 Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I've heard that Greenland isn't the best venue for skiing though 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Well thats just brilliant...the end of the world is nigh..
Melted and re frozen snow absorbs more radiation making it melt quicker, Snow melting lubricated the glacier which makes it move quicker towards the sea ..you just couldn't make it up could you....
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Proves that NASA know nothing. A bloke downt he pub told me that the guys at NASA aren't exactly rocket scientists, and he should know, he gets his facts from internet forums. 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Yep, not much snow here:
Thats for sure...
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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There's some scary Greenpeace reports around about the Everest area too. There can be no doubt that many permanent snow and icefields around the planet are declining at a frightening rate, in historical terms. But that still says little or nothing about what will happen to our little localised Alpine snowfalls next winter, or whether longer term changes, e.g. to ocean currents, will make some climates colder, as others get hotter. The super powder snow in the picture above is a result of weather, not climate.
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| pam w wrote: |
| scary Greenpeace reports |
I don't think they do any others.
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Tbh life goes on or welll doesnt but hey
Have to love the snow while it still falls and it still is 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Interestingly I was speaking to someone who had been in the Watkins Mtns (see photo above) last year, and reckoned we had great conditions in terms of holes being filled in, and general cover. Which tends to push me towards 1 of 2 conclusions: either last year was really poor (as suggested by the title...haven't had time to read the article), or there was loads of snow this year - and for holes to be filled in (and the holes are MONSTRUOUS in places) requires alot of snow over a long timescale (ie a winter).
Received opinion is definitely not too promising for polar regions though 
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Here we go again. "Greenland melted faster in 2006".
Than what?
One of the issues surrounding global warming is that the questions are confused and framed badly.
Ah, feck, I can't be bothered.
Prius or SUV?
Ah, just feel that power! Vroooom!!!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| David Murdoch wrote: |
One of the issues surrounding global warming is that the questions are confused and framed badly.
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There is no confusion.
The world was roughly 30% covered in ice 15k years ago.
Now it is around 10% iced up.
The trend is clear.
The world is melting.
We are in an interglacial period.
Simple as.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| Quote: |
Here we go again. "Greenland melted faster in 2006".
Than what?
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Than it has for a long time, I understand. Views on what can best be done about global warming will differ, obviously, but I don't think anyone who has tried to get a grip on the overall picture can still doubt that it is happening. Even President Bush, it now seems. Not the quickest on the uptake, but even he got there eventually.
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Whitegold, yes there is. You miss my point. As you rightly point out, there is no confusion over global warming. There is general confusion over what it means, why it's happening and what we do about it.
For example, a comment on local radio yesterday that this last years winter was due to global warming. A single winter does not indicate anything other than that there was less snow than has been "normal" in the last 12 years at some altitudes and locations.
pam w, so what. A single years data indicates nothing if you are measuring for global climate change. It is just noise.
The climate is changing. It always is.
It may be due to human activity. Whether or not our greatest scientific minds are in consensus or not, this is not known for sure. But is really irrelevent.
Whether our activities as a species are directly the cause or contributor to an acceleration in a change that we don't like, there is no doubt that we as a species are single handedly and wantonly disrupting and/or destroying the climate and habitat in which we live.
And if we want to continue our existence roughly in the situation we are in now we need to stop.
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You know it makes sense.
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According to the IPCC (a summary by scientists of peer-reviewed literature on global climate change):
1. The earth is warming
2. The main cause of this episode of warming is carbon dioxide produced by humans
3. The effects of global warming on the environment will be quite noticeable.
The summary for policy makers for the physical basis of global warming part of the IPCC 4th Assessment Report is currently here, the main page for the IPCC is here, which has links to the reports of other areas.
The view that current global warming is caused by natural variability, or "recovery" from the last ice age does not find support from the IPCC or national science academies of the G8 nations
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Funding and jobs rely on this kind of story.... if some of these bodies didn't produce reports like that, it would be like turkeys voting for Xmas.
The world may be getting warmer, but why and the consequences are not such an easy answer.
But politicians will love it because they can tax you more....what they do with that tax.and whether it goes on these issues remains to be seen...
What happened to Brown's recent air tax..?? Probably went the same way as the road tax...which gets something like 25% of it spent of its supposed purpose...
