or who link to the rhetoric of the fringes of either side .. It is not even worth the time to read the captions after awhile .. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/01/08/1417881/rethinking-wedges-clean-energy-stabilize-near-2c-warming-startdeployment-asap/ http://thinkprogress.org/climate/20...a-hottest-average-temperature-new-map-colors/ http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/01/08/1415131/noaa-2012-was-officially-the-warmest-year-on-record-second-most-extreme/
Fully supported by gazziolions of tons of evidence, from this thread onwards. "Nothing to do with me, Gov", to borrow your attitude - "it's all facts"... No, it isn't. It's your issue, as you are a Scientist and you feel pointed at. Rightly so. So should EVERY scientist, not just you! Agreed without any doubt! Albeit with considerably less danger for Humanity, if it is found in other quarters... But that from you sounds a little bit different now, than earlier - maybe a linguistic issue of yours? As for me starting it: I didn't invent "weapons of mass destruction", for instance, no Philosopher or politician did - Science and scientists did... Oh but I don't. However, that is not required! Look, it's easy, anyone can know it, if they dare and want to... Just read post festum, a whole litany of such arrogant professions of "absolute certainty" re. various scientific advances, that came to bite us in the arse later on... How many do you want me to remind you of?!? Any scientist worth his/her salt can remind themselves of those, too - if only they wanted to... Sometimes. Look at atomic energy propaganda, for instance. I do not need to have the in-depth knowledge about it. Thankfully, there are some scientists with conscience, who dare question the supreme arrogance of their colleagues... I am friends with some of those! They do exist. Not easy to find them but... Also, simply look at the results of various "scientific advancements"... That volume of "crimes and misdemeanours" speaks deafeningly!!! More mystifications, Vicar? Look, are you denying the horrendous amount of weapons of mass destruction made by Science and therefore scientists?!? Or chemical agents attacking animal, as well as our fertility, for instance? Pollution from our industry or cars? I could go on for a while but let's stop on those few for now... Seriously, you need to slow down with these "professions" of yours... If we were to break them down it would come down to more or less nothing. I mean, you sound like a politician or worse - like a religious person, when you start with the "ego" mantra... Sure, some Philosophers have gone doo-lally, too... Although, they quickly become the most ridiculed figures known in their profession. Not so in Science, frequently. Science and politics reward these guys and gals handsomely... Have you any idea just how many scientists work on military grade weapons of mass destruction?!? At all times... Oh, yes it is! Any idea just how "powerful" would such politics be without science and its willing practitioners? Why do you say that? Have you really known every living scientist? Bad Science, if it is like you put it! But I doubt things are exactly like you say, since there are Universities and various Research Centres, either publicly funded or maybe even privately... But yes, there are loads of "bad" scientists (although, some of them may well be seriously competent professionally, technically spoeaking) who are in bed with "forces" of pure and unchallenged Capitalism, for sure... What I don't understand is this attitude regarding this outrageous role of science and technology - which leaves you sooooooo "nothing to do with us (Scientists)!" stance... Baffling!