Disappearing glaciers...

A snowHead

Global Warming and its causes are thorny subjects. There is the scientific side and the political side.
Climate change models are not very accurate (to say the least) as there are many variables involved, and we do not have yet a very good understanding on how the variables involved interact. Here is an article that explains some of the problems with the climate change predictions http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg15n2g.html
I do not agree with everything he sais, and usually i do not agree with the views of The Cato Institute
Even in the Nature article PG posted, another scientist is quoted saying: “You cannot eliminate the stratospheric influence with statistical tools alone,” he says. “If you want to know precisely what happens you need physical measurements.” He says that Fu has overcorrected for the impact of the stratosphere in his analysis." So the scientific side is still under debate, as to what is going to happen, and what is causing it.
The politicians on both sides made a mess of it all. They are using this issue to promote or stall other policies.
Personally, i agree with Jonpim that poverty is a bigger issue, but i do not subscribe to the view that we should make the west poorer in order to make everyone else richer (this is not Jonpim's view, but it is quite popular with the anti-globalisation activists). I beleive there are ways to make everybody richer (if not happier).
I also think that we should reduce our dependence on fossil fuels because the supply is finite and because i would like to breathe cleaner air.
On the lighter side, i have no problem with another summer like the last one, if the winter is going to be like the last one.

A snowHead

Another perspective, from a Brit who's just made it to the North Pole....

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Global warming - the 'facts'

Bush doesn't warm to the new movie

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An environmentalist's view of the film.

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Some more info on Ben Saunders' Arctic trip....

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And here is a general article on determining climatic records including the subject of variable glaciation

If you scroll about 1/2 way down to Fig 7 there are 2 comparison shots of the Rhone Glacier in 1750 and 1950. Dramatic stuff.

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PG, nothing can be inferred from the temperature measurements in the quote, beyond the fact that the weather at some unspecified location in the arctic is variable. The average maximum temperature in Oxford in June 1977 was 16.7C compared to 24.4 'just' one year earlier, which proves that, in Oxford, June 1976 was hot and June 1977 cool, and was not suggestive of an impending ice age. The debate on climate change can only be informed by long term observations over a wide area: such as those provided in the article referred to by kuwait_ian.

Assuming that ice in the Arctic Ocean continues to recede, we could look forward to the opening up of the "north east passage", cutting out perhaps ten thousand miles for shipping between the Far East and Europe (more for traffic going round the Cape rather than through Suez). That would save a lot of fossil fuel. As I said before on this thread, global warming may be bad, but it's not all bad. A rational response to global warming must take the benefits into account too.

laundryman, nothing whatsoever inferred by me, you'll find .... just stirring debate. As for whether global warming is "not all bad" - well, time will tell. Trade between the Far East and Europe could, for example, take something of a battering if 90% of the world's population has to relocate to higher ground.

Anecdotal accounts such as the one quoted are just that, anecdotes. This is a skiing forum, the guy was trying to ski from Russia to Canada, and didn't make it because of the conditions. An interesting story, no more.

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PG, of course he didn't make it: he was going up hill! snowHead

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I'm not sure if such anecdotal evidence is so bad anyway! Surely proper research into these matters was triggered by anecdotal evidence in the first place. Acid rain in Northern Europe was probably first commented on anecdotally before real action was taken. First hand evidence may not prove a trend, but is very useful for creating a scientific hypothesis that can be then be proved / disproved. Polar explorers are some of the few people that visit these parts and thus their information is useful?

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Some more from the 'anti' camp....

"Earth has been gradually cooling"

But then again, some suggest these are the facts ....

Contrails

You know it makes sense.

cool photo!

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Wow - a spectacular demonstration of the impact of flying. Hardly a real cloud to be seen but lots of the man-made variety

A snowHead

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

The article you mention was addressing purely the long-term trends and any short-term man-made affects were not within its scope. I'm not sure it contradicts, nor even purposely avoids the latter issues. From what I can make out, the only thing it suggests, that contradicts the climate change group, is that climate changes may not be able to occur quickly - something that other studies suggest can happen. That the data contradicts each other is not a surprise when all past climate indicators studied are footprints and so interpretation is needed.

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Still, any article that addresses a limited selection of possible causes that may result in an effect is only going to give people part of the picture, deliberately or otherwise. Perhaps the authors addressed this elsewhere, but publishing this piece independently (or indeed an article discussing only man's alleged influence on the environment) I feel is unhelpful.

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Possibly, but isn't the article purely on the contents of a report that had been published in Nature? I can understand that it could be used by someone attempting to "debunk" anthropological climate change theories, especially if they used it as part of a raft of arguments, but in it's current form, it doesn't really affect the argument much - except possibly to say the "sudden" flipping of climate and/or oceanic currents is less likely.