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Poster: A snowHead
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Hoppo, I remain unconvinced about the "why" - as it still seems reasonably easy to criticise the theories. However, IMHO it's relatively irrelevant as it's clear that we as a species are screwing up the planet in so many many ways. So whether the IPCC is correct or not about the cause, we still should be reducing our detrimental impact as a species - be that our egregious carbon footprint, our destruction of the rain forests or even our catalysation of fish evolution.
So for me, the why i snot as important as the what's happening and what (sadly precious little) is being done about it. My future is currently closely tied to sensible European winters!!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Quote: |
Funding and jobs rely on this kind of story
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It's hardly reasonable to put a report of this kind, based on a complete review of the best science, in the same category as other "stories" which may have no such basis. It's not logical either to claim that "politicians love it", either; the Bush administration had to be dragged kicking and screaming into an acceptance of global warming caused by human activity.
Just because some politicians believe something is so does not necessarily mean it must not be so. This topic causes difficulties for politicians, especially New Labour ones whose forward horizons don't usually go much further than the next headline in the Daily Mail. Sacrifices today for gains tomorrow? Forget it. Governments will do sensible but painful things only when there is no option, or when public opinion swings behind it. I suspect most politicians would be only too delighted if global warming just disappeared as an issue.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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pam w,
Who says it is the best science.... the vested parties again...??
Scientists are divided on this subject
So you don't think such bodies might have a vested interest in the funds they get for these studies? If they turned round and said, for example, its not as bad as we thought... do you think the the money for their very existance would still pore in?
Ask a few scientists what would be the most sure-fire way of getting funds and they'd likely use an enviromental cause. Ever tried to get new office furniture at work...try Health and Safety, circumnavigates any office budget...
That is not to say they aren't on the right lines ..or not, but to buy it hook line and sinker ....!!! I bet double glazing salesmen love you...
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Hoppo wrote: |
According to the IPCC (a summary by scientists of peer-reviewed literature on global climate change):
1. The earth is warming
2. The main cause of this episode of warming is carbon dioxide produced by humans
3. The effects of global warming on the environment will be quite noticeable.
The summary for policy makers for the physical basis of global warming part of the IPCC 4th Assessment Report is currently here, the main page for the IPCC is here, which has links to the reports of other areas.
The view that current global warming is caused by natural variability, or "recovery" from the last ice age does not find support from the IPCC or national science academies of the G8 nations |
Leading scientists used to agree the Earth was flat.
Einstein said nuclear power stations would never work.
History is littered with scientific error. Today's era of green fundamentalism is another one.
There is no doubt humans are adding to global warming. You don't put 7 billion people in a 'room' and not expect it to get warmer.
But their impact is minor.
The major cause is Nature.
The world was heating up long before mass-urbanisation, the factory and the car.
And the warming cycle will continue, regardless of our actions. Until another Ice Age eventually comes along, to join the 4 that have been before it over the past billion years or so.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You're not actually pointing us in the direction of any scientific evidence that current global warming is not caused by human emissions of carbon dioxide.
You seem very willing to assert vested interests amongst climate scientists without providing any evidence, I'd counter this with three arguments:
1. Climate science would go on pretty much regardless of global warming, a lot of climate research is tied into meteorology and knowing which way climate conditions are going will always be valuable information.
2. Certainly in the US linking global warming to humans is seen as a really bad thing by the government: for a long time George W. has gone out of his way to politically manipulate scientific advice on global warming, it would be an awful lot more lucrative in the US to claim to do research that demonstrated no link.
3. There are quite considerable vested interests concerned with denying the link between humans and global warming, for example ExxonMobil funded the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) who were offering $10,000 a go for criticising the latest IPCC report, although to be fair to ExxonMobil they didn't really seem to know what the AEI were up to! $10,000 isn't research scale money, it is cash-for-opinions money.
Climate scientists are only divided on this in the sense that if you pull one leg off a centipede you can call it divided. It may appear that there is more division because media require "both sides" to be presented - for scientific issues this doesn't really make a great deal of sense.
Having experienced the academic grant process in the UK, as a scientist, first hand, I can tell you that the thing that the grant awarding bodies most like is a demonstrated link to industry and wealth creation in the UK.