(Unless I'm misunderstanding it, which is quite possible Wink

)

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PG, I think you're being a little uncharitable here. The full article in Nature may well allude to the topicality of the study, so (unless you have access to it, which you haven't indicated) it's harsh to damn the authors as negligent, let alone deliberately tendentious. Besides, it's perfectly respectable to be interested in climatic development on a geological time scale for its own sake, as these guys may well be. I'm not sure of the nature of the "Scripps Howard News Service", but if their editorial policy is only to report substantive findings in research papers, without comment, then their piece would also be justified in its scope and tone.

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A quick perusal suggests that Scripps don't have any particular axe to grind.

This recent article expressly links increases in allergies to man-made global warming.

This one, whilst not blaming human activity explicitly, links various recent US climatic events and trends with global warming, including (to bring us back on topic), difficulties faced by winter sports operations in Michigan.

Came across a couple of articles by the journalist concerned (Lee Bowman) which do have a slightly sceptical leaning....

http://www.ncpa.org/hotlines/global/pd011499a.html
Lee Bowman (Scripps Howard), "Dire Global Warming Forecasts Unfulfilled," Washington Times, January 14, 1999.

http://209.47.1.199/infomart/20040420/5/20040420.001.16.html

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A particularly alarmist piece, in today's Independent.

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PG, the article is titled: "James Lovelock: Nuclear power is the only green solution". James Lovelock is a respected scientist and originator of the Gaia Hypothesis .
I do not think however he helps has case with wild unsupported allegations:

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Jonpim, At what point during Arctic meltdown would you consider this to be concrete evidence that something is going on, and we might just be helping the process along?? Wink

When London is how many metres below sea level?!

I don't know, just seems to make sense to err on the side of caution. If the 'alarmists' are wrong there would be a cost, but this would be insignificant in comparison to the disaster scenario being presented.... out of the frying pan, into the flood ..

(Perhaps we've done this part of the debate to death!)

There's been some interesting follow-up letters to that article.

You know it makes sense.

Thanks skanky, does anyone still buy a newspaper?

Now PG, of course you didn't mean to link Arctic meltdown with rising sea levels. Arctic ice is floating so when it melts there will be no effect on sea levels. I am sure it was just a slip of the finger.

Bizarre Science is a good place to start, and then read the NASA link.
It is possible that, in contrast to the arctic icecap, the Antarctic ice may actually be growing .
Here is an article from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on "How Does Arctic Sea Ice Form and Decay?" Who would have thought that ice could be so fascinating?

Anyway PG, I am not disputing that the climate is changing. I question just how it is changing, and what we should do about it.
1. The last time the earth started to warm up it was a very different place. Continents different. Vegetation different. No billions of humans. Sun activity may have been different. Melting the ice caps of Greenland may or may not stop the Atlantic Conveyor . So all these marvelous predictions of what is going to happen need to be taken with a large pinch of salt (no pun intended).

2. I think we should concentrate resources on how to deal with climate change rather than trying to stop it. Yes, we should stop making things any worse, but the changes have been going on for some time, they have significant inertia, and anything we do now will not have any effect for many years (if any effect at all).

It is interesting the number of different scenarios dreamt for the effects of climate change.
In Waterworld (1995) the icecaps have melted and almost all the earth is under water.
In Soylent Green (1973) global warming has killed off most plant life and the overpopulated planet is desperately short of food.
In Hothouse by Brian Aldiss (1962) a hot world with a high CO2 has resulted in plants becoming the dominant life form: “A colossal banyan tree covers one face of the globe. The last remnants of humanity are fighting for survival, terrorised by the carnivorous plants and the grotesque insect life.”

P.S. Maybe there should be and area called The Kitchen where boring old farts such as you and I can quaff Boddingtons and continue these discussions long after everyone else has lost interest and gone back to dancing in the living room

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Jonpim,

A snowHead

Posting articles from newspapers on this subject isn't particularly illuminating. Newspapers project science through a prism. They're not interested in dull but worthy research that predicts that things won't turn out too bad. That's dangerous, because the popular imagination can be seized by the apparent preponderance of alarming predictions, and cause laws to be passed that carry unintended, negative consequences.

The bit about Amazonia turning into a desert is interesting. No mention of the corresponding blooming of the Russian and Canadian tundra. Taking carbon trapped uselessly in oil and coal deposits, and releasing it into the atmosphere is good for life on earth (though possibly not for humanity in its current disposition), because a proportion of it will be taken up by plants. That's where it came from in the first place! That's why we talk about fossil fuels!! The very worst that could happen, if we burnt it all, is that the earth would return to the abundance of life that existed in the early carboniferous period, before global cooling killed most of it off. And, by the way, large parts of the earth could support human life in the conditions that prevailed then.