Last edited by Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do. on Sun 3-06-07 19:46; edited 1 time in total
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| Quote: |
I bet double glazing salesmen love you
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That's a bit rich. It does not now seem that any respectable, peer-reviewed, science refutes global warming and the contribution of human activity to it. Whitegold does, but I'm afraid that doesn't count for me. I think we are all responsible for trying to weigh up the evidence in the most informed way we can. There has been a huge amount of vested interest, as Hoppo says, with big corporate money behind it, trying to rubbish the theory. They have failed. Have you seen Al Gore's film? It seems to do a good job of presenting the evidence in a way which non-specialists can understand. Anybody who denies the link between human activity and global warming really does need to point to some evidence, not just say that people once believed the world was flat and chuck around some personal insults. That's not even a reasonable pub bar level of debate.
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| Quote: |
Leading scientists used to agree the Earth was flat.
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Would you like to name some of these leading scientists? Since the ancient Greeks were pretty aware of the sphericalness of the earth over 2000 years ago. And as far as I can tell from this, "Leading scientists believed the earth is flat" is a bit of an urban myth.
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Einstein said nuclear power stations would never work.
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It's always nice to see Einstein cited randomly in a scientific argument - although I'd not heard this one before. I should point out though that scientists, including my dad, and engineers made nuclear power stations work.
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History is littered with scientific error. Today's era of green fundamentalism is another one.
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"Green fundamentalism" has no bearing on whether or not global warming has human origins, climate science has been going for quite some time, this struck me as interesting:
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1859
Tyndall discovers that some gases block infrared radiation. He suggests that changes in the concentration of the gases could bring climate change.
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There is no doubt humans are adding to global warming. You don't put 7 billion people in a 'room' and not expect it to get warmer.
But their impact is minor.
The major cause is Nature.
The world was heating up long before mass-urbanisation, the factory and the car.
And the warming cycle will continue, regardless of our actions. Until another Ice Age eventually comes along, to join the 4 that have been before it over the past billion years or so.
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You're still not providing any scientific evidence for the above, whilst the opposing view is supported by the IPCC reports and the primary scientific literature referenced therein.
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Hoppo, well said!
The thing I can never understand is why people don't view this as an opportunity to push the kind of technolgies that will reduce our overall dependence on oil. Those countries that realise this will end up being in a far stronger position than those that blindly stick to the current way of doing things. My personal view is that that is probably the real reason why (e.g) the Germans are so strong on the Eco front. Already today 7.5% of Germany's electricity is produced by wind power. In one of the German states (Sachsen-Anhalt) it's 39%. They are working hard at increasing that percentage, and thereby making themselves independent of the carbon based rat race. Once you have a significant independence from oil in electricity production you can also start to look into alternatives for motor vehicles, such as hydrogen based fuel cells ( the hydrogen being produced from wind powered electricity ). Again Germany is doing some leading research in this area. Maybe it's a dream, but it seems to be one that some countries are working hard at realising, while the cretin in the white house has only just begun to realise 'Hey we're being left behind'.
Rant over.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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pam w,
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Have you seen Al Gore's film?
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Would that be the one where he establishes a direct correlation between rising global temperatures and increases in CO2 in the atmosphere? But then fails to point out that throughout history such increases in CO2 levels have followed increases in temperature, rather than preceding them...
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Would that be the same Al Gore who has said that he is still keeping his options open about running for the White House again.
"That Film"....more than just a VERY clever political campaign?
I'll be the first to cry "I told you so" when you are talking about Tulip Mania/Internet Bubble/Global Warming as all being examples of temporary madness by the media and population at large. You'll have to wait 10 years or so....but I am sure that you/we will all look back and say "what the heck was that all about?"
It's just weather...it's just nature.
PS I do not condone pollution and wastefulness....they are obviously craap.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Caspar, the chaps on www.realclimate.org, who are climate scientists, seem happy enough with the science in Al Gore's film. Regarding correlations between carbon dioxide and temperature, in the past there were no anthropogenic contributions to atmospheric carbon dioxide - climate change appears to have been largely determined by Milankovitch cycles, in which case warming starts to occur then feedback mechanisms start (for example carbon dioxide is less soluble in warmer water, there is more water vapour in the atmosphere at higher temperatures) which leads to further warming and hence further carbon dioxide release. The current era is different, we have started to put additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which is leading to rises in temperature, and will likely lead to further increases in carbon dioxide and therefore further rises in temperature.
rungsp, there has been a lot of activity in the scientific literature on global warming over at least the last twenty years, and I got the impression from the American Institute of Physics history page that the possibility of anthropogenic climate change has long been considered.
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