Now, granted, vast tracts would be inundated in this scenario, and we don't want that. So, how close are we to that absolute limit? The International Panel on Climate Change has come up with 40 climate change scenarios for the 21st century and estimated the various effects that would ensue. They do not assign probabilities to the scenarios, and are careful to say that they are not making predictions, but illustrating possible outcomes for a set of scenarios likely to cover most possible developments. Their scenarios lead to anything from a 9cm to 88cm rise in sea level during the whole of the 21st century. (Sea level is estimated to have risen by 10cm to 20cm during the 20th century, with no discernible acceleration during that period). The world seems to have coped with the 20th century rise without much difficulty. Given that the world is a much richer place now, it could probably cope just as easily with a bigger rise during this century. However, increases at the top end of the scale may well cause severe local difficulties.

What to do about that possibility? In previous posts, I've stated my preference for massive funding of renewable energy research (so that it becomes cheaper than burning fossil fuels) and raised the thought (like Lovelock) that nuclear power might be needed as a stopgap. I am against self-denying ordinances that would destroy wealth (which will always have the hardest impact on the poor, up to and including starvation) and hamper our ability to adapt to unavoidable climate change and other exigencies.

PG, what specifically do you mean by "err on the side of caution"? What measures do you propose?

A snowHead

PG, you know I had never realised quite what was in the arctic circle until your post made me look.
Also interesting to note just how far north UK is - level with Moscow - makes you really appreciate the Gulf Stream.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

laundryman, I think we've gone full circle here. The media may sometimes distort facts for effect and profit, but certain elements also play an invaluable role in raising public awareness.

We have become a ‘quick fix’ society. Essentially selfish beings, there has always been an uneasy balance between the interests of the whole and the individual. Those of us in the ‘comfort zone’ have come to take it for granted that a constantly improving standard of living is ours by right. We pay lip-service to improving the situation in less privileged parts of the world in order to assuage our consciences, and carry on regardless. Any potential threat, particularly one which may lie a generation or two in the future, has to be offset against perceived needs in the present. No great surprise – most choose the ‘tomorrow will take care of itself’ approach, irrespective of the magnitude of the danger in question. The majority doesn’t care two hoots about the plight of large chunks of the world’s population who scrape a subsistence living each day, or at least, we don’t manifest our concern in any truly effective manner.

To sum up, I reckon it would take a considerable exaggeration of the threat by the media to offset our inbuilt lethargy, or the protective social, psychological, even spiritual mechanisms we have built around ourselves to justify maintaining the status quo. Following the wildfire advance of the consumer lifestyle over recent generations, we’re hooked on increasing affluence. Certain increasingly powerful interest groups do their utmost to reinforce that addiction – and they don’t have to try very hard.

Erring on the side of caution? Your own position reflects something of this approach. In practical terms, I agree with your stated preferences. Broadly speaking, man-made activities need to be managed, nudged in the right direction, not radically changed. I don’t see the point of going into all the specifics here.

Still, the bottom line is that we can either take steps now to guide future development in an ecologically friendly manner, or abrogate our responsibilities and allow short-sightedness and greed to dominate the decision-making process, with whatever consequences that may bring.

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PG, I pretty much go along with all of this. Perhaps there is something systematically missing in our information society between sensationalist mass media and the PR machines of big business. Somewhere where thoughtful people can seek out reasoned analysis on a range of subjects. Or, maybe the web fulfils that role. It's amazing the expertise that's demonstrated on this small forum, on all sorts of subjects beyond skiing.

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I once worked for the Parks Officer in Inverness, who pointed out that all our concern was actually for ourselves. In other words, we want to save the planet FOR OUR OWN USE, the planet itself will survive humans and whatever idiocies we inflict on it!
('laundryman,') I am amazed and humbled by the variety of interesting and knowledgeable posts on almost any subject to be found on Snowheads. Smile

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The idea that any reduction welath will affect the poorest most is a valid one. However, the fact that the rich keep their (total) wealth means that the poorest will not get any/much richer. The earth is not large enough (in terms of resources available) for the whole current populaton to be brought up to the level of the (richer) West. It is especially so if projected populations are taken into account. In this, I'm not talking about the ability to feed the populations, but the ability for them to use resources at the same rate as here in the West.

The idea that any change in climate could cause a few local difficulties but be coped with, again is valid, but we should take several thinsg into account. Firstly, humans have migrated across the planet and have tended to settle where the necessary conditions for living are best (there are modern factors that affect this and cause anomalies, but as a basis for settlement it's a fair generalisation). If the climate changes, and these areas shift, then large numbers of people will be affected. This will necessarily mean a movement of people across borders. It would be interesting to see the result of an unstoppable force meeting and immovable object, but I don't think it would pretty.

There's problem enough with small numbers of migrants making movements that many millions may wish to make in the future. There are already conflicts based on the availability of water.

Again, that's all wcs, but these days there are few "local" difficulties.

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[quote="laundryman"]

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Lager,

From Ending Hunger: Current Status and Future Prospects (a PDF) by Dr. Robert Kates, former director of the Feinstein World Hunger Program at Brown University:

Help!!

Disappearing glaciers...

